Happy Constitution Day!
Sept. 17 marks the day the U.S. Constitutional Congress signed the Constitution in 1787.
Constitution Day became a holiday in 2004. Prior to that year, the day was known as Citizenship Day.
Along with the name change, it is now law that public schools must provide students with educational programming about the history of the Constitution
http://freebeacon.com/happy-constitution-day/
The Constitution: Often ignored; never irrelevant
Today marks the 226th anniversary of the Constitution of the United
States, and with each passing year, we seem to become more ignorant of
its contents and intent. The fact that the subject of Civics has given
way to more “politically correct” subjects in our public school
curricula may be one of the root causes of the problem, but there is no
excuse for our 537 federally-elected officials to be unfamiliar with its
substance. Perhaps it’s time to provide a refresher course for those who need it.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s concentrate on the Preamble:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Notice that it begins with the words “We the People” … not “We the Democrats” or “We the Republicans;” not “We the Men” or “We the Women” or “We the Gays” or “We the Straights” or We the Blacks, the Whites, the Hispanics, the Asians, the Native Americans” or any other category used to separate individuals for political purposes on a basis of otherwise irrelevant characteristics.
It begins with the words “We the People” because it is meant to represent all citizens “of the United States;” not just those who donate to a political campaign or represent a special interest group that can deliver votes to a particular Party.
The Preamble also clarifies that the “People” are “of the United States” to distinguish its formal citizens from those whose allegiance may be affiliated with other countries.
Now, let’s examine the purpose of the Constitution as it is defined by the Preamble.
The Constitution was ordained and established “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
The first purpose suggests a comparative responsibility. Specifically, “to form a more perfect Union” than the one that existed at the time. Imagine what could be achieved if we were to assume this as the ongoing responsibility of every citizen and, in particular, the responsibility of our elected officials.
What could we achieve if our focus was on the constant improvement of the Union rather than trying to realize increasingly divisive political victories for one Party or another? What if we applied all the time, money and resources that are squandered on maintaining and expanding political power and, instead, redirected them at preserving individual liberties, expanding opportunities, and constructing a society that would serve as a role model for the rest of the world in efficient, effective and representative government?
The Preamble also calls upon us to “establish Justice.” How well are we doing in that regard?
We seem to struggle with the concept of justice particularly since the notion of political correctness entered into the equation. There was a point in our Nation’s history during which the Judicial Branch meted out “tough love” with respect to preserving fundamental rights even when the application was manifestly unpopular. Now, judicial temperament has seemingly given way to what’s “trending.”
A more linear interpretation of the Bill of Rights would help to once again “establish Justice.”
For example: The First Amendment would have more meaning if it weren’t as politically flaccid. The major Parties often argue in favor of one element within the First Amendment while ignoring another.
Case in point: When there was a discussion about the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero, many Conservatives, who normally cite the importance of freedom of religion, temporarily abandoned that position to condemn the mosque. Meanwhile, Progressives, who typically are the champions of free speech, attacked the right of Conservatives to express their point of view.
Just to emphasize the problem, here are a few additional examples.
Consider how your privacy under the Fourth Amendment is permitted to be breached today in the name of protecting the country or enforcing its laws. Your personal correspondence is now subject to governmental examination though little evidence exists to suggest that the magnitude of the exception is necessary to support the associated objective.
Then, somewhat ironically, there’s the fact that the IRS may provide special scrutiny of your tax status if you dare to use the word “Constitution” in your organization’s title or bylaws.
The right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment is almost a thing of the past. Perhaps it’s because we rank as the number one country in the world with respect to per capita prison population, or maybe it’s because our laws have become so complex that almost everyone is technically in violation of some element of the criminal code.
Correspondingly, don’t even bother to read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. It seems that nearly anything can be justified as being delegated to our federal government at this point.
Now, let’s move on to our responsibility to “insure domestic tranquility.”
Rather than to ““insure domestic tranquility”, we seem more destine to disrupt it. With increasing regularity, our Nation has promoted an emotional environment that can best be described as an attempt to create The Divided States of America. The major Parties use stereotypes to foster a sense of oppression and a “We versus They” mentality for the singular purpose of gaining political advantage.
As an example: Our justice system imposes a higher level of punishment for violent assaults against members of specific categories of our society by identifying those acts as “hate crimes.” Yet, that same justice system often argues that punishment has limited value as a deterrent. Trying to rationalize a legal distinction predicated upon victim characteristics rather than the nature of the crime seems specious at best.
To paraphrase former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (testifying about the murders in Benghazi): Does it really matter? Isn’t the consequence of the assault the same to the victim, or is it somehow less relevant if it’s perpetrated upon an 87-year old man who had served his country in WWII and earned a Purple Heart as opposed to a person of color or a person with a non-traditional sexual orientation?
Correspondingly, who can forget how well the first post-racial Presidency has been going. While the rhetoric to maintain the politically-advantageous racial divide remains in place, (e.g., the Henry Gates incident, the Trayvon Martin incident, etc.), the education, safety, and economic disparities for minorities have actually gotten significantly worse during the President’s time in office.
Domestic tranquility has not only been overlooked in recent years, it’s been negatively impacted.
Next, let’s consider our obligation to “provide for the common defence.”
While the spelling of “defense” has changed over the years, the core concept hasn’t. Our federal government has a clear responsibility to protect the Union (i.e., the United States). In that regard, it has done an exceptional job.
However, with increasing regularity, our elected officials have broadened that obligation to one that more correctly might be described as providing for the common defense of the world; a position for which the Constitution provides little to no reinforcement.
Most recently, the Executive Branch of our government spent nearly a month campaigning for a “limited military action” that would “send a strong signal” to Syria, which hasn’t directly or indirectly threatened the United States (raising a Constitutional issue itself). Millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours were invested in repositioning our naval resources, petitioning Congress, and appealing to the general public to support the President’s edict in response to a “red line” he had drawn in an impromptu comment over a year before.
Since then, we’ve been informed that the lobbying was part of an elaborate charade to force a diplomatic resolution. In essence, we have been asked to believe that our Secretary of State’s sarcastic answer to a hypothetical question at a press conference was intentionally delivered to outwit our adversaries. Of course, one would have to believe that our Secretary of State knew in advance that the question would be asked. Barring any evidence of that, we are expected to accept the Administration’s word that this was simply the execution of a brilliantly subtle strategy rather than blind luck.
As a result, while our defense capabilities remain strong, the depth of the strategic leadership directing them is somewhat debatable.
