Finally reached 200 Blog posts!
I've been very busy working hard and supporting my family and 47% of the People who don't pay taxes...
Obama has been in office for approximately 26 months. When he was on the campaign trail, he made so many special promises. Even though he never stopped campaigning, he has let down his liberal base on so many levels. His cool aid drinking sycophants appear to be very disillusioned and down right depressed. More importantly, Obama has lost the independents that propelled him to the Presidency. Poll after poll, he has lost ground in popularity. I believe the icing on the cake is when the "anointed one" started his own war in Libya without Congressional approval. That definitely threw the liberals into a tail spin. It is called a "Kinetic Military Action," also known as a war. We have boots on the ground. Yes, I know Barry O. said there wouldn't be any Soldiers or Marines on the ground, it has happened. Unfortunately, (for America) Obama didn't have an entrance strategy, let alone an exit strategy. Let's face it, our foreign policy is non-existent. The whole Middle East is in serious turmoil and Al Qeida is on the rise. The U.S. is giving support and arms to the rebels who in turn, have allegiances to terrorists. NATO is inept, they are already running out of munitions. Being the Father of an active duty Marine, I was hoping that we would start pulling our military out of Afghanistan. Now, we have 3 wars to contend with. Next, what about Gitmo? Campaign promise #1, "I will close Gitmo as soon as I am President." Call me a dumb, white, God-fearing, gun toting, American patriot, but, shouldn't that happened already? The stimulus is a complete failure. The President said in an interview last week that his new investment plan for America, we should invest into infrastructure. Wasn't that the same talking points when he was hawking the stimulus plan? Cash for clunkers was an astounding success. Obamacare is still as controversial as it was when it was signed into law. 1300+ waivers to date makes it appear to be a bad piece of legislation. I think all fifty states should ask for a waiver. That would take care of the issues before it goes to the Supreme Court. Unemployment is still unacceptably high. Obama said that if we passed the
Change we cannot believe in:
Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history. Over 27 times as fast. Metaphorically speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane. 27 times faster, it would be doing 7,555 MPH! Sources: (1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. Of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury |
How is that hopey, chantey thing working out for you?
Leftist union thugs protesting with class:3 videos
Such a difference in the Tea Party rallies and the socialist union protest!
Do the right thing
By Niall Ferguson
“The United States will always do the right thing—when all other possibilities have been exhausted.” Thus Winston Churchill, who, as the son of an American mother, was entitled to say such things.
By Niall Ferguson
“The United States will always do the right thing—when all other possibilities have been exhausted.” Thus Winston Churchill, who, as the son of an American mother, was entitled to say such things.
After a week on the road with my own 100 percent British son, visiting possible colleges from Dartmouth to Duke, I can confirm that the United States is finally getting close to doing the right thing.
Ours was quite a trip. It began in New Hampshire and took in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. We saw crunchy snow in the North and felt baking sunshine in the South. And we didn’t just do colleges. We also did conferences.
The odyssey began in Bretton Woods, N.H., at the Mount Washington Hotel, where, in 1944, the foundations for the postwar global economic order were laid. The shadow of John Maynard Keynes seemed to hover over the proceedings of the second meeting of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, founded in 2009 by George Soros.
Keynes was a believer in government deficits as a short-term expedient to combat depression. But even he would have regarded America’s current fiscal trajectory as disastrous. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s alternative fiscal scenario—which it sees as politically more likely than its baseline scenario—the federal debt could hit 344 percent of GDP by 2050. Interest payments would absorb nearly all federal tax revenues.
Keynes would also have been dismayed by the extent of America’s reliance on foreigners to finance its borrowing habit. Small wonder the No. 1 topic of discussion at Bretton Woods was the relationship between the United States and its primary creditor: the People’s Republic of China. The consensus at the conference was pretty clear. It’s not just that the Chinese need to wean themselves off an undervaluedexchange rate. Americans need to kick their deficit habit, and the money printing that goes with it.
Conspicuous by its near absence from the discussion was the Middle East, where real wars rather than currency wars are the worry. To grapple with America’s foreign-policy challenges, we had to get ourselves from Mount Washington to Washington, D.C., and the founding meeting of the McCain Institute, a new strategic think tank to be set up this year under the auspices of the University of Arizona.
The consensus around this table was that American foreign policy was in disarray and that the Arab Spring was unlikely to be followed by a summer of love in the Middle East. But what to do, with the military already overstretched and the defense budget set to fall from 5.1 percent of GDP to 3.4 percent by 2016? Something’s got to make way for all those interest payments, after all.
The most heartening thing about our road trip was the realization that such questions are not only on the minds of statesmen and professors. The students we met were also eager to discuss finance and politics. Even Joe Public now gets it: according to Gallup, 17 percent of Americans now see the deficit as the biggest problem facing the United States, compared with just 5 percent six months ago and practically zero a year ago.
Churchill had it right. The United States will always do the right thing once all the other possibilities have been exhausted. For a long time many people clung to the delusion that the United States could simply borrow $1 trillion a year for the rest of time. Now only two possibilities remain.
