The Law Does Not Apply to Øbama, Apparently...

From American Thinker (h/t Monty Pelerin's World)

The 2012 race is gearing up, so it seems fitting that the perennial "Birther" issue would raise its head again.  Only this time, it seems to threaten Øbama's eligibility to be on the Georgia ballot.

As far as "Birtherism" goes, the only thing that bothers me is the lack of transparency from what was supposed to be the "most transparent administration in history."  Something was released, and arguments have gone back and forth over its authenticity...but why were over a million dollars spent to conceal it?  And what of his academic records?

Some of these questions have been deemed serious enough to warrant a hearing in Georgia, requiring Chairman Zero to appear and provide some explanation for the evidence brought against him.

He has simply waved it off as frivolous. Well, technically, Øbama's attorney called it, "baseless, costly and unproductive," and "improvidently issued."

And to underscore his sentiments, Obama failed to show up at the 26. Jan hearings that were supposed to address this issue.

I seem to recall another set of "frivolous" lawsuits aimed at my former Governor, Sarah Palin.  She had to answer them.  And it got to the point that she chose to step down rather than use State money to address them.

Is the President given immunity from such?  Especially when it's not a bunch of random individuals or organizations, but a State-level department demanding your presence?

Alan P. Halbert has some thoughts about the whole deal:

Since Obama and his attorney chose not to be present a defense and dispute the evidence that was presented, this can be taken as an admission that all of the evidence admitted were indeed facts and may not be disputed at a later time on appeal!   The irony of this course is that Obama is declaring that the court has no Jurisdiction in this matter and will appeal as a matter of law though these damning facts may very well stand!  It also gives the impression that he considers himself above the law -- Georgia's.  We have a plethora of data points on the sequestering of all of Obama's records and bona fides which he has spent millions of dollars to keep out the public's hands for the last four years.  After this hearing we may eventually know why.

The Consistent Economic Failures of the Øbama Admin

Mark Levin often ascribes a scatological Midas Touch to Chairman Zero, saying that everything he touches turns to crap.

Now, I usually just chalk it up to editorial hyperbole.  However, after reviewing the Summers Memo, and coming across several articles that just happen to show failure after failure of the Obama Agenda, I'm seeing that, well, it just might be true.



The Stimulus Package fell way below expectations, and left us much deeper in debt.

Turns out the bailouts (TARP, Auto bailouts) still left taxpayers in the hole by some $133 Billion.  Weren't we told they were paid off?

ObamaCare will not bring down the cost of health insurance.

High Speed Rail is flopping.  It is proving both unnecessary, and a lot more expensive than originally projected.

And don't forget the consistent failure in his Energy Policies.

Damning Evidence from the Secret Memo - Part 3

WRAPPING IT UP

So far, it seems that Doug Ross' and AEI's assessment of the Summers memo from 2008 seems to line up.

AEI's checklist:

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.  Check.
2. Team Obama knows these deficits are dangerous (although it has offered no long-term plan to deal with them). Check
3. Obamanomics was pricier than advertised.  Check
4. Even Washington can only spend so much money so fast. Check
5. Liberals can complain about the stimulus having too many tax cuts, but even Team Obama thought more spending was unrealistic. Check
6. Team Obama wanted to use courts to force massive mortgage principal writedowns. Check
7. Team Obama thought a stimulus plan of more than $1 trillion would spook financial markets and send interest rates climbing. Check
8. Greg Mankiw, economic adviser to Mitt Romney, was dubious about the stimulus. Check
9. But the Fed was a stimulus enabler.  Check
10. IPAB was there at the very beginning. Check
11. The financial crisis wasn’t just Wall Street’s fault. Check.
And I'm only at page 34.  23 more pages to go.

Thing of it is, even AEI and Investors' Business Daily didn't get into all the details that taking my own look into the memo did, and even the article in the New Yorker (which started this whole discussion), while it gives the story of this memo in a nice, flowing, narrative, and even includes Summers' bombshell, that none of his recommendations “returns the unemployment rate to its normal, pre-recession level," it leaves much out that proves that the Obama administration has not been up-front with us about his economic policies. Some might even call it outright lying.

The remaining pages of the memo (34-57) go into (among other things) technical details regarding bank regulation, continued auto industry bailout, and plans for education improvement.  One particular comment by Summers stood out to me in this last section:

"This section outlines our strategy for stabilizing the U.S. financial system based on work led by Tim Geithner. Our judgment is that we need to move quickly to put in place a program that satisfies the critical imperative of decisively restoring public confidence in the health of our financial institutions and improving overall market functioning. Doing so will require more resources--potentially considerably more--than those authorized under the TARP. An effective program for stabilizing the financial system is a necessary complement to your Economic Recovery Plan and to more targeted efforts to support the housing market. Without healthy institutions and robust markets, our efforts toward repair and recovery for the broader U.S. economy are likely to be compromised."

