14: Obama Accounting: Muslims and Sharia Law

Muslims account for about 1/5th of the world population. Islam is the religious, cultural, and political organizing force for Muslims. Muslim history extends back to about 817AD to the Iranian Muslim ibn Al-Hajjaj. This early scholar compiled the Haddith, stories and deeds of the Prophet Mohammad from over 300,000 Islamic traditions from Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.

The early story of Muslim is long, complicated by various Islamic sects, which stuggled to dominate the culture and politics, as well as the religious sector, of the Arab states, South Asia, and Africa.

In modern history, by 1906, Muslims created the "All-India Muslim League, a political group which advocated a separate Muslim state in India. This was encouraged by Great Britain, then the colonial overseer of India, until the 1913 Muslim movement to form an independent self-government in India. A moderate Muslim Muhammed Ali Jinnah called for a Hindu-Muslim alliance in India until 1940, when the Muslims began to fear independent India would be dominated by Hindus.

In 1947, the British granted independence to India, a partition was drawn, and adjacent Pakistan became a Muslim South Asian country.

Sharia was mentioned in the previous blog (13) discussing Muslim workers seeking special consideration (accommodation) in the workplace for prayer and other breaks during the daytime fast month of Ramada, the Muslim religious holiday.

Sharia is the law of Islam. Sharia laws apply to many aspects of secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, and personal life, including sexuality, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. When "official" in a Muslim or non-Muslim "host" country, Sharia law is applied by an Islamic judge, a "qadis".

"Imam" responsibilities vary with the interpretation in a particular country. An Imam may be a communal prayer leader, a scholar, religious leader or political leader.

Muslims attempt to impose Sharia law in non-Muslim countries. The imposition of a second set of laws provokes controversy, violence, and even open warfare as in the Second Civil War of Sudan.

The role of warring Muslim sects in Afghanistan and Iraq where the US has been involved, is complicated, with shifting alliances, and has not been clarified in the American newsmedia.

Muslims have made in-roads into "host" countries. In India, some Muslim minorities have been able to establish Sharia courts to adjudicate personal and community issues. Even Britain has allowed a "Muslim Arbitration Council". A recent newsreport noted self-identified moderate Muslims in Canada supported local schools, Canadian laws and government--as long as the local system remains hospitable to Islam and does not interfere with Islamic practices, that is, Sharia Law.

The American equivalent of this "country within a country" demand would be the Native American Tribal Reservations, who obviously have long been a part of truly indigenous American history.

Graphic: Star & Crescent: The crescent was adopted as the symbol of Islam in the
14th Century, the star was added later. In The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols, M. Bruce-Mitford.

Other references: Encyclopedia Britannica; The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003;
SD Strouthes Law and Politics, www.Wikipedia.com.

The next blog in this series will discuss Sharia Taxes on Non-Muslim and Muslim residents of non-Muslim "host" countries and Muslim countries.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or others posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfive.com. Until indexing is complete the blogs in "five" will be available on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

12: Obama Accounting: Heads Up!

"Don't Keep Your Head Tucked In!"

Original photographs
by mkrause381@gmail.com,
mkrause54@yahoo.com
Taken at
The National Zoo,
Washington, DC
January, 2003

Heads Up!

(The video is more fun,
but we're not live
on YouTube yet!)

Emu in Winter:
The emu is a native of Australia. In nature, emus live in many habitats, except in human-settled coastal areas. Adult emus weigh 30-45kg (65-100lbs) and grow to a heght of 2m (6ft). Female emus leave egg-care and child-rearing to the male for the first 6 months or more. (The National Zoo, Washington, DC, January, 2003.)

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment on or request any of the 1-11: "Obama Accounting" blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com.

The next series of blogs will begin on http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com with
"13: Obama Accounting: Using the DoJ to Extend Black & Ethnic Lawsuit Settlements to Muslims." In this lawsuit Muslims try to insert "Sharia Law" into the American workplace by demanding paid time-off from a meatpacking factory during Ramadan.

13: Obama Accounting: Using US Department of Justice (DoJ) to Extend Lawsuit Settlements from Blacks & Ethnics to Muslims

Justice with Sword and Scales: In the Egyptian Hall of Judgment, the heart of the deceased was weighed against the Feather of Truth before the god Osiris, who passed judgment.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice is extending more American money and government paid legal services to an Obama-approved international ethnic group, Somali Muslims.

