Obama rejects Keystone XL jobs, promotes more wind and solar subsidies. What to do now?

President Obama “is focused like a laser on putting people back to work,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) assured us last fall – echoing repeated statements by President Obama and Administration officials who “can’t wait” for Congress or others to take action and create jobs.

The jobs thing didn’t last long, however. The President soon vetoed TransCanada’s application for permits to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Approving them “would not be in the national interest,” he declared.

It is hard for most Americans to understand how it is contrary to the national interest to create 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs, increase US gross domestic product by an estimated $350 billion, and bring 830,000 barrels of oil per day via pipeline from friend and neighbor Canada to Texas refineries. It’s hard for us to grasp how pipelining Canadian oil is worse than importing oil in much riskier tankers from unstable, unfriendly places like Venezuela and the Middle East – or how it’s better for the global environment to transport Canadian oil by tanker to China, where it will be burned under far less rigorous pollution laws and controls.

It’s equally hard for average citizens to comprehend how more than three years of careful environmental studies are insufficient, especially after the State Department had issued several reports concluding that the pipeline would have only “limited adverse environmental impacts” in areas that are already dotted with oil wells and crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines.

To suppose, as the President insisted, that Keystone would generate “a lot fewer jobs than would be created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance” is simply baffling.

In view of White House intransigence, what should Congress and TransCanada do now?

The 1,660-mile-long Keystone XL pipeline would begin in southeastern Alberta, Canada and end in Port Arthur, Texas. Although it would incorporate the existing Keystone Cushing pipeline through Kansas and part of Oklahoma, most of the US portion (from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, and from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur) would be new. Keystone XL would create 20,000 jobs manufacturing and installing 36-inch pipe, valves and other components to build that addition.

Environmentalists predictably went ballistic. Surface mining Alberta’s oil sands damages lands and habitats, they railed. Never mind that this technique is being replaced by in situ “steam-assisted gravity drain” processes, that mined lands are being restored to forest and grass habitats, or that blocking Keystone XL will neither end oil extraction nor prevent crude or refined product shipments to China.

Mining, processing and using this oil will increase greenhouse gas levels and global warming, activists vented. Never mind that total “greenhouse gas” emissions would amount to an almost undetectable portion of annual global GHG emissions. That “dangerous manmade global warming” is an exaggerated scare that has little basis in truly peer-reviewed science. Or that there has been no warming for a decade, UN IPCC “science” is crumbling at its foundation, and increasing numbers of climate experts are publicly dissenting from IPCC orthodoxy.

Mr. Obama needs environmentalists in his camp, if he expects to be reelected. Radical greens have made Keystone XL the latest symbol of their intense hatred of anything hydrocarbon – and a centerpiece for fundraising. Like the President, they are intent on ending our “addiction to oil” and “fundamentally transforming” the energy, economic and social fabric of America.

Jobs, GDP, tax revenues and national security will therefore have to take a backseat.

As he suggested in his State of the Union speech, President Obama seems willing to generate expensive electricity for three million homes by blanketing a million acres of public lands with taxpayer-subsidized, bird-killing wind turbines, habitat-smothering solar panels, high-voltage transmission lines, and gas-fired backup units. Anti-Keystone “environmentalists” seem to have few objections to such “eco-friendly” energy. But for them a pipeline is intolerable.

Faced with these facts, TransCanada could do as Mr. Obama suggested – and reapply for permits, after the fall elections and after changing its intended pipeline route to avoid allegedly sensitive areas. In the meantime, it could continue trying to win friends and influence people.

Yes, it could. But doing so has significant pitfalls.

It would drag the process out, leave the company in the “kill zone” of media and environmentalist attacks, in a political no man’s land, amid deadly crossfire from savvy and well-funded activists, journalists and bureaucrats. It would also set the stage for anti-pipeline lawsuits in courts of their choosing – perhaps in “friendly” lawsuits between “green” plaintiffs and EPA or State – when and if permits finally are granted.

A further drawback is that focusing on the State Department and White House ignores the Interior Department, Fish & Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency and many other federal and state regulatory and judicial agencies and processes that will still stand in the way of final project approval, and will likely take years to navigate.

There is a better way.

TransCanada could and should work closely and cooperatively with farmers and farm bureaus, state governors, agencies and legislators, mayors and other affected parties, to address concerns and compensate landowners for the use of their property, unavoidable impacts and damages in the unlikely event of an accident. The company should emphasize that Keystone XL will create thousands of jobs; generate billions of dollars in private, local, state and national revenue; use the best and safest pipeline technology; and bring oil from a friendly country to American refineries, motorists, farmers and manufacturers.

TransCanada should also take legal action, in state and/or federal courts of its choosing, over causes of action of its choosing. The company’s permit application has been rejected – for specious environmental and overtly political reasons. The Administration’s decision is clearly “ripe” for litigation.

The company may be reluctant to sue. Litigation over such matters is not as common in Canada as in the lawsuit-happy USA; the judicial territory may be unfamiliar; and the outcome is not certain.

However, in the United States environmentalists often win in the courts of media and public opinion, especially in an election year, especially with hundred-million-dollar anti-oil campaigns, laden with emotional rhetoric.

On the other hand, companies frequently win in US courts of law, where they are able to compile complete judicial records with solid scientific facts supporting their projects – something that is virtually impossible to do in a sound-bite-driven (and often biased) news media. The factually bankrupt rhetoric of environmentalist campaigns is no match for sound science, when claims and arguments are scrutinized at the trial and appellate level. Faced with defeat, the green wolf packs often go off in search of easier prey.

The anti-pipeline, anti-oil sands groups will not disappear. They will most assuredly sue TransCanada and multiple government agencies if permits are ultimately issued. They will also do all they can to shut down any Pacific Gateway pipeline, any exports to Asia, and ultimately all oil sands operations.

This better way forward has strong probabilities for success. It is clearly in the national interest of both Canada and the United States that it be taken, and that it succeed.

____________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

By  Willie Soon and Paul Driessen

Newly proposed air pollution rules impose exorbitant costs for illusory health benefits.

In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released new Clean Air Act “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Once again, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson touted the supposedly huge benefits of controlling emissions of mercury (Hg) and other air toxics from U.S. coal- and oil-fired power plants (or electric generating units, EGUs).

The people of Idaho may welcome this new rule, since EPA’s miraculous modeling machine has promised to prevent “six premature deaths” and create “up to $54 million” in health benefits by 2016 – even though not one coal-fired EGU in Idaho fits the EPA’s final rules. Even the District of Columbia, which has only one oil-fired unit, will somehow, magically realize “up to $120 million” in health benefits, presumably from new restrictions on coal-fired units in Maryland or Virginia.

The average U.S. citizen, however, can be excused for no longer being willing to be penalized by EPA – the Extreme Punishment Authority – for such minimal, imaginary and manufactured benefits.

In fact, the final rule may be the most expensive one ever devised by EPA. And yet, even EPA admits, the alleged “hazards to public health” from mercury and non-mercury emissions from American EGUs are “anticipated to remain after imposition” of the new regulations.

