Constitutional Lawyer writes:
Let me tell you about my good friend, whom for these purposes I'll call, BG, for "builder guy." BG owns a construction company and because they are very good at what they do, my friend's company makes quite a bit of money. Naturally he pays his employees and suppliers, but even when that is all done he has quite a bit of money left.
What does he do with that money?
Essentially two things: His wife is a very good spender, and so she spends quite a bit of the money on "things". What she doesn't spend they put into the bank.
Why is this important?
When his wife spends money the people who get it pay their employees, and they also buy more things to sell to other wives. The money that is put into the bank is used by the bank to loan to other people, so they can buy homes, cars and other "things".
Of course, buying all those things requires a lot more people to be hired. This is how a healthy economy works.
And then along comes government. Government says, "Give me some of that money, so I can do government things." At some level that makes sense to me. After all, there are some things that government should do like defend me and my family against crazy people or nations.
Unfortunately, the government starts thinking they should do everything for me. They need to tell me what to feed my children; what my children should learn in school; what down-trodden group deserves my money; how I should feel about abortion; and whether upon my death I should leave my money to the government or to my family. All of this nonsense gets in the way of my good friend BG's otherwise perfect economic model.
I have a suggestion. I think that Congress should take two years off. Go on an all expense paid junket to anywhere. My guess is that when they reconvene, we will all be better off and then we can decide if we really need them or if we should just all follow BG.
Antrim writes:
This week (Oct. 5, 2007) in my Examiner Newspaper column, I wrote about Syria's silence in the aftermath of Israel's attack deep inside Syrian territory. (This column will be posted on my website as soon as I'm contractually permitted to post it.) The point of the column was the fact that the Syrians have spent an enormous amount of money on antiaircraft technology, purchased from the Russians, only to have it fail when Israel decided to saunter in and blow up whatever nastiness the Syrians were brewing.
You see, no country on this earth has the air force nor the weapons technology that we have, unless we give it to them. And Israel is our friend. We help our friends. And with a few adjustments to the Israeli air force, courtesy of the good ol' US of A, their strike in Syria was as they say, a walk in the park. The Syrian antiaircraft systems stayed silent--nothing happened, they didn't light up, not a beep nor a peep. The Syrians are scared. They thought they were protected only to find out they weren't. This is wonderful news--for us and Israel (the good guys) this is very bad news for Syria, Iran and Russia.
The most amusing part of this story, however, are the reports that the Iranian's are flipping out in fear. It's fun to flip out evil mullahs. Why are the Iranian Mullahs frightened? Well, they have the same antiaircraft technology as Syria, purchased from mother Russia. And what did the Russians do in response to all of this? Well, foreign news sources are reporting that last Friday Russia evacuated all of the nuclear scientists out of the Iranian nuclear facilities and brought them home in anticipation of an attack on the Iranian Nuke facilities. Ha. I guess Russia doesn't believe in going down with the ship. They bailed, leaving Iran to bluster and flail about on their own. You gotta love the practicality of Russians.
And about that refund on those weapons systems from Russia, I wouldn't advise the Syrians nor the Iranians to hold their breath.
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
The other day I was talking to my accountant about an investment I was considering. During the middle of the conversation my accountant reminded me that 46 cents of every dollar I make goes to the Federal and State government in income taxes.
You see I have been a good citizen and have no tax write-offs other than my mortgage. In addition, I pay property taxes, sales taxes, use taxes and so many government fees that in reality over one-half of what I earn goes to government. The question you have to ask yourself is: œIs this enough?"
I am pretty sure that if I paid more to the government, they would take it willingly for some œCanÃt live without" government program. I am told that I fall in that group that politicians talk about when they say that we need to further tax the rich. What I donÃt understand is how much more in taxes should I pay?
The answer seems to be that you should pay taxes until you fall out of the group that is referred to as rich. Once you do that, then they want to give you a tax break. Unfortunately, with the tax break you will be vaulted back into the group known as the rich, and will then have to be taxed until you are no longer rich.
It seems to me that this is a cycle that is hard to break. My suggestion is that they leave the rich alone. If they got the money legally, they should be able to keep it (or at least most of it). After all, rich people make the world more interesting. Nobody wants to read about what a poor person is doing. On the other hand, most people canÃt wait to see what the rich are doing. Why? Because people want to be rich, not poor. If that is what people want, then the government should not get in their way. If people wanted to be poor they would insist on lower wages and fewer benefits. I donÃt see that happening much " do you?
