Open email to Sen. Cruz (TX):
Dear Sen. Cruz,
I have read your newsletter September 19 and congratulate you on two points
You want to strip Americans who join ISIS of their US citizenship. The background on this is Title 8 › Chapter 12 › Subchapter III › Part III › § 1481, which says, "(a) A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or naturalization, shall lose his nationality by voluntarily performing any of the following acts with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality if entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state, if such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States".
The major catch here is that the offender must have intention of relinquishing his United States nationality, which is difficult to prove. Obviously, the law needs improvement. We need to specify that the mere action of operating in any foreign or domestic organization which has a stated intention or completed actions to harm the US shall lose his citizenship.
You also said that you could not vote for the Continuing Resolution, which funds Obama’s Amnesty, Obamacare, and military operations in Syria not authorized by Congress. Other than my hearty congratulations for your position, my only other comment is that you have a single vote, and you must in some manner convince a majority of the Senators to follow your lead. The question is basically whether Obama or Congress is running the country.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
ISIS and Syria
Open Email to House Speaker Boehner:
Dear Speaker Boehner,
According to the Washington Times, the House voted 273-156 Wednesday to back President Obama’s request for permission to train and money to arm the more reliable forces among Syrian rebels, giving the first congressional approval to the White House’s still-developing war plans.
What are we doing?
Syria has been engaged in a civil war for a couple of years; President Assad against the rebels. We don't like President Assad. He has been known to kill people who want to overthrow his government. He does not operate as a democracy. Does this give us some reason to overthrow him? Are we still in the process of nationbuilding?
Let's be more pragmatic.
Before the present Civil War, which was likely fostered by the US, Syria was a stable country for a great many years. We had no justification to upset it. It was as close to peace in the Middle East as one could hope to get. But, Pres. Assad now has two problems; he still has the rebels to contend with and now has ISIS, which is also his enemy.
It has been said that ISIS is a threat to the United States and must be defeated. Pres. Assad also wants to defeat ISIS. In other words, ISIS is a common enemy to both Assad and the US. Does it make sense to you that we should be supplying money and materials to Syrian rebels in order to destroy Assad's regime and leave us holding the bag of fighting ISIS in Syria alone?
Some may say that I don't understand the situation; it is more complex. I doubt that. But even so, if true, and I can't understand it, who can? The Middle East is a Mulligan stew. Should we be supplying money and materials to segments of combatants when we really don't understand the situation?
It seems simple to me. If ISIS is a threat to the United States and Assad wants to combat it, we should be helping him; not trying to throw him out of power.
Dear Speaker Boehner,
According to the Washington Times, the House voted 273-156 Wednesday to back President Obama’s request for permission to train and money to arm the more reliable forces among Syrian rebels, giving the first congressional approval to the White House’s still-developing war plans.
What are we doing?
Syria has been engaged in a civil war for a couple of years; President Assad against the rebels. We don't like President Assad. He has been known to kill people who want to overthrow his government. He does not operate as a democracy. Does this give us some reason to overthrow him? Are we still in the process of nationbuilding?
Let's be more pragmatic.
Before the present Civil War, which was likely fostered by the US, Syria was a stable country for a great many years. We had no justification to upset it. It was as close to peace in the Middle East as one could hope to get. But, Pres. Assad now has two problems; he still has the rebels to contend with and now has ISIS, which is also his enemy.
It has been said that ISIS is a threat to the United States and must be defeated. Pres. Assad also wants to defeat ISIS. In other words, ISIS is a common enemy to both Assad and the US. Does it make sense to you that we should be supplying money and materials to Syrian rebels in order to destroy Assad's regime and leave us holding the bag of fighting ISIS in Syria alone?
Some may say that I don't understand the situation; it is more complex. I doubt that. But even so, if true, and I can't understand it, who can? The Middle East is a Mulligan stew. Should we be supplying money and materials to segments of combatants when we really don't understand the situation?
It seems simple to me. If ISIS is a threat to the United States and Assad wants to combat it, we should be helping him; not trying to throw him out of power.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Illegal Immigrants
There are an estimated 12.5 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. An illegal immigrant is a person who has bypassed US immigration laws by sneaking across the border, under border fences, or overstaying visas. Present US law requires that when located, illegal immigrants must be deported to their home countries. At the present rate of deportation, that means about 60,000 illegals will be deported in the next month and a half, before the November elections. While that sounds like a lot, it is estimated that any illegal immigrant has only a 1% chance of being deported during that period.
