Progressive Victors Bust the "Trust" in Historical Accuracy

History belongs to the victors and Progressives have definitely conquered academia. I don’t know how many times I’ve questioned the veracity of some of these professors’ assertions; after all, they’re scholars whose life’s work is devoted to a particular discipline. Most would say these men/women of letters deserve our respect. I would agree if they reported actual history instead of propaganda.


Some of these historical propagations don't pass the smell test. For instance, we’re told Theodore Roosevelt ran against his successor and former friend, Howard Taft, in the 1912 presidential election because Taft wasn’t “progressive enough.” Does that sound plausible to you? How about Roosevelt’s motivation for busting up Standard Oil? Was the old Trust Buster’s motivations pure?

I’m currently reading Murray Rothbard’s, The Progressive Era and some of these revelations are completely mind blowing. Here is a footnote that took me aback:

Knox left the attorney general position to become a senator in mid-1904, so he couldn’t have been that crucial in the government’s antitrust suit against Standard Oil. Regardless, Rothbard’s international motivation for explaining Roosevelt’s harsh attack on Rockefeller, which he at another time described as one which “there are no hard facts to prove it,” provides an intriguing global dimension to the clash between the Morgan and Rockefeller financial groups during the Progressive Era and beyond. In a later unwritten chapter, Rothbard planned to describe how Roosevelt’s successor in 1908, William Howard Taft, although put in by the Morgan ambit, was actually closer to the Rockefeller forces. As a result, in the middle of his presidency the Taft administration started to initiate antitrust suits against Morgan companies, in particular U.S. Steel and International Harvester, as retaliation for the Roosevelt assault on Rockefeller interests. Therefore, in order to deny Taft reelection in 1912 the Morgan interests formed the Progressive Party and put Roosevelt on the ticket. This heavily pietist, intellectual and Morgan-laden party was able to deny Taft reelection and allow for the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, to win the White House.


Historians agree that Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson were progressives. What they won’t tell us is the financial interest that were backing them and advocating for legislation that propel their interest. Trust busters indeed, it all depends on whose “trust” is getting busted.

Obama Doesn't Need a Stinking Congress

There can be no doubt we are living in a post-constitutional American.  The long march of progressivism has arrived.  I wonder if Woodrow Wilson, if he were alive today, would be proud, or aghast, at his vision of an administrative state unencumbered by “meddlesome” and “clumsy nuisance” that is public opinion.

President Barack Hussein Obama and his apparatchiks have run circles around Congress and the American people.  What his highness hasn’t accomplished by the use of a pen and a phone, his bureaucrats have passed by creating rules, regulations and mandates that have the force of law.  It truly is astonishing.  Here is an excerpt from the Washington Times:  

With one day to go, the administration added 81,611 pages to the Federal Register, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s count of the official record-keeping digest of federal agencies’ rule-making. It’s the highest total on record and the third time Mr. Obama has crossed the 80,000-page level during his presidency, the institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews calculated.

“This is the pen and phone era, and the president has made clear he’s going to go around Congress when he gets the chance,” Mr. Crews said. “We expected Congress to do something about it, but it didn’t.”

Not only did Congress not do anything, they funded his agenda to the tune of $1.1 trillion!  To add insult to injury, Speaker Paul Ryan and the republican establishment have promised to defund Planned Parenthood and Obamacare after they already funded it!  They must take us for fools!

The pen and phone president promised to violate our Second Amendment rights as soon as he gets back from vacation.  Can we expect Congress to block him?  I think we all know the answer to that question.

Congress has abrogated their constitutional responsibilities, for every law they passed in 2015, Obama’s bureaucrats enacted 16 regulations.  Does anyone believe this is how this country is supposed to be run?  If so, let’s cut out the pretense and disband Congress.  It’s quite obvious they’re not needed.

Source:

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/obama-sets-record-for-new-rules-in-2015/#.VoV1aFQFXBI.twitter

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-obama-admin-winning-the-new-regulations-race/article/2577931

Hey George Will, This is No Longer Madison's Constitution

Are you ticked off at the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the Republican leadership in Washington D.C.?  Well, if you are, George Will has some advice: Get over it!  According to this beltway courtesan, we should be angry at James Madison for establishing a separation of powers in our Constitution.

I have news for Mr. Beltway: This is no longer James Madison’s constitution.

If James Madison had the ability of time travel, he wouldn’t recognize our form of government.  When he was alive, States had representation in the Senate.  That was until the 17^th Amendment.  Now it’s as populists as the House of Representatives only with a longer term.

In James Madison’s constitution, only Congress was vested with legislative powers and raising revenue.  Today, we have federal bureaucracies passing rules and regulations that have the force of law.  They also originate and collect penalties and fees.  Some agencies have the power to adjudicate their own cases.  I do believe James Madison wasn’t around in 1946 when the Administrative Procedures Act was passed.

In James Madison’s constitution, there are enumerated powers that limited the scope of the federal government.  Now we have the Supreme Court manufacturing rights for special interest groups while striking States’ constitutions for noncompliance.  The 10^th Amendment mattered in James Madison’s constitution.  Today, States are mere vassals bowing and scraping to the all powerful central government thanks to the 14th and 16^th Amendments and establishment of the Federal Reserve.

This is not James Madison’s constitution anymore, Mr. Will.  This is President Woodrow Wilson’s constitution.  Here is what the Progressive Era president had to say about the administrative state:

But where has this science grown up? Surely not on this side of the sea….American writers have hitherto taken no very important part in the advancement of this science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of our making; it is a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principles….It has been developed by French and German professors.

So Mr. Will, this is not James Madison’s constitution.  What we have is an invasion of the Progressive constitution.

 

Source:

http://www.westernfreepress.com/2015/08/16/george-will-schools-conservatives-blame-james-madison-not-mcconnell-or-boehner/

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/08/16/george-will-gives-middle-finger-to-angry-american-conservatives-get-over-it/

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2012/02/obama-administration-flourishes-under.html

Democrats Scheme to Advance Administrative State

Senate Democrats pulled the nuclear option earlier this week.  They are fully aware that the American people have caught onto their shenanigans.  Barack Obama is officially a lame duck and the Republicans have a chance to win the Senate.  The Democrats need a failsafe plan that will further their socialist ideology without having to go through the legislative process.  They need the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to rubber stamp Obama’s administrative state.

The progressives for over a hundred years schemed to circumvent the U.S. Constitution.  They needed a way to bypass Congress.  They needed federal bureaucracies that can act independent of the legislative process.  They need an administrative state.  President Woodrow Wilson gave them a vision even he admitted is alien to the American people:

But where has this science grown up? Surely not on this side of the sea….American writers have hitherto taken no very important part in the advancement of this science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of our making; it is a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principles….It has been developed by French and German professors.

Many are asking what law allowed the executive branch to accumulate all this power while abrogating Congress’s constitutional responsibilities.  It is called the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946.

This law gave federal agencies a free hand in writing, implementing and enforcing rules and regulations.  They can do this with little input from the general public or our representatives.

In 1947, the department of justice issued the Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act. This document provides insight regarding the application of the act and remains valuable as a research tool to this day. Some of the information contained in this manual provides analysis that the courts have not yet considered.

The purpose of the APA is to provide minimum procedural standards that federal administrative agencies must follow. It distinguishes between two major forms of administrative functions: agency rulemaking and agency adjudication. Administrative rulemaking is analogous to the legislative acts, while an administrative adjudication is analogous to a judicial decision. This distinction contained in the APA has long been the subject of scholarly debate. Some argue that such a dichotomy is unnecessarily rigid and that it might not always allow for the most appropriate procedures for a particular agency. Supporters of the distinction between rulemaking and adjudication contained in the APA note that this distinction best represents the basic functions of administrative agencies.

The rulemaking provisions of the APA are more detailed than those governing adjudications. Most agencies engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking, which is required as the minimum rulemaking procedure under the APA. Under notice-and-comment rulemaking, agencies are required to give the public advance notice of the contents of proposed rule and to offer the public an opportunity to express their views of the proposed rule before the agency. Some agencies are required by the statutes that created them to follow more stringent standards, whereby all of the agency's actions during rulemaking are conducted "on the record." This latter type of rulemaking is known as formal rulemaking.

