The Supreme Court is halfway through its 3 days of oral arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, highlighted by this reaction from Justice Anthony Kennedy:
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a possible swing vote for the court, was rigorously challenging Verrilli. Kennedy said he needed to answer a “very heavy burden of justification” to show how the Constitution authorizes Congress to require that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty.
At one point, Kennedy said the mandate changes the relationship between citizens and the government “in a fundamental way.”
Lots of news on this, and judicial bloggers are having a field day. Good time for an open thread.
Bloomberg is doing live blogging on oral arguments.
I know that it is an impossible dream in this day and age but this should be a 9-0 against the Constitutionality of what is know as Obamacare.
Stevens would have been with Thomas on this one, too bad Kagan is there, she is obviously a pro-Obamacare vote. Most likely in order, to say the mandate is unconstitutional:
Clarence Thomas, the man.
John Roberts
Samuel Alito
Antonin Scalia
Sonia Sotomayor
Anthony Kennedy
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Elena Kagan
Stephen Breyer
6-3 the outcome, 7-2 is an outside possibility. Won’t be 5-4.
I loved how the Supremes have slammed Obama a couple times lately with the 9-0, maybe that indicates that Roberts and Ginsburg have convinced the rest that they have to show solidarity where the politicians aren’t.
George Will discusses an aspect of ObamaCare that I hadn’t given much thought to before.
I have a feeling that is why the administration keeps calling the means of payment various things; a tax, a fee, a fine, etc. because one of the founding principals of contracts, and contract law is that both parties have to enter without coercion or force–of their own free will so to say.
Ya gotta love it when you see comments like this from liberals: (from Bloomberg’s live blogging)
1:36 p.m. More from CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: “This was a train wreck for the Obama Administration.”
If the SC upholds it maybe we should have a constitutional crisis when several states, claim states rights and order their citizens to ignore it.
And order the local sheriff to arrest any IRS enforcers on their states soil……..verrrrrrry interesting..
PS
we KNOW that wont happen as a REPUBLICAN governor and a REPUBLICAN AG wont protect one of it’s states citizens from a howling MOB of chicago racist black panthers who have put a BOUNTY one one of our citizens, and the rest of the out of state race pimps on FLA soil demanding a political LYNCHING during a racist WITCH HUNT?
WHERE is OUR FLA state police?
our FLA national guard?
our local sheriff?
again REPUBLICAN elected officials bending to the out of state lynch mob rolled up on the floor in a corner sucking their thumbs while repeating La La La I CANT HEAR YOU.
And order the local sheriff to arrest any IRS enforcers on their states soil
Neo, I could actually see that happening, particularly in Texas and Arizona.
Video: High school students protesting Trayvon Martin shooting ransack store in Miami.
Spook
that is coming my friend
but before that the US spring has arrived in Fla.
but before that the US spring has arrived in Fla.
Who’d have thought Mexico might be safer than Florida for spring break?
yeah with all those white hispanic racists they have there in Mexico…..LOL
Neocon, what’s a more serious crime property damage or murder?
rubin nitwit greenteeth
murder? says who?
are you referring to LEGAL self defense during a FELONY BATTERY?
you live in the wrong state…the state of confusion and ignorance.
Or were you referring to the HIRE for MURDER – CRIME by the racist terrorist group the black panthers?
IF the supreme court overturns Obamacare what will the GOP field say is their goal for the future?
Obama can argue that he was trying to help more Americans get access to health care and the conservatives justices on the Supreme Court got in his way. (Clinton got reelected despite a health care fiasco.) He can point to his ” successes” e.g. killing Bin Laden, the slowly growing economy, the big increase in the stock market, ending the war in Iraq … Now partisans will seek to label all of these either irrelevant or the doings of other people, but that argument won’t resonate with the electorate.
Does the GOP just go full speed ahead with Mitt and lose in November?
IF the supreme court overturns Obamacare what will the GOP field say is their goal for the future? – barstool
Free market reforms. And that IF should be lower case.
Do you remember back in 2004 during the Bush/Kerry campaign when Kerry was lamenting the conditions of the VA hospitals, and how badly they were run and operated?? That’s government run health care stool, what makes you think Obamacare will eventually be any different.
If you really wanted to make access to health care more widely available and affordable, you would insist that government programs for those in need are administered at the state level, and that current regulations on private insurance are reformed, so that insurance companies can compete nation wide. Competition will bring down price, and improve access and service.
Once things like fast & furious and the blatant crony capitalism within the Obama regime are exposed (things the media is keeping under wraps), I think Mitt will win in a landslide.
I’ll bet you a six pack that Obama beats Mittens.
baldork
I owed you one and you never collected…….
neoconehead
I’m making a little collection!
baldork
on the super bowl?
glad you dont remember, now im off the hook….
baldork
lower the cost of energy by exploration, development and free enterprise. ( Uboma is against that 100%)
cut corporate taxes to intensify growth (uboma is against that)
cut foreign aid to countries that are, or support our enemies. IE all islamic countries. (Uboma is 100% against that)
stop the fraud of AGW and spending to thwart that fraud (Uboma is against that)
I could go on for days…..
Mitt is going to run on that sorry list?
With a huge capital surplus why would a corporation not use a tax cut to buy commodities? This whole tax cuts spur the economy is a platonic ideal.
Why is it the US governments job to lower the cost for BP or Shell to find oil to ship to China at 120 dollars per gallon?
Not one idea to enlarge freedom for citizens. How about getting rid of DOE TSA ..
“Not one idea to enlarge freedom for citizens. How about getting rid of DOE TSA ..”
Power. Power over the citizen. The repubs, especially the liberal repubs like Romney, want that power just as much as the donkeys do.
per barrel not per gallon
TAX paying people with jobs can contribute towards private affordable health care policies.
the rest?
get a job.
bardolf,
Let us take a closer look at your statement.
“Obama can argue that he was trying to help more Americans get access to health care and the conservatives justices on the Supreme Court got in his way. (Clinton got reelected despite a health care fiasco.)”
You can count on that being his argument. HillaryCare (unelected at the time) was the same fiasco this is. Truth is HillaryCare / ObamaCare has nothing to do with health care but everything to do with control over more people. People remember, and if not should be reminded, of the nanny state control aspects in addition to the rationing of care, the 1/2 trillion taken out of MediCare, etc that this boondogle is.
He can point to his ”successes” e.g. killing Bin Laden
This one I will give him but he neither killed Bin Laden and by many reports was hesitint and dragged off the golf course for the photo-op. I give full credit to Seal Team 6 and I will give a simgeon to Obama’s claiming of credit for “pulling the trigger” (just like the Somili priates) after the site was found using intellegence just a few years earlier Liberals and Progressives were claiming was tourture and un-Constitutional.
the slowly growing economy
Just like FDR? It caused the depression / recession to last longer than it would have without the “help.” I do not want to be a flat-lined Japan after they have spent the last 10 years showing what Obama did (and does) does not work.
the big increase in the stock market
Sorry, Obama can not claim credit for the entire market and it appears he is doing everything in his power along with Sunstein to destroy it. It has gone up in spite of Obama.
ending the war in Iraq
Once again, Obama did no more than follow the timeline set forth by Bush and decided against his Generals in the field to stay longer. Now, Obama can claim credit if Iraq slides back into a real sh*thole.
You just did what partisans do. You gave no credit for the good things that happened on Obama’s watch.
You have economic theories which say the economy isn’t growing quickly because of Obama’s policies and the stock market is growing quickly in spite of his policies.
I don’t understand your Iraq comment. Are you saying that if Iraq turns into a sh@thole that is a credit to Obama? Otherwise you are saying if things turn out well it is Bush’s fault and if badly itnis Obama’s fault. Doesn’t matter, Iraq is already a disaster and it is both presidents faults. Still, only expensive contractors getting shot at for the TV viewer.
Bardolf,
Sorry for the delayed response but I had some real work to do. I gave Obama all the credit he deserves which was making the command decision to take out Bin Laden whether he actually made it or was “forced” into it because it is one thing to order the attack but this was over the border in a sovereign nation to boot. Same with the Somali pirates.
My theory on economics isn’t going to win any prizes but it does have a great deal to do with what I have seen and learned about yet we seem to be repeating despite history. FDR extended the great depression with his Keynesian economics just as Obama is and Japan has done as well. When government gets out of the way entirely (search for Depression of 1920-1921) the economy recovers faster from a deeper hole than the Great Depression.
“Too big to fail” has to be the dumbest statement I have heard in my lifetime but more to my po9int is that if any President cannot stop the fall of the market and reverse it almost overnight–then they cannot be given full credit for the rise either. They can only be given credit for making a business friendly environment to help small businesses and I haven’t seen one of them [Presidents] since the first term of Reagan.
Finally, as far as Iraq or any conflict–the rule should be, and most Presidents understand, they make the executive decision to enter the conflict but once they release the hounds of war–sit back and take you hands off. Let the Generals run the show. Don’t disagree for political expediency which Obama has done both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We all remember SanFranNan saying “we have to pass the healthcare bill to find out what’s in it”. It seems like each day we find something new.
That sounds about right. After all, democrats still need victims to retain power. Without victims, there wouldn’t be a democratic party.
Liberal governance just defies common sense and is often times surreal. I mean next thing you know, the Black Panthers will be encouraging militias and offering bounties on people they don’t like……….oh wait.
Speaking of “bounties” — up to $1 million now. Houston, I think we have a problem.
Heard that Trayvon’s social media ID (Twitter?) was no_limit_nigga.
That personal ID, gold teeth, tattoos, school suspensions—I can see why they are just printing a very old photo of him.
ama
and the necessary pants down 10 inches and the undies fully exposed.. flashing gang signs while shirtless…NO thug there eh?
EPA to kill new coal-fired plants through first-ever greenhouse-gas regulations
aint communism and the destruction of America grand?
Good thing they’re not going to be needed to charge the Chevy Volts that no one is buying.
Doubt if the new Chevy Volts will ever need to be charged. Stopped production and the very limited sales to the 1%’ers that could afford them means that by the time the “uber-rich” trot out their latest display piece for how much they love the environment–it will probably burst into flames and they will have a good old fashioned weenie roast.
I’ve figured our Lefties would come out of the woodwork for a chance to defend free healthcare. They must have all gotten stuck in the unemployment line.
They are all busy marching in the streets with their hoodies on.
I see Obama’s “never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste” policy is still in play.
Obamacare was always a mixed handout, no single payer option pretty much made the plan unworkable from the beginning.
I do wonder how many righties will come out for having their own free health care taken away. maybe they are at the pharmacy getting free Medicare refills.
Because health care isn’t health care unless it’s completely dominated by government?? Is that your point?
Question: if recipients are required to pay into a system for their entire working life, for a promised benefit when reaching a certain age, can that benefit be considered as being “free”?
baldork
free medicare?
I just picked one and my CO pay is $20.00 so keep up the BS because you obviously know NOTHING about it.
neoconehead
so I want government health care where I only have a co-pay. Then it won’t be free either, right
@clueless
if recipients are required to pay into a system 1, but then they get system 2 beyond that (e.g. medicare part D) one can say they are getting free health care
anything you didn’t pay for and you get is free
LOL
no takers among the oldies for having the benefits above their contributions taken away, more of the usual we paid into a system at gunpoint yada yada yada
Well the democrats finally got up off their ass a submitted a joke, I mean budget:
The proposal adopts much of President Obama’s job-creation agenda, including tens of billions of dollars for near-term stimulus spending on infrastructure and other federal programs…
And it only adds $6 trillion to the debt over ten years!! Isn’t that exciting?
Rep. Chris Van Hollen said his proposal “stands in clear contrast” to the GOP bill,
Yes it does.
spook
ahhhhhhhh the “good old days” of the democrats and HOODS…….
some things never change but the color of the HOODS, they are still 100% donks and hate filled racists.
ROTFLMAO………
dumbed down useful idiots in charge of the asylum……..America how far you have fallen in just 60 years…sad
http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver/Screen%20Shot%2020120326%20at%2095710%20PM.png
The SC’s questions and responses today do not bode well for Obamacare.
I have been pretty much absent from b4b so maybe I missed it, but I see no sign of enthusiasm for anyone running on the GOP side. Sure there is no absence of Obama Tourette’s syndrome but no enthusiasm at all. What’s the matter? Mr. Etch a Sketch doesn’t get you revved up? Why don’t you jump on the Santorum bandwagon? He says more things that are in line with the commentary of the residents of this site. So why no enthusiasm?
we have no candidate yet…the enthusiasm will come.
is the debacle in Fla the democrat enthusiasm? or the OWS?
Oh wait they are both the same
Trayvon Martin rally infiltrated by Communists, Occupy Wall Street activists
Call it a match made in liberal heaven.
Although Jesse Jackson and former Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson were late in attending a rally for Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL, members of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA and Occupy Wall Street activists were on hand, according to the Daily Caller.
I can only speak for myself steelhead but I just don’t get that excited over any POTUS unlike liberals who fawn over simple minded rhetoric. To me the position of the POTUS is simply a matter of hiring the right person for the current requirements of the job. Right now, the primary scope of work for the next president will be to repair the economy. Mitt is qualified.
What???? You don’t need to swoon, burst into hysterical tears, have tingles running up your leg, to make a decision about which of two political systems you think would be the better choice for the country?
Clearly you are not a Liberal. But then they don’t think about ideology, they just think about the person.
steelhead,
“…revved up”, “jump on the…bandwagon”, “no enthusiasm” are not requirements when one makes a logical decision about electing the next leader of the free world. I am coming around to see Mitt as the choice, both in experience we (USA) needs at this time and having the fiscal wherewithal to withstand the onslaught of misconceptions, misdirections, and outright lies that will be the primary. Just watch “The Road We’ve Traveled” for all a preview of the aforementioned. BTW, where is Swift complaining about the plagiarism of that monumental piece of ____.”
