Dominik’s Blog

I recently sent this to the good senator’s office via his web page’s e-mail feature.

I wonder if I’ll receive a reply.

Senator Sessions:

I heard of your remarks on the Senate floor: “Some people in this chamber love the Constitution more than they love the safety of this nation. We should all send President Bush a letter thanking him for protecting us.”

I cannot help but note the content of your oath of office:
“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Thus, I am confused by your comments, since the oath you took clearly mandates that you defend the Constitution first and foremost, even above your private opinion as to any unconstitutional measures for the “safety of this nation.” The reason for this is that the Constitution is the ultimate safeguard of what makes our nation great, namely our freedom and liberty.

Your comment seems to imply that it is possible to defend the “safety of this nation” without defending the Constitution, or worse, instead of defending the Constitution. I cannot believe this was the intent of your remarks, since that would directly contradict your oath of office.

President Bush deserves our thanks only to the extent that he has worked to defend the Constitution. Any of his efforts that served to undermine the Constitution in the name of “national security” or “fighting terror” deserve not our thanks but rather our reprimand, in that they directly countermand the oath that both he and you have taken.

I hope that this e-mail will recall to you your solemn oath and that, in the future, you will profess that the first and most important step to defending our safety of this nation is defending our Constitution, which preserves and protects the very freedoms and liberties that lie at the heart of America.

To close, defending American soil without defending the American Constitution is no defense at all, for what does it profit a nation to gain the illusion of security but lose its soul?

Sincerely,

Dominik Rabiej

Edit: As far as I can tell, the quote I sent the Senator was a paraphrase, as I’m not able to find any video feeds with that statement. However, the substance of quote is the same, as I was able to find this in the Congressional Record of the 110th Congress, under pages S15723, S15724, emphasis added:

I would point out to my colleagues that we have made two dramatic errors some years ago in a situation just like this, on emotion driven by our civil libertarian friends, such that a wall was put up between the FBI and the CIA which barred the sharing of information between those two critical agencies.

We also mandated that the Central Intelligence Agency officers could not obtain information from people deemed to be dangerous. Bad people. How do you get information in the world and protect America and our legitimate national interests without sources? Those became laws.

[Page: S15724]

And what happened after we were attacked on 9/11? Both those rules that we imposed on our military intelligence agencies were deemed to be bogus, wrong, and mistaken, colossally so. Many Members of this body were warned when they were made the law of the United States, they were warned then that if we did these things it was not wise. But, oh no, the others loved the Constitution more, they loved liberty more, so these unwise laws were passed. And what happened afterwards, after 9/11? Well, we properly removed both of those silly rules. We have taken them off the books, in a bipartisan, unanimous way. They were never required by the Constitution. They were never sensible from the beginning. But we passed them on emotion not reason. Some ideas being promoted now are not sensible either and can leave our country in dangerous straits. So this is an important matter. These things are life and death issues.

Last year, a Federal court ruled, based on changes in technology, that those laws we passed effectively limited the collection of critical communications of foreign intelligence. It was not the intention of Congress when we passed it, I am sure, that the law would, in effect, end up gutting perhaps the most important surveillance program we have against international terrorists, but that was the effect of it.

Admiral McConnell was flabbergasted. He came to us and pleaded with us to give him relief. So what happened? Well, he said this to us. Listen to these words. Basically this is what he said: The United States was unable to conduct critical surveillance of ….. foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside our country.

That is basically–that is what he said to us.

That is a dramatic thing.

So what happened? Congress went through an intense study, and we passed the Protect America Act this past summer. Some people said: This is a rush, though we spent weeks on it. Congress spent a lot of time working on it. But we said: OK, it will come back up for reauthorization in February. As of this date, there has been no example of abuse of that act.

Senator Feingold says these intelligence procedures were illegal wiretapping. I think that is really not a fair thing to say. A court ruled that these procedures we had been using for some time, must, according to statutes we passed, go through a certain number of procedural hoops that, as a practical matter, would have eliminated the possibility of us continuing these surveillance techniques. That is what they ruled. I don’t think we ever intended this to be the effect, but the court probably ruled fairly on the law. I am not sure. We are stuck with the ruling regardless.

