Congress Passes Bill to Restrict Westboro Baptist Military Funeral Protests

Members of Westboro Baptist protest
a soldier's funeral in 2006.

Congress has passed "The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012," and the bill now awaits the President's signature.

The legislation addresses a host of veterans' issues, including the proposal of significant restrictions on demonstrations at the funerals of military personnel.

Under the new bill, protests may not be staged within two hours prior to or after a funeral, and protestors must maintain a distance of 300 feet from the memorial service.

This legislation is bad news for the psychotic media whores at the Westboro Baptist Church, who regularly stage protests at high-profile funerals, military or otherwise, to spread vitriolic and hateful messages about gays and lesbians, and anyone whom they perceive to be in support of the LGBT community.

Interestingly, not unlike those who have leapt to the defense of Chick-Fil-A President Dan Cathy, Westboro Baptist Church members claim their "freedom of speech" rights are being violated when limitations are placed on their ability to protest at funerals holding offensive placards and yelling cruel remarks. (To be clear though, unlike with Westboro, no one is attempting to legally restrict Chick-Fil-A's right to express its opinions.)

The U.S. Supreme Court actually sided with Westboro in a 2011 case, upholding their right to stage funeral protests, so it will be interesting to see if the new legislation passes judicial muster.

You can learn more than you wanted to know about the lunacy and malevolence of Westboro Baptist Church at their website godhatesfags.com.

Could Term Limits Fix Legislatures and Our Broken Congress?

In light of California’s penchant for over-regulation and the state’s annual budget crisis, it’s hard to make the case that the United States Congress should look to Sacramento for an example of effective government.

There is one guiding tenet California has adopted though that may be worth replicating at the national level– term limits for legislators.

California is one of fifteen states to mandate maximum term limits for state-level Senators and Assemblymen. With the approval of a 1990 ballot measure, voters in California limited state legislators to serving a maximum of two four-year terms in the Assembly and three two-year terms in the Senate, for a total of 14 years in the legislature.

On June 5, Californians will determine if those limitations will be amended when they cast their votes on Proposition 28, a ballot measure that would limit legislative careers to a total of 12 years, but that would allow politicians to spend their entire time in either, or both, of the state houses.

Seemingly legitimate arguments have been made both for and against Proposition 28.

Supporters of Prop 28 include groups like California’s League of Women Voters and California Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens' lobby organization. Proponents of the measure arguethat the current system, which requires more experienced lawmakers to change legislative houses in order to continue their careers, forces politicians to spend too much time running for office, limiting their ability to focus on providing quality governance.

Kathay Feng, executive director of California Common Cause, also notes that the high rate of turnover among legislators caused by the current term limits system leaves a perpetual crop of rookie lawmakers vulnerable to the superior experience and tactics of powerful corporate and industrial lobbyists.

Opponents of Proposition 28, citizens like Anita Anderson of the group Californians for Term Limits, assert that the new rules are “deceptive and misleading” and are nothing more than “a sneaky way of increasing the terms.”

To the degree that Prop 28 simplifies the re-election process for politicians who would no longer have to switch legislative bodies and districts in mid-career, this claim may hold true.

Congress Stalls Jobs Act, Offers Nothing New

Senators Harry Reid (D) and Mitch McConnell (R)
Photo: Sam Stein/Huffington Post

In the wake of Republican procedural maneuvers that blocked the President's full American Jobs Act last week, Senate Democrats are planning to take a more piecemeal approach to job creation. I'm skeptical they can do even that, but it's fine with me - just show you can all work together to get something done.

Like most Americans, I'm growing increasingly frustrated with Congress' failure to make progress. Democrats have proven themselves to be unable to gain Republican support for their ideas through either persuasion, political outflanking, or sheer muscle, and Republicans continue to suffer from a perpetual dearth of new and decent ideas of their own.

While standing in staunch opposition to the jobs bill proposed by the White House, Congressional Republicans have proposed little to spur job creation and economic growth beyond removing regulations from various industries (which worked out well in the financial sector, right?), repealing Obamacare (which didn't come into law until after the economy was well down the road to hell), and drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge (regardless of the economic impact, Republicans seem bent on defiling this piece of wilderness).

