W'all?

From a Grammar Girl newsletter:

W'all. Bulldog and the Dude on KOCM in Baltimore informed me that not only do people say "y'all," but sometimes they say "w'all" as an abbreviation for "we all." I'm still walking around shaking my head and muttering "W'all?"

This got me curious. I'm from the South, so I'm used to hearing (and saying) "y'all), but I've got to say, I don't remember hearing anyone say "w'all" for "we all" (come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I heard anyone use the phrase "we all" either).

Maryland is a border state, not quite Northern, not quite Southern, but something of each. Is this a Baltimore thing or is it used in other areas, or were Bulldog and the Dude just pulling Grammar Girl's leg?

Remember when.....

Ronald Reagan was president?

We had Bob Hope and Johnny Cash.

Now we have Obama and no Hope and no Cash.

50th ANNIVERSARY

A man and his wife were celebrating 50 years together. Their three kids, all very successful, Agreed to a Sunday dinner in their honor.

"Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad," gushed son number one. "Sorry I'm running late. I had an emergency at the hospital with a patient, You know how it is, and didn't have time to get you a gift."

"Not to worry," said the father. "The important thing is that we're all together today."

Son number two arrived and announced "You and Mom look great, Dad. I just flew in from Los Angeles between depositions And didn't have time to shop for you.'

"It's nothing," said the father, "We're glad you were able to come."

Just then the daughter arrived, "Hello and happy anniversary! I'm sorry, but my boss is sending me out of town and I was busy packing so I didn't have time to get you anything."

After they had finished dessert, the father said, "There's something your mother and I have wanted to tell you for a long time. You see, we were very poor. Despite this, we were able to send each of you to college. Throughout the years your mother and I knew that we loved each other very much, but we just never found the time to get married."

The three children gasped and all said, "You mean we're bastards?"

"Yep," said the father. "And cheap ones too."

DEATH OF THE OLD COW

Suddenly, a cow jumps out into the road, they hit it full on, and the car comes to a stop.

Nancy, in her usual charming manner, says to the chauffeur, "You get out and check--you were driving."

So the chauffeur gets out, checks, and reports that the animal is dead but it was old.

"You were driving, so you go and tell the farmer," says Nancy.

Two hours later the chauffeur returns totally plastered, hair ruffled with a big grin on his face.

"My God, what happened to you?" asks Nancy.

The chauffeur replies, "When I got there, the farmer opened his best bottle of malt whisky, the wife gave me a slap-up meal, and the daughter made love to me."

"What on earth did you say?" asks Nancy.

"I just knocked on the door and when it opened I said to them, "I'm Nancy Pelosi's chauffeur, and I've just killed the old cow."

Is ObamaCare Constitutional? Do You Really Have to Ask?

While most members of Congress can't or refuse to answer where and how the current ObamaCare proposal is constitutional - and all Nancy Pelosi could muster up when confronted with that question was, "Are you serious?" - some liberals have stretched the Constitution to the breaking point in efforts to justify the proposal.

But in a Wall Street Journal op/ed this morning, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Ken Blackwell and Kenneth Klukowski blow such arguments out of the water. Enjoy..and save for future reference. This issue and questions won't be going away anytime soon.

Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional

If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance, it can do anything

President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.

First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.

Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.

In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service, Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do.

Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the "general welfare." Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.

A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states' obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed "cash for cloture" because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.

A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds, which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No, this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.

This violates the letter, the spirit, and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance, perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is, by drafting and by deliberate design, exactly what this legislation would do.

The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.

This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation, which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts, scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation.

America's founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.

(Mr. Hatch, a Republican senator from Utah, is a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Blackwell is a senior fellow with the Family Research Council and a professor at Liberty University School of Law. Mr. Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.)

Congressional Reform Act of 2010

(This came to me in email and I thought it worthwhile to post and perhaps to begin a discussion. The email is in italics, my comments are not). Of course, I have some other ideas to go along with this, but thought this was enough to start with)

Wouldn't this be a wonderful reality to wake up to!!!!!!!!

