The Unfettered Social Commentary of Publius Americanus

Has President Obama Been Derelict of Duty or is He Just a Deceiver?

publiusamericanus — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:40:43 +0000

Every American taxpayer is frustrated and angered by the recent events in the financial world concerning AIG’s bonus payments, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, this frustration and anger has been slightly misdirected. AIG, as a company, has done nothing illegal in this situation. They might have acted unethically or immorally, but illegally, absolutely not. In fact, they acted in accord with the Dodd Amendment (Division B, Title VII, section 7001, b, 3, D, iii, www.recovery.org), of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, where it says,

“The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009…”

Therefore, this company was only taking advantage of the opportunity that was created by this bill as constructed and passed by the U.S. Congress and the law as signed by President Obama. They were given a final date that they would be able to pull off paying out these enormous bonus payments, and they went for it. Senator Chris Dodd was inferring his permission to this company, who happens to be one of his biggest donors, by claiming that the Treasury Department was applying pressure to add the amendment. Of course, his admission of ownership of this amendment only came out after denying any knowledge of its author for two days. He even said that it was not in the bill when it left the floor of the Senate on its way to the Conference Committee, but unfortunately that is no excuse even if it is true, because after the Conference Committee the full House and Senate still have to vote on the bill. Therefore, Senator Dodd is still responsible for voting for it even if it got placed in the bill during the modifications of the Conference Committee.

For you conspiracy types, was it not rumored that Rahm Emanuel was in the Conference Committee meeting? This by the way would be such a conflict of interest when it comes to the whole separation of powers thing that our Framers carefully created. But what if that amendment was not in the bill that the Senate sent to the Conference Committee, and Senator Dodd is falling on his sword for somebody else?

The ultimate point here is not necessarily Senator Dodd’s involvement, though seedy indeed, but that of President Obama’s. President Obama has repeatedly said that he is disgusted with the continuation of these enormous bonus payments, and gets all holier than thou spewing his rhetoric about how this particular bill is the last time that these types of actions should take place. Dear Sir, that is a fine and noble sentiment to make, but unfortunately, it is completely disingenuous. And here is why.

There are only two possible options of President Obama’s involvement in this whole situation. One, he was truly shocked by the legality of AIG’s $165,000,000 (to $218,000,000 according to Connecticut’s Attorney General) bonus payouts because he was derelict of duty and did not read the bill that he signed (what the dollar amount is, no matter how incredibly small in respect to the whole amount of the stimulus package is irrelevant, because using that argument is diverting from the true and more important point about a representative government that is abusing its power, stealing the hard working American people’s taxes, in order to guard their true interests), and that is his first responsibility as America’s Chief Lawmaker. Bills do not become laws until he signs them, and it is his job to know what laws are being created by the stroke of his pen. If he did not know that amendment was in there then he was, in fact, not doing his job.

Or, two, he knew it was in there when he placed his signature on the document, because he did read it. Further, he might very well have known that it was in there because it was his Treasury Department that persuaded Senator Dodd to place it in the bill. That is, if we believe Senator Dodd’s second account of the situation. In either case, during this second option, he authorized this bill and signed it into law with full knowledge of its existence and potential problems in the financial world. So, his feigned disgust and deception of this embarrassing piece of legislation is quite unappealing of a sitting U.S. president.

Again, there are only two possibilities of President Obama’s involvement in this ridiculous situation. Either he was derelict in his duties, which is irreprehensible, when it comes to the gravity and responsibility of affecting every American life with the power of signing bills into law, or he is trying to deceive the American people by acting like he is surprised by the outcome. Which one would you rather it be? Neither of them is an action that I want my president to be taking, and frankly it is quite embarrassing, especially as a Civics teacher teaching my students about the lawmaking process, and how the system of checks and balances are supposed to protect our rights as citizens. On the other hand, this circumstance has given me great fodder for these particular lessons. What great timing?

Is that how the lawmaking process is supposed to work? It is frustrating to watch our representative government fall into the abyss of antiquity, never to return. I mean really are the decisions that were just made by our U.S. Congress and president ones that the mass majority of the American public would make regardless of political party? Those that are in power do what they want, without concern from the people. Senator Dodd is just the most recent and easily exploitable. The deception and inferred lack of concern of the American people is shameful. It’s too bad Thomas Jefferson is not still with us.

