I want to explain (blame?) my seeming neglect of the blog these last several days.

Blame Seth! That’s it, blame Seth!

You see, he has this reading list at one of the email sites I am tasked with monitoring for him, books he’s read that he recommends, and every once in awhile I visit the list and obtain one or two of the books on it, then read them.

In some ways, I find it a neat way of trying to understand our friend better.

Jeez, what I got myself into this time out! I went to a list he titled “Deep Stuff” and selected two:

The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitzin, and

The Way To Language by Martin Heidegger

The first was enjoyable to read and pretty much flowed with its wide cast of characters, the author’s way of defining each and the sequence of events. The author’s sense of humor reminded me just a little of Seth’s, as well.

The Heidegger, which I’m most of the way through, was difficult to find (I finally did at a used book store in Manhattan) and is, indeed, deep! Henceforth, I will show a lot more respect to those I meet who devote the majority of their academic years to Philosophy.

Seth has some other work by Martin Heidegger on the list, but I think I’ll pass for the time being, as practically every paragraph seems like a separate college course (just kidding… I think…)…

Now, nearing completion of the book, which is a translation of lectures on language by the author, I suppose I should get back to blogging.

So, with no further ado…

As readers may recall, Hard Astarboard was one of the blogs that whole heartedly supported Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo in his primary bid for the Presidency during the campaign season leading up to November, 2008 elections and the tragic results that placed a Bolshevik Barack Hussein Obama in the White House.

Unfortunately, as the very conservative Mr. Tancredo was the liberals’ and therefore mainstream media’s worst nightmare, he was largely ignored by MSM networks and print media and therefore never had much opprtunity to get his message across, eventually dropping out of the primary race.

This past Monday, he had an OpEd in the Washington Times I would have liked to post here, but I’ve been tied up all week and away from any computers.

The Supreme Court twice last week abandoned the Constitution to give new powers to the federal government and the Obama administration. The question for conservatives and patriots is: What can be done about it?

In Monday’s Arizona ruling, the majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, creates a totally novel and illogical doctrine of federal pre-emption. In Thursday’s Obamacare ruling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. goes through unprecedented contortions to effectively rewrite the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a taxation measure, not an unconstitutional expansion of the commerce clause.

It will strike many Americans as especially noxious and foolhardy to give Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and his Justice Department lawyers such broad discretionary powers of law enforcement when Congress is moving toward removing him from office.

There also is a weird irony and alarming disconnect at play when the Supreme Court says the executive branch may defer to the feelings and interests of foreign governments in enforcing our immigration laws at the same time the Justice Department is under investigation for running an arms-smuggling operation in flagrant violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.

The Arizona ruling is overshadowed by the more far-reaching Obamacare ruling, but it has implications far beyond immigration law. That ruling looks into the constitutional history of pre-emption doctrine and discovers new territory never mapped before. States are forbidden not only to enact laws that go againstfederal law in the realm of immigration, but to enact laws that are totally consistent with federal law and, in fact, support and enhance federal enforcement.

According to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the federal government is justified in not enforcing a law - and forbidding a state government from such enforcement as well - if its enforcement might trespass on the federal government’s foreign-policy interests. This doctrine opens up a huge can of worms for law enforcement generally, and not just immigration law enforcement.

Mexico and other nations in the people-export business are objecting to enforcement of U.S. immigration law because it adversely affects Mexican nationals living unlawfully in our country. The Supreme Court says this is a legitimate concern of the federal government and therefore a legitimate reason to not enforce laws. To have this idea codified in a Supreme Court ruling, to borrow a phrase from Justice Antonin Scalia, truly boggles the mind.

There are legitimate and well-understood grounds for federal pre-emption when a state legislates in an area which either the Constitution or Congress has claimed for exclusive federal jurisdiction. States cannot establish their own currency or undertake diplomatic relations with foreign nations. But in many areas, Congress has legislated without claiming exclusive jurisdiction, and even when it is claimed, state laws that merely supplement federal law always have been deemed constitutional. Thus, Justice Kennedy had to resort to a tortured reading of congressional intent to reach his decision in the Arizona case.

The article in its entirety is here, and well worth the read.

This “problem” will obviously not go away by itself.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Islamic terrorist gunmen killed two policemen guarding a church, snatched their rifles and then opened fire on the congregation with bullets and grenades on Sunday, killing at least 10 people and wounding at least 40, security officials said.

Terrorists from Somalia were immediately suspected.

