Bi-Partisan Commission to stop spending?

Opinion 1.0

President Obama is initiating a bi-partisan commission to fund and fill the huge deficit gap in the U.S. budget. Are we that stupid? Seriously, Haven't we had enough of Obama's flummery? I thought we had a bi-partisan commission to manage our country's budget, called "Congress." This is another ploy by the "anointed one" to wipe his godly hands from blame when he raises taxes on all Americans after he receives the commission's recommendations after an exhaustive analysis to raise taxes because that is the only option left. This is been in the works for quite some time. This man has an agenda. It is not in the American public's best interest. Unfortunately, I don't believe anything the President says. I have a unweilding respect for the Office of the President, not the man. Obama and his sycophants have been all over the state run media proclaiming how the Messiah has singlehandedly brought us back from the perils of the great depression of 1929. The stimulus bill saved us from financial destruction. However, the stimulus bill wasn't designed to save our financial institutions, it was for JOBS! TARP was to save the financial community. The administration has spun this to cover the failure of the porkulus bill. I imagine a tax hike program like we have never seen before in this country. They are eyeing a value added tax (VAT) similiar to what Europe has. With a record budget deficit of $1.556 trillion (upgraded) in fiscal 2010 and we know the President and Congress will not stop or curtail their spending, they will really slowdown any recovery by screwing the working people and small business owners who keep this country prosperous.  This commission was created by executive order this morning, which can not force Congress to pass legislation. Senator Judd Gregg said that if you need to stop spending, then stop spending and adding to the deficit. I think we all know that this is a shell game by the progressives and we will have to pick a fight with the administration just like we did with  healthcare. Dick Cheney is right, Obama is a one term President.

Obaminions:


Deep Thoughts... by John:
How I feel about Tiger Woods' statement?
Don't care

Harding College, 1948 - Looking into the future:


Reid Comes Out For Reconciliation on Public Option


Greg Sargent reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that he would support holding a reconciliation vote on a public option.

Said Reid spokesman Rodell Mollineau in a written statement (emphasis Sargent's):

Senator Reid has always and continues to support the public option as a way to drive down costs and create competition. That is why he included the measure in his original health care proposal.

If a decision is made to use reconciliation to advance health care, Senator Reid will work with the White House, the House, and members of his caucus in an effort to craft a public option that can overcome procedural obstacles and secure enough votes.

But Sargent also relays the doubts of Senate leadership aides, who say they aren't sure if the Senate parliamentarian will allow the passage of a public option via reconciliation.

Dr. Smith is Harry Reid and the Robot is the American people:


Green Piece:
From The Skeptics Handbook

4. Carbon dioxide is already absorbing almost all it can

Here’s why it’s possible that doubling CO2 won’t make much difference.


The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere absorbs most of the light it can. CO2 only “soaks up” its favorite wavelengths of light, and it’s close to saturation point. It manages to grab a bit more light from wavelengths that are close to its favorite bands, but it can’t do much more, because there are not many left-over photons at the right wavelengths.


The natural greenhouse effect is real, and it does keep us warm, but it’s already reached its peak performance.


Throw more carbon up there and most of the extra gas is just “unemployed” molecules.


This graph shows the additional warming effect of each extra 20ppm of atmospheric CO2.


AGW says: The climate models are well aware of the logarithmic absorption curve, and use it already.


Skeptics say: The models make brutal estimates and many assumptions (guesses). “Lab-warming” doesn’t necessarily translate to “planet-warming”: Test tubes don’t have ocean currents, clouds, or rain. The “clouds and humidity” factor is bogglingly complex. For example, high clouds tend to warm the planet, but low clouds tend to cool it. So which effect rules? Models don’t know, but they assume clouds are net-warming. This is not a minor point: The feedback from clouds and humidity accounts for more than half of carbon’s alleged effect. E’Gad.


AGW says: It’s not 100% saturated.


Skeptics say: True, but meaningless. Log curves never get to 100% (so even the air on Venus, which is almost pure CO2, does not absorb 100% of the infrared light). Every CO2 molecule will increase warming by a small amount ad infinitum, but it has less effect than the CO2 that’s already up there.


And the effect is already so small, it cannot be measured.


Conclusion: If adding more CO2 to the sky mattered, we would see it in ice cores and thermometers. We don’t. Ergo, carbon’s effect is probably minor.

Hopeful statement of the week:
"Obama will be a one term President."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney

KindaFunne:

Writings of Our Founding Fathers

Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 21


Other Defects of the Present Confederation


For the Independent Journal.


Author: Alexander Hamilton


To the People of the State of New York:


HAVING in the three last numbers taken a summary review of the principal circumstances and events which have depicted the genius and fate of other confederate governments, I shall now proceed in the enumeration of the most important of those defects which have hitherto disappointed our hopes from the system established among ourselves. To form a safe and satisfactory judgment of the proper remedy, it is absolutely necessary that we should be well acquainted with the extent and malignity of the disease.


The next most palpable defect of the subsisting Confederation, is the total want of a SANCTION to its laws. The United States, as now composed, have no powers to exact obedience, or punish disobedience to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional mode. There is no express delegation of authority to them to use force against delinquent members; and if such a right should be ascribed to the federal head, as resulting from the nature of the social compact between the States, it must be by inference and construction, in the face of that part of the second article, by which it is declared, "that each State shall retain every power, jurisdiction, and right, not EXPRESSLY delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." There is, doubtless, a striking absurdity in supposing that a right of this kind does not exist, but we are reduced to the dilemma either of embracing that supposition, preposterous as it may seem, or of contravening or explaining away a provision, which has been of late a repeated theme of the eulogies of those who oppose the new Constitution; and the want of which, in that plan, has been the subject of much plausible animadversion, and severe criticism. If we are unwilling to impair the force of this applauded provision, we shall be obliged to conclude, that the United States afford the extraordinary spectacle of a government destitute even of the shadow of constitutional power to enforce the execution of its own laws. It will appear, from the specimens which have been cited, that the American Confederacy, in this particular, stands discriminated from every other institution of a similar kind, and exhibits a new and unexampled phenomenon in the political world.


The want of a mutual guaranty of the State governments is another capital imperfection in the federal plan. There is nothing of this kind declared in the articles that compose it; and to imply a tacit guaranty from considerations of utility, would be a still more flagrant departure from the clause which has been mentioned, than to imply a tacit power of coercion from the like considerations.


The want of a guaranty, though it might in its consequences endanger the Union, does not so immediately attack its existence as the want of a constitutional sanction to its laws.


Without a guaranty the assistance to be derived from the Union in repelling those domestic dangers which may sometimes threaten the existence of the State constitutions, must be renounced. Usurpation may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of the people, while the national government could legally do nothing more than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret. A successful faction may erect a tyranny on the ruins of order and law, while no succor could constitutionally be afforded by the Union to the friends and supporters of the government. The tempestuous situation from which Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces that dangers of this kind are not merely speculative. Who can determine what might have been the issue of her late convulsions, if the malcontents had been headed by a Caesar or by a Cromwell? Who can predict what effect a despotism, established in Massachusetts, would have upon the liberties of New Hampshire or Rhode Island, of Connecticut or New York?


The inordinate pride of State importance has suggested to some minds an objection to the principle of a guaranty in the federal government, as involving an officious interference in the domestic concerns of the members. A scruple of this kind would deprive us of one of the principal advantages to be expected from union, and can only flow from a misapprehension of the nature of the provision itself. It could be no impediment to reforms of the State constitution by a majority of the people in a legal and peaceable mode. This right would remain undiminished. The guaranty could only operate against changes to be effected by violence. Towards the preventions of calamities of this kind, too many checks cannot be provided. The peace of society and the stability of government depend absolutely on the efficacy of the precautions adopted on this head. Where the whole power of the government is in the hands of the people, there is the less pretense for the use of violent remedies in partial or occasional distempers of the State. The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men. A guaranty by the national authority would be as much levelled against the usurpations of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition in the community.


The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to the common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the national exigencies has been already pointed out, and has sufficiently appeared from the trial which has been made of it. I speak of it now solely with a view to equality among the States. Those who have been accustomed to contemplate the circumstances which produce and constitute national wealth, must be satisfied that there is no common standard or barometer by which the degrees of it can be ascertained. Neither the value of lands, nor the numbers of the people, which have been successively proposed as the rule of State contributions, has any pretension to being a just representative. If we compare the wealth of the United Netherlands with that of Russia or Germany, or even of France, and if we at the same time compare the total value of the lands and the aggregate population of that contracted district with the total value of the lands and the aggregate population of the immense regions of either of the three last-mentioned countries, we shall at once discover that there is no comparison between the proportion of either of these two objects and that of the relative wealth of those nations. If the like parallel were to be run between several of the American States, it would furnish a like result. Let Virginia be contrasted with North Carolina, Pennsylvania with Connecticut, or Maryland with New Jersey, and we shall be convinced that the respective abilities of those States, in relation to revenue, bear little or no analogy to their comparative stock in lands or to their comparative population. The position may be equally illustrated by a similar process between the counties of the same State. No man who is acquainted with the State of New York will doubt that the active wealth of King's County bears a much greater proportion to that of Montgomery than it would appear to be if we should take either the total value of the lands or the total number of the people as a criterion!


The wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety of causes. Situation, soil, climate, the nature of the productions, the nature of the government, the genius of the citizens, the degree of information they possess, the state of commerce, of arts, of industry, these circumstances and many more, too complex, minute, or adventitious to admit of a particular specification, occasion differences hardly conceivable in the relative opulence and riches of different countries. The consequence clearly is that there can be no common measure of national wealth, and, of course, no general or stationary rule by which the ability of a state to pay taxes can be determined. The attempt, therefore, to regulate the contributions of the members of a confederacy by any such rule, cannot fail to be productive of glaring inequality and extreme oppression.


This inequality would of itself be sufficient in America to work the eventual destruction of the Union, if any mode of enforcing a compliance with its requisitions could be devised. The suffering States would not long consent to remain associated upon a principle which distributes the public burdens with so unequal a hand, and which was calculated to impoverish and oppress the citizens of some States, while those of others would scarcely be conscious of the small proportion of the weight they were required to sustain. This, however, is an evil inseparable from the principle of quotas and requisitions.


There is no method of steering clear of this inconvenience, but by authorizing the national government to raise its own revenues in its own way. Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. If inequalities should arise in some States from duties on particular objects, these will, in all probability, be counterbalanced by proportional inequalities in other States, from the duties on other objects. In the course of time and things, an equilibrium, as far as it is attainable in so complicated a subject, will be established everywhere. Or, if inequalities should still exist, they would neither be so great in their degree, so uniform in their operation, nor so odious in their appearance, as those which would necessarily spring from quotas, upon any scale that can possibly be devised.


It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four


" If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.


Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country. Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value of land, or the number of the people, may serve as a standard. The state of agriculture and the populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other. And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a preference. In every country it is a herculean task to obtain a valuation of the land; in a country imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement, the difficulties are increased almost to impracticability. The expense of an accurate valuation is, in all situations, a formidable objection. In a branch of taxation where no limits to the discretion of the government are to be found in the nature of things, the establishment of a fixed rule, not incompatible with the end, may be attended with fewer inconveniences than to leave that discretion altogether at large.


PUBLIUS.

Quote du jour:
"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today."

