Gateway Pundit points out that although Obama said in the above video he “ended the war in Iraq,” allied troops are fighting the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq.
Brig. Gen. Michael Rouleau says Special Forces came under direct attack and used sniper fire to neutralize the attackers.
From Canadian special forces on the ground in Iraq to Kurdish fighters in Syria ISIS is slowly, but surely, being put on the defensive thanks to those brave men and women who are risking their lives in order to repel that groups murderous onslaughts.
[….]
Canadian special forces have recently become the first of any western military forces to engage this enemy on the ground after they came under attack from machine gun and mortar fire while out surveying the front-line firsthand. The act was dubbed a “defensive” one on the part of those Canadian forces. Nevertheless they are the first western force to engage in a firefight with ISIS. They, thankfully, sustained no injuries.
News of this came as the Syrian Kurds defending the town of Kobani continue to make gains in repelling the vicious attempt on the part of ISIS to crush them and ensure they don’t stand as a symbol of resistance to ISIS’s heartfelt efforts to establish their so-called caliphate. The Kurds have defied them and have stood up as an unwavering symbol of resistance having withstood everything ISIS could throw at them for an awe-inspiring 150 days. They have recently re-captured a strategic hill there which they can use to their advantage against an enemy who has already been repelled from most of the town.
Furthermore in Kobani U.S. air strikes have contributed to blunting ISIS’s ability to mount a prolonged siege by bombing its supply lines and also its positions around the town. Turkey has also assisted by allowing Peshmerga fighters from Iraq to cross through its territory to help reinforce those defending Kobani. All form of assistance to people who needed every bit of help they could get, and now the bravery they exhibited in their unwavering stand against this group is finally beginning to pay off….
There is BREAKING news that the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, has been killed. This was stated before… let’s hope it is true this time!
Breitbart has this alarming post that makes you want to slam your head on your table:
On Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced that the Obama administration would prioritize fighting Islamophobia in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in France. Never mind that most Westerners aren’t Islamophobic, but rather, GettingShotInTheFaceForExpressingMyOpinion-Phobic.
The real problem, according to the Obama administration, is lack of leadership in defending Islam:
There are some individuals that are using a peaceful religion and grossly distorting it, and trying to use its tenets to inspire people around the globe to carry out acts of violence. And we have enjoyed significant success in enlisting leaders in the Muslim community, like I said, both in the United States and around the world to condemn that kind of messaging, to condemn those efforts to radicalize individuals, and to be clear about what the tenets of Islam actually are. And we’re going to redouble those efforts in the days and weeks ahead.
This, of course, is not the first time the Obama administration has discovered a duty to illuminate the inherent beauty and wonder of Islam. Over and over again, the Obama administration, in high culturally imperialist dudgeon, has attempted to explain to the world the true meaning of Islam.
Here are five other examples:
President Obama, 2009: Immediately upon taking office, Obama did an interview withAl-Arabiya in which he explained that his job as president encompassed apologizing to the Muslim world for evil America, and explaining to Americans that Muslims are the cream of the religious crop:
My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy.
If you forgot the provision of Article II of the Constitution that gives the president the authority to do outreach on behalf of Islam in the United States, that’s because it doesn’t exist. But don’t worry: Obama’s on the job.
President Obama, 2009: In speaking about Islam at Cairo University on June 4, 2009 – a speech to which the Obama administration invited the then-banned Muslim Brotherhood – Obama stated:
So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear….
Read all of the defenses of the Obama administration of Islam.
This is a discussion between myself and a black, lifelong Democrat. He intimated to me that he would never vote Republican because of the party’s racism. Okay. I asked him to provide me with one example or evidence of racism from Republican leaders. He offered me “birthirism.” Birthers are people who believe Obama was born in Kenya, and thus, not able to be President. The below is my response to him, one may also want to read my more recent conversation with a Democrat who likewise posited racism. Let us begin
What are our options with birtherism? Options:
a) Either the conspiracy theories are true, or; b) He lied to gain access and recognition at Occidental College/Harvard/Columbia an/or at his publisher… similar to Elizabeth Warren; c) The media made this up whole cloth.
Why do I only allow for the above two options? Let me explain and then we will continue with the response.
FIRSTLY, I truly believe Obama was born in Hawaii. In other words, I am NOT a birther in the true sense of the words meaning.