As to benefits, EPA computer models claim Hg emission cuts will reduce average per person “avoided IQ loss” by an undetectable “0.00209 IQ points,” with estimated “total nationwide benefits” of $500,000 to $6.1 million by 2016. For the electric utility sector, says EPA, net job creation from the rules will be “not statistically different from zero” and could be between minus 15,000 and plus 30,000 jobs.

In fact, the new regulations will likely eliminate tens of thousands of jobs annually, especially in energy-intensive industries that rely on low-cost electricity to survive and face growing competition from foreign companies that pay far less for energy, labor and raw materials. Small businesses will also get hammered.

“EPA cannot certify that there will be no SISNOSE from this rule,” the agency admits. “SISNOSE” is EPA-speak for “significant impacts on a substantial number of small entities.” In other words, the rules are likely to inflict significant economic harm on small businesses, and thus on the health and welfare of numerous (former) small business owners, employees and families. The agency failed to explain why it has once again ignored the adverse impacts on human health and welfare caused by its rules.

EPA also confessed that U.S. power plants actually contribute a mere 3% of the total mercury deposited in computer-modeled American watersheds, and thus in fish tissue. Citizens will justifiably wonder where the other 97% comes from, and why we should spend so much money for so little benefit. (The “missing” mercury comes from foreign sources and from volcanoes, subsea vents and other natural sources.)

To see how extreme EPA’s scenarios are, consider five more egregious errors in the final regulations. First, EPA admitted it could “calculate risk” for only 3,100 (4%) of the continental USA’s 88,000 watersheds.

Second, for over 60% of the 3,100 watersheds it did model, EPA took only one or two fish mercury measurements – making it virtually impossible to adopt even valid 75th-percentile fish mercury values. There is a breaking point where extremely poor statistical sampling renders EPA’s pretentious number crunching, conclusions and rules invalid. That breaking point has clearly been reached.

Third, the agency’s estimates for mercury exposure risks are solely for “hypothetical female subsistence consumers” who daily eat almost a pound of fish that they themselves catch in U.S. streams, rivers, and lakes over a 70-year lifetime. That’s less than 1% of U.S. women. For the rest of American women (who eat mostly ocean fish, purchased at a grocery, on a far less regular basis), EPA’s rules are irrelevant.

Fourth, EPA admits that only 22 to 29% of its computer-modeled watersheds are “at risk” from EGU mercury, even when it erroneously assumed that at least 5% of total Hg deposition into the watersheds came from U.S. power plants. If the modeling criteria were tweaked only slightly – to reflect average freshwater fish consumption rates for American women, and require that at least 15% of total mercury deposition be attributable to EGUs – not one U.S. watershed would be at risk.

Finally, EPA ignores the presence of selenium in nearly all fish. Its strong attraction to mercury molecules protects fish and people against buildups of methylmercury (MeHg), mercury’s biologically active and more toxic form.

Combining any series of small probability scenarios results in a near-zero likelihood that the events will actually happen. If each of five scenarios has only a 20% chance of happening, the likelihood that all five will happen is 0.032 percent.

As the preceding analysis suggests, the probability that all the EPA’s improbable scenarios will actually happen is virtually zero; the likelihood that its new regulations will benefit human health is also zero.

However, EPA still stubbornly “disagrees that [mercury] exposure levels in the U.S. are lower than those in the Faroe Islands.” Exposure to MeHg in the U.S. is “the same” as in the Faroe Islands, EPA insists.

The agency is simply wrong.

Extensive medical and scientific studies demonstrate that average Americans are exposed to at least 5 to 10 times less MeHg than average Faroe Islanders. The islanders consume large quantities of pilot whale meat and blubber – which is high in methylmercury, high in PCBs and low in selenium. As a result, their blood mercury concentrations can be up to 350 times higher than the mean blood mercury levels measured by the Centers for Disease Control for average American women.

The Faroe Islands study is irrelevant to mercury exposure risk for average Americans. EPA’s use of that study is deceptive. American women and children are safe from any likely threats from mercury.

To top it off, EPA itself proclaims: “The emissions limits in today’s rule are technology-based … and do not need to be justified based on their ability to protect public health.”

In other words, if the technology exists to eliminate these pollutants, the agency will impose the new regulations – regardless of their cost, their effect on electricity prices and reliability, their impact on factory and other jobs, and whether the rules actually do little or nothing to improve human health.

It has become increasingly obvious that EPA’s real goal is to assert its authority over ever-increasing segments of our economy; reinterpret medical and scientific studies to fit its regulatory agenda; and replace as many coal-fired power plants as possible with costly, unreliable renewable energy systems.

American voters, elected officials and courts need to challenge these radical, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, demand an end to EPA’s distortion of science and reality – and reverse these flawed rules.

Willie Soon is a natural scientist with strong interest in mercury and public health issues. Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality.

 

WesternFront America

Obama insists he doesn’t want our energy needs linked to unstable parts of the world.  Service to do anything about the Occupy beatniks laying siege to a number of parks in Washington, DC?

Why should it be portrayed as a greater tragedy when a “single mother” loses her job rather than a man with a wife that stays at home?  Seems both domestic arrangements are in similar positions without income.

In calling for a single source for the unemployed to seek information on training opportunities, doesn’t that involve the federal government assuming more control over education?

Obama insists it should be illegal for students to drop out of school before they are 18.  Why should this be a matter of federal interference and what will the punishment be for those leaving prior to that age?

If no country is better than any other according to multiculturalist dogma, then why should foreign students be allowed to remain here after graduation?

If women are to earn equal pay for equal work, then make them lug the same weight around the stockroom or warehouse without having to seek masculine assistance to do so.

If lightweight vests are being developed by federal researchers that can stop any bullet, will such protective garments be made available to civilians as well or do we have an obligation to be shot by law enforcement?

Interesting how it was mentioned derisively about a company that at one time only produced yachts.

If it should be impermissible for insurance companies to charge more for women’s health coverage, then why should men have to pay more for motor vehicle policies?

Obama claimed politics is not about clinging to rigid ideologies.  So why is it conservatives that must always surrender their basic ideals and ideas?

Obama claimed that government ought to only do what people are unable to do for themselves.  Thing of it is, given his Frau’s desire to manipulate and meddle in your dietary intake, the First Couple doesn’t think you are really capable of doing anything for yourself.

Obama wants to grant tax credits to businesses hiring veterans.  Why should the military status of a business’s employees be any business of the federal government?

The best way to insure opportunities for veterans, as well as all other Americans, is for the federal government to know the least amount possible regarding the nation’s workforce.

If it doesn’t matter in the military what color or gender you are, as Obama insists, why are certain standards lowered for females seeking advancement and White males held back because of the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.  If color has no bearing in the military, why are we often reminded that Colin Powell was the first Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as if that is suppose to immunize him against all criticism and scrutiny?

Would Bob Gates have been kept on as Secretary of Defense had he been a solid conservative Republican rather than an ardent establishmentarian compromiser?

