FEDERALIST No. 16 The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (The Same Subject Continued)

From the New York Packet. Tuesday, December 4, 1787.

Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind, of which we have any account, in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems. The confirmations of this fact will be worthy of a distinct and particular examination. I shall content myself with barely observing here, that of all the confederacies of antiquity, which history has handed down to us, the Lycian and Achaean leagues, as far as there remain vestiges of them, appear to have been most free from the fetters of that mistaken principle, and were accordingly those which have best deserved, and have most liberally received, the applauding suffrages of political writers.

This exceptionable principle may, as truly as emphatically, be styled the parent of anarchy: It has been seen that delinquencies in the members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring; and that whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is force, and the immediate effect of the use of it, civil war.

It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government, in its application to us, would even be capable of answering its end. If there should not be a large army constantly at the disposal of the national government it would either not be able to employ force at all, or, when this could be done, it would amount to a war between parts of the Confederacy concerning the infractions of a league, in which the strongest combination would be most likely to prevail, whether it consisted of those who supported or of those who resisted the general authority. It would rarely happen that the delinquency to be redressed would be confined to a single member, and if there were more than one who had neglected their duty, similarity of situation would induce them to unite for common defense. Independent of this motive of sympathy, if a large and influential State should happen to be the aggressing member, it would commonly have weight enough with its neighbors to win over some of them as associates to its cause. Specious arguments of danger to the common liberty could easily be contrived; plausible excuses for the deficiencies of the party could, without difficulty, be invented to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the good-will, even of those States which were not chargeable with any violation or omission of duty. This would be the more likely to take place, as the delinquencies of the larger members might be expected sometimes to proceed from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers, with a view to getting rid of all external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement; the better to effect which it is presumable they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent States. If associates could not be found at home, recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union of which they had so much to fear. When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The suggestions of wounded pride, the instigations of irritated resentment, would be apt to carry the States against which the arms of the Union were exerted, to any extremes necessary to avenge the affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution of the Union.

This may be considered as the violent death of the Confederacy. Its more natural death is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing, if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form. It is not probable, considering the genius of this country, that the complying States would often be inclined to support the authority of the Union by engaging in a war against the non-complying States. They would always be more ready to pursue the milder course of putting themselves upon an equal footing with the delinquent members by an imitation of their example. And the guilt of all would thus become the security of all. Our past experience has exhibited the operation of this spirit in its full light. There would, in fact, be an insuperable difficulty in ascertaining when force could with propriety be employed. In the article of pecuniary contribution, which would be the most usual source of delinquency, it would often be impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from disinclination or inability. The pretense of the latter would always be at hand. And the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh expedient of compulsion. It is easy to see that this problem alone, as often as it should occur, would open a wide field for the exercise of factious views, of partiality, and of oppression, in the majority that happened to prevail in the national council.

It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a military despotism; but it will be found in every light impracticable. The resources of the Union would not be equal to the maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger States within the limits of their duty; nor would the means ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Whoever considers the populousness and strength of several of these States singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic than the monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous heroes and demi-gods of antiquity.

Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members smaller than many of our counties, the principle of legislation for sovereign States, supported by military coercion, has never been found effectual. It has rarely been attempted to be employed, but against the weaker members; and in most instances attempts to coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in which one half of the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other half.

The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate legislations; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts of justice. The government of the Union, like that of each State, must be able to address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of individuals; and to attract to its support those passions which have the strongest influence upon the human heart. It must, in short, possess all the means, and have aright to resort to all the methods, of executing the powers with which it is intrusted, that are possessed and exercised by the government of the particular States. To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that if any State should be disaffected to the authority of the Union, it could at any time obstruct the execution of its laws, and bring the matter to the same issue of force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme is reproached.

The pausibility of this objection will vanish the moment we advert to the essential difference between a mere NON-COMPLIANCE and a DIRECT and ACTIVE RESISTANCE. If the interposition of the State legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union, they have only NOT TO ACT, or to ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage.

But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the particular governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power. No omissions nor evasions would answer the end. They would be obliged to act, and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the national rights. An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its own defense, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority. The success of it would require not merely a factious majority in the legislature, but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the people. If the judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and void. If the people were not tainted with the spirit of their State representatives, they, as the natural guardians of the Constitution, would throw their weight into the national scale and give it a decided preponderancy in the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be made with levity or rashness, because they could seldom be made without danger to the authors, unless in cases of a tyrannical exercise of the federal authority.

If opposition to the national government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evil under the State governments. The magistracy, being equally the ministers of the law of the land, from whatever source it might emanate, would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness. As to those partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society, from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from sudden or occasional illhumors that do not infect the great body of the community the general government could command more extensive resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be in the power of any single member. And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberments of empire. No form of government can always either avoid or control them. It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

PUBLIUS.

CBS Alaska Affiliate Anchors Caught On Tape Trying To Sabotage AK Sen Candidate Joe Miller

KTVA-CBS 11's reporters and anchors were caught on tape last night attempted to potentially sabotage Alaska Senatorial Campaign of Joe Miller.  Dan Riehl notes that

Now, note the irony captured below in KTVA's local coverage of yesterday's so called Restoring Sanity rally. Above they are exposed for conspiring to generate yet another negative headline grabbing story in an effort to damage Miller's Senate campaign. Now, in their rally coverage, they quote an activist criticizing both Sarah Palin and Joe Miller for allegedly generating so much of that very kind of news.

In essence, CBS' KTVA is exposed above for generating negative coverage, and now we see them doubling back to highlight an activist's negative reaction to such news - in this case, presumably to also damage Miller's campaign. At this point, CBS affiliate KTVA appears to be engaged in political activism, not journalism. Finally, they hit the talking points they wanted, yet couldn't make their copy coherent. Their editors must have their prioities, I suppose.  [emphasis is mine, ed.]

