Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protecting America. Show all posts

Friday, August 10, 2012

Handicapping the VP race based upon Wikipedia edits

The concept of predicting a VP candidate based upon the volatility of their Wikipedia biographies, as CNN explains, is not new.

In the past, Wikipedia activity has spiked for vice presidential picks the day before an official announcement was made. In 2008, hours before Republican candidate John McCain announced his vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin's Wikipedia page was getting a heavy edit. According to The Washington Post, the then-Alaska governor's page was changed 68 times the day before the announcement. In the 24 hours leading up to Obama's running mate announcement, Joe Biden's page was edited 40 times.

So I decided to take an updated look, heading into the weekend, at activity for "the Big Four" ostensible VP contenders.

Wikipedia modifications to VP contender biographies over the last week:

• Rob Portman: 159 changes.
• Paul Ryan 96 changes
• Marco Rubio 83 changes
• Tim Pawlenty 34 changes

Wikipedia modifications to VP contender biographies over the last day:

• Paul Ryan 38 changes
• Rob Portman: 33 changes.
• Marco Rubio 24 changes
• Tim Pawlenty 11 changes

If recency is any indicator, it looks like Paul Ryan is coming on strong.

I can't imagine Rob Portman -- a pasty, boring white guy, affiliated with the Bush administration and who is largely unknown outside Washington -- as the VP candidate. Sorry, I just can't.

As for Tim Pawlenty: based on the stats, he looks like a non-entity when it comes to VP contender status. Which is as it should be. The guy dropped out of the GOP primary in what seemed to be about four days.

Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan would both make outstanding choices. Charisma. Principles. Brains. All of the things, in other words, lacking in Joe Biden.


Friday, August 03, 2012

Billboard o' the Day: Free Radicals

Via iOwnTheWorld:

Billboard at Exit 355 near Oak Ridge TN on I-40 West in Roane County:


Text at bottom: Join the Roane County Tea Party.

These men were truly unique. They believed in the spiritual power of individual liberty, the immutable desire of man to be free, the sacrosanct concept of private property, and the requirement to restrain government.

Throughout all of human history, governments were instituted by the power-hungry to control and dominate the masses. But these men were different. They designed a system of laws that allowed the people to control and dominate the government.

We call our playbook "the Constitution". And those politicians -- especially the members of the modern Democrat Party -- who take an oath to uphold it and then promptly ignore it, must be obliterated at the ballot box in November.



Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Billboard o' the day: blue-screen


Hat tip: Wanda.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Free Sign for Businesses That Prohibit Concealed Carry

Spotted at Moonbattery:



Highlights: Romney's Speech in Jerusalem

These are highlights of remarks delivered earlier today by Mitt Romney at Jerusalem Foundation in Jerusalem, Israel.

...It is a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Our two nations are separated by more than 5,000 miles. But for an American abroad, you can’t get much closer to the ideals and convictions of my own country than you do in Israel. We’re part of the great fellowship of democracies. We speak the same language of freedom and justice, and the right of every person to live in peace. We serve the same cause and provoke the same hatreds in the same enemies of civilization.

It is my firm conviction that the security of Israel is in the vital national security interest of the United States. And ours is an alliance based not only on shared interests but also on enduring shared values.

In those shared values, one of the strongest voices is that of your prime minister, my friend Benjamin Netanyahu. I met with him earlier this morning and I look forward to my family joining his this evening as they observe the close of this fast day of Tisha B'Av.

It’s remarkable to consider how much adversity, over so great a span of time, is recalled by just one day on the calendar. This is a day of remembrance and mourning, but like other such occasions, it also calls forth clarity and resolve.

...It was Menachem Begin who said this about the Ninth of the month of Av: “We remember that day,” he said, “and now have the responsibility to make sure that never again will our independence be destroyed and never again will the Jew become homeless or defenseless.” "This," Prime Minister Begin added, “is the crux of the problems facing us in the future.”

So it is today, as Israel faces enemies who deny past crimes against the Jewish people and seek to commit new ones.

When Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust or speak of wiping this nation off the map, only the naïve – or worse – will dismiss it as an excess of rhetoric. Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way.

