Remember Pearl Harbor

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. …… With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounded determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. — Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941

It was 7:30 in the morning of a clear day on December 7, 1941, over the Pacific Ocean, near the Hawaiian Islands. Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, of the Japanese Imperial Navy, could see the brilliant sunrise out of the starboard window of his Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" bomber as he made his way in a southwesterly direction towards the coast of the island of Oahu and Opana Point at 300 miles per hour. In another 25 minutes he would begin his dive and bombing run on the U.S. Navy ships and installations at Pearl Harbor.

Fuchida was leading a flight of 183 B5N2 “Kate” bombers armed with 1,760 lb armor piercing bombs and type 91 shallow water torpedoes. A second wave of 171 Japanese Navy planes led by Lieutenant-Commander Shigekazu Shimazaki would follow within the hour.

Fuchida had left Japan on November 26, 1941 as part of a strike force consisting of six aircraft carriers under the command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo with the mission of destroying the U.S. Navy’s fleet at Pearl Harbor so Japan could gain total control of the Pacific Ocean. The overall commander and planner of the operation was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Chief of Naval Operations.

When the first planes appeared over Pearl Harbor on that Sunday morning flag raising ceremonies were just beginning on many of the ships laying at anchor. Sailors were dressed in their white uniforms and the bands were striking up the first notes of the Star Spangled Banner. It did not take long for many of those white uniforms to turn red with blood or black from the oily smoke of burning ships.

Ninety minutes after it began, the attack was over. 2,386 Americans died (55 were civilians, most killed by unexploded American anti-aircraft shells landing in civilian areas), a further 1,139 wounded. Eighteen ships were sunk or run aground, including five battleships. Of the American fatalities, nearly half of the total was due to the explosion of Arizona's forward magazine after it was hit by an armor piecing bomb from a Japanese plane.

Already damaged by a torpedo and on fire amidships, the battleship Nevada attempted to exit the harbor. She was targeted by many Japanese bombers as she got under way and sustained more hits from 250 lb bombs which started further fires. She was deliberately beached to avoid blocking the harbor entrance.

The California was hit by two bombs and two torpedoes. The crew might have kept her afloat, but were ordered to abandon ship just as they were raising power for the pumps. Burning oil from Arizona and West Virginia drifted down on her, and probably made the situation look worse than it was. The disarmed target ship Utah was holed twice by torpedoes. The West Virginia was hit by seven torpedoes, the seventh tearing away her rudder. The Oklahoma was hit by four torpedoes, the last two above her belt armor, which caused her to capsize. The Maryland was hit by two of the converted (as bombs) 16 inch shells, but neither caused serious damage.

Although the Japanese concentrated on battleships (the largest vessels present), they did not ignore other targets. The light cruiser Helena was torpedoed, and the concussion from the blast capsized the neighboring minelayer Oglala. Two destroyers in dry dock, Cassin and Downes were destroyed when bombs penetrated their fuel bunkers. The leaking fuel caught fire; flooding the dry dock in an effort to fight fire made the burning oil rise, and both were burned out. Cassin slipped from her keel blocks and rolled against Downes. The light cruiser Raleigh was holed by a torpedo. The light cruiser Honolulu was damaged but remained in service. The repair vessel Vestal, moored alongside Arizona, was heavily damaged and beached. The seaplane tender Curtiss was also damaged. The destroyer Shaw was badly damaged when two bombs penetrated her forward magazine.

Of the 402 American aircraft in Hawaii, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged, 155 of them on the ground. Almost none were actually ready to take off to defend the base. Of 33 PBYs in Hawaii, 24 were destroyed, and six others damaged beyond repair. (The three on patrol returned undamaged.) Friendly fire brought down some U.S. planes on top of that, including five from an inbound flight from Enterprise. Japanese attacks on barracks killed additional personnel.

Fifty-five Japanese airmen and nine submariners were killed in the action, and one was captured. Of Japan's 414 available planes, 29 were lost during the battle (nine in the first attack wave, 20 in the second, with another 74 damaged by antiaircraft fire from the ground.

Several Japanese junior officers, including Fuchida and Minoru Genda, the chief architect of the attack, urged Nagumo to carry out a third strike in order to destroy as much of Pearl Harbor's fuel and torpedo storage, maintenance, and dry dock facilities as possible. Military historians have suggested the destruction of these would have hampered the U.S. Pacific Fleet far more seriously than loss of its battleships.  If they had been wiped out, "serious [American] operations in the Pacific would have been postponed for more than a year”, according to American Admiral Chester Nimitz, later Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, "it would have prolonged the war another two years.” Nagumo, however, decided to withdraw for several reasons:

1. American anti-aircraft performance had improved considerably during the second strike, and two thirds of Japan's losses were incurred during the second wave. Nagumo felt if he launched a third strike, he would be risking three quarters of the Combined Fleet's strength to wipe out the remaining targets (which included the facilities) while suffering higher aircraft losses.
2. The location of the American carriers remained unknown. In addition, the Admiral was concerned his force was now within range of American land-based bombers. Nagumo was uncertain whether the U.S. had enough surviving planes remaining on Hawaii to launch an attack against his carriers.
3. A third wave would have required substantial preparation and turnaround time, and would have meant returning planes would have had to land at night. At the time, only the Royal Navy had developed night carrier techniques, so this was a substantial risk.
4. The task force's fuel situation did not permit him to remain in waters north of Pearl Harbor much longer, since he was at the very limits of logistical support. To do so he risked running unacceptably low on fuel, perhaps even having to abandon his destroyers’ en route home.
5. He believed the second strike had essentially satisfied the main objective of his mission — the neutralization of the Pacific Fleet — and did not wish to risk further losses. Moreover, it was Japanese Navy practice to prefer the conservation of strength over the total destruction of the enemy.

At a conference aboard the battleship Yamato the following morning, Yamamoto initially supported Nagumo. In retrospect, sparing the vital dockyards, maintenance shops, and oil depots meant the U.S. could respond relatively quickly to Japanese activities in the Pacific and six months latter defeat the Japanese Navy at the battle of Midway. Yamamoto later regretted Nagumo's decision to withdraw and categorically stated it had been a great mistake not to order a third strike.

In Europe, Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy subsequently declared war on the United States immediately after they began operations against a fellow Axis member, with Hitler stating in a delivered speech:

“    The fact that the Japanese Government, which has been negotiating for years with this man [Franklin D. Roosevelt], has at last become tired of being mocked by him in such an unworthy way, fills us all, the German people, and all other decent people in the world, with deep satisfaction ... Germany and Italy have been finally compelled, in view of this, and in loyalty to the Tripartite Pact, to carry on the struggle against the U.S.A. and England jointly and side by side with Japan for the defense and thus for the maintenance of the liberty and independence of their nations and empires ... As a consequence of the further extension of President Roosevelt's policy, which is aimed at unrestricted world domination and dictatorship, the U.S.A. together with England have not hesitated from using any means to dispute the rights of the German, Italian and Japanese nations to the basis of their natural existence ... Not only because we are the ally of Japan, but also because Germany and Italy have enough insight and strength to comprehend that, in these historic times, the existence or non-existence of the nations, is being decided perhaps forever.”

Though the attack inflicted large-scale destruction on US vessels and aircraft, it did not affect Pearl Harbor's fuel storage, maintenance, submarine, and intelligence facilities.

The attack was an initial shock to all the Allies in the Pacific Theater. Further losses compounded the alarming setback. Three days later, the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk off the coast of Malaya, causing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later to recollect "In all the war I never received a more direct shock. As I turned and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor who were hastening back to California. Over this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked".

Fortunately for the United States, the American aircraft carriers were untouched by the Japanese attack, otherwise the Pacific Fleet's ability to conduct offensive operations would have been crippled for a year or so (given no diversions from the Atlantic Fleet). As it was, the elimination of the battleships left the U.S. Navy with no choice but to rely on its aircraft carriers and submarines — the very weapons with which the U.S. Navy halted and eventually reversed the Japanese advance. Six of the eight battleships were repaired and returned to service, but their slow speed limited their deployment, serving mainly in shore bombardment roles. A major flaw of Japanese strategic thinking was a belief the ultimate Pacific battle would be fought by battleships, in keeping with the doctrine of Captain Alfred Mahan. As a result, Yamamoto (and his successors) hoarded battleships for a "decisive battle" that never happened.

