"Slaughtering" The Constitution

Nothing has brought out the glaring examples of "situational ethics" from those in congress as has the recent talk of reconciliation and the little known "deem and pass" rule, affectionately known these days as the "Slaughter Rule", so named for Rep Louise Slaughter who pulled it out of the rules committee to use to pass the Senate bill...without actually passing the Senate bill. These obscure parliamentary procedures have made news in the past few weeks simply because, on the surface, they seem to be a congressional "dirty trick".

Although both have been used in the past by Republicans while Democrat members howled about their egregious overstepping of power, those same Democrats today see no problem in using either to pass the most aggressive piece of legislation since FDR. Not unlike the Dems, the GOP is now standing up to howl at the possible unconstitutionality of their use today.

Case in point:

2010: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on the idea of passing health care with a self executing rule:

The House Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, also defended the maneuver on Tuesday. “It is consistent with the rules,” Mr. Hoyer said. “It is consistent with former practice.”

2003: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer complaining about the Republicans' use of self-executing rules:

When the Republican leadership reported a self-executing rule providing for the adoption of the $82 billion plan over 10 years and an almost trillion-dollar plan over 20 years, accelerating the increased child tax credit for low-income people families, we didn't even get an opportunity to vote on the bill itself except by reference in a self-executing rule. What kind of lack of confidence does that display? What kind of process in pursuit of effectiveness does that mean that we are adopting? What kind of demeaning of democracy is the objective of efficiency resulting in?

...We should neither excuse those past practices nor count their occurrences. No one expects every rule to be open, but we do expect that the opportunity to debate legislation be the norm, not the exception.

(emphasis added)

Seems a bit hypocritical doesn't it? It's what is more commonly termed, "situational ethics" in modern politics as it exists today. President Bush, in attempting to lower the taxes of lower income people used this with an estimated cost of $82 billion. Louise Slaughter, current chairman of the rules committee and the person responsible for bringing it to the fore to pass this abomination, actually sued in Federal court when Bush did this. She eventually lost and it was never appealed to the SCOTUS. Another case of situational ethics.

The Congress of today is attempting to use this rule to effectively open the door to the permanent destruction of the private health care industry. And make no mistake, that is precisely what is occurring deep inside this bill. Hidden inside this travesty as well is the takeover of the higher learning system in a sense. If this bill passes, no longer will anyone be able to secure funds through a private lending institution for college. The government will effectively become the sole source for those funds. All loans will go through the federal government. Think about that for just a moment. Does federal funding ever come without strings? Does anyone believe the government will simply provide a loan with absolutely no desire to say what you can or can't learn? But I digress, rightfully so I think.

What I'm really talking about is an obscure parliamentary rule that while having been used in the past, is not appropriate in this particular case. In this instance, it's being used to provide cover for gutless politicians who are too afraid of their constituencies. They fear an open yes vote on this bill ensures a loss in November at the polls. This is essentially, passage of a law through executive fiat. Obama wants it, so he's going to get it, consequences be damned. As Marxism dictates, "The ends justifies the means." It's this precise example of the "whatever it takes" brand of politics the current administration seems intent on that will be it's ultimate downfall. The American people, while docile most of the time when it comes to our elected officials, will rise in numbers never before seen in Washington DC.

So, what exactly is this "Slaughter Rule"? This congressional trickery has a long and distinguished history. Those of you who smoke can thank this rule for not being able to smoke on airplanes anymore. Yep, it's a part of our lives, but how does it work?

Let's take a trip down hypothetical lane and we'll find out.

Let's say that I have a fairly unpopular bill I want passed but I know I don't have the votes to secure a victory. The Senate passes my bill but the House has too many linguine spined wimps to take it into the home stretch. Instead of voting on the bill as is, the house simply puts together a package of changes to the original bill and then votes on the changes, not the original bill. If the changes are voted on and it succeeds then the original bill is "deemed to have been passed". This is particularly nasty for two reasons. First, the Senate version hasn't been approved and any changes made then don't conform to what the Senate thinks it should be and secondly, no one ACTUALLY voted on the original bill so there's no real accountability to the people who vote these wimps into office.

In relatively small matters, like smoking on airplanes, I can almost see why this might be necessary with the caliber of scumbags we have in Congress these days but when you lay this cowardly procedural trick next to the largest, most comprehensive piece of legislation since the New Deal, it dives to new lows.

It's my opinion that ultimately this rule will not be employed to pass health care reform. The consequences would be devastating to the Democrat party and leave them out of power for many years to come. House Dems know this and won't commit the "assisted political suicide" that Obama seems to be asking of them. This will be done on a simple up or down vote on the Senate bill and those voting for it will be held accountable to their constituencies come November.

