Michael Connelly
Welcome to my website and Blog. I am a U.S. Army veteran, a retired attorney, and am now a published author, freelance writer, and teacher. I am the author of three books, "Riders in the Sky: The Ghosts and Legends of Philmont Scout Ranch", "The Mortarmen", a story about my father's unit in WW II; and the just released novel, "Amayehli: A Story of America" You can read more about these books by going to the pages on each book on this website.
I also teach law courses via the Internet through colleges and universities worldwide. To find a college or university near you, go to Education To Go's website at www.ed2go.com. The courses I teach and the links to the courses' webpage where you can find out more about them are:
Constitutional Law: http://www.ed2go.com/courses/cl1
Winning Strategy For The Courtroom: http://www.ed2go.com/courses/wsc
Business Law For The Small Business Owner: http://www.ed2go.com/courses/law
Evidence Law: http://www.ed2go.com/courses/evl
You may also want to check out my new radio talk show that airs every Wednesday at 4:00 Eastern. Here is the website containing the link: http://www.radiosandysprings.com/showpages/OurConstitution.php
I am also doing regular interviews with US Tea Party Radio. Here is a link to the one I did during Obama's recent "Health Care Summit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRaHPOlFEDs
The Blog you see below is designed to deal with the challenges to our Constitutional rights that are being made almost daily. I will try to post articles frequently and your comments are welcome.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION
What many Americans have feared for years may be about to come to pass. We have an out of control Congress and an arrogant, elitist President who believes it his destiny to transform the United States from a republic to a socialist system of government where individual freedoms are severely restricted. Congress is preparing to give the President and his Executive Branch of government what amounts to dictatorial powers over one-sixth of our economy and the private health care decisions of everyone who lives in the United States.
Congress is not only going to pass legislation that will severely damage the balance of power established in the Constitution by our founding fathers, but it is going to go about in a manner that violates Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution. Among other things, that article provides for each law passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate to be then sent to the President for his signature. The key word here is “passed”. It appears that there are not enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the health care bill so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will continue to show her disdain for both the American people and the Constitution by ignoring Article 1, Section 7 of one of our most sacred documents and send the bill to the President for his signature without an actual vote on it in the House.
Instead she will use something being referred to as the “Slaughter Solution” named after Louise Slaughter, a member of the House from upstate New York who proposed that the idea be used to avoid a formal vote. This is also referred to as the “self executing” or “deeming” rule. The members of Congress will be allowed to vote to change the rules and authorize Pelosi to deem the Senate version of the Bill passed and send it to Obama to be signed into law. The fact that this ploy has been used in the past with other much less important legislation does not make it Constitutional. This action also allows the members of Congress to avoid another “troublesome” provision of our Constitution, Article 1, Section 5, that allows one fifth of the members of the House present to demand that the vote on any piece of legislation be recorded so the American people can know how their elected representatives voted.
The theory is that members of the House who live in districts where the majority of people oppose the health care legislation can go back to their districts and say that they did not vote for the bill. Instead, they will have just voted for a rule change. Of course, this ruse also makes the elitist assumption that “we the people” are too dumb to know that a vote to change the rules to allow the health care bill to go forward is the same as a direct vote for the legislation. By the way, if you want to read the new version of this legislation, forget it. Even though the vote to send it to Obama is scheduled to take place in just a few days, the text of the bill has not yet been made available to members of Congress or the American people.
The magnitude of this is almost incomprehensible. Nancy Pelosi and the leadership in the House of Representatives are telling us four things.
First and foremost, we are being told that members of Congress will no longer abide by the Constitution of the United States and are thereby violating their oath of office.
Second, members of Congress will no longer be representing the will of the American people who elected them but instead are representing the will of President Obama and his vision of a socialist America.
Third, members of Congress are done with allowing the American people to even participate in the process. Everything will be done in secret and your right to know what is being done to you will be ignored.
Last, but not least, members of Congress have concluded that we are not bright enough to know what is happening anyway so they think we will reelect them and be grateful for all they have done for us.
I just have this to say to President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the other current “leaders” of our country. Over 230 years ago an English King and Parliament made similar assumptions about a group of people who called themselves Americans. Those assumptions were wrong and things did not end well for those who underestimated the passion of Americans to be a free people. If you continue on this course it will not end well for you either. To this I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor, as did my forefathers before me.
It is not too late to stop this abomination. Contact members of Congress now and tell them that you are not fooled and consider a vote for the Slaughter Solution to be a vote for the unconstitutional health care bill. You should further inform them that you consider such a vote to be a violation of their oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States and you will hold them accountable on Election Day.
For my part, I talked to Gary Kreep at the U.S. Justice Foundation today and we are already preparing the lawsuit that will challenge the Constitutionality of the passage of the health care bill under the “Slaughter Solution” and on other Constitutional grounds. If you want to contribute to this effort you can go to the U.S. Justice Foundation Website at: www.usjf.net. The fight to defend our freedom is not over, it is just beginning.
OBAMACARE 5.0
After much anticipation, at least by the so-called mainstream media, the White House has released the new and improved version of Obamacare. Since I have already had to read two previous versions of these monstrosities in the House and two more in the Senate, I call this version Obamacare 5.0 and it is actually an easy read. It is not hundreds or thousands of pages long and it doesn’t take long for people to realize that it really changes very little.
