Absolutely unbelievable. If there was any doubt that Elena Kagan believes the government has the power to force you to buy health insurance – or eat your fruits and vegetables, then that doubt is gone.
Just watch, next you’ll be forced to buy only GM cars.
I’m trying out a subscription to Audible.com so I can listen to books on my iPod while I take my daily walks. The last time I listened to an audiobook it was actually a book on tape — my college roommate and I listened to "The Fellowship of the Ring" on the ride back from school on break. The first book I picked up with my subscription was Christopher C. Horner’s “Power Grab.”
As I listened to the book, I thought to myself: “I know Horner’s right about what Obama would like to do with regard to so-called ‘green jobs’ and their effect on the economy, but there’s no way he could actually implement something like that.”
Well, elections have consequences, and yes, he can.
Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.
About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.
On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.
The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.
"President Obama has made clear his administration’s commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future," Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. "After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact."
This just in: India doesn’t give a d*** about the current administration’s concern over burning coal and putting plant food into the atmosphere. If we don’t get the deal, then they’ll get the equipment from China or some other government that’s not so completely stupid.
For those interested in the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez ruling, there’s an extensive Q&A with the Alliance Defense Fund’s David French here. The headline says it all: “You Cannot be and Equal Participant in the Marketplace of Ideas.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor lied in her confirmation hearing to be a Supreme Court justice. Gary Marx presents the evidence.
On the use of foreign law, Justice Sotomayor stated, “I will not use foreign law to interpret the Constitution or American statutes. I will use American law, constitutional law to interpret those laws, except in the situations where American law directs a court.” But, as Senator Coburn has done a nice job of highlighting, that commitment did not stop her from siding with the liberal justices in Graham v. Florida, citing foreign law to hold that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile offender to life without parole for a non-homicidal crime.
On the Second Amendment, Justice Sotomayor took the absurd step of pointing out that “one of my godchildren is a member of the NRA. And I have friends who hunt. I understand the individual right fully that the Supreme Court recognized in Heller.” According to Sotomayor, “I understand that how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans.” But, as the McDonald decision demonstrates, she didn’t understand it to be protected by the Constitution.
I point this out not because it is a surprise. Why did Sotomayor need to lie? Because Democrats understand that the American people don’t view the court as a sort of super-legislature. The American people want John Roberts’s “umpire” applying the law as written (whether that law is the constitution or a statue duly passed by the legislature and signed by the president) not Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” who decides what a “just” outcome is and twists the law to arrive at it.
Today the Supreme Court held that universities can require student organizations to require that student groups must accept “all comers” for membership and leadership positions, even if those people oppose the group’s main purpose. You can find the opinion here, and I’ve only just read the syllabus, but the court has gutted the Constitution’s freedom of association right in the interest of “inclusivity.”
The target of this unconstitutional infringement was the Christian Legal Society at Hastings School of Law. The school said that the society couldn’t require members to actually be Christians or hold Christian beliefs. This appelate court ruling has been used by schools across the country to crack down on religious student groups – including a Christian religious group at San Diego State and here at Cal Poly to bar Christian greek organizations Alpha Gamma Omega and Alpha Delta Chi from the Inter-Fraternity Council.
There’s a solution to this outrage – and it’s a solution that the liberal majority dismissed as unlikely to occur during the oral argument. Christians must infiltrate left-leaning organizations and co-opt them as a form of civil disobedience. The campus Sierra Club must come out for offshore oil drilling. The campus Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation must come out and condemn homosexual behavior, student Amnesty International groups must praise Guantanamo bay.
This shouldn’t have to happen. The Court should’ve upheld the Constitution. It didn’t and must be forced to see the error of its ways.
The court is fine with their side silencing Christians and treating them as second class citizens. It won’t be so fine with it when it’s their friends who are affected.
UPDATE
Here’s a couple of posts on this case over on National Review’s “Bench Memos” blog by Richard Garnett and David French. The Alliance Defense Fund’s news release can be seen here.
Also, the summary from Justice Alito’s dissent in the case:
I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today’s decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country. Our First Amendment reflects a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270 (1964). Even if the United States is the only Nation that shares this commitment to the same extent, I would not change our law to conform to the international norm. I fear that the Court’s decision marks a turn in that direction. Even those who find CLS’s views objectionable should be concerned about the way the group has been treated—by Hastings, the Court of Appeals, and now this Court. I can only hope that this decision will turn out to be an aberration.
