Monthly Archives: January 2015

Keystone and Vetoes

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All the pundits are looking to the Senate for an override of President Barack Obama’s pending veto of the pending Keystone XL Pipeline legislation. The Senate, it seems, has 63 votes for passage (which implies a cloture vote won’t be a problem), but the focus is on the Senate’s lack of four more votes to produce a “veto-proof” bill.

All the pundits are skipping over two key factors.

One is that a Senate passage with 67 Senators voting “aye” is not at all veto proof. That’s just for passage. The veto override is an entirely separate vote that comes after the President has, in fact, said “No” to his Senators and to the legislation. To override in the Senate, all 13 Senators voting for passage would then have to vote against their president to override. Every single one of them.

Also lost in the “veto-proof” blather, though, is a larger hurdle. Obama’s “No” would have to be overridden in the House, too: 290 Representatives would have to vote to override. That means that 44 of Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) Democrats would have to vote to override their President.

Good luck with that. Good luck with either of those.

Pass the bill, anyway, with a roll call vote in each House. Then do roll call votes in each House to override. Use Obama’s veto and those Democrats’ votes to shape the ’16 elections.

The Assault Continues

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King, NC, used to have a war memorial on its property—funded by private donations—that consisted of a statue of a soldier kneeling before a cross. Americans United for Separation of Church and State considered the memorial inappropriate, and they sued the city.

Last week, in abject surrender, the city not only settled by agreeing to remove the memorial, they agreed—agreed, mind you, no court outcome dictated this—to pay AUSCS $500,000 for AUSCS’ trouble and to pay the plaintiff represented by this atheist organization $1 for his trouble.

Both sides in this matter wish to avoid further costs,

the city said in making its excuses.

No. There’s no moral equivalence here. There’s none at all between atheists and memorials to those who’ve been killed or maimed defending the rights of the likes of Americans United for Separation of Church and State to behave as they do.

Timidity lost. And the cost to religious freedom is grievous.

I Think the Man Overstates His Case

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In a Fox News op-ed this week, pollster Doug Schoen decried President Barack Obama’s offensive refusal to present himself in Paris to stand beside French President François Hollande and with dozens of other world leaders who stood with Hollande as all of them called out Islamic terrorists’ despicable murders in Charlie Hebdo‘s* publication offices, of a French cop, and of four innocents in a Jewish bakery, all of which occurred in the French capital, Paris.ParisMarch2

Wrote Schoen [emphasis in the original]:

To speak about the most serious terrorist attack on Western soil since 9/11 in between speeches about his free community college plan demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding for the gravity of the situation in Paris and, indeed, the world.

To this end, it is not surprising that President Obama is the only Western leader who has refused to call this attack Islamic terrorism, even though President Hollande has declared that France is it at war with radical Islam.

But then Schoen went, I think, too far.

And to not even send Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry in his place shows a level of disrespect that makes me ashamed of our nation.

I disagree. I remain very much proud of my nation and the steps America is taking, or attempting to take, to fight Evil in this world.

I am embarrassed and shamed by President Barack Obama and his failure here.

 

*If you follow the link to Charlie Hebdo‘s Web site, you’ll be greeted, also, by a pop-up. The French caption, translated, reads

Freedom of expression is a right

Weekly Charlie [Charlie Hebdo] needs you to survive

Support by making a donation!

Feel free to support them, in the name of freedom. Give ’til it hurts. Charlie Hebdo already has.

Punishment of Terrorists

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There is a strong view that terrorists should be executed for their acts. In the main, I don’t disagree. Capital crimes desperately want capital punishment: prompt execution.

However.

Many of these terrorists are doing their deeds in order to become martyrs and to live in Allah’s heaven. For these, execution is a reward, not a punishment; for such as these, execution is a goal devoutly to be wished, not a deterrent.

Instead, I suggest, expensive as it would be, that wherever possible, those terrorists who are acting for martyrdom should be taken alive and allowed to die of old age in a prison cell. Here is punishment for the terrorist, and here is the possibility of deterrence: the price of failure being to live a long life in a cage, to be denied death except through the senility of old age.