On this date in 1791, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution were ratified.
For those of you who took a hit of blotter acid prior to civics class in high school, these are the ones that say what the government isn’t allowed to do to you. These are rights, not privileges. They’re not granted by the government. We grant power to the government so that these rights can be safeguarded. Sometimes we forget that.

Here are all of the amendments to the constitution and my interpretation of them. This is a long one, but I think you’ll like it. H/T to Wikipedia on this one.

Amendment # 1
The government can’t force you to have religion, and the government can’t force you not to express your religion. It’s none of their business. You can say or print pretty much anything you want to and the government can’t do much to stop you. This right will not, however, keep your ass from getting kicked due to what you say or print. We can all get together to do something as long as we’re not hurting anyone, and we can complain to the government any time we want to when they screw up. Some people make a living doing this. What a country.

Amendment # 2
We have to defend ourselves, sometimes from the government itself, and the government can’t take away our guns or stop us from getting them. And it’s no one’s business but my own what I have.

Amendment # 3
The government can’t force me to put up and feed soldiers during peacetime, although I can pay for their beer if I want to, and during time of war, they have to actually pass a law forcing me to do this. But all they’d have to do is ask nicely, and I’ll sleep on the couch so a couple of paratroopers can get a good nights sleep and a good breakfast.

Amendment # 4
Got a warrant? No? Then come back when you get one. Please put that thermal imaging system away. And thanks for being a cop.

Amendment # 5
The government can’t just drag me into court. You have to convince people just like me that I’ve actually committed a crime. The government only gets to try to throw my fat self into jail for doing something once. The government can’t force me to testify against myself, and I’m not saying anything until my lawyer gets here. The government can’t take my land to build a strip mall unless you actually pay me for it. And that better be a really nice strip mall.

Amendment # 6
The government has to let me have a lawyer. Hopefully one with a clue. The government can’t throw me into jail for a few years before they get around to actually accusing and trying me. I can’t be arrested in Kentucky and tried in Minnesota for something I did in New Mexico. I have to be told what I’m being accused of, and the government can’t stop me from trying to prove that their witnesses aren’t lousy stinking lieing rats who should be thrown in front of a truck.

Amendment # 7
We have to take our arguments to be decided by 12 people who couldn’t get out of jury duty.

Amendment # 8
The government can’t hold you on $2 million dollars bail for spitting on the sidewalk, and they can’t fine you that $2 million for said spitting. As satisfying as flogging a child molester or hanging a multiple murderer up to his neck in pig droppings would be, some panty waisted loser would have his feelings hurt, and we can’t have that.

Amendment # 9
Just because we didn’t think of it in here, doesn’t mean it’s not a right. This must be where that right to choice is.

Amendment # 10
The federal government only gets those powers that are given to it in the Constitution. If it’s not in here, they don’t get it. All of that stuff goes to the states, or better yet, the actual people who pay taxes and keep the train rolling.

Amendment # 11
The Federal courts can’t be used by anyone to sue a state unless the state agrees to participate. So you have to have their consent to try to sue them. Good luck with all that.

Amendment # 12
Way too long to put the text in here, but basically, we vote for electors, the electors vote for President and Vice President, and if you can’t be President for some reason, you don’t get to be Vice President. From the length of the amendment, you can see that the lawyers had already taken over by 1804.

Amendment # 13
You don’t get to own other people. And the government can pass laws to make sure you don’t. As a transplant to Kentucky, I can tell you there are a lot of people who either have a problem with this one, or haven’t heard about it yet.

Amendment # 14
Again, the lawyers must have eaten their Wheaties when they wrote this one. Way too long, but they were trying to cover a lot of bases with one amendment. First, if you’re born in the United States, you’re a citizen, even if mama came across the border only to have you in the ER in San Diego. Second, every person in a state is counted as a whole human being when figuring out how many electors the states get for electing the President. No more math in figuring out what 3/5th’s of a person is. Third, if you made an oath to the Confederacy, you don’t get to be a part of the government. No kidding? You can’t be an officer of a government you tried to overthrow? We actually had to write that down? Fourth, we’re going to pay our debts, but I’ll be damned if we’ll pay off the debts of the Confederacy.

Amendment # 15
Ex slaves get to vote, and Congress can pass laws making sure they get to. We passed this on in 1870. Only took 80 or 90 years for this one to be enforced at all.

