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Throughout out the Republican campaign process, Herman Cain has been portrayed as an interesting candidate, but with no serious chance of winning the Republican nomination. What I found was the most curious logic was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night. Bill’s reasoning that Herman Cain won’t win the nomination was because the most important thing to Republicans was to unseat Obama and that independents won’t vote for Cain because he is too conservative.

A 2010 Gallup Poll showed that about 42% of Americans described themselves as conservative, 20% as liberal and about 35% moderate. So, if Herman Cain were to win the Republican nomination, independents would not vote for him because he is too conservative, but where does that lead? It would lead you to the conclusion that they would vote for Barack Obama instead and where, exactly, does he fall on the political spectrum? No American president is or was further left on the political spectrum than Barack Obama. So given a choice between a strong conservative candidate and a strong liberal candidate we are supposed to believe that, naturally, moderates are going to vote for the far left guy. If you check your math, a conservative in America today only has to hold his base and grab 25% of the moderates to win. A progressive candidate has to hold his base and grab 75% of the moderates to win.

But Republicans keep falling into the trap that O’Reilly is claiming. We say, uh oh, a conservative can’t win because the main stream media tells us that, so we go wobbly and pick someone who appeals to the moderates. What we end up with is a liberal (the Democrat) and liberal light (the moderate Republican) and we get our clocks cleaned (see John McCain).

I would have no problem seeing Herman Cain on the debate platform facing off against Barack Obama. In these troubled times, who better than someone who has actually turned around two companies (Burger King in Philadelphia and Godfather’s pizza). He learned the Burger King business by going through the company’s training “boot camp” where he actually worked at the grill. What has Barack Obama ever worked at in the private sector? Herman Cain can give an inspirational talk for 30-45 minutes without a teleprompter. I don’t know about you but I felt pretty embarrassed to listen to the master communicator, Barack Obama, stop in the middle of  a speech to tell the teleprompter operator to move the speech up a few lines. Barack Obama thinks he’s the Wizard of Oz, but he should turn around to see that the curtain has fallen to the floor.

Another knock on Cain was his lack of knowledge about foreign policy. How much did Bill Clinton know about national defense, other than how to dodge the draft, before he was elected president? How much did Barack Obama know about anything before he was elected? They are not the same in their experiences. The presidency is an executive position, and what counts is executive experience. Governors have it, generals have it, CEOs have it; legislators do not. What a legislator decides to do carries no weight unless he can get a large number of fellow legislators to agree and go along with him. Everything an executive decides to do has an impact, some large, some small but an impact nonetheless.

We are in the mess we are in because Obama didn’t understand that coming into office and he has yet to learn it. His signature program, ObamaCare, was just thrown over the wall to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to finish the details and when it was done it was an abomination.  When in doubt, Obama goes into campaign mode. Herman Cain comes up with solutions. They may not be perfect, they may undergo some changes, but they are serious solutions to real problems, not just another transfer the wealth program.

Herman Cain deserves a serious look for who he is, what he stands for, and what he has accomplished. Don’t write him off because some political pundits think they know the formula for winning. If you don’t believe me, ask Marco Rubio, or Rand Paul, or Bob Turner, or Mike Lee.

That’s my opinion; I’s like to know yours.Please comment below.

Whether you call it an iceberg or a torpedo, ObamaCare just struck something or vice versa and it doesn’t look good.  The ship is taking on water and you can hear the orchestra tuning up as they rearrange the deck chairs.

Federal Judge Henry Hudson, in Virginia, ruled that the odious provision in ObamaCare requiring all Americans to buy health care insurance or pay a fine was unconstitutional.  This is the core of ObamaCare, for without it this massive expansion of government into our lives would simply not work.  He went right to the heart of the argument that opponents have been making all along. 

“Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution confers upon Congress only discrete enumerated governmental powers.  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.  See U.S. Const. amend. X; Prinz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 919,117 S. Ct. 2365, 2376-77 (1997).

