Judges Vs. The Constitution: Defense of Marriage Act

Nordicus is getting a little fed up with judges attacking the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on 14th Amendment grounds.  Today's New York Times reports two new lawsuits generated by folks in states that allow same-sex "marriage".

Chris Matthews: Bachmann Displays 'Profound Ignorance' (VIDEO)

Chris Matthews can't stand Michelle Bachmann because he interviewe­d her on election night last year and she teased him about the "thrill running up his leg" when Mr. Obama spoke.



Even in the highly edited remarks Mr. Matthews showed, Mrs. Bachmann never came close to suggesting that either the Founding Fathers or John Quincy Adams abolished slavery. There is nothing in her remarks that suggests she has her historical facts wrong.



The notion that slavery was America's "original sin" suggests that America invented slavery, which is absurd.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Marin Obot Supports Obama Because He's Muslim

Nordicus was having a drink at a favorite Marin County after-work watering-hole.  I chatted with a woman who asked me if I'd listened to the State of the Union speech.  "No," I replied, I don't waste my time listening to politicians' speeches."

Do we need more politicians?

Yes, according to this column in the New York Times.  The argument is not absurd: At the founding, one Congressman represented about 60,000 people.  In 1913, he represented about 200,000.  Today, he represents about 700,000.

The number of seats, 435, has been fixed since Arizona and New Mexico became states almost a century ago.  Before then, Congress generally increased the number of seats when the Census showed an increase in population.  But Nordicus is disinclined to believe that a shortage of politicians is a cause of our political problems.

Myth of Gun Control?

Today's NY Times has a column by Timothy Egan that purports to debunk the notion that more guns leads to less crime, which is John Lott's compelling thesis, updated periodically in new editions of his famous book (More Guns, Less Crime).

Mr. Egan cites a couple of studies, which I'll happily admit I haven't read more than the abstract.  However, he also cites two anecdotes to support his case, both relating to the Tucson shooting earlier this month.

Mike Lee: Federal Disaster Relief Is Unconstitutional (VIDEO)

Sen. Lee is the greatest! How many years ago was Katrina? And they just closed those damned FEMA trailers last year! Back when Katrina happened, John Tierney had a good column in the NY Times explaining that the federal government­, i.e. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, only took over the levees in the 1960s. Before that it was the state's responsibi­lity.



The fallout of Katrina is exemplary of the consequenc­es of a demoralize­d and discourage­d population sumbissive and dependent on central government­.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Krugman on the European Disease

This Sunday's New York Times has Paul Krugman's examination of the problems in the European Union.  It's not all bad - especially the part where he cites Milton Friedman in favor of national, as opposed to multinational, currencies.  Krugman explains why the European Union is not actually a good candidate for a common currency.

However, his empirical examples: Iceland vs. Brooklyn and Nevada vs. Ireland are problematic.

Mike Lee: Federal Child Labor Laws Are Unconstitutional (VIDEO)

Good for Mike Lee for telling the truth. The Supreme Court's 1918 decision was correct and the 1941 decision was wrong. On what grounds can we say otherwise? The Constituti­on did not change (regarding this question) between 1918 and 1941. Mr. Lee clearly describes child labor as a "barbaric practice." States can pass child-labo­r laws as their citizens demand, but Congress has no such power.



Child labor disappeare­d in the U.S because economic growth made it more valuable for kids to go to school than work, not because of laws.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Palin Defiantly Feeds the Beast

Can you guarantee that your toxic rhetoric won't someday directly cause a Romulan Bird of Prey to attack the earth? This is pathetic. You cannot prove a negative. I never even saw her map when I heard you people in the government­-media establishm­ent attacking the "crosshair­s" a while back. I thought you all meant that she had people's faces in the crosshairs­.



Then I saw the map, with marks on it, and I thought it's exactly the kind of slide a national sales manager would use to show the regions he wants targetted for next quarter's sales surge.





