What Happened to Habeas Corpus for Guantanamo Terrorists?

During the election of 2008, many liberals kept preaching about how wrong it was for the Bush administration to keep the detention center at Guantanamo Bay open or how appalling it was to hold captured terrorists and try them in a military tribunal. President Obama even campaigned on this issue and demonized the Republicans for not only allowing this to happen but for supporting this.

So there was little surprise when within hours of being sworn in President Obama signed an executive order to shut down the detention center in Guantanamo in the first year of his administration. There was also little surprise when the naive Obama Justice Department announced they would pursue conviction of these terrorists in a courtroom in New York City. To liberals these both seemed like positive moves by the Obama Administration; however, neither of these moves was very popular when it came to the implementation.

Many liberals wanted Guantanamo closed and many wanted the terrorists tried in a civilian courtroom, but no one wanted those terrorists housed in their state nor did too many people look forward to having those trials take place in their courts. It’s sort of the Dog that caught the car syndrome, once people had what they were chasing or working for, they had no idea what to do with it.

So where would we conduct these trials and house these terrorists? Well enter some true congressional bi-partisanship as congressmen of both parties voted to defund the transfer of the prisoners last year and then this year to defund the President’s Czar in charge of closing Guantanamo Bay.

NOW, THIS WEEK, the President announced that the military tribunals would start back up at Guantanamo while side-stepping the entire question on closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. So after Attorney General Eric Holder has towed the President’s line on civilian trials for these terrorists, he was summarily thrown under the bus by President Obama when the President made his statement about resuming Military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

Well don’t sweat it too much Mr. Attorney General. You’re in good company. There are many other people who have been thrown under the bus that is the Obama Express. There’s his Grandmother who he threw under the bus for thinking like an elderly white lady, you know…about race and all (no I actually don’t know but it would be nice to have that explanation).

There was former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was welcomed to the white house as an ally to help make peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but was thrown under the bus when Egyptians revolted last month.

There’s Jim Johnson who was one of his one of Obama’s primary economic advisors during the campaign and headed his VP search team for a while, but was thrown under the bus when his history at Fannie Mae became an unfavorable issue.

Poor old Reverend Wright preached the gospel to the Obama’s for nearly twenty years, but when the Reverend’s anti-American rhetoric was discovered he was slowly helped under the bus over the course of a couple of weeks.

I could keep going with the names of people living under that bus, but I’ll save that for another time. This blog is about the Democrat’s Habeas Corpus Cry and the 180 degree turn the Obama Administration has taken on this issue. I applaud the President for making a tough choice to proceed with the military tribunals and leave Guantanamo open; I just find it funny and honestly hypocritical of the Democrats and the liberal media for pretending to not notice something that they spent so many years denigrating the Bush Administration for. But then again, what can we expect from our liberal friends?

Wait till the bus makes a complete top before exiting!!
Bill

Weekly Rant (kind of weekly) – February 23, 2011

Yeah I know it’s not really a weekly rant so I’m sorry but I have been busy. Here you go:

1. OK, so some Democrat congressman said something stupid in Massachusetts yesterday like getting out there and getting bloody. Then someone else says something stupid and then someone else. Yes I know President Obama said we need to ratchet down the rhetoric and we should, but you know what, sometimes people say something stupid and then ten minutes later they think to themselves, “What was I thinking?” Maybe we all just need to take a deep breath and not be so split-second in our judgment of someone making an unscripted mistake. I think we have all done this before. I know I have, I was there, I heard me do it…“What was I thinking?”

2. Stupid spending of the week; I know it’s small but the Department of Defense spending $7,000,000.00 on sponsoring a NASCAR driver is STUPID. Like I said I know $7,000,000.00 is small when you’re talking about a $1,600,000,000,000.00 deficit this year but every little bit counts. That could help and reduce the deficit to $1,599,993,000,000.00. I’ll work on this some more for next week.

3. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), spends valuable floor time complaining about congressmen saving money by sleeping in their office. REALLY, with everything else going on with our federal government Senator Boxer felt she needed to take time out of the Senate’s day to call attention to this. Maybe this is why she doesn’t get it. People like this frugalness and this is the sort of money saving measure that won’t save much but goes a long way with the voters. Oh yeah make sure you call her Senator, she’s earned it!!

4. Once again Columbia University shows why $50,000.00 plus a year (or whatever it costs) and an Ivy League pedigree is no protection from classlessness. After inviting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus among others in the past, last week the fine professors and students at this university booed off stage one of their fellow students while he spoke in favor of welcoming the ROTC back to campus. OH YEAH, he is also a former staff sergeant in the Army who was shot 11 times, lost his leg, and spent two years in Walter Reed Medical Center recovering from his injuries. Nice job you bunch of Columbia Patriots.

