The Reid Political Cowardice

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

{ed. note: in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no post next week. We will return in two weeks. Happy Thanksgiving & Happy Hanukkah to all}

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate, and with the duplicity of a sufficient number of Democratic Senators, consciously chose to pervert the United States Constitution this week, acting on nothing more than political expediency and politicalcowardice.

The cynical and short sighted decision by Reid to change the filibuster rules in the Senate from a 60 vote requirement to a simple majority was not, as so many pundits incorrectly asserted, a question of constitutionality.

The rules of the Senate are just that – the rules of the Senate.

What Reid did do, at the bidding and behest of President Obama, was to disregard the wisdom and intent of the framers and the founders of the United States Constitution.

The matter all arose due to the Republican minority choosing to block judicial appointments on the belief that the intended appointees were too liberal.

The question of whether such choices are either right or wrong is not the issue at hand; such actions are their right and responsibility under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Consider the relevant excerpt from that august document:

“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States…”

The key words here are ‘advice and consent’.

What Reid and the President have done is to remove the advice part and gone right to the rubber stamp of a simple majority consent.

The ability to change the rules of the Senate on such a political whim means that should the recalcitrant Republicans choose to impede any legislative actions requested by the president, the cowardly Reid can change the rules again to assure passage of the bill at hand.

The choice to enact the so-called ‘nuclear option’ is not a new gambit – indeed the Republicans threatened to do the same thing during the administration of President Bush.

Of course, at that time, a freshman senator named Barack Obama rose to speak on the floor of the senate to warn that such actions would be the ‘tyranny of the majority’.

At the same time, then minority leader Reis called such proposals to be ‘un-American’.

And hypocrisy reigns freely from Washington.

The reasons Reid chose to change the rules centered on judicial appointments.

The President is a democrat – the Senate is led by a majority of Democrats. They are now free to appoint people to the judiciary that agree with and have shown a proclivity to imposing liberal legislation from the bench.

In short, the President is attempting to control the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government under a single individual –himself.

The namesake of this blog, James Madison, had an opinion on such attempts, and his wisdom speaks to the nation he helped found over 200 years later:

To wit:

“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

150 Years and counting...

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

This Tuesday will mark the 150^th anniversary of President Lincolns’ Gettysburg Address.

At a time when the current administration is demonstrating an almost contemptuous belief in their superiority to the United States Constitution, it is fitting to take a moment and remind ourselves as a nation of the greatness of America.

While not a governing document, Abraham Lincoln in some 278 words beautifully encapsulated the dreams of Americans, and the need for America to continue as the founders and framers had hoped.

Please take a moment to re-read the address, and to consider it in the context of the current political realities that exist in Washington D.C. today.

To wit:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Non sibi sed patriae - 2013

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

Monday is Veterans Day, and the Madison Conservative is proud to reprint an earlier post focused on our veterans. It is especially relevant this year as the politics of pettiness forced the closure of monuments honoring our vets.

This is not an easy argument to make, but one that must be made and understood by the American electorate.

To wit, the earlier post:

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

At a time when the body politic is abuzz over peripheral issue nonsense it is perhaps a fitting time to turn our attention to a matter of true national importance.

To wit:

There are many worthy charities that need to be supported by the public at large. There is currently running a series of commercials promoting the cause of the Wounded Warrior Project. The one that created the impetus for this blog post featured Trace Adkins.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

The charity is focused solely on helping returning disabled veterans and their families cope with the adjustments inherent with a disability coupled with the stresses related to the rigors of war inflicted upon the mind and body of our returning veterans.

The website address is being repeated throughout this blog to show support and solidarity with their intended mission.

That being said, and speaking as a United States Navy veteran, the fact that this organization was created out of a need to fill a void should be an embarrassment upon the military bureaucracy specifically entrusted with the care of our veterans, and should be an outrage to the electorate at large.

