To my friends supporting Donald Trump:
The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry.
I’m as frustrated and saddened as you are about what’s happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump.
Please understand: I’m not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I’m a movement conservative who was elected over the objections of the GOP establishment. My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option.
Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. Nebraskans are not looking for a king. We yearn instead for the recovery of a Constitutional Republic.
At this point in Nebraska discussions, many of you have immediately gotten practical: “Okay, fine, you think there are better choices than Trump. But you would certainly still vote for Trump over Clinton in a general election, right?”
Before I explain why my answer is “Neither of them,” let me correct some nonsense you might have heard on the internet of late.
WHY I RAN FOR SENATE
***No, I’m not a career politician. (I had never run for anything until being elected to the U.S. Senate fifteen months ago, and I ran precisely because I actually want to make America great again.)
***No, I’m not a lawyer who has never created a job. (I was a business guy before becoming a college president in my hometown.)
***No, I’m not part of the Establishment. (Sheesh, I had attack ads by the lobbyist class run against me while I was on a bus tour doing 16 months of townhalls across Nebraska. Why? Precisely because I was not the preferred candidate of Washington.)
***No, I’m not concerned about political job security. (The very first thing I did upon being sworn in in January 2015 was to introduce a constitutional amendment for term limits – this didn’t exactly endear me to my new colleagues.)
***No, I’m not for open borders. (The very first official trip I took in the Senate was to observe and condemn how laughably porous the Texas/Mexican border is. See 70 tweets from @bensasse in February 2015.)
***No, I’m not a “squishy,” feel-good, grow-government moderate. (I have the 4th most-conservative voting record in the Senate: https://www.conservativereview.com/members/benjamin-sasse/ http://www.heritageactionscorecard.com/membe…/member/S001197 )
In my very first speech to the Senate, I told my colleagues that “The people despise us all.” This institution needs to get to work, not on the lobbyists’ priorities, but on the people’s: https://youtu.be/zQMoB4aUn04?t=3m8s
Now, to the question at hand: Will I pledge to vote for just any “Republican” nominee over Hillary Clinton?
Let’s begin by rejecting naïve purists: Politics has no angels. Politics is not about creating heaven on earth. Politics is simply about preserving a framework for ordered liberty – so that free people can find meaning and happiness not in politics but in their families, their neighborhoods, their work.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Now, let’s talk about political parties: parties are just tools to enact the things that we believe. Political parties are not families; they are not religions; they are not nations – they are often not even on the level of sports loyalties. They are just tools. I was not born Republican. I chose this party, for as long as it is useful.
If our Party is no longer working for the things we believe in – like defending the sanctity of life, stopping ObamaCare, protecting the Second Amendment, etc. – then people of good conscience should stop supporting that party until it is reformed.
VOTING
Now, let’s talk about voting: Voting is usually just about choosing the lesser evil of the most viable candidates.
“Usually…” But not always. Certain moments are larger. They cause us to explicitly ask: Who are we as a people? What does the way we vote here say about our shared identity? What is actually the president’s job?
THE PRESIDENT’S CORE CALLING
The president’s job is not about just mindlessly shouting the word “strong” – as if Vladimir Putin, who has been strongly bombing civilian populations in Syria the last month, is somehow a model for the American presidency. No, the president’s core calling is to “Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution.”
Before we ever get into any technical policy fights – about pipelines, or marginal tax rates, or term limits, or Medicare reimbursement codes – America is first and fundamentally about a shared Constitutional creed. America is exceptional, because she is at her heart a big, bold truth claim about human dignity, natural rights, and self-control – and therefore necessarily about limited rather than limitless government.
THE MEANING OF AMERICA
America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world because our Constitution is the best political document that’s ever been written. It said something different than almost any other government had said before: Most governments before said that might makes right, that government decides what our rights are and that the people are just dependent subjects. Our Founders said that God gives us rights by nature, and that government is not the author or source of our rights. Government is just our shared project to secure those rights.
