The Smoke Break

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Many Of Them Own Guns

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And for that reason, extreme caution must be used when making arrests.  Or so claims Utah’s U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, discussing the recent raid in Blanding in which 24 people were arrested and indicted for dealing in Native American artifacts taken illegally from public lands, some considered sacred burial sites.

Archeological thievery for personal gain has long been the stuff of which stories are made.  Indeed, Hollywood has reaped a fortune pumping out action-adventure flicks like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  But this story is not the stuff of which romance and adventure tales are made.  In fact, it was more like using a hammer when a flyswatter would do.  And in the same way using a hammer can create unexpected collateral damage, Blanding’s only doctor, 60-year old James Redd, was one of the people arrested and he committed suicide the next day.

This story starts in 2006.  A plain old sting set to the tune of trafficking charges set-up costs of $335,000 paid by an informant for a plethora of artifacts — sandals, blankets, pots and axes.  It used anywhere from 96-120 agents to arrest – at gunpoint and in one case breaking bones – and transport the suspects, as well as document the artifact evidence left in the homes.

While some of the suspects have been in trouble before, including 3 with drug convictions, local authorities say none have any history of violence, though one is claimed to have made statements to the informant about killing law enforcement officers who tried to stop him.

This should give all of us pause.  Like the killing of an old woman for the $20 in her pocketbook, the sheer amount of force mounted against Dr. Redd and his wife alone, for what amounts to a little less than $14,000/suspect is senseless.  “Eighteen vehicles surrounded the Redds’ house,” San Juan County Supervisor Bruce Adams said in an interview. “Do we do that with child molesters? With murderers?” He added, “I haven’t seen a piece of pottery or an artifact that’s worth a human life.”

Interior Secretary Salazar flew to Salt Lake City to brag it was the “biggest bust ever” of thieves of this kind.

Despots Dancing On Her Grave

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The day the Supreme Court refused to uphold American law when asked by Chrysler bondholders – those greedy, evil teachers and working-class, tax-paying folks whose corrupt fund managers had invested their hard-earned monies in the most secure and legally-protected of Chrysler bonds – to look into the Chrysler bankruptcy is the day America, as we know and love her, died.  Now the despots in Washington are dancing on her grave.

Not only was Inspector General Gerald Walpin shamelessly, unceremoniously, and wrongfully fired for doing a proper and quite fine auditing job of watching over how OUR government is spending OUR tax dollars by giving grants to “service” organizations like AmeriCorps, but this week the International Trade Commission told its acting inspector general, Judith Gwynne (who is not subject to White House authority) that her contract would not be renewed.  After it was revealed that concerned questions had been raised about the ITC not allowing her access to information to do her job.  And let’s not forget Neil Barofsky, hired as an independent Inspector General but suddenly now considered to be on the Treasury Department’s leash.

What I want to know is  just who the hell do President Obama, all his czars, and almost every non-representing representative in Congress think they are?  Who died and conferred divinity upon them?  Who gave them the right to blatantly ignore not only the wishes of the majority of Americans but to subvert and pervert the very laws they swore to uphold and defend?

I am beyond snark.  I am beyond stunned.  I am furious.

Not only am I angry at the grasping, gaping greed that no longer scuttles, rat-like, along the shadows but instead runs roughshod with impunity in broad daylight over everything for which America once stood, I am angry at the average American citizen who is sitting there drooling in their ignorance or impotently wringing their hands.  I watch what is happening in Iran, seeing parallels to what is happening here, and I watch average Iranian citizens willing to be gunned down in their own streets to stand up for the principles of fairness.

You remember fairness, don’t you?  That simple way of conducting yourself, once closely associated with honor and integrity?  The one thing that allowed us to trust one another, and to trust those we send to Washington to oversee the general affairs of our country?   The real stimulus – of the American Revolution?

The Iranian people are willing to die for it but we Americans won’t even get up off our butts to write a letter, make a single phone call, or march en masse to protest what are equally unfair and equally dangerous actions being taken every single day by a President who looks the other way at the murder of Iranian citizens, and by a Congress who just can’t be bothered, any more than it can be bothered to read the bills it churns out as fast as the Treasury is printing money.