 It's funny that it took a crisis for the Dems to see what is economic common sense for us fiscal conservatives.

Lesson learned:  if you put your political agenda ahead of the economic health of the country, you wind up with the cluster schtupp-laden nightmare that finally manifested itself in '08.

And yes, I largely blame the Dems for '08.  It was government-forced (and therefore, funded) "fairness" (in this case for the housing market) that created an unstable housing market, leading to the crash.  The GOP has its part as well for letting it go (ever since 1977) in the interest of scoring political points themselves, but this, too, proves my main point.

But was the lesson really learned by Dems?  Two items in the appendix (the memo's final ten pages) don't really inspire that much confidence.

The first is a Green Energy agenda.  Now, the memo makes a rather optimistic, if not unrealistic, assessment of what pursuing such an agenda ought to yield.

However, it fails to ask a central question:  is it economically viable?  Well, the downfall of Solyndra and other Green Energy Enterprises doesn't inspire much confidence at all.

And how in the hell can we dump billions of dollars into these boondoggles when we can ill afford them?  But, like I said, the memo didn't discuss the economics of Green Energy much.  But it does say that it was a "campaign commitment."

Once again, it proves my point.  And Spain proved how much of a jobs-wrecker Green Energy was.

The second point was education.  But I'm seeing about 90% attention being paid to physical matters (building maintenance/improvement), and not a whole lot to teacher accountability--which, in my view, is a lot more central to effective education than a nice building.

This item, however, really showed how economically clueless the Left is:

"The plan sets forth measures to assist more Americans enroll in college and job training
programs during this economic downturn. The plan will help ensure that every academically qualified student can realize the potential of a postsecondary education."

Think about this.  #1:  Economic downturn.  #2:  Encouraging people to undertake an expensive endeavor like college during an economic downturn.  #3:  Letting the government pay for an expensive endeavor like college during an economic downturn.

What could the end result of this economically genius approach be?

The so-called "99 Percenter," who has spent $86K on an esoteric degree and can't find a job for it.  So, instead of using that supposedly agile mind to adapt to other work, he spends months in a tent whining about the success of others (and getting nowhere closer to paying off that degree).

Not taking into account that said success stories probably started out in the same boat as he, only this person decided to do something about it instead of expecting someone else to take care of him.

But that could be an entirely different post in itself.

Bottom line:  Obama lied, the Economy Died.

More Damning Evidence from the Secret Memo - Part 2

In the last post, we found out that the Stimulus was egged on by Union interests, and despite a "bipartisan" veneer, was really only looking for confirmation bias along Keynesian lines.

This next section, covering pages 12-33, there are a few passages that hint that this Stimulus scam wasn't the best of ideas.

So far, in my reading, only one bit of forecasting in this memo seems to have held true:

"An excessive recovery package could spook markets or the public and be counterproductive."

If you see the graphs I put up the last post, that seems to have been the case, and we would have been better off not having passed the Stimulus bill.

Further on down, it seems that a political agenda was a chief consideration for this stimulus bill.  It wasn't necessarily doled out by need.  The "Core" package included "key campaign priorities."  And the "short-run economic imperative" was to address as many campaign promises as possible.

But here is another critical factor--so critical, in fact, that it was in bold, underlined, and italicized in the memo itself: 

"But it is important to recognize that we can only generate about $225 billion of actual spending on priority investments over next two years. and this is after making what some might argue are optimistic assumptions about the scale of investments in areas like Health IT that are feasible over this period."

In short, you have only so much money you can spend.  This was a point the memo felt a need to spell out twice.  Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing in this memo that takes seriously the notion that spending cuts might be something to consider for the country's economic health.



And speaking of spending, the memo's preparers had a thing or two to say about Obama's campaign promises:  they were unsustainable.

"Closing the gap between what the campaign proposed and the estimates of the campaign offsets would require scaling back proposals by about $100 billion annually or adding new offsets totaling the same. Even this, however, would leave an average deficit over the next decade that would be worse than any post-World War II decade. This would be entirely unsustainable and could cause serious economic problems in the both the short run and the long run."

What's more, the memo says if Obama were able to implement his campaign promises in 2007, before the crash,

"...the deficit would rise by another $100 billion annually. The consequence would be the largest run-up in the debt since World War II and the highest debt as a share of the economy since the 1950s. Figure 4 shows the projected increases."

Let's have a look at that figure, shall we?

Holy crap!  And this was supposed to help our economy how again?

But take a look at that slump in the graph (and here, a slump is a good thing).  That happened after the GOP took control of the House & Senate after Clinton had pissed off the public enough (and after just a year in office, to boot).  Compare this with the 2006 Dem takeover of House & Senate (which occurs about where the red leaves off after 2005):

I really do not see how, especially after looking at this chart, Obama and the Dems could possibly see this massive spending bill as a good thing.

