I must say that I am enjoying watching the democrats/liberals go into deep panic mode. All of them have gone off the deep end. I can see the democrats this week, sitting with their psychiatrist, trying to get a grasp on where it all went wrong? I can answer that, they became drunk with power and forgot who they work for. Now, we come to the day of reckoning. The most recent polls are not kind to the left. Voter fraud withstanding, I believe it will be a huge day for the republican party. I don't feel as confident to take a majority stake in the Senate. I think Patty Murray will win over Dino Rossi in Washington state. Colorado is up for grabs and the dems are panicking. Buck is 4 points over Bennett, Toomey is over Sestak, Angle is 4 points over Reid. Manchin is over Raese in West Virginia, Blumenthal is 9 points over McMahon in Conecticut. Life is good. There are so many races that are in play, where they shouldn't be. Obama, his sycophants and the democratic congress have squandered their super majority and alienated the American people. James Clyburn, D-Sc, and Evan Bayh, D-IN, both say the democrats could very well end up in a "bloodbath." I find it amazing the liberal pundits and state run media attempting to minimize the impact by calling the polls closer than they really are. Charlie Cook and Scott Rasmussen are calling races closer by the day. Fiorina is pulling closer to Boxer and Bialat is moving closer to Barney Frank (in the house race.) Rasmussen's Generic Ballot has the republicans at 51% and the democrats at 39%.
The by-product of this event is watching Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberdork, Ed Schultz, Wolf Blitzer and others go through a complete meltdown. I will gloat in this for a good 15 minutes. After Tuesday, the conservative party, Tea Party members and like groups will feel emboldened to take bigger steps to continue taking back America. The liberals are speculating that the conservative movement will fizzle out. If they only knew what is in store for them. Not only the ranks and memberships are growing, so are the donations. Money is rolling in. Concerned citizens are making out of state contributions to help candidates. I will be at my voting location at 7:30am. I would love to hang out there, since I live in the People's Republic of Maryland, I don't trust the democrats here one bit. I suspect voter fraud here is as bad as anywhere else. Governor O'Malley is in a paramount fight against former Governor Ehrlich. It is a toss up. As patriotic Americans, please do your civic duty, vote tomorrow and show that you care about your children's futures. Repudiate the onslaught of Socialism. Repudiate Obama and his policies and visions for America.
Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote
Evan Bayh, D-IN on MSNBC:
We the People:
We the People-What would the Founding fathers do?:
Demplosion:
Concerns grow about election fraud, voter intimidation
By David Goldstein
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — As if this election season weren't already tense enough, fears about voter fraud — and some of the steps that are being taken to combat it — have created more worries.
With control of Congress in the balance, both political parties are gearing up for a possibly wild and woolly Election Day around the country.
"Legal war rooms," roving teams of lawyers, hot lines and poll challengers are all part of the strategy that Democrats and Republicans will employ Tuesday to handle suspected fraud or to help voters whose right to vote is questioned.
The issue is also on the Justice Department's radar. It will post federal monitors at selected polling places around the country, and prosecutors, civil rights attorneys and the FBI will be tasked with handling election-related complaints that day. A special toll-free number — 1-800-253-3931 — will be available for complaints about ballot access.
A lot is just precautionary and not out of the ordinary. What's different this year is that candidates and others also are getting into the act.
Ed Martin, a Republican congressional hopeful in St. Louis, intends to deploy a "Count Every Vote Unit" to look for possible voter fraud.
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, who's running for the Senate in Illinois, has a "voter integrity program" in place for Election Day.
Tea party groups plan to use "surveillance squads" at polling places to record possible voting misbehavior. Some tea party groups already have questioned voter registration records.
"This is happening to a degree we haven't seen in years," said Wendy Weiser, a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. "The concern with ballot security operations is not with their intent. They can be highly confrontational. That can cross the line into intimidation and voter suppression."
Democrats claim that the fears about fraud are overblown and are being stoked by Republicans and conservatives to scare off voters, particularly minorities, many of whom tend to vote Democratic. In the Illinois U.S. Senate race, for instance, Kirk can be heard on a taped conference call saying where his "voter integrity program" would be sent, and it was largely African-American neighborhoods.
Republicans deny that they are raising false alarms about voter fraud and say that their concerns are legitimate.
"We have had some problem in the past with folks voting that should not have happened," said Lloyd Smith, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.
Among those was the famous case in 2000 of Ritzy Meckler — a dog — listed on the St. Louis voter registration rolls. Smith likened the party's preparations this year to "a speed limit on a highway. It's not there to write you a ticket, but to make sure everyone plays by the rules."
Some problems have occurred already.
