Fraud

According to Merriam Webster...
1 a: deceit, trickery ; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right
b: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick
2 a: a person who is not what he or she pretends to be : impostor ; also : one who defrauds : cheat b: one that is not what it seems or is represented to be

I would add some more examples.

H. R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

The Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill is a massive fraud, founded on the lie that Americans are altering the climate through use of fossil fuels, framed with the perversion that government can manage the resources of the nation more ably than the free market, and capped with the shameless deception that the levies the government will make on energy not only will not throttle the economy, but also will usher in a nirvana of "green" energy. Nancy Pelosi puts it plainly, "are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"

Utterly devoid of any factual basis for man made global warming, the bill asserts that combustion of carbon (you know, that thing you do when you breathe) must be diminished, and that Congress has the lawful power to set a limit on the amount of carbon that Americans may burn in a year. Congress, having plucked this power from some adumbration of the penumbras of the Constitution (that's a place where the Sun doesn't shine), will decide just who may burn carbon. However, given the humility that befits such an institution, it will allow trading of the authority to burn carbon, so long as Congress gets the proceeds of such trades. These proceeds will, of course, go to the noble cause of reducing the amount of carbon burned (the same way tobacco taxes help reduce consumption... right!). Of course, there may be a little growth in the bureaucracy to make all this groovy kind of love come to fruition. Recent experience in Spain with this approach has cost 2.2 real jobs for every temporary "green" job created to date.


Why doesn't this bother Idi Amin Obama, the One?

Maybe because he is today's second example. Have you recently encountered anyone more inclined toward intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right?

Election night -

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

Well, we have seen partisanship, pettiness, and immaturity... pretty much confined to the president and his party. After all, in the words of the president, "I won."

Inauguration day -

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

How's that hope and change working out for you? Unemployment is on course for 10%. New jobless claims continue at more than 600,000 every month. The currency supply has doubled since Inauguration Day, while the actual worth of the economy has fallen. Inflation is certain to ravage our country. Regulation is up; freedom is down. After transferring billions to General Motors and Chrysler, those firms are nevertheless in staged bankruptcy aimed at stripping rights from their lenders and transferring ownership to organized labor. Forty-five banks have failed, and the overall worth of bank stocks continues to slide.

But the actual culprits in the real estate bubble, the central bankers who artificially lowered the cost of borrowing, Representative Barney Frank who badgered the quasi-private Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite loans to borrowers who could never repay them, rating agencies that magically converted bundled junk debt - based on these subprime mortgages - into AAA-rated securities, investment advisors that relied on the ratings despite the obvious falsework, and brilliant economists who swapped credit default guarantees, who among these perpetrators of economic collapse has been shamed, arrested, and convicted? Isn't Barney Frank guilty of fraud at least as grand as Bernie Madoff?

And the biggest fraud of all is Barack "the Messiah" Obama. Although he will "only raise taxes on 5% of taxpayers," the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will tax everyone who uses energy to cook, heat or cool, or ride to work by increasing the cost of energy. Of course, today's 300-page amendment(!) will make direct subsidies to low income persons (whether they be lawful residents or not). And while the former shareholders of General Motors and Chrysler (once known as "widow and orphan" stocks because of their absolute safety and certain dividends) may not have been "taxed" out of their former worth, the effect is pretty much the same. Obama's biggest supporters - organized labor - bankrupted these companies (with help from Congress, regulators, and gutless, witless management). Obama rewards unions with control of a huge share of our nation's dwindling industrial core.


And the coup de grace, health care reform.

Although we can't actually locate victims who are denied health care, not even among foreign invaders who live in America in defiance of our laws, Barack Hussein Obama the Compassionate has decreed an emergency and - wait for it - the solution to the crisis will actually lower the cost of health care in America by spending trillions more through government programs!

