Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Department of Labor Morphs into Ministry of Propaganda
In the movie, Truman, President Truman utters the line, "I'm just the man holding this office. If I dirty it, the dirt doesn't leave with me when I go, it stays here to rub off on whoever comes after me from now on."
The line may be pure "Holywood,"but that doesn't make it any less true.
If you have listened when the "mainstream media has given you the Department of Labor ("DOL") "initial unemployment claim" numbers, you are undoubtedly convinced that the economy is recovering and new unemployment claims are steadily declining. So, is our government (i. e., the DOL) telling us the truth or lying to us?
The numbers actually show that President Obama's DOL consistently lowballs each week's "initial unemployment claim" numbers to give the appearance that the economy is improving, and then revises them upwards a week later, when no one is looking.
This has gone on week after week. Because a friendly media focuses only on the initial report, and ignores the revised numbers, you are led to believe President Obama's polices are working; that the employment situation is steadily improving. But look at the numbers for the past 12 weeks.
The figures below come from the DOL's website. Every week, you will see a lead paragraph that looks like this, even though the numbers change:
"In the week ending April 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 365,000, a decrease of 27,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 392,000."
Here are the numbers for the seasonally adjusted initial claims (as initially reported) over a 12 week period.
-- Feb. 25, 351,000
-- March 3, 362,000
-- March 10, 351,000
-- March 17, 348,000
-- March 24, 359,000
-- March 31, 357,000
-- April 7, 380,000
-- April 14, 386,000
-- April 21, 388,000
-- April 28, 365,000
-- May 5, 367,000
-- May 12, 370,000
Here are the'revised initial claims numbers — after being "revised" (generally upwards) just one week later.
-- Feb. 18, 353,000
-- Feb. 25, 354,000 (up from 351,000)
-- March 3, 365,000 (up from 362,000)
-- March 10, 353,000 (up from 351,000)
-- March 17, 364,000 (up from 348,000)
-- March 24, 363,000 (up from 359,000)
-- March 31, 367,000 (up from 357,000)
-- April 7, 388,000 (up from 380,000)
-- April 14, 389,000 (up from 386,000)
-- April 21, 392,000 (up from 388,000)
-- April 28, 368,000 (up from 365,000)
u-- May 5, 370,000 (up from 367,000)
These figures clearly show that the DOL has been engaged in a shell game! If you go back to Feb. 25, it is obvious that the "seasonally adjusted initial claims" are not decreasing! Nor are the "revised" figures. Using the revised numbers, over this 12-week period, there have to be 4,426,000 new unemployment claims!
So what is going on? It's simple. The DOL has morphed into the Ministry of Propaganda.
It's an election year, so the DOL consistently understates the "seasonally adjusted initial claims" (to get them below the prior week's "revised" number); then one week later it "revises" them upwards.
Don't believe me; look at the DOL's own numbers. Here are three examples of how the DOL "statisticians" play the game:
On April 21, DOL said that there were only 388,000 initial unemployment claims; a week later they revise that number up to 392,000.
On April 14, it said there were only 386,000 initial unemployment claims; a week later it revises that number up to 389,000.
On April 7, issaid there were only 380,000 initial unemployment claims; a week later you revise that number up to 388,000.
The bottom lines is this: Ignore the lowballed "seasonally adjusted initial claims" number. To get a more accurate number, just look at the "revised" number, after it was been revised one week later.
So, since Feb. 25, are "initial claims" rising or falling? Has the number ever dropped below 353,000? Is the DOL innocently mistaken? (How many weeks in a row can you be "innocently mistaken?") Or telling little white lies to the American public to aid the president's reelection? What other explanation is there for revision after revision?
Why not just wait one week, and publish only the "revised" numbers?
If DOL is telling little white lies to help the president get reelected, why is that important? Why was Watergate important? Why did we impeach President Nixon?
Watergate was important because a burglary was used in an attempt to get the President Nixon reelected. We impeached President Nixon because he lied to cover up the what had been done.
Here's the bottom line -- something President Truman actually did say:
"The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. ... If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State."
It is one thing for the government to mislead our enemies. It is another thing for the government to mislead the American people.
