The Sunday 'Report;' 04/15/2012

What The National Pamphleteers Don't Report:
14 Common Dog Behavior Myths Decoded
by Mikkel Becker,
vetstreet.com
March 5, 2012
    Although dog training has become more of a science than a craft in recent years, some persistent myths still mislead us when reading canine behavior. Don't let a myth harm your relationship with your pooch. Here, we dispel 14 common myths and look at the facts.  Although dog training has become more of a science than a craft in recent years, some persistent myths still mislead us when reading canine behavior. Don't let a myth harm your relationship with your pooch. Here, we dispel 14 common myths and look at the facts.
1. An old dog can't learn new tricks.
False. Old dogs not only learn new tricks but they thrive when trained. My late Pomeranian, Mr. Teddy, who was adopted at an estimated 10 to 13 years of age, was a training superstar in Vetstreet videos, which were filmed two weeks [....]
http://shine.yahoo.com/pets/14-common-dog-behavior-myths-decoded-162400126.html

Israel's New Strategic Environment
by George Friedman,
STRATfor.com
April 3, 2012
    Israel is now entering its third strategic environment. The constant threat of state-on-state war defined the first, which lasted from the founding of the Jewish state until its peace treaty with Egypt. A secure periphery defined the second, which lasted until recently and focused on the Palestinian issue, Lebanon and the rise of radical Sunni Islamists. The rise of Iran as a regional power and the need to build international coalitions to contain it define the third.
    Israel's fundamental strategic problem is that its national security interests outstrip its national resources, whether industrial, geographic, demographic or economic. During the first phase, it was highly dependent on outside powers -- first the Soviet Union, then France and finally the United States -- in whose interest it was to provide material support to Israel. In the second phase, the threat lessened, leaving Israel relatively free to define its major issues, such as containing the Palestinians and attempting to pacify Lebanon. Its dependence on outside powers decreased, meaning it could [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/israels-new-strategic-environment?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120403&utm_term=gweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=c5068d6dd2184c16977776ef8df27363

Obama Corporate Tax Reform a Sugar-Coated, Harmful Tax Hike
by J.D. Foster, Ph.D.
heritage.org
February 22, 2012
    With his corporate tax reform “framework,” President Obama today added another element to his ultimately harmful economic agenda.  Previously announced anti-growth policies include massive budget deficits, a huge tax hike on individuals and small businesses in 2013, and his proposal to nearly triple the dividend tax rate.  His new proposal starts strong by reducing the federal corporate income tax rate to 28 percent from the current 35 percent. This is a good and long-overdue policy change. Regrettably, he marries rate reduction to a net corporate tax hike based in part on extending his policy to hammer and ultimately deconstruct U.S. multinational companies. The net effect is that his corporate tax reform would do more harm than good, representing yet another missed opportunity to help American workers.  The U.S. corporate tax rate is the world’s second highest—and soon to be highest in the world by far. The average of the OECD nations (nations considered to have developed economies) excluding the U.S. is just over 25 percent. The combined state and federal U.S. rate is nearly 40 percent. It is miraculous that U.S. companies can compete at all in the global economy with such a tremendous handicap.  At the same time, [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/22/obama-corporate-tax-reform-a-sugar-coated-harmful-tax-hike/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Morning Bell: The Highest Taxes in the World
by Mike Brownfield
herigate.org
April 2, 2012
    There aren’t many American-owned companies more iconic than Anheuser-Busch, the famous producer of Budweiser beer based in St. Louis, Missouri. That was true up until 2008, when the Brazilian-Belgian company InBev executed a hostile takeover of the historic brewer, leading to layoffs of more than 1,800 workers. Unfortunately, conditions in the United States are growing ripe for even more takeovers like these to occur, especially now that the nation’s corporate tax rate is officially the highest in the world.
    As of yesterday, the U.S. corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent claimed the world’s top spot, edging out Japan which recently lowered its rate from 39.5 percent to 36.8 percent. (The U.S. rate includes the 35 percent federal rate plus the average rate the states add on.) That’s well above the 25 percent average of other developed nations. Heritage’s Curtis Dubay explains the impact on [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/02/morning-bell-the-highest-taxes-in-the-world/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Japan Income Taxes and Tax Laws
Staff Report,
worldwide-tax.com
Last partial update, April 2012
Taxation of an individual's income in Japan is progressive.  In other words, the higher the income, the higher the rate of tax payable.  The tax rate for an individual in 2012 is between 5% - 40% There are reduced rates of tax for certain income earners.  Japan corporate tax in 2012 is currently (April 1, 2012), 25.5%.
There is a reduced rate of tax for certain corporations it is important to point out that the effective tax, for individuals and corporations, is higher as a result of the other local taxes that exist in Japan.
Japan Individual Income Tax
An individual pays tax on his income as a wage-earner or as a self-employed person. Tax for an individual who meets the criteria of a "permanent resident" in Japan will be calculated on his income in Japan and abroad. A foreign resident who is employed in Japan pays tax only on income earned in Japan.
Generally speaking there are three classes of tax payers:
Permanent resident.
Non-permanent resident (those who have been living in Japan for less than five years).
Non-resident.
The following table shows Japan [....]
http://www.worldwide-tax.com/japan/japan_tax.asp

