New “Freedom Index" Rates Congressmen Based on Constitution

The folks at The John Birch Society and their publication the New American have published a new tool called the Freedom Index, which rates Congressmen concerning their voting record based on their oath to the US Constitution.

I wasn't surprised, but the US Senate is sorely lacking, except for Sen. Rand Paul who received a rating of 100 percent. One that was a positive surprise was Sen. Rubio, who received an 88 percent making him second to Sen. Paul.

Republicans overall were hurt by thier warmongering and expansion of the police state. The Democrats were hurt by...well, by their belief in tyranny.

Of Carousels and Constitutional Amendments.

The following is an opinion piece I've been piecing together for a couple months. It is quite long; I apologize for the length.

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“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?” - Will Rogers

In 1932, as the country moved towards the repeal of the 18^th Amendment and Prohibition via what would become the 21^st Amendment, John D Rockefeller wrote in a letter:

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before; ...

The rise and fall of the 18^th Amendment fascinates me. It is a rare moment in history where many of those who pursued transformative change recognized that the tool employed to implement that change had failed to not only deliver, but exacerbated many of the same problems they had hoped to address and do away with. It is also interesting because it sets a degree of precedent for what a constitutional amendment can or cannot accomplish in the greater context of the American Experiment.

What is a constitutional amendment, in and of itself? A writ to improve the intercourse between a government and the governed by articulating and defining that relationship? A reflection of an evolving society grappling with its growth and needs and desires? Or, like any law created by the hand of man, something that aspires toward something “better” by revealing our own views and desires regarding the concepts of freedom and liberty (and how mutually exclusive those two terms actually are sometimes)?

Perhaps all of those observations have a fair claim to being the truth … but, as the case of the 18^th Amendment reveals, the obligation to and ramifications of such concepts do not stop with ratification. It is my view that for the ideal of self determination to reach its full flower, a people must not only be able to take another step into the future, but understand the wisdom (or lack thereof) exhibited by their forebears and how it led to the here and now. The ruling of “Progress” is that what transpired and drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 has become, over two centuries, outmoded given our advancements in communications, travel, quality of life and economy as well as our shift in attitudes about religion, equality and the role of the federal government. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that we have evolved as a society past what a bunch of dead white men could have ever dreamed.

Letter to the Editor Repeal the 17th Amendment

Letter to the Editor Repeal the 17th Amendment; Star Democrat

The so-called Gang of Six in the U.S. Senate is working on a proposal to reduce the federal deficit by modest, phased-in spending cuts coupled with significant (and mostly immediate) tax increases.


The plan is nothing more than a sham designed to make us think they are doing something for us when in fact they are trying to secure their own re-elections. The dirty truth is that the Gang is actually trying to prevent programs from being cut.


That's because every government program, even the ones wildly derided as wasteful and unnecessary, have constituencies that support them. The Gang of Six doesn't want to do away with programs for two reasons:


First, every program being cut benefits some group of voters who the senators don't want to risk alienating.


Second, most programs have special interest groups who lobby for their continued existence by holding endless fundraisers for the senators.


The senators don't want to bite the hands that feed them; they need help to get re-elected.


We should change the way we elect senators by repealing the 17th Amendment.


The 17th Amendment ended the practice of state legislatures selecting senators and began their direct election by the populace instead. Prior to it, senators were accountable to the state governments, not to Washington special interests who fund their expensive campaigns.


If we can get back to the original arrangement, then the powerful constituencies who suckle at the teet of momma government will fade away as their power to virtually guarantee senators' re-elections recedes.


MICHAEL ANDERSEN, Cordova

The Super Unconstitutional "Super Congress"

'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body; Huffington Post

Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.


This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.


Legislation approved by the Super Congress -- which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" -- would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.


House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal, multiple news reports and people familiar with his plan say. A picture of Boehner's proposal began to come into focus Saturday evening: The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, its plan would presumably include at least some revenue, though if it's anything like the deals on the table today, it would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts. Or, as Obama said of the deal he was offering Republicans before Boehner walked out, "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."

