Obama Has Violated The Public Trust

Norm Coleman recites a veritable litany of grievances against what Obama has done since taking office, in an article posted here at Politico, with healthcare reform taking center stage:

[Americans] are justifiably angry at the massive bait-and-switch on health care reform, the most important public policy debate in our lifetime. Obama has violated their trust, especially devastating with the long list of challenges we need unity to tackle, like jobs, energy and the deficit.

Health care is an emotional issue for everyone. In my years in government I learned that the deeper an issue, the more carefully leaders have to listen; and the greater the need for consensus-building rather than using raw political power.

Reading the rest is time well spent.

Doctors Own Their Minds, Labor, Years Of Study, And Their Skills, Not Obama

The following appeared here:

April 6, 2010

Dr. Galt Goes On Strike

By Investor's Business Daily

On Strike: A Florida doctor has told patients who voted for Barack Obama that they should seek care elsewhere. His is a noble one-man fight against the soft tyranny of the federal takeover of the health care sector.

The message taped to the entrance of Dr. Jack Cassell's practice is clear: "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your health care begin right now, not in four years."

Cassell is not refusing to treat patients, according to an Orlando Sentinel story. In his words, "that would be unethical." He's simply asking those who helped the Democratic leadership inflict its health care overhaul on the country to find another physician because the regime that's been created threatens his ability to do good.

"If they read the sign and turn the other way," he says, "so be it."

The Orlando-area urologist sees a "real problem" in ObamaCare, believes it "fatally compromises my ability or any doctor's ability to uphold the Hippocratic Oath" and "can't believe that more people aren't standing up."

He adds: "I think all the doctors in the United States need to take a stand on this, because pretty soon it's going to be too late."

In return for expressing his opposition to a government gone too far, Cassell has been labeled a racist by the man who represents him in Congress, Rep. Alan Grayson, the apparently daft Democrat who has said Republicans want sick Americans to "die quickly."

Grayson is filing a complaint against his constituent, a scare tactic that tells every doctor who might follow Cassell's lead that he or she will be met by government intimidation.

The point that Grayson and other critics of Cassell are missing - ignorantly or willingly - is that the doctor is peacefully protesting a government that will dictate how he practices medicine.

Cassell seems to understand that unless partisan ambition to turn all health care into a government program is stopped, Washington will eventually treat him and other doctors as vassals of the state.

They will no longer be the owners of their minds and their labor, their years of study and the development of their skills. All those instead will be owned by their masters on the Potomac.

Because Cassell is still taking patients, he's not gone fully Galt. But if he did, he wouldn't be alone: 45% of doctors in our IBD/TIPP poll (a result since duplicated by at least one other poll) said they'd consider leaving their practices if a federal health care takeover passed.

While even a brief doctors' strike might cause some immediate harm, the long-term benefits would be worth the pain if they brought the right kind of change.

I'll Bet You Didn't Know Kentucky Repealed ObamaCare in 2003

I didn't know either. It took about ten years.

The article appeared here:

www.nationalreview.com

STEPHEN SPRUIELL

APRIL 5, 2010

Bluegrass Bummer

Does Kentucky’s experience with health-insurance overregulation hold lessons for repealing Obamacare?

In the mid-1990s, Kentucky was one of eight state governments that boldly went where the rest of the country refused to go: The commonwealth imposed Clintoncare’s restrictions on its insurance companies, even though Clintoncare had been vanquished from the national stage. In Kentucky and the other seven states, insurance premiums skyrocketed, healthy people stopped buying insurance, and insurance companies exited the market in droves. Only three of the eight were able to untangle themselves from the harmful provisions; only one, Kentucky, was able to pull off a full repeal.

Trey Grayson was elected Kentucky secretary of state in 2003, the year before Gov. Ernie Fletcher was able to finalize the repeal — you’ll note it took ten years to accomplish. Grayson, who is currently running for the Republican nomination to replace Jim Bunning in the U.S. Senate, says that those pushing to repeal Obamacare can take a few lessons from the Kentucky experience. “On the one hand it gives you some hope, because in Kentucky we were able to gradually repeal the elements that were driving up the number of uninsured, that were increasing premiums at a rate higher than the national average, that were driving insurance companies out of the state,” Grayson says. “But unfortunately it took ten years, caused rates to be higher, hurt our economy and hurt our state government from a revenue standpoint. So a lot of damage was done.”

