If there’s some station in life lower than that of palooka, then John McCain has found it, then he grabbed a shovel and kept digging. I thought I was going to have to work this month to award the winner for September, you know the whole research bit, reading old articles and such. Then this weekend happened. Fox News announced their Sunday Lineup for the morning parade of talking heads which precedes the weekly holiday ritual we call NFL football. As soon as people saw the name Ted Cruz on Fox’s list, the very frightened powers that be, known as the Washington Establishment, decided that something must be done to keep Cruz’s popularity from getting out of control. Chris Wallace, a reporter who does a good job of keeping his political leanings to himself, received unsolicited opposition research. The odd thing about this research however was not so much that its very clear purpose was to destroy the chosen guest. That apparently happens frequently. The odd thing was, who presented that research. It was leaders from Ted Cruz’s own party, his fellow caucus members, colleagues, and more specifically, John McCain.
Karl Rove explains it this way:
Now, I am not one to usually bash Karl Rove, who has been misidentified as the main progenitor of George Bush’s policy and agenda during the Bush Presidency. Rove’s roll was as a paid political consultant only. Rove’s expertise is in winning elections, and helping candidates to shape their message for the purpose of winning elections. Once his candidate is elected, Rove helps develop strategies designed to get their way through tactical politicking. He’s more of a managerial mercenary than anything else. I understand that in this clip, which has a misleading title by the way, he was not defending the tactic taken by Senate Republicans to undercut their own, but merely answering the question as to why they would do this.
What I will fault Karl Rove for is not telling the whole truth during his explanation of why John McCain felt it appropriate to undercut a popular member of his own caucus. The alternative offered by McCain to what Cruz, Lee, and Paul are doing here is capitulation. I don’t know what kind of dialogue has been happening behind the scenes between Cruz and McCain, but I do know that this particular battle stretches back further than this past Thursday’s Republican Caucus Luncheon. I do know that Cruz wants to fight to put an end to this disastrous Law, which will be bad for our nation in ways people haven’t even imagined yet. I do know that McCain wants to capitulate, allow it to become entrenched, and have Republicans win back power so that they can hold the reigns for a vastly strengthened federal behemoth.
In order to achieve this, rather than confront Ted Cruz openly, and argue with him publicly, he took the extraordinary step of anonymous sleaze peddling. He is attempting to lose this fight via stealth and backhanded ad hominem attack. He is not just a palooka kissing canvas, but the guy in the back of his own fighting force, shooting members of his own team. His hope I guess, would be that the enemy, the main stream media and Democrat Establishment, will be nicer to him when after their unfortunate victory. I guess that’s what they call mavericks now. Let’s face it, John McCain has been kissing canvas for so long, there’s not much suspense or mystery in it anymore. Everyone in the political world knows that he’s going to take the dive, and as a consequence, he needs to artificially introduce some pizzazz in how he falls. So, while everyone knows the dive is coming, at least now there is some mystery left as to how he’ll intentionally lose the fight. For this month’s win, he pulled it off by being a low life sneaky duplicitous punk. Kudos to you John McCain, you’ve underwhelmed me, and hopefully many other Americans as well.
Special Note: I saw this letter as a comment to a previous post I’d made, and I believe you should consider reading it. I’ll have more to say about it afterwords.
The Truth About the Health Care Bills
– Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional AttorneyWell, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200:
The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009.
I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.
The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.
However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.
The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.
The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.
This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, in direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.
If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However , that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though.
The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;
The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.
I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution.” If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.
For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.
Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas
I have no desire to see Republicans in control of a vastly more powerful federal behemoth any more than I wish to see Democrats in that place. I want decentralized power, and a federal government with its power constrained by the states and the people who find themselves governed by that authority. So, capitulating to the inevitability of this sink hole of a law becoming entrenched just so we can get a pissed off U.S. electorate to vote Republican next time is not what I consider to be a victory. That’s the problem with the Republican brand today, in a nutshell. The base wants a smaller government and decentralized power. The establishment wants the same increased scope and power, just with their own people in charge of that increased scope and authority. So, while each and every one of them campaigned on putting an end to Obamacare, and all of its evils, only about half of them are on board with actually putting a stop to all of this.
I don’t know if Cruz’s strategy is the right one or not to achieve our goals. I do know that there has not been a serious alternative conceived of or proposed. I do know that Ted Cruz is willing to stand up and make the argument that many of us want made. He is not being undercut because the establishment feels that there would be a better way to accomplish what Cruz is seeking to accomplish. He is being undercut because the establishment does not wish to see a successful conclusion to this fight. They want to look like they’re genuinely against it all, but they are not. The Republican Establishment has held its base in contempt for years, and the reason why they hate Ted Cruz and Rand Paul is precisely because they sincerely believe in what they have both been saying, and more importantly, their actions have proven to be effective.
Cross Posted from Musings of a mad Conservative.
Tags: John McCain, Ted Cruz
