FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Unconstitutional’ Category

Just when you think that things can’t get more stupid in my old town of Chitcago, the political folks open their mouths and remove all doubt.

When asked about the “gap” between law enforcement and the black community, McCarthy reached back 400 years for an answer.

“It’s a big issue. It’s a long time coming. We’ve done a lot of things wrong in policing in this country. I’m willing to admit that,” said McCarthy. “But this goes back 200-300 years to the time when Pilgrims came here and things developed from that, the African American experience in this country.”

But the Pilgrims weren’t the only people being blamed for the violence. The superintendent also laid blame at the feet of America’s finest and inferred – without actually stating it – that white police officers are the problem.

America’s “finest”?

Oh please.

But playing the race card is equally stupid.

But for decades, vast sums of money have been poured into poor communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.

Where has the money gone?

It’s been stolen.  See, economic empowerment, starting with the removal of incentives to be a thug (and yes, getting rid of the drug war would be a big help) isn’t really on any of these people’s agenda.  It’s far more profitable to blame “whitey” and repress the people, then claim that you can “fix it” if just a bit more freedom (and a lot more money!) is sacrificed on your unholy altar.

Instead, how about this idea: The City of Chicago recognizes the 2nd Amendment.  In full.  Be a thug, you might get shot.  By a law-abiding citizen who answers your thuggery with a couple of 1,000 fps hunks of lead hurled at your center-of-mass.

Senseless violence?  Oh there’s plenty of that.  And plenty of stupid too.  Like Heaven Sutton.  Where do I start with that?  A kid selling “candy” at 11:00 PM in the middle of an area known for gang activity?  Really, candy?  What sort of candy was she selling, may I ask, and to whom?

Who knows if the alleged gang-banger is really the person who shot the kid; it appears from what I can determine that this was a “two gangs in one place, someone starts blasting” incident.  Am I surprised?  Oh hell no, not when only criminals have guns — everyone else who is law-abiding has been disarmed by Constitution-ignoring — that is, a lawless – government!

Of course the gang-bangers don’t care if it’s “illegal” to carry (and use!) a gun — that’s why we call them criminals.  The first rule of being a criminal is that you don’t give a damn about the law.  The second one appears to be that you pick up a “hot” pistol and that you’re prepared to use it.

When you really need someone to put a stop to the asshole waving a pistol around and shooting people with it right damn now the police will be there in 5 minutes — or 10, or 20.  Just dial 911 and the hearses will be be right over to carry off the dead.

Yeah.

It wouldn’t take very long for this crap to stop were Chitcago to stop being stupid and make legal Constitutional Carry.  See, gang-bangers may be many things, but none of them are really all that interested in being DRT (Dead Right THERE), which is exactly what they would be were that change to be implemented.

The fact is that the law-abiding citizens radically outnumber the gang-bangers and while more dead bodies is not a good answer to any particular problem if there are going to be dead bodies due to the acts and decisions taken by gang-bangers I prefer ex-gang-bangers instead of ex-7 year old girls.

In the meantime, until and unless Rahm pulls his head out of his ass (which, incidentally, is unlikely to happen — ever) nor is it likely that the residents of Chitcago will demand that the Jackass-in-Chief abdicate and be replaced by someone who actually read the Bill of Rights my recommendation is that everyone avoid Chitcago.  Don’t do business there and definitely don’t visit and spend money.

You’re an unarmed target and that’s exactly how the thugs – and City Government – like it.

Discussion (registration required to post)

Now I’ve seen it all.

The USSC upheld Obamacare by, basically, twisting the Constitution into a pretzel, crapping on it, whizzing on that and then eating it.

Finding first that the Commerce Clause bars the government from compelling one to enter into commerce, the analysis then turned to whether there was any way to save the constitutionality of the act.

The justices found one.

They re-interpreted the penalty clause as a tax.

And of course, Congress can levy taxes.

That’s the path taken by this tortured process — a path that could only be dreamed up if someone had already determined the outcome they sought instead of being an independent jurist.

The real surprise, however, is that Chief Justice Roberts, believed to be a strict constructionist on the court, managed to not only agree with this piece of tortured logic he found and constructed it as the opinion is his!

So much for judicial restraint and strict construction!

You really ought to read the dissent that starts on page 127 of the opinion.  Justice Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito eviscertate the majority, saying in part:

Here, however, Congress has impressed into servicethird parties, healthy individuals who could be but are not customers of the relevant industry, to offset the undesirable consequences of the regulation. Congress’ desire to force these individuals to purchase insurance is motivatedby the fact that they are further removed from the marketthan unhealthy individuals with pre-existing conditions, because they are less likely to need extensive care in the near future. If Congress can reach out and command even those furthest removed from an interstate market to participate in the market, then the Commerce Clause becomes a font of unlimited power, or in Hamilton’s words, “the hideous monster whose devouring jaws . . . spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane.” The Federalist No. 33, p. 202 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).