When I was earning a tenth-grade education, every one of my schoolmates could see right through this kind of bald-faced lie. I have to guess that later students were more focused on Black History Month, the vital contributions of Sacagawea, the evil of Tommie Jefferson's dalliances, the depredations of American soldiers (Gengis Khan reincarnated) in southeast Asia, and their own self-esteem (don't confuse this with the sanctity of human creation by the one, living God). These later students have a new math approach to government finance. They all know that tax cuts cost jobs, but tax increases create jobs. They know that the Compassionate One has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs... while 6.7 million have been lost!

Some of you are old enough to remember when your employer stopped providing support for health insurance and moved you into managed care to control their costs. Costs were rising, because the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs paid less than the going rate for drugs and procedures, so providers had to raise prices to others to make up for the loss (and the slow payment). Naturally, the managed care companies followed government's lead, and bilked the providers, too. So only people who don't belong to PPOs or HMOs, or don't claim indigence at the emergency room, actually pay providers what they ask. And what providers ask must increase to compensate for all the discounts extorted and late payments by the government and the managed care companies.

What do you think your employers will do when the "penalty" for not providing insurace to employees is less than the cost of providing managed care? Only the most worthy firms will be able to resist the siren song of the "government option."

And when the majority of health care is paid for the same way government now bilks Medicare and Medicaid providers, what will happen to the supply of doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, clinics, and hospitals? Where will the profits of pharmaceutical companies come from to fund research into more effective cures? Where will you go to appeal the bureaucrat's decision that you are too old for a hip replacement, for prostate cancer therapy, or for an organ transplant? If you have "unhealthy habits" like smoking, alcohol use, or excess weight, do you think a government scrambling to lower health care costs will authorize treatment for you... unless you conform to their behavioral mandates?

Newport News, VA, October 4, 2008

So if you have insurance you like, you keep that insurance. If you have a doctor you like, you keep that doctor. The only thing that changes for you is that your health care costs will go down.

Or maybe we should believe this one from the All Barack Channel (ABC) web site after the Health Care Obamathon of June 24, 2009:

Last week, the president gave a speech where he made a more sweeping guarantee: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan, period."

But -- as the president acknowledged at his news conference Tuesday -- that's not really a pledge he can promise to deliver on. Private companies are always free to choose different health plans for their employees, and that's not something Obama's plan would change.

"When I say if you have your plan and you like it, . . . or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don't have to change plans, what I'm saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform," the president said Tuesday.

What he really meant to say is that he plans to drive the private sector out of health care funding the way he has "reformed" the auto industry and plans to deal with power generation in America. And just as GM and Chrysler will make little cars that nobody wants, health care will lack resources and impose rationing on you when you fall ill.

Perhaps, like so many people who have never been responsible for profit and loss, he imagines the private sector will continue to overcome the dead weight of taxes and regulation - no matter the imposition. (Think Atlas Shrugged.) Or perhaps he is indifferent to the general erosion of national welfare and security, so long as rich white men give back the wealth they have "stolen" from the worthy downtrodden. Maybe he just craves power, and is using his alliance with the angry and the envious to secure his position.

It's pretty clear he doesn't want the United States exercising hegemony in the world by resisting Islamic cultural expansion or by denying the demands of any faker who claims to speak for labor or the oppressed. It seems Barry Soetoro is, like most bullies and liars, just plain chicken.

One thing is certain, you can judge his actions by his words. If little Barry O told me the sun would rise tomorrow morning, I would stock up on flashlight batteries.

Theft

Every two weeks, a sneak thief takes something of value from me (theft: taking without my freely-given consent). In most states, this act constitutes grand theft, because the value of the appropriation exceeds $400. In addition, four times a year this thief deprives me of several thousand dollars all at once. Twice a year, my state compounds this felony by collecting a tax on the imputed worth of my automobiles at registration renewal, over and above the licensing fees.

Oh, you don't think taxation is theft. Why would that be?