My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country. As Prime Minister Begin put it, in vivid and haunting words, “if an enemy of [the Jewish] people says he seeks to destroy us, believe him.”

...It would be foolish not to take Iran’s leaders at their word. They are, after all, the product of a radical theocracy.

Over the years Iran has amassed a bloody and brutal record. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats, and killed its own people. It supports the ruthless Assad regime in Syria. They have provided weapons that have killed American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has plotted to assassinate diplomats on American soil. It is Iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and the most destabilizing nation in the world.

We have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran’s leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions.

We should stand with all who would join our effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran – and that includes Iranian dissidents. Do not erase from your memory the scenes from three years ago, when that regime brought death to its own people as they rose up. The threat we face does not come from the Iranian people, but from the regime that oppresses them.

Five years ago, at the Herzliya Conference, I stated my view that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability presents an intolerable threat to Israel, to America, and to the world.

That threat has only become worse... today, the regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability. Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority.

I want to pause on this last point. It is sometimes said that those who are the most committed to stopping the Iranian regime from securing nuclear weapons are reckless and provocative and inviting war.

The opposite is true. We are the true peacemakers. History teaches with force and clarity that when the world’s most despotic regimes secure the world’s most destructive weapons, peace often gives way to oppression, to violence, or to devastating war.

We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option. We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability. We should employ any and all measures to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so. In the final analysis, of course, no option should be excluded. We recognize Israel's right to defend itself, and that it is right for America to stand with you.

These are some of the principles I first outlined five years ago. What was timely then has become urgent today.

Let me turn from Iran to other nations in the Middle East, where we have seen rising tumult and chaos. To the north, Syria is on the brink of a civil war. The dictator in Damascus, no friend to Israel and no friend to America, slaughters his own people as he desperately clings to power.

Your other neighbor to the north, Lebanon, is under the growing and dangerous influence of Hezbollah.

After a year of upheaval and unrest, Egypt now has an Islamist President... [and as] you know only too well, since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, thousands of rockets have rained on Israeli homes and cities. I have walked on the streets of Sderot, and honor the resolve of its people. And now, new attacks have been launched from the Sinai Peninsula.

With Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel from the north, and Hamas rockets aimed from the south, with much of the Middle East in tumult, and with Iran bent on nuclear arms, America's vocal and demonstrated commitment to the defense of Israel is even more critical. Whenever the security of Israel is most in doubt, America's commitment to Israel must be most secure.

...Israel and America are in many respects reflections of one another... We both believe in democracy, in the right of every people to select their leaders and choose their nation's course.

We both believe in the rule of law, knowing that in its absence, willful men may incline to oppress the weak.

We both believe that our rights are universal, granted not by government but by our Creator.

We both believe in free enterprise, because it is the only economic system that has lifted people from poverty, created a large and enduring middle class, and inaugurated incomparable achievements and human flourishing.

...You have embraced economic liberty. You export technology, not tyranny or terrorism. And today, your innovators and entrepreneurs have made the desert bloom and have made for a better world...

...I believe that those who oppose these fundamental rights are on the wrong side of history. But history's march can be ponderous and painfully slow. We have a duty to speed and shape history by being unapologetic ambassadors for the values we share.

...I believe that the enduring alliance between the State of Israel and the United States of America is more than a strategic alliance: it is a force for good in the world. America's support of Israel should make every American proud. We should not allow the inevitable complexities of modern geopolitics to obscure fundamental touchstones. No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel.

Storyboard: My Proposed Political Ad


Just 14% of Americans believe their kids will be better off than they were, an all-time low...


Since Barack Obama took office, millions of Americans have dropped out of the workforce...


Long-term optimism about the U.S. economy has fallen to it's lowest level since 2009...


Little wonder, since real unemployment remains at an unacceptably high level of 15 percent, despite trillions in so-called stimulus spending.


Likewise, confidence in the housing market has fallen to its lowest level this year...


And what does President Obama propose? Higher taxes on small businesses, more government spending, and more of the same failed policies that lost America its AAA credit rating.


If you have had enough of President Obama's failed policies, vote the straight Republican ticket. It's the only way to be sure.


