From Cairo to Madison

Opinion at large


Run Dems Run! The media is blatantly complicit in this latest union protest in Milwaukee. Duh! you say. Fox News is the only news platform that showed the despicably, violent signs the union members displayed at the rallies. Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker realizes the state of Wisconsin is out of money. The unions don't care. The (regular) people of Wisconsin support Governor Walker and how he is standing up against the unions. Walker and the republican senate are up against more than just the unions. Some of the distinguished attendees are communists and socialists party members, Organizing for America (Obama's group), a plethora of unions, the DNC and Obama himself. Realizing that this is his voting base and cash cow.Have the cowardly Wisconsin democrats broken any Wisconsin laws by fleeing the state to avoid performing their elected duties? What does the rest of the world think about the childlike actions by the democrat runaways? Pathetic at best. The U.S. tries to tell the world what to do and we can't even govern ourselves. I have had the privilege to attend a few Tea Party rallies (912) in Washington, DC. They were always peaceful, respectful, friendly, very patriotic and we cleaned up after ourselves. However, to the lame stream media, we were a bunch of homegrown terrorists/racists ready to overthrow the government. The difference between the right and the left is the media. Have you seen the utter hatred, name calling or violent language from the union thugs and commies on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC or Al Jehezera? Of course not. In the bigger picture, I think we will see other states to making changes their pensions and healthcare. It is collective bargaining. The same cuts to their budgets and changing the ridiculous entitlement programs which have caused the deficits. Collective bargaining is the culprit.  


 "In organized labor/industrial relations, collective bargaining involves workers organizing together (usually in unions) to meet, discuss, and negotiate upon the work conditions with their employers." 


Collective bargaining in fact, has facilitated the trade unions to manipulate the state, local and municipal governments in surrendering lucrative entitlement programs the governments can not afford. Hence, ballooning deficits, layoffs and reductions to constituents instead of the union members. One example I saw from an union member's compensation was $1100 in union dues and $0 contributed to his pension. Why should the taxpayers of any state pay 100 % of a government workers pension or healthcare? They most likely do not receive the same benefits. Governors Christie in NJ, Cuomo in NY, Kasick in Ohio and others are standing up to the unions and trying to become fiscally responsible. The past Governors have avoided dealing with this issue and have kicked the can down the road for years. This is the day of reckoning. With the new batch of conservatives and Tea Party candidates elected this past November, they are making a concerted effort to change the union government employees entitlements. The federal government is going to have to follow suit. Otherwise, I see a government shutdown. Would anyone notice? The democrat Senate will probably change the House's bill and then it will have to go back to the House for approval. That will be the problem. 

Union entitlements - Change, we can believe in

Wisconsin democrats' theme song:












































Doctors writing fake doctor's notes in Wisconsin:



Daft statement of the day:
"I stand in solidarity."
Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman and communist from California


Madness in Madison:
By: Larry Kudlow

The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wisconsin, are a disgrace. Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget cuts.

That's not democracy.

The teachers' union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.

[

The teachers' union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers' union. A friend e-mailed me to say that the graduation rate in Milwaukee public schools is 46 percent. The graduation rate for African-Americans in Milwaukee public schools is 34 percent. Shouldn't somebody be protesting that?

Governor Walker is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, and he wants state workers to pay one-half of their pension costs and 12.6 percent of their health benefits. Currently, most state employees pay nothing for their pensions and virtually nothing for their health insurance. That's an outrage.

Nationwide, state and local government unions have a 45 percent total-compensation advantage over their private-sector counterpart. With high-pay compensation and virtually no benefits co-pay, the politically arrogant unions are bankrupting America -- which by some estimates is suffering from $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Exempting police, fire, and state troopers, Governor Walker would end collective bargaining over pensions and benefits for the rest. Collective bargaining for wages would still be permitted, but there would be no wage hikes above the CPI. Unions could still represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues. In exchange for this, Walker promises no furloughs for layoffs.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is also pushing a bill to limit the collective-bargaining rights of teachers for wages and wage-related benefits. Similar proposals are being discussed in Idaho and Tennessee. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich wants to restrict union rights across-the-board for all state and local government workers. More generally, both Democratic and Republican governors across the country are taking on the extravagant pay of government unions.

Why? Because taxpayers won't stand for it anymore.

In an interesting twist on this story, even private unions are revolting against government unions. Private unions pay taxes, too. And they don't have near the total compensation of the public unions. It's no wonder they're fed up.

