Some brouhaha was stirred last week by an op-ed in the New York Times by Georgetown University law professor Louis Michael Seidman entitled Let’s Give Up on the Constitution. Of course, the Times did not print my letter to the editor on the article, but did print some excellent rebuttals, including one by none other than Laurence Tribe of Harvard. In his letter Professor Tribe | Read More »
In a recent piece in the New York Times, Professor Sanford Levinson bewailed our Imbecilic Constitution. In his article Professor Levinson claimed that “critics across the spectrum call the American political system dysfunctional, even pathological. What they don’t mention, though, is the role of the Constitution itself in generating the pathology. … Our vaunted system of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” … means | Read More »
Americans who respect the Constitution have been heartened by the oral arguments in the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of Obamacare. Based on the thrust of the questioning and comments by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Scalia and Alito, there is good reason to hope that not only will the individual mandate be ruled unconstitutional, but that as a result the entire 2,700 page | Read More »
Two recent articles from the other side have put the lie to several Obama administration talking points without even realizing it. One is that the bank bailout money is well on its way to being repaid and that the government has made a profit on it. However, in an article entitled Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money the Huffington Post reports that 48% | Read More »
Part of the attention Newt Gingrich has attracted recently, both good and bad, has focused on his proposals for reining in an activist federal judiciary. Some of the proposals include congressional legislation limiting the federal courts’ jurisdiction in certain areas, abolishing particularly out-of-c0ntrol courts, presidential defiance of decisions he deems unconstitutional and calling judges before Congress to explain their decisions (hysterically translated in the | Read More »
One of the arguments in the current budget battle is over funding for public broadcasting, which fiscal conservative Republicans want to cut and Democrats and RINOs want to keep. Separate from the budget battle but still very active at the present time is the argument over the so-called “fairness” doctrine. This is the view that anyone with a broadcast license can be required to give | Read More »
Now even the New York Times is reporting on the phenomenon of “anchor babies” or “birthright citizenship,” where women come to the United States to give birth so that their babies can claim automatic citizenship under the first sentence of the first section of the 14th Amendment. The story reports on a home in San Gabriel, California which housed expectant Chinese women who paid $9,000 | Read More »
There is much being said and to be said about President Obama’s decision to send US military forces to do whatever it is they are doing in Libya. Some of this commentary is even noting that there is something in the Constitution about going to war, even citing Section 8 of Article 1 which vests in Congress the power “To declare War.” Since the last time the | Read More »
Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media are hard at work trying to portray the Republicans in the House as responsible for any shutdown of the federal government. For example, in the New York Times Gail Collins declares that “all hope for averting disaster lies with Speaker John Boehner,” as though Barack Obama and Harry Reid had nothing to do with the issue. Erick | Read More »
Just a short post to note an important point of rhetoric. Often dismissed, rhetoric, or “spin’ as we now call it, is critical in political persuasion. The point is the distressing number of conservative commentators who have compared the scene in Madison to the scenes of the protests in Cairo. The resemblance is only superficial and making it is dangerous. While I am aware that | Read More »
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