State Of Hawaii Department Of Labor And Industrial Relations Unemployment Insurance: Fill & Download for Free

The table below provides a list of state unemployment benefits – including the minimum and maximum weekly unemployment rates – for all 50 states in America, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.Just be aware that states and territories can and do regularly change their maximum benefit amounts. So always check each website individually for the latest data.State or Territory Minimum Weekly Benefit * Maximum Weekly Benefit* UI Benefits Contact Phone Web SiteAlabama $45 $265 866-234-5382 Alabama Department of LaborAlaska $56-128 $370-442 888-252-2557 Home Page, Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce DevelopmentArizona $172 $240 877-600-2722 Unemployment Insurance BenefitsArkansas $81 $451 800-461-9941 Arkansas Division of Workforce ServicesCalifornia $40 $450 800-300-5616 Employment Development Department | CaliforniaColorado $25 $542-597 800-388-5515 http://www.coloradoworkforce.comConnecticut $15-30 $631-706 800-942-6653 State of Connecticut Department of LaborDelaware $20 $330 800-794-3032 State of Delaware - Delaware WorksDistrict of Columbia $50 $438 877-319-7346 DC NetworksFlorida $32 $275 800-204-2418 https://connect.myflorida.comGeorgia $44 $330 877-709-8185 Forwarding to correct page.Hawaii $5 $630 877-215-5793 Department of Labor and Industrial RelationsIdaho $72 $414 208-332-3574 http://www.labor.idaho.govIllinois $51-77 $471-648 800-244-5631 IDESIndiana $37 $390 800-891-6499 HomeIowa $70-84 $467-573 866-239-0843 iowaworkforcedevelopment.gov - www |Kansas $118 $474 800-292-6333 http://www.getkansasbenefits.govKentucky $39 $502 502-875-0442 Kentucky's Electronic Workplace for Employment ServicesLouisiana $10 $221-284 866-783-5567 LAWorks Homepage - Louisiana Workforce CommissionMaine $75-112 $431-646 800-593-7660 Department of LaborMaryland $50-90 $430 410-949-0022 Maryland Department of LaborMassachusetts $45-67 $795-1,192 617-626-6800 Executive Office of Labor and Workforce DevelopmentMichigan $147-177 $362 866-500-0017 LEO UIAMinnesota $28 $462-717 877-898-9090 Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED)Mississippi $30 $235 888-844-3577 Helping Mississippians Get JobsMissouri $35 $320 800-320-2519 Division of Employment SecurityMontana $150 $527 406-444-2545406-247-1000 Montana Department of Labor and Industry - Unemployment Insurance DivisionNebraska $70 $426 402-458-2500 Official Nebraska Department of LaborNevada $16 $450 888-890-8211 Nevada Department of Employment, Training and RehabilitationNew Hampshire $32 $427 800-266-2252 New Hampshire Employment SecurityNew Jersey $103-118 $696 888-795-6672 Division of Unemployment InsuranceNew Mexico $82-123 $442-492 877-664-6984 http://www.dws.state.nm.usNew York $100 $450 888-209-8124 Department of Labor Home PageNorth Carolina $15 $350 877-841-9617 http://www.ncesc.comNorth Dakota $43 $595 701-328-4995 HomeOhio $130 $443-598 877-644-6562 http://unemployment.ohio.gov/Oklahoma $16 $520 800-555-1554 Employment Security CommissionOregon $146 $624 877-345-3484 Oregon.gov Home PagePennsylvania $68-76 $561-569 888-313-7284 Unemployment CompensationPuerto Rico $7 $133 787-945-7900 Departamento del Trabajo y Recursos Humanos de Puerto RicoRhode Island $53-103 $566-707 866-557-0001 Unemployment InsuranceSouth Carolina $42 $326 800-529-8339 https://dew.sc.gov/South Dakota $28 $402 605-626-3179 Reemployment Assistance (formerly Unemployment Insurance)Tennessee $30 $275 877-813-0950 Apply for BenefitsTexas $69 $521 800-939-6631 http://ui.texasworkforce.orgUtah $31 $560 888-848-0688 Unemployment Insurance Benefits (UI)Vermont $68 $498 877-214-3330 Home Page | Department of LaborVirginia $60 $378 866-832-2363 Unemployment InsuranceVirgin Islands $33 $552 800-939-6631 (TWC) Virgin Islands Department of LaborWashington $178 $749 800-318-6022 ESDWAGOV - HomeWest Virginia $24 $424 800-379-1032 WorkForce West VirginiaWisconsin $54 $370 800-822-5246 http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/uiben/Wyoming $35 $489 866-729-7799 Wyoming Department of Workforce Services2020 List of State Maximum Unemployment Benefits with State Websites and Phone Numbers | The Money Coach

First, the premise of the question seems to imply that there was a single greatest decade where we reached a peak, from which we have declined. I’m not sure I agree with that.As far as a single decade where we accomplished the most good, I would vote for the 1940s. Here are results for individual decades, as I understand them:1780–1790: We ratified the Constitution and elected Washington President. But it was also the decade of Shay’s Rebellion and opportunists buying up Revolutionary War debts at pennies on the dollar, to wreak financial havoc later. These two developments indicated the constant struggle between financial elites and the common man that would persist through our history.1790–1800: We saw a democratic transition of power, as Washington declined to run for a third term. But it was also the decade of the Whiskey Rebellion and the Alien and Sedition Acts.1800–1810: One of our most intelligent Chief Executives, Thomas Jefferson, was President, completing the Louisiana Purchase and dispatching the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Three of the most important Supreme Court decisions were handed down: Marbury v. Madison, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Dartmouth v. Woodward. But Jefferson also imposed a disastrous embargo and put his own former Vice President on trial for “constructive treason,” a dubious legal doctrine that John Marshall decisively quashed in Richmond.1810–1820: This decade included Victory in the War of 1812, the opening of the Erie Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Era of Good Feeling, but the British marched into Washington DC itself and burned the Capitol and the White House.1820–1830: This decade saw the election of the first true President of the “common man.” But that same figure, Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, brutally mistreated Native Americans.1830–1840: New states were established west of the Mississippi, Jackson faced down Calhoun in the Nullification Crisis, and Webster decisively affirmed the doctrine of “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,” in his debate with Hayne. This was the only time in our history that the budget was completely in balance. William Lloyd Garrison established The Liberator to advocate for abolition. Still, Jackson petulantly refused to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, leading to the Panic of 1837, and ill-advised incursions into Mexican territory led to the massacre at the Alamo. An anti-slavery editor, Elijah Lovejoy, was killed by a pro-slavery mob.1840–1850: Gold was discovered in California, but we also fought the Mexican War, a blatant move to extend slave territory. Nativist political parties arose, the Know-Nothings and the Anti-Masonic party. Persecution of Mormons resulted in the murder of their founder, Joseph Smith, at the hands of a mob.1850–1860: We sought better relations with Canada and entered on relations with Japan, Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, the party of Lincoln was founded in Ripon, and Lincoln and Douglas held their memorable debates, but our last President to hold slaves in office, Zachary Taylor, was followed by two decidedly mediocre Presidents, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce, followed by one of the worst Presidents in history, James Buchanan, whose dithering led to the Civil War. Pro- and anti-slavery settlers took bloody revenge on each other in Kansas, and John Brown was hanged after his raid on Harper’s Ferry.1860–1870: I would vote for this decade second after the 1940s. This was the decade of the Gettsyburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments; Union victory in the Civil War established once and for all that the United States was not a mere conditional federation from which a state could withdraw, and the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. We purchased Alaska from Russia. But one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was struck down, and Lincoln was followed by one of the most inept Presidents in history, Andrew Johnson. We lost 529,000 men in the Civil War.1870–1880: The Freedmen’s Bureau worked to educate freed slaves, and freedmen such as Hiram Rhodes Revels served in state government for the first time. An American invented the telephone, and we celebrated our centennial. But the Administration of Grant was one of the most corrupt in history, involving Grant’s own Vice President, Schuyler Colfax, in the Credit Mobilier scandal, despite Grant’s personal honesty. Irresponsible underwriting of railroad bonds led to the Panic of 1873, and Republican President Rutherford Hayes used federal troops to suppress labor strikes. The Republican victory of 1876 was blatantly stolen from the real winner, Democratic lawyer Samuel Tilden, and the Republicans secured their victory through a corrupt