Tag Archives: Constitution Watch

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars, Obamunism

Towards a State-Controlled Media

Obama open to newspaper bailout bill

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

Oh joy! Not only would we be subjected to the prevailing MSM tilt to the left, they would add injury to the insult by forcing us to pay for media crap that we don’t want!

They would LOVE the chance to be able to continue to indulge their political whims independent of the market pressure that is currently going through the process of rejecting their unashamedly biased stance as indicated my massive losses in advertising and subscription income.

“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sure he would – for the same reasons.

Obama said that good journalism is “critical to the health of our democracy,” but expressed concern toward growing tends in reporting — especially on political blogs, from which a groundswell of support for his campaign emerged during the presidential election.

Right – good journalism IS critical…but to assert that the MSM is good journalism is laughably surreal.

“I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding,” he said.

Fact checking? Hmmmm. Like CBS & Dan Rather CONTINUING to insist that a blatantly forged document provides valid information about President Bush? Or like maybe NBC using incendiary devices to set vehicles on fire in an “investigative report” on auto engineering safety?  Or how about most recently…with virtually ALL of the so-called “mainstream media” ignoring the exposure of widespread promotion of criminality by B.O.’s favorite ACORN, until the stench got so great that they were literally FORCED to take notice?

THIS is “fact checking”? This is supposed to be journalism worthy of being supported by tax dollars?

There IS a part of the Constitution that addresses free press…but it does NOT contain a clause that GUARANTEES that just because you print a newspaper that anyone will bother to read it…or, for that matter, that one is guaranteed the right to make a living at writing and publishing crap that is inaccurate, incomplete, and often offensive and directly opposed to the values and interests of the POTENTIAL readership or audience.

Let ’em join the fate of the buggy-whip manufacturers if they can’t make it on their own!

The alternative is to turn the media icons of the liberal establishment into the American equivalent of the old Soviet Isvestia and Pravda, or the Nazi Volkishcher Beobachter – dedicated solely to the service of the state.

Constitution Watch

“King of the Wild Frontier” with Words for Today

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Perhaps the Chief is dating himself here…if so, oh well. For those who don’t remember (for any number of possible reasons) Walt Disney ran a series on their show that dramatized “Davy Crockett – King of the Wild Frontier”

It should be noted, that they took some historical liberties with the topic (hey, it was a mass TV thing aimed at kids!), but as this article illustrates, often the events of the past are directly relevant to the issues of the latter days.

In this case Congressman David (preferred by him instead of “Davy”) Crockett was called to account by a concerned constituent, and wasnot only willing to listen, but was willing to both admit his error and change his position as the result.  Not bad…especially when compared to the current crop of Congresscritters.

Charity and the good ol’ Constitution

“Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?”

It might be a question out of today’s headlines, but it isn’t.

No doubt, it could rightly be asked in the health-care debate, but it goes well beyond that. In every disaster, in every disturbance, the federal government today is ready with a checkbook at hand to help those in need. Hurricane Katrina? California fires? Montana snowstorms? They’ve all been declared disasters in order to justify federal spending to help out the victims and to speed recovery. The average number of disaster declarations reached as high as 130 during the George W. Bush administration, an increase of almost 50 percent over the Clinton era.

Of course, no one could be against helping the innocent victims of natural or manmade disasters, could they? Well, no. Not anyone in their right mind, at least. Charity is one of the highest impulses of mankind, and our desire to help and protect each other is a noble heritage that we all cherish.

But that does not answer the original question:

“Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?”

That question was asked not of President Obama nor of Sen. Max Baucus or Rep. Nancy Pelosi, but of the less well-known Tennessee congressman, David Crockett.

It was a question that Rep. Crockett was not well-prepared to answer, but his constituent wanted to know why he had voted to spend federal funds for the relief of families that had been left homeless as the result of a ravaging fire in Georgetown. Crockett had actually seen the fire and gone to help rescue women and children and to fight the flames, so he was more than happy a bill came before Congress to aid those victims further. As he himself said, “We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.”

Again, sort of reminiscent of the “rush” to pass health-care ‘reform” in the current Congress,

At this point you really need to read the account in the piece of the conversation between Cong. Crockett and constituent Horatio Bunce.

The Chief heartily endorses the conclusion:

In this day and age, the only congressman I know of who follows Crockett’s example as a born-again constitutionalist is Ron Paul, who never votes for a bill without first confirming in his own mind that Congress is authorized by the Constitution to pass such a law. Most of the rest of them just ask themselves how popular the bill will be, and whether it will help or hurt their efforts to be re-elected.

Yes, the Constitution is a relatively old document, but it is not moldy, and if we think of it as quaint and irrelevant, we do so at the ultimate cost of our liberty. That would be unconscionable.

Let’s hope that this story of Rep. David Crockett and a plain old U.S. citizen who held him accountable helps to remind each and every one of us that America’s exceptional quality is partly based on the fact that we are ruled from the bottom up. It is “we the people,” not “we the governed.”

