This blog printed on 100% recycled electrons.
With the South Dakota Legislature reconvening tomorrow for the unusual purpose of using Veto Day to pass a state budget, Senator Gordon Howie wants to waste taxpayer time and money fighting health care reform. Tomorrow he'll try again to pass SB 137, the intent of which is to nullify health care reform and all the benefits it will have for South Dakotans. This absurd bit of Tea Bag grandstanding declares state law superior to federal law, and wouldn't withstand judicial scrutiny any better than Jackley's lawsuit.
The Senate already killed Howie's unconstitutional bill in February on an 11–23 vote. But, true to his professed Teabaggery, Senator Howie doesn't let numbers stop his futile sloganeering. Senator Howie even plans suspend the rules of the Legislature to ram his bill back onto the agenda.
What?! cry conservatives. Changing rules? Using parliamentary tricks? We're outraged! Nancy Pelosi can't subvert the hallowed rules of—wait. It's one of our guys? Oh, uh....
There's a fair argument that screaming Repeal! all year might alienate voters who are sick of the health care debate and want to get on with other issues. Gordon Howie and his fellow Republicans might do better to quietly admit defeat and turn their attention to jobs and the economy... and the state budget.
It's foolishness like this that explains why Gordon Howie would make a terrible governor. All posing, no pragmatism. Now that Ken Knuppe has his petitions in (good work, Ken!), expect Howie to place fifth in the GOP primary.
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p.s.: Gordon, if you're going to waste the Legislature's time, waste big: why not attach an amendment to SB 137 banning the expulsion of God from South Dakota as well?
RIP Quincy Jones
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Probably one of the greatest music producers EVER! I have to tell you, I
have been beside myself, I get it, he was old, but everything you listened
to deca...
7 hours ago
Methinks Howie has gotten under your skin, Cory, based on your last comment.
ReplyDeleteYou libs hope that we the people (who overwhelmingly did not support this bill even though parts of it are good) forgive and forget the underhandedness by which it was passed, the the fact that no one knew what was in all of it before voting aye, the fact that the true facts of cost and what is covered etc are coming out. The people are sick of hearing about the health care debate, you are correct, but not for the reasons you believe. We are sick of being ignored, taken for granted, lied to, scammed, called homegrown terrorists, etc.
So we are just supposed to say lets get on to the next things - amnesty and of course the concomitant voting rights, cap and tax, card check to assauge once again the union supporters of Obama, and more and more income redistribution? I don't think so. At least O et al are honest now and actually admit the purpose of the health care bill was to redistribute wealth. O said it during the campaign to Joe the plumber but tried to worm his way out of it; some of believed him then, and now we are being vindicated in that belief.
There are sound reasons to question the wisdom of this health care bill and to pass Howie's bill. I just hope our legislators realize this and assert our states rights as defined in Amendment X to the Constitution. This is not, as you claim, subverting the rules; it is enforcing our Constitutional rights.
The old Soviet Union's Pravda would be proud of you, calling a bill asserting South Dakota's right to reject the unconstitutional socialist federal government health care bill "unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteContrary to your fantasies, Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution remains in effect, as does the Tenth Amendment. I know how badly you despise the limits the Constitution puts on the federal government, but you really should either advocate an amendment to allow this socialist nonsense, or go join another team (i.e. another country that likes Marxist wealth redistribution, and actually legally allows it). We don't want any of that here, and our Constitution specifically prohibits it.
You should consider the wisdom of the founders, whose idle chatter was far more wise and profound than your idol Karl Marx's best efforts:
[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights. – Thomas Jefferson
Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. – Thomas Jefferson
[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution. – Alexander Hamilton
Congress may collect taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare, in those cases wherein the Constitution empowers them to act for the general welfare. To suppose that it was meant to give them a distinct substantive power, to do any act which might tend to the general welfare, is to render all the enumerations useless, and to make their powers unlimited. – Thomas Jefferson
Our tenet ever was…that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated, and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money. – Thomas Jefferson
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. – Thomas Jefferson
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. – James Madison
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.” – James Madison
A wise and frugal government…shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. – John Adams
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. – James Madison
I could go on, but this is more than enough for you to attempt to digest and take in how woefully wrong you are.
Typical of Ellis's almost idolatrous approach to language — be it Bible or Constitution — to imbue ultimate authority to men who themselves never presumed to have any such thing.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, they were adamant that they must never presume to rule from the grave:
"No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation…Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.” —Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to James Madison from Paris, September 6, 1789)
As usual you twist and pervert, and in doing so only reveal how silly you are in your quest for lawlessness.
ReplyDeleteIf you will read the entire letter of Jefferson to Madison, you will see that he was talking about debt here. Interestingly, you quote the very letter that indicts you and your big-spending ilk that have added trillions of dollars of debt in the last year alone to be paid by future generations.
Were you to be allowed to take Jeffersons remarks wildly out of context as you have attempted to do, then the U.S. Constitution expired in 1806--three years before Jefferson left the White House. Oddly, he never seems to have lifted a finger to manufacture or press for the manufacture of a new constitution.
