Dr. Pangloss it ain’t, Part the Fourth, Reconstruction.

For the convenience of my fellow LC’s Parts the First, Second, and Third are here.

This is the longest of the 6 Parts, but that is because it concerns what we can do with the House to strike back at the enemy. This is a Target Rich Environment, because once we have a foothold, we can hurt them in so many ways. I promise that Parts Five and Six will each be a small fraction of this one. And that due to the fact that the medical issues from earlier this summer are now again at the forefront, when I get this done I will probably be gone again for a while, so you can recover.

Now it gets to be more fun than a weeks’ liberty in Australia. First let me take a moment to add a couple of points. First is an addendum to Part the Second, “Shock and Awe”. In an email from Sir Rurik, K.o.E; I was reminded of one very important detail. We are going to take the House, assuming an honest count of the votes. If we don’t have that honest vote count, then we bring “Der Alte Karl” into the equation.

That means that we choose the Speaker of the House, and that Speaker does all the wonderful things I listed to make Leftist heads explode. And that is true. But there is one more critical point.

One of the sad “givens” of the situation since January 2009 was that if anything would happen to Buraq Hussein, it would mean that Dumber Than Dirt would take over. That might be acceptable [In fact I think it is, because while one of my nieces has a neurotic, Alzheimers-ridden Bichon Frise dog that could beat Biden intellectually; Biden is merely stupid and incompetent and does not actively and constantly hate the country.]; but then the Wicked Witch of the West would be next in line until a new VP was named and confirmed. Followed, Deity help us, by the Hildebeast. If we take the House, that means that the #3 place in the line of succession is going to be our Speaker. Something to ponder in our choice of Speaker.

The second point that has to be emphasized is the definition of victory in 2010. People, even if everything breaks our way, we are not going to be able to remove Buraq Hussein Obama. We are not going to be able to reverse entire swathes of Obama’s usurpations of the Constitution with a wave of the hand. Victory for us in this cycle will be two-fold. First, and most important, will be the ability to stop, flat stop, any new attacks by the enemy by legislative means. Second, is that we will be able to stop funding for the organic end product that they have shoved down our throats so far. If we can do that, we have won the time between November 2010 and November 2012 to shape the battlefield to take it back and liberate our poor country. And to build safeguards against the Vampire State returning. Here is how.

Much of what we do in Part the Third will not make it through. Buraq will veto and we will not be able to over-ride. But the items we will choose as our battles will be those where the American people will be on our side, and which will cause the most blowback against the Democrats as we force them to take public position after public position against the wishes of the people. We will get some things through, because eventually some of the enemy will side with us to give themselves some cover in coming elections. We will have to keep the pressure on, at Town Halls, public meetings, and yes whenever the buggers dare go out in public.

What we do in this, Part the Fourth will almost all fail to become law. But combined with our power of the budget, we will be able to hammer them until the 2012 elections. And that is in itself a victory. We have been on defense for far too long. Time to take it to them. This is not a one shot war. It has taken us generations to be placed in a position where we could lose it all to the Left. It will take at least the rest of our generation to get us out.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

The problem is going to be picking which of many options we have to press first. I will list some, there will be others. Some I will suggest legislative language for. Some I will leave to professional drafters. But we can make life miserable for the enemy.

1.) We want to make sure that the Democrats can no longer routinely steal elections, so something along the line of this.