That being said, I do believe he lied about this in order to get more opportunities for educational as well as more opportunities to get published. I say this BECAUSE of the following evidence, which is: that only a few months after Obama threw his hat officially into the 2008 Presidential run, his publisher scrubbed their site of the following. And mind you, the following could not have happened without Obama’s consent/knowledge:
Obama’s literary agent changed Barack Obama’s bio page in April 2007, two months after he announced his run for President of the United States in February 2007. Before that, Obama’s bio said he was born in Kenya.
So, we can rid option “c” from above… we now know this was not a “hit job” by a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Here is an highlighted portion of the above which was on Obama’s publishers website from 1995-to-2007(to the right).
The media is not that smart to foresee into the future like that and plant said evidence with full-knowledge of Obama. So we have “a” and “b” left.
a) Either the conspiracy theories are true, or; b) He lied to gain access and recognition at Occidental College/Harvard/Columbia an/or at his publisher… similar to Elizabeth Warren;
Again, to be clear, I reject birtherism (“a”), but doing so doesn’t mean that common sense can say the following:
Obama was the first “birther.”
In 2003 for instance, when his publisher published Barack Obama’s book, Dreams of My Father, they wrote that Barack Obama was born in Kenya in their own promotional material (Gateway Pundit). Either way there is “some splainin’ to do Lucy.”
Back to the aforementioned Elizabeth Warren. Ann Coulter’s comments on Warren:
“Warren’s lie is outrageous enough to someone like me, who isn’t a fan of race-based affirmative action programs. Still, she is a liar, and she stole the credit of someone else’s suffering. For liberals, it should be a mortal sin: Elizabeth Warren cheated on affirmative action.”
If true of Obama… he would be doubly guilty of this mortal sin. One commentator on my FaceBook made this astute point that “Either way, Joe Wilson was right! He lies!”
BACK to the options.
a) Either the conspiracy theories are true, or; b) He lied to gain access and recognition at Occidental College/Harvard/Columbia an/or at his publisher.
We know the more modern theory was started by the Hillary camp during the contentious campaign between her and Obama (audio to the right). We also have the long-form birth certificate… as well as the birth announcements of Obama from Hawaii when he was born (from two papers: [1961] Honolulu Advertiser; and, [1961] Star Bulletin). So we can exclude “a,” that the conspiracy theories are true.
So, I am inclined to believe “b,” but more importantly… over the years I have been inundated with the “racist” label by those assuming I am a “birther.” So this is why I wanted to expand my thinking on this.
Let us expose the “racism” portion of this a bit more with an example from ThinkProgress (the title of the article is “9 Most Racist Moments of the 2012 Election“) that racism is in the root cause of this conspiracy rather than hyperbole. For instance they quote in their #1 example the son of a Republican, Jason Thompson:
Jason Thompson told a crowd of supporters at a brunch that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” Thompson is the son of former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, who is now running for Senate. In attendance at the brunch was Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee.
This is obviously hyperbole. But let’s say Jason really believed Obama was born in Kenya… I still cannot see “racism” in this remark. But this claim of racism cuts both was, as we will see. So, here are the four areas I will compare this “racism” claim made about being a birther and this being the best example a life-long Democrat can use to show “Republican racism.”
Dem vs. Repub % of belief in conspiracies;
what type of conspiracy?;
Who believed these conspiracy theories;
What is my point?
1) PERCENTAGES
(Speaking to my Democratic detractor) You are aware, I am sure, that the birther story was first started by a Democrat and the story made popular via Hillary Clinton. For instance, Politico says this in one of their classic articles:
…Where did this idea come from? Who started it? And is there a grain of truth there? The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. At the time, the Democratic presidential primary was slipping away from Hillary Clinton and some of her most passionate supporters grasped for something, anything that would deal a final reversal to Barack Obama. The theory’s proponents are a mix of hucksters and earnest conspiracy theorists, including prominently a lawyer who previously devoted himself to ‘proving’ that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job. Its believers are primarily people predisposed to dislike Obama. That willingness to believe the worst about officials of the opposite party is a common feature of presidential rumor-mongering: In 2006, an Ohio University/Scripps Howard poll found that slightly more than half of Democrats said they suspected the Bush Administration of complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks….
