As it turns out, today was a busy news day regarding the ordinarily quiet SCOTUS.  Usually, without any major decisions coming down, we hardly hear anything from The Nine*.  Here are three recent stories:

First, Butler University is cool with Chief Justice John Roberts attending his niece’s graduation this May, but think Roberts is simply too controversial to actually speak at the commencement.  While Butler is not usually into political commencement speeches (unless you’re Evan Bayh or Mitch Daniels), I think they are blowing a unique opportunity to have a brilliant and classy Justice speak to their Leftist-leaning liberal arts graduates.

Secondly, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni is going to be open about her support for the Tea Party Movement from her website and lobbying group, Liberty Central.  So, predictably, some Lefties are upset that this will create a conflict of interest for her husband, while at the same time take advantage of the latest SCOTUS decision regarding lobbyist groups.  I think Ginni can do whatever she likes and her husband can recuse himself if necessary.

Finally, it seems like Justice John Paul Stevens is likely to retire before Obama leaves office.  Here’s what he had to say about retiring during the Obama Adminstration:

“I have a great admiration for [Obama], and certainly think he’s capable of picking successfully, you know, doing a good job of filling vacancies…. You can say I will retire within the next three years. I’m sure of that.”

Well, couldn’t he have come to this conclusion to retire two years ago?  Jerk.  But at least he’s leaving, likely to be replaced by an equally liberal rube.  So, it’ll continue to be 5-4 most of the time after he leaves, but at least another old Lib dinosaur moves on.

* I couldn’t resist — ancient, sometimes creepy, can do a lot of damage, they scare people, you can’t seem to ever get rid of them, and all they wear black robes… it just seemed to fit!

Word came yesterday that Chief Justice John Roberts was upset about the treatment the Justices got from both Congress and the President at January’s State of the Union Address, questioning even whether or not SCOTUS should really even show up anymore.  Here’s my opinion about that address and the treatment of the court who are 1) NOT constitutionally bound to be there and 2) protocol indicates that they’re not suppose to react to what’s said.  This isn’t usually a problem, but Obama’s Chicago-style verbal thuggery at the SOTU Address makes me agree with Roberts questioning whether or not they should show up anymore.

Here’s Roberts in his own words:

Justice Clarence Thomas explained the Citizens United v. FEC case in the simplest terms that I have heard yet:

If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association. If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association. But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?

Can it get any easier to understand?  How is this, as Russ Feingold says “one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court?“  It is simply, as Thomas points out, extending freedom of speech to a collection of individuals who happen to incorporate.  Of course, in Liberal loony- land, corporations are evil, and not worthy of free speech.

H/T: Ann Althouse

So I guess that according to liberals, Supreme Court decisions are sacrosanct only when they legislate liberal policies from the bench.  Yet when the court rules in favor of the Constitution as they ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission by holding that collections of people (unions, corporations) had the same free speech rights as individual people, the left goes ballistic.

Now they are trying to legislate around the decision by calling for more transparency (not so bad an idea by itself), passing new regulations that require shareholder approval on all donations (thus making it more difficult for corporations to contribute), and are even toying with the idea of a Constitutional Amendment.  I guess when the court rules in favor of free speech that doesn’t include graphic sexual images or state-sponsored desecration of religious items, the left just can’t handle it.

I didn’t like it.

Pretty succinct, huh?!

Aside from the obvious liberal crap and fake platitudes, here’s what I really didn’t like:  Obama’s Chavez-like qualities shown through a few times last night.  The way he immaturely called out the Supreme Court with a poor, populist, and inaccurate argument, knowing they couldn’t respond lest Joe Wilson-like “You Lie” sound-bytes canvas the airwaves at SCOTUS’ expense was a new low. Instead of being the new Joe Wilson, Justice Alito gave his best impression.

Also, when the Republicans laughed (I was laughing too by the way) over the climate change dribble, Obama looked mad at them — as if scolding them for being so unenlightened.  In that moment I still heard echoes of the typical Liberal notion that “getting along” or “bipartisanship” simply means agreeing with and/or capitulating to Liberals.  Actually, I had that sense many times last night.