Just as a BTW–Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, GTS or, more commonly, simply Tourette’s or TS is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder. Not too funny to those that suffer but what one expects from lefty.
db, I don’t think you were on the blog yet when a Lib referred to “turret syndrome”. I don’t know when I laughed so hard.
I’ve voted in every general election since 1966 and every primary except one. The ONLY Presidential candidate from either party that I was ever excited about was Reagan. As Amazona said, excitement is more of a Liberal thing. It’s how we ended up with the current sorry ass excuse for a CIC.
I see no sign of enthusiasm for anyone running on the GOP side
There’s more enthusiasm on this thread for any one of the GOP candidates than there is enthusiasm from Lefties for ObamaCare — which is the topic of this thread.
steelhead,
Believe it or not, there actually ARE some people who are really enthusiastic about Romney.
Even though I will wait for the decision (probably July) and read both the opinions (That is a great deal like waiting for all of the evidence before putting a bounty on someone’s head for you lefty’s) –it sounds like it is going against the individual mandate with many (smarter than me) thinking it may be a 6-3 or even 7-2 decision against.
http://harndenblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/03/supreme-irony-obamacare.html
It is a tad unfortunate that just days after the White House embraced the term “Obamacare”…a majority of the nine Supreme Court justices have given strong indications they will rule it unconstitutional.
Even more ironic is that the justices, or five of them at least, look like they might force President Barack Obama back to the drawing board partly on the basis of the argument one Senator Obama made against then Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Hmmm, Do as I say?
Here’s the money line from your link:
I (Obama) am now in favour of some sort of individual mandate as long as there’s a hardship exemption.”
The little known secret about Obamacare is that not everyone is subject to the mandate. The lower incomes, not sure where the line is drawn, are exempt from the individual mandate – so once again tax payers will be paying for the health care of others just as they are today with the added benefit of being “fined”.
The future of Obamacare if it is upheld?
Rationing?
Then take a look at an article (opinion piece?) from The Telegraph failing to the point of rationing and this is the lefties shining example of nationalized health care–the NHS of the UK
Why should fat people take precedence over the elderly in the NHS?
by Cristina Odone
“Even the most sentimental champions of the NHS recognise its dark side. Given that its Chief Executive Sir David Nicholson has demanded a £20 billion efficiency saving if the NHS is to survive, and that demographic changes mean millions more elderly people will rely on its services (and space), the NHS can only do one thing: ration.
If rationing is acceptable, though, scapegoating is not. And too much evidence points to the elderly being the scapegoats in the battle to save the NHS.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100146838/why-should-fat-people-take-precedence-over-the-elderly-in-the-nhs/
You all should go back to August 29, 2008. I suspect many conservatives used very similar words to describe their excitement over Sarah Palin. But you go ahead and continue to claim calm, unemotional, judicious manner when making a choice for president.
Anyway, you are missing the point here. I don’t see anyone making an argument for their candidate and trying to convince anyone to see things their way. Sure there is plenty of the usual Obama bashing but it seems that isn’t going to change anyone’s mind here. Or perhaps neocon still hasn’t made up his mind about Obama.
Amazona,
If its not about the person you should have already made up your mind by now. Each of these candidates has a record that would indicate how closely their actions match up with your belief system. That should be enough. Or perhaps any incremental improvement over Obama is good enough for you even if that person relies on their cult of personality more than their principles?
“You all should go back to August 29, 2008. I suspect many conservatives used very similar words to describe their excitement over Sarah Palin. But you go ahead and continue to claim calm, unemotional, judicious manner when making a choice for president”…Steelhead
I do remember the Tea Party folks going bonkers over her; a veritable lovefest. There are still those who continue to worship at her altar and praise to high heaven every Facebook pronouncement she ‘writes’. The blog, Conservatives4Palin, is dedicated to keeping her on a pedestal and feel that she is the only person in the Republican arena today who is capable of defeating that Muslim/Fascist/Commie/Appeaser in the White House. In their worshiping eyes there is nothing that Mama Grizzly cannot do. She is their modern day Esther and will deliver the country back into the hands of ‘Real Americans’. Oh yeah, the Right Wingers are about idealogy and not the person. Right, Jeremiah?
Amazona can remain oblivious and continue to blather on and on about how it is only the Liberals who emotionally select their leaders but we’ve seen for ourselves how foolish that notion actually is.
Actually it’s liberals that are far more obsessed with Palin than conservatives are. They make movies about her, they still parody her on SNL, they still talk about her on MSNBC and as you just did, etc, etc.
The liberal obsession with Palin is actually a little strange.
And liberal obsession with Dick Cheney is equally disturbing:
Leave it to the crass Daily Beast (and Newsweek) to accuse Dick Cheney of a “dick thing” for refusing to take himself off a heart transplant list and die
In fact liberals are disturbing – obsessions and all
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz1qPfzU73P
steelhead, WE DON’T HAVE A CANDIDATE
We have offered our opinions here, for months, on who we think would make the best candidate, and why. But thanks for offering your take on “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it….” with your “if discussions are held on the blog and steelhead is not there to read them then do they really exist,,,” attitude.
One of the things that carried through those discussions was the belief that any of the POTENTIAL candidates would be a vast improvement over Obama.
And that belief is based on the reality that, to one extent or another, each of these people represents the system we think is the best one to govern the United States. And Obama represents the system we absolutely believe is the worse system for governing the nation.
Our belief is based on the historical fact that our Constitution, when followed, allowed the people in this country to create the most economic prosperity in the history of the world, while enjoying the most personal liberty, and the historical fact that the Leftist system of massive federal power and control has never led to anything but loss of personal freedoms and decreased economic prosperity.
It is based on the historical fact that when the United States actually considered the Constitution the rule of law, and abided by it, we were strong and wealthy, and when the Leftist model of collectivism and redistribution of wealth started to erode the Constitutional rule of law we saw the nation weaken and lose its economic momentum as the result.
This is why we will support whoever is the candidate. Sure, each of us has an opinion about which candidate would be the strongest supporter of the Constitution, which would lead the nation most energetically back toward a Constitutional rule of law, but only after that single attribute is considered do any of us even bother with appearance, personality, or any other superficial characteristic.
We start at the bottom of our pyramid, that of political ideology, and work our way up through the other characteristics till we get to the smallest and least important, which is personality or charisma or whatever you want to call it.
Your preference puts this as the foundation for your decisions, and you make it clear here that ideology is not only the least important of your considerations, it is usually not considered at all, not even to the point of understanding it.
Oh, CO, do give it a rest. Your peevishness is tiresome.
While conservatives can and do get excited over some candidates, it is because the candidates represent a system we agree with, not because of their appearance or skin color. Only an utter fool could try to deny the blatant appeal to emotion that marked the entire Obama campaign—the tent-revival style of speaking, over speakers set to reverberate his voice, the women in the front rows fainting away on cue so he could repeat the same line of “can we get a little help over here”, and so on.
And you bring the same shrill hysteria to the hate side of your positions, too. Just look at your laundry list of complaints about Palin. It is nothing but a litany of nasty hate, and not a word in it relates to any reason anyone on the Right liked her, or still likes her. Not a word in it relates to her political philosophy, which is what makes her attractive to the Right.
It is just another creepy peek into another creepy mind of another creepy hatemonger.
And an example of how you people become so fixated on the trivial (“Mama Grizzly”) that it dominates whatever it is that passes for thinking.
Cluster, it is obvious that many on the Left, if on a board allowed to decide if Cheney should be allowed to get a heart transplant, would have voted “no” , many claiming that this would be based on his age and not on personal hatred for the man.
Which tells me that these same people would be in the group of people from whom panels making these kinds of decisions would be drawn.
Which leads us to the confirmation of the “death panel” comments the RRL and PL sneered at for so long.
Every one of these people would have sentenced this man to death, based on arbitrary feelings about whether or not he “deserved” to live, some using age as a criterion.
Now, what’s that I have been saying about abortion proving that to the Left life is only a right for those who have reached a certain age? Here is another example of age being the criterion for the right to life. So the Left has life bracketed—too young, you have no right to life: Too old, you have no right to life.
But they absolutely believe that those two criteria will never move closer together, much less expand to include other criteria, such as intelligence, productivity, mental health, etc.
Or political or religious belief.
“In general, I have no problem with Sarah Palin. Hell, I’d take her experience over Obama’s any day. I remember watching her give her speech and the 2008 Republican National Convention and being 100% convinced we would win.
Hey, things change. And there is a reality to face, and that she is as divisive a political figure as Barack Obama. Even within the Republican Party she’s a poison pill. Canonized and demonized by various factions that are equal in their convictions that is the right person to lead the party, and the wrong person.”–Matt Margolis.
Quite a few on this blog knew about Gov. Palin before she was selected for the VPotUS candidate yet did not have “thrills running up, or down our legs.” It was her record both inside and outside the political arena including her efforts to rout corruption out of Alaska (both sides of the aisle) and her straightforward vision and talk about where we, as a nation, were at present and needed to go.
Steelhead,
Actually, during your absence over the last few months, there’s been a great deal of discussion about the pros and cons of each candidate, including the ones who have dropped out of the race. I find it more than a little curious that you come here, admit that you haven’t been here for a while, and then chide all the Conservatives here for not defending or being enthusiastic about a particular candidate — on a Supreme Court.ObamaCare thread, no less. What happened — did Media Matters suddenly come up with a little extra cash?
The majority of the Conservatives here didn’t have Romney as their favorite in the beginning. And yet the majority of Conservatives are more enthusiastic about Romney than we were about McCain 4 years ago.
Suspect away. Your suspicions are mere guesswork.
or stupidity….I vote for the latter.
And the Supreme Court justice who worked for the White House to promote Obamacare, who did not recuse herself from sitting in judgment on the constitutional legality of part of the program she worked on, is apparently still working on it, as seen by her efforts to bail, out Solicitor General Verelli, who was in the weeds with his argument.
SOLICITOR GENERAL VERILLI: To live in the modern world, everybody needs a telephone. And the — the same thing with respect to the — you know, the dairy price supports that — that the court upheld in Wrightwood Dairy and Rock Royal. You can look at those as disadvantageous contracts, as forced transfers, that — you know, I suppose it’s theoretically true that you could raise your kids without milk, but the reality is you’ve got to go to the store and buy milk. And the commerce power — as a result of the exercise of the commerce power, you’re subsidizing somebody else –
JUSTICE KAGAN: And this is especially true, isn’t it, General –
VERRILLI: — because that’s the judgment Congress has made.
KAGAN: — Verrilli, because in this context, the subsidizers eventually become the subsidized?
VERRILLI: Well, that was the point I was trying to make, Justice Kagan, that you’re young and healthy one day, but you don’t stay that way. And the — the system works over time. And so I just don’t think it’s a fair characterization of it. And it does get back to, I think — a problem I think is important to understand –
I noticed that when Solicitor General verilli opened his mouth, there was a tattoo that read; Place Hook Here, and Kagen obliged while tugging the inept SG into the proper “Obama Approved” direction.
Good for her, dutiful little judicial lightweight & Obama’s Gurl.
From the “you-just-can’t-make-this-sh*t-up” file, we have this brain-dead statement this morning from Justice Sotomayor:
10:55 am
Wednesday’s Arguments
by Louise Radnofsky
Add a Comment
And this gem from Justice Ginsburg:
11:07 am
Wednesday’s Arguments
by Louise Radnofsky
Add a Comment
Oddly, they’re both arguing against judicial activism.
The House is the People’s legislative representative and therefore she’s correct; why not let the People decide?
The issue, and the answer is that the House decided against the expressed consent of the governed; the People.
Second, and more importantly (if Sotomayor weren’t an idiot she’d know this) it doesn’t matter how many People want something, since 1804 her job is to match the law to the Constitution, both expressed and intended.
Doncha love the most leftist Justice (Bader-Ginsberg) lecturing the Conservatives on the Bench about what a Conservative should think?
There is a judicial philosophy that in any case where the Justices decision will cause more harm by following the Constitution, the Justices are obligated to elect to not do harm by not taking action. This is what a Constructionist Justice would do, but not what a Constitutionalist Justice would do.
An example is Dred Scott; the constructionist argument was that finding in favor of Dred Scott would cause such a rift among the states, that the Court was obligated to sidestep the issue. Rather than deciding on the merits or strict application the Court found a way (Scott cannot sue as he doesn’t have standing; being a slave and a negro) to avoid applying a strict Constitutional standard to the overriding issue.
But, not taking action creates, in many instances more harm than avoidance. And causes cases to be revisited by subsequent Courts after much damage has been done (Brown v. Board of education/Plessy v. Ferguson. de la Cuesta v. Fidelity Federal/Wellencamp v. Bank of America)
I noted this at Wikipedia; “Scalia noted that the Dred Scott decision, written and championed by Roger B. Taney, left the justice’s reputation irrevocably tarnished. Taney, while attempting to end the disruptive question of the future of slavery, wrote a decision that aggravated sectional tensions and was considered to contribute to the American Civil War.”
Dear Justice Bader-Ginsberg,
What unintended harm will befall the US should you and your fellows decline to act in a case of “salvage rather than damage? Are you willing to accept the responsibility of your inaction by ddressing the substance rather than the process?
You think maybe the Left is becoming a little unhinged? All I can say is, bring it on, Malik, bring it on.
The black community is showing their true colors – no pun intended, and it ain’t pretty. You would think they would’ve learned something over the Duke LaCrosse case, and certainly the Tawanna Brawley case, of course that was a while back and liberals aren’t known for their retention skills.
What’s that saying? Never let a good crisis go to waste?
dear malik
YOU have already burned down detroit, LA. watts, st pete, NO, st louis etc etc etc etc SEVERAL TIMES since the 60′s
but hey every one loves a nice bonfire……let the games begin but if you come into the burbs to loot and burn you will be met and sent to hell.
From everything I’ve read, it seems to me that Conservatives are in a win/win position WRT ObamaCare. If it’s declared unconstitutional, we go back to square one and come up with something better. If it’s upheld, the fact that a substantial number of Americans are exempt from the penalty will lead to equal protection challenges, and probably a lot of civil disobedience. Fun times ahead.
Retired,
At this point, the individual mandate looks like it may not stand….i’d give it about a 40% chance of standing.
If it is removed, and the rest of the law stands, it’s a win for the people. There are a lot of good things about the plan as of right now without the mandate being in effect.
Also, the GOP had 8 years under the Bush administration and didn’t do a thing about the healthcare system. What makes you think they will now?
If the law is completely upheld however, it will be a smashing victory for Liberalism and Progressives. Everyone should have insurance, and if they can’t afford it, subsidies will be given.
Eventually, this will pave the way for a more accessible health system in our country.
This whole talk about civil disobedience, and your almost giddy desire for conflict strikes me as false bravado. Just like Governor Wallace in the southern segregation days….you’ll stand aside and obey the law like a good grandpa.
I fondly remember just a few short years ago, how liberals and John Kerry were bemoaning the squalid conditions of the VA hospitals and the poor service vets were receiving.,On top of that, there are many current articles on doctors not taking on any new medicare patients, and in fact dropping medicare patients altogether because of the reimbursement rates, paperwork and turn around times, and those two programs are what government health care is, so when you say that if Obamacare passes it will be “smashing victory” for liberalism and progressives – I would have to agree. After all, the goal of universal health care was not to improve the actual care.
talking points alert.
the VA system is actually quite good. That’s a completely government run program. Some of the best care veterans get is in the VA system.
Also, who cares what John Kerry said? Is he running for President and I missed it or something?
With regards to the medicare lie you stated…well its a lie. Majority of doctors accept medicare. Sure, some don’t anymore, or drop out, but a majority still do. Hell, not everyone accepts Aetna insurance which I have…but that doesn’t mean Aetna isn’t any good. It just means its not accepted anywhere.
Conservatives believe in the invisible hand of the market….except when it comes to issues they care about. obviously, getting everyone access (reasonable and affordable) to health care is not high on your list. I get it.
James, you’ve got 3 hours from 5PM EST 3/28/12 to confirm from either one of the email addresses you use that they’re valid. Respond to b4vmoderator@hotmail.com by 8PM tonight or your comments and all future comments will be deleted.
Done. I hope this puts to rest the ludicrous assumptions about me….
Fair enough. Play nice and you can stay//Moderator
Cluster,
To my knowledge doctors aren’t “dropping Medicare patients” but an ever increasing number have opted out of accepting new patients. In some regions as of February 2012 less than half of the doctors are accepting new Medicare patients while continuing to care for existing Medicare patients.
In some states doctors currently serving Medicare patients have already dropped below 50%, in almost every other state the number will be less than 50% in a few years through attrition.
According to The American Medical Association 31% of more than 9,000 primary care doctors surveyed began to restrict the number of new Medicare patients in 2010. This is an increase from previous years from around 8% in 2007 and 19% in 2009.
The people I know who go to the VA for medical treatment say it’s atrocious, and a caller to a radio show last week said he is a disabled vet whose local VA hospital turned him down for knee replacements because he is too young—he would outlive the knee replacements and the will only do it once, so he has to wait till he is old enough for them to expect the knees to outlive him.
The only people with a “giddy desire for conflict” are the radical RRL and PL contingent, and racist blacks, two categories which usually overlap.
“subsidies will be given” Love that passive voice. Yes, somehow, miraculously, they “will be given”. By whom? And who will pay for them? And with what money?
James, you gloat over what you claim will be a “…smashing victory for Liberalism and Progressives….” Will you please define Liberalism, and Progressives, for us? You speak as if you know, so you are probably the one to educate the rest of us.
communism??
I wondered, when dolf was blathering on about “…the invisible hand of the market…” a few weeks ago, where the hell he got that goofy phrase. Lately it has popped up in posts from people who do not, as dolf does, deny being Liberals, so it must be one of those things uttered by some Lefty guru like Maddow and glommed onto by the Lemmings.
“Also, the GOP had 8 years under the Bush administration and didn’t do a thing about the healthcare system. What makes you think they will now? ”
I hope they don’t. Check out the 10th Amendment and then tell us what a GOP Congress, or ANY Congress, can legally do on the federal level about health care.
Possibly, under the Commerce Clause, they could stop the practice of insurance companies only being able to sell in a few states and not others, thereby opening up insurance sales nationwide and and making insurance more affordable.
Oh, they could also drop federal regulations forcing insurance companies to offer certain kinds of coverage, to bring costs down even more.
Other than this, there is nothing Congress can or should do that I can think of.
neo, let James define the system he so obviously believes in the best way to run the country. Now he will just bluster that since Liberalism is not the same as Communism—-and it is not—-he doesn’t have to answer anything.
Just wait and see—my question will go unanswered.
James, the only thing “put to rest” is that you have a valid email address. Big deal. That does not prove you have not posted before under different names.
James conveniently hides behind the “talking points” response when confronted with the reality of VA Hospitals and Medicare patients, and then fails yet again to answer the simple question of what liberalism/progressivism really is.
Perhaps the Left has come up with “the invisible hand of the free market” to try to counter
“the iron fist of the government in Leftist economics”.
WTF?
drudge……..
OBAMA CAMPAIGN: Republicans ‘politicizing’ Trayvon Martin death…
HOODIE ON THE HILL…
VIDEO: Dem Rep Kicked Off House Floor…
Ex-Black Panther…
Another Says Trayvon ‘Hunted Down Like Dog’…
Another: ‘Executed For WWB In A GC’…
Maxine Waters Calls Shooting ‘Hate Crime’…
Elderly couple living in fear over erroneous Spike Lee tweet…
Flee home…
Spike refuses to apologize… Trayvon coverage killing local business…
Good GRIEF…………it is going to be a LONG HOT summer…….BUY your AMMO early.
‘My God Will Wipe’ the U.S. ‘From the Face of the Earth’: Scary Audio From GBTV Special on Farrakhan
“If you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you.”
————————————————————————————-
Rep. Bobby Rush Explains Hoodie Incident to The Blaze: Martin Killed for Wearing Hoodie in ‘White Neighborhood’
“Nothing but a piece of clothing.”
————————————————————————————
Dem. Rep. Causes Chaos on House Floor After Giving Speech in a Hoodie
“May God bless Trayvon Martin’s soul, his family and–”
———————————————————————————–
Minister Malik Shabazz Threatens to ‘Burn Down’ Detroit Over ‘White Supremacy’
“What the fu** is a matter with you?
————————————————————————————
Congresswoman Can‘t Quite Remember Name of ’Young White Female’ Murder Victim of Equal Concern to Martin Case
“I care about all of the children.”
And the dumb ass winner ISssssss
Sheila Jackson Lee Speculates That George Zimmerman Broke His Own Nose
“You can knock yourself into a door…and break a nose.”
ROTFLMAO…………LOL LOL
“If George Zimmerman broke his own nose then it’s obvious what happened to Treyvon Martin. He shot himself.”
best one I heard yet………..
A Brief for Whitey
Mar 212008
By Patrick J. Buchanan
How would he pull it off? I wondered.
How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?
How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”
My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.
Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”
But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.
Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.
The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .”
And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?
The “white community” must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with “ladders of opportunity” that were “unavailable” to Barack’s and the Rev. Wright’s generations.
What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?
Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”
Was “white racism” really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said — that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.
Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.
This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?
Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.
Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.
Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.
I wondered, when dolf was blathering on about “…the invisible hand of the market…” a few weeks ago, where the hell he got that goofy phrase. – Amy
If Amy could put down the Hunger Game trilogy aimed at junior high school girls and pick up Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” she would be better prepared to discuss things like an adult instead of the simpering, snotty, didn’t-quite-make-it-into-the-sorority caricature that she has become.
I’ve never seen Maddow or other progressive personalities since I haven’t had cable TV in 20 years. I’ve also been spared FOX and CNN except for at the bank or airports.
I’ve watched the GOP devolve into a pro-big government supporter of too big to fail business with dreams of empires and bad guys under every rock in the middle East. Trillion dollar wars with hundreds of thousands of casualties accomplishing nothing more than the enrichment of weapons manufacturers. Eroding liberties with junk like the Patriot Act, DHS, TSA, DOE, BATF… The only thing that the non-rigid B4V folds can offer are tax cuts for the top 10%, lowering the costs of oil companies making historic profits, sniping at Obama, anti-union cliches and on and on.
That is a losing strategy in November. If Obamacare goes down, Romney has nothing to offer besides a faux immigration policies without teeth.
Ron Paul 2012!
simpering, snotty, didn’t-quite-make-it-into-the-sorority caricature that she has become.
Oh my, oh my, dolf does have his bitch on, doesn’t he? Guess being called out on using inane Leftist blather like “invisible hand of the free market” trips his teeny tiny trigger.
Nice addressing of what I said, dolfie. Perhaps if you had a more eclectic reading and viewing life you would be just a wee tad bit less, shall we say, limited? As I read 2-4 books a week, it is not hard for me to get through a series, and as I don’t judge a book by its supposed intended audience but by its content I am not as limited as you apparently are.
Uh, you might want to check out some more manly ways to insult, while you’re expanding your exposure to life beyond the staked plains. Your constant illustration of what you pretend to know about women, and how to insult them, says a lot about you, and (hint) none of it is muy macho.
BTW, if I were to waste any time speculating on your voice and speech patterns while you are giving your overbearing math lectures, I would have come up with someone who sounds exactly like querulous Ron Paul. I can see why he is so attractive to you—like listening to yourself, isn’t it?
Amy pulls out the bitch word as soon as she’s shown for the ditz that she has always been. Typical vocabulary for those who Kap Kap Gamma ignored. 2-4 comic books per week, yet doesn’t know where the phrase “invisible hand” comes from. Snortworthy indeed.
Do you still look at the pictures of Noah’s Ark in your DK Children’s Illustrated Bible too or have you moved onto the ideas? Not likely since your version of Christianity entails a self-aware constant self-improvement ala Transcendental Meditation. As a bonus, you are so wary of the actual ideas in the bible that when a “Lefty” like Dennis points them out you act just like a knee jerk liberal.
BTW, don’t limit yourself to just picture books, there are ones to color in as well. I don’t need to look into insults. You come off as a condescending, brainless moron all alone. Your juvenile need to bring machismo into discussions, calling men catty or bitchy is 7th grade school yard fodder. The only thing even more juvenile would be forced phallic reference. “teeny tiny trigger” does the job nicely.
The only thing funnier on B4V is when the Count comes onto the blog is his Ron Jeremy/Burgundy character and you swoon as his droppings.
I feel sorry for GMB when he gets angry with you. He still believes your rants are your intellectual output instead of picked up talking points you have found meandering through the corporate conservative section at B&N. You can always be the B4V grammarian. That title is secure until Microsoft comes up with a decent grammar analog to spellcheck.
Ron Paul 2012!
“I feel sorry for GMB when he gets angry with you. He still believes your rants are your intellectual output instead of picked up talking points you have found meandering through the corporate conservative section at B&N.”
LMAO!.
Don’t feel sorry for me at all. I never have believed any of her rants. I was just playing nice. No point in it anymore. Now that my friend is absolutely a zero sum game.
Bardolf, you are rocking the boat. Be careful you don’t make them all seasick.
Ron Paul over that damned dirty,filthy,stinking,lying,flipflopping piece of liberal garbage any day.
Be good you all.
dolf, if you see the term teeny tiny trigger as a phallic reference to you, well, you would know better than I. I meant that you are sooooooo hypersensitive that it takes practically nothing to nudge you over the edge into shrill hysteria and infantile name-calling.
Which you were kind enough to prove, yet again.
But if the reference fits………
Yeah, you keep concentrating on elaborating on your silly theme of what I read, etc. True, I have not read Adam Smith. So sue me. You probably haven’t, either, but just picked up the term somewhere. I’m betting dennis hasn’t, either, but just googled the term. And anyone who has read the blog knows that GMB dismisses everything I say because I am not exactly precisely 100% with no margin of error in agreement with his rigid absolutism.
I don’t understand why a man of your age and claimed achievements is so petty and strident about every little thing. But it doesn’t really matter. When I see you shrilly bitching away at the Count and then at me, I think I am in good company. If you are going to have a hissy fit every time someone points out your foolishness, you are going to spend most of your life pitching a hissy fit.
Oh, yeah. You do.
Given a choice of who I’d ask for an intelligent answer to a serious question, you and dennis would be at the bottom of the Slightly Less Than Raving Liberal List, while GMB would off in the weeds yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
Give it a rest, guys.
Now I’m going to run down to pick up a new BIG box of Crayolas—I hear there is a new My Little Pony coloring book coming out, if I can tear myself away from the “corporate conservative” section.
Sheesh, you are a hoot. Nice snipe at someone in the private sector, though.
Amy
Look at your choice of words
{hypersensitive, shrill, hysteria, petty, strident, shrilly bitching, hissy fit, …}
These are words you use with the intent to think of yourself as one of the alpha bitches, hoping the cool kids will finally pick you to hang out with them. You need to see a shrink pronto if you believe any of this nonsense.
I have actually read Wealth of Nations. I have also read the entire NIV version of the Bible. These aren’t beyond the abilities of intellectually curious people. IMO, there is no reason for adults to read things like the Hunger Games trilogy. The 2 or 3 rehashed ideas are better worked out in good literature so you should be reading that. FYI, UC Boulder has an annual Shakespeare festival you might want to attend. You might learn the humor of Falstaff and his compatriots.
http://www.coloradoshakes.org/files/2012%20web%20cal%20OK.pdf
In the 1860′s the American public working through the government passed laws to enable great public universities like UC Boulder, Ohio State, Purdue, … to benefit the citizens. At the same time large chunks of land were given away in the Homestead Act also for the benefit of the hard working citizens.
In 2012 the citizens of many states allow ranchers to use public land for grazing and support their public universities. My point is that neither of these decisions is a handout to some special class of people. Private scctor=good vs. public sector=bad is not particularly contextualized.
