It’s Wednesday, April 25th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of the WaPo via AEI, Marc Thiessen details….

A bishop’s unjust attack on Paul Ryan

 

Bishop Blaire: didn’t deem pedophilia worth reporting, but knows unnecessary military spending when he sees it.

President Obama attacked Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget as “nothing but thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” That is not surprising. What is surprising is that the chairman of a major committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a similar scathing attack against Ryan, a faithful Catholic who says his budget work is informed and guided by the social teaching of the Church.

Using Obama’s campaign rhetoric, Bishop Stephen Blaire, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, recently wrote to Congress declaring that Ryan’s budget “fails to meet [the Church’s] moral criteria” because it does not require “shared sacrifice,” which Blaire [like Obama] defines as tax increases and cuts to “unnecessary” defense spending. Some of the proposed spending cuts in Ryan’s budget, Blaire said, are “unjust and wrong.”

Blaire has it backward. What is “unjust and wrong” is this bishop’s attack on a good Catholic layman.

Put aside for a moment the fact that “shared sacrifice” appears nowhere in the catechism of the Catholic Church. It is a reelection slogan for the Democratic Party. Put aside, as well, the fact that the bishop of Stockton, Calif., has near-zero competence to judge what military spending is necessary or unnecessary. The fact is Ryan’s budget does not cut spending at all — it simply slows the growth of spending. As Ryan explained in an interview on the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), “our budget increases annual spending by 3 percent a year instead of the president’s proposal to go to 4 ½ percent a year.”

To put that into perspective, Jeff Rosen, a former official in the Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget, points out the final budgets submitted by President George W. Bush projected spending of $3.22 trillion in 2012 and $3.34 trillion in 2013. Ryan’s budget, by contrast, calls for spending of $3.6 trillion in 2012 and $3.53 trillion in 2013. So Ryan’s budget is higher than Bush’s projections for 2012 and for 2013. In fact, since actual spending in 2008 was $2.98 trillion, Ryan’s budget represents a 20 percent increase in spending in 2012 — higher than inflation from 2008 to 2012. How is that cruel and heartless?

Ryan’s budget can only be viewed as a “cut” when compared with the unprecedented levels of spending unleashed by President Obama, who has increased our national debt by more than $4 trillion in just 31 months — a new land-speed record for fiscal profligacy. In criticizing Ryan’s spending “cuts,” Bishop Blaire is effectively arguing that these unsustainable spending increases under Barack Obama are the new floor for what constitutes “social justice.” In this view, even a 20 percent increase in spending relative to 2008 is a violation of the “moral criteria” of the Catholic Church. That is ridiculous. (As is this bozo of a bishop.)

Ryan points out that the country is headed toward a catastrophic debt crisis that would “hurt the poor the first and the worst.” He says his goal is to “lift this crushing burden of debt, and repair our broken safety net” — and in defense of this objective, he cites none other than Pope Benedict XVI. In his interview book, “Light of the World,” Pope Benedict was asked whether the unprecedented debt in the U.S. and other countries — the interest payments on which alone would be enough to provide food for a year for all the children in developing countries — wasn’t an “insanely big moral problem?” The Holy Father replied, “Naturally, because we are living at the expense of future generations. In this respect it is plain that we are living in untruth.” Benedict declared that “huge debts are … treated as something that we are simply entitled to,” and that to confront this problem “a global examination of conscience is indispensable.”

Ryan is attempting to force such an examination of conscience in Washington. He has gone out of his way to engage the bishops in a dialogue over the best ways to fix the soon-to-be-bankrupt social safety net, using the Catholic principles of “subsidiarity, solidarity and local control.” In a letter last year to then-New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the bishops conference, Ryan cited Blessed John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus, in which the late pope noted that “By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”

“The preferential option for the poor,” Ryan says, should not mean “a preferential option for big government.” After the recent federal assault on religious liberty, the bishops should appreciate the destructive power of big government. They should also appreciate the fact that the chairman of the committee crafting the Republican Party’s budget is a man of faith who is working to address the problems of poverty and our nation’s debt, so we can ensure we are not living, in Pope Benedict’s words, in “untruth” and “at the expense of future generations.”

