Over the last several days I’ve taken some photos of random, funny stuff at local retailers and restaurants. Included below is a scary cardboard bear from Michael’s, two mannequins from Dulles Town Center Mall, and some good Engrish from a local Chinese restaurant Melissa and I frequent. Enjoy!
When I (somewhat reluctantly) endorsed Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for President in 2008, I spent almost 1/3 of the endorsement criticizing some of McCain’s policy stances and record. One of the items I criticized most harshly was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, colloquially known as ‘McCain-Feingold’ campaign finance reform. The law in question did many things I find objectionable and have long decried as violating the First Amendment.
When the authors of the Bill of Rights wrote “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” their intent was to prohibit government restriction of political speech. The fact that it also protects your right to stand on a street corner and scream at people about aliens (for example) is just an added bonus. The core purpose of the First Amendment was to protect political speech in all its forms. The U.S. Supreme Court has fairly-consistently ruled (until recently) that almost any government regulation of ‘political speech’ is invalid.
Donating money to political campaigns is, indeed, an exercise in free speech. If I choose to donate to Representative Whoosit’s reelection campaign, I have a right to do so. If I happen to have an extra $1,000,000 laying around and I feel like supporting Representative Whoosit with it, that’s my right. It’s my money, and (in this case) my spending is an exercise in political speech.
While it’s been over a week since the devastating earthquake in Haiti, you can (and should) still contribute to relief efforts. There has been an incredible outpouring of generosity from individuals and governments around the world and many, many lives have been saved . . . but there’s still a lot left to do.
Even after rescue operations are finished, the Haitian people will still need assistance with rebuilding and reestablishing basic provisions of food, water, and shelter. Most of us are not in a position to actually lend a hand—that’s mostly being done by U.S. and foreign military services and religious and secular charities. We can, however, lend some financial support.
I encourage all of my readers to make contributions to reputable religious and secular charitable organizations for Haitian earthquake relief. I personally recommend Catholic Relief Services and the American Red Cross, but there are plenty of other organizations doing great work in Haiti too.
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The Associated Press projects that Scott Brown (R) has won election as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, defeating Martha Coakley (D). Coakley conceded the race to Brown at about 9:20 p.m. EST.
The Senate seat in contention was vacated by the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and has been held by Democrats since 1953. Brown would be the only Republican in the entire Congressional delegation from Massachusetts, generally regarded as one of the most liberal states in the union. This unexpected Republican win breaks a 60-vote ‘filibuster-proof’ Democratic super-majority in the Senate.
This special election has been widely regarded as a referendum the policies of President Barack Obama (D) and the unpopular health care reform bills working their way through Congress.
In my analysis immediately following the 2008 elections—which catapulted President Barack Obama (D) and large Democratic super-majorities in Congress into power—I made a prescient statement:
All-in-all, there was no ‘conservative’ on the ballot for us to support. The values of fiscal and social conservatism were not put to a vote this year, and I would kindly recommend that President Obama refrain from interpreting his comfortable win as a mandate for big-government spending programs or liberal social principles. (Emphasis added.)
Many Democrats, however, did apparently misinterpret their 2008 blowout as a mandate for left-wing programs. They kept the financial bailout machine going even though a lot of people voted for Obama as a rebuke of the George W. Bush (R) bailouts. They embarked on an incredible binge of federal spending, almost quadrupling the federal deficit in their first year, even though a lot of people voted for Obama as a vote against the Bush deficits. As if that wasn’t enough, the Democratic Congress embarked upon a massive overhaul of our health care system—developing a plan behind-closed-doors that a solid majority of Americans oppose and then trying to push it through with minimal debate and zero transparency.
In a very short amount of time, Obama and the Democratic Congress have alienated most of the centrists who put them into office. Obama’s approval ratings have dropped faster than almost any other president’s in history, and the Congress is faring no better. In the 2009 off-year elections (for Governor in Virginia and New Jersey), limited-government, conservative Republicans swept the races.
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.
