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Constitution Tag

Posted by New Neo on January 19, 2016 94 Comments
Professor Jacobson has opined on the question of whether Ted Cruz qualifies to be president as a "natural born citizen." The short answer is: he definitely does. However, as Professor Jacobson also indicated, that hasn't stopped Trump from attempting to foster doubts in voters’ minds about it. You can see the results in the increased amount of chatter about the issue---which is likely to have been exactly what Trump wanted when he put forward his oh-so-helpful suggestion that Ted Cruz could and should settle the "natural born citizen" question by going to federal court and seeking a declaratory judgment on the matter. So, why doesn't Cruz do what Trump has suggested, and put it to rest? The reason is that it is almost certain that Cruz couldn't get a court to rule on the issue. J. Christian Adams, who was in the Justice Department under George W. Bush, explains why:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 09, 2016 27 Comments
Now that Texas governor Greg Abbott has been in office for a while, it's easy to see why he beat Wendy Davis so handily. Abbott is pushing back against what he, and many others, see as an overreaching federal government. The Dallas Morning News reports:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott calls for Convention of States to take back states’ rights Gov. Greg Abbott, aiming to spark a national conversation about states’ rights, said Friday that he wants Texas to lead the call for a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution and wrest power from a federal government “run amok.”

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 05, 2015 6 Comments
This day in 1933, America had the good sense to decriminalize booze. The 21st amendment to the Constitution was ratified, nullifying the 18th amendment. Three weeks after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, legalizing the sale of beer and wine with the alcohol content of 3.2%. The "3.2% Beer Act," as it was known, went into effect April 7 (which is now celebrated as National Beer Day) and was the beginning of the end of Prohibition.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 28, 2015 12 Comments
Florida representative Alan Grayson has a reputation for being a little "out there." When he's not making bizarre claims about GOP health care plans, calling female lobbyists "K Street whores," or running blatantly false and manipulated ads, Grayson apparently likes to muse about against whom he can take legal action. Watch: The latest target of Grayson's special brand of crazy is Ted Cruz.  According to Mediaite, Grayson is promising to file suit against Cruz should he (Cruz) be elected president.
Florida Congressman Alan Grayson told radio host Alan Colmes Wednesday that if Ted Cruz is elected president, he “will file that beautiful lawsuit saying that he’s unqualified for the job” according to the Constitution. Cruz was born in Canada to a native-born American mother, making the presidential candidate a dual Canadian-American citizen. It was not until a 2013 Dallas Morning News article that Cruz acknowledged his Canadian citizenry publicly. In 2014, the senator renounced his Canadian citizenship altogether.
Apparently Grayson believes that anyone who is born to an American parent while in a foreign country is not an American by birth.  Or something.

Posted by Sarah Rumpf on November 09, 2015 18 Comments
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just issued an opinion (full embed at bottom of post) upholding a lower court preliminary injunction against Obama's unilateral immigration executive order. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (“DAPA”) program expanded a previous effort, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ("DACA") by the Obama administration to protect from deportation illegal immigrants who were brought here as minor children, often referred to as "DREAMers." Under DAPA, parents who were here illegally but whose children were American citizens or lawful permanent residents could also apply for protection from deportation. Obama also expanded the rules for DACA, making even more illegal immigrants eligible to avoid deportation. DAPA drew a lawsuit very shortly after Obama signed the order last fall. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who was at that time serving as the state's Attorney General, led a twenty-six state coalition that opposed DAPA and they successfully argued for a preliminary injunction to be issued by a Texas federal court to prevent DAPA from being implemented. The federal government appealed that order to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, but their efforts would once again fail, as the Court, in a 2-1 decision, ruled that the injunction should remain in place.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2015 8 Comments
Cornell University isn't paranoid, James O'Keefe really is out to get it. When Cornell Media Relations overreacted to Jesse Watters asking students questions on campus, I wrote that it made no sense on the surface, but might reflect paranoia about James O'Keefe, who previously did a sting video at Cornell:
What explains this overreaction? I suspect it was the Project Veritas video in which a Cornell assistant dean of students appeared to indicate a willingness to have ISIS train on campus. (As I made clear in my post about it, I don’t think the assistant dean understood the questions.) That created a firestorm of controversy to which university communications was very sensitive. But for Jesse Watters, these campus visits are out in the open and all in good fun. Cornell Media Relations should have left well enough alone. After all, it’s Watters, and everywhere is his world.
