Category Archives: Progressives

Repost: Teddy Roosevelt’s Legacy

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All too many today appear to think the left’s attacks on our Constitution and federal republic form of government is recent, something that started with Johnson’s “Great Society” or even earlier with FDR’s “New Deal.” Both answers are wrong. There was nothing great about Johnson’s welfare state society nor with FDR’s attempt to impose a leftist dictatorship by packing the Supreme Court. No, it started much earlier, decades earlier with Teddy Roosevelt and his progressive movement in the first two decades of the 20th Century.

Here is a repost of an article I wrote a few years ago before the ‘Pub 2012 convention in Tampa. Many conservatives denounce the 16th Amendment’s imposition of the income tax. Few give thought to the implication of the passage of the 17th Amendment.

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The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell made my daily task easy today. It’s a short history lesson on Progressivism. 

If you ask a sampling of High School graduates, or even some college graduations today, the question, “When did the election of US Senators start?” many would give you a blank look assuming that the direct election of Senators was in the original Constitution.  They’d be wrong of course. It started with the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution and Teddy Roosevelt was one of several who helped pass it.

The 17th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed by Congress on May 13, 1912 and was ratified on April 8, 1913. It replaced the appointment of US Senators by the state legislatures with a provision for the direct election of senators.

Text of the 17th Amendment

Section 1.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

Section 2.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of each State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Section 3.
This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

The push for this constitutional change started in the first decade of the 20th century.  Supposedly, it was to “enhance” democracy.  In reality, it was another step to grow and strengthen the central government at the expense of the States.  The checks and balances in the original constitution balanced power between the States and the Federal government. The original design of our government was almost that of a confederation with power sharing between the states and the central government. The aftermath of the Civil War began the process that upset that balance. The early 20th Century Progressive movement further upset that balance.

Wiki has a reasonably balanced writeup on the 17th Amendment and the history that led to its adoption. Teddy Roosevelt was also involved along with William Jennings Bryan. Roosevelt, along with Taft and Wilson were the three Progressive Presidents between 1901 and 1920 that brought us the 16th and 17th Amendments that has directly led us to our current fiscal crises.

Now we get to today’s Morning Bell from the Heritage Foundation.

Political Convention Drama Begins

This week’s Republican National Convention is already experiencing its own drama thanks to Tropical Storm Isaac, which has postponed most of the events until tomorrow. But this year marks the 100th anniversary of another Republican Convention embroiled in political drama of a different nature.

Unlike today’s conventions, which are little more than multi-day campaign rallies, at the 1912 affair in Chicago, 1,000 policemen stood by to make sure the delegates didn’t get out of hand. Strands of barbed wire lay concealed beneath the bunting on the speaker’s platform to keep disgruntled delegates from charging the stage.

The very nature of our Constitution and our democracy was at stake, as William Schambra explains in a new First Principles essay from The Heritage Foundation.

On one side was Teddy Roosevelt, who ran for President that year aiming to reshape American democracy. He thrashed lackluster incumbent William Howard Taft in the primary contests, declaring, “I believe in pure democracy.”

But his definition of “pure democracy” included upsetting the Constitution. He endorsed “certain governmental devices which will make the representatives of the people more easily and certainly responsible to the people’s will.” These reforms included the initiative, the referendum, the recall of elected officials and even judicial decisions, and the direct election of U.S. Senators.

On the other side were Taft (Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor in the White House just four years earlier) and the Republican leadership, including Senators Elihu Root of New York and Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. They stood for the Constitution. Root and Lodge were great admirers and longtime friends of Roosevelt, but Roosevelt had sent shock waves through the Republican Party. Roosevelt had proposed a dramatic constitutional change that, according to Schambra, “posed the danger of undermining popular confidence in the institutions of government.” Therefore, Root, Lodge, and Taft were determined to deny Roosevelt the nomination at the 1912 Republican convention.

Unlike the typically bland convention keynote speeches designed to smooth feathers ruffled by the nominating contest and unite the party for the main event in November, Root’s keynote was a call to constitutional conservatism.

As Schambra notes, Root grounded the Republican Party in the Constitution, since it had been “born in protest against the extension of a system of human slavery approved and maintained by majorities.” After all, the GOP was the party of Abraham Lincoln, who had declared in his first inaugural address that “a majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations…is the only true sovereign of a free people.” The party’s duty, therefore, was not to reform the constitutional system but to “humbly and reverently seek for strength and wisdom to abide by the principles of the Constitution against the days of our temptation and weakness.”

Preventing Roosevelt from winning the Republican nomination, these first conservatives saved the party from a platform of radical constitutional reform. But it also meant losing the general election. Taft won only two states, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson became President, with Roosevelt coming in second.

“The result of the Convention was more important than the question of the election,” Root later said. Losing the general election did not supplant their “duty to hold the Republican Party firmly to the support of our constitutional system. Worse things can happen to a party than to be defeated.”

Root, Lodge, and Taft sacrificed their friendship with Roosevelt and victory in the general election to save the Constitution from a proposed overhaul. Constitutional conservatism began with saving the Republican Party from Teddy Roosevelt. It continues today with the fight to save America from a deeper descent into progressivism. Members of the Tea Party movement are the intellectual heirs of Root, Lodge, and Taft.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “it is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor.” In a new essay in Heritage’s Understanding America series, President Edwin J. Feulner explores the ways the American people are bound to preserve our republic.

It is up to us to ensure that we remain a virtuous and free people, Feulner writes, and to make sure our government stays faithful to the principles on which it was founded.

“This is partly a job for the free press and the ballot box,” Feulner writes, “but we will not be able to speak and vote in support of America’s founding principles if we forget what those principles are.”

