The law says that I have to buy a WHAT? From WHO?

So we now have legislators in South Dakota following Obama's example and mandating that every state resident except for convicted felons go to the gun store and buy a gun to defend themselves and their neighbors.

Five South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require any adult 21 or older to buy a firearm “sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.”

The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.

Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.”

The measure is known as an act “to provide for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self defense of themselves and others.”

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.

“Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.

And there's the point. They know that the government was never given the power to force us to buy things from other citizens. The only one who apparently does not know that is Barack Obama, the alleged "constitutional law professor" (who never actually taught a class).

B.O. thinks that he has the power to make you and me buy insurance from Company A. Next week, he's liable to order us to buy a loaf of bread from store C. or two pair of socks from store C, and it won't even matter to him if we're on an Adkins diet and only wear sandals and thus don't have aany use for bread or socks.

But since Obama is opening the door and creating a government power that our founding fathers never intended the government to have, let us see how the country could be "improved" if other leaders took their cues from The One.

If the Senator from Alabama has his way, we'll all be required to buy American-made pick-up trucks with big tires and rebel flags painted on them.

The New Jersey legislators have introduced a bill to make all the women in America go to the salon and pay to get their hair done like Snooki.

A representative from North Carolina just drafted a bill to force us all to buy two packs of cigarettes a week. If you don't smoke, you should probably start because it applies to you, too and you go to jail if you don't.

California's legislature has just passed the "Lindsay Lohan law", which says that every citizen who turns 21 has to go through a thirty-day inpatient drug rehab program, just in case.

All of these things and more are now conceivably permissible under the new "If-we-can-dream-it-you-must-do-it" theory of Obama and his Democrats. If the Supreme Court allows him to force us all to buy insurance, then there will be no limit on the federal government's power to regulate and control us.

Buy ammo now, before they pass a law saying that you have to, coupled with another law that says that all you can buy or possess is .22 short rounds.

Back in town

Posting has been sparse lately because I've been out of town. Family business took me away for a bit, but Lagniappe and I are back now. Lagniappe will now be going on a diet, since his spending several days with my mother always results in his eating far too much ice cream.

We got back in last night and unpacked, and today it's back to business as usual. I would, however, like to give a perfect example of why capitalism and competition in the marketplace will always beat the alternative such as we're seeing with Obama's mandated health care scam. Forf this example, I have to point you all to the Ohio Turnpike.

At each rest stop along the turnpike, east or west, there is a restaurant. Typically the Turnpike Authority grants the concession to one food-serving restaurant only. Sometimes there may be a Starbucks or some other lite venue there, but only one "sit-down" concessionaire per stop. In most of these rest stops, it's a McDonalds.

Now this would not be bad in itself. I can eat at McDonalds occasionally. However these McDonalds restaurants typically suck in both pricing and the customer service department. Prices are much higher in these stores than in any other McDonalds, and in every one that I saw in both directions, there were long, slow lines for service because they were only manning one or two registers while three to five other registers just had "Next Register Please" signs on them. Lots of people wanted food, but they all had to wait ridiculously long times to get it--and pay more for it.

Why does it work like that? because there is no alternative. It's McDonalds or nothing. They are the only food choice on the turnpike, and you can't just hop on and off easily anywhere you like because the exits are few and far between and you have to screw with the tolls both exiting and re-entering if you do. So it makes sense to just stay on and deal with it, but that also means that you have to accept whatever shitty service that McDonalds feels like giving you, and they know that most of you will because there's just no other choice. You can't just shrug at their lines and prices and go over to the Burger King next door; McDonalds has a monopoly and they exploit that fact to the detriment of their customers.

After seeing this played out in multiple rest stops both going and returning, I finally confronted a manager named Samantha at the Glacier Hills store, 12500 Beard Road, in Springfield, Ohio. I pointed out that she had four cash registers but only one was being used. There was a long line of customers--it would have been longer but people kept walking away in disgust--but she was still only running at 25% capacity. Meanwhile, it took me ten minutes to get to the counter just to order a damned Big Mac. Samantha was quick to start tossing out excuses. One worker has a seizure and broke her nose. Another one was pregnant. Two others had just left--during the lunch rush--because it was the end of their shifts. She was short-handed and there was nothing she could do about it.

"You could hold people over or call them back in for overtime," I suggested.

"Oh, I can't do that," she replied.

