First, why do we fund National Public Radio? I am totally against using taxpayer's monies to fund liberal radio and for that matter, PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service. Is it because NPR and PBS wouldn't make it on their own? Take a look at the demise of Air America, how many times have they failed because people didn't subscribe to their views. So, we use taxpayer's monies to keep these liberal political arms in business. I read an article that these entities receive around 370 million from taxpayers, I haven't confirmed this and I hope this is untrue. The government talks about the "fairness act" and conservative talk radio, they don't receive any taxpayer money. Rush Limbaugh has over 20 million listeners, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and others have millions of daily listeners. Why? Because they talk about topics that Americans can relate to. The liberals never seem to talk about their true views and stances. Americans do not endorse extreme liberal views, a perfect example is the anointed one's hope and change. This is not the change we wanted. I have followed Juan Williams for years. I don't agree with him often, however, I think he is a true professional and respect him and his opinion. NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller is defending the firing of news analyst Juan Williams after his comments on the Fox News Channel, saying his feelings about Muslims are between him and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.” This is elitism at it's worst. If you research topics like I do (but, that's between my psychiatrist or publicist), I have found other NPR journalists who have made major statements that have gone unnoticed by the left. Ms. Schiller has since apologized for her slanderous insult. Why did it take 36 hours for NPR to make a move? CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) made a phone call to NPR and put the pressure on them. Hence, Juan is out the door. The beauty of this travesty is Juan Williams will come out with a huge contract and more gigs then he will know what to do with. This will fundamentally hurt NPR since this is Fund-raising week. I hope people who would normally donate to this entity, should not donate and give them the reason concerning Juan Williams. I hope the federal government should stop funding NPR since it isn't about news reporting and has acknowledged their simply an extension of the liberal media. I feel fortunate that Juan will be on Fox News a lot more. My hat is off to him for speaking his mind. NPR's loss is Fox's gain. I am happy to see other network journalists coming to Juan's defense. Notice how the liberals are always attempting to silence the 1st Amendment! Lets silence NPR and PBS.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/48836.pdf
NPR's Nina Totenberg saying God should give Jesse Helms AIDS:
Juan Williams on Bill O'Reilly:
Who Wrote the NAACP ‘Racist’ Tea Party Report?
by Meredith Jessup
Posted on October 21, 2010 at 1:15am
Two weeks before a potentially game-changing midterm election, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has given its endorsement to a report labeling the tea party as a self-preserving movement of racist bigots. It‘s no wonder given the fact that NAACP’s political agenda conflicts with the vast majority of the tea party platform of smaller government and reduced spending.
With Wednesday’s release of the report, however, the news media is once again dropping the ball, not only by not pointing out the NAACP’s obvious conflict of interest with the tea party movement, but in failing to do their due diligence in reporting on where the report comes from and why it was written.
The Washington Post reports that the NAACP-endorsed “Tea Party Nationalism” was “put together” by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, but doesn’t report further on who the IREHR is. Politico reports that the NAACP “commissioned Leonard Zeskind and Devin Burghart” to write the study, but makes no mention of who Zeskind or Burghart are other than noting their association with the Institute.
The IREHR is a group with “long-held dreams for social and economic justice,“ who condemn the ”so-called Christian right, paleo-conservatism, and other far-right movements“ for their ”symbiotic relationship[s] with nativism and white nationalism.”
Call me crazy, but I think this group may have had a specific agenda in mind before they set out to paint the tea party movement as… uh… nativists and… gee, white nationalists.
But who are Zeskind and Burghart, the two authors the NAACP “commissioned” to write the report? The New York Times reports that Zeskind, a lifetime member of the NAACP, has “written extensively on white nationalism,” a serious understatement. Zeskind’s career has revolved around an obsession of the “abyss of mayhem and murder” America faces at the hands of “white nationalists.“ He has worked to establish himself as an ”expert on extremist groups” various media outlets routinely rely on for comment, but few have bothered to expose his own extremist past.
