Senate Committee Approves Internet Censorship Bill

A bill granting President Obama authority to close down Internet Service Providers (ISPs), search engines, and web sites without any type of due process was approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in a voice vote this week. The bill now moves to the Senate floor for a vote.

Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins introduced the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act” after similar bills failed to pass in previous sessions, most recently the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. A matching bill is currently working it’s way through the House of Representatives. Unless American citizens organize opposition quickly, the bill could become law within a few weeks.

The act would give President Obama wide ranging powers over the Internet which he does not need and cannot possible know how to use wisely. This bill will grant him the ability to shut down all or part of the Internet and to effectively silence political critics on the only broadcast communications mechanism which is currently free from political control.

The act would grant the President the authority to force companies such as Internet Service Providers and search engines to limit service or disable connections at his command — without due process or any form of legal protection. The act gives the President the power to effectively shut down portions of the Internet for reasons that could very easily be politically inspired.

Gregory Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology criticized the bill as too loosely worded in its definition of which companies would be regulated and what they would be required to do in response to Presidential demands.

Wayne Crews, Vice President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explained “The way it seems to be worded, the bill could easily represent a threat to free speech.” Mr. Crews believes that the act will allow the White House to target whistle-blowing sites such as WikiLeaks.

The act would also create yet another federal bureaucracy, the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications — when the last thing the American economy needs is even more government overhead.

The states purposes of the act make no sense from a technical viewpoint. Each Internet company employs IT security professionals who are most knowledgeable and best prepared to make decisions regarding their own infrastructure. Politicians and bureaucrats will never be able to technical competence regarding the threats to our nations information infrastructure. Phil Bond, CEO of TechAmerica, warned “If the bill passes in its current form, it will turn the Department of Homeland Security into a significant regulatory agency. Regulations like these could seriously undermine the very innovation we need to stay ahead of the bad actors and prosper as a nation.”

The President will never be able to use this power for good purposes. He will, however, easily be able to use this power to silence critics and political opponents. Thomas Jefferson wrote “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion. Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” This bill would grant the President the power to reduce the enlightenment of the American people, which can only lead to tyranny and oppression.

America’s allies are equally unimpressed with the legislation. Bjorn Landfeldt of the University of Sydney explains the results of this legislation, “By doing this they would do the terrorists the biggest favour ever because they would terrorise the rest of the world”.

DJIA Plunges Below 10,000 in Perfect Storm

In it’s fourth losing session in a row, the DJIA plunged 268 points to 9870. The plunge started at the opening bell and deepened throughout the day.

The massive sell-off was due to a “perfect storm” caused by two separate reports from the Conference Board.

Chinese Demand Falling

The collapse started after the Conference Board, a private research firm, published revised statistics for it’s Chinese economic index for the month of April — two months in the past. The revised number dropped from 1.7% to just 0.3%. The revised numbers caused the Shanghai Composite to fall more than 4% and the DJIA to fall more than 2%.

This news hit commodity stocks the hardest, including mining and refining companies. Commodity prices themselves were also hit hard, including copper, oil, and even gold.

Consumer Confidence Falling

The second hit from the Conference Board was the release of new consumer confidence numbers. The Consumer Confidence Index plunged almost ten points from May’s 62.7 to 52.9 in the just-released June numbers. Economists, continuing their trend of unreasonable optimism, had predicted a rise to 62.8.

This news added consumer sensitive stocks such as retailers and automakers to the long list of casualties.

CitiBank Plunge

In addition, trading on CitiBank shares was automatically halted because the shares fell 17% below the opening price. Trading was allowed to resume a short time later.

CitiBank’s troubles are not directly connected to the fall in either Chinese or Consumer demand.

This drop appears to be part of a larger, though still nascent, bear market which should be expected to last for the next two to three years.

Governor Brewer Mocks Obama

I am pro-immigration.  I have lived among and worked with both legal and illegal immigrants. The people I have known from South of the border have been harder working and more honest than the average native-born American.  I believe that immigration made the United States the great nation that it is and I believe that immigration can still be a very positive influence on our nations economic health.

Nonetheless, I support the right and the responsibility of the government of Arizona to enforce our existing immigration laws.  The federal government has created a set of laws and refuses to enforce them.  This situation is embarrassingly silly and should be rectified.  I believe that the citizens of Arizona have a right to expect their governments to enforce the law — both their state government and their national government.

The national government is clearly failing in it’s task.  This hilarious video which Governor Brewer recently posted to YouTube highlights the absolute lack of competence and lack of interest which the Obama administration has displayed towards it’s most basic responsibilities.

Click to play and enjoy the show!

Mr. Obama – We Want Jobs; Not Welfare

President Obama criticized Congressional Republicans on Saturday for refusing to support yet another debt being loaded onto future generations of Americans. The President whined “If this obstruction continues, unemployed Americans will see their benefits stop. Teachers and firefighters will lose their jobs.”

Yes, Mr. President. That’s what happens when overwhelming bureaucracy and debt strangle an economy. Americans are unemployed because American businesses can no longer afford to employ them. Record numbers of Americans are unemployed and the unemployed are staying unemployed for record lengths of time. This will continue until the federal government stops hobbling the ability American businesses to compete globally.

