“When applying the law the role of judges is not to impose their own view as to best policy choices for society but to faithfully and accurately determine the policy choices already made by the people and embodied in the law.”
John Sidney McCain III
Mario Apuzzo puts out a rather compelling argument that according to Vattel, McCain could be classified as a ‘natural born’ citizen. Let’s take a look…
Under Sec. 217 of The Law of Nations transcribed by Vattel is reference to children born out of country but in the armies of the state. Apuzzo gives much weight to the phrase “reputed born”. What does this mean in legal terminology? I do not know, I am not a lawyer, and Apuzzo gives no definition of it (of which there are several for it at the time of the adoption of the constitution) in his article that he uses as the basis for his claim.
What I do know is that in the current FAM (foreign affairs manual), it clearly states that all children born in the Canal Zone, as well as the Republic of Panama are citizens by statute, Act of August 4, 1937, Sec. 1, 50 Stat. 558, codified at INA:
§ 1403. Persons born in the Canal Zone or Republic of Panama on or after February 26, 1904
303(a) Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this chapter, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.
303(b) Any person born in the Republic of Panama on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this chapter, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States employed by the Government of the United States or by the Panama Railroad Company, or its successor in title, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.
We also know for fact that McCain’s birth certificate was filed with the Panama Railroad Company. If the natural born citizen were to apply, McCain’s birth would have been directly recorded with the permanent resident state of his parents at the time he was born.
As McCain said, judges have to faithfully apply the law that is already in place. Policies and personal choices are not to be legislated from the bench, therefore my conclusion of McCain’s ineligibility to be President stands as reported.
Well documented in Part II of my series ‘The Congressional Natural Born Citizen”, McCain had known of this problem decades before the 2008 election. There were numerous attempts to amend Article II as well as change the INA codified laws. They ALL failed and for good reason. Those in Congress, who held the gavel at the time, knew of the potential threat to our national security if the qualifications for President & Commander in Chief were open to those with dual citizenship.
As much as I sympathize with those who admire McCain for his service to our country (I am one of them), that admiration CAN NOT usurp the law. By trying to do so puts those people in the same corrupt circle of thinkers who pick & choose law at will for their personal benefit.
McCain has brought dishonor to himself by his own volition. It was his choice not ours and he will have to live with it every day for the rest of his life. He will also have to live with the irreparable harm that resulted from his willingness to skirt the law for personal political power which is in complete conflict of the opening quote of this article.
Leo weighs in regarding a request I had made to him regarding this issue. This response pertains to the UIPA requests that have been sent to Hawaii and Hawaii’s responses thus far:
[ed. … I will post a report next week which makes the truth clear and which establishes that an AG Opinion was rendered and is now being kept secret by the AG – and his office has personally informed me that they are invoking attorney client privilege thereto. The general public is now being guided away from paying attention to that AG opinion because the opinion must be disclosed by law. And if they can make the public lose focus then they might be able to keep the report hidden. If the public makes enough noise and does not lose focus on the AG report, then it is VERY hard for the AG to not cough it up. So, if you all want to see the AG opinion then don’t fall for the Seussian hooplah telling you that it does not exist. It does exist.]
This will be a multi-part series that focuses on Congresses knowledge of the meaning of ‘natural born citizen’ and how they have purposely side stepped the constitution & the intent of the founding fathers regarding US citizenship by using ‘baby steps’ to achieve their ultimate goal:
“An Amendment to the Constitution to make eligible for the office of President any person who has been a US citizen for (X) amount of years”
I use (X) because there are several versions, all with differing views as to the number of years the citizen must be a continual resident prior to running for office.
‘Hope-n-Change’ Floats
“The written Constitution ‘floats’ in a vast and deep – and, crucially, invisible – ocean of ideas, propositions, recovered memories, and imagined experiences…The Invisible Constitution is not simply a mask for imposing a particular ideology on the Constitution, which is what people sometimes think.”…”What I am hoping is that people will come to see that we’re all engaged in the same game and that the political reality of the Constitution, which is not confined to the written text, is an equal-opportunity reality.”
This folks is the view of every liberal progressive ideologue on capital hill today.
