HR 263 - Something is rotten in Denmark...even Shakespeare would agree

Something is very wrong with this...please comment.

________________________

Contempt of the House of Representatives Subpoena Authority Act of 2009 (Introduced in House)

HR 263 IH

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 263

To amend title 28, United States Code, to grant to the House of Representatives the authority to bring a civil action to enforce, secure a declaratory judgment concerning the validity of, or prevent a threatened refusal or failure to comply with any subpoena or order issued by the House or any committee or subcommittee of the House to secure the production of documents, the answering of any deposition or interrogatory, or the securing of testimony, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 7, 2009

Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Rules, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

---

A BILL

To amend title 28, United States Code, to grant to the House of Representatives the authority to bring a civil action to enforce, secure a declaratory judgment concerning the validity of, or prevent a threatened refusal or failure to comply with any subpoena or order issued by the House or any committee or subcommittee of the House to secure the production of documents, the answering of any deposition or interrogatory, or the securing of testimony, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Contempt of the House of Representatives Subpoena Authority Act of 2009'.

SEC. 2. AUTHORITY TO BRING ACTIONS TO ENFORCE SUBPOENAS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

(a) In General- Title 28, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 1365 the following new section:

`Sec. 1365A. House of Representatives Actions

`(a) Enforcement of Subpoenas and Orders- The United States District Court for the District of Columbia shall have original jurisdiction, without regard to the amount in controversy, over any civil action brought by the House of Representatives or any authorized committee or subcommittee of the House to enforce, to secure a declaratory judgment concerning the validity of, or to prevent a threatened refusal or failure to comply with, any subpoena or order issued by the House or committee or subcommittee of the House to any entity acting or purporting to act under color or authority of State law or to any natural person to secure the production of documents or other materials of any kind or the answering of any deposition or interrogatory or to secure testimony or any combination thereof. This section shall not apply to an action to enforce, to secure a declaratory judgment concerning the validity of, or to prevent a threatened refusal to comply with, any subpoena or order issued to an officer or employee of the executive branch of the Federal Government acting within his or her official capacity, except that this section shall apply if the refusal to comply is based on the assertion of a personal privilege or objection and is not based on a governmental privilege or objection the assertion of which has been authorized by the executive branch of the Federal Government.

`(b) Contempt Proceedings- Upon application by the House of Representatives or any authorized committee or subcommittee of the House, the district court shall issue an order to an entity or person refusing, or failing to comply with, or threatening to refuse or not to comply with, a subpoena or order of the House or committee or subcommittee of the House requiring such entity or person to comply forthwith. Any refusal or failure to obey a lawful order of the district court issued pursuant to this section may be held by such court to be a contempt thereof. A contempt proceeding shall be commenced by an order to show cause before the court why the entity or person refusing or failing to obey the court order should not be held in contempt of court. Such contempt proceeding shall be tried by the court and shall be summary in manner. The purpose of sanctions imposed as a result of such contempt proceeding shall be to compel obedience to the order of the court. Process in any such action or contempt proceeding may be served in any judicial district wherein the entity or party refusing, or failing to comply, or threatening to refuse or not to comply, resides, transacts business, or may be found, and subpoenas for witnesses who are required to attend such proceeding may run into any other district. Nothing in this section shall confer upon such court jurisdiction to affect by injunction or otherwise the issuance or effect of any subpoena or order of the House or any committee or subcommittee of the House or to review, modify, suspend, terminate, or set aside any such subpoena or order. An action, contempt proceeding, or sanction brought or imposed pursuant to this section shall not abate upon adjournment sine die by the House at the end of a Congress if the House or the committee or subcommittee of the House which issued the subpoena or order certifies to the court that it maintains its interest in securing the documents, answers, or testimony during such adjournment.

`(c) Representation- The House of Representatives or any committee or subcommittee of the House commencing and prosecuting a civil action or contempt proceeding under this section may be represented in such action by such attorneys as the House may designate.

`(d) Treatment of Select and Special Committees- For the purposes of this section the term `committee' includes standing, select, or special committees of the House of Representatives established by law or resolution.'.

(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections of chapter 85 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 1365 the following new item:

`1365A. House of Representatives actions.'.

SEC. 3. ACTION BY GENERAL COUNSEL OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

(a) Authorization to Bring Civil Action to Enforce Subpoena- When directed to do so by the adoption of a resolution by the House of Representatives pursuant to section 3, the General Counsel of the House of Representatives shall bring a civil action under any statute conferring jurisdiction on any court of the United States (including section 1365A of title 28, United States Code), to enforce, to secure a declaratory judgment concerning the validity of, or to prevent a threatened failure or refusal to comply with, any subpoena or order issued by the House or a committee or a subcommittee of the House authorized to issue a subpoena or order.

