Mitt Romney is always quick to lambast other Republicans for being career politicians, as if this is his first rodeo and he is a political newcomer. However, the truth is he’s been in politics for over seventeen years, many of which have been spent appealing to liberals and moderates and fighting to keep from being identified with Ronald Reagan.

Yet the more one goes back and listens to the things Romney’s been saying during his nearly two decades of public service, the more one has to wonder why he thought someone would link him to Reagan in the first place.

For example, while trying to unseat Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, Romney said:

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law.”

Someone needs to corner Romney on this statement and force him to explain whether he still holds to it in part or in whole. (more…)

We’ve begun a battle of enormous consequence to our entire nation here in the great state of Mississippi.  Abortion is on the November 8 ballot in Mississippi, in the form of an initiative to change the state constitution by defining “person” as any human from the moment of fertilization.  The amendment is based on statements made by the judges who voted in favor of abortion during the Roe v. Wade oral re-arguments.

Unlike some other states, it is very difficult to get a voter initiative on the ballot in Mississippi; this year, we have three initiatives that would amend our state constitution, a truly remarkable feat.  All three are key conservative issues in an overwhelmingly conservative state:  abortion, voter identification, and eminent domain abuse.Personally, I’m hoping for a triple play, and voting “YES!” on all three.  The issue that I am working on, however, is abortion.

When this battle is won in Mississippi, it doesn’t just set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade, it eviscerates that case and all of its unholy progeny.  It gives a method by which every state in the nation can extend the most basic civil rights to the most innocent and deserving members of the human race — our unborn children.

When is a person a “person”?

All humans deserve equal protection of the laws and the right to due process, but the law only extends these rights to every “person.”  Thanks to the outstanding work of Personhood Mississippi, we in Mississippi will have the chance to be the first state in the history of our union to define a “person” to include all unborn humans.  Initiative 26 will define the term person as follows:

SECTION 33.  Person defined.  As used in this Article III of the state constitution, “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.

If Mississippians vote Yes on Amendment 26, all human beings would be ensured equal rights in our state and protection under law, regardless of their size, location or developmental stage.  Calling abortion “murder” will no longer be merely a moral judgment, but an established legal determination.  In other words, abortion will be illegal.

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From the same Department of Justice that has given us operation Fast and Furious, we now have a new twist on our (disappearing) right to petition the government for redress of our grievances.  In classic “heads I win, tails you lose” style, the Justice Department is now arguing that if you protect your medical privacy by refusing to comply with the Individual Mandate, you can’t sue them.  Oh, you’ll still have to pay a fine, though.

As some of you may know, our case here in Mississippi is unique in that we are using the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade (and other medical privacy rights cases) to argue that Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Part of our reasoning is that the Individual Mandate forces individuals to contract with health insurance companies, which then in turn gather reams of highly confidential medical information from us without our consent.  We make the point that even if health insurers suddenly stopped gathering our past medical history when we apply for coverage (and there is nothing to indicate that this practice will stop), the fact remains that health insurers absolutely must gather treatment information for billing purposes.

For example, if you are concerned that you might have contracted a disease and go in for a blood test, that information will be sent to your insurer for billing purposes.  Even if you try to pay for that separately, your insurer will still gather that information.  Given that inadvertent disclosures of such information is a fairly common occurrence, you can count on innumerable instances of harmful public disclosures of private medical information to result.

The feds, of course, see it differently.  Still, I did not expect this argument:

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Liberal pundits are panicking over constitutional conservatism. They shouldn’t, because every child—whether the parents are liberal or conservative—will benefit from constitutional conservatism’s ascendency. If America elects a constitutional conservative president and Congress in 2012, we’ll move forward as a freedom-loving nation.

Several outlets on the Left—such as The New Republic—are raising an alarm about this disturbing new term, saying that it’s secret code for “absolutists” and “zealots” on economic issues, overturning Roe v. Wade, and implying that constitutional conservatives are segregationists bent on creating a theocracy.

As two constitutional conservatives who wrote a new book on the issue, Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America, we’ll correct the record on defining constitutional conservatism, how it now dominates Republican politics, and why America needs it so desperately.

Constitutional conservatism is the system of government the Founders gave to this country. They set out a series of principles on the rights of man and the role of government in the Declaration of Independence, including that God creates us equal and gives us rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit (not guarantee) of happiness, that government exists to secure these rights, and that the people either consent to this government or have the right to change it.