5. Reducing government spending in Texas; With Commissioners Michael Williams and Elizabeth Ames Jones both leaving the Railroad Commission soon to run for the US Senate, we can now retract the number of commissioners to one and be like the rest of the State Agencies. If we only have one Commissioner we could reduce the size of the staff by 2/3’s and reduces spending there. I’ll try to come up with some more next week. Believe me; it would be better to do this than take money from our schools.

Well there’s a rant for this week. Let me know what you think, not that it’ll mean much because this is only my rant but I would like to hear from you. No really, I do!!

Good Night Milano,
Bill

Rant for the third week of 2011

Thanks for all the nice emails. I am glad someone out there is reading this as I thought I was writing with no readers. Kind of begs the question; if you write it and no one reads it is it really a blog?

Here we go!!!

1. China’s President Hu has come for a visit this week and has been attacked by President Obama, Hillary and Harry. Be careful my liberal friends, I mean after all, our Chinese friends could have come over here to foreclose on us.

2. About one year ago, 219 house members voted for Obamacare. Today 245 voted to repeal it. And yesterday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC that the reason there was so much negativity towards Obamacare was because it did not go far enough – HUH? Yeah, that’s it Nancy.

3. Late last week Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she is stopping the construction of the “Virtual Fence” on the Mexican Border. Two years ago she proclaimed the virtual fence the end all beat all in border security. So what could she have up her sleeve that will trump the virtual fence? Wait for it…….She has a plan that will address the concerns for each region of the border and provide a “new path forward” for border security; however, she had no details, None, Nothing, Nada…..Oh I feel safer already!!!!

4. More new jobs have been created in Texas than in any other state in the union in the last few years. As a matter of fact, more jobs have been created in Texas than in all the other states combined. So rather than being proud of job creation in the Lone Star State, our Democrat friends are only too eager to pounce on the fact that a majority of these are minimum wage jobs. So let me get this straight, Democrats would prefer to have people jobless and on welfare rather than being paid the minimum wage they set at $7.25 an hour.

5. How about the next time there is an opening on the Supreme Court we put an English scholar on the high court. Since everyone seems to have such a difficult time understanding the 230 year-old document, maybe having an expert in English on the court instead of having lawyers on the court would lead to an easier time understanding the true meaning. After all, nothing says a member of the Supreme Court has to be a lawyer.

Well I think that takes care of this week’s Rant. Hope you all enjoyed it and it makes you think a little. Wonder how much a used border security camera is going for on eBay?

Until next time, stay safe!!
Bill

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

Serving in Congress is serving your fellow Americans who elected you; as such it is an honor, not a career. The founding fathers and framers envisioned citizen legislators, not career politicians. Serve your terms and then go back home and back to work in a chosen profession other than politics.

Here is my proposal for Congressional Reform. Okay some of it I gleaned off of other people, but it is good stuff and needs to be completed in one reform bill. Here it goes:

1. Congressional Term Limits: 12 years of total service to be made up of one of the following.
a. Two senate terms of six years each.
b. Six house terms of two years each.
c. One senate term of six years and three house terms of two terms each.
2. No Tenure/No Pension: A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. There should be no pension for service in Congress.
3. All Congressmen (Past, Present, and Future) participate in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional Retirement Fund move to the Social Security System immediately and all future funds flow into the Social Security System. Congress participates with the American People.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plans other then Social Security, just like all Americans can.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay increase. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of the Consumer Price Index or 3%. NOTE: if the pay of any government employee is capped or if the unemployment rate is higher than 5%, all congressional pay raises will be stifled.
6. Congress will give up their current healthcare system and must participate in the same system as the American public.
7. Congress must be bound and equally abide by all the laws they impose upon the American people.
8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1-1-12
a. The American people did not make any of these contracts with our congressmen.
b. The Congressmen made these contracts with themselves.


There you go. Now each of us, regardless of party affiliation and personal views or beliefs, must work to elect people who believe in these principles, be diligent in finding individuals to serve, and be prepared when or if the time comes for you to serve.

What do you think?
Bill

Renewal of the Weekly Rant!

Yes I know, it’s not really a weekly rant, but in my defense I was pretty busy with this thing we call an election. But with this weekend’s Swearing-In Ceremony complete and our first batch of elected Republicans taking office here in Milam County, I guess I can finally sit down and get busy with my sometimes Weekly Rant. So here we go:

1. Well I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Great Kwanza or whatever you celebrate. For my family we had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed having the whole family home for the holidays. Now things have settled down and we are back to our normal routine, as normal as it can be with two kids in college, one in high school and one in kindergarten. I can’t believe all the things I forgot between kid number three and kid number four. Creaky knees are pretty detrimental to being an effective tooth fairy.

2. In the last few years we have either had liberals try and exploit amnesty for illegal aliens or conservatives try to put new controls on dealing with the issue of illegal aliens and what has it come to – NOTHING. Fact is they are both pretty much missing the boat on this issue. Just this last year we had many Americans killed both in Mexico and on American soil by criminal activity from Mexico. That is completely unsatisfactory. Ask anyone at the border and they will tell you what we need is an effective plan to deal with border security. Without a secure border there is no way to attack the crime problem associated with the border nor is there any way for us to regulate immigration if our borders are unsecured.

