Category Archives: Law

Growing Testy With the Twit

Barack Obama, Constitution, Federalism, Glenn Beck, Healthcare, Law

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is growing testy with Obama, giving the Department of Justice “until Thursday to explain whether the Obama administration believes the courts have the right to strike down a federal law.” Via Glenn Beck’s The Blaze:

A federal appeals court has ordered the Justice Department to clarify comments made by the president when he said yesterday that it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to overturn his signature health care law (“Obamacare”).
“I am confident that this will be upheld because it should be upheld,” President Obama said.
“Ultimately I am 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.”
He continued:
And I‘d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.

It is a good day when activist legislation is struck down. The less legislation on the obese books, the better—unless it is legislation to strike down other overreaching, unconstitutional laws of which we have tens of thousands.

Federalism is forever being “discovered” belatedly and opportunistically by the Demopublicans. Since federalism is a chimera—it no longer exists in any meaningful way—the level of decision-making is immaterial to me. In this context, what matters is the decision to strike down ObamaCare. Who cares which branch of the hydra-headed monster makes it, so long as it is made, and, once made, it holds.

UPDATE II: @Twitter, Trayvon Was “NO_LIMIT_NIGA” (The Latest, Feral, 10-Against-One Assault)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Race, Racism

“Trayvon’s Tweets and Black Hate Crimes” is my latest column. Here’s an excerpt:

“Hoodie on the Hill’ blared the Drudge-Report headline, as the street theatre playing out over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin crossed over to the House floor. There, concealed by the by-now iconic hood and “gangsta” glasses was one Bobby Rush, a Democratic representative. Rush blessed Trayvon Martin’s departed soul.

The name Trayvon is soon to be a trademark. It may yet spawn a franchise, as the youth’s grieving mother has had the presence of mind to file with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

If you’ve managed to miss the news, Martin was a 17-year-old black youth, shot dead last month by a Hispanic man with a Jewish surname. George Zimmerman—who, for the purposes of the “Racism Industrial Complex” is being considered white—was patrolling a Florida gated community, as part of his neighborhood-watch duties.

Other than that Martin was unarmed and that George Zimmerman has not been arrested, the facts of the case have yet to be established. Since then, the “Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)” (columnist Jack Kerwick’s coinage), has galvanized on behalf of Trayvon.

The Hollywood faction of the RIC sicced its followers on the wrong Zimmerman, after tweeting out an unverified address in the hope of getting the shooter lynched. Somewhere in the Sunshine State a retired Jew is on the lam. …”

The complete column is “Trayvon’s Tweets and Black Hate Crimes.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE I: (March 30):

To me, what stands out in this “Media Mash” featuring the “Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)” is the sub-intelligent level of it all. Via NewsBusters:

Reacting angrily to selective editing by NBC that suggested racial animus by George Zimmerman, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained to Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night that NBC News was engaged in an “all-out falsehood.” The story in question was a March 27 Ron Allen report on NBC’s ‘Today’ in which 911 audio was edited to make it sound like George Zimmerman said “he looks black” immediately after saying “this guy looks like he’s up to no good.”
In the actual 911 audio, Zimmerman only described Martin’s race after the dispatcher asked, “And this guy: is he white, black, or Hispanic?” “To edit that out is so distorting,” Hannity complained. “Sean, it’s not distorting, it’s advancing a falsehood, it’s worse,” Bozell corrected the Fox News anchor. [see video below page break]
What’s more, with Al Sharpton in the NBC family on cable channel MSNBC, the network has been ginning up another Tawana Brawley-like atmosphere where passions are whipped into a frenzy before all the facts are laid out on the table.
“The radical left has already acted as judge, jury and executioner in this. This is another Tawana Brawley moment we’re looking at folks,” Bozell noted, reminding viewers that “Sharpton never apologized for that” incident.
“Every single person who hung this person [Zimmerman] without knowing the facts has got to respond to this,” Bozell complained.

To pick up on the aforementioned sub-intelligent themes in the cognoscenti’s one-sided “conversations” about race, I just heard a black commentator advance the following on MSNBC: A white girl dying at the hands of a black is sad, but devoid of the significance that attaches to the crime when visited on a black. I paraphrase the moron.

The pundit didn’t seem a malevolent man, just deeply stupid, for the non sequitur he was advancing was that black-on-white crime can never spring from endemic and epidemic racial hatred. Thus is it devoid of social and symbolic significance. “Casualty of racial hatred”: This is a construct that exists (in the abstract) for blacks alone.