Laurence Tribe’s roots to the progressive movement span decades. Tribe graduated from Harvard Law in 1966, immediately clerked for Trobiner in the Ca Supreme Court for a year, then moved to DC where he clerked for Stewart for a year. Not having any real world experience, Tribe then joins Harvard as an assistant professor in 1968 and after 4 years, he received his tenure from Harvard in 1972.
Sounding familiar? Let’s continue on…
Laurence Tribe is the co-founder of the liberal activist “American Constitution Society”, a law and policy organization formed to breed and pit young activist lawyers, like himself, against originalism and constitutional jurisprudence. Tribe is considered as a demigod at Harvard and the cast of characters surrounding him over the years sounds like a who’s who of liberal activism progressive style. We have Aharon Barach, chief justice of Israel who believes in letting unrepentant genocidal terrorists roam free; Doris Kearn Goodwin, liberal revisionist historian; Akhil Amar, liberal law professor at Yale; Nina Totenberg, liberal legal correspondent for NPR. Most notably in Tribe’s cast of contributing characters, we find none other than Cass Sunstein, Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) & Barack Obama. The one I shall take note of today is Barack Obama.
While studying at Harvard, Obama became a research assistant to Tribe on his book – “Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes” (1990) and in turn, during Obama’s candidacy, Tribe did a political commercial congratulating Obama and publically supporting the Obama campaign.
During the campaign last year, Ellis Washingtonwrote this of Tribe:
‘Tribes judicial philosophy would be right up there with the most radical leftists of the Supreme Court, like Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, Earl Warren, Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and many other enemies of the original intent of the framers.”
Tribe’s Congress
Tribe wrote his initial commentary on the Constitution in 1978 call “American Constitutional Law”. With this initial commentary, Tribe ascended to the throne and since has been the liberal’s commandant in their efforts to over throw capitalism and our Republic’s Judeo Christian heritage through backdoor congressional activist legislation.
In 1987, Michael Greve of the ‘Reason Magazine’ wrote a review of Scalia’s book, A Matter of Interpretation. Scalia’s book expounds on the ‘textualist’ theory and his qualities as a judicial ‘statesman’. Neither of which is Tribe.
Greve writes that Tribe is [n]otorious for urging judges to go boldly where none have gone before and that [T]ribe’s pretenses are a thin cover for their effort to mobilize the Constitution for left-liberal causes.
Enter Liberal Left Election Activism Through Legislation
Of Tribe’s most notable influences on congressional committee hearings are those during the Nixon & Clinton impeachment hearings, The Gore/Bush election & most currently the judiciary committee hearings on S. Res. 511:
Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.
There are many more areas where tribe’s activist views have been sought to pass radical legislation, however, for the purposes of this series, we shall stick to the topic at hand.
I can not say with certainty when it all began; but the legislative moves to forever redefine/remove the term ‘natural born citizen’ as it exists in the founding documents of the United States of America, have been going on far longer than I had thought.
Not only have they moved to redefine/remove it from the Constitution, they have actively been bestowing ‘natural born’ citizenship status on individual citizens for decades through ‘private’ laws.
A search of Thomas.gov revealed that since 1973. Congress has bestowed ‘natural born’ citizenship 13 times through this ‘private law’ practice. I was only able to retrieve the basics, as I assume, the fact that they are ‘private law’ bills, the contents are sealed, and therefore not available to the public. This is as specific as they get, no congressional committee minutes are available through Thomas.gov:
Title: A bill for the relief of Phillip Harper. Became Private Law No. 98-39 (1983)
In 1987, a bill was introduced which was entitled, ‘The overseas American Children’s Human Right’s Act of 1987’. The summary concludes that children born outside of the US to mixed parents (one being an alien) shall be a U.S. citizen at birth and then goes on to grant US national and natural born citizen status to any person born, whether in or out of wedlock, to a US citizen parent outside the United States.
This bill as far as I can tell never made it out of committee. A similar bill appeared in 1989 that met the same demise.
Were these bills a precursor for the currently behind closed committee door activism in Congress? Were they Congresses initial ‘baby steps’ towards the ultimate destruction of the ‘natural born’ citizen?
From 1973 – current, attempts have been made to remove ‘natural born’ from Article II of the Constitution. Additional attempts have also been made to formally define/change the meaning of ‘natural born’, therefore opening the door for any and all citizens to be able to run for President, regardless of their type of citizenship.