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filed a lawsuit on behalf of 86 Somali Muslim employees who walked off the job at the Grand Island, Nebraska JBS Swift Co. meatpacking plant. The Somali Muslims, who wanted time off to pray and break time during the day during the month-long Ramadan daytime fasts, walked off the job in protest.

Non-Muslim employees counterprotested. The meatpacking plant management ended the accommodation. Then the plant fired 86 workers for walking off the job. The company stated the firings weren't about religion.

Federal employees reportedly representing the DoJ preliminarily told the plant it should provide Muslim employees with prayer time and not retaliate against workers who ask to pray. The EEOC filed the lawsuits in Federal District Court in Denver,CO and Omaha, NE on Monday August 30, 2010.

American Christians are prohibited from prayer in the schools, government, and other facilities in accordance with the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

How could the DoJ and EEOC even consider a case involving workers demanding "time off", presumably paid "time-off", for prayer and breaks during a month-long Muslim cultural-religious holiday?

This may be an early case of Muslims using federal taxpayer money to try to insert Islamic cultural-religious issues, Sharia law, into American law and society.

Serious questions are raised by the filing of this case. Are the EEOC and DoJ employees Muslim activists or supporters? Are these employees so totally inexperienced that they have no comprehension of "separation of church and state" or government impartiality in such issues in the workplace? Are these independent contractor litigation teams?

Are these litigation teams aiming for a cash settlement or trying to takeover an American factory on a specious issue involving blacks or ethnics?

Are the Somali Muslims involved in this case in the US with a legal immigration status?

Graphic: Justice with sword and scales, from The Illustrated Book of Signs & Symbols by Miranda Bruce-Mitford.

References: AP, San Fran Chronicle, Aug. 30, 2010; New York Times, Sept. 1, 2010.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotesfive.blogspot.com or on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com until indexing is complete on monthlynotesfive.

11: Obama Accounting: Clinton, Obama, The Democratic Party & The Attack on America

The American Flag shown here commemorates the September 11, 2001 Attack on America.

A monthlynotesstaff editor was not in New York City on the day of the plane bombings at the World Trade Center. That editor was in Northern Virginia, 18 miles from the nation's capital in Washington, DC.

About 10AM that morning, the radio was full of concerned reports about damage to the World Trade Center, from one, then two planes ramming into the World Trade Center. Media reports changed from "a terrible accident has occurred" perspective as a third plane bombing was reported within about 30 minutes.

The third media report described the plane bombing of the Pentagon. The Capital Beltway freeway system near the Pentagon was being closed.

Then the fouth bombing was announced, the explosion of a plane flying over Pennsylvania.

America was under attack. And continues to be under attack.

President William Jefferson Clinton's pardon of the Puerto Rican terrorists, the FALN, who claimed responsibility for over 130 bombings from 1974-1983, gave a signal to violent Socialist/Communist terrorists that the US would not fight back in a consistent, concentrated way to stop their Attack on America.

Hillary Clinton's election to the US Senate from New York shortly after being contacted by Puerto Rican Independence proponents, and her husband's Presidential offer of clemency to the FALN terrorists gave a signal to "revolutionary internationalists" that there were Americans within, in positions of power and authority, who were willing to consider making a deal, whether for votes or for money. The US Senate 75-2 vote denouncing Clinton's pardon of the FALN did not alter what was to be the future course of terrorist activity and invasive action in the US.

In 1994 America was attacked again, a "car bombing" outside of the World Trade Center. The early Al-Qaeda terrorists, led in part by Osama Bin-Laden, had brought America to Afganistan to help fight off the Soviets, who wanted control or something in return for previous Soviet foreign aid to Afghanistan.

Later Saudi Arabian Muslim terrorist Osama bin-Laden changed sides again. Bin-Laden orchestrated the Muslim Al-Qaeda September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombing.

A basic theme emerges in reviewing the blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff: the blogs are reactions to the Obama Administration, to the black radicalization of the US Government and the movement of money from white and mainstream taxpayers to black, ethnic, and international special interest groups.

Americans must find a way to stop falling back to a position of reacting. We must act, become pro-active, prevent our elected and non-elected government officials from funding black, ethnic, and other socialist/communist causes who do seek to overthrow the American government and our way of life. It is an insidious form of "revolution from within", holding us hostage by appealing to our Christian duty of tolerance and concern for others.

A First Step may be to rename "The Democratic Party" for what is has become, "Social Welfare Democrats", "International Social Welfare Democrats", or "Democrat--Internationalist Socialist/Communist Party". Obama may prefer to rename his the "Black and Ethnic Advance Party", but it does not have that old ring for money from whites.