If Fox News had done something like this it would be national news...But since it's in support of a liberal cause...

UPDATE:  Here's a transcript of the recording left on the Miller campaign staffer's phone: 

FEMALE REPORTER: That's up to you because you're the expert, but that's what I would do...I'd wait until you see who showed up because that indicates we already know something...

[Laughter]
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters...
MALE REPORTER: Oh yeah... can you repeat Joe Miller's...uh... list of people, campaign workers, which one's the molester?
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE VOICE: We know that out of all the people that will show up tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender.
[Laughter]
MALE REPORTER: You have to find that one person...
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: And the one thing we can do is ....we won't know....we won't know but if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the... "Hey Joe Miller punched at rally."
FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul...I like that.
[Laughter]
FEMALE REPORTER: That's a good one.

The CBS affiliated station (yes, the news network that attempted to smear George Bush with fake memoes in the 2004 presidential campaign.) has released a statement on this where it says that it's being taken out of context...yeah, right.  CBS news taken out of context.  Here's their statement, all emphasis is mine: 

A press release issued Saturday October 30, 2010, by the Joe Miller campaign claims that KTVA personnel, "openly discuss creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller." KTVA General Manager Jerry Bever says, "It's unfortunate that this recording has happened. It's unfortunate because it does not accurately reflect the journalistic standards of our newsroom and the garbled context will no doubt leave more questions than answers. The Miller campaign's analysis of the recording is incorrect in many material ways ranging from personnel involved in the conversation, the interpretation of conversation snippets and the reported transcript of the perceived garbled conversation."

"While the recording is real, the allegations are untrue," said Bever. "The recording was the result of a cell phone not being hung up after a call was placed to Randy DeSoto, Joe Miller campaign spokesperson, Thursday afternoon to discuss Joe Miller's appearance on that evening's newscast. That phone call was placed near the end of a coverage planning meeting in our newsroom regarding that evening's Miller rally in downtown Anchorage. The group of KTVA news personnel was reviewing potential "what-if" scenarios, discussing the likelihood of events at the rally and how KTVA might logistically disseminate any breaking news."

Bever continues, "The perception that this garbled, out of context recording may leave is unfortunate, but to allege that our staff was discussing or planning to create or fabricate stories regarding candidate Miller is absurd. The complete conversation was about what others might be able to do to cause disruption within the Miller campaign, not what KTVA could do."

While Bever would not discuss any personnel issues linked with the recording, Bever says "Have we had internal discussions about the level of professionalism we need to bring to our conversations, internally and externally? Of course we have, this is a lesson to learn from."

Gee...that clears everything up.  Your staffers plot ways to fabricate stories, yet it's being taken out of context.  Perhaps  the Miller campaign can file a FEC complaint and have all your news stories classified as campaign donations to his opponents...that's what they are. 

H/T Powerlineblog.

Halloween: A Scarry Liberal Pumpkin

While I'm sure that many on the left think this is scary...how about this?  48% of Americans now think W was a better President than the current encumbent...that has to be down-right terrifying!

H/T Instapundit

NPR's Public Funding

While NPR consistently says that it doesn't receive "direct public funding."  It does receive 45% of it's operating capital from it's member stations.  Those stations receive some 65% of their funding from local, state and federal tax dollars...so when liberals claim, using talking points provided from the NPR website how it doesn't get money from Uncle Sugar, they're merely being disingenuous.

While I listen to NPR's local classical music affiliate, I've long since given up on listening to the political and liberal tripe offered up on any of the 3 other stations that peddle it's wares.  For most of 24 years, I regularly donated (albeit small) sums of my hard earned dollars to various NPR stations in the towns I've lived in, I stopped in 2003 after the rantings of the "News" division became so pronouncably biased against anything that might have even leaned to the right of the political spectrum. 

In an excellent article on Pajamasmedia.com, Benjamin Kerstein makes this rather astute observation, relating to WHY NPR's supporters are so vociferous in their defense of the network.

Of course, every subculture has its objects of affection. Punks and hip-hop fans have their music, Trekkies have their TV shows and movies, hipsters have mumblecore, etc. The difference, of course, is that unlike NPR, none of these are funded largely by coercive means. And this says something, I think, about the liberal mentality. Put simply, liberals constitute the one subculture in the United States that consistently and often willfully mistakes its specific and particular preferences for universal truths.


The simple truth that liking something does not give you the right to force others to buy it for you is lost on a subculture that sees its likes and dislikes as moral imperatives that impose benefits and obligations on society as a whole. NPR is only one, relatively minor, expression of this, but it is a telling one, if only because, for those outside the liberal subculture, it is so obvious and glaring. The blatant hypocrisy and bad faith with which NPR has acted in regard to Juan Williams is, in microcosm, the hypocrisy and bad faith with which it acts in regard to all American taxpayers. And it should be obvious to all, even those who lack the most rudimentary capacity for self-reflection, that to act in such a manner toward those who are, in fact, paying your salary, is neither a smart nor an informed thing to do.

The time has come to defund a whole raft of programs and end it's tax exempt status...simply because we as a nation can no longer afford to pay for them.  This is merely one of those programs.  If NPR's product is of sufficient popularity and viability, then in the commercial market place it will thrive...but it's it's not, then it too will end up on the dust bin of unprofitable business models.

Return Civility To America...Campaign Rhetoric From 1800

If you think that campaign rhetoric is ugly now, then your American history classes just didn't teach you much.  What American politicians have been saying about and to each other over the past 210 years is pretty amazing.  It's one of the reasons why dueling was outlawed.  After all Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr, then the Vice President of the United States.  Here's video of what was said during the 1800 election campaign of Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of US) and John Adams (2nd President of US).



But then George W. Bush wasn't the first president to be likened to monkey or chimpanzee.  Abraham Lincoln was, throughout the Civil but starting in the 1860 campaign.

Confronting Jay Levin...

