The Obama administration may be leaning towards trying September 11th mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a military tribunal after all. Barack Obama’s original plan was to try terrorists in civilian courts with full rights under the United States constitution to show that America is a land of laws and that America is better than the people who would cause us harm, but after the outpouring of opposition to the idea of trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a court in New York City– at the sight that Mohammed considers his greatest achievement– the administration appears ready to back down– at least in this case.
We can argue all we want about where people like Nadal Hassan and Abdulmutallab should be tried– and I am willing to admit that the left has more of a case with these two because they were caught on American soil– but there is no way in hell Khalid Sheik Mohammed should ever be granted the same rights as American citizens. This man is an enemy combatant, and admitted masterminding the most successful attack on American soil, he was caught on the battlefield, and he should be tried in a military tribunal and hanged as an enemy of the United States.
Trying this man in a civilian court, with full protections under the constitution that he was fighting against is unjustifiable and the administration now seems like it may be willing to admit this. This would not show the enemy that we are better than them and that we are a good and just country, it would simply show them that we are weak and unwilling to do whatever it takes to beat them.
Hopefully the administration sees the error of its ways and will try Mohammed in a military tribunal, only then will justice be served.
Now that Barack Obama has demanded an up or down vote on his healthcare reform bill, he has left that issue to congress while he moves on to the next domestic issue– illegal immigration.
Barack Obama wants to pass comprehensive immigration reform before the upcoming 2010 elections. Naturally this plan would include amnesty for illegal aliens. He claims that he wants to move forward on illegal immigration before congress gets “distracted” by the midterm elections, but the real reason he wants to pass this bill before the election is because he will have no chance to pass it after the election leaves Democrats badly bruised and battered. Barack Obama knows that there is going to be a huge anti-healthcare reform backlash in November, so he wants to push as much of his domestic agenda through as he can before the election, because he knows he is on borrowed time.
Americans let their feelings about amnesty for illegals known when President Bush tried to force immigration reform down the people’s throats against their will after Democrats gained the majorities in the House and Senate. The people rose up and through persistent emails, letters, and telephone calls we were able to stop the immigration reform bill. The American people are on the verge of stopping healthcare reform by using the same measures, but Barack Obama is oblivious to, and uncaring about, the will of the people. He will force healthcare reform upon us, and if he succeeds in this effort there will probably be no way that we can stop him from granting amnesty for illegal immigrants.
In the past, Barack Obama has refuted the claims of Republicans that illegal aliens would be covered under his healthcare reform bill, and maybe it is true that illegal immigrants will not be covered. But it is true only because he plans to make all of the illegal aliens legal before the healthcare reform bill’s benefits take effect.
Perhaps this is the reason that while the tax increases in the healthcare reform bill go into effect immediately, the “benefits” will not be seen until sometime in the year 2012. This delaying of the healthcare benefits could be designed to give the illegal aliens enough time to become legal before the healthcare reform “benefits” begin, thus ensuring that those who are illegal now will be legal and eligible for free healthcare when the “benefits” finally start to be implemented. Barack Obama is doing an end around the American people.
I honestly don’t see how there is any chance for an illegal immigration bill to be passed before the midterm election. Healthcare reform has neutered the Democrats who are worried about their re-election, and they should be very leery about taking on another issue that is at odds with the will of the American people.
If there are any Democrats who could survive a re-election bid after passing healthcare reform, I would guess that voting in favor of granting illegal immigrants amnesty would be the final straw for their constituents .
The problem is that not only does Barack Obama not care about the will of the people because he honestly believes that he knows better than we do what is best for us, he also doesn’t care about the re-election of his own party members for the same reason. He is willing to sacrifice his congressional party members in order to push his leftist agenda. The question is, will Democrats be willing to sacrifice themselves for Barack Obama;s leftist agenda? I don’t think they are willing to give up their careers for Barack Obama, but once the pressure is applied there is no telling what will happen.
Steny Hoyer claims a separate abortion bill may may be a possibility to pass healthcare reform now
The biggest sticking point in passing the healthcare reform bill may be the issue of abortion as Bart Stupak has predicted the bill will “go down in flames” if his abortion language is not added into the Senate version of the bill. He has at least 12 other pro-life Democrats who have threatened to join him and vote against this bill if the bill permits the federal funding of abortion.
Bart Stupak is refuting House leader Steny Hoyer’s claim that federal money will not be used for abortions, calling the abortion language in the Senate bill unacceptable.
In an attempt to appease Bart Stupak, Steny Hoyer is claiming that if Bart Stupac and the Blue Dog Democrats vote for the current version of the healthcare reform bill the issue of federal funding of abortion will be addressed in a separate bill in the future.