It must be remembered that this is not a Congressional Bill, but simply the President’s proposal to make the bill more palatable to the American public and even some members of Congress who have grown increasingly more concerned about the implications that these proposals have for freedom in this country. In that regard the proposal fails miserably. Despite the use of smoke and mirrors to hide what is really going on with the proposal and the spin that is put on it by the Whitehouse to make it sound like Obama is the smartest man in the world and has found a solution to the problems that couldn’t be resolved by the 535 members of the House and Senate the White House proposal is basically Senate Bill 3590 with a new hairstyle and thicker makeup. This is all an attempt to hide the fact that the bill is still blatantly unconstitutional.
The proposal leaves intact the mandatory provisions of the Senate bill that require every resident of the United States to buy health insurance and to further only buy that insurance approved by the Federal government. Sections 1301-1302 of the Bill set forth the requirements that each approved plan shall have, leaving consumers with no choices about what is best for their needs. Sec 1501 requires that everyone have insurance and provides stiff penalties for failure to comply. In fact, under the President’s proposal the penalties get higher and progress eventually to 2.5% of a person’s income. All of this exceeds the authority granted to Congress in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution and violates the 9th and 10th amendments that protect the rights of people and the states.
The Obama proposal also leaves intact the provisions under Section 3403 that establish an “Independent Medicare Advisory Board” that will oversee the severe cuts in Medicare and the services provided to seniors. In other words, the Executive Branch of government will ration healthcare for the elderly while at the same time controlling how much everyone else pays for health insurance and what treatments they can be provided with.
Obamacare 5.0 doesn’t eliminate any of the massive tax increases already in the Senate Bill. It plays games by delaying some of them for a short time or changing the name of the fee or tax. For example, the proposal calls for changing the fee to be charged on all medical devices to an excise tax that will raise the same amount for money. The stated purpose for that is to make it easier for the IRS to handle. (Doesn’t that make you feel better about this legislation?).
By the way, one of the new taxes established in the Senate Bill and left in under the Obama proposal is the “Indoor Tanning Service” tax. This is provided for in Sec. 10907 that amends the Internal Revenue Code to set up a 10% tax on the use by consumers of indoor tanning services. I can only conclude that this came about because of the frustration in Congress over the fact that they have not yet been able to find a way to tax the American people for enjoying the sunshine. Therefore they have gone to the next best thing, taxing tanning booths. I would love to hear someone try to explain what that has to do with health care reform.
The Obama proposal delays the implementation of taxes on the so-called “Cadillac” health care plans in order to appease the labor unions but still will ultimately result in massive taxes on people who have good health care plans and place additional taxes on businesses that don’t provide government approved health care plans to their employees, even if both the business owners and employees are satisfied with what they have in place.
The plan also calls for increases in fees on brand named pharmaceuticals. It sets this increase to be administered by the IRS. Who will ultimately pay for these increases? The American taxpayers of course, and frankly I am losing count of all of the new taxes being imposed on our citizens under the health care proposals.
In addition, while the Senate and House versions of the bill add layer upon layer of new Federal bureaucracies to control our access to health care, this is apparently not enough for President Obama. He would add still another new bureaucratic agency called the Health Insurance Rate Authority to “provide Federal assistance and oversight to States in conducting reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.” The definition of oversight is obvious; it means Federal control of State regulations of insurance companies and is a clear violation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
So, what is the bottom line of Obamacare 5.0? It places control of our personal health care decisions in the hands of unnamed Federal Bureaucrats who care nothing about us or our individual needs. It provides instant access for these same bureaucrats to see or medical and financial information, it massively increases our taxes and ultimately our insurance premiums, and it reduces our access to the health care that we need. It takes away our choices and our personal freedoms and it increases the Federal deficit that will eventually land on the backs of our children and grandchildren.
I believe that the Obama proposal is in fact a ruse. It is designed to lure us into believing that the health care bill is actually about affordable health care when it is really about taking control of our lives and limiting our freedoms. It is a cover for the fact that the Senate will try to pass this bill as a “budget reconciliation act” that will only require a simple majority in the Senate instead of the usual 60 votes. We must act now to let our representatives in the House and Senate know that we are not buying into these deceptions and that they will pay a price in November at the polls if this is forced on us.
If it passes, this legislation will be challenged in the courts. I am currently working with the U.S. Justice Foundation that is preparing to file a lawsuit to challenge the Constitutionality of the legislation if it is adopted. We will not go down without putting up one heck of a fight for our freedom as Americans.
A POLITICALLY CORRECT CONSTITUTION?
As we wait for the Obama Administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress to make their next moves to force unconstitutional legislation like “Health Care Reform” and “Cap and Trade” down the throats of Americans there are other battles dealing with our Constitutional liberties that need to be addressed. Many of these assaults on our Constitution, our traditions, and even our history are occurring at the local and state levels and in our educational institutions.
It is most often being done under the guise of “political correctness” a movement that has rapidly evolved from trying to encourage individuals to be more polite to each other and more sensitive to the use of language that might offend someone to an attempt by the far left to control the speech, thoughts, and actions of the American people. These blatant attempts to turn us into unthinking drones who only parrot the ideas that are deemed correct by the PC movement are aimed almost entirely at those who support the American way of life and the freedoms that most of us cherish. The effort has proven to be far reaching with PC edicts being enforced not only on public property but in private areas such as business offices and even homes.
Some of the more recent examples include:
A pastor and his wife in San Diego County, California were ordered by the county to stop inviting friends to their home to have dinner and engage in Bible study unless they pay thousands of dollars to the government for a permit to hold a “religious assembly”. It should be noted that the school district in this same county has set aside special times during the school day for Muslim students to engage in prayer on school property. No students of any other religions are granted the same privileges.
