Freedom 7

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

This Monday, May 5^th, will mark the 53^rd anniversary of America’s entrance into the final frontier of manned space exploration.

Alan B. Shepard flew America’s first manned spaceflight in his spacecraft christened Freedom 7, in honor of the history of freedom this nation has offered to the hopes and aspirations of mankind. The ‘7’ was to commemorate the initial 7 astronauts chosen for the space program.

The Mercury series of flights was active from May 1961 to May 1963; included were these seven original American astronauts: Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton.

The editor of the Madison Conservative has a particularly personal connection to the American space program, and so on this anniversary of the first manned flight, we would like to make a point about NASA, America, this administration and the future of the space program.

Any discussion of the space program must begin with those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of knowledge.

To wit:

A cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test on January 27 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed all three crew members of Apollo I—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. These three men were the first casualties of Americas’ space program, but they would heartbreakingly not be the last.

The explosion on January 28, 1986 resulted in the death of all seven crewmembers of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was the first of two shuttles to be destroyed. The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana as it reentered Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crewmembers.

These explorers must forever remain amongst this nations honored brave who paid the ultimate price.

It is also critical to remember the administration and the president who inspired a nation to shoot for the stars, who knew that the best and brightest of America included all of America.

This well-known excerpt is from President John Kennedy’s address before a joint session of Congress May 25, 1961, barely three weeks after Shepard’s historic flight:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth

After John Glenn’s successful February 20^th 1962 orbital flight, President Kennedy delivered a stirring and inspirational address, excerpted below, to Rice University, in Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962, making clear the intent of America and her future in space.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community.

Please read those two excerpts from President Kennedy again. They showed vision, spoke to the greatness of America, and showed a path forward for the nation. He dreamed big, and did so in a confident manner. There were no real politics involved in these speeches – despite the budgetary requests to fund the exploration of space – but consider all that the American Space program has given to this nation and to this planet.

For example, this post is being written on a MAC laptop that has more computer power than the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the moon!

All the above being duly noted, it should be appalling to this nation that our manned space explorations now rest on the good graces of the Russians, as they are now providing the space taxi service to the hitchhiking Americans.

This nation has no independent means of delivering man to space.

It is no secret that the Madison Conservative has deep political and philosophical differences with the Obama administration.

The stark differences between President Obama’s dreams for America and President Kennedy’s outlook encapsulate those differences for a national agenda in a rather pithy observation;

President Kennedy spoke of America shooting for and reaching the stars.

President Obama's major domestic policy agenda is to correct ‘income inequality’ and to do so by working to raise the minimum wage of $7.25 to $10.10 by 2015.

Surely a goal that will stir the hearts and minds of America.

America must learn to dream big again. The American people must demand so of their elected leaders.

Brendan Eich - 4-7-2014

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The liberal left within the body politic has on more than one occasion proven their intolerance and desire to limit free speech to only that with which they unilaterally find acceptable. Their media sycophants have willingly chosen to collaborate in this devastating example of cowardice. It is a national disgrace.

Before proceeding, a quick refresher on the wisdom and brilliance of the framers and founders in the construction of the United States Constitution:

The First Amendment -

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

With that in mind, consider the case this week of Brendan Eich, the CEO of Mozilla. Mr. Eich was forced from his position, in the company he helped found, because of a contribution to supporters of California’s’ Prop 8, which delineated marriage as being between one man and one woman. His contribution was made public, five years AFTER he made said contribution, and on that basis, the company bowed to the hysteria brought on by the ignorant liberal left and forced him out.

One of the intriguing tidbits is that Mr. Eich, at the time of his contribution, agreed exactly with the position of then Senator and President-elect Barack Obama. The silence on that fact is deafening.

Of course, Mr. Eich is now labeled as intolerant, a homophobe and a hater of people. Absent from those baseless accusations is the fact that Prop 8 PASSED by a sizeable majority of the people in California.

Sadly, however, when the liberal left targets a citizen exerting his right to freedom of speech with whom they disagree, the result is a forgone conclusion.

The American people must unite and stand firm against these assaults upon the touchstone of liberty – the right to express ones’ opinion without fear of recrimination.

To complete the travesty of this weeks events, presented below is the entirety of the post from the new CEO of Mozilla. Please read it carefully and note the use of the word ‘equality’.

Where was the tolerance for Mr. Eich and his opinion, an opinion, again, shared by a majority of thr California electorate?

To wit:

Over the past few days we have been asked a number of questions about Brendan Eich’s appointment as CEO. This post is to clarify Mozilla’s official support of equality and inclusion for LGBT people.

