Asa Jay's weblog

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge to sign no bill I couldn’t read.

Send me a 1,000 page bill and I’ll veto it on the spot.  I’m not going to waste taxpayer’s time reading a pork-stuffed bill that should be meant for one thing and one thing only.  Send me a 300 page bill and you might have my sympathy if I can get through it in a few days, but it will need to be read before I sign it.  Simplicity is key here, the fewer words the better.  Don’t try to sneak through your pet project inside another bill that has nothing to do with the essence of what the people want; I won’t sign it, period.

After being presented with such an onerous bill, I’m torn on my next actions.  Should I admonish the Congressional leaders in private, or shame them in public?  The better leader would of course admonish them in private, pointing out the malfeasance present and asking them to do a better job on behalf of the individuals they represent.  But I also look at the situation we have today where it’s one party against the other, each blaming the other for the failures of them both.  Perhaps it’s better to hold them both accountable in a public shaming.

Perhaps it’s better to hold a press conference on why I didn’t sign the bill.  If that’s the path I believe pertinent, I will invite both the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader to stand with me while speaking to the press.  I will explain to the people how Congress sent a 1,000 page bill for me to read when those same congress people possibly haven’t read it.  I would point out how this is malfeasance on the part of Congress.  I would heap shame upon them for not being sensitive to transparency; for not informing the public properly and for trying to railroad legislation.  I would give each Leader three minutes to respond and then  I would encourage the voter base, the individuals, to contact their Congress people and ask for an accounting of their actions.

I’m of course terribly afraid this would alienate me from Congress, but I firmly believe we as a nation have tried our best to remove shame from the public consciousness.  It’s time for shame to return.

Save the taxpayers money, reduce the deficit.
Asa Jay for President

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge to:

• review and eliminate (repeal) all prior Executive Orders that are no longer necessary
• not create any Executive Order that increases the tax burden, raises the deficit or increases the budget
• refrain from use of Executive Orders to create law

First, I don’t believe all Executive Orders are still valid and enforceable.  There are probably many that are extremely outdated and serve no purpose.  One of my biggest pet peeves with regard to laws, are those laws still on the books which are either null or no longer enforced and should be removed.  Being President, I would start with the elimination of Executive Orders no longer needed.  Without getting into deep research on the subject right now, I believe there are Executive Orders still in affect which should be repealed.  Some might argue those Executive Orders are necessary from prior administrations; orders that have established certain agencies within government to serve the people or some such purpose.  If that were the case, then Congress should have acted by now to establish laws behind the intent of the President who initiated the Executive Order in the first place.

I want to get back to basics; good easy to understand Constitutional values, not end-runs around Congress that impose one man’s (or woman’s) will on a country by trying to make law.  It is not the job of the President to micro-manage legislation or change agenda’s mid-stream by use of executive action that undermines the legislative or judicial process.  Even so, I think there may be times when executive action might be needed, but it also needs to be tempered properly with some consensus and a press for legislation that backs it.

Next, there is no reason to create Executive Orders that increase the tax burden, or by its execution raise the deficit or budget.  This is taxpayer money we are talking about here, not some magic currency created by fairy tale characters.  The House of Representatives should be the entity that proposes any kind of monetary burden increases on the people; it should -never- be done through Executive Order.  I couldn’t readily say if any other President has signed Executive Orders that increase the taxpayer burden, but this is certainly a position the President should take, to -not- increase the burden on the individual. Read the rest of this entry »

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge that all Presidential appointments made during Congressional breaks shall be temporary pending the return of Congress and their approval.

This maintains the system of checks and balances outlined in our Constitution.  Even in my best judgment, I still could have made a mistake in an appointment.  A man (or woman) who is President is not omniscient, they can’t know everything.  We all make bad decisions sometimes.  The decisions I make will be in my best judgment with the recognition there may be other more qualified people to do the job and I will rely on Congress to make that more-informed decision.  If an appointment can wait until Congress is back in session, then it will wait; I have no desire to create an image of making self-serving appointments taking advantage of a Congressional recess.  Therefore, if Congress doesn’t approve of an appointment I made during a Congressional recess, the person I appointed will be relieved of those duties and Congress must fill the position according to law.