On the fiscal side of the issue, Conservatives are aghast that sequestration is forcing cuts in military spending. However, given that the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, it is difficult to argue that our nearly-$1 trillion defense budget could not sustain rational cuts; that is, unless we intend to continue occupying other sovereign nations in an attempt to spread “democracy” through the modern, political version of the Crusades known as “nation building.”
Next, the Preamble calls upon us to “promote the general Welfare.”
Of course, “Welfare” doesn’t mean “welfare” in the sense of giveaway programs designed to maintain economic dependence or special favors contrived to placate a political constituency in return for its unwitting support. As is emphasized in Article I, Section 8, the federal government’s responsibility is to provide for the “general Welfare of the United States;” in effect, to address those issue that pertain to the well-being of all citizens.
The right to provide for the welfare of citizens on a non-equal basis is reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment and to individuals (in the form of charity, etc.) under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (assuming anyone still pays attention to those provisions). It does not reside within the federal government.
The Preamble then states one final purpose behind the Constitution: to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
This suggests that the Constitution and its Amendments were perceived to be necessary to protect and preserve Liberty. It also reminds us that we have an obligation to not only to focus on the present but on the future as well. We have a fiduciary responsibility to consider the impact of our decisions on generations to come.
This applies to fiscal decisions we make, the political system we nurture, the educational and work opportunities we provide, and the natural environment we leave behind. The Founders did not intend for us to selfishly consume the resources we have been afforded. They did not intend for us to escape a monarchy only to yield our sovereign rights as individuals to a new iteration of a ruling elite; one that not only has created the concept of “Too Big to Fail” but also the apparent corollary of “Too Big to Jail.”
The Founders also recognized that the Constitution would be an imperfect charter for the future. That is why they incorporated Article V to allow the core principles to be amended as needed.
Our elected officials complain that the standard for amendment is too high (even though it’s been successfully invoked 27 times). So they circumvent it altogether by usurping rights from the citizens and the States by egotistically broadening federal power, signing Executive Orders, and bypassing the representatives of the People by permitting agencies to regulate change without legislative authority. Welcome to the new version of an oligarchy in which the bloodlines are defined by Party affiliation.
While it is hoped that this Preamble-based primer will remind us of the grand experiment our Republic represents on this special day, our federally-elected officials should not need it. They share a common thread otherwise known as their Oaths of Office.
The President has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Every Senator and Member of the House of Representatives has sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Here’s a simple request on this 226th anniversary of that esteemed document: “We the People” would like you to honor your Oaths.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s concentrate on the Preamble:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Notice that it begins with the words “We the People” … not “We the Democrats” or “We the Republicans;” not “We the Men” or “We the Women” or “We the Gays” or “We the Straights” or We the Blacks, the Whites, the Hispanics, the Asians, the Native Americans” or any other category used to separate individuals for political purposes on a basis of otherwise irrelevant characteristics.
It begins with the words “We the People” because it is meant to represent all citizens “of the United States;” not just those who donate to a political campaign or represent a special interest group that can deliver votes to a particular Party.
The Preamble also clarifies that the “People” are “of the United States” to distinguish its formal citizens from those whose allegiance may be affiliated with other countries.
Now, let’s examine the purpose of the Constitution as it is defined by the Preamble.
The Constitution was ordained and established “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
The first purpose suggests a comparative responsibility. Specifically, “to form a more perfect Union” than the one that existed at the time. Imagine what could be achieved if we were to assume this as the ongoing responsibility of every citizen and, in particular, the responsibility of our elected officials.
What could we achieve if our focus was on the constant improvement of the Union rather than trying to realize increasingly divisive political victories for one Party or another? What if we applied all the time, money and resources that are squandered on maintaining and expanding political power and, instead, redirected them at preserving individual liberties, expanding opportunities, and constructing a society that would serve as a role model for the rest of the world in efficient, effective and representative government?
The Preamble also calls upon us to “establish Justice.” How well are we doing in that regard?
We seem to struggle with the concept of justice particularly since the notion of political correctness entered into the equation. There was a point in our Nation’s history during which the Judicial Branch meted out “tough love” with respect to preserving fundamental rights even when the application was manifestly unpopular. Now, judicial temperament has seemingly given way to what’s “trending.”
A more linear interpretation of the Bill of Rights would help to once again “establish Justice.”
For example: The First Amendment would have more meaning if it weren’t as politically flaccid. The major Parties often argue in favor of one element within the First Amendment while ignoring another.
Case in point: When there was a discussion about the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero, many Conservatives, who normally cite the importance of freedom of religion, temporarily abandoned that position to condemn the mosque. Meanwhile, Progressives, who typically are the champions of free speech, attacked the right of Conservatives to express their point of view.
Just to emphasize the problem, here are a few additional examples.
Consider how your privacy under the Fourth Amendment is permitted to be breached today in the name of protecting the country or enforcing its laws. Your personal correspondence is now subject to governmental examination though little evidence exists to suggest that the magnitude of the exception is necessary to support the associated objective.
Then, somewhat ironically, there’s the fact that the IRS may provide special scrutiny of your tax status if you dare to use the word “Constitution” in your organization’s title or bylaws.
The right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment is almost a thing of the past. Perhaps it’s because we rank as the number one country in the world with respect to per capita prison population, or maybe it’s because our laws have become so complex that almost everyone is technically in violation of some element of the criminal code.
Correspondingly, don’t even bother to read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. It seems that nearly anything can be justified as being delegated to our federal government at this point.
Now, let’s move on to our responsibility to “insure domestic tranquility.”
Rather than to ““insure domestic tranquility”, we seem more destine to disrupt it. With increasing regularity, our Nation has promoted an emotional environment that can best be described as an attempt to create The Divided States of America. The major Parties use stereotypes to foster a sense of oppression and a “We versus They” mentality for the singular purpose of gaining political advantage.
As an example: Our justice system imposes a higher level of punishment for violent assaults against members of specific categories of our society by identifying those acts as “hate crimes.” Yet, that same justice system often argues that punishment has limited value as a deterrent. Trying to rationalize a legal distinction predicated upon victim characteristics rather than the nature of the crime seems specious at best.
To paraphrase former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (testifying about the murders in Benghazi): Does it really matter? Isn’t the consequence of the assault the same to the victim, or is it somehow less relevant if it’s perpetrated upon an 87-year old man who had served his country in WWII and earned a Purple Heart as opposed to a person of color or a person with a non-traditional sexual orientation?
Correspondingly, who can forget how well the first post-racial Presidency has been going. While the rhetoric to maintain the politically-advantageous racial divide remains in place, (e.g., the Henry Gates incident, the Trayvon Martin incident, etc.), the education, safety, and economic disparities for minorities have actually gotten significantly worse during the President’s time in office.
