The Most Disqualified

“There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton.” Obama

Except for George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

And George Clinton, Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass,Winfield Scott, George Mcclellan, Samuel Tilden, Benjamin Harrison, Charles Hughes, Robert LaFollette, Alfred Smith, Alfred Landon, Thomas Dewey, Adlai Stevenson, George Wallace, Michael Dukakis, Ross Perot, and Mitt Romney.

Washington D.C. is Beyond Reform, Focus on Your State Elections

I have given up on the prospect that Washington, D.C. can be reformed. Since the founding of this nation, Washington has continued to grow at the direct expense of the people of the states. The founding fathers were afraid of this and developed a system of checks and balances to avoid it. Those checks and balances have failed leaving us with few options! Because of this, I believe the best use of American’s limited attention span toward politics and public policy is at the state level.

Consider the evidence against the federal government:

The executive and legislative branches are: overreaching, arrogant, waste-ridden, inefficient, unresponsive to their constituents, corrupt, controlled by special interests, obsessed with reelection, the architects of crony capitalism, irresponsible, unaccountable, out-of-control, and they break their own rules.

The judiciary: rather than interpreting the Constitution, it consistently legislates from the bench and creates constitutional rights out of thin air using their own, concocted precedence.

                   

The federal monetary authority (the Federal Reserve) is purposefully devaluing the dollar, causing inflation while leading the country into bankruptcy with their manipulation of the monetary system via perpetual zero interest rate policy and printing of dollars.

Describing the federal government as dysfunctional is being generous. 

They are willfully negligent in the exercise of their duties!

As we look ahead to the election in 2016, can you honestly say that there will be any significant differences between the two major political parties? Will a Hillary Clinton administration be materially different than a Jeb Bush administration? Even if Rand Paul were to win the presidency, we are still stuck with a corrupt and/or feckless Congress.

What’s the Solution?

The rightful remedy is for the states to unapologetically assume the role they were granted under the Constitution - that of a principal. The federal government is the subordinate agent of the states – NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! The states created the federal government and, presumably, the states can annul it or ignore it. 

As Ron Paul recently said, we will soon have "de facto secession." The federal government has gone too far and the American people are slowly waking up and recognizing it. The hand of the states has been forced. They must continue to nullify and ignore federal laws and regulations (over 200 bills are currently in the works) and move toward an Article V Convention of the States whereby the states bypass Congress and pass constitutional amendments.

What kind of gullible suckers are we to allow the federal government, which has a 100% failure rate, to dictate to us such things as the light bulbs and health insurance we are permitted to buy. Or the education of our children? Or our labor, environmental, drug enforcement, and gun control laws?   

This is the same federal leviathan that runs bankrupt entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! It operates bankrupt government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac! It funnels billions of dollars to bankrupt entities such as the USPS, Amtrak, and green energy companies! It runs the pitifully inadequate health care system at the Veteran’s Administration! It throws billions of dollars at “Too Big to Fail” financial companies!

Are we going to continue to be at the mercy of an incompetent and defective Federal Reserve whose track record, even when measured against its own mandate, is woeful. Are we going to allow them to continue to thwart efforts to open their books to a congressional audit?

Are you comfortable with leaving future generations holding the bag of an $18+ trillion national debt (over $100 trillion when you include unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs)?

James Madison said the states are “duty bound to interpose [intervene]” when the federal government goes awry. There are two obstacles to the states assuming their constitutional power. The first is the education and engagement of the general public. The majority of Americans pay more attention to the air pressure in the tires on their car than they do to politics and public policy. So we must awaken our fellow citizens from their apathy coma.

Secondly, the states must wean themselves off of the federal funding teat. On average, states receive 30% of their revenue through various forms of federal funding. Once the states are financially self-sufficient, they will no longer be susceptible to the extortion, coercion, and blackmail that the federal government relentlessly employs against them.

This country fought a revolution to rid itself of a tyrannical central power that did not represent the people. The states signed a contract (the Constitution) with the understanding that all power not specifically delegated in the contract to the federal government would reside with them. For over two hundred years, the pendulum has swung in the wrong direction as the power of the federal government has grown and that of the states has diminished.

My challenge to you is to pay close attention to your statewide elections rather than waste your energy and attention on the national elections. Support candidates in your state that understand the looming economic disaster. Support those who have read and understand the Constitution. Support those who understand states’ rights and are willing to flip off lawmakers and bureaucrats in Washington through nullification legislation and Convention of the States Applications. Support those that will go to work reducing your state's dependency on federal funds by cutting the budget, eliminating wasteful spending, and looking for opportunities to grow the states revenue base. Maybe that person is you?

What Can We Learn from Ted Cruz's Homecoming Reception

Senator Ted Cruz's recently received a hero's welcome when he returned home to Texas following his efforts to defund Obamacare. For weeks he has been roundly criticized by Democrats, the mainstream media, and many establishment Republicans. Despite the mounting pressure and criticism, he has repeatedly stated that one of the reasons the people in Texas elected him was to defund Obamacare. That is exactly what he is going to try to accomplish.

Put Cruz's position in perspective: Under Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, two senators from each state were elected by the legislature of each state. Under this scenario, senators represented the states essentially as ambassadors to the federal government while members of the House represented the local voters in their district. In 1913, Progressives called for the election of senators by voters in each state; thus the Seventeenth Amendment was born!

Why was this a watershed moment in our country's history? Because what Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution accomplished was to provide state governments with a means to influence congressional lawmaking without taking away the federal government's enumerated powers. The states appointment of senators was another check and balance against the centralized federal government. Instead of our senators conferring with their respective legislatures for guidance and advice on potential votes, they are beholden to Washington lobbyists, consultants, donors and advocacy groups. Simply put, United States Senators are not concerned with the sovereignty of states from which they come because "the states" have very little influence over them. Consider the Obamacare vote: how many Democrat Senators would have voted for this monstrosity if their state legislature could recall them at any time?

Fast-forward to today and ask yourself what means of influence the states currently have over the federal government? The answer is "very little if any" as Washington controls the purse-strings - gasoline tax for highway improvements runs through D.C., Washington distributes money to the states for education spending and welfare programs. Most states are beholden to the federal government for their economic existence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ted-cruz-returns-to-texas-as-a-hero-who-is-reshaping-the-state-republican-party/2013/10/23/449c5a76-3b6a-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html

What's the Big Deal About Obamacare?

Updated: March 25, 2013
There are four things wrong with Obamacare:

#1 - The way the law was drafted
#2 - The way the law was passed
#3 - The way the law was upheld by Supreme Court 
#4 - The effect 

#1 - The way the law was drafted and sold to the American people:

• Obama and the Democrats lied about virtually every component of the bill - the cost (to the nation as a whole and to individuals), the coverage, its impact on the deficit, its impact on level of care, its impact on the private insurance industry, and its impact on the most innovative healthcare system in the world. 
• The entire bill was drafted without Republican input and behind closed doors despite Obama’s repeated promise to broadcast the debate on CSPAN.

#2 - The way the law was passed:

• Bribes and kickbacks of senators in return for their vote.
• “We have to pass the bill to see what’s in it” Nancy Pelosi.
• Not a single Congressman read the bill before they voted on it (and I would venture a bet that few have read it since).

"I love these members that get up and say 'READ THE BILL.' What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages, and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you've read the bill?" -- Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. . . ” - James Madison, The Federalist #62

• Obama emphatically denied it was a tax. He knew it would never pass if it was represented as a tax.

“How is that not a tax?" George Stephanopoulos 

"A responsibility to get health insurance is not a tax increase," Obama 

• The bill was ultimately passed using a budget reconciliation method rather than a full vote on the House floor.

#3 - The way the law was upheld by Supreme Court:

• Despite repeated promises that this bill was not a tax, one of the administration’s arguments before the Supreme Court was just that, “it IS a tax”, therefore it is constitutional under Congress’ right to levy taxes.
• Instead of sending the bill back to Congress, Chief Justice John Roberts essentially re-wrote the law circumventing Article I, section 7 of the Constitution - "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives". The Obamacare bill was originated in the Senate! Judicial activism at its worse.

#4 - The effect:

• Over 1,000 Obamacare waivers were granted within several months of the bill's passage, mostly to Democrat constituents (at one point 20% of the waivers were provided to Nancy Pelosi’s district). If this is the greatest piece of legislation in history why are waivers necessary? Why are senatorial bribes necessary?
• It is estimated that 20 million people will lose their current health insurance because it will become too expensive given all of the mandates.
• The private insurance industry will die leaving only the government (single-payer). Think of your doctor’s office as a national DMV.
• It gives the federal government essentially unlimited taxation power and amounts to the largest tax increase in world history.
• Obama promised insurance rates would decline by $2,500 a year. As of the last update of this post, studies show rates are up an average of $2,500 a year.
• Obama promised the bill would lower the deficit and cost no more than $1 trillion. Both claims have been proven false. 
• Ultimately, the quality of healthcare will decline as thousands of doctors retire because they can no longer make a living serving more patients for less money, Medicaid will get dropped by doctor’s offices due to low and delayed reimbursements, rationing of care will occur just like it does in every country that has socialized medicine, bureaucrats will make healthcare decisions for us, death panels will be established for end-of-life decisioning (yes it’s in the bill) and a massive bureaucracy will reign over us (you thought the TSA was big).