Police commander Philip Ndolo said the bloodiest attack was on the African Inland Church in Garissa, a town some 195 kilometers (120 miles) west of the Somali border.

Attackers threw two grenades inside the church, only one of which exploded, Ndolo said. But as the congregation stampeded out of the church, gunmen opened fire, doing significantly more damage. Ten people died and about 37 were wounded at the church, Ndolo said.

Another security official, though, said that two attackers walked up to the two policemen guarding the church, shot them at point-blank range and took their rifles. The gunmen then opened fire on the church and threw the grenades. The official spoke only on condition he wasn’t identified because he is not allowed to speak to media.

The police were guarding the church because of the perilous security situation near the border with Somalia and because Somalia’s Islamist militants have made Christian churches a common target.

While Seth and Wolf have long held that the “only way to deal with these folks is the Root & Branch approach”, I have been a little more moderate as I know many Muslims, immigrants from Islamic countries, here in New York who are peaceful and peace loving and who seem as distressed at all the violence tht goes on in the name of their religion as the test of us are.

However, when so much grief is pouring unendingly out of one essential community in a nonstop, mindless manner for so long, we truly need to draw some sort of a line.

The political correctness our liberals peddle and the interference running B.S. that jihadi protective and apologist organizations like CAIR shovel out are simply not cutting it, these mad dogs within the world community of Islam are still coming out of the proverbial woodwork, still murdering, destroying…causing mayhem.

Meanwhile, they are protected to large extent by fellow Muslims who do so without consideration for the Infidels and their families who fall victim to terrorism.

Thanks, of course, to the above Muslims, you have to wonder where the collective heart of Islam lies… I mean, either they’re for or against, I do not believe there is room here for any middle ground, and the “peaceful” ones must prove themselves on the side of human decency by not only denouncing these terrorists, but by helping in any way to bring them down (cooperating with authorities, etc) rather than simply giving lip service to how bad terrorism is.

The concept of survival of (or the good of) the community is not new, and that concept should govern the actions of both our and other governments, and the Muslims who purport to oppose terrorism, as they should oppose fundamentalist Islam’s irritating “convert to our beliefs or die!” method of “sharing”.

Save the political correctness for liberals to discuss at their pot and Kool-Aid Bar-B-Cues… The rest of us want to live, watch our children succeed and bear us granchildren, each of us free to worship as we believe and walk the streets without fearing, however remotely, the possibility that an explosion or bursts of randomly aimed weapons fire might ring down the curtain prematurely…

By “him”, I mean Eric Holder, that snake-in-the-grass…

I mean why bother to hold him in “contempt” of Congress if they’re not going to do anything about it?

Despite voting to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress, there’s little House Republicans can do in the short term to compel him to turn over documents — unless it wanted to revisit a long-dormant power and arrest him.

The thought is shocking, and conjures up a Hollywood-ready standoff scene between House police and the FBI agents who protect the attorney general. It’s a dramatic and unlikely possibility not least because Congress doesn’t even have a jail any longer. But in theory it could happen.

Republicans say it’s not even under consideration, with House Speaker John A. Boehner’s spokesman flatly ruling it out.

I can see if we were discussing the president, joke though he is for that office, arresting him would be nearly as much of a national embarrassment as it is having him as POTUS, arresting ANY president would be kind of, well, degrading, but arresting Holder?

C’mon, Holder taking a perp walk on CNN would do him, and the right thinkers among us, some good. He’d have gotten what he deserves, we right thinkers would see justice done.

But the process, known as inherent contempt, is well-established by precedent, has been confirmed by multiple Supreme Court rulings, and is available to any Congress willing to force such a confrontation.

“The House is scared to death to use the inherent contempt power,” said Mort Rosenberg, a fellow at the Constitution Project and author of “When Congress Comes Calling.” “They’re scared to death because the courts have said … the way the contempt power is used is unseemly. It’s not that it’s unconstitutional, because it’s been upheld by four Supreme Court decisions, but unseemly to have somebody go arrest the attorney general.”

That’s why it’s been more than 75 years since either chamber has used the option though it used to be somewhat common.

The House on Thursday voted 255-67 to hold Mr. Holder in criminal contempt, and 258-95 to pursue a case against him in the courts.

But those votes do little to break the impasse over his refusal to turn over documents the House is seeking in an investigation into Fast and Furious, a botched gun-walking operation. The House issued subpoenas for the documents last year but President Obama last week asserted executive privilege in withholding them.

A court case will take time, meaning there’s little immediate effect of the two contempt votes.