It is doubtful that any of the racial or ethnic beneficiaries of American money and social welfare benefits would take an "Oath of Allegiance" to the United States of America. Our ancestors did. And we remain loyal to the Oath they took for themselves and their families.

A Second Step may be to require an "Oath of Allegiance" from all who benefit from US government funding, active government and "outsourced", "spin-off" companies.

A Third Step may be to repeal Clinton's "dual citizenship" plan, doubtless done to protect his cronies and contributors from US taxes.

A Fourth Step may be to put a moratorium on federal spending, except for basic services, like basic military defense and veteran medical care, sewer and water filtration, social security retirement "pay-outs" and other current federal pensions, roadway "pothole" repair, and basic, reduced wages and salaries for a substantially downsized number of government employees, unemployment benefits, and food stamps.

A Fifth Step may be to tally the Obama Administration expenditures to determine which discriminate againt white and mainstream citizens by being earmarked for blacks and ethnics. This review could extend back through the Clinton Administration, with some solution for "recovery" of racialist dollars "redistributed".

A Sixth Step must include a re-examination of the principles and policies of the current government of the United States of America.

Many current politicians and government employees use the US government and treasury as a vehicle for ethnic and socialist/communist revolutionary change.

Others use the USA and our Treasury for profiteering and international "wealth building". The wealthy or "wannabe wealthy" must be told to do business in the private sector and to not use the USA or The Treasury as collateral or bank for their own business purposes and profit.

Those are some of our thoughts on September 11. What are yours?

Graphic: American Flag commemorating the September 11, 2001--Attack on America, in Chase's Calendar of Events.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

10: Obama Accounting: Tax "Reform" that Hurts Does Not Help.

Obama legislation in March, 2010 presented formidable challenges to the individual taxpayer. In addition to Obamacare, (Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, PPACA), mandating each American buy health care insurance or register for the welfare medical card, with IRS penalties for non-compliance, Obama proposed a confusing employer tax law which could negatively affect employees.

The tax law exempts employers who hire unemployed workers from paying Social Security taxes on those workers through December, 2010. Obama and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) have propsed extending this exemption an additional 6 months through June, 2011.

Employers deduct 2 types of taxes from employee paychecks:
1. Income tax for federal, state, and local governments and
2. Employment taxes.

There are 2 types of employment payroll taxes:
1. Social Security (6.25%) and
2. Medicare (6.25%).

Employers deduct each of these employment taxes from the employee's gross earnings. Employers are to forward a matching amount of each tax to the federal government to be added to the employee's cumulative account. (If you are self-employed you must pay twice, 6.25% for yourself as employee and 6.25% for yourself as employer, or 13.5% of gross earnings.)

Is it the employer 6.25% or both employer/employee (13.5%) which employers are exempt from? Will the employer deduct the 6.25% from the employee's paycheck and hold both 6.25% amounts? Will employers simply defer payment to the government now and pay these amounts later? Or will the employer not deduct and pass this expense onto the employee as if the employee were an "Independent Contractor", requiring a 1099 form in addition to the W-4 for part of the work year?

This tax "reform" will add stacks of return forms and hours of accounting nightmares for both employer and employee. It may create additional, but unnecesary tax liability for both, which hopefully will have to be corrected later. Inexperienced IRS agents undoubtedly will be stuck in these issues or possibly will try to maximize billing to both for unreasonably high tax amounts.

This tax "reform" also could create chaos in the future for the employee who must "pay-in" to both Social Security and Medicare for future retirement checks and retirement health care coverage through Medicare.

If this an Obama solution to covering phenomenal "bailout" amounts, he may face a taxpayer revolt beyond his imaagination.

How could a tax "reform" law like this could get out of committee to be presented to Congress. Have all the tax experts and congressional staff aides been fired?

Graphic: September, 11--Saturday USA flag commemorating the Attack on America.
In Chase's Calendar of Events.

Reference: AP 9/6/2010

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com.

9: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then, Cabinet Advocacy Now.

Lincoln's War began in 1861, ended in 1865. Before the close of the Civil War, Reconstruction had begun. Reconstruction remedied the slavery question: prohibited Constitutionally in Article 9(1) and by several other regional, state, and local laws, affecting less than 700,000 people, many of whom bartered labor for room and board and farm products, 90% of whom resided in 4 states, many of whom were illegals engaged with "slave dealers" in illegal activity.

