President Obama, employing his strongest language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law — while repeatedly saying he’s “confident” it will be upheld….The president, adopting what he described as the language of conservatives who fret about judicial activism, questioned how an “unelected group of people” could overturn a law approved by Congress

The Supreme Court is merely “an unelected group of people”?! Well, yes, that’s the way the Constitution sets it up, the last time I looked. Article II Section 2, and Article III section 1. Of course if one has the view that anything that limits the grandiose sweep of executive power is a mere archaism that should be ignored at will, then this WOULD be annoying. (Tough rocks, B.O. – you’re not First General Party Secretary, or Reichsfuhrer…at least not yet!)

AS for the bit about “judicial activism”…there is also a fundamental error in that also.  “Judicial activism” is extending the Constitution to say or do something that is beyond the bounds of what is Constitutionally stated as being a part of the powers granted to the government.  It is NOT, as in the present case, applying the standard of the Constitution to determine whether an act at issue is constitutionally granted.  As the prez goes on with his pseudo-reasoning he then states:

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” Obama said.

At BEST this is wildly disingenuous; at worst he’s totally immersed in some form of governmental psychosis where his view of the reality of constitutional review, established in the early days of the republic by Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison 5 US 137 (1803). Laws have been overturned on average of about every 16 months or so since then…not QUITE unprecedented OR extraordinary.

…and Obama claims to have been a constitutional scholar? Really?

If he came up with today’s comment as a submission in a H.S. history or government class that I was teaching, it would earn an “F” grade, for having missed the whole main point that applies in this situation.

An effort to free whales from SeaWorld by claiming they were enslaved made a splash in the news but flopped in court Wednesday….A federal judge in San Diego dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit seeking to grant constitutional protection against slavery to a group of orcas that perform at SeaWorld parks, saying the 13th amendment applies only to humans.

What? What sort of logic did he use that was apparently something that PETA was/is unable to comprehend.

“As ‘slavery’ and ‘involuntary servitude’ are uniquely human activities, as those terms have been historically and contemporaneously applied, there is simply no basis to construe the Thirteenth Amendment as applying to non-humans,” Miller wrote in his ruling.

A big “DUH!” for PETA.

High court voids curbs on political ad spending

In a decision with profound implications for the role of money in American campaigns, the Supreme Court on Thursday gave interest groups, unions and corporations the right to pour money into issue advertising in political races – reigniting the passionate battle over the influence of cash on the electoral process.

The 5-4 decision punched a hole in the complex web of federal campaign-finance laws and rules in finding that those groups should have the same rights to spend money on political ads as any person. Direct contributions by corporations and unions to individual candidates are still forbidden.

This does NOT just affect organizations. Having access to effective political speech means having access to mass media. This means paying for advertising. If one is not a George Soros with piles of cash at hand, there is no serious way for an individual on their own to make their voice heard in the political marketplace.

However, if a group of like-minded individuals gets together, pools their resources, and enters the political fray, according to the McCain-Feingold law this was rendered illegal, since all groups were prohibited from political speech at the time of an election. Never mind that the specific reason that the 1st Amendment was enacted was to especially protect political speech!

Supporters cheered the ruling, which they said returns the country to the core free-speech precept that political speech should be protected, no matter who or what is speaking.

Critics warned that the foundations of American democracy are at stake and that big businesses will be able to spend enough money to influence elections.

…also big unions, and political action groups of all sorts. Remember, in spite of the weeping and wailing of the left, a lot of corporations’ leaders are demonstrably biased to the left. Besides, many corporations will be reluctant to be too outspoken, since a sizable part of their customer base will be partisans of the party they might oppose (which ever side is favored).

In stark language, the court acknowledged that it was overturning its own precedents, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said the justices were now returning to “ancient First Amendment principles.”

Yes! This is critical! It’s past time to recognize once again the fundamental source of our “unalienable rights” obtained from the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as immortally stated in the Declaration of Independence. If this reasoning is removed from consideration, as it the common practice of the day in the world of political science, there is no other principle to base rights on other than the Maoist justification that “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” THAT’s why they wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place, to make SURE that those unalienable rights were spelled out in more detail than the original Constitutional text itself.

“The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether,” Justice Kennedy wrote in an opinion overturning a 1990 case and part of a separate 2003 case that upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance laws, enacted in 2002.

This sounds about right, as far as it goes. The same principle now needs to be extended even further. The minority dissenting opinion accidentally highlights this need:

[Justice Stevens] said the ruling turns over power to corporations and unions at the expense of political parties, who will have a tough time fighting back because of the restrictions on their own fundraising and spending.

Use the same standards of disclosure and disclaimer for political parties as there will be for OTHER organizations…and turn THEM loose too! Here’s one Mao idea that would work, if ACTUALLY implemented: “Let 1000 flowers bloom.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s record of freeing criminals from prison was controversial even before news that the man sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers had a lengthy prison sentence commuted by Huckabee.

The original parole and clemency papers from Arkansas may be viewed here.

The one-time Republican presidential contender granted twice as many pardons and commutations as the previous three governors of Arkansas combined, The Associated Press reported in 2007. In all, he issued 1,033 pardons and commutations during more than 10 years as governor — an average of about one every four days.

The Arkansas Huckster’s prison chickens are coming home to roost.

Huckabee’s ‘Willie Horton moment’

Mike Huckabee’s chance to be president of the United States could be going up in smoke this week.

The former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential wannabe is at the center of a story involving a “person of interest” in the shooting deaths Sunday of four police officers in the state of Washington….

This story has a long way to go before it’s played out. But, if Huckabee pardoned a man who went on to kill four cops, this will be a lot worse than the Willie Horton incident of the 1988 presidential campaign….

Huckabee’s credentials to lead the Republican party to victory in 2012 would evaporate if Clemmons indeed is the killer in the Washington case.

That’s not exactly something a “get tough on crime” political party would want on the resume of its leader.

Another RINO bites the dust!?

The Obama administration continued its half-a-loaf approach to gay rights issues Monday by filing documents claiming that federal laws banning same-sex marriage are discriminatory, even as the federal government continues to defend them.

In its nine-page brief, the Justice Department stated that the Obama administration opposes the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act as discriminatory and supports its repeal. Yet the motion also calls for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a gay California couple seeking to overturn the federal marriage law.

A little schitzo here? At least DoJ still recognizes some semblance of an obligation to go through the motions of defending Federal law against challenges.

So, otherwise , given the pattern of B.O.’s ideological background over the years, what’s to be surprised about this?

Oh, right – he DID say something about not favoring gay marriage during the campaign, but hey, that was just campaigning, so who was REALLY counting THAT!

The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law.

The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists say they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.

Although the court split 6-1 on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the justices were unanimous in deciding to keep intact the marriages of as many as 18,000 gay couples who exchanged vows before the election. The marriages began last June, after a 4-3 state high court ruling striking down the marriage ban last May.

The concept of a court overthrow of a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT is sort of wierd for the Chief to wrap his mind around to begin with…don’t Supreme Courts INTERPRET Constitutional Law…not decide what parts of a Constitution can/should be valid? Apparently even in California this is still the case, at least for now.

North Korea’s nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists.

It presents another major security crisis for President Barack Obama, already saddled with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a nuclear problem with Iran. He said Monday the U.S. and its allies must “stand up” to the North Koreans, but it’s far from clear what diplomatic or other action the world community will take.

So far, nothing they’ve done has worked.

THAT’s the understatement of the year!

North Korea fires sixth missile in defiance of US demands for end of aggression

North Korea has fired another short-range missile in defiance of warnings from the United States, bringing the total numbers of launches in the past three days to six.

The defiance of the North has prompted the US to warn that it will “pay the price” for continuing to ignore the international community. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said the UN Security Council was united in its determination to punish North Korea and that Pyongyang would learn that its actions “have consequences”.

REALLY – Why would the NorKs expect anything more than another application of hot air from Washington?

(Hmmm…maybe THAT’s why B.O. et al are worried so much about CO2 and Glowbull Warming!)

So much for B.O.’s guaranteed assurance that a new spirit of willingness to talk with then will get a positive result, meanwhile, Iran is watching with interest from the wings of the world stage.

Meanwhile, back on this side of the pond…B.O. gives us a SCOTUS designee who is, based on her own words, unqualified to serve:

A Judge’s View of Judging Is on the Record

In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”

In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding cases.

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,”

So much for equal justice under the law. Apparently now it’s to be acceptable to judge based on ethnicity and gender, instead of evaluating each cased based on the body of the law and the Constitution. Prima facie, this is in direct contradiction to the oath of office, but apparently fits in with B.O.’s stated drive for “empathy” on the bench in apparent favoring of judgement favoring a clear bias towards the politically correct shibboleth of the moment.

Got help the United States of America!

Lady Justice’s blindfold

Judicial dispassion — the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences — is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal judge and justice contains no fewer than three expressions of it: “I …do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me …under the Constitution and laws of the United States, so help me God.”

After examining some of the Biblical roots of our judicial system (secularists read it and weep!) Jacoby brings that original background as applied in the establishment of our Constitutional republic:

Without judicial restraint there is no rule of law. We live under “a government of laws and not of men,” to quote John Adams’s resonant phrase, only so long as judges stick to neutrally resolving the disputes before them, applying the law and upholding the Constitution even when doing so leads to results they personally dislike. That is why the judicial oath is so adamant about impartiality. That is why Lady Justice is so frequently depicted — as on the sculpted lampposts outside the US Supreme Court — wearing a blindfold and carrying balanced scales.

Then…the heart of the problem with B.O.’s attitude: emotionalism should trump the law:

And that is why President Obama’s “empathy” standard is so disturbing, and has generated so much comment.

Time and again, Obama has called for judges who do not put their private political views aside when deciding cases. In choosing a replacement for Justice David Souter, the president says, he will seek not just “excellence and integrity,” but a justice whose “quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles,” would be “an essential ingredient” in his jurisprudence. In an interview last year, he said he would look for judges “sympathetic” to those “on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless.”…But such cardiac justice is precisely what judges “do solemnly swear” to renounce. Sympathy for others is an admirable virtue, but a judge’s private commiserations are not relevant to the law he is expected to apply.

If Obama means what he says, he wants judges who can be counted on to violate their oath of office.

…and so B.O. then would violate his OWN oath of office…but what else is new about THAT?

Justice Dept. Investigates Arizona Sheriff for Enforcing Immigration Law

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona following requests by congressional Democrats and allegations by liberal activists that the department has violated the civil rights of illegal aliens.

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Robert Scott (D-Va.) requested the investigation, and activists groups such as National Day Laborer Organizer Network and ACORN launched petition drives and rallies in support of the probe.

The investigation focuses on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and dozens of officers under his command who were trained through the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS), which partners federal and local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. (The Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division is known popularly as ICE.)

What a concept. Enforce the law (for a change), and become subject to a DoJ investigation hit team.

This would be laughable if it wasn’t so ridiculous. Apparently Sheriff Joe isn’t supposed to enforce the immigration laws down there…too many illegal Mexicans are getting busted, which, to the moonbats in DoJ and their Donk Cong instigators is prima facie evidence of some form of discrimination.

Hmmmmm. (Think! Think!) Oh yeah! Illegal Mexicans (and some other Latinos/Latinas) are coming across the border in large numbers, committing (felonious) crimes in large numbers, and getting busted…in appropriately large numbers. ¡No problemo!

Maybe if they weren’t doing the crimes, they wouldn’t be doing the time. What a concept! Apparently one that the A.G. Napolitano and her ‘crats can’t wrap their minds (if they haven’t totally lost them) around.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it will open a new office in South Dakota so the organization can significantly expand its work on civil liberties in the state.

The ACLU in recent years has won a number of lawsuits dealing with voting rights and other issues in South Dakota, but it has done its work in the state through an office located in North Dakota.

Oh joy. Just what we need – the American Communist Lawyers Union. NOT!