Sure I can comment on the article which is really a hit piece on the COS Project but I’ll get to that later.
See what Little Pig wrote in #9?
Sorry Little Pig but you’re completely off in understanding the nature of the garbage this writer uses to criticize Levin.
Standby while I prepare to illustrate fairly thoroughly what’s going on with this garbage article. It’s going to be a bit long so brace yourself.
First, understand that Mark Levin is a critical thinker meaning that he asks himself whenever he writes or comments, he asks himself all the possibly germane and substantial questions possible that most people would be expected to ask and he responds or thinks with respect to those questions, or as he calls it, coming up with suggestions that get one’s arms around the whole problem, addressing the scale of the problem and leaving no outlet for loopholes around the suggested responses to the problem.
Remember that he is a Grade AAA lawyer and achieved great advancement and position within Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, so he’s no lightweight and he’s had plenty of hobnobbing with some of the more brilliant legal minds in the USA, and his Talk Radio Show brings him into contact with ordinary folks which makes him sensitive and sympathetic to how the Washington DC culture affects us. So he’s got both ends of the spectrum informing him fully in addition to his own talent for getting to the root of the matter. He’s a serious player.
This guy who wrote this trash, Publius Huldah (not his real name), he’s against the COS Project, (http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/about/), Ok? Tells you right there all you need to know (if you’re up to speed). Huldah whatever the hell his name is, he doesn’t hold a candle to Levin. He’s a ‘Beltway Conservative’ and I’ll explain why that’s important later below.
So let’s look at Little Pig’s blurb about Huldah’s trash article:
“Our Constitution limits federal spending to the enumerated powers. If you go through the Constitution and highlight the powers delegated to Congress or the President, you will have a complete list of the objects on which Congress may lawfully spend money. That is how our Framers controlled federal spending. It is the enumerated powers which limit spending not the amount of revenue the federal government generates or the size of the GDP. Do you see?” (NO I DON”T SEE MORON!)
Now here’s what I say to this: WHAT KIND OF MORON WOULD BELIEVE THE ABOVE? Now, think about it. Does the Constitution say the Federal Government will spend X on enumerated power 1 and Y on enumerated power 2, etc.? NO IT DOESN’T!
Let’s review the enumerated powers:
The Congress shall have Power:
1* To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,
2* To pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
3* To borrow on the credit of the United States;
4* To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
5* To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
6* To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
7* To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
8* To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
9* To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
10* To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
11* To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
12* To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
13* To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
14* To provide and maintain a Navy;
15* To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
16* To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
17* To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
18* To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
19* To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Also:
Several amendments explicitly grant Congress additional powers. For example, the Sixteenth Amendment grants the power to “lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.”
Look at each of the enumerated powers and we can see how Congress has thought itself authorized to fund whatever it damn well pleases. Because the enumerated powers contain some broad categories that a bit of thought and word twisting of any proposal can be shoehorned into. For example, EPA? No problem....”provide for the General Welfare of the United States” After all, protecting the environment is related to the general Welfare isn’t it? I can disagree that it is not a federal level responsibility for the folks in the States to figure out how they’re going to treat their sewage or spray their crops etc. It’s good for the federal government to promote technology to do such things but we don’t need them lording over us on WHAT we SHALL do and WHEN we SHALL do it at the threat of grinding us into the ground with legalism. But that’s just my opinion. Those inside the Beltway decided the EPA was going to have power and then some and they rigged their own enumerated power argument to back it up.
So does the Constitution say that for things that “provide for the General Welfare” that only X dollars can be spent towards General Welfare purposes? Does it say only XX% can be spent on General Welfare? NO IT DOES NOT!
So what then is Huldah’s point? I’ll tell you his point (again), HE DOES’T LIKE THE COS PROJECT! Why? Because he’s a goddam Beltway suckup, that’s why.
The COS Project is getting very close to making real Article V actions, why? The past two midterm elections (2010, 2014) have created a ‘Sea Change’ in state level politics so that now republicans (led by conservatives) control 66 of 99 State legislative Chambers. So now Article V is serious business. And that’s why the Beltway turncoats are peeing on themselves to come up with some sort of response. And look at this guy Huldah’s response (high pitched faggy voice) “Levin doesn’t address the problem which is the Constitution controls spending by allocating only to the enumerated powers” blah blah blah!!!
Huldah has the Beltway vapors; he’s lived in its stew for so long he’s now retarded. It’s a veritable hazard, a result of spending too much time within the District of Corruption.
I grew up inside the Beltway. Father worked as a senior attorney directly for the Attorney General (3 of them). Yeah, I went to the Christmas parties at the VP’s residence and met lots of VIPs but I was a kid. As a kid I learned instinctively what to say and more importantly what NOT to say. There’s only one real industry in Washington DC and its spillover into Maryland and Northern Virginia, and that industry is FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There’s nothing much else.
So when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in the Beltway, be a Beltway whore just like everybody else.
And there are people inside the Beltway that call themselves ‘Conservative’ and who can say or write a nice little conservative jingle now and then. But when it comes to Article V, oh my, now their world and their power from it are threatened, the whole ball of wax could come crumbling down!
For those reading this far, Mark Levin demolishes critics of the Article V COS Project. Make some time and listen to him for 30 minutes here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZuV8JnvvA
It’s highly worth it to watch. You’ll understand where people like Huldah are coming from.
It is trash history.
I would enjoy a live debate with him/her.