So not only would Obama in 1995 would have to of intimated the idea that he was born in Kenya in 1995, here [above] Politico traces the “birther” beginnings to a Democrat. Let us digest this a bit.
I am combining the above with polls from Rasmussen (and others compiled at WIKI) that show an amazing thing. What is this “amazing thing,” you rightly ask?
Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.
Not sure? Not sure? To be clear, Democrats by over a majority believed Bush either knew directly or they said they were [basically] “still on the fence.” Here is more:
I’ve been looking for a good analogue to the willingness of Republicans to believe, or say they believe, that Obama was born abroad, and one relevant number is the share of Democrats willing to believe, as they say, that “Bush knew.”
There aren’t a lot of great public numbers on the partisan breakdown of adherents to that conspiracy theory, but the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that’s useful in that regard.
“How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?” the poll asked.
A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was “very likely.” Another 28.2% called it “somewhat likely.”
That is: More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks….
What is the percentage of Republicans that believed (at it’s height of belief) Obama was not born in America?
31% of Republican think/thought that Obama was not born in the states…
How many Democrats?
15% of Democrats believe the same… [well as 18% of Independents]
However, a third who believe him to be born out of the country approve of him (ABC-News and my RPT post).
2)WHAT KIND OF CONSPIRACY?
So we have two conspiracies to compare and contrast: 9/11 culpability, and birtherism. What do they show? Are their differences? Let’s work through these. One, birtherism, has a belief held that a person was born out of country, and that other people covered this up.
In other words… when Obama was a child/infant other adults made this happen. He, Obama, was powerless to affect it. Obviously, he was an infant or child. In fact, assuming the conspiracy true and giving the most leeway of the options behind it… Obama may not have known about this until his Presidential run.
What about 9/11?
This conspiracy asserts that a leader of these United States knew of the coming attack and allowed it to happen, thus killing fellow citizens and going to war over it [for oil, a myth]. Thus, murdering more Americans in a war over a conspiracy to profit.
Many of these Democrats also believe Bush was involved in making this happen (HotAir). So this conspiracy would be considered — if we had an evil scale — much more “evil” because it is an American in the highest office basically directly culpable for the death of innocent people.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist for an outside observer to say, “whoa, whoa, whoa… calm down DEMOCRATS! Yeah this other conspiracy [birtherism] is nuts, but it doesn’t posit such an overtly evil act.”
in other words a much larger number of Democrats are on the “fringe” and would be called racist if they were Republicans, for their crazy opposition to a black President. LIKE Republicans are called racist for their birtherism position. Which would also include the 15% of Democrats being equally racist who believe in this birther theory.
3) MAGAZINES, PUNDITS, AND LEADERS
Here is what the Left believes to be a radical, extreme right pundit, Ann Coulter. Her point is instructive, which is, no one in the major influence of the conservative/Republican believes this conspiracy (see Ann Coulter reject birtherism — to the right):
NOTE: not a single mainstream right-wing talk show host believed this (I should stipulate that I listen to Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and Larry Elder). None of these conservative talk show hosts believed this. In fact, Michael Medved typically takes calls that disagree with him — which led to some great excoriation of this birther conspiracy (here are some of those calls).
In the original challenge by a friend, he stated that Republicans have racist tendencies, provable by their support of birther conspiracies. So my new question is this:
“If Obama used this canard [that he was born in Kenya] in order to receive more accolades or recognition at Harvard and/or his publisher, would this be evidence that he is racist”?
I tackled the subject back in 2010 on my old blog, it on my old blog as well as my new site. And I am as conservative as you can get!
The next LOGICAL question becomes who in congress or Democratic leadership believed Bush knew? To name a few: Rep. Dennis Kucinich; Rep. Cynthia McKinney; Congressman Alan Grayson, etc.
4) What Is My Point?
Simply my point is this:
1) The complexity of the seemingly simple “around the cooler” accusation that birtherism equals racism is never addressed. If Republicans are painted as racist, then so to must Democrats since a large percentage of them are “birthers,” not to mention Obama was the O.G. birther and recent birtherism was pushed by Hillary Clinton’s camp.
Simply painting your opponent as bigoted or racist sounds good if one wishes to label and dismiss opposing viewpoints. It is the easy way out for the lazy of mind.