So, having lost badly in the last election, the government-union Democrats in Wisconsin have taken to the streets. This is a European-style revolt, like those seen in Greece, France, and elsewhere. So it becomes greater than just a fiscal issue. It is becoming a law-and-order issue.

President Obama, who keeps telling us he's a budget cutter, has taken the side of the public unions. John Boehner correctly rapped Obama's knuckles for this. If the state of Wisconsin voters elected a Chris Christie-type governor with a Republican legislature, then it is a local states' rights issue.

But does President Obama even know that the scope of collective bargaining for federal employees is sharply limited? According to the Manhattan Institute, federal workers are forbidden to collectively bargain for wages or benefits. Instead, pay increases are determined annually through legislation.

Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker said it would be "wise" for President Obama to keep his attentions on Washington, not Wisconsin. "We're focused on balancing our budget," he said in a television interview. "It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to be focused on balancing their budget, which they're a long ways from doing."

Amen.

Obama should stay out. And Governor Walker should stand tall and stick to his principles. A nationwide taxpayer revolt against public unions can save the country.

Lawrence Kudlow is host of CNBC's The Kudlow Report and co-host of The Call. He is also a former Reagan economic advisor and a syndicated columnist. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics.

Pathetic Funnies:

Facing Down the Unions 

Tackling the public-employee unions may no longer be a political kamikaze mission.

By: Katrina Trinko

Over the past year, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has become a folk hero by striking back at greedy union demands, lambasting union leaders, and standing up for taxpayers. But this year, Christie is facing some competition, particularly from new governors Scott Walker (R., Wisc.) and John Kasich (R., Ohio).

Walker, a former county executive and state assembly member, has an ambitious list of reforms he would like to see enacted. To start with, he announced last Friday that he wants to eliminate most collective-bargaining rights for the majority of public employees, exempting only police, firefighters, and state troopers.

He also wants public employees to begin contributing 5.8 percent to their pension plans. (Currently, most of them contribute nothing to their plans.) On health care, he would like them to increase their contributions to 12.6 percent, up from 4 to 6 percent. Taken together, the two measures would result in what amounts to 8 percent pay cuts for state workers. The changes would also save the state — which is facing a budget shortfall of $137 million this fiscal year — $30 million over the next few months. More important, they would save $300 million over the following two fiscal years, when Wisconsin is facing a $3.6 billion deficit.

“We look at wage and benefit costs and we believe we’ve got to have as much flexibility as possible,” Walker said in an interview withNational Review Online. “It’s not a matter of picking on public employees, who are doing a good job; it’s just a matter of saying this all has got to be put in balance. And when you compare that to what others are facing outside of government,” he adds, “it certainly is fair.”

“This isn’t going to be a bloodless move,” predicts Christian Schneider, a fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.  He points out that the state has “a long history of public-employee-union activism.” While public employees can’t strike in Wisconsin, Schneider suspects they will find other ways — whether it’s teachers’ ceasing after-school activities, or correctional-facility employees’ refusing to work overtime — to “take their case to the public” and make any attempt at reform as politically toxic as possible.

There has already been significant backlash. Over 10,000 union supporters protested at the state capitol Tuesday, and the Wisconsin branch of the AFL-CIO is running radio and TV ads blasting the cuts.

And although both the state senate and the assembly have Republican majorities, passing this reform package could prove difficult. Republican senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald told the Associated Press earlier this month that changing the law governing collective bargaining would be a “walk through hell.” Right now, it looks as if the legislature is determined to press on with the reform and deal with the political consequences later. A vote could be held as early as today.

Whatever the political fallout from the collective-bargaining reforms, there may at least be wide public support for Walker’s pension-contribution push, a measure that he touted during his campaign. It proved wildly popular with voters: 76 percent of Wisconsin residents thought public employees “should contribute to their own pensions,” according to a poll commissioned by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute last summer.

Walker has also already won one important battle. In a letter in November, he asked outgoing Democratic governor Jim Doyle to refrain from finalizing contracts with state union employees. The governor nonetheless continued to negotiate the contracts, and when he finalized them, the assembly pushed ahead, even pulling one Democratic assemblyman out of jail (where he was serving a 60-day sentence for drunk driving) for a day so that he could cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the contracts. But in a surprise move, Democratic senate majority leader Russ Decker voted against the contracts. Outraged Democrats stripped Decker of his leadership position that same day, but it didn’t matter: The vote was a tie, and the contracts were not official.