I don’t think it is fair to say the program was illegal. But certainly the procedures were not unconstitutional because this summer, when we passed the Protect America Act, we effectively concluded the program was good and constitutional. We affirmed the program.

I want to say, if we have any humor left on this subject, perhaps we ought to write President Bush a letter and tell him: Thank you. We are sorry we accused you of violating our Constitution and basic civil liberties. After the Congress spent weeks studying this, we passed a law that basically allowed the program to continue as it was.

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Bush has proved himself a conservative. Of course, along the way, he has also proved himself hapless. The problem isn’t his lack of conservatism. The problem is his lack of competence.

. . .

Where Clinton seemed a man of enormous political competence and no principle, Bush has been a man of principle and very little political competence.

from First Things

Today Sen. Brownback came to Ave Maria School of Law.

He prefaced his remarks on the proper role of the judiciary by reminding us of how life is short, citing his experiences with melanoma (cancer) eleven years ago. He noted that he felt, back then, that he had sought too much power without purpose and urged us to focus our lives on “what is it we want to look back on life and be happy that we did?”

What follows are paraphrased or directly quoted versions of the Senator’s remarks:
The purpose is to climb up the ladder — no, the real purpose of life is for us to bear fruit, to love and be loved, things that cannot be measured, things that pass on. Always take the time to pull yourself back and ask, “What is it you want to do?” Everyone has a dream in life that’s far bigger than they are … they have to go into the desert and be shaped to be able to do their dream. Once you go through there, you have to face the giants to accomplish the dream. A good dream is never about you or for you, your dream is for somebody else. If you don’t do it, somebody else gets hurt, because you don’t do what you were called to do.

Growing up on a pig farm in Eastern Kansas, I can’t say that I thought about running for President very often. Life was good, it was hard work, it was simple, but I can’t say that I thought about these things. I never met a Congressmen until I went to college, because people didn’t come to Parker (my hometown) of 250 people — you can’t go through Parker, you have to go to it. But here I am today, running for President of the United States.

Here I want to go into some prepared comments on the role of the judiciary.

I felt John Roberts really set the frame right when he said, “We need a more modest court.” We need a court that shows judicial restraint. I think he uses an apt analogy when he says the court is to be a umpire, and it is a bad thing when the umpire becomes the most watched person on the field. Too much today the Court has injected itself into the game — being a super-legislature. Today we need a Court that wants to be a Court and not a super-legislative body. A large part of the controversy surrounding confirmation stems from the fact that the role of the Courts has been expanding. Even Alexander Hamilton, proponent of expansive government, assured his constituents that the Court would be limited. Unfortunately, the Court in recent years has invented constitutional rights that are unsupported by the text or history of the Constitution.

The narrow scope of judicial power was why the American people accepted the Constitution — that the Courts would recognize their role and defer to the legislative branches policy decisions. “Courts are not representative bodies; they are not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed within narrow limits. History teaches us that the independence of the judiciary is jeopardized when Courts engage in political debates.” That’s what it should be. Instead, we have the Congress pushing up against the judiciary in these political, economic and social issues.

Courts today have strayed far beyond this narrow judicial rule. Courts are defining marriage, deciding when human life begins, running schools and prisons by decrees, and interpreting our American constitution on the basis of foreign and international law. The Supreme Court’s most notorious exercise of political power came in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton — both of the plaintiff’s in those cases testified that the affidavits they put forward contained false statements. Since then, we’ve had over 40 million abortions in America. These decisions removed political judgment from the people in states — where legislatures had already decided on the issue of abortion — and placed it in the hands of the court, enabling wholesale slaughter of certain classes of people. Example: Eighty percent of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome will be aborted this year.