In May of 2009 a woman who worked in a hospital in Mansfield, Texas proudly put up an American flag in her office prior to Memorial Day in order to honor the service of her husband and two sons who had served in the U.S. military and her daughter that was currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic. However, the flag did not stay up long because when she came into work one morning she found that the flag had been removed, wrapped around its pole, and unceremoniously tossed onto the floor in a corner.
The lady in question, Debbie McLucas, learned that the flag had been declared offensive by another woman who worked in the office, an immigrant from Africa, and therefore the hospital had ordered it removed. When the media picked up on the story the hospital responded to the public outcry by letting Mrs. McLucas put the flag back up.
During that same week a disabled Marine and a veteran of the Vietnam War was ordered by the President of the Homeowners Association where he lived to remove bumper stickers form his car that supported the Marine Corps. They were deemed to be “unacceptable advertising” and he was told that if they were not removed his car would be towed and he would be fined for any further displays.
There are many more examples of this type of action around the country yet they almost pale in comparison to what is happening in our institutions of public education from elementary schools to universities. The so called “progressives” have taken almost complete control of many of our schools and are enforcing their version of political correctness on students and teachers and even trying to rewrite textbooks to alter American history to make it more politically correct.
One of the most extreme examples involves a battle in the State of Texas where the 15 member Texas State Board of Education is currently considering changes to the American history textbooks used in the public schools. These same textbooks will be used not just in Texas, but in school districts throughout the United States. Radical left wing organizations such as the Texas Freedom Network, which is the state affiliate of the People for the American Way, and other similar groups, are demanding that all mention of American heroes like Nathan Hale, Daniel Boone, and General George Patton be removed from the history books.
They are also insisting that any references to Columbus Day, Independence Day, and Christmas be removed. Other actions include replacing the term American with “global citizen” and replacing the reference to “expansionism and free enterprise” with “imperialism and capitalism’. In fact, many of the changes are designed to portray the United States as an evil force in the world. However, as outrageous as this is, the demands go even further. The progressives actually want to rewrite some of our most revered documents to make them politically correct. For example, has been proposed that the wording of the Declaration of Independence be altered.
According to Mat Staver, founder of the Liberty Council, one of the most important portions of the Declaration will be eliminated in these textbooks. The section that states: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” will be changed by removing everything in that sentence following the phrase “that all men or created equal”. In other words, American school children are to be prohibited from reading any reference to our “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence. As I write this article, the vote by the board is considered too close to call.
Of course, these efforts to serve up political propaganda to our students in the public schools is exactly in line with what has been happening for years in many of our institutions of higher education. Many universities have managed to eliminate most professors who do not adhere entirely to progressive ideas being promoted on the campuses. There are a growing number of cases where universities are attempting to force groups of Christian or politically conservative students off of the campus entirely.
In addition, left wing professors are openly attacking students in the classrooms who profess beliefs contrary to the beliefs espoused by these so called educators. Students are either being forced to go along with the left wing ideology they are being fed or risk receiving failing grades and in some cases denied their hard earned diplomas. Nowhere is this more evident than in a recent action being considered by the administration at the University of Minnesota.
The university has formed a “Race, Culture, Class, and Gender” Task Force that has proposed that any student applying to get an education degree from the university will be screened to make sure they comply with the political and ideological views of the Task Force that are of course far to the left of the mainstream of America. If it is found that students do not conform to these “politically correct” beliefs they will either be denied admission or forced to attend “remedial” education courses to correct their beliefs. If they still refuse to conform they will be denied a diploma. In other words, freedom of speech, thought, and action protected under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution will be officially eliminated at this taxpayer funded institution. If this takes hold I suppose we can all look forward to the “reeducation camps” that have always been a way that communist countries dealt with those who disagreed with the established order.
It is time for Americans to stand up and proclaim that we are not willing to let our Constitution die for the sake of political correctness or any other catch phrase that will deny us the liberties that the members of our military have fought and died to defend for so many years. Our fight for the preservation of our heritage of freedom does not begin or end in the halls of Congress or the confines of Washington D.C. It must be fought in the State Legislatures, in the City Councils, and even in the local school boards. It is a fight we can’t afford to lose. It must be fought for our sake and those of our children.
The Fight is Just Beginning
The battle has been joined and it has started again in its original point of origin, the great State of Massachusetts. Another shot has been fired that has been heard around the World, but this time it was not a musket shot at Lexington, Massachusetts, but it came from the ballot boxes in the same state. Americans rose up and said we will not surrender our basic human rights to a government that will not listen to us and wants to subjugate us to tyranny.
The election of Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate was a clear signal that Americans do not want the Federal Government to control our access to health care, do not want to be taxed to pay for a socialist form of government that punishes us for our hard work and our spirit of free enterprise, and does not want to provide the protections of our Constitution to the terrorists who would kill us and destroy our way of life. Yet, it appears that the message has not yet been heard by many of those in Washington D.C.
While the so called progressives are stunned and in disarray after they received the message from the American people they plan to continue to ignore it. They have signaled that while the current clearly unconstitutional health care bills are on the back burner, the original plan remains the same and they will try again to implement in the future. In the meantime, the hysterical reaction in the halls of Congress and among the left wing “mainstream media” should show us that the attacks on our Constitutional rights will not only continue, but be more intense than ever.
This attitude was reinforced in the State of the Union Address by the President when he went forward with his push for the unconstitutional health care bill and also for the unconstitutional Cap and Trade bill that will impose massive regulations and new taxes on American businesses and ultimately the American people, and further limit our ability to produce energy independently. The bottom line is that Obama refused to back off of his socialist agenda and in order to implement it he is willing to violate the Constitution. In order to do this and defy the outcry of the American people he will need to resort to extraordinary measures.