Obama admonished the American people to look at what the nation could accomplish if the people were organized along military lines.  However, the purpose of the military is to defend democracy, not practice it.  In a civilian state, the average person is allowed to question the decrees and decisions of leaders elected, appointed, and bureaucratic.  Such bottom up scrutiny is not allowed in the military and is punished severely.

This analyst tabulated approximately 80 rounds of applause in the 2012 State of the Union Address.

by Frederick Meekins

 

WesternFront America

The outrage continues over the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) passed by the U.S. Senate. Those political animals have confirmed rotten, activist judges for decades destroying our lives and that includes the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dr. Richard Cordero put together an extensive collection of evidence to politically correct, Justice Sonia Sotomayor is guilty of fraud and a participant in a cover-up in concealing assets as part of a judicially run and tolerated bankruptcy fraud scheme.

GOP Senators Ignore Sotomayor’s Criminal Activities

Sotomayor lied through omission on her original sworn statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee and even though she made a correction, she continued to lie about a condo she owns in Florida. Web of deception.org uncovered the documents.

Sotomayor’s confirmation vote rescheduled

Despite all the hard proof, the Senate Judiciary still confirmed an individual who should have been indicted by a federal grand jury; the statute of limitations has probably now run out. The U.S. Senate was too cowardly to deny Sotomayor a seat on the court because of her ethnicity and back lash by special interest voting blocs.

On May 18, 2006, those poltroons once again voted like lunatics: “The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment — even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.” Yes, illegal employment are the key words, but you can bet any senator who voted for it will get votes from millions of illegal aliens who are voting – illegally.

One can fill a book with anti-American, unconstitutional bills and treaties passed by the U.S. Senate in my lifetime. Like the U.S. House of Representatives, they continue to vote massive borrowed dollars for unconstitutional cabinets like the EPA, the Federal Department of Education, foreign aid and more – without a scintilla of legal authority to do so.

This issue is both constitutional and legal. First let me address the issue of what the Seventeenth Amendment is for those who might not know: It was a proposed constitutional amendment which would allow election of U.S. Senators by the people. Of course, this is 1,000 percent the opposite of those wise men who birthed this constitutional republic.

When the First Continental Congress was convened via a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation, one of the first issues discussed on May 29, 1787, was the balance of power for a newly created federal government:

3. Resolved, that the National Legislature ought to consist of two branches.

4. Resolved, that the member of the first branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by the people of the several States every _____ for the term of _____; to be of the age of ____years at least and so forth.

5. Resolved, that the members of the second branch of the National Legislature ought to be elected by those of the first, out of a proper number of persons nominated by the individual Legislatures, to be of the age of ____ years at least and so forth.

James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers #45: “The Senate will be elected absolutely and exclusively by the State legislatures.”

John Jay, co-author of The Federal Papers is quoted: “Jay then informed Governor Clinton that, unlike the Senate, where the two-thirds rule was in force for treaties and impeachment, the lower house had nothing to do with treaties; it represented the people whereas the Senate represented the states–for the Federalists always a significant distinction.”

The framers of the Constitution wisely understood the absolute necessity of ensuring we the people would have the right to vote for our representative in Congress, and at the same time because they all jealously guarded freedom and liberty, the states must also have equal representation. We the people would have the ability to remove via the ballot box, miscreants and scoundrels, while the state legislatures could recall their U.S. Senators who acted against the best interests of their state.

The Senate was supposed to be a sort of checks and balances, but that noble concept disappeared when U.S. Senators were then voted into office by special interests and mobs demanding more and more from the people’s treasury. The absolute right of the states to equal representation was wiped out when the Seventeenth Amendment was declared ratified on April 8, 1913.

The level of ignorance on this issue shocks even me. I once read a comment below a news item regarding former senate candidate, Joe Miller, [R-AK] after he came out supporting a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment. The useful fool who submitted the comment said old Joe wouldn’t have to run for office and worry about getting beat. Miller’s opponent and alleged eventual winner, Lisa Murkowski, RINO, opened the pie hole in her face: “…was the first to criticize Miller’s comments, issuing a news release entitled “Joe Miller reaching new extremes every day.”

“We have seen Joe Miller take some extraordinary positions in this campaign, but I never imagined he would support disenfranchising himself and every other Alaskan,” Murkowski said in a statement. “Joe is no longer content with simply taking away federal support for Alaskan families, now he wants to take away their right to select our United States senators.”

Yeah, those who gave their lives and blood to create this republic reached “new extremes” when they voted to create two separate bodies for the U.S. Congress, one for the people and one for the states.

Think Murkowski wants to give up her power as a U.S. Senator? When pig’s fly. That foolish hen votes for legislation that affects my life and I can’t vote her out of office. Another dangerous female, Olympia Snowe, RINO from Maine, voted for the unconstitutional Obamacare declaring her constituents wanted it! Well, I’m not her constituent and I sure as hell don’t want it. The vile, Charles Schumer, [D-NY] would like to see the Second Amendment wiped off the books and every time he votes for a bill, I have no way to send his “progressive” backside packing.

The U.S. Senate over the years has ratified treaties killing nearly eight million good paying jobs sending them overseas. This has had a direct impact upon the states as far as growth, unemployment and so many problems, it would take fifty columns to cover. All because of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that was not ratified by the necessary number of states at the time – 36.

I know, there are a lot of groups out there pounding the pavement begging the outlaws in the U.S. Congress to repeal that amendment. No. How many more lies are we going to support? It sickens me to think about the lies from Pearl Harbor to the Bay of Tonkin, KAL 007, the OKC bombing, 9/11, you name it. How many more lies do we cover up instead of standing up for the truth and dealing with it?

The truth is the outlaws in the U.S Congress are not going to repeal that amendment even if it were legally ratified. House members want a senate seat and senators want the White House.

I have been on this fraud for more than 15 long years. Over the course of 2011, I sent a handful of state representatives and a couple senators proof that amendment was not ratified. Really, a massive amount of documentation. I ask if they would file a lawsuit in their official capacity as state legislators to stop any senate candidate or incumbent from being on the ballot in their state; standing would not be an issue. No one has the right to run for the U.S. Senate under a law that does not exist, period.

While not the course I suggested, I thought my prayers were answered when I found out a bill was written and was to be introduced this month in the New Hampshire General Court (Legislature): H.B. 1126 – “This bill requires members of the general court to nominate candidates for United States. senator.”

However, last week I felt like I had been sucker punched when I found out from Rep. Davenport that due to a procedural error, the bill will not be introduced this session. I do thank Rep. Davenport and his colleagues for their work which will continue on this issue.

While it is devastating, it’s not the end. That bill, should it have been introduced, would have prompted the question: “Wait – we can’t do that. The Seventeenth Amendment allows direct election of U.S. senators.” That would be true, however, no one can find the vote by California making ratification one state short even if you pooh-pooh away all the errors by states during the ratification process. Bill Benson originally researched the Sixteenth Amendment non ratification nearly 30 years ago; he also did the Seventeenth at the same time. What I have done is back up his research and more. Now many state legislators have it and so do you.