Africa's Tuareg Dilemma
by Robert D. Kaplan,
STRATfor.com
April 11, 2012
    Some years back, when I left Niamey, the capital of Niger, and headed north on a rutted, dirt track it was as if the country disappeared on me. There was no police, no sign of authority, nothing. Flash floods had left the road completely washed out in places, with the wheels of large trucks half-sunk in mud, drivers stuck for days on the side of the road. Here there were only Tuaregs, the "blue men" as they were called, on account of the color of their dazzling robes and the blue vegetable dye ("nila") they smeared on their bodies. The Tuaregs, a pastoral Berber people, were lords of the Sahara; it's better to have a Tuareg with you than a GPS device, went the saying of U.S. Army Special Forces with whom I was embedded.
    My experience heading north from Timbuktu in Mali was even more extreme. Though it connotes the back of beyond, Timbuktu was actually a cosmopolitan locale -- complete with a museum of medieval Islamic manuscripts, a few decent restaurants and satellite dishes -- compared to where I was going.  I was off to Araouane, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north from Timbuktu into the desert. Araouane was a name on a map, as though it were Cleveland or some place. But nobody in Timbuktu -- and certainly not in Bamako, the Malian capital very far away to the southwest -- knew anything about Araouane, and if anyone still [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/africas-tuareg-dilemma-robert-d-kaplan?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120411&utm_term=kaplan&utm_content=readmore&elq=1caf88b1821a44979d26ce22d3feabd8

Al Sharpton in ‘Partnership’ with Eric Holder?
by Victor Davis Hanson
nationalreview.com
April 12, 2012
Is Al Sharpton really in “partnership” with the attorney general of the United States?
    There were several reasons why it was unwise for the attorney general of the United States to praise Al Sharpton at a convention of Sharpton’s organization, “for your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill,” in the midst of the Trayvon Martin case (“I know that many of you are greatly — and rightly — concerned about the recent shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a young man whose future has been lost to the ages”), even as Sharpton has been quite actively inflaming an already tense situation. But more important, Al Sharpton — aside from his roles in the Crown Heights and Freddy’s Fashion Mart cases, and his derogatory comments about homosexuals, Jews, and Mormons — in the Tawana Brawley matter defamed a state prosecutor, with false allegations, who, I recall, sued Sharpton successfully for libel. In other words, why is the attorney general of the United States offering such lavish praise to someone who did so much to harm a fellow prosecutor in a manner that a court of law found defamatory?
    Unfortunately, when Holder does things like this, his own past racial comments return to the fore (“cowards,” “my people,” his allegations of racism against congressional overseers in the Fast and Furious inquiry, his accusations of racial profiling against the Arizona immigration law which he confessed that he had not yet read, etc.), along with his decision not to prosecute what was seen as a powerful case of voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party (which with apparently impunity has issued a dead-or-alive bounty on George Zimmerman, and hosted a radio show in which calls for a race war were broadcast). [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/295853/al-sharpton-partnership-eric-holder-victor-davis-hanson#comment-bar

Benito Obama and the New American Nightmare
by Charles Payne
townhall.com
April 12, 2012
I got some interesting feedback yesterday after I compared President Obama’s speech at Florida Atlantic University to speeches and writing from Vladimir Lenin and Benito Mussolini.
    I’m surprised people would want to look the other way and imagine that such comparisons are harsh when indeed the aim of those dictators was to take power from a small ruling class of rich people and redistribute wealth to the masses.  Of course that’s the official theory on socialism and Marxism. But of course it never works out that way. Yet still today the hype is nonetheless the same. I’ve written about this before especially comparisons of the economic elements of various types of fascism.  For me the most frightening aspect of the speech wasn’t that President Obama is looking to forge a new economic model where socialism meets capitalism with heavy government oversight. Everyone has a theory and belief on what works and what doesn’t work.  No, the scary part [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/charlespayne/2012/04/12/benito_obama_and_the_new_american_nightmare/page/full/

College ROI: What We Found
by Louis Lavelle
BusinessWeek
April 10, 2012
    When people talk about the value of a college degree, they mean different things. A report last year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce pegs the median value of a four-year bachelor’s degree at $2.3 million, which is the average earnings for a degree holder employed full-time from ages 25 to 64. The value of a college investment calculated by PayScale, a Seattle-based compensation data company, for Bloomberg Businessweek is a small fraction of that amount, and to understand why, you need to know a little bit about our methodology.
    The PayScale methodology differs from most others in several key respects. Instead of using lifetime earnings, it starts with earnings over a 30-year period. From that figure, we deduct the earnings of a typical high school graduate (since most people who don’t go to college would still have earnings, albeit at a much lower amount). In our return on investment (ROI) calculation, the “investment”—or total net cost—is the amount spent on college over the actual time it takes students to graduate, whether four, five, or six years. Finally, our ROI figures are adjusted using each school’s graduation rate. After all, if you don’t graduate, you’ve made an investment with very little financial return. The result is a return that reflects what incoming students can reasonably expect from their investment.
    In 2012, both the cost of a college education and graduate earnings took a bite out of the 30-year college ROI, which fell 2.3 percent to an average of $353,182 when comparing [....]
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/college-roi--what-we-found.html?page=1