I hope so too, but with the types of judges Obama’s appointing, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
This video is just outrageous.
Apparently Dearborn, Mich., is a lot like Saudi Arabia.
Generally, you can’t sue cops personally for things they do in the performance of their duties. It’s called qualified immunity, but it is qualified.
The defense of qualified immunity protects "government officials . . . from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." [emphasis added]
No reasonable person would think that it is against the law in this country that protects freedom of religion in the First Amendment to the Constitution that you could arrest someone for nothing more than handing out religious literature.
The cops involved in this arrest should be on the hook for cash out of their own pockets for their brazen disregard for Americans’ freedoms. The Thomas More Law Center is on the case; you can read their press release here.
In all likelihood, in the coming weeks the Justice Department will announce that they are suing to overturn Arizona’s illegal immigration law. One of the arguments that the department will almost certainly put forward is that Arizona’s law usurps federal authority with regard to immigration law.
Hold that thought in your head for a moment.
Now ask yourself how that position jives with the federal government’s failure to sue so-called “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco.
It wasn’t unexpected today when President Obama relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of command of the Afghanistan war effort. The president had every right to do it, and few will fault him for making the decision he did.
At the same time, Obama “demoted” Gen. David Petraeus from his perch as head of U.S. Central Command and put him in charge of the Afghanistan theater. This move suggests that Obama may still be serious about winning in Afghanistan. Further evidence of that commitment would be the dismissal of U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and special envoy Richard Holbrooke – both of whom have a horrible relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
As President Obama reaches out to Petraeus to help salvage the “good” war, this video, courtesy of the Powerline guys, is evidence that Obama may be beginning to realize that governing is hard and requires responsibility.
As you can see, being a senator is not hard and requires no responsibility. An apology for his demagoguery to former President George W. Bush would be both appropriate and refreshing.
As I outlined in the post below, President Obama has every right to sack Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
If that happens, what will be interesting to watch over the next several days and months is how McChrystal is treated by the media.
Take the case of Gen. Eric Shinseki who was made a cause célèbre after he was sidelined after predicting that several hundred thousand troops would be necessary to secure post-war Iraq. I read several hundred thousand as >300,000. At the height of the successful surge, the total number of U.S. forces in Iraq was only about 167,000. So, Shinseki was off by perhaps a factor of 2.
Will McChrystal get the same treatment for complaining about basically the same thing – the fact that he needs more troops?
As William A. Jacobson helpfully notes, the answer is: Not bloody likely.
There is a huge difference between Shinseki and McChrystal. The former was critical of Bush, the latter of Obama.
Drawing that distinction is what’s called journalism.
Journalism. Wound. Self-inflicted.
You can find the Rolling Stone article everyone’s talking about here. In the article we learn a lot of things we already know:
Rolling Stone tries to make hay out of the fact that McChrystal and Biden disagree on the best way forward on Afghanistan – giving undue credibility to Biden’s foreign policy “knowledge.” This is the same Joe Biden that opposed the Iraq surge, suggested partitioning Iraq into three separate countries, and when the surge worked suggested that the Obama administration should get credit for it.
The magazine refers to “COINdinistas” (counter-insurgency) as mindless supporters of McChrystal who believe that what worked in Iraq (which they said would never work there) will work just as easily in Afghanistan. No one who knows anything thinks it worked easily in Iraq and I challenge Rolling Stone to identify anyone with substantial influence on the right who has suggested that this will be easy.
The entire thrust of the article is that continuing in Afghanistan is a mistake and McChrystal is the problem. The possibility that President Obama’s arbitrary deadline for pulling troops out and the hapless U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry might be part of the problem isn’t explored.
Someone in the military made a stupid mistake – they approved embedding Rolling Stone. As one wag noted: Unless you’re Al Gore or a Kennedy, you’re not going to be happy with the end result of an article in that magazine.
McChrystal showed incredibly poor judgment in what he said in front of the Rolling Stone reporter. President Obama has every right to fire him.
I don’t know that that would be the best move for the war. Obama is notoriously thin-skinned and I’m not sure if he can see past his own victimhood to determine if McChrystal staying on is best for the military and the war. Overall, Obama’s handling of Afghanistan has been inept at best. His delayed decision on sending additional troops to that country, the public bad-mouthing of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the arbitrary deadline, his failure to secure troops from our NATO allies, etc.
President Obama, you’re doing it wrong.
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