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This from a, middle road politically speaking, attorney friend and fellow memo reader in response to my memo about "Leo" Zimmerman: "That Orlando tragedy has taken on the aura of mob justice, a potential lynching. It is sad that Black's who once were the objects of mob justice are now perpetrating it themselves. And Obama has only stoked the flames effectively preventing a thoughtful investigation to find out what really happened. He is an embarrassment. It doesn't seem like the mob wants to know what actually happened.
Any time Sharpton gets involved means emotion, sensationalism and publicity for him is the goal. The national press, TV included, makes money from sensational news so they are firing up the mob.
I hope the authorities don't give in to the mob." (See 1 below.)
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I thought we had been dumbed down about as low as we could go but then Obama comes along and wants to send us lower. ---
Whenever government gets involved in anything the lowest common denominator ultimately becomes the median. Government seldom, if ever, strides to elevate by seeking the top as the standard to be met.See PJTV.Com : "Obama's Race to the Bottom: U.S. Government is Seizing School Power and Setting Lower Education Standards
The federal government is moving to create federal education standards that will reduce state control significantly. Dr. Bill Evers, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former U.S. assistant secretary of education policy, joins Alexis Garcia to discuss how the Obama administration is using backdoor measures to exert more federal power over education."
Just more dumb de dumb dumb!
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Talk about closing the barn door after the horses have fled! That seems to be Obama's economic model and his goal is to recreate Europe in America. (See 2 below.)
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Who will be the fifth vote? Our freedom for an all powerful government will determined by that Justice. (See 3 below.)
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Figures do not lie unless they are crafted by Obama for his re-election. Bernanke ain't buying them.
I wrote in a previous memo if even one person got employed they would make a huge deal out of it and have you believe the economy was booming.
Was it Gershwin who wrote: "It Ain't Necessarily So?"(See 4 below.)
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German Defense Minister unnerved after meeting with his Israeli counterpart! And well he should be because Israel cannot/must not keep its head in the sand until after Obama's re-election. (See 5 below.)
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As Justice Ginsburg said to the Egyptians the American Constitution will not work for you and so it is.
The new Egyptian Constitution will be drafted by the Muslim Brotherhood whose founder was a disciple of Hitler. (See 6 below.)
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Maybe there is hope for The Republic after all. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Trayvon Martin Investigator Wanted Manslaughter Charge
By MATT GUTMANRELATED CONTENT
- Trayvon Martin Shooter Told Cops …
The lead homicide investigator in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin recommended that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, multiple sources told ABC News.
But Sanford, Fla., Investigator Chris Serino was instructed to not press charges against Zimmerman because the state attorney's office headed by Norman Wolfinger determined there wasn't enough evidence to lead to a conviction, the sources told ABC News.
Police brought Zimmerman into the station for questioning for a few hours on the night of the shooting, said Zimmerman's attorney, despite his request for medical attention first. Ultimately they had to accept Zimmerman's claim of self defense. He was never charged with a crime.
Serino filed an affidavit on Feb. 26, the night that Martin was shot and killed by Zimmerman, that stated he was unconvinced Zimmerman's version of events.
Zimmerman, 28, claimed he shot Martin, 17, in self defense.
One complicating factor in the investigation was that the first detective to interview Zimmerman about the shooting was a narcotics officer rather than a homicide detective.
The State Attorney's office said only "no comment" when asked about the affidavit today.
The revelation is the latest salvo in a war of leaks meant to bolster each side amid rising tension over the shooting.
Martin's family attorney confirmed today that the teenager was suspended from his Miami school three times over the past year.
Martin's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, will appear before a House panel today and rallies continue around the country demanding that Zimmermanbe arrested.
About 200 to 250 protesters gathered in front of the Justice Department today to demand the Justice Department to charge Zimmerman with a federal hate crime.
Martin may have cut a more imposing figure than previously known. Recent pictures on the web and social media show him with gold dental grill and making obscene gestures to the camera.
In addition, Martin's Miami school records show that he has been suspended three times.