Walker is hoping that a civil approach toward union members will help defuse tensions. Unlike Christie, whose confrontational remarks have won him a devoted YouTube following, Walker sees politeness as a crucial part of his strategy: “I’ve bent over backwards,” he says, “to make it clear that the proposed reforms in no way reflect on my opinion of our state employees, who I think overwhelmingly are good, hardworking, decent employees.”

Over in Ohio, Kasich is also looking at a series of aggressive steps. The former congressman and Fox News host is considering barring public-school teachers from striking, rescinding an executive order issued by his predecessor that unionized home health-care workers and child-care employees, and banning binding arbitration.

“I don’t know if you all know what binding arbitration is,” Kasich said in a speech late last year. “When there’s a labor dispute, they bring somebody in from Kokomo, Indiana. He comes into Ohio. He imposes a settlement on our cities. He goes back to Kokomo — and we pay the bill.”

Certainly Ohio faces a problem with overpaid government workers. According to a July report by the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, an Ohio think tank, the median salary for state-government employees ($36,858) is 24.6 percent higher than the median salary ($29,586) for employees in the private sector. It should come as no surprise, then, that half of Ohio voters “think government leaders should first reduce government worker compensation to eliminate the $8 billion state budget deficit,” according to a July poll commissioned by the Buckeye Institute.

But the institute’s Matt Mayer also thinks that Kasich needs to put abolishing collective bargaining on the table. He points out that only about 14 percent of all contracts over the last eleven years have involved strikes or binding arbitration. “Even if you did eliminate those provisions,” he says, “they’ve had such little impact on the cost curve of government contracts. The vast majority — 86 percent — are due to the existence of collective bargaining.”

Republican state senator Shannon Jones introduced legislation last week that would end collective bargaining for state employees. “The governor is certainly supportive of the principles in Senate Bill 5,” says Connie Wehrkamp, a spokeswoman for Kasich. “In general, he’s supportive of limiting the scope of collective bargaining, and bringing back some balance between the taxpayers and the public employees.”

Jones’s bill has predictably angered the unions, with hundreds of union supporters protesting at the Ohio Statehouse Tuesday. Kasich, too, has already come under fire from the unions. “They’ve attacked the governor kind of non-stop since he walked in,” says Mayer. “We know that they’re going to mobilize the teachers, the cops, the firefighters, all the workers in each district of the house and senate to put even greater pressure on them on these issues.”

Both Walker and Kasich have plenty of work to do — and legislative battles to win — before they can claim the Christie mantle. But if they are able to stand firm, and not buckle under pressure from the unions, there will be three governors next year disproving the conventional wisdom that tackling the unions is a political kamikaze mission.

— Katrina Trinko is an NRO staff reporter.

Quote du jour:

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation

Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792

Writings of Our Founding Fathers

Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 76

The Appointing Power of the Executive
From the New York Packet.
Tuesday, April 1, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE President is "to NOMINATE, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise provided for in the Constitution. But the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the President alone, or in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. The President shall have power to fill up ALL VACANCIES which may happen DURING THE RECESS OF THE SENATE, by granting commissions which shall EXPIRE at the end of their next session."

It has been observed in a former paper, that "the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration." If the justness of this observation be admitted, the mode of appointing the officers of the United States contained in the foregoing clauses, must, when examined, be allowed to be entitled to particular commendation. It is not easy to conceive a plan better calculated than this to promote a judicious choice of men for filling the offices of the Union; and it will not need proof, that on this point must essentially depend the character of its administration.

It will be agreed on all hands, that the power of appointment, in ordinary cases, ought to be modified in one of three ways. It ought either to be vested in a single man, or in a SELECT assembly of a moderate number; or in a single man, with the concurrence of such an assembly. The exercise of it by the people at large will be readily admitted to be impracticable; as waiving every other consideration, it would leave them little time to do anything else. When, therefore, mention is made in the subsequent reasonings of an assembly or body of men, what is said must be understood to relate to a select body or assembly, of the description already given. The people collectively, from their number and from their dispersed situation, cannot be regulated in their movements by that systematic spirit of cabal and intrigue, which will be urged as the chief objections to reposing the power in question in a body of men.

Those who have themselves reflected upon the subject, or who have attended to the observations made in other parts of these papers, in relation to the appointment of the President, will, I presume, agree to the position, that there would always be great probability of having the place supplied by a man of abilities, at least respectable. Premising this, I proceed to lay it down as a rule, that one man of discernment is better fitted to analyze and estimate the peculiar qualities adapted to particular offices, than a body of men of equal or perhaps even of superior discernment.

