ENTERENSE

[siboneyes]

DECLARING WAR IN NEWBORNS - OBAMA IS NOT ALONE

The disgrace of medical ethics.

Andrew Ferguson

March 19, 2012, Vol. 17, No. 26

On the list of the world’s most unnecessary occupations—aromatherapist, golf pro, journalism professor, vice president of the United States​—​that of medical ethicist ranks very high. They are happily employed by pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and other outposts of the vast medical-industrial combine, where their job is to advise the boss to go ahead and do what he was going to do anyway (“Put it on the market!” “Pull the plug on the geezer!”). They also attend conferences where they take turns sitting on panels talking with one another and then sitting in the audience watching panels of other medical ethicists talking with one another. Their professional specialty is the “thought experiment,” which is the best kind of experiment because you don’t have to buy test tubes or leave the office. And sometimes they get jobs at universities, teaching other people to become ethicists. It is a cozy, happy world they live in.

But it was painfully roiled last month, when a pair of medical ethicists took to their profession’s bible, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and published an essay with a misleadingly inconclusive title: “After-birth Abortion: Why should the baby live?” It was a misleading title because the authors believe the answer to the question is: “Beats me.”

Right at the top, the ethicists summarized the point of their article. “What we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

The argument made by the authors​—​Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, both of them affliliated with prestigious universities in Australia and ethicists of pristine reputation​—​runs as follows. Let’s suppose a woman gets pregnant. She decides to go ahead and have the baby on the assumption that her personal circumstances, and her views on such things as baby-raising, will remain the same through the day she gives birth and beyond.

Then she gives birth. Perhaps the baby is disabled or suffers a disease. Perhaps her boyfriend or (if she’s old-fashioned) her husband abandons her, leaving her in financial peril. Or perhaps she’s decided that she’s just not the mothering kind, for, as the authors write, “having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children, regardless of the condition of the fetus.”

The authors point out that each of these conditions​—​the baby is sick or suffering, the baby will be a financial hardship, the baby will be personally troublesome​​—​​is now “largely accepted” as a good reason for a mother to abort her baby before he’s born. So why not after?

“When circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.” (Their italics.)

Western societies approve abortion because they have reached a consensus that a fetus is not a person; they should acknowledge that by the same definition a newborn isn’t a person either. Neither fetus nor baby has developed a sufficient sense of his own life to know what it would be like to be deprived of it. The kid will never know the difference, in other words. A newborn baby is just a fetus who’s hung around a bit too long.

As the authors acknowledge, this makes an “after-birth abortion” a tricky business. You have to get to the infant before he develops “those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.” It’s a race against time.

The article doesn’t go on for more than 1,500 words, but for non-ethicists it has a high surprise-per-word ratio. The information that newborn babies aren’t people is just the beginning. A reader learns that “many non-human animals … are persons” and therefore enjoy a “right to life.” (Such ruminative ruminants, unlike babies, are self-aware enough to know that getting killed will entail a “loss of value.”) The authors don’t tell us which species these “non-human persons” belong to, but it’s safe to say that you don’t want to take a medical ethicist to dinner at Outback.

But what about adoption, you ask. The authors ask that question too, noting that some people​—​you and me, for example​—​might think that adoption could buy enough time for the unwanted newborn to technically become a person and “possibly increase the happiness of the people involved.” But this is not a viable option, if you’ll forgive the expression. A mother who kills her newborn baby, the authors report, is forced to “accept the irreversibility of the loss.”

By contrast, a mother who gives her baby up for adoption “might suffer psychological distress.” And for a very simple reason: These mothers “often dream that their child will return to them. This makes it difficult to accept the reality of the loss because they can never be quite sure whether or not it is irreversible.” It’s simpler for all concerned just to make sure the loss can’t be reversed. It’ll spare Mom a lot of heartbreak.

Now, it’s at this point in the Journal of Medical Ethics that many readers will begin to suspect, as I did, that their legs are being not very subtly pulled. The inversion that the argument entails is Swiftian​—​a twenty-first-century Modest Proposal without the cannibalism (for now). Jonathan Swift’s original Modest Proposal called for killing Irish children to prevent them “from being a burden to their parents.” It was death by compassion, the killing of innocents based on a surfeit of fellow-feeling. The authors agree that compassion itself demands the death of newborns. Unlike Swift, though, they aren’t kidding.

They get you coming and going, these guys. They assume​—​and they won’t get much argument from their peers in the profession​—​that “mentally impaired” infants are eligible for elimination because they will never develop the properties necessary to be fully human. Then they discuss Treacher-Collins syndrome, which causes facial deformities and respiratory ailments but no mental impairment. Kids with TCS are “fully aware of their condition, of being different from other people and of all the problems their pathology entails,” and are therefore, to spare them a life of such unpleasant awareness, eligible for elimination too​—​because they are not mentally impaired. The threshold to this “right to life” just gets higher and higher, the more you think about it.