Is is because the levying and collection of taxes is permitted by the fourth amendment? Not really; the due process clause refers to proper court proceedings, not to mere enactment of statutes by Congress and the legislatures. Is it because the same act is permitted by the sixteenth amendment? Now you are closer, but since the federal taxation is progressive, it runs afoul of the equal protection clause.

As to the state's property tax, that's a lost cause. There is nothing in the U. S. Constitution that prohibits states from taxing income or wealth, so long as the taxes do not violate the equal protection clause.

Lawyers will disagree with both of the preceding paragraphs. They believe the acts of Congress and the courts to trample the promise of equal treatment under Constitution have been allowed by case law, and that the status quo is completely lawful. But if one sets aside the craft of lawyering and thinks clearly about what is really happening in this nation, it becomes very clear that a great many of our citizens are being gravely wronged by our government.

We must all admit that some government is necessary. Men are not angels, and this would be a poor nation and a challenging place to live without the armed forces to protect us from foreign enemies and police to protect us from the criminals among us. The Founders envisioned specific responsibilities for the federal government, chiefly related to protecting our borders and preventing internal commercial mischief among the states. To accomplish these duties the Constitution provides for certain excises and Customs duties. Only when Congress acquired a taste for dominion over the states did the need arise for a large federal budget.

Sadly, that taste for power now extends far beyond the suppression of states' rights into the control of the wallets, diets, habits, education, and every other public and private aspect of citizens' rights. And, like sheep to be sheared, Americans wait dumbly to be deprived of their wealth and their freedom.

Taxation is theft. Nothing about paying taxes is voluntary. If you do not submit, men with guns will take everything you have. Now, you can search in vain through the Constitution for the vesting of police power in the federal government. But that government grew a lot of police power in the 20th Century, and it's not through growing. Armed agents have the power to freeze your assets, take your real property, and jail you if you don't give them what they say you owe. Their position is that you are subject to the laws and regulations of the federal government, regardless of whether you could or did vote for the folks who enacted them. No judge will hear any argument to the contrary. So, in fact, you are a serf to the government, or you are an outlaw.

The majority of persons in the United States are not victims of progressive taxation. While they may pay sales taxes on purchases, direct or indirect property tax on the place they live, and tax on their income for "Social Security" and "Medicare," they pay no federal income tax. The majority of wage earners pay nothing in income tax. This may be the reason that politicians can so easily seduce voters with entitlements. If I won't pay for it, why shouldn't I approve of federally funded (fill in the blank)?

Folks, Obama and the Congress have levied a 50% tax on everything you earn and possess! It's called inflation, and it is coming right at us all like a freight train. Since January 20, the federal government has doubled the money supply. That means the dollar in your pocket will shortly buy 50 cents worth of goods. Why are oil prices rising? Speculation? Nope, just dealers realizing that when they are paid in the future for delivery of that oil, they will be paid in dollars worth less than they are now. About the only thing you may own that won't be hammered by inflation is a commodity like precious metal, raw food stock, or land. These will fluctuate with the general level of economic activity in the land, but will generally keep pace with inflation, for their underlying worth will not change.

But the value of your labor is not immune to the cheapening effect of inflation. As the economy suffers the dislocation of wealth that takes place when currency value falls, your salary and tips won't keep pace with inflation. The value of your stocks, interest earnings, and dividends will lag behind inflation. You will be poorer, because inflation is the tax that attacks everyone.

This is the greatest theft of all. Obama is just fine with it. After all, we can't just keep driving our SUVs and set our thermostats at 72 when the rest of the world is poorer than we are. We need to spread the wealth around. We need to be as poor as they are. We need to pay back the terrible wrongs we did to our Islamic fellow beings in the Middle East. We need to befriend the regimes that hate America and the freedom we formerly cherished and shared with others. We need to become more like the dictatorships in Cuba, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

And we are, day by day.

To all you Obama voters: Thanks a bunch. Go straight to Hell, and the sooner the better!