Ultimately, targets not on Genda's list, such as the submarine base and the old headquarters building, proved more important than any battleship. It was submarines that immobilized the Imperial Japanese Navy's heavy ships and brought Japan's economy to a standstill by crippling the transportation of oil and raw materials. Also, the basement of the Old Administration Building was the home of the cryptanalytic unit which contributed significantly to the Midway ambush and the Submarine Force's success.

One further consequence of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath (notably the Niihau Incident) was that Japanese American residents and citizens were relocated to Japanese American internment camps. Within hours of the attack, hundreds of Japanese American leaders were rounded up and brought to high-security camps. Later, over 110,000 Japanese Americans, including United States citizens, were removed from their homes and transferred to internment camps.

To this day there are numerous theories that Roosevelt wanted to enter the war with Germany on the side of Great Britain. In November of 1941 less than 10% of Americans would support the United States entering the European War. The German Blitz was devastating London and the battle of the Atlantic was causing great losses to the transport of goods and war materials to England. German U-Boat wolf packs had almost total command of the shipping lanes. While the sympathies of the American people the specter of another European war was too much for the electorate. Roosevelt and Churchill were painfully aware of this condition. Even Roosevelt’s policy of Lend-Lease had luke-warm support from the Congress and American people.

It is easy to look back on the horrific atrocities of the NAZIs and not understand why the American people were so against involvement in another European war. You have to place yourself in the time period to understand that we were still living with the memories of World War I and trying to climb out of an economic abyss. Even the selling of war materials to Great Britain did not catch on with the electorate as the British were not paying in cash, but were leasing these materials. The only faction of the American electorate that was supporting involvement a European war was the Communist Party of the United States. This support came after the CPUSA had opposed such a war prior to the Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Once Hitler’s panzers crossed the Brest-Litovsk line into Belarus and the Soviet Union the CPUSA changed their tune and completely towed the line Stalin feed them.

Theorists challenging the traditional view that Pearl Harbor was a surprise, repeatedly note that Roosevelt wanted (though did not say so officially) the United States to intervene in the war against Germany. Military historian and novelist Thomas Fleming, argues that President Roosevelt, himself, had wished for Germany or Japan to strike the first blow, but did not expect the United States to be hit as severely as she was in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

An attack by Japan on the U.S. could not guarantee the U.S. would declare war on Germany. After such an attack, American public anger would be directed at Japan, not Germany, just as happened. The Tripartite Pact (Germany, Italy, Japan) called for each to aid another in defense; Japan could not reasonably claim America had attacked Japan if she struck first. For instance, Germany had been at war with the UK since 1939, and with the USSR since June 1941, without Japanese assistance. There had been a serious, if low-level, naval war going on in the Atlantic between Germany and the U.S. since summer of 1941, as well. Nevertheless, it was only Hitler's declaration of war on 11 December, unforced by treaty, that brought the U.S. into the European war.

Clausen and Lee's Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment contains some interesting information on the intelligence available to Roosevelt and Churchill prior to the attack. On page 367 in the Appendix is a PURPLE message, dated 29 November 1941, from the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin to Tokyo. A closing paragraph reads, " ... He (Ribbentrop) also said that if Japan were to go to war with America, Germany would, of course, join in immediately, and Hitler's intention was that there should be absolutely no question of Germany making a separate peace with England. ..." According to David Irving, Churchill (having full access to PURPLE traffic) was well aware of this message, noting it in red ink. While theorists challenging the conventional view the attack was a surprise treat this as a guarantee to join after Japan's attack, it can as easily be taken as a guarantee to come to Japan's aid, as Germany had done for Italy in Libya.

The U.S. government has had ten official inquiries into the attack – the inquiry by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox (1941), the Roberts Commission (1941–42), the Hart Inquiry  (1944), the Army Pearl Harbor Board (1944), the Naval Court of Inquiry (1944), the Hewitt investigation, the Clarke investigation, the Congressional Inquiry (1945–46) and the top-secret inquiry by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, authorized by Congress and carried out by Henry Clausen (the Clausen Inquiry; 1946). The tenth inquiry, the Thurmond-Spence Hearing, took place in April 1995. The Dorn Report resulted from this tenth hearing.

All ten reported incompetence, underestimation and misapprehension of Japanese capabilities and intentions, problems resulting from excessive secrecy about cryptography, division of responsibility between Army and Navy (and lack of consultation between them), and lack of adequate manpower for intelligence (analysis, collection, processing).

One perspective is given by Vice Admiral Frank E. Beatty, who at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack was an aide to the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and was very close to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's inner circle, with perspicuous remarks as:

    "Prior to December 7, it was evident even to me... that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believed that it was the desire of President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt the Allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us failed; the conditions we imposed upon Japan — to get out of China, for example — were so severe that we knew that nation could not accept them. We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react toward the United States. All her preparations in a military way — and we knew their over-all import — pointed that way."

Another "eye witness viewpoint" akin to Beatty's is provided by Roosevelt's administrative assistant at the time of Pearl Harbor, Jonathan Daniels; it is the telling comment about FDR's reaction to the attack - "The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be. ... But the risks paid off; even the loss was worth the price. ..."

Ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor", Henry L. Stimson, United States Secretary of War at the time entered in his diary the famous and much-argued statement - that he had met with President Roosevelt to discuss the evidence of impending hostilities with Japan, and the question was “how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.” You can read much more about the policies, code-breaking (JN-25), bureaucratic in-fighting within the military and politics surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor by clicking here.

Like most of the foreign wars the United States have been involved in the Second World War has its ongoing controversy. Roosevelt, the darling of the progressive left, was always a devious politician and anglophile. Rightly or wrongly he believed we had to come to the aid of Great Britain to defeat Hitler. We had pushed the Japanese hard in the Pacific with our trade policies and embargos. Imperial Japan was starved for raw materials and was expanding into China and Manchuria to acquire them. Their occupation of these counties was harsh, brutal and inhumane. They had envious eyes on the rich oil fields of the Dutch East Indies and they wanted total control of the Pacific Ocean to reach their aims.

Roosevelt knew this and our policies were driving Japan to take military action against our Pacific Fleet to attain Pacific domination. That’s all Yamamoto really wanted. The Imperial Japanese Navy did not believe they could ultimately defeat the United States; they just wanted us out of their waters. This proved to be a flawed line of thinking. As Yamamoto stated to and aid after receiving reports of the outcome of the Pearl Harbor attack’ “I am afraid we have awoken a sleeping giant.” 1,337 days later Japan would be brought to her knees by the might of this giant in the form of two 20 kiloton atomic bombs and we would enter the nuclear age.  This giant would also provide the resources and muscle to turn Germany into a pile of rubble and cause Adolph Hitler to kill his bride and himself in a bunker deep in the bowls of Berlin. The giant would emerge as the biggest, toughest guy on the block and the world would once again be changed for a while.

We will never know with any degree of certainty whether Roosevelt was complicit in the Pearl Harbor attack. It has been 69 years since Captain Fuchida crossed over Opana Point in his Kate bomber. People with direct knowledge of the events leading to the attack have died, records and documents have gone missing and agendas have driven the debate. The fog of war grows thicker as we grow more distant from December 7, 1941. Today’s historians no longer have original documents to work with and rely on secondary accounts and published works for their research. Perhaps this is the value Julian Assange provides through his WikiLeaks — the making public of classified documents. Or does it really matter? We know that the Expansionist policies or Imperial Japan, Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union were evil forces in the world and needed to be defeated. Unlike World War One, a war fought over political gain, the Second World War was necessary to cleanse the world of some very nasty people and governments. Just like 9/11 the American people, the sleeping giant, needed a wake-up call to see the face of evil in the world.

If you are interested in learning more about the attack on Pearl Harbor I recommend reading Walter Lord’s 1957 book “Day of Infamy” and watching the 1970 film Tora, Tora, Tora (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger). Lords Book is a well researched timeline account of the attack written from original documents and interviews with those present or involved, similar to the style of Cornelius Ryan’s Longest Day. Tora, Tora, Tora is a dramatic and factual account of the attack brought to the big screen by 20th Century Fox and produced by Darrel; F. Zanuck. It is the most factual account of the attack and the events leading up to it. The film is packed with action and dramatic suspense — and it’s basically true to the facts. Don’t waste your time on that 2001 chick flick Pearl Harbor starring Ben Affleck, It’s basically a love story with very little historical accuracy — pure Hollywood.