It is a disgrace that in the United Sates of America our veterans need to have an organization outside of the military ask for funds to help with their transition back to civilian life, to say nothing of asking for financial support to aid in their adaptive needs for a war inflicted disability.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

There is constant dialogue throughout the nation that we must “support the troops even if we disagree with the mission”, one of the hard learned lessons at the expense of our Vietnam War veterans: a true national disgrace whose wounds we are hopefully beginning to heal by acknowledging the treatment of those particular veterans and doing all we can to guarantee that such treatment of our military is never repeatIt is crucial to understand that there is absolutely not one infinitesimal bit of daylight between the Madison Conservative and the wonderful folks at the Wounded Warrior Project.

The issue here is that there should never be a need for the private sector to provide anything of substantive necessity for our veterans and their needs when they return from battle. The men and women of our all voluntary military provide the protection and safety that allows us to become enraptured with the absurdities of any number of inconsequential matters, such as the current national political electoral theater.

The members of our armed forces choose to fill the role of protector, and their families bear the emotional and financial burdens of that decision. They should never be placed in the position of having to ask  any private enterprise for help in providing whatever support – physical, emotional or financial – the veteran and their family may need as they acclimate back to a civilian life  while coping with a injury suffered in defense of American liberty and freedom.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

If we break the explicit and implicit social contract with our soldiers, seamen, marines and airmen, America will no longer be the home of the brave and land of the free.

We will be too busy having telethons to raise money for guns, and asking corporations to help with a ‘buy a bullet’ campaign.

The Wounded Warrior Project is truly a charity that speaks to our higher ideals; but it should fall onto the American people through the military bureaucracy to insure that no veteran should ever need to ask a private entity for help.

We as a people are better than that.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

Non sibi sed patriae

The Obama Executive Order Power Grab Overreach

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

There are often popularly head misunderstood powers in each branch of government, with aggrieved parties clamoring that any given action is unconstitutional.

This is indeed the case where ‘executive orders’ are concerned. There is no language contained anywhere within the United States Constitution regarding executive orders.

A brief review of such presidential actions is perhaps appropriate.

There are two ways that presidents can enact initiatives without congressional approval. Presidents may issue a proclamation, often ceremonial in nature, such as naming a day in honor of someone or something that has contributed to American society. A president may also issue an executive order, which has the full effect of law and is directed to federal agencies that are charged with carrying out the order. Examples include Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order for the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Harry Truman's integration of the armed forces and Dwight Eisenhower's order to integrate the nation's schools.

Congress cannot directly vote to override an executive order in the way they can a veto. Instead, Congress must pass a bill canceling or changing the order in a manner they see fit. The president will typically veto that bill, and then Congress can try to override the veto of that second bill. The Supreme Court can also declare an executive order to be unconstitutional.

Congressional cancellation of an order is extremely rare.

Executive Orders have two main functions: to modify how an executive branch department or agency does its job (rule change) or to modify existing law, if such authority has been granted to the President by Congress. The average president issues 58 EO's a year. As of March 13, 1936, all EO's must be published in the Federal Register.

What most in the electorate do not know is that an executive order can be retracted by a subsequent administration with the same stroke of the pen that cr4eated it.

With that understanding, it is nevertheless beyong troubling that President Obama has attempted a massive power grab overreach with an executive order posted this week.

Consider the following compendium of news stories on the subject and reflect on the marvel of brilliance that the framers and founders bestowed upon their new nation in a Constitution that limited the power of the federal government.

In addition, the Madison Conservative will address the topic of what is now euphemistically called ‘climate change’ in a later post, but the idiocy and vapid hysterics of imbeciles on the left who claim that ‘a consensus of scientists’ now maintain that we are the cause of said climate change forget a funsdamental rule of science.

There is never a ‘consensus’ of science – it is either true or false. To hear the lack of intellectual heft on this point is staggering, but also what drives the actions taken by a president who opts to ignore both science and our governing document.

To wit:

Through the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.

The executive order establishes a task force of state and local officials to advise the administration on how to respond to severe storms, wildfires, droughts and other potential impacts of climate change. The task force includes governors of seven states — all Democrats — and the Republican governor of Guam, a U.S. territory. Fourteen mayors and two other local leaders also will serve on the task force.

