Conservatives' Plan Summarized

This blog is about current events. We have not had the time or energy to post many comments of late. Although there has been some improvement, our conclusion is still: chickenshit behavior by the Democrats (aka statist progressives) and ditto for the appeasing Republicans. The nation has recently said that it is chiefly made up of common sense conservatives and that is the improvement that gives us hope.


The debate prior to the election, a few weeks ago, and all of it's aftermath may be causing many people to be more that a little bit confused. There is so much to say regarding this election, which resulted in a change of the majority party in the House of Representatives from the Democrats to the Republicans. Control of many state governorships and legislatures also changed to the Republicans. The primary reason that the Senate did not also turn to the Republicans is that only a third of its seats are up for election every two years. To many people who gain their understanding of current events from the television, it may seem that nothing has changed.

A lot has changed. Radio commentator, Mark Levin, has been clearly and emphatically explaining the changing situation. Though not a political leader, he seems to have the clearest vision of what the Republican and conservative response should be. He speaks of hope and change that is not merely a return to the pre-Obama situation. He and many others will be attempting to re-establish the rule of law under our constitution. There is much to be done and it can start now.

Conservative Plan: For a conservative view of recent events along with conservative aspirations for near and long term change, listen to Mark Levin's Audio Rewind of the show aired last Friday, November 26:

http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930#

(This audio will only be on Mark Levin's site for a few weeks, so listen to it now, and save it. If you don't, well listen to his new audios as they become avail -- free on his site. Or listen to him on the radio. Unfortunately, the radio station in Western Washington that carried him recently dropped all political talk shows. I do not know why.)

For historical background and in depth information see the Ludvig von Mises Institutes's website and the amusing and edifying YouTubes of Atlas Shrugs, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand. (Which are all being revitalized in the Tea Party, by the way.)

Obma and Immigration: Yes We Can't

Arizona's recent immigration law creates some interesting dilemmas for the current administration, and for conservatives also. The fact that it brings into question some of the Obama administration's policies, especially its alleged unwillingness to secure the US and Mexican boarder, forces Obama to focus on an area where he is on thin political ice. Furthermore, the immigration debate also impinges upon the foundation of the welfare state. Can we simultaneously grant increasingly large welfare benefits while encouraging the immigration of those who will be given those benefits? Does, "yes we can" apply in these areas? The political nature of the human beast dictates that no government or policy will survive without popular backing. This is the fundamental theorem of politics.

Conservatives back the Arizona law because it attempts to remedy weak enforcement by the federal officials. This (I believe) puts conservatives on the opposite side of the preemption question that usual. Justice Thomas, for instance, believes that federal statutes should not be read with a presumption against preemption. (see Cipollone v. Liggett Group,(1992)). Preemption is the doctrine that states federal law invalidates state and local law on the same subject.

Preemption is a complicated topic. Most conservatives believe that the federal government should be silent on most questions traditionally addressed by our common law. That covers almost everything, but probably not immigration. Courts have not only looked at the state and federal statutes to determine if conflicts exist, but they have also looked at the factual background to determine if there is a state interest that is not being addressed by the federal law, or federal enforcement there of.

That is why lack of federal enforcement is an issue in the present case. That is why BHO recently stated that the boarders are more secure that ever. What that opinion is based upon,or whether that is good enough, he did not say. The U.S. Supreme Court in Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 US 497 (1956), stated that there was no state interest to be protected and that the federal government was dealing appropriately with the problem that the laws in question were enacted to address. (In that case the court held that the Federal Alien Sedition act preempted the Pennsylvanian statute.)

Two factors that obviously distinguishing the Pennsylvania and Arizona cases: 1) Arizona is indeed being harmed by illegal aliens who must be provided services at state expense, and 2) in spite of its expenditures, the federal enforcement effort has been ineffective as demonstrated by the number of illegal aliens in Arizona and elsewhere. There are of course other distinguishing factors and other legal arguments in favor of (and against) the Arizona enactment, which time prevents me from discussing here.

Regarding the propaganda surrounding this matter, why did the BHO functionaries and lackeys and their lap dog press proclaim loudly and ad infinatum that the Arizona law was racist then not include civil rights violations claims in their legal arguments ???? Inquiring minds and the junior Senator from Minnesota want to know why they were lying.

