Constitution

Iowa’s Kirkwood Community College Imprisons Its Students In Deference To Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 72 Comments
"This is a great community college, you know?"

“This is a great community college, you know?”

I’m willing to entertain the notion that the exigencies of the situation may have justified Boston’s police ordering citizens to stay in their homes during the dragnet for the Boston Marathon bombers in 2013, Barely. Still, the explosion of extra-legal, unconstitutional abuses of power by national and state governments during the Presidency of Barack Obama is profoundly troubling, and even more so is the complacency of the public and media when it occurs.

Yes indeed, I see this particularly frightening fish-rot as being initiated from the head in the White House, who has embraced the governing theory that if consensus and compromise on desired measures, laws and policies can’t be achieved under the Constitution’s formula, do it anyway. This isn’t strength, you know. It is weakness, the desperate resort of an unskilled executive with contempt for democracy. Under this administration, we have seen a President and a Justice department refuse to fulfill their duties and defend a duly passed and signed law that they just didn’t like (DOMA). Wrong. We have seen a President unilaterally amend his own sloppy health care law because he knows that if he tried to fix it legally, the Congress would gut it. Wrong. We have seen Obama repeal immigration restrictions by executive order, and declare that the Senate was in recess in order to avoid the bother of getting legally mandated  confirmation of his appointments—that one, at least, was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The cumulative effect of all of this is gradually increasing public tolerance for official breaches of the rule of law, at all levels of government, and by private entities too. I believe that that this threatens the democratic culture, and I do not understand why progressives are not as outraged by this development as moderates and conservatives. Do they really think that having allowed Constitutional protections to erode so their precious agenda can be advanced, those protections will be suddenly vigorous again when their adversaries have the upper hand? What utter, utter fools:

The sickening effect of this complacency was on display at Kirkwood Community College in Monticello, Iowa, where Hillary Clinton spoke yesterday. Students told reporters that the Secret Service locked them in their classrooms as the Democratic presidential candidate arrived. Continue reading →

Congratulations, Sen. Reid: Abusing Government Power To Stifle Political Speech And Participation Works!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

 

Nice choice of role models, Harry.

Nice choice of role models, Harry.

From the Washington Post:

“Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s relentless attacks on the billionaire Koch brothers are having an unforeseen impact: spurring other wealthy Republican donors to give more money to groups that keep their supporters’ names secret. Several prominent pro-Republican advocacy groups say they are benefiting from a burst of cash as some donors — fearful of harsh public attacks such as those aimed at the Kochs — turn away from political committees that are required by federal law to reveal their contributors.”

What a surprise. Citizen participants in the political process who see others like them engaging in no illegal or unethical conduct. other than taking positions with which the leader of the U.S. Senate disagrees. being called “un-American” and having their reputations and names savaged by him in speech after speech on the Senate floor, decide that it is no longer safe for a citizen to openly contribute to political causes in the U.S.

Democrats who use this development to attack the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, eliminating financial limits on the expressive activities of domestic advocacy groups and legal entities in political campaigns, will reveal themselves as beneath contempt. Reid, primed by President Obama, who has also crossed that line that must not be crossed by using his high elected office to call down the public’s disapproval on private citizens for their political views, has engaged in conduct that deserves the label of “McCarthyism.” Fair Americans, pundits, journalists and politicians of all political stripes ought to be candid and open about who is the ethics villain here. It is not the Koch Brothers, the Supreme Court or the GOP donors who are turning away from transparency. It is the disgraceful Senator Harry Reid.

At last count (in April; an update is needed), Reid had attacked the Kochs by name 134 times, when it is a breach of Senate tradition and a violation of the intent of the U.S. Constitution for a government official acting in his  official capacity to do so even once. Continue reading →

An Ethics Breach That Matters: Betrayal Of The Rule Of Law And Democracy

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments
In the endless Obamacare Ethics Train Wreck, the trains may be our democracy, and the Rule of Law.

In the endless Obamacare Ethics Train Wreck, the trains may be our democracy, and the Rule of Law.

