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From The Mailbag

Harry Reid said he will erase the
Advise & Consent Clause of the US
Constitution to prevent Republicans
from filibustering bills and/or political
appointments—and confirming Obama
appointees with a simple majority vote
instead of a constitutional 2/3 vote.

While I'm forced to wonder if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell [R-KY] has ever read the Constitution of the United States I'm convinced that, although he carries former US Senator Robert Byrd's [D-WV] leather-bound copy of the United States Constitution in his suit pocket, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] has never read it. Reid, like the rest of the social progressives in the upper chamber of the US Congress, believes the Constitution is an archaic relic of the past that can legislatively, or even by whim, erased, modified or amended to make it fit the needs of the party in control of the United States Senate—as long as that party is socialist.

In Reid's twisted socialist mind, the Standing Rules of the Senate long ago abrogated Article II, Section 2 paragraph 2—more commonly known as the Advice & Consent Clause. If you don't remember it from when you were in Junior High (before they started calling it "Middle School") when students had to memorize the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. It says: "[The President]..."(prior to 2009 when we actually elected one instead of having ACORN, the labor unions and the law firm which Lois Learner's husband works for influencing the not quite legal outcome of ) "...shall have power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law; but the Congress may, by Law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law or in the heads of Departments." Before talking about the Advice & Consent Clause, let's look at what the "exception to the rule" (highlighted above) is not saying.

The exception to the Advice & Consent Rule does not grant, suggest it grants, or imply that it grants the Senate Majority Leader and his merry men an arbitrary right, on a whim—without a vote by both Houses of Congress—to change the classification of political appointees who must be Article II, Section 2 vetted for cronyism or nepotism. The Advice and Consent rule was inserted in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers to protect against the chance that a patronage appointee could somehow be given a position of power without the States having the right to weigh in on the "aye" or "nay" to the appointment. Sen. Harry Reid somehow seems to think that since Franklin D. Roosevelt amended the Constitution without Congress submitting a congressional resolution to the States. And without the States ratifying it, Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV] must be convinced that FDR found the authority somewhere in the Constitution that allowed him to do it. Or at least, something that Reid thought he could use to pretend such authority existed.

The 76th US Congress, dictatorially controlled by New Deal socialists in the era of the global rise of communism, caved in when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, using the exception waiver in the Advice & Consent Clause, demanded that Congress give him special power to appoint a select group of non-vetted supra-presidential advisers who would report directly to him—and not to Congress. In fact, since they worked solely for FDR, Congress could not call them before any congressional or senatorial committee, demand an accounting of what they were doing, and take them to task. The best Congress could do was call the appropriate department head to task—although the Secretary or departmental Director likely had no idea what the political czar was doing since his instructions would have come directly from the Oval Office and, as far as Roosevelt was concerned after winning a third presidential election, it was none of Congress' business.

FDR was still using the trite, long ago worn out "national emergency" rhetoric that got him elected in 1932, 1936 and 1940. For that reason, he couldn't very well tell Congress that he was planning to join England in its war against Adolph Hitler just as soon as he managed to fabricate a good enough excuse to send Americans to die, once more, on the battlefields of Europe.

On May 29, 1940 Roosevelt reinstated the first world war Advisory Commission to the Council on National Defense, the Office of Price Administration and The Office of Civilian Supply which he arbitrarily combined, and using war powers authority under Executive Order 8734 on April 11, 1941, FDR transferred the Council on National Defense and the Office of Civilian Supply to the OPM. At the end of World War II, then president Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9809 on Dec. 12, 1946 to bury the OPM in the newly formed Office of Temporary Controls which, itself, was then transferred to the Federal Trade Commission without anyone in Congress even saying, "Huh?"

Roosevelt, through his czars, controlled economic accountability over the price of virtually all consumer goods: processed foods, meat, farm and diary products, gasoline, automobiles, tires, sugar, coffee, tea and nylon. And the FDR czars who granted the waivers to the friends and campaign donors of Roosevelt who became millionaires during World War II—vanished into an accountability black hole at the end of the war. No one was accountable for the political graft that took place during the war years.

People today live with a fabricated historical views of World War II, written with the pens of revisionist economists, history professors and New York Times reporters who worked to tidy up the history of World War II to protect the profiteers—the princes of industry and the barons of banking who legally profited from both sides of the conflict.