Domestic tranquility has not only been overlooked in recent years, it’s been negatively impacted.
Next, let’s consider our obligation to “provide for the common defence.”
While the spelling of “defense” has changed over the years, the core concept hasn’t. Our federal government has a clear responsibility to protect the Union (i.e., the United States). In that regard, it has done an exceptional job.
However, with increasing regularity, our elected officials have broadened that obligation to one that more correctly might be described as providing for the common defense of the world; a position for which the Constitution provides little to no reinforcement.
Most recently, the Executive Branch of our government spent nearly a month campaigning for a “limited military action” that would “send a strong signal” to Syria, which hasn’t directly or indirectly threatened the United States (raising a Constitutional issue itself). Millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours were invested in repositioning our naval resources, petitioning Congress, and appealing to the general public to support the President’s edict in response to a “red line” he had drawn in an impromptu comment over a year before.
Since then, we’ve been informed that the lobbying was part of an elaborate charade to force a diplomatic resolution. In essence, we have been asked to believe that our Secretary of State’s sarcastic answer to a hypothetical question at a press conference was intentionally delivered to outwit our adversaries. Of course, one would have to believe that our Secretary of State knew in advance that the question would be asked. Barring any evidence of that, we are expected to accept the Administration’s word that this was simply the execution of a brilliantly subtle strategy rather than blind luck.
As a result, while our defense capabilities remain strong, the depth of the strategic leadership directing them is somewhat debatable.
On the fiscal side of the issue, Conservatives are aghast that sequestration is forcing cuts in military spending. However, given that the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, it is difficult to argue that our nearly-$1 trillion defense budget could not sustain rational cuts; that is, unless we intend to continue occupying other sovereign nations in an attempt to spread “democracy” through the modern, political version of the Crusades known as “nation building.”
Next, the Preamble calls upon us to “promote the general Welfare.”
Of course, “Welfare” doesn’t mean “welfare” in the sense of giveaway programs designed to maintain economic dependence or special favors contrived to placate a political constituency in return for its unwitting support. As is emphasized in Article I, Section 8, the federal government’s responsibility is to provide for the “general Welfare of the United States;” in effect, to address those issue that pertain to the well-being of all citizens.
The right to provide for the welfare of citizens on a non-equal basis is reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment and to individuals (in the form of charity, etc.) under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (assuming anyone still pays attention to those provisions). It does not reside within the federal government.
The Preamble then states one final purpose behind the Constitution: to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
This suggests that the Constitution and its Amendments were perceived to be necessary to protect and preserve Liberty. It also reminds us that we have an obligation to not only to focus on the present but on the future as well. We have a fiduciary responsibility to consider the impact of our decisions on generations to come.
This applies to fiscal decisions we make, the political system we nurture, the educational and work opportunities we provide, and the natural environment we leave behind. The Founders did not intend for us to selfishly consume the resources we have been afforded. They did not intend for us to escape a monarchy only to yield our sovereign rights as individuals to a new iteration of a ruling elite; one that not only has created the concept of “Too Big to Fail” but also the apparent corollary of “Too Big to Jail.”
The Founders also recognized that the Constitution would be an imperfect charter for the future. That is why they incorporated Article V to allow the core principles to be amended as needed.
Our elected officials complain that the standard for amendment is too high (even though it’s been successfully invoked 27 times). So they circumvent it altogether by usurping rights from the citizens and the States by egotistically broadening federal power, signing Executive Orders, and bypassing the representatives of the People by permitting agencies to regulate change without legislative authority. Welcome to the new version of an oligarchy in which the bloodlines are defined by Party affiliation.
While it is hoped that this Preamble-based primer will remind us of the grand experiment our Republic represents on this special day, our federally-elected officials should not need it. They share a common thread otherwise known as their Oaths of Office.
The President has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Every Senator and Member of the House of Representatives has sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Here’s a simple request on this 226th anniversary of that esteemed document: “We the People” would like you to honor your Oaths.
Naval Yard shooting aftermath went according to script
Yesterday saw the nation's news dominated by continuous coverage of the shooting at the Washington Naval Yard. Twelve innocents were slaughtered, leaving behind grieving family and friends as well as a nation horrified at the carnage. They deserve, and have, our sympathy and compassion, as do the thousands of people at the Naval Yard and elsewhere nearby who were terrorized.But for the major political and media actors on the nation's stage, it was a day of following familiar scripts.
Cable news outlets went directly into continuous live coverage, endlessly repeating the few facts that became available, and adding quite a number of non-facts based on police scanners and law enforcement sources passing along raw data that had not been vetted. The old adage from TV news, "If it bleeds, it leads," was the rule of the day, all day.
The alleged killer, Aaron Alexis, shot dead at the Naval Yard, instantly became famous, following in the steps of other villains who perpetrated mass murder. In an era when many hunger for fame, one of the surest tickets to media coverage is the commission of mass murder. Sadly, this allure continues to be offered by media. The names of victims go largely unremarked, but the name and image of the perp achieve lasting visibility.
President Obama also followed a script, delivering his planned speech on the economy shortly after news broke of the shooting. Exhibiting the tone deafness that characterizes his second term so far, he launched a vicious attack on the GOP and offered class warfare rhetoric. The president did concede, however, that some Republicans are "decent folks." The others (the majority, not just "some") obviously are not decent.
As far as the budget goes, it's time for responsible Republicans who share these goals -- and there are a number of folks out there who I think are decent folks -- I've got some disagreements with them on some issues -- but I think genuinely want to see the economy grow and want what's best for the American people.
Does anyone else out there find it shocking that by implication the President of the United States characterizes his opposition party as indecent, with only "a number of folks" in the decent category? And that he would do this in the wake of news of a mass slaughter?
Also behaving according to script are the gun grabbers, with Senator Dianne Feinstein in the lead, demanding regulations to deprive law abiding citizens of the means of defending themselves. The Colorado recall votes last week delivered a heavy blow to the gun grabbers. For them, the slaughter at the Naval Yard was an opportunity, and they are not letting it pass by.
AR-15: Anti-Gun Narrative Blows Up In Face of CNN, Daily News
Tuesday's New York Daily News cover story is nothing more than a long-form editorial that attempts to make the AR-15 (a semiautomatic sport rifle) the bad guy in Monday's horrific Navy Yard shooting. Last night, CNN attempted to do the same through blowhard Piers Morgan. But there is just one problem: CNN and The Daily News are 100% wrong. The FBI has just confirmed that a shotgun and two pistols were recovered, and that the "gunman was NOT armed with [an] AR-15."Tuesday morning's Daily News cover hysterically blared, "Same Gun Different Slay."