(b) Actions in Name of Committees and Subcommittees- Any directive to the General Counsel to bring a civil action pursuant to subsection (a) in the name of a committee or subcommittee of the House shall, for such committee or subcommittee, constitute authorization to bring such action within the meaning of any statute conferring jurisdiction on any court of the United States.

SEC. 4. CONSIDERATION OF RESOLUTIONS AUTHORIZING ACTIONS.

(a) In General- It shall not be in order in the House of Representatives to consider a resolution to direct the General Counsel of the House of Representatives to bring a civil action pursuant to this Act in the name of a committee or subcommittee unless--

(1) such resolution is reported by a majority of the members voting, a majority being present, of such committee or committee of which such subcommittee is a subcommittee; and

(2) the report filed by such committee or committee of which such subcommittee is a subcommittee contains a statement of--

(A) the procedure followed in issuing such subpoena;

(B) the extent to which the party subpoenaed has complied with such subpoena;

(C) any objections or privileges raised by the subpoenaed party; and

(D) the comparative effectiveness of bringing a civil action pursuant to this Act, certification of a criminal action for contempt of Congress, and initiating a contempt proceeding before the House.

(b) Committee Report Not Receivable in Court- A report filed pursuant to subsection (a)(2) shall not be receivable in any court of law to the extent such report is in compliance with such subsection.

(c) Exercise of Rulemaking Authority- The provisions of subsection (a) are enacted--

(1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the House of Representatives, and, as such, they shall be considered as part of the rules of the House, and such rules shall supersede any other rule of the House only to the extent that rule is inconsistent therewith; and

(2) with full recognition of the constitutional right of the House to change such rules (so far as relating to the procedure in the House) at any time, in the same manner, and to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of the House.

SEC. 5. GENERAL COUNSEL DEFINED.

In this Act, the term `General Counsel of the House of Representatives' has the meaning given such term in section 101(c) of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2000 (2 U.S.C. 130f(c)).

SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

Nothing in this Act shall limit the discretion of--

(1) the Speaker of the House of Representatives in certifying to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia any matter pursuant to section 104 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (2 U.S.C. 194); or

(2) the House of Representatives to hold any individual or entity in contempt of the House.

All Honor to Jefferson

Source: Imprimis

May-June 2009

Jean Yarbrough
Professor of Government, Bowdoin College

“All Honor to Jefferson”

Jean Yarbrough is professor of government and Gary M. Pendy, Sr. Professor of Social Sciences at Bowdoin College. She received her B.A. at Cedar Crest College and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the New School for Social Research. The author of American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People and editor of The Essential Jefferson, she is currently completing a study of Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive critique of the Founders.

The following address was delivered at Hillsdale College on April 16, 2009, at the dedication of a statue of Thomas Jefferson by Hillsdale College Associate Professor of Art Anthony Frudakis.

It is one of the wonders of the modern political world that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Unaware that the “Sage of Monticello” had died earlier in the day, the crusty Adams, as he felt his own life slipping away, uttered his last words, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” And so he does.

Today, as we dedicate this marvelous statue of our third President, and place him in the company of George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher on Hillsdale’s Liberty Walk, soon to be joined by Abraham Lincoln, it is fitting to reflect on what of Thomas Jefferson still lives. What is it that we honor him for here today?

Without question, pride of place must go to Jefferson as the author of the Declaration of Independence. That document established Jefferson as one of America’s great political poets, second only to Abraham Lincoln. And fittingly, it was Lincoln himself who recognized the signal importance of its first two paragraphs when he wrote: “All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times,” where it continues to stand as “a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.”

That abstract truth, of course, was that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men, 
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” It is surely a sign of our times that so many Americans no longer know what these words mean, or what their signal importance has been to peoples around the world. The one thing they are certain of, however, is that Jefferson was a hypocrite. How could he assert that all men were created equal and yet own slaves? What these critics fail to notice is that this is precisely what makes Jefferson’s statement so remarkable. Under no necessity for doing so, he penned the immortal words that would ultimately be invoked to put the institution of slavery on the road to extinction. His own draft of the Declaration was even stronger. In it, he made it clear that blacks were human and that slavery was a moral abomination and a blot upon the honor of his country.

