I know I am bias when it comes to a "bi-partisan" meeting. I don't believe the President and his minions when they say they want the republicans to participate in a healthcare forum. The democrat pundits leaked how the democrats were already positioning themselves to move forward on the nuclear option, aka, "reconciliation." I was in amazement when Harry (Dr. Smith) Reid said that he never said they would use reconciliation, when he and Robert (Family Guy) Gibbs said it last week. Would someone tell them about video and news archives. I was very impressed with the republicans today. Lamar Alexander, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, John McCain, John Boehner and others went there prepared and stayed on point even when the President interrupted. Checking the news programs, the democrats seemed to be rather upset, bitter, petulant and down right annoyed by the resistance to their agenda by the republicans. Sometimes I feel that the President expects everyone to go along with his agenda because he is Barack Obama. A perfect example today was when Obama cut off McCain and condescendingly said that he should stop campaigning and the election was over. A hilarious segment is when Joe "Thousand gaffs a minute" Biden spoke and Obama cut him off in mid-sentence because he was basically making the republicans' argument. There were many confrontational moments in this forum, and the democrats appeared to be short on patience with the republicans. The beauty of this type of forum is how eletists deal with adversity. Pelosi was babbling incoherently, can someone tell me how Teddy Kennedy made it into the conservation? Obama stated that he wants to work with the republicans, I don't believe him. I understand the democrat gameplan envisioned for this meeting, however, I don't think it went their way. The republicans were on their game, they were armed with facts. I saw Chris Dodd sitting there looking at Carnival Cruise line brochures, Pelosi almost had an expression on her face, Obama kept Biden busy with a Chinese thumb puzzle and Tom Harkin was looking at a Thai carry out menu. The astounishing part of this whole meeting is how the democrats denied particular points and they know they were wrong? Someone like me will dig up the video or print to prove it wrong, and there are thousands who do what I do. A couple of pathetic segments was Tom Harkin spoke of one of his constituents had to have affordable healthcare or his family wouldn't survive, unfortunately, Tom forgot to mention that this constituent is a brother of a Harkin staffer. Opps! And of course, the Obama personal narrative, one second, I'm tearing up, talking about how his Mother had to make phone calls to her insurance company when she was sick in bed. Question: Why didn't her influential son make these phone calls for his Mother? I guess the answer is in the same place as Obama's half brother still living in a hut with a stylish dirt floor in Kenya? Another democrat told a
Bloomberg on HC Summit:
The lost memory of Dr. Smith:
Reagan for President: We need you today, Ronny!
By Ian Swanson and Jay Heflin
02/25/10 06:45 PM ET
The House ethics panel has found that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) broke ethics rules, according to the Associated Press.
The AP reported that Rangel knowingly accepted Caribbean trips in violation of House rules forbidding hidden financing by corporations.
Rangel said he had done nothing wrong and expected the report to show he was not guilty of anything.
"All I know is, the ethics committee authorized the trip and there is no way in the world that there could be any report out there that says I was not authorized to travel," Rangel said. He added: "When you read the report, you will see that I am not guilty of anything."
The House ethics committee has been reviewing a trip Rangel and several other members took to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten last year.
Rangel was seen Thursday evening approaching the chairwoman and ranking Republican on the Ethics committee -- Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) -- on the House floor, angrily addressing the two members and waving a finger in Lofrgen's face.
The confrontation was seen to last about 10 minutes.
Rangel has been under fire for more than a year over several different issues. He was expected to make a statement to the press at 8 p.m.
The longtime lawmaker from New York requested that the ethics panel investigate him when he acknowledged he failed to disclose to the IRS or on his financial disclosure forms $75,000 in rental income for a beach villa in the Dominican Republic.
Since then, Rangel also has come under fire for claiming three primary residences; for maintaining four rent-controlled apartments; and for using congressional letterhead to solicit donations for an education center bearing his name at City College of New York, which could violate House rules.
Daft statement of the day:
"It's about jobs. In it's life, it [the health bill] will create 4 million jobs -- 400,000 jobs almost immediately."
Nancy Pelosi (Where does she come up with stuff? And the CIA lied, right?)
KindaFunne:
Where in the world is Al?
Green Piece:
Investigate Climate Crimes
Posted 02/24/2010 06:44 PM ET
Imhofe: Pushing for a probe of what he sees as a costly hoax.
Climate Fraud: A senator wants an investigation of the false climate testimony before Congress and wants Al Gore to reappear. The illegalities may involve more than just lying to Congress.
At a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, ranking Republican James Inhofe told EPA head Lisa Jackson that man-induced climate change was a "hoax" concocted by ideologically motivated researchers who "cooked the science."
