Yesterday in Congress, a whopping seventy-eight new bills were introduced. Due to recent controversy, and for those who start reading this series of articles in the middle, I will include the following boilerplate information in every article.
When taking a look at the list below, keep in mind that the U.S. Constitution, which created our Federal Government, clearly enumerated 18 specific functions that it is given. For all other things, the 9th and 10th amendment make it clear that the individual states have the power. Note that it states in the Constitution that it is the Supreme Law of the Land, which can be usurped by no other. This means that all opinions to the contrary made by the Supreme Court are technically invalid. Throughout the past couple of hundred hears the Supreme Court has rule one way or another on some “interpretation” of the Constitution, but in fact no interpretation is necessary, as the intention of the founding fathers are quite clear. For example, if the “general welfare” clause or the “interstate commerce” clause was intended to be used as a catch-all for any arbitrary piece of legislation, then the 10th amendments which reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
would be completely meaningless. So simple logic, in addition to the writings of Madison and other founding fathers, dictates the notion that the Federal Government was set up to have very little power, and that these United States are intended to be a loose federation of sovereign states.
Only due to politician’s greed and overwhelming desire for power does the Constitution get relegated to the trash heap.
So, despite the noble intentions of many of these bills, it doesn’t mean they are legal.
Of the bills introduced yesterday, these are ones that are clearly not legitimate functions of the Federal Government [as always, my commentary will appear in red]:
HR293 – Commending Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils for breaking the National Hockey League all time regular season wins record. [I'm glad our "public servants" have nothing more important to do...]
SR86 – A resolution designating April 18, 2009, as “National Auctioneers Day” [Are you kidding me?]
SR87 – A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that public servants should be commended for their dedication and continued service to the Nation during Public Service Recognition Week, May 4 through 10, 2009. [Oh, that is rich!]
HR1728 – To amend the Truth in Lending Act to reform consumer mortgage practices and provide accountability for such practices, to provide certain minimum standards for consumer mortgage loans, and for other purposes. [There is already way too much red time when buying a house. Whatever happened to caveat emptor?]
HR1729 – To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to provide for the treatment of institutions of higher education as voter registration agencies.
HR1730 – To amend the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 with respect to electric vehicle infrastructure.
HR1731 – To amend the Truth in Lending Act to require any creditor who transfers, sells, or conveys certain residential mortgage loans to third parties to retain an economic interest in a material portion of the credit risk for any such loan, and for other purposes.
HR1732 – To amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to provide for standards for energy efficient outdoor lighting.
With forty-nine new bills introduced in Congress yesterday, one must wonder how many are really necessary, and more importantly, how many are Constitutional. Answer: very few. In fact, the vast majority are unconstitutional intrusions into private industry, adding layer upon layer of regulation and bureaucracy. Here are a few of the more obvious examples:
HR1690 – To amend the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 to authorize the Secretary of Commerce to make grants to coastal states to support voluntary State efforts to initiate and complete surveys of coastal waters to identify potential areas suitable for the exploration, development, and production of renewable energy, and for other purposes.
HR1691 – To require that health plans provide coverage for a minimum hospital stay for mastectomies, lumpectomies, and lymph node dissection for the treatment of breast cancer and coverage for secondary consultations.
HR1684 – To preserve the rights granted under second amendment to the Constitution in national parks and national wildlife refuge areas. [Why do we need a bill to repeat what the second amendment already says? Simply hang (for treason) all those who violate their oaths to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution.]
HR1692 – To amend the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act to exempt ordinary books from the lead limit in such Act.
HR1693 – To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the coverage of marriage and family therapist services and mental health counselor services under part B of the Medicare Program, and for other purposes.
S-672 – A bill to amend the Natural Gas Act, the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978, and the Federal Power Act to modify provisions relating to enforcement and judicial review and to modify the procedures for proposing changes in natural gas rates.
S-674 - A bill to amend chapter 41 of title 5, United States Code, to provide for the establishment and authorization of funding for certain training programs for supervisors of Federal employees.
S-675 – A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to prohibit the sale of dishwashing detergent in the United States if the detergent contains a high level of phosphorus, and for other purposes.