“On careful review, this Court must conclude that section 1501 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – specifically the Minimal Essential Coverage Provision – exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”

That’s the iceberg.  The torpedo was the concept of severability.  In many contracts there is a severability clause.  That clause states that if a court finds any provision of that contract to be invalid, the invalid portion will be severed from the rest of the contract and the rest of the contract will remain valid.  ObamaCare did not include such a clause, which means that the court, in finding one part of it invalid, could find the whole kit and caboodle invalid.  No need to repeal, override an Obama veto of repeal, etc., etc.  It would be dead.

But Judge Hudson wasn’t prepared to go that far.  He knows this is not the end of the road.  This will find its way to the Supreme Court and since there are a few years to go until most of the provisions of the bill kick in, he was reluctant to take that step.

“The teachings of Free Enterprise are a direct descendent of the rule restated in Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 107 S. Ct. 1476 (1987). “The standard for determining the severability of an unconstitutional provision is well established: ‘[u]nless it is evident that the Legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power, independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped if what is left is fully operative as a law.’ Id. At 684, 107 S. Ct. at 1480 (quoting Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 108, 96 S. Ct. 612, 677 (1976))

“In applying this standard, the Court must also consider whether the balance of the statute will function in a manner consistent with the intent of Congress in the wake of severance of the unconstitutional provision.  Alaska Airlines, 480 U.S. at 685, 107 S. Ct. at 1480. Finally, in evaluating severability, the Court must determine whether in the absence of the severed unconstitutional provision, Congress would have enacted the statute.  Id. at 685, 107 S. Ct. at 1480. Given the vagaries of the legislative process, ‘this inquiry can sometimes be ‘elusive.’’  Free Enter. Fund, 130 S. Ct. at 3161 (quoting I.N.S. v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 932, 103 S. Ct. 2764, 2774 (1983)).

“The final element of the analysis is difficult to apply in this case given the haste with which the final version of the 2,700 page bill was rushed to the floor for a Christmas Eve vote.  It would be virtually impossible within the present record to determine whether Congress would have passed this bill, encompassing a wide variety of topics related and unrelated to health care, without Section 1501.  Even then, the Court’s conclusions would be speculative at best.  Moreover, without the benefit of extensive expert testimony and significant supplementation of the record, this Court cannot determine what, if any, portion of the bill would not be able to survive independently.”

So for now, we don’t know if the torpedo hit or missed.  But we do know this.  Nancy Pelosi was right.  In words that will go down in history regarding a Congress that is broken she famously said, “We have to pass the bill, to know what is in the bill.”  There you have the Speaker of the House of Representatives fighting feverishly, using every parliamentary trick at her disposal to pass this bill, particularly after Scott Brown was elected Republican senator from Massachusetts, to pass a bill she does not understand.  Consider Judge Hudson’s words that the bill was “encompassing a wide variety of topics related and unrelated to health care,” and you can’t help but ask, what has our government come to?  What were the elected representatives who voted for this doing?  Isn’t it their job to know what they are voting for?  Isn’t that why we pay them $174,000 per year?

While the band may play on, this is a serious blow to ObamaCare.  Many Americans rose up because of this bill and got involved in politics for the first time.  That is a good thing.  Let us pray they stay involved.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

After watching some of the Sunday talk shows and hearing the tough talk from House Democrats and learning more about the tax bill getting loaded up with subsidies it’s time for Republicans to put their hands up and slowly back away from this putrid mess.

Let the Democrats fall on their swords and allow this huge tax hike to go into effect on all Americans living or dead.  Yes, I said dead.  Today, the estate tax is zero.  In the tax compromise it was agreed to increase the tax to 35% on estates over $5 million.  Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland says that is not good enough.  With righteous indignation he says the tax should be 45% on estates over $3.5 million.  (The estate tax is currently scheduled to return to its old level of 55% on estates over $1 million.)

There are a number of subsidies for ethanol that are expiring but have found their way back into the tax compromise courtesy of Charles Grassly (R-Iowa, I’m only a fiscal conservative with your constituents) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa, I’m for the little guy unless a huge greedy corporate agri-business wants me to jump for them, then I ask them how high).  Even Al Gore says ethanol subsidies are stupid and he only supported them to get elected president.

