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Friday, March 13, 2015

The Coronation Of Hillary: Not So Inevitable After All

I believe that it's important to note Hillary's first appearance in public life. She worked as Associate Council for the House Judiciary Committee, while they were investigating the Watergate scandal. Her boss was a lawyer named Jeffrey Zeifman. While Snopes has labeled this story as false, it is important to note that the only point of contention was whether Zeifman actually fired Hillary, or if she quit her job prior to being fired. The particulars of Zeifman's assertions have never been questioned, let alone declared fictitious.

During the investigation, Ted Kennedy, (the guy who killed a pregnant staffer and got away with it,) came up with a plan to deny Richard Nixon his right to obtain legal council in order to face criminal charges for his involvement in the coverup of the Watergate scandal. Hillary Clinton, who was legally prohibited from discussing the issue with anyone in the Senate, (as the Senate was to be the jury for any such trial,) wrote a legal brief which concluded that Richard Nixon could be legally prohibited from obtaining representation for his upcoming trial. In this brief, she cited a previous court case and ruling, as is done by lawyers every day in almost every brief filed with any court anywhere in America. The problem with Hillary's Brief was that the judge whose opinion she cited did not exist, nor did the case referred to. She made it up, case, judge, outcome, opinion, all of it.

One of the other associates realized the lie prior to Hillary ever filing the brief, and reported it to Zeifman. Shortly thereafter, Hillary no longer worked for the House Judiciary Committee. (In the intervening years, Zeifman has asserted, recanted, and reasserted that he fired Hillary over this.) Hillary still brags about helping to investigate Nixon, but fails to mention that she herself would have been facing jail time had Jeffrey Zeifman not prevented her from filing the Brief in question. Hillary was only 27 years old at the time, and Lord knows that I myself did a stupid thing or three when at that age. However, in Hillary's case, it was not merely the hubris of youth rearing its moronic head, but the establishment of a long pattern of sociopathic behavior. As I got older, I learned not to do those idiotic things any more. Hillary learned how to cover them up better. It's not that Hillary thinks that she's above the law that upsets me, it's that she knows it to be true.

Putting aside for the moment that Hillary Clinton's only two qualifications for becoming our next President seems to be that a) it's time for us to have a Woman serve in that capacity and b) her husband Bill is remembered fondly by a plurality of Americans, let's take a moment to think about this woman's bona fides, and what that would mean to our nation when she is given the reigns of most powerful nation on Earth. Hillary Clinton is the only First Lady to have ever faced criminal indictment, and only escaped prosecution when the lead witness against her, Vince Foster, mysteriously committed suicide days before her arraignment. (I'd also like to point out here that Mr. Foster had actually served as Deputy White House Council during the early days of the Clinton Presidency.)

Ultimately, I had written previously about Ken Starr's ill advised prosecution of Bill Clinton for lying about his sexual proclivities in the Oval Office, stating unequivocally that I disagree with the prosecution of any process crime, should the original allegations remain uncharged. I've never backed off of that position. It was wrong when Scooter Libby faced it. It was wrong when Martha Stewart faced it. It was wrong when Bill Clinton faced it. I will however qualify the last case just a little.

I feel bad for Ken Starr. His investigation into White Water led him past a series of dead bodies, including two 14 year old teen aged boys who were found dead on a set of railroad tracks near Little Rock, Arkansas. Even in the worst gangster movie spoof ever made, you couldn't make this crap up. The boys in question had their deaths ruled as accidental, despite multiple stab wounds in their backs. The Coroner was of course a long time friend and political ally of Bill Clinton, who had made so many similarly bizarre rulings in his official duty as coroner that State Police Commissioners and FBI officials had taken to the habit of regularly calling for his ouster. He managed to maintain his position until Clinton was sworn in as President. Many of those who had perished under bizarre circumstances, including those two boys, and had their deaths ruled natural or accidental were of course publicly connected to the White Water case being investigated. Ken Starr was faced with multiple years of documenting a very serious pattern of felonious activity which followed the Clintons everywhere, without ever having a potential witness survive long enough to tell their story in open court, or even on the record. Think for one moment, what would have happened if a Republican were in any way connected to anything like this? Faced with that as the backdrop, I can most certainly why Ken Starr would choose to grasp the Blue Dress, and pin something upon this crooked pair.

