The TSA says there are no children on the the ‘no-fly’ and ‘selectee’ lists. Yet, little Mikey Hicks (a frequent flyer), has been getting patted and searched since he was 2. Is it any wonder that I find these lists and their proposed expanded usage troublesome.
Category Archives: constitution
This is troubling
The White House is talking about bypassing the Senate’s Constitutional role:
With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.
I think about this, and find myself hoping that they really don’t mean that. Admittedly, since this is the armed forces, and Obama is Commander in Chief, they can do this easily. But, it shows a lack of respect for the Constitutional process (and I question its legality). With this attitude. they could sign any treaty they want, and enforce it, without ratification by the Senate (just don’t let it go up for a vote). Instead, they should be requesting consideration from the Senate to review and vote on ratifying it as soon as it is signed.
This is why I had reservations about these laws
They now want to take away more of the rights of those on the “terrorist watch list.” (CNN)
When people on the government’s terrorist watch list have tried to buy guns or explosives in recent years, the government has let them the vast majority of the time.
That’s the finding of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, sent to lawmakers last month and released publicly Monday.
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The GAO provided the report in response to a request from Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey. The GAO said Lautenberg had requested an update to a 2005 report.
In a statement Monday, Lautenberg said, “this new report is proof positive that known and suspected terrorists are exploiting a major loophole in our law, threatening our families and our communities. This ‘terror gap’ has been open too long, and our national security demands that we shut it down.”
The statement said Lautenberg is introducing legislation that would give the U.S. attorney general “authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists.”
There is a huge problem with this, nobody on the terrorist watch list has been found guilty of anything. At one time, Senator Edward Kennedy was on the list. The list just has names. And, if your name is similar to someone’s name on the list, you are hit with the same restrictions (this has happened to two-year-old). If we allow the government to arbitrarily restrict this Constitutionally protected right, what is to stop them from restricting others? What is to prevent them from putting all of the current (or future) administrations’ opponents, on this list? What will prevent them from adding you, your friends, and/or your family to this list? This very list is the problem. Unless it is modified such that being put on the list is the result of a court action, where the accused is allowed to defend him/herself, the terrorist watch list needs to go away.
I’m Completely Cool With This
Liberals Use Heller to Bolster More Than the Second Amendment
The Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in D.C. v. Heller was a constitutional earthquake, breathing life into the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual right to bear arms.
But the aftershock of that decision is beginning to transform the constitutional landscape well beyond gun rights, in ways that have liberals cheering and even joining hands with one-time adversaries like the National Rifle Association.
In a follow-on case pending before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a progressive legal group and liberal law professors including Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin earlier this month joined gun-rights advocates in urging that the right established in Heller, which involved only the District of Columbia, be extended to apply against gun restrictions in the 50 states. The case is McDonald v. Chicago, a challenge to that city’s strict gun control law and, no matter what, the outcome is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
But these academics and the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center, which filed a brief in the case, have not suddenly taken up the Second Amendment cause, Charlton Heston-style. Rather, they joined the case to urge the court to adopt a new way of making the rights protected by the federal Constitution apply to the states (a process known as “incorporation”).
Basically, instead of the piecemeal incorporation of rights by taking each one through the courts, this could lead to the entirety of the Bill of Rights being incroporated. Go and read the article. It is great food for thought.
The Republican Party Has Signed its Death Warrant
Q: Should people have access to buy assault weapons?
A: Society should draw lines. What do you need an assault weapon for, if you’re going hunting? That’s overkill. But I don’t think that means you go to a total ban for those who want to use gun for skeet shooting or hunting or things like that But what’s the point of passing gun laws if we’re not going to enforce them? If you want to talk about gun control, that’s where you need to start. We’ve got 300 gun laws on the books right now. At the end of the day, it’s about how we enforce the law.
The Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is about defending yourself and your family from others, including a government that is stepping all over our individual rights.
If you are supporter of smaller government and increased personal freedom instead of “group rights,” do not send a dime to the Republican party. Contact them and let them know what a mistake it was to alienate such a large section of their base. Contact Republican politicians and suggest they switch parties to a party that more accurately reflects their values, or they lose your vote. If you are a member of the NRA, you need to contact them and let them know that they need to withdraw support from the Republican party.
This Is Scary
I took this civics test. I got 30 out of 33 right. This test was given 2500 people. 164 were people holding, or who had held, office. Here are some of the results for the elected officials:
- Seventy-nine percent of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
- Thirty percent do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
- Twenty-seven percent cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
- Forty-three percent do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
- Fifty-four percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Thirty-nine percent think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Only 32% can properly define the free enterprise system, and only 41% can identify business profit as “revenue minus expenses.”
This is frightening. We are electing people who know nothing about government. But, when you consider that the average score on the test is 44% (politicians averaged 40%), it is not unexpected.
An Interesting Thought
“In 1919 it took a Constitutional Amendment for the Federal Government to prohibit a certain mind-altering drug.
Today it takes little more than the stroke of a pen.”