Reconstruction produced three Consitiutional Amendments:
1865: 13th Amendment: Slavery prohibited.
1866: 14th Amendment: Former US slaves granted citizenship, including right to vote.
1870: 15th Amendment: Black Suffrage, voting rights restated.

The new nation arose from the War of Independence from Great Britain, in 1776. The US Constitution, including the three Reconstruction Admendments, was ratified by
1891. The problem was solved.

Despite Lincoln's advice to reunite the nation "with malice toward none", the legacy of the Reconstruction has been replayed regularly in the 145 years since the end of the Civil War.

The Obama legacy reflects back on where he arose. From black community organizer, to law school, to black activist in Illinois politics, Obama concentrated on black causes and demanding funding for black causes.

Like his political mentors from the 1960s, The Black Panther Party, Obama focused on racial profiling in the 1990s Illinois legislature. It is a legally expensive but empty circular argument: demand police officers make detailed racial notes about suspects, then bring lawsusits against the police department, city, county, and state governments for "racial profiling".

It is a form of the "de facto" fallacy in reasoning. If the police patrol a predominantly black neighborhood, police will stop more blacks than whites, because there are more blacks than whites in the area they patrol.

From ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)/Project Vote registration, Obama sought to redraw districts with high numbers of blacks for ease of electing black candidates, large contingency fees or commissions from a 1995 $500 million federal civil rights lawsuit settlement against the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN/Project Vote. And Obama sought votes for his campaigns for the Illinois legislature. Obama lost money for Cook County and Illinois. In a lawsuit against Cook County Hospital and the Hebtoen Research institute, the County lost $5 million back to the federal government from Cook County Hospital and $500,000 from Hebtoen.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice (DoJ) continues Obama's legacy of black and ethnic advocacy. The AIG/Wilmington Finance lawsuit discussed in an earlier blog
("2: Obama Accounting: Black Funding and Lawsuit Settlements") delivered a $6.1 Million dollar settlement from AIG for wholesale broker fees involving an Afro-American mortgage company, without a finding of AIG wrongdoing. DoJ demanded $1 Million go to an "approved" ACORN-type financial literacy and credit counselling company.

Black and ethnic advocacy has become DoJ policy. In 2009, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julia Fernandez stated she would not support any enforcement of federal "Motor Voter" law Section 5 which requires the state to periodically purge voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters, and those who have moved out of state. Fernandez stated "We are not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it." What outrageous federal encouragement of voter fraud, and possibly "stuffing the ballot box" for the Administration-supported candidate and cause.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez restates the "de facto" lawsuit approach as the "disparate impact theory": there may be no intent to discriminate but there is a difference in results". This theory has been applied to school test scores (as in "Race for the Top" funding) and mortgage lending (as in the AIG/Wilmington, DE mortgage case mentioned above). Under this theory, white residents of any city, county, or state should be able to successfully win lawsuits for disproportionate lack of cheap housing for whites in cheaper, predominantly colored inner city neighborhoods. Whites must have been denied cheap housing in those neighborhoods, otherwise at least an equal number of whites would be living there.

Thomas Perez was a former aid to the late Senator Ted Kennedy. As an ethnic activist and Councilman in Montgomery City, Maryland, Perez promoted in-state tuition funding and drivers' licenses for Hispanic and other illegals.

Obama lawyer Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board, formerly employed by the SEIU Service Employees International Union and affiliated with the AFL-CIO, has been investigated for ethical complaints. Becker revealed insidious special interest group government bureaucratic strategies stating "major policy changes could be implemented without legislative approval".

To save the United States from being revised from within, the educated electorate will need to monitor meetings and policies of all governmental departments, a return to large news staffs sorting through voluminous government settlements and other documents. A down-sized government bureaucracy at the federal and other levels would help make this task less formidable.

The Obama/Hillary Clinton State Department has been working with local and regional "advocacy groups" termed NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to prepare the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Report. Obama's submission of the Arizona Immigration Law to the UN is a very controversial appeal for support for his anti-Arizona law position outside of the United States.

Membership in the UN Council for Human Rights (UNCHR) and the proposal for the human rights Periodic Review was rejected by the Bush Administration for including known human rights violators like Libya and China. The UNCHR policies make it easier for known human rights violator countries to join the council, than to be dismissed for human rights violations. The UNHRC could become a council of human rights violators ignoring or promoting human rights violations.

