Category: Government

From Tom Coburn’s Twitter:

new debt proposed by Administration’s budget is larger than the total amount of debt accumulated by the government from 1789 to today #tcot

Back to the Iowa National Guard issue for a bit.  My skepticism here of any broad plan to confiscate guns isn’t related to any general trust in government, or in Obama.  I think Obama would ban all firearms if he thought he could get away with it politically, and there are certainly a lot of folks in government who share that view.  But our government is not a secret cabal.  It’s made up of a lot of ordinary Americans who believe in a lot of the same things you’ll find among other ordinary Americans. In order to believe that the exercise in Iowa is intended as a test run for gun confiscation, you need to believe the following, all of which I find highly implausible:

• The President and the Democrats have made plans for a widespread confiscation of firearms using the National Guard.  There are several problems with this.  For one, where’s the bill?  I can’t remember ever seeing a bill in Congress that goes this far.  So far the worst we have in this Congress is Congressman Rush’s licensing and registration bill. There’s lot of chatter about renewing assault weapons bans, gun show loophole, and various other stupid measures on The Hill, but no chatter about gun confiscations that I’ve heard of.  This must be a pretty tight conspiracy, considering all the staffers who would have to know, and who haven’t said anything about the Dems secret plans.
• Why only the Iowa National Guard?  Where’s the training for the rest of the guard units that would need to be used for such a massive confiscation measure?   Where’s the bill authorizing the use of the guard in this manner?  Because under current law, it would be unlawful.
• That the Adjudant General of the State of Iowa, and probably the NRA A-rated Governor that appointed him, is in on the conspiracy.  As best I can tell, this particular National Guard unit is not been activated into federal service.  If the unit has not been activated, they are under the command authority of the Governor of Iowa, through the Adjutant General’s office.  Now, the various state National Guards are administered through the National Guard Bureau at the Department of Defense, but they basically set standards, pay for the training and equipping of the various state National Guard units, and periodically review Guard units to assess their readiness to be called into federal service.
• Obama has ordered the National Guard Bureau to start conducting exercises for weapons seizures.  In which case many people in that office would have to know.  The various people in that office would also have to apply pressure various state Adjudant General’s offices to conduct the training of their units for this measure.  All this without anyone leaking anything to the media.  I suppose it could be conducted under the guise of training for Iraq, but to be honest, if that’s the guise, that ends up being, in effect, what it will be for.  The military trains to do terrible things all the time, but mostly to people who deserve it.  I don’t doubt there are people who wish to turn the military to do terrible things to us, but would the military obey such orders?  The military made up of millions of individual ordinary Americans who take an oath to the constitution.

In order to really believe that this Guard Unit is training with the specific idea of confiscating arms from Americans, you’d essentially have to buy the notion that Obama is going to seize power and become a dictator.  Our system set up to distribute power among a large number of entities, thus making it harder for one person to demand control, or to secretly manipulate the system without someone talking.  If Obama wanted to confiscate guns through our current system of government, he’d have to put his cards on the table first, and so far, those cards haven’t appeared.

I find the prospect of Obama seizing dictatorial power highly improbable, and I doubt Obama would find enough willing to enforce his decrees.  I spent the past eight years listening to this from the left in regards to Bush becoming a dictator.  Well, Bush served out two terms and we had a peaceful transition of power as described by our Constitution.  Now it appears I’ll have to spend the next four to eight years (let’s hope four) listening to this crap from the right.  I have little faith in government as an entity, but I have strong faith that the system that defines our Federal Republic is one that makes it extraordinarily difficult for any one person to rule.

There are other states that have been considering telling the feds to back off, much like New Hampshire, which we talked about a few days ago.

• Arizona bill HCR 2024
• Washington State Bill HJM 4009
• Oklahoma HJR 1089

There may be others out there too.  I think these are healthy for federalism, but for now they are mostly gestures.  The problem with doing this for real would be the fact that many states suckle at the federal teat.  As long as that’s the case, I don’t see any states actually giving the feds the middle finger.

Because I was a campaign donor, I still get e-mails from John McCain.  For the most part, I just wish he would go away, but today’s was welcome to hear:

I believe we need to evaluate every bit of spending in this stimulus proposal with one important criteria – does it really stimulate the economy and help create jobs – if the answer is no, it does not belong in a so-called stimulus package.

Yes, I agree, this is good.

I have long been a fighter against wasteful spending in Washington and long an advocate for a balanced budget — that will never change. I realize we face extraordinary challenges with our economy today, but that is not an excuse for more irresponsibly from Washington. I hope you will join me in saying no to this stimulus package as it currently exists by signing this petition.

If McCain is on board as a no, that bodes well for the chances of the Republicans holding in the Senate as they did in the House.  Let us hope this represents serious opposition to this bogus stimulus gravy train, and not just a desire among Republicans to take their turn at the trough.