Posted Online: May 29, 2012, 2:35 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Should Polygamy Be a Constitutional Right?
President Obama now says that it is important for him to affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married. As such, for him, "marriage" is now nothing more than a union between any two consenting adults.
So, then, what is the President's position on polygamy? Is it "evolving," as well? If so, why is the number, "two" sacred?
If "consent" between "adults" is the key, what's wrong with consentual polygamy?
I have recently opined, indicating that "marriage" is a "fundamental right" of the American people and, that while not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights, that it is protected by the Ninth Amendment. In my earlier discussion, I defined marriage as a consentual union between one man and one woman. I used that definition because that is what people who came to live in the United States prior to the enactment of our Constitution in 1788 understood marriage to be. I now suggest, for reasons explained below, the right to marry -- between a man and a woman -- is also protected by the First Amendment which guarantees the "free exercise" of religion.
But what about people who have religious beliefs that polygamous unions are mandated by their religion? Do they have a right to practice polygamy in the United States, given the First Amendment which provides that "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise" of religion?"
There was a time in the late 19th century when the Mormons believed that polygamy was mandated by their religion. They argued that the First Amendment which provides that "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise" of religion" guaranteed that right.
That was the question answered by the U. S. Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. U. S. (1878). In that case, George Reynolds, a Mormon, was found guilty under a federal statute which prohibited bigamy in the Utah Territory. On appeal to the Supreme Court, he raised the question: "Should the accused have been acquitted if he married the second time, because he believed it to be his religious duty?
As you read the excerpts from the Supreme Court's opinion below, notice the importance that the court attaches -- for First Amendment purposes -- to the fact while monogamous marriages were recognized throughout the European countries from which the colonists came, and that polygamy was not. The Reynolds court, therefore, concluded that polygamy was not part of the religious freedom that the First Amendment protected.
"The word 'religion' is not defined in the Constitution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning, and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted.
The precise point of the inquiry is, 'what is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed?'
"Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law, the second marriage was always void ... and from the earliest history of England, polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. After the establishment of the ecclesiastical ... courts, and until the time of James I, it was punished through the instrumentality of those tribunals, not merely because ecclesiastical rights had been violated, but because upon the separation of the ecclesiastical courts from the civil, the ecclesiastical were supposed to be the most appropriate for the trial of matrimonial causes and offences against the rights of marriage ...."
The Reynolds court, not withstanding that polygamy was a consentual relationship between adults, denied polygamy 1st Amendment protection. So not withstanding the President's "affirmation," where does that leave "same-sex" marriage constitutionally? I raise that question because at the time our Bill of Rights was adopted, as in the case of polygamy, nobody in America seriously claimed that same-sex couples had a right to "marry."
Posted Online: May 17, 2012, 3:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
So, then, what is the President's position on polygamy? Is it "evolving," as well? If so, why is the number, "two" sacred?
If "consent" between "adults" is the key, what's wrong with consentual polygamy?
I have recently opined, indicating that "marriage" is a "fundamental right" of the American people and, that while not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights, that it is protected by the Ninth Amendment. In my earlier discussion, I defined marriage as a consentual union between one man and one woman. I used that definition because that is what people who came to live in the United States prior to the enactment of our Constitution in 1788 understood marriage to be. I now suggest, for reasons explained below, the right to marry -- between a man and a woman -- is also protected by the First Amendment which guarantees the "free exercise" of religion.
But what about people who have religious beliefs that polygamous unions are mandated by their religion? Do they have a right to practice polygamy in the United States, given the First Amendment which provides that "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise" of religion?"
There was a time in the late 19th century when the Mormons believed that polygamy was mandated by their religion. They argued that the First Amendment which provides that "Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise" of religion" guaranteed that right.
That was the question answered by the U. S. Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. U. S. (1878). In that case, George Reynolds, a Mormon, was found guilty under a federal statute which prohibited bigamy in the Utah Territory. On appeal to the Supreme Court, he raised the question: "Should the accused have been acquitted if he married the second time, because he believed it to be his religious duty?
As you read the excerpts from the Supreme Court's opinion below, notice the importance that the court attaches -- for First Amendment purposes -- to the fact while monogamous marriages were recognized throughout the European countries from which the colonists came, and that polygamy was not. The Reynolds court, therefore, concluded that polygamy was not part of the religious freedom that the First Amendment protected.
"The word 'religion' is not defined in the Constitution. We must go elsewhere, therefore, to ascertain its meaning, and nowhere more appropriately, we think, than to the history of the times in the midst of which the provision was adopted.
The precise point of the inquiry is, 'what is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed?'
"Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law, the second marriage was always void ... and from the earliest history of England, polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. After the establishment of the ecclesiastical ... courts, and until the time of James I, it was punished through the instrumentality of those tribunals, not merely because ecclesiastical rights had been violated, but because upon the separation of the ecclesiastical courts from the civil, the ecclesiastical were supposed to be the most appropriate for the trial of matrimonial causes and offences against the rights of marriage ...."
The Reynolds court, not withstanding that polygamy was a consentual relationship between adults, denied polygamy 1st Amendment protection. So not withstanding the President's "affirmation," where does that leave "same-sex" marriage constitutionally? I raise that question because at the time our Bill of Rights was adopted, as in the case of polygamy, nobody in America seriously claimed that same-sex couples had a right to "marry."
Posted Online: May 17, 2012, 3:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Kumbaya or Confrontation? The 1st Amendment Question!
If Jefferson Davis II were running for president on a platform of reimposing slavery, would a black minister have a right to tell his congregation to vote against Jeff Davis II?
If Adolf Hitler Jr. were running for president, promising to exterminate all Jews, could a Rabbi lawfully urge his congregation to vote against Hitler Jr.?
On April 14, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, delivered an unusually forceful "anti-abortion" homily entitled, "A Call to Catholic Men of Faith."
Bishop Jenky accused the Obama administration of serious violations of religious liberty. Those who disagree with what he said have demanded his resignation from the University of Notre Dame Board of Fellows. Others have asked the IRS to revoke the dioceses' tax exemption.
Here are excerpts from that homily:
"For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But ... the Church survived...
"The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.
"We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.
"In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his 'Kulturkampf,' ... against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.
"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.
"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama -- with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.
"[T]his is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.
"This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings -- could easily be shut down.
Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb."
Whether you think Bishop Jenky right or wrong on abortion, there can be no argument that killing a human fetus raises a moral and religious issue. For 3,000 years Jews and Christians accepted "Thou shall not kill" as God's Commandment. There is no question but that applies to all humans from the minute of their birth. The only issue is whether it also applies to the unborn.
It is historically and religiously the function of a bishop to teach and preach. Christ told his disciples, "to make disciples of all nations ... teaching them "
Teaching has been the bishops' distinctive function for 2,000 years. It was the bishops' office when the Constitution was adopted, and the Bill of Rights approved. Our Founding Father recognized that.
When a bishop sees what he perceives to be a serious violation of God's law, he has a First Amendment right to believe that what he perceives is an "enormous evil." As a teacher, he has a second First Amendment religious right to engage in the free exercise of his religion, plus a third First Amendment right (free speech) to speak to convince others to oppose the "wrong" and/or wrongdoer.
The fact that a man is a bishop doesn't deprive him of First Amendment rights of freedom of belief, or free exercise of his religion. Nor does it mean that he surrenders his right of free speech. Whether he speaks in church, on a street corner, in a Catholic newspaper or on television, he still has the same First Amendment rights. (He is not advocating a breech of the peace.)
The First Amendment exists to give Americans -- including bishops -- the right to convince fellow Americans that any politician is evil, unworthy to be elected, re-elected, etc.
IRS regulations that abridge Bishop Jenky's rights to freedom of religion and speech are unconstitutional.
The reason churches are tax exempt is because the "power to tax is the power to destroy" -- or control.
If churches can be prevented from speaking out on moral issues, or against politicians they perceive to have taken immoral positions on issues, such as extermination of Jews, killing the unborn, or "putting down" the retarded or the elderly, you have destroyed freedom of religion, as well as freedom of speech. Removal of a tax exemption is in essence a tax.
