Have you seen the movie Dinner for Schmucks? Now we have a sequel, Twitter for Schmucks starring Congressman Anthony Weiner. I’m a Libertarian. I don’t want government in my bedroom, or my boardroom, so I’m generally hands-off (excuse the pun) about what politicians do in their private time. But this is different. Weiner must resign.

If this was just an affair…Okay. People have affairs every day. But what people- let alone Congressmen- don’t do every day is send photos of their penis to strangers. That’s far worse than an affair. It’s mental illness. Weiner is a pervert, an electronic, high-tech version of the naked man in the raincoat from yesteryear who walks up to pretty female strangers and opens his raincoat. Weiner is a schmuck- and for that he must go.

Here is what the case boils down to:

#1) Weiner thinks we’re the schmucks. Any man so sick he must send photos of his penis, bulging underpants, naked chest, and talk dirty over Twitter and Facebook with complete strangers has a deep-rooted sexual and mental illness. Since he claims he never had a physical affair, Weiner thinks he should be forgiven. I’d rather hear he’d slept with them. I can understand sex talk and photos between lovers. But a Congressman sending crotch shots over Twitter to complete strangers? This man is in dire need of mental help. He has an addiction or perhaps a deep-seated need to destroy his career. Either way, he’s too self destructive to be sitting in the United States Congress.

Remember, this is the Congressman who introduced a bill to loosen immigration requirements for foreign models. I can only assume his goal was more potential Weiner Twitter victims.

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This year marks the centennial of the Mann “White Slave Act,” when Congress made it a federal offence to transport a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes.” Though the act is still on the books (as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer can tell you), and has been made gender-neutral, it is usually seen as a relic of nineteenth-century moralism. In fact, no act did more to overturn the nineteenth-century constitutional order. The Mann Act was boldly challenged the idea that the Constitution limited Congress’ power the ends enumerated in Article One, section eight. It established an all-purpose federal “police power” that now permits Congress to regulate just about everything.

By 1910, Congress had already taken some steps toward the establishment of a police power—outlawing, for example, the interstate shipment of lottery tickets and of impure food and drugs. The U.S. had recently ratified a multinational treaty to stamp out the international trafficking in prostitutes. The act’s proponents emphasized that it was an attack on the big business of “commercialized vice.” The press and U.S. officials, particularly U.S. Attorney Edwin Sims in Chicago, claimed that a vast “white slave trust” was operating in the country, when in fact there was little coerced prostitution at all.

The bill raised constitutional objections in the House, often from states-rights advocates. But prostitution was so universally reviled that most overcame their constitutional scruples. Rep. William Cox of Indiana had doubts as to the bill’s constitutionality, but said that he “would unhesitatingly resolve that doubt in favor of its constitutionality on account of the enormity of the crime sought to be stopped and the evil intended to be remedied…. Who can be hurt by its provisions? None but the guilty.” The bill’s sponsor, Illinois Republican James R. Mann, claimed that the white-slave traffic, “while not so extensive, is much more horrible than any black-slave traffic ever was.” New York Representative William Sulzer denounced the “quibbling in regard to the constitutionality of the provisions of this bill. In this frightful matter I shall not allow technicalities to cloud my sense of immediate duty.” In an ominous sign of Congress’ progressive abdication of its constitutional duty, he said, “The courts must take the responsibility for its constitutionality.”

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Sometimes you hate being right.

In chapter 4 of our book, The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency, we make the point that Team Obama would try to pull a fast one when it comes to Obamacare’s individual mandate that everyone reading this blog post needs to buy health insurance, or be subject to a penalty payable to your good friends at the IRS.

We first made this argument in a column we coauthored with Senator Orrin Hatch in the Wall Street Journal back in January. Now this issue has suddenly exploded back into the news.

For months, Team Obama has been saying that the individual mandate is authorized by Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce found in the Commerce Clause. We explain in the book why that argument is a loser in court, and that the White House would have to pull a bait-and-switch and suddenly argue that the mandate is a tax (violating Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250K per year).

Looks like we were right. In their first filing against the multi-state lawsuit challenging Obamacare, Team Obama is now arguing that the individual mandate is… a tax.

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I get a sense of the threat we may face, from a Supreme Court influenced by Elena Kagan, in her vow to defer to the political branches of government when interpreting the Constitution. This is a stance now being trumpeted by, e.g., environmental(ist) trade press outlets like E&E News. E&E runs a headline right now: “Kagan stresses deference to Congress, agencies” (subscription required).

That curious turn of phrase is Kagan’s own. It is not one nuanced with, say, a concern for divining legislative intent, but instead is a broad expression of deference to bureaucrats and politicians. Not to the Constitution. This is illuminating.

Taken in context, it is chilling. As Yahoo News writes:

“In her opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Elena Kagan vowed to show restraint and deference to Congress and the will of the people if ultimately confirmed to the Supreme Court, emphasizing the court “must recognize limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.”

“The Supreme Court is a wondrous institution,” Kagan said. “But the time I spent in other branches of the government reminds me that it must always be a modest one — properly deferential to the decisions of the American people and their elected representatives.”

The reporter first conveys the by now de rigueur implication of the attitude of restraint. But presumably in seeking to preempt claims that as someone with an extensive political history she would be an activist justice, Kagan manages to nonetheless betray the feared disregard for the Constitution.

The Supreme Court’s role is to apply the Constitution to laws enacted by the legislature, and to how those laws are being executed (or otherwise as the political branches choose to interpret or assert authority). It is the Constitution to which our non-political branch of government the courts, and certainly Supreme Court Justices, must defer.

Not the political branches. Political branches give us, say, Power Grabs. Courts are a check, to apply the Constitution to rein politicians and bureaucrats in.

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