Any time any of that is brought up, it is immediately decried as old news, and the defense tactic of whining about the, "mean Republican attack machine," gets trotted out and put on display with Ringling Brothers, and Barnum and Bailey precision. At the center of each one of these very real scandals however is not only Bill Clinton, who himself has been able to escape justice largely due to his personal charm, but Hillary as well. She's always been the pit bull and chief cleaner, the one who actually embarks on moving the Clinton machinery in such a manner so as to not only scare critics into silence, but to destroy their lives publicly in order to scare future potential problems. The starkest example of this in action is the Travelgate scandal. What should have been a true, not-much-to-see-here piece of partisan hackery, turned out to be a living hell for at least one family at the center of it. People often point to that scandal as not much to see here, and will often ask why anyone cares that Hillary fired a bunch of long time domestic staff in favor of her own associates and family friends. Let's not gloss over the fact that not only was Billy Dale fired from his position, after serving the White House in some capacity for over 20 years, he was prosecuted after he refused to go quietly. He was forced to spend over $750,000 he hadn't earned yet, in order to defend himself against trumped up embezzlement charges. (It took a jury less time to acquit him than it did to organize themselves in the jury room and make a pot of coffee.) By the end of his ordeal, not only had he been forced to spend a vast fortune he didn't actually have in order to defend himself, but Mr. Dale also got to watch as the IRS audited his wife and adult children each and every one of the three years that his saga played out. Not only is Hillary Clinton crooked, but she's mean as well. Her pursuit of adversaries is as ruthless as it is savage. Remember, as Clinton scandals go, this one was pretty small potatoes. As a matter of fact, had it just been allowed to drop entirely, I think it's pretty safe to say that it would have been long forgotten by now, by those on the right politically as well as those on the left. What gave this scandal any staying power at all was the force brought to bear on a guy who served basically as a travel agent, a non political worker bee who did the mundane work for others who wielded the levers of power. A man had his life destroyed, and saw his family destroyed, for no other reason than that Hillary Clinton found it momentarily expedient.

Now, many others share my horror with the contemplation that a woman this evil stands anywhere near the precipice of being placed in charge of the IRS, NSA, FBI, ATF, EPA, and every other Federal Agency held within the Executive Branch. Unfortunately, they also feel as though she's inevitable, and that nothing can be done to prevent her election as our President. Friends, I have two things to say to this.

One, it's not whether we can do anything to prevent it, it's that we have no choice. If you think Barack Obama is bad for the country, wait till you get a load of this woman being placed in charge. The Bamster is a piker when compared to Hillary. At least he's incompetent, Hillary unfortunately is not. The damage done by a potential Hillary Clinton Presidency will not only be devastating, but permanent as well. With Barack, we still have the ability to reverse what he's done.

Two, Hillary is not so inevitable as you might think. I woulk like to invite all of you to read Ed Morrissey's analysis at Hotair dot com. Morrissey in his article links to two graphs from Gallup. It is the second one that gives me hope. It shows Hillary Clinton's favorability numbers over time, spanning back some 23 years, from the beginning of Bill Clinton's initial run for the Presidency through today. I notice a trend, even apart from the one Morrissey points out. Hillary's polling numbers decline every time she speaks or appears in public. She is not likeable. People can see through her disingenuous attempts at charm, and what they see is someone who genuinely does not like them either. As Morrissey notes in his article, Bill Clinton felt our pain, and that was appreciated. Hillary Clinton feels a sense of self entitlement, which comes through plain as day, and that will never be appreciated.

