It cries out for an intervention. It is almost like a 1950s horror movie where the victim/villain begs for help to stop him before he runs amok and kills again. With a monstrous $14 trillion in debt and Democrats and Republicans about to do battle to increase that amount even more, newly elected Republican governor Rick Scott of Florida turns down white elephant spending on high speed rail, $2 billion worth. But instead of agreeing that Governor Scott’s decision was a prudent one in today’s times, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Frank Lautenberg waddle up to the trough, snorting in glee as they bury their faces in the slop and with the excess dripping off their chins, look into the camera and say, bad for Florida, goooooood for New York and New Jersey.

That’s just what we need when we are broke, more spending on projects that will be losing money for as long as they remain in existence. But who can turn down an opportunity to put their faces in front of the cameras and gleefully spend other people’s money? Some Republicans can, many Democrats cannot. Amtrak has lost billions of dollars since it came into existence. If the predictions are true, and they probably are not, the Acela high speed train time from New York to Washington will be reduced by 31 minutes from two hours and fifty-five minutes to two hours and twenty-three minutes. This is great for people who live in Manhattan and are traveling to a meeting in DC or vice versa, but anyone outside of Manhattan is probably going to go to one of the areas three airports and fly down.

The eagerness not to let money go unspent is more proof that the debt limit should not be raised without some concrete spending reductions as part of the deal. Senators like Schumer and Lautenberg simply cannot be trusted to do anyting other than spend you and your children into oblivion. They can’t help themselves. We’ll have to do it for them.

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

When the unions and their progressive supporters hit the streets in Madison, Wisconsin the news cameras didn’t have to look high and low to find the Hitler posters, they could probably spot them from a hundred yards off, but honestly, who didn’t think there would be Hitler posters at a left wing rally? But in a effort to modernize, somebody found a newspaper and saw there was some unrest in the Middle East and voila, we had comparisons to Hosni Mubarak and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So Governor Scott Walker, we are to believe, is acting like a dictator not a democratically elected governor working through a democratically elected legislature? Hmmm, I wonder how the public sector unions got the “rights” they ferociously cling to?

Wagner and Kennedy

In 1958, New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner was running for reelection. He had a little problem, though, and that was the fact that all five Democratic county leaders were opposed to him. Not only did that make getting reelected an uphill fight, he realized that he might not even be the nominee of the Democrat party. He needed a bold stroke of political genius. He found his stroke with the point of a pen. He penned an executive order giving public sector employees the ability to unionize. Were the public sector employees in some sort of danger that they needed additional protections? No. They were already protected under civil service provisions. This was purely a political power play designed for the sole purpose of getting Mayor Wagner reelected against the wishes of the leaders of his own party. Sounds a little bit dictatorial, no? One man creates the first public sector unions for the purpose of getting himself reelected. Let the public be damned with the long term consequences. He would be long retired before that piper had to be paid.

President John F. Kennedy won the presidency by the slimmest of margins. Some have reasonably argued that voting shenanigans in Chicago threw the election his way. President Kennedy saw how well things were going for the Democrats in New York after Wagner’s executive order. He also didn’t want to face another tough election. What could he do to put a thumb on the scale? In 1962, President Kennedy picked up his pen and wrote Executive Order 10988, that gave federal workers the right to organize. Again, no public outcry that public sector unions were needed, no act of Congress; one man, exercising executive power, dramatically changed the direction of public worker compensation that we are now buried under. Sounds somewhat dictatorial, no?

In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is trying to use the democratic legislative process to pass a law, changing the scope of the collective bargaining abilities, not eliminating them, and somehow that earns him the comparisons to Middle East dictators. What does that tell you about the intellectual honesty of the left? Likes the states, it’s bankrupt.

The Unspoken Truth

The unions in Wisconsin have said they agree to the health care contributions that the governor has demanded, they have agreed to the retirement contributions that the governor has demanded, so it is not about the money it is about breaking the unions. I wish that Governor Walker would come clean and explain exactly what the goals are.

 Without the changes in collective bargaining, sure the unions will give in now, but they will still have all their political power. Meaning that in the next election, they can once again come out in force to elect their future bosses and then negotiate to restore everything they gave up. It is not only about the money today, it is about the money in the future as well. As long as unions can take money from their members, use it to elect politicians who will give away the store to them as payback, any concessions today are only a short term fix. Governor Walker is trying to effect a permanent fix. He wants to bend the cost curve downward so that Wisconsin can attract businesses to the state and jobs. With jobs and a growing economy the states fiscal health will be restored. With the changes in collective bargaining, compensation in the public sector will not continue to outgrow private sector compensation that pays the salaries and benefits of the public sector. Is that fair? Ask a taxpayer and then ask a union member.

Right to Work

If the place of unions is so glorious in the tradition and success of the American economy, why are unions so desperately afraid of Right to Work laws? Why do unions need the coercive power of the state to force people to join unions in some states? Sounds more like Iran than America, no?

When I was in college I took a summer job with UPS. UPS was a union shop, which means they can hire union or non-union workers but after a set period of time the non-union workers have to join the union or lose their jobs. In the period that I was there, I and the guy I was teamed with developed a reputation as hard workers. Whenever a tractor trailer came in with just a few minutes left before the transfer point closed for the night, we were typically asked to be the ones to unload it because we could to it faster than anyone else. My work performance got me a raise in the short time I was there. But after about two months the foreman came to me and said it was time to join the union. Again, this was a summer job that I would be leaving to go back to college regardless. But there was no give. Rather than join, I quit, and finished out my summer at another job that appreciated a hard worker.

Where Right to Work laws are in play, an individual cannot be forced to join a union. If unions are the mother’s milk that the left claims they are why does the left oppose Right to Work laws? Why should an individual be forced to join a union as a condition of their employment?  If unions are so wonderful, why is union membership in the private sector plummeting? What happened to our steel industry? Our ship building industry? Our auto industry? Tell me again where the dictators are and where the democracy lies.

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

The Republicans in the House of Representatives led a freewheeling debate, unknown during Nancy Pelosi’s reign, to put together a continuing resolution for the rest of the current fiscal year ending in October. Hundreds of amendments were offered by both Democrats and Republicans and voted on. Some went against what the Republican leadership wanted, but it was how the House was supposed to work.

The final result cut $61 billion from the budget. All but three Republicans voted for it, all Democrats voted against it. The measure passed. Now it goes to the Democrat controlled Senate and Senator Charles Schumer of New York, wasted no time getting in front of the cameras.

“One thinks they want to use the shutdown to get their way,” Mr. Schumer said on CNN’s “State of the Union with Candy Crowley.” “We are saying, ‘Negotiate,’ and they are saying, ‘Do it my way’ before there are any negotiations,” he said.

Mind you, Senator Schumer was saying this as the senate was preparing to go on vacation, leaving only four days to come up with their version and begin the negotiations, he so badly wants. The senate could have gotten down to work today, and taken two weeks to hammer out their bill, but no, it is those dastardly Republicans who want to shut down the government. What Chuck Schumer is hoping for is a reprise of 1995, where a shutdown of the government played into the Democrats hands. He should be careful what he wishes for. The country is well aware of the dire financial situation of piling trillions upon trillions in debt at a breakneck pace. The Republicans have done what they ran on, curtailing spending. If Senator Schumer wants to cause a government shutdown so that the spending can continue he may be in for a shock.

Schumer’s Hypocrisy

The newly elected governor of Florida, Rick Scott, turned down $2.4 billion in federal money to build a high speed rail link between Orlando and Tampa. This whitest of white elephants would save maybe thirty minutes over driving by car. Governor Scott recognizes that it will probably cost Florida additional funds and a ongoing subsidy that will never end. It is a short term shot in the arm in that it will create construction jobs, but just like heroin produces a short term high, I wouldn’t recommend taking it.

So it looks like Governor Scott is acting like an adult among the spend, spend, spend junkies in government across the country. With the federal government in hock to its eyes, not spending $2.4 billion seems smart across the board. Uh, wait a minute. Senator Schumer has something to say,

“Florida’s loss should be New York’s gain. Other states may not be ready to unlock the potential of high-speed rail, but it is a top priority for upstate New York. We can put these funds to use in a way that gets the best bang for the buck. The administration should redirect these funds to New York as quickly as possible.”  

New York’s gain; I love that. We get to bankrupt our state capital further and be saddled with more rail subsidies ad infinitum. I guess the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tax isn’t enough of a subsidy. Since this very blue state is considered an economic wasteland to the north and west of Abany, our state capital, where is this train to nowhere going to move people at high speed? Perhaps if the train runs from upstate New York to Texas, it might be worth a look. When all the people from New York escape, they can sell the railroad for scrap metal.