Pres. Obama has a stated long-term objective of creating amnesty for all 12.5 million illegal immigrants plus anymore that may come in the future. There are various possible reasons for the President to want to do this, but the most obvious one is to obtain from these presently illegal immigrants a stronger Democratic voting base. To create this amnesty, the President either has to change the law or take executive dictatorial action. It should be noted that "amnesty" means forgiveness for breaking a previous law. For example, if a murderer stands trial and is convicted and subsequently pardoned by the President, that is amnesty. In the same category if the President is ultimately satisfactory in his immigration program, all 12.5 billion illegal immigrants will be pardoned and have full rights as American citizens, including voting rights and economic benefits.
With that background, the question is asked why the president has recently decided not to use executive dictatorial action to postpone the deportations. The answer is longer-term politics.
In the forthcoming elections, Republicans will be concentrating strongly on obtaining control of the Senate, which is now under control of the Democrats. Any executive action on postponing deportations has been judged by the President as being a negative factor in reelecting Democrats to the Senate and thereby retaining control. In other words, he is making a short-term sacrifice on deportation over the next month and a half in order to improve Democratic chances of maintaining control of the Senate. Such control of the Senate is key to the development of his more comprehensive amnesty program.
Granting amnesty to murderers or illegal immigrants is wrong. These people are lawbreakers and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as it exists. The US has been a country based upon law and the prosecution of lawbreakers, with subsequent penalties of fine or jail. Over the term of Pres. Obama's Administration and with Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, this has been significantly weakened. It is up to the Republicans to try to swing this country back toward the constitutional republic on which it was founded. Pres. Obama is pushing to maintain Democratic control of the Senate. Republicans must push harder to be able to convert the Senate to a Republican majority. Pres. Obama will still be a Democratic Marxist president for the next two years, but with both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Republican hands, he will have a much more difficult time exercising executive dictatorial powers.
Pres. Obama has a stated long-term objective of creating amnesty for all 12.5 million illegal immigrants plus anymore that may come in the future. There are various possible reasons for the President to want to do this, but the most obvious one is to obtain from these presently illegal immigrants a stronger Democratic voting base. To create this amnesty, the President either has to change the law or take executive dictatorial action. It should be noted that "amnesty" means forgiveness for breaking a previous law. For example, if a murderer stands trial and is convicted and subsequently pardoned by the President, that is amnesty. In the same category if the President is ultimately satisfactory in his immigration program, all 12.5 billion illegal immigrants will be pardoned and have full rights as American citizens, including voting rights and economic benefits.
With that background, the question is asked why the president has recently decided not to use executive dictatorial action to postpone the deportations. The answer is longer-term politics.
In the forthcoming elections, Republicans will be concentrating strongly on obtaining control of the Senate, which is now under control of the Democrats. Any executive action on postponing deportations has been judged by the President as being a negative factor in reelecting Democrats to the Senate and thereby retaining control. In other words, he is making a short-term sacrifice on deportation over the next month and a half in order to improve Democratic chances of maintaining control of the Senate. Such control of the Senate is key to the development of his more comprehensive amnesty program.
Granting amnesty to murderers or illegal immigrants is wrong. These people are lawbreakers and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as it exists. The US has been a country based upon law and the prosecution of lawbreakers, with subsequent penalties of fine or jail. Over the term of Pres. Obama's Administration and with Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, this has been significantly weakened. It is up to the Republicans to try to swing this country back toward the constitutional republic on which it was founded. Pres. Obama is pushing to maintain Democratic control of the Senate. Republicans must push harder to be able to convert the Senate to a Republican majority. Pres. Obama will still be a Democratic Marxist president for the next two years, but with both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Republican hands, he will have a much more difficult time exercising executive dictatorial powers.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Senate Stopping Corporate R&D Credits
The Democratically controlled U.S. Senate is dragging its feet on renewing the Research and Development Tax Credit for US corporations.
In order to understand what this means to us, I need to give some explanation.
