Conservative Rumblings

Four Republican senators have introduced a constitutional amendment to limit senators to no more than two six-year terms in office, and representatives no more than three two-year terms. To become law, the amendment must be approved by two-thirds majorities of both the Senate and House, and by three-fourths of the states.

Senators Jim DeMint, South Carolina, Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Texas, and Sam Brownback, Kansas, are the co-sponsors.

The 22nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits presidents to no more than two terms in office. Fifteen states have term limits for various officials, as do many local governments across the country.

DeMint said the amendment is needed because the power of incumbency has grown so great:

“Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians. As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power,” DeMint said.

If only this amendment had a chance of passing. Unfortunately, there are few selfless politicians; none of the entrenched lifetime politicians like Robert Byrd or Steny Hoyer would ever vote for a bill that would put them out of a job.

Term limits are completely necessary, of course. Congress has become a disgusting oligarchy filled with cronyism and wrapped in corruption. I actually have advocated in dozens of political discussions the necessity of term limits on Congressional representatives and senators, and the numbers in this amendment are exactly what I want to see.

Consider this…if these limits had been in place, who would currently not have a seat in Congress? These would be notable Senators who have served more than 12 years (i.e. more than two terms) and notable Congressmen who have served more than 6 years (3 terms).

Just imagine how great this country would be WITHOUT these people running it. It’s like a laundry list of socialists and big-government advocates.

Senators:
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Chris Dodd (D-CT)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Russ Feingold (D-WI)
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
John McCain (R-AZ)

Congressmen:
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Henry Waxman (D-CA)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Barney Frank (D-MA)
John Conyers (D-MI)
John Dingell (D-MI)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
John Murtha (D-PA)

That’s literally the entire Democratic leadership. It should tell you something that their entire lead crew has been entrenched in Congress for years upon years (and in the case of people like Murtha, Dingell, Conyers, et al, decades).

Now, if term limits were put in place, would good members of Congress who actually help the country be kicked out of their seats prematurely? Absolutely, but unfortunately, we must sacrifice some time given by a few good apples to remove the hundreds of bad apples who are career politicians that care more about their personal agendas than their constituents.

The House of Representatives approved an $819 billion economic stimulus package Wednesday that President Obama has said is necessary to revive the economy.

The final vote was 244-188, mostly along party lines as expected.

The legislation includes an estimated $544 billion in federal spending and $275 billion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses. It includes money for highway construction and mass transit.

The Senate is working on a costlier version of the bill.

Democratic congressional leaders practically declared victory Wednesday afternoon — ahead of the vote.

The massive recovery package has stirred consternation among Republicans who say their ideas are not being adequately considered. But Democrats have a comfortable majority in the House and stressed that fact in a talk with reporters.

The GOP tried quite hard to get their plan in, but the Democratic stranglehold prevented them from doing much, despite the fact that it was a far better bill.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders were standing firm in their opposition to the stimulus plan. Just ahead of the House vote, they insisted that their own plan, focusing on tax relief, would create twice as many new jobs — 6.2 million — as the plan Obama is pushing, while costing about half as much.

But the House defeated their plan Wednesday with a vote of 286-170.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Republicans remain “disappointed” in the stimulus plan coming to a vote. He says it includes a “lot of wasteful spending that won’t create jobs.”

He says the GOP plan for “fast-acting tax relief” would “create jobs and preserve jobs in America.”

Our children’s children will be paying for this bill. As Mike Pence (R-IN) said, “The only thing this bill will stimulate is more government and more debt.”

WASHINGTON — A top House Democrat confirmed Saturday that the government is planning to intervene to stabilize troubled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “intends to use the powers that Congress provided it” in a law passed in July to enable Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep functioning.

But Frank, who spoke with Paulson late Friday, said he did not “know the details of the proposed interventions,” and a Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment.

A person briefed on the matter Friday said the government was planning to take over both companies, which together hold or back half of the nation’s mortgage debt.

The intervention, which could cost taxpayers billions, was expected to include the departure of Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, according to the source, who asked not to be named because the plan was yet to be announced.

This situation is actually even worse than I thought it would be. Instead of just giving a “helping hand” to these companies (already socialistic enough to make me puke), we are looking at the distinct possibility of the government literally running these companies and pouring billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars into the organizations in order to keep them afloat.

From the Washington Times:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

Unfortunately, this situation is not a new situation. The Mexican Army has been defiantly crossing our border for years. Why we let them do it is anyone’s guess. Now on top of the migrants and the smugglers we have military forces belonging to another country violating our sovereignty. How amazing.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

“Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years,” union Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said on its Web page. “They are never held accountable, and the United States government will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of ‘Oh well, they didn’t know they were in the United States.’

Unclear what they were doing there? Please.

Doesn’t this just scream BORDER FENCE??? It seems to me that this:

would be a lot harder to get over than this:

Terrorists, who have European passports are (drumroll please): A THREAT!

European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

I’m so glad we have the most worthless agency in the history of over bureaucratic agencies, run by a worthless excuse for a human being, telling us these sorts of things. If not for the Department of Homeland Security, we would never have known that terrorists with passports might be able to, I don’t know, use said passports to get through our lax security systems in our airports.

Never mind the little side note about terrorists getting here via our completely undefended borders (all four of them, mind you). Notice also how the article does not refer to a “dirty bomb” as a nuclear device, even though that is what it is.

Nope, the important takeaway from that article is “terrorists with passports = bad.” That sort of elementary connect the dots garbage may be appropriate for an Obamessiah rally, but can’t we move beyond these sorts of mind-numbingly obvious statements and give us something concrete maybe at least once every six months? For an agency tasked with ‘defending the homeland,’ they are sure doing a butt ugly job when we have borders so porous I think the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man could saunter into Texas tomorrow and no one would think it was odd.

The DHS needs to be scrapped and the control given back to the legitimate agencies like the FBI and the Border Patrol. For as much money as we waste on the DHS, we could certainly shore up that border fence, couldn’t we? Plus, Chertoff can then go back to his job as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

Story here.

President Bush said Sunday he does not feel the need to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics to state his opposition to China’s human rights record. Skipping the event would be an “affront” to the Chinese people, he said.

Bush spoke at a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who announced that he also plans to attend the ceremonies. Other world leaders have decided not to go as a rebuke to China’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests in Tibet.

Umm…of course it is an “affront;” that is the point of a boycott! He should boycott it just for the sheer fact that is China. You know, the communists? The guys who have been stealing or trying to steal our intel for decades? THAT China. Why we are even having the Olympics in this dangerous country is beyond me, but Bush should, at the very least, not be at those opening ceremonies.

How charming; Mexico could gain veto power over U.S. actions.

In short:

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.–Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern.

While we’re at it, let’s allow Canada to dictate our health care methods, France to dictate our troop movements and Russia to moderate our education system.

Our pathetic government is endangering American citizen’s lives to curry favor with Mexico. They’re more concerned about the rights of illegals than the rights of our citizens now.

The worst part is that this intel isn’t just about Minutemen at the border; they passed along information Minutemen everywhere.