Laurence J. Peter
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.newsmax.com/
http://www.climatedepot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
SPPI
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
Harding College
Skeptic's Handbook


 

Porkulus - One Year Beyond

Opinion 1.0

Happy Anniversary! President Obama. Yes, it's been one year since you passed your stimulus bill. I must say, it has been incredibly popular and successful. Unemployment is low, jobs are in abundance, the economy is good  and the American people are optimistic. Unfortunately, none of these things are true. However, not if you ask the White House. They are saying that they, and they alone, have brought us back from the brink of a second depression. Financial analyst say you can only measure what is, not could have been. Biden said the administration has saved 2 million jobs. How do you measure that? I have saved 2 million souls, yea, whatever. Indiana senator, Evan Bayh said that the stimulus hasn't created one job a few days ago. That had to hurt the administration. The original cost of the stimulus bill was $787 billion. Now, the Congressional Budget Office announced two days ago that the true cost is $862 billion with the higher jobless benefits paid out and additional food stamps cost and that doesn't include the interest our kids will have to pay in the future. President Obama promised to create millions of jobs. If he kept his promise, he would need to create 6.3 million jobs in the next year. Recently, analysts have estimated that only 1.2 million jobs will be created in 2010 on the high side. With unemployment at 9.7%, Biden had the gall to say that we are not losing too many jobs now. Obviously, he hasn't lost his job. I am disgusted how cavalier the administration is with the loss of jobs. And let's not forget about the 800 pound elephant in the room, healthcare reform, which is still in the forefront of the socialists' democrats minds, Obama is holding on for dear life. Crap and Trade is still a dream of the radical progressives and green lobby. These two administration agenda items could easily throw the country into a deep depression. Obama knows this and democrats in the house and senate are running from this as fast as they can. Each day, we get closer to the November midterm elections, in which I believe this could be a 1994 deja vu'. 52% say Obama doesn't deserve a second term (Gallup), I don't think he deserves a full first term. But I digressed. A poll by New York times/ CBS News said only 6% say stimulus has already created jobs, 41% say will create jobs and 48% say it won't create jobs. Ouch! This President has lost the trust of the American people. Take a yander at where some of your hard earned taxpayer money is being spent  below.

Here is a large serving of Bar-B-Que Pork:
• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).
• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.
• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military
$200 million to the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Program

$300 million for "Violence Against Women Prevention and Prosecution Programs"
$900 million for the IRS for the "Limitation on Administrative Expenses"
$1 million for the Railroad Retirement Board for administrative costs
$2 billion for the Drinking Water State Revolving Act
$50 million for Health and Human Services to carry out injury prevention programs
$1.1 billion for studies on the effectiveness of different medical treatments -- $200 million to upgrade labs and facilities for the Department of Agriculture "to improve workplace safety and mission-area efficiencies"
$10 million for urban canal inspection
$16 billion to pay for student financial aid
$1 billion to pay for the U.S. Census
$600 million to pay for a fuel-efficient federal auto fleet
$650 million for the Digital Converter Box Program to help the constantly delayed transition from analog television
$485 million to the Forest Service for "hazardous fuels reduction and hazard mitigation activities in areas at high risk of catastrophic wildfire"
Up to $1 billion for "summer activities" for youths as old as 24
$40 million for the occupational research agenda
$3 billion for the Centers for Disease Control wellness programs and vaccinations
$410 million for Indian health facilities
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstrations

Will these expeditures create jobs, lower unemployment? Or is this just a PORK bar-b-que sandwich? Or a democrat slush fund? Our supposed leaders are excellent examples for today's youth in regards to fiscal responsibility. "Don't tread on me"

You be the judge:



Marjah inroads slowed by new bombs
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Marjah, Afghanistan

Published: February 17 2010 20:19

Lt Col Cal Worth, who commands one of two Marine battalions leading the offensive against Taliban fighters here, set off at 7am on Wednesday for the return journey to his battalion headquarters from a combat outpost less than four miles away.

In a place where homemade bombs are buried under seemingly every road, this trip was supposed to be safe and easy: A team of Marine engineers and ordnance-disposal experts had swept the route 48 hours earlier, unearthing and blowing up seven mines. But on Wednesday, Col Worth’s convoy had travelled less than a mile before the engineers discovered a mine on the rutted road. They would later find three more – all planted in the same intersection as the seven mines they found Monday.

Marjah’s real test will come after offensive - Feb-17Top Taliban commander captured - Feb-16Taliban chief arrested at checkpoint - Feb-16Global Insight: Encouraging sign in Pakistan - Feb-16Mastermind who holds vital intelligence - Feb-16Marines help push insurgents out of Marjah - Feb-17Col Worth’s Sisyphean challenge of moving about in Marjah suggests that Taliban bombmakers, and those who burrow the devices into the dirt roads here, have not been cowed by the presence of two US Marine battalions and a large contingent of Afghan soldiers. Nor have scores of other insurgent fighters, who kept up a steady pace of attacks on coalition forces on Wednesday, firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at their bases and patrols.

Although US and Afghan forces have made steady inroads here since beginning the largest military operation of the war four days ago, they only control a few modest patches of this farming community, principally around the two biggest bazaar areas. Much of Marjah has not yet been patrolled by troops on the ground, and video images from surveillance drones have shown Taliban fighters operating with impunity in those places.

US and Nato commanders were not certain the insurgents who have lorded over Marjah for the past three years would stand and fight or flee to parts of Afghanistan with fewer international security forces. It now appears clear that many Taliban members here have opted to stay – at least for now.

That may mean many more weeks of arduous house-to-house clearing operations for the Marines and Afghan forces in this 155-square-mile area, making this a far more complex and dangerous mission than initially envisaged, and it could delay some efforts to deliver government services and reconstruction projects to the 80,000 people who live here.

“It’s early days yet,” said the British army’s Maj Gen Nick Carter, the overall commander of international forces in southern Afghanistan. “You’re dealing with a large area, with a lot of people in it. It’s going to take a while to clear it.”