During early voting In Texas, there were reports of poll watchers "hovering" over voters and "getting in their face," according to an account in the Houston Chronicle.
In Minnesota, a group composed of members of a conservative party and the tea party has offered a bounty of up to $500 for anyone who turns in someone who's successfully prosecuted for voter fraud.
"We've had everything from tornadoes and ice storms to other types of problems, such as voting challenges and polling place conduct," said Laura Egerdal, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Secretary of State's Office. "We hope we don't have to deal with any of those, but we're making plans."
Daft statement of the day:
"Win, so I can tell Glenn Beck to stick it."
Allan Grayson, D-FL ( Grayson is trailing the republican candidate by 7 points).
How's That Obama Base-Rousing Strategy Working Out?
Alert reader F. e-mails from the "great unwashed middle of the country":
[S]ince the president hit the trail to gin-up the base, the house has been moving ever more into the red column on RCP. A while back, I thought the blues were going to hang on by making every house race local—not an unreasonable strategy. However, Obama has been out every day reminding those of us in the middle how far to the left he is from where he ran in 2008. He's firming up the wrong base.
Its amazing that the Blues don't understand that all BHO's comments, particularly the punish your enemies meme, are on FOX, talk radio and the Internet. Your trash talk goes right into the other guy's locker room.
It sure seems like there is something to this theory. Name a race where Obama's intervention has saved the day for a Democrat ... Barbara Boxer seems like the most likely savee. She has welcomed Obama's help. But even her race is far from a done deal (see latest Rasmussen poll). I'd take Nate Silver's odds on Fiorina (93–7) ...
P.S.: Note that the "locker room" analogy is slightly misleading. It's not just that rousing the Dem base also rouses the GOP base (which can hardly be roused more than it already is anyway). It's that rousing the Dem base alienates the middle. Were Dems always faced with that base-vs.-middle tradeoff? On issues like immigration reform, it seems like they are now. (Welfare was a base-vs.-middle issue, of course. The middle hated welfare. But Dems could always soft-pedal and hide their cash-dispensing programs in the fine print while pretending that they were requiring work—and then relying on other issues to mobilize the base. On immigration, it seems as if the only way to rouse the Dems' Latino base, Obama-style, is to shout your support for an immigration amnesty from the rooftops, where the middle can also hear it.) ...
P.P.S.: In a sense, it's quite smart of the White House to make the relatively obscure Fifth District of Virginia the Helmand Province of this election—the sudden recipient of a massive surge of presidential and party attention. If embattled Democrat Tom Perriello can pull out a win, the White House can say, "See, the base-pleasing strategy can work. If only we had enough money! And Obama still has the magic. If only we could clone 535 of him." If Perriello loses they can say, "It's only one congressional district in a red state" and blame local factors.
But you also have to wonder if the desperate attempt to demonstrate at least one contest where base-pleasing worked doesn't also reflect the ideological preference of the White House. If you can win by pleasing the base, of course, then it's easier to pursue base-pleasing policies. If base-pleasing flops ignominiously across the board, on the other hand, it's ... make way for neoliberals. 5:00 p.m.
That's Chaiting: Relying on an academia's model, The New Republic's Jonathan Chait argues that structural factors should yield a Republican gain of 45 House seats. Fair enough. But that implies we can blame Obama for any GOP gains over that limit, right? Before readers can reach that obvious conclusion, Chait adds five more seats to his "baseline" on seemingly arbitrary grounds.* Is their real purpose to give him a cushion against having to write a Nov. 3 column he probably doesn't want to write? ...
*Chait suggests the five-seat add-on is justified because President Obama "rode a wave in 2008 that was unusually dependent on sporadic voters like the young and minorities, who tend not to turn out during midterm elections." But of course this is a factor the academic model he relies on has presumably already taken into account, since a) it's a model of midterm elections and b) one of the three "structural" elements in the equation is
2. The incumbent party's "exposure"—the more seats you hold, the deeper into hostile territory you're stretched, and the easier it is to lose seats.
Don't Democrats stretch into hostile territory by appealing to sporadic voters like the young and minorities? The more plausible theory is that Chait just didn't like the number 45 because it makes it look like the president is blowing it. Do not let this man balance your budget! ...
Pathetic Funnies:
Barney's new career in the Military after losing his re-election.
24 hour HBO BHO!