What’s wrong with you, America?  Since when do Iranians, or anyone else for that matter, have bigger cajones than us?  Do you look at them and figure they’ve nothing to lose so why not die trying to get something?  Don’t you understand that by doing nothing we, America, are fast ending up in exactly the same place as the citizens of Iran – under the thumb of a group of powermongering, tyranical despots – who will do anything and stop at nothing to get and keep a nation of people enslaved and under their control?

Open your eyes, America.  See the despots merrily dancing.  Why else is the President “hosting” an hour of prime time television on a national network (ABC) to talk about a financially-irresponsible national health care plan that will end up with more people NOT having health care than is the case today and not allowing even a commercial that disagrees with him?  This isn’t transparency, it’s another campaign speech full of meaningless rhetoric in order to sell Americans on paying more taxes.  (Oh yes, this will raise your taxes, bunky.)  Why aren’t you saying no?  No to ABC.  No to President Obama.

Why else are we even considering given the Federal Reserve, that Wilson-era dinosaur, little more than a black hole and even more secretive and hidden than former Vice-President Cheney’s bunker (until Biden opened his big mouth, anyway) and, along the same lines as Ben Bernacke, its current chairman, believes it caused the Great Depression so also the place to rightly lay blame for the current Wall Street meltdown, even more power to wrap the government’s strangling tentacles around the private sector?  Like Obama’s jackbooted czars, they answer to no one.  So, of course, President Obama thinks this fox should be given even freer reign inside the henhouse.

Why else is Nancy Pelosi suddenly fast-tracking Waxman’s cap & trade bill (H.R. 2454) and its inherent crushing blow to the U.S. economy to a vote next week?  Have you read this monstrosity and do you understand the impact of creating a government-controlled commodity – tradeable for cash and such trading to be managed by rancid corporations like GE – out of slapdash science perceptions of pollution and the bad science behind the liberal progressive mantra of global warming?  More importantly, have you read the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of it?  This now-derided as a conservative, low-balling group makes it clear the slim benefits to the government will come directly from tax increases and, surprise, sections of the bill allow the federal government to preempt state governments.

I was proud to the very bottom of my soul to be among the literal thousands who took part in the Tax Day Tea Party I attended.  I do not back away from the weird looks that sometimes accompany my talking about it.  Instead I chastize those who seem to think that our government servants are somehow smarter than the rest of us.  I remind them that we let them borrow our power, but it remains our right to take it back.

And, indeed, it has now become our duty to take it back.  Now.  Every day that goes by means more of our freedoms slip through our fingers.  I will not allow that to happen.  Neither should you.  It’s time to be angry.  Very, very angry.  It’s time to voice that anger and let the message be heard clearly from sea to shining sea, more loudly than the citizens of Iran raise their voices in ringing protest every night.  Ameria doesn’t need a messiah.  America doesn’t need a daddy or a nanny.  America needs Her independence and only the oldest of the most old-fashioned honorable and honest representation.  At all levels of a much smaller federal government.

What will it take, America?  Another attack on American soil?  Is the end of our nation’s history destined to come with a whimper instead of a bang?

Blood was shed to give you the right to sit there and do nothing.  How dare you let those brave, wise souls deaths end up in vain for little more than promises of bread and circuses?

The Day America Died

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No pun intended, but I used to think the day Barack Obama was elected President of the United States would prove to be one of the darkest days in American history.  Today it has come true for, truly, America has descended to a state of lawlessness.  The lives given during the American Revolution and the very best efforts of the most brilliant minds in the history of mankind to create what was once the most powerful nation in the world appear to have all been in vain. 

Today the United States Supreme Court refused to even consider the appeal made by Chrysler bondholders to block the sale of Chrysler to Fiat, an appeal made on the grounds the terms of the sale are unlawful.

The court issued a brief, unsigned opinion explaining its action. To obtain a delay, or stay, someone must show that at least four of the nine justices find that the issue raised is serious enough to warrant hearing a full appeal and that a majority of the court will conclude the lower court decision was wrong.

“The applicants have not carried that burden,” the court said.

I have watched this whole matter closely and I read the appeal sent to the Supreme Court.  The questions it raises about the legality of the actions of the United States government, of the Obama administration forcing all parties into a deal that favors junior and unsecured interests over what American law has always considered first-in-line investors during a bankruptcy proceeding, are serious allegations and by refusing to even consider them, the Supreme Court has now given the Obama administration the green light to run roughshod and at will over any and every private sector entity it so chooses to usurp for its own nefarious purposes.

If you were not frightened before, you should be very frightened now.  Personally, not only am I afraid, I am heartsick.  The housecleaning of mid-term elections in 2010 cannot come soon enough.  Somehow, those who still believe in the American dream must find a way to hold fast until real brakes can be put on the fascists who have taken over Washington.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that no matter how much of OUR money the government intends to spend to induce us to buy vehicles from either version of Government Motors (“cash for clunkers“), the best way to show disapproval for this latest Chicago mafia-style move is to buy our next vehicle from Ford.  And in every other area of our lives, to vote with our dollars in support of private businesses that are run by real grownups, not children who go crying home to daddy to bail them out when they screw up.

Chrysler Bond Holders Go To Supreme Court

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I personally find it utterly unconscionable that the law of this land has become so subverted by the Obama administration that Chrysler bond holders have now been forced into an emergency filing with the U.S. Supreme Court:

“…a stay of the Sale Orders pending final resolution of the Indiana Pensioners’ forthcoming petition for writ of certiorari—on as expedited a schedule as the Court finds necessary—is essential to preserve the Court’s jurisdiction. Without a stay, the section 363 sale will close as soon as Monday, June 8 at 4:00 p.m., which is when the present stay issued by the Second Circuit will be lifted. Stay App. 74a (Second Circuit Mandate). Under section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code (11 U.S.C. § 363(m)), closing the sale will essentially moot the case.

If that happens, a number of consequences will follow:

(1) The United States Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”), purporting to utilize powers conferred upon it by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”) established under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, 12 U.S.C. 5201 (“EESA”), will have been permitted to structure and finance the reorganization of Chrysler without any judicial review of its authority to do so (the Bankruptcy Court incorrectly disposed of the issues by deciding that Appellants lacked standing);

(2) Chrysler will have been permitted to reorganize under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. 101 et seq. pursuant to a transaction that was structured and financed by Treasury, without having been required to comply with the procedural and substantive requirements of the Bankruptcy Code for doing so; and

(3) The secured claims of Chrysler’s first lien lenders (including the Indiana Pensioners) and any unsecured deficiency claims they may have if their collateral properly valued is in fact worth less than the amount they are owed, will have received materially less favorable treatment than most of Chrysler’s general unsecured creditors.

As such, absent a stay, the Court will be deprived of the opportunity to decide critical, nationally significant legal issues relating to management of the economy by the United States Government.”

At issue is the structure of Chrysler’s bankruptcy in which bondholders – by law the most secured creditors – have deliberately been given short shrift by the administration in favor of those who have unsecured interests in the company.  The Indiana State Police Pension Fund, the Indiana Teacher’s Retirement Fund and the state’s Major Moves Construction Fund stand to lose millions of dollars while the U.S. and Canadian governments and the UAW cut blithely to the front of the line and take ownership stakes in a sale of Chrysler to Fiat.

The lower courts have upheld this bizarre and unprecedented bankruptcy construct; as recently as Friday the federal appeals court in New York gave the bondholder shaft its own seal of approval.  Interestingly, and somewhat telling in these days of Pater Obama, this government-beholden court gave bondholders until Monday afternoon to persuade the Supreme Court to intervene.  Unwilling to put on its big boy panties and stand up to the Obama administration by upholding the laws that give those who take the most risk in providing funding to a business the first rights of payback during a bankruptcy, it is quite evident that the New York federal appeals court is pawning off its job.

As part of her job, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will receive the emergency filing today.  I see this as a test; a big test.  For it is the job of the Supreme Court to rule on law, and do so blindly.  There can be no “empathy” nor any partiality to political affiliations, all of which seem to be part and parcel of this Obamastein’s monster of governmental abuse of powers. 

In Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), Justice Ginsburg concurred with the dissenting Supreme Court opinion that:

What must underlie petitioners’ entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by to day’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

I find it very troubling that we must now sit and wonder if the confidence in America’s judiciary will continue to remain so shaken.

 

 

Memorial Day Thoughts

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Doing the right thing and confining one’s self to bed when ill provides a good deal of time to just think.  As plans for the long weekend fall to the wayside one-by-one and time turns on itself and morphs the nights into days as the deep, healing sleep comes in its stereotypical fits and starts, there comes the inevitable moment when one must choose between regret and acceptance.  And in that choice comes the opportunity for clarity, for the choice of acceptance brings the realization that so much of what we do is busyness simply for the sake of busyness.  A truth is that our priorities are so often just plain silly.  Barbeques and planting flowers may somehow satisfy the soul, and indeed such things have their place, but I believe a well-lived life must also include time for reflection.  For, in the words of Edmund Burke repeated so often these days, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

Particularly today, Memorial Day, thoughts go to the idea that America sets aside a day on which to specifically remember those who have given their lives in service to this country.  There have been so many willing to lay their lives on the line to protect and defend the rest of us; indeed, our country’s birth was, like all births, a bloody one.  But the principles that spurred so much bloodshed were sound, and the result was the greatest nation in the history of civilization.  With the crystal clarity of 20/20 hindsight and the wisdom to see into a future where men would continue to forget their history lessons, the Founding Fathers incorporated the very best of all that had come before;  America has continued to be a “melting pot” but it was Her foundations – our basic freedoms – that have protected us. 

Such protections have been a beacon to the rest of the world, and with that has come the inevitable envy and the flat-out hatred from those who would wish to have our might and our productivity while maintaining a tyrannical grip.  Such a thing is impossible, of course, and so it is that our freedoms have required defending.  American independence is a tangible thing and no outsider has ever stood a chance of taking it away from us.

We have fought great wars in defense of freedom.  And we have lent our strength to other countries whose people shared the same dream to live just as freely, for we are also a generous nation.  We not only give financially, but we have given our sons and our daughters that others may make manifest the natural goodness of the American experience.  We have also fought with enormous heartbreak against ourselves, north against south, yet again and most importantly done solely in defense of freedom; in defense of our simple, basic tenet that:

“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.”

It is never really a good day to die.  Yet that is the risk freely accepted by those who go forth on our behalf to meet the enemy face-to-face.  I have known many of these men, those who have fought on the front lines, those who have watched their brothers fall yet somehow managed to come back to us, and I can tell you that to shoulder this responsibility changes a person in a way that those even who serve in more supportive military roles do not change .  Those who have smelled the fear and the blood, those who have heard the battle cries and screams of terror and pain are, unlike their supporters both in and out of the military, in the main quite quiet men.  They simply don’t talk about it much, they keep their memories and the nightmares to themselves, but I know that for every one of them every day is Memorial Day. 

Most Americans can’t even bear to know how their meat gets to their dinner table so there is a kind of wisdom in the silence of our front-line veterans.  I don’t imagine there are really even words to describe the horrors of war, though documentary after documentary still tries.  Yet even to me, one who only knows the smallest of their memories, it is clear so many stories of battles are, for lack of a better word, sanitized.  Perhaps it is simply just another way those who are willing to take the greatest risk continue to protect us?

I do not know, really.  But as this Memorial Day goes by and I think of all of those who “gave their all” so that I might lay here in peace, with opportunity to simply contemplate, what I do know is that I am grateful to them.  Their legacy is something that has always been good, and though now the enemy within has become as dangerous as the enemies without, their legacy must be preserved. 

To them, I say thank you.  However it is within my power, I will do all that I can to insure that it may never be said that you died in vain.

Yo, Barry O, Justice Is Supposed To Be Blind

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“You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you, but you have to be able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living.”  So claimed President Obama in an interview carried Saturday on C-SPAN television about what he thinks are the requisite qualities of a Supreme Court justice.

He has also said he wants someone who employs empathy, “understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles.” 

So much for that oath of office, eh?  That one about preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States.  The one that President Obama had to say twice in order to get it right.

Perhaps the problem is that the oath of office also caveats the President to do these things to “the best of [his] abilities”. 

Since President Obama’s alleged abilities continue to remain just that, alleged, it is little wonder that he fails to understand (or worse, deliberately chooses to avoid) perhaps the most important point about our nation’s system of justice.  It is blind.  Lady Justice is always blindfolded in order to avoid any distraction from the matter at hand.  She is to hear the case, weigh the facts and evidences and only the facts and evidences, and apply the law to them without regard for the individual’s circumstances.  She is utterly impartial and her sword can cut either way to insure it.

It is this blindness that insures no one is above the law and so keeps tyranny at bay.

It is not the job of the Supreme Court to “empathize”, and more particularly their job is not judicial activism.  With extremely limited exception, it is the job of the Supreme Court to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as an appellate court.  Period.  It is their job to insure that no one manipulates the law for personal gain and therefore to protect the American people as a whole. 

If Justice Souter were not already considered a liberal Supreme Court judge, I would be even more concerned.  But this continuing disregard for the basic tenets of the United States bears continued watching for the day will come that the President will have to nominate another justice to the Supreme Court and it is then that the full force of his progressive perceptions and skewed ideologies will come to bear down hard on American freedoms.  And such dangers will be far more difficult to overcome than his attempts to legislate fascism.

Almost 21 years ago, Ronald Reagan prophetically told a group of lawyers at the 1988 Federalist Society convention, “Yes, some law professors and judges said the courts should save the country from the Constitution.  We said it was time to save the Constitution from them.”

That time has come again.

Gitmo, Guns, and Goodness

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There are several online news articles today about how Democrats and liberals are starting to look like Bambi in the headlights as their pet projects, closing Gitmo and restricting citizen access to guns, go down in red, white, and blue Conservative flames.  They can’t fathom why Pater Obama can’t find the right words from the God speaking through his teleprompter to coerce or condemn Congress into going along with these two most nefarious plans.

Let me put it into a nutshell for them:  AMERICANS WANT TO BE SAFE.  That means we don’t want even “suspected” terrorists on American soil.  And that means we want our guns even more when our government is wack enough to consider setting even “suspected” terrorists loose in our streets, let alone to safeguard ourselves from the usual suspects.

Let me put it another way, at least about so-called “gun control”:  PROHIBITION FAILED.  The war on drugs has failed, too.  Even the most fascist regime will concede the power of the black market.  What Americans do NOT want is for criminals – and especially those inside the government – to have more access to guns than they do.

The Second Amendment is quite clear: 

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In legal and all other lingo, “shall not” is an absolute.  An absolute is a point upon which there can be no debate.  This means that the intentions of the Founders are crystal clear and in perhaps their greatest moment of wisdom, of goodness, they deliberately left no wiggle room on this one.  The 2nd Amendment is a right that SHALL NOT be infringed.  Period.  It has been well-argued elsewhere that this is one of the most basic, key, and fundamental rights upon which then hinges everything else in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  For it is he who controls the means of life or death of another that effectively controls all, and in order to prevent tyranny and its inherent abuses, at the birth of this nation this control was laid squarely – absolutely – in the hands of we, the people.

In even the blackest of the tiniest of progressive liberal hearts, the absolute of “SHALL NOT” is understood at an instinctive level, for it is the one thing that allows blithering idiocies about Gitmo and guns to be spoken aloud and argued.  But when all the words have been spoken, it is those two little words that not only really and truly mean something, but, in fact, mean the most.

Call them the trump card, if you will.  And so it is that the Democrats and liberals find themselves hoisted upon their own petard.

Bummer, Bambi.

I Think I Miss G.W.

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You know, I was never a fan of George W. Bush.  I’ll even go so far as to say I didn’t like him.  But I always knew that if I was patient, in either 4 or 8 years he would be relegated to the history books.

The one thing I never felt during the Bush administration, however, was fear.  That cold, visceral fear that starts in the pit of your stomach and seeps into your bones like the painful, arthritic portent of a thunderstorm.  Well, ok, just like every American I felt that fear on 9/11 but it faded soon enough and, until January 20, 2009, it never came back.

It never came back because even though I didn’t like George W. Bush, I still had great faith in this country.  I knew that I could count on the Constitutional fact that even this man I did not like and others in Congress would do everything possible to insure our safety, and that eventually our freedoms would provide the opportunity to change what I saw as one set of numbnuts for one perhaps less so.

I watched Barack Hussein Obama in the final days of the 2008 presidential election and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that what I was seeing was something wicked, if not something downright evil.  This was not just the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing politician, no; this was like the deadly suicide bomb in the backpack of an innocent-looking youngster as they wander with seeming aimlessness into a crowded marketplace.  A pretty face hiding death to those who may not agree with the fanatical ideology hidden behind the deliberately wide-eyed expression.