What little was left of The Constitution died today, June 28th, 2012.

And incidentally, the math on federal health spending coupled with this decision means that by the time a 55 year old man reaches 85 (his life expectancy, roughly) the Federal government will be attempting to spend roughly $15 trillion a year on health care.

(No it won’t, no we won’t get that far, and the detonation of our government on the fiscal side is now assured — or your health care will be sacrificed.  This is mathematics, not politics.)

Liberty Underground has screeched several times about Real ID and it’s problems.  The Florida Libertarian Party Chair even went so far as to voluntarily surrender his driver license rather than renew it using REAL ID, then dare the cops to arrest him for driving without a license.

They eventually did ticket him (after being baited on the air, in public) but unfortunately what has not happened since is a concerted, planned and executed challenge to the law itself.

As written here there’s another person “caught in the net” who lost their license and can’t renew it due to “failing” the document test.  The article referenced makes the very clear (and correct) point that REAL ID would not have stopped 9/11, nor any of the other attacks that have taken place since.

But that’s not why REAL ID is bad.  One does not argue against something because it might be ineffective.  After all, ineffective government is (at worst) wasting its own time, during which period of time it cannot harass you or worse!  One argues against REAL ID because (1) it’s unconstitutional, (2) it’s more dangerous than the alternative (doing nothing.)

REAL ID is both.

First, constitutionality.  There is a constitutionally-recognized right to travel.  Don’t believe me.  Go look it up.  REAL ID (along with all such “licensure” of commonly-used conveyances by private parties for personal transport) is therefore constitutionally impermissible.  Of course this is inconvenient to argue, as one must then actually give a damn about the Constitution in the first place — and most people don’t.  They therefore turn to esoteric nonsense instead of the foundation with their discussion when it comes to issues such as this.  (The same thing, incidentally, happens with the Second Amendment — what part of “shall not be infringed” is difficult to parse?)

More important to this specific debate, however, is what happens to the data?  It’s one thing to simply see a passport or birth certificate, a utility bill or two or something bearing a tax ID number.

It is another entirely to scan such documents into a database run by the government!

This database is now the hacker target for identity theft.  Anyone who manages to steal Florida’s database of these documents now has photos, social security numbers, birth certificate or passport information and verified home addresses for everyone who has a driver license in the state.

If you believe that database will not be penetrated and stolen you’re a fool.  It probably already has been and if it hasn’t it definitely will be.

This is the real problem with such a system — it provides for zero accountability and recompense if the data is stolen.  And it will be.  It cannot provide recompense since the government can only obtain the funds it would pay damages with (if it ever did, which it won’t) by taxing the very people who are injured.  There is thus no possible way for any breach of security to ever be compensated — period.

That is where the real problem lies.  Not only is the entire premise of such “licensure” unconstitutional in the first instance, REAL ID presents an impossible-to-mitigate risk to everyone in any state who has this data stored and presents that database as the target for organized criminal identify theft — both here in the United States and in nations such as China.

What we ought to be talking about are these two points — not “inconvenience” but unconstitutionality, along with the impossible-to-mitigate or compensate risk without any associated benefit.

The unemployment crisis in America is much worse than you are being told.  Did you know that there are 100 million working age Americans that do not get up in the morning and go to work?  No wonder why it seems like there are so many people that do not have jobs!  According to the federal government, there are 12.6 million working age Americans that are considered to be “officially” unemployed, but there are another 87.8 million working age Americans that are not working either.  The federal government considers those Americans to be “not in the labor force” so they are not included in the unemployment rate.  In fact, this is one of the key ways that the government manipulates the unemployment numbers.  The Obama administration would have us believe that the unemployment rate is going down and that that since the start of the last recession about as many Americans have left the labor force as we saw during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s combined.  Of course that is a bunch of nonsense, but that is what the Obama administration would have us believe.  The truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is just about the same right now as it was two years ago.  It was incredibly difficult to get a job back then and it is incredibly difficult to get a job right now.  So don’t believe the hype that things are getting much better.  If you still do have a good job, you might want to hold on to it tightly, because there is not much hope that things are going to improve significantly any time soon.

The first chart that I have posted below shows the total number of “officially” unemployed workers in America.  According to the Federal Reserve, that number is currently 12,673,000.  This chart makes it look like the employment picture in America is getting significantly better….

But if you dig deeper into the numbers you quickly see that this is not true.  A lot of those workers that were formerly classified as “unemployed” have now been moved into the “not in labor force” category.  Since the start of the last recession, the number of Americans not in the labor force has risen by more than 8 million according to the Obama administration.  The total number of working age Americans not in the labor force now stands at 87,897,000….

