Relax, the current 110th congressional session is 90% complete.

Yep, here we are at the end of June, and the congressional session is almost finished. According to Nancy Pelosi (from Human Events: Pelosi Supports ‘Fairness Doctrine):

Pelosi pointed out that, after it returns from its Fourth of July recess, the House will only meet for another three weeks in July and three weeks in the fall.

When I read this in passing I thought this can’t be right, Congress is scheduled to meet just 6 weeks from the end of June through the November elections? Six weeks out of the next eighteen, and by six weeks I think they really mean three day Tue-Thur type ‘weeks’.

With pending FISA legislation, Energy policy, court appointments (cough, cough), spending bills, emergency spending bills and all of that pork to pass, national whatever-day, week, year declarations…, and that’s all they can mange?

Not that they make it easy to figure out. The complete house schedule is below the jump, but other than the helpful reminders that Daylight Saving Time ends Nov 2 and that Election day is Nov 4th for Republicans and for Democrats, begins Nov 5th runs through the December 15th, or whenever the last court challenge is settled by the Supreme Court, you need to subtract out the ‘District Work Periods’ to figure out when they will actually be in session.

A note about those court appointments from Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) Democrats Press Judicial Obstruction Campaign:

… Using the appropriate yardstick of the last seven presidential election Congresses, we are today more then 90% finished with our days in session but have so far given a hearing to less than one-third and confirmed only half as many appeals court nominees. As a result, President Bush’s judicial confirmation total lags far beyond his predecessors’, 305 to 357 at this point in their respective presidencies.

Such a deliberate slowdown is otherwise known as obstruction. Democrats keep changing their standards, ignoring long-pending nominees, and taking whatever steps are necessary to suppress judicial confirmations. The list of changing standards grows all the time. At the end of the Clinton administration, for example, the Democratic minority demanded that hearings and confirmations continue to the end of the year. They offered as a guide the presidential election year 1992, when the Judiciary Committee held hearings until September 24 and the Senate confirmed nominees until October 8, the day before final adjournment. In 1992, the Senate confirmed 64 judges, 11 to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

I guess this just another example of that ‘moving bar’ that Michelle Obama was speaking about during her speech 3/14/08 at Villanova University in Philadelphia, PA.

House Schedule below:

Maclean’s vs Canadian Human Rights Commission – Was a win a loss?

On June 26th, the Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint against Maclean’s magazine brought by the Canadian Islamic Congress for publishing an article “The Future Belongs to Islam” an excerpt from America Alone by Mark Steyn.

From Maclean’s response:

Though gratified by the decision, Maclean’s continues to assert that no
human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the
mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial
decisions of the nation’s media. And we continue to have grave concerns about
a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be
pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same
complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to
say nothing of the inconvenience. We enthusiastically support those
parliamentarians who are calling for legislative review of the commissions
with regard to speech issues.

As echoed in their statement, there was speculation that Maclean’s and Mark Steyn were looking for a loss so that they could challenge the entire Canadian Human Right Commission jurisdiction in a “proper” court.

Andrew Coyne, Maclean’s national editor live-blogged the 5 days of the hearings:

• Liveblogging the BC Human Rights Tribunal—Part I.
• Liveblogging the BC Human Rights Tribunal—Day I, Part II.
• Liveblogging the BC HRT, Day Two: A Day That Will Live in Entropy
• Liveblogging the Maclean’s Trial III: Die Another Day
• Liveblogging the Maclean’s Trial IV: Habib and Habib Not
• Liveblogging the Maclean’s Trial V: Stand and Deliver

In a brilliant display of the bureaucratic mind set and as Andrew said, a fitting cap to the proceedings, his live-blogging ended with this:

CODA: There will be no more liveblogging. As I left the courtroom for the lunch break, i was taken aside by a sheepish-looking court official, who said that he’d just learned that I had been “broadcasting” from inside the courtroom. So had I. Broadcasting, I said? I didn’t have a microphone, or a camera.

No, he explained: but liveblogging counts as broadcasting. It’s not the computer that’s the problem. You can type away on it all you want. If you step outside to send it, that’s okay, too. But if you send text from within the courtroom, that’s broadcasting.Anyway, I gave him my solemn word that I would do no more broadcasting. What with the hearings being almost over and all. It seemed a fitting way to put a cap on the week.

You can read much more on the the Human Rights Commission on the Mcleans decision and other proceedings, including the prosecution on “un-funny” comedians by Ezra Levant

As the Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the US Congress ponder bringing back the “fairness doctrine” that was ended by Ronald Regan (Pelosi Supports ‘Fairness Doctrine’), what goes on with our neighbor to the north shows what we could be in for, if we let it.

The first 10 amendments are the Bill of Rights

In District of Columbia v. Heller, decided today (6/26/08), the Supreme Court struck down D.C.’s ban on individual ownership of handguns.  In doing so, the Court expressly adopted the view that the Second Amendment grants an individual right to keep and bear arms, as opposed to the “collective right” (relating to a “well-regulated militia’) theory espoused by gun control advocates.

Although I personally own no firearms, and confess that in my college days I contributed $5 to a group called Handgun Control, I have seen the light of the individual rights view, and have long wondered why groups that are usually screaming at the top of their lungs for all sorts of individual rights (usually with no notion of corresponding responsibility) are so inconsistent when it comes to the Second Amendment.

I can never recall the left ever doubting in any other case involving one of the amendments of the Bill of Rights that the Constitution did not grant an individual right.  If the Second Amendment did really involve just a collective right for the states, why was it even necessary?  The left frequently admonishes us, with their usual sanctimony, that we need to live up to the ideals of the Constitution, inconvenient though they may sometimes be.  Why should the Second Amendment be disregarded or regulated so much as to be meaningless?

For anyone who truly loves liberty, and regardless of your personal feelings about firearms, do you really want the government to be able to deny one of your Constitutional rights just because it has become unpopular among certain constituencies?

Have a great day!

Why Jefferson-Jackson?

Throughout the county, local Republican and Democratic parties hold annual fund raisers / dinners. The Republican events are usually called Lincoln Day (or lately Lincoln-Regan.) For the Democrats, it is usually the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. I can understand the nod to Thomas Jefferson, but why Andrew Jackson?

Maybe this entry from Wikipedia on Campaign Finance Reform provides the answer:

In order to gain votes from recently enfranchised, unpropertied voters, Andrew Jackson launched his campaign for the 1828 election through a network of partisan newspapers across the nation. After his election, Jackson began a political patronage system that rewarded political party operatives, which had a profound effect on future elections. Eventually, appointees were expected to contribute portions of their pay back to the political machine.

Does union dues count as a required contribution to the political machine? It appears that the patronage system, partisan newspapers and the political kickbacks started by Andrew Jackson are alive and still celebrated by today’s Democratic party.

Zoning Changes – County council hearing Monday 6/16 @ 7:30

Well, its the third Monday of the month and that means it time for the Howard county council’s public hearing.  The big issues this month deal with zoning changes and development in the county.

• CB 50-2008 and CR 62-2008 deal with transferring development rights from infill parcels to other zoning areas.  The bill will permit increases in density (by 10%)  in certain areas to Columbia’s New Town zoned land.

• The new Housing Unit Allocation chart (CR 64-2008) specifies the permitted housing allocations for the counties 9 planning regions from 2011 – 2020.

• The Board of Education’s Open/Closed chart (CR 65-2008) which projects school capacity through 2021.