Two Good Things In One Day

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." — James Madison

It’s not often that two good things happen of the same day but today we had just such a happening.

The first thing was a ruling handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of the Town of Greece, New York v. Galloway et al. The Supreme Court ruled that a town in upstate New York did not violate the Constitution by starting its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month” who was almost always Christian. (See Washington Post Report)

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that divided the court’s more conservative members from its liberal ones, said the prayers were merely ceremonial. They were neither unduly sectarian nor likely to make members of other faiths feel unwelcome.

“Ceremonial prayer,” he wrote, “is but a recognition that, since this nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond that authority of government to alter or define.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the town’s practices could not be reconciled “with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share of her government.” What else would you expect from the four progressive, non-tolerant liberals sitting on the Court?

Town officials in Greece, N.Y., near Rochester, said that members of all faiths, and atheists, were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, however, almost all of the chaplains were Christian. Some of their prayers were explicitly sectarian, with references, for instance, to “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.”

Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of government establishment of religion. They said the prayers offended them and, in Justice Kennedy’s words, “made them feel excluded and disrespected.” That’s it folks two residents out of a town of 94,000. I guess 93,998 have to bow two the wishes of 2 malcontents that are offended.

But Justice Kennedy said the relevant constitutional question was not whether they were offended. “Adults often encounter speech they find disagreeable,” he wrote.

Justice Kennedy said traditions starting with the first Congress supported the constitutionality of ceremonial prayers at the start of legislative sessions. He added that it would be perilous for courts to decide when those prayers crossed a constitutional line and became impermissibly sectarian.

“To hold that invocations must be nonsectarian,” he wrote, “would force the legislatures that sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech, a rule that would involve government in religious matters to a far greater degree than is the case under the town’s current practice of neither editing or approving prayers in advance nor criticizing their content after the fact.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined all of Justice Kennedy’s opinion, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas most of it.

Justice Kennedy did suggest that some prayers may be unacceptable if offered consistently over time, including ones that “denigrate nonbelievers or religious minorities, threaten damnation or preach conversion.”

Town officials had tried, he said, to recruit members of various faiths to offer prayers.

In dissent, Justice Kagan said they had not tried hard enough. “So month in and month out for over a decade,” she wrote, “prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits.” How hard were they supposed to try? Perhaps they should have scoured the state and nation for volunteers. Ridiculous!

In 1983, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.”

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said the case from Greece was different. The prayers at the town board meetings were often explicitly sectarian, they said, and residents were forced to listen to them in order to participate in local government.

“No one can fairly read the prayers from Greece’s town meetings as anything other than explicitly Christian – constantly and exclusively so,” she wrote in her dissent in the case, Town of Greece v. Galloway, No. 12-696.

Moreover, she said, the clergy “put some residents to the unenviable choice of either pretending to pray like the majority or declining to join its communal activity, at the very moment of petitioning their elected leaders.”

These 4 liberal progressive justices will go to any length to disrespect the intent of our Founders when it comes to religion and the First Amendment.

As I drive east along SR 91 in Orange County there is a cross high upon a hill surrounded by a chain link fence that is clearly visible from the freeway. There is an even larger cross visible from the northbound I-215 in Riverside County near Murrieta. Both crosses are on private property, but very visible to and motorist driving east or north past the respective Christian symbols. I am waiting for the day when some bone-headed person brings an atheist group to town to bring a suit for the removal of these crosses on the grounds that they are “offensive” to them and cause such a distraction that they could cause a traffic mishap. To paraphrase Justice Kennedy’s comment on offensive speech; there are things I see and hear that I don’t like, but I just ignore the moron who said it and go one with my life. I used to live in the neighborhood where a mosque was located and I drove by every day. In fact I drove by it so often I no longer saw it. All I have to say to those who supported the two malcontents in the Town of Greece is “get a life.”

The second good thing that happened is Speaker of the House John Boehner finally after 601 days of spinning, obfuscating, lying, cover-up, political posturing, and Congressional hearings appointed a select committee to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012 when terrorist carried out a planned attack on our consulate and left the ambassador and three others dead. No more “what does it matter” Mrs. Clinton, now, hopefully we will get to the truth.

To head this committee Boehner selected a very good congressman. His name is Trey Gowdy from South Carolina. He’s got fifteen years of prosecutorial experience at both the federal and state levels. (Fun fact: I was watching an old episode of “Forensic Files” on HLN a week or two ago and who popped up onscreen but a young, dark-haired Trey Gowdy, discussing a murder case he’d won in South Carolina.) He’s also been out in front of the caucus in accusing the White House of Benghazi cover-ups: He’s the man who claimed last summer that they’d been giving CIA agents linked to the incident new identities to hide them from House investigators, and he told Greta Van Susteren just a few days ago that he has evidence that the White House is deliberately withholding documents related to the attack.

Boehner’s statement in appointing Gowdy.

“With four of our countrymen killed at the hands of terrorists, the American people want answers, accountability, and justice. Trey Gowdy is as dogged, focused, and serious-minded as they come. His background as a federal prosecutor and his zeal for the truth make him the ideal person to lead this panel. I know he shares my commitment to get to the bottom of this tragedy and will not tolerate any stonewalling from the Obama administration. I plan to ensure he and his committee has the strongest authority possible to root out all the facts. This is a big job, but Rep. Gowdy has the confidence of this conference, and I know his professionalism and grit will earn him the respect of the American people.”

Gowdy may not be a Sam Ervin of Watergate fame but he is damn close. According to Hot Air:

“Smart politics twice over. Part of the reason Boehner agreed to the select committee was to unify the party ahead of the midterms; after Ben Rhodes’s e-mail became public, refusing to form a committee would have been another flashpoint between the party establishment and the grassroots to go along with amnesty and increasingly tepid opposition to ObamaCare. It stands to reason that if you’re going to do something to placate your base, you might as well choose a conservative in good standing for chairman too. If he’d appointed a centrist and the committee came up with nothing, righties would have accused him of a whitewash. They can’t do that with Gowdy in charge, and if Gowdy comes up with nothing too, then Boehner can distance himself from it by saying it was largely a tea-party production all along.

The other reason it’s smart politics is that not only is Gowdy a respected prosecutor, he’s consistently one of the most dynamic members at House hearings. (You’ve watched enough clips of him on this site to know that.) Boehner doesn’t know what he’s going to get by way of evidence but he will insist on some political payoff from this ahead of the midterms, and Gowdy’s just the guy to deliver that. You want clips of John Kerry or Hillary Clinton sweating under a tough cross-examination to dominate the day’s news cycle on cable? He’ll do that for you better than virtually anyone else.

One question, though. Will Democrats participate in the committee? Here’s Adam Schiff telling Chris Wallace yesterday on FNS that he thinks the party should boycott. I hate to admit it but that’s sound strategy. They’re taking a risk in doing it: If the GOP turns up compelling evidence of Obama’s or Hillary’s negligence on the night of the attack, the fact that Democrats refused to take part in the investigation will make them look complicit in the cover-up and whitewash. If the GOP doesn’t turn up something compelling, though, the boycott will make it easier for Democrats to argue that it was a kangaroo court all along that the public should either pay no attention to or actively punish Republicans for organizing. In fact, Dems can cite their boycott as a reason for the public to downplay or ignore any evidence that Gowdy does uncover. E.g., “We knew Republicans would be grossly unfair to the administration and blow their findings out of all proportion. That’s why we didn’t participate.” It’s a way to delegitimize the effort, which is the whole ballgame for them right now.”

