Presidential Power
George Washington, Americas first president and arguably our greatest president was charged with an unusual task, invent the presidency. Washington at the time was Americas most praised man, nobody could find anything wrong with him, people loved him and they often thought that America could not have happened without him. If Washington wanted to he could have probably became a king, died in power and establish and iron grip on America. The only thing that stopped him was himself, they wanted to make him king, he said no and insisted asked that he be called “Mr. President”. He was a man of principles voluntarily giving up power after two terms, many people in the government at the time begged him to stay for a third, they claimed that only he could hold the young nation together. He insisted no and that he deemed it necessary that he step down from power to prove that the system worked. Here is a quote from Washington regarding the Presidency:
“Though I shall always think it a sacred duty to exercise with firmness and energy the constitutional powers with which I am vested, yet it appears to me no less consistent with the public good than it is with my personal feeling to mingle in the operations of government every degree of moderation and tenderness which the national justice, dignity, and safety may permit.”
This tradition of two terms lasted until FDR who decided to double it and he stayed in power for four terms and died in office. Even before then the progressive presidents, T. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson both believed in a strong and powerful presidency, Teddy Roosevelt was famous for creating the “bully pulpit” Woodrow Wilson used the American Protective League as goon squad to arrest anyone who was speaking out against the government, his administration or anything that was anti-war. Wilson and his American Protective League arrested more political prisoners during his time in office than Mussolini did in the entire 1920s. When people say fascism can’t happen in America, it already did.
Although the presidency is not what it used to be, these past examples have a definite effect on today’s presidents, for instance our vast involvement in world affairs could be tracked back to T. Roosevelt and his imperialistic ambitions. Many praise FDR for fixing the Great Depression and presidents refer Read the rest of this entry »
Founding Views Podcast in the Works
You may have noticed a lack of updates on the site. Over the past few days I have been considering changing the focus of this site to a podcast rather than a traditional blog. The reason for this change of focus is based on a number of reasons.
1. A podcast is more appropriate for the subject.
2. There is not enough time in the day for me to write an article for the many issues being debated.
3. It is a lot more fun. I have to admit, typing articles is rather dull.
I am greatly looking forward to creating a podcast. I am currently asking a close friend of mine if he is interested in co-hosting it with me. The biggest problem is that he is in CA and I live in NJ.
State Affairs
Have you noticed that when candidates are running for office, everyone from all across the country wants to pitch in and help. Please Don’t.
This year a number of states have gubernatorial elections, including New Jersey. Our Governor is Jon Corzine, and here in New Jersey we really don’t like how he has been running our state. We still have the highest property taxes in the nation, the cost of living is through the roof, our sales tax was increased during his reign and the tolls on our highways were raised 100%. The list goes on an on but you get the idea. This Census New Jersey will probably lose population because it is becoming impossible to live here.
But someone thought he was doing a good job. Enter Barack Obama. Earlier this year I picked up a local newspaper and read that Obama was making an appearance in our state campaigning for Jon Corzine’s reelection bid. Why? Obama has no business in our state and in our affairs; get out. This is our election and has nothing to do with you, we will decide who is best fit to become the governor. Has Obama lived in New Jersey? No. Does he pay our taxes? No. Can he even vote in our election? No. Please, stay out. Let us have some independence as a people.
Now on the flip side, I was reading an article today and read that Sarah Palin was going to be doing the same thing for Gov. Rick Perry in Texas. Why? Sarah Palin lives in Alaska. What does she have to do with Texas? Nothing. Get out of that state, its not your job to push for a candidate that has nothing to do with you and you having nothing to do with the people in Texas.
This isn’t just about gubernatorial elections. Joe Wilson and his opponent both raised millions of dollars after Joe Wilson’s outburst during a join sessions of congress. But we are talking about the House of Representatives. This is a congressional district. Where did all the money come from? From all around the country, of course. The entire nation literally wanted to throw their two cents in and trampled on the district he was actually representing. We have no business in his district. We should not be giving money to those candidates, they don’t represent the entire nation, just that one district. It needs to be left up to the people of that district weather they want Joe Wilson back in Congress.
This type of cross funding and cross campaigning happens all the time and it needs to stop. As much as I would have loved to give Joe Wilson my two cents as well I didn’t. He is not my representative and I have no business in that sate and more specifically that district, and neither do you. It is time that the States gained some part of their independence back.
How Laws are Made
It is important to know how laws are made, who is responsible for what, and the process that a piece of legislation goes through to become law. This is the law making process in a nutshell, each step along the way has much more detail but for the ease of reading and a quick understanding this is the process. Feel free to look into these steps further to gain an even greater understanding. In the future these steps may be expanded on in their own respective articles.
In order for a bill to become a law it must go through a number of steps within congress before it even arrives at the President’s desk.
The steps include:
- Proposal
- Committee and Subcommittee Consideration
- Rules Committee
- Debate in the House of Representatives and Senate
- Conference Committee
- Conference Report
- Final Approval by Both Chambers
- Presidential Action
lets look at these steps in more detail
Proposal
Before a piece of legislation can become a bill it must be proposed by a representative or a senator and only them. The representative or senator that proposed the bill hands it off to to the clerk of their corresponding chamber. This is the first step. The proposed legislation becomes a bill.