Few people know, or at least remember, the names of most of FDR's non-vetted czars. They had names like Leon Henderson, Byron Price, Elmer Davis, James Byrnes, Fred Vinson, William Hamath Davis, Claude Wickard, Chester Davis, Marvin Jones, Paul McNutt, Harold L. Ickes, Prentiss Marsh Brown, Chester Bowles, Donald Nelson, Julius King, Bill Jeffers, Emory Land, Joseph Bartlett Eastman, and J. Monroe Johnson. Henderson was the first czar. He had originally been appointed—and vetted—to head the Securities Exchange Commission. FDR then appointed him to head the Office of Price Administration which grew into the most powerful non-legislated agency in the federal government. Henderson became the "Price Czar." According to FDR's biographer, John T. Flynn, Roosevelt arbitrarily controlled the value of money as he ate breakfast in bed, determining the price of gold by picking numbers out of thin air simply because he could. Through his czars, FDR virtually controlled the price of every commodity in the United States. For the moment, enough about King Franklin.

You should have no problem recognizing two of FDR's czars: Harold L. Ickes and Fred M. Vinson. The Harold Ickes you probably recognize is the son of Roosevelt's Ickes (who was FDR's Secretary of the Interior—until FDR tapped him to serve as his oil czar. The current Ickes, Harold M., served as Assistant to President Bill Clinton and later, as his Deputy Chief of Staff. Harold L. Ickes was a communist hard-liner who leaked information on a regular basis to Josef Stalin (who was, at the time, theoretically an ally of Roosevelt's).

Vinson was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court when FDR tapped him in 1942 to become one of three chief judge of the US Emergency Court of Appeals (economic czar). He was officially appointed to the job by Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone on March 2, 1942. Vinson replaced Stone as Chief Justice of the Supreme and served in that capacity from June 21, 1946 until his death on Sept. 8, 1953.

Anyone charged with violating the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, or who challenged the authority of the court (which was established to make sure the Price Czar's dictates were upheld) generally lost. Several people appealed Vinson's decisions to the Supreme Court. In virtually every instance Stone's court upheld Henderson's dictates.

Without looking at any other FDR bureaucratic czar, it should be clear that the purpose of skirting the Advice & Consent Clause of the Constitution was simply to sidestep the whole Constitution. And, by the way, it's important to remember that the behemoth bureaucracy we all know and despise, was created by Franklin Roosevelt. Since he knew he was going to use the bureaucracy for things not intended by the Founding Father, it was imperative that the czars who would be responsible for overhauling democracy in the United States did not have to answer to any House or Senate committees—even though FDR virtually controlled every committee in both Houses, and would continue to do so throughout the balance of his life.

Traditionally Presidents are given a lot of slack when it comes to nominating those who will serve in their inner circles and in other appointed positions in the government. That's not to say that the "loyal opposition" will not fight—and/or filibuster—the nominations of those too far to the right or left of center. Problems arose when Congress turned its back on violations of the Advice & Consent Clause, and yielded far too much of its authority to properly vet the president's men (or women), they created a precedent that violated the Constitution

In doing so, they erased the ability of the United States Senate, as a whole body, to control the bureaucracy under the authority of both the House of Representatives and the US Senate. Sadly, partisan politics holds sway on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation's capital. The federal judiciary is no longer the caretaker of the rule of law in the United States. Since the very Marxist communist administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States federal court system has evolved into a very partisan, ideological mishmash of co-mingled legal opinions that deliberately obscure the meaning of the laws the judges who sit on the benches of the federal judiciary are expected to adjudicate.

Now you should have a better understanding of Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2—the Advice & Consent Clause, and why it no longer works.

With those words "...by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law, the Congress may, by Law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the President alone..." now firmly implanted in your mind, what more do you need to know? The Constitution of the United States was carefully crafted in layman's words so that even an uneducated farmer who learned his "letters" between milking the cows and plowing furrows in his field could not only understand what his rights were, but what the government's right were not.

What is Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 saying? It is saying that, with both Houses of Congress concurring legislatively, the House and Senate may designate that certain minor officials who are currently being vetted, need not be vetted by the Senate, and the occupant of the Oval Office, in these instances, can appoint those individuals without the advice and consent of 2/3 of the Senate.

Sen. Harry Reid cannot make law by himself—or by a simple majority vote in the Senate without the House concurring (although he seems to think he can). Reid calls his unconstitutional sleight-of-hand his "nuclear option."

There's something very, very wrong with the American people. Their stupidity is cataclysmic. For God's sake, people—open your eyes. If you don't carry a pocket copy of the Constitution, Google it, for God's sake. The second paragraph of Article II, Section two is 108 words long. It's a two-minute read in the porcelain library.