More than that, Inhofe, in releasing a GOP report questioning the science used to support cap-and-trade legislation, hinted that such activities may be part of a vast criminal enterprise designed to bilk governments, taxpayers and investors while enriching those making the false claims.
In asking the administration to investigate what he called "the greatest scientific scandal of our generation," Inhofe called for Gore to be summoned to explain and defend his earlier testimony in light of the Climate-gate e-mail scandal and admissions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was essentially a work of fiction.
Since AR4 was released, Gore claims such as rising seas and endangered coastlines have been debunked. IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has been revealed as a collector of anecdotes and student dissertations who had to retract the claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.
Murari Lal, an editor of IPCC's AR4 report, has admitted to Britain's Daily Mail that he had known the 2035 date was false, but included it in the report "purely to put political pressure on world leaders."
Even Phil Jones, head of Britain's tainted Climate Research Unit, has conceded that, yes, the Earth was warmer in medieval times and there has been no statistically significant warming in the last 15 years.
As Charlie Martin of Pajamas Media reports, Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to look into possible research misconduct or even outright criminal actions by scientists involved in questionable research and data manipulation. These include Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Inhofe's report suggests that the products of such scientific misconduct, used by the EPA and Congress to support draconian legislation and regulations, may violate the Shelby Amendment requiring open access to federally funded research, as well as the Office of Science and Technology Policy rules on scientific misconduct.
The report notes potential violations of the Federal False Statements and False Claims acts, which involve both civil and criminal penalties. Charges of obstructing Congress in its official proceedings are possible as well.
Quote du jour:
History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy. George W. Bush Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 25
The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered
From the New York Packet.
Friday, December 21, 1787.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
IT MAY perhaps be urged that the objects enumerated in the preceding number ought to be provided for by the State governments, under the direction of the Union. But this would be, in reality, an inversion of the primary principle of our political association, as it would in practice transfer the care of the common defense from the federal head to the individual members: a project oppressive to some States, dangerous to all, and baneful to the Confederacy.
The territories of Britain, Spain, and of the Indian nations in our neighborhood do not border on particular States, but encircle the Union from Maine to Georgia. The danger, though in different degrees, is therefore common. And the means of guarding against it ought, in like manner, to be the objects of common councils and of a common treasury. It happens that some States, from local situation, are more directly exposed. New York is of this class. Upon the plan of separate provisions, New York would have to sustain the whole weight of the establishments requisite to her immediate safety, and to the mediate or ultimate protection of her neighbors. This would neither be equitable as it respected New York nor safe as it respected the other States. Various inconveniences would attend such a system. The States, to whose lot it might fall to support the necessary establishments, would be as little able as willing, for a considerable time to come, to bear the burden of competent provisions. The security of all would thus be subjected to the parsimony, improvidence, or inability of a part. If the resources of such part becoming more abundant and extensive, its provisions should be proportionally enlarged, the other States would quickly take the alarm at seeing the whole military force of the Union in the hands of two or three of its members, and those probably amongst the most powerful. They would each choose to have some counterpoise, and pretenses could easily be contrived. In this situation, military establishments, nourished by mutual jealousy, would be apt to swell beyond their natural or proper size; and being at the separate disposal of the members, they would be engines for the abridgment or demolition of the national authcrity.
Reasons have been already given to induce a supposition that the State governments will too naturally be prone to a rivalship with that of the Union, the foundation of which will be the love of power; and that in any contest between the federal head and one of its members the people will be most apt to unite with their local government. If, in addition to this immense advantage, the ambition of the members should be stimulated by the separate and independent possession of military forces, it would afford too strong a temptation and too great a facility to them to make enterprises upon, and finally to subvert, the constitutional authority of the Union. On the other hand, the liberty of the people would be less safe in this state of things than in that which left the national forces in the hands of the national government. As far as an army may be considered as a dangerous weapon of power, it had better be in those hands of which the people are most likely to be jealous than in those of which they are least likely to be jealous. For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.
The framers of the existing Confederation, fully aware of the danger to the Union from the separate possession of military forces by the States, have, in express terms, prohibited them from having either ships or troops, unless with the consent of Congress. The truth is, that the existence of a federal government and military establishments under State authority are not less at variance with each other than a due supply of the federal treasury and the system of quotas and requisitions.