Mozilla’s mission is to make the Web more open so that humanity is stronger, more inclusive and more just. This is why Mozilla supports equality for all, including marriage equality for LGBT couples. No matter who you are or who you love, everyone deserves the same rights and to be treated equally.

We realize that not everyone in our community or who uses our products will agree with this. But we have always maintained that as long as you are willing to respect others, and come together for our larger mission, you are welcome. Mozilla’s community is made up of people who have very diverse personal beliefs working on a common cause, which is a free and open internet. That is a very rare and special thing.

Mozilla has always worked to be a welcoming community, committed to inclusiveness and equality for all people. One voice will not limit opportunity for anyone. That was true yesterday and will be true tomorrow. Our Community Participation Guidelines state:

The Mozilla Project welcomes and encourages participation by everyone. It doesn’t matter how you identify yourself or how others perceive you: we welcome you. We welcome contributions from everyone as long as they interact constructively with our community, including, but not limited to people of varied age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender-identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location and religious views.

Our culture of openness extends to encouraging our staff and community to be candid about their views on Mozilla’s direction. We’re proud of that openness and how it distinguishes Mozilla from most organizations. Most of all, we want to ensure that all Mozilla users and community members know how deeply committed we are to openness and equality for all people.

* Deleted from above: “and to outline a series of actions we are taking to reaffirm this position”
Note – we deleted this text as it was from an earlier draft of this post. We are still considering a series of actions but in the interests of announcing our position this weekend we decided to narrow the scope and shorten this post.

How Much Is Enough?

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The entirety of mass media has been focused almost entirely on the tragedy of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight. The number of hours dedicated to an issue for which there is achingly little information is staggering.

It is thus perhaps understandable that the aforementioned media has chosen not to focus its attention on more domestic issues. In this era of political gridlock and ridiculous claims of ‘unfairness’, there still remains some hard realities that must be addressed by our elected leaders.

To wit:

This nation is still far from a true economic recovery, and yet the body politic refuses to address the issues of debt, deficit and responsible budgetary restraint. There are continued cries for increasing taxes on the rich, and that more money is needed for this infrastructure or another.

In short, the electorate is bombarded daily with the message that the government requires more cash to continue fulfilling its purpose.

The reality is that government as a whole can longer manage its fiduciary mandate and as such has voluntarily relinquished its responsibility to America for no other reason that political cowardice and budgetary ineptitude.

For proof of that fact, consider this edited compendium of information from various sources relative to the budgetary madness currently in play in Washington. It should be of both deep concern and outrage on the part of the American people.

As they say, you can’t make this stuff up. The numbers do not lie.

Consider:

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1,104,947,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2014, but the federal government still ran a $377,379,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for February.

Each month, the Treasury publishes the government’s “total receipts,” including all revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes (including Social Security and Medicare taxes), unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and “miscellaneous receipts.”

In constant 2014 dollars, the $1,104,947,000,000 that the federal government collected from October through February in fiscal 2014 was $90,193,750,000 more than the 1,014,753,250,000 it collected in October through February in fiscal 2013.

Although the federal government brought in a record  of approximately $1,104,947,000,000 in revenue in the first five months of fiscal 2014, according to the Treasury, it also spent approximately 1,482,327,000,000—leaving a deficit of approximately 377,379, 000,000.

After the current fiscal year, the second highest federal tax intake in the first five months of a fiscal year occurred in the first five months of fiscal 2007, when the government collected 1,076,721,860,000 in 2014 dollars—or 28,225,140,000 less than in the first five months of this fiscal year.

At the beginning of 2013, Congress passed and President Obama signed “The American Taxpayer Relief Act.” While this act made permanent some of the lower tax rates enacted for ten-year periods under President George W. Bush, it also increased some tax rates.

The Congressional Research Service summary of the law said it: “Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) revise income tax rates for individual taxpayers whose taxable income is at or below the $400,000 threshold amount ($450,000 for married couples filing a joint return) and increase the rate to 39.6% for taxpayers whose taxable income exceeds the threshold, (2) set the threshold for the phaseout of personal tax exemptions and itemized deductions at $250,000 for individual taxpayers ($300,000 for married couples filing a joint return), and (3) increase the top marginal estate tax rate from 35% to 40%.

The law also: “Increases the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 20% for taxpayers whose taxable income exceeds the $400,000 threshold amount.”

The Feinstein Issue

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

Sen. Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate floor this week to make the accusation that in effect the C.I.A. had been, and still is, acting in an unconstitutional manner, claiming that the agency had been spying on members of the senate committee which has been investigating the spy agency.