 ”One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President.”

It’s time for the new Republicans to do a gut check.  While Obama asks the outgoing Blue Dogs who got shellacked for voting along with Nancy Pelosi, to take one more for the team, perhaps the Republicans should wait for the vote to close up shop and go home for the holidays, spend time over those holidays reflecting on why they were elected and come back to Congress in January and pass a real tax package that takes any expiration date off the existing rates, and makes it retroactive to January 1.

In the Senate the Democrats will still be in control and may be ready to rumble.  If they are, the Republicans should put up a giant scoreboard somewhere highlighting the 23 Democrat members of Congress up for reelection in 2012 and .  In case you haven’t been paying attention they are:

• Daniel Akaka, Hawaii
• Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico
• Sherrod Brown, Ohio
• Joe Manchin, West Virginia
• Maria Cantwell, Washington
• Benjamin Cardin, Maryland
• Thomas Carper, Delaware
• Robert Casey, Jr., Pennsylvania
• Kent Conrad, North Dakota
• Diane Feinstein, California
• Kirsten Gillibrand, New York
• Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
• Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
• Claire McCaskill, Missouri
• Robert Menendez, New Jersey
• Ben Nelson, Nebraska
• Bill Nelson, Florida
• Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
• Jon Tester, Montana
• Jim Webb, Virginia
• Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
• Joe Lieberman, Connecticut
• Bernie Sanders, Vermont

The Republicans should be able to dip into this well of votes to pull over some of them on any issue, if President Obama continues his far left safari in search of socialist utopia.  If the Democrats want to go down swinging, let them.  But there comes a point where you have to realize the cards you are holding are better than the other guys bluffing and just call him on it.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

Comments submitted in response to a previous post, “The Progressive War on Federalism,” focused on the Electoral College and a movement called the National Popular Vote (http://www.nationalpopularvote.com) bill.  Rather than argue against my point it only seemed to reinforce it.  The objective of this movement, which before this commenter’s contribution I was unaware of, is to abolish, or should I say neuter, the Electoral College and replace it with the direct election of the president.  This movement looks to further weaken the states and move us away from federalism and toward a strong monolithic central government.  Here is my analysis.

The Case in Favor of Direct Election of the President

The commenter and the website for the National Popular Vote (NPV) bill make several points in favor of the change.  In my view it boils down to the following:

1. In the current system, after the primaries, candidates only campaign in a handful of competitive states and ignore the rest where one candidate is either far ahead or far behind.
2. The Electoral College that we have today, was not designed, anticipated or favored by the Founding Fathers
3. This does not abolish the Electoral College
4. It does not require a Constitutional Amendment
5. The power of states are neither increased nor decreased
6. The National Popular Vote bill would end the influence of the “mob” in a handful of closely divided battleground states
7. The current system does not provide a check on the “mob”

This seems pretty compelling.  Most polls show that this idea is strongly favored over the Electoral College that we have today.  However, who is being asked the question?  In the federal system of government that the Founders designed, the people did not have the power to directly elect the president, so asking someone who doesn’t have power if they would like it, is like asking someone who is hungry if they would like some food.  Let me present my case against it.

The Case against the Direct Election of the President

The first argument that somehow having the direct election of the president would compel candidates to actively campaign across the country is stated but not proven.  If the outcome of the election is determined based on who has the most votes, what would compel a candidate to campaign in Montana or Alaska?  There just aren’t that many people in  those states and are we to believe that if a candidate does not show up in a state to campaign that the citizens there are going to stay home and not vote? That is absurd.

The more likely scenario is that candidates will focus on major media markets.  If you take Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., not the cities but the media markets, you will cover about 25% of the population of the U.S.  Add Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Miami, and you probably don’t have to campaign anywhere else to have a shot at reaching enough of the popular vote to win.  Those in favor of this proposal make no compelling argument otherwise.