And this was the reason the people revolted in the form of the Tea Party in February of 2009.

People tend to want to blame the President for bad economic policy.  He may have some hand in it, but according to the Constitution, the purse strings belong to the House.  Which brings up another interesting point, the memo encouraged Obama to take on a familiar line that Obama has used pretty much throughout his presidency:

"With a short-term economic recovery package, the deficit in fiscal year 2009 is likely to
be about $1.3 trillion, which at 9 percent of GOP will be by far the largest deficit in American history excluding the two world wars and the Civil War. Most economists are not concerned about the near-term deficit deterioration, but the public may be more concerned. As noted above, it is therefore crucial in early January that we make it clear to the American public that you inherited this large deficit rather than created it." (Emphasis mine) 

But, in comparison to the debt projections post-Stimulus, the Bush years, even at their worst, were far better than what the Stimulus slapped onto us.

You would think Obama & Company would see this clearly, but unfortunately, even the memo points out Obama's economic cluelessness as a senator, citing the failed "Hope for Homeowners Act" that he co-sponsored:

"You were an original co-sponsor of the Hope for Homeowners Act- a foreclosure mitigation policy which sought to encourage principal write-downs among investors by splitting the cost with the government. Unfortunately, largely due to the unwillingness of lenders to write down principal, the program completely failed: 400,000 mortgages were eligible for writedowns but only 111 applied."

And why did it fail?  Borrowers and lenders were more familiar with economic realities than pie-in-the sky idealism:

"Our conversations with industry and community groups have led us to believe that
lenders will continue to resist the idea in most cases (and hence our core proposal is the
affordability program outlined in Part 1). However, there were some flaws in H4H that remain:  fees that push interest rates up for borrowers, fees that deter lenders, and requirements that lenders eat too much of the mortgage losses for them to be willing to participate."

Nonetheless, the memo proposes a mortgage restructuring program that could modify 2.5 million loans, "profitably," with the caveat that 1 million of those would probably redefault.

Did you get that?  1 million of those would probably redefault!  This is the sort of thinking that got us into the whole subprime cluster-schtupp in the first place!  A plan that expects about a 40% rate of failure is a plan that should not be considered!

But, you know, the Proglodytes of the Left have this habit of letting their ideologies trump reality.

As a final note of disgust, the precursor to Obamacare's "Death Panel" is mentioned in this section of the memo.  I've highlighted the bothersome part.

"The health board idea, proposed by Sen. Daschle in his book, allows for timely and oftentimes difficult policy changes to be made to Medicare and Medicaid and possibly other parts of the health system with a degree of independence from the Congressional process and special interests. This idea is included in Sen. Baucus's white paper on health reform. The Health and Economic Teams consider a Board an essential ingredient to improving the value of health care in the long run."

Congressional circumvention.  It's been a hallmark of these past three years.

Damning Evidence from the Secret Memo - Part 1

Yesterday, I read at Doug Ross' site how a "Sensitive/Confidential" Memo to President-Elect Øbama from 2008 that the White House knew the Stimulus was a scam.  Make sure you follow the link to the original article from AEI.

The 57-page document is available for download.  I'm running through it right now to see if it's so.

And I'm finding a lot of other stuff that further convinces me why Øbama SHOULD NOT BE RE-ELECTED IN 2012.

At this point, I'm only at page 11, but there are a few things I've already found in the memo that are well worth reporting.

Starting off, the second and third bullet points on Page 2 admonish the President-Elect to "establish serious reform and fiscal discipline credentials" and "committing to a responsible budget."

Continuing on to page 3, the team that put together this memo also said, "Your campaign proposals add about $100B per year to the deficit largely because rescoring indicates some of your revenue raisers do not raise as much as the campaign assumed and some of your proposals cost more than the campaign assumed."

Chairman Zero.  The faux Constitutional scholar who would wind up circumventing Constitutional principles showed even worse economic sense.  And that was before he took office.

Well, how well has he done with that advice so far?  It kind of reminds me of the sort of advice Rehoboam took when he was crowned King of Israel (1. Kings 12).  Instead of listening to the wisdom of the older generations, Rehoboam took with the inexperience of his own.  And it spelled the beginning of the end for Israel.

Well, there's that Stimulus that was rammed through Congress, and set off the Tea Party Movement.  The official line fed to us from the Hill was controlling unemployment.  Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi even went so far with her "500 million jobs lost per month" gaffe. 

In the memo, the team put together projected rates of unemployment without the Stimulus, as shown by the graph below (taken from the memo itself):

How well did the memo-preparing eggheads do with their predictions?  Miserably.  Here are the unemployment numbers reported from January 2009 to January 2012 (Source:  tradingeconomics.com)

Now to give you a rough idea as to the difference between projected non-stimulus unemployment and actual numbers after the stimulus had been passed:

In short, it seems we would have been better off NOT passing the Stimulus.

