Tag: petulance

NSA Wiretapping Ruled Unconstitutional. Congressional “Caine Mutiny” Hearing to Follow?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamabigbroRemember all of Obama’s Domestic Scandals, beside Obamacare? Well, regarding the one involving the NSA, it is possible that, to paraphrase Obama’s Former Pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright,

Obama’s chickennns…are coming home…to roost!

Yesterday, wsj.com reported that…

President Barack Obama, facing growing pressure from Silicon Valley, will meet Tuesday with executives from Google Inc. Facebook Inc. and other technology and telecommunications giants to discuss their concerns about America’s surveillance operations.

According to the White House, Mr. Obama will also meet with the executives to talk about progress with the troubled online federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, and ways the government and technology industry can partner to boost economic growth.

The meeting comes a week after a group of technology companies jointly penned a letter to lash out at the Obama administration for collecting information on Americans. The companies said they wanted to see greater oversight of the government’s surveillance operations and limits on the government’s authority to compel companies to disclose data about their customers.

The letter followed a wave of disclosures about U.S. spying operations by Edward Snowden, a former government contractor now in Russia. The president will also talk about the national security concerns prompted by the leaks and their effect on the economy.

The administration has been reviewing U.S. spying operations and considering steps to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. Last week, a presidential task force submitted to the White House more than 40 recommendations to overhaul the National Security Agency. Mr. Obama’s chief spokesman, Jay Carney, said the White House was reviewing the report and would make public the full report in January.

This news comes on the heels of a ruling by a Federal Court Judge that telephone surveillance of Americans that has been conducted ad infinitum by the NSA, violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution…

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the information had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

Acting on a lawsuit brought by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the NSA from collecting so-called metadata pertaining to the Verizon accounts of Klayman and one of his clients. However, the judge stayed the order to allow for an appeal.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.

The preliminary injunction Leon granted Monday does not require him to make a definitive ruling on the constitutional questions in the case, but does take account of which side he believes is more likely to prevail.

Leon’s 68-page opinion is the first significant legal setback for the NSA’s surveillance program since it was disclosed in June in news stories based on leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. For seven years, the metadata program has been approved repeatedly by numerous judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and found constitutional by at least one judge sitting in a criminal case.

The very fact that the  National Security Agency (NSA) even existed, was not revealed for more than two decades after its establishment in 1952.

Of all the US intelligence services, it is has,for a long time, been the best hidden, and has prided itself on having the fewest leaks – at least until Edward Snowden came along.

When Harry Truman set up the NSA, its mission was to monitor communications abroad. However, what politicians and civil rights organizations have know, since the Senate unveiled it in 1975, is to what extent its ferocious appetite for data has encompassed American citizens.

As technology has evolved, so has the NSA’s capacity to intercept Americans’ communications. Satellites intercept calls and emails in the ether and beam the information back to earthbound receiving stations. One estimate suggests that each of these bases hoovers up roughly one billion emails, phone calls and other forms of correspondence every day, and the agency has up to 20 bases.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows…

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.

The actions of the NSA, are, of course, nothing new. as far back as Prohibition, government authorities have tapped American’s phones, if they felt that they were involved in “suspicious activities. However, those incidences of “wiretapping” were always done under the Rule of Law, with those doing the tapping have a warrant from a judge in their hand.

What we are dealing with here is nothing less than a usurpation of power, am old Soviet Union-style spying on one’s own countrymen, by an out-of-control NSA, whose petulant, didactic Commander-in-Chief, in his zeal to wield the power of the Oval Office, has pushed our Constitutional Republic in the direction of a Socialist Police State.

Through his use of such Government Agencies such as the NSA and the IRS to intimidate and harass his political opponents, President Barack Hussein Obama has exhibited a fearful paranoia that makes President Richard Milhous Nxon’s Watergate Scandal appear as inconsequential as a deck chair on the Titanic, and Obama as unstable a leader as Captain Queeg, so brilliantly played by the late, great Humphrey Bogart in “The Caine Mutiny”.