Enemies of the People
by Victor Davis Hanson
townhall.com
Apr 12, 2012
    In 2008, a mostly unknown Barack Obama ran for president on an inclusive agenda of "hope and change." That upbeat message was supposed to translate into millions of green jobs, fiscal sobriety, universal health care, a resetting of Bush foreign policy, and racial unity.  Four years later, none of those promises will be themes of his 2012 re-election campaign. Gas has more than doubled in price. Billions of dollars have been wasted in insider and subsidized wind and solar projects that have produced little green energy.  Unemployment rates above 8 percent appear the new norm, when 5 percent in the past was dubbed a "jobless recovery."  From the Middle East to the Korean peninsula, the world seems on the brink. Modern racial relations are at a new low.
    If borrowing $4 trillion in eight years was "unpatriotic," as Obama once labeled George W. Bush, no one quite knows how to term the addition of $5 trillion in new debt in less than four years. ObamaCare is unpopular with the public. Its constitutionality now rests with the Supreme Court.  After four years, the claims of "Bush did it" and "It might have been worse" grow stale. So re-election will rest not on a new agenda, or an explanation of what happened, but on a divide-and-conquer strategy. Translated, that means Obama will  [....]
http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2012/04/12/enemies_of_the_people/page/full/


ForgeryGate:  An Open Letter To NJ Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno
(And Guadagno’s “Response”)
4-12-12
NJ Dept of State
Attn:  Lt. Gov./SOS Kim Guadagno
Dear Lt. Gov./SOS Guadagno:
    As you surely know, ALJ (Administrative Law Judge, Jeff) Masin ruled against plaintiffs in Purpura & Moran v Obama this week. It now goes to you, then probably to appeal, no matter who prevails.  The issues at stake are weighty. A complaint stated that the sitting, putative President is ineligible for office and should be stricken from the NJ ballot. It provided substantiation, legal justification and evidence to support it. If true, it means we have had an illegal President for almost four years and could get eight years of illegal actions, many of which are not in the best interests of the American people.  Many people believe that the ruling for the defendant was exceedingly [....]
http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/04/13/forgerygate-an-open-letter-to-nj-lt-governor-kim-guadagno-and-guadagnos-response/

~[FORGERYGATE:  Related Content]~
(Updated) ForgeryGate:  New Jersey Judge Admits Obama Hasn’t Provided Proof Of Birthplace,
Then Rules Obama Born In Hawaii
by Daniel Noe
exposeobama.com
April 12, 2012
    A judge in New Jersey just ruled yesterday afternoon against two concerned citizens who questioned Obama’s eligibility to be on their state’s presidential primary ballot. Essentially,Obama was cleared to be put on the ballot.  Attorney Mario Apuzzo,arguing for plaintiffs Nick Purpura and Ted Moran argued that Obama should not be on the ballot and that the NJ Secretary of State is obligated to make sure that only qualified candidates appear on future ballots.  Last week,Mr. Purpura,accompanied by Mr. Apuzzo, filed an objection to the nominating petition of Obama to appear on the state’s primary election ballot.
    Obama was represented by attorney Alexandra Hill of the firm of Genova,Burn,and Giantomasi of Newark. The name of the Administrative Law Judge who heard the case was Judge Jeff Masin.  While Mr. Apuzzo clearly argued how Obama’s birth certificate was clearly inauthentic,Ms. Hill struggled to dismiss the suit as irrelevant. Although she conceded that Obama has not furnished a birth certificate to the appropriate parties in the state,she nevertheless said that he is under no obligation to do so. Unfortunately,this is true,not just of New Jersey but of all fifty states.  Judge Masin asked a lot of questions about the eligibility issue,repeatedly interrupting Mr. Apuzzo’s presentation. He refused to hear anything about the issue of Obama’s forged documents and did not allow any evidence to be entered into the court’s official record since Obama had not presented his birth certificate or draft registration documents in any form.
    What was most interesting was that despite no record of Obama being born in Hawaii was entered into the court’s official record,Masin ruled that Obama was born there anyway.  The plaintiffs and Mr. Apuzzo vowed to appeal.
http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/04/12/updated-forgerygate-new-jersey-judge-admits-obama-hasnt-provided-proof-of-birthplace-then-rules-obama-born-in-hawaii/