In 1994, Democratic governor Brereton Jones strong-armed a version of Clintoncare through the Democratic-controlled state legislature over the reservations of Republicans and some conservative Democrats. Much like Obamacare, Kentucky’s House Bill 250 forbade insurance companies to deny coverage or charge higher rates based on pre-existing conditions, thus negating the point of insurance — which, properly understood, involves paying premiums to hedge against risk. Under Kentucky’s laws, as under Obamacare, you could wait until you got sick to buy coverage and still obtain it at the same rates as everyone else. (Obamacare includes a requirement that healthy people have insurance, which its proponents say will prevent the premium hikes and insurance-company flight that Kentucky experienced. But the penalty for evading this requirement is relatively small; its constitutionality is suspect; and it might not even be enforceable.)

The problem with such regulations is that healthy people make the rational decision to drop their coverage and wait until they get sick to renew it. As healthy people stop paying into the risk pool, premiums for those who remain skyrocket. If insurance companies are forbidden from increasing premiums to keep up with costs, they leave town or close down. Unsurprisingly, average premiums in Kentucky increased between 36 and 165 percent in the wake of the reforms. Within four years, over 40 insurance companies had stopped offering individual insurance coverage. The two remaining providers, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield and a state-run plan called Kentucky Kare, teetered on the brink of insolvency (Kentucky Kare went under in 1999).

By the late 1990s, Grayson says, “If you said House Bill 250, it was a four-letter word.”

In 1998, the Kentucky legislature, still controlled by Democrats, started repairing the damage by passing a reform package that modified the insurance requirements but didn’t repeal them. In 1999, party switches gave Republicans control of the state senate, and the legislature repealed most of the harmful provisions. Finally, in 2003, Kentucky elected a Republican governor for the first time since 1967, and one of his first acts was to sign a moratorium on new insurance mandates. These reforms slowed the rise of premiums and started bringing insurance companies back to the state.

“What was interesting,” Grayson notes, “is that the repeals were done in a bipartisan manner. Democrats, many of whom voted for House Bill 250, saw the negative impact.” Rising premiums and fleeing insurance companies gave opponents of the bill a compelling story to tell. “When we had evidence, we used it,” Grayson says. “That was what convinced Kentucky voters.” The bill’s opponents armed themselves with facts, and the case against House Bill 250 grew too overwhelming to resist.

This is the first lesson proponents of repeal should take from Kentucky: Construct a narrative around all of the bill’s negative consequences. “So, for example, we’ve already had John Deere and Verizon and some other companies take charges for the next quarter,” Grayson says. “As we learn about businesses choosing to drop insurance or delay expansion plans or whatever they have to do to avoid this, I think we have to take those real-life consequences and tell the public.”

The second lesson, he says, “is that you don’t have to do a full repeal right off the bat. If you can start getting rid of some of the bad elements, try that.” Repealing the most unpopular parts of the bill — new taxes on investment, on income, on medical devices — can pave the way for repealing the spending provisions: “If those taxes have to be repealed or phased out,” Grayson says, “then you start to have a financial concern: How you are going to pay for all this stuff as the subsidies are phased in?”

Liberals are much more influential in Washington than in Kentucky’s statehouse in Frankfort: When the big problems with Obamacare start surfacing, they will push, not for repealing the bill, but for nationalizing even more of the health-care industry. They will call for a stronger penalty for not purchasing insurance or, if the Supreme Court invalidates that provision, they might push for a “public option” to offer a taxpayer-subsidized alternative to the private insurance companies they have broken. When the public option doesn’t work (and we know it won’t, thanks to another failed state experiment in Maine), liberals will argue that the only way to fix the broken system is to make the government the “single payer” for all medical costs.

Opponents of Obamacare must be prepared to make the opposite case, starting with this election cycle. The strongest lesson from Kentucky is that the longer Obamacare stays on the books, the more damage it will inflict on the economy. Conservative candidates such as Grayson can and should run on this issue. Health-care reform “is clearly on the minds of voters,” he says — it’s the second thing people want to talk to him about, after the University of Kentucky’s performance in the NCAA tournament — “and most folks I talk to are not real pleased. I think voters want us to do something about it — hopefully before the damage gets done.”