The first target will be our rights under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment provides us with freedom of speech and freedom of the press and this has obviously become a major irritant to the left wingers in our country. Despite the fact that the major television networks and newspapers stopped reporting the news and became propaganda organs for the Obama administration, Americans continued to receive the truth though the radio talk shows of conservatives, though networks like Fox News, and through the efforts of independent sources on the Internet. Obama’s criticism of the media in his speech was clearly not aimed at his allies, but at the conservatives on talk radio and the news organizations like Fox that refuse to follow the party line. The left wingers are now making a concerted effort to shut off these sources.
It has begun through the efforts of Mark Lloyd, the so called “Diversity Czar” appointed by Obama who views discussions of the freedom of speech and freedom of the press provided in the first amendment as “distractions”. He has also made it clear that he thinks the approach of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is the one to take. Chavez has shut down numerous radio and television stations that disagree with his dictatorial policies and also jailed journalists. He has continuously stifled free speech. Of course, we can’t forget the bill pending in the U.S. Senate that would give the Federal government control over the Internet and allow Obama to take complete control over the Internet in any crisis that he declares exists.
Then we have Cass Sunstein, Obama’s “Regulatory Czar” who has openly advocated the bringing of both socialism and ultimately communism to America and has shown his total distain for the Constitution by stating that it is Obama, and not the Supreme Court, that should ultimately interpret laws as to their Constitutionality. The President’s personal views on this were certainly confirmed by his unprecedented open criticism of the Supreme Court justices sitting in front of him during his State of the Union address. He chastised them publicly for upholding the 1st Amendment right of businesses to participate in the electoral process by contributing to candidates.
During the same speech Obama proclaims that he will ignore the will of the people through their elected representatives and appoint a Budget Commission that the Senate refused to vote for. He will do this by Executive order. This is another dangerous precedent that violates the Constitution and it follows his most recent Executive orders giving protections to Interpol, the International Investigative Police agency, that are not allowed to our domestic police agencies. Then there is the strange order allowing him to appoint a Commission to oversee the use of state National Guards and the military in the U.S.
This latter action is particularly troubling since it seems to violate both the Constitution and other federal laws that have always given the Governors of each state the right to control the deployment and use of the National Guard units in their states. It further seems to allow Obama to deploy federal troops at his will to suppress what he considers domestic unrest. Does this mean he is planning to stifle protests to his administration? Who knows? We can’t tell from his speech, but as one who believes in the Constitutional rights of all Americans, I am very concerned by both the rhetoric and the actions.
When you add in the bills pending in Congress attempting to limit the right of Americans to keep and bear arms provided by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution and the support of this administration of the United Nations Small Arms treaty that would also attempt to limit these rights then we have even more reason to be concerned. I believe the fight is just beginning.
Going On The Offensive
There is still time to make one final push to defeat the healthcare legislation in the House and Senate before a final bill is passed and signed by the President. Here are some key points everyone should make when contacting their representatives:
1. There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that authorizes Congress or any other branch of the Federal government to force anyone living in the United States to buy anything by virtue of their citizenship or residence. There are no U.S. Supreme Court decisions that allow this under either the “Commerce Clause” or the “General Welfare Clause” of the Constitution. Yet that is exactly what both the House and Senate versions of the Bills contain, a mandate requiring everyone to buy health insurance.
2. The requirement to have automobile insurance is not the same thing. First, it is a requirement imposed by the individual states, not the federal government, and you can’t be forced to have it if you don’t own a car or you choose not to drive.
3. Thus the passage of any health care bill containing such a provision is a violation of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and the 9th Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
4. The regulation of the health care industry and the health insurance industry has always been left in the hands of the individual state legislatures. To now transfer all of this power to the hands of federal bureaucrats is a clear violation of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
5. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill provide for massive tax increases for most Americans. However, the Senate version also imposes a “tax penalty” on anyone who fails to purchase the health care insurance the Federal bureaucracy deems that person or family needs. This is not in fact, a tax, but a “fine” and failure to pay it can lead to imprisonment. This is therefore an attempt to bypass the provisions of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution and take away property and liberty without “due process of law”.
6. By the very nature of this legislation there will have to be rationing of health care. The Senate Bill lays the ground work for this on page 1,000 in section 3403 by establishing an “independent” Medicare advisory board to make decisions about everything from Medicare payments to what type of medical devices can be paid for. The bill calls for specific reductions in Medicare benefits and prohibits seniors from using their own money to get the health care they desire. This is another massive violation of the due process clause and is aimed at older Americans.
7. What makes this and other portions of the bill even worse are the provisions though out the legislation to limit the right of Americans to seek administrative or court review of the decisions made under the law. There are also new rules established to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible for a future Congress to repeal sections of the law or even modify them. This includes the rationing provisions which ultimately allow federal bureaucrats to make life and death decisions for people. The Congress is again ignoring the 5th Amendment.
8. When you further consider the fact that a large number of people will be allowed access to the personal financial and medical information of individual Americans who are enforced to enroll in the health care plans you are also inevitably looking at violations of the right to privacy and the prohibitions against illegal searches contained in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.
9. Last, members of the Senate should be asked to point out the specific language in the bill that prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions, protects the right of conscience of those members of the medical community that don’t want to participate in abortions, and finally provides any enforcement mechanism to keep illegal aliens from participating in the programs set up in the bill. They won’t be able to cite any of these provisions because they don’t exist.
