Timothy Geithner to Paul Ryan: White House Has No ‘Definitive Solution’ to Debt Crisis…And We Don’t Want Yours

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Budget Committee Thursday that President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget – “the most expensive in United States history” – would “put the U.S. on an ‘unsustainable’ course if enacted,” reports The Washington Free Beacon.

Geithner also told Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) that although the Obama administration doesn’t have a “definitive solution” to the debt crisis, it definitely knows it doesn’t like the Republican alternative.

Read more

Breaking: S&P downgrades U.S. to AA+

We told you so !!!

With a “negative outlook” to boot.

America is now a risky investment.

U.S. Treasuries, once undisputedly seen as the safest investment in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as the UK, Germany, France or Canada.

The outlook on the new U.S. credit rating is negative, S&P said in a statement, a sign that another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months.

See the last few updates in the other thread for details on this afternoon’s drama between S&P and the White House. Supposedly the agency admitted privately that it goofed in using the wrong debt-to-GDP baseline — a $2 trillion error. But when you’re $14 trillion in the hole and set to add $6 trillion more by the end of the decade, what’s $2 trillion, really? A deadbeat’s a deadbeat.

Odds of that negative outlook turning into a further downgrade if the Super Committee chokes: High. Stand by for updates.

Update: A grumpy White House points to S&P’s math error and calls it “amateur hour.”

Update: Zero Hedge has the text of S&P’s statement. The debt-ceiling deal wasn’t good enough:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade…

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year’s wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability…

When comparing the U.S. to sovereigns with ‘AAA’ long-term ratings that we view as relevant peers–Canada, France, Germany, and the U.K.–we also observe, based on our base case scenarios for each, that the trajectory of the U.S.’s net public debt is diverging from the others. Including the U.S., we estimate that these five sovereigns will have net general government debt to GDP ratios this year ranging from 34% (Canada) to 80% (the U.K.), with the U.S. debt burden at 74%. By 2015, we project that their net public debt to GDP ratios will range between 30% (lowest, Canada) and 83% (highest, France), with the U.S. debt burden at 79%. However, in contrast with the U.S., we project that the net public debt burdens of these other sovereigns will begin to decline, either before or by 2015.

Not only can’t the Super Committee fail, it’ll be under enormous public pressure to reach a grand bargain. That’s the silver lining in this cloud — they have to get serious now. They have no choice.

H/T Hotair

Sen. Tom Harkin Calls Tea Party: “Cult Fringe” Holding Up Debt Ceiling Increase

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) calls Republicans “dead-beat debtors” among other things during a Democratic press conference on Wednesday morning.

“The debate and fight is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between some Republicans and their sort of cult fringe as I refer to them out there,” Harkin said.

“Democrats are willing to do whatever is necessary to raise the debt ceiling, not for future borrowing but to pay the debts that we racked up in the past. Which, mostly was racked up by a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President in the last 8 years. Yet, they’re not willing to pay the bills,” Harkin said.

Rand Paul on what would happen if we don’t raise the Debt Ceiling again.

“We bring in about $200 billion of revenue every month and we spend about $20 Billion on interest. So there’s plenty of tax revenue to pay the interest on our debt and to never default. I think the responsible thing for the president to do really is to take it off the table and say, look, we won’t default. We will continue to pay our interest no matter what because we want to keep our good credit rating and we think it is the appropriate and right thing to do.

For a change up here we might have to prioritize things like true legislators and decide what we have money for and what we don’t have money for. Your right if we didn’t pass a raising of the debt ceiling it would be like passing an immediate balanced budget and you know we only bring in revenue for about 70% of what we do up here, so there would be significant cuts. But you could still pay the interest, you could pay Social Security checks, you could pay the soldier’s salaries, but there would be a lot of stuff like the 82 programs we have up here that are duplicate programs to train workers, you might have to get rid of 81 of them. “

Sheila Jackson: Congress complicating debt ceiling because Obama is black

This one is for Steve….I just know he’ll love it…….

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Friday strongly suggested that members of Congress are making it difficult for President Obama to raise the debt ceiling because of his race.

“I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness [toward] this president,” said Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Why is he different? And in my community, that is the question that we raise. In the minority community that is question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully? Why has the debt limit been raised 60 times? Why did the leader of the Senate continually talk about his job is to bring the president down to make sure he is unelected?”

Earlier in her speech, Jackson Lee said Obama has been targeted unlike any other president.

