There's Lansing. There's Bush. There's Obama. There's Matt Millen, and then there's the US Senate

When it comes to fiscal irresponsibility, there several degrees of bad. Lansing is bad. The US House is worse. George W Bush was worse than the current and former US House combined. On spending, Bush sucked. Obama is worse than Bush. He really sucks. Obama isn't the worst though. There's a special kind of bad, the beyond Matt Millen category. Jennifer Granholm is called the Matt Millen of Governors. The United States Senate collectively is the Matt Millen of all of politics, if not worse. If they were managing a football team, it would be 0-16 every year. If they were running a basketball team, they couldn't beat the Washington Generals. If they were running a hockey team, they would go 0-82 even if Wayne Gretzky played for them. They are Matt Millen, John L Smith, and UM's Bill Martin all rolled up into one.

Barack Obama's spending plan sucks, but it sucks less than what is there now, and I would have voted for it as a start. Yes, I would have voted for it. It's not good enough, but it is better than the status quo.

From the AP

WASHINGTON – Just days after President Barack Obama endorsed a partial freeze on domestic spending, his Democratic allies in the Senate have rejected a plan attempting to do pretty much the same thing.
Old-school Democrats were the driving force in killing the bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions and Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill. Their plan was slightly modified version of Obama's that would have permitted domestic agencies an increase of just about 1 percent, with slightly higher boosts for the Pentagon.
A 56-strong majority of senators supported the plan but it failed because 60 votes were required. The vote came the morning after Obama threatened to veto spending bills that would exceed a domestic spending freeze.

That doesn't mean I've forgotten Obama's poor handling of spending and record deficits up to this point. I haven't. The Senate also has another present for us. They raised the debt ceiling an addition 1.9 trillion! Great job dumbasses. They took care of that before Scott Brown was seated. I wonder why?  Also from the AP

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats needed all the 60 votes at their disposal Thursday to muscle through legislation allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt.
Democratic leaders were able to prevail on the politically volatile 60-39 vote only because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated. Republicans had insisted on a 60-vote, super-majority threshhold to pass the measure. An earlier test vote succeeded on a 60-40 vote.

Thank you Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow for doing your normal job. I could be stoned a still do a better job than this group of jokers.

It's past time to cut spending, reduce the debt, reduce the interest payments, and get our house in order so we don't lose our sovereignty.

George W Bush betrays gun owners and stabs the Constitution in the back

The Amici in favor of Washington DC in the DC v Heller Second Amendment case have been filed. They are all here at the website of the lawyers for Heller. Most are not surprises. The leftists have all filed for DC in favor of the ban. Janet "Butcher of Waco" Reno, Eric Houlder, and Seth Waxman, most of the Clinton admin officials all support the DC gun ban. So do the gun control groups, the leadership of the ABA, leading leftist professors like Saul Cornell and Erwin Chemerinsky, big cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco and the usual suspects. That doesn't irk me. I expect that from them.


I didn't expect the Bush Administrations department of justice to file an amicus brief. You can read it here. It tries to have things both ways, but if anyone tries to spin this as pro-gun, they are mistaken or lying. It does us no favors whatsoever.

This is a stab in the back. We go out as the swing vote, hit the doors, upset Gore in Tennessee and New Hampshire in 2000 and defeat John Kerry in Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, and other close states. This is our thanks. This is our biggest case in 70 years for all the marbles, and the Bush administration helps the worst city in the country for our 2nd Amendment rights on a case involving a total firearms ban. This isn't about automatic weapons or even those ugly guns the media calls so called "assault weapons." This is about basic pistols and working shotguns.

The Bush administration wants to remand this back to the lower court for more proceedings so the court can decide if a pistol is a "militia weapon." It says it supports the Second Amendment, but opposes strict scrutiny or heightened scrutiny. Those bolded words are the key here.

Here's a very simplified version of con law 101. There are three major types of scrutiny. Strict Scrutiny, Intermediate scrutiny, and rational basis review.

Under Strict Scrutiny, government needs a compelling reason for the law to be upheld. The burden of proof is on the govenment. You see this standard often in racial cases, abortion cases, substansial due process, and state laws regulating interstate trade (protectionism within states). Laws rarely pass a strict scrutiny standard.

Intermediate scrutiny is more complicated and probably would not apply here as it is rarely used. (some gender cases is where it applies)

Under rational basis review - almost all laws are upheld (with the exception of Lawrence v Texas, Romer v Evans, US v Lopez, and Printz v US) The two issues there were laws against sodomy, gay rights, and ironicaly, two gun cases (1000 ft from a school ban, part of the Brady Bill) Most laws are given rational basis review treatment. Heavy deference is given to legislatures under that type of review. Burden of proof is on Heller then, not the government. There is a somewhat of a movement towards "rational basis with teeth" as my Con-Law professor mentioned referring to the Romer v Evans case, but it's still extremely rare to overturn a law subject to rational basis review.

What is wrong is how this can be subject to anything other than strict scrutiny. If we have all these expanding "substansial due process" rights under the 5th and 14th amendment as the court says we have over the last 40 years (Griswold, Roe v Wade, Doe v Bolton, etc etc) and anything related to those, as well as all fundamental rights, are given strict scrutiny from the courts. Outside of abortion which impacts a seperate human being directly, that's the right treatment for these laws. If anything related to discrimination and protectionism is given strict scrutiny. How can the 2nd Amendment - specificly mentioned in the Constitution - not be given the same treatment regarding strict scrutiny? For the Bush administration to push for denying strict scrutiny to our rights, which unlike "abortion", is written out specificaly in our constitution, is a slap in the face to all of us gun owners across the country.

The Bush administration's brief is saying that we have a right to keep and bear arms, but it is not a FUNDAMENTAL right. It's a right that should be treated the same way the 10th amendment is treated in their eyes. Lots of restrictions. Bush admin has some good writers on their team, I'll give them that much, but this filing sucks and I'm going to be giving some people a real earful on Monday.

This is wrong. Damn wrong.