As we watch the political party conventions, we have a duty to educate ourselves on the constitutional role of government and to compare that with what the candidates are saying. As Feulner says, “we have always an obligation to pass the inheritance of freedom on, unimpaired, to the next generation.”

While the ‘Pubs in Tampa wait out the passing of Hurricane Isaac, contemplate what changes to our government has been inflicted on us by Progressivism and how we might reverse or mediate those impacts.

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Friday Follies for May 29, 2015

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This story could correctly be entitled, “Cycles.” For most of the 20th Century and the first decade and a half of the 21st, we’ve watched this cycle occur in our foreign and defense policies. It began with Wilson, continued with FDR, Carter, Clinton and now Obama. Each iteration of liberal polices led to disaster. It always seem to require a conservative administration to put our house back in order…until the next liberal administration betrays us once again.

Disavowing the appeal of the appeaser

The next president will be forced to face down tyrants whom Obama ignored

By Victor Davis Hanson – – Wednesday, May 27, 2015

For a time, reset, concessions and appeasement work to delay wars. But finally, nations wake up, grasp their blunders, rearm and face down enemies.

That gets dangerous. The shocked aggressors cannot quite believe that their targets are suddenly serious and willing to punch back. Usually, the bullies foolishly press aggression, and war breaks out.

It was insane of Nazi Germany and its Axis partners to even imagine that they could defeat the Allied trio of Imperial Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.

But why not try?

Hitler figured that for a decade America had been unarmed and isolationist. Britain repeatedly had appeased the Third Reich. The Soviets initially collaborated with Hitler.

Hitler met no opposition after militarizing the Rhineland. He annexed Austria with impunity. He gobbled up Czechoslovakia without opposition.

Why shouldn’t Hitler have been stunned in 1939 when exasperated Britain and France finally declared war over his invasion of distant Poland?

Six years of war and some 60 million dead followed, re-establishing what should have been the obvious fact that democracies would not quite commit suicide.

By 1979, the Jimmy Carter administration had drastically cut the defense budget. President Carter promised that he would make human rights govern American foreign policy. It sounded great to Americans after Vietnam — and even greater to America’s enemies.

Then Iran imploded. The American embassy in Tehran was stormed. Diplomats were taken hostage. Radical Islamic terrorism spread throughout the Middle East. Communist insurrection followed throughout Central America. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. China went into Vietnam.

Dictators such as the Soviet Union’s Leonid Brezhnev and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumed that Mr. Carter no longer was willing to protect the U.S. postwar order. Or perhaps they figured that the inexperienced American president was too weak to respond even had he wished to do so.

Then, Ronald Reagan defeated Mr. Carter in 1980 on the promise of restoring U.S. power. At first, both America’s friends and enemies were aghast at Reagan’s simplistic worldview that free markets were better than communism, that democracy was superior to dictatorship, and that in the ensuing struggle, the West would win and the rest would lose.

Foreign media damned Reagan as a warmonger for beefing up the U.S. defense budget, reassuring America’s allies and going after terrorists with military force.

The column continues onto a second page with Hanson’s analysis of Obama. The pattern is well established. Liberal, i.e., democrat administrations, weaken the nation, creates choas within our military with massive cuts and misappropriation of funds, thus allowing our enemies to become emboldened. The problems resist until a conservative administration is elected to fix the problems the liberals have created.

The column ends with this final statement:

The Obama foreign policy cannot continue much longer without provoking even more chaos or a large war. Yet correcting it will be nearly as dangerous.

Jumping off the global tiger is dangerous, but climbing back on will seem riskier.

Now you know why I said this section could rightfully be titled, “Cycles.”

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Here is an item where the ACLU and Missouri conservatives agree. The use of ‘StingRay’ technology should be banned within the state. The St Louis Post Dispatch published this editorial on Wednesday.

Editorial: Secret use of StingRay technology could backfire on St. Louis police

May 27, 2015 4:07 pm  •  By the Editorial Board

http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/1e/e1e8581f-afef-5885-bf81-13720cd549d9/55319997d8573.image.png?resize=620%2C368

Last summer, as the American Civil Liberties Union was standing side-by-side with Missouri Republicans supporting the passage of a constitutional amendment that sought to protect “electronic communication and data” from unreasonable search and seizure, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was sitting on a secret.

In cooperation with the FBI, the St. Louis police had been using a cellphone tracking device known generically by the brand name of one such device: StingRay. The high-tech gadgets allow police to mimic a cell tower. They screen and track nearby digital data, determining the specific location in a building, for instance, of the cell phone they are tracking.

Last month, as first reported by the Post-Dispatch’s Robert Patrick, prosecutors dropped more than a dozen charges against three defendants in a case where the technology was employed. Defense attorneys believe the charges were dropped because police don’t want to reveal details about their new high-tech toy.

But in Missouri, there may be a bigger problem. It has to do with that constitutional amendment that the strange bedfellows of the ACLU and Missouri Republicans were promoting.

A plain reading of the language of Amendment 9, passed by 75 percent of the voters who turned out on Aug. 5, suggests that it is now unconstitutional in Missouri to use a StingRay device — at least without a warrant that offers significantly more detail about the data being sought.

The column continues at the website. As the editorial admits, the Post-Dispatch opposed the passage of Amendment 9 last year. They are reconsidering that opposition now that it appears the St Louis Police Department is actually using StingRay technology in defiance to Federal, and now, Missouri law.

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Petty Tyrannies

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One of the legislative bills that passed this session and is sitting on Jay Nixon’s desk, is a bill that would place a cap on the amount of revenue a city can collect from traffic fines. This has been a problem with some municipalities for decades, Ferguson, MO, being one.

Some cities anticipate Nixon’s signature. They have chosen a different path to collect revenues from their citizens. Instead of issuing a high number of traffic tickets, they issue tickets for a plenitude of other reasons…like allowing your grass to get too high, allowing toys to be scattered across your lawn, having a BBQ pit that doesn’t comply with city codes or is visible from the front of your house. In some cases, allowing your children to play outside the house unsupervised will lead to a yellow ticket on your front door.

Municipalities ticket for trees and toys, as traffic revenue declines

May 24, 2015 12:15 pm  •  By Jennifer S. Mann

A ticket written by the city of Pagedale dated May 1, 2015 is pasted on the front door of home in the 1500 block of Engelholm Avenue on Thursday, May 21, 2015. The ticket cites the property for having high grass and gives the property owner one day to get it cut. Photo by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com

PAGEDALE • Drive through this working-class suburb filled with 1950s cottages and you will see many edged and weeded lawns. You’ll also notice orange sticky notes on the doors — at least one or two per street in many parts of town.

They are warnings the city gives to residents who violate local ordinances. And in this community of 3,304 residents, the list of what earns a ticket and fine is long.

Among the things that will be “closely monitored” through the spring and summer, according to a newsletter that recently went out to residents:

Pants worn too low or grass grown too high. Children riding bikes without helmets. Barbecue pits or toys in front yards. Basketball hoops in the streets.

There’s no loitering — described in city code as “the concept of spending time idly” or “the colloquial expression ‘hanging around.’” And, despite a citywide 20 mph speed limit, there’s no playing or walking in the street.

…

Pagedale handed out 2,255 citations for these types of offenses last year — or nearly two per household. That’s a nearly 500 percent increase from five years ago, according to an analysis of state court data by the Post-Dispatch.

And yet none of the fines and fees from these offenses count under the Macks Creek Law. The law is the state’s one tool for keeping cash-hungry municipalities from relying too much on court fines for revenue.

But it has a major blind spot: Its revenue limits apply only to traffic cases.

Cities and villages have no restrictions on raising revenue from other types of tickets.

In Pagedale, 40 percent of last year’s citations were from nontraffic matters, according to the newspaper’s analysis. More than half of tickets in Ferguson and four other communities were for nontraffic violations.

You can read the entire column on the Post-Dispatch’s website.

Not all of the petty tyrants live on the eastern side of the state. Sly James, Mayor of Kansas City, pushed a ban on open carry knowing full well the legislature would pass a measure allowing open carry in Missouri. One exception that Sly James and other petty tyrants in Missouri lobbied for and succeeded, was that only licensed CCW carriers could carry openly in cities and counties that had ordinances against it. Mayor James rammed his ordinance through the Kansas City Council before passage of the Open Carry bill for nothing more than pure spite.

Missouri’s pre-emption of these petty tyrannies is a continuing thorn in the side of liberals and statists across the state. The Columbia Daily Tribune, a well know democrat house organ, bemoaned the loss of ‘local control’, the pre-emption of the state over local ordinances that run contrary to state law.

Locus of control

Overruling local prerogatives

By Henry J. Waters III, Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00 am

By nature, when cities pass laws in conflict with the general statewide status quo, local rules are more progressive. Of late, state legislatures politically dominated by conservatives have passed laws prohibiting actions by cities disapproved of by business interests.

In Missouri the General Assembly passed a law prohibiting city laws banning the use of single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and requiring businesses to pay employee sick leave, vacation or health disability and retirement benefits. Missouri has become one of 15 states that ban local minimum wages. Oil-rich states ban local restrictions on drilling. Farming states ban local restrictions on types of seeds used to grow crops.

Other states won’t allow cities to ban sugary drinks, toys in fast-food meals or to enact gun restrictions. Utah forbids city laws requiring businesses to serve bicyclists in drive-through lanes.

One might wonder why conservative state politicians would contradict their movement’s antipathy toward centralized control, but when conservatives live at the state level, they hold the reins. The U.S. Constitution says powers not specifically given to the federal government reside in the states, and cities are creatures of the state. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, running for Missouri attorney general, said city councils and mayors “don’t have some kind of organic legal authority to do whatever they want. It would be absolute bedlam what some of these communities would do to their citizens if they had that ability.”

Schaefer is right about constitutional law, but he might misread the sentiment regarding local citizen prerogatives. What if local citizens here and there would like to deviate from state dictum — by paying a higher minimum wage, for instance? Or banning plastic bags? Or … ? Schaefer & Co. justify their override in the name of statewide consistency, a powerful argument in some cases but not others. At the moment, state assumption of control is done mainly at the behest of influential business interests that don’t like certain city laws. They like their kind of uniformity.

Often state law should supersede, and with standards set by state legislatures. It makes sense for the state to have uniform gun ownership laws, for instance. In most of the other categories usurped by state lawmakers, a more open-minded debate at the local level would be reasonable – from the standpoint of political science, that is.

Apparently, Mr. Waters is fully satisfied with more regulation, more ordinances, more impositions on life and liberty, more nanny state oversight. Fortunately for the rest of us, we have conservatives in Jeff City who work to protect us from petty tyrants like Henry J. Watters, III and Sly James. If allowed, these two tyrants would no longer just be petty. No, they’d would grab and much power as they could. Petty, they would be not.

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Take that!

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Well…it’s a start. What am I talking about? A US Appeals Court is limited the Patriot Act. Specifically, limiting the NSA authority to collect telephone data without a warrant. No more mass collection.

Top federal court rules against NSA’s phone records program

By Julian Hattem – 05/07/15 09:25 AM EDT

A federal court has decided that the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk, warrantless collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal.

The sweeping decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday represents a major court victory for opponents of the NSA, and comes just as Congress begins a fight over whether to renew the underlying law used to justify the program.  

That program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized,” Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel.