Family attorney Benjamin Crump confirmed to ABC News that Martin had been slapped with a 10 day school suspension after a bag with suspected marijuana was found in his backpack.
Last year Martin was suspended for spraying graffiti on school grounds. The Miami Herald reported that the school guard who stopped him searched his backpack and found 12 items of women's jewelry and a flathead screw driver that the guard believed to be a "burglary implement." But Martin was never charged or specifically disciplined for the incident.
Crump alleged that the Sanford police had leaked damaging information about Martin into order to muddy the case, calling it a "conspiracy." Crump called the school disciplinary problems "irrelevant" to the case that "an unarmed 17 year kid was killed."
The case has triggered national interest with pro-Martin rallies in cities from coast to coast. Martin's mother has moved to trademark two popular rallying cries, "I am Trayvon" and "Justice for Trayvon." The family said it does not want want other people printing memorabilia.
"Sybrina Fulton has no desire to profit from her son's death, but wants to protect her son's name legacy," said family representative Ryan Julison.
Martin was shot as he made his way to his father's fiance's house while returning from a convenience store where he bought a pack of Skittles and iced tea. He was followed by Zimmerman who found him suspicious.
At some point, Zimmerman ignored the suggestion from a 911 dispatcher that he stop following Martin, left his truck and went to look for Martin.
At the same time, Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend and complained that someone was following him.
What happened then is not clear. The girlfriend has said that she heard Martin ask someone, "Why are you following me?" before the sounds of a scuffle and the phone was disconnected.
Zimmerman is described as 5-foot-9 and well over 200 pounds while Martin was 6-foot-3 and 150 pounds.
Leaks from the police report detail Zimmerman telling police he was heading back to his truck when Martin knocked him down with a punch to his nose, jumped on him, repeatedly banged his head on the ground, then tried to grab Zimmerman's gun.
In a struggle for Zimmerman's gun, the watchman shot the teenager, Zimmerman told police.
2)Obama's Europa Complex
Why emulate countries with high budget deficits, high unemployment, low birthrates, and weak defense?
By MARK HELPRIN
Both in his re-election campaign and as the core principle of his presidency, Barack Obama asks America to cast off reliance on the free market—because, in his characterization, the free market "doesn't work"—in favor of the European model of ever-tightening, ever-regulating, ever-expanding governance. This he does, astonishingly, at the very moment of the European model's long-predictable crisis, collapse, bankruptcy, and devolution.
With his trademark certainty he proposes—indeed, at times commands—that we follow him over the Niagara to which his back is turned. The writer Henry James cautioned that, "It's a complex fate, being an American, & one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe." Promiscuous endorsement of things European, inveterate in the president's academic coterie, has long been characteristic of American snobs. As Harvard once dispatched missionaries to better the savages, it now sends students abroad so they might better us. To be wrong on both counts requires congenital blindness to the facts, which suggest that despite our own grievous failings Europe is hardly worthy of imitation.
As a museum of culture, it has few competitors. Europeans make better movies; their cuisine is better (except in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Scandinavia, England, Ireland, the Low Countries, Germany and Switzerland); and they do a better job of suppressing modern architecture, for which they are to be commended.
But in suppressing and over-engineering their economies they court national bankruptcies. Just as reckless are their efforts to ameliorate economic stagnation via the all-guzzling welfare state. Shall we create more jobs by aping Europe, which since 1990 has averaged 9.16% unemployment while ours was 5.95%?
European structural unemployment is supposedly tolerable in the context of less income inequality and greater social analgesia, but although income equality may be the socialist ideal, isn't the more civilized object to provide as abundantly as possible rather than to annihilate the potential for envy? Incomes are perfectly level in the Gulag, whereas in Boston and Singapore they are not.
More to the point, giant social welfare systems cannot but strangle economies the progressive failure of which they are intended to relieve. Differences within Europe itself illustrate the route out of its troubles that it may yet take just as American progressives jump into the hole it is trying to exit. France now has in proportion to its working population 44% more public employees than Germany, and devotes 52.3% rather than Germany's 43.7% of gross domestic product to public expenditure. Do the French, not to mention the Greeks, wonder by what magic Germany achieves its solvency?