~[FORGERYGATE: Related Content-2]~
Initial Decision of Administrative Law Judge Masin
State of New Jersey
OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
INITIAL DECISION
OAL DKT. NO. STE 04534-12
AGENCY DKT. N/ANICHOLAS E. PURPURA AND THEODORE T. MORAN,Petitioners,
v.
BARACK OBAMA,Respondent.
 ___________________________
Mario Apuzzo, Esq., for petitioners
Alexandra Hill, Esq., for respondent (Genova, Burns, Giantomasi & Webster,attorneys)
ANDPATRICK GALASSO,OAL DKT. NO. STE 04588-12Petitioner, AGENCY DKT. N/Av.BARACK OBAMA,Respondent.
 ___________________________
Patrick Galasso, petitioner, filed pro se
Alexandra Hill, Esq., for respondent (Genova, Burns, Giantomasi & Webster,attorneys)
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12
Record Closed: April 10, 2012
Decided: April 10, 2012
BEFORE JEFF S. MASIN, ALJ:
Petitioners in these matters challenge the validity of the nominating petition filed on behalf of President Barack Obama, a candidate for election to the position ofPresident of the United States. The challenges were filed on April 5 (Purpura andMoran) and April 9 (Galasso).
A hearing was held before this judge on April 10, 2012.
Messrs. Purpura and Moran appeared with counsel. Mr. Galasso did not appear and was not represented at the hearing. As such, his objection is subject to dismissal for failure to prosecute, but since the issues he raised in his one-page petition are essentially those raised by the other objectors, the matter will be decided on the merits.  The petitioners present several grounds for their contention that Mr. Obama cannot legally stand as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the pendingprimary. As identified in the petition and as more directly defined at the hearing, theobjections are that
1. Mr. Obama has not proven that he meets the Constitutionalrequirements for the Office of President. More specifically, as he mustbe a “natural-born Citizen” and as the Secretary of State has anobligation to assure that he meets that qualification, he has notprovided her with proof as to the details of his birth. He has not filed abirth certificate to establish his purported birth in Hawaii. Indeed, thereare uncertainties as to his actual identity. He has not proven that hewas actually born in the United States and as such, that he is a“natural born” citizen, as he is required to be in order to serve asPresident pursuant to Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 of the UnitedStates Constitution.
2. Even if he was actually born in the United States, he is not a“natural born Citizen” because his father was not a citizen.
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 3
The petitioners each testified as to the reason for their having filed an objection to Mr. Obama’s nominating petition. In essence, they are concerned that a person whom they believe to be ineligible to be President would be elected to the position and wield the enormous power, influence and authority of the Presidency, with some threat to their security and to the democratic institutions of this country. Their standing to file the objection was not challenged. 
    In regard to the first issue, it is undisputed that Mr. Obama has not presented the Secretary of State with any form of birth certificate in connection with the nominating petitions, and his counsel in this hearing agreed that she was offering no such document. As such, while the petitioners have noted in their brief their beliefs as to the possibly illicit nature of the long-form birth certificate released to the public via the internet, counsel for the petitioners agreed that here the relevant objection is not to the validity of the document, for it is not before the Secretary. The objection is instead that in regard to the need to prove qualification for the Presidency, and that Obama is“natural-born”, the failure to produce any proof is itself fatal to his nomination. And in that regard, the failure to even proffer to the Secretary a birth certificate is legallyconclusive of the lack of qualification to stand for the Office.
    As such, while thepetitioners were prepared to produce a witness, purportedly an expert, to contend thatthe long-form certificate, as displayed on the internet, was a forgery, after extensive colloquy, it was determined that that issue is not relevant to the petitioners’ objection herein. It would only be so if the certificate were produced in order to meet a specificrequirement of the law, and in that instance, its validity could be challenged. It has notbeen offered.
1.  The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 1, Clause 4, provides thefollowing qualifications for one to serve as President of the United States: (1) shall haveattained the age of 35 years; (2) a natural born citizen of the United States; (3) a UnitedStates resident for at least fourteen years. The nomination of any person to any publicoffice may be challenged on the ground that the incumbent is not eligible for the officeat the time of the election. N.J.S.A. 19:29-1. N.J.S.A. 19:25-3 provides1I make no determination as to whether the gentlemen who was identified as the expert witness wouldhave qualified as such, or on the validity of any alleged expert assessment of the original birth certificatebased upon a view of the document on the internet.
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 4 -
Not less than 1,000 voters of any political party may file apetition with the Secretary of State on or before the 64th daybefore a primary election in any year in which a President ofthe United States is to be chosen, requesting that the nameof the person indorsed therein as a candidate of such partyfor the office of President of the United States shall beprinted upon the official primary ballot of that party for thethen ensuing election for delegates and alternates to thenational convention of such party.The petition shall be prepared and filed in the form andmanner herein required for the indorsement of candidates tobe voted for at the primary election for the general election,except that the candidate shall not be permitted to have adesignation or slogan following his name, and that it shallnot be necessary to have the consent of such candidate forPresident indorsed on the petition.It is thus the case that a nominating petition endorsing a particular person for thePresidency can be filed without the consent of the person indorsed. That being thecase, it appears that at least at the time that the petition is filed with the Secretary ofState, there is no obligation upon the person indorsed to prove his or her qualificationfor the office. This lack of a need for consent contrasts with the situation involving othernominating petitions, for N.J.S.A. 19:23-7 provides that, in regard to non-presidentialnominating petitionsAccompanying the petition, each person indorsed thereinshall file a certificate, stating that he is qualified for the officementioned in the petition, that he is a member of the politicalparty named therein, that he consents to stand as acandidate for nomination at the ensuing primary election ofsuch political party, and that, if nominated, he consents toaccept the nomination, to which shall be annexed the oath ofallegiance . . . .
In the case of the presidential primary, where the person or persons indorsed need notconsent to being indorsed by the petition, N.J.S.A. 19:25-4 authorizes such a personindorsed without consent to “decline in writing, filed in the office of the Secretary ofState, to have his name printed upon the primary election ballot as a candidate forPresident, the Secretary of State shall not so certify such name.” It could be assumedtherefore that if a person so indorsed knew that he did not meet the Constitutional
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 5
-requirements for the office, he would decline, thus leading the Secretary to not certifyhis name.There appears to be no affirmative requirement that a person indorsed in anominating petition for the Presidency present to the Secretary of State any certificationor other proof that he is qualified for the Office, at least not at the time when nominatingpetitions are to be accepted or rejected by the Secretary. This is not meant to suggestthat there is any other such occasion when such proof is required, but to the extent thatthis matter relates to the nominating petitions for the Presidential primary, there is nosuch requirement. In that case, once a petition is filed endorsing a person and thatperson has not filed his declination of such indorsement, a party believing that theindorsed individual is not qualified can file a challenge on the grounds of ineligibility.In this matter, as the petitioners’ objection is that Mr. Obama has not providedthe Secretary with proof of the place of his birth by means of a birth certificate orotherwise, the lack of any obligation on his part to do so means he has not failed to actin accordance with the applicable law.The second objection involves the meaning of the Constitutional phrase, “naturalborn Citizen.” Discussion and consideration of this issue is of course relevant only onthe understanding that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. This issue has been the subjectof litigation concerning Mr. Obama’s candidacy in several jurisdictions. No court,federal, state or administrative, has accepted the challengers’ position that Mr. Obamais not a “natural born Citizen” due to the acknowledged fact that his father was born inKenya and was a British citizen by virtue of the then applicable British Nationality Act.Nor has the fact that Obama had, or may have had, dual citizenship at the time of hisbirth and thereafter been held to deny him the status of natural born. It is unnecessaryto reinvent the wheel here; the subject has been thoroughly reviewed and no new legalargument on this issue has been offered here. While there are several decisions thatcould be cited, the decision issued by the Court of Appeals of Indiana in 2009 in Ankeny v. Governor, 916 N.E.2d 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), is representative of theposition taken by courts and other agencies who have considered the merits of theissue. As the court therein noted, and as the petitioners here have contended, the
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 6
-thrust of the argument against Obama’s status as natural born is that there is a “cleardistinction between being a ‘citizen of the United states’ and a ‘natural born Citizen.’”Id. at 685. The decision notes that the petitioner therein, as here, cites to an eighteenthcentury treatise by Emmerich de Vattel, “The Law of Nations” and to various earlysources for support for their argument that one who is the child of a non-citizen cannotbe natural born even if born in the United States. But the Ankeny court, relying uponthe decision of the United States Supreme Court in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S.649, 18 S. Ct. 456, 42 L. Ed. 890 (1898), rejected that position.2In Wong Kim Ark,Justice Gray wrote at great length about the understanding of the term “natural born”and its common law meaning, probing English authorities and concluding that the “lawof England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country,and continuing to the present day, . . . every child born in England of alien parents wasa natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of aforeign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the childwas born. The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continentdown to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United Statesafterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.”This position as to the common law meaning is in accord with Justice Joseph Story’sstatement, concurring in Inglis v. Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 99,7 L. Ed. 617 (1830), “Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine thatthe children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents reside there under theprotection of the government, and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjectsby birth.” See Wong Kim Ark, 160 U.S. at 660, 18 S. Ct. at 461. In Wong Kim Ark, theCourt also cited Justice Swayne’s comment in United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott 26,40, 41 (1860).All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all person born in the allegiance of the2The Wong Kim Ark decision was preceded by Minor v. Happersett, 88 (21 Wall.) U.S. 162, 167, 22L.Ed. 627 (1874), where the Supreme Court stated that while the Constitution did not say “in words” “whoshall be natural-born citizens” there were “some authorities” who held that “children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents” were citizens. The Court concludes that itwas not necessary to decide that issue in Minor. Wong Kim Ark more directly addresses the issue of whois “natural-born” although it is acknowledged that neither of these cases involved the use of the term inconnection with a presidential candidate and the unique Constitutional requirements for holding that office.Nevertheless, the Wong Kim Ark ruling certainly goes very far in defining the term and its meaning in thiscountry. And the decision does not suggest that the common law rule identified therein only applied at thestate level and not on a national basis, as counsel here claims.
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 7
-United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiancego together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it isthe common law of this country, as well as of England.The Wong Kim Ark Court then statedWe find no warrant for the opinion that this great principle ofthe common law has ever been changed in the UnitedStates. It has always obtained here with the same vigor,and subject only to the same exceptions [children ofambassadors, etc.], since as before the Revolution.[Wong Kim Ark, supra, at 169 U.S. 662-663, 18 S. Ct. at462].The Georgia Secretary of State recently denied a similar challenge to Mr. Obama’sstatus as a natural born citizen in Farrar, et al. v. Obama, OSAH-SECSTATE-CE-1215136-60-MAHIHI, where Georgia State Administrative Law Judge Mahili relied uponArkeny and Wong Kim Ark for his ruling that the President was indeed a natural bornCitizen.Time does not allow for the fullest discussion of the case law addressing theseissues, but suffice it to say that the status of “natural born Citizen” for Mr. Obama hasnot been denied by any court or administrative agency that has addressed the merits ofthe issue. This is not the place to write a law review article on the full analysis of thesubject, but there is no legal authority that has been cited or otherwise provided thatsupports a contrary position. The petitioners’ legal position on this issue, however wellintentioned, has no merit in law. Thus, accepting for the point of this issue that Mr.Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a “natural born Citizen” regardless of the status of hisfather.Based upon the above ICONCLUDEthat the petitioners have failed to meettheir burden to establish that Barak Obama failed in any obligation to prove to theSecretary of State that he is qualified to hold the Presidency and that he is a “naturalborn Citizen” of the United States of America, as required by the United StatesConstitution. The petitions challenging his petitions are DISMISSED.
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-I hereby FILE my initial decision with theSECRETARY OF STATE for consideration.
This recommended decision may be adopted, modified or rejected by theSECRETARY OF STATE, who by law is authorized to make a final decision in thismatter. If the Secretary of State does not adopt, modify or reject this decision within forty-five days and unless such time limit is otherwise extended, this recommendeddecision shall become a final decision in accordance with N.J.S.A. 52:14B-10.
Any party may file exceptions with the
DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF ELECTIONS , DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
by facsimile transmission at (609) 777-1280 within two hours of receipt of the initial decision. A hard copy shall be mailed withintwenty-four hours of the facsimile transmission to the
DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISIONOF ELECTIONS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
225 West State Street, 5rdFloor,
POBox 304,
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0304,
marked “Attention: Exceptions.”
A copy of any exceptions must be sent to the judge and to the other parties.
April 10, 2012
DATE
JEFF S. MASIN, ALJ
Date Received at Agency: April 10, 2012
Date Mailed to Parties: April 10, 2012 /caa
OAL DKT. NOS. STE 4534-12 AND STE 4588-12- 9
-EXHIBITS3
For Petitioners
P-1 Letter dated July 29, 2010, from Rolbin to Strunk with attachment
P-2 Computer printout—“Daylife”
P-3 Photocopy of pages of Obama’s High School Yearbook—“OAHUAN1979”
3Several exhibits were offered that were not accepted into evidence. Others, related to the challenge tothe birth certificate, were never offered after the issue at bar was clarified. The rejected exhibits includedan affidavit of Timothy Lee Adams, an Order of the Alabama Supreme Court deemed irrelevant to thiscase, and a photocopy of what on its face is a Selective Service Registration Form, which has no evidenceas to the authenticity of the document from which the internet copy was made.
 
