The Fosbury Flop

He's spent nearly $14 trillion and added $7 trillion to the national debt in barely four years, to no effect, but it's not his fault.

The unemployment rate has been over 7% for his entire administration, over 13 million people are out of work, nearly 3 million people are collecting unemployment benefits, there are more people collecting food stamps than at any other time in our history and over 4 million jobs have been lost during his administration, but it's not his fault.

The $789 billion stimulus plan failed, Obamacare will cost at least twice as much as advertised and will kill as many as 700,000 jobs, his green energy initiative resulted in multiple bankruptcies and no jobs and he hasn't passed a budget in nearly four years, but it's not his fault.

China and Russia refused to support tougher sanctions against Iran, Iran refused his direct appeals to abandon its nuclear weapons program and even accelerated it, he was asleep at the switch during the Arab Spring, Egypt is run by the Muslim Brotherhood, Iraq is falling apart, the Taliban will reconquer Afghanistan after we retreat, Pakistan is in turmoil, AI Qaeda is running loose across North Africa, Syria is a bloodbath, China, Russia and even Ecuador openly mock us over arresting the fugitive Edward Snowden, but it's not his fault.

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is dead because Eric Holder allowed known drug traffickers to buy guns in the United States and take them back to Mexico to arm the drug cartels, and Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed by Muslim terrorists in Benghazi, Libya, because all their requests for extra security were denied and their urgent appeals for help during the attack were refused, but it's not his fault.

The EPA and the IRS conduct a campaign of harassment and intimidation against conservative non-profit groups, the Justice Department refuses to prosecute members of the Black Panthers for voter intimidation during the 2008 presidential election, and the same Justice Department obtains the private telephone records of over 100 Associated Press employees as well as Fox News reporter James Rosen in an effort to intimidate the press, but it's not his fault.

Two Gallup polls released recently indicate a 24-point gap between the people's dissatisfaction with the direction of the country and Priest-King's job approval. This phenomenon manifested itself very clearly in the 2012 presidential election when people recognized that the country was in horrible shape but refused to blame Priest-King himself, as if he were only a bystander in his own administration. What could explain this paradox? How can the same people complain about the effect of Priest-King's policies, who may have even lost their job or their business because of Priest-King's policies, but hold Priest-King himself blameless? Here are some ideas that I came up with:

Reason #1: The people polled were mainly Democrats with a natural loyalty to Priest-King.

Reason #2: The people polled were afraid to blame Priest-King in front of the pollster for fear of being called a racist.

Reason #3: The people polled think that Priest-King is trying hard but needs more time to turn things around, his staff are letting him down, circumstances are beyond his control and they want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Reason #4: The people polled think that Priest-King is trying as hard as he can but they don't want to admit that the first black President is out of his depth.