Saturday, July 28, 2012

Daddy Like: iPhone-sized Handgun

'Course, it's a "last line of defense" sorta thing, but still:

Heizer Defense Double Tap


• The Titanium Tactical Pocket Pistol
• The first concealed carry .45 ACP born from aerospace technology and 100% USA made.
• 5/8 Inches Wide Hammerless No Snag Design
• The future of concealed carry firepower is now in your hands!

• Titanium Frame with a MIL-STD finish that resists corrosion
• Two rounds in the chamber and integral grips house an additional two spare rounds
• Ported barrel reduces muzzle flip and recoil
• Slim, no-snag hammerless design for easy pocket carry
• Thumb latch auto ejects spent rounds
• 7 Patents pending including double-action trigger system
• 1911 Ergonomics and loaded rounds are visible
• Quick change - interchangable barrels

HEIZER Firearms has developed the world's smallest and lightest .45 ACP concealed carry pistol on the market today. Also available in 9mm.

Daddy like. Of course, Daddy likes him all kinds o' guns.


Hat tip: Bernie.

Simple Venn Diagram Explains Entire Democrat Party

This illustration comes to us from The Looking Spoon:

And I couldn't resist creating the equivalent version for the real Republican Party (not big government Statists, but Constitutional conservatives and the Tea Partiers):

Bold differences, sharp contrasts.





Friday, July 27, 2012

Chart: Repeal Obamacare to Save Our National Defense

In January, unless dramatic action is taken, the Defense Department will suffer even deeper, more devastating cuts. Consider: the one damn thing the federal government was chartered to do by the nation's founders, its most important mission, was securing the nation's citizens. And it has been put at dire risk by infantile, Utopian progressive fantasies of wealth redistribution and equality of outcome.

What's the easiest way to prevent the evisceration of our national defense?

Answer: Repeal Obamacare.

...The gross spending for Obamacare’s insurance expansions [now] totals $1.4 trillion for the 2013–2021 period—the same stretch in which $1.2 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration” would apply...


[The CBO] also shows $400 billion in net 2013–2021 tax hikes, part of the onerous “Taxmageddon” also slated to start in January. Thus, the net cost of Obamacare would be about $1 trillion for 2013–2021. That’s how much could be saved by cancelling the planned spending and taxes in the President’s government takeover of health care.

...The cuts would [otherwise] shrink defense spending by about 10 percent through a crude, indiscriminate, and irresponsible mechanism. They must be replaced. What better substitute than two huge new entitlements that have not yet been implemented, that [more than] half the public doesn’t want, and that the government cannot afford? Take away Obamacare, and the entire sequestration is replaced almost dollar for dollar—without tax hikes.

...The Heritage Foundation previously listed the top five reasons for repealing Obamacare: (1) to stop adding deficits and debt, (2) to help prevent Taxmageddon, (3) to protect religious freedom, (4) to keep health care decisions with doctors and patients, and (5) to clear the way for patient-centered reform. Now make it an even half-dozen: (6) repeal Obamacare, and prevent an indefensible sequestration.

Repeal of Obamacare is paramount.

What can you do? Tell everyone you know to vote the straight Republican ticket.

Taking the Senate, holding the House, and giving Obama a pink slip will help save our national defense apparatus while repealing the Democrats' version of socialized medicine.

We need to do plenty of work on the RINOs, but this much is sure: Obama will devastate the military as surely as night follows day.


Monday, July 23, 2012

Protest Photo o' the Day: Florida Greets the President

From The Tatler (via Diary of Daedalus):


Jim Powell asks "You didn't build that? Mr. Obama, you can't be serious."

Unfortunately for us, Jim, he is.



The Top 150 Conservative Websites - July 2012 [Updated]

Update: A prior version of this table had some incorrect traffic values and has since been updated.