Inside, Mike Lupica continued the blare:
This time the shooter is reported to be a
Navy reservist named Aaron Alexis and when he is shot dead by law
enforcement, taken out before he can put a gun to his own head the way
Lanza did, he has his light, handy assault weapon with him, and a
semiautomatic pistol, and a shotgun.
Meanwhile, over at CNN, within hours of the shooting, the network allowed Piers Morgan to launch his own sanctimonious attack against the AR-15:
But just a few hours later, CNN had to walk it back. Buried in an article singling out the AR-15, CNN reported that an AR-15 was not found on the scene.
Apparently, sometime yesterday, the talking point went out that said that the anti-gun narrative coming out of the Navy Yard shootings would be to turn the AR-15 into this massacre's convenient left-wing bogeyman -- all in an effort to get it banned.
The left-wing, anti-science media blows it again by caring more about the agenda than the facts.
This is especially devastating for CNN, a cable network desperate to get off the floor after non-stop debacles involving the Boston Marathon bombing, being caught openly pushing for gun control, and all things George Zimmerman. Eventually, CNN has to see Piers Morgan as the low-rated liability he really is. Straight out of the gate, within hours of this massacre, CNN already is a punchline ... again.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/17/Ar-15-daily-news-cnn-already-blow-anti-gun-narrative
More people were wounded and died at Fort Hood because of this rule. That is the simple, sad fact.
We have yet to learn all the facts of the Navy Yard case yet. But it is clear that for many minutes after the shooter started, he was still free to shoot.
How logical is it, in these days of increasing al Qaeda threat, to leave our military unarmed and unable to respond?
Via PJ Media:
After Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded more than 30 in November 2009, John R. Lott wrote about one of the craziest policies to come out of the Clinton era: making military bases “gun free zones.”
Yes, that’s correct. In 1993, President Bill Clinton decreed that US military personnel were to surrender the Second Amendment rights that they swear an oath to support and defend. Lott, writing in 2009, called for that policy to be ended.
Shouldn’t an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that “a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region” before military personnel “may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection.” Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/17/military-bases-gun-free-zones-due-to-bill-clinton/
Benghazi Oversight Report Asks Why Patrick Kennedy Was Not Held Accountable
A staff report prepared for Rep. Darrell Issa and released today finds numerous failings in the ARB report on Benghazi released last year. The new report overturns some of the conclusions of the official ARB report. It finds that Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who was not criticized in the ARB report, should have been held accountable.The new report is based on public statements but also on transcripts of numerous interviews undertaken since the release of the ARB report. It concurs with some portions of the earlier ARB report and disputes others. For instance, the new report finds that Charlene Lamb was at fault for decisions she made with regard to security in Libya. However the new report also provides a partial basis for exonerating Lamb since evidence suggests that every personnel decisions related to Libya was directly approved (or disapproved) by Under Secretary Kennedy.
A key exchange appears on page 63 of the report when Committee staff interview Deputy Assistant Secretary for Maghreb Affairs Maxwell about the involvement of Under Secretary Kennedy in events taking place in Libya prior to the 9/11 attack [Emphasis in original]:
Q.The DCM, Mr. Hicks, testified that Ambassador Kennedy was very engaged on a minute level about the incidents that were occurring in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attacks.Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell, one of the four individuals named in the ARB report, also told Oversight staff that Kennedy was the "ultimate decisionmaker" when it came to the removal of the SST team from Libya. This was the team of soldiers which Ambassador Stevens and others hoped to keep in Libya but which was removed weeks before the attack. Boswell also told Oversight staffers that "any decision about travel in and out, staffing levels was made by" Kennedy. This included both the assignment of diplomatic staff and security personnel.
A.Yep.
Q. Does that surprise you?
A. It does not. We--one of the things that I found interesting was that the Under Secretary approved every person that went in or came out of Tripoli...
* * *
A. The DAS Assistant Secretary reports to the Under Secretary for Management. The way the Under Secretary for Management runs things, there is no decision that DS makes that doesn't have his input and his imprimatur, his approval. There is no decision that DS doesn't make that doesn't have his disapproval. DS--the Under Secretary for Management speaks for DS for all practical purposes, and there is no decision that DS makes that the Under Secretary for Management is not involved in.
Q.So, the important decisions about the security posture in Libya leading up to the attacks, if Mr. Boswell was held accountable for those decisions, is it fair to say that the Under Secretary for Management would have had a role in those decisions?
A. Absolutely.
Executive Director of the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau Lee Lohman told Oversight that he attended a meeting at which Kennedy personally examined schematics for the villa in Benghazi. Lohman said Kennedy was "heavily" involved in choosing the facility.
The report also points out that Kennedy was the single individual who, based on a staff recommendation, approved keeping the Benghazi post open as a temporary facility for an additional year. It was because the compound was temporary and not a permanent site that its security was staffed on a temporary basis by DS agents on leave from other positions. The temporary staffing system was intended to fill single openings or gaps in staffing on a short term basis, not provide and entire staff indefinitely. As a result, DS never had a full security compliment in place in Benghazi.
The new report also criticizes Kennedy's role in presenting a false image of accountability to the public. Under Secretary Kennedy informed Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell that he had been singled out in the ARB report. Boswell offered his resignation and Kennedy accepted it. However Kennedy simultaneously encouraged Boswell to hang on to another position he held. A few days later, Kennedy told Boswell he was being placed on administrative leave. However, quoting Boswell from the Oversight interview, Kennedy told Boswell "he didn't think it would last long."
The Oversight report strongly suggests that the ARB report should have assigned blame to Under Secretary Kennedy for his involvement in numerous decisions which created the lax security situation in Benghazi.
Under Secretary Kennedy is scheduled to testify at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Rep. Issa has scheduled a separate hearing with Adm. Mike Mullen and Amb. Thomas Pickering, the authors of the contested ARB report, for Thursday.
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/09/16/Benghazi-Oversight-Report-Asks-Why-Patrick-Kennedy-Was-Not-Held-Accountabl
ECOtality Files for Bankruptcy
ECOtality was awarded $115 million in stimulus funds
The news followed weeks of turmoil in which the company laid off employees and ceased filling orders for its electric vehicle charging stations.
The Energy Department, which awarded the company about $115 million in stimulus funds to produce those chargers, suspended payments last month.
The company announced the bankruptcy in a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It also said that Brandon Hurlbut, the company’s director, resigned on Sunday.
The bankruptcy proceedings will take place in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona, the company said.
“It is likely that the Company’s common stock will have very little or no value given the amount of the Company’s liabilities compared to its assets,” the filing noted.
ECOtality trading was halted on Tuesday morning pending the news. Its stock is currently worth $0.23.
http://freebeacon.com/ecotality-files-for-bankruptcy/
The Power of 218
If House Republicans can't hold together, they have no leverage at all.
Perhaps the only war strategizing more inept than President Obama's on Syria are GOP plans for the budget hostilities this autumn. Republicans are fracturing over tactics, and even over the nature of political reality, which may let Mr. Obama outwit them like a domestic Vladimir Putin.In our view the GOP would be less confused if more House Members appreciated the power of 218. That's the number of votes that makes a majority and it is the only true "leverage" Republicans have while Democrats hold the Senate and a Presidential veto.
The latest GOP internal dispute is over a continuing resolution to fund the government at sequester-spending levels. The current CR runs out at the end of the month, and about 40 to 50 House Republicans (out of 233) want to attach a rider that either delays or defunds the Affordable Care Act for a year and leaves everything else running.
Speaker John Boehner floated a CR with an arcane procedure that would force the Senate to take an up-or-down vote on the anti-ObamaCare component. But pressure groups like Heritage Action and the Club for Growth rebelled and the vote had to be postponed, like so many other unforced retreats this Congress. Here we go again.
These critics portrayed the Boehner plan as a sellout because of a campaign that captured the imagination of some conservatives this summer: Republicans must threaten to crash their Zeros into the aircraft carrier of ObamaCare. Their demand is that the House pair the "must pass" CR or the debt limit with defunding the health-care bill. Kamikaze missions rarely turn out well, least of all for the pilots.
The problem is that Mr. Obama is never, ever going to unwind his signature legacy project of national health care. Ideology aside, it would end his Presidency politically. And if Republicans insist that any spending bill must defund ObamaCare, then a showdown is inevitable that shuts down much of the government.
Republicans will claim that Democrats are the ones shutting it down to preserve ObamaCare. Voters may see it differently given the media's liberal sympathies and because the repeal-or-bust crowd provoked the confrontation.
With his own popularity fading, Mr. Obama may want a shutdown so he can change the subject to his caricature of GOP zealots who want no government. He'll blame any turmoil or economic fallout on House Republicans, figuring that he can split the tea party from the GOP and that this is the one event that could reinstall Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Mr. Obama could spend his final two years going out in a blaze of liberal glory.
The defunders sketch out an alternative scenario in which Mr. Obama is blamed, and they say we can't know unless Republicans try. But even they admit privately that they really won't succeed in defunding ObamaCare. The best case seems to be that if all Republicans show resolve they'll win over the public in a shutdown, and Democrats will eventually surrender, well, something.
If this works it would be the first time. The evidence going back to the Newt Gingrich Congress is that no party can govern from the House, and the Republican Party can't abide the outcry when flights are delayed, national parks close and direct deposits for military spouses stop. Sooner or later the GOP breaks.
This all-or-nothing posture also usually results in worse policy. The most recent example was the failure of Mr. Boehner's fiscal cliff "Plan B" in December 2012, which was the best the GOP could do because Mr. Obama had the whip hand of automatic tax increases. The fallback deal that was sealed in the Senate raised taxes by more and is now complicating the prospects for tax reform.
The backbenchers are heading into another box canyon now. Mr. Boehner is undermined because the other side knows he lacks 218 GOP votes, which empowers House and Senate Democrats. They want to reverse the modest spending discipline of the sequester, and if the House GOP can't hold together on the CR they will succeed. The only chance of any entitlement reform worth the name is if Mr. Boehner can hold his majority and negotiate from strength.
We've often supported backbenchers who want to push GOP leaders in a better policy direction, most recently on the farm bill. But it's something else entirely to sabotage any plan with a chance of succeeding and pretend to have "leverage" that exists only in the world of townhall applause lines and fundraising letters.
The best option now is for the GOP to unite behind a budget strategy that can hold 218 votes, keeping the sequester pressure of discretionary spending cuts on Democrats to come to the table on entitlements. The sequester is a rare policy victory the GOP has extracted from Mr. Obama, and it is squeezing liberal constituencies that depend on federal cash.
The backbenchers might even look at the polls showing that the public is now tilting toward Republicans on issues including the economy, ensuring a strong national defense and even health care. Some Republicans think they are sure to hold the House in 2014 no matter what happens because of gerrymandering, but even those levees won't hold if there's a wave of revulsion against the GOP. Marginal seats still matter for controlling Congress. The kamikazes could end up ensuring the return of all-Democratic rule.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323846504579073083671216784.html
PK'SNOTE: What we need is the Fed eliminated.
Rules Over Politics at the Fed; It’s the Only Way to Get Out of this Mess.
When Montana Democratic senator Jon Tester announced last Friday that he would vote against Larry Summers’s putative candidacy for Fed chairman if it came before the Senate Banking Committee, he put a dagger in Summers’s Fed career before it even started. Tester would have made it four Democratic nay votes in committee, and it is highly unlikely that Republicans would have taken up the slack to push through a Summers nomination.So over the weekend, Summers wisely withdrew from the horserace, telling President Obama that the confirmation process would be too political and acrimonious.
Some Democrats blame Summers for financial deregulation during the Clinton-Rubin 1990s. Other Democrats simply want Janet Yellen to be the first female Fed chair. And Republicans blame Summers for authoring the $1 trillion Obama stimulus-spending plan that piled on new debt without generating a real economic recovery.
But actually, President Obama doomed this candidacy months ago with his repeated rebuttals to attacks on Summers. A buzz then developed that a Chairman Summers would be Obama’s guy, sort of the way Arthur Burns was Dick Nixon’s guy years ago. And that turned out to be a disaster.
Fed chairmen have to be independent, ready to make tough decisions. So what would have Obama said to Summers about higher interest rates and slower money growth in the next couple of years? Would Summers have had the independence to pull it off?
We’ll never know. But we do know that stocks markets rallied big time on the Summers withdrawal. Markets think Janet Yellen will be an easy-money dove and that Summers would have been the tight-money hawk. But stocks have no way of knowing this, because neither Yellen nor Summers have suggested a rules-based monetary policy that will prevent serious financial crises while stabilizing inflation and maximizing growth.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a rules-based monetary strategy worked very well. Economists have called the period the Great Moderation. Yet as bright as they are, Yellen and Summers are Big Government and Big Fed fine-tuners, meddlers, and tinkerers. And that’s exactly what we don’t need from the next Fed chair.
