By a 5-4 majority the supreme court has upheld an individual’s right to keep and bear arms by ruling the 30+ year Washington DC ban of all handguns unconstitutional. This is a major although slim ruling by the supreme court as it is the first time in this country’s history that the supreme court has ruled that the second amendment applies to individuals and not just militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia said for the majority the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with militia service and to use it for traditional lawful purposes, such as self-defense in the home.
The court did rule that some restrictions were okay however.
He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.
So while I am celebrating the fact that the supreme court actually upheld the constitution for a change, there is still work to be done. No, I am not talking about rescinding the above prohibitions on felons owning guns, but the slim majority of this decision does leave the door open for future cases.
We were just one vote away from the supreme court ruling that the second amendment didn’t apply to individuals. One Ruth Bader Ginsburg vote away from the supreme court ruling that the second amendment didn’t apply to individuals. In other words, one Barack Obama supreme court nominee away from ruling that the second amendment didn’t apply to individual. Catch my drift?
If the next president has a supreme court seat to fill this whole decision could be thrown out the door. Hell, I don’t trust John McCain with this process either. Neither of these men as president will nominate a John Stevens or Sam Alito to the supreme court. This is where my concern lies. By the supreme court ruling that SOME restrictions are okay it leaves the door open for MORE restrictions.
This issue will be brought before the court again and with a McCain or Obama supreme court all bets are off on this issue. More and more restrictions could be found to be constitutional. So while I celebrate the supreme court upholding the constitution today I fear for the constitution tomorrow under either a President Obama or President McCain.
This ruling makes me feel good, the margin of victory leave my stomach just a little queasy.
Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell
Something that I have found interesting in the early general election strategies of both Barack Obama and John McCain is how each of the candidates have tried to pander to the right and left respectively. I understand that during the primary seasons candidates play to their base and during the general election the candidates try to move to the center, but this election year it seems to be even more in evidence. Instead of moving to the center both candidates seem to be going beyond center.
I will start with Barack Obama’s latest attempt to move to the center. He is reaching out to “values voters” in his latest ad.
“America is a country of strong families and strong values,” says a political ad that began airing in 18 states over the weekend. The candidate then goes on to say how he helped move people off the welfare rolls and fought for tax cuts.
Family values, strong families, welfare reform, and tax cuts? Wow, is this a move to the right by Obama or what? All of these issues are foreign to Democrats who want to replace the traditional family with big government entitlements. Who needs a father when the government is there to provide for you instead?
Obama and family values? Barack Obama is the man who thinks teaching sex education to kindergarten age children is acceptable. He is also the man who said that he would not want his daughter “punished” with a baby. And he is also the man who condones infantiside with his refusal to vote on saving the lives of living, breathing babies who were birthed during an abortion attempt. He couldn’t even be bothered to vote on the issue. His reason for not wanting to vote to save these babies?
it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.”
That has to be the most horrid statement I have ever heard, certainly from a presidential candidate. He didn’t want the baby to be called a baby because you couldn’t kill it if you actually called it what it was.
The values that Obama is trying to connect with is straight out of the Republican playbook and the most liberal candidate for president in the history of America is now spouting this as his position. Yeah right.
Barack Obama knows that there is no way in hell that any far leftist will ever abandon him so he is free to expound on family values, welfare reform, and lower taxes without fearing repercussions from his constituents. He knows that he can pretend he is for lower taxes and family values and he won’t lose his base because they know the truth.
Now on to the Republican’s joke of a candidate John McCain. John McCain is 
making what would normally be considered a radical left hand turn by almost any other Republican candidate, however we are talking about McCain here so it is more of a veer to the left.
John McCain is trying to pander to the far left .
presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is focusing on climate change and “energy security”
“The next president of the United States must be willing to break with the energy policies not just of the current administration, but the administrations that preceded it, and lead a great national campaign to achieve energy security for America,” McCain says in the ad, followed by these words across the screen: “End the federal moratorium on drilling,” “Clean technologies” and “Energy Security.”