"No, you can do it," I corrected. "You just won't. There's a difference. Don't tell me that none of these people working here would take the opportunity to make some time and a half if you offered it to them." I made sure to say that loudly enough for several people behind the counter to hear.
"You've got the people. You're just not willing to cut into the owner's profits because you don't worry that any of these people in line here are going to go buy food somewhere else. You've got a lock on the market here so you're not worried about treating the customers like crap."

Samantha again began to reel off a litany of excuses as to why she was short-handed and unable to remedy the situation, but she was talking to other people in line now--I was walking out. I was, however, pleased to see that others in the line had taken up where I left off and were giving her hell about it. I had given voice to the frustrated people and spurred them to protest. My job was done.

I am, however, still writing letters to both McDonalds and the Turnpike Authority. McDonalds needs to kick their franchisees in the ass and the TA needs to allow some competition in these rest areas and put two or more full-service restaurants in them. That way, customers would have a choice and if one didn't want to treat them right or offer decent prices, they could walk over to the other one, just like we used to be able to do with our health care providers before St. Barack rode in on his magic unicorn and pushed a law through saying that from now on, we can only eat at McDonalds, and that henceforth, no one can refuse to eat at McDonalds, even if they aren't hungry.

I can hardly wait for the new health care scam to take effect, because then every visit to the doctor's office or hospital will be just like driving on the Ohio Turnpike! Yay.

And you wonder why we get unconstitutional legislation?

It's because we have legislators like Phil Hare,(D)-IL, who admits that he doesn't care about the U.S. Constitution then tries to quote it and shows that he doesn't know the difference between that document and the Declaration of Independence.


Hare is backpedaling now and trying to rewrite history on this episode, but a few things are undeniable. Hare, when asked how he could support such an unconstitutional bill, cuts the man off and says "I don't worry about the Constitution on this to be honest..."

"I care more about the people that are dying every day that don't have health insurance," Rep. Hare goes on to say.

"You care more about that than the Constitution you swore to uphold?" the man asks him.

"I believe it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Rep. Hare tells him, quoting not the Constitution but the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.

To quote one of my earliest role models: "What a Maroon."

Now granted, some of Hare's questioners were a bit rude and disrespectful, but Hare didn't exactly rise above it as one might expect a Congressman to be able to do. And even I have to question his claim of having read the Obamacare bill "three times" in the limited time that it was even available in final form. At 2,700 pages, that would actually be 8,100 pages read, as the one questioner states. I would not personally have called Hare a liar to his face--that's just crass and not appropriate when you're trying to have an actual discussion--but I'd have loved to draw him out on that extremely unlikely claim a bit more.

But Hare loses the most points when he just up and walks out. Like it or not, Congressman, you work for those people and had an obligation to try to talk to them instead of sinking to their rather juvenile level and then going even lower.

If you ever need more proof that elections are important, or that we get the government that we deserve, you have only to watch people like Congressman Phil Hare in action. Granted, Illinois' 17th Congressional District appears to be heavily Gerrymandered, undoubtedly to ensure that a Democrat retains the seat, but it's still pathetic that out of that whole area, Hare was the most educated, conversant and diplomatic man that the Democrats and local voters could find for the job.

In sum, we got Obamacare because legislators like Hare are currently in the majority, and we have legislators like Hare because better people decline to run or are rejected by the apathetic and/or ignorant voters who actually show up on election day.

What's that you say? You didn't vote? Well then this mess is partly your fault, too. When smart people shirk their duty to vote, the dim bulbs who show up and the interests that push them to the polls get to decide who makes the laws and appoints the judges.

Speaking truth to a tyrant.

My hat is off to Representative Thaddeus McCotter for this short and hard-hitting expression of what so many of us feel today regarding Obama's theft of our private health care industry and every citizen's right to choose whether or not to participate.

“So this is what change looks like? I would remind the president that he is not the leader of a party or ideology. He is the leader of our country, one founded not to humiliate others but to inspire the world. As families lose their jobs, their homes and their dreams for their children; as our troops fight and sacrifice in foreign fields for our liberty and security, President Obama’s obsessive-compulsive pursuit of an abominable government takeover of health care has defied the public’s objections and spoiled this House and further alienated Americans from their representative government. As President Obama’s campaign manager of hope and change has degenerated into tax and hate…”

It goes on and gets even better. In sum, he nails it. If this were the Olympics, he'd be getting straight tens!

My personal thought on Obamacare and the way it was passed.

