Charlie Rose

Jackmartin  03/26/2010 02:38 AM Report

Axelrod kept talking about the need for bipartisan effort. The Democrats have held a filibuster proof hold on the Senate(until Massachusetts) and 40 seat lead in the House. He and Obama need to convince Democrats of where they want to take this country.

winter  03/25/2010 09:58 PM Report

Colin Powell would make a great Health Care fraud czar. He'd find it, cut off its head and kill it.

optic  03/25/2010 09:52 PM Report

I was disappointed in this interview --- so many talking points -- seemed like a democratic convention -- I would not watch him again.

REMant  03/25/2010 07:42 PM Report

To continue: Since it is pretty clear that Federal govt, directly provided health care would not fly, it was not ultimately attempted, and this healthcare bill, is (now) being called a health insurance industry reform bill, no doubt based on the idea that is allowed by the so-called "commerce clause" of the Constitution. Art 1, Sec 8, Clause 3, states the Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." It was never intended at the time of adoption to involve the "police power" which developed subsequently, and which has recently begun to be rolled back by the Court. The Convention debate reveals the Founders were very concerned that the govt not have the power to profit certain industries and beggar others, while at the same time reserving to itself all questions of bounties and tariffs on trade among the states and of the nation with foreign powers. Indeed it was this question that prompted the call for a convention. As transportation improved and relations among the states more complex, however the govt increased its involvement abetted by philosophies such as legal realism which argued that no law was in any sense fundamental. The word commerce was expanded from simply meaning trade to cover all human intercourse, in much the same way that freedom of speech was alleged to cover business transactions. This allowed Congress to bypass the states and pass anti-trust, food, drug and job safety measures. But the Court nixed minimum-wage laws, child labor laws, agricultural relief laws. When the Court struck down federal mining legislation in the New Deal FDR began his campaign to "pack" the Court with more justices. Altho that failed and is ridiculed to this day, the Court did in 1937 turn from protecting rights to protecting liberties, the former resting on the idea that the states and people are sovereign in most things, and the latter, that the Federal government is. It was then only a short time before those maintaining that the "general welfare clause" opened the door to everything regained the ascendancy lost to the Jacksonians and it can be said the United States was no longer a federation, or even a republic, because the Congress's own power gave way to that of the executive, while the Court, itself, began to engage in legislating. The separation of powers was obscured no less than the balance of power. To its shame the Court enjoyed its new found power as much as the other two branches, whimsically finding for things it liked and against things it didn't like. However, recent calls for deference to the representatives of the ppl does nothing to restore the Constitution and return to first principles, and there is surely nothing in the idea of regulation to suggest that people MUST buy a product even if it is insurance. More importantly, removing the responsibility of ppl to to look out for and provide for themselves, as measures such as this one do, cannot, in the long-run, be good for them, or for the viability of this country. Police, whether in the form of jails, or good-do-bees,

works against it, and is the sign not of improvement, but of decline.

For those thinking the legal issues are of no consequence, the Wash Post ran an Op-Ed on it a few days ago by a Georgetown law prof, and an editorial today admitting that they are.

robdverity  03/25/2010 04:24 PM Report

Damn REMant you're a mess. That's too much to digest. You're playing in the wrong sand lot. I however, along with robertg, didn't grasp the McClellan bit and I still don't. Didn't know the US was short of jingo generals ready to kill at the drop of the CinChiefs hat from Kennedy, Johnson, Bushes, Obama ad infinitum. We kill cause we can (hear the drones, they can't either) - and for profit. If McClellan slowed this process, hear hear. However, the Civil War was a different set of passions of course.

Your knowledge seems to outrun you from time-to-time. It certainly does me. Keep it coming.