Further, if the Senate decides that they want to continue the House’s charade of casting that unconstitutional Bill of Attainder on those who legally took those bonuses (Article 1, section 9, clause 3), by placing a 90% tax on the bonuses, please continue. I will enjoy using the Supreme Court case that decides for the AIG employees as fodder for how judicial review is such a powerful tool to ensure justice in our democratic-republic, because it has grown painfully obvious how the legislative and executive branches do not seem to be making sure that justice is served.

Finally, perhaps the Socialist-leaning left just propagandized this whole situation, counting on the greed that underpins a capitalistic society, in order to make capitalism look worse than it would ever be without realistic, just, and legal regulations.

Barak Obama Can Single-Handedly Eliminate the Achievement Gap

publiusamericanus — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:01:27 +0000

According to professors Ray Friedman of Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, David M. Marx of San Diego State University, and Sei Jin Ko of Northwestern University (http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/news/releases/2009/01/21/the-obama-effect-test-taking-performance-gap-virtually-eliminated-during-key-moments-of-obamas-presidential-run.71208), Barak Obama is able to single-handedly eliminate the black and white achievement gap by being a positive “in-group role model” for the black population with what they call the “Obama Effect.”

The research study used 472 participants (388 white males and 84 black males – representing an accurate proportion in the overall population), and asked them questions taken from the Graduate Record Exam, which assesses reading comprehension, sentence completion ability, and analogy skills. The researchers administered the tests on four different occasions over a three month period of Obama’s campaign: two times when “Obama’s success was less prominent” (before Obama accepted his nomination and half-way between the convention and election day) and two times when “[Obama] garnered the most attention” (right after his nomination acceptance speech and after he won the election).

The results of this research study showed that during the times that Obama’s successes were “less prominent” the black and white achievement gap still existed, however during the times that Obama’s successes were more prominent the black and white achievement gap was “effectively eliminated.” Furthermore, the study also revealed that the achievement gap did not close for the black population that did not watch Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

This very short-lived news story is remarkable, and we should all applaud the fact that the much despised problem of the achievement gap that consumes our American education system has theoretically been solved. The only problem with the results from this study, and something that the researchers and news reports completely failed to recognize, is that the black population that makes up the achievement gap possess the ability in and of themselves to reduce it. They possess the ability to achieve at the equivalent level of their white brethren, but have now, thanks to these researchers, found a way to explain this achievement gap away. This study only evidences that the achievement gap exists based upon an excuse of the black population not having a positive “in-group role model.” The researchers praise their findings, but do not seem to recognize how these results reveal a very conflicted and contrasted population that can only succeed academically on the inspirational shoulders of someone else. The relevant question therefore is: if the black population is capable of closing the achievement gap while watching the first black president of the United States of America deliver a powerful speech or win a presidential election, why can they not do it on their own at any other time?

The Double Standard of the Left Side of Our Two-Party System

publiusamericanus — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:58:52 +0000

Please follow along on this short mental exercise…

It is November 4, 2008, and the republican Senator from Arizona John McCain just defeated the democratic Senator from Illinois Barack Obama for the office of the presidency of the United States of America. Then, over the course of the next two and a half months we come to find out that:

1. the governor of Arizona was attempting to leverage the appointment of the newly retired and powerful Senate seat for some type of financial gain, and that Senator John McCain’s chief of staff had conversations with the Arizona governor with suggestions to fill the seat,

2. the appointment for Secretary of Commerce had an ethical lapse that led him to withdraw his name from the process,

3. the appointment for Secretary of the Treasury, whose purview is the IRS, actually owes $35,000 in back taxes from the failure to pay two years worth of payroll taxes, of which he was informed, and did this consciously and knowingly, and

4. the nomination for the Secretary of State’s spouse founded and heads a global charitable organization where the appearance of impropriety is obvious due to the fact that other nations and NGO’s donate money to said charitable organization.

If this “created” story was in fact true, President-elect John McCain would have been chastised, persecuted, and prosecuted by the press, and would in fact have been impeached before he was inaugurated (I know that is not possible, but you get the point). This “created” story would have caused such an uproar and disruption to the political process, that America would have been faced with an incredibly tough decision.

Therefore, please help me understand how this very real story for President-elect Barack Obama gets dismissed as honest mistakes and oversights. The only logical answer is that there is a very real and overt double standard of the media and the political process in America that allows the left side of our two-party system to very hypocritically preach tolerance, all the while exhibiting actions that are the absolute polar opposite…intolerance.

