Category Archives: Founding Fathers

Sundering What’s Left Of The Founder’s Senate

Constitution, Democrats, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Republicans

Today, Senate Democrats “effectively overturned more than 200 years of Senate precedent, not only on the judicial filibuster, as the Washington Post notes, but by moving to change the chamber’s rules without the traditional two-thirds majority in support, something previously done only to alter relatively minor rules.” (Reason.com.)

Say bye-bye to the legislation-stalling filibuster.

The filibuster is a powerful parliamentary device in the United States Senate, which in recent years has meant that most major legislation (apart from budgets and confirmations) requires a 60% majority to head off a filibuster. In recent years the majority has preferred to avoid filibusters by moving to other business when a filibuster is threatened …

Harry Reid and Barack Obama once shouted from the rooftops in support of these venerated Senate rules that have enabled “a minority to thwart the agenda and will of the party in power. …”

President Pinocchio lied. Again. But who’s counting?!

Reminds Reason.com: “The ability of a minority to thwart the agenda and will of the party in power is a feature, not a bug, of the constitutional order, but ‘majority rules’ is, unsurprisingly, popular with the majority.”

UPDATE II: On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them’ (The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democracy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Military, War

“On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them'” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

The “Us” of this column’s title needs no explaining. The “Them,” however, does. We the American people are up against an entity far more sinister than the traditional, inchoate enemy—terrorism—around which we are instructed to unite in purpose.

The debate over whether to strafe Syria or to stay out of that country pits us against the military-congressional-industrial complex, whose interests run counter to ours. …

… Prominent among a new breed of military man turned lawmaker to stalk the people’s House is Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. A “veteran of the military,” who still serves as a military pilot in the National Guard, is how Kinzinger bills himself. War weary though he purports to be Kinzinger is not. The verbally flatulent representative from Illinois loved it when his ilk flew sorties over the Old Stable Iraq, and seeks a repeat performance over Syria. He appears to see no limits to the role the U.S. should play in rolling back evil around the world, out of “the goodness of our heart.” Yes, the constitutional principle Rep. Adam Kinzinger invokes to justify war against the wishes and interests of the American people is “The Goodness of Our Heart” Clause.

But then, a “Global Force for Good” is how the Navy promises to fulfill “The Goodness of Our Heart” Clause of the U.S. Constitution, on its frightful, promotional website. You see, members of the U.S. military do not regard themselves as defenders of the realm—unless by “realm” one means empire. They’ve been brainwashed to be foot soldiers for the federal government, whenever, wherever.

Imagine what America’s Founding Fathers would think of a military that straddles the planet, having assumed the unauthorized role of a “global force for good.” Those sages opposed the idea of a standing army. They understood that “a standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

The magnificent Robert E. Lee, on the other hand, had it right. To this American hero, local was beautiful. Gen. Lee saw himself as a Virginian first. Rep. Kinzinger is a Syrian first.

Baseless too is the idea that someone who’s seen war will be especially judicious in sending others to war. John McCain had suffered in war and has not stopped advocating for it ever since. John Kerry voted to go into Iraq. Ditto Chuck Hagel. …

Read the complete column. “On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them'” is now on WND.

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UPDATE I: “Most lawmakers undecided on Syria.”

“By CNN’s count, 59 senators and more than 280 representatives aren’t sure how they’ll vote on President Obama’s request for a military strike on Syria.” FULL STORY

UPDATE II (9/8): The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened.

… phones are bouncing off the hook, and almost unanimously people are saying do not get involved in a bloody and chaotic civil war in Syria

Dreaming Of The Dreams Of Our Founding Fathers

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Founding Fathers, History, Nationhood, Race

Who thronged to hear black America’s president speak today, at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall? See for yourself. A sea of people from which the majority is almost entirely absent. At least as evinced from this picture:

As to MLK, he has a day; our founding father don’t. Even MLK’s speeches have their own dedicated commemorative days in the nation’s calender.

I’ve heard just about enough about MLK. And at least one lady would have agreed with me wholeheartedly: “the nation’s most engaging first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.”

On the day “marking the exact time that Martin Luther King spoke on 28 August 1963,” I too “have a dream.” It is that the dreams of our Founding Fathers be restored—and certainly not stigmatized and criminalized, as they have been by the traitors and haters that festoon our governments (Dem and Republican).

So I’ll excuse myself from the charade to dream of the dreams of America’s Founding Fathers.

Change Your Constitution, Says Another British Redcoat

Britain, English, Founding Fathers, GUNS, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Terrorism

He looks about 12-years old and is already retired. Where could he possible have worked? In the military, of course, where you are put out to pasture decades before individuals in the private sector (read the real economy) can retire. His name is Lt. Col. Michael Kay, formerly an adviser to the British Ministry of Defense. Lt. Col. Kay is here to tell Americans that, because the amorphous terrorist threat against us is “unconventional”—the National Security Agency has to take unconventional means to counter this undefined, unconventional threat.

Magnanimously, Kay concedes his host’s point about the NSA’s trampling of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in particular. But hey, what do the Brits know about a constitution—they’ve already trashed their ancient, unwritten, venerated freedoms which inspired the fathers of this nation. Kay, of course, makes his living stoking fear.

Piers Morgan is another Briton who, from his perch at CNN, suborns treason against Americans by preaching against their natural right to defend life and property.

The backdrop: The Washington Post’s revelation—a mere formality really—that the president’s protestations to the contrary, “The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.”

MORE.