The second argument that the Electoral College that we have today was not designed, anticipated or favored by the Founding Fathers is a myth.  They created the Electoral College, they left the method of choosing the electors up to the states.  “The Framers not only rejected the direct popular election of the President, but also left it to the state legislatures to determining how the states’ electors were to be appointed.” (Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p.185).  This raises several points.

If the Founders specifically rejected the direct election of the president how can the supporters argue that this will pass Constitutional muster without an Amendment?  Also the argument that it does not abolish the Electoral College may be true, but it renders it meaningless, which is the same as abolishing it.  If the NPV bill is adopted by all the states, the outcome of every presidential election going forward would be a vote of 538-0.  Anyone who thinks that is more than a rubber stamp is deluding themselves.

The argument that this does not require a Constitutional Amendment, which I believe I have refuted, is based on the argument that states can band together in compacts and agree on the all for one selection of electors.  The supporters point to Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution in support of this.  However, this clause states that the approval of Congress is required.  Furthermore in “United States Steel v. Multistate Tax Commission (1978), the Supreme Court declared that state compacts require congressional approval only if they ‘encroach upon the supremacy of the United States.’”  (Heritage, p. 179).  What could be more of an encroachment than the states banding together to effectively nullify the Electoral College without a Constitutional amendment?

Federalism recognized the national government and each of the state governments as sovereign entities.  Therefore the voters in one state determining the electors in another state would also likely draw constitutional challenge.  If all the voters in Texas chose candidate A, but the national popular vote chose candidate B, under NPV the electors from Texas would vote for candidate B against the wishes of the people of Texas.

The Cato Institute studied the NPV proposal and found that about an equal number of states would garner more candidate attention from this proposal as would lose attention.  It looked at the electoral power of the states under both systems.  Under the current system it considered each state’s power as the current electoral votes as a percentage of the total number of electoral votes.  Under the NPV system it looked at the population of eligible voters as a percentage of the total number of eligible voters.  In their analysis twenty states would have greater influence under NPV among them Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; thirty states would lose influence among them Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Alaska, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Louisiana; one state, Alabama would be unchanged.  So the argument that smaller “flyover” states would suddenly garner more attention is not borne out by the analysis.

The last argument is a check on “mob rule,” which oddly was the purpose behind the design of the Electoral College in the first place.  The argument against this is best illustrated by a hypothetical example.

Let’s say over the next six years there is a massive migration to California and at the same time NPV is approved in every state.  Maybe California finally gets marijuana legalized and maybe they even declare it a fundamental right that every Californian is entitled to a free pound of the stuff every year.  The migration results in 51% of the population living in California.  Now in 2016, governor Jerry Brown decides to run for president.  On Election Day, everyone in California lights up a spliff and heads to the polls to vote for Jerry Brown.  The vote in California is unanimous.  Elsewhere in the country everyone is shocked at what is taking place in California and votes for another candidate, say, Marco Rubio.  The popular vote is 51% for Jerry Brown, 49% for Marco Rubio.  Rubio carries 49 out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia.  Jerry Brown carries one state, California.  In the system we have today, Brown would get 54 Electoral votes and Rubio would get 484 and easily win the presidency over the “mob rule” in California.  But under NPV, Brown wins 538 -0.

Okay, forward to 2024 and let’s say the population has remained the same as have the voter sentiments, but another census has come and gone so the House of Representatives and subsequently the electoral votes are reapportioned.  If you take 51% of 435, gives California 222 plus 2 electoral votes for a total of 224 electoral votes.  Now the same election is held with Bill Maher running for president from California and Alan West from Florida running against him.  When the smoke clears the results are the same, Maher with 51% of the popular vote and West with 49%.  In the Electoral College, as it exists today, West would win 314 to 224, again carrying 49 out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia, while Maher carries one state.  However under NPV, Maher would win 538-0.  Therefore NPV enforces mob rule rather than preventing it.

The Wisdom of the Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers designed our form of government out of a mistrust of power.  They designed the system so that the people would directly elect the House of Representatives and they also gave control of the purse to that body.  They designed the Senate to represent the interests of the sovereign states, until the progressives abolished that with the seventeenth amendment.  They designed the system where the Electoral College would choose the president, but left it to the individual states how they would choose their electors.  They designed the system where judges would be chosen by the president with the advice and consent of the senate.