Instead, we need a rules-based approach that will guide the Fed through the difficult period of shrinking a $3.7 trillion balance sheet and a $2.2 trillion volume of excess bank reserves, and raising the zero interest rate.
Can this be done in an orderly manner? Or will financial markets panic over this return to normalcy?
Well, there are a number of monetary rules, all based on market action rather than government action, that can put the Fed back on the right track. For example, if the Fed had used the Taylor rule over the past dozen years, we never would have seen the boom-bust cycle that virtually wrecked the financial system and economy. Stanford economist John Taylor uses a combination of inflation and real growth to target the federal funds rate and the money supply. And his rule warned from 2001 to 2006 that Fed target rates were too low, the dollar was collapsing, and housing and other real assets were ballooning on their way to popping. His rule predicted the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
But other price rules -- driven by forward-looking, inflation-sensitive, market-price signals -- were telling the Fed the same thing. With gold soaring and the dollar plunging, a commodity-price rule -- such as the one Wayne Angell and Manley Johnson instituted while they were Fed governors from roughly 1985 to 1995 -- would have warned Alan Greenspan that he was on the wrong track.
For most of American history, a reliable King Dollar and sensitive commodity prices including gold have been important market-price signals to guide Fed policy. (More often than not, Ben Bernanke ignored these signals.) And we can now add to that the “market monetarists,” a new group that advocates nominal-GDP targeting, which is a combination of inflation and real growth and is somewhat akin to the Taylor rule.
The key point here is that the next Fed chair should employ consistent targets rather than Big Fed tinkering. Ironically, Janet Yellen, the supposed dove, has talked about the usefulness of a modified Taylor rule. And equally ironic, Larry Summers has written that independent central banks have the best low-inflation track records. Yet Summers was clearly too political to get the job, and Yellen’s dovish feathers follow her everywhere.
I doubt if there’s a single Obama advisor telling the president to appoint someone who believes in monetary rules. That’s too bad. A clear price rule is exactly what the Fed needs to get out of this mess.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/2013/09/17/rules-over-politics-at-the-fed-its-the-only-way-to-get-out-of-this-mess-n1701929/page/full
A Very Productive Chemical-Weapons Attack
President Obama has created a U.S. interest in preserving Assad in power to oversee Syria's WMD disarmament.
Bashar Assad may have pulled off the most successful use of chemical weapons in history. For the two years leading up to the Aug. 21 Damascus sarin gas attack, President Obama was saying that the Syrian dictator "must go." No longer. In one month, Assad has risen from outlaw butcher to partner in disarmament.America's Syria policy today focuses not on mass murder, or on the metastasizing humanitarian and refugee crisis, or on combating the interests of Iran and its Hezbollah proxies in keeping Assad in power. Rather, with Russian President Vladimir Putin's help, U.S. policy under President Obama is concentrating on chemical-weapons disarmament.
Secretary of State John Kerry labors to enlist Assad in an arms-control project even while alleging that the dictator has used nerve gas in violation of Syria's obligations under the 1925 Geneva Protocol. U.S. policy is not to oust the Assad regime or even to encourage the Syrian people to do so. President Obama has now created a U.S. interest in preserving Assad in power.
This means Assad must stay, not go, for he is needed to negotiate and implement an arrangement to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. The arrangement, if successfully negotiated, will take years to implement. Arms control evidently means never having to say you're sorry.
Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels are exasperated and mistrustful, having seen Washington dangle the prospect of U.S. military strikes, only to back away. The Iranians are drawing comforting lessons about the lengths that the Obama administration will go to avoid military action in the Middle East. The Russians have been promoted from reprehensible accomplices in Assad's evil to indispensable peace negotiators—while they remain accomplices to that evil.
What lesson will dictators around the world derive from all this? They will see that there is enormous utility in creating a chemical-weapons arsenal, and even in using such weapons. Sarin gas, VX, anthrax and the like can be valuable for intimidating one's enemies, foreign and domestic, and for killing them. They can then be traded away at a very high price under the right circumstances. They can serve as a lifesaver for a dictator on the skids.
Clever dictators will realize that they can barter their chemical-weapons arsenals to buy time to crush an insurrection and then rebuild the arsenal after the population has been pacified.
This is what comes of focusing on what Mr. Obama legalistically calls the "international norms" barring chemical weapons use. By choosing not to tackle the difficult strategic and humanitarian challenges posed by the Syrian civil war, the president is now rewarding the very offenses that he said he wanted to punish. In the name of arms control, he is incentivizing the proliferation of chemical weapons. In the name of international law, he is undermining respect for treaties. In the name of U.S. interests, he is emboldening America's enemies.
Bashar Assad must be blessing the sarin gas that killed all those men, women and children on Aug. 21. If he did order that attack, it was a master stroke. The victims of chemical weapons shake in agony. Assad, Vladimir Putin and Iran's Ali Khamanei shake with laughter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579078940387757478.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Obama’s Box Canyon
Our Hamlet-in-chief wanted simultaneously to act and not act
By Victor Davis Hanson...As for the absurd White House spin that Russia now “owns” Syria, Putin never owns anything, much less owns up to anything. To the degree that we are weakened, Assad strengthened, Iran empowered, and the insurgents discredited, Putin prances about the world stage. But if things get even worse in Syria, and if the U.S. is forced to make a messy intervention to save face, then Putin will be happy to walk away, lament the fate of his barnacle Assad, welcome another American entanglement, congratulate himself on the cost/benefit calculus of making Obama look inconsistent and weak — and strut off in pride, quite willing to restart the melodrama with a post-Assad Syria or a soon-to-be nuclear Iran, and to advise plenty of others how it is all done.
Is there any escape from Obama’s box canyon?
Only in the sense that just as there was once a way not to go in, there is also a way to get out: Keep quiet and our powder dry, vet the Syrian opposition, determine to what degree it includes non-Islamist groups that would be better than Assad, and then quietly support them. Doing no more harm is about all that is left.
In theory (and it is a long shot), the victory of the Syrian Free Army would both end the violence and weaken the Iranians and Hezbollah — while adding anxiety for Putin as comeuppance for his machinations. Yet at this point, I doubt that any of those agendas can be realized, or matter much if they were. More likely, the Syrian finale is going to resemble Somalia or the Sudan, perhaps Libya, or what Afghanistan may become after we leave. We, not Putin, will own the embarrassment as the world’s inept and fossilized superpower.