Today, as our country spirals out of debt and out of control and the media licks Obama’s jackboots instead of reporting facts or investigating allegations, that potent, portending fear has settled back in and now become a constant companion.  With nothing coming from Obama but continuing campaign rhetoric, things continue to grow worse.  Congress continues on its hell-bent path to destroy every shred of free enterprise and all those promises of “transparency” – along with all the other oh-so-important “words” – continue to mean nothing for there are no actions backing them up.  As just one example, what happened to 5 days of public review and comment on “non-emergency” legislation?  Just which one of these pieces of legislation signed by President Obama so far was a true emergency? 

1. [111st] H.J.RES.38 : Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2009, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Obey, David R. [WI-7] (introduced 3/6/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-6
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2. [111st] H.R.1 : Making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Obey, David R. [WI-7] (introduced 1/26/2009)      Cosponsors (9)
Committees: House Appropriations; House Budget
Latest Conference Report: 111-16 (in Congressional Record H1307-1516)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-5

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3. [111st] H.R.2 : To amend title XXI of the Social Security Act to extend and improve the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Pallone, Frank, Jr. [NJ-6] (introduced 1/13/2009)      Cosponsors (43)
Committees: House Energy and Commerce; House Ways and Means; House Education and Labor
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-3
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4. [111st] H.R.146 : An act to designate certain land as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System, to authorize certain programs and activities in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] (introduced 1/6/2009)      Cosponsors (10)
Committees: House Natural Resources
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-11
Note: Omnibus land bill.

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5. [111st] H.R.586 : To direct the Librarian of Congress and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution to carry out a joint project at the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History and Culture to collect video and audio recordings of personal histories and testimonials of individuals who participated in the Civil Rights movement, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep McCarthy, Carolyn [NY-4] (introduced 1/15/2009)      Cosponsors (4)
Committees: House Administration
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-19

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6. [111st] H.R.1105 : Making omnibus appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Obey, David R. [WI-7] (introduced 2/23/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Appropriations; House Budget
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-8
Note: An explanatory statement was submitted by Mr. Obey, Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations “as if it were a joint explanatory statement of a committee of conference.” It appears in two 2/23/2009 Congressional Record documents on pages: H1653-H2088 and H2089-H2599. See also the House Appropriations committee print.

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7. [111st] H.R.1127 : To extend certain immigration programs.
Sponsor: Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16] (introduced 2/23/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Judiciary
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-9

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8. [111st] H.R.1388 : A bill entitled “The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an Act to reauthorize and reform the national service laws.”
Sponsor: Rep McCarthy, Carolyn [NY-4] (introduced 3/9/2009)      Cosponsors (37)
Committees: House Education and Labor
House Reports: 111-37
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-13

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9. [111st] H.R.1512 : To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] (introduced 3/16/2009)      Cosponsors (5)
Committees: House Transportation and Infrastructure; House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-12

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10. [111st] H.R.1541 : To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. [NY-12] (introduced 3/17/2009)      Cosponsors (3)
Committees: House Small Business
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-10

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11. [111st] H.R.1626 : To make technical amendments to laws containing time periods affecting judicial proceedings.
Sponsor: Rep Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [GA-4] (introduced 3/19/2009)      Cosponsors (3)
Committees: House Judiciary; House Energy and Commerce
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-16

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12. [111st] S.J.RES.3 : A joint resolution ensuring that the compensation and other emoluments attached to the office of Secretary of the Interior are those which were in effect on January 1, 2005.
Sponsor: Sen Reid, Harry [NV] (introduced 1/6/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-1

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13. [111st] S.J.RES.8 : A joint resolution providing for the appointment of David M. Rubenstein as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor: Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT] (introduced 2/10/2009)      Cosponsors (2)
Committees: Senate Rules and Administration; House Administration
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-17

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14. [111st] S.39 : A bill to repeal section 10(f) of Public Law 93-531, commonly known as the “Bennett Freeze”.
Sponsor: Sen McCain, John [AZ] (introduced 1/6/2009)      Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Indian Affairs; House Natural Resources
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-18

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15. [111st] S.181 : A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [MD] (introduced 1/8/2009)      Cosponsors (54)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-2

