THE GOOD PEOPLE @ THE CAPITAL TIMES (CYBERSPACE, VIA MADISON, WISCONSIN) HAVE SOME SHOCKING NEWS TO REVEAL in the following editorial vis-a-vis Treasury Secretary Paulson's Grand Delusion otherwise known as a $700 Billion Misunderstanding.

Videlicet, that the whole, as originally written, may be--shock!! horror!!--unconstitutional:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's draft proposal for the bailout of struggling financial services firms sought to make himself the most powerful unelected official in American history through his proposal to take charge of vast sectors of the U.S. economy--setting policy, buying and selling assets, determining whether financial institutions thrive or collapse--with no oversight.

Under Paulson's draft plan, Congress and the courts would have been barred from reviewing or challenging his moves to stabilize financial markets, effectively making him the nation's economic czar.

That's not just a dangerous power grab for economic and political reasons. It's unconstitutional.

Paulson's power grab was specifically spelled out by the treasury secretary in Section 8 of his proposal, which read: "Decisions by the secretary pursuant to the authority of this act are nonreviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who sought his party's nomination for president this year but has arguably emerged as a more influential player in his role as the congressional point man on a crisis that is bigger than an election, pushed back on Monday.

Dodd offered a plan to give Paulson extraordinary--and, frankly, excessive--powers. But the senator also moved to place tighter time limits on the period in which the treasury secretary would be able to exercise those powers, to establish an special inspector general to monitor the program, and to set up an emergency board with two congressional appointees to provide oversight.

Ultimately, Dodd and his compatriots should be able to restrain Paulson's power grab.

But they must be as specific in their constraint of Paulson as the treasury secretary was in his overreach.

Section 8 of the Paulson proposal must be stripped in its entirety.

There can be no vagueness, no gray area.

Otherwise, the treasury secretary would become a more powerful--and unaccountable--figure even than our powerful and unaccountable president. And, as such, he would be operating in direct conflict with the Constitution.

The nation's essential document makes it clear that every member of the executive branch is subject to legislative and judicial review.

Congress cannot delegate its oversight authority to a Cabinet member, even in a time of turmoil. The opening section of the Constitution gives all--emphasis on all--legislative authority to the House and Senate. Under the well-established constitutional doctrine of nondelegation, Congress cannot cede that power in the manner that Paulson's draft plan proposed--or, for that matter, in any manner whatsoever.

"It's hard to run afoul of the nondelegation doctrine, but if anything does, this is probably it," Jamie Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University's Washington College of Law, told the Maryland Daily Record, a newspaper that deals with legal issues. "How does Congress just give away $700 billion and tell the secretary of the treasury to figure out the rest?"

Raskin, a state senator, said that the doctrine of nondelegation "was the first thing I thought of when I heard that the administration's entire plan was on three pages and that the third page said $700 billion would be allocated to this purpose (and) programmatic details are to be fleshed out by the Treasury Department."

It is good that Raskin and a few others are reading the fine print.

It is necessary that Congress do the same.

Moral: Share the news with your Congressman.

=============

AS IF THESE AMAZING(?!) REVELATIONS AS ABOVE WEREN'T DISGUSTING ENOUGH FOR THE WEIRD AND UNWHOLESOME ELEMENT DOMINATING WASHINGTON to stomach without reaching for the old bicarbonate, Right Wing Watch is making note of where the current socioeconomic crisis is being seen by the Religiopolitical Right as a clear and present sign of Moral Breakdown as Threatens to Undermine Our Antient and Pecuilar Soverignty and Soverign Identity as a Pecuilar Among the Nations:

There have been several articles recently suggesting that with John McCain's decision to name Sarah Palin as his running mate, the focus of the election was shifting toward wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage and that the so-called "culture war" was about to be reignited, to the benefit of the Republican Party.

But that was before the economy went into a meltdown and became the primary issue in the campaign.  Of course, just because the focus has shifted away from their issues doesn't mean that the Religious Right isn't desperately trying to find ways of exploiting the current economic crisis to further their own agenda:

While the economy clearly is at the forefront of voter priorities, conservative Christians also draw a connection between traditional social issues like abortion and gay marriage and the economy, said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council.

"As there's a breakdown in the family and the family weakens, it's only logical it will hit Wall Street," Perkins said. "A nation cannot be strong just because of a financial structure alone. It has to have strong families and values."

Obviously, as soon as women stop having abortions and gays stop trying to get married and adopt children everything on Wall Street will turn right around.  It's as simple as that.

Which also raises the question: Whence the interconnexion between the defence of Family Values and the defence of capitalism with American characteristics, and vice versa?

As if that weren't enough to send the stomach churning beyond the help of even Prilosec or Zantac, another Right Wing Watch item as relates to the Religiopolitical Right's handling of Indecision 2008 bears noting--in this case, by equating exercise of the vote as one with Christian Witness:

Concerned Women for America recently released its "Election Sunday Package," a webpage full of audio and video resources to help mobilize right-wing voters for November.  Among those resources is this video called "Operation: Rally The Church" in which CWA President Wendy Wright explains that if Christians don't vote, "liberals who mock Christians, support abortion on demand and same-sex marriage, and would prefer that America be weak in the world community" will ruin this country.  She warns that if "citizens ... who love God don't vote, then the people who will be ruling over us in government will continue the slaughter of unborn babies, weaken marriage, and silence those who love God" and thus it is imperative that Christians do vote because all those who have died defending this country are putting "their hope in you ... to keep this a country worth living and dying for":