A Constitutonal Question

At midnight or thereabouts, the President is expected to sign off on the law putting sequestration into effect.  But I wonder why. I honestly do.  I do because he doesn’t have to as far as I can tell.   It is a law, and like other laws it is bound by the constitution, is it not?

Article I, section 7, final sentence of paragraph two states:

If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

But it begs a few questions.  Questions which I do not have answers to.

If the President is expected to sign the Sequester into law, that means it is being presented to him then and there, does it not?  Or is there some other timetable that  don’t know about that makes that question a moot one?

If it is true that the law is being presented to him today, and the constitution is followed, and he does not sign it, does that not mean that he will have extra time to see if he can work out a deal with the house, where all spending bills must originate?

The President, if he really is serious that he does not want to see these cuts take effect should simply not sign the bill.  Which doesn’t mean he won’t.

Now I am not a constitutional scholar, I simply make points that I think need to be made, and ask questions that I think need to be asked.

More later.

Hope On The Horizon?

We are nearly out of the woods after years in one of the most debilitating economic crises this nation has faced in its history.  Congress’  response to it?

Let’s do it again!

The possibility of sequestration with layoffs and furloughs for thousands of workers across this great nation will take all the effort and hard work that has gone on over the last few years and flush it down the toilet is a hard one to swallow from this group of do-nothing Republicans.  Forced to deal with that because our President, in order to get some kind of deal done back in 2011, had to make a deal with the devil, aka the House Republicans, to avert a complete disaster with the debt ceiling.

But there is some hope on the horizon.  Click here for links

A deal is still on the table, put their by the President that would avert the looming doom that is sequestration.  The deal includes the chained CPI, a hard but necessary step to take. It has smaller more palatable cuts to non-discretionary spending, with cuts in drug company payments as well as fee restructuring in a number of key areas. It also has within it a limitation in tax deductions for the wealthy that will generate well over half a trillion dollars.

Given that the alternative puts tens of thousands of people in harms way unnecessarily, I am hoping that the Republicans come t their senses and accept this deal, or perhaps some modified version of it, if this is unpalatable.

There are those on the other side of the aisle, most notably mr. P90x himself, Paul Ryan, who seem to think that sequestration is in some way acceptable.

I would ask him is furloughing police officers, firefighters, teachers, corrections officers, and the national guard  acceptable? I would ask him if all the pain and misery created by letting his friends in the defense industry lose money because of cuts in government spending, is that acceptable?  I would ask him if letting people suffering through no fault of their own because of being unemployed because their benefits would expire, is that acceptable?

I hope it isn’t, because America can’t take much more of this stupid decision-making on the part of the Republicans. They are leading America down a dark and ugly road towards economic disaster, and we’ve had enough of that already.  We’re done with that.

The deal that the President has laid on the table here takes into account our future in a way that is forward-looking, makes good use of our present to prepare for our future without causing too much discomfort, and shines a light on the right way to be fiscally responsible while at the same time helping those who need that help the most.

I for one could use some time off from all the histrionics that these Republicans keep creating.  Accept the deal and let us go on with our lives, please.  Thank you.

When He Said

Pic of the day: Evacuation of an Island, by Victor Hugo (1870)

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I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.

Albert Camus

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When he said “do not lose heart,” I wanted to respond to him myself, tell him I hadn’t, but there were parents that would never have the same heart again. Then again I knew he wasn’t really talking to me.

When he said “I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation” I thanked him. My prayers, little though they are worth were offered up for both the dead and the survivors from the moment I heard about this. I know I am far from the only one.

When he said “The school’s staff did not flinch” I felt a swell of pride in such strong character shown by the people teaching the leaders of tomorrow. They, and those like them are making future generations better simply with their presence.

When he said “We, as a nation, we are left with some hard questions” I was pleased. Even if he didn’t ask all the hard questions there, he had made it plain with that statement that he, along with the rest of us, was looking for those answers to those questions.

He asked one of the hard questions a moment later, and while leaving out important political context that was not necessary at that moment, also gave an answer. Shortened version of the question : Are we doing enough to protect our children as a society?

Answer: No.

When he said “No set of laws can eliminate evil from the world” He was telling the world in only slightly veiled language, that he is ready to fight this fight. That this fight is a murky one, involving gun laws and mental health legislation and a host of other issues, but a fight that he is ready to fight and will pour all his available energy into, to safeguard this nations children, who are it’s future.

When he read the names of the children who died I had to turn away. I felt the welling up of the emotion of loss. They were not my children. I have none, sadly, but I felt the sting of the bitter loss that death brings. The parents who lost kids, the spouses who lost loved ones, must hurt , must feel a pain a thousand times stronger and more virulent than any I have felt. I think I felt that emotional upwelling for them as well as those who died.

As he left the stage, I was happy to have heard him speak. But it leaves me wondering, now that the speeches are over with, what will happen now? We have all heard speeches before. Will more come of this than just words of comfort. I hope so, for the whole nations sake.

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That’s it from here, America G’night.

It Was A Fun Night

I watched the election coverage last night on a host of networks.  CNN.  MSNBC.  FOX.  CBS.  NBC.  ABC.  NY1. Each station had vastly different numbers coming out depending on what time you turned them on.  But it really didn’t matter what you were watching because the results were the same.

Barack Obama won re-election as President of the United States of America.