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16. [111st] S.234 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2105 East Cook Street in Springfield, Illinois, as the “Colonel John H. Wilson, Jr. Post Office Building”.
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (introduced 1/14/2009)      Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-7

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17. [111st] S.352 : A bill to postpone the DTV transition date.
Sponsor: Sen Rockefeller, John D., IV [WV] (introduced 1/29/2009)      Cosponsors (10)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-4

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18. [111st] S.383 : A bill to amend the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (division A of Public Law 110-343) to provide the Special Inspector General with additional authorities and responsibilities, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen McCaskill, Claire [MO] (introduced 2/4/2009)      Cosponsors (9)
Committees: House Financial Services; House Oversight and Government Reform
House Reports: 111-41 Part 1
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-15

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19. [111st] S.386 : An Act to improve enforcement of mortgage fraud, securities and commodities fraud, financial institution fraud, and other frauds related to Federal assistance and relief programs, for the recovery of funds lost to these frauds, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT] (introduced 2/5/2009)      Cosponsors (27)
Committees: Senate Judiciary
Senate Reports: 111-10
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-21

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20. [111st] S.454 : A bill to improve the organization and procedures of the Department of Defense for the acquisition of major weapon systems, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Levin, Carl [MI] (introduced 2/23/2009)      Cosponsors (14)
Committees: Senate Armed Services
Latest Conference Report: 111-124 (in Congressional Record H5795-5805)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-23

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21. [111st] S.520 : A bill to designate the United States courthouse under construction at 327 South Church Street, Rockford, Illinois, as the “Stanley J. Roszkowski United States Courthouse”.
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (introduced 3/3/2009)      Cosponsors (None)
Committees: House Transportation and Infrastructure
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-14

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22. [111st] S.735 : A bill to ensure States receive adoption incentive payments for fiscal year 2008 in accordance with the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008.
Sponsor: Sen Baucus, Max [MT] (introduced 3/30/2009)      Cosponsors (1)
Committees: Senate Finance; House Ways and Means
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-20

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23. [111st] S.896 : A bill to prevent mortgage foreclosures and enhance mortgage credit availability.
Sponsor: Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [CT] (introduced 4/24/2009)      Cosponsors (2)
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 111-22

 

It’s so out of control that the AP is reporting that Rhode Island State Democrat Rod Driver has said he’ll donate $100 to charity for every second former President George W. Bush withstands waterboarding.  He also made the same offer to former Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

While it can now be legitimately argued that he is overpaid, this begs the question:  is Rod Driver nuts, stupid, or, like Florida Representative Alan Grayson, is he just that rude, crude, and socially unacceptable?  In either case, is he truly representative of the people of Rhode Island who elected him to represent them to the rest of the country, to the rest of the world?  I asked this same question about Henry Waxman and a few others the other day and it has dawned on me that perhaps cap & trade is necessary after all.  Cap the idiotic blatherings of both Congress and the administration, and then promptly trade in every last one of them for a normal, rationally-functioning American.  Because surely there is something poisonous wafting through the corridors of Congress – how else does one explain the sheer insanity of racing to legislate so much fascism in such a short amount of time?  How else does one explain the White House creating its own media outlet and locking out journalists and reporters from covering what is, by all accounts, a rather innocuous “photo-op” event?  How can one explain the most recent blatant, flat-out lies of Nancy Pelosi about the CIA and her shameful, crony-backed stonewalling at yesterday’s press conference?  (Not to mention that her daughter was allowed to film it with equipment banned for normal media reporters.)

I could go on and on; indeed, I do so on a regular basis right here in this blog.  And I am grateful to the core that I may speak my thoughts and my opinions, that I may voice my perceptions of reality freely.  It is often cathartic yet, unlike my frustrations during the Bush administration, the relief is short-lived.  Truly, we have sold out our country to the hounds of hell when we voted in the current administration (actually it was not “we” but “thee” who voted them in because I cast my ballots otherwise) and as the lips never stop moving in that teleprompted sing-song lullaby cadence of only one more lie after another, as the coverups grow more blatant yet no one is willing to step up to the journalist plate as during those infamous days leading up to Watergate (ACORN would be a great starting point), my constant companion pokes me in the ribs and I shiver with a cold, cold fear.