The law “cannot be interpreted in a way that defies any meaningful limit,” he added.

The key section of the Patriot Act that ‘allows’ the government to collection information has been interpreted too broadly according to the bill’s author, Rep, Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). It is §215 that is flawed and the section that the 2nd Appellate Court is limiting.

But, the win in court may be moot. Despite efforts by the White House, the NSA and statists in Congress, §215 is due to expire within a month.

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Chris Cuomo, son of the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo, displayed his stupidity on Twitter. His liberal buddies piled on. Not to defend him, but to ridicule him. It couldn’t happen to a better, ‘stuck on stupid’ liberal.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo gets Twitter-spanked after boneheaded First Amendment gaffe

His claim that the “fighting words” exception applies to hate speech made for “fighting words” on Twitter

, Wednesday, May 6, 2015 10:49 AM CDT

It is increasingly difficult for those who identify on the left and right to find anything they agree upon, but this morning CNN anchor and law school graduate Chris Cuomo provided those across the political spectrum with some common ground.

Cuomo was hosting a Twitter conversation about the constitutionality of hate speech and wrote:

First Amendment experts, self-styled and actual and of all political stripes, jumped in to inform him of his wrongness:

Glenn Greenwald ✔ @ggreenwald

Such a painfully dumb tweet! @ChrisCuomo: can you point to where this free speech “exception” is in US Constitution? https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/595934009764487168 …
Popehat @Popehat

Ass. You are a disgrace to Fordham Law School, which only admitted you because of your famous father. https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/595934009764487168 …
Chris Cuomo ✔ @ChrisCuomo

it doesn’t. hate speech is excluded from protection. dont just say you love the constitution…read it https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/595931074477305856 …
Andrew Kaczynski ✔ @BuzzFeedAndrew

@ChrisCuomo hey, long time listener first time caller, looking for this in this constitution you speak of. Got a link?

· Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada
Chris Cuomo ✔ @ChrisCuomo

it doesn’t. hate speech is excluded from protection. dont just say you love the constitution…read it https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/595931074477305856 …
Ed Morrissey ✔ @EdMorrissey

@ChrisCuomo I did read the First Amendment, and still can’t find the “hate speech” exception to free speech. Can you point it out for us?
Jesse Taylor @jesseltaylor

Morning Twitter Update, 5.6.15: Chris Cuomo is getting the fighting words doctrine and First Amendment hilariously wrong.
John Nolte @NolteNC

Chris Cuomo phonically learned the dit-dit of law but has no basic understanding of law and rights. That’s why all the dumb.

Cuomo replied:

Ed Morrissey ✔ @EdMorrissey

@ChrisCuomo I did read the First Amendment, and still can’t find the “hate speech” exception to free speech. Can you point it out for us?
Chris Cuomo ✔ @ChrisCuomo

@EdMorrissey I will keep saying one word: chaplinsky
That word, “chaplinsky,” refers to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, in which the Supreme Court decided that some speech — like “fighting words,” or other statements that incite violence — aren’t protected by the First Amendment. Unfortunately for Cuomo:
Julian Sanchez @normative

FYI, the case @ChrisCuomo keeps citing (a) has been subsequently so gutted it’s basically a dead letter & (b) IS NOT ABOUT HATE SPEECH.
Ed Morrissey ✔ @EdMorrissey

And you will still be entirely wrong. ReTweet: @ChrisCuomo @EdMorrissey I will keep saying one word: chaplinsky
Jimmie @jimmiebjr

@EdMorrissey So, basically, @ChrisCuomo‘s expert fact-based legal opinion is a single word chanted repeatedly like a talisman against evil?
The H2 @TheH2

I love how Cuomo screams READ THE CONSTITUTION then cites case law (incorrectly).
Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor

Also, of course, @ChrisCuomo completely overlooks the face-to-face requirement as he alleges that fighting words doctrine somehow applies.
As a followup to Cuomo’s use of, “Chaplinski,” it has largely been reversed. You can follow the link above to see how limited it was. The limitation with ‘Chaplinski’ is that it requires a face-to-face confrontation. None of those requirements are met contrary to Cuomo’s assertions.
Not even über-liberal Salon can stomach Cuomo’s idiotcy.
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Bits ‘n Pieces

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https://jasonkander.com/files/2015/02/Jason-Kander-for-US-Senate-100x100.jpg

Missouri Secretary of State, Jason Kander

Jason Kander, our democrat Missouri Secretary of State and scion of the Kansas City democrat political machine, has announced he will run against Senator Roy Blunt in 2016. Kander received the endorsement of the entire Missouri democrat team as well as from the KC ‘Red’ Star. Surprise, surprise!

Attorney General Chris Koster, who is readying to join Kander on the statewide slate in his own run for governor: “Every day, Jason Kander uses the lessons he learned serving in the Army in Afghanistan to do what’s right for Missouri. He doesn’t care who gets credit for an idea, he just wants to get the job done for our state. We need that approach in Washington, which is why I am supporting Jason Kander for United States Senate.” — PoliticMO Newsletter, February 19, 2015.

So it will be Turncoat Koster running for Governor teaming with Kander running for Senator. All in all, Kander has a better rep than Koster. Still you have to wonder, in this ‘race of the Double-Ks’ who is helping whom?

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An idea whose time has come? Missouri already has a Voter-ID law on the books. There are a number of acceptable forms of ID listed on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website.

