It is also evident, news and print folks are unlikely to sensationalize daily black on black killings because this does not produce revenue and happens so frequently it no longer stirs passions. They just shrug their shoulders and move on as if it is simply and accepted part of life. I don't hear Liberals screaming about these tragedies. Could it be their bias is showing?
Rush to judgement, whether it be buying a stock, a piece of jewelry or even a marriage proposal is not the most astute way to perform but then the words 'responsible journalism' has become an oxymoron. The Fourth Estate has sunk to such low esteem they now compete with Congress for cellar (not stellar) position.
Are we about to re-enact "Leo" Zimmerman? (See 1 and 1a below.)
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NY Times analysis of yesterday's Court arguments. (See 2 below.)
In being forced to review how far previous Court decisions have drifted from The Constitution, is it possible this Court may do the right thing and return us to sanity? (See 2a below.)
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When Obama spins out of control and reveals his true intentions he can always rely on the press and media dolts to put Humpty Dumpy back on his perch by burying the circumstances surrounding his fall. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Geraldo's point
By Thomas Sowell
It is not often that I agree with Geraldo Rivera, but recently he said something very practical and potentially life-saving, when he urged black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies.
There is no point in dressing like a hoodlum when you are not a hoodlum, even though that has become a fashion for some minority youths, including the teenager who was shot and killed in a confrontation in Florida. I don't know the whole story of that tragedy, any more than those who are making loud noises in the media do, but that is something that we have trials for.
People have a right to dress any way they want to, but exercising that right is something that requires common sense, and common sense is something that parents should have, even if their children don't always have it.
Many years ago, when I was a student at Harvard, there was a warning to all the students to avoid a nearby tough Irish neighborhood, where Harvard students had been attacked. It so happened that there was a black neighborhood on the other side of the Irish neighborhood that I had to pass through when I went to get my hair cut.
I never went through that Irish neighborhood dressed in the style of most Harvard students back then. I walked through that Irish neighborhood dressed like a black working man would be dressed -- and I never had the slightest trouble the whole three years that I was at Harvard.
While I had a right to walk through that tough neighborhood dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, if I wanted to -- and if I could have afforded one, which I couldn't -- it made no sense for me to court needless dangers.
The man who shot the black teenager in Florida may be as guilty as sin, for all I know -- or he may be innocent, for all I know. We pay taxes so that there can be judges and jurors who sort out the facts. We do not need Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or the President of the United States spouting off before the trial has even begun. Have we forgotten the media's rush to judgment in the Duke University "rape" case that blew up completely when the facts came out?
If the facts show that a teenager who was no threat to anyone was shot and killed, it will be time to call for the death penalty. But if the facts show that the shooter was innocent, then it will be time to call for people in the media and in politics to keep their big mouths shut until they know what they are talking about. (Latest report: New witness reports cast Florida teen as aggressor)
Playing with racial polarization is playing with fire.
Much has been made of the fact that the teenager was unarmed. The only time I have ever pointed a loaded gun at a human being, I had no idea whether he was armed or not. All I knew was that I could hear his footsteps sneaking up behind me at night.
Fortunately for both of us, he froze in his tracks when I pointed a gun at him. If he had made a false move, I would have shot him. And if it had turned out later that he was unarmed, I would not have lost a moment's sleep over it.
You know that someone was unarmed only after it is all over. If he attacks, you have to shoot, if only to keep the attacker from getting your gun.
It so happened that the man I pointed a gun at was white. But he could have been any color of the rainbow, and it would not have made the slightest difference.
Let the specific facts come out in the Florida case. That is why we have courts.
Have we forgotten the Jim Crow era, with courts making decisions based on the race of the defendants, rather than the facts of the case? That is part of the past that we need to leave in the past, not resurrect it under new racial management.
Who is really showing concern for the well-being of minority youngsters, Geraldo Rivera who is trying to save some lives, or Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others who are hyping this tragic episode for their own benefit?
Race hustlers who hype paranoia and belligerence are doing no favor to minority youngsters. There is no way to know how many of these youngsters' confrontations with the police or others in authority have been needlessly aggravated by the steady drumbeat of racial hype they have been bombarded with by race hustlers.