S-677 – A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to require wealthy beneficiaries to pay a greater share of their premiums under the Medicare prescription drug program.
HR1677 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend and expand the benefits for businesses operating in empowerment zones, enterprise communities, or renewal communities, and for other purposes.
HR1678 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a bad debt deduction to doctors to partially offset the cost of providing uncompensated care required to be provided under amendments made by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
HR1680 – To authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to promote professional retrofit installation of fire alarm detection systems and other fire detection and prevention technologies in nursing homes, hospice facilities, and other appropriate facilities.
S-678 – A bill to reauthorize and improve the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, and for other purposes.
S-679 – A bill to establish a research, development, demonstration, and commercial application program to promote research of appropriate technologies for heavy duty plug-in hybrid vehicles, and for other purposes.
S-680 – A bill to limit Federal emergency economic assistance payments to certain recipients. [Such a Bill should not be necessary. No person or entity should receive emergency economic assistance. Read Davy Crockett vs. Welfare.]
S-681 – A bill to provide for special rules relating to assistance concerning the Greensburg, Kansas tornado.
The debauchery on Capitol Hill continues unabated, with an amazing ninety-three new bills introduced yesterday in Congress, many of which attempt to do the same thing. How many of these bills do you think are Constitutional? (Answer: very few). Here are some of the worst:
HR1652 – To require institutions receiving certain assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program or the Federal Reserve to have employee bonus payment plans approved in advance of the payments being made. [Each member of Congress must operate in a bubble, and/or they're all hoping for the "credit" if their bill is passed. This is at least the fifth bill on this subject in the past three days!]
HR1650 – To enhance the oversight authority of the Comptroller General of the United States with respect to expenditures under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. [Yet another TARP regulation bill. The full text of the bill is not currently available, so I couldn't tell if it specifically mentions employee bonuses so I could add it to the list above. Why don't these people just come out and admit that this TARP garbage is immoral an unconstitutional in the first place?]
S-651 – A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose an excise tax on excessive bonuses paid by, and received from, companies receiving Federal emergency economic assistance, to limit the amount of nonqualified deferred compensation that employees of such companies may defer from taxation, and for other purposes. [Number 7, by Sen. Max Baucus [D-MT]…]
HR1649 – To authorize the Secretary of Education to make grants to reduce the size of core curriculum classes in public elementary and secondary schools, and for other purposes.
HR1645 (also S-638) – To provide grants to promote financial and economic literacy. [While I think it's critical that people become more financially and economically literate, government should certainly not be the teacher, or else we'll end up with more Keynesian nitwits that have destroyed our economy to date. Rather, people can take Chris Martenson's Crash Course for free, and read books like Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and Tom Woods' Meltdown.]
HR1643 (also S-648) – To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to establish a prospective payment system instead of the reasonable cost-based reimbursement method for Medicare-covered services provided by Federally qualified health centers and to expand the scope of such covered services to account for expansions in the scope of services provided by Federally qualified health centers since the inclusion of such services for coverage under the Medicare Program.
HR1642 – To provide loans and grants for fire sprinkler retrofitting in nursing facilities.
HR1641 – To amend the National Trails System Act to provide for a study of the Cascadia Marine Trail.
HR1640 – To amend the Truth in Lending Act to protect consumers from usury, and for other purposes. [Caveat emptor. The process of buying a home would be much quicker and hassle-free if not for the myriad of regulations and bureaucratic red-tape imposed by the federal, state, and local governments.]
Forty-nine new bills introduced in Congress yesterday. Consider some of the ways that your representatives have been wasting time and money lately:
HR248 – Honoring Glenn “Jeep” Davis for being one of the greatest Olympic hurdlers, an active member of his community, and life-long teacher. [Are you kidding me? Congress needs to adjourn and go home!]
HR247 – Expressing support for designation of March 22, 2009, as “National Rehabilitation Counselors Appreciation Day”.
HR246 – Expressing support for a National Week of Reflection and Tolerance. [Pardon me while I vomit.]
HR245 – Congratulating Miss Katie Stam for being crowned Miss America 2009 and thanking the participants in and supporters of the Miss America Competition for their contributions to young women’s lives and communities.
