Finishing up the first week of our new series, we find that a total of 218 new bills were introduced in Congress in only five days, the vast majority of which are quite clearly unconstitutional.
47 new bills we introduced on Friday. Below are some of the more asinine ones. (My commentary will appear in red).
HR221 – Recognizing and honoring Johnny Grant for his work as the Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, California for more than a quarter of a century. [Huh? It takes a vote of 535 elected officials to "honor" someone? How it this the business of government?]
HR220 – Urging Turkey to respect the rights and religious freedoms of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. [More unnecessary foreign meddling].
HR1381 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permanently extend existing elective tax treatment for Alaska Native Settlement Trusts. [It's clearly unconstitutional for a law to benefit a group less than all Americans].
HR1380 – To establish a grant program for automated external defibrillators in elementary and secondary schools. [Don't get me started on government schooling].
HR1379 – To prohibit the commercial harvesting of Atlantic striped bass in the coastal waters and the exclusive economic zone.
HR1378 – To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, to develop guidelines to be used on a voluntary basis to develop plans to manage the risk of food allergy and anaphylaxis in schools and early childhood education programs, to establish school-based food allergy management grants, and for other purposes.
HR1377 – To amend title 38, United States Code, to expand veteran eligibility for reimbursement by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for emergency treatment furnished in a non-Department facility, and for other purposes. [Isee a lot of bills come through with regards veteran benefits. Somehow I have a hard time making sense of the idiocy of spending so much money to go out and blow stuff up, and then having to pay for the endless benefits of soldiers for the rest of their lives. CLARIFICATION: Since one reader took exception to my statement, let me clarify. For those who have served our country, I believe the U.S. has a responsibility to care for their physical and mental well-being. However, the umbrella of "veteran's benefits" has become another huge sinkhole of taxpayer money and resources due to the hugely overreaching U.S. military policy. If we dismantle the U.S. military-industrial complex, we'll be able to ramp down on all these benefits because we'll be deploying a lot fewer troops, and therefore much less in the way of benefits will be required in the long run].
S-543 – A bill to require a pilot program on training, certification, and support for family caregivers of seriously disabled veterans and members of the Armed Forces to provide caregiver services to such veterans and members, and for other purposes.
HR1376 – To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish the Waco Mammoth National Monument in the State of Texas. [Huh?]
HR1373 – To direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a resource study along the “Ox-Bow Route” of the Butterfield Overland Trail in the States of Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and for other purposes. [So it's fair for people in Maine to share in paying for this?]
SR68 – A resolution recognizing the contributions of the Pennsylvania National Guard in service to the Nation.
Yesterday Ron Paul participated in a Committee on the War Powers of the Executive Branch, specifically discussing the War Powers Resolution.
He gives his opening 1 minute statement, then follows up with his inquiry of former White House Chief of Staff James Baker where apparently Baker gets agitated at Ron Paul’s question regarding the competing war powers between the Legislative and Executive branches.
Of course, Paul’s position is the strict Constitutional position and Baker minces words in an attempt to make Paul out to be incorrect. In doing so Baker’s twisted logic gets the better of him, in my view.
Once again, Ron Paul exposes the fact that the supreme law of the land is no longer binding in America and has been bastardized for many years.
Congress is busy wasting your money. Yesterday, a whopping 79 new bills were introduced. Again we have more pleas to allow special exceptions in immigratory status for aliens living in the United States. Then there are a large number of bills which are simply tinkering with unconstitutional laws already on the books. And of course, there are the bills designed to protect the children. (Oh, how could we ever deny these?!?) Below are some of the worst examples. (Most are quite obviously unconstitutional, but for those I couldn’t resist commenting on, my comments will be in red).
HR217 – Recognizing the week of March 15 through March 21, 2009, as “National Safe Place Week” (to protect the children).
HR215 – Congratulating the Minority Business Development Agency on its 40th anniversary and commending its achievements in fostering the establishment and growth of minority businesses in the United States. (Please explain to me why we need 535 people in Congress to vote to send congratulations?)
H214 – Recognizing the efforts of the countless volunteers who helped the Commonwealth of Kentucky recover from the ice storm of January 2009. (I’m sure this was just an oversight on the part of the founding fathers when they penned the Constitution…of course how could they have possibly known about the big storm of ’09…?)
