Can you say Big Brother?

A story on cnn.com is reporting on a boy who got spied on in his home by his school. I understand the need for security of rented out laptops, even to the point of taking over the machine if stolen or lost. However, the facts in this case clearly show this machine was not lost or stolen and that the Assistant Principle accessed the machine and took a picture of the boy, in his own bedroom, using the laptops webcam. The constitutional violator obviously didn't think he'd done anything wrong because he presented the boy with a letter and a picture stating he'd been caught in "inappropriate behavior". No, this is completely and utterly wrong. We are guaranteed by the Constitution that nobody can enter our home whether electronically or physically without a warrant. In fact, this assistant principle is probably guilty of a crime of some sort. Not only should this family win their lawsuit, but there is at least one employee who should lose their job and perhaps even be prosecuted.

Beck fan sites on Facebook

Glenn Beck has been described as many things, mostly by people who don't really understand him. Hater, fearmonger, polarizer, conspiracy theorist. I've heard or read all of these. However, unlike most of his detractors, I've actually taken the time to watch or listen to his shows and he really is none of those things. Yeah yeah, I know you won't take my word for it. Nonetheless, several of my friends on Facebook have recently started joining what can only be described as anti-Glenn Beck fan sites. Two such sites: "Can this dung beetle get more fans than Glenn Beck" and "Can this poodle wearing a tinfoil hat get more fans than Glenn Beck" have gotten a few people to join them, 68K and 205K respectively. Beck's fan site (I don't know if it is official or not) has over 665K fans so far. Of course, there are three issues I see here. One, there are competing anti-fan sites which would perform much better if they just worked together but that would be monopolistic so the left wouldn't think of it. Two, not only does one person have way too much time on their hands to create this kind of anti-fan site, but apparently two people, at least, do. Three, they are both going at it the wrong way in trying to get more fans than Beck's fan site. After all, the nielsen ratings show he has 3 million viewers a day many of whom are obviously not on Facebook, so if these anti-fan site administrators really wanted to try and make a statement, they should be going after that many people, not just trying to beat his fan site, which they aren't even able to do. Anyway, I found this entire thing quite funny and just had to share.

A new amendment for our Constitution

I was thinking about how the federal government has basically, over time, destroyed any sense of states rights and powers and was wondering, just what, if anything, could be done about that. My solution is remarkable. A Constitutional amendment. Imagine that. But what amendment could possibly turn back the clock? How about this:

If, a majority of the state's legislatures vote to declare an act of Congress, an order of the President or a decision of the court to be unconstitutional, then it is immediately returned to Congress as a proposed amendment and must follow the amendment process in order to become law.

Yes, state nullification, but with teeth. That is the only real answer I can see to the consistent bludgeoning of federalism this country has seen at the hands of politicians, Presidents and the courts.

Abuse of Presidential power - the Executive Order

The Executive Order is an oft used tool by the President to set and establish policy and law for the country while getting around the will of Congress, the courts and the people simply by declaring it. The outcomes are usually fait accompli because Congress must vote to undo an executive order or it remains in effect until a future President rescinds it. This is a very powerful tool as exercised today, but the Constitution doesn't really intend the President to have this kind of power. The executive order constitutionally is meant to allow the President to "issue orders in pursuit of constitutional objectives or, exercising powers that the Constitution assigns to them."1 So, this means a President can use this power to issue pardons or give orders to carry out anything that Congress has passed legislation that gave him the authority to control. I submit with each President, this power becomes more and more a power for the President to set policy regardless of Congress rather than using it to carry out Congressionally mandated activities, as the Constitution intended.

So, lets see, just for fun, if there is a correlation between how often a President uses this power and how far removed we are from the Constitution. While earlier Presidents did issue directives which we'd call executive orders today, the term executive order did not come into use until 1862 under Lincoln.

2George Washington - 8
John Adams - 1
Thomas Jefferson - 4
James Madison - 1
James Monroe - 1
John Quincy Adams - 3
Andrew Jackson - 12
Martin Van Buren - 10
William Henry Harrison - 0
John Tyler - 17
James K. Polk - 18
Zachary Taylor - 5
Millard Filmore - 12
Franklin Pierce - 35
James Buchanan - 16
Abraham Lincoln - 114
Andrew Johnson - 79
Ulysses S. Grant - 217
Rutherford B. Hayes - 92
James A Garfield - 6
Chester A. Arthur - 96
Grover Cleveland - 113 (1st term)
Benjamin Harrison - 143
Grover Cleveland - 140 (2nd term)
William McKinley - 185
Theodore Roosevelt - 1081
William Howard Taft - 724
Woodrow Wilson - 1803
Warren G. Harding - 522
Calvin Coolidge - 1203
Herbert Hoover - 968
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 3522
Harry S. Truman - 907
Dwight D. Eisenhower - 484
John F. Kennedy - 214
Lyndon B. Johnson - 325
Richard Nixon - 346
Gerald Ford - 169
Jimmy Carter - 320
Ronald Reagan - 381
George Bush - 166
William J. Clinton - 364
George W. Bush - 291
Barack Obama - 109 (through 3 years)

WHAT HAPPENED! It seems that the turn of the century changed the whole thing. Starting with Theodore Roosevelt, the executive order power seems to expand significantly. Before Teddy, only Grant had used it more than 200 times and his was considered one of the most corrupt administrations in history. Teddy used it 1000+ times, Taft, Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman all had significant use of the executive order, most of them near or over 1000 times. This happened primarily during the Progressive era and the Great Depression. Progressives would obviously feel held back and limited by the constraints of the Constitution and so it seems may have just ignored it (there are several court case examples of this). FDR actually has the excuse of World War II for the significant use of the executive order, but surely not ALL of the exorbitant use (the only President to issue more than 2000 EO) on his part was due to the war. After all, it was after FDR's death that Congress passed an amendment to the Constitution that limited a President to only two terms. Did Congress perhaps feel their power subverted to some degree by a popular and powerful President?

A strange thing followed the years after Truman. Executive orders calmed down to a more stable area in the 100-300 range. They never did get down to the levels before the 20th century, but they did decrease significantly following FDR and Truman. This coincides with the end of the Progressive era as well and the emergence of the Cold War. Even during Korea and Vietnam, executive orders did not spike back up to the level used by the Progressive era Presidents. Still, there have been examples by almost all 20th century Presidents of using the executive power illegally or simply to expand the power of the President, going way outside the boundaries placed on the executive branch by the Constitution.

1. Woods, Thomas E., Jr. "Who Killed the Constitution" p. 186.
2. The executive order totals for Presidents comes from the American Presidency Project website.

East coast snow records-- El Nino or Global Warming

I saw a story on MSNBC that was trying to make the case that the snowfall this year in the east is caused by global warming. It was simply a matter of time before somebody tried to make this argument. They argued that a warmer world is a wetter world (this is surprisingly true) and therefore, when it is cold, there will be more moisture and thus more snowfall. Huh, sounds preposterous, but even if we assume there is more moisture, we can't assume the temperatures will be cold enough to turn that moisture into snow. This is especially true in the face of another, much more obvious option. See, I thought it was from El Nino. El Nino has long been known to cause greater amounts of moisture and colder temperatures in the eastern and southeast United States, I guess MSNBC didn't get that memo.

Nonetheless, it doesn't snow like that in DC very often, so what gives? Could it be global warming or is it El Nino. Well, is this an El Nino year or even close to an El Nino year? Yes, in fact, we are in an El Nino year. Sorry MSNBC. However, to prove this out, lets take a closer look at the snowiest years on record for the DC area. The top 7 snow years in DC history are: 2009-10, 54.9 inches; 1898-99, 54.4; 1995-96, 46.0; 1921-22, 42.5; 1891-92, 41.7; 1904-05, 41.0; and 1957-58, 40.4. So, El Nino years should match up or at least come close to the snowy years for my theory to hold up. El Ninos don't last an exact period of time and they cycle in and out about once every 3-7 years, so a big snow year in a known El Nino year would be spot on, but a big snow year within a year of the known El Nino event to me seems possibly related. It is certainly correlative. So, do El Nino events coincide with these big snow seasons? We already know that there was an El Nino starting in 2009-10 so check. In addition, the strongest El Nino ever recorded occurred in 1997-98 and that is certainly within a years time span of the event. Also, the 1957-58 year was an El Nino year, so that coincides nicely. Another check. I don't know about El Ninos in the 19th century because I could only find dates for El Ninos in the 20th. So, that leaves two more. The closest El Nino years to those are 1905-06 and 1923-24. Both of those, like 1997-98, occurred in the year following the big heavy snows in DC. Hmm... it seems that every time DC has a bunch of snow, it can be closely correlated to an El Nino event. In addition, 5 of the 7 greatest snowfalls in DC have happened before any claims of warming could be made. So, if the world is warming and producing more moisture and thus making more snow in winter, you'd expect to see these kinds of events more often, right? Instead, the only 2 events of this nature happen to correlate with El Nino events. So much for global warming being the cause of this.