NC Renegades

In former law professor Rob Natelson’s recent paper, “No, the Necessary and Proper Clause Does NOT Empower Congress to Control an Amendments Convention” [read it HERE or HERE], he makes several untrue statements and commits the gross fallacy of making a circular argument which begs the question.

Natelson is the intellectual guru of those pushing for an Article V convention. Among the false claims they make is that a convention will be controlled by the States, and Congress has nothing to do with it. ¹

That false claim rests on Natelson’s (1) fanciful theory of “customs”, (2) his tortured interpretation of the necessary and proper clause, (3) his misrepresentations of Supreme Court cases, and (4) his crimes against the Laws of Logic.

I’ll show you.

What Does Article V Say?

Article V provides two methods of proposing amendments to our Constitution. Congress proposes amendments and submits them to the States for ratification; or Congress “calls” a convention if 2/3 of the States apply to Congress for a convention. All our existing 27 amendments were proposed using the first method. We have never had a convention under Article V – for good reason.

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… however, our Mus-loving pResident is infinitely mock-worthy:

A ripoff courtesy of ZeroHedge

PLEASE NOTE:

The cartoon above should not be confused with the precise image of the True Prophet:

As depicted by Robert Crumb and posted at Gates of Vienna

The number of beneficiaries on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—AKA food stamps–has topped 46,000,000 for 38th straight month, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In October 2014, the latest month reported, there were 46,674,364 Americans on food stamps. Food stamp recipients have exceeded 46 million since September 2011.

Since the Great Recession began, the American Dream has been a distant memory. It’s still off in the distance, but it’s starting to come into focus. That’s because the US economy is finally accelerating.

Here are the key factors that will drive America’s improvement in 2015:

1. More people are getting jobs.

The job situation has improved dramatically in the past year, with headline unemployment dropping from 7.2% in October 2013 to 5.6% in December. (For some perspective, consider that the current unemployment rate is lower than the long-term average since 1948 of 5.8% and is roughly half the euro zone jobless rate of 11.5%).

Monthly non-farm job creation has been above the 200,000 level for almost a year. And those out of work for 27 weeks or more — what I call the “persistently unemployed” — have fallen as a percentage of overall unemployed, from 35.9% in October 2013 to 31.9% in December 2014. And the quality of employment is starting to improve.

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The above analysis about the Hamburger Recovery comes courtesy of CNN.

David DeGerolamo

By Richard Balmforth

* Bus struck by shell at army checkpoint, says regional spokesman

* Rebels deny they were behind the attack

* Fighting intensifies at Donetsk airport

* Foreign ministers scrap plans for peace summit (Expands with detail on attack, political developments, context)

KIEV, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Shelling hit a passenger bus in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, and fighting intensified around the international airport in the city of Donetsk as separatists tried to oust government forces.

The bus attack near the town of Volnovakha south of Donetsk, which is the heart of a nine-month-old separatist conflict, further deflated peace hopes after talks between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany ended without notable progress on Monday. Pro-Russian rebels seized parts of eastern Ukraine after Kiev’s Moscow-backed president was toppled by popular unrest.

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The United States continues to pay more than $300 million annually to the Afghan National Police (ANP), and some of that money is going to officers who do not actually exist, according to government officials who warn that fraud and a lack of oversight are causing U.S. taxpayer dollars to be wasted on the force.

The United States continues to pay the salaries of ANP officers despite a lack of supervision over the funds and the fact that fraud is rampant among the force, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

A U.S. government official familiar with the issue further confirmed to the Washington Free Beaconthat American tax dollars are in fact being paid to Afghan police officers who do not actually exist.

The ongoing payments have led SIGAR to warn that “despite 13 years and several billions of dollars in salary assistance to the Afghan government for the ANP, there is still no assurance that personnel and payroll data are accurate,” according to its audit.

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But the war in Afghanistan is over.

David DeGerolamo

Hypocrite

There’s a certain element of romance in being the lone wolf against the world. We idolize people like that in movies such as Rambo, where Sylvester Stallone takes on wave after wave of enemy all by himself. We love to see Captain America or Iron Man wipe out an entire enemy base on their own. We even look back at the Mountain Men, those brave trappers who went into the Rocky Mountains, long before anyone could even think of mapping them out. To us as Americans, there’s something about that one man against all odds that truly resonates with us.

There’s only one problem with all that; other than the Mountain Men, everything else is fiction. Fictional characters can take on an entire enemy base and come out victorious. They all have a sixth sense that tells them when someone is going to get them from behind — allowing them to turn and surprise the enemy that was about to get them. Their carefully choreographed movements, with carefully timed enemy attacks, make it possible for them to beat wave after wave of enemy, no matter how big or bad they are.

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h/t James C

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