And of course it is their business to think about it. It’s what medical ethicists get paid to do: cogitate, cogitate, cogitate. As “After-birth Abortion” spread around the world and gained wide publicity​—​that damned Internet ​—​non-ethicists greeted it with derision or shock or worse. The authors and the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics were themselves shocked at the response. As their inboxes flooded with hate mail, the authors composed an apology of sorts that non-ethicists will find more revealing even than the original paper.

“We are really sorry that many people, who do not share the background of the intended audience for this article, felt offended, outraged, or even threatened,” they wrote. “The article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were already familiar with this topic and our arguments.” It was a thought experiment. After all, among medical ethicists “this debate”​—​about when it’s proper to kill babies​—​“has been going on for 40 years.”

So that’s what they’ve been talking about in all those panel discussions! The authors thought they were merely taking the next step in a train of logic that was set in motion, and has been widely accepted, since their profession was invented in the 1960s. And of course they were.

The outrage directed at their article came from laymen​—​people unsophisticated in contemporary ethics. Medical ethicists in general expressed few objections, only a minor annoyance that the authors had let the cat out of the bag. A few days after it was posted the article was removed from the publicly accessible area of the Journal’s website, sending it back to that happy, cozy world.

You’d have to be very, very well trained in ethics to see the authors’ argument as a morally acceptable extension of their premises, but you can’t deny the logic of it. The rest of us will see in the argument an extension of its premises into self-evident absurdity.

Pro-lifers should take note. For years, in public argument, pro-choicers have mocked them for not following their belief in a fetus’s humanity to its logical end. Shouldn’t you execute doctors who perform abortions? Why don’t you have funerals for miscarriages?

And now we know the pro-choice **noallow** is that children born with a facial deformity should be executed too, as long as you get to them quick enough. Unwittingly the insouciant authors of “After-birth Abortion” have shown where pro-choicers wind up if they follow their belief about fetuses to its logical end. They’ve performed a public service. Could it be that medical ethicists really are more useful than aromatherapists?

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

[sirjohn]

'RACE AND ECONOMICS'

Walter Williams, negro sobre blanco

Por Mario Noya

Según el imaginario progre, en los Estados Unidos de América los negros las pasan de su color por culpa del capitalismo salvaje, criminal y criminógeno y de la maldita esclavitud, que seguiría secretando sus abominables toxinas todo este tiempo después. Y la gente se conmueve y cree. La gente que no lee al negro Walter Williams.

Walter Williams es uno de los mejores divulgadores del liberalismo que me haya echado jamás a la cara (¡pasen y lean!). Y una verdadera bestia negra para el mester de progresía, con esa trayectoria que refuta sus dogmas de chichinabo: es negro, fue pobre y trabajó de niño, pero sin andar agarradito a las faldas de Mamá Estado se fue labrando un camino y prosperó y alcanzó todo tipo de éxitos; hoy es una de las firmas más influyentes del columnismo norteamericano, porque no se corta ni con un cuchillo y cuando se mete en los jardines más traicioneros deja enfangados en sus mentiras, errores y contradicciones a los socialistas de todos los partidos.

Walter Williams escribe artículos y también escribe libros. Librazos como éste que hoy comento, Race and Economics, con toda su carga de verdades fiscalizadas, que reduce la vaina acusica y lamentona progre a lo que es, lo dicho, un imaginario, 1. adj., que sólo existe en la imaginación.

El pobre desempeño de los negros norteamericanos no es culpa del capitalismo salvaje, criminal y criminógeno y de la maldita esclavitud, apunta Williams, escoltado por la historia y la estadística. Y tras apuntar dispara: los principales culpables de la situación de los negros norteamericanos son los propios negros norteamericanos y el Estado Niñera, que cada vez que les ayuda los hunde un poco más en la miseria –relativísima, que estamos hablando de los Estados Unidos de América, donde los pobres viven mejor que buena parte de las clases medias del resto del planeta–.

Los negros norteamericanos viven o sea padecen las consecuencias de la cultura (¡uf!) asistencialista. El Estado los trata como si fueran incapaces, menores, tontitos, y ellos aceptan el truco que es trato: dame pan y llámame... lo que tú quieras pero que suene bonito y cargue las tintas contra el Otro, sobre todo si ese otro es de color blanco esclavista, así que pasen tantos años. No es de extrañar, pues, que muchos vivan inmersos en la indolencia, la dejadez, la rebeldía sin causa, el rencor, la envidia cochina. En barrios imposibles, arrasados por el paro, la delincuencia y las drogas. Al (des)amparo de familias que no son un refugio sino un infierno o mera cáscara.

También aquí, el Estado no es la solución, es el problema. Lejos de ser un instrumento para el avance de las personas de color –así se llama, precisamente, la principal ONG negra–, es una verdadera rémora. Lo sabe Williams, lo saben sus lectores... y lo saben los racistas, palabro que en estas páginas rima de manera tan elocuente como demoledora con sindicalistas.

