RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.” – Ayn Rand, 1963*

At the end of Ayn Rand’s prophetic 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, a judge who is on strike with other producers against a future, nightmarish state of America (echoes of Obama) and has disappeared with them into a Rocky Mountain sanctuary, is at work. Before him is a “copy of an ancient document [the Constitution]. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction. He was now adding a new clause to its pages: ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…'”

I am sure that Rand scoured the Constitution for its virtues and flaws, and very likely read books on its history. But I am not so certain she ever did a study of state constitutions. One of the contradictions she does not allude to in the novel is the authority which that “ancient document” bestowed on the states at ratification to “regulate” their economies, production, and trade, which power the federal government was prohibited, in many instances, from interfering with. Had that issue occurred to Judge Narragansett, he might have added another clause: “Congress shall have the power to nullify states’ laws abridging the freedom of production and trade within their boundaries….” Or words to that effect.

James W. Ely, Jr., wrote a gem of a history of the Constitution that focuses almost exclusively on the treatment of property rights, from colonial times to the present, The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights. It is one of the handiest and briefest digests of the history of property rights vis-à-vis federal and state courts and legislative acts I’ve come upon, written in clear, succinct language. For anyone imbued with the ambition to tackle The Federalist, the Constitutional Convention debates, and the papers of Founders such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, Ely’s book can serve as a nonpareil introduction to the subject of property rights in a political context.

Ely underscores on virtually every page that not only was Congress guilty of violating individuals’ property rights by abridging the freedom of production and trade, but that, for the longest time, it was the states that were the greater and more frequent violators and usurpers.

District 13

John Conyers Jr. (D) Incumbent
http://www.johnconyers.com/
http://www.ontheissues.org/MI/John_Conyers.htm**
http://conyers.house.gov/

Rated +6 by AAI, indicating pro-Arab pro-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

ISSUES
HEALTHCARE
What does the new health care law mean for me and my family?
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the first comprehensive health care reform law in our nation’s history. By insuring an additional 32 million Americans and reducing the national deficit by $143 billion over 10 years, this historic legislation is the first step forward in making health care a right for all Americans—not an expensive privilege for some.

The new health care law bars insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions, health status and gender. It provides small businesses and working families with tax credits to help purchase insurance. And it strengthens Medicare and closes the prescription drug “doughnut hole.”
REPARATIONS

In January of 1989, I first introduced the bill H.R. 40, Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. I have re-introduced HR 40 every Congress since 1989, and will continue to do so until it’s passed into law.
One of the biggest challenges in discussing the issue of reparations in a political context is deciding how to have a national discussion without allowing the issue to polarize our party or our nation. The approach that I have advocated for over a decade has been for the federal government to undertake an official study of the impact of slavery on the social, political and economic life of our nation.
Over 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and its colonies from 1619 to 1865, and as a result, the United States was able to begin its grand place as the most prosperous country in the free world.
It is un-controverted that African slaves were not compensated for their labor. More unclear however, is what the effects and remnants of this relationship have had on African-Americans and our nation from the time of emancipation through today.
I chose the number of the bill, 40, as a symbol of the forty acres and a mule that the United States initially promised freed slaves. This unfulfilled promise and the serious devastation that slavery had on African-American lives has never been officially recognized by the United States Government.
ENERGY
Voted against the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments.
Weatherization
Weatherization is the process of shielding homes from extreme weather and making them more energy efficient. It is done by modernizing heating and air conditioning equipment as well as adding more insulation and sealing leaks. Low-income families spend a significant amount of their gross income on energy bills. Weatherization reduces these costs by up to 30%, or about $350 a year. This process also improves the market value of homes.
Michigan will be given $243,398,975 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to increase funding to their weatherization program, which provides these services at no cost to low-income homes throughout the state. These upgrades, on average, are worth $6,500.

Wait, John Conyers was ruled ineligible for the ballot after 50 years in office?

Longtime Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has a problem on his hands. After nearly a half century in Congress, Conyers’s bid for a 26th term has been imperiled by a county clerk’s ruling that he is not eligible to appear on the ballot.

In a final judgement issued Tuesday, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett ruled that Conyers did not collect enough petition signatures to appear on the primary ballot, a major setback for the man who stands to be the longest serving member of Congress if reelected this year.

How did Conyers arrive at this point and what’s next? Below is everything you need to know.

So why is Conyers in this tough spot in the first place?

Because many of the petition signatures his campaign submitted to secure his place on the ballot were judged to be invalid. Conyers submitted the maximum allowed 2,000 signatures — double the requisite 1,000 — but most didn’t count, Garrett decided last week.

At issue is the people who collected the signatures for Conyers. State law requires that they be registered to vote in the state. Conyers’s primary opponent, the Rev. Horace Sheffield, challenged the signatures collected by two people who did not appear to be registered to vote at the time they gathered them. The Detroit News later reported on two more people who did not appear to be registered voters. Subtracting invalid signatures, including those collected by people who weren’t allowed to do so, Garrett’s office judged that Conyers only submitted 592 valid signatures. So, yeah. You do the math.