I really don’t understand if you genuinely think your occupation is more dignified than a teacher at a public university. You certainly have no evidence of being more skilled than the majority of faculty members. I could parrot lefty talking points about government handouts to farmers/ranchers in the US so they can compete with Mexican farmers but that’s what the American public has decided. If the same society wants to privatize the university system I won’t shed a tear. Until then though, your Laura Ingalls Wilder routine is getting long in the tooth.
“Long in the tooth” means old. It refers to the fact that one can determine a horse’s age by looking at its teeth. A horse’s gums recede as it ages causing its teeth to look “long.”
Actually, a horse’s teeth continue to grow and do, therefore, become longer. It has nothing to do with receding gums. Horses who grazed in the wild in the parts of the country where this usually occurred would usually grind the teeth down to some extent on rough forage and on sand picked up from grazing on low-growing forage but not always, and this led to early deaths for many horses, as uneven tooth wear could result in inability to chew.
Responsible modern horsemen now have the teeth of their horses routinely checked, and ground down, or “floated:, to level the chewing surfaces and keep jaws from being locked out of a grinding pattern by having the outside of an upper tooth and the inside of a lower tooth lock together when the jaw is closed, inhibiting the side-to-side grinding pattern of chewing.
This treatment means that most horses have a much longer lifespan than they would have had in the wild, and this means that as they reach greater age their teeth grow completely out, leaving the horse toothless. I have had many horses who have, due to good dental care, been able to eat well far into their 20′s, and then have had to be fed special diets to keep them alive and healthy once they no longer had molars with which to chew.
I can share my recipes for aged horse diets if anyone is curious.
BTW, the age is not determined by the length of the teeth but by grooves in the teeth, which become apparent at different ages.
Boulder Colorado (AKA The Peoples’ Republic of Boulder) was in competition with Pueblo, Colorado, when state decisions were being made regarding where to site the state university and the state mental hospital. Boulder lost, and got the school.
Though in the past few years, it has been hard to tell the difference.
The Shakespeare festival in Boulder is quite nice, with plays held in a lovely little outdoor theater. I have also seen Shakespeare presented in the rebuilt (as well as could be determined by historical records) Globe Theater in London and once in Stratford-upon-Avon. But I still carry a small grudge against Will for his misrepresentation of Richard III, contributing to a very unfair perception of him throughout history.
My perception of Christianity, and all other religious belief systems, has never been addressed by me on this blog, so speculation about my personal beliefs would range from mere guesswork to overt lying.
I think working in the public sector gives most people a far greater exposure to reality than the relatively protected and insular life of a college teacher, especially one in a small remote city. I also note a sense of superiority and smugness among the self-styled “intellectuals” who have never competed in the private sector but assume greater intelligence, morality, etc than those who do.
I prefer not to comment on, much less criticize, books I have not read. But then I also prefer not to comment on political systems I have not studied and for which I have not developed an understanding.
I find it useful to, every now and then, examine the literature to which young people in our culture are being exposed, and more to the point, what literature appeals to them and why. I think it interesting that two of the most popular youth-oriented books or book series of the past few years, the Harry Potter Series and the Hunger Games series, both stress what are now considered old-fashioned values, such as courage, integrity, friendship, loyalty, personal responsibility and self-discipline. I suppose I could make sweeping generalizations, based on personal bias, about the youth of today or aspects of their culture, but once again I prefer to actually know what I am talking about, whether it be about youth literature or horses’ teeth.
But it’s hard to compete with Archie and Veronica. Just the other day I read that Archie was very upset that Veronica had cut her hair, but it turned out that she had just bought a wig!!! It was brilliant. I laughed, I cried…….
” I think working in the public sector gives most people a far greater exposure to reality than the relatively protected and insular life of a college teacher, especially one in a small remote city.” – Amy
I travel several times per year abroad and read a broad spectrum of newspapers in several languages. I talk daily with people from China, Western and Eastern Europe and South America. I know hundreds of actual people from countries like Iran. I teach graduate courses in stochastic differential equations as well as bible study in a church regarded as ultra-conservative and most of my friends vote GOP. That is typical for a college professor. What reality about the world do you see that avoids my gaze?
Your thinking is a tired cliche, separating people into groups just like a liberal. It makes you intellectually lazy.
I also note a sense of superiority and smugness among the self-styled “intellectuals” who have never competed in the private sector but assume greater intelligence, morality, etc than those who do.
Thank you so much for proving this point for me.
Again.
Ama: “inane Leftist blather like ‘invisible hand of the free market’”
Ama, you can’t be helped, can you? Bardolf tried, but you’re too arrogant to listen. In economics, “the invisible hand” is a term economists have long used to describe the self-regulating nature of free markets. It’s hardly leftist blather – the term was coined in 1759 by Adam Smith in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, and later in book 4 of “The Wealth of Nations”. (And he may have gotten it from Shakespeare.)
It’s sort of like Herbert Spencer’s term “survival of the fittest,” used even before Darwin’s “Origin of Species” came out. Darwin thought it was an apt summation of his own position and incorporated it into his fifth edition, and lots of people use the phrase now. “The invisible hand” has been used even longer – you just haven’t been paying attention. Wikipedia has a pretty good history of its useage.
dennistooge
Ama, you can’t be helped, can you? Bardolf tried, but you’re too arrogant to listen.
Ohhhh PULEEEEEEASE !!!
you and baldork “helping” any one is like the blind leading the blind running on a narrow winding maintain pass….. truly a WTF moment.
the wolf in sheeps clothing continues to delude himself…..but dennis stooge we KNOW who and what you are…..ESPECIALLY Ama.
Neoconehead
It’s puhleease with an ‘h’. Try to say it while rolling your eyes at my comments and you’ll hear it clearly. Also, everyone should know the reference to the “invisible hand” was from Econ101 where the first lecture mentions Adam Smith. After reflecting on it Amy probably knew too. Like me, she just can’t resist doubling down on stupid remarks.
BTW, You yourself have congratulated me for helping people on this blog. I have thanked Spook, GMB, Amazona, the Count, you and others for various help as well. Of course, you thanked me for helping someone with algebra, I thanked Amazona for farming advice (thanks again Amazona the local coop has chicken poop which goes on the garden this weekend!) , you for house repair, the Count for accounting … i.e. for our actual areas of expertise. GMB is the most useful for his advice to shut up and go fish or bake pies.
Also, I was right about Je$$e and Al coming to FL, yes? Your fine state is being made to look like a bunch of racist crackers in the media. A jury will find Zimmerman guilty on some lesser accounts or not at all but the coverage will be enough to push FL into the Obama column for sure. Still can’t believe I got banned for a week for riffing on the idea that some people don’t belong in some parts of the country.
More on that “invisible hand” from economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, who says “the reason that invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is often not there.”
and all along I thought “invisible hand” was a Karate term.
GMB
that damned dirty,filthy,stinking,lying,flipflopping piece of liberal garbage any day.
I wouldnt have been so kind to Uboma
I’ve watched the GOP devolve into a pro-big government supporter of too big to fail business with dreams of empires and bad guys under every rock in the middle East. Trillion dollar wars with hundreds of thousands of casualties accomplishing nothing more than the enrichment of weapons manufacturers. – barstool
And yet another simplistic view from the cheap seats. I don’t deny that RINO’s like Collins, Snow, McCain, etc have compromised the conservative position on too many occasion, but to label the entire GOP because of the actions of a few is well….juvenile. I will also remind you that conservatives don’t oppose government, we oppose ineffective and over reaching government. And re: your juvenile take on war – if your friends in the ME would stop blowing people up, threatening other countries, stoning women to death, and beheading infidels, maybe we could avoid those messy wars. Ask your Mom about that someday.
Dennis,
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a academia elite fraud. He is anti capitalist, of course everyone paid by tax payer money is usually anti capitalist, which is ironic considering that capitalists are the very people that pay their way through life. Much like Elizabeth Warren.
cluster
I believe both you and GMB are correct.
GMB we are screwed this time but mittens has to be better than the commie racist we now have.
Cluster there are a lot of GMB’s out there and rightfully so, maybe it is time for a third party….TEA already has a good start.
This debacle in Fla has shown me the GOP governor, AG, FDLE, etc is a paper tiger hiding under the bed while racist howling lynch mobs scream for “justice” and demanding elected officials IGNORE Fla law to satisfy their blood lust and arrest a man for NO crime….AND NO GOP elected officials comment when out of state terrorists place WANTED DEAD or ALIVE BOUNTYS on Florida citizens..
PATHETIC
gov Scott are you listening?….DO WE have to do the job our selves?
OH WAIT……you would throw the FULL MIGHT of the government against **US** right?……cant have any of that “vigilantism” now can…..CAN WE?
I don’t disagree with GMB’s positions per se, I disagree with his scorched earth tactics.
I am a methodical businessman, that plans my work and works my plan and there are many obstacles in front of conservatives including the media and a dumbed down populace that we have to overcome in order to get on the path to a sustainable conservative governance. We can’t just think in terms of one election, or even one federal election. We have to begin to change the media narrative, and improve our common sense message so that it resonates with more and more people who have been hood winked by liberalism. Conservatism is common sense that the vast majority of Americans can easily get behind, we just have to stop hanging ourselves with Rino’s like McCain, and promote those who can articulate our message – people like Ryan, Rubio, Bachman, Walker, Haley, etc. And that can not be done over night. Romney is conservative enough for me and if he wins, that gives us four years to start that process. This is a marathon – not a sprint.
No we cannot.
rubin nitwitgreenteeth
tell that to the howling racist chicago mob in Fla who are on a witch hunt and political lynching.
believe me if they start something they will regret it.
Stiglitz is a fraud? So a nobel prize winning economist is a fraud…..just because you don’t agree with him?
Interesting. Talk about generalizations about people who get paid by tax money.
So Police, Firemen, First responders and Teachers are all anti capitalist. Oh, so are all the guys in the military.
Talk about being a narrow minded idiot.
So being awarded the Nobel Prize is proof of something? You mean like Barry’s prize for what someone thought he might do, someday?
The Nobel Prize has become a joke, a political construct that has less and less to do with actual merit and more and more to do with advancing Leftist causes.
James, if you have even the slightest, most cursory understanding of the political philosophy of the Left, or even of reality, you might not make such bizarrely stupid statements as trying to claim that for some reason someone said or implied that “…Police, Firemen, First responders and Teachers are all anti capitalist. Oh, so are all the guys in the military.” For one thing, police and firemen ARE ‘first responders’—if you’re going to parrot a phrase, you might try to know what it means first.
No one objects to people who get PAID by tax monies. No one objects to paying the military out of federal tax revenues. As a matter of fact, it is a constitutional duty.
As for First Responders and other state and local employees, THEY ARE EMPLOYEES.
And for the most part, these tax revenues come from capitalists.
The objection is the handouts to people who do nothing to earn what they get, and to the fact that there is not one single word in the Constitution that assigns any form or degree of charity to the federal government. Charity, when it is called for, is clearly and legally, according to the 10th Amendment, the responsibility of the states. Or the people.
Hell, people like you can’t even tell the difference between a federal responsibility, like the military, and state and local responsibilities, like firemen and policemen.
You have been asked to explain what Liberalism is, and what Progressivism is, and you just refuse to answer. Why is that? Is it because you are ignorant of the definition and meaning of words you use? Or is it because you know that once you define a system you support, the next question will be “why do you support it” and you know there is no defense for the system?
Amazona,
For the record, there is no Nobel Prize for Economics.
What he “won” was the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, awarded, not by the Nobel Committee, but by a bank in Sweden.
Do Carry On.
For the record, there is no Nobel Prize for Economics.
Count, you would think that the good folks at Columbia University would know that.
My point by citing Stiglitz was that Smith’s invisible hand has been a known metaphor (of conservative doctrine, not “leftist blather” as Ama called it) for a long time. And yes, Stiglitz and others reject the assumption that the invisible hand always guides free markets to do the right thing. It would have been just as easy to cite Alan Greenspan from 2008:
Asked by committee chairman Henry Waxman whether his free-market convictions pushed him to make wrong decisions, especially his failure to rein in unsafe mortgage lending practices, Greenspan replied that indeed he had found a flaw in his ideology, one that left him very distressed. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right?” Waxman asked.
“Absolutely, precisely,” replied Greenspan. “That’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence it [the invisible hand] was working exceptionally well.”
And apparently Greenspan was still talking about Adam Smith’s invisible hand, even explicitly naming it, as recently as a year ago: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_03/028712.php
I am the first one to admit that I do not study economics. I believe I have mentioned this, or alluded to it in some way, several times on this blog. I have read Sowell on economics, but I tend to study more about political theory and history than economics, mostly because so many economists who appear to be equally qualified so often have such wildly divergent opinions.
So I look at the historical record of different economic theories, and don’t spend much time reading about abstract theories.
What is so funny is that I doubt that any of those opining on the horror—the HORROR, I tell you!!!!—-of my admittedly limited exposure to economic theory have read much on the subject, either. I did a quick google search on “the invisible hand of the free market” and came up with the same stuff regurgitated with such prowess by some who evidently lack the integrity to admit they didn’t know this stuff, either, till my comment and their desire to swoop in with insults nudged them into a similar search.
But hey, if someone wants to call the natural instinct of mankind to trade and profit an “invisible hand”, more power to him. I may start to use the term myself: the “invisible hand” of migration, the “invisible hand” of maternal instinct, etc. You know, I’m starting to like it.
This just in: Not a single Democrat votes for the President’s budget!!
http://news.yahoo.com/gop-run-house-easily-rejects-obama-budget-013519895.html
Cluster,
From your Yahoo link:
Democrats have defended Obama’s budget priorities but they largely voted “no” Wednesday night.
Republicans said Democrats were afraid to vote for Obama’s proposed tax increases and extra spending for energy and welfare. Democrats said Republicans had forced a vote on a version of Obama’s budget that contained only its numbers, not the policies he would use to achieve them.
The vote was 414-0.
Yeah, I’d say 414-0 was pretty “largely”.