MSNBC’s Tamron Hall, who is unburdened by brains, tweeted her affections for the guest (from Freedom Watch we know that these shows are more often about entertaining the host’s “good friends.”)

tamronhall .@Toure passionate and fury all wrapped into one very smart and loyal friend coming up live in 2min

UPDATE II (March 31): The Latest, Feral, 10-Against-One RACIAL Assault:

Seven black teens have been arrested on suspicion that they committed a hate crime when they attacked a 15-year-old Hispanic boy while he was walking home from school in Southern California, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.
The March 14 beating in Palmdale was captured on video and posted on YouTube, but has since been removed from the site. The seven boys, ages 13 to 16, were arrested Wednesday for investigation of assault and committing a hate crime, Lt. Don Ford said.
The attack happened near Cactus Middle School, but Ford didn’t know if any of the teens involved were students there.
The video shows as many as 10 boys surrounding the victim and challenging him to a fight. The suspects then began hitting the teen while others watched.
During the beating, the teens made racially derogatory statements that were captured on the video, Ford said.
After the victim fell to the ground, the assailants kicked him multiple times in the head, knocked out several teeth and left shoe impressions on his skin, Ford said.

UPDATED: “Trayvon Martin’s Filthy Porno-esque Tweets” (Facts Vs. Context)

Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Morality, Pop-Culture

“Trayvon Martin’s Filthy Porno-esque Tweets,” writes the uncompromising Debbie Schlussel, “would make even Larry Flynt blush.”

Read on.

UPDATE (March 29): Eric, you are correct. As I write in my upcoming weekly column, “Granted, Trayvon’s tweets are not germane to the facts of his slaying. They are, nonetheless, telling.” The Courts in recent decades have moved to strip a prosecution or a defense of the legitimate contextual arguments (such as priors) that go to character and motive. For example, the stripper in the Duke lacrosse case was a shady sort who shook down others. This, we are supposed to believe, had no relevance in the Nifonging of the players. So I think a full picture of this boy and his shooter are relevant to the inquiry. I’m for more, not fewer, facts, so long as they are not confused with the facts of the crime.

Check back for the column tonight.

Whither HellCare?

Barack Obama, Constitution, Healthcare, Law, Political Philosophy, Regulation, Socialism

As freedom lovers know, the case pitting the DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES against FLORIDA, ET AL is simply one more stage on the road to socializing the means of health-care production. Americans already labor under, as one wag put it, “a seeming patchwork of indemnity insurance arrangements, managed care, private payment, and charity.”

Increasing interventionism is always accompanied by the use of brute force, the legitimacy of which the nation’s Supreme Politburo Of Proctologists (the SCOTUS) is currently debating.

Not surprisingly, “the four jurists appointed by Democratic presidents — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — seemed sympathetic to the government’s defense of the [ObamaCare], at times offering Solicitor General Donald Verrilli helpful answers to their colleagues’ questions,” reports the National Journal’s Margot Sanger-Katz. “Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia — who had been considered by some Court watchers to be in play — seemed to stand firmly with the challengers.”

Equally predictable: “Chief Justice John Roberts, whose questions suggested a discomfort with the health care law, … also defended the government’s argument at times.”

Both Kennedy and Roberts will probably find a way to make ObamaCare palatable by papering over arguments against it. While they “seemed particularly concerned about the question of whether upholding this law would mean that Congress’s authority to pass regulation would be virtually unbounded, [t]hey repeatedly asked Verrilli to identify a limiting principle that would allow this mandate to go forward without opening the door to requirements to purchase other products.” [NJ]

The gist of the case being argued:

The 26 states challenging the mandate say it is an unprecedented demand, one that regulates economic “inactivity” and forces people into purchasing a product they do not want. If the government can compel the purchase of health insurance, they argue, then nearly any sort of purchase mandate could also be permitted. The administration counters that there’s basically no avoiding the health care market: Everyone needs health care at some time, often with little warning or financial preparation. Health insurance is not a standalone product, but merely a means of regulating the financing of that activity, it says

[NJ]

The elaborate public works sprung from the General Welfare and Interstate Commerce Clauses are unconstitutional. However, despite the fact that there is no warrant in the Constitution for most of what the Federal Frankenstein does, the Proctologists will find a way around what is already a dead-letter document.