“Over the last four years, the Democratic majority in the House took courageous action on behalf of America’s middle class to create jobs and save the country from the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression.

“Our Members and candidates ran remarkable campaigns led by the superb leadership of DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen.

“The outcome of the election does not diminish the work we have done for the American people. We must all strive to find common ground to support the middle class, create jobs, reduce the deficit and move our nation forward.”

Two things jump out at me here. One is her claim of taking courageous action to save the country from the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Regardless of what action they took after the fact to recover from that economic catastrophe, we must not forget the catastrophe fell on her watch as speaker. She was the leader of the House and should accept some (not all) responsibility for the government’s creation of problems that led to the horrible economy.

The other thing is her call to strive to find common ground. Maybe if she’d tried to find some common ground these last couple of years she’d still be holding the gavel come January 3, 2011.

I ‘recently’ hosted a show at AM 630 K-Talk (KTKK-AM in the Salt Lake City, UT area). By ‘recently’ I mean a two hour program on April 1, but better late than never, right?

If you’re interesting in listening, feel free to download them below.

KTKK-AM 1 Apr 2010 Hour 1, KTKK-AM 1 Apr 2010 Hour 2.

People have different perceptions of what is or is not constitutional. Some people believe that the Constitution explicitly lists everything the federal government is authorized to do, and thus if it is not listed (health insurance legislation, a census that asks for more than a count of people living at an address) then it is not constitutional. Others embrace a broader interpretation, using things like the “promote the general welfare” text from the preamble as justification for federal government involvement in these areas.

In my opinion, the best claims of unconstitutionality are related to the absence of any explicit reference to health insurance in the Constitution (or subsequent amendments) and the ninth and tenth amendments.

Ninth amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Thus a right to choose for yourself or your family health insurance would seem to me to belong to the people, not the government. In fact, if the Massachusetts plan requires all to have insurance as I’ve heard recently, I don’t know why this amendment couldn’t be used to rule it unconstitutional. There is quite a big step from regulating business for the common good and requiring private citizens to purchase a product (even one as intangible as insurance).

Tenth amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The history of health insurance in this country is that it is regulated by state governments, not the federal government. I believe that provides at least a de facto basis for a claim that health insurance regulation is not a power of the federal government. Note: The Supreme Court rarely if ever uses this amendment to rule anything unconstitutional, so I’m not holding my breath.

Regarding the preamble text: two phrases appear immediately next to each other. One is “provide for the common defence”, and the other is “promote the general welfare”. I have always found it interesting (in the context of those who would use the “promote the general welfare” phrase to justify something like health insurance reform by the federal government) that the Constitution says to *provide* *for* defense but to *promote* *general* welfare. The most appropriate definition I found for “provide” would be “take measures in preparation for”. “Promote” is most appropriately defined as “to advocate or urge on behalf of something or someone”. If the federal government was meant to provide things necessary for the general welfare of the people of the United States, why wouldn’t the Constitution say so? It had no problem using the word “provide” in the context of defense. Thus I believe the choice of “promote” in the context of welfare to be a deliberate effort to differentiate the concepts.

Finally, requiring all people to buy health insurance doesn’t seem to be an effective way to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves or our posterity. Though I guess an argument could be made that it liberates us from crushing expense due to health care costs, but that just doesn’t feel to me to be the type of liberty they were aiming for.

Ultimately, there are exactly nine people that will have a say into whether or not this legislation is constitutional. In the meantime we all get to rant about how evil it is or how much of a blessing it is or sit back and watch all the wacky people on both sides. :)

One of the best explanations of how Obama won the election.

From a teacher in the Nashville area.

We are worried about ‘The Cow’ when it is all about ‘The Ice Cream.’

The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year.

The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest.

I decided we would have an election for a class president.

We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.

To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.

We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.

We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.

I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he received lots of parental support.

I had never seen Olivia’s mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches.

Jamie went first.

He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best.

Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now it was Olivia’s turn to speak.

Her speech was concise.

She said, “If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream.”

She sat down.

The class went wild. “Yes! Yes! We want ice cream.”

She surely would say more. She did not have to.

A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?

She wasn’t sure.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it?

She didn’t know.

The class really didn’t care. All they were thinking about was ice cream..

Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds.

They want ice cream.

The other 48 percent know they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.

This is the ice cream Obama promised us!

Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone that they have not first taken from someone else.

If you’re interesting in listening, feel free to download them below.

KTKK-AM 6 Aug 2009, KTKK-AM 5 Nov 2009 Hour 1, KTKK-AM 5 Nov 2009 Hour 2.

Click on the image to see a larger (legible) version of the page.

A letter from Representative Rob Bishop dated 13 Oct 2009

Back already? That was fast!

I finally received a response yesterday to my previous inquiry regarding illegal immigration. I’ll scan and post a copy of the letter later, but I didn’t want to wait to address the latest letter.

This letter did address my primary point:

I’d really like to know exactly where you stand on this issue [of illegal immigration] and if you would sponsor or support legislation to amend where necessary and require enforcement of our immigration laws.

To summarize, he acknowledged that my topic was illegal immigration (a big step forward from the original response), stated that immigration law is the responsibility of the federal government, and pointed out an amendment he offered to a piece of legislation (the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area Act) that would ensure that immigration enforcement would not be restricted in the National Heritage Area created by the act (3,325 square miles in Arizona according to the best information I can find on the subject). He also stated he was in favor of making it possible for state and local law enforcement personnel to assist in the enforcement of immigration law.

