On Hannah Giles, ACORN, and the Fourth Amendment:
(A Dialogue)

This material was written in another publishing medium about five minutes ago. The positional adversary's words will be in dark green font.

So let me get this...everyone in here hates Acorn because they broke the law, but yet are supportive of Hannah even thought she too broke the law?

The colonists also "broke the law" when they threw tea into Boston Harbor. It was once "against the law" for someone to help black slaves become free because they were "property" of other people. Heck, into the twentieth century it was once "against the law" for a black person to drink from a "white drinking fountain." Something is not always moral or ethical simply because it is legal. Law should constitute justice but it is often perverted and used as a pre-text for inflicting evils upon others.

ACORN as an entity that operated in secrecy and yet received tax-payer money was just such a situation of the immoral and unethical who now try to hide behind the thin veneer of "the law." Hannah busted them and God bless her for it. As far as I am concerned, she deserves the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for this and James deserves "documentary filmmaker of the year."{1}

Acorn's lawsuit is based on the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, so I feel like that is a fairly just claim since I support the US Constitution

Well if you support the Constitution, how about making even an elementary attempt at properly applying it rather than inventing things out of whole cloth as typical "evolving constitution" style nonsense sorts are prone to do. The Fourth Amendment was promulgated as a safeguard of the rights of individuals to provide reasonable privacy from intrusion by the government. Giles and O'Keefe are private citizens and not the government so this suit should be thrown out as the joke that it is. The key word is "should."

I also do not know how she took on this big corrupt firm on her own, CNN published articles about Acorn employees being tried nearly a year before Hannah's "breaking" story.

For election fraud sure. The corruption of ACORN goes far beyond that though. And the msm had stories on ACORN that they spiked during the 2008 election season because they did not want to make the "ObaMessiah" look bad. Furthermore, the depth of ACORN's rotted nature was not touched on by any media source prior to Hannah's expose.

Note:

{1} For some expository musings that I wrote on the subject of ACORN and corruption, see this weblog posting from earlier in the year:

On ACORN and Corruption (circa October 1, 2009)

Excerpts From Literature/Writings:

[Prefatory Note: For some insights into why I chose the particular material below for posting under this heading when it technically does not belong here, please see this previous posting for details as well as my thoughts on the material below. -ISM]

At last I was granted permission to come to Washington and bring my friend Yellow Bull and our interpreter with me. I am glad I came. I have shaken hands with a good many friends, but there are some things I want to know which no one seems able to explain. I cannot understand how the Government sends a man out to fight us, as it did General Miles, and then breaks his word. Such a government has something wrong about it. I cannot understand why so many chiefs are allowed to talk so many different ways, and promise so many different things. I have seen the Great Father Chief [President Hayes]; the Next Great Chief [Secretary of the Interior]; the Commissioner Chief; the Law Chief; and many other law chiefs [Congressmen] and they all say they are my friends, and that I shall have justice, but while all their mouths talk right I do not understand why nothing is done for my people. I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father's grave. They do not pay for my horses and cattle. Good words do not give me back my children. Good words will not make good the promise of your war chief, General Miles. Good words will not give my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk. Too many misinterpretations have been made; too many misunderstandings have come up between the white men and the Indians. If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect all rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the Great White Chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

I only ask of the Government to be treated as all other men are treated. If I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home in a country where my people will not die so fast. I would like to go to Bitter Root Valley. There my people would be happy; where they are now they are dying. Three have died since I left my camp to come to Washington.

When I think of our condition, my heart is heavy. I see men of my own race treated as outlaws and driven from country to country, or shot down like animals.

I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself -- and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike -- brothers of one father and mother, with one sky above us and one country around us and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers' hands upon the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race is waiting and praying. I hope no more groans of wounded men and women will ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all people may be one people.

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht has spoken for his people. [Chief Joseph: From a Speech Delivered in Washington DC (circa 1879)]

Miscellaneous Musings:

The category to which the next post of material is to be classified is one that is usually confined to selections strictly speaking that fit the title so given but as this is my blog, I can allow in special circumstances for some leeway and as this is my birthday today, I am going to allow even more leeway still. Technically, this does not fit the category of classification but I believe the speech to be quoted from here speaks to the heart of any person who is of goodwill who sees injustices being perpetrated.