Here are the latest rankings of conservative news and opinion sites, which are ranked based upon Alexa traffic rankings. Yes, some of these are middle-of-the-road or moderate sites, but they are included because they do publish conservative opinion pieces on a regular basis.
RankTraffic RankWebsite
1188foxnews.com
2218wsj.com
3256telegraph.co.uk
41071nypost.com
51343theblaze.com
61494realclearpolitics.com
71756zerohedge.com
81833breitbart.com
92579washingtontimes.com
102703dailycaller.com
113544hotair.com
124140weeklystandard.com
134209townhall.com
144599nationalreview.com
154640pjmedia.com
164969jpost.com
175227washingtonexaminer.com
185292thehill.com
195329investors.com
205534freerepublic.com
216721newsbusters.org
226858military.com
237043rushlimbaugh.com
248484reason.com
258639debka.com
269914cnsnews.com
2711227americanthinker.com
2811234rasmussenreports.com
2911839dailymail.co.uk
3013547twitchy.com
3113694freebeacon.com
3215446mises.org
3315858ace.mu.nu,jawa,etc.
3416376redstate.com
3516425humanevents.com
3617625michellemalkin.com
3718267thegatewaypundit.com
3818842lucianne.com
3919729wattsupwiththat.com
4020130powerlineblog.com
4121972blog.heritage.org
4226957weaselzippers.us
4327657westernjournalism.com
4428329spectator.org
4530082commentarymagazine.com
4630088stratfor.com
4732647althouse.blogspot.com
4833573globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
4934449whitehousedossier.com
5038704therightscoop.com
5138882legalinsurrection.com
5239731market-ticker.org
5340387canadafreepress.com
5443185freedomworks.org
5544127marklevinshow.com
5644650jihadwatch.org
5747251the-american-interest.com
5848267the-diplomat.com
5949285thenewamerican.com
6050725volokh.com
6153994spectator.co.uk
6254661boortz.com
6355161memeorandum.com
6456968lifenews.com
6557081frontporchpolitics.com
6658591atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com
6759192theothermccain.com
6861707defensetech.org
6967920anncoulter.com
7072589american.com
7172751rightwingnews.com
7277181numbersusa.com
7378387mrc.org
7478975patterico.com
7579063armytimes.com
7680448borderlandbeat.com
7783391hannity.com
7890430outsidethebeltway.com
7995365iowntheworld.com
8096216ricochet.com
8196679firstthings.com
82100086radicalislam.org
83100796climateaudit.org
84108979lonelyconservative.com
85112383wizbangblog.com
86119846cato-at-liberty.org
87122714riehlworldview.com
88124765danielpipes.org
89125746aei.org
90128801navytimes.com
91132410israelhayom.com
92133001allamericanblogger.com
93138441directorblue.blogspot.com
94142108moonbattery.com
95143388polipundit.com
96144235sayanythingblog.com
97146993maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com
98150711justoneminute.typepad.com
99152041theblogmocracy.com
100152634jammiewf.com
101156704marinecorpstimes.com
102160443conservativedailynews.com
103163081dailypundit.com
104164160thepeoplescube.com
105168153linkiest.com
106171781angrywhitedude.com
107176725conservatives4palin.com
108184292gatestoneinstitute.org
109187919aim.org
110190674creepingsharia.wordpress.com
111196357floppingaces.net
112200685smalldeadanimals.com
113201511judicialwatch.org
114201740economicnoise.com
115201882dennisprager.com
116202405iowahawk.typepad.com
117210928freeenterprise.com
118211822steynonline.com
119213532atr.org
120216733breitbart.tv
121223757hillbuzz.org
122226353ihatethemedia.com
123230308rightpundits.com
124234742shark-tank.net
125243830memri.org
126245513zombietime.com
127246971americanpowerblog.blogspot.com
128253874gaypatriot.net
129258189capitalismmagazine.com
130258794politicsandfinance.blogspot.com
131270877cafehayek.com
132275609varight.com
133279314blackfive.net
134298717maggiesnotebook.com
135300718imao.us
136305926americandigest.org
137339227scaredmonkeys.com
138340390soopermexican.com
139345459datechguyblog.com
140346495thepiratescove.us
141346858fireandreamitchell.com
142350159proteinwisdom.com
143359775pointsandfigures.com
144360233newsrealblog.com
145361066bobmccarty.com
146362729sultanknish.blogspot.com
147376175redcounty.com
148382259thisainthell.us
149391297yidwithlid.blogspot.com
150392825astuteblogger.blogspot.com