Los sindicatos han sido grandes enemigos del progreso negro, sí. (No sólo en Estados Unidos). Cuando no han pedido de manera explícita la proscripción del trabajo negro en determinados sectores, han clamado por leyes, regulaciones y sistemas de licencias que han condenado a buena parte de los negros a la marginalidad, el atraso, la exclusión. No hay mayor corrosivo de los privilegios, los chanchullos, los intereses creados que el libre mercado, con su extraordinario orden espontáneo de puertas completamente abiertas y el derecho de admisión a todo el mundo garantizado. Lo sabe Williams, lo saben sus lectores, lo saben los racistas... y los sindicalistos y los enemigos de la libertad, que juegan permanentemente al cerrojazo y combaten con fervor bajo las banderas de la tiranía del statu quo, que por definición perjudica especialmente a quienes no tienen la sartén por el mango.

Qué papelón el de los sindicatos en la historia de la emancipación de los negros americanos. Les echaron una mano, sí; ¡al cuello!, clamaba el célebre líder negro W. E. B. Dubois. Mientras los patronos blancos, "tanto en el Norte como en el Sur", daban trabajo a los negros y les brindaban acceso a la formación, la mafia sindicalista blanca incitaba a la violencia contra los morenos que pretendían ganarse el pan con el sudor de su frente y se afanaba por mantener a la negritud (© Ansón) sumida en la ignorancia. "En estos momentos, en América, el único amigo conveniente para el trabajador negro es el capitalista blanco", sentenció, tan tarde como en los años 20, el rastafari Marcus Garvey. En 1924, el profesor Kelly Miller urgía a los negros a trabajar "hombro con hombro" con los empresarios y contra los sindicalistos, una yunta de avaros, despiadados, intolerantes hombres blancos a medio alfabetizar, según J. E. Bruce ("Estoy contra ellos porque ellos están contra los negros"). También Frederick Douglass y Booker T. Washington fueron enemigos de los sindicatos, informa WW. Como para no serlo. ¿Te mando un ejemplar, Cándido?

¿Qué tienen que hacer los negros americanos para mejorar su suerte? Pues, para empezar, no fiarlo todo a Fortuna, que más que una diosa es una perica atrabiliaria que tan pronto está de buenas como de muy malas. Y, sobre todo, sustituir las prácticas, costumbres y actitudes que ceban la pobreza por sus contrarias; la indolencia, el abandono, el victimismo, la irresponsabilidad por sus antónimos.

Por último, pero no en último lugar, cambiar de amigos políticos; porque han demostrado ser o muy incompentes o muy malvados: harían bien, pues, en espetar a Obama, sin ir más lejos, aquello que le soltó el poeta maldito al mismo Dios:

No me ayudes, pero tampoco me jodas.

WALTER WILLIAMS: RACE AND ECONOMICS. Hoover Institution (Stanford, California), 2012, 185 páginas.

[sirjohn]

DEATHS THAT DOESN'T COUNT FOR  OBAMA

By RICH LOWRY

March 31, 2012

Delric Miller IV died in a hail of bullets a month ago. When  someone fired 37 AK-47 rounds into his Detroit home at 4:30 a.m., he was  mortally wounded while dozing on the couch. He was 9 months old.

No one made the multicolored teething ring he got for  Christmas or his toy hammer into national symbols of rrandom  violence.

Last year, Charinez Jefferson, 17, was shot and killed on a  Chicago street. “She begged the shooter not to shoot her because she was  pregnant,” a pastor explained. The alleged assailant, Timothy Jones, 18, shot  her in the head, chest and back after seeing her walking with a rival gang  member.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow did not write a column  about Jefferson’s killing as a symbol of the perils of being a young black woman  in America.

Last June, a stray bullet from a confrontation on a Brighton  Beach, N.Y., boardwalk killed 16-year-old Tysha Jones as she sat on a bench. A  19-year-old man, out for revenge after an earlier scuffle on the boardwalk, was  charged in the shooting.

Tysha’s heartbroken mother was not featured on all the  national TV shows.

In January, 12-year-old Kade’jah Davis was shot and killed  when, allegedly, 19-year-old Joshua Brown showed up at her Detroit house to  demand the return of a cellphone from Davis’ mother. When Brown didn’t get the  phone, he fired shots through the front door.

No one held high-profile street protests to denounce gunplay  over such trifles.

Everything about the Trayvon Martin case is a matter of  contention. About this, though, there should be no doubt: If Martin had been  shot by a black classmate, if he had been caught in a rrandom crossfire, if  he had looked at a gang member the wrong way, his death would have been  relegated to the back pages of the local newspaper.

Not a cause, not even a curiosity: Just another dead young  black man. Nothing to see here. Please, move on.

Jesse Jackson is right that “blacks are under  attack.”

According to a 2005 FBI report, blacks accounted for 13  percent of the population and 49 percent of all homicide victims. In 93 percent  of the cases, the killer was black. Half of the victims were ages 17 to  29.

That works out to 4,000 murders of young blacks in one year,  overwhelmingly at the hands of other blacks. In the communities where these  killings occur there is, to put it in Jackson’s inimitable terms, no justice and  no peace.

There is no comparable epidemic of half-Hispanic  neighborhood-watch volunteers like George Zimmerman shooting young black  men.