bargain with Southern die-hards, agreeing to withdraw Union troops and cancel Reconstruction in return for Southern Support. The Ku Klux Klan was founded, and we pursued brutal wars against Native Americans.1880–1890: President Chester Arthur began to modernize the Navy to steel-hulled ships and began to reform the Civil Service. Secretary of State James J. Blaine sought to establish good relations with Latin America and helped found the Organization of American States. But Blaine himself was disgraced by corruption, and an unbalanced disappointed office seeker struck down President James A. Garfield in a Washington train station. In Chicago, a political rally that ended with a bomb being thrown resulted in the trial and hanging of seven political agitators who probably had nothing to do with the bomb.1890–1900: We celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyages with the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, featuring the largest peacetime gathering in American history, the Sherman Antitrust Act was signed into law, a populist movement led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey mounted a march on Washington, William Jennings Bryan began a populist movement at the Chicago Democratic convention of 1896, and Herman Hollerith invented a tabulating machine, an ancestor of the computer, to count the national census. But the decade also saw another financial panic, an unnecessary war with Spain, and the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, establishing legal segregation. A wave of unspeakably barbaric race-based lynching swept the United States, prompting a bitter Mark Twain to compose his essay “The United States of Lyncherdom.” Americans overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii and deposed its last queen.1900–1910: We built the Panama Canal, the Wright brothers began manned flight, and President Teddy Roosevelt became the first President to win a Nobel Peace Prize, for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War. But another President was assassinated in 1901, we suppressed an indigenous independence movement in the Philippines, waterboarding insurgents, and when Teddy Roosevelt had Booker T. Washington as his dinner guest at the White House, Southern newspapers said Roosevelt had turned the White House into a “coon café,” and one South Carolina editor said whites would have to “shoot ten thousand of those n___s to teach them their place.” A panic in 1907 was resolved only because J.P. Morgan corralled bankers and forced them to underwrite loans to support the nation’s faltering finances.1910–1920: The Federal Reserve was founded and the 19th Amendment gave women the vote; Woodrow, Wilson, the only President in history to hold a Ph.D., was elected; the United States joined European Allies to win World War I, and Wilson proposed a League of Nations to promote world peace. Wilson also appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court as the first Jewish justice. But Wilson, a Southern racist, endorsed D.W. Griffith’s cartoonishly racist film The Birth of a Nation, ordered civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter out of the Oval Office, and let cabinet members hound blacks out of the Civil Service. A Georgia minister started the Klan once more, which had died out decades before. European crowds shouted their adoration of President Wilson when he went to the Peace Conference of Versailles, but his peace proposals were dead on arrival in the Republican Congress, led by bitter opposition from Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. A 29-year-old Southeast Asian patriot, Ho Chi Minh, came to Paris to hand Wilson a letter asking for liberation of Vietnam from the French, but Wilson probably never saw it. Wilson himself, incapacitated by a stroke, did not even meet with his own Cabinet for 6 months, while his wife and his private secretary ran the government of the United States. Wilson still hoped for a third term and was bitterly disappointed when the Democratic convention of 1920 did not nominate him by acclamation, even though he could no longer even compose a thousand-word article for a law journal. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer, concerned about “Red agitators,” directed the FBI to carry out intrusive raids of suspected dissidents, violating civil rights. An influenza epidemic in 1919, with contagion exacerbated by gatherings to celebrate the end of World War I, killed scores of thousands in the United States.1920–1930: An American author, Sinclair Lewis, was the first American to receive a Nobel Prize for literature, and Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic. The stock market and general prosperity reached unprecedented heights, and the President addressed the nation by radio for the first time. A young Democratic politician, Franklin D. Roosevelt, came to national attention for the first time. On the other hand, Warren Harding was one of the worst Presidents in history, with his administration plagued by the Teapot Dome scandal concerning oil leases; 53-year-old Harding fathered an illegitimate child by his 23-year-old lover, Nan Britton, and after Harding’s death, photos were discovered of him posing with nude 16-year-old farm girls. The sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited, leading to the rise of criminal syndicates, and the Democratic party in 1924 split over its inability to take a definite position on the role of the Klan in politics. A high school science teacher, John Scopes, was put on trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching evolution to his students. The stock market crashed in 1929 and led to the Great Depression, while our President, Herbert Hoover, insisted that business conditions were just fine and that people simply needed to have confidence.1930–1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for the first two of four Presidential terms and began ambitious federal programs under the heading of “The New Deal” attempt to bring America out of the Great Depression. Prohibition was repealed, and the Tennessee Valley Authority was established, with a chain of hydroelectric dams to relieve flooding and provide power to rural areas. President Roosevelt named the first African-American Army General, Benjamin O. Davis. But the Depression persisted, and at its height, national unemployment probably reached around 25%. The United States turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees from the Third Reich and would not approve visas for the family of Anne Frank. In 1932, an encampment of embittered World War I soldiers in Washington, DC, insisting on being paid bonuses promised by Congress 14 years before, was violently dispersed by troops under Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, acting reluctantly under the orders of General Douglas MacArthur. As the soldiers and their families fled bullets and tear gas, MacArthur commented, “Thank God this country still knows how to handle a mob.”1940–1950: Thomas Dewey of New York successfully prosecuted mobsters, leading to the execution of Louis Lepke Buchalter and the deportation of Lucky Luciano. Entering World War II on the side of the Allies, the United States helped defeat Hitler. The war with Japan was brought to a successful conclusion, and the United Nations was founded. Despite President Roosevelt’s sudden death just before the end of the war, his Vice-President, Harry Truman, the last President who never attended college, took over and retained most of Roosevelt’s capable advisors. General George C. Marshall formulated the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe, saved starving thousands, and probably kept some countries from being drawn into the Communist orbit. Truman integrated the U.S. military. Television became commercially viable, and the Ed Sullivan show began. The government passed the GI bill, financing college educations for veterans. On the other hand, nuclear weapons were used in war for the first time in history, causing unspeakable suffering. Distrust between the U.S. and its former Soviet allies led to the “Iron Curtain” separating Warsaw Pact nations from the West, while Truman felt compelled to enunciate the Truman Doctrine, outlining a plan to contain the Soviets. In formulating the American response to the new state of Israel, Truman declined to push for a two-state solution, even though this approach was favored by George Marshall. A severe housing shortage left returned veterans and their families living in cardboard boxes.1950–1960: Harry Truman relieved Douglas MacArthur of command in Korea, reaffirming the principle of civilian control of the military. A United States delegation met with a Soviet delegation in Geneva. The Supreme Court reversed its earlier Plessy v. Ferguson decision with its 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down the principle of “separate but equal” facilities for the races. President Eisenhower ordered the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas public schools and sent federal troops to enforce it. Congress passed a bill to construct the interstate highway system. Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee convened a commission to investigate organized crime. The polio vaccine was introduced. William Faulkner became the third American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Popular TV shows such as Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best portrayed the United States as a land of attractive suburbs, full of polite, well-dressed middle class people. On the other hand, the Korean War entered a stalemate that persists today. The CIA deposed a democratically elected head of state in Iran. Russia detonated a hydrogen bomb and went into space before we did. The death of Emmett Till in Mississippi highlighted continuing mistreatment of blacks by whites. A popular TV show was Amos and Andy, featuring blacks acting like buffoons. The House Un-American Activities Committee forced Hollywood actors, directors, and writers to name associates who might be “communist sympathizers” on pain of being hounded out of the industry if they refused. In the Senate, a red-baiting demagogue, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, held televised hearings purporting to prove that the State Department was “filled with Communist agents.”1960–1970: John F. Kennedy was elected President, inaugurating the “Camelot” era in which the White House seemed to be the headquarters of a new era of hope, energy, optimism, and cultural sophistication. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, marshaled Congressional forces to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; following the example of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Johnson advocated for a “Great Society” in which poverty would be eliminated. James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi. President Kennedy declared that we would go to the Moon, and that happened, in 1969. A youth-oriented movement stressing greater personal freedom culminated in such events as the Woodstock Festival in 1969. The Supreme Court ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright established the principle of a right to legal counsel even if a defendant could not afford it; Griswold v. Connecticut strengthened personal privacy rights; Miranda v. Arizona stipulated that arrestees must be read their rights, and Loving v. Virginia helped to legalize interracial marriage. On television, Bill Cosby, as a United States government agent, and Diahann Carroll, as a nurse, presented blacks as worthy of respect, as opposed to the clownish stereotype of Amos and Andy, which went off the air. The first black Supreme Court justice was appointed.On the other hand, we imposed an embargo on Cuba, nearly went to war with the Soviets over their plan to put missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States, and became involved in the quagmire of Vietnam. Civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi and Alabama, and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers were assassinated. President John F. Kennedy and later, his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated. President Kennedy had endless sexual liaisons in the White House on which the press remained silent and pursued an affair with a woman, Judith Campbell Exner, who was simultaneously the mistress of a Chicago mobster, Sam Giancana. Race riots broke out in Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark. Chicago was rocked by riots in 1968 as students and other protested the Vietnam War during the Democratic convention. The nation was shocked by violent crimes, including a mass shooting from atop a tower on a Texas college campus by Charles Whitman, the slaughter of a group of student nurses in Chicago, by Richard Speck, and the slaughter of a pregnant actress and her friends in a Beverly Hills house by cult leader Charles Manson and his followers.1970–1980: Richard Nixon became the first President to visit China and opened diplomatic relations with a Communist nation we had previously shunned. The United States sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union with Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, exposing the misconduct of the Vietnam War and later broke the story of Watergate, becoming a national paper in the process. The Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade established the principle of a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. The first reality documentary, An American Family, was broadcast in 1973. The last execution for some years was carried out in Utah in 1976. The Concorde, a supersonic passenger jet, began operation. Limited cable TV programming began, and ATMs were invented, as were the first home game consoles, precursors of the personal computer. President Gerald Ford, a man of great personal decency, pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in the hope of avoiding years of political and legal wrangling and national bitterness. His wife, Betty, openly acknowledged her previous rehab treatment and, later, her breast cancer. The United States withdrew from Vietnam. The election of Jimmy Carter, former Governor of Georgia, seemed to promise an era of hope and personal decency.On the other hand, Nixon mined Haiphong Harbor in Vietnam in an attempt to win the war. Our retreat from Vietnam, in 1975, was seen by many as ignominious and led to years of acrimony among Americans. The 1979 films Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter symbolized the deep American ambivalence about the war. National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio fired on student demonstrators, killing one. Nixon obstructed justice by covering up the Watergate break-in and then fired the special prosecutor assigned to investigate him. He finally resigned to avoid impeachment. His successor, Ford, let himself be advised by such men as Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and Henry Kissinger in the State Department. The Carter administration could not work well with the Democratic Congress, and the national economy suffered high inflation. The country suffered from what Carter called “the national malaise,” and Carter dismissed most of his Cabinet. Carter served just one term, in part because he was seen as weak in the wake of the storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the 444-day captivity of Americans by Iranian radicals. Rev. Jerry Falwell of Lynchburg, VA began the “Moral Majority Movement,” the foundation of the religious right.1980–1990: The IBM PC was marketed in 1981, and the first cell phone call was made in 1983. The Apple Macintosh, with its icon-based graphical user interface, also dates from the early 1980s. President Ronald Reagan met with Soviet Premier Gorbachev, urged him to tear down the Berlin Wall, and advocated for peace between the two countries (although Gorbachev appears to have been inclined toward peace in part because he thought the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” was real and operational, which it wasn’t). Reagan bombed Libya, which seems to have made Qadafi decide to give up his own attempt to develop nukes, though he took revenge for the bombing two years later with the Lockerbie bombing. The U.S. economy improved from the doldrums of the 1970s. The Soviet Union basically collapsed around 1989, which some commentators heralded as “the end of history” (since events were no longer determined by a seemingly endless conflict between two lethally armed super powers).On the other hand, violent crime continued to shock us. Reagan was shot in March, 1981, and the Pope two months later, though both recovered. John Lennon had been shot to death in 1980. AIDS entered the national consciousness for the first time, and no one knew what it was or what to do about it. Reagan was seen by many as mismanaging the economy, getting Congress to enact large tax cuts without corresponding reductions in spending. He was criticized for his handling of an air traffic controller’s strike. His administration was nearly brought down when it was discovered that a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Oliver North, was running an operation out of the White House itself, apparently without Reagan’s knowledge, to illegally sell arms to Iran, our enemies, to raise money to finance Central American paramilitary death squads, called “Contras.” We invaded the Caribbean Island of Grenada. Democratic attempts to win the White House, with Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Michael Dukakis in 1988, were seen as ignominious failures. In the 1988 GOP primary in New Hampshire, the eventual nominee, George H.W. Bush, was defeated by a TV preacher, Pat Robertson. When Bush eventually got the nomination, he chose for his running mate a shallow young lawyer, Dan Quayle, given to saying things like “A mind is a terrible thing to lose” and “I was not born in this century” (he was about 35). Quayle also “corrected” a student in a spelling bee to the wrong spelling of “potato.” Meanwhile, there