Archive for December, 2009

What Republicans lacked the numbers to do on Capitol Hill, may get done in the courts. Even before the U.S. Senate took its infamous Christmas Eve vote on the ObamaCare bill, a number of state attorneys general started working together to challenge the legislation on constitutional grounds.

South Carolina AG Henry McMaster, the early leader of the effort, saw an opening for a constitutional challenge in the now notorious deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama White House cooked up to buy the vote of Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson:

McMaster began to organize the effort after South Carolina GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint wrote a letter to him Monday asking him to investigate the matter.

“We have serious concerns about this Nebraska compromise as it results in special treatment for only one state in the nation at the expense of the other 49,” wrote Graham and DeMint. “While South Carolina has to struggle to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with the massive new Medicaid mandate, Nebraska does not have to come up with a single dollar.”

There are other constitutional issues with the bill. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, positing on his website Tuesday, stated that the Senate bill contains an unconstitutional mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health care insurance:

“Most concerning is the individual mandate that a person must pay a fine or tax if he or she does not obtain federally required health care insurance.”

“I have grave concerns about the constitutionality of this mandate. Such a ‘living tax’ is worrisome because it would be levied on a person who does nothing, a person who simply wishes not to be forced to buy health insurance coverage. Upon initial review, this appears to be contrary to the freedoms we, as Americans, have enjoyed for the past 233 years. The mandate is especially troubling to Floridians who are guaranteed through the Florida Constitution to have ‘the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into [their] private life.’

From the New American:

The U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment guarantees citizens protection against their wealth being taken by the state: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Such a constitutional provision clearly invalidates the healthcare mandate, as the requirement to purchase healthcare insurance constitutes a gigantic “taking” without any compensation from the federal government. The very purpose of forcing everyone to purchase the healthcare coverage — according to proponents of the legislation themselves — is to increase the size of the pool of insured so as to help subsidize the coverage of others. The mandate requires a transfer of wealth , i.e., “property,” from some to others without compensation. Moreover, the requirement is not an enumerated power of the Constitution and it violates both the letter and spirit of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

Democrats who support the mandate will likely argue that the “commerce clause” of the Constitution gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” But the AGs can counter by pointing out that under the Constitution, commerce is an activity which is freely exercised, i.e., it cannot be forced upon citizens who do not wish to engage in it.

At The Freedom Post, Matthew Burke says to expect the Democrats to also fight the Constitutional challenge by citing the “General Welfare” clause, but they will be standing on weak constitutional ground:

James Madison, who is considered the main author of the Constitution, should know what the words, “General Welfare”, meant. He wrote them! He explained the intended meaning of the phrase,”General Welfare”, as:

With respect to the words, “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution…[that] was not contemplated by the creators.”

Yet, some, “legal experts”, arrogantly and shamefully define the clause to match whatever happens to further their freedom killing political agenda. The powers in Article I, Section 8, are very specific and the Tenth Amendment clarifies that any contrived powers politicians invent, that are not granted in the Constitution, are reserved to the States or to the people.

McCollum and McMaster are urging the other 48 state attorneys general to help get the constitutional challenge rolling by joining in a lawsuit in federal court against those provisions of the bill which are clearly unconstitutional. So far at least half of the Republican state attorneys general are on board. They have as much time to marshall their forces as it will take for the House and the Senate to agree in conference on the final wording of the legislation. The coming battle in the courts will be an historic power struggle between the states and the federal government. It  also may be the last best hope for those who stand against unbridled statism to send a message to our elected representatives inside the Beltway that playing fast and loose with the U.S. Constitution will not be allowed to stand.

- JP

When underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab told FBI agents, “There are many more like me” in Yemen, it was likely not just an idle boast.

That country’s foreign minister said Tuesday that “hundreds” of Al Qaeda militants are in Yemen planning more terror attacks:

Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said: “Of course there are a number of Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realize this danger.

“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”

The foreign minister asked for for more assistance from the international community to help beef up Yemen’s counter-terrorism efforts. Al-Qirbi’s appeal comes on the heels of a statement by Al Qaeda in Yemen claiming responsibility for the failed Christmas Day airliner bomb plot.

Meanwhile, Iran, perhaps the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, has erupted in violence. The situation in the Islamic Republic and that in Yemen clearly demonstrate the need for strong leadership by the West. Alas, we have looked around, and there’s no Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan or even a George W. Bush in sight. There is John Bolton, but the ruling leftist elites have rejected the former ambassador for being too “hawkish” and overly “abrasive.” Then there’s Barack Obama on the links in Hawaii…

God help us.

- JP

Here’s something to look forward to…when Americans start dying while on medical waiting lists and under a system of rationed care, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can tell us that “the system worked…”

The recent political soap opera in the U.S Senate about healthcare reform, so-called, was a big, depressing letdown, wasn’t it? But did any reasonable person really believe that Nebraska’s Ben Nelson wouldn’t cave eventually? And if it wasn’t Sen. Nelson, it would have been some other grandstanding, “undecided” “moderate” that voted for cloture (maybe even a Republican, if the Republicans hadn’t lost so many Senate seats in fluky circumstances).