Proving Newton Wrong

Sometime in 1686 Sir Isaac Newton published his great work, Principia, which explained the motion of bodies in the universe and established what we know now as his theory of motion and gravity. It was widely viewed as the most significant work of it's time and was expected to change the disciplines of physics and astronomy for all time. It has certainly had a huge impact on physics and made for a wonderful, if inaccurate, fable of the apple falling on his head. Regardless of how he came to have his understanding of the universe, he has arguably become the father of modern physics and his theories and work remained the foremost explanation of the universe for hundreds of years.

That is, until a young upstart from Europe decided to challenge hundreds of years of accepted science. He took Newton's theories apart and found that Newton was wrong on several very important points. This man, who had no formal education and was not considered an intellectual to those who knew him nor to those he tried to impress his new theories upon. It took a young man, working as a patent clerk, to stand science on it's head. That young man was Albert Einstein and he knew that tackling Newton's theories was a sacrilege in the scientific community and would be met with derision and disbelief. He took them on nonetheless because he knew something that all the most respected scholars of the day did not know. He knew that Newton was wrong. Newton's theory of the effects of gravity on light were wrong and it would take this young German wunderkind to prove it.

He would ultimately see his theory become the standard by which all other members of the scientific community would measure brilliance, from that time to this. In 1919, The Times Of London had a banner headline that read, “Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown.”

I recount that story to point to a larger idea. That no science is ever settled and that "consensus" has no place among scientists. All of the scientific disciplines are just that, disciplines with no room for consensus. Any theory stands as fact until it is disproved or improved upon. Einstein's first theory of relativity was based on an incorrect variable that Einstein himself knew would be exposed as false so he set about proving his Special Theory of General Relativity in 1907. It would take 12 years and several failed experiments in astronomy to prove it correct. Even with the foundation of his theory having been accepted as fact, there were still quite a few holes in it due largely to the fact that he hadn't thought of how to complete them. It would take physicists many years later to fill in those holes and give us a unified theory of relativity. Even now, there is still room to expand and improve Einstein's many theories.

Fast forward to modern times and we see a group of scientists declare that the debate on global warming being caused by man is over and that a "consensus of scientists" have now discovered the undeniable, unshakable truth of the matter. While these are no doubt very smart men, they can be no smarter than Einstein can they? Remember him? The man who set about to disprove his own theory? Einstein himself knew that any theory could never honestly be considered fact because of the ever evolving nature of human intelligence and understanding. He even joked mildly once to a friend during a visit to Cambridge, "Who knows, one day someone will view my work the same way that I viewed Newton's...close but not quite correct."

The only absolute in science is that it is ever changing and evolving to incorporate the new ideas and expressions of those who build on the work of others. With the recent revelations of sloppy record keeping and outright falsehoods going on in the global warming community. we see that not even science is above reproach as it used to be. With the admission of Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University that there has been in fact, no global warming in the last 15 years and that the medieval period may actually have been warmer than it is today, it is obvious that while consensus may have existed between a large segment of the scientific community, that consensus was wrong. When science is exposed to the harsh light of fact and study, there is no consensus. This is because what may be considered fact by a few may be filled with incorrect variables and open to interpretation by many others.

The glaciers aren't melting as fast as we were told, nor are the seas rising as quickly. The mean temperature across the globe is actually cooling, not warming. Bearing all this in mind, can we now accept any one explanation of the ever changing temperature of the Earth? Do we bury our heads in the scientific sands and treat science as religion? Based on faith and belief and not on strict adherence to scientific method?

President Donovan McNabb

It's been awhile since I've written anything of a political nature. Truthfully, I haven't written much of anything in the past few months. Not for a lack of subject matter to be sure. There's certainly been plenty to write about but I haven't been able to connect to them in a visceral way. That's where my real creativity lies when it comes to writing. I have to be able to feel it to write effectively. I suppose that can be said of anyone who enjoys writing but lately I've had trouble connecting with events in the news in a way that truly stirred my passion. I though briefly that the recent debacle in Massachusetts would be the final straw that would break the block I was experiencing. Alas, it was not to be.

All that changed last night while watching the State Of The Union address and the resulting media coverage of it. It was 70 minutes of prepared remarks by the President and an ensuing 24 hours of prepared remarks by the media. The market for teleprompters must be sky high right now. All the usual suspects had all the usual comments. From Olberman and Hannity to Matthews and Limbaugh on down, they all said exactly what we all thought they'd say.