Interestingly also, if your perverted attempt to legitimize Congress' unconstitutional actions last week were to be truly applied as reality, then our Supreme Court has for generations wasted their time debating the constitutionality of so many of our laws--after all, the darn thing expired in 1806.
That would also mean that you no longer have freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom against unlawful search and seizure, freedom against self incrimination (we've really been wasting our time with Miranda Rights, haven't we?), freedom to keep and bear arms, the right to due process, and on and on and on.
In fact the very bulk of the Constitution which outlines the structure and operation of our entire federal government is now null and void. Actually, that might easily mean that the federal government now has no authority whatsoever, and we can ignore everything they say and do, with the states having total autonomy.
Which would shoot your little whining about SB 137 right in the foot, wouldn't it? In fact, SB 137 wouldn't even be necessary because we the people of South Dakota would not have to recognize anything the federal government did.
Hopefully now you have some inkling of how silly your efforts to circumvent the U.S. Constitution are. I hope that eventually you many abandon your contempt for this great document, and come to respect the fact that it exists for the protection of our liberty.
Mess with the bull, you get the horns.
The other day, I read somewhere (I think on the CNN Web site) that states who enact laws to "opt out" of certain provisions of the health care mandate are wasting their time and taxpayer dollars -- not because the federal government trumps them, but because the bill gives them that option anyhow!
ReplyDeleteI'll look around and see if I can find that article again ... but on the Internet, as we all know, lots of things die after 19 days, let alone 19 years.
Here's the article I saw earlier. States can opt out of the mandate without having to sue. According to the sources I trust, such lawsuits will go nowhere anyway; they constitute mere grandstanding.
ReplyDeleteBob, the Constitution has been Amended twenty seven times. The Founders created a mechanism within the document to allow this to happen. It's called Article V. Read it.
ReplyDeleteIt also allows for the document to be completely readdressed as necessary.
Thus, the Constitution stands as it does ONLY because generation after generation reaffirms and renews it as necessary, precisely as the Founders intended and as Jefferson stated.
You are the one who is sorely mistaken here, as usual. I would think you would tire of continually shooting yourself in the foot.
You know, Bill, I believe I've mentioned several times this weekend alone here in Madville that if you socialists want to allow socialist programs in the United States, you need to pass a constitutional amendment IAW Article V.
ReplyDeleteSince no one has done so, as I have pointed out many, many times, the abomination passed last week remains illegal.
So if you socialists insist on taking away the freedom of your fellow Americans with socialist systems like this, why don't you at least try to do so legally and stop subverting and ignoring the U.S. Constitution? As it is, in doing so, you--as I pointed out earlier--lay the groundwork for all the rest of your freedoms to be ignored. We cannot ignore the Constitution when we feel like it.
The diligent Mr. Montgomery at the Pierre Capital Journal notes: "The Senate killed that bill 11-23 in February after a Legislative Research Council analysis predicted the legal costs related to defending the law in court could reach $500,000."
ReplyDeleteAnd why does Bob wwant government to sue for him? Why doesn't fund his own personal lawsuit against Obamacare through charity?
Good point, Cory. Plus, I thought the Repubs were all about budget cuts and against frivolous lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteBob, again, there is nothing unconstitutional going on here except perhaps the secessionist movement you guys are trying to gin up.
You should recall that one of your party's heros, Abraham Lincoln, frowned on that kind of thing, and was willing to do something some consider constitutionally questionable to stop it.
Bill, you are an exemplary example of a person who can't accept the truth even after their nose has been rubbed raw in it. Any reasonable American not hopelessly in lust for socialism sees government health care is the most blatantly unconstitutional scheme ever forced on this country.
ReplyDeleteCory, regards your complaint about the cost of defending ourselves against this unconstitutional bill, it's interesting that you would quibble over a mere $500k after applauding the waste of trillions of dollars in unconstitutional spending. Hypocrisy in action?
ReplyDeleteWhen compared to the millions this unconstitutional intrusion on state's rights and the freedom of the people will cost us, $500k is pretty cheap.
My state is doing its job; government's first obligation is to protect life and property from attack, and our property is being attacked by socialists in Washington while being cheered on by socialists like you. Do you sleep well at night, cheering the robbery of your fellow Americans? As morally bankrupt as your soul appears to be, perhaps you do.
But people who value the moral foundation upon which this nation was built, and the freedom that is our heritage, will not tolerate this Marxist theft.
Please, consider acting like an American for a change. You would be surprising how wonderful it is.
Stan, setting aside the fact that the article was in the Huff Post (which is in no way a reliable source), the waiver is contingent on meeting certain criteria in the present health care plan and getting approval from the powers on high. Just how likely do you think that approval would be? If a state would be successful in opting out, does that negate all of their citizens from paying all the higher taxes this health care is implementing? I highly doubt it. So what does a state gain by opting out if they are still subject to the same taxes. This little feel-good amendment is as worthless as the exec order banning abortion.
ReplyDelete