House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's now-fulfilled promise to ram the House health bill through exhibited a disdain for Americans that made Marie Antoinette look like a populist.

(JRM Comment: And what is your opinion of Newt Gingrich as speaker. Of the House, may I ask. The Speaker’s job is to get legislation on the floor, voted on, and passed, if possible. It’s the way the system works, dumb ass)

* * *

The government is supposed to work for the people, not for private insurance companies. This health care reform will be a good change.

(JRM Comment: Welcome to American Government 101: The Reality)

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The House finally got us started on the road to perdition Saturday evening.

(JRM Comment: Do you ever thought about switching the station from Fox News?)

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Does Barack Hussein Obama sound like a Muslim name to you? That is why he doesn't want anyone to jump to conclusions on the Fort Hood shootings.

(JRM Comment: He’s too busy wondering why WASP’s never thought about Nichols, McVey, Oswald and John Hinckley in those exact same terms)

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If the world ends on Dec. 21, 2012, then we will never have to worry about Sarah Palin becoming president.

(JRM Comment: Let the congregation say hooray!)

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China may end up outsourcing to the United States. Think about it.

(JRM Comment: Great. Then we can get back the manufacturing jobs that Reagan, Bush and Bush exported)

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Cheers to the veterans who fought for our country. Jeers to the veterans who had the nerve to display American flags on their Japanese motorcycles while riding in the parade. Did you forget who bombed Pearl Harbor?

(JRM Comment: WTF?)

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10^th Amendment May Restrain Government, Cal Thomas, Tribune Media Services.

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul, and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The framers created a limited government, thus ensuring that individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. Members of the left have put aside the original Constitution in favor of a "living document" that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the 10th Amendment offers the best opportunity. The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Yet during the past seven decades, as the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, it has never, except in wartime, "authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now," wrote Rob Natelson, professor of constitutional law and legal history at the University of Montana.

However, in recent years the Supreme Court has said that there are boundaries. For example, Natelson wrote that former Chief Justice John Marshall "once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a 'pretext' for assuming an unauthorized power, 'it would become the painful duty' of the court 'to say that such an act was not the law of the land.' "

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it seeks to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Using the court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay "Is ObamaCare Constitutional?" In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that "intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB 3200. 'Global budgeting' and 'single-payer' plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court's Substantive Due Process rules."

Constitutional attorney John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, tells me that "although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution's text. The framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the states, and instead designed a system in which the state and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The court's jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand that seeks to circumvent the intentions of the founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the 10th Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: "or to the people."

(JRM Comment: cal Thomas doesn’t know me, and even if he did, I doubt that he’d lose any sleep knowing that I think he’s an idiot. His article makes some sense. I have said it before and now say it again. For anyone to argue the intention of the framers of the constitution by using any of the later amendments is a fundamentally flawed argument. The first 10 amendments we proposed almost co-incidentally with the passing of the constitution, but were not part of the original constitution, and did not become part of it until four years, to the month, after the Constitution was enacted. Whatever any - or even all - of the framers might have thought about the rights of states was not mentioned in the original constitution.

Secondly, to rant about the juggernaut of czars, and health insurance, and the like not being spelled out in the constitution would be like saying that the bible doesn’t have much to say about internet theft, or Blackberries, or atomic clocks.

Thirdly, as far as saying that members on the left have put aside the original, Cal seems to forget what Bush did to our constitution. Cal’s next line is about a “living document,” but that seems to draw his attention only to the things that he objects to. I’ll be he doesn’t object when his party uses that “living document” to support the things he believes in.

Lastly, President Obama doesn’t have an ObamaCare program, not really. What he has suggested for this nation is a matter of congressional issue. Congress must craft a bill, and when they do, and if that bill is signed by president Obama, it will be - and remain - a congressional bill.

A couple of years ago I wrote to Cal and suggested he choke on his moustache. Shortly thereafter, Cal shaved his moustache. I doubt he did that because of my letter, but on the off chance that he did, I may write and suggest that he go perform an anatomically difficult act upon himself.

In memory of my sister, Jane Elizabeth Maxwell Kemp,

November 11, 1939 - December 4, 2002

You were my rock.

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From the Wichita Eagle Opinion Line: “As an American citizen, we should all be able to vote on this health care system. No lawmaker from Kansas speaks for me.”

Ignorance abounds. Dear sir or madam, yes they do. This is what happens in a representative government. We elect representatives to speak for us, the people. Grow a fucking brain, or get in the slow lane. Thank you!

