Posted on 07/24/2011 3:18:06 PM PDT by MRBIGMUTTS
The outrages just keep coming from Washington...
WASHINGTON -- Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.
"Super Congress"?
I seem to remember that The Constitution establishes a republican form of government with three branches - Legislative, Judicial and Executive. That it then sets forward two houses in the Legislative branch - a House and a Senate.
I have long (for more than 20 years in fact) argued that we totally screwed the pooch and may have sown the seed of destruction of our republic when we passed the 17th Amendment, in that prior to that time a state could recall a Senator who was doing things the state legislature did not approve of. It thus was impossible for Congress to ram down the state's throats programs and costs that they were unwilling to absorb on their own. The 17th Amendment is especially perverse in that it is effectively to repeal it without calling a general Constitutional convention, in that to do so senators would have to vote for their own expulsion from the body.
The list of programs intended to destroy state sovereignty has now grown to encompass a quarter or more of most state spending, with the biggest offender being Medicaid. While technically a state can "opt out" of Medicaid should it do so it receives exactly nothing, while all the other states get the money - but with the money come obligations as to how the program is administered and operated.
This occurs despite the fact that the provision of medical care is inherently an intrastate matter - that is, the doctor you see in your state provides that care in an office in a state and the transaction takes place "face-to-face" within a single state. It thus is, at least if you bother with petty little things like The Constitution, an inherently state matter and beyond the reach of the federal government.
Medicaid and Medicare are how the federal government turned feral and effectively took control over all medical care in the United States. Ditto for the FDA and its regulatory functions even for drugs, devices and care provided entirely within the boundaries of a given state.
But now it seems that the fact that The House has suddenly turned into a body where a large group refuse to raise taxes and argue that the ridiculous ramp in spending (some 30% in the last three years) is entirely out of control and must stop, while another large group demand that their "entitlement payments" continue and even escalate now prompts certain people to refuse to face reality: The entire reason we have a people's House and elect representatives is precisely to prevent tyranny by one group or another!
In the Senate it's even worse. For two years The Senate has refused to do its damn job and pass a budget. This isn't optional - it's a black-letter Constitutional legal requirement that they do so. They have not. And now, with the debt ceiling, they have run into a large voting block in The House that refuses to play along with their intentionally seditious conduct any longer.
Is there a point to pretending we're a Constitutional Republic today? I am rapidly losing faith in our supposed "republican form of government." The Constitution allegedly guarantees this of each state and of each person within a state, but I've not seen it in the last 20 years. With each passing day there is more outrage and violation of fundamental liberty interests that are allegedly protected - but not granted - in The Constitution.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit (but not promise of attainment) of Happiness forms the premise under which The Declaration of Independence was penned more than 200 years ago. The people had sat for usurpation after usurpation by the King of England - arbitrary taxation, searches and seizure of goods and people without probable cause and more, all the way up to summary execution by alleged "law enforcers" wearing red coats.
Today we live under the same tyranny. We're told that Juanita the illegal mexican invader is entitled to give birth in an American hospital and we are obligated to pay for her child's birth, with the funds literally extracted at gunpoint from us, despite the fact that her very presence in this nation is an illegal act. We're told that we must consent to sexual assault in order to board an aircraft. We're told that the fundamental premise of liberty, which has as one of its largest components the right of locomotion, comes as a privilege rather than said right. We have recently seen the government argue that the 5th Amendment, which guarantees your right to remain silent and refuse to incriminate yourself, does not apply when the government wants the password to your computer.
Finally, and perhaps most-disturbingly, we watched unarmed citizens be gunned down by law enforcement officers in Louisiana after Katrina, following their blatantly unconstitutional seizure of privately-owned firearms. A deaf woodcarver was murdered by a trigger-happy cop out west when he failed to respond immediately to a command (he was deaf - duh) and another man was shot in the back while prone on the ground in California on a train platform. In Canton Ohio we have recently witnessed a law enforcement officer threaten to murder a citizen in cold blood for exercising his lawful right to carry a concealed firearm in his own automobile. At the same time our very own government fomented, aided and abetted the supply of thousands of firearms to criminal drug gangs in Mexico, then tried to cover it up.
Yes, I know the courts have ruled that "ball gropes" are constitutional and at present the officers in Louisiana are facing federal civil rights charges.
Just remember that the "courts" ruled in the 1760s and 1770s that the actions of the Red Coats were legal as well.
In point of fact I would love to have someone explain to me how what is going on today in this country is materially different than what the "Red Coats" of 1775 did when they intended to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock? Note that eight colonists died on April 18th of that year, all from British muskets. Nobody knows with certainty who fired the first round that fateful evening but when you're lying dead on the ground it doesn't make a bit of difference who shot first.
Exactly how many deaf woodcarvers, unarmed civilians on a bridge in Louisiana or motorists who are lawfully carrying weapons for their own protection against the feral jackasses who do actually exist in this nation have to be assaulted or murdered before we reach the same logical point today that we reached on April 18th of 1775?
Have you thought about this factual reality and congruence today? You should. It's not a pleasant thought process, but it is a necessary one. Our government, faced with more than thirty years of repetitive ponzi finance under the watch of both major political parties, has become ever-more-desperate in an attempt to keep the pyramid they constructed from collapsing. Mathematically they must and will fail, but rather than face the nation, tell the truth, take responsibility and enter the public debate on exactly what our government should do and what it must not under the founding documents, backing each service to be provided with a current revenue stream via taxation they instead lie, obfuscate and when backed into a corner look for ways to act exactly like a modern-day King George.
All governments exist only with the consent of the governed, as Hosni Mubarak discovered. It is not necessary for the citizens to rise and shoot - only to sit and refuse to work, thereby destroying the tax base of the government. Best of all, while the former act gets you hung as a traitor if you lose, the latter is completely legal - win, lose or draw.
Our founders were much wiser men than the clown-car brigade that now inhabits Washington DC. Indeed, those current inhabitants from both sides of the aisle are more akin to the minions of King George III than any alleged representative body. I'll leave it to you to debate who - or what - "King George III" is.
If we the people of this nation allow even the discussion of this raw violation of The Constitution to proceed apace, we, each individually and collectively, are complicit in the destruction of what little remains of our Republic.
Discussion below (registration required to post) Share29
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WASHINGTON -- Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.
"Super Congress"?
I seem to remember that The Constitution establishes a republican form of government with three branches - Legislative, Judicial and Executive. That it then sets forward two houses in the Legislative branch - a House and a Senate.
I have long (for more than 20 years in fact) argued that we totally screwed the pooch and may have sown the seed of destruction of our republic when we passed the 17th Amendment, in that prior to that time a state could recall a Senator who was doing things the state legislature did not approve of. It thus was impossible for Congress to ram down the state's throats programs and costs that they were unwilling to absorb on their own. The 17th Amendment is especially perverse in that it is effectively to repeal it without calling a general Constitutional convention, in that to do so senators would have to vote for their own expulsion from the body.
The list of programs intended to destroy state sovereignty has now grown to encompass a quarter or more of most state spending, with the biggest offender being Medicaid. While technically a state can "opt out" of Medicaid should it do so it receives exactly nothing, while all the other states get the money - but with the money come obligations as to how the program is administered and operated.
This occurs despite the fact that the provision of medical care is inherently an intrastate matter - that is, the doctor you see in your state provides that care in an office in a state and the transaction takes place "face-to-face" within a single state. It thus is, at least if you bother with petty little things like The Constitution, an inherently state matter and beyond the reach of the federal government.
Medicaid and Medicare are how the federal government turned feral and effectively took control over all medical care in the United States. Ditto for the FDA and its regulatory functions even for drugs, devices and care provided entirely within the boundaries of a given state.
But now it seems that the fact that The House has suddenly turned into a body where a large group refuse to raise taxes and argue that the ridiculous ramp in spending (some 30% in the last three years) is entirely out of control and must stop, while another large group demand that their "entitlement payments" continue and even escalate now prompts certain people to refuse to face reality: The entire reason we have a people's House and elect representatives is precisely to prevent tyranny by one group or another!
In the Senate it's even worse. For two years The Senate has refused to do its damn job and pass a budget. This isn't optional - it's a black-letter Constitutional legal requirement that they do so. They have not. And now, with the debt ceiling, they have run into a large voting block in The House that refuses to play along with their intentionally seditious conduct any longer.
Is there a point to pretending we're a Constitutional Republic today? I am rapidly losing faith in our supposed "republican form of government." The Constitution allegedly guarantees this of each state and of each person within a state, but I've not seen it in the last 20 years. With each passing day there is more outrage and violation of fundamental liberty interests that are allegedly protected - but not granted - in The Constitution.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit (but not promise of attainment) of Happiness forms the premise under which The Declaration of Independence was penned more than 200 years ago. The people had sat for usurpation after usurpation by the King of England - arbitrary taxation, searches and seizure of goods and people without probable cause and more, all the way up to summary execution by alleged "law enforcers" wearing red coats.
Today we live under the same tyranny. We're told that Juanita the illegal mexican invader is entitled to give birth in an American hospital and we are obligated to pay for her child's birth, with the funds literally extracted at gunpoint from us, despite the fact that her very presence in this nation is an illegal act. We're told that we must consent to sexual assault in order to board an aircraft. We're told that the fundamental premise of liberty, which has as one of its largest components the right of locomotion, comes as a privilege rather than said right. We have recently seen the government argue that the 5th Amendment, which guarantees your right to remain silent and refuse to incriminate yourself, does not apply when the government wants the password to your computer.