ACCEPTABLE FORMS OF VOTER ID:
  • Identification issued by the state of Missouri, an agency of the state, or a local election authority of the state
  • Identification issued by the United States government or agency thereof
  • Identification issued by an institution of higher education, including a university, college, vocational and technical school, located within the state of Missouri
  • A copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check or other government document that contains the name and address of the voter
  • Driver’s license or state identification card issued by another state

If you do not possess any of these forms of identification, you may still cast a ballot if two supervising election judges, one from each major political party, attest they know you. – http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/govotemissouri/howtovote.aspx

This new effort will add a Constitutional Amendment to give more teeth to the existing law which has a number of exceptions that still allow people to vote without proper ID. The existing law is a good first step, but, reviewing the documented acts of vote fraud in St. Louis and Kansas City, it isn’t enough.

Missouri House endorses voter photo ID requirements

By MARIE FRENCH, Associated Press, Feb 18, 6:21 PM EST

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri House is once again pushing forward with a Republican priority to require photo identification at the polls, after similar measures were stymied by the Senate or courts in recent years.

The House gave initial approval Wednesday to a proposed constitutional amendment that would go before voters in 2016 and also endorsed a bill that would institute the voter photo ID requirements if the constitutional amendment is approved.

Both measures need a second House vote and also would also have to pass the Senate, where Democrats have previously blocked the proposed photo ID requirements.

Supporters say the requirement is needed to ensure the integrity of the election process. Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, said the measure would protect individuals’ voting rights by making sure someone does not try to vote for another person.

“It ensures that someone did not take their vote and steal what is rightfully their vote,” Brattin said.

If you read the full article at the website, you will see, as usual, democrats, abetted by MO Secretary of State Jason Kander, protesting the measure because it would make their continuing vote fraud schemes more difficult.

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Have you heard the term, Social Justice Warrior? It’s all the vogue on university campus across the country and in other segments of society (see my post concerning the SFWA and the Hugo Awards.) Social Justice Warriors have become the progressives’ front-line troops in their battle against free speech and expression.

Social Justice Warriors Come to Campus

By Robert Weissberg, February 19, 2015

Since the late 1960s, radical students have periodically taken over the university president’s offices to propose a laundry list of “non-negotiable” demands. Early takeovers tended to be about their school’s cooperation with the military during war in Vietnam; today, however, “social justice” is the aim so let’s call these office occupiers Social Justice Warriors or SJW’s.

Back in February 2014 a group of 30 Dartmouth students commandeered the president’s office to  announce a “Freedom Budget”:70 specific calls for greater diversity, eliminating sexism and heterosexism, an improved campus climate for minorities and gays, banning the term “illegal immigrant,” offering a class on undocumented workers in America, creating a professor of color lecture series, and harsher penalties for sexual assault, among many, many others.

More recently, Clemson University SJW’s demanded that the school provide a “safe” multicultural center for students from “under-represented” groups, employing more administrators and faculty of color, a more diverse student body, mandatory sensitivity training for faculty and administrators, and increased funding for students organization catering to under-represented groups.

Then there are the University of Minnesota students who seized the President’s office to demand a bigger budget for the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies Department, removing all racial descriptions from university police reports, offering gender-neutral bathrooms at all college facilities and, of course, recruiting more faculty and students of color.

Fortunately, this is the U.S., where such political histrionics are greeted with mild amusement. Ironically, school officials typically welcome “meaningful political dialogue and change,” the need for “hard work” to achieve progress and then conclude by thanking the Social Justice Warriors for their assistance in moving forward. Though police may remove protestors, criminal charges, let alone violations of campus rules, are rarely pursued and the moral buzz for these SJW’s may last weeks. In fact, I suspect some warriors honestly believe that their achievement will burnish their resume when applying to a second-tier MBA program. Imagine if these SJW’s tried this in Russia or China?

Such incidents are easy to pooh-pooh as the politically-correct version of Animal House. But that said, they nevertheless offer important insights into today’s college activist’s thinking and why university administrators tolerate the foolishness.    

Most evidently, the Social Justice Warriors totally disregard the costs associated with their self-righteous crusades. Everything is single-ledger accounting. Will the tooth fairy fund Dartmouth’s proposed $3.6 million dollar Triangle House, the “safe haven” for LGBT? Yes, high-school dropouts may believe that government benefits are “free,” but youngsters admitted to top colleges? No wonder the U.S. sinks deeper and deeper into indebtedness — even among the smart, costs are invisible. Picture a Warrior taking Econ 101 and hearing for the first time that there is no such thing as a free lunch. What a shock!

The shallowness of these demands is breathtaking and suggests that these activists are just winging it. The Dartmouth students are surely among America’s brainiest but why do they denounce “ableism”? Are they suggesting that acknowledging variations in ability is morally wrong and if differences are to be abolished (hopeless anyhow), how would society function? Why must the campus offer gender-neutral bathrooms? Keep in mind that in a few decades such folk may be among our national leaders.

Particularly troublesome is how these presumptuous, self-centered warriors think that if they think something is good, it must be good, so case settled. For example, they glibly assume that academically challenged black and Chicano youngsters really benefit by attending schools that would never admit them in a merit-based admission process.  Have these young do-gooders considered the downside of this generosity — schools will fake the numbers by creating easy-to-pass courses in dubious ethnic-studies departments, steering them to easy grading instructors or just tolerating rampant grade inflation. Or, more important, that these in-over-their-head youngsters may be better off in community college acquiring well-paying skills like welding?

Closer to home, have these SJW’s calculated the link between achieving their vision of “social justice” and tuition? Attracting minority students, addressing their academic deficiencies, creating a nurturing environment and all the rest costs money, and this will inevitably push soaring tuition even higher and, since there is no Santa Claus, a college education will be yet further beyond the reach of many poorer students while saddling graduates with yet more debt. In effect, these idealistic protestors are demanding a tax on those who are not members of their version of “under-represented.” Imagine if these SJW’s had to hold jobs to pay their own tuition?

Do these Social Justice Warriors realize that their demands will require administrators to break the law to achieve this multicultural Utopia? That is, under today’s judicial guidelines it is almost impossible to admit students solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. California, Michigan, and Washington (among others) have state laws explicitly banning racial preferences.

