Politics and Government in America

The Supreme Court is right now considering whether to hear a challenge to a law in Massachusetts that prevents felons from voting. Now I know there are all kinds of arguments for allowing felons to vote once they are released from prison. However, the Massachusetts law is unique in this regard as the law does not forbid felons from voting when they are released but only when they are in prison.

The argument being made by the inmates involved in the suit is that because most of the people in prison are minorities, the law passed in 2000 is a violation of the Voting Rights Act. These inmates want the right to perform their social duty by voting, after displaying that they have no regard for societies laws. This makes about as much sense as the lawsuit back in the 80′s claiming that the New York prison system not offering cable television was cruel and unusual punishment.

Now, I do not believe that all felons should lose their voting rights AFTER they have served their sentence. However, prison is supposed to be a punishment. Inmates in many states are highly restricted in what they can do. In Wisconsin inmates  are not even allowed to play games like Dungeons and Dragons.

Inmates still serving their sentences should and do have their rights restricted as a matter of necessity. It is the only way that society and other inmates can be kept safe. The Supreme Court has already upheld that convicted felons may even have their rights restricted to a certain extent even after their term of incarceration is up. Even some Constitutionally established rights, like free association and the right to bear arms are able to be restricted when dealing with convicted felons. Again this is because of the need to protect the public at large.

That a case like this would even make it to the Supreme Court says more about our current justice system then it does about the merits of the case. This is just one more example of the need for torte reform in the United States.

My friends, Evan Thomas is at it again. You remember Evan Thomas, he was the one who told Chris Matthews that President Obama was “above the world,” and “like God.” Yesterday he was sitting on the panel on Meet the Press and was confused about something.

Thomas said “And Obama, you would think he’d get some points for first he passes health care, looks like he’ll finance–pass financial reform.  But he doesn’t.  He sort of floats around low in the polls.” Evan Thomas isn’t sure why people aren’t thanking President Obama for our health care like we are supposed to thank him for our non-existent tax cut. More on that later.

A few moments later Evan Thomas added this to his statements about the president. “Well, he’s, he’s–you know, he’s appealing, he’s reasonable, but nobody’s listening.  I mean, it’s like he’s, he, I don’t think he’s really getting any, any real, real traction.  I think he’s in a way too reasonable. In an era that we live in where everybody is kind of loud and dramatic, his very reasonableness means that he kind of floats along and doesn’t have much impact one way or the other.” I would like to take this moment and explain to Mr. Thomas why he struggles to understand this.

The answer is simple but perhaps not evident if you have a liberal world view. Americans are listening to what President Obama is saying and they do not like what they are hearing. There was no bump, no points, because of the health care bill because the American people did not want it and still don’t want it.  They understand that President Obama is taking this country down a road that leads to the same social democracy that has bankrupted Greece, led to annual riots in France, and generally ruined Europe, once the source of some of the world’s greatest innovations.

Mr. Thomas, the American people understand that the flaws in European social democracy are systemic. They are not simply caused by the right people not trying it yet. They understand that a government big enough to provide you with everything is also big enough to take everything away. Most importantly they understand that what President Obama is doing is not what the Founding Fathers intended America to be.

Okay now, as promised, the truth about the tax cuts we should all be thanking President Obama for. We never received a tax cut from the president. What was cut was the rate of withholding and that the extra money that was not held back from your paycheck had to be paid back on April 15th when you filed your taxes. Just a little more dishonesty from the supposedly most ethical and transparent administration in history.

Just a heads up for you tea partiers out there, the left has plans to infiltrate your rallies tomorrow and make you look like “racist, homophobic morons.”  The scary part is they are not even being subtle about it. Instead they are trumpeting it to the world with the help of their friends in the media.

A group known as crashtheparty.org is actively recruiting liberals to pose as tea party members and shout racist and homophobic slogans while making themselves look like idiots. How do we know this? Because the Associated Press ran a story about it on Monday. Yet the odds on bet is that come Thursday they will go out and dutifully report just how awful the members of the Tea Party movement are.

