Perhaps the biggest myth of liberalism revolves around their moral imperative to grow big government in order to protect the little guy from gilds. It’s all a bunch of garbage, and as the Kronies video below ingeniously and creatively depicts in a manner apparently enough easy for children to understand, the result of big government is an even stronger force working against the little guy.
I suppose it is more creative and an easier sell to make an action figure video, but I dedicated an entire section in my book to revisiting the Gilded Age in American history, and exposing the real result of reforms passed in the Progressive Era.
The Progressive Movement was not a working class movement in America, nor did any of the reforms benefit the common, working class American. It was an elitist movement couched in such rhetoric, but the reality was the purposeful establishment of an unprecedented crony system, in which competition and socio-economic upward mobility was greatly diminished in the American system.
We replaced an open and fair system with far less income inequality, with a closed and elitist system with far more income inequality. And we did it out of hate, envy and disdain for our fellow-citizens.
Why would they want to do that?
Simple. Because they get rich, too, and it makes the voting public more susceptible to the socialist-Democratic message, or income inequality in all it’s manifested Democratic Party forms. That’s the real reason they pushed both the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, and the real result has been far, far worse than the pre-Progressive Era American economic system.
Rather than having to compete with other citizens, now, instead, the aspiring working American must compete with wealthy fellow-citizens and their government crony friends.
Further, they have to compete in a market that is intentionally rigged against them, rigged by and for cronies and their big government progressive friends.
If you want to see more on this, you really should read Our Virtuous Republic: The Forgotten Clause in the American Social Contract. I am limited on the amount of data to back this up in a blog post, but I unequivocally prove it to be true. The relationship between virtue and liberty is proportional. That is, there is no substitute for virtue and civic obligation, particularly in the form of big government, for societies and individuals to meet their needs in a free society.
The Treasury Department is reportedly investigating Dennis Rodman for potentially violating the law by giving North Korean leader Kim Jong Un thousands of dollars in luxury gifts on his several trips to Pyongyang.
A U.S. official told The Daily Beast that Treasury officials are looking into whether the former Hall of Fame star violated a law that prohibits the importing of luxury goods into North Korea. The official said the State Department is involved in the investigation.
Rodman recently led a team of retired NBA players in a game in Pyongyang to celebrate Kim’s 31st birthday. The NBA star gave Kim several gifts worth more than $10,000, including an Italian suit, a fur coat, European crystal, and an English Mulberry handbag for Kim Jong Un’s wife, according to The Weekly Standard.
Rodman also appeared in a Twitter photo showing off several bottles of his recently launched “Bad Ass Vodka” for Kim Jong Un and his wife, DailyBeast.com reported. Alcoholic beverages are included in the federal government’s definition of “luxury goods.”
Rodman was the highest-profile American to meet Kim since Kim inherited power from father Kim Jong Il in 2011, and traveled to the oppressed state for the first time last February with the Harlem Globetrotters for a HBO series produced by New York-based VICE television.
The 52-year-old Rodman has been criticized for hanging out with a mass murder and tyrant, Kim Jong Un, without attempting to help facilitate the release of Kenneth Bae, an American missionary with health problems who is being held in North Korea on charges of “anti-state” crimes.
He organized a group of retired NBA players to travel to North Korea for that exhibition game. Rodman dedicated the contest to his “best friend” Kim, who along with his wife and other senior officials and their wives watched from a special seating area. The capacity crowd of about 14,000 at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium clapped loudly as Rodman sang a verse from the song.
In a recent interview with CNN, Rodman had a public meltdown before the game on CNN, defending his decision to travel to North Korea. View the video below:
Noah’s Ark, of course, was a large boat that saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood sent by God to purge the wicked.
But the typical depiction of a long vessel complete with bow and stern may have been round, or there may have been another ark.
A recently deciphered 4,000-year old clay tablet dating back to ancient Mesopotamia, the birth-place of civilization that now resides in modern-day Iraq, reveals a similar story of the Old Testament Noah’s Ark. The clay tablet came complete with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle.