1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two six year Senate terms

B. Six two year House terms

or

C. One six year Senate term and three two Year House terms

2. No Tenure/No Pension: A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

(A pension should be for someone who has made a career of the job they are working in. Under this Act, no one will serve for longer than 12 years. Perhaps a small Federal pension would be in order, as it would be for any other Federal employee.)

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.

I completely agree with this. There is an email circulating that states what a Congressman would receive under the current Congressional retirement, but it is incorrect. I believe a Congressional representative should receive no more in retirement benefits than any other Federal employee.

Why is Congress compensated differently than any other American? Have they worked harder? Have they worked longer? Is their job any more important than any other American? Are they "better" than other American? Sure, arguments can be made that they are "better", but I personally don't believe this to be true.)

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.

(see #3)

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

(Most members of Congress are not hurting for money. Many are millionaires and should be working for their constitutents and not for the pay. Why not make Congress a Dollar-a-year job?)

6. Congress looses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

(see #3)

7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.

(see #3)

8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

I think this Act should go into effect immediately. I'm not really sure it would be "fair" to penalize someone who is a former member of Congress. I have to give this some more thought. Present and future? Yes, absolutely. I'd take it one step farther and apply this Act to the White House as well.

The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress should be an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

Rising Leaders In The Republican Party

By Christopher G. Adamo

December 10, 2009

With each passing day, the cornerstones of American greatness are being attacked and dismantled by the left, whose goal is clearly their eventual eradication and replacement by a liberal "new order." As the nation sinks further under the oppression of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi offensive, the people of the Heartland are desperately looking for leaders who will arise to carry the torch of conservatism and traditional values.

Despite being the minority party in both houses of Congress, it is imperative that Republicans mount a principled and united resistance if their party is to retain any credibility as a viable alternative to the statism and despotism of the Democrats. This is not the time for "compromise" or "bipartisanship," which are euphemisms for ultimate surrender and philosophical capitulation to the liberal agenda.

Rather, the need of the moment is for individuals who have the courage to face the firestorm of "politically correct" derision that will inevitably be brought to bear on all who dare oppose the current regime. They must also possess the verbal fluency to properly disarm their critics with well-structured and well-articulated arguments. And at this desperate hour, it appears that some "stars" are beginning to rise from among the Republican ranks.

In statements released on December 7, two Republican Senators, John Barrasso of Wyoming, and David Vitter of Louisiana, exemplified the manner in which to confront the fraudulent premises of the liberal agenda, in this case pertaining to the fabricated hysteria of "global climate change." Rather than seeking "common ground" and cordiality with their ideological opposition, Barrasso and Vitter confronted the contrived calamity head on, even to the point of accurately assigning purely political motives as the true motivation of the Obama Administration and its thoroughly compromised Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to Senator Barrasso, "The EPA is playing politics with peoples' jobs during a recession, and that is just wrong." In so stating, he adeptly dispels the notion that concern over "rising sea levels" or any of the other apocalyptic premises of the "climate change" doomsday scenario might be Obama's true basis for all of the hysterics and alarm. The reality of this debate is that it resulted entirely from shameless liberal politicking, and the liberal penchant for resorting to any means, no matter how deceitful and despicable, in order to gain the political advantage.

Senator Vitter rightly depicted the EPA, and in particular its characterization of carbon dioxide as a "pollutant," as a flagrant power grab that threatens every aspect of day-to-day life of average citizens. In Vitter's words, "By granting the EPA the ability to take unilateral action on this issue, the administration is risking further damage to the U.S. economy. The EPA's decision may well result in a top-down, command and control approach that will add new mandates and could have a negative impact on almost every sector of our utility bills, merchandise at stores, and food items at the grocer."

Carbon dioxide is exhaled by every breathing human being on the planet, and is no more a "pollutant" than are the leaves that fall from trees. It has been vilified in recent years as the mechanism of "man made global warming," though the empirical evidence reveals a trend of global cooling for the past decade, and nothing more than the standard cyclical variations of earth's temperatures in the years of recorded data prior to that.

Yet now the government seeks to monitor and ultimately manage this harmless and completely natural component of the air we breathe, as if it has suddenly metamorphosed into some sinister "controlled substance" that might be dealt illegally in urban back alleys. This flagrant effort to extend the tentacles of the state into virtually every manufacturing process, every back-yard barbeque, and every exhaled breath in the country should alarm any citizen who recognizes the need for some limit on the scope and reach of government.

