Amid new reports the White House made a political calculation to lie to the American people, President Obama is adding layers to the ObamaCare lies. Speaking to a group of supporters, the president claimed, “Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”
In full crisis mode, President Obama doubled-down on more ObamaCare lies to cover for his broken promise regarding his repeated statements that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, period. End of story.”
That is simply untrue, and a new Wall Street Journal report claims a debate between White House policy officials and the Obama political team ensued over the what is now the statement at the center of the president’s broken promise.
According to the WSJ, White House policy experts told the president and his political advisors that he could not make that statement without knowingly lying to the American people. However, in the middle of an embattled reelection effort, the policy advisors simply lost the argument, and the decision was made to lie about millions of Americans being able to keep their policies and doctors.
New studies coming out daily are getting closer to the estimates in our PPD study, and a new study by healthcare economist Christopher Conover at the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University, found that an estimated 129 million people could lose their previous health coverage due to a combination of factors including the cancellations of existing plans as well as changes and “improvements” to existing coverage that will be required under ObamaCare.
“Bottom line: of the 189 million Americans with private health insurance coverage, I estimate that if Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68 percent) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have lost or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014,” Conover said.
People’s Pundit Daily first reported after releasing our study that 145 million Americans would lose their health care plans, and Conover is the latest to release numbers that are getting closer to our figures. While Conover estimates “at least 129 million,” PPD stands by our figure, which we were actually hoping to be wrong.
The liberal elite members of the NYT editorial board are deeply unethical slaves. These “useful idiots,” who are poorly disguised as journalists, live in an elitist bubble that so-blurs reality it prevents them from noticing their own intellectual and physical bondage.
According to the editor Andy Rosenthal and Co., President Obama didn’t lie, he harmlessly misspoke when he said, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan, period.”
An opt-ed that ran in the NYT over the weekend claimed, “Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it.”
People’s Pundit Daily released a study and report over the weekend showing far more Americans will see their health insurance plans cancelled due to ObamaCare regulations than is currently being reported. Not only does the PPD study show the Obama administration — and campaign — knew that would be the case, but the ACA itself was designed for that to be the case, and HHS officials deliberately added further “Essential Health Benefit Standards” to decrease the amount of grandfather-eligible plans.
The NYT editorial board went on to say, “Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that. By law, insurers cannot continue to sell policies that don’t provide the minimum benefits and consumer protections required as of next year. So they’ve sent cancellation notices to hundreds of thousands of people who hold these substandard policies.”
First, according to the not-at-all conservative Associated Press, 3.5 million Americans have received cancellation notices thus far, not hundreds of thousands. Second, “Mr. Obama clearly misspoke,” they say? No, he lied, “period.” And ensured none of these regulations were front-loaded, repeatedly responding to the charges from Mitt Romney and other Republicans claiming this very endgame was a preconceived plan, with the true intention of using ObamaCare as a milestone to a deeply unpopular single-payer system. It sounded a lot like this.
Aside from the characterization “Mr. Obama clearly misspoke” being patently false, the NYT editorial board finally let out that which liberal elites are typically more disciplined to keep in the bag. In fact, not only is it that they think the filthy masses are stupid, alluding to the incompetence of Americans with words like “substandard,” but this time they shouted their disdain for the American people from the rooftops.
Andy Rosenthal and the NYT editorial board actually titled the op-ed, Insurance Polices Not Worth Keeping, or insurance you were too stupid to know was “substandard,” thus now they have deemed you incapable of making the choice on your own in the future. Take the case of Natalie Willis, for instance, who lost her policy and is now forced to purchase insurance that is more expensive. Well, of course it is, she will be paying the cost of coverage for men’s prostate exams, though she certainly won’t be needing that.
Notice how Gerry Kominski, who directs public health policy at UCLA, told CBS News, “About half of the 14 million people who buy insurance on their own are not going to be able to keep the policies that they had previously.” But it isn’t that bad, because “you’re paying more for a better product and more protection, and you won’t understand the value of that until you need it.” These comments, too, embody the liberal mindset.