I can only hope that Bart Stupak isn’t dumb enough to take Steny Hoyer at his word. I can only hope that Bart Stupak holds firm and demands that the issue be addressed now while he holds all of the bargaining chips. Once this bill is passed there will no longer be any urgency on behalf of the Democrats to address this issue, the time to act on this issue is now while Stupak still has bargaining power. If this bill is passed on the promise that the abortion issue will be addressed at a later date, there is no guarantee that date will ever come.
And we need to look no further than the words of the House Majority Whip, Dick Durbin, who admitted that there has been no discussion on a :clean up: bill in the House to address Bart Stupak’s concerns. This is Bart Stupak’s one and only chance to make sure that federal money is not used for abortions, hopefully he doesn’t agree to vote for this bill which includes abortion language that he finds unacceptable on a promise that it might be addressed somewhere down the line.
Bart Stupak says the healthcare reform bill will “go down in flames” unless changes are made
The House version of the healthcare reform bill that passed by a 220-215 vote earlier this year was passed only after Bart Stupak and his coalition of 40 pro-life Democrats were able to insert an amendment that would prohibit the federal funding of abortion. Without this amendment the House version of the bill would have failed and we wouldn’t still be debating this issue. The Senate version of the healthcare reform bill had the Stupak amendment stripped from it, paving the way for the federal funding of abortion.
Barack Obama said on Wednesday that the time for debate is over and it is time to give an up or down vote on the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill, threatening to use reconciliation to pass the bill with a simple majority. The House is being urged to vote on the Senate bill.
Much like the fate of the healthcare reform bill hinged on Bart Stupak and his 40 Blue Dog Democrats in the original bill, it appears as if the fate of the healthcare reform bill once again hinges on Bart Stupak and the Blue Dog, pro-life Democrats that almost defeated this bill a few short months ago.
Bart Stupak has refuted House leader Steny Hoyer assertion that the senate version of the bill prohibits the federal funding of abortion.
The congressman does not agree with Mr. Hoyer’s statement that the Senate bill language and the House bill language achieve the same end with regard to federal funding of abortion
Currently Bart Stupak has at least 12 other pro-life, Blue Dog Democrats who have promised to vote against the bill if the Stupak amendment is not inserted into the bill. Without the votes of these Democrats the bill is doomed to fail in the House, handing Barack Obama what will possibly be his most embarrassing defeat to date. Bart Stupak has even gone so far as to state that the healthcare reform bill will “go down in flames” if the House is forced to vote on it in its current state, claiming that the abortion language in the Senate bill is unacceptable.
The battle lines are being drawn, and while most of the attention is being paid to the Senate and the possibility that reconciliation will almost assuredly guarantee passage in the Senate, the true battle lies in the House where their version of the bill just barely passed. It seems almost inevitable that if the Senate bill remains unchanged and the House has to vote on this version of the bill, it will fail.
But what will happen in the Senate if the Stupak amendment is added? The Stupak amendment had to be stripped from the Senate version of the bill in order to gain the 60 votes needed, with the Stupak amendment added, will the Senate still be able to get 51 votes or will it fail in the Senate if the amendment is added? There are still no guarantees that the healthcare reform bill can pass even if reconciliation is used.
It seems to me that the only chance this bill has of passing is if the Stupak amendment is added back into the Senate version of the bill, I am not sure Barack Obama and the far left is going to be open to that possibility.
This battle is far from over and once again Bart Stupak and the Blue Dog Democrats are taking center stage. The question is, will they stick to their stated beliefs because they believe they are right, or will they listen to Barack Obama and risk losing their seats because Barack Obama has told them that is what is right?
Right now the only thing that is certain about this bill’s future is that nothing is certain. Even with reconciliation the Democrats may be too divided to pass this bill.
Bart Stupak, the eyes of the nation are upon you.
Joe Davey, an American hero
As a teenager growing up I was always around water, living on a small pond in New Hampshire before I was married I became an avid waterskier, as did my brother and sister. I got married and moved out, but there was always time for waterskiing on the weekends.
Eventually my mother and step-father sold the house on the pond and moved away from the water, but they could not stay away from the water so they rented a Summer camp on Island Pond in Derry. We had many good times there with the family; boating, swimming, grilling, and waterskiing. The boys loved to go swimming and boating there in the Summer.
We haven’t been there in years, I can’t remember how many, but it is probably close to ten years since the last time my mother and step-father rented the camp. The camp was owned by a man named Joe. He was an older man, a good and friendly man. Joe had an awkward limp, his knee almost seemed to bend backwards as he walked, but still he would always come over for a swim and conversation when the family was there. He owned a boat also and loved the water and he loved the fact that people were enjoying his property.