Reason #2 is certainly valid since everything in the United States is viewed through the prism of race, especially these days. (On Tuesday the 25th the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required states of the old Confederacy to submit any changes to their election laws to the U.S. Attorney General for review and approval, infuriating the Left.) Reason #3 is also valid as people, liberally-inclined or not, want to give their elected officials a fighting chance to prove they can do the job, but it also indicates a sort of recognition among those polled that Priest-King really isn't the Messiah the Left thought he was in 2008: If everything has to be perfect in order for his policies to work, then maybe his powers aren't as awesome as advertised. Reason #3 gets us closer but I think Reason #4 hits the nail on the head. With over four years' worth of empirical evidence proving that Priest-King's approach to domestic and foreign policy is an absolute disaster, over 66 million Americans nonetheless voted for his reelection and a plurality still approves of his performance. When Jimmy Carter mangled the Presidency and essentially gave up, the American people showed him the door; likewise when George H.W. Bush broke his famous pledge "read my lips: no new taxes," the voters turned on him and gave us eight years of Bubba. But with Priest-King, job performance isn't tied to job security and I think that reveals an embarrassing trait in those die-hard Priest-King supporters: they've set the bar pretty damned low for him, lower than any other President. For all the soaring rhetoric and imperial bearing and crowds of adoring fans and hope and change and hyperbole, people really don't expect a lot from the Priest-King of the Americas. He can sink us under a mountain of debt, he can raise taxes as high as the sky, he can interfere in every segment of American society (what business is it of the President to appear with Dave Letterman, to inject himself into a local arrest in Massachusetts or to comment on the Trayvon Martin case?) and fumble every foreign policy issue on the table and still be idolized by the masses. Millions of people thrown out of work and kept out of work, businesses ruined, homes and families destroyed, freedom lost, America diminished, yet Priest-King smiles and waves to his adoring fans and they forgive him all. After four years of pandering to the Islamic world, to Russia, to China, after four years of apologizing and bowing to foreign monarchs to prove how humble and contrite he is, what did that get us? When China and Russia had the opportunity to help us arrest the fugitive NSA employee Edward Snowden, they dismissed our appeals out of hand - even Ecuador felt empowered to kick sand in our face - and Priest-King said and did nothing, the President of the United States mocked and humiliated like a pimple-faced teenager in the school cafeteria. If my fellow citizens are satisfied with
mediocrity, failure, bankruptcy, abuse of power, lying, disrespect, criminal neglect and needless death from their Chief Executive, then I urge them to splash some cold water on their faces and wake up: If all they want is an empty suit, then go to Brooks Brothers.

Putting Two and Two Together

Hmm...:

20 January 2009: Priest-King is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States.

15 April 2009: In protest of Priest-King's massive tax and spend policies, rallies are held across the country, drawing thousands of people and sparking the TEA Party movement.

September 2009: As Congressional politicians return home for the Labor Day recess, they face angry opposition at town hall meetings over their support for the stimulus package, the bank bailout bill, the government takeovers of General Motors, Chrysler, AIG and Goldman Sachs and the entire health care sector and the threatened cancellation of the Bush tax cuts. Public opposition to Priest-King's policies mounts.

November 2009: Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell are elected to the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia respectively.

January 2010: Republican Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts, the liberal radio network Air America goes bankrupt and the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission case, decides that private companies have the right to advocate for their political causes the same as labor unions. The TEA Party movement gathers serious momentum.

March 2010: The Internal Revenue Service begins systematic targeting of conservative political and religious groups applying for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status, harassing and threatening them with audits, arrest and prosecution, demanding voluminous, detailed and very private personal information to which the IRS had no legal right, and delaying approval of their applications indefinitely.

November 2010: The TEA Party drives the "shellacking," a massive midterm electoral defeat for the Democrats. The IRS targeting campaign against conservative non-profit groups intensifies.

November 2012: Priest-King is reelected President, in no small part because conservative support for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, was soft.

May 2013: Six months after the election and only hours before the IRS Inspector General releases an internal review, the IRS admits that they had indeed deliberately targeted conservative nonprofit groups for harassment.

It is absolutely laughable that the Priest-King administration expects us to believe that a couple of junior agents at the IRS office in Cincinnati "went rogue" and began targeting conservative groups completely on their own. (The IRS Inspector General released another report today indicating that 292 conservative groups were targeted for harassment vice six liberal groups, blowing up the argument that conservatives and liberals suffered equally.) Using only the timeline above, we can see that serious, determined opposition to Priest-King's socialist agenda was building into a nationwide movement in early 2010. The TEA Party rallies, the bitter, angry town hall meetings with ordinary citizens standing up to their elected officials, the losses in New Jersey, Virginia and gasp! Massachusetts, and especially the Supreme Court's decision to allow corporate political activity on the same footing as labor unions - wiping out 35 years of liberal advantage where that was concerned - were sending shock waves through the White House. If something were not done quickly to stop it, the TEA Party movement would defeat Priest-King in 2012, reverse everything he had achieved and set the socialist agenda back for a generation, and Priest-King was simply not going to allow that. So what happened? The decision was quickly made, likely suggested by then-White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and approved by Priest-King, to take the wind out of their sails but good, and what government agency inspires more fear than the dreaded IRS? If these dumb flyover country hicks wanted tax-exempt status for their TEA Party groups, then they would have to answer extremely detailed questions by the boatload, provide personal information about themselves, their friends, their colleagues and relatives which would then be handed to Priest-King's loyal Leftist pals to exploit, and the process would be slowed to a crawl. They would be interrogated by Treasury agents, audited and audited again, forced to provide the same information repeatedly, harassed, bullied, intimidated, threatened with prosecution, and a decision would never be made for their application. If everything worked, the TEA Party movement would float in the ocean, engines dead, at the mercy of the waves, powerless - unable to help themselves, much less unseat the Priest-King of all the Americas, and that's what happened.