“I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president — only this one, only this one — has received the kind of attacks and disagreement and inability to work, only this one,” said Jackson Lee from the House floor.

“Read between the lines,” she continued. “What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statute and the 14th amendment?”

Jackson Lee concluded by saying that she hoped someone would step up and say that what appears obvious to her is not in fact true.

“I hope someone will say that what it appears to be is not in fact accurate,” said Lee. “But historically it seems to be nothing more.”

The Hill

The Last Nail Is Being Driven Through The Coffin Of The American Republic

Ladies and Gentlemen, this type of legislation giving the President dictatorial powers to make war contrary to the Constitution and what the Founding Fathers intended will get us nuked by Russia or China probably in a preemptive strike by them thinking they were going to be attacked next by the US. It appears the Republicans are about to declare permanent war on the world.

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House Dems protest GOP’s plans for permanent war against terror

Nearly three dozen House Democrats are calling on Republicans to withdraw a section of the 2012 defense authorization bill that they say would effectively declare a state of permanent war against unnamed Taliban and al Qaeda operatives.

A Tuesday letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and 32 other Democrats argues that affirming continued war against terrorist forces goes too far, giving too much authority to the president without debate in Congress.

Their letter cites language in the authorization bill that incorporates the Detainee Security Act, which affirms continued armed conflict against terrorists overseas.

“By declaring a global war against nameless individuals, organizations and nations ‘associated’ with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as those playing a supporting role in their efforts, the Detainee Security Act would appear to grant the president near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval,” Democrats wrote. “Such authority must not be ceded to the president without careful deliberation from Congress.”

The specific language in the bill is found in section 1034 of H.R. 1540, which affirms that the U.S. is “engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces.” It also affirms that the president has the authority to detain “certain belligerents” until the armed conflict is over.

The Hill

The legislation removes the requirement of congressional approval for the use of military force and instead gives the President totalitarian dictatorial authority to engage in any and all military actions for an indefinite period of time.

It even gives the President the authority to launch attacks against American Citizens inside the United States with no congressional oversight whatsoever.

Just to recap, because that was a mouthful:

• Endless War – The war will continue until all hostilities are terminated, which will never happen.
• No Borders – The president will have the full authority to launch military strikes against any country, organization or person, including against U.S citizens on U.S soil.
• Unilateral Military Action – Full authority to invade any nation at any time with no congressional approval required.
• No Clearly Defined Enemy – The US can declare or allege anyone a terrorist or allege they are or have been supporting “hostilities” against the US and attack at will.
• Authorization To Invade Several Countries – The president would have full authority to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea, along with several other nations in Africa and the Middle East and even Russia and China under the legislation all of which are “know” to have supported and aided hostilities against the United States.
• Wichita Observer

The America Civil Liberties Union writes:

New Authorization of Worldwide War Without End?

Congress may soon vote on a new declaration of worldwide war without end, and without clear enemies. A “sleeper provision” deep inside defense bills pending before Congress could become the single biggest hand-over of unchecked war authority from Congress to the executive branch in modern American history.

President Obama has not sought new war authority. In fact, his administration has made clear that it believes it already has all of the authority that it needs to fight terrorism.

Treasury Department quietly plans for failure to raise debt ceiling

The White House is warning that catastrophe will strike if Congress fails to raise the limit on the national debt: With too little cash to pay creditors, the U.S. government would default. Interest rates would skyrocket. And the economic recovery would collapse.

But behind the scenes, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has already begun juggling the books to conserve cash, draining a special account at the Federal Reserve. And with the debt forecast to hit the legal limit of $14.3 trillion in just a few weeks, he has a range of tools at his disposal, including borrowing money from a pension fund for federal workers.

Geithner also has authority to pay investors first for interest they’re owed on the debt, according to a decades-old legal opinion. A growing number of conservatives argue that by making interest payments first, the government could avoid default and the Obama administration’s predictions of economic Armageddon.

But the nation could pay a substantial price in the form of higher interest rates if it relied for long on such evasive maneuvers, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent study. And financial analysts say market confidence could be shattered if Geithner had to cut off pay to combat troops or stop writing Social Security checks — even if he never missed an interest payment.

“I think the failure to meet any commitment would be viewed by the markets as default and would be deeply unnerving,” said Robert Rubin, who, as Treasury secretary in the mid-1990s, prevented the debt from breaching the limit during the longest battle over the issue on record.

