RedStateEclectic

Audit the Fed Watch

S. 604 is now up to 8 co-sponsors; H.R. 1207 has 256.  This is really a pretty remarkable display to watch, and without much doubt, the result of the grassroots efforts to promote it it.

LLE

Better President and Better Bill Required to Rule the Cosmos

From NewsBusters, we learn:

In a stunning rebuke of the Obama administration, NASA's James Hansen, one of the world's foremost climate alarmists, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the anti-global warming bill that recently passed the House, "less than worthless."

Not only that, he referred to it as a "counterfeit climate bill" that employs a "Ponzi-like 'cap-and-trade' scheme" setting the nation on a "disaster course" as a result of the 219 members of Congress he accused of voting for it without reading it.

As you might have already deduced, Hansen's complaint is that the bill doesn't go far enough to solve what he believes is a looming cataclysm.

But, who cares? It's fun watching the alarmists eat their own ...

The source.

Politics, in the conception of it that we are being spoon-fed every second, is based on the idea that mankind survives and thrives by recognising and acting on momentous exceptions to the outdated institution of durable rules and principles, that by the same logic are secondary and insignificant considering the dire need of their constant waving by "philosopher kings," who live by the insight that man is evil, unless he forms a powerful government.

Hansen is frustrated by the fact that his totalitarian scheme is not sitting in the driver's seat, while Obananas has been more successful at capitalising on a powerful confusion that has recently changed its name form "global warming" to "climate change." The confusion and the fear, that are supposed to bring us to heel, persist, only that the intimidating noise has been renamed to be even less specific, more open to whatever you care to be panicked about: if the climate does what it is all about - i.e. change - we are in danger and require urgent government action - of the sort Hansen envisages, thinks Hansen.

O(we-are-going)bananas(yes-we-can) and Hansen have us back to bygone times: the sun (a negligible factor compared to man's impact according to climate alarmism) is revolving around the human world, the mechanism of world weather, being much simpler than, and therefore tractable by, the complex, all-encompassing foresight of Comrade President Obananas, and his Central Committee, or an even better circle of sages. This being so, it is of the utmost importance to determine: what pick of appropriately empowered sages will lead us out of jeopardy and into enlightenment and bliss. Hansen endorses Hansen. Who do you support? Let us go vote.

In my post The Dismal Social Sciences, I quoted Arnold Kling, who suggests:

The main science of political economy is the science of obtaining and retaining power. As far as expertise goes, the pollster, the fundraiser, and the media expert are all fundamental to the operation. The public policy expert is for decoration. If you want to be an economic policy adviser when you grow up, then my advice is to learn to rationalize the methods used by leading politicians to obtain power.

• Is health care reform about health care? No, it is about seizing and retaining power. Was the stimulus about stimulus? No, was about seizing and retaining power. Is cap and trade about global warming? No, it is about seizing and retaining power. Was TARP about saving the financial system? No, it was about seizing and retaining power.

The social scientist's role in the political process is to say, "X is a problem. Government must solve X. Here are some solutions." The solutions that rationalize seizing and retaining power will bubble to the top.

[Emphasis added, G.T.]

HR 1207/S 604 Update

Eric’s junior Senator, Jim DeMint, brought some good attention to the cause of auditing the Fed on Monday.  As of this morning, the House version (HR 1207) has reached 254 co-sponsors to the Ron Paul sponsored bill; the Senate version (S 604), sponsored by “Socialist” Senator Bernie Sanders, now has 6 co-sponsors.  Keep calling your Senators and the holdout members of the House!  Guilt them a little—why are they against transparency in the financial institution that has a monopoly power on our monetary system?

Read the Bill

Maybe this would be a good time to start pushing the “Read the Bill” Act.

According to CNSNews.com:

"House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it. …

"Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

"In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. 'I'm laughing because a) I don't know how long this bill is going to be, but it's going to be a very long bill,' he said."

Bums.  They won’t even take the time to read the nastiness that they’re saddling their constituents with.  Call your Congressman!

LLE

Why We Should Audit the Fed

Here’s the whole thing.

More Stimulus Needed?!?

What a slippery slope we’re on.

Today on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said a second stimulus is “probably needed,” and predicted that Congress is likely to act before the end of the year to inject even more federal dollars into the economy. 

Said Whitehouse: “I think that it is probably needed. We’re going to need to have some further discussion. It will probably take place towards the end of the year and we want to take a look at the economic conditions at the time. But it certainly should be on the table at this point.”

Don’t you love the euphemism “federal dollars”?  What he really means, I guess, is that we’re going to print more money and devalue even further the already valueless dollar.

Rotten Tea, Part 2

Eric Larson posted an interesting question/account of Tea Parties in Michigan which suggests that perhaps the anti-tax tea parties are not really so anti-tax.  Here in Nebraska, we didn’t have any petitions being signed (at least not at the Tea Party that I spoke at in Lincoln), but there was certainly still an anti-tax, anti-spending feel about it when one listened to the speakers and looked at the signs. 

I found this video kind of interesting as well.  Say the folks at FreedomWorks:

At yesterday’s Austin Tea Party at the state capitol, politicians who voted for TARP were not welcome. Witness the reception of Republican Senator (and RINO-endorser) John Cornyn. The message for politicians? People are watching your votes carefully, and if you vote for big government while trying to convince us that you are for limited government, the people will not buy it. Cornyn tried to criticize Washington, but the people in Austin were well aware that Cornyn had become part of the problem.

The comments at FreedomWorks send a mixed message, but at least in Texas, it appears that the memories are long, and that these guys are not going to be automatically forgiven for their past transgressions just because they’ve started to vote “right” more recently.

LLE

The State of the Nation - 4th July 2009 (1)

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
Thomas Paine

What Might the Founders Make of It?

David Boaz writes:

Both President Obama and Sen. John McCain cited the Founders in their weekly radio addresses today, as they made the case for government actions that would have appalled those Founders. Obama invoked “the indomitable spirit of the first American citizens who made [independence] day possible” in arguing for a federal takeover of education, energy, and health care.

He might have trouble explaining how his policies reflect the spirit of the men who left us such words as these:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must be happy.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

Meanwhile, McCain called for the American government to more vigorously support the protesters in Iran. What would the Founders say to him?

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible….Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

[America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. …Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

Maybe each week there should be three national radio broadcasts: one from the incumbent president, one from the other big-government party, and one reflecting the views of the Founders.

The source.

A Trust That Will Lead to Our Undoing as a Great Nation

...is a phrase, I borrow from Walter E. Williams' article Why a Bill of Rights?

Following up on The Ninths and Tenth Amendment, and The Battle of Our Lifetime, and Bootleggers and Baptists, and also The Idea of Rights,  you might want to consider this article, and the below clip: