Weekend and Following

Hey, there it's the weekend before finals week at school. My apologise if you were looking forward to reading some things over the weekend. I will be taking the rest of the weekend and Monday off from the Blog but I'll be back at it on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Bill Clinton Cannont run

CNN is reporting that former President Bill Clinton can run for Presidential candidate hopeful, Senator John Kerry's Vice president. CNN claims that the United States Constitution does not prohibt a two-term President from serving as a Vice President. Unfortunately, CNN didn't do their homework. The 12th Amendment of the United States Constitution follows, please pay specific attention to the final sentence:

The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

I'll repeat that. No person constitutionally ineligable to the office of the President shall be eligible to that of the Vice-President of the United States.

What makes a person ineligable for serving as President? Article II section 1 paragraph 5 states the following:

Clause 5: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

If you don't satisfy any one of those requirments you are ineligable. Now in the 22nd Amdendmant of the Constitution it says:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Therefore, if you have served two terms as President you cannot be re-elected to the position. Therefore, you cannot serve as VP either. My thanks to Lars Larson for getting me going on the research for this. Also to House of Representatives website and to James R Whitson and his website for giving me the majority of the information contained here. If you have any more questions go ahead and give me a post or email and I'll try to help out a little more. Have a wonderful weekend!

Today's Opinion Journal

If there remains any doubt that journalists' fascination with the Abu Ghraib story is primarily prurient in nature, consider how often it's showing up in entertainment stories:

From a New York Times article on Broadway shows: " 'Little Shop of Horrors,' for example, risks reminding people of the torture scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison." Not as much as the New York Times does, though.

From the Denver Post's review of the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban": "The Dementors get their due--they are spectral Azkaban guards surrounding Hogwarts in search of Black. How little Rowling could have known a few years ago what Middle Eastern events would make her look prescient: Like certain other prison guards, the Dementors are more intent on capture and punishment than sorting right from wrong."

And from the Boston Globe review of the same film: "It's hard to watch the relentless Dementors curtailing liberties both at Hogwarts and in the surrounding country and not think about the current occupation of Iraq."

Perhaps in an attempt at political evenhandedness, the Associated Press includes this gratuitous reference in a dispatch about a Bill Clinton speech: "Clinton made no mention in his speech of Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern at the center of the sex scandal that dominated much of his second term."

My thanks to James Taranto and Opinion Journal for this info.

Judge Hamilton

On Tuesday, I reported on Judge Hamilton of the 9th circuit Court of Appeals who has decided that partial birth abortions are unconstitutional. In today's Washington Times the op-ed headline reads "Impeach Judge Hamilton." I encourage you to read it. Here is the opening quote, to wet your appetite.

It must stop. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of California declared unconstitutional the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed scant months ago by the president, while being supported by 75 percent of the public.

That's just the start. And if you are among the 25% who agree with this practice, I am truly sorry you feel this way. This is a brutal act that must be stopped.

Smoking in movies

Fox News is reporting the anti-smoking groups are trying to get any movie with smoking in it rated R. Ok, so you can have naked people in a movie, in small doeses, and it's not R. You can use the F-word four times in a movie and it's not rated R. But if you smoke it's automatically rated R. Is there something wrong with this picture? If you're going to say smoking is a R-rating offense. Make all language, sexual content and violence and R-rating too. Hey, the Passion is now rated G, oh wait I forgot I put violence down as R-rating too. I guess that leaves Disney...wait Donald Duck smokes sometimes. There you go, all movies are now rated R! Ok, I admit it's a little bit of a slippery slop argument but I think I made my point. What do you think?

R-Card and Smoking

ABC News is reporting that GKC theaters which is in 24 cities is going to allow kids to attend R-rated films without parents as long as they have an R-card. What's an R-card? It's a card that the parents have signed that says the kids can see an R-rated film. It's 2 dollars but should kids be allowed to see R-rated films at all? Shouldn't parents have to do things to help their kids learn? After a kid watches a movie like The Passion of the Christ shouldn't the parents explain it all and help them understand. Can kids understand the content of many R-rated? Let me know.