But there's more at stake than the result of the 2012 presidential election, disappointing as that was. At the core of this scandal is the conscious decision by the Federal government to attack United States citizens for their political and religious beliefs, the 'exact circumstances that drove thousands of people to flee England and seek freedom in the New World. If this scandal isn't investigated to the fullest, if its full scope isn't discovered, if the instigators - whoever they are - aren't arrested, prosecuted and jailed, if the idea behind the scandal isn't crushed into powder, then the American people have no reason to trust the government that serves them and every reason to fear it. Citizens will be afraid to organize, to petition their government, to express contrary opinions, to donate to groups that advocate for their causes, in short, they will be deprived of the free exercise of their Constitutional rights and that is tyranny, pure and simple. So let the Congress investigate, let the grand juries be convened, let the guilty be punished and let the glittering legacies be sullied ...tyranny deserves nothing less.

What Else Would You Like To Know?

AMENDMENT IV: 

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. " 

Last Thursday the 6th we woke up to the news that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting almost every electronic communication in America - Facebook postings, Twitter feeds, text messages, cell phone calls, credit card purchases, etc. - to compile a massive computer database, in order to detect and hopefully disrupt terrorist attacks against the United States. The operation had been leaked to a British newspaper and the leaker, a guy named Edward Snowden, a contract employee of NSA in Hawaii, announced in a television interview that he felt that the scope of the operation vastly exceeded the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and that he felt compelled to expose it - after he had abandoned his job and his girlfriend in Hawaii for a five-star hotel in Hong Kong, of course, so he's no Jefferson Smith - so the American public would be aware of the government's activities. Now you would think that after years of bitterly criticizing President Bush's use of the Patriot Act and authorizations from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to conduct electronic monitoring of terrorist cells, while he was a permanent campaigner,er, Senator from Illinois, Priest-King would be the last person to defend this sort of wide-ranging drift net snooping, let alone actively use it, but once again, Priest-King defies conventional wisdom. After all, his Department of Justice obtained private telephone records of over 100 Associated Press employees, named Fox News reporter James Rosen as a possible "co-conspirator" in a national security leak investigation and obtained the private telephone records of Mr. Rosen's parents, and the IRS conducted a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation of conservative advocacy groups during which they demanded volumes of detailed personal information which they then shared with liberal advocacy groups: What a guy!


SIDEBAR: ...and this is going on while the Priest-King administration leaked information about the Flame virus, the Predator "kill list," the Osama bin Laden raid, and stonewalls Congress about Benghazi. The theme: Information belongs to Priest-King alone. He can do whatever he wants with it. He wants to know everything about us, who we are, where we live, with whom we associate, what we say, what we eat, where we worship, what we believe, everything. He wants this information so he can control us, he may dispose of this information as he sees fit and anyone who thinks otherwise will be crushed.

SIDEBAR REDUX: The Attorney-General may sign a request to subpoena telephone records, accuse a reporter as a co-conspirator in leaking national security information, shop the request to three different judges until he found a judge who would approve it, lie to Congress that he'd never been involved in such a program, claim that he never intended to prosecute Mr. Rosen so he didn't actually perjure himself, and keep his job. This is a great country, isn't it?