To bolster the case for the Stimulus, on pages 10 and 11, a handful of economists are briefly quoted.  Now, economists from the Left and Right are presented, apparently to show a sort of bipartisan consensus for the Stimulus, but there is some fudging of the truth here.

From the Memo: 

     "This is standard macroeconomic analysis and it has led most leading economists to callfor substantial stimulus packages. Based on our consultations and published accounts:

Progressive Economists:
• Robert Reich believes it should be $1.2 trillion over two years, but also indicated it could be larger.

• Joe Stiglitz believes it should be $1 trillion over two years.

• Paul Krugman: at least $600 billion in one year

• Jamie Galbraith: $900 billion in one year

• Institute for America's future (signed by Dean Baker, Andy Stern, Leo Gerard, John
Sweeney, and others): at least $900 billion

First of all, why use the label "Progressive?"  They don't use the label "Conservative" when listing "Republican" economists.

Secondly, any report involving Robert Reich and Paul Krugman should not be taken seriously.  Robert Reich has a tendency to emphasize the facts only convenient to his ideology.  Krugman, despite his Nobel Prize (whose worth has been cheapened over the years) has striked out consistently on his economic predictions.

The majority of the IAF signatories mentioned here is very troubling:  Andy Stern, Leo Gerard, and John Sweeney are all major figures in the Union scene.  Of course they would advocate anything that would pour money into their interests!

But all of the economists listed here--Krugman, Reich, Baker, and Galbraith--have one thing in common:  They're all Keynesians.  That is to say, they believe in the notion that you can spend yourself into prosperity, as opposed to exercising fiscal discipline.

And this is what is problematic about their choice of "Republican Economists":

Republican Economists:
• Marty Feldstein was an early proponent of a spending-only package and currently
believes it should be $400 billion in the first year.

• Larry Lindsey, a former Federal Reserve Governor and NEC Director, estimates that
$800 billion to $1 trillion is desirable.

• Ken Rogoff (widely respected macroeconomist, former chief economist of the IMF,former McCain adviser): $1 trillion over two years

• Mark Zandi (widely quoted economist, fom1er McCain adviser): at least $600 billion in one year

• Greg Mankiw is the only economist we have consulted with who refused to name a
number and was generally skeptical about stimulus.

Ken Rogoff is a Keynesian.

Feldman and Lindsey are not, but their names are attached to a memo supporting a Keynesian approach without telling the whole story.  Both expressed concern about where exactly the money was going to go.    As it turned out, the money went more towards political interests, so this confirms at least one point of Doug Ross' and AEI's findings about the Stimulus being a scam.

Mark Zandi's inclusion in this list is outright deception.  He was an "informal advisor" to the McCain campaign, but he himself is a registered Democrat.

Then there are all the "Others:"

Others:
• Senior Federal Reserve officials appear to be of the view that a plan that well exceeds
$600 billion would be desirable.

• Adam Posen (Deputy Director of the Peterson Institute): $500 to $700 billion in one year
• Goldman Sachs: $600 billion in one year

• Open Letter signed by 387 economists including Nobel Laureates Robert Solow, George Akerlof, and Joe Stiglitz on November 19th [note that most economists, including Stiglitz, support higher stimulus numbers today than they did a month ago]: $300 to $400 billion per year

Funny how they felt the need to quite Joe Stiglitz a second time.

Peter Klein of The (non-Keynesian) Mises Institute had this much to say on the whole lot of them: 

"So, we’ve got left-wing Keynesians, right-wing Keynesians, moderate Keynesians, Robert Reich who wouldn’t know a Keynesian from a Kenyan, and Goldman Sachs. How’s that for diversity of opinion?"

The only really honest alternative opinion to all this Keynesianism and special Union interest was Greg Mankiw.

Autocracy In Progress

David Limbaugh had an excellent recap of Chairman Zero's last three years, just in case we on the Right forget, and in the very likely case that the Left never heard it.

"We can endlessly debate whether he is such a devoted ideologue that he's blind to his policy failures, whether he's willing to sacrifice the economy and the fiscal integrity of the United States for his perceived higher good of radical redistribution, or whether he really intends to do harm, but these are moot questions anymore. Under any of these possibilities, the fact remains that he is hellbent on accelerating his present course, not reversing it, on dictating, not working within his constitutional constraints, much less building a bipartisan consensus."