1a)Dedicated_Dad
The treasonous ramblings of a grouchy old cripple. I am a proud Father, G*d-fearing Patriot, Strict Original-intent Constitutionalist, and vocal opponent of all Domestic Enemies regardless of their color or party. I'm also completely convinced that it's long past time for us to stop beating around the bush, time for us to speak clearly about EXACTLY what is coming. God help us - and God Save Our Republic!
SOME truth about Trayvon...
Since our entire country is about to tear itself apart over the killing of a black youth, I decided to sit down tonight and do a little digging.
What I found didn't really surprise me -- I'm about the world's biggest cynic -- but it IS pretty staggering in a sick sort of way...
First the "concensus narrative":
Poor little Trayvon - choir-boy extraordinaire, and candidate for sainthood - was chased down and murdered by a racist white man for the "crime" of walking to the store to buy a bag of skittles for his beloved little brother.
The police TOLD the racist murderer not to follow Trayvon, but he continued, and wasn't satisfied until he'd MURDERED this innocent little child.
Naturally, they also trot out heart-melting pictures of the innocent child, to be sure nobody misses the fact that he was someone SPECIAL whose life was cut tragically short by the twin horrors of racism and guns.
What's worse, the evil, racist redneck cops in the Florida town where this tragedy happened chose to let the murderer walk free - after all, he was white and the dead "child" was black!
At this point, 99% of the black community is screaming for "Zimmerman"'s head on a platter, thanks in large part to media pandering and the usual bevy of race-hustlers and pimps. Even King Hussein The First, has chosen to fan the flames by claiming "If (he) had a son, he'd look like Trayvon".
You'd THINK that black folks ESPECIALLY - given the long history of "their people" being lynched without benefit of due process - would be against the whole meme - but obviously you'd be WRONG.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard all that so many times that it's become TRUE - though it's nearly all a pack of sickening LIES!
Here's what I've learned...
First of all, Trayvon was in this "strange neighborhood" because he'd been sent there by his Momma -- sent to stay with his DADDY for a bit so Daddy could "straighten him out" during a week-long suspension from school.
Though nobody will say what he did to get himself suspended, one thing is sure: It was relatively SERIOUS if it earned him a weeklong suspension... For Mom to call on DAD to "straighten him out" - thus admitting SHE COULDN"T HANDLE THE KID - is also telling!
Then there's Trayvon himself...Here's the kid we've all been told was so brutally murdered:
As it turns out, that picture is about 5 years old!
In reality, THIS is the "Trayvon 'SLIMM' Martin" who was shot on that fateful night:
Gosh! Gold "grille", "saggin' pants", obscene gestures... Not quite the choir-boy we've all been crying over, huh?
Then there's the fact that - in another image from his Facebook page - young Trayvon apparently self-identified as a "MADE NIGGA" - meaning he'd been officially accepted into a "gang."
Which gang? I'm not sure, but clearly it has a "Waters Avenue" "set" - and "Slimm" made a claim to be in it!
Lest you fall for the claims of "That's a DIFFERENT Trayvon Martin" - note that even the pic his family chose for his "funeral handout" had a similar "tough guy" vibe - also delivered in a red font.
Even further, I'd bet a paycheck that the "skull and crossbones" came from the same "graffiti" font-set he used for his "Made..." announcement above! - but I digress...
Do a simple Google Image Search for "Trayvon Martin" and look at what pops up. Scroll on down and look -- you'll find all sorts of *OLD* pictures of him (the bastards even go so far as to break out the photo from his "Kindergarten Graduation") -- but you'll find the only sites showing the pics I found above are places like "StormFront"...
EVEN THE "POSTER BOY" SHOT HAS BEEN ALTERED TO MAKE HIM LOOK MORE INNOCENT!!
Lastly, note that the Police Report from the night of the shooting - which took its info from his two-year-old ID - listed him as 6-0, but the Trayvon who was shot was was in fact a six-foot-two and 180+ pounds football player - not the innocent little boy being plastered all over!
Zimmerman OTOH is 5-9, and obviously obese. Further, he was - when police arrived at the scene - bleeding from his nose and from the BACK of his head. He also had grass all over the wet-back of his shirt, which corroborates the eyewitness' statement that he'd been on the ground on his back being beaten by the poor choir-boy Trayvon prior to his firing his weapon.