People's declared intention to vote for Hillary is based solely upon nostalgia for the 90's, a time which they equate with her husband's Presidency. It does not take long after a campaign begins for an alternative to be found for those votes, which is how we got a President Obama. Hillary was inevitable in 2008, which for those of you who possess adult memories, was also to be a Clinton Coronation in terms of that year's Presidential Election. People got a glimpse of Hillary up close, no longer clinging to the accomplishments and charming coat tails of her husband, and they opted for someone else. Hillary has a problem, in that she's only ever been popular when hiding from the American People. Her popularity plummets with each syllable uttered in public. Her challenge in the run to be our next Chief Executive will not be with developing stump speeches or policy positions, but with how to deliver those to the entire electorate without ever being seen in public.

Two videos here for you. The first is that Hillary Clinton documentary that was forced out of movie theaters just as the first 2008 primaries were beginning to come around to voting booths near you. It's pretty well put together, factual, and not at all the conspiracy fest I was expecting. The second is a palate cleanser. It was put out by the Clinton people, a designed campaign piece, and it still makes me laugh hysterically every time I see it. It is that perfect testament as to how completely out of touch with reality and the people who live there the Clinton folks truly are.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Those Who've Violated The Logan Act Repeatedly Accuse The GOP Of Treason? Iron Pot Meet Stainless Steel Kettle

Political Cartoons by Nate Beeler

First, here's the text of the act itself:



Before we tackle the above law in the context of today, (and please note the refreshing brevity of laws written in 1799, before we got really smart and decided to complicate things to the point where only 7 years of post secondary education could help us to decode our national registry,) let's look at several recent violations of this law which went unprosecuted.

First a little note here. The Logan Act itself has never been the reason for anybody's prosecution, in its entire 216 year history. So, there's that. The reason of course is that it's a political nightmare. Even when there is a clear violation, any prosecution will be immediately decried as partisan hackery, no matter how egregious the violation.

In 1977, Billy Carter, the brother of President Jimmy Carter danced with members of the Libyan Government for a nice publicity release on the evening news and stated that he was great friends with Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's terror sponsoring dictator. He announced that the Libyan Government had given him a large amount of cash so that he would be able to influence his brother's foreign policy decisions and lobby on behalf of the Libyan interests.

In 1984, Senator Ted Kennedy, the drunken liberal lion of the Senate himself, went to the Soviet Union and met with Mikhail Gorbachev. In that meeting, he apologized for Ronald Reagan's foreign policy, promised a tangible change should Walter Mondale win election as our President, gave specifics of those changes, and requested campaign donations from the Soviets for Mondale's efforts to defeat Reagan, complete with a promise to pay back those donations via future increases in foreign aid.

Also in 1984, Democrat Jesse Jackson traveled to both Cuba and Nicaragua in order to negotiate with the Communist Leaders of those respective nations, promising that he could affect foreign policy with his self styled and by the way not asked for peace mission to those nations.

In 1987 and 1988, Democrat House Speaker Jim Wright traveled to Nicaragua and also conducted negotiations with the Communist regime in power, based upon a Democrat winning the White House in 1988's Presidential Election. His promise was that if they would simply talk nice for the remaining couple of years of a Reagan Presidency, then the Democrat successor would not pursue the same policy of aiding the Contras in their efforts to rid themselves of an oppressive Sandinista rule.

In 1985, John Kerry, the current Secretary of State, traveled to Nicaragua and conducted negotiations with the Sandinista Government, after expressly being warned off of doing so by the Reagan Administration.

In 2007, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Syria in order to conduct foreign policy negotiations with that great friend to the United State, Bashar Al Assad, again promising a change in foreign policy with a Democrat in the White House, and won't he please write them an illegal campaign contribution check.

In 1974, Senator George McGovern was accused publicly by members of the Nixon Administration, but as Nixon's own legal eagles pointed out, Nixon's Administration approved the travel visas for McGovern and his entourage, making any claim that those talks were taking place without his O.K. a hard point to prove in court.

In 1941, Sumner Welles, then an Under Secretary of State for Franklin Roosevelt, publicly accused former President Herbert Hoover of violating the act for telling European Leaders that he would convey a request for food relief in war torn nations. America's involvement in World War Two, plus Roosevelt's own desires to get America involved in that war made his accusations moot rather quickly.