HR1520 – To improve Federal land management, resource conservation, environmental protection, and use of Federal real property, by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to develop a multipurpose cadastre of Federal real property and identifying inaccurate, duplicate, and out-of-date Federal land inventories, and for other purposes. [Yeah, I guess it's a good idea to take care and organize your land better, but let's not forget that the Federal Government has no right to own all the land that it does. Did you know that the Federal government owns nearly 1/3 of all U.S. land? I find that preposterous!]
HR1510 – To amend the lead prohibition provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 to provide an exemption for certain all-terrain vehicles, and for other purposes. [Typically, when the government intrudes into the marketplace with regulations, there are many unintended consequences. Then supplemental bills like this have to be passed in an attempt to "fix" the problem. But the tangled mess of regulation becomes so unwieldy and unmanageable that nobody can figure it out, and compliance and enforcement become impossible. It would be better if we would remember that the Constitution grants no power to the Federal government to provide "consumer safety".]
HR1525 – To amend the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 to require the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider reconstruction and improvement of flood protection systems when establishing flood insurance rates.
HR1524 – To allow flood insurance coverage under the national flood insurance program for new structures designed to protect public safety that are located in special flood hazard zones.
HR1521 – To restrict any State or local jurisdiction from imposing a new discriminatory tax on cell phone services, providers, or property. [Uhhmmm, this may sound good at first, but I think they have it backwards. Have you looked at your phone bill lately? Most of the taxes and fees on it are imposed by the federal government. And, the federal government has no jurisdiction over what the states can and cannot charge.]
HR1516 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 37926 Church Street in Dade City, Florida, as the “Sergeant Marcus Mathes Post Office”.
Your Senators and Representatives have continued to be busy little bees, always grinding the sausage. Forty-four new bills introduced yesterday:
HR230 – Recognizing the historical significance of the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo. [You've got to be kidding me. If this weren't displayed on official government sites, I would swear this was a joke.]
HR1388 – Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act: To reauthorize and reform the national service laws.
HR1415 – To provide for a demonstration project regarding Medicaid reimbursements for stabilization of emergency medical conditions by non-publicly owned or operated institutions for mental diseases.
HR1413 – To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow certain public employees a deduction for distributions from governmental plans for health and long-term care insurance, and for other purposes.
HR1412 – To increase public confidence in the justice system and address any unwarranted racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal process. [Looking at the full text of this bill, it's clear that the authors have the idea that justice is being served out "unfairly" with respect to race and ethnicity, and are under the mistaken impression that "unconscious bias" can be legislated away.]
Quote of the Day: “Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” — from “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.
President Obama gave a speech Tuesday night. He asked the American people to believe many impossible things at once. He claims he’s going to . . .
* Continue to intervene in the economy and bailout irresponsible companies and individuals
* Revolutionize health care
* Transform energy and the environment
* And cut government spending too
It was an “Alice in Wonderland” performance. His speech, to once again guote from “Alice,” demonstrated a complete mastery of “The different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
It’s hard to decide which, of all his many impossible ambitions, is the most frightening. However, since we can only fight one impossible thing at a time, we choose this one . . .
* Cap CO2 emissions
* Sell CO2 emission permits to businesses in amounts equal to the cap
* Allow companies to trade and/or sell these permits to allegedly create a market for innovations that would reduce CO2 emissions
* Use the proceeds from the permit sales to create a vast new research bureaucracy to help corporations cope with the cap
Even if you accept that human CO2 emissions are causing problematic global warming, a government run “cap and trade” system isn’t the best way to deal with this problem. Here are some points to consider . . . Read More »
Barack Obama just crowned socialist and environmental regulator Carol Browner as our Climate Change Czar. Propelled by her English degree, Browner is a vocal proponent of Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory. What if her pet theory is wrong?
