President Obama delivered the commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia on Sunday and, for those accustomed to his usual dose of narcissism, hypersensitivity, and self-serving historical revisionism, the Kvetcher-in-Chief didn’t disappoint. Here’s the text of the speech, courtesy of WaPo.

You have to give the President credit. Even when delivering a speech designed to inspire the leaders of tomorrow, Obama can still sniff out a way to complain about his perceived ill treatment at the hands of the media. Whether it’s Onstar or Garmin, this man’s persecution GPS has pinpoint accuracy. Judge for yourself:

With so many voices clamoring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult, at times, to sift through it all…to figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s not. ..Even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction. I’ve had some experience with that myself.

Notice the provenance of those “clamoring voices” which Obama insidiously cites: blogs (read new media journalists), talk radio (read Limbaugh, Levin, Medved, et al.), cable (read Fox News). Not the network MSM which coddles Obama, not hoop-shooting Harry Smith or soft-balling Brian Williams, whom Obama himself— at last year’s White House Correspondents dinner –joked about being in bed with.

It’s difficult to remember a whinier American president. If this man’s skin were any thinner, it would be diaphanous. You’d think one of his handlers would have told him: in the eyes of followers, victimhood lessens a leader. Did Patton complain of the desert heat? You bet. To the troops? Never.

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The AP is reporting that the Obama administration has changed a 76-year-old rule to make it easier for unions to claim dues members in the airline and rail sectors — since, you know, those are such vibrant industries right now that need to have their wealth redistributed to workers.

That’s not the only bailout unions are looking for in this area. Be sure to check out this classic explanation from Reason.tv:

In Charlotte, North Carolina, there’s apparently a growing deadly threat to worry about.  It seems that protesters there are getting unruly these days – so unruly that local businesses have brought on extra security detail to help out the local police.

That’s what happened when one such group of protesters descended upon the Bank of America headquarters on Saturday, May 8th.  The group showed up around lunchtime, eager to protest the financial reform bill currently making its way through the Senate.  Upon their arrival, not only were they met by three Charlotte police cars and a couple of local officers, but evidently Bank of America had somehow caught wind of the event and sent out another six or so Bank of America paid security staff. As an extra precaution, the bank had also hired at least two Wackenhut security officers to augment their usual staff.  Apparently, Bank of America felt it necessary to prepare for some sort of pending siege – these are Tea Party protesters we’re talking about here.  According to our own members of Congress and their allies, they’ve deemed Tea Partiers, the very constituents they are supposed to represent, a violent, racist bunch of potentially unstable people.

Well, when I heard about the incident, I couldn’t wait to get a look at these dangerous rabble-rousers.

So this is the riot mob that Bank of America sent out its security force, including extras from Wackenhut, to aggressively resist.

Meanwhile, these protesters showed up simply to draw attention to Bank of America’s role in trying to influence the current financial reform legislation.  In North Carolina, Bank of America has a special place in the heart of Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, who has been pushing an amendment to the bill on behalf of the giant bank.  (Coincidentally, it also benefits another of the Senator’s AND Bank of America’s favorites, the Center for Responsible Lending…but that’s for another post).

Hagan, a former Vice President with Bank of America who oversaw subprime lending programs there, has proposed the amendment under the guise of “protecting consumers”, but when Bank of America is a staunch supporter of the legislation, it’s easy to be suspicious of anyone’s supposed good intent.

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“When the Senate ceases to engage nominees in meaningful discussion of legal issues, the confirmation process takes on an air of vacuity and farce, and the Senate becomes incapable of either properly evaluating nominees or appropriately educating the public.” Elena Kagan, 1995.

Elena Kagan was correct, judicial nominees, their record, and their judicial philosophy should be thoroughly scrutinized before the Senate awards them a lifetime appointment to the bench.  Despite her public statements that nominees should be rigorously vetted, she has been uniquely circumspect about her own views and judicial philosophy.  What little we know of Ms. Kagan’s positions raises serious questions regarding her fitness for service on the Supreme Court.