The only indictment under the act came in 1803, when an ambitious man named Francis Flournoy attempted to convince the Germans and French that a separate nation called Louisiana that would ally itself with France and Germany would be advantageous to both of those nations. He was never prosecuted, as France had made the decision to sell the Louisiana Territory in its entirety to the United States, and end her colonial ties to the Western Hemisphere.

There is something similar in each of the above examples of Logan Act violations. In each case, with the exception of Herbert Hoover's, (and it should be noted that Roosevelt refused to back his Under Secretary in that accusation,) the offending party was a Democrat. That's some track record.

Today I learned that there's an actual petition up at the official White-House-file-a-silly-petition website which demands that the 47 Senators who sent an open letter, (meaning they published it in local news papers but addressed it to someone else,) to Iran's ruling Mullahs. That letter basically served as an informational text, for those unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution. I states quite correctly that while Presidents have the authority to negotiate treaties, said treaties are not official unless they are approved by the Senate. Now the petition in question conflates the Logan Act with Treason and Sedition, but we'll put that aside for the moment, and circle back to the issue of Treason later.

Just for reference, here is the text from the U.S. Constitution, Article Two, Section Two, Paragraph Two:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent
Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and
with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint
Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges
of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United
States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise
provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but
the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior
Offi cers, as they think proper, in the President alone,

In terms of violating the Logan Act, there's no way that anyone with two functioning grey cells could ever in a Million Sundays come to the conclusion that the aforementioned 47 Senators came anywhere close to that threshold. They have the authority of the United States to affect foreign policy. They may not have the right to negotiate treaties, but they do have Constitutional Authority to veto any Treaty negotiated and then proposed by our President. Publicly stating that fact, either through an open letter published world wide, or through personal correspondence does nothing other than to point out a very real and important fact for all concerned parties to know. In this particular instance, seeing as how our President seems hell bent on national suicide, I consider it to be an important fact for the world, most especially Americans, the Iranians, and even our President, to know ahead of time that he's not likely to garner the consent of the Senate for a treaty likely to further that suicidal end.

All the 47 Senators have done here, far from acting to undermine the Chief Executive, is to remind him and everyone else for that matter, that they intend to exercise their Constitutionally mandated authority, by rejecting a pact that is clearly bad for the nation and the world as a whole. Accusing them of Treason is at best silly. Barack Obama campaigned on, twice by the way, a promise to do whatever was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a Nuclear Weapon. Since his election in 2012, that promise made by Barack Obama, like every other promise made by Barack Obama, reached its expiration date. His new policy, never approved of by the American People, was that Iran should be allowed to obtain a Nuclear Weapon, but should be forced to wait until after Barack Obama leaves office, so that a Republican can be blamed for it. That's closer to an act of Treason than anything that 47 Senators with Constitutional Authority to veto any proposed treaty have done.

Oh, there's some treason being committed here, but it isn't by anyone in the Senate. Our President, that guy who's twice taken the oath to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, has sat down at a negotiating table with the single greatest purveyor of international terror, and coincidentally has openly declared war on our nation dating back to 1978, and basically agreed that we'll let them have whatever they want, including the means to destroy a key ally and kill every Jew on the planet. Now that's some treasonous activity right there, and something that must be dealt with. (Maybe a group of brave Senators who have finally had enough of watching a renegade President continue with his attempt to destroy our nation will act in an effort to stop the insanity, through an eloquent statement that they intend to perform their Constitutional duty and uphold the supreme law of the land.)

Of course, in a nation where suddenly facts themselves become malleable things, right is wrong and vice versa, those who would seek to protect our nation and allies are called out as treasonous, while those actively engaged in treasonous acts are busy claiming the mantle of patriotism. We have 19 more months of this, and in a morbidly sick sort of way, I can not wait to see what this group will come up with next.