— Stephen Spruiell is an NRO staff reporter.

Michelle Obama Said Barack's Home Country is Kenya

"When we took our trip to Africa and visited his home country in Kenya we took a public HIV test."

The video is here, dating to January 2, 2009.

What's your "home" country?

On "Regime"

"Never in my life have I seen a regime like this, governing against the will of the people, purposely."

--Rush Limbaugh, Friday, April 2, 2010

"I've never seen language like this in the American press referring to an elected representative government, elected in a totally fair, democratic, American election -- we will have another one in November, we'll have another one for president in a couple years -- fair, free, and wonderful democracy we have in this country…. We know that word, 'regime.' It was used by George Bush, 'regime change.' You go to war with regimes. Regimes are tyrannies. They're juntas. They're military coups. The use of the word 'regime' in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus to stop using it. I never heard the word 'regime,' before, have you? I don't even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a 'regime.'"

-- Chris Matthews, Friday, April 2, 2010, MSNBC

"Seventy-five days into the Bush regime and I'm a wreck."

-- Maureen Dowd, April 4, 2001, New York Times

Marshall Wittmann was "a Health and Human Services deputy assistant secretary in the first Bush regime."

-- Howard Kurtz, January 22, 2001, The Washington Post

"In George Bush's regime, only one million jobs had been created…"

--Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak, January 8, 2010, MSNBC

In 2006 when "the Bush regime was still in power."

-- Ed Schultz, August 21, 2009, MSNBC

"The middle class has not fared quite as well under [the] Bush regime."

-- Steve McMahon, October 8, 2007, MSNBC

"The people of Iraq and Afghanistan that have been tragically harmed by the Bush regime."

-- Cindy Sheehan, August 10, 2007, MSNBC

I'll "take apart the Bush regime."

-- Ralph Nader to Chris Matthews, July 7, 2004, on his "Hardball" program, MSNBC

"Reverend Sharpton, what do you make of this letter and this panoply of the left condemning the Bush regime?"

--Chris Matthews, June 14, 2002

h/t Byron York

The Densest Element Yet Has Been Discovered

It's called Pelosium:

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named Pelosium. Pelosium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.

These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

The symbol of Pelosium is PU.

Pelosium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons within the Pelosium molecule, leading to the formation of isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.

When catalyzed with money, Pelosium activates CNNadnausium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons as Pelosium.

h/t Theo

Equal Division of Unequal Earnings

The title summarizes one inspiration for this blog's existence, which dates to last September, and illustrates what is more and more becoming the open description from Democrats of their own, and Obama's, political philosophy: equal division of unequal earnings.

Many in the center and on the right have shrunk from calling Obama a communist out of fear of being labeled McCarthyites, despite the fact that with the fall of the Soviet Union it has become clear that the senator from Wisconsin underestimated the depth of pro-Soviet penetration of the U.S. government at the time. The task has been left to our court jesters instead.

Even our most unsympathetic critics on the right today shrink from calling Obama a communist because Obama's mentor, Saul Alinsky, would not identify himself as such, even though that duck walked and quacked like one. We remind our contemporaries, however, that it was at Antioch that the followers of The Way were first called Christians. It was an outsider's estimation, and later an accusation, not a term of self-identification. So it is here.

It is not necessary to link communists to a no-longer extant political entity for them to be such now anymore than it was then, in the Victorian age. Communists already existed in the popular British imagination of the time because they existed in fact, long before the philosophy found political expression in a national government in Russia.

That Democrats today, like Max Baucus, Howard Dean, and Barack Obama readily and openly identify with communist ideas should make the blood boil in every American patriot's heart. These ideas mean death to our way of life, and death to us who hold to the immemorial rights of Englishmen in America. Not a dime's worth of difference between the two political parties? More than ten times the difference, and a world: "Idler or bungler or both he is willing to fork over his penny and pocket your shilling."

In "Obamacare Was Mainly Aimed At Redistributing Wealth," which appeared here, Byron York points out:

It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable. It wasn't just about bending the cost curve. It wasn't just about cutting the federal deficit. It was about redistributing wealth.