Such a movement does not spring up overnight. In all likelihood these people have been active for some time. Remember the allegations of racial slurs and boarish behavior during the rally on Capital Hill just prior to the health care bill being passed? Does anyone want to give me Vegas odds that that rally was infiltrated by left wingers seeking to discredit that event?

The tea parties are having an effect. They are highlighting the opposition to the spend and tax policies of the left and the radically transformative nature of the Democrat leadership’s agenda. Therefore in the eyes and minds of the left wing they must be discredited and crushed. My friends, history shows us what we are facing. The first step towards tyranny is to crush the voices of opposition. This effort may not have direction from the leadership of the Democrat party, but you can bet that Nacy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack H. Obama are glad that they are there. If not then they should come out and condemn this decietful behavior like they always demand Republicans do when the Democrats phoney protestors show up to smear the reputations of American patriots.

Repeatedly over the past several days I have heard congressional Democrats defend the health care  takeover bill by claiming that it falls under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Rep. John Conyers tried to claim it fell uder the Good and Welfare Clause, but that is another story. This repeated assertion proves that rather then taking control of the health care system, Congress should be voting to make classes on understanding the Constitution manditory for all public officials.

There is no Commerce Clause in the Constitution. There is an Interstate Commerce Clause which gives Congress the authority to regulate trade between states. However the current state of affairs is such that health insurance can not be sold across state lines. Therefore there is no interstate commerce going on and the Interstate Commerce Clause has no effect in this instance. Here is the clear wording of the Constitution on the subject. “[The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes” is the way it is written in Article One Section 8-3.

This simple fact is the reason you see E-surance, Geiko, and Progressive commercials on television almost every commercial break, but unless it is a local company, you almost never see commercials for health insurance companies. Under the Constitution the federal government has no authority to regulate intrastate trade. Such power is expressly granted to the states by the Tenth Ammendment.

The health care “reform” act is just a serious power grab on the part of Congress. There is no Constitutional authority for them to do it, but they have done it anyway. Now we seem to be forced to rely on either the Supreme Court or a notoriously fickle electorate to get rid of this blatent abuse of power. Don’t let America forget what has happened here. If we lose freedom here there is no place left to run.

Yesterday the Democrats voted to defeat 29 amendments in the Senate to the House “fix-it” bill. However, in doing so they gave us a clear picture of what the Senate Democrats stand for.  Let’s take a look at the record shall we?

Yesterday, 57 Democrats voted in favor of giving erectile dysfunction drugs to convicted sex offenders.  That means that the Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of giving sexual predators the ability to offend again.  However, given the soft on crime attitude that many liberals have this is not all that surprising.

The Senate Democrats also voted in favor of cutting Medicare and taxing families who make less than $250,000 a year, despite campaign year pledges. Come the election season however, I feel confident in saying that Democrats will accuse Republicans of trying to cut Medicare and leave senior citizens to die. Once again the wisdom of my elders is proven true when they told me that nobody ever accuses someone of something unless they have at least thought about doing it themselves.

Perhaps most telling of all, the Senate Democrats voted against making Congress and the president have to live under the same boondoggle that the rest of us do. Now, haven’t Harry Reid and his posse been telling us that when this bill passes the world will be unicorns, kittens, rainbows, and sunshine? If this new law is so wonderful and all of our lives are going to be so much greater under it, why have the exempted themselves, their families, and anyone who works for the Congress or the White House from it?

My friends, we are witnessing the birth of an American aristocracy. This has become an Imperial Congress, dedicated to controlling the people, as Rep. John Dingell said, and establishing a different set of rules for themselves to live by. Rather than work for the good of the American people they are working for the increasing of their own power.  When I witnessed the chanting of “one more vote” and the applause that acompanied the passage of the Senate Bill I was reminded of the scene in Star Wars Episode 3 when Palpatine announces the creation of the Empire to an enthusiastic Senate. At that point Sen. Padme Amidala remarks, “so this is how liberty dies, with thundrous applause.” That is how I felt on Sunday.

The time has come for us to take liberty back. The next few years will be a struggle to restore freedom in America. This will not be a struggle of arms and armies, although you may hear some people advocate that. It will be a struggle of hearts and minds and ideas. We must win this battle or the America that we grew up in, the America that I proudly served as a member of it’s military, will be no more.

My Friends, today we stand on the verge of the collapse of everything the Founding Fathers fought and died for. With the passage of the healthcare reform bill we have taken the first step into a thousand years of darkness that Ronald Reagan predicted clea back in 1964.  The advocates  of this bill are celebrating it’s passage and proudly announcing what they had in mind when they passed it.

Rev. Al Sharpton said Sunday that when the people voted for President Obama thy were “voting for socialism.”  Yesterday Rep. John Dingell proclamed  that the purpose of the bill was to “control the people.” Meanwhile Sec. Kathleen Sebelius said today that one of the purposes of the bill was to reduce the profits of drug manufacturers by $90 billion. Meanwhile, the internet is filled with liberals gloating an talking about how great it is that the Republicans got beat.

Meanwhile they are hoping that you will forget about it and lose the anger that has drivn us for the past year. BBC America’s World News  ran a story on Monday talking about how there is no way that Republicans and conservatives of winning big electoral gains because Americans have short memories and will be distracted if the economy starts to pick up again.

We need to step up and stand up for our country my friends. We have to show the same drive in defeating this bill as the Left did in passing it. There is no other way we can get our country back. At the same time we have to be smart about it.  We cannot do like some of my friends have suggested and throw every incumbant out of office. We did that once before, in 2006 and that led us to where we are now. The Pelosi/Reid Administration is a direct result of the move to “teach Republicans a lesson” that gripped the conservative movement during the 2006 election.   

We need to repeal the bill and replace it with common sense reforms. We need to pack the Senate and the House with conservatives and we need to work with the Republicans to do it.  The only thing a third party will do right now is ensure that the Obama agenda continue to steamroll over the American people. Don’t be decieved, there are no conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs turned into purse puppies when it came time to vote for this bill. If you wish to prevent the further decline of this nation  we ned to tand up for wha we believe in, and that means standing with Republians.

Today, President Obama is holding his “health care summt.” He invited a bunch of Republians and Democrats up to Blair House to discuss health care, or so they said. However, a few weeks ago The Poitico outed the Democrats by telling America that the whole point of the summit was to show the Republicans as “the face of gridlock.”

There are a few big problems with that. First and foremost is that the Republicans have been running circles around the Democrats at the meeting.  With Republicans in the room, President Obama was forced to finally acknowledge that Republicans have submited several plans and are not the Party of No like they have been presented. President Obama was even reduced to calling Republicans bringing printouts of each bill proposed by the Dmocrats “props and stagecraft.” Meanwhile Lamar Alexander pointed out how President Obama himself opposed any action that would turn the Senate in a “Majoritocracy.” In other words President Obama is against reconciliation.

The more important problem that calling the Republicans the Party of No is that in neither chamber of Congress do not have strong enough minorities to block any thing. Any American with a high school civics education understands this. With sixty Democrats in the Senate until Scott Brown’s election, if the Democratic leadership could get their own party in line the Republicans could not stop anything.

Let’s be honest friends, the Democrats are committing political suicide. Several Democrat political strategists have admitted that there are no logical scenarios where the Democrats hold on the House of Representatives. Yet they continue to drive straight toward the cliff, even accelerating as they go. Keep holding their feet to the fire folks, we are winning.

We all know the type. We all know somene who is always saying “things would be better if….” Things would be better if I had a different job, things would be better if I lived somewhere else, things would be better if I had  nicer car. Well my friends, the Democrats are playing the politics of things would be better if.

Just look at what they are doing right now in Congress. Things would be better if the government payed for everyone’s health care. Things would be better if we had renewable energy. Things would be better if CEO pay was less.  Things would be better if the rest of the world liked us more. Things would be better if Gitmo was closed.

The problem with “things would be better if,” is that they never are better.  The people I know who are like that always find something else that they need to change and they often end up worse off because of the changes they made. If all the changes never make their lives better, why should we trust that the government is going to be able to do any different.

And yet they push forward.  Today Harry Reid announced that the Senate may use a procedural trick to pass health care without lawmakers even voting directly on the plan. Instead he is going to attach the plan as an amendment to another bill and pass that bill instead. And he is planning on doing next week.

We are in danger of losing our freedom,and it is all being done in the name of  “things will be better if.” We are seeing the Constitution being trampled right in front of our eyes, and it is all being done in the name of “things will be better if.” It seems that the only way that things will be better is if we get conservatives who will stand by their principles in office and do it as quickly as possible.

It has been eight years since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. For the first seven years we were told that we couldn’t talk about it or have any major remembrances of the event. Well folks, now enough time has gone by, at least according to many on the left.

Nancy Pelosi is now calling on America to remember those who fell on 9/11 by redoubling our efforts to pass national health care. Barack Obama has annonced that we should use 9/11 as a national day of service by “greening our neighborhoods.” Many celebrities have planned “memorial” concerts and events to raise awreness and money for their pet liberal causes. 

All of them claim that we need to have the same wake up call today that we had on 9/11. They are right but it is not a wake call to push for some political goal. We need a wake up call to remind us that our way of life and even our life itself  is fragile. We need a reminder that we need to live like we are going to die, because we are.   Perhaps most importantly we need a reminder that we are not as divided a country as we sometimes feel we are.

If anything 9/11 should be a reminder that we can and should rise above the petty politics that often consumes us. The people who attacked us did not attack us because they didn’t like our policy on public medicine or the stimulus or because we don’t have “sensible” gun control.  They attacked us because they had been taught irrational hatred for the very existance of this country. 9/11 should be a wake up call, but it should be a wake up call that we need to draw closer together, not a time to use the political wedges to push us apart.

Senator Edward Kennedy passed away yesterday.  This man did more to advance liberalism in this country than pretty much any other Democrat in Congress.  Because of the tragedy that seemed to haunt his family, all you had to do was attach Teddy’s name to a bill and it would pass for purely sentimental reasons.

Ironically, Senator Kennedy’s most long lasting legacy may be the one that he didn’t want. Back in 2004,  when John Forbes Kerry was running for president, Sen. Kennedy used his influence to get the Massachusetts state legislature to pass a bill striping the governor, then Republican Mitt Romney, of the power to appoint a replacement to the Senate. At the time it was a very pragmatic political decision.

Today, that effort may turn out to be Sen. Kennedy’s biggest blunder. Until a special election can be held in November, under the laws of Massachusetts, Sen. Kennedy’s seat will remain empty. This creates a slight shift in the balance of power in the Senate. It means that the Democrats no longer have a filibuster proof majority and that the growing cracks in the Democrat party are going to become even more stressed.

It also means that the special election that is going to take place will perhaps be a prelude to next year’s midterm election. Everyone will expect the Democrats to hold that seat, it has been Democrat since 1953 when Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. lost the seat to John Kennedy.  However, Sen. Kennedy seemed to know something the rest of us don’t because he spent the last few weeks of his life pushing to have the law, that he originally pushed, repealed.

Perhaps we are  about to see a revitalization of the Republican Party, and more importantly the conservative movement. Senator Kennedy seemed to think so. We can all see the anger tha is building in the country and the way that the Democrats are responding to it. Rather than accepting that there is legitimate concern and anger of the waste and wild spending in Washington, they are calling the American people angry mobs, comparing them to the KKK and Nazis, and telling them to sit down and shut up. The Democrats are rapidly becoming the authoritarians that they accuse Republicans of being. Perhaps Sen. Kennedy’s legacy will be the start of the next Republican revolution.