Awww, those mean old ‘publicans, “forcing a vote”!
414 to ZERO?!?
I thought that only REPUBLICANS were obstructionists?…….
….. at least that is how the dumbed down talking points for the ignorant proggies go.
This is not the first time that the DEMOCRATS have whole-heartedly rejected obAMATEUR’s budget. Meanwhile, budgets that have passed the House are held up in the Senate by Harry Reid. He simply is refusing to allow them to the floor.
But according to the mindless drones, it is the Republican’s fault that there has not been a budget passed for almost three years. When the record shows incompetent bills and partisan politics – both by Democrats.
Pathetic.
Hey barstool – I found someone else more your speed -
Movement Conservatism will kill more innocent Americans than Al-Qaida ever will.”
Your on the wrong blog site stool – switch over to the Daily Kos, there your rantings will be met with applause
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/03/29/daily-kos-movement-conservatism-more-deadly-america-al-qaeda#ixzz1qVnTRvfF
cluster
he is a KO’s plant
I don’t think dolf has the, uh, shall we say “spine” to be much of anything. He seems to like to lurk on the sidelines and then snipe at whatever some of us say. He is just mindlessly oppositional.
but shhhhhhhhhh—-he is awfully sensitive
Clueless spends more time on DailyKos than I ever will. I’m willing to bet that Ron Paul is hated on DKos. Why don’t you go troll for a while and link to the pro-Paul threads.
Of course, Olympia Snowe is the worst type of RINO, but she isn’t so far from Mitt or Newt or Bush Jr.
It must get under your skin the idea that Libertarians and Social Conservatives don’t see eye to eye with too-big-to-fail business republicans like yourself. The government as an instrument for corporate America first, second and last.
Stool,
I am a borderline libertarian but not nearly as extreme as Paul. Nothing is too big to fail including GM, which should have gone through bankruptcy instead of propping up the unions, and my opinion as to what conservatives need to do to reach their goal is centered around finding the right person for the moment as their is no perfect candidate. Mitt fits the bill for now.
From the “you just can’t make this shit up” file – liberals over at the NYT fear that the school children massacre in France at the hands of a radical islamist – will shed a poor light on diversity and escalate tensions:
The seven brutal killings carried out this month by Mr. Merah — a 23-year-old son of Toulouse, and a professed jihadi — occurred during a divisive presidential race that had already turned toward questions of immigration and Islam. Even though investigators say Mr. Merah was effectively a lone, self-radicalized extremist, his violent ideology fits closely with some French stereotypes of Islam, and Muslims here fear that the tensions brought on by the murders may prove more lasting.
Never mind that Jewish school children were murdered, the important part of this story is how does this affect the Muslims????
Un f**king believable.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/clay-waters/2012/03/29/after-massacre-children-islamist-nytimes-frets-only-about-diversity-ris#ixzz1qVoyj8Ri
So a racially motivated slaughter by a self-professed radical jihadist is supposed to be attributed to …a lone, self-radicalized extremist… because he is Muslim, but anyone who kills anyone in one of the myriad of protected classes in the United States—-race and Democrat to name two—is automatically acting as part of and representative of a political movement or a race?
France has bent over backwards to tolerate radical Muslims who flood into the country, set up mini-nations of their own, refuse to learn French, and riot once or twice a year. Sounds to me like it’s time for the Muslims to start working on tolerance and “diversity”.
But back to the thread…
I don’t know if any of you were able to hear the arguments yesterday. I was able to catch some of Hugh Hewitt’s show, and he played a lot of what was going on. The context of Sotomayor’s and Kagan’s advocacy for Obamacare is much more evident when you hear them interrupt the state’s attorney (who is brilliant) and try to derail his arguments, and you hear the challenging tones of their voices as they do so.
They are not asking questions to clarify points, they are arguing against the attorney’s points.
Kagan should not even be there. I wonder if she will have the integrity to abstain from voting, or if she will continue to bluff her way through this, knowing that she has cover from the Left for her conflict of interest and open advocacy of a system she supposed to be evaluating on its Constitutional merits.
Once again, the Chief Justice has stated that he doesn’t want ANY of his justices to abstain. And that includes Thomas and Kagan.
Maybe you’re just anti woman….or anti woman who isn’t like you.
By the way, how do you manage to read 2-4 books a week and NEVER read about the invisible hand…the term coined by Adam Smith?
Is it possible you just made that little bit up?
Also, did you see the video the Sanford Police released of Zimmerman in cuffs the night of the crime? No blood on his face….or no cut on the back of his head as he has claimed…..and no blood on his clothes….Hmmm….I wonder if you’ll gracefully change your position and admit your bias once we find out it wasn’t self defense…and just cold blooded murder
We shall see.
By the way, how do you manage to read 2-4 books a week and NEVER read about the invisible hand…the term coined by Adam Smith?
By not reading much on economic theory.
Duh.
There are a few other topics in the world. For example, I have read a lot on Leftism, recently setting aside a hefty tome on Stalin to get back to Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell, because I am working on starting a conservative book club. That is, a book club to discuss conservative books.
Throw in some history and biography (I am also about halfway through a book on Wild Bill Donovan which is about both) and fiction and even science fiction, some natural history, and historical fiction such as the Patrick O’Brian series which is historically accurate but with fictional characters interacting in carefully researched events, and it’s a pretty full slate.
Oh, I forgot the books on politics—lots of those.
Do share your reading list, but don’t bother including the tidbits you look up on google when someone else has mentioned a topic and you are desperate for a cheap gotcha.
Amazona,
I was listening to HH as well, brilliant!
I heard a former clerk for Kennedy say that the Justices do not discuss pending cases with each other. After pouring over briefs and getting input from their clerks, they often telegraph their leanings to the other justices in the form of their questioning. Being some of the most brilliant legal minds (and 2 judicial dim-bulbs) the justices pick up a line of questioning to clarify points raised by the telegraphing justice.
Btw, here’s another take on the Invisible Hand; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkbf-Ah5M9c Leave it to Friedman.
maybe fo je$$ah n $harpton to relocate da rent a mob to DC jus in case Uboma loses this one…….the next FAUX outrage and excuse to loot, threaten and pillage……all on TV of course leave the heavy lifting to the flash mobs of street garbage.
Maybe The Right Reverend can call out the high school reserves, http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/south-carolina-teen-brutal-soccer-attack-earns-assault-103322121.html to “settle things.”
Here is one analysis of Kagan’s position. Contrast this with the fact that at one time Justice Thomas’s wife received payment from a group which included among its efforts an effort to block the so-called “Health Care” bill. His involvement, if any, was at an arm’s length.
I am not aware of a request from Justice Roberts that both Thomas and Kagan rule on this case. Please cite this quote.
In the meantime, here is part of a legal analysis of Kagan’s position.
*************************************
Elena Kagan: The Justice Who Knew Too Much
Carrie Severino, Judicial Crisis Network
I. Introduction
At least eight of the Supreme Court’s nine members will soon decide whether to review the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”). The only question is whether Elena Kagan, the Court’s most junior Justice, will also pass judgment on President Obama’s signature law or recuse herself because of her role in defending PPACA’s constitutionality as President Obama’s Solicitor General.
As President Obama’s top advocate, Kagan headed the office responsible for formulating the Administration’s defense of PPACA—and oversaw the arguments both on appeal and in the lower courts because of PPACA’s national importance. The President is now asking her to adopt the very same positions her office helped craft for him on this matter, but this time, as a Supreme Court Justice. Her jump from advocate to judge on the same issue raises profound questions about the
propriety of her continued participation in the case. Moreover, the legitimacy of any decision where she is in the majority or plurality would be instantly suspect if she chooses not to recuse herself. To use a sports analogy, would anyone trust the outcome of a close game where the referee had been a coach for one of the teams earlier in the game?
For the reasons set forth below, we find it impossible for Justice Kagan to deny that she was directly involved in the defense of PPACA, and that she should therefore recuse herself from any consideration of PPACA’s legality before the Supreme Court.
II. Summary of the Evidence
a. Kagan took early and aggressive action to involve her office in Obamacare.
Though her department normally only deals with appeals, Kagan made the decision to involve the Solicitor General’s office before PPACA had even been signed into law. According to e-mails JCN has obtained, Neal Katyal, Kagan’s chief and only political deputy, stated in January 2010 that “Elena would definitely like OSG to be involved in this set of issues.” After the first strategy meeting, Katyal emphasized his interest in getting the office “heavily involved even in the dct [District Court].”
Because it is so unusual for the Solicitor General’s Office to get involved at the District Court level, not to mention before a law is passed, Kagan’s approval, tacit or explicit, would have been required. The fact that she encouraged her Office’s involvement at such an early stage could only mean that she believed it was necessary to ensure that the strongest possible arguments in defense of the law would be raised at the outset to set the stage for all the appeals that would certainly follow. Her actions had the added effect of communicating to the President and the rest of his Administration that the Solicitor General herself was on top of the legal challenges from the beginning and would not be caught off guard.
(Had Kagan or the Obama Administration disclosed these and other documents discussed below during her confirmation
hearings instead of waiting for drawn-out litigation under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we are confident that the public debate about her role in defending the health care law would have been far more robust. )
b. Kagan made key staffing decisions starting in January of 2010.
According to e-mails obtained by JCN, in early 2010 the Obama Administration organized a meeting to discuss strategy for defending the health care bill from anticipated legal challenges and asked Kagan’s Office to send a representative. In response to the invitation, Neal Katyal, Kagan’s political-appointee Deputy, said “[a]bsolutely right on. Let’s crush them. I’ll speak to Elena and designate someone [to attend].” Of all the people that Kagan could have designated to attend that
first meeting, she chose the man who had already stated that her Office’s role was to “crush” the opponents of PPACA.
Though the Solicitor General’s office is otherwise staffed by career lawyers, Kagan assigned her chief and only political deputy to represent the office in this high-level meeting. Katyal, who eventually argued the case in the 11th Circuit, was clearly the point person assigned to the case, and his instructions were to “bring in Elena as needed.” Kagan’s staffing decisions on their own constitute substantial involvement in the case, but her delegation of the case to Katyal, her aggressive deputy, provides important insight into her own aggressive approach to the case.
c. Kagan was part of the deliberative process in the Obamacare defense
strategy. During her confirmation hearings, Kagan stated that she was present at “at least one” meeting in which the challenges to PPACA were discussed. But JCN has obtained documents indicating that her involvement was much more substantial than merely attending a single meeting. We have received multiple documents concerning Kagan’s involvement in the PPACA litigation containing redacted material that is exempted from production under FOIA’s “b(5)” exemption. That exemption covers material normally protected by a privilege that makes it immune to disclosure, like the attorney-client privilege or, in the case of government policy makers, the deliberative process privilege. The implications of the numerous b(5) deliberative process exemptions are serious because they show that Kagan, unsurprisingly, received information about the PPACA litigation involving strategy (for that is what it means to deliberate) while Solicitor General. Because of the b(5) claims, we know that she is ethically barred from disclosing both what she learned and said
about the government’s views of the case to anyone. The fact that Kagan has inside information on the case is problematic enough, but this issue opens up all sorts of potential ethical problems.
For example, as often happens at oral argument, the representative from the Solicitor General’s office could be asked by the Justices, “did the government ever consider argument X as an alternative to your current position?” The answer to that question can obviously be yes or no or anything in between. But if Justice Kagan sits on a PPACA case, she will know the answer to the question before it is asked because she participated in the case when the government’s arguments were being hashed out. In fact, even if Kagan knew that the representative from her former office lied in answering that question, she would still be prohibited from telling her fellow Justices about it because of the deliberative process privilege.
III. Legal Analysis
a. Recusal Required under 28 U.S.C. §455(b)(3)
Although the Judicial Code of Ethics does not, by its terms, apply to Supreme Court Justices, mandatory recusals for the Justices are governed by federal law. Section 455(b)(3) of Title 28 addresses the specific case at hand: the recusal obligations of former government employees. It requires recusal where the judge “has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.” 28 U.S.C. §455(b)
(There is case law suggesting that, merely by virtue of her position as Solicitor General during the preparation for the government’s defense, Justice Kagan must recuse herself. The role of the U.S. Attorney is analogous to that of the
Solicitor General insofar as both carry out their statutory duties via numerous staff, supervise their office and officially serve as counsel of record for the United States in all cases within their jurisdiction – at the trial level in the case of U.S. Attorneys, and at the Supreme Court level for the Solicitor General. In the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits United States Attorneys that later become judges must recuse themselves from any proceeding that had been pending
in any way in their offices, even if they were not substantively involved.)
Justice Kagan has stated under oath that she was never asked, nor did she ever offer, her opinion concerning the merits of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. State of Florida, et al., (the “HHS” case) – the major court challenge to PPACA, and the one most likely to be heard at the Supreme Court. However, there is evidence suggesting that she participated as counsel concerning the proceeding and therefore is bound by federal law to recuse herself from the case.
While Kagan’s name does not appear on any filings in the HHS case, that level of involvement is not required to necessitate recusal. The statute nowhere defines either “counsel” or “participated,” but case law does give guidance, and that guidance indicates that any personal (as opposed to pro forma) participation in a case is sufficient to trigger recusal. Thus, while the titular head of a large office might not be barred from hearing a case if there was no previous personal involvement, judges must recuse themselves if they have “previously taken a part, albeit small, in the investigation, preparation, or prosecution of a case.” United States v. Gipson, 835 F.2d 1323, 1326 (10th Cir. 1988) (emphasis added).