~[FORGERYGATE Related Content-3]~
Purpura and Moran Response 
STATEMENT OF PROCEDURE
Petitioners argued that Candidate Barack Obama has not met hisburden of showing that he is eligible to be on the New Jersey primary ballotby showing that he is a “natural born Citizen.” We argued that he has notpresented any evidence to the New Jersey Secretary of State showing whohe is and that he was born in the United States. We also argued that as amatter of law, Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” because he was born toa father who was not a U.S. citizen.
2  Obama’s counsel made a motion to dismiss the Objection in itsentirety. She argued that it was not relevant to being placed on the ballotwhether Mr. Obama is a “natural born Citizen,” where he was born, andwhether he was born to U.S. citizen parents. She said that no law in NewJersey obligated him to produce any such evidence in order to get on theprimary ballot. We argued that Mr. Obama under the Constitution has to bea “natural born Citizen.” We argued that under New Jersey law (the stateconstitution, statutes, and case law), Mr. Obama must show that he isqualified for the office he wishes to occupy and that includes showing thathe is a “natural born Citizen,” which includes presenting evidence of who heis, where he was born, and that he was born to two U.S. citizen parents. Weargued that the Secretary of State has a constitutional obligation not to placeany ineligible candidates on the election ballot. Judge Masin deniedObama’s motion to dismiss and the case proceeded to trial.After calling to the witness stand Mr. Moran and Mr. Purpura, whogave testimony as to why they brought the ballot challenge, and introducingdocuments showing there is a question as to Mr. Obama’s identity,petitioners called Brian Wilcox to testify as an internet image expert. Mr.Wilcox [....]
http://www.scribd.com/puzo1/d/88885325-Purpura-Moran-Exceptions-to-Initial-Decision-4-10-12
 
Congress Should Not Authorize States to Expand Collection of Taxes on Internet and Mail Order Sales
by David Addington

heritage.org
April 6, 2012
Abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1992 decision in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota protects out-of-state businesses in the Internet era from overreaching by revenue-hungry states. The Court’s decision prevents a state from forcing an out-of-state business to serve as the state’s sales tax collector if the business has no physical presence in the state and simply takes sales orders by Internet, catalog, or telephone. Congress has under consideration legislation (S. 1832) to overturn the Quill Corporation decision. To support a strong national economy and encourage fiscal responsibility among the states, Congress should reject the legislation.
    Congress has under consideration legislation (S. 1832 of the 112th Congress) to allow states to require out-of-state businesses that have no connection to the state, other than taking orders over the Internet, by mail, or by telephone from in-state customers and sending the ordered goods by common carrier or U.S. mail, to become sales tax collection agents for the states. Enactment of such legislation would increase the amount of tax dollars millions of Americans pay, encourage states to increase the size and scope of their governments, favor some states over others in granting federal authority, and discourage free-market competition in interstate commerce. Accordingly, Congress should not enact the legislation.  The legislation overrules the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision [....]
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/congress-should-not-authorize-states-to-expand-collection-of-taxes-on-internet-and-mail-order-sales