The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation. He will, on this account, feel himself under stronger obligations, and more interested to investigate with care the qualities requisite to the stations to be filled, and to prefer with impartiality the persons who may have the fairest pretensions to them. He will have FEWER personal attachments to gratify, than a body of men who may each be supposed to have an equal number; and will be so much the less liable to be misled by the sentiments of friendship and of affection. A single well-directed man, by a single understanding, cannot be distracted and warped by that diversity of views, feelings, and interests, which frequently distract and warp the resolutions of a collective body. There is nothing so apt to agitate the passions of mankind as personal considerations whether they relate to ourselves or to others, who are to be the objects of our choice or preference. Hence, in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices, by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partiality's and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly. The choice which may at any time happen to be made under such circumstances, will of course be the result either of a victory gained by one party over the other, or of a compromise between the parties. In either case, the intrinsic merit of the candidate will be too often out of sight. In the first, the qualifications best adapted to uniting the suffrage's of the party, will be more considered than those which fit the person for the station. In the last, the coalition will commonly turn upon some interested equivalent: "Give us the man we wish for this office, and you shall have the one you wish for that." This will be the usual condition of the bargain. And it will rarely happen that the advancement of the public service will be the primary object either of party victories or of party negotiations.

The truth of the principles here advanced seems to have been felt by the most intelligent of those who have found fault with the provision made, in this respect, by the convention. They contend that the President ought solely to have been authorized to make the appointments under the federal government. But it is easy to show, that every advantage to be expected from such an arrangement would, in substance, be derived from the power of NOMINATION, which is proposed to be conferred upon him; while several disadvantages which might attend the absolute power of appointment in the hands of that officer would be avoided. In the act of nomination, his judgment alone would be exercised; and as it would be his sole duty to point out the man who, with the approbation of the Senate, should fill an office, his responsibility would be as complete as if he were to make the final appointment. There can, in this view, be no difference between nominating and appointing. The same motives which would influence a proper discharge of his duty in one case, would exist in the other. And as no man could be appointed but on his previous nomination, every man who might be appointed would be, in fact, his choice.

But might not his nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be the object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled. The Senate could not be tempted, by the preference they might feel to another, to reject the one proposed; because they could not assure themselves, that the person they might wish would be brought forward by a second or by any subsequent nomination. They could not even be certain, that a future nomination would present a candidate in any degree more acceptable to them; and as their dissent might cast a kind of stigma upon the individual rejected, and might have the appearance of a reflection upon the judgment of the chief magistrate, it is not likely that their sanction would often be refused, where there were not special and strong reasons for the refusal.

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

To this reasoning it has been objected that the President, by the influence of the power of nomination, may secure the complaisance of the Senate to his views. This supposition of universal venality in human nature is little less an error in political reasoning, than the supposition of universal rectitude. The institution of delegated power implies, that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind, which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence; and experience justifies the theory. It has been found to exist in the most corrupt periods of the most corrupt governments. The venality of the British House of Commons has been long a topic of accusation against that body, in the country to which they belong as well as in this; and it cannot be doubted that the charge is, to a considerable extent, well founded. But it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion of the body, which consists of independent and public-spirited men, who have an influential weight in the councils of the nation. Hence it is (the present reign not excepted) that the sense of that body is often seen to control the inclinations of the monarch, both with regard to men and to measures. Though it might therefore be allowable to suppose that the Executive might occasionally influence some individuals in the Senate, yet the supposition, that he could in general purchase the integrity of the whole body, would be forced and improbable. A man disposed to view human nature as it is, without either flattering its virtues or exaggerating its vices, will see sufficient ground of confidence in the probity of the Senate, to rest satisfied, not only that it will be impracticable to the Executive to corrupt or seduce a majority of its members, but that the necessity of its co-operation, in the business of appointments, will be a considerable and salutary restraint upon the conduct of that magistrate. Nor is the integrity of the Senate the only reliance. The Constitution has provided some important guards against the danger of executive influence upon the legislative body: it declares that "No senator or representative shall during the time FOR WHICH HE WAS ELECTED, be appointed to any civil office under the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no person, holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office."

PUBLIUS.

