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As an American History teacher for a few years, I became aware of significant historical moments that almost changed the governance of our country.
One such time was FDR’s Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937. Like today the country had a very popular President. Like today the country was in a recession. Like today, the Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress. Like today, the Supreme Court was often split 5-4 on various decisions. I could go on …
Fast forward to 2013. Let’s assume President Obama wins re-election the year before. You can substitute our present president’s remarks with those of FDR in 1937. The years and communication technology were different, but…
“I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis. In 1933 you and I knew that we must never let our economic system get completely out of joint again-that we could not afford to take the risk of another Great Depression.
“We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent and to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that system out of joint.
“We then began a program of remedying those abuses and inequalities-to give balance and stability to our economic system, to make it bomb-proof against the causes of 1929.
“Today we are only part-way through that program- and recovery is speeding up to a point where the dangers of 1929 are again becoming possible, not this week or month perhaps, but within a year or two.
“National laws are needed to complete that program. Individual or local or state effort alone cannot protect us in 1937 any better than ten years ago.
“It will take time - and plenty of time - to work out our remedies administratively even after legislation is passed. To complete our program of protection in time, therefore, we cannot delay one moment in making certain that our national government has power to carry through.
“Four years ago action did not come until the eleventh hour. It was almost too late. But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic progress through legislation, the (Supreme) Court has more and more often and more and more boldly asserted a power to veto laws passed by the Congress and by state legislatures…
“What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new member shall be appointed by the president then in office, with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
“That plan has two chief purposes. By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice, from the bottom to the top, speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work. This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
“The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy, or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.
“If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan, no additional place would be created. Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve. And there may be only nine...”
There are similarities between the direction our current President is taking this country and the rhetoric of FDR. The “New Deal” president wanted to stack the Court to be more favorable to his agenda…thus the proposal to add SC justices up to a total of fifteen.
After FDR’s first election in 1932, his Recovery Act cut pensions of retired Supreme Court pensions by 50%. Any similarities between the present administration’s desire to cut and cap salaries of CEOs who receive government bailout money?
Consider the dazzling speed of Obama’s proposals. Consider the urgency with which he described the need for the 2nd stimulus package. Consider the physical impossibility of legislators to have the time to read the language of the 2nd stimulus package with its many “pork” addenda. Reread the FDR fireside chat. Note the urgency it conveys and the unabashed grab for more power.
Consider the passage of HR 2454 "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009". Its goal, as stated from its official title, is "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."
HR 2454 is downloadable in a PDF file which counts out at 1,201 pages. Rep. Henry Waxman, a sponsor of the bill, was asked during a hearing if he had read it. He admitted that he had not, nor, in my opinion, did any House member have time to before the vote June 26th.
I am tempted to ask if we even need Congress. We have an administration that is leading this country into the world of FDR, the one U.S. dictator this country elected four times.
The legislation this Congress has passed since January 20th , and will pass in the upcoming months, will be challenged in the courts.
Let’s hope that the American people stand up before the fast-forwarded speech of 2013 and decide that we too need a Supreme Court as a check and balance against out-of-control legislative and judicial branches. Oops, I forgot, the President nominates Supreme Court justices.
Nah, it couldn’t happen again…
I would think it rare that a conservative like myself would agree with our VP Joe Biden on much, but remember his famous comment which seemed like a political gaffe...last Oct. 19th?
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee said in a Seattle fundraiser, "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Well, in the trial of corruption that led to the downfall of Chicago Black Sox back in 1921, on the second day of Shoeless Joe Jackson's testimony, a group of small boys were gathered at the courtroom entrance. One asked, "It isn't true, is it, Joe?" He responded, "Yes, boys, I'm afraid it is." By the time this report reached the west coast, it had become: "Say it ain't so, Joe!"
We are not even into month six of the Obama administration, and prophetic Joe who runs off at the mouth like a leaky faucet was not plagiarizing anyone, like he did in his 1988 presidential campaign…forcing Biden to withdraw from the race.
Biden’s prophetic prediction back in October is coming true. Not only is his boss being tested by an unexpected recession, but overseas he faces critical mass issues with North Korea’s unabashed “in your face” actions to the U.S. in detonating an underground nuclear device on May 25th. Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion.
The country's Yonhap news agency reported that the North had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test.
Expect more fireworks from North Korea on July 4th. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that the military has set up additional defenses around Hawaii, consisting of a ground-based mobile missile system and a radar system nearby.
Gates spoke after Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported that North Korea might test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile with a range of up to 4,000 miles sometime around the 4th of July. The missile would fly over Japan but would not be able to reach Hawaii, which is about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.
The latest news today is that North Korea may test medium-range missiles instead of the Taepodon-2, but if it goes through with Gates' prediction...I have to say with the kids in the courtroom…to our VP: “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
Now that the Obama administration and the tail-wagging Dems in Congress have decided to go down the road to European socialism, it is interesting to take a look at the recent European Union’s elections .