Quote du jour:
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Ronald Reagan
Polls we can live by:
31% Strongly approve of President's job approval
42% Strongly disapprove
50% Somewhat approve
49% Somewhat disapprove
29% Of Americans tied to the Tea Party
58% Favor repeal of Healthcare law
Generic Ballot:
GOP 55%
Democrat 40%
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
Federalist No. 73
The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power
From the New York Packet
Friday, March 21, 1788.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE third ingredient towards constituting the vigor of the executive authority, is an adequate provision for its support. It is evident that, without proper attention to this article, the separation of the executive from the legislative department would be merely nominal and nugatory. The legislature, with a discretionary power over the salary and emoluments of the Chief Magistrate, could render him as obsequious to their will as they might think proper to make him. They might, in most cases, either reduce him by famine, or tempt him by largesses, to surrender at discretion his judgment to their inclinations. These expressions, taken in all the latitude of the terms, would no doubt convey more than is intended. There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils; and in the main it will be found that a power over a man's support is a power over his will. If it were necessary to confirm so plain a truth by facts, examples would not be wanting, even in this country, of the intimidation or seduction of the Executive by the terrors or allurements of the pecuniary arrangements of the legislative body.
It is not easy, therefore, to commend too highly the judicious attention which has been paid to this subject in the proposed Constitution. It is there provided that "The President of the United States shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation WHICH SHALL NEITHER BE INCREASED NOR DIMINISHED DURING THE PERIOD FOR WHICH HE SHALL HAVE BEEN ELECTED; and he SHALL NOT RECEIVE WITHIN THAT PERIOD ANY OTHER EMOLUMENT from the United States, or any of them." It is impossible to imagine any provision which would have been more eligible than this. The legislature, on the appointment of a President, is once for all to declare what shall be the compensation for his services during the time for which he shall have been elected. This done, they will have no power to alter it, either by increase or diminution, till a new period of service by a new election commences. They can neither weaken his fortitude by operating on his necessities, nor corrupt his integrity by appealing to his avarice. Neither the Union, nor any of its members, will be at liberty to give, nor will he be at liberty to receive, any other emolument than that which may have been determined by the first act. He can, of course, have no pecuniary inducement to renounce or desert the independence intended for him by the Constitution.
The last of the requisites to energy, which have been enumerated, are competent powers. Let us proceed to consider those which are proposed to be vested in the President of the United States.
The first thing that offers itself to our observation, is the qualified negative of the President upon the acts or resolutions of the two houses of the legislature; or, in other words, his power of returning all bills with objections, to have the effect of preventing their becoming laws, unless they should afterwards be ratified by two thirds of each of the component members of the legislative body.
The propensity of the legislative department to intrude upon the rights, and to absorb the powers, of the other departments, has been already suggested and repeated; the insufficiency of a mere parchment delineation of the boundaries of each, has also been remarked upon; and the necessity of furnishing each with constitutional arms for its own defense, has been inferred and proved. From these clear and indubitable principles results the propriety of a negative, either absolute or qualified, in the Executive, upon the acts of the legislative branches. Without the one or the other, the former would be absolutely unable to defend himself against the depredations of the latter. He might gradually be stripped of his authorities by successive resolutions, or annihilated by a single vote. And in the one mode or the other, the legislative and executive powers might speedily come to be blended in the same hands. If even no propensity had ever discovered itself in the legislative body to invade the rights of the Executive, the rules of just reasoning and theoretic propriety would of themselves teach us, that the one ought not to be left to the mercy of the other, but ought to possess a constitutional and effectual power of self defense.
But the power in question has a further use. It not only serves as a shield to the Executive, but it furnishes an additional security against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body.
The propriety of a negative has, upon some occasions, been combated by an observation, that it was not to be presumed a single man would possess more virtue and wisdom than a number of men; and that unless this presumption should be entertained, it would be improper to give the executive magistrate any species of control over the legislative body.
But this observation, when examined, will appear rather specious than solid. The propriety of the thing does not turn upon the supposition of superior wisdom or virtue in the Executive, but upon the supposition that the legislature will not be infallible; that the love of power may sometimes betray it into a disposition to encroach upon the rights of other members of the government; that a spirit of faction may sometimes pervert its deliberations; that impressions of the moment may sometimes hurry it into measures which itself, on maturer reflection, would condemn. The primary inducement to conferring the power in question upon the Executive is, to enable him to defend himself; the secondary one is to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design. The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or interest. It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in relation to the same object, than that they should by turns govern and mislead every one of them.
It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments. They will consider every institution calculated to restrain the excess of law-making, and to keep things in the same state in which they happen to be at any given period, as much more likely to do good than harm; because it is favorable to greater stability in the system of legislation. The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.