What’s perhaps lost in all the rhetoric and the often superficial media
coverage is that health insurance companies do suck, and sometimes the impersonal way doctors treat patients sucks. But a monstrous government bureaucracy sucks a lot worse. Government intervention is no solution, as all the savvy bloggers who analyzed this legislation (and government encroachments in general) have already well established. Leaving the devilish details aside, no common-sense person could possibly believe that a 2,000-page legislative monstrosity passed in the middle of the night after our honorable elected representatives were stuffed with bribes like a Christmas turkey will actually make any real person more “healthy.”

This is restating the obvious, but we the people never should have allowed politicians of any party to gain so much power that they could infringe on the individual freedom of Americans in the first place. And yes, the GOP may have made a mess of things in the recent past, but is there any watchful independent or swing voter left that really believes in voting for Democrats, based on the premise that this time things will be different? Isn’t it time to end their abusive relationship with the mythical moderate Democrat?

In any event, while we have to stay vigilant about the latest shenanigans by the statists, there are times that Animal Planet, the Food Network, or a DVD (assuming the DVD doesn’t contain gratuitous leftwing propaganda) provides a good vacation from the news channels. This may be one of those times! [Update: HotAir.com reports that the Food Network, sadly, is no longer an Obama-free zone.]

Parenthetically, we’ve often wondered why the socialist-oriented, big government interventionists think that they will be immune from the hardships created by their own polices–as if they live in a space station orbiting the Earth rather than down here with the rest of us. Are they under the impression that they (and their families, friends, and associates) will be in perpetuity somehow exempt from initiatives that undermine the security, economic or otherwise, of the country? For these people to strut around like drunk-with-power (or in Sen. Baucus’s case, apparently just drunk) would-be commissars doesn’t seem, well, normal. Even with the left controlling all the levels of power, they still don’t appear to be very happy, but that’s another topic.

As a practical matter, if the country plunges headlong into bankruptcy, who is going to continue to fund the left’s social programs–and more particularly the salaries of federal bureaucrats? And if productive citizens call it quits along the lines of Atlas Shrugged even on a small scale, who’s going to pay the
bills?

Okay, so DVDs can really take your mind off things in troubled times. One DVD that perhaps paradoxically won’t, but is nonetheless worth renting right about now–especially if you feel like fleeing the Obama media propaganda machine–is the Oscar-winning movie The Barbarian Invasions.

The movie, which is primarily a life-affirming drama about difficult human relationships even in the most heart-breaking of circumstances, gives among other things an unsettling glimpse of the botched nature of the government-run Canadian healthcare system. The plot (which amazingly slipped past the Motion Picture Academy’s politically correct gatekeepers) primarily centers on a leftist Montreal college professor with terminal cancer who seeks to reconcile with his estranged son, or perhaps vice versa.

Intentional or not, the film is in part a fundamental rebuke of the entire empty, socialist philosophy. In one pertinent scene, to move his father out of a chaotic Quebec hospital ward, the son (a wealthy businessman) bribes sullen and corrupt union bosses to provide the dying man with a private room. In another poignant (non-political) moment presented via flashback that anyone who has ever taught to some degree can relate to, the professor informs a class that he is resigning because of health issues. Dead silence in the room, only broken when a student asks him if they still have to do the paper. And in another sequence, the professor recalls trying to score with an attractive Chinese scholar by heaping praise on Chairman Mao. She then tells him that Chairman Mao sent her parents to her home country’s equivalent of the gulag.

Oh by the way, the son manages to spring his dad from the Canadian hospital and bring him to the U.S. for treatment by a specialist.

Let’s try to look on the bright side: Perhaps a positive outcome of medical rationing and self-defeating, costly over-regulation would be to encourage more citizens to gravitate towards alternative therapies and holistic techniques. Both Republicans and Democrats have it wrong when their entire health worldview focuses on drugs and surgery.Then again, the narrow-minded FDA and the FTC have an ongoing regulatory barrage against alternative (or complimentary) health practices and nutritional products, so continued vigilance against government overreach in that arena is also required.

IGC Blogger

For those national Republicans who have been urging Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman to challenge Democrat Ben Nelson for his seat in the U.S. Senate in 2012, the job has just become easier. Though it’s still early yet, the results of a new poll have to be encouraging to the Cornhusker State’s GOP governor.

Rasmussen Reports found that Nelson’s sellout on the ObamaCare bill would hurt the Senator should he have to face Heineman in 2012:

“…the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.”

“Nelson’s health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed. In Nebraska, opposition is even stronger than it is nationally.”

“Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state believe that passage of the legislation will hurt the quality of care, and 62% say it will raise costs.”