Initially after the call was made, earliest on MSNBC at 11:16 pm eastern time, it was much noted, first on twitter and then on the networks that He had won without a plurality.  It was later on in the night when the popular vote turned and the right lost their talking point, and the President took the lead in the popular vote as well.  At this point what was a nearly 1 million vote advantage for Mitt Romney at 11 pm last night is now an Obama 2.6 million vote lead.

There was some anger from the right, asking questions like  “How could Obama be our President if he didn’t get the majority of the popular vote?”  After Fox called the election when they said Ohio was won by President Obama, it was much commented on that Karl Rove was trying to get the network to back off of the call for Ohio and the Obama winning the White House, and commented on the popular vote lead for Romney at that particular moment.  They didn’t of course, and President Obama won enough electoral votes to win even if someone somehow took Ohio from him.

Talk on MSNBC in justifying their calling Ohio for President Obaba was that the counties that are normally “blue” had a great deal more voters in them than the “red” ones.  Cuyahoga county was mentioned most.  At the time of the call it was noted that the President had won the county by 80,000 or so votes but that there were 200,000 votes that were in all likelihood not yet counted.  The votes are now counted and the win in Cuyahoga was a whopping 236,000 vote margin.  The President only won 17 of the 88 counties in the state, but he won all the population centers.

You could say the same thing for the rest of the country, but only to a certain extent.  It is only a generalization, and I haven’t looked at all of the states, but from the looks at state results  all the states I have looked at, in a county by county basis that the smaller the population of the county, the larger the margin of Victory for Mitt Romney, and the larger the population, the more complete the victory for Barack Obama.

There were exceptions, of course.  There were small county wins for the President in Texas, and Georgia and a few other spots in the deep south, and there are places like Hamilton County in Indiana where three of the states 20 largest cities are, and Lexington County in South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia S.C., where Romney won handily.

It was a fun night for those who voted for Obama.  The lone real dark cloud for the general populace on the left is that the GOP will retain control of the House.

Other big wins?

Women:  Right wing “rape babies” candidates like Mourdock and Akin were swept aside by the populace. There are now more women in the Senate, thanks to upset victories by Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota, and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin along with the victories by all the incumbent democratic women who won their seats back for 6 more years.

Nate Silver:  He got every single prediction he made about this election correct, after getting 49 of 50 in 2008.  Nate is the man.

Twitter:  There was a huge flurry of activity there, and much of the news that was reported by the MSM was reported there first, usually by enough time where it was old news by the time it got broadcast on television.  It was also there that the President first made public notice of his victory, acknowledging the victory and thanking those who voted for him a good 2 hours before he gave his acceptance speech.

Stoners:  Dude, Pot is legal in Colorado and Washington state. Just remember that it is still a federal offense to have pot on you.  The DOJ is gonna have its hands full figuring this one out.  There’s gonna be a showdown between local and federal authorities on this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this went to the SCOTUS.  Even when stoners win things are rough. You can smoke in those states, but don’t let the feds catch you, or that’s your ass.  Just saying.

Homosexuals: Gay marriage was passed in the states of Maine and Maryland, making them the seventh and eight states to pass same sex marriage. Minnesota defeated a measure that would have banned same sex marriage.  Apparently America is, or at least parts of it are, in the mood for big gay love.

It was a fun night.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.

Autumn

Pic of the day:   Bords de l’Oise, prés de Pontoise, temps gris, by Camille Pissarro

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Fiction is Truth’s elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.

Rudyard Kipling

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Viddy of the day:  Vivaldi: Autumn The Four Seasons, High Quality

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Twitter was ablaze yesterday with talk of the debate.  Everyone was there cheering for their candidate.  Everyone.  There was fun to be had for everyone.  Except for fans of Romney.  They seemed kind of quiet most of the debate.  In the beginning they were talking a good game but they grew quiet as their guy began to get his ass handed to him.   By the time things got to the bayonets and horses phase of the debate it was almost as if Mitt Romney’s people had simply walked away from their computers.

It was not until afterwards that they came back to claim victory.  Which was curious because they’re were only a few of them and those few were the only people who thought that he had won.  Even Glenn Beck thought R-money got his ass handed to him.

Had a few people talk funny at me, mostly claiming that Romney had won and that Obama got smoked, mostly.  Funny what people will hear when they want to hear it.  Rather than take my word for it, hit the C-span website and watch it again for yourself.

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Romney’s foreign policy can be stated in a very few words.

Whatever Barack does, Romney likes.  Except for the parts where Obama schooled him.

Romney has no clue about the Navy.  He has no clue about what American forces can bring to bear with a lighter yet stronger armed forces.  He seems to think don’t pay attention.  Says he’ll kill our enemies and a few minutes later says we can’t kill our way out of situations.  Really?  Hard to pull that off, son.

Mitt don’t know shit.  But then again, he never has.

But people will vote for him, tens of millions of people will vote for him.

He might even win.

Proof that you can be a complete imbecile and still make it in America.

Ain’t America a great country?

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I went for a walk today to take pictures of the woods I live near.  Took around 150 pictures.  I’ll drop a few of them here when I get them downloaded.  Right now they are on a sim card on my wife’s computer.  I haven’t had a chance to see them yet.  I’m sure they aren’t all winners, but since I’ve done this the last few years, I’ve gotten better at it.

I know I got a large number of really good ones.  You’ll see them soon enough.

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The framework for the novel is coming out nicely.  Got seven chapters planned out, storyboarded, and the characters are fleshed out pretty well.

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That’s it from here, America.  G’night.