The first possibility is the one devised by Rep. Paul Ryan, which would eliminate the deficit largely through deep spending cuts and Medicare reform. Possibility two is President Obama’s bid to close the budget gap with more modest cuts and tax hikes on “millionaires and billionaires.”
It’s a bracingly binary choice. Shrink the government. Or squeeze the rich. It will be worth my son’s coming to college in the U.S. just to see which of the two Americas he chooses.
Daft Statement of the week:
“Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”
Barack Hussein Obama, April 19, 2011. Interview with a Texas reporter. Testy?
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/20/obama-snubs-issa-on-subpoena-for-atf-documents/#ixzz1K73QPR3T
Pathetic yet funny:
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.
Daft Statement of the week:
“Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”
Barack Hussein Obama, April 19, 2011. Interview with a Texas reporter. Testy?
Obama snubs Issa on subpoena for ATF documents
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., right, accompanied by the committee's ranking Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., presides over the committee's hearing on the Freedom of Information Act, Thursday, March 31, 2011, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
For the first time since Republicans took control of the House and gained the power of congressional subpoena, the Obama administration has declined to comply with a subpoena issued by top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa.
In the face of a subpoena by Issa, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) provided no documents by the April 13 deadline, according to an April 20 letter from Issa to ATF’s director, Kenneth Melson.
Issa is threatening contempt proceedings if ATF does not comply.
At issue are documents related to Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, in which ATF allowed American guns to be smuggled into Mexico and sold to Mexican drug cartels. The goal of the program was to track the illegal weapons and drug markets after they were used in crimes and abandoned using ballistics information and serial numbers for the guns.
A spokesman for ATF declined to comment about the matter saying, “we can’t respond to the media or anyone else until we respond to the chairman himself.”
But in an April 13 letter to Issa, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch cited the Justice Department’s policy not to disclose details about “ongoing criminal investigations” as a reason not to comply with the document demand.
Issa says the objection is spurious.
“We are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice,” Issa says in his April 20 letter, citing three historical examples of congressional oversight of Justice Department investigations, including during the Teapot Dome scandal in 1922.
ATF did provide access to four documents for “in camera” review at Justice Department headquarters, Issa says, but the documents were “general” and did not “directly pertain” to Operation Fast and Furious, in which guns were permitted to be smuggled to Mexico.
In his letter threatening contempt proceedings, Issa provides as attachments several documents he has obtained independently from his official request to the agency.
One of the documents included is a “significant information report” showing that two AK-47 rifles allowed to be sold to Mexican drug cartels were recovered from the scene of border patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder.
Issa says any decision to allow American guns to be sold to Mexican drug cartels was likely made by top-ranking Justice Department officials.
“It is nearly unfathomable that our government would allow straw purchasers to illegally acquire automatic weapons and transport them into Mexico, in furtherance of an ATF-led and inspired investigation. As I understand Department of Justice operations, such programs would require the approval of top officials,” Issa says.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/20/obama-snubs-issa-on-subpoena-for-atf-documents/#ixzz1K73QPR3T
Pathetic yet funny:
George asking Congress and the President about our current state of affairs.
Obama after the interview with Texas reporter
Video of the week:
If these young people are our future, our future is doomed! Peace
Quote du jour:
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Writings of our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
|| Federalist No. 78 ||
The Judiciary Department
From McLEAN'S Edition, New York.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
WE PROCEED now to an examination of the judiciary department of the proposed government.
In unfolding the defects of the existing Confederation, the utility and necessity of a federal judicature have been clearly pointed out. It is the less necessary to recapitulate the considerations there urged, as the propriety of the institution in the abstract is not disputed; the only questions which have been raised being relative to the manner of constituting it, and to its extent. To these points, therefore, our observations shall be confined.
The manner of constituting it seems to embrace these several objects: 1st. The mode of appointing the judges. 2d. The tenure by which they are to hold their places. 3d. The partition of the judiciary authority between different courts, and their relations to each other.
First. As to the mode of appointing the judges; this is the same with that of appointing the officers of the Union in general, and has been so fully discussed in the two last numbers, that nothing can be said here which would not be useless repetition.
Second. As to the tenure by which the judges are to hold their places; this chiefly concerns their duration in office; the provisions for their support; the precautions for their responsibility.
According to the plan of the convention, all judges who may be appointed by the United States are to hold their offices DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR; which is conformable to the most approved of the State constitutions and among the rest, to that of this State. Its propriety having been drawn into question by the adversaries of that plan, is no light symptom of the rage for objection, which disorders their imaginations and judgments. The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government. In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body. And it is the best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.
Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
This simple view of the matter suggests several important consequences. It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power [1] ; that it can never attack with success either of the other two; and that all possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against their attacks. It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." [2] And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
Some perplexity respecting the rights of the courts to pronounce legislative acts void, because contrary to the Constitution, has arisen from an imagination that the doctrine would imply a superiority of the judiciary to the legislative power. It is urged that the authority which can declare the acts of another void, must necessarily be superior to the one whose acts may be declared void. As this doctrine is of great importance in all the American constitutions, a brief discussion of the ground on which it rests cannot be unacceptable.