It is significant that recusal can also be triggered by involvement with a case before its official filing. Then-Justice Rehnquist has noted that he recused in a case in which he played “only an advisory role which terminated immediately prior to the commencement of the litigation.” Laird v. Tatum, 409 U.S. 824, 829 (1972). Other discussions of recusal indicate that involvement in investigations 2 There is case law suggesting that, merely by virtue of her position as Solicitor General during the preparation for the government’s defense, Justice Kagan must recuse herself. The role of the U.S. Attorney is analogous to that of the Solicitor General insofar as both carry out their statutory duties via numerous staff, supervise their office and officially serve as counsel of record for the United States in all cases within their jurisdiction – at the trial level in the case of U.S. Attorneys, and at the Supreme Court level for the Solicitor General. In the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits United States Attorneys that later become judges must recuse themselves from any proceeding that had been pending in any way in their offices, even if they were not substantively involved. United States v. Arnpriester, 37 F.3d 466, 467 (9th Cir. 1994) (“This analysis imputes to the United States Attorney the knowledge and acts of his assistants.”);
United States v. Boyd, 208 F.3d 638, 648 (7th Cir. 2000) (noting exception to requirement of personal participation for U.S. Attorneys); Kendrick v. Carlson, 995 F.2d 1440, 1444 (8th Cir. 1993) (“There is general agreement that a United
States Attorney serves as counsel to the government in all prosecutions brought in his district while he is in office and that he therefore is prohibited from later presiding over such cases as a judge.”).
At that time there was no opening on the Supreme Court and, by Kagan’s
own testimony, she had not been informed that she was on the shortlist for a future opening. She stated that she had been carrying out the duties of the Solicitor General as normal, not recusing herself from new cases as she would do after her nomination.
Kagan’s responses to Senate questions during her confirmation process essentially admit her involvement in the case. When asked about the HHS case she stated: “I neither served as counsel of record nor played any substantial role, as defined above. Therefore, I would consider recusal on a case-by-case basis, carefully considering any arguments made for recusal and consulting with my colleagues and, if appropriate, with experts on judicial ethics” (emphasis added). What she is saying is that (in her mind) she did not participate in a manner that made her recusal a foregone conclusion, rather, that she would have to consider the matter carefully if it came up. In other words, she participated in the case, but not, according to her, substantially.
Kagan’s careful answer is a striking contrast to Neal Katyal’s description of her involvement in an email to Tracy Schmaler, deputy director of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs.
He stated: “No, she never has been involved in any of it. I’ve run it for the Office, and have never discussed the issue with her one bit.” Kagan’s response to his email is telling. Less than two minutes later she replied, “This needs to be coordinated. Tracy, you should not say anything about this before talking to me.” Again, if she had truly been “walled off from Day One” as Katyal asserted in a later email on the topic, no coordination would have been needed. More likely, coordinating meant “getting our stories straight.”
In her hearing testimony, Kagan underestimated the scope of her recusal obligations, stating that she would recuse herself from any case in which she “officially formally approved something.” But her formal/informal distinction – along with an emphasis on recusal only for “substantial” involvement – has no basis in the case law and appears self-serving. Her descriptions of OSG participation in cases before the appellate level – like the PPACA strategizing – always carefully label such discussions “informal,” and outside of normal recordkeeping. But the approval of early OSG involvement and delegation to Katyal certainly constitute personal participation in the case, and that is all §455(b)(3) requires.
Kagan’s involvement with U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services was consistent with her acting as counsel – both in a supervisory manner and because she received information normally.
………………………….
Kagan’s receipt of privileged information also is something normally reserved to counsel. In the case of a high-ranking supervisor receiving deliberative material from her subordinates, Kagan’s failure to offer her own opinion explicitly may save her from forced recusal for “express[ing] an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy,” but it does little to shield her from having participated in the formulation of strategy and being treated as counsel by those involved. One exchange in particular highlights the problem. In a March 18, 2010 email to Deputy Attorney General Tom Perelli, Neal Katyal states, “In light of this, for what it is worth, my advice (I haven’t discussed this with Elena, but am cc’ing her here) would be that we start assembling a response, [material redacted] so that we have it ready to go.” Copying Kagan on this email not only made her a recipient of privileged internal information regarding the government’s strategy in the case, it created a situation where even a lack of response from Kagan constitutes tacit agreement with Katyal’s redacted proposal.
The FOIA record presents an incomplete picture of the occasions on which Katyal or others involved in defense strategy may have made this type of statement to
Kagan, but shows sufficient personal involvement to trigger 28 U.S.C. §455(b)(3).
****************************
Not quite the same as having a spouse who once received payment for work done for a group which, among other interests, opposed the legislation now under examination.
“And yet another simplistic view from the cheap seats. I don’t deny that RINO’s like Collins, Snow, McCain, etc have compromised the conservative position on too many occasion”- Clueless
Your business must be in the toilet if your critical thinking is so poor.
The Iraq War (over extension of the Afghan War) wasn’t due to a few RINO’s in the party. It was Bush misreading all of history and current events. Your filtered view of world events isn’t any better so there isn’t much hope. Consider a completely different place on the map. Today the Pope is calling the embargo of Cuba a disaster. It makes no sense economically, it is morally dubious and yet for nostalgia purposes the embargo continues. The embargo is mainstream GOP policy.
Consider, the Medicare part D giveaway to seniors and drug companies wasn’t a few RINO’s. The bailout of the risky behavior with TARP money is mainstream GOP policy. In fact the Clueless’ don’t see the inherent problem with TARP because the ad hoc casinos are making money again and repaid the government.
The creation of the DOE, NCLB, DHS, Patriot Act, all useless big government boondoggles care of mainstream GOP. If you think the TSA theater at the airports is useful you are truly deluded. I don’t think 6 year olds in wheelchairs or 73 year old grandmas are the danger that the TSA worries about, but maybe the GOP knows best.
When the GOP takes a beating in November despite 9% unemployment, despite Fast and Furious, despite Obamacare etc. the blame will not be on the ” scorch earthed GOP” , we saw the McCainity of that way of thinking in 2008.
Ron Paul 2012!
The Iraq War (over extension of the Afghan War) wasn’t due to a few RINO’s in the party. It was Bush misreading all of history and current events.
That wasn’t it at all. Actually Sen Jay Rockefeller (D) probably laid out the best case for war, Clinton initiated “regime change” in Iraq, and most democrats voted in favor of.
Want to try again?
Clinton was responsible for more than a million Iraqi citizens death with an immoral embargo. He dropped bombs on pharmaceutical plants because the media was focusing on his getting BJ’s from an intern. He casually allowed genocides to go on in Africa when a hundred troops would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Your saying that’s the kind of guy that Bush was basing his foreign policy on when he started the Iraq war. That makes Bush look both incompetent and evil. I prefer the misreading/incompetent Bush to the liberal evil Bush.
No, ‘dolf, since 1998 regime change was the official US policy toward Iraq. Unless you prefer your Presidents to ignore the law, or you simply prefer them to be racists and anti-Semitic and just a half-a-bubble off plumb, which apparently you do.
Ron Paul; Room for You in Bellevue ~ 2012
No Count the Money
Bush needed to drum up support for the Iraqi invasion. You’re historical revisionism is hollow for anyone that can remember back a decade. You remember the need for Powell to discuss WMD don’t you? There was no obligation for Bush to enlarge any Clinton policy toward Iraq. In fact the correct action would have been to drop the sanctions, just like the US should drop sanctions against Cuba.
The usual baiting about Paul being a racist isn’t needed anymore. He won’t be the nominee so one can stop the lying slurs that he an anti-Semite.
Interesting that you think people with divergent opinions belong in a a totalitarian institution like Bellevue, most likely against their will, probably “for the good of society”. I didn’t figure you as a closet fascist.
Stool seems to be going off the rails a bit
Clueless
Do you believe current psychiatry is any less a scam than AGW?
Stool,
I am scrambling to get out of town, so I don’t have time to address all of your drivel Needless to say, you must be a terribly conflicted person, ranting and raving about big government, all the while appearing to be quite giddy over Obama’s reelection chances. You’re a weird dude.
cluster I would too before the week end’s riot…….
convenient excuse cluster. I am sure you won’t be posting this weekend then.
neostupid, this one is for you.
http://gma.yahoo.com/trayvon-martin-video-shows-no-blood-bruises-george-194108003–abc-news-topstories.html
care to explain why he didn’t have any cuts, no blood, and nothing visibly wrong with him when he came to the police station? it can’t be that he is lying can it? also, what happened to you saying Martin was bigger than this guy? guess that was a lie as well huh…..
This guy will get arrested, charged with murder, and spend his life in prison. And i wouldn’t have it any other way.
jamestooge
easy he was washed up by paramedics on scene, packing in nose, cut visible on back of head in with police officer inspecting it, sorry but the thug who told Z he was going to die tonight had it backwards.
Maybe the people who had their jewelry stolen can get it back, and the other thugs can look for new dealer.
maybe your eyes need a checking up….there is nothing in his nose, his clothes are perfectly clean and DRY….considering it was wet from rain that night.
not to mention, the cop looks at the back of his “cut” head because there is NO cut.
you’re either blind, stupid, or both.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/police-surveillance-video-of-zimmerman-may-show-head-injury/
When Obamacare is overruled there won’t be a trace of his presidency to worry about besides the trillion dollar deficits that the house GOP continues to approve.
I don’t fear an Obama victory or a Romney victory since they both will keep a big government just about the same. You don’t seem to have any confidence in your ability to gauge the American electorate. IMO, only Ron Paul could beat Obama in November but we’ll never know as long as the McCain wing of the party keeps putting up losers like Romney.
Amazona March 29, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I am not aware of a request from Justice Roberts that both Thomas and Kagan rule on this case. Please cite this quote.
This question was asked of James at 12:18 p.m. At 2:44 p.m. he came back on the thread, but refused to back up his earlier claim, just shifting into cheering for the destruction of a man’s life with no evidence to prove that the man did anything wrong.
He also makes other claims, which I am sure he will not be able to back up either, but will scurry away till he has another snot-nugget to drop.
I was injured in November when a young horse bolted, yanking me sideways and then around, and before I could let go of the lead rope I was slammed to the ground, face-first. I heard as well as felt my nose break.
In my case, my face was scraped because I hit a hard-packed and frozen gravel driveway, face-first, but aside from that, after I splashed water on my face and washed the blood off, the nose itself did not look any different until later than night, when the swelling started to develop.
I had severe bruising as well, and this also did not appear until later that night. I am extremely fair-skinned, and bruise easily, unlike many people of Hispanic descent even if the NYT does reclassify them as “white”.
If not for the scrapes from the gravel, I would not have looked much if any different ten minutes after the accident, when I came out of the house with my face washed and ready to deal with the horse. Later, it was a different story. My nose swelled up, and the bruises developed.
And I did not go to a doctor or an emergency room. I can imagine that Mr. Zimmerman was quite distraught after his experience, and spending time being interrogated, and just wanted to go home. His father said that he should have had several stitches in his head, but the fact that he chose not to see a doctor is hardly proof he was not injured.
From the FBI, bebunking all the lies and racist rhetoric coming from the race pimps like Sharpton and Jackson. In short, in 2010, blacks were responsible for 90% of the murders of their fellow black citizens! 90%! But, jackson and sharpton will continue their “lynching” and “they are coming to get you” inflammatory language.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl06.xls
if these two individuals cared about the average black man/woman/child then they would see it was not “whitey” they had to worry about.
As I said before, there are far more murders in the inner cities than these types of incidents of which Zimmerman is involved. But, of course, the inner city incidents don’t get the free publicity and the potential donations (to help us fight the interlopers!) jackson and sharpton want.
I’d like to address the larger health care issue in the context of the superior “morality” so often invoked by the right. All leading Republican figures excoriate “Obamacare”; most also deplore, either implicitly or explicitly, the general morality of this president (see photo http://tinyurl.com/7b2watf ).
The evangelical right in particular – a huge demographic – aggressively pushes the narrative of Obama’s anti-God, unconstitutional agenda. While driving through Kentucky a few weeks ago I listened to Family Radio commentator Bryan Fischer hammer this point incessantly for over an hour, calling Obama the most “anti-God” president the nation has ever had, and the most dangerous moral threat to America in our lifetime. This is a man with an audience of millions, many of whom regard his opinions as nearly tantamount to God’s own voice. No objective basis was offered for his assessment, but that wasn’t his purpose. His purpose, amply demonstrated by calls from listeners, was to whip up anti-Obama hysteria. The evangelical movement is nearly completely off its gospel rails and given over to political demagoguery.
Of course the audience here on B4V is only quasi-religious; most prefer to keep their religious thoughts to themselves. Yet the exact same political and “moral” narratives advanced by the evangelical right are advanced here, even if not in religious terms. Fischer pushes all the religious buttons for his audience, but the underlying values and prejudices he preaches are fully interchangeable with those expressed on this blog.
With due respect to the fine distinctions between purists like GMB and others here, you’re all extreme-right, anti-tax, anti-government, self-delusional “pro-life” advocates with a huge axe to grind against the sitting president (of course I except Bardolf, Jon Swift, James and a handful of other contrarians from this generalization). And with all that as my preamble, I’ll state my case for Obama’s health-care policy being perhaps the last, best stand for true morality taken by any American president – certainly as far as domestic policy is concerned. (And I will indeed reference the Bible, since for Christians it’s a reliable moral guide.)
I’ll first lay out a few more points to help define the issue. Here’s Amazona to Bozo on a prior thread: “While you’re at it, freakzo, tell us of one single Leftist country that has (choose just one if you prefer) set a world standard for economic prosperity…,” bla bla bla.
(An aside, but worth noting – one problem here is Ama’s classification system. The false dichotomy of “Left” vs “Right” is a demagogic device of no value in describing or addressing real-world issues within our system. Both liberals and conservatives in America now are driven by moneyed interests, and few true conservatives can even be found.) Effective problem-solving requires complex thinking and a willingness to integrate ideas from all directions. Obama’s affordable health care act is a good example of such a problem-solving attempt, but will almost certainly be defeated by a court that has already proven by Citizens United that it favors corporate interests over individual rights.
Memo to Ama: there are other nations that have set high standards for economic prosperity, personal freedom, scientific and cultural advancement, human rights, protecting the environment and other hallmarks of civilized behavior. And most have more collectivized methods of providing for the common good than the United States. That does not make them “Leftist countries” in the pejorative sense Ama conveys, any more than the early Christian church was “Leftist”. The New Testament says “believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had” (Acts 4:32). Were the early Christians then a prototype for evil Communists?