In other words, you are too stupid to “understand” you don’t need coverage for men if you are a woman? That’s not “substandard,” that’s collectivism, and what they don’t want to tell you is that they think you should be forced to give up your choice, because you are too stupid to make the decision they think is the correct one. But the worst example of the condescending liberal mindset was Rick Unger on Hannity, talking with the same individual, Natalie Willis.
Listen to Rick Unger yelling, “you don’t know,” regarding her lifetime limit, which misses the point altogether. Where is the NYT editorial board who should be defending Natalie’s right to choose her own healthcare? They are hacks, and their defense of women’s rights is only pertinent when it suits the needs of the statists. There has been complete silence on this issue, because they are nowhere to be found for women when it actually matters.
I am inclined to think that the American people do not agree with Andy Rosenthal and the rest of the arrogant, elitist know-nothings at the NYT editorial board who share this disgraceful, dangerous mindset. So considering we all enjoy the God-given right to our opinion, for as long as the liberal elites do not proclaim certain opinions “substandard” anyway, I would encourage we all voice our opinion.
As such, everyday this week I will post pictures of the members of the editorial board along with their contact information, may it be Twitter or another venue, and Americans who have lost their health insurance plans — the plans they were promised by Mr. Obama they could keep — can let the elites over at the NYT know what their opinion of them is.
I can think of no better place to start than Mr. Andy Rosenthal — the head ‘dunce’ — who is responsible for this garbage even making it to print. Here are the links for Mr. Rosenthal on Twitter and Facebook, so let’s use our right to free speech before he and other elites outlaw them, because they deem “freedom” and “choice” to be “substandard” preferences.
Meet Mr. David Firestone, who is the Projects Editor and handles national politics pertaining to the White House and Congress on the NYT editorial board. Doesn’t he look smart? I bet he could help you navigate to a plan that is not “substandard” like the plan you previously had and loved, that is, before your insurer cancelled it due to the need to comply with the ludicrous, collectivist Essential Health Benefit Standards. Let’s send him a tweet and ask him on Twitter.
Apparently, People’s Pundit Daily has our “Daily Dunce” section backlogged, thanks to unethical liberalism and the NYT.
Ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi appeared before a court in Cairo on murder charges and immediately was defiant, rejecting its authority. He denounced the latest confrontation in the military’s attempt to consolidate power after deposing the Muslim Brotherhood and engaging in a bloody crackdown.
Appearing together with 14 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi refused to wear a prisoner’s uniform and when asked to state his name for the court issued a defiant response. Morsi declared, “I am Dr. Mohamed Morsi, the president of the republic. I am Egypt’s legitimate president. You have no right to conduct a trial into presidential matters.”
Further rejecting the court’s legitimacy, Morsi began demanding “coup” leaders be prosecuted. Morsi’s appearance marks the first time the ousted former president has been seen in public since being removed from power by the military on July 3.
Egyptian authorities have charged Morsi with “inciting his supporters to carry out premeditated murder, and inciting the use of violence and thuggery” in connection with the deaths of ten people in December, 2012. The trial will reconvene Jan. 8.
In Cairo on Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry urged Egypt’s generals to keep on track to restoring democracy in Egypt, but there was little indication that the United States is trying to distance itself from the country’s military government.
“There are questions we have here and there about one thing or another,” Kerry said in a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart. “I think it’s important for all of us, until proven otherwise, to accept that this is the track Egypt is on and to work to help it to be able to achieve that.”
According to State Department officials who spoke with the New York Times, while Kerry urged the Egyptian government not to carry out politically motivated arrests, he did not mention Morsi in his meetings with Egyptian officials, which included the ever-powerful Minister of Defense, General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi.
With millions of Americans having their health insurance plans canceled under the new law, more voters than ever oppose the ObamaCare regulations requiring every insurance plan to cover the exact same set of medical procedures.
Amid a failed rollout plagued with problems and millions of Americans losing their health insurance as a result of the law, 40 percent now oppose ObamaCare regulations, up from 33 percent in early October and the highest level measured to date, while 25 percent are undecided.