This is not just a bad law; it is a direct assault on the Constitution of the United States and the rights of individual Americans. If it passes my next blog on this subject will detail the legal and political steps that we can take to stop the implementation of this power grab. Hopefully, I won’t have to write that article.
A Christmas Story: 1944
The frigid night air cut through the Lieutenant’s army issue coat as the stopped in the knee deep snow to survey the perimeter. A heavy snow continued to fall on this Christmas Eve 1944, but it was not a silent night. The flashes of artillery lit the sky and generated a rumble like distant thunder as the young officer finished his tour of the unit’s outposts. He was an officer in Company B, 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion, the men who fired the big 4.2 mortars which were so critical to the effort of the infantry to advance. They were someplace in Belgium, he really had no clue where, and for the first time in a while the battalion was together again. All four companies had been brought in to help stop the German breakthrough. They didn’t know it, but the 87th was about to be thrown right into the heart of the Battle of the Bulge.
As the Lieutenant finished his rounds he wearily dragged himself into the monastery where the command had taken refuge for the night. The warmth that enveloped him as he entered the large community room was certainly welcomed. He glanced around and saw his comrades sprawled in every available space. They were bedraggled and exhausted after 201 days of almost continuous combat, and by the looks on their faces you could tell that it was only going to get worse. Despite the thickness of the monastery walls, a new sound intruded, the quick crack of tank gunfire.
Everyone knew what that meant, American tankers were making a last ditch stand against the German armored column in the area. They were outnumbered and outgunned and their Sherman tanks stood no chance against the awesome German Tiger tanks, but they fought anyway. When the battle ended, and it would before dawn, then the 87th became part of the last American line of defense. The war hung in the balance, and so did the lives of everyone in the ancient house of God.
The Lieutenant found a place to sit against one wall and sank down in exhaustion, gratefully accepting the wine, bread and cheese being offered by the monks. In the corner of the room, a soldier fiddled with the dial of a radio, finally picking up the armed forces station. Christmas carols filled the room, but only added to the loneliness. Then as, the sound of the tank battle increased in intensity, a new song started on the radio, Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas."
For the Lieutenant the song immediately invoked memories of the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas on the farm in Mason City, Iowa and of how far away he was from those he loved. He could not help himself, the tears began to flow and embarrassed, he glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed. His eyes fell first on the Company Commander, Captain J.J. Marshall, one of the toughest men the Lieutenant had ever known. The Captain sat ramrod straight, unashamed, as tears streamed down his stubbly cheeks. It was universal that night, strong men, the bravest of the brave, cried over a Christmas carol, and over the homes many would never see again.
As dawn broke the next morning, Christmas Day, the battalion was again split up with Company B assigned to take up mortar positions in support of what was left of the 289th infantry, 75th Division, and defend a Belgium village called Sadzot, a key location in the thin American defense line. For three days they fired their mortars in support of the hastily assembled defense units, and then disaster struck. Early in the predawn hours of Dec. 28th enemy elements of the 12 SS Panzer Division, the infamous Hitler Jugend, broke through the infantry lines and overran the mortar position.
They hastily assembled all of the men they could, and the mortarmen fought a delaying action, fighting hand to hand and house to house against overwhelming numbers. As the fighting retreat continued, they men of company B were joined by remaining elements of the 509th Parachute Battalion which had formed a new defensive position north of the village. There they held until reinforced and then joined a counterattack which retook the village, and recaptured six of their nine mortars and most of their vehicles.
It was later learned that this makeshift force of Americans had successfully stopped a major attack by German troops designed to capture a major highway intersection which would have broken the American line. No one has ever been able to tell me how they won. History recorded it as a classic situation where the attacking enemy held all of the advantages, yet was stopped by the cold determination of a hand full of defenders on the verge of physical and mental collapse. Somehow, they emerged victorious, with Company B reporting almost half of its men killed, wounded or missing.
For his actions during the defense of Sadzot the Lieutenant and the other men of the company received both the French and Belgium Croix de Guerre medals. I know the story of that lonely Christmas Eve and the ensuing days from my Father’s diary. He was the young Lieutenant, Roy E. Connelly, Co. B. 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion. He would read that story to us on Christmas Eve every year until his death in 1987, and then I took over the job with my children.
He never read it without crying over the friends he lost during that Christmas season of 1944, and to this day, I can not read it or even write about it without the same reaction. What was done during that six day period by the men of Co. B and the other companies of the 87th, who also held the line, surpasses the ability of most of us to comprehend. They fought for each other, and they fought for us. We must never forget.
FOR MY DAD, AND THE MEN OF THE 87TH
Michael Connelly: Author of “The Mortarmen”
THE OBAMACARE JUGGERNAUT CONTINUES
As the Congress continues to rewrite and introduce new versions of so called health care reform legislation in both houses of Congress the citizens of the United States are treated to longer and longer bills that are more and more confusing. The House has passed its version and now the Senate has voted to bring its version to the floor for debate. That tells us what we need to know about the so-called moderate Democrats in the Senate. If the people in Louisiana and other states don’t rise up against Mary Landrieu and the other Senators who are selling out their constituents then this will truly be just the beginning. They will continue to violate their oaths of office and vote for every bill Obama and Harry Reid tell them to vote for, regardless of the Constitutional implications.
As for the health care bills themselves, the bottom line remains the same. These bills are not really about health care at all. They are an all out assault on the Constitution of the United States and are designed to transfer power to the Executive Branch of government that will impact and in some cases virtually destroy the Constitutional rights of Americans to make their own choices when it comes to health care and even to protect their own privacy.
