NC Renegades

h/t Sam Culper III

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Last evening my wife and I watched a docu-drama on the life of Catherine the Great of Russia. (1)  Towards the conclusion, Catherine moves to block the coronation of her husband Peter, and engineer her own ascent to the throne.

Catherine chose to claim the throne and rule; to replace Peter by threat of force (uprising) and eventually via deadly force (murder by proxy).

I was struck by the timelessness of the struggle for power and the brutal use of force.  With little effort I (or we) could list political leaders out of modern history who ascended to power and behaved as follows (2):

• Rules by decree, via an Enabling Act or similar laws passed by a legislature allowing him to do so;
• is an absolute ruler of a sovereign state, usually appointed, but without hereditary ascension;
• governs outside the otherwise accepted rule of law;
• commonly (but not necessarily) gaining power through fraud, a coup d’état, resorting to either again to continue in power;
• may develop a cult of personality;
• may be autocratic, oppressive, despotic or tyrannical.

The list would include all the familiar and unfamiliar tyrants, dictators and despots of the last 500 years.  We might argue over the degree to which each ‘nominee’ satisfied these criteria.

In so doing we would debate the inclusion or exclusion of nearly every one our US presidents.  Our disagreements would be over degree; and whether the intent of each of the various tyrannical actions was benevolent or malicious.

We would judge the actions of the current president and his administration by the same criteria we use to criticize other despotic governments.

That observation brought me to the comment made by Hillary Clinton at a Senate committee hearing on the terrorist attack at the US Consulate in Benghazi: Continue reading →

Friend —

Look, I’m not much of a Facebook pro. (Secret: I’m not even on it.)

But even I know that people are always looking for the perfect profile picture.

I bet a Facebook photo with the President would be pretty cool. This is your chance.

Add your name to say you’ll help with the final push on health care, and you’ll be automatically entered to win a free trip to Washington, D.C., to meet President Obama at our National Organizing Summit later this month:

http://my.barackobama.com/This-is-Your-Chance

If you win, you’ll bring a guest along with you to D.C. — the flight and hotel are on us. And then, at the event, you’ll get some face-to-face time with President Obama.

That’s right: You and President Obama — just hanging out backstage. (We’ll make sure there’s a camera on hand.)

Think of how jealous all your old high school friends will be. 🙂

Good luck!

Lindsay

Lindsay Siler
National Director of Issue Campaigns
Organizing for Action

by Michael Snyder

The number of Americans that renounced their citizenship was 221 percent higher in 2013 than it was in 2012.  That is a staggering figure, and it is symptomatic of a larger trend.  In recent years, a lot of really good people with very deep roots in this country have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to the United States permanently.  A few actually go to the trouble to renounce their citizenship, and that is mostly done for tax purposes.  But most willingly choose to leave America for other reasons.  Some were very serious when they said they would leave the U.S. if Barack Obama got a second term, some (such as Jesse Ventura) are dismayed at how our freedoms and liberties are eroding and are alarmed at the rise of the Big Brother police state, some are absolutely disgusted by the social and moral decay that is eating away at the foundations of our society, and there are yet others that consider “the grass to be greener” on the other side of the planet.  Personally, I have a number of friends that have made the very hard decision to relocate their families thousands of miles away because they see what is coming to America and they believe that there isn’t any hope of turning things around at this point.  I also have a lot of friends that are determined to stay in the United States no matter what.  When it comes to the future of America, almost everyone has a very strong opinion, and these are discussions that we need to start having.

Once upon a time, the United States was seen as “the land of opportunity” all over the globe and it seemed like everyone wanted to come here.

But now that is all changing.  As we have abandoned the principles that this country was founded upon, our economy has gone steadily downhill.

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