As far as the law itself, the new Rasmussen survey finds found 43 percent of likely voters now have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of ObamaCare, while 53 percent view it at least somewhat unfavorably. Adding to the credible of the spread, a Battleground survey of 1000 likely voters conducted by George Washington University found the identical 43 – 53 percent opposition to ObamaCare.
Of those 77 percent of likely voters who have been following the failed rollout of ObamaCare, 47 percent say they are less likely to favor the law, 42 percent say it made no difference, while just 9 percent say they are now more likely to favor the law.
The passion and intensity remains on the side of the opponents, as it did despite the small bump in favorable during and immediately following the shutdown. Though the law’s favorability ratings have never been above water, the new findings include 18 percent with a “Very Favorable” opinion of ObamaCare, while 42% have a “Very Unfavorable” one.
Unfavorables are now up from 48 percent just two weeks ago, while favorable reviews are down 3 percent. Rasmussen, who begin to trail off on the fringe on health care polling, found that positive favorables of the health care law have fluctuated from a low of 39 percent to a high of 47 percent in Rasmussen’s regular weekly tracking throughout the year.
On the other hand, unfavorable ratings have moved from 48 percent to 55 percent, but those with “Strongly Unfavorable” views have outnumbered those with “Strongly Favorable” views constantly, much of the time by as much as 2 to 1.
Interestingly, according to Rasmussen 36 percent of all voters believe the government should require every health insurance plan to cover the exact same set of procedures, showing no change from a month ago.But many millions of Americans have yet to receive their cancellation notices, and according our PPD study, upwards of 140+ million will receive such a notice by the end of 2014.
The Heritage Foundation released a conservative alternative to ObamaCare last week based on choice, and 78 percent believe individuals should have the right to choose between different types of health insurance plans, including some that cost more and cover differing procedures, which is the highest level of support for choice measured to date. Now, just 8 percent disagree, in line with the number of Americans who constantly identify as “liberal,” with 13 percent who say they are not sure.
Astonishingly, even more voters 84% think individuals should have the right to choose between different types of health insurance plans, including some with higher deductibles and lower premiums and others with lower deductibles and higher premiums. Only 6 percent of American voters don’t believe individuals should have that right to choose, while 10 percent are still undecided.
Other conservative alternative proposals enjoy broad support among American voters, with 73 percent of voters supporting the proposal allowing employers and individuals to buy health insurance across state lines. Republicans and other supporters of this proposal correctly argue that the increased competition will drive down prices to consumers, and just 12 percent disagree — again, in line with “liberal” identification — and think employers and individuals should only be allowed to buy plans approved for their state.
Another 15 percent are undecided on the issue of buying health insurance across state lines. Though support and opposition to ObamaCare hinges on party identification, when it comes to support for individual choice in purchasing health insurance plans, there is little partisan disagreement.
So far, younger Americans remain largely unaware of regulations compelling them to purchase insurance that they know little about, including cost, which may explain why voters over 40 remain much more likely than those who are younger to view ObamaCare unfavorably.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on November 1-2, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
WASHINGTON – South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham doubled-down on his threat to block all of Obama’s nominees for executive branch positions until Congress is given to those on the ground during the Benghazi terrorist attacks in September 11, 2012.
“I shouldn’t have to do this – to make these threats,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
Graham says the Obama administration has actively blocked access to the survivors of the Benghazi attack, and enough is enough. As far as accusations that he is going to far, Graham gave his answer plainly.
“I don’t think it’s over the top to find out what happened to four dead Americans,” he said. “I don’t think it’s over the top to talk to survivors. The State Department interviewed these survivors.”
In addition to Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Service officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in the attack.
Graham has been asking for the FBI’s transcripts of interviews with State Department and CIA survivors who were evacuated to Germany after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate, but has been unsuccessful.
In an Oct. 28 letter Graham, the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Julia Frifield, referred to “significant risks” and “serious concerns about having the survivors of the attack submit to additional interviews.”
Graham and other Republicans believe the transcripts will show the survivors told the FBI it was a terrorist attack and made no mention of a video or anti-U.S. demonstration at the consulate.
“So I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to Congress,” he said.
Graham also called on fellow lawmakers in Washington for help.
“The only way this will work is if my GOP colleagues get behind me and Democrats too and support my request to find out exactly what happened,” he said.
On Sunday, People’s Pundit Daily changed the rating for the Virginia governor race from “Leans Democrat” back to “Toss-Up,” because of polling momentum, enthusiasm, ObamaCare blowback, and support for the Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis, falling.
The latest survey from Quinnipiac University shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe holding on to a 6-point lead. The Libertarian Candidate Robert Sarvis, is again polling in the high single-digits with 8 percent. Ken Cuccinelli is enjoying a large 54 – 36 percent enthusiasm gap, and in a turnout election that can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
The Chief of the Virginia Board of Elections said turnout could be as low as 30 percent of registered voters, and both the Cuccinelli and McAuliffe campaigns expect no more than 40 percent turnout for the ceiling.
But will enthusiasm be enough for Ken Cuccinelli to pull off an upset? Let’s look at some numbers, keeping with the latest Quinnipiac University survey for simplicity.
Over the weekend, polling began to show GOP voters were coming home, mainly in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, which was no doubt suburban women voters just now paying attention to the ObamaCare debacle.
However, the latest polling shows that, once again, Cuccinelli is struggling “to unite the Republican base, and if today’s data holds true for another 24 hours, analysts may look back at his 85 percent of the GOP vote as his fatal flaw, while McAuliffe was getting 93 percent of the Democratic vote,” as assistant director at Quinnipiac Peter Brown, noted.
Worth noting, the Quinnipiac University poll puts black voters at 18 percent of the electorate, which is undeniably high, particularly during a midterm election. Still, Democrats have been extremely concerned black voters will not be enthusiastic about an elitist, white liberal whom they don’t connect with, which is why Barack Obama took the risk campaigning with McAuliffe on Sunday.
Many campaign operatives thought Obama might do more harm than good, but they need those black voters to come out, and the “scare black voters” strategy previously reported by Politico wasn’t working.
In the final days and hours of the campaign, his campaign will be joined by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, which is clearly to help him with those moderate base voters, while Ron Paul — the libertarian king-maker — is geared toward Sarvis voters and young turnout.
Among independents, Ken Cuccinelli has managed to tie it up at 40 percent, but losing grip of his GOP base voters has offset those gains. Because McAuliffe leads among women 50 – 36 percent, we can safely conclude that GOP women are the Republican’s biggest challenge.
Quinnipiac found 5 percent of likely voters remain undecided and 5 percent of those who say they are for a candidate report “there’s a good chance they will change their mind” by Election Day tomorrow, including a whole 1 in 4 who are among the 8 percent supporting Sarvis.
Statistically, that’s enough for Ken Cuccinelli if the political stars align, but he clearly has some challenges, and he must use the next 24 hours wisely. In a low turnout election, Ken Cuccinelli has an advantage not being identified by polling, because his enthusiasm gap has been consistent, widespread among pollsters, and statistically significant.
“If mainstream Virginians from both parties don’t turn out to vote,” McAuliffe said Sunday, “you’re letting the tea party decide Virginia’s future.”
Nevertheless, though McAuliffe clearly has an edge, because Ken Cuccinelli has a statistically significant history of polling worse than he performs on Election Day, the reality that polling may not have completely caught up to the ObamaCare blowback, and the fact that much of McAuliffe’s lead relies on black turnout (which Democrats are secretly very concerned about), the Virginia governor race is still a “Toss-Up.”
UPDATE: The final Quinnipiac University poll shows Ken Cuccinelli now trailing McAuliffe by 6 percent, which is a bump up for the Democratic candidate from his drop in support over the weekend. Interestingly, Robert Sarvis has lost further support, but it doesn’t seem to benefit Cuccinelli enough.
Also, independents are now evenly split between the two candidates 40 – 40 percent, which represents a double-digit increase for the Republican Ken Cuccinelli, yet Quinnipiac said some GOP voters who came home over the weekend have peeled away. It doesn’t seem Ken Cuccinelli can put together the right formula for the pollster, but that isn’t enough to change the rating.
Cuccinelli is enjoying a large 54 – 36 percent enthusiasm gap, which could be harmed by polling efforts and results, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Because Ken Cuccinelli has a history of polling significantly better than he performs, the race is still a “Toss-Up.”