Committee minutes from the earlier days are nil, thus lending me to believe no merit was given to the early attempts. However, the sponsor of the earliest 6 amendments from 1973-77 was Rep. Jonathan B. Bingham (NY). Jonathan Bingham was a Connecticut Bingham and I do not know at this time if there is a direct relation to Rep. John A Bingham who was one of the founders of the 14th Amendment that left this famous quote which is recorded in congressional records for all time:
Rep. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Coincidence? I think not. To believe that a representative with the same family surname, a surname of a long historical list of politicians dating back to the revolution, was not aware or had studied the congressional records during the drafting of the 14th Amendment would be naïve.
These early attempts, that are still available to be retrieved online at Thomas.gov, also coincide with the appearance of Laurence Tribe onto the scene that had this to say about natural born citizen:
“The Framers substituted the word ‘citizen’ for ‘subject’ to reflect the shift from a monarchy to democracy”
Well, had the Framers actually adopted a Constitution for a Democracy instead of a Constitutional Republic, Tribe may have been right. This is also just one tiny example of his influence on Congress over the past several decades of Constitutional abuse.
From 1973 – current, there have been 15 silent secret attempts to remove the words ‘natural born’ from the Constitution and replace them with just citizen. It is the ideology of the leftist-liberals that the words ‘natural born’ are discriminatory and therefore keep naturalized citizens and those born with dual citizenship from their imaginary right to be president.
Part II to come: Breaking down of the most current secret legislation proposed from 2000-08.
Part III will focus specifically on S. Res. 511 and Tribe’s extensive influence in Congresses cover-up of ineligible presidential candidates that continues to this day.
Hannity is still pushing the liberal’s global agenda by calling on ‘NOT” constitutionally qualified Jindal to run for President in 2012.
Jindal may have been born on US soil, however, niether of Jindal’s parents were citizens when he was born.
Being ‘natural born’ is only one requirement for president and NOT all natural born citizens may run, so get over any feelings of being president as some sort of right. One can be 32 and natural born, however that person is not qualified to run for president. One can be 35, a natural born, but not lived in the country for the 14 years prior to the election thus making that person ‘NOT’ qualified. Making sure the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces is ‘natural born’, born on US soil to parents(both) who are US citizens, is a national security measure written into the Constitution and adopted by ALL states to guard against foreign influence & intrigue that we are now seeing with Obama.
Jindal was raised on US soil by parents who practiced & taught Jindal the influences of their home country of India. You can NOT disolve those influences in ones own lifetime & the founding fathers knew it.
H/T Ed Morrisy via HotAir: Cheney’s speech is as good as it is long. He blasts Obama’s “dithering” on the war in Afghanistan and his abrupt betrayals of allies in eastern Europe:
As prepared for delivery
October 21, 2009
Thank you all very much. It’s a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends.
I’m told that among those you’ve recognized before me was my friend Don Rumsfeld. I don’t mind that a bit. It fits something of a pattern. In a career that includes being chief of staff, congressman, and secretary of defense, I haven’t had much that Don didn’t get first. But truth be told, any award once conferred on Donald Rumsfeld carries extra luster, and I am very proud to see my name added to such a distinguished list.
To Frank Gaffney and all the supporters of Center for Security Policy, I thank you for this honor. And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is – the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States.
Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier. With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country’s word.
So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration, I consider the abandonment of missile defense in Eastern Europe to be a strategic blunder and a breach of good faith.
It is certainly not a model of diplomacy when the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic are informed of such a decision at the last minute in midnight phone calls. It took a long time and lot of political courage in those countries to arrange for our interceptor system in Poland and the radar system in the Czech Republic. Our Polish and Czech friends are entitled to wonder how strategic plans and promises years in the making could be dissolved, just like that – with apparently little, if any, consultation. Seventy years to the day after the Soviets invaded Poland, it was an odd way to mark the occasion.
You hardly have to go back to 1939 to understand why these countries desire – and thought they had – a close and trusting relationship with the United States. Only last year, the Russian Army moved into Georgia, under the orders of a man who regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. Anybody who has spent much time in that part of the world knows what Vladimir Putin is up to. And those who try placating him, by conceding ground and accommodating his wishes, will get nothing in return but more trouble.
