Mark Levin, in his best-selling book The Liberty Amendments, is absolutely right about two things: First, the Courts, president, and Congress are not playing the roles assigned to them by the Constitution. The Court is deciding the country’s social and cultural issues; the president freely amends laws and drops Tomahawk missiles on people without going...
“Even if you don’t have the authorities—and frankly I didn’t have the authorities for anything—if you take charge people will follow.” So said Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former CEO of Goldman Sachs, to the Washington Post on November 19, 2008, just about two months after TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) passed through...
“I do believe that big money does organize itself somewhat like feral hogs. If they detect a weakness or a bad scent, they’ll go after it,” said Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve, on June 24. Shortly thereafter, we started finding that our banks were engaged in all kinds of nonbank business—aluminum, electricity,...
“A Cinderella moment,” gushed a gay-rights advocate when the Supreme Court announced its two landmark decisions in June. California’s Proposition 8—an amendment to its constitution—went down (Hollingsworth v. Perry), as did the federal Defense of Marriage Act (United States v. Windsor). The New York Times saw a “huge and gratifying” victory for equal rights. The...
Who do you suppose would get the better of it if the mayor of your city made a bet with Goldman Sachs on the direction of interest rates? Would you be surprised if the mayor lost, costing the city’s taxpayers millions of dollars? Do you think betting taxpayer dollars is legal? In the years leading...
Justice [Antonin] Scalia: [W]hen did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted? . . . Has it always been unconstitutional? . . . You say it is now unconstitutional. [Theodore Olson, attorney arguing that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional]: Yes. Justice Scalia: Was it always unconstitutional?...
Not many people would argue with Paul Begala’s view that the baby boomers are “the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history.” Since coming to power, the boomers (Americans born between 1946 and 1964) have destroyed most of what was good in America. Now it seems they have saved their best...
The House of Representatives, at 10:57 p.m. on January 1, passed the Fiscal Cliff bill, with Republicans voting 2 to 1 against it. Speaker Boehner’s negotiations with President Obama had been a disaster. The President’s only concession was his definition of rich, which he raised from $200,000–$250,000 per year to $400,000–$450,000. Other than that, nothing—no...
There “does not exist an engine so corruptive,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1821, “of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad . . . ” Jefferson left Paris in 1790 three years before the French...
Republicans, after their comprehensive defeat on November 6, have been going through an identity crisis. Defeated Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said, “We need to be a larger tent party.” A Republican aide adds, “We need candidates who are capable of articulating their policy positions without alienating massive voting blocs.” The Economist advised that, if the...
Imagine a club where you have to earn $137 million per year to join, and which limits membership to 400 people. That, we’d all agree, is an exclusive club. Mitt Romney, for example, probably thinks he is rich, but he could not get in. He’d be told he would be happier elsewhere. The club is...
What would the country be like if Congress added to every law it passed a section that said “No court of the United States or any state shall have power to review or interpret this act”? Such a proviso, popularly known as a “stripper,” prevents the Supreme Court from declaring the act unconstitutional. In the...
On July 11 President Obama said that thanks to his “swift and aggressive action . . . we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink.” Six days later, Larry Summers repeated the analogy: “We were at the brink of catastrophe at the beginning of the year but we...
At CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL) cited the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as the cause of the financial crisis. He has a point: As long as Glass-Steagall was in place, we had no systemic collapse. Banks that were busy underwriting crazy subprime securities—synthetic CDOs, synthetic CDOs squared,...
The Romans took citizenship very seriously. Only citizens had the right to vote, marry, make legal contracts, and have a trial and appeal the decision of the lower court. Americans, on the other hand, are in the process of getting rid of the concept of citizenship altogether. We are not controlling the border or making...
Why does it take so long to get a decision from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Obama’s healthcare law, or Arizona’s SB 170, or California’s Proposition 8 limiting “gay marriage”? Currently, those three cases are meandering their way around the lower federal courts. The Obama administration’s healthcare law is under attack by...
The credit bubble, which exploded in September 2008, exposed the fact that the U.S. economy has been devastated by globalism. Unemployment numbers—effectively close to 20 percent, about 25 million out of a workforce of 120 million—are near Depression levels. The figures have not moved despite the Bush and Obama administrations’ policy of borrowing and printing...