Nor is there an epidemic of cops doing the same. Heather Mac  Donald of the Manhattan Institute notes that in New York City, there were nine  civilian victims of police gunfire last year, whereas there were “several  hundred black homicide victims in the city, almost all shot by other blacks or  Hispanics, none of them given substantial press coverage.”

An allegedly racially motivated killing, though, gins up the  outrage machine in a way the routine murder of young blacks doesn’t.

Cable-TV outlets get to host fiery debates. Chin-stroking  commentators get to urge more “dialogue.”

Black leaders get to relive the glory of a civil-rights cause  that won its major victories decades ago when it took real courage to be on the  front lines.

And everybody gets to evade the intraracial mayhem that  blights the country’s inner cities.

An injustice may well have been done in the handling of the  Martin shooting, but let’s not fool ourselves. Zimmerman could be arrested,  convicted and hanged tomorrow, and it would have no effect on the lives of young  black people in communities beset by social disorder.

Whatever happens to Zimmerman, the drip-drip of spilled blood  will continue, all but ignored except in the police blotter.

In America, the lives of young black people are cheap, unless  they happen to fit the right agenda.

“According to a 2005 FBI report,  blacks accounted for 13 percent of the population and 49 percent of all homicide  victims. In 93 percent of the cases, the killer was black. Half of the victims  were ages 17 to 29. “That works out to 4,000 murders of young blacks in one  year, overwhelmingly at the hands of other blacks. In the communities where  these killings occur there is, to put it in Jackson’s inimitable terms, no  justice and no peace.

“There is no comparable epidemic of  half-Hispanic neighborhood-watch volunteers like George Zimmerman shooting young  black men.”

[siboneyes]

OBAMA LOSING SUPPORT AS HE PANDERS

OPINION: Obama could be the Republican MVP

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
March 31st, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

President Obama has long been criticized for his policies, but now more and more people are criticizing him for his conduct as President. There have always been those who dislike him for his affiliations, his controversial history, and even (sadly) for his race. Now Obama is giving people something more-and real to dislike.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - President Obama is being seen by more and more people as a disingenuous, bad faith actor. This perception is key. While the current crop of Republican candidates are being panned as uninspiring, public disillusionment with the administration is also high.

Recently, Peggy Noonan wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, “Not-So Smooth Operator.” Noonan calls Obama as she sees him, which is as a deceptive politico.

This matters because the coming election will be close, and Obama’s perception will be a critical factor.

There’s a lot to talk about. From Obama’s personal war with Catholics, to his hard-line stance against Israel, he’s bleeding support.

Recently, during negotiations with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, he promised “flexibility” on the issue of missile defense - after the coming election. A statement he made with an open mike during what he assumed was a private moment. The gaffe is telling - it suggests Obama is being dishonest with the American people.

Worse, it suggests he’s selling out to domestic and foreign interests and his obligation to serve the people isn’t being fulfilled. For longtime detractors, this is nothing new, but for former supporters, the realization is upsettingly fresh.

And the upset grows. His comments on the Trayvon Martin case seemed trivial and self-serving rather than a genuine expression of sorrow and a pledge to see justice served.

Perhaps President Obama’s crowning offense has been, and continues to be, the healthcare debacle which finally saw its day(s) in court last week. While home values decline, unemployment and under-employment remains high, wages stay low amid fears of inflation, and international issues become crises, Obama seems to be able to do little more than make domestic enemies.

Main Street continues to reel from the recession (Wall Street is just fine, thank you) and Obama’s top priority appears to be ensuring women can get free access to birth control and abortifacients.

Even the “compromise” he put forward to assuage the ire of Christians, particularly Catholics, over the HHS edict seemed superficial and contrived. Worse, his compromise did nothing to improve the situation either politically, or in reality.

The public has already lashed out at Obama once. In the 2010 midterm elections America seated a Republican majority in Congress. This has forced Obama adopt centrist positions on many issues, but his concessions are forced and Americans can feel it, and even many of his supporters don’t like it.

If Obama loses the election in November, few people will mourn. Obama has been given four years, two with control of the House and Senate. Despite that control, Obama could not fix the economy, stave off a growing crisis with Iran, or otherwise improve the quality of life for Americans. It can be debated how much control he actually had over these issues, but had they improved he would certainly be quick to claim credit.

Even his legacy legislation - healthcare reform, seems destined for disaster.

We expect Republicans to say and do everything they can to defeat Obama. We do not expect Obama to help them - but so far he’s doing a good job.

[siboneyes]

BOYS IN THE HOODIES

Blacks' 'we shall never overcome' machine Exclusive: Mychal Massie on how leaders have inculcated anger, blame, victimhood

4/2/2012

by Mychal Massie

Mychal Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. He is a nationally recognized political activist, pundit and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk-radio programming nationwide.

I do not understand the near manic and shameless compulsion of so many blacks to be angry victims – nor can I understand how black preachers reconcile the Holy Bible with the messages of hate so many preach. But I understand perfectly the reasons pursuant to why they do.

Victimization is the viscous lubricant used to grease the gears of the inculcated “we shall never overcome” machine. Self-segregation, separation, alienation and a lack of factually understanding what personal pride really is, are the most readily identifiable methods used to sustain the beliefs of victimhood.

Every population group that arrived in America years ago, and those arriving here today, are able to assimilate and succeed in this country. But blacks, who claim residence here for 400-plus years, are the only group who – if we are to believe the race mongers – are only marginally further along than a century ago. Despite the many trillions of dollars spent on special race-based incentives and race-based preferential treatment, we are led to believe that blacks are the least likely to be hired, the least educated, the most likely to come from a single parent home, the most likely be arrested and incarcerated and the least likely to have a participatory role in their communities.

To the extent that the aforementioned is true, I argue that it is precisely because of blacks embracing victimization more affirmingly than they do the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you can bet that Obama and the political parties will do everything they can to keep it that way.

Obama needs blacks to be angry and disaffected for two very important reasons. The first, as I have outlined in recent weeks, and as his history confirms, is that Obama is a socialist cut from the same cloth as Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers. The second is because Obama needs the black and Hispanic vote to get re-elected. This last reason is why Obama so quickly injected himself into Sanford, Fla. He needs this unrest because it attracts the very elements most likely to embrace his form of socialism. And let there be no doubt, Obama fears losing Florida. Ergo, he can use Trayvon Martin unrest to show he’s down with the cause.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are leeches and extortionists. They don’t show up to rule, they show up to seize upon tragedy, extort money and then leave town – whereafter, the New Black Panther Party and Louis Farrakhan’s version of Islam show up to seize control and organize. They set up shop and begin to organize the community, and in a short period of time entire communities, literally overnight, begin their descent away from modernity into self-segregation and alienation.

There are only two explanations why blacks don’t have the same advantages of every other population sector in the history of our nation. The first reason is that those arguing said to be the case are lying, and the second reason: If destructive behavior and reasoning were not tolerated and encouraged, more blacks would be forward thinking and less filled with inculcated feelings of inadequacy.

If aberrant, anti-social and divisive behavior were not treated with the reverence given to cult theologies, blacks would have a better grasp of modernity juxtaposed to courtside seating in the “who’s the biggest victim” games.

Ask the black illuminati – the so-called talented tenth – why a Korean family I am friends with – who spoke very little English, came here with no money, moved into a town where they had no friends or relatives, opened a corner fruit stand, taking proceeds from each day’s sales to buy the next day’s produce – in seven years sent their daughter to an Ivy League school and in nine years sent their son to Rutgers University?

How is it that students from Africa and India come here, go to school and graduate as doctors and medical specialists?

I’ll tell you how they do it – they do it because no one tells them the white man is out to get them. They do it because they understand that there’s opportunities here they didn’t have in their home countries, and they are determined to take advantage of same – not wallow in despair, blame and victimhood.

Blacks have not only been lied to, they have embraced the lie with the vigor and willingness with which a child clutches an ice cream cone. Blacks have embraced anger, blame and victimhood with the eagerness of children awaiting Christmas. Even the majority of blacks who have seized the opportunities America avails all harbor bitterness and blame for whites.

My question is: How has and how does that mindset help? If after centuries that which has been tried hasn’t worked, wouldn’t reasonable minds think it time to try another method? If the NAACP, the Urban League, the NBPP, Sharpton, Jackson, Obama and all of the black talented tenth are so clever and so in tune with reality, why don’t they realize the error of their ways? Oh, that’s right, they have. They just don’t want other blacks to realize it.

[sirjohn]

An Open Letter to President Barack H. Obama, Constitutional  Scholar

[Excellent]America's Right ^ | April 2, 2012 | Jeff Schreiber

Dear Mr. President,

Supposedly, you are some sort of constitutional  scholar. At the very least, you can read, you can write, and despite being  merely some sort of guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, you  once famously referred to yourself as a “Constitutional Law professor.”

Ringing a bell so far, Mr. President? Great.

While my Juris Doctor is from the Rutgers School of Law in  Camden, New Jersey, and while Rutgers-Camden is hardly Harvard Law School,  within the first three days of Constitutional Law class those who did not  already know of and understand perhaps the single most important decision in the  history of the United States Supreme Court were introduced to Marbury v.  Madison.

In Marbury, the United States Supreme Court held that  federal courts across our nation not only have the authority, but also the duty, to review the constitutionality of acts of Congress–including  statutes and treaties–and to designate as void those acts of Congress which  countermand the United States Constitution. The term you’re searching  for between those flappy ears of yours, Mr. President, is “judicial  review.” And, while it has been nearly two years since I opened up a  Constitutional Law book and can now debate divorce and family law in South  Carolina better than I can the Constitution, I recall enough from law school and  bar exam study to know that the doctrine of “judicial review” is now settled  law.

In other words, since the landmark Marbury decision came down from the Court you belittle as “unelected” in 1803,  because of “judicial review,” federal courts in the United States of America  have the power–and duty–to review laws passed by Congress, decide whether or not  those laws either comport with our Constitution or countermand it, and either  uphold those laws that pass constitutional muster or declare void those laws  that do not.