3. National Security Advisor James Clapper failed in a recent television interview when asked about the arrest of terrorists in London earlier in the day. He knew nothing of the happenings and looked like a deer caught in the headlights. This is the guy who is supposed to be on top of the nation’s security to advise the President on what is going on and how it applies to the security of the country. Instead, he goes on national TV completely ignorant of a current happening in the worldwide War on Terrorism. What makes it worse is that the story had been lighting up the media all morning since the arrests broke in England seven of so hours earlier – I’ll sleep better at night now!

4. Last Sunday on “Meet the Press,” one of President Obama’s senior advisors, Valerie Jarrett, said that President Obama will be spending more time engaging the public outside of Washington this year. Who will notice? It’s not like he’s been a model for hanging out at the office. Heck, every time he has an idea he flies off to some suffering neighborhood where he feels the locals have a hankering for what he’s dealing. I guess this is what the President meant following the November elections when he said he needed to better communicate his intentions with the voters. Here’s a thought, maybe it’s not the administration’s communication skills. Maybe the President needs to stick around the office this year and actually try and govern rather than spending his time on a permanent campaign trail?

5. Here’s a special factoid for this Rant, in 2006, the GOP lost control of the house and senate during the November elections. Following those elections they still had two months of a lame-duck legislative session with control of the congress and a Republican President in office. Did they seize the moment and pass over the top legislation in a last attempt to complete some ill-fated agenda? NO, they finished up some housekeeping business and concentrated on the process of transitioning over to the 110th Congress. How did the Democrats handle the same situation this last year after losing the house and significant seats in the senate? Well I think we all know how that went down.

Ahhhh, it feels good to get some of that out of my system. I know I may be a little rusty but it will come back to me as the weeks go by. If you like this blog, check in from time to time and spread the word. If not, you can always hit the next blog button up top and see what someone else is doing.

Until next week….I hope….
Bill

Will the Dems ever get it?

November 2nd was a great day to be a Republican. The conservative nature of Americans won the day and you would think the Liberals would have gotten the hint – Maybe Not. I look at the last month since the election and I realize just how delusional our liberal friends are. You would figure that the poor example set by the Republicans prior to this year and the slaughter the Democrats faced November 2nd would be an eye-opener for the Democrats, but I guess not. Let’s look at the situation as it stands now.

1. Nancy Pelosi is still the leader of the House Democrats after leading them to their worst defeat in History and their lowest number of members ever.
2. Charlie Rangel will apparently retain his membership on the House Ways and Means Committee even after his censure for failure to pay his taxes.
3. Democrats lead the defeat of the anti-earmark legislation (Yes there were some Republicans who voted with the Democrats and they will be addressed).
4. President Obama said the election results were a result of the Democrats inability to make their plans and accomplishments easier for the American public to understand, not because the majority of Americans disapproved of their “accomplishments.”
5. Milam County Democrats said the election results in Milam County did not accurately reflect the wishes of Milam County residents. Guess that’s why four local Republicans were the first to win election since Reconstruction and why state and federal Republican candidates on the ballot won Milam County by an average of nearly 60%.

Yeah, I’m not sure what it will take for the Democrats to finally get it, but I hope they stay their current course. Now it’s up to the Republicans to make sure they keep true to their conservative values and beliefs by not repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

Genuinely Happy,
Bill

Good, Now Sue the Sanctuary Cities!

So the Obama Administration is going to sue the State of Arizona for its Immigration law under the Supremacy Clause – REALLY. Instead of suing over the Arizona law based on how the administration has been attacking it from the outset for some discrimination infractions or for the creation of a new law that infringes on the “rights” of the poor downtrodden illegal aliens; the Department of Justice decided to sue over the Supremacy Clause.

Basically, the feds are saying the Arizona law is trying to supersede federal law by creating a law that is somehow contradictory to established federal law. While the whole lawsuit issue will be solved in court, the Obama Administration really needs to take a look at just where the federal immigration laws are truly being ignored and superseded – “Sanctuary Cities.”

Sanctuary Cities are places where federal immigration laws are not enforced by local law enforcement by direction of and on the written or implied orders of the elected and appointed officials in charge of these cities. Many Politicians, like former Houston Mayor and current Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Bill White, say they are only continuing the inherited standing practices of allowing their cities to remain a sanctuary city. What they are really doing is rejecting federal law, or as the Supremacy Clause calls it, the Law of the Land.

This rejection of federal law is a direct threat to the supremacy clause and if the Department of Justice and the Obama Administration believes that the Arizona law is in violation of the supremacy clause then it would be negligent of them to not file suit against cities such as Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit, and New York City.

Auf Wiedersehen,
Bill