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

The corrupt main stream media, the unions, and President Barack Obama are fighting their Waterloo. The voters have had enough of bloated out of control government. The private sector struggles with unemployment and a stagnant economy, while the public sector grows and out earns them while they have to pay for it. The union thugs take to the streets, shut down schools, take students out of the classroom to protest with their union teachers, while Democrat lawmakers flee the state instead of doing their job. Is this Greece? No, it is Madison, Wisconsin.

Let’s start with the mainstream media. A tragedy occurs in Tucson, Arizona and somehow it is harsh rhetoric on the part of the right that caused it. That was a lie. They knew it. They didn’t care. Many of those stations have a broadcast license from the government and the don’t blanche at lying with impunity. A left wing rally protests outside of a private conservative meeting and out of a crowd of about a thousand, twenty-five are arrested. In Madison, Wisconsin, more arrests are made. Signs portraying the governor as Hitler, a sign with a cross hairs on the governors face, protesters gathering at the private home of the governor and legislators and where is the outrage on the main stream media? You can hear a pin drop.

The unions got together with the Democrats to kick the protests into high gear.

Organizing for America, which is run in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, was helping mobilize protesters on Thursday through its blog and Twitter updates that included a “call to action” to phone state senators.

This is the crux of the problem. Public sector unions are in a symbiotic relationship with the Democratic party. They take union dues from Democrats, Republicans, Independents and even unregistered voters and use part of that money to elect Democrats. Those elected officials will then negotiate public sector contracts with the unions giving away the store. The officials only have to make sure that they are no longer in office when the bill comes due. By then they will be retired in Florida with their own fat pension and living in a state with no income tax.

President Obama, who can’t get his own budgetary house in order, weighs in on another non-federal matter. In the past he has injected himself in a local police matter in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s time the president started focusing on being the president and instead of worrying how Wisconsin is dealing with their budget mess, to clean up his own.

The same teachers who tell us time and again in their paid advertisements that it is all about the children, wasted no time abandoning those children, forcing some schools to close, by lying to their school districts by calling in sick, so they could go to the state capital and protest. Some of them went even further and brought their students with them to use as pawns for their own greed. This clip shows some of these students and they have no idea why they are there and what they are protesting for. It is just a day out of the classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cufj2d8Co5A

The unions offer no solutions for closing a $3 billion budget gap other than the same tired bromide to go find that rich guy somewhere who isn’t being taxed enough, and make him pay for their union’s greed. Everyone else can struggle, everyone else can pay for the public employees, but don’t touch what the public sector unions have extracted from their political beneficiaries.

Meanwhile the Democratic members of the Wisconsin state senate are in hiding in Illinois. Profiles in courage this is not. But like Waterloo this is a battle. Reinforcements are on the way. There is a rally in support of the governor on Saturday. Go to Freedom Connect for details. Andrew Breitbart has also said he will attend. It’s always fun when Andrew goes to a left wing protests and asks the protestors what they are doing and getting blank stares as their frantically look around for some organizer to tell them what to say.

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

In an interview on Bloomberg radio yesterday, New York Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch talked about the perilous state of New York’s economy.  Mr. Ravitch was a key player in the rescue of New York City from the brink of financial collapse in the 1970s.  He talked about bankruptcy being an option and how New York City’s possible bankruptcy really brought banks to the negotiating table.  He also talked about how important the financial services industry is to New York as a source of tax revenue.  Then he let the cat out of the bag.

The interviewer asked him if he was in favor of a “billionaire’s tax.”  He said not at a local  level.  There you have it, not at a local level.  He explained that such taxes at a local level would be too easy to get around by the taxpayer moving to another locale.  Even worse, would be for the whole financial services industry to move elsewhere.

Another Shot Across the Bow of Federalism

Mr. Ravitch didn’t say a “billionaire’s tax” would be bad, just not applied at the local level.  Another news item yesterday concerned how newly reelected governor Rick Perry in Texas is pressing on with additional tort reform.  Texas is moving toward “loser pays” to bring an end to frivolous lawsuits where deep pocketed defendants find it cheaper to settle than to defend a suit and the lawyers walk away with boatloads of money.  This practice will soon end in Texas.  If the suit is deemed “groundless”, the plaintiff will have to pay the attorneys fees of the defendant. The result is that medical malpractice insurance rates have fallen 27.5% since 2003 and the number of applications for medical licenses for doctors has increased 60%.  But what has this to do with Mr. Ravitch’s position?