Mark Levin Wrong (but is Still Right)

Mark Levin is correct that Section 7 of Article I of the Federal Constitution states, "[e]very Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States..." Of course, section 1 states, "[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United Sates..." In other words, under the constitution, only congress can make laws and the way they make them is by both houses passing a bill (that is, the same bill). Then the president has the power to approve or reject the bill before it becomes a law. Section 7 further provides for the presidential veto and congressional override of that veto. That is the part where the the statement is made that the name of each member voting must be entered on the journals of the respective houses: for the vote whether or not to override the presidential veto. Mark Levin is not correct when he says that the constitution requires the names to be entered on the journals for votes on all bills.

The names on the journal part is a minor point. The point is that the bill has to be passed by both houses, not deemed passed. Mark Levin is still 99.9% right all of the time. That puts him a little ahead of Rush Limbaugh.

With some exceptions, a roll call can be demanded by any member of the House or Senate on any vote. Apparently, with a large enough majority, this rule can be waive. During the first years of the FDR administration, there were large enough Democrat majorities to deny requests for roll calls. The result of that was that constituents could not find out how their congressional members voted. When the Republicans won more seats, they could and did demand that a roll be taken of every vote. Roosevelt's control over congress started to slip at that point.

When the final vote came to send Roosevelt's Judicial Bill adding more justices back to committee, a Republican Senator moved for a roll call vote. Republicans further demanded to know exactly with what instructions the Bill would be remanded to committee. The instructions were that it would not deal at all with the supreme court. The Republicans wanted to make sure the bill was good and dead and that everyone knew it. Burt Wheeler had refused to compromise, be bought out, or intimidated.


(For reference regarding the FDR era congress, see: "Will War in Europe Save Roosevelt?" by Fredrick L. Collins; Liberty magazine, November 11, 1939. Mr. Collins says, "He surrounded himself with erratic and inexperienced theorists." Sound familiar? )

Obama vs. the Constitution

There is a recent book titled, "FDR vs. The Constitution." It is the political history of FDR's "Court Packing" plan. He intended to undermined the separation of powers in the constitution by appointing hand-picked justices to the supreme court. In 1933 and 1934, five of the nine justices generally blocked his New Deal legislation. Because they were appointed for life, he couldn't remove them but he planned to appoint up to six more justices who would vote his way. With an overwhelming Democrat majority in congress, FDR planned to get his court plan enacted by congress. Only principled Democrats, led by Senator Burton Wheeler, of Montana, defeated his plan.

Are there similarly principled Democrats in Congress now? That remains to be seen. Obama's legislative plans involve getting the health care bill adopted by unconstitutional means. This may be necessary for him and his central committee because the House does not have a majority that supports the Senate bill. The Senate cannot pass a bill acceptable to the House because the recent election of a Republican to replace the late Teddy Kennedy gives the Republicans enough votes to use the filibusterer to stop any bill. Therefore, Obama, Ried, and Palosi have to adjust the procedural rules. They may do this by "passing" the bill in the house without actually voting on it but with a rule change. This violates the US Constitution which states that a bill, "which shall have been passed," by both houses is presented to the president for his signature to become law.

This actually should not work if the members of the House of Representatives who object to the bill realize that by voting for a rule change, they would really be voting for the bill. I guess they could kid themselves, but not their constituents. This is reminiscent of the situation a few months ago when Olympia Snow and the other Maine Republican voted for the Senate bill because they said they really were not voting for the bill but for "discussion of the health care issue." This blog and others stated at the time that they were opening the door to this sort of procedure to make a health care bill law.

The senate created the filibusterer rule to avoid passing significant legislation without substantial support in congress, and, as in this case, without popular support of the people of the country. Reagan realized that his plan for a line item veto did not meet this test of substantial congressional support and that his plans to override the regular procedure was unconstitutional. He dropped his plan. His legal advisers and others made the constitutional case against it. Reagan saw that the constitution was more important that his plans, so did Senator Wheeler. Not so FDR or BHO.

(Mark Levin has been and will be discussing the constitutional issues extensively.)

Tea Baggers Choose Freedom

A Seattle radio talk show host Friday evening asked each caller for the first thing that came to their mind when he said "Tea Party." Callers had some good comments about taxation, truth, and the constitution. I have to answer that question too. What comes to mind for me is Freedom. An overwhelming love of freedom along with a fear of loosing it, it seems to me, is what the tea party goers have in common.