2) If such beliefs make Republicans racist or bigoted, how much more are Democrats with their larger fringe group pushing a theory that infers Bush was personally involved with this act?
3) Since almost all major conservative/Republican magazines, pundits, radio hosts, and Congressmen reject “birtherism,” and many more liberal/Democratic magazines, pundits, radio hosts, and elected-officials believed their own 9/11 theories AND birtherism to some extent… how does this paint the people pushing these conspiracies?
In other words, Republicans at least say Obama was lying about his place of birth in order to get special preference in educational and publishing opportunities; at most saying that Obama later found out about other peoples lies in getting him over to America as a child and tried to cover it up for his Presidential run.
On the other-side of the coin, you have Democrats saying that [at least] Bush knew about the pending attack and allowed it to happen in order to financially profit from a war[s]. At most they say he was actually involved in the taking down of the Trade Towers in order to go to war. BOTH options Bush is culpable for the murder of innocent and military lives.
NewsMax points out that Obama was “against illegal immigration before he was for it”
The Daily Caller reports that Obama sounded a lot like those criticizing his plans now when he wrote his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.”
“[T]here’s no denying that many blacks share the same anxieties as many whites about the wave of illegal immigration flooding our Southern border — a sense that what’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has gone on before,” Obama wrote. “Not all these fears are irrational.
“The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century,” Obama said in the book.
“If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole — especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan — it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net,” Obama wrote then….
The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts From the New York Packet. Friday, February 1, 1788. Author: James Madison
Original Text
To the People of the State of New York:
HAVING reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the general mass of power allotted to it, I proceed to examine the particular structure of this government, and the distribution of this mass of power among its constituent parts. One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution, is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the federal government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts. No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded.
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system.I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu. If he be not the author of this invaluable precept in the science of politics, he has the merit at least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the attention of mankind. Let us endeavor, in the first place, to ascertain his meaning on this point. The British Constitution was to Montesquieu what Homer has been to the didactic writers on epic poetry. As the latter have considered the work of the immortal bard as the perfect model from which the principles and rules of the epic art were to be drawn, and by which all similar works were to be judged, so this great political critic appears to have viewed the Constitution of England as the standard, or to use his own expression, as the mirror of political liberty; and to have delivered, in the form of elementary truths, the several characteristic principles of that particular system. That we may be sure, then, not to mistake his meaning in this case, let us recur to the source from which the maxim was drawn. On the slightest view of the British Constitution, we must perceive that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are by no means totally separate and distinct from each other. The executive magistrate forms an integral part of the legislative authority. He alone has the prerogative of making treaties with foreign sovereigns, which, when made, have, under certain limitations, the force of legislative acts. All the members of the judiciary department are appointed by him, can be removed by him on the address of the two Houses of Parliament, and form, when he pleases to consult them, one of his constitutional councils. One branch of the legislative department forms also a great constitutional council to the executive chief, as, on another hand, it is the sole depositary of judicial power in cases of impeachment, and is invested with the supreme appellate jurisdiction in all other cases. The judges, again, are so far connected with the legislative department as often to attend and participate in its deliberations, though not admitted to a legislative vote. From these facts, by which Montesquieu was guided, it may clearly be inferred that, in saying “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates,” or, “if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers,” he did not mean that these departments ought to have no PARTIAL AGENCY in, or no CONTROL over, the acts of each other. His meaning, as his own words import, and still more conclusively as illustrated by the example in his eye, can amount to no more than this, that where the WHOLE power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the WHOLE power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. This would have been the case in the constitution examined by him, if the king, who is the sole executive magistrate, had possessed also the complete legislative power, or the supreme administration of justice; or if the entire legislative body had possessed the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority. This, however, is not among the vices of that constitution. The magistrate in whom the whole executive power resides cannot of himself make a law, though he can put a negative on every law; nor administer justice in person, though he has the appointment of those who do administer it. The judges can exercise no executive prerogative, though they are shoots from the executive stock; nor any legislative function, though they may be advised with by the legislative councils. The entire legislature can perform no judiciary act, though by the joint act of two of its branches the judges may be removed from their offices, and though one of its branches is possessed of the judicial power in the last resort. The entire legislature, again, can exercise no executive prerogative, though one of its branches constitutes the supreme executive magistracy, and another, on the impeachment of a third, can try and condemn all the subordinate officers in the executive department. The reasons on which Montesquieu grounds his maxim are a further demonstration of his meaning. “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body,” says he, “there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest THE SAME monarch or senate should ENACT tyrannical laws to EXECUTE them in a tyrannical manner. ” Again: “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for THE JUDGE would then be THE LEGISLATOR.