Teachers and firefighters are going to be laid off because the people who were taxpayers under previous administrations are now unemployed. Without income, they do not pay income taxes and they do not buy houses and pay property taxes. This lessened demand has lowered the value of almost every home in America, which in turn lowers property tax revenue even further. When your mismanagement of the economy destroys the tax base, teachers and firefighters must pay the price along with their fellow Americans. Their status as government employees does not give them special rights to keep their jobs while less privileged Americans become unemployed.

Blaming Congressional Republicans for your inability to pass yet another “stimulus” bill is disingenuous. The Democratic Party controls the White House and both houses of Congress. If you can’t pass a bill under these conditions, you should resign for incompetence.

It is immoral to tax our grandchildren to pay for more “stimulus packages” which are nothing but thinly veiled attempts to hide the damage that your administration has done to our nations economy. Every child born in America today is born $42,310 in debt. These future generations are being enslaved in debt to pay for your mistakes as Commander in Chief.

Sarah Palin is Smokin'

In an appearance with Ron Paul on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano, stated “I think that we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts and if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society that are appropriate for laws enforcement to do and not concentrate on such a relatively speaking minimal problem that we have in the country.”

Ron Paul, of course, spoke of legalization from the correct moral standpoint. But we’re used to this from Ron Paul in ways that we are not used to this from Sarah Palin, the darling of the right-wing of the Republican Party.

Like most Americans, Sarah Palin has tried marijuana. It was legal to possess small amounts of marijuana in Alaska until just a few ago, and Palin has stated that she’s tried it but didn’t like it. Sarah’s a bit Type-A, it’s no wonder marijuana isn’t her recreational drug of choice. At least she had the guts to stand up for her choices. In 2006 she told the Anchorage Daily News “I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled.”

Here is the entire video of Judge Andrew grilling Sarah and Ron about a wide range of issues related to American liberty. It’s well worth watching.

NRA Sells Out the First Amendment

As an NRA life member, it is difficult for me to concede that characterizations of the NRA as incompetent and self-serving are charitable and that the reality may be much worse. The NRA operated for many years as a bulwark of American freedom, focusing mainly on protecting the Second Amendment from statist predation. Unfortunately, in addition to the NRA’s documented failures to protect and defend the Second Amendment, the NRA has now been co-opted by the radical left into a plot against the First Amendment.

The dishonestly named “DISCLOSE” act is an attempt by leftist to rebuild many of the same statutes which the United States Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in last years Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. In addition, the DISCLOSE act will directly prohibit a great deal of political speech that was legal even before the Supreme Court’s decision.

Prior to that decision, corporations and unions were free to speak about politicians, without specifically advocating their election or defeat, except for the thirty days immediately preceding a primary or the sixty days immediately preceding a general election. The DISCLOSE Act, however, defines thousands of both nonprofit and for-profit organizations as “government contractors” and prohibits them from mentioning a politician for a period starting ninety days before the primary and extending through the general election. In states with early primaries, this would put deny the First Amendment rights of many Americans for a full year before an election. In presidential elections, the blackout will start 120 days before the New Hampshire primary and extend through the general election.

This bill would be an incredible gift to incumbent officeholders by almost preventing discussion of their failures or of the merits of unknown candidates. In addition, this bill does not place any limits on the abilities of labor unions to campaign — limits which were in place before the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. In effect, the Democrats are crafting a law which limits free speech to their own supporters.

While attempting to push this bill through congress, the leftists discovered that they could not pass this bill due to opposition from moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats. The issue turned upon opposition to the bill from the NRA. The NRA supports many moderate Democrats and these congressmen were afraid to lose their NRA backing.

The leftists came up with a truly creative proposal. They changed the wording of the bill to exempt the NRA and other large organizations. In effect, the bill will now remove the freedom of speech only from the small and the weak. The change exempts “organizations which have qualified as having tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code for each of the 10 years prior to making a campaign-related disbursement, that had 500,000 or more dues-paying members in the prior calendar year, that had members in each of the 50 states, that received no more than 15 percent of their total funding from corporations or labor organizations, and that do not use any corporate or union money to pay for their campaign-related expenditures.” As John Stossel quipped “Apparently, only the small and new interest groups are a threat to democracy.”

This change was made specifically to exempt the NRA from the law. As a result, the NRA appears to have dropped it’s opposition to the law. This is unconscionable and I will never give another dollar to the NRA. The Bill of Rights has ten amendments and the First is no less important than the Second.

NRA Board Member Cleta Mitchell strongly criticized the deal in the Washington Post:

…the NRA has, sadly, affirmed the notion held by congressional Democrats (and some Republicans), liberal activists, the media establishment and, at least for now, a minority on the Supreme Court that First Amendment protections are subject to negotiation. The Second Amendment surely cannot be far behind.

After the Citizens United ruling, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre wrote “This is a defeat for arrogant elitists who wanted to carve out free speech as a privilege for themselves and deny it to the rest of us.” Apparently Wayne doesn’t worry about our free speech being protected — as long as his is. Gun Owners of America criticized this brazen self-serving cowardice, writing “Apparently it’s ok to ‘carve out’ a little free speech if you’re in the role of the ‘elitists.’ But the misguided NRA exemption will leave millions and millions of gun owners and sportsmen belonging to dozens of different organizations out in the cold.”