Government exists only because the world is fallen, and some people want to take your property, your liberty, and your life. Government is tasked with securing a framework for ordered liberty where “we the people” can in our communities voluntarily build something great together for our kids and grandkids. That’s America. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech – the First Amendment is the heartbeat of the American Constitution, of the American idea itself.
WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO MR. TRUMP?
So let me ask you: Do you believe the beating heart of Mr. Trump’s candidacy has been a defense of the Constitution? Do you believe it’s been an impassioned defense of the First Amendment – or an attack on it?
Which of the following quotes give you great comfort that he’s in love with the First Amendment, that he is committed to defending the Constitution, that he believes in executive restraint, that he understands servant leadership?
Statements from Trump:
***“We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
***“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak…”
***Putin, who has killed journalists and is pillaging Ukraine, is a great leader.
***The editor of National Review “should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.”
***On whether he will use executive orders to end-run Congress, as President Obama has illegally done: “I won’t refuse it. I’m going to do a lot of things.” “I mean, he’s led the way, to be honest with you.”
***“Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstance. I think that means murder. It think it means anything.”
***On the internet: “I would certainly be open to closing areas” of it.
***His lawyers to people selling anti-Trump t-shirts: “Mr. Trump considers this to be a very serious matter and has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt…”
***Similar threatening legal letters to competing campaigns running ads about his record.
And on it goes…
IF MR. TRUMP BECOMES THE NOMINEE…
Given what we know about him today, here’s where I’m at: If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, my expectation is that I will look for some third candidate – a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.
I do not claim to speak for a movement, but I suspect I am far from alone. After listening to Nebraskans in recent weeks, and talking to a great many people who take oaths seriously, I think many are in the same place. I believe a sizable share of Christians – who regard threats against religious liberty as arguably the greatest crisis of our time – are unwilling to support any candidate who does not make a full-throated defense of the First Amendment a first commitment of their candidacy.
Conservatives understand that all men are created equal and made in the image of God, but also that government must be limited so that fallen men do not wield too much power. A presidential candidate who boasts about what he’ll do during his “reign” and refuses to condemn the KKK cannot lead a conservative movement in America.
TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT
Thank you for listening. While I recognize that we disagree about how to make America great again, we agree that this should be our goal. We need more people engaged in the civic life of our country—not fewer. I genuinely appreciate how much many of you care about this country, and that you are demanding something different from Washington. I’m going to keep doing the same thing.
But I can’t support Donald Trump.
Humbly,
Ben Sasse
Nebraska
Massachusetts AG Unilaterally Rewrites Assault Weapons Ban
/in News /by PaskalosIn a proclamation sent out this morning, Attorney General Maura Healey explained in an opinion piece published in the Boston Globe that the law no longer meant what it had meant since 1998, but instead would mean what she wanted it to mean:
The real question is: keep people safe from who?
Californians May Have a Chance to Block New Gun Control Laws
/in News /by FreedomBarry Bahrami of Carlsbad filed Referendums late Friday to overturn the sweeping package of gun control bills signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month, possibly stalling the laws until voters weigh in.
The six unconstitutional laws, which take effect Jan. 1, ban the sale of semi-automatic rifles with magazines that can be detached by pressing a button and the possession of standard-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The magazine ban is not only unconstitutional it violates Article 1 Section 10 prohibiting ex post facto laws. The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton noted that “the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law” is among “the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” The laws also require background checks for ammunition sales and limits gun loans between family members only unless done through an FFL dealer.
Bahrami faces an uphill battle to qualify for the Nov. 8 ballot because of deadlines set out in state law, The referendums could spill over to the 2018 election if the deadline is not met, which would suspend the laws until the vote.
Gov. (Moonbeam) Brown signed the bills July 1 then quickly left and hid in Europe, which means Bahrami would need to submit the signatures by Sept. 29.