Remarkably like the leaders of the bankrupt states of Europe, President Obama believes that the key to prosperity is to regulate, engineer, and direct the economy; to raise taxes; to augment the powers of government; to substitute collective largess for family cohesion; to spend money that does not exist; and, to paraphrase Macbeth, to borrow, to borrow, and to borrow.
In supposedly enlightened Europe, political polarization still finds expression in fascism and communism, as illustrated by the French elections of 2002, when, before the economic crisis, parties of the extreme right and left took nearly one vote in five. Should we emulate this, or the devolution of the United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium? The wars in Northern Ireland and the Balkans? The burning cities of France and Greece? Lacking the balance of our federal system, the European Union brutally overrides local preferences, and should Europe unite it will be so dirigiste and brittle a concoction it will disintegrate as surely as any empire. Shall we emulate that?
If our elites think European low birth rates, family disruption, and nihilism are hip, fine, and dandy, they should read Thomas Mann's "Disorder and Early Sorrow" and contemplate the Weimar Republic. Having abandoned the Constitution, American universities now decide representation by race and sex, and embrace speech codes as in much of Europe, where, for example, Holocaust denial is a crime. Though it is a crime against the truth, it should not be a crime against the law, which could as easily prohibit predication of the Holocaust as it prohibits denial. Should this be our model?
Even with indispensable American aid, Europe took seven months to topple a lunatic at not quite the head of a small, corrupt, inexperienced Libyan army equipped with outdated weapons. Britain now has no fixed-wing aircraft carriers, only 25 principal surface warships (half those of South Korea), and fewer than 200 tanks and 200 combat aircraft with which barely to defend itself. That it once morally despaired of self-defense was understandable in light of the pointless carnage of the Great War. But now in light of what? Fluctuating supplies of ganja? Occasional ebbs of upper-class self-flagellation?
Save those of Russia, Germany has the most powerful land forces in Europe, but only one-sixth the tanks and artillery of Iran. No European air force except Russia's is superior to Saudi Arabia's. Such weakness, almost unimaginable only a short time ago, should not be our aspiration, although it has become so. Europe's disarmament renders it virtually unable to contribute to stability abroad (once, the power of Britain alone kept the lid on the Middle East), or to deter war even on its own soil, such as in the Balkans in the 1990s. Europe is now more vulnerable than during the Cold War, and its vulnerability will only increase, stimulating the appetites of a Russia that wants above all to rebound.
If this seems far-fetched, so at one time did the world-shuddering awakenings of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army, and the forces of Imperial Japan. By abdicating its role in a stable military equilibrium, Europe is not for the first time in its long and bloody history careless of tragedy and fate, and in our own imitative disarmament we are following suit.
In short, the president and his progressives are chasing after a specter. Because the president is apparently repelled by the principles of the American Founding and lacks an alternative other than the European model, nothing else is in his quiver as he is driven by the dread of a future absent his omnipresent intervention.
For if he were no longer able to direct an endlessly augmented list of actions, to suffocate fortune and chance in the infinitely growing pillow of regulation and thus settle everything into silence, to sand down every bump, straighten every drawer, comfort every cry, iron every shirt, and protect every frog, what would America come to? We would be even less like Europe, and as anyone can see, in Europe they do everything right.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, the novels "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt)
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3)Conservative Justices Attack Obamacare Mandate In SCOTUS Hearing
By David Alliot
Conservative Supreme Court justices pounced on the central issue of Obamacare Tuesday, asking pointed questions about whether the government was overreaching with a mandate forcing all Americans to buy health insurance.
A potential swing vote on the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, asked whether the mandate would allow the government to make citizens buy other products — such as food.
Such sharp questioning by the Supreme Court's conservative justices has cast serious doubt on the survival of the individual insurance requirement, which is at the heart of President Barack Obama's historic healthcare overhaul.
