In their everlasting quest to be “Fair and Balance,” Fox News conveniently refused to broadcast certain DNC speeches to its audience. One of those speeches was done by Khzir Khan, a Muslim father whose son was killed by a bomb while he fought as an An American soldiers in Iraq.
It was a great speech overall, but the best part was clearly when he inquired about whether Trump ever read the constitution, then offered him his copy.
“Donald Trump, you are asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you – have you even read the United States Constitution?”
Khan then pulled his own copy out of his jacket pocket.
“I will gladly lend you my copy,” Khan said to deafening cheers from delegates.
I have a proposition for anyone who thinks that our state and national gun laws make sense and/or adhere to the legal intent of the Second Amendment. Wake up Thomas Jefferson, John (and Sam if you’d like) Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, George Washington and any other member of the founding class not named Aaron Burr. Give them a week or so to acclimate themselves to the modern-day United States, and then ask them if this is what they had in mind when they debated and wrote the Constitution:
Unhindered by federal background checks or government oversight, the 24-year-old man accused of killing a dozen people inside a Colorado movie theater was able to build what the police called a 6,000-round arsenal legally and easily over the Internet, exploiting what critics call a virtual absence of any laws regulating ammunition sales.
With a few keystrokes, the suspect, James E. Holmes, ordered 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun — an amount of firepower that costs roughly $3,000 at the online sites — in the four months before the shooting, according to the police. It was pretty much as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.
He also bought bulletproof vests and other tactical gear, and a high-capacity “drum magazine” large enough to hold 100 rounds and capable of firing 50 or 60 rounds per minute — a purchase that would have been restricted under proposed legislation that has been stalled in Washington for more than a year.
I didn’t think so either
With all due respect to the current Supreme Court, which ruled in the case, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER, (No. 07-290) 478 F. 3d 370, affirmed, that possessing a handgun is an individual right (and in the process overturned two centuries of precedent), the framers could not have seen this development. They were rational, reasonable men. They knew that freedom and liberty were just and correct goals, but that they had limits.
Tell that to the NRA.
I support the NRA’s existence and even most of its goals. We do have a right to a well-regulated (there’s a dormant phrase) militia and people do have a right to hunt and protect themselves. But what James Holmes amassed was not meant for hunting, protection or self-defense. He planned and carried out a massacre of innocent people at a time when they were relaxed and vulnerable. There are clearly lots of things wrong with him that society can’t anticipate or cure. He had a fairly clear record and was a brilliant student. Ominous music didn’t play when he entered a room. But did he have the right to those guns? Is that what the Second Amendment protects? I think not.
Anyone hunting for a political debate on this issue will go hungry until at least November 7 because gun rights advocates are already suspicious of President Obama, and Mitt Romney doesn’t want to say anything provocative or alienate his base. Meanwhile, gun control politicians such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York continue to press the issue. Honestly, I’d feel safer in a midtown Manhattan movie theater than in a multiplex in a state with fewer gun laws. Call me crazy.
But back to the framers.
I understand that they feared a tyrannical national government that would encroach on people’s liberties, so they included an amendment that left to the states the right to have its citizen’s armed. I get that. What they didn’t intend was that citizens would have free reign to arm themselves to the teeth with weapons that threatened the public order. They would have drawn a line at Holmes’s arsenal because it’s detached from the intent of the amendment.
We have limits on speech, religion and state’s rights. It’s only logical that we look at the totality of our gun laws and ask ourselves if they adequately protect us from people who seek to do us harm. At this moment, the answer is no.
A powerful video of a United States Navyman, standing in the middle of a tear gas-filled street in Oakland, holding a flag and a copy of the United States constitution. As he stands still, hands raised holding the Constitution facing the Oakland police, distant shots and explosions could be heard in the background.
Police in Oakland and nationwide are calling these Occupiers “violent” and are trying to justify the unnecessary brutal measures they’re using against American citizens exercising their rights, but when you see videos like the one below, you can’t help but wonder what is the real reason for the police actions, and exactly how much in “donations” went to their police department?
As far as the New York Police Department goes, we know that big banks have donated up to $4 million this year!
Guess that answers the question – Will a Christian vote for a Mormon to be President of the United States?
How exactly can Mitt Romney get the Christian Conservative’s vote – a major voting block of the Republican party – when Byran Fischer has decided to take away his right to freedom of Religion?
Fisher, one of the leading voices in the conservative community and director of American Family Association is telling his audience that Mormons like Mitt Romney – are not protected under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.
“The purpose of the first Amendment is to protect the free exercise of the Christian religion,” Fischer says in the video below. He then goes on to explain how Mormonism and Christianity are two completely different religions, and that the practice of Mormonism could eventually lead to laws being changed to allow polygamy.
Looks like Mitt Romney is done before the first vote is cast in the Republican primary next January.
The simple answer is, of course he can’t. And that is because we operate under a system that is governed, for the most part, by the United States Constitution.