Committee and Subcommittee Consideration
Once it is in the clerks hands the bill is then referred to a corresponding committee. When a bill arrives to a committee, the committee can take all the time it needs to consider the proposed bill. It can also be referred to subcommittees for further consideration.
Hearings and testimony from experts can influence the committee’s support on the bill. The considerations from the subcommittee can be accepted or rejected. If rejected the full committee can hold its own hearings and gather more testimony. Often times many bills do not get passed this phase of the legislation process and many bills “die” before they even get to the House or Senate floor.
Rules Committee
After a bill is passes through its assigned committee it then proceeds to the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee considers Read the rest of this entry »
Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize Without Doing Anything!
Even though Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, he won the nomination all the way back in February, two weeks after he was inaugurated. It was so shocking that Obama himself didn’t even known what he has done to deserve it. I used to look at the Nobel Peace Prize as something special, now it has no meaning to me. Just because Obama can make a great speech about world peace doesn’t mean it happens. He didn’t do anything! Except for apologizing for America being so arrogant.
What about Ronald Reagen, he ended the Cold War. How about we give every single one of our troops a Nobel Peace Prize, I think they deserve it more than anyone. What Just happened today is like if Obama won an award for best actor for a film that hasn’t even been created yet.
The other sitting Presidents who were given the award were; Theodore Roosevelt and Wodrow Wilson. Coincidence? All three of them are progressive.
The Big Question For the Long War
Today is the 8th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has had its ups and down, and in the last few years it has been on the side while the main focus was in Iraq. However in the campaign season Afghanistan was constantly brought up as the war that must be fought and the war that must be won.
With two Presidents overseeing the war’s operations and numerous generals commanding on the ground, what do we have to show?
In August General McCrystal issued a statement that was later leaked into the public. In the statement McCrystal warns that without additional troops (40,000) the eight-year-old war is in danger of failure. All those lives, all those resources, all the horror and Read the rest of this entry »
Dollar Losing Ground
From the looks of it the dollar is coming under attack. This is not good, considering our dollar is nothing but faith in the credit that it represents. We are trillions in debt and there is no exit strategy to pay it off other than more taxes from congress. Surprised?
The Fed just keeps printing, printing, printing and printing. Think of Monopoly, if you played a game of Monopoly and the bank ran out you could just run to your all-in-one copier scanner printer and get a new batch to fill the bank. I guess that is where our government got the idea, the only thing is they didn’t realize that Monopoly is a game and the money is worthless which is what our dollar will be if we keep on this same path of spend, spend, spend.
UN calls for new reserve currency
(breitbart.com)
Oil states say no talks on replacing dlr (uk.biz.yahoo.com)
Arm Yourself with Knowledge
Do you watch the news? Do you listen to talk radio? Are you a student in school? Or are you tired of your obnoxious friends trying to explain their latest philosophical discoveries? When you rely on third party sources for information they may not be telling you the whole story. Are the people you encounter daily telling you the truth? The fact of the matter is, you don’t.
The only way to understand the truth and by the truth I mean truly understand history, you must seek the information yourself. In order not to be persuaded by what seems like a good argument, you must build yourself a foundation of knowledge. A good sturdy base of American history is truly the greatest gift you can give yourself in navigating the news, talk radio and your talkative friends.
Where does one get this knowledge? From the root source! For example, if your trying to figure out how to interpret the Constitution, don’t ask your friend or college professor. Read the Federalist Papers, which were written by the people who signed the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers explain every detail of the Constitution the way it was meant to be read and more importantly why they structured the federal government the way they did.
Apply this concept to anything you want to know. Want to know who George Washington was? Get a book on him that includes his own words. Understand the true principles of America and more importantly our true founding other than; the British taxed our tea.
Once you build a foundation apply the same thing to the other topics and arguments. Is communism really a good idea? Read the communist manifesto for yourself. Read about Lennon. This way when you hear people talk about how great communism is, you can be the smart one and rebuttal his or her claim with this; “Did you know that Read the rest of this entry »
Founding Views is on Twitter
That’s right, Founding Views is using twitter. Twitter is a great social media tool used to get news out in those short blurbs or “tweets”. You can follow Founding Views at twitter here.
No Chicago Olympics
You would think that the First Lady, the President, and the all powerful Oprah would make sure they had a good chance of obtaining the Olympics for Chicago before taking two separate flights half way across the world to Copenhagen, Denmark.
Talk about a waste of time, fuel and tax payer money. The President should have known better than to waste his time and our money pushing for the Olympics, I guess they didn’t realize that the committee looks deeper than how well someone can pitch a sale.
With all the effort of the President trying to pull for the Olympics, to come out dead last is an embarrassment. If we were in the top two, it would have been a little more understandable.
There are many reasons why we shouldn’t host the Olympics here are just a few reasons:
1. America and Chicago are broke. We are out of money; period.
2. The majority in Chicago didn’t want the Olympics due to the Read the rest of this entry »