The US income tax code was originally intended to tax income of individuals in order to make funds available for operation of government. This was later expanded to tax also the income of corporations. Since corporations are also owned by individuals, that meant the US government would first be taxing the corporations, leaving less for dividends to the individual owners. Since the dividends to individuals are also taxed, we have double taxation.
You may have some shares of AT&T, IBM, Apple or other corporations that pay dividends, in which case this affects you directly. If you don't, you may say it doesn't make any difference to you. But, it does. It is highly likely that you have a 401(k) or some sort of pension fund, such as a teachers' pension fund. All of these funds hold stocks in corporations and receive dividends. When the government taxes the profits of corporations, dividends going to the pension funds are reduced, and you ultimately suffer.
In an apparent magnanimous spirit, the Congress some time ago passed a regulation, allowing corporations to take a tax credit on any expenses they had for Research and Development. This effectively reduced corporate income taxes making more money available to you as dividends. However, Congress had an ulterior motive, which was to spur corporate investment in research and development. This would then lead to new products for sale at higher prices allowing corporations to make a higher profit, which would then be taxed. It sounds like a reasonable idea, with government increasing tax revenues down the road. However, the current Democratic Senate is now questioning that idea. It wants the corporations to show higher profits now and pay higher taxes now.
If the Democratic Senate has its way, your corporate dividends will be reduced either directly or through your pension funds. In addition, corporate spending on research and development will be significantly reduced, with a high probability of reduced availability of new technology products to you. Examples of previous new technology products, which have been of benefit to you, are cell phones, various pharmaceuticals, and iPads.
It is also annoying that the federal government continues to spend your tax dollars for research and development through grants to university professors. Most of those grants are tied to political agendas, which have no bearing on the development of new technology products for public consumption.
This being the situation, what can we do about it? The answer is fairly obvious. Throw the Democrats out of the Senate in the forthcoming November elections. This will still leave big government, socialist Obama in power, with an ability to veto congressional legislation, but with enough votes, Pres. Obama's vetoes can be overridden.
In order to understand what this means to us, I need to give some explanation.
The US income tax code was originally intended to tax income of individuals in order to make funds available for operation of government. This was later expanded to tax also the income of corporations. Since corporations are also owned by individuals, that meant the US government would first be taxing the corporations, leaving less for dividends to the individual owners. Since the dividends to individuals are also taxed, we have double taxation.
You may have some shares of AT&T, IBM, Apple or other corporations that pay dividends, in which case this affects you directly. If you don't, you may say it doesn't make any difference to you. But, it does. It is highly likely that you have a 401(k) or some sort of pension fund, such as a teachers' pension fund. All of these funds hold stocks in corporations and receive dividends. When the government taxes the profits of corporations, dividends going to the pension funds are reduced, and you ultimately suffer.
In an apparent magnanimous spirit, the Congress some time ago passed a regulation, allowing corporations to take a tax credit on any expenses they had for Research and Development. This effectively reduced corporate income taxes making more money available to you as dividends. However, Congress had an ulterior motive, which was to spur corporate investment in research and development. This would then lead to new products for sale at higher prices allowing corporations to make a higher profit, which would then be taxed. It sounds like a reasonable idea, with government increasing tax revenues down the road. However, the current Democratic Senate is now questioning that idea. It wants the corporations to show higher profits now and pay higher taxes now.
If the Democratic Senate has its way, your corporate dividends will be reduced either directly or through your pension funds. In addition, corporate spending on research and development will be significantly reduced, with a high probability of reduced availability of new technology products to you. Examples of previous new technology products, which have been of benefit to you, are cell phones, various pharmaceuticals, and iPads.
It is also annoying that the federal government continues to spend your tax dollars for research and development through grants to university professors. Most of those grants are tied to political agendas, which have no bearing on the development of new technology products for public consumption.
This being the situation, what can we do about it? The answer is fairly obvious. Throw the Democrats out of the Senate in the forthcoming November elections. This will still leave big government, socialist Obama in power, with an ability to veto congressional legislation, but with enough votes, Pres. Obama's vetoes can be overridden.