References:

www.hotair.com

www.thedailycaller.com

www.theblaze.com

www.nro.com

www.weeklystandard.com

www.realclearpolitics.com

www.foundingfathers.com

www.drudgereport.com

Library of Congress/Federalist Papers

Tick Tock for Taxes

Volume 195

Opinion at large

After being on vacation out of the country, I noticed how differently people perceive American politics. It amazed me, how many people expect the U.S. Federal Government to be the world's nanny. They should do this and they should do that. Why? How did we become everything to everyone? Most people and places that have their hand out, do not like us. So, with our faltering economy barely staying above water, why are we spending billions of dollars that we don't have? Our congress has waited until the last month before the Bush tax cuts expire to start debating it. And they wonder why many of them lost their jobs and have one of the lowest approval ratings in history. It drives me batty to see the congressional morons play politics with our future. Austan Goolsbee, Serving as Obama's Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is simply a talking head for the liberals. I think he is incompetent. I saw him in an interview, he couldn't even tow the line for the liberal Obama administration. He reiterated what Nancy Pelosi said, where food stamps and unemployment are good for the economy. What business school did they go to? Keynesian economics has never worked, why does this administration push this concept, when they know it will not work? The unemployment report shocked the media today, when it rose to 9.8%. It didn't surprise any conservatives. We can not create jobs in an anti-business atmosphere. The federal government institutes laws, policies and regulations that makes it practically impossible to start small businesses and create new jobs or rehire laid off workers. This is so typical of a liberal democrat congress and White House. I.E. Johnson, Carter, Clinton and now, Obama. Read up on these Presidents. See what type of social and regulation programs they started. Republican President Richard Nixon started the EPA in December of 1970. That was such a mistake. It hasn't always been the democrats pushing big government, but some republicans have made many stupid and short-sighted policies. If the Bush Tax Cuts expire, this is what you can expect starting January 1, 2011.

• 10% tax bracket becomes 15% for the lowest wage earners
• 35% tax brackets becomes 40% for the highest wage earners
• A middle income family ($63K or more) will pay $1500 more
• A working married couple earning $300K will pay $4K more
• The marriage penalty will return
• The dividend tax will rise 39.6% from 15%
• Long term Capital gains tax will rise to 20% from 15%
• The estate tax will reset to 55%
• Where the benefits go? Single parents earning $25K will receive $2,300. $400 more than last year.

This is "text book" redistribution of wealth. Taking from the "haves" and giving to the "have nots". I am a very charitable person, however, the government is stepping way outside it's boundaries. I realize that it is the democrat's mantra to grow the federal government. The issue is, we don't need it, we don't want it and we can't afford it.

Needless to say, I don't trust the government. We find out this week the fed bailed out many large corporations like General Electric with taxpayer money. Remember the song, "Behind closed doors"? That should be the Obama administration's theme song. If the Bush tax cuts expire and the threat of Obamacare, the EPA instituting the carbon dioxide standards, the ban on oil drilling and the mounting deficit are components which retard economic growth and small business expansion. Stopping this onslaught of hinderances, only then, we will see the country emerge from this recession. Yes, I said recession. Call your representatives and voice your opinions.

Don't tax me, Bro! 

I've been talking about this for a long time:

Chicken Crap:

'Constitutional Conservatism' is Not Negative, Radical, or Vague

By ADAM J. WHITE
 Dec 3, 2010
  In a short essay, New York Times editorialist Lincoln Caplan considers the increasingly popular conservative rallying cry, "constitutional conservatism." Caplan unsurprisingly tries to characterize the term as purely negative: "The phrase is used mainly in opposition," a response to perceived "danger" posed by liberal "solutions." Caplan tries to define the term as radical ("the phrase is connected to a radical vision") while simultaneously suggesting that the term hardly has a meaning at all ("the statement is a vague, highly selective catchall"). And ironically, he urges his readers not to "dismiss this increasingly used rallying cry," even while his own analysis turns the term into a straw man.


In fact, the term "constitutional conservative" need not be deemed negative, radical, or vague. Rather than starting, as Caplan does, with John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and "Tea Party members," Caplan should have started with the Hoover Institution's Peter Berkowitz, who may well have sparked the term’s modern emergence nearly two years ago in a Wall Street Journal essay, which he subsequently expanded into a Policy Review essay, appropriately titled, "Constitutional Conservatism."


Berkowitz – who one could not easily define as negative, radical, or vague – laid out constitutional conservatism not merely in terms of "liberty" but also "moderation." He urged conservatives to focus not merely on limited government but also on energetic government, invoking George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism no less than Goldwater's libertarianism.


And far from embracing right-wing radicalism, Berkowitz urged conservatives not to pursue "greater purity in conservative ranks" in either social conservative or libertarian terms. Citing public opinion polls, he urged that "down that path lies disaster."