Were it joined to the executive power, THE JUDGE might behave with all the violence of AN OPPRESSOR. ” Some of these reasons are more fully explained in other passages; but briefly stated as they are here, they sufficiently establish the meaning which we have put on this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author…
Having reviewed the general form of the proposed government and the power allotted to it, I will now examine the specific structure of this government and the distribution of its total power among its parts.
Critics: Violates Separation Maxim
2. One major objection made by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution is its supposed violation of the political maxim that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct.
It is said that the structure of the federal government doesn’t seem to have this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The powers are distributed and blended in a manner that destroys all symmetry and beauty of form, and exposes some essential parts of the government to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate power of other parts.
Separation of Powers, Liberty
3.This objection is based on a political truth with the greatest intrinsic value and endorsed by the most enlightened patrons of liberty. The holding of all powers—legislative, executive, and judiciary—in the same hands, whether by one person, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, is the very definition of tyranny. Therefore, if the federal Constitution combined powers, or mixed powers in a way that tended to lead to a dangerous accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal rejection.
I believe, however, that it will become clear to everyone that the charge cannot be supported and the maxim it relies on has been totally misunderstood and used incorrectly.
In order to make an informed judgment on this important subject, it is proper to investigate why the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.
Political Scientist, Montesquieu, Recommends Separation of Power
4. The expert always quoted on this subject is the famous Montesquieu. If he didn’t discover this invaluable precept in political science, he can be credited, at least, with effectually recommending it to mankind. Let’s try to discover his meaning.
Maxim in British Constitution
5. The British Constitution was to Montesquieu what Homer has been to the didactic writers on epic poetry. As poets consider the work of the immortal bard as the perfect model from which the principles and rules of the epic art were drawn, and the standard used to judge all similar works, so has the great political critic, Montesquieu, viewed the Constitution of England as the standard. Or, to use his words, it is the mirror of political liberty. It contains several elementary truths, principles that are part of the British system. So that we make no mistakes interpreting his meaning, let’s return to the source from which the maxim was drawn.
Powers Mixed in British Constitution
6. A brief look at the British Constitution reveals that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments are not totally separate and distinct from each other.
The chief executive is an integral part of the legislative authority. He, alone, makes treaties with foreign sovereigns that have, under certain limitations, the force of legislative acts. All the members of the judiciary department are appointed by him, can be removed by him on petition by the two Houses of Parliament, and become, when he wants to consult them, one of his constitutional councils.
One legislative house also forms a constitutional council to the executive chief, at the same time that it is the sole depository of judicial power in cases of impeachment, and is the supreme court of appeals in all other cases.
The judges, again, are so connected with the legislative branch that they often attend and participate in its deliberations, though they cannot vote.
No One Has Total Power of Two Branches
7. From these facts, which guided Montesquieu, it may be inferred that, in saying “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates,” or, “if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers,” he didn’t mean that the government’s branches should have no partial agency in, or no control over, the acts of each other. His words and examples make his meaning clear: when the whole power of one branch is in the same hands as the whole power of another branch, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted.
This would have been true in the British constitution if the king, who is the sole executive magistrate, also held the complete legislative power, or the supreme administration of justice; or if the entire legislative body was also the supreme judiciary, or the supreme executive authority. This, however, is not among the vices of that constitution.
The chief executive cannot, himself, make law, though he can veto every law; he cannot personally administer justice, though he appoints those who administer it.
The judges can exercise no executive power, though the executive chooses them. Nor any legislative function, though they may be advised by legislative councils.
The entire legislature can perform no judiciary act, but joint acts of the two houses of the legislature can remove a judge from office, and one house has the judicial power of final appeal. The entire legislature, again, can exercise no executive prerogative, though one house constitutes the supreme executive magistracy, and the other, after an impeachment vote by one third, can try and condemn all the subordinate officers in the executive department.
Liberty Demands “Separation” Maxim
8. Montesquieu’s reasons for his maxim further demonstrate his meaning.
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body,” says he, “there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate enact tyrannical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner.”
And: “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with all the violence of an oppressor.”
Some of the reasons are more fully explained in other passages. But, even briefly stated as here, they establish the meaning of this celebrated maxim of this celebrated author….
Mary E. Webster, ed., The Federalist Papers In Modern Language for Today’s Political Issues (Bellevue, WA: Merril Press, 1999), cf., Federalist 47, 197-199.
Furthermore, there is ample evidence that the New Party/Progressive Chicago was set up by Marxists, for Marxists, in order to increase far left influence in the Democratic Party, and eventually establish a leftist major party to replace the Democrats entirely.
Strong in the mid to late 1990s, the New Party was an electoral alliance dedicated to electing leftist candidates to office – usually through the Democratic Party.
Two organizations formed the backbone of the New Party – the Democratic Socialists of America and the US’ then largest radical organization, ACORN. Radical labor union SEIU also had considerable input, as did members of the Communist Party USA spin off, Committees of Correspondence. DSA had infiltrated ACORN, SEIU and Committees of Correspondence, so arguably the socialists were the real power behind the New Party.
Bernard and Page were later active in the New Party, while Stand was later jailed as an East German and Soviet spy.
Barack Obama, incidentally, used to attend the annual Socialist Scholars conferences, while studying at Columbia University in New York in the early 1980s.
In Chicago, the New Party founded an equally radical “sister organization,” Progressive Chicago….
“If Reagan did this, then why did Obama once say he didn’t have the power to do this?” Limbaugh asked. (President Obama on numerous occasions has said he does not have the power to change immigration law without Congress. “I’m not the emperor of the United States,” he told Telemundo last year.)
“Well, why didn’t he say, ‘Wait a minute, yes, I can. I can be a dictator ’cause Ronald Reagan was, everybody knows.’ Why didn’t he cite Reagan back then?” Limbaugh asked on Wednesday. “Why didn’t he cite Reagan last week, last year? Why let this controversy gin up? If Reagan did it, why not say it at the outset and then shut up everybody?”
Limbaugh described himself as “almost speechless” as he prepared to explain to his audience “just how big the Left is distorting this.”
Far from issuing an executive order, Reagan in 1986 signed legislation passed by Congress — the Simpson-Mazzoli Act.
“Congress debated and passed a law to grant amnesty to three million illegal immigrants, and Reagan signed it. They are saying that’s exactly what Obama’s going to do. They are claiming that Reagan signing legislation, thereby making it legal, is the same thing as an Obama executive order. It’s breathtaking what they’re trying to say here.
“Reagan had a statute behind him,” Limbaugh continued. “The statute was called Simpson-Mazzoli. The very law that Reagan had signed was signed after it was passed by Congress. What Obama is about to do is write a law, or rewrite a statue all by himself.”
[….]
Writing in The Atlantic on Nov. 18, David Frum also said there are “huge differences” between Obama’s executive amnesty and the actions of Reagan did in 1986 and George H.W. Bush in 1990.
He gives the following four reasons:
1. “Reagan and Bush acted in conjunction with Congress and in furtherance of a congressional purpose, while Obama’s executive order would not further a congressional purpose.” In fact, Obama’s order “is intended to overpower and overmaster a recalcitrant Congress,” Frum said.
2. Reagan and Bush legalized far fewer people than Obama apparently plans to do. Obama’s two rounds of amnesty — first the young “Dreamers” and now their parents — could affect as many as 5 million people, Frum wrote, and thus “he would — acting on his own authority and in direct contravention of the wishes of Congress — have granted residency and work rights to more than double the number of people” who received amnesty under the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act.
3. “The Reagan-Bush examples are not positive ones.” Frum says the 1986 amnesty did not work as promised, as illegal immigration actually increased in the years after the amnesty. “Let’s not repeat their mistake,” he wrote.
4. “The invocation of the Reagan and Bush cases exemplifies the bad tendency of political discussion to degenerate into an exchange of scripted talking points. ‘Oh yeah? Well, this guy you liked also did this thing you don’t like!’ Is that really supposed to convince anybody?” Frum asks. “What we have here is not a validation of the correctness of President Obama’s action. It’s…an effort to curtail argument rather than enlighten it.”