were notable scandals of supposed child sex abuse rings in day care centers, which were shown to be non-existent. A New York real estate tycoon, Donald Trump, published The Art of the Deal. The attempts of the American government to aid Afghan muhajideen fighters against the Soviet occupation contributed to the eventual formation of Al Qaeda.1990–2000: Bill Clinton, only the second President born after 1911, who had met President Nixon as a teenager, was elected and sought to move Democratic politics in a more centrist direction. His wife, Hillary, herself a lawyer, sought to enhance the role of First Lady to be more of an integral player on the President’s team, sponsoring healthcare reform.On the other hand, Bill was seen by many on the left as a sort of cynical sellout for political gain, and his welfare reform program as uncaring. He approved the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally retarded man who may not have been capable of understanding the charges against him, as proof of his commitment to law and order. He supported the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to erase what many saw as necessary boundaries between consumer banking and investment banking. He supported the “Defense of Marriage” Act, defining marriage as between a man and a woman, for which he later apologized, and also supported “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” a measure to allow gays to serve in the military in secret. The image of the military was tarnished by the Tailhook scandal, an incident of unrestrained groping of female service members at a gathering of officers. Hillary’s attempt at healthcare reform went down to ignominious defeat, and the GOP recaptured Congress in 1994, leading to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” and, later, a government shutdown. Bill, a notorious womanizer, was later found to have had an affair with a White House intern, and articles of impeachment were filed in the House accusing him of obstruction of justice. He and Hillary were continually hounded by allegations of shady dealings in the Whitewater real estate deal, as well as the supposed murder of a political operative, Vince Foster. Clinton was impeached in the House, though not removed from office by the Senate.2000–2010: George W. Bush, a former Governor of Texas and son of the 41st President, was elected on a program of “compassionate conservatism,” promising to be “a uniter, not a divider.” After the United States was attacked by Muslim fanatics on 9/11, Bush appeared in a Washington, DC mosque and said “The face of terrorism is not the true face of Islam. Islam is peace.” The United States captured Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator, tried him and hanged him in 2004. Bush was succeeded by our first African-American President, Barack Obama, a Harvard Law graduate who, as an unknown Illinois State Senator, had given the opening address at the 2004 Democratic convention, electrifying the nation with his assertion that we need not be divided as a nation but could simply be “Americans.” Veteran civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who had sought the Democratic nomination in 1984, wept for joy the night Obama was elected. Obama got Congress to pass a bailout program for a disastrously weakened economy, leading to one of the longest peacetime expansions of the economy in history. Later, he got Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act, providing health insurance to millions who had previously been without coverage. Obama also persuaded Congress to bail out the distressed American automobile industry, which would have cost the country thousands of jobs had it collapsed altogether. In 2011, Obama authorized a special Navy SEAL mission that killed Osama Bin Laden.On the other hand, Bush’s 2000 election was seen as stolen, since it was clear that his opponent, Al Gore, had won the popular vote. The outcome came down to a recount in Florida, which the Supreme Court stopped. Bush dismissed a Presidential intelligence briefing that warned that Al Quaeda would attack the United States with airplanes and then became obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein had conspired with Osama Bin Laden, which was not true, any more than the questionable intelligence asserting that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (it is possible that Saddam may have had programs at one time to develop WMD and that his own scientists were afraid to tell him that the programs had been discontinued, but in any case, the so-called intelligence that there were currently WMD was very questionable). A botched hunt for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan allowed him to escape. Bush’s Administration persuaded itself, groundlessly, that the Iraqis would welcome us and that their oil would pay for the invasion. Later, American soldiers were found to have tortured and abused prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib facility, while others were sent to Guantanamo. Domestically, Bush tried to partially privatize Social Security under the aegis of the “Ownership Society,” while cooperating with credit card companies to limit consumer bankruptcy relief from credit card debt and with drug companies to pass the absurdly expensive Medicare Part D, a misconceived prescription drug benefit for seniors. In foreign policy, Bush persuaded the former Soviet Republic of Georgia that they might be offered NATO membership and then sat on his hands when an aggressive Russia started a war with Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. In his personal style, Bush was a dolt, given to malapropisms such as “The terrorists want to hurt our country, and so do we” and “It’s time for mankind to enter the Solar System.” Bush made a fool of himself by walking onto the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit in front of a banner that read “Mission Accomplished,” as occupied Iraq was actually descending into chaos. While New Orleans was being flooded by Katrina, Bush endorsed the comically inept head of FEMA, Michael Brown, saying “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”Obama’s election was seen as a startling sign of racial progress in our country, but Congressional Republican leadership under Mitch McConnell announced at once that they would oppose everything he stood for and pursue the goal of making him a one-term President, after which Obama was blamed by whites for failing to meet Congress halfway. Donald Trump, a failed businessman and reality TV star, became even more prominent by promoting the idea that Obama had not actually been born in the United States and was ineligible for the Presidency. Obama himself is a very intelligent man who seemed to confuse promise with performance and left office faintly puzzled that the world did not share his warm self-regard. Having accepted the Presidency of the Harvard Law Review without authoring a single article, having published two memoirs and accepted a Nobel Peace Prize without ever having actually accomplished anything to that point, Obama outsourced his “signature achievement,” healthcare reform, to Nancy Pelosi and let Congress draft it in a way that when it was later defended before the Supreme Court, the Administration’s argument that it was a tax contradicted the very language of the statute itself; he promised the public that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” and, when the web site to sign up for healthcare turned out to be non-operational, professed himself as surprised as anyone, which turned out to be a customary approach; Paul Krugman eventually dubbed him “President Bystander.” Perpetually keeping his finger up to the breeze of public opinion (a tendency that Harper’s warned about in an article before he was elected), Obama declared that he was “evolving” on the issue of gay marriage and gays in the military. Despite a reputation as a public speaker, Obama clumsily borrowed a trope from Elizabeth Warren (if you built a business enterprise, you still benefited from public infrastructure and other benefits provided by society) and clumsily shortened it to the bald reduction “You didn’t build that.” Though the Republican Congress was outrageously perverse, Obama was not seen as a strong or effective negotiator with them. He discontinued Bush’s reliance on “enhanced interrogation” but carried on an illegal drone war that killed hundreds of civilians, executed a United States citizen without trial, and even killed his son. He consented to TSA officers placing their hands inside traveler’s clothing and touching their private areas over their underclothes, forcing women to remove breast prostheses and underwire bras, and forcing the elderly to remove diapers, and blandly assured the public, in a State of the Union Address, that they could take the train instead. When he appeared at a memorial service for victims of the Boston Marathon Bombings, he began his address by calling out “Helloooo, Boston!” as though he were at a picnic or pep rally. Exiting Marine 1, he