One of the problems with Øbamacare, certainly the one that has received the most press in the last year, has been the constitutionality of the individual mandate.  Mona Charen goes into detail about another:  the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

"IPAB is a new thing in American government. Unlike most other boards and commissions, the panel’s 15 members (appointed by the president and approved by the Senate) need not be bipartisan. Also unlike other boards, commissions, and federal agencies, the IPAB’s decisions are virtually unreviewable. IPAB doesn’t have to adhere to the notice and comment rules of federal agencies, which permit citizens to respond to proposed rule-makings. IPAB dictates automatically become law unless Congress itself intervenes. Ah, but they’ve thought of that and made it virtually impossible. The law prescribes that Congress has a limited period of time in which it can modify IPAB rulings and then it must do so by a three-fifths majority. Even ratifying treaties and proposing amendments to the Constitution require only two-thirds majorities. As for the courts, forget it. The judiciary is forbidden to review IPAB decisions."

Furthermore, abolition of IPAB is only possible in a narrow time window.

Way to stick it to the people, Dems!

Wow, I'm a Finalist!

I'm a regular over at iOwnTheWorld, and every now and then I'll submit an article or graphic.  BigFurHat held an end-of-year review of all the graphic submissions, judged by none other than the venerable Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

I nominated my own art, done in commemoration of Obama's support for the OWS losers.

And it got me to the finalists' page, which, apparently, earns me the right to put this on my blog:

Voter Fraud Case in NY

Massive Voter Fraud Trial in NY: "Two veteran Democratic political operatives in Troy said voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections, and faking absentee ballots was commonplace"

How is it that whenever these come up, a Dem is involved?
You know, Holder took the occasion of MLK Day to further whine and squall about Voter ID, because, you know, it "disenfranchises" voters.

Well, Vocal Minority treats us to this graphic:

I'll also add that if poor people are really the issue, why on earth do limited-income admissions discounts to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum of Minnesota require Photo ID and an EBT card?

Furthermore, the State of New York requires additional ID for EBT applicants.  That includes a photo ID.  For all members of the applying household!

The Children's Hospital at Philadelphia offers free child car seats at no cost to qualified applicants.  But you need to present an EBT and...guess what...a photo ID.

In New Jersey, in order to get a replacement for a lost or damaged EBT card, you must present photo ID.

Now, this one is wacky.  You can get a special rate to have your pet spayed or neutered in Honolulu.  But you have to show both an EBT card and a photo ID.

And, the coup de grâce, photo ID, or some other form of verification, is generally required in all states for some form of EBT application.

Go stick it, Holder.  We know your real concern is for preserving a time-honored Dem election-stealing tactic.

So, He Wants to be Like Teddy, Eh?

I'm reading through Andrew Breitbart's Righteous Indignation, and am very much enjoying his tale of everything he has seen since his political awakening and re-education in the 1990s.  Mostly because he's only nine months older than I, and I well remember everything he recalls from then until now.

He gives a little history lesson on the development of progtardianism, starting with Marx's materialistic dialectic, and going on to other major figures in proglodytianism as they have affected our country.  I am now at the point where he discusses Teddy Roosevelt, who was not a Conservative, but a Progressive.

Breitbart relates two quotes.  One, the famous "We grudge no man a fortune in civil life" line which morphs into "only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community."

The second quote is far more ominous:  "To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!"  The link leads to The Mises Institute's book review on Thomas Woods' 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.  In the review, the article's author states:

"But who bears responsibility for this 'imperial presidency'? Woods places much of the blame on Theodore Roosevelt, who 'loathed inactivity' (p. 136). Though highly intelligent — my late friend Mel Bradford rated him the brightest of all the presidents — he was dominated by passions he made little effort to control."

Such passions led him to hold the Constitution in contempt every so often.

So, Obama's speech in Kansas two weeks ago, with his attempt to invoke the ghost of TR, should have prompted more foreboding about how worse things can get if this type of mentality occupies the Oval Office for another four years.

Just Think What He Could Do in Four More Years!

President Pee Wee.  (h/t Doug Ross)

But, it's the excessive abuses of power to push an incredibly stupid agenda that gets me.  Make absolutely sure we don't get this dolt in again.

No, No, No!

Obama Seeks New Powers from Congress

President Obama will reveal a new proposal to consolidate federal agencies at a White House event later this morning, an official tells Fox News. The problem is that the authority he seeks to carry out the plan will have to come from a Congress he's had bitter battles with over the past year.

I do hope that House & Senate Republicans and the more reasonable Dems (I know I'm asking a lot there) will not grant this to Øbama.

Not just because he's Øbama.  Let's establish that right off-hand.  But, Chairman Zero has demonstrated over the last three years quite the disdain for Rule of Law if it stands in the way of his agenda.

I suppose if we needed to put someone in office to point out the weaknesses of the system, cracks through which authoritarianism can establish itself instead of the principles of a Democratic Republic, Øbama has been the perfect man for the job. 

And he does not need any further help in that department.

Now, supposedly, the request is meant to cut down on the cost and bulk of government.  That sounds fine, right down to invoking Reagan, but I get nervous whenever someone uses the term "consolidate" in reference to the Executive Branch.  Reminds me too much of the years leading up to Mussolini.