The Obama/Clinton State Department also has been in the news for advocating "Muslim outreach" by paying travel expenses for Near Ground Zero Fitness Center & Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to travel to and from Muslim countries.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) too deserves mention for offering Shirley Sherrod a job in "Advocacy and Outreach" after her racially offensive statements about not offering the "full force of my help" to a white farmer as Georgia Rural Director with a $2 Billion budget. USDA missed a teachable moment" about how racial respect goes both ways. Only CNN Cooper and Johns covered this and other comments by her black activist husband Charles Sherrod. On this broadcast CNN noted the $1.15 Billion "Pigford Farm" federal settlement to the Sherrods and other black farmers.

Department of Education (DoEd) Secretary Arne Duncan of the $4.3 Billion "Race to the Top" emailed over 4,000 department employees to attend Al Sharpton's counter-rally to the August 28, 2010 Glen Beck Lincoln Monument event. This raises questions of violaions of The Hatch Act which forbids federal employees from participating in political campaigns, particulary those espoused by the current administration. David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute noted the email "sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It is highly inappropriate...even in the absence of a direct threat", sic, of job loss, loss of promotion, etc. at work, for not participating.

Arne Duncan called education "the civil rights issue of our generation" thus politicizing DoEd including the "Race to the Top" and changing education funding into Black Racial Politics.

Also disappointing was Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's statement that Beck's rally "would change nothing...We will move rght over you."
What most Americans understood as equal opportunity for everyone was changed into a Black Power message of "redistribution of wealth" and "transfer of power" from whites to blacks.

Obama et.al. have changed American politics into a Black Supremacist takeover of a non-racially motivated Government and, of course, the Treasury.

The financial cost of these black and ethnic advocacy programs is phenomenal, more so during a $12.9 Trillion dollar deficit. How much of the deficit is direct cost for these advocacy programs? The ethical and moral damage done by black racializing our historically democratic government, traditionally striving for fairness and impartiality, is inestimable.

Graphic: Scales and fasces, attributes of Justice, Cartari, 1647, in Dictionary of Symbolism, H Biedermann.

References: CNSNews.com, The Washington Examiner, biggovernment.com.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for more blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com.

8: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then

,
The Civil War raged on. In the South, north through Virginia, to the Washington, DC capital, and beyond to Maryland, above the Mason-Dixon line to Pennsylvania, west to Louisiana, the energies, monies and lives of Americans were lost. The Union lost 360,222 men (110,000 in battle). The Confederacy lost 258,000 (94,000 in battle). At least 471,427 were wounded on both sides.

Despite the war, Lincoln won re-election in 1864. The Confederacy, army and money, was weakened. General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, VA on April 7, 1865. The Civil War was over.

Seven (7) days later on Good Friday, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theater with a single bullet wound to the head. Lincoln never regained consciousness and died the next morning on April 15, 1865.

Booth's shout "sic semper tyrannis!" ("So always to tyrants!") summarizes the irony of Lincoln's Administrations. The "Great Emancipator" freed the slaves in the rebellious Confederate states. But in his war to end slavery, Lincoln became a tyrant, violating the Constitution of the US which he fought the war to preserve. Lincoln expanded the Union Army wth the first military draft in US history, the Conscription Act of 1862. Lincoln declared martial law and suspended the Writ of Habeaus Corpus, the right of the accused to face the accuser and to know the offense of which he(/she) is accused.

Lincoln's goal was to block expansion of slavery to the North and new Western territories, and gradually, even with conpensation to the southern states, to extinguish slavery in the South by 1900.

Lincoln, Black Hawk War militia captain, postmaster, and lawyer, had re-entered politics to protest repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise forbiding slavery and to protest passage of the more limited 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act prohibiting slavery north of the 36 degree 31 minute latitude. Other earlier local laws also prohibited slavery.

The nation was new. The War of Independence from Great Britain had been won less than 100 years before in 1776. The Constitution of the United States was debated and ratified by the states between 1787 and 1791.

The North was building factories, becoming industrialized and monetarized. The South remained agrarian, land rich, cash poor. The Southern economy depended on the barter of labor to continue farming the land. Congress recognized the south depended on laborers in various conditions of "servitude". Congress prohibited slavery by 1808, penalizing slaveholders prior to 1808 in Section 9(1)...a "tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." Congress limited "the migration or importation of such persons", to limit immigration and the entry of "illegals" into the US.

But there were conflicting goals: prohibiting slavery yet permitting expansion of the economy, particularly the labor-intensive southern farm economy. This occurred in the aftermath of the destruction of land and loss of money during the Revolutionary War, only fifty years earlier.