Laird Wilcox, a civil rights activists who is known for examining extremists on the right and left ends of the political spectrum, has previously had Zeskind on his radar. Like many notable modern liberals, Zeskind reportedly got his start working with the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) where his primary role was motivating the working classes “to make a revolution.” The STO’s role model: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whose “iron discipline” the STO idolized.
In a 1978 article he wrote for the group’s journal, Urgent Tasks, named after V.I. Lenin. Zeskind wrote about “Workplace Struggles in Kansas City” and discussed the value of a grassroots “school of communism” that would “destroy the marketplace, not sell at it.” In a 1980 article for the same publication, Zeskind denounced the American military “as a tool of U.S. Imperialism.”
A 1981 City Magazine profile of Zeskind, author Bruce Rodgers described him as elusive and “near hysterical” and paranoid. Further, the STO was described as a group which surfaced “on occasion to distract and intimidate non-violent groups working for social change.”
According to reports, Zeskind spent the 1980s as a member of one pro-Stalinist group who worked to provoke the Ku Klux Klan and stir up racial tensions between blacks and whites. In 1986, this National Anti-Klan Network changed its name to a more benevolent-sounding Center for Democratic Renewal. In 1989, with Soviet communism on the way out, Zeskind told the Jewish Chronicle that he was “never the kind of Marxist-Leninist that they think of“ and claimed his Stalinist ideology was no longer a ”defining feature of my politics.”
At the same time, the CDR and other leftist groups were busy re-branding themselves as well. According to Wilcox, rather than present socialism or Marxism-Leninism as their goal at the time, they chose to change tactics and “piggy-back it onto anti-racism which is far more popular.”
At the same time, Zeskind’s co-author, Burghart, expanded his work studying “white nationalism” to include condemning anti-illegal immigration groups like the Minutemen on the country’s southern border, claiming the group was not patrolling the border to enforce American immigration laws, but only to prevent non-whites from entering. According to Burghart, the Minutemen represented “Klan-style” border patrol.
While working for the Center for New Community, Burghart participated in programs of the Center for Democratic Values, the think-tank arm of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Zeskind and Burghart began working cooperatively at the IREHR and have written in the past about “birthers” –but only now insist the label belongs slapped on the tea party.
During the summer, Zeskind and Burghart turned their focus toward the tea party. On July 11, Zeskind delivered a presentation to the NAACP’s National Convention specifically addressing the “dire threat” of the tea party (emphases mine):
The Tea Parties are a little bit like a poison apple–with three layers. At their center is a hard-core group of over 220,000 enrolled members of five national factions, and hundreds of thousands more that we have not yet counted but are signed up only with their local Tea Parties. At the next level is a larger less defined group of a couple of million activists who go to meetings, buy the literature and attend the many local and national protests. And finally there are the Tea Party sympathizers. These are people who say they agree with what they believe are the Tea Parties’ goal. These rank at about 16% to 18% of voters, depending on which organization is doing the polling. That would mean somewhere between 17 million and 19 million adult American voters count themselves as Tea Party supporters.
This is an overwhelmingly white and solidly middle class slice of the population, slightly older and less troubled financially than the rest of us. Please, remember this point when some political pundit or the other tells you these are economically strapped Americans hitting out at scapegoats. These are not populists of any stripe. These are ultra-nationalists (or super patriots) who are defending their special pale-skinned privileges and power. …
Now much of the media attention has been focused on FreedomWorks Tea Party, because it is headquartered in the DC area, and because Dick Armey was a big deal Republican. There are some who mistakenly speculate that this is an “Astroturf” phenomenon, that is a fake grassroots thing conjured up solely by Republican money and party officials.
But it is a real grass roots problem for us, and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks Tea Party is not one of the larger Tea Party groups. ResistNet and Tea Party Patriots are actually the largest of the six national factions.