It is important also to remember that solutions to most American problems are to be found in American lore and history — if one could but be bothered to look. Although times change, human nature doesn’t, nor does the nature of our republic, as long as it stands fast and hews to the line of the Constitution.

Here’s hoping we can get a few more Crocketts for Washington.

Constitution Watch

Obamacare Waffle Kitchen at Work

A couple of alternative versions of what’s going on with this…all seems in a state of “definite maybe” with B.O. et al.

Bottom line on public insurance plan gets blurry

The Obama administration’s bottom line on a government health insurance option blurred Sunday as White House officials stressed support but stopped short of calling it a must-have part of an overhaul.

As President Barack Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, no other issue is so highly charged. Obama’s liberal supporters consider the proposal for a public plan to compete with private insurers do-or-die. Republicans say it’s unacceptable. It’s doubtful the public plan can pass the Senate.

Puh-leese – let it be so!

Finally, Axelrod showed mastery of the sort of bureaucratic governmental dialog illustrated in Atlas Shrugged:

White House political adviser David Axelrod said Obama is “not walking away” from a public plan. But asked if the president would veto a bill that came to him without the option, Axelrod declined to answer.

The president “believes it should be in the plan, and he expects to be in the plan, and that’s our position,” Axelrod told The Associated Press.

Asked if that means a public plan has to be in the bill for Obama to sign it, Axelrod responded: “I’m not going to deal in hypotheticals. … He believes it’s important.”

Meanwhile…both sides in Congress are not pleased…a hopeful sign of possible failure of the whole collectivist mess.

Government Insurance ‘Trigger’ Draws Bipartisan Criticism in Health Care Debate

Conservatives and liberals alike are puncturing the latest trial balloon in the health care reform debate, finding flaws with a proposal that would keep a government-run health insurance plan on reserve in case private insurance companies don’t meet certain benchmarks.

The so-called “trigger” has been floated by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the “gang of six” Senate negotiators who are trying to broker a bipartisan compromise. Under such an option, if agreed-upon goals are not met by the insurance industry, then that would pull the trigger on government-run insurance.

It’s unclear whether President Obama will address the idea when he delivers a high-stakes health care address to Congress Wednesday night. But even as the White House signals it’s open to considering alternatives to a hard-and-fast “public option,” administration officials and congressional negotiators are hard-pressed to find an alternative that could win more votes than it loses.

Keep watching. It ain’t over ’till it’s over.

Constitution Watch

I-net Now B.O. Target

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

This has so many problems that it boggles the mind.

Of course, just the power assumption here is a mind-bending expansion of the worst aspects of some of the Patriot Act stuff.

Then there’s the obvious one about having those with their hands on the net being subject ot government regulation…what was that bit about “no law…abridging freedom of speech…”?

Anyone that has have been certified as “cybersecurity professionals” and given a federal network operators license would be S.O.L. in B.O.’s Brave New World (BOBNW). The many non-degree cybergeeks with partial (and even full) degrees in other areas like physics, math, etc. could be completely frozen out…but hey, a lot of them are rather libertarianish anyway, so from the point of view of the BOBNW getting them out of the info roadway would be a positive political benefit to the Administration and it’s crypto-fascist Czars and others of that ilk.

obameinfuhrer21.jpg
Possible new control links for Obamanet!

Constitution Watch, National Insecurity

News of the Day

NKorea widens threat, limits US options

North Korea’s nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists.

It presents another major security crisis for President Barack Obama, already saddled with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a nuclear problem with Iran. He said Monday the U.S. and its allies must “stand up” to the North Koreans, but it’s far from clear what diplomatic or other action the world community will take.

So far, nothing they’ve done has worked.

THAT’s the understatement of the year!

North Korea fires sixth missile in defiance of US demands for end of aggression

North Korea has fired another short-range missile in defiance of warnings from the United States, bringing the total numbers of launches in the past three days to six.

The defiance of the North has prompted the US to warn that it will “pay the price” for continuing to ignore the international community. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the UN Security Council was united in its determination to punish North Korea and that Pyongyang would learn that its actions “have consequences”.

REALLY – Why would the NorKs expect anything more than another application of hot air from Washington?

(Hmmm…maybe THAT’s why B.O. et al are worried so much about CO2 and Glowbull Warming!)

So much for B.O.’s guaranteed assurance that a new spirit of willingness to talk with then will get a positive result, meanwhile, Iran is watching with interest from the wings of the world stage.

Meanwhile, back on this side of the pond…B.O. gives us a SCOTUS designee who is, based on her own words, unqualified to serve:

A Judge’s View of Judging Is on the Record

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

So much for equal justice under the law. Apparently now it’s to be acceptable to judge based on ethnicity and gender, instead of evaluating each cased based on the body of the law and the Constitution. Prima facie, this is in direct contradiction to the oath of office, but apparently fits in with B.O.’s stated drive for “empathy” on the bench in apparent favoring of judgement favoring a clear bias towards the politically correct shibboleth of the moment.

Got help the United States of America!