Fox News Cornell Watters World I should have known something was up when Project Veritas tweeted my comment about Cornell worrying about O'Keefe:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 17, 2015 6 Comments
Happy Constitutions Day! Today marks the day our illustrious government contract was signed and later adopted, effectively nullifying the Articles of Confederation. To wish our Constitution a proper happy birthday, here's Senator Cruz:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 03, 2015 11 Comments
No one will ever accuse Mark Levin of not getting to the point. The top-tier national radio host has several best selling books, including The Liberty Amendments, which I reviewed in 2013. Levin described his project as follows:
"I undertook this project not because I believe the Constitution, as originally structured, is outdated and outmoded, thereby requiring modernization through amendments, but because of the opposite — that is, the necessity and urgency of restoring constitutional republicanism and preserving the civil society from the growing authoritarianism of a federal Leviathon. This is not doomsaying or fearmongering but an acknowledgment of facgt. The Statists have been successful in their century-long march to disfigure and mangle the constitutional order and undo the social compact."
If The Liberty Amendments framed one answer, Plunder and Deceit clarifies and documents the problem. The problem is a problem Levin has been focused on for years -- Progressive Plunder. In this audio addressing teachers' unions opposition to Scott Walker's public sector union reforms, Levin is blunt: "It's plunder! Plunder! That's what progressivism is." Like I said, Levin doesn't waste time. The very first sentence of Plunder and Deceit asks:
Can we simultaneously love our children but betray their generation and generations yet born?
Mark Levin Plunder and Deceit opening sentence In that seemingly simple question, Levin hits on the essence of what is happening to our country.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 01, 2015 20 Comments
A New York State Judge recently denied an attempt by a group acting for Tommy the Chimp to obtain habeas corpus relief. (Full embed at bottom of post.) But in so denying relief, the judge predicted possible future change citing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the same-sex marriage case. #Seriously. Now we have covered the slippery slope as much as anyone in the area of polygamy and polyamorous clusters, including in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage: But there's the slippery slope, and then there's this slippery slope as reported by Slate: https://twitter.com/Slate/status/627600511492063232 Don't worry, it's not as bad as the tweet makes it sound, depending on what the definition of "bad" is:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 30, 2015 99 Comments
On July 4, 2015, 22 year-old Lane Pittman decided to take his electric guitar and play the Star Spangled Banner on the street outside his friend's house in Neptune Beach, near Jacksonville. Pittman says that after a police officer asked him to stop, he asked if it was okay to play on the sidewalk, and was told that was okay. And play he did:
"I don't think I ever played that song as good in my life as I did on that day. It felt right. It was an emotional roller coaster."