In true Washington D.C. fashion, the C.I.A. then immediately countered that staff members of the committee had acted illegally in the execution of their congressional oversight responsibilities.

This brought calls from all political circles of conduct bordering on a constitutional crisis.

Such commentaries might make for comical, pointless political theater, but completely miss the point.

There is nothing unconstitutional about one branch of government spying on another. This is so because there is nothing written within the framework of our governing document addressing such issues.

Many in the political class and their media sycophants attempted to decry such ambiguities within the Constitution as flaws of omission made by the framers and the founders of this nation. 

The truth of the matter of course is much different.

To wit:

The Constitution is so beautifully crafted as to specifically REMAIN nebulous on such situations. The construct of the checks and balances is never quite as clear as in these hyperbolically labeled ‘constitutional crises’.

Consider a possible resolution to the concerns and claims made by Senator Feinstein.

(It should be noted that in the absence of any hard data on the facts of her claim, the Madison Conservative is not addressing those issues at this time, but rather taking advantage of the situation to provide clarity on a bigger issue).

If Congress believes that the C.I.A. has been spying on it, all it need do is to pass legislation specifically prohibiting the agency, an arm of the Executive branch, from undertaking such actions on any other branch of government, i.e. the legislative and/or judicial.

The law is passed by both houses and is presented to the President for his signature. If he chooses to sign the bill, it becomes law. This would then provide criminal penalties should the C.I.A. begin to snoop anew.

Of course, the President could veto any such legislation, which would return it to the Congress. If both houses met the threshold of a two-thirds majority vote, they could overturn the veto, and the legislation could still become law.

In either event, the aggrieved party could petition the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of any such law. Once the Court ruled on that specific delineation of legality, the issue would be settled.

In over two hundred years, no such case has ever been presented to the Court, so there can be no constitutional crisis on this matter. By definition, a constitutional crisis would only exist if the Constitution were to be specifically ignored on a described action of government.

What can happen is for the legislative branch to flex its constitutional muscle and let the Executive branch know that this government is an equal triumvirate.

It would make for fascinating study on the nature of a true democratic republic.

The Madison Conservative encourages the Congress to take such actions.

We owe the founders, framers, ourselves and our posterity no less than to preserve the structural integrity of the United States Constitution.

Dr. Patrick Moore - (Global Warming pt. 2)

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The intent of the blog post this week was to focus on the nature of what is driving the current policy debate on  ‘climate change’.  The discussion was going to center upon the fact that a UN report on the scientific data behind global warming released in September indicated that global surface temperatures have not increased for the past 15 years, but scientists who believe climate change due to man is occurring say it has merely paused because of several factors and will soon resume.

In other words, what was once called global warming has been changed by political necessity to the new term ‘climate change’, so that any negative weather event can be ascribed to mans’ damaging of the planet.

However, an intriguing event this past week has necessitated a change in the blogs’ focus.

Dr. Patrick Moore, who was a co-founder of Greenpeace testified this week in Washington on the fact that there is indeed no true science in what the Obama administration is now terming the greatest weapon of mass destruction, the aforementioned ‘climate change’.

Dr. Moore left Greenpeace when, as he describes, the organization made the conscious decision to move to the political left in an attempt to help drive its own agenda.

The Madison Conservative herein presents an abbreviated list of comments made by Dr. Moore during his appearance before the Senate committee.

There is a link at he bottom of the post for those who wish to read the entire presentation. It is fascinating reading.

Selected Highlights of Dr. Patrick Moore’s Feb. 25, 2014 testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

 “Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.

Humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing…It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.

Earth’s Geologic History Fails CO2 Fears: ‘When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.’

On UN IPCC’s 95% confidence in man-made global warming: ‘Extremely likely’ is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.

Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940?

What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.”

It is a rather lengthy read, but for those concerned about the farce that is this administration’s policies on ‘climate change’, here is the link to the entirety of Dr. Moore’s testimony:

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=415b9cde-e664-4628-8fb5-ae3951197d03

Global Warming - part 1

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

The idiocy of the political left and the assertions concerning the farce of ‘man-made climate change’ has reached perhaps its zenith in hyperbole and its nadir in reasoned intelligence on the issue.

While obviously not a constitutional issue, the debate has reached such a level of public policy that the Madison Conservative has decided to focus on the substance of the issue, and leave the histrionics to the ignorant media hacks and sycophants of the political left.

The focus of this discussion will be comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry in a speech on ‘global warming’ made recently in Jakarta. He made specific remarks that must be addressed, and should be of concern to the American people as a whole, for within his comments are the seeds of future power grabs, thus lessening freedom and democracy for all.