Fair-weather Fans are Shameful and Deplorable

publiusamericanus — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:06:06 +0000

I am not the biggest fan of outgoing President George W. Bush. He attempted to change 219 years of American foreign policy precedent by pursuing preemptive war tactics, but I still considered him my president. Furthermore, I still considered myself a proud American. This noble idea is contrasted by the liberal left (exemplified by people like Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, and Steve Earle who claimed they were going to leave the country because of President George W. Bush’s plans and ideologies) who went out of their way to demonize a well-intentioned president who was faced with the greatest tragedy of our nation’s history: the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, not even eight months into his term.

President George W. Bush will probably go down as one of the worst five presidents our nation has ever had, even if Iraq turns into a democratic powerhouse in the theocratic Middle East, but he was still the American president, worthy of respect because he occupied the executive office. Unfortunately, he did not receive this respect, and the majority of Americans turned on America because of him.

Now, I have had CNN and FOX news on in the background for the most of the last two days (tomorrow being inauguration day), and now all of the sudden everybody is proud of being an American? Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill, Seal, Wil.I.Am, and Bono already have a new American anthem, which was performed on Oprah, and the new-found American pride is palpable. I keep hearing the words “energy” and “inspiration,” which is great, but lest ye forget, it was only months ago that you were not proud of being an American.

It is bad psychology to the rest of the world for the American people to pick and choose when they want to be an American. You that did not consider yourselves proud Americans, or Americans at all, during the course of the last eight years, and now all of the sudden because of the election of the “untouchable” and “unchallengeable” Messiah-elect Barack Obama are proud Americans again, are the worst type of fan…the shameful and deplorable fair-weather fan.

Barack Obama Channels Abraham Lincoln

publiusamericanus — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:40:58 +0000

I was aghast as I watched the proceedings in Washington D.C. today. Therefore I ask, am I the only person who saw the irony and contradiction as the opaque and deceptive President-elect Barack Obama stood in front of Honest Abe’s Lincoln Memorial to make his speech?

I am quite certain that Abraham Lincoln would be incredibly proud that America has finally elected an African-American as president, as am I, but I also am certain that he would want that African-American to follow the Rule of Law, not to mention the U.S. Constitution, and be a legitimate and proven “natural born citizen.” What would good old Honest Abe think?

The New American Dream

publiusamericanus — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:36:52 +0000

The fundamental principles underpinning the idea of the American Dream are very slowly and quite dramatically being altered. If I understand it correctly, the American Dream meant that if you worked hard, had good ethics and principles, were honest, and paid your taxes you could create something great here in the “land of immigrants.” You could even create circumstances that would make the life of your children that much better, and on and on it goes.

To create and support my argument, I would like to use the field of education and the teacher/student relationship as my primary source, although this truly exemplifies a much larger and more important relationship, that of the adult to the child. It was not that long ago when the student was the student, and the teacher was the teacher. A teacher had respect, and the students, for the most part, were there to learn. Education was a strongly valued part of the family and society, and the students/children were not catered to. They received an education that worked in concert with, supported, reinforced even the principles of the American Dream, and it was this type of paradigm that created the Greatest Generation, a society or culture that had integrity, character, and knew what personal responsibility was.

I do not feel the need to elaborate on the Gone with the Wind’s use of the word “damn” in 1939, or the CBS executives’ decision to shoot Elvis only from the waist up on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1957 (on his third and final appearance on the show), but the Greatest Generation was only some sixty years ago. How far have we come in such a short time?

I know what you are thinking at this point, “what a fuddy-dud,” but let me set the record straight. I am a 34 year old libertarian making a simple observation. I do not have any problem with the word “damn” or with Elvis the Pelvis, but come on. Have you turned on the television, looked at the magazine racks in the grocery stores, or gotten on the internet lately?

We have turned into such a selfish society, that we can only focus on our own selves and our worlds. The sense of a common society or common good that should be protected has long been lost. It is all about me, and the general welfare be damned! The point is that through this transformation process, the social progressive slide, we have become a nation that caters to youth, dumbs down its education to teach to the lowest common denominator, and watches its business leaders commit unspeakable ethical violations that have defrauded or put in jeopardy the financial well-being of hundreds of thousands of families on differing levels. Then we watch as the American Congress gives a $700 billion bailout package to the mortgage/insurance companies, because if they did not our economic infrastructure might absolutely collapse. Now, the Big 3 American auto makers have their hands out as well, spending $20,000 a piece on their own lear jets to go to Congress to ask for billions of dollars. What a joke. What kind of message does this kind of unethical behavior send to our youth? Something substantially different from what the Greatest Generation sent to its youth, and it is the education system that supported both of these counter posing paradigms.

