Judge Vinson’s HCR ruling
I was going to write a long post about this today but alas, I already got caught up in long-windedness on another topic, that of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. So I’ll just do a roundup.
Putting on my Instapundit hat:
This seems about right to me.
Likewise, this.
Surprisingly, Ezra Klein has a pretty good list of links on both sides of the argument.
South Dakota gets into the act. And it’s not even April Fools Day.
Romney walks a tightrope. But it’s true that states can do things the feds can’t. Not that it’s worked out that well for Massachusetts.
And via William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection we have this handy explanation of what happened:
how did the Constitution get in the way of progress this time.. .. liberals are never wrong…. the Constitution is several pages long… the court system is supposed to be filled with liberals like me and act as a fail safe in case the voters disagree with us…. people are dumb and they need to be guided by the best and brightest…
That sums up the ‘liberal’ mindset. Unfortunately for liberals/progressives there are millions of us who know what freedom/personal responsibility means. We will not go quietly into their dark night. Watch out ‘liberals’, you might get the civil war you imagine you will win.
“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” — H.L. Mencken
I thought Ann Coulter’s observation was hilarious and worth sharing. She pointed out that if the Obamacare mandate were NOT unconstitutional, then Republicans could mandate that every American own a Bible and a gun; now wouldn’t that just make the liberal head explode.
“Didn’t Obama say he used to teach Constitutional Law?”
“Yes, but he never said that he was good at it.”
LOL
I’m not sure anyone else on a worthy-of-credibility list ever said he was good at it either.
I just got done reading the decision. It’s a good read that I would recommend to anybody for a thorough discussion of the issues, historical, legal, and logical.
http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/29270.pdf
I’ll just note that, tactically, it was better for the first two rulings to have been in the affirmative, because that allowed Judge Vinson to explain why there were wrong. 🙂 Also, he cites Judge Hudson’s decision with praise.
* they
From the video: “So you think people are too stupid to make their own choices, unless they work for the government, in which case they are brilliant enough to make choices for everyone?”
Ronald Reagan identified that as liberalism’s overarching hubris more than four decades ago:
“This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/timechoosing.html
“If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?”
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm
Tom: I once did research for a post I never finished or published, on the subject of Obama’s con law teaching background. All of the courses he taught at the U of Chicago were in the area of equal protection law, especially race, rather than general con law. I have no idea how well-versed he is in other areas of con law. This case would come under the rubric of other areas of con law.
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MoM has a summary worth reading, too.
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> I have no idea how well-versed he is in other areas of con law.
I think The Big 0 is much more of an expert at the con, than he is at con law.
Did he actually teach a whole course on equal protection? As in, once a week for a semester? or did he just give a couple of lectures?
This falls under the “Questions that should’ve been asked/answered then” category.
Not that it would’ve altered the Narrative.
Tom: This is what he taught:
One of these days I’ll write that post. My conclusion is that Obama’s entire law school teaching career was predominantly concerned with race as well as election law. Interesting, no?
And by the way, that’s quoting an article that appeared in the NY Times in July of 2008. So it was known.
Interesting, yes!
Kinda like teaching American history using only H. Zinn. However, these were law school lectures at an elite school.
I swore at, and swore off, actually reading the NYT 20yrs ago, save for scanning the heads, reading the obits. Thanks for doing it, Neo.
The Big O learned everything he knows about the Constitution from the back of a Wheaties box.
The man said, in a radio panel discussion, “I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the Framers had that same blind spot.”
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-constitution/2008/10/27/id/326165
Well, he was probably studying in the madrassa when US history was taught in eighth grade. But really, you don’t really have to know anything about the Constitution these days. After all, wasn’t he elected president of all 57 states anyway?