When all was said and done in last night's midnight session of Congress, Obama's bribes and threats appeared to carry the day over the will of the People. That's not only unconcionable, but I seem to recall that the last time the government tried to jam taxes and oppressive regulations down the throats of the American people without listening to them, a shipload of tea wound up getting thrown into Boston Harbor and things just sort of took off from there.

I'm just saying...

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to head out to the gun range for a bit of previously-scheduled training.

Odor of a corrupt bargain, indeed.

With all of the arm-twisting and bribes being put out there to coerce a majority of the Democratic Party to go against the will of their voters--most of whom opposed Obamacare--one has to wonder just how far the Obama Administration was willing to go to get those votes.

Well in the case of West Virginia's Congressman Alan Molohan, a representative who was "undecided" until just before the vote, (he then came out enthusiastically for it when it was too late for his constituents to pound him for it) it would appear that a very corrupt bargain indeed may have been struck.

If you recall, Molohan has been under criminal investigation by the US Justice Department for four year now, stemming from very substantial allegations that he used his position as a Congressman to facilitate and profit obscenely from some real estate deals that literally made him a millionaire overnight.

Of course this massive ethical cloud wasn't enough to get Nancy Pelosi to remove him from his position as Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, where he actually controlled the budget of those investigating him on similar lines in the House, but we all know by know that Pelosi's promise to "drain the swamp" and target corruption in the House came with an expiration date--it expired the moment that Democrats became the majority in Congress.

So what happened back in January when Obama was trying to get the support he needed for his unpopular heath care scam? The Justice Department suddenly closed it's investigation of Molohan. And yes, that's the Justice Department run by Eric Holder, a man well known for using his position to gain political support for his bosses, be it the Clintons or Obama. This is the guy who sold pardons and dismissed already-obtained convictions; shutting down an investigation that hadn't been wrapped up yet was probably child's play.

So Molohan's criminal case and the possible future of a few years in federal prison just vanished, and suddenly the Congressman who claimed to be "undecided" on Obamacare turned around and cast one of the final, crucial votes for it.

Coincidence... You decide.

A busy and dishonorable weekend in Washington, DC

Remember when our representatives in Congress actually represented us and voted accordingly?

Well today, the majority of them, Democrats all, disregarded their constituents--the people who voted them into office expecting to be...well...represented--and voted for a massive new social program designed to take control of the entire health care industry and give free stuff to the lazy while billing the producers. They did this because Obama and Nancy Pelosi told them to, despite the polls indicating that a majority of the country--including a majority of their own constituents--didn't want it.

They ignored the phone calls and letters that they all admit getting, they ignored the in-person visits from their own district residents, and they ignored the protests of organized outraged Americans from across the country. In so doing, they showed us all that their loyalty is to their party leaders first and their own constituents second, if even that.

Hear that drum beating? I hear it.

Now our National Mall in Washington DC is under siege by thousands of illegal aliens and their supporters, mostly relatives who benefited from a previous amnesty or special interest groups that get money to represent these trespassers and provide them with social services, again with the bill passed on to American workers. They're denouncing our laws, defiling our national flags, and demanding--demanding--that our representatives give them amnesty and American citizenship, making them fully equal to the rest of us and giving them priority over every immigrant who is trying to gain citizenship according to our laws that govern the process. And many legislators are caving into them, Republican Lindsay Graham foremost among them, as is Obama.

That drum beat is growing louder. Hear it yet, Washington?

Now we see that ACORN--the group that has been implicated in or convicted of fraud in numerous states on behalf of the Democratic Party and Obama--is going to keep getting our tax dollars despite a law passed by our representatives to put a stop to it. In other words, let the corruption commence again.

That drumbeat's getting louder yet. And those are war drums. The People are growing angry--the workers, the ones who play by the rules. The corruption and the disregard for the will of the citizens who sent you fools to Washington has to stop. If the 535 of you on the Capitol don't quit it and rein in the Marxist in the White House, We--the People--are going to have to find a way to stop you.

Obama now selling federal judgeships to pass his health care scheme

OK, I mean we all knew how low he was willing to go when he bought the vote of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D)--Storyville, by promising to divert three billion dollars of taxpayer dollars to that state in exchange for a vote in favor of his cherished bill a few months ago, but now Obama has gone that one even better.

Representative Jim Matheson of Utah has been voting against Obama's health care industry takeover bill regularly and had indicated that he would continue to do so despite the pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi because his constituents overwhelmingly don't want this bill passed (just like Landrieu's didn't).