~[Related Content]~
Morning Bell: The Internet Taxes that Could Be Coming

by Mike Brownfield
heritage.org
April 12, 2012
    If you’ve ever bought anything on the Internet, over the phone, or from a catalog, you might have noticed that when you buy from some stores, you don’t pay any state sales tax, but if you buy from other stores, you do. That’s because a Supreme Court decision protected out-of-state businesses from revenue-hungry states. But a new bill working its way through Congress would change all that, turning every online retailer into a sales tax collector. And that’s legislation Congress should reject.
    Back in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled in Quill Corporation v. North Dakota that a state cannot force a retailer who doesn’t have any physical presence in that state to collect sales taxes from Internet, phone or catalog sales. So if you ordered a book online from BarnesandNoble.com and there’s a Barnes and Noble store right down the street from your house, you’d have to pay sales tax. But if you ordered that book online from a mom and pop bookstore with one location halfway across the country, they wouldn’t have to collect sales tax from you.
    In the Quill case, North Dakota tried to force out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes and remit them to North Dakota, even if they didn’t have a physical presence in the state. Quill Corporation, which sells office supplies and is based in Delaware, had offices and warehouses in Illinois, California and Georgia, but didn’t have any bricks, mortar, employees, or sales representatives in North Dakota. It did, however, have 3,000 customers there and $1 million in annual sales, so North Dakota wanted Quill to collect tax on those sales.
The Court decided that North Dakota’s law was not permissible because the Constitution’s Commerce Clause protects against a state’s unreasonable [....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/12/morning-bell-the-internet-taxes-that-could-be-coming/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Iran's Strategy
by George Friedman,
STRATfor.com
April 10, 2012
    For centuries, the dilemma facing Iran (and before it, Persia) has been guaranteeing national survival and autonomy in the face of stronger regional powers like Ottoman Turkey and the Russian Empire. Though always weaker than these larger empires, Iran survived for three reasons: geography, resources and diplomacy. Iran's size and mountainous terrain made military forays into the country difficult and dangerous. Iran also was able to field sufficient force to deter attacks while permitting occasional assertions of power. At the same time, Tehran engaged in clever diplomatic efforts, playing threatening powers off each other.
    The intrusion of European imperial powers into the region compounded Iran's difficulties in the 19th century, along with the lodging of British power to Iran's west in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula following the end of World War I. This coincided with a transformation of the global economy to an oil-based system. Then as now, the region was a major source of global oil. Where the British once had interests in the region, the emergence of oil as the foundation of industrial and military power made [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/irans-strategy?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120410&utm_term=gweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=fa2aa19c482f4bee9a7d7148ee80a6d6

More Obama Manufactured Outrage at Women

by Gina Loudon
townhall.com
April 13, 2012    Remember when Grandma warned you not to “make a mountain out of a mole hill” or it would get you into trouble? The Democrat machine might have crashed into the side of their own manufactured mountain. They manufactured the war on women that never took place, and drudged up the sexually promiscuous Sandra Fluke as their hero.  Then they manufactured a race war, and they have all the love and beauty of Sharpton, Farrakhan, and Jackson on the face of that mountain. But their favorite manufactured mountain is that of class warfare. This one works well for them, even in a tough economy of their own creation. But Americans are waking up to an election on the horizon, and they are not seeing themselves reflected in the chosen heroes of the left.
    Hilary Rosen, a Democrat strategist took a turn at the wheel of the class warfare train last night, and crashed it right into the side of the carefully constructed class warfare mountain. While trying to define Ann Romney as a woman of leisure, she [....]
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/ginaloudon/2012/04/13/more_obama_manufactured_outrage_at_women/page/full/

Taxmageddon: Massive Tax Increase Coming in 2013
by Curtis Dubay,

heritage.org
April 4, 2012
    If President Obama and Congress fail to act this year, an enormous, unprecedented tax increase will fall on American taxpayers starting on January 1, 2013. The Washington Post called the looming tax increase “Taxmageddon,”[1] and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called it a “massive fiscal cliff.”[2]
    This impending tax increase is mostly the result of the expiration of many long-standing policies that all expire at the end of 2012. President Obama and Congress should start working together now to prevent this massive tax increase rather than waiting until the end of the year. That would assure families, businesses, and investors that their taxes will not rise sharply as the economy is still staggering to its feet and show the voters that Washington really can get important things done—even in an election year.
Taxmageddon Is Huge
Taxmageddon is a $494 billion tax increase that strikes at the beginning of 2013. Under current law, [....]
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/taxmageddon-massive-tax-increase-coming-in-2013

Taxpayers pay millions to mow lawns of foreclosed homes
by Jonathan Karl, Richard Coolidge
& Sherisse Pham,
Power Players
April 10, 2012
    American taxpayers own close to 200,000 vacant houses, and over the next year they will spend more than $40 million just to mow lawns at these properties. Taxpayers also foot the bills to paint walls, fix cabinets, plant flowers and more -- expenses that just last year, exceeded a half a billion dollars.  The housing bailout has already cost taxpayers $124 million, now Americans are spending hundreds of millions more fixing up foreclosed homes to try and sell them. It is a bizarre and expensive side effect of the housing market collapse and failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants that went into federal conservatorship in 2008.
Fannie Mae alone repaired nearly 90,000 homes last year.
"That is a lot of homes, and it is a lot of materials that need to be purchased," said Jay Ryan, Fannie Mae's vice president of real estate owned homes.  Ultimately, Ryan said, Fannie Mae pays electricity bills, property taxes, and the costs of general upkeep of properties to make sure houses are ready to sell. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already sold hundreds of thousands of homes, but they continue [....]
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/taxpayers-pay-millions-mow-lawns-foreclosed-homes-100514058.html


Tea party leader warns Romney:
Don’t expect us to campaign for you
Staff Report,
Dailycaller.com
April 13, 2012
    The leader of the Tea Party Nation organization has a blunt message for likely Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: Tea partiers will likely vote for you, but don’t expect them to get energized and campaign for you.
“The tea party is not going to coalesce around Romney,” Judson Phillips told The Daily Caller on Thursday. “Most of us will vote for Romney, but we will not be out there with signs for him or in his campaign.”
Phillips said that surveys conducted on the Tea Party Nation website have shown that about 25 percent of tea party activists say they won’t vote for Romney in the general election.  These activists — who don’t think Romney is [....]
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/13/tea-party-leader-warns-romney-dont-expect-us-to-campaign-for-you/?print=1