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published Thursday, January 15, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5797.html
OK, just to bare some personal baggage first, in the not-so-distant past I once believed in anthropogenic global warming theory. After I watched Al Gore’s 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth,” I practically danced in fright around my dining room table wondering if my incandescent light bulbs were going to ruin the world. [Anthropogenic, by the way, is just a big science word that means man-made, and the theory in a nutshell holds that mankind is 1) creating large amounts of carbon dioxide and 2) this CO2 is and will significantly increase the earth's temperature, which has all types of ramifications for those, like me, who like to surf. The idea is that too much CO2 in the atmosphere serves to trap heat within the earth's atmosphere and significantly increases the global temperature.] (photos from NASA)
I earned a chemical engineering degree by passing a lot of math and science tests with the help of Caaaptaaaain Calculator!, and in my professional life I remain a very inquisitive engineer. This, of course, does not make me an expert on climate change, so at least Carol Browner and I share this much in common. However, quite surprisingly to even me, after my 2006 scare, I became decently well-read on the topic. I read/skimmed the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report since I figured if American taxpayers are kind enough to pay UN about 30-40% of the cost, I might as well read it. [Well over $25 million USD see page 4/11 and 4/7 here, it's all paid via the IPCC's Trust Fund, which gets paid by our federal government.]
The veneer on the Barackcuda’s real agenda has worn thin even before he takes office.
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published January 13, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5792.html
Previously on this site I have avoided articles centered on religion, Israel-Palestine, and global warming even though I have very strong views on these three “taboo” topics. This column started off as antiwar and will remain focused on monetary policy for reasons I explain in the Money Matrix series, but recently I have felt like writing about the Gaza situation and now about Global Warming theory. C’est la vie!
Part 1 is on the Browner selection, Part 2 is on climate change theory.
President-Elect Barack Obama has named Carol Browner as Global Warming Czar. I confess I have no idea why naming unelected individuals to a made-up, unconstitutional office post and then giving them the nickname of an aristocratic Russian emperor is such a beloved tradition with US presidents – drug czars, poverty czars, terror czars – the American people have seen them all and quite frankly they all have not done much. Obama has really shown us his true colors by, among many other “stellar” picks, retaining Bush’s Secretary of War Robert Gates, making former Israeli Defense Force mechanic and Civilian National Enslavement proponent Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, and a lifetime bureaucrat, the 70-year-old Leon Panetta as CIA Director who has zero CIA experience unless he was undercover in the House of Representatives for the 16 years and for 4 years as Clinton’s Chief of Staff, in which case he sure fooled us! Now we have outright socialist czarettes placed into power!
Bob Barr did what I believe to be the best interview of the campaign thus far for Franklin Pierce University on October 21st. The interview was extremely substantive and revealed a few insights I’ve always been curious about such as Barr’s true position on opening up another investigation of 9/11 and how he ended up being tricked into doing that interview for the Borat movie.
The interview is typically amateurish as it is for the campus television station, but it is well worth your time. This is the interview that should be on NBC Nightly News or some other main stream media outlet. It’s probably too long for the soundbite culture those outlets live in though.
The interview is in three parts. Watch them below.
When I heard William “BJ” Lawson speak for the first time in person I said to myself, “This is the Ron Paul Republican who can win”. Then I checked out his opponent David Price and immediately thought, “I know Lawson can win.” At first glance, the problem is the heavily Democratic North Carolina district he is in, but if you dig a bit deeper, Lawson is the perfect candidate for a district of this kind. He is not your normal present day Republican. Lawson has the ability to attract those on all sides of the political spectrum much like Ron Paul did during his own campaign.
Below you will discover the Liberty Maven rankings for BJ Lawson on the Paul-O-Meter, where candidates and current lawmakers can be rated on how closely they are in line with Dr. Ron Paul on the issues. To learn about the Paul-O-Meter methodology please see this article. You may also assign your own rankings or request a candidate be added to the system.
Continue reading to see if BJ Lawson truly deserves the moniker “Ron Paul Jr.”
Liberty Maven
OK, just to bare some personal baggage first, in the not-so-distant past I once believed in anthropogenic global warming theory. After I watched Al Gore’s 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth,” I practically danced in fright around my dining room table wondering if my incandescent light bulbs were going to ruin the world. [Anthropogenic, by the way, is just a big science word that means man-made, and the theory in a nutshell holds that mankind is 1) creating large amounts of carbon dioxide and 2) this CO2 is and will significantly increase the earth's temperature, which has all types of ramifications for those, like me, who like to surf. The idea is that too much CO2 in the atmosphere serves to trap heat within the earth's atmosphere and significantly increases the global temperature.] (
Loading ...