Well tonight, Obama is having Matheson and nine other holdout Democrat congressman come to the White House for a closed-door meeting to try to convincw them to vote in favor, constituencies be damned, but he's apparently trying to buy Matheson off early by giving a plum patronage job to his brother, Scott Matheson. The White House just announced that Obama is nominating Scott Matheson to the Federal Appeals Court as a judge.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

OK, so maybe it's all a coincidence, and there really was no one else as qualified as Scott Matheson anywhere in the entire Tenth Circuit, which consists of Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. But the timing is definitely suspect, and I don't think it's too much to ask that this president at least try to avoid even the appearance of impropriety when it comes to handing out peach appointment and soliciting votes from members of congress. But who am I kidding? That's the sort of thing that a president who actually cares what America thinks would do. This guy just wants his health care bill passed, and if that means that he bribes members of Congress (with our money), gives their family members nice things, or pimps his daughters out on Southern Avenue in Southeast DC, then it's pretty clear that he's going to do it; his health care bill is that important to him...more important than ethics, honor or the safeguards established by our Constitution; more important than the law.

I hope Matheson and the other nine Dems stand tall and continue to represent their constituents instead of selling out to the big-eared tin god in the White House, but it'll be easier for them if they know that America's watching. We can't stop Obama from imporperly and blatantly buying votes, but we can at least let those that he's trying to bribe know that we're watching.

Those members are Representatives Jason Altmire (PA), Allen Boyd (FL), Lincoln Davis(TN), Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin(SD), Frank Kratovil (MD), Beth Markey(OH), Jim Matheson(UT), Murphy(?), Heath Shuler(NC) and John Tanner(TN).

Give these folks some calls tomorrow. Urge them to hold out and let them know that you're watching.

Reporter asks Pelosi about constitutionality of her health care scheme

And Pelosi responded on Thursday...with an arrogant sneer. "Are you serious?" Pelosi replied. "Are you serious?" She then walked away, leaving her press secretary/toady, Nadeam Elshami, to tell everyone that it wasn't a "serious" question and therefore did not deserve an answer.

I can't make this stuff up, folks. This nasty little creature has deluded herself into thinking that we just exist to serve her instead of the other way around like it's supposed to be.

(CNSNews.com) – When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a "serious question."

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

When pressed later by the reporter, Pelosi's office replied in an e-mail that Pelosi believes that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to force us all to buy health insurance, basically because just they've used it for so many other things.

Later on Thursday, CNSNews.com followed up on the question, e-mailing written queries for the speaker to her Spokesman Elshami.

“Where specifically does the Constitution authorize Congress to force Americans to purchase a particular good or service such as health insurance?” CNSNews.com asked the speaker's office.

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?" CNSNews.com asked. "If so, what is that limit?”

Elshami responded by sending CNSNews.com a Sept. 16 press release from the Speaker’s office entitled, “Health Insurance Reform, Daily Mythbuster: ‘Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform.’” The press release states that Congress has “broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce. Congress has used this authority to regulate many aspects of American life, from labor relations to education to health care to agricultural production.”

The release further states: “On the shared responsibility requirement in the House health insurance reform bill, which operates like auto insurance in most states, individuals must either purchase coverage (and non-exempt employers must purchase coverage for their workers)—or pay a modest penalty for not doing so. The bill uses the tax code to provide a strong incentive for Americans to have insurance coverage and not pass their emergency health costs onto other Americans—but it allows them a way to pay their way out of that obligation. There is no constitutional problem with these provisions.”

Pelosi then compares it to forcing people to buy auto insurance, only she omits the fact that auto insurance, unlike her "Pelosicare", is not required of people who don't own or drive cars. If the Democrats' legislation is passed however, it be the first time in the history of our country that every single person is required to buy something as a condition of being a citizen of this country. Worse, it forces us all to buy something that they, Congress, will regulate and control.

And of course let us not forget that they still want to keep their own, better insurance. They have voted down multiple amendments which would have required them to joins us in this national heath care nightmare. Typical. Good enough for us, but not good enough for them. "Public servants" my ass.

This is not the America that our founding fathers set up. Nancy Pelosi and everyone else in Congress who have just voted to pass this bill without ever letting us read it, and in most cases, without reading it themselves, need to be dragged out of the Capitol, coated with tar and feathers, and kicked out of the District of Columbia permanently.