After years of trial and error, the country then adopted the Framers’ proposed Constitution to be the Supreme Law of the Land to fulfill the Declaration’s purpose. This Constitution strictly defines the federal government as one of enumerated powers, giving it authority over specific areas of our national life, splitting its powers between three branches that check each other, and leaves the states sovereign on all other matters. They also declared certain individual rights. Knowing that they were fallible human beings, the Framers also included an amendment process so that when the Constitution was found lacking, a complex supermajority could change it (and have, twenty-seven times).

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With the recent anniversary of Roe v. Wade it is the perfect time to highlight the fact that the millions upon millions of federal tax dollars that have gone to fund the abortion mill organization Planned Parenthood is a defacto abortion tax levied on the American taxpayers.

In 2008 alone, Planned Parenthood received nearly $350 million in federal funding. By Planned Parenthood’s own reckoning, this funding went to eliminate babies for more than 324,000 women that year.

The organization DefundPlannedParenthood.org reports that Planned Parenthood has received some $3.9 billion in federal funds since 1987. Pro-life supporters should go to www. DefundPlannedParenthood.org and add their voice to eliminating federal funding for abortions.

With the House in Republican hands, this would be an excellent time to invest efforts to defund abortion. Bills such as Mike Pence’s Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (HR 614) should be revisited. And the House Republicans haven’t ignored this area. They’ve introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (HR 3), an act that will “prohibit taxpayer funded abortions and to provide for conscience protections, and for other purposes.”

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Sad to say, what I wrote last year at this time is hardly less apt today:  “The State of the Union Address is ordinarily a bore. It generally consists of a laundry list of proposals, and the list nearly always seems interminable. If Barack Obama has moxie, however, tonight could be different. His State of the Union Address could be a real game changer.”

“Here,” I then wrote, “is how he could do it – if he was really intent on saving his Presidency and on turning a disgraceful performance in that office into something worthy of eulogy. This evening, after the usual formalities, he could say:

My fellow Americans, let me begin by stating the obvious. The state of our union is not good. We seem to be – we may be – coming out of a recession. But, if so, the recovery is not only jobless; it is accompanied by an increase in employment.

This is contrary to my expectation. When I became President, my economic advisers told me that the rate of unemployment would be considerably lower now than it is. They were mistaken, and I erred in taking their advice. The fault is mine. I may not have gotten us into a severe recession, but I advanced proposals and I pursued policies which have prolonged and deepened it. I am at fault.

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This past Monday, we trained our guns on the SS Obamacare; we aimed for the waterline.  The smoke hasn’t yet cleared, but we’re pretty sure it’s taking on water in a big way.  Our case attacking the constitutionality of Obamacare is in the federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.  The government filed a motion to have our case dismissed, and yesterday we filed our response, which can be found here:  Response to Government’s Motion to Dismiss

Judge Keith Starret will now have to decide many issues, including whether the individual mandate is a tax or a penalty.   On October 14, Florida’s Attorney General received a powerful ruling in his state’s attack on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) from the federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida.  The opinion in that case says that the “individual mandate” is a penalty, not a tax.  That ruling is vital, because the Constitution gives Congress a great deal of power when it comes to taxing us, but not nearly so much when it comes to penalizing us.  There’s also a very old statute called the Anti-Injunction Act that the government is using as a defense, which only applies to lawsuits against taxes.

In short, the government is saying “we win because this is a tax.”  The only problem is that the mandate is quite clearly not a tax.  The individual mandate is simply a command by our government that each individual who does not have health insurance coverage go out and buy it, whether he or she wants it or not.  This dictate is enforced with a penalty — either buy the insurance, or face the penalty.  Congress specifically called this provision a “penalty” eighteen different times in Section 5000A alone; not one time in over 2,700 pages did Congress ever refer to it as a “tax.”   Even President Obama has insisted that the individual mandate is not a tax.

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Should military hospitals be used to save lives or to kill unborn babies? The U.S. Senate may soon take action to overturn long-standing policy by sanctioning the performance of abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities–effectively turning military hospitals and other facilities into abortion clinics. This would be the largest expansion of abortion availability since the original Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Overnight, your tax dollars will create 423 new abortion clinics. While much of the media attention on this bill has focused on the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” debate and now amnesty for illegal aliens, many Americans should be deeply concerned that this bill turns our military healthcare system into domestic and international abortion providers.

This past May, when the Senate Armed Services Committee considered the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) offered an amendment to end the current prohibition on performing abortions in military hospitals. If enacted, this amendment would overturn a law that has been in place since 1996, signed into law by President Clinton.

