Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in what was either a “Look! Squirrel!” moment, designed by the Democrats to distract Americans from the Obamacare Disaster, or to ensure that activist judges would continue to do the bidding of the Progressives and their Petulant President, lead the Senate Democrats in approving a historic rules change that eliminated the use of the filibuster on all presidential nominees except those to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By using the long-threatened “nuclear option”, the Democrats have ensured that most of President Barack Hussein Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominees no longer need to clear the 60-vote threshold that was formerly required to reach the Senate floor and get an up-or-down vote.

Of course, President Obama was as happy as Star War’s Emperor Palpatine, when he was “elected” to rule the Empire and “Liberty died…to thunderous applause”…

All too often, we’ve seen a single senator or a handful of senators choose to abuse arcane procedural tactics to unilaterally block bipartisan compromises, or to prevent well-qualified, patriotic Americans from filling critical positions of public service in our system of government.

Now, at a time when millions of American have desperately searched for work, repeated abuse of these tactics have blocked legislation that might create jobs. They’ve defeated actions that would help women fighting for equal pay. They’ve prevented more progress than we would have liked for striving young immigrants trying to earn their citizenship. Or it’s blocked efforts to end tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas. They’ve even been used to block common-sense and widely supported steps to protect more Americans from gun violence, even as families of victims sat in the Senate chamber and watched. And they’ve prevented far too many talented Americans from serving their country at a time when their country needs their talents the most.

The American people’s business is far too important to keep falling prey, day after day, to Washington politics.

I’m a former senator. So is my Vice President. We both value any Senate’s duty to advise and consent. It’s important, and we take that very seriously. But a few now refuse to treat that duty of advise and consent with the respect that it deserves. It’s no longer used in a responsible way to govern. It’s rather used as a reckless and relentless tool to grind all business to a halt. And that’s not what our Founders intended, and it’s certainly not what our country needs right now.

And I just want to remind everybody, what’s at stake here is not my ability to fulfill my constitutional duty. What’s at stake is the ability of any President to fulfill his or her constitutional duty. Public service is not a game. It is a privilege. And the consequences of action or inaction are very real. The American people deserve better than politicians who run for election telling them how terrible government is, and then devoting their time in elected office to trying to make government not work as often as possible.

That, boys and girls, is what we call “irony”.

Obama is right…but, not in the way he thinks.

The American people don’t deserve this. We deserve America leadership which will respect the wishes of our Founding Fathers, not attempt to interpret them for their own nefarious purposes, in order to attempt a coupe d’ tat of our judiciary system and to sabotage our System of Checks and Balances.

In the 1939 American Cinema Classic, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, a naive young man, Jefferson Smith, brilliantly portrayed by the legendary Jimmy Stewart, is appointed to fill a vacancy in the US Senate. His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn’t back down.

He winds up holding a filibuster on the Senate Floor, one man, standing for what is right, against the corruption of Political Ideologues, bought and paid for by special interest groups.

Sound familiar?

Here are a couple of excerpts from that classic scene on the Floor of the Senate. They ring as true today as they did all those years ago.

You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that.

…Just get up off the ground, that’s all I ask. Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what Man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see. There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that’s what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we’d better get those boys’ camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it’s not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light. They’re right here; you just have to see them again!

But, what power do we average Americans have? What weapon do we have to stand up to this exercise of tyranny by those who are supposed to serve us?

President Ronald Reagan answered that question on September 26, 1986 at the investiture of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia at the White House…

…the Founding Fathers designed a system of checks and balances, and of limited government, because they knew that the great preserver of our freedoms would never be the courts or either of the other branches alone. It would always be the totality of our constitutional system, with no one part getting the upper hand. And that’s why the judiciary must be independent. And that is why it must exercise restraint.

So, our protection is in the constitutional system, and one other place as well. Lincoln asked, “What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty?” And he answered, “It is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us.” Yes, we the people are the ultimate defenders of freedom. We the people created the Government and gave it its powers. And our love of liberty and our spiritual strength, our dedication to the Constitution, are what, in the end, preserves our great nation and this great hope for all mankind. All of us, as Americans, are joined in a great common enterprise to write the story of freedom — the greatest adventure mankind has ever known and one we must pass on to our children and their children, remembering that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

The warning, more than a century ago, attributed to Daniel Webster, remains as timeless as the document he revered. “Miracles do not cluster,” he said, “Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands — what has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fall there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

The Great Communicator was, per usual, exactly right. We must remain strong and steadfast if we are to remain free.

Stay vigilant, Americans.

Until He Comes,

KJ