State law gives proponents of a referendum 90 days from the date the law is signed to gather 365,880 voter signatures. County election officials then have 38 working days to count and sample the signatures before a referendum can qualify for the November ballot.
Mike Pence on the Second Amendment
/in Article, News /by FreedomPresumptive nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has indicated he’ll name the conservative governor of Indiana as his VP pick. Anyone who supports religious freedom knows Pence’s name because of the legislation he’s signed into law during his term, but what are Mike Pence’s views on Second Amendment? He has earned “A” grade from the NRA for vetoing anti-Second Amendment legislation in his state protecting individual rights.
Throughout his 12 years in the House of Representatives before taking office as governor in 2013, Pence consistently displayed a pro-gun voting record. He has maintained his belief that allowing law-abiding Americans access to guns makes the country a safer place, not a more dangerous one. That’s ostensibly why he voted in favor of similar measures in 2003 and 2005 that would have banned liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers when firearms are used criminally — like the one families of the victims of the 2014 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have brought. In 2011 that conviction motivated him to co-sponsor the Firearms Interstate Commerce Reform Act to relax restrictions on interstate gun purchases.
Pence has continued his pro-liberty stance since embarking on his governorship. In March 2014, he signed into law a bill that many anti-freedom school union thugs and administrators had urged him to veto, because they touted it would threaten the safety of students: to allow adults to store handguns and other firearms in their locked cars while in school parking lots.
“Young people, schools, guns and all of that is a mix for something inappropriate,” Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lewis Ferebee told The Indianapolis Star before the governor approved the measure. Pence said that it would not affect the prevalence of school shootings because potential killers wouldn’t worry about following laws, and would bring weapons onto campuses regardless.
In a follow-up Real Clear Politics interview with Chris Wallace, Pence further defended his decision:
Pence’s pro-liberty views are in line with his other conservative gun stances that may make him such an attractive VP pick for Trump in the first place. It could help the presidential candidate reel in social conservatives who approve of Pence’s signing into law of a religious freedom bill protecting the people’s right to practice their faith. They’re also likely fans of a measure he signed a year later protecting the rights of the unborn children in the state (it was later blocked by a federal judge).
While there’s no more speculation surrounding whom Trump will name as his running mate tomorrow, there is really no question about Mike Pence’s views on gun control: He doesn’t like it. In fact, his commitment to the Second Amendment is unwavering and has led him to seek more freedoms to those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment right, as well as those who manufacture firearms.
Thousands Expected To Demonstrate Against Gun Control
/in News /by PaskalosSPRINGFIELD, Ill., April 1, 2016 The following was released today by the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA):
Thousands of law-abiding Illinois firearm owners will converge on the state capitol on Wednesday, April 6th to remind the General Assembly that concern for gun rights remains high across the state.
Wednesday’s event, widely known as the Illinois Gun Owners’ Lobby Day (iGOLD), will kick off with a rally at the Prairie Capitol Convention Center at 10:30 followed by a march to the Lincoln Steps where the group will be addressed by legislative leaders. From there, gun owners will enter the Capitol building to meet with their respective State Senators and State Representatives. The topic of the discussion will be, of course, gun rights.
“These are interesting times for the United States, and Illinois,” commented ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson. “Nationwide, interest in firearms is skyrocketing – primarily out of the public’s fear about crime and terrorism. Here in Illinois, first time FOID card applications are being filed at a record pace and the monthly tallies of firearm purchase background checks are setting records of their own.”
“Firearm instructors are swamped with requests for training. Shooting ranges are packed not only on weekends, but during lunch hour and after work as well,” continued Pearson. “We’ve had a number of new shooting ranges open up in the Chicago area yet the lines of people waiting to shoot continue to grow. Let’s face it – firearms and the shooting sports become more and more popular as the months go by. Nevertheless, extremists in the General Assembly continue to call for unacceptable gun control measures designed to hobble the free exercise of our Second Amendment rights.”