The principle of one man, one vote being the sine qua non of a Constitutional Republic in Democratic form; it is essential that no qualified voter who wants to cast his vote be legally denied the chance. It is just as important that fraudulent votes not be allowed to steal the franchise and civil rights of legal voters. Therefore, the Voting Rights Act, the Motor Voter Act, and all other Federal statutes regarding voting will be amended as follows:
a. In any Federal election, registration to vote will be only upon presentation of government issued identification containing a picture of the person seeking to register and proof of legal address indicating that the person is legally resident in the area for which he is seeking to vote.
b. In any Federal election, before being presented a ballot, the prospective voter will present picture identification issued by a government body that shows that that the voter is who he claims to be, said identification matching the registration books.
c. The sole judicial impediment to the mandating of identification to vote has been the issue of the cost of acquiring legal identification being considered a poll tax. Therefore, the Federal government will fund the issuance of identification cards valid for voting only, for those citizens who can otherwise prove that they meet the legal and residential registration requirements AND who do not have any other government issued identification sufficient for receiving a ballot. Said identification card will include ONLY: a picture of the registered voter, his/her name, date of issuance, his/her age, his/her gender, fingerprints of both index fingers and thumbs if possible, and the County, State, and Precinct in which he is registered to vote; along with an issuance serial number to allow it to be tracked in the issuing database and a statement that it is not valid as an ID for any purpose other than voting and that anyone accepts it for other purposes totally at their own risk. [With only name, picture, age, and County of residence being on the card along with the disclaimer; it is not likely to be misused for financial fraud, unless the person accepting the ID is dumb enough to have any loss being written off to Darwin.] Prior or outdated ids will be surrendered to the county clerk when the voter next registers, and forwarded to the custodian of the issuing database for destruction and recording thereof.
d. Possession of a false voter id, falsely obtaining a voter id, obtaining voter id’s under false names, possession of multiple voter id’s, or voting in both your legal residence and a different state where you work and/or go to school will constitute a Federal Felony with a penalty of not less than two years and not more than 5 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a fine of not less than $10,000 and not more than $25,000, and permanent lifetime disqualification from participation in Federal benefits programs, or being employed by the Federal government in any capacity, per count. [No loans, no guarantees, no benefits, no licenses, no contracts, nothing.]
e. Acting to procure or enable false votes or false/multiple voting ids shall be a Federal Felony with a penalty of not less than 4 years and not more than 10 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a fine of not less than $20,000 and not more than $50,000 per count, and the lifetime disqualification.
f. Violations of d. and e. will be subject to Federal Criminal Conspiracy charges if so warranted.
g. Any person who fails to cast a vote in any biennial general election will be removed from the voter rolls, until that person legally re-registers meeting all the requirements above.
h. The Registrar of Vital Statistics of each county will forward to the County Clerk, or other official in charge of maintaining the voter rolls of the county, the names of all county residents who die, for removal from the voter rolls.
i. In the year immediately following every Federal Census, every County will conduct their own audit of the voter rolls, confirming that each person listed on the voter rolls is alive, and still legally resident in the location where they are registered. Those who do not meet those criteria shall be removed from the voter rolls immediately and not restored other than by legal registration meeting the identification criteria above. If it is found that the County has failed to exercise due diligence in verifying the validity of the voter rolls, the penalties in e, and f. above may be imposed; with vicarious liability of the administrative and political chain of command in the County applying. Further, failure to exercise due diligence in the verification process shall constitute a violation under the terms of 42 USC 1983 and will render the County and its officers subject to civil and criminal liability as listed in the statute; including filing of action by any voter whose franchise may have been diluted or canceled by such failure to verify the rolls.
j. Any County which fails to implement the procedures in g., h., and i. above will have ALL Federal funding to the County cut by 10% a year for every year that they fail to completely implement. The GAO shall have audit authority to check Counties for compliance with g., h., and i. above; both at will, at the request of any member of Congress, and at the request of the Counties. Said funding shall be restored upon audit by the GAO indicating that they are in compliance; however said restoration will not be retroactive. Funds and funding levels that are cut, stay cut. No County will be audited by the GAO for compliance more than once per calendar year.

The Democrats will scream bloody murder. But there is nothing there that would offend the American people, the problem of false voting will be controlled in large part, and it can be framed that the only reason one wants to block the bill has to be an intent to benefit from fraudulent votes. Let Obama veto it, if it passes. We will shape the perception of the enemy in the minds of the voters.

2.) Control of the border with Mexico. The Federal government [and major parts of the Institutional Republican Party] does not want the border controlled. The flow of illegal aliens benefits businesses who use them to keep down American wages, Democrats use them as both a special interest group and as a reservoir of illegal votes. Criminals of both parties profit over the trade in illegal drugs, and at least one major party does not worry about terrorist attacks on this country. We are not going to get the Federal government to control the border, nor are they going to reform immigration law [and it does need it to make us welcome to other than illegals, to encourage assimilation, and to have immigration benefit our country] other than to grant a mass amnesty. This we need to stand against at all costs. But we can help states take a hand.

There is a criminal law enforcement aspect. Military forces, active or reserve, cannot take part in law enforcement except under very special circumstances. But the law makes provision for other than the active and reserve armed forces.

Article I Section 10 of the Constitution mentions that states may maintain troops with the consent of Congress. That consent was given in existing Federal law, 32 USC Section 109 [h/t to Professor Glenn Reynolds of INSTAPUNDIT, who discussed this]. Professor Reynolds quotes the statute:

In addition to its National Guard, if any, a State, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands may, as provided by its laws, organize and maintain defense forces. A defense force established under this section may be used within the jurisdiction concerned, as its chief executive (or commanding general in the case of the District of Columbia) considers necessary, but it may not be called, ordered, or drafted into the armed forces.

The State of Texas, among others, has such a force; The Texas State Guard. Every state may establish such. It is specifically NOT under Federal control and may not be called into it.

Let us say that the State of Texas or a notational Arizona State Guard [one under the command of Governor Perry, the other under the command of Governor Brewer] expands to the point of being able to engage a hostile force. We have at least one area in Arizona that is under the control of Mexican drug gangs/the Mexican armed forces. The two groups are hard to separate in practice. The Federal response has been to post signs telling Americans not to go there, despite it being US soil. There have been similar reports of a ranch in Texas [near Laredo?] that is held by foreign nationals. What if STATE forces reclaimed them, assisting law enforcement? What if STATE forces put a cordon a couple of miles north of the border; either by patrols or sensors/drones and interdicted the cross country traffic heading north? It is a law enforcement matter, and being north of the border, is none of the Feds’ business. Not being Federal military, Posse Comitatus does not apply. State governors can deploy non-Federalized National Guard to aid law enforcement in a declared emergency. Surely they can deploy their own forces which have absolutely no Federal controls for the same purposes.

Consonant with that train of thought, what if the Congress appropriated block grants to all states for the purpose of creating State Defense Forces, with roles as dictated by the governor and for emergency relief and such counter-terrorism reaction as may be needed [keep in mind that National Guard units are usually not available due to deployments]? Aside from the psychological boost to the concept of Federalism, it would give border states the means to act to secure the border from intrusions. Texas and Arizona would possibly take advantage of this. New Mexico and California would rather surrender. But those states who did defend themselves, would be a rebuke to the Democrats and Obama.

3.) The majority of the American people back Arizona’s SB-1070. Most don’t know that the same things done under that law are already authorized under the 1996 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act [signed by someone named Clinton]. Section 287(g) allows state and local law enforcement officers to “perform immigration officer functions”. If the new House were to pass a bill specifically authorizing and requiring all law enforcement agencies in the US which receive Federal funds [believe me, literally every agency does] to confirm the legal US residency status of anyone contacted in the course of their duties where a check for wants and warrants is made, it would be hard for the Senate to make a stand against it without going against the American people. Especially if confirmation is specifically stated to include presentation of either government issued identification where legal resident status/citizenship is confirmed by the issuing agency [ALL drivers licenses, state ID cards, the voter cards noted in #1 above, passports, military ID's, and for legal resident aliens, the "Green Card" which is actually now blue. Legal Resident Aliens are already required by law to have their "Green Card" physically in their possession at all times on pain of deportation.]

4.) Arizona has a statute requiring businesses to do a check of SSN’s of newly hired employees through the Federal online E-Verify System. This free service is not perfect, but it is a start. And a Republican House can take steps to make it more effective. In Arizona, the first time you are caught with an illegal employee who you have not tried to confirm through the system, your license to do business in the state is pulled for one month. A second offense cancels the license permanently. It is an absolute affirmative defense to show that you ran the individual through E-Verify. If E-Verify makes an error, the employer is held harmless.

Federal law already requires all legal employers to file a form I-9 and physically confirm the existence of a Social Security card for every new employee. There is no mandate forcing employers to use E-Verify. That can be reinforced by amending the Federal statute to impose Arizona-style penalties for companies that fail to use both the Social Security Number Verification System SSNVS and E-Verify. No, you can’t lift a Federal business license, because there is no such thing. But you can affect a business directly.

As is well known to the Left, the granting of favors or subsidies has behavioral strings. You piss off the bureaucracy, you get screwed over. They do it informally, and capriciously. If the strings are open and aboveboard in the law itself, it constitutes the legal requirements if you want the subsidy. Arizona is taking care of the matter in the way appropriate to its role in a Federal republic. The Federal government has to take care of things in the way appropriate to its role. The Federal government can’t lift the right to carry out a lawful business. But it can refuse to do business with a specific entity and/or refuse to grant subsidies and aid to an entity that has violated the law.

Let us say that ABC Widget and Salumi Corporation has a contract to sell Salumi to the Defense Logistics Agency for upscale MRE’s. And it turns out that at their plant in Grand Island, Nebraska has hired a number of Salumi slicers here illegally from Ashcanistan, and made no effort to confirm their SSN’s properly. The Salumi division of the corporation just lost the contract. At the same time, the Widget division is using loans guaranteed by the Commerce Department for finance its exports of Widgets to Patagonia. Those loans are now without guarantees, and the bank is going to either call it due, or refinance it at a higher interest rate. Either one will get the undivided attention of the stockholders and the board of directors.

What are the odds that as this law comes on line, the word will go forth to make sure that EVERY hire is run through SSNVS and E-Verify, and that maybe they will back check on their current employees just to avoid later trouble? All of a sudden, the pool of jobs available to illegal aliens shrinks. And conversely, the number of jobs available for legal US residents increases. I know it is hard for a Democrat to understand, but it is a g-o-o-d thing for Americans and legal immigrants to have legal jobs to support their families.

As I said, it is a concept that does not resonate with Democrats. But, I think it might find a friendly response from Americans. They might find even more to like as a certain percentage of the illegal aliens present now self-deport; lessening the burden on schools, hospitals, welfare systems, and yes, jails.

5.) The provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 that kept investment banks, commercial banks, and investment companies separate were repealed by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act [Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999]. And yes, all three sponsors were Republicans. We can say, openly and honestly, that the Republicans left the pooch limping bowlegged with this one. And the country has been hurt badly by it.

It is up to us; Patriots and those Republicans who choose to stand with us, to fix what was broken. I will leave the drafting of the language to professionals. I have too high a moral sense to be a lawyer, let alone an investment lawyer. [Incidentally, that does not raise the bar too high as far as morals are concerned.] I don’t understand the details, and that is part of the problem. I am at least minimally functional as far as intelligence is concerned. And the various arcane financial instruments and derivatives that destroyed our banking and financial system in a bubble of fakery do not make sense to me. They do not compute, except that you seem to be creating the illusion of a lot of wealth until someone either takes too close a look at it, or misses a payment. Then suddenly, everyone but the management of the banks is broke.

We are not going to get any help from the Democrats on this. After all, the main actors in the Obama regime are from the management of those financial houses. They have arranged the various Stimulus acts coming out of our pockets to go into theirs. The path between the Ivy League, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the White House is too well worn. It is up to us to tear up that path, and stop them looting the middle class.

I’ll let the experts draw up the right phrases. But the goals of the legislation have to include:

a) Reimpose the separation between commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance. If necessary, get Shakespearean, “unseamed … from the nave to th’chops”; both for the corporations and any of their management that get in the way.
b) Ban “derivatives” and similar financial instruments that are just vehicles for fraud.
c) Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act. From now on, if you are going to get a Federal loan guarantee, y’all better have decent credit, and a frigging down payment. It does not matter what color your skin is, what your gender is, or what your preference of bed companion is. Protected class status does not translate into value as collateral. Refusing to discriminate for a group, ignoring objective financial reality, is not the same as discriminating against a group.

6.) The creation of a House Special Financial Audit Sub-Committee under the Government Operations Committee [much is going to depend on Daryl Issa]. This Subcommittee is going to oversee the largest example of financial forensic pathology in history. Armed with Congressional subpoena power, the Sub-Committee shall contract with outside auditors [and to be honest outside may include non-American companies. We may need to hire us some Zurich Gnomes.] to conduct a financial audit of:

a) FANNIE MAE
b) FREDDIE MAC
c) Each Stimulus and its spending
d) The nationalization of the auto companies
e) The nationalization of the debts of financial companies.
f) Federal Reserve Bank POMO [Permanent Open Market Operations]. The Fed invests government funds into the markets to move the markets.
g) Other Federal Reserve Bank financial interventions, including Maiden Lane I, II, and III, et. al.

The goal is to follow the money, and see whose pockets it went into, especially if it went there covertly and illegally. To set up what is going to be done in PART The Fifth, “Fiat Iustitia Ruat Caelum”. Assuming that the new majority in the House has a testosterone count higher than Perez Hilton [and I suspect that most of the "balls" in the new House will be furnished by an influx of "Mama Grizzlies"]; we must follow the leads directly to the Democrat members of the House. Treat them with the verbal courtesy appropriate to their rank. And treat them in fact as the felons that they are.

7.) We are going to have to deal with the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts. Even if the enemy, with the help of the usual cast of collaborators, kills the cuts; the new House can put them back and make them permanent. Even if we lose this battle to a veto, it will be the Patriots who will have stood for keeping American businesses going and Americans employed. It will shape the battlefield for any putative elections held in 2012.

8.) It will probably not be possible to repeal Obamacare in one fell swoop. Probably. I would not rule it out completely. But we need to try if it seems at all politically possible. We can definitely take out parts of it, destroying it piecemeal, and hopefully keeping it from crippling the country. That which we cannot destroy, we can refuse to fund.

9.) Parallel to that, we can try to implement a free-market reform of the health care system. This is long enough, so I won’t put the whole thing, but I direct the attention of the LC’s to this draft legislation; H.R.1495 — Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act of 2009 as a start. Yeah, it’s Ron Paul’s bill. But even a blind squirrel [and I do emphasize the squirrel] finds an acorn every so often. This plan makes sense. Add to it free interstate marketing and sales of insurance, removal of state mandates on coverages [If I buy an insurance policy just for myself, I have to pay for state mandated maternity coverage. I promise, I won't get pregnant, being plumbed wrong for it.] so that you can insure yourself for what you feel you need, not what some bureaucrat in the pay of an insurance company lobbyist wants. Allow employer pools to get better group rates. Etc.

Once again, we are not going to get it through past a veto, barring a miracle. But we will have a rational, credible plan we will have already fought for to offer as an alternative in 2012, and pass with a Patriot/Republican coalition in both Houses and a Patriot president in 2013.

10.) Off-shore drilling: Hammer on this hard. We need the oil. In the Gulf, the regime is trying to ban all off-shore drilling in our waters by any company who will sell to Americans. At the same time, the Obama regime is giving low/no interest loans and grants out of our wallets to Brazil and China to drill in our waters for the benefit of their countries. Legislation to do three things, in priority:

a) Investigate and charge the officials whose dereliction of duty allowed the BP oil spill in the Gulf. The oil rig was given a safety award without even being inspected. The Environmental Impact statement for the permit to drill, granted by the Obama administration, had no plan for shutting it down in an emergency ….. despite such being required by law for decades. In the Congressional testimony Obama’s underlings stated under oath that they had no idea of the requirement, and just rubber stamped it. Finally, look at the connection between this, and the fact that BP gave its biggest campaign contribution in its history … to Obama in 2008.

b) Legislation that lays out strict safety controls on any renewed off shore drilling, and lays out absolute financial responsibility and criminal liability for all damages on the drillers and oil companies who hire them for what they do, AND placing financial and criminal responsibility on any government official who short-cuts the standards; especially if it can be proved corruption was involved.

c) Legislation creating a legal framework for re-opening the Gulf and Atlantic Exclusive Economic Zones for oil drilling under the terms of 10.) b) above.

11.) The LC’s will remember that in Part the Third, “Jury Rig Repairs”, there were four studies to be completed by the Technology Assessment unit of the Government Accountability Office that would determine the safest and most efficient designs the current state of the art could produce in the fields of nuclear power reactors and petroleum refineries, and the safest locales for each. The goal is to begin a process that will double the electrical generating capacity by nuclear reactors in this country, AND to create 25 high capacity petroleum refineries that are safe from meteorological and seismic threats. We have not built new nuclear reactors for power generation, or any new refineries for decades. Our population has increased by 33%+ since then. We no longer have a surplus to play with. Brownouts are a fact of life, and one of the main drivers of price swings and increases in petroleum fuels is lack of refinery capacity.

Using this data, it is intended that legislation will be drawn up preparing for the equivalent of a Manhattan Project for energy. It will be centered around the above studies, but will contain much more:

a) The reactors and refineries
b) A change in the nature of permitting and environmental impact delays for this Project. For the purposes of this legislation, it is conceived that the permitting process be shortened by statutory deadline to no more than two years total. Studies and appeals at the Federal level will be the primary resource for environmental impact. The several states may or may not have their own environmental impact studies, but they will run concurrently with the Federal process. Local issues and appeals will be made through the state, and not separately.
c) A legal and regulatory framework will be created to comply with 11) b) above that will allow the safe development of land-based petroleum resources inside the territory of the United States; be it drilling for liquid petroleum, natural gas fuels, shale oil, or tar sands.
d) The Project will have the right of eminent domain for these specific things: the sites of the reactors, the refineries and associated tank farms, the rights of way for the power lines and pipelines associated with the reactors, the refineries and tank farms, and if necessary other energy developments. Whenever possible, rights of way for other than the reactor sites, refineries, and tank farms will be by easement and not seizure, with seizure being the last resort. The enemy wants to use eminent domain as a tool for enriching government. This has ruined the reputation of the use of eminent domain, but actually it has an honorable and necessary history specifically to create infrastructure for the nation as a whole. From the founding of the country, it has been considered as part of the powers of government [See Amendment V of the Bill of Rights], and the recent problems have been those of abuse, not proper use. The ability to actually have rights of way without being stopped by Leftists means also that a number of solar projects [No, solar power is not going to be a major part of the energy picture. But yes, there are a lot of things that can be done with all the nice, empty desert we have that will help a lot at the margins.] will suddenly become feasible.
e) The Federal government will issue loan guarantees, charging appropriate fees, to qualified American applicants for the construction of the reactors, refineries, tank farms, pipelines and power lines. If American private parties or government entities build these items, they will have title to them to operate them in accordance with normal regulations, subject to appropriate liens. If American private entities choose not to participate or cannot qualify; the reactors, refineries, and associated access will be built by the Project, and will be operated either by qualified American private entities on a long term lease basis, sold to qualified American private entities at a fair market price, or operated by the Project, selling the power and/or refined petroleum to private or government entities on a cost of the product plus amortization of the project basis. Once the government has recovered its costs of the Project, either by sale of the refineries, reactors, pipelines, or power lines, by payments on leases, or by sale of power and/or refined petroleum products; all assets of the Project will be sold to American private entities and the Project will be dissolved, with all funds returning to the Treasury.

The economy may improve once the enemy’s stranglehold is lifted, but it will not prosper. We have many factors that it will take a generation to overcome to return us to prosperity. But one of the early signs that things are bad is going to be a lack of energy for both the economy and for private consumption. In the absence of new construction, the brownouts in California in the first decade of this century, and the gas lines and high prices of petroleum under Carter will appear to Americans as the “good old days”. When you are sitting in the dark, either sweltering or freezing, and cannot afford to drive to work, you want something done right bloody now. If Patriots in government have a plan and a bill ready to introduce, while the enemy wants to stall and attack the public for being greedy; we come out ahead.

This is preparedness. If things get bad before 2012, and they may well will, we need to be ready to counter the enemy. We may not get it through if we have to do it before we get a Patriot president. But, if we can’t it shapes the battlefield for an election in 2012. And after we have a Patriot president, we can hopefully push it through. The lack of energy available for the economy, means our people are poor. If we have energy, we can have jobs.

12.) The new Congress is going to have to deal with the de-nationalization of the economy. The Federal government has, over less than two years, taken over GM, Chrysler, and much of the nation’s financial system. Government ownership needs to be terminated. Legislation needs to be submitted that will do this, and to work in parallel with the criminal investigations noted in item 6.) above. Those will be detailed in Part the Fifth. It means that some of the TBTF entities [To Big To Fail] will in fact fail. And their hangers on and the elite who fed at our expense may go hungry. “Though the Heavens Themselves Fall”.

13.) We have more freaking Czars now than Russia has had in all its history. From the first Russian titled “Czar” [Ivan IV, known as "the Terrible"] to Nicholas II, there were 20. We have at the last count I know of 38; the last being the “Carp Czar” Thomas Lifson, who is in charge of seeing that the accidentally imported Asian Carp does not infest the Great Lakes. He has authority to shut down domestic waterways to commerce to that end.

That authority, and the authority of the other 37, reflects the enemy’s love of autocracy and disdain for the rule of law.

