Category Archives: Constitution
Welcome to the 21st century Mississippi
It seems the Magnolia State’s lawmakers have finally pulled their collective heads out of their fourth point of contact and officially ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which banned slavery in 1865. Congratulations.
Maybe now you can come to grips with the fact you lost the war and get around to removing the “Stars and Bars” from your state flag?
To Drone, or not to Drone …
Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution
“The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
When citizens become operatives for terrorists organizations they are in “rebellion” against the United States; further, the “public safety” of the citizens requires action being taken – as habeas corpus may be suspended in these circumstances taking them out by drone is not in violation of the Constitution. In short, we don’t have to bring them to trial. And yes, I know the difference between incarcerating someone and executing them, but the point is, the government can suspend certain “rights” under a given set of circumstances, “rebellion”, “invasion” or interests of the “public safety” being those times.
These two “citizens” had American blood on their hands, and I have no issue with the President having them “removed” from the world stage, nor do I have issues with drone strikes against terrorist leaders in Pakistan or elsewhere, the alternatives are do nothing – not acceptable – or sending boots on the ground, placing American lives at risk. The individuals in question chose to rebel, they chose their fate when they did so, and I will not support sending US troops into harms way on foreign soil to “arrest” someone who’s chosen to side with terrorism, sorry, but when they make that choice they’re denouncing their citizenship in favor of 72 virgins, and the Constitution nor its protected rights no longer apply.
We are not talking about drone strikes against tin foil hat wearing tea party members, we’re talking about drone strikes against known terrorists, there’s a big whopping difference. And if the tea party’s worried about being “taken out” they should be more concerned with Karl Rove than President Obama.
War is ugly, and innocent civilians are going to die, that’s why the United States should never go running gleefully into making war on anyone; however, conversely, the rest of the world should think long and hard before it makes war on us, or before it allows terrorist groups to establish training bases or safe havens within their borders. 9-11 changed forever how the United States will turn a blind eye to such activity. You don’t want drones raining missiles from the sky into your villages? Take out the terrorists yourselves, or better yet, don’t let them in to begin with.
Of course in an effort to make everyone feel better, I suppose we could just carpet bomb the villages like we did in WWII and Vietnam.
All-in-all, I think a drone strike is much more preferred.
A simple solution …
A simple amendment to the Constitution which would deal with the ongoing problem of voter intimidation.
“Congress, and no state, shall make no law prohibiting any citizen’s right to vote.”
Fact is, this isn’t 1787?
“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.”
Why is it that conservatives only focus on the right to “keep and bear arms” portion of the Second Amendment but choose to ignore the “well regulated” part?
The Founding Fathers believed the United States would defend itself from within the civil populace, meaning all men capable of bearing arms would belong to local militias, keep and maintain their arms, ammo and accouterments and be ready to “bear” those arms in their nation’s defense at a moment’s notice – to be “minute men”. They never fore saw a huge standing military force being needed, because they couldn’t comprehend the world would change so much in 200 years, or that the United States would ever be the world’s police man.
Perhaps it’s time for Congress and the President to “well regulate” the “militia” of the United States by promoting laws requiring all persons of military age to “keep and bear arms” as specified by the government. But only those – as specified, and needed – to ensure we have a “well regulated militia”; or perhaps it’s time for the country’s populace to grow up and realize we have a standing Army, and the need of a “well regulated militia” is long past, and hence perhaps it’s time for it to be unlawful for the citizenry to “keep and bear” automatic or even semi-automatic weapons?
This isn’t the 18th or 19th century and the defensive needs of the nation when the Constitution was ratified are not the same. In 1787 the government lacked the fiscal wherewithal to provide for the “common defense” of the fledgling nation, and relied upon the male citizenry to bear the burden of providing arms, powder and shot, today that’s no longer the case, and in fact it hasn’t been the case since the Federal Government defeated the Confederacy in 1865.
For more than 150 years we’ve not depended on the “minute men” to rise up and fight our country’s battles as we once did.