Here's video of Jay Levin, of CBS 2, who threatened on  camera to beat up conservative radio hostWilliam Kelly, (Kelly Truth Squad AM 560 WIND). 

FEDERALIST No. 14 Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answere

[I inadvertintly published 14-15 out of sequence-ed.]
From the New York Packet.
Friday, November 30, 1787.

James Madison

To the People of the State of New York:

WE HAVE seen the necessity of the Union, as our bulwark against foreign danger, as the conservator of peace among ourselves, as the guardian of our commerce and other common interests, as the only substitute for those military establishments which have subverted the liberties of the Old World, and as the proper antidote for the diseases of faction, which have proved fatal to other popular governments, and of which alarming symptoms have been betrayed by our own. All that remains, within this branch of our inquiries, is to take notice of an objection that may be drawn from the great extent of country which the Union embraces. A few observations on this subject will be the more proper, as it is perceived that the adversaries of the new Constitution are availing themselves of the prevailing prejudice with regard to the practicable sphere of republican administration, in order to supply, by imaginary difficulties, the want of those solid objections which they endeavor in vain to find.

The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms was also adverted to on a former occasion. It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

To this accidental source of the error may be added the artifice of some celebrated authors, whose writings have had a great share in forming the modern standard of political opinions. Being subjects either of an absolute or limited monarchy, they have endeavored to heighten the advantages, or palliate the evils of those forms, by placing in comparison the vices and defects of the republican, and by citing as specimens of the latter the turbulent democracies of ancient Greece and modern Italy. Under the confusion of names, it has been an easy task to transfer to a republic observations applicable to a democracy only; and among others, the observation that it can never be established but among a small number of people, living within a small compass of territory.

Such a fallacy may have been the less perceived, as most of the popular governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and even in modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no example is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle. If Europe has the merit of discovering this great mechanical power in government, by the simple agency of which the will of the largest political body may be concentred, and its force directed to any object which the public good requires, America can claim the merit of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and extensive republics. It is only to be lamented that any of her citizens should wish to deprive her of the additional merit of displaying its full efficacy in the establishment of the comprehensive system now under her consideration.

As the natural limit of a democracy is that distance from the central point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a republic is that distance from the centre which will barely allow the representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs. Can it be said that the limits of the United States exceed this distance? It will not be said by those who recollect that the Atlantic coast is the longest side of the Union, that during the term of thirteen years, the representatives of the States have been almost continually assembled, and that the members from the most distant States are not chargeable with greater intermissions of attendance than those from the States in the neighborhood of Congress.

That we may form a juster estimate with regard to this interesting subject, let us resort to the actual dimensions of the Union. The limits, as fixed by the treaty of peace, are: on the east the Atlantic, on the south the latitude of thirty-one degrees, on the west the Mississippi, and on the north an irregular line running in some instances beyond the forty-fifth degree, in others falling as low as the forty-second. The southern shore of Lake Erie lies below that latitude. Computing the distance between the thirty-first and forty-fifth degrees, it amounts to nine hundred and seventy-three common miles; computing it from thirty-one to forty-two degrees, to seven hundred and sixty-four miles and a half. Taking the mean for the distance, the amount will be eight hundred and sixty-eight miles and three-fourths. The mean distance from the Atlantic to the Mississippi does not probably exceed seven hundred and fifty miles. On a comparison of this extent with that of several countries in Europe, the practicability of rendering our system commensurate to it appears to be demonstrable. It is not a great deal larger than Germany, where a diet representing the whole empire is continually assembled; or than Poland before the late dismemberment, where another national diet was the depositary of the supreme power. Passing by France and Spain, we find that in Great Britain, inferior as it may be in size, the representatives of the northern extremity of the island have as far to travel to the national council as will be required of those of the most remote parts of the Union.

Favorable as this view of the subject may be, some observations remain which will place it in a light still more satisfactory.

In the first place it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity. Were it proposed by the plan of the convention to abolish the governments of the particular States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection; though it would not be difficult to show that if they were abolished the general government would be compelled, by the principle of self-preservation, to reinstate them in their proper jurisdiction.

A second observation to be made is that the immediate object of the federal Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen primitive States, which we know to be practicable; and to add to them such other States as may arise in their own bosoms, or in their neighborhoods, which we cannot doubt to be equally practicable. The arrangements that may be necessary for those angles and fractions of our territory which lie on our northwestern frontier, must be left to those whom further discoveries and experience will render more equal to the task.

Let it be remarked, in the third place, that the intercourse throughout the Union will be facilitated by new improvements. Roads will everywhere be shortened, and kept in better order; accommodations for travelers will be multiplied and meliorated; an interior navigation on our eastern side will be opened throughout, or nearly throughout, the whole extent of the thirteen States. The communication between the Western and Atlantic districts, and between different parts of each, will be rendered more and more easy by those numerous canals with which the beneficence of nature has intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to connect and complete.

A fourth and still more important consideration is, that as almost every State will, on one side or other, be a frontier, and will thus find, in regard to its safety, an inducement to make some sacrifices for the sake of the general protection; so the States which lie at the greatest distance from the heart of the Union, and which, of course, may partake least of the ordinary circulation of its benefits, will be at the same time immediately contiguous to foreign nations, and will consequently stand, on particular occasions, in greatest need of its strength and resources. It may be inconvenient for Georgia, or the States forming our western or northeastern borders, to send their representatives to the seat of government; but they would find it more so to struggle alone against an invading enemy, or even to support alone the whole expense of those precautions which may be dictated by the neighborhood of continual danger. If they should derive less benefit, therefore, from the Union in some respects than the less distant States, they will derive greater benefit from it in other respects, and thus the proper equilibrium will be maintained throughout.

I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellowcitizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rendering us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been new modelled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

PUBLIUS.