REMant  03/25/2010 11:23 AM Report

McClellan phase refers to the fact that Lincoln retained generals who wouldn't fight for several years into the Civil War. I thought that was obvious. Let me enlarge on the unconstitutionality (which should also be obvious):

The so-called "general welfare" clause, Art 1, sec 8 reads: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" This is not a license to do anything that is judged to be in the welfare of the country, but to be able to collect taxes for other purposes in addition to defense as allowed by the Constitution and enumerated in the following clauses. If the meaning had been that the comma before the clause would have been a semicolon or the clause put on a separate line with the others, something Madison, himself, sorted out in printed versions. In the records of the Conventions, or Federalist or anti-Federalist writings there appears to be only one such construction, by the Anti-Federalist Brutus, no. 6. The Federalists at the time repeatedly denied it. They speak exclusively of taxation in this connection, not legislative power. Nevertheless, Jefferson charged them later with doing exactly that in the interest of making "improvements." He wrote to Gallatin in 1817: "You will have learned that an act for internal improvement, after passing both Houses, was negatived by the President. The act was founded, avowedly, on the principle that the phrase in the constitution which authorizes Congress "to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare," was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine. Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only landmark which now divides the federalists from the republicans, that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. I think the passage and rejection of this bill a fortunate incident. Every State will certainly concede the power; and this will be a national confirmation of the grounds of appeal to them, and will settle forever the meaning of this phrase, which, by a mere grammatical quibble, has countenanced the General Government in a claim of universal power. For in the phrase, "to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare," it is a mere question of syntax, whether the two last infinitives are governed by the first or are distinct and co-ordinate powers; a question unequivocally decided by the exact definition of powers immediately following. It is fortunate for another reason, as the States, in conceding the power, will modify it, either by requiring the federal ratio of expense in each State, or otherwise, so as to secure us against its partial exercise. Without this caution, intrigue, negotiation, and the barter of votes might become as habitual in Congress, as they are in those legislatures which have the appointment of officers, and which, with us, is called 'logging,' the term of the farmers for their exchanges of aid in rolling together the logs of their newly-cleared grounds."

Joseph Story wrote in his Commentary in 1833: "If the clause, 'to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States,' is construed to be an independent and substantive grant of power, it not only renders wholly unimportant and unnecessary the subsequent enumeration of specific powers; but it plainly extends far beyond them, and creates a general authority in congress to pass all laws, which they may deem for the common defence or general welfare. Under such circumstances, the constitution would practically create an unlimited national government. The enumerated powers would tend to embarrassment and confusion; since they would only give rise to doubts, as to the true extent of the general power, or of the enumerated powers...On the other hand, construing this clause in connexion with, and as a part of the preceding clause, giving the power to lay taxes, it becomes sensible and operative. It becomes a qualification of that clause, and limits the taxing power to objects for the common defence or general welfare. It then contains no grant of any power whatsoever; but it is a mere expression of the ends and purposes to be effected by the preceding power of taxation."

Madison himself explained in 1828: "2. A history of that clause, as traced in the printed journal of the Federal Convention, will throw light on the subject. It appears that the clause, as it originally stood, simply expressed 'a power to lay taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,' without pointing out the objects; and, of course, leaving them applicable in carrying into effect the other specified powers. It appears, farther, that a solicitude to prevent any constructive danger to the validity of public debts contracted under the superseded form of government, led to the addition of the words 'to pay the debts.' This phraseology having the appearance of an appropriation limited to the payment of debts, an express appropriation was added 'for the expenses of the Government,' &c. But even this was considered as short of the objects for which taxes, duties, imposts, and excises might be required; and the more comprehensive provision was made by substituting 'for expenses of Government' the terms of the old Confederation, viz.: and provide for the common defence and general welfare, making duties and imposts, as well as taxes and excises, applicable not only to payment of debts, but to the common defence and general welfare."

And again in 1830: "The variations and vicissitudes in the modification of the clause in which the terms "common defence and general welfare" appear, are remarkable, and to be no otherwise explained than by differences of opinion concerning the necessity or the form of a constitutional provision for the debts of the Revolution; some of the members apprehending improper claims for losses by depreciated emissions of bills of credit; others an evasion of proper claims, if not positively brought within the authorized functions of the new Government; and others again considering the past debts of the United States as sufficiently secured by the principle that no change in the Government could change the obligations of the nation. Besides the indications in the journal, the history of the period sanctions this explanation...That the terms in question were not suspected in the Convention which formed the Constitution of any such meaning as has been constructively applied to them, may be pronounced with entire confidence; for it exceeds the possibility of belief, that the known advocates in the Convention for a jealous grant and cautious definition of Federal powers should have silently permitted the introduction of words or phrases in a sense rendering fruitless the restrictions and definitions elaborated by them. Consider for a moment the immeasurable difference between the Constitution limited in its powers to the enumerated objects, and expounded as it would be by the import claimed for the phraseology in question. The difference is equivalent to two Constitutions, of characters essentially contrasted with each other--the one possessing powers confined to certain specified cases, the other extended to all cases whatsoever; for what is the case that would not be embraced by a general power to raise money, a power to provide for the general welfare, and a power to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry these powers into execution; all such provisions and laws superseding, at the same time, all local laws and constitutions at variance with them? Can less be said, with the evidence before us furnished by the journal of the Convention itself, than that it is impossible that such a Constitution as the latter would have been recommended to the States by all the members of that body whose names were subscribed to the instrument?" (The full letter with notes may be found here: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_1s27.html)