We hope the Iranians do not wish to enter Putin’s negotiating circus. But they already sense that Obama really does want them to cease enrichment and really does not wish to use force to stop them. Our Hamlet-in-chief could get very old fast.
Even such an embarrassing backout assumes that Assad won’t use WMD again just to embarrass the U.S., that the endless negotiations over WMD will eventually take world attention away from Obama’s empty bluster, that Americans can stomach the endless back and forth between savage insurgents and Assad’s vicious security forces on the premise that the violence is something that we had no part in and cannot fix — even as the dare-not-speak-their-name realists whisper that it might be in our long-term interests to see our pro-Hezbollah enemies duke it out with pro-al-Qaeda insurgents.
To paraphrase Tacitus, when they make a mess, they call it diplomacy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358616/obamas-box-canyon-victor-davis-hanson/page/0/1
Did Obama Just Waive the Ban on Arming Terrorist Groups?
President Barack Obama on Monday
announced he would waive the federal law intended to prevent the supply
of arms to terrorists groups so the U.S. can provide arms and other
military assistance to the Syrian rebels, the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke reports.
As TheBlaze has previously reported, a
number of radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, have
aligned themselves with the Syrian opposition in the quest to topple
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
US
President Barack Obama speaks on economy in the South Court Auditorium
of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, in
Washington on September 16, 2013 to mark the five-year anniversary of
the financial crisis.
The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.”
Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): “The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act.
“For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups or willfully aid or abet an individual or groups in acquiring unsafeguarded special nuclear material,” the law continues.
The president of the United States has
the authority to waive the restrictions if he “determines that the
transaction is essential to the national security interests of the
United States.”
It is unclear how arming the Syrian
rebels could possibly be interpreted as “essential to the national
security interests of the United States.” However, Obama is making the
case that Assad having chemical weapons is a nation security threat to
the U.S.
Last week, the Washington Post reported
on a “major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war” after the
Obama administration went ahead with its promise to provide “lethal
aid” to the rebels.
According to sources, arms shipments
of light weapons and other munitions were delivered to the rebels as
well as nonlethal gear like sophisticated communications equipment,
advanced combat medical kits and vehicles.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/16/did-obama-just-waive-the-ban-on-arming-terrorist-groups/
Obama Flunks Sociology 101
According to the transcript of remarks made by Barack Obama at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia and released by the White House website, Mr. Obama used the word 'norms' or 'international norms,' eighteen times in his speech.Sociology terms like folkways, mores, and norms are taught in freshmen sociology courses throughout academia and are considered fundamental. The idea is that all conventional or traditional beliefs and behaviors are the basis from which all nascent laws or societal changes are viewed from or modified.
Mr. Obama's almost excessive use of the term 'norms' leaves an acrid odor in the air when considering that on at least three fundamental levels the use of this noun, even if it is only used to reflect the informal understanding of what society perceives as normal, is ridiculous and obscene.
1. If the Geneva protocol of 1925 is the norm Obama is citing, it must be noted that the protocol for the prohibition and use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases is an international agreement that clearly signifies that such gases will not be used in 'war.' Domestic struggles, civil war, or oppressive and deadly action against the citizens within a state are neither inferred nor suggested in the law. It is an agreement formed to govern fully existing states at war with each other.
If we must use the norm word, we are forced to ask the question, what is normal about a dictator gassing his own citizens? Mr. Assad is clearly a criminal (with or without gas) and negotiating with him on the basis of the 1925 protocol is blatantly absurd.
2. Since neither the 1925 protocols nor the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention have provided any enforcement mechanism, both agreements are essentially a toothless tiger. Over eighty percent of America's stockpiles of chemical weapons have been destroyed, but other nations have largely failed to produce proof that their stockpiles have been eradicated or reduced. The 1993 terms call for complete destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012 -- a deadline no nation has met as of this day.
The rub is that the lawful means of dealing with violators of the treaty is not bombs; it is prosecution by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Those prosecutions must be passed to the court by the Security Council of the UN.
There is no international or domestic law that calls for bombs to alleviate red tape, and nonexistent enforcement machinery. Enforcement measures is also obviously lacking in Obama's imaginary 'international community.'
3. The use of the word 'norm' seems abusive, contradictory, and hypocritical when considering the source. Mr. Obama has disregarded so many economic, social, and moral norms in his domestic policy that the word 'perverted' no longer seems excessive.
Announcing his 'evolved' thinking on same-sex marriage has been a major frontal assault on every norm used to define marriage since the days of the Declaration.
His support of late-term abortions, active support for Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations has produced the continuation of millions of abortions on a daily basis in the United States.
The barest conscience is compelled to ask the question. If 100,000 deaths by conventional weapons and over 1,000 deaths by nerve gas are not 'norms' for Syria -- what sort of 'norm' is 6,920,000 abortions in the U.S. since Mr. Obama took office?
In summary, after considering the source, the use of the word norm is an egregious misuse of the language, and any inference at all to morality.
This writer would strongly advise our floundering President to consider these words spoken by Jesus Christ:
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Mt 12:37)
House GOP takes step on Internet sales tax legislation
Republicans in the House are taking a step forward on Internet sales tax
legislation despite potential opposition from the GOP base.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) is expected to release his own set of principles on the issue in the next week or two, according to sources who are closely watching the legislation.
The principles are a sign of fresh momentum for online sales tax legislation after Goodlatte and other top Republicans in the House — including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — voiced deep skepticism about the Senate-passed Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA).
Goodlatte could have chosen to bury the bill, but his decision to craft the principles shows he is serious about moving some version of the legislation forward.
The principles are expected to be broad policy statements with positions such as maintaining a simple system and not burdening businesses.
A Judiciary aide would only say that “the House is currently examining all of the issues surrounding the collection of online sales taxes and working on alternatives to the bill passed by the Senate.”
Still, supporters of the online sales tax bill face a heavy lift in gaining traction for their issue, with looming fights over government funding and raising the debt limit expected to suck up the oxygen on Capitol Hill.
Goodlatte’s panel is also in the middle of the fight over immigration reform, which has itself been overshadowed by Syria and fiscal matters in recent weeks.
"Nobody on the Hill has a fuller plate than Chairman Goodlatte," said David French, the top lobbyist for the National Retail Federation and a supporter of online sales tax legislation.
Under current law, states can only collect sales taxes from retailers that have a physical presence in their state. People who order items online from another state are supposed to declare the purchases on their tax forms, but few do.
The bill that the Senate passed in a 69-27 vote in May would give states the power to tax the online sales of out-of-state businesses. The bill exempts businesses with less than $1 million in annual out-of-state sales.
