No, Rick.

Rick Moran, writing at The Next Right:

I will say frankly that this is the nuttiest part of Limbaugh's speech. There is probably no one answer to what ails conservatism but there is widespread agreement among profressionals (sic) that people like Rush, who wish to repeal not only the Great Society but also the New Deal, are anachronisms. It is not going to happen - ever. The question then becomes do conservatives chase a will o' the wisp goal that guarantees them permanent minority status or do they apply conservative principles to government as it is and not as we would wish it to be?

We stand on principle, Rick. The government is doing things it should not be doing. The fact that it has been doing these things since before we were born does not make them right. The fact that the majority currently supports them does not make them right.

You go ahead and stand for the status quo. I will stand for liberty.

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Kudos to Senator Burris -- And to Rod Blagojevich

I'm not a supporter of Governor Rod Blagojevich. In fact, his politics are about as far away from mine as I can imagine for a fellow American.

But I have to give the guy credit when due. In the instance of the selection of Roland Burris as Senator to replace Barack Obama, Blagojevich, having been publicly tarred with arrest by Federal authorities, continued on in the performance of his duties. And he made a very good choice in Roland Burris.

I'm not a supporter of Burris, either. It's just that of the pool of established Chicago Democrats who are well-known in Illinois politics, Burris is the best available.

Burris showed his ability by going to Washington and telling Harry Reid that he would sue to claim his rightful seat in the Senate. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said to seat Burris not because of any great statesmanlike respect for the rule of law but because she saw no way around his eventually being seated. Illinois law says the Governor appoints replacement Senators, whether the Secretary of State wants to certify them or not. So Burris is a Senator, whether Reid likes it or not. And the State Legislature can't unseat a Senator to have a special election.

At this point Reid's only option is to impeach Burris or let him serve his term. Burris can promise not to run in 2010, but he's not legally bound by that.

So well done, Governor and Senator.

By the way, I would have liked a special election in this one instance, but how often will these circumstances recur? The current law worked well enough.

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Fisking the White House Bailout of GM and Chrysler

President Bush has decided to give some number of billions of dollars of TARP money, which was supposed to be used for financial firms, to two failing car companies.

In doing so, he said ... well, let us fisk, shall we?

Bush said in normal economic circumstances

What are "normal" circumstances? Is there any set of circumstances that we could call "normal" that would cause companies the size of GM and Chrysler to fail, while other companies are not failing? Or would the fact of two of these companies failing be considered evidence that circumstances were not "normal"?

he would not intervene to save the automakers

Intervening is one word, "meddling in private business by Executive fiat to favor two companies over their competitors with an unconstitutional bill of attainder" describes it better. And saving the automakers may be what he says he's doing, but it's really his own image he's worried about. "Something must be done, this is something, therefor this must be done." These steps are neither necessary nor sufficient to save the automakers from anything except a painful, newsworthy Christmas. In these times of pain avoidance, Mr. Bush is just doing the expedient thing: borrowing money to loan to people who have no clear means to pay it back.

but "in the midst of a financial crisis

The financial crisis has very little to do with the automakers problems, except that their problems were caused primarily by the run-up in oil prices, making people unwilling to buy inefficient but high-markup trucks and SUVs that they had previously wanted as toys and status symbols.

To the extent that the financial crisis is a cause of the GM and Chrysler problems, it's because they have continued to make ever-more-expensive vehicles believing that people would continue to buy them on credit. When people suddenly became credit-wary, realizing the foolishness of taking a loan against a depreciating asset, the car makers were sunk.

But now that people have realized that it's foolish to pay interest on something which is losing value, no amount of Federal credit assistance is going to rescue the car companies.

"and a recession,

Again, would there ever be a car maker failure during some other economic phase?

"allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse

The collapse bogeyman, too big to fail, etc. If these companies cannot make it, they should be allowed to fail now before we dump huge amounts of money we don't have into propping them up. We will be paying the interest on the debt we incur propping up the failing companies long after they go under anyway.

"is not a responsible course of action."

Saying it doesn't make it so. The responsible thing is to let people face the consequences of their actions. Call it compassion, call it anything else, but responsible it is not.

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Senate Democrats Micromanaging Illinois Politics

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wrote a letter, co-signed by the entire Democratic Senate delegation, asking indicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to resign and not name a Senator to replace Barack Obama, who was also forced to resign last month due to Constitutional conflicts.

The Senate has no authority over the Illinois Governor, however, and no formal input into Blagojevich's choice to replace the embattled Obama.

Blagojevich, currently free on bond, has so far refused to resign.

The indictment naming Blagojevich, a Chicago Democrat with close ties to former Senator Obama, did not name Obama specifically as a target of the corruption probe, which is ongoing. To protect their case, prosecutors are typically reluctant to disclose publicly the targets of ongoing investigations.

The letter's co-signers included Illinois Senator Richard ("Dick") Durbin. Durbin, reelected last month on what some call a more conservative appeal to rural downstate voters, recently asked President Bush to commute the sentence in the felony corruption conviction of former Governor George Ryan. Durbin also made headlines last month when urging Blagojevich not to appoint another African-American to the Senate.

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Proposed Constitutional Amendments

• For each new law enacted by Congress, a law must be repealed.
  
