What Does Economic Stimulus Look Like?

From Rick McKee at the Augusta Chronicle:

The Absurdity of Current Abortion Laws

Why Iraq Is Better Off Today

Cartoon from September 17, 2007. I think that the Iraqi Parliament is more effective today than the Democrat-led Congress. Worst Congress Ever!!!

Letter to the Editor, Laurel Leader, January 10, 2008

Military service not needed to assess military matters

Mr. Boyle seems to have a problem with criticizing the Democrats in Congress (“Some critics have no right to call Democrats ‘cowards’, letter, Jan. 3). Apparently, the only people who have the “right” to criticize these people are those who have worn the uniform. Dick Cheney’s out because he never served. Is President Bush out because he didn’t serve in the “real” military?

It might surprise Mr. Boyle to learn that there are only 29 senators and 130 Congressman (roughly 25 percent of Congress) with military experience, fewer still with actual combat experience. Should the rest just sit down and keep quiet because they don’t know what they are talking about?

Both parties are guilty of hyperbole when it comes to military matters and the Iraq war. That said, lacking a military background does not disqualify one from being able to critique the leadership of Congress in military affairs. Many Congressmen have advocated withdrawal from Iraq, not because we cannot win, but because the war is a political wedge issue that they can use to their advantage.

Withdrawal in the face of the enemy is cowardice by any definition, but stabbing your countrymen in the back for personal gain is something else. They had a name for it during the Revolutionary War. It was called “turning Arnold.” General Benedict Arnold was also a hero of the Continental Army who sold his country down the river. His country never forgave him, just as I hope we never forgive our current crop of Arnolds.

Treason, thy names are Murtha, Pelosi and Reid.

(By the way, I have served my country, if ever so briefly, in the United States Army Reserves and am proud of this service to this day.)

Jason W. Papanikolas
Laurel

Letter to the Editor, Laurel Leader, December 27, 2007

Majority Leader Hoyer, like rest of House, had bad year

The U.S. Congress gave the American people an early holiday gift this season. They adjourned.

What a relief! One of the worst Congressional sessions by any objective measure has come and gone and I’m sure that the American people are thankful that the bloodletting has ceased.

The Democrats who took control of Congress, including our own Steny Hoyer, set about to accomplish three things: 1) end the war in Iraq, 2) “reform” Congress, and 3) to do so through bipartisanship. What kind of bipartisanship, you ask? The type where they run roughshod over everyone who disagrees with them and pretend that Americans are too stupid to know the difference between leadership and browbeating.
How else do you explain presenting the exact same proposal on ending the Iraq war to Congress 60 times and expecting a different result than your first failure?

Congressman Hoyer shares much of blame for the failure of this Congress. As majority leader, he is one of the four most powerful people in Congress. So why is it that a congressman who touts his moderate views, his bipartisanship and his respect for the American soldier helped craft legislation that is anathema to his supposed beliefs?

Christmas is a time for reflection and change. This Christmas we need to reflect on ourselves and where we are as a people. Marylanders, in particular, need to decide which Steny Hoyer we want. Do we want the false caricature of a congressman we’ve been presented with time and again or the man who sits in Congress telling us what to think and do because it’s for our own good?

I am beginning to think that it is time to thank Congressman Hoyer for his many years of service and ask him to step aside so that Maryland can be represented by competent leadership.

Jason W. Papanikolas
Laurel

Letter to the Editor, Laurel Leader, October 18, 2007

No politician should use children as political tool

Mr. Crossley implies, both from the substance and the tone of his response to my letter, that I am a far right partisan hack who should be shunned by society for suggesting that using children in the place of reasoned, logical argumentation is morally indefensible in the least and has an aura of “terrorism” (“It’s Bush, not Hoyer, whose S-CHIP position is shameful,” letter, Oct. 11).

Yes, Mr. Crossley, I am a bad, bad human being. I am obviously the left hand of Satan sent to destroy those 4 million innocent children without health insurance. Please! You don’t even know me!

Apparently, you missed the ultimate point of my letter. Allow me to clear that up for you.

I condemn any politician that uses children and the defenseless as political weapons to score points on the opposition. I condemn Rep. Hoyer’s use of Graeme Frost and, yes, Mr. Crossley, I condemn President Bush’s use of the “Snowflake Children.”

I condemn them because it is despicable to coerce a 12-year-old child who has suffered a traumatic brain injury into speaking for you.

We all want what is best for society, for our country and, ultimately, for the world. These tactics of terror do not further the debate in that regard and they, ultimately, distract from what truly matters: the future of our children and our children’s children.

Jason W. Papanikolas
Laurel

Letter to the Editor, Laurel Leader, October 4, 2007

Shame on Rep. Hoyer for his stance on S-CHIP legislation

I don’t know how many people noticed our congressman, Steny Hoyer, standing beside a 9-year old girl while denouncing the president for threatening to veto the expansion of the S-CHIP program.

Why is it that a congressman feels the need to use children as a human shield? Could it be that this proposal is such bad public policy that intimidation and terrorist tactics are the only way to get it approved?

I’m all for providing assistance to the needy and helpless in our community, but any government proposal to do so should be debated on its relative merits. The bill expanding the S-CHIP program has serious, but correctable, flaws.

Instead of working to correct them, however, Congressman Hoyer has chosen to support a bill that will hurt our community, our country and ultimately our children. He takes this “brave” stance while using children as political weapons to force the president to sign into law a seriously flawed and ultimately self-defeating proposal.

Forget Iraq; the real terrorists already appear to be in the U.S. Congress. Shame on you, congressman, and on those who stood with you!