“Since 1990, law-abiding gun owners have come to Springfield each spring to advise their Senators and Representatives to stay true to the Constitution and to turn back pointless efforts at gun control, continued Pearson. “That is why gun owners are coming to Springfield on April 6th and that’s why they’ll be back next spring and many springs after that. The General Assembly needs to come to grips with the fact that gun ownership is here to stay and that we’re here to protect that right no matter how long it takes.”
The ISRA is the state’s leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. For more than a century, the ISRA has represented the interests of millions of law-abiding firearm owners.
WEB SITE: http://www.isra.org
SOURCE Illinois State Rifle Association
Senator Ben Sasse – OPEN LETTER TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS
/in News /by PaskalosSenator Ben Sasse posted the following open letter to Trump Supporters on his Facebook page and explains what fellow Constitutionalists should do if Trump is nominated.
AN OPEN LETTER TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS
MSNBC Schooled on Conservatism by Senator Ben Sasse
/in News /by PaskalosIn a recent interview on MSNBC, Senator Ben Sasse provides the perfect answer to host Chuck Todd when asked to define conservatism. Watch Below:
Vice President: Second Amendment Says You Can Limit Who Owns a Gun
/in News /by PaskalosVice President Joe Biden sat down for an interview with CNN’s Gloria Borger on Monday to continue the Obama administration’s anti-gun publicity tour promoting the president’s latest unconstitutional executive orders regulating firearms.
Said Biden, “People who are criminals shouldn’t have guns. People who are schizophrenic and have mental illnesses shouldn’t have guns.”
But that’s not what the Second Amendment says.
It says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The exchange began when Borger asked Biden: “So does Bernie Sanders has to change position on gun manufacturers in order to have your support and you out there campaigning for him, should he be the nominee?”
Sanders, from gun-friendly Vermont, has been taking flak for not signing onto the Democrat gun control agenda during Obama’s publicity tour. Hillary Clinton has been pounding poor Bernie on the issue as she has little else to outflank his progressivism.
Biden replied to Borger’s question, “No, [what] Bernie Sanders has to do is say the Second Amendment says which he has of late, the Second Amendment says you can limit who can own a gun. That people who are criminals shouldn’t have guns. People who are schizophrenic and have mental illnesses shouldn’t have guns and he has said that.”
And in a little smack to Hillary and Obama, Biden said he is “okay” with Sanders’ position on the Second Amendment.
Borger did not correct Biden’s reading of the Second Amendment.
Donald Trump say’s he’s ‘Second Amendment 100%’
/in News /by PaskalosAccording to CNN while in Sarasota, Florida Donald Trump on Saturday touted his opposition to gun control, the day after a shooting rampage outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado killed three people.
At a Sarasota, Florida rally, Trump didn’t mention the episode, in which one officer and two civilians were killed. But the mogul did cite the recent Paris attacks, in which more than 130 people died.
“If they would have had the guns, they wouldn’t have had the carnage they had,” Trump told an often-raucous crowd. “I just want to say upfront, right now, Second Amendment 100%.”
The billionaire businessman’s Thanksgiving weekend event came amid mounting criticism over his apparent taunting of a New York Times reporter’s physical appearance. Trump has denied mocking the scribe’s physical disability. The New York Times earlier in the week issued a statement condemning Trump, while the mogul maintains it’s the news outlet that should be saying sorry.
It’s only the latest brouhaha in a campaign filled with taunts and insults of political opponents, media critics and others. Though before the Sarasota rally Trump showed a softer side, at least briefly. After his helicopter landed, Trump called for some children to go up in it, a stunt he pulled in Iowa this summer as well.
“I can call her girl right?” Trump said speaking to the parents of a young child at the rally. “Today we have to be so politically correct.”
Trump’s campaign on Saturday also announced the endorsement of Kathryn “Kat” Gates-Skipper, the first female Marine in combat operations.