HR213 – Urging the establishment and observation of a legal public holiday in honor of Cesar E. Chavez. (Another day off work?)
HR211 – Supporting the goals and ideals of National Women’s History Month
HR1371 – To require the establishment of regional consumer price indices to compute cost-of-living increases under the programs for Social Security and Medicare and other medical benefits under titles II and XVIII of the Social Security Act.
HR1370 – To improve the protections afforded under Federal law to consumers from contaminated seafood by directing the Secretary of Commerce to establish a program, in coordination with other appropriate Federal agencies, to strengthen activities for ensuring that seafood sold or offered for sale to the public in or affecting interstate commerce is fit for human consumption. (Since the mountain of FDA regulation is working so well already…)
HR1366 – To protect innocent parties from certain fees imposed by depository institutions for dishonored checks, and for other purposes.
HR1364 – To amend the Social Security Act and the Public Health Service Act to provide for sex education, substance abuse treatment and prevention, and for other purposes.
HR1363 – Establishes the GothamCorps program. Directs the Corporation for National and Community Service to provide, through such program, for the award of grants to certain units of local government to carry out volunteer projects. Requires local government units to provide each participant in a volunteer project with a scholarship equal to the cost of one year’s tuition at a local public college. Authorizes grant funding from amounts made available in the National Service Trust.
HR1362 – To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the establishment of permanent national surveillance systems for multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurological diseases and disorders.
It seems that America is always at war with some country or some thing. We have the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, and the War on Terror. The media made a point to mention that the Obama administration has chosen to cease using the term “War on Terror”. That’s certainly a good move, but semantics matter little when the soft-spoken administration continues to act hard, like drone bombing Pakistan and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. There is another unspoken war going on right now from the Obama administration. Obama and his Keynesian minions have declared a War on Capitalism.
For our sake I hope it is a complete failure like the government’s other perpetual wars. Though I fear that with the popularity of Obama and his “wolf in sheep’s clothing” words it may end in success. If that happens, America will no longer be America as we once knew it. Some may argue that America is already gone, capitalism is dead, and those of us who fancy liberty should self-immolate. Thank god the nature of liberty coexists with the burning desire to keep it intact. Rather than self-immolate we should immolate, through the ballot box, all of those in DC who are enemies to liberty. As Chuck Norris has suggested, Ron Paul could be the arbiter of which of his colleagues deserve to be choked out of office.
To understand why the bailouts and stimulus packages will not work, read it. To understand the real reason the Great Depression ended, read it. To understand economics without being an economist, read it.
This wasn’t intended to be a book review of Woods’ latest book. Look for that soon. Until then watch Tom Woods deliver another excellent speech at the Liberty Forum during CPAC 2009 below. It is in two parts. Yes, the lighting is horrid, but it is the words that count.
In our continuing series detailing some of the bills being introduced into Congress on a daily basis, we have forty-four more bills introduced on March 4th, 2009. Here are some of the more egregiously unconstitutional ones:
HR209 – Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Daughters of Penelope, a preeminent international women’s association and affiliate organization of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA).
HR206 – Honoring the efforts and contributions of the Montgomery, Alabama, Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction.
HR1296 – To achieve access to comprehensive primary health care services for all Americans and to reform the organization of primary care delivery through an expansion of the Community Health Center and National Health Service Corps programs.
HR1295 – To mitigate mortgage foreclosures, facilitate and include fairness in housing recovery, and combat mortgage fraud, and for other purposes.
HR210 – Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive impact on classroom performance.
HR1316 – To provide for appropriate notification of communities and homeowners of establishment of flood elevations for purposes of the National Flood Insurance Program.
HR1297 – To establish the Hawai’i Capital National Heritage Area, and for other purposes.
HR1253 – To require that limitations and restrictions on coverage under group health plans be timely disclosed to group health plan sponsors and timely communicated to participants and beneficiaries under such plans in a form that is easily understandable.
HR1259 – To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the distribution of the drug dextromethorphan, and for other purposes.
S-525 – A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the importation of prescription drugs, and for other purposes.