“Wichita is the pothole capitol of the world.”

Shit! Don’t say that. The city council will hire a consulting firm for a cool half mil to manufacturer strategic potholes, and appropriate signage to invite people to Wichita as an historic designated posthole destination city.

“People on the coasts say that America doesn’t produce anything anymore. They ought to visit Kansas during the harvest and give their minds some fresh air.”

Actually there’s a lot of dust during harvest., so fresh air isn’t as plentiful as one might think. And, when the farmers burn the stubble, there isn’t a lot of fresh air. And , as one listens to Sam Brownback and Todd Tiahrt it is apparent that some minds are too closed to allow fresh air to enter.

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How many people say Origin of the species?

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I have 4 different eye drops. They actually leave a bitter taste in my mouth. How that works is a mystery.

Then there’s another mystery. I have a black growth on my head. The dermatologist used liquid nitrogen to freeze the growth, and it eventually scabbed over and flakes off. The doctor said no one knows what causes these growths; whether they are a fungus, a viral or a bacterial growth. It isn’t mentioned in the bible, so the growth may not be real; merely a figment of my imagination that is just barely real enough that the doctor has to burn it off.

I hope I don’t have to go to heaven with such a growth. That might be enough to keep me out of heaven. If I go to hell, then I can have it burned off, but good.

It’s no mystery that old people sometimes get these mysterious growths, but I intend to ask god why he makes these mysterious things in the first place. And war. And disease. And natural disasters. And mean people. And squash.

Washington Post reporter Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer, a Harvard historian, have written The State of Jones, a book which they present as history, but which seems more like an historical novel, which is based upon a true story.

During the American Civil War, a Southern dissenter named Newton Knight, relatively poor farmer from Jones County, Mississippi, was conscripted into the Confederate Army. He didn’t like that proposition, and soon deserted. Knight then gathered together some of his friends and neighbors to organize what amounted to a small guerilla band. The marauders hid in the swamp land and conducted raids on Confederate forces. They didn’t do a lot of harm, but were like gnats, distracting the southern army which was being pursued and challenged by soldiers of the Union army.

After the war, Knight and his friends aided the Reconstruction military forces who were deployed throughout the South to maintain Martial Law. Knight was married to a White woman, by whom he had several children. He was simultaneously in a long term relationship with a Black woman named Rachel, a former slave who was once the property of Knight’s grandfather.

Mississippi didn’t allow Black’s to own property, yet Knight deeded some of his property to Rachel, and their children, and to his children by his White wife. Knight and his children from his extended family toiled side by side in the fields.

The authors suggest that Knight was a religious man who was anti-slavery and pro racial equality. The main problem with that contention is that there is really not much to provide proof of such a theory.; especially the authors’ contention that Knight professed these views prior to the outbreak of hostilities and the formation of the Confederate States of America. The book relies upon second hand information, a great deal of which is provided in a 1934 biography written by one of Knight’s white children, a man named Tom White.

The title of the book suggests that there was some legal entity that could be called a state - the State of Jones - but there is no record that Knight and his band, or Jones County, had ever officially declared themselves as being independent from Mississippi, or from the Confederacy.

The authors, themselves, rely upon such qualifiers as might have, could be, possibly, and likely, when telling their story. In short, there isn’t sufficient evidence for any historian to write a definitive biography of Knight, his family, his small army, his true motives, or even his life after the Civil War. That doesn’t mean that the book isn’t provocative, or fun to read. It is. It just shouldn’t be considered to be historically accurate.

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Alcoholic’s Anonymous have helped millions of people battle what might be a disease, an affectation, or merely an excuse.

I can’t speak for the program(s), or the methods used. I have no experience with drugs or alcohol as being a personal addiction. I have taken friends to AA, even attended their pen meetings. I have had friends who seem to be dependent upon AA; almost as if they have substituted one addiction for another; alcoholism for the dry drunk confessional-I-am-powerless-and-worthless kind of introspection.

As I read the twelve steps, I see that there is a dependency upon the notion of powerlessness of the human spirit, as well as a dependency upon some unidentified “higher Power” to the point of my calling that a mere substitution; one sugar tit for another.

I wonder what mankind, humankind, would be like if there were twelve steps to person responsibility, addressing as well, corporate responsibility in the societal sense, and a reliance upon using one’s head, rather than subjecting reason to some superstition or other.

My challenge is to find twelve steps, akin to AA’s twelve steps, that might encapsulate human development independent of superstition.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Here are my rough suggestions, my Twelve Steps toward personal responsibility as a member of the human race.