Letter to the Editor regarding the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailout

Dear Editor,

Recently, government-sponsored, private lending companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were affected so deeply by the present housing debt crisis that Congress has taken it upon itself to bail out the two to prevent them from going bankrupt and foreclosing on hundreds of thousands of Americans.

These two corporations combined own or guarantee approximately half of the country’s $12 trillion mortgage market, according to the New York Times.

It will take at least $400 billion, and, by S&P estimates, as much as $1 trillion in order to bail out these two troubled government-sponsored enterprises. Where would this money come from?

It will come from America’s debtors: ourselves.

Right now, the national debt is $9,545,842,200,233.46—nearly $10 trillion, up from $6 trillion in 2001. If the bail out would cost $400 billion, each American is responsible for $1,300 of that—in addition to the $31,355.92 we already owe. If the bail out would cost $1 trillion, each American would be responsible for another $3,300 of the national debt.

The House passed a bill which essentially authorizes the bail out, which will help approximately 400,000 Americans avoid foreclosure. However, that’s only $1,000 per person, folks.

Congress is authorizing the expenditure of money which is not its to give. I urge News readers to read Congressman David Crockett’s “Not Yours To Give” to understand my perspective in this situation.

Also, I urge New readers to call the office of Senators Specter and Casey and urge them to vote against any legislation which authorizes this misplaced government charity to save mismanaged corporations which practiced unethical lending. I urge readers to contact the office of Representative Altmire, as well, and discover how he voted, congratulating him if he voted against the bill, or the opposite if he voted in favor of it.

Update on Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008, a.k.a NOPEC

According to Reuters, the Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act of 2008 passed the House 324-84 today. The GovTrack status page for the act has yet to be updated, though—it is usually updated a day or two after action is published on THOMAS.

I commented in my previous entry, regarding overreaching and unenforceable foreign policy bills in the House.

Read this quote from the article a few times and really think about it.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

How is the US going to enforce this? The US has no legal authority or ability force its laws upon other countries, other than by gunpoint diplomacy, a policy which has already harmed the US enough.

The Bush Administration, in a rare bout of intelligence, said that the bill “would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners.” This would obviously increase the price, not reduce it at all.

Fortunately, the bill still has to go through the House, where it will hopefully fail with not more than 10 minutes of debate. Clearly 324 Congresspeople are delusional and think that they can exercise their petty will against other countries’ governments.

Rep. Kucinich introduces 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush

Ohio democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced yesterday 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush.

Please read these and call your representative. It is imperative that you call and not email.

These are presented herein with references to further examination by ImpeachBush.tv.

Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.

In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power.

1. Article I - Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
2. Article II - Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
3. Article III - Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
4. Article IV - Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.
5. Article V - Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
6. Article VI - Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.
7. Article VII - Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
8. Article VIII - Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
9. Article IX - Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor
10. Article X - Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes
11. Article XI - Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq
12. Article XII - Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources
13. Article XIII - Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries
14. Article XIV - Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
15. Article XV - Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq
16. Article XVI - Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors
17. Article XVII - Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives
18. Article XVIII - Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy
19. Article XIX - Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to ‘Black Sites’ Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture
20. Article XX - Imprisoning Children
21. Article XXI - Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
22. Article XXII - Creating Secret Laws
23. Article XXIII - Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
24. Article XXIV - Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment
25. Article XXV - Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens
26. Article XXVI - Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements
27. Article XXVII - Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
28. Article XXVIII - Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
29. Article XXIX - Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
30. Article XXX - Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare
31. Article XXXI - Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency
32. Article XXXII - Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change
33. Article XXXIII - Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.
34. Article XXXIV - Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001
35. Article XXXV - Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

Are these articles of impeachment likely to succeed? No, but at least those who vote in favor of it can say they tried, just as Rep. McKinney tried to impeach Bush in January 2007.

Govt and open source

Warning: this article gets a little ranty, but please, bear with me and help improve my thoughts by commenting.

Doc Searls of Linux Journal linked recently in his article Is government open source code we can patch? to an article by Britt Blasser entitled “Oh, if only government went in for an open source make-over…”. The article indirectly cites through a reference to Phil Hughes’ own Our Internet article two articles, FCC: Moving Beyond Network Neutrality and Our Internet!, by Bob Frankston, who Doc Searls recently interviewed for Linux Journal in Beyond Telecom (non-free registration required, subscribers can get it free).

In his article, Searls says:

Democracy is by nature “our government”. The open source twist on that we put it together and can hack improvements to it. Think of elected officials as committers and maintainers and you start go get the idea.

The analogy isn’t perfect, because by nature open source code is purely practical: it has to work. While government often does not. All government is buggy. In the worst cases it crashes outright and is replaced or supplemented by corrupt alternatives.

This analogy is fairly strong. However, commenter Frymaster supplies an addendum which strengthens it:

The US Constitution itself is open source, if you will, and editable. “The Framers” intended that Americans would change it to meet changing times, hence the series of amendments covering key rights like voting, and, most importantly, consuming alcohol. But they set the bar high, requiring super-majorities in both houses of Congress PLUS each of the states.

The Constitution certainly is open source. We’re free to change it, and other countries, fledgling or long-established, are welcome to take our code—our elemental specification of government—and adapt, implement, and utilize it. We’d like to receive contributions back, because they might be worthwhile enough to include in the trunk code. Even if these modifications aren’t strong enough for trunk, they might be strong enough for that government to maintain as a branch.

The Constitution is inherently good. Some might argue that it is outdated, but these folks are in error and their sentiments should be dismissed if they believe that it is irrelevant and should not be followed. The Constitution establishes a rule of law, wherein all citizens of the land give rights to a union of states, called the United States of America. It establishes procedures for updating it through amendments, which require a majority vote not only by two small bodies of people, but a majority vote of the several states, as Frymaster reminds us. This amendment process keeps those two smaller bodies of 535 people from legislating away the rights of their constituents.