Now coming back to this latest scandal, we are finally hearing the term "probable cause." The Constitution insists that if the government thinks I'm involved with a crime, they must obtain a search warrant based upon a reasonable suspicion and specify what they're searching for and where. That is the essence of that particular protection, that the government is NOT entitled to conduct general searches just to find out as much as they can and they are NOT entitled to keep whatever information they find. After 9/11, President Bush was deeply concerned about preventing future terrorist attacks and used electronic monitoring, authorized by the FISA court, to detect, identify and track communications between terrorists working overseas and their accomplices here in the United States. The Left, including Priest-King, slammed Dubya consistently for this focused, limited monitoring program but now we've gone miles beyond that. The government is sweeping up massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans, not because we are suspected of any crime or because we belong to a terrorist organization but to know as much as they can. I have not been charged with a crime, I have not been arrested, I have not been suspected, I live a fairly dull, ordinary, unexciting life but nonetheless the government wants to know everything about me. We can agree that we need to do everything we can to prevent future terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing, we can agree that nobody but the terrorists wants Americans to die and that government at all levels has to aggressively detect, pursue and deter terrorist threats, but within the bounds of the Constitution. Mr. Edward Snowden, like PFC Manning of WikiLeaks infamy, signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the U.S. Government promising to protect the information to which he was granted access. (I'm sure that we'll find out more but it stinks to high Heaven that a) He was only in his job for three months before he leaked this information; b) He fled to China, our arch-rival in the Pacific; and c) He leaked this information the day before Priest-King's summit with new Chinese President Xi Jinping, seriously undercutting our negotiating position as we confront China over their hacking activities and their domestic surveillance program.) If he is extradited, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because the information he leaked did not belong to him, but now that it's out, it's time for a robust public debate about what the American people want and what they're willing to accept. A small, limited, tightly-controlled program focused on telephone calls from overseas to terror suspects in the United States is one thing, sweeping up every electron in America is quite another. The American people are justifiably suspicious of their government for the reasons I provided above as well as Priest-King's failure to enforce immigration law and the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing known Mexican drug traffickers to buy guns in the United States and use them to commit crimes in Mexico and, in Bill Clinton's day, sifting through hundreds of confidential FBI files to compile a White House enemies list. And let's not forget that under Obamacare, the medical records of every person in the United States are to be digitized and stored in a massive government database - the government will know which doctor you see, what medical conditions you have and which medications you take to treat them (and how much they cost), are you overweight, do you have a family history of heart disease or diabetes - so the government will be able to control your behavior. For God's sake, Eric Holder refused to deny, under oath, that the Executive Branch was spying on Members of Congress, so yes, the people have probable cause themselves to mistrust their government and to insist that it be restrained.

Case in point: In Katz v. United States, the U.S. Government suspected Mr. Charles Katz of running an illegal gambling operation across state lines and was using a public telephone to communicate with his confederates. The FBI placed a wiretap on the phone booth in question (they had things like that in 1967) without first obtaining a warrant, reasoning that because it was a public utility, Mr. Katz' conversations weren't protected by the Fourth Amendment. They obtained the evidence they needed, arrested and subsequently prosecuted Mr. Katz but in a 7-1 ruling, the Supreme Court overturned Mr. Katz' conviction on the ground that the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to people, not places, and reminded the government they must operate within the law, especially where information is concerned.

The Federal government may think that because they own the Internet and the airwaves and the telephone lines, they can necessarily monitor - and archive, and exploit - whatever goes over them, but they can't. The Founding Fathers knew that a government that knows everything about everyone can bend the people to its will, and they had just fought a revolution against that kind of tyranny. Let's have this debate, let's vigorously protect against further terror attacks but if the government lacks probable cause, leave me alone.