http://www.armytimes.com/…

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

Ah yes. After Hurricane Katrina. When they went around unconstitutionally taking people’s firearms and checking old women into walls.

As far as I understand using the military for policing was not legal. It had been made legal between 2006 and 2008 but due to the controversy it was repealed. Perhaps the Bush administration missed that.

Unless We Start Busing Kids to Mars…

We’ve all been told that school districts around the country are feeling the pinch from higher fuel costs. What’s never mentioned is that districts are supposedly suffering budget crunches despite spending more than twice as much – in real, inflation-adjusted dollars – as they did in 1970.

According to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, districts spent an average of $5,247 per pupil in 1970 (in 2008 dollars). Today, the average is about $12,000. How is it possible that districts could have trouble covering higher gas prices when they have an extra $6,500 to spend per pupil? One reason is that the public school bureaucracy has been doing what bureaucracies do best: growing. Since 1970, total public school employment has nearly doubled to over 6.1 million people, while total enrollment has increased by less than 9 percent. It is to support this army of new public school employees that taxpayers are being asked for more and more funding each year. If the public schools were to return to the student/staff ratio they had in 1970, they would have an extra $100 billion per year with which to fill the tanks of the nation’s school buses. And unless we start busing kids to Mars, that should probably cover it.

Of course, taxpayers might be willing to foot this lavish bill if the smaller class sizes and larger bureaucracies of recent years had led to improved student outcomes. They haven’t. Students at the end of high school score no better in reading and math today than they did in 1970, according to the Long Term Trends tests administered as part of the National Assessment of Education Progress. In science, their scores today are lower.

School District Budgets

I was surprised to hear on NPR this morning that a public school in Washington, DC was renovated to the tune of $65 million. So I checked to see what the annual budget for the DC school district is ($773 million) and found this:

With 23 schools slated to close starting next school year, monies allocated for schools increased to $537 million from $493 million in FY ’08.

Economic realities be damned, the prison education industrial complex must grow.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/…

Two former secretaries of State unveiled a plan Tuesday to require better consultation between Congress and the president over sending U.S. troops into war.

The legislation, the product of a blue-ribbon commission headed by James A. Baker III, secretary of State under President George Bush, and Warren Christopher, who held the same office under President Bill Clinton, would establish a joint congressional committee and require that the president consult with its members before sending the military into battle.

“This statute gives Congress a seat at the table in deciding whether or not to go to war — not just a seat at the table, but one with a permanent staff, a permanent professional staff, and access to all the available intelligence information,” Christopher said.

Christopher and Baker urged Congress and a new administration to quickly take up their proposal, and said they had reached out to the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama , D-Ill., and John McCain , R-Ariz.

The plan also would require Congress to vote on a concurrent resolution to authorize the conflict within 30 days after military action begins. If that resolution fails, it would allow an expedited vote on a joint resolution of disapproval, which would become law only with the president’s signature or over his or her veto.

Any military action expected to last more than a week would require consultation, and formal consultation would continue every two months. If action requires secrecy, the president would have to consult within three days after the action began. Covert operations, humanitarian missions, limited reprisal against terrorists and repelling attacks on the United States would be exempt.

Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. However, since the end of World War II, presidents have committed the U.S. military to several conflicts without asking for declarations of war, though in some cases Congress has enacted authorizing resolutions, as it did in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Congress also has the power to limit spending for military operations, though it could be politically difficult to do so once U.S. troops have been committed to a conflict.

The proposal would replace the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which the commission concluded was ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst.

OHHH. I see what they are saying. Congress does have a say. They just don’t bother to use that power. Nor do they use the power to impeach and try the president for high crimes of going to war without a declaration. Lets take a look at that “Constitution” thing they speak of.

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11: The Congress shall have the Power To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8: Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Article 2, Section 4, Clause 1: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Seems pretty clear to me. “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” He is the Commander in Chief only when the Congress calls the Army, Navy and/or Militia of the several States into actual service. When can they be called into service? When the Congress declares war, “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” That’s it as far as I can tell.

