Day: January 5, 2011

Tea Party People And Conservatives Take Note: The Constitution Established A Strong National Government, And The Amendments Have Made For A More Liberal, Nationalist Nation!

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is spending taxpayer money to read the Constitution out loud, as a supposed lesson to the nation as to what the Constitution contains.

This is occurring due to the impact of the Tea Party Movement, but if that group and other conservatives really listen to and think about the words of the Constitution, they would realize what the Constitution is all about.

The Constitution was created to REPLACE the Articles of Confederation, a document that gave the states authority that led to chaos, anarchy and bankruptcy, and forced the hand of liberal nationalist Founding Fathers who realized that the country would not survive without a STRONGER NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

The Constitution gave the US Congress tremendous and specific powers in Article 1, Section 8, the ELASTIC CLAUSE–necessary and proper for the common defense and the general welfare–, creating vague language that could be interpreted broadly, and has been by the Supreme Court over 200 years since the time of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Liberal nationalists brought about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

Liberal nationalists brought about the Civil Rights Amendments (13, 14, 15) in the years after the Civil War.

Liberal nationalists brought about the “Progressive” amendments on the federal income tax (16), direct election of the US Senate taken away from the state legislatures (17), and woman suffrage (19) in the second decade of the 20th century.

Liberal nationalists brought about the right of DC residents to vote for President (23), the end of the poll tax in all elections (24), and the 18 year old vote (26) in the decade of the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Constitution has been made the great document it is by the actions of the Founding Fathers and later generations of liberal nationalists, whether Federalist, Republican, or Democratic, and by Supreme Courts led by great Justices, including John Marshall, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and many others!

No matter what conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party activists might say or believe, it is LIBERAL and PROGRESSIVE activism that has led to the Constitution and its amendment improvements over two centuries!

Liberals and progressives stand together in pride as to their enactment and expansion of the document which inspires people all over the world, the greatest constitutional document ever created by the will of mankind!

Republican Aims And Public Attitudes Clash!

The Republican Party, which took over the House of Representatives today, is committed to cutting of entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), preserving of defense spending, and continued cutting of taxes.

At the same time, public opinion polls show just the opposite! They show the public wants heavy taxation of the rich, cutting of defense spending, and leaving entitlements, that have been the heritage of the New Deal and Great Society, alone!

Will the Republican Party listen to the American people in public opinion polls? The answer is almost certainly no, but by ignoring the public, it is likely to harm the GOP push to keep the House of Representatives and gain control of the Senate and the Presidency in 2012!

Effect Of Tea Party Movement And New Membership On The 112th Congress

As the 112th Congress opened today, the statistics showed that 43 Tea Party favorites were elected to the House of Representatives, and five to the Senate.

That means about 10 percent of the House and 5 percent of the Senate is affected by the Tea Party Movement.

While it sounds impressive, is it really so? Only if the GOP leadership in both houses chooses to let the extremists in this movement gain control, and it seems highly unlikely in reality.

It is much more likely that there will be “civil war” in the GOP, and it will affect the 2012 Presidential Election, and weaken the Republican ability to keep the House of Representatives, and gain control of the Senate and the White House.

Will Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Mike Lee of Utah gain a lot of influence and affect the direction of the GOP in the Senate? That will be one of the most interesting trends to follow in the new Senate!

At the same time, we also have more freshmen legislators than at any time since the late 1940s, with 87 new Republicans and 9 new Democrats in the House of Representatives, and 13 new Republicans and 3 new Democrats in the Senate.

There has never been so many new Republicans and so few new Democrats in a Congress since the 1920s! So this 112th Congress will be watched closely for the impact of the 20 percent new membership (108 out of 535)!

Jon Huntsman Emerges As Possible GOP Presidential Candidate!

Jon Huntsman, the US Ambassador to China, former US Ambassador to Singapore, Deputy US Trade Representative, and Republican Governor of Utah, has suddenly hinted interest in running for the Presidential nomination in 2012, despite having served under President Obama in Beijing for the past two years, and thought to be unlikely to run for political office against the man who appointed him!

Huntsman would be an attractive moderate in the Republican race, having championed unpopular gay rights legislation in a heavily Mormon state, modified the state’s liquor laws, and publicly backed environmental legislation, all steps toward appealing to groups that would ordinarily dismiss Republicans as an alternative to vote for.

But being a Mormon as Mitt Romney is, would not be a plus, and his moderation on many social issues, having worked for Obama, and being out of the political wars of the past two years, all seem to be negatives for him.

Although Huntsman is spreading the rumor that he might run for the White House, it would still be surprising to see him make a full scale assault on the President, and it would make more sense for him to wait until 2016, when the political climate would be different, and President Obama would not be running for reelection.

Eric Cantor: “We won!” Nancy Pelosi In 2009: “We won!” So Nothing New With GOP Control Except Who They Represent! :(

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was cocky yesterday in a news conference, asserting: “We won!”

Two years ago, Nancy Pelosi said the same thing, and the Republican Party jumped all over her and her party!

But what has changed with GOP control? Nothing new, except who the GOP represents: powerful corporations, the top few percent of the people in a war on the masses of the middle and lower classes.

It looks likely that the 112th Congress will go down as the most right wing, reactionary Congress since the 1920s, as even the 80th Congress in 1947-1948 and the 83rd Congress in 1953-1954 were notable for some of the things they did.

As much as the Newt Gingrich led 104th (1995-1996) and 105th (1997-1998) Congresses were seen negatively in the Bill Clinton era, their right wing and conservative bent pale by comparison to what seems likely to occur over the next two years, and the big difference is that in the earlier Congresses mentioned above, the economy was not in a deep recession, with a slow recovery as we have in the present.

So the nation needs to brace for the horrors to come as the new Congress begins today! 🙁