To "make law," means crafting the proper legislation—(which means in both Houses of Congress like all laws are crafted)—to waive any portion of the advice and consent clause. Let me say it again, people. THIS IS YOUR GOVERNMENT! It's not Harry Reid's government. He may think he's Huey Long or FDR, but he's not. He's a two-bit politician feasting on the table scraps of the princes of industry and the barons of banking and business. What Reid is talking about arbitrarily changing with his phony-baloney "nuclear option" song and dance should be infuriating not only to the voters in Nevada, but every voter on both sides of the aisle in every State in the union. Overnight, Nevada should fire Reid by recalling him. Of course, with the Nevada state legislature in the hands of the left, it's not likely that will happen anytime soon.

Reid has made it clear that if the Republicans don't surrender their right to block seven appointees within the next couple of days, he will exercise what he calls his "nuclear option." On Sunday, June 14, on NBC's "Meet the Press," (where no one would challenge his right to violate the Constitution), Reid said the Senate was headed towards a historic remake of its rules. You bet it is. He's making the rules up as he goes, and he's erasing enough words in Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 to change it into something it's not. Reid will try to rewrite the Advice and Consent Clause to read something like this: "[The President] shall have the power with the consent of the Senate to make treaties and appoint federal judges with the advise and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. All other inferior officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein provided for. The Senate, as they think proper, may grant to the President the power to fill those appointments alone." This right, of course, will be contingent upon which party controls the White House. Reid told NBC that "...the changes we're making are very, very minimal. What we are doing is saying: 'Look, American people, shouldn't [Obama] have somebody working for him that he wants?'" Reid continued: "If you want to look at nominations, you know what the Founding Fathers said: 'Simple majority.' That's what we need to do."

The Founding Fathers, of course, never said that. Reid, with no verbal diarrhea greasing it, is a liar. Paragraph 2 very clearly shows us the Founding Fathers made it clear that it would take a 2/3 vote by the Senate to confirm ambassadors, public ministers and consuls, judges and all other officers of the United States. And, it would require a 2/3 vote to ratify a treaty.

In 1993 the Democratially-controlled US Senate in the 103rd Congress of the United States could not get the 2/3rd vote they needed to ratify the North American Free Trade Agreement Treaty, so they rewrote the NAFTA Treaty as a "simple-majority law" that the rest of the western hemisphere voted on as a Treaty, and enacted it. CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) became law on July 28, 2007—the same way. By the way, although the "simple majority" Democrats hoodwinked the American people, make no bones about it. NAFTA and CAFTA are treaties. We are bound by them unless we want to go to war to break them. Of course, since we no longer manufacture any of the machinations of war needed to win armed conflict with those neighbors who now have all of our factories, we would lose.

NAFTA was enacted as a "simple majority law," which is unconstitutional. (Yeah, Harry...that's what the Founding Fathers wanted...a simple majority.) The House of Representatives passed a heavily pork-laden appropriations bill in which CAFTA was buried. On July 27, as GOP members of the House lined up to vote for it—although their districts opposed it—Congressman Ron Paul [R-TX] posted the following on his blog, STRAIGHT TALK: "Rest assured that you will pay dearly for these bribes used to buy votes." Greedy Congressman packed the bill—like stuffing a Thanksgiving turkey—with over $200 million in gratuities for the folks back home. In their floor speeches on C-SPAN, they talked about the jobs CAFTA was going to create, even though the American people already knew that NAFTA had cost the American worker over a trillion dollars in job losses. CAFTA would complete the decimation of the American economy.

The first CAFTA vote: *Harry Reid's simple majority," was 175 in favor, 180 opposed. CAFTA was defeated. But the globalist princes of industry needed the simple-majority treaty to pass. They were investing trillions of dollars in Central America, China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It had to pass. The final CAFTA vote, taken well after midnight, was 217 for, 215 opposed. Thank God the Founding Fathers wanted that simple-majority vote. We might still have a viable economy today if we had stuck with that nuisance two-thirds majority vote to ratify a treaty.

This week, Harry Reid is prepared to illegally and unconstitutionally deploy his nuclear option which will let 51 socialist US Senators destroy the Constitution by letting the Standing Rules of the Senate trump the Constitution and, where today, 67 Senators are needed to change the rules, 51 will be allowed to destroy the Constitution of the United States. This is the only way Reid can get around 16 stalled inferior presidential appointments that Obama wants confirmed by the Senate. Three of those nominees will change the ideological slant of the National Labor Relations Board, which will pretty much end "right to work" in the United States. If "WE THE PEOPLE" don't stop Reid and his fascist thugs in the next 24 to 72 hours, kiss your right to hold a job in the waning days of America as the revitalized labor unions suck what's left of the life of the American worker through their billfolds. Well, for whatever it's worth, once again, you have my two cents worth on this subject. Until next time...