Do We need the Department of Agriculture?

"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. — Frédéric Bastiat (The Law)

There is a building in Washington, D.C. on the south side of Independence Ave SW just east of the Potomac River. The building is three stories high and covers 9 acres of valuable Washington real estate. It has 7 cells within the frame of the building running in a north and south direction. Each cell is approximately 420 feet long. In each cell is a central hallway lined with giant 12 foot oak doors that lead to the numerous offices, bureaus and agencies that are housed there. The building is the main office of the Department of Agriculture. I know, I have been there and seen bureaucracy at its worst.

The Department of Agriculture provides an array of subsidy programs for farmers and imposes extensive regulations on agricultural markets. It operates food assistance programs, such as the food stamp and school lunch programs, and it administers many rural aid programs. The Forest Service also forms part of the Department of Agriculture.

The department will spend $142 billion in 2010, or about $1,200 for every U.S. household. It operates 237 different subsidy programs and employs 96,000 workers in about 7,000 offices across the nation. It oversees more than 10,700 pages of regulations. It also has offices in most foreign counties and a liaison officer at all U.S. embassies and consulates.

Of the $142 billion 59% will be allocated to subsidies to individuals and businesses (including the Queen of England), 26% to states, 10% for purchases and operating costs, and 5% for salaries where the pay averages $80,000 per year with a guaranteed pension and health care.

The USDA provides the following services and products.

Agricultural Subsidies: The department provides up to $30 billion annually to farmers of corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, wheat, and other crops. It also aids farmers with research, loan, and insurance programs.

Agricultural Regulations and Trade Barriers: The government regulates domestic markets for products such as sugar and milk, and it imposes trade restrictions on various farm products.

Rural Subsidies: The department operates a range of subsidy programs for businesses and individuals living in rural areas.

Food Subsidies:. Most of the department’s budget goes toward food subsidies, including the food stamp and school lunch programs.

Forest Service: The Forest Service oversees 193 million acres of forests and provides subsidies to businesses and state governments. This also includes the USDA firefighters.

Timeline for the growth of the USDA

• 1789: The U.S. Constitution goes into effect. The federal government’s enumerated powers do not include the creation of farm and food subsidy programs.
• 1820: The House of Representatives creates an agriculture committee. The Senate follows suit in 1825.
• 1840: The first Census of Agriculture is completed.
• 1862: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is established. President Abraham Lincoln calls it the "people's department."
• 1862: The Morrill Act provides grants of federal land to the states. The states are to use the proceeds of land sales to create colleges focused on agricultural studies.
• 1867: A new Washington office building for the USDA is completed.
• 1881: Congress establishes a Division of Forestry in the USDA.
• 1887: The Hatch Act provides subsidies to the states for agriculture research.
• 1890: A second Morrill Act begins regular appropriations for the land-grant colleges.
• 1891: The Forest Reserve Act allows presidents to set aside forest reserves out of public lands. These reserves are managed by the Department of the Interior.
• 1900: There are 11 million Americans employed on farms and 2,900 employed by the USDA. A century later there are 3 million employed on farms and 105,000 employed by the USDA.
• 1905: The Federal Forest Transfer Act moves control of the forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the USDA’s new Forest Service.
• 1905: Major scandal hits the USDA when an employee seeking personal gain leaks advance cotton market information to a speculator.
• 1911: The Weeks Act authorizes federal subsidies to the states for forest fire prevention and it allows the Forest Service to purchase private lands for national forests.
• 1914: The USDA opens state and regional offices across the country.
• 1914: The Smith-Lever Act begins subsidies to the land-grant colleges for agricultural research.
• 1916: The Federal Farm Loan Act creates cooperative “land banks” to provide loans to farmers. Legislation during the 1930s expands this Farm Credit System, and today the FCS is a 50-state network of financial cooperatives with assets of $90 billion. 1929: The Agricultural Marketing Act creates the Federal Farm Board to subsidize agricultural cooperatives. The cooperatives stockpile commodities to raise prices and disrupt markets in various other ways. After spending $500 million, President Hoover’s Farm Board boondoggle is abolished in
• 1929: The Federal Reserve System precipitates the Great Depression by allowing the U.S. money supply to shrink by one-third between 1929 and 1933. Agricultural commodity prices fall even more than general prices, which puts farmers in a squeeze. Two large cost items for farmers—mortgage interest and property taxes—remained relatively high compared to plunging receipts from farm sales.
• 1930: A rising protectionist sentiment is stimulated by President Hoover’s call to increase agricultural tariffs to help farmers. Congress responds with the Smoot-Hawley Act, which greatly increased tariffs on both farm and industrial products. Other countries retaliated and U.S. agricultural exports plunge 60 percent by 1933.
• 1933: The Agricultural Adjustment Act, and subsequent New Deal laws, creates the forerunners of today’s major farm subsidy programs. The main thrust of the AAA is to limit production in order to raise commodity prices. To the same end, the government plows under 10 million acres of crops, slaughters 6 million pigs, and allows fruit to rot in the orchards, even while millions of Americans are going hungry. Some elements of the AAA are struck down as unconstitutional in 1936, but most of the law’s central planning techniques survive in various forms in today’s farm programs.
• 1934: The Jones-Connally Act extends the AAA to cover additional farm products.
• 1934: The Jones-Costigan Act imposes controls on U.S. sugar production and sugar imports.
• 1934: The Tobacco Control Act imposes quotas on tobacco production.
• 1935: The Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation begins large-scale food welfare activities with the distribution of surplus farm products to schools.
• 1935: USDA employment more than triples between 1929 and 1935, reaching 85,000. USDA employment reaches 100,000 by 1958 and peaks at 138,000 in 1978. Today, the USDA employs 105,000 workers.
• 1936: The Rural Electrification Act initiates extensive rural subsidies that continue in various forms today.
• 1937: The Agriculture Marketing Agreement Act establishes federal “marketing orders” for dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other products. Marketing orders are producer cartels designed to limit competition and raise prices. They are currently in effect for 30 commodities.
• 1938: A new Agriculture Adjustment Act establishes most of the policies of the 1933 Act on a permanent basis, including production controls and price supports for wheat, corn, cotton, rice, tobacco, and peanuts. The 1938 Act also creates the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to provide subsidized insurance for adverse weather, insects, and other farming hazards.
• 1946: The National School Lunch Act creates a permanent subsidy program to provide food to schools, building on the surplus commodities program of 1935.
• 1946: The Farmers Home Administration is established to make loans for farms, rural housing, and other activities.
• 1949: A new Agriculture Adjustment Act extends crop price support and subsidy policies, adds subsidies for the dairy industry, and puts farm programs into permanent law. Since 1949, farm legislation has included expiration dates, which prompts Congress to pass renewed congressional authorizations every five or so years.
• 1954: The Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act creates various export subsidy programs designed to unload into foreign markets excess production caused by U.S. price supports. Unfortunately, many other countries with government-caused overproduction followed suit, and they also dispose of their surpluses on foreign markets.
• 1964: The Food Stamp Act creates what has become one of the largest welfare programs, a program that is known for major fraud and abuse. The program currently costs federal taxpayers more than $35 billion a year.
• 1973: With soaring prices for agricultural commodities, the mid-1970s would have been a good time to end farm programs, as some people proposed. Instead, the farm bills of 1973 and 1977 take a business-as-usual subsidy approach.
• 1985: Despite the Reagan administration’s proposals to cut farm subsidies, the poor shape of farm finances during the 1980s prompts Congress to pass the expensive Food Security Act of 1985. This law added new farm subsidy programs, including the Export Enhancement Program and the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers not to farm.
• 1996: Congress changes course in farm policy with the passage of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act—the “Freedom to Farm” law. The law is designed to allow farmers greater planting flexibility and better align producer decisions with market supply and demand. But Congress reneges on reform, and passes large supplemental farm subsidy bills four years in a row beginning in 1998. When the 1996 law was passed, subsidies were expected to cost $47 billion over 1996 to 2002, but they ended up costing $121 billion.
• 2002: The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act reverts to old-style subsidy increases and price supports as farm-state politicians reject the modest reform proposals of the Bush administration. An expensive “countercyclical” price support program is added, and existing programs are expanded to cover additional crops. The 2002 law increases projected subsidy payments by 74 percent over 10 years.
• 2008: The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act expands farm subsidies, and it is enacted over a presidential veto.
• 2010: The passage of the Growing Safe Food Act of 2009. Introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and passed in the last days of the 111th Congress the bill amends the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 to establish a national food safety training, education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance program for agricultural producers, and for other purposes. It is estimated that the passage of this bill will add over 5,000 inspectors to the already bloated staff of the USDA. None of these jobs will be outsourced. It will also regulate school bake sales.

As you can see from the timeline most of these Congressional actions had little to do with agriculture and more to do with tariffs, subsidies, regulations and price fixing. In later years the USDA’s regulations were and are instrumental in driving the small farmer out of business and enhancing the reach of major agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midlands.

Take as an example the issue of ethanol. The conversion of corn into ethanol takes more energy than is saved by its use. It drives up the price of corn for the big producers like ADM and makes money for the commodity traders in Chicago.

Today the USDA has gone far afield from its original mission of saving farms. It now is involved in all manner of activities from providing school lunches to delivering police cars to communities across the land — all in the name of agricultural grants. It seem as though no one really knows what goes on behind those 12 foot oak doors.

All agricultural and rural subsidies in the Department of Agriculture’s budget should be abolished to save taxpayers more than $30 billion annually. In addition, agricultural trade barriers should be repealed. Current agricultural and rural policies are economically and environmentally damaging, and they create unfair transfers of wealth.

The department's food subsidy activities—food stamps, school lunches, and WIC—are properly local and private functions. They should be devolved to the states, with each state determining appropriate policies for its own residents. Such reforms would save federal taxpayers about $98 billion annually. Some states may decide to fund food subsidies on their own, but competition between the states would likely result in smaller, more innovative programs.

Forest Service subsidies to state governments and private businesses should be ended. Congress should also explore options to transfer the national forests to the states or to new independent trusts that would be self-funded from forest-related receipts.

The table shows that these reforms would eliminate more than 90 percent of the USDA’s budget, saving federal taxpayers $131 billion annually, or about $1,100 per U.S. household. Under the proposal, the USDA would retain responsibility for animal and plant health inspections, food safety, grain and packing inspections, and conservation activities.

Agricultural Subsidies          
      Farm Service Agency           $16,584
      Risk Management Agency           $7,033
      Foreign Agricultural Service           $1,604
      Nat. Inst. of Food and Agriculture           $1,483
      Agricultural Research Service           $1,369
      Agricultural Marketing Service           $1,272
      Agricultural Statistics Service           $162
      Economic Research Service           $80
Food Subsidies          
      Food Stamp program (SNAP)           $72,482
      School Lunch and related programs           $17,307
      Nutrition program (WIC)           $7,704
      Other           $452
Rural Subsidies          
      Rural Housing Service           $1,928
      Rural Utilities Service           $613
      Rural Business Coop. Service           $297
      Rural Development            $296
Forest Service          
      State and private forestry grants           $515
      Land acquisition           $74
      Explore options to restructure forests           n/a
Total proposed cuts           $131,255
Total department outlays           $142,016

Source: Estimated fiscal year outlays from the Budget of the U.S. Government, FY2011.

Do We Need the Department of Education?

"You say: "There are persons who lack education" and you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But in the second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating liberty and property." — Frederic Bastiat (The Law)

The Department of Education operates a range of subsidy programs for elementary and secondary schools. That aid is matched by rising federal regulatory control over the schools, but federal intervention has not generally lifted academic achievement. The department also provides subsidies to higher education through student loans and grants. Unfortunately, that aid has fueled inflation in college tuition and is subject to widespread abuse.

The department will spend $107 billion in 2010, or about $900 for every U.S. household. It employs 4,100 workers and operates 169 different subsidy programs.80% of the Departments 2010 budget goes to aid to states and 17% to subsidies for individuals and businesses. The remainder goes to salaries and operating expenses.

Here is where the money is going in millions of dollars

Elementary and Secondary Education:.......... $61,527
Special Education and Rehabilitation:.......... $21,022
Student Aid: ..................................................................$17,116
Post-secondary Education:......................................$2,960
Vocational and Adult Education:.........................$2,095
Innovation and Improvement:..............................$1,177
English Language Acquisition:.................................$754
Education Sciences: ........................................................$697
Safe and Drug-Free Schools: .....................................$675
Departmental Management:.....................................$614

Source: Estimated fiscal year outlays from the Budget of the U.S. Government, FY2011. 

 
Some History of the Federal Government’s involvement in education.

In 1787 The Northwest Ordinance provided grants of federal land for the establishment of educational institutions. These were lands consisted of one section (640 acres) and were usually designated to section 16. This was the basis for many “Land Grant” colleges and the cost to the tax payer was virtually nothing.

The 1930’s brought an array of New Deal funding for educational activities including school construction and repairs, the hiring of teachers, loans to school districts, and grants to rural schools. These programs created precedents for later permanent education subsidies. There is no enumerated power in the Constitution for these activities, they were and should be the responsibilities of the States.

The 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act—the G.I. Bill—was enacted to pay for education costs of World War II veterans. The bill was widely supported, but like most subsidy programs, oversight was poor and there was substantial waste and abuse. A 1951 General Accounting Office report found that substantial G.I. Bill funding was going toward frivolous activities, such as courses on hobby photography. Some schools responded to the G.I. Bill by increasing their tuition for veterans, which allowed the schools to effectively pocket the subsidies, while other schools resort to outright fraud to garner benefits. This was the beginning of the biggest rip-off in education. Schools could charge what the market would bear, and if the costs were too high the government would increase the amounts of the subsidies, which encouraged the schools to once again increase their fees. This was and still is a catch 22 in the cost of education; more money, higher fees, more money to cover the inflation in fess and so on and on and on.

In 1958 The National Defense Education Act was passed in response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik. The Act funded higher education loans, vocational teacher training, and various courses in the K–12 schools. Once again the schools had an opportunity to increase their costs and fees. The federal government would pay the bill in the name of national defense and science. No real change was evident in the number of students entering the fields of engineering, math or science. Liberal arts were the number one elective and we did not increase our human resources in the technical or scientific fields. Once again the schools benefited.

A series of 1963 laws expanded federal subsidies for the health professions, vocational education, and higher education facilities. The Office of Education now has 2,113 employees and a budget of $1.5 billion. Like the boiling frog syndrome we are hardly noticing the rising heat in the pot, after all it for the greater good.

1965 and the Great Society brings a massive increase in federal funding and involvement in education. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act creates a huge increase in federal education spending and regulations. The legislation's Title I is supposed to provide aid to K–12 schools in high-poverty areas, but by the end of the 1960s it is providing aid to 60 percent of the nation's school districts. Today, Title I is the largest federal subsidy program for K–12 education. In addition to Title I, the 1965 act creates subsidies for teacher training, educational research, school libraries, textbooks, student literacy, school technology, school safety, and other items. It also beefs up state-level school bureaucracies directly with "grants to strengthen state departments of education." The 1965: The Higher Education Act is the basis for many of today's post-secondary education subsidies, including student loan and grant programs, college library aid, teacher training programs and fellowships, and many other subsidies. The water in the pot is getting hotter, but we hardly notice it.

1972 brought amendments to the 1965 education laws and added a slew of new subsidy programs for K–12 and higher education, and created new education bureaus, institutes, and councils. In addition, Title IX is added, which bars gender discrimination in colleges and universities, but generates large bureaucracies of lawyers to administer, enforce, and litigate the complex rules.

The 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act required states to ensure free public education to all disabled students, and it spells out the services that school districts are required to provide. The law generates a great deal of legal and bureaucratic activities stemming from battles between parents and schools over whether federal mandates are being met. Today, special education is the second largest federal K–12 program. The water in the pot is getting hotter and our skin is beginning to turn red, but we don’t notice it. After all, who could be against education?

In 1976: Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter promises to create a Department of Education, and he is endorsed by the National Education Association. This is first time that the NEA has endorsed a presidential candidate in more than a century of existence. In 1979, after much opposition, Congress narrowly passes legislation to split off a new Department of Education from the existing Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The NEA and the American Federation of Teachers provide powerful lobbying support for the creation of the new department. The Department of Education begins operations in 1980 with 6,400 employees. The unions saw this as their greatest opportunity for taking control of education from the local level. The little man from Georgia with the hammer and nails had just nailed us into the pot. We were now being cooked and we didn’t even care.