Ms. Kagan, an accomplished academic, has revealed little of her own judicial philosophy.  Given the important and complex issues that routinely come before the Court this may not be overlooked.  She has served as Dean of the Harvard Law School and has served both Presidents Clinton and Obama.  While a distinguished academic, her experience is not necessarily relevant to the serious position for which she has been nominated.

Whether in her academic or political career Ms. Kagan has closely guarded her personal ideology.  What little she has revealed should not sit well with the American public.

Ms. Kagan clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall.  In her academic writings she has embraced the statements of Justice Marshall who argued “the Constitution, as originally drafted and conceived, was ‘defective.’”

While Dean of Harvard Law School Kagan banned military recruiters from using the law school’s career services office.  She objected to the military’s prohibition on openly gay and lesbian individuals serving in the military.  Kagan revealed how strongly she held this belief – she stated that the military recruitment policy caused her “deep distress” and that she believed it to be “a profound wrong — a moral injustice of the first order. And it is a wrong that tears at the fabric of our own community.”

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Big Brother says elderly visitors to federally funded meals at a Georgia senior citizen’s center aren’t allowed to pray to that Christian God of theirs. Obama’s Big Brother government contends that since it has paid for their meals the government has the right to slam its iron boot heel down on the necks of those seasoned citizens that dare to engage in such an apostasy toward the state.

Seem absurd? Well it is but that is what happens when the feds roll into town and begin to hand out money. They feel the right to dictate what everyone is allowed or not allowed to do and in the case of Port Wentworth’s Ed Young Senior Citizens Center near Savannah that is to tell these old folks that they are not allowed to pray before a meal.

There are federal “guidelines” to observe, after all and the federal government’s rules say none of that ridiculous Christian stuff will go on if the feds supply even a penny of funding. Old folks that want to pray are banned from doing so and if they don’t like it, why they can go hungry because the new Uncle Sam is a crusader against religion.

Well, at least one religion, anyway.

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I frequently argue that government spending is the problem, not budget deficits. Regardless of whether it is financed by taxing or borrowing, every penny of spending diverts resources from the productive sector of the economy. I narrated a video explaining why excessive spending is bad from a theoretical perspective. I did another looking at the empirical evidence for smaller government. And I had another video discussing why deficits are a symptom and the real problem is bloated budgets.

Nonetheless, some people seem convinced that deficits and debt are the real problem. While I think that focus is a bit misguided, I certainly agree that there is something utterly immoral about spending today and imposing a fiscal burden on future taxpayers (especially since so much government spending is for current consumption and transfers).

But here’s some really depressing news for the anti-debt crowd. Today’s deficits and debt actually are just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity that reveals the enormous unfunded liabilities resulting from entitlement programs. As the video explains, unfunded liabilities are promises by politicians that impose enormous long-term obligations for more spending and debt.

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In 2005, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement. 
President Bush (with the oh-so-”helpful” suggestion from Democrat Harry 
Reid) then named White House Counsel Harriet Miers as his choice to replace 
her.

A firestorm erupted.  Critics on the right and left complained that she had 
never served as a judge, had no judicial experience or paper trail from 
which to gauge her judicial philosophy and temperament, and that she was 
named strictly because she was a woman.

Her nomination did not survive the withering criticism, and she withdrew, to 
be ultimately replaced by Samuel Alito.

Fast forward to today.  President Obama has just nominated Elena Kagan, the 
current Solicitor General, to replace John Paul Stevens on the Court.  In 
many ways, Kagan mirrors Miers: a female legal eagle with no judicial 
experience, paper trail, or known guiding legal philosophy.

Miers’s nomination went down because fellow conservatives criticized those 
things.  Don’t expect Kagan’s fellow liberals to attack her on the same 
basis.  Conservatives were intellectually honest about what they saw as 
gaping holes in Miers’s qualifications.  I guarantee that liberals will not 
openly question the same voids in Kagan’s experience.  Conservatives raised 
legitimate issues about Miers; liberals will circle the wagons on Kagan.

