Sunday, March 28, 2010

Repeal Roe v. Wade

I wrote earlier in these pages that the federal government was going to have a real problem if they expected me to allow my taxes to be spent on elective abortion. In the words of the president, the Hyde amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother, has been "settled law' in the United States for nearly four decades. Until now.


The progressive nature of the Obamacare legislation made no place for settled law, instead establishing a "lock-box" for supplemental premiums to insurance exchanges to be paid by non-federal funds. Right. And to provide further assurances, especially to the so-called "pro-life democrats", Mr. Obama agreed to promulgate an executive order, parroting the language of the Hyde Amendment, but without the force of law, and notwithstanding Stupak's Chamberlainesque histrionics with the draft document.

Well, I'm not buying their abortion fakeout. Since the Obamacare adherents can't see their way clear to obey the law, I have decided to mount a campaign to appeal Roe v. Wade. They clearly view the law as an impediment to their ambitions, except when they can use it as a club.

If they're going to play fast and loose with the law, I insist that the whole institution of abortion be torn down. If they didn't want me in the debate, they should have stayed out of my pockets. If they didn't want the voters of America to have a say, they should have kept it out of the courts and out of the halls of government.


If it is a private matter, as they say, why have they made it the purview of 300,000,000 Americans?


See the petition to repeal at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/repeal_roe_v_wade/

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty - especially for the most innocent and vulnerable among us.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

A Simple Majority for Obamacare

An optional title would be " How the Senate Democrats blew up Obamacare".

I was holding forth today on a social networking site as to the corrupt nature of politicians and how they come up with all the arcane rules of the respective houses of Congress to govern their behavior because they can't or won't follow the United States Constitution. I was subsequently asked if, since the filibuster isn't mentioned in the Constitution, did that mean I thought a simple majority of the Senate should be able to pass Obamacare. My response to that query follows below.

The Constitution permit both houses of Congress to set their own rules. Senate rules permit the filibuster. The Senate could change the filibuster rule if they wanted. Since it would take a 2/3 majority to change the rule, it appears the Senate prefers to leave the filibuster in place.

As to the question of how it should be passed, I think health care legislation and ALL legislation should be able to pass the United States Senate on a majority vote, unless otherwise proscribed by the Constitution, or their own rules. That does not mean that the Republicans should roll over just because you and Harry and President Obama want them to. The Senate Democrats themselves just didn't want a simple majority vote.

If I recall correctly, the Senate democrats created the supermajority scenario for Obamacare, because they 1. shut the Republicans out of the legislative process, and 2. couldn't even muster the votes in THEIR OWN CAUCUS (of 60 Senators or 3/5 of the body) to sustain cloture, so they had to set about buying votes to get to 60 before bringing the bill to the floor.

A lack of transparency and integrity among the Senate democrats sealed their fate, and the fate of Obamacare. They could have had an up or down vote. Unfortunately, democrats and Republicans view politics as a zero-sum game. In this instance the radical progressives in the Senate were going to pass this bill no matter what. And they blew themselves up in the process.

Try as you might, you're not gonna get away with blaming the Republicans for this mess.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, especially when radical progressives blame everyone else for their failings.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Of Oaths and Obloquy?

As we approach this weekend's vote in the U. S., some may believe this to be the denouement of the year-long struggle over "health care reform". Many will rejoice in the tying up of loose ends and the speculation laid to rest as we finally discover what's in the bill. Still others will see the vote as the final chapter in a story replete with tales of backroom deals and skullduggery, of graft and grift and corruption. Some will excuse the process as ugly, yet necessary. Many, including myself, see this as the ultimate expression of a governing class which has abrogated their elected responsibility and sworn oath in the pursuit of power.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in Speaker Pelosi's embrace of the Slaughter Solution, a self-executing rule. In reality it's a parliamentary trick to allow the House of Representatives to "deem" the Senate health care reform bill as passed without voting directly for it. Speaker Pelosi likes this solution because it allows her members "to keep some distance" between themselves and the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator Aid, Connecticut's Dodd-Lieberman Memorial Hospital - and the Senate's support for federally funded abortion. But most of you know all this, and if President Obama is to be believed, you "don't care about the process".

Well I actually happen to care about the process and believe that many other Americans do as well. Mr. Obama has demanded a simple up or down vote on whatever form the health care reform bill will take. What Speaker Pelosi and Congresswoman Slaughter have come up with is anything but simple. For most members it's a bill that is more enigma than definiteness, requiring a bewildering leap of faith in democrats in the United States Senate, wrapped up in the tatters of somebody's copy of the United States Constitution.

Unlike President Obama, I have not taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and am by no means a Constitutional scholar. Also unlike President Obama, I do not believe that the United States Constitution in his words, "reflects a fundamental flaw in this country". Nor have I taken an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution". But a common sense reading of the United States Constitution shines a glaring light on Speaker Pelosi's fundamentally flawed strategy for advancing the progressive vision of health care reform in America.

I quote below from the United States Constitution, Article 1 section 7 clause 2, with acknowledgement of the web site of the United States House of Representatives as the source of this information:

"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives... in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays and the names of persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively...."
There is nothing in there about what has become known popularly as "deem and pass" or the Slaughter Solution. Nothing in my unscholarly reading of the United States Constitution provides cover for this legislative sleight of hand.

Every member of the House of Representatives swears the following oath on a copy of the Holy Bible (or the Koran, if one is so disposed):
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." I cannot see how "deem and pass" demonstrates "...faith and allegiance...." under that oath of their office.

We find ourselves in a similar situation to that of our nation at its founding, with a future that was far from certain. Back then they chose a republic, Two centuries on, both the American legacy and her future are far less certain today. A majority of our elected leaders, in direct violation of their oaths of office, are moving relentlessly to impose a paternalistic state on the American people. Will we be the United States of America, or will we lose the legacy of Washington, Madison, Adams, Lincoln and Reagan, and become a second-world shadow of our former national self, fading into obloquy and obscurity?

It's not often in writing this blog that I will turn to scripture, but in the face of unbridled arrogance and lust for political power, a particular passage that many of us have heard from the Old testament comes to mind. In Micah 6:8, we see the exhortation, "...to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly...." And we also see in Isaiah 33:15-16 that, "He who walks righteously, and speaks uprightly, He who despises the gains of oppression, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil, He will dwell on high."

That doesn't sound at all like many of the people in Washington. They may truly believe that the end justifies the means. Their clock is running, and they're about out of time. It's their vision of America or ours.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, especially when the future of the country is at stake.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Abortion and Health Care Reform

If Bart Stupak's account of his conversations with democrat advocates of abortion coverage are correct, they (the people writing the bill), view abortion as a means of cost control. He's quoted in today's Wall Street Journal as saying he was told, "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That's one of the arguments I've been hearing,".

I am opposed to abortion on demand, in all its forms. It's not a gray area for me. That said, there are those widely divergent views that run the gamut from "it's a woman's right to choose" to social engineering and eugenics where undesirables are removed from society. Abortion as cost control is eugenics, pure and simple. Any other reason for promoting abortion on demand is simply intellectual dishonesty.

There are many reasons for a woman to have an abortion. That discussion should be between her and her physician. The federal government and the abortion industry have no business being involved. NARAL and the like opened themselves up to opprobrium when they federalized the issue of abortion on demand.

The reason abortion is still so hotly debated 40 years later is that American society was, and still is, unprepared for the consequences of a decision by the US Supreme Court that the court was unqualified to make in the first place. There are no penumbras in the US Constitution, only those imagined by an activist judiciary.

I am opposed to this health care scam they're trying to ram through. It's bad enough they're going to enforce their mandate via the tax code. Abortion should have never been a federal issue, and I'm going to raise nine kinds of hell if this bill passes and they force me, as a taxpayer, to pay for abortion. It may still be safe and legal after health care reformm but I doubt very seriously that it will be rare.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, even for those who hold intellectually dishonest moral and political positions,

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Coffee Party

The Coffee Party is open for business in America and coming to a Starbucks near you. Or would be if your Starbucks hadn't closed. Maybe they're coming to a Dunkin Donuts or a Barney's, instead....

Unlike the tea party movement, The Coffee Party has a titular founder, Ms. Annabel Park, who is a former Strategy Analyst for the venerable New York Times. Ms. Park is currently a documentary filmmaker, and denies being an operative for the Obama presidential campaign. The Coffee Party also have a titular spokeman, retired U.S. Army chief warrant officer, Fortune 500 ex-industrialist, and star of radio and Youtube, Alan Aborn. Alborn claims to be a free-marketer, whatever that is, and a Libertarian.

The Coffee Party have put it all out there. "Progress is patriotic" and "The government is the expression of our collective will". Whatever Ms. Park's motivation for "founding" the Coffee Party, they sound like another progressive and collectivist shill for the Obama government/media enterprise.

The Coffee Party are the darling of the New York Times, egged on by the Washington Post. CNN and KSRO Radio in Santa Rosa, California. We suspect The Coffee Party is nothing more than a substitute the discredited MoveOn.org and and an arm of the uber-leftist Organizing (Obama) for America.

According to the Boston Globe, The Coffee Party's Alborn says "he supports the basic tenets of the Tea Party (sic), but not what he views at its stonewall strategy and jumble of church of church and state (emphasis added)". Unfortunately, spokesman Al Alborn doesn't elaborate on that strategy or the jumble. Our opinion is that Alan Alborn is about as conservative as David Brooks.

The Coffee Party claim to seek the middle way of compromise, providing a political home for independent and moderate Americans. If anything they're about two decades too late. Maybe if it had been The Coffee Party in the 1990's instead of Soros and MoveOn. The drive to fundamentally transform America in a second-world cradle-to-grave welfare dystopia by the Obama presidency and the Pelosi/Reid Congress havejust about sent independents and moderates the way of the dodo bird and the ivory-billed woodpecker. The Coffee Party may soon find themselves without a constituency.

The Coffee Party have a difficult job ahead of them. Progressives and their agenda have taken a beating over the Obama/Pelosi/Reid debacle. Without a more substantive message than compromise, The Coffee Party are going to be unable to make any real difference in the political climate. Today's progressive power structure views American politics as a zero-sum game, and the Obama administration and Pelosi/Reid Congress continue to pursue a scorched earth legislative policy. The Coffee Party risks being drowned out by their own, or being co-opted, like their brethren in the democrat party and the mainstream media, by radical/socialist/progressives.

Eternal vigilance (not compromise) is the price of liberty for all of us, including progressives, whether they realize it or not.