Friday, July 20, 2012

My Sincere and Heartfelt Apology to ABC's Brian Ross

An earlier Doug Ross @ Journal article referred to ABC News correspondent Brian Ross as the Westonville man by the same name arrested today and accused of: operation of a rolling methamphetamine lab; lighting kittens on fire; trafficking in child pornography; using a rusty axe to amputate the pinkies of debtors; performing necrophilia with roadkill; pushing a nun in front of the E train; arranging and betting on dog fights; gross abuse of squirrels; decapitation of baby seals during devil worship; and placement of non-recyclable material in the recycle-only container.


My bad.


Saturday, July 14, 2012

Mitt Romney's Dad: Civil Rights Icon

My, my, my. Curious how this photograph hasn't made it into America's collective consciousness.


Thanks to The Looking Spoon for the illustration.



Friday, July 13, 2012

Yoohoo, #TruthTeam, I've found five more secrets about the candidate you'll want to publish!

You may have seen the following Romney "secrets" published by the Obama campaign's ill-named "Truth Team":


Never mind that the economy languishes as the President seemingly spends all of his time on on campaigning, demagoguery, and dividing Americans by race, income, religion and industry.

Of more material concern for independents and thoughtful Democrats are the following Truth Team secrets:


Yoohoo, TruthTeam: perhaps you could research these real secrets and let the American people know the real story of President Buck McPasser.



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

"Dude, how do you find all of these stories?"

That's the question I get asked from time to time.

Fact is, I use BadBlue.com. It mines Twitter, 24 by 7, to see which headlines are getting the most buzz.

There are now three BadBlue news feeds: one for politics (BadBlue.com/News), one for technology (BadBlue.com/Tech), and one for finance (BadBlue.com/Money).


Check 'em out if you get a chance. They seem to be one of the fastest ways to keep up with breaking news.

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Best of the Independence Day Blogs

Via BadBlue, here are the highlights of some of the Fourth's best posts:

Robert Dillon: 'Thomas Jefferson was then a little past thirty-three years of age. His ability as a thinker and a writer was well-known. The committee met immediately after appointment. Jefferson suggested that Adams should draw up the Declaration. Adams objected, saying: "You can write ten times better than I can." The others agreed that Jefferson ought to make the first draft, and he consented... At some time in the following three weeks, Jefferson wrote the paper. We are led to believe he did it at one sitting, or one day, or night... Many years later he remarked: "Whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection, I do not know. I only know that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it."'

Thomas Jefferson, writing for the nation's founders: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Matthew Spalding: "Because all are endowed with these rights, the rights are unalienable, which means that they cannot be given up or taken away. And because individuals equally possess these rights, governments derive their just powers from the consent of those governed. Government’s purpose is to secure these fundamental rights and, although prudence tells us that governments should not be changed for trivial reasons, the people retain the right to alter or abolish government when it becomes destructive of these ends."

Diana Schaub: "Washington close[d his] Farewell Address by anticipating a retreat beyond even his retreat to Mt. Vernon, namely his journey toward the “Mansions of rest.” The line is said to have brought tears to the eyes of his readers. Four decades later, a young Abraham Lincoln delivered a remarkable speech that revisited Washington’s theme of “the perpetuation of our political institutions.” The Lyceum Address closed by imagining a sort of second coming of Washington. Lincoln’s closing hopes for the nation can still serve as our own: “that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington."

Sarah Rumpf: "Over two centuries ago, fifty-six men put their lives on the line to preserve and protect the freedoms that are the God-given unalienable rights of all free people... Today, as I think back about the incredible amount of courage it must have taken to publicly sign their names to this document, I cannot help but think that the best way to honor this courage is for each of us to consider making a similar personal pledge to our fellow Americans. "

Bobby Jindal, writing at RedState: "If you are a small business owner, a middle-class taxpayer, or if you are worried about what Obamacare will do to the quality of your health care, or if you are worried about the fact that our government is headed towards insolvency – you have only one recourse – make President Obama a one-termer. Elections do matter; this one matters a lot."

