1/28/2023
Progressive policies help no one
Mr. (John) Capozzoli’s letter (to the editor) of Jan. 17 illustrates the lack of understanding among progressives of the limits on authority of our Constitution. His list of progressive accomplishments is a mixture of unconstitutional failures, massive wastes of taxpayer money and distinctly partisan legislation. The New Deal did not end the Great Depression, it prolonged it by a decade. WWII ended the Depression.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson switched his stand on women’s voting rights from objection to support, when he tied the amendment to America’s involvement in World War I. Wilson addressed the Senate in favor of suffrage: “I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged.”
Had there not been a war, there would not have been the women’s right to vote at that time. The amendment proposal passed in the Republican-controlled House but still failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate by two votes. Congress passed the 19th Amendment only after Republicans gained the majority in 1919. Ratification was held up by the Progressive Democrat Southern States until a tie vote was broken by a Republican in Tennessee.
It appears that Mr. Capozzoli’s opinion conflicts with the historical record.
The preamble of the Constitution does not give legislators license to ignore the limited and enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8.
The Jan. 6 protest by 100,000 people was not seditious or treasonous. Eleven unarmed people have been charged with seditious conspiracy, and no one has been charged with treason. No one was arrested for the numerous incidents of rioting and looting in Washington, D.C., during President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2016.
Craig F. Johns, Hunt
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Question asked and answered, again
The responses on January 17 to Mr. Lehman’s letter of January 14, not only displayed a complete ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, but also proved his point. Socialists/Progressives/Democrats are opposed to the limited authority of the Constitution on the Federal Government.
The Shelton’s, as usual, got it backwards. We don’t label something Marxist because we don’t like it, we don’t like it because it is Marxist and/or unconstitutional. Progressives have a hard time knowing the difference. They again assign behavior and attitudes to Conservatives that only the left is guilty of.
The answer to the Shelton’s question has not changed. No positive legislation has ever come from a progressive.
Obamacare was unconstitutional because the Constitution does not grant the Government any control of or authority over our health care, but the States, with versions of Romneycare, have no such restrictions. Progressives, and some Supreme Court Justices, don’t understand the difference. It has been, is, and always will be Progressives/Leftists who want authoritarian government that violates the limits placed on it by our Constitution.
The only effort to overthrow our government came from the slave-owning Democrat southern states. January 6, 2021 was not an insurrection and anyone who believes that needs to look at actual facts. The protesters were not armed. Only a small portion of them entered the capitol and the only person killed was an unarmed Trump supporter (factcheck.org). A real insurrection would have ended quite differently.
I’m really surprised that they didn’t use the “threat to our Democracy” line. I would have had to point out that we are not a Democracy, but a Constitutional Republic, another distinction ignored by the Progressive worldview.
So, legitimately elected representatives are now infiltrators? No wonder Democrats think nothing of cheating to win elections.
Gina Stewart, Kerrville
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In my opinion – it happened when these people (AOC/ILHAN/JEFFRIES) were elected as Democrats and brought their hate/ideology (socialism/no work/everything free) as disrupters and hijacked the old Democratic Party and have left the real old Democrats behind and now call themselves Progressives which is a misnomer.
The left keeps referring to “Progressive” policies. Once it is voted on and becomes law – it is no longer a Democrat or Republican policy. It is a U.S. policy.
It is speech warfare by the Democrats to keep the conservative view in the closet. Twitter has proven that. It was just proven when “someone” tried to shut down my computer and I had to run a PC Matic computer scan.
Pelosi had no choice but to succumb to their hate/ideology.
There is no compromise with this new group as has been proven. We shall see how the left works with the Republican house for the good of the country.
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Why politics has become like warfare
Verna Benham 9 hrs ago
1/19/2023
Entering the new year, many are pondering division in our country. Philip Hamburger, Columbia Law School teacher and CEO of New Civil Liberties Alliance, sees conflict resulting from 20th century Supreme Court rulings that “simultaneously expanded Congress’s legislative powers and allowed them to be exercised by administrative agencies.” This enabled Congress to “regulate education, speech, healthcare, insurance, sexual issues and other areas once beyond Washington’s reach.”
