I Rant... not a Middle Eastern Nation!

With a bit of luck life will be returning to something approaching normality within a week or so. This rant should help tide things over.

Now, while I was and am somewhat pre-occupied with this *life* concept, there have been a few minor ruckuses here and there, but there main one involves Representative Foley who, it appears, was caught being lewd and lascivious to a minor using email. Said minor had previously been a Congressional Page, but had left that internship but still got said email from Rep. Foley. From what I have been able to read and figure out, and the investigation, news reports and blogging overview have been voluminous, is that the House Leadership did *not* investigate this earlier on and did not actually act in an ethical manner to ask Rep. Foley to resign. This is surprising?

I would like to point out that this very same House Leadership has acted to try and shield Rep. Jefferson (D-La) from investigation that covers recovery of evidence from House Office space and that such was done with a *warrant* from the Courts. So, the Executive asked for this, the Judicial granted it and then the Legislative.... does its best to block it. Indeed, this is such an egregious mis-reading of the Constitution, that it can only be looked at as a Congressional attempt to shield itself from all laws. In doing that thing it acts like Royalty, believing it has privilege and may not be held accountable by anyone.

Now, I am incensed more by the previous incident than this most recent, but it is not out of character with the attitude that is being seen in both chambers of Congress. Consider the now defunct Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, which wanted to do some of the following:

First, the price tag of that Bill, all on its lonesome was $54 Billion to offer a 'comprehensive' immigration policy and 'path to citizenship' for those that have broken the law. Mind you I looked at the cost of a fully offensive capable border wall, festooned with sensors, put under command of NORTHCOM and able to repel individuals, tunnelers, near surface aircraft and, really, anything short of a T-72 tank. Rough guesstimate was $5 Billion, but for even TEN TIMES that price it is cheaper than a 'path to citizenship'. Add in a few hundred million per year for deportations, end agricultural and business subsidies and actually *enforce* the laws of the land on the books and close and shutter businesses that employ illegal slave labor. Somehow this lofty 'path to citizenship' is more expensive than just protecting the Nation and enforcing the laws. Go figure.

Secondly, it would prevent employers of illegal aliens from FIRING THEM! Yes, you go that right. The best union in the world could not ask for a sweeter deal: do no work and get paid for it!

Third, Senator John Ensign wanted to add an earned income tax credit for illegal aliens doing ILLEGAL WORK.

Fourth, the bill would have put forth Social Security benefits for all work done here ILLEGALLY. And, after running the numbers, one can see that we have just as many unemployed CITIZENS looking for work as we have illegals working illegally.

Fifth, Senator Jeff Bingaman wanted to add in more LEGAL immigration... but with giving illegal aliens a 'pass' he makes a poor case for why ANYONE who wanted to come here should do so LEGALLY.

Sixth, Senator Russ Feingold wanted to change the immigration hearings so that it would be harder to DEPORT individuals.

Seventh and worse, the floor managers added in an amendment that would require the President to get Mexico's OK for any border fences! So much for putting foreign policy under the Executive, I guess... the Senate has just stated that it KNOWS BETTER.

Now the long list of things going wrong with Congress as an institution is getting to look pretty bad. I do complain and point out that the Congress of 1972-1976 destroyed the US Armed Forces, betrayed an Ally and absolutely demoralized the United States and gave tacit approval in its work to the Soviet Union's expansionist ideas. We have paid heavily for that toll to this day, as in that over-reach by the USSR a group known as al-Qaeda came into being to fight them and all things Western. The fall out of Congress deciding it knows foreign policy and war fighting better than the Executive is not a good one given that recent history.

But this list being garnered the past couple of years by THIS Congress is not good, either:

- The Senate trying to decide on foreign policy and diminish National Security in that doing.

- 90 members have sat in Congress for 20 years and have been unable to keep their promise of 1986 to do *something* about controlling illegal immigration. You might want to think upon those names and remember them as National Security *seatwarmers*.

- The House trying to extend the Constitutional protections to ones that are all-encompassing.

- The House Leadership not finding the ability to reason out when an Ethics investigation should be started on one of its members.

- Congress unwilling to act against those municipalities that have seen fit to throw out the entire Constitution and act as autonomous States so as to decrease and demean National Security and encourage illegal slave labor.

- Congress unable to actually understand its full and complete War Powers and exercise them in defense of the Nation. This would require a re-thinking of what War in all of its forms actually means to the Republic in the 21st Century. That is WHY Congress is elected! To find newer and better ways to defend the Republic, empower its Citizens and allow them to secure their Rights and Freedoms.

- Congress trying to establish power over the Executive that it does not have and cannot enforce, because the Executive is given those powers to HAVE, not Congress.

- Some Congressmen getting the bright idea that Congress should over-step its powers against the States and institute a Federal law that will over-ride the State's right to determine that when individuals are born or become viable fetuses they are Citizens. Congress gets immigration and naturalization powers *only* and NOTHING ELSE. That is reserved to the States and their Citizens to decide and can be done so whenever those States choose all on their lonesome.

- The Leader of the House Majority is willing to vituperate against the 'other party' on National Security when his *own* party has been unwilling to do much of anything. As witness Representative Kingston being 'unclear on the concept' on illegal aliens and National Security. Mr. Kingston maxed out the poor 'Dumb Looks-o-meter' from which it has not recovered.

- A 'virtual wall' concept floated by Congress to stop illegal aliens, to which I will believe when the first 'virtual bathroom' is invented, no paper allowed.

