The Boston Tea Party was an “INSURGENT” group of colonists who were growing increasingly unhappy with King George and his ever growing taxes on tea.  This “INSURGENT” group of Bostonians, maybe you should lead the way Leo, crept onto a British merchant ship and threw boxes of tea overboard.  It was their way of informing the King that the peasant population in the American colonies was becoming upset with the practice of “taxation without representation”, due to the implementation of the Tea Act.

            Not two years later the Marine Corps was born, and an insurrection begun.  The Continental Congress drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence and the rest is history, not that it is taught to my kids in grade school anymore.

            Democrats today like to mistakenly liken the elections in 2006 to these historic events. Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in Congress continually tell us that “the people have spoken, Mr. President!” 

            The people have spoken about immigration reform; the global war on terror (a great bumper sticker by the way); the war in Iraq; and unaffordable medical care.  The Senator, the Speaker, and other members of Congress are correct in the fact that the people have spoken; they just did not hear the message or who it was intended for, correctly.  The message was sent to our Republican representation, not the Democrats.  From where I sit in Fly Over country the message was very clear.  “If you go to Washington and do not fulfill your obligations to the constituency that sent you there you will not be there long.  I fear that this message has still not been heard.

More and more the Legislative branches of the government are overstepping their boundaries of power, or attempting to.  The collective group has forgotten which powers were vested to their bodies of government, and which were left to whims of the Executive branch.  The mediator between the two branches was to be the third branch, the Judicial branch in the Supreme Court. 

The Legislative branch consists of the Houses of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives.  This, as the name implies, is the branch of government that writes the laws on the Federal level that we live by, if not vetoed by the presiding President.  They also have the power and responsibility to do a few other things as well.  They hold the purse strings of our nation, they ratify treaties, and can override vetoes just to name a few.  And yes, these are primarily responsibilities. 

The Executive branch consists of the President, his administration, and the various departments of government; i.e. the State Department, the IRS, Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI etc.  The role of the Executive branch is to run the day to day operations and do the nations business.  This would include the enforcement of federal laws, collecting taxes, and running any and all military operations that have been approved by the Legislative branch of the government.

To the best of my recollection the people spoke in late 2001 about the same issue that is being debated on the floors of both houses of Congress.  Maybe the people are just a bunch of flip-floppers like most of the cut-and-run politicians.  The people resoundingly said, more like shouted, that we needed to take military actions against the worlds terrorist organizations.  Then in 2002, if memory serves me correctly, the consensus of people again shouted out that regime change was necessary in Iraq.  In fact, that is exactly what the consensus of Democrat Presidential hopefuls had told us repeatedly.  With a crescendo of approval, in both the Senate and House of Representatives, the people’s representatives voted to give President George W. Bush the authority to go ahead with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The system worked the way it was designed to.  The House of Representatives did its job.  The Senate did its job. The Executive branch is continuing to do its job.  End of story. Or is it?

Obviously not.  The Congress is no longer happy with the decisions that they made a few years ago and want to change course, kind of like the Captain of the Titanic.  If they succeed, I fear, the result will be the same as the Titanic’s.

Both the House and Senate have, since the Democrat takeover, have pushed several bills and or amendments to the floors of their respective institutions to substantially limit the military options that our Commander-in-Chief has.  I have been told by several members of the Congress that the views of politicians like Rep. John Murtha are unimpeachable and cannot be criticized because they served in the armed forces.  I wonder if those like Sen. Clinton would say the same for me, as I am an Honorably Discharged former Marine.  Probably not, I do not share her ideology.  The latest affront to the troops is an amendment put before the Senate this week by Sen. Jim Web.  All he wants to do is give our brave men and women in uniform more time in between deployments.  It really does not sound like it is a bad thing at all, but it would cripple our military. James Jay Carafano produced a piece for National Review Online that I totally agree with.  In his article he states “Had the idealistic rotation schedule Webb desires held sway earlier, Americans would have never fought at Trenton, Cantigny, the Battle of the Bulge, or the Chosin Reservoir.”  Mr. Carafano is absolutely correct in his assertion.  He may, however, have forgotten a few battles in between; D-Day, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Midway, and most of the other battles in the South Pacific. 

The war in Iraq or on terror is not the only place that the Democrat held House and Senate disagree with President Bush and his administration.

Unhappy with the direction of the President Bush lead State Department, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took a little trip to Syria.  She claimed it was a fact finding trip, which is legal for members of Congress.  It was reported worldwide that the trip had a different agenda after the Speaker came home.  She had gone over to meet with President Assad to try to reshape foreign policy in a way that would better fit the Democrat agenda.  This alone is a violation of the Logan Act.  It is not the Legislative Branches right to negotiate with foreign heads of state.  Not only did she overstep her limits of power, she got it all wrong.  She told the Syrians that Israel was ready to go to the table and talk peace.  The Israeli government yelled out, across any media outlet that would listen, that the Speaker was wrong.  Thank you Ms. Speaker.

            Maybe, President Bush should overstep his Constitutional powers and sign an Executive Order stating that our tax system will stay at the present rates, or better yet that the nation will now be using a national sales tax instead of our current system of taxation.  I would lay good money to bad that the main stream media and the Democrats would not stand for this type of encroachment of Constitutional powers, to steal a phrase from Mr. Carafano.