Finally, and perhaps most-disturbingly, we watched unarmed citizens be gunned down by law enforcement officers in Louisiana after Katrina, following their blatantly unconstitutional seizure of privately-owned firearms. A deaf woodcarver was murdered by a trigger-happy cop out west when he failed to respond immediately to a command (he was deaf - duh) and another man was shot in the back while prone on the ground in California on a train platform. In Canton Ohio we have recently witnessed a law enforcement officer threaten to murder a citizen in cold blood for exercising his lawful right to carry a concealed firearm in his own automobile. At the same time our very own government fomented, aided and abetted the supply of thousands of firearms to criminal drug gangs in Mexico, then tried to cover it up.
Yes, I know the courts have ruled that "ball gropes" are constitutional and at present the officers in Louisiana are facing federal civil rights charges.
Just remember that the "courts" ruled in the 1760s and 1770s that the actions of the Red Coats were legal as well.
In point of fact I would love to have someone explain to me how what is going on today in this country is materially different than what the "Red Coats" of 1775 did when they intended to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock? Note that eight colonists died on April 18th of that year, all from British muskets. Nobody knows with certainty who fired the first round that fateful evening but when you're lying dead on the ground it doesn't make a bit of difference who shot first.
Exactly how many deaf woodcarvers, unarmed civilians on a bridge in Louisiana or motorists who are lawfully carrying weapons for their own protection against the feral jackasses who do actually exist in this nation have to be assaulted or murdered before we reach the same logical point today that we reached on April 18th of 1775?
Have you thought about this factual reality and congruence today? You should. It's not a pleasant thought process, but it is a necessary one. Our government, faced with more than thirty years of repetitive ponzi finance under the watch of both major political parties, has become ever-more-desperate in an attempt to keep the pyramid they constructed from collapsing. Mathematically they must and will fail, but rather than face the nation, tell the truth, take responsibility and enter the public debate on exactly what our government should do and what it must not under the founding documents, backing each service to be provided with a current revenue stream via taxation they instead lie, obfuscate and when backed into a corner look for ways to act exactly like a modern-day King George.
All governments exist only with the consent of the governed, as Hosni Mubarak discovered. It is not necessary for the citizens to rise and shoot - only to sit and refuse to work, thereby destroying the tax base of the government. Best of all, while the former act gets you hung as a traitor if you lose, the latter is completely legal - win, lose or draw.
Our founders were much wiser men than the clown-car brigade that now inhabits Washington DC. Indeed, those current inhabitants from both sides of the aisle are more akin to the minions of King George III than any alleged representative body. I'll leave it to you to debate who - or what - "King George III" is.
If we the people of this nation allow even the discussion of this raw violation of The Constitution to proceed apace, we, each individually and collectively, are complicit in the destruction of what little remains of our Republic.
Discussion below (registration required to post) Share29
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for the double post folks. This is my first time posting an article
Sorry for the double post folks. This is my first time posting an article
Hang them. NOW!
” Hang them. NOW! “
Come on - a little trouble with double-posts is usually not a hangin’ offense....
;)
. . .and the new 12 member panel can point a new 6 member panel that will appoint a new 3 member panel that will select a new king. . .then We the People will secede and so on.
OK, I’ve heard this from another poster. Where did this rumor start? Any congress critter knows this would not pass by the American people without a lynch mob starting somewhere. I’m beginning to think we’re being trolled. So back to the first question, where did this start?
. . .and the new 12 member panel can point a new 6 member panel that will appoint a new 3 member panel that will select a new king. . .then We the People will secede and so on”
Not counting all the Blue-Ribbon panels they would enact.
I agree we need a new Super Congress by most of them out.
Throw the bums out.
Go ahead. Do it! Then we can have a SUPER Civil War!
These people we send to Congress are cowards.
They won’t do their damn jobs because they’re afraid they will be voted out of office.
So they dream up stupid scenarios - usually unconstitutional - to spread the fallout for unpopular decisions.
It’s in McConnell’s bill......duh
ping
SUPER post!
No, the article says it’s in the bill, but the bill hasn’t been made public. So, where is it?
Don’t know if I can stand 17 more months of this regime. There’s the possibility he will call off 2012 elections I fear.
When it was spoken about they mentioned this panel, I didn’t think much of it at the time. But of this I’m fairly sure, it’s in the bill.
Heard it today on Fox News Sunday from the lips of John Boehner.
He called it a two step process.
I'd hate to know what the third step is.
...Good article, all is forgiven. I always read it twice anyway...
...And another thing!!! Later...
Initial Exerpt from your posted article:
“WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.” This is followed by the editorial commentary at the Market Ticker.
Very disturbing, MRBIGMUTTS. Thanks for the post. You are doing fine.
I’m wondering what the source of this is also. The Market Ticker did not give an attribution for the quote given at the top of their editorial commentary. Nor was there an author byline given for the commentary.
I hope that someone can help us nail down the facts on this. Is it a rumor, or is it a bonafide plan??? Did McConnel really agree to something this bad??
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