Nor is this all. The superior weight and influence of the legislative body in a free government, and the hazard to the Executive in a trial of strength with that body, afford a satisfactory security that the negative would generally be employed with great caution; and there would oftener be room for a charge of timidity than of rashness in the exercise of it. A king of Great Britain, with all his train of sovereign attributes, and with all the influence he draws from a thousand sources, would, at this day, hesitate to put a negative upon the joint resolutions of the two houses of Parliament. He would not fail to exert the utmost resources of that influence to strangle a measure disagreeable to him, in its progress to the throne, to avoid being reduced to the dilemma of permitting it to take effect, or of risking the displeasure of the nation by an opposition to the sense of the legislative body. Nor is it probable, that he would ultimately venture to exert his prerogatives, but in a case of manifest propriety, or extreme necessity. All well-informed men in that kingdom will accede to the justness of this remark. A very considerable period has elapsed since the negative of the crown has been exercised.
If a magistrate so powerful and so well fortified as a British monarch, would have scruples about the exercise of the power under consideration, how much greater caution may be reasonably expected in a President of the United States, clothed for the short period of four years with the executive authority of a government wholly and purely republican?
It is evident that there would be greater danger of his not using his power when necessary, than of his using it too often, or too much. An argument, indeed, against its expediency, has been drawn from this very source. It has been represented, on this account, as a power odious in appearance, useless in practice. But it will not follow, that because it might be rarely exercised, it would never be exercised. In the case for which it is chiefly designed, that of an immediate attack upon the constitutional rights of the Executive, or in a case in which the public good was evidently and palpably sacrificed, a man of tolerable firmness would avail himself of his constitutional means of defense, and would listen to the admonitions of duty and responsibility. In the former supposition, his fortitude would be stimulated by his immediate interest in the power of his office; in the latter, by the probability of the sanction of his constituents, who, though they would naturally incline to the legislative body in a doubtful case, would hardly suffer their partiality to delude them in a very plain case. I speak now with an eye to a magistrate possessing only a common share of firmness. There are men who, under any circumstances, will have the courage to do their duty at every hazard.
But the convention have pursued a mean in this business, which will both facilitate the exercise of the power vested in this respect in the executive magistrate, and make its efficacy to depend on the sense of a considerable part of the legislative body. Instead of an absolute negative, it is proposed to give the Executive the qualified negative already described. This is a power which would be much more readily exercised than the other. A man who might be afraid to defeat a law by his single VETO, might not scruple to return it for reconsideration; subject to being finally rejected only in the event of more than one third of each house concurring in the sufficiency of his objections. He would be encouraged by the reflection, that if his opposition should prevail, it would embark in it a very respectable proportion of the legislative body, whose influence would be united with his in supporting the propriety of his conduct in the public opinion. A direct and categorical negative has something in the appearance of it more harsh, and more apt to irritate, than the mere suggestion of argumentative objections to be approved or disapproved by those to whom they are addressed. In proportion as it would be less apt to offend, it would be more apt to be exercised; and for this very reason, it may in practice be found more effectual. It is to be hoped that it will not often happen that improper views will govern so large a proportion as two thirds of both branches of the legislature at the same time; and this, too, in spite of the counterposing weight of the Executive. It is at any rate far less probable that this should be the case, than that such views should taint the resolutions and conduct of a bare majority. A power of this nature in the Executive, will often have a silent and unperceived, though forcible, operation. When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which they cannot control, they will often be restrained by the bare apprehension of opposition, from doing what they would with eagerness rush into, if no such external impediments were to be feared.
This qualified negative, as has been elsewhere remarked, is in this State vested in a council, consisting of the governor, with the chancellor and judges of the Supreme Court, or any two of them. It has been freely employed upon a variety of occasions, and frequently with success. And its utility has become so apparent, that persons who, in compiling the Constitution, were violent opposers of it, have from experience become its declared admirers. [1]
I have in another place remarked, that the convention, in the formation of this part of their plan, had departed from the model of the constitution of this State, in favor of that of Massachusetts. Two strong reasons may be imagined for this preference. One is that the judges, who are to be the interpreters of the law, might receive an improper bias, from having given a previous opinion in their revisionary capacities; the other is that by being often associated with the Executive, they might be induced to embark too far in the political views of that magistrate, and thus a dangerous combination might by degrees be cemented between the executive and judiciary departments. It is impossible to keep the judges too distinct
from every other avocation than that of expounding the laws. It is peculiarly dangerous to place them in a situation to be either corrupted or influenced by the Executive.
PUBLIUS.
1. Mr. Abraham Yates, a warm opponent of the plan of the convention is of this number.
REFERENCES:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.thebalze.com/
http://www.dailycaller.com/
http://www.drudgereports.com/
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.mcclatchy.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.gallup.com/
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
http://www.diversitylane.com/
David Goldstein
MSNBC
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