So when you add 12,673,000 and 87,897,000, you get a total of 100,570,000 working age Americans that do not have jobs.

Yes, there are certainly millions upon millions of working age Americans that do not have jobs and that do not want jobs.

But you have to be delusional to believe that there are nearly 88 million working age Americans that do not have jobs and that do not want jobs.

The Obama administration tells us that the labor force participation rate is now the lowest it has been since 1984.  But back then, a very large percentage of women were staying home and raising families.  The percentage of stay at home mothers has declined steadily since then.

So the truth is that the employment statistics that we are being fed are not portraying an accurate picture of what is really going on.

As a CNN article recently explained, there are millions of Americans that say that they would like to have a job even though they have not been “actively” looking for one in the past four weeks.  If those people were included in the unemployment rate, it would immediately shoot up to around 11 percent….

About six million people claim they want a job, even though they haven’t looked for one in the last four weeks. If they were to all start applying for work again, the unemployment rate would suddenly shoot up above 11%.

If you want a much more accurate picture of what is really happening to the employment situation in America, the key is to look at the employment to population ratio.  As I have written about previously, the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs is not increasing.

Let’s take a look at the employment to population ratio for the last six years for the month of March….

March 2007: 63.3%

March 2008: 62.7%

March 2009: 59.9%

March 2010: 58.5%

March 2011: 58.5%

March 2012: 58.5%

The percentage of the working age population that had jobs fell rapidly during the recession and it has stayed very low since then.

When Barack Obama tells you that “America is going back to work” he is lying to you.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that there are millions of hard working Americans that have been sitting at home for years hoping that a new job will come along.

Back in 2007, approximately 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for one year or longer.

Today, that figure is above 30 percent.

The average duration of unemployment in the United States today isabout three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

And according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the number of announced job cuts is actually rising again….

Also, announced jobs cuts rose 7.1% in April, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, to 40,599 — and up 11.2% from last April — another bit of evidence that the jobs market isn’t doing well.

Economic conditions in the United States have been steadily getting worse for quite a while, but that is not the only reason for our employment problems.

There are two other trends that I want to briefly mention.

1) A lot of jobs that used to be very labor intensive are now being replaced by technology.  Thanks to robotics, automation and computers, a lot of big companies simply do not need as many workers these days.  Those are jobs that are never going to come back.

2) As labor has become a global commodity, millions upon millions of U.S. jobs have been sent overseas.  Today, you are not just competing for a job with your neighbors.  You are also competing with workers on the other side of the globe.  Unfortunately, it is legal to pay slave labor wages in many of those countries.  By sending our jobs out of the country, big corporations can also avoid a whole host of rules, regulations, taxes and benefit payments that they would be facing if they hired American workers.

So U.S. workers are at a massive competitive disadvantage.  Why should a big corporation pay 10 or 20 times more for an American worker when they can pad their profits by exploiting cheap foreign labor?

The sad truth is that the value that the marketplace puts on the labor of the average American worker is continually decreasing.

This is making it much more difficult to find a job and it is keeping wages down.

In the old days, pretty much any man that was a hard worker and that really wanted a good job could go out and get one.

But now all of that has changed.  Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

And sadly, the vast majority of the jobs that are being lost are good jobs.  As I wrote about the other day, 95 percent of the jobs lost during the recession were middle class jobs.

So how are middle class families making it these days?

Many of them are going into tremendous amounts of debt.  As a recent CNN article detailed, the average debt load being carried by those of us in the bottom 95 percent of all income earners has risen dramatically over the past several decades….

In 1983, the bottom 95% had 62 cents of debt for every dollar they earned, according to research by two International Monetary Fund economists. But by 2007, the ratio had soared to $1.48 of debt for every $1 in earnings.

Unfortunately, many American families are absolutely maxed out at this point.  According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are currently paying their bills late.

If your goal is to live a middle class lifestyle, you need to realize that the entire way that the game is being played is changing.

In the old days, you could start out with a company as a young person and stay with that company until you retired.  If you worked hard and you were loyal, there was a really good chance that the company would recognize that and be loyal to you too.

These days, most companies are absolutely heartless when it comes to their workers.  The good job that you have today could be gone tomorrow.  Workers are increasingly being viewed as “liabilities”, and there is a good chance that the moment you become “expendable” to your company you will be kicked out on the street.

That is one reason why I am encouraging people to consider starting their own businesses.  If you work for someone else, your security can be taken away from you at any moment.  But if you work for yourself, you aren’t going to get fired.

Unfortunately, tough economic times are coming and things are not going to be easy no matter what road you take.  It will be imperative to work harder than ever, to stay flexible, and to never, ever give up.

The Economic Collapse