Blaire’s lack of military expertise is second only to an excessive absence of economic expertise.  And like so many other advocates of “social justice”, the good bishop fails to recognize the wisdom of the old adage “Give a man a fish and you’ve fed him for today; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

America has been handing people fish since 1965, well over $6 trillion dollars worth; so tell us again how throwing more money at the problem is somehow going to make a difference!?!

Here’s the juice: government giveaways DON’T WORK, because the problem by and large isn’t an absence of money, but a chain of ill-advised personal choices and decisions resulting from a total lack of judgment.  Be it drugs, alcohol, dropping out of school or multiple out-of-wedlock children, what puts the vast majority of people in poverty isn’t environment but rather an inability to make right choices and the knowledge wrong choices carry no consequences.

After all, had an illegitimate child?  Here’s a monthly stipend for food, shelter and other sundries.  And by the way, no strings attached; though we’d love you to spend the money responsibly, consider yourself free to blow it on cell phones, cigarettes, cable or Courvoisier….all you want!  After all, who are we to tell you how to live your life….other than the people paying for it.

Pregnant again?  No worries; we’ll just increase that monthly amount.  Oh….and you deadbeat dads?  No worries!  Smoke another rock, down another Colt .45 and line up your next brood mare; it’s PAR-TEE TIME!

Bad decisions and a lack of moral discernment got or keeps the vast majority of the poor into poverty in the first place; what could make anyone think handing them money is somehow going to change that paradigm?

Since we’re on the subject of a total waste of money, it’s our “Your Tax Dollars At Work” segment, courtesy of FOX News, which reports the….

United Nations to ‘Investigate’ Plight of US Native Americans

 

We should have such problems!

The United Nations is to conduct an investigation into the plight of US Native Americans, the first such mission in its history. The human rights inquiry led by James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, is scheduled to begin on Monday. Many of the country’s estimated 2.7 million Native Americans live in federally recognised [but self-goverened] tribal areas which are plagued with unemployment, alcoholism, high suicide rates, incest and other social problems.

….A UN statement said: “This will be the first mission to the US by an independent expert designated by the UN human rights council to report on the rights of the indigenous peoples.” Anaya, a University of Arizona professor of human rights, said: “I will examine the situation of the American Indian/Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian peoples against the background of the United States’ endorsement of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.”

The US signed up in 2010 to the declaration, which establishes minimum basic rights for indigenous people globally. Anaya said: “My visit aims at assessing how the standards of the declaration are reflected in US law and policy, and identifying needed reforms and good practices”…

Anaya is originally from New Mexico and is well versed in Native American issues. He will visit Washington DC, Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Oklahoma and South Dakota, and will conclude his trip with a press conference on 4 May. He will present his findings to the next session of the UN human rights council. Anaya’s past record shows a deep sympathy with Native Americans’ plight. In one development dispute, he told the council that the desecration of sacred sites was an urgent human rights issue.

Taking his cue from the Secret Service and GSA handbooks, Anaya’s daily schedule is rumored to consist of:

1230:  Wake up from the night before and bill the American taxpayer for the previous day’s expenses.

1300:  Take out a $25,000 loan from Western Sky Financial (139% APR).

1500:  Fill up on firewater.

1700:  Hit the nearest Indian casino and blow the entire wad on gambling and girls.

Rinse and repeat.

And back in Washington, the players are lining up for….

The Arizona Faceoff

The Administration tries to nullify a state immigration statute.

 

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in that other major case that has the political class on edge—Arizona’s immigration law. As with health care’s individual mandate, the Obama Administration is again making claims about the scope of federal power that upset the Constitution’s federalist structure—in this case, to unilaterally nullify state laws that the President happens to oppose.