Comment: Some days I say to myself, "It's all over."

“The Beautiful Water Lilies”

We went to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, here in KC MO, to see its exhibit of
“Monet's Water Lilies”.  These 3 panels were placed side-by-side in a panoramic display. What the reader may find interesting is that I am blue/green color blind.  So, how did these master pieces appear to someone color blind?

I listened to people describe Monet’s works; I watched people snoop close each canvas to better understand and appreciate Monet’s’ works, and I watched museum staff guard these rare paintings. Folks were discussing purples, greens, blues, etc.  They were speaking about motion on a still canvas, etc.

Scheuer: More interventionism = More defense spending

More interventionism = More defense spending; Micheal Scheuer: Non-interventionism.com

With all eyes focused on the Republicans and Democrats trying to out-incompetent each other on the federal budget, I thought it best to keep quiet until that exercise is complete. But I think the unreality of the whole budget mess is so pervasive that I decided to throw in my two cents in the area where I have at least a bit of knowledge and experience; that is, on the issue of interventionism.

Our interventionist foreign policy costs large amounts of money to conduct and even larger amounts to defend America against the hatreds and wars it causes. Indeed, the United States is today at war with an increasing portion of the Muslim world and, under President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, the interventionism that is fueling that war is accelerating.

Now, a major point of focus for cutting federal spending has been the defense budget. That certainly is a worthy target for reduction, and would be an ideal venue for deep cuts if our interventionist foreign policy was not in a belly-up condition and our national security was not withering away. While it seems likely that we could do with fewer nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, any money that would be saved on such items — and much more — will have to spent in other defense- and intelligence-related areas as long as U.S. foreign policy remains an affair of full-bore interventionism. At least five factors will drive increased — not decreased — federal spending on defense and intelligence in the next few years.

Read the rest here.

Comment: As we approach the election season voters should realize how this inventionist policy is a contunity of policy of the two main parties; it's really one in the same for Republicans and Democrats.

It is the two main parties that provide the bulwark of effort to dissolve the constitutional place of the States and the enlargement of the National Government, where as the warfare state is one of the three prongs they use to further attack the US Constitution. (The three prongs of their attack are the welfare, warfare and police states, all of which are destroying what the founders created.)

There is much we have to do to restore our republic back to the structure and manner the founders created because the statist attack is so well coordinated. However, one definitive way that would effect a real change and would remove the force behind their attacks is to repeal the 17th Amendment. Only by restoring the States rightful place in the Federal Government will we be able to stop this warfare state expansion, but so too the maddening rise of the police state in our airports and communities, and welfare state of Obama Care.

Repealing the 17th is no longer an obscure and esoteric ideal, but rather today it is the quadruple by-pass needed to save a dying nation.

Senate Gang O Six Plan to Increase Taxes

Senate group offers $3.75 trillion deficit cuts; Reuters

Toward the bottom of the article:

The Senate group's hope has been that if the three conservative Republican members embrace revenue increases, the idea could catch fire among other Republicans in the Senate and House -- especially if popular but expensive entitlement programs such as Medicare also shoulder some cuts.

Comment: Wake up folks, time to repeal the 17th Amendment.

Sen. Feinstein to put Senate spotlight on gay marriage

Sen. Feinstein to put Senate spotlight on gay marriage; USA Today

A Senate committee this week will put the spotlight on gay marriage, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein pushes for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.


Feinstein, D-Calif., is the lead sponsor of a bill to repeal the law known as DOMA, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman and bans federal recognition of gay marriage. The Obama administration earlier this year said it would no longer defend DOMA, saying the legal landscape has changed.


Most recently, New York became the largest state to allow same-sex marriages -- an action that gay rights supporters say gives momentum to similar laws across the country.


Feinstein on Tuesday is expected to be joined at a news conference by three gay couples who will talk about the roadblocks they've faced from DOMA. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the existing law and discuss Feinstein's repeal bill.