There are few political requests so obviously insincere as the call by those on the Left for equality. Certainly, those like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid consider themselves superior. They expect the masses to rely on their and government’s wisdom. It is hypocrisy at its worst. The same could be said for mainstream media. Do you really believe that the editorial staff at the New York Times considers itself inferior to, or even the same as, those at the New York Post?

Democrat leaders generally accept inequality when applied to their intellectual, moral and empathetic traits. But, they also accept inequality when it comes to their individual wealth. Otherwise, why would Al Gore, an outspoken foe of fossil fuels, sell his “dismal-rating-achieving” Current TV (words from the Washington Post) to oil-funded Al Jazeera for $500 million? Why do politicians like Harry Reid become rich after years earning modest salaries in Washington? Why do those like the Clintons and Gores chase dollars with such fervor once leaving office? Hint: it is not a desire for equality.

All Americans, including “hard-hearted” conservatives who are targets of Mr. Obama’s sarcasm and Harry Reid’s venom, believe in equality of opportunity and equality before the law. In the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s use of “equal” implies that our laws should treat everyone equally, and not favor a few as was true in England at the time. He was not suggesting that everyone should be equal in terms of income or wealth, or in any other material, physical or intellectual way. He knew they weren’t.

Liberté, egalité, fraternité was the motto of the French Revolution, not of the American. The founding fathers wanted self government. George Washington, when offered a monarchy, rejected the concept and the title, as it would create an aristocracy alien to the principles of the American Revolution. Wealth and position should be determined by merit, not birth. The French Revolution, which advocated equality, introduced a ‘Reign of Terror’ for twelve years that included guillotining 16,500 unfortunate souls and murdering another 30,000. The First Republic ended with the ascension of Napoleon in 1804. Napoleon was not exactly a model republican. France, now in its Fifth Republic and for all my fondness for the Country, has not been exactly a model of stability.

Cheney calls Madison and Jefferson ‘the two greatest minds’ of the 18th century—one that also produced Hume, Kant and Burke.

In 1787, when the Constitutional Convention was debating the powers of the respective branches of government, the slight and scholarly delegate from Orange County, Va., achieved a success “that would have profound consequences down the years,” Lynne Cheney writes in ” James Madison : A Life Reconsidered.” In the Constitution’s passage on congressional war powers, Madison moved to substitute “declare” war for “make” it, thereby reserving the day-to-day decisions about the use of the military to the executive branch.

The substitution soon enough had profound consequences for Madison himself. During the War of 1812, he had to act as the commander in chief, and the demands of the job did not bring out his finest qualities. Diffident, bookish and afflicted with an ailment that Ms. Cheney concludes was a form of epilepsy, Madison was a theoretician and legislator par excellence; he was considerably less effective as the ex officio head of an army.

Against weighty opposition, Madison appointed John Armstrong as his secretary of war, a shifty character with a reputation, as Henry Adams later wrote, for “indolence and intrigue.” Certain that the British were heading for Annapolis, Md., rather than Washington, Armstrong left the capital defenseless, and Madison, looking “shattered and woe-begone,” turned to a fellow Virginian, James Monroe, for help. Monroe promptly restored order to the smoldering capital, throwing up defenses against further attacks and redeploying 7,000 militiamen around the town.

The debacle of 1812 could have been an unfortunate stain on a distinguished career of public service. It was Madison’s good fortune to come out of the war with his reputation not just intact but strengthened, and there may be some justice in that, since his career was otherwise exemplary.

The Keystone XL Pipeline got another nail in its coffin Monday, in the form of a Senate energy vote that excluded the pipeline issue. But Keystone was already near death thanks to the Obama’s administration’s recent decision to ignore the evidence of a definitive government study—and instead keep listening to environmentalists’ dubious claims. The upshot will be more political fires in Washington caused by train derailments in the absence of a pipeline to transport oil more safely.

After the derailment in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, approximately 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil burned or spilled into the James River. On May 9, a derailment north of Denver spilled another 6,500 gallons of oil, which was contained in a ditch before reaching the South Platte River. Fortunately, unlike in the 2013 derailment in Quebec where a 1.3 million-gallon spill killed 47 people and incinerated 30 buildings, no one was injured in Lynchburg or Colorado.

These and other tank-car derailments are prompting local, state and federal officials to consider various regulations to reduce the threats of such accidents, including lower train speed limits and safer tank cars. Unfortunately, few policy makers are doing sensible risk assessment.

Clearly, we are going to continue moving crude oil and petroleum products from where they are extracted to where they are needed. When considering whether to approve the Keystone XL, therefore, the question has to be: Which is safer, pipeline or rail tank cars?

President Obama’s own State Department answered the comparison question plainly in February. According to the report, pipelines larger than 12 inches in diameter in 2013 spilled more than 910,000 gallons of crude oil and petroleum products—compared with 1.15 million gallons for tank cars, the worst in decades. Comparing total oil spilled makes it appear, at first glance, that pipeline and rail safety records are similar. That’s only until you factor in that pipelines carry nearly 25 times more crude oil and petroleum products.