If Obama is ever brought before Congress to testify on his scandals, his prevarication and eventual meltdown will make Captain Queeg’s unraveling pale in comparison.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Shutdown: Of Parks, Presidents, Prayers, and a Puny Presser By a Petulant President

On By kingsjesterIn Politics25 Comments

government shutdown rushmore cartoonSince the Government Shutdown started, a week ago last Monday, I’ve been sitting here thinking that the actions of The Manchurian President can not get any worse.

However, each day we go further into the shutdown, brings new revelations of this Administration’s mistreatment of American Citizens.

By now, I am sure you’ve heard about the group of Senior Citizens who were basically held captive by Park Rangers at the Yellowstone Park Hotel. The brown shirt-wearing Rangers would not let the Seasoned Citizens out of the Hotel to view the park, because of the Government Shutdown.

That’s right. It is now illegal to look at National Parks. The Head of the Regime has decreed it so.

And, while we are on the subject of our National Parks…

Nearly two dozen people have been issued citations for entering Grand Canyon National Park after a partial government shutdown forced its closure.

Grand Canyon Chief Ranger Bill Wright says some people have been caught at the South Rim, on trails, attempting rim-to-rim hikes or trying to sneak in through dirt roads.

All of the citations will be handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Wright says each of the 21 citations issued as of Monday has a mandatory order to appear in federal court.

A state highway that runs through the national park was closed after Grand Canyon officials found tourists removing barricades at overlooks along the road.

Wright says law enforcement will be patrolling the park around the clock. Most other park employees have been furloughed.

Evidently, this Land ain’t our land anymore. It’s Obama’s land.

President Teddy Roosevelt said in 1903,

There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.

And, what’s equally as galling as Americans being arrested for wanting to see the Grand Canyon, is that fact that Obama opened our National Mall for a rally for people who are in our country illegally, saying that it was an exercise in “First Amendment Rights”.

Correct me if I’m wrong, boys and girls, but don’t OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS specifically apply to UNITED STATES CITIZENS?

And, isn’t one of the rights outlined in that Amendment, something about” limiting the free exercise” of religion?

Why, yes, I believe it is.

Then, considering the argument used for that rally on the National Mall yesterday, please…one of y’all explain this to me…

David Brody of CBN reports…

Apparently, a priest was denied access to a military chapel this weekend. Father Ray Leonard serves at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia but because of the government shutdown, he wasn’t allowed to go to celebrate Mass this past weekend.

He is contracted by the Defense Department to meet the spiritual needs of Catholics, but not now. The chapel doors were locked and the sign said, “Shutdown: No Catholic service till further notice.”

Father Leonard said the following:

“This is our church, Catholics have an expectation and obligation to attend Mass and we were told, ‘No you can’t go to church this week…“ My parishioners were upset. They were angry and dismayed. They couldn’t believe that in America they’d be denied access to Mass by the government.”

Rep. Tim Huelskamp had this reaction:

“Time and time again this Administration demonstrates it is waging a war against the very religious freedoms upon which America was founded. This is exactly why we worked to pass legislation (House Concurrent Resolution 58) this past weekend – to protect the religious liberties of all those who bravely serve in our Armed Forces.”

You know what gives me gas about this whole idiotic situation?

It’s the fact that the 44th President of the United States actually thought that Americans would cower in the face of his egregious mistreatment of us.

I mean, I’ve known all along that Obama has as much in common with average Americans like you and me, as Meghan McCain does with MENSA, however, the shear brazen despotism which he has shown to the very country he is supposed to be serving and protecting, is so unabashedly tyrannical, it makes Caligula look like St. Augustine.

The weapon Obama has chosen to attempt to reinforce this Government Shutdown is an old one: fear.