How do I feel he did in addressing the point? I felt the letter was somewhat political double talk. He seems to make clear that he stands on the side of enforcing immigration law, and that he has sponsored amendments to ensure immigration enforcement would not be restricted by specific pieces of legislation. Unfortunately, I feel his letter falls short of a commitment to actively pursue immigration legislation.

Note: I’ve paraphrased and summarized the latest letter above because I don’t have it in front of me at the moment. I plan to scan it tonight or tomorrow and post a ‘final’ update (including the scanned image of the letter) on this subject so you can read his words for yourself. If, in reading it again, I determine I was unfair above, I’ll address it at that time. That being said, I believe what I wrote above to be an accurate portrayal of the contents of the letter. You can make your own determination once I post the image of the letter.

I just got off the phone with a staffer in Rep. Bishop’s Washington, D.C. office. She looked up my original comments and acknowledged the response sent didn’t make a lot of sense.

The explanation is that they are using some new software to manage the correspondence and it is glitchy.

She said she would mark it for another response, so we’ll have to see what happens.

Stay tuned!

Click on the image to see a larger (legible) version of the page.

Page 1 of letter from Representative Rob Bishop dated 9 Sep 2009

Page 2 of letter from Representative Rob Bishop dated 9 Sep 2009

We can’t catch all speeders, but we haven’t stopped ticketing the ones we can. We can’t solve all crimes, but we still have police out there trying to catch criminals. Why then do so many of our federal politicians throw their hands in the air and just give up on the enforcement of immigration law, specifically the deportation of people in the country illegally?

If we assume for a moment that those people are right, we can’t send all illegal immigrants home, why can’t we also make a determination that we will enforce the law to the best of our ability? How difficult is it to put 55 people on a bus and send them back where they came from? If we can do that, why not two buses? If that, why not four, or eight, or sixteen? So we can’t send back every offender; let’s send back the ones we can.

We can stop cars at interstate border crossings to ensure ag products aren’t smuggled in that might result in economic ruin to a region. Why can’t we ensure people seeking government benefits are in the country legally (either a citizen or on a visa)? So many of our government institutions have policies that they won’t confirm eligibility for benefits or that employees can’t act on knowledge of illegal immigrants.

I’d really like to know exactly where you stand on this issue and if you would sponsor or support legislation to amend where necessary and require enforcement of our immigration laws.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Scott Dale Robison

I sent this email on August 27, and within 15 minutes of clicking send, I had received an automated response:

from Congressman Rob Bishop
date Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:40 PM
subject Thanks for writing

I appreciate you contacting my office. Your opinion is important to me and I will respond directly to your concerns as soon as possible.

Today when I checked my mailbox (not my email, but my actual physical United States Postal Service snail mailbox) I had received a response from Congressman Bishop’s office! How exciting! Allow me to share with you the first little bit of it, okay?

September 9, 2009

Dear Scott:

Thank you for your letter regarding universal health coverage. …

What the <expletive deleted>?!? In no way shape or form was my message about universal health coverage! Imagine, a politician that doesn’t listen to what you have to say. What are the odds?

I realize that our congressmen are very busy people, and they don’t personally read every piece of correspondence that crosses their desks. I realize my email was quickly glanced at (if that) by some staffer whose job it is to organize correspondence into categories for form letter responses. I realize in that sort of environment, mistakes will be made.

All that being said, I’d like to offer my services to the Congress of the United States. It seems to me that rather than having staffers reading messages and putting them in the wrong response pile, it would be much more efficient, at least for the messages which are delivered via email, to have a computer program classify them. It has the potential to be far more efficient and cost effective for the American people, and even if it incorrectly classifies a message, how is that any worse than what just happened to me, and has happened to countless others?

We are tired of not being listened to. This is not about Republicans, it’s not about Democrats, it’s about the status quo. Something must change, and it must change soon. Here are some suggestions:

1. We need a mandate that political parties do not have access to the ballot. By this I mean that people are free to join political parties, and parties are welcome to nominate and support candidates, but at no point should a person’s party affiliation appear on the ballot. We are electing candidates to office, not political parties.
2. In like fashion, there should be no option on any ballot for a straight ticket vote for all candidates of a single party. A voter should know who they are voting for before entering the voting booth, or at least know the candidates and their stance on issues. Why should those of us who cast considered votes for any candidate have our votes diluted by others that don’t think about what or who they are voting for?
3. A different apportionment of electoral votes to cut down on the winner take all system that focuses so much attention on swing states with relatively large electoral vote counts. If we had a system that awarded one elector for each congressional district won, plus two for the state at large vote, the system would be considered more reasonable by many who currently are calling for it to be abolished. Note: I realize the presidential election is actually a vote for electors, and those are state by state votes, so a change like this mandating how electors are to be apportioned would require an amendment.
4. While we’re at it, we all need to focus less on the president. The real power lies with the legislative branch through which all legislation flows. The president certainly has a lot of influence, but he gets too much blame when things go wrong and too much credit when things go right.
5. Term limits of some sort, though I’m somewhat fuzzier on this concept. I was thinking of perhaps a single term limit for any office, followed by at least one term out of that office. Professional politicians are going to be the ruination of this country. Well, professional politicians and an electorate that is always looking to feed at the government trough.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of reforms we should implement. Just a few things off the top of my head.

I have nothing personal against Rob Bishop. I think he’s an okay guy, and I don’t have any huge policy complaints with him. What I am is tired. I’m tired of not being heard. This last weekends rally in Washington shows that I am not alone. It is something all politicians need to think about.

Note: When I have a chance, I’ll have the letter scanned and post a copy of it. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow.