How can a bill become law without being voted on by both houses of congress? Just remembering 8th grade civics classes tells you that it can't happen right? Oh but it has. Of course it didn't start out to be intentional and was the result of a clerks error, but instead of fixing the problem as called for in the Constitution the Senate Republicans pulled some behind doors shenanigans. Time had passed and Senate GOP leaders had lost confidence in getting enough votes to pass the bill as you will see below.

The "Deficit Reduction Act of 2005," or Public Law No: 109-171 (S.1932) was passed by both houses, but here is the catch.


The Senate clerk didn't just correct a typo, he changed the bill that the House voted on which would require the bill to be reconcidered by that body. That didn't happen and violates a very core principle of the Constitution. Article I Section 7 of the US Constitution says, "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States..."

When mistakes like this one occur they are usually corrected with appropriate legislation. However the Democrats were not readly to lay down for this one and decided to demand a record vote. But that didn't happened. Instead, Senate Republican leaders simply changed the bill, and got Speaker Hastert to go along on behalf of the House. In essence Hastert took it upon himself to become the House. We all should have a very big problem with that. This bill did not pass both houses and therefore violates the Bicameral Clause of the Constitution.

Speaking out on the unconstitutionality of this:

University of North Carolina School of Law professor Michael Gerhardt: "This legislation is question does not satisfy the requirements of the Bicameral Clause of the Constitution."

American University law professor Jamin Raskin: "The 'Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005' may be something but it is not law within the meaning of the Constitution."

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley: "Obviously, the Speaker cannot certify a different bill as the will of the House of Representatives. If he could do that, he cold become a House unto himself."

Georgetown University law professor David Vladeck told Congressman Waxman that these actions violated, "one of the most fundamental guarantees in the Constitution."

John Dean, Former White House Counsel to President Nixon and a FindLaw columnist nailed it at he end of the article:


At least one Republican isn't going along with this debacle.


It's hard to see how any court cannot find that Zeigler has standing on his complaint, the American poeple certaily will.

More on what can be done about this from Vikram David Amar, professor of law at the University of California.

h/t to Donna at Madison.com

With all due respect to Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, 1830's, who wrote: Mary Had a Little Lamb, I did a parody for Mary McCarthy.

---

Mary Had a Little Scam by Sandi

Mary had a little scam,
Little scam, little scam,
Mary had a little scam,
She fleeced secrets on the go

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went
The scam was sure to go

It followed her to The Post one day
The Post one day, The Post one day
It followed her to The Post one day
Which was against the rules.

It made the terrorists laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the terrorists laugh and play
To see secrets in the Post

And so the CIA turned her out,
Turned her out, turned her out,
And so the CIA turned her out,
But still she didn't fear

And waited patiently about,
Patiently about, patiently about,
And waited patiently about
Hoping liberals did appear

"Why does Mary love to scam so?"
Love to scam so? love to scam so?
"Why does Mary love to scam so?"
The eager terrorists cry

"Why, Mary hates GW Bush, you know."
Hates GW Bush, you know, hates GW Bush, you know
"Why, Mary hates GW Bush, you know."
The CIA did reply

---

H/T to a Riehl World View post "O McCarthyism - Or, Mary Had A Little Scam?" which gave me the idea.

CIA officer, Mary McCarthy, was dismissed after admitting to leaks after failing a polygraph exam. Apparently she was also a big-money donor to Kerry and the Democrats.

From The New York Times.


More from MSNBC.



h/t Deans World and Ace of Spades.

We have all seen people who are rude to waiters, maids, clerks, security guards and bellhop etc. Even without being rude how you treat these service people can predict a lot about your character according to many CEOs.


Service people may not have a fancy title (yet), but they are often young and working through college or just looking for their direction in life. Many have the intelligence and ability future business owners, executives and CEOs.

h/t to Owen at Boots & Sabers.

Hugo Chávez is showing little mercy to multinational companies doing business in Venezuela, by demanding a 60 percent stake in oil companies with projects there.


Translation: If an oil company wants to do business in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, they must take the state as a partner with a 60/40 split (see below) in favor of the state.


So who is really blackmailing who in oil rich Venezuela?