“We don’t know” what would happen in the event of default, Rubin said. “But I think it is totally irresponsible to take the risk of trying to find out.”

Markets are already uneasy about the looming battle over the debt ceiling, which promises to consume Congress when lawmakers return next week from their Easter break.

Washington Post

Obama’s Speech-Was it another Campaign Speech?

Caught this article in the Wall Street Journal. Exact, and on the money. Where were the solutions, and where was the answer to Paul Ryan’s proposal. Even liberal talker Juan Williams said on Hannity that even though he disagreed with most everything in Ryans plan, at least he has stuck his neck out and offered a plan, more than the Democrats when they were in TOTAL control. I can’t post Ryans rebuttal to the speech, but you can see it here:

http://online.wsj.com/video/news-hub-ryan-responds-to-obama-speech/AD1B8959-664B-4531-8931-B304A498EC29.html

The Presidential Divider

 

Did someone move the 2012 election to June 1? We ask because President Obama’s extraordinary response to Paul Ryan’s budget yesterday—with its blistering partisanship and multiple distortions—was the kind Presidents usually outsource to some junior lieutenant. Mr. Obama’s fundamentally political document would have been unusual even for a Vice President in the fervor of a campaign.

Bloomberg News

The immediate political goal was to inoculate the White House from criticism that it is not serious about the fiscal crisis, after ignoring its own deficit commission last year and tossing off a $3.73 trillion budget in February that increased spending amid a record deficit of $1.65 trillion. Mr. Obama was chased to George Washington University yesterday because Mr. Ryan and the Republicans outflanked him on fiscal discipline and are now setting the national political agenda.

Mr. Obama did not deign to propose an alternative to rival Mr. Ryan’s plan, even as he categorically rejected all its reform ideas, repeatedly vilifying them as essentially un-American. “Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America,” he said, supposedly pitting “children with autism or Down’s syndrome” against “every millionaire and billionaire in our society.” The President was not attempting to join the debate Mr. Ryan has started, but to close it off just as it begins and banish House GOP ideas to political Siberia.

Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which “starts,” he said, “by being honest about what’s causing our deficit.” The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

***

The great political challenge of the moment is how to update the 20th-century entitlement state so that it is affordable. With incremental change, Mr. Ryan is trying maintain a social safety net and the economic growth necessary to finance it. Mr. Obama presented what some might call the false choice of merely preserving the government we have with no realistic plan for doing so, aside from proposing $4 trillion in phantom deficit reduction over a gimmicky 12-year budget window that makes that reduction seem larger than it would be over the normal 10-year window.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare’s gargantuan liabilities is that it is “just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse.” His own plan is to double down on the program’s price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out “unnecessary spending.” Is that the same as “waste and abuse”?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won’t harm seniors’ care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

Mr. Obama really went off on Mr. Ryan’s plan to increase health-care competition and give consumers more control, barely stopping short of calling it murderous. It’s hardly beyond criticism or debate, but the Ryan plan is neither Big Rock Candy Mountain nor some radical departure from American norms.

Mr. Obama came out for further cuts in the defense budget, but where? His plan is to ask Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen “to find additional savings,” whatever those might be, after a “fundamental review.” These mystery cuts would follow two separate, recent rounds of deep cuts that were supposed to stave off further Pentagon triage amid several wars and escalating national security threats.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan responds to President Obama’s deficit reduction speech.

Mr. Obama rallied the left with a summons for major tax increases on “the rich.” Every U.S. fiscal trouble, he claimed, flows from the Bush tax cuts “for the wealthiest 2%,” conveniently passing over what he euphemistically called his own “series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs.” Apparently he means the $814 billion stimulus that failed and a new multitrillion-dollar entitlement in ObamaCare that harmed job creation.

Under the Obama tax plan, the Bush rates would be repealed for the top brackets. Yet the “cost” of extending all the Bush rates in 2011 over 10 years was about $3.7 trillion. Some $3 trillion of that was for everything but the top brackets—and Mr. Obama says he wants to extend those rates forever. According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn’t cover Mr. Obama’s deficit for this year.

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending. So that’s three significant tax increases—via higher top brackets, the tax hikes in ObamaCare and fewer tax deductions.

Lastly, Mr. Obama came out for a debt “failsafe,” which will require the White House and Congress to hash out a deal if by 2014 projected debt is not declining as a share of the economy. But under his plan any deal must exclude Social Security, Medicare or low-income programs. So that means more tax increases or else “making government smarter, leaner and more effective.” Which, now that he mentioned it, sounds a lot like cutting “waste and abuse.”