Major retail chains are lobbying heavily for the legislation, arguing that the status quo gives an unfair advantage to Internet-only retailers. Amazon, which is expanding its network of physical distribution centers, also backs the bill.
Republican and Democratic state officials hope the bill will give them a new stream of revenue.
"It's not necessarily a question of if but when," French said. "Eventually the size of online retail is going to demand a congressional solution."
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), the main GOP author of the Marketplace Fairness Act in the House, acknowledged that the online sales tax issue would struggle to find a spot on the congressional calendar.
But, the Arkansas Republican added to reporters on Thursday, “that doesn’t mean that other very meaningful issues facing our country should be set aside and just deferred."
The bill's opponents, led by anti-tax and small-government groups, are ramping up their efforts to kill the legislation.
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and the R Street Institute circulated a survey that found that 57 percent of likely voters oppose an online sales tax bill, with even a plurality of Democrats against the measure.
The two groups argue that those findings show that Republicans who oppose the online sales tax measure could have a powerful tool in general elections against Democrats, or even in primaries against fellow Republicans.
“I think these poll results show that the public has seen the MFA, listened to its best arguments, and aren’t buying any of them,” Pete Sepp of NTU told reporters on Friday. “I think they provide a very powerful indication of where the electorate is.”
Two of the most prominent GOP supporters of the online sales tax bill on Capitol Hill — Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) — already have Republican challengers as they seek reelection in 2014. Liz Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is trying to unseat Enzi.
Andrew Moylan of R Street added that he believed Goodlatte was “appropriately skeptical” of the MFA, and that he didn’t see much chance of the bill surviving in the House in its current form.
“I think they have the basic idea right,” said Moylan, who also said the groups’ new poll “reinforces that this is bad politics.”
The Marketplace Fairness Coalition — which is being helped out by a former Boehner spokesman — criticized the opposition survey as a push poll, and said their own polling showed that voters increasingly support the online sales tax bill the more they hear about it.
The coalition’s poll, released Friday, found that voters backed the idea that the government should not favor Internet retailers over brick-and-mortar shops, and that an online sales tax bill would help local businesses.
Womack told reporters on Thursday that he understands that voters can initially think that the measure is a new tax, as opposed to a measure to help collect taxes already owed. Once voters find that out, Womack says, their take is that “the last thing I want to see is tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street in my community.”
Still, Womack also said that, while he was willing to work with Goodlatte, there were certain provisions he would work hard to keep intact — like the $1 million exemption that eBay and other groups want to see boosted substantially.
“Then you start neutering the effects of the bill, essentially,” Womack said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) is expected to release his own set of principles on the issue in the next week or two, according to sources who are closely watching the legislation.
The principles are a sign of fresh momentum for online sales tax legislation after Goodlatte and other top Republicans in the House — including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — voiced deep skepticism about the Senate-passed Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA).
Goodlatte could have chosen to bury the bill, but his decision to craft the principles shows he is serious about moving some version of the legislation forward.
The principles are expected to be broad policy statements with positions such as maintaining a simple system and not burdening businesses.
A Judiciary aide would only say that “the House is currently examining all of the issues surrounding the collection of online sales taxes and working on alternatives to the bill passed by the Senate.”
Still, supporters of the online sales tax bill face a heavy lift in gaining traction for their issue, with looming fights over government funding and raising the debt limit expected to suck up the oxygen on Capitol Hill.
Goodlatte’s panel is also in the middle of the fight over immigration reform, which has itself been overshadowed by Syria and fiscal matters in recent weeks.
"Nobody on the Hill has a fuller plate than Chairman Goodlatte," said David French, the top lobbyist for the National Retail Federation and a supporter of online sales tax legislation.
Under current law, states can only collect sales taxes from retailers that have a physical presence in their state. People who order items online from another state are supposed to declare the purchases on their tax forms, but few do.
The bill that the Senate passed in a 69-27 vote in May would give states the power to tax the online sales of out-of-state businesses. The bill exempts businesses with less than $1 million in annual out-of-state sales.
Major retail chains are lobbying heavily for the legislation, arguing that the status quo gives an unfair advantage to Internet-only retailers. Amazon, which is expanding its network of physical distribution centers, also backs the bill.
Republican and Democratic state officials hope the bill will give them a new stream of revenue.
"It's not necessarily a question of if but when," French said. "Eventually the size of online retail is going to demand a congressional solution."
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), the main GOP author of the Marketplace Fairness Act in the House, acknowledged that the online sales tax issue would struggle to find a spot on the congressional calendar.
But, the Arkansas Republican added to reporters on Thursday, “that doesn’t mean that other very meaningful issues facing our country should be set aside and just deferred."
The bill's opponents, led by anti-tax and small-government groups, are ramping up their efforts to kill the legislation.
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and the R Street Institute circulated a survey that found that 57 percent of likely voters oppose an online sales tax bill, with even a plurality of Democrats against the measure.
The two groups argue that those findings show that Republicans who oppose the online sales tax measure could have a powerful tool in general elections against Democrats, or even in primaries against fellow Republicans.
“I think these poll results show that the public has seen the MFA, listened to its best arguments, and aren’t buying any of them,” Pete Sepp of NTU told reporters on Friday. “I think they provide a very powerful indication of where the electorate is.”
Two of the most prominent GOP supporters of the online sales tax bill on Capitol Hill — Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) — already have Republican challengers as they seek reelection in 2014. Liz Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is trying to unseat Enzi.
Andrew Moylan of R Street added that he believed Goodlatte was “appropriately skeptical” of the MFA, and that he didn’t see much chance of the bill surviving in the House in its current form.
“I think they have the basic idea right,” said Moylan, who also said the groups’ new poll “reinforces that this is bad politics.”
The Marketplace Fairness Coalition — which is being helped out by a former Boehner spokesman — criticized the opposition survey as a push poll, and said their own polling showed that voters increasingly support the online sales tax bill the more they hear about it.
The coalition’s poll, released Friday, found that voters backed the idea that the government should not favor Internet retailers over brick-and-mortar shops, and that an online sales tax bill would help local businesses.
Womack told reporters on Thursday that he understands that voters can initially think that the measure is a new tax, as opposed to a measure to help collect taxes already owed. Once voters find that out, Womack says, their take is that “the last thing I want to see is tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street in my community.”
Still, Womack also said that, while he was willing to work with Goodlatte, there were certain provisions he would work hard to keep intact — like the $1 million exemption that eBay and other groups want to see boosted substantially.
“Then you start neutering the effects of the bill, essentially,” Womack said.
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