The Tea Parties are not just about taxes and budgets. They are against everything we are for, beginning with President Barack Obama. …
The IREHR also convened a July meeting in London during which, as Burghart notes, the growing momentum of the tea party was discussed on an international scale (emphases mine):
From the reaction of the audiences during my recent Searchlight-sponsored speaking tour of the United Kingdom, July 17-21, it appears that there is a high level of interest and concern about the influence of the Tea Parties on the political scene here in the United States. …
The tour began in London at a Labour Friends of Searchlight conference. Early in the day, highly-regarded Labour MP John Cruddas encouraged the crowd to learn from one another, and declared that Labour “must create a party rooted in a culture of organizing.” Continuing the organizing thread, I used my keynote speech to discuss the organizing techniques utilized by the Right in the United States. From the Christian Coalition to the Tea Parties, the Right has adapted new organizing techniques to stymie progressive change. …
At each of these events, the vast majority of the attendees responded that they closely followed American politics and were concerned about the rise of the Tea Parties. In my presentations, I discussed the birth of the Tea Party movement, and the size, scope, and ideology of the national factions.
Back in London for the final event of the tour, we held a public meeting to discuss the Tea Party phenomenon in the council chambers of Unison—Britain’s biggest public sector trade union. At the end of my presentation, there was tremendous interest in hearing about efforts to counter the rapid growth of the Tea Parties. We discussed the resolution passed by the NAACP condemning racism in the Tea Parties, and the NAACP delegates who held up “Hope Not Hate” signs on the convention floor.
An old Stalinist standby for undermining opposition is “ritual defamation,” as Wilcox has noted, “to call people names in the hope of defaming, discrediting, stigmatizing or neutralizing them.” From decrypted Venona files, we now know that the KGB routinely used race to divide people and British author Mark Shields has observed how the Soviets hoped “to weaken internal cohesion of the United States and undermine its international reputation by inciting race hatred.”
Are today’s liberals taking a page out of the old Soviet playbook? It would seem that way, as many on the left have decided the best way to undermine the influence of the tea party is to paint it as racist, nationalist and bigoted.
The NAACP and the report‘s authors clearly have a stake in undermining the growing influence of the tea party and it’s hardly coincidental that the report has been unveiled just two weeks from election day.
Given their past experiences working as radical leftists hell-bent on purposefully undermining the tea party movement, is it really so far fetched to assume that the NAACP’s latest “report” isn’t just another coordinated attack on the tea party from the liberal left?
Pathetic Funnies:
The real Dr. Evil, George Soros
Obama fetching his poll numbers
Nervous contestants in Wet Burka Contest
Quote du jour:
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Voltaire
Fannie, Freddie bailout could nearly double in size
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 21, 2010; 1:53 PM
The federal bailout for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could nearly double in size during the next three years, according to projections from the companies' federal regulator.
Fannie and Freddie, the federally controlled mortgage finance giants, will need as much as $215 billion more from taxpayers in the next three years to meet their financial obligations, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Thursday, but much of that money would automatically be returned to the government.
The growing taxpayer infusions will cover losses Fannie and Freddie suffer on home loans, as well as payments the companies must make to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for a federal guarantee to provide cash to keep the companies solvent.
Over time, the majority of funds flowing to Fannie and Freddie from taxpayers will go to pay that dividend. As a result, most of the additional funds that go to the companies from taxpayers will ultimately be paid back. An Obama administration official said this arrangement is not being reconsidered at this time.
To date, the Treasury has injected $148 billion into Fannie and Freddie, $13 billion of which has been returned to the government. Under the worst case, in which the country enters a second recession, the total infusion would be $363 billion in three years. In this situation, after dividends are paid back to the Treasury, the total cost of the bailout would be $259 billion.
Under a more moderate possibility, in which housing prices decline a little, stay flat for a while and then slowly rise, the total taxpayer bailout would be $238 billion. After dividends are paid back, the total cost would be $154 billion.