Ok ....So maybe Trayvon wasn't the choir-boy we've been led to believe - but that doesn't give Zimmerman the right to kill him!After all - Zimmerman continued chasing Trayvon after the police told him to stop!
As it turns out, THAT is a lie too!
If you listen to the whole 911 call, you'll find two things:
(1) The dispatcher didn't tell Zimmerman "Don't do that" (follow Martin) - he said "We don't NEED YOU TO DO THAT"... The former is an order, the latter a simple attempt to limit liability!
(2) Even more importantly - contrary to the ongoing "concensus narrative" - ZIMMERMAN - upon being told he didn't NEED to follow Martin - STOPPED FOLLOWING HIM!!
You can tell this because he stopped wheezing when he was no longer hurrying trying to keep up with a running Martin - but also because he told the dispatcher that Martin had "disappeared", and that he (Zimmerman) was going to return to his truck!!
I believe we've pretty well established that Trayvon wasn't who we've been told he was.
It's undeniable that they've gone WAAaaay 'round the bend to make poor little Trayvon look like a little boy instead of the LARGE, ATHLETIC *MAN* he really was.
I believe it's undeniable that the "narrative" of the whole thing is also twisted, through selective "editing" of the 911 tape.
What about those racist cops? They STILL should have arrested Zimmerman, right?
Well, as it turns out, that's wrong too!
See, Florida law PROHIBITS police from arresting someone who appears to have been acting in self-defense!
Further, it was *NOT* the cops, but the DISTRICT ATTORNEY who made the decision not to charge Zimmerman -- a decision he made *AFTER* reviewing all the evidence and the testimony of all the witnesses -- which just happens to match what Zimmerman has claimed from the beginning!
Zimmerman says he was returning to his truck when Martin ATTACKED *HIM*!
He says he began screaming for help, and when he was on the ground being beaten he finally drew his weapon and fired in self-defense!
This statement matches the story from multiple eyewitnesses, and even a SEPARATE 911 tape where Zimmerman can be heard screaming for help in the background!
But... Wasn't that Trayvon screaming for help?!
NOT ACCORDING TO MARTIN'S OWN FATHER - who told cops (after listening to the tape) "That's not my son." !!
FURTHER, ALL THIS HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR AT LEAST A WEEK!
[url=http://www.sanfordfl.gov/investigation/docs/Zimmerman_Martin_shooting.pdf][b][u]Here's a letter from the "City Manager" to the public, trying to calm things down"[/u][/b][/url] - it also has some interesting facts...
Lastly, here's a page with links to several relevant documents and videos...
In short, EVERYTHING you've been told about this case is a lie.
Every "fact" has been twisted, pictures deliberately altered, and the whole thing deliberately manipulated in order to foment and fan the flames of racial tensions.
The race-pimps and hustlers have done THEIR sickening best to wind up as many as possible, and they've been aided by everyone from the media to the White-House.
The ONE QUESTION WE MOST NEED TO BE ASKING AT THIS POINT IS WHY??!!
The answer to *THAT* question may just tell us what we REALLY need to know!!
There *IS* one more thing to consider, here:
Where is O'Blamer's concern for the 10 black kids killed/49 wounded JUST IN CHICAGO, AND JUST THIS WEEK? WHAT ABOUT THE 1500 black babies murdered by their mother EVERY DAY?!
THEY don't matter - because THEY don't serve the AGENDA!!
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2)Analysis of the Arguments — The Supreme Court Health Care Challenges
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard the first of three days of arguments challenging the constitutionality of the 2010 health care law. Times reporters offered analysis of the 90-minute hearing, with excerpts posted below.