"My own belief is that when two people love each other and enter the contract of marriage, the federal government should honor that," Feinstein said in February, when the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the anti-gay marriage law.

Comment: As Rahm Israel Emanuel always says, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." So this move by Feinstein should come to no surprise. But as Ron Paul says and I paraphrase, this is not a matter for the Federal Government, no matter what side you are on.

Diane Feinstein, one of a hundred reasons to repeal the 17th Amendment.

Coburn proposes $9 trillion deficit cut measure

Coburn proposes $9 trillion deficit cut measure; AP

One of the Senate's staunchest budget-cutters unveiled Monday a massive plan to cut the nation's deficit by $9 trillion over the coming decade, including $1 trillion in tax increases opposed by most of his fellow Republicans.


The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.


Coburn would also eliminate $1 trillion in tax breaks over the coming decade, earning him an immediate rebuke from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax organization with which Coburn has had a running feud. He would block taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and limit it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets. ...

Comment: The program is not laced with politically perilous proposals as the writer described, these the necessary steps taken by a doctor who is trying to fix a heart needing a quadruple bypass.

Tea Party Tweets 'Help McConnell Find His Spine'

Tea Party Tweets 'Help McConnell Find His Spine;' NewsMax.com

Apparently angered by a controversial debt plan submitted today by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the influential conservative Tea Party organization FreedomWorks is telling its followers on Twitter to call him and “help him find his spine.”


The group clearly believes that the plan, which effectively gives President Obama authority to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, is wrong, according to The Hill, which first reported the tweet.


"Sen. McConnell thinks cutting spending is too hard. Help him find his
spine! Call him at 202-224-2541," the group tweeted.


Under McConnell's plan, Congress could only stop Obama from raising the debt ceiling in comparably small increments by passing disapproval resolutions. The resolutions though would require two-thirds support in both the House and Senate to overcome Obama's veto.

Comment: As if this is all part of a grand competition of power, when in reality it is nothing more than a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.

Schiff: US debt ceiling talks in deadlock

And Then There is Libya

Of Muslim Brothers, bin Laden’s papers, Bloombergian tyranny, and Libya; Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention

–Libya: The unconstitutional Obama-Clinton-McCain-Graham-led NATO war on Libya seems bound to make North Africa a mujahedin paradise from Mauritania to the Suez Canal. Colonel Gaddafi, Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and the current Algerian regime were long the reliable if bloody-and-brutal bulwark against an effective Islamist movement in North Africa. With Ben Ali and Mubarak gone and Gaddafi on the ropes, only the Algerians remain, and they — with more discreet Moroccans, Mauritanians, and Chadians — are signaling in every way possible that the U.S.-French-British-UN crusade against Libya is going to yield an enormous Islamist victory, but so far to no avail. The interventionists Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy seem to think that they know far better than their little Third-World brothers — they are Muslims, after all — and are content to wage the war and wait for what they have determined will be the inevitable triumph of secular democracy across North Africa. Indeed, so confident are the interventionists that the Libyan rebels are true-blue democrats that the French are air-dropping arms to the resistance’s Islamist-dominated military forces, even as the latter are cleaning out several of Gaddafi’s enormous arsenals of modern weaponry and reinforcing themselves with veteran fighters by opening Gaddafi’s prisons. If mindless wishing for the best can make it so, the West will not suffer from the Libyan war. If reality and history have their way, however, it is best to start battening down the hatches.

Pilot's Bill of Rights But TSA Still Rapes America

Pilot's Bill of Rights Introduced in U.S. Senate; EAANews

A bipartisan group of 23 lawmakers have signed as co-sponsors to “Pilot’s Bill of Rights” legislation introduced Wednesday in the U.S. Senate. The measure, if passed, would provide pilots with expanded due process rights in case of FAA enforcement actions, as well as clarify NOTAM and medical certification procedures for general aviation.

Comment: These knuckleheads have time for this puff of hot air, yet they have no time to make sure the citizens have the real BILL OF RIGHTS all the while the TSA is still sexually assaulting us. 