John McCain has flip flopped on the Bush tax cuts and claims he now supports them, this is bullshit. How can John McCain possibly be for lower taxes when he is in favor of “going green” which is nothing but an attempt to install what I believe will be the largest tax increase on the American people in history? How can he be for smaller government when all that “going green” will accomplish is bigger government with more restrictions?
John McCain is trying to play to the far left eonviro-nazis. He feels that he needs to pander to the left wing in order to gain the votes that he needs to become president. There is one problem with this tactic though, in my opinion. He is pushing away any remaining conservatives who will hold their nose and vote for him.
While Obama can pander to the right and not worry about losing his base I don’t believe that McCain has the same luxury. John McCain is on thin ice with conservatives who still want to vote for him not because they like him but because Obama is such an unacceptable option to them. This may push them away.
As I wrote earlier it is nothing new for candidates to move to the center in a general election, but this seems different. Both candidates have moved beyond center, and it is still early in this contest.
It is going to be interesting to see how far each candidate will move to either the left or right in an effort to win votes.
If the early examples are any barometer we could be in for an interesting election.
Unfortunately, we are fucked no matter who wins.
Here I go again. I know that I have repeatedly written that the issue of global warming is a political issue, not a scientific issue, and I know that I have repeatedly written that global warming is really only about two things; taxes and control. But here I go again, how can I help it when I read a story like this one.
Madison Wisconsin is debating whether or not to ban the drive-throughs at fast food restaurants.
Given the concern about all the carbon going into the atmosphere, I’m not sure we should be building more places for people to sit idling in their cars
There you have it, next we will be told how long if at all we are allowed to leave our cars idling. Wait a minute that is already happening.
These people are getting out of control. Who would have ever thought that in the United States of America the government would decide that people can’t sit in their cars while the cars are idling?
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but think about what all of the supposed remedies for global warming include, either more taxes or less freedom. Or both. Americans need to say enough is enough, otherwise it will be ban this and tax that until we have no money left and no freedoms to spend that money on anyway. We will just be good little subjects.
Russ Feingold has now said that Democrats will not filibuster a compromise on what the Democrats call the domestic spying program but is rightly called the foreign surveillance program. Russ Feingold still claims that this program infringes on the rights of the American people but he is unwilling to do anything about it. Why? Because he is full of shit.
Instead of filibustering this bill he says Democrats just plan on making it difficult to pass, although it will pass. Russ Feingold and the Democrats will put on a dog and pony show to try to appease their far left constituents all the while knowing that this program does not infringe on law abiding American citizens. The surveillance program only applies to some incoming calls from known terrorist states, but the Democrats have managed to portray this policy as if President Bush is personally listening to all American citizen’s phone calls.
Russ Feingold knows in his heart that this is a valuable and necessary policy that is why he will not filibuster it. If he truly believed the bullshit that he has spewed over the last seven years or so he would step up to the plate and stop this legislation. But he believes one thing and says another. He has to in order to keep the moonbats happy.
He and the other Democrats have decried this program for years and it has always been for public relations, to pander to the far left, and has never really been about anything but pandering to the far left. If they really believed the rhetoric that they have spouted all these years they would never let this bill pass, but the truth is that they know it is a necessary program to help keep Americans safe.
When push comes to shove and Democrats are actually forced to vote on any of President Bush’s policies that are related to national defense the Democrats just fall in line. Of course they still publicly oppose the measures that they end up allowing to pass, they hope nobody will notice. But we are watching.
I still can’t believe how anybody can take these people seriously when their “opposition” is so transparent and contrived for political gain. This is another example of the Democrats proving that President Bush is right on the foreign surveillance program even as they try to pretend that they oppose it.
Russ Feingold, thank you for showing us the fraud that you really are.
John McCain may just be going senile after all. Perhaps Barack Obama was right when he implied that John McCain was losing his bearings in an obvious attack on McCain’s age. John McCain has proposed a $300 million reward to someone who can come up with a better car battery. Brilliant! Evidently John McCain is going to run the country like a game show or the lottery. Come one, come all, ring the bell and win $300 million. He also stated that BIG AUTOMOBILE would be eligible for this reward.