Right

Right is:

• not wrong
• the opposite of left
• something to which I am entitled without the consent of others
• an angle of 90 degrees

Unless you are deranged, you probably want to be - and think you are - right most of the time. You probably are embarrassed when someone points out that you are not right. You might put a good deal of energy into trying to convince yourself and others that you are right. Caring about what is right is generally regarded as desirable. We reward others when we say about their action, "it was the right thing to do."

We distinguish the work of crusaders in our minds when we say they are campaigning for rights, rather than for liberties.

A civil liberty is not necessarily a right. If it were a right, that's what we would call it. This begs the question of why the American Civil Liberties Union calls itself that name. If medical care, jobs, housing, homosexual marriage, man-boy love, pornophilia, or a good many other disputed entitlements are rights, why is the organization that campaigns for them focused on liberties, not rights? Maybe the ACLU was founded by people who knew that they were advocating for something other than civil rights.

I think it is right to obey the ten commandments. That is to say, I accept that the commandments are not wrong, and that one who obeys them is right. Of course, there has been only one Person who lived an entire life without breaking one of those commandments, so no matter how hard we labor to be right, we will often be wrong. We can't take much pride in the part of our life we are not wrong, since we spend so much of our lives in transgressions, large and small.

There is a movement afoot in the United States to relegate the ten commandments and the Source of their authority to the dustbin. If this weren't so sad for the future of the nation and those on the left who are making this push, it would be amusing. The Author of Liberty gave us all the freedom to make stupid mistakes, and to ignore Him and His law. He sent His love one time in the person of Jesus Christ to absolve us of our sins, and commissioned His followers to tell the world about God's love. Any society that turns its back on this truth will fail miserably. Any society that denies the Creator a voice in the public square is founded on folly. Any society that claims that the public acknowledgement of God is "establishment of religion" is ignorant beyond imagination and merits contempt.

The same is true of a society that enshrines envy as a basis for government. If you believe government should ensure the more even allocation of resources among the populace, you have fallen prey to an insidious social weakness that defies human nature, centuries of experience, and simple economics. If you claim that taking (by force of law) from those who "can afford to pay" to give to those with less is "the right thing to do," you are deluding yourself. It is right that everyone - not just the rich - should give freely to the poor, the ill, the widowed, and the imprisoned. What is wrong - just plain wrong - is for government to take from the rich and the middle class to redistribute to others. Here is why:

1. Government of men can only be just if it reflects the will of the people. A government that has the power to take from only some of the people and redistribute to others has been taken over by a minority. Today in America, more voters pay no income tax than pay any. The ability of elected officials to pander to the entitled is no longer subject to restraint by the vote of taxpayers.
2. Government cannot act charitably. The donor is not willing and the recipient is not getting charity, but an entitlement. Entitlements are demeaning and socially destructive. This is why we have third generation poor on public assistance after the enactment of the Great Society 45 years ago. Meanwhile, taxation drives out true charity by reducing the disposable income available for it.
3. Government cannot reliably channel resources to those who need them. Most in need are far more lacking in human reinforcement than in money. Consider the public schools. Well intentioned, they perform much worse than private schools and at much greater cost because they are in the hands of politically correct administrations that will not enforce discipline and cannot provide love or instruction in the faith and values that built our nation.
4. Government is frequently suborned to pernicious causes that imperil the nation. What sort of country provides greater "rights" to foreign invaders than to its own citizens? What sort of country rewards sloth and indolence and punishes productivity? What sort of government ignores the simple truth of nature and follows unproven science to impoverish its citizens in pursuit of environmental causes that would only affect the world if all other nations also participated?

None of these truths is new to 2009, but the elected leadership of the United States is new. This "leadership" has debased our currency, doubling the amount in circulation since January 20. It has vitiated the meaning of legal rights by deforming the bankruptcy courts to steal the legitimate position of bondholders. It has forced banks into a form of federal receivership and rearranged the executive ranks of these firms. It has announced its intention to abdicate world leadership. It has appointed cronies to high office and fired those with the temerity to challenge it.