Be that as it may the Democrats better buckle up during the coming weeks. It’s going to get rough and explosive just like Watergate did. There are too many skeletons that have been stashed away in their closet and it’s up to Gowdy and his staffers to drag them out. It’s also a good time for Gowdy and some of his staffers and investigators to make a name for themselves. Over the past 20 months people have been shuffled around, demoted and promoted. Documents have been uncovered and no doubt some folks are fearful of their political fate. Washington is no bastion of loyalty when things get tough. Ask John Dean of Jeb McGruder.

Recognizing a serious threat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted the expansion of the House GOP probe of Benghazi as an “election-year stunt.”

Close, but no cigar. The real stunt came during the election of 2012, and it was carried out by Democrats.

That’s when the White House went into full fudge mode to protect President Obama from responsibility over the terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya.

The desperate effort included lying about the attack, a fact that is now undeniable thanks to the release of a secret email written days later.

In it, an Obama aide said (Ben Rhodes) a goal of having U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice do five TV interviews was to “underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

But there was no protest about a video before the Benghazi attack, and CIA analysts said they knew instantly it was a planned terror operation. The date — the 11th anniversary of 9/11 — was one of many telltale signs.

The slaughter came only two months before Election Day in a campaign where Obama insisted that Al Qaeda was on the run. He couldn’t say “never mind,” with Mitt Romney breathing down his neck.

So his campaign and the White House tried to obscure what the president knew and when he knew it, and the question now is whether they committed a crime. The email was released in response to a private group’s lawsuit, after being withheld from congressional subpoenas asking for all Benghazi documents.

In promising a select committee would pursue the case, House Speaker John Boehner used the “O” word, accusing the White House of illegally “obstructing” Congress.

That carries echoes of Watergate and Monicagate, so Hilary and the Democrats buckle up it’s a rough road ahead.

To me this was very good news as I called for such committee in my blog of May 10, 2013.

The mainstream media declared the Benghazi story insignificant long ago. To the extent it is covered, the focus is usually on the horrific and unnecessary deaths of four Americans. The Obama administration dismisses it as a lot of fuss about a few silly talking points. Remember Hilary’s “what does it matter” comment.

But everybody is missing the big-picture story of the Benghazi affair and its cover-up. It’s about the White House using the intelligence community for its own political purposes, and lying to the American public in order to win an election. It’s about abuse of power, and that is a big deal. It always has been about the abuse of power and the cover-up. It always is. Those who abuse that power use their minions in the media to assist in the cover up and then wait while the public just forgets about. Too the relatives of those four dead Americans do not have the luxury of forgetfulness.

That’s why the administration cannot be allowed to investigate itself. That’s why it is time for Congress to appoint a special committee to get to the bottom of the story. Benghazi is no longer just a political issue. It’s not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about.

If it turns out that Benghazi and the cover-up were just a series of junior level mistakes that’s the end of it. But if it turns out the administration was using the military and intelligence communities for political purposes prior to the attack, during the attack and in a subsequent cover-up, it must be held accountable. Because once the precedent is set, future administrations will feel no reluctance to do the same.

America has the most powerful military and intelligence services in the world, probably in the history of the world. They have an infrastructure that endures separately and beyond any administration or politician.

At the same time, the military-intelligence complex takes its orders from the American people, through their elected/appointed representatives in the White House and Cabinet.

It’s a sacred trust at the heart of our Constitution, as set out in civilian control of the military. But it comes at a price — that our civilian leaders do not abuse that power and bend the military and intelligence communities to do their political dirty work.

The president doesn’t order the military to seize political opponents. He doesn’t order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.

That’s the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up. The White House twisted intelligence to suit its political needs.

It is now incumbent on Rep. Gowdy and his select committee to act and act like a hungry dog digging for his bone. There have been countless hearings into Benghazi by numerous congressional committees, but none have had subpoena power to demand the paper trail, or to force government workers to testify about what they knew and when they knew it.

The questions I see at the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up are specifically:

Did the White House fail to provide adequate security at the Benghazi consulate because it didn’t want to acknowledge that a terrorist threat remained, even though Bin Laden was dead?

Did the White House order the intelligence community to change its analysis so the president could claim his policy was a success, rather than a failure, just a few weeks before an election?

And, finally, what was the relationship between an overzealous White House staff and the president himself? What did the president know, and when did he know it?

This is no longer just a political issue. It’s not just a partisan witch hunt. It goes to the heart of what our system of government is all about. That’s why it’s time for Congress to act and to get to the bottom of this, once and for all.

That’s why Benghazi matters.

I am sure in the coming weeks I will have more to say on this issue.

Drip, Drip, Drip

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” — Winston Churchill

Last week when asked about the hearings taking place regarding Benghazi, the IRS and the Justice Department’s wiretapping and e-mail searches of AP and Fox News House Speaker John Boehner replied with the simple statement: “drip, drip, drip.” Boehner was right on target. This past week the drips continued to flow from the congressional committees and various news outlets.

There was Lois Lerner’s taking the Fifth Amendment when called to testify in front of Darrel Issa’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — something many lawyers like the famed Alan Dershowitz believe she waived her rights to the Fifth with her opening statement. Then on Thursday we learned that Lerner had been placed on “administrative leave” with full pay.

Next we were informed that U.S attorney and Obama ally is taking heat for handling of leak probes. Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, was nominated by President Obama in 2009 and now runs the biggest federal prosecutor office in the country. His hundreds of attorneys handle everything from gang violence to corruption.

But in recent years, leak investigations have become a hallmark of his portfolio. And his dogged pursuit of the squeaky wheels in government has led him into the tenuous — and some say unprecedented — territory of lumping in leakers with journalists.

According to a Fox News report:

"What's astonishing here is that never before has the government argued that newsgathering -- in this case, asking a source to provide sensitive information -- is itself illegal," Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told FoxNews.com.

Machen was an early and frequent campaign donor to Obama during the 2008 election, giving close to the maximum amount allowed by law. He gave $2,300 in the general election and nearly as much during the primary.

Yet Machen was arguably chided this week, though not by name, when Obama announced a review into the Justice Department's guidelines for investigations that involve journalists. He said he was "troubled" by the developments and that journalists should not be "at legal risk" for doing their jobs.

Machen's investigation into accused leaker Stephen Jin-Woo Kim raised exactly that concern. As part of that case, federal officials obtained a search warrant for Fox News reporter James Rosen's personal emails, and seized phone records for various Fox News lines. Officials were able to obtain the warrant on the pretext that Rosen was likely a criminal "co-conspirator" along with Kim. Though Rosen was not charged, media and other watchdog groups have described that step as "chilling."

Aside from his involvement in the Kim case, Machen was one of two federal prosecutors tapped by Holder in June of last year to lead the investigation into a string of high-profile security leaks.

It was presumably that investigation that led his office to seize two months of phone records from the Associated Press. Machen first notified the news service of the seizure earlier this month.