EARLIER: Republican candidate for Virginia governor Ken Cuccinelli, has managed to erase Terry McAuliffe’s high single-digit to low-double digit lead in the final stretch of the campaign, polling shows. Outspent 10 – 1 by Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, with just about every big name Democrat to include President Obama stumping for their guy, Ken Cuccinelli urged supporters to keep up the hard work.
“They have money — we have momentum,” he told a crowd more than 100 Virginians crammed to the tee inside of Mimi’s Restaurant in Short Pump. Ken Cuccinelli looked considerably more optimistic going into the final stretch, and according to the polls, he has a reason to be.
The latest polling shows Ken Cuccinelli pulling off a pretty remarkable hat-trick, considering Democrat Terry McAuliffe has collected $34.4 million, compared with Mr. Cuccinelli’s $19.7 million, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. “You all are in one of the swing counties — this is going to be one of those bellwethers,” said the candidate. “If we win Henrico, the odds are pretty darn good we win this race. I need you all to push that through for me.”
The issue of ObamaCare and the president’s broken promise has really resonated with voters in the final days, which Ken Cuccinelli hopes will bring him the momentum needed to pull off a victory. The message is a winner for supporter Jan Hansen, who is a 73-year-old retired businessman who lives near the Short Pump area.
“I’m afraid of what’s going on with the country with Obamacare,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s going to destroy the country we know today. I really think that we need to make sure that at least in Virginia, we stop it.”
Today, Ken Cuccinelli made the rounds, traveling from the Shenandoah Valley to Southside to Southwest Virginia, ending up in Harrisonburg, Martinsville, Lynchburg, Roanoke and Abingdon. Ann Beauchamp said she is angry that “so many of his detractors believe he is going to take away women’s issues — he does have five daughters.”
Beauchamp, who calls herself a “pro-choice Republican,” is a 56-year-old Goochland County mother of three and the exact kind of moderate Republican woman voter the McAuliffe campaign tried to appeal to in the earlier stages of campaign. Beauchamp said that she is supporting Ken Cuccinelli now, because “I think he’s a really ethical, honest person who will deliver on what he says. I like that he’s for small government and personal liberties.”
Still slightly ahead, Terry McAuliffe has broken out the big guns in the finals days of the campaign, tapping his political favors keg in hopes he will hold on to a small lead. The Washington Post, who has been favorable if not complacent to his campaign, described the McAuliffe strategy. “In the years since [the failed run in the 2009 Democratic primary], he has applied his famously effective scratch-my-back skills to the state’s Democratic hierarchy, which rewarded him by preventing a primary challenge this year,” they wrote.
Campaigns always give away how well they feel they are doing, and when President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joins the Democratic candidate, rest assure they aren’t too comfortable with the tightening of the polls. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz joined McAuliffe later Sunday, and President Obama filled another Sunday slot. Vice President Joe Biden is slotted to campaign with McAuliffe Monday.
Ken Cuccinelli campaigned this past Saturday with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, while Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a libertarian favorite, are set to join him in the final days. The visit by Ron Paul, as well as visits from his son Senator Rand Paul, are clear indications they are making a serious effort to pull votes away from Libertarian Robert Sarvis.
The latest Emerson College poll showing McAuliffe’s lead evaporate down to 2 percent, also showed Sarvis polling at 13 percent, which could easily tilt the election to Ken Cuccinelli if they are successful. In the most recent Quinnipiac poll, which will release their final at 6:00 A.M, only 6 in 10 Sarvis voters say they will surely vote for him, but that notoriously translates into lost support.
“With the race this close, the final decision by the roughly one in 10 voters who are supporting Libertarian Robert Sarvis has become even more critical. Nationally, third-party candidates often lose support in the end as voters enter the voting booth and back someone they consider the lesser of two evils,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
According to the Hampton University poll, Sarvis supporters favor Cuccinelli as their “second choice” by a 2 to 1 margin. When asked, 43 percent of Sarvis supporters say they’d vote for Cuccinelli if Sarvis were not in the race, while 24 percent say they would vote for McAuliffe if Sarvis were not in the race, and 33 percent say they don’t know for whom they would vote.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is nothing short of a conservative hero, is helping Ken Cuccinelli turn out his base, while appealing to independents.