The Justice Department sued Arizona for its 2010 law that requires police to enforce federal immigration statutes. Justice charged that Republican Governor Jan Brewer violated the Supremacy Clause that says federal laws pre-empt state laws. And ordinarily the Administration lawyers would have a point, since the Constitution expressly tells Congress to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” and the courts have long interpreted that to mean that Congress has plenary power over immigration policy.

Except Mrs. Brewer and the Grand Canyon State legislature didn’t attempt to write material or substantive new rules for their 370-mile border with Mexico. If they did, considering their restrictionist tendencies, that might involve drones and the 82nd Airborne.

Instead, they carefully crafted a state law that is consistent with the federal immigration laws already on the books. All Arizona does is instruct state police to enforce federal immigration laws—for instance, by calling federal officials if a person they arrest can’t verify his legal status.

If the White House doesn’t like those federal laws, it is welcome to persuade Congress to change them. The President might have done so in, oh, 2009 or 2010, when Democrats ran everything in Washington. But Mr. Obama had other priorities than immigration reform. And now with an election coming, he has been eager to distract from his immigration failure by portraying Mrs. Brewer and other Republicans as anti-Hispanic.

Thus the much-ballyhooed lawsuit. And thus New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s pledge this week, even before the oral argument, that he’ll try to overturn the decision if the Justices dare to uphold the Arizona statute. Mr. Schumer wants to be Senate Majority Leader real bad.

The Administration’s feeble legal arguments underscore its political motivation. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and its many amendments, the states have been allowed and even encouraged to participate in immigration enforcement. The U.S. legal code contains multiple explicit roles for the states to work in concert with federal officials. Unless or until Congress specifically says otherwise, the laws of the U.S. can therefore be enforced by federal or state officers.

In the case of immigration, in 1996 Congress even required the federal government to respond and investigate someone’s immigration status when asked by state or local police. In other words, the Obama Administration is mandated by federal law to comply with this provision of Arizona’s plan.

The state is simply using its own resources to execute rules set up by Congress. The Administration is using pre-emption doctrine as a pretext to not enforce those rules and strip Arizona of the authority that Congress bestowed as part of its power to manage the nation’s borders. In effect, Justice is claiming that Arizona has the wrong enforcement priorities so the Obama Administration can create a new immigration policy by fiat. This is the real constitutional violation in this case.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Administration, even though a slew of Supreme Court precedents say otherwise valid and constitutionally sanctioned state laws cannot be pre-empted simply because an Administration doesn’t like them. The appellate court’s partially split decision drew a distinction between “ad hoc” immigration enforcement by state and local police and “systematic” enforcement efforts that the court claimed can be pre-empted.

This distinction does not exist in any bill passed by Congress that we’re aware of, which helps to explain why the Ninth Circuit is the most overturned appellate court in the country, if not the universe.

Many on the political left are throwing up civil-rights smoke in this case by claiming that Arizona is racially profiling as part of its law. On the substance of the statute, we agree that states are wasting their scarce resources if they have cops picking up landscapers and other workers.

But the racial claim has no basis. In 2005, Arizona’s then-Governor Janet Napolitano—a Democrat who now runs homeland security for Mr. Obama—declared a state of emergency as a result of illegal aliens. Is she a racist too? If the claim had merit, the Justice Department would use it, but it makes no such argument in its brief to the Court.

The heart of this case is the balance of state and federal power, not immigration. The Obama Administration is the party abusing the Constitution’s architecture for purely political ends, and we assume the High Court will say so.

The heart of this case is power all right, political power; with Hispanic votes seen as the means to maintain it.  This is just further proof, as if any’s needed, Dimocrats care nothing about the country and only about themselves.

If that sounds excessively harsh, as this next item details, not hardly:

Did Democrats hack the 2008 Obama election?

Stratfor, the US-based private intelligence company, says that Senator John McCain’s campaign knew that electoral fraud was going on in 2008 but chose to do nothing. What is going on now as President Obama faces changed circumstances?

 

According to emails obtained by WikiLeaks, which is led by the embattled Julian Assange, Republican Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign staff allegedly had evidence that Democrats stuffed ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio on election night. However, the candidate chose not to pursue voter fraud, according to internal emails obtained from the private intelligence and analysis firm, Stratfor.

Stratfor regularly reports on geopolitics, narcotics, security and terrorism, particularly overseas. The company, which was founded by George Friedman, has high-level subscribers including at least one former U.S. Secretary of State, various foreign governments, and intelligence agencies. The U.S. Marines and the Department of Homeland Security are also customers.  In recent months, Stratfor was in the news because a still unknown party hacked the Stratfor website and obtained subscribers’ names.

The internal emails in this case provided insight into Stratfor’s interest in U.S. politics. In an email sent on November 7, 2008, entitled ” Insight – The Dems & Dirty Tricks ** Internal Use Only – Pls Do Not Forward **,“ Stratfor vice president of intelligence Fred Burton wrote:

1) The black Dems were caught stuffing the ballot boxes in Philly and Ohio as reported the night of the election and Sen. McCain chose not to fight. The matter is not dead inside the party. It now becomes a matter of sequence now as to how and when to “out”.

Two days earlier, Burton wrote an email entitled “Insight – McCain #5 ** internal use only – Pls do not forward **,” :

After discussions with his inner circle, which explains the delay in his speech, McCain decided not to pursue the voter fraud in PA and Ohio, despite his staff’s desire to make it an issue. He said no. Staff felt they could get a federal injunction to stop the process. McCain felt the crowds assembled in support of Obama and such would be detrimental to our country and it would do our nation no good for this to drag out like last go around, coupled with the possibility of domestic violence.

The Nov. 7 email also contains allegations that Democrats made a “six-figure donation” to Rev. Jesse Jackson to silence him on the topic of Israel after an October 2008 interview in which he said Obama’s presidency would remove the clout of “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades.”

Burton, a former State Department official, wrote:

2) It appears the Dems “made a donation” to Rev. Jesse (no, they would never do that!) to keep his yap shut after his diatribe about the Jews and Israel. A little bird told me it was a “nice six-figure donation”. This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.

Burton’s email also speaks to an accusation that candidate Barack Obama’s campaign accepted money donations from Russia, while noting that President Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign was alleged to have sought contributions from China to the Democratic National Committee.

Burton said:

3) The hunt is on for the sleezy Russian money into O-mans coffers. A smoking gun has already been found. Will get more on this when the time is right. My source was too giddy to continue. Can you say Clinton and ChiCom funny money? This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.

Curiouser and….

….curiouser.  Only time will tell if such evidence exists, or if the GOP will use it.  Regardless, like we’ve said many times before, fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy six months!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch with the next leader of The Gang That Still Can’t Shoot Straight, as Political Diary notes, evidence Rick Santorum wasn’t all wrong:

The Obama–Romney Education Plan

 

Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum warned that Mitt Romney might not present a “clear contrast” to President Obama in the general election. Judging by Monday’s action on the campaign trail, Mr. Santorum had a point.

On a day when the White House urged Congress to increase student-loan subsidies, Mr. Romney had an opportunity to draw a sharp distinction between the expanding Obama entitlement state and a plan to revive the private economy. Mr. Romney rightly focused his attention on rising unemployment among recent college graduates, as well as the huge federal debt “they’re going to have to pay off all their lives.”

But instead of laying out plans to create jobs and reduce government spending, the former Massachusetts governor arrived at the same policy conclusion as Barack Obama. “Given the bleak job prospects that young Americans coming out of college face today,” said Mr. Romney, “I encourage Congress to temporarily extend the current low rate on subsidized undergraduate Stafford loans. I also hope the president and Congress can pass the extension responsibly that offsets its cost in a way that doesn’t harm the job prospects of young Americans.” (Where Mitt; by borrowing more money from China?!?)