Some worry that not only has Machen gone too far but he may be too close to the White House to remain objective. Machen was an Obama campaign contributor and supporter before being appointed by the president in 2009.

"As a former volunteer for Obama for America, contributor to the president's election campaign, and having assisted with the vetting of vice presidential candidates, Machen is a far cry from the beacon of independence and impartiality that something as sensitive as this investigation demands," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told FoxNews.com.”

Then we were told that the DOJ begged the Judge to keep James Rosen in the dark about monitoring his e-mails. According to a report on Newsmax:

“The Justice Department begged a federal judge to not tell Fox News reporter James Rosen that it was tracking his telephone calls and emails in a probe regarding a national security leak.

U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Rosen as Justice secretly monitored his Gmail account, according to new exhibits unsealed this week and disclosed by The Hill.

“Where, as here, the government seeks such contents through a search warrant, no notice to the subscriber or customer of the e-mail account is statutorily required or necessary,” Machen wrote in a June 2010 motion. “Thus, this court's indication on the face of the warrant that delayed notice of 30 days to the customer and subscriber was permissible was unnecessary.”

Machen, through another request granted by the court, stopped Google from telling Rosen that Justice was spying on his e-mail account, the Hill reports.

The prosecutor had demanded to see all of Rosen’s emails — including deleted messages, emails in his trash folder and all attachments sent to and from him.

The original warrant in the Rosen case was signed personally by Attorney General Eric Holder, NBC News reported this week.

Meanwhile, Fox News President Roger Ailes on Thursday blasted Justice for targeting journalists as if they were criminals and said the government's seizure of reporters' emails and phone records would not stand "the test of law."

“The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time,” Ailes said. “We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.”

And finally we learned that Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the warrant for Fox News’ James Rosen’s e-mail searches. After testifying in front of a Senate Committee that he had recused himself from the AP investigation and could not recall any other warrants he had personally approved. Newsmax reported:

“President Barack Obama's Justice Department is defending the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to sign off on the search warrant used to gain access to Fox News reporter James Rosen's emails, according to the news organization.

The warrant named Rosen a "possible co-conspirator" in violation of the Espionage Act for obtaining leaked classified information from a Pentagon source. Rosen has not been charged.

"The Department takes seriously the First Amendment right to freedom of the press," the agency said in a written statement to Fox on Friday. "In recognition of this, the Department took great care in deciding that a search warrant was necessary in the Kim matter, vetting the decision at the highest levels of the department, including discussions with the Attorney General."

Officials insisted that they sought an "appropriately tailored search warrant" only after "extensive deliberations and after following all applicable laws, regulations, and policies."

The revelation of Holder's involvement came on the same day Obama said in a speech that he had ordered Holder to review the Justice Department's standards for investigating cases that involve journalists.

"I am troubled by the possibility that leaked investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said in the speech. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."

A law enforcement official told NBC News of Holder's personal involvement on Thursday. Holder had previously said that he recused himself from the AP phone records investigation since he had been a witness in the initial probe, but no one had previously indicated Holder's role in the Rosen case.”

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) stated last week that the dam was about to break on the Benghazi investigations. In an article on Townhall.com Graham is quoted to say:

“I think the dam is about to break on Benghazi. We’re going to find a system failure before, during, and after the attacks. We’re going to find political manipulation seven weeks before an election. We’re going to find people asleep at the switch when it comes to the State Department, including Hillary Clinton. The bond that has been broken between those who serve us in harm’s way and the government they serve is huge — and to me every bit as damaging as Watergate.”

The May 7, Townhall article states:

“Say what you will about Graham's politics, he's been as dogged and tenacious on Benghazi as anyone on the planet. Tomorrow's hearings will contain dramatic, on-the-record testimony from three State Department officials. These men will tell the truth, despite alleged threats of professional reprisals. They'll testify about the unforgivably lax security measures at the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi leading up to the 9/11 attack, the Washington-based chain of command's paralysis and inaction during the raid, and the administration's intentional scrubbing of public talking points describing the massacre. (For previews of these revelations based on existing reports, read this, this and this). As an additional primer, be sure to check out former Marine Bing West's piece at National Review. It's an insightful glimpse into US military leadership's serious shortcomings during the multi-hour siege. A snippet:

The military did nothing, except send a drone to watch the action. Defense Secretary Panetta later offered the excuse, “You can’t willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of place. You have to have good intelligence.” As a civilian, Mr. Panetta probably didn’t know that 99 percent of air sorties over Afghanistan never drop a single bomb. General Dempsey, however, knew it was standard procedure to roar menacingly over the heads of mobs, while not “blowing the hell out of them.” A show of air power does have a deterrent effect and is routinely employed. A mortar shell killed two Americans during the tenth hour of the fight. A mortar tube can be detected from the air. The decision whether to then bomb should have resided with a pilot on-station — not back in Washington. As for the alleged lack of “good intelligence,” three U.S. operations centers were watching real-time video and talking by cell phone with those under attack. Surely that comprises “good intelligence.”

The integrity of the Pentagon is not in question. The purpose of an After Action is to perform better the next time. Is the public seriously to believe that in ten hours Dempsey and the $600 billion dollar Defense Department could not dispatch one ad hoc rescue team, as our embassy in Tripoli did, or order one fighter jet to scramble? Have our military’s best and brightest lost the capacity to improvise? Clearly, that merits an assessment. Will General Dempsey ask for a review of his own procedures? Do as I say, or as I do? The chairman of the joint chiefs is the only general who can answer that.”

Let's all hope that Sen. Lindsey Graham's suspicion is correct — not for the sake of politics, but for the sake of Patricia Smith and Charlie Woods. They, and the American people, deserve the truth

The drip, drip, drip will continue unless three things happen and happen soon.

Firstly we need a special prosecutor is appointed to look into the activities of the Justice Department. President Obama said in his speech on last Thursday, as speech intended to obfuscate the three scandals plaguing his administration:

“Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. And that’s why I’ve called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach. And I’ve raised these issues with the Attorney General, who shares my concerns. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and he’ll convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I’ve directed the Attorney General to report back to me by July 12th.”

In essence Obama is stating that he is calling for the fox to guard the henhouse. Now Senator Lindsey Graham is calling for a “special council” to investigate the doings of the Justice Department and Eric Holder. Fox News reports:

“A top Senate Republican on Sunday called for a special or independent counsel to investigate the Justice Department tracking the phone calls and emails of a Fox News reporter, saying Attorney General Eric Holder was too involved in the process to be objective.

President Obama asked Holder last week to investigate the matter involving Fox reporter James Rosen, who in 2009 was reporting on North Korea’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon.

Holder “signed off on the affidavit,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told “Fox News Sunday.” “This would be a good time for a special counsel or independent counsel. This is clearly an overreach.”

The Justice Department search warrant stated investigators had probable cause to think Rosen had violated the federal Espionage Act and that he might have aided or abetted others or was a co-conspirator.

“James Rosen is a lot of things, but not a criminal co-conspirator,” Graham said.”

…

“Holder has already recused himself from an investigation into the Justice Department looking into the phone records of the Associated Press, related to a May 2012 story that included information about a foiled plot in Yemen to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner.