This comes on the heels of McCain’s recent flip-flop on his position on off shore drilling. While he has flopped over to the right side of this issue, does anyone really believe him? I don’t, after years of opposing off shore drilling he saw a political advantage in jumping to the other side. He is simply pandering, that is all. Suddenly when running for president he finds an issue where he disagrees (at least he does at this moment) with Barack Obama and he thinks we are stupid enough to just fall in line. WRONG!
John McCain has bought into the whole global warming scam, or at least he says he has to appeal to the liberals who he hopes will vote for him. Now in an effort to try and appeal to the conservatives he flip flops on oil drilling. He is trying to have it both ways.
I really don’t know where he stands on this issue, I have lost my bearings with his various stances.
During the last senate hearings with the oil companies Maxine Waters said this,”This liberal will be all about socializing, uh, uh … would be about basically taking over and the government running all of your companies.”
Maxine Waters could not help herself, her true feelings, and the feelings of the left came out. Just look at the words taking over and running that should be enough to make everyone realize who these people really are and what they believe. She said her true feelings back then but now she is backing away from them.
Friday her spokesman had this to say about Maxine Waters’ past comments, “It was one comment in a long hearing, and it has continued to have a life of its own in the blogosphere,” he said. “It was not her intention to announce a big policy proposal. It’s not a developed policy proposal. It was not an intentional statement.”
It was not an intentional statement? That isn’t exactly a vote against socializing the oil companies but rather an admission that she shouldn’t have made her true feelings public. She is who she is and she believes what she believes. She is a socialist pure and simple and now her spokesman is only saying that she shouldn’t have said what she did, he did not deny that she believes what she said.
Barack Obama Forgoes Public Funding to Combat 527’s
Barack Obama became the first president since Watergate to forgo public financing, flip-flopping from his original stance. His excuse? He needs to raise much more money to combat the 527 groups that are preparing to “attack” him.
“We’ve already seen that (McCain’s) not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations,”
That was his justification. It’s the Republicans fault.
Last Thursday, Obama said he was foregoing the $85 million in public funding he could have received because it tied his hands — and because the campaign finance system was allegedly slanted toward his expected Republican challenger, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).Accusing McCain of being “fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs,” Obama said that 527s tied to McCain and the Republican National Committee are “spending millions and millions in unlimited donations” to attack him.
When I first read this story my first thought was here we go again. British psychiatrists are trying to claim that internet addiction is a clinical disorder, and that between five and ten percent of internet users are junkies.
Obsessive internet use is a public health problem which is so serious it should be officially recognised as a clinical disorder, according to a leading psychiatrist.
They suffer four symptoms: They forget to eat and sleep; they need more advanced technology or more hours on-line as they develop ‘resistance’ to the pleasure given by their current system; if they are deprived of their computer, they experience genuine withdrawal symptoms; And in common with other addictions, the victims also begin to have more arguments, to suffer fatigue, to get lower marks in tests and to feel isolated from society.
The article even goes on to suggest that the addict forms a relationship with the computer.
“The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer through any number of mechanisms: emailing, gaming, porn.”
Yes, there you have it, just another thing to worry about. Just another class of victims in a world where everyone thinks they are a victim of one thing or another. Nobody is to blame for their actions because society isn’t fair. Nobody can be held accountable because they are a victim of something.
I was then going to write about how this whole internet addiction scam was nothing but an excuse for the government to start regulating the internet. More Nanny State regulation. After all, if people are addicted to the internet somebody has to do something to help them. Who better that the government? The government will make everything okay, just trust them. The government will impose their will for the common good.
But then I started thinking about other issues and how the government deals with them and I started to change my tune.
Children are going to have sex anyway so why not give them free birth control without their parents knowing? Problem. Problem solved.
Drug addicts are going to shoot heroin anyway so we need to give them clean needles to use. Problem. Problem solved.
