Smacked By A Liberal Girl

Barack Obama, Constitution, Federalism, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts

The Ass had his formidable ears smacked about by Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor, who is not exactly a conservative, “effectively rebutted President Obama’s warning that a ruling against Obamacare would be ‘judicial activism.'” (Washington Examiner)

Recall, President Obama had used the term “judicial activism” “when he described a possible ruling against Obamacare as “an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” (Washington Examiner)

O’Connor derided such reasoning today, without mentioning the president. “It seemed to me that it was primarily a lack of understanding by many people about the role of the judicial branch [that motivates charges of judicial activism],” O’Connor said today. “I really thought that we needed to enhance the education of young people about how our government works.”

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.

Till Debt Do the US Apart

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy

In “One Nation Under Inflation,” I noted that “America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is larger than the European Union’s.” I was unaware that US debt “is greater than the combined debt of the entire Eurozone and the U.K.”

America’s debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)
The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America’s debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone’s. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.

(Weekly Standard)

Nary a mentioned was made of this apparently minor fact on Fox Business, while the Fox Business anchors discussed Christine Lagarde’s demands for more billions in bailouts from the US to the EU. “More firepower” is how the managing director of the International Monetary Fund described her agency’s requirements.

It’s Lagarde’s prerogative to ask for money to increase her bureaucracy’s sphere of influence. It’s the obligation of the ass with ears who leads the USA to turn her down.

So, it’s not Lagarde’s asking that ought to worry; it’s the fact that, according to Fox News, she expressed confidence that the US would do the “right” thing by her.

Gender Junk, Again

Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Racism, Reason

It is impossible to distinguish the conservative from the liberal perspective on the gender issue. This was the theme of “The Tarts and ‘Tards’ of Hollywood.” Duly, Fox Business hammers away today at the glass ceiling fallacy, this time “the ceiling keeping women out of the C-Suite” is said to still “hover over the sharp-elbowed world of Wall Street.”

As with alleged racism, this is the post hoc, backward reasoning error in thinking, whereby discrimination or disadvantage is inferred from the absence of women—or any other group with grievances—from a certain sector.

Recall that, “Another of Obama’s economic prescriptions for a deepening depression was to sign a pay equity act, during which he carped that women still earn just ’78 cents for every dollar men earn?women of color even less.’ Such false assertions rely on comparisons of ‘the average wage of all women working fulltime with the average wage of all men working full time.'”

From “Barack Against The Boys”: “Scholarly reams have been written disputing this phony calculus, as it omits vital variables: How long the woman has been in the work force, her age, experience and education; or whether her career has been put on hold to marry and mother. Just as women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory, so too are they more inclined to enter lower-paying professions: education instead of engineering, for example.”

“Nonetheless, allow me to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage with a decisive argument:

“If women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. The fact that the wily entrepreneur doesn’t ditch men in favor of women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.”

UPDATED: Legal Low-lives

Crime, Ethics, Etiquette, Justice, Law

The putative attorneys for George Zimmerman (Treyvon Martin’s shooter) demonstrated their professional bona fides by holding a press conference in which these publicity whores—these legal low-lives—impugned a client they have yet to meet in person, and announced to the world they would no longer represent a man who, rumor says, has yet to hire them.

Never seek the services of Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner; they’re unethical and should probably be disbarred.

Kudos to Natalie Jackson, an attorney for the (Treyvon) Martin family, who condemned this kind of conduct:

“These attorneys continue to make irresponsible statement to the media,’ [and] “now they have throw their own client, George Zimmerman, under the bus by alluding to his possible flight from justice.”

Increasingly—and where they see the opportunity—members of the legal system put media appearances and promotion before the case and the client.

UPDATE (April 11): Florida Special Prosecutor Angela Corey will kick off her publicity campaign with a press conference scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET in Jacksonville, Fla.

Now it is indeed possible that charging George Zimmerman (will it be man slaughter?), as Corey intends to, in the killing of Treyvon Martin is the right thing to do. Still and all, when the Special prosecutor Corey dismissed the Grand-Jury option, yesterday, it occurred to me then that, like her colleagues discussed in the post above—who’re dancing on a defendant’s grave—we were witnessing a publicity stunt. Or a political move, since state attorneys are always looking for a leg up to the Beltway.