That Holder approved the Justice Department searches appears to contradict earlier statements before Congress in which he said accessing reporters’ phone logs was “not something I’ve ever been involved in, nor would I think is a wise policy.”

Graham also called for a special counsel to investigate the IRS flagging Tea Party groups and other politically conservative-leaning organizations seeking tax-exempt status.”

The only problem we have with this action is that Holder will be responsible for appointing the special council. This has many problems as we know the partisanship of Holder. Perhaps a special committee would be better, although it would have a different set of problems. For this reason a special committee might serve the American people better. But there must be the threat of criminal penalties if we want the whole truth and to punish the wrong-doers with more than administrative leave.

Secondly we need a special prosecutor to look at the IRS. This one would be a bit different as even though Holder would be involved in the appointment there are a great many Democrats who would pressure Holder for a neutral prosecutor. I don’t believe Issa’s committee will be able to get the bottom of the IRS scandal for the following reasons.

His congressional committee is just too big. Few members, like Trey Gowdy (R-SC), have prosecutorial experience. There are 38 members of Issa’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee and each member is limited to 5 minutes of questioning. This means that an experienced prosecutor like Gowdy is allowed 5 minutes and then has to sit and wait 3 hours for a second round unless another committee members yields their time.

• A Congressional committee does not have the power of criminal sanctions
• A Special prosecutor has all the time in the world to question witnesses
• A Special prosecutor has subpoena and immunity powers. They can demand witnesses testify and grant immunity for that testimony if they believe it will help peel back more layers of the onion
• Special prosecutors work from the bottom up and usually know many of the answers prior to taking the deposition of the next higher witness.
• If you lie to the special prosecutor you go to jail. Just ask Scooter Libby.

Thirdly we need a special committee to investigate what happened in Benghazi. Special committees have much fewer members and they are handpicked by the Speaker of the House and the House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi. Special committees are usually staffed with attorneys and investigators experienced in criminal prosecutions. With fewer members committee members will have more time for questions and follow-up questions.

After this long Memorial Day weekend Boehner and Congress need to get back on track with the Benghazi, IRS and Justice Department hearings. They need to get serious and push for either special prosecutors or select committees that would have the ability to query witnesses with greater authority and tools — tools of subpoena power and criminal prosecution. If they do not the drip, drip, drip will continue until it eventually stops and the American people become bored. If this happens the government and the Obama administrations win and we lose.

Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste

"People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous." — Edmund Burke

The greatest mind-trick in the left's entire arsenal is politicizing emotion. Once they accomplish that, there is no limit on a government's mandate to take action, since there are no rational limits on emotion.

Consider the welfare state. Is it right or wrong to help a poor person? What about providing for children's education? Or making sure that everyone has health coverage? These things appear self-evidently right, and therefore the cost doesn't matter to the left. Scarcity and how resources are employed don't enter into the equation. Voluntary or involuntary, it doesn't matter how these things are done. So it doesn't matter if government forces people to do something or not.

Now consider the case of gun control laws, which have no factual evidence to back up their effectiveness, given real-world constraints. Guns cannot be un-invented — only taken away and put into some people's hands, but not others. But since guns make leftists feel uncomfortable, it's best to have the government make them disappear.

Since so many on the left are dominated by feelings, and not animated as much by concern for facts and reason, most don't care about the consequences of their actions. They just hope that things will get better if government can spend enough money or pass more regulations. This is not to say that left-wingers are stupid; they are rather expert rationalizers and sophists. They put the cart before the horse — emotion before reason.

Today's typical totalitarian leftist is thus not a jackboot-wearing thug, but an overly sensitive, cardigan-wearing milquetoast, whose obsessions about feelings make him immune to rational argument. The danger of granting the government endless power to do good, like everything else, is rationalized away or dismissed by the leftist, since even the thought of making peace with an imperfect world makes him uncomfortable. This is why the left will never learn from history: the past is only prologue to the coming utopia, which will be perfectly just and fair.

Leftists are convinced they are on the side of right. They don't care about the cost; they care about humanity. Due to their preoccupation about humanity, they don't particularly care about individuals (ask any leftist what he thinks about the tens of millions killed by avowed socialists). This does not mean that leftists are hard-hearted; rather, they tend to be hyper-sensitive stars in their own imagined melodrama. And furthermore, their emotion-centrism does not rule out calculation and cunning, since their entire thought process is focused on effecting power, which they believe will be used for good. The ends justify the means.

Left-wingers tend to be crusaders who love everyone so much that they are willing to stick others with the bill for any cause they deem fit. Save the planet, even if that means some people suffer. (See malaria and DDT; ethanol subsidies and world hunger; fracking and man-made global warming hysteria, etc.) Wage an endless and self-defeating war on poverty, meanwhile impoverishing the nation. Rationalize away human nature, as if punishing productive behavior and subsidizing idleness will not damage an economy over generations. We are equally poor, but the left feels better for having tried.

Earlier today, Vice President Joe Biden addressed the ongoing discussion and debate surrounding gun control. Rather than relying strictly upon the legislative process, he said that Obama “is going to act” — and potentially without Congress’ blessing.

Before meeting with gun safety and victims’ groups, the vice president told reporters that “executive orders” may be an avenue that the administration will use to take swift action on firearms.

“There are executive orders, there’s executive action that can be taken,” he said. “We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”

As the Weekly Standard notes, Biden stressed the importance, in his view, of taking action to curb gun violence. He also said that he is convinced that the government “can affect the well-being of millions of Americans and take thousands of people out of harm’s way” — pending officials “act responsibly.”

First and foremost the President of the United States has no authority of the Bill of Rights. He cannot limit free speech or command a state religion. He cannot void the Second Amendment. He cannot order soldiers to be housed in your home without permission. He cannot order seizure of your papers, and effects without a court order. He cannot suspend the right of Habeas Corpus — Lincoln tried this in the Civil War and it was ruled unconstitutional. Only Congress an take these actions, and then they would be subject to judicial review

Over the years executive orders have been used by past presidents for political and phony national security issues. Just look at the 100,000 American citizens who were interred in relocation (concentration) camps during World War Two by an executive order by Franklin Roosevelt. These people were interred for no reason except that they were of Japanese ancestry.

Now we have a president who believes he is above the law of the land and is threating to use his executive powers — powers not granted in Article II of the Constitution. Of course the liberal progressives and Democrats believe he does, but only for causes they support like gun control, conservative speech, and abortion. This all emotionally based.

I’m not trying to be mean and no I don’t have a cold heart but I’m getting a wee bit tired of Mark Kelly and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Look, I know she has gone through a great deal since the Tucson shooting, to say I know what it’s like to be involved in such a tragic event would be a lie. But I also understand the line between the unfortunate details of what she and others went through, and the line approaching self-promotion and pushing an agenda. Mark Kelly and Mrs. Giffords are using her experience as a tool for self-promotion and to promote anti-gun legislation.

I know it’s politically correct to hail the former Congresswoman and her astronaut husband as heroes but are they really? And if they are, most heroes I know from the various books I’ve read growing up tend to shy away from constant adulation and the limelight. Perhaps I’m wrong about this whole thing, if so what explains the USS Gabrielle Giffords? It’s an upcoming Independence-class littoral combat ship that will be named after the former Arizona Congresswoman. As pointed out by folks on Twitter, the irony of Mark Kelly and Mrs. Giffords crusade against the second amendment and her having a warship named after her, not to mention her having armed guards is quite glaring I must admit.