By JOSH WILLIAMS, ELISABETH GOODRIDGE, ADAM LIPTAK, SARAH KRAMER and KEVIN SACK /THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sound of My Voice Watch the first 12 Minutes SoundofMyVoiceMovie.com Click here |  |
Explaining the Anti-Injunction Act
Robert A. Long is the lawyer appointed by the Supreme Court to argue that the health care litigation should be dismissed under the Anti-Injunction Act. Mr. Long, the first of three lawyers arguing before the court on Monday, explained the act’s relevance in his opening statement. Entire
Transcript »
MR. LONG
The Anti-Injunction Act imposes a pay first, litigate later rule that is central to Federal tax assessment and collection. The Act applies to essentially every tax penalty in the Internal Revenue Code. There is no reason to think that Congress made a special exception for the penalty imposed by section 5000A. On the contrary, there are three reasons to conclude that the Anti-Injunction Act applies here.First, Congress directed that the section 5000A penalty shall be assessed and collected in the same manner as taxes. Second, Congress provided that penalties are included in taxes for assessment purposes. And third, the section 5000A penalty bears the key indicia of a tax.
Defining the Mandate's Payments
Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned Mr. Long about whether the payment for not obtaining health insurance, the law’s “individual mandate,” is best characterized as a tax or a penalty. His question gets to the heart of the argument before the court on Monday. If the court determines the payments to be a tax, the law cannot be challenged under the 1867 Anti-Injunction Act until the monies are first due in 2015. Entire Transcript »
JUSTICE BREYER
Now, here, Congress has nowhere used the word "tax." What it says is penalty. Moreover, this is not in the Internal Revenue Code "but for purposes of collection." And so why is this a tax? And I know you point to certain sentences that talk about taxes within the code -
MR. LONG
Right.
JUSTICE BREYER
-- and this is not attached to a tax. It is attached to a health care requirement.
JUSTICE BREYER
-- so why does it fall within that word?
MR. LONG
Right.
MR. LONG
Well, I mean, the first point is -- our initial submission is you don't have to determine that this is a tax in order to find that the Anti-Injunction Act applies, because Congress very specifically said that it shall be assessed and collected in the same manner as a tax, even if it's a tax penalty and not a tax. So that's one -
JUSTICE BREYER
But that doesn't mean the AIA applies. I mean -- and then they provide some exceptions, but it doesn't mean the AIA applies. It says "in the same manner as." It is then attached to chapter 68, when that -- it that references that as "being the manner of." Well, that it's being applied -- or if it's being collected in the same manner as a tax doesn't automatically make it a tax, particularly since the reasons for the AIA are to prevent interference with revenue sources. And here, an advance attack on this does not interfere with the collection of revenues.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explored whether there was a distinction between challenging the individual mandate and challenging the penalty itself.
Entire Transcript »
Arguing a Distinction
JUSTICE GINSBURG
Mr. Long, there's another argument that has been made that I would like you to address, and that is all this talk about tax penalties is all beside the point because this suit is not challenging the penalty. This is a suit that is challenging the must-buy provision, and the argument is made that, if, indeed, "must-buy" is constitutional, than these complainants will not resist the penalty. So what they're seeking is a determination that that "must-buy" requirement, stated separately from penalty, that "must-buy" is unconstitutional, and, if that's so, that's the end of the case; if it's not so, they are not resisting the penalty.
MR. LONG
Well, I think that argument doesn't work for two reasons. I mean, first, if you look at the Plaintiff's own complaint, they clearly challenge both the minimum coverage requirement and the penalty.
Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. went second on Monday, and he had to walk a fine line. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. noted that the position taken by Mr. Verrilli regarding the tax question was likely to contradict the position the solicitor general will take in Tuesday’s arguments about the constitutionality of the health insurance mandate. Entire Transcript »
The Government's Fine Line
JUSTICE ALITO
General Verrilli, today you are arguing that the penalty is not a tax. Tomorrow you are going to be back and you will be arguing that the penalty is a tax. Has the Court ever held that something that is a tax for purposes of the taxing power under the Constitution is not a tax under the Anti-
Injunction Act?
MR. VERRILLI
No, Justice Alito, but the Court has held in a license tax cases that something can be a constitutional exercise of the taxing power whether or not it is called a tax. And that's because the nature of the inquiry that we will conduct tomorrow is different from the nature of the inquiry that we will conduct today. Tomorrow the question is whether Congress has the authority under the taxing power to enact it and the form of words doesn't have a dispositive effect on that analysis. Today we are construing statutory text where the precise choice of words does have a dispositive effect on the analysis.