Meanwhile, the EPA is displaying criminal negligence with respect to one of its duly authorized responsibilities. It should be investigating the matter of fraudulent claims, and suppressed data, at the University of East Anglia in England, where the "holy of holies" of "climate change" advocacy resides. Rather than remaining faithful to the true methodology of science, its members engaged in an orchestrated hoax, insisting that the earth has been steadily warming while distorting or hiding a mass of evidence which proves that recorded temperatures are inarguably on the decline.

Again, Senator Vitter rightly demanded accountability, pointing out that e-mails from the institution clearly indicate that its members have been playing games with the numbers in order to present a false case of rising global temperatures, and thus "have raised serious questions about these policies." Pursuing the only responsible course of action, he followed "We asked that the EPA look further into this situation." However, preferring its ideology over any trite loyalty to the well being of the American people, the EPA is ignoring Vitter's request. And the Obama Administration is moving ahead with its agenda of governance through regulation.

Like Senator Barrasso before him, Senator Vitter once again accurately labels the motivation behind this bogus effort stating "I fear that politics may be overriding policy when it comes to this important issue."

It is now grimly obvious that Barack Obama, abetted by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D.-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA) will continue the ruse of inventing catastrophes in order to seize governing power over the people. As a result, all of America is endangered. Strong, principled voices will be needed to call them out, and begin the long but critically important process of restoring the precepts of real America.

The obstacles in this fight for the future of the nation are great, but not insurmountable. Both Sarah Palin and former Vice-President Dick Cheney have shown how to prevail, despite being castigated by liberals in the media and on Capitol Hill. And, now they have reinforcements. It appears that the GOP is finding its voice.

Martha Coakley: Too Immoral for Teddy Kennedy's Seat

by Ann Coulter

12/09/2009

In Tuesday's primary election, Massachusetts Democrats chose as their Senate nominee a woman who kept a clearly innocent man in prison in order to advance her political career.

Martha Coakley isn't even fit for the late Teddy Kennedy's old seat. (What is it about this particular Senate seat?)

During the daycare/child molestation hysteria of the '80s, Gerald Amirault, his mother, Violet, and sister, Cheryl, were accused of raping children at the family's preschool in Malden, Mass., in what came to be known as the second-most notorious witch trial in Massachusetts history.

The allegations against the Amiraults were preposterous on their face. Children made claims of robots abusing them, a "bad clown" who took the children to a "magic room" for sex play, rape with a 2-foot butcher knife, other acts of sodomy with a "magic wand," naked children tied to trees within view of a highway, and -- standard fare in the child abuse hysteria era -- animal sacrifices.

There was not one shred of physical evidence to support the allegations -- no mutilated animals, no magic rooms, no butcher knives, no photographs, no physical signs of any abuse on the children.

Not one parent noticed so much as unusual behavior in their children -- until after the molestation hysteria began.

There were no witnesses to the alleged acts of abuse, despite the continuous and unannounced presence of staff members, teachers, parents and other visitors at the school.

Not one student ever spontaneously claimed to have been abused. Indeed, the allegations of abuse didn't arise until the child therapists arrived.

Nor was there anything in the backgrounds of the Amiraults that fit the profile of sadistic, child-abusing monsters. Violet Amirault had started the Fells Acre Day School 18 years before the child molestation hysteria erupted.

Thousands of happy and well-adjusted students had passed through Fells Acres. Many returned to visit the school; some even attended Cheryl's wedding a few years before the inquisition began.

It's one thing to put a person in prison for a crime he didn't commit. It's another to put an entire family in prison for a crime that didn't take place.

In the most outrageous miscarriage of justice since the Salem witch trials, in July 1986, Gerald Amirault was convicted of raping and assaulting six girls and three boys and sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison. The following year, Violet and Cheryl Amirault were convicted of raping and assaulting three girls and a boy and were sentenced to 8 to 20 years.