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After decades of flourishing beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, the internet may soon be forced under a draconian regulatory regime created for monopoly telephone services in the 1930s. Last week, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to thumb his nose at virtually every precedent on the books and “reclassify” regulation of the internet under Title II of the Communications Act in order to pursue so-called “net neutrality” rules.

For the uninitiated, net neutrality regulations would allow federal officials to determine how internet service providers could manage the networks they built and own, ostensibly in the “public interest.” In reality, it’s been the cause du jour of lefty activists and major content provider companies like Google for years now. The activists want to have the government own and run the internet like a public utility, and the big content providers want the feds to force internet service providers (ISPs) to supply all the bandwidth needed for the applications without any barriers. A match made in heaven, if you ask me.

This announcement comes on the heels of a U.S. Court of Appeals decision which stated, in no uncertain terms, that the FCC does not have the authority to impose net neutrality regulations under the current regime. In the case of Comcast v. FCC (PDF), the court stated that the Commission does not have the necessary authority and even went so far as to say that their legal defense was “flatly inconsistent” with previous case law. My favorite line from the decision, though, came when it stated that the FCC’s argument would effectively “shatter” the existing limits on their authority. I might be reading into it too much, but it doesn’t sound like the court left much wiggle room there.

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In the wake of last week’s attempted terrorist bombing in Times Square, legislation is being proposed to strip the would-be bomber of his American citizenship. Team Obama is opposing this bill, a bill at odds with the president’s blueprint for America.

The man who attempted to detonate a car bomb in New York City on May 1, Faisal Shahzad, was born in Pakistan and recently became an American citizen. Senator Joe Lieberman is now pushing legislation to strip Shahzad of his citizenship so that he can be treated as a foreigner in the U.S. legal system.

The pushback from President Obama’s supporters has been swift. Senator Chuck Schumer immediately declared such a bill unconstitutional. On a Sunday morning talk show, Attorney General Eric Holder expressed reluctance to pursue citizenship stripping. And others on the left are spouting off about this as well.

The constitutional law on this question is muddy. In 1958, the Supreme Court upheld a citizenship-stripping law in Perez v. Brownell. But then in 1967, the far-left Warren Court overruled Perez by a 5−4 vote in Afroyim v. Rusk, holding that Congress cannot strip anyone of citizenship unless that person voluntarily renounces it.

Then in the 1980 case of Vance v. Terrazas, the Supreme Court split the difference, moving back in the opposite direction. The Court modified its 1967 holding to clarify that in addition to renouncing American citizenship verbally or in writing, a person can renounce their citizenship by their conduct. The Court also held that whether their conduct amounts to renouncing citizenship can be determined by a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning that the odds only need to be better than 50−50, instead of a higher standard such as “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

So the law is unclear in this case.

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In what can only be construed as a complete loss of any semblance of goodness and morality in the name of multicultural poison, the most advanced civilization on the world is sanctioning…clitorectomies. They have issued a policy statement suggesting that doctors in the US perform a mild form of this sick barbarity on girls to keep their families from sending them overseas for it.

According to the New York Times, the American Academy of Pediatrics last week advocated that American doctors be allowed to stick girls’ clitorises with a needle so as to satisfy Muslim and African families’ demand for female genital mutilation: “It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.”

Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) commented on the danger of this: “I am sure the academy had only good intentions, but what their recommendation has done is only create confusion about whether F.G.M. is acceptable in any form, and it is the wrong step forward on how best to protect young women and girls. F.G.M. serves no medical purpose, and it is rightfully banned in the U.S.”

Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America, a group defending women from this practice, was “astonished that a group of intelligent people did not see the utter slippery slope” that the AAP had started on by allowing for the “ritual nick.” Chapin asked: “How much blood will parents be satisfied with? There are countries in the world that allow wife beating, slavery and child abuse, but we don’t allow people to practice those customs in this country. We don’t let people have slavery a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway, or beat their wives a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway.”