I still remember the day that we convinced my sister that it was a good idea for her to try to do a “slide start” waterskiing. Joe had one of those curved pool slides set up that went into the pond, the idea was that my sister would go to the top of the slide– and much like a dock start where you stood on the dock as the rope slowly tightened before yelling “go” and jumping off the dock– she would slide down the slide as the boat pulled away and would land in the water and ski away. Timing was everything, she almost pulled it off, but not quite. Joe was there that day and although we could see that he was a little nervous and apprehensive about this idea, he never said anything, he just watched. But we all knew when we watched the video tape later that night that he was not happy.
I haven’t seen Joe in years, and honestly I hadn’t thought about Joe in years. Joe passed away on February 26th at the age of 88. My brother called me to read me his obituary, knowing that I would be interested in what it contained. I was shocked to learn what I didn’t know about the man I knew.
Joe was a true American hero.
See, Joe was a WWII veteran who stormed Omaha Beach in Normandy on June 6th, 1944. Joe saw a hell on that day that is truly unimaginable, but pressed on all the way to Saint Lo where he was critically injured.
But his story didn’t stop there, once Joe had recovered, he reenlisted for a second tour of duty that led him to the Ardennes Forest where he fought the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge. Joe was critically injured once again. During WWII, Joe earned two Purple Hearts, four Bronze Stars, and a Distinguished Unit Badge.
All of those years at the camp I was in the midst of a true American hero, a man to whom I owe the freedom which I enjoy. A man whose sacrifice made it possible for me to enjoy all of those days at the camp and I never knew it. I had no idea what he had gone through in order to protect and defend this country.
But now Joe is gone and I have found out for the first time what he did and I owe him the thank you that I never gave him in person while he was alive. Now I wonder about Joe’s awkward limp and wonder if it was a burden that he carried all of these years as part of his sacrifice for the country he served and that I love.
Thank you Joe. I owed you this long ago, I am sorry it is so late. Too late.
McDonald v. Chicago: The Supreme Court appears ready to establish a nationwide gun ownership right
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the arguments in McDonald v. Chicago, a challenge to the city’s handgun ban. This case is an extension of the Heller v DC case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Washington DC handgun ban was unconstitutional and that every INDIVIDUAL had the right to own firearms for personal defense. Because Washington DC is a federal enclave the ruling did not apply to state and local handgun bans, so the McDonald case is the next logical step in wake of the Heller decision.
With the 5 justices who ruled in the majority in the Heller case still on the court it appears very likely that the Chicago handgun ban will be ruled unconstitutional opening up the door for nationwide gun rights.
We know that the gun control advocates are going to come out in earnest against the notion that all law abiding citizens have the right to keep and bear arms and that they are going to claim that the Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds by claiming that the states do not have the right to regulate firearms, but they must remember that the Supreme Court has already ruled that most of the other amendments in the bill of rights act as a check on state’s laws.
The court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local laws
So why would the second amendment not also fall under that same premise? And let us not forget that in the Heller case the Supreme Court DID rule that states do have the right to pass “reasonable” gun control laws, they just ruled that a complete ban on handguns is unconstitutional. This ruling, if it comes down the way I think it will, will not abolish all gun control laws the way that the gun control advocates will try to claim it does. States will still have the right to institute “reasonable” gun control laws, and as a state’s rights advocate I am okay with states implementing some regulations, but a complete ban on handguns does not seem reasonable to me, and it probably won’t to the Supreme Court either.
The Supreme Court ruling is due to be handed down sometime in June, it appears that we may be on the verge of a major second amendment victory.
I read in this article that Democrats are going to drop cap and trade from the climate change bill in order to try to gain Republican support for this bill, and it may be working. While the idea of pulling cap and trade off of the table sounds good, it doesn’t seem like it is true to me when you continue to read the article.
Any movement away from an economywide cap-and-trade system is a movement in the right direction,” said GOP Conference Chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, who said the new direction “makes a lot more sense
Notice that qualifier that Lamar Alexander inserted into his statement? Economywide? What does this mean? Apparently what it means is that the Democrats are willing to drop a “national” cap and trade system in favor of a “regional” cap and trade system.
the revamped proposal to do sector-by-sector regulation of carbon in which different caps could be applied to utilities, transportation and industry
This idea seems to have opened up the door for more Republican support besides Lamar Alexander; my Republican Senator, Judd Gregg thinks the proposal is worth looking into, as does Lisa Murkowski, George Voinovich, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins. Skeptical “economywide” cap and trade Democrats also feel this may be worth a look; Mary Landrieu, and Evan Bayh to name a couple.
This bill is still based on a faulty, manipulated premise, known as climate change, and it still appears to be a cap and trade proposal to me. Republican Senator Voinovich said, “you can’t use cap and trade anymore because it is like manure on the trough, it’s defined, and people are opposed to it.” It appears that he is admitting the term cap and trade can’t be used anymore because it is defined, but this new proposal for “sector-by-sector regulation of carbon” is new and undefined, so people do not oppose it yet.