Even if insurgents are not fleeing, they are also not winning any of their fights with the Marines. Dozens of militants – there is no authoritative count – have been killed since the operation began. Only One Marine has died.

Senior US military officials have been encouraged by the relatively low level of coalition casualties – more Marines have been evacuated for hypothermia and knee and ankle strains than for gun and bomb wounds – and by the fact that combat engineers have discovered dozens of roadside bombs before they have struck tactical vehicles.

The low level of injuries is due, in large part, to the Marines’ deliberate approach in moving about the area. Instead of driving all over hunting down insurgents, they have been moving in cautious convoys that are preceded by sophisticated minesweeping gear.

Marine commanders remain optimistic that their initial efforts at establishing bubbles of security around key commercial areas will have a catalyzing effect on the population and will result in residents identifying Taliban fighters, bomb locations and arms caches.

Thus far, however, most residents seem to be opting for a wait-and-see approach. Most roads used by the Marines have been devoid of people, save for a few curious gawkers. The bazaars are similarly abandoned, some so hastily that merchants left their onions and potatoes sitting atop wooden carts.

“When they see us providing security, we think they’ll choose the side they think will be victorious in the long term,” Col Worth said.

When Col Worth departed from his Bravo Company’s base next to the Koru Chreh bazaar at 7am, he figured he was giving himself more than enough time to make it back by 10am for what was to be the first meeting of shopkeepers and community leaders. Next up on his schedule, at noon, was a visit by the top Marine commander in Afghanistan and the governor of Helmand province.

By 9:30am, his convoy ground to a halt when the engineers found the first bomb at a the narrow intersection. where they had to turn south to the battalion headquarters. At 10:30am, while munching pretzels in his armoured truck, he received a radio message: The meeting of shopkeepers “was a no-show. Nobody came.”

He didn’t get an explanation. But a few shop owners have dropped by the battalion headquarters to inquire about the military operations and when it might be safe to reopen their stalls. Marine officers usher the visitors to an informal meeting area in the dilapidated compound they now call home: a plastic tarpaulin (for sitting on the floor, Afghan style) with a few treats in the center pulled from military rations — small boxes of Froot Loops, Nature Valley granola bars, New York Style mini bagel chips and Home Run peanuts.

When Gen Carter and the dignitaries arrived at his headquarters, Worth was still sitting on the road, waiting for the explosives-disposal experts to defuse the fourth bomb of the day. As the convoy parked on the road, the turret gunners spotted several men milling about in the bushes and Col Worth feared an ambush. To make matters worse, one of the trucks accidentally drove halfway into a canal, further exposing the forces.

The convoy finally got moving, before an attack could be mounted, but by then a group of Afghan soldiers had already raised their red, green and black flag in the bazaar for the dignitaries. The governor and the visiting generals walked around the rubbled market — large parts of which were destroyed by a US special forces airstrike in the spring of 2009 — and hailed the progress of the current mission.

“I have full confidence that Marja district will be very peaceful and it will be one of the best-developed district in Afghanistan,” said Helmand governor Gulab Mangal.

When Gen Carter was asked how long it would take to pacify Marjah, he said it was impossible to predict. “You can’t put a time on it ... You just have to take it slowly but surely, and the people will be won around in due course.”

Col Worth missed all of it. He arrived 30 minutes after they departed – and 7½ hours after he set off.

After the dignitaries left, the Afghan soldiers who raised their large, shiny tricolor pulled it down and replaced it with a smaller, faded one.

“It’s still dangerous in this area,” one soldier said. The Taliban “might burn it.”

Semper Fi

Daft statement of the day:

"No second depression."
Barack Hussein Obama

Green Piece:

Is the Copenhagen Accord already dead?

PARIS—Less than two months after it was hastily drafted to stave off a fiasco, the Copenhagen Accord on climate change is floundering, and some are already saying it has no future.



Political momentum is so weak that so far only two negotiating rounds have been rostered in 2010, one among officials in Bonn in mid-year, the other in Mexico at ministerial level in December.


Worse, the Accord itself already seems to have been quietly disowned by China, India, and other emerging economies just weeks after they helped write it, say these sources.


“Publicly, they are being bubbly and supportive about the Copenhagen Accord. In private, they are urinating all over it,” one observer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.


The specific examples Milbank chose for mockery from a list compiled by the Heritage Foundation are in fact perfectly valid observations conducted not by “environmentalists” but by research scientists:


Still, the three official “pillars” of the International Olympic Committee are sport, culture, and environment. If organizers were serious about the third pillar, they’d give the traveling show a permanent home.


Oceans' acidity rate is soaring, claims study - Nature, Environment - The Independent


The oceans are likely to become so acidic in coming centuries that they will become uninhabitable for vast swathes of life, especially the little-studied organisms on the deep-sea floor which are a vital link in the marine food chain.


Spokesman Tom Mueller said BP informed USCAP today of its decision. Another BP spokesman, Ronnie Chappell, said USCAP "has accomplished the work that we thought important when we joined, which was the establishment of a principles-based framework for shaping climate change legislation."

Socialist Spotlight:
Dawn Johnsen - Nominee of Obama for Head of  Office of Legal Counsel. 45 house republicans have sent Obama a letter asking him to pull back her nomination. Dawn Johnsen has had a very strong pro-abortion stance in her career including a Supreme Court amicus brief  where she equated 'forced pregnancy" is "suggestive of involuntary servitude." Okay. That is the kind of attorney Obama wants. Pro-abortion, fits his modis operandi. Stop the madness.

Quote du jour:
"There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right."
Terence

Writings of Our Founding Fathers

Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 20


The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union


From the New York Packet.


Tuesday, December 11, 1787.


Author: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison


To the People of the State of New York:


THE United Netherlands are a confederacy of republics, or rather of aristocracies of a very remarkable texture, yet confirming all the lessons derived from those which we have already reviewed.