Constitution Watch

She’s Makin a List, Checkin’ it twice…

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Among the recent spewage from the Janet Reno Napolitano (same difference!) Department of Homeland Security is this little number:

Federal agency warns of radicals on right

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

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(Click on image for link to document.)

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

According to that, if one is a supporter of either the 2nd, or 10th Amendments, or a veteran, you could be worthy of watching out for as a possible “rightwing extremist”, or sympathizer.  Even more threatening (shudder, gasp) are those who might not like President Obama for a variety of reasons.  (Admittedly, some of those reasons ARE truly rank, but hey Janet – there ARE a lot of us who dislike the B.O. regime because of policies and political differences…and we’re not all neo-Nazi racists…in spite of what you infer.

There are other categories of likely suspects for being right-wing subversives…dang!…I fit right in there in many instances, in spite of NOT being a closet Nazi, Klanner, or even a former member of the (actually innocuous) John Birch Society.  (I WAS in the 1980 SD Reagan delegation though…THAT must be it!)

Putting this together with the flap a couple of weeks ago about the Missouri State “Fusion” information office, it sort of starts to make a pattern….

“Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not really after me!”

Constitution Watch

B.O.’s Poor Situational Awareness, continued.

Video: radicals beat girl, 17, in Islamic stronghold of Swat, Pakistan

As the Chief noted earlier here, B.O. expressed the thought that we should be willing to negotiate with the Taliban. Good idea? NOT!. This illustrates one reason why not.

This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February.

A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters.

But some residents of Matta have accused the commander of ordering the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage, the reporters told The Times.

“Please! Enough! Enough!” the girl is heard crying in Pashtu, the language of the tribes who dominate northwestern Pakistan – now the main hub of Taleban and al-Qaeda activity. At another point, she cries: “I am repenting, my father is repenting what I have done, my grandmother is repenting what I have done…”

You can go to the article (linked above) for the video, complete with the chilling sound track of the victim’s unheeded cries for mercy. Warning: Graphically violent content.

This is Islamic Sharia Law in action. Taliban spokescritters were cited as saying that an error was committed in that the beating was done in public.

In NYT coverage it is noted that this has touched off criticism of the government for negotiating with the Taliban and effectively ceding control of the Swat Valley to these 7th Century visitors to the 21st Center.

This is a classic illustration of the Taliban caught in the act of being the Taliban….and B.O. thinks we can negotiate with these things?

Again, this is Sharia Law…favorably noted by B.O. State Department legal appointee Harold Koh in the context of transnationalist law…where foriegn law is used to establish precedent for US Court decisions.

This is acceptable to B.O….or is he so out of touch with reality that he is totally unaware of the views of those he is appointing.

The issue of negotiating with the Taliban, and favoring of alien legal systems for implementation in the U.S. by appointees both indicate B.O.’s continuing lack of situational awareness at best. At worst, we have a nightmare in the White house.

Constitution Watch

ObamaCorps: Sieg Heil to the Chief!

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If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…call it for what it is…

Expanded Americorps has an authoritarian feel

With almost no public attention, both chambers of Congress in the past week advanced an alarming expansion of the Americorps national service plan, with the number of federally funded community service job increasing from 75,000 to 250,000 at a cost of $5.7 billion. Lurking behind the feel-good rhetoric spouted by the measure’s advocates is a bill that on closer inspection reveals multiple provisions that together create a strong odor of creepy authoritarianism. The House passed the measure overwhelmingly, while only 14 senators had the sense and courage to vote against it on a key procedural motion. Every legislator who either voted for this bill or didn’t vote at all has some serious explaining to do.

…It anticipates the possibility of requiring “all individuals in the United States” to perform such service – including elementary school students. The bill also summons up unsettling memories of World War II-era paramilitary groups by saying the new program should “combine the best practices of civilian service with the best aspects of military service,” while establishing “campuses” that serve as “operational headquarters,” complete with “superintendents” and “uniforms” for all participants. It allows for the elimination of all age restrictions in order to involve Americans at all stages of life. And it calls for creation of “a permanent cadre” in a “National Community Civilian Corps.”

But that’s not all. The bill also calls for “youth engagement zones” in which “service learning” is “a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.” This updated form of voluntary community service is also to be “integrated into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula” at all levels of schooling. Sounds like a government curriculum for government approved “service learning,” which is nothing less than indoctrination. Now, ask yourself if congressmen who voted for this monstrosity had a clue what they were voting for. If not, they’re guilty of dereliction of duty. If yes, the implications are truly frightening.

Some further analysis of the mark-up and amendments to the bill as it slimed its way through the House was posted at the E3 Gazette, with linkages to the specific changes made as the Donk Congs and others unitedly shat it into existence:

HR 1388…is “Arbeit Macht Frei” too strong?

Check out the links on this one…read and weep!

SOUTH DAKOTA UPDATE NOTE:
Sen. John Thune was one of (sadly) only 14 Republicans who voted against this.
Donkey Party Rep.Stephanie Sandlin, and Senator Tim Johnson supported it.

Constitution Watch

B.O. Moves to Tighten the Ratchet of Power

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms

The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.

The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.

Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.[Emphasis added]

B.O. and company are nothing if not consistent. The overarching theme of the administration thus far has been an unrelenting series of policies and edicts aimed at increasing the arbitrary power of the executive at the expense of anyone or anything that could possibly get in their way, and to hell with the trivialities of observing the Constitution.

What adds the true touch of surrealistic quality is the accompaniment of B.O.’s best Alfred E. Neuman “What, me worry?” grin, and giggles while being interviewed on 60 Minutes (among other venues), about the continuing monetary soap opera.

Unfortunately, the joke’s on us, since we’ll get to pay for it all, one way or another.

Constitution Watch

See Ya In the “Re-education” Camp!

‘Fusion Centers’ Expand Criteria to Identify Militia Members
Do you like Ron Paul or oppose abortion? You may be a member of a militia, according to a new report by a government information collection agency.

If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive(sic) literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group.

That’s according to “The Modern Militia Movement,” a report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), a government collective that identifies the warning signs of potential domestic terrorists for law enforcement communities.

“Due to the current economical and political situation, a lush environment for militia activity has been created,” the Feb. 20 report reads. “Unemployment rates are high, as well as costs of living expenses. Additionally, President Elect Barrack [sic] Obama is seen as tight on gun control and many extremists fear that he will enact firearms confiscations.”

This is so chilling that even the ACLU has responded with shock. It is effectively setting up rules of law-enforcement engagement that issue a license to at least harass political opposition to the ascension of the B.O. regime.

By the way, although the scary implementation is taking place with the B.O. administration, the legal framework that established the opportunity for this abuse goes back to the pseudo Conservative Bush presidency.

A curse on both parties’ houses in this case!

Dang! Wonder where I can get a Ron Paul sticker?

Constitution Watch

Congress: “We don’t need no steenkin’ Constitution!”

House passes bill taxing fat AIG and other bonuses

Denouncing a “squandering of the people’s money,” lawmakers voted decisively Thursday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid by troubled insurance giant AIG and other bailed-out companies.

In some cases the bonuses might be taxed 100 percent leaving the recipients with nothing.

So, what’s wrong with this picture?

From TechLawJournal.com

Bill of Attainder

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.

“The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply – trial by legislature.” U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

“These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.” William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

“Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. … The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community.” James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

The Constitutional standard is clear…what’s not understandible to the Chief is the brazen disregard of that standard by a majority of the legislative lawmakers lawbreakers.

The House, and (probably soon the Senate) has pretty effectively demonstrated either their total ignorance of the Constitution (that they are allegedly sworn to uphold) or their total lack of concern for it’s provisions in the midst of their overwhelming desire to indulge in a legislative tantrum to impress the voters that they’re looking out for the little guy. The Chief isn’t sure which, if either of these, is worse than the other.  Either one is a poor commentary on the current state of our national legislooters.

Hey, I don’t like the bonus deal either…but let’s be real about this: if we really want to punish those evil executives – LET THEIR COMPANIES GO BANKRUPT! If the government didn’t give out the bailout money to start with, this whole situation would be non-existent. THAT would be a market system at work, not the fascistic pattern of government-corporate incestuous politics, favors, special interests, insider deals, etc. that has evolved over the last century

This is NOT a partisan issue. Many GOP’ers are just as bad as a lot of the Donkey Party denizens. On the other hand, there are some on both sides of the aisle (not enough these days!) that are still capable of reading the Constitution.

The Chief sends kudos to those who are still trying to uphold the Constitution, and would invoke the curses of heaven and hell upon the heads of the others.

F.E.T.E.

Constitution Watch

DC Vote in Trouble

Marvel of marvels! This is apparently such a flagrant violation of the pesky language of the Constitution that apparently even the Donks (at least some of them) can’t swallow it.

Democrats Pull D.C. Voting Rights Act

The patently unconstitutional bill to give the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House of Representatives was pulled off the House calendar because — according to one House Republican leadership source — they feared that the so-called Blue Dog Democrats would not support it.

The bill was patently unconstitutional because under Article 1, Section 2, only states have representatives, and D.C. isn’t a state. (That idea is reinforced by the XXIII Amendment, under which D.C. voters are allowed to vote in presidential elections, and thus appoint electors to the Electoral College, “…equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State….”)

The Blue Dogs, a group of supposedly conservative Dems who have usually marched to Speaker Pelosi’s drum, were fearful that the National Rifle Association would “score” — i.e., use the vote to determine its annual rating of gun-friendly (and unfriendly) members the vote on the rule to bring the matter to the House floor.

That same source told HUMAN EVENTS that the rule would have precluded consideration of an amendment — similar to that approved in the Senate last week — to preserve D.C. residents’ gun rights.

The gun rights aspect of this makes the whole situation even sweeter. Looks like Queen SanFran Nan soesn;t have quite the hold she thought she did over all things on the Donk side of the House.

Constitution Watch

Democrat Senator: B.O. Power Grab Underway

Byrd: Obama in power grab

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

While it’s rare for Byrd to criticize a president in his own party, Byrd is a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.

This is interesting in several respects. It proves that at least SOMEBODY still knows how to read, and understand the Constitution.

It’s also different finding a leading Democrat warning about ANYTHING that B.O. does.

Also, not only is the Constitutional issue noted, there is the issue of the much-promised “transparency” taking it in the neck again:

“As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, and to virtually anyone but the president,” Byrd wrote. “They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.”

Hear, hear!

Constitution Watch

D.C. Congresscritter to be Created?

Although the Chief realizes that in our enlightened age of the Abomination Obamanation worrying about what the Constitution actually says is far out of fashion, he still offers the following:

Read the Constitution: D.C. is not a state

Which part of Article I, Section 2 do proponents of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 not comprehend? The Constitution of the United States clearly states that “the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” The Constitution created D.C. as the federal “seat of government” – not as a state. Therefore, D.C. cannot have a voting Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Proponents are correct that the Constitution gives Congress the right to make all laws for the District. But that clearly does not permit Congress to substitute its will for that of the whole people to rewrite the Constitution. So, until the Constitution is amended to make D.C. a state, creating a voting representative for it as if it were a state would be “the most premeditatedly unconstitutional act by Congress in decades,” in the words of George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley.

There’s some further extension of this in the cited OpEd…it’s worth the read IMHO.

Sounds clear enough, at least to someone who can read, and properly attach actual meanings to words. Ooops. Apparently that leaves out much of the current Donk dominated People’s Congress….

Few roadblocks expected for D.C. voting rights bill

Congress is poised to grant the District of Columbia a legislator with full voting rights in the House of Representatives.

After failed attempts in previous years, a wide Democratic majority in Congress and a Democrat in the White House have paved the way for the possible success of the bill, but there is still a chance Senate Republicans could block it.

The legislation would add two members to the House roster — one from the District, the other from Utah — increasing its ranks to 437.

This is designed to throw a political bone to the Republicans, and all too sadly, a number of them are willing to roll over on command and accede to the Donks’ latest assault on the Constitutional order, which isn’t made any better by the application of this “bipartisan” fig-leaf.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a hint in all this of actually respecting the Constitution enough to do it the right way, with a constitutional amendment.

As a historical note, this sort of swapping of Congressional seats to maintain a superficial balance has happened before; most notably in the Missouri Compromise, allowing the admission of Missouri as a slave-holding state, along with Maine as a non-slave state.

It’s telling that the current state of the body politic is such that this kind of juggling of representation is the only thing that apparently allows the (illusory) continuation of political agreement.

UPDATE:

The Senate passed a key preliminary vote Tuesday morning for the District to get full voting rights in Congress. Senators voted 62-34 to take up the legislation. A final Senate vote to approve the legislation could come as early as Tuesday afternoon.

Sadness.

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars

Obamacracy: ANYTHING GOES?

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‘Anything possible,’ Obama tells joyous crowd

Two days from the White House, President-elect Barack Obama joined a vast throng Sunday at a joyous pre-inauguration celebration staged among marble monuments to past heroes. “Anything is possible in America,” declared the man who will confront economic crisis and two wars when he takes office.

So, what’s wrong with this? Sounds nice? Lots of possibilities? Right?

Er…what ever happened to Constitutional government? According to that ANYTHING is NOT possible…there are some definite limitations as to what any American government is allowed to do, even with a President Obama.

Unfortunately, the crop of politically ascendant LibDonks (admittedly the outgoing Bushites also) seem to have no cognizance if any restraint on their near-orgasmic response to the prospect of untrammeled government.

Constitution Watch

B.O.’s Commissars Alert for Dangerous Deviationism!

 THE WATCHERS ARE WATCHING US!

After an e-mail was sent out to various and sundry e-correspondants, clearly stating our opposition for various reasons to the ascension of B.O. to the Imperial Throne Presidency, this message was returned as one of the replies.  Apparently the recipient, in the finest tradition of stukachi and Chekists,  forwarded the admonition and warning of our original message to something calling itself the “Obama-Biden Watchdog Team” from <barackobama.com>(according to their e-mail header).

Taken from their reply:

Dear Friend,

Thank you for joining the fight against the lies, false attacks, and smear campaigns targeting Barack Obama and designed to create fear and division at a time that calls for unity and solutions. No one of us can put an end to these attacks, but together we can set the record straight.

We’ve received the message you sent and will evaluate it to inform the campaign’s pushback strategy to this growing problem. Please continue to send us each smear you receive — even if you receive the same one multiple times from different sources.

When possible, please forward messages just as they came to you, without changing the subject or sending the message as an attachment. And feel free to include your friends and family on the message you send us — if we’ve developed a response already, we’ll send it to everyone you included.

The last paragraph cited, recruiting informants so they can keep track of who their political enemy is, is particularly telling.