The projections of additional bailouts for Fannie and Freddie are in sharp contrast to recent discussions by the Obama administration about how the bank rescue known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, originally valued at $700 billion, is expected to cost taxpayers less than a tenth of that.
Fannie and Freddie were seized by their federal regulator in September 2008 as the crisis in the housing market threatened to topple them. The Bush administration pledged $200 billion to keep them solvent. Early on, the Obama administration doubled that number to $400 billion, then late last year made a pledge of unlimited support.
The companies play a central role in the housing market, buying or guaranteeing most home loans. With the collapse of the private market for home loans, they have been essential to keeping interest rates low and the housing market from declining more.
But they also are deeply controversial and were one of the causes of the financial crisis. The Obama administration is set to release a proposal to overhaul or replace them in January. That decision ultimately will be made by the administration in concert with Congress.
"In the most likely economic scenario, nearly 90 percent of the losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are already behind us, and that almost all of those losses are attributable to mortgages that were already on those businesses' books prior to" the government seizing them, said Jeffrey Goldstein, Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, in a statement. "But that news should not distract us from the pressing need for reform so that taxpayers aren't put on the hook in the future. From the beginning, the Obama Administration has made clear that the current structure of the government's role in housing finance, while necessary in the short-term to provide critical support to a still-fragile housing market, is simply not acceptable for the long-term."
An administration official said the dividend - 10 percent - is a fair price for the companies to pay in exchange for taxpayer support and would be reexamined only in the context of an overall revamp of housing finance policy next year.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency made the projections based on stress tests similar to those that were applied to the largest banks last year. In the best case, housing prices would start to recover immediately and there would be minimal additional costs to taxpayers.
"These projections are intended to give policymakers and the public useful snapshots of potential outcomes for the taxpayer support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," said FHFA acting Director Edward J. DeMarco. "These are not predictions; the results reflect the potential effects of a limited set of hypothetical changes in house prices, a key variable driving credit losses for the enterprises."
Thank you, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick.
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 69
The Real Character of the Executive
From the New York Packet
Friday, March 14, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
I PROCEED now to trace the real characters of the proposed Executive, as they are marked out in the plan of the convention. This will serve to place in a strong light the unfairness of the representations which have been made in regard to it.
The first thing which strikes our attention is, that the executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the king of Great Britain, there is not less a resemblance to the Grand Seignior, to the khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the governor of New York.
That magistrate is to be elected for FOUR years; and is to be re-eligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. In these circumstances there is a total dissimilitude between HIM and a king of Great Britain, who is an HEREDITARY monarch, possessing the crown as a patrimony descendible to his heirs forever; but there is a close analogy between HIM and a governor of New York, who is elected for THREE years, and is re-eligible without limitation or intermission. If we consider how much less time would be requisite for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State, than for establishing a like influence throughout the United States, we must conclude that a duration of FOUR years for the Chief Magistrate of the Union is a degree of permanency far less to be dreaded in that office, than a duration of THREE years for a corresponding office in a single State.
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.
The President of the United States is to have power to return a bill, which shall have passed the two branches of the legislature, for reconsideration; and the bill so returned is to become a law, if, upon that reconsideration, it be approved by two thirds of both houses. The king of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the acts of the two houses of Parliament. The disuse of that power for a considerable time past does not affect the reality of its existence; and is to be ascribed wholly to the crown's having found the means of substituting influence to authority, or the art of gaining a majority in one or the other of the two houses, to the necessity of exerting a prerogative which could seldom be exerted without hazarding some degree of national agitation. The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign; and tallies exactly with the revisionary authority of the council of revision of this State, of which the governor is a constituent part. In this respect the power of the President would exceed that of the governor of New York, because the former would possess, singly, what the latter shares with the chancellor and judges; but it would be precisely the same with that of the governor of Massachusetts, whose constitution, as to this article, seems to have been the original from which the convention have copied.