The crowd topped 200 people, spilling onto the street around him: Then Pittman was, to his surprise, arrested for breaching the peace:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 27, 2015 21 Comments
The Obama administration thinks it outsmarted opponents of the Iran deal by running to the U.N. Security Council for international approval before Congress's review period even started. It was a typical Obama F-U to his domestic opponents. Since Congress now needs a super-majority to block the deal, the outcome is uncertain. The Obama team is going all out to pressure Democrats to pledge their loyalty to Obama above all else. Loyalty to Obama is likely to win, though it's possible Congress will grow some backbone before it comes to a vote. Obama even is complaining about Israel Lobby money (hint, hint), while John Kerry for the umpteenth time makes implied threats against Israel. Kerry even is on a trip to the Middle East conspicuously not visiting Israel. Meanwhile, the Ahyatollah and his minions are laughing at Obama, Kerry and the U.S. Not just laughing, mocking and gloating, all the while renewing their vows of death to the U.S. and Israel. Since the federal goverment appears hapless and hopeless, is there anything the states can do to stop this deal? Obama Iran Nuke Deal Announcement Joel Pollak at Breitbart.com was the first, that I'm aware of, to advance a theory of how states can play a crucial role. A reader forwarded the post to me last week while I was in crazyland San Diego, SURPRISE! THE STATES CAN REJECT THE IRAN DEAL:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 01, 2015 28 Comments
A group called Disarm NYPD plans to celebrate the 4th of July with an July 1 event featuring the burning of American flags. It started as an event to burn the Confederate Flag. But other groups around the country turned such events into burning both the Confederate and American flags, so the Disarm NYPD group changed the name of the event, as announced on a Facebook Event page:
We changed the name of this event to "Burn the American Flag." We did this for several reasons, all of which are hopefully obvious, and should ring true to everyone with a conscious. The Confederate flag has long been a symbol of white supremacy, slavery, and Jim Crow. However, the Confederacy lost the war the American flag has unceasingly, from the first day it was ever hung, represented the exact same thing.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 17, 2015 26 Comments
There's a simple explanation for why civil asset forfeiture laws are coming under fire---they ruin lives. Not in the way a hefty speeding ticket or 7 am-on-the-dot tow "ruins lives," but in a real, "my life savings are gone and I don't know how I'm going to pay for my next meal" kind of way. Take Philadelphia, for example. From 2002 to 2012, the City of Philadelphia raked in $64 million in forfeiture funds. Licensed marijuana growers in Michigan have had their homes, property, and assets seized, contributing to a 10 year, $250 million payout to law enforcement. New Mexico took in $4 million in one year based on single sniff tests by drug dogs. The kicker? Much of what is seized by law enforcement is held without any evidence that the property owner has committed a crime. Last year, 24 year-old Charles Clark became just one more victim of a system that benefits law enforcement at the expense of everyday citizens. He lost $11,000 after officials decided that carrying cash in an airport should be treated as a crime---even though there's nothing unlawful about it. The Institute for Justice has the details:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 01, 2015 37 Comments
It's often said that the Second Amendment makes all the others possible. Let's take a step back. The Second Amendment is good, I'll admit.  But as readers know, the Third Amendment is just as -- if not more -- important:
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
What's more, what good is the First Amendment if a soldier is quartered at your desk while you try to blog? So I was glad to see Prof. Glenn Reynolds highlight a symposium at U. Tennessee Law School on the Third Amendment:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 04, 2015 12 Comments
(This post is just an excuse to gloat over the Patriots' victory, but please read on, there's a point here someplace.) Has there ever been a more exciting Super Bowl final quarter than the one we saw during the Patriots' latest win? First, there was the improbable, amazing, super-stupendous "what the **** just happened" catch to put the Seahawks on the verge of victory: Then, there was Bill Belichek playing mind games with Pete Carroll by not calling a time out, which caused "the call" and "the interception":

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 16, 2015 8 Comments
This day in 1919 was irrefutably one of the darkest days in American history -- the day the 18th amendment to the Constitution was ratified, making Prohibition the law of the land. Forever the hallmark of nanny-statism run amok, Prohibition was a progressive dream come true -- an amendment to the Constitution that limited freedoms rather than securing them. Interestingly enough, the 16th amendment paved the way for the 18th amendment. With the income tax in place, the federal government was no longer reliant upon taxes from alcohol producers. In his documentary Prohibition (which I highly recommend), Ken Burns explains:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2015 23 Comments
John Boehner gave a speech today that I could have written for him about Obama's lawless immigration actions. The speech hit all the right notes in connection with passage of a House funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security which blocks using funds for Obama's executive immigration plan. That plan, devised by the White House, unilaterally creates a new class of people effectively exempt from being penalized for immigration violations by inventing a process to obtain legal status found nowhere in the immigration laws. It is not executive or prosecutorial discretion as to better implementing current law---it is a rejection of current law.
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