Rand Paul & Lauren Valle

Here's the full video of the scuffle that ensued when a "progressive" protester attempts to assault Rand Paul.  Of course the evil revanchist conservative type security people "stopped" on the "victims" throat. But what the MSM has "overlooked" is that

Valle is a paid Soros activist who explicitly set out to achieve what you saw on video and those there were stupid to take the bait.

So that's what really happened.  Generally the liberal leftist media wants to see full video so as to set context...except when that defeats the narrative they're trying set up.

The fact that conservatives condemned Tim Proffit sticking his foot on Valle’s shoulder shows, again, that the right polices their side. The left does not. They create standards that they expect everyone else to follow; I’ve still yet to see a single one of them condemn the attack of Kelly Owens, on camera by SEIU, Kenneth Gladney, Alle Bautsch, Bill Rice, John McCormack, the assault on NC tea partiers, I could go on. The left has yet to rise to the challenge and match the right in condemning violence such as the examples I’ve given here.

Basically, the message the media is touting is that it's perfectly ok for liberals to assault political opponents with impunity, while anyone on the right is used to smear both the Tea Party movement and the GOP/Conservatives.  Democratic/Liberal hypocrisy in action.

UPDATE:  What people often forget and what has become the 20th Century's big lie...Adolf Hitler was a socialist, as was Benito Mussolini.  Adolf's Brown Shirts, and Benito's Black Shirts did just the sort of thuggery that is becoming common from the supporters of the Democratic Party today.  The SEIU has become the "strongarm bullies" of the Dem's and have assaulted conservative protestors in pretty much every part of the country.  This is what the NAZIs and Fascists did in the 1920's and 1930's.

FEDERALIST No. 15 The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union

For the Independent Journal.

Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York.

IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my fellow-citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of Union to your political safety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the road over which you will still have to pass should in some places appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the obstacles from your progress in as compendious a manner as it can be done, without sacrificing utility to despatch.

In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined is the "insufficiency of the present Confederation to the preservation of the Union." It may perhaps be asked what need there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new Constitution. It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support this opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.

We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent nation which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the performance of which we are held by every tie respectable among men? These are the subjects of constant and unblushing violation. Do we owe debts to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in a time of imminent peril for the preservation of our political existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory provision for their discharge. Have we valuable territories and important posts in the possession of a foreign power which, by express stipulations, ought long since to have been surrendered? These are still retained, to the prejudice of our interests, not less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to resent or to repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor government.1 Are we even in a condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on our own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought first to be removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free participation in the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain excludes us from it. Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declension. Is respectability in the eyes of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us. Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty. Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of national distress? The price of improved land in most parts of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be demanded, what indication is there of national disorder, poverty, and insignificance that could befall a community so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes?

This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought by those very maxims and councils which would now deter us from adopting the proposed Constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the fatal charm which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and prosperity.

It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn to be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the abstract proposition that there exist material defects in our national system; but the usefulness of the concession, on the part of the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can give it a chance of success. While they admit that the government of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that energy. They seem still to aim at things repugnant and irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem to cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in imperio. This renders a full display of the principal defects of the Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist. Though this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the Union, yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest depends. Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that though in theory their resolutions concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally binding on the members of the Union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations which the States observe or disregard at their option.

It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men who object to the new Constitution, for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old, and which is in itself evidently incompatible with the idea of GOVERNMENT; a principle, in short, which, if it is to be executed at all, must substitute the violent and sanguinary agency of the sword to the mild influence of the magistracy.

There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties. Compacts of this kind exist among all civilized nations, subject to the usual vicissitudes of peace and war, of observance and non-observance, as the interests or passions of the contracting powers dictate. In the early part of the present century there was an epidemical rage in Europe for this species of compacts, from which the politicians of the times fondly hoped for benefits which were never realized. With a view to establishing the equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of the world, all the resources of negotiation were exhausted, and triple and quadruple alliances were formed; but they were scarcely formed before they were broken, giving an instructive but afflicting lesson to mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith, and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice to the impulse of any immediate interest or passion.

If the particular States in this country are disposed to stand in a similar relation to each other, and to drop the project of a general DISCRETIONARY SUPERINTENDENCE, the scheme would indeed be pernicious, and would entail upon us all the mischiefs which have been enumerated under the first head; but it would have the merit of being, at least, consistent and practicable Abandoning all views towards a confederate government, this would bring us to a simple alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us in a situation to be alternate friends and enemies of each other, as our mutual jealousies and rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign nations, should prescribe to us.

But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation; if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, --the only proper objects of government.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an association where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of civil obedience. Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it.

There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States, of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union. This language, at the present day, would appear as wild as a great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. It at all times betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is actuated, and belied the original inducements to the establishment of civil power. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.

In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of sovereign power, an impatience of control, that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations. From this spirit it happens, that in every political association which is formed upon the principle of uniting in a common interest a number of lesser sovereignties, there will be found a kind of eccentric tendency in the subordinate or inferior orbs, by the operation of which there will be a perpetual effort in each to fly off from the common centre. This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for. It has its origin in the love of power. Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged. This simple proposition will teach us how little reason there is to expect, that the persons intrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular members of a confederacy will at all times be ready, with perfect good-humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to execute the resolutions or decrees of the general authority. The reverse of this results from the constitution of human nature.

If, therefore, the measures of the Confederacy cannot be executed without the intervention of the particular administrations, there will be little prospect of their being executed at all. The rulers of the respective members, whether they have a constitutional right to do it or not, will undertake to judge of the propriety of the measures themselves. They will consider the conformity of the thing proposed or required to their immediate interests or aims; the momentary conveniences or inconveniences that would attend its adoption. All this will be done; and in a spirit of interested and suspicious scrutiny, without that knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of state, which is essential to a right judgment, and with that strong predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead the decision. The same process must be repeated in every member of which the body is constituted; and the execution of the plans, framed by the councils of the whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part. Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it often is, where there is no exterior pressure of circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions on important points, will readily conceive how impossible it must be to induce a number of such assemblies, deliberating at a distance from each other, at different times, and under different impressions, long to co-operate in the same views and pursuits.