Autocratic Hypocrisy

Those of us who lived through the Cold War well remember the rather paradoxical names of the Communist countries.  The "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" (German Democratic Republic), The "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", "People's Republic of China," "People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia," "Democratic Republic of Vietnam," and so on.

And, we well remember that none of the above were Democratic Republics.

Well, here's another misleading name:  "Constitutional Scholar," as applied to Øbama.  Remember back in 2007 when he said, "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution."

 

My, how times have changed.  Too bad there isn't any published works attached to his name, his academic transcripts are still not available to the public, and I don't think there have been any interviews with any former students of his.

And how's this for another whopper, as found over at Cato (Will Congress Stop King Barack the First?): 

"But the worst hypocrisy here is Obama's. 'I've studied the Constitution as a student, I've taught it as a teacher,' he piously intoned in 2009: 'I know that we must never, ever, turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience's sake.'"

*snort*  *guffaw*

Well, we've already had a good look at how enduring these principles are in the eyes of Obama when his agenda must be expedited.

On Consolidation of Power

By James Madison from Federalist Papers 47 (h/t Flopping Aces)

“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.”

That's why we have Separation of Powers.

Occupy Candidates?

Funny how you don't hear about 'em. I think we can easily point to several "Tea Party Candidates" and "Tea Party Favorites"—Bachmann, DeMint, Rubio, and Rand Paul, for example.

We heard—still hear—about them in the legacy and alternate media, both left and right-leaning.

But where are the OWS favorites & candidates? It is an election year, you know.

Maybe the reason we haven't heard about them is because #OWS is politically irrelevant.

It is Good to be the King?

Sometime between Øbama's election and inauguration, I remember this cartoon being featured on the Op-Ed page of Newsweek:

Now we understand why that rag was sold for $1, and is a shade of its former self (but a more honest shade, admittedly.  Beforehand, they pretended to be a collection of objective journalists.  Now it's more hard-left Op-Ed).  They didn't realize that "Hope & Change" was a euphemism for "Bait & Switch."

This, however, is a more fitting caricature:

And it just happens to dovetail nicely with an IBD Editorial podcast I was listening to today:  Acting Like a King Isn't Among the President's Duties (article).

"In Wednesday's Cleveland speech when he announced the CFPB and NLRB appointments, Obama said anyone who 'plays by the rules can get ahead.' Yet the president is playing outside the rules and pretending he's doing it as a favor for the country. His motives, though, are clear. He wants to wield power that exceeds what the Constitution delegated to the president.

"Maybe First Lady Michelle Obama wasn't acting when she said on a kids television sitcom that she enjoyed being called 'your excellency.' Maybe she was speaking for her husband, too."

 In a more recent TownHall article (Steven Chapman:  Czar Barack), Øbama's own words get turned against him, as his executive overreaches extend, even overshadow, those he criticized of the last administration, giving more credence that Øbama actually prefers the idea of an Imperial President than is opposed to it:

"as a candidate, [Øbama] suggested that emperors are for other countries. 'The president,' he insisted, 'does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.'"

I know Lefties are notoriously weak in the history department, but come on, it's only been three years!

And Michelle Malkin catalogues a veritable rogues' gallery of the Obama solution to Rule of Law:  Executive Orders and Czars:

"Can’t delude legislators into adopting a $1.5 billion Kabuki summer-jobs makework boondoggle? Create an unfunded program through executive fiat.

"Can’t muster up a filibuster-proof majority for radical nominees? Czar-ify ‘em.

"Can’t get Congress to approve vast wild lands designations? Grab them under cover of a holiday lame-duck session.

"Can’t get the illegal alien bailout DREAM Act passed on Capitol Hill? Executive-order it.

“'So let it be written, so let it be done!'”

Autocracy in Education

You know, it seems to me that the Democrats Autocrats' slogan "Yes We Can" is morphing into "Yes You Will."


Fox News:  DC Lawmakers Propose Requiring Students to Apply to College

This law will require students to attend workshops on admissions processes and will require students to take the SAT or ACT.  Whether or not the student has any interest in pursuing college will be irrelevant.

The article doesn't mention DC Councilman Kwame Brown's political affiliation.  I had to do a little extra digging to confirm my suspicions myself.

Yep, a Democrat Autocrat.  Quelle surprise.  If there's a piece of legislation requiring you to do anything (you must buy THIS lightbulb!  You must buy THIS health insurance!), chances are, it was crafted by the jackass party.

In Soviet Russia, Jackass Drives You!  Jackass Beats You!  Jackass Puts Burden On You!

Excuse me, did anyone inform him that these tests are not offered for free?  According to the private company that creates the SAT, the current fee is $49.  An unnecessary expense for those who might not be interested in college.  Especially if you're poor.