The Progressives hate the idea of state governments.  They want a centralized federal government to rule over us all.  It would eliminate the desire of unhappy taxpayers in New York to want to move to Texas, because the rules and taxes would be the same.  It also makes it much harder for the individual citizen to speak out against the government.  With about seven hundred thousand constituents per Representative in the House and four hundred thirty-five House members, the ability of an individual to be heard on any issue is miniscule.  All the better for the grandees in Washington who, like the Wizard of Oz, are all knowing and all powerful.  They will decide based on their sojourn in the hallowed halls of the Ivy League, what is best for you and you will have to take it and like it.

So Mr. Ravitch likes the concept of a billionaire’s tax just fine, just make sure the billionaire can’t squirm off the hook and scamper off to Texas or Florida.  He knows of which he speaks.  They tried a millionaire’s tax in Maryland and that is exactly what happened.  Bummer.

It’s Really Not Your Money Anyway

If you listen to the progressives when they talk about taxes they really don’t believe it is your money that you give to the government it is the government that benevolently allows you to keep some to live on.  That is why extending the current tax structure is something government can’t “afford.”  That sounds like all of what we earn belongs to the government and then the government cuts checks to us to live on.  Otherwise, how can you not afford what you are not going to get?  So the government gives tax cuts when in reality nothing is changing.  The tax rates are staying right where they are except, that is, for the death tax.

Since we all know that conservatives are heartless and progressives are compassionate, I thought this was an interesting exchange between Megyn Kelly of Fox News interviewing Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York.  Ms. Kelly was describing a hypothetical about wanting to leave her estate, already taxed heavily throughout her working life, to her children.  Ms. Kelly asked, “Why should I pay another tax when I die?”  Mr. Weiner, ever the compassionate progressive responded, “You aren’t paying anything. You’re dead.”  Nice touch, and a happy holiday to you and your family too, Mr. Weiner.

Progressives on the March

The progressives have been on a forced march the past two years trying to install as much of their agenda as they could before the American people could scramble back to the polls.  The Republicans in the Senate were hanging on by their fingernails waiting for reinforcements.  Election Day came and the results were a resounding refutation of the progressive agenda.  But the incumbents, rather than seeing the light doubled down trying to pass in four weeks what they couldn’t pass in four years.

It is time to send the Congress home.  Let’s start anew in January and start rolling back the progressive tide.  If we do not make significant progress in restoring federalism, it will only take another change in power for the progressives to further push toward one government.  Roll back and defend freedom are the order of the day.  Republicans cannot be the just a lighter version of the Democrats to retain the right to govern.  But it should be pretty clear where each side stands.  Let’s get to work.

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.

I still find myself in awe of our Founding Fathers who created our form of government.  The competing ideas that they sifted through to come up with our Constitution and the safeguards in it is wondrous.  The designs upon it by the progressives is by equal measure disturbing.

The progressives envision a national government that they can dominate and that, in turn, will dominate us.  There is no activity over which they do not feel they can or should control.  Private property is a panacea, to keep the masses from open revolt, but they really believe that all wealth that is generated belongs to the government except for the portion they permit us to keep.  If you think that statement is unimaginable consider this.  How often do you hear, concerning the current debate over the Bush tax cuts, that we cannot afford them for the rich?  Think about it.  They say our government cannot afford to allow certain citizens of this country to continue to pay the same level of taxes in 2011 that they pay today.  That the government somehow has to pay for a tax cut, that actually isn’t even a cut but rather a continuation of what has existed for the last ten years.  How is getting less than you want a cost? If you awake on Christmas morning and do not find the present you have been hoping for under the tree, do you say, “Man, that’s gonna cost me?” Of course you do not.

A Massive Federal Government

Think about the many federal departments and agencies that exist today for which you will find no authorization in the Constitution: Education; Agriculture; Housing and Urban Development; Energy; Health and Human Services; Transportation.  Did they not have education in the eighteenth century? Are we more agrarian today than we were in 1789?  If not, why do we need a Department of Agriculture today, but the Founders didn’t see a need for it then?