Just to drive home the point of exactly how looney tunes the Left has turned over this, here's a gem I read from one of those annoying Addicting Info links so thoughtfully supplied to my facebook timeline against my will:


So there you have it, don't worry so much about what the Constitution actually says, but take this interpretation of it instead, and allow the gibberish to wash all over you. That's the legal argument supplied to convince us that 47 Senators violated the Logan Act, where those previous cases of Democrats actually conducting face to face negotiations with bad actors against the express stated wishes of the Executive Branch, were not.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Saturday At The Movies: Uncommon Knowledge With Thomas Sowell

As always, Sowell's revelations are worth the hour of your time. One of the brilliant economic minds of the last century, his empiricism lays waste to some of the more classroom-accepted-but-real-world-disastrous tripe that's been inflicted upon us by some of the more conventional purveyors of modern wisdom.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Let's Put The Hillary Clinton Email Story In Perspective

Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel

We'll start here, simply to address those buffoons who are going to claim that this is faux outrage prior to any other discussion. A conservative estimate on Hillary's legal penalty should a miracle happen and actual prosecution for this obvious felony take place, would be somewhere North of 150,000 years in West Virginia's Club Fed For Women, give or take a dozen or so centuries. I'm told that with good behavior, she could get out in about half that time.

Putting aside for the moment, the fact that we used to be a nation of laws, prior to the Clintons bursting upon the national scene, one must wonder when simple adherence to the laws followed by we mere unwashed masses will be the standard applied to the important people as well. Rereading the Declaration of Independence this morning, I couldn't help but notice that the very first enumerated grievance against King George listed by Thomas Jefferson was his refusal to obey the laws that he himself as King used to insure an orderly society.


So you see my fellow inhabitants of reality, we're not crazy for desiring a nation where even the high and mighty obey the very laws that they themselves enact. In fact, 239 years ago, the founders of our nation felt that this very phenomenon was sufficient reason to stage a war of rebellion and form a new nation. As a matter of fact, if you read the list of offenses ascribed to King George and applied them to today, I'm pretty sure that you'd not find much of a difference in the respective behaviors between King George and our current Executive Branch.

In all of the thought provoking analysis delivered yesterday, and there was a ton of it, not once did anyone mention the simple notion that sometimes, things must be done only because they are the right things to do. Hillary Clinton allegedly committed a number of felonies, punishable by 3 years in prison for each count, excluding any of those discovered should the documents she so cleverly hid from public view ever come to light. And let's talk about that for a moment, shall we.

Hillary didn't just use a private email address to conduct national business in violation of the law she actually helped to craft, thereby subjecting highly sensitive material, items pertinent to national security, to the spectre of increased likelihood of being hacked and or stolen. She actively used a series of maneuvers designed specifically for the purposes of covering up what ever she wished to cover up, before she even had the position for which that email was to be used.

Follow along here folks, it's truly bizarre. Three days prior to her confirmation hearing, Private citizen Hillary Clinton purchased her very own file server, so that she could use it for her own email domain, that would be immune to scrutiny by anyone outside of the Clinton Household in rural New York. She created a fictitious person, Eric Hoteham, under whose name she placed ownership of the file server. It should also be noted that Hoteham's name shows up as an expense line in Clinton financial documents, including Federal Income Tax filings, a felony not considered as a part of the original 150,000 yeas. What's another decade amongst friends after all?

The point of this is, that Hillary planned to cover something up, even before she was actually hired by the Senate to do the job that she'd held from 2009 through 2013. She knew, even before she was Secretary of State, that she was going to commit a felony as secretary of State. I guess that's why I'd make a rotten crook. I'm just not capable of planning my activity to defraud the American People with such ruthless precision. Criminal behavior is best left to professional crooks, like Hillary Clinton. Not only was her activity well planned, but it is almost subpoena proof. Her emails have been officially demanded by Congress, and since she has no dot gov address, there's nothing to be turned over. They can subpoena her private records, but since Eric Hoteham, the owner of the private server doesn't exist, he can never actually answer the summons. And if Federal Agents ever do obtain a warrant to physically retrieve the offending file server, I'm sure that an unfortunate fire will suddenly rage in the Clinton's private residence, destroying only the room containing that particular hard drive.

