-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
CONGRESS ACTION: February 10, 2002 ================= THANKS, TOM: Democrat Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle this week killed any chance that an economic stimulus bill will pass the Senate, and democrats are trying to convince everyone that its all the fault of the republicans. Many elements of the stimulus bill enacted by the House had been accepted by many Senators of both parties, but that bill was not acceptable to the democrat party's leftists. So Daschle, bowing to his party's extreme left-wing, simply tried to kill the House bill, by submitting his own completely new bill as a substitute for the House-passed legislation. Both democrats and republicans tried, as is the standard procedure in Congress, to offer amendments to Daschle's substitute to restore some of the growth elements contained in the House bill, so that the economic stimulus bill might actually stimulate the economy, instead of just stimulating big government spending. The Washington Post admitted that political advantage was more important to democrats than the economy, when it noted that one amendment which appeared to have enough votes to pass, to permanently repeal the estate tax, "would have been an embarrassment to the Democratic leadership". So to avoid embarrassment (never mind the economy), the bill had to die. And democrats couldn't stand the idea, put forth by both republican Senator Phil Gramm and democrat Senator Zell Miller, of cutting capital gains tax rates. Never mind that, as Gramm put it, "cutting the capital gains tax rate in the entire 20th century never failed to put money in the Treasury, never failed to stimulate the economy." Miller seconded Gramm by quoting John F. Kennedy and citing Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the benefits of capital gains tax rate cuts, and Miller lamented, "What history shows is that, once upon a time, Democrats were tax cutters. I wish I could bring that time back. I rise today to strongly advocate making the tax cut we passed last year permanent and to cut the capital gains tax rate." But Daschle would have none of it. When his attempts to stop debate and amendments on both the original House bill and his own substitute failed to get the 60 votes needed for cloture, Daschle simply took matters into his own hands and ditched the whole effort. Almost immediately, however, he tried to deny responsibility for his own actions, because when his decision to kill the legislation was announced the stock market, which had been rallying back from a 200-plus point loss the previous day, immediately tanked. Traders on Wall Street began talking about "the Daschle Dip", placing the blame for the collapse of the market recovery squarely at Daschle's doorstep. In fact, by killing the economic stimulus bill, Senator Daschle might have unintentionally accomplished what he most wanted not to do -- helped stimulate the economy and in the process, make the Bush budget look good. The version of the bill that Daschle and his party's extreme left-wing wanted was a prescription for more big government spending. Now that this spending will no longer take place (unless the pork peddlers in Congress, by no means confined to the democrats, cook up some new schemes to spend your money), the deficit that was projected by the new Bush budget will be smaller by just that amount. Indeed, despite the war and the Clinton recession, despite having to spend billions to restore the national defense so long neglected by Clinton, and despite the need to expend billions on homeland security and to rebuild after the terrorists attacks, the new Bush budget is still nearly in balance. And the economy, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, appears on the road to recovery all by itself, proving once again that if the government just gets out of the way, our robust private economy is pretty good at righting itself. And if the economy doesn't rally back as quickly as most people would like, John F. Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, not to mention Zell Miller and Phil Gramm, will be pointing the finger of blame right at Tom Daschle. JUDGES MATTER: On December 5, President Bush appointed Peter Kirsanow to a vacant seat on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, to replace Clinton appointee Victoria Wilson, appointed by Clinton to complete the term of a deceased Commissioner whose term expired on November 29, 2001. But Commission Chairman Mary Frances Berry refused to seat Kirsanow, taking the position that all appointments last for six years, even when appointments are made to finish the term of another member. The practical effect of seating Kirsanow would have been to shift the political ideology on the Commission from 5-3 in favor of the leftists, to a 4-4 balance -- a bipartisan balance that would tend to stifle Berry's blatantly anti-Bush agenda. The squabble over seating Kirsanow resulted in a lawsuit, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rendered a decision in the case. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that all commissioners serve 6 year terms, citing the 1994 law that reauthorized the Commission, and further commented that the 1994 law "contains no exceptions or qualifications''. The 1983 law establishing the Commission provided for Commissioners to hold six year staggered terms, to prevent any president from ideologically stacking the Commission. The original statute also provided that "any member appointed to fill a vacancy shall serve for the remainder of the term for which his predecessor was appointed". The 1994 reauthorization did not include this "fill a vacancy" language, although there was nothing to indicate that the goal of Commission bipartisanship had been intentionally abandoned. Judge Kessler, who rendered this decision, was nominated to her present position by Bill Clinton in March, 1994, and was confirmed by the Senate in June, 1994, before the 1994 election in which republicans won the Senate majority. Not that the republican majority mattered much, since the republican Senate confirmed the vast majority of judges nominated by Bill Clinton (Clinton-appointed judges, 374 of whom were confirmed during his eight years, now constitute nearly 48% of all current federal judges -- more than Reagan and both Presidents Bush, thus far, combined). The republican-majority Judiciary Committee's deference to Clinton nominees was in sharp contrast to the present democrat-majority Committee's intensely partisan treatment of judges nominated by President Bush; with its grindingly slow hearing process and wild allegations of extremism by left-wing pressure groups against Bush's