Beyond the halls of Congress, Republican presidential candidates have busied themselves re-packaging the same failed economic policies that led us to the promise land we enjoy today. Texas Governor Rick Perry wants to resurrect the "drill baby, drill"mentality and he has done some funny math (according to Republican journalist David Frum) to try and substantiate the validity of this approach. Meanwhile, Herman Cain is breaking no new ground with his 9-9-9 tax plan which offers the same old Republican recipe of robbing from the middle class to protect the top 10%.

My advice to all of them is the same now as it was when the President first proposed his jobs bill in early September - get busy conducting the nation's critically important business or get ready to be swept out of the way in November 2012.

Obama Gets Tough

Photo by Chip Somodevilla (Getty)

Two weeks ago I wrote a post urging the President to "fight or go home" as it relates to his attempts to negotiate with the immovable object which is the Republican Congressional block. The President has made numerous "across the aisle" overtures, and time and again, these efforts have yielded little or nothing.

I have begun to believe that the President can get more flies with a hammer than he has been able to get with honey, and based on his recently announced approach to addressing the budget deficit, the President now sees it that way too.

President Obama has laid out a common sense approach to reducing the deficit, simultaneously increasing revenues and reducing spending, while putting sacred cows from each party on the table (reductions in Medicare spending and increases in taxes on the wealthiest Americans). Those who have nothing to offer but unhelpfully entrenched policy positions have already attempted to distract us from the real issues calling the President's budget deficit proposal "class warfare." In defense of his proposal, President Obama has responded saying, "This is not class warfare. It is math." Well said, Mr. President.

Class warfare would be something like increasing taxes on the wealthy (and on corporations) in order to fund increases in the social programs that most benefit the under-privileged poor. President Obama is NOT proposing this, he is simply asking us to do what every struggling small business owner or head of household knows he or she has to do - make more and spend less at the same time.

I hope politicians on both sides come to understand how their insistence on sacred cows and their refusal to participate in real policy negotiations do nothing to resolve our complex economic challenges. I also hope that Americans on both sides demonstrate through their votes in the next election cycle that we deserve and expect more from our elected officials in Washington.

Congress Must Play Ball with President Obama's Jobs Plan

Atlanta Job Fair Crowd
Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal & Constitution, via Associated Press

As a proud Obama-crat who is still pulling for the President and the nation to succeed in engineering an economic turnaround, I have been reading with significant interest about the President's recently announced American Jobs Act. With a full week's analysis under my belt, I have concluded that the so-called experts (economists and executives) have no idea what the ultimate impact might be of the President's proposed legislation.

My initial instinct was that with President Obama's jobs speech last week he may not have scored a touchdown, but he had at least finally sketched out a play and huddled us up. If we work together, we might just move the ball down the field after all.

Within hours (or minutes) though, the tiny bit of momentum the President might have gained was threatened, as Republican party leaders indicated that less than half of the President's bill would ever stand at chance at becoming law. That's ok though, that means half of the proposed legislation could still make it through the intricate maze of the congressional labyrinth and positively impact our economic well-being.

The day after the President's jobs plan was announced American "big business" piled on with the nay-saying Republican leadership. An article in the New York Times reported that executives from various industries doubted the impact of the provisions in the President's plan, saying that things like payroll tax cuts and related incentives are not likely to spur any additional hiring. According to these executives, if companies were going to hire new workers, they would need to see increased consumer confidence and increased demand for their products and services, plain and simple.

Time for Obama to Win or Go Home

For the last two years, President Barack Obama has attempted to steer our country in a positive direction. Meanwhile, the omni-negative nay saying Republican leadership has done nothing except stall the car, set up road blocks, and periodically jerk the steering wheel hard to the right in an attempt to make sure we do nothing but cruise around in circles as long as Obama is driving.

I appreciate the President's attempts to work "with" Republican leadership, but the truth is you will never find common ground when the other guy refuses to leave his ideological island. I think it's time for the President to screw the pursuit of the middle way, unapologetically lay out the bold agenda he believes is right for the nation, and challenge the Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) to get off their sorry asses and get this country moving again. 

If they refuse to even see what tricks you have in the bag, Mr. President, it's time to leave them holding that bag for a while. I hate to say it, but compromise and negotiation are a lot more likely when you have just clocked the other guy in the nose. It's time to come out swinging and win or go home.