Now, Hillary has, as of yesterday responded to an official State Department request with some 55,000 emails, claiming that this was everything she had. Mary Harf, the beclowned State Department official whose response to this yesterday can only be described as comedy gold, which you'll see later in this post, stated that we'll just have to take Hillary at her word. This by the way is the entire point of the FRA to begin with. We wanted a law where by we wouldn't be forced to just accept the word of the person under investigation for wrong doing that they didn't do something shady, like for example, only turning over documents that exonerated them and destroying documents that proved their guilt. By purchasing that private file server, Hillary has insured that only Hillary controls the archival process, and she remains the only one in the federal behemoth capable of actually succeeding at destroying her records. Figuring out how to make them subpoena proof is just an ugly cherry placed on top of our crap cake.

Now for the really good news. Those 55,000 documents, which prove the felonious behavior beyond all doubt, carrying with them the spectre of 150,000 years at Club Fed, are not at all the ultimate thing to be worried about here. People don't cover things up because they don't have something to worry about coming to light. We may think that we know what it is Hillary was willing to risk One Thousand Five Hundred centuries in jail to hide, but we can not say for a certainty. Would it be reasonable to suggest that she was covering up criminal behavior at least as egregious as the cover up in question? Would her time have increased to let's say 300,000 years? Was what she covered up worse?

I'll disclose something here. I was never, not in a Million Sundays, ever going to cast my personal ballot for Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately however, the fact remains that this woman stands a good chance of winning the Democrat Party's Nomination for President of the United States. That should not preclude our rule of law being upheld here. Some of her defenders have pointed out that prior U.S. officials have in the past owned private email accounts. Keep in mind however that at best, this is a dishonest apples to oranges comparison. First of all, the FRA was signed into law in February of 2009. Hillary's private email was nothing short of a subpoena proof firewall established specifically for the purpose of willful obfuscation for preplanned felonious activity. Other Secretaries of State have been loathe to even communicate via email, due to the security risk involved with this type of communication, and Hillary's decision to increase that risk by storing her documents outside of the government's security system is another discussion entirely. Putting that aside for the moment, if Secretary Rice or Powell had committed a felony while serving in the same position as Hillary, I'd be calling for their prosecution as well. Because, we here in America, pride ourselves on our nation being one which respects the rule of law.

Let's not prosecute Hillary because she's a Democrat running for President. Let's do it because she's a crook. That's what would happen in a nation where politicians were not able to place themselves beyond the laws meant for common folk. That's what would happen in a nation who collectively, remembered that this very dilemma was one of the reasons for her revolution in the first place.

I did read an analysis late last evening that I found helpful, and hilarious. Please click here to read Mary Katherine Ham's piece at Hot Air.

From the Hot Air article:





Just one more thing to note here. I've read some cynical comments that perhaps this was leaked on purpose, in order to get the bad news out early in Hillary's campaign. So that closer to the election, perhaps 22 months from now for example, when this slight indiscretion, punishable by 1500 centuries of jail time is brought up, it will be deflected as old news, and nothing more to see here. That only happens if we, as informed citizens allow it to happen. We can not allow for someone this sleazy to become President, or even walk freely among civilized people who respect the rule of law.

Update: Hat tip to Rix and Weasel Zippers for the Update.

In case you'e in the, but-Hillary-didn't-know-she-was-violating-the-law camp, take a quick glance at this link. As it turns out, she fired the Ambassador to Kenya for doing something far less egregious.


Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Can We Add Agency Law To Our Growing List Of Grievances?

Tip of the hat to The Daily Caller whose video I did not embed here due to their insistence upon the usage of autoplay, something I view as evil. Please click here, for their story, complete with a recorded phone conversation in which an apologetic banker gets to tell a business owner who had held an account at said bank for over a decade, that the government had forced his account to be frozen for no other reason than the fact that the government no longer appreciates his industry's contribution to our economy.