What did the Obama Administration get from Russia for its abandonment of Poland and the Czech Republic, and for its famous “Reset” button? Another deeply flawed election and continued Russian opposition to sanctioning Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
In the short of it, President Obama’s cancellation of America’s agreements with the Polish and Czech governments was a serious blow to the hopes and aspirations of millions of Europeans. For twenty years, these peoples have done nothing but strive to move closer to us, and to gain the opportunities and security that America offered. These are faithful friends and NATO allies, and they deserve better. The impact of making two NATO allies walk the plank won’t be felt only in Europe. Our friends throughout the world are watching and wondering whether America will abandon them as well.
Big events turn on the credibility of the United States – doing what we said we would do, and always defending our fundamental security interests. In that category belong the ongoing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need to counter the nuclear ambitions of the current regime in Iran. Candidate Obama declared last year that he would be willing to sit down with Iran’s leader without preconditions. As President, he has committed America to an Iran strategy that seems to treat engagement as an objective rather than a tactic. Time and time again, he has outstretched his hand to the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian leaders, and all the while Iran has continued to provide lethal support to extremists and terrorists who are killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic continues to provide support to extremists in Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, the regime continues to spin centrifuges and test missiles. And these are just the activities we know about.
I have long been skeptical of engagement with the current regime in Tehran, but even Iran experts who previously advocated for engagement have changed their tune since the rigged elections this past June and the brutal suppression of Iran’s democratic protestors. The administration clearly missed an opportunity to stand with Iran’s democrats, whose popular protests represent the greatest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979. Instead, the President has been largely silent about the violent crackdown on Iran’s protestors, and has moved blindly forward to engage Iran’s authoritarian regime. Unless the Islamic Republic fears real consequences from the United States and the international community, it is hard to see how diplomacy will work.
Next door in Iraq, it is vitally important that President Obama, in his rush to withdraw troops, not undermine the progress we’ve made in recent years. Prime Minister Maliki met yesterday with President Obama, who began his press availability with an extended comment about Afghanistan. When he finally got around to talking about Iraq, he told the media that he reiterated to Maliki his intention to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq. Former President Bush’s bold decision to change strategy in Iraq and surge U.S. forces there set the stage for success in that country. Iraq has the potential to be a strong, democratic ally in the war on terrorism, and an example of economic and democratic reform in the heart of the Middle East. The Obama Administration has an obligation to protect this young democracy and build on the strategic success we have achieved in Iraq.
We should all be concerned as well with the direction of policy on Afghanistan. For quite a while, the cause of our military in that country went pretty much unquestioned, even on the left. The effort was routinely praised by way of contrast to Iraq, which many wrote off as a failure until the surge proved them wrong. Now suddenly – and despite our success in Iraq – we’re hearing a drumbeat of defeatism over Afghanistan. These criticisms carry the same air of hopelessness, they offer the same short-sighted arguments for walking away, and they should be summarily rejected for the same reasons of national security.
Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.
President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” End quote.
Five months later, in August of this year, speaking at the VFW, the President made a promise to America’s armed forces. “I will give you a clear mission,” he said, “defined goals, and the equipment and support you need to get the job done. That’s my commitment to you.”
It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.
Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.
Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.
In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that repeatedly went into the country, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision – a good one, I think – and sent a commander into the field to implement it.
Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.
It’s worth recalling that we were engaged in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, supporting the Mujahadeen against the Soviets. That was a successful policy, but then we pretty much put Afghanistan out of our minds. While no one was watching, what followed was a civil war, the takeover by the Taliban, and the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda. All of that set in motion the events of 9/11. When we deployed forces eight years ago this month, it was to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a training ground for the killing of Americans. Saving untold thousands of lives is still the business at hand in this fight. And the success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage.
Then there’s the matter of how to handle the terrorists we capture in this ongoing war. Some of them know things that, if shared, can save a good many innocent lives. When we faced that problem in the days and years after 9/11, we made some basic decisions. We understood that organized terrorism is not just a law-enforcement issue, but a strategic threat to the United States.
At every turn, we understood as well that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. We had a lot of blind spots – and that’s an awful thing, especially in wartime. With many thousands of lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.
The intelligence professionals who got the answers we needed from terrorists had limited time, limited options, and careful legal guidance. They got the baddest actors we picked up to reveal things they really didn’t want to share. In the case of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, by the time it was over he was not was not only talking, he was practically conducting a seminar, complete with chalkboards and charts. It turned out he had a professorial side, and our guys didn’t mind at all if classes ran long. At some point, the mastermind of 9/11 became an expansive briefer on the operations and plans of al-Qaeda. It happened in the course of enhanced interrogations. All the evidence, and common sense as well, tells us why he started to talk.