Why do schools tolerate such idiocy, including ignoring violations of campus policy? The answer is that no matter how imprudent the demands, they help drive the university’s bureaucratic expansion, and in today’s campus life, size matters. A symbiotic relationship exists between the children’s crusades and yet more bureaucratic bloat. Universities are not the profit-driven private sector. Absolutely everything, everything in every one of these SJW catalogues entails spending more university money, hiring more personnel, and creating yet more rules and regulations and the apparatchiki to monitor and enforce them.

It is a long article and I urge you to follow this link to the website and read the entire piece. It may be an education for you; make you aware of another insidious attacks against our liberty by ‘progressives.’ Joe Stalin and Adolf would be proud of them.

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They’re off!

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The 2016 campaign season started this week with GOP sessions in Iowa and other locales. Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio received applause. Rand Paul a few less, mainly due to his lack of support for national security. Apparently Rand Paul has no problems with the Castros in Cuba. Cruz and Rubio, do. In Arizona, John McCain was booed at the AZ state GOP meeting and Sarah Palin hinted she may consider running again in 2016. Of course, the liberal media went into hysterics. All-in-all, it was a good start.

***

Everyone is watching the scenes and positions: Conservatives vs. RINOs, RINOs and Liberals against Conservatives. There  is another, less well known, battle going on in, of all places, the gamer and science-fiction communities. Have you heard about Gamergate and the controversy in the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) over the Hugo Award? Most people think the conservative vs. progressive conflict involved only politics. Wrong!

Gamergate is…complicated. The SFWA controversy less so. Both involve censorship and attacks by ‘progressives’ against more conservative participants. Gamergate, a term created by Firefly actor, Adam Baldwin, began with a controversy involving sexism, feminism in on-line games. Self-declared critics quickly took sides and the battle was on. Taken as a whole, Gamergate is trivial. Viewed as a cultural battle, it is another battleground used by the progressive movement to change American culture into a tyranny where free speech and expression do not exist.

It issue became so controversial that Wiki banned five feminist editors from touching the topic. The issue was ‘fairness.’ ‘Fairness,’ however, depends on your personal viewpoint. Wiki strives to maintain impartiality for their online encyclopedia. Usually, they are successful and this ban is a response to maintain that impartiality.

The SFWA/Hugo Award controversy is less confused. Larry Corriea, a SF/Fantasy writer is on one side, that of conservatives, many of them members of the Baen writers group. Baen writers are generally conservative. Many of the writers product military science fiction and write with a more conservative viewpoint. On the other side is John Scalzi, a self-declared liberal and progressive, and the progressive members of SFWA.

An explanation about the Hugo awards controversy

Posted on April 24, 2014 by correia45

A few days ago the finalists for the Hugo were announced. The Hugos are the big prestigious award for science fiction and fantasy. One of my books was a finalist for best novel. A bunch of other works that I recommended showed up in other categories. Because I’m an outspoken right winger, hilarity ensued.

Many of you have never heard of me before, but the internet was quick to explain to you what a horrible person I am. There have been allegations of fraud, vote buying, log rolling, and making up fake accounts. The character assassination has started as well, and my detractors posted and tweeted and told anyone who would listen about how I was a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, a rape apologist, an angry white man, a religious fanatic, and how I wanted to drag homosexuals to death behind my pickup truck.

The libel and slander over the last few days have been so ridiculous that my wife was contacted by people she hasn’t talked to for years, concerned that she was married to such a horrible, awful, hateful, bad person, and that they were worried for her safety.

I wish I was exaggerating. Don’t take my word for it. My readers have been collecting a lot of them in the comments of the previous Hugo post and on my Facebook page. Plug my name into Google for the last few days. Make sure to read the comments to the various articles too. They’re fantastic.

Of course, none of this stuff is true, but it was expected. I knew if I succeeded I would be attacked. To the perpetually outraged the truth doesn’t matter, just feelings and narrative. I’d actually like to thank all of those people making stuff up about me because they are proving the point I was trying to make to begin with.

Allow me to explain why the presence of my slate on the Hugo nominations is so controversial. This is complicated and your time is valuable, so short explanation first, longer explanation if you care after.

Short Version:

  1. I said a chunk of the Hugo voters are biased toward the left, and put the author’s politics far ahead of the quality of the work. Those openly on the right are sabotaged. This was denied.
  2. So I got some right wingers on the ballot.
  3. The biased voters immediately got all outraged and mobilized to do exactly what I said they’d do.
  4. Point made.

The column continues with a discussion about motives and issues surrounding the award process. If you read all of Correia’s post, you will notice the controversy is not about books, novels, nor much about their quality nor content. It’s about politics—conservatives vs. liberals.

On the other side, among many, is John Scalzi, past President of SFWA whose term expired in 2013. Scalzi, perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, chose to not run again for office. His name was the only one on the ballot when he was elected.

Correia and Vox Day have been accused of attempting to stuff the ballot box by creating proxy memberships in SFWA. Scalzi admits that the tactic has been used before by liberal writers in their attempts to win Hugos. The tactic is fine when liberal writers do it. But when Correia gathers some real conservative writers and persuades them to join SFWA, it suddenly become controversial. Another form of the liberal bias is the weighted voting system. Toni Weisskopf, Baen’s publisher, had the most votes for Editor Long Form award, but came in 2nd due to WSFS’s (World Science Fiction Society) weighted voting system. Baen’s conservative books are an anathema in the SFWA.

Scalzi wrote this posting after the Hugo Awards were announced. I’ve never heard of the winning writers, Charles Stross excepted, and I’ve been reading science fiction since I was in grade school sixty years ago. Of the winners, however, every single one of them is a progressive who push their political agenda openly in their novels. Even USA Today noticed the conflict.