Part of a pattern? Well, after the warnings from the St. Louis area Donk party Prosecuting Attorneys that THEY were going to be watching too, and were prepared TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION against any deviationists opposing the coming Revolutionary Change that The One is preparing for the benighted masses…but perhaps I’m being unfair, and they’re drawing from a slightly different traditon:

2k8ad47d0443.jpg

In either case, there IS a pattern…but it doesn’t bear resemblance to anything recognizable as the 1st Amendment.

It has been argued that Obamesssiah is just seeking to lead us to “unity of purpose” for a change, after “the needless divisiveness of partisan bickering”…or words to that effect. Well, THAT fits an old pattern too:
unity.gif

Historically, we’ve been there, done that, and in the words of the late songwriter Warren Zevon…”it ain’t that pretty at all”

obamunists.jpg

I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

…as the spiritual Weather Underground prepares to move into the White House to start the United Soviet States of Amerika…

Constitution Watch

A Taste of B.O.’s Planned United Soviet States of America?

1 Comment

A couple of items, that to the historical-minded are all too evocative of the bad old days of the Soviet Union:

Michelle’s Boot Camps For Radicals

Election ’08: Democrats’ reintroduction of militant Michelle Obama in Denver was supposed to show her softer side. But it only highlighted a radical part of her resume: Public Allies.

What’s this about?

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn’t seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year “community leadership” positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They’ll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats….

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about “social change” through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul “The Red” Alinsky.

And then, there’s Joe Biden…the other part of the Donks’ ticket:

Tasting GOP Blood

Election ’08: Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says that, if elected, an Obama administration might pursue criminal charges against the Bush White House. This is how he plans to unite the country?

It was a common event, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to purge, arrest, try, and execute the losers in policy disagreements. The reasoning ran, if your policy was rejected, it was because it would have been harmful to the progress of the Soviet Revolution…and therefore was treasonable!

Barack Obama insists he’s the one we’ve been waiting for to bring the country together. Yet, he and Biden are signaling their willingness — or is it their eagerness? — to criminalize political opposition.

“We will not be stopped from pursuing any criminal offense that’s occurred,” Biden said Monday at a Florida campaign stop. “If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued — not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, (but) out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president — no one is above the law.”

This follows Obama’s pledge last spring, before adopting his attack-dog running mate, that “If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated.”

This will play well with those segments of the Democratic Party where the hardware that keeps them hinged to reality has come loose. To treat their Bush Derangement Syndrome, nothing less than retaliation will do. And no matter how much Biden denies it, vengeance and retribution are driving the threats.

Is it really necessary to remind Democrats it is contrary to our system to imprison those with whom we don’t agree, that our republican form of government guarantees a peaceful transition of power? America is not a Third World dictatorship in which policy disputes are settled with the group in power throwing unpopular members of the other party into the cooler.

We agree with Biden that no one is above the law and said as much during Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. But would Biden agree with us that the law shouldn’t be twisted so that it can be employed in vengeful and childish ways?

What can one say…these folks are a clear and present danger to our representative republic.

Keep your powder dry!

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars

Religious Test Applied to Palin?

Palin’s Church Questioned

This blogsite was apparently set up by someone specifically to go after Gov. Palin & her association with the pentecostal Assembly of God church, and was sent to me by an e-mail correspondent.  It stimulated this response, and in addition to sending this as the reply to the original e-mail, it seemed worthy of being posted in its own right.

http://juxtapostle.blogspot.com/2008/09/pentecostalism-palin-doctrine.html#Revelations

Well, while I admit that the A.G. & other pentecostal churches are not my cup of tea personally… I keep coming back to the one little thing in the Constitution that there is no religious test for office in the United States government.

The blogger who posted this, obviously has his own point of view, and is certainly entitled to it… but IMHO when he strongly infers that Gov. Palin (and others) who believe in this church are somehow psychologically unfit, he’s going down a road that should be avoided at all costs.

It was a long-standing practice in the old Soviet Union to label dissenters, including religious dissenters, as being insane, and thereby worthy of forcible “re-education treatments” including electric shock, drugs, and other “treatment” more akin to torture than to anything we would accept as any form of psychological medical treatment.  Things like this still happen in the (fortunately) few remaining Communist states, including the ChiComs.

Another consideration in this type of approach is that one man’s church, is another man’s cult (or worse).  This sword can cut in any direction.

At one stage in the U.S., similar attitudes led to widespread persecution and officially organized military attacks against the Mormons, which is the reason they went out to Salt Lake (which at the time they left was still part of Mexico) to escape U.S. persecution.  If you doubt it was that bad, in 1838 Governor Boggs of Missouri issued an official order to all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated…and mobilized the state militia to do the job… pre-dating the similar activities of the Einsatzgruppen of the S.S. by over a hundred years.

Think it couldn’t happen again?  Remember Waco a few years back and the way that was handled with respect and moderation by Janet Reno et al?  At that time, as a Mormon, I was told to my face (by a fellow-sailor in the Naval Reserve!) that something like that would be entirely appropriate for “any cult”, including the “Mormon cult”.  Again…one opinion, but still reflective of an attitude willing to totally condemn AND ELIMINATE anyone with beliefs contrary to a point of view outside of the accepted “orthodoxy”.

