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Constitution Tag

Lois Lerner famously purported to invoke the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination yesterday while appearing before Congress. A number of people have reached out to me to ask me to write about it.  Unfortunately, it's outside my area of experience and I don't have time to...

An Op-Ed in The New York Times from Georgetown Law Professor Louis Michael Seidman, Let’s Give Up on the Constitution:
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.... Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is.... Constitutional disobedience may seem radical, but it is as old as the Republic....

No one can predict in detail what our system of government would look like if we freed ourselves from the shackles of constitutional obligation, and I harbor no illusions that any of this will happen soon. But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit.

If we acknowledged what should be obvious — that much constitutional language is broad enough to encompass an almost infinitely wide range of positions — we might have a very different attitude about the obligation to obey.

I find myself agreeing more frequently than ever before with Glenn Greenwald, at least on the issue of the willingness and desire of "progressives" to go where even the demonized George W. Bush was not willing to go, and the willingness with which the progressive intelligentsia embraces such ideas in the service of Obama. Or maybe he's agreeing with me. Update:

The big shock in the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling was not that the law was upheld.  Most people thought there was a substantial chance Justice Kennedy would side with the four liberal Justices. But almost no one thought that it would be Chief Justice John Roberts...

The video below (h/t Hot Air) is getting a lot of exposure. It presents, in 16 seconds, religious freedom analogies. But it will make no impact with the Sandra Flukes of the world, who view free birth control as a human right. Someone has to be forced...

Via Fox News: The Catholic family that owns a Colorado-based company won a court victory in  their battle to stop the Obama administration from requiring them to provide  insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception,  a mandate they say violates their religious beliefs and First...

There's not much I can add to what I have already said about the unreality of the reaction to the Obamacare decision by the conservative silver lining crowd. A growing chorus understands. John Yoo: Conservatives are scrambling to salvage something from the decision of their once-great judicial hero...

I have expressed my frustration with those who see some salvation in the supposed advancement of constitutional federalism in the ruling by Chief Justice Roberts and the four conservative dissenters that the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses did not justify forcing people into commerce. Those...

Makes many of the points I made today, including rejecting the delusion that this was a victory: ...

Some well-meaning people are peddling the notion that today's Obamacare decision was a long term victory, that we lost the battle but won the war, that there was some master plan by Chief Justice Roberts to gut the expansion of Commerce Clause power under the...

The most disturbing thing about today's decision is not that we lost on the mandate. The majority opinion on the Commerce Clause (the Chief Justice plus the conservative dissenters) was quite good, and vindicated those who mounted an argument as to "inactivity" to the derision...

On August 14, 2009, I tried to sound the alarm as to where Democrats' health care proposals were heading. At that time I was dealing with the precursors to what became Obamacare.  The congressional language distinguishing the mandate as a penalty and the political arguments that...

Romney's statement: Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn't a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) June 28, 2012 Not taking Congress at its word on penalty is the new judicial restraint #SCOTUSlogic— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) June 28, 2012 SCOTUS to POTUS:...

Consider this Pep Talk IV. Was it over when Harry Reid pushed Obamacare through at Christmas time in December 2009? Not when voters took to the voting booth and elected Scott Brown. Was it over when Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats were forced to accept the Senate version...

where will we be? Big day here. Will create an "open" post somewhere around 9:30 a.m. waiting to find out if the Supreme Court Kremlinologists have been right. Or not. Then will follow up with a post detailing my take on the decision. Followed by the House vote to hold...

Via Patterico (h/t Instapundit and readers): Aaron tells me by phone that the word is Judge Rupp signed the order, modifying the peace order against Aaron to let him speak publicly about Kimberlin. P.S. There is a very interesting aspect of Kimberlin’s response that I will be...