When campaigning for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan calls the Department of Education "President Carter's new bureaucratic boondoggle" and promises to abolish it. Reagan's first budget consolidates some education grants into broader block grants and restrains education spending. In 1982 Reagan crafted a proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, but it went nowhere on Capitol Hill.

A 1983 blue-ribbon commission releases the influential report A Nation at Risk, which sharply criticizes the mediocre state of the public schools. The report sets back Reagan's efforts to eliminate the Department of Education and reduce federal intervention in education. Do you remember the 1958 The National Defense Education Act that was going to make the schools better?

In 1994 The Department of Education admits that it is losing between $3 billion and $4 billion annually to waste, fraud, and loan defaults in its college aid programs. Education Secretary Richard Riley calls the department's financial management "worse than lax." One problem is that the department wires billions of dollars each year to obscure trade schools based on undocumented claims about how many students are enrolled on federal scholarships.

Between 1994 and 2002 numerous increases in funding were granted to the Department of Education with no real increase in the quality of education. Urban centers were experiencing high school dropout rates of 50% and the cost for a college degree was costing as much as a mortgage on a new home.

The final demise of our frog was in 2002 when President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law. It is 650 pages in length and represented a major new federal thrust into the classroom. The law triggers a huge expansion in the department's K–12 spending: from $20 billion in 2000 to $37 billion by 2005. State officials complain bitterly about the onerous regulations of No Child Left Behind related to such items as student testing, teacher qualifications, Spanish language tests, and after-school tutoring. The frog is now cooked and ready to eat without him even knowing it was happening.

The final act of serving the frog was the 2009 economic stimulus bill that showers college students and state and local governments with $45 billion in extra education funding. No the colleges and universities can really dig in and get those fees higher. More teachers, more administrators, more buildings, higher salaries, bigger pensions and more power for the unions — all in the name of the education empire. Socrates is rolling over in his grave.

K-12 Education Subsidies through Federal intervention into the nation's schools has consumed great deals of taxpayer money and created large bureaucracies to administer the funding and regulations. However, it has produced little, if any, improvement in academic results. It has also produced massive amounts of unfunded liabilities for the teachers unions, liabilities that cannot be met by the local or state school boards.

Federal intervention into primary and secondary schools has steadily increased since the 1960s, but there have been no obvious improvement in educational achievement. Indeed, standardized test scores for K-12 students have been stagnant for decades. Interestingly, Canada has virtually no federal involvement in its schools, but Canadian students generally score higher on international tests than do American students.

The sad truth is that rising control from Washington has probably damaged American schools by reducing local flexibility, retarding innovation, and burying school administrators in regulations. Federal involvement should be ended, and it should be up to the states, the schools, and parents to boost school performance.

Federal grants and loans for college and university students have contributed to soaring inflation in tuition costs. Student grant and loan programs have also been subject to high levels of fraud and abuse. We have more students attending college and learning less. They are being taught by tenured professors or teaching assistants that are more concerned with pushing an agenda than providing a path to learning.

Federal loans and grants to college students should also be ended. Personal savings, financial institutions, and charitable organizations are more efficient funding sources for college costs. Federal student aid has proven to be hugely wasteful, with large amounts of fraud and abuse combined with inept federal administration. A further problem is that rising federal aid has generated inflation in college tuition and other educational costs. Thus, ending federal student subsidies would create beneficial pressure on colleges and universities to trim their bloated budgets and reduce their tuition.

The Department of Education should be closed and its programs terminated. The main activity of the department is to provide grants to state and local governments. However, channeling taxpayer dollars through Washington and then back to the states is an inefficient way to fund local activities such as education. It would be better if the states funded their own education programs free of all the paperwork that comes with federal aid.

It is time for America to wake up and abolish the Department of Education and all of its programs. We will not only save $107 billion dollars, we will save our education system, especially at the local level and dramatically decrease the power of the teachers unions.

Reagan, as usual, had it right. He just did not have the support of Congress or the American people to this. The water in the pot was not quite hot enough to get the frog’s attention. Perhaps today it is.

As Milton Friedman stated in the Wall Street Journal on September 20, 2000; "Only a truly competitive educational industry can empower the ultimate consumers of educational services—parents and their children."

Why Do the Democrats (And Some Republicans) Hate Sarah Palin

"The successful politician owes his power to the fact that he moves within the accepted framework of thought, that he thinks and talks conventionally. It would be almost a contradiction in terms for a politician to be a leader in the field of ideas. His task in a democracy is to find out what the opinions held by the largest number are, not to give currency to new opinions which may become the majority view in some distant future." — Frederick Hayek

Why does the left hate Sarah Palin with such screaming rage? Why do they lose their cookies at the very idea of the ex governor of Alaska running for President?

Think about that for a second.

Here's a beautiful, strong, intelligent, articulate, healthy-looking, truth-telling political winner in the State of Alaska — a gun-totin', sports-lovin', all-American woman, elected on her own merits against a corrupt establishment in Anchorage, AK. All the feminists should be dancing and cheering, but that’s not the case.

On top of all that, she married a native Alaskan who actually loves his country. And she had kids with him. Plus, she is not embittered, alienated, or divorced, and her children smile a lot. Best of all, she does not seem to think that free abortion is the answer to the population bomb.

You can hear all the metrosexuals sigh, “Is this Father Knows Best or what?” After all we are such a more advanced and sophisticated society than those old black and white TV shows that portrayed families with one father, one mother, children that were respectful and that ate dinner together.

Today, the New York Times is a lot more scared of Sarah Palin than it ever was after three thousand New Yorkers were burned to death on 9/11/2001. After all, Sarah Palin could do some real damage. Have you ever seen a more out-of-its-mind mob than the liberal media yowling at the moon over Governor Palin? I can't remember any — perhaps Ronald Reagan.

The left has all the subtlety of a high-tech lynch mob, as Clarence Thomas said in 1991, when they went all-out to destroy his good name before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Clarence Thomas knows about lynch mobs from the old South, and nobody has labeled the media better. Mad-dog, foaming-at-the-mouth, baying mob of useful idiots. They prove it every day. Just watch them. They will do it again and again, until we stop buying their bull.

Sarah Palin freaks out the media — especially the feminists — like a combined Ronald Reagan and Clarence Thomas. She is their 9/11.

One of the promises of Palin for president is all the laughs we'll get for eight whole years if she gets elected and Obama goes down. Just think of it: eight years of belly laughs will be guaranteed. The Secret Service will have to triple its POTUS detail, because ranting lefties are dangerous. All the would-be assassins of the 20th century came from the ranting left — shooting JFK, Robert Kennedy, Reagan, and Ford. Not a single conservative. Not a single normal person. Sarah, hang on to that shotgun. Alaska isn't the only place for big game. Save your best for D.C.

If Obama is "historic" for being black (which is bizarre enough), Palin will be doubly historic for being a passionately conservative female president. Skin color is only skin-deep.

With President Sarah Palin, we would get a sane and moral foreign policy, totally different from Obama's wacky prostration to the King of Saudi. Palin would work to reverse the damage done by Obama's Medical Piracy Act — a big, big job. And best of all, Sarah Palin gives a wonderful example of what women (and men) can achieve. Sarah Palin is a normal person with a normal life who decided to fix what's rotten in Anchorage — and now Washington, D.C.

Liberals get Palin's charisma vibes right off the bat. They can feel it running up their legs. Conservatives are more skeptical about politicians who inspire so much passion in millions of people. Well, skepticism is a good thing. It's what the liberals completely lost when they fell into abject, derrière-kissing love with “The One”. Now they are finally having second thoughts, when it's way too late. They have exposed who they really are with Obama, and even Soros is disappointed. Obama is the Buster Keaton president. If there's a banana skin he hasn't slipped on yet, he will locate it before his term runs out.

While you're thinking about the next election, just enjoy the sight of Sarah Palin's charisma. Ronald Reagan had it. No other Republican or Democrat in sight has it. Sorry, folks, but it's true. Romney looks like a department store dummy. Palin is alive. You can see Romney thinking about every syllable he speaks. Palin's a natural.