House members who have been opposing the extension know it is anything but responsible. The Obama-Romney subsidy will keep rates as low as 3.4% for many student borrowers, not that far above the 3.1% rate that the Treasury pays to borrow for the long term. If interest rates spike, taxpayers could be losing on every single new loan, never mind the cost of defaults. And as for offsets, the White House and Senate Democrats favor a new tax on small businesses. If Mr. Romney can’t provide a contrast to that idea, Republicans will know they’re in for a very long campaign.

As if Liberal college students are suddenly going to vote Republican because Mitt Romney’s demonstrated a willingness to drive the country deeper into debt to help them finance a college education not worth the paper on which their diploma is printed.

And in the Environmental Moment, courtesy of Carl Polizzi, Human Events‘ Audrey Hudson tells us why a number of taxpayers vacationing this year at the national parks they pay for may have the….

Summertime Blues

 

Planning a vacation this summer to Miami’s Biscayne Bay for a little fishing? Think again, because the National Park Service wants to set aside a large swath of the pristine area as a marine reserve zone, so you might have to leave the fishing poles at home. And the boat.

Perhaps horseback riding is more your speed and the family plans to ride through California’s Sequoia or Kings Canyon National Parks? Sorry, but all of the permits were pulled for those activities this summer.

Or maybe you just want to lounge on the soft sands of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and read a novel, fly a kite with the kids, toss a Frisbee to the dog, and watch dad catch some fish? No, no, no and no.

Beachcombers along specific stretches of those legendary shores are seeing signs telling them to leave their kites and pets at home, and to watch where they step. “Leave no footprints behind. Walk in water where footprints wash away,” read the signs posted in February by federal officials. Beaches that once welcomed fisherman to drive up to the water’s edge are also off-limits to the vehicles, and so is fishing.

These vacation destinations are all national parks that once encouraged such recreational uses and enjoyment but their new “no trespassing” attitudes have angered the local communities, and some in Congress as well. In March, Rep. Walter Jones (R–N.C.) challenged the restrictions imposed by the beach signs, which were the result of battles with environmentalists to protect certain species.

The park service that operates the Cape Hatteras National Seashore pledged to replace them, and the new signs will read: “Walk near water’s edge. Stay below high tide line.” Still not allowed: kites, pets, vehicles, or fishing. Sunbathing is permissible if you don’t mind getting hit by the waves every few minutes.

“The federal government needs to remember that Cape Hatteras was established to be a recreational area for the American people,” Jones said. “But taxpayers can’t recreate without access to the beach….”

….In California, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes says that by eliminating horseback rides to the back-country, the National Park Service has essentially blocked the only access that many Americans, including those with disabilities and the elderly, have to wilderness areas. The new restrictions are the result of a lawsuit brought by environmentalists who say the activity may be a threat to nature. (What a shock!) Losing the permits means that at least 15 companies that provided horseback rides are out of work this summer, along with an estimated 500 employees.

John Couch, who owns the Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, N.C. and is president of the Outer Banks Preservation Association, said the community supports protections for the birds and turtles, but that the park service is being unreasonable and “heavy-handed” by cutting off miles and miles of access to the beaches and the recreation it provides. “Experiences that visitors expect are now closed off because of hugely excessive and unprecedented buffer zones that just closes off the beach,” Couch said. “These are immense obstacles.”

Couch says the restrictions have already proven to be bad for the tourism industry. “These overzealous restrictions have taken a heavy toll on the tackle shop; business is off by 30 and 50 percent. It’s bad,” Couch said. “On the other side, the environmentalists have good intentions, (No….no they don’t!) but this plan is not working.  I’m suffering as a member of the business community. I have no expectation of what to expect,” Couch said.