It is also gave key instruction that animals should enter “two by two,” just as the instructions were given by God to Noah.
The tablet went on display at the British Museum on Friday. Engineers will follow the ancient instructions to see whether the vessel could actually have sailed, just as they have done in the past with other Biblical vehicles, including other Ark descriptions,and the vehicle that took Enoch in to the heavens.
It’s also the subject of a new book, “The Ark Before Noah,” by Irving Finkel, the museum’s assistant keeper of the Middle East and the man who translated the tablet.
Finkel got the clay tablet a few years ago, after a man brought in a damaged tablet his father had acquired in the Middle East after World War II. It was light brown, about the size of a mobile phone and covered in the cuneiform script used in ancient Mesopotamians.
It turned out, Finkel said Friday, to be “one of the most important human documents ever discovered.”
“It was really a heart-stopping moment — the discovery that the boat was to be a round boat,” said Finkel. “That was a real surprise.”
A round boat makes sense, according to Finkel, because coracles were widely used as river taxis in ancient Iraq and are suitably designed to handle raging floodwaters.
Elizabeth Stone, an expert on the antiquities of ancient Mesopotamia at New York’s Stony Brook University, also agreed that it made sense ancient Mesopotamians would depict their ark as round.
“It’s a perfect thing,” Finkel said. “It never sinks, it’s light to carry.”
Other experts said Finkel wasn’t simply indulging in book-promotion hype. David Owen, professor of ancient Near Eastern studies at Cornell University, said the British Museum curator had made “an extraordinary discovery.”
“People are going to envision the boat however people envision boats where they are,” she said. “Coracles are not unusual things to have had in Mesopotamia.”
The tablet records a Mesopotamian God’s instructions for building a giant vessel, which is two-thirds the size of a soccer field in area, made of rope, strengthened by wooden ribs and coated in bitumen.
Finkel said that on paper (or stone) the boat-building orders appear sound, but he doesn’t yet know whether it would have floated. A television documentary due to be broadcast later this year will follow attempts to build the ark according to the ancient manual.
The flood story recurs in later Mesopotamian writings including the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” and nearly all of the ancient texts from around the world contain a strikingly similar version, as well. Vocal, or oral versions of the flood story lack the technical instructions — cut out, Finkel believes, because it wouldn’t have been conducive to storytelling.
“It would be like a Bond movie where instead of having this great sexy red car that comes on, somebody starts to tell you about how many horsepower it’s got and the pressure of the tires and the capacity of the boot (trunk),” he said. “No one cares about that. They want the car chase.”
Finkel is aware his discovery may cause consternation among believers in the Biblical story. After nineteenth century British Museum scholars first learned from cuneiform tablets that the Babylonians had a flood myth, they were disturbed by its striking similarities to the story of Noah.
“Already in 1872 people were writing about it in a worried way — What does it mean that Holy Writ appears on this piece of Weetabix?” he quipped, referring to a cereal similar in shape to the tablet.
“I’m sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention,” he said.
He doesn’t think the tablet provides evidence the ark described in the Bible existed. Finkel believes it’s more likely that a devastating real flood made its way into oral memory, which the Jews simply passed on.
“I don’t think the ark existed — but a lot of people do,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever.” He failed to address the mountain discovery of what is believed to be the actual ark in the Noah’s Ark story. Archeologists have not uncovered the massive boat buried beneath the mountain’s surface.
“The idea that floods are caused by sin is happily still alive among us,” he added, pointing out a local councilor in England who made headlines recently for saying Britain’s recent storms were caused by the legalization of gay marriage.
“Had I known it, it would have gone in the preface of the book,” Finkel said.
The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled a group of Catholic nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, will not have to comply with the contraception mandate in ObamaCare while their lawsuit plays out in court.
The high court ordered the Little Sisters of the Poor to inform the Department of Health and Human Services in writing that they will not comply with the requirement under the health care law. That requirement dictates that employers must offer contraceptive coverage.
