Nice Court You Have There, It Would Be A Shame If Something Happened To It
The Talking Points Memo headline reads: “Dems Warn Of ‘Grave Damage’ To SCOTUS If ‘Obamacare’ Is Struck Down.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D), a former attorney general of Connecticut, pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court would damage itself if it did something so ridiculous as find Obamacare unconstitutional:
The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.
Blumenthal was clearly engaged in “begging the question”:
A type of logical fallacy in which a proposition is made that uses its own premise as proof of the proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion.
By saying Obamacare is so self-evidently wonderful and legitimate that only someone crazy would disagree with it, Blumenthal makes you wonder why this matter is even before the Court in the first place. For the answer to that question, see “begging the question.”
What is less clear is whether Blumenthal, in reminding the court that the executive branch had the monopoly on physical power, was not engaged in a kind of subtle menace. After all, the Court’s power is not based on “credibility.” It is based on power vested in it by the Constitution. What would the administration say if someone argued that the president’s authority was based on “credibility” rather than his legal power as chief executive?
So unworthy a sentiment as intimidation would not occur to Blumenthal any more than it would to Winston Churchill, who when speaking to Stalin in 1944, trying to persuade the Generalissimo to give Poland a break after the war, drew from him one of the bon mots of the 20th century.
Ahh, only one false note, Wretchard.
In Chicago, plain brown envelopes contain cash, not checks.
That is bad news. You can stop payment on a check. If the earnest money was disbursed in cash then it’s to hell and gone.
Isn’t Blumenthal essentially declaring he’s in rebellion against the Constitution?
Neil — that’s true. Cincinnati politicians are the ones who pay with personal checks.
More creative business strategies from TSA Managers
As I continue to see more duplicitous and “by any means necessary” activity from this administration I’m reminded of the political machinations in late republican Rome. Admittedly, many of the details between now and then are different but there are enough parallels to make me nervous. Some examples: those seeking power claim to do so for the benefit of the lower classes, an increasing willingness to disregard the law and manipulate the mob, a populace beguiled by entertainments. Then ambitious men acted ruthlessly ignoring law and tradition to achieve their ends. Crossing the Rubicon was not only a physical journey but more importantly, a mental and social breach.
There are important differences. Now we have no armies loyal to individual men. With the internet and cell phones communication is effectively instantaneous. While much of our populace is disengaged there is a large minority actively monitoring and participating in politics. Lastly, we have the fall of the Roman republic as a warning as to what can happen.
Even so, with November approaching I am concerned about shenanigans that will either undermine the election or events (planned or unplanned and opportunistically seized upon) that provide justification for those who may wish to either delay or invalidate the vote.
Are my fears unfounded? Boy, I sure hope so
Obama openly scolded the SCOTUS during the 2010 SOTU. Now its the court’s turn to whup Obama like a rented mule. Payback’s a bitch.
The Supreme Court is, according the Constitution, a co-equal branch of the government. Yet it has no troops nor the ability to appropriate funds. On paper it is the weakest of all the co-equal branches. It can only render judgments and hope the other co-equals follow suit. When challenged, like by Andrew Jackson, the Supreme Court has run from the field sucking its wounds.
How odd that today whatever the wizened tribune throws down is seen as sacrosanct. The great check upon them has always been that Congress or the President or both would rise up and call them on it. They are not and have never been the final arbiter of Constitutionality, but merely a player in it. We live in strange times in which we kneel at the issuances of the court. Even in the widely reviled and ridiculous case of Kelo v. New London, a disgrace that shocked all to the discredit and damage of the Supreme Court, we complied as a nation to the court’s insane productions.
Roe v. Wade might be the most divisive and contentious parcel of American politics to hit the scene since the Civil War, and the Supremes cooked it up. It is the penultimate example of courts meddling into the legislative realm. In our lifetimes, the Supreme Court has stood as the deified enforcer of the progressive vision that shoe-horns our society toward its goals by fiat.
The court will be smacked down. It is begging to be smacked down.
What an irony, and a sad irony, but one wholly in keeping if you understand the Left, if Barack Obama is the one who kicks it.
The troubling thing about Richard Blumenthal’s threats is that they might be acted upon. Obama might have the balls and the will to challenge the court in the most intense way since Andrew Jackson kicked them in the balls. They’d frankly deserve it. And, if history is a lesson, the court would go howling away as a first response.
But what a great irony. Obama’s the wrong one to be doing it, and for all the wrong reasons. ObamaCare is unconstitutional. The court’s seeming position is, for the first time in a while, actually correct in posture. If ever a court decision needed to stand then a strike down of ObamaCare needs to happen.
But now we’re in a perverse position of having the Left critique judicial activism. It might get very weird!
I don’t like what SCOTUS has become, and indeed it may be the biggest flaw in the original constitution, the lifetime tenure certainly so, 18 to 20 years should be more than sufficient, and/or a retirement age on the order of 72.
Yet when our Congress will pass a piece of gibberish and then run around calling it “our crowning achievement!”, it behooves us to have a powerful organ of government that provides some reflection and balance.
Mirabile dictu, at least five justices called gibberish, gibberish. This may actually be a high point in the history of SCOTUS, whatever comes next.
Of course the authors of the federalist papers knew how badly organs of goverment can misfire, and so far the checks and balances have kept us on the map. It wasn’t supposed to last forever, and it won’t.
But neither does the blathering of some donkey necessarily need to be taken seriously. Donkeys bray, it’s one of the things they do.
Obama kind of begged the question when asked what qualified him to be the President of the United States. He cited his campaign to become President!
One of the most vivid images of the Great War, whose centenary is due in a couple of years is the the image of the German General Staff telling the Kaiser that while the whole thing was a tragic mistake, it was too late to call off the War. To stop the mobilization however tragic the eventual consequences, they told the Kaiser, would throw everything into chaos. The Russians also made the argument that the die was cast. Nicholas told the Kaiser that it was “technically impossible” to throw the Russian mobilization into reverse.
Bureaucracies get locked into a course of action which makes no sense, but can’t be called off. So even if Obama doesn’t have a Constitutional leg to stand on, the political argument will be “it’s too late to give up the gains now”. The money’s been promised. People have been paid off. You can’t stop this now. That may not make any sense, but who said sense had anything to do with it?
There’s only one problem. Even without the Supreme Court, there’s no money for Obamacare. Zero. Zip. Nada. Obama may have more goons than SCOTUS, but where will they get the money to pay for everything?
In the end, from nowhere. The real folly is that these issues, so lightly passed over by Nancy Pelosi, now have to be raised in a way that precipitates a crisis. In addition to bankrupting the treasury, these brilliant adhocrats may just knock the Court into the side pocket just as a bonus. Unless of course SCOTUS decides it’s really too late to stop the Locomotive of History, and they simply get out of the way. But looming in the distance, unconquerable from the beginning of recorded time is Arithmetic. Nobody, ever, ever beat arithmetic.
Peggy Noonan now believes that “Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.”
Thank God for pundits.
To be precise, it wasn’t the General Staff in toto but Moltke himself who told the kaiser that what had been set in motion could not be stopped. Moltke nearly suffered a nervous collapse when William broached the possibility of calling the whole thing off. Moltke did not have strong nerves to begin with, and this incident at the very start of the war seems to have inflicted irreparable damage to his character. In the weeks that followed the course of events was dominated by his army commanders (by Kluck in particular) and Moltke proved ineffective in influencing their decisions and actions. Partly this was the fault of the German Army’s command structure. There was no intermediate army group-type command to exercise operational control over the army commanders. There was Moltke and the General Staff; and then there were the 7 army commanders. In the years preceding the war no one in Germany thought that an army group command level was necessary. It was thought that the “plan” itself would obviate the need for an intermediate command level. All the army commanders had to was follow the plan and events would take care of themselves. The Germans seem to have forgotten that the French might have something to say about that.
“How many divisions does the Congress have?”. How many divisions does the Supreme Court have?”. Functionally none for either. Congress has been yielding its Article I powers to the Executive as fast as it can, and the Supreme Court is as political an institution as the Senate. So do not expect them, in the end, to stand against a dictatorial regime.
The question should be phrased, “How many divisions of Oathkeepers will pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor?”.
Subotai Bahadur
Regarding the ever expanding bureaucracy:
“Whether it proceeds from mankind’s ignorance, inattention, or indolence, I know not—it is certain that bad customs are seldom changed, no matter who is at the helm or whatever example may be brought either to discredit such customs or to recommend their contraries.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
Subotai, I respectfully suggest that your pessimism concerning the Supreme Court is unwarranted. SCOTUS might not by itself defeat Obama; but it will contribute mightily to Obama’s eventual and inevitable defeat. Or so I hope.
In the end, and as Wretchard pointed out, Obama’s Big Government juggernaut will fail for many of the same reasons the German armies in France failed in 1914: it will succumb to its own gigantism, to strategic overreach, to the inability of its logistical base to support the offensive; and, not least, to the resistance of those who oppose it.
“That men who had retreated for ten days, that men lying on the ground half-dead from exhaustion were able to pick up their rifles again and attack at the sound of the bugle: that was something we had never reckoned with; that was a possibility we had never discussed in our war colleges.”
Alexander von Kluck, C-in-C, German First Army, of the French Army of August 1914
Will history render a similar verdict concerning the efforts of the Tea Party, SCOTUS, and conservative opposition to the Obama regime? I think so.
Ils ne passeront pas.
You can smell the fear!
Roughcoat
Very nice posts. WW1 was one of the hinges of history. The world of November 1918 was a completely different world from the world of August 1914. We forget the lessons of WW1 at our peril.
Walt
“And by the way, the Soviet Union is gone, but there’s still a Poland. And last I heard, there was still a Pope”
That is the current answer to Stalin’s question about the Pope’s battalions. And I wonder what will be the answer to Blementhal’s assertion?
9 @Boogliodemus
Excellent reminder. I recall the never ending stream of raw hatred flowing forth from the sewer of the left against Sarah Palin when she was the VP candidate. They simultaneously attacked Palin as wholly unqualified for the VP slot when she has held multiple chief executive positions while regaling us with Obama’s fitness for the POTUS slot as a self-evident truth based on his awesome campaign, man. You gotta hand it to the professional left, they have doublethink down to an art form.
11 @Roughcoat
As the Puppy Blender would say, another rube self-identifies.
If SCOTUS struck down Obamacare, is there any chance the Administration would ignore the judgement and implement nationalized healthcare any way?
After all, who would dare stop him?
“If SCOTUS struck down Obamacare, is there any chance the Administration would ignore the judgement and implement nationalized healthcare any way?”
I imagine that’s their intention. And who’s to get in their way? Congress doesn’t seem to have any interest in standing up to this rogue administration.
All this “begs the question”: if Stalin had a time machine and landed in 2008 could he have appreciated how an otherwise unexperienced con man with yet no divisions could come to power in the USA, on account of his minority appearance and manners? There’s a story, I don’t know if true, that shortly after the launch of Barbarossa, Stalin was sitting dumbstruck in his office and when he heard a knock on the door was sure he was about to be relieved of duty, with prejudice. He was shocked to find his leadership was still desired; in any case, how did he understand the continuing appeal of his brutal charisma at the moment when his “brute” instincts had been clearly bested?
The polls tell us that a solid majority of Americans believe that Obamacare is unconstitutional. If SCOTUS so rules, won’t they accumulate power and credit?
I had some peripheral dealing with Blumenthal back when he was AG of CT. His office was suing the company I worked for regarding a product I had done some work on. I got the same impression from him and his staffers that you get from mobsters on two-bit tv shows. Naked greed and ambition coupled with the most pathetic attempts at justification. I could never figure out if they were actually dumb enough to think anyone was fooled by the cover stories they offered, or if they were just dutifully following some ritual that nobody really understood any more, but still had to be done for the sake of tradition.
On the one hand, they all thought themselves pretty clever even though they were mostly unimaginative. On the other hand, they would tell their lies with almost a leering quality that made it seem like they were daring you to call them on it.
It was a surreal experience. I suppose the only reason for me to be surprised that Dick Blumenthal threatened the SC is some mild astonishment that he’s still a Senator and hasn’t been caught up in some half-witted scandal.
O/T but nowhere else to post it on PJM. Too many have me blocked.
Scalia asked during arguments if they expected him to go through all 2700 pages of ObamaCare to find out what should stand as severable? My thought was, when I read it:
We have to reject it to find out what’s in it!”
;D
I’m just here because I’m jubilant that for the first time ever, I have seen the phrase “beg the question” used properly.
Although hell, there’s this sentence: “And the administration risks grave damage if it a promise of that magnitude” . . .
The rest of the context of Moltke’s declaration was roughly “if we stop we can’t defend ourselves from an attack given our posture and dispositions, our enemies know this, and we can’t trust them not to exploit this weakness given the provocation and offense we’ve just given.” “The time to stop us was before we gathered our forces and allocated transportation and materiel, and started down this schedule.”
Call it (the timeless) technology problem that favors one direction of movement – planning and logistics had advanced to the stage that once the machine was set up to execute, it could do little else – like defense – for some days if not weeks of reset time. “Sorry, you already set the machine in motion with your last decision, and it was one of our faults that I either didn’t explain clearly enough or you failed to internalize the significance of that decision.” (If I were Moltke and I realized I really didn’t have the Kaiser’s support (or today, the people’s) and given what I knew I had set in motion and as a point of honor, I’d as likely walked out of a high story window as have a breakdown..)
Today – “Sorry, we can’t recall the SIOP after warhead re-entry.”
A while back I heard:
“Israel is not Chekoslovakia”.
Maybe this time it should be morphed into:
“Poland is not Poland”.
Surely BHO’s admin is there to help.
re: (some) AGs are mobsters. Oh my yes.
Arguably Spitzer had a large role separating founders from their companies – and removing those with a personal stake in asserting their own values (trustworthiness and honor) – values transcendent of unlimited maximization of short term returns.
Might have even been the tipping point that led to the current calamity – when Spitzer drove Greenberg out of AIG – and the nature of AIG’s re-insurance and handling of counter-party risk changed not only in amount but in character – transactions Greenberg did not permit during his tenure.
Regulation can only slow the incidence of past abuses. Values are all that can prevent use of future invented abuses (preserving and increasing v. depleting civil society). Granted, structures that make for good government insure that bad people have powerful incentives to do the right thing, ditto for business, failure needs to happen rapidly (fail-fast in the computing sense) for the system to self-correct. If failure is not permitted we get the worst of both in the public and private sector.
When faced with a moral dilemma, one should always do what one sees as morally correct. The USSC judges know this. The conservative members will see this as an expansion of federal powers and vote accordingly. The Socialist members will see Health Care as a conformation of Federal powers and vote accordingly.
The good Senator from nowhereland is mistaken. The Military Oath
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/oathofenlist.htm
pinched
“I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
is sworn to the Constitution FIRST . IIRC, POTUS was a post civil war addition.
An attempt by the administration to marshal their divisions would lead to a real civil war. Each member of the military would have to make the same moral decision as the Supreme Court. That would destroy the military. No more divisions, just extraordinarily well armed gangs.
Sometimes I wonder if fear of that result is why Boner won’t push Impeachment. IMHO, Impeachment is the best way to avoid a real civil war. Biden would make a finnnnee POTUS.
President’s Oath:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Members of Congress, Federal officials and most Federal employees’ oath:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Judges add to this:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (office) under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.
Military Officers:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Enlisted Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines:
I, (name), do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
_________________
Will require six layers of command to ignore their responsibility to the Constitution to deliver a questionable Presidential order to a soldier. And all the pilots in the Air Force are officers.
I’ve taken a few of these oaths. And decades ago teased my foreign compatriots and won a few beers when comparing their oaths to ours and other democracies.
Starting with the Oath as an obligation to honor the contract that IS “The Constitution.” – Little different than any other freely entered obligation that has been written down and signed or witnessed by the contracting parties – no more, no less, not living, not dead, “just” a contract that says what it means and means what it says.. – at less than 8000 words as amended any 14 year old can understand it and judge if an action is within or without the bounds of the contract. And where it’s too close to call, the legal bias in reading a contract is always “it’s outside until ammended.”
So far as I know, the German General Staff WANTED the war. They had convinced themselves that Russia’s rearmament after the Russo-Japanese fiasco was a threat to their (Germany’s) security. Who knows but they may have been right in the abstract, but in the concrete (or flesh and blood) the German soldier would have defeated any Russian invasion–the Germans being better fighters than the Russians. (An Afghan is a better fighter than an Arab by what, ten to one?)
I remember reading somewhere where, once the war began and the Russians were rapidly forming and then invading eastern Prussia, that the Kaiser asked Moltke about it. Or at the very least, some sort of high-level discussion went on about ditching Alfie von Schlieffen’s infamous plan and turning east, as the original Moltke (Helmuth von Moltke the Elder) had planned it. The Kaiser (or whoever) was told the train tables were set and nothing could be changed. (Perhaps this was just another version of the story you-all are mentioning?) Anyway, AFTER the war, some lower grade officer who was in charge of the railroads and marshalling yards and all that stuff was outraged when he heard this story. Apparently they actually had plans for just such an emergency and could have switched it around pronto.
I believe (and correct me on this or on any of it if I’m getting it wrong) that the orginial von Moltke was famous for the saying, “No war plan survives the first five minutes contact with the enemy”. Excellent, that. Also his, “Strategy is a system of expedients.”
As for the Supremes, though I try to live my life by Subotai’s teachings, I actually suspect (don’t think, don’t know, but suspect) that they’ll vote 5-4 to ditch the whole plan. I say that because the government’s defence of Obamacare was so gawddamed awful that it was an embarrassment, A, B, Breyer’s “rant” and The Lesbian’s “This is just a boat-load of money from the government and who can complain about that?” speech (oh, Wretchard, how right you are about the $$$) were both so lame-brained and cringe-worthy, that the conservative justices (and Kennedy, whatever he is) simply can’t vote for such idiocy. IF Kennedy somehow votes to uphold it, he’ll have to make up an entirely new rationale. (In any case, I wouldn’t bet a farthing on my suspicion.
But can Obama play either the Supreme’s toss of it or their keeping of it to his advantage? He’s beating Rombo SpongeBob by double digits now (though that might not mean too much, really, I suspect it does mean more than I care to think). Why risk doing “an Andrew Jackson” with those kind of numbers? All he has to do is demonize the Court, demonize Spongy-the-One-Percenter, to get re-elected, when he can give the keys of the fort to Vlad and/or the Chinese or the Ayatollahs (or all three).
I’ve got three little kids so I can take a long walk out a high window. What a world!
An Préachán
Senator Blumenthal comes across as a thug.
Q. Where had we previous indication that Senator Blumenthal was of less than stellar character?
A. When he claimed to have served in Vietnam, which was an outright lie.
This is a good indication why character counts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html?pagewanted=all
The Democrats have created a trillion dollar Cartel that their supporters will control with the content of the product determined in Washington (abortion pills, anyone?) and they want to force every American to buy it. What is wrong with that?
Don Ricardito is always fun, but ¿Can one take him entirely seriously when he simply ignores all those gringo whightists who have been badmouthin’ “judicial activism” for the last few (it seems like) centuries?
Happy days.
““The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility.”
I guess Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D) never heard of this pesky thing called THE CONSTITUTION and the separation of powers. Sure, the Supreme Court has no armies and no money, but we’re still supposed to follow what it says. Unless, of course, Richard Blumenthal just wants to scrap the Constitution. Probably why people call Richard Blumenthal by his nickname, DICK.
Threatening the Supremes will get the opposite result.
wretchard,
One question.
“the Soviet Union is gone”
Is it?
Regarding the irreversibility of The Plan, has Obamacare flown the economy past its “Fail-Safe” point? Does Obama fancy himself as Henry Fonda as one of the four greatest Presidents? Is this instead “Dr. Strangelove” with Obama as Merkin Muffley and Joe Biden riding the big one down on Lapuda and Bordkov?
Regarding the possible dissolution of the command structure and the Armed Forces if Obama resorts to naked rule by decree, although some would argue that he already has with unbudgeted spending and non-recess appointments, would Obama and Jenrette, and Vlad the Offstage, consider that a feature and not a bug?
Newt correctly pointed out that Congress has the powers to limit appellate jurisdiction and also to reorganize the courts. They have done so in the past, effectively firing judges. The only one who is beyond their reach is the Chief Justice. We are lucky that when the Donks controlled all the levers with super majorities during 2009-10 they did not do more damage.
We do need a Court of Constitutional Review. Before the XVIIth Amendment the Senate effectively served as a brake on federal overreach. Repeal of that legacy of the Progressive Era would help but we all should live that long. The other body that could be given that role of representing the interests of the states in reviewing the constitutionality of challenged Acts of Congress is the Electoral College. It could be revived, with ex officio and fixed term appointments, and turned from a lifeless rubber stamp into a standing body that fills vacancies for POTUS and VPOTUS and passes final judgment for judicial review. That would make it a sort of American House of Lords, but able to teleconference its decisions in from the various state capitals.
This is indeed distressing. I had thought that Obama’s worst thuggery would occur after next Nov. I feel stupid that I am just now considering the possibility/probability that the SC decision will simply be ignored until Nov. It’s only 4 months between late June and early Nov. Obama can blather and stall for that long standing on his head. I am convinced he is going to “win” this upcoming “election” through stuffed ballot boxes, intimidation of voters and poll watchers by the Black Panthers and SEIU, and race wars in literally battleground states, which could lead to Oh No declaring martial law and suspending elections.
I am now expecting Trayvon Martin-like cases in other key states. We are living in wild, dangerous times. I believe we are unavoidably headed for civil war, and I fear we will go out with a whimper and not a bang since most of our Constitution loving warriors are silver-haired with memories of a time when we could trust our government to show at least a modicum of respect for our Constitution. Our youth have grown up in a time of Affirmative Action, entitlement, White guilt, political correctness, and liberal controlled press.
Who’s to say the military will show more loyalty to their Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States than it will to obey its Supreme Commander-in-Chief? I know there are those who comment on these pages who will argue this last statement, but in
these last 3 years, I have seen Owebama destroy every concept of freedom and fairness we’ve regrettably taken for granted for decades.
Wretchard, thank the Lord for you. You are the best read on the Internet. Please keep up your good work.
JMH/25 and Gringo/34 re Dick Blumenthal: agree vehemently. He did a lot of damage as CT A-G hunting scalps and bullying business. The office of state A-G seems to be little more than a springboard for politicians and other low careerist types. Blumenthal’s remark is not a casual utterance; I wouldn’t be surprised if he was given a script. And his lines admit of only one interpretation, which Wretchard has (as usual) nailed exactly.
Same old crap from the party with the big tent; everybody’s welcome as long as you agree with them. All opinions are respected as long as they are their opinions. They will agree to disagree. They will defend your right to disagree with them.. That you are a stupid ass for not accepting their wisdom is your problem. Time to move on.
feeblemind 21: “If SCOTUS struck down Obamacare, is there any chance the Administration would ignore the judgement and implement nationalized healthcare any way? After all, who would dare stop him?”
It would fall to the States to defend the people, the Supreme Court and the Constitution against an un-Constitutional Federal Law and an un-Constitutional President.
“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact [U.S. Constitution], to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil… the General Assembly doth solemnly appeal to the like dispositions of the other states, in confidence that they will concur with this commonwealth in declaring, as it does hereby declare, that the acts aforesaid [Alien and Sedition Acts], are unconstitutional; and that the necessary and proper measures will be taken by each, for co-operating with this state, in maintaining the Authorities, Rights, and Liberties, referred to the States respectively, or to the people.” James Madison – 1798 Virginia Resolution
http://www.constitution.org/cons/virg1798.htm
“The course & scope of the reasoning [1798 Virginia Resolution] requires that by the rightful authority to interpose in the cases & for the purposes referred to, was meant, not the authority of the States singly & separately, but their authority as the parties to the Constitution., the authority which, in fact, made the Constitution; the authority which being paramount to the Constitution was paramount to the authorities constituted by it, to the Judiciary as well as the other authorities [Congress and President]. The resolution derives the asserted right of interposition for arresting the progress of usurpations by the Federal Government from the fact that its powers were limited to the grant made by the States [Constitution]… The mode of their interposition, in extraordinary cases, is left by the Resolution to the parties [States] themselves…in the event of usurpations of power not remediable under the forms and by the means provided by the Constitution [Article V Amendment]… It is sometimes asked in what mode the States could interpose in their collective character as parties to the Constitution against usurped power. It was not necessary for the object & reasoning of the resolutions & report that the mode should be pointed out. It was sufficient to shew that the authority to interpose existed, and was a resort beyond that of the Supreme Court of the U. S. or any authority derived from the Constitution [Congress and President].” James Madison – 1834 Notes on Nullification
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mjmtext:@field(DOCID+@lit(jm090163))
22 Emma: And who’s to get in their way?
Last I heard 26 states were suing over obamacare’s constitutionality.
I imagine a ruling against obamacare would stop it cold in those states, for starters. Also there is an election coming up. It might not play well in Peoria to ignore a SC ruling. The president doesn’t have the military in the sense of any oath of personal loyalty. He is CIC, but he does not have them available to do his dirty work the way that he has acorn, unions, the media or the new black panthers.
Reply to Wretchard #10 comment above ” Obama may have more goons than SCOTUS, but where will they get the money to pay for everything?”
Answer: they won’t need to. Once the election is stolen, it will be to hell with his supporters. Under the bus and into chains they will go like the rest of us as that despicable evil unAmerican Muslim thing in the White House drags our country towards One World global totalitarianism.
“In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion”.”
Oh sure, “self-referential proof.” You see this on the ‘net in scientific debates all of the time from the “woo-woo” set.
I predict the next president will make healthcare a states rights issue. Which, in my mind, is a good thing because the wheat will be separated from the chafe.
The Supremes better look out if they overturn Obamacare.
Spike Lee will publish their addresses and the New Black Panther Party, after issuing a Wanted, Dead, or Alive decree, may take action against them. And, our DOJ, lead by Eric Holder, will overlook anything the NBPP did or will do. That’s Eric’s method of dealing with the criminal element, as long as they’re black.
Is this a real threat and made by this administration? We know they don’t hold our constitution in regard.
Ari Tai, you hit the nail on the head on message #32. It is not just the SCOTUS who do not have legions under their personal command, NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE IN THE US GOVERNMENT! The oaths we take in public service are to the Constitution, not to an office, and especially not to an individual.
Orders must be constitutional before they can be enforced. It seems that both Congress and the President were intent on legislating something so odious that they couldn’t even reveal what it was before the vote.
I hope we never see such behavior again in our lifetime. Whether they are liberal or conservative, I expect leaders to adhere to their oath of office. It disgusts me that there are people elected to Congress and the Executive office who are so bereft of understanding our constitution that they actually tried to pull this stunt on the citizens of this country.
An Préachán 33: “… Obama … [is] beating Rombo SpongeBob by double digits now (though that might not mean too much, really, I suspect it does mean more than I care to think).”
I attended a talk last night in which the speaker claimed that Democratic operatives are setting up a third party aimed at moderates designed to split the Republican vote. With Ross Perot in the race Clinton won with only 42%. I don’t see how you get much more ‘moderate’ than Romney, but that doesn’t matter so much once the Democratic Mendacity Machine (TM) goes into high gear.
SCOTUS has been intimidated before. Roosevelt did it in the mid-30′s over several issues. Prior to 1936, unions had been kept in check by them being declared monolopies in restraint of trade. Roosevelt tried to pack the court and in 1937 the COURT ruled in favor of special treatment of unions and all the big industry in the country went under to communism in about 5 yrs. Ford was the last to succumb and they almost had a war at the River Rouge plant.
It has been done before but not by a half breed Kenynan goat herd with children of the 60′s and Chicago thugs for advisors.
“11. Roughcoat
Peggy Noonan now believes that “Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.”
Thank God for pundits.”
I’m still waiting for the apology from Noonan to all of us dumb paleo- and neo-cons who weren’t smart like, well, Peggy Noonan, and who didn’t see how cool and smart and centrist Barak Obama was. Turns out the Smart Beltway ‘Conservatives’ were wrong, and us knuckle-dragging social conservatives were right. She might even admit it some day…
I remember Archibald Cox writing in the mid-80s about the Watergate Affair concerning the SCOTUS decision to demand Nixon give up the tapes. Cox wondered how SCOTUS could enforce its decision and speculated on what would happen if push came to shove given the presence of Marine guards and the Secret Service. Well Nixon caved, in large part due to deference to the court system and the rule of law.
I also seem to remember a congressional Democrat from California, I want to say Boxer or Pelosi, saying that SOCTUS decisions were the equivalent of the word of God or such. However I believe that was in reference to Roe v. Wade
Also keep in mind that it was a Democrat, FDR, who tried to pack the court in the mid-30s. An act that led to the New Deal decisions that unmoored SCOUTS from limited government.
The court system little real power as the enforcement mechanisms ultimately rely on the executive branch and funds from the legislative. Their only real power comes the respect we give to a country of laws, not men. That concept has been hollowed out as first evidenced by the Bork nomination in 1986. Note that Kennedy, the SCOTUS swing vote, holds the seat that would have been Bork’s and Obamacare’s future if any is probably in his hands (Don’t tell me that Kennedy/NOW/NARAL-led smear campaign in 1986 hasn’t paid huge dividends.)
The fact that only now with Obamacare’s future in serious doubt in the court system is its constitutionality, let alone that it was passed on partisan votes, is being addressed. All of clatter from Matthews, Blumenthal, et. al., regarding surprise at the law’s constitutionality has merely shown how we have shrunk in terms of our civics.
Senator Blumenthal should be reminded that there are no free words for those who hold high political office; comments have effects. To issue veiled threats at a co-equal branch of government for merely executing its constitutional function is to weaken the guardrails of our political system and endanger us all. Such comments also bring to mind what Chesterton remarked about politicians
Well, the Dems have all gone Jacksonian!
In 1832 the Supreme Court decided in Worcester v. Georgia that a Georgia law that prohibited entry onto Indian lands without a state-issued license was unconstitutional.
President Andrew Jackson opposed the Court’s ruling. In response, he is supposed to have said, “Justice Marshall has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
Commentators on all sides are saying the last three days were disaster for the Obama administration during the Supreme Court’s hearing on Obamacare. Suddenly, Democrats are against judicial review! Suddenly, the justices just don’t know their place! Suddenly, the very reputation of the Supreme Court itself is at risk! Oh, the humanity!
But of course, Roe v. Wade – well, that was just judicial common sense and Constitutional centrism, eh?
This ship of fools does not scare me at all. When people tell you what their plans are–what is there to fear.
The ones who who really scare the bejesus out of me are Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, and all the rest of the RINOs who have platforms to
spout their “lets get along” message. There comes a time when there is no
middle and we had better know what we believe and be willing to die if necessary.
There used to be time to consider different sides and time for questions,
BUT NO MORE1!
Blessings to all.
Rita
Sadly, some justices will vote to uphold Obamacare. How many justices are aware that the power grab represented by the ACA could lead to the effective demise of our system of checks and balances, and this probably also means making the Supremes irrelevant? Obama and his minions just didn’t have the power to pull it off this time around. But keep in mind that the Bamster intends to become more “flexible” in his second term.
W @ 10: No money?? What money?? We havent had a budget going on three years. we don’ need no stinkin money.
I see where the regime is tired of waiting on the Congress to fix No Child Left and is doing it thru regulation. Which is unsurprising given their habit of saying “the Secretary shall…….” (do whatever the secretary wants).
Stalin may have asked Churchill, “How many divisions does the Pope have?”, but the question that will not be answered until November is, “How much divisiveness does the Pup have?”
> Scalia asked during arguments if they expected him to go through
> all 2700 pages of ObamaCare to find out what should stand as severable?
That would be walking into a trap. I expect the Obama administration to respond to a strike-down of Obamacare with full retaliation against the health care industry. They are going to do everything in their power to induce collapse of the entire health care system, from drug companies to hospitals to insurance companies. Then they will blame the Republicans and Supreme Court for the resulting chaos and campaign on that issue — that they need both the Presidency and both houses of Congress put back in Democratic hands in order to straighten out the mess that the Supreme Court has caused.
If the Supreme Court tries to selectively tease out the unconstitutional mandate and leave the rest of the bill intact, they will be playing right into Obama’s hands. From that moment on, every failure of Obamacare will be not because of the intrinsic flaws of the bill, but will be blamed on the “meddling” of the Supreme Court. I hope that the justices are smart enough to figure this out and throw out the entire bill cleanly.
“It might not play well in Peoria to ignore a SC ruling. ”
It would also, very likely, result in an impeachment motion being introduced, one which would be supported by a meaningful number of patriotic Democrat Congressmen.
That would be a CHANGE. Well….. one can always HOPE.
Turned out that the Pope had quite a few legions after all. Lech Walesa attributed John Paul II and the church, not to mention his own faith, with being a major contributor to the fall of the Soviet Union.
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=34830
jms 60: “I expect the Obama administration to respond to a strike-down of Obamacare with full retaliation against the health care industry. They are going to do everything in their power to induce collapse of the entire health care system, from drug companies to hospitals to insurance companies. Then they will blame the Republicans and Supreme Court for the resulting chaos and campaign on that issue — that they need both the Presidency and both houses of Congress put back in Democratic hands in order to straighten out the mess…”
That would be like a fire department (which didn’t receive the funding it wanted due to Republican opposition) starting fires in people’s homes and businesses in order to blame the Republicans for limited funding, and continuing to start new fires until Congress was put back in Democratic hands in order to straighten out the mess. Doesn’t that sound like the Mafia in control of both the fire department (a metaphor here for federal government) and the Democratic Party?
Okay, maybe I’m still in paranoid mode but let me float a couple of ruminations.
1. Whether planned or a happy accident could the Trayvon Martin responses be a warning to uncooperative Supremes that they can be targeted too?
2. The Venerable Mead writes “Obamacare was supposed to be the capstone in the arch of a new progressive era. The Dems were going to show us all that government really does work” and then proceeds to list all the reasons it can’t work.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/29/the-health-care-disaster-and-the-miseries-of-blue/
Maybe like economic policy in Oceania it’s not supposed to work? Perhaps it’s actual purpose is to attract the support of the true believers/useful idiots and provide cover for increasing control.
Several posts mention Federal office holders don’t swear allegiance to an individual or ideology only to uphold the Constitution. Well, that only works if the person taking the oath means it.
I knew the “Obamacare is too big to fail” argument was coming. And if power is based on credibility, the Senator should be concerned about his own branch of government.
@60 jms- What Comrade Obama can and I believe will do more effectively is unleash Hell on the 26 states that opposed him. I know that were I equipped with a couple of good government accountants and a couple of decent auditors I could put ANYONE who manages public funds in jail. Comrade Obama has the whole alphabet soup of the federal government to unleash on “erring” states. I’ve seen how a state government can be paralyzed by seeing elected and appointed officials perp-walked by the FBI; Sarah Palin’s entire insane agenda of windfall profits taxes and half a billion dollars to a Canadian vaporware gas line was passed because the Republicans in Alaska were scared to be seen with one another and terrified of doing anything that might look like they were acting in the interest of the oil industry. It only takes a very small federal presence to cripple a state government. One of the great fears the Southern states had of the incoming Lincoln Administration was that since he was elected with no Southern support, he wouldn’t have to respect the wishes of Southern states with regard to his appointments in those states, and that was in the days when the only federal employees in a state were some customs employees, maybe a federal marshall, some Post Office employees and any military establishment that might be in the state. Today, the federal government is almost like an occupying army in most states, especially in The West. The whole operation that crippled the Alaska Legislature in ’07 and ’08, took out half a dozen sitting legislators, and destroyed one of the most powerful members of the US Senate involved just a few rogue holdover Democrat US Attorneys and a couple of local FBI agents.
“What would the administration say if someone argued that the President’s authority was based on “credibility” rather than his legal power as chief executive?” As we saw with J Carter a lack of credibility makes the President impotent. What authority does B Obama have with out friends and would-be enemies? Lincoln acted with impunity to the Supreme Court that had issued the Dred – Scot decision. Credibility does matter, Obama is lacking there in.
This is Vietnam Veteran Blumenthal? That fraud? Shunning is so underutilized these days.
The States don’t have a chance against Moscow – I mean Washington, D.C. – unless they act in concert – just as Thomas Jefferson said (below) and James Madison said above @44. The States acting in concert can bring their law-making and law enforcement powers to bear against un-Constitutional national power (as opposed to Constitutional national power). The power of multiple States – acting in concert – is the only power which can resist Rome – I mean Washington, D. C.
“Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes – delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force… that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers…” Thomas Jefferson – 1798 Kentucky Resolution
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/docs/bldockyres.htm
I think that there is little doubt that the mandate that all purchase health insurance is constitutionally infirm. However, for a lot of mostly insider baseball reasons, I’m really skeptical that the Court is going to touch this bill. I’m sure that, institutionally, the justices would like to avoid it.
If the Court kills the mandate, there’s simply no practical way to salvage the rest of the legislation. The thing becomes a massive gas-guzzler with a pea-sized fuel tank. The requirements that the bill imposes on insurance providers will likely bankrupt the industry – the thing becomes totally impossible to pay for. In a logical world, the Court would have to kill the whole act, and I really don’t think they want to do that.
Politically, such an event would probably destroy Obama — what has he done but the stimulus that hasn’t worked and this albatross of a health care law? On a personal basis, this will be social disaster for the justices who procure it, forever. The academic and political left will never, ever forgive the justices for this, and these people live and work in a political town. Explaining one’s position to wives and family could prove difficult.
If the Justices can dodge this in any way, or find a way to hold that it’s acceptable in a non-precedent setting, one-off kind of way, they will probably jump at the chance. It’s simply too soon after Gore v. Bush for this kind of case. On the other hand, if the legislation continues to be unpopular that is some cover for them.
The attempts of the losers to bargain might prove interesting. Assuming the position is 5-4 to set aside the mandate, if not the entire piece of legislation, what are the Court’s liberals likely to do. If the conservatives have the majority, one liberal in their corner would be a huge, huge institutional boon in terms of credibility. I wonder if there’s room for a bargain? The Lefties seem to think that invalidating the mandate only, as opposed to striking the whole bill, would eventually lead to single payer health care, if only because the continued existence of the bill absent the means to pay for it would wreck private insurance.
“Credibility does matter, Obama is lacking there in.”
Credibility is a political issue. The Obomination is only lacking in your opinion. And mine. That is two, a number which is balanced by any 2 members of the New Black Panthers party. In November we will all vote, whic will settle the issue of credibility at least.
This should be a slam dunk election for anybody but Obama. However, the GOP establishment has selected the one candidate that can lose. That is because they are out of touch with American society.
This administration trafficks in logical fallacy and have perfected the art. They have no honest bone in any of their bodies and don’t care. It’s the Chicago Way writ large-lying, bribery, thuggery, cheating, intimidation, etc. It’s “in your face” blatant and the more the press ignores and tolerates it, the bolder and more reckless this street gang becomes. To go to Oklahoma and trumpet as personal major energy triumph a useless section of pipeline he had no part in approving and no ability to stop, as a personal major energy triumph is beyond arrogance-it’s pathological. This is a truly sick man at the controls.
Desperate people do desperate things. The next 7 months will be the ugliest in this nation’s history, the most dangerous and the most important. We are sitting on a powderkeg of racial, economic and class warfare-frightening but fascinating.
After Gingrich took his turn threatening the Supreme Court it is hardly surprising some Democrat would step up to threaten them.
Perhaps it will help those who cheered on Gingrich understand why his attacks were so disturbing.
Speaking of credibility, Ryan just lost a good bit of it. Here’s what he had to say in endorsing Romney, “He has the principles, the integrity, the courage and the tenacity to get the country back on track.”
I have a new acronym for Ryan and his ilk – AURORA. As in, “He may not be a RINO, but he’s definitely AURORA.”
A_nother U_nserious R_epublican O_ffering R_idiculous A_ssurances.
What a shame. He (Ryan) could have been a real contender. Not only did he sit it out, he’s now shilling for a RINO.
To all who think the Democrat Party is not the carbon copy of the old Soviet Communist Party party, better pay close attention what Sen Blumenthal said. “The court commands no armies, it has no money”. Meaning we the benevolent totalitarian government have all the power (money and arms) and we don’t care what you ignoramus commoners think or want.
Weak up America next election could your last.
To all who think the Democrat Party is not the carbon copy of the old Soviet Communist Party party, better pay close attention what Sen Blumenthal said. “The court commands no armies, it has no money”. Meaning we the benevolent totalitarian government have all the power (money and arms) and we don’t care what you ignoramus commoners think or want.
Weak up America next election could be your last.
In simple terms, the President and his administration does have a plan either way this goes down and neither of them are going to be good for us. His people are ready and waiting to take care of it.
So the Obama administration will protest the SCOTUS decision by burning down their house, their neighborhood and ours. This action tugs at my memory for some reason, burning your own house in protest.
Why does this administration threaten American’s and American friends and allies so much?
Is this Chicago politics?
though it could be months until we know how each jurist voted and why, the SCOTUS votes today. I interpreted the TPM article and others like it as indirect and thinly-veiled attempts to sway whichever of the justices might be swayable. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120330/D9TQLQDO0.html
If the Supreme Court says that Obamacare is ok and is going to stand, then they are saying Communism is ok, and they may as well burn their robes and find another job.
As I have no doubt shown by my uneducated pronouncements and working class roots; I am no constitutional scholar, but isn’t Blumenthal’s implied threat
seditious? They have no army and control no purse strings…..what?
The Supreme Court and the judicial branch in general are gatekeepers . They guard the constitutional basis of our republic from the ideological termites that would eat out its fiber. This smells like the 1850′s all over again.
Only an arrogant idiot like Blumenthal would make such an unvarnished, outright threat to the SCOTUS. But then the boobs in office right now have concept of the real idea behind the constitution nor do they care to.
I shudder whenever I hear a person who actually practiced law utter such an idiotic statement. And to think that he was once an Attourney General in Connecticut. No wonder that state is all screwed up. It bad enough when that illegical and obviously ignorant Pelosi says something. But what the hell can you expect from a Democratic party where these idiots seem to gather. They are one of the reasons I became a conservative after over 50 years as a Democrat.
Short&Sweet: Blumental in making such a ridiculous state about SCOTUS damages only himself.
…nevermind the damage to America if Obamacare survives.
I know that this is an obvious point but imagine if a Republican legislator said something like that about, well just pick a Supreme Court decision. The elite media would be marching on that poor guys house with pitchforks, torches and axes. Sen. Blumenthal ((D)Conn.) makes such a statement and it’s a case of “Yawn – Back to business as usual.”
Actually, the Supreme Court lost much of it’s luster when it spewed forth the fiction that the Constitution is a “living document” which dynamically changes based on circumstances. The Constitution is a contract federal between the people, with the states acting as the peoples agents to establish a clearly defined and limited central government. It was only approved after the Bill of Rights (first 10 Amendments which specifically limited the extent and reach of that central governmants powers) was added. Does anyone seriously believe that the Founders were so stupid that they would sign a contract where the entity limited by the contract could modify it at will to enhance its power. Would any sane person today be so stupid as to sign a contract in which the contractual constraint placed upon the other party could simply be waived based on an interpretation completely as odds with the agreemenr reached?
I’d suggest that a Supreme Court which determines to vest unlimited scope and power in the central government loses any credibility and is as little entitled to the peoples respect and deference as is the totalitarian government to which it accedes.
I used to consider myself an American first but since Obama I have come to see myself as belonging to my home state more than to the nation.
I fully understand States rights now.
Subotai @ 13 – How many divisions???
Who needs mere divisions when you have armies armed with pitchforks and torches???
Now how does one raise armies?
CHU LIED, DOLPHINS DIED!
Did you notice that Doc Hastings has slowed the delivery of subpoenas by two weeks in anticipation that the Departments involved may come around and deliver the goods? All it took for Climategate to bring down AGW was leaked emails via a Russian server.
Do you think the career bureaucrats in the executive branch want the pitchfork and torch crowd to dissolve their whole Department (e.g. Energy, Education etc) because of the political appointees? (The Republican House controls the purse strings) Might one spill the beans in an attempt to save his sinecure? Presidents come and go, the desire for security by government bureaucrats is eternal.
Ed Markey is bleating again, just as he did to protect Greg Jaczko of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but bringing in the Coast Guard Admirals in charge of the containment of the oil, Thad Allen, James Watson & Mary Landry to testify would bring the issue to a boil.
And it was Markey who covered for Halliburton by promoting the “insufficient number of centralizers” meme, the “annular flow” not failure of cement in the shoe track meme, in other words the BS! And because of all that blather by Markey on CNN
DOLPHINS DIED! SEA BIRDS WERE COVERED IN OIL! THE GULF COAST ECONOMY WAS WRECKED! THE OFFSHORE OIL INDUSTRY WAS SUBJECTED TO AN ILLEGAL MORATORIUM! JOBS WERE LOST. PEOPLE’S MENTAL HEALTH WAS WRECKED!
And all that to pass Cap & Trade, so as to control an even larger share of the economy, to tax and spend on cronies.
PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES ANYONE?
Yep, that’s what I understand as well. Not sure if there was an actual plan, but the German Army at the very least felt perfectly competent to handle the change. In fact, the big advantage the old Prussian army generally had was the flexibility and initiative of the middle ranks.
But the problem wasn’t so much that the plan couldn’t be changed. I think it was more that Moltke the Lesser had become so attached to the intricately detailed mobilization plan, which had train timetables scheduled within two minutes across all of Germany and Belgium, where certain towns had to be captured on schedule so the trains could go through on time. I get the feeling that he thought of the mobilization plan as some sort of lifes-work masterpiece and couldn’t bear the thought of it being spoiled by an interrpution.
There were many failsafes that failed leading up to the carnage of WWI. But I’m convinced the final domino that fell was one man’s pride in a bureaucrat’s delight and his unwillingness to see his “signature accomplishment” ruined.
Typical Leftwinger nonsense , Blumenthal shows just how far Democrats have their heads shoved up a body cavity that can’t be mentioned in polite company .
blumental was the attourney general for the state of Connecticut before he was elected to the senate. he wanted to put the AIG exexs in prison because the bonus’ they got were not fair and were immoral. he was qustioned what Connecticut law the AIG exexs violated, he stammered, mumbbled some incohererent non answer. the show host asked him the same question, and received another mumbbled response. blumental kept smiling throughout this questioning. he is an ultimate politician, he received his smling lessons from stenny hoyer, and is a idiot.
A Democratic Senator. Lecturing the SCOTUS on credibility.
Right.
Got it.
Up next, various porn stars lecturing us on chastity.
Stay tuned!
As more a tyranny tramples on the law, so more the peasants realize they have nothing to lose by turning on their masters.
Under the Nazi AND Soviet Russian and Chinese Communist governments, tens millions of people deemed undesirable by the government were rounded up, transported to camps, then marched to mass graves to be shot. Much of the time, scant platoons of armed guards controlled thousands of prisoners. Such numbers could have overwhelmed the guards. You can accuse them of cowardice or passivity, but the main problem is that they simply could not wrap their minds around the sheer fact that a government could decide to murder a major fraction of its own population, for whatever reasons.
Well, we need to remember one of the most important facts of the 20th century: more people were murdered by their own governments – shot, hung, stoned, burned, beheaded, starved, denied shelter and left to die of cold and disease – than all the deaths caused by warfare between sovereign nations.
This was after those governments required citizens to register their firearms, or just made individual ownership of firearms illegal, then confiscated them.
Art Chance, you are one pretty smart fellow with your comments in post 66. It is rumored that the DOJ will bring tax fraud charges against Nikki Haley, the governor of my home state South Carolina.
I’m surprised more conservatives aren’t seeing the third act here. If the Court rules against Obamacare, Obama will defy the ruling. Where else have we been headed under this man but to the act of cataclysmic division and Constitutional crisis? He will take the issue straight to the November elections. By framing the ruling as an act of cruel, anti-social extremism by hard-right judicial activists, he will divide the nation, foment his base and aduaciously dare the GOP to challenge him. He is safe to assume they will blink.
10. wretchard—
Thank you for saying ”centenary” (noun) instead of ”centennial” (adjective). I salute you.
“Do you think the career bureaucrats in the executive branch want the pitchfork and torch crowd to dissolve their whole Department (e.g. Energy, Education etc) because of the political appointees? (The Republican House controls the purse strings) Might one spill the beans in an attempt to save his sinecure? Presidents come and go, the desire for security by government bureaucrats is eternal.”
No way! Those career bureaucrats know that the Democrats will hunt them down and shoot them like a rabid dog in the road – and they’ll get away with it because in the minds of the media, Democrats are good people and since they’re good people, they don’t do bad things. Career bureaucrats have been around long enough to have careers because they know that there is a hit list any time a Democrat takes office and that hit list does not respect stuff like merit system laws. Democrats go down to the clerks and janitors if that person has gotten crossways with a Democrat. They know that unions won’t protect anybody who’s gotten crossways with a Democrat. ALJs and appointed boards will ALWAYS side with the Government, and if you go to court, the government has thousands of lawyers who get paid every two weeks whether they do anything or not, so they might as well be made to do something and grind you to dust under the discovery requests and motion practice. Oh, and especially if you live in a Capital City, no lawyer will take your case because they, too, want the contract work that the government throws around to reward its friends and punish its enemies.
And if those aren’t enough reasons, career bureaucrats also know that Republicans are unlikely to do a thing for them. The greatest sin you can commit in the eyes of most Republican elected and appointed officials is to allow yourself to become tainted by controversy. It doesn’t matter if you were on the side of the Angels, if controversy attached to you, Republicans avoid you like the plague. The only jobs Republicans can give you if you get fired by the Democrats is maybe a legislative staffer, or some crumbs for some kind of contract for them; the Democrats have a whole shadow government, and Democrats that get embroiled in scandal or get fired by Repulicans, in the rare event that actually happens below the very top level, never misses a day’s pay; they just go to work for a union, a front group, some “public interest” law firm, or the like.
So no, those career bureaucrats are pretty confident that no Republican is going to have the balls to shut down a significant federal agency and they are very confident that the Democrats will fire them in a heartbeat if they leak anything, and they’re not going to say a word except under subpoena and even then, it better be somebody who actually knows how to question a hostile witness, not some legislator/congressman who doesn’t know the difference between a speech and a question.
Even though the SCOTUS ruling may (that means maybe) go in our favor — this time, I still think we need to take a longer look at judicial review. It is, for one thing, not in the Constitution. It has a long stretch of precedent, which in effect makes it constitutional (in the sense that parties to a contract can eventually create a contract by acting as if there’s a contract).
But I don’t like how judicial review has been misused. It has created a rolling constitutional convention run by a judicial oligopoly. I don’t buy it.
I would propose something more formal and procedural — that is, the SCOTUS can make a “finding” of unconstitutionality. A vote is then taken of the states (I was thinking governor’s). If, say, 60% of the states say yes, then the SCOTUS “finding” is upheld. I’m not sure on the percentages, whether state legislatures should vote, etc. But I do think the states need to act as a check on the Supreme Court, in a similar way that they can when the amend the constitution.
My two cents.
My buddy Tom got me thinking: people in this thread are talking about the Chicago way, but maybe they’ll take a more subtle approach. What is the likelihood that the administration will prevail by more good ol’, ordinary, quiet blackmail?
Who wants to bet the rent that none of the court’s five (relatively) conservative justices have done something of which they’re deeply ashamed?
Assuming at least one has, what are the odds that some government department (the FBI, perhaps) has proof?
If so, what are the odds that the information is, or will find itself shortly, in the hands of the Administration?
If so, what are the odds that a nice quiet conversation with the relevant justice will take place?
And if so, what are the odds that the justice will cooperate rather than have this information released to a compliant news media?
My own guess is that, if the Administration was two or three votes away from victory, they’d lose this. But only one vote? Surely there’s an arm somewhere in that Court that can be twisted.
But things would really get interesting if whatever justice was being picked on went public with said intimidation.
Regarding the luster or legitimacy of the Supreme Court…
We’ve found ourselves in a situation where for a generation or two now the USSC has become polarized with a great many 5-4 decisions on very important issues. Typically there has been a 4 justice liberal block, a 4 justice conservative block, and 1 swing vote. 1 man, unelected, serving for life, who makes the call on matters as important as whether the government can take your property and sell it to someone else, or force you to buy a product from a monopolist of its choice. Maybe we should dress him up in a Latin American Generalissimo’s uniform and give him Kaddafy’s old bikini bodyguard team.
If the justices really cared about the luster of their institution, the liberal block would realize Obamacare is outside the power of the Federal government, unwanted by a large majority of the population, and incompetently implemented by the Obama administration to boot. Not to mention it’s financially unworkable and will cause widespread economic damage and undermine the public’s faith in the Federal government. In short, there’s no good reason to keep it beyond stroking the political ambitions of a few people, and indulging the social engineering fetishes of a few more. If they cared about their institution, about the USSC and the federal government it is a part of, they’d throw in with the conservatives and vote 9-0 to throw Obamacare out the window.
Even if they’re true believers in the social manipulation underlying Obamacare, if they cared about their institution they’d realize this was a mistake, one part overreach, one part bungling, one part bad timing, and use the power of their institution to fix the mistake.
But alinkyites who worm their way into venerable institutions usually don’t care about the institution. Politics is everything to them. They’ll crash and burn rather than pull back and regroup.
Maybe that’s the final fatal flaw in the alinsky/comintern model, the model of slowly subverting an institution from within, patiently making the Long March. In the begining, because there is so far to go and the “enemy” is so strong, and there are relatively few steps behind them, they are careful and willing to retreat when needed. But near the end, when they think only one or two more steps will put final victory within their grasp, when there are many, many steps behind them for which either they themselves have paid a dear price, or which were taken by long-gone promethian giants whose feats the younger folks don’t think they could equal, they’re unable to step back, unable to retrace a mistaken path. They can’t help but dash themselves and the institutions they’ve corrupted to pieces on the shores of their fantasy utopia.
Then again, maybe they somehow know themselves better than we give them credit. Lefitst are parasites, not producers. Any institution they take over immediately begins to atrophe had has a limited life span ahead of it. The Long March can only be patient as long as the productive “enemy” is in control. Once the leftits take charge, the clock is ticking and the power they have seized is already draining out of their hands.
I’m willing to bet serious money that most of the commenters here were ready to quote Stalin on the Pope even before they got to that part in Wretchard’s post. I know I was.
Others beat me to it on the Jackson SCOTUS quote on Trail of Tears.
I see some troll at #36 has gotten the irony of the current SCOTUS case completely backwards. It is the liberal establishment that is now up in arms over the “too-great power” of SCOTUS! It is Democrats and leftist pundits who are screaming about the rightful place of Congress vis-avis the Supreme Court. Mendacity of the highest order.
Incidentally, Josh at #8: I don’t believe that the powers granted to SCOTUS in the original Constitution were as great as they were to become after Marbury vs. Madison. More irony: the protesting liberal/left establishment is pining for an originalist version of the enumerated powers, but is too ignorant to realize that it is doing so.
One of the things I love about this is that liberals still think they are right and that they just have a messaging problem (e.g., the criticism of Verilli). Dick Morris pointed out that the Democratic Party is made up of a coalition of permanently aggrieved special interest groups; they don’t have any real core principles (hence their frequent hypocrisy). Basically, the Democratic Party is a marketing organization. Their approach to issues is typically to just change the language: don’t use “Muslim terrorist”; war on terror is “overseas contingency operation”; war in Libya is “kinetic military action”; the individual mandate is now “personal responsibility mandate”; the contraception “accommodation” was just a repackaging of the original policy; etc. So, of course, when the Dems lose, they see it as a messaging problem, because messaging is what they do.
This cartoon http://nationaljuggernaut.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-cartoon-seemed-far-fetched-in-1948.html is from 1948. It’s about nine and a half minutes long but well worth it. Who says there is nothing new under the sun? It is as true today as it was back then. The Ism salesman sure does look familiar.
Blumenthal says the SCOTUS “depends for its power on its credibility.”
No it doesn’t.
It depends for its power on the fact that every federal official and every member of the armed forces takes a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, including dopes like Blumenthal.
“The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority…” Article III, Section 2
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii#section2
I beleive the Constitution provides power to the Supreme Court to strike down what it considers to be un-Constitutional Federal Legislation or un-Constitutional Executive orders/regulations. The problem is this: Who strikes down un-Constitutional Supreme Court Decisions? Answer: Amend the Constitution giving Congress 2/3 override over the Supreme Court – just as Congress has 2/3 override over Presidential Vetoes.
When all else fails, who overrides un-Constitutional Federal Law of any type (Congressional Federal Law, Supreme Court Decisions, Executive Orders, Executive Regulations)? Answer: The States acting in concert.
@98. Art Chance
“…the government has thousands of lawyers who get paid every two weeks whether they do anything or not, so they might as well be made to do something and grind you to dust under the discovery requests and motion practice.”
And right there is the crux of very many life destroying problems. It isn’t the verdict of guilt that is the punsishment, it’t the process.
53. DPeterson @ 53 said:
“I’m still waiting for the apology from Noonan to all of us dumb paleo- and neo-cons who weren’t smart like, well, Peggy Noonan, and who didn’t see how cool and smart and centrist Barak Obama was. Turns out the Smart Beltway ‘Conservatives’ were wrong, and us knuckle-dragging social conservatives were right.”
Peggy Noonan shot all of her credibility when she went all in for Obama. How could someone with her political experience have been seduced by a socialist demagogue as obvious as Obama?
Noonan maybe a skilled speech writer but she lacks common sense (she suffers from MSM group think).
As I have said more than once before, Obama’s popularity scales with public perception about the economy. If Bernanke and the PPT can continue to pump the stock market with freshly printed fiat money then the messiah will be reelected. The hard truth is that we’re all in a canoe that is about to be sucked over a waterfall. If our democracy is to survive then we must have a competent president in charge (NOT Obama!).
Blum… is one to talk about cred. 60 million to his law firm for the tobacco settlement, oh, and he was in VN, oh wait he wasn’t. However, those super PC’s of CT voted him in. They thought he needed an opportunity to show the whole US his impeccable cred.
Coming from a former Attorney General of Connecticut and a former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal (when that actually meant something,) this is as slimy and sleazy a statement as I can imagine from such a source. I rarely say this about anyone, but here goes: Senator Blumenthal should be ashamed of himself. Big time.
61. Hangtown Bob
“It would also, very likely, result in an impeachment motion being introduced, one which would be supported by a meaningful number of patriotic Democrat Congressmen.”
Congressional Democrats are loyal only to the Party and nothing else.
I’m half way into the book, “In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to Six Cold War Presidents” by Anatoly Dobrynnin. I was stuck by a passage he wrote about meeting LBJ right before his “big announcment” in 1968 which mentioned his muttering, “I want to do something for the American people instead of the (democrat) party.”
To Dobrynnin it probably meant nothing, but to me it was revealing.
Art Chance @ 98 – I guess you haven’t heard about the farmers who are pissed at the EPA for deciding that farming puts too many particulates into the air (read “particulates” as dust). Farmers have tractors (and pitchforks and torches). They grow the food. Ever seen a Democrat who could feed the masses from a single loaf of bread?
There is a very wide gap between the doers and the talkers. And even in Washington, the bureaucratic mopes may begin to see the light and have a “come to Jesus moment”. Forget waiting for the abortion induced demographic shift to change the balance of terror. Starvation works in a matter of days. Where would the populations of blue cities be if the trucks and trains bringing in food simply quit arriving?
Abolish the EPA or STARVE has a certain “ring of truth” doesn’t it?
As to questioning a hostile witness? Let me at them!
Let’s talk about the number of centralizers http://tinyurl.com/87yron8
Ever seen a Democrat who could feed the masses from a single loaf of bread?
According to the 2008 narrative the current occupant of the White House has those capabilities. We’re still waiting . . . .
Both ironic and coincidental that one Senator Barack Obama and the millions who sang his praises have experienced the old cliche of “what goes around, comes around” once their god man made President.
The world sang Obama’s praises, immediately awarding him a Nobel Peace Prize. Barack Obama would restore order, his greatness magnified by his football stadiums of adoring fans, Barack standing in front of Styrofoam columns resembling a temple.
———–
George Bush was chastised as inept in New Orleans. But most Louisianians agree the BP disaster was even more poorly handled than Katrina and will vote accordingly.
George Bush had wasted trillions on an unnecessary war and indebted us. Barack Obama tripled down on debt, after promising to halve the deficit and has nothing but more unemployment and misery to show for it.
George Bush was accused of torture and gulags at GITMO. Obama orders more predatory drone strikes and builds a soccer field for GITMO’s guests after promising his first act as President would be to close GITMO.
George Bush was accused of blood for oil. Now crude oil prices are heading even higher under Barack Obama, whose prayers to Gaia and green energy have gone unanswered, his prized companies heading toward bankruptcy, and no alternative after billions spent searching.
Barack Obama insults the Conservative justices of the SCOTUS during a State of the Union Address. Now Obama’s credibility may lie in the very hands of those he insulted.
Barack Obama was going to restore the reputation of the U.S. globally, more specifically in the Middle East, with the dynamic nature of personality and friendly dialogue. And yet, just the opposite has happened in addition to offending our only real ally Israel.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. ~ Proverbs 16:18
The only question that remains are voting Americans smart enough to understand its meaning?
This turd POTUS is out of control. Completely.
I’m up for free health care as much as anyone, but how then do the doctors get paid. Certainly, all the tax dollars are committed already, and the trillion dollar debt man can’t get anymore. Keep printing it? How long can Obummer keep that up? Without money, or a willing mandate, how do these idiots pay for it? That is the question. Saying their “just gonna” does not make any sense. If wishes were horses, . . . etc.
Kermudjin @103: Basically, the Democratic Party is a marketing organization.
Not quite. The Democratic Party is the world’s largest crime syndicate, dwarfing any that has come before. Really, there is no other description for them. As a very sophisticated crime syndicate, of course they have active, 24x7x365 PR efforts, for which they do need an effective marketing strategy. They are so effective at this that it begins when you are born and continues until some time after you are dead.
I read it somewhere here in the PJ’s and took note. Perhaps it would aid Blumenthal to understand…
“The Constitution subordinates efficiency to guarantee liberty.”
Our military is dominated by people who don’t respect Obama, who see him hunched over in the command room when Osama was being taken out by incredibly brave men, with no evidence of courage in Obama’s face, while crouched in his bunker. How do you respect that? Obama is not the type to lead the US military in any fight for anything, leastwise on these shores, and they would not follow him anywhere. More likely slap him into a cell in Leavenworth and then surround the Congress and not let anyone leave til they do their duty or until Nov. 7 arrives and the American people do their duty. Nice image. Won’t happen. Won’t need to happen after the right words are said into the right ears. We have a sissy boy as Commander in Chief. At least that’s what I’m banking on.
Four more years of Obama and the libs will be 6-3 and a liberal rubber stamp. This is important people but you know that.
Be prepared America! We HAVE PUT OVER U.S., NOT ONLY THE “FORBIDDEN FOREIGNER” OVER U.S. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR 6,000 YEAR HISTORY, BUT ALSO THE “SELF-PROFESSED” ANTI-CHRIST(MARXIST) OF REVELATION, CHAPTER 11! P.S. WELCOME TO ADAM’S WORLD!!! WATCH, especially starting SEPTEMBER 16, 2012 ON THE ANNUAL ISRAELITE FEAST OF TRUMPETS(WAR)! WATCH!i.e. THE TWO-WITNESSES OF REVELATION, CHAPTER 11. AGAIN, WATCH!
@112 – Reading comprehension is a good skill that you might try to cultivate. The issue is whether career bureaucrats might start dropping a dime on the Obamunists’ bad acts; they won’t. Now, if you can yell “Storm the Barricades” and get enough people to follow you and let the Potomac be your Rubicon, well, go for it and let me know how it turns out. It is waay too far into the “Idol” season to miss an episode for a little revolution.
I am ashamed to say Blumenthal is my representative. He was a very impartial and independent Attorney General in CT. But now I guess he has gotten into steps with his royal majesty.
tex Taylor @ 114 – You seem to be aware of at least some of the details of the BP Macondo 252. Remember we had to stop the top kill for fear of an “underground blowout”? Remember Chevron throwing BP to the regulators over their choice of well design, BP used a “long string” and Chevron always uses a “liner and tieback”?
Oooops! Chevron seems to have had an “underground blowout” on their Sedco 706 well off Brazil http://tinyurl.com/7guz5tp And BP’s Macondo 252 did not have an underground blowout. So it seems their competitors threw BP under the bus so as to avoid the Revenge of the Democrats.
But call it Karma or “what goes around comes around”, Chevron now has armies of Brazilian cargo cult regulators and ambulance chasers after them, even denying their executives from leaving the country. Brazil, a BANANA REPUBLIC FOR THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY!!!
Right about now I’d guess those Chevron boys are hoping for a regime change in the USA so they can DRILL BABY, DRILL! They’ve had their “come to Jesus moment!”
And Obama sent how many billions of dollars south to develop Brazilian oil so we could become their “best customer”?
I repeat
PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES ANYONE?
It is not ours to restore the power of the Constitution. It is ours to show them the wrath of America without the protections the Constitution offers them.
Let them restore it to find refuge from us.
– TL Davis
40. PTBW: “Who’s to say the military will show more loyalty to their Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States than it will to obey its Supreme Commander-in-Chief?”
I say so, 25 years of serving beside Marines, some of it in a war zone. You can sleep easy, the military is in good hands with the younger generation of Marines. I suspect Navy, Air Force and Army vets would second this.
I have lived in CT all my life and have had the (unfortunate) opportunity to see Richard Blumenthal in action. He operates in a manner very similar to Eliot Spitzer, that is through threats and intimidation. I have no doubt his statement is a threat and that if the court does not bow to his will he will do everything in his power to make the justices regret their decision. What he seems to forget is that he is in the big leagues now, and there are many people on the other side who are much smarter and tougher than he.
With what is coming at us I think the S.C. is happy to stay alive and go with BO. and call it a day.
The only problem is the people will have blood in their eye. I wouldn’t want to be on the left.
125. SpeakEasy
“You can sleep easy, the military is in good hands with the younger generation of Marines. I suspect Navy, Air Force and Army vets would second this.”
No. The Army does the heavy lifting and the Marines get the credit. You can have the PR. We are on the same team after all.
peterike @117. I stand corrected and am humbly in your debt for pointing out that the Democratic Party is not a marketing organization but rather a criminal syndicate with a marketing division
#116 Edmund Burke
I’m up for free health care as much as anyone, but how then do the doctors get paid?
Dr. Siegel has the prognosis right here:
“Increasing the number of Americans with access to health care is a laudable goal, but simply decreeing it by expanding coverage won’t work. You can make a case for the federal law mandating that emergency rooms must not turn away sick patients, but instead of providing actual medical services to the poor and needy — for instance, by building more government-run clinics or expanding the National Health Services Corp. — Obamacare just extends an easy-to-overuse insurance that doesn’t guarantee anyone access to actual care.
The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. will be 160,000 doctors short by 2025. But as overwhelming as this number is, it doesn’t take into account all the doctors who have stopped or will soon stop seeing patients who use Medicaid, Medicare, or HMOs that no longer pay us enough to cover our bills.”
Read the whole thing: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294870/doctors-patients-and-future-obamacare-marc-siegel
I should add that my primary care doc agrees with him.
Sounds like some Democrats are preparing for a Civil War. They don’t seem to respect the Constitution nor feel bound by it.
As that famous Republican and renowned burner of Democrat cities and pauperizer of Democrat elites once said,
“If war be the remedy of my enemy’s choosing, I say, give it to him,”
W. T. Sherman
As to the SCOTUS, they will vote to kill Obamacare in its entirety. They certainly have the law’s clear and deliberate lack of a severability clause as a legal technicality. More importantly, doing so will enhance their personal and institutional power. The current House will support them with the appropriations power and the next election will include the Senate. 26 states joined the suit so there’s that.
Should the liberals take it up a notch, they will find ways to restrain if not neuter the US military. Certainly, the higher officers are being selected for PC attitudes and careerism; downsizing clarifies the mind of the junior officers and NCOs.
What to watch for – Homeland Security. They are already a paramilitary force. When they have billets in the military units as “weapon auditors” or somesuch, beware.
Every political appointee also seems to have his or her armed staff – add them all together and there’s a large force of armed people in DC at the beck and call of party loyalists. Even some inspectors of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are getting guns so that Jazcko, the chairman and former Reid and Markey staffer, has his own muscle.
How many divisions does the Pope have? All of Solidarity, with many reserves.
What if Obama ignores the Supreme Court? Inform him two can play at that game. If Obama attempts to enforce a law already ruled unconstitutional, States can begin arresting abortionists and charging them with capital Murder-for-hire. When abortionists start facing the death penalty for abortion, Obama will either back down, or the Democrats in Congress would demand he be impeached, lest the Democratic party be destroyed. What’s he going to do if a governor signs a death warrant for a man convicted of abortion, and tells the Federal government, “I don’t take orders from you; I say kill him, and you can’t stop me?”
I cannot imagine Kennedy and the four conservatives being intimidated by the likes of Blumenthal. In fact, I can imagine the possibility that Blumenthal’s comment pushed Kennedy, and maybe Roberts, the other way. In the immortal response by Cheney (Bronson) when Speed (Coburn) tried to take advantage of him in “Hard Times” . . .
“Dumb.”
Wasn’t Richard Blumenthal caught lying about his military service, so why would we believe anything that comes out of his mouth about the Conservative Justices. He has no creds!!!
A concerted effort by the leftist pariah to attack and demonize the Court, don’t you just love Saul Alinsky!!!!
128. Buckeye Abroad: I meant the other services would have the same faith in their young guns as I do the young Marines. But since you want to go there, who was it that saved the Army as they were about to be overrun in Pusan? Too long ago? Okay, the Marines are supposed to breach an opening for the Army to occupy and exploit. So why are the Marines doing the Army’s job in Afghanistan? (Just like we did in Iraq)
Okay, just a little good-natured ribbing. I have no animosity toward Army Dogfaces, we Jarheads are your brothers in arms. We love the sea-going bellhops and zoomies too.
Hello! In our western days, the Irish mob tried to run the west and even Wyatt Earp couldn’t beat them! Then came the mafia and now they have been replaced by the marxist(anti-christ) government promised our women, who tend to be ‘gatherer’s” a just as our black population. Women primarily due to their biology and blacks due to both biology and choice! Just saying…
To repeat that quote from Richard Blumenthal:
“The court commands no armies, it has no money; it depends for its power on its credibility. The only reason people obey it is because it has that credibility. And the court risks grave damage if it strikes down a statute of this magnitude and importance, and stretches so dramatically and drastically to do it.”
So, Mr. Blumenthal, that must be the same thing you would have said when the Court overturned 100 years of settled law and numerous congressional statutes in Brown vs Board of Education, yes? And you would agree that Roe vs Wade must have been a mistake, since even liberal scholars agree it was the most dramatic and drastic stretch the Supreme Court ever made, directly imposing new law on the entire nation? How about it, Mr. Blumenthal?
It would have perhaps been more appropriate to quote Andrew Jackson: “(The Supreme Court) has made (it’s) decision. Now let (it) enforce it!.”
In belated answer to Uncle Joe Stalin: the Pope of Rome now has the same number of divisions as the Soviet Union.
“You can tell my son Joseph that he will meet my divisions in heaven”.
Pius XII
Obama will be meeting our divisions at the ballot box in November
Women & blacks make up about 68-74% of our voting public. Both are “gatherer’s” and just live to be given things by OTHERS. Women mostly through their female biology and blacks through both biology and “CHOICE!” WATCH!
What no one seems to have considered is that if Constitutional law is ended then there are plenty of generals who do not like Obama and might just like the title of Generalissimo just fine. By making the acts of the government legitimate the SCOTUS provides a protection against coup d’etates from the disgrunteled military. When politics becomes a blood sport then the only way to leave power is feet first. Read any text about late Republican early Imperal Rome to get an idea of what proscriptions were like. Trust me, you do NOT wat to take that route.
@119 Edmund Burke “Four more years of Obama and the libs will be 6-3 and a liberal rubber stamp. This is important people but you know that.”
As opposed to what? The kind of people Romney will appoint? It is a fallacy to think that just because he has an (R) after his name, that he will nominate Conservative Justices. He won’t. In MA, as Governor, he had 3 picks. 2 out of 3 were liberals.
Our last hope for Conservative Justices, Santorum, however less than ept he may be, is sinking in the polls, as people continue to buy into “inevitability”. Romney gets so much favorable nods from the Party, and Santorum suffers so many distortions of what he said. The money and manpower advantage is just too much to overcome, because people still get herded like sheep.
People get the kind of government they deserve. We deserve Obama and his Lite version, Romney. Obama and Obama-lite. We are so screwed. We hardline Conservatives warned you of Obama, and we have been warning you of Romney, and you never effing learn.
The SC is our last bulwark. It has failed many times in the past, but still is there for its original purpose. In 4 years, that will no longer be so. Romney will likely choose the next 4 Justices, and we will be screwed. Just screwed. People just never learn.
“Oh, but the Senate will keep him in line.” No, that’s not how it works. Senators do not drive the agenda. The President does. Romney will hear the howls from the Left and look for Justices who are acceptable enough to the Left, i.e., not Conservatives, “moderates”. Surprise, surprise, they will turn out to be more Left than Right. And the Stupid Party will rubber-stamp them. And the SC will be Left-of-Center, and the Leftists will have won. Game over. And we deserve it.
I don’t know what else I could have done to stop it. I posted at PJM every day, made good arguments. I did it so much and so well, that almost all the pro-Romney writers have blocked me. In a couple years, I will be saying I-told-you-so. Again. If I’m wrong, I’ll issue my mea culpas, but I expect that won’t be necessary in the least.
Oh, and watch him want to work with the Dems in bipartisan fashion to “replace” ObamaCare with something “workable” to “solve the problem”.
“By saying Obamacare is so self-evidently wonderful and legitimate that only someone crazy would disagree with it, Blumenthal makes you wonder why this matter is even before the Court in the first place.”
Reading that made me think of this:
“Scepticism regarding the need for immediate and massive action against carbon emissions is a sickness of societies and individuals which needs to be “treated”, according to an Oregon-based professor of “sociology and environmental studies”. Professor Kari Norgaard compares the struggle against climate scepticism to that against racism and slavery in the US South.”
Source:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/30/climate_scepticism_racism_slavery_treatment/
In other words: If you disagree with me, you must be either:
A. Evil
B. Crazy
or
C. Both
Is that attitude becoming more common these days, or is it just getting more exposure?
Blumenthal brings to mind one of Pres G.W. Bush’es most devastating comments, to the U.N., and I rather think it even inspired him.
Prior to the Iraq War Pres Bush pointed out to the U.N. that if it would not enforce its directives to misbehaving nations, then what did it have left? The obvious answer was, “Nothing. It’s the same as little kids forming a club and not letting nonmembers in their treehouse.”
So Blumenthal is saying that if the Supreme Court does not continue to promote and enable the Progressive Cause, what does it have left? And he has a point, from his standpoint. The Supremes have rarely, if ever, stood athwart history yelling, “Stop!” In fact, they mostly have not even stood athwart history yelling, “What the …?
So if the Supremes decide what they have left is the Constitution, then that means The End.
And if they don’t, that means The End, because I see people increasingly ignoring Federal directives and the Mandate will simply accelerate that trend, greatly.
What we would we have to discus without Obama in office?
I am amazed that he still has supporters, but I know that just as there was Hate Bush Beyond Reason, there is now Obama Really Gives A Shit Moron groups holding on for November.
I knew when he was elected that we would have a rough time for 4 years, but I thought only foreign affairs would be effected. How wrong I was!
Obama in 2012? Seriously? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nvhAZ0vr0 – hope this brings a smile!
#145 dla
What we would we have to discuss without Obama in office?
Here’s a Friday document dump for you:
“Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years:
The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018. As you might expect, Republicans were not impressed with the decision:
‘The president’s actions have closed an entire new area to drilling on his watch and cheats Virginians out of thousands of jobs,’ said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. The announcement ‘continues the president’s election-year political ploy of giving speeches and talking about drilling after having spent the first three years in office blocking, delaying and driving up the cost of producing energy in America,’ he said.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/30/Atlantic-Oil-And-Gas
No drilling off the Atlantic coast? Maybe he wants the Supremes to freeze in the dark, as it were.
I believe that all Fed judges, including SCOTUS, be term limited
10 years and then GTFO
@135. SpeakEasy
“But since you want to go there, who was it that saved the Army as they were about to be overrun in Pusan? Too long ago? Okay, the Marines are supposed to breach an opening for the Army to occupy and exploit.”
I was stationed on the ROK in 88′. If you speak of the Pusan perimeter in 1950, there were no USMC involved until the Inchon landing… the rest was US Army and ROK infantry (G-d praise them).
“So why are the Marines doing the Army’s job in Afghanistan? (Just like we did in Iraq)”
Please elaborate.
“Okay, just a little good-natured ribbing. I have no animosity toward Army Dogfaces, we Jarheads are your brothers in arms.”
Sure. Being the Alpha Male in the US Navy must be a rough gig. Good luck with that.
not so holy socialist cow batman! has anyone read the speech from Vt. today? :
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/03/obama-goes-on-crazy-socialist-rant-on-your-own-economics-does-not-work/
Unions Taking Advantage of Citizens United By Andrew Joseph March 30, 2012 |
http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/03/unions-taking-advantage-of-cit.php
#60 jms above: “Scalia asked during arguments if they expected him to go through
all 2700 pages of ObamaCare to find out what should stand as severable?”
Hell yes! Isn’t that their job?? What are they? Too old and resting on their laurels?
The only people who have read the Abomination Care bill are powerless conservatives.
Anyone who says Romney is “Obama-lite” does not deserve to be taken seriously. Obama is very likely a closet Marxist who appears to be trying to destroy America so he can remake it into some Euro-socialist state. What has Romney done or said (and I include Romneycare)that puts him in the same universe as Obama?
dr @ 102: Incidentally, Josh at #8: I don’t believe that the powers granted to SCOTUS in the original Constitution were as great as they were to become after Marbury vs. Madison. More irony: the protesting liberal/left establishment is pining for an originalist version of the enumerated powers, but is too ignorant to realize that it is doing so.
Agree re Marbury, but it’s the later progressive courts that make stuff up as they go, that is a quantum level worse.
As for the left, they don’t really have rational arguments anymore, just keyword-triggered screeds, wild fantasies, and ad-hominem, and are famously opaque to actual evidence.
I suppose this is no more than post-modernism has been telling us for decades about human society and communications, but since the Enlightenment there have been many who at least aspired to more rationality, and that practice and goal has been a large part of American culture since before the Revolution, never universally practiced I suppose, but then nothing much is. It is the apparent loss of respect for rationality which marks this age, starting with the Clintoon follies of the 1990s, both Bill and Hildabeast’s obsessive pathological lies, and an MSM that eats them up, and an opposition too dumbfounded to react rationally. Of course we’ve gone downhill sharply since then, with no bottom in sight. In local parlance, we’re eating away at the design margin, and may already have achieved critical mess.
re Josh (@153) “In local parlance, we’re eating away at the design margin”
and so they are coalescing: George Zimmerman wins support of Quran-burning pastor
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-30/news/os-george-zimmerman-trayvon-quran-pastor-20120330_1_quran-burning-gainesville-pastor-fran-ingram
regards to all BCer
(interesting times indeed)
SF
Two incredible entries right now on Powerline:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/03/justice-breyer-flunks-con-law.php
Justice Breyer totally confused about the landmark commerce clause case.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/03/msnbc-the-faux-news-network.php
MSNBC commentators making wildly libelous and entirely unfounded statements about the Kock brothers.
–
Somebody is stealing the brains out of this country, who is John Galt?
Restrictions on free speech in the name of diversity
I’m drunk as a skunk on gin, dealing with sciatica that’s been turning me ugly for several weeks. But I have sufficient clarity of mind to discern that the present leadership of this country is bent on driving a stake through its heart. Pelossus and Harry Re-dufus and their stooges can be dismissed as the most common form of corrupt politicians focused on lining their pockets with more than normal exuberance. Maybe they see the guy in the W.H. as their Enabler-in-Chief, distracting the country from their embezzling with his sleight-of-foot tricks.
The Miscreant-in-Chief should long since have been arrested and put in shackles for his vicious crimes against the Constitution, done right in front of God and Everybody. The problem is that we have an entire Republican leadership – s’posed to be the LOYAL OPPOSITION – of Gutless Wonders, so enmeshed in a long-building system of legalistic exemptions, dispensations, immunities, exceptions, and set-aside rewards, they can’t tear themselves away to even remember they were elected to protect and advance the good of the Country.
At some point soon we will each have to choose whether we wish to live as slaves, or stand to defend the Constitution.
It really comes down to that.
Does the Constitution mean ANYTHING? or will it be abandoned, trampled, SHAT upon by people who haven’t the wit to even understand the enormity of their crimes?
I would like all of you Belmont readers to look up the example of Baldur von Schirach, under whose leadership the National Socialists took over the entirety of German Youth Organizations in the 1930′s. The actions were utterly criminal, but their brutality and intimidation – even though they were only tens of thousands against millions of members of the national youth groups – were not opposed. Within a few years, the takeover provided the basis for indoctrination of a GENERATION of enthusiastic fascist youth.
Think it can’t happen here?
It’s Already in PROGRESS, folks.
151. PTBW:
If the legislation had a severability clause, then that would be their job. Since there isn’t, it only becomes their job if they decide to make it their job.
The legislation is a fiscal disaster. Even with the individual mandate, it bleeds red ink from every pore. Does anyone seriously think that the Supreme Court can strip away the primary funding mechanism of this horror show of a bill, then wade in and somehow turn it into a solvent health insurance system, with the only tool at their disposal being the removal of text?
No freaking way. Why should they when they don’t have to?
I think that the Supreme Court is going to play the long game here. For three years, the Congress and the President have been acting as if the Constitution has been swept aside. The President openly insults the Supreme Court in their presence during the State of the Union. When reminded of Constitutional limits, Nancy Pelosi’s response was, “Are you serious?” Well, that’s a good question, and the question is really directed towards the Supreme Court. If the answer from the court is “no”, then they should not expected to be taken seriously anymore. I fear that this is their last stand, and I hope they realize it.
Is Blumenthal suggesting maybe that the Obama Administration simply ignore the Supreme Court’s decision if it is not one that they want?
Recall how they ignored the judge that ruled against their policy in the Gulf?
Would they dare ignore the SCOTUS? And what would happen if they did?
JJ @157 OT
Rather than dealing with your sciatica with “better living through chemistry”, I would suggest finding a competent neuro surgeon in your area and having it taken care of. I reached the point where I couldn’t properly perform my job. My G.P showed me the cat scans and said your spine is shot, here is who I recommend you go and see. The surgery was done in the morning, and I walked out holding the back of the wheelchair, at noon. I haven’t had the problem since (10+ years).
Good luck!
Dunno. What do you think would happen if they, oh, I don’t know, spent money without a congressionally approved budget?
One of the things that struck me in my interaction with Blumenthal the AG was that he was a “Heads I win, tails we flip again” sort of guy. He was willing to take all sorts of outrageous chances because he never expected to pay any penalty for being on the losing end. The only penalty for losing in his experience – and in Obamas too I suspect – was not winning. His own skin was never in the game, he was playing with someone elses money. CT taxpayers in my case.
Lampost decorating committees would be a very unfortunate step. But perhaps there’s something short of that we could come up with to punish arrogant overreach? If we don’t, the LDCs will eventually form.
Along these lines, I saw this tonight.
From The Scotsman, Inquiry into a Needless Death [caps added]
By Eddie Barnes
Published on Friday, March 30, 2012
‘THE fire chief whose force was slammed for its “inexplicable” failure to prevent the death of a mother of two who fell down a mineshaft is facing calls to quit as the dead woman’s family posed fresh questions about his handling of the tragedy.
‘Lawyer Alison Hume suffered “survivable” injuries in 2008 after plunging almost 15 meters down a collapsed mineshaft, but died as fire commanders above her delayed action over the best way to get her out.
‘A damning report by Scotland’s HM Chief Inspector of Fire and Rescue Authorities yesterday concluded that “it ought to have been clear” to commanders who attended the incident in July 2008 that the woman’s condition would deteriorate the longer she remained in the shaft.
‘As with a fatal accident inquiry last year, the latest report found that working firefighters who wanted to help her immediately WERE TOLD NOT TO DO SO, as their senior officers decided to follow Policy Guidelines Which Ruled Out Firemen Carrying Out Risky Line Rescues.
‘They instead called for a Police Mountain Rescue team who took THREE HOURS to arrive at the scene and, the inquiry report notes, Then Had To Face Exactly The Same Risks in retrieving Mrs Hume as the firefighters would have done.
‘Mrs Hume, whose body temperature had slumped due to her ordeal, DIED soon after.
‘Strathclyde Fire and Rescue’s chief officer, Brian Sweeney responded to the report yesterday by reiterating his apology to the dead solicitor’s family. . . .
‘For the Conservatives, Margaret Mitchell MSP said: “I know from speaking to firefighters that their hands are being tied by what they consider politically correct legislation on health and safety. This leaves them being told by their superiors that they unable to respond to certain incidents, resulting in the kind of fiasco this report has highlighted.”
‘Yesterday’s report, commissioned by the Scottish Government and written by HM Chief Inspector of Fire and Rescue Authorities Steven Torrie, sets out in clear detail how fire service responsibility for the rescue attempt was passed around during the crucial HOURS as Mrs Hume lay stricken in the mine shaft.
‘At first, a watch commander who arrived at the scene with a fire crew began attempts to lift her out of the mineshaft, after having formulated their own risk assessment as to the danger they could get into. However, He Was Over-Ruled By A More Senior Officer who turned up at the scene who, a few hours later, was then Replaced By A Third Commander. After that, Another More Senior Commander also arrived.
‘Mr. Torrie’s report sets out clearly that it was the decision to suspend the initial rescue attempt that was the “defining moment” of the incident.
‘Mr. Torrie said another key factor had been a Policy Decision by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue effectively to Rule Out Using Lines In Rescue Attempts earlier that year, For Reasons Of Safety.’
And these are the sons of men who fought so valiantly in two world wars? They must be spinning in their graves.
Leftism really IS a mental disease.
Hello, Fellow Babies,
#61 Hangtown Bob
!Ha ha ha ha ha — thaaaat’s a funny one… “patriotic Democrat Congressmen” … o, my side hurts….
#87 RivahMitch
Essentially I agree with your sentiments, but ,”Would any sane person today be so stupid as to sign a contract in which the contractual constraint placed upon the other party could simply be waived based on an interpretation completely as odds with the agreemenr reached?” You have described the contractual nature of the relationship between a man, his unsecured credit card, and his bank. The customer is obligated to pay his legitimate debits, but the bank can alter the terms of the loan by the minute, according to the most recent prevailing interest rate, new bank regulation, or if the customer takes on more debt. Also thousands of first timers sign contracts without reading and understanding… and it’s almost exactly the state of mind and lack of curosity that led voters to fall for obama…
# 99 IB Bill
I see your two cents, and I’ll raise ya two…
# 100 Reformed Trombonist —
I expect that justice will be Breyer.
# 117 peterike
right, sometimes Democrats die… and vote for some time, uh, many years thereafter…
Over the last year as the various lower courts heard States arguments against obamacare, and those court decisions rendered a SCOTUS review inevitable, I heard numerous pundits and legal scholars remarks that Kagen would recuse herself from participating in the proceedings because she had been obama’s Solicitor General with the responsibility of defending the bill.
Now it appears that this issue of her past involvement with obamacare has two known nodes:
• Judicial Watch has produced emails suggesting Kagen was more involved in the defense of obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act) than was disclosed at her Confirmation Hearings,
• Unmentioned in the Hearings, another email was discovered that revealed Kagen’s support for PPACA and her excitement that it had passed.
• Yet for the last three days, she has participated in the oral arguments of the case!?
What I should like to understand – a legal explanation, I mean, is what I want – why? How? Apparently the act of recusal is entirely voluntary, and depends on the individual’s integrity? Earlier this year Chief Justice Roberts commented on ethical issues in his year end report, “I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted…”
Some have suggested that Justice Thomas recuse himself because his wife, a member of the Tea Party, has apparently made a speech(s) against obamacare. I have no problem with Justice Thomas attention to the debate, as I can discern no way that he or his wife have been promoted or profited by speaking against the bill, or by maintaining a resolute determination to oppose the passage of it. But with Kagen, I can easily speculate and believe that she may have been promoted and nominated to Solicitor General and the Supreme Court with her promise that she would pass and support obamacare and all other obama legislative efforts..
By now Chief Justice Roberts must realize that his “confidence” was misplaced. I have not been able to find a definitive answer to my question: “Can the Chief Justice, in order to maintain SCOUTUS’s credibility, impose and enforce recusal on any colleague known to have a monetary interest or with a predisposition for or against a particular case? Or is this an indication that Justice Roberts is knuckling under to the Executive Branch?
That a Democrat should be discovered to be without scruples can’t possibly be a surprise. “…and depends on the individual’s integrity…” Found the weak link. I guess no one need reply, we all know why she didn’t recuse herself…
FACTS: We, as Marxist England all of the 1900′s by the way, are the REAL “ISRAEL” by the SEED OF JOSEPH, NOT JUDAH(GEN. 48:16). England alone achieved the promise made to Joseph to become the biggest civil empire in history, so we had nothing left to do but to have OUR WOMEN ALONE(i.e., brings to mind the story of Eve and Lucifer, still the ANGEL who RULES OVER THIS WORLD, “UNLESS” YOU PERSONALLY ARE TAKEN OUT OF IT) voted for this PROMISED “FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION OF GOVERNMENT” into MARXISM, ‘ANTI-CHRIST” BY DEFINITION! Did I mention also the only “FORBIDDEN FOREIGNER” EVER TO RULE OVER U.S.? WELCOME TO ADAM’S WORLD! Next up, September 16, 2012 on the Annual Israelite FEAST OF TRUMPETS(WAR) COMES THE TWO-WITNESSES of Revelation, chapter 11 to punish u.s. severely for 3 1/2 years! No, our women will not like them as they do Obama. Here’s the KICKER: The two-witnesses can not touch Obama and/or CAIN yet! But after they rise again after ONLY 144,000 Israelites from the 12 tribes survive, minus Dan(Irish)remain alive, then MARXIST(ANTI-CHRIST) Obama will be cast into the lake of fire and destroyed! p.s. Even untrue of Islam, did YOU KNOW that “MARXISM” IS THE ONLY “SIN” THAT CAN NEVER BE FORGIVEN, EITHER IN THIS WORLD OR THE NEXT? Yes, ladies, as “EVE” your problem is “INTELLECTUALIZING” and THAT IS ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN! WATCH!
If my prediction is correct about September 16, 2012, I’ll be back again on September 17, 2012 to remind you(i.e. The two-witnesses of chapter 11 Revelation suddenly appear to PUNISH U.S. SEVERELY for the ONLY SIN that NEVER CAN BE FORGIVEN)! Yes, MARXISM, DENIAL OF THE SET-APART SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW HEAD DEITY YHWH & HIS SON AND OUR SAVIOR “YAHSHUA,” IS JUST THAT SIN! In Hebrew “Yahshua” meaning that “Yahweh means Salvation!” Just saying…
Noonan’s “Creepy Democrat Society” welcomes a new member!
To Josh, Comment # 8: “It wasn’t supposed to last forever, and it won’t.”
The Supreme Court or the United States of America? Yes it was, and yes it will, God Willing and Patriots willing to defend it.
> 163. overtherainbo:
> # 100 Reformed Trombonist —
> I expect that justice will be Breyer.
I don’t think so. I was speculating about pressure put on somebody on the right side of the bench to defect to the left for this vote. Since Breyer is already considered a lock for okaying ObamaCare, the speculation would not apply to him.
Did I hear that right – America’s leftists intend to declare their private legislative branch has “no credibility” if that branch, the Supremos, doesn’t bend over for the Left on Obamacare?
Wow. Hurt me again!
As I recall, Blumenthal falsely claimed to be a Vietnam veteran. He should have been prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act just for that alone, besides being a complete idiot. I would have said that the good people of Connecticut wouldn’t have elected an jerk like him as AG and Senator, but Conn. has changed a lot from the time I visited relatives there in Bridgeport and Trumbull.
Today, Conn. looks like a third-world cesspool which would explain why it’s people (the unwashed, uneducated, illegal, and NY/Mass. emigres) elected a man like Blumenthal and so many others (The same for Rhode Island, the liberal center of everything that is wrong with America).
Well folks, you get what you elect and you elect what you get. Blumenthal is a good liar and disinformation talker, and he makes Connecticut the butt of jokes all over the country with the exception of Chicago, NYC, Boston/Cambridge, and the Peoples Republics of California, Oregon and Washington State.
Glad all my relatives in Conn. have passed away. They fought for freedom during WW2 and would be so ashamed at what has happened to “their home” today.
“They shall not pass” (French: “Ils ne passeront pas/On ne passe pas”; Spanish: “¡No pasarán!”) is a slogan used to express determination to defend a position against an enemy.
It was most famously used during the Battle of Verdun in World War I by French General Robert Nivelle. It appears on propaganda posters, such as that by Maurice Neumont after the Second Battle of the Marne, which was later adopted on uniform badges by units manning the Maginot Line. Later during the war, it also was used by Romanian soldiers during the Battle of Mărăşeşti.
It was also used during the Spanish Civil War, this time at the Siege of Madrid by Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, a member of the Communist Party of Spain, in her famous “No Pasarán” speech on 18 July 1936. The leader of the nationalist forces, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, upon gaining Madrid, responded to this slogan with “Hemos pasado” (“We have passed”).
“¡No pasarán!” (pronounced /no pasaran/ s is always pronounced as s, not z, in Spanish) was used by British anti-fascists during the October 1936 Battle of Cable Street, and is still used in this context in some political circles. It was often accompanied by the words pasaremos (we will pass) to indicate that communists rather than fascists will be the ones to seize state power.[1]
The phrase was used again in December 2002 by Colonel Emmanuel Maurin, commanding a French Foreign Legion unit in the Ivory Coast; this did not have communist or far left connotations. In last quarter of 2009, it has been used in the political propaganda of Estonia by the Estonian Centre Party.
In March 2010 the phrase “No pasarán!” was again adopted by anti-fascist leftist forces who created Unite Against Fascism against the English Defence League; one of the first instances of the slogan being used in this era was the Bolton EDL rally.[2]
In February 2011 “No pasarán!” was used by leftist demonstrators blockading a street in Dresden to stop a neo-Nazi march.
For years the term was used by Serbs in Kosovo, as “Alban no passaran”, meaning “Albanians will not pass!” as a slogan for defending the Ibar bridge and protecting the enclaves against the Kosovo Albanians.
[edit] Literary useJan Drda in his Silent Barricade (1949), the last short story called as the same as the book, uses the term “NO PASSARAN” while three men are defending the last barricade in Prague, Czech republic, against the Nazi German Army in World War II.
Gandalf in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, declares repeatedly, “You cannot pass!” when he blocks the pursuing Balrog. (J.R.R. Tolkien was a World War I veteran.[3]) In the 2001 film, Gandalf first says, “You cannot pass”, and, a moment later, cries out, “You shall not pass!” while striking his staff upon the ground.
Emil Renard in Max Brooks’s World War Z uttered the last words over his radio “On ne passe pas!” while fighting zombies, as told by his brother Andre Renard to the narrator. In Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Black Knight instigates a sword fight with King Arthur by declaring “None shall pass.”
In Metro 2033 the communist brigade that saves Artyom in Tverskaya station quote this slogan when parting with him in Paveleskaya station.
In George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, the character Edmure Tully concludes a letter to his sister Catelyn with the phrase “They shall not cross” in reference to the Battle of the Fords.
In the Star Wars New Jedi Order book Traitor, Jedi Knight Ganner Rhysode uttered one variant of this phrase–”None shall pass”–as he defended a passage way against hordes of enemies, earning such regard for himself he is said to have become deified in the Yuuzhan Vong pantheon.
The phrase was also used by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and immortalised in the Carlos Godoy song “¡No Pasarán!’
With full credit to Wikipedia.
Overtherainbo @163, replying to me: right, sometimes Democrats die… and vote for some time, uh, many years thereafter…
You misconstrue. I was not talking about specific people, but the many-tentacled state. It does indeed continue to impact you even after you die. It’s called the estate tax, a fine tool for stealing from your descendants that which you already paid taxes on, often more than once.
No doubt there are multiple other ways the state meddles with the legacy of a dead man. Continued harassment of a family business, for example, after the founder is long deceased. One could go on.
The approval rating of congress is at or near an all-time low and the presidency has been debauched in unaccountable ways. If there is a third leg to the stool it’s got to be the Supreme Court. They must stand for the constitution and remain unflappable in the face of contradictory political fact. If they do not do this then Blumenthal is correct but for the predictably opposite reasons. In this age of hyper-partisanism, the Supreme Court must remain impartial.
Blumenthal’s another one fo those educated idiots as described in teh following from Thiomas Sowell: “Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect.”
I am reading Thomas Sowell’s new updated and expanded book Intellectuals and Society that includes new chapters on intellectuals and race, and other revisions that make the updated book extremely easy to read and understand. His first chapter on “Intellect and Intellectuals” got me thinking about how we define intellectuals in our society.
Sowell points out that intellect is not wisdom; there can be “unwise intellect:”
Brilliance–even genius–is no guarantee that consequential factors have not been left out or misconceived. Intelligence minus judgment equals intellect. Wisdom is the rarest quality of all–the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment in a way to produce a coherent understanding…Wisdom requires self-discipline and an understanding of the realities of the world, including the limitations of one’s own experience and of reason itself. The opposite of high intellect is dullness or slowness, but the opposite of wisdom is foolishness, which is far more dangerous.
One of the interesting things that Sowell discusses is the tendency for intellectuals to think that because they are brilliant in one area, that they are brilliant in all areas. They make asinine predictions–think global warming etc.–and are ultimately unaccountable to the external world should their ideas be found to be wrong.
If an engineer or surgeon made a similar mistake, there would be hell to pay. For today’s intellectuals, there is a shrug of the shoulders and they continue without repercussions in their ivory towers while being awarded grants and honors. Without consequences, it’s no wonder they rarely think about what they say, or the effect it has on the public.
However, the public has started to discount what they say and with the internet and other technology, has started to understand that without judgment and wisdom, the intellectuals are often not so smart after all. Of course, they are called rubes for their understanding, but the more I hear that word, the more I realize that the masses are waking up to the stupidity of those who mistakenly think of themselves as wise.
Posted at 5:14 am on February 24th, 2012 by Dr. Helen Smith
What matters most is they do their jobs. i.e., what’s right under the constitution, ignoring political influence like that of Blumenthal.
It is really sad to read this opinion expressed by my Senator.
It is however, not surprising. Blumuenthal like most Progressive,Liberal polititians believes they know best and do not believe they need to concern themselves with the outmoded notion of “Constitutional Government “By the People for the People”.
Rather, they believe the government has the power to mandate what they know is best. After all the Utopia they seek can only be achieved if they can make the rules.
Limits upon governmental power gets in their way. So they must increasingly seek to add more power i.e grow the government. To do so involves adding more government employees and more dependant “entitlement” recipients and all who can be bought with grants, bail outs, subsidies and/or controlled by regulations etc. which will condition or threaten citizens to vote to keep them in power. The constant gradual growth of Government and its “entitlements” programs and regulations since FDR has made this into a RINO game as well as the Democrats. President Reagan and the supply side economics of his was able to slow it down for a while but Obama has been racing forward radically toward socialism .
Blumenthal and all of the Connecticut elected Democrats in Washigton DC offices are merely carrying his water as are the Senate majority.
If this Supreme Court does not begin to unravel the “mandate” power assumed by Obamacare and all of the other controls over medical treatment it would foreshadow we will be left with only this years election to stop the “TRANSFORMATION of America” i.e. the end of CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA as we’ve known it. Another four years of Obama and a continuation of Democrat majority in either House of Congress will see us facing a much different future.
I for one pray we do not see that day.
They have begun the spin already. They are going after the Suprem court even before they give their decisions in June because even if they win, they want it torn asunder establishing the Suprem Court as too Conservative and hoping that if one of the conservatives goes along with the Leftist, they know how enlightened the media will find him and a hero to the Left! I pray none of these Justices will fall for the media bias!
re Sowell, intellectuals are immune from reality unless it is economic reality that adversely affects the quality of their life. This is the basis and the justification for postmodernism. This is why an economic contraction is inevitable. The postmodern intellectuals are undermining the engine of production which insulates them from reality.
The United States Marshals Service is in charge of Judicial Security see the following link http://www.usmarshals.gov/judicial/index.html I do not think the New Black Panthers are gonna cause too much trouble with the Judges on the court other than possibly threats and no real action other than threat of action!
Give out the addresses of known New Black Party members and spokesmen along with the addresses and possibly also the phone numbers of all their family members and they will shut the hell up quick!