Mr. Obama ludicrously claimed that Mr. Ryan favors “a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.” Nothing is likelier to bring that future about than the President’s political indifference in the midst of a fiscal crisis.

Is the US government taking over our private pension plans?

Here’s something I’ve been hearing about for some time now, but didn’t post anything because it would sound so far out before now. Now the Government is beginning to announce this to smooth it over and sound good…..like the bailouts. The government to the rescue of your pension plans? Hardly……watch out America.

US government taking over our private pension plans?

Long planned, the current economic storm erupted violently in late 2007. It wasn’t by accident. It was engineered years back, so financial racketeers could profit from wrecking global economies and destroying their middle class, including America’s.

On February 1, 2009, former high-level Wall Street and government insider, Catherine Austin Fitts, explained it an article headlined, “Financial Coup d’Etat,” saying:

A global financial cabal “engineered a fraudulent housing and debt bubble; illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the US; and used ‘privatization’ as a form of piracy – a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder….Clearly, there was a global financial coup d’etat underway,” its magnitude overwhelming and incomprehensible to most people, as planned.

Many trillions of dollars have been stolen, shifted from public to elitist private hands – by far, the greatest ever wealth transfer in history, a global heist, sucking capital out of one country after another, including America. It’s an ongoing “de-moderniz(ation)” process, transforming Western countries into third world ones – in real time, in plain sight, yet few people understand.

In stark terms, Fitts says it’s more than just “a process designed to wipe out the middle class. This is genocide (by other means) – a much more subtle and lethal version than ever before perpetrated by the scoundrels of our history texts.”

It’s a government-business cabal for enormous profits through “legislation, contracts, regulation (or lack of it), financing, subsidies,” and massive handouts to Wall Street favorites. Carefully rigged for powerful elitists, the public is so cleverly harmed that few understand what’s happening – literally that their livelihoods, welfare and lives are being destroyed in real time. The America older generations knew no longer exists, the dream of millions wiped out, and it’s also happening throughout Europe.

In his September 30 article titled, “The Neoliberal Experiment and Europe’s anti-Austerity Strikes,” Michael Hudson explained sinister plans “to drastically change the laws and structure of how European society will function for the next generation. If (successful, they’ll) break up Europe, destroy the internal market, and render that continent a backwater. This is how serious the financial coup d’etat has become. And it is going to get much worse – quickly….The bankers are demanding that (governments) rebuild their loan reserves at labor’s expense.” It’s also Obama’s scheme, shifting greater wealth to the rich, impoverishing the rest.

Throughout the West, neoliberals are in control. “From Brussels to Latvia, (they) aim to shrink their economies to roll back wage levels by 30 percent or more – depression-style levels – (for) ‘more surplus’….to pay in debt service,” tribute to global bankers, turning Europe “into a banana republic.” It’s also planned for America.

“This requires dictatorship.” Labor is targeted for destruction. “Europe (like America) is entering an era of totalitarian neoliberal rule.” So-called “free markets” aren’t possible without it. But wait – “This is economic suicide, taxing labor, not the rich, and at the same time “slash(ing) wages and pensions, cut(ting) back public spending and employment, and shrink(ing) the economy,” turning Western societies into dystopian backwaters, a dark future unfolding in real time.

In his October 2 International Forecaster report, former insider and long-time financial expert Bob Chapman adds more about America, saying:

“There is no question that those who control our government from behind the scenes are bound and determined to take over the $6 trillion in private pension plans. Whether they’ll be successful remains to be seen. The Department of Labor wants to force all IRAs and 401ks into the arms of a corporate fascist government, that knows (best what’s) good for you.” They want public investments exchanged for “a guaranteed, government annuity that is not worth the paper it is written on.”

“Small amounts would go into” government retirement R-bonds, the larger portion earmarked for Wall Street – the usual suspects profiting, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and other giants for even greater market control than already, and far more capital to manipulate for profit. Chapman calls it “monopoly control and subjugation of worldwide investments, a total hold on the control of all investments” to scam the public more than ever and head them deeper into poverty, exactly what Washington and Western governments propose.

On the pretext of reform, destroying Medicare and Social Security are also planned by privatizing them, earmarking them for Wall Street, the same way 401ks killed corporate pensions.

