Ensign Sulu, I won't tell you how the Enterprise slipped into a worm hole, and you don't tell me how the Free Exercise Clause and Religious Freedom Restoration Act work.
Like all sensible folk, I wasn't watching the Sunday morning talk shows when UN Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all FIVE network shows. So, until it was reported later that day and in subsequent days, I did not know that the Administration was asserting that the attacks on our Benghazi compounds resulted from a spontaneous response by people of Islamic faith who were offended by a YouTube video deemed blasphemous of Islam.
If Boehner wants to do his job, he needs to forget about suing the President. Even if he can get every Republican in the House to authorize the suit, the federal courts will, ultimately, throw the suit out (a) because of lack of legal standing to sue, or (b) as presenting a non-justiciable political controversy.
Adopting yet another federal law -- the resort of scoundrels as a general rule -- rather than deploying the law as it exists now, is not the answer. It is, however, in keeping with the temper tantrums of our times. Rather than proceeding on Articles of Impeachment, the proposed solution is to adopt a statute.
We are three days past Independence Day. I hope, nonetheless, that you will recognize that usurpation of legislative authority by King George III constituted the principal basis for our rebellion against English tyranny. Obama's tyranny is no less offensive to the republican self-government to which our Declaration aims, our State Constitutions frame, and our National Constitution commits.
Dear Diary, I visited the border today.
The fact is, having one black parent is good enough to make Barack Obama America's first "black president." So what that he didn't know his father? So what that his father bedded and illegally wedded Barack's mother? So what that his father's influence in his life is an after the fact construct for a book ghost written for a future president by a past domestic terrorist?
That Goodlatte believes that the basis for impeaching Obama does not exist leaves me with a dread sense that the one truly representative body of our federal government is captained by the ignorant or the damned.
Not heard in the background of that noise are the soft crunching of gravel under boots as American service members walk into, through and beyond dangers on virtually every continent. Ignored in the press to do this entirely sophistric act of legislative Kabuke theater are the pleas of communities along the southern border to act to reduce the tidal wave of illegal entries into the United States, along with the warnings of those with reason to know that the flood is not just of those seeking a better life here, but also includes, or is at risk of including, those who meld into the flood, so that, on entry into the best and brightest hope of mankind on earth, they can bring terror to the people whose interests have been sacrificed in the Senate in the interest of partisan politics.
With news of federal appeals court decision out of Washington, DC, in the morning on July 22nd, I thought, "this is the best of times." By the time the day had ended, and word came of another appeals court's decision on the same issue out of Richmond, Virginia, I thought "this is the worst of times."
Today's Jacksonville Daily News carried
the story on legislative activities in Washington, DC. Through the unjaundiced
eye of the author, Charles Babington, we had the chance to see through the
hubbub of votes and speeches to the realpolitik at play in these humid days of a
Washington summer: Democrats, who control the Senate, are floating legislative
proposals that will not become law, that they know will not become law, because
the proposals cannot pass muster in the Republican Party controlled House of
Representatives. Babington puts a tidy bow on what actually is occurring as
statist Democrats in the Senate conduct their theater of the bizarre.In
Babington's words, the bills being brought to the floor are only being brought
to the floor to force Republicans "to vote on sensitive matters that might rile
women this fall."
One wishes it were otherwise, that Democrats in the Senate
and Republicans in the House would attend to the actual business of the
Congress. The actual responsibilities of the Congress pertain to the
legislative aspects of the responsibilities of the central, federal
government.
James Madison, writing in The Federalist No. 41, neatly summarized
the responsibilities assigned by the States to the federal government under the
Constitution proposed by the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. Explaining his view
that the States did not grant too much power to the federal government, he
wrote, to
"form
a correct judgment on this subject, it will be proper to review the several
powers conferred on the government of the Union; and that this may be the more
conveniently done they may be reduced into different classes as they relate to
the following different objects: 1. Security against foreign danger; 2.
Regulation of the intercourse with foreign nations; 3. Maintenance of harmony
and proper intercourse among the States; 4. Certain miscellaneous objects of
general utility; 5. Restraint of the States from certain injurious acts; 6.
Provisions for giving due efficacy to all these powers."