The debate over intelligence gathering in the seven years after 9/11 involves much more than historical accuracy. What we’re really debating are the means and resolve to protect this country over the next few years, and long after that. Terrorists and their state sponsors must be held accountable, and America must remain on the offensive against them. We got it right after 9/11. And our government needs to keep getting it right, year after year, president after president, until the danger is finally overcome.
Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after 9/11 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America … and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.
Eight years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed. So you would think that our successors would be going to the intelligence community saying, “How did you did you do it? What were the keys to preventing another attack over that period of time?”
Instead, they’ve chosen a different path entirely – giving in to the angry left, slandering people who did a hard job well, and demagoguing an issue more serious than any other they’ll face in these four years. No one knows just where that path will lead, but I can promise you this: There will always be plenty of us willing to stand up for the policies and the people that have kept this country safe.
On the political left, it will still be asserted that tough interrogations did no good, because this is an article of faith for them, and actual evidence is unwelcome and disregarded. President Obama himself has ruled these methods out, and when he last addressed the subject he filled the air with vague and useless platitudes. His preferred device is to suggest that we could have gotten the same information by other means. We’re invited to think so. But this ignores the hard, inconvenient truth that we did try other means and techniques to elicit information from Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and other al-Qaeda operatives, only turning to enhanced techniques when we failed to produce the actionable intelligence we knew they were withholding. In fact, our intelligence professionals, in urgent circumstances with the highest of stakes, obtained specific information, prevented specific attacks, and saved American lives.
In short, to call enhanced interrogation a program of torture is not only to disregard the program’s legal underpinnings and safeguards. Such accusations are a libel against dedicated professionals who acted honorably and well, in our country’s name and in our country’s cause. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future, in favor of half-measures, is unwise in the extreme. In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed.
For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings – and least of all can that be said of our armed forces and intelligence personnel. They have done right, they have made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.
Last January 20th, our successors in office were given the highest honors that the voters of this country can give any two citizens. Along with that, George W. Bush and I handed the new president and vice president both a record of success in the war on terror, and the policies to continue that record and ultimately prevail. We had been the decision makers, but those seven years, four months, and nine days without another 9/11 or worse, were a combined achievement: a credit to all who serve in the defense of America, including some of the finest people I’ve ever met.
What the present administration does with those policies is their call to make, and will become a measure of their own record. But I will tell you straight that I am not encouraged when intelligence officers who acted in the service of this country find themselves hounded with a zeal that should be reserved for America’s enemies. And it certainly is not a good sign when the Justice Department is set on a political mission to discredit, disbar, or otherwise persecute the very people who helped protect our nation in the years after 9/11.
There are policy differences, and then there are affronts that have to be answered every time without equivocation, and this is one of them. We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.
We cannot hope to win a war by talking down our country and those who do its hardest work – the men and women of our military and intelligence services. They are, after all, the true keepers of the flame.
BigGovernment.com by Morgen Richmond : Nothing we have uncovered previously is as comprehensive and breathtakingly direct as a new audio clip of Paul Krugman we discovered this week. Krugman is speaking on health care reform at Hunter College on July 16, 2008. It’s a long clip at ~5:00 (unedited), but if you want to know why liberals are continuing to fight tooth and nail for the public option, here it is in astonishing detail (click below to listen):
Just a couple of quick points on this. Since I already knew about this hidden agenda, what I found most striking was Krugman’s admission that even without a public option the system would largely look like a single payer system. Based on the subsidies for lower wage earners, and the fact that everyone else is paying for these with taxes on top of their insurance premiums. (And with the bills being discussed in Congress, subsidies are provided up to 300-400% of the federal poverty level).
Also, I should point out that a “Rube Goldberg device”, which Krugman used as a metaphor, is a term for an over-engineered solution to a simple problem. In this case, designed to obscure the solution they are actually looking for, i.e. single payer.
However, the critical point in all of this is the sheer scope of this deception on the part of the Administration – and the media. Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein have been two of the most prominent media advocates for healthcare reform throughout the debate this year. With numerous appearances on television and their blogs at the New York Times and the Washington Post, respectively. And while they are both unabashedly partisan, this should not excuse them from direct and honest reporting.