The progressives are fighting for the continual concentration of functions at the federal level where the voices of the people are faint, but the voices of the special interests are robust and clear.  The branch of the federal government that is closest to the people is the House of Representatives.  But ponder how small your voice is in that chamber.  You are one of some 700,000 in your congressional district; your congressman or woman is one of 435 in the House of Representatives.  How do you get your voice heard at the federal level?  And yet Congress will tell you what kind of light bulb to buy or what kind of toilet you must flush.  Is this what our founding fathers envisioned?

The Bloody Revolution

To establish our country they fought a brutal revolution; a revolution where 50% of the mortal wounds were caused by bayonets.  Now that’s up close and personal.  It is not something they entered into lightly and a reading of the Declaration of Independence will tell you that they pledged their lives when they signed that document and their death warrants as well.  If captured by the British they surely would have been tried and executed for treason.

In designing our form of government they were very suspicious of strong central power and authority, having just thrown off one.  They did not trust government.  As Jefferson said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty.  When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”  Here is a simple test, do you fear the IRS or does the IRS fear you?

The Founders designed the Constitution to have strictly enumerated powers given to the federal government with all other powers retained by the states or the people.  They did not design a democracy, but a republic.  In that republic they built numerous checks and balances to prevent the accumulation of power. It has been the goal of the progressives to remove those checks and balances and put in place the tyranny that fears no people.

The Structure of the Federal Government

Among the balances they put in place was that the people would directly elect the members of the House of Representatives.  That is the body of government closest to the people.  If you recall the wording of the Tenth Amendment it speaks of the federal government, the states and the people.  The Senate was to be appointed by the state legislatures to represent their interests.  The president was to be elected, not by the people, but by the Electoral College.  Lastly, judges were to be appointed for life by the president with the advice and consent of the senate.  Why did they do this?  One reason is that they believed that if a proposed law had the backing of the majority of the people (House of Representatives) and a majority of the states (Senate) then it was probably a good thing, otherwise slow it down.  The fewer the number of laws, the greater our liberty.

The Progressives Attack

The progressives began their designs on the Constitution with the introduction of the income tax through the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.  By allowing the government to tax incomes the government could now afford to greatly expand. However, to be able to expand it had to have the consent of the states, which was not likely to be granted.  So two months after the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified.  The Seventeenth Amendment called for the direct election of Senators, rather than having them appointed by the state legislatures.  The individual citizens picked up two more votes in the federal government, in most cases an even weaker voice than their Representative, and the states were shut out.

Do you think things such as unfunded mandates could pass in Congress if the states still chose the members of the Senate?  Social Security? Medicare? The Department of Education? The Department of Housing and Urban Development? And on and on?  Think of some of the more radical members of the Senate.  Do you think Al Franken would have been appointed by the Minnesota state legislature?  For many years in New York, the State Assembly was under the control of the Democrats but the State Senate was under the control of the Republicans.  The governorship passed back and forth between representatives of the two parties.   However, New York’s two Senators are Democrats and win reelection easily because of the concentration of Democrats mainly in New York City.  Could Hillary Clinton have moved into New York and immediately become its newest Senator with a Republican governor and Republican controlled State Senate? She was elected Senator from New York before she even moved out of the White House.  So instead of representing their state legislatures, Senate candidates focused on the population centers of their states to appeal directly to the people and to get elected and reelected.  The states were reduced from sovereign entities to subsidiaries of the federal government.

The Supreme Court

When Franklin Roosevelt was president he tried to pass his massive socialist programs but found that the Supreme Court was striking down many of his programs as being unconstitutional.  Roosevelt wanted to pack the court by increasing its membership from nine justices to fifteen.  He argued that the justices were old and over worked.  So he wanted to appoint a new justice for every existing justice that was seventy years or older.  His plan failed.  But when he broke with George Washington’s precedent and that of every president who followed him of serving no more than two terms, he was eventually able to appoint every justice to the Supreme Court.  So he got his way, it just took longer.

The Supreme Court can be considered the collateral damage of the Seventeenth Amendment.  The Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate.  However once the Senators became directly elected by the people things changed.  Would a distinguished jurist like Robert Bork be treated as shamefully as he was by the lie filled speech of Ted Kennedy if Kennedy and Joe Biden weren’t doing the work of the pro-abortion lobby?  Would Clarence Thomas be subjected to the electronic lynching he faced if not for some Senators pandering to their special interest groups?  What we now have are potential Supreme Court justices who have learned that if you don’t want to get “Borked” keep your mouth shut during your confirmation hearings.  So we don’t know who we are going to get until a lifetime appointee is on the bench and then it is too late.

The 2000 Presidential Election

Who can forget the 2000 presidential election?  The Democrats still say Al Gore won, not because of Florida (he lost the election there, he lost the re-count, he lost the re-re-count) but because he won the popular vote.  The debates raged, why do we have an Electoral College?  The president should be elected by popular vote only. 

The argument follows the one made previously about the direct election of senators.  The Electoral College forces presidential candidates to campaign everywhere because everywhere counts.  There are at least three electoral votes to be had in every state.  The Founders were very concerned about balance.  They did not want the president just to be elected by the people of New York, Boston and Philadelphia, the large cities of that time.  Today, if the Electoral College was abolished the election would focus on the media  and population centers of New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and the large cities because that’s where it is easiest to get the message out and that is where the majority of the people are.  The progressives would put up pretty much the same candidates as they do today, perhaps more to the left.  This is their home turf and power base.  Instead of traveling around the country they could concentrate their time and money in a few large cities.  The Republicans would probably field candidates of a far more moderate stripe to not get hooted off the stage in New York.  Let me illustrate.

Electoral College vote Bush-Gore 2000

The Democrats claim Gore won in 2000 because he won the popular vote.  He lost in the Electoral College by five votes.  If you look at the breakdown of the states Gore won versus Bush, Gore took the Northeast, the Great Lakes area and the West Coast.  With the exception of New Mexico, Bush took everything else.

Let’s dial it down a level and look at who won at the county level.

Bush-Gore 2000 Winners by County

If you look at it at the county level, you could drive from the east coast to the west coast without entering a single county that Gore won.  You could do the same driving from Canada to Mexico.  But if popular vote was the metric, the man who won 80%-90% of the land mass of the United States would have lost.  Why should you not have a say, if you don’t live in a major population center?  It is not like Bush won in an Electoral College landslide and it is not like Gore absolutely trounced Bush in the popular vote.  The purpose of the Electoral College is to act as another brake on the tyranny of the majority.  

Where Do We Go From Here  

We are presently at a crossroads.  We have an electorate that is more knowledgeable, more aware, and more engaged than at any time in my memory.  We can continue to go down the socialist path toward a massive central government that takes all of our liberties for a measure of sustenance, or we can turn the tide and demand our liberties back.  

Let us begin by repealing the Seventeenth Amendment.

Did you ever watch a business, celebrity, or government agency find itself in the middle of a media frenzy that it thinks will soon blow over and instead it only gets worse? In a way, I feel sorry for TSA Administrator John Pistole, but after listening to him try to defend what they are doing, a head slap is the more appropriate reaction. What are these idiots thinking?

Fighting the Last War

Almost every new “solution” the TSA comes out with is to fight the dismal failure they just allowed. Here are a few questions for Administrator Pistole before the TSA’s next grope:

•  How many attempted hijackings have there been by Islamic terrorists since 9/11 that have been thwarted by hardened cockpit doors or air marshals on planes? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• Perhaps millions of shoes have been removed by passengers and run through the scanning machines. How many shoes have been found containing explosives? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• Perhaps this question is too early to ask, but I’ll go ahead anyway, how many people have been electronically denuded and or intimately fondled that resulted in the capture of an underwear bomber? My guess is none because the Islamic terrorists moved on to the next strategy.
• How many people attempted to commandeer a plane using nail clippers? And why was a soldier, who was carrying his unloaded carbine on a military flight stripped of his nail clippers because they might be used as a weapon to take over the plane? “What about this?” the soldier asked the TSA agent, tapping the stock of his carbine.  Blank stare. “I’ll need those clippers, sir.” I am not kidding (click here to read the story). It just might be, but I doubt it that the Islamic terrorists are saying, “Why didn’t we think of that?” But is it probably more likely they are saying, “Take over a plane using WHAT???”

How About Trying Something That Works?

After all we learned from the 9/11 hijackers what did we do? We focused on nail clippers, cockpit doors, and using technology to screen flyers. But political correctness kept us then and continues to keep us stupid. Richard Reid the shoe bomber was next up.

