The Congressional Wishing Well

The 'Tapped' posting about the Serrano bill (referenced below) also links to an interesting Web site sponsored by the Library of Congress. It’s named "Thomas" (after Jefferson, not Freidman), and it has a search engine which allows you to input the bill number of pending legislation, or key words, and the text of the bill, and its status, comes up for your review. It's all fascinating stuff, especially for those of you who are well-schooled on how a bill becomes a law (and for those of you who aren't well-schooled, click here for a quick tutorial).

The quixotic Serrano bill on repealing the 22nd Amendment got me curious about what else might be lurking beneath the veneer of importance and sober responsibility which surrounds the process of creating law (a veneer that can also stripped away in watching 10 minutes of CSPAN).

Some of my favorites, taken only from the list of the 45 House Joint Resolutions proposed this year. (Note--you can punch the codes underlined below into the Thomas search engine to read the text of the legislation.)


HJ 25 - Another proposal to repeal the 22nd Amendment. This one receiving bipartisan support, as evidenced by it's co-sponsorship by the likes of Henry Hyde (R-IL) and our own Martini Olive Sabo (D-MN).

I see even former House impeachment manager James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) among the co-sponsors of this bill. Which either means that the movement to end term limits on the Presidency has nothing to do with getting Bill Clinton back in office, or it means House Republicans would like another shot at impeaching him.


HJ 12 and HJ 27--competing bills commending those serving in the US armed services, the former being the Democratic bill, the latter the Republican bill. They both include similar "whereas"-fronted platitudes. But the Democrats throw in a couple of extra commendations that help us understand exactly where they stand.

Whereas members of the United States Armed Forces continue to further peace and stability in many regions of the world through contributions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations

Yes, thank goodness we're allowed to contribute to UN and NATO efforts abroad. We'd hate to have those fine organizations running off and creating all that peace and stability without us (see pre US-intervention Kosovo and the current Palestinian West Bank for details on what that looks like).

Whereas members of the Armed Forces even now are serving, in the Persian Gulf, on the Korean peninsula, and elsewhere, as a deterrent to those who might repudiate diplomacy and fail to honor their international commitments

That really was Saddam Hussein's great failure wasn't it--repudiating diplomacy? If only he was willing to attend more meetings with us and talk civilly and reassuringly, we would have let him torture, rape, and kill his own people as much as he wanted. Listen up Syria--the Democrats have spoken on the lesson you need to learn, in case they're calling the shots come 2004.


HJ 20--speaking of appeasement, a now obsolete bill from the Democrats who tried to repeal the President's Congressional authorization on using military force on Iraq. The usual suspects of the radical left are listed as co-sponsors of this bill, including Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Barney Frank (D-MA), and our old friend Jose Serrano (D-NY). Oh yes, one more sponsor among this pack of closet communists and admitted socialists, Jim Oberstar (D-MN).

Do the good, patriotic people of Minnesota's 8th district really want their elected representative to be consorting with these types of people? (Consorting hell, try locking arms with them and marching off together toward the shining red sunrise.) I'm not sure about that, but I am sure about one thing. The troops in Iraq can faithfully tell the former child prisoners of Basra that their liberation was not done in Jim Oberstar's name and he did everything possible to prolong their sentences. In 2004, the people of the 8th District can decide what we should tell the Iraqi children about their own complicity in this moral blindness.


HJ 29 through HJ 35--Seven separate bills from Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), who seems to be vying to become the James Madison of the 21st century by revising our entire set of founding principles. His modest proposals for Constitutional amendments and a new class of civil rights:

the right of convicted felons to vote
the right for all citizens to an education of equal high quality
the right for all citizens to health care of equal high quality
the right for abortion on demand
the right to housing
the right to a clean, safe, sustainable environment
the right to full employment
the right to equal pay for equal work
the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for themselves and their family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

It seems Mr. Jackson is motivated not by the Founding Fathers or by the ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Rather, Messrs. Marx and Lenin seem to be his guiding lights. But not even they conceived of a government mandate dictating enforcement of essentially contestable concepts such a "clean, safe, sustainable environment" and "an existence worthy of human dignity."

My God, if those were our civil rights, I think I'd be the first one in line at the courthouse. Because looking around at my apartment and reviewing the sorry state of my personal and professional life, I got to tell you, I'm getting screwed! And according to Jesse Jackson Jr.--it's all YOUR fault. Hang on to your pocketbooks people, as their ain't a jury in the country that's going to save you now.