Though I am a staunch advocate and defender of this great country of ours, I am at the same time aware of the line from America the Beautiful which goes "America, America, God mend thy every flaw." And one of the latter flaws was the way in which the nation treated the Indians they had conquered in wars. As a believer in fighting for what one believes in, I also believe that when battle ceases, an important part of ethics is keeping the words to which one promises themselves. And this area of keeping the promises one makes is one of the areas where America in its leaders insofar as the treatment of the Native American tribes did not live up to the ideals espoused in its founding.

In speaking on this issue I want to be clear that I am not speaking of those tribes which continued hostilities or otherwise sought to inflict damage on the settlers or people of various states or territories. No, I speak of tribes such as the Nez Perce and the warrior Chief Joseph who when the end of the road had come in their struggle against the United States surrendered in a most noble way and was made promises by this nation which its leaders did not keep. And bearing that failing in mind, the next post will contain excerpts from Chief Joseph in a speech he delivered two years after his surrender in Washington DC when he came to the capital to seek justice and recompense in areas to which he had been promised. The basic principles he outlines in that speech are timeless and applicable to people of all times and places; ergo it seems fitting to set them forth for our own contemplation which the next post to this humble weblog will endeavour to do.

wish time would stand still
on the morrow advancing
one year more I'll be
[Written on 10/20/08]

Lawyer Orly Taitz tries patience of federal court

Those who wonder why I give virtually no time at all to this subject{1}, the article above explains some of the reasons albeit indirectly.

Note

{1} These are the only two postings I am aware of on this subject prior to the present one (posted in order of oldest to most recently):

On How To Approach the Presidential Election Results of 2008 and Analyzing the Political Trends for 2008 and Beyond (circa December 9, 2008)

Clarifying A Previous Point (circa February 25, 2009)

Washington is Nuts (Tony Blankley)

Yes Tony, they are.

Don't blame Limbaugh for our faults (LZ Granderson)

This thread is a solid read overall and the general principles it outlines apply to all communities, not just the black community.

Senate Finance Committee

Back on October 6th, I went complete William Jennings Bryan "Cross of Gold" speech-like{1} on the switchboard operator of the Senate Finance Committee. She told me the Baucus bill was put online Friday and gave me the link above but I have to update my Java software to get the health care bill link to open correctly apparently. I want to point y'all to it and ask why (if what she says is true) did I have to learn this from calling them and not from the news -ANY news program. And posting it Friday night right before the weekend??? Tell me that was not their attempt to jam it through today hoping no one would find out about it!!!

Note:

{1} In terms of the passion in which I set forth my view on this matter via the telephone.

He Won But For What?

I am not one of those alarmists who see sinister machinations behind every news story or end times gibberish under every acorn but I am not gonna lie: when I saw this article and realized that I agreed with Jennifer Loven of all people on something, I thought I might be making out on the horizon the first of the four apocalypse horses ;-)

Sunday and Wednesday
Two milestones in my life
Different yet the same
[Written just now]

The Sunday in the above haiku refers to yesterday.

Liberals Lay Off Obama

For those who wonder who could be claiming in lieu of the fact that President Obama has done NOTHING that he is "doing a great job" or has "done something", here is an example from The Daily Beast. Try to not be drinking anything when you read it though.

And yes folks, being "on your way" to doing something is now considered actually doing something by this crowd. The 10,000 point Dow level is considered significant to these same people who did not blink when the Dow under President Bush topped 14,000 in late 2007.

Furthermore, he is actually claiming the stimulus has been "slowing the nation's descent", and considering it an accomplishment that "a universal health care bill’s passage through Senate Committee." Celebrating a bill making it out of committee??? Boy these folks do not realize how they wear their desperation on their sleeves.

