Boehner's Opportunity

Next month, John Boehner will take over as Speaker of the House from Nancy Pelosi, who justified her use of a jet to transport her between DC and her home based on her position in the line of succession to the presidency. He has an opportunity to correct a flaw in 3 U.S.C. § 19, the law providing for that succession if there is no Vice President to take over. As his position provides an opportunity for the presidency to switch to the opposing party, if he were to introduce or support legislation to remove the two Congressional members in the line of succession, it would be rightly seen as putting principle above political advantage.

James Madison, widely considered the Father of the Constitution, disagreed with the first Presidential Succession law that placed the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House in the line of succession. To his objections, let me attempt to add a few others:

Using our current situation as an example, if some combination of circumstances removed both President Obama and Vice President Biden from office before another Vice President could be nominated and approved, the odds are pretty good that those circumstances are extraordinarily bad. At such a difficult time, a President Boehner who had a sitting Cabinet almost entirely composed of the opposing party would find it even more difficult to govern. Meanwhile, the House would have its own succession to work through. Presumably, Eric Cantor would move up to Speaker, and the other Republican leaders would each slide up one position, assuming of course that whatever took out both the President and Vice President at the same time didn't also take out the Speaker...

Traditionally, the Senate President Pro Tempore is the senior member of the Majority party, which skews toward really old people. Robert Byrd was 93 when he died in office. Strom Thurmond was 99 years old when he last held the title of President Pro Tempore. The current PPT, Daniel Inouye, is 86 years old. Any scenario I can imagine under which Obama, Biden, and Boehner are either dead, incapacitated, or otherwise removed from office before any of them can get a new VP in place is not one in which an octogenarian legislator should be the Commander in Chief.

In my opinion, the simultaneous vacancy of both President and Vice President is best filled by someone who has been in Cabinet meetings throughout the administration, and already has a good working relationship with the other members of that Cabinet.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]
Speaker Boehner should support legislation that removes himself and Senator Inouye from the line of succession, and puts Secretary of State Clinton behind Vice President Biden, where she rightly belongs.

Yes, I just endorsed Clinton over Boehner for POTUS. Weird, but entirely logical.

Threely for this post: http://3.ly/BoehnerOpportunity

Hannan Explains US Exceptionalism

Peter Robinson sat down with British MEP Daniel Hannan for a five part interview [Part 1|2|3|4|5] right before the election. His recurring theme is that America's institutions and culture have reinforced each other to set us apart from the European institutions and culture from which we separated long ago, creating our exceptional liberty and prosperity. Hannan says Obama is trying to make the US more European, and therefore less American. And he has help from the ruling class in all parties.

One key insight is that we have what he calls "open" primaries. By that he doesn't mean that Democrats can vote in Republican primaries to choose the Republican nominees for various races, but that Republcans can do so. You see, in the European model, the party bosses choose who stands for election in each district. Ponder that when you see and hear the elitists in both parties telling us how those darned TEA Party extremists cost the GOP control of the Senate by nominating all of those divisive candidates instead of the safe RINOs that we may rest assured would have won in a walk.

Michael Steele groks Palin and the Tea Party Movement

I've had my differences with some of the things Michael Steele has said and done during his tenure as GOP Chairman, but this Politico interview shows me he gets it now. He has been listening to the hoi polloi and communicates their message to the party elites:

Threely: http://3.ly/SteelePalinTP

Firewall 4: Natural Law

Bill's at it again with the fourth in his series "What We Believe", this time explaining the idea of natural law:
If you haven't seen the others yet, get caught up here:

The Right to Earn a Living

Reason TV interviews Timothy Sandefur, author of The Right to Earn a Living about the gradual subversion of the Constitution to allow government intrusive regulatory power.

The Forgotten Man

The Forgotten Man:

Krista Branch: Remember Who We Are

Can't wait for the official video to come out. Here's a unofficial one for Krista Branch's new song:

Let the NAACP explain this

At an Atlanta tea party meeting....

I am America

Incorporation Insanity

I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode. Yesterday, I was celebrating the RKTBA victory in McDonald v. Chicago in the chat room of The Ed Morrissey Show when the discussion turned to the crucial question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment had "incorporated" the Second Amendment to bind the states as well as the "Federal" government against infringing gun rights.

My reaction was described as "barking". I can't believe that learned men and women can read the same words I read and come to the conclusions they have reached. Either I'm barking mad, or they are.

I responded that the Second Amendment doesn't need to be "incorporated", because it applied to all levels of government ever since December 15, 1791. Just read its text:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There isn't a word there saying that the "Federal" government can't infringe that right, but States can, unlike the First Amendment, which plainly opens with the phrase "Congress shall make no law..."

Somehow, the notion has become popular that the Constitution only defined the limitations on the powers of the "Federal" government, and did not limit the powers of the States. But that's complete nonsense: Article I, Section 10 explicitly restricts State power, Article IV is all about the States, and Article VI places limits on State laws.

The Tenth Amendment says:

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.

I see this as yet another case of the Constitution helping to define the powers of States: It leaves it to the people of each state to write their own constitutions to determine what powers to grant the state government, provided that nothing in the Constitution either gives that power to the "Federal" government or places it off-limits to the states.

Since the Tenth Amendment was proposed en masse with eleven others, including the Second, one could plausibly argue that its wording informs or restricts the meaning of the Second. In my analysis, the only glimmer of a theory under which the Second Amendment doesn't apply to the States is found here. This reading of the Tenth basically says "If the Constitution doesn't come right out and use the word 'state' in declaring a limit on government power, then that limit only applies to the 'Federal' government, not the states".