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
I was watching my youngest daughter play softball the other day. She plays very high level softball on a 14 and under traveling team. They were playing a team that had a pitcher who was a direct descendant of Paul Bunyon. Not only was the girl abnormally large, but she was throwing the ball at 63 plus miles an hour. That would have been OK. The real problem was that she was wild and would hit every 4th or 5th batter. In the fourth inning, our coach (a very nice lady) was yelling to the girls to ?dig-in" and ?not be afraid". It was then that I realized the problem with wars. The problem being that we allow people over 50 to send people under 30 into harms way.
What we need to do is adopt an international treaty that provides that only people over 50 can fight wars. That would significantly change the dynamics of a war. There would be no more charging up the hill (way too much effort). There might be charging down the hill, but even that would have to be done at a significantly reduced speed. Also, night battles would be out of the question. At night the over 50 crowd would be dealing with such issues as nighttime urination and restless leg syndrome. They would have no time for fighting. Most importantly, wars would be much shorter. After about a month of living in battlefield conditions the geriatric crowd would be ready to go home and call it quits.
I would add an Addendum to the Treaty in the United States. If Congress funds a war then all members of Congress should have to serve in the Armed Forces (as enlisted men-not officers) for the duration of the conflict. I know that they would be useless in the war effort, but at least they would have to experience first hand what they have wrought. This has the additional benefit of getting them out of Washington so that we can minimize the damage they do while in session.
I know that this is an out of the box idea and will only work if all nations sign-on. But I am pretty convinced that when we require wars to be fought by people over 50 the number of wars will drop significantly.
Antrim writes:
We are living in sad, misguided and dangerous times. Unfortunately, today exemplifies the worst of these times. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on American soil. This man is a known sponsor of terror, is suspected of being a terrorist and murderer himself, wants Israel wiped off the map, has threatened our nation, and currently wages a proxy war against us in Iraq. Bottom line--we are at war with this man and his nation, and yet, here he is gallivanting around the United States, speaking at Columbia University and meeting with 9-11 families, the press and critics of the Bush Administration.
The decision of Columbia University and the others who are meeting with this terrorist provide Ahmadinejad with a forum to wage psychological warfare on our nation. He is using our freedoms against us. Freedoms he would abolish with Sharia Law. These actions will simply embolden him, and undermine any hope of a diplomatic solution to stopping Iran from attaining nuclear weapons.
The fact that Ahmadinejad celebrated his trip to the US with a major military parade before his departure, sets the stage for his intentions--he's coming here to face down the mighty US, to show his people he's not afraid to poke a stick in the US's eye, on US soil, no less.
We are fools for allowing this to happen. And I fear we will pay a price for our foolishness.
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
I find this entire energy conservation push very irritating and somewhat Un-American. In Northern California most of the energy is provided by a Company called Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). They are primarily known for helping to create the energy issues that caused the recall of Governor Grey Davis (okayÖso they did one good thing).
They now have adds on the radio encouraging conservation and saying that even with conservation there may be times when power is unavailable and so we all need to work together to get through these periods of energy shortfall.
I?m not buying it. Don?t get me wrong. I believe that there may be periods when PG&E doesn?t have the power they need. What I don?t buy is that I am at fault or that I should be punished by having to conserve. For the past 40 years I have gotten a bill every month from PG&E. A bill that I have dutifully paid for over 480 consecutive months. The bill is designed to pay PG&E for the power they provided to me the prior month and for the cost of developing the power that they will need to provide me power in the future. I have lived up to my end of the bargain. I have paid them the money they have requested. They evidently have not lived up to their end of the bargain as they now tell me that they don?t have the power they promised me and now tell me that I will be punished for their failures (that is the Un-American part because in America you get rewarded for doing the right thing and following the laws ? not punished). This is particularly irritating because we also have the California Public Utilities Commission whose primary job is to make sure that providers such as PG&E live up to their obligations. What have they been doing? Rather than being taken advantage of by big business and government bureaucracy I am staging a one man show of civil disobedience. I have set my thermostat at 68 for the summer and will set it at 72 for the winter. I am leaving them at those settings even when I am on vacation. I hope others join me and the message should be that we will conserve when we don?t have to.