Today’s “minute men” are the men and women of the National Guard and the Reserves and the government provides them with their weapons, and they’ve all sworn an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic”. They’re the “citizen soldiers” of today, and they’re not required to bear the burden of providing their own weapons and bullets. Truth is “We the People” no longer need to have the weapons to make war that our fore fathers did, and it’s about time we realize that. Are there reasons to have firearms? Yes, there are, but the arguments the individual citizen needs assault weapons, or automatic weapons is specious at best. Time to evolve as our nation has evolved, and please spare us the “original intent” argument, if that’s what you hang your case on then let’s rewrite the gun laws in this nation to require – and allow – each household to have one flintlock Brown Bess musket, bayonet and powder and shot for each adult male, but no more.
Sanders proposes amendment to the Constitution to counter Citizen’s United
According to a story in The Hill, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has proposed an amendment to the Constitution to exclude corporations from First Amendment rights to spend money on political campaigns.
The proposed amendment’s a reaction to the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, wherein the conservative majority Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government cannot put limits on election advertisements funded by corporations, unions or other groups. Democrats have charged that the decision essentially treats corporations as people who can enjoy First Amendment rights.
“Make no mistake, the Citizens United ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy, further tilting the balance of power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when already the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good,” Sanders said.”In my view, history will record that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is one of the worst decisions ever made by a Supreme Court in the history of our country.”
S.J.Res. 33, would state corporations don’t have the same constitutional rights as persons, that corporations are subject to regulation, that corporations may not make campaign contributions and that Congress has the power to regulate campaign finance.
While the Citizens United case affected corporations, unions and other entities, the Sanders amendment focuses only on “for-profit corporations, limited liability companies or other private entities established for business purposes or to promote business interests.”
The Hill reports that Sanders said he’s never proposed an amendment to the Constitution before, but said he sees no other alternative to reversing the Citizens United decision.
“In my view, corporations should not be able to go into their treasuries and spend millions and millions of dollars on a campaign in order to buy elections,” he said. “I do not believe that is what American democracy is supposed to be about.”
This past summer, Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential bridesmaid candidate Mittens Romney mewed “corporations are people my friend,” when fielding a question about whether taxes should be raised in order to increase federal revenues, which drew sharp reactions from Democrats.
The Sanders amendment is co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, and a similar amendment has been proposed in the House by Democratic Representative Ted Deutch of Florida.
While it’s true these proposals don’t have a snow ball’s chance of moving forward in the House and Senate, as each would need the support of two-thirds of both chambers to pass, Sanders, Begich and Deutch should all be thanked by liberty loving people everywhere; Citizens United is one of the most infamous Supreme Court decisions since Dred Scott and make no mistake it will one day be overturned.
History is repeating itself
A young homeless woman, who was reportedly three months pregnant, was sprayed in the face with military grade pepper spray and reportedly kicked in the stomach by one police officer and then hit in the stomach with another policeman’s bike during an “Occupy” event in Seattle; she’s reportedly miscarried her child…
One recurring conservative talking point theme is, “The protesters were told to move out of an intersection and refused. The police then used the pepper spray to control the crowd.”That made me start thinking of other times when the “authorities” have ordered the crowds to disperse and the crowds have refused.
Using logic I’ve heard today:
Tensions were running high in the city of Boston, especially between the King’s soldiers and the citizenry of the city. On 5 Mar 1770, a group of school boys threw snowballs at a British sentry. When the sentry called for help, soldiers and angry citizens came running. Citizens began to aggravate the soldiers; and in the confusion of the moment, someone ordered the British soldiers to fire. When the smoke and haze of the musket fire had cleared, three Bostonians lay dead; and two others were mortally wounded. This incident would come to be known as the Boston Massacre.
During the first week of May 1963, Birmingham police and firemen attacked civil rights demonstrators, many of whom were children, in the streets bordering Kelly Ingram Park. The violence raised a nationwide public outcry, hastening integration in America’s most segregated city.
The protesters were told to move out of an intersection and refused; the police then used water hoses to control the crowd.
The protestors at Kent State University were told to disperse and refused, so the National Guard shot into the crowd to control them…
The one lying down is dead, shot by National Guard soldiers on 4 May 1970; the guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others…
The students at the University of New Mexico were told to disperse and refused, so the National Guard fixed bayonets and began stabbing people to control the crowd…
On 5 May 70, protesters gathered to protest the Vietnam War and the Kent State massacre; they occupied the Student Union Building, and the ROTC Barracks. Governor Cargo went fishing and allowed the State Police to handle the escalating situation. The National Guard was ordered to sweep the building and arrest those inside; eleven students and journalists were bayoneted.