After the group of nuns comply with the court’s ruling, the court says the injunction allowing them reprieve from the mandate will stand until the case is resolved.
The stay issued by Justice Sonia Sotomayor would last until a federal appeals court rules on the nuns’ appeal. A spokesman for the Little Sisters of the Poor said they “take this very seriously and are overwhelmed with joy” over the ruling.
The nuns argue in their lawsuit that the contraceptive coverage requirement violates their religious beliefs. To get around the mandate, they claim they’d have to sign a “permission slip” authorizing others to provide contraceptives and “abortion drugs” — or pay a fine.
Lawyers for the nuns argue that even signing the certification form would violate the nuns’ beliefs.
Wall Street took a beating Friday as traders fled from stocks fueled by anxiety over a blooming emerging market crisis currencies.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 318 points, or down 2 percent to 15879. The S&P 500 plummeted 38.2 points, or down 2.1 percent to 1791, and the Nasdaq Composite tanked 90.7 points, or down 2.2 percent to 4128.
For the week, the Dow fell 3.5 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 2.6 percent and the Nasdaq lost 1.7 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its worst week on a percent basis since November of 2011, while the S&P 500 had its worst week since June of 2012.
Investors have been selling off more risky equity assetsand fleeing to safe havens like U.S Treasury bonds. The CBOE’s VIX skyrocketed to post nearly 30 percent. Wall Street’s fear gauge was up 48 percent for the week, which is the biggest climb since May of 2010.
On Friday, NYSE composite volume came in around 4.63 billion shares, or the heaviest volume seen by NYSE since December 20, 2013.
Foreign markets were the focus of attention Friday following news that Argentina moved to devalue its currency. The Argentine peso has tumbled 12.7 percent, which was the steepest devaluation in more than a decade, according to Nomura. The government is challenged with the task to control its foreign reserves and simultaneously attempting to boost its weak economy.
Other emerging-market currencies like the Turkish lira also took a beating.
Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners, said the same investors that trade U.S. stocks and Treasuries also engage in currency trading, which is why the U.S. markets are getting hit hard. When these investors rapidly change market positions abroad, they must also make changes to their holding in their U.S.-based portfolio.
“This is the only reason why Argentina matters,” he said, “that said, this will blow over soon.”
Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, noted that the market is reacting to the hidden realities of the Federal Reserve eases its vast asset-purchase program — dubbed QE3. Underlaying economic challenges, which have otherwise been ignored by the markets and media, will unveil realities previously ignored. Or, what has been ” brewing will bubble to the surface.”
“This is contagion from the Fed and the possibility of no more QE. Who cares about Argentina, they’ve been a mess for many years,” he said. “QE covers up all the warts and blemishes and once it starts going away, they all come to the surface.”
On the corporate front, Microsoft (MSFT) posted quarterly profits that easily beat expectations after the closing bell on Thursday. Procter & Gamble (PG) posted a slight quarterly beat on the bottom line, and top-line results that matched Wall Street’s expectations.
In commodities, U.S. crude oil futures fell 25 cents, or down 0.26 percent to $97.07 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline fell 0.48 percent down to $2.649 a gallon. Gold, however, rose $7, or up 0.55 percent to $1,270 a troy ounce.
WARNING: The Real Wendy Davis Life Story contains adult language, resulting from direct quotes made by the individuals in the article. Reader discretion is advised!
Wendy Davis poses for a picture with the Castro brothers.
Following a “puff-piece” by Wayne Slater, a “rabid partisan Democratic hack,” as Ann Coulter correctly described him, the people of Texas have been trying to piece together the real Wendy Davis life story, sifting through half-truths and outright lies.
But the real Wendy Davis life story is more than a lie or a not-so unique politician’s exaggeration, but rather it is a Battleground Texas and Castro brothers’ creation. It’s a story about users — some driven by ideology, some by power and some by both — all scheming against each other and the people of Texas with the shared long-term goal of exploiting a permanent minority underclass, which they believe will ensure Texas turns and stays blue.