The Electoral College was a way to protect the voice of small states from the tyranny of the majority.  What the progressives want to do is to follow up what they did with the seventeenth amendment.  Instead of having fifty-one election districts for president, represented by the states and the District of Columbia, they want to have one election district consisting of the entire nation.  Why not then abolish the state boundaries and the states themselves?  State capitals can then become district offices of the federal government carrying out the directives that come down from Washington. 

This is not the great country our Founders gave us.  It is moving this country to a omnipotent federal government where the individual has no voice of consequence and no liberty either.

That’s my opinion. I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

As is the case every ten years we take a census of the population of the United States, as required by the Constitution.  After the census is taken the seats in the House of Representatives are shuffled to accommodate for shifts in population between the states.

So what does this all mean?  In a previous post focusing on the Senate we showed that currently twenty-one Democrats and two independents who caucus (meet and generally vote with) the Democrats will be facing election in 2012 compared to only ten Republicans.  In the House, everyone is up for re-election every two years.  So after picking up 60 seats, or thereabouts as some races still haven’t been decided, where do the two parties start off as a result of reapportionment?  Although final numbers won’t be in until December, it doesn’t look good for the Democrats.

The Democrat strongholds remain on the East and West coasts and in the Rust Belt around the Great Lakes.  The Republican strongholds are the rest of the country.  The dismal economic policies of high taxation and bigger government, are taking their toll and here are a couple of examples.

Rush Limbaugh, perhaps the most hated man on the left, had a residence in New York and paid New York taxes.  On one of his programs he talked about getting out of the state to avoid the high taxation.  New York desperately depends on its wealthy citizens to fund the state and New York City government, particularly the Wall Street crowd.  Instead of trying to persuade Mr. Limbaugh to stay by pointing out the attractions of living in New York, officials tried to endear themselves to their left wing base by taunting him and daring him to leave.  Leave he did, taking his tax revenues with him.

If you look at the cost of renting a truck from U-Haul to move from Texas to California or vice versa, the rates are informative:

From Dallas to San Francisco: $734
From San Francisco to Dallas: $2,116

From Houston to Los Angeles: $706
From Los Angeles to Houston: $2,051

Any student of supply and demand will quickly see the message contained here.  The cost of a truck heading to Texas is nearly three times the cost of a truck going the other way.  Apparently, there are plenty of trucks available in Texas for those who want to move to California, but no one who wants to make that move.  Conversely, there are scant few trucks to help people get the hell out of California before it implodes, but plenty of people bidding the rental price of a truck up.

The Policies in Action

Now that we have touched on the Blue state policies, what is likely to happen?

Blue States – Net loss of seven seats

• Massachusetts to lose one seat
• New York to lose two seats
• New Jersey to lose one seat
• Pennsylvania to lose one seat
• Michigan to lose one seat
• Illinois to lose one seat
• Iowa to lose one seat
• Washington gain one seat

Toss Ups – Net gain of one seat

• Ohio to lose two seats
• Nevada to gain one seat
• Florida to gain two seats

Red States – Net gain six seats

• Missouri to lose one seat
• Louisiana to lose one seat
• South Carolina to gain one seat
• Georgia to gain one seat
• Texas to gain four seats
• Arizona to gain one seat
• Utah to gain one seat

If you look at the toss ups, categorized as such because they voted twice each in the last four Presidential elections for the Democrat and the Republican candidates, Florida is a key state.  Florida will gain two seats and at the same time it just elected a Republican governor and a Tea Party senate candidate Marco Rubio.  If they can pull Florida solidly into the Republican camp, that could mean another two seats for the Republicans.

So without a ballot being cast it looks pretty positive that the Republicans will start off the 2012 House election with a six to eight seat advantage on top of the sixty to sixty-five or so they just won. 