In the United States of America citizens are allowed to protest, it’s protected by the Bill of Rights – a little something called the First Amendment – and police are supposed to allow them to peacefully do so. If the protestors violate laws then of course the police can arrest them, and that’s what civil disobedience is all about; the protestors take part knowing they will probably be arrested for blocking public access to a building, or a sidewalk, and maybe even an intersection.
If the crowd begins to destroy private or public property then no one will argue the police should stand by, but that hasn’t been the case in the vast majority of reported incidents where police are using military grade pepper spray, rubber bullets and batons to inflict injury and to “break up” the protests; it’s reminiscent of tactics factory owners used against strikers unions in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.
84-year-old, retired school teacher, Dorli Rainey is helped away by fellow activists and doused in milk to treat the effects of police pepper spray at an Occupy Seattle protest.
Police at the University of California at Davis dismantled an Occupy encampment Friday, arresting at least 10 protesters, nine of whom were students.
Videos have surfaced on YouTube of police in riot gear pepper spraying a line of protesters who had linked arms and sat down cross-legged on the pavement to protect their camp. In the footage, an officer is seen spraying the demonstrators at point-blank range.
A total of 11 people received medical treatment on the campus and two were transported to the hospital, Sacramento’s KTXL-TV reported.
While I was a young Republican working in Washington DC during the 1980 Iran hostage crisis, there was a rather modest protest of Iranian students not more than half a block from where I was working, the police moved in and many officers reportedly removed their badges and name tags and began breaking up the protest with batons.
I was a young twenty-year-old conservative working on President-elect Ronald Reagan’s Transition Team; I thought it was awesome that the cops had responded that way, especially to Iranian students protesting in my country while hostages were being held in Iran.
My father – a veteran of World War II – very patiently and lovingly told me how wrong I was, and how deplorable the police were for hiding their identity and for using such a high level of force to break up the protest. It was a supreme teaching moment for my father, and a supreme learning moment for me, his son. My Dad spoke of the liberties all people enjoy in America to protest and to have their voices heard, and he said he hoped I would think differently about those rights in the future. It was a lesson that was not lost on me.
In 2007, while serving in the National Guard one drill weekend, the news was on in our staff room, and of course it was FOX PAC; they were covering an anti-Iraq war protest in DC. A Colonel looking at the TV said, “I’d gas the whole lot them.”
I must’ve looked shocked because he asked me, “You disagree Captain”?
I told him that I did, and then I said, “Sir, this tells me that the First Amendment is alive and well.”
As an Army Reservist, I’ve received crowd and riot control training; and one of the absolute cardinal rules is you don’t escalate situations; the many reports of pepper spraying from around the country by police officers who aren’t in life threatening situations (UC Davis incident for example) is very troubling; either these police officers have been very poorly trained, or they’re deliberately trying to incite riots; perhaps in a effort to undermine the “Occupy” movement?
If the police officers in question aren’t poorly trained or incompetent, then one question to be answered is, “Who’s pulling the strings, and at what level within conservative circles, to have the police spin this up”?
First Amendment alive and well
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party have one thing in common – they’re both proof the First Amendment is alive and well – even if one group advocates the overthrow of Wall Street while the latter advocates the overthrow of the freely elected democratic government (by violent means) if necessary.
Now, which do think is the true “domestic” enemy spoken of in the oaths our public officials, and members of the military, swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against?
When protestors from the various “Occupy” movements disrupt the flow of traffic, or allegedly throw things at the Oakland Police, that is not becoming a “domestic” enemy; it may be becoming a public nuisance, but it is not a “domestic” enemy.
When you hold up signs claiming the next time you come back you’ll be armed, or if you show up at rallies with weapons, and spout phrases proclaiming the need for “Second Amendment remedies” then you have truly become the “domestic” enemy, as in “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”.
So, go ahead conservatives, bad mouth the Occupy groups and vilify what they’re doing while supporting the Tea Party; but when they try to “take back” the government, and to usurp your constitutional protected liberties, don’t come crying to me when I’m standing in a line between them and you.