Thoughts On the Hugo Awards, 2014

,

In no particular order (and for reference, the winners are here):

1. I am super-delighted that the Hugo Best Novel Award went to Ancillary Justice. One, because it’s fantastic, but two, because I feel entirely unwarranted pride in Ann Leckie’s career, because I gave her her first professional sale, and was delighted to give Ancillary Justice a blurb for when it came out. I had nothing to do with the book’s success, other than receive the pleasure of letting people know I thought it was great. I’m still super proud of its clean sweep of the major SF/F awards, and of Ann. This is just great.

2. I’m also giggling that Charlie Stross name-checked me and Lou Anders when he won for Equoid; I remember that fateful night in Denver in 2008, when the messy seeds of that story were planted with two words, the two words being “unicorn bukkake.” And now, Charlie’s got a Hugo out of it. That’s just about perfect.

3. Also: Mary Robinette Kowal! Who is one of my favorite people on the planet. Some of you may know that her Hugo-wining novelette was disqualified last year, despite having enough nominations to make the slate, because its first appearance was in audio form. It then appeared in word form, and here we are. I’m thrilled that it got a chance to be considered in another year, although frankly it should have never been disqualified at all. I do believe a proposed rule change would have audio-first stories considered in fiction categories along with print-first stories. I think that’s wise.

4. And generally I am delighted with the slate of winners in other categories as well. I think there was a fair amount of concern that the large increase of Hugo voters this year was going to be evidence of (for lack of a better phrase for them) “single issue” voters — specifically those voting only for Wheel of Time or participating because of the “sad puppy” slate of conservative writers. But the voting tallies suggest that if there were “single issue” voters, they were swamped out by people who did their homework and then voted from there. To which I say: Well done, Loncon 3 voters! You done good.

5. You’ve seen me snark about it, I’m sure, but now that the voting is over, what did I really think of the “sad puppy” slate of nominees championed by Larry Correia and others? What I thought at the beginning, which was: The folks pushing the slate played within the rules, so game on, and the game is to convince people that the work deserves the Hugo. It does not appear the voters were convinced. As a multiple Hugo loser myself, I can say: That’s the breaks, and better luck another year.

With that said, Correia was foolish to put his own personal capital as a successful and best selling novelist into championing Vox Day and his novelette, because Vox Day is a real bigoted shithole of a human being, and his novelette was, to put it charitably, not good (less charitably: It was like Gene Wolfe strained through a thick and rancid cheesecloth of stupid). Doing that changed the argument from something perfectly legitimate, if debatable — that conservative writers are often ignored for or discounted on award ballots because their personal politics generally conflict with those of the award voters — into a different argument entirely, i.e., fuck you, we got an undeserving bigoted shithole on the Hugo ballot, how you like them apples.

Which is a shame. It’s fine for Correia to beclown himself with Day, if such is his joy, and he deserves to reap the fruits of such an association. I suspect, however, there are others whom he championed for his “sad puppy” slate who were less thrilled to find themselves looped in with Day by involuntary association. Likewise, Correia is a good writer and his works are fun to read and easy to enjoy; others he championed are likewise fine writers, and their works deserving of award consideration. He didn’t do his work, or the work of these other writers, any favors by muddling his message with Day’s nonsense.

Now, I understand Correia will be happy to tell you that his Hugo loss doesn’t matter to him, which is fine. I do wonder if he considered how other people that were seen as part of his slate feel the same way, or whether he’d do them or their careers any damage by associating them with a bigoted shithole, or that if he really wanted to make the argument that a particular set of writers are ignored by award voters, that he went about making the argument in just about the worst way possible. Bad strategy, bad tactics, bad result.

6. About the entire Wheel of Time series being nominated, again, fully within the rules, so game on, and I would have been honestly happy for Brandon Sanderson if he’d picked up the Hugo with Robert Jordan. I think people underestimate the skill and talent required to do what Brandon did over the course of three books, which was to satisfy the long-term fans of the series, bring the series to a well-developed end with all the story arcs closed up and and emotions earned, and to keep his own ego as a writer in check as he did it. Think that’s easy? I sure as hell don’t — and as a writer, I couldn’t have done it. If Wheel of Time had won, Brandon would have earned every millimeter of that rocket, and I would have been cheering for him.

Likewise, I was never particularly worried about Wheel of Time voters being “single issue” voters — that is, voting only for Wheel of Time and then blowing off the rest of the ballot. Anecdotally, I know a fair sampling of Wheel of Time readers, and none of them only read Wheel of Time. Having the series on the ballot may have brought in new voters, but it seems like they took their voting seriously. So there you have it.

7. In sum: A very good year for the Hugos; indeed, a vintage year. Congratulations to the winners; congratulations to the nominees; congratulations to the voters. See you next year in Spokane.

Culture wars exist. More specifically, it is one culture war masquerading as many. In the end, it still comes down to this: it’s them or us. I know which side I’m on.

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Wow! What a weekend.

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I had a real busy weekend. I had a real busy week. My shootin’ buddy and I spent Thursday at the range practicing for a pistol match coming up next month. Saturday night was a Friends of the NRA dinner and auction in H’ville. Then Sunday afternoon was the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance 25th Anniversary picnic.

I’m pretty much whooped.  Still…I’d do it again in a second.

***

The Kansas Senatorial race continues to be in the front of the news. I’ve had some friends ask me what the controversy is all about. It’s this, as briefly as I can explain.