And what did James Madison say on the topic?

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.

Hence it has grown into an axiom that the executive is the department of power most distinguished by its propensity to war: hence it is the practice of all states, in proportion as they are free, to disarm this propensity of its influence.

So it seems even more obvious that Congress not only has a say but it is the only voice. Will such a setup as proposed fix anything? I don’t see how. The more strict and constitutional ways for military deployment has failed for decades. This plan has no teeth. Hell, the president can veto the “joint resolution of disapproval.” Even if the president couldn’t what would that do? It’s just a disapproval resolution. It sounds like a UN security council resolution. There is nothing to back it up.

(If this article surprises anyone, then you just haven’t been paying attention… to anything. Ever.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency. The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit — including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who requested the study along with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), said that money “intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing.”

“Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit,” Coleman said. “It’s time to cut up their cards and start over.”

I was delighted at how easy this was to stumble upon: A Practical Guide for Reviewing Government Purchase Card Programs A nice little pdf pamphlet that kindly goes over the processes of government purchase cards with fun Microsoft Word clip-art. Fancy.

Why not just cut up the cards and be done with it? Why bother to “start over”?
I suppose, while there’s still tax dollars coming in, why the hell not?!
Oh, yea, and throw in some proposed legislation while you’re at it: The Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act.

(All fixed!)

http://www.nolanchart.com/…

Do you think it is over for Ron Paul now that Super Tuesday is over? This is an absolute win for Ron Paul. We all always knew that Ron Paul was not going to get enough delegates to steal the nomination. He just needs enough to bring to the convention, which he has. The plan was to make it to a brokered convention, so that the message would get out to all of the republicans. The delegates are in fact uncommitted and many of them may not even know who Ron Paul is.

By having a brokered convention, they will all hear the message, no matter how the media has tried to black him out. The media will have no choice but to show the good doctor and his message as the whole thing will be televised. It will be run by the GOP, not the biased main stream media. This is what we need. Everyone will be watching if there is a brokered convention, Republican and Democrat. Whether the good doctor gets elected or not, the seed of freedom will be planted.

People will start to awaken from their apathy and question the things going on around them. It happened to me, and all it took was hearing Ron Paul speak 1 time. I used to watch Fox News almost exclusively when I was in the Army, and even after I had gotten out. I didn’t even notice that the Neocons were hijacking the Republican Party. After hearing Ron Paul speak in length, and agreeing with so much of what he said, I did some more research on him and the Libertarian Party. I realized that I am not only a conservative Republican, I am also a Libertarian. Ronald Reagan once said, “If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism”. This speaks volumes to all those who think that Mitt Romney is a conservative and it is laughable to think that McCain is. Having said that, I think that no matter which way you lean politically, we all have a little libertarian in us. We are all Americans. This country was founded on the platform Ron Paul is running his campaign on.

We have gotten far away from what our founding fathers intended for us. But know this; the message absolutely does not have to “finish fourth, along with the candidate”. Not if We the People keep fighting. Even if Ron Paul doesn’t get the nomination, the reason it is about the message is because people die, but the message doesn’t have to. It is up to all of us to carry on that message. If you truly believe in the words that Dr Paul speaks about freedom and liberty, then the message can never “finish fourth”.

This is called the Ron Paul Revolution. Even if Ron Paul isn’t elected, and the status quo continues, then it is still a revolution. I am not saying that people need to arm themselves, but that We the People must rise up and be heard. Let the powers that be know that we will not give up our freedoms anymore. We need to be organized, and that is what this campaign has already started. The meet-ups. The forums. The blogs. The websites. It is already there. This is the framework for our revolution. There are many things we can do to continue the fight.

Don’t Give Up!

Stand proudly behind the Freedom Fighter Dr. Ron Paul.

Lets hope he’s right.