Judge blocks Wisconsin law curbing labor rights
On Friday, Dane County Circuit Judge MaryAnn Sumi issued a restraining order stopping publication of a law signed last week by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) severely restricting state employee’s right to collective bargaining. The restraining order halts the procedural step essentially blocking the measure, which would go into effect once it is formally published.
The judge issued the order after Dane County’s Democratic District Attorney Ismael Ozanne filed a suit alleging the joint committee of the legislature violated the state’s open meeting law when it abruptly called a session to get the measure passed last week.
While Sumi’s ruling does not speak to the legal merits of the law, it states that Ozanne’s suit must be completed before the publication can move forward.
Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, praised the judge’s action in an interview with the Associated Press, “Judge Sumi confirmed today what we knew all along — that the bill stripping hundreds of thousands of hard-working Wisconsinites of their voice on the job was rammed through illegally in the dark of the night.”
Sometimes the beauty of the system works. Sometimes men like Governor Walker, who think they can run a blind campaign deceiving the voters and then push through an agenda to destroy Unions because they believe they are the bane of everything good and wholesome in America’s free market system are checked, just as the state constitution was designed.
If Walker has proven anything, he’s proven one thing, he’s going to be a one term governor.
Wisconsin GOTP Senate Orders Police to Arrest Missing Democratic Party Senators?
Wisconsin’s State Senate Republicans took an unprecedented step towards becoming a police state today when they unanimously passed a resolution calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a bill that would strip public-sector unions of nearly all their collective bargaining rights.
Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald
The GOTPs voted 19-0 to give Democrats until 4 p.m. to return to the chamber or be found “in contempt and disorderly behavior.”
The vote comes two weeks after the Democrats left, effectively delaying the vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to kill collective bargaining for Wisconsin’s state employees – vile people like teachers, police officers and fire fighters.
GOTP Senate Obersturmführer Scott Fitzgerald said the action is legally different from an arrest, but “definitely a shift from asking them politely.”
A private ambulance chaser, James Troupis, hired by Fitzgerald, argued that the move is legal, because the state Constitution allows each house to “compel the attendance of absent members,” thus, this “resolution” supposedly gives the State Senate’s Sergeant at Arms, Edward A. Blazel, the authority to take “any and all steps, with or without force and assistance from police”, to bring the senators back.
Good luck with that Mr. Blazel. Oh, you might want to confer with the State Attorney General’s office before you proceed, and not necessarily rely on some local hack hired privately by the GOTP leadership. After all, it’s the Attorney General who will be defending you – and the GOTP Senate members – from multimillion dollar law suits when this blows up in your face, which it will.
Of course it means little to the regime in Wisconsin that its state Constitution prohibits the arrest of lawmakers while in session unless they’re accused of committing felonies, treason or breach of peace. And it doesn’t say anything about the Senate Sergeant at Arms being invested with the authority to arrest the missing Senators, or anyone else, for alleged “contempt and disorderly behavior”. It’s indeed an interesting line the Senate GOTP leadership has decided to cross.
Walker has made a very transparent move designed to fulfill his desire to break the backs of the state employee’s unions and to gain favor with his sugar daddies, the Koch Brothers (isn’t that a German name?). The GOTP leadership in the Senate has become his dupes and lackeys and are enacting rules and passing resolutions for which it lacks authority.
The 14 Democratic members of the Wisconsin Senate did the only thing they could do when confronted with Walker’s scheme to destroy the ability of the working class in Wisconsin to take part in collective bargaining; they left the state to prevent the state’s senate from having a quorum, thus derailing the plan. These Senators have not forgotten that the Democratic Party stands for the middle class, and the working men and women of Wisconsin. They’ve not forgotten that FDR stood for the rights of the workers, and supported the ideals of collective bargaining. They’re not the criminals in this, they’re the heroes. The criminals are hiding behind edicts and resolutions, using the Wisconsin State Police as their own private palace guard or polizei. Everyone can plainly see what – or whom – the 14 Senators stand for. If you want to know what – or for whom – Walker stands for, just follow the money. There’s more going on in Wisconsin than meets the eye, and there’s much more at stake than collective bargaining.
The Liberty Tree 