This may be the crucial time for history to produce the woman, a critical time for a charismatic conservative to reverse the damage done by the Left. The single most important fact is that Sarah Palin can communicate. She can talk to the American people without talking down to them. She can have a real conversation, and it is high time to have a good talk with the American people. George W. Bush is a man of honor and character, but Bush knew his own limits. He could never explain himself the way Reagan did. Bush Sr. had exactly the same limitations.

Reagan, hated by the elite left and the fifth estate, was loved by the electorate. In 1984 he captured every state in the union, except Minnesota, because when he spoke to the American people he spoke with them, not at them. Could you ever imagine “the anointed one” saying “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” — not in your wildest dreams? The elites thought Reagan to be a dumb actor who didn’t even spend one year at Harvard or Yale. How could someone be qualified to be president when they did not edit the Harvard Law Review?  The elites and members of the fifth are so much smarter than us after all they live and work in New York and Washington, D.C.

While I was spending time in Washington D.C. working with Congress on the National Height Modernization Program I had several lunches at the Maison Blanche on F Street. This is where you get a $20 dollar sandwich or a salad made with field greens, the — the mower picks up along the roadside. What I found interesting was that people spent more time talking on their cell phones or looking around the restaurant than eating their food. They were more concerned with seeing who was there and who they were talking with. Washington isn’t concerned with what you know as much as they are with who you know and who you talked with last. Sarah Palin just doesn’t fit into this society, therefore she is considered by the sophisticates as one level above a Neanderthal — the same view they have of the rest of us in “fly-over country”.  We just don’t count, expect on Election Day.

But what we need more than ever today is a Republican leader who communicates with the people where they live. Constitutionalist conservatives must have a spokeswoman who touches the American people — the millions who have been suckered and PC-whipped for far too long by the lefty media, now indistinguishable from the old CPUSA. We've been taken over by a Marx-light Democratic Party. In private they will tell you so. It's not a secret anymore, not after Obama.

Old Republicans like Karl Rove are running scared. I'm sorry to see it, he is a great political strategist. Rove attacked Christine McDonnell in public the day before the last election, when he knew he could do the most damage. That makes him a back-stabber when it comes to the constitutionalist Republicans. Too many millions of conservatives are now noticing the selfishness of the old Republicans. If the old establishment stabs the constitutional Republicans in the back, we voters will take note and keep them out. Even Barbara Bush, the matriarch of the Bush clan, has destroyed our affection for her in a single public sneer. Ed Rollins has exposed his affinity for establishment Republicans. No longer — the voters are finally watching. That’s what the Tea Party is about —if you doubt me just look at the results of the last election. Reagan had the same problem “elites” in the Republican Party, the so called “Rockefeller Republicans” — the ones the elite media like to call moderate Republicans.  The media loves these moderate Republicans because they know they can never get elected in a national presidential campaign. They have no charisma and cannot capture the hearts of the independent or conservative voters.

We are seeing a fight within the Republican Party, but this is nothing new. Ronald Reagan was defeated by establishment Republicans before he won the nomination. Today, the establishment would be running scared about Reagan, because he could not be bought and controlled. This is happening all over again. Reagan defeated Bush I for the presidency, and Barbara Bush may harbor an old grievance about that. Well, so be it. Constitutionalist conservatives are finally awake and keeping score.

Conservatives want a constitutionalist president like Reagan. The left has had its Marxist president for a time. They want party line rule over America; but America may have something to say about that before it surrenders to the new power class. Expect big fireworks from the left, and be prepared to give them as good as you get. The next two years will be filled with attacks from both the left and establishment Republicans on true conservatives like, Sahara, Palin, Michele Bachmann, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem. These are all great Tea Party backed conservatives, but only Sarah Palin can draw the crowds, passions and money of the voters — just ask John McCain. McCain was drawing crowds of 2 or 3 thousand for his dull, canned stump speeches and his “my friends” admonition until Palin joined him on the campaign trail. Palin’s presence drove the crowds to over 20 thousand and they roared at her “You know what they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick” witticism.

Sarah Palin is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon in politics. She is a charismatic constitutionalist. It's the combination that's so vital. Reagan had it. It scares the Democrats to death.

Margaret Thatcher established herself as a potent conference speaker at the Conservative Party Conference of 1966 when with Frederick Hayek’s book, “The Road to Serfdom”, in hand and proclaimed “the problem with socialism is that you run out of other people’s money.” Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister (1979-1990) was the longest since that of Lord Salisbury and the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century. She was the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom, and the first of only four women to hold any of the four great offices of state. She also saved the British economy from total socialistic ruin.

It is time for a constitutionalist who can talk straight with the American people. Human nature hasn't changed. The U.S. Constitution has not lost relevance. It is still the only functioning revolutionary political document in history. The Constitution limits the power class. Marxism empowers the powerful. It's not hard to understand. If Sarah Palin can get that single truth across to the American people, she will win and go on to become another Ronald Reagan.

Expect all the Establishment forces to fight against a constitutionalist conservative for president. It scares them more than a Marxist in the White House.

What is the Value of an Oath

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God". - Oath of Congress.

At the start of each new Congress, in January of every odd-numbered year, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate performs a solemn and festive constitutional rite that is as old as the Republic. While the oath-taking dates back to the First Congress in 1789, the current oath is a product of the 1860s, drafted by Civil War-era members of Congress intent on ensnaring traitors.

The Constitution contains an oath of office only for the president. For other officials, including members of Congress, that document specifies only that they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution." In 1789, the First Congress reworked this requirement into a simple fourteen-word oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States."

For nearly three-quarters of a century, that oath served nicely, although to the modern ear it sounds woefully incomplete. Missing are the soaring references to bearing "true faith and allegiance;" to taking "this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;" and to "well and faithfully" discharging the duties of the office.

The outbreak of the Civil War quickly transformed the routine act of oath-taking into one of enormous significance. In April of 1861, a time of uncertain and shifting loyalties, President Abraham Lincoln ordered all federal civilian employees within the executive branch to take an expanded oath. When Congress convened for a brief emergency session in July, members echoed the president's action by enacting legislation requiring employees to take the expanded oath in support of the Union. This oath is the earliest direct predecessor of the modern oath.

When Congress returned for its regular session in December 1861, members who believed that the Union had as much to fear from northern traitors as southern soldiers again revised the oath, adding a new first section known as the "Ironclad Test Oath." The war-inspired Test Oath, signed into law on July 2, 1862, required "every person elected or appointed to any office — under the Government of the United States — excepting the President of the United States to swear or affirm that they had never previously engaged in criminal or disloyal conduct. Those government employees who failed to take the 1862 Test Oath would not receive a salary; those who swore falsely would be prosecuted for perjury and forever denied federal employment.

The 1862 oath's second section incorporated a more polished and graceful rendering of the hastily drafted 1861oath. Although Congress did not extend coverage of the Ironclad Test Oath to its own members, many took it voluntarily. Angered by those who refused this symbolic act during a wartime crisis, and determined to prevent the eventual return of prewar southern leaders to positions of power in the national government, congressional hard-liners eventually succeeded by 1864 in making the Test Oath mandatory for all members.

The Senate then revised its rules to require that members not only take the Test Oath orally, but also that they "subscribe" to it by signing a printed copy. This condition reflected a wartime practice in which military and civilian authorities required anyone wishing to do business with the federal government to sign a copy of the Test Oath. The current practice of newly sworn senators signing individual pages in an elegantly bound oath book dates from this period.

As tensions cooled during the decade following the Civil War, Congress enacted private legislation permitting particular former Confederates to take only the second section of the 1862 oath. An 1868 public law prescribed this alternative oath for "any person who has participated in the late rebellion, and from whom all legal disabilities arising therefrom have been removed by act of Congress."  Northerners immediately pointed to the new law's unfair double standard that required loyal Unionists to take the Test Oath's harsh first section while permitting ex-Confederates to ignore it. In 1884, a new generation of lawmakers quietly repealed the first section of the Test Oath, leaving intact today's moving affirmation of constitutional allegiance.

Today there are some House Members like Democrat Luis Gutierrez representing the 4th District on Illinois. Gutierrez, a fierce proponent of rights for illegal immigrants said in a recent interview to Newsweek Magazine; “I have only one loyalty,” he says, “and that’s to the immigrant community.”

