Beyond SOPA: The Past, Present and Future of Internet Censorship

Sen. Paul Responds To Obama's Libya Speech

Transcript:

The President of the United States often faces unforeseeable dilemmas that demand tough decisions based on reliable intelligence. The recent events in Libya presented President Obama with such a scenario. But how our Commander in Chief chose to handle this new dilemma raises serious questions about his understanding of constitutional checks and balances.

Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi is every bit the madman Ronald Reagan once said he was, but are the rebels adherents to Jeffersonian democracy or Bin Laden’s radical jihad?

In 2007, then-candidate Obama said that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

I agree with candidate Obama. Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to heed his own advice. He has ignored our constitution and engaged us in a military conflict without congressional debate and approval.

...

The subtext to the President’s speech concerning Libya tonight was “What if we had done nothing?” But a better question might be, What if helping Libya’s interest actually hurts America’s interests? What if we are sending our military to places where we might actually be helping the same terrorists we fight in other countries or potential future terrorists?

It’s time that we re-examine these policies by once again consulting the Constitution on such matters and the common-sense principles that made this country great. We can no longer afford to spend what we don’t have. And we can’t afford to address every other nation’s problems before we can address our own.

Over the coming days and weeks, Congress will force President Obama to confront these questions. Our brave young men and women have answered the call of duty time and time again over the past decade.

Sen. Rand Paul At CPAC

"We must be more bold!"

Sen. Schumer Can't Name 3 Branches Of Govt

He describes how a government shutdown would impact all three branches of government. But he seems a little confused about what constitutes a branch of government. This is serious Constitutional ignorance:



We all remember how bad the last government shutdown was. There was anarchy and rioting in the streets!

Oh, wait. No, there wasn't. In fact, things continued as before, just without a legislature daily passing new laws undermining freedom.

Hat tip: The Blaze

Senate Porkers Of The Month

Via Reason TV:



Thanks, General Electric! (GE has a long, sordid history of corruption. Oil For Food, Obama's stimulus, TARP (under Bush), and more.)

Napolitano & TX Gov. Perry on Federalism

They cover a lot of ground, from border security to TSA security.

Judge Napolitano On The 17th Amendment

[I]t was the death knell of the idea that the federal government is a coming together of independent, sovereign, states. The 17th Amendment meant that the states no longer had a place at the federal table along with the popularly-elected house of representatives and the President elected by the electoral college.

Stossel: Does Your Vote Matter?

My FBN show tonight asked: "Do we really want everyone to vote?" Lots of people don’t know much at all about even basic American history. And why vote when we have such lousy choices? At the moment, the choice is between Democrats who gave us stimulus, Obamacare and a trillion dollar deficit... and Republicans who gave us prescription drug entitlements and the largest increase in federal spending since LBJ's Great Society. Whichever choice we make, the only result seems to be MORE government.

There's also a web-only segment that you can watch on Stossel's blog.

The Commerce Clause

Reason TV explains how the Constitution's commerce clause was corrupted:



It's no coincidence that the Supreme Court corrupted the commerce clause only after a majority of justices were confirmed by a post-17th Amendment Senate. This is even more evidence that the 17th Amendment destroyed the Constitution's delicate balance of power between the three branches.

Judge Napolitano At Mises

This is just too good to not post. Judge Napolitano teaches Constitutional Law at Mises University:

Thomas DiLorenzo: The Revolution of 1913

He talks about the 17th Amendment, the 16th Amendment, and the Federal Reserve, and describes how those ideas started with Alexander Hamilton and evolved through Lincoln and the War for Southern Independence.

Who Is Dr. Donald Berwick?

Here's the guy that President Obama was so eager to put into place but didn't want subjected to any scrutiny:



This guy now has one of the most important jobs in the country, and yet the President was so scared of him being subject to scrutiny that he bypassed Senate confirmation without even bothering to attempt to schedule a hearing. The Democrats own the Senate. They could have scheduled a hearing for him at any time.

But they didn't. Will the media give this appointment any of the scrutiny that the Senate didn't?

Repeal the 17th Amendment and send people to Washington who will do the job that these corrupt demagogues won't do.

DOJ Promotes Voter Fraud

A whistleblower at the Department of Justice claims that the government is keeping ineligible voters on the voter registry:



Repealing the 17th Amendment would reduce the power of voter fraud because Senators would be incentivized to limit the power of the federal government in favor of the states. Thus, states would be incentivized to have policies that people actually want to live under, rather than jamming the policies that the elite want us to have down our throats.

