So as regular readers know, after finding fourteen clear factual errors in Richard Stengel’s June 23rd Time magazine cover story* on the Constitution, I have been on a crusade to embarrass the magazine until it corrects or retracts that story.  I have explained that I consider its publication to be a scandal, both because it appeared as the cover story and because who the author is:

The author is not only the Managing Editor for Time, but he spent two years as President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.  And even today, he works with the National Constitution Center’s Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, whose stated mission is “to help both professional journalists and students interested in journalism understand constitutional issues more deeply.”  That is right.  He is there to help journalists understand the Constitution better.

So I wrote an email to David Eisner, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, asking (1) what Stengel’s role was in the Center, and (2) whether they had an official statement about this whole mess, particularly correcting Mr. Stengel’s inaccuracies.

Well, on Friday afternoon, I got this email in response:

from    David Eisner [email omitted]

to         edmd5.20.10@gmail.com

date     Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 4:26 PM

subject Response to email

Dear Mr. Worthing,

Thank you for your email regarding Rick Stengel’s Time magazine cover article on the Constitution. As you’d imagine, the article has stirred up a lot of thoughts from people who care deeply about the Constitution, many critical and many supportive.  I’m sure you’re aware that the issues you raise go to the center of many of the most important current debates around how we view the Constitution.

We’re working to bring some of those thoughts and issues together and will share them on our blog http://blog.constitutioncenter.org in the coming days.

Best,

David E

David Eisner

President and CEO

National Constitution Center

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

- Thomas Jefferson

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Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is doing what most liberal Democrats do when they want to move forward unpopular policy – they play the Jesus card.  Barack Obama, the most pro-choice person, never mind president, in the history of the world, is famous for quoting Scripture for political impact.

When pushing immigration reform, the Book of Deuteronomy 10:19 came in handy for Obama, who said, “Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  At the Tucson Memorial, the President cited the Book of Job. For the National Prayer Breakfast, how about a little misquoted Isaiah 40:31?

Jumping into the debt-ceiling fray, Charlie Rangel is also calling upon Scripture.  The Congressman is emulating Barack Obama, who at an Easter Breakfast praised “God for the gift of our son — his Son and our Savior” Jesus, who hung on the cross – a symbol that Obama asked be covered up for his Georgetown University speech.

Nonetheless, Charlie must have gotten religion since his ethics conviction in 2010 for financial impropriety, understating his assets, shady campaign office shenanigans, and tax evasion.   Seems when asked where the religious leaders are on “all of this” debt-ceiling stuff, a spokesperson for the pious Charlie Rangel said that the “silence of the clergy, of all faiths, has been ‘deafening’ as they consider cutting social programs designed for the poor and elderly.” Which, by the way, are paid for with tax dollars Charlie conveniently forgot to pay.

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From the same Department of Justice that has given us operation Fast and Furious, we now have a new twist on our (disappearing) right to petition the government for redress of our grievances.  In classic “heads I win, tails you lose” style, the Justice Department is now arguing that if you protect your medical privacy by refusing to comply with the Individual Mandate, you can’t sue them.  Oh, you’ll still have to pay a fine, though.

As some of you may know, our case here in Mississippi is unique in that we are using the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade (and other medical privacy rights cases) to argue that Obamacare is unconstitutional.  Part of our reasoning is that the Individual Mandate forces individuals to contract with health insurance companies, which then in turn gather reams of highly confidential medical information from us without our consent.  We make the point that even if health insurers suddenly stopped gathering our past medical history when we apply for coverage (and there is nothing to indicate that this practice will stop), the fact remains that health insurers absolutely must gather treatment information for billing purposes.

For example, if you are concerned that you might have contracted a disease and go in for a blood test, that information will be sent to your insurer for billing purposes.  Even if you try to pay for that separately, your insurer will still gather that information.  Given that inadvertent disclosures of such information is a fairly common occurrence, you can count on innumerable instances of harmful public disclosures of private medical information to result.

The feds, of course, see it differently.  Still, I did not expect this argument:

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In 2008, long before a shooting in Tucson where six people died and 19 were injured, candidate Barack Obama did not shy away from violent imagery when explaining how he would counter Republican attacks during the 2008 presidential campaign. Chicago-style Obama warned: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

After Tucson, when it came time to assign blame for what amounted to an attempted political assassination, liberals did not squander the opportunity to blame the Sarah Palin PAC website’s depiction of cross-hairs for inciting the type of uncivil discourse that led to the  murders, and Obama didn’t stop them. In fact, the media all but laid the responsibility for Jared Lee Loughner shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ)  in the head at Palin’s feet.

Liberal commentator Keith Olbermann even went so far as to say: “If Sarah Palin … does not repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics, she must be repudiated by the members of her party.”

Four short days after the shooting, Barack Obama used the opportunity to sell T-shirts, rebuke the gun lobby, and use the tragedy to partner with the media and call for “civility in public discourse.”  In other words, the memorial in Tucson became a platform for Obama to reprimand his critics and harness the First Amendment by condemning “point scoring and pettiness.”

Barack recited Scripture, offered condolences, and eulogized all the victims before segueing into rhetoric that heaped guilt upon anyone on the right who might employ hyperbole in political discussion. Citing the gallant actions of those who saved lives in a Safeway parking lot, the President said heroism posed a “challenge to each of us,” and raised the question “going forward” of what “beyond the prayers and expressions of concern,” was  required of all Americans, including himself, to “honor the fallen” and “be true to their memory?”

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Democrats’ efforts to win control of the Wisconsin state senate through a series of recalls here is drawing millions of dollars and dozens of key campaign operatives from out of state, an ongoing MacIver News Service investigation has learned.

The group named “We are Wisconsin” has a decidedly non-Wisconsin infrastructure, with more than $1 million in PAC donations transferred to it earlier this week from national union sources and many of its key operatives coming from out of state.

Patrick Devney and Viet Shelton are two of We Are Wisconsin’s communications directors working on the recall elections.  Neither man appears to be from Wisconsin.

Devney is working to recall Senator Olson.  According to the Baraboo News Republic, Devney is from Appleton.  However, he cannot be found to have a Wisconsin address in online phone directories, which tend to go back at least 10 years.  Devney has worked on campaigns in Nebraska, Washington, Virginia and Louisiana as recently as February of this year.

Shelton is working to recall Senator Hopper.  He comes to Wisconsin from the State of Washington where he was labeled a rising star in Democratic politics.  Shelton was the campaign director for Transportation for Washington, Washington Governor Chris Gregoire’s deputy communications director, and worked for the Democratic National Committee.  He describes himself as a “campaign addict”  and “for the summer, in Wisconsin” on his twitter profile.

Democrat efforts, in general, have turned to out-of-state help.  Click here to see an online form specifically looking for “Wisconsin Out-of-State Volunteers.”

Hopper and Olsen will face their Democratic challengers in a general election recall contest on August 9th.

Second in a series of reports by the MacIver News Service.

(Video written and produced by Ted Balaker)

It’s hard to imagine how we would get through life without necessities like bacon and duct tape. But have you ever thought about how the free market gives you so much for so little?

Here’s a video that should be mandatory viewing in Washington. Too bad politicians didn’t watch it before imposing government-run healthcare.

And since we’re contemplating the big-picture issue of whether markets are better than statism, here’s some very sobering polling data from EurActiv.

A recent survey has found deep pessimism among European Commission staff on a wide range of issues, including the course of European integration over the past decade and the likelihood of success of the EU’s strategy for economic growth. Some 63% partially or totally agreed that “the European model has entered into a lasting crisis”.

This is remarkable.

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More than 14 million Americans are out of work, Millions more are under-employed. Everything Obama has tried has failed. Do we really have to live through this another 18 months?

From the New York Times:

Betty Ford, the outspoken and much-admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford who overcame alcoholism and an addiction to pills and helped found one of the most well-known rehabilitation centers in the nation, has died at 93.

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Did the Obama Justice Department refuse to prosecute a radical Muslim with alleged terrorist ties for political reasons? That question is at the center of a new Judicial Watch investigation.

Recently we filed a lawsuit against the DOJ for failing to respond to our request for public records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The documents relate to a decision by the DOJ not to prosecute the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, who has been linked by federal investigators to the terrorist group Hamas.

Importantly, the decision not to prosecute reportedly was made over the objections of special agents of the FBI and prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, Texas.

On May 9, 2011, we sent a FOIA request to the DOJ’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) and here’s what we’re after:

• “The March 31, 2010 memorandum entitled ‘Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad’ from Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler.”
• “Any and all communications, contacts, or correspondence between the Office of the Attorney General (AG), the Office of Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Office of the Associate Attorney General (Assoc. AG) and the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or any CAIR groups concerning, regarding, or relating to the prosecution or declination of prosecution of Omar Ahmad.”
• “Any all communications, contacts, or correspondence between the Office of the AG, the Office of the DAG, or the Office of the Assoc. AG and the U.S. Congress concerning, regarding, or relating to the prosecution or declination of prosecution of Omar Ahmad”
• “Any and all communications, contacts, or correspondence between the office of the AG, the office of the DAG, or the office of the Assoc. AG and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas concerning, regarding, or relating to the prosecution or declination of prosecution of Omar Ahmad.”