Amendment # 16
Congratulations, the government figured out a way to punish you for making more money than it takes to keep your family at the poverty level. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Amendment # 17
Another wordy one. We get to directly pick our Senators in an election, instead of the former manner, which involved something resembling the “Twit of the Year” contest.

Amendment # 18
Yet another one that was written by a committee. You can’t be trusted to drink alcohol, so it’s illegal. Everywhere. Unless you happen to be a Kennedy.

Amendment # 19
Women get the vote. Whoopee. Pants suits for everyone.

Amendment # 20
For the love of God, were they being paid by the word? The President and Vice President have to show up to work in January, and the Congress actually has to show up once a year.

Amendment # 21
18th Amendment? We don’t need no stinking 18th Amendment! You have to believe in something, and I believe I’ll have a beer.

Amendment # 22
You only get to be President for two terms. Not 4, just 2. No President for life. At least not again.

Amendment # 23
The District of Columbia gets to actually have someone represent them in the Presidential election. They just don’t get a Senator or Congressman with an actual vote.

Amendment # 24
You can’t be denied your right to vote because you can’t pay a tax. You should have to pass an intelligence test, but we haven’t passed that amendment yet.

Amendment # 25
The Vice President gets to be President if he bumps off the President.

Amendment # 26
18 year olds get to vote. Still can’t buy a beer, but they can at least vote for the guys who keep them from drinking.

Amendment # 27
The accidental amendment. Proposed in 1789, ratified in 1992. If a Congressman votes himself another unearned raise, he has to go through another election cycle before he starts to rake it in. This one is also a monument to that great American motto “I’ll get around to it”.

So that’s it. 27 amendments to the document that has governed the country since its founding. Not bad for a bunch of oppressors, or as we who actually deserve to be protected by the Constitution would call them, the illustrious geniuses who designed and founded our Republic.

Last week, President Obama extended protection from deportation to approximately 5 million illegal immigrants who met certain criteria.  It is the most aggressive use of his “pen and phone” that we’ve seen so far, and I fear that by the time his tenure in the White House is over it will be eclipsed a few times.  His opponents are howling at the injustice of it, while his supporters praise him for cutting through the Gordian Knot of Congressional opposition.

But I fear that Mr. Obama’s ever-escalating use of executive orders to do what Congress will not leads us down a dangerous road.  At what point will it flip from being a legal way for a president to use the powers that the Constitution and the Congress give him to do something he wants to being a way for a president to do anything he wants?  Like I’ve said before, Obama could be a philosopher king, with a pure heart and the best of intentions, but the precedent he sets for other presidents will lead them to expand and abuse any power or prerogative he claims.

Consider this example:  Let’s assume that in 2016 a conservative, pro-gun rights Republican wins the White House.  What would be the reaction if the president sits down at her desk the day after the inauguration and signs the following executive order?

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, it shall be the policy of this administration that all federal gun control laws are unconstitutional.  I direct the Attorney General to not defend these laws in the courts, to drop any investigations and prosecutions for alleged crimes based on them, and to not initiate any new investigations or prosecutions under them.  This administration shall provide to my office within 60 days a list of those who have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to offenses under these laws, but have no other convictions, so that pardons may be offered to them.

This is the box of demons that President Obama is opening. Imagine if the next president came out with something like this, or if it dealt with labor laws, or income taxes, or whatever other conservative trigger topic you want.  There are things that executive orders are an appropriate tool for, and there are things for which they are inappropriate.  This seems, to me, to cross into the inappropriate area.

Do you all really want future presidents to feel comfortable going this far? That’s how far President Obama has gone.

OK, so if our Republican brothers and sisters could finish up their victory lap and have a seat, I’d appreciate it.  We need to talk.  Seriously, put down the champagne and get that young lady on the chandelier to come down.

Yesterday, you did good.  You took back the Senate, widened your majority in the House, and took a bunch of governor’s mansions away from the Democrats.  Congratulations.

But please keep this in mind:  A two to six vote majority isn’t a mandate, and you don’t have a big enough majority in either chamber to override a presidential veto.  Please act accordingly.

What this means is that anything you do to stick your thumb in the President’s eye for the next two years is going to be symbolic, at best.  Yes, you can pass bills every other Thursday repealing Obamacare, and he can veto them every other Friday.  So, get that out of your systems, go through the kabuki dance of “Hey, we tried, and the big meanie up the street messed everything up”, and then get on with the people’s business.