“It’s fine and dandy to protect the environment, but at the same time we have a mandate to provide protection of resources, as well as enhance the future and present recreational opportunities. But that’s not what’s going on. Now it’s a single mandate which is to protect the environment,” Couch said. Couch said humans are not the threat to the birds and turtles, but severe storms and predators such as foxes, possums, raccoons, otter, mink and nutria are its natural enemies.

“Man doesn’t have a hand in this,” Couch said. During one outing with the Park Service to the beach to discuss the new human restrictions, Couch said he and others watched as a ranger pulled out a rifle and killed a nearby fox. “They shot the thing right there in front of us,” Couch said.

“We’re all for the birds and the turtles, but when government and pressure from environmentalists close down the beach access in an inequitable favor to these birds at the expense of the economy and the visitors, that’s wrong,” Couch said. “We can protect the birds and provide for the sustainability of the island community.”

Couch can’t see the Environazis for the sand dunes.  The point is the environmentalists DON’T have good intentions, for if their intentions were fully known, there would be a bounty on them.  These are national parks, NOT national wildlife refuges; for the use and enjoyment of humans, NOT the preservation of wildlife.

You give the Environazis and their allies in the government bureaucracy an inch and they’ll take a mile; and come the end of the day, we’re the ones they’d like to see on the endangered species list.

In a related item….

Feds make first arrest in BP oil spill case

 

The Justice Department says the first criminal charges in the Deepwater Horizon disaster have been filed against a former BP engineer who allegedly destroyed evidence. Kurt Mix, of Katy, Texas was arrested on charges of intentionally destroying evidence. He faces two counts of obstruction of justice.

….The Justice Department says the 50-year-old Mix is accused of deleting a string of 200 text messages with a BP supervisor in October 2010 that involved internal BP information about how efforts to cap the well were failing.

Wow; talk about a smoking gun!  Guess the plan is to get Mix to roll and implicate the REAL criminals.

On the Lighter Side….

And in News You Can’t Use, our response to this helpful headline?

How to Avoid Travel Rip-Offs

 

Easy: stay home.

Moving to the Wide, Wild World of Sports, we learn….

Deion Sanders’ estranged wife arrested for assault

 

When asked whether she was worried the former NFL cornerback might strike her back, Sander’s wife replied, “Yeah….right; like he’s ever hit anybody in his life!”

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with today’s installment of News of the Bizarre, and what to do when a….

Detroit judge disrobes, texts photo to bailiff

 

A Detroit judge from a legendary legal family (?!?) is probably wishing he kept his black robe on. Third Circuit Judge Wade McCree, who specializes in sexual misconduct cases, admitted he texted a shirtless photo of himself to his bailiff’s cellphone, where her husband found it.

“Hot dog, yep that’s me,” McCree told Charlie LeDuff, a former New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who now reports for MyFoxDetroit. “I’ve got no shame in my game. I ain’t talked to nobody else’s wife … There’s nothing nude about it. I’m in no more clothes than I’ll be at the Y this afternoon when I swim my mile.”

McCree’s father, Wade H. McCree Jr., was the first African-American judge to be appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and only the second African-American solicitor general, serving during the Carter administration. (Which constitutes a “legendary legal family”?!?)

Despite the judge’s lack of shame, the husband of the unidentified woman — a court bailiff in Detroit — told MyFoxDetroit.com that his wife received the “highly inappropriate” photo from McCree directly. The angry husband has filed a complaint with Michigan’s Judicial Tenure Commission, which declined to comment when contacted by FoxNews.com on Tuesday, citing confidentiality requirements imposed by Michigan courts.  It is not clear what penalty — if any — the married McCree faces for sending the photograph.

“He’s looked upon as being some great figure, but if you look at the picture, you see what he’s really about,” the woman’s husband told LeDuff. “He’s not what he appears to be … What kind of a man would send this to a married woman?”

Well, there WAS this one guy….

Magoo