Health reform is "an income shift," Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said on March 25. "It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower income, middle income Americans." ...

At about the same time, Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate, said the health bill was needed to correct economic inequities. "The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top ... and those at the bottom?" Dean said during an appearance on CNBC. "When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution."

You'll want to read the rest, at the link.

The Dodd Bill Makes Moral Hazard Government Policy

An Opinion from The Washington Examiner

Run against Wall Street

By: Michael Barone

Senior Political Analyst

04/01/10

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, after spending some time negotiating with committee Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Shelby, has decided to advance major financial regulation legislation without bipartisan support. Democratic spin doctors will try to portray the fight over this legislation as a battle between Republicans favoring lax regulation of Wall Street and Democrats favoring tough regulation.

But is the Dodd bill really tough legislation, particularly in its treatment of the major financial entities? My American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison argues that it is not, because it gives Too Big To Fail status to the big entities—Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. This is done by setting up a resolution process for a failing firm which protects creditors more than ordinary bankruptcy proceedings would. Wallison writes:

“From the perspective of its effect on the economy, it does not matter what happens to the company, or to its shareholders and management. The only thing that matters in a government resolution of a failing company is what happens to the creditors--because it's the creditors that will provide the funds preferentially and at favorable rates to large companies rather than small ones.

"In this respect, the Dodd bill does it again--it signals to creditors that they will get a better deal if they lend to the big regulated firms rather than their smaller competitors, and it does this by making it possible for creditors to be fully paid when a too-big-to-fail financial firm is liquidated, even though this would not happen in bankruptcy. There are a number of ways that this can be done, including through a simple merger with a healthy firm. As a prescription for moral hazard, this can hardly be surpassed. The creditors will line up to provide cheap money to the too-big-to-fail firms the Fed will be regulating.”

Wallison is not alone in taking this view. Clive Crook, writing in National Journal seems to agree:

“You do not deal with ‘too big to fail’ by keeping a list of systemically significant institutions: By itself, that makes things worse. You do not deal with it by promising to let most failing financial firms, including those on your list, go bankrupt: Nobody will believe that promise. You deal with it by combining early FDIC-like resolution for all financial firms, banks and nonbanks alike, with stricter and smarter requirements on their capital, liquidity, and leverage.”

Libertarian economist Arnold Kling suggests an even tougher approach, though he doesn’t say how to put it into effect: break up the big banks.

I think as a matter of both policy and politics, Republicans ought to oppose the Dodd bill’s provisions that effectively grant Too Big To Fail status to a handful of financial institutions (and perhaps to other companies, Wallison has argued). They should oppose giving preferred status to the very largest firms as compared to smaller competitors. They should be prepared to argue that the Democratic bill gives vast advantages to firms whose employees have gotten huge compensation (and who, as it happens, tend to give more money to Democrats than Republicans). The cry should be, no favor to the big Wall Street fat cats. Mainstream media is unlikely to transmit this message but, as we have seen in the health care debate, messages can get through without them.

Spread The Wealth Around: Abolish The Minimum Wage

Who wants to be a dog-kennel assistant, which is mostly a minimum wage pooper scooper making $8.55 per hour?

Apparently 260 jobless people do in Washington State, aged 14 to 60, including a graphic artist, a freelance photographer, two teachers, a financial controller, accountants, customer service reps, retail clerks and cashiers, waiters, laborers, construction workers, landscapers, and maintenance workers.

The story, reported here, says the unemployment rate at the lowest economic levels is running between 20 and 30 percent nationwide, which is a Depression-level statistic. People making over $100K, however, experience an unemployment rate far lower, it says, around 3 to 4 percent, and don't have a clue about what's really going on.

Has anyone thought of abolishing the minimum wage to spread the wealth around? There are countless jobs which people would do for less than $8.55 an hour if 260 overqualified people are competing for one job cleaning up after fido.

And while we're at it, let's abolish the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 which requires government workers to be paid the prevailing wage. There are plenty of jobs in government which would get done much better for half as much in view of all the eager, qualified, unemployed people out there looking for work. And doing so would save the taxpayers billions.