Each election, therefore, became a high-stakes battle: “Those who win federal power can oppress; those who lose are apt to be oppressed.”
The need of professional administrators in complex fields is apparent, but Congress should not have been allowed to abandon debating tough issues and providing legislation. Congressmen will resist resuming these duties, however. Through administrative agencies, they accomplish their agenda without having to counter opposition.
They’re also shielded from being voted out for unpopular legislation or trespassing on fundamental freedoms.
The only recourse left to citizenry is through the courts. Overreach may have to be curbed piece by piece, e.g. West Virginia vs. the Environmental Protection Agency, June 30, 2022.
Concerning misuse of various agencies, let’s start with the highly revered FBI. When its leadership shifted from those schooled in the swear-to-tell-the-truth culture of professional investigators who ignored politics, the usefulness of investigations as weapons was discovered.
Whether to investigate or not, when and how, was decided according to political advantage, rather than for criminality or danger to the country. Professional FBI agents could have quietly restored security to classified documents astray in Mar-a-Lago and Biden’s residence. Instead, political drama elevated the matter to investigation by two special counsels. Good luck, guys.
To either indict or dismiss cases of a president and former president, each running for re-election, will invite outrage.
It could be great material for comic opera, if it weren’t so tragic for the country.
Conversely, investigations of serious misconduct have been suppressed. Hillary Clinton’s use of an unprotected server for Secretary of State business allowed easy hacking. During that period, members of our CIA network in China were identified and killed.
Likewise, the investigation of Hillary’s shredding of thousands of documents was canceled. Instead, an investigation accusing the Trump campaign of collusion with Russia was made up out of whole cloth and promoted for years.
On Jan. 11, The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins writes, “The latest news from the Twitter files brings us to the start of the Russia Collusion hoax, as seen in messages from Democrats, insisting that Twitter identify Russian activity that could be blamed for electing Donald Trump. How strange were the consequences of Mr. Trump’s entry into presidential politics in 2015, sparking a flood of mendacity only a fraction of which came from Mr. Trump himself.”
Shielding politicians at election time continued.
Jenkins continued: “Did the FBI, which possessed the Hunter Biden laptop and knew what it contained, knowingly mislead media outlets by telling them the New York Post story was the upshot of a Russian intelligence operation? Any news organization that merits the description would by now, if not two years ago, be saying: Let’s find out. Unfortunately, many U.S. reporting outlets face a ‘Catch-22:’ their own complicity, the Trump exception, under which the rules of honest news reporting are apparently suspended.”
Right. I’m filled with sadness for the many who abandoned the critically important truth of journalism—and the millions who believed, maybe still want to believe, their lies. Nations can’t survive without reliable truth.
Could the leftist assertion that ultimate truth doesn’t exist be undermining integrity in everything? It appears people are being taught, “Create your own ‘truth’, just don’t criticize anyone else’s.”
I see indications, even in a Sunday school class. A presenter of a video lesson described statements she used to comfort her dying mother.
Her husband challenged, “You didn’t believe any of that!”
She continued to say, “It was true.”
Because she thought it helpful, did that make it true? No. It’s Better to honestly say, “What follows is mystery,” yet encourage with faith: “God’s been so good to me in life, I trust him in death.”
“A Message from God, who lives in eternity: I live in the high and holy places, but also with the spirit crushed. And what I do is put new spirit in them, get them up and on their feet again. I was good and angry while he kept at his stubborn, willful ways. I looked again and decided to heal him, lead him and comfort him,” Isaiah 57.
Verna Benham, Kerrville resident, spent 20 years traveling the globe, as U.S. Foreign Service employee, then wife of foreign correspondent Joe Benham. She lived in Bolivia, Taiwan, Chile, Brazil and Argentina.
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kommonsentsjane
kommonsentsjane 