Watch What You Say
Justice Stephen G. Breyer had to remind Mr. Verrilli that his use of the word “tax” might undercut his argument that the payment for not obtaining health insurance is not a tax and thus is not subject to the Anti-Injunction Act. Entire Transcript »
MR. VERRILLI
If they pay the tax, then they are in compliance with the law.
JUSTICE BREYER
Why do you keep saying tax?
MR. VERRILLI
If they pay the tax penalty, they're in compliance with the law.
JUSTICE BREYER
Thank you.
MR. VERRILLI
Thank you, Justice Breyer.
JUSTICE BREYER
The penalty.
MR. VERRILLI
Right. That's right.
Again, Watch What You Say
Then Gregory G. Katsas, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business and several individuals, corrected Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for calling the payments “penalties.” Mr. Katsas, who represented the private parties challenging the law, was the third and final lawyer on Monday to present his arguments. Entire Transcript »
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS
The whole point - the whole point of the suit is to prevent the collection of penalties.
MR. KATSAS
Of taxes, Mr. Chief Justice.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS
Well prevent of the collection of taxes. But the idea that the mandate is something separate from whether you want to call it a penalty or tax just doesn't seem to make much sense.
MR. KATSAS
It's entirely separate, and let me explain to you why.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS
It's a command. A mandate is a command. If there is nothing behind the command. It's sort of well what happens if you don't file the mandate? And the answer is nothing. It seems very artificial to separate the punishment from the crime.
Then Gregory G. Katsas, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business and several individuals, corrected Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for calling the payments “penalties.” Mr. Katsas, who represented the private parties challenging the law, was the third and final lawyer on Monday to present his arguments. Entire Transcript »
2a)Supreme Court to Decide if the U.S. Constitution Is a Dead Letter
By Bob Marshall
By tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will have spent six hours hearing oral argument over a three-day period about the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. After the argument on Tuesday, the Court will address the question: "Whether Congress had the power under Article I of the Constitution to enact the minimum coverage provision." That sterile statement of the issue on which the Court granted certiorari vastly understates the significance of this case. The truth is that this case will determine whether there are any meaningful limitations on Congress' power to mandate an individual's life choices.
When Congress' power under Article I, Section 8 -- power to "regulate commerce ... among the several states" (Clause 3) -- has been paired with Congress' power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into executing the foregoing powers" (Clause 18), the result has been the virtually unlimited power of Congress to dominate the everyday behavior of the American people, in direct conflict with the plain language of the Tenth Amendment reserving such powers to the state and to the people.
In large part, it is the combination of the "commerce" and "necessary and proper" clauses that have led many to conclude that the Constitution is a dead letter to our generation -- that the battle was lost before most of us were born. How profoundly sad. Indeed, the Sunday morning pundits believe that the ObamaCare challenge is already lost. Well, they may hope that it is lost, but I have a different view.
I have been in the trenches against ObamaCare since before it was enacted. In late 2009 I wrote an article against the individual mandate for the Richmond Times Dispatch. In January 2010, I authored the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act that our attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, used to file suit against the Obama administration. On April 4, 2011, I filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit to support that challenge to ObamaCare. I explained this brief to the House of Delegates on April 4, 2011. My wife and I attended oral argument, and we saw the case presented to three Democrat-appointed judges on the Fourth Circuit panel. In their opinion, those judges impugned the integrity of those of us who were working against this law, and then decided that since the Commonwealth of Virginia was a mere state, it did not have standing to challenge the law. Then I filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court urging the Court to grant certiorari on November 3, 2011 -- a petition that is still pending.
When the Supreme Court decided to hear the challenge from the Eleventh Circuit, on February 13, 2012, I filed yet another brief on the merits in that case. In each of these briefs, where I was joined by other concerned individuals and organizations, we have urged the Court to re-examine the text of the Commerce Clause -- and to ignore its flawed decisions in this area.
Why am I somewhat optimistic? While the Constitution is my passion, learning the parliamentary and political skills to stop bad laws has been one of my main activities for the 21 years I have served in the Virginia General Assembly, and before that for six years as a congressional aide to three members of Congress. To learn how power is abused, I studied history, including how FDR manipulated Congress to get the New Deal around the Court, and it is not a pretty picture. My recent amicus brief presents this story to the Supreme Court in unvarnished fashion.