In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills is requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete execution of every important measure that proceeds from the Union. It has happened as was to have been foreseen. The measures of the Union have not been executed; the delinquencies of the States have, step by step, matured themselves to an extreme, which has, at length, arrested all the wheels of the national government, and brought them to an awful stand. Congress at this time scarcely possess the means of keeping up the forms of administration, till the States can have time to agree upon a more substantial substitute for the present shadow of a federal government. Things did not come to this desperate extremity at once. The causes which have been specified produced at first only unequal and disproportionate degrees of compliance with the requisitions of the Union. The greater deficiencies of some States furnished the pretext of example and the temptation of interest to the complying, or to the least delinquent States. Why should we do more in proportion than those who are embarked with us in the same political voyage? Why should we consent to bear more than our proper share of the common burden? These were suggestions which human selfishness could not withstand, and which even speculative men, who looked forward to remote consequences, could not, without hesitation, combat. Each State, yielding to the persuasive voice of immediate interest or convenience, has successively withdrawn its support, till the frail and tottering edifice seems ready to fall upon our heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins.

PUBLIUS.

1. "I mean for the Union."

OBAMA: TV HOUND

TO PRESIDENT OBAMA,

WHY IS IT THAT YOU CAN FIND THE TIME TO BE ON EVERY TELEVISION SHOW YOU CAN GET YOUR FACE ON AS TO DOING YOUR JOB: RUNNING THE COUNTRY.

YOU ARE THE "PRESIDENT" NOT A "CELEBERITY".
I COULD BE WORNG!!!!!!!!!!

DON'T WORRY ABOUT BEING ON TV AND DO YOUR JOB.

JEEZ! Even Jessie Jackson's Down On NPR!

Even Jessie Jackson of fame...and days of yore is down on NPR.:



It's not often that Jessie will criticize a leftist mouthpeice organization...but for once in his life, he has. 

“They’ve martyred Juan,” Jackson said, “taking him to another level both with his resources and his authority as a journalist.”   Jackson suggested that NPR’s decision seized on his comments about Muslims as “a pretext” that was primarily motivated by ideology.  “I think that some of this predisposition towards Fox was the reason for the gotcha,” Jackson said. “If they did not want his point of view, they should have said, ‘When your contract is over, you do not fit into our scheme of things.’ And then (he’d) go gracefully and with dignity. But to fire him in that way, and then to suggest he should see a psychiatrist, it was beneath the character and reputation of NPR.”

While NPR CEO Vivian Schiller has since appologized for her smarmy comments...it has done nothing to add to the now tarnished image of NPR. 

Personally, I greatly enjoy the local NPR music station, WBJC. From 1979 until 2003 I donated money twice a year to NPR...but I've long since stopped, nor do I think that my tax dollars should go to support this organization.  But I digress. 

Mr. Jackson rarely ever gets on the right side of a situation, but shockingly this time he has.  His charecterization of NPR's CEO is spot on.

During Wednesday’s interview, Jackson said the comments Williams made have been taken out of context. He said fear of Muslims is unjustified but real, just like incorrect stereotypes of African-Americans and Latinos. Conservatives have been pointing to a 1995 comment by NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, in which she said that conservative Sen. Jesse Helms would get AIDS “if there’s retributive justice” after he proposed cutting AIDS research.“You know what Nina Totenberg said about Jesse Helms and AIDS? How ugly that statement was, for example,” Jackson said. “Juan was saying he gets anxious. It’s based upon these stereotypes. Many people get anxious when they saw blacks come in or they saw these Latinos walking in Arizona. So we have these unfounded fears, and we need to grow out of these unfounded fears. But he was saying something, I think, quite different.”

Mr. Jackson is right in this instance.

The Future of Health Care In America: Thank You Mr. Obama

With the passage of ObamaCare earlier this year, and the appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick, who adores the British National Health Service, we can expect to see a great deal more of what happened to 37-year-old Jamie Merrett.  Mr. Merrett, a quadraplegic, was concerned about the poor level of care he was receiving under nurses supplied by NHS.  So, he installed a camera to record what his nurses were doing.  Watch this:



What you see is his unqualified nurse, turn off his ventilator. 

Just a few days after the webcam was set up early last year, it filmed nurse Violetta Aylward accidentally switching off the ventilator. In the video, the life-support system can be heard emitting a long, loud beep, causing Aylward to shout for help. A care assistant rushes into the room and asks the nurse: "What have you done?" Aylward replies, "Switched this off."
Conscious of what's happening, but powerless to move, Merrett can only smack his lips together as a warning. The care worker then tells Aylward to use a resuscitation bag to keep the patient breathing. However, instead of connecting it to the hole in his neck, she places it over his mouth. She can be heard urging, "Jamie, breathe please."

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we can expect under government directed health care.  Ms. Aylward, turned Mr. Merrett into a vegitable...due to the 21 minutes his ventilator was turned off.  Instead of turning it back on...they waited 21 minutes for paramedics to arrive...

This is the future of health care in America...Thank You Mr. Obama!

Democrats Doing Opposition Research For 2012

The Democratic National Committee has filed Freedom of Information Act requests between 9 possible Republican contenders for the GOP 2012 presidential nomination.  The request date is this Friday BEFORE the 2010 election!  ABC News is reporting that,

The nine Republicans that Democrats are seeking information on are former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.; Gov. Haley Barbour, R-Miss.; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.; Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind.; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.

 In the realm of politics it's not uncommon to try and pry into the recesses of public papers in order to find what dirt there is to find.  What is unusual is how early this is occuring.  Such requests generally come in the fall of the year prior to the election (i.e. 2011 in this instance).  What is unusual is that the DNC is starting a year early. 