There are other lights besides those already taken notice of, in which the impropriety of restraints on the discretion of the national legislature will be equally manifest. The design of the objection, which has been mentioned, is to preclude standing armies in time of peace, though we have never been informed how far it is designed the prohibition should extend; whether to raising armies as well as to KEEPING THEM UP in a season of tranquillity or not. If it be confined to the latter it will have no precise signification, and it will be ineffectual for the purpose intended. When armies are once raised what shall be denominated "keeping them up," contrary to the sense of the Constitution? What time shall be requisite to ascertain the violation? Shall it be a week, a month, a year? Or shall we say they may be continued as long as the danger which occasioned their being raised continues? This would be to admit that they might be kept up IN TIME OF PEACE, against threatening or impending danger, which would be at once to deviate from the literal meaning of the prohibition, and to introduce an extensive latitude of construction. Who shall judge of the continuance of the danger? This must undoubtedly be submitted to the national government, and the matter would then be brought to this issue, that the national government, to provide against apprehended danger, might in the first instance raise troops, and might afterwards keep them on foot as long as they supposed the peace or safety of the community was in any degree of jeopardy. It is easy to perceive that a discretion so latitudinary as this would afford ample room for eluding the force of the provision.
The supposed utility of a provision of this kind can only be founded on the supposed probability, or at least possibility, of a combination between the executive and the legislative, in some scheme of usurpation. Should this at any time happen, how easy would it be to fabricate pretenses of approaching danger! Indian hostilities, instigated by Spain or Britain, would always be at hand. Provocations to produce the desired appearances might even be given to some foreign power, and appeased again by timely concessions. If we can reasonably presume such a combination to have been formed, and that the enterprise is warranted by a sufficient prospect of success, the army, when once raised, from whatever cause, or on whatever pretext, may be applied to the execution of the project.
If, to obviate this consequence, it should be resolved to extend the prohibition to the RAISING of armies in time of peace, the United States would then exhibit the most extraordinary spectacle which the world has yet seen, that of a nation incapacitated by its Constitution to prepare for defense, before it was actually invaded. As the ceremony of a formal denunciation of war has of late fallen into disuse, the presence of an enemy within our territories must be waited for, as the legal warrant to the government to begin its levies of men for the protection of the State. We must receive the blow, before we could even prepare to return it. All that kind of policy by which nations anticipate distant danger, and meet the gathering storm, must be abstained from, as contrary to the genuine maxims of a free government. We must expose our property and liberty to the mercy of foreign invaders, and invite them by our weakness to seize the naked and defenseless prey, because we are afraid that rulers, created by our choice, dependent on our will, might endanger that liberty, by an abuse of the means necessary to its preservation.
Here I expect we shall be told that the militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defense. This doctrine, in substance, had like to have lost us our independence. It cost millions to the United States that might have been saved. The facts which, from our own experience, forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion. The steady operations of war against a regular and disciplined army can only be successfully conducted by a force of the same kind. Considerations of economy, not less than of stability and vigor, confirm this position. The American militia, in the course of the late war, have, by their valor on numerous occasions, erected eternal monuments to their fame; but the bravest of them feel and know that the liberty of their country could not have been established by their efforts alone, however great and valuable they were. War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.
All violent policy, as it is contrary to the natural and experienced course of human affairs, defeats itself. Pennsylvania, at this instant, affords an example of the truth of this remark. The Bill of Rights of that State declares that standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be kept up in time of peace. Pennsylvania, nevertheless, in a time of profound peace, from the existence of partial disorders in one or two of her counties, has resolved to raise a body of troops; and in all probability will keep them up as long as there is any appearance of danger to the public peace. The conduct of Massachusetts affords a lesson on the same subject, though on different ground. That State (without waiting for the sanction of Congress, as the articles of the Confederation require) was compelled to raise troops to quell a domestic insurrection, and still keeps a corps in pay to prevent a revival of the spirit of revolt. The particular constitution of Massachusetts opposed no obstacle to the measure; but the instance is still of use to instruct us that cases are likely to occur under our government, as well as under those of other nations, which will sometimes render a military force in time of peace essential to the security of the society, and that it is therefore improper in this respect to control the legislative discretion. It also teaches us, in its application to the United States, how little the rights of a feeble government are likely to be respected, even by its own constituents. And it teaches us, in addition to the rest, how unequal parchment provisions are to a struggle with public necessity.
It was a fundamental maxim of the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, that the post of admiral should not be conferred twice on the same person. The Peloponnesian confederates, having suffered a severe defeat at sea from the Athenians, demanded Lysander, who had before served with success in that capacity, to command the combined fleets. The Lacedaemonians, to gratify their allies, and yet preserve the semblance of an adherence to their ancient institutions, had recourse to the flimsy subterfuge of investing Lysander with the real power of admiral, under the nominal title of vice-admiral. This instance is selected from among a multitude that might be cited to confirm the truth already advanced and illustrated by domestic examples; which is, that nations pay little regard to rules and maxims calculated in their very nature to run counter to the necessities of society. Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every breach of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country, and forms a precedent for other breaches where the same plea of necessity does not exist at all, or is less urgent and palpable.
PUBLIUS.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.heritage.org/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.newsmax.com/
http://www.ibd.com/
http://www.wsj.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
http://www.climatedepot.com/
Ian Swanson
Jay Heflin
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
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