Truthfully, I got the impression that the entire 70-minute speech could have been summed up easily:

“OK, maybe I wasn’t clear enough, Jerks (that would be us):  you want this stuff I’ve been shoving in your face this past year.  Even if you don’t know it yet, it’s good for you.  I am The OBAMA.  I have Spoken!”

But Barry loves to hear himself talk.  The whole affair last night was about him telling you that YOU don’t get it and despite what anyone else thinks, he’s going to do what he likes with his lap-dog Congress.  OK, this may be a little geekish, but with Nancy Pelosi getting goosed so often last night and the Dems chiming in to ovate with glee to so many bad and harmful policies, I was reminded of this moment from Star Wars:

OK, maybe a bit much, but last night’s speech was definitely not a politically expedient one, rather it was the speech of a bully doubling down for another round at getting your lunch money.

Today the philosophy behind McCain-Feingold got beaten up by the five members of the Supreme Court who can still read the Constitution! Campaign Finance Reform was supposed to take the money out of politics.  It has not.  CFR was supposed to get the special interests out of political campaigns.  Ha! (I was even laughing at the time!)  It’s only gotten worse through the murky 527s.  The only thing it really did was limit political speech 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election, protecting incumbents; hence, Congress liked it!

To those of you with a public school education: money is (and has long been) considered a form of political speech when it comes to campaigns — a way to express your political will through financially supporting your candidate of choice.  Congress kind of ignored that for populist reasons in 2002 and Dubya signed it into law anyway.

Obama hates this ruling and the Dems hate it too.  The 2004, 2006, and 2008 Elections which were chock-full of record amounts of money and special interests without the intended effect of reining them in.

Yes, corporations can run ads again close to an election, but so can labor unions.  Any law which limits political speech in this manner should have been overturned by the Supreme Court, and today a blatant and failed attempt at cleaning up politics through limiting speech was mostly fixed.  Here’s Justice Kennedy’s take:

“There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers…. The government may regulate corporate speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether.”

Well, I suppose one can breathe IN, just not OUT!

CO2 is a danger to public health;  so says the Environmental Protection Agency today in a Pearl Harbor-like surprise that’s slated to doom our long-term economic future.

In 2007, the Supreme Court allowed the regulation greenhouse gases, including CO2, by the EPA.  Seeing Cap-and-Trade about to die from neglect in the Senate and in an attempt to promote international goodwill towards the Copenhagen crew, Obama’s EPA has decided to make-good on the Supreme Court’s ill-fated decision.   FYI — Justice Kennedy was the swing vote on that 5-4 decision.

I think this act by the EPA could potentially be a back-door way to get Cap-and-Trade.  CO2 is a by-product of our car engines, the coal industry (which accounts for 49% of our nation’s electricity, by the way), multiple other industries, as well as a natural by-product of mammal’s respiratory systems.  With some tinkering from Congress this precedent can easily be used to regulate gas and electricity much like a Cap-and-Trade set-up without Congress taking the full heat.  The jury’s still out on regulating who gets to breathe, but wait, the Dems are debating health care reform, too!  Hmm…

I just want to know:  how many of our Liberal friends at the EPA will take advantage of this new realm of regulation and cut their breathing to save the planet?  This dictate ostensibly makes it bad to breathe.  I can’t wait until next November.

I’ve had a few days to digest what all the to-do about the arrest of director Roman Polanski in Switzerland last Saturday is all about.  After 31 years of avoiding US authorities, the law finally caught up with the famed director.

Here’s the short story:  Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl back in 1977, admitted guilt and plea-bargained the crime to “statutory rape,” then jumped bail and fled the country before any sentence was passed on him.  That’s all I knew until earlier today when I became aware of the details of that girl’s grand jury testimony:  44-year-old Polanski gave this 13-year-old girl quaaludes mixed with champagne by the jacuzzi at a friend’s place and forced himself on her doing his best pedophile version of a cheap 70s porn flick on this poor girl. 