Regardless of whether Berkowitz's moderate vision is shared by many or most "movement" conservatives, the fact remains that his vision of "constitutional conservatism" is a far cry from the radical, reactionary meaning assigned to the term by Caplan.


Charlie Rangeling the average American citizen:



Pathetic Funnies:

Question: What is the difference between what Randall Duke Cunningham was convicted of and what Charles Rangel committed?
Answer: Rangel is a democrat and Cunningham was a republican.

Sharia Law Is Already Here

By John Bennett


Sophisticated liberals have found humor in Oklahoma's recent ban on Sharia law. Along with humor, some have found offense in the bill. U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange granted a temporary restraining order blocking the bill. Critics, such as the culturally aware Clarence Page, say that the OK measure is "a solution in search of a problem." Sharia law is not a threat. Page's evidence: There are only 15,000 Muslims in Oklahoma. It doesn't get much more convincing than that.


The deep thinkers at OpenLeft.com are equally informed: As Paul Rosenberg emphatically says, "there is zero evidence of sharia law having any influence on American law." Rosenberg is factually wrong. On the crucial factual matter of whether Sharia has been applied in our courts, he is unaware of what has occurred.


Sharia law has been applied in U.S. courts. There are at least seventeen instances of Sharia law being applied in eleven states, as Daniel Pipes has noted. Most notably, a NJ court held that a man did not commit rape because according to his belief in Sharia law, a man cannot rape his wife, since the wife serves him. So Sharia law was applied to the mental state element of the crime of rape. An American court actually adopted this barbaric reasoning:


[The defendant] was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.


The resulting ruling was that a man was held not responsible for rape, where he would have been convicted without Sharia.


It's no comfort to say that a court of appeals overturned the NJ ruling. Judges are open to these arguments, and that is the beginning of Sharia victory if it is not stopped. Liberal judges will become, in their social circles, standard-bearers of enlightenment and cultural sensitivity for embracing the diversity of Sharia law. That is all the incentive they need to continue to use foreign standards to decide what our rights will be. Look no farther than Justice Ginsburg's incredible willingness to latch on to foreign precedents that confirm her preconceived policy preferences. If there is one multicultural lemming in a robe willing to betray our freedoms, that's one too many -- and we can be sure that there are many more who want to.


Every day, the news is full of examples of just how far Muslims will push. Take the infamous hijab at the Connecticut roller rink. A Muslim woman named Marisol Rodriguez-Colon -- soak in that cultural enrichment -- was asked to remove her medieval hood at a skating rink. The rink had a policy of no headgear because hats and scarves could cause injury on the floor. She claims that she needed to wear her hijab for "religious reasons." The "religious reasons" argument is the tip of the iceberg. If Muslims get to impose their practices and norms for "religious reasons," then they will reshape Western societies in their own medieval image.


Consider what else Muslims could demand at a roller rink for "religious reasons": For "religious reasons," males and females are to be separated from each other in public much of the time. For religious reasons, there must be no modern music to offend traditional ears. For religious reasons, there should be no pork products at snack bars. For religious reasons, homosexual skaters should be killed in one of many colorful ways -- a belief being taught to British Muslims.


If Marisol Rodriguez-Colon can force the roller rink to change its policy on headgear based on religious reasons, then why can't she change every other policy inconsistent with her creed? There is no way to say that all they want to do is change policy on headgear. There is no limit to what Muslims would force non-Muslims to do for "religious reasons." They want more; the radical leaders will demand the most, and they will take as much as they can get. Those two propositions are obvious. Don't be fooled by cringing sensitivity mantras about how moderates don't want to impose their views. Moderates can't stop multicultural appeasement judges from ruling in favor of radicals.


If radicals take as much as they can get, then headgear is one step on the path towards Sharia. There is nothing far-fetched about that prediction. It is the logical consequence of Muslim supremacy combined with Western cowardice.


Of course, this does not mean that each person who wants to wear their medieval headgear in public supports Sharia. What it means is that the headgear is the first step towards institutional acceptance and legal imposition of Sharia law. The same aggressive refusal to assimilate will carry out in other spheres of life. It will not be satisfied by wearing headgear. In fact, if the Muslim supremacists get their way with headgear, that will be a green light to them to make more demands -- demands that are more invasive, requiring even more fundamental changes to our society. That which gets rewarded gets repeated.