Kind of like how the editor in chief of the Journal News looked into hiring armed guards after posting an interactive map detailing the information and addresses of legal gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties in New York.

I have no doubt that Mrs. Giffords is a nice person and likely means no harm in what she and her husband are trying to accomplish. I believe they believe no one should be allowed to own a gun; just as I believe liberals in general oppose the idea of gun ownership altogether. They say semi-automatic weapons and assault weapons but they really mean guns in general. The way they go about it is a creeping effect where measures are put in place there by giving them a green light to categorize any gun under the banner of “Assault Weapon”. Today the AR-15 is an assault weapon, tomorrow it may be your everyday Bass Pro Shop hunting rifle. The category is what gives them a pathway to their ultimate goal which is complete confiscation of all firearms.

But in keeping with my take on Gabby Giffords, where are the warships for the other Tucson shooting victims? How about we name a warship after Dawn Hochsprung? She was the principal who went after Adam Lanza as he cut down those little children. She doesn’t have a story to tell, at least not in her own words because unfortunately she’s no longer with us. I’m not saying Mrs. Giffords isn’t a hero but to me Dawn Hochsprung is the most authentic example of that word outside of law enforcement, and our soldiers fighting overseas. She threw caution to the wind and her life along with it because her love for those students proved stronger that day. If anything she deserves a warship before Gabby Giffords. But she was not a politician who had a memorial service at the University of Arizona — and after all she is a Democrat and we know all Democrats are heroes.

Liberals are always preaching to us about acceptance and tolerance, diversity yet they’re the ones who control the propaganda used to tell young girls and young people in general that if they don’t dress, talk, think, or act a certain way that acceptable to the hierarchy of cultural liberalism then they aren’t worthy, not pretty enough, not worth the time of day because they don’t “fit in”. From Hollywood to the fashion world it’s all liberal and it defines what acceptable is. So when you have young people committing suicide because they don’t feel good about themselves, or young men cold to violence and destruction, teens rebelling against their parents because the liberal music industry and MTV tells them its “like totally cool” to flip the bird to authority, perhaps you should stop lecturing us about the second amendment and start focusing on what you’ve done to the culture. Or maybe we should play your game and start looking at the first amendment which gives liberals a license to poison society with filth they call entertainment. But oh no, that would be unconstitutional

As George Mason said in a speech at the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention:

“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, — who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.”

As for the militia, Mason, the co-author of the Second Amendment had this to say; “I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.”

Mason, like Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison believed that arms in the hands of the citizens were not for hunting, but to prevent tyranny from the government and the protection of the citizen. Liberals just don’t seem to get this one simple fact. Every tyrant in history has begun their reign by taking arms away from the citizens — and that’s a fact.

It is also a fact that according the FBI’s annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle. This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats' feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

For example, in 2011, there were 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle. I guess we need to ban , or at least license, hammers and clubs.

It the left wants to talk about violence and murder of children they should consider that 333,964 babies were aborted in 2011. That’s the figure proudly released by Planned Parenthood Federation of America in their report delineating how many abortions they performed in fiscal 2011. Doing some simple math reveals that the number of abortions performed equates to one abortion every 94 seconds 24/7.

And Planned Parenthood can be pleased with their progress: the number of abortions they performed in 2011 was up from 2010, when they snuffed out 329,445 lives. And the U.S. government can carry the banner high with the abortion provider; Planned Parenthood received $542.4 million in government health services grants and reimbursements,” including payments from Medicaid managed care plans. If Obama wants to issue an executive order how about defunding Planned Parenthood.

Kenneth Bennight writes in American Thinker:

“Would-be gun controllers argue that guns are different from other dangerous commodities. Guns are uniquely are designed to kill, they say, and therefore lack the utility of other dangerous things. Take automobiles, for instance: automobiles kill more people than guns, but automobiles' primary use is peaceful, and automobiles are not designed to kill. Why, gun controllers ask, should we tolerate guns, which are dangerous and have no material utility other than killing?

Gun-rights defenders sometimes argue that guns have innocent uses such as hunting and target-shooting. Those uses, they argue, justify widespread gun ownership. But what other widespread toy is as potentially lethal as guns? It's poor argumentation to refuse to acknowledge the obvious: the function of guns is to kill. That is incontrovertible. Non-killing uses of guns are incidental.

Does that make the gun controllers right? No. If we are to preserve our Second Amendment rights and our freedom generally, we must accept the possibility of legitimate killing in two circumstances: defense against violence and resistance to oppression.

Self-defense is a natural right of all persons, one not limited to non-lethal force. f gun controllers concede that, they proceed to parse finely the degree of allowable lethal force. (No one needs more than a three-round magazine.) But any such calculation necessarily assumes unknowable things.

Why is it that those who know the least about guns have the strongest opinions on how much lethality is legitimately necessary? And gun controllers would not impose those limits on the Secret Service or the bodyguards of other prominent people. What has become of America if the law holds that the lives of such people are more worthy than the lives of the rest of us?

…

“No doubt the founders accepted the natural right of self-defense, but that was not why they proposed the Second Amendment. They had just prevailed in a war won largely with civilian-owned firearms. The shot heard round the world was fired to resist a British attempt to disarm Americans. The British army, accustomed to an unarmed British countryside, was surprised by an armed and largely hostile American populace. The founders wanted to protect Americans' ability to resist oppression. If we wish to retain our freedoms, we must retain that ability.”

Human beings don't need coercion to do what's right for themselves, but coercion is needed for human beings to force others to sacrifice on their behalves. The way to make the world better is simple: people should stop using coercion to make others serve them, and people should serve themselves. Economy and society should be free and respectful of individuals. This is what the market system is about: serving oneself by serving others, and specifically, by offering goods and services in exchange for money.

Oh, but that's so heartless!

"But what is the conservative's response to all the world's suffering?" the leftist screams. "What are we to do about [name the anecdotal case of misfortune]? Do conservatives really want to do nothing?"

The best answer is captured by Frederic Bastiat.

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

The principled answer to the leftist who believes he is on the side of right, and therefore that the means to his ends are inconsequential, is that no one is born into this world owned by anyone else, including the abstract concept of "society." An argument against such reasoning is implicitly an argument for the enslavement of some human beings to others. Since this is anathema to the state of nature and is self-evidently a grotesquery, all rational justification for omnipotent government is ruled out. A human being's life is his own means and end-in-itself.

Since civilization flourished due to reason and not pure emotion, as agricultural and productive organization allowed human beings to employ resources in the environment to better their situation, the politicization of emotion, or the use of force to back feelings, leads to anarchy and social destruction. Leftists should consider this well before believing that any particular misfortune obligates the socialization of suffering, forestalling but never removing accumulated ruin — whether through the means of debt or through the mass wreckage of human lives.

Running counter to this history of social disaster, the Constitution is the pinnacle of reasoned political science and the legal barricade against the mob mentality that drives majoritarian democracy. Demagogues arise under such a system of government, because they promise the majority the spoils of government looting, meanwhile stoking the flames of populist passions. The rule of law and the scientific method were developed precisely to protect human beings from the hazards of acting on raw emotion and ignorance. Democratic politicians and left-wing activists, on the other hand, thrive on these human vulnerabilities.

Alexis de Tocqueville stated in his 1848 Critique of Socialism:

“Democracy and socialism are not interdependent concepts. They are not only different, but opposing philosophies. Is it consistent with democracy to institute the most meddlesome, all-encompassing and restrictive government, provided that it be publicly chosen and that it act in the name of the people? Would the result not be tyranny, under the guise of legitimate government and, by appropriating this legitimacy assuring to itself the power and omnipotence which it would otherwise assuredly lack? Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number. Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common—equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude.”

Control over the House is a powerful platform. Republicans must be prepared to utilize that power to its fullest extent this year. If Obama and his progressive statists want to talk about using executive orders to trample on the Bill of Rights and violate the Constitution it is time for Speaker Boehner to begin using the “Impeachment” word. It’s time for true Constitutional Conservatives to stand against the progressive left and their emotional means to governance.

Never let a good crisis go to waste. The left never does.

Say No to Highway and Student Loan Bills

"Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong" — F.A. Hayek

While everyone was waiting breathlessly to see whether the Supreme Court would strike down Obama’s egregious power grab in the healthcare sector, a bipartisan group of congressmen and senators are working to grow government in several other sectors of the economy. We must not be complacent.

In our battle to shrink the size of the federal government, there have been a number of issues on the agenda over the past few months. Two of those issues are the extension of subsidized Stafford student loans and the Senate surface transportation leviathan. Now, thanks to a deal cut between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, they will converge as one package to be voted on before the end of the week. Both items are set to expire June 30, and will be extended without any serious reforms unless House Republicans act. And no, despite promises to the contrary, the Keystone pipeline is not part of the deal.

All too often, Congress focuses exclusively on the cost of a bill to the government instead of the cost to the free market. Ultimately, they fail to deal with either problem in a prudent manner. This is quite evident in the case of the student loan deal.

In 2007, the Pelosi-Congress reduced interest rates on government-subsidized Stafford loans from 6.8% to 3.4%. Like every stimulus measure during that era, it was supposed to be temporary. Now there is a bipartisan deal to ostensibly make it permanent (they say it’s only for 1 year, but we’ve seen that rodeo before). They only care about the $6 billion annual cost to the government, but fail to focus on the more fundamental problem – the fact that government subsidies will continue to fuel the education bubble, engendering a further need for larger subsidies. Hence, the circuitous cycle of government intervention and inflation will continue unabated.

Instead of debating how to pay for more subsidized loans, Republicans should articulate the case for phasing out this unlimited subsidization of higher education. Since the Department of Education was created, the cost of college tuition has increased over 439% adjusted for inflation! The rate of increase is almost exactly commensurate with the rate of growth of DOE subsidization.

Moreover, there are serious concerns about the source of the offsetting revenue that will be used to pay for the loans. One provision allows corporations to put less money into company pensions that are backed by the taxpayer-funded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). This would increase net profits for corporations, and by extension, generate $9.5 billion more in taxes to Uncle Sam. This measure could expose taxpayers to future bailouts of the PBGC when it becomes clear that the pension plans are underfunded. [Read more on this at the Heritage Foundation].

What is even more cynical about this extension is that, despite the deceitful rhetoric to the contrary, the impending increase in loan rates would not affect any current borrower. It would only apply to those taking out new loans this year. Furthermore, it would only save borrowers $7 a month, even though the macroeconomic cost (taxpayers and free market) would be enormous. Conservatives cannot support continued government intervention in higher education to benefit Big Education cronies at the expense of the rest of us.

The next red flag is the 1,500-page 2-year Senate Highway Bill (MAP 21, S. 1813) that will be combined with the student loan extension. Based on the details of the tentative agreement, the offsetting revenues from the pension provision will be used to fund the $14 billion deficit in the highway trust fund as well. As we’ve noted on numerous occasions, there is no reason why the federal government should be diverting 20% of the gas tax revenue to mass transit and other wasteful projects. And, of course, the 2-year deficit will be offset over 10 years. In fact, that’s just one reason why we should devolve transportation spending back to the states, especially since the completion of the interstate highway system.

Here are some other problems with the Senate highway bill that will possibly apply to the final conference deal. We must ensure that these provisions are not in the final product:

· General Fund Transfer: Just hours before the Senate bill was brought to a floor vote on March 14, Barbara Boxer slipped in a manager’s amendment that contained a provision (section 40313) authorizing a $5 billion general fund transfer to the highway trust fund.

· Nanny-State Enhancement Mandates: James Inhofe, the Republican architect of Boxer’s transportation bill, promised Republicans that the bill offered flexibility to the states for spending their infrastructure dollars, exempting them from the 10% “enhancement” mandates. Well, the manager’s amendment appears to have vitiated that agreement.

· Other Top-Down Mandates and Anti-Free-Market Policies: There are sundry provisions that impose eco-fascism, establish anti-growth “made in America” mandates, discourage private sector investments in infrastructure, and offer giveaways to Big Labor.

· Truck Mandates: The bill would require the installation of electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) on every single commercial motor vehicles in the country, including short-haul trucks. This will be very costly to the trucking industry and will, in turn, raise the cost of transporting vital goods.

Now it appears that the Keystone Pipeline – the one aspect of the bill that Republican negotiators promised to keep – will not be included in the final conference report, H.R. 4348. They agreed to jettison the Keystone provision in favor of an option for states to opt out of the mandatory funding for bike lanes and beautification projects. They are also buying into the Obama/Keynesian notion that the highway bill is a jobs bill, which as I have stated on numerous occasion is pure poppycock.

Bipartisan negotiators are boasting that their deal will kill two birds with one stone. Well, for conservatives, we indeed have an opportunity to kill two big-government birds with one vote. Vote no on the Senate highway bill and student loan extension! Transportation spending should go back to the states, while student loan bubble spending should go back to Mars.

Federal surface transportation policy is at a fateful crossroads. Since the completion of the Interstate System, the federal program has lost its focus and its sense of purpose. And the users pay/users-benefit funding mechanism which built that system (dedicated fuel taxes) has gradually been transformed into a public works tax for Congress to spend on its own—rather than highway users’—priorities. Most proposals to reformulate the federal transportation program would further break faith with highway customers. While appearing to advocate simplification and program consolidation, they would add costly new non-highway programs, increasing highway use taxes but diverting much of the proceeds to still more non-highway programs, from passenger trains to energy subsidies to federalized land-use planning. Yet it is thanks to these very trends that American taxpayers no longer have trust in the Highway Trust Fund. Instead of welcoming an expanded federal program, most oppose increases in fuel taxes as unlikely to improve their own transportation situations.

The federal program needs to be rethought. The federal transportation program is notoriously politicized, failing to make the best use of existing funds and failing to focus on the most important national transportation goals. Every serious study in recent years has concluded that America is under-investing in highway infrastructure; indeed, we are not even investing enough to maintain its current mediocre performance and condition, let alone enough to produce major improvements. But rather than simply putting larger sums of money into a seriously flawed process, the better course is to rethink and refocus the federal role, in order to spend more on core federal purposes and less on peripheral concerns. Some reauthorizations have brought big changes to the federal transportation program. This one should as well, not by moving further away from a user-fee funded system designed to improve mobility, but by moving back toward it.

While the federal government may have an interest in a wide range of transportation issues and concerns, direct federal involvement is both unwise and inappropriate in many of these areas. The facilitation of inter-state travel and commerce and international trade are clearly federal responsibilities, so a larger emphasis on inter-state and international transportation should be at the core of a rethought federal role. The Interstate Highway System was laid out more than 60 years ago, and begun 50 years ago. Increasing portions of it are reaching the end of their design life and need complete reconstruction. Most urban Interstates need major additions to eliminate bottlenecks and reduce congestion, and as the lifeblood of goods movement, many inter-city Interstates need more lanes to handle projected growth in truck traffic. A major federal effort to rebuild and modernize the Interstate system for the 21st century (Interstate 2.0) would give new focus to the federal highway program. It offers the opportunity to restore the original user-fee nature of highway user taxes. Ever since the ISTEA legislation of 1991, each federal reauthorization has expanded the eligible uses of federal highway user taxes to an ever larger array of non-highway programs. Indeed, this diversion ultimately goes back to the 1970 PL 91-605, which first permitted Highway Trust Fund monies to be used for transit facilities, undercutting the users-pay/users-benefit principle. Subsequent reauthorizations steadily increased non-highway uses, such that today urban transit, bikeways, scenic trails, “enhancements,” and numerous other programs consume about one-quarter of all current federal highway user tax revenues. PL 91-605 started the original concept of the 1956 Interstate Highway Act down the slippery slope towards mass transit, buses, and high-speed rail where the user does not pay.

Congress could dramatically increase funding to reduce the very large backlog of cost-effective highway projects via two changes: (1) shifting non-highway programs either to general revenues or to the states, and (2) narrowing the federal Highway Trust Fund’s focus to rebuilding and modernizing the Interstate System, both urban and inter-city. This Interstate 2.0 approach would increase federal investment in the nation’s most important arteries by nearly $10 billion per year. Refocusing the federal gas tax on rebuilding and modernizing these vital roadways would restore the kind of trust in the Highway Trust Fund that was present during its early years. Making this change is also probably the best hope we have for gaining political support, not for all-purpose transportation tax increases, but for significantly improving the performance of the nation’s most critically important highway infrastructure.

This proposal should be attractive to the traditional highway community, which in recent decades has accepted diversions of highway-user taxes to non-highway purposes in exchange for a larger total program. That trade-off appears to be coming to an end, thanks to strong public opposition to increasing the gas tax. This proposal would lead to genuine increases in needed highway investment, targeted to the most urgent national needs.

Friends of mass transit should understand that in today’s political climate, it is not necessary to tap into the gradually shrinking pool of petroleum-based highway taxes in order to have high-quality transit systems. State and local jurisdictions, where the benefits from transit occur, have been more willing to invest in transit in recent years. We don’t think there is any national interest or benefit from local transit systems or reason for the federal government to help fund them. For now though, Congress seems keen to continue funding transit and is increasingly willing to spend general fund monies on transportation. Since transit is unable to generate significant user revenues the way highways can, it is a far more appropriate candidate than highways for general-fund support.

I would point out that when local Municipal Planning Organizations (MPOs) have control over the planning, design, and construction of transportation arteries and light rail transit systems they usually identify each project they want to build, assign a budget, and put the measure to a vote. Every time they have done this the measure passes with a good majority allowing the MPO to impose a 1 or 2 cent sales tax increase. The public will support defined projects, not pigs in a poke.

Most states would be better off with the proposal presented in this paper. All would benefit from the major reconstruction and modernization of their most important highways, the Interstates. They would gain new freedom to manage their non-Interstate highways, freed from costly federal requirements and priorities, and instead could focus on their own transportation needs and goals. On the funding side, although they would no longer receive federal funding for non-Interstates, they would gain new freedom to use tolling and public-private partnerships to shore up their programs. If they decided to replace some former federal revenue, states could find savings by aggressive efforts to improve efficiency, prioritizing projects that will produce the largest benefits, and embracing tolling to pay for new roads and improvements to existing ones, preferably via public-private partnerships that shift financing and risk away from taxpayers and onto the private sector. This has been very successful in Orange County, California even though it was a long, hard fight with the California Department of Transportation to get it done.

The urgent need to rebuild and modernize vital Interstate highway infrastructure is bogged down

By a system that prioritizes politics and ribbon-cutting. The federal gas tax has become a general purpose public works tax instead of a true highway user fee. Refocusing the federal program on Interstate 2.0, and restoring the true user fee nature of the federal fuel tax, offers a way to cut the Gordian knot of complex and misused highway trust funds.

As this is a subject very near and dear to me I will have more to say in this issue in a future blog.

Boehner Losses Again

“Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918.

John Boehner and the House Republicans lost another battle to the duplicity of Barack Obama. Yesterday Obama thumbed his nose at Congress by nixing the XL Pipeline project. The Washington Post reported yesterday:

“The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter.

However the administration will allow TransCanada to reapply after it develops an alternate route through the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will make the announcement, which comes in response to a congressionally-mandated deadline of Feb. 21 for action on the proposed Keystone pipeline.”

After months of playing political ping-pong with 20,000 potential (mostly union) jobs, the Obama administration decided on Wednesday to kill the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

According to a State Department release [emphasis added]:

“Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest. The President concurred with the Department’s recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest.

Since 2008, the Department has been conducting a transparent, thorough, and rigorous review of TransCanada’s permit application for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project…”.

For more than three years, the State Department has conducted its “transparent, thorough, and rigorous review.” However, apparently, the Obama Administration believes that three years wasn’t enough to be transparent, thorough, or rigorous enough.

As Forbes’ Christopher Helman noted in November:

“In the process of selecting the proposed route, TransCanada plotted and studied 14 different pipeline paths and submitted 10,000 pages of environmental studies. They’ve already studied this thing to death.”

What’s worse is the fact that Obama’s purely ideological decision does not serve the national interest at all. In fact, since China will be the likely recipient of the Canadian oil, in addition to the destruction of possible jobs, Obama’s decision harm—not help—the nation’s interests.

As a result of the Obama’s job-destroying decision, Laborers’ union president, Terry O’Sullivan issued a blistering statement:

“The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.”

The project would create thousands of good jobs at a time when unemployment in the construction industry is 16 percent with 1.3 million men and women jobless.

Environmental groups have used the Keystone XL as a disingenuous proxy for arguments about global warming. The pipeline would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada’s Tar Sands to the U.S., reducing reliance on oil from hostile nations. While environmental groups decry Tar Sands development, the Canadian government and Trans-Canada, the company developing the Tar Sands, have made clear the oil will be developed – and possibly sold to China – regardless of whether Keystone XL is built.”

[snip]

“The Administration and environmentalists have blown the whistle on workers trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads,” said O’Sullivan. “Instead of celebrating their victory by hugging a tree they should hug a jobless construction worker because they’re the ones who are going to need it.” [Emphasis added.]

Below is Speaker John Boehner’s reaction to Obama’s decision

As usual the Republicans in Congress cut deals with Democrats. The Republicans’ favorite reporters and pundits tell us just how awesome those deals are. Then those deals blow up in our faces.

More tragically, then the same Republican leaders who negotiated those deals go back and negotiate the next deals and the same reporters and pundits at the same publications who told the last ones were so awesome tell us these are so awesome and then these deals too blow up in our faces. Conservatives always raise the alarm. The Republicans always run to the usual suspects to spin their way out of the mess.

On Facebook yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint noted this folly. Republicans were supposed to have big wins on the debt ceiling and on the Keystone XL Pipeline. They told us they had played the Democrats. Instead, we played ourselves.

“The two political victories leading Republicans planned on celebrating today only showcase how much we have to lose by compromising with the Democrats.

The non-binding vote of disapproval on the debt ceiling increase held in the House today and the Obama Administration’s decision not to authorize the Keystone Pipeline were supposed to be excruciating political exercises for the Democrats. They turned out to be a walk in the park.

Instead of generating a great public uproar over the debt, economy, and jobs, all President Obama had to do was reiterate his long-held positions—that the debt ceiling should be increased and the Keystone Pipeline should not be authorized.

Giving the President exactly what he wants and then asking him to remind the public that he wanted it after the fact isn’t a strategy to win. It’s a strategy to cover-up a stunning loss under the guise of a compromise.”

So the Obama administration rejected Keystone XL. Oh sure, they want us to think it’s just a delay, a kicking of the Keystone can down the road. Officially, the state department just sent TransCanada (NYSE:TRP) back to the drawing board to look at a variety of other pipeline routes that do their best to avoid the Sandhills in Nebraska and areas overlaying the Ogawalla Aquifer. But don’t be fooled. This is a rejection plain and simple.

In the process of selecting the proposed route, TransCanada plotted and studied 14 different pipeline paths and submitted 10,000 pages of environmental studies. They’ve already studied this thing to death. So when the state department says this new review could be done by early 2013, can we really expect any different outcome than more delays?

Robert Redford, the actor, was happy with today’s announcement. In a statement released by the Natural Resources Defense Council today Redford said, “This is American democracy at its best: a President who listens to the voice of the people and shows the courage to do what’s right for the country. Thank you, Mr. President, for standing up to Big Oil. Thank you for standing up for us all.”

Frances Beinecke, the president of the NRDC ladled on more praise. “President Obama is displaying leadership and courage in putting the interests of the American people before those of Big Oil. He has taken another significant step in the fight against climate change and in our march toward a clean energy future, which will mean healthier lives for all.”

The only response I can summon to that is a big … whatever. If they really wanted to protect the land and the water of the Midwest they would focus on stopping the agribusiness giants from pouring mountains of hydrocarbon-derived fertilizers directly onto the land, chemicals that trickle down into the water table and through watersheds into the Mississippi and the production of Ethanol.

Besides, it’s not as if delaying a pipeline from Canada will do anything to hurt Big Oil. The United States will continue to consume 19 million barrels of petroleum products per day and will continue to import roughly 10 million barrels per day from the rest of the world.

That oil, wherever it comes from, will be traversing continents in pipelines that likely aren’t built to the specifications that the government would demand of TransCanada. That oil will be shipped to the United States in tankers that belch into the air the exhaust of millions of tons of bunker oil. Great victory Mr. Redford!

The environmental freaks, like Redford sitting in the comfort of his Aspen mansion, need to realize is that oil is not only used for powering our SUVs. It’s used for everything from the making of pharmaceuticals to the clothes you wear. Oil to modern civilized society is as needed as much as food and water.

Meanwhile, what happens if someday Israel decides to bomb Iran and Iran moves to block oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf? The U.S., without a pipeline like Keystone XL, will be in more of a pickle when it comes to securing oil supplies.

And what if someday Venezuela’s ailing President Hugo Chavez dies and is replaced by civil war in Venezuela instead of a more reasonable man who reinvigorates Venezuela’s oil production? The U.S., without a pipeline like Keystone XL, will have a tougher time replacing the million barrels a day we get from Venezuela.

And what if Mexico fails to stem its declines in oil production and stops exporting oil to the U.S.? It’s ok, we’ll just use less, and pay more, and suffer slower growth and fewer jobs as a result.

Wouldn’t you rather have a superfluously good supply chain, a wealth of logistical options in a time of plenty — instead of facing shortages in an emergency?

Yes, any pipeline needs to be built to the highest possible standards. Yes, any material leakage from any pipeline is unacceptable. Yes, crude from oil sands does have a higher “carbon footprint” because of all the processing that goes into it. But as long as Canada is dedicated to developing and using the resource, the U.S. would be insane not to build the strategic infrastructure to buy it.

The White House and the State Department understands and appreciates this. It’s too bad that they find it easier to just say no than to pledge publicly to work with TransCanada to build the safest, most reliable pipeline the world has ever seen

Hey Mr. Redford according to Pennwell Map Search, a leader in the GIS industry, there are over 1 million miles of petroleum carrying pipelines in the United States. How much leakage and how many accidents have there been? Virtually none! As a professional land surveyor and GIS manager I and my firm have provided surveying, engineering, right-of-way, and GIS services for the oil and natural gas industry. You cannot believe the scrutiny and restrictions these pipeline builders work under. From the U.S. Department of Transportation to their own internal risk managers these companies build these pipelines to the strictest standards and each inch of the line is part of a national GIS database and can be monitored on a minute by minute basis. The TSA should be a fraction as efficient as the oil and gas industry.

The XL Pipeline begins in Alberta Canada. Do you think for one minute the Canadians want a faulty pipeline running through their pristine farm lands? I think not. This is insanity fostered by the radical, left-wing environmental groups who have gone off the rails with their environmental tyranny. They are the new Communists. They are like watermelons, green on the outside and red on the inside. This is the group Obama is playing to.

As for jobs the usual prediction is 20,000 jobs. I believe it is much more than that. These are not burger-flipping jobs. They are high paying jobs, both union and non-union, that average $70,000 to $100,000 per year. If you doubt my numbers just ask a few of the people who worked on the Alaska Pipeline. These fellows went north to Alaska for a few years and came back home and bought a house and car for cash. These are the folks Obama is screwing in favor of his left-wing environmental, government union, and SEIU service workers union base. Obama doesn’t give a damn about construction workers. Why, because many of them are independents and conservatives. Their union bosses may contribute to the Democrats, but the rank and file vote for Republicans. They know it takes capital to build projects, not rhetoric and social programs.

Obama has played to his left-wing base at a high cost to the American people and the construction industry, one of the driving engines of our economy. The Republicans in Congress have been deceived and taken to the cleaners by the most socialist president in our history. They rolled over on this pipeline. They would not force Obama to approve the pipeline as a condition of passing the payroll tax deal. They wanted to be liked and were fearful of alienating the people who will not vote for them anyway. When will they learn that you cannot make a deal with a liar and a socialist?

The Canadians claim they will refile for pipeline approval with the hope of having a Republican in the White House next year. I hope they are successful on both counts. If not it’s a shorter distance from Calgary to Vancouver than from Calgary to the Gulf of Mexico.