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Although words and the meaning they convey mean everything in the law; words mean very little to people with agendas.  This is bad news.  Worse yet, the U.S. Constitution is filled with old words and phrases that, when read out of context, lose meaning over time.  Most frightening, legal commentators who prefer to sidestep our Constitution to accomplish the progressive-statist agenda continue to bash the virtue of seeking our Constitution’s original meaning.

In lockstep with progressive reforms, a recent book, “Keeping Faith with the Constitution,” adopted the term “constitutional fidelity.”  Goodwin Liu was one of the authors, and the focus of another contributor on this topic.  It is asserted that this term “respects the endurance of our written Constitution” and also “explains how its text and principles retain their authority and legitimacy.”  Filled with anti-Justice Scalia propaganda and criticism, it intends – but fails – to strike the middle ground between those who think original meaning controls and those who think meaning should account for the needs of our “progressing” society.  It does nothing of the sort.

At its core, constitutional fidelity asserts that original meaning (which the authors correctly concede is not strict constructionalism, but rather, an exercise of reading words in the context in which the words were enacted) should be sought when interpreting “concrete provisions,” but not the “broad and general principles.”  It is these broad principles, they assert, that should adapt “in light of the conditions and challenges faced by future generations.”  But constitutional fidelity ignores that there is no principled manner to determine which provisions of the constitution are broad, as opposed to concrete.  One might suppose that any provision best suited to confront society’s next “challenge” would be interpreted in such a way.  This is not law. (more…)

Today, President Obama is expected to announce the nomination of Harriet Miers Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. The only interesting question is how big of a supporting role the media chooses to play.

Paul Johnson is one of my favorite historians. In his already classic A History of the American People, he singles out the Woodrow Wilson administration as “one of the great watersheds of American history.” What does he mean by that?

Watershed Man?

Americans prior to the Wilson era, Johnson explains, “enjoyed a laissez-faire society which was by no means unrestrained but whose limitations to their economic freedom were imposed by their belief in a God-ordained moral code rather than a government one devised by man.”

In other words, although Americans were free to do as they wished, they always understood there were limits placed on that freedom by God. Generally speaking, they either stayed within those limits or were punished for violating them.

The Wilson era replaced that mode of thinking—normally called self-government—with a code created by man and instituted via civil government.

Typical of the earlier approach is this gem found in a speech by President John Adams:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge . . . would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.

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It’s not surprising that so many parents are so worried about autism. After all, the disorder strikes about one out of every 115 kids, its prevalence seems to be growing, and its cause or causes remain mysterious.

A 1998 article published in the British medical journal The Lancet generated enormous impact by proposing a link between autism and childhood vaccines.  Since then, celebrity activists like Jenny McCarthy have argued that common shots like the measles, mumps, and rubellla vaccine (MMR) trigger autism. Countless media stories have covered the alleged link.

Some parents take to the streets to protest the federal government’s vaccine policy and thousands more take the issue to court. Many others, like Kelly Green, who runs AutismHwy and is the mother of an autistic child, feel overwhelmed by the information flooding in from both sides of the debate. Jim Moody, of the think tank Safe Minds, blames the federal government for not being honest about the threat and failing to provide reliable information on the matter. But researchers like UC Santa Barbara’s Lynn Koegel say the evidence is overwhelming that vaccines do not cause autism.

Recently, the debate took another turn when The Lancet retracted the 1998 article that did so much to spark the controversy. Will the retraction finally allay parents’ worries or will some continue to resist vaccinations?

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From Politico:

Sen. Robert Bennett lost his party’s nomination during the second round of voting at the GOP state convention Saturday, making the three-term Senator the first incumbent to fall in this volatile midterm election cycle.

Bennett finished in third place in the crucial second-round vote, garnering just 26 percent of the delegates’ support, well behind Tea Party-backed attorney Mike Lee and businessman Tim Bridgewater, who will advance to the June 22nd primary.