A court case will take time, right, like until sometime after the November elections.

So the contempt vote is about as worthless as, “I dare you to cross this line….okay, I dare you to cross this one…. now this one…”

A precedent has now been set. Perhaps they can call it the “Sticks and Stones” Precedent. It’s similar to that scene in Team America where they threaten Kim Jong Il with a letter of “strong condemnation” if he doesn’t give up his nuclear weapons ambitions.

What a bunch of spineless wastes of skin we have in the GOP these days, and they’re our alternative to the anti-America far left that has assumed control of the Democratic Party?

Are we in trouble, or what!?

It seems that no matter what we do, what we expect, how we vote, who gets on the Supreme Court… no matter what, the liberals continue pressing onward toward the day they and their agendas sound a final death knell for America as it was intended to be by our founding fathers and for our beloved Constitution.

Their latest victory comes courtesy of the Court.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the insurance mandate in President Obama’s healthcare law, a stinging defeat for conservatives who had insisted the law is unconstitutional.

The decision vindicates Obama and congressional Democrats, who maintained throughout the legal challenge that even this court, with its conservative majority, would have to break with decades of precedent to overturn the healthcare law.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the court in the 5-4 decision on the mandate, ruling that Congress has the authority to enforce the healthcare law’s individual mandate, which will require most U.S. taxpayers to buy insurance or pay a penalty.

The emphasis in the last paragraph is mine (unbelievable!).

SNIP!

Roberts tacitly acknowledged the passionate opposition to the healthcare law, but he said policy decisions belong to the elected branches of government, not the court.

“It is not our job to save the people from the consequences of their political decisions,” he said.

The decision allows Roberts — whose legacy will depend in large part on this case — to avoid the severe repercussions that both sides of the case had feared. The court did not strike down the signature domestic achievement of a sitting president, nor did it give its approval to an expansion of Congress’s powers to regulate commerce.

House Republicans, in reaction, announced they would vote on repealing the full law on July 11.

Roberts joined liberals on the court in upholding the mandate at the heart of the underlying law. Obama voted against Roberts’s nomination in 2005 as an Illinois senator, but 22 Democrats backed the chief justice, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Not one Republican voted against Roberts, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush.

More emphasis by yours truly, there.

So.

We will attempt to be “mature” about this, though inside we’re kind of angry and not a little amazed, because it does feel just a little, given that Justice Roberts took the lead on what is certainly a travesty, like betrayal.

After all, we don’t want to be Obamalike (with his tantrumesque reaction to the Court’s ruling on the Arizona immigration law, in which he simply ordered his enforcement agencies to ignore the ruling). What we will do is bide our time — if there’s even an iota of justice drifting around somewhere in the universe, Obama will be voted out in November, along with all his Bolsheviks and other corrupt minions and the newly elected president can get with Congress and try to make a few adjustments.

After all, as Justice Roberts put it: …policy decisions belong to the elected branches of government, not the court.

“It is not our job to save the people from the consequences of their political decisions,”

Having said that, the only thing I can say is by way of reprising the title of this post.

What can you do, right?

*********UPDATE*********

On another note, of course, there’s this.

‘Incredible Irony’: Court Has ‘Declared Obama to Be a Monumental Liar’

(CNSNews.com) - “The incredible irony here is that in upholding Obamacare, Roberts et. al. have formally also declared Obama to be a monumental liar,” said L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com. “And in the most bizarre twist of them all, they upheld the lie by declaring this to be a tax.

“Conservatives — Republicans — can now campaign on the line of attack that a) this is the greatest expansion of power in history; b) this is the greatest tax increase in history; and c) this is the greatest presidential deception in history.

“From now til Election Day the GOP should simply run clips of Obama insisting this wasn’t a tax,” Bozell said.

NOT a tax, Obama insisted in 2009

Wellll, we already knew Obama’s a liar, but still….

Get a load of this!

It appears that the Obama administration is not only getting in the face of the American people with their immigration policies, but they are also running a little private campaign of their own when it comes to the border patrol. Instead of the border patrol doing their job in an aggressive case in public, they are now being taught to run away and hide and only as a last resort are they to open fire. Wait! No! They can’t do that. They are supposed to become “aggressive” and “throw things.

Why, you may ask, am I not surprised? I mean this is indicative of an administration policy that could present more than its share of danger to both the American People and those tasked to defend our borders.