Will we survive this “man-made disaster”?  Despite the fear, most of the time I believe it is possible.  As do others.  Other conservative voices continue to speak out with the soothing tones of reason (not to be confused with the majority of currently-seated Republicans, for what should be clear by now is that there is a great and deep chasm between being conservative and being Republican, which today is little more than being a “Democrat Lite”); there are a handful who actually have proper, Constitutionally-based plans to root out this cancer as it threatens to metasticize, in spite of most of the media ignoring this completely or dismissing it, as they did the tax day Tea Parties, as apparently not being “newsworthy” if they cannot attach a crude, sexual joke to their reporting of it.

But it promises to be a hard, ugly fight.

And so I think I actually miss George W. Bush.

The Current American Revolution

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You say you want a revolution?  Feeling lucky, patriot?

Do you even know what you’re talking about? 

An excellent piece at American Thinker, written by Herbert E. Meyer, deftly puts it into proper perspective.  For at this critical time in American history, it is important to understand that a revolution isn’t always a good thing, nor is it always a bloody thing.  But it IS a very real thing.

To paraphrase Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, “Are you a good guy, or a bad guy?”

1st Amendment Attack: Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act HR 1966

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Who is Megan Meier and why do we need yet another law on the books to help prosecute a bully?

Megan Meier was the 13-year old who killed herself after an online “relationship” via Facebook went south.  She never knew that the relationship wasn’t with an “attractive” boy, but with a friend’s mother and others who had set out to deliberately humiliate her.  That friend’s mother, one Lori Drew, was indicted by a federal grand jury a year ago on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, and one count of criminal conspiracy.  She was found guilty on three lesser charges (reduced from felonies to misdemeanors by the jury) late last November. (The jury was deadlocked on the fourth felony charge of criminal conspiracy.)

One thing that often goes unmentioned is that Megan Meier had a long history of mental illness.  She had been treated by a psychiatrist since the 3rd grade and took a variety of medications, including antidepressants, Ritalin, and antipsychotics.  Megan wasn’t exactly your typical teenager and while my heart breaks for her and her family, in my opinion she was not one who should have been allowed to roam virtual society’s wilderness unsupervised, nor one with whom “faceless” relationships should have been encouraged.

But in yet another example of expecting everyone except those actually responsible to take responsibility, H. R. 1966 was introduced in the House last month.  Playing on our sympathies by calling it the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act”, sponsor Linda Sanches (D-CA) and her cohorts feel that we need to legislate morality by spelling out the need to go after anyone with the “intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior”.  The “electronic means” include “email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.”  The punishment is a fine and/or up to 2 years in prison.

Why?  According to H.R. 1966:

(1) Four out of five of United States children aged 2 to 17 live in a home where either they or their parents access the Internet.

(2) Youth who create Internet content and use social networking sites are more likely to be targets of cyberbullying.

(3) Electronic communications provide anonymity to the perpetrator and the potential for widespread public distribution, potentially making them severely dangerous and cruel to youth.

(4) Online victimizations are associated with emotional distress and other psychological problems, including depression.

(5) Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide.

(6) Sixty percent of mental health professionals who responded to the Survey of Internet Mental Health Issues report having treated at least one patient with a problematic Internet experience in the previous five years; 54 percent of these clients were 18 years of age or younger.

The internet has become a fact of life.  A recent fact of life.  But what is also a fact of life yet by no means recent is that it is a parent’s responsibility to protect their children.  No responsible parent would drop their child off in a strange city and leave them to wander around at will – alone – yet every day parents let their children sit in front of a computer and wander the vast wastelands of the internet, allow them to join sites like Facebook and other social networking sites, and find it amusing when they make what are little more than imaginary friends.  I’ve personally been online a long time and have seen countless adults  scammed by pathetic losers who find their social courage in anonymity.  Children have far less savvy and have far thinner skins to protect them from idiots.  But they are supposed to have their parents to protect them.  A job which isn’t particularly difficult when going onto the internet is a voluntary activity and that protection is as simple as turning the “ON/OFF” switch to the “OFF” position.

There are already laws on the books by which those who prey on others, both online and off, may be prosecuted.  We don’t need more and we certainly don’t need one that aims at such a broad target for nowhere is it specified that its protections are intended to cover solely those under the age of 18.  Meaning that anyone with a differing opinion may be cited using this legislation, which should be of particularly concern to people who blog.

“First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.”  (Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, 2002)