The request isn't for details of military service or lack thereof, but appears to be designed to find information on letters and memos sent to and from the potential candidates in official positions they've held.  DNC officials declined to comment, but did not dispute that the information has been requested. An Army spokesman confirmed that the DNC's formal request for information has been received.  "We did receive a FOIA request, and now we are responding to that FOIA request," said the spokesman, Col. Tom Collins.

So they're digging for dirt early.  That's the Chicago Way...but in this case, the usual dirty tricks department may come back to haunt them.  Voters are developing longer and longer memories.

Voter Fraud In New Jersey

Video of voter fraud allegations...this time in New Jersey:

Widespread Voter Fraud in Nevada

Harry Reid and the SEIU are attempting to steal the election for the US Senate seat in Nevada. 



Related:  SEIU Controls "Glitchy" Voter Machines In Clark County Nevada

Jerry Brown's Lies

Here's video of former California Governor, Jerry Brown admitting that he lied during his first campaign for governor in Califoria.  If this isn't pertinent today then nothing is.

Interviewer: You said something a moment ago that I have to follow up on and I have to draw you out on. You said you don’t have to lie anymore now that you’re not a politician. What did you lie about when you were governor?

Jerry Brown: It’s all a lie. You’re pretending there’s a plan…
Interviewer: What did you lie about?
Jerry Brown: You run for office and the assumption is “Oh, I know what to do”. You don’t. I didn’t have a plan for California. Clinton doesn’t have a plan. Bush doesn’t have a plan.
Interviewer: You said you had a plan for California and you lied because you didn’t have a plan?

Jerry Brown: You say you’re going to lower taxes, you’re going to put people to work, you’re gonna improve the schools, you’re going to stop crime… crime is up, schools are worse, taxes are higher. I mean be real!

Mr. Brown says he has a "plan" for California today.  Is he lying?  As it is most American's think politicians are lying when the give a speech anyway.  Here's Mr. Brown admitting to have lied about his "plan" in the past. 

Teachers Gone Wild: This Is What's Wrong With American Education

James O'Keefe has done it again.  This time he's caught the NEA teacher's union leadership saying and doing things that in our politically correct society are unacceptable.  I'm far from being politically correct myself, but there are some boundaries you just don't cross and this union crosses just about all of them.



Here is Governor Christy of New Jersey on this:

Gov. Chris Christie comments on 'teachers unions gone wild'

Mr. Christy is just about the only politician in the country has had the balls to take on the NEA.  He also has taken on the New Jersey political establishment's wasteful spending and corruption.  He just may be who we need to pick up the peices in 2012, nationally.

UPDATE:  More video of Ms. Ploshnick:



With teacher's union leadership like this, why do we bother having schools?

A Time For Choosing: Vote Wisely On Nov 2

Here's some video of Ronald Reagan dating to 1964.  Oddly enough, this is pertinent today 46 years later. 



It really is a time for choosing.  We have the choice of spending our country into bankruptcy within 10 years by continueing the ruinous path chosen by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, or we can roll back both the size and scope of government interference in our private lives and in the economy.

Remember, if your Congressman or Senators, state house delegates-representatives or senators, right down to your city and country council men and women have voted to increase taxes or increase governmental regulartion and intereference then they are part of the problem and not the solution.

The GOP has been granted an opportunity given, perhaps, once in a generation...to remake itself and to return to it's fiscally conservative roots.  If it does not, if Republican Party leadership decides to return to "business as usual" then the party is doomed. 

Remember November.

If Full Senate Were Up For Election: GOP Would Take Filibuster Proof Majority

The Raw Story is reporting that Nate Silver, a top pollster who writes a blog at the NY Times, recently released information that should shock the Democratic Party.  If the entire Senate were up for reelection, like the House of Representatives, the GOP would gain a fillibuster proof majority. 

Take a look at our Senate forecast map. There’s a lot of red there. Part of that, yes, is because Republicans tend to do better in the middle of the country where the states are physically larger — but that kind of misses the point.  Right now, among the 37 Senate elections, we have Republicans favored in 25, Democrats favored in 11, and one other (Colorado) that’s too close to call. If Democrats have a relatively good election night, they will win about one-third of the available Senate races. And if anything, the states that are voting for Senate this year are slightly blue-leaning. If the entire Senate were up for re-election in this political climate, the Republicans would be favored to earn a filibuster-proof majority, and might even earn a veto-proof majority! Fortunately for Democrats, that’s not how the system works. (Maybe some of our readers could go though the list of 63 Senators that are not up for re-election and guess which ones they’d expect to lose if they were. It could be kind of fun.) [Emphasis is mine, ed.]

Think about that...the "little people" are pissed enough at our "political elite" that they would hand the opposition party a majority large enough to overturn everything the Democratic Party has done in the past four years.  Thus has Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid hav wrought...on the other hand...if the GOP screws this up by returning to what they did during 2002-2006, aka,  "going along to get along" then they will have forced We The People to create a political party that is genuinely fiscally conservative, and 2012 will make this years elections seem mild by comparison.

Via Instapundit

Reason TV: Porker of the Month

Here's Reason TV's Porker of the Month:  Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Yet Another Appology For Barack Obama

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a hasidic rabbi who made waves in the haredi community a few years ago with a book entitled "Kosher Sex"...I've not read it, haven't had either the time or the money to buy it. But I digress he wrote for AOL today yet another appology opinion piece on how Mr. Obama has lost his "magic." 

The real story in this election is not that America has no jobs, that the economy continues to falter or that the national debt continues to balloon. While all three are true and, more importantly, Obama has failed to fix them, it is also true that these conditions existed prior to Obama's election. Yet somehow his personal charisma and captivating charm elevated the electorate.


The real story of campaign 2010 is how boring Obama has become.