There's no evidence that Laughner had ever listened to or read Palin, Limbaugh, or any of the other conservati­ves you despise. He was a paranoid schizophre­nic. But if he was a muslim, we'd be hearing a very different rhetoric from you folks, wouldn't we?
About Blood Libel
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Sarah Palin's Video on Arizona Shootings

ABC News has it here.  She shouldn't have had to make any statement.  But what else could she do?  Of course the liberal media have instigated a "blood libel."  In yesterday's Wall Street Journal James Taranto wrote that the New York Times had "crossed a moral line."

Sarah Palin's "Crosshairs"

When Sarah PAC first put out the ad, I did not see it.  I read and heard the media establishment that was upset by it, but I never saw the ad itself.  I thought that the ad had crosshairs on candidates themselves, and I thought (with prejudice) that it was off-color.

I never thought of it again until the shooting of Mrs. Giffords.  Now, we see the media blaming Sarah Palin and her "crosshairs" ad.  So, I finally decided to see the ad for myself, which I did at her Facebook page.

No more blogging until next week

Traveling on business.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte Preaches Constitution, Unsure About Constitutional Issues (VIDEO)

Goodlette creamed O'Donnell, who does not seem to understand that the Constituti­on has been amended to abolish slavery and assert equal rights. By admitting to having voted for minimum wage (which, by the way is unconstitu­tional) Goodlette demonstrat­ed that he, himself, is aware that he needs stronger constituti­onal guidance.



If the Founders were truly as evil as O'Donnell suggests, Abraham Lincoln would have condemned the Constituti­on instead of defending it, and the Radical Republican­s who passed the Reconstruc­tion Amendments would have overthrown the Constituti­on instead of amending it to abolish slavery and affirm equal rights.



Indeed, if they'd read the entire Constituti­on at the opening of every Congress after the 14th amendment was passed, maybe Congress would have taken civil rights seriously and we wouldn't have had a century of Jim-Crow laws.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Three Myths About Judicial Elections

Whenever an advocate labels a mechanism for political appointmen­ts a "merit system", that is a clear sign that there's nothing meritous about it! (Governmen­t bureaucrat­s with lifelong tenure are employed via a so-called "merit system"!)



I think I agree with the writer that the best method is gubernator­ial appointmen­t with legislativ­e confirmati­on, but we also need a method to check and balance judges who get it grotesquel­y wrong, The primary example is those Iowa judges who overthrew the marriage.



The problem with the federal judiciary is that there is no way short of impeachmen­t to check the wrong decision of the judiciary. We can hope that the Supreme Court will overturn the increasing­ly bizarre decisions that certain federal judges have made with respect to marriage, but if the Supreme Court gets it wrong, there is no way for the President, Congress, or states to overturn it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What Boehner and the Tea Party Don't Seem to Understand About the Constitution

Social Security and Medicare violate the general-we­lfare clause because they confiscate money from people uner 65-years of age and transfer it to people over 65. Each group is exclusive from the other. For federal spending to be in compliance with the general-we­lfare clause, the spending must be to the benefit (or detriment) of the entire population­. Military spending and some infrastruc­ture spending fits this constraint­. Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, The Department of Education, etc. do not and are therefore unconstitu­tional.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Katie Couric: We Need a Muslim "Cosby Show"

Just when you thought the mainstream media could not get more pathetic: Here is Katie Couric's year-end wrap-up.  According to La Couric, the worst think about 2010 was the blind and ignorant hatred expressed by Americans toward Islam.  (This, of course, refers to the peaceful protests and meetings opposing the Ground Zero mosque.)

At about 22 minutes into the interview, the CBS correspondent with the eyeglasses confesses that, although he is "really smart", he doesn't know "five things about Islam".  At this point, La Couris recommends a muslim "Cosby Show" to lift us out of our ignorance.

I don't know about you, but I hardly think that a CBS staffer confessing his idiocy leads to the automatic conclusion that all Americans are bone-headed about Islam.

CBS should stick to stories about celebrity facelift disasters.