The Stench From Geithner's New York Federal Reserve Bank

Commentary from David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors yesterday:

It is important to understand that the narrative of this financial crisis period is not being properly written. It is being colored either by insufficient information on the part of writers and analysts, or it is being managed by those whose agendas conflict with telling the truth.

Let’s back these allegations up with some examples. Truth first! Has the behavior that occurred inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York been fully revealed? There are hundreds of people working in the markets area of the NY Fed. What did they know and when did they know it? What did the leadership of the NY Fed know and when did they know it? Geithner specifically. And what about the directors? Fuld was on the NY Fed board. As Lehman CEO, is it conceivable that he didn’t know about repo 105? Does anyone believe that he didn’t know it would change his balance sheet? Can we accept that the CEO didn’t know that he had a UK legal opinion because a US firm wouldn’t give one? If he did know, was he in a conflict position while sitting on the board of the agency that was his potential savior and with whom he had primary dealer status? When Lehman had a $3bn repo rejected by another Fed primary dealer because it was worthless, did the Fed catch it? If yes, what action was taken? If not, why not?

By the way, another primary-dealer CEO also sat on the NY Fed board at the same time. What was his obligation as a Fed director? What was his duty when he saw a $3bn piece deemed worthless by his own people? Once they rejected Lehman and protected their firm, was their obligation over? Maybe yes if the CEO didn’t sit on the board of the NY Fed. But he did sit there, and therefore he wore two hats. The NY Fed continues to stink up the joint by trying to avoid transparency unless and until it is forced to do so. Bloomberg News sued the Fed for disclosure and finally succeeded after a judge found in favor of journalism.

The New York Fed now has listed the CUSIP numbers of the assets in the limited partnership created during the Bear Stearns Affair. Maiden Lane number 1 is now public. This pile of junk even includes short positions in AMBAC and MBIA debt instruments. Check the NY Fed website for details. Query: is a short position in AMBAC the proper use of a section 13/3 emergency loan of the central bank, authorized by the Fed’s Board of Governors and implemented by the NY Fed?

Remember that it is an accident of history which places the NY Fed in a unique position among the twelve regional Fed banks because it houses the Fed’s portfolio. The NY Fed president is also in a unique position in the Fed’s policy decision-making structure. He is a permanent voting member of the FOMC unlike his eleven other regional bank presidents who have to rotate their voting status.

In this writer’s view the behaviors at the NY Fed during Geithner’s reign were appalling and need full Congressional examination. The nest needs to be opened and any infestation of rats needs to be exhumed. Repo 105 and the special year-long examination of Lehman offer the first clues. And think about it: these revelations came about because a bankruptcy judge ordered it. They were not found by the Fed; they were not dereived from any criminal investigation. Where was the oversight of the NY Fed? Where were/are the legal arms of criminal investigation? And how much of this will be discussed and debated and placed into consideration BEFORE some new legislation commits this country to a financial regulatory system that we will have to live with until the next crisis?

"My Fear Is That The Whole Island . . . Will Tip Over And Capsize"

The video is here.

Rep. Hank Johnson, Fourth Congressional District, Georgia

Democrats "Attacking Most of the American People"

The following was found here:

April 1, 2010

Enemies of the state

Monica Crowley

During President George W. Bush's two terms, you couldn't drive far without seeing a particular bumper sticker: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Now that Democrats control the White House and Congress, the left treats dissent as the lowest form of treason. When the left agitates over government policies, it's considered righteous anger. When the right - and much of the center - agitate, it's painted as the rantings of the criminally and violently insane.

With Obamacare signed into law, Democrats have stopped congratulating themselves long enough to notice that the American people aren't cheering on the sidelines. According to a CNN poll released last week, 58 percent oppose President Obama's handling of Obamacare, while Gallup shows him this week with a 46 percent job approval, his lowest yet. A CBS poll released after the House of Representatives passed Obamacare showed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's favorable rating at 11 percent and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's at 8 percent, higher only than Beelzebub's.

Aware that their "reform" is rejected by most of the American people and that they will face serious consequences in November, the Democrats have decided that the best defense is a good offense: Attack those who oppose Obamacare. It doesn't seem to bother most Democrats that that pernicious strategy puts them in the weird and politically untenable position of attacking most of the American people.