Not a difficult concept, Mr. President. Not a  difficult concept for a first-year law student at Rutgers-Camden, and certainly  not a difficult concept for a Harvard Law grad who lectured on Constitutional  Law at University of Chicago Law School and later went on to deceive a nation  into crowning him president of the United States. This ain’t race-baiting or  class warfare, Mr. President, but Marburyand judicial review should  nonetheless certainly be in your wheelhouse.

So, what’s the problem? Earlier today, according to Fox News  and other sources, this apparently happened:

President Obama, employing his strongest  language to date on the Supreme Court review of the federal health care  overhaul, cautioned the court Monday against overturning the law — while  repeatedly saying he’s “confident” it will be upheld.

The president spoke at length about the case  at a joint press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. The  president, adopting what he described as the language of conservatives who fret  about judicial activism, questioned how an “unelected group of people” could  overturn a law approved by Congress.

“I’m 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,” Obama said.

Those statements are so indicative of ignorance of not  only Constitutional Law but basic civics that I don’t even know where to  begin.

First, even a second-grader understand[s] that the the  United States Government is split into three separate branches in order to  insulate one from another and provide checks and balances for each. While it is  easy to understand how a totalitarian like yourself would have trouble  distinguishing the lines between the various branches; after all, you have an  established penchant for making illegitimate recess appointmentsand  facilitating regulatory and other extra-legislative mechanisms designed to  eschew and usurp the traditional role of the Legislative Branch — is it no  surprise that you are utterly incapable of understanding why Justices of the  United States Supreme Court are indeed unelected?

Second, that you would  preemptively describe as “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” the prospective  decision by the Supreme Court that your signature piece of legislation is  unconstitutional and therefore void shows that your ignorance is surpassed only  by your myopic inability to see past your political ideology and goals.  According to the Congressional Research Service’s The Constitution of the  United States, Analysis and Interpretation(the 2008 supplement, pages  163-164, in case you’re looking), as of 2010 the United States Supreme Court has  declared unconstitutional and therefore void a whopping 163 acts of Congress.  You do know what “unprecedented” means, right? The Supreme Court overturning  ObamaCare would hardly be “unprecedented” — perhaps it could be “unprecedented,  unless you count those previous 163 precedents.”

Want to know what is “unprecedented,” Mr. President?  Congress forcing free Americans into private contracts and penalizing those who  disobey. That’s unprecedented.

At this point, Mr. President,  just give up. Please. Every time you denigrate the Court and its Justices, who  have more legal knowledge in their smallest toenail than you have in your entire  body, you look more and more like the dullard that you apparently truly are. No  wonder you don’t want to release your transcripts — any undergraduate student  who fails to understand the most basic concept of Separation of Powers and any  law student that fails to understand the settled doctrine of judicial review  probably did not have marks worthy of tacking on the refrigerator  door.

I understand that, ideologically, your signature piece of  health care legislation is the perfect progressive fix. I understand how it  works. I understand how it slowly but surely interferes with insurers’ ability  to assess risk and thus slowly but surely facilitates an increase in premium  costs, therefore driving more and more people to clamor for a government fix.  It’s a brilliant political maneuver.

But it’s also  unconstitutional.

And when the Justices of the United States Supreme Court tell you as  much mere weeks before November’s election, it will not be because they are “unelected,” nor will it be because they somehow don’t understand the  legislation. The law simply runs afoul of the Commerce Clause of the United  States Constitution, and no amount of “strong majority of a democratically  elected Congress” will change that.

Wave the white flag, Mr. President. Or, preferably,  you can continue to make a fool of yourself. In my Trial Advocacy class at  Rutgers-Camden, after all, we were taught how do deal with opposing counsel who  was floundering in front of a judge or jury: sit tight, smile, and just let it  happen.

Now, Rutgers-Camden is a fine school, but it sure  ain’t Harvard. Nevertheless, I’m the one who is sitting tight and  smiling.

Good luck with your re-election.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey M. Schreiber, Esq.

[sirjohn]

Obama Puts Out Figurative Bounty on Supreme Court

April 03, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Obama and his attack on the Supreme Court yesterday.  It happened toward the end of the program in the last half hour and it was happening on the fly.  I didn't really have enough time to listen in detail to what Obama said, and thus I didn't have a chance to, in detail, reply.  I've now listened to what Obama said.  I've got three sound bites here.

When I got home yesterday at about six o'clock last night I got a flash encrypted message from a friend who says, "You know, somebody in the court leaked to Obama. That's why he went out there and did this today. Somebody called him. He lost the vote, the preliminary vote on Friday. He lost it, and somebody leaked it." And that became an active theory that began to be bandied about amongst a lot of people that I know. Because people were

saying " Why go out," as Obama did yesterday...? It was in the form of a question. We must remember that he was asked a question about this. He didn't launchh into this on his own, but once he got the question, it was, "Katie, bar the door," and he was off to the races.