Speaking of poor, you're required to bring a photo ID to the test.  Kwame, your racism is showing.  I'm surprised AG "Why is everyone hung up on race except me" Holder isn't all over your hiney on this one.

But another thing this screams to me is a closer relationship between State and School, something that really ought not to be in a free society.

But of course, liberty is inimical to autocracy.

Appointment By Autocracy

In case you haven't already heard it, Chairman Zero's speech naming the Director of yet another government-bloating executive agency tips his hand over his contempt for Rule of Law.

"Now, every day that Richard waited to be confirmed -- and we were pretty patient.  I mean, we kept on saying to Mitch McConnell and the other folks, let’s go ahead and confirm him. Why isn’t he being called up?  Let’s go.  Every day that we waited was another day when millions of Americans were left unprotected.  Because without a director in place, the consumer watchdog agency that we’ve set up doesn’t have all the tools it needs to protect consumers against dishonest mortgage brokers or payday lenders and debt collectors who are taking advantage of consumers.  And that’s inexcusable.  It’s wrong.  And I refuse to take no for an answer"

Well, it seems like you're dealing with that question now, Chairman.  The real question is, what are you going to do about it?

"So I’ve said before that I want to look for every possible opportunity to work with Congress to move this country forward and create jobs.  I’m going to look for every opportunity to try to bridge the partisan divide and get things done."

Yeah, just like you all did with the stimulus bill?  Like you did with Obamacare?  I recall a lot of closed-door sessions effectively locking out certain elected Representatives and Senators along party lines.

But since you lost control of the House in 2010, it seems you are intent on cutting the House out of the process.  Problem is, the Constitution doesn't allow for it.  You'd think a "Constitutional Scholar" would know that.

Apparently not:

"But when Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them." 

I kind of wonder what Obama means by "our people," especially in light of attempts to circumvent Congress over illegal immigration policy.  I tend to think he means Democrats Autocrats, and their potential enablers.

And is the GOP really to blame?  Over at The Daily Caller, it seems that the narrative regarding Obama appointees being obstructed by GOP Senators doesn't hold up.  In the case of two NRLB appointees, it seems an attempt was made to squeak them in between gavels--so fast, in fact, that they couldn't clear background and criminal checks.  Much less giving them time to be vetted by the Senate.

Audrey Hudson over at Human Events also shoots down Obama's "I'm always trying to be bipartisan" rhetoric in this matter:  “Apparently, advise and consent called for in the Constitution doesn’t apply to this Chicago-style politician. He’s more interested in rewarding his friends than living under the law Americans need to abide by,” [WY Senator John] Barrasso said.

But do you really want to enjoy a Keystone Cops moment?  Cordray apparently can't be appointed outside formal Senate approval.  The law establishing the agency, drafted in 2010, calls for it.  Obama's drive for his agenda, regardless of Constitutional restraints, has left him with his pants around his knees.

I LIKE IT!

From The Looking Spoon.
I

Extremist?

I get these emails from Obama For (sodomizing) America. I really didn't ask for them. All I wanted to do was give Obama a snarky question about how a Constitutional Scholar can have nothing published to his name, and in return, I get these "gimme" emails from the likes of Chairman Zero, his body man Love, the Wookiee, and Jim Messina.

It's interesting to see the sort of message being promulgated by the White House.  Here's one of the latest ones I've gotten:

Vidarebefordrat brev:

Från: "Jim Messina, BarackObama.com"
Datum: 3. jan. 2012 23.50.32 GMT-09.00
Till: Mad Hatter
Ämne: This is not a joke
Svara till: info@barackobama.com

Friend -- These Republican candidates spent in some cases more than a year -- in Mitt Romney's case seven years -- campaigning in Iowa to be the next president. But tonight, GOP voters there couldn't decisively get behind anyone. Who exactly leads the Republican race going forward isn't clear, but we do know two things: 1) The extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory. No matter who the Republicans nominate, we'll be running against someone who has embraced that agenda in order to win -- vowing to let Wall Street write its own rules, end Medicare as we know it, roll back gay rights, leave the troops in Iraq indefinitely, restrict a woman's right to choose, and gut Social Security to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires and corporations.

*snip*

"The extremist Tea Party."  I've heard this thrown around a lot.  "That Tea Party--it's extremist."  When I ask a Leftie to clarify "extremist," I usually get a lot of stammering.  They can parrot the punch-words and party lines circulating in their circles, but they can't back them up.

I'll tell you what "extremist" is--an extremist circumvents Rule of Law for the sake of an agenda.

- An Extremist will Violate the War Powers Act to engage in a conflict we have no national interest in, to score political points.

- An Extremist will Ignore the Constitution to install political appointees.

- An Extremist will Ignore Judicial Ruling on a matter unfavorable to his agenda.

- An Extremist will Circumvent the Legislative Process when his agenda is not pushed through.