During his, at times, incoherent Presser, yesterday,Obama warned of “Economic Chaos” if his and Congress’ impasse does not allow our country to pay its bills. He proceeded to whine and say that he would settle for a short-term Debt Ceiling increase (instead of the unlimited ability to borrow and spend our nation into oblivion, as seems to be his wont).

On the Internet yesterday, Obama’s minions were spreading that same concern, stating that Boehner and the Republicans should accept whatever Obama offers them, and just go ahead and capitulate., because…get this…”we’re (Conservatives) losing”.

To which I reply,

“NUTS!”

One of the Liberals’ heroes, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, once told the nation,

The only thing we have to fear…is fear itself.

Truer words were never spoken. Those words are the perfect answer to Obama and his minions’ fear-mongering strategy.

Obama’s strategy is one born out of desperation. Americans are proving to be stronger than he had planned on.

We don’t tolerate tyranny very well. Never have.

While it was actually nothing but third-rate bloviating by a Petulant President, it was also very appropriate that Obama called out the Tea Party during his Press Conference, yesterday.

King George did not like the Tea Party, either.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obamacare Phone Number Flips Off Entire Nation

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamababyAs the Government Shutdown continues, so do the revelations concerning the out-of-control, rampaging monster known as Obamacare, and the mad scientist who created it, Barack Hussein Obama, and his minions, the Democrats and Vichy Republicans in Congress and his Administration.

Bizpacreview.com reported yesterday that

The Obama administration seemingly remained consistent with its brand when one considers the phone number for the Obamacare hotline.

A reporter for the Washington Free Beacon, Lachlan Markay, tweeted the following (cleaned up, for language):

“@lachlan Fun fact: if you exclude the 1 (no associated letters), the federal Obamacare hotline is 1-800-F***-YO.”

Taking into account that the number 1 on most keypads doesn’t have any letters associated with it, one seeking answers to their Obamacare questions would dial 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 1-800-F1*-**YO.

Though the phone number is missing the important “U” at the end, which would have simply required taking out the unassigned number 1 and adding an 8 at the end, it’s still pretty much the message Obama has had for the American people since day one.

No one should be surprised by this. Ever since the Manchurian President first sat on his throne, his petulant, imperious nature, has literally screamed these two words at the American people.

Then, on that fateful night in March of 2010, when, in the middle of night, the Affordable Care Act was passed, Obama might as well have stood on the top of the Capitol Building, shouting these two words , with both his middle fingers extended.

As his reaction this week to the Government Shutdown has shown, he is a vulgar, petulant , shallow individual, who cares more about his personal accomplishments, than the welfare of the American Citizens, whom he is supposed to lead.

For example…

First, he refuses to negotiate with Congress, in order to end the Shutdown, he has created.

At the White House, Obama joined the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress in a one-and-a-half-hour meeting that Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader, called “cordial but unproductive.”

Leaders of both parties said afterwards that Republican demands to defund or delay Obama’s signature health law, which helped lead to this week’s shutdown, remain a critical obstacle to any agreement.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said the president “reiterated tonight he will not negotiate.”

“We’ve got divided government. Democrats control the Senate, Republicans control the House,” he said. “All we’re asking for here is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare.”

But Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the president was unbending, calling him “strong, strong, strong.”

He added, “One thing we made very clear in that meeting: We are locked in tight on Obamacare.”

The back-and-forth Wednesday came on the second day of a partial government shutdown that has furloughed 800,000 federal workers and appears likely to remain for an extended period of time.

The next crucial deadline comes on Oct. 17, the last day that the Treasury Department estimates that the federal government is certain to have enough money to pay all its bills. Investors have been demanding higher interest rates for U.S. Treasury bills in recent days, a sign of concern that the federal government could have trouble servicing its debt.

Second, Obama has been “barry-cading” National Monuments, such as the World War II Memorial, which I wrote about earlier this week. Now, Obama has shut down access to Normandy Beach.

Yes. That Normandy Beach, where my Daddy and thousands of our Brightest and Best, landed on D-Day.

Heck, Obama even attempted to block the road leading to Mt. Vernon. The problem is, the government does not own Mt. Vernon, nor does it fund the WWII Memorial.

So, why is The Lightbringer doing this?

Is it…

A.  He does not like our Military

B. He is making the American People share HIS pain.

C. He is a petty, petulant little man.

D. All of the above.

If you picked “D”, you were absolutely right.

In April of 2008, at a San Francisco Fund Raiser, Presidential Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, infamously said,

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The Petulant President has never had any respect whatsoever for America, her traditions, or her people. We are simply, as in the old Soviet Union, the Proletariat. lab rats to serve, and be experimented on,by a less-than-benevolent Marxist Regime….and, that includes our Brightest and Best.

The “Barry-cading” of the WWII Memorial, showed everybody how Obama feels about the sacrifices made by our Greatest Generation. When these brave American heroes defied him the first day, Obama sent Mounted Police to attempt to enforce the “Barry-cades” the next day. 

On top of that. what’s the logical purpose of closing Normandy Beach, far away in France, except as a punitive measure?

This week has been nothing but a full-blown Presidential Temper Tantrum. There is nothing noble about it. 

The President of the United States has. once again, said “F*** You!” to all of us. And, I am tired of it.

How about you?

KJ

Living in This Age of Selfishness

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

selfishnessYesterday morning, I fixed my bride and myself some leftover spiral-sliced honey ham sandwiches for lunch. As I was spreading mayonnaise on the last four pieces of bread in the loaf, I took the ends for my sandwich. It was then that I realized that something has been sticking in my craw lately. Maybe ,I’m just getting old.

HEY YOU KIDS…GET OFF OF MY LAWN!

Anyway, one of the things that is currently troubling me, is this unpleasant fact:

Americans are becoming more selfish.

It’s not just the J.R. Ewing kind of selfishness, otherwise known as a thirst for money and power. It’s different than that. It’s more along the lines of adults, who have never grown up.

For example, let’s look at the family living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it’s being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas.

The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. “President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state. Here’s a quick look at how he spent his vacation,” ABC reported on January 6, 2013.

“Obama played FIVE rounds of golf with SEVEN different partners, spending roughly THIRTY hours on TWO different courses on Oahu. The president made FIVE early morning trips to the gym at the nearby Marine Base at Kaneohe Bay. The First Family spent TWO afternoons enjoying the beach on the base and went for ONE hike to a local waterfall. The president spent ONE father-daughter afternoon with Malia and Sasha, bowling and going out for shave ice, an annual tradition.”

Then the first lady and their daughters vacationed in Aspen over President’s Day weekend. “First Lady Michelle Obama arrived in Aspen on Friday afternoon and is here with her daughters for a ski vacation,” Aspendailynews.com reported in February. “Few details about her trip were available. Sources said she is staying at the home of Jim and Paula Crown, owners of the Aspen Skiing Co. She is reportedly skiing at Buttermilk today, where the Crowns, of Chicago, own a home on the Tiehack side.”

We have all seen Obama be a smart aleck  with everyone who dares question his brilliance, to the point of petulance. Obama’s behavior reminds me of the way Paul Reubens as Pee Wee Herman behaves when he’s upset,

I know you are. But, what am I?

And, of course, his lovely wife Mooch, err, I mean, Michelle, fancies herself a Professional Nutritionist…even though it takes her two trips to haul…err…butt.

But, this new selfishness doesn’t just stop with the First Family. It is pervasive throughout American Society. It is taught in our homes, by parents who, wanting the best for their children, teach them, from the time that they are old enough to understand, to look out for number one. Then, these little darlings go to school, where they’re taught that morals, values, and ethics are situational things, and that they owe allegiance to no one, neither God nor Country.