The Supreme Court has boundaries. There are checks and balances on what it can and cannot do. For instance, the court cannot appropriate money. We all are constitutional officers, sworn to uphold the constitution. Yet each branch has separate functions which the other has checks and balances on. We’ve arrived at an important moment with respect to the Courts in this country. Will the Courts, as Hamilton assured the people, exercise judgment in the role they ought to have? This is a key issue for our day, and if I’m elected President, I will appoint judges who were strict constructionists — not liberal or conservative, not those who I hope have my views.

Thanks for joining me this morning, thanks for letting me speak to you. God Bless You All.masturbation movies hairy teenhardcore movies cumshot freehermaphrodites moviesfuck movies hometeen movies homecum movies horse freehot chick moviemovies huge porn Map

An interesting interview with this former governor of Arkansas, over on Meet the Press.
Read the transcript

Go out there and vote!

Also, remember that local candidates often make more of an impact on your daily life than do the statewide and national ones… be sure to be informed about who they are and where they stand.

I hope this election day is an informed and intelligent one, both for you and for America :)

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Resources for fellow Michigan voters:

A nice resource I’ve found is this Non-Partisan Voter’s Guide from Michigan Family Forum.

For an in-depth analysis of the five statewide ballot measures, Consult the Citizen Research Council. They don’t recommend a particular vote, but instead give you the data you need to reach an informed decision.

Finally, for a nice overview what’s at the ballot, consult The Green Papers and Voter Information Services.accredited colleges listinguniversities accredited on-lineadjusting spreads creditfinancial credit group responsibility 2007 consultingdomestics accreditedamerican airlines creditlearning care child accreditationcredit card 20 legal advice debt Map

A photo taken this August on the WTC site. The cross is the one found in the ruins of the WTC.

I still agree with the majority of the words I wrote exactly 5 years ago:

Our society, America, cannot submit to fear. We are a mighty people, the strongest the planet has ever seen. The tenants of this nation dictate that we not abandon the banner of freedom and liberty merely because antagonism is directed against us. We must stand strong, holding high the American flag amidst tragedy, wearing our swords at our sides and drawing them out to strike only when we have ascertained our enemy.

…

The principle aim of the terrorists, however, will not be accomplished. America will not withdraw from world affairs, wounded and wary, never to stand again as the light of liberty across the world. Though the Towers smolder in ashes and ruin, Lady Liberty yet holds forth her torch, her eyes filled with tears and her fists clenched in righteous anger.

…

The options of our course of action must be weighed carefully, yet we must not lower ourselves to the level of the terrorists. America cannot find true vengeance by slaying innocent peasants whose government has given safe haven to terrorists. If we do so, then we are no better than the terrorists: brutes who slay innocents without just cause. We are the most powerful nation on earth. Our technology and force exceeds that of anything else this planet has ever seen. We have the capability to track down those responsible, apprehend them and bring them to the full force of our justice system.

Have we done as well as we could have done? This is something for our nation to reflect on during this time of reflection. It is a time to look at the past and learn its lessons. It is vital we understand we can never undo the past, nor we can we completely control the future. All we can do is act in the present. It is vital we consider the best current course of action, vital that we hold a national dialogue on our purposes in the War on Terror. I am sad that the current political climate is one of caustic partisanship and that both parties don’t sit down and work together to ascertain not only our goals but the path we wish to take to reach them.

As John Carlton wrote, “We took a hit, and we absorbed the blow and held steady. But we did take a hit.” Things irrevocably changed that day. I do not think we have quite yet understood how they have changed, and I do feel that as a nation we would immensely benefit from greater political dialogue about what has changed and what we are doing, and why, greater political dialogue about where we are going and why. It is time to lay politics aside and engage in a rational, respectful, reasoned discussion about what is best for our nation and how we can best go about reaching towards it.

This is not “mere idealism.” This is realism, because it is intrinsically tied with reality. If we do not know where we are going and why, we have no hope of getting there. This is a far too dangerous time for America to not steer its ship, to let the waves and winds of a hostile world set our course. We must set our course and we must understand the course we set, so that we can go where it is we wish to go. But before we can do that, we must dialogue as a nation to understand where it is we wish to go and why we wish to go there. If we do not do this, we will founder, for the world is far too hostile for us to trust in its waves and winds.