In previous articles I have dealt with some of these concerns and now I will summarize them for you so you can decide for yourselves if this is really the direction you want our country to take. This is what both the House and Senate versions of the bill will do:
First and foremost, both bills will allow federal bureaucrats to decide what health care you can receive. This will be true whether you keep your private health care insurance or go with the “public options”. Both bills are also carefully crafted to eliminate private insurance over a period of time and force everyone into federally mandated and controlled health care. In either case, you and your doctor will no longer be able to make your health care decisions in private. There will always be a committee of Presidential appointees ultimately making your health care decisions for you. This is clearly rationing of health care.
Decisions will be made on the basis of “cost effectiveness". If your doctor or a hospital decides you need treatment the government can reverse that decision and deny you the treatments. The Senate bill allegedly allows States to opt out of the Health Care Exchange that offers the public option but the costs to the citizens of the states that do would be such that states will not be able to make that choice.
Senior citizens will receive the initial and most devastating impact. The fact that seniors have been paying taxes for years to provide Medicare coverage when they retire is ignored. Massive cuts in Medicare will take place including the elimination of such programs as Medicare Advantage that many of seniors have to have in order to make ends meet. This is a direct strike against the contractual obligations that the Federal government has with citizens of the United States.
Both bills also contain massive tax increases on the citizens of our country. Employers will be taxed on private coverage they provide for employees that will force them to either drop the coverage or pass the costs on to their employees. Good private insurance plans will be taxed as “so-called Cadillac plans”. These taxes will be passed on to individuals and that means that many families will find that their premiums will actually be much higher under the legislation. There are two reasons for this; the first is to force more people into the public option and the second is to pay for the government plans for the uninsured, including illegal aliens.
The fact is that while the bills claim to contain provisions denying coverage to illegals these are false. There are no enforcement provisions in place for these provisions and all amendments introduced in both houses of Congress to specifically prohibit coverage for illegals have been defeated in committees.
In addition, if you want to keep your private coverage, it must be approved by the Federal government. If it is not, or if any changes are made to your coverage, or if you decide to change employment you will be forced to accept the public option. If you refuse to do so you will be taxed by the government. This is not really a tax, it is a fine, but it is called a tax so that you can be denied the provisions of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment under the Constitution. In other words, you will not be able to appeal the penalty and by the way, all of this will be under the control of the Internal Revenue Service. If you refuse to get insurance and fail to pay the “taxes” for this refusal, you can be put in federal prison.
In order to make sure that you and your doctor are under complete control of the government you will have a health care card with a bar code that will allow federal bureaucrats instant access to all of your medical information and your financial information, including your bank accounts. Forget about privacy and your rights to be free of illegal searches under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. These will be eliminated under these new laws.
Does the Congress of the United States have the power to do this under the provisions of our Constitution? The answer is absolutely not. Does the Congress or the Obama administration seem to care? The answer is a no, they don’t, despite the fact that the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution clearly limit the powers of the Federal Government and protect the rights of the people and their elected state governments to make such decisions.
If this legislation passes it will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court of the United States to decide if it is Constitutional. However, even the Court’s decision will not be final. The final decision of whether or not Americans will give up their sacred rights under the Constitution will rest with us. Will we enforce our right to live under a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” or will we surrender to tyranny. The choice is up to us. I know which choice I will make.
Michael Connelly
TO THOSE WHO DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION
As another Veteran’s Day approaches I am taking a break from writing about the challenges to our Constitution to offer a personal “Thank You” to those men and women who have defended our Constitution and continue to do so. I have the distinct honor to be a member of a family that has had someone serving in every war that our nation has fought from the Revolution until today. I am a veteran, as was my father who served in WW II, and all four of my sons are either veterans or are currently serving.
I also have the honor of commanding an American Legion Post in Carrollton, Texas where there are men and women who are veterans of WW II and every war since then. The members of the Post come from many different backgrounds yet they share a bond that few others understand and some even scorn. They are American warriors who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America and they did so despite all of the obstacles many of them faced both at home and abroad. They have asked for little in return and have often gotten even less. However, they are entitled to respect, if nothing else.
When I wore the U.S. Army uniform I was spit on and cursed by those who were exercising the very freedoms that I was sworn to defend. I demand more for my sons and all those who have served and are now laying their lives on the line every day. I demand it not only from the American people, but from those politicians who use the lives of our servicemen and women as political pawns to serve their own ambitions. You may “talk the talk” of service to America but the members of our armed services “walk the walk” and they prove it by offering their blood as a sacrifice for their country.
During the last several months I have had the honor and privilege of attending an American Indian Powwow in Bandera, Texas and a performance by tribe members during Santa Fe Days in Carrollton, Texas. On both occasions I was invited to participate in the “Veteran’s Dance” conducted by the Tribe members. This is open to all American military veterans, regardless of their race or background. As the drums play the honor songs and we dance in the sacred circles of the gatherings I can’t help but be humbled by being considered one of the warriors who has served our nation.
As I write this my oldest son is preparing to leave for a 12 to 18 month deployment in Afghanistan. He has already served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. My youngest son, who has served over two years of active duty as an MP, is preparing to receive training to fly Blackhawk helicopters for the Army.
Yet, while we continue to send our bravest and finest to fight and die in foreign lands to protect our freedom we are also seeing them die on our own soil. It is time that we recognize that our brave warriors who died at Fort Hood were killed by one of the same people who has pledged to destroy our way of life. The time for political correctness has ended, we either unite and fight, or we surrender. I have no intention of surrendering. God Bless our men and women in uniform, God Bless our veterans, and God Bless America.