Unbeknownst to the public, the real Wendy Davis life story stars an exceedingly ambitious woman who, in her near-infinite arrogance, failed to comprehend that she was being used by forces far more powerful than her. Out of pure hubris, Davis convinced herself the result would, in the end, prove those forces grossly underestimated her.
However, Davis is less the star of her own story and more a pawn, because the specific motivations behind other, more seasoned political players have had more influence on Wendy Davis’ life story than the candidate, herself.
To be sure, the specific motivations behind each player can get a bit confusing, so let’s list their names, motivations and the connection they have to each other.
The Castro Brothers
For the Castro brothers — Mayor of San Antonio Juliane Castro and his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro — Wendy Davis is a small step they must take on a long journey they hope will ultimately deliver to them the power that comes from running the largest conservative state in the union. In 2012, lawyers and lobbyists made up the largest contributors to Joaquin Castro’s overwhelming victory, which will come into play a little later.
While the two enjoy hometown popularity driven by increases in Texas’ Hispanic population, both are well-aware of the rest of the state’s political leanings. That is, for now, they realistically understand that demographic changes, which they tirelessly work to ensure will continue to benefit them, will take more time.
A source close to the Castro brothers (that’s right, you guys have a leak) told PeoplesPunditDaily.com that they would describe the two as “ambitious, with patient overtones.” In fact, they never believed Wendy Davis had a prayer in Texas, which is why Julian decided against running for governor, himself. For now, the Castro brothers’ plan is not to try to win those “Anglo” voters, as they and others in the alliance soon to be discussed below refer to Texas’ white population, it is merely to make sure they don’t scare the hell out of them by alerting them to their extreme leftist positions.
In time, the Hispanic population, which they plan to turn into a monolithic voting bloc they liken to black voters for Obama in Virginia (we will hear more of this below), will grow enough that they won’t have to worry about those “Anglo” voters, anyway.
Battleground Texas
Most know that Battleground Texas is a project populated by Obamaites tasked with turning the state of Texas blue. But what most people don’t know, is that other groups such as Texas Democratic Trust and Progress Texas have been attempting to do the same thing. The difference between these other groups and Battleground Texas is money, along with Jeremy Bird, the techno-campaigning guru and national field director for Obama’s 2012 reelection.
Now would be a great time to introduce Ben Barnes, a wealthy liberal lobbyist who frequently hosts quid pro quo meetings of the highest and most distasteful order at his Nantucket home. But on Nov. 30, 2012, spotting an opportunity after Obama’s reelection, Barnes hosted a meeting with about a half-dozen donors at his lobbying firm. It was this meeting that spawned Battleground Texas, and when attendees would plant the seed that would grow into the Wendy Davis life story saga. The players included progressive activist Naomi Aberly, Austin realtor Kirk Rudy (part of the lobby that provided the second largest contribution totals to Jaoquin Castro), and Adrienne Donato, the Obama campaign’s chief Texas fund-raiser.
The Texas donors felt emboldened from Obama’s reelection and believed that Bird had the technological tools needed to change the political shade of Texas blue. Call it a bit of group think, but Bird, who had believed since 2008 that with enough money he could get the job done, left the meeting motivated to lay out his plan in more detail.
Five days after the initial Nov. 20 meeting at the lobbying offices of Ben Barnes, Bird pitched his new-age, technology-based attack plan for Battleground Texas to a large group of Texas donors, but apparently their excitement didn’t result in the much-needed seed money. So, where would they get the seed money for this theoretical, yet improbable operation?
Steve and Amber Mostyn
Enter big liberal donors Steven Mostyn and his wife, Amber — two Houston-based attorneys who got filthy rich on litigation exploiting the hurricane-induced suffering of Texans. In 2008, the Mostyns gave nearly $1 million to the Texas State Democratic Party for statewide races, while giving only $100,000 to the national party. The Mostyns were basically the last wealthy Texas-focused Democratic donors to still give money to the state party.