Over the past decade and a half, I’ve heard the stonewalling and excuses about changes to the amendment made by states: punctuation and actual word changes not mattering. Wrong. More than a decade ago, Constitutional attorney, Larry Becraft, who has more than 35 years experience fighting in federal courts and giving the IRS some of it’s worst bloody noses, filed a lawsuit in the State of Oklahoma over the non ratification of the 16th Amendment; known as the federal income tax amendment. He writes:

The legal necessity for concurrence in legislative acts.

“Philander Knox was Secretary of State back in 1913 and was by law the public official to whom the States which allegedly ratified this amendment were to send their notices of ratification. When enough of these documents were received by Knox, he commenced a review of them and drafted a report dated February 15, 1913. Therein, Knox noted that “under the provisions of the Constitution a legislature is not authorized to alter in any way the amendment proposed by Congress, the function of the legislature consisting merely in the right to approve or disapprove the proposed amendment.” But having said this, Knox went on in the same report and noted all the various changes that the states had made to the amendment.

“This proposition that state legislatures cannot alter or change a proposed constitutional amendment is derived from an establish legal principle which requires that legislative bodies, when considering any given legislative act, must agree to the exact same wording and punctuation of that proposed law. This legislative principle was discussed in a booklet titled How Our Laws Are Made, Document Number 97-120, 97th Congress, First Session, written by Edward F. Willett, Jr., Law Revision Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives:

“Each amendment must be inserted in precisely the proper place in the bill, with the spelling and punctuation exactly the same as it was adopted by the House. Obviously, it is extremely important that the Senate receive a copy of the bill in the precise form in which it passed the House. The preparation of such a copy is the function of the enrolling clerk.

“When the bill has been agreed to in identical form by both bodies– either without amendment by the Senate, or by House concurrence in the Senate amendments, or by agreement in both houses to the conference report– a copy of the bill is enrolled for presentation to the President.

“The preparation of the enrolled bill is a painstaking and important task since it must reflect precisely the effect of all amendments, either by way of deletion, substitution, or addition, agreed to by both bodies. The enrolling clerk…. must prepare meticulously the final form of the bill, as it was agreed to by both Houses, for presentation to the President…. each (amendment) must be set out in the enrollment exactly as agreed to, and all punctuation must be in accord with the action taken.”

Of course, our lawsuit was kicked to the curb by the court and we didn’t have enough money (The Wallace Institute) to take it to a higher court. I doubt it would have succeeded because most judges are simply gutless without an ounce of integrity.

I want you to go look at this case: Sullivan vs. U.S., et al. A 2003 case which clearly demonstrates federal judges are too cowardly to stand up for the U.S. Constitution and should be thrown off the bench by Congress. While that case dealt with war and the Monroe Doctrine, read the actual words of Judge James C. Cox, beginning on page 23: “..you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment (16th)”. And, “I think I’m correct in saying that actually the ratification never occurred.”

According to that judge, it’s okay fraud sends Americans to prison. That federal judge spontaneously brought up the Sixteenth Amendment (federal income tax) and clearly stated what Bill Benson proved in his research and went to prison for: it was not properly ratified. How many hundreds, if not thousands are rotting in federal prisons because of a law that does not exist? One too many while the American people dutifully lay bare their personal lives to the IRS in the hope they avoid an audit.

As for the Seventeenth, this needs to be considered: Can a constitutional amendment be constitutional if it amends the Constitution by a back door method?

Full text of “Constitution Jefferson’s Manual And Rules Of the House Of Representatives Of The United States Eighty Seventh Congress”

“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose, Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”

For those states who voted not to ratify or those who were out of session at the time and didn’t vote – the Seventeenth Amendment clearly does as they did not give their consent to be deprived equal suffrage in the Senate. I don’t think people can appreciate the battle that went on during the first Contential Congress until they read Max Ferrand’s historical work, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. It’s free on the Internet, but I have the three volume soft copy set (1800 pages). It is a remarkable walk through history.

The Seventeenth Amendment clearly violates Article V for the following states who did not ratify the Seventeenth Amendment: Utah (explicitly rejected amendment); Alabama; Florida; Georgia (refused to vote on it); Kentucky; Maryland; Mississippi; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Virginia.

I went to the National Archives in Washington, DC and retrieved the proof that amendment was not ratified. Dozens of states made changes to the text in one form or another. All documents can be viewed and printed here.

Long ago I focused on this letter given to me in the mid-1990s by an individual with impeccable credentials. As you can see, it is a letter from the the archivist at the Secretary of State’s office stating: “There was no debate or voting record listed in the California State Senate or Assembly Journals”. On what? The ratification of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments.

It is alleged California voted to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment on January 28, 1913. Next, please look at this journal page I personally retrieved from the California State Archives. 1913. See item 7 regarding the constitutional amendment to elect U.S. Senators: May 20, 1913: From Committee. Without Recommendation. How could it go from committee without recommendation on May 20th if it was allegedly voted on five months earlier? It wasn’t.

Over the years, the folks at the California State Archives have been so kind and helpful in my research. This past summer I drove 100 miles to Angelo State U, the closest repository of old records and went through their microfilm. That promoted me to again contact California to request court certified copies of the journal records for 1913. Guess what? They’re all on the Internet now and what do those official records from California show for January 28, 1913?

There was no vote that day or any other for the Seventeenth Amendment. I had my web master down load everything and also put it on a CD, which I sent to the state reps and senators listed below. I did it to protect the truth, i.e., a journal page which looks authentic suddenly appears with the proper vote. I knew there was no vote back in 2000 because I went to the California State Archives (15 minutes from my home then) and asked for a search. I went back the next day and was informed by the head archivist no such vote was found.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (as well as the Sixteenth) was clearly not ratified by enough states. There is also another problem. I tried to obtain an investigation from the State of Georgia, but they don’t do mail requests anymore because of budget cuts. I was going to ask Rep. Bobby Franklin to help me, but God, rest his soul, that fine man died unexpectedly on July 26, 2011, from heart disease; I was so shocked. What did I want Bobby to help me with? The State of George did not vote on that amendment. Their governor at the time commissioned an investigation: Congress did not properly adopt the amendment before it was even sent to the states. I printed out everything I could find at Angelo U of the bickering between congress critters at the time and the amendments, but I wish I had a copy of that investigation. State reps and senators can probably get a copy because they are elected officials.

The bottom line is this: We are being destroyed from within. The top issues in this country crushing us are Agenda 21, the unconstitutional “Federal” Reserve and the federal income tax. Our major job sectors gutted because of vile treaties like NAFTA pushed through by then Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Obamacare and endless new regulations coming out of alphabet soup agencies that are unconstitutional, killing the states and employers. The states have no representation in Congress; they are little more than doormats. The states must stand up and fight back as those representatives were going to in New Hampshire with H.R. 1126 or allow the federal machine to crush them and all of us.

