Contemptible Holder

Attorney General Holder is contemptible and should be held in contempt by all Americans who espouse the rule of law. This is the message that I sent to my Congressperson today (please note that the body of the message was obtained from breitbart.com and used with one correction):

Dear Representative,
I gather that you will soon be voting on whether or not to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. I wish it was a vote for his impeachment, but at this point any evidence that Congress has a backbone is welcome.

To put Holder's actions in perspective, what if Walmart, the “largest seller of firearms and ammunition in America,” had knowingly sold 2,500 firearms to straw purchasers with the intent of having those purchasers carry those guns across an international border and sell them to drug cartel members in Mexico?

And,what if at least two (but possibly three or more) of the guns were used in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent while an untold number of the weapons were used to kill hundreds—literally hundreds—of Mexican citizens?

Moreover, what if one of the straw purchasers, who bought over 700 guns, was on food stamps and Walmart knew it, yet they sold him guns in exchange for bags of cash anyway?

What if some of the 2,500 guns were recovered, but more than 1,000 were not, and what if an untold number of those unrecovered guns were believed to be in the hands of criminals in American cities on our Southwest border?

And lastly, what if explanations given by Walmart board members regarding the authorization of this straw-purchasing, gun-walking program were in conflict with the testimony given by their executive? And what if both they and their executive snubbed their noses at Congressional requests for documentation that would explain who knew what and when?

What would happen to Walmart if that company did these things?

We all know what would happen. Both their C.E.O. and ranking board members would be handcuffed and frog-marched out to paddy wagons in broad daylight, then transported to prison cells that would house them for the rest of their lives.

And Rep. Pelosi wouldn’t even think about saying, “They are treating the C.E.O. of Walmart this way for doing his job.”

There is only one way a responsible representative of the people can vote on this issue. I voted for you because I thought you would be a responsible representative of me, my interests, and those of the United States of America. Please prove me right in my choice!

Chocolate Eclairs

Well, it looks like my Congressional delegation, at best, are uninformed and, at worst, have chocolate eclairs as important components of their anatomy. 

This is the text that I sent to all of my Congressional delegation. 

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According to United States Code, Title 28, Section 455 (Disqualification of Justice, Judge, or Magistrate), “(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. And, (b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances: …(3) Where he has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy;” 

I would like to know why impeachment proceedings against Justice Elena Kagan were not initiated in  Congress on Monday, 26 March 2012 when she failed to recuse herself from the bench during arguments related to the Affordable Care Act case which came before the Supreme Court this week.  

Even in the unlikely event that the Administration’s argument, that Justice Kagan was physically insulated from all issues associated with passage of the Affordable Care Act that her subordinates were working on, is not disingenuous, her sitting on the case certainly smacks of impropriety and serves no purpose beyond increasing the disrespect for government that is currently held by the majority of Americans. 

I am getting tired of my Congress demonstrating all the backbone of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous chocolate eclairs. What are you doing to ensure that Justice Kagan is impeached and removed from office? 

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One reply to my message was basically a brush-off and two others were founded on an error at best, and gross ignorance at worst. The best of the erroneous reply paragraphs is listed next without the political pap that surrounded it. 

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As a practical matter, however, the decision on whether or not a justice recuses him or herself from a case lies with the justice.  This is why it’s so important for the Senate to give every consideration to who it confirms for a seat on our nation’s highest court.

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My reply to this is as follows. 

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Thank you for the thoughtful reply. However, I’m afraid that the recusal decision of a Justice is NOT the final say.

The Supreme Court is certainly authorized to set its own rules of behavior AS LONG AS THEY COMPLY WITH APPLICABLE LAW.

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution states, “The Congress shall have Power… To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;” Exercise of this power has enabled the Supreme Court to grow from six Justices to nine over the past two centuries, to name only one way in which this power has been directly exercised by Congress over the Supreme Court itself.

Another exercise of this power is found in United States Code, Title 28, Section 455 (Disqualification of Justice, Judge, or Magistrate), “(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might REASONABLY be questioned. And, (b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances: …(3) Where he has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy;” (emphasis mine)

Subsection (a) is written to rely on the personal honor and recognizance of the individual judges which is as far as you took the question. However, if we take it further, we find that a judge whose honor, impartiality, integrity and performance cannot be besmirched is certainly demonstrating good behavior in the fulfillment of his or her office as Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution provides, “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour”. Failure to exercise impartiality and/or to ignore the rules that Congress has established as the law of the land is certainly not “good Behaviour,” especially when demonstrated by one who has been empowered to judge both “Law and Fact” in cases before the Court. It would seem to me that the highest standards of integrity and impartiality must be demonstrated by those who actually judge the law—even higher than that which must be demonstrated by those who merely write the law and those who merely execute the law.

Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution, provides a means with which to deal with judges who do not exercise “good Behaviour,” i.e. “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

If Congress has no power to enforce those laws that affect the Supreme Court, why waste any time at all crafting them? If Congress cannot impeach Justices, then why does the Constitution not expressly state that they are immune from impeachment? After all, they most certainly are part of the government as stated in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution (see above).

For our system of government to work, every branch of government must be jealous of their powers and prerogatives in order to ensure that no single branch of government manages to seize enough power to enable it to run roughshod over the other two AND over the People from whom those powers derive!

So, my question still stands, what are you doing to impeach Justice Elena Kagan for demonstrating unreasonable partiality, at minimum, and high crimes and misdemeanors, at worse?

I guess that gives rise to something of a philosophical question. Please accept my apology for not keeping this missive laser-focused on the Kagan question… Why is it that Congress has traditionally seemed to lack backbone in the face of high crimes and misdemeanors? And this does not seem to be a recent development either. To the best of my knowledge, Andrew Jackson committed the most egregious example of high crimes and misdemeanors in American history when he ignored the Supreme Court and forced the Cherokee to travel the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.