Big Democratic donors, in and out of Texas, have long redirected the bulk of their resources outside of the Texas State Democratic Party. For the Mostyns, that pivot began after they dumped $10 million into statewide races in 2010, including a ton of money to elect Houston mayor Bill White, who was running against Gov. Rick Perry in the gubernatorial race. “The early votes are in on Harris County,” he said to his wife Amber, who found him demoralized in his home office on election night at 7:45 PM. “We’re fucked.”
Mostyn characterized Texas as “an ATM for the national Democratic Party.” And though they gave $9.8 million in 2012 to Democrats nationwide, that’s pretty much how both Steve and Amber Mostyn felt regarding Democratic efforts in Texas. That is, until the morning of January 14, when Jeremy Bird and Adrienne Donato appeared at their home with an idea.
The Mostyns and their political adviser, Jeff Rotkoff, let Bird make his case for Battleground Texas, but Bird was requesting $250,000 in seed money. They were skeptical, to say the least, and the disconnect was two-fold.
The wealthy liberals wanted to know where they would find a candidate as charismatic as Obama, and didn’t want to hear lectures about expensive delayed gratification. With the promise of providing a more detailed list of expenses and itemized battle plans for Battleground Texas, Bird left only to come back with it all a mere 2 weeks later.
Bird got a seed money check from the Mostyns, which served as a green light to other weary donors, including Naomi Aberly, longtime state Democratic activist Aimee Boone, and Houston attorney Carrin Patman (also part of the lawyer/lobby the Castro brothers tap at will).
Battleground Texas and those who hope to capitalize from their efforts in the future — the Castro brothers — now desperately needed a candidate who would satisfy the Mostyns, someone they saw as viable and at the same time would meet their own goals.
“It’s about how we tell the narrative from the beginning, so that we’re not setting people up to think we’re going to win the Governor’s Mansion right away,” Jeremy Bird explained to a group he thought was filled with tight-lipped operatives. “It has to be realistic.”
“If one of the Castros doesn’t run, or there’s not someone else out there that we’re not thinking about right now, we’ve got a problem. I mean, we just can’t run Kinky Friedman again,” one operative said to Robert Draper, a Texas Monthly journalist recruited to tell a compelling Battleground Texas story to his state. Gone are the days of actual journalism.
He and other activists were concerned over the possibility the Mostyns could pull the plug on the whole thing. They, the Mostyns, did not share the strategy advocated by Bird and the Castro brothers, who felt laying the groundwork for future victories, including the running of unsuccessful candidates who would still convey the poll-tested message. Of course, the Castro brothers signed on to this strategy, so long as it didn’t have to be one of them to suffer a premature defeat.
And here is where state Senator Wendy Davis comes into her own story, because she was the patsy used to expand the appeal of the Democratic Party. No one, including Bird or the Castro brothers believed she could win. In fact, the only person who did think she stood half a chance in this circle of deception was, Wendy Davis.
Wendy Davis
Enter pink shoe-wearing, “Anglo” suburban single-mom, Wendy Davis.
“As long as the Democrats continue to buy into the same bullshit that some of the Republicans are saying—‘Oh no, it’s Texas, it’s hopeless’—and continue to act like it won’t happen for six, eight, twelve, sixteen years from now, that perpetuates the problem.” That was Wendy Davis speaking to Robert Draper one evening in late May over cocktails at the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin.
The meeting took place just one month before her June 25 filibuster, during which Draper asked, “So are you going to run for statewide office?” It was obvious “statewide” referred to the governorship, and Davis responded in a manner Draper characterized as “coyly,” stating, “One day, someday.”
The truth, is that Davis had already been approached by Battleground Texas and the Castro brothers. Bird took noticed to how Davis beat Kenneth Brimer Jr. in District 10 back in 2008 by 2.42 points. And the proven and tested “Anglo” candidate emerged, with little effort needed to convince the ambitious Davis.