- An Extremist will Arbitrarily Wave Off Items in a Law He Signed that he does not agree with.

- An Extremist will Confide in His Allies that the Constitution can be Circumvented.

You get the idea.  I'm telling you, Obama is a member of the Autocrat Party, not Democrat.

But here's another thing about "extremist" and "right-wing."  People who throw these terms around usually tend to be so far to the Left that even Woodrow Wilson looks Conservative.


The main disseminators of information in this country--Media and Academia, are demonstrably left-leaning.  And since both groups tend to move in ideologically incestuous circles (the likes of which would make the rednecks they like to mock blush), the lack of cross-pollination leaves them to conclude that their views are "normal" while all others are "extreme."

So, when I hear a Leftie--be it a Progtard, Occupooper, Demorrhoid, what have you--talk about the Tea Party as "extremist," I know it's because they really don't get out much.

Back from the Edge

Amazing how long blogs stay around.  I hadn't posted anything on TMH for nearly three years.  I am surprised Blogger kept it around.

My last post, 21 Jan 2009, had already seen the rise of a nobody from Illinois who managed to make himself President.  The circumstances surrounding his inauguration should have been quite auspicious:

The Trash was Historic, Too









This would be something that would characterize Proggie rallies for the next three years.

Now, in all fairness, Leftie rallies improved somewhat, at least in terms of trash.  I think we can thank the Tea Party for that.  Funny the difference made when adults finally arrive on the scene.  Shook up the place, too--wresting House control from Pelousy and giving us some hope of putting brakes on Progressivism...that is to say, Progress towards the Cliff

Not to be outdone, the Left had to answer with its own movement (which can be interpreted in more than one way): the nebulous, vapid, clueless OWS (Occupy...Whatever...Something).

And the trash came back.  With poop.  And rape.  And assault.  And vandalism.  And Jew hatred.

Everything the Left accused the Tea Party of being, it got paid back in spades.  From its own ranks (which can also be taken in more than one way).  All the while receiving support from the highest profile figures among the Democrats.  Namely, Obama and Pelosi.

Just in time for his campaign, too.

It's mainly because of the campaign that I'm resurrecting this blog (that, and MJA's fairly frequent prodding--what can I say...I am easily beguiled by the charm of a lovely ladeh).  Obama and his comrades have proven their party to be unnamed.

They're not Democrats.  In our representative democracy, the will of their constituents is supposed to be taken into consideration.  In our republic, this is supposed to happen within the framework of law.

They do none of this.  Instead, they behave like Autocrats.  That alone should be reason to throw them out.

And so, I rededicate this blog to getting the word out about what they are doing, and giving you reasons to vote for someone who still believes in the Republic.

Occupuncture!

From my post on The People's Cube:

Comrades, I am astounded at the progress the new Collective Health Care Plan has made. As to be expected, it manifested itself first in the most progressive element of our society...the Re-Occupy Wall Street Putsch!

But first, the "official" account, as rendered in the Bourgeois Media. The actual story, as issued by the State Program for Impeccable News (SPIN) will follow.

Wall Street Occupiers Stab NYPD Officer, Surround Ambulance Trying To Rush Him To The Hospital…

(NY Post) — Some 800 Occupy Wall Street protesters began the new
year by trying to retake Zuccotti Park last night, starting a massive
clash with police in which one officer was stabbed in the hand with a
pair of scissors.

A suspect was arrested in the 11:30 p.m. incident, according to a
law enforcement source.

Hundreds in the crowd of occupiers then surrounded the ambulance
as it tried to leave with the wounded officer, the source said.

The officer, who was not identified, was taken to Bellevue
Hospital in stable condition.

Is there no end to the assaults upon and vilification of this Peaceful People's Movement?

There have been no rapes--it is involuntary redistribution of sexual favors!

There has been no "Child Endangerment"-- it is parental initiative in the education of the next generation of Progressives!

And THERE HAS BEEN NO POOP! Banks and Police Cars have simply had the misfortune of being placed right at a designated site of a People's Recycled Food Reclamation Center!

But the assault on the People by the Bourgeois Fascist Jackboots was very real. Fortunately, the People responded with Compassion.

The officer wasn't stabbed...he was administered a treatment of alternative medicine for a headache he had been complaining about. A quick-thinking Progressive with a degree in Cross Cultural Studies put his $90K education to good use by combining Eastern Medicine (acupuncture) with Ancient Egyptian Surgery (bloodletting), improvising with Western tools (scissors).

Surely this selfless act of compassion and multiculturalism is worthy of complete forgiveness of his student debt!

The crowd around the ambulance was also serving several functions at once. They were chanting for the officer's continued well-being, and delaying his arrival into the emergency room in case a more needy case arrived first.

Yes, the best and brightest were on the scene! But what else do you expect from a Progressive Education?