Wednesday, July 27, 2011

1977: Rose Bird, 2011: Goodwin Liu

And hot on the heels of of the Nightmare "DREAM" Act, Governor Moonbeam nominates a communist to the State Supreme Court. This guy was even rejected by the Democrat majority Senate as it now stands earlier this year. In May, Liu was prevented from joining the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals . Even White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel questioned the wisdom of nominating him to the federal government's Ninth Circut. Yet now, California Democrat Governor Jerry Brown has nominated liberal Liu to replace retired California Supreme Court Associate Justice Carlos Ortega.

Of all the bad judges there, Ortega had the most enmity against the written California Constitution and its original intent (he was the only judge to vote to strike down Prop. 8 on marriage after it had passed). And Liu is even to the left of Ortega!

Sadly, there is a growing group of unpatriotic liars who raise their right hands and swear to support and defend the specific, written constitutions of California and of the United States, but they intend nothing of the sort. Goodwin Liu is one of these un-American deceivers because he refuses to abide by the plain reading and original construction of both the state and federal constitutions we've all agreed to live under. No, Goodwin Liu is a radical, liberal, communistic, political activist who would impose his own values on everyone else by legislating from the bench, a clear violation of his oath of office and of the specific words of our constitution. Even to the left of Carlos Moreno, Liu, if confirmed, would become the new Rose Bird of the California Supreme Court.

Mr. Liu holds a radical view of constitutional rights. For example, in his November 2008 Stanford Law Review article he supports a judicial role in establishing constitutional welfare rights-i.e., "affirmative rights," to education, shelter, subsistence, health care and the like, or to the money these things cost. This is the view of rights President Obama raised that caused a stir, and which even liberal Judge Sotomayor rejected when asked if she took such a view during her confirmation hearing.

In that same Stanford Law Review article, Mr. Liu wrote that judges should engage in "socially situated modes of reasoning that appeal ... to the culturally and historically contingent meanings of particular social goods in our own society" and to "determine, at the moment of decision, whether our collective values on a given issue have converged to a degree that they can be persuasively crystallized and credibly absorbed into legal doctrine."

To which most rational people would ask: Huh? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

In his work, "Keeping Faith with the Constitution", Mr. Liu's goal clearly is to create a judicially enforceable, constitutional right to welfare:

Indeed, it’s comical to see how Liu, in back-to-back paragraphs (p. 25), purports to distinguish his approach from that of “living Constitution” advocates. The “living Constitution” approach, you see, understands the Constitution as “grow[ing] and evolv[ing] over time as the conditions, needs, and values of our society change” and contends that “such evolution is inherent to the constitutional design because the Framers intended the document to serve as a general charter for a growing nation and a changing world.” That approach maintains that “constitutional interpretation must be informed by contemporary norms and circumstances, not simply by its original meaning.” In supposed sharp contrast, the “constitutional fidelity” approach maintains that the Constitution must be interpreted “in light of the conditions and challenges faced by succeeding generations.” Its words and principles must be interpreted “in ways that sustain their vitality over time.” Judges must ask “how those principles should be applied today in order to preserve their power and meaning in light of the concerns, conditions, and evolving norms of our society."
In a 2006 article entitled "Education, Equality, and National Citizenship", Liu suggests that the Constitution "assigns equal constitutional status to negative rights against government oppression and positive rights to government assistance on the ground that both are essential to liberty.

Mr. Liu has stated: “…it becomes pretty clear why ‘originalism’ or ‘strict construction’ don’t make a lot of sense… Many of the broad phrases – equal protection of the law, due process of law, unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of speech – all of these phrases are quite broad and indeterminate… The Framers deliberately chose these broad words so they would be adaptable over time. ” To put it mildly, this is ridiculous.

Mr. Liu recklessly attacked the nominations of Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. In the case of Roberts, he wrote, in an op-ed, that "[h]is legal career is studded with activities unfriendly to civil rights, abortion rights, and the environment." These unfounded charges were dismissed by judicial experts on both sides of the aisle and Roberts was confirmed with bi-partisan support.

Mr. Liu actually testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Alito. Liu testified that then-Judge Alito was "at the margin, not the mainstream," and that the America envisioned by his record on the bench "is not the America we know. Nor is it the America we aspire to be." Alito was also confirmed with bi-partisan support.

It has been noted that Mr. Liu doesn't meet the standards for federal judges outlined by the American Bar Association. These standards include "at least 12 years' experience in the practice of law" and "substantial courtroom and trial experience." Mr. Liu, who is only 39 years old, hasn't even been out of law school for 12 years and has no experience as a trial lawyer.

42 of California's 58 county district attorneys opposed Liu's nomination in a March 2010 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying they believe Liu is hostile to the death penalty.

Mr. Liu thinks racial quotas should continue indefinitely and in remarks before the American Constitution Society in August of 2003 advocates reviving "the idea of remedying societal discrimination as a justification for affirmative action."

Mr. Liu offered an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court in which he and others argued that the state's ban on same-sex marriage (approved twice by the voters of California) was unconstitutional.


Yet another turd in the punchbowl that was once California.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It's a "DREAM "Act, all right....

A dream come true for the Commiecrats. And California circles the drain...From the LA Times. Mandating "Gay Studies" was bad enough, and now this?
Following through on a campaign promise, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law Monday easing access to privately funded financial aid for undocumented college students. He also signaled that he was likely to back a more controversial measure allowing those students to seek state-funded tuition aid in the future.
(...)
"Obviously it falls into a different realm when the money is coming out of private pockets than it does when it's coming out of taxpayers' pockets," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates halting illegal immigration, "but nevertheless, foundations and other institutions that get tax exemptions should not be promoting policies that encourage people to remain illegally in the United States."
But sadder still, too many Republicans are in dreamland too, dreaming of Hispandering to voters who will vote against them 2/3 of the time no matter what:
“I ask you, what is wrong with thousands of Latino and Hispanic students graduating from California’s higher educational systems, acquiring an education immersed in English, American government and constitutional core curriculum?”
What is wrong, for starters, is that the school system, especially at university level, has been taken over by “multicultural” (multicommunist) and “politically correct” (politically communist) lies and distortions. If anything, those Mexican Non-Americans (Anti-Americans?) who go through it are more likely to become Reconquista or “Brown Beret” traitors and terrorists. The last things we need are more Bogus Ethnic Studies “students”.

And even where the students are serious academically, which White or Asian or Black or Native American or LEGAL Mexican American students are crowded out, shoved aside, and having scarce financial aid taken away fromthem? Because that is what is happening, like it or not. Eric Hogue nees to be honest with himself about THAT before giving us sermons like this:
Republican members, leaders and voters need to be honest with themselves; the GOP must begin to represent our core principles without alienating or disenfranchising the Latino community.
Given the poison of identity politics, “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” that has infected our academics and our politics, Republicans CAN’T represent our core principles without “alienating or disenfranchising the Latino community.” You can’t win a Hispandering contest, Eric, stop trying.
“A recent survey of California Latinos reported that there was ‘some hope’ for the GOP winning the support of Latino voters. The instrument found that 69-precent of Latino voters ‘will likely consider’ Republicans who “ensure all children the chance to a first rate education.””
Big deal. Empty platitudes. We promise a little educational welfare, the Democrats promise more and the Demunist Commiecrats appeal to the ugly identity politics and separatism of the future Brown Berets and Reconquista traitors. And the GOP becomes even more of a minority party. Self fullfilling prophecy.
“Now that we’ve seen the 2010 census results, there can be no denying the immigrant shift in