The special inspector general for TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) reported on July 21 that the bank bailout that has been going on since September 2008 has cost $3.7 trillion in actual expenditures and guarantees to the banks. Not surprisingly, the banks are prospering. But in a just world, the failed banks would have...
The Bush-Obama financial-rescue plan is premised on saving the big banks that caused the trouble. The theory is that we need to help Wall Street to help Main Street. Government would make money available, and the banks would make loans to business, which would revive the economy. ...
The Bush-Obama financial-rescue plan is premised on saving the big banks that caused the trouble. The theory is that we need to help Wall Street to help Main Street. Government would make money available, and the banks would make loans to business, which would revive the economy. “Once you assume,” Michael Lewis, author of The...
Goldman Sachs buys and sells securities for customers and also trades for its own book. It’s the world’s biggest derivatives dealer. CEO Lloyd Blankfein told a British magazine in late 2009 that they were “doing God’s work.” Now we know what that entails. At an April 27 Senate subcommittee hearing, Carl Levin (D-MI) quoted from...
How do you make $100 million per day? Goldman Sachs did it—and still does it. It even brags about it. Goldman’s net revenues for 2009 were over $45 billion. Most of this—$34.37 billion—came from trading. During the second and third quarters of 2009, Goldman made over $100 million per day on 82 out of 130...
“We need radical change,” Lord Turner, chairman of England’s Financial Services Authority, said recently. “And parts of the financial services industries need to reflect deeply on their role in the economy, and to recommit to a focus on their essential social and economic functions, if they are to regain public trust.” The British are engaged...
The two major parties, as Judge Richard Posner writes, “exert virtually complete control over American government.” They are what economists call a duopoly. Does the duopoly do a reasonable job of presenting candidates the people want? Is there any hope of electing a candidate favored by a majority of the American people? To find out...
According to The New Yorker (September 27), “America did not plunge into an economic abyss” because of the government’s “bold stroke” guaranteeing money-market funds and flipping Goldman Sachs into a bank holding company. “The reprieve bought enough time for the reemergence of reason over unbridled fear.” Massive government spending and guarantees are now propping up...
According to The New Yorker (September 27), “America did not plunge into an economic abyss” because of the government’s “bold stroke” guaranteeing money-market funds and flipping Goldman Sachs into a bank holding company. “The reprieve bought enough ...
On July 15 Goldman Sachs reported that its second-quarter profits were the highest in 140 years. It netted $3.4 billion on $13.4 billion in revenue (78 percent of which came from trading and principal investments and 11 percent from investment banking). Exactly which trades brought in such large profits is said to be proprietary. It...
“Another Crisis like this one and the West will be wiped out,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 1. “Once we have overcome this Crisis, the question will be how can we return to a path of virtue as far as public debts are concerned.” Of course, the first question is whether the West...
Since September 2008 an awful lot of Americans have lost 40 to 50 percent of their net worth. According to Bloomberg News, the federal government, during the same period, has committed $11.3 trillion in loans, guarantees, and investments to bail out the financial system. The Obama administration believes this effort will help the overall economy...
Alexander Hamilton said debt is a blessing: It oils the wheels of business and enhances national power. Jefferson said debt is a curse: It binds future generations without their consent, striking at the very heart of the Republic—the consent of the governed. Bloomberg News reports (February 9) that the so-called financial crisis has added $9.7...
In his Inaugural Address, President Obama declared: “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” The President was paraphrasing Fred Astaire from the 1936 movie Swingtime. Fred and Ginger sang Jerome Kern’s song “Pick Yourself Up,” which begins, “Nothing’s impossible I have found, / For...
In the May issue, I asked, “Do We Want a Federal Police Force?” (Views). I pointed out that Congress is passing too many laws that duplicate traditional state criminal laws. The problem with this redundancy is that federal enforcement, like that at Waco and Ruby Ridge, is usually irresponsible. The latest example of this is...
Probably the last thing that would have occurred to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on his way to meet “Kristen” in Room 870 of D.C.’s Mayflower Hotel was that both he and the Emperor’s Club VIP were under FBI surveillance for federal crimes—prostitution and a financial crime called “structuring.” Traditionally, the enforcement of criminal law...