Snowden's Documents Help Terrorists
Last year, Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) released a flood of documents to the news media concerning NSA's operations. He disclosed how the agency eavesdrops, including spying on Internet communications such as emails and on the Web’s ubiquitous social media. His main point was that an agency of the US government was violating the constitutional privacy rights of citizens. NSA first denied the charge, but later at least partially admitted to its truth, which could not be denied based upon Edward Snowden's document release
Edward Snowden was castigated and remains a fugitive from the "justice" of the US government. Meanwhile, the very large liberal section of the US populace continues to support NSA's incursion on US citizen privacy rights through rationalization that it is necessary to control terrorism.
The question now has specifically arisen as to whether terrorist organizations have used the released Snowden documents to more effectively operate as terrorists. The answer is obviously "yes". But, the question still remains as to whether the incidental release of helpful information to the enemy justifies the deprivation of constitutional privacy rights to US citizens. Liberals, who incidentally do not believe in constitutional rights, say that it does. Constitutional scholars say that it does not. In fact, the reading of the U.S. Constitution does not allow any exceptions to justify privacy rights deprivation.
The "man on the street" likely doesn't care. He is concerned with his job, if he has one, baseball, football, his next vacation, working on his boat and various family matters involving his children. Because of his lack of attention, the federal government invokes various restrictions piecemeal on his life. I call this the "salami effect", in which government continually cuts off thin slices of privacy rights, unnoticed by the public because the slices are so thin.
This then behooves those of us who are paying attention to try to protect ourselves from government and also to protect the uninitiated who are not paying attention. One could say that the uninitiated are justified to lose privacy rights because of their inattention, but that contradicts the unstated "brotherhood" clause in US citizenship. We need to protect our fellow citizens, even if they know no better. The extreme example is the protection of our children, who because they are children, are unable to judge for themselves. It is also the basis of why some men are drafted by government to fight in wars, while mothers and children are protected.
On balance, Edward Snowden did a great public service in releasing information showing the incursion of the federal government on the privacy rights of citizens. The fact that the enemy can also use a small portion of this information is not significant.
Edward Snowden was castigated and remains a fugitive from the "justice" of the US government. Meanwhile, the very large liberal section of the US populace continues to support NSA's incursion on US citizen privacy rights through rationalization that it is necessary to control terrorism.
The question now has specifically arisen as to whether terrorist organizations have used the released Snowden documents to more effectively operate as terrorists. The answer is obviously "yes". But, the question still remains as to whether the incidental release of helpful information to the enemy justifies the deprivation of constitutional privacy rights to US citizens. Liberals, who incidentally do not believe in constitutional rights, say that it does. Constitutional scholars say that it does not. In fact, the reading of the U.S. Constitution does not allow any exceptions to justify privacy rights deprivation.
The "man on the street" likely doesn't care. He is concerned with his job, if he has one, baseball, football, his next vacation, working on his boat and various family matters involving his children. Because of his lack of attention, the federal government invokes various restrictions piecemeal on his life. I call this the "salami effect", in which government continually cuts off thin slices of privacy rights, unnoticed by the public because the slices are so thin.
This then behooves those of us who are paying attention to try to protect ourselves from government and also to protect the uninitiated who are not paying attention. One could say that the uninitiated are justified to lose privacy rights because of their inattention, but that contradicts the unstated "brotherhood" clause in US citizenship. We need to protect our fellow citizens, even if they know no better. The extreme example is the protection of our children, who because they are children, are unable to judge for themselves. It is also the basis of why some men are drafted by government to fight in wars, while mothers and children are protected.
On balance, Edward Snowden did a great public service in releasing information showing the incursion of the federal government on the privacy rights of citizens. The fact that the enemy can also use a small portion of this information is not significant.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Illegal Immigrant Children Problems in Schools
The Washington Times says Illegal border children are taxing resources inside U.S. schools. Central American children may be surging across the southwest border, but their effect is felt in school districts across the country — and nowhere more than in Alexandria, Virginia, where federal authorities this year placed 205 in a city of fewer than 150,000 people. The children could increase the school-age population in the county by more than 1 percent, marking a significant influx of students likely to need intense help with English and other remedial education programs.
I suggested several times that they should shipped back to their parents in Central America as soon as they appeared. If this had been done, we wouldn't have the problem.
I suggested several times that they should shipped back to their parents in Central America as soon as they appeared. If this had been done, we wouldn't have the problem.
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