On December 21, 2001, Reid attempted to board a flight from Paris, France to Miami, Florida, but his boarding was delayed because his disheveled physical appearance aroused the suspicions of the airline passenger screeners. Reid also did not answer all of their questions, and had not checked any luggage for the transatlantic flight. Additional screening by the French National Police resulted in Reid’s being re-issued a ticket for a flight on the following day. He returned to the Paris airport on December 22, 2001, and he boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami, wearing his special shoes packed with plastic explosives in their hollowed-out bottoms.

He “aroused suspicions” and “did not answer all of their questions”. So why was this guy allowed to board a plane, ever? But board he did and he attempted to set off his shoe bomb in mid-flight. He didn’t try to commandeer the plane and fly it into a building, mind you; been there, done that. If for some unknown reason we felt compelled to allow him to fly he should have had his own air marshal, at about 6’5” and 265 rock solid pounds named Bruno who should have introduced himself to Reid saying, “Hi, the name’s Bruno, I’ll be sitting next to you personally escorting you on your flight. Have a nice day.” Instead they let Reid on the plane, and he tried to light the fuse but it would not ignite, it is presumed because of the one day delay he was walking around in the rain and profusely sweating, that he might have dampened the fuse. But don’t worry, I am sure we had many engineers working feverishly to design some technology to prevent another 9/11.

From that moment forward we could not leave home to fly without carefully checking our socks for holes so we would not be embarrassed when everyone was walking around without shoes. Naturally that was also probably the last time we would see a shoe bomber, but never mind.

Then there was the Christmas Day bomber. Here is part of his tale:

On November 11, British intelligence officials sent the U.S. a cable indicating that a man named “Umar Farouk” had spoken to al-Awlaki, pledging to support jihad, but the cable did not reflect Abdulmutallab’s last name. Abdulmutallab’s father made a report to two CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on November 19 regarding his son’s “extreme religious views”, and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, the suspect’s name was added in November 2009 to the U.S..’s 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added, however, to the FBI’s 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s 4,000-name No Fly List, nor was his U.S. visa revoked.

U.S. State Department officials said in Congressional testimony that the State Department had wanted to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa, but U.S. intelligence officials requested that his visa not be revoked. The intelligence officials’ stated reason was that revoking Abdulmutallab’s visa could have foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida.

Abdulmutallab’s name had come to the attention of intelligence officials many months before that, but no “derogatory information” was recorded about him. A Congressional official said that Abdulmutallab’s name appeared in U.S. reports reflecting that he had connections to both al-Qaeda and Yemen. The NCTC did not check to see whether Abdulmutallab’s American visa was valid, or whether he had a British visa that was valid; therefore, they did not learn that the British had rejected Abdulmutallab’s visa application earlier in 2009. The British did not inform the Americans because the visa application was denied to prevent immigration fraud and not for a national security purpose.

He bought his ticket with cash. The ticket agent refused to allow him to board the plane because he did not have his own passport, but somehow he and a “smartly dressed man” talked their way around that and he boarded the plane.

Always Two Steps Behind

So now, all of us are getting our freedom and dignity removed so that the next underwear bomber, who will never come, won’t blow up a plane. So now we have printer cartridges filled with explosives being shipped in the cargo hold. What are the full body scanner’s going to do about them? Nothing. We will have to spend millions more developing full cargo scanners and while we are working on that, the terrorists will be figuring out how to detonate explosives carried in a body cavity of a person on a plane. The new full body scanners cannot currently see into body cavities. So just imagine what the TSA will roll out after that attempt. “Just grab your ankles, this won’t hurt a bit.”

It’s Time to Get Serious Rather than Clever

It’s time to back off on the machines. Technology can be a very useful tool, but it cannot be used as a solution for all problems and this is coming from a guy who spent over 20 years in Information Technology. We need to go back to some very old, but very effective tools: brains, eyes, ears, and nose. Apply the technology resources where they will do the most good, handling information and getting the right names on the right lists to keep people off planes who are dangerous. Make their lives inconvenient by making them travel by boat, train or car, rather than putting the rest of us through hell.