To wit:

Consider this bit of idiocy:

"We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact,”

coupled with this bit of political hatred 101:

sand."

"The science is unequivocal and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand”

What Mr. Kerry, the President, and the flacks at MSNBC do not seem to understand is that science is not a product of majority rules. Quality science is by definition a process in which data is examined and presented as just that – data. There is no such thing as consensus derived accepted conclusions.

As to those of us who Secretary Kerry labels as having our heads in the sand, he ignores this simple fact. The data shows that there has been an increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius in the past hundred years, and almost none in the last 15 years.

That is what the data shows. It does NOT offer any conclusions as to the cause.

The planet is roughly 4 BILLION years old, give or take a few millennia. Mr. Kerry and the administration are thus trying to extrapolate ‘man made climate change’ of a planet 4 billion years old based on a hundred years of data.

Who exactly is the ignorant one here?

Liberals attempt o paint those who maintain a scientific sensibility on the subject as ‘doubters’, and ‘flat earthers’, that we do not believe in climate change.

Actually, the opposite is true. We accept that there has been a change in the climate. That is where we stop. There is no evidence tying it to being a man made situation.

There are two questions that never seem to be asked on this subject.

#1 – How do we know that we are not merely in a thousand year, five hundred year, or three thousand year weather cycle? Again, the planet is 4 billion years old. Man has been keeping records for about a century.  There has been no proof provided that any of this is man made.

#2. If the supposedly enlightened class believes in climate change, what exactly is their goal? What exact climate are they hoping to attain? When will their job be done?

These questions are never answered, but instead we are given this taste of stupidity on how the administration views the issue of global warming:

"perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction".

Not the Iranian nuclear program, or North Korea, or the chemical weapons Syria has been stockpiling, or the worldwide campaign of terrorism.

It is incumbent on one to wonder how exactly this administration plans on controlling the ecosystem of the entire planet.

In truth, this is not about the planet, or even concern over the weather.

Next weeks’ blog will discuss what the debate over climate is truly about.

Ignorance

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!

H. L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926

There were two unrelated news stories that came across the wires this past week that, were they not indicative of absolute ignorance on the parts of the individuals involved, would be fodder for comedians the world over.

The first article was a report on an address made by Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee.

Here is the edited summation of her remarks, culled and confirmed from various news sources:

“We will be answering the call of all of America because people need work and we’re not doing right by them by creating work. And I believe this caucus will put us on the right path and we’ll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength.

In fact, I think that should be our number one agenda. Let’s write up these executive orders — draft them, of course — and ask the president to stand with us on full employment.”

Consider this for a moment. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. Rep. Lee is a member of that body. Congress has the constitutional responsibility to create legislation. The Congress is the arm of government that the framers and founders bestowed with the power to write the laws under which the nation would live. The reasoning for doing so is extensive, but one pf the major reasons were to forbid power to be consolidated solely within the presidency. Rep. Lee, who has taken an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution is gleefully expressing the hope that the president will act unilaterally, and that the Democratic caucus should help with such a Constitutional coup.

The breadth and scope of such petty political ignorance should be alarming to the American electorate.

Such stupidity must be called out before the American people.

The second article concerned a federal judge who ruled that Virginia’s law declaring that marriage is a union between one man and one woman is unconstitutional. There has been an uproar over the decision, based upon the fact that the law was enacted after a legally held statewide ballot vote. There are many on the political right who believe that a federal judge should not be able to overturn the results of a fair ballot election.

That is a fair enough argument, but that is not what immediately concerns the Madison Conservative, although this issue will indeed be discussed at a later date.

What IS of concern, and should worry the people of this judges’ jurisdiction is to be found in her written decision. (you can read the entire opinion handed down today here.:

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/edva-ssm-opinion.pdf)

Herein is the pertinent part of Judge Arenda Wright Allen’s decision:

"Our Constitution declares that 'all men' are created equal. Surely this means all of us," Judge Allen wrote on the first page of her opinion.

A fine sentiment coming from a FEDERAL judge, invoking the words of the framers and founders in explaining her decision to vacate the will of the Virginia electorate.

The problem?

The Constitution doe NOT declare that all men are created equal, despite what the judge may believe.

The document that includes that phrase is the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The Declaration is to be treasured as an integral part of American democracy, but it DOES NOT have any weight in the context of delineating the protections of the people from the government.

A federal judge making such a mistake should not be sitting on the bench, and should absolutely not be deciding issues of such magnitude.

The American people must demand better, and accept nothing less than the best from our judiciary and our elected officials.