A way to silence DC, PR statehood proposals

DC non-voting delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's been running her mouth lately, raising awareness of the peculiar relationship betweeen her constituents and Congress. Periodically, we hear of efforts to bring statehood to the District, or Puerto Rico; less often the US Virgin Islands or Guam. The driving force behind these movements is usually the electoral reality that the proposed states are expected to reliably send Democrats to Congress. I've done some thinking about the "fairness" argument, and I believe I have a solution.

Both my eldest brother and Monsterette 1’s husband have served in the US Air Force, maintaining legal residence in KS while living and working in OK, CO, TX, Japan, etc. They filled out KS resident income tax forms, and could vote in our elections. I am thus inspired to propose a Constitutional amendment that will forever negate the “DC statehood” nonsense. As an added bonus, I'm taking out Motor Voter and other sources of fraudulent voting.

Amendment ___
1. The Twenty-Third article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

2. Those persons who are citizens of the United States, but maintain their primary physical residence outside of all of the several States, whether in a territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States or any foreign State; may declare to the United States their State of citizenship among any of the several states. They are then subject to such taxes as that State may levy upon its citizens, and if otherwise qualified, are entitled to vote in that State’s elections.

3. Congress shall have the power to make uniform regulations regarding such declarations, which shall assure that no person asserts citizenship in two or more States concurrently. The regulations may set a minimum period of citizenship in one State before a new declaration may be made, which may not exceed twenty months.

4. Congress shall have no power to limit such laws as a State may impose to require prior registration and/or positive identification before voting in an election, provided that the statutory deadline for such registration be no more than a hundred days before the first day that votes may be cast in that election.

As a practical matter, if this could be passed, I'd expect most of the residents of DC who exercise this option to declare themselves MD citizens, as the District was formed from MD and it's most convenient for them to travel there to deal with state government issues. I'm less certain about US citizens living in other places; those in PR would probably choose FL, but some might decide to virtually join family in other states, such as NY.

Does anyone see a downside to this idea? I'm trying to imagine ACORN organizing to get everyone in DC to declare residence in a particular state to sway an election there, but I just don't see how they'd actually carry it out.

Firewall 12: The End of the Beginning

Bill is back with another Firewall. Enjoy:

Threely: http://3.ly/Firewall12

Firewall 11: Obama's Friends and Enemies

Bill is back with a barn-burner of a Firewall. Enjoy:

Firewall 10: SOTU Response

Bill is back with another Firewall:


Threely for this post: http://3.ly/Firewall10

Vitriol, Hate, Spin

Posted with permission from the author:

I for one am tired of hearing about the "Vitriol" and "Hate" some say are used in todays discussions and speech about politics.

It seems that for some, a difference of OPINION and political views is enough to get one classified as a "HATER" or as someone who uses vitriolic speech.

We should be careful not to fall into this trap or mindset, labels are often thrown around to try and silence those that have an honest sincere disagreement with anothers views.

I would like to ask those that are using these terms and throwing these labels around, just what they want and expect from the MILLIONS of Americans who have concerns about our country and the direction it is going.

If you want to have an HONEST straightforward discussion/debate about the state of politics in this country, you MUST consider the views of both sides.
You must understand that there are MILLIONS of Americans who love their country, are extremely concerned about the welfare of their children, are and have been hard working tax paying citizens..... all they have is their VOICES and VOTES to try and keep the country that they love intact.

Consider WHAT they see and HOW they feel when:

They see the Health Care Bill rammed down their throats... with votes that were bought and paid for. When a Congresswoman is shown on national TV saying that " I didn't come cheap, I got a hospital for MY vote."

The speaker of the house laughs when asked about the constitution and answers "Are you serious??, Are you serious??"

When John Kerry says... "The American voter has historically been disinterested in the politics of our country...." and laments that now, the American voter has opened his eyes..... sad that some of us are awake and paying attention now.

When Cass Sunstein, Obama's regulatory Czar says that he believes children should be able to be aborted up to the age of TWO YEARS OLD because they are not self aware.... and that ANIMALS should have the right to sue humans and should have their day in court.

There are MANY examples of acts and statements that cause honest Americans to be concerned.

I would suggest that those that are so very quick to talk about vitriol and hate are those that would see our country ravaged and changed for the worse.

Maybe, just maybe, if we had an administration that followed our constitution
instead of looking at it as an impediment to their way of governing, we wouldn't have this "VITRIOL."

Maybe if the laws of our country were followed and the government DID it's job instead of being concerned about the things that it was not given the power to do, things would be better.

I don't know what the label throwers want.... maybe we should just shut up, sit down, and pay our taxes.... because apparently if we don't, we are haters.

I'm just tired of the smoke and mirrors, tired of of the labels and lies.

Just venting....... sorry for the RANT!!

Firewall 9: Obama at Halftime

Funny: The Big Gavel

About That "Fox News Viewers are Misinformed" Study

This one's well worth your time:

The definition of "misinformed" seems to be "disagrees with us". The video highlights Peter Schiff's famous prediction of the collapse of the housing bubble, with another talking head acting like he was nuts. I'm sure that a similar study done before the bubble popped would have found him "misinformed".

Speaking of that collapse, I'll never forget the day in the '08 campaign when Sarah Palin made a comment about how Fannie and Freddie were going to cost taxpayers a bunch of money, and the talking points memos went out: "What an uninformed rube she is! Doesn't she know that Fannie and Freddie aren't actually government agencies?". That was what they hammered for, oh, about three days, until it became crystal clear that that ignorant chillbilly was right, and the US taxpayer was going to be on the hook for billions.

Then there was the time she put up that Facebook post about "death panels", which of course we are assured weren't in Obamacare. And a few days later, they took out some end-of-life counseling that look an awful lot like death panels. And now they've put that counseling back in via administrative fiat. And the FDA has killed Avastin to fight breast cancer. Stupid, stupid Sarah with her funny accent and goofy kids' names....

I've lost count of the times the libs mock Glenn Beck for his "crazy talk". Funny thing about that, though. I keep thinking "well, he's gone off the deep end with this one", but a few months go by and his "crazy talk" becomes reality. More "misinformation" for the Fox viewers, right?

Firewall 8: A Nation of Desire

Bill explains how the Judeo-Christian morality in our culture promotes liberty:

Merry Christmas!

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

Monckton: The Not-So-Hidden Agenda of GoreBull Warning

Viscount Monckton explains the GoreBull Warning endgame:

Firewall 7: American Exceptionalism

Bill somehow manages to score a 7-run grand slam:

You can buy the DVD of the entire "What We Believe" series too. Great stocking stuffer for friends and relatives who don't understand us.

"I Don't Understand" with Obama

Neal Boortz describes this video with the tweet: "So simple even a liberal Democrat could understand it."

He may be a bit optimistic about that. In my experience, they recoil at any DoublePlusUngood CrimeThink.

Quantitative Easing Explained

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.

Firewall 5: Gun Rights

Bill is back with part 5 of his Firewall series:

See the Ad Mysteriously "Forgotten" by New Castle County Cable

Even though Christine O'Donnell's campaign bought the airtime last week, somehow the cable company in New Castle County, DE (whose county executive, coincidentally, is her opponent in the Senate race) "forgot" to run it. Never fear; you can see it right here:

We the People of the First State from Friends of Christine O'Donnell on Vimeo.

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:

A Time For Choosing

46 years ago today, and what the Gipper says is still true, except even more so.
H/T Sarah Palin

Threely: http://3.ly/Time4Choosing