At a rally on Saturday, Walker said that Democrat Terry McAuliffe will be in the pocket of “big government union bosses” if he wins the Virginia governor’s race, which is pretty indisputable considering the I.O.U. report from the Washington Post. Walker said, “Do you want someone who is going to side with the big government labor unions,” he said at one of two stops ahead of Tuesday’s off-year election, “or do you want to someone who will stand with the taxpayers of the commonwealth?”
“State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is nipping at Terry McAuliffe’s heels as the race to be Virginia’s next governor enters the final week of the campaign,” said Brown. “It goes without saying that turnout is the key to this race and the harshly negative tone of the campaign is the kind that often turns off voters.”
The Chief of the Virginia Board of Elections said turnout could be as low as 30 percent of registered voters, and both the Cuccinelli and McAuliffe campaigns expect no more than 40 percent turnout for the ceiling. Given the momentum and the political fallout over ObamaCare, it is wholly possible the polling has yet to catch up to the actual votes on the ground.
That said, because of Ken Cuccinelli enjoying huge enthusiasm driven by anti-ObamaCare sentiment, polling momentum, and the fact Democrats are very worried that black voters won’t come out for a white liberal aristocrat, People’s Pundit Daily is changing the Virginia governor race rating from “Leans Democrat,” to “Toss-Up” (View PPD Governor Races And Ratings Map).
(Note: While I still see McAuliffe with a slight advantage, the race has shifted considerably, and it is foreseeable that advantage may be erased or even reversed before polling ever picks it up. Sarvis slipping will have a huge factor if it doesn’t get arrested, but this late in the game, it appears Virginia may do what they frequently do to third-party candidates, which is dump them in the last minute.)
My wife Cindy and I are busy, yet ecstatic that the Lord is moving on our behalf, and all things we are longing for in ministry are finally taking form, with help from the most unlikely sources stepping up.
In all of the struggles involved in launching a ministry, Cindy and I have experienced first hand God’s partnership with us. When it seemed like we were abandoned, God supplied a handful of precious gems (you know who you are). And He’s promised us a lot more, because He knows where our hearts lay. Even when the going was brutal and we wanted to quit, He wouldn’t let us. I thought to myself: why?
The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 13:14 (NKJV):
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
The phrase communion means “partnership and fellowship.” When we started our Bible Fellowship “Life Transformation,” and Together With Christ Church, we always emphasized the importance of genuine fellowship. Communion is not just reserved for the first Sunday of every month, but it is the motif that we live by everyday.
For the Christian, the partnership we have with the Holy Spirit is the way the Grace of God is shown to us in Jesus and the way God — our Heavenly Father — delivers love into our lives. They, the God-head, are three yet one for a true purpose, not simply because it sounds good!
It was our tight communion with the Holy Spirit that became a divine design. Once we accept Him into our hearts, the deal is sealed. The Holy Spirit — or, I prefer the term Holy Ghost — drives out doubt and disbelief, while we lean on our earthly God-head partner.
It is Him, the Holy Ghost, who gets very little credit for an awesome ministry that we get to experience on a daily basis. There are so many times He comes through for us over and over again, and we are quick to thank God or thank Jesus. Next time you thank them, include “Thank You Holy Ghost or Spirit,” too, because without His ministry established in your life, we would have no Deity to help us walk-out our faith on the earth. Amen!
Loving God and His people,
Pastor Steven and Pastor Cindy Pereira
P.S. Don’t forget to follow our Twitter account. See you Sunday!
Our Prayer For You
Heavenly Father we come to you in the name of Jesus. We want to take this moment to thank you for providing the Helper, the Teacher, the one who show us ALL THINGS, the one called alongside of us, our spiritual tour-guide, our partner, and the means in which we can have true fellowship with you by the Holy Spirit! I thank you for Him and the wonderful way He keeps us and guides us. He is as much a friend to us as You and Your Son, Jesus. Help us to recognize, trust and move in His leadings and guidance. The Holy Spirit and His ministry is truly one of the BEST GIFTS provided to man-kind, next to your Son Jesus. We recognize Him today and everyday! In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen!