Over the past week, a parade of Democrats have accused members of the Tea Party movement and other opponents of Obamacare of threatening them. There may be an infinitesimal number of looney tunes who have engaged in that kind of unacceptable behavior out of hundreds of millions of Americans. But the Democrats have dishonestly extrapolated from a few claimed incidents to taint all those who reject Obamacare as wild-eyed wackos.

If this sounds familiar, it's because the Democrats have shown a disturbing pattern of demonizing those who disagree with them. A year ago, Mr. Obama's Department of Homeland Security issued a report for law enforcement called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." It suggested that anyone who opposed abortion, illegal immigration and oppressive taxes, supported gun rights or served in Iraq and Afghanistan should be singled out for special attention. Why? Because such people might burst into a spasm of violence at any time. There was no mention of being on the lookout for potential violence committed by Islamic jihadists, even after actual acts of violence committed by an Islamic jihadist in Little Rock. (The Fort Hood shooting happened later.)

In other words, if you go to church, believe in protecting innocent life, own a gun or defend your country, the Democrats consider you a potential enemy of the state. It was no coincidence that the Homeland Security report was issued just as the Tea Party movement was gaining real national traction.

Not surprisingly, then, once they had passed their widely unpopular health care bill, the Democrats moved quickly to delegitimize opposition to it. Their defiant move in the face of overwhelming popular resistance gave them another excuse to equate big-government progressives with good patriots and small government advocates with potentially violent nutcases who must be watched.

As if on cue, this week, Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Justice's Joint Terrorism Task Force carried out raids against a purported "Christian militia group" in the Midwest. According to reports, nine people have been charged with plotting to kill police officers with "weapons of mass destruction." The indictment describes the group as an "anti-government extremist organization" and the FBI special agent in charge, Andrew Arena, cast it as "radical and fringe." That may be, but the description has a conveniently familiar ring to it.

Interestingly, the head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Dawud Walid, rushed to announce the raids at a CAIR banquet at about the same time the story became public. "We salute the FBI for breaking up a militia that was seeking to harm American Muslims," he said. It's curious that he would know that at a time when the FBI still had the investigation under seal. (We're still waiting to hear why Homeland Security and the FBI chose to use the descriptive word "Christian" when they seem unable to use the word "Muslim" in connection with Islamic extremism.)

It's mind-blowingly coincidental that these raids on a supposedly "Christian" militia group would come at the exact moment that Democrats were trying to change public opinion on Obamacare by claiming persecution by their opponents. They have cast Tea Partiers, conservatives, independents, Christians and militia members as all cut from the same unstable, volatile cloth. How can anyone take their opposition to the Democrats' agenda seriously when they're toting guns and being raided by Homeland Security and the FBI? They're all nuts, don't you know?

The Democrats handle dissent by isolating it, smearing it and delegitimizing it in order to crush it. The warning should be clear: If you have small-government, traditional values, you may be considered by your own leadership to be an enemy of the state.

Monica Crowley is a nationally syndicated radio host, a panelist on "The McLaughlin Group" and a Fox News contributor.

Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke Usurped The Power Of The U.S. House Of Representatives

So why aren't they in jail? They illegally bought trash loans and credit default swaps with taxpayer money and without congressional authorization. The Fed is permitted to buy only government-backed securities. If government disobeys the law, what's treason? Why should Joe American obey any of the laws of this land when its highest ranking officials don't? Aren't these "high crimes and misdemeanors"? Karl Denninger wants to know, here:

THE FED ADMITS TO BREAKING THE LAW

Now how long will it be before something is done about it?

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- After months of litigation and political scrutiny, the Federal Reserve yesterday ended a policy of secrecy over its Bear Stearns Cos. bailout.

In a 4:30 p.m. announcement in a week of congressional recess and religious holidays, the central bank released details of securities bought to aid Bear Stearns’s takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Bloomberg News sued the Fed for that information.

The problem is this: The Fed is not authorized to BUY anything other than those securities that have the full faith and credit of The United States.

In addition Ben Bernanke has repeatedly claimed that these deals would not cost anyone money. But the current value looks differently:

Assets in Maiden Lane II totaled $34.8 billion, according to the Fed, which set their current market value in its weekly balance sheet at $15.3 billion. That means Maiden Lane II assets are worth 44 cents on the dollar, or 44 percent of their face value, according to the Fed.