- Congress doing NOTHING when it now knows that Hezbollah agents and sympathizers are working within the US and using the porous border to transact business and infiltrate into the Nation. I expect they will begin to take that seriously when rocket launching platforms get set up along the border and the Mexican military and police are bribed to 'look the other way'. Worked in Lebanon, should work here, too.

- The McCain-Feingold bill that LIMITS FREE SPEECH during an election cycle. What part of Amendment I can Congress and the President not understand? It is exactly one sentence. Even those living in the Short Attention Span Theater should be able to comprehend this, the Law of the Land.

I am NOT a conspiracy theorist nor mongering a conspiracy theory. You do not need to have a conspiracy to have events work out in a way that will shift the Nation hard so as to make Congress more powerful, diminish the Executive and put in the hands of Congress tools to remove the concept of liberty from the land.

I am not a partisan in this and see that the Democratic Party would be *far worse* than this in a shorter period of time given half a chance. But, choosing between one party that will dissolve the Nation quickly and one that wishes to do it at a slower rate is NOT A GOOD CHOICE. Claiming to be 'less bad' than the other side does *not* put you on the side of all that is good and right. This is the choice between Satan and Cthulhu, and I do not like the decision space that the vaunted two party system has limited the Nation to. When times of trouble come to Our Shores and Our Government is shown to be incapable of handling it, We the People hold the ultimate responsibility as Individuals.

I share my part of the blame in this, as I had concentrated in my life until struck by hard physical and mental ailments to trying to find a better way to let the warfighters of the Shadows and the Pointy End work together as a continuous whole. That synthesis would have taken a hale and hearty individual another decade to get done. I now realize that the problem was not in that realm, although it is still mightily important. I did my best to enable those that were healthy, hearty and taking up the fight to be able to get the enemies of the Union better and more safely so that they could do their jobs well for all of us and thereby protect the Nation. My duty as a Citizen, to this Nation and to all the others that consider themselves to be Citizens of this Great Nation is to offer *better* solutions to the problems that vex this Nation. That is the duty of ALL Citizens: to find common ground of agreement amongst us all so as to BUILD a Nation.

To those who are putting mere politics ahead of the Nation: you, in that action and that doing, are threatening the Nation *directly*. By giving up the search for common ground and seeking mere political advantage, you are undermining the understanding and compact that We the People have to work together and join together as a Nation. That does not mean giving up your viewpoints. It *does* mean responsible presentation of those views and recognizing that they need to accommodate the greater good of the Nation and not threaten individuals or the Nation by putting them forth. Screaming about your feelings is fine. I suggest a pillow. It listens very well and disturbs few.

To those wishing to flee from warfare: you are saying you will only fight to defend this Nation once the fight has come to us. It has come to us, starting in 1979 in Iran. After that the war upon us has hit multiple times in Beirut, Khobar, Kenya and Tanzania, New York City multiple times, the Pentagon in Virginia, Karachi, Langley in Virginia, Yemen. How often do we need to suffer attacks before you will realize that this fight can only be *lost* if we run from it? I offer better and deeper ways to fight that are thoroughly legal and Constitutional, and will shift the burden of the fight from the Federal Government to We the People to take up on Our own, as individuals joining together to hound our enemies and give them no rest. The Armed Forces cannot do this on their own. Law enforcement added in cannot do this. Nor Diplomacy added in. All those powers taken together *still* fail the Union in this fight. That sort of fight must then shift to We the People.

This is not a war that can be fought piecemeal by these parts of Government and require the greatest power of the Nation to be put against it: We the People sacrificing time, energy, money and even our very lives to find and stop those that supply Our enemies. Pushing to have the military retreat in this unless you have a MORE EFFECTIVE WAY TO FIGHT is cowardice of the rankest and worst sort imaginable. It is surrender to an enemy that will only accept submission or death. Which will you choose for the Nation? Submit or die. When you run, that is what it comes down to, and as they have already reached the US, that will be their final offer. Fighting to 'not win' or because the fight is 'unwinnable' is not an option any longer against a barbaric foe seeking world dominion. It is unfortunate our two party system cannot recognize that.

To those who wish to see 'groups' empowered: This Nation is founded on individuals. Attempting to change it to group rule is anti-democratic in conception and leads to Empire. You wish to take us back to times of elite rule, aristocracy, autocracy and finally, degeneration into Empire. You are the enemy.

And to those who just cannot find the time in their lives to actually think on these things: Why do you still consider yourself to be a Citizen? You take up no burden, no responsibility, no effort and do *nothing* to fulfill those things that We the People agree to as being part of this Nation. If you want all of your 'rights' and none of your 'responsibilities' then you are helping the enemy, encouraging dissolution and dragging the Nation to a halt, against those that will not rest until it is destroyed. Why, exactly, are you a Citizen? Being a Citizen requires active recognition and working towards the betterment of everyone and understanding that you may not agree to the path taken, but you are responsible for it and for finding a better way to make this Nation a success. You got the gift of freedom as a Citizen. You also got the strings of responsibility attached to that gift and acknowledge that you will not *diminish it* by your existence and be able to pass on a larger gift to those that follow you. By not taking an active part in this agreement, you are denying that you are worth those freedoms that this Nation insures for us all. Not *from* the Government, but amongst ourselves.

In a few short weeks We the People will exercise Our franchise and vote for representative government in this Republic of the United States.

I encourage all Citizens to vote, even if it is just in protest with the empty ballot.

And I wish that there could be one final check mark on that ballot for 'no confidence'. For that is what I have with the existing political parties.