The union is composed of seven coequal and sovereign states, and each state or province is a composition of equal and independent cities. In all important cases, not only the provinces but the cities must be unanimous.


The sovereignty of the Union is represented by the States-General, consisting usually of about fifty deputies appointed by the provinces. They hold their seats, some for life, some for six, three, and one years; from two provinces they continue in appointment during pleasure.


The States-General have authority to enter into treaties and alliances; to make war and peace; to raise armies and equip fleets; to ascertain quotas and demand contributions. In all these cases, however, unanimity and the sanction of their constituents are requisite. They have authority to appoint and receive ambassadors; to execute treaties and alliances already formed; to provide for the collection of duties on imports and exports; to regulate the mint, with a saving to the provincial rights; to govern as sovereigns the dependent territories. The provinces are restrained, unless with the general consent, from entering into foreign treaties; from establishing imposts injurious to others, or charging their neighbors with higher duties than their own subjects. A council of state, a chamber of accounts, with five colleges of admiralty, aid and fortify the federal administration.


The executive magistrate of the union is the stadtholder, who is now an hereditary prince. His principal weight and influence in the republic are derived from this independent title; from his great patrimonial estates; from his family connections with some of the chief potentates of Europe; and, more than all, perhaps, from his being stadtholder in the several provinces, as well as for the union; in which provincial quality he has the appointment of town magistrates under certain regulations, executes provincial decrees, presides when he pleases in the provincial tribunals, and has throughout the power of pardon.


As stadtholder of the union, he has, however, considerable prerogatives.


In his political capacity he has authority to settle disputes between the provinces, when other methods fail; to assist at the deliberations of the States-General, and at their particular conferences; to give audiences to foreign ambassadors, and to keep agents for his particular affairs at foreign courts.


In his military capacity he commands the federal troops, provides for garrisons, and in general regulates military affairs; disposes of all appointments, from colonels to ensigns, and of the governments and posts of fortified towns.


In his marine capacity he is admiral-general, and superintends and directs every thing relative to naval forces and other naval affairs; presides in the admiralties in person or by proxy; appoints lieutenant-admirals and other officers; and establishes councils of war, whose sentences are not executed till he approves them.


His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three hundred thousand florins. The standing army which he commands consists of about forty thousand men.


Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as delineated on parchment. What are the characters which practice has stamped upon it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war.


It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred of his countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being ruined by the vices of their constitution.


The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes an authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure harmony, but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very different from the theory.


The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy certain contributions; but this article never could, and probably never will, be executed; because the inland provinces, who have little commerce, cannot pay an equal quota.


In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the articles of the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the consenting provinces to furnish their quotas, without waiting for the others; and then to obtain reimbursement from the others, by deputations, which are frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The great wealth and influence of the province of Holland enable her to effect both these purposes.


It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing practicable, though dreadful, in a confedracy where one of the members exceeds in force all the rest, and where several of them are too small to meditate resistance; but utterly impracticable in one composed of members, several of which are equal to each other in strength and resources, and equal singly to a vigorous and persevering defense.


Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a foreign minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by tampering with the provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of Hanover was delayed by these means a whole year. Instances of a like nature are numerous and notorious.


In critical emergencies, the States-General are often compelled to overleap their constitutional bounds. In 1688, they concluded a treaty of themselves at the risk of their heads. The treaty of Westphalia, in 1648, by which their independence was formerly and finally recognized, was concluded without the consent of Zealand. Even as recently as the last treaty of peace with Great Britain, the constitutional principle of unanimity was departed from. A weak constitution must necessarily terminate in dissolution, for want of proper powers, or the usurpation of powers requisite for the public safety. Whether the usurpation, when once begun, will stop at the salutary point, or go forward to the dangerous extreme, must depend on the contingencies of the moment. Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.


Notwithstanding the calamities produced by the stadtholdership, it has been supposed that without his influence in the individual provinces, the causes of anarchy manifest in the confederacy would long ago have dissolved it. "Under such a government," says the Abbe Mably, "the Union could never have subsisted, if the provinces had not a spring within themselves, capable of quickening their tardiness, and compelling them to the same way of thinking. This spring is the stadtholder." It is remarked by Sir William Temple, "that in the intermissions of the stadtholdership, Holland, by her riches and her authority, which drew the others into a sort of dependence, supplied the place."


These are not the only circumstances which have controlled the tendency to anarchy and dissolution. The surrounding powers impose an absolute necessity of union to a certain degree, at the same time that they nourish by their intrigues the constitutional vices which keep the republic in some degree always at their mercy.


The true patriots have long bewailed the fatal tendency of these vices, and have made no less than four regular experiments by EXTRAORDINARY ASSEMBLIES, convened for the special purpose, to apply a remedy. As many times has their laudable zeal found it impossible to UNITE THE PUBLIC COUNCILS in reforming the known, the acknowledged, the fatal evils of the existing constitution. Let us pause, my fellow-citizens, for one moment, over this melancholy and monitory lesson of history; and with the tear that drops for the calamities brought on mankind by their adverse opinions and selfish passions, let our gratitude mingle an ejaculation to Heaven, for the propitious concord which has distinguished the consultations for our political happiness.


A design was also conceived of establishing a general tax to be administered by the federal authority. This also had its adversaries and failed.


This unhappy people seem to be now suffering from popular convulsions, from dissensions among the states, and from the actual invasion of foreign arms, the crisis of their distiny. All nations have their eyes fixed on the awful spectacle. The first wish prompted by humanity is, that this severe trial may issue in such a revolution of their government as will establish their union, and render it the parent of tranquillity, freedom and happiness: The next, that the asylum under which, we trust, the enjoyment of these blessings will speedily be secured in this country, may receive and console them for the catastrophe of their own.