EU's biggest-ever election concluded June 7th and social democrats got the worst results ever in their election history.
The European Parliament election in June 2009 was the biggest trans-national election in history.
About 375 million European citizens were eligible to vote. But the voter turnout was a record low in the June elections to the European Parliament (43.09%). After these turnout rates, results started to be discussed.
In Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the center right won the elections.
In Britain, PM Gordon Brown's political fortunes have spiraled downward with the electoral drubbing the ruling Labour party has suffered in recent days, but the party's slide has been years in the making -- rooted in a nasty internal split, divisions over the Iraq war, a deep recession and a steady drip of scandal.
Labour finished third in elections for seats in the European Parliament -- behind not just the opposition Conservatives, but also the fringe UK Independence Party, a weak showing for the party that has governed the U.K. since Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997. Labour captured just 15.7% of the vote, its lowest share of a national vote since 1910.
The results are widely seen as further evidence that Labour will be ousted by the Conservatives and their leader, David Cameron, in U.K. general elections that must be held within the next year, and have added to pressure on Mr. Brown to step aside sooner than that.
Now maybe one could care less about Europe’s politics, and I am not going to give a primer on how the EU was morphing into a U.S. of Europe, but let’s focus on the main reason for Europe’s shift to the right. Spending, borrowing, and more spending…to escape the world-wide economic recession.
Couple that with financial scandals in Britain and you have the perfect recipe for “throwing the ninnies out.”
I can’t help bring up our own spending scandals. Obama’s approval rating is still an unbelievable 67%, despite his plans to bury our descendants in unpayable debt. What is more to the point of “scandal” is the influence lobbyists still have on Congress, both Republicans and Democrats.
USA TODAY undertook the first comprehensive analysis of the lobbying reports and found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. The money went to honor 534 current and former lawmakers, almost 250 other federal officials and more than 100 groups, many of which count lawmakers among their members.
The total cost is roughly equivalent to what the U.S. government spends to operate Yellowstone National Park each year.
Most of the money — about $28 million — went to non-profit groups, some with direct ties to members of Congress. In two cases, USA TODAY found, the donations to non-profits associated with a member of Congress came in response to a personal appeal for funds from the lawmaker.
The money came from companies, trade associations and labor groups that lobby Congress and the government on a range of issues, from seeking a share of last year's $700 billion financial bailout package to trying to shape the debate on climate change.
The donations cover various activities — from a golf tournament that raises money for a lawmaker's non-profit to gifts to the alma mater of a powerful House committee chairman.
Most people are unaware of this end-run violation of basic ethics…just as in Britain most were not aware of what the MPs were doing. (MPs are Members of Britain’s House of Commons, not MEP’s, aka members of the European Union Parliament.)
The heart of the problem is that MPs, who are paid roughly $100,000 a year, work at Westminster in London, but generally live with their families in their constituencies. So they receive an allowance of about $30,000 for furniture, accessories, repairs and mortgage interest relief for a second home.
The accusation is that they have used the expense claims on their second home as an alternative income stream to pay for gardeners, chandeliers, dog food, wine, duck houses, and horse manure. Several MPs, most notably a senior member of Gordon Brown's cabinet, have been accused of changing the designation of their second home. That's a practice known as flipping, so that the allowance can then be applied to another property.
Here in the U.S., “You can still have a gala or something or the other for a charity and earn some favor with members of Congress, which is what the gift ban was put in place to avoid,” says Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business and a veteran Washington lobbyist.
The spending demonstrates the subtle ways that special-interest groups try to sway lawmakers, without making "something as crass as a payoff," says Kenneth Gross, a former Federal Election Commission official.
USA TODAY singled out as examples of this practice donations such as the $40,000 AT&T gave in December to the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, which researches Alzheimer's. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., founded the non-profit, which is named for his late mother, and he is the honorary chairman of its board.
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House energy committee, asked an energy company to donate to a foundation that bears his name. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the unpaid director.
Utility giant Exelon gave $25,000 to the non-profit last June and $50,000 in 2006, according to federal records and interviews with company officials.
Health care groups, for instance, give millions to the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston. Pharmaceutical giant Amgen wrote the biggest check — $5 million in December — to the institute, which will honor Kennedy's more than four decades in Congress and promote the study of the U.S. Senate.
Aetna insurance company donated $50,000.
Of course, all of these contributions are legal, and, unlike the British abuses of power by many of their MPs, the organizations members of Congress have personally founded or support may actually help people, but they are yet another way for votes to be swayed to favor the donor’s interests.
I say thumbs up for term limits on members of Congress, or, if failing that, I agree with the Brits that it’s time to “throw the ninnies out.” Where is there a land where irresponsible spending by a socialist president, complacent lawmakers, and a lobbyist-influenced Congress does not exist? I guess it must be Oz. It isn’t here, or across the pond. But the times…they are a’changin…maybe as soon as 2010, but for sure in 2012.