In a nutshell, frustrated by the Supreme Court's decisions blocking many of his early New Deal initiatives, FDR launched a political attack on the court. As explained in his March 1937 Fireside Chat, FDR's Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 would add up to six additional justices to the Supreme Court. He didn't have to wait long for the Court to fold its hand. In April 1937 Justice Owen Roberts became the "switch in time that saved the nine." And it was in the unprincipled cases that followed that the Court aided and abetted FDR's unconstitutional revolution towards a federal government of unlimited powers. Since then, in effect, the majority in Congress and the Court have sat as a standing Constitutional Convention in defiance of the will of the People, undermining the very nature of a written constitution. Sometimes big cases lead to big decisions, and this may be the case that returns us to the original plan.
In its ObamaCare briefs, the government relies heavily on the properly ridiculed 1942 Supreme Court case of Wickard v. Filburn, which upheld a bureaucratic decision dictating the amount of wheat that a farmer grew for his family and his livestock, even though the wheat never traveled in or had any connection to interstate commerce. This was not a decision reached on the legal merits. Rather, it was the product of an unprecedented exercise of raw political power by President Roosevelt.
Shedding light on this dismal past may embarrass the Court into doing the right thing.
I hold out hope that if the Court focuses on how it was manipulated into its current jurisprudence, it just might be willing to re-examine whether it erred.
One of the great problems is that if the Supreme Court goes off-track long enough, those who agree with the policy result raise the defense of stare decisis -- the legal principle by which courts follow the precedent of prior cases. It is for this reason that lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court seem to discuss only rarely the original text of the Constitution, instead often analyzing Supreme Court decisions. However, the Constitution is what the Founders said it was -- not what the Court says it is.
But there are times when the Court recognizes that it went off-track, or allowed lower courts to do so, and chooses to return to the text of the Constitution. We have seen two instances of this recently, where the country is better off because the Court re-examined precedent in light of the Constitutional text.
In the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court re-examined the "prevailing wisdom" that the Second Amendment protected only a "collective right" which protected state Guards, and not a right that individuals enjoyed. After an extensive textual and contextual analysis, the Court reached a decision consistent with the Founders, even if inconsistent with prior Court decisions. In the Antoine Jones case in January 2012, the Supreme Court re-examined over 40 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence that transformed the Fourth Amendment's "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" into a judicially invented right to privacy, and returned the Fourth Amendment to its property foundation. These were brave, principled decisions.
Sam Walter Foss's famous poem "The Calf-Path" illustrates from nature the utter folly of failing to re-examine periodically why we do what we do: "By one calf near three centuries dead. They follow still his crooked way, And lose one hundred years a day, For thus such reverence is lent, To well-established precedent."
The Roberts Court has a demonstrated record of looking past prior decisions to the constitutional text.
So I have reasons to be hopeful that the Supreme Court of 2012 will refuse to follow that calf-path established in 1941 by a politically cowed Justice Owen Roberts, now five decades dead, and will re-examine the constitutional text, thereby forcing the federal government back to the limited role that our Founders wanted it to have.
2b)Why D.C. Is So Hostile to James Madison
By Rich Lowry
The shade of James Madison hovers over the Obamacare argument at the Supreme Court.
It is the system of limited and carefully divided government powers that he had a large hand in crafting — and defended so ably in the Federalist Papers — that is at stake in the contest over the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
If the mandate stands, it will be the latest blow to Madison’s scheme, which is the best architecture for self-government yet devised by man, but has been steadily worn down over time. It is a damning indictment of contemporary Washington that, overall, it is so hostile to the Madisonian ethos. He is a most inconvenient Founding Father since he tells us: No, the federal government can’t do whatever it wants; no, we can’t just all get along; no, we can’t rush to pass whatever legislation is deemed a “can’t wait” priority by the president. Now, grow up.