If Planned Parenthood has a right to speak for abortion, a church has a right to speak against it. If "pro-choice" individuals and corporations have a right to support the election of "pro-choice" politicians, Bishop Jenky and religious corporations have a right to oppose "pro-choice" politicians, and to call for the election of "pro-life" politicians.
That is what the Citizen's United case is all about, and why it was correctly decided. Without this right, you get the sort of church leaders who temporized as million Jews were murdered.
So, where do you stand? For Kumbaya or confrontation? What exactly does "Freedom of Religion" mean?
Is a priest to be limited to saying Mass inside his church? A minister, limited to reading scriptures from his pulpit? Kumbaya or confrontation? The 1st Amendment question!
Posted Online: May 01, 2012, 3:24 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
If Adolf Hitler Jr. were running for president, promising to exterminate all Jews, could a Rabbi lawfully urge his congregation to vote against Hitler Jr.?
On April 14, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, delivered an unusually forceful "anti-abortion" homily entitled, "A Call to Catholic Men of Faith."
Bishop Jenky accused the Obama administration of serious violations of religious liberty. Those who disagree with what he said have demanded his resignation from the University of Notre Dame Board of Fellows. Others have asked the IRS to revoke the dioceses' tax exemption.
Here are excerpts from that homily:
"For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But ... the Church survived...
"The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.
"We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.
"In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his 'Kulturkampf,' ... against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.
"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.
"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama -- with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.
"[T]his is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.
"This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings -- could easily be shut down.
Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the intrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb."
Whether you think Bishop Jenky right or wrong on abortion, there can be no argument that killing a human fetus raises a moral and religious issue. For 3,000 years Jews and Christians accepted "Thou shall not kill" as God's Commandment. There is no question but that applies to all humans from the minute of their birth. The only issue is whether it also applies to the unborn.
It is historically and religiously the function of a bishop to teach and preach. Christ told his disciples, "to make disciples of all nations ... teaching them "
Teaching has been the bishops' distinctive function for 2,000 years. It was the bishops' office when the Constitution was adopted, and the Bill of Rights approved. Our Founding Father recognized that.
When a bishop sees what he perceives to be a serious violation of God's law, he has a First Amendment right to believe that what he perceives is an "enormous evil." As a teacher, he has a second First Amendment religious right to engage in the free exercise of his religion, plus a third First Amendment right (free speech) to speak to convince others to oppose the "wrong" and/or wrongdoer.
The fact that a man is a bishop doesn't deprive him of First Amendment rights of freedom of belief, or free exercise of his religion. Nor does it mean that he surrenders his right of free speech. Whether he speaks in church, on a street corner, in a Catholic newspaper or on television, he still has the same First Amendment rights. (He is not advocating a breech of the peace.)
The First Amendment exists to give Americans -- including bishops -- the right to convince fellow Americans that any politician is evil, unworthy to be elected, re-elected, etc.
IRS regulations that abridge Bishop Jenky's rights to freedom of religion and speech are unconstitutional.
The reason churches are tax exempt is because the "power to tax is the power to destroy" -- or control.
If churches can be prevented from speaking out on moral issues, or against politicians they perceive to have taken immoral positions on issues, such as extermination of Jews, killing the unborn, or "putting down" the retarded or the elderly, you have destroyed freedom of religion, as well as freedom of speech. Removal of a tax exemption is in essence a tax.
If Planned Parenthood has a right to speak for abortion, a church has a right to speak against it. If "pro-choice" individuals and corporations have a right to support the election of "pro-choice" politicians, Bishop Jenky and religious corporations have a right to oppose "pro-choice" politicians, and to call for the election of "pro-life" politicians.
That is what the Citizen's United case is all about, and why it was correctly decided. Without this right, you get the sort of church leaders who temporized as million Jews were murdered.
So, where do you stand? For Kumbaya or confrontation? What exactly does "Freedom of Religion" mean?
Is a priest to be limited to saying Mass inside his church? A minister, limited to reading scriptures from his pulpit? Kumbaya or confrontation? The 1st Amendment question!
Posted Online: May 01, 2012, 3:24 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
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