Jason W. Papanikolas
Laurel

The Oncoming Storm: Election 2008

2008 may well be a pivotal moment in the history of the United States of America. Who we elect will have vast and long-lasting consequences on our country. Get the choice right and America will become a bastion of all that is good and true in the world, the proverbially “shining beacon on the hill.” Make the wrong choice and we become just one more country ruled by the High-Minded, looking down from the Olympian-heights of power upon the peons who must be controlled for their own good.

The candidates’ views on many of the issues facing America in the early part of the 21st Century will reverberate forward through time to our children and our children’s children. America is surrounded by enemies, both real and imagined. From international terrorists and illegal immigrants (real enemies) to global warming and the health care industry (imagined enemies), we occupy an interesting point in the time of great nations. We stand at the precipice of our own power. Americans have fought two world wars, turned back the tyranny of communism, and transformed the world into a truly integrated and global society.

The enemies of America realize that they cannot compete against us on our level, so they no longer try. Instead of demanding their complete surrender and utter subjugation to our hegemony, we allowed them to slink off and lick their wounds. Why we did this is both our greatest and worst trait: we are an empire without imperial aspirations. America has created the single greatest global political, military, and economic system since the Romans, but we have resisted ruling this system, and so ceded ground to American’s enemies, both foreign and domestic.

Today, instead of the hard tyranny of communism, we face the soft tyranny of socialism at home. The United Nations, once a magnificent expression of the American desire for international peace, now accuses the United States (and its allies) of being the greatest threat to international law and order. The anti-globalism crusaders have seized upon the combating of global warming as the panacea for their largely self-inflicted pain. International terrorists, angry that they backed the wrong horse, now run a highly-sophisticated and increasingly capable global operation to destroy not American military might, but American will.

The ideas of enemies past and present have slowly interjected their way into American society to the point where we may truly be a nation divided. Certain segments of American society want more government, greater bureaucratic control, and less choice. In short, one group of Americans has opted for the slow death of socialism with its pretty white facades concealing the rotten timbers of tyranny and power. A different segment of society has tried mightily to remain true to the American ideal. This group believes that, somewhere in the last thirty or forty years, America’s social elite turned away from carefully enumerated principles of government. It has struggled mightily, often in vain, to prevent the perversion of American ideals and Constitutional principles by the bureaucrats and socialists. The enmity between these two groups is so deep seated that there are whisperings of civil war[1].

Fortunately, at this point, that is all they are: whisperings. No authority or candidate has announced his or her readiness to turn to military force if their political demands are not met. Indeed, whispers and rumblings of revolution are somewhat common in America. We are after all a remarkably revolutionary people, be it in industrial innovation, military prowess, or political thought. We tend not to fear revolution, but to embrace it. This tendency to embrace, whether political or otherwise, is yet one more reason to carefully consider who we elect this year.

The issues are divided into three categories.

• Foreign Policy. Issues here have direct impact on our relationship with the world. These issues tend to be the least controversial from a Constitutional perspective, as foreign policy powers are specifically enumerated. Here the President has most of the authority and control, both as Commander-in-Chief and Head of State. Congress’ powers tend to be more oversight oriented, dealing with treaty ratification and the power of the purse over the military. Issues here include:
o What should our national security priorities be?
o How does Iraq relate to our foreign policy priorities and what should we do there?
o What do we do about illegal immigration?
o Is global warming a foreign policy concern and what should we do about it?
o How should we interact with global institutions, such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization?

• Federalism. Domestic policy issues tend to revolve around many questions of policy and Constitutionality. For these purposes, let’s divide these up into issues of federalism and issues of social policy. Obviously, these categories are not mutually exclusive. However, certain issues tend to fall more into one sphere than the other. Issues of federalism concern the national government’s relationship to the states and to the people. Many issues of federalism are quite thorny because the Constitution never specifically addressed them. For instance, there is no specifically enumerated right to privacy, although the Third and Fourth Amendments obviously extend some basic privacy protections to the people. Issues here include:
o Should the federal government have a role in the health care industry?
o Should we have nationalized health care or health insurance?
o Does the government have a role in developing new energy technologies?
o What role should the federal government have in education policy?
o What is the federal role in the elimination of poverty?
o To what extent can government control firearms?
o Does the government have a role in stem-cell research?
o What changes should the government make to address America’s $60 trillion debt?
o Should we balance the budget?

• Social Policy. Of primary concern to the socialists, and so hopefully also to those who oppose socialism and bureaucratism, social policies are the most pernicious problem in America today. Indeed, the socialists’ goal is to create social policies that allow the expansion of the bureaucracy to the point that the Constitution is merely a group of words on a page with no meaning beyond that which the socialists’ desire. Beyond the question of whether the federal government should have a role in the addressing of social issues is the more pressing question of whether or not government should be involved in solving social issues at all. Other issues include:
o What should the role of Social Security and other social safety net programs be?
o Should the government promote affirmative action programs?
o Should there be gay marriage or civil unions in the United States?
o Should government be deciding abortion policy?
o What is government’s responsibility toward the promotion of socially-controversial medical research?

[1] Besides the major political weblogs, several major newspapers and monthlies have used terms such as “civil unrest,” “civil war,” and “mobilizing for action” with regard to the relationship between Democrats and Republicans and, in particular, the potential Democratic response to a loss in the 2008 election. Many of these stories related to the “Hate Bush” and “Bushitler” crowd, as I call them. I do find it humorous, however, to think about a group of pacifists anti-gun wingnuts somehow taking up arms against the