Except, she wasn’t truly proven and tested, but they ran with the idea of her without doing their homework. On June 26, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro tweeted:
But that was a rehearsed tweet long in the making, complete with the appearance of forward-thinking words that were, in reality, conceived months before the “Draft Wendy” signs and slogans filled mainstream media coverage. The Castro brothers and Battleground Texas were involved in what was a pre-planned charade, an effort to galvanize an essential part of the Democratic base and begin to attract suburban white women to the Democratic Party.
“Are you kidding me,” the Castro source chuckled to us when asked about the possibility of the filibuster being staged. “Everyone was hoping the Virginia strategy could play out in Texas, too. You know, even if it is years from now, they are laying this all out now.”
Which brings us back to those pesky “Anglo” people. Matt Angle, the political strategist for Wendy Davis, told Robert Draper, “The hardest thing for Democrats in Texas to win is the Anglo vote.”
However, in their over-anxious state of mind, they failed to properly vet or corroborate the claims now being challenged from the obviously loose Wendy Davis life story. The Castro brothers, Bird and others at Battleground Texas overestimated their media protection, and despite the Wayne Slater piece on DallasNews.com attempting to help Davis get in front of the story, a less-than admirable picture is being painted of the real Wendy Davis and her real life story.
PeoplesPunditDaily.com recently reported on the temporary injunction granted against Wendy Davis, naming Jeff Davis the plaintiff.
In this Generation Texas video below, Wendy Davis hardly has a “need to be more focused on the detail.” In fact, she lays out in intricate detail the falsehoods of the created Wendy Davis life story . “After I graduated I got married and divorced, and by the time I was 19 I was a single parent and I was living in a mobile home in southeast Fort Worth, and I was destined to live the life that I watched my mother live,” Davis says in the video.
Unlike her mother, Wendy Davis gave up both of her children in her divorce to pursue her own ambition. According to her statements in the video, her mother has a sixth-grade education, except that was her grandmother. She repeated that claim when she met with Robert Draper of Texas Monthly magazine for barbecue in Austin just a few weeks before her filibuster, and also contradicted herself regarding the events that led up to her attending Tarrant County Junior College.
In the video, Wendy Davis claims a co-worker turned her on to the paralegal program, but she told Draper “by pure chance,” she just “happened to notice a brochure” a nurse had left behind. “I picked it up and started looking at it, and they had classes that you could take to become a paralegal. I thought that might be something I would have an aptitude for.”
Further, her family was neither working class nor was it a traditional broken family, because her father was present in her life and owned a luncheon and a dinner theater. In fact, it was at that dinner club, with daddy, where she pursued a man 14-years her senior, Jeff Davis — her second ex-husband — who was a frequent patron.
“I very willingly, as part of my divorce settlement, paid child support,” she praised of herself to DallasNews.com. However, the fact is that she was ordered to pay it, because she was an alleged adulterer. She only agreed to pay in order to avoid the judge labeling her one.
Battleground Texas, their donors and the Castro brothers didn’t even bother to look at all of these events or to view the video above. Perhaps, they just thought they would get away with it. A heavy emphasis regarding the Battleground Texas Democratic strategy was placed on messaging and laying the groundwork for future victories. Building the foundation of that blue base has, thus far, been built upon lies and Battleground Texas has been exposed as the deceptive organization they are by PeoplesPunditDaily.com, and now others.
Project Veritas, in the video below, has captured footage of Battleground Texas operatives mocking the disability of Greg Abbott, who is a paraplegic in a wheelchair.
Whether or not the campaign flop of Wendy Davis, as well as this information being exposed for all to see, will cause the Mostyns to run for cover is not certain. That would, however, almost certainly mean the end of or serious damage to Battleground Texas if they and other big donors did. Still, the one fact that is certain, is the fact the real Wendy Davis life story is both directly and indirectly a Battleground Texas creation.
Polling on Benghazi from two separate surveys show 6 in 10 voters blame Hillary Clinton, and a plurality say they believe it will hurt her in 2016.
Nearly as many voters — 59 percent — also blame President Obama for the attack on the Benghazi consulate, while a whole 49 percent believe they lied to protect Obama for his reelection, accruing to a new Fox poll.