And the question everybody was asking is: "Why do this? Why attack the court? Why intimidate them, why threaten them if they had voted to uphold the mandate?" And I have an answer for that. See, I know these people. I know liberals. I don't want that statement to sound bombastic. You people here -- new listeners to the program -- that's not a braggadocios statement. It's not bombastic. It's not outrage or any attempt to shock. I just know them, and so when somebody asks me, "Why would Obama say that if he didn't have to? If he had been told that the preliminary vote on Friday was in his favor, why take the attitude that he took?" There is an answer to that. I don't know if it's right, but there is an answer.

He's a thug.

And again, I'm not trying to be provocative when I say this. I'm just quoting Bill Clinton, folks. Bill Clinton referred to Barack Obama as a Chicago thug during the 2008 presidential campaign. This after Clinton some years earlier had told Juanita Broaddrick, "Put some ice on that lip" after she said he raped her. (I mentioned that for this "war on women" that supposedly the Republicans are waging.) But there's every possibility that Obama feeling his oats, being told that the vote went his way, would still go out and do this, 'cause he knows there are more votes to come. I'm not predicting it. I'm just saying I could understand it.

It's easier to understand that somebody leaked to him that the preliminary vote went against him and that the mandate fell by whatever the preliminary vote was and that explains his attitude yesterday. But I can see him saying what he said if the vote went in his favor as well, as a means of further intimidation, making sure they don't change their minds or whatever. You might say, "Well, how would that work? Wouldn't that just kind of make them be more resistant?" The reason this is all a crock in the first place is that (and we will go through this as we play the Obama sound bites) it is obvious that to the left this is an entirely political process.

There's nothing judicial going on here. There's nothing legal. This isn't even really about the Constitution. This is about politics, pure and simple, and Barack Obama's reelection. It's all it is. But he says things in these sound bites which you'll hear coming up and they're chilling to me. "The court has to understand..." "The court must understand," is one of his sound bites. No, the court must not -- does not have to -- listen to you. What is this, "The court must understand"? That is a threat! How many of you think it possible that Obama will make a trip to the Supreme Court before the vote, before the final vote? Can you see it happening? I can.

[sirjohn]

Napolitano: 'The President Is Dangerously Close to  Totalitarianism'

April 7, 2012 | Reaganite Republican

Says power-mad Obama harbors 'extreme view'

on role of the Supreme  Court and Constitution...

Appearing on Fox the  other night, Judge Andrew Napolitano told Neil Cavuto  that Barack Obama's flippant disregard for all other branches but the Executive  is getting downright scary

(and that's just going by what he says in  public):__________________________________________________​_____________________

"I think the President is dangerously close to  totalitarianism. A few months ago he was saying, the Congress doesn’t  count. The Congress doesn’t mean anything. I’m going to rule by decree and  administrative regulation. Now he’s  basically saying the Supreme Court doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter what they  think. They can’t review our legislation. That would leave just him as the only  branch of government standing, so I think he has some problems with  understanding the Constitution or accepting limitations on his power. Look, they are equal branches of  government, but with respect to what the law means, or the Constitution means,  the Court is superior to the President… No  President in modern times has questioned their authority. They’ve questioned the  way the authority has been exercised – not their right to make the decision. This is an extreme view of the  Supreme Court and the Constitution, one that has not been articulated since  Andrew Jackson was in the White  House...."

[sirjohn]

OBAMA'S MAFIA GET RICH WITH THE GREENBAKC ENERGY  PROGRAM

THE NEW CLASS OF OBAMA'S PROTECTED  BILLIONARES

Some  get rich off taxpayers in Obama's greenback energy  program

by Newt Gingrich

04/11/2012



Under the Obama Energy Department, a lot of people are winning  big by losing the taxpayers’ money. In the government-sponsored green energy  industry, working Americans have effectively handed millions in salaries and  bonuses to executives of companies on the road to bankruptcy. At the most famous failed solar company, Solyndra—to which the Obama  administration gave a $530 million loan guarantee—several executives were making  nearly half a million dollars a year, including large bonuses taken in the  months before the company filed for bankruptcy. For them, the failed endeavor  was extremely lucrative. Solyndra was hardly the only  taxpayer-backed firm that paid big bonuses while stumbling to bankruptcy,  however. As ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity recently uncovered in a report, Beacon Power, which received a $43  million loan guarantee, paid bonuses of about $260,000 to three individuals  before going bankrupt last year. Another company, Ener1, the recipient of a grant worth $118 million, paid its CEO a $450,000 bonus. In January,  it, too, filed for bankruptcy. Supposedly, the  Department of Energy approved these loans to foster an industry which the market  didn’t come close to supporting. Certainly most Americans, if they knew about  the program at all, did not imagine leaders at these startups paying themselves  millions in taxpayer dollars.