All but three of those appointed are Democrats. The task force will look at federal money spent on roads, bridges, flood control and other projects. It ultimately will recommend how structures can be made more resilient to the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

“We're going to need to get prepared.  And that’s why this plan will also protect critical sectors of our economy and prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid,” Obama said last June, when he first launched a Climate Action Plan.

“States and cities across the country are already taking it upon themselves to get ready… And we’ll partner with communities seeking help to prepare for droughts and floods, reduce the risk of wildfires, protect the dunes and wetlands that pull double duty as green space and as natural storm barriers.”

The White House added in Friday’s statement that even as the United States acts to curb carbon pollution, officials also need to improve how states and communities respond to extreme weather events like last year’s Superstorm Sandy. Building codes must be updated to address climate impacts and infrastructure needs to be made more resilient.

Critics of the order charge, among other things, that it groups together everything from forest fires to heavy rains as evidence of climate change - despite scientific testimony from both sides of the debate.

“The devil is in the details,” a former senior government official said earlier this month, referring to a recently released study that proposed the streamlining between federal and state agencies. “Who gets to decide what sustainability is? Or what its outcome means?”

The chair of the study, Thomas Graedel, a professor of chemical engineering, geology and geophysics, and currently head of the Center for Industrial Ecology at Yale University, said at the time of its release that the study “provides encouragement for parts of the government to get together on projects of concern. There is no formula for how it all works out.”

Officials for the EPA released a statement on Friday afternoon praising the order, saying it will be vital in their attempts to help local-level communities “adapt to a changing climate.”

“To meet our mission of protecting public health and the environment, EPA must help communities adapt to a changing climate,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in the statement. “These Implementation Plans offer a roadmap for agency work to meet that responsibility, while carrying out President Obama’s goal of preparing the country for climate-related challenges.”

But critics say the order has the potential to do much more, including:

•  Hold back money to communities unless they meet new standards on various items and agendas set by the federal government. For example, using new policies that will encourage communities to rebuild to pre-disaster standards instead of stronger ones.

•  A possible mandate to bring sweeping new changes to land use and resource policies.

•  More control and refocus of climate change data and use of it to push a new agenda into every priority of the federal government.

•  Create the need for a new internal organization for coordination efforts during a government sequestration and possible future shutdowns.

The task force includes Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Jay Inslee of Washington and Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, as well as Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. The panel also includes several big-city mayors, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Houston Mayor Annise Parker. All three are Democrats.

The task force builds on efforts Obama announced for his Climate Action Plan last June, which include the first-ever limits on climate pollution from new and existing power plants.

The plan is intended to reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020. The plan also would boost renewable energy production on federal lands, increase efficiency standards and prepare communities to deal with higher temperatures. The 12 hottest years on record all have occurred in the past 15 years.

Climate change skeptics, as well as scientists, argue there is no proven link between extreme events and global warming. Indeed, Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research who has called for climate mitigation, argued recently that -- heat waves aside -- there is little evidence for an increase in extreme events themselves.

Others find small links between climate change and some specific natural disasters, saying storms like Sandy were worsened by rising sea levels. But for other events, notably droughts and downfalls, there’s no evidence of a global warming effect.

A Sept. 2012 editorial in the prestigious journal Nature urged caution in drawing any such connection: “Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.”

 “The impacts of climate change — including an increase in prolonged periods of excessively high temperatures, more heavy downpours, an increase in wildfires, more severe droughts, permafrost thawing, ocean acidification and sea-level rise — are already affecting communities, natural resources, ecosystems, economies and public health across the nation,” the presidential order said. “The federal government must build on recent progress and pursue new strategies to improve the nation’s preparedness and resilience.”

There’s no estimate of how much the additional planning will cost. Natural disasters including Superstorm Sandy cost the U.S. economy more than $100 billion in 2012, according to the administration.

At a speech at Georgetown University in June, Mr. Obama outlined executive actions he would take to require government and private industry to prepare for the effects of climate change.

“The question is not whether we need to act,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “The question is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.”