I make no apology for having dwelt so long on the contemplation of these federal precedents. Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting VIOLENCE in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.


PUBLIUS.

References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.newsbusters.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.americanspectator.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
Washington Post
Fianacial Times
Grist Magazine
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
http://www.climatedepot.com/

The Many Faces of Joe Biden

Opinion 1.0

There is never a bad time for a photo op. Just ask Joe "thousand gaffs a minute" Biden. Joe has finally found himself in a riff with someone more intelligent and politically seasoned than Biden. (I didn't say older.) You don't want to go to the mattresses with Dick Cheney. Cheney (a.k.a. Darth Vader) has ran major corporations, has been Secretatry of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, in the House of Representatives and Vice President for two terms. Joe Biden has been a Delaware senator since 1973. "Plugs" has never ran a company or held an important private sector position. Which one do you put your faith in? The biggest question I have is why would the Obama administration would deploy the Vice President, Joe Biden, who has page after page of gaffs that has embarrassed the White House on numerous occasions? I could have swore that they (the Obama administration) kept "Plugs" in a locked room in the VP's residence? Maybe they did this to decoy ol' Joey to keep the publicity off the administration's mistakes and backtracking? Wag the dog? First, I have a paramount respect for Dick Cheney. One of my fondest memories is when Cheney chewed up John Edwards at the Vice Presidential debate concerning Edwards not paying his share of taxes on a huge settlement by taking most of it as a dividend. Sweeeet! You can't blame Cheney for coming out and criticizing the Obama administration. Biden (on the Sunday talk shows) claimed the success in Iraq was because of the "anointed one." However, if you remember, Biden and Obamocanobi both voted against the surge back then and said that it would be impossible to install a democracy in that region. That is the administration's biggest problem, news archives! The proof is in the video tape. Do they think we won't research these statements? Classic fools. Secondly, Biden seems to think we are safe and will not be attacked, where Cheney is skeptical of how the Obama administration is so cavalier on national security, and I agree. Bringing these animals to New York and trting them in civilian court is proposterous. Marandizing a non citizen and telling the intelligence community and military what they can and can't do is a travesty of American justice. President Bush isn't going to come out against the Obama administration. He has too much class and honor to do that. Cheney has class and honor, but he isn't going to allow Biden and ultimately, Obama to lie about what has transpired. And rightfully so, Obama and his sycophants have twisted the truth and told so many outright lies, someone has to dispute the mis-truths, and that person is Dick Cheney. Biden is playing to Cheney's strength. Biden could never debate Cheney. Biden had a tough time with Sarah Palin, for crying out loud. She didn't have any public speaking experience, Biden had 36 years in the Senate. Palin seemed to know more about the constitution than Biden. In my estimation, Palin won that debate.  I can't recall Cheney ever losing a debate. Maybe the one was when he shot a friend hunting. Ha! However, I've always said, I rather go hunting with Dick cheney than go driving with Ted Kennedy!

Biden v. Cheney:


Fool on the Hill:


Liar, Liar, plugs on fire:


Green Piece:
Drop in world temperatures fuels global warming debate

Posted on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 email


Fluctuations in Earth's temperature


By Robert S. Boyd
McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON — Has Earth's fever broken?


Official government measurements show that the world's temperature has cooled a bit since reaching its most recent peak in 1998.


What's given global warming skeptics new ammunition to attack the prevailing theory of climate change. The skeptics argue that the current stretch of slightly cooler temperatures means that costly measures to limit carbon dioxide emissions are ill-founded and unnecessary.


Proposals to combat global warming are "crazy" and will "destroy more than a million good American jobs and increase the average family's annual energy bill by at least $1,500 a year," the Heartland Institute, a conservative research organization based in Chicago, declared in full-page newspaper ads earlier this summer. "High levels of carbon dioxide actually benefit wildlife and human health," the ads asserted.


Many scientists agree, however, that hotter times are ahead. A decade of level or slightly lower temperatures is only a temporary dip to be expected as a result of natural, short-term variations in the enormously complex climate system, they say.


"The preponderance of evidence is that global warming will resume," Nicholas Bond, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said in an e-mail.


Natural variability can account for the slowing of the global mean temperature rise we have seen," said Jeff Knight, a climate expert at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, England.


According to data from the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala., the global high temperature in 1998 was 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average for the previous 20 years.


So far this year, the high has been 0.42 degrees Celsius (0.76 degrees Fahrenheit), above the 20-year average, clearly cooler than before.


However, scientists say the skeptics' argument is misleading.


"It's entirely possible to have a period as long as a decade or two of cooling superimposed on the long-term warming trend," said David Easterling, chief of scientific services at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.


"These short term fluctuations are statistically insignificant (and) entirely due to natural internal variability," Easterling said in an essay published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in April. "It's easy to 'cherry pick' a period to reinforce a point of view."


Climate experts say the 1998 record was partly caused by El Nino, a periodic warming of tropical Pacific Ocean waters that affects the climate worldwide.


"The temperature peak in 1998 to a large extent can be attributed to the very strong El Nino event of 1997-98," Bond said. "Temperatures for the globe as a whole tend to be higher during El Nino, and particularly events as intense as that one."


El Nino is returning this summer after a four-year absence and is expected to hang around until late next year.


"If El Nino continues to strengthen as projected, expect more (high temperature) records to fall," said Thomas Karl, who's the director of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville.


"At least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the warmest year currently on record," predicted Jeff Knight, a climate variability expert at the Hadley Centre in England.


John Christy, the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who often sides with the skeptics, agreed that the recent cooling won't last.


"The atmosphere is just now feeling the bump in tropical Pacific temperatures related to El Nino," Christy said in an e-mail. As a result, July experienced "the largest one-month jump in our 31-year record of global satellite temperatures. We should see a warmer 2009-2010 due to El Nino."