returned a soldier’s salute by casually lifting his coffee cup to his temple. Recently, he has agreed to an official portrait that seems to suggest that he might have felt more at home taking a Hepplewhite chair from the Oval Office and squatting in the bushes, a tendency of which no one would have suspected him to this point. Guantanamo remains open, despite Obama’s promise to close it (another point on which Congress fought him tooth and nail).2010–2020: There’s really nothing to say about our present decade except to name Trump, whose election is the worst thing that the United States ever did and an indication that our 400-year experiment in democracy is a failure. No one, including, apparently, Trump himself, expected him to win, so the Democratic leadership blandly sidelined a candidate who actually stood for something and ran one of the most unlikable candidates in history, a monster of vanity and deceit, who published a book after her defeat asking “What Happened” that reminded one commentator on the left of Hillary asking us to walk with her through the five stages of grief. SNL eulogized the failed campaign by having Kate McKinnon perform Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” which implied that this word would be Hillary’s answer at the Last Judgment, when a much more characteristic response from her will be “It was someone else’s fault.”As Andrew Sullivan warned before Trump was elected, a Trump Presidency, for our Constitutional republic, would be an extinction-level event. He was right. Trump is mounting a slow-motion coup to destroy the very government that he was elected to preside over, though he is too stupid to understand that he is doing this, and Republicans in Congress are too craven to stop him. Meanwhile, he is itching to use his “nuclear button” and General McMaster talks complacently about a “bloody nose” strike at Kim.A year from now, the question in the OP may be a moot point.

"I am a conservative orphan, stranded on a deserted island, surrounded by liberal sharks." ByronThanks for the ATA Eric Fair. This must need to be a lengthy and complex answer. Fortunately I have only to copy and paste several of my existing answers that don't always get widely read. This is long but necessary because conservatism can't be explained in a 15 second sound bite. Let me introduce a few of my points with a cartoon that says volumes about the Keynesian's views and the liberal's views on conservatism. Then I will expound further on conservatism.I see this anti-conservative attitude a lot:From: Fair and balanced conservative here...Here is an attempt to fight for sensible conservative government:Tom Byron's answer to Do all conservatives on Quora eventually get banned? Is Quora itself innately liberal?We need more attitudes like I explain here: Tom Byron's answer to How would you fix the US economy?I have a list of conservative ideas/proposals in my (not too widely read blog Byron's Blog):We Are Not The Party Of NoRepublicans need to make a serious and a drastic change. This may sound easy, but it will be difficult. There will be opposition. Republicans need an image make-over, and a rebranding of a new party. A party that restores us to the policies that saw a growing economy; encouraged individual responsibility, and less, not more government. The citizens in in this country are yearning to be free of the yoke of excess power and excess taxation of a burgeoning central government. The power of an EPA (see below in a list of many government agencies), for example, that can place you in jail for building on your own property. We need to redefine how much is too much, and balance freedom and the powerful entrepreneurship that is "America", against the power to over tax and over regulate. Unfettered! Increasingly this burdensome government desires to expand and operate counter to Americans who wish to make their own way.Our collective house is "on fire". We need to save our "library of knowledge" before the building we call Republicanism burns to the ground and everything is lost! Just like the ancient Library at Alexandria, Egypt was lost.http://www.ancient.eu.com/article/207/How?There are fewer things in government more important than fostering a dialogue with the public and developing a sense of confidence. The people's voices do matter! This is missing in today's Washington political scene. We can, and should, change our message, as we battle this "blaze". Calling the fire department (contact your state and federal Senators and/or Representatives) is only the first step. You need to have fire drills (community meetings) occasionally and a plan.A government that fosters dependency does so at the expense of individual choice. There are currently (as of October, 2013) more people receiving government benefits than are working full time. This trend is troublesome. It must stop.We need to heal our differences internally before we can unite the public. First we need a government that is, "of the people", not OF THE GOVERNMENT!Can we unite the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party, the moderate Republicans, the conservative Republicans? We must! We need to unite in a common voice, and agree on our common goals—The U.S. Constitution being our foundation and our common document for going forward."United we stand, divided we fall". http://amhistory.si.edu/1942/campaign/campaign24.html...EPAOur Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needs to be overhauled. Regulations that protect the environment, at the expense of economic expansion, need to be studied for their impact on jobs and tax receipts to the federal government. Priorities need to be in place to give the final say to continuing a project only after congress has a vote on the matter. Congress is elected by the public, answerable to the public, whereas the EPA is run by unaccountable and unelected bureaucrats. Any President should not be permitted to bypass the U.S. Congress to enact laws without approval.FOREIGN POLICYA policy of asking forgiveness for our Americanism and freedom for the individual can not become an American policy. Too many have died defending this country. Too many lives have been invested spreading what people come to America for—Freedom.We need to engage in a dialogue with our foreign leaders without ceding authority to them. We need to foster trust, not by tapping their telephones, but through open face-to-face discussions.DIPLOMACYOur enemies don't fear us and our allies don't trust us, we need to reverse this trend. We must engage with our foreign leaders in a positive way. We must stand for what America stands for, human rights, freedom of the individual, peace through strength, and stability.MILITARYOur military needs to be strengthened. It is not a test-bed for political correctness.Our military men and women must be honored at home and around the globe. They must be given all the tools they need and know that no matter what happens of where the enemy arises—their lives and mission is protected with the full backing of our troops and our leaders.DEBTSomeday debt will matter. Today is that day. We can and will become dependent on the government, if we continue to permit the government to become an ever increasingly large part of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We need to increase jobs and foster a climate that I creases jobs. Taxes should be our primary source of revenue to fund our expenditures, not debt. We currently spend more on interest payments than we do on education. That means our priorities must change.SPENDINGWhen programs grow from year to year and the relative size of the increase is reduced year-over-year, this is not a "spending cut".TAXESWe need a flat or fair tax system in this country. We need zero-based budgeting. We need honesty in spending by acknowledging that a reduction in an increase in spending is not "tax reduction". It is a reduction in an increase only. We need to time our budget discussions to tax filing time. If we pass a budget by October and taxes are paid (to the IRS) in April, is this timing on purpose? They are 6 months apart, and people forget, and politicians make promises they forgot or ignore.CRIMEOur crime in some areas of our country are widely reported and we are very aware of the daily shootings. We need to address the problems that lead to this tragic result.I have a lengthy answer here.Is poverty a root cause of gun violence in the US?EDUCATIONWe have a competitive problem with our current educational system. We are not competitive. We are too often "teaching to the test".We have teachers' unions that are too strong and out themselves ahead of students.HEALTH CARELack of tort reform and insurance portability are the main drivers of health care cost increases. Creating a massive entitlement, government-run, federally subsidized program is not what a capitalist country creates. European-style socialist systems are fine for European-style socialist governments. Not in America. We have the best doctors, hospitals, treatments, and research of most any place in the world. Government take-over of a significant portion of the U.S. economy is not going to get everyone insured, with access to doctors, hospitals and medical treatment. We already have the structure in place. Fine. The access is unaffordable to many people due to rising increases in medical procedures. This is due primarily to drug regulations (costs) and legal regulations (malpractice insurance) raising the cost of treatment and affordability. The government has never had the ability to be less expensive than the private sector because it is tax-driven and not profit-driven.How are Americans faring under Obama care thus far?TERRORISMIf we must be in the Middle East, we must work rapidly to develop our own National Energy Plan. Five years. We are only creating more hatred of America by continuing with our presence in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and northern Africa.We must stop funding terrorism through petro-dollars. Our oil money flows to The Middle East. This must be ended.JOBSThe employment problem in this country needs to be addressed. The labor participation rate has fallen to historic lows, and the numbers of people on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and we are told that unemployment is only 7.2%. This is not true and is unacceptable. There are too many part time jobs being created. The 40 hour work week that we has prospered under, is going the way of dial-telephones.The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is the main driver. This must be stopped.POLLUTIONWe need an effective plan to address pollution, but not to the extent that industries and the local economy is imperiled through sudden changes and retro-active regulations. We don't need to kill and industry to correct it. Coal regulations come to mind. If fixing the amount of carbon emissions by increasing costs on power production to confiscatory levels is not a war policy.GUN CONTROLWe need a sensible debate on this issue. It is closely associated with crime in much of America. Crime has its roots in the same conditions as guns being used to commit those crimes.Licensing, testing and back ground checks need to be reviewed and corrected at the state level.Also see "CRIME" above.FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM (FRS)The entire concept of a quasi private/federal bank run by appointed people and heavily influenced by our political leaders is a dangerous policy. The FRS creates bubbles, then corrects them and operates as both the villain and the hero. Bad policy. We need a review and an audit of the FRS as a starting point. Read "The Creature From Jekyll Island", G. Edward Griffin. For a better understanding, see my answers here:http://www.quora.com/Tom-Byron/answers/U-S-Federal-Reserve?share=1ENTITLEMENTSWe need to address extensive use of EBT cards for food, and WIC (Women, Infant and Children) programs. There are too many in this program illegally and many are abusing the system. There needs to be closer control and better auditing to reduce this waste. It also should not become a career, of dependency.CITY AND STATE PENSIONS,BAILOUT OF 2008 FINANCIAL CRISISA program that allows cities and states to depend on open or "back door bailouts" in the form of block grants and assistance to states and municipalities should be closely examined. My discussion here on a notable headline is more specific.Has the Obama administration finally got it right, that the 2008 financial crisis was caused by government?What are the implications of Detroit filing for bankruptcy?IMMIGRATIONA cohesive plan for immigration must begin with a streamlined citizenship program. Waiting 10 years in line or even 3 years in line, will not work.FOOD STAMPSWe have to reform this growing entitlement. People need to perform some community service to continue to remain eligible. We need to eliminate fraud and make it impossible to sell food stamps to others not qualified to receive them. More people than ever are receiving this entitlement and costs have sky rocketed. Yet, poverty rates in this country remain constant. Why? The answer seems to be that there is a disincentive to work. This must change. Helping the poor is a noble endeavor, but allowing the government to create a dynamic where it is more profitable to accept assistance than work is even worse.DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICEThis agency must be accountable to the American people. Policies like dealing with foreign governments and running guns to track criminals must not ever happen again. Fast and Furious was an example of a government that is too large and not accountable. We need an Attorney General who upholds the rule of law and is not above the rule of law.Our Transportation Security Agency (TSA) and our Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are our first line of defense in national security. We must have full faith and trust in them. Post the Boston Marathon Bombing, and Fast and Furious, our comfort in knowing these agencies can protect us has been shaken.My Conservative Plan for 2014 & 2016Are the Republicans"The party of No!"?Are the Democrats the party of "It's Bush's fault."? Let's examine that and where that answer takes us.PROLOGUEThere is a Presidential election in 2016, and it is not too early to start thinking about what is happening today. A full throated debate that will begin early in 2014. The Congressional mid-terms occur 04 Nov 2014. Republicans need to prepare. America needs to decide. Maintain course or make an adjustment. Both sides of this debate have their reasons for staying the course or making a hard turn.This map shows the Senate by party and by state. PPACA was passed under some chicanery by the Senate Democrats, with no Republicans voting in the affirmative. More on that in a moment. This type of legislation has been pushed by Republicans in some form, notably Rommey Care in Massachusetts, and in more dynamic forms by Democrats, for over the last 75 years. Since the New Deal under FDR.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••The bill sent to the Senate, by the House, had the original House language in the bill gutted. The Senate had the language replaced and sent back to the House. All spending must originate in the House, and this bill fundamentally violates the Constitution."A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House. Under the Origination Clause of the Constitution, all bills raising revenue must begin in the House.The Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the act in June, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains in the majority opinion to define Obamacare as a federal tax, not a mandate. That was when the Sacramento, Calif.-based foundation’s attorneys had their “aha” moment.“The court there quite explicitly says, ‘This is not a law passed under the Commerce Clause; this is just a tax,’” foundation attorney Timothy Sandefur said at a Cato Institute forum on legal challenges to the health care act. “Well, then the Origination Clause ought to apply. The courts should not be out there carving in new exceptions to the Origination Clause.” http://www.freerepublic.com/focu...http://cookpolitical.com/file/20...••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••Here is some Senate math on the seats as the 2014 mid-term elections approach.House seats in play:http://www.centerforpolitics.org...Senate seats in playhttp://rothenbergpoliticalreport...••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••15 Democrat Senate seats (*) are competitive, and 2 Republican(**) seats are competitive.(*) Oregon,(*) Alaska,(*) Hawaii,(*) Montana,(*) Colorado,(*) Minnesota,(*) South Dakota,(*) Iowa,(*) Missouri,(*) Louisiana,(*) Michigan,(*) West Virginia,(**) Kentucky(**) Georgia(*) North Carolina,(*) New Hampshire,(*) Massachusetts,http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...CHAPTER ONEThe debate on who should be elected, and how to secure a dominate party to ease this country away from the Progressive movement that has been underway since 20 Jan 2009, needs to begin yesterday!Will the Republican's blame Obama, since the Democrats can't blame Bush anymore in 2014? Will the Democrats be blamed for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, since "the bloom was off this rose" before it was jammed down our throats? The Republicans will be blamed for not helping fix something they vehemently disagreed with, never voted for, and tried to compromise on or defeat, but were rebuffed at every opportunity. It was going to be the Progressive's moment, finally, after scores of years. Generations of effort. Now was the chance, with a "Manchurian Candidate" to have a true "Mission Accomplished" moment!What will be the key issues after all the finger pointing is dismissed by both parties, and the media ignores the entire story as Republican obstruction?It should be the economy. It should be jobs. It should be energy; finally—no more "put on a sweater (Jimmy Carter) turn down the thermostat policy", for energy independence. We have the energy, we just have too many modern day "Luddites" who are afraid their "save the planet" jobs and the Earth will be destroyed. We will only be able to "save the planet" when we restore science and remove politics from the debate. Until then, the hateful ads that depict Santa as being melted out of the North Pole, and thus no more Christmas for the kids, is deplorable. This does nothing to advance the Environmentalist's cause.There should be a debate on privacy and the 4th Amendment. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."It should be about the separation of powers, the "take care clause" in Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 7"Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.""There has been an erosion of the separation of powers under the current administration, and were outline in a Dec.4, 2013 House Judiciary hearing. See below for additional statements from that hearing.Statement of Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob GoodlatteFull Committee Hearing “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws”Chairman Goodlatte: Today’s hearing is about the President’s role in our constitutional system.Our system of government is a tripartite one, with each branch having certain defined functions delegated to it by the Constitution. The President is charged with executing the laws; the Congress with writing the laws; and the Judiciary with interpreting them.The Obama Administration, however, has ignored the Constitution’s carefully balanced separation of powers and unilaterally granted itself the extra-constitutional authority to amend the laws and to waive or suspend their enforcement.This raw assertion of authority goes well beyond the “executive power” granted to the President and specifically violates the Constitution’s command that the President is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”The President’s encroachment into Congress’s sphere of power is not a transgression that should be taken lightly. As English historian Edward Gibbon famously observed regarding the fall of the Roman Empire, “the principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.” Although the President’s actions may not yet amount to the executive’s powers overtaking the legislative power, they are certainly undermining the rule of law that is at the center of our constitutional design.From Obamacare to immigration, the current administration is picking and choosing which laws to enforce. But the Constitution does not confer upon the President the “executive authority” to disregard the separation of powers by unilaterally waiving, suspending, or revising the laws. It is a bedrock principle of constitutional law that the President must “faithfully execute” Acts of Congress. The President cannot refuse to enforce a law simply because he dislikes it.Certainly, presidents have from time to time made broad claims of executive power. However, assertions of executive authority have traditionally been limited to the area in which presidential powers are at their strongest—foreign affairs.The Obama Administration though has been equally assertive in the realm of domestic policy, routinely making end runs around Congress through broad claims of prosecutorial discretion and regulatory actions that push executive power beyond all limits. Indeed, President Obama is the first President since Richard Nixon to ignore a duly-enacted law simply because he disagrees with it.In place of the checks and balances established by the Constitution, President Obama has proclaimed that “I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer” and that “where [Congress] won’t act, I will.” Throughout the Obama presidency we have seen a pattern: President Obama circumvents Congress when he doesn’t get his way.For instance, while Congress is currently debating how to reform our immigration laws, the President effectively enacted the DREAM Act himself by ordering immigration officials to stop enforcing the immigration laws against certain unlawful immigrants. When he couldn’t get his preferred changes to the No Child Left Behind education law, he unilaterally waived its testing accountability provisions. When he objected to the work requirements in the bipartisan welfare reform law, he granted waivers that are specifically forbidden by the statutory text. Instead of working with Congress to amend federal drug enforcement policy, he’s instructed prosecutors to stop enforcing certain drug laws in certain states and mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses.And, most notably, the President has—without statutory authorization—waived, suspended, and amended several major provisions of his health care law. These unlawful modifications to Obamacare include: delaying for one year Obamacare’s employer mandate; instructing States that they are free to ignore the law’s clear language regarding which existing health care plans may be grandfathered; and promulgating an IRS rule that allows for the distribution of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies that Congress never authorized.The House has acted to validate retroactively some of the President’s illegal Obamacare modifications. However, rather than embrace these legislative fixes, the President’s response has been to threaten to veto the House passed measures.The President’s far-reaching claims of executive power, if left unchecked, will vest the President with broad domestic policy authority that the Constitution does not grant him.Those in the President’s political party have been largely silent in the face of this dangerous expansion of executive power. But what would they say if a president effectively repealed the environmental laws by refusing to sue polluters or the labor laws by refusing to fine violators?What if a president wanted tax cuts that Congress would not enact? Could he instruct the IRS to decline to enforce the income tax laws? President George H. W. Bush proposed, unsuccessfully, a reduction in the capital gains rate. Should he have instead simply instructed the IRS not to tax capital gains at a rate greater than 10 percent?The point is not what you think of any of President Obama’s individual policy decisions. The point is that the President may not—consistent with the command that he faithfully execute the laws—unilaterally amend, waive, or suspend the law.We must resist the President’s deliberate pattern of circumventing the legislative branch in favor of administrative decision making.We cannot allow the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution to be abandoned in favor of an undue concentration of power in the executive branch. As James Madison warned centuries ago in Federalist 47, “the accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”http://judiciary.house.gov/heari...Written Statement Jonathan Turley,Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law George Washington University"The President's Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws" Committee on the Judiciary United States House of Representatives 2141 Rayburn House Office Building December 3, 2013 http://judiciary.house.gov/heari...Two recent rulings from a District Judge lay a heavy emphasis on these complaints above. They go directly to the encroachment of a President on the separation of powers, and diminish our freedoms.Judges rulings against OBAMAJudge orders Obama foreign aid order releasedRejecting one of the Obama White House's most aggressive attempts to preserve executive branch secrecy, a federal judge Tuesday ordered the disclosure of a government-wide foreign-aid directive President Barack Obama signed in 2010 but refused to make public.The Justice Department asserted that the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development was covered by executive privilege, even though it is unclassified and reflected standing guidance to agencies rather than advice given to the president.Acting on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not properly within the bounds of the so-called "presidential communications privilege." The judge went further, calling "troubling" the sweeping nature of the government's argument's in the case."This is not a case involving 'a quintessential and nondelegable Presidential power' — such as appointment and removal of Executive Branch officials...where separation of powers concerns are at their highest. Instead, the development and enactment of foreign development policy can be and is “exercised or performed without the President’s direct involvement," Huvelle wrote in her opinion.Huvelle noted that she ordered the document delivered to her under seal last month and said she disagreed with the government's contention that the order is "'revelatory of the President's deliberations' such that its public disclosure would undermine future decision-making." She also found that "'the President's ability to communicate his [final] decisions privately' ... is not implicated, since the [order] was distributed far beyond the President’s close advisers and its substance was widely discussed by the President in the media.""Here there is no evidence that the [directive] was intended to be, or has been treated as, a confidential presidential communication," wrote Huvelle, a Clinton appointee.The Obama Administration argued that the distribution of the document was restricted to those with a "need to know," but the judge dismissed that contention as "amorphous.""The government has not, even after plaintiff raised the issue...defined what 'need to know' means," Huvelle wrote.The judge also suggested the administration had lost sight of the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act and transparency itself."The government appears to adopt the cavalier attitude that the President should be permitted to convey orders throughout the Executive Branch without public oversight ... to engage in what is in effect governance by 'secret law,'" Huvelle said.The White House referred a request for comment on the ruling to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a query about the case.http://www.politico.com/blogs/un...