There were an awful lot of A-rated Democrats and Republicans who voted to confirm Eric Holder, and there’s some suggestion that this bodes ill for coming fights on anti-gun legislation that’s likely to appear in this Congress.  The current political climate is certainly not good for us, and one thing is for certain — if President Obama and the anti-gun forces in Congress commit themselves to rolling us in the 111th Congress, they likely have the votes to do so.  But the odds on defeating anti-gun legislation are higher than they are for a confirmation because the political dynamics are different.  Here are some of the factors that are present in a confirmation vote.

One, whether it’s right or wrong, there is a sense that a President should be able to choose his cabinet, and unless there’s some issue of qualification or gross malfeasance, the President should get his man (or woman).

Two, If the President and Senate are of the same party, there’s an expectation among party leadership that they will deliver their President his nominees.  Party leadership will tend to be sensitive toward a member’s situation in his own state when it comes to legislation, and will often give the nod to vote against legislation the leadership wants, because it puts him at risk in his home state.  There are times when that’s not the case, but a party that wants to stay in power will typically not ask a member to vote their way on too many issues that will put his seat in danger.  That dynamic is not typically present with confirmation votes, so consequences are more serious for bucking the leadership, and the White House, which is why no Democrats were willing to do it.

Conformations are one of those areas where far-reaching political ignorance comes into play.  The vast majority of voters, including most gun owners, don’t pay attention to confirmations.  NRA’s cover story on Holder didn’t hit people’s mailboxes until a few weeks before the Senate confirmed him.  It’s hard to hold politicians accountable when most people aren’t paying close attention to what they are doing at great detail.  This differs from legislation, where we’ve had a long time to educate gun owners on what could come down the pike.  Most everyone, by now, knows the consequences of a new assault weapons ban.

Those who say if we held these A-rated Senators feet to the fire, we could have defeated Holder, I think give NRA too much credit.  A thirty vote deficit on a confirmation is beyond NRA’s power to influence.  If they had twisted arms, and counted it as a “key vote”, that might have gotten maybe a dozen lawmakers to switch sides, at great cost to NRA.  You only get so many “key votes” in every legislative session, because you only get one shot every two years, or six years for Senators, to demonstrate your organizations electoral muscle.  In short, you only get a few chances to screw with a politicians grade, and if you do that, you better be able to unseat him, or he will be forever lost as an ally.

Any strategy that proposes to count every vote, with no regard to the cost and relative imporance compared to other threats, overestimates our influence, and is the fast train into the political wilderness.  We are an important interest group, but we do not rule Washington D.C.  If we had 20 million Americans who were willing to vote like gun owners — if we had a quarter as many pro-gun activists, we could probably do it.  But we don’t have that.  Not even close.  So we don’t have the luxury of spending ourselves on hopeless battles this early into Obama’s Administration.  Eric Hodler’s confirmation as Attorney General is not, by any means, good news for gun owners, but we did not have it together enough to defeat Obama, and nor did we to defeat Holder.  Gun owners are in the weakest political position we’ve been in for 15 years.  We only have the resources for a few fights this Congress, and we had better spend them wisely.

It would appear they aren’t a fan.  More states need to pass resolutions making sure the President knows what the states think the limitations of his power are.  It’s awfully hard for federal overreaching to mean much if the states aren’t willing to go along with helping enforce it, or will actively interfere with its enforcement.

This editorial in the WaPo is uses rather appropriate language:

For more than two centuries, it has been a wannabe among the great world capitals. But now, Washington is finally ready for its close-up.

No longer a jumped-up Canberra or, worse, Sacramento, it seems about to emerge as Pyongyang on the Potomac, the undisputed center of national power and influence. As a new president takes over the White House, the United States’ capacity for centralization has arguably never been greater. But it’s neither Barack Obama’s charm nor his intentions that are driving the centrifugal process that’s concentrating authority in the capital city. It’s the unprecedented collapse of rival centers of power.

This is most obvious in economic affairs, an area in which the nation’s great regions have previously enjoyed significant autonomy. But already the dukes of Wall Street and Detroit have submitted their papers to Washington for vassalage. Soon many other industries, from high-tech to agriculture and energy, will become subject to a Kremlin full of special czars. Even the most haughty boyar may have to genuflect to official orthodoxy on everything from social equity to sanctioned science.

It’s not good news for the country.  The fact that we had a backwater Capital is something that’s made this country great.  The day Washington DC becomes the center of life, commerce and culture in this Republic is the day we ought to think about hanging it up.

I think it’s not too much to ask of the Obama Administration, that it make burning down the White House, at best, a second term project, rather than something for the first 100 days.

¹ See reference here

The committee vote on Eric Holder was supposed to happen today at 2:30PM, but it looks like the Republicans managed to delay the vote until he answers some of their questions.  I will keep you all up to date as to whether this source is credible.  If the committee approves Holder, his confirmation will be discharged, and voted on by the entire Senate.

UPDATE: Politico is reporting the same thing.  It seems the issue of contention is making sure he won’t prosecute intelligence agents who waterboarded suspected terrorists, rather than making sure he won’t crap all over the Constitution.  Glad to see the Republicans have their priorities straight.