Christy added, however: "Our ignorance of the climate system is still enormous, and our policy makers need to know that . . . We really don't know much about what causes multi-year changes like this."


In addition to newspaper ads, the Heartland Institute sponsors conferences, books, papers, videos and Web sites arguing its case against the global warming threat.


The skeptics include scientists such as Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who thinks that climate science is too uncertain to justify drastic measures to control CO2. He calls the case for action against global warming "silly" and "grotesque."


Others go further. For example, Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, thinks the world is in a 30-year cooling phase.


"The most recent global warming that began in 1977 is over, and the Earth has entered a new phase of global cooling," Easterbrook said in a talk to the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in San Francisco in December.


Government scientists strongly disagree. "Claims that global warming is not occurring . . . ignore this natural variability and are misleading," said NOAA's Easterling.


In reality, global warming "never ceased," said Karl, the climate data center director.

Daft statement of the day:
"Hey, let’s use reconciliation to pass the public option."
Democrat House & Senate

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2009


Washington, DC


Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." The list, in alphabetical order, includes:


1.Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 "Ten Most Corrupt" list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch's complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.


2.Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year's worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: "The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…" The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign's office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.


3.Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use." Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a "federal regulator," and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank's intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.


4.Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn't until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: "Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG's impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned 'full details' of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG." Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed "household help" ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the "Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington" list.


5.Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won't be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro's Cuba. Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism. Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton's scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder's former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder's controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder's politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.


6.Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama's then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named "Senate Candidate A" in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama's seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat. According to Reuters: "Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich -- later charged with trying to sell Obama's Senate seat -- at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor's aides about his desire to be appointed." Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.


7.President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration "lowlights" from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scheme to sell the President's former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President's bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control -- through fiat and threats -- large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: "The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption." Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama's "ethics" record -- and we haven't even gotten through the first year of his presidency.


8.Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2008 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA's use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)


9.Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman's largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks -- tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA's offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, "Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills." When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, "cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file." The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha's nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: "Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military."


10.Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly "forget" to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow "forgot" about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making "campaign contributions" to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: "The reigning member of Congress' top tax committee is apparently 'wrangling' other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles...Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him." Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That's why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

Writings of Our Founding Fathers

Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 19


The Same Subject Continued: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union


For the Independent Journal.


Author: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison


To the People of the State of New York:


THE examples of ancient confederacies, cited in my last paper, have not exhausted the source of experimental instruction on this subject. There are existing institutions, founded on a similar principle, which merit particular consideration. The first which presents itself is the Germanic body.


In the early ages of Christianity, Germany was occupied by seven distinct nations, who had no common chief. The Franks, one of the number, having conquered the Gauls, established the kingdom which has taken its name from them. In the ninth century Charlemagne, its warlike monarch, carried his victorious arms in every direction; and Germany became a part of his vast dominions. On the dismemberment, which took place under his sons, this part was erected into a separate and independent empire. Charlemagne and his immediate descendants possessed the reality, as well as the ensigns and dignity of imperial power. But the principal vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, and who composed the national diets which Charlemagne had not abolished, gradually threw off the yoke and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence. The force of imperial sovereignty was insufficient to restrain such powerful dependants; or to preserve the unity and tranquillity of the empire. The most furious private wars, accompanied with every species of calamity, were carried on between the different princes and states. The imperial authority, unable to maintain the public order, declined by degrees till it was almost extinct in the anarchy, which agitated the long interval between the death of the last emperor of the Suabian, and the accession of the first emperor of the Austrian lines. In the eleventh century the emperors enjoyed full sovereignty: In the fifteenth they had little more than the symbols and decorations of power.


Out of this feudal system, which has itself many of the important features of a confederacy, has grown the federal system which constitutes the Germanic empire. Its powers are vested in a diet representing the component members of the confederacy; in the emperor, who is the executive magistrate, with a negative on the decrees of the diet; and in the imperial chamber and the aulic council, two judiciary tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in controversies which concern the empire, or which happen among its members.


The diet possesses the general power of legislating for the empire; of making war and peace; contracting alliances; assessing quotas of troops and money; constructing fortresses; regulating coin; admitting new members; and subjecting disobedient members to the ban of the empire, by which the party is degraded from his sovereign rights and his possessions forfeited. The members of the confederacy are expressly restricted from entering into compacts prejudicial to the empire; from imposing tolls and duties on their mutual intercourse, without the consent of the emperor and diet; from altering the value of money; from doing injustice to one another; or from affording assistance or retreat to disturbers of the public peace. And the ban is denounced against such as shall violate any of these restrictions. The members of the diet, as such, are subject in all cases to be judged by the emperor and diet, and in their private capacities by the aulic council and imperial chamber.


The prerogatives of the emperor are numerous. The most important of them are: his exclusive right to make propositions to the diet; to negative its resolutions; to name ambassadors; to confer dignities and titles; to fill vacant electorates; to found universities; to grant privileges not injurious to the states of the empire; to receive and apply the public revenues; and generally to watch over the public safety. In certain cases, the electors form a council to him. In quality of emperor, he possesses no territory within the empire, nor receives any revenue for his support. But his revenue and dominions, in other qualities, constitute him one of the most powerful princes in Europe.


From such a parade of constitutional powers, in the representatives and head of this confederacy, the natural supposition would be, that it must form an exception to the general character which belongs to its kindred systems. Nothing would be further from the reality. The fundamental principle on which it rests, that the empire is a community of sovereigns, that the diet is a representation of sovereigns and that the laws are addressed to sovereigns, renders the empire a nerveless body, incapable of regulating its own members, insecure against external dangers, and agitated with unceasing fermentations in its own bowels.


The history of Germany is a history of wars between the emperor and the princes and states; of wars among the princes and states themselves; of the licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression of the weak; of foreign intrusions, and foreign intrigues; of requisitions of men and money disregarded, or partially complied with; of attempts to enforce them, altogether abortive, or attended with slaughter and desolation, involving the innocent with the guilty; of general inbecility, confusion, and misery.