That was voluntary, some will protest – they didn’t advocate the government confiscating their wealth to give to others. Really? Christ and his disciples paid taxes. Old Testament Israel was the model for these early Christian values; was it a “Leftist” nation? One of the commandments God gave ancient Israel was to take of a portion of people’s wealth – a tithe, or tax, if you will – and give it to the Levites (civil servants of the day) and toward the welfare of the poor: foreigners (foreigners!) in their midst, the fatherless and widows. See Deuteronomy 26. Additionally, all landowners were required to leave a portion of their crops for the poor to harvest (Deut. 24:19-22). Redistribution of earned wealth was a divinely-mandated, core principle of our Judeo-Christian heritage.
One of the main reasons Israel was repeatedly punished by God and taken into captivity by its enemies was because they failed to care for the poor and needy in their midst. This can be read over and over in the historical books of the Old Testament; it was a recurring theme of the major and minor prophets. In fact, that failure was the very sin of Sodom – it had nothing to do with sex. The perversion of the Sodomites resulted from their excess, their idleness and lack of concern for the poor and needy (see Ezekiel 16:49, 50).
Add up all the times the Bible addresses homosexuality or any other social issue of our present day; then add up all the times it addresses caring for the poor and needy. The numerical ratio may stagger you. Count all the times Jesus addressed the moral peril of being rich. How we treat Jesus Christ in the person of the homeless, the hungry, the poor and social outcasts of society is so important that he portrayed this as the sole criterion which will determine whether a person will be saved or lost (see Matthew 25:31-46). By biblical standards, how a nation treats its poor and social outcasts seems to be the ultimate test of its moral character. No other issue championed by the right today approaches that level of importance, at least according to the Bible.
You can make all the constitutional arguments you want against “Obamacare”. See what that will get you in the final judgment. You can even forget that it was first crafted by the Heritage Foundation and endorsed by leading Republicans before Obama adopted it, and it suddenly became anathema to the right. But to frame the general debate over welfare or health care as a moral one from an upside-down perspective (again, see that photo linked above) – as if it were all about rewarding the lazy with the hard-earned wealth of society’s producers, thereby undermining the nation’s morality and incentive to work, is not only patently bogus, it is a moral delusion paving our way to national perdition.
I would contend that this health care debate in particular may determine more than any other issue to date whether or not the United States participates in the sin, and goes the way, of Sodom. Accusing the president of “socialism” while partisan national leaders (in this case possibly even our highest court) uphold the priorities of the rich, privileged and of corporate interests, rather than those Jesus Christ called “the least of these my brethren,” will be a moral failure of spectacular dimensions.
If that happens we may expect that our “American exceptionalism” will soon go the way of ancient Israel’s presumed exceptionalism: they became preoccupied with spiritually meaningless religious zealotry, finally were sacked by Roman armies, scattered to the four winds and left as prey to all their enemies.
dennistooge
His purpose, amply demonstrated by calls from listeners, was to
whip up anti-Obama hysteria.EDUCATE his listeners with the truth.james
the witch hunt and death threats from the racist left
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/killzimmerman-twitter-advocates-violence-against-martins-killer/
jimmah sosoon
IMAGINE THAT……..
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/police-surveillance-video-of-zimmerman-may-show-head-injury/
Parents of murdered British students criticise Barack Obama
The parents of two British students murdered in Florida have criticised President Barack Obama for his lack of compassion over their son’s deaths.
Tyson, who has the word ‘Savage’ tattooed across his chest didn’t show a flicker of emotion, slumping in his seat as he was forced to watch a montage of photos showing the victims from early childhood to young men.
PS
it wasnt Mike Tyson and he is not a canadian……
The 17 year old, who shot the men as they begged for their lives, will die in prison.
whah b al and his rent a mob of lynching hate filled racists?
ROTFLMAO……
http://oi39.tinypic.com/35b6yrm.jpg
dennistooge
soooo bankrupting the country, bankrupting the rich, have every one eating from garbage dumps, and turning us into Somalia is what Jesus had in mind?
I have some questions for the boy when I meet him….
This is GREAT……..
the truth
You can make all the constitutional arguments you want against “Obamacare”. See what that will get you in the final judgment. You can even forget that it was first crafted by the Heritage Foundation and endorsed by leading Republicans before Obama adopted it, and it suddenly became anathema to the right.
Dennis, you need to educate yourself about just exactly what it was that The Heritage Foundation proposed.
Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans, by Stuart Butler, PhD, The Heritage Foundation, 1989: (page 5)
“Many states now require passengers in automobiles to wear seatbelts for their own protection. Many others require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance. But neither the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement. This mandate is based on two important principles. First, that health care protection is a responsibility of individuals, not businesses. Thus to the extent that anybody should be required to provide coverage to a family, the household mandate assumes that it is the family that carries the first responsibility. Second, it assumes that there is an implicit contract between households and society, based on the notion that health insurance is not like other forms of insurance protection.” http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/assuring-affordable-health-care-for-all-americans
Heritage Talking Points: A Policy Maker’s Guide to the Health Care Crisis, part 2, page 4 (1991):
“All heads of households would be required by law to obtain at least a basic health plan specified by Congress. The refundable credit system partially would offset the cost of such a plan for most Americans, as the exclusion does today for those with company-sponsored plans. In addition to these core steps, the Heritage plan would institute reforms to smooth the transitiion to the consumer-base national system and to enable the market for health insurance and medical care to operate more effectively.”
You can argue over the fine points til the cows come home, but the bottom line is that the Heritage Foundation and a number of Republican lawmakers, including Newt Gingrich, were for a national health coverage mandate before they were against it. I’m not arguing here for or against the mandate, but pointing out the essential absurdity and hypocrisy of the Republican position now – especially in anyone calling Obama’s affordable health care plan “immoral”.
The false dichotomy of “Left” vs “Right” is a demagogic device of no value in describing or addressing real-world issues within our system.
Oh, how easily some are gulled into not just ignoring but denying the most serious and dramatic problem the Union has faced since it was attacked by the Confederates.
You go on to assert: Both liberals and conservatives in America now are driven by moneyed interests, and few true conservatives can even be found.)
Again, I don’t deny that you believe these statements to be true. I just contend that they are not.
To the first: There is a very real, clear and distinct difference between Left and Right in this country, and it is not a “demagogic device” but as fundamental a difference as that between atheism and Christianity.
If you look at the actual definitions of the terms, and not the Identity Politics spin on it, the two stand quite clearly apart from each other. If you truly do not find a difference between a large and powerful central government, with power and authority concentrated at the federal level and the federal government making decisions for the populace, and a government based upon a commitment to a small federal government severely limited in both size and scope, with power and authority concentrated at the state and local levels, then there is no reason to even try to continue a discussion with you.
Based on those two definitions, which are real and not mere “devices”, one would, ideally, choose which of these two models he believes is better. He can do the intellectual equivalent of throwing a dart and going with wherever it lands, he can base his choice on emotion, or he can think it through, but the original choice should be which of these two basic systems is preferable.
Yes, there are gradations, but if you extend anything that is not one or the other to its logical end if it were to be expanded, you will find yourself looking at Big v Small, Central v Local.
When you speak of “money” I wonder if you really mean currency, financial wealth, or if you could substitute “power”. In any case, yes, there are examples of people on both sides who are driven by greed, whether for actual money or for power. Some know this is what motivates them, some try to fool themselves as well as the world by pretending it is something else (as the race-baiters Jackson and Sharpton pretend that they are fighting for racial equality while they amass riches and power and diminish the chances of their race being trusted or respected.)
But the fact that to some people true political ideology is secondary to gaining wealth or power hardly means that the basic models do not exist, are not defined as I defined them, and do not attract many who flock to them from true ideological zeal and not a quest for personal gain. I know many true conservatives, myself among them, who have no interest at all in gaining one iota of personal gain from reestablishing Constitutional rule in this nation. I think most conservatives feel this way, because there is little if anything at all to be gained merely by promoting a return to Constitutional governance. It is, rather, an objective belief that this great nation became great BECAUSE of this model of governance, and has become less great as this model has been diluted and eroded by degrees until the nation’s legislation is now largely in direct contradiction to what is supposed to be the law of the land.
If this move to the Left had had one single good effect, you Lefties might have a decent argument for diluting Constitutional law. But it has not. Rather, trillions of dollars have disappeared into the void in the pursuit of the “War on Poverty” while the number of people considered to be living in poverty has remained static. Poor families, black families in particular, have not been rescued, strengthened, revived, and set upon the path of opportunity, but rather they have been trained like circus seals to sit up and beg (vote) for handouts which destroy personal dignity, destroy ambition and initiative, and make them totally dependent upon a paternalistic Central Committee that doles out subsistence-level support while explaining to them that they deserve more and should not be afraid to demand it.
Not work for it, but demand it.
The proofs of the success of the Constitutional model are abundant. There are no equal proofs of success for the Leftist model. There have been relative successes under moderately Leftist governments, but only for a short time, and then they have started their inevitable collapse, as we see now in every nation that has tried it and in our own which has lurched so violently to the Left in just three short years.
As for your constant efforts to link Christianity and federal charity, there are two problems with this. One is that Jesus never preached collective salvation, but that each man is responsible for his own soul, and his lessons on charity are always directed toward the individual. Nowhere does Jesus say “Take from others to give to the poor.” The other is that federal charity is prohibted by our rule of law. You might not like the rule of law, and you might even feel that it should be changed, but you can’t simply ignore and pretend it is not there.
Well, you can, and many do, but it is not right.
Count all the times Jesus addressed the moral peril of being rich.
Does this mean there is a moral imperative to make the rich unrich? That there is a true morality in stripping people of their possessions? That it is for their own good?
Interesting.
How we treat Jesus Christ in the person of the homeless, the hungry, the poor and social outcasts of society is so important that he portrayed this as the sole criterion which will determine whether a person will be saved or lost (see Matthew 25:31-46).
Again, we are back to personal redemption, not collective salvation. I believe Jesus also talked about taking care of your own soul and not passing judgment on others, as well as not preening over your supposedly higher spiritual standards.
By biblical standards, how a nation treats its poor and social outcasts seems to be the ultimate test of its moral character.
Again, you are speaking in collectivist terms. Please cite the Biblical passages which discuss the moral responsibility of NATIONS.
Then explain how a theocracy (which is what a nation would be if ruled not just by the Bible but by the interpretation of the Bible according to some) would be compatible with our Constitution, which is certainly not based upon any one religion. Would your theocracy allow everyone to believe and worship as they please as long as they contribute enough money to make you happy and let you decide how it should be redistributed? Or would your collective salvation demand that all believe the same as well as contribute according to your beliefs?
What if a different religion were to gain the majority and want to establish a different theocracy? Would that be OK? What if THEIR holy writings demanded a very different form of collective redemption?
dennis, you fret: “I’d like to address the larger health care issue in the context of the superior “morality” so often invoked by the right.”
Will you please tell us when and where the collective “right” has “invoked” a claim of “superior morality”?
And what “right” are you talking about?
Are you referring to the political identity that is the GOP? The larger political identity that would include Libertarians? The even larger political identity that refuses to be categorized as “Left”?
Or are you referring to the Conservative Movement, which has, as far as I know, refrained from taking any stand except on the necessity of the nation to return to Constitutional governance?
Some quotes of claiming superior “morality” would be helpful. For that matter, why did you put “morality” in quotes? Was it a sly effort to imply that this amorphous “right” had claimed to be morally superior but with the wiggle room to weasel out of it if challenged by pointing to the quotation marks around “morality”?
It’s just a really weird statement, as it seems to relate to nothing but a conviction of “moral” superiority on YOUR part, about which you never hesitate to lecture us.
dennis, evidently your own personal salvation has nothing to do with being limited to the truth. For example, look at this litany of lies: “…extreme-right, anti-tax, anti-government, self-delusional “pro-life” advocates with a huge axe to grind against the sitting president..”
How would you define “EXTREME right”? REALLY REALLY believing in the Constitution?
“anti-tax” What person on this blog has ever stated a desire to have no taxes? Be careful now, Jesus is watching, so you’d better not lie again.
Right. No one has. The phrase “anti-tax” is, simply, a blatant and bald-faced lie.
“anti-government” Now, now, if you are going to lie, you ought to at least make a token effort to make it believable
But let’s just walk you through this, ‘K?
A 21st Century American conservative is defined, in the most literal sense, as someone who strongly believes that the United States of America must be governed by its own Constitution if it is going to survive in a form recognizable by its founders and consistent with its past history of greatness.
Anything jump out at you in that paragraph? Like “GOVERNED” and “CONSTITUTION”? As a constitution is an outline of how a nation must be governed, the very definition of a conservative is one who strongly believes in government, just not in an all-powerful, intrusive, controlling central government.
OK—another big lie chalked up.
As you have no comma between “self delusional” and your own quote-marked “pro-life” you appear to be claiming that this “right” you smear with such glee does not really believe in the sanctity of life at all. But if we are “self delusional” then we must THINK we do. I guess it takes your amazing if somewhat mysterious ability to see into the hearts and minds of people you have never met to discern that they truly believe the opposite of what they emphatically think they believe.
As for the “axe to grind” it is not personal, but based on the reaction to seeing something we value so deeply, the underpinning of the nation we love so much, being eroded and distorted in the pursuit of a political agenda we find profoundly wrong. You seem quite pleased with the chip on your own shoulder, which seems to originate in your frustration that not everyone believes as you do, but are quite resentful of the fact that others feel strongly about things they find important, such as the survival of the United States as it was created and as it succeeded, and what it used to represent.
What shines through your screed is that you can’t argue FOR your side, so you have to lie about what you oppose to make it seem weaker.
Ama, I’m sure you can find some argument with nearly everything you read or hear, if you’re so inclined. If I took time to point out every distortion made by you on this blog, every reckless or deliberate misrepresentation of something someone else said, I wouldn’t get anything else done. And if I called you a liar every time as well, this blog would be more unpleasant than it already is.