The APA defines and governs only those types of adjudications that are required by statute to be conducted "on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing." If an agency is required to conduct such a formal adjudication under the APA, it must engage in a proceeding resembling a trial. However, if the agency is not required to conduct such a hearing, the APA remains silent. Accordingly, an agency may adopt its own procedure for an informal adjudication, so long as the agency otherwise does not violate the U.S. Constitution or other law.

I contend that the Administrative Procedures Act is unconstitutional.  It violates Article One, Section One, and our constitutional concept of separation of powers.  But as we’ve seen, the progressives only need a compliant judge to implement their vision of the United States even if it’s against the will of the people.

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/22/politics/senate-nuclear-option-5-things/

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2012/02/obama-administration-flourishes-under.html

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Administrative+Procedure+Act+of+1946

Evolution from Federalism to Totalitarianism

The past couple of weeks have been interesting.  The steady, unrelenting assault on citizenship and personal liberty is something to behold.  Here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, the media – both newspaper and liberal talk radio, have renounced the principles of our Constitution.  Actually, I don’t believe the “broadcast specialist” at WBT 1110 AM understand the concept of federalism.

 

 

 

Recently, both the morning and afternoon local “talent” criticized two North Carolina republicans for trying to protect our local governments from the abuses of the ACLU and the federal government by introducing a bill that reemphasized our Founders’ intent on the First Amendment.  Somehow, the progressives have equated prayer at county commissioner meetings as establishing a religion.  This conclusion is historically inaccurate.

The establishment of a religion, as our founders meant, is the federal government imposing a tax on the several states to support a state sanctioned “religion.”  A religion being Anglican, Congregationalist, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, etc…etc…  A religion was not considered Hinduism, Islamic, Buddhism, Judaism or Christianity. 
    
Look, the majority of us are victims of a public education, and to a greater extent the indoctrination of our universities.  But when we reach adulthood, you’d think a little intellectual curiosity would carry the day, especially those who pontificate on the great issues of our time.  I ask where did we go wrong.

 It all started back in 1857, when political science was introduced at Columbia and John Hopkins.  Francis Lieber was a German immigrant deeply influenced by Hegel.   Progressives such as Woodrow Wilson embraced this foreign philosophy.  Here is an excerpt from Bradley C. S.  Watson’s Living Constitution, Dying Faith:

 

The birth of American political science created a bastion within the academy for the view that perpetual societal improvement is possible and inevitable, partly because of evolutionary unfolding, but partly with aid of the right kind of superintendence.  The institutional and theoretical departures implied by this view would have made the new political science unrecognizable to the American Founders, whose “new science” in its dismissive contempt for traditional political philosophy, unchanging principles of political right, and ideas and institutions from prior centuries, turned its back on the Founders.  For the most part, it still does.  American political science therefore remains almost genetically incapable of understanding the Constitution of the fathers.
 

Now, we have people like this guy teaching college kids.
 

 

 Evolution at its finest.   

Source:  http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4702 

100th Anniversary of the 16th Amendment

Today is the 100^th anniversary of the 16^th Amendment.  Tax lawyers, accountants and federal bureaucrats are celebrating with unabated cheer.  For if it weren’t for this monstrosity, the general government wouldn’t be able to tax your income directly.  The Constitution forbade that.  Originally, taxation was apportioned by the States.

What a blessing the Progressives gave us. Now, we’re subjected to an incomprehensible and confiscatory tax code.  President Woodrow Wilson please take a bow, for he couldn’t wait to usher in this new source of revenue.  He called for a special session of Congress on April 13.  They directed an income tax of 1% on incomes above $3000 and applied surcharges between 2% and 7% on income from $20,000 to $500,000.  That was the beginning of it all.  Here is a prophetic prediction by an opponent of the 16^th Amendment:

Richard E. Byrd, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, predicted, "a hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business. . . . Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal officials, spies and detectives will descend upon the state. . . ."[14]

Not only have they descended upon the state, they have descended upon the citizenry with a vengeance.  Under the Obama administration, an army of IRS agents are being hired to spy on our health care. 

The Progressives weren’t finished.  Later, they created the Federal Reserve, giving the general government an unlimited credit line.  We can attest to that.  This country is $17 trillion in debt, thanks to the printing presses.  This secretive entity has destroyed the dollar, along with our savings.  Later these revolutionaries would implement the 17^th Amendment completely destroying our federative system.