In the sixteenth century, the emperor, with one part of the empire on his side, was seen engaged against the other princes and states. In one of the conflicts, the emperor himself was put to flight, and very near being made prisoner by the elector of Saxony. The late king of Prussia was more than once pitted against his imperial sovereign; and commonly proved an overmatch for him. Controversies and wars among the members themselves have been so common, that the German annals are crowded with the bloody pages which describe them. Previous to the peace of Westphalia, Germany was desolated by a war of thirty years, in which the emperor, with one half of the empire, was on one side, and Sweden, with the other half, on the opposite side. Peace was at length negotiated, and dictated by foreign powers; and the articles of it, to which foreign powers are parties, made a fundamental part of the Germanic constitution.


If the nation happens, on any emergency, to be more united by the necessity of self-defense, its situation is still deplorable. Military preparations must be preceded by so many tedious discussions, arising from the jealousies, pride, separate views, and clashing pretensions of sovereign bodies, that before the diet can settle the arrangements, the enemy are in the field; and before the federal troops are ready to take it, are retiring into winter quarters.


The small body of national troops, which has been judged necessary in time of peace, is defectively kept up, badly paid, infected with local prejudices, and supported by irregular and disproportionate contributions to the treasury.


The impossibility of maintaining order and dispensing justice among these sovereign subjects, produced the experiment of dividing the empire into nine or ten circles or districts; of giving them an interior organization, and of charging them with the military execution of the laws against delinquent and contumacious members. This experiment has only served to demonstrate more fully the radical vice of the constitution. Each circle is the miniature picture of the deformities of this political monster. They either fail to execute their commissions, or they do it with all the devastation and carnage of civil war. Sometimes whole circles are defaulters; and then they increase the mischief which they were instituted to remedy.


We may form some judgment of this scheme of military coercion from a sample given by Thuanus. In Donawerth, a free and imperial city of the circle of Suabia, the Abb 300 de St. Croix enjoyed certain immunities which had been reserved to him. In the exercise of these, on some public occasions, outrages were committed on him by the people of the city. The consequence was that the city was put under the ban of the empire, and the Duke of Bavaria, though director of another circle, obtained an appointment to enforce it. He soon appeared before the city with a corps of ten thousand troops, and finding it a fit occasion, as he had secretly intended from the beginning, to revive an antiquated claim, on the pretext that his ancestors had suffered the place to be dismembered from his territory, [1] he took possession of it in his own name, disarmed, and punished the inhabitants, and reannexed the city to his domains.


It may be asked, perhaps, what has so long kept this disjointed machine from falling entirely to pieces? The answer is obvious: The weakness of most of the members, who are unwilling to expose themselves to the mercy of foreign powers; the weakness of most of the principal members, compared with the formidable powers all around them; the vast weight and influence which the emperor derives from his separate and heriditary dominions; and the interest he feels in preserving a system with which his family pride is connected, and which constitutes him the first prince in Europe; --these causes support a feeble and precarious Union; whilst the repellant quality, incident to the nature of sovereignty, and which time continually strengthens, prevents any reform whatever, founded on a proper consolidation. Nor is it to be imagined, if this obstacle could be surmounted, that the neighboring powers would suffer a revolution to take place which would give to the empire the force and preeminence to which it is entitled. Foreign nations have long considered themselves as interested in the changes made by events in this constitution; and have, on various occasions, betrayed their policy of perpetuating its anarchy and weakness.


If more direct examples were wanting, Poland, as a government over local sovereigns, might not improperly be taken notice of. Nor could any proof more striking be given of the calamities flowing from such institutions. Equally unfit for self-government and self-defense, it has long been at the mercy of its powerful neighbors; who have lately had the mercy to disburden it of one third of its people and territories.


The connection among the Swiss cantons scarcely amounts to a confederacy; though it is sometimes cited as an instance of the stability of such institutions.


They have no common treasury; no common troops even in war; no common coin; no common judicatory; nor any other common mark of sovereignty.


They are kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position; by their individual weakness and insignificancy; by the fear of powerful neighbors, to one of which they were formerly subject; by the few sources of contention among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners; by their joint interest in their dependent possessions; by the mutual aid they stand in need of, for suppressing insurrections and rebellions, an aid expressly stipulated and often required and afforded; and by the necessity of some regular and permanent provision for accomodating disputes among the cantons. The provision is, that the parties at variance shall each choose four judges out of the neutral cantons, who, in case of disagreement, choose an umpire. This tribunal, under an oath of impartiality, pronounces definitive sentence, which all the cantons are bound to enforce. The competency of this regulation may be estimated by a clause in their treaty of 1683, with Victor Amadeus of Savoy; in which he obliges himself to interpose as mediator in disputes between the cantons, and to employ force, if necessary, against the contumacious party.


So far as the peculiarity of their case will admit of comparison with that of the United States, it serves to confirm the principle intended to be established. Whatever efficacy the union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears that the moment a cause of difference sprang up, capable of trying its strength, it failed. The controversies on the subject of religion, which in three instances have kindled violent and bloody contests, may be said, in fact, to have severed the league. The Protestant and Catholic cantons have since had their separate diets, where all the most important concerns are adjusted, and which have left the general diet little other business than to take care of the common bailages.


That separation had another consequence, which merits attention. It produced opposite alliances with foreign powers: of Berne, at the head of the Protestant association, with the United Provinces; and of Luzerne, at the head of the Catholic association, with France.


PUBLIUS.

Quote du jour:
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

Daniel Webster

References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.mcclatchy.com/
http://www.wsj.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.newsmax.com/
http://www.climatedepot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
Judicial Watch
Library of Congress/Federalists Papers