“When your outgo exceeds your income, the upshot may be your downfall.”
Author: Redactor
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ATF’s Waco raid, GOP organized
On Feb. 28, 1993, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with media in tow, raided the Waco, Texas, compound of the Branch Davidian religious group, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six Davidians were killed. The federal agents were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-month standoff after the unsuccessful raid ended with an assault on the compound on April 19, 1993, and a fire that burned the compound to the ground killing 76 Davidians, including Koresh and 20 children.
On Feb. 27, 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Complaining about the cost of holding an election is usually done by those who fear the election’s likely outcome, not the price.
I’m not very sympathetic.
Yet, I’m in total agreement with Andrew Wilson, a resident fellow at the Show-Me Institute, whose article “Money Down a Drain: The Millions Spent on Missouri’s No-Show Feb. 7 Election,” states flatly that legislators ought to be “embarrassed” for calling “a statewide election” in which “nobody came.”
Missouri taxpayers forked out $7 million to hold the state’s February 7 presidential primary, which produced only a meager eight percent voter turnout, netting a whopping $25 cost for every vote cast.
The legislature had moved the primary date up to gain a greater edge for the state in determining delegates for deciding the presidential nominee. When that timetable didn’t work with the National Republican Party’s nominating rules, legislation was drafted to cancel the primary.
But the legislature and the governor couldn’t bring the bill beyond the draft stage. Instead, they stuck Show-Me State citizens with spending seven million for, well, show . . . the primary having been rendered absolutely meaningless in terms of winning delegates.
Hence the low voter turnout.
There is a very simple solution. Let political parties have the freedom to run their own affairs, their own primaries. And let them do it without taxpayer subsidy.
Governments (taxpayers) pay for the general election; parties pay for their primaries.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Ralph Nader
Initiative and referendum is the citizen activist’s ‘ace in the hole.’
Ralph Nader was born on February 27, 1934 .
It’s getting to become more and more popular to bash initiative rights — even when those rights are not very relevant. I hear rumblings in California that the hopeless Republicans, there, are gearing up for more of such nonsense. But beware, folks: This puts you in very dangerous company, amongst defenders of outright tyranny. See my column at Townhall.com this weekend.
For references associated with that column, click the links below:
- New York Times: “Why China’s Political Model Is Superior,” by Eric X. Li
- Wikipedia: “List of Countries by GDP”
- MSNBC: “Chair left empty for jailed Chinese Nobel winner“
For last week’s column, view it on This Is Common Sense.
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Robert Novak, born Feb. 26, 1931
“The Republican Congress should have been courageously advancing the Republican agenda and should not have been afraid of it. But they’re not playing to win; they’re playing not to lose.”
“God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don’t do that, they have no useful function.”
“It is up to the government to keep the government’s secrets.”
There’s a lot of interesting talk here at “The Devil’s Advocate”:
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Yellow Revolution 1986 Philippines
On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.
“The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?”
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Marbury v Madison, Johnson impeached
On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.
On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.