Picking up where I left off . . . after a very long hiatus.
Election 2010 – “there we go again”. With national polls giving Congress a job-approval rating of something around 10% to 15% We-The-Voters reelected 86% of our legislators to office. These are the same dysfunctional legislators that year after year give us crushing federal deficits, bloated government, incompetence, corruption, etc.
I single out members of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives, for this attention because Congress is by far the most powerful of the three branches of our government, and if We-The-Voters fail to hold them accountable they can, and will, destroy our government. They are well on the way to doing exactly that.
Here is a very brief summary of the constitutional powers and duties of the three branches.
Legislative: The Congress and ONLY the Congress can make laws. Congress has approval over ALL presidential appointments. Congress establishes ALL federal courts except the Supreme Court.
Administrative: The President is Commander and Chief of the armed forces, but ONLY Congress can “declare war”. The President can make appointments to the various federal offices, including Supreme Court Judges, but ONLY with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Judicial: The Supreme Court is established by the Constitution and its judges are appointed by the President, but ONLY with the advice and consent of the Senate. All lower federal courts are established by Congress AS THEY SEE FIT.
A President cannot raise or lower taxes, impose fees or special conditions, make insurance mandatory, ban drilling for oil, outlaw light-bulbs, etc. etc. Only Congress, through legislation, can do these things, and if it happens – Congress did it.
So, my advice is don’t waste your time getting all lathered up over the President throwing his political weight around, or federal courts that go completely nuts. The Congress can stop it all whenever they decide to do it.
Just get up every morning, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Hey, it’s the Congress.” Then get busy throwing out all the existing congressmen and replacing them with people who really mean it when they swear to “. . . support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; (and to) bear true faith and allegiance to the same . . .”
I spent a lot of time with the Constitution coming to the previous conclusions, and I found the best way to understand it was to read it then write out what it said in plain, modern-day American English without all the tortured old English sentence structures, but keeping as best a possible the same, exact meaning.
So, as a result of all this thrashing around, I am about to post a Plain English version of the U.S. Constitution on this website. I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think . . . about both, my conclusions and the Constitution. Watch for it.