On May 9, 2011, Judicial Watch also filed a similar request with the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) seeking access to contacts and correspondence between the NSD and CAIR, Congress, and the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Northern District of Texas regarding the decision not to prosecute. (The time frame for these requests is January 20, 2009 to May 1, 2011.)

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BOB: When I first saw this video, it brought back memories of my left-to-right conversion. However, I didn’t get an opportunity to “come out” as publicly as Jodi Carroll. Jodi, before we get into specifics, how did the video idea happen?

JODI CARROLL: I was asked to give a speech to a group of people last summer through my connections with Docs 4 Patient Care. I took it upon myself at that time to bring my recorder to get it recorded. Then last December, I was asked again to give the speech, so again I brought my recorder and then I just downloaded my speech onto YouTube to share with others.

BOB: I read some of the comments on the YouTube video and while some of them were encouraging, some were a little mean and I’m thinking “They don’t even know you”. Thus I decided to contact you.

JODI: Thank you, that is an insightful and respectable approach.

BOB: I take it until recently you were “born” a liberal…?

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Once again, its time to add to the official “Stupid Things Used To Fear Monger About Global Warming” list. Recently, global warming moonbats have blamed each of  the following “calamities” on global warming, climate change,  or whatever they have decided to call it these days:

Incredible shrinking sheep, Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean, Surge in fatal shark attack, Boy Scout tornado deaths, Global conflict, Beer tasting different, Suicide of farmers in Australia, Bigger tuna fish, longer days, shorter days, Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden, Cow infertility, UFO sightings in the UK, Rise in insurance premiums, Heroin addiction, Frigid Cold Winters in Great Britain, Cancer, Death from heart disease, diabetes, stroke, respiratory disease and even accidents, homicide, suicide, water -borne disease outbreaks, heavier, wetter snowstorms treacherous for travel and ambulation, Lyme disease, swarms of allergy-inducing, stinging insects, along with mosquitoes and devastating pine bark beetle infestations and the spread of forest and crop pests, 40,000 dead crabs , unrest in the Middle East. screwed-up love making, the Japanese earthquake-tsunami, horrible rash of tornadoes in southeast United States,The Arab Spring, extended severe allergy seasons, Lyme disease, malaria or dengue fever, trauma, depression, high blood pressure and heart disease

The latest recipient of the merit award for excellence in climate fear mongering is Chris Huhne, the British Climate Change Secretary. This week, Huhne is speaking before a group of national defense experts and telling them that climate change may cause an increased threat of wars, violence and military action against the UK, and risks reversing the progress of civilization. Wow that sounds like wrath of God-type stuff!

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To give a quick review, on June 23, Richard Stengel wrote a cover story* for Time Magazine rife with factual errors.  On June 29, I published a piece here recording fourteen clear factual errors in that story.  I said at the time that I considered it a journalistic scandal that such an error-ridden piece appeared at Time Magazine as its cover story, and ever since I have been crusading to embarrass them into a correction.

But what is also embarrassing is that other media outlets have treated Mr. Stengel as though he was an expert on the Constitution.  Consider, for example, this blurp for a show on NPR entitled “Talk of the Nation” that aired on July 4:

In the fierce debates over health care, Libya, debt, gay marriage and other issues, Americans have been getting a lecture on the meaning of the Constitution and the intentions of its authors. Andrea Seabrook speaks with Richard Stengel of Time magazine and Yale law professor Akhil Amar about the political divide over the Constitution and how an 18th-century document applies in a 21st-century world. [emphasis added]

Now, I may not like Professor Amar personally, and I may vehemently disagree with him on many points, but I think it is fair to consider him an expert on the Constitution.

But as the other “expert,” we have Richard Stengel. Really, Andrea Seabrook?  You actually read that article, and thought he was an expert? Because it is important to stress that many of these errors are obvious to any lay person.  You don’t need three years of law school to know it is simply incorrect to say “[i]f the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so.”  You only have to know that there is such a thing as the First Amendment or the Second.  Nor do you need complicated legal instruction to know that it is incorrect to say that the Constitution is not law—most people learn in elementary school that the Constitution is the supreme law of this land.  And one doesn’t need a particularly deep understanding of the Constitution to become concerned when one sees Stengel declare that “[i]n drafting the 14th Amendment, Congress … wanted to emancipate blacks and allow them to vote.”  I consider it fairly common knowledge that it was actually the Thirteenth Amendment that ended slavery, and the Fifteenth that outlawed racial discrimination in the franchise.  These errors should have been obvious to anyone reading Stengel’s piece, and utterly undermined any claim he could make to be an expert.