The President is to be the ``commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States. He is to have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT; to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; to convene, on extraordinary occasions, both houses of the legislature, or either of them, and, in case of disagreement between them WITH RESPECT TO THE TIME OF ADJOURNMENT, to adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; to take care that the laws be faithfully executed; and to commission all officers of the United States." In most of these particulars, the power of the President will resemble equally that of the king of Great Britain and of the governor of New York. The most material points of difference are these: First. The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The king of Great Britain and the governor of New York have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article, therefore, the power of the President would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor. Secondly. The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature. [1] The governor of New York, on the other hand, is by the constitution of the State vested only with the command of its militia and navy. But the constitutions of several of the States expressly declare their governors to be commanders-in-chief, as well of the army as navy; and it may well be a question, whether those of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in particular, do not, in this instance, confer larger powers upon their respective governors, than could be claimed by a President of the United States. Thirdly. The power of the President, in respect to pardons, would extend to all cases, EXCEPT THOSE OF IMPEACHMENT. The governor of New York may pardon in all cases, even in those of impeachment, except for treason and murder. Is not the power of the governor, in this article, on a calculation of political consequences, greater than that of the President? All conspiracies and plots against the government, which have not been matured into actual treason, may be screened from punishment of every kind, by the interposition of the prerogative of pardoning. If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such conspiracy, until the design had been ripened into actual hostility he could insure his accomplices and adherents an entire impunity. A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender, in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps be a greater temptation to undertake and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? Would this last expectation have any influence at all, when the probability was computed, that the person who was to afford that exemption might himself be involved in the consequences of the measure, and might be incapacitated by his agency in it from affording the desired impunity? The better to judge of this matter, it will be necessary to recollect, that, by the proposed Constitution, the offense of treason is limited ``to levying war upon the United States, and adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort"; and that by the laws of New York it is confined within similar bounds. Fourthly. The President can only adjourn the national legislature in the single case of disagreement about the time of adjournment. The British monarch may prorogue or even dissolve the Parliament. The governor of New York may also prorogue the legislature of this State for a limited time; a power which, in certain situations, may be employed to very important purposes.
The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur. The king of Great Britain is the sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions. He can of his own accord make treaties of peace, commerce, alliance, and of every other description. It has been insinuated, that his authority in this respect is not conclusive, and that his conventions with foreign powers are subject to the revision, and stand in need of the ratification, of Parliament. But I believe this doctrine was never heard of, until it was broached upon the present occasion. Every jurist [2] of that kingdom, and every other man acquainted with its Constitution, knows, as an established fact, that the prerogative of making treaties exists in the crown in its utmost plentitude; and that the compacts entered into by the royal authority have the most complete legal validity and perfection, independent of any other sanction. The Parliament, it is true, is sometimes seen employing itself in altering the existing laws to conform them to the stipulations in a new treaty; and this may have possibly given birth to the imagination, that its co-operation was necessary to the obligatory efficacy of the treaty. But this parliamentary interposition proceeds from a different cause: from the necessity of adjusting a most artificial and intricate system of revenue and commercial laws, to the changes made in them by the operation of the treaty; and of adapting new provisions and precautions to the new state of things, to keep the machine from running into disorder. In this respect, therefore, there is no comparison between the intended power of the President and the actual power of the British sovereign. The one can perform alone what the other can do only with the concurrence of a branch of the legislature. It must be admitted, that, in this instance, the power of the federal Executive would exceed that of any State Executive. But this arises naturally from the sovereign power which relates to treaties. If the Confederacy were to be dissolved, it would become a question, whether the Executives of the several States were not solely invested with that delicate and important prerogative.
The President is also to be authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. This, though it has been a rich theme of declamation, is more a matter of dignity than of authority. It is a circumstance which will be without consequence in the administration of the government; and it was far more convenient that it should be arranged in this manner, than that there should be a necessity of convening the legislature, or one of its branches, upon every arrival of a foreign minister, though it were merely to take the place of a departed predecessor.