Those who claim that the 17th Amendment made America more democratic are using a bad definition of "democracy". In that great book The Party System, Hilaire Belloc and Cecil Chesterton point out that "Votes and elections and representative assemblies are not democracy; they are at best machinery for carrying out democracy."

Federalism works better than elections to protect and promote individual freedom. The only way to restore federalism is to repeal the 17th Amendment.

Tom Woods: Interview With A Zombie

This is hilarious!



I've stated before that I'm not particularly fond of nullification. I'd much prefer that states be able to nullify unconstitutional federal laws through the Senate. However, until that's possible, we should do everything we can to fight off the federal leviathan.

Supreme Court Justice Confirmation Hearing Moment Of The Day

Brought to you by Jimmy Kimmel:



These hearings are a joke.

The Ridiculous Senate Confirmation Process

Senators are asking Elena Kagan who she likes on Twilight: Eclipse.



Senate hearings have become an utterly useless process as far as gathering information. Now they're all about grandstanding, demagogueing, and feeling superior to "the little people". These people have a job where they know they're virtually unaccountable. Repeal the 17th Amendment and maybe we'll have someone in Washington who's concerned about actually doing their job.

Hat tip: Hot Air

Alan Keyes: Repeal The 17th Amendment!

He's speaking at a rally in Alabama:

GA PSC Dist.2 Candidates Asked About 17th Amendment

The PSC is the Public Service Commissioner. This is the debate for the Republican candidates. @ 24:25



The four Republican primary candidates are State Rep. Jeff May, State Sen. John Douglas, former legislator Joey Brush, and nonprofit executive Tim Echols. The Democrat candidate is unchallenged.

Of course, the PSC has no power whatsoever to actually repeal the 17th Amendment. But it's good to see the question being asked, even though it was probably asked only to get ammo against a potential future candidate.

Hat tip: profg

The Tyranny Of Accountability

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air links to an NPR piece (via Instapundit) decrying the fact that politicians are being held accountable by their constitutents. Ed notes:

When the founders created Congress, they had two separate constituencies in mind. For the House, they wanted Representatives who would be accountable to the people, while for the Senate they wanted members accountable to the state legislatures that were the natural check on federal power. (Later, the 17th Amendment made Senators accountable to the general public instead.) They formed this body in answer to the tyranny of distant nobility and politicians with no accountability whatsoever to those whom they would rule. A representative government, they concluded, would be the antidote of tyranny.

...

In any case, accountability is not tyranny; it’s the exact opposite of tyranny.

Consider this Washington Examiner column making the case that a policy-making court needs to be have the same kind of accountability that a legislature does.

There are two kinds of government: an accountable government or an unaccountable one. Nobody wants an unaccountable government (noboy intelligent, anyways), so the only question is how the government is to be held accountable. The original Constitutional framework provided that the states would hold the Senate accountable while the people held the House accountable. The election of the President was regulated through the electoral college to prevent populist democracy, while judges were monitored through the Presidency, the Senate, and the possibility of impeachment by the House.

Utopian visionaries lament that they are not allowed to force their social engineering programs on people. If only they were allowed to force people to obey without the threat of accountability! They could create heaven on earth!

Thomas Friedman recently said, "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." But the rule of law requires that government be held accountable. This is how Judge Napolitano reacted to the idea that the justice requires making government unaccountable:



Accountability is the foundation of the rule of law. If we tear down the laws in our quest to punish the devil, then what laws will there be to protect us?



Those who support big government oppose the repeal of the 17th Amendment because they don't want lawmakers held accountable. It's easier for people to hold their state and local governments accountable, but national politicians are loyal only to their party and to their special interests.

Sen. Shelby (R-AL): Porker Of The Month!

The Constellation Program was intended to modernize NASA and replace the aging Space Shuttle, but has been plagued by cost overruns and blown deadlines. President Obama and NASA have proposed canceling the unsustainable program—turning instead to the emerging private space industry to oversee launches.

In response, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) co-sponsored a measure protecting Constellation, which was attached to an emergency war funding bill. Such a measure ensures millions of taxpayer dollars will continue being funneled to politically connected NASA contractors.

Contractors like Alabama's own Radiance Technologies, which—wouldn't you know it—just happens to be one of Shelby's biggest campaign contributors.

Repealing the 17th Amendment would do more than allow state legislatures to exercise greater oversight over Senators than the people do, it would also allow the people to focus their attention on the House instead of trying to keep track of two federal legislatures. The political parties love making the political system as complex as possible so that it's difficult to follow. The more difficult it is to see what's going on, the less that people will try.

That's how they can get away with this stuff.

Hat tip: ReasonTV