That isn’t going to happen until one state takes the first step in challenging the non ratification of that amendment. It may be okay with the federal judge in the Sullivan case that people are rotting in prison for an amendment that wasn’t ratified, but it’s not okay with me and I hope not okay with you. And, please, I’m sick to death of the mealy mouthed excuses that it can’t be done or chaos would ensue or the legislatures would appoint the same flavor of corrupt individuals that keep getting elected by the mobs. I would say Apollo 13 qualified as a situation where chaos might have taken over, but it didn’t. Strong minds, professionalism and faith brought those astronauts home.

We are a different nation now than in 1913. We have the power, literally, of the people at the state level to make damn sure those appointed senators represent the rights and interests of the state which benefit all of us or we vote out the state representatives and senators who appointed them. If we truly are to be a nation of self governance, then we have to take control. Those individuals in the state houses work for us, not the other way around.

This will only happen when a few state legislatures go for the cure. Do what Rep. Joshua Davenport did – get a bill introduced THIS session. This is an emergency, so maybe there is some way it can be done in your state. Those counterfeit U.S. Senators are killing jobs, making more and more regulations hurting the rights of your citizens, not to mention our God-given rights. Yes, it IS an emergency as we slide further into the continuing nightmare.

Okay, forget New York, California and states like mine (Texas) who are out of session until Jan. 2013. It would be close to impossible to get a special session called for something so important as fraud and the right of the state to expose it. Every state has its own rules about introducing bills, but if you want something bad enough, it can get done.

Over the years I have been asked to endorse senate candidates; I have refused. I have not voted for a senate candidate since 1996. I will NOT be party to the continuing fraud. No individual has the right to run for the U.S. Senate. I know “senators” like Rand Paul are very popular and if this fraud were exposed, their state legislature can still appoint him to carry on. This is a mess (with both amendments), but by golly, it can be dealt with one step at a time. Or, do we continue to live with lies, fraud and destruction?

No more resolutions asking Congress to pretty please, repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. That will never happen and it’s not even the legal way to address this. While I would like to have seen a few state legislators challenge ballot access, too many state judges are cowards just like federal judges.

Here are the individuals I sent the material to besides the representatives in New Hampshire: Rep. Phil Hart [Idaho], Rep. Pete Nielsen {Idaho], Rep. Bryan Hughes [Texas}, Senator David Williams {Kentucky], Senator Howard Stephenson [Utah], Rep. Leo Berman [Texas], Rep. Matthew Shea {Washington State] Rep. Lois Kolkhorst [Texas] and Rep. Jim Landtroop [Texas]. While I did not send him the materials, if you live in Arizona (think the slimy, corrupt John McCain), I would contact Sen. Ron Gould. He knows all about this fraud. All are fine individuals. If we don’t try, we will surely continue down the abyss.

This is NOT a political party issue. It’s about fraud and the real intent of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. It’s about the right of the states in this Union to have representation in the U.S. Congress.

Now, how bad to we want to get rid of rotten, corrupt senators and how bad do the states want to reclaim their rightful place in Congress?

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Enough to make your voice heard at your state house – now? Many state legislatures are only in session a few months and then close up shop. We can’t continue to put out a thousand brush fires coming out of the Senate. Once a bill is introduced in a state, then it’s up to the people of that state to literally storm the state house demanding passage; non violently of course. Remind them November is coming.

Here is a special page I set up to help educate legislators as well as my fellow Americans about the destruction of the Seventeenth Amendment and past efforts. We are on the cliff, folks. I do hope the good people who are promoting repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment turn their efforts towards getting a bill passed just like the one in New Hampshire, H.R. 1126, that sadly, won’t get introduced this year.

No more lies. No more covering up because it is the easy way out.

Important links:

1- Inside Oklahoma’s 16th Amendment lawsuit

Geoff Metcalf interviews attorney Larry Becraft on ratification challenge
2- The Oklahoma Protest – 16th Amendment

There has been no court challenge to the Seventeenth Amendment because it takes tons of money and there isn’t a single federal judge in this country with the intregrity or courage to take it on

Devvy Kidd authored the booklets, Why A Bankrupt America and Blind Loyalty; 2 million copies sold. Devvy appears on radio shows all over the country. She left the Republican Party in 1996 and has been an independent voter ever since. Devvy isn’t left, right or in the middle; she is a constitutionalist who believes in the supreme law of the land, not some political party.

Devvy’s regularly posted new columns are on her site at: www.devvy.com. You can also sign up for her free email alerts.

E-mail is: devvyk@earthlink.net

Related articles

• The Tea Party: Repealing the 17th Amendment to Rescue the Tenth (legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com)

 

WesternFront America

If the US Constitution was still in effect, was still an operational document, was still the law of the land, then the Transportation Security Administration would be in very deep trouble today. However, as we have all come to know all too well, the constitution is all but totally ignored today, especially under the administration of the Obama Regime.

When Obama was sworn in, the constitution was considered, found to be inconvenient for his socialist agenda, and ignored.

The latest blatant violation of the US Constitution was the much-publicized “detainment” of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky — while he was enroute to Washington, DC to exercise his duties in the US Senate. That “detainment” was totally unconstitutional … period.

You see, Senators and Representatives cannot be arrested for a crime, except for treason, felony, or breach of peace, while meeting in Congress or while traveling to or from a meeting of Congress.

If Senator Paul was detained, then he was arrested. Consider this: “(v) Arrest is the action by which a person is stopped from his normal activities by virtue of a legal authority or sanction, either by detaining him or by stopping his external accesses.” (SOURCE)

Don’t believe me?

Read it for yourself:

Article 1, Section 6 … US Constitution:

1:  The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.⁶ They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Now, THAT’S the wording from the text of the US Constitution … the law of the land.

I do not particularly agree with that portion of the US law, but it DOESN’T MATTER. It is THE LAW! Until such time as there is an amendment to the constitution affecting Article one, Section six to change or remove those few words, it remains the law of the United States.

There has been much bloviating in the press and in the blogosphere since the incident happened. So I don’t expect my opinion to make much difference, at all.

However, on the outside chance that you might care, allow me, please, to point out, once again, that our government, as it is currently constituted, is NOT following the law of the land. We have, in my opinion, a rogue government in place in Washington, DC.

The Transportation Security Administration is just another government agency out of control. It is a power hungry bully; full of itself, and — in the real world — it does more to restrict freedom of movement in this country than it does to ensure it.

On the TSA’s website they say: “We are 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation’s transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely.” (SOURCE) I dare say the “volk” of the Gestapo, in 1930’s Germany, thought of themselves in much the same manner.

I have been offering commentaries for decades and there has been a common thread running through the millions of words of opinion I have shared. It is this: We Americans are voluntarily giving up our freedom.

Have you noticed how we whine and complain when the Congress is tied up in knots and unable to legislate? We seem to have forgotten that to legislate is to pass laws.

Every time a law is passed some of us lose a little bit more of our freedom. Eventually, ALL of us lose small portions of our freedom, until one day, we finally stop and take stock of our current liberties — and we find we are in deficit. Our freedom is gone and we are in hock to the government.

It seems to me that pretty much sums up our current situation.

Freedom, once lost, is almost impossible to reclaim. Much like an ocean liner,  it takes a very long time to stop a government with the momentum of the US government.