It may be unfortunate a person who was appointed during recess loses the job I appointed them to; however, it’s in the best interest of the country.  I shall make no promise that any job is permanent.  Each job filled via a Presidential Appointment should be considered temporary pending the approval of Congress.  I will not make an effort to advance a political agenda through the appointment of unqualified individuals or people of little integrity or loyalty to the tenants of the Constitution.  I will not make appointments as favors in return for working on my campaign or being a significant donor unless that person can prove to me (and my advisers) they are fully qualified and have a background of loyalty and integrity toward upholding the Constitution as it protects the individuals of the country.  Part of that qualification shall be a willingness to work -not- for power or pay, but for advancing the liberty of the people.

Having worked in the real world, not being a politician, I would lean toward making appointments or recommending people who had already been working within the organization the appointment was being made for.  I realize the best qualified person for a job may be the person who is already training for that job; working under the person leaving.  I pledge my recommendations and appointments would not be arbitrary in as much as it is possible to discern the qualifications of a person both within and outside an organization.

Above all, I intend to uphold the Constitutional system of checks and balances by not presenting an air of king-like Presidential power.

Save the taxpayers money, reduce the deficit.
Asa Jay for President

This dissertation is going to sound disjointed.  There are some statements that will be taken out of context, mostly because I don’t want to spend the time building context for each of them as they may be tangential to the argument I’m making here and distract me.  My apologies.  Perhaps I can expound upon those things later.  For now, this is simply how the ramblings are pouring out of my head.

I am so tired of generally being a Constitutional conservative and “labeled” as waging a war on women.  Really?  I’m being told by those liberal fascists on the left that my political views include believing every woman should be in the home, happily married and bearing children while running around barefoot and constantly pregnant; that no woman should work and heaven forbid they shouldn’t be paid the same as men.  I’m told my views includes wanting women out of the military, out of Congress, and that only men should have a say if a woman can have an abortion or not.  I’m labeled as believing women are only to be subservient to men.

When those same “labelers” hear a man say they “love women,” those “labelers” hear “I love women, I think every man should own one.”  I just want to scream SHUT THE HELL UP, because they seem to have an irrational concept of reality on this subject, being taken in by repeated lies and propaganda that would paint me as a devil.  Perhaps it’s time I clarified myself for my own sake and the women I happily work with, work for, live with and believe in.

There are forces in society that would work to reshape the world in their own vision given the opportunity to change the dialogue even if that dialogue were untrue.  This includes people who wish to suppress my voice simply because they don’t agree with me.  It’s an interesting paradigm where one person believes everyone should have the right to speak out… unless the view doesn’t align with their own.  That is nearly the exact thing I perceive the greater “feminist” movement to have stirred.

Do I believe a women’s movement was necessary?  In some ways yes, I believe the voice of women was suppressed and needing to be heard.  But what feminism has grown into is not what many women need and in many ways may be hurting the entire equalization of the sexes.  Today, a feminist can be verbally abusive to another woman who has more desire to stay at home and raise children rather than work a 50 hour week and be the primary bread winner.  Is that really necessary? Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s play a game.

I’m a man, a human who has a family and works hard to provide for them.  Let’s say I’m a farmer and I raise chickens.  Let’s say that a fox keeps getting a chicken from the barnyard every so often.  It really irritates me that a chicken is being stolen from my barnyard; it’s reducing my family income, maybe even preventing the meat from making it to the table.  What to do?

Well, being a good farmer, I set a trap.  I got that pesky fox and turned it over to wildlife management who took it away.  I didn’t lose a chicken for weeks.  Then one day I started losing chickens again, this time to a different fox.  Well, I caught that one and called wildlife management again and they took it.  This went on for a couple more foxes and then I got a notice from wildlife management.  They just passed a new law and I had to surrender a chicken to them every week and it would be used to cut down the number of foxes.

Sure enough, the foxes stopped coming around for a long time.  Then a new fox showed up.  Wildlife management changed the law and now required two chickens.  After a while they demanded more chickens even though no more foxes came around.  Soon, I found wildlife management was feeding my chickens to the foxes.  The foxes knew where to go to get free chickens without the bother of my farm and it’s traps.  That explained why I hardly saw anymore foxes.  I was appalled.

Wildlife management had passed a law to take my chickens and feed them to the foxes I had been trying to -prevent- eating my chickens.  I was outraged; how dare they -take- my chickens to feed the foxes I didn’t want eating my chickens.  How dare they take food off my table to feed the scourge plaguing my farm.

Let’s change that story: Read the rest of this entry »