And This Man Is the New Secretary of Defense?

And This Man Is the New Secretary of Defense? Laurence Vance; LRC

Leon Panetta, who was recently confirmed by the Senate to be the new Secretary of Defense, told American troops in Iraq on Monday:

"The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda. We've been fighting as a result of that."

Not even George Bush utters that lie anymore.


And what was the Senate vote to confirm Panetta? 100-0.

Comment:  Oh yeah...and he got Bin Laden too.

The True “Hot Dog” Story

At New York’s Coney Island hot dog eating contest, the male winner downed 62 dogs, while the female winner swallowed 40 of these puppies. There are three separate questions about eating America’s favorite summer cook-out meat.

• One: who can eat so many of these things, and how big is their stomach?
• Two: who wants to eat these mystery meat things, not knowing the true, hidden ingredients.  
• Three: How do hotdogs match the Federal government’s legislation and regulations?

America’s hot dog enthusiasts have 2 favorite brands: Nathan's Famous Beef Franks; with ingredients of  Beef, water, contains less than 2% of salt, sorbitol, sodium lactate, natural flavorings, sodium phosphate, hydrolyzed corn protein, paprika, sodium diacetate, sodium erthorbate, sodium nitrite ;Oscar Mayer Classic Beef Franks with ingredients of Beef, water, contains less than 2% of salt, corn syrup, potassium lactate, dextrose, sodium phosphate, sodium diacetate, flavor, ascorbic acid, extractives of paprika, sodium nitrite.

If the reader will do his/her own research, processed mystery meats are in the dogs. ” Ingredients of “Beef’” may include heart, unborn calves, beef tallow, etc. Industry mandated labeling prints how much salt and sodium are added. What is “natural flavoring” the processor drops into the receipt?

Nutritionists do not recommend highly processed meats.  The best food stuff is fresh, without chemicals, and as close to its natural state as possible. Hot dogs will for certain occasions or in a pinch. That best food survival attitude comes close to how our present greedy, run away federal government rules our lives. The feds substitute a bunch of “natural flavor” and different ingredients to compress legislative marshmallow packages.

From 2008 until the present, the exertive branch along with the legislative branch flavored America’s appetite with stimulus monies. Keeping the processed food chain active, they made Americans swallow a whole hog of socialized medicine: Obama’s national Health care. By the way registered voters, how’s this working out for our country? Unemployment jumped to 9.2 % in July; the national debt weighed in at $ 14 TRILLION; more home owners are underwater than those positively invested; crude oil moved upwards from $ 70 per barrel to $ 100 per barrel; companies are not hiring, while 14.2 million people are without jobs, income or financial stability; illegal immigration is shoved to the back burner, while drug wars persist, law enforcement is stymied, and our borders remain porous; the nation’s foreign policy lacks focus or relevancy….Like hot digs, the movers and shakers within D.C.”s beltway keep adding extra additives.

Even after eating you fill of hot dogs, you aren’t through with their effects. Two days later, you will have constipation!   An just like the federal government, Death, Taxes and Constipation are eventual outcomes.

Kyl: Taxation isn't enough; Gov needs to charge Americans for their services

tRepublicans back new revenues in debt deal: Kyl; Reuters

Republicans have tentatively agreed to between $150 billion and $200 billion in increased revenues in budget talks, Republican Senator Jon Kyl said on Wednesday.


"If the government sells something and gets revenue from it, that's revenue. If there is a user fee of some kind and we want to raise that to keep up with the times, that's revenue. And if you add up all of the revenues that we Republicans have agreed to, it's between $150 billion and $200 billion," Kyl said on the Senate floor.

Comment: Said another way, the government class will screw you first through taxation then by charging you for the services you paid for when you were taxed.

Back Online

After chasing nonexistent internet access for rural America for a week and then two failed attempts to purchase a used modem through Ebay, I bit the bullet and bought a brand new modem through my satellite internet provider and am officially back online. I plan to begin posting again by the end of the week after I get caught up on my emails. Thank you for your support.