Contrary to public opinion, I listen to Mark Levin on the radio every chance I get, though admittedly that hasn’t been very often as of late. The same is true for his followers who continue to bombard my inbox with anti-First Amendment comments, which are poorly disguised as valid criticisms. Rest assure, I’ve heard and read each and every remark from proponents of the liberty amendments.
That would include Mark Levin, himself, who claimed I was “hawking” my book by suggesting he overlooked a few major details. Even though he supposedly hopes I “sell a million copies,” which is comical considering he refused to refer to me or the book by name, it wasn’t my intention to “sell a million copies” when I criticized his work.
What is my intention? That answer is simple.
I intend to do everything possible to alert conservatives and all Americans to the true causes of America’s problems–not simply the symptoms–and provide solutions that will secure long-term freedom and prosperity. The problem with the liberty amendments is that none of them address the underlaying causes. They merely treat the symptoms, ensuring that government overreach will again plague Americans in the near future.
That of course is if–a very big if–conservatives were even successful at adopting and ratifying them. Take the father of our Constitution James Madison, who contended:
Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks [like the liberty amendments], no form of government [like a constitutional, representative republic in name only], can render us secure [free]. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
James Madison is making the distinction between structural checks, or legal restrictions on power, versus values or adherence to a moral code. Though not perfect, to better understand the point a comparable example can be made to gun control, for instance.
No matter how many gun control laws are passed by politicians who have zero understanding of the logic behind the Second Amendment, they will never curb gun violence because laws are but “a reflection of a society’s values”; a seal of approval you might say.
The same can be said for many of the other liberty amendments proposed by Mark Levin. Progressives, in the case of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, exploited envy spawned from economic disparity during the Gilded Age, which never would have been possible if not for the transformation of public education.
In a free society, citizens must retain a level of “rational awareness” to the very ideals that keep them free, or each passing generation will become incrementally more ignorant to those ideals, making them more susceptible to government’s false promises and drawing them closer to the dangers of despotism.
It is obvious from comments I’ve received that many conservatives are looking for a silver bullet solution, unwilling to put in the necessary effort over the long-term to reverse the damage done by patient, devilishly cunning progressives. Amendment proposals to move to popularly elected senators were all tabled in 1826, 1829, and again in 1855, because majorities of Americans still understood the vital purpose of state legislatures choosing representation in the Senate.
Sadly, that is no longer the case, precisely because progressive statists were willing to put in the long-term effort to change public education and rewrite history, leaving us with a small minority of Americans who are willing to surrender their senatorial vote for the good of the republic. They outsmarted us, plain and simple.
The same historical pattern holds for the Sixteenth Amendment, the modern statist-manufactured interpretation of a “separation of church and state,” the entitlement state, and so on. In each instance, as I’ve detailed, the law was the final phase in the Progressive Movement to reform the traditional American identity, which empowered earlier generations of Americans who found few areas in their lives where it was “necessary and proper” for government to even be involved.
Again, we must first come to the realization this is no longer true for many Americans. And while I recognize structural changes to the Constitution have better enabled progressives to concentrate power in and around the federal government — in fact, I pay great detail to that fact in my book — I am more concerned with the root cause, or why Americans now need such a level of government involvement in their lives.
What are the characteristics and values that make the traditional American identity so empowering, rendering government “unnecessary and improper” to earlier generations of Americans? Where did they come from, or their ideological origins? What negative impact has the progressive assault on these traditional values had our communities and our greater society? And, perhaps most imperative, how do we re-instill these values and secure them for future generations?
Madison would have called the liberty amendments “a chimerical idea,” and by definition, they are. Chimerical means “created by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination,” a “highly improbable” idea “given to unrealistic fantasies.”
It isn’t that I am being a “hawk” when I suggest Our Virtuous Republic is a more comprehensive place to start on a very long journey back to empowerment, freedom and prosperity. It is being honest, because beneath the structural reforms to the law is a deeper problem of values, which must urgently be addressed before we tragically become “a people the Constitution was never designed to govern.”
The dire threat big government poses to Americans is its strong, innate ability to destroy human relationships. Unfortunately, we have seen this manifest in the dissolution of the traditional family due, the rise of the entitlement state and other progressive policies. However, while the law on its face may appear to have the ability to reign in such policy, it cannot repair damage to the human connection or re-instill values lost.
That is where conservatives must begin, because anything else, any “fantastical” notion of a silver bullet solution, “is a chimerical idea.”
WASHINGTON — This term the Supreme Court will rule on important subjects from racial preferences to restrictions on political speech, but its most momentous case, to be argued Tuesday, concerns the prosecution of a Pennsylvania woman who caused a chemical burn on a romantic rival’s thumb. The issue is: Can Congress’ powers, which supposedly are limited because they are enumerated, be indefinitely enlarged into a sweeping police power by the process of implementing a treaty?
Carol Bond, an immigrant from Barbados, who worked for a chemical manufacturer, is contesting a six-year prison sentence imposed because, when she discovered that her best friend was pregnant from an affair with Bond’s husband, she became distraught, perhaps deranged, and contaminated her friend’s car and mailbox with toxic chemicals. Federal prosecutors, who seem prone to excess, turned this local crime into a federal offense — a violation of legislation Congress passed to implement the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction.
Bond pleaded guilty to causing the thumb burn (which was treated by rinsing it with water) but retained the right to appeal on 10th Amendment grounds. That amendment, which the Supreme Court has called the “mirror image” of the Constitution’s enumerated powers structure, says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Two years ago, Bond argued in the Supreme Court that she had the right to object that her offense was not properly within federal jurisdiction. She won, the court ruling unanimously that an individual, not just a state, can raise 10th Amendment claims. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court that federalism does not merely set boundaries between governmental institutions for their own benefit, but also “protects the liberty of all persons within a state by ensuring that laws enacted in excess of delegated governmental power cannot direct or control their actions.”
Bond’s case was remanded to a lower court, which considered her argument that Congress cannot broaden its powers using legislation that implements a treaty. She lost there. But a judge, although concurring in the ruling against her, called her case “a troublesome example of the federal government’s appetite for criminal lawmaking” (the federal criminal code includes more than 4,450 crimes). He hoped the Supreme Court would “clarify (indeed curtail) the contours of federal power” to intrude on local matters.
Bond’s brief for Tuesday argues that the power to ratify treaties neither confers upon Congress a general police power nor guarantees the validity of implementing legislation: “The absence of a national police power is a critical element of the Constitution’s liberty-preserving federalism.”
The government says that only the prohibitions of the Constitution’s first eight amendments limit the government’s powers when implementing a treaty; otherwise, it is unfettered. Bond, however, has Alexander Hamilton on her side: In Federalist 84, he said that the entire Constitution, by its federal structure, “is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.”
As Kennedy wrote in an earlier case, it is mistaken to believe “that the only, or even the principal, constraints on the exercise of congressional power are the Constitution’s express prohibitions.” The Constitution’s “structural provisions” are not, Bond’s brief argues, “second-class citizens” among the document’s “liberty-protecting provisions.”
In a 1920 case, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose deference to Congress often was dereliction of the judicial duty to stymie legislative excesses, said that if a treaty is valid, what Congress does to implement it is “necessary and proper.” A paper by the libertarian Cato Institute responds:
“If Holmes was correct, the treaty power can be used to undo the carefully wrought edifice of a limited government assigned only certain enumerated powers. That those who drafted and ratified the Constitution intended to bury such a dormant time bomb in their handiwork is too much of a stretch to be seriously entertained.”
No one argues that Bond intended to kill with the bright orange chemical her victim easily detected. And the federal government did not intervene in the Bond case because her action threatened a distinctly federal interest. It intervened because it thought it could: Government’s will to power is an irresistible force until it meets an immoveable object — a court. Which is why our Constitution requires not judicial deference but active judicial engagement in defense of its liberty-protecting structure. And why the case of the mildly injured thumb matters so much.
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