A recent survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports found a plurality — 46 percent — say that the role Hillary Clinton played in the attack on Benghazi and the lie that followed will hurt her in 2016.
In the Fox poll, even among Democrats 4 in 10 blame Clinton (41 percent), and 38 percent blame Obama, while a whole 80 percent of Republicans blame both Clinton and the president equally. Among independents, over 6 in 10 think Clinton (62 percent) and Obama (64 percent) are at least somewhat responsible.
Since the attack, Americans have become more aware of the roles that both the president and the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played in the attack, but the subsequent lie about the video causing a spontaneous demonstration is souring among Americans.
In the polling on Benghazi conducted by Rasmussen Reports, only 28 percent rate the administration’s explanation of the events surrounding the murder of Ambassador Stevens and the others as good or excellent, which is down 9 points from a high of 37 percent in October.
Now, 45 percent give the administration poor marks for the Benghazi matter, the highest level of dissatisfaction measure by Rasmussen ever.
Texas state Democratic Senator Wendy Davis listens as the state Senate meets to consider legislation restricting late-term abortion in Austin, Texas, July 12, 2013. The Republican-controlled Texas Senate passed a bill to ban late-term abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, ending a political battle that stirred national debate over abortion in the United States. (REUTERS/Mike Stone)
Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who has been on the defensive since facts surrounding her life story emerged that conflicted with her claims, was apparently acting in a manner that the judge saw fit to grant a temporary injunction against her.
Until the final hearing, Wendy Davis was ordered to pay child support, was barred from the couple’s residence, barred from seeing their child Dru Davis, ordered to give up the Lexus, and basically stay away from her former husband Jeff Davis and their daughter.
It was also revealed today that Davis gave up custody of both of her children, reportedly to pursue her own ambitions.
The Wendy Davis restraining order was uncovered a day before PeoplesPunditDaily.com released a bombshell story on Texas state senator and gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis.
Read: “Exposed: The Real Wendy Davis Life Story Is A Battleground Texas Creation”
WASHINGTON — Disabusing the Republican Party of a cherished dogma, thereby requiring it to forgo a favorite rhetorical trope, will not win Clark M. Neily III the gratitude of conservatives who relish denouncing judicial activism. He, however, and his colleagues at the libertarian Institute for Justice believe America would be more just if judges were less deferential to legislatures.
In “Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government,” Neily says America is not “a fundamentally majoritarian nation in which the ability to impose one’s will on others through law is a sacred right that courts should take great pains not to impede.” America’s defining value is not majority rule but individual liberty.
Many judges, however, practicing what conservatives have unwisely celebrated as “judicial restraint,” have subordinated liberty to majority rule. Today, a perverse conservative populism panders to two dubious notions — that majorities should enjoy a largely untrammeled right to make rules for everyone, and that most things legislatures do reflect the will of a majority.
Conservatives’ advocacy of judicial restraint serves liberalism by leaving government’s growth unrestrained. This leaves people such as Sandy Meadows at the mercy of government acting as protector of the strong.
She was a Baton Rouge widow with little education and no resources but was skillful at creating flower arrangements, which a grocery store hired her to do. Then Louisiana’s Horticulture Commission pounced.
It threatened to close the store as punishment for hiring an unlicensed flower arranger. Meadows failed to get a license, which required a written test and the making of four flower arrangements in four hours, arrangements judged by licensed florists functioning as gatekeepers to their own profession, restricting the entry of competitors. Meadows, denied re-entry into the profession from which the government had expelled her, died in poverty, but Louisianans were protected by their government from the menace of unlicensed flower arrangers.
What Louisiana does, and all states do in conferring favors through regulations that violate individuals’ rights, is obviously unjust and would be declared unconstitutional if courts would do their duty. Their duty is to protect individual liberty, including the right to earn a living, against special-interest legislation. Instead, since judicial abdication became normal during the New Deal, courts almost invariably defer to legislatures’ economic regulations, which frequently are rent-seeking by private factions.