This is pretty much how he starts off...not really inspiring to say the least.  The gist of his peice is that Mr. Obama has over exposed himself  by always being in the public eye...which I think is true, but he fails to reach the hearf of why Mr. Obama is flailing and failing in the White House.  There were several pertinent comments, but here is mine: 

The were always signs of what kind of President Mr. Obama would make. They were obscured as much as possible by the syncophantic reporters of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN & MSNBC as well as the NY Times, LA Times, Wash Post, Time, etc...but if you took a close look with WHOM he associated himself with. Those people who influenced him in his formative years...they were all socialists or communists.

.
After all, he kicked off his political career in the living room of one of America's few domestic terrorists. A man whom Mr. Obama later referred to as..."just someone who lives in my neighborhood."
.
Mr. Obama is the least prepared president in our history. He's never had to actually make any real decisions prior to his election to the Presidency...nor has he any real executive experience. Running for office isn't executive experience, since a campaign manager makes many if not most of the campaign decisions. What we have is...a disaster unfolding on a daily basis.
.
Mr. Obama did in fact inherit a financial mess, one of his own party's making. Three leaders of the Democratic Party pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to extend "sub-marginal" loans...loans to people who didn't put any money down, were extended often 125% of the value of the home "to make repairs & renovations." Nor could many of these people actually pay the mortgages...thus many defaulted and those homes were forclosed on. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA4) and Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) fought every single attempt to reign in Fanny and Freddy, often lambasting those who tried to stop the runaway train as "racists"....Geo Bush tried in 2003 and John McCain in 2005. By 2007 the signs were there that both were beyond being on an unsustainable path.
.
Then cam TARP...AIG was bailed out because it managed Congress' retirement funds (can't have those in jeapardy). The "Stimulus" that wasn't sucked a trillion dollars out of the credit markets and socked them into 30 year treasurey notes...that money's gone as if it never was...Cap & Trade (which will probably be passed in the Mad Duck session in December) will add $2400.00 per household in fuel and electricity costs. Then there was ObamaCare...which will add significantly to the cost of health insurance and the deficit, which in the past two years has added $3,000,000,000,000.00 to the debt and when combined with the budgets that have been passed since Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid (both Democrats I might add) took control of Congress in 2007...that number become $5 trillion dollars...more than 1/3 of the national debt has been added in the past four years!
.
No wonder voters are pissed...the Tea Party was brewing BEFORE Mr. Obama took office...the rumblings were there to see since 2006...but they bloomed full when the Democratic leadership last year ignored the economy and worked for a year to pass seizure of health care...
.
So...we'll see what happens next Tuesday...and then next year. This is the last chance for the GOP. If they don't get it right...by reducing spending significantly. Ending earmarks and all extra-Constitutional methods of wasting tax dollars as well as significantly reducing both the size and scope of the federal government, you WILL see a 3rd party running against them in 2012. Bet on it.

Rich Vail,
Pikesville, MD

Not much more to add...

FEDERALIST No. 13 Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government

For the Independent Journal.

Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

As CONNECTED with the subject of revenue, we may with propriety consider that of economy. The money saved from one object may be usefully applied to another, and there will be so much the less to be drawn from the pockets of the people. If the States are united under one government, there will be but one national civil list to support; if they are divided into several confederacies, there will be as many different national civil lists to be provided for--and each of them, as to the principal departments, coextensive with that which would be necessary for a government of the whole. The entire separation of the States into thirteen unconnected sovereignties is a project too extravagant and too replete with danger to have many advocates. The ideas of men who speculate upon the dismemberment of the empire seem generally turned toward three confederacies--one consisting of the four Northern, another of the four Middle, and a third of the five Southern States. There is little probability that there would be a greater number. According to this distribution, each confederacy would comprise an extent of territory larger than that of the kingdom of Great Britain. No well-informed man will suppose that the affairs of such a confederacy can be properly regulated by a government less comprehensive in its organs or institutions than that which has been proposed by the convention. When the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it requires the same energy of government and the same forms of administration which are requisite in one of much greater extent. This idea admits not of precise demonstration, because there is no rule by which we can measure the momentum of civil power necessary to the government of any given number of individuals; but when we consider that the island of Britain, nearly commensurate with each of the supposed confederacies, contains about eight millions of people, and when we reflect upon the degree of authority required to direct the passions of so large a society to the public good, we shall see no reason to doubt that the like portion of power would be sufficient to perform the same task in a society far more numerous. Civil power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions.

The supposition that each confederacy into which the States would be likely to be divided would require a government not less comprehensive than the one proposed, will be strengthened by another supposition, more probable than that which presents us with three confederacies as the alternative to a general Union. If we attend carefully to geographical and commercial considerations, in conjunction with the habits and prejudices of the different States, we shall be led to conclude that in case of disunion they will most naturally league themselves under two governments. The four Eastern States, from all the causes that form the links of national sympathy and connection, may with certainty be expected to unite. New York, situated as she is, would never be unwise enough to oppose a feeble and unsupported flank to the weight of that confederacy. There are other obvious reasons that would facilitate her accession to it. New Jersey is too small a State to think of being a frontier, in opposition to this still more powerful combination; nor do there appear to be any obstacles to her admission into it. Even Pennsylvania would have strong inducements to join the Northern league. An active foreign commerce, on the basis of her own navigation, is her true policy, and coincides with the opinions and dispositions of her citizens. The more Southern States, from various circumstances, may not think themselves much interested in the encouragement of navigation. They may prefer a system which would give unlimited scope to all nations to be the carriers as well as the purchasers of their commodities. Pennsylvania may not choose to confound her interests in a connection so adverse to her policy. As she must at all events be a frontier, she may deem it most consistent with her safety to have her exposed side turned towards the weaker power of the Southern, rather than towards the stronger power of the Northern, Confederacy. This would give her the fairest chance to avoid being the Flanders of America. Whatever may be the determination of Pennsylvania, if the Northern Confederacy includes New Jersey, there is no likelihood of more than one confederacy to the south of that State.

Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole. This reflection must have great weight in obviating that objection to the proposed plan, which is founded on the principle of expense; an objection, however, which, when we come to take a nearer view of it, will appear in every light to stand on mistaken ground.
If, in addition to the consideration of a plurality of civil lists, we take into view the number of persons who must necessarily be employed to guard the inland communication between the different confederacies against illicit trade, and who in time will infallibly spring up out of the necessities of revenue; and if we also take into view the military establishments which it has been shown would unavoidably result from the jealousies and conflicts of the several nations into which the States would be divided, we shall clearly discover that a separation would be not less injurious to the economy, than to the tranquillity, commerce, revenue, and liberty of every part.

PUBLIUS.

Street Art:

Edgar Mueller is a very tallented artist.  He uses chalk and creates superb pictures...literally on the street or sidewalks.

Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Dollars Since Mrs. Pelosi Took Control Of The House

Since 2007, when Nancy Pelosi declared that there would be no new deficit spending, the United States Debt has added $5,000,000,000,000.00...that's a hell of a lot of money passed through the Democratically controlled Congress...

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.


"After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt."

Pelosi has served as speaker in the 110th and 111th Congresses.

At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).

Pelosi, the 60th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has added more to the national debt than the first 57 House speakers combined.

The $4.997-trillion increase in the national debt since she took the gavel is more debt than the federal government amassed from the speakership of Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who became the first speaker of the House on April 1, 1789, to the start of the speakership of Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the 58th speaker, who took up the gavel on Jan. 4, 1995...[emphasis is mine, ed.]

Now, the GOP has one last opportunity to walk the walk, not just talk the talk that they forgot from 2002-2006...if they don't the Republican Party is finished...and so is the United States, because we will have not walked off the cliff, we will have jumped off of it. 

We'll Save A Spot For You...

WOW!

WOW...this video as very telling when set against the last post from Mark Steyn



More from Steyn: 

In 2009, the US spent about $665 billion on its military, the Chinese about $99 billion. If Beijing continues to buy American debt at the rate it has in recent times, then within a few years US interest payments on that debt will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese military. This summer, the Pentagon issued an alarming report to Congress on Beijing’s massive military build-up, including new missiles, upgraded bombers, and an aircraft-carrier R&D program intended to challenge US dominance in the Pacific. What the report didn’t mention is who’s paying for it.
Answer: Mr and Mrs America.

By 2015, the People’s Liberation Army, which is the largest employer on the planet, bigger even than the US Department of Community-Organizer Grant Applications, will be entirely funded by US taxpayers. When the Commies take Taiwan, suburban families in Connecticut and small businesses in Idaho will have paid for it.

 I knew things were bad, that we as a nation can't afford to continue, for even one more year of Obama/Pelosi/Reid level of spending...but this is apocolyptic.  More importantly, here is Mr. Steyn's conclusion...and I fully agree with him, the emphasis is mine. 

In a two-party system, you have to work with what’s available. In America, one party is openly committed to driving the nation off the cliff, and the other party is full of guys content to go along for the ride as long as we shift down to third gear. That’s no longer enough of a choice. If your candidate isn’t committed to fewer government agencies with fewer employees on lower rates of pay, he’s part of the problem. This is the last chance for the GOP to restore its credentials. If it blows it, all bets are off for 2012.

Sadly, I don't think the GOP's leadership gets it.

We're Already In The Decline

Mark Steyn has spent most of this year in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.  He's an independent journalist who lives off of donations and what articles he can sell to various magazines, newspapers and wire services.  Here's his take on the state of America now...

I’ve spent much of this election season overseas, a long way from internal polls for this or that House district, so I’m not too focused on the fortunes of particular Republican candidates or particular Democrat incumbents. But nor is a big chunk of the electorate: A Republican victory is not the end but merely the means. The Tea Party and other members of America’s beleaguered productive class decided that this time round it suited them to work within the diseased husk of the GOP. This is really the last chance for the unloved Republicans. If the party establishment is sufficiently dimwitted to see November 2nd as the restoration of the 2004-2006 GOP, they will be setting up the conditions (as Rush has already argued) for a serious third-force challenge in 2012. That would be less convulsive than a remoter though still possible scenario: If the Democrats manage to hold onto power by openly funding spoiler candidates, they would be discrediting the entire electoral process, and setting up pre-revolutionary conditions. In other words, it would be very easy for both parties to confirm the suspicion of a very disenchanted electorate – that the system no longer allows for serious course correction.

And, without serious course correction, America is doomed. It starts with the money. For dominant powers, it always does – from the Roman Empire to the British Empire. “Declinism” is in the air these days, but for us full-time apocalyptics we’re already well past that stage. In the space of one generation, a nation of savers became the world’s largest debtors, and a nation of makers and doers became a cheap service economy. Everything that can be outsourced has been – manufacturing to by no means friendly nations overseas; and much of what’s left in agriculture and construction to the armies of the “undocumented”. At the lower end, Americans are educated at a higher cost per capita than any nation except Luxembourg in order to do minimal-skill checkout-line jobs about to be rendered obsolete by technology. At the upper end, America’s elite goes to school till early middle age in order to be credentialed for pseudo-employment as $350 grand-a-year diversity consultants (Michelle Obama) or in one of the many other phony-baloney makework schemes deriving from government micro-regulation of virtually every aspect of endeavor...

So we’re not facing “decline”. We’re already in it. What comes next is the “fall” – sudden, devastating, off the cliff...

In other words, forget about mid-century. Within a decade, the United States will be spending more of the federal budget on its interest payments than on its military. You read that right: more on debt service than on the armed services. According to the CBO’s long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20 per cent of its revenues in debt interest. Whereas defense spending will be down to between 14 and 16 per cent. And even those figures are premised on an optimistic assumption of resumed economic growth but continued low interest rates.

Any emphasis is mine, not the author's...needless to say, READ THE WHOLE THING