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
Governor/Mayor/Attorney General Jerry Brown was dealt a set-back in his fight against global warming when a Federal Judge threw out his case against the automakers. You see Jerry thought that the automakers should pay money to the State of California for causing global warming (he sued 6 automakers because presumably that was a lot easier then suing 1.4 billion Chinese who may also have something to do with global warming).
In any case, Jerry now has to decide how to proceed. I am sure that he's having a lot of high-level meetings with his is vaunted brain trust to come up with the best legal/political path to follow.
Here are some suggestions. We should learn from our efforts against guns. We routinely punish those who use guns and cause damage (murderers, robbers, etc.). Why not follow the same path with cars? Use a car and go to jail. We can early release some of the less dangerous criminals to make room for the real criminals. I know that this will be a difficult legal procedure. I am sure that those who drive cars will argue that cars are addictive and therefore they should not be punished. In light of the efforts to show that cigarettes and fat foods are addictive, society will probably be sympathetic to the argument that cars are addictive and that instead of punishing drivers we need to develop programs to wean them from their addiction.
Notwithstanding this legal hurdle, I think Jerry needs to proceed with his litigation against car users because we cannot survive as a law abiding nation if we don?t make every effort to get the real criminals behind bars before they cause irreparable damage. Go Jerry!
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
I have been watching and reading about General Petraeus appearance before the House and the Senate. One thing strikes me. He would be a great expert witness in a trial. I spent a good part of my life in the courtroom. One thing I learned when cross-examining expert witnesses is that your life gets a lot better if you can get the expert to start talking about a subject outside their expertise. Nothing better than having an expert in ballistics start talking about fingerprint methodology.
I found that the willingness of experts to stray off into other subjects was not uncommon. I concluded it was because a person who knows a lot about one thing sometimes can?t help but think they know a lot about everything. Classic examples are Senators and Congressmen (with the exception that they often don?t know a lot about anything).
It appears that General Petraeus does not suffer from that affliction. When asked about subjects other than his military objectives in Iraq he was steadfast in his position that those were not areas about which he would render an opinion. In an atmosphere where people commonly give opinions on issues about which they have no expertise or competence, I found it refreshing that a real expert was so smart that he limited his opinions to the area in which he was a true expert. I think we should spend no time considering opinions he did not have, and give a significant amount of weight to the opinions he did have.
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
Last weekend my wife and I took our daughter to college for the first time. She is a freshman at a well-known University only about 3 1/2 hours from home. Not only do her uncle and aunt (to whom she is very close) live in the adjoining town, her uncle is the football coach at the University. Additionally, she has not less than 7 friends from her High School who are also attending the University. Notwithstanding all of this support and realizing intellectually that she is going to have the time of her life, her Mom and I were distraught.
We shed tears and consoled each other over the fact that our first child was no longer in the room that she had occupied for the first 18 years of her life. I know that this is an emotional experience shared by many whose children go off to college. But it got me to thinking about the sacrifice made by the men and women who voluntarily join the armed forces to defend our country.
Going to Iraq or Afghanistan is considerably more than 3 1/2 hours away. Few have 7 close High School friends traveling with them. My guess is that none will have the time of their life. Yet they go. As much as I love my daughter, I equally respect and admire the men and women and their families who help to make us safe. I have resolved that every morning when I awake and think about my daughter, I am also going to say a little prayer for all the sons and daughters who are in harms way. I hope that you will join me.
Constitutional Lawyer writes:
In case you haven?t noticed, some very rich people made themselves a lot richer by selling home loans to people who could not afford the loan.
You can be critical of people taking out loans that they can?t afford, and say that they have created their own problem and should have to solve it themselves. The problem with that approach is that anyone who has waded through the stack of legalese that has to be signed when getting a loan and buying a house realizes that it is not uncommon for a buyer to be less than conversant with all the provisions of a twenty-page loan document.
We all realize that the twenty-page document was written by a Harvard lawyer who has spent most of his life learning to write in such a manner that your death warrant sounds like a birthday card. I have much more sympathy for the borrower who thought he was getting lemonade, only to realize too late that he was getting lemons, than I do for the greedy group of financial wizards who consciously concluded that putting the borrower in a death hold would help their bottom line.