There is no certainty that this will play out along these lines.  After all the Democrats could flip several seats in their strongholds if all the Republicans grab those U-Haul trucks and head for friendlier, liberty loving states.  Conversely those freedom seeking migrants might move into districts that are now held by Democrats in the South and flip them to the Republican column. 

The key thing for the Republicans to have continued electoral success is to stick to what you ran on without any backsliding.  I can assure you that the Tea Party will either have your back or be breathing down your neck.  You pick

New York state government is a basket case.  Earlier this week we were treated to the theater of the governor’s debate featuring such luminaries as Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is 2 Damn High party, and former madam Kristin Davis who seemed smarter on fiscal policy than half of her opponents on the stage.  But let us not forget it was a stage and this is New York.  Instead of being held at Hofstra University, it should have been held on Broadway, but I digress.

The government itself is one problem, the state pensions are quite another.  A problem on the order of $30 billion to $80 billion.  Harry Wilson is running for state comptroller.  Mr. Wilson made his money on Wall Street, investing and turning around troubled companies.  His opponent, Tom DiNapoli was appointed to the comptroller position after his predecessor, Alan Hevesi, was charged misconduct for trading access to the pension in return for favors.

Mr. DiNapoli has been in politics since he was 18 years old.  An entire career in politics and he is supposed to be able to cope with this massive problem created by career politicians?  As Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”  But Mr. DiNapoli attacks Wilson because Wilson comes from Wall Street.  From what planet are these New York politicians coming from?  New York’s motto is the Empire State.  We call ourselves the financial capital of the world.  New York City and New York state would collapse if not for the tax revenue from Wall Street and the income taxes of those who work there and we are to believe that Wall Street is evil?  Those are the ramblings of an imbecile.

In one of the bluest of blue states Mr. Wilson has not only been endorsed by the New York Post and the Daily News, but the New York Times as well.  He has also been endorsed by Michael Blumberg, who knows a thing or two about finance.  Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal suggests that Andrew Cuomo should endorse him and seal the deal for both Wilson and himself.  If this pension bomb is not diffused, Cuomo, if he wins as he appears likely to do, will be doomed before he begins.  Wilson has the tools to turn this around.  Or we can leave this in the hands of a political hack.

I’d like to know what you think.  Share your thoughts below.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, newly elected Republican Congressman from Hawaii Charles Djou called Birthright Citizenship a GOP Achievement.  And to think I was happy to hear Mr. Djou was elected in an unusual special election where he ran against two Democrats simultaneously.  They split the vote and he won.  Birthright Citizenship is not a GOP achievement it is an accomplishment of judicial activism, pure and simple.  Mr. Djou says, “The Citizenship Clause of the Constitution’s 14^th Amendment provides that a person born in the United States is automatically a citizen, regardless of the race, ethnicity or citizenship of his parents.”  Where the hell does it say that? 

The Amendment actually reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”  These, so called conservatives, like the first part of the clause but seem to go ignorant or blind at the second part.  If you are a Constitutional Originalist, you look to the meaning of the Constitution first in the actual text, then to any information that you can glean from what was discussed at the time of its passing.  This is a case where that information could not be any clearer.

Senator Jacob Howard of Ohio was the author of the citizenship clause of the 14^th Amendment.  He said:

 “[E]very person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.  This will not [emphasis added] , of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.  It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are not citizens of the United States. “

How much clearer could “not include aliens” be?  Aliens are outside the jurisdiction of the United States and are subject to their home country.

Linda Chavez, who presents as her conservative credentials that she served in the Reagan and Bush administrations, points to English Common Law as the basis of the Birthright Citizenship.  Since under Common Law you are immediately and forever a citizen of the place of your birth.  However, with the Declaration of Independence we did away with that custom of English Common Law.  Under Common Law, you could not renounce your citizenship, and if we are still under that law, we are still all Englishmen.  It was also one of the causes of the War of 1812.  The British did not recognize our process of Naturalization.  They were stopping our merchant ships and taking off sailors they deemed to still be English citizens and pressed them into service in the Royal Navy.  The concept that Ms. Chavez is arguing supports Birthright Citizenship is from feudalism, where the serfs belonged to the land.  They received the lord’s protection and in return gave their lord a lifetime of service.

At the time of passage of the 14^th Amendment, whose purpose was to grant citizenship to the freed slaves, the debate was whether it would also confer citizenship on the American Indians.  Under Mr. Djou’s logic and Ms. Chavez’s they were born here, it was automatic.  But it wasn’t.  Not because of discrimination but because they were members of their tribes which were considered sovereign nations.  The United States signed treaties with them.  In the Supreme Court case Elk v Wilkins the court ruled:

“Indians, born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of and owing immediate allegiance to one of the Indian Tribes, an alien though dependent power, although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more born in the United States and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ …than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children, born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign Nations.”

That was the law until 1898 in the Supreme Court case United States v Wong Kim Ark, where the majority used the Common Law argument to ignore what was written in the text of the Amendment, what was discussed at the time of the Amendment by the author of the Amendment and its supporters and the prior Supreme Court case.  This is judicial activism at its baldest.  In the dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Fuller he made it clear:

“when the sovereignty of the Crown was thrown off and independent government established, every rule of the common law and every statute of England obtaining in the colonies, in derogation of the principles on which the new government was founded, was abrogated.”

The American Revolution did away with that definition of Birthright Citizenship under the Common Law.

So along comes Lindsey Graham, who can’t decide if he is for open borders or against them, so his suggestion to amend the Constitution to end Birthright Citizenship sounds somewhat hollow.   It is also irrelevant.  Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly grants the Congress the power “To establish an (sic) uniform Rule of Naturalization..”  This does not require an amendment, just a simple clarifying law that Birthright Citizenship does not exist in the United States.

The irony is that the 14^th Amendment was created to make it more difficult for future Congresses to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which said pretty much the same thing as the 14^th Amendment and it was changed with the stroke of the pen of an activist Supreme Court.  Perhaps we need to consider the idea of Mark Levin in that perhaps we need to have a legislative veto of Supreme Court decisions.  If the role of the Supreme Court is to interpret laws written by Congress, why not let Congress with a two-thirds vote, explain what the Supreme Court misinterpreted?

The US Postal Service is contemplating increasing postage rates and eliminating Saturday delivery.  Really?  They lost approximately $4 billion last year.  But don’t worry the CEO got a bonus.  It is reported that their labor costs, heavily unionized, exceed 80% of revenues.  Did you know that the only place where unionization is growing is in the public sector?  Union representation in the public sector surpassed the private sector for the first time this year.

But don’t worry, President Obama has a handle on it.  He appointed Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union to the board to figure out how to reduce the deficit.  Do you see a problem between these two news items?  Can you see a problem with the objectives of an Andy Stern and you and me?

As a side note, Rick Perry just won the Republican primary for governor of Texas and in his campaign he used no yard signs, no phone banks, and no direct mail.  As one commentator said “paper is dead.”

I know this is completely anecdotal, but my local post office just completed an expansion project increasing the size of the building.  I have noticed more than one post office being expanded as well.  Again, this is just my limited, personal observation, not a scientific study, but with the drop in mail volume, “paper is dead”, $4 billion in losses, performance bonuses for lackluster performance, heavy unionization, am I being unreasonable in thinking the government couldn’t handle health care even if it was a good idea?

Just what is a czar anyway?  And I am not talking about the Russian royal family.  A czar is essentially a presidential advisor.  Take a moment to think about that.  Why does President Obama need to appoint 32, give or take, czars in his administration?  Could it be that he really, really needs a lot of advising?

In the campaign, the main stream media, somehow diverted the attention away from Obama’s glaring lack of experience as the Presidential candidate and put all their focus on Sarah Palin’s “lack of experience.”  Sarah Palin had more executive experience as a sitting governor and I emphasize executive experience, than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.

But the media tut-tutted, and said “it’s only Alaska,” as for her mayoral experience, “it was a very small town.”  When Obama slipped his teleprompter and tried to claim he was running a very large organization, his campaign, it was laughable.  But don’t worry, he had Joe Biden to lean on.  I feel better.