In 1994, the Republicans, for the first time in 40 years, took control of both Houses of Congress. In 2000, after some controversy, the GOP secured the presidency. Now, they have lost both houses and look to be well on their way to losing the presidency in 2008. Parties lose when they don’t give their...
Republicans, including President George W. Bush, may have some explaining to do if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act. Suppose a lot of people were counting on you to accomplish something and there were two ways—one hard and one easy—to do it. Which would you choose? If you picked the...
President Bush, in his State of the Union Address, repeated a campaign promise: “Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a Constitutional Amendment to protect the institution of marriage.” The President must know,...
In June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ignited our most recent culture war when it discovered a constitutional right to sodomize (Lawrence and Garner v. Texas). The Massachusetts Supreme Court then threw kerosene on the fire by finding that its constitution mandated “gay marriage” (Goodridge v. Department of Public Health). Americans from San Francisco to...
“How much power Congress has to block Supreme Court consideration of the constitutionality of its laws is an open question.” This, the Washington Post said in a September 23, 2004, editorial, is “somewhat surprising.” The Post shouldn’t be so astonished, for the real surprise is that judicial supremacy—the doctrine that the Court interprets the Constitution...
Abraham Lincoln, in his 1860 Cooper Union speech, asked, “What is the frame of government under which we live?” The answer must be, he said, the Constitution of the United States. The answer today, as Chronicles’ reviewer of Quirk’s and Bridewell’s Judicial Dictatorship stated in 1995, is a judicial dictatorship imposed by the Supreme Court. ...
On July 19, three days before H.R. 3313 was debated, the ACLU issued notice of an “Urgent Briefing” entitled: “How the Marriage Protection Act (H.R. 3313) Will Harm Civil Rights, and Violate the U.S. Constitution.” The flyer explained: “The bill would shut the federal courthouse doors—including the door to the Supreme Court—to an entire group...
Is President Bush kidding his conservative base on the “gay marriage” issue? There is no question, if we stay on the road we are on, that the Supreme Court will decide whether Massachusetts can impose its law on the other states. In outlawing Texas’ antisodomy law last June, the Court found that homosexuals are “free...
If you are looking for a reason to vote for Ralph Nader, the way both parties are handling the “gay marriage” issue should give you lots of data. John Kerry, when asked his opinion of “gay marriage,” looks like a dog getting a bath, as Chris Hitchens puts it. Kerry says he personally opposes “gay...
If you are looking for a reason to vote for Ralph Nader, the way both parties are handling the “gay marriage” issue should give you lots of data. John Kerry, when asked his opinion of “gay marriage,” looks like a dog getting a bath, as Chris Hitchens puts it. Kerry says he personally opposes “gay...
What one man in America can decide that prisoners in South Carolina need croquet fields and backgammon tournaments and order the state to provide them? What one man can decide that Kansas City schools need Olympic-size swimming pools, a planetarium, a model United Nations wired for language translations, a temperature-controlled art gallery, and movie editing...
The President and Congress have both promised us a balanced budget in the year 2002. The debt, at that time, will be somewhere between six and seven trillion dollars, which, assuming a seven percent interest rate, will cost close to $450 billion a year in interest. Each year, every year, forever. Is it plausible to...
How different this country would be if we had a 28th Amendment which read: “An amendment approved by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution.” Three-fourths of the states, if they desired, would then be able to change the Constitution without the...
“Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.” —Thomas Jefferson A society governed by the judiciary—rather than by the will of the majority—displays odd characteristics. On July 29, 1994, a seven-year-old girl in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was sexually assaulted and murdered. A neighbor who is a...
“If men were angels,” James Madison wrote, “no government would be necessary.” Or, “if angels were to govern men, no controls on government would be necessary.” Madison believed that men are about as good as they can ever be, and since no angels are available to rule, we need checks and balances. Thomas Jefferson added...
The middle-class revolt of 1992 is an angry rebellion against America’s 25-year experiment with nondemocratic government. Around the mid-1960’s, both political parties abandoned the average American, but for different reasons. The Democrats, taken with the high morality of the counterculture, deserted him because their hearts turned against him; they decided he was selfish and racist....