Don't forget the unconstitutional MINISTRY OF SILLY WALKS
Posted on 09/20/2001 6:01:51 PM PDT by MindBender26
He is former Repub Gov of PA. Wounded RVN Vet.<p<More will follow
Irrational calls to violate the constitution can not be excused. You dishonor the principles of a free republic.
Go back to sleep. We'll wake you and let you know if the courts strike this down as being unconstitutional.
--- Wake UP, kevin. I have no constitutional objection to a new cabinet position. As usual, you are jumping to idiotic conclusions.
If they don't, then I suppose the only way open for you to prove your irrational point will be to take up arms against your own country and force it to fight on two fronts. Are you willing to do that? Some of you might very well be. If so, you are budding terrorists in your right.
Absolutely incredible, - I chastize one nut for advocating 'round ups', and another fanatsizes it into 'budding terrorist'.
'Some of you' should take your meds.
I usually refer to them as right-wing authoritarians.
My own prediction is that this is an attempt to assign hero status to Ridge so that he can replace Cheney in the next election OR just after [if Bush wins again]. BTW, none of the PA people that I know were cheering Ridge's selection as Veep in the last election.
Now, now, I dont really believe that and I love my fellow freepers. But sometimes I wonder if some of them can tell the difference between those boots and say, ruby slippers, or some Sketcher's, or maybe the old Converse All-Stars...JFK
Yes, the term Homeland Defense grated on my ears during the speech, sounds much too Germanic. Australians refer to their country as their "homeland" too, maybe other countries as well, but it's not a term widely used in the USA. I guess it will be soon.
Trying to think of reasons why they chose the term...perhaps to "include" those who make their homes here but are not citizens. Perhaps "national" would have offended the flag-burning constituency.
118 Posted on 09/20/2001 20:33:32 PDT by SKYDRIFTER
Why not do an open letter to President Bush suggesting so? Tell him of all the failings of the USofA, all the agencies, and how you could clean 'em up in a NY minute.
LOL. I knew I should have been more specific. The boot crowd are just a handful on the board. I don't identify boot-stampin' with everyone who considers themselves conservative. Just the frightening minority.
That's what happened in Illinois in 1998. BOTH candidates for Governor (Republican George Ryan, then Sec. of State, and Democrat Glenn Poshard, then a southern Illinois congressman) claimed to be pro-life. The ultra-liberal feminists got really pissed and sat the race out.
Unfortuantely, once "Republican" George Ryan won, he turned out to be a pro-abortion Republican in disguise. It's kinda ironic that the Democrat turned out to be the true conservative candidate.
Bush said this cabinet position would be responsible for bringing together federal and state law enforcement.
We're talking a national police here people. This is dirty from the get go.
I don't expect a globalist to understand the superior status of state authority.
It's the states that should be developing a cooperative state level network for the tracking of suspected terrorists within their borders, and providing such data to the fed on an as needed basis.
The states are allowing the fed steamroller to squash their autonomy as flat as a pancake.
WAKE UP DUMMIES -- THIS IS A VIOLATION OF THE REPUBLIC'S CONSTITUTION ! ! !
....In May of 1994, then Rep. Tom Ridge teamed up with President Bill Clinton, Sarah Brady (HCI) and Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to pass the semi-auto gun and magazine ban. By casting his vote for the gun ban in a narrow 216 to 214 loss for America's gun owners, Ridge's one vote can arguably be blamed for its passage and subsequent inclusion in the Clinton crime bill of 1994.
Mr. Ridge seems to have missed something that was blatantly obvious to most who were in Viet Nam. The VC, and ARVN had no problem taking all the food from a village, and forcing the villagers to do whatever they wanted, because the villagers were not armed.
Wayne likes him and Sarah hates him. Maybe this will work out. Let's hope that he has an epiphany about "assault" weapons and starts to see them as militia weapons as he should.Ridge gets NRA's 'A' rating, despite one notable vote in opposition to the group
By ALBERT J. NERI
Staff writerHARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Ridge long has enjoyed the support of the National Rifle Association. And for good reason, with one notable exception.
In Congress and as governor, Ridge has staunchly supported the right to bear arms. He has voted against most legislation that would control weapons. His stands on gun ownership have earned him an "A" rating from the NRA, the top rating given by the powerful gun lobby.
Those positions have also earned him disdain from gun control activists.
The notable exception erupted in May 1994, during the middle of his heated first gubernatorial primary.
Ridge defied the NRA, voting to ban many assault weapons. That measure passed by two votes in the House of Representatives. It was Ridge's only break in an otherwise unaltered stance on gun ownership.
As a congressman, Ridge voted against the Brady Bill, which mandated a waiting period for handgun purchases. As governor, he signed a bill that repealed a three-day waiting period in favor of instant checks for handgun purchases.
As governor, he also signed a law preventing the state or any municipality from suing gun manufacturers.
"By contrast," said Marie Carbone, director of congressional relations for the group Handgun Control Inc. of Washington, D.C., a lobbying group and chief opponent of the NRA, "in New York, the state is suing gunmakers."
The assault weapon vote is one that Ridge described at the time as one of conscience. But his opponents in the primary derided it as one of political convenience.
Running in a field of five candidates in the gubernatorial primary — three candidates were seen as more conservative than him — Ridge developed a crucial following among party leaders from suburban Philadelphia, where support for the assault weapons ban was strong.
Ernie Preate Jr., then the state's attorney general and Ridge's toughest opponent, said Ridge was caving in to pressure from his supporters when he cast the vote.
Not so, Ridge countered. He said he used those same assault weapons when he was an infantry soldier in Vietnam "and they all only have one purpose — and that's to kill people."
The vote in Congress on May 5, 1994, was 216-214 with Ridge being among only a handful of Republican congressmen voting to ban 19 specific military-style weapons. Ridge's vote triggered the largest protest of his congressional years — a record 1,000 to 2,000 calls and letters, according to Mark Campbell, his chief of staff in Congress at the time.
"Hey, I looked at the list of weapons they wanted to ban," Ridge told the Times Publishing Company in 1994. "One is almost identical to the M-16 I used in Vietnam and one was used against me (the Russian AK-47).
"Those are all military weapons like the Uzi, used to kill people and for nothing else."
Ridge went on to win the gubernatorial primary narrowly. Four years later, when Ridge ran for re-election as governor, all was forgiven.
In fact, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's controversial executive director, appeared at campaign events for Ridge in hunter-heavy western Pennsylvania. That's when the group bestowed its "A" rating on him on gun ownership issues.
Handgun Control Inc. does not think much of Ridge's record.
"We don't rate public officials but if we did, Gov. Ridge would not get a good rating from us," Carbone said.
I know that the pro-life crowd doesn't care for him, but since we will be wanting to perform a few postnatal abortions on Osama's minions...
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