The stated objective of the bank bailout programs is to alleviate the banks’ burden of bad debts and non-performing loans. In actuality what is happening is that these massive amounts of money are being used by a handful of institutions to consolidate their position in global banking.
Chossudovsky does a fantastic job of explaining all of the facts, starting at the beginning. He goes into specifics regarding not only the bailouts, but also the entire Fiscal Year 2010 Budget and how they go far beyond merely accelerating the current deficits and the overall national debt, and how the costs of the bailouts will force the current Administration to completely abandon the infrastructure of the United States:
…all the revenue accruing from individual federal income taxes ($1.061 trillion), (FY 2010) namely all the money households across America pay in the form of federal taxes, will not suffice to finance the handouts to the banks, which officially are of the order of 1.45 trillion…
Public spending will be slashed with a view to curtailing a spiralling budget deficit. Health and education programs will not only remain heavily underfunded, they will be slashed, revamped and privatized. The likely outcome is the outright privatization of public services and the sale of State assets including public infrastructure, urban services, highways, national parks, etc. Fiscal collapse leads to the privatization of the State…
The fiscal crisis is further exacerbated by the compression of tax revenues resulting from decline of the real economy. Unemployed workers do not pay taxes nor do bankrupt firms. The process is cumulative. The solution to the fiscal crisis becomes the cause of further collapse… The proposed solution becomes the cause of the crisis.
…Who will be buying State assets at rock bottom prices? The financial elites, which are also the recipients of the bank bailout.
Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch show number 4 went out over the net today from the Fox News Strategy Room online channel. Ron Paul kicked off the show with Lew Rockwell. They discussed several topics of note. Are Republicans playing politics or do they really believe in limited government suddenly? What about these FEMA Camps?
Next, John Lott and Larry Pratt are interviewed together. Unfortunately, my computer had a problem during this portion of the show and I missed most of the interview (about 10 minutes).
Then it was Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul’s turn to discuss his potential run for Senate in Kentucky. He reiterates that he will only run if Senator Bunning chooses not to run. Listening to Rand is a bit like listening to his father. He even uses some of the same phrases. To me he sounds just like a young Ron Paul. Even if he chooses not to run in 2010 I foresee him running at some point and I see him being successful.
Watch the always excellent show below (playlist with 6 parts). Please comment and rate the videos to help get this show more exposure for potential airing on FOX TV.
In the first installment of this column we took a look at some of the frivolous bills being introduced into Congress on a single day. Twenty-one bills in all were introduced March 2nd. Yesterday, twenty-seven more bills were introduced. Take a look at the list below. Do these bills stand up to the Constitutional litmus test? Of course not. Should you be forced, at gunpoint, to pay for all of these?
HR204 – Congratulating the American Dental Association for its 150th year of working to improve the public’s oral health and promoting dentistry, supporting initiatives to improve access to oral health care services for all Americans, and emphasizing the benefits of prevention of disease through support of community prevention initiatives and promotion of good oral hygiene.
HR203 -Expressing support for designation of a “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day”.
HR1290 – To allow for permanent residence of Kumi Iizuka-Barcena, a 42-year-old Japanese woman with breast cancer, and whose husband was killed in 2004.
S-519 – A bill to amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act to implement pesticide-related obligations of the United States under international conventions.
S-518 – A bill to establish the Star-Spangled Banner and War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission, and for other purposes.
Quote of the Day: “One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation” — Thomas Bracket Reed
Subject: Smelling a rat
We’ve argued that the stimulus bill was a money-wasting scam. But even the Title 15 provision designed to prevent waste turns out to be . . . another scam. This provision creates two new bureaucracies, the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel (RIAP), and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which we call the RAT Board.
RIAP will have five members appointed by the President, the very person the board will oversee, so can it really be “independent?”
It gets worse. The panel can accept gifts of services and property, and the RIAP’s Executive Director and other staff will be hired outside of normal civil service regulations and salary schedules; all can be paid as much as $143,500.
The RIAP will monitor how stimulus money is spent and submit recommendations to yet another new bureaucracy, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — the RAT.
Liberty Maven
” is a must-read book for anyone interested in the state of America today. Sure the material is geared toward economics, but these days economics is king.
Loading ...