There are specific Constitutional duties set forth for the President of the United States. Included in these duties however, are specific restrictions. According to the constitution, the President – although his office is one branch of government and is considered one of the most powerful positions in the world – cannot make legislation. Introducing bills or legislations that could eventually become law, rest solely in the hands of Congress. And more specific, any bill or legislation that has to do with finance or revenue, must begin in the House of Representatives. This too is laid out in Article 1, section 7of the Constitution, that states – All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
So what’s a president to do when government is divided, when he and his party controls the Senate and the opposing party controls the House of Representatives? What can the President do when the unemployment rate hovers around 9.1%, representing over 14 million people looking for work? What can he do when the arm of government responsible for revenue – in this case, the Republican controlled House of Representatives – refuses to do their job and is content to just watching the economy go down the toilet?
What’s a president to do? Exactly what President Obama has done.
Realizing his constitutional limits, he proposes jobs solutions and negotiates with the enemy in hopes that they will work with him in good faith to get people back to work and get the economy and country moving in the right direction again.
This President have been criticized on many occasions by members of his own party for negotiating with the enemy. They question the President’s ability to “get things done” or “fix the economy.” We have all seen the weekly, sometimes daily polls asking participants if the country is moving in the right direction, and the pundits all wonder aloud whether the President can right what is wrong, “fix the economy,” and reduce unemployment before the next election.
These questions of course, all deal with revenue, and the President’s hands are tied by a sacred document called the Constitution. His duties are specific, his restrictions are precise. And with a Republican party determined to hold the American worker hostage, we can just be thankful that the general unemployment numbers are at only 9.1%
It is time that the pundits and the American people realize what is happening. There is a Republican agenda at play here, and it is to make sure this economy fails, to bring down the middle class, and thus, to bring down this presidency.
We must realize who the responsible party is, and we must draw a clear distinction between them and the irresponsible Republicans in Congress.
In a recent interview conducted by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, with one of the original authors of the individual mandate – the piece of language in the health care reform bill that requires Americans to purchase health insurance, but is attacked by Republicans as “unconstitutional,” – was asked if the constitutionality of the mandate was ever questioned back in 1991 when the term was first used.
Mr. Mark Pauly, who was the lead author of a Health Affairs paper, was given the job to come up with a way to persuade President George H.W. Bush to adopt a health care policy where all Americans will be covered, while keeping the private health care providers in charge of the industry. The individual mandate was seen as the only way to accomplish this feat.
The question was asked by Mr. Klein; “Was the constitutionality of the provision a question, either in your deliberations or after it was released?” Mr. Pauly answered;
“I don’t remember that being raised at all. The way it was viewed by the Congressional Budget Office in 1994 was, effectively, as a tax. You either paid the tax and got insurance that way or went and got it another way. So I’ve been surprised at that argument. But I’m not an expert on the Constitution. My fix would be to simply say raise everyone’s taxes by what a health insurance policy would cost — Congress definitely has the power to do that — and then tell people that if they obtain insurance, they’ll get a tax break of the same amount. So instead of a penalty, it’s a perfectly legal tax break. But this seems to me to angelic pinhead density arguments about whether it’s a payment to do something or not to do something.”
Opponents of the law, which they have affectionately dubbed ‘ObamaCare,’ states that the law violates the Commerce Clause in the constitution, which, according to Article 1 Section 8 Clause 3 states that Congress shall have the power to: “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”. This its opponents claim, does not give congress the power to mandate commerce, or to make anyone buy insurance, thus, its unconstitutionality.
Proponents claim that the power given to Congress through the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is a grant of power, not an express limitation on the power of Congress to regulate the economy, thus, the law is giving Congress the power to improve the economy through the individual mandate and is therefore constitutional.
This ongoing debate prompted the next question from Mr. Klein, “…whether the individual mandate is a penalty for economic inactivity or whether it’s part of a broader system of regulations affecting a market for health care that we’re all participating in.” Mr. Pauly answered;
I see it in the latter way. We thought it was a good idea to do everything possible to encourage people to get insurance. Subsidies will probably pick up the great bulk of the population. But the point of the mandate was that there are a few Evil Knievals who won’t buy it and this would bring them into the system. In our version, the penalty was effectively equal to the premium of a policy. You paid the penalty and you got the insurance. That’s one of my puzzlements here: In the new law, the actual level of the penalty is quite small compared to the price of a policy. It’s only about 20 percent of the cost of a policy
In short, at the time this ‘individual mandate’ was implemented and presented to a Republican president, the common wisdom was that it would keep the government out of the healthcare sector. Requiring people to buy healthcare as the mandate did back in the early nineties, insured a larger portion of Americans and eliminated the need for a single payer government run option.
Because the private sector would benefit from the increased policies sales the individual mandate provided, Republicans signed on to the measure. Democrats on the other hand did not approve of the measure.
So why now the debate on the constitutionality of the individual mandate coming from the right? Simply put, there is now a Democratic President in the White House, and although he and other Democrats have now seen the need for the individual mandate as a way to allow the private sector to offer health care to all, Republicans now have a change of heart. So the debate, childish as it is, continues…
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