Richmond-Times Dispatch: “Virginia needs to . . . lead . . . the charge to amend the U.S. Constitution to give two-thirds of states the power to repeal an act of Congress. . . . the problem is an imbalance of power, with power held by and concentrated in a distant and unaccountable federal bureaucracy.”
The march deeper and deeper into the nanny state continues. Boston Globe: “First, it was smoking in restaurants and bars. Then, artery-clogging trans fat in fast food joints and bakeries. Now, Boston health regulators have their crosshairs fixed on soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages sold in city building.”
On Friday, President Obama appointed Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to be the head of the brand new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB was created by the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill that became law in July of 2010. The new law is called the “Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act.”
The United States Constitution states that the President:
“shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint . . . Officers of the United States. . . . Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone.”
President Obama signed the new Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill into law on July 21, 2010. The law states that the:
“”Director shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
The CFPB created a new government watchdog agency that: (i) sets its own budget so it is not dependent on Congress for funding, and (ii) is independent and not controlled by Congress or the President. This new agency is a totalitarian governmental agency that will be run by unelected people who answer to no one. Does anybody who believes in freedom and liberty think this is a good idea? The audacity of hope!
Despite the U.S. Constitution and the express language in the law, President Obama appointed Warren to be the director of the CFPB without the consent of the U.S. Senate or even a hearing on whether she should hold the job. Why do few people care when the President violates federal law? What will happen to our country if our leaders do not respect and follow the rule of law?
The Wall St. Journal said Warren’s appointment avoided “Senate confirmation and, for that matter, any political supervision. The chutzpah here is something to behold. . . . We would have thought a Harvard law professor would object to the extra-legality of this arrangement, but then this is also the crew that gave us ObamaCare via budget reconciliation and put Donald Berwick in charge of Medicare without a Senate debate. . . . We have here another end-run around Constitutional niceties so Team Obama can invest huge authority in an unelected official who is unable to withstand a public vetting. So a bureau inside an agency (the Fed) that it doesn’t report to, with a budget not subject to Congressional control, now gets a leader not subject to Senate confirmation.”
The Gainesville Sun: “The cost of policing the Dove World Outreach Center for the planned Quran burning that never happened is expected to come to about $100,000 each for the Gainesville Police Department and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, officials say.”
See also “Planning to Burn a Koran = $200,000 Bill from the Government for Policing Costs?” The article by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh says,
“Except that charging people money for extra policing, because of a fear that thugs would react violently to their speech, is unconstitutional, see Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992).”
More evidence that many educators are complete idiots, if not downright dangerous and harmful to children. NBC Miami: “The 8-year-old boy hasn’t been in school for a year and will likely miss another year if the Broward County School Board has its way. Burgos was suspended from school in November after a teacher found a toy gun in his backpack.”
Why not make the kid write 100 times on the blackboard “I will not bring toy guns to school?” or suspend him for a few days? Is it really such a terrible thing to bring a toy gun to a school? Why can’t the educators distinguish the difference between a toy and the real thing – the former is a toy and the latter is a dangerous weapon. Do we really want educators to teach our kids that toy guns are bad? Shouldn’t that be the responsibility of the child’s parents? Why aren’t the educators concerned about the adverse affect the child will suffer for missing two years of school and then being two years older than the other kids in the class when he does return?