The first thing that ought to be on your plate come January is to pass a budget.  Not another continuing resolution, a budget.  We’ve gone far too long with the drama of the money running out because you all can’t do the one thing that the Constitution says you have to do, and I, for one, am sick of it.  Get the administration to make a commitment on what it wants and what it needs, craft budget resolutions, and then get them passed through both houses. Make the President to commit one way or another with his veto.  For the good of the country, I ask that you make this as ideologically neutral as possible.

The time for sticking it to the President will come.  It will come with joint commissions to look into Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, and whatever else you want to work on.  It will come with the inevitable nominations for judges, cabinet secretaries, and Supreme Court justices.  It will come as you build a base of support, both in your party’s electorate and in that big squishy middle that gave you your majorities.

That last one is what your goal for the next two years should be, because if you go off the deep end and do something incredibly stupid, we will lose in 2016.  I have no doubt that government shutdowns and impeachment would whip up the base quite a bit for about six weeks, but you have 104 weeks to worry about.  Grandstand a bit, put somebody more photogenic and well-spoken than Mitch McConnell in front of the cameras, but don’t take your eyes off of the goal of putting a conservative in the White House.

Once that’s done, we can talk about repealing ObamaCare and all of the other things you want to do.  For now, remember why we put you back into power:  to keep the President from doing further damage to the country, to recover lost ground where feasible, and to lay the base for further victories in 2016.

What you have been given can and will evaporate in 2016 if the opposition can goad you into doing something stupid in the next 24 months, and if that happens, you will have nobody to blame but yourself. I hope you all remember that, because we will be watching and we won’t forget.

Remember, remember,
The 4th of November
Midterm election night
I know of no reason
Short of RINO treason
Why we should give up the fight!

When something is as opaque as the Obama administration, you have to watch for things to happen beyond the veil of its control.  When you see what they do in public, you can try to make educated guesses as to what they do in private and what motivates them.

Today, Attorney General Holder will be announcing his resignation.  Holder is one of the last advisors that President Obama brought with him in 2008 that still draws a government paycheck.   He’s been a fixer and hatchetman for the administration for years, but has decided it’s time to go.  News sources say that he plans to stay in his position until a replacement can be confirmed by the Senate.

The timing is interesting.  The fact that it comes now, when the Senate is up for grabs, indicates that the President and his staff do not feel confident that Harry Reid and the Democrats will be able to keep a majority or even a 50/50 split (Vice-President Biden would vote in a tie vote on a nominee, and one would assume that he would side with his own party).  Since the filibuster rules for presidential nominees have been gutted by Mr. Reid, all they need is 51 votes to get the nomination through.  So, if the President wants to get a nominee for AG through with the current rules and the current Senate make-up, he has to do it before the next crop of Senators is sworn in come January.

Now, a lame-duck Senate can confirm a nominee, but that might mean that the new AG would take a gut shot when it comes to credibility afterward.  If it’s perceived that a nominee was confirmed by people who had already lost their seat, he or she might be hamstrung in dealing with the Congress.  My guess is that the President will push for the Senate to come back and confirm his nominee prior to the election in November.

That, of course, would complicate things for Senators in tight elections, especially Democrats.  One of the tactics the party has chosen this election cycle is for candidates in tight races to distance themselves from the President.  Now, while they are in a political bar brawl, they will need to return to Washington for a few weeks, at the call of the President, to go through confirmation.   That will give their opponents a lot of unchallenged face time with voters, and will give them more targets to shoot at as Senators, especially in committee hearings and during floor discussion, make statements in favor of or against the nominee.

Could forcing through a confirmation fight now, so close to a heavily disputed election, hurt the President’s party as it tries to maintain control of the Senate?  I guess we’ll have to see, but it can’t be a good thing, unless he’s playing the long con and will nominate someone so off the wall that the Democrats in the Senate can safely fight him on it and then show that they’re not lapdogs to the President.

I’m interested in seeing how many federal judges and justices, who were appointed by the Carter and Clinton administrations, go the same way.  The more of that we see, the more we can assume that the Obama administration doesn’t think it’s going to hold the whip hand with the Senate much longer.

So, to AG Holder, thank you for your service these six years, no matter how much we have disagreed.  I look forward to the civil suits from those you have harmed, and I look forward to your appearance in front of multiple Senate and House committees without the cloak of office protecting you.

As for the rest of you, it’s time to pay attention again.  This is going to be interesting.

OK, yesterday’s entry finished up what I would like to hear from my elected officials before I go into the voting booth.

Was there anything I missed?