If Nelson thought that bringing home the pork would endear him to Nebraska’s voters, he needs to learn a new political calculus. Even if Nelson reneges on the deal he made with Harry Reid and the Obama White House and votes to block health care reform, Rasmussen’s results show that the damage has already been done. Fully 47 percent would still vote for Heneman, while just 37 percent would mark their ballots for Nelson. We’re at a loss to explain how Congress critters can be so out of touch with voters in their home states and districts. The disease of Beltway Bloat must severely affect the eyes and ears, as well as the ego.

Overall, the poll shows Nelson’s favorability ratings to be well below the water line. 55 percent have an unfavorable view of the incumbent, while just 40 percent view Nelson in a favorable light.

The poll, which surveyed only likely voters in Nebraska, has a 95% confidence level.

- JP

President Barack Obama finally managed to tear himself away from his golf game and the other pleasures of Hawaii Monday to break his weekend-long silence on the attempt to blow the 300 souls aboard Flight 253 to Kingdom Come. If the president sought to reassure the American people and impress with his administration’s vigilance, then he was no more successful than the underwear bomber. In his address from the Kailua-Kona area of The Big Island, Obama vowed that his administration “will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable”:

“The American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season,” the president said.

But how are Americans to be reassured when over the weekend, his administration transferred six detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, a hotbed of terrorism and the same country where the BVD Bomber says he was trained by Al Qaeda? Nor is it helpful that the president waited more than eight months to appoint a director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Also less than confidence-inspiring were the conflicting statements made on Sunday and Monday by Homeland Security chief Janet Napalitano. Apparently, in true John Kerry fashion, the system worked before it failed to work. The system failed, and it failed at every step along the way, says Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee:

“Early on in this administration I think that this administration sent a clear signal that they believed that the threat to the homeland was not as significant as what it really is. Janet Napolitano said we’re not going to talk about terrorism we’re going to talk about manmade disasters. That was a mistake.”

And, as the Congressman points out, it was just one mistake among many:

“There were a number of places in the process that would have signaled a clear red flag – this guy is a problem. His dad coming into the embassy, the Brits saying he’s not going to be allowed back into Great Britain and then the screening process at the airports not catching him. You would have hoped that at each one of these places we would have caught him. In reality we missed him at every step of the way,” he said. “You would have thought that we would have at least considered revoking this individual’s two –year visa and waiting to re-issue it until we had an opportunity to interview him and have him go through the screening process one more time,” Hoekstra said of the red flags before Abdulmutallab boarded the flight.

The Obama Administration will have to show the American people that it really is serious about fighting the war on terror before it can inspire the kind of confidence which voters expect from the feds. Keeping the nation safe is one of the few functions the U.S. Constitution specifically delegates to the federal government. It will take much more than a laid back approach to national security, a confused Director of Homeland Security and a statement from the president which sounded like it was phoned in from America’s playground in the Pacific to make the country feel safe from man-caused disaster… er, terrorism.

- JP

Let’s be honest, the first thing everyone thought upon learning the news that there was an attempt to blow up an airplane was: “Those crazy Baptists strike again!” Oh wait, that’s not right. In fact, I’m pretty sure no-one thought it was a crazy Baptist (or Catholic, or Jew, or Buddhist, or atheist.) Instead, I’m pretty sure it turned into a game of “Guess that Name.” I guessed Mustafa Muhhamad bin Durbin, and being furthest from correct, was sentenced to read two chapters of Dreams from My Father. Or as they call it in Guantanamo Bay: “Torture.”

On the upside, Obama and Co. informed us this was an “isolated incident,” a wholly believable statement inasmuch as if Al-Qaida is known for anything, it certainly wouldn’t be airplane attacks. Also, he assured us that this character was not a “true Muslim,” and that we shouldn’t “jump to conclusions.” Or maybe those statements were from one of the many other isolated incidents involving suspicious and similarly named fellows. Just too many random, isolated incidents to keep track of.

President Obama took multiple positions on the matter of the terrorist man-made disaster activist situation. First, the system worked as planned. Then, the system “obviously” didn’t work as planned. The administration has become so used to always claiming victory (10.2% unemployment? Right on track!), that Janet Napolitano naturally assumed that even though a terrorist managed to get on a plane and set off a bomb, they would have done a swell job at cleaning up the mess afterward. Obama would have graded himself a “A” on handling the issue if not for the fact that the disaster activist had actually managed to set the (luckily malfunctioning) bomb. So, instead, he settled for a solid B+.

And after breaking away from his perfectly humble vacation in Hawaii to give us an update, Obama had more good news for us: He’s going to fix airline security. Using the same model that has helped turn around the economy, gotten people back to work, fixed health care, secured the 2016 Olympics, and lowered the ocean levels, Obama will refuse to do the only thing that would work: Profile. After all, when you refuse to recognize an enemy, how would you know how to profile them?