We pick and choose our topics according to our interests and the time we can spare. I think most people who write on blogs do so extemporaneously, and don’t have much time to back up to edit, or sometimes even spell check. And most respondents take that fact into account. Yeah, I could have parsed that whole left-right discussion much more finely, and qualified what I said more carefully. No time. I do generally try to make a point of differentiating between my personal opinions and documented facts, although to get that would require better reading comprehension than most people here seem to have.
If you take issue with my conclusions (if you’re capable of seeing the forest past the trees), so be it. I didn’t expect anyone here to agree with me. If you want to sidetrack the discussion into every technical argument you can conjure up against my choice of words (and call me a liar to boot), I envy how much free time you’ve got. I’d use mine a lot differently.
dennis, you certainly disagree with me, and you may have even found a mistake in one or two of my posts, but you cannot find a lie I told because I have not told one.
You are claiming that blatant misrepresentations of fact are not lies, and in the same post accuse me of a vast multitude of overt lies without naming one. There are typos, there are mistakes, but to come right out and declare that “the right” is anti-tax and anti-government is far more than an honest mistake. It is a lie, or rather a series of lies.
Merely not liking what I post is not the same as what I post being untrue, much less an effort to deceive. I can understand why you don’t like having your falsehoods and mistakes pointed out, and you probably think I point them out due to malice on my part.
But it’s nothing personal. It’s just that lies, and mistakes, left uncorrected, can become part of a body of false knowledge that takes on a life of its own. I just like to present an alternative to to a false narrative.
Ama: “you may have even found a mistake in one or two of my posts, but you cannot find a lie I told because I have not told one.”
I once had a lengthy collection of quotes from you, Cluster and Spook attributing things to me that I never said. Reading them along with the words I actually did say was almost entertaining. Was your reading comprehension really that bad, or were they lies? Honestly, I don’t know. I finally ended up deleting them.
There are times when you all seem intelligent enough to read at least at a high school level. Other times, not so much. The bottom line is, it seemed to serve your purpose to put false words into my mouth so you could ridicule things I never said. It’s one thing to get facts wrong now and then; it’s quite another to repeatedly throw a person’s words back at them twisted into new meanings. Even Bardolf was banned here, for what? Racist remarks, or something like that?
There is no integrity on this blog – it’s not a serious venue. My reason for coming here is to take stock of what’s being said at the far ends of the spectrum. I forget my caution and make comments from time to time, but I don’t expect honesty – either intellectually or at the personal level. I see integrity only from the contrarians here: Bardolf, Jon Swift and a few others.
You are correct that lies and mistakes left uncorrected can become part of a body of false knowledge that takes on a life of its own. And the way I see it, you, Amazona, add to that body of false knowledge on a regular basis.
Here’s a random Amazonism (there are so many, many more, but it’s tiresome to track them down):
“For example, Obama could not be candid about who he proposed to appoint to certain positions, knowing that advance knowledge of how heavily he would depend on hard-core Marxists, Maoists and Communists in his administration would alarm many Americans.”
http://blogs4victory.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/newt-bolton/#comment-30941
Who exactly are these “hardcore Marxists, Maoists and Communists” that Obama heavily depends on in his administration? By whose definition outside of Ama’s are they “hardcore Marxists, Maoists and Communists”?
“Merely not liking what I post is not the same as what I post being untrue, much less an effort to deceive [she said]. I can understand why you don’t like having your falsehoods and mistakes pointed out, and you probably think I point them out due to malice on my part.
“But it’s nothing personal. It’s just that lies, and mistakes, left uncorrected, can become part of a body of false knowledge that takes on a life of its own. I just like to present an alternative to to a false narrative.”
Yeah, whatever.
I once had a lengthy collection of quotes from you, Cluster and Spook attributing things to me that I never said.
–snip–
There is no integrity on this blog – it’s not a serious venue.
Apparently serious enough for you to take considerable time to compile a “lengthy collection of quotes”, Dennis. Seriously, who does that?
My reason for coming here is to take stock of what’s being said at the far ends of the spectrum.
I can’t imagine wasting my time going to venues like KOS, HUFPO and Media Matters, just to see what you Leftist kooks are saying. We get enough of you here to give me a pretty good idea of how deluded you are.
dennis, just off the top of my head I can name Van Jones, an admitted communist, Anita Dunn, who turns to Mao for inspiration, Valerie Jarrett (“Obama’s Other Brain”) whose family and political background goes back to Frank Marshall Davis as well as Chicago corruption, Carol Browner, an avowed socialist who has called for global governance and was one of 14 listed leaders of Socialist International’s “Commission for a Sustainable World Society”, Gary Samore – AKA Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism, a former US Communist, and Cass Sunstein, a socialist.
(Jones recently tweeted a call for the OWS mobs to shut down all U.S. ports.)
The thing is, there has been attention called to Obama’s list of czars and advisers and aides, ranging from the far-Left politics of some to things like appointing, as “Safe School Czar” of all things, a gay pedophile who openly supports NAMBLA and has advised children on gay sex and “fisting”.
Don’t pretend you don’t know about this, and don’t claim I am lying when I reference it.
Spook: “Apparently serious enough for you to take considerable time to compile a ‘lengthy collection of quotes’, Dennis. Seriously, who does that?”
Spook, I worked for years as an editor (back in the pre-Internet, print era) and my interest in journalism, how people use information and language, goes way back. With the computer it takes seconds to copy and save a block of text and put it in a folder. It wasn’t time-consuming at all, it was just proof that people here use language in a completely irresponsible way.
I eventually deleted it because it’s a pointless exercise – the public already knows the far right twists information to propagandize on a broad scale. And people here don’t care, it’s standard operating procedure. I’ve protested a few times how my words were rearranged into whole new meanings but that’s a sure way to be either ridiculed or ignored. When someone here is proven wrong by irrefutable documentation it’s nearly always ignored and a new attack is mounted on some technicality or trumped-up accusation.
When Jon Swift and Bardolf were recently deleted or threatened with banning I felt empathy and even a bit of outrage for them, but considered the venue and then had to laugh at how ridiculous the accusations were. They’re among the most conscientious people who’ve ever posted under the B4V masthead – it’s partly to read their thoughts (and their generally tactful presentation of them) that I come here. Lord knows it’s not to wade through Neocon’s rancid sputtering or Amazona’s logorrhea. You I once considered conscientious as well, but you proved me wrong too many times.
As for sampling thinking at far ends of the spectrum, I think it’s useful. I haven’t owned a TV for over 20 years so don’t see Fox News or the media most people are exposed to. I pick and choose, I listen to C-span on the radio and ever since having the Internet (1995) take my news from as broad array of sources as possible. Having worked and traveled on several continents it’s informative to read reportage from other parts of the world – you see how much is left out here in the U.S., and how limited so many Americans’ understanding really is. It’s a pity that in a world where so much knowledge is so readily available, so many people only converse with others who see the world just like they do.
Ama, you referenced “hardcore Marxists, Maoists and Communists” that Obama heavily depends on in his administration.” And these are the names you come up with:
Van Jones: yes, he called himself a communist in his student days (I think I did too). While working in the Obama admin he described himself as a “green-jobs handyman. I’m there to serve. I’m there to help as a leader in the field of green jobs. I’m happy to come and serve and be helpful, but there’s no such thing as a green-jobs ‘czar’.” A hardcore communist would be dedicated to overthrowing the capitalistic system, not creating jobs. He resigned due to a smear campaign by Glenn Beck and other Fox TV personalities, that you apparently bought into.
Anita Dunn: Glenn Beck’s laughable campaign against Dunn was based on a misreading of a single comment she made, an ironic reference to chairman Mao as a “favorite philosopher”, taken out of context and imbued with a meaning she never intended. And for that she is labeled by you as a “hardcore Maoist”, something she never was even remotely. She did happen to be a very effective opponent of the Fox’s propaganda machine, which is the real source of animus against her.
Valerie Jarrett: CEO of the Habitat Company, a real estate development and management firm, chairman of Board of Trustees for the University of Chicago Meidcal Center, a trustee of the Museum of Science and Industry, on the board of directors of the USG Corporation – yeah, that’s a real hardcore communist. Or Maoist. Or something.
Carol Browner’s whole professional life has been dedicated to environmental issues in some capacity. Mostly in conjunction with political service, from the Florida House of Representatives to working with several United States senators, to the directorship of EPA. She was a founding member of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory company; was on the founding board of the Center for American Progress, also on the boards of the Audobon Society, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and the League of Conservative Voters. Oh, and she also served on the Socialist Commission for a Sustainable World Society. Not exactly a main gig, but for that you call her a hardcore socialist? You’re kidding, right?
Gary Samore: after brief stints with the Livermore National Laboratory and RAND Corporation, Samore joined the State Dept under Reagan, held positions there from director of the Office of Regional Non-proliferation Affairs; special assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for Non-proliferation and Nuclear Energy Policy; and deputy to the ambassador-at-large for Korean affairs. Even Fox News said “he is widely admired in arms control circles as an experienced negotiator and non-ideological pragmatist.” But just another hardcore communist to you.
Cass Sunstein, a legal scholar who defended both George W. Bush’s use of military commissions and his appointments of conservative Supreme Court judges, also is a proponent of judicial minimalism, happens to be an Obama appointee, and now he’s what – a hardcore socialist? And you expect to be taken seriously?
What is serious here is your nearly total disconnect with reality. You claim that you don’t lie, yet you stretch the truth so far that it loses any semblance to real-world meaning. I have spent enough time – way too much time – proving my point. Pointing these things out changes nothing, it just puts a hole in my day. Bottom line, I think that’s what a lot of conservative blogs exist for – to suck people in, to get them to waste time pointing out the obvious to other people who really just don’t give a damn.
In other words, you simply claim to know, somehow, that deep in their hearts and minds they are different than their histories would indicate.
Name one other president whose cabinet and inner circle of close advisers (“czars”, Central Committee, whatever you want to call them) have consisted of such radicals.
That’s an easy question—there is not a single president whose personal Left-wing radicalism has been so obvious, and certainly not one who has so blatantly brought in people who are even more radical to fill high-up positions.
You did quite a nice job of regurgitating the Left-wing propaganda clean-up efforts, rewriting history to try to overcome the inconvenient facts about Obama’s Shadow Government, but your efforts are feeble. You claim, for instance, that working for “green jobs” is proof, somehow, of a lack of interest in Leftist agendas, yet the so-called “green” movement is a main stalking horse for Leftist efforts. Carol Browner’s “lifelong” association with “environmental” concerns is also not exactly testimony to her lack of involvement in radical Leftist ideology, either.
How does being “on the board” of a few institutions, two of them in Chicago, translate into not being a Leftist radical?
There are several reasons for becoming involved in, and working for, entities that do not appear to be radically Left-wing. Money is one, infiltration to influence from within is one, an effort to shift the focus of the institution is another. (Or are you forgetting the original conservative intent of the Annenberg Foundation, warped by increasingly radical Leftist board members such as Bill Ayers and Barack Obama?)
Not all revolutions are won at gunpoint, as the CPUSA has openly noted in its advice to quietly infiltrate and erode American capitalism and achieve power incrementally instead of through violence.
Oh, it was a valiant effort, and your years of involvement in editing show through. But it is flimsy, and your repeated claims that Fox, or Beck, somehow misrepresented these people and are part of a propaganda machine (perhaps a “vast right-wing conspiracy?) only illustrate your bias.
I did not go deeply into the histories of these people, or others in Obama’s Inner Circle. I merely touched upon a couple of things for each. But the facts are out there, and you did nothing to change them or even explain them away, only illustrated your commitment to the Cause. I don’t know if you truly do believe these people do not represent the hard Left, or if you know they do but see your job as one of challenging observations of their ideology to protect a system to which you are obviously dedicated.
I did not write my post to change your mind, merely to point out that I did not lie, do not lie, and that the only way I can be accused of lying is to invent a new alternative reality that does not comply with the facts on the ground and then claim that your reality is proof that I intentionally intended to deceive.
And this is what I did.
As the repeated quotes from various Founding Fathers on the intent of the Constitution not including any form of charity have been ignored, here are some other quotes from John Bugler:
The General Welfare clause in Article I Section 8
is an introduction to the enumerated powers that follow
and not itself a grant of power.
The limits on federal power to legislate for the “general welfare” remains, to this date, undefined and presumably, boundless
The question that begs an answer is, “if the framers of our Constitution, who labored so resolutely in philadelphia that torridly hot summer in 1787 intended the powers of Congress to have no boundaries, why did they bother to enumerate seventeen?”
James Madison, when asked if the “general welfare” clause was a grant of power, replied in 1792, in a letter to Henry Lee,
If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once
I know there has been a lot of material covered here but has anyone explained why it is so important that Kagan recuse herself? What would it change? Her one vote would not change the outcome would it? 5-4 to uphold is the same as 4-4 is it not? 5-4 to strike down would become 5-3 Perhaps I missed something.
Anyway a number of the conservative justices have failed to recuse themselves when they have had a conflict of interest. No one here seemed to care then.
Can you name a justice who worked on a policy, plan or project and then, when appointed to the Supreme Court, sat in judgment on that policy, plan or project?
“Conflict of interest” alone is a very broad subject. Do you disagree with anything I posted?
I think one thing you may have missed is the importance of believing that the Supreme Court in an independent trier of fact, regarding whether or not legislation is Constitutional. When and if we lose that belief, when and if we believe that even the highest court in the land is above the law, when and if we see a president blatantly appoint someone he knows will have to judge one of his projects after representing him to get it passed, we lose an essential aspect of respect for the law.
This is not just about Kagan, though it does seem to say that she lied to get on the Court—not exactly a good thing. It goes beyond how she might rule on this one issue to the fact she was appointed by a man who knew she had worked to advocate a policy she would undoubtedly be asked to rule on, and did not speak up when he saw her lying to Congress.