nominees. This week's Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of District Court Judge Charles Pickering followed the same script by which left-wing extremist activists tried to defeat John Ashcroft -- the claim that because the nominee dares to have personal beliefs that aren't left-wing, he will be unable to rule fairly or follow the law. It was even suggested that Pickering is unqualified to be a judge because he holds pro-life views, and thus could not rule fairly on abortion cases. Which means, by the left's own logic, that leftist judges with pro-abortion views are equally unqualified for that very reason. Charges of the nominee's alleged racism were deflated by the strong support of Pickering by the brother of slain NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, and by the support of various black community leaders in his home state. The Legal Times reviewed his record, and concluded, "Pickering's record shows that although he has often ruled against civil rights claims, the facts of the cases have often tilted strongly against the litigants claiming discrimination." Pickering assured the committee than when he takes his oath of office to obey the Constitution, he will do so as interpreted by the Supreme Court, regardless of his personal beliefs. Left unstated, of course, was the utter disregard of the last democrat president, so consistently supported and defended by Committee Chairman Senator Leahy at every turn, to his own oath of office. Leahy tried to prove his point about Pickering's inability to obey the law by pointing out that Pickering's rulings had been reversed 28 times by the Appeals Court. Leahy demanded to know whether Pickering was following his own personal beliefs, or simply not following the law (either you're a liar or an idiot, which is it?). To which Pickering calmly pointed out, as one would to an ignorant child, that 28 reversals out of over 1100 decisions comes to an error rate of 2.5 percent. Would that Leahy could boast such a record. But members of Congress are never held accountable for their own mistakes or their own screwball ideas. The judicial confirmation process carries on the tradition begun by the left with the nomination of Robert Bork, of flinging wild accusations of racism, sexism, and extremism against nominees in the hopes that if they shout long and loudly enough, people will begin to believe the charges, regardless of the actual facts. But those accusations are only red herrings for the real underlying ideological disagreement about the role of the Judiciary in our Constitutional system. Is it, as the left would like, to make new laws from the bench (that they cannot get enacted legitimately through the legislative process); or is it, as the Founders designed, to interpret and apply the laws already enacted by the legislature? If the left was honest enough to admit their true beliefs, they know that even the most ignorant member of the public would reject their agenda, understanding that it is the fundamental separation of powers role of Congress, not the Judiciary, to make new laws. It would be refreshing (although unlikely) to see republicans elevate the judicial confirmation debate to the noble level of Constitutional intent, rather than continuing to grovel in the mud with the democrats. But if we ever got into a truly honest national debate over Constitutional intent, politicians from both parties would have to admit that the vast majority of what the federal government currently does is not permitted by the Constitution. And every politician, regardless of party, enjoys expanding their power at the expense of our freedom. In the current Senate make-up of 49 republicans, 50 democrats, and 1 "independent" (Jeffords), there are 34 seats up for grabs in the 2002 election this coming November, 20 of which are currently held by republicans and 14 held by democrats. Of the 20 republican seats, 17 are in states won by Bush in the 2000 election, and 3 are from Gore states (Oregon, New Mexico, and Maine). Of the 14 democrat seats, 6 are in states won by Bush in 2000 (South Dakota, Georgia, Louisiana, West Virginia, Missouri, and Montana), and 8 are from Gore states. So if the voters in those states back up their presidential votes with comparable Senate votes this November, republicans could pick up a net of 3 seats, making the balance 52 republicans and for all practical purposes 48 democrats (the 47 democrats who have sufficient principle to call themselves democrats, plus Jeffords). That outcome is not enough to overcome a filibuster (which would take 60 votes), and it would still leave the Senate with plenty of might-as-well-be-democrat republicans, but it would replace Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, probably with current Minority Leader Trent Lott (who, hopefully, has learned something about his previous idiotic power sharing arrangement with the democrats); and equally important, it would replace Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy with Ranking Minority Member Orrin Hatch (who, it will be recalled, presided over the Judiciary Committee during most of the years of waiving through the vast majority of Clinton's judicial nominees -- more than 70% of all Clinton's nominees were confirmed by the republican Senate). Unless, of course, Senate democrats are able to grab illegitimate power once again by convincing some other republicans to follow the lead of Jim Jeffords. The problem that the republicans will face in the 2002 election is the same problem that they always face. Say what you will about democrats, their voters vote. Republicans, on the other hand, talk quite a bit about freedom and limited government, but when it comes to actually exercising their votes in order to implement their beliefs, far too often they can't be bothered to get off their rear ends and go to the voting booths. That was obvious in the 2000 presidential election, and it could be even more widespread this year, because too many republicans will convince themselves that Bush's popularity assures victory for republican candidates, and they could end up leaving the field wide open to the enraged left by default. Then when democrats sweep many of the elections they should lose, indignant republicans will squawk about stolen elections and a failure of the process, when in reality they will only have themselves to blame. FOR MORE INFORMATION. ======================== Legal Times analysis of Judge Pickering's record: http://www5.law.com/lawcom/displayid.cfm?statename=DC&docnum=109470&table=news &flag=full ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Kim Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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