A complete
review of The Federalist No. 41 (and Nos. 42 and 43 that complete his thoughts
on the topic) is not possible here. It suffices that he has identified in a
single power the essence of the responsibilities of the federal government as
securing the Nation from external dangers, regulating relations with foreign
nations, insuring harmony and intercourse among the States, and preventing the
States from undertaking certain acts injurious to the People.
The Senate
has all the time in the world, apparently, to conduct "show" votes on issues
designed to inflame the passions of various interest groups. What the Senate
does not have time to bring to the floor for a vote are
appropriations bills, program authorizations bills and
agency authorization bills. Not much of a surprise
for students of the Senate's behavior under the leadership of Harry Reid. The
Senate has failed, consistently and continuously, to bring appropriations bills
to the Senate floor throughout his tenure. The pinch of sequestration, the
pinch of forced shut-downs, these all flow from the battle that follows
after the failure to timely prepare, consider, and
approve appropriations legislation. The House of Representatives has done this
job consistently and timely year after year. The Senate brings to this
essential task the speed of the slow loris, the wisdom of a clown, and the
earnest sincerity of a used car salesman.
And, though one may wonder how
appropriations legislation fits within the essential responsibilities of the
federal government described by Madison in The Federalist No. 41, the answer, it
turns out, is direct and clear. The actions of the federal government are
accomplished through human intermediaries. Federal troops, federal bureaucrats,
federal law enforcement agents, these are paid employees; they work in offices,
buildings and campuses that require heat, light and power. They are employed to
accomplish the objectives (constitutionally legitimate or otherwise) designated
in federal legislation and regulations as their responsibility. The failure to
develop, consider and approve an appropriations bill to fund the activities of
the Department of Defense is, in its essence, a decision to risk or cause the
discontinuation of the activities of that Department. The dread, or silly,
Environmental Protection Agency may run on scientific fumes but requires real
cash to do its work. So the Senate's consistent failure to conduct
appropriations and authorizations legislative activity is gross negligence of
duty.
Worse, it is this naked pandering. Pandering that assumes that
women do not know that they can obtain birth control of any kind authorized by
the FDA simply by spending their own funds for them, and that they will prefer
that the Senate force these kinds of show votes rather than do its duty.
Listen
in to the Democratic Caucus as it ponders how to proceed with its legislative
agenda in the Senate: "We need to distract voters from Barry's catastrophic
Obamacare rollout," Senator So and So opines. "Heck, folks," the hen's tooth
rare Southern Democratic Senator drawls, "we need to distract voters from
Barry's catastrophic Obamacare legislation." "The problem, my learned
colleagues," Harry Reid trumpets, "is that if we actually do what we were sent
here to do, we won't have gotten the special interest groups we need on November
4th worked up to a frothy frenzy." The clopping sounds of the tennis-shoed
Patty Murray approach, "This isn't about November! This is about the injustice
of a Supreme Court decision that leaves women exactly where they were before
Obamacare: paying for their own contraceptives, rather than being able to shift
those expenses onto others." Reid, interrupting, "Senator Murray is correct.
We can, we should, we must bring to the floor for an immediate vote legislation
overturning the Hobby Lobby decisions."
Not heard in the background of
that noise are the soft crunching of gravel under boots as American service
members walk into, through and beyond dangers on virtually every continent.
Ignored in the press to do this entirely sophistric act of legislative Kabuke
theater are the pleas of communities along the southern border to act to reduce
the tidal wave of illegal entries into the United States, along with the
warnings of those with reason to know that the flood is not just of those
seeking a better life here, but also includes, or is at risk of including, those
who meld into the flood, so that, on entry into the best and brightest hope of
mankind on earth, they can bring terror to the people whose interests have been
sacrificed in the Senate in the interest of partisan politics.
Will women
respond as hoped by the Democratic Party cabal in the Senate? I do not have a
crystal ball. I do have a grasp of history. How this fall's election goes
depends greatly on the love of liberty or the preference for personal interest.
If women who love liberty vote accordingly, then the Senate will pass out of the
hands of those who have fecklessly and recklessly ignored their actual duties.
If women who prefer personal interests fattened by the largess of government,
then our long struggle to make a way forward out of continuing economic malaise
and social agitation needs must will continue.