Back in 2010 we sent a new batch of conservatives Senators and Congresspersons to Congress with a clear mission to bring the Congress to a halt and keep it static until the Obama Regime could be ended in November — and we could gain control of enough of the national legislature to begin the process of returning sanity to our government.

Both the left and right wings of the American political spectrum have reviled them. Even so, they have done a fair job at slowing the Congress down.

Somehow, Americans have lost their love of the freedom and liberty for which our forefathers gave their lives and fortunes.

Now, if you think I am being overly dramatic here, I ask you to look again at what a government agency did to a US Senator and ask yourself, if they can do that to one of the most powerful men in the country, WHAT can they do to me?

J. D. Longstreet

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VOTE CONSERVATIVE IN NOVEMBER 2012
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Conservative? Then visit “INSIGHT on Freedom” at http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/ Find conservative comment on nearly everything at “INSIGHT on Freedom!”

 

WesternFront America

In 1991, the Soviet Union, arguably the greatest experiment in Communism, collapsed. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors moved to shift its Communist economy to one that embraced Capitalism while retaining centralized government control.

Following World War Two, the recovering nations of Europe were rescued from Communism by the Marshall Plan, but adopted Communism-Light in the form of Socialism. The U.S. was already headed in that direction, creating programs that we now call “entitlements.” For most of the nation’s history, such “entitlements” did not exist.

What binds together the financial problems of the West is the common thread of infantile behavior and thought. One might call it wishful thinking. Instead of encouraging people to provide for old age and possible illness, politicians decided to turn government into Big Daddy, the eternal source of money for everything.

Need to go to college, start a business, or plan for retirement? Government would be there to help. All this ignored the need to actually pay for these programs. In the case of Social Security Congress began to dip into its funding to pay for other programs! This is what children do.

One can look around the world and see what a failure both Communism and Socialism have been. Governments spending more than their tax and other revenues have suffered grievously from this path to default and that includes the United States of America. It can be argued that, with few exceptions–the Reagan years come to mind—Presidents have been poorly served by their economic advisors.

Politicians make poor economists because, in America, members of the House must think of getting reelected every two years and Senators every six. Moreover, being politicians, they believe that the more federal largess they can bring back to their State and then brag about is the one true path to reelection.

At the very beginning of the nation, Thomas Jefferson said it best. “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

How many commissions and special committees have earnestly produced reports intended to deal with a government grown too large? At the federal level, some two million or more Americans are employed promulgating a deluge of regulations and pushing paper.

Now President Obama says he wants to streamline the federal government.
The real issue is not “streamlining” government agencies by gathering them together under one roof and one administrator, but the failure to end government departments and agencies that no longer serve a useful purpose and whose removal would also remove countless obstacles to economic growth.

In April 2011, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute warned that “the federal government is on track to spend more than $3.5 trillion this year. What most people don’t know is that government actually costs about 50% more than what it spends. That’s because complying with federal regulations costs an additional $1.75 trillion—nearly an eighth of GDP. And almost none of that cost appears on the budget.”
The United States of America, the greatest engine of wealth the world has ever seen, is bankrupt. The national debt exceeds the Gross Domestic Product, the sum total of all revenue generated by goods and services.

The President has asked that the debt ceiling be raised another trillion or so and Congress will comply. That, I submit, is insane.

I also submit that, since Barack Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, the nation has been witness to the economic insanity personified in the man and in the Democrat-controlled Congress that was his partner until 2010 when the control of the House of Representatives was wrested away by the Tea Party movement and its support for Republican candidates.

The only constant in life is change. America’s demography has changed. We have, thanks to medical care and other advantages, a much older segment of the population than ever before, but the nation from the 1930s to the 1960s had committed itself to ensure they would have Medicare and Medicaid at a time when people more often than not died in their 50’s and 60’s. We now have an average life expectancy of 78 years. My parents lived into their 90s.

Politics, not economics, continues to make it impossible to revise and restructure both Medicare and Social Security to reflect this reality. Instead, we had Obamacare foisted upon us which took trillions from Medicare and imposes rules that will let elderly heart attack or stroke victims die rather than pay for a level of care to which they contributed during their working years.

If the Supreme Court declares Obamacare unconstitutional it will go away. If we elect a Republican Senate, the repeal already passed in the House will be passed and it will go away.

But America’s economic problems will not go away until Americans insist that the shackles of Big Government be cut loose to enable the growth of an energy industry that can not only make the nation energy independent, but produce billions in revenue as far as the eye can see into the future.

The tax system with its thousands of pages must be revised to a simpler, fairer program. It makes no sense that forty percent of Americans pay no taxes at all.
It’s not that we don’t know what must be done. Conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and others have spelled out programs that can and will save America, but the nation must be led by a president who understands that Capitalism involves budgeting, planning, hard work, and—yes—risk.

The federal government is running on “continuing resolutions.” It has not had a formal budget since Obama arrived. This is no way to run the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. America is on a suicide watch and we are just an election away from saving it.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace, plan for war. The adage is attributed to the 4th or 5th century Latin author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract De Re Militari book 3. This fundamental wisdom is being ignored by President Obama, one of two recent Commanders-in-Chief who never spent a day in uniform, let alone under fire.

In a recent American Thinker commentary by Jim Yardley, he said, “It is apparent that the president, in developing his strategy, used the same extensive knowledge, his superior intellect, and worldly wealth of experience that he brought to his strategy for his $800-billion stimulus, his strategy for providing cost-free health care to millions of Americans, and his strategy for using ‘smart diplomacy’ to defuse not spots around the world.”

Perhaps receiving the Nobel Peace Prize barely months into his first year as President has convinced Obama that he is the man to get all our enemies to join hands and sing Kumbaya. Obama accepted the prize that has gone to other seekers of peace like Yassir Arafat, founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization or co-winners, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore. The IPCC and Gore have led the greatest hoax of the modern era, global warming, and Arafat rejected every effort at peace offered by Israel by going back on his word and using terrorism to achieve his goals.

There is no question that the announced cuts to the U.S. military budget are, in part, the result of the domestic run up of debt and borrowing the followed the financial crisis of 2008; itself the result of bad government policies regarding the wholesale granting of mortgages to people who could not afford homes, then bundling those bad mortgages and selling them as assets to the banks.

While the economy is showing some small signs of regaining its footing, the government is still borrowing forty cents of every dollar it spends and has shown no real intent to reduce spending.

While this is occurring we have a President who has made clear his antipathy of the role of the military. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “The Pentagon shouldn’t be immune to fiscal scrutiny, yet this Administration has targeted defense from its earliest days and has kept on squeezing. The White House last year settled with Congress on $450 billion in military budget cuts through 2012, on top of the $350 billion in weapons programs killed earlier,” adding “Taken altogether, the budget could shrink by over 30% in the next decade.”

Following a 1993 attempt to destroy the World Trade Center Osama bin Laden, a still largely obscure Islamic fanatic, declared war on the United States in 1996. In 2001, al Qaeda succeeded, killing nearly 3,000. To underestimate the intent of his successors to destroy the nation would be a grave error. To think that his assassination along with the killing of a relative handfull of other al Qaeda leaders has ended the threat is wishful thinking.