A reasonable radio host, doing due diligence, would have realized that they only had two options with Mr. Stengel.  She could either grill him about the serial inaccuracies in his article.  Or, she could drop him as a guest entirely and find a true expert on the Constitution to replace him.

And while they were at it, they could have added a conservative expert on the Constitution to balance the debate.

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A real howler from The Hill:

“The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Plouffe said, according to Bloomberg. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”

The remarks will likely irritate Democrats who think Obama and his political team have taken their eye off jobs.

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In honor of the Fourth of July holiday, Broadside Books hosted an on-line symposium asking the question, “Where and How Should Conservatives Attack Liberalism Next?” An excerpt of my answer follows:

The famous philosopher Pogo once observed, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Reviewing the greatest threat to liberty today, I offer a corollary; “We have met the enemy and we are paying for him.” Our liberty is challenged not so much by political forces as institutional ones. Until we begin dismantling the racket that is Public Sector, Inc., we will never again enjoy the liberties and freedoms our grandparents took for granted.

The current budget crisis has shined a light on the out-sized pay and benefits earned by public sector employees in state and local government. The traditional implicit bargain where government workers accepted slightly lower pay in exchange for job security and decent benefits has been up-ended, with government workers now enjoying high pay and platinum benefits in addition to life-time employment.

The showdowns in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and other states have shown how difficult it will be to reverse course on this. But even getting public sector pay and benefits back to historic averages is just the tip of the iceberg, or, rather, treatment of a minor symptom of a virulent disease. Balancing government employee pay with resources is a fiscal challenge; balancing our liberties against ever-expanding government is a herculean fight against a massive institutional infrastructure.

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Seeking to make virtue out of vice, the political Left has launched a desperate, devious and dangerous ploy to prevent the spending cuts that the public demands.

They are laying the groundwork for President Obama to bypass negotiations and to ignore the $14.3-trillion statutory ceiling on federal debt.  They want him to instruct the Treasury to borrow whatever it needs to satisfy grandiose spending designs, by claiming that the borrowing limit is unconstitutional.

If this happened, it would add a constitutional predicament to our economic crisis.  And it would worsen our economic problems.

The Left bases their plan on a dangerous misreading of the 14^th Amendment.  They employ deceptive rhetoric to depict the big spenders as the saviors of the Constitution.  They claim it’s the Constitutional remedy to protect our economy from the supposed alternative Armageddon’s of defaulting on debt or devastating reductions in spending.

The Left adds that this also would save us from the evil Republicans who won’t go along with job-killing tax hikes.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the dismal unemployment numbers for June, a constitutional showdown over the debt ceiling limit and we say goodbye to a dedicated listener.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Employment Situation Summary, June
Jobs Picture Gets Even Worse as Rate Swells to 9.2%
Futures Tumble After Dismal Jobs Report
Senator Lee Explains why Secretary Geithner is Mistaken about the 14th Amendment
Why the GOP should reject tax increases, in one chart

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Note: This is one part of a running series entitled “Indoctrination Fridays,” a weekly review of leftist propaganda incorporated into public school curriculum and oftentimes geared towards elementary students.  For more of the series, please visit PublicSchoolSpending.com.

The Black Panthers of the 1960s and 1970s and the New Black Panther Party today are known for employing violence, intimidation and radicalism to get their way.  The Black Panthers were founded in 1966 on Marxist principles, advocating socialism as a solution for the grievances of African-Americans.

Its “Honorary Prime Minister,” Stokley Carmichael, said in a speech that year:

“This country is a nation of thieves. It stole everything it has, beginning with black people. The U.S. cannot justify its existence as the policeman of the world any longer. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you’ve been in. I don’t want any of your blood money. I don’t want to be part of that system. We must question whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping everybody else.”

The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which also has curricula that will be featured in this series, has labeled the New Black Panthers a “hate group.”  That’s saying something.

But that’s of little relevance to Wayne Au.

The Seattle high school teacher-turned-professor taught his students to apply the principles of the Black Panthers to their own problems.  Seriously.

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