The motto of the witch-hunters was "Believe the Children!" But the therapists resolutely refused to believe the children as long as they denied being abused. As the police advised the parents: In cases of child abuse, "no" can mean "yes."

To the children's credit, they held firm to their denials for heroic amounts of time in the face of relentless questioning.

But as copious research in the wake of the child abuse cases has demonstrated, small children are highly suggestible. It's surprisingly easy to implant false memories into young minds by simply asking the same questions over and over again.

Indeed, the interviewing techniques in the Amirault case were so successful that the children also made accusations against three other teachers, two imaginary people named "Mr. Gatt" and "Al" and even against the child therapist herself -- the one claim of abuse that was provably true.

But only the Amiraults were put on trial for any alleged acts of abuse.

Coakley wasn't the prosecutor on the original trial. What she did was worse.

At least the original prosecutors, craven and ambition-driven though they were, could claim to have been caught up in the child abuse panic of the '80s. There had not yet been extensive psychological studies on the suggestibility of small children. A dozen similar cases from around the country had not already been discredited and the innocent freed.

Of all the men and women falsely convicted during the child molestation hysteria of the '80s, by 2001, only Gerald Amirault still sat in prison. Even his sister and mother had been released after serving eight years in prison for crimes that never occurred.

In July 2001, the notoriously tough Massachusetts parole board voted unanimously to grant Gerald Amirault clemency. Although the parole board is not permitted to consider guilt or innocence, its recommendation said: "(I)t is clearly a matter of public knowledge that, at the minimum, real and substantial doubt exists concerning petitioner's conviction."

Immediately after the board's recommendation, The Boston Globe reported that Gov. Jane Swift was leaning toward accepting the board's recommendation and freeing Amirault.

Enter Martha Coakley, Middlesex district attorney. Gerald Amirault had already spent 15 years in prison for crimes he no more committed than anyone reading this column did. But Coakley put on a full court press to keep Amirault in prison simply to further her political ambitions.

By then, every sentient person knew that Amirault was innocent. But instead of saying nothing, Coakley frantically lobbied Gov. Jane Swift to keep him in prison to show that she was a take-no-prisoners prosecutor, who stood up for "the children." As a result of Coakley's efforts -- and her contagious ambition -- Gov. Swift denied Amirault's clemency.

Thanks to Martha Coakley, Gerald Amirault sat in prison for another three years.

Remember all that talk about President Bush shredding constitutional rights? Overzealous liberal prosecutors and feminist do-gooders allowed Gerald Amirault to sit in prison for 18 years for crimes that didn't exist -- except in the imaginations of small children under the influence of incompetent child "therapists."

Martha Coakley allowed her ambition to trump basic human decency as she campaigned to keep a patently innocent man in prison.

Anyone with the smallest sense of justice cannot vote to put this woman in any office. If you absolutely cannot vote for a Republican on Jan. 19, 2010, write in the name "Gerald Amirault."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I remember this case very well. "Children don't lie about being abused...they don't have the imagination to make up a story like that...." were some of the watchwords of the time. Of course, we know differently now. Children have remarkable imaginations, and with certain...memories...planted in their little heads, they really don't know they are lying. Well, that's not entirely true. The children in the Fells Acre case maintained for some time that nothing happened. It took therapists looking for something, and to plant it in the memories of highly suggestive children. .

What was done to this family can never be changed, no matter how many times they are declared innocent. They will always be associated with child abuse. There will always be people who will wonder..."were they REALLY innocent?"

You make up your own mind about this woman. It sounds like she has no soul. Personally, I wouldn't elect her dogcatcher.

"In the Republican Party particularly, there is a fatigue with RINOs and moderate Republicans." - Rush Limbaugh

"After trying to first ignore (GOP opponent Marco) Rubio and then later appease Rubio's supporters by backing off his past support for President Obama's economic stimulus, (Florida Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Charlie) Crist has now turned to face his conservative opponents head on, claiming they're the problem with the Republican Party, not him." - Talking Points Memo, 11/24/09

"I noticed that Crist is out there now, 'hey what do you mean, who says I'm not conservative, I'm pro-life, I'm pro gun, I don't know what more I have to be except angry.' That's not going to sit well." - Rush Limbaugh