For this they canceled the Blue Angles and White House Tours and made you wait to fly

[4est_4est_Gump]

At the time of his premature death, the great provocateur Andrew Breitbart was more than a year into a grinding crusade to bring attention to a little-known class-action settlement called Pigford, which had begun with plausible accusations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had discriminated against a small number of black farmers, but which had spiraled into a billion-dollar, open-ended government kickback machine for untold thousands that showed no signs of letting up. The Pigford case represented everything Breitbart raged against in the American political order — large-scale cronyism, corrosive and cynical identity politics, unrepentant hypocrisy, and the predictable indifference of the mainstream media. A handful of conservative outlets reported on the story at the time — including NR — and a handful of liberal outlets dedicated only as much ink to these stories as it took to dismiss them. But in Breitbart’s lifetime, Pigford never cracked into “the conversation”; it never came to be seen as emblematic of a deeper corruption endemic in Big Government.

Perhaps that will now change with the publication, by no less an arbiter of “the conversation” than the New York Times, of a deeply reported 5,000-word piece on Pigford and its descendants that, if anything, reveals the truth to be worse than was previously thought.
Due to the pliability of the Clinton Justice Department and the dogged efforts of a few highly incentivized trial lawyers, the original Pigford settlement made $50,000 payments available to any African American who could merely claim to have been discriminated against by the federally deputized administrators of USDA bridge loans (loans designed to get farmers from the planting season to the harvesting season). And “claim” might even be too strong a word; since administrative records for the loan program were poor, the courts set the bar laughably low. To establish oneself as a farmer for the purposes of Pigford, it would all but do to establish that you had once bought a seed and passed within a country mile of a USDA office. And to establish that you were discriminated against there, it would all but do to affirm on a form that you found that experience less than satisfactory — and to have your second cousin affirm that you told him as much at the time.

Unsurprisingly, this cash bonanza spawned a cottage industry of mountebanks and small-time frauds, including a few who toured the churches of the rural South recruiting “farmers” to stake their claims in lieu of reparations. And the number of claims exploded. Some claimants were as young as four years old; others had their forms filled out by lawyers just to “keep the line moving.” There were many reports of duplicative, even identical forms written in the same hand. In some towns, the number of claimants exceeded the number of farms there operated — by individuals of any race. The Times quotes several USDA employees whose job was to process — and ultimately rubber-stamp — these claims. “You couldn’t have designed it worse if you had tried,” one says of the process. “You knew it was wrong,” says another, “but what could you do? Who is going to listen to you?” “Basically, it was a rip-off of the American taxpayers,” says a third.

But as the Times reports in great depth, instead of closing the spigot, in 2010 the Obama administration did not just acquiesce to, it spearheaded the expansion of, the Pigford con on the taxpayer’s dime, and saw to it that not just black Americans, but any woman, Hispanic, or Native American who could so much as gesture at discrimination had access to a billion-dollar pool of easy money.

It did this over the objections of career lawyers in the Justice Department. It did this by dubiously tapping a Justice Department fund reserved for court-ordered, not politically dispensed, payouts. And it did this, in most cases, under evidentiary standards even looser than the ones governing the original settlement.

Editors, NRO

I should have gotten mine while I could. I thought is was just for imported Americans...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

From: Why Read Old Books?

Most classical literature, let us admit it, is anti-democratic, moralistic in a reactionary sense, and deeply pessimistic — and therefore if not a corrective, at least a balance to today’s trajectory. Would you not wish to see in advance where zero-sum interest, $1 trillion deficits, 50 million on food stamps, $17 trillion in debt, and the quality of today’s BA degree all end up?

The world of fourth-century Athens is one of constant squabbling over a shrinking pie: “Don’t dare raid the free theater fund to build a warship. Pay me to vote. Give me a pension for my bad leg. The rich should pay their fair share. You didn’t build that. That’s my inheritance, not yours. Exile, confiscate, even kill those who have too much power of influence.” It is not that the Athenians cannot grow their economy as in the past, but that they despise those among them who think they still can.

The message reminds us that the health of the commonwealth hinges not on material resources, but always on the status of the collective mind. Usually the man who sees this — a Socrates in 399 BC, a Demosthenes in the shadow of Philip, even a shrill Isocrates — is branded a nut, ignored, or done away with.

In Roman times, the same “bread and circuses” themes arise. Let us be honest: to the ancient mind, the most dangerous thing is the empowered mob that wants to be lied to (vulgus vult decipi). Travel with Petronius to Croton, and you might as well be in Washington.

Examine today’s headlines: as I write this, the Pigford farming settlement is shown to have been simply a way to grant hundreds of millions of dollars of somebody else’s money to political constituencies on the idea of “fairness.” Reparations, not legitimacy or legality, is the issue. The number of disability insurance recipients has reached an all-time high. We may be living longer, with superb health care and fewer physically dangerous and exhaustive jobs, but apparently we are less able to work. The government is advertising in Spanish to encourage people to spot those in need in of food stamps — fifty million with EBT cards are too few. The attorney general of the United States swears that those who entered the United States illegally will be deprived of their “civil rights,” if not granted amnesty and eventually citizenship. So old, so boring, so ‘”we’ve seen this all before” and where all this leads — to the New World Order of Alexander, to the banquet at the House of Trimalchio, to the crumbling estates in North Africa where aging grandees hide behind gated estates terrified of what they helped to create.

Classical literature really does remind us that the problem is usually caused by doing the opposite, once we have arrived, of what we once did to get there. Our ancestors built Hetch Hetchy to give us drinking water, irrigated agriculture, flood control, and cheap electricity; once we enjoy all that, we have the luxury to scheme how to blow it all up.

In this regard, the Tsarnaev monsters were valuable symptoms of the present age, or perhaps pseudo-Romanized tribesmen right out of Caesar’s Gallic Wars: The endangered “refugees” freely revisiting the supposed deadly environment they escaped; the shop-lifting mother damning the country that took her in and cheaply resonating jihadist themes; the “domestic abuse” charge lodged against the “beautiful” boxer Tamerlan; the abject failure of the repeatedly warned FBI; the self-righteous Mirandizing to stop inquiry about other possible threats; the immediate liberal effort to blame the U.S. (e.g., as if the liberal Boston world of our first Native-American senator and up-from-the-bootstraps Secretary of State John Kerry must be an especially harsh, cruel society, where help is rarely afforded the needy and redneck prejudice is ubiquitous).

If there are 500 murders a year in gun-restricted Chicago, or Sandy Hook still takes place in idyllic gun-regulated Connecticut, or pampered “refugees” slaughter their most generous hosts in postmodern, tolerant Boston, there must be a message of some sort of enduring good and evil here.

Victor Davis Hanson
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/why-read-old-books/?singlepage=true

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Can One Iraq Vet Stop Obamacare?
DAVID CATRON
4.29.13

Matt Sissel may be health care’s Horatius at the Bridge.

In the lore of the ancient Romans, Horatius was a soldier who single-handedly fought off an invading army. The Etruscans had attacked in order to impose a despot on Rome and, by holding them back while his comrades destroyed the bridge that was the only practical route to the city, this single warrior saved the free republic. Obamacare is certainly the bridge via which the forces of despotism plan to “fundamentally transform” the United States, and a decorated Iraq veteran named Matt Sissel may be the Horatius who prevents them from crossing.

This 32-year-old artist, businessman, and holder of the Bronze Star is the plaintiff in Sissel v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which Sissel sees as “a battle for my liberty — my freedom to live out my life to the fullest.” This is the only remaining lawsuit that has any chance of bringing down the entire health care law. His lawsuit, which was filed in July of 2010, was put on hold during the run-up to last June’s Supreme Court decision to uphold most of Obamacare. Ironically, that controversial ruling gave his case a new lease on life.

In that ruling, the Majority held that the individual mandate was essentially a tax. This finding prompted the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which represents Sissel, to file a new constitutional cause of action based on the way the law was rammed through Congress. What we now know as Obamacare was initially cobbled together in the Senate, and that body of Congress is not permitted by the Constitution to write tax bills. Sissel and his PLF lawyers have therefore amended their complaint to say that the “reform” law violates the Origination Clause.