In the mind of contemporary progressivism, these words of Madison from the Federalist Paperssimply don’t compute: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” They are an antiquated 18th-century sentiment unsuited to our more complex and more sophisticated time, to be ignored when not actively scorned.But Madison thought this division of power so important for a reason: “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”
The entire system is meant to maximize accountability and competition in the belief that the undue accumulation of power in any one source is, in Madison’s words, “the very definition of tyranny.” The frequent Supreme Court swing vote Anthony Kennedy has written that “federalism was the unique contribution of the Framers to political science and political theory.” It is exactly this contribution that has been trampled through the decades, and Obamacare stomps on once more.
Madison concerned himself with limits on government because “there is a degree of depravity in mankind, which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” So, as he famously wrote, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
He would have no patience for gooey discussions on the Sunday shows about the divisiveness of our political life. “The latent causes of faction,” for Madison, “are sown in the nature of man.” In his marvelous new biography of Madison, Richard Brookhiser calls him not just the Father of the Constitution but the Father of Politics because he was a pioneer in fighting the sort of partisan battles we now look down upon and rue.
Nor would Madison be moved by the lamentations that Congress isn’t passing enough legislation quickly enough. He wanted a Senate — that balky, frustrating upper body — to check the rush to enshrine momentary causes into law. In a passage that could have been written as commentary on the handiwork of Nancy Pelosi’s Congress, he argued “it will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
In his book on Madison’s political thought, American Compact, Gary Rosen notes that “as Madison feared, utility rather than constitutionality has become the ultimate test for public policy.” The debate over Obamacare at the time of its passage focused on its cost, its workability, and its aggrandizing tendency more than its constitutionality. For Madison, Rosen continues, constitutional limits “were the deepest source of republican dignity, the bulwarks that he expected citizens to defend in order to remind themselves of their sovereignty.” Would that they were once again.
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3)Obama’s Weak “Hot Mic” Explanation
Alana Goodman
The president is trying to brush away concerns about his disturbing comments to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but his excuse is a lot of the same spin we’ve been hearing from the White House since yesterday:
“The only way I get this stuff done is If I’m consulting with the Pentagon, with Congress, if I’ve got bipartisan support and frankly, the current environment is not conducive to those kinds of thoughtful consultations,” Obama told reporters following a meeting with the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan. “I think the stories you guys have been writing over the last 24 hours is pretty good evidence of that.” …
On Tuesday, Obama said his comments, though not intended for public consumption, were “not a matter of hiding the ball — I’m on record” about wanting to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. Though he spoke bluntly to Medvedev, Obama insisted that the thrust of his remarks was in line with what he said in his Monday speech at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and in other public statements.
Read the New York Times coverage of Obama’s explanation this morning to get an idea of how fast the media is trying to sink this story. The spin is that Obama was simply being pragmatic. Of course he can’t deal with an issue as complex as missile defense during an election year, what with all those radical Republicans in Congress trying to sabotage his chances in November, and the media jumping all over every little perceived controversy. “I think the stories you guys have been writing over the last 24 hours is pretty good evidence of that,” Obama told reporters this morning. Can you believe the nerve of the press to actually report on the president’s hot-mic conversation with Medvedev?
If Obama had been caught on the hot mic saying, “This is my reelection year. After my election, I can actually get something done on this,” that might mesh with his excuse today that he can’t “get this stuff done” because the politically-charged election year “is not conducive to those kinds of thoughtful consultations.”
But Obama didn’t say that. He said: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” That doesn’t sound like someone who is primarily concerned about reaching a bipartisan agreement with Congress. That sounds like someone implying that he can personally offer more after he’s no longer beholden to voters (the key words being “my last election”).
As Charles Krauthammer explained on Fox News last night:
‘This is my last election.’ That’s his way of saying with a nod and a wink, ‘Look, you guys have a free hand because you run a dictatorship, your elections are rigged. Well, ours aren’t rigged, but once I get passed my last election, I’m unleashed. I can do anything I want.
And what he’s saying is, ‘you know that reset I began three years ago where I completely undermined our allies in Eastern Europe. I cancelled the missile defense system and I began a process in which our supremacy in missile defenses is now negotiable, which the Republicans have never allowed to be negotiable.’
‘Well, after election day, I can’t speak about it now of course because it’s my last election and Americans won’t actually like that — after election day, I’ll be open.’
This speaks to the deepest concerns conservatives have about an Obama second term.
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