Update – As requested by Freiheit, here are links to all of the segments:

I

II

III

IV

V

Other Issues

1. In your opinion, is it appropriate for police, federal, state, or local, armed with more than their sidearms, to monitor or disrupt peaceful demonstrations or gatherings?
2. In your opinion, is it appropriate for the government, at any level, to gather information on the day-to-day business and communications of citizens, in or out of the country, without a warrant?
3. Please select one of the following sentences that best describes your stance on the death penalty:
   1. It should be abolished.
   2. The rare use of it right now is about right.
   3. The number of crimes for which a person can be sentenced to death should be expanded, and executions should happen more quickly after conviction.
4. In your opinion, is it appropriate for the government, at any level, to use eminent domain in order to take property from one citizen in order to give it to another private citizen so that it can be used commercially?
5. In your opinion, is it the business of the government, at any level, to regulate which intoxicating substances, such as marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, and heroin, adults over the age of 21 consume, assuming that they cause no harm to others by so doing?
6. In your opinion, is it the appropriate for the federal government to dictate to states which intoxicating substances the state wishes to regulate within its borders?
7. In your opinion, is appropriate to require possession of a valid, government issued photo ID in order to vote?  If so, would you support spending programs to provide these ID’s to people who cannot afford to get one on their own?
8. In your opinion, is it appropriate for the government to get involved in the business dealings of any private-sector company, for any purpose?
9. In 50 words or less, please describe the powers and responsibilities of the office you are seeking.
10. In 50 words or less, please describe the powers of the executive branch of the government.
11. In 50 words or less, please describe the powers of the legislative branch of government.
12. In 50 words or less, please describe the powers of the judicial branch of government.
13. In 50 words or less, please describe the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, including where you think the limits to this power should be.
14. Do you feel it is appropriate for the executive branch to issue orders that further a goal when the legislative branch does not act toward that goal?
15. Do you feel it is appropriate for the government to dictate whom a citizen can marry?
16. In 50 words or less, please describe a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that you disagree with and why.
17. In 50 words or less, please describe a federal statute that you would most like to see repealed, and why.  Please do not re-use a statute that was previously discussed in this survey.
18. In 50 words or less, please describe a federal executive order that you would most like to see rescinded, and why.
19. In 50 words or less, please define “social justice”.
20. Please select one of the following sentences that most closely resembles your opinion of what should be done about illegal immigration:
    1. Seal the border, enforce current laws, send illegal immigrants home.
    2. Loosen legal immigration standards, provide a path to legalization for those who are currently here illegally.
    3. Legalize those who are already here, welcome those who want to come.
21. Do you support lifetime limits on the amount of government support a citizen can receive through programs such as SNAP and WIC?
22. Do you believe it is within the government’s power to restrict the amount of money a person or organization can give to a political candidate or cause?  If not, do you support efforts to amend the Constitution to allow it?
23. Do you believe that it is appropriate for police agencies to seize the property of a citizen based on suspicion of a crime, even if no crime is proven?

Military Issues

1. Please select the sentence that best fits your stance on military spending:
   1. We have gone too far in cutting back on the military.
   2. We are on a good course as things stand right now.
   3. We have not cut deeply enough.
2. Please select the sentence that best fits your stance on military personnel numbers:
   1. Our current numbers and our projected strength over the next five years are appropriate.
   2. We are cutting too deeply into our talent pool already.
   3. We have not cut deeply enough.
3. Please select the sentence that best represents your stance on the mission of our military:
   1. Kill people and break stuff
   2. Defend the borders of our country and our national interests overseas
   3. Bringing stability to critical regions of the world.
   4. Carrying out humanitarian relief, in addition to helping our friends and allies around the world.
4. In your opinion, is it worthwhile to fund research into leaps in military technology, or is it better to fund evolutionary change in existing military technology?
5. In 50 words or less, please tell us about the overseas military activity that you would most like to see eliminated and why:
6. In 50 words or less, please tell us about the domestic military activity that you would most like to see eliminated and why:
7. In your opinion, is it better for all of the military services to use common equipment (trucks, airplanes, helicopters, uniforms, firearms) in order to maximize efficiency, or to have each service develop and purchase their own equipment in order to maximize effectiveness for their particular mission?
8. In your opinion, does the Department of Veteran’s Affairs require top to bottom reform, understanding the cost of doing so, in order to improve its service to veterans?
9. In your opinion, should the Department of Veteran’s Affairs be moved under the Department of Defense?
10. Do you believe that military retirements should be reformed so that retirees do not receive payments until after they reach a certain age?