Many have by now forgotten the legislative skullduggery that the Democrats, who controlled both houses of Congress at the time, used to pass this monstrosity. The Senate took a bill that had been passed by the House of Representatives, the “Service Members Home Ownership Act of 2009,” and removed every syllable. Then, the bill’s verbiage was replaced with that of a health care bill written by Democrat Senator Max Baucus with a little help from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama’s creatures at the White House.

In other words, the health care law the President signed — a law filled with a myriad of new taxes — contains not a single word written in the only legislative body permitted by the Constitution to pass bills for raising revenue. This is one of the reasons the President and his HHS minions spent so much time denying the mandate was a tax, and it is why PLF’s amended complaint alleges “this purported tax is illegal… it was introduced in the Senate rather than the House, as required by the Constitution’s Origination Clause for new revenue-raising bills (Article I, Section 7).”

At present, Sissel v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is languishing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which is considering a motion to dismiss filed by the Obama Justice Department late last year. It’s a virtual certainty that any decision made by that court will be appealed. The primary PLF lawyer in the case says his organization is determined to take the Origination Clause question all the way to the top: “The Supreme Court wasn’t asked and didn’t address this question in the NFIB case.”

A variety of constitutional scholars have of course weighed in on the Sissel case. Last September Georgetown Professor Randy Barnett wrote, “If any act violates the Origination Clause, it would seem to be the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court has never approved the ‘strike-and-replace’ procedure the Congress employed here. This challenge might be a good opportunity to discover whether the Origination Clause is part of the ‘Lost Constitution,’ or whether it is still a part of the written Constitution that Congress must obey.”

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/04/29/can-one-iraq-vet-stop-obamacar

 

[mercury14]

Government-subsidized air shows are the exact thing libertarian AJ abhors. But he reserves the right to flip-flop on his ideology whenever he feels like it so here we are.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

But RON! They're OUR jets now!

 

[Busybody]

Government-subsidized air shows are the exact thing libertarian AJ abhors. But he reserves the right to flip-flop on his ideology whenever he feels like it so here we are.

that is NOT the point he is making

you know that

why do you pretend otherwise?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

that is NOT the point he is making

you know that

why do you pretend otherwise?

Because his main, and almost only response to everything, is to cry 'Hypocrite' and let slip the dogs of defamation...

 

[Busybody]

I know

You know

We all know

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Not to mention that fact that the Libertarian supports the military as a way of preserving his way of life while understanding that the social safety net is the Road to Serfdom...

The Angles are recruitment and community outreach, the kind of outreach that does not get us bombed by way of firm reply.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Government-subsidized air shows are the exact thing libertarian AJ abhors. But he reserves the right to flip-flop on his ideology whenever he feels like it so here we are.

Ideological inconsistency is a key component of AJ's glibertarianism, you can pick and choose your core beliefs and vary them on a daily basis, sometimes in the same thread.

 

[sufisaint]

Ideological inconsistency is a key component of AJ's glibertarianism, you can pick and choose your core beliefs and vary them on a daily basis, sometimes in the same thread.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

 

[RobDownSouth]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

When someone claims to be "100% invested in gold" on Monday and "100% invested in the stock market" on Tuesday it's a bit hard not to laugh.

 

[mercury14]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

Consistency doesn't matter then, AJ is just so great that he's misunderstood?

AJ also supports and decries federal health care subsidies at the same time (FSAs). And he thinks government can't create jobs but jobs will be lost if the Lima tank plant slows production. And Obama's 2% payroll tax holiday didn't do anything to help the economy but it's expiration hurt it.

AJ isn't misunderstood, rather he's perfectly viewed as a pure manipulator who constructs his own reality with far-right blogs and other people's opinions. He doesn't seek information, he seeks affirmation, freely denying reality to get there.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Can One Iraq Vet Stop Obamacare?
DAVID CATRON
4.29.13

Matt Sissel may be health care’s Horatius at the Bridge.


http://spectator.org/archives/2013/04/29/can-one-iraq-vet-stop-obamacar

Wrong again, Chief

Supreme Court rejects Sissel lawsuit