There are (were) three candidates running for US Senator; Pat Roberts, the incumbent on the Republican Ticket, Chad Taylor on the democrat ticket, and Greg Orman, a democrat who the democrats wouldn’t let run against Taylor in the primary. Orman decided to run as an ‘independent.’ In reality, it’s two democrats running against one ‘Pub. Ordinarily, this would be a shoo-in for Roberts because Orman would split the democrat votes with Taylor.

Suddenly, the environment changed. Polls indicated that Orman was running better against Roberts than Taylor. To the democrats, this meant one of their candidates was a possible winner, especially since Roberts pissed off much of the grass-roots conservatives who had backed Milton Wolf. A significant percentage of those Wolf supporters declared they would either vote for Orman or stay home.

The democrats were now in a dilemma. Orman, a democrat in an independent’s costume, was ahead of Taylor. They decided to have Taylor quit. That would allow the democrats to vote for Orman instead of splitting their votes between the two democrat candidates.

The Kansas democrat leaders forced Chad Taylor to quit.

After a series of legal shenanigans, with the aid of their left-leaning KS Supreme Court, they got Taylor off the ticket. Bad news for Roberts. But Orman isn’t the clean-cut, scandal-free candidate the democrats and he projects. He is being sued for failure to pay royalties to another company for the use of their patented technology.

The establishment ‘Pubs are rallying around Roberts and Orman is facing more scrutiny from the national press. Surprise, surprise! Orman is keeping closed-mouth about what his political views?

Greg Orman, a political enigma, faces growing scrutiny in Kansas Senate race

By Philip Rucker September 28 at 8:53 PM

WICHITA — Greg Orman, the upstart Senate candidate threatening to unseat longtime Republican incumbent Pat Roberts in Kansas, says it’s liberating to run as an independent: “I can go to Washington as a problem solver, not a partisan.”

But not having a party also liberates Orman from taking positions — especially on controversial issues that might alienate partisans.

Greenlight the Keystone XL pipeline? Orman said he doesn’t have enough information to say yes or no.

What about gun control? He said gun restrictions should be “strengthened” but would not specify whether he backs an assault-weapons ban.

And on the biggest question of all — Would he caucus with Democrats or Republicans? — Orman insists he’s not sure.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, left, and independent candidate Greg Orman talk after a debate at the Kansas State Fair Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014, in Hutchinson, Kansas. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It’s not in the best interests for us to say that,” Orman said in an interview here last week.

Orman has said he would caucus with whichever party has the majority after November’s midterm elections. But what if the Senate is evenly divided and Orman’s decision swings the balance? He said that would be “a wonderful opportunity for Kansas.”

Orman’s rise has transformed deep-red Kansas into the year’s unlikeliest political battleground. Many voters say Roberts has lost touch with the state he’s represented in Congress since 1981.

Since Democratic nominee Chad Taylor withdrew his name from the ballot this month, Roberts has been in a two-man race with Orman, who has previous ties to the Democratic Party but preaches independence. Public polling has been unreliable, but both sides believe the race is very tight.

Orman, who entered the race in June, has surged on the strength of his pitch to fix a broken Washington without any allegiance to a political party. But now the enigma is under increasing pressure from voters to provide a clearer sense of his ideology and politics, while facing attacks from the Roberts camp over his business ties and Democratic past.

“I’ve been impressed with Greg so far, but we’re still in the ‘I’m an independent’ stage,” said Lynda Neff, 68, a retired teacher. “I’m ready to move past that and hear about some issues. . . . I will support him if he gives me a little more information.”

Perhaps the biggest test for Orman, a multi­millionaire investor who is partially funding his campaign, is surviving the intensifying public scrutiny of his business and personal relationships with Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs board member who was convicted in 2012 of insider trading and is serving a federal prison sentence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dre/politics/election-lab-2014

Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014.

View Graphic

Roberts and his Republican allies have launched a barrage of attacks designed to make Orman appear untrustworthy. On the campaign trail in Kansas last week, a parade of top Republicans alleged that Orman is a liberal Democrat in disguise.

“Anybody with a liberal record like Greg’s . . . that’s not independence. That’s someone who’s trying to snooker you, Kansas,” Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential nominee, said Thursday in Independence.

Palin’s 2008 running mate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), told voters a day earlier in suburban Overland Park: “Let’s be honest — he’s a Democrat. He walks like a duck and he quacks like a duck and he is a duck.”

Robert J. Dole, a former Senate Republican leader and 91-year-old Kansas legend, said Monday night in Dodge City, “There’s a multimillionaire who claims he’s an independent, but really [he’s] in the other party.”

In Kinsley on Tuesday, after reporters asked whether he trusted Orman to govern as an independent, Roberts said, “All of a sudden, if there’s a metamorphosis and the caterpillar changed — why, I just don’t think that’s in the cards.”

Orman argues that the Republicans are reading him wrong. He said he voted for Obama in 2008, and public records show that in the middle of that decade he made donations mostly to Democrats, including Obama and Sen. Al ­Franken (Minn.). In 2008, he briefly ran for Senate against Roberts as a Democrat before dropping out.

The column by the Washington Post is long. You can read it completely on their website.

I was surprised that the Washington Post says the new Senate will be ‘Pub controlled, 62 to 48 given their history of biased reporting. Joni Ernst now leads Braley, 44 percent to 38 percent. Most of the polling over the last month or more has Ernst in the lead but the MSM claimed otherwise and called Iowa a ‘leaning blue’ state.

Des Moines Register: “The ground under Bruce Braley has shifted. The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate is 6 points behind his GOP rival, Joni Ernst, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll of likely voters. Ernst leads 44 percent to 38 percent in a race that has for months been considered deadlocked…. One potential reason: Two-thirds of likely voters who live in the country are bothered by a remark he made about Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley that’s been perceived as besmirching farmers.”

Braley should have known that dissing farmers in Iowa is not a career-enhancing tactic.

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