Here’s the deal:  he was the adult in the room, he knew what he was doing was wrong, and the girl was obviously too young, immature, and intimidated to see the consequences of not just running away.  He admitted guilt, paid the girl’s family in a private settlement and did some time in a mental institution before bolting.  But that’s just it — he left town.

For Hollywood and the French, he’s done his time.  Many in Hollywood (including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese) have signed a petition calling for Polanski’s release!  Apparently to them, the statute of limitations on the heinous rape of a minor has passed.  Whoopi Goldberg even said what Polanski did was not “rape rape.”  I don’t get it… did he kind of rape her?  Sort of rape her?  Accidentally rape her?  I’m confused, especially when I read the details!  Rape is rape — imagine this happened to your 13-year-old daughter, cousin, sister or niece.  Rape is rape.

Though it happened over 32 years ago, he still never did his time for the crime and should be extradited here and sit in a prison until he’s satisfied the demands of our legal system.

According to a recent New York Slimes Piece, several states across the nation are passing laws and resolutions outlawing the proposed government mandate requiring all citizens to have health insurance.  The Slimes piece, of course, takes a swipe at the efforts as mostly symbolic and posing little chance of success, but in reality, these laws could set the stage for a major battle over state sovereignty and state’s rights. It is likely that the state laws will not be upheld (the states cannot regulate the Federal Government).  However, there are other constitutional questions to consider.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, David Rivkin and Lee Casey argue that the insurance mandate does not pass constitutional muster.  The federal government is subject to enumerated powers, and can only perform functions under those powers.  Yet the over-broadly interpreted commerce clause, through which the federal government has advanced its power in the last century, does not apply here according to Rivkin and Casey.  Forcing individuals to have insurance by the act of them being residents of the United States hardly constitutes commerce, and if that mandate were passed, where could the government stop?  It would be no stretch to argue that the Federal Government has the power to force all Americans to buy a car, or to own a home, or to buy a rubber hose (if the Government ever became beholden to the rubber hose industry).  It is then at least plausible, I think, that the Supreme Court would overturn the mandate based on the commerce clause argument.

Since the Democrats do see the fallacy of using the commerce clause, they are also utilizing Congress’s power to tax as a means of trying to slip the mandate through.  Yet the power to tax in this case is a taxation against behavior, not against an overt act of commerce as taxes are currently levied.  As Rivkin and Casey point out, if this passes as a tax, then Congress can tax you for not eating your veggies.

Now, the Supreme Court is completely unpredictable (thank you, Justice Kennedy) and may indeed consider the mandate Constitutional.  But in reality, by any plain reading of the Constitution, it is not (lawyers, please validate me or correct me if I am wrong).  Whether the justification is States Rights, the Commerce Clause, or the Power to Tax, the Federal Government attempts to exceed its authority with this act, putting yet another major limit on our freedoms, and setting the precedent for a further erosion of freedoms in the future.

Adding another piece of evidence that the Obama Administration is at worst dangerous and at best inept, a letter was circulated yesterday from seven of America’s former CIA chiefs imploring the Obama Administration to end their incessant investigations into that agency for the following reasons:  the issues at hand have already been thoroughly investigated;  reopening these kinds of cases reflect the dangerous precedent of criminalizing politics;  it causes our agents to second-guess themselves in the field, making them less likely to take chances or dig deeper;  and this stymies the CIA’s ability to gain cooperation with foreign governments on intelligence issues.

Obama could stop this today, but nothing has come out since yesterday to suggest that he will.  Cynically, this looks like an attempt to throw anti-Bush/Cheney Administration red meat to the Liberal fringe in order to get them jazzed up about the President’s failing initiatives, namely health care, at the expense of our “overseas contingency operations” and the functional ability of the CIA itself. 

The ridiculous thing about all this from a political point of view is that if another major attack happens in the USA, Obama is politically positioning himself such that there’s no one to blame but himself.  It makes no sense to weaken our defenses when they’ve worked well for eight years, unless they are driven by an ideology bent on diminishing America and making us less safe.  I don’t want to believe that — is this Administration daft or dangerous?  It’s a terrible question to even have to ask.