Gutierrez has now embarked on his latest campaign: to secure quick passage of the DREAM Act, which would legalize undocumented youths who attend college or serve in the military. With a Republican takeover of the House imminent, the lame-duck session of Congress offers the last chance (for a while, at least) to get it done. It won’t be easy, given the noxious atmosphere in Washington. Yet Gutierrez has already launched a nationwide tour of churches to rally immigrants and their supporters, and has begun rounding up votes in the House. Two weeks ago, he and a few other lawmakers met with Obama at the White House. “We want you to put everything you can behind this,” he says they told the president. Obama agreed to help—by, among other things, placing personal calls to wavering lawmakers.

Gutierrez’s self proclaimed loyalty is not to the Constitution or the people of the United States. It’s to people who have entered this country illegally and by that act have committed a crime against the people and laws of the United States. How can a serving member of the House of Representatives take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and then boldly ignore this oath for his own political purposes. I guess he follows the example of Charles Wrangle.

This is just one small example of the state of politics in the United States today. Elected officials and special interest groups have no loyalty to the United States or its laws; they just want to have their agenda adopted and their political power preserved, no matter the cost to the Republic.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress 18 enumerated powers. One of the powers is: “To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.” Another enumerated power in the same section gives Congress the authority to; “To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

Evidently Gutierrez does not believe he needs to follow the dictates of the Constitution when it pertains to immigration and invasion. We are latterly being invaded by illegal immigrants who are entering the country in search of work or, in some cases, to commit crimes and smuggle drugs. It is these illegal immigrants Gutierrez expresses his loyalty to.

The Naturalization Act of 1906 was the law my grandparents and father entered the United States under. This law was changed by the Immigration Act of 1990 when the requirements for English and the removal of homosexuality as a grounds for exclusion from immigration. After it became law, the United States would admit 700,000 new immigrants annually, up from 500,000 before the bill's passage. The new system continued to favor people with family members already in the United States, but added 50,000 "diversity visas" for countries from which few were emigrating as well as 40,000 permanent job-related visas and 65,000 temporary worker visas. Additional provisions strengthened the U.S. Border Patrol and altered language regarding disease restrictions in a way that permitted the Secretary of Health and Human Services to remove AIDS from the list of illnesses making a prospective immigrant ineligible to enter the country.

In 1995 the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, appointed by Bill Clinton, called for reducing legal immigration to about 550,000 a year. The Commission covered many facets of immigration policy, but started from the perception that the “credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people, who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave.” From there, in a series of four reports, the commission looked at all aspects of immigration policy. In the first, it found that enforcement was lax and needed improvement on the border and internally. For internal enforcement, it recommended that an automated employment verification system be created to enable workers to distinguish between legal and illegal workers. The second report discussed legal immigration issues and suggested that immediate family members and skilled workers receive priority. The third report covered refugee and asylum issues. Finally, the fourth report reiterated the major points of the previous reports and the need for a new immigration policy. Few of these suggestions were implemented

Nearly eight million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005, more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history. Almost half entered illegally. Since 1986, Congress has passed seven amnesties for illegal immigrants. In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in the country. Hispanic immigrants were among the first victims of the late-2000s recession, but since the recession's end in June 2009; immigrants posted a net gain of 656,000 jobs. 1.1 million Immigrants were granted legal residence in 2009.

We no doubt need to reform our immigration laws, but not until we totally secure our borders for at least two years and get a count of all the criminal immigrants in the county. Then we can begin to deal with the illegals in an orderly manner. We do not need lawmakers, like Gutierrez, to be a part of the debate. He has shown his colors and they are Red, Green and White. Of course we can always fiddle away while Rome burns and ban all school bake sales as Michelle Obama has dictated.

Is WikiLeaks a Clear and Present Danger?

"The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others."— John Locke

I have been following the news reports of the latest round of WikiLeaks for over a week and I have a divided view of this tempest. Before I go any further let me make one thing clear. In my opinion Private Bradley Manning is a traitor and if proven guilty should be punished to the full extent of the law.

According to the New York Times, Private Bradley Manning lip-synched to "Lady Gaga as he copied hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables." He spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

“Then he joined the Army, where, friends said, his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under "don't ask, don't tell" and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.”

Obama said again this week that the introduction of an openly homosexual culture into the military poses no threat to its discipline, even as his administration reeled from a blatant instance of it. Manning, a homosexual resentful of the military's constraints, is the source for the WikiLeaks scandal. Naturally, the media is downplaying that aspect of the story, lest it complicate the left's relentless propaganda in favor of abolishing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."  Click here to read the full New York Times profile of Bradley Manning.

While Manning is the accused leaker the Bill Ayers-style anarchist, Julian Assange is the recipient and publisher of the leaks. Assange, an Australian uber liberal, is the person who founded the web site WikiLeaks. Assange, along with his team of left-wing British and Scandinavian cohorts have received millions of classified cables and documents from Manning (and or others) and published them on the Internet. Assange has been accused of rape in Sweden and there is a warrant out from Interpol for his arrest. Right now he is believed to be in hiding somewhere in southern England.

There have been two rounds of leaks published by Assange and his web team. The first round contained cables, documents and videos of our military’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also contained names of our operatives and Iraqis and Afghans who have cooperated with our military. This first round of leaks was, in my mind, a direct attack on our national security and Assange should be charged with espionage. Yet the Obama administration did nothing to stop Assange or shut down his web site. To me this would be analogous to a low ranking soldier releasing the plans for Operation Overload 48 hours prior to June 6, 1944 and having the New York Times publish them. The soldier would have been charged with treason and the Times charged with espionage. The release of the Normandy invasion plans would have been a direct attack on our national security.

The second round of WikiLeaks is more problematical. Most of the information released and published by Assange has been cables and documents embarrassing to our government. Some examples of this information are the failure of the Venezuelan Health Care System, The collapse of Cuban Health Care and the lack of doctors in Cuba, the mental condition of the president of Argentina, and the actions of the Saudis by taking our military aid while they continue to support al Qaida. All of these examples illustrate the ineptness of the Obama administration in dealing with the real world and how we are being feed half truths and spin from the government.

A "confidential" U.S. Embassy cable from Caracas, just released by WikiLeaks, says socialist Venezuela's health care system is in "disarray" -- and the poor are suffering the most. The document appears to be authentic. However, U.S. officials have flatly refused to confirm the authenticity of any purloined documents published by WikiLeaks.

The Embassy cable released in December 2009 blames Venezuela's ongoing health care crisis squarely on President Hugo Chávez -- his Cuban-style health care initiatives and overall mismanagement and his politicization of the South American nation's health care system. Physicians perceived as being anti-Chávez are disciplined, while incompetent military officials are placed in charge of public hospitals.

Looking ahead, the 1,900-word document warns that Chávez may create more havoc by nationalizing Venezuela's private clinics. These provide high-quality U.S.-style health care. This cable, had it been released to the public during the debate over Obamacare would have been damaging to the proponents Click her to read the entire cable.

According to the cable, critics say the missions are inefficient and have drained funding away from public hospitals that poor and middle-class Venezuelans still prefer — thus "lowering the overall quality of medical care" for everybody. Of the 30,000 personnel staffing the Cuba-style free clinics, about one half are reportedly Cuban physicians. Interestingly, the Embassy cable is at odds with the two United Nations agencies — UNICEF and the Latin American branch of the World Health Organization. Both have reportedly praised the Cuban-style missions. Click here to read more about the collapsing Venezuelan health care system.

Among the documents Wiki made public was a stunning communiqué from the office of Hillary Clinton asking the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires to "delve into the psyche" of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, current Argentine president and widow of late President Nestor Kirchner. Hillary Clinton, possessor of a mind so twisted that she can justify a marriage to a proven serial womanizer, has the nerve to inquire into the status of another woman's psyche?

The cable, sent at 2:55 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and originating in the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, asked a series of other probing questions as part of what it said was an attempt by her office to understand "leadership dynamics" between Kirchner and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner. Click here to read more of Clinton’s request for information on Kirchner’s martial problems.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh while denouncing Assange believes the information from this latest round of WikiLeaks is stuff the press should have been reporting on for the past two years. He stated on his show; “Now, as I say, none of this is unknown – for example, the business that our friends, the Saudis, are paying for al-Qaida, that they're funding al-Qaida, that they offer support for al-Qaida, that they may as well be al-Qaida in some cases. Now, this is not surprising to anybody. It's just nobody has the guts to say it. Some of this stuff in these cables is actually fascinating. I want more of it. You know, this is the stuff that's true.”

We continue to sell $60bn of sophisticated armaments to Saudi Arabia; it's our largest such sale to anybody ever, and they're funding al-Qaida. And they're not prepared to go to war with Iran. We're selling them all this ammo and all these armaments, but they want us to go take Iran out. What kind of idiots”

Laura Ingraham another conservative radio talker said in an interview with Fox News; “"I think that what we're finding out is that, once again, America is demonstrating to the world that its influence is on the wane and its … apparently, its determination to work with the world community on this is also absent."

“Remember when Obama came into office, it was going to be a whole new deal. We were going to be building bridges to all these other countries and they were going to be working with us, because it wasn't my way or the highway anymore. Yet, now we find out that this guy is doing an enormous about of damage to America's interests, America's security around the world, and we basically are saying we can't do anything about it.” You can read more comments from the conservative radio talker by clicking here.

Most conservatives are abhorred by the actions of Assange and want him punished and the leaks stopped. People like John Bolton, K.C. McFarland and Charles Krauthammer want the web site shut down and Assange brought to some sort of justice. On December 3, Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post;” The WikiLeaks document dump is sabotage, however quaint that term may seem. We are at war - a hot war in Afghanistan where six Americans were killed just this past Monday, and a shadowy world war where enemies from Yemen to Portland, Ore., are planning holy terror. Franklin Roosevelt had German saboteurs tried by military tribunal and shot. Assange has done more damage to the United States than all eight of those Germans combined. Putting U.S. secrets on the Internet, a medium of universal dissemination new in human history, requires a reconceptualization of sabotage and espionage — and the laws to punish and prevent them. Where is the Justice Department?”

“And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish $80 billion a year? Assange has gone missing. Well, he's no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England and work your way down.

Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can't sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice. I'm not advocating that we bring out of retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain.”

Why such a passive response from the Obama administration? It appears that they are torn between their hyper-ideological world view and the real politick consequences of what Assange has done to our foreign policy and national security. The left has celebrated "whistleblowers" for so long - people who have outed CIA agents, leaked vital security programs and operations, and plastered our most carefully guarded secrets all over the front page of the New York Times - that when one of these miscreants comes along and damages a liberal administration, they don't quite know what to do. They are torn between cheering for the saboteur and whining about how unfair it all is.

So they basically do nothing. And, as Krauthammer points out, unbelievable damage has been done to some vital efforts in our war against terror. Considering these facts, the administration's actions prior to the release of the documents borders on criminal negligence.

If we get hit by a terror attack because a country had stopped cooperating with us fearing exposure, we shouldn't blame Julian Assange. We should blame those who did nothing to prevent him from damaging our security.

On the other hand Libertarians and Liberals praise Assange for his publishing of the documents. Libertarians like John Stossel, Pat Buchanan and Judge Andrew Napolitano believe Assange has done nothing unlawful and that the government has too many secrets. They believe, that while embarrassing to the government of the United States and other countries, these leaks pose little threat to our national security and Assange is protected by his First Amendment rights.

At some point you have to pose the question; is Assange a victim of demagoguery or a true whistle blower in the pure sense of freedom of speech? It was Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote in his defense of the 1917 Espionage Act in the case of Schenck v. United States; “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic”.

You can read a list of topics covered in the latest round of leaks as published by the UK Guardian and make your own evaluations. I think you will find the list of released cables and documents fascinating and you will not be able to stop reading down the list. 

Perhaps we need to agree that the messenger is flawed, but the messages cannot be ignored. Is knowing the truth worth the risk to the reputations of politicians or is Assange a Clear and Present Danger to the United States?

Tis the Season to be Politically Correct

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." - Ayn Rand

As Christmas approaches the reports of towns, large and small, will begin to fill the air waves with stories of political correctness across the land.

Christmas trees will be called “Holiday Trees”, what were once Christmas pageants will now be called “Winter Celebrations”, people will wish each other “Happy Holidays”, and a minority of people will claim to be offended at Christian displays of the birth of Christ.

CBS News in Philadelphia reports that the sign that hangs above the 80 wooden booths that make up the traditional European Christmas Village on the west side of City Hall used to say “Christmas Village,” but on Tuesday morning, it was missing a word. The sign, strung up in lights, says just “Village.”

City Managing Director Richard Negrin says workers took the word Christmas down because of complaints. “I’ve received a number of complaints throughout the past few months and apparently over the past several years about the fact that village wasn’t more inclusive,” Negrin said. “It really is not just a Christian village; it’s more of a holiday Village.”

“I remember hearing one story in which a small Jewish child walked past the village and saw Christmas and asked his dad how come we don’t get a village?” said Negrin, who said the move to remove Christmas is about being inclusive.

“Passers-by are not so sure. Daryl says he appreciates that people practice different religions, but he questions the removal of the word Christmas.”

“It’s a Christmas Village. It just happens to be here at City Hall. Everything looks so nice, and now, all of the sudden we just have Village up there,” he says.”

“I know there are different religions, as far as Jewish religions that believe in Hanukah and African Americans that believe in Kwanza, but they should just keep it Christmas, I mean that’s what it is,” added Les Milling.

Negrin disagrees. “I think for every person you find who is offended, you’re going to have scores of people who feel like they’re included in the village now as opposed to before.”

The story of the young Jewish boy and several others is why German American Marketing Inc. and the city has decided it would be best to design a fixture that reads “Holiday” instead of “Christmas.” Click here for the full report and the video from CBS News.

Pennsylvania has a large German-American population dating back to 1683 when Francis Daniel Pastorius founded a German settlement in Germantown, Pennsylvania. His home is now a historical place and almost every student of German learns about Pastorius and the society named after him.

Anyone who has traveled to Germany, Austria or Switzerland during the Christmas season is well aware of the traditional Wheinachtsmarkts (Christmas Markets) that are scatted throughout large and small towns. These markets are opened from November 16 to just a few days before Christmas. The markets are filled with the sights and sounds of Christmas. There are vendor stalls where you can buy Christmas ornaments and other things ranging from handmade trinkets to ceramic figurines. There are stalls serving bratwurst, gluhwine and lebkuchen In the evenings there are local choirs performing traditional Christmas carols and songs.

I have had the opportunity to visit these markets in Munich, Nuremberg, Salzburg, Zurich, Heidelberg and other cities throughout Germany. The Germans make no bones about these markets; they are dedicated to the celebration of Christmas. I have never heard anyone complain that they are not inclusive, they are a Germanic tradition.

The Philadelphia Christmas Village is just another of hundreds of examples of how we are abandoning our history, traditions and culture to some misguided sense of political correctness. It was the German composer, Carl Orff, who said “Tradition was the glue that held a society together.” As we surrender our long held traditions to a liberal social progressive agenda we a slowly tearing our society apart and paying homage to the god of multiculturalism.

This Controversy and criticism continues in the present-day, where some Christian and non-Christians have claimed that an affront to Christmas (dubbed a "war on Christmas" by some) is ongoing. In the United States there has been a tendency to replace the greeting Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have initiated court cases to bar the display of images and other material referring to Christmas from public property, including schools. Such groups argue that government-funded displays of Christmas imagery and traditions violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the establishment by Congress of a national religion. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lynch vs. Donnelly that a Christmas display (which included a Nativity scene) owned and displayed by the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island did not violate the First Amendment. In November 2009, the Federal appeals court in Philadelphia endorsed a school district's ban on the singing of Christmas carols.

As long as we have organizations like the ACLU and Citizens United this war on Christmas will continue. What many people neglect to mention when they cite the provision of the First Amendment to make their case against Christmas displays is the second part of the clause; “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”. They adhere to the first part, but seem to ignore the second.

As for my part I will never say happy holidays in lieu of wishing someone a Merry Christmas. I would suspect that someday our calendars will show December 25th as “Winter Holiday” and Congress will have to rescind its 1870 law making Christmas a formal federal holiday across the United States and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant.

Merry Christmas, Fröhliche Weihnacten, Joyeux Noel and Mele Kalikimaka.