••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••Judge: NSA phone program likely unconstitutionalThe ruling is the first significant legal setback for the NSA’s surveillance program.A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the information had helped to head off terrorist attacks.Acting on a lawsuit brought by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the NSA from collecting so-called metadata pertaining to the Verizon accounts of Klayman and one of his clients. However, the judge stayed the order to allow for an appeal.“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” wrote Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush.The preliminary injunction Leon granted Monday does not require him to make a definitive ruling on the constitutional questions in the case, but does take account of which side he believes is more likely to prevail.Leon’s 68-page opinion is the first significant legal setback for the NSA’s surveillance program since it was disclosed in June in news stories based on leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. For seven years, the metadata program has been approved repeatedly by numerous judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and found constitutional by at least one judge sitting in a criminal case.The Justice Department persuaded those courts that the collection of information on the time and length of calls, as well as the numbers called, did not amount to a search under the Fourth Amendment because that information is routinely available to telephone companies for billing purposes and is shared with those firms voluntarily.Government lawyers and the judges who found the NSA program legal pointed to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling, Smith v. Maryland, which found no search warrant was needed by police to install a device which recorded the numbers dialed on a particular phone line.But Leon said the three-decade-old precedent was not applicable to a program like the NSA’s because of its sophistication and because telephone use has become far more intense in recent years.“The ubiquity of phones has dramatically altered the quantity of information that is now available and, more importantly, what that information can tell the Government about people’s lives,” the judge wrote. “I cannot possibly navigate these uncharted Fourth Amendment waters using as my North Star a case that predates the rise of cell phones.”The judge went on to conclude that the searches involved in the NSA metadata program were likely not permissible under the Fourth Amendment in part because there was little evidence the program has actually prevented terrorism.“I have significant doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism,” Leon wrote. “The government does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack, or otherwise aided the Government in achieving any objective that was time-sensitive in nature.”Edward Snowden himself praised the decision.“I acted on my belief that the NSA’s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.”The judge’s ruling was issued just before White House press secretary Jay Carney took the podium for the daily press briefing. Carney said he was unaware of the decision and he referred inquiries to the Justice Department.“We are reviewing the court’s decision,” DOJ spokesman Andrew Ames said.Similar lawsuits challenging the program are pending in at least three other federal courts around the country. In addition, criminal defendants are beginning to challenge the program after the Justice Department disclosed it had played a role in investigating their cases.Critics of the NSA program leapt on Leon’s decision as evidence that the legal foundation of the surveillance effort is deeply flawed.“The ruling underscores what I have argued for years: The bulk collection of Americans’ phone records conflicts with Americans’ privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution and has failed to make us safer,” Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said in a statement urging passage of legislation ending the so-called bulk collection program. “We can protect our national security without trampling our constitutional liberties,” he added.At a hearing last month, Leon said he knew that his decision would be far from the last word on the issue, which is almost certain to wind up at the Supreme Court.However, he added some flair to his opinion Monday, referring at one point to the Beatles and at another to Federalist Papers author James Madison, who later became president.“Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware ‘the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power’ would be aghast,” the judge wrote.http://www.politico.com/story/20...There is little doubt that the public's appetite for this level of overreach will help the Democrats position in the next two election cycles ('14 and '16), and this is central to this discussion here.CHAPTER TWOVarious other "phony scandals" according to President Obama that the American public is not buying.(1) Obama, without Congressional approval or consideration, unilaterally chose to specifically violate the oath of office (see quoted above) and by deferring the implementation of the ACA for the employer mandate did extend it by one year. This is a clear violation of the constitution.(2) The President did not seek Congressional approval to invade and subsequently overthrow the President of Libya.(3) CENSUS.gov Mess in 2012 where election was influencedByron's Blog: Which are the phony Obama scandals, and how do we know which is which? by Tom Byron on Tom Byron's Blog(4) IRS.gov Mess in 2014 where TEA Party was blocked from approvals.Malik Obama: The IRS and Health Care by Tom Byron on Tom Byron's BlogLois Lerner: Tom Byron's answer to The White House: What are examples of US administration officials having been rewarded in spite of their incompetence?(5) Healthcare.gov Mess since 2010Mandate or pay fine? NoKeep your doctor? NoKeep your insurance? NoKeep your hospital? NoKeep you drug plan? NoHigh deductibles? YesHigh policy premiums? YesCHAPTER THREERepublican alternatives that aren't anywhere nearly as many pages, nor as complex or intrusive as ACA:http://rsc.scalise.house.gov/upl...And also we have over 100 members of Congress now (Nov. 2013) that have co-sponsored it. And we had medical doctors who serve in Congress, like Dr. Phil Roe, help write this bill. This is a bill based on putting patients back in charge of their health care and lowering the cost and getting government out of health care decisions.http://m.cnsnews.com/news/articl...John Podesta will help Obama extend the President's executive power. Congress will become even more irrelevant.Why didn't Obama know about various issues? Podesta will help clear this problem by advising the Chief of Staff for Obama. No more secrets will be kept from the President!KEILAR: Obama was unable to. And with the window closing on his chance for second term achievements, Democratic sources tell CNN Podesta's expertise is much needed.As President Clinton's disciplined chief of staff, Podesta guided that White House through a sex scandal, impeachment and a war in Kosovo. He was known for cracking the whip, one former Clinton colleague telling CNN his co-workers made him a name plate. On one side, "John D. Podesta." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANS...CHAPTER FOURBlacks used to be Republicans, but in the years since FDR, they have, sadly, become a group of voters the Democrats have exploited. If you are a Conservative Black in America, you get the full wrath of of the left. You get audited if you speak out (Dr. Ben Carson). http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#s...Additional reading on this topic.http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu...Compare the rhetoric of these politically active individuals and how the media treats them:Alan West v. Al SharptonJC Watts v. Jessie JacksonCondie Rice v. Sheila Jackson LeeREPUBLICANS NEED ANOTHER MARGARET THATCHER OR MAYBE ANOTHER RONALD REAGAN.