THE PELOSI VERSION OF HR 3200
When I first read HR 3200 in its entirety several months ago I was appalled at the blatant disregard in the bill of the basic tenets of our Constitutional form of government. However, I underestimated what is actually being done to us. The newest version of HR 3200 that has been labeled the Pelosi Bill is the original bill on steroids. It is the most “in your face” challenge to the American people as a whole that has ever occurred. While Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama continue to reassure the American people about what the bill will do, the proof is there in black and white.
We are about to lose our Republic because this latest version of HR 3200 takes away our freedom to make our own choices in areas such as what type of insurance we want to have, (if any), how much we are willing and able to pay for insurance, which doctors we choose to take care of us, and what type of treatment we can choose based on our doctor’s recommendations. All of these decisions will now be made by federal bureaucrats in Washington who don’t know us and don’t care about us as individuals.
These decisions will be made by the Secretary of Health and Human Services based on the recommendations of an advisory panel chaired by the Surgeon General, who is appointed by the President, and made up of nine members who are not Federal employees or officers that are also appointed by the President. There are nine more members who are not Federal employees or officers who are appointed by the Comptroller General of the United States and there will also be up to eight more members who are Federal employees or officers and are appointed by Obama. How’s that for a stacked deck? That’s like having a task force in the Justice Department dedicated to fighting organized crime made up of a majority of members of the Russian Mafia.
By the way, if you are wondering how many medical professionals are required to be members of this advisory panel that will decide on the type of healthcare you can get, the answer is none. The previous version of the bill required at least one, but apparently it was decided by Pelosi et.al. that this was one too many. Section 223 of the Bill on page 111 lays it all out if you care to read it.
In addition, everything I mentioned in my first article on HR 3200 is still there although additional attempts have been made to hide them. For example, there will be rationing of health care, programs for seniors will be drastically cut, and there will be programs available for illegal aliens since all they have to show is that they are “residents” of the United States. There will also be instant access available to your medical and financial records under the provisions of Section 1173A on page 76.
There are also numerous new taxes being imposed to pay for all of this and of course there are the fines that are imposed on people who don’t get health either health insurance or government approved health insurance. (These are incorrectly called taxes in the bill because if they were labeled as fines people would be entitled to protection under the due process clause of the 5th Amendment to the Constitution. This is something that the Congress is seeking to avoid.) Here is the link to the entire bill: http://health.burgess.house.gov/UploadedFiles/House_HCR_bill.pdf
There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 9 that grants the Congress the right to strip the states and individuals of the United States of their rights and powers in this area. There are no Supreme Court decisions that authorize it either under the commerce clause or the General Welfare Clause of that article. Yet, when asked about the Constitutionality of the law Nancy Pelosi’s response was “Are you Serious?” In other words, we are all idiots and only the new aristocracy made up of the all the President’s appointees and the members of Congress is capable of knowing what I best for us.
The bottom line is that this alleged health care bill and a number of other bills in Congress are designed to establish a form of government that is even worse than the one the Constitution was designed to protect us from. I, for one, am getting fed up. This bill and others pending in Congress, as well as regulations being proposed by the “Czars”, will strip us of our Constitutional rights in a number of areas. We will no longer be “citizens” of the United States, but will be “subjects” of another nation entirely. It is time that the members of Congress are told in emphatic terms that if they won’t abide by their oath of office to “support the Constitution” we see no reason for them to keep their jobs.
Tell them now! We are free citizens of a Republic and will never stand for being anything less! I personally hereby re-affirm the Declaration of Independence from Tyranny made by my forefathers and for which members of my family have fought for in every war from the American Revolution to today. I can say it best by taking the same oath that was taken by the signers of the Declaration in 1776.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Who will join me?
The Health Care Bills and The First Amendment
The unprecedented response of Americans to the attempts by the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress to establish the takeover of health care in our nation by the federal government has been gratifying to say the least. However, it has also revealed the fact that in order to counter the opposition of ordinary Americans this administration is preparing to take extraordinary measures to eliminate our rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
This effort is going far beyond the use of the mainstream media to categorize those who oppose anything President Obama does as racists or the result of some vast right-wing conspiracy. The plan is to eliminate the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the right to petition our own government for redress of grievances. Of course, the far left has been trying for years to stifle free speech with its politically correct movement that has taken hold in college campuses, public schools, and even businesses.
The concept is not new. It was successfully practiced by the Nazi Party in Germany and the Communist revolutionists in Russia, China, and Cuba. The idea is to demonize the opposition and to shut them down by establishing complete control over the news media, and any other methods of free communication of thought. Of course, the vast majority of Americans believe that this type of control can never happen in our country. Unfortunately, it is already happening and there are efforts in the works to make it happen faster.
While Americans of every political persuasion try to voice their concerns at town hall meetings, members of Congress run for cover by cancelling events or limiting entry only to those who will agree with their positions. The President himself conducts town hall meetings that are so carefully orchestrated that questions and answers are prepared beforehand. The voices of dissent at many of these meetings are locked out and even assaulted by a squad of carefully selected goons from the SEIU, a so-called labor union that is becoming more and more like the brown shirts of Nazi Party every day.
When Hitler or any of his Nazi Party cohorts were speaking at public functions the platform they used was surrounded by brown shirts to “protect them”. Their actual job was to station themselves both outside and inside of the place where the function was being held. They denied entry to those that might not be true believers and if anyone did make it inside they were quickly and violently removed if they failed to follow the party line. Doesn’t that sound familiar?
In addition, the Nazis and Communists also successfully turned people against each other by encouraging neighbors to report on neighbors, students to snitch on teachers, and even children to turn in their parents if they strayed from the party line by word or deed. The electronic age has made it much easier for this type of thing. The White House simply set up an e-mail link so people could report anyone who said anything that the left considered “fishy” about the health care bills.
When you have a black man beaten up outside a town hall meeting in St. Louis because he dared to hand out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and an elderly white cancer patient forcibly removed when he tried to enter one of these meetings in Florida it certainly looks like the same tactics employed by dictatorships around the world. Of course, the so-called mainstream news media do their part for the Obama Administration by ignoring these incidents. However, if they can’t ignore it, they will just falsely report information in an attempt to turn it to the advantage of their own political agenda.
With massive “tea parties” being held around the country to protest the tax and spend policies of the Democrats in Congress the major networks have found them impossible to ignore so they use “attack journalism” to report them. Virtually nothing is reported about who attends the rallies or what they are saying. Instead they are reported as Republican staged rallies attended only by members of right wing fringe groups. In addition, they are certainly not going to accurately report that tens of thousands of Americans are attending these demonstrations. Instead, they will follow the policy of one newspaper that reported that less than 300 people attended a rally in Columbus, Ohio that police estimated was actually attended by over 10,000 people.
However, the most blatant lie perpetrated recently was done by MSNBC which is not at all surprising since NBC news has established itself as the official network of the Obama Administration. I personally saw the handwriting on the wall when NBC News Anchor Brian Williams bowed before President Obama after concluding a self serving propaganda presentation that clearly set this President and his polices above the rest of us peons. This bow was something no journalist in the history of the United States has ever done before a President of our Republic.
MSNBC decided to go one step further. When the President was speaking in Phoenix, Arizona to the VFW there were numerous people outside of the building exercising their right of free speech. One of these was a gentleman who exercised his right to openly carry an AR-15 rifle and a pistol on his belt in order to support his 2nd Amendment rights. This is legal in Arizona and reporters for MSNBC went ballistic, showing close-up film of the weapons and reporting how serious this was that there was a black man in the White House and that whites were showing up at his speech with weapons. There was one major problem with this report however. Others had captured the same images of the protestor and had not edited out his face and arms. See, the problem for MSNBC is that the protestor was a black man.
The NBC news networks are not alone in this. Other major media outlets such as CNN, ABC, CBS, and the New York Times are also practicing the Dr. Joseph Goebbels School of Journalism. Goebbels was Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and he had two main functions. The first was to provide unadulterated praise for anything the Fuehrer and his fellow party members were doing and secondly to silence or at least stifle any dissenting voices. This also sounds chillingly familiar.
Of course, dissenting opinions are alive and well and they are a real irritant to the Obama Administration and its supporters in Congress. Thus, they are taking aggressive steps to deal with this opposition. Their first target is talk radio that primarily consists of conservative commentators. This dominance has not come about by any conspiracy, but by the forces of a free market. Liberal talk radio shows have consistently failed to attract the audiences that people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do so they don’t attract advertisers. The liberal talk shows literally die from lack of interest.
This is unacceptable to the far left so legislation was introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to reinstate the so-called Fairness Doctrine under another name and provide for balanced broadcasting of liberal and conservative talk radio shows. This would force broadcasters to essentiallly provide left wing programming for free and would force many stations to either go bankrupt or to cancel all talk radio programs. Either way, the mission would be accomplished; the American people would not be able to have free access to viewpoints that dissent from the “official” party line.
When the public realized what was about to happen an outcry arose that kept the legislation from passing so President Obama decided to ignore both Congress and the American people and make one of his famous end-runs by appointing a “Diversity Czar” to force the FCC to do the administration’s bidding when it comes to conservative programs and views. The Czar is Mark Lloyd, a far left activist who has openly praised Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez for his silencing of the free press in Venezuela. In fact, Lloyd has made it clear that he has little use for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He has stated:
“It should be clear by now that my focus…is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction of from the critical examination of other communications policies”
I don’t think James Madison considered the First Amendment “a distraction” and I doubt that the vast majority of the American people believe that is the case. Yet, the President of the United States apparently has that opinion, or at least one of his appointees does.
Of course, talk radio is not the only target of the far left members of Congress and the Obama Administration. They are also deeply concerned about the use of the Internet to get out the messages that are ignored by the liberals in the media. For example, the tea parties were primarily the result of people spreading the word online and the left wants this stopped.
As a result, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) has introduced legislation that would transfer even more power from the people and the Congress to the Executive Branch of Government. The legislation is supposedly designed to promote cybersecurity, but it has little to do with protecting government sites such as those in the Pentagon from cyber attacks by our enemies. Instead, it targets the private use of the Internet by millions of Americans every day.
There are two key provisions of the bill and both of them contain direct assaults on freedom of speech and the press. First, the law would allow President Obama to seize control of privately operated Internet networks during a Cyber Emergency. What is a Cyber Emergency? There is no definition of it in the legislation so it is essentially anything the President decides. He can shut down massive portions of the Internet at any time for any reason.
Secondly, the bill also allows the Executive Branch to control the internet by requiring that certain operators of networks that are deemed ‘critical” by the government must be operated by “professionals” licensed by the government. The definitions of the terms “critical” and “professionals” are again left entirely to the Obama administration. I am not an Internet expert, and may be just a retired Constitutional Lawyer and former Military Intelligence Officer, but I’m pretty sure I just saw this same form of Internet control exercised in Iran when protests broke out after a clearly fraudulent election. Of course, that could never happen here; or could it?
What would happen to our efforts to petition our government for “a redress of our grievances” if we were denied the means to communicate with each other?
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