The 100th Anniversary of the Titanic:
10 Things You Didn’t Know

by Victoria Leigh Miller
Yahoo! Contributor Network
April 6, 2012
    April 15, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Here are 10 things you may not know about the luxury ship, which sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton England to the United States.
* On the evening of April 14, the first-class passengers on the Titanic enjoyed a ten-course meal that included oysters, poached salmon, sirloin of beef, lamb with mint sauce, chocolate éclairs and waldorf pudding. According to Armchair World, a different wine was served with each course, and coffee and cigars accompanied by port and distilled spirits were available with the last course.
* The Titanic had its own newspaper. According to the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, The Atlantic Daily Bulletin was printed daily and included news articles, the latest stock prices, horse-racing results, society gossip and a daily menu.
* The massive ship had some unheard of amenities. A Discovery Channel article details perks such as an onboard Turkish bath, libraries, a squash court and a heated swimming pool. The luxury liner even had an infirmary with an operating room.
* While the Titanic boasted some of the wealthiest people in the world on board, two famous men of that era didn't make the trip. According to Discovery.com, financier J. P. Morgan and famed chocolatier Milton S. Hershey had planned to sail aboard the ship's maiden voyage but canceled at the last minute.
* Less than a month after the tragedy, silent film actress and Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson starred in the film "Saved From the Titanic." According to Stageclick, the actress reenacted her personal story of the tragedy, complete with the actual white silk evening dress she wore on that fateful night. The film was a hit in America and England, but the only known prints were destroyed two years later in a fire.
* Many artifacts from the Titanic were salvaged. The Titanic Museum in Massachusetts houses The Titanic Historical Society's collection, which includes a lifejacket, lifeboat flag, luncheon and dinner menus, a square of first-class stateroom carpet, letters and postcards written on board, first class china and a bridge bell.
* According to UK's Mirror, a violin alleged to have belonged to Titanic bandleader Wallace Harley was recently discovered. While tests [....]
http://news.yahoo.com/100th-anniversary-titanic-10-things-didn-t-know-232200873.html

What’s the Easiest Way to Cheat on Your Taxes?

by Adam Davidson, Jacob Goldstein,
Caitlin Kenney, and Dan Kedmey,
New York Times
April 9, 2012
    If economists ran the tax system, there would be virtually no exemptions or loopholes. But economists don’t run the tax system! Instead, businesses, rich people, Congressmen and attorneys spend a shockingly large amount of time lobbying for tax breaks or exploiting the ones that exist. When the modern income tax was created in 1913, the code was 27 pages long. Last year, it was 5,296 pages. What in the world does it say? After surveying 20 accountants, tax lawyers and policy wonks, we’ve boiled down their arcane knowledge to this short list of things you might want to know.
So what’s the easiest way to cheat on your taxes?
Run your own company. More specifically, as Greg Kyte, a Utah C.P.A., puts it, be the sole proprietor of a Schedule C business. Then you can buy stuff for yourself and probably write it off as a business expense. “You can look through your receipts for the year and say, ‘Here’s some stuff I bought at Home Depot,’ ” says Kyte (who, for the record, says he never does this). “The I.R.S. would have no idea if I [....]
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/what%E2%80%99s-the-easiest-way-to-cheat-on-your-taxes-.html

Why U.S. Bounties on Terrorists Often Fail
by Scott Stewart,
STRATfor.com
April 12, 2012
    U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman announced April 3 that the U.S. government's "Rewards for Justice" (RFJ) program was offering a $10 million reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). In other Rewards for Justice cases involving Pakistan, suspects such as Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdel Basit and Mir Amal Kansi have hidden in Pakistan and maintained relatively low profiles. In this case, Saeed is a very public figure in Pakistan. He even held a news conference April 4 in Rawalpindi announcing his location and taunting the United States by saying he was willing to share his schedule with U.S. officials.
    While the Saeed case is clearly a political matter rather than a pure law enforcement or intelligence issue, the case has focused a great deal of attention on Rewards for Justice, and it seems an opportune time to examine the history and mechanics of the program.
Rewards for Justice
In the shadow of the 1983 and 1984 bombings of the [....]
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/why-us-bounties-terrorists-often-fail?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120412&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=readmore&elq=98294b479b834396a3026b23d39505bd

10 Ways to Turn Off a Homebuyer

by Jay MacDonald,
Bankrate.com
April 13, 2012
    What a difference a couple of years makes.  Back in 2007, homebuyers would beg to purchase your house. They would even bid more than the asking price for the privilege to do so.
Today ... well, not so much. Once the real estate bubble burst and foreclosures poisoned the housing pool, buyers suddenly regained the upper hand. But instead of buying, they're waiting, convinced that housing prices will continue to drop.
What's a smart seller to do in this environment?
    We assembled a coast-to-coast SWAT team to address the crisis: Chad Goldwasser of Goldwasser Real Estate in Austin, Texas; Terry Cannon, a buyer's agent and broker with Oregon Exclusive Buyers Realty in Salem, Ore.; and Julie Dana, the New York-based "home stylist" and co-author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Staging Your Home to Sell."
They suggest 10 buyer turnoffs that sellers should avoid at all costs.
"If you do all the staging correctly and have a good agent, the house will hopefully only be on the market a few weeks," Dana says. "Then you can go back to living your life."
1. Dirt
Hands down, our panel agrees: Nothing [....]
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-ways-turn-off-homebuyer-070118154.html
Until Next Sunday....