Most of us thought that we left the dark ages behind us, but a retrograde impulse is growing. We are far from the imposition of Sharia law, but not far enough. The habit of a liberty-loving people is to guard against any step, no matter how small, towards injustice. The first step toward injustice will guarantee a second step, and the zealots will take that step if they aren't stopped. The first step is never an accident or an exception; it's part of an established plan played out many times around the world. England is learning this tragic lesson as Sharia law makes women second-class citizens in divorce and child custody matters, according to a Guardian newspaper column. The only thing stopping Sharia will be the people willing to guard our liberty and culture. Things are best protected when they are jealously guarded. That is something that our founders knew very well.


Proactive defense of liberty and prevention of injustice are the reasons why Tennessee and Louisiana have already passed similar measures to Oklahoma's. At least twelve other states are considering such measures. Such policy is rank xenophobia, according to some, who contend that Islam is being unfairly singled out.


Sharia defenders should know that Islam is named specifically because Muslims single themselves out. Their leadership is uniquely comfortable forcing their religious practices and views onto other people. After a fitful two hundred years of protecting religious liberty in America, we have a sect seeking to impose its views in a way we haven't seen in a very long time. We should commend those who resist that imposition in advance.


Daft statement of the week:
It’s almost like the question of do you negotiate with terrorists,” Sen. Bob Menendez, NJ said.

Quote du jour:

"Chicken Crap" Speaker of the House elect John Boehner, speaking of the tax cut bill the democrats are floating.

Writings of Our Founding Fathers

Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 75


The Treaty Making Power of the Executive


For the Independent Journal


Author: Alexander Hamilton


To the People of the State of New York:


THE President is to have power, "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur."


Though this provision has been assailed, on different grounds, with no small degree of vehemence, I scruple not to declare my firm persuasion, that it is one of the best digested and most unexceptionable parts of the plan. One ground of objection is the trite topic of the intermixture of powers; some contending that the President ought alone to possess the power of making treaties; others, that it ought to have been exclusively deposited in the Senate. Another source of objection is derived from the small number of persons by whom a treaty may be made. Of those who espouse this objection, a part are of opinion that the House of Representatives ought to have been associated in the business, while another part seem to think that nothing more was necessary than to have substituted two thirds of ALL the members of the Senate, to two thirds of the members PRESENT. As I flatter myself the observations made in a preceding number upon this part of the plan must have sufficed to place it, to a discerning eye, in a very favorable light, I shall here content myself with offering only some supplementary remarks, principally with a view to the objections which have been just stated.


With regard to the intermixture of powers, I shall rely upon the explanations already given in other places, of the true sense of the rule upon which that objection is founded; and shall take it for granted, as an inference from them, that the union of the Executive with the Senate, in the article of treaties, is no infringement of that rule. I venture to add, that the particular nature of the power of making treaties indicates a peculiar propriety in that union. Though several writers on the subject of government place that power in the class of executive authorities, yet this is evidently an arbitrary disposition; for if we attend carefully to its operation, it will be found to partake more of the legislative than of the executive character, though it does not seem strictly to fall within the definition of either of them. The essence of the legislative authority is to enact laws, or, in other words, to prescribe rules for the regulation of the society; while the execution of the laws, and the employment of the common strength, either for this purpose or for the common defense, seem to comprise all the functions of the executive magistrate. The power of making treaties is, plainly, neither the one nor the other. It relates neither to the execution of the subsisting laws, nor to the enaction of new ones; and still less to an exertion of the common strength. Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations, which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith. They are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign. The power in question seems therefore to form a distinct department, and to belong, properly, neither to the legislative nor to the executive. The qualities elsewhere detailed as indispensable in the management of foreign negotiations, point out the Executive as the most fit agent in those transactions; while the vast importance of the trust, and the operation of treaties as laws, plead strongly for the participation of the whole or a portion of the legislative body in the office of making them.


However proper or safe it may be in governments where the executive magistrate is an hereditary monarch, to commit to him the entire power of making treaties, it would be utterly unsafe and improper to intrust that power to an elective magistrate of four years' duration. It has been remarked, upon another occasion, and the remark is unquestionably just, that an hereditary monarch, though often the oppressor of his people, has personally too much stake in the government to be in any material danger of being corrupted by foreign powers. But a man raised from the station of a private citizen to the rank of chief magistrate, possessed of a moderate or slender fortune, and looking forward to a period not very remote when he may probably be obliged to return to the station from which he was taken, might sometimes be under temptations to sacrifice his duty to his interest, which it would require superlative virtue to withstand. An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President of the United States.


To have intrusted the power of making treaties to the Senate alone, would have been to relinquish the benefits of the constitutional agency of the President in the conduct of foreign negotiations. It is true that the Senate would, in that case, have the option of employing him in this capacity, but they would also have the option of letting it alone, and pique or cabal might induce the latter rather than the former. Besides this, the ministerial servant of the Senate could not be expected to enjoy the confidence and respect of foreign powers in the same degree with the constitutional representatives of the nation, and, of course, would not be able to act with an equal degree of weight or efficacy. While the Union would, from this cause, lose a considerable advantage in the management of its external concerns, the people would lose the additional security which would result from the co-operation of the Executive. Though it would be imprudent to confide in him solely so important a trust, yet it cannot be doubted that his participation would materially add to the safety of the society. It must indeed be clear to a demonstration that the joint possession of the power in question, by the President and Senate, would afford a greater prospect of security, than the separate possession of it by either of them. And whoever has maturely weighed the circumstances which must concur in the appointment of a President, will be satisfied that the office will always bid fair to be filled by men of such characters as to render their concurrence in the formation of treaties peculiarly desirable, as well on the score of wisdom, as on that of integrity.


The remarks made in a former number, which have been alluded to in another part of this paper, will apply with conclusive force against the admission of the House of Representatives to a share in the formation of treaties. The fluctuating and, taking its future increase into the account, the multitudinous composition of that body, forbid us to expect in it those qualities which are essential to the proper execution of such a trust. Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of foreign politics; a steady and systematic adherence to the same views; a nice and uniform sensibility to national character; decision, SECRECY, and despatch, are incompatible with the genius of a body so variable and so numerous. The very complication of the business, by introducing a necessity of the concurrence of so many different bodies, would of itself afford a solid objection. The greater frequency of the calls upon the House of Representatives, and the greater length of time which it would often be necessary to keep them together when convened, to obtain their sanction in the progressive stages of a treaty, would be a source of so great inconvenience and expense as alone ought to condemn the project.


The only objection which remains to be canvassed, is that which would substitute the proportion of two thirds of all the members composing the senatorial body, to that of two thirds of the members PRESENT. It has been shown, under the second head of our inquiries, that all provisions which require more than the majority of any body to its resolutions, have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government, and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority. This consideration seems sufficient to determine our opinion, that the convention have gone as far in the endeavor to secure the advantage of numbers in the formation of treaties as could have been reconciled either with the activity of the public councils or with a reasonable regard to the major sense of the community. If two thirds of the whole number of members had been required, it would, in many cases, from the non-attendance of a part, amount in practice to a necessity of unanimity. And the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed, is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder. Proofs of this position might be adduced from the examples of the Roman Tribuneship, the Polish Diet, and the States-General of the Netherlands, did not an example at home render foreign precedents unnecessary.


To require a fixed proportion of the whole body would not, in all probability, contribute to the advantages of a numerous agency, better then merely to require a proportion of the attending members. The former, by making a determinate number at all times requisite to a resolution, diminishes the motives to punctual attendance. The latter, by making the capacity of the body to depend on a PROPORTION which may be varied by the absence or presence of a single member, has the contrary effect. And as, by promoting punctuality, it tends to keep the body complete, there is great likelihood that its resolutions would generally be dictated by as great a number in this case as in the other; while there would be much fewer occasions of delay. It ought not to be forgotten that, under the existing Confederation, two members MAY, and usually DO, represent a State; whence it happens that Congress, who now are solely invested with ALL THE POWERS of the Union, rarely consist of a greater number of persons than would compose the intended Senate. If we add to this, that as the members vote by States, and that where there is only a single member present from a State, his vote is lost, it will justify a supposition that the active voices in the Senate, where the members are to vote individually, would rarely fall short in number of the active voices in the existing Congress. When, in addition to these considerations, we take into view the co-operation of the President, we shall not hesitate to infer that the people of America would have greater security against an improper use of the power of making treaties, under the new Constitution, than they now enjoy under the Confederation. And when we proceed still one step further, and look forward to the probable augmentation of the Senate, by the erection of new States, we shall not only perceive ample ground of confidence in the sufficiency of the members to whose agency that power will be intrusted, but we shall probably be led to conclude that a body more numerous than the Senate would be likely to become, would be very little fit for the proper discharge of the trust.


PUBLIUS.


References:
Washington Times
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.theblaze.com/
http://www.dailycaller.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.americanspectator.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.wsj.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.nronline.com/
Library of Congress/Federalist Papers
Adam J. White
John Bennett