Are we not astonished that the handicraft of Barack Hussein Obama has gone unchallenged by the citizens of this once-great nation? How can we not have risen up as one and driven this incompetent tyro from office? Are we so enthralled by the sycophantic media as to ignore his usurpation of the right? Are we so deracinated that we no longer cherish the freedoms that enabled the United States to lead free men and women around the world for more than 60 years? Do we no longer remember the sacrifices made by those who prised our freedom from the grip of no less a tyrant than this Obama - George III?

I waken daily in the hope that some ill has befallen this unforgivable buffoon. I pray that we will be liberated in my lifetime from the penury and class-envy that he brought to office. Let us all strive to put him in his place - which is most certainly not the White House. His political precursors, Wilson and Roosevelt, were stricken down. Perhaps a merciful God will strike Obama as well.

Shame

One of the most rewarding things about following Jesus Christ is assurance that our sins are forgiven. This forgiveness is not something we earn. It is a gift from our Savior, that we receive when we acknowledge Him as our lord and follow His ways. The truth that Christ died for the sins of all makes Christians different from everyone else on Earth.

We won't spend eternity in Heaven because we are righteous nor because we earned our reward through our actions in this life. We will be rewarded because we acknowledge the redeeming truth from the lips of the Son of Man: ""I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

There is no shame in the world of Christians. Though I may sin and dismay the Creator in this life, my sins are washed away and I will be blameless on Judgment Day, because I have given my life to the Savior.

There is shame in the rest of the world. The world of Islam is built on a culture of shame and honor. Loss of honor is shameful. And no matter what you hear from advocates for Islam, there is no room in their world for the gift of grace we Christians have received. Jews strive for righteousness, and lament their shortcomings. Agnostics and atheists pursue honor and nobility, and know shame when their shortcomings are made public (well, those who don't hold public office seem to be able to be ashamed).

Where does shame come from for those who haven't embraced Christ? Shame is a normal human feeling when one thinks one should have behaved differently. It is particularly acute for many people when their shortcomings are made public. If you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and you hear the President of the United States tell you "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world," you will hear an admission that the Great Satan erred and that its president just acknowledged his shame over that error.

What about pride? When you hear President Obama say, "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," you will certainly hear the latter part of the sentence loud and clear, untroubled by the first part, and your Arab pride will swell.

Islam is a culture where the religious follow a false prophet (Matthew 24:10-11 "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.") and the character of life is defined by a choice between shame and honor. It is shocking that a president who acknowledges he knows the Qur'an and claims to respect the culture of its adherents would deliver a speech without considering how it would be heard by Islamics.

Then again, if you have the messianic self-image that Barack Hussein Obama has made evident since he first appeared in the Illinois state legislature, you evidently know better than anyone else how to make friends with a Medieval culture bent on eradicating the culture of your nation. If you are Obama, you think Muslims - who know without any doubt that abortion is sinful - will overlook your history of defending the heinous practice of partial-birth abortion and hear your uplifting message of reconciliation between the United States and the Muslim world. You will be untroubled by the charging of interest on loans made in American banks, in violation of the tenets of Islam. You will ignore the films your political donors make that exploit and demean women and depict licentious behavior and the use of alcohol. The shame these behaviors rain down on you in the eyes of your audience means nothing to you.

Nor, if you are President Obama, will you be bothered to point out to the audience with justifiable pride the blood and treasure the United States has spent defending Muslims around the world - never once taking territory or treasure in return for this help.

And above all, you will not point out to your Muslim audience that the reason the United States is a safe place for 1.5 million adherents to their religion to live is that the government was founded on Christian principles.

There is hope for President Obama's soul. It is the hope available to all. Know and repent your error, ask God for forgiveness, and walk in Christ's footsteps. I am reliably informed it takes all three. Based on his behavior to date, he still has some distance to go.