Jefferson was serving as Minister in Paris while the Constitution was being drafted, and played no direct part in framing it. But he did make known his objections, the most important being the omission of a Bill of Rights. After the Constitution was ratified, he returned to the United States to serve as Secretary of State in the Washington administration. In and out of government in the 1790s, he challenged Hamilton’s expansive views of federal power, warning against a mounting federal debt, a growing patronage machine, and what he considered dangerous monarchical pretensions.

In the tumultuous contest for the presidency in 1800, Jefferson presided over the first peaceful transition of power in modern history, assuring those he had defeated that they too had rights that the majority was bound to respect. His observation, “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,” established a standard toward which every incoming administration continues to strive.

As president of the United States, Jefferson sought to rally the country around the principles of limited government. His First Inaugural Address reminded his fellow citizens that their happiness and prosperity rested upon a “wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” This, he thought, was “the sum of good government” and all that was “necessary to close the circle of our felicities.” Although Jefferson had omitted property from the inalienable rights enumerated in the Declaration, he strongly defended private property because it encouraged industry and liberality—and, most importantly, because he thought it just that each individual enjoy the equal right to the fruits of his labor.

From these political principles, Jefferson never wavered. Writing in 1816, he once again insisted that the tasks of a liberal republic were few: government should restrain individuals from encroaching on the equal rights of others, compel them to contribute to the necessities of society, and require them to submit their disputes to an impartial judge. “When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.”

At the same time, Jefferson believed that constitutions must keep pace with the times. If the people wished to alter their frame of government, say, to fund public improvements or education, they were free to do so. But they should do so by constitutional amendment and not by allowing their representatives to construe the powers of government broadly. He particularly objected to the Court’s sitting in judgment on the powers of the legislative and executive branches, or acting as an umpire between the states and the federal government. To cede to the judiciary this authority, he believed, would render the Constitution a “ball of wax” in the hands of federal judges. In his battles with Chief Justice John Marshall, he defended the principle of coordinate construction, as Lincoln (and almost every strong president since then) did after him, arguing that each branch of government must determine for itself the constitutionality of its acts.

After his retirement from politics, Jefferson returned to Monticello, where he continued to think about the meaning and requirements of republican government. Republicanism, he was convinced, was more than just a set of institutional arrangements; at bottom, it depended upon the character of the people. To keep alive this civic spirit, he championed public education for both boys and girls, with the most talented boys going on at public expense all the way through college. He envisioned the University of Virginia, to which he devoted the last years of his life, as a temple that would keep alive the “vestal flame” of republicanism and train men for public service. And here, I cannot help but notice how the recent renovations and additions to the Hillsdale campus seem to take their inspiration from Mr. Jefferson’s university, paying graceful homage to an architecture of democracy that inspires and ennobles.

As Jefferson understood it, education had a distinctly political mission, beginning at the elementary level: schools were to form citizens who understood their rights and duties, who knew how earlier free societies had risen to greatness, and by what errors and vices they had declined. Knowing was not enough, however. Jefferson also believed that citizens must have the opportunity to act. Anticipating Tocqueville, Jefferson admired the strength of the New England townships and sought to adapt them to Virginia. The wards, as he called them, would allow citizens to have a say on those matters most interesting to them, such as the education of their children and the protection of their property. If ever they became too dispirited to care about these things, republican government could not survive.

The wards were certainly not the greatest of Jefferson’s contributions to the natural rights republic—that honor must be awarded to the Declaration—but they were his most original. Instead of consolidating power or attempting to forge a general will, Jefferson went in the opposite direction, “dividing and sub-dividing” political power, while multiplying the number of interests and views that could be heard. He saw these units of local self-government as a way of bringing the large republic within the reach of citizens and so keeping alive the spirit of republicanism so vital to its preservation. And in this day and age, when the federal government seems to intrude on every aspect of our daily lives, and people feel powerless over matters of most interest to them, can we doubt that he was right? For this insight, too, let us echo Lincoln: “All honor to Jefferson”!

Stimulus For Terrorists - The ACLU supports financial aid to terrorists...Obama too!

Source: Investors Business Daily

The Jihad Cash Spigot

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Homeland Security: Recognizing that money is the mother's milk of terrorism, the U.S. cracked down on charitable fronts after 9/11. The new administration thinks it went too far.

In fact, it's hinting at loosening restrictions, a move that threatens to reopen the financial pipeline between several Muslim charities and overseas terrorists that Treasury shut off after 9/11. Left-wing activists, meanwhile, are helping convince the public the charities deserve a second chance.

On the heels of President Obama's Cairo speech, in which he suggested relaxing Treasury anti-terror "rules," the ACLU published a well-timed report slamming those very rules.