Inflation and Deficits

Dr. Walter E. Williams explains the connection between inflation and deficits in the link above.

celebrate dear friend
for you only live one time
try to make it count
[Written on February 4, 2008]

On Obama, Government Run Health Care, and "Waterloo":
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

[Preface: This was originally drafted in late July, completed before the August congressional recess, and posted in a slightly different form to another publishing medium on September 1, 2009. -ISM]

There has been an analogy in the past month that has been growing rapidly to describe President Obama's health care proposal; namely, that the health care plan he and congress are attempting to shove through before the summer recess will be "Obama's Waterloo." To my knowledge, the first to specifically refer to the health care plan by this label was former Clinton Administration strategist Dick Morris in an article he wrote in June for his website which was published in a variety of outlets including The Hill and Human Events. I find it interesting that Morris' column was published a day before the historical event itself began.{1} Not long after that, we have Senator JimDeMint who presumably read Morris' column in June who last week had this to say about Obamacare:

“If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

Before readers think this is just the Republicans playing politics here, they need to consider what the term Waterloo means so a little history lesson is in order here. Though the French Revolution of 1789 (comparable to the American Revolution of 1776 only in a facile way{2}) followed the usual pattern of chaos, mob rule, and execution of "dissenters", the Corsican General Napoleon in the midst of the Rein of Terror and general chaos defeated the armies of coalition nations opposing France twice: once in 1793 and again in 1798. He later took over France itself in a coup in 1799.

Napoleon amassed powers and got rid of distant French projects that took a toll on the military and the treasury -the struggles with the Haitian revolution{3} and the First Rule of African Warfare{4} prompting him to sell off Louisiana to the United States in 1803 being a prevalent one in American eyes.{4} He then had himself crowned as Emperor in 1804. During the first decade of the nineteenth century and in keeping with the First Rule of French Warfare{5}, Napoleon was able to conquer continental Europe and installed in various countries family members and friends to "rule" them who were answerable to him.{6} In three subsequent attempts by coalitions of nations to defeat France in war on land, Napoleon was victorious. He had by 1811 extended the French Empire throughout continental Europe and even into Norway.

While it is true that Napoleon had had some setbacks in expanding power to the extent he wanted to{7} it was the 1812 Russia campaign which was a turning point in Napoleon's successes since his army was subjected to a Russian approach known as a "scorched earth" retreat which destroyed all the available food sources for the invading French forces. The end result was Napoleon was victorious on the rare occasions when he engaged the Russians but failed to get Czar Nicholas I to abdicate when he captured Moscow. Upon leaving his troops to go back to Paris, there were a variety of factors that broke down his remaining forces including starvation, demoralization, loss of supply horses and supplies, and a breakdown of his troop discipline. Throw in attacks from the Russians and loss of a few battles upon retreating{8} and the tide clearly had turned for Napoleon.

Napoleon was not finished yet however. When he returned to Paris, he had about one tenth of the number of troops he had when he had set off for Moscow. Various nations in seeing the vulnerability seized on his military's weakened condition to launch a sixth united offensive against him. But Napoleon was still able to inflict a series of defeats against his foes until a vastly superior force beat him at Leipzig in October of 1813 -one of the worst defeats of his career. He rebounded with a barrage of victories in the Six Days Campaign despite being outnumbered by opposing forces about 5:1 but was ultimately unable to stop the multi-national opposition forces from capturing Paris. Not long after, unable to count on his generals for support, Napoleon abdicated.

But Napoleon was not done yet and though exiled to Elba in 1814, he would escape the following year and regain his throne. However, this time with an army of 200,000 he decided to go on the offense against his foes and on June 18, 1815 met the British Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and the Prussian Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at Wellington. Here is how Wikipedia explained the event:

Napoleon's forces fought the allies, led by Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Wellington's army withstood repeated attacks by the French and drove them from the field while the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. The French army left the battlefield in disorder, which allowed Coalition forces to enter France and restore Louis XVIII to the French throne. Off the port of Rochefort, Charente -Maritime, after consideration of an escape to the United States, Napoleon formally demanded political asylum from the British Captain Frederick Maitland on HMS Bellerophon on 15 July 1815.

Historically, Waterloo was the final breaking point of Napoleon: a massive defeat that ended not only his rule of France but also his threat to again have power. He was exiled to St. Helena not long afterward and died there six years later.

How does this have relevance to the current situation??? Well, for one thing like Napoleon the president has sought to fight on a lot of fronts ala what happened with the invasion of Russia and this makes him vulnerable to a sustained assault on any major issue if conservatives and Republicans can stop jumping on every little red-herring side issue and focus fully on an issue like health care.{9} Second, the president is resorting to courting the radicals of his party's fringe and abandoning the moderate and more conservative Democrats who will have to face stiff challenges in next year's election which is the military equivalent of going up against opposition seriously outnumbered. Third, it is evident that there is chaos in the House and Senate in putting together and a public approval of the health-care plan at less than 50% and falling as I write this which mirrors the confusion Napoleon's troops had at Waterloo.

Now obviously all analogies fall short to some extent but when understood in the context of a rousing defeat so bad that the party suffering it never recovers from, the health care issue indeed could be the Waterloo of this president. Your host for one certainly interested in doing what he can to facilitate that occurrence because what is involved here is such an egregious violation of our God-given fundamental rights but enough on this matter for now. The real fight will take place when congress is in their districts for summer recess, at the town halls, and when they return from recess so recognizing the key physiological principle of intensity and duration{10} requires us to rest on this matter now and prepare to go at it full force for the fall battle ahead both on this matter and also on crap and tax cap and trade.

Notes:

{1} June 18, 1815.

{2} The American Revolution is the only revolution in history that resulted in a government that provided its citizens with more freedom instead of less. The French Revolution was standard for revolutions in that it resulted in creating anarchy which was followed by dictatorship.

{3} The Haitian Revolution started in 1791 during the French Revolution and continued until 1804.

{4} There were financial as well as tactical reasons for this on the part of Napoleon. On the American front though, it represented a doubling of territory. It also represented President Thomas Jefferson contradicting his previous "strict constructionist" reading -an unworkable method of approaching the Constitution that I have written on before and which I might add was not a view of the Constitution that was shared by most of the Founders including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin to name several notable figures. (As well as the James Madison of the pre-1790 and post-1815 period.) Therefore, in the interest of being consistent I view Ron Paul and his supporters and anyone else who think that if it is not explicitly in the Constitution something cannot be done should in the interest of being consistent campaign to return those territories to the French and declare the Louisiana Purchase as unconstitutional. Otherwise, there is no reason to take them seriously on their babblings about what is and is not supposedly "constitutional."

{4} First Rule of African Warfare: We can always beat the French. [LINK]

{5} First Rule of French Warfare: France's armies are victorious only when not led by a Frenchman. [LINK]

{6} One might even say these people represented Napoleon's "Czars" if they really want to parallel in the nations of nineteenth century Europe what President Obama has done with various parts of the American government and economy with his appointed "czars" who only answer to him.

{7} Including a tactical defeat at the Battle of Asbern-Essling in 1809 which was quickly avenged at the Battle of Wagram.

{8} Including the Battle of Krasnoi and the disaster that was the Battle of Berezina.

{9} Or as I noted in a post election analysis thread back in December when outlining how we can most efficaciously combat the majority party in the two years to come and beyond:

With an incoming Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of the Congress, a lot of issues are going to be pushed -many of them ones that we who did not vote for President Obama and the Democrats do not agree with. The problem is, if we run all over the map and oppose simply to be opposing, that will achieve nothing constructive. And furthermore, it is naive to think that everything they attempt to do we will be able to stop so that also needs to be taken into account. Basically, we need to decide in how we go about this first of all, what we will fight tooth and nail for: what are the issues which we absolutely must stand up and hold the line on without an iota of compromise. From there, the rest can be categorized into basically (i) things we want to try and force the Democrats on record supporting so we can make election issues on them in 2010, (ii) things of a less significant nature we actually think can be accomplished despite the Democrats having control of the government, (iii) things we need to put out there for the future which we know will not succeed in the soon-to-be present but nonetheless are points of reference for the future of a positive nature. In other words, we need to strategerize here and not play the same bullshit of those who opposed the outgoing Bush administration on everything and anything simply because they hated President Bush, thought he was Hitler, or whatever. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa December 11, 2008)]

{10} [Y]our host does not go all out with intense political focus all the time [because] it is physiologically not possible to operate at high intensity for duration; ergo the best way to approach geopolitical stuff is with short bursts of intensity in brief periods with a degree of infrequency. Other than that, focusing elsewhere or addressing these issues with greater frequency but much less duration is the approach to be taken. Notice I am not saying do nothing, only that it is imperative to avoid burnout physiologically to recognize that intensity and duration are two sides of the same coin and cannot be realized at one and the same time. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa November 7, 2006)]

The Agony of Obama's Defeat

When Politico is talking about "the agony of Obama's defeat", you know there is "big trouble in little China" on this matter folks!!!