The education system, over the years, has slowly decreased the rigor and expectations for the youth that will be the future. Now, when a teacher catches a student cheating or plagiarizing he/she cannot give the guilty student a “0,” for fear of the parents going to the school board who might overturn that decision, taking away any remnant of authority and respect that the teacher had left. What kind of message does that send? It explicitly and outright tells the students that cheating is an accepted practice. This type of situation would not have happened 60 years ago. Then, if a parent was told his/her student had been caught cheating, the school’s punishment would have been the least of the student’s worries.

So, over the last 60 years our education system has supported and reinforced either good work habits and ethical behavior or the polar opposite, and now I would like to make the last and final leap to the New American Dream. You do not have to work hard. You do not have to even follow the rules that exist to become a citizen of this country. Just come on over, and we have now taken the righteous responsibility of helping everyone out, in spite of the Rule of Law. You do not have to be honest, but do what you have to do, to get what you can get. And if it does not work out, the mighty Big Brother, or Mother, American Government will bail you out.

The paradigm that has evolved has turned the original idea of the American Dream on its head. Unfortunately, I fear that the mindset of the liberal left and the impoverished, underrepresented, and unfortunate members of our society, as represented by the African-American mother of two leaving one of Messiah Obama’s rallies claiming that she no longer has to worry about her mortgage or her gas bill, has become the reality. Any reasonable, logical person knows that this woman is seriously confused, but that is not the point. The point is the attitude of expectation without any expenditure has become the reality, and it has turned John F. Kennedy’s immortal words on their head, morphing them into: “ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.” And that my friend is the fundamental change in what has now become the New American Dream.

The Opaqueness of Barack Obama’s Transparency

publiusamericanus — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:43:01 +0000

I am quite aware that politicians on both sides of the aisle speak with a forked-tongue of hypocrisy, and this frustrates me greatly, but my greatest frustration here lies in the fact that the lion share of the media and the public do not seem to be bothered as much by the hypocrisy of the left as they are with the hypocrisy of the right. The liberal side of our two-party system continually gets a pass, and is consistently excused by the un-objective media in the face of blatant hypocrisy. Case in point, President-elect Barack Obama’s mantra, outside of his hollow and undefined claims of “change,” is his claim of transparency, but unfortunately he seems to have confused the definition of this word with that of opaqueness. To prove my point I offer a list of things that he has not and will not release:

1. Occidental College records — Not released
2. Columbia College records — Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper — “not available”
4. Harvard College records — Not released
5. Selective Service Registration — Not released
6. Medical records — Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule — “not available”
8. Law practice client list — Not released
9. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate — Not released
10. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth — Not released

So I beseech you in all reason, objectivity, and common sense, are these the actions of someone being transparent or someone being opaque?

The truth be known, his college records and thesis papers are not the gravest concern here, and it is not even as much the Selective Service, Medical records, Illinois State Senate schedule, or client list. The most absolute troubling piece of this equation is the suspicion that arises, but is being wholly ignored by the media and public, from his opaqueness concerning his citizenship status.

This issue could very easily be resolved and settled by releasing these two documents: certified copy of original birth certificate and an embossed, signed paper Certificate of Live Birth. What is he hiding, because something is being hidden from the public by not releasing these two very important documents? He could very well be natural born citizen (one of three requirements as prescribed in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 1), but the suspicion that arises from not releasing these documents is palpable. There is obviously something there that he does not want the public to see, and as an American citizen this could not be more troubling.

If he is not technically a natural born citizen he possesses more audacity than is collected in all of the pages of his book. How could someone who wants to be the leader of the free world and president of the United States of America so blatantly disrespect the Rule of Law? It would be like finding out the Secretary of the Treasury owed back taxes to the IRS. Oops…that has just happened, at least for Obama’s appointment for the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner.