Arguments at the high court Tuesday focused also on whether the insurance requirement "is a step beyond what our cases allow," in the words of Justice Kennedy.
Special: Repeal Obamacare? Vote Now in Urgent Poll!
He and Chief Justice John Roberts are emerging as the seemingly pivotal votes.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito appeared likely to join with Justice Clarence Thomas to vote to strike down the key provision.
The four Democratic appointees seemed ready to vote to uphold it.
SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein, a prominent Supreme Court litigator and blogger, declared that “there is no fifth vote yet” for the mandate.
“It is essentially clear that the four more liberal members of the court will vote in favor of the mandate. But there is no fifth vote yet. The conservatives all express skepticism, some significant. They doubt that there is any limiting principle,” Goldstein wrote, adding, “The individual mandate is in trouble — significant trouble.”
Critics of Obamacare argue that the mandate opens the door to the government forcing Americans to buy just about anything else it feels might improve health or lower costs.
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. was asked by the court whether the government could require the purchase of certain food, cellphones, or burial insurance, according to news reports.
“The federal government is not supposed to be a government that has all powers,” Justice Antonin Scalia said. “It’s supposed to be a government of limited powers.”
During questioning, three liberal-leaning justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor — seemed to be persuaded of the law’s constitutionality and questioned the conservative argument.
Ginsburg noted that forcing people to buy insurance is much different than forcing them to buy food, as insurance lowers costs for all consumers. The government has a right to regulate such costs passed on to others, she suggested.
The central issue of Obamacare is not only a healthcare fight but a bitter political fight between Democrats and Republicans, one that is likely to be a focal point of the fall presidential election. Americans, a new poll suggests, overwhelmingly are against the individual mandate.
A full 66 percent of those polled opposed the mandate, with just 28 percent in favor, when asked if “the federal government should or should not be able to require all Americans to obtain health insurance or else pay a fine,” according to the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, released today.
When asked about the law in general, about half wanted the whole plan tossed. Even among key Democratic groups, discontent over Obamacare was high: the majority of nonwhite adults, about three-fifths of young people, and two-thirds of college-educated white women were in opposition to the plan.
Along party lines: Democrats opposed the mandate by a surprising 4 percentage points — 48 to 44 percent. Two-thirds of independents were against the mandate, and Republicans opposed it by 15-to-1, according to the National Journal.
An ABC News and Washington Post poll conducted earlier this month signaled similar discontent over the law.
Obamacare relies heavily on the Commerce Clause, which allows the government to regulate commercial activity among the states. Opponents say the government is abusing its power by forcing people to enroll in a healthcare plan if they feel they don’t want it or need it.
Also at issue is whether Obamacare can survive at all without the mandate. Both sides insist it can’t, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that without the mandate, the rest of the law, including a Medicaid expansion to cover all lower-income people, along with federal subsidies, could be implemented. This would compel the health insurance industry to accept all patients and not charge a higher premium based on health, age, or gender.
Patients would swell the ranks of the insured driving up costs substantially.
The nine justices, five appointed by Republican presidents and four by Democratic presidents, plan to hear about six hours of testimony over three days. They are expected to rule by late June.
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4)Bernanke: Obama Unemployment Numbers 'Out of Sync'
By William Tate
Declining jobless numbers, sprouting lately from the Obama administration like so many spring crocuses, have left even the Chairman of the Federal Reserve puzzled over figures that are "out of sync" with the overall economy.
"[T]he combination of relatively modest GDP growth with the more substantial improvement in the labor market over the past year is something of a puzzle," Bernanke admitted to the National Association for Business Economics earlier this week.
Bernanke then proceeded to explain why unemployment figures from the administration seem so out of step with the reality most folks are experiencing. He started with a basic, but often overlooked, part of the jobless equation. "The monthly increase in payroll employment, which commands so much public attention, is a net change," he said. "It equals the number of hires during the month less the number of separations (including layoffs, quits, and other separations)[.]"
