545 PEOPLE March 26, 2009
Posted by Daniel Downs in Congress, Constitution, deficit spending, economy, federal budget, monetary policy, politics, presidents, Supreme Court.add a comment
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-pickingthing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.
The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party.
She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red .
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
By Charlie Reese, a veteran journalist of 49 years and former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
Lessons for Israel in American Constitutional Law Freedom of Expression: Part I February 28, 2009
Posted by Daniel Downs in Constitution, family, Freedom of Speech, marriage, pornography, Supreme Court.1 comment so far
If there is one thing that characterizes America apart from pop and pizza, it’s pornography. Pornography in the United States is a multi-billion dollar business. It’s an engine that corrupts youth.
Pornography graphically reduces the human to the subhuman. It transforms love into lust. It undermines marriage and the family. It lowers not only the moral but also the intellectual level of a society. Pornography therefore undermines a nation’s security. A ruling of former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak indicates he does not know this.
But then he does not know that phonograph fosters self-indulgence, hence undermines public spiritedness or dedication to the common good and therefore erodes Israel’s ability to withstand her enemies Similarly, pornography corrodes the sense of shame, hence of honor. A nation without honor cannot long endure.
The flood of pornography or “porn” in the United States began in the late 1950s as a direct consequence of its Supreme Court’s libertarian interpretation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states, in part, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” (Unfortunately, Israel’s Supreme Court has adopted American jurisprudence on this issue, and with the same predictable consequences: pornography is thriving in the Holy Land. Let’s pause and open our eyes.
The First Amendment prohibits only the Congress, not the States, from abridging freedom of speech and press. In fact, the first eight amendments of the Constitution, which comprise the Bill of Rights, were meant to limit the powers of the national government, not those of the state governments.
This was the ruling of Chief Justice Marshall in the case of Barron v. Baltimore, decided in 1833. The ruling was affirmed even after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Thus, in Hurtado v. California decided in 1884, the Supreme Court rejected the contention that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to the States the restrictions the first eight amendments applied to the national government.
This ruling was reaffirmed as late as Twining v. New Jersey in 1908. Not until Gitlow v. New York in 1925 did the Court hold that, “For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press … are among the fundamental personal rights and ‘liberties’ protected by he due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.”
The original Constitution must be understood before the amendments to the Constitution can be properly interpreted. Thus, the constitutional principle of federalism, affirmed by the first ten amendments, stands on the distinction that the Constitution imposes different restrictions on the powers of the national and state governments. For example, whereas only the States are constitutionally prohibited from impairing the obligation of contracts, only Congress is constitutionally prohibited from abridging freedom of speech and press (leaving open the possibility of such action, under emergency conditions, by the Executive).
Besides, the First Amendment ought not be interpreted in abstraction from the Constitution as a whole. An amendment may alter, but it does not nullify, the Constitution. Accordingly, the words “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” may not be construed in such a way as to nullify Congress’s authority “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers [enumerated in Article I, Section 8].” Virtually any one of these powers may necessitate certain limitations on freedom of speech and press.
Consider, for example, the power of Congress “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Or consider the power of Congress to “provide for the common Defense.” Contrary to prevailing opinion, there can never be a simple opposition between the common defense and freedom of expression. For to defend the nation is to preserve its way of life, a most important aspect of which is freedom of expression.
Conversely, if certain kinds of expression endanger national defense, then they also endanger freedom of expression. Thus, by virtue of its power “To provide for … disciplining the Militia,” Congress may establish a code of military law making punishable any speech or publication causing insubordination in the armed services (and in peacetime no less than in times of national emergency).
This illustrates the organic principle of political life, one formulation of which may be stated as follows: Absolutizing the value of any part of a whole is destructive of the whole, hence of the part as well. If, therefore, the First Amendment is to function as a part of an organic whole whose parts reinforce and not obstruct each other, the injunction “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” must be construed in such a way as to protect this freedom without undermining other constitutional values on which that freedom ultimately depends.
Two general alternatives are possible. Either certain kinds of expression must not be included under the category of freedom of speech and press, or, certain kinds of restraints on freedom of speech and press must not be included under the category of an abridgment thereof. I shall discuss these two alternatives in the next article.
(to be continued)
By Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy
Philip Berg Filing Injunction to Stay Presidential Election October 30, 2008
Posted by Daniel Downs in Berg v Obama, law, news, politics, presidential election, Supreme Court.3 comments
Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States, announced today that he will be at the United States Supreme Court today, October 30, 2008 to file:
- Application to Justice Souter for an Immediate Injunction to Stay the Presidential Election of November 4, 2008; and
- Writ of Certiorari.
Berg stated, “I am hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will grant the Injunction pending a review of this case to avoid a Constitutional Crisis by insisting that Obama produce certified documentation that he is or is not a “natural born” citizen and if he cannot produce documentation that Obama be removed from the ballot for President.
Berg’s case, Berg vs. Obama was dismissed from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Docket # 08-cv-4083 for lack of standing. This is a question of who has standing to uphold our Constitution. If I don’t have standing, if you don’t have standing, if your neighbor doesn’t have standing to question the eligibility of an individual to be President of the United States – the Commander-in-Chief, the most powerful person in the world – then who does?
What happened to ‘…Government of the people, by the people, for the people,…’ Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address 1863.
We must legally prevent Obama, the unqualified candidate, from taking the Office of the Presidency of the United States,” Berg said.
Berg again stressed his position regarding the urgency of this case as, “we” the people, are heading to a “Constitutional Crisis” if this case is not resolved forthwith.
* * For copies of all Court Pleadings, go to obamacrimes.com
What’s Wrong with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? February 20, 2008
Posted by Daniel Downs in children, discrimination, freedom, government, law, news, parental rights, politics, power, Supreme Court, tyranny, United Nations, United States, welfare state.1 comment so far
It’s usually looked upon as a positive means of holding countries accountable to protect children. But the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is so much more than that.
When the UNCRC was brought up for ratification in 1995, the core group of Senators in opposition concluded that this treaty marked a significant departure from the originally constituted relationship between state and child. They found, in fact, that it was literally incompatible with the right of parents to raise their children, as well as a wholesale giveaway of U.S. sovereignty.
But why? (more…)
Keep Jerusalem United
The State of America 