But I'm not buying that reading. When I read the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the original Articles of the Constitution, Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights, I come to the inescapable conclusion that when any of those documents speak of rights of the people that must not be infringed, they mean that those rights are superior to the powers of any government, and a government which infringes those rights, in doing so is violating its very reason to exist.

[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full article.]So, am I barking mad, or is the judicial consensus so far from what our first Congress meant when they proposed the Second Amendment, and the states understood when they ratified it, that I just seem insane as a sane man must appear in a world gone mad?

Awesome campaign Ad

For some reason, I can't embed this:

Day by Day: Declarative

Chris Muir tries Bill's challenge to write out the words of the Declaration of Independence by hand:


You are reading Day by Day, well, day by day, aren't you?

Reagan v. Obama

If you haven't listened to this clip yet, do it. Do it now.


HT: Cubachi

A Proclamation

It was appropriate then, it's appropriate now.

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houſes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requeſted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eſtabliſh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and aſſign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of theſe States to the ſervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our ſincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the ſignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpoſitions of His providence in the courſe and concluſion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have ſince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eſtablish Conſtitutions of government for our vafety and happineſs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleſſed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffuſing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleaſed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moſt humbly offering our prayers and ſupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beſeech Him to pardon our national and other tranſgreſſions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ſtations, to perform our ſeveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleſſing to all the people by conſtantly being a Government of wiſe, juſt, and conſtitutional laws, diſcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all ſovereigns and nations (especially ſuch as have shewn kindneſs unto us); and to bleſs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increaſe of ſcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind ſuch a degree of temporal proſperity as he alone knows to be beſt.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand ſeven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

[Ed note: Whoever digitized this into characters must have mistaken the "long s" form "ſ" ("ſ" above, where it is not italicized), common in English writing back then, for the lower-case "f" it so closely resembles. The ſ form was the norm, with "short s" reserved for the ends of words. Some writers would also use the latter form even in the middle of a word for the second letter of a double-s: "ſs". This has more than a passing resemblance to the ß in modern German that is rendered "ss" in Switzerland, or where the former ligature is unavailable. As a Language Martinet, I study such things, and have corrected the mistranscription accordingly. Happy Thankſgiving, everyone!]

The Problem With "Experts"

Over at Watts Up With That, one of the comments was so good that Anthony decided it deserved to be an article in its own right. This is something I find the Dextrosphere and talk radio do very well: We don't just dispense the news ex cathedra as the MainScream Media does. They seem so protective of their lofty status as gatekeepers that they won't allow anyone else to steal the spotlight from them.

Although he puts on a show of being a bombastic egomaniac, Rush Limbaugh knows when to shut up and let a caller carry the show. So does Neal Boortz. Back in the old days of ejectejecteject.com, Bill Whittle called one of my comments "profound", setting in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the creation of this site. Neither Anthony, Rush, Neal, or Bill bothered to check the resumés of "Caleb Shaw", "Susan in Glendale", "Vick the Ranger", or "The Monster". It wasn't important who we were. What mattered was what we had to say.

Contrast this with the Gorebots who make the classic appeal to authority ("The science is in; the IPCC report says AGW is for real, and anyone who disagrees is a denier"); the technocrats who insisted that out of 300 million Americans, the only person who could fix our troubled financial markets was Timothy "Turbo Tax" Geithner; or the identity-politics crowd who insisted that "a wise Latina" would make a better Justice, or a Halfrican American who went to Indonesian madrassas could, simply by being who he is and assuming the office of POTUS, heal all our ills both foreign and domestic.

Over the course of my life I've learned from many people. Of course I've gained much from exposure to the writings and speeches of great intellects, but I've known people who were stoners of Jeff Spicoli's ilk, and people classified as mentally retarded, who have uttered nuggets of wisdom that have served me well. Smart people think that they are so much smarter than the common man that they are justified in ruling by force over them. Truly wise people recognize that no matter how smart they may be, they don't know everything, and that generally, everyone knows the most about his own life.

The Way it Ought to be Sung!

A friend sends this along with a comment:

"As football season approaches, there will be many variations, but this is the real deal."

"This is beautiful, as the anthem was written not like some pop singer trying to 'stylize' it."

"And we can add auto racing also."

Hannan!

When South East England's MEP Daniel Hannan speaks, we should listen:

Here he talks about the Anglo-Saxon heritage of freedom and decentralized political power that was exported to America, then forgotten in the UK. He warns us against following that same road, and we ignore his advice at our peril.

Whittle vs. The Narrative

I don't normally bother to comment on just every "Afterburner" episode Bill does on PJTV. The link is over there in the sidebar, and I figure most people who come here go there. Insty links to most of them too.

But this one is a must see. Bill eviscerates MSNBC and the rest of the MainScream Media as the dishonest scum that they are. Set aside 15 minutes, pop yourself some popcorn, and enjoy a good old-fashioned ass-whoopin'. (Bill is the one doing the whoopin'.)

Stars and Stripes Forever!

Sitting here listening to Sousa marches. Happy Independence Day!

Federalism, we hardly knew ye

John Stossel interviews San Luis Obispo (CA) County Sheriff Pat Hedges, whose department investigated medical marijuana purveyor Charlie Lynch, who was operating within the state law. Hedges insists that Lynch was breaking California law, but no charges were filed to that effect. Instead, he cooperated with the DEA and the US Department of Justice to file charges in Federal court. Lynch's defense was forbidden to tell the jury that California has a law allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana.

Can someone show me where in the US Constitution it says that Congress can make a law regulating marijuana grown in California, sold in California, and consumed in California? I've read that thing literally hundreds of times, and I can't find where it has that kind of power. I've heard some wacky theories the Supreme Court has entertained to justify things like the USDA sticking its nose into intrastate agricultural dealings, but none of them make any sense to me.