In other words, the U.S. job market is in a constant state of flux, with people leaving the workforce due to retirement, or being fired, or leaving a job for a better position, etc. Likewise, some of the positions will be refilled, taking a person out of the ranks of the unemployed. These are not jobs created, but replacement hirings. Then Bernanke concluded, "the increase in employment since the end of 2009 has been due to a significant decline in layoffs but only a moderate improvement in hiring."
So, despite the Obamedia's attempt to paint a sunny picture heading into the November election -- note their relative inattention to Bernanke's speech -- very few new jobs are actually being created during Obama's watch. In fact, the most recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited by Bernanke, show that the number of people being hired has declined in 2012 -- even as Obama officials reported that unemployment figures came down.
The Obama administration was claiming jobless improvement in a job market that, according to non-Obama sources, was still grim. "American employers put the brakes on new jobs in January," according to Forbes, citing employment firm ADP. And Gallup reported in February that their surveys show new hirings dropped and that "[t]he February score matches those recorded from October through December 2011."
As to the unemployment numbers emanating from Obama's regime, Bernanke noted, "the better jobs numbers seem somewhat out of sync with the overall pace of economic expansion," before concluding, "the job market remains quite weak relative to historical norms."
"Importantly, despite the recent improvement, the job market remains far from normal; for example, the number of people working and total hours worked are still significantly below pre-crisis peaks, while the unemployment rate remains well above what most economists judge to be its long-run sustainable level. Of particular concern is the large number of people who have been unemployed for more than six months."
Specifically "out of sync," according to the Fed chairman, were recent unemployment numbers compared to disappointing Gross Domestic Product numbers, with which they should track.
One possibility, the one that we're sure to hear from the media wing of the Democratic Party, is that the disappointing GDP numbers are the result of "statistical noise" and that the economy is actually doing much better than they reflect. Bernanke discounted that notion, pointing out that the GDP reports are consistent with lagging gross domestic income figures, which are built on separate data sets.
Bernanke suggested that the overall labor market has improved somewhat, but that could well be due to employers compensating for overdoing layoffs during the economic downturn:
...perhaps because they feared an even more severe contraction to come or, with credit availability sharply curtailed, they were trying to conserve available cash[.] ... [W]hat we may be seeing now is the flip side of the fear-driven layoffs that occurred during the worst part of the recession, as firms have become sufficiently confident to move their workforces into closer alignment with the expected demand for their products.
But, again, this would represent, not new jobs being created in the overall economy, but existing or previous positions being refilled.
And Bernanke warned:
However, to the extent that the decline in the unemployment rate since last summer has brought unemployment back more into line with the level of aggregate demand, then further significant improvements in unemployment will likely require faster economic growth than we experienced during the past year[.] ...[T]he recent decline in the unemployment rate may reflect, at least in part, a reversal of the unusually large layoffs that occurred during late 2008 and over 2009. To the extent that this reversal has been completed, further significant improvements in the unemployment rate will likely require a more-rapid expansion of production and demand from consumers and businesses[.]
Early in his administration Barack Obama said that job creation was goal Number One. He promised to create 3 million new jobs during his first two years in office, a pledge which would seem laughable if his failure didn't adversely affect so many people. Even with recent improvements in jobless numbers -- caused mainly by a slowing of layoffs -- as Benanke noted, "private payroll employment remains more than 5 million jobs below its previous peak; the jobs shortfall is even larger, of course, when increases in the size of the labor force are taken into account."
Bernanke's speech, about the most pressing problem facing Americans today, was only lightly covered by the media. Much of the coverage that was given it focused on interest rates and how his comments affected the markets, not on the parts of the speech which questioned the Obama regime's 'puzzling' unemployment numbers.
And why would they? It doesn't fit the O-Team's narrative that they are somehow building a, seemingly invisible, roaring economy. But with spiraling 8% real inflation, historically high gas prices, cataclysmic real estate values, and federal debt under Obama more out of control than Charlie Sheen on a Las Vegas weekend, most folks are dubious about the 'recovery' that the Obamedia are trying to convince us we're experiencing.