Courts justify dereliction of judicial duty as genuflection at the altar of majority rule, as long as the court can discern, or even imagine, a “rational basis” for any regulation — even if the legislature never articulated it. Never mind the absurdity of the fiction that a majority of Louisianans know about, let alone care about, licensing flower arrangers.
Conservatives clamoring for judicial restraint, meaning deference to legislatures, are waving a banner unfurled a century ago by progressives eager to emancipate government, freeing it to pursue whatever collective endeavors it fancies, sacrificing individual rights to a spurious majoritarian ethic.
The beginning of wisdom is recognizing the implications of this fact: Government is almost never disinterested. Today’s administrative state is a congeries of interests, each of which has a metabolic urge to enlarge its dominion and that of the private-sector faction with which it collaborates. As Neily says, “Much of modern constitutional law depends on denying — or at least ignoring — the realities of the political process.” Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals says of “rational basis” jurisprudence: “The judiciary justifies its reluctance to intervene by claiming incompetence — apparently, judges lack the acumen to recognize corruption, self-interest, or arbitrariness in the economic realm — or deferring to the majoritarian imperative,” which means “the absence of any check on the group interests that all too often control the democratic process.”
This process, Neily rightly insists, is not self-legitimizing, which is why judicial passivity is inconsistent with constitutional government. Between 1954 and 2002, the Supreme Court invalidated 103 of the 15,817 laws that Congress passed — 0.65 percent. It struck down about 0.5 percent of federal regulations and less than 0.05 percent of state laws. Neily says, “In light of history, experience, and common sense, it is implausible to suppose the federal government hits the constitutional strike zone 99.5 percent of the time.”
Neily argues that to say that judicial invalidations of legislative acts should be rare is no more sensible than saying NFL referees should rarely penalize players for holding. Conservatism’s task, politically hazardous but constitutionally essential, is to urge courts to throw as many flags as there are infractions.
Israeli internal security forces thwarted a jihad scheme to execute a bombing against the United States embassy in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s Convention Center.
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court cleared the publication that the Shin Bet, Israeli internal security agency, arrested three Palestinians, all are believed to have been recruited online as part of an Al Qaeda plot.
The three suspects have been identified as Iyad Khalid Abu Sara, Rubin Abu-Nagma — both in their twenties from the West Bank of Jerusalem, and Ala Anam, a resident of the Palestinian Authority in the city of Jenin in his thirties.
The Magistrates also revealed that the three were actively involved in planning at least two major terror attacks — a suicide attack and truck bombing.
Shin Bet, said the men were recruited by operative Arib al-Sham based in the Gaza Strip through the internet who worked for Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The very same Zawahiri who took over Al Qaeda after the United States took out Osama bin Laden in May of 2011.
Al Qaeda planned to send foreign militants to attack the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv using explosives supplied by the Palestinians. The Times of Israel reported there were other planned targets, including an Israeli bus and Israeli homes in East Jerusalem.
Shin Bet said that the Al Qaeda operatives planned to gain entry into Israel using Russian paperwork.
The Israeli security team stated that the thwarted plot is an indicator that the civil war in Syria has not only drawn terror operatives throughout the region it has enabled Al Qaeda along with similar organizations to put down roots.
The civil war gives these terrorists the ability to join forces with Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem that are willing to strike Israeli and Western targets.
Palestinian security officials are brushing of Israel’s claim that it broke up a plot, Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security services in the West Bank, says there is “no indication” that Al Qaeda has a presence in the territory.
He then downplayed the situation accusing Israel of arresting some “boys” and exaggerating the threat in order to advance their position in peace talks.
Israeli officials say they must retain a presence in parts of the West Bank after any peace deal due to real security concerns.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf briefed reporters, she did not confirm the Shin Bet’s report conveying that they were not able to corroborate said intelligence. She did tell reporters there were no plans to evacuate U.S Embassy in Tel Aviv because of the “fairly high security” that was already in place. She stated, “Obviously we’re looking into it as well, I don’t have reason to believe it’s not true. I just don’t have independent verification.”
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