Defending the Constitution Is Not a Judicial Monopoly

The Judiciary does not have a monopoly on defending the Constitution. Every federal official, including Congressmen, Senators, federal officials and members of the military, takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I did twice, once when I joined ROTC as a cadet and again when I was sworn in as a US Air Force 2nd Lieutenant. So if the president is violating his oath of office by issuing "executive actions" contrary to Constitutional processes, Congressmen and Senators have a duty to stop it any way they can in order to fulfill their oath. Congressional Republicans gave it a good old college try, then gave up and funded DHS including two unconstitutional executive programs. In effect, Republicans punted to the courts. 

The Democrats put party over country and violated their oaths of office in order to support their president's rule by decree. If this precedent is allowed to stand, the Constitution is a dead letter. We will have replaced it with an elective dictatorship, at least until the incumbent dictator decides election are no longer needed.  That’s a very high stakes bet on what Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts had for lunch.

So how did we get here?  "What we've got here is a failure to communicate!" The problem is that Republicans fought this as if the issue was amnesty when the issue really should have been defending the Constitution. It was worse that the Republicans did not vigorously complain about all the previous decrees issued by His Highness Barry the Brilliant, such as postponing the Employer Mandate Tax under Obamacare. We didn't complain about the executive action implementation of the Dream Act by decree as an unconstitutional act either. Instead of having a unified message that the Chicago Machine Prodigy had no respect for the Constitution, we had a fragmented message that was spread over multiple issues with no unified theme. Given that the Pravda Press is the Public Relations arm of the DNC, this was fatal to our cause. We were maneuvered into a position where the vast majority of voters thinks we want to shut down DHS because we don't like immigrants. Even conservative pundits barely mention that the Constitutional Lecturer in Chief has a pattern of taking numerous executive actions contrary to law. Boehner was forced to surrender, because all the alternatives were worse. He did push it all the way and made the Democrats vote not to compromise.

What we should learn from this is that we need a unified message that this administration from top to bottom has no respect for the Constitution and no respect for the law. Every spokesman should tie every issue to this theme. The next time we try to stop His Majesty from issuing another decree, we need to have laid the ground work so that even the lowest information voter gets it. For starters, every Republican spokesman should be referring to the SNL skit about how bills become law. They get it, even if Republican office holders and spokesmen don’t.

SNL skit on executive action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Global Warming Alarm Is A Late Night TV Ad for Steak Knives

Science the way I learned it was a painstaking process of alternately theorizing and testing with experiments. Anthropomorphic global warming is a late night TV ad for steak knives. Act now or the planet will be irretrievably destroyed. Also, we'll double your order. That's high pressure sales tactics in the service of a wild political program. Pinky and the Brain say that if you let them take over the world, they can save you. Since they are speaking from their laboratory, you should believe what they say is scientific. You're not supposed to notice that they try to take over the world every night.

Pravda Press: Congress Must Fund Unconstitutional Program

The Pravda Press is concentrating on the horror of the Department of Homeland Security not being funded.  Secondarily they are arguing that the president’s immigration program is a good program.  This is not just some fight over funding Homeland Security or immigration policy. This is a fight over whether we have the rule of law under the Constitution or an elected dictatorship with no checks and balances. No matter whether you like the outcome or not, allowing any president to rule by decree undermines the rule of law. The president justifies his executive actions on immigration by saying Congress failed to act. What this means is that, by his own admission, Obama is circumventing the law. Saying other presidents issued executive orders is a red herring. When Bush issued signing statements, E. J. Dionne went ballistic with complaints. President Obama has gone beyond signing statements with his executive actions on immigration. He has changed the law unilaterally, adding provisions for work permits and green cards for people who do not qualify under the law for either. If the president can decree anything he likes with no checks or balances, then the Constitution is a dead letter. Congress and the Judiciary are no longer required. We have an elected dictator with no checks and balances. Liberals must believe their own propaganda that Hillary is inevitable, because any Republican with that kind of power ought to scare the crap out of them. Imagine Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or Bobby Jindal being able to issue decrees that change the law. What scares me is the death of limited government by law is happening right now, with nobody taking any notice of what's being lost.

Even SNL Gets It:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDSeb2zHQ0

E. J. Dionne Doesn’t Get It

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/02/19/the_gops_freudian_moment_125655.html

Control Gerrymandering with the Mathematical Meaning of Compact

Compact and contiguous are both terms with mathematical definitions. Compact means that a line drawn between any two points in the district does not leave the district. Contiguous means connecting without a break, in other words no islands. If these definitions were enforced by the courts, gerrymandering would be a lot harder to do. My Congressional district was drawn to look like a Thompson submachine gun. It was not compact by mathematical definition, but was legal by current case law. I believe clarifying the meaning of compact to be the mathematical definition is the easiest and most practical way to control gerrymandering. 
 
Exceptions could be made for coastlines and physical, as opposed to political, islands. Obviously, state borders are OK as district boundaries no matter how convoluted they are. However, rivers that are internal to a state open up gerrymandering possibilities. Defining a river allows all sorts of abuse. As an example, the navigable waters of the US became any mud puddle in your back yard after the EPA got through interpreting the law.  
 
Perhaps exceptions could be based on the existing road network instead. If two places are physically close, but you have to drive 100 miles in a roundabout fashion to travel from one to the other, then they shouldn't have to be in the same district. For example, the Grand Canyon should be OK as a district border. At this point it gets tricky, but maybe the law should say that contiguous points excluded from a district must be further away by road than any points included in the district.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/two-reading-lessons-from-the-supreme-court/2015/02/27/abcae45e-bde3-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html