There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.
If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their WILL to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.
Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.
This exercise of judicial discretion, in determining between two contradictory laws, is exemplified in a familiar instance. It not uncommonly happens, that there are two statutes existing at one time, clashing in whole or in part with each other, and neither of them containing any repealing clause or expression. In such a case, it is the province of the courts to liquidate and fix their meaning and operation. So far as they can, by any fair construction, be reconciled to each other, reason and law conspire to dictate that this should be done; where this is impracticable, it becomes a matter of necessity to give effect to one, in exclusion of the other. The rule which has obtained in the courts for determining their relative validity is, that the last in order of time shall be preferred to the first. But this is a mere rule of construction, not derived from any positive law, but from the nature and reason of the thing. It is a rule not enjoined upon the courts by legislative provision, but adopted by themselves, as consonant to truth and propriety, for the direction of their conduct as interpreters of the law. They thought it reasonable, that between the interfering acts of an EQUAL authority, that which was the last indication of its will should have the preference.
But in regard to the interfering acts of a superior and subordinate authority, of an original and derivative power, the nature and reason of the thing indicate the converse of that rule as proper to be followed. They teach us that the prior act of a superior ought to be preferred to the subsequent act of an inferior and subordinate authority; and that accordingly, whenever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.
It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature. This might as well happen in the case of two contradictory statutes; or it might as well happen in every adjudication upon any single statute. The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body. The observation, if it prove any thing, would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from that body.
If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty.
This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. Though I trust the friends of the proposed Constitution will never concur with its enemies, [3] in questioning that fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act. But it is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community.
But it is not with a view to infractions of the Constitution only, that the independence of the judges may be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. These sometimes extend no farther than to the injury of the private rights of particular classes of citizens, by unjust and partial laws. Here also the firmness of the judicial magistracy is of vast importance in mitigating the severity and confining the operation of such laws. It not only serves to moderate the immediate mischiefs of those which may have been passed, but it operates as a check upon the legislative body in passing them; who, perceiving that obstacles to the success of iniquitous intention are to be expected from the scruples of the courts, are in a manner compelled, by the very motives of the injustice they meditate, to qualify their attempts. This is a circumstance calculated to have more influence upon the character of our governments, than but few may be aware of. The benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary have already been felt in more States than one; and though they may have displeased those whose sinister expectations they may have disappointed, they must have commanded the esteem and applause of all the virtuous and disinterested. Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel, that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress.
That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. Periodical appointments, however regulated, or by whomsoever made, would, in some way or other, be fatal to their necessary independence. If the power of making them was committed either to the Executive or legislature, there would be danger of an improper complaisance to the branch which possessed it; if to both, there would be an unwillingness to hazard the displeasure of either; if to the people, or to persons chosen by them for the special purpose, there would be too great a disposition to consult popularity, to justify a reliance that nothing would be consulted but the Constitution and the laws.
There is yet a further and a weightier reason for the permanency of the judicial offices, which is deducible from the nature of the qualifications they require. It has been frequently remarked, with great propriety, that a voluminous code of laws is one of the inconveniences necessarily connected with the advantages of a free government. To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents, which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them; and it will readily be conceived from the variety of controversies which grow out of the folly and wickedness of mankind, that the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk, and must demand long and laborious study to acquire a competent knowledge of them. Hence it is, that there can be but few men in the society who will have sufficient skill in the laws to qualify them for the stations of judges. And making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge. These considerations apprise us, that the government can have no great option between fit character; and that a temporary duration in office, which would naturally discourage such characters from quitting a lucrative line of practice to accept a seat on the bench, would have a tendency to throw the administration of justice into hands less able, and less well qualified, to conduct it with utility and dignity. In the present circumstances of this country, and in those in which it is likely to be for a long time to come, the disadvantages on this score would be greater than they may at first sight appear; but it must be confessed, that they are far inferior to those which present themselves under the other aspects of the subject.
Upon the whole, there can be no room to doubt that the convention acted wisely in copying from the models of those constitutions which have established GOOD BEHAVIOR as the tenure of their judicial offices, in point of duration; and that so far from being blamable on this account, their plan would have been inexcusably defective, if it had wanted this important feature of good government. The experience of Great Britain affords an illustrious comment on the excellence of the institution.
PUBLIUS.
1. The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing." "Spirit of Laws." vol. i., page 186.
References:
www.hotair.com
www.foundingfathersquotes.com
www.realclearpolitics.com
www.theblaze.com
www.politico.com
www.drudgereport.com
www.americanthinker.com
www.thehill.com
www.americanbankingnews.com
www.wnd.com
www.nro.com
www.weeklystandard.com
Jonathan Strong
Niall Ferguson
www.dailycaller.com
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