The Olympics, Obama, and the Permanent Campaign

Jay Cost summarizes well a key reason why I am optimistic about the upcoming 09 governors races as well as the elections of '10 and '12.

Points to Ponder:

[T]hose who have comments boxes are capable of manipulating the content there to suit their own agenda including banning people who raise strong enough arguments against the "prevailing orthodoxy" at a given weblog. You would be surprised at how often those who laud their "willingness to interact with others" will put censors on their comments boxes that would make the monitors at Pravda in the days of the old Soviet Union blush and as we do not believe in unnecessary censorship, that means we would inexorably leave out there potentially a variety of assertions that our lack of time to respond to would give the unintended perception of being "unanswerable" by us. Those are the main reasons for our refusal to use comments boxes in a nutshell. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa December 1, 2008)]

Firestorm threatens to engulf Blanche Lincoln (Politico)

Senator Blanche Lincoln whatever else one wants to say about her was the only Democrat on Senator Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee to vote for Senator Jim Bunning's amendment which would have prevented the attempt to jam Baucus' proposals through without being seen or even read. Those of you who want to call and scream at the Democrats on that committee for being a bunch of unethical f##king cowards who preach "transparency" yet do the exact opposite (in classic 1984 fashion I might add), kindly spare Ms. Lincoln from your wrath. She (unlike the other twelve Democrats on that committee) did the right thing ethically and in principle and for this she deserves to be commended.

On Recent Funerals and Suspending My "No More Funerals" Stance of Recent Years:

I attended another funeral yesterday eleven days ago -my twenty-first in the last nine and a half years.{1} This was despite the fact that I decided to take a "no more funerals" approach to things after attending my Aunt Cecilia's funeral in the second part of 2006. At that point, I had attended twenty funerals in six and a half years and simply could not deal with it anymore. And that was not even all the family, friends, etc. who died in that span of time. But I had to suspend my stand for Jerry Dykstra, a good friend of my fathers and whose eldest son I played soccer with for six of the eight years I played in years past.{2}

I knew Jerry for nearly thirty years and was able to see him in the final weeks when he was getting to the point to where his cancer was becoming unbearable. But he always had a smile on his face, always was of good cheer, and continued to drink two rusty nails a night until recent months.{3} He was a good man and will be missed -most of all by his family of course and I told his sons if they wanted to talk about it to feel free to give me a call. No sooner did I get back than I heard from my mother that my Uncle Don passed away earlier that same day so if his funeral is in the Seattle area,{4} I will again suspend my "no more funerals" policy and go to that one.

I have known Uncle Don{5} literally all my life. I am sure he held me in his arms at least once when I was still in diapers: I note that to give an idea of how far back this connection goes. He was also a good and decent man. I had not seen either Uncle Don or his wife my Aunt Sheila{6} in probably three or four years -I think the last time was at their son Paul's wedding in 2004. But unlike in the case of Jerry of whom we knew was going to have less than a year,{7} Don's death came completely out of the blue unexpected. Jerry died three months shy of his seventy-first birthday, Don two months shy of his sixty-first birthday.

Prayers for both of them would be most appreciated.

Eternal rest grant unto their souls oh Lord and let thy Perpetual Light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. May the souls of Jerry Dykstra and Don Hellstrom along with the souls of all the faithfully departed, through the Mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

Notes:

{1} In that span of time, I lost thirty-five persons either close family, relatives, close friends, etc.

{2} I covered the subjects of funerals in general around that time and also on the subject of Aunt Ceil in another thread. Here they are for those who are interested:

On Prayer Requests (circa October 3, 2006)

More on Cecilia Flynn (circa October 5, 2006)

{3} Jerry and my father used to drink rusty nails together and after my father died, Jerry would drink two a night: one for him and one for my dad. That was his story anyway and he stuck to it until for health reasons he could not.

{4} It is most likely going to be in Wenatchee, Washington though.

[Update: It was held in East Wenatchee and I did not attend due to the distance. -ISM]

{5} Basically an honourific title: Don was married to Sheila my dad's adopted sister. (It was her mom Jenny whose death in March of 2000 started this long chain of passings but I digress.)

{6} I am sure my dad figured this out years back but when I was a teenager, I had a crush on my Aunt Sheila.

{7} And most likely he was slated to live for less than six months.

journalism died
last year to be reborn by
Giles and O'Keefe
[Written just now]