Lower taxation is of course a form of freedom. The government enslaves us to the extent that it demands the fruits of our labor. Truth and freedom also go hand in hand. When he said, "the truth shall set you free," Jesus probably wasn't talking about freedom of speech, but he could have been. Despots, tyrants, and dictators, not only use force for control, but must first gain support through lies. They must create enemies and denigrate their political opponents. The principal and purpose behind the constitution is freedom, freedom through law. Would-be despots will always attempt to circumvent the restrains on their power of the constitution.

High taxation, lies, disdain for the limits to government power imposed by the constitution; these constitute threats to a free people. That is what the brings us to the tea parties.

Air America Bites the Dust

Liberal radio talk network, Air America, has gone out of business. The reason for this according to radio show host Michael Savage, is that America is tired of hearing over and over the same liberal drivel. Savage describes the typical tone of their discussion as"...snide and sneering..." toward the traditional views and attitudes that makes America and Americans great. On one of their programs a few months ago, a conservative caller questioned the liberal view that government can and should provide free health care to everyone in the country. After the two hosts asked him a few questions about his background, they proceeded to psychoanalyze him. They seemed to believe that to question liberal policies, one had to have a mental disorder. They were quite understanding of this poor soul who, because of his early travails, had developed a psychological disorder that caused him to be insensitive. They made no attempt to address the issue he had raised. (Does the phrase "effete impudent snob" come to mind?)

Recently, all media outlets have experienced business difficulties. Many liberal print news outlets have gone out of business. Conservatives have explained that not only is there internet competition, but the public no longer blindly support the liberal editorial policies of most newspapers and magazines. This is only partially true. Many reading and thinking individuals in this country, unfortunately, do support liberal editorial policies. However, most commentators neglect the explanation of supply and demand. If the country is divided 50-50 between liberal and conservative, then there should be about that distribution of attitudes in the media. However, the division seems to be about 95% liberal medial outlets and 5% conservative. If the same commentary and spin on the news is available on the television news outlets for instance, then why should the liberals bother with getting it from the liberal newspapers? In other words, there is an over supply of liberal media. The conservatives have only Fox television, talk radio, and a handful of newspapers. (Even Fox news, in this writers view, accepts many of the liberal assumptions of the lamestream media.)

Besides on the traditional editorial page, most liberal outlets put a slant on every aspect of the news. They still talk about Obama changes as 'reform.' Commentators on the right may call them measured and cynical tactics to bring about socialistic control, but they do not claim to be unbiased disseminators of objective facts. There are also entertainment shows that satirize both the left and the right (with the same 95-5% split). How often does AKA Liebowitz (John Stewart), Colbert, or Overbite-Countdown to No Ratings satirize the left? With so many and varied liberal mouthpieces, many are bound to be nonviable economically, especially if they depend upon advertising from a highly depressed business sector. The movement to have taxpayer funds support failing news outlets only serves to embolden newspapers in their liberal leanings. Government support would only discourage them from giving a voice to both sides of the issues. In spite of the US Constitution, government funds for newspapers seems just fine to most liberals. (Give me a break.)

One Debacle at a Time Please

While we have two of the worse legislative proposal before us in health care and energy, that is cap-and-trade, the Obama regime is now again talking about a proposal to 'regulate' the financial industry. Are they trying to finesse one or the other of these horrors past us if they cannot get them all? Is it a distraction move? A few things that we have learned from the recent history of this administration should prepare us to meet the coming onslaught.

The Federal Administration and its allies in congress will not offer a definitive proposal for a while, if ever. (Just as they do not offer a definitive health care plan and as the Man Made Global Warming Theory is never spelled out in total.) That will allow them to disavow and deny any accusation that some particularly repugnant scheme is part of their proposal, just as they do with health care. As with Global Warming, it will be hard to attack their proposals on grounds of economic theory, since they really won't have a proposal. It will morph depending upon the audience they are trying to persuade.

However, just because they do not tell their plans does not mean that they do not have any. Thanks to talk radio, we have heard several speeches given by Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress over the last few years to their close constituent organizations. They say that they want single government payer health care. They do not want any part of our current system. They told their friendly audiences that they may have to accept some employer provided insurance for a while, but eventually Party organizers can deliver full-blown socialized medicine. It is the same way with financial 'regulation'. What he really wants is to take control of the financial system.