  
• For each new item of spending or increase to an existing item, an identical amount must be cut elsewhere in the budget.
  
  
• The Cabinet must contain at least one but at most ten members.
  
  
• All government documents, except Treaties and Agreements with foreign powers, must be printed only in English.
  
  
• Congress shall make no law to favor one business over another, nor to acquire any ownership in a business.
  
  
• In questions arising over the classification of people, Congress shall make no law to applying to one group but not others, except to distinguish citizens from non-citizens.
  
  
• In this Constitution, the terms "ex post facto" and "Bill of Attainder" apply to laws that either favor or punish.
  
  
• "Interstate commerce" shall mean an exchange of value between separate Persons in two or more States.
  
  
• Senators and Congressmen shall serve no more than two consecutive terms.

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Why is the Bailout Unconstitutional?

The Paulson Bailout fiasco is unconstitutional not merely because there is nowhere listed in the Constitutional a Federal authority to bail out commercial enterprises.

The Bailout is an ex post facto bill of attainder, both of which are of course forbidden by the Constitution.

An Ex Post Facto law is one which is written after the fact to address some problem.

A Bill of Attainder is trial by legislation.

And that is what we have in the Paulson Bailout.

-------- Update --------
I ran this past a lawyer friend, who said that actually, Congress can and does single out individuals for special benefit all the time. It can even name them, but the reason it doesn't usually do so is political, rather than legal.

It seems illogical, to me, because how does one draw the line between a punishment and a benefit? If Congress singles out Acme, Inc. for special benefits coupled with special labor rules, for instance, that may be on balance a positive or a negative thing for Acme. It seems to me that there is a spectrum or range from outlawing a company's existence to giving them too-big-to-fail money.

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The Ineligible Appointing the Ineligible

Despite mounting concern over his own eligibility to assume the United States Presidency, former Senator Barack H. Obama (D-IL) is expected to nominate an ineligible person to be Secretary of State.

Obama, who has yet to provide legal proof of native birth, resigned from the Senate in November amid questions and lawsuits charging that he lacks the necessary qualifications to become President. Compounding his troubles was the Constitutional requirement that he could not hold both Executive and Legislative office at the same time.

But experts say that the same Constitutional Section (Article I, Section 6) requiring him to step down also precludes the appointment of a sitting Senator to a Cabinet post during the Senate term in which the post has had its pay increased. If as expected he nominates Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), she would be unable to serve.

However others say that the Constitution may not be binding on the Obama Administration.

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Why Can't the Government Do Something?

"Why can't the government do something about the American auto industry?"

They can do something about it.

"Why don't they fix it, then?"

They can't do that.

"But you said they could!"

No, I said they could do something about it. They can outlaw it, they can subsidize it some more, and they and even take it over. But none of those things would fix it.

"'Take it over'?"

Yes, they could easily buy a controlling interest in the car companies.

"Why don't they do that?"

There is nothing in our Constitution about that.

"Exactly my point! Why don't they just buy the auto makers?"

Our government doesn't do that kind of thing. And it wouldn't fix the problem. It would only make the government more interested in funding them further.

"But you said they could."

Republicans would never stand for it.

"But they were voted out of power."

Ah. Just so.

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Paulson Playing Whackamole With Economy

Michelle calls it "Borrow. Spend. Panic. Repeat."

There is no clear policy, and seemingly no rhyme nor reason to the decision over which institutions are bailed out, which ones are forced into sale, and which ones are left to their own resources.

In the absence of a clear policy, or even a murky policy, or even a vague pattern of behavior, people (meaning the banks) are putting their money in the proverbial sock drawer, holding on to it until such a time as conditions are more stable.

And that's a good thing. When borrowing individuals, families, companies, or governmental units realize themselves vulnerable to debt risk, the prudent thing for them is to pay down that debt, not to incur more. Similarly, when lenders realize that they are vulnerable to too much of the wrong kind of debt, the prudent thing is not to lend. The signs are that most people are working to limit the amount of debt they have.

It should be remembered that all of this Nanny State pain avoidance is being done with money we don't have.

And by bailing out companies in this erratic fashion, no one knows which companies are at risk and which ones are safe. The current practice merely prolongs the inevitable pain.

Paulson's borrow-and-loan game is killing the credit market in the short term, and by ballooning government debt it will destroy the economy in the long run.

And nowhere does this kind of power appear in the Constitution.

I would call for Henry Paulson to resign, effective immediately, but his clever boss appears to be even more clueless as to the danger his actions pose to the economy, and the republic itself.

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Hillary Clinton is Not Eligible To Be Secretary of State

And it's not even really a debatable point.

Article I, § 6.2 of the United States Constitution:

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

"Emoluments" is deadwhiteguyese for "pay". The point being to keep Congresscritters from creating cushy jobs in the bureaucracy and having themselves appointed thereto.

President Bush, in keeping with the cost of living increases lavished for no particular reason on government officials, raised the emoluments of the Secretary of State in January, 2008, which is during the current Senate term of Hillary Clinton.

The good and wise Professor Volokh (w/t) thinks that it would be enough to lower the pay for the secretarial job back to January, 2007 levels.

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