In the first US Census of 1790, the term "slave" was not well-defined, appearing to refer to non-family farm workers, indentured servants, and slaves. Local laws and local opinion prohibited slavery in the North. Congress banned slavery in 1808.

17.2% of American families were "Slaveholder" families. 90% of slaves resided in 3 Southern states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and in Maryland. 603,540 of 697,624 people classified as "slaves" in the 1790 Census resided in these 4 states.

Interestingly enough, there were black as well as white slaveholders. Thomas Day was a mixed race black cabinet maker who owned 14 slaves who worked in his antebellum North Carolina furniture shop.

The Era of Reconstruction followed the Civil War, led by Lincoln's party of Republicans and Radical Republicans. The latter coalition of newly emancipated and other blacks, northern "Carpetbaggers", and their southern collaborators the "Scalawags", molded the re-admitted Southern States to the will of the federal government in Washington, DC.

Emancipated coloreds and poor whites in various conditions of "servitude" were freed. The new "Freedmen" were provided schools and education, citizenship, voting rights, and protection from angry former Confederates under various military and other Reconstruction Acts through the 1860s.

In another irony of the Civil War and Reconstruction, on January 23, 1864 President Lincoln recgnized the concept of "free" labor in contract relations between "ex-slaves" and plantation owners and ordered the Army to encourage and supervise such contracts. This of course makes it dfficult to count the numbers of "freedmen" and slaves at the close of the Civil War.

Other significant Reconstruction era acts include the 3 related Amendments to the US Constitution:
1865: The 13th Amendment, Abolition of slavery.
1866: The 14th Amendment, The Civil Rights Act, US citizenship for all former slaves.
1870: The 15th Amendment, Black Suffrage.

Despite timely legal remedies 145 years ago, the issues of Reconstruction, including education for citizenship, voting rights, and equal rights under the law, repeatedly have been raised and remedied by the federal government. The Reconstruction Era policies of the Radical Republicans continue to this day, now under the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration Cabinet level Advocacy programs, to be discussed in the next blog in this series at http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com (or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com if indexing problems have not been resolved).

Photograph: 3 cent Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863) Stamp, 1948:
That government, of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth. (Nov. 19, 1863).
from Research Guide to American Historical Biography, R. Mussigrosso, Ed., Beacham Publishing, W,DC: 2008.

Other references include: NPR, The World Book Encyclopedia, 20003; Encyclopedia of American biography, JA Gararaty; Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS & JT Heidler; Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction, WL Richter.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogpot.com.

7: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided" - Obamacare v. 36 States

"A house divided against itself cannot stand". (Abraham Lincoln, 1858, Old State Capitol, Springfield, IL)

Barack Obama echoed the words of Abraham Lincoln when announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States on February 10, 2007.

There are differences. Lincoln, a Republican, campaigning for IL Senator to the US Congress, lost to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In the debates with Douglas, Lincoln and his views became well-known. Lincoln's primary goal in this tumultuous time was the preservation of the United States, "the Union". His position on slavery was negotiable and pragmatic.

In the debates, Douglas identified "local control" as the key to maintaining Southern agricultural wealth. Farm wealth included slaves which aded $150-400 to the farm value and kept labor affordable in a barter economy dependent on exchanging work for room, board, and some farm products.

Two (2) years later, in 1860, Lincoln would campaign and win to become the 16th President of the US.

Those words, "A house divided", were prophetic for the new President Lincoln. Southern Democrats, believing Lincoln would be hostile to the South, began to withdraw from the USA. South Carolina adopted the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860 to protest Lincoln's election with only 40% of the popular vote.

By March 4, 1861, seven (7) states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Confederacy attacked a Union rescue expedition at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, on April 12, 1861. The Civil War had begun.

Barack Obama's challenge to individual freedom, including each American's right to buy or not buy health care insurance also has provoked a battle over "local control", "state sovereignty" 150 years later.

Idaho began a legal challenge on March 18, 2010, before Congressional passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 23, 2010 (PPACA). Less than an hour after the Act was signed into law, 13 states, FL, AL, CO, ID, LA, MI, NE, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT and WA, filed a lawsuit in Pensacola, FL challenging the Act. Later 4 additional states joined the lawsuit (AZ, IN, MS, ND). VA has filed a separate lawsuit involving a recently enacted state law. In MO, a ballot initiative about exemption from Obamacare provisions has passed. At least 36 states have objected to this federal intervention into health care.