The point here is that President-elect Barack Obama has greatly confused his opaqueness with his so-called transparency, and he very well might be seven days from pulling off the greatest hoax and mass cover up in American history. More importantly, hardly anybody seems to even care. And for those of us that are bothered by this, we are called racists or accused of being prejudiced. To that I say, I do not have one racist bone in my body, but I am very prejudiced. I am prejudiced against political correctness, un-objectivity, apathy, and people who would throw out the Rule of Law all in the name of electing Messiah Obama as the 44^th president of the United States of America.

The Language Barrier: Is English the Common Denominator

publiusamericanus — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:40:05 +0000

This post is a response to an article in the National Education Association’s journal, NEA Today. Read the article at this link http://www.nea.org/home/29160.htm

I am a first year teacher with a M.Ed. from one of the top 5 schools of education in America. I teach in a suburban high school in a southwestern state with an 80% Hispanic population, and a full 1/3 of the school’s population is on an ESL track (I have one class with a reading competency range from 4th grade to freshman in college). The majority of the school population is well below the poverty line, and it is very transient. This is the context from which my inquiry comes…

In your article you very unequivocally state as fact that today it still takes only three generations to lose a native language, but I would strongly disagree. Fifty years ago our society did not enable immigrant populations to keep their native language like we do today. It was okay for an immigrant group to have their “Chinatown,” “Little Italy,” or “Spanish Harlem,” but in order to assimilate into American culture English was the Common Denominator. Today, I cannot go to an ATM machine or call into any company’s phone bank without being asked if the following transaction or conversation needs to take place in English or Spanish. Today, our American, politically correct society is enabling the immigrant/non-English speaking population so strongly that they have absolutely no need to “lose their native language” in three generations, and so they will not. Our nation is very quickly becoming a dual-lingual society, not a bi-lingual one.

The trouble this enabling brings into my classroom…
My school’s population has a very strong gang influence, and although I have never felt like I was personally in danger (because my student’s respect me because I respect them), I am absolutely frustrated by the reality that my students, speaking Spanish, could be plotting something horrific towards me, another teacher, or the entire school, and I would not even know it. And if this actually happened, could I be liable? Seriously, ask yourself that. I could never say “English only in my classroom,” without placing my job in jeopardy. I do not speak Spanish, and before you cut me off, it is not my responsibility to accommodate to a language that is different from the Common Denominator language of our country. The U.S. military has an English only rule for a reason, because our soldiers’ trust and safety in life and death situations depends on it. Now, I am not suggesting that my line of work is as dangerous as a soldiers, but the underlying theme is the exact same. It is an absolute safety issue, but our politically correct society will not look at that objective fact, because it might hurt a group of people’s feelings. Well, boo freakin’ hoo. I would not have the audacity to move to Nepal, Taiwan, or Munich, and expect to be catered to linguistically like the Hispanic population does here in America. Why can’t people see this reality? I truly do not understand.

I know that you are thinking that I am some right-winged, conservative, build a 30 foot border to Mexico, and send them all back freak, but I am not at all. I am the most independent and objective observer of the reality of our society. I am actually jealous of people that are bi-lingual. My language acquisition device is very weak, though I tried to learn Spanish in high school and in college. My point is simply this, having a divided nation based upon language will be one of the primary reasons that our nation collapses. My students do not have the skill levels in English to learn about the American government, so I must sacrifice, very begrudgingly so, the most important content one can get in a high school, in order to focus on basic skills? In this reality either the “skills” or the “content” suffers. What an asinine concept. Our democracy only exists as long as the people understand they have the power and respect the system, and as soon as that power is forfeited because of sheer ignorance of our system of government, it will collapse (which is what happens when school districts across America prioritize “skills” over “content” even in the ignorant majority population…1/3 of graduating seniors need remediation in college already). Then some tyrant or dictator could quite easily take all of our freedoms and liberties away.

I fear the American future, because all of this is going on around us, and everyone is too scared or too sensitive to be politically incorrect, with the exception of a few of us. It seems that the American scenario is very analogous to the “frog in the boiling water” situation. If you take a frog and put him in a boiling pot of water, he will immediately jump out, but if you were to place that same from in a luke warm and very comfortable pot of water, and then proceeded to turn up the temperature slowly over a period of time, it would boil itself to death. The point here is that we as a society are so sensitive to the proverbial trees, that we cannot see the forest, and will not be able to until the whole thing is burning down, because by then the smoke will be too thick to ignore.