I have been reading the Budget Reconciliation Rules and as far as I can see, there are absolutely no stipulations allowing this process to be used to implement new entitlement programs. However, on the contrary, there are specific rules that is to be used ONLY for current programs, which programs it may be used for and which ones it may not be used for. It also stipulates that all legislation MUST be deficit neutral. The rules also are very specific that this process is for budget purposes only.
So my questions to Senator Johnson & Congressman Herseth-Sandlin are, “by what authority do you have to pass a new entilement program through a budget process? Will you please show me, in these rules that you swore an oath to follow, where it states that this process may be used to pass a brand new ‘Mandated Orwellian Socialistic Health Redistribution Program’?”
THE BUDGET RECONCILIATION PROCESS
“The 1981 reconciliation bill, which encompassed legislative language from thirteen different committees in response to savings instructions mandated by the Senate, produced a legislative result that would have been impossible to achieve if each committee had reported an individual bill on subject matter solely within its own jurisdiction. By using a procedure that permitted packaging of the savings, Congress was able to consider President Reagan’s economic program as a whole, resistant to the type of special interest pressures that would have scuttled the savings if they had been proposed in piecemeal fashion.” – Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr., then Senate Majority Leader (Winter, 1983)
Created in a budget resolution in 1974 as part of the congressional budget process, the reconciliation process is utilized when Congress issues directives to legislate policy changes in mandatory spending (entitlements) or revenue programs (tax laws) to achieve the goals in spending and revenue contemplated by the budget resolution. First used in1980 this process was used at the end of a fiscal year to enact legislation to fine tune revenue and spending levels through legislation that could not be filibustered in the Senate. The policy changes brought about by this part of the budget process have served as constraints on the levels of mandatory spending and federal tax revenues which also has served since 1981 as a vehicle for deficit reduction. The reconciliation process is an optional procedure and not a required action by Congress every fiscal year as is passage of the concurrent budget resolution. However, during the eighteen year period from 1980 to 1998 thirteen reconciliation measures have been enacted into law and numerous others have been considered by Congress. Occasionally, reconciliation legislation has included certain such enforcement mechanisms as extensions of the discretionary spending limits and PAYGO requirements or even reforms to the budget process. Whether for tax reduction, tax increases, deficit reduction, mandatory spending increases or decreases or adjustments in the public debt limit, this process has been used to focus many agents on one goal.
Reconciliation Instructions: The process begins with the inclusion of reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution. These instructions require authorizing committees with jurisdiction over mandatory spending and revenue policies (usually more than one) to make legislative changes in those programs to effect a specified level of budgetary savings provisions. The instructions typically cover the same fiscal years as the budget resolution, with separate dollar amounts specified for each of the years in the budget resolution. While the Budget Committees develop these instructions based on policy assumptions for changes in programs and laws (which are often printed in the committee reports on the budget resolution), the authorizing committees have complete discretion over the specific programs to be changed and the substance of those changes. An authorizing committee must only meet the specified spending and/or revenue directive given it. The budget resolution normally includes a timetable by which the authorizing committees must report legislation that meets these saving targets. These committees generally hold hearings and mark-up these legislative products which are sent to the Budget Committees.
Budget Committees’ Role: Once the relevant authorizing committees have reported their legislation to the Budget Committees, it is the Budget Committees’ responsibility to combine those bills into an omnibus package (or packages) as specified by the budget resolution. The legislative products of the authorizing committees are packaged together with report language and the Congressional Budget Office’s and the Joint Committee on Taxation’s cost estimates. This function of the Budget Committees is largely administrative, since the Budget Act provides that the Budget Committees may not make substantive changes in the legislation. However, if one or more authorizing committees do not meet these targets, certain procedures are used to bring the legislation into compliance. In the House, these legislative “fixes” are usually incorporated into the reconciliation package via a special rule granted by the Rules Committee. In the Senate, these violations of the reconciliation instructions may be remedied through the adoption of an amendment on the Senate floor or the adoption of a motion to recommit the bill with instructions to report back forthwith with an amendment containing legislative language which satisfies the original instruction.
House and Senate Floor Consideration: The Budget Act specifies that Congressional Action on reconciliation legislation should be completed by June 15. It provides specific expedited procedures and restrictions for floor consideration of reconciliation measures, to ensure timely completion. In the House, reconciliation legislation is normally brought from the Budget Committee to the Rules Committee, which grants a special rule governing floor consideration of the measure. Under the Budget Act and traditionally under these special rules no amendment is in order that would increase spending or decrease revenue levels relative to the base bill without equivalent decreases in spending or increases in revenues. In other words, amendments must be deficit neutral. Also, non-germane amendments may not be offered to the package absent a waiver from the Rules Committee.
In the Senate, total debate on a reconciliation bill is limited to 20 hours, although the actual time for consideration of the omnibus package often exceeds this time limit set in the Budget Act. Motions and amendments may be offered and considered without debate at the end of this time period. There are also restrictions on the content of a reconciliation package and on the amendments which may be offered to it. For example, any amendment to the bill that is not germane, would add extraneous material, would cause deficit levels to increase, or that contains recommendations with respect to the Social Security program, is not in order. The Budget Act also maintains that reconciliation provisions must be related to reconciling the budget. For example, section 313 of the Budget Act, more commonly known as the “Byrd Rule”, provides a point of order in the Senate against extraneous matter in reconciliation bills. Determining what is extraneous is often a procedural and political quagmire navigated in part by the Senate Parliamentarian. The Byrd Rule and other points of order in the Budget Act may only be waived in the Senate by a three-fifths vote. Furthermore, the Budget Act prevents reconciliation legislation from being filibustered on the Senate floor.
Conference Process: Once a reconciliation bill is passed in the House and Senate, members of each body meet to work out their differences. A majority of the conferees on each panel must agree on a single version of the bill before it can be brought back to the full House and Senate for a vote on final passage. Approval of the conference agreement on the reconciliation legislation must be by a majority vote of both Houses. In the House, the conference report is usually given a special rule from the Rules Committee to govern floor consideration. In the Senate, the floor debate is governed by Senate rules and specific provisions of the Budget Act. In contrast to the concurrent budget resolution, a reconciliation bill is sent to the President for approval or disapproval.
Politics & open records laws, when combined, are hard nuts to crack as Leo Donofrio & team are finding out. Here is the latest update in the UIPA requests. I also encourage all to read up on all the Quo Warranto articles by Leo. Understanding the Quo Warranto will be very important to ALL American Patriots in the future.
Please do not limit your reading to just the articles. Leo expands on the topics by answering questions in the comments. If you have a question, read through the comments first and if your question is not answered there, then feel free to leave Leo a question. Also, if you have pertinent information regarding the topic, please share it there.
– Leo Donofrio will be a guest on the Jeff Rense Radio Program, Thursday October 8, 2009 8-9PM PT.
Also, please visit TerriK’s new blog where she continues her excellent research and analysis of the Obama/Hawaii mess. Everyone should read her latest report: “Our Worst Nightmare Confirmed – Obama’s COLB Lacks Legal Veracity. What Now?”
From Luke 18: 2-7 ~ “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. 3 There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, `Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ 4 “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, `Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; 7 now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?”
~ “And not with you alone I am making this covenant and this oath, but with him who stands here with us today before YHWH our Elohim, as well as with him who is not here with us today." ~ “Set your heart on all the words with which I warn you today, so that you command your children to guard to do all the Words of this Torah. For it is not a worthless Word for you, because it is your life," ~ "for Mosheh commanded us a Torah, an inheritance of the assembly of Jacob (Israel)"
~ "Listen to Me, O coastlands, and hear, you peoples from afar! YHWH has called Me from the womb, from My mother’s belly He has caused My Name to be remembered. 2 And He made My mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand He hid Me, and made Me a polished shaft. In His quiver He hid Me.” And He said to Me, ‘You are My servant, O (Yeshua) Israel, in whom I am adorned.’ And I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for emptiness, and in vain. But my right-ruling is with YHWH, and my work with my Elohim.’ ” And now said YHWH – who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him, though Israel is not gathered to Him, yet I am esteemed in the eyes of YHWH, and My Elohim has been My strength – and He says, “Shall it be a small matter for You to be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the preserved ones of Israel? - And I shall give You as a light to the gentiles, to be My deliverance to the ends of the earth!”
Constitutionally Speaking 