Yes, Operation Choke Point is an evil perpetrated by Barack Obama and Eric Holder. The fault dear Brutus however does not lie in our stars that we are underlings, but in ourselves. There are many who would point to the 60's as the beginning of the Progressive's gaining their stranglehold on our nation. Some point to FDR and the, "New Deal," as that beginning point. I've heard that our troubles with the progressive movement date back to Woodrow Wilson and his Presidency. However, I would like to point out that the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments did far greater damage, even before Wilson took his position as our Chief Executive. (I realize that the Seventeenth Amendment became part of our Constitution about a month after Wilson's Inauguration, but it was ratified before Wilson actually took office.) Many experts in our nation's history will state that Teddy Roosevelt was the first Progressive to affect our national agenda, and granted he gave us a big push in that disastrous direction, and redefined the Executive Branch, but he was not where it all began. This all started with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. This was the first victory of the Progressive Movement, and it has grown into the behemoth that allows Barack Obama to act as a man elected to be our emperor, rather than our President.

For those who are not familiar with it, the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 established our very first Federal Agency. This agency was vested with the ability to create its own rules, its own authority to enforce those rules, and its own system to adjudicate the process for any who wished to push back against the decisions of the agency. Quite literally, we had managed to create an entity that had contained within its scope of operation, a body that was vested with all of the powers of governance, thus doing away with the separation of powers. Since that date in our history, any and all legislation has been written purposefully vague, only ever including a desired outcome, with the specific rules to be determined later by either an existing federal agency, or through the creation of a new federal agency. It is With this wonderful exercise of genius that the destruction of our Constitutional Protections began. Agency Law was created with the establishment of the ICC in 1887. It should also be noted here, that it took almost exactly five years for the agency purportedly designed to keep the railroad men from becoming too powerful for the liking of those who lobbied for this legislation, to be peopled entirely with those, "robber barons," so feared and vilified that the agency was thought necessary. Funny how that works out.

Once that happened, what we see today, even though it has taken 128 years to get here, became inevitable. Give Barack Obama credit for this at least. He saw the potential to simply ignore the U.S. Constitution afforded to him by this set of circumstances, and has taken full advantage of it. All he needs to do is suggest or ask that one of the agencies situated under the federal umbrella, write some additional rules to add to the scope under which they operate, and he pretty much can enact unilaterally anything he wishes to codify as law. Yes, technically such efforts can be overturned by our Judicial Branch, and indeed many of these actions have been thus far. However, our Judicial Branch moves too slowly to monitor or even address every such indiscretion. Even if it were capable of keeping up, Agency Law itself has become so ingrained in our society, such Judicial oversight and pushback has itself become all too rare.

In our history, there have been two Presidents who've tried earnestly to do something to put an end to, or at least reign in this system run amok. The first was Richard Nixon, and I'm sure you all remember what happened to him for his efforts. The second was Ronald Reagan, who also failed, and in fact discussed that failure as being his lasting regret.

So far, 26 states throughout the fruited plains have formally adopted ballot initiatives in favor of an Article V Convention for the purpose of proposing and debating Constitutional Amendments. I am most definitely in favor of this. By the way, many of the Liberals in our nation are as well, since they're convinced that they would be able to alter the First Amendment to, "correct," the Citizens United Decision.

One amendment that I'd like to see come to fruition would be something to put an end to Agency Law. Consider for one moment what this system has allowed for a President with dictatorial ambitions to do in only the short amount of time from early November until now. Barack Obama has rewritten our Immigration law, repealed the Second Amendment, pledged to unilaterally raise our taxes, promised to confiscate our 401k's, threatened to fire the entirety of the retail financial services industry, instituted cap and trade, inflicted net neutrality, signed some very questionable treaties without the requisite Senatorial Consent, changed existing law, and all of this done with the statement that he gave Congress the chance to do what he wanted before he did it alone.

Don't blame the Bamster however. While his actions are bad enough, it was we the people who didn't realize that gridlock was itself a perk, gifted to us by the founding fathers, rather than a problem as proclaimed by the low information voting crowd. Barack Obama is merely the messenger, who has alerted us to a huge problem, and one that hopefully we can figure out how to correct.

Ronald Reagan campaigned on a platform that included ending the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. If the single most popular President in the modern era could not rid us of the two most unpopular facets of the federal behemoth, as he'd promised to do while campaigning, then what chance would anyone have to actually do something about reducing the size and scope of government? We keep talking about the symptoms, meanwhile, the cancer grows free. Something must be done to reign this monster in, and unless Agency Law itself is addressed, nothing will be successful.