Fortunately the government has taken what I think is a prudent step. They have told the people who service these loans to try to work things out with the borrowers and attempt to avoid foreclosures. A good thing about these requests is that the people making the requests are also the people regulating the ones to whom the request is being made. It is much like a parent telling a 20-year-old college student, who is relying on the parent?s largesse to avoid having to go to work, that they should attend all of their classes. It is not mandatory, but failure to comply might have some significant long-term impacts.
For one, I believe that the steps taken by the Regulators were good, and strike the correct balance between a Federal government that over-regulates as opposed to one that fairly and prudently regulates. For the sake of the borrowers who got lemons, let?s hope that it works.
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Constitutional Lawyer (CL) writes:
This entire Senator Craig thing has me confused. One of two things happened in the men?s room. Either Senator Craig was trying to have a homosexual relationship with a stranger in a stall next door, or he has a serious case of restless leg syndrome that got him into a lot of trouble. In either case, he fessed-up to something, plead guilty to a misdemeanor and went about doing the same job that he has been doing for the past 18 plus years.
Now some people want him to resign. I am not sure why they want him to resign, or even why it would be a good idea. I assume they don?t want him to resign for wanting to have a homosexual affair. Certainly they don?t want him to resign for suffering from restless leg syndrome. And most of ,all they can?t want him to resign for fessing-up to something, pleading guilty to a misdemeanor and going about his life.
If the latter is the reason for wanting him to resign then a lot of public officials are going to have to leave office. In fact it seems that it is hard to find a public official that hasn?t run afoul of the law in the past few years. Personally I think that Senator Craig should either come out and be gay; decide he is not gay; or get immediate medical attention for the restless leg problem that afflicts him. What should not happen is that he resign for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor which in the big scheme of things has no impact on his ability to do his job (unless of course some of those do good liberal Senators don?t want a gay friend in their circle).
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Antrim writes:
We've got big news at the National Antrim Blog! Starting immediately the gentleman, whom I refer to as my Constitutional Lawyer, will be sharing his views and wisdom on the National Antrim Blog. CL (Constitutional Lawyer) has been my resource on constitutional issues for many years. I'm sure that you will find his writings extremely informative, exceptionally researched and very interesting--not to mention challenging, sometimes controversial and thought provoking. And now, he will share his knowledge, wit and wisdom here with you.
Scribblin' in California (for now)--Antrim
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It's a lovely Saturday morning in California, but the world is just as crazy as ever. I've received over fifteen press releases today from Rudy's team announcing everything from endorsements to the "Rudycare" healthcare plan. I'm still not receiving much from Thompson's people, which makes me wonder about the strength of his grassroots operation.
I know many conservatives see Thompson as their salvation for 2008, but I'm very skeptical. I think his past life as a lobbyist is going to smack him hard, if and when he actually joins this race. Right now he's polling well, but he hasn't been asked the tough questions yet as he's not officially in the race. I also think that the comparisons to Reagan only hurt a candidate, in that no one will ever be Ronald Reagan, so you're losing from the outset by not being able to live up to the image of a icon. Each candidate has got to be his own man/woman with his/her own image, issues, etc.
The infatuation with Obama has gone on longer than I expected. I really thought he'd have flamed out by now. He has come close with some very naive and irresponsible statements, such as stating that as president he would be willing to invade Pakistan to go after terrorists. His inexperience is hanging out like a pair of dirty underwear, and it's embarrassing. I know he's had 2 whole years in the US Senate (during which no one has been able to point to anything of substance that he's accomplished), but I just don't believe that 2 years of service would prepare anyone for the presidency.
As I've been saying for close to a year now, I look for a Hillary/Obama Democratic ticket in 2008. Interestingly, some of the big pundits are starting to echo my words. I believe this will be a tough ticket for the Republicans to beat.
I believe that Guiliani will be the Republican nominee--the jury is still out on his running mate. Regardless, Rudy can beat Hillary and even has a shot at taking such states as California, but it will be a knock down, drag out of a fight. This is going to be fun to watch!
Until next time--I'll be scribblin' in California and Arizona