One can naturally assume that in order to deal with internet addicts the government would provide free and safe internet access. Problem. Problem solved.
That got me thinking. When I wake up in the morning I make a pot of coffee, jump in the shower and then…..go on-line. I need to go on-line before work. I need to see if there are any stories that I need to write about at night. I end up going to work a couple of minutes late because I was on the computer and couldn’t get myself away from it in time.
It gets worse, much worse. When I get home from work and my boys or my wife are on the computer I feel a longing to go on-line. I want to check my blog. I NEED TO CHECK MY BLOG! How many hits do I have? Who has commented on what I have written? I NEED TO KNOW! I can’t help myself.
After the boys go to bed I finally have the computer to myself. I spend three hours on the computer blogging, researching issues to blog about, and reading other blogs. I am now losing sleep because of my lust for information.
But it gets worse, much worse still. Now I have a Blackberry and I can check my blog whenever I can take a break at work. I can hide in the bathroom stall and go on-line to hide my internet problem. I am connected 24-7, I can get my fix when I need it. I don’t need to wait to get an internet fix when I get home from work. I can shoot up whenever I need to. I have begun to answer comments on my blog during lunch instead of waiting to get home. I can’t help myself, I need to know what is going on. I need to check the news sites to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I can’t help it.
They say the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. So now I stand in front of you and declare, “my name is Steve and I have a problem. I am addicted to the internet.”
Where do I sign up for free access?
Because New Hampshire governor John Lynch is so irresponsible and has created a huge budget deficit he is now forced to start spending cuts. He has already raised taxed over $100 million and it still isn’t enough. It is about time that the New Hampshire governor cuts spending. So where do the cuts come from? According to this editorial the cuts are being made to these people; mentally ill, drug addicts, cancer victims, sick children, and university students.
I am not going to criticize the governor for finally doing what I have been advocating with these spending cuts. They are necessary and overdue. But I am going to take this time to write about the difference in the way this is being portrayed between Lynch and when Governor Benson (Republican) had to make the same types of cuts.
The editorial says:
Remember when Gov. Craig Benson cut state spending to balance the budget? The Democrats portrayed him as a heartless beast. Every cut was to an “essential” service or program, or would cruelly hurt those who need state services the most, Democrats cried.
He was vilified by Democrats for hurting the people that need it the most. Now governor Lynch is doing the same. Can you hear the crickets? Nothing from the mouths of the Democrats. It just shows us that party affiliation and political gain are more important to the Democrats than the mentally ill, drug abusers, cancer victims, and THE CHILDREN.
The editorial goes on to mention that Republicans aren’t even jumping on this issue even though they have been critical of the budget, taxes, and spending. They have called for spending cuts, and now with a few (just a few) in the works they are not going to jump on the issue of where the spending cuts come from. They are just happy they are coming.
Democrats would have had it both ways if this were a Republican governor. They would complain about where the spending cuts came even if they were calling for spending cuts. (I suppose that is a moot point because Democrats never call for spending cuts).
Only a Democrat could get away with these cuts and not have a word said about it. Governor Lynch seems to be living a charmed life.
Barack Obama Plays the Race Card
Barack Obama has decided to throw race into the presidential race and make it an issue. Let it be known that Barack Obama was the first to introduce the race issue into the general election on June 20th.
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
“We know the strategy because they’ve already shown their cards. Ultimately I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn’t moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us,”
And this type of rhetoric unites us? Barack Obama is dividing us with this type of rhetoric. He is right, the race card has already been played, BY DEMOCRATS! Not Republicans. Wasn’t it the Clinton’s who tried to throw race into the primary? YES! Isn’t it Barack Obama that is now injecting race into the election? Yes!
Barack Obama has not been attacked by John McCain (and I cringe at defending John McCain here) because of his race, McCain has gone after him because of his stance on the issues. There is nothing wrong with saying that you believe your opponent is wrong on certain issues, is there?
Race probably now will be an issue during the campaign, Barack Obama has made sure it will be.