The President is to nominate, and, WITH THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE, to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and in general all officers of the United States established by law, and whose appointments are not otherwise provided for by the Constitution. The king of Great Britain is emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoints to all offices, but can create offices. He can confer titles of nobility at pleasure; and has the disposal of an immense number of church preferments. There is evidently a great inferiority in the power of the President, in this particular, to that of the British king; nor is it equal to that of the governor of New York, if we are to interpret the meaning of the constitution of the State by the practice which has obtained under it. The power of appointment is with us lodged in a council, composed of the governor and four members of the Senate, chosen by the Assembly. The governor CLAIMS, and has frequently EXERCISED, the right of nomination, and is ENTITLED to a casting vote in the appointment. If he really has the right of nominating, his authority is in this respect equal to that of the President, and exceeds it in the article of the casting vote. In the national government, if the Senate should be divided, no appointment could be made; in the government of New York, if the council should be divided, the governor can turn the scale, and confirm his own nomination. [3] If we compare the publicity which must necessarily attend the mode of appointment by the President and an entire branch of the national legislature, with the privacy in the mode of appointment by the governor of New York, closeted in a secret apartment with at most four, and frequently with only two persons; and if we at the same time consider how much more easy it must be to influence the small number of which a council of appointment consists, than the considerable number of which the national Senate would consist, we cannot hesitate to pronounce that the power of the chief magistrate of this State, in the disposition of offices, must, in practice, be greatly superior to that of the Chief Magistrate of the Union.
Hence it appears that, except as to the concurrent authority of the President in the article of treaties, it would be difficult to determine whether that magistrate would, in the aggregate, possess more or less power than the Governor of New York. And it appears yet more unequivocally, that there is no pretense for the parallel which has been attempted between him and the king of Great Britain. But to render the contrast in this respect still more striking, it may be of use to throw the principal circumstances of dissimilitude into a closer group.
The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and inviolable. The one would have a QUALIFIED negative upon the acts of the legislative body; the other has an ABSOLUTE negative. The one would have a right to command the military and naval forces of the nation; the other, in addition to this right, possesses that of DECLARING war, and of RAISING and REGULATING fleets and armies by his own authority. The one would have a concurrent power with a branch of the legislature in the formation of treaties; the other is the SOLE POSSESSOR of the power of making treaties. The one would have a like concurrent authority in appointing to offices; the other is the sole author of all appointments. The one can confer no privileges whatever; the other can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies. The one can prescribe no rules concerning the commerce or currency of the nation; the other is in several respects the arbiter of commerce, and in this capacity can establish markets and fairs, can regulate weights and measures, can lay embargoes for a limited time, can coin money, can authorize or prohibit the circulation of foreign coin. The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church! What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism.
PUBLIUS.
1. A writer in a Pennsylvania paper, under the signature of TAMONY, has asserted that the king of Great Britain owes his prerogative as commander-in-chief to an annual mutiny bill. The truth is, on the contrary, that his prerogative, in this respect, is immemorial, and was only disputed, ``contrary to all reason and precedent," as Blackstone vol. i., page 262, expresses it, by the Long Parliament of Charles I. but by the statute the 13th of Charles II., chap. 6, it was declared to be in the king alone, for that the sole supreme government and command of the militia within his Majesty's realms and dominions, and of all forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places of strength, EVER WAS AND IS the undoubted right of his Majesty and his royal predecessors, kings and queens of England, and that both or either house of Parliament cannot nor ought to pretend to the same.
2. Vide Blackstone's ``Commentaries," vol i., p. 257.
3. Candor, however, demands an acknowledgment that I do not think the claim of the governor to a right of nomination well founded. Yet it is always justifiable to reason from the practice of a government, till its propriety has been constitutionally questioned. And independent of this claim, when we take into view the other considerations, and pursue them through all their consequences, we shall be inclined to draw much the same conclusion.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.theblaze.com/
http://www.dailycaller.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
http://www.foxnews.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
Zachary A. Goldfarb
Meredith Jessup
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