This didn’t happen when I was school age. In Elementary school, we prayed every morning, sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning”, and said the Pledge of Allegiance, with our hands solemnly over our hearts.

In fact, by the time we were school age, our parents had already taught us to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” and “No, sir”. If we didn’t, we were disciplined. To this day, the back of my legs faintly read “4…5…6” from my Mother’s yardstick.

Nowadays, in the school my bride works at, the young boys and girls (third and fourth graders) disrespect the teachers, rolling their eyes at them, and back-talking them.  When the staff tries to discipline them, the parents come up to the school and chew them out for treating their little darlings so badly.

The young adults in this country, who were raised in such an ego-swelling, egocentric, lax environment, seem to be having trouble comprehending why they should give a..err..hoot ‘n holler about how their behavior effects those around them.

I, being the old fa…fogey that I am, am always attempting to explain to them that no man is a island. There are consequences for your actions, and, those consequences affect more than just you.

On May 18, 1800, Reverend Joseph McKeen, Pastor of the First Church of Beverly, gave a timeless warning, in a sermon given to the House of Representatives and the Senate of the State of Massachusetts…

Good example acts with the greater effect, because it reproves without upbraiding, and teaches us to correct our faults without giving us the mortification of knowing that any but ourselves, have ever observed them. We feel the force of counsel or persuasion much more sensibly, when we see that one does what he advises or requires us to do. But the best counsel from one, who obeys not his own precepts, nor practices upon the principles of his own advice, will generally be little regarded. We do not believe a man to be in earnest, who advises one thing, and does the contrary.

To resist the progress of irreligion, injustice, luxury, selfishness, and an impatience of legal restraint, is a duty imposed by patriotism.

…The love of liberty we inherit from our fathers; it is so “interwoven with the ligaments of our hearts,î that there can be little doubt of our enjoying it, and little danger of its being wrested from us so long as we are capable and worthy of it. But a capacity for enjoying it depends on a sound and healthful state of the body politic.

The more freedom we have, the more necessary is the aid of religious and moral principles to the maintenance of order and tranquility. When these are lost, or very much relaxed, severe restraints, which cannot always admit of those legal forms, that are essential to the security of liberty, become necessary; yet the people may retain a love of liberty, or rather an impatience of restraint, as the sensualist retains a passion for pleasure, after his constitution is so much impaired by excess, that indulgence would be fatal to him. Liberty, like the pleasures of sense, must be enjoyed with temperance and moderation, lest degenerating into licentiousness it prove destructive. There are none, it may be presumed, who will openly avow that political liberty is, or ought to be, a license for every one to do what is right in his own eyes; yet where the love of liberty is strong, and its nature not distinctly understood, there is too often a disposition to look with an indulgent eye on licentiousness, as only the extreme of a good thing, and therefore pardonable. But the difference between them is greater than some imagine: They are indeed so different, as to be incompatible in society. When one has an excess of liberty, he invades the rights of his neighbor, who is thereby deprived of a portion of the liberty which a free constitution promises him. Liberty in that case becomes exclusively the possession of the strong, the unprincipled, the artful, who makes a prey of the innocent, weak and unsuspicious. A state of things like this is a real despotism, and of the worst kind. It is a poor consolation to the plundered, abused sufferer to be told, that he must not complain; for his oppressor is not an hereditary monarch, acting by a pretended divine right, but only a fellow citizen, acting in the name of “liberty and equality.î

I believe that a lot of this selfishness we see around us, in Today’s America, comes from a generation not “being trained in the way that they should go”. Without strong role models, Christian, Jewish, or otherwise, children have no one to model themselves after. If the parents are selfish themselves, or, enablers, guess what their precious little darling is going to turn out to be?

The precious little darlings of the last few decades, who were raised to be selfish, are now selfish adults.

Unfortunately, selfish children tend to grow up to embrace a like-minded political ideology. And, then, they vote.

God Save the Union.

Until He Comes,

KJ