Obamacare demands each citizen buy insurance or register for the welfare medical card, Medicaid, if eligible, or be charged an IRS assessed and collected penalty.

Obamacare passes the cost of health care back to the individual and to the states. Ohio estimates budget increases of $444.00 for each of the 554,000 new welfare enrollees, $237 million dollars, during an expected budget deficit of over $8Billion dollars in the next 2-year budget.

Federal Congressional support for the Act was partisan. The Senate voted 60-39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for and all Republicans against on December 24, 2009. The Act passed in the House of Representatives by only 7 votes, 219-212 with all 178 Republicans plus 34 Democrats voting against, with 4 vacancies.

Public opinion has been largely negative. CNN polls of March 19-21, 2010 reported 59%opposed to it while 39% supported it. Bloomberg LP found only 4 of 10 supported it. Only a USA Today/Gallup poll had different results. 49% viewed it as "a good thing, while 40% viewed it "badly", wth +/- 4% error. However, senior citizens opposed Obamacare while those younger than 40 supported it.

Rasmussen Reports polled 59% opposed. After passage, 55% of Americans favored repealing Obamacare.

Rep. Steve King(IA) introduced HR 4972 to Repeal Obamacare.

Not often mentioned by Obama and the Democrats, or the media, is the IRS assessed and collected penalty for not purchasing insurance. Obama et.al. did mention penalties against businesses, employers who do not provide health care coverage benefits. However, seasoned employees will know that employer plans usually require a payroll tax deducted contribution by the employee.

Nor did Obama et.al. mention "rationed" medical care under the Obamacare plan. Obama appointed and Department of Heath & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius backed "rationed" medical care advocate Harvard Medical School Dr. Donald Berwick to be Director of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(See 5: and 6: Obama Accounting for blogs on rationed health care and IRS penalties for the "non-compliant".)

Photgraph: Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton (left) and Major General John A. McClernard (right) following the battle of Antietam, October 3, 1862. Photograph by Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress. In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS Heidler & JY Heidler, Editors, ABC-Clio, California, USA, 2000.

Other references: Wikipedia, CNSNews.com, National Press Club archive video.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to request an email of http://monthlynotes.four.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff.

6: Obama Accounting: Levying Taxes & Liens Under the Pretense of "Consumer" Health Care Reform?

The pie chart to the left describes the "Federal Dollar": 47 cents of each dollar comes from individual taxpaying Americans. This is the light-blue shaded right half of the circle. An additional 35 cents also comes from individuals who pay "social insurance payroll" taxes. 82 cents of every US federal government dollar comes from individual income and payroll tax deduction taxpayers.

The underlying plan of ObamaCare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010, is to increase federal revenue with penalties, fees, and fines paid to the IRS by the individual taxpayer who does not want to buy insurance or cannot afford the insurance mandate and who does not want to risk losing home and assets to insolvency by "signing up" for the welfare medical card, Medicaid.

The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee staff recently estimated the IRS would need to hire 16,500 new agents over the next decade and spend an additional $10 Billion dollars to enforce the health care insurance mandate.

IRS representatives speaking at the National Press Club, posted by CNSNews.com, April 7, 2010, stated the IRS would work with both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and insurance companies to investigate Americans for compliance with the insurance mandate. The IRS plans to require taxpayers to attach a "Yes/No" insurance form from their insurance provider to their annual tax return. The IRS then "will run a matching program around that". If the taxpayer doesn't have coverage, the IRS will notify the taxpayer how much is owed to the IRS for the insurance mandate penalty.

Changes in health care companies or coverage, even among those who comply, could create financial nightmares for taxpayers as the IRS seeks to maximize penalties, fees, fines, and interest for Department of Treasury/IRS revenue through health care insurance coverage issues. IRS could initiate liens and levies against taxpayer bank accounts, homes, and other assets.

Obama's promise of "universal health care" has been broken. There always has been universal "access" to health care. Every American can buy health care insurance, at regular or "high-risk" rates, or apply for the welfare medical card known as Medicaid.

Nor has Obama been "transparent" in discussing health care reform. The implication of "universal health care" as free, available to everyone, unlimited free-market state of the art and science medical care, was an empty promise enticing financially pressured voters to the polls to vote for Obama and the Democratic Party.

"Free universal health care" continues to be available only to welfare recipients. Now working and middle class Americans have been given an ultimatum to purchase health care coverage or risk the financial embarrassment of IRS levy and lien, or risk insolvency and loss of house and assets by "signing up" for welfare Medicaid.