The consensus among objective legal observers is that President Obama’s unilateral amendments to a bill passed by Congress and signed by him into law exceed his constitutional authority, are illegal, and violate his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Worse, they create a precedent that endangers the nation’s freedom,  as protected by the rule of law and the system of checks and balances, by laying the foundation for more obtrusive and dictatorial acts by future Presidents, who are sure to notice that the negative consequences of this blatantly unconstitutional act were nil. The President and the executive branch shares responsibility for this dangerous and irresponsible display of autocratic lawmaking with both houses of Congress and both political parties, none of which have demonstrated either the integrity or the courage to oppose him, for varying reasons.

It is depressing and indeed disgusting that our successful democratic system of government  created out of the vision and sacrifices of so many men and women of character, ability and high ideals is being progressively undone by fecklessness, incompetence and political expediency. That, however, is the plot playing out on the national stage, and these are the perpetrators: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“I hope the President continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past. He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional. President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so  — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function…On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities.”

—– Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), telling the Daily Caller how he thinks unemployment should be addressed. Jackson inexplicably left out the part where Superman gives President Obama a magic lamp, and the President uses his three wishes to turn all his political opponents into beef jerky, banish the national debt, and make money grow from beans that get delivered to every American daily by a suddenly solvent postal service, transported around the country in Santa’s sleigh. Continue reading →

Mr. Friedkin? Mr. Hawks? Meet Mr. Madison and Mr. Twain

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

It was Saturday Censorship at the Movies last night in Cable Land.

First, I got to watch that manly channel, Spike, blanch at showing a possessed 12-year-old girl use the work “fuck”, which, as you horror devotees know, is a word rather central to showing how she has been taken over, like Helen Thomas, by the demon Pazuzu. There was Linda Blair, as the suddenly possessed Regan O’Neill, bouncing rhythmically on her bed as her horrified mother and physician looked on, shouting “—Me!—Me!—Me!”, apparently horrifying them with a noisy outbreak of egocentricity. The later scene in which the Demon Child is found masturbating with a crucifix was also clumsily chopped up so it was impossible to figure out what was going on. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Comment of the Day is from Tom Fuller, regarding “Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain”: Continue reading →

Mr. Madison, Meet Mr. Twain

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Whitewashing America’s past doesn’t honor it, burnish it, or repair it. All it accomplishes is making present-day Americans ignorant, naive, cocky and shallow. American society deserves respect for recognizing its ethical and moral errors and misconceptions, debating them, and remarkably often, fixing them. This is another reason why the new volume of Mark Twain masterpieces omitting his pointed use of the word “nigger” does damage to history and culture. It is also the reason why the Republican-led reading of the Constitution should have included all of the Constitution, including the document’s initial support of slavery.

It didn’t. Continue reading →

9-11 Conspiracy Claims: The Hate Crime We Cannot Stop, But Must Not Tolerate

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

The stated belief that the United States government murdered its own citizens and military personnel on September 11, 2001 is, if sincere, proof that an individual possesses intractable misconceptions, hatred and disrespect for America’s history, culture, and ideals. If the belief is not sincere, then the claim that the Bush administration orchestrated (or allowed) the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks is an effort to harm our nation by destroying its reputation and honor, dragging it into the swamp of other nations to which murder and dictatorship are traditional. The First Amendment requires that we allow these individuals, be they deranged, sinister, irresponsible or merely stupid, to deny what makes the United States unique and slander its elected leaders, but it does not require that we accord them respect or tolerance. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Slate Editor Dahlia Lithwick

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

“[The G.O.P. nominee for the U.S. Senate, Christine] O’Donnell explained that “when I go to Washington, D.C., the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it is constitutional.” How weird is that, I thought. Isn’t it a court’s job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional? And isn’t that sort of provided for in, well, the Constitution?”

Dahlia Lithwick, current Supreme Court commentator for Slate, during a three-way published exchange about what an unstable, unqualified kook Christine O’Donnell is.

I hope it is at least a little disturbing to Slate that their Supreme Court expert is apparently ignorant of where the basic responsibilities of obeying the Constitution lie. Continue reading →