“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
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Quietly, Stunning
Wouldn’t it be nice to replace our entire current Congress with brand new people?
Tuesday’s Ohio Republican Primary was a start. Congresswoman Jean Schmidt lost to challenger Brad Wenstrup, a surgeon and Iraq war veteran. As Dennis Catanese at Politico intriguingly put it, Schmidt was “quietly upended in stunning fashion.”
“Stunning” — because incumbents virtually always win, especially in their own party primaries. According to the Alliance for Self-Governance, “God recalls incumbents more frequently than voters do.” Between 2002 and 2008, only twelve congressional incumbents lost in their primary elections, while thirteen died in office.
“Quietly” — because some folks didn’t see it coming. Sadly, not everyone reads Common Sense. Back in February, I said there may be “no better Valentine for our Republic” than the effort by a new SuperPAC, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which targets incumbents for defeat in primary elections.
The Campaign goes after both Republicans and Democrats. Further, “[w]e are not issue-driven,” says Curtis Ellis, the group’s spokesman, who declares the goal is simply “holding incumbents accountable.”
Made possible through the new campaign finance rules won in the Citizens United court decision, the Super PAC has raised $1.8 million and spent $200,000 against Schmidt. Their Web advertisement squarely told voters:
Congresswoman Jean Schmidt was named “most corrupt” by a Washington watchdog group. Schmidt voted to increase your taxes by opposing a tax cut extension. Then, Schmidt increased the federal debt by $2.8 trillion. One bailout vote gave $50 billion to the parent company of her husband’s employer. Rock the boat. Vote in the March 6 Primary. It’s time to end Schmidt’s cruise.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity, and even good policy, by a succession of eminent men, and several late publications.”
On March 7, 1965, Alabama state troopers and local sheriff’s deputies attacked a group of 600 civil rights marchers with tear gas and billy clubs as they reach Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Two weeks after Selma’s “Bloody Sunday,” 3,200 citizens marched for four days to Montgomery where 25,000 people protested at the capitol.
On March 7, 1945, American troops seize the strategic Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, the last remaining bridge over the Rhine River into Germany’s heartland. The bridge allowed the Allies to immediately move tanks and supply trucks across the Rhine.
On March 7, 1936, Hitler sent military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.
On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.
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Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
“America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.”
“The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.”
Some things I just “don’t get.”
How can either pro-lifers or Obamacare opponents trust Mitt Romney? Sure, he says he’s pro-life and he pledges to repeal the Democrats’ health care reform package. But for years he said he was for abortion rights; he switched in what’s been called a “flip-flop-flip” while governor of Massachusetts. Further, he signed into law the state’s health care program that served as Obamacare’s blueprint.
Not exactly a resumé upon which to build trust.
It’s tough to change the status quo. Perhaps that very fact drives many to such improbable avatars as Mitt.
But it’s even tougher to change the weather, and that’s also in the news.
Pat Robertson says that if we’d pray more, we’d be hit with fewer tornadoes.
I understand that prayer can have healing powers; I recognize that the theory of Divine influence on natural phenomena has a long, august history. But I learned, long ago, that rain (along with other natural occurrences) falls upon both the just and the unjust.
I read that somewhere.
But then, proponents of anthropogenic global warming think driving cars, burning coal and raising cows causes harsher storm weather, too — and that if we’d all just ride bicycles to work, we’d have Robertson’s promised “fewer tornadoes” — so perhaps implausible-to-me meteorological causation has a fairly universal appeal.
When left and right converge on the weather, it’s time to return to subjects I know more about. (Stay tuned. I’ll be here.)
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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A Serious Mistake
“I have signed this bill,” President Barack Obama said months ago about the National Defense Authorization Act, “despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
Those provisions include the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.
Former President George W. Bush had tried that with Jose Padilla; now, courtesy of President Obama’s signature, the policy is codified into law.
“Let me be clear,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told a university audience yesterday, “an operation using lethal force in a foreign country, targeted against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, would be lawful . . .”
Holder goes on to say that “a thorough and careful review” by the government would be required, and that capture must not be “feasible,” and that the hit be “conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.”
But something is missing. There’s absolutely no check on this awesome power. No due process. No day in court to contest the government’s “thorough and careful review” and avoid an unjustified death by bullet or drone strike.
Moreover, these extraordinary powers, which obliterate all basic legal protections going back to 1215 AD, are for the execution of an undeclared war against a concept, “terrorism,” vague enough to provide a state of permanent war.
Asked about Holder’s position, presidential candidate Ron Paul warned, “If the American people accept that, it’d be a serious mistake.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”
“I would rather be beaten, and be a man, than to be elected and be a little puppy dog.”
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Alamo falls, Dred Scott, Stossel born
On March 6, 1836, the Alamo falls after a thirteen day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops. The 187 Texas volunteers, including frontiersman Davy Crockett and Colonel Jim Bowie are killed. “Remember the Alamo” becomes the rallying cry of those who successfully win an independent Republic of Texas.
On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court delivered perhaps its most infamous decision in Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, thereby negating the doctrine of popular sovereignty in deciding whether new states will be free or slave states.
On March 6, 1947, John Stossel, author and television reporter and commentator, is born in Chicago Heights, Illinois.
On March 6, 1967, Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the United States.
On March 6, 1970, a bomb blast at a house in Greenwich Village killed three members of the Weather Underground.
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Samuel Adams
“Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.”