In another nauseating series of “Virtual Learning Center” brainwashing courses that Border Patrol agents are forced to sit behind a computer for hours and endure, we are now taught in an “Active Shooter” course that if we encounter a shooter in a public place we are to “run away” and “hide”. If we are cornered by such a shooter we are to (only as a last resort) become “aggressive” and “throw things” at him or her. We are then advised to “call law enforcement” and wait for their arrival (presumably, while more innocent victims are slaughtered). Shooting incidents cited in the course are Columbine, the Giffords shooting and the Virginia Tech shooting.

These types of mandatory brainwashing courses and the idiocy that accompanies them are simply stunning when they are force-fed to law enforcement officers. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that any three of the above shootings would have been stopped cold by an off-duty law enforcement officer or a law abiding citizen with a gun. The Fort Hood shooting would have been stopped cold by someone with a gun as well. The shooters in these situations depend on unarmed and scared victims. It gives them the power they seek. We could go on and on with examples of shootings that could have been stopped by someone with a firearm. One of the videos in this course actually shows a terrified female hiding behind a desk as an example of how to “hide” from some deranged shooter. Multiple quizzes throughout the course and a final test ensure repeatedly that we know that we only have three options when encountering some murderous thug in a public place. 1. Run away; 2. Hide; and 3. Only put up a fight as a last resort by acting aggressively and throwing things at the shooter. Not one mention anywhere of “if you are carrying a gun and you have the opportunity take the shooter out”. Calling 911 in these instances is obvious, but we all know that waiting on the arrival of uniformed law enforcement will ensure more people are killed, injured, or taken hostage. Telling law enforcement officers that in all instances they are to run away and hide from some thug while innocent victims are butchered is simply inexcusable and pathetic.

…inexcusable and pathetic.

Hmph, just like the Obama Administration and those who support it, be they media or private citizen.

It is always comforting to know that for those of us who carry a weapon when we are off-duty, if we should encounter such a situation, stop a shooter and save countless lives, we can look forward to being disciplined or fired by the Border Patrol because we should have run away to hide and then maybe thrown objects at the deranged killer instead of taking action and stopping him with a firearm. This, in addition to the scrutiny and second-guessing that will come from local authorities and the inevitable possibility of lawsuits and criminal conviction.

Welcome to the New Patrol.

Indeed…

This is the kind of thing that makes you want to pull your hair out. We are in the middle of an investigation where this administration used an operation, which was called Fast and Furious but should have been called Dumb and Dangerous, that put thousands of weapons into the hands of some of Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartels. Some of these weapons were used to kill American and Mexican citizens, including border patrol agent Brian Terry. They want their people to be weak and cut off at the knees while the real criminals face no handicaps. This is a demonstration of absolute stupidity on the part of the Obama administration who provide such non-sensical training.

It’s not bad enough that the federal government, under this administration want our guns, but now they don’t seem to want border patrol to use theirs either. What kind of fantasy world do these lunatics, who are running the asylum, live in?

They live in Liberal La La Land, THAT’S WHERE!

Well, the Supreme Court have rendered their decision on Arizona’s Immigration law.

Amid all the pronouncements of liberal victory against Arizona’s immigration law since the Supreme Court announced yesterday that it struck down three of four provisions of SB 1070, there’s an important point that some in the mainstream media are overlooking.

Obama lost. Big time.

The court, in 5-3 votes with Elena Kagan recusing herself, struck down three provisions having to do with state criminal penalties for immigration violations.

The fourth provision gives police the right to stop and demand to know the immigration status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally.

Of course, they’re dealing with The Obama here.

It’s the fourth provision at the heart of the law that really had the administration worried, and that’s the provision that the court upheld unanimously.

Historically, a unanimous Supreme Court decision on anything seals the deal. Challengers need not bother. Adios. Hasta la vista, baby.

And, as we’ve been learning, even the Supreme Court can’t usurp the power of our king, you know, that guy up there in the White Castle House.

But the justices didn’t realize they were dealing with King Obama. Instead of accepting the decision of the court with good grace and committing himself to upholding the ruling as is the president’s duty, Obama immediately set about finding ways to get around it.

First came the promise that Attorney General Eric “Blind Eye” Holder was going to watch Arizona very closely for any signs of “racial profiling.” I give it two weeks before he sues Arizona again.

Then, just to hammer home the point that His Majesty was not pleased, almost immediately following the court’s decision came the announcement that Homeland Security was suspending existing agreements with Arizona law enforcement regarding immigration, meaning they would ignore most immigration calls from Arizona.

With a president like Obama, who needs a supreme court or, for that matter, even a congress, anyway, when that one man there in the Oval Office is, evidently, all the government we need?