It makes a point of noting throughout the thick report that Treasury policies "developed under the Bush administration" are undercutting Obama's mission to reach out to Muslim countries. What's more, they're denying American Muslims the "right" to make donations to Islamic charities.

"U.S. terrorism financing laws and policies developed under the Bush administration are inhibiting American Muslims' ability to freely and fully practice their religion," the ACLU says, noting that "zakat," or Muslim charitable giving, is a pillar of Islam.

The New York Times gave the report currency with a sympathetic story: "ACLU Report Says Anti-Terror Fight Undercuts Liberty of Muslim Donors." It highlighted Obama's pledge in Cairo to work "with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."

"In the United States," the president explained, "rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligations."

First, there are no "rules" barring Muslims from giving to charity, as he suggests. There are laws against giving material support to terrorists, and those laws were first enacted under the Clinton administration. They've also made it harder for jihadists to fulfill their own perverted religious obligation to murder Westerners. If it weren't for Treasury's crackdown on charitable fronts, they'd still be siphoning off donations for terrorist attacks.

Material-support laws have become a sore subject for Muslim groups and their allies like the ACLU because the vast majority of terror is carried out by Muslim groups — with Muslim money.

Second, the president and the ACLU imply that the right to give donations in the name of zakat is absolute. It's not. And nothing is stopping Muslims from giving donations to legitimate charities — Muslim or non-Muslim — or through their mosques to fulfill their religious obligation.

The ACLU whines that its choices are limited now that nine major U.S. Muslim charities have been shut down. In each case, however, evidence that the charities funneled money to al-Qaida, Hamas and other terrorist groups was overwhelming.

The ACLU argues that "only one" was actually convicted. True, but it was the largest Muslim charity in America, and it funneled more than $12 million to terrorists. The Holy Land Foundation and its leaders were convicted on all 108 counts. Top leaders recently got life sentences.

Never mind that. The ACLU demands Treasury unfreeze all the Muslim charity assets it's frozen, including Holy Land's assets. It also wants the Justice Department to expunge the names of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other Muslim front groups from its unindicted co-conspirator list. ACLU says CAIR was "smeared," ignoring the dozens of court exhibits linking CAIR to the radical Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

The ACLU's real agenda is revealed in the section of the 165-page report where it recommends "reforms." Turns out it also wants to deny the government key anti-terror tools, such as blacklisting individuals and groups as "specially designated global terrorists."

Other goals: purging the FBI terror watch list; passing the End Racial Profiling Act drafted by Rep. John Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, with help from CAIR; demanding an end to FBI raids of charities and undercover operations at mosques.

The ACLU, moreover, proposes giving charities advance notice of investigations to provide them "the opportunity to cure any issues." Or shred documents, as Holy Land executives did. They also stored incriminating papers at off-site locations and swept their offices for FBI bugs.

The real purpose of the ACLU and its report is to dismantle, piece by piece, the terror-fighting infrastructure erected after 9/11 to protect the nation. It's no coincidence that the flow of terrorism slowed after we choked off the flow of money and other activities.

Reopening the spigot now may win points with Muslim leaders like CAIR and placate the civil-liberties crowd.

But it's a suicide wish.

___________________

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies in the heart of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. The traitor is the plague..." Marcus Tullius Cicero, speech to the Roman Senate.

Home

"...for the cries of freedom and democracy" ...but that's not all, there's much more at stake! "Nuclear holocaust" ?

Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran gives an emotional speech before the National Press Club...for the cries of freedom and democracy. Good catch words I'm sure, "freedom" and "democracy" but there is much more than meets the eye said here. Heard loud and clear to my ears was "Slowdown of globalization" as if that would be a problem. Indeed globalization is a huge part of today's world problems mainly because it is being forced upon us by the politic elite instead of letting nature take its course via the citizenry's natural tendency to meld communities. This has been proven with the growth of America...only the melting pot has been turned into a witch's cauldron by the Leftists of the Democratic Party.
Prince Pahlavi mentions a "possible nuclear holocaust"...no catch words with that statement! This should be taken as a warning and it will happen if people don't wake up. When will it happen? Well if you have been paying attention to my previous warnings nothing has convinced me to make changes to my year 2010 almanac. - Norman E. Hooben
(scroll down for 2nd version of video below)

Source: http://video.newsmax.com/?bcpid=20972460001&bclid=22770166001&bctid=27141270001&s=al&promo_code=81F9-1

If the above video is unavailable please watch the YouTube version below.

Home

We The People Have A New World Order That We The People Did Not Order - Is Obama setting the stage to hang himself? ...or the country?

_____________

Want to read something really scary? Click here.