How far and how often does a judge or a member of the Executive Branch get to push the Constitution and/or the law out of shape before Congress will act? Why aren’t members of the current Administration facing impeachment for failing to reply promptly and fully to numerous Congressional subpoenas? Why wasn’t the President immediately impeached for exceeding his lawful authority as Commander in Chief in Libya? Why isn’t Attorney General Holder being impeached for lying to Congress about the Fast and Furious fiasco?

When the founders created the Constitution, Congress was supposed to be the first among equals among the branches. This does not seem to be the case today. If anything, Congress appears to have willingly given up many of its powers and responsibilities to the Executive (at least those that have not been flat-out usurped). Nobody in government seems to be interested in adhering to the Constitution except when it supports their personal agenda. Consequently, we are rapidly devolving away from the rule of law and into a state of rule by fiat camouflaged with a fig-leaf of federalism. If we stay on this road the United States of America shall soon be known as the Argentina of the North!

In your opinion, is this state of affairs correctable with some changes to the Constitution, or is it a terminal illness based in the burgeoning venality of our culture?

Why Wyoming (and Others) Should Nominate Ron Paul for President.

The major arguments that I have heard against Wyoming nominating Ron Paul to be the Republican candidate for President seem to focus on these two points:
1. Ron Paul can’t be elected.
2. Ron Paul is soft on defense.

This is my reply to both of these spurious arguments.

Argument 1:
My reply to number one is that Ron Paul may not be electable, but he does come closest of all the candidates to embodying all of the policies needed to put the United States on a path that will return it to its rightful place in the world as Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on the hill” rather than keeping it on the fiscally irresponsible path to financial ruin and the consequent calamities of dissolution and/or a police state.

Rather than worrying about whether we can be part of the winning team, no matter how rah!, rah! good it may make us feel, we need to concentrate on making whoever does win the Republican nomination, AND the whole Republican establishment, aware of the principals for which Ron Paul stands so that the entire party will come to embody those principals. The stronger the showing that Ron Paul makes at the Republican Convention, the more likely those principals are to be written into the party platform and embodied by the Presidential nominee, whoever it may be.

This year, rather than playing the usual popularity contest that will enable us to bask in the juvenile touchdown glow of having picked the winner of the Republican nomination, we need to send a message to the candidates and the national Republican elitists that will put them on the path to saving the United States from the dustbin of history. Putting the Republican Party, the Republican nominee, and ultimately, the government of the United States on the path to saving liberty under Constitutional government in these United States is what is important during this election cycle! The only entity that is powerful enough to grind the socialist, elitist, corporatist Washington establishment into dust under their heel is the American people! America, this may be your last chance! Don’t waste it!

Argument 2:
It is normal (albeit disingenuous) for the brain-dead liberal pundits to bash Ron Paul for being weak on defense—after all, it's part of their job description. However, I get really upset with the neocon pundits who accuse Ron Paul of being in La La land when it comes to national defense! These pundits excoriate the Obama administration for running up the national debt and then turn around and deplore the excruciating naivety of anyone who would even think of cutting the defense budget!

Now, I don’t know if these pundits are just plain stupid or if they have lucrative links to the military-industrial complex, but they certainly don’t exhibit the intelligence that our own soldiers, sailors and airmen exhibit! The last time that I checked, Ron Paul had received more campaign donations from Americans in uniform than all the other candidates combined!

What our sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers in uniform, and, I hope, most veterans like myself, seem to understand is that there is a difference between NATIONAL defense and IMPERIAL defense. Granted, even national defense isn’t cheap, but it is orders of magnitude less expensive than an imperial defense that is designed to enable the United States to stuff its big, fat nose into anyplace, anytime, for any reason in order to act like the nanny and the policeman of the whole wide world!

We must be the most paranoid people on the planet in order to justify spending as much money on our military as the next 15 biggest military spending countries in the world—and several of those countries are our allies! Actually, I don’t think that the average American is naturally paranoid, but they are sensitive to the paranoid propaganda that the military-industrial complex has become proficient at feeding us. Yes, Virginia, Dwight Eisenhower’s prophecy has been fulfilled! Fortunately, our patriots in uniform are smart enough to know that they want to protect their fellow citizens and NOT corporate bottom lines!

And finally, while we are on the topic of national defense, it seems kind of strange to me that the ONLY candidate in the running for the Republican nomination who has ever worn the uniform of this country is Ron Paul—and he is the one whose stance on defense is denigrated! Now, granted, Santorum has pointed out that his governmental service is equivalent to military service. And I will admit that dodging paper cuts and sharp remarks is serious business, but for some reason when it is compared to dodging bullets, most veterans’ blood pressure tends to rise.

Every person who has put on the uniform of the United States of America has effectively written a blank check to the nation that can be cashed for any value up to and including that person’s life. When I was in service, I accepted that as part of the price of defending what I loved and almost everyone that I served with understood it as well as I did. However, when we wrote that check, the understanding was that some proportion of those checks would be cashed for full value, but when our commanders had to cash those checks, their value would not be wasted, not be thrown away frivolously or for any purpose other than to defend the Constitution and the people living under its aegis of Liberty.

And we are to believe that Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum understand this compact better than Ron Paul who actually served  time in uniform!? Frankly, if I was back in service, I would trust Ron Paul to not waste my life and those of my brothers and sisters in uniform, more so than any life-long civilian who would be more likely to regard my life and those of my comrades as pieces on a playing board!

Wyoming, do yourselves, your children, and all that follow after them a huge favor. Nominate Ron Paul to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States of America!