SCOTUS meets Chicago style politics. Was there a leak to Obama? (Updated)

Did the Supreme Court’s initial ObamaCare vote leak to Obama?  " I have no idea why Drudge is pushing the “leak” angle. There’s nothing about it in the Reuters story he links to and, as far as I saw, nothing in O’s comments today in the Rose Garden to suggest he had inside info." 
....Rest assured, if Obama wins reelection and replaces Scalia or Kennedy with a hardcore liberal, the revered principle of judicial deference to Congress will be power-flushed down the toilet once a Republican president and legislature are in office together again.  Emphasis added.


Update: Hoover Institution: Justice Kennedy's Million Dollar Question"

Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?

Thomas Lifson  "President Obama's Rose Garden remarks yesterday on the Supreme Court are shameful, a blot on his presidency.

"Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,"...

...."The Justices know very well that they depend on consensus acceptance of their rulings. What if certain segments of society began to characterize the Court as illegitimate?  The prospect of a president whipping up a segment of his base against the court's authority is, to use Obama's much-abused word, extraordinary. In the wake of liberal activist ruling, the talking heads always remind us that we must respect "the rule of law" when the Court invents law."
.... "I await the reaction of left wing law professors. Will any actually defend Obama's lies?"

President Obama is attacking the Supreme Court in a desperate attempt to salvage his presidency.    “What was ‘unprecedented’ was the partisan process President Obama used to shove this unconstitutional bill through despite the overwhelming objections from Americans across the country. Even if the law is upheld, Governor Romney will begin the process of repealing it on Day One in office.”

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/04/02/97997

Red State on March 30th: Will Kagan leak the SCOTUS vote to the WH? ( but of course) Will the WH show that they’re about to lose? ( probably)    "So we now come to the question of Madame Justice Elena Kagan, who by any reasonable standard should have recused herself from the case. The former Solicitor General, who was instrumental in attempting to formulate the administration’s  ( inept) defense of Obamacare ( and one could only imagine her, while watching the current ( as of now) SC,  Donald Verrilli give a truly inept performance) thinking…”boy, am I glad I’m NOT the one having to try and defend this puppy.”) is a political and ideological creature first and foremost, a hard core leftie.

"Her question ( “isn’t it OK if we just let the feds give the states boatloads of money to insure poor people?”) demonstrates everything that is wrong with, and about, this woman."

Obama’s comments seemed less “threatening” or “intimidating” ... than shockingly ignorant.

Neal Boortz: Caesar prepares to blame the court   "Over 230 years ago patriots would wrap their bloody feet in rags and drag them across frozen ground to engage the British in the next step to independence.  Surely, on election day, you can manage to put your healthy feet into a pair of warm shoes and make your way to a voting precinct near you to preserve that independence.  Nobody will be shooting at you as they were our Revolutionary War soldiers.  (Well – Holder’s Black Panther Party may be there for a little voter intimidation .. but you can handle that."

Do not forget the JOURNOLIST in this election year

Has a shadowy gang of left-wing journalists and intellectuals been plotting to manipulate the news cycle…
"Its dues paying member organizations include The Nation,Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect, Ms., Democracy Now! and many more (a complete list is here). The purpose of the group was explicit and can be found on their website: The Media Consortium".   Inspiration for all this was from today's post in American Glob

Never forget what the Journolist was, especially during this election year:  Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans. Some left government to join Journolist. Others took the opposite route. A few contributed to Journolist from their perches in politics. At times, it became difficult to tell who was supposed to be covering policy and who was trying to make it.


Wikipedia had this excerpt in it's explanatiion of "Journolist":

On July 20, 2010, The Daily Caller (DC) published the dialog of the JournoList concerning Jeremiah Wright.^[12] The contributors discussed killing the Wright story, as it was reflecting negatively on Barack Obama. In a separate discussion, about an ABC News-sponsored debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton, Michael Tomasky, a writer for The Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of JournoList: “Listen folks – in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people".^[12] James Taranto observed that one JournoList contributor,Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent, stated "If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists".^[13]

Journolist: The Bias Continues  

Daily Caller's posts on Journolist-created stories.

From 2010: Journolist: All 107 (Known) Members With Their 'News' Affiliations:  Any of your favorite columnist's names in here?


Verum Serum laid it out for us with this graph in 2006:
"Just to give you an idea how serious the Consortium was about this, have a look at this paper and accompanying graph co-authored by the Media Consortium’s head, Tracy Van Slyke:"

When reading or viewing liberal media stories, one needs a long memory. 

Is there nobody this man will not single out for attack?

Obama Slams Supreme Court over Obamacare  "The highest elected official in the United States dished out an extra helping of irony yesterday when, in speaking at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, President Barack Obama slammed the Supreme Court as an “unelected group of people” who will have turned to “judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint” if they strike down Obamacare."
...."The irony in all this is that this President has presided over an Administration that is the epitome of recklessly abusing power, at times in flagrant violation of the Constitution, and has empowered unelected bureaucrats to write scads of new regulations impacting nearly every corner of American life."   
 Emphasis added. Perhaps Mr. Obama should think of the court as "justice czars"

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Volokh Conspiracy: Four Thoughts on the Individual Mandate Argument  "If the Court does end up striking down the mandate, this will be the second consecutive presidency in which the Supreme Court imposed significant limits on the primary agenda of the sitting President in ways that were unexpected based on precedents at the time the President acted. Last time around, it was President Bush and the War on Terror." Also from Volokh:

President Obama versus the Constitution  "President Obama can call legislation enacted by a vote of 219 to 212 a “strong” majority if he wishes. But there is nothing in the Constitution suggesting that a bill which garners the votes of 50.3% of the House of Representatives has such a “strong” majority that it therefore becomes exempt from judicial review. To the contrary, almost all of the 165 federal statutes which the Court has ruled unconstitutional had much larger majorities, most of them attracted votes from both Democrats and Republicans, and some of them were enacted nearly unanimously."


Jennifer Rubin: Obama goes after the Supreme Court  "The president’s attack, then, is not only irresponsible but also politically risky. If his own side doesn’t call him out on his antics, Romney and other conservatives should — in defending the court they’d be right on the merits and right on the politics."


Legal Insurrection: Hey Obama, know what else those unelected judges have? "The thing is, those judges may not be elected, and may not have any divisions.

But they have one thing, long memories:"

"The other thing they have is class, so they will not allow those memories to get in the way of their decision. And they will not be bullied by the bully pulpit."

Group to honor Minn. residents of US Civil War

Shakopee, MN  "Just three years into statehood, Minnesota in 1861 was anxious to prove itself.

"Volunteers, the first of an estimated 24,000 state soldiers who would fight in the Civil War, rushed to sign up to preserve the Union by putting down secessionist Southern states.

"They fought their first battle three months after the war began. Dozens more followed, often accompanied by heavy casualties. Late one afternoon at Gettysburg, four of every five soldiers of the First Minnesota Volunteers were killed or wounded in a heroic charge that bought crucial time for the Union army to prevail in battle and, ultimately, to win the war."

Art above from Gettysburg Daily:Major General Winfield Scott Hancock on horseback in the center of the painting, directs Colonel William Colvill of the 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment to charge down the west slope of Cemetery Ridge towards Confederates approaching a weak point in the Union line. This image, titled “Minnesota Forward” by artist Dale Gallon is courtesy of Ms. Anne Gallon and Mr. Dale Gallon of Gallon Historical Art Inc., 9 Steinwehr Avenue, Gettysburg, PA 17325. 

Stone Sentinels; 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment  "The 1st Minnesota performed one of the most critical actions of the battle during Longstreet's Assault of July 2nd. Sickles' Corps was falling back in disarray and Longstreet's men were advancing to penetrate the center of the Union line, which had been dangerously thinned to prop up other sectors. General Hancock rode up to the 1st Minnesota, the only organized Union troops at hand, pointed at the advancing Confederates, and ordered them to "Take those colors!" Their sacrificial charge against overwhelming odds halted the Confederate advance and bought time for the Union line to reform, forcing Lee into one last desperate gamble with Pickett's Charge the next day. The survivors of the 1st Minnesota played a role in repulsing that charge as well."

This map shows the location of the videos for Union Counterattacks series. Videos #1-#13 were shown in 

our previous posts. Video #11 was taken at the monument to the 150th New York Infantry Regiment.

 Video #12 was taken at the monument to the 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade. Video #13 was taken 

at the Trostle Farm. Videos #s 14-16 were taken near the monument to the 1st Minnesota Regiment on

 Cemetery Ridge.

1st Minnesota monument at Gettysburg

Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Rich Goedkoop is standing by the July 2, 1863 monument to the

 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment on Cemetery Ridge. He provides some background on the regiment.

1st Minnesota Re-enactors

From the Trayvon Martin Tragedy to a National Travesty

Victor Davis Hanson The Rules of Outrage — Or Why the Trayvon Martin Tragedy Divides the Country
"In other words, we are left with the following paradoxes: the traditional civil rights industry will see the Martin case as an indictment against America, one deserving of compensatory and reparatory action from the majority, which they are prepared to oversee and adjudicate. The majority, of citizens, however, sees the current civil rights hierarchy as much of the problem with, not the solution to, the Martin tragedy. No, it is worse than that still: the Martin case has evoked renewed interest not in disproportionate rates of black crime alone, but in the civil rights leadership’s apparent lack of concern about it."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/03/29/97962

NBC....again: Trayvon Martin Tape Editing Prompts Internal Probe at NBC "The edited call, which aired on NBC’s "Today Show" on March 27, featured Zimmerman talking to a 911 dispatcher.

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman said in the edited segment.

That, it turns out, appears to be only part of the exchange. The complete exchange went like this:

Zimmerman: "This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about."

Dispatcher: "OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?"

Zimmerman: "He looks black."    (Emphases added)

Hat tip to Andrew Klavan, who linked to the above post in his column today entitled, "The Truth, Crucified". The column begins: 

I’m writing this on Palm Sunday. This is the day we remember Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the crowds hailed him as the King who came in the name of the Lord. A few days later, the crowds — possibly even some of the same people — were calling for his crucifixion.

More on the Critical Race Theory

Breitbart  "Picture this: you are the president of a major law school. A visiting professor, assigned to teach an introductory law class, ignores the curriculum and instead usurps the class time to espouse a radical race theory he has recently developed.First-year law students, mandatorily assigned to the class, stop attending the class, moonlighting instead at other sections of the same course being taught by other professors. As an administrator, what do you do? To reasonable people, the course of action is obvious--you simply tell the visiting professor to stop it, and to stick to the curriculum. 
"But you don’t do that. Why not?
"The answer is obvious, but complex: because you know you will be called a “racist” by activists, and you will do anything to avoid that. So you try to tiptoe around the problem, and you make it worse.
"That's one legacy of racialist Derrick Bell, when he was invited to teach at the home of political correctness, Stanford Law School, in the 1980's."

To justify his race war, he argued that the existence of slavery at the time of the U.S. Constitution rendered that agreement unenforceable against blacks. He reasoned that the Constitution was fatally illegitimate, and could never be fixed--not by the Civil War or the resulting anti-slavery amendments, nor by the Civil Rights amendments. To Bell, the Constitution was merely a tool to keep the black race down--permanently. It was government of the racists, by the racists and for the racists.

And this refers to the very Constitution that President Obama swore to defend.


THE VETTING: OBAMA EMBRACES RACIALIST HARVARD PROF


"Breaking footage shows a young Barack Obama leading a protest at Harvard Law School on behalf of Prof. Derrick Bell, a radical academic tied to Jeremiah Wright. We will be releasing significant information in the coming hours."

Thomas Sowell: Back to the Future? Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.

Thomas Sowell  "The underlying argument was similar to that in the 1942 case of Wickard v. Filburn: School violence can affect education, which can affect productivity, which can affect interstate commerce.

"Since virtually everything affects virtually everything else, however remotely, "interstate commerce" can justify virtually any expansion of government power, by this kind of sophistry.

....

"No doubt people who are tired or drowsy are more likely to run through a red light than people who are rested and alert. But does that mean that local governments should have the power to order people when to go to bed and when to get up, because their tiredness can have an effect on the likelihood of their driving through a red light?

"The power to regulate indirect effects is not a slippery slope. It is the disastrous loss of freedom that lies at the bottom of a slippery slope."

This argument may sound ridiculous, but we have years of examples of how this is the way liberal minds work.

The vultures circle Trayvon Martin

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/03/31/97965

Trayvon Martin Was Not Shot Because He Was Black ...

"In ways I have not seen in my forty-one years on this earth, this case -- or as it should be properly put -- the out-of-context reaction to this case has been perhaps the single most racially divisive event of my lifetime. ...More than the O.J. Simpson verdict, more than the Rodney King case, more than any other incident I can call to memory -- the drummed-up reaction -- as was on display by the sandwich ladies -- made multiple customers in the Atlanta airport's Charley's cafe (in the B terminal) physically uneasy.


George Zimmerman and the Hate Crime statute  "Furthermore, judging from their past actions and statements, the President and the Attorney General will be open to prosecuting Zimmerman. If they nonetheless decline, Zimmerman's innocence will be evident, and we will also know the names of those who turned a teenager's death into a circus. "

Boortz: "If creepers Sharpton and Jackson were really serious..." "… those two race whores would pay as much attention to the culture of urban black violence as they are to this case in Sanford, Florida." 
 Boortz also asks: Why hasn't Moonpie Muhammad been arrested?  
"Florida Code 788.01." 

Cooper interviews Muhammad

This provision of the Florida criminal code makes it a felony to “by threat, confining or abducting, or imprisoning another person against his will” in an attempt to terrorize that person."....

 "Florida Code 777.04."

This one deals with soliciting someone to violate the law. “A person who solicits another to commit an offense prohibited by law and in the course of such solicitation commands, encourages, hires, or requests another person to engage in specific conduct which would constitute such offense or an attempt to commit such offense commits the offence of criminal solicitation.”

 "By posting a “wanted dead or alive” poster, and by exhorting people to “capture” Zimmerman and deliver him to Moonpie’s gang, Moonpie* has violated this section of Florida law."

*"Michael Muhammad Knight (born 1977) is an American Muslim novelist, journalist, and performance artist. His writings are popular among American Muslim youth. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as "one of the most necessary and, paradoxically enough, hopeful writers of Barack Obama's America.".... 

Obama's campaign takes shape on the class warfare theme

Neal Boortz: "A little fairer"  "But then he says that we should “ask some of the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”  This implies that the wealthy currently AREN’T paying their fair share.  Too bad for Obama, this is entirely not the case …

Upper-income taxpayers have paid a growing share of the federal tax burden over the last 25 years.A 2008 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for example, found that the highest-earning 10% of the U.S. population paid the largest share among 24 countries examined, even after adjusting for their relatively higher incomes. “Taxation is most progressively distributed in the United States,” the OECD study concluded. Meanwhile, the percentage of U.S. households paying no federal income tax has been climbing, and reached 51% for 2009, according to a new analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The U.S. Is Now No. 1— In Corporate Tax Rates   " As the president complains once again that oil companies are getting unfair tax breaks, the U.S. passes Japan as the leader in business taxes. Workers, investors and entrepreneurs will bear the cost.

"On April 1, Japan will cut its corporate tax rate to 36.8% from 39.5%. This includes a 10% surtax that will expire in 2014. As it does, the U.S. will officially have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, with average combined federal and state profit levies of 39.2%. And, no, this is not an April Fools' joke."  Investors.com

Obama Calls for More Redistribution of Wealth, Declaring: ‘I Am My Brother’s Keeper’    Listen to pure, unadulterated demagogy: 

"In Genesis, Adam and Eve’s first-born son is Cain and their second-born son is Abel. Cain becomes a farmer and Abel becomes a shepherd. When Cain offers the fruit of his farming to God and Abel offers a lamb, God is pleased with Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. Cain then kills Abel. When God asks Cain where Abel is, Cain says: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
...."The president presented what he sees as the need to increase taxes on the rich as one half of a zero-sum game: If the rich are not taxed more, everyone else will have less."  Via Lucianne

DNC, MSM SMEAR MITT WITH DECEPTIVE EDIT 
"We knew the likes of the Washington Post and CNN would stop at nothing to keep their guy in the White House.  We're just surprised they're willing to shed their thin veneer of journalistic integrity this early in the campaign. Team Obama must really be panicking."

Gimme that old Green Religion

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez/

http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2012/03/energy-wait-plan-4/

Concert at Army post in NC geared toward atheists

Stars and Stripes "The Rock Beyond Belief event at Fort Bragg, organized by soldiers here two years after an evangelical Christian event at the eastern North Carolina post, is the most visible sign so far of a growing desire by military personnel with atheist or other secular beliefs to get the same recognition as their religious counterparts."
...."Fort Bragg is willing to work with organizers of any event that fits its guidelines, said Garrison Commander Col. Stephen Sicinski, who estimated that the BGEA evangelical concert generated twice as much controversy as the atheist event. As far as the Army is concerned, Siciniski said, the event isn't a bellwether of changing beliefs - it's simply another one of the community events that Bragg often hosts."  Via Politico.
Bob Dylan was right when he sang, "The Times, They are A-changin' "; I think he shouldn't have been bragging.

People listen to Professor Richard Dawkins the headline speaker at the Rock Beyond Belief

 event,   Saturday, March 31, 2012 at Fort Bragg, N.C. For the first time in history, the U.S.

military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don't believe in God, 

with a gathering sort of like a county fair Saturday on the main parade ground at one of the

 world's largest Army bases. 

Breakpoint: More Human than Humanism  "We are engaging the atheists at what they seem to consider their point of strength, reason, which we actually find to be a distinct weak point for them. As we show in the e-book, reason is more at home within Christianity than atheism, and Christianity is more at home with reason."

...."That illustrates what happens when one removes soul from the human equation: The rest of human life tends to disappear along with it. Daniel Dennett takes it that consciousness is an illusion. Love is strictly a neurochemical thing. Jerry Coyne, again, would say that every behavior, every feeling, is a neurochemical thing. Peter Singer says it is wrong—“speciesist,” he calls it—to regard humans as essentially unique and different from animals. This leads us to an irony equal to that of atheists camping upon “reason.” Many atheistic groups go by the name “humanist,” yet theirs is a doctrine that strips the humanness out of being human."  Tom Gilson, The Colson Center

On National Security

"We chatted over the weekend with Mieke Eoyang, director of the national security program at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. The organization last month released the findings (http://bit.ly/H7EgXp) of a series of focus groups it held with swing voters in Ohio and Florida."
Here is an excerpt of what they wrote:

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/03/30/97963

National Security Focus Group Report  "There are a few cautionary notes for the president. Some participants give all the credit for the bin Laden raid to the Navy SEALs and broader U.S. military. Others say
Obama is simply capitalizing on the security capabilities built up by George W. Bush
and other Republicans before him. These are minority views, but there is a risk of going
too far in taking credit and sounding boastful."

The Democratic Security Image Still Stuck in the Past
"Obama’s solid standing on national security, however, has not yet rubbed off much
on the image of the Democratic Party. These swing voters see Democrats in much
different terms than the president—and trust them less on national security than the
Republicans.
"What we hear in these groups is remarkably close to what we found in a 2008 set
of focus groups on these issues: Democrats too often are weak, indecisive, afraid to
use force; lack grounding in military matters; rely excessively on diplomatic solutions;
respond too quickly to public pressure; and defer too
readily to the party’s liberal base."....

"While the swing voters in this year’s focus groups trust Democrats more on issues like diplomacy and boosting America’s global image, they trust Republicans more on “hard security” topics like “the effective use of military force,” “preventing terrorist attacks here in the U.S.,” “capturing, interrogating, trying, and imprisoning terrorists,” “intelligence and spying,” and “dealing with dangerous nuclear regimes like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan.”
"Their comments show that the roots of this image problem are decades old. “There
have been a couple of Democratic administrations that screwed up military-wise,” reflects
an Ohio man. “Jimmy Carter tried to rescue some people and then the other guy,
Clinton, he threw some bombs down somewhere and that didn’t go too well either.” "
Via Politico

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Biden downplays Russian threat: ‘This is not 1956′  "He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on, Russia is still our major adversary. I don’t know where he has been. I mean, we have disagreements with Russia, but they’re united with us on Iran. The only way we’re getting one of only two ways we’re getting material into Afghanistan to our troops is through Russia. They’re working closely with us. They have just said to Europe, if there is an oil shutdown in any way in the Gulf, they’ll consider increasing oil supplies to Europe. That’s not — this is not 1956.” "


New Poll Shows Egyptians Now Prefer Iran to US as Strategic Partner   "Gee, who could have predicted this? 
"Earlier this month outside the US Embassy in Cairo Egyptian Presidential Candidate Tawfiq Okasha called for the expulsion of US Ambassador Anne Patterson, the “enemy of humanity” who “bathes in a sea of the blood of others.”   
"The crowd loved it."


U.S. Intel Undermined by Iraq, Obama  "Much of Sunday’s New York Times story by James Risen suggests that U.S. intelligence analysts are overcompensating for their past failures on Iraqi WMDs by minimizing the risk of Iranian WMDs in the future. The upshot is that the Israelis might be right to distrust President Obama’s “we can wait until the very last minute” reassurances on Iranian weaponization, as politicized and skittish U.S. intelligence evaluations might miss that signal."
...."It’s getting easier and easier to understand why the Israelis don’t take those arguments seriously, and why they’re nervous that some in the U.S. intelligence community seem to."