We all know that liberals are capable of some pretty farfetched things, and that Barack Hussein Obama’s probably one of the most shameless of the bunch, BUT THIS!?

When it comes to the 2012 campaign, team Obama has made more than their fair share of embarrassing gaffes. Chronicling them would take thousands of words, though certainly such hits as Attack Watch and the Life of Julia stand out. However, those gaffes, idiotic though they may have been, at least had a rationale behind them that was discernible, if stupid.

This is most unequivocally not the case when it comes to the Obama team’s most recent fundraising initiative. It is impossible to dream up a rationale for it without sounding silly. It can‘t really be set up in any way that softens the incredulity you’ll feel looking at it. So we’ll just repost an image below and let you see:

OBAMA EVENT REGISTRY

Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?

Let your friends know how important this election is to you - Register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the president on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate - and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.

Setting up and sharing your registry page is easy - so get it started today.

Is this real? Is this even believable, or are we about to be contacted by a white rabbit in waistcoat, bearing a pocket watch?

So many questions abound after reading this short message, “Why” being chief among them. Why should a wedding correlate with donating to the President? Along with “saving jobs,” is the President now claiming credit for every wedding officiated on his watch? How does he statistically measure “wedding creation” if he is? If you divorce, does that mean you can ask for your money back? Why do anniversaries correlate to donating? Why do birthdays? Why, why, why?

Oh, and did you notice that creepy “It’s a gift we can all enjoy” part, as though by giving money to the President, you’re giving a gift to the entire country? Talk about a sinister idea. No matter how much of a patriot you are, we doubt you want the entire country crashing your wedding party, asking for a gift they can “all enjoy.” It’s your anniversary/wedding/birthday, after all, not theirs. If you want a gravy bowl instead of four more years of gravy for lobbyists, that’s your right.

Sheesh!

The Good.

The Supreme Court dealt a chastening blow to the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and organized labor Thursday, ruling 7-2 to reverse a decision that would force nonmembers of public-sector unions in California to pay a fee that would help to finance the unions’ activities.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush nominee, delivered the opinion of the court, with a concurring opinion by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and dissent were given by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

The case centered on a California regulation that allowed unions to charge employees in a particular “agency shop” annual fees to pay for union activities, even if the employees opted not to join the union.

In June 2005, a local branch of the Service Employees International Union sent out a notice telling employees in its shop what the monthly dues for the year would be, but also gave notice that the fee could be increased at any time without additional notice. Shortly after, SEIU would propose a temporary increase of 25 percent in employee fees in order to fund a pro-union political campaign.

…in order to fund a pro-union political campaign.

Isn’t this what’s known as a union getting a bit cavalier with its members’ hard earned money?

Of course, we are talking labor unions.

While SEIU would later refund the fees, Alito said that nothing would stop the union from attempting to collect similar fees in the future, and maintained that a “live controversy” based on the strictures of the First Amendment, remained to be resolved.

“The First Amendment creates ‘an open marketplace’ in which differing ideas about political, economic, and social issues can compete freely for public acceptance without improper government interference,” he wrote. “…Closely related to compelled speech and compelled association is compelled funding of the speech of other private speakers or groups.”

Especially striking, Alito said, was the fact that the fees the unions were forcing employees to pay went to combat a ballot initiative that would have allowed them not to pay those fees if they chose.

“Thus, the effect of the SEIU’s procedure was to force many nonmembers to subsidize a political effort designed to restrict their own rights,” Alito wrote.

Snip!

(Surprise, surprise)

A concurring opinion by Sotomayor and Ginsburg, two of the court’s most liberal justices, agreed that the First Amendment would allow non-union members a chance to opt out of political contributions, but said the majority had addressed constitutional issues outside of the scope of the case and regarding the unions’ charging nonmembers in general.

Well, fancy that, constitution based fairness, rather than the usual left wing politics, coming from the likes of those two. Go figure…

The Bad

From Charles Krauthammer:

“With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations (of immigrants brought here illegally as children) through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.” — President Obama, March 28, 2011

Those laws remain on the books. They have not changed. Yet Obama last week suspended these very deportations — granting infinitely renewable “deferred action” with attendant work permits — thereby unilaterally rewriting the law. And doing precisely what he himself admits he is barred from doing.

Obama had tried to change the law. In late 2010, he asked Congress to pass the Dream Act, which offered a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants. Congress refused.

When subsequently pressed by Hispanic groups to simply implement the law by executive action, Obama explained that it would be illegal.

“Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. … But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”

That was then. Now he’s gone and done it anyway. It’s obvious why. The election approaches and his margin is slipping. He needs a big Hispanic vote and this is the perfect pander. After all, who will call him on it? A supine press? Congressional Democrats?

Nothing like an upcoming election to temper their Bush 43-era zeal for defending Congress’ exclusive Article I power to legislate.

With a single Homeland Security Department memo, the immigration laws no longer apply to 800,000 people. By what justification? Prosecutorial discretion, says Janet Napolitano.

This is utter nonsense. Prosecutorial discretion is the application on a case-by-case basis of considerations of extreme and extenuating circumstances. No one is going to deport, say, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant whose parents had just died in some ghastly accident and who is the sole support for a disabled younger sister and ailing granny. That’s what prosecutorial discretion is for.

The Napolitano memo is nothing of the sort. It’s the unilateral creation of a new category of persons — a class of 800,000 — who, regardless of individual circumstance , are hereby exempt from current law so long as they meet certain biographic criteria.

This is not discretion. This is a fundamental rewriting of the law.

His majesty B. Hussein Obama Rex, being King, evidently has that right. I guess he must have decided that such things as the Declaration of Indendence and the U.S. Constitution were nothing but a bad dream he’s awakened from having.

Imagine: A Republican president submits to Congress a bill abolishing the capital gains tax. Congress rejects it. The president then orders the IRS to stop collecting capital gains taxes, and declares that anyone refusing to pay them will suffer no fine, no penalty, no sanction whatsoever. (Analogy first suggested by law professor John Yoo.)

It would be a scandal, a constitutional crisis, a cause for impeachment. Why? Because unlike, for example, war powers, this is not an area of perpetual executive-legislative territorial contention.

Nor is cap-gains, like the judicial status of unlawful enemy combatants, an area where the law is silent or ambiguous. Capital gains is straightforward tax law. Just as Obama’s bombshell amnesty-by-fiat is a subversion of straightforward immigration law.

It is shameful that Congressional Democrats should be applauding such a brazen end-run. Of course it’s smart politics. It divides Republicans, rallies the Hispanic vote and pre-empts Marco Rubio’s attempt to hammer out an acceptable legislative compromise. Very clever. But, by Obama’s own admission, it is naked lawlessness.

Well put. Very well put.

And last but not least, The Ugly.

A day after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of targeting Attorney General Eric Holder because of his department’s crackdown on state voter ID laws, GOP lawmakers dismissed the claim yesterday as “hogwash.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) called the claim “mind-numbingly stupid.”

“I could not believe it when I heard her saying that,” Gowdy told Fox News.

“Hogwash. That is the most ridiculous comment I’ve heard so far,” Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) also told Fox.

On Thursday, Pelosi linked efforts to require photo IDs for voting to Republicans’ campaign to call a contempt-of-Congress vote against Holder for allegedly failing to cooperate in their probe of Operation Fast and Furious.

A House committee voted Wednesday along party lines to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, with Republicans claiming his department has not turned over subpoenaed documents pertaining to the botched anti-gun-running operation.

Yes, the ugly mind of Nancy Pelosi fits right in with the rest of those communistas who have taken over the Democratic Party.

We’ve been getting Roger Simon’s Pajama’s Media in the Hard Astarboard in box every day, and I have found it to be a daily must-read.

Today, Mr. Simon had rather an intriguing take on the effect on our nation it has when a liar is at the helm.

How many lies does a man have to tell before we can call him a liar?

The Ancient Romans said only one, when they gave us the legal dictum Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

That was a pretty stringent requirement. Most of us are not George Washington and one wonders if even George was perfect in his honesty, the cherry tree fable notwithstanding.

However…

Barack Obama is another matter. According to Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith (normally a loyal member of the administration’s media claque), no less than thirty-eight documented falsehoods in the president’s memoir Dreams from My Father were revealed by David Maraniss’s new book Barack Obama: The Story.

What’s interesting about those falsehoods (can we call them lies?) is that they were unprovoked. We are used to presidential lies, most notably from Nixon and Clinton, but we know full well why those men were lying. In fact, in their cases it was obvious. In Obama’s, we do not.

Why was he lying? Self-aggrandizement? To sell books? For political purposes? Dreams from My Father was written before Obama supposedly had presidential ambitions. Or was there a hint, dare I say it, of pathology?

Great analysis of an ongoing threat to the future of our country, posed by our Liar-In-Chief.

Read the entire article here.