Military healthcare centers — which are dedicated to healing and caring for life — should not facilitate the taking of an innocent human life: an unborn child. Allowing abortions in military facilities will continue to strain already burdened medical personnel who are working to save the lives of our men and women in service. At a time when our nation is at war, are we really going to divert scarce personnel and resources for elective abortions?

This change in policy will also likely hurt recruitment and retention of military medical professionals—possibly driving many health care providers out of the military if they have conscience objections to performing abortion. When President Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, many military physicians (as well as nurses and support staff) refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the Administration hired civilians to do abortions. If the Burris amendment were enacted, not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but tax dollars could also be used to search, hire, and transport new personnel just so abortions could be performed.

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The “Restoring Honor” event at the Lincoln Memorial was inspiring. That should be just the beginning of a “Restoration Movement.” We don’t really need a revolution in America; all we need to do is restore what once was. I have a suggestion for another aspect of our Founding that needs to be restored—a suggestion that some will call unrealistic, yet one that the Founders considered essential.

Let’s restore the provision in the original wording of the Constitution that allows state legislatures to choose a state’s senators who serve in Congress.

Article I, Section 3 says, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof.”

The reasoning was lucid: the people of each state already had direct representation into the national government via the House of Representatives; it was necessary as well to provide representation for the state governments in the national Congress. The goal was to make sure that laws passed by each state were not going to be overturned by the national government without good reason.

It was one of those key checks on power; it was to provide balance in the federal system.

Why did this change?

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Repealing Obamacare via Article V is a means of last resort, or rather a threat to the national bureaucratic government should those in Washington not jump on board.  In the meantime, states, those individual laboratories of liberty, are attempting a number of remedies.

States have filed lawsuits, but my legal background makes me wary of relying on the judicial branch to make the ultimate decisions on policy.  Marbury v. Madison established the Supreme Court’s role as the ultimate arbiter in conflicts involving the Constitution, but that does not guarantee that correct decisions will result.  So first we will examine the legislative solutions.

Many states across the country are either introducing laws or revising constitutions to protect Americans from the tyranny of Obamacare.  The progress of these Health Care Freedom Acts or Amendments are being tracked by various groups.  Most of this legislation is fairly simple to read and understand.  Basically, states are refusing to enforce or enact Obamacare, which is perfectly reasonable under the present legal understanding of federalism.  The national government cannot force states to enforce unfunded federal law.  A perfect example of this is the increasing decriminalization of marijuana in communities across America.  Local police are handing out tickets (much better for revenue than throwing people in jail). (more…)

Pump this up, please:

And I live in Canada.

The reason I’m here is that I saw such American arrogance being born in the Clinton Administration with Janet Reno’s assaults upon violence on television.

They were as ominously totalitarian as her assaults upon Waco.

When I knew I was losing my battle with the Clinton Administration, I went North.

Now I watch with equal helplessness as Fox News, Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan and the Tea Partiers raise a similar hue and cry against Obama.

All will be for naught as long as Roe v Wade still stands on the books.

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Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.

We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”

Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.

Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:

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Today, in 1973, the Supreme Court delivered its opinion in the case Roe v. Wade.

Ex-White House counsel Greg Craig thought it was a good idea to transfer Elián Gonzalez from the arms of his loving family in Miami into the arms of Fidel Castro. Transfer Elián from Florida to Cuba. Bad idea. Attorney General Janet Reno thought she might have to prove her toughness by transferring dozens of women and children from a Waco cult headquarters to eternity. Really bad idea.

But Eric Holder’s plan to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from Guantánamo Bay to Manhattan for a civilian trial is perhaps liberals’ worst idea in years. KSM and his cohorts had agreed to plead guilty before a military tribunal, accept a sentence of death, and speedily rendezvous with their 72 ladies-in-waiting.

This offer of an efficient way out for the administration was not good enough for Attorney General Eric Holder. He insists on trying the terrorists before a civilian jury in federal court, just a few hundred yards from Ground Zero. Next to martyrdom and a free trip to paradise, this has to be the terrorists’ wildest dream.

No turbaned genie ever appeared out of Aladdin’s lamp to grant three greater wishes than these. KSM to Genie: One, I want to exploit my status as mass-murdering terrorist; Two, I want to inflict even greater pain and suffering on the families of those thousands whom I’ve murdered; Three, I want to make my trial a magnet for my brother jihadists throughout the world.

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