In 2009, after bailing  out many of the country’s   financial institutions, President Obama made executive  compensation  a  major political issue, proposing rules to limit it for firms that   had  received the taxpayer money. He observed that “what gets people upset — and  rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure.  Especially  when those  rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.” He  said these words  just weeks before  his administration made its  half-billion dollar  commitment to  Solyndra. Later that same year,  President Obama  demanded executives  at AIG return their bonuses, asking “How do they justify this  outrage  to  the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”I   have a couple questions of my own. Why isn’t the   President just as concerned about the looting  of failed energy startups at   taxpayer expense? Why isn’t he demanding that   executives at Solyndra and the  other bankrupt green energy firms return their bonuses, since we were  keeping those firms afloat with  gigantic  and unjustified  loans? In truth, the real  scandal goes  far  beyond bonuses and salaries. Many of these companies were  dependent on  an  enormous amount of government support all along—far more  than  just a little  boost to get them going. Two   numbers give you a sense  of the scale of the bad energy bets the  Obama  administration is making. Several  weeks ago, in my newsletter  on the  transition to liquefied natural gas as a less  expensive  source of fuel, I  reported that Chesapeake Energy had invested more   than $150 million to  build a national network of LNG truck stops—an  investment  by a private  company to be supported by genuine  demand. President  Obama, on the other hand, is  putting taxpayer money into  dozens of risky  ventures. Last week yet  another green energy firm, Solar Trust  of America, declared bankruptcy after having  received  a  $2.1 billion loan guarantee from the Department  of   Energy. That loan guarantee is more than  the value of Regal Entertainment, the nation’s largest  chain of  movie  theaters, and about the value of HSN, the Home Shopping Network.  It’s one heck of a loan for a startup. And it put taxpayers on the   hook  for 14 times the amount Chesapeake invested in its far more  viable  project to  build a nationwide natural gas highway.Of course,  there could be a lot more where all this came  from.  The Energy Department’s  current loan program has approved  nearly $35  billion in total—more than $110  from every American  citizen. Feel like  you’re getting your money’s   worth?

[sirjohn]

Obama contra la Iglesia

1/31/2012

Obama vs. Cardenal   Dolan

La amenaza a la libertad religiosa en Estados Unidos   no  es  una broma, ni, cuando se afirma eso, se está exagerando. No  se  trata ya  de que  Obama esté llevando a cabo una política de  apoyo  económico a  prácticas que  católicos -y no sólo  católicos- consideran  criminales, como  es el aborto. Es que   ahora quiere obligar a que  esas prácticas sean  subvencionadas desde  las propias  instituciones  religiosas. Y ahí es donde  se entra  de lleno en el ataque a la   libertad religiosa.

La Iglesia católica en Estados Unidos tiene miles   de   instituciones sociales, como colegios -casi cada parroquia  tiene  uno-, hospitales, asilos, comedores sociales, centros de atención  a   drogodependientes  o a emigrantes, etc. Como obliga la ley,  los  empleados  de estos centros tienen  un seguro médico para  sus  trabajadores.

Sin embargo, ese seguro no incluye el acceso a    determinadas  prestaciones que van en contra de la moral católica.   Por  ejemplo, si uno de esos  empleados quiere abortar, el seguro  que  le ofrece  la Iglesia no le paga el  aborto, se lo tendrá  que pagar él  por su cuenta.  O si quiere utilizar   anticonceptivos, los había  pagado de su bolsillo en  la farmacia.

Pues bien, ahora Obama quiere que en esos   seguros  se  incluyan cosas que van abiertamente contra la moral   católica. Deberán  ofrecer  anticonceptivos y también píldoras   abortivas. De esta manera, la  Iglesia se hará  cómplice de hechos  que  considera gravísimos, hasta el  punto de que excomulga al   que los  comete, como es el caso del  aborto.

¿Por qué hace esto Obama?  ¿Le  preocupa el interés de los empleados de las instituciones católicas, a  fin de  que no gasten más de la cuenta si quieren llevar una vida contraria  a lo que  indica la moral de la empresa para la que trabajan? Estoy seguro  de que esto no  es así. Creo que Obama ha encontrado la manera de asfixiar  a las obras sociales  católicas, de abocarlas al cierre o de forzarlas a ir  contra sus principios, con  lo cual quedarían totalmente  desprestigiadas.

Es más sutil que Fidel  Castro,   que cerró todo lo que tenía la Iglesia en Cuba, pero busca  el  mismo objetivo. Los radicales -y  Obama lo es cada vez más- saben que la Iglesia tiene, gracias a  sus  obras sociales, un gran  prestigio y por eso quieren acabar con  ellas.  Si cerraran todos  las instituciones católicas en Estados  Unidos se  haría un gran daño a  millones de  personas, pero eso  a Obama le da  igual. No le preocupan los pobres. El odio se está  convirtiendo cada  vez más en su motivación.

Los obispos   norteamericanos  han plantado  cara y no van a ceder, con el  cardenal  Dolan a su cabeza. Va  a ser una guerra  dura. Quizá  Obama gane  algunas batallas, pero terminará perdiéndola. Su futuro   va a ser como  el de Zapatero, su amigo: una retirada deshonrosa y   desprestigiada, donde  todos los que hoy le apoyan le  volverán la  espalda y se  avergonzarán  de él. http://www.magnificat.tv/es/node/658/2