Zell Miller

Here is a democrat that's getting it right. Zell Miller a Georgia state senator said this regarding the Abu Graib (yes, I'm aware of the spelling error) prison scandal

Mr. President, here we go again, here we go again. Rushing to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Pushing and pulling and shoving and leaping over one another to assign blame and point the finger at America the Terrible. Lining up in long lines at the microphones to offer apologies to those poor, pitiful Iraqi prisoners.

The link is to the full story.

Ok, I know normally I've put up at least 2 or 3 posts by now. I'm sorry, I'm just a little busy. I hope you are all having a good day and I do hope to get something up before the end of the night.

Bush and the Draft

Check out Bush Draft.com. They claim that President Bush wants to bring back the draft to be able to get enough people to fight in the War in Iraq/Terror. I'm sorry, but there is no way the United States will ever re-instate the draft unless there is a war the size of World War III. The United States doesn't want to force someone to fight. So a vote for President Bush in 2004 does not mean a draft in 2005. And if I'm wrong, well, I'm moving back to Canada...I can do that legally, I'm a dual citizen, I get to choose, for the rest of you...I hope you're ok with it. If not, I suppose you can dodge but...oh, I'm sure it won't happen...

Washington Times gets it right!

Finally the Washington Times gets something right. Normally the Times leans a little more to the left of center than I like, yet I still read it and I really like today's piece from Tony Blankley (yes, that's where the link leads to). Although I'm not sure why the left wants to have a President that always talks off the cuff. I don't mind when President Bush does a prepared speech. Yeah, a open conference is great but which woud you rather have? Let's make this a poll...respond by either posting or sending me an email...I'll get the results at the end of the week. More on the way as always...

Senator John Kerry

Some days I love politics. Slate online magazine has a wonderful piece on Senator Kerry everyday. They call it Kerryism and here is today's link to Kerryism. All instructions are self-contained. I'm sure now my liberal friends will come on and tell me how I'm attacking Kerry and I'm not brining up the the Bushisms. I'm sorry, when I find a link to that I'll post it as well even though I don't really want to. I do admit that it exists. President Bush vs. Senator Kerry, we decide in 5 months. The other question is who is Kerry's vice president? Just do me a favor and vote please.

To my Canadian friends, I just got my abstentee ballot for the Federal Election if I'm voting you better too. Vote in Canada on June 28, 2004. I implore you to vote for Stephen Harper and The New Conservatives in order to turn Canada around. That's my opinion...for now.

Portland Radio Changes

The changes just keep coming here in the Portland, Oregon radio market. On Friday Newstalk 860 KPAM let go of local afternoon talk show host Victor Boc and making the following changes. Replacing Victor from 3-6 is Larry Elder, replacing Elder (who was from 6-9) is weekend talk show host Victoria Taft. In other news 94.7 NRK has also blown up their format almost completely dropping almost all their dj's. They're website can be found at knrk.com. The KPAM website is kpam.com.

Judge Bans Partial Birth Abortion

Nineth circut court of appeals judge Phyllis Hamilton handed down a decsision today that could have a nationwide impact. Judge Hamilton sent down a decision that declares the Partial-Birth Abortion Act is unconstitutional. The link to the story is right here. Partial birth abortion is the act of killing a CHILD seconds before they begin to breathe. Believe me if you don't know any more than that you know to much. Planned Parenthood is the group responsible for challenging the Act originally. For more info you know where I am...more to come as always.

There will be no further posts besides this today.  I am taking the holiday off.  It’s Memorial Day in the United States and I along with millions of others wish to remember those who have fought and died and those who continue to fight for freedom and liberty.  At 3 p.m. today, please pause for one minute and remember those who have paved the way for us.  Thank a veteran or anyone you know in the service of this great nation.  God Bless America.