Presidents and The Experience They Brought With Them

Let’s take a look back at past elected presidents and the executive experience they brought to office:

• George W. Bush — Governor of  Texas
• Bill Clinton — Governor of Arkansas
• George H. W. Bush — Vice President of the United States, Head of the CIA
• Ronald Reagan — Governor of California
• Jimmy Carter — Governor of Georgia
• Richard Nixon — Vice President of the United States
• Lyndon Johnson — Vice President of the United States
• John F. Kennedy — None.  He was a legislator and his inexperience nearly got us annihilated with the Cuban Missile Crisis, following the Bay of Pigs, and an embarrassing showdown with Khrushchev
• Dwight D. Eisenhower — Five star general in command of all Allied Forces in Europe in World War II
• Harry Truman — Vice President of the United States
• Franklin D. Roosevelt — Governor of New York , Secretary of the Navy
• Herbert Hoover — Secretary of Commerce
• Calvin Coolidge — Vice President of the United States, Governor of Massachusetts
• Warren G. Harding — Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
• Woodrow Wilson — Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University
• William Howard Taft –  Secretary of War
• Theodore Roosevelt — Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Legislators Versus Executives

So, from the beginning of the 20th Century until the election of Barack Obama, only once has a  president with only legislative experience been elected, John F. Kennedy.  Nikita Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy’s inexperience in their first summit in Vienna, and then there was the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the attempted overthrow of Castro.  On top of those two building blocks we got the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought us closer than we have ever been to thermonuclear obliteration.

The Eternal Campaign

President Obama is no different.  He has the least experience of any president since 1900.  He effectively was only a United States Senator for two years, as he was busy campaigning for the next two years and resigned his last two years after being elected president.  So what does he do?  He does what he is comfortable doing and what he is good at, campaigning.  He has held more press conferences in six months than his predecessor did in eight years.  Who is running the show while Obama is running around?  Is it Nancy Pelosi?  Rahm Emmanual?  His programs are falling apart.  The stimulus isn’t working and more Americans say that it has hurt the economy rather than helped it (31%-25%) and that the rest of it should be canceled.  His cap and trade plan is opposed by most Americans (56%) who don’t want to pay more in taxes to fight global warming.  His government takeover of our health care is opposed by most Americans (53%-44%) and yet he presses on, figuring that with enough campaigning the American people will be won over.

This may be a long slog, waiting for 2012 and hoping our country does not get destroyed by all the power grabbing characters in Congress, who don’t care a whit about us, only about increasing the powerful control they have over our lives.  We have the fight of our lives on our hands preventing the taking of our liberties.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all a bad dream and I will wake up at some point, in a cold sweat, comforted in knowing that it was just that.  With the enhanced interrogation techniques, aka waterboarding, that was used on exactly three very bad men, and yielded 60% of what we learned about Al Qaeda, we are now Mirandizing terrorists on the battlefield.  For those who never got a sufficient dose of crime dramas on TV here is how the Miranda rights start:

“You have the right to remain silent…”

Say no more.  That is all you have to know.  From using a technique to compel these murderous fiends to give up information about their likeminded associates, we have moved to telling them it is their right not to say anything.  Here’s my advice… steer clear of tall or government buildings.

How 9/11 Happened

This is exactly how 9/11 happened.  The Clinton Administration treated terrorism as a law and order issue rather than a war on our way of life.  They constructed walls between the FBI and CIA forbidding them to share information.  What the CIA learned about the terrorists before 9/11 they couldn’t tell the FBI and vice versa.  As a result we got blindsided.

It is interesting to note that in putting together the 9/11 Commission to investigate how it all happened and what we could do to prevent it happening again, Jamie Gorelick, the individual who constructed this barrier in her role in the Clinton White House, was added to the Commission panel when she should have been testifying before it.  (Later, without any financial background she was appointed Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, made millions during her tenure, and Fannie Mae’s actions led to the current financial debacle).

What more will the Obama Administration do to weaken our defenses?