Likewise, the "necessary and proper clause" in the same section reads: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." But the foregoing and other powers do not include stuff like making citizens of the states buy insurance. Indeed, there is nothing among them to justify Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. The plain and ugly fact is that much of what the Federal govt has done in the past 200 years IS unconstitutional, based on a few twisted readings of the fundamental law of the republic. One does not have to know anything of the Founder's original meaning to see this either (altho it helps and is certainly the just thing to do.

doodahdaze  03/25/2010 07:00 AM Report

When did Helen Thomas get a British accent?!!

doodahdaze  03/25/2010 06:48 AM Report

Wow. Axelrod's made-up story of the man on street sobbing about his poor dead father dying 'without health insurance' and his admiration for FDR. What, is he auditioning for SNL?.

These politicians are something else; don't they EVER turn it the bullshit off. It's as if if they keep repeating the same lies over and over again that their ponzi scheme will never end. And their neurosis feeds the media's neurosis which feeds the frazzled crowds neurosis. Hell! the press media even STARTED race riots in the 60s. you think that's how it will be recorded in the history books?. Hell NO it won't! ... A whole lotta nothing; that's what this bill is. Not unless you're an attorney for either side. Basicly it's an 'attorneys creating work(money) for attorneys' bill. It really is a game. The 'banker's lobby' probably thinks this is a good diversion, letting the attorneys create their own credit should get them on their side, so they can report back to their ivy fraternities that the ignorant masses are still bearing fruit. And their stew of propaganda continues to gain flavor. And of course, as planned, the doctors and insurance guys and pharmaceuticals salesmen are ALL still on board (that little capitalism/socialism 'debate' gets them EVERYTIME) Bwah ha ha ha ha ha hahhh (debt-deficit helps keep the paranoia high). We have all kinds of tools to keep it confusing and opinionated-based.

robertg  03/24/2010 08:43 PM Report

REMant--you assert that this bill is unconstitutional, but make no argument. Apparently, most legal thinkers disagree, but I'm glad you're so eager to have five unelected reactionaries overturn the seminal work of our democratic institutions. Equally unintelligible: "This bill is not only not BIG, it is very, very SMALL." Huh? Nor do I understand what you mean by "McClellan phase." I'm surprised that even Obama's opponents are in the habit of comparing him to Lincoln; I'm less surprised their comparisons are incoherent.

REMant  03/24/2010 12:45 PM Report

I didn't see a lot of point to this, altho the Post yesterday did the same thing. (Perhaps orchestrated by the same source?) The fact is that the bill IS unconstitutional and I doubt the present justices can be bribed, coerced or pressured into finding otherwise. Not only that, but it will hardly reduce costs, and a majority of health professionals are opposed to it. I'm sure the Democrats WILL try as hard as they can to influence the public on this issue between now and Nov, but they have already had more than their fair share of air time. This is not to argue that there weren't ways to solve this problem that ARE constitutional and could have got the job done. This bill is not only not BIG, it is very, very SMALL. In any case, the Democrats do not win if the Republicans lose, or vice versa. The governance of this nation is not a game. It is entirely possible that the public will reject both of them, only this time the citizenry doesn't have the luxury of a retreat into lethargy anymore than the pols can afford to buy them off. I do think the healthcare bill and the Afghanistan business display the same approach, blending incompatible elements. One might say Obama is still in his McClellan phase. But I don't think it is any longer possible to draw the president as non-partisan, an outsider, born in a log cabin, etc.