To think that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will not at some point result in the possible breakup of that nation or the withdrawal from Afghanistan will rid us of the threat of Islamic fanaticsim is still more wishful thinking.

Right now and ever since 1979, the threat of Iran is the largest facing the Middle East and the West. Its leaders have never made a secret of its intent to acquire nuclear weapons, to threaten all other Middle Eastern nations, as well as Europe and America is on a par with the threat the rise of Nazism posed in Germany in the 1930s.

After World War Two, America emerged as a superpower and it took on the role of global policeman. No military prescience predicted the attack on South Korea by North Korea, nor was our strategy in Vietnam successful. We had earlier failed to anticipate the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor despite efforts to keep out of the war that had begun in 1939.

The lesson that should have been learned is that overwhelming military strength contributes greatly to avoiding wars.

President Obama is ignoring that. It is not, however, to say that he is taking Iran lightly. In early January, thousands of U.S. troops were deployed to Israel and senior U.S. military sources say they anticipate they will remain through the year. Obstensively, they are there to participate in joint U.S.-Israeli war games. They will be joined by a U.S. aircraft carrier and, as we know, we have a task force in place in the event the Iranians try to close the Strait of Hormuz through which passes one sixth of the world’s oil supplies.
The U.S. could be energy independent in a decade if the Administration and Congress would remove the obstacles to accessing our enormous reserves of coal, oil and natural gas, but that remains unlikely as this is written.

The decision to reduce the size of our military to 490,000 troops from 570,000 could not come at a worse time. Air and naval assets, we’re told, will be maintained. Holding evacuated or captured territory requires “boots on the ground.” The decision of former President Bush to “surge” in Iraq by increasing troop strength turned a potential defeat into a success. A war-weary America and the current Iraqi regime wanted us out and we are out.

Meanwhile Egypt that underwent “the Arab Spring” has fallen into the hands of a militant, anti-American and anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood. Turkey has joined the Islamic frenzy, the future of Syria remains unknown, so anyone who thinks that military action anywhere, but especially in Iran, is not a real potential is not paying attention.

President Obama’s claim that “the tide of war is receding” is likely to rank with British PM Neville Chamberlains claim of “peace in our time” after a visit with Hitler.

It is wishful thinking or worse. It is the deliberate effort to ignore the dangers in the world. Shifting military personnel and assets to Asia acknowledges China’s rising power, but U.S. military leaders have warned against a war in Asia for decades. It is doubtful the Chinese want one.

What is not in doubt is that this is the wrong time to reduce our military strength and capabilities. We did that after World War One and paid a price for it. President Obama’s policies put us in the same peril.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

I don’t know precisely how many Republicans it takes to change a light bulb, but I can tell you that 289 are evidently not enough. That’s how many Republicans are in the House and Senate, yet they can’t accomplish a relatively simple task and repeal the ban on incandescent bulbs that went into effect January 1st.

And this repeal isn’t like overturning Obamacare, which will be Stalingrad for the socialists in D.C. Democrats don’t really have anything invested in the Twisty Light Bulb Act, other than their habitual environmental hysteria. The ban was passed in the waning days of “the Failed Bush Administration.” Repealing this law is not a repudiation of Obama, it’s a poke in the eye to George W and Democrats loathe him anyway. Yet House leadership is unable to persuade Democrats in the Senate to pass this small repeal.

Thus the first bulb to go is the 100–watt model, which means the invaluable 100–200–250 three–way bulb, so useful for reading, is going the way of the dodo. To be replaced by the single power twisty bulb, which either gives off a ghastly zombie–like white or a dingy yellow light. You’ll feel like you’re reading with the help of a whale oil lamp and for only three times the cost of the incandescent bulb it replaced. And this scientific breakthrough in illumination is like cars used to be: you have to warm it up a few minutes before it’s ready to go.

In addition to being more expensive, compact fluorescent bulbs (CFB) contain mercury, so if you drop one on the kitchen floor you suddenly escalate from a standard household cursing situation into a hazmat incident. Federal guidelines assure us that — like the batteries in a Chevy Volt — the small amount of mercury in a CFB is perfectly safe while rolling around on the linoleum.

Here’s an environmental hazard Rule of Thumb: Any given substance or activity is only toxic in direct proportion to the number of Republicans and capitalists that support its use.

This is why water and chemicals used in the natural gas fracking process, which occurs mile or two beneath the earth’s surface, are a civilization–ending threat to the water table located up to two miles above where the fracking takes place.

While the mercury right there on the kitchen floor is only a minor, Environmental Defense Fund–approved annoyance.

And while we’re in a fracking frame of mind, the Chicken Little Earth Protection Council is now blaming the process for Ohio earthquakes.

This is strange. I don’t recall underground nuclear tests being blamed for causing earthquakes. Yet “environmentalists” would have us believe that what is essentially a geologic enema is more dangerous to our threatened tectonic plates than detonating an atomic bomb!

Meanwhile, back on the surface, the House did manage to remove funds for enforcement of the ban from the December spending bill. This is a meaningless gesture not fit for inclusion in a campaign commercial. It’s like telling the trucking industry that drivers no longer have to obey the speed limit because Congress is not allowing the highway patrol to buy gas.

Republican’s futile efforts to make a real difference in Washington loom large in light of Obama’s recent ‘recess’ appointments. This action is a direct challenge to Constitutional government and House and Senate leadership does not appear to care.

The Constitution specifically states “Neither House…shall without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days…” The House has not consented to a Senate adjournment; therefore Congress remains in session. The fact this frustrates Obama does not make his appointments constitutional.

Obama doesn’t like checks and balances, and he knows his picks for the Labor Relations Board are so anti–business they would not survive the Senate confirmation process. Without an aggressive response an administration filled with appointees like Energy Secretary Steven Chu  — who justifies the light bulb ban by saying, “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money” — will be able to run roughshod over Congress and the nation.

Sure Boehner and McConnell issued pro forma objections, but where is the line in the sand? Republican leadership should be making the case to the public and informing the President that no additional business will be conducted until these unconstitutional appointments are retracted.

If these appointments are allowed to stand the remainder of Obama’s first term will be government by edict, while Republicans in Congress hope they can be rescued from themselves by a GOP victory in November.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at

michael-shannon@comcast.net.

Michael R. Shannon
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WesternFront America

The Founding Fathers, authors of the Constitution, were obsessed with any form of government that could become too powerful, too willing to use force to oppress citizens. They had cause. They had fought a long war against the greatest power of their age, ruled by a king with nearly absolute power. They fashioned an instrument designed to ensure that the President could not rule by edict and defused power among three branches of government.

We have a President currently running for reelection against Congress, Wall Street, Republicans, and the right of citizens to be free of an overly intrusive government.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

All appointments of the President must be approved by the Senate while it is in session and the Senate, even over the Christmas and New Year’s vacation has remained in session, if only in a pro forma, technical manner. Every three days it has been convened to assert its powers.