But what changes in this new proposal? Carbon emissions will still be regulated and what difference does it make if different industries are regulated at different levels? The end result is the same but the name has changed. This is a game of semantics designed to fool the American people into believing that cap and trade is dead when the basic premise remains alive.
In light of the Climategate scandal, the fact that congress still is willing to negotiate a climate change bill with a new version of cap and trade without conducting the proper investigation into the allegations is just more proof that these politicians have set their agenda and they are willing to stop at nothing in order to pass it. Even if it means trying to fool the American people into thinking they have dropped cap and trade when in reality they have just changed the manner in which it will be implemented.
Barack Obama offers the brother of an undecided congressman a judgeship, was this a payoff for his healthcare vote?
Today Barack Obama made his much anticipated speech on healthcare reform. It was speculated that Barack Obama would introduce his latest healthcare reform “bill” but that is not what this speech ended up being. What this speech was was Barack Obama’s latest healthcare “plan.” There is a major difference between the terms “bill” and “plan” that I used above.
Nancy Pelosi insinuated that Barack Obama was going to introduce a much smaller, scaled down bill during this speech, but that is not what we heard. We heard Barack Obama’s plan to move the current bill forward as quickly as possible through reconciliation. This speech was more of the same old plan that we had heard before. Nothing has changed except that Barack Obama has made it official that he will try to push this bill passed the finish line with a simple up or down vote.
Joe Gibbs, when asked about what lengths the White House would go to in order to pass this bill said, “whatever it takes to get health care done,” and we are now learning that he meant that statement literally because Barack Obama has offered the brother of an undecided House Democrat a judgeship.
While this man certainly seems to be qualified to hold this position, one has to wonder if this is a payoff for Jim Matheson’s vote– he voted against the House version of the bill that passed 220-215. And Barack Obama is going to have a meeting with 10 House Democrats who voted against the House bill. It will be interesting to see if Jim Matheson’s vote changes from no to yes in the wake of his brother’s nomination.
It will also be interesting to see if any favors are done for the other nine House Democrats that Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with– and if their votes change after the meeting.
What will they be offered in exchange for their votes? That remains to be seen, but it certainly does seem as if Barack Obama is serious when his press secretary said, “whatever it takes.” One thing is certain, Barack Obama is going to get this healthcare reform bill passed by hook or by crook, and I am not sure there is anything we can do to stop it. The fix is in.
Another mobile post, I just couldn’t wait until I got home to post this story.
Better late than never. Earlier today Charlie Rangel resigned as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and it didn’t come a moment too soon. In fact, it is a little late in my opinion.
Charlie Rangel claims that this is a temporary resignation, but the time to step aside temporarily was during the investigation, before he was found guilty; now that he has been found guilty it is time for him to step aside permanently. And this isn’t the end of Charlie Rangel’s problems, he is still being investigated for several tax fraud issues and it was outrageous that this man was allowed to head the committee that writes the tax laws while he was being investigated for evading those very same laws.
Today he stepped aside so that Democrats wouldn’t be forced to vote on his resignation, I would have preferred that Democrats would have to go on record either for or against Rangel, but the bottom line is at least justice has been served… for now.
Here is a mobile post, and yes I do have my power back. I just might be getting addicted to mobile posting!
Last week New Hampshire 2nd district House Democrat, Paul Hodes, became the first member of the House to call for corrupt Charlie Rangel to resign his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee. Since that time several other members of the House have called for Charlie Rangel’s resignation, while Republicans are preparing a resolution calling for his resignation.
Today my congressman, Democrat Carol Shea-Porter joined Paul Hodes and the others and is calling for Rangel’s resignation. But she has gone one step further and is going to return $14,000 in campaign donations she received from Rangel’s PAC. I knew that sooner or later the law of averages would make it possible that she would say something that I agreed with– and today that has happened for the first time.
Paul Hodes should follow her example, he has accepted $17,000 from Rangel’s PAC but he is refusing to give it back. It appears that tough words are all we are going to get from him, he is running for the senate seat that the retiring Judd Gregg is leaving open so he needs all the money ha can get, even if it comes from people with questionable ethics backgrounds.
And then there is Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who will not take a position on Rangel, but is more than happy to take money from him– to the tune of over $10,000, which she has decided to keep. She is not up for re-election until 2012, so unlike Paul Hodes, she has no immediate need for the tainted money, yet she will not give it back.
I never thought I would ever say this, but Paul Hodes and Jeanne Shaheen should do what Carol Shea-Porter has done– return the money.
America's Watchtower 