With the exception of Chris Matthews. His comments stood out for me in a very startling way. In case you've been under a rock in the last 24 hours and haven't heard it, I'll transcribe it here. Matthews was cooing lovingly with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman after the speech had ended and he uttered this,
"You know, I was trying to think about who he was tonight, and it's interesting: He is post-racial by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour... I was watching, I said, "Wait a minute. He's an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people, and there he is, President of the United States, and we've completely forgotten that tonight. Completely forgotten it."

I'm going to leave aside the obvious charges of a double standard by the media and the black community that would allow a left leaning commentator to say this kind of thing. I'm even going to forgive him for it due in part to the tingle that must have been traveling up his leg after the speech. Matthews "bro-mance" with Obama is well documented and need not be explored here. I'm not even going to point my finger at the thinly, if at all, disguised support that's shown for this president in almost all corners of the media.

No, that's not what I want to explore here. I'd like to delve a bit deeper into the psyche of Matthews using this statement and some other statements as they relate to this line of thinking.

When I first read that statement I laughed at how incredibly stupid it sounded and how the talking heads can lose focus of their jobs at times. I perused the different blogs and news outlets that I usually consume in the mornings before work and left thinking how silly the mainstream media can sometimes be.

As the day wore on though, those words kept coming back to me over and over again,

"I forgot he was black tonight for an hour ."

A horrible thought occurred to me. I almost didn't want to think it but it seemed so obvious, so completely clear. As much as I tried to rationalize the words spoken by Matthews, I couldn't do it. What could he possibly have meant by that statement? Did he mean that For all the rest of the time that he thinks about Obama, he only sees his skin color? Or did he mean that Obama was so good, he seemed white? As if a black man shouldn't be expected to be that good at speaking? Is that what he was saying?

I will confess that I can't ultimately speak intelligently as to what Matthews might really have meant but I can draw a comparison that should make my point quite well.

We've all heard the story of Rush Limbaugh's short lived stint on ESPN as a commentator due to his comments about the media's treatment of Donovan McNabb. His comments, while not exactly the smartest ever made, were pointed more towards the media's treatment of McNabb. Limbaugh pointed out, truthfully, that the media used kid gloves with McNabb in describing his talents while avoiding discussion of his weaknesses. Limbaugh's statement was that the sports media had always been desirous that a black quarterback do well.

There's even an anecdote from Doug Johnson, former Redskins quarterback, who fielded an idiotic question during media day before Superbowl XXII that went something like this,
"How long have you been a black quarterback?"

It's that desire for "social engineering" that I'm getting at. Chris Matthews is playing the same game here I think. For Matthews, who obviously sees everyone through the prism of race. You see, for Matthews, seeing a black man as president, is an accomplishment for himself. Not for the man himself but for all the social engineers out there.

Matthews off-hand words hint at a darker, more insidious force at work in America today. Let me put it another way with a little comparison and then judge for yourself whether you'd see Matthews comments any other way.

"I had an appointment today to have a little problem with numbness in my hand and spoke at great length with a very smart, very compassionate doctor about the problem. We talked for over an hour and he left me feeling much better about the diagnosis and the treatment. You know, he was so knowledgeable and competent that for an hour today, I forgot he was black."

Taken at face value, those words are inflammatory at best and pure racism at worst and just the kind of racial bias that the NAACP and the black caucus would have my head for if I had really said it.

The media has been employing a very common tactic in their praise and admiration of Obama. They're simply playing the game of affirmative action by covering up his faults and blunders while crowing to the heavens about his oratory skills (Matthews), the fact that he's clean and articulate (Biden) and that he has no "negro dialect" unless he chooses to (Reid).

Taken at face value, those comments that point to his race or the fact that he's not at all like a white man simply illustrate that the media created this man, cut him from whole cloth and now have it all on the line to keep him at the god-like level that they've built him up to.

I don't see the president's skin color at all. Not during speeches or at any other time. I see a man I vehemently disagree with who has radical views that I find disturbing to say the least. I see a man with no qualifications to be president whatsoever, no leadership skills and no ability to govern effectively. I do not, however, see a black man who's clean and articulate as Joe Biden does. Nor do I see a man with no negro dialect as Harry Reid does.

I've made great strides throughout the course of my life to avoid using race as a qualifier for how I feel about someone or how I treat them and done my best to instill that in others I associate with. I don't take kindly to casual accusations of racism hurled at me or others who I feel have earned it unjustly.

To bring this to a merciful close for those of you either too enraged or too bored to continue by saying this:

The only truly racist comments I've heard spoken about our president in the last year...

have come from the left.