The House Republicans’ “Pledge to America” aims to wreck them by promising to save them, including by “reviewing Social Security and other entitlement programs” – meaning, let Wall Street bandits, not Washington run them.

A longtime GOP priority, congressional Republicans, Reps. Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and Eric Cantor explained it in their book, titled “Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders,” proposing privatizing Social Security and replacing Medicare with a voucher system that amounts to the same thing. If enacted, of course, it will leave workers and seniors high and dry by providing Wall Street racketeers with a new opportunity for pillage.

Democrats have the same plan, to be unveiled in the lame duck session on the pretext of deficit reduction and fiscal austerity, ideas Obama endorses. On February 18, he signed an Executive Order, establishing a “bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” (a deficit reduction commission) to slash social spending, focusing heavily on Medicare and Social Security. (I might add, have you noticed that Social Security recipients didn’t get a COLA raise last year and it has just been announced that next year 2011 they will not get a raise either. With prices going up on everything, people on fixed incomes aren’t getting a raise? I guess that’s one of the few cuts in spending from the Obama administration……Senior Citizens.)

America’s Economic Landscape

On September 19, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), “determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the US economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007.”

Stacked with corporate economists (practicing what Michael Hudson calls “junk economics”), the types featured on business channels and in mainstream publications, the NBER is a Wall Street tool.

Non-member David Rosenberg has another view, saying “it is very difficult (getting) excited about (today’s) economic landscape.”

Unemployment is dangerously high. It’ll worsen, not improve, and there’s “absolutely no recovery in bank lending – especially to households.” In fact, consumer loans and real estate credit keep dropping, hardly a sign of recovery, besides disturbing consumer sentiment levels, a deep housing depression, and any number of other indicators showing a hugely troubled economy. It’s why independent observers like Hudson and Chapman expect worse to come, a tsunami of economic pain, hitting ordinary people hardest.

A Final Comment

On September 28, the US Census Bureau provided more evidence of economic trouble, reporting America’s highest ever income gap. In 2009, median household income fell nearly 3% from $51,726 to $50,221, the second consecutive annual drop.

Moreover, among all developed nations, America has the highest income disparity, and it’s showing up in record numbers needing Medicaid, food stamps, and emergency food help. In addition, higher levels of poverty, homelessness and other worrying signs show economic weakness, not strength.

Yet, with growing human depravation, bipartisan indifference cares only about serving wealth and privilege. Expect that attitude to harden post-election, leaving growing millions on their own, out of luck, and if new legislation passes as expected, eventually without Social Security and Medicare, once Wall Street bandits gets their hands on them.

On September 18, Obama explained it when he told the Congressional Black Caucus, “You didn’t elect me to do what was popular. You elected me to do what was right,” his hidden message meaning populism will be sacrificed for privilege. As a result, expect lots tougher times ahead because political leaders plan it – wrecking the American dream for business at the public’s expense unless enough outrage erupts to stop it. (I’m going to add…..that is what is being generated among the Tea Partiers……outrage!)

Baltimore Chronicle

What Was That Promise Obama Made About No New Taxes?

Rep. Ryan Calls Obama Administration A “Regime”

What are the People of a State to do if the authorities in their State refuse to resist encroachments & usurpations by the federal government?

Here’s a great article on what we the people  can do about federal usurpation of the Constitution and what James Madison the Father of the Constitution said about it in the Federalist papers. This was written by a friend of mine Publius Huldah a retired Tennessee Constitutional lawyer and a good one I might add.

States’ Remedies

1. In Federalist No. 46 (1st para), James Madison says the ultimate authority over both the State and federal governments resides in the People.  What, then, are the People of a State to do if the authorities in their State refuse to resist encroachments & usurpations by the federal government?

2. Democrats, including Democrat State officials, seem to place party loyalty over the Constitution and their own State. TPN is non-partisan. But it is the Democrats who are destroying our country. What do we do? (1) Learn how to talk to Democrats. (2) Defeat them at all levels in the upcoming elections. (3) Continually petition State officials of both parties to resist unconstitutional federal encroachments. As other States organize to resist such federal encroachments, keep urging your State officials to join in.

3. Federalist No. 46 (7th para) discusses how individual States or several States carry out resistance to the federal government’s unconstitutional encroachments. If a particular State takes an action which the federal government doesn’t like, but which has the support of the People of that State, the federal government can’t do anything about it unless it is willing to apply some type of pressure.

When several States oppose an unconstitutional encroachment by the federal government, Madison says they have powerful means of opposition:  the disquietude of the people, their repugnance (e.g., baby-killing enshrined into public policy), the Peoples’ refusal to co-operate with the officers of the federal government; the opposition of the State officials; and all those legislative devices State Legislatures can invent to thwart & impede the federal government in its unconstitutional schemes.

So, in para 7, Madison contemplates that not all States will oppose unconstitutional encroachments by the federal government. But he shows that this need not impede the States who do. Such States need not implement in their States the federal government’s lawless usurpations.  Have we forgotten how to just say, “NO! You have no authority under the Constitution to do this, and the Sovereign State of X and the Sovereign People of the State of X won’t permit this.”  If we have taken the Oath to support the Constitution (Art. VI, clause 3), then we are bound by Honor to support it!

4.  Note that Madison doesn’t say the States should file lawsuits in federal court. And WHY would Sovereign States, which formed a federation for the limited purposes enumerated in Art. I, Sec. 8, U.S. Constitution; ask one branch of the federal government (judiciary) to opine on whether a “law” approved by the two other branches (legislative & executive) exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress or encroaches on the reserved powers of the States and the People (10th Amendment)? All three branches of the federal government have been unified against The Constitution, the States, and the People for a very long time. Why do States put themselves in the position of supplicants to a Court which has already shown itself to be contemptuous of the Constitution, and of the States’ and The Peoples’ reserved powers?

Furthermore, the Supreme Court is not even the ultimate authority on the meaning of the Constitution!  Alexander Hamilton said federal judges may be impeached & removed for usurpations (Federalist No. 81, 9th para); the People are “the natural guardians of the Constitution” as against federal judges “embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature”; and the People are to become “enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority.”(Federalist No.16, 10th para). Madison (or Hamilton) said that breaches of our Constitution can be corrected by “…the people themselves, who, as the grantors of the commission [The Constitution], can alone declare its true meaning, and enforce its observance” (Federalist No. 49, 3^rd Para).

Finally, we already know that obamacare is unconstitutional as outside the scope of the legislative powers granted to Congress in the Constitution!

5.  In para 8, Madison discusses a “general alarm” among the States as to encroachments by the federal government. Here, Madison contemplates concerted “plans of resistance” among the States; and Madison says it may come to a “trial of force” if a crazed federal government doesn’t back down. In para 10, Madison says that the federal government’s “schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people”.

6.  In para 9, Madison discusses the federal government’s initiation of a “trial of force”.         But who would fight for the federal government?  Madison spoke of the regular Army as the force used by the federal government.  But that is the Army of our children and neighbors’ children!  Surely we need not fear them. The federal government does have, here & there, those heroic, noble, and brave men who shoot nursing mothers in the forehead, young boys in the back, and gas & apparently incinerate men, women & children. How many are they?  Then there is Obama’s personal “civilian national security force”?  Has it been established?  Even so, would they be honorable men, or a collection of thugs?  In any event, Madison said, “…it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger.”

7. When we quote James Madison on what States may do when the federal government has encroached upon the powers reserved by the States and the People; we quote a high Authority on The Constitution. James Madison is the Father of the Constitution, the author of many of the Federalist Papers, and 4th President of the United States.  States act lawfully when they follow the guidance of James Madison. When the federal government descends into lawlessness & tyranny, The States and The People may protect and preserve their Constitution – as they are already sworn to do.

8. Yes, the ultimate authority resides in The People.  But this does not mean that The People should – or need to – initiate a show of force.  Remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King!  He put on his clerical collar and went out into the streets with others to protest the LAWS which enforced segregation.  They used non-violent civil disobedience:  Black people sat down at “white’s only” lunch counters!  Black people sat in the front of the busses.  They did not initiate force.  The moral superiority of their position could not be denied, and they won.

9.  We have Our sacred Constitution.  The most important concepts for you to learn are these:  (1) Enumerated Powers (2) Why neither the “general welfare”, the “interstate commerce”, nor the “necessary & proper” clauses authorize Congress (or the President or the federal courts) to exceed their enumerated powers (3) The true meaning of the “Rule of Law” and how that differs from the “Rule of Men”; (4) What is “federalism”, and (5) The origin of our Rights and why you must NEVER speak of  “constitutional” rights. My paper on Rights explains the moral superiority of our position. You must learn why our position is morally superior to that of the statists. And you must be prepared to explain it at all times.

May God be merciful and grant us national repentance and a peaceful political resolution.

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