Unless there are items of legislation that have passed that have I have missed, the creation of these Czars, and their powers, and their pay, and their staffs are not authorized in any bills passed by Congress and signed by the President. Every position in the government has to be authorized by Congress. Every dollar spent has to be duly drawn from the Treasury by appropriation [Article I, Section 9, clause 7] or both the law and the Constitution is violated.

From whence do they get the legal and constitutional power to do what they do? What account appropriated by Congress is the source of their pay? What bill authorizes their staff, their maintenance, and their offices? I know that for some, there is the claim that they are unpaid, but that has been shown to be a flat out lie. As an example, the “Pay Czar” who claims authority to determine what compensation can be given to the management of private companies, was supposed to be working for free. Except it came out a few weeks ago, that he is drawing well into 6 figures. And every one of these Satraps of Obama’s have staffs. Lord, do they have staffs. And they are definitely not working for free. Where is the money coming from?

A Patriot/Republican led House can have one hell of a party taking them down. Especially if the budget has not been done for the next fiscal year. Either a new budget, or a revised budget can deliberately forbid the expenditures of any funds for the “Czars”, their staffs, or for their function unless duly authorized by Congress. If that is the hill that the administration wants to die on, let it be so. Because one of the few things that could bring about an impeachment of Obama would be a direct and open violation of the Constitution. Take them down one at a time, pounding into the public consciousness the fact that this regime rules by decree and not by law.

14.) Finally [and yes, I hear you breathing a sigh of relief] there is the one Constitutional Amendment that I think that we might get through in this session, and which even if we did not would be a game changer. This comes from Dr. Randy Barnett, Constitutional Law professor at Georgetown University, in Dr. Eugene Volokh’s VOLOKH CONSPIRACY. Dr. Volokh is Professor of Law at UCLA Law School. Herewith, the “STATE REPEAL AMENDMENT”

“Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.”

Note that this is very different from the concept of “state nullification” or “judicial nullification”. From their discussion:

At present, the only way for states to contest a federal law or regulation is to bring a constitutional challenge in federal court or seek an amendment to the Constitution. A state repeal power provides a targeted way to reverse particular congressional acts and administrative regulations without relying on federal judges or permanently amending the text of the Constitution to correct a specific abuse.

The Repeal Amendment should not be confused with the power to “nullify” unconstitutional laws possessed by federal courts. Unlike nullification, a repeal power allows two-thirds of the states to reject a federal law for policy reasons that are irrelevant to constitutional concerns. In this sense, a state repeal power is more like the president’s veto power.

This amendment reflects confidence in the collective wisdom of the men and women from diverse backgrounds, and elected by diverse constituencies, who comprise the modern legislatures of two-thirds of the states. Put another way, it allows thousands of democratically elected representatives outside the Beltway to check the will of 535 elected representatives in Washington, D.C.

Congress could re-enact a repealed measure if it really feels that two-thirds of state legislatures are out of touch with popular sentiment. And congressional re-enactment would require merely a simple majority. In effect, with repeal power the states could force Congress to take a second look at a controversial law.

Note that if Congress and the President re-imposed a law or regulation AFTER 2/3 of the country legally rejected and repealed it; there would be consequences. Does the phrase “Lamp Post Piñata” strike a familiar note?

It takes decades to get a statute in front of the Supreme Court if the Political Elites do not want the issue judged. Procedural delays can impose a de facto denial of equal protection under the law. And since the Supreme Court is as much of a political body as the Congress; neither Law, nor Equity, nor Justice can be assumed to be the outcome of a Supreme Court decision. One of the largest problems our country faces is the death of real Federalism. The states are being subsumed into the service of an all-powerful central State, and the will of the people is shut out. I submit that a state ability to repeal laws, and perhaps combined with independent State Guards to symbolically create separate power centers than the Federal District might be a worthwhile beginning for a restoration of a Federal Republic.

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Thus ends Part the Fourth, Reconstruction. It will be followed by Part the Fifth, “Fiat Iustitia Ruat Caelum” [Let Justice Be Done, though the Heavens themselves may fall], which will discuss payback on a more personal scale, and Part the Sixth, To Secure these Rights which will discuss the nature of the multi-front war that Patriots are fighting. This is not going to be easy, and we will lose more than a few battles. But for every Battle of Long Island, there will be a Battle of Saratoga. For every Battle of Waxhaws, there will be a Kings Mountain. And we will meet at the end inside Redoubt #10.

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