It's sorta like Barack Obama is telling the American people that old joke: who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author.
5)German minister 'more concerned' after Barak meeting
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Tuesday said that after meeting with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak he was more concerned about the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
"I don't know if we're facing a war, but having spoken to the Israeli defense minister I am more concerned than I am optimistic," he told Germany's Bild newspaper.
De Maiziere said that Germany is doing everything it can to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program, mainly through sanctions, but that Israel doesn't believe the sanctions will work..
The German minister explained that the fact that Iran is moving large parts of its nuclear program to fortified underground sites will make it tougher for Israel to hit its nuclear sites.
He said that some Israeli ministers underestimate the negative consequences a strike could have, adding that he told Barak that consequences can't be measured and that it would be wrong to take uncalculated risks. "That is why we advised our friends in Israel against this move," De Maiziere said.
Thomas de Maiziere says he's more concerned than he is optimistic about possibility of Israeli strike on Iran after meeting with his Israeli counterpart
By Daniel Bettini
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere on Tuesday said that after meeting with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak he was more concerned about the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
"I don't know if we're facing a war, but having spoken to the Israeli defense minister I am more concerned than I am optimistic," he told Germany's Bild newspaper.
De Maiziere said that Germany is doing everything it can to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program, mainly through sanctions, but that Israel doesn't believe the sanctions will work..
The German minister explained that the fact that Iran is moving large parts of its nuclear program to fortified underground sites will make it tougher for Israel to hit its nuclear sites.
He said that some Israeli ministers underestimate the negative consequences a strike could have, adding that he told Barak that consequences can't be measured and that it would be wrong to take uncalculated risks. "That is why we advised our friends in Israel against this move," De Maiziere said.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a prominent US political analyst also warned of an imminent Israel strike on Iran. In a recent column published on Bloomberg, he claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not bluffing and that Israel does have plans to strike Iran.
Goldberg stated that under the current circumstances Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities by the end of 2012.
. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6)Egypt's crisis deepens as non-Islamists boycott writing a constitution By Mohannad Sabry |  AIRO — (MCT) A standoff between Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and the country's military rulers deepened Tuesday as dozens of non-Islamist politicians said they would boycott the writing of a new constitution because Islamists dominate the panel selected to draft the document.Some politicians called for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt's ruling authority, to dissolve the panel, a move that would be certain to exacerbate tension between the Muslim Brotherhood, which dominates the country's new Parliament, and the military, which already has rejected Brotherhood efforts to dissolve the military-appointed Cabinet. The Brotherhood and its conservative allies in Parliament last week selected a largely Islamist bloc to write the constitution. "We do not want to partake in deceiving the Egyptian people," Ahmed Said, head of the Free Egyptians Party, the largest liberal bloc in Parliament, said in explaining his party's decision to boycott the drafting of the constitution. He accused the Parliament's Islamist faction of giving "itself the right to monopolize writing the constitution and excluding the rest of the Egyptian community." Sameh Ashour, a prominent lawyer and head of the Lawyers Syndicate, called on the military to act. "As rulers of the state, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has to interfere and protect the country," he said. Ashour said the crisis comes from having selected a Parliament before a constitution had been written. "The question is: Do we want a constitution that satisfies the public or one monopolized by the Parliament's majority?" he asked. The selection over the weekend of a mostly Islamist panel to draft the new constitution brought to a head what has been the dominant concern of liberals and other political groups in Egypt since the toppling last year of President Hosni Mubarak: What role the Muslim Brotherhood and other conservative Islamist factions would have in setting the pace for Egypt's political developments. The Brotherhood, which was effectively banned during Mubarak's 30-year reign, had been careful to walk a moderate path, offering only muted criticism of the country's military government and pledging not to nominate its own candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, now scheduled for May 23. But two weeks ago, the Brotherhood, which controls 47 percent of the seats in the Parliament elected earlier this year, said it might in fact name a candidate for president. Then came the selection of the constitution commission. On Saturday, Parliament named the panel's 50 members, handing 25 seats to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, 11 seats to the Nour Party, which draws its membership from the puritanical Salafist strain of Islam, and 14 seats to the remaining political parties and independent parliamentarians. That division gave Islamist members of Parliament control of 72 percent of the commission's seats. There's was no clear outcome to the political crisis. Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council, met with the heads of the 19 political parties represented in the Parliament. Egyptian Chief of Staff Gen. Sami Anan also attended the meeting. There was no word on what was said at the meeting. Already, groups opposed to the Islamist dominance of the constitutional commission have asked a court to dissolve the panel. Judge Ali al-Fikri, head of Egypt's Administrative Courts, on Tuesday postponed a verdict until April 10. Emad Gad, a Coptic Christian member of Parliament and a member of its foreign affairs committee, slammed the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice political wing. He warned Egypt's foreign partners to beware of an Islamist takeover of Egypt's government, which he said "imposes a direct threat to our foreign policy and relations with the international community." "The West shouldn't wait for the constitution to understand the future," Gad said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------7) Kennedy and Roberts Raise Powerful Objections to the Individual MandateWashington, D.C.—I walked into the U.S. Supreme Court early Tuesday morning expecting a knock-down, drag-out constitutional showdown over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which requires all Americans to buy or secure health insurance. I did not leave disappointed. The day’s biggest loser was Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, whose key responsibility was to convince a majority of the justices that while the federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause is vast, it is not unlimited. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, Verrilli struggled and stumbled in his attempt to persuade the two justices whose votes matter the most to the government’s case: Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, either of who might conceivably cast a fifth and deciding vote in the government's favor. “I understand that we must presume laws are constitutional,” Kennedy told Verrilli, “but, even so, when you are changing the relation of the individual to the government in this, what we can stipulate is, I think, a unique way, do you now have a heavy burden of justification to show authorization under the Constitution?” Kennedy later repeated that point with even more force, telling Verrilli, “here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases, and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in a very fundamental way.” This doesn’t mean that Kennedy is a surefire vote against the mandate, of course. He still has plenty of time to ponder the arguments put forward in the government’s legal briefs—as well as to entertain the private arguments made in chambers by his colleagues on the bench. But his comments today do absolutely reveal that Kennedy takes the constitutional challenge to the individual mandate very seriously. That’s bad news for the White House, since Kennedy so often casts the fifth vote in a tight case. Chief Justice John Roberts also drew blood from Verrilli, suggesting at one point, “once we say that there is a market and Congress can require people to participate in it...all bets are off.” Roberts also raised an argument that might prove quite effective in a future decision striking down the individual mandate. First, here’s how the relevant exchange with the solicitor general went down:
Note Roberts’ reference to Lochner. Lochner v. New York is the much-maligned 1905 case where the Supreme Court struck down New York’s limit on the number of hours that bakeshop employees could work because that regulation violated the liberty of contract protected by the 14th Amendment.Lochner today stands as a sort of bogeyman to virtually all liberal legal thinkers, who see it as a notorious example of conservative judicial activism. But many conservative legal thinkers also dislike Lochner, including Roberts himself. During his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings, the soon-to-be chief justice said, "You go to a case like the Lochnercase, you can read that opinion today and it's quite clear that they're not interpreting the law, they're making the law." Roberts was also worrying about judicial activism, about the dangers that he sees associated with the federal courts wading into the political thicket and selectively picking and choosing what sorts of laws to uphold or nullify. So when Roberts told the solicitor general today that the government’s theory of the Commerce Clause risks unleashing a new batch of Lochner-style activism by the federal courts (who will have to selectively decide if “you can’t use your commerce power to regulate the market in other ways”), that’s a very powerful objection. If he ultimately ends up using it, it would allow Roberts to strike down the individual mandate while still wearing the mantle of judicial restraint. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |||||||||
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