CNN’s full story »
Local News Reporter Accurately Explains The Second Amendment
/in News /by PaskalosAn Atlanta news anchor nails it when explaining what the actual purpose of the Second Amendment is and why the Founding Fathers thought it was so important.
Ben Swann, host of CBS 46’s show “Reality Check,” explained on Monday that the right to bear arms isn’t just about hunting or personal protection; it’s about preventing the government turning on its own people.
Swann started off the segment by quoting the text of the Second Amendment:
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
He explained that much of the modern debate over the intent of the Second Amendment centers around whether or not private citizens should be allowed to own guns. At the time the Constitution was drafted, private gun ownership was considered to be an indisputable right by the Founding Fathers and their fellow countrymen.
“This may be a very foreign concept, but the first fight over the Second Amendment wasn’t over whether the population should be armed. All the framers agreed with that,” Swann said. “The fight was between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over whether we would have a standing army.”
An army is necessary to protect its citizens, but both Federalists and Anti-Federalists were worried that if a government were to become militarized, nothing would keep it from growing too strong and eventually becoming tyrannical.
“The Federalists wanted the Second Amendment because they believed a strong federal government would be able to control a standing army,” he said. “The Anti-Federalists wanted it because it would mean every able-bodied man in America would be armed in the event that the federal government or America’s own standing army turned on its own people.”
Thus, the Second Amendment has provisions for both a well-regulated militia, which consisted of pretty much every male with a pulse, and the right for private citizens to bear arms, which appeased both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists.
“It was written by men who ultimately believed that governments and armies would turn on their own people,” Swann said. “The Second Amendment was written to guarantee that would never happen.”
You can read a transcript of the full segment here.
College Professor: “I urge President Obama to ban firearm possession in America,”
/in News /by PaskalosOn Fox New’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” correspondent Jesse Watters often goes to college towns, microphone in hand, to document the airy ignorance of some college students. Now we know it’s not really their fault.
“I urge President Obama to ban firearm possession in America,” a college professor wrote in the Rochester (New York) Democrat & Chronicle. “He is the president of the United States. He can change the country. He can do it today. I believe in him.”
That’s Barbara LeSavoy, director of Women and Gender Studies at The College at Brockport. You’d think she would know something about the U.S. Constitution and the way the country works. But alas, she seems pretty clueless.
“Today, I write this letter with a bleeding heart,” she states. “I admire Obama. But he has let me down. I am disappointed because his presidency could have done more for our country, and sadly, the many taken lives who cannot read this essay. I still worry about urgent social tensions facing our nation, and I recognize their ongoing complexities in policy and legislative action. But gun violence can be averted.”
How? It seems pretty simple to her.
“Firearm possession should be banned in America; President Obama can orchestrate this directive,” she wrote. “His presidency can be remembered as a remarkable turn in United States history where a progressive leader forever changed the landscape under which we live and work. This is his legacy. To establish gun control laws in America that will reduce high levels of male violence and usher in a culture of peace and civility.”
No, President Obama doesn’t have that power. What’s standing in his way isn’t political meekness, as professor LeSavoy implies, but the Second Amendment.
As the U.S. Supreme Court held in the Heller decision in 2008, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
Professor LeSavoy’s letter doesn’t make it clear how she thinks the government should go about collecting all those guns she wants the president to ban. But any such effort would be disastrous.
As The Federalist’s Varad Mehta noted, “Let there be no doubt. Gun confiscation would have to be administered by force of arms. I do not expect that those who dismissed their fellow citizens for clinging bitterly to their guns are so naive that they imagine these people will suddenly cease their bitter clinging when some nice young man knocks on their door and says, ‘Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to take your guns.’”
It would be needlessly cruel to quote much more of professor LeSavoy’s letter, although this sentence pretty much sums it up: “During (Obama’s) 2008 presidential campaign, my two daughters, partner, and I ate every meal in our house on Obama placemats.”
The point here is that professor LeSavoy is a celebrated scholar and thought-leader in academia. So maybe we should give college students a break. It’s not their fault.