Maiden Lane III, which has $56 billion of assets at face value, is worth $22.1 billion, or 39 cents on the dollar, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet. A similar calculation for the Bear Stearns portfolio couldn’t be made because of outstanding derivatives trades.

In other words, they have lost more than half of their value.

This was and remains a blatantly unlawful activity.

The Fed has effectively usurped Article 1 Section 7 of The Constituion which reads in part:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

The Fed effectively appropriated taxpayer funds without authorization of Congress. At the time these facilities were put in place neither TARP or any other Congressional authorization existed for them to do so, and to date no bill has been put through Congress authorizing the expenditure of taxpayer funds, either through putting them at risk or via outright expense, for this purpose.

Nor does it stop with a "mere" Constitutional violation - The Federal Reserve Act's Sections 13 and 14 do not permit Fed asset purchases except, once again, for items carrying "full faith and credit" guarantees. Credit-default swaps and trash mortgages most certainly do not meet these qualifications.

I know I've harped on this for more than two years, but here we have a raw admission of exactly what was done - and there is simply no way to construe any of it in a light that conforms with either The Constitution or black-letter statutory law.

What's worse is that Tim Geithner, head of the NY Fed at the time, was very much involved in this - that is, he in effect personally, along with Ben Bernanke, usurped the power of the United States House.

The Fed has spent two years trying to hide this from the public and Congress. It has fought off both Congressional demands for disclosure and multiple FOIA lawsuits, the latter of which has resulted in a series of adverse rulings (and, it appears, was ultimately going to force disclosure anyway.)

These actions are unacceptable but promising "never to do that again" is insufficient. In a Representative Republic where the rule of law is supposed to be paramount - that is, where we do not crown Kings and relegate everyone else to the status of knaves, unlawful actions such as this demand that strong and unmistakable sanction also be applied to all wrongdoers in addition to protection against future abuse.

In this case this means that both Geithner and Bernanke must go - for starters.

Amending The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (as Chris Dodd has proposed to prevent future lending bailouts) is not sufficient in that The Fed did not lend in this case, it purchased, and by buying what we now know were trash loans it violated the black letter of existing law.

There is only one effective remedy for an institution that has proved that it will not abide the law: it must be stripped of all authority that has been in the past and can be in the future abused.

This means that The Fed, if we are to keep it at all, must be relegated to a body that only practices and provides monetary policy - nothing more or less - and that all monetary operations must be performed openly, transparently, and within those constraints.

We cannot have a republic where an unelected body is left free to violate The Constitution with wild abandon and those acts are then allowed to stand.

One final thought: If the individuals responsible for this blatant black-letter violation of the law do not face meaningful sanction for these acts, and neither does The Fed as an institution, can you fine folks over at The Executive, Judiciary and Legislative branches of our government please explain to us ordinary Americans why we should obey any of the laws of this land when you will not enforce the laws that already exist?

Hutaree Keep Silent And Do Not Plead

Reuters is reporting here that defense attorneys for recently arrested Hutaree militia members are arguing their clients should be released on bond pending trial because the government's case against them is political and not criminal.

One attorney is quoted as saying that the government is "prosecuting people who have only exercised their First and Second Amendments rights."

Some of the arrested apparently refused to enter a plea and kept silent. In such cases a plea of "not guilty" is entered for them.

The judge is expected to make a decision on bail on Good Friday.

Roeder Predicts God's Judgment On America For Sin Of Abortion

The following quotations appeared here:

"I stopped him so he could not dismember another innocent baby."

"Wichita is a far safer place for unborn babies without George Tiller."

[George Tiller] "dismembered living children with the nod of approval from the state."

[God's judgment against the US will] "sweep over this land like a prairie wind."

"He will avenge every drop of innocent blood."

-- Scott Roeder, killer of Tiller

All Points Bulletin

The United States Border Patrol is asking citizens to keep on the lookout for a red 1951 Chevy that they suspect is being used to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border from Mexico and into points along the U.S. border. If you see the vehicle pictured below and have reason to believe that it is the suspect vehicle, you are urged to contact your local police department or the U. S. Border Patrol.

h/t Scott