Progressives have a long history of fiscal irresponsibility.  After passing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Woodrow Wilson is quoted as saying “I have unwittingly ruined my country.”   Unwittingly?  No sir, you knew exactly what you were doing.

Source:  http://mises.org/daily/1597

http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Woodrow-Presidents-Constitutional-ebook/dp/B0078FACL2

Judge Napolitano: Theodore and Woodrow

I’ve been looking for a book on the Progressive Era that delineates the ideologies of both Republican and Democratic politicians of that period.  I do believe Judge Napolitano’s latest work accomplishes what I’m looking for.

 

 Considering the hagiographies I’ve had to endure, namely, Arthur Walworth’s Pulitzer Prize biography of Woodrow Wilson, an honest and refreshing history is much needed, especially in this day and age of progressivism run amok.  And how do I know that Judge Napolitano’s book meets that criterion?  Publisher Weekly did a hit job review.  That’s how I know.

Fox News regular and former New Jersey judge Napolitano (Constitutional Chaos) seeks to prove that presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were not heroes but A-list bad guys.. Napolitano claims that Roosevelt and Wilson “pushed aside the traditionally accepted and constitutionally mandated restrictions on the federal government and used it as an instrument to redistribute wealth, regulate personal behavior, enrich the government, and enhance the government’s health with wars.” With the draft, instituted by Wilson in WWI, the U.S. instituted “a form of slavery and therefore tyranny.” Napolitano repeatedly links what he views as Roosevelt’s and Wilson’s Progressive era folly and perfidy to the present, claiming that Wilson instituted the federal income tax we know today, which the authors calls “theft” and that, thanks to Roosevelt’s foreign meddling, the U.S. is the “most imperialistic country in the history of the world.” This hit job takes on the Federal Reserve, compulsory education, industrial regulation, and race with equal lack of subtlety. Roosevelt and Wilson, according to Napolitano, were agents of central economic planning. Whatever political points Napolitano is trying to score, he doesn’t accomplish. Agent: Bob Barnett. (Nov.)

Off to the bookstore I go!

Source: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59555-351-5

H/T:  NC Renegade

Obama Administration Flourishes Under Woodrow Wilson's Alien Government

The arrogance of the Obama administration and his apparatchiks has many scratching their heads wondering how in the hell did America – the land of the free – become a nation governed by bureaucratic despots. In today’s America you can’t build a house, start a business, manufacture a product, or even pack a lunch for your kid without approval from a government thug. Is this what our founding fathers envisioned? I believe they would’ve rebelled against such tyranny. As a matter of fact, they did! So how did we get here?

The Progressives – both republican and democratic – have rendered our federalist system impotent by structurally altering the Constitution. The 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments have become instrumental tools by which the central government uses to gather power unto themselves at the expense of the states and individual liberties of its citizens. They have rendered the Constitution a mere speed bump on the road to serfdom.

Where did this paternalistic attitude of an administrative state come from? Ronald J. Pestritto summed it up best in his book, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism:

If bureaucracy, as it administers progress, is to act on behalf of the general interest, what is the role for public opinion? Wilson, after all, seems a consistent advocate of connecting politics much more directly with popular opinion. Yet, his writings on the separation of politics and administration show that public opinion is not to be brought more directly into the realm of administrative decision making. “The problem,” Wilson explained, “is to make public opinion efficient without suffering it to be meddlesome.” Public opinion is a “clumsy nuisance” when it comes to the “oversight of the daily details and in the choice of the daily means of government.” So while public opinion ought to be introduced more directly into politics, politics must confine itself to general superintendence – to the role of setting only the broad goals of the nation. “Let administrative study find the best means for giving public criticism this control and for shutting it out from all other interference,” Wilson wrote.

And isn’t that the attitude of the Obama administration and his progressive tyrants? Is this an American ideal? Even Woodrow Wilson confessed this form of governance is alien and un-American:

But where has this science grown up? Surely not on this side of the sea….American writers have hitherto taken no very important part in the advancement of this science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of our making; it is a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principles….It has been developed by French and German professors.