Finally, to return to the topic of Governor Palin… we HAVE had experience with Assembly of God members in government before… and guess what?  We survived it!

Missouri elected Assembly of God member John Ashcroft to the Senate at least a couple times before he was appointed United States Attorney General.  Admittedly the liberals hated him too… and the same reaction drives the current wave of horror with which Palin is regarded on the part of the liberals and the so-called “mainstream” media.

Personally I alternate between laughing at their hysteria, and wanting to retch at the depths they are willing to go to to besmirch this woman and her family, in order to gain a political objective.

When Donk Veep Candidate seriously discusses the possibility of starting criminal actions against the current administration when they are out of office (because of their policy differences with the Donk party leftists), coupled with the M. Obama proposed setting up of government training centers to indoctrinate a political action force to promote “progressive” policies… a more immediate source of concern, at least ot those of us who don’t care for (at best) a form of Euro-socialism or (at worst) a smiley-face version of an American Soviet system.

Phew…this is getting long, so I’ll pull the plug for now.

Personally, I LIKE Palin.  Hey, she hunts her own meat!  What’s not to like!

As far as the libs’ hysterical opposition is concerned;  —- ’em if they can’t take a joke!

Constitution Watch

Censorship & Government Persecution: Obama’s SS Strikes!

Obama campaign confronts WGN radio

What are the Obamanistas attitude toward minor details of the Constitutional Law, like say, the 1st Amendment? “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.

SHOCKING! Someone from the MSM that hasn’t bought into B.O.’s prospective ascension to the Imperial Throne? What else could they do than to attempt to cut out the heresy, root and branch, and cast the perpetrators into outer darkness – or at least off the air.

“WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears,” Obama’s campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “He’s currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.”

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama’s ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

After noting more of the details of the situation, the posting concludes with “Obama’s campaign has launched similar offensives against stations that have run campaign ads that it did not like.”

NRO has some more information…this is an op-ed, but it DOES also report some additional information about what’s going on.

Barack Obama, Aspiring Commissar

While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism.

They go on to conclude with this:

Kurtz has obviously hit a nerve. It is the same nerve hit by the American Issues Project, whose television ad calling for examination of the Obama/Ayers relationship has prompted the Obama campaign to demand that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation. Obama fancies himself as “post-partisan.” He is that only in the sense that he apparently brooks no criticism. This episode could be an alarming preview of what life will be like for the media should the party of the Fairness Doctrine gain unified control of the federal government next year.

CRIMINAL charges? Hello? What happened to the 1st Amendment?

“Post-partisan?” Logically, this has to mean “one-party rule” (or is it “The One’s Party Rules”?)

Meanwhile, this stuff isn’t the only attempt to “control” the news that has affected the MSM:

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors
Asa Eslocker Was Investigating the Role of Lobbyists and Top Donors at the Convention

Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Looks like the fix is in… it apparently wouldn’t do to show up Donk connections with the very same ilk of big-money types that their class-warfare neo-Bolshevik rhetoric loves to castigate.

What’s the flap about anyway?

Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson.”

Must be some real news in danger of actually being reported for a change.

If they are this aggressive now, can you imagine what these totalitarian minded apparatchiks would do if they were in charge of the FBI, BATF, CIA, etc.???

Yikes! Keep your powder dry!

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars

SD Abortion Debate on National Review Site

Ramesh Ponnaru posting on NRO’s THE CORNER site has given a Slate article a blast for, as he tags it:

SNEERING at SOUTH DAKOTA

I’ve long admired William Saletan’s work, and so I was taken aback by his post on South Dakota’s new informed-consent law on abortion, which has a much higher snark-to-substance ratio than I have come to expect from him. The law requires abortionists to tell women seeking their services that abortion “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” According to Saletan, the South Dakota legislators are “lying to women about their bodies.”

The post goes on to logically dismantle Saletan’s attempt at argument:

It’s actually a little hard to tease out Saletan’s argument. As far as I can make out, he has two objections to the word “separate” in the required message. First, he does not consider the embryo “separate” because, for example, it is implanted in and nourished by a mother’s womb. But obviously the word “separate” has multiple meanings; there is no contradiction or even tension in saying that an embryo is a being separate (=distinct) from the mother while also being within her. An infant is nourished by others without calling into question its separateness in the relevant sense.

Argument 1(b) is that the embryo isn’t separate because maternal RNA directs its growth. Saletan has made a big deal out of this point in the past. But his argument still makes no sense. Yes, the embryo’s RNA is derived from the mother and crucial to its development. So is half the embryo’s DNA. The other half is from the father, but the embryo is a being distinct from the father. So too is it distinct from the mother. Saletan’s argument is a bit like taking someone literally when he says that a baby has “his father’s eyes.”

Second, I think Saletan is trying to say that if the embryo is a separate being from the mother, then there can be no objection to removing it from the womb (and thus causing its death). The pro-life position collapses into logical incoherence. If the embryo is already separate, that is, what can be wrong with separating it from the mother? I hesitate to ascribe this position to Saletan because it seems so pathetic. Again, he is trading on the different meanings of the word “separate” as though ignorant of the way language operates. Rephrase the argument: “If the embryo is distinct from the mother, what can be wrong with physically removing it from the mother?” You can see that the argument has no force. In addition, abortion is not typically a mere removal of an embryo or fetus from the mother with the unfortunate side-effect of killing it. Killing it is almost always both the goal and the method of the procedure.

It’s always nice to see deft verbal rapier work, and the final conclusion is best of all:

In short, the rubes of South Dakota are right and the sophisticated sneerer is wrong.

Amen!

H/T to e-mail correspondent for this one.

Constitution Watch

B.O. Hijacks the Constitution! (Literally)

Obama won’t pay his bill

Here’s a report that illiustrates a degree of irresponsibility if not incompetence on the part of the Obamessiah’s campaign that turns him into a de facto hijacker of the Constitution, or at least 1800 copies of it.

For a man whose only qualification for the White House is his own claim to good judgment and good character, Obama is rapidly proving his claim is invalid on both counts.

On November 21, 2007, the Obama Campaign ordered 1800 pocket-size Constitutions from the National Center for Constitutional Studies, using Purchase Order number 11202007. The order was shipped to Obama For America Volunteer Headquarters, 300 W. Adams, 10th Floor, Chicago, Il, to the attention of Melissa McNeal. The phone number listed for McNeal was 312-506-0909. The order was placed by Becky Deignan, with copies to Bridget Gray and Melissa McNeal. The invoice total was $965.00.

Obama’s campaign has refused to pay for these Constitutions.

Despite repeated attempts to contact a responsible party in the Obama campaign, no response has been forthcoming, nor has the bill been paid.

Character counts.

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars

Yankees and Rebs Meet, Agree: “Let’s Split!”

Secessionists meeting in Tennessee

In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully. That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

“We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity,” said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.

The interesting question in all this is that IF some state or states REALLY got enough support to push secession, would there be enough intestinal fortitude available to force it to not happen, as was the case in 1860? The Chief has to wonder. Also, imagine the field day the UN types would have standing up for “self-determination”, etc.

This sort of Balkanization in today’s world would greatly weaken the resiliance of Western Civilization in dealing with what would rapidly become an even more resurgent Islamofascist jihad, and thus be ultimately an evil.

Constitution Watch

UPDATE: Cong to Investigate Itself!

House Forms Special Panel Over Alleged Stolen Vote
GOP Assails Decision on Food Aid for Immigrants

OK. Even the Donk Congs have been waken up by the impact of the cluebat, with 3% congressional poll approval numbers, and the flap about the votegate situation have dictated that SOMETHING extraordinary had to happen to try to repair what little is left of congressional prestige.

The House last night unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that Democratic leaders had stolen a victory from the House GOP on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night.

The move capped a remarkable day that started with Republicans marching out of the House in protest near midnight Thursday, was punctuated by partisan bickering, and ended with Democratic hopes for a final legislative rush fading. Even a temporary blackout of the House chamber’s vote tally board led to suspicions and accusations of skullduggery.

While Democratic leaders hoped to leave for their August recess on a wave of legislative successes, the House instead slowed to an acrimonious crawl that threatened to stretch the legislative session into next week.

The agreement to form a special committee was extraordinary. Such powerful investigative committees are usually reserved for issues such as the Watergate scandal and the funneling of profits from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s. “I don’t know when something like this has happened before,” said House deputy historian Fred W. Beuttler. He called the decision “incredible.”

This CAN be good for the situation…but then again, based on recent history, one has to wonder.

GOP lawmakers had marched out of the House chamber about 11 p.m. Thursday, shouting “shame, shame” and saying that Democrats had “stolen” a vote on a parliamentary motion to pull an agriculture spending bill off the floor until it incorporated an explicit denial of federal benefits to illegal immigrants. The bill already would deny such benefits to illegal immigrants, and Democrats stressed that they won the vote fair and square. But a campaign has been launched, and the House has not fully recovered.

“Last night sent a clear message to the American people that there are people in this town who are willing to break rules and utilize extraordinary maneuvers just so that illegal immigrants can receive taxpayer-funded benefits,” said Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif.). Anger-driven delaying tactics threw into uncertainty an agenda that was to include important votes on a huge energy bill, a defense spending bill and a terrorism surveillance measure before Congress’s departure for its month-long summer recess.

Given all this, House Speaker Squeaker SanFranNan Pelosi complained about…the GOP having the nerve to DARE to stand up for itself.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Republicans of blatant obstructionism. “They’ve just been deluged by the success of the Democrats on behalf of the American people,” she said.

Uh…”deluged by the success of the Democrats…”????? Is THAT how they have reached 3% in the polls? This is clearly a case of poor situational awareness on the part of Squeaker Pelosi.