At first he will say that he proposes a 'consumer protection agency' to save us from the abuses of Wall Street. The actual bill that they eventually produce when the time is ripe, will have been long in the works. Every socialistic central planning and control mechanism that has been discredited over the last two hundred years will be represented. It will be written by the likes of Van Jones communist activists, Noam Chomsky communist academics, Paul Krugman communist economists (this latter one is in disguise), and all kinds of just plain communists that we have not heard of yet. There are plenty of communist 'scholars' waiting in the wings and biting at the bit to get control of as much as they can. Wall Street would certainly be a big coup.

On the other side are the conservatives: economist, wall street businessmen, politicians, historians, and legitimate scholars who can be ignored because they have been so discredited by the press. They tells us that it is government regulation that causes economic downturn. They ask how regulation could have made any difference in the mortgage meltdown, when industry was doing just as government wanted it to do. Would the regulator have said to congress, "no Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Reid, Mr. Franks, Mr. Dodd, if you make a law like that it will lead to risky loans and excess speculation. No Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Bernanke, you can't do that or it will lead to malinvestment of our precious limited resources in a bubble that will ultimately burst and destroy capital." Any such regulator would soon be out of a job. Banks were led by congress to make loans that they thought better of and fined if they refused. They attempted to protect themselves with 'insurance' (derivatives) but you can't protect yourself when everyone, even the 'insurers' go broke. (As they always do when the bubble bursts.) When things went wrong the banks were blamed.

That and a lot more is inconvenient history that the current administration is allowed to ignore. At the time they dismissed their own responsibility by saying, "there's plenty of blame to go around." I believe it was Rush Limbaugh who said, "when a Democrat says there is plenty of blame to go around, you can bet that their share was about 95%."

Another example that is often heard is that the 'massive' banking deregulation of the Reagan and Bush administrations was obviously a mistake. When you ask just what deregulation they mean, one thing you often hear is the repeal of Glass Stiegal. This allowed financial firms to diversify: it allowed banks to underwrite securities as investment banks do and investment banks and brokers to accept deposits as regular banks do. However, in the mortgage meltdown, the banks got into trouble by acting as banks and the brokerages and investment firms by acting as such. The Glass Steigal Act was mostly irrelevant. The largest mortgage players, Fanny May and Freddie Mac behaved just as always, they were not affected by Glass Steigal. They were a creation of congress and did congress's bidding. They, along with the Fed, were the primary instigators of the meltdown. They were not regulated by government because, effectively, they were government. So who will regulate the regulators Mr. President? Another practice that they mention is short selling, which in fact is economically beneficial in that it warns investors of coming problems, which will help to remedy those problems in time. Other systematic problems in capital markets, too numerous and depressing to mention, all followed from the implementation of government plans.

The people who know the least about finance, (who manage the Post office, Social Security, Amtrack, Medicare Medicaid, government pension insurance, deposit insurance... all essentially bankrupt), now want to further regulate the financial industry. It is already regulated so much, there is not much more they can do except take it over. That is what they want to do, and may end up doing. They may not have their name on the deeds right away, but they will call the shots, which amounts to the same thing. On our side, we have an informed public, who will be hard to bamboozle, even though they will surely try. They will lie and most of the press will back them up. We have talk radio (one of their next targets) and we have Tea Parties and we had some great town meetings. We have the constitution still and we have the truth.

Can You Imagine?

…and so they stopped and rested on a rock conveniently low
And all the little oysters stood and waited in a row.

“The time has come,” the Walrus, said, “to talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings
And why the sea is boiling hot and weather pigs have wings.”

-- Lewis Carol, Through the Looking Glass

Which is to say, time to get down to the nitty gritty. A socialist in name only, president Barack Obama, knows instinctively which side the bread is buttered on. He came out today with renewed attacks on special interests. Of course, he is referring to special special interests, that is, those not already in his camp. That would currently be the health care insurance companies. He is definitely not talking about General Electric, which is on the global warming gravy train. He is not talking about the United Steel Workers, whose boss he made a Commissar and which, along with other construction industries, are economic stimulus payees. Apparently he doesn't mean big drug makers or ARRP or the AMA. He is certainly not talking about auto, banking, political action groups, community organizers, or government unions who he are in his back pocket ( or his front pockets since the back ones are overflowing). There’s hardly anyone or anything left to threaten or pay off, except for us, the regular taxpayers of this country.

However, and unfortunately for him and most professional politicians, at the town halls and tea parties, the people have spoken. What they said is not necessarily what any one person or faction has said or would say. Nevertheless, what they said is clear. They want change but not BHO’s kind of change. They want actual accountability and openness, not the kind promised but never delivered by politicians of any party or any era. What they want most of all is the end of a corrupt system that they see as enriching the political and corporate participants at their expense.