So what are we going to do about illegal immigrants? It seems everyone has a plan, even the government. Though yet again, it doesn't seem like the House and Senate can ever agree on anything.

The House passed a bill (summary) that demonstrates a resolve to enact real border security and addressed the problem of the 11 or more million illegal immigrants already in the country. The House also rebuffed President Bush's entreaties to include avenues for illegal aliens to gain legal employment.

The Senate has their own version of the bill (summary) that only received 36 of the necessary 60 votes to bring the bill to cloture and allow an up-or-down vote. Good thing too after being watered down with the teeth extracted, it becomes an exercise in political tomfoolery to amass public perception that they did something about immigration concerns.

The both bills make it unlawfull to hire undocumented workers, well duh it is already unlawfull. Both bills also direct the Secretary to establish, and sets forth the provisions for, an employment eligibility verification system. However only the House bill sets forth civil and criminal penalty provisions for noncompliance.

I agree completely with the House provision on civil and criminal penalty provisions for noncompliance. If the penalties are big enough and include jail time, this alone will dry up the job market for illegal workers. After a few employers do perp walk, the rest will soon get the message, and hiring illegal workers will drop abruptly.

However the verification system needs to be a good one. False documentation is rampant now. When we make employers verify employee's legal status it will only get many times worse. But anyone who says that we can't make documentation secure is just full of it. Look, almost everytime you cash a check the clerk runs the check through a check reader attached to the Point of Sale Terminal. It goes to one of the big check verification services that check the writers against a negative database of bad check writers for a small fee.

Just as checks can be verified for a small fee, so can drivers licenses and social security cards be verified against government databases. No it wouldn't be fool proof, neither is the check verification systems but neither they or the stores get burned often enough to put either out of business. I suppose that a small business, or people hiring nannys and such could phone the information for verification.

There is always identity theft too, but the fake documentation which is the vast majority of it would be rejected by a proper verification system. Hopefully if fake documentation is caught those illegals too would be prosecuted and receive a heavy penalty. In the case of identity theft the heavy fines and incarceration should be put only on the person with fake credentials, unless of course it's obvious that the company should have easily caught it, in which both should be prosecuted.

Furthermore I don't have any objections what so ever to employers doing a cross check on my credentials because it protects all of us.

We still need to control the borders whether the heavy flow of illegals is drastically cut or not, there is a huge national security problem inherent there. Two of the hijackers that flew into the Pentagon were illegals residents who easily obtained false identification.


So al Qaeda knows about the illegal immigrant fast-track network and took advantage of it to do a number on us 9/11/2001. I also hope that excerpt above soaks in for those that say the new drivers license requirements are too stiff and unfair.

As far as sending the undocumented immigrants back we obviously couldn't round up and send 11 million or more home. However they didn't all get here overnight either. We need to get the verificatin database quickly in place. In the meantime let illegal immigrants that have been here for years to start paper work to become legal. We can start deportation with new arrivals, but that wont be necessary if good legislation works as it should. It can if we prosecute employers with stiff penalties, because they will start going home in droves when there are no jobs.

An interesting phenomenon, something that I've never seen or heard of called the "Kaye effect" is apparently quite common with certain liquids like soap. When poured onto a surface, the down-going stream suddenly throw up a jet that swirls, then merges with the incoming stream.

The only reason we don't see it is because generally it's over in an instant. Anyhow, I thought it was pretty neat and will probably be wasting a bottle of dishsoap just to see if I can get a glimpse of it.

Click the link above for more info and a slowed down video clip.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that by the end of this century lifespans will at least double. Not only that but the quality of the later years will be as good or nearly so as youth. The science behind it is not only plausable but quite a bit of it already known. There is little skepticism that the remaining obsticles can not be over come soon. That and some opposition to overcome from partisans of mortality on the extreme right and left.

The left may tout social degeneration due to a huge population sharing limited resources, while some on the right will proclaim the quality of a finite life and a better after life. Therefore many extremists will not welcome the conquest of death.


h/t Lucianne

These advances are just in biotechnology, but we are also making great strides "nanorobotics." The merging of biology and nanorobotics (biorobotics) opens to us every possiblility imaginable from medicine to enhancing human intelligence times thousands. I intend to post more on biorobotics later.