Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye- Upcoming Debate

In the hours and days after the Boston Marathon Bombing, there were a number of false leads and dead ends that were pursued not only by amateurs in social media, but many of the largest media outlets in the country. Among those were the stories that there was a Saudi national arrested, then released, plus several pictures of individuals now known to have nothing to do with the attack. There was even (and still is) a portion of the population that believes the bombing was either staged, faked or orchestrated by the Federal Government in order to execute martial law in Boston for a day. Here are some of the facts as we now know them:

• The Tsarnaev brothers (Tamerlan, 26 and Dzhokha, 19) planted and detonated a pair of bombs made of pressure-cookers near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 15, killing three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and injuring more than 260 others.

• They shot and killed an MIT campus police officer on Thursday,

• Shortly after that shooting, Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police, while Dzhokhar was injured and later captured. In the incident, they utilized pressure-cooker bombs against police, and similar devices were found in their residence.

• In subsequent interviews with family members, and confirmed by Dzhokhar himself before he was read his Miranda rights, their motivation was a hatred for America inspired by radical Islamic teaching.

• Although they apparently carried out the bombing alone, several friends are considered accessories after the fact for helping destroy evidence, and it is possible that Tamerlan's wife may have helped in the preparation of the bombs.

In such an event that is perpetrated by either a single individual or a small number of low profile people, using low-tech materials, is admittedly a difficult one for law enforcement to forsee and even harder to foil. However the more we learn, the more we realize that these two, particularly the older brother should have been at least a “person of interest” before the Watertown shootout, and possibly even before the initial bombing event. Regarding our intelligence on him, we know:

• Twice Russia had contacted the FBI about the Tamerlan's radicalization and their concern regarding his contacts in Russia. First in 2011, and the FBI interviewed Tamerlan but found no incriminating evidence. Then while he was in Dagestan in 2012, he apparently met with, or at least communcated with two Islamic radicals there, William Plotnkov and Masur Nidal. Tamerlan was unders surveilance by Russian counter-terrorism forces at this time. Nidal was killed by Russian special forces in May. On July 14^th, 2012, Plotnikov was killed in a shoot-out with police. Russian counter-terrorism authoritiees were searching for Tamerlan but he had disappeared and fled back to the United States. Russia again contacted the FBI, but received no response.

• The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012, according to a senior Saudi government official. They had human intelligence that indicated he was going to detonate a bomb. Saudi Arabia had also denied Tamerlan a visa to visit Mecca in 2011, citing concerns about his radical stances.

• Tamerlan was on two US terror watch lists, as was his own mother.

• At least Tamerlan, possibly Dzhokar, were involved in an unsolved triple homocide that happened in Waltham, on September 11^th.. (not a coincidence), 2011.

With these facts in mind- that intelligence agencies from 2 foreign governments contacted us in the last year to tell us that an indivdual who was already on the watch list was seeking out violent terrorists overseas and possibly planning a bomb attack on a public event- how is that when bombing victim Jeff Bauman fingered the image of the individual that placed the bag down that had the explosives- the FBI and homeland security STILL did not know who the individual was? Instead the FBI held a press conference to ask for the public's help in identifying them. 

Exactly what is the FBI and Homeland Security doing if they are ignoring shared intelligence from other countries counter-terrorism agencies?

We now know that they were busy going over the phone records of the Associated Press, tracking the whereabouts of Fox News reporters, and issuing dire warnings about the dangers of conservatives, vets coming back from the war, and pro-life Roman Catholics. Truly enemies of the state, no doubt. At least they are to Eric Holder, Janet Napalitano and Barack Obama.

The bombings were terrible tragedies, without a doubt. But it is likewise tragic that the Federal Government – again- was looking for terrorists in all the wrong places. Just as in the years before 9-11 in New York, the FBI and Department of Justice under Louis Freeh and Janet Reno were focused on “Right Wing”- particularly Christian extremists- as outlined in their plans from the “Project Megiddo” directive.

For all the banter thrown around about the SCOTUS ruling on healthcare law, it is a little disconcerting about how few people actually understand what the court was ruling on, and the ramifications of the final verdict.

The Supreme Court is not there to weigh out the merits of universal healthcare, or the coverage of pre-existing conditions, and the other particulars. The only question before it was the constitutional question- “Can the Federal government force an individual, simply because they are alive, to buy a product?”. On its face, it seems absurd, but that is the only germane question they had to wrestle with. To take it to the logical extreme, if the answer is “yes” then I would like to pass a law saying that everyone, under penalty of law, must buy a new Toyota. After all, everyone needs to travel in a car sometimes. Otherwise, they have to take public transportation, or bum a ride from someone else, in either case, they are becoming a burden on others around them. An individual mandate that everyone buys a new Toyota solves that problem, and we won't have so many old clunkers breaking down, with big repair bills. The law would be doing everyone a favor. Especially Toyota dealers.

The ruling on Thursday gave the answer. “Yes”. The government can tell you that you must buy a product, even a product from an evil, for-profit corporation. The rationale behind it is that the refusal to buy the product carries a fine from the IRS- an additional tax. And, (here is the punchline) the federal government can create and levy a tax anytime, anywhere, for whatever foolhardy thing they want, and send the IRS after you to levy, audit, punish, seize your assets and even imprison you if you don't pay it. This might explain why the Healthcare law allocates millions of dollars to the IRS for enforcement. For those paying attention, they may recall that during the budget debate over the healthcare law, a large part of the revenues for the law was from those fines.

So the bottom line is that yes, the government can force individuals to buy a product- any product- as long as the penalty for not buying it is a tax. As long as they can ram it through Congress, no matter how many falsehoods they can spread about it (ie. “It won't raise the deficit” or “this will lower health costs”). It doesn't even matter how regressive the tax is. In this case, it hits working class families the hardest, since a “family” pays more for health insurance than a single person, or a couple. It disproportionately hurts small entrepreneurs, since they don't have a larger company plan to come under. It favors public employees, who tend to have a better benefits package with healthcare included as a pension. You now can be told what you have to spend your money on, or face the wrath of the IRS, with penalties, interest rates, and fees that no bank in America could ever get away with.

So before people start dancing around saying “hooray! Our side won” consider what was lost. This represents the biggest tax hike in our country's history. Even more disturbing, it codified as a precedent, that government can force you to do ANYTHING as long as the penalty for not doing that thing is a tax. That represents a terrible reversal in individual rights in the United States. This wasn't a “Democrats win” and “Republican lose” ruling. This is losing proposition for all Americans. Perhaps, except for the health insurance companies. Whom you now have to buy from, courtesy of Obama, Congress, and Justice Roberts.