“The political atmosphere obviously has been toxic and it’s very clear that some of the votes I have cast have added to the toxic environment,” Bennett acknowledged in a brief media availability with reporters shortly after he was eliminated in the second round of voting.

“Looking back on them, with one or two very minor exceptions, I wouldn’t have cast any of them any differently, even if I had known at the time they were going to cost me my career,” he continued.

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Without a doubt, April was a bizarre month in New Jersey education news.  First, Bergen County Education Association President Joe Coppola requested divine intervention and death by suffering for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  Then, elementary students were asked – regardless of sex – to dress up as women to commemorate Women’s History Month.  Talk about bizarre.

Let’s begin with Cappola’s plea.  In what I’m sure he thought was a fit of hilarity, he wrote the following in an email to union leaders:

“Dear Lord, you’ve taken away my favorite actor Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer Michael Jackson and my favorite salesman Billy Mayes. I just want you to know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.”

Why such harsh words, you ask?  Like the rest of America, New Jersey is in a dire financial bind.  In an effort to reduce cuts and to keep teachers employed, Christie has proposed that teachers agree to a one-year pay freeze.  This, teamed with his request that educators contribute 1.5 percent of their income to cover medical benefits, has sent the unions reeling.  According to FOX News,

Christie added that $820 million in state aid cuts, primarily for school lunches, art teachers and language classes, among other programs, wouldn’t have to go if the teachers union would agree to a one-year pay freeze and to pay 1.5 percent of their salary toward their medical, dental and vision benefits.

While 11 local unions agreed, the union’s central authority refuses to jump on board.  Ironically, millions of Americans have lost their jobs and/or received no pay increases this year; many have fallen into poverty.  With our nation and our individual states in such horrific financial shape, it’s unconscionable that a body that represents a troop of public servants would refuse to allow educators to pay for their own health care, let alone give up a guaranteed raise.  Has the union forgotten that it’s bargaining with the peoples’ money?

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From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser said Sunday that authorities believe the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attempted bombing at Times Square.

White House adviser John Brennan said that while the investigation is ongoing, it appears that accused bomber Faisal Shahzad was working for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The militant group is believed to be hiding senior al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

Brennan said the finding “underscores the serious threat that we face from a very determined enemy.”

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Conservatives need to be wary of the notion that General David Petraeus – or, for that matter, any other general or admiral – is necessarily the answer to their fervent prayers for victory in 2012.  GEN Petraeus is a true hero, an awesome leader and a great American whom every citizen owes a debt of gratitude.  But politically, he presents an ideological blank slate upon which many on the right are merely projecting their hopes and aspirations.  For several reasons, GEN Petraeus is likely to disappoint them.

The most obvious reason is that GEN Petraeus himself has repeatedly and unequivocally rejected the idea of ever running for public office.  Cynical observers routinely discount such disclaimers, but there are several reasons to believe that he really means it.  As the commander of CENTCOM, responsible for both Iraq and Afghanistan, GEN Petraeus has a full plate and a mission he has not yet completed.  He is committed to the mission, and has worked for its success for nearly a decade (I have not worked for GEN Petraeus personally, but I have close friends who have worked directly for him – to the point of receiving emails from him at home at odd hours after their return to civilian life – and they uniformly deeply respect him).  He was also diagnosed with prostate cancer.  But the most powerful evidence against a possible run is that he has said he would not run.  Unlike many in the political arena, his word and a dollar are together worth more than 100 cents.

But assuming he could be enticed to run – say, if he was absolutely convinced that the good of the nation depended upon it – what then?  His storied military career and his ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in Iraq via “the Surge” have fueled speculationabout whether he can follow in Eisenhower’s footsteps from the command post to the White House.  Like Ike, GEN Petraeus would probably be most comfortable as a Republican.  He was registered in the GOP before 2002, when he stopped voting.  The American Enterprise Institute recently honored him.  And he doesn’t seem like he would have much use for defeatists and pacifists, social parasites or the unbelievably corrupt, so he couldn’t be a Democrat.

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