The TSA should have agents checking the people,  rather than looking at monitor screens and IDs. Study their eyes, their demeanor, how they look, how they move, their behavior focusing particularly on Islamic males between the ages of 20-40. It is not racial profiling it is terrorist profiling. If anyone causes a TSA agent to feel the least bit wary, do not hesitate to politely ask that person to step out of line and question them. If the agent is not satisfied, take the person to an interrogation room and give them a detailed interview and if need be give them the full body search and if that means you have to do that to 10, 20, 30, or 50 people of similar age, color, sex, national origin, and religion in a row, do so without hesitation and brook no interference.

Between the shoe bomber, the Christmas Day bomber, and the Times Square bomber we got very lucky. But it is not as if we didn’t have the opportunity to stop them using our brains, eyes, ears and noses. We didn’t need the sophisticated technology that we so fervently pursue and believe in and we didn’t use the tools we have had for thousands of years.

I am not optimistic that we will get control over this problem. What we probably need is fewer TSA agents who are more highly paid and more thoroughly trained in behavioral analysis, but the current topic of discussion is how we can unionize all the TSA workers. That’s what we need now folks, a great way to protect the incompetent TSA workers and discourage the good ones to the point of quitting to do more interesting and less restrictive work.  Let’s start using our heads.  The American people are outraged because they don’t see the intrusion worth the risks.  If the TSA can’t figure it out perhaps they shold consult the Israelis.  Or is this administration too busy turning them into our enemies too?

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

For those of you who enjoyed the great victory in the House of Representatives but felt a twinge of disappointment of not taking the Senate, do not despair.  It is only 24 more months until we get another cut at the Senate and the good news is that with twenty-one Democrats and two Independents defending their seats, along with ten Republicans, you could almost make a calendar out of it targeting one Democrat or Independent for each month!

Here are the Democrats up in 2012:

• Daniel Akaka, Hawaii
• Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico. How’s that border, Senator?
• Sherrod Brown, Ohio.  Ohio’s looking pretty red these days
• Joe Manchin, West Virginia. Aw, I just got here.
• Maria Cantwell, Washington
• Benjamin Cardin, Maryland
• Thomas Carper, Delaware. Win one for Christine
• Robert Casey, Jr., Pennsylvania
• Kent Conrad, North Dakota
• Diane Feinstein, California
• Kirsten Gillibrand, New York. We’re baaack. If we can just keep Al D’Amato from stabbing us in the back we might put up a decent candidate to beat an easy target
• Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota.  How does Senator Michelle Bachmann sound?
• Herb Kohl, Wisconsin.  As goes Feingold, so goes Kohl?
• Claire McCaskill, Missouri
• Robert Menendez, New Jersey. Chris Christie country may be ready for a change
• Ben Nelson, Nebraska. Best known for the Cornhusker kickback to buy his vote on ObamaCare
• Bill Nelson, Florida. Does Marco Rubio have a brother or a sister?
• Debbie Stabenow, Michigan. Can we trade her for General Motors?
• Jon Tester, Montana
• Jim Webb, Virginia.  He may be the last trace of blue in the state
• Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island

We may not be in the majority, but all we need to do on most legislation is to bring over two, three or four of these folks to pass bills.  They may want to have a whiff of bipartisanship on their resume when they face the voters.

Here are the two independents:

• Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut.  We love you Joe, but except for Isreal and National Security, you are still rather blue
• Bernard Sanders, Socialist.  Seriously, a Socialist.  Can we stop saying that the left doesn’t believe in socialism?

Here are the Republican seats we will need to defend:

• Scott Brown, Massachusetts
• John Barrasso, Wyoming
• Bob Corker, Tennessee
• John Ensign, Nevada
• Orrin Hatch, Utah
• Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas
• Jon Kyl, Arizona
• Richard Lugar, Indiana
• Olympia Snowe, Maine.  Is there a Tea Party in Maine.  Can someone give them a wakeup call, please?
• Roger Wicker, Mississippi

They all look like pretty solid red states and we should be able to hold them.

We’ll see who wants to play ObamaBall and who wants to govern.  It appears that playing ObamaBall cost every Congressman that Rahm Emmanuel recruited from 2004 on is gone.  As Ann Coulter said the other day, think about it, the fresh faces in the Democratic party are Jerry Brown and Harry Reid.

We must pick up right where we left off on election night.  We have great momentum on our side.  Let’s keep it going.

CORRECTION: The Senator up for re-election from Florida is Bill Nelson, not Ben Nelson as originally reported.  7 November 2010