Even so, President Obama has announced several “recess” appointments, all clearly a challenge to the Senate and all clearly a tyrannical power grab. He appointed Richard Cordray as the first director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new function that puts government between the lender and the citizen. In theory, all loans in the future will be subject to government approval. This is Communism, not Capitalism.

In addition, he appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board, intended to arbitrate disputes between unions and corporations. None of them have appeared before a Senate committee for vetting. It was this board that demanded Boeing shut down its new factory in South Carolina, one of many “right to work” states that empower workers with the right to determine whether they want to join a union or not.

Neither Obama, nor any president who preceded him can make appointments without the “advice and consent” of the Senate. (Article II, Section 2). As recently as the first week of the year, referring to the Senate, Obama asserted that “I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them.” He has no such obligation. Those are the words of an incipient tyrant.

These actions put me in mind of Niccolo Machiavelli, famed as the author of “The Prince”, a book of advice to Lorenzo de Medici who was the ruler of the former republic of Florence, one of many city states in Italy. Born in 1469 and died in 1527, Machiavelli living during the early years of the Renaissance, a period that saw the flowering of literature, science, art, religion and politics. Historians consider it a bridge between the Middle Ages and the modern era.

The renaissance was a period of social and political upheaval, one in which the various princes ruled so long as they could protect their principalities against wars by others seeking to expand their powers. “The Prince” is largely seen as advice on how a prince may have to resort to the methodical use of brute force and deceit to hold onto power, but it was more than that. It was a guide to ruling people with a minimum of oppression.

“It should be borne in mind,” Machiavelli wrote, “that there is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state’s constitution.” Obama is engaged in an attack on the U.S. Constitution.

Of princely power, Machiavelli wrote, “The people are everywhere anxious not be dominated or oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles are out to dominate and oppress the people. These opposed ambitions bring about one of three results; a principality, a free city, or anarchy.” The Constitution ensures a free nation with limited federal powers and is a guard against anarchy.

Evidence of Obama’s narcissism and drive for complete power is ample. He is on record as saying the Constitution is composed of “negative” limits on power. Others regard the Constitution as the ultimate protection against the unlawful use of power. This is particularly evident in the Bill of Rights which was appended to the Constitution because several of the first States would not ratify without it.

In his advice to Lorenzo de Medici, Machiavelli raised the question of “whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. Within the context of the time, he said, “it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.” In the run up to Christmas, Americans bought guns in record numbers which suggests there is considerable fear of Obama and the results of his policies over the past three years.

We have witnessed and been victimized by a Democrat-controlled Congress that forced Obamacare on an unwilling public. We have seen the rise of Islamic fanaticism as the result of his failed policies toward Iran and the Middle East. We have had record breaking debt imposed on us by his failed “stimulus” policies. We have seen continued efforts to reduce our military power and to thwart access to our ample energy resources of oil, natural gas, and coal.

It is a long list of usurpations of power that endanger the nation domestically and internationally. Whether it was done out of stupidity or a deliberate effort to harm the nation can be debated, but the most outstanding attribute of Obama has been his continual lying and Machiavelli notes that “the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived.”

In this effort, Obama has been greatly aided by the mainstream media with a few notable exceptions. The trust that once reposed in the nation’s print and broadcast media has been eroded and will be hard to regain. The trust given Obama is long gone by all but a few ignorant and lazy citizens content to have their lives ruled by an over-reaching executive branch of government.

The election process will rid us of Obama and likely many of those Democrat legislators who have supported his policies. The House is controlled by the Republicans and the Senate is likely to follow.

Meanwhile, we must guard against the present occupant of the White House. Americans waged a war against oppression in the past and will, if necessary, do so again.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

We have said many times that Obama envisages Congress as an inconvenient impediment to his agenda to create a strong socialist central government in the United States of America.  If there was ever a single iota of doubt in the minds of Americans that Obama is seeking to assume all US government power unto himself, then his recent actions in naming a head for the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the National Labor Relations Board and totally by-passing Congress to make those appointments – while the Senate was still in session – should remove all doubt.

What we have here, dear reader, is a full-out raw power grab by the Executive Branch of the US government.  This move by Obama is an abuse of power. It is arguably unconstitutional — and should be grounds for impeachment.

If the US Congress does not take immediate steps to stop the power hungry mob in the White House then the US will, very soon, find itself the newest tin-pot dictatorship with a petty tyrant in total control of the government.

(A reminder:  Only days ago the media was asking why Americans were buying so many guns. You have just seen the answer to that question.)

Look:  We have a would-be emperor on our hands right here in America, the world’s last hope for democracy.

Obama’s disrespect for the US Constitution is breathtaking.  Not only does he disrespect it – he defies it!

As we continue to see Obama’s tentacles spread through the government with his new agencies, Czars, and a myriad of additional rules and regulations handed down by his henchmen – is it too far a stretch to predict that by next fall the Obama Administration will declare a national emergency and suspend the election set for next November?  No, I am not kidding — and I fear it is NOT an exaggeration.

Americans are in serious trouble and I don’t mean with out national economy.  We are in critical danger of losing our freedom and liberty as a country.  I would not be surprised, any day, to see the news channels suddenly break in with a bulletin that Obama has dissolved the Congress and placed the country under martial law until a date uncertain, far in the future, when our economy has been, er, stabilized.

Farfetched?  Really?  I mean – REALLY?  We have a branch of our government out of control, people.

This in-your-face move by Obama demands action by Congress to stop his abuse of power in its tracks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said:  “Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” (SOURCE)

Senator McConnell is absolutely right.

John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said Obama’s action was: “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department”

“The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution,” (SOURCE)

The fact is – Obama has spat upon those constitutional checks and balances referenced by Speaker Boehner.  The longer Obama stays in office the more America resembles a banana republic, with a tin pot dictator holding the reins of power.  Move over Hugo Chavez!

Of course Obama’s defiance of Congress is an integral part of his political campaign for reelection.  But this time he has gone to cussed far. There can be no question now that Obama is a threat to the freedom of the American people.  His seeming thirst for power begs the question:  Is Obama the American Putin??

Here we have a man in the Presidency who is, I believe, constitutionally unqualified to be President by reason of the circumstances surrounding his birth.  His father was a citizen of Kenya and not an American citizen. The Constitution declares a candidate for US President must be a natural born citizen of the United States, which means — BOTH mother and father must be American citizens.

We Americans know less about Obama than any other President in US history.  Is his name Barack Hussein Obama or Barry Soetoro?  Was he born in America – or Kenya?  Whose Social Security number does he really have? A number of other people have, or have had, the same number. The record of his education is blurry at best.  He is reported to have been a college instructor on the US Constitution, yet he seems to totally ignore it when it gets in the way of his insatiable thirst for power over the American people.

Let’s face it. Obama is a truly scary figure in American politics today. I am convinced he has a dark agenda for America and that agenda is a threat to the freedom of the people of America.

J. D. Longstreet

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VOTE CONSERVATIVE IN NOVEMBER 2012
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