Most working and middle class Americans who earn less than $100,000 already do have government-monitored and managed health care insurance Medicare accounts. These employees "pay in" to Medicare through the payroll tax deductions taken from their paychecks by their employers, which are to be forwarded to the federal Medicare fund. No mention is made of how these paid Medicare premiums would be credited or factored in to the insurance mandate.

The proposed change from "free market" to a vague "rationed" health care system through Medicare and Medicaid makes the insurance mandate an even less attractive health care plan to the average taxpayer as patient/client/customer.


Graphic: The US Federal Government Dollar from the World Book Encyclopedia, 2003.
Where the federal dollar comes from:
47 cents Individual income taxes,
35 cents Social insurance payroll taxes
10 cents Corporate income taxes
03 cents Excise taxes
04 cents Other

Other references: CNSNews.com, National Press Club video archives.

email mkrause@381gmail.com or mkrause54yahoo.com to request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

5: Obama Accounting: Why Pay Mandated Obamacare Insurance Premiums for Rationed Medical Care?

Barack Obama has selected Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Donald Berwick, as Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency which manages Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Berwick is an unconfirmed "recess" appointee, appointed without the usual Senate confirmation.

Dr. Berwick, also CEO of Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is a very aggressive opponent of free-market medicine. He advocated rationed care in Great Britain. Berwick praises the socialized British government-run health care system for spending only 9% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on rationed health care, rather than the current 17% of GDP spent in the United States.

Kathleen Sebelius, Cabinet Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gave full support to Dr. Berwick as the "right leader at this time" for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in a videotaped question and answer session at the National Press Club posted May 26, 2010.

ObamaCare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010), mandates insurance premiums to be paid by taxpayers earning above the poverty level. Americans below the poverty level must register for Welfare medical care, Medicaid. Americans will be required to provide "proof of insurance" or pay IRS fees, fines, and penalties for "non-compliance".

Why mandate insurance premiums for anyone in a proposed rationed health care system? Who will receive the mandated insurance premiums or the services paid for by these premiums in a rationed health care system? What care will be available under a rationed health care system? Was rationing covered in the over 2,000 page Obamacare Act voted on by Congress? Is this a late, but very significant Obama Administration modification?

Medicare is a "pay-in" plan for workers deducted from payroll checks by employers for payment to the federal "Medicare" account for that employee, to be available to that employee when eligible as a "senior citizen". Over 40 million Americans now participate in Medicare.

Medicaid is the welfare medical card, providing over 30 million welfare recipients with free medical care. Medicaid is referred to as "insurance", a Federal Guaranty Insurance Corporation-type plan, the stated purpose of which is to repay medical centers and providers for caring for welfare patients. Medicaid in the past made projected payment plans of only 10-11% of health care expenses incurred at "usual, reasonable" rates. This creates enormous losses for welfare medical centers and providers.

This is another Democratic Party "redistribution of wealth" plan, a socialist term as startling in American politics now, as when first uttered by former President William J. Clinton. Who is the wealth to be redistributed to?

The obvious possible answer is to the welfare population, currently covered under Medicaid. The "pay-in" Medicare premiums, because of the combination of "pay-in" health insurance with "free Medicaid", are used to subsidize welfare health care. This obscures an accounting of the actual cost of providing Medicaid welfare health care. How much does the Medicaid welfare card health care cost? (Total current Health and Human Services cost $414.9 Billion.)

The less obvious possible answer is the premiums will be used to subsidize other government budget items proposed by the Obama Administration. Despite his spoken commitment to "transparency" in government, Obama has begun a process of moving funds from one department to another or involving multiple departments in a single, complex piece of legislation, obscuring the source and location of the money. Obama already has set record budget deficits, $458.6 Million in 2008 and 1.8 Trillion in 2009, doubling the national debt under Bush in 2002 from $6 Trillion to $12.9 Trillion or more.

Obama et.al. are planning to subsidize hiring a large number of IRS agents to investigate and collect penalties, fees, fines, and needed tax refunds from Americans who do not chose to buy health care insurance or become insolvent, risking loss of home and assets, by signing up for welfare.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com.

Photograph: Higggins Eye Pearlymussel, Unionidae, an endangered species of freshwater mussel since 1976, in IL, IA, MN, MO, WI, from Beacham's Guide to the Engangered Species of North America, 2001.

References: CNSNews.com. NYT Almanac 2008, 2009, 2010.