But the progressives have made this European animal ours. Congress, through a series of legislative acts, has brought about a Wilsonian administrative state. One of the first being the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 (thanks Dewey from Detroit blog). This law grants federal agencies the ability to create and enforce regulations without going through the legislative process. This law let the veritable genie out of the bottle. But Congress wasn’t through. They believed the federal government – through the use of an administrative state – is responsible for guaranteeing full employment.

Excerpt from the Employment Act of 1946

The Congress hereby declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential considerations of national policy, with the assistance and cooperation of industry, agriculture, labor, and State and local governments, ... for the purpose of creating and maintaining, in a manner calculated to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare, conditions under which there will be afforded useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing, and seeking to work, and to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.

The Congress of 1946 was a bunch of busy, socialist beavers. But, it didn’t stop there. A later Congress reaffirmed the federal government’s right to meddle in the economy by passing the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.

The Congress declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential national policies, and with the assistance and cooperation of both small and larger businesses, agriculture, labor, and State and local governments, to coordinate and utilize all its plans, functions, and resources for the purpose of creating and maintaining, in a manner calculated to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare, conditions which promote useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing, and seeking to work, and promote full employment and production, increased real income, balanced growth, a balanced Federal budget, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities, achievement of an improved trade balance through increased exports and improvement in the international competitiveness of agriculture, business, and industry, and reasonable price stability as provided in section 1022b(b) of this title.

Are these policies consistent with our founding principles of natural law and limited government, or are they a foreign monstrosity imposed upon us by ambitious statists who have no regards for federalism and individual liberties? I believe Woodrow Wilson answered that for us.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Liberalism-American-Intellectual-Culture/dp/0742515176

http://www.deweyfromdetroit.com/2012/02/through-portal-darkly.html

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/bills/blapa.htm

http://home.uchicago.edu/~whowell/papers/Agencies.pdf

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Employment_Act_of_1946.aspx

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1021

Sheriff Arpaio has a Million Dollar Bounty on His Head

A Mexican drug cartel has placed a million dollar bounty on Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff. Sheriff Arpaio is accustomed to death threats, but this one has to be taken seriously. MyFoxPhoenix.com reports:

It's offering $1 million for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's head and $10,000 for anyone who wants to join the Mexican cartel.

A man who wants to remain anonymous says his wife received the text message Tuesday evening. It also included an international phone number and instructions to pass the message along.

"She showed it to me..I was kind of disgusted..I reported it to the Sheriff's department yesterday..they said they were going to direct the threat squad on it."

Lisa Allen of the Sheriff's office says they believe the message originated in Mexico.

Although the Sheriff has received numerous death threats in the past, they believe this threat is credible because of its timing.

Law enforcement officers have been shot and killed on American soil and Phoenix has a high rate of kidnappings. Americans are under seige and President Obama is impotent. Sarah Palin summoned it up in an interview:



Woodrow Wilson is arguably the foremost progressive president in U.S. history. Even he didn't stand by and let foreign bandits murder American citizens. In 1916 when Pancho Villa crossed the border and raided Columbus, New Mexico, burning it and other towns and killing nineteen Americans; President Wilson sent General Pershing into Mexico to hunt that murderous bandit down.

We can only hope that our Eunuch in Chief finds his testicles and secures our borders before more Americans get killed.

The Death of our Republic

It didn’t happen overnight, and yet it didn’t take long for it to happen. We are losing our republic. Our founding fathers established a nation that would ensure a maximum amount of liberty by putting limitations on a central government. They knew that the natural tendencies of men and government were to accumulate power onto themselves.

Now we have huge bureaucracies that are being established in Washington D.C. with the power to reach into our everyday lives. They have become modern day barons, and we're the serfs who give them a reason to get up in the morning.

It was Woodrow Wilson who provided the vision for today’s America. He envisioned a politics-administrative model where Congress would act as the political wing of the federal government and the executive branch and its army of bureaucrats would establish policy. It’s they who would make the rules and regulate every facet of our lives, whether we liked it or not; and the Constitution be damned.

Congress has willingly abrogated their responsibilities. They pass 2500 page bills without reading them, while creating new agencies to interpret the monstrosity they gave birth too. These bureaucrats make the rules and have the force of law to see them through.

The Progressives are reaping the fruits of their labor and we the people were too busy toiling in the fields to see it coming. A coup d’état has taken place in America and not one shot was fired.