What they complain about goes by many names: corruption and payoffs come to mind; but also executive bonuses, bail-outs, stimulus packages, campaign contributions, and earmarks are on their hit list. The later are openly the stock and trade of the professional politician. Governor Blaggovich was a prime example of the former: the corrupt politician par excellance. He made no excuses for selling office. Charlie Wrangle, currently under investigation by congress, is a current example of political corruption of the ‘look the other way, wink and a nod’ variety. That is, everyone knows it and ‘every one does it type’. He took it a little too far so he has to wear the scarlet ‘C’. If he isn't reelected, he probably has a lobbyist job waiting. However, maybe, just maybe, at long last and finally, the informed and sovereign voter is saying no more to the pervasive and systematic spoil system that is our political system from top to bottom.

This would be real change. The lobbyist and campaign contribution is the live blood of the current system. How to change without creating something worse has always been the difficulty. Can you imagine no lobbyists, non-millionaire congress members, citizen legislators?

It is hard to imagine a no lobbyists system because of the informational roll they play. Legislation regarding major segments of commerce is too complicated for anyone not in that segment of commerce to understand. What congress has been giving us are 1,000 plus page monstrosities that are written by corporate lobbyists or by the most partisan elements of the party in power.

(Foot note: Of course it seems to me that it is mostly the Democrat party that does this. See the stimulus package that was written by communist Van Jones and contains huge grants for radical Party activists. Compare that to the Patriot Act. The worse the Democrats seem to have found in that bill is powers to eavesdrop on terrorist communication, powers law enforcement already had regarding organized crime. By the way, it recently occurred to me that there probably was actual communication of domestic political groups that they definitely did not want heard. It wasn't just an intellectual exercise in free speech for some of the left.)

These massive omnibus bills generally provide specifically for preemption of state law. That means the laws passed by our state representatives and the common law developed over centuries by the give and take of our court system can be wiped out by the stroke of a pen in Washington. If a faction, whether a group with some political clout or an industry group represented by lobbyists, has their ambitions stymied by state law, they can resort to federal legislation. Of course it helps to have cooperative federal judges. This is in fact becoming the favored modus operandi of some political and industry groups. (i.e. environmentalists with just about everything they want; and yes, the insurance industry and medical lobbies as with the EISA and HIPAA.) Sometimes these laws impose massive regulation, sometimes they free some practices from federal and/or state regulation. Sometimes they put roadblocks in the way of redress of grievances. As stated elsewhere in this blog, this type of action is not necessarily what is meant by free market economic policies, although there are some who hide their sharp business practices behind that claim.

If there were no lobbyist for special interests, what would fill the power vacuum? Could we trust the press, the lawyers, and communistic Party Commissars of Barack Obama to give us a legitimate representative democracy? The founders of this nation could imagine a democracy and they embodied it into the framework and checks and balances of the constitution. (The Commissars probably do not fit in that framework, a free press does, and lawyers and our jury system will always be needed to fight against self serving bureaucratic regulation in government and industry.) The constitution has been called an imperfect document. Ben Franklin said that the constitution gave us a republic, if we could keep it. Thomas Jefferson said that every generation had to protect and earn their freedom or they would lose it. So I guess that is the best we can do. It has served us well so far; we had better busy ourselves with keeping it. What to do with the likes of ENRON, Van Jones, ACORN lobbyists, GE lobbyists, Oil lobbyists, Green Peace lobbyists... We must exercise discrimination, judgement, and common sense. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

The Constitution Saves the Republic

Not here but in Honduras. The presidentof Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, attempted to get around the constitutionally imposed term limit by staging a phony unconstitutional election to get himself made dictator for life. It didn't work. Hard experience had taught the far-sighted people of Honduras that crafty would-be dictators would try this sort of thing so it was specifically outlawed in their constitution. The high court judges said the president was breaking the law. The members of their legislature agreed. Therefore, the president of the legislature, the next in line under the constitution, became the new president. Although preventing a Latin American dictatorship seems to most observers to be a great achievement for rule of law, there were some dissenters. The governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the United States objected to the outster of the want-to-be dictator.

In a similar vein, elections in Panama and Argentina recently resulted in defeats for communists and other progressives. The winners in those elections favor democratic and free scocieties and economies.