Ed Morrissey: "Two hundred and thirty-six years ago, a beleaguered but defiant group of men created the most magnificent declaration of liberty and human rights in history. It changed the world forever, and ended the heretofore universal model of a permanent ruling class in favor of self-government. Most scoffed at the grand experiment by these “Americans,” but in the end those men not only changed their own land, they changed the entire world. Happy 236th anniversary to the Declaration of Independence, and to the United States of America."


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Obamacare: The Dissent

I found these brief statements (PDF), part of the dissent in today's ACA decision, to be far more terse, logical and compelling than all of the dozens of preceding pages.

Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito wrote:

The Court today decides to save a statute Congress did not write. It rules that what the statute declares to be a requirement with a penalty is instead an option subject to a tax. And it changes the intentionally coercive sanction of a total cut-off of Medicaid funds to a supposedly non coercive cut-off of only the incremental funds that the Act makes available.

The Court regards its strained statutory interpretationas judicial modesty. It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult, since Congress cannot start afresh but must take as its point of departure a jumble of now senseless provisions, provisions that certain interests favored under the Court’s new design will struggle to retain. And it leaves the public and the States to expend vast sums of money on requirements that may or may not survive the necessary congressional revision.

The Court’s disposition, invented and atextual as it is,does not even have the merit of avoiding constitutional difficulties. It creates them. The holding that the Individual Mandate is a tax raises a difficult constitutional question (what is a direct tax?) that the Court resolves with inadequate deliberation. And the judgment on the Medicaid Expansion issue ushers in new federalism concerns and places an unaccustomed strain upon the Union. Those States that decline the Medicaid Expansion must subsidize, by the federal tax dollars taken from their citizens, vast grants to the States that accept the Medicaid Expansion. If that destabilizing political dynamic, so antagonistic to a harmonious Union, is to be introduced at all, it should be by Congress, not by the Judiciary.

The values that should have determined our course today are caution, minimalism, and the understanding thatthe Federal Government is one of limited powers. But the Court’s ruling undermines those values at every turn. In the name of restraint, it overreaches. In the name of constitutional avoidance, it creates new constitutional questions. In the name of cooperative federalism, it undermines state sovereignty.

The Constitution, though it dates from the founding ofthe Republic, has powerful meaning and vital relevanceto our own times. The constitutional protections that this case involves are protections of structure. Structural protections—notably, the restraints imposed by federalism and separation of powers—are less romantic and have less obvious a connection to personal freedom than the provisions of the Bill of Rights or the Civil War Amendments. Hence they tend to be undervalued or even forgotten by our citizens. It should be the responsibility of the Court to teach otherwise, to remind our people that the Framers considered structural protections of freedom the most important ones, for which reason they alone were embodied in the original Constitution and not left to later amendment. The fragmentation of power produced by thestructure of our Government is central to liberty, and when we destroy it, we place liberty at peril. Today’s decision should have vindicated, should have taught, this truth; instead, our judgment today has disregarded it.

For the reasons here stated, we would find the Act invalid in its entirety. We respectfully dissent.

Justice Thomas:

I dissent for the reasons stated in our joint opinion, but I write separately to say a word about the Commerce Clause. The joint dissent and THE CHIEF JUSTICE correctly apply our precedents to conclude that the Individual Mandate is beyond the power granted to Congress un-der the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Under those precedents, Congress may regulate“economic activity [that] substantially affects interstatecommerce.” United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 560 (1995).

I adhere to my view that “the very notion of a ‘substantial effects’ test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress’ powers and with this Court’s early Commerce Clause cases.” United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, 627 (2000) (THOMAS, J., concurring); see also Lopez, supra, at 584–602 (THOMAS, J., concurring); Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U. S. 1, 67–69 (2005) (THOMAS, J., dissenting).

As I have explained, the Court’s continued use of that test “has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits.” Morrison, supra, at 627. The Government’s unprecedented claim in this suit that it may regulate not only economic activity but also inactivity that substantially affects interstate commerce is a case in point.

Would that people who take an oath to uphold the Constitution actually read our nation's highest law, as well as the laws they vote to enact. Dare to dream, I suppose.


A Bad Week for Liberty

Consider:

Supreme Court Upholds Obama Care


EPA's CO2 Regulation Upheld as “Unambiguously Correct”


Supreme Court ruling on immigration is a clear rebuke to Arizona



We gained a beachhead in 2010. It's time to take the cliffs.

If you love the this country, if you love the Constitution, it’s November or never to save both.


Friday, June 22, 2012

Democrats Vow to Show No Mercy to the Constitution

It would appear that the modern Democrat Party has declared all-out war on the nation's highest law: the Constitution.

The United States was born when rebellious colonists declared their independence from an imperial ruler who had vastly overstepped his bounds. “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” they wrote in their Declaration of Independence.

Today’s presidency lacks the regal air of George III. But imperialism is back, in a big way.

Last week, the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a memorandum instructing U.S. immigration officials to use their “prosecutorial discretion” to create a policy scheme contrary to existing law, designed to implement legislation that Congress hasn’t passed.

The President himself has admitted he doesn’t have the authority to do this. “The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works,” he told Hispanic activists last year. “That’s not how our democracy functions.”

We can now see before us a persistent pattern of disregard for the powers of the legislative branch in favor of administrative decision-making without—and often in spite of—congressional action. This violates the spirit—and potentially the letter—of the Constitution’s separation of the legislative and executive powers of Congress and the President...

  • Even though the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the President’s cap-and-trade plan, his Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide, the compound that sustains vegetative life, as a pollutant so that it could regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
  • After the Employee Free Choice Act—designed to bolster labor unions’ dwindling membership rolls—was defeated by Congress, the National Labor Relations Board announced a rule that would implement “snap elections” for union representation, limiting employers’ abilities to make their case to workers and virtually guaranteeing a higher rate of unionization at the expense of workplace democracy.
  • After an Internet regulation proposal failed to make it through Congress, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would regulate the Web anyway, even despite a federal court’s ruling that it had no authority to do so.
  • Although Congress consistently has barred the Department of Education from getting involved in curriculum matters, the Administration has offered waivers for the No Child Left Behind law in exchange for states adopting national education standards, all without congressional authorization.
Likewise, the Administration has often simply refused to enforce laws duly enacted by Congress:

  • Since it objects to existing federal immigration laws, the Administration has decided to apply those laws selectively and actively prevent the state (like Arizona) from enforcing those laws themselves.
  • Rather than push Congress to repeal federal laws against marijuana use, the Department of Justice (DOJ) simply decided it would no longer enforce those laws.
  • DOJ also has announced that it would stop enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act or defending it from legal challenge rather than seeking legislative recourse.
On Tuesday, the President invoked executive privilege to avoid handing over some 1,300 documents in an ongoing Congressional investigation. The Supreme Court has held that executive privilege cannot be invoked to shield wrongdoing.

And, as Mark Levin pointed out last night, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proposed that Barack Obama abrogate the Constitution yet again:

Nancy Pelosi Calls for Constitutional Abrogation of the Debt Ceiling

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urged President Barack Obama to avoid a new debt-ceiling showdown by stating that a statutory borrowing limit is inconsistent with Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned."
At every level, this argument is specious and dishonest: "the public debt" described in the 14th Amendment refers to the f***ing debt that's already been issued.

Of course, every serious legal analysis holds that Congress and only Congress can raise the debt ceiling.

Democrats took an oath to uphold the Constitution. It turns out that they lied under oath.

They despise the Constitution and the Declaration. The modern, hard-left, sixties-retread Democrat Party would have excommunicated a war-mongering, tax-cutter like John F. Kennedy. That's right. They would have Joe Liebermaned JFK.

My friends, it's time. It's time to declare political war on the Democrat Party. It's time to obliterate the Democrat Party at the ballot box. In November, you need to marshal everyone you know to vote the straight Republican ticket.

And after we turn the Democrat Party into the modern version of the Whigs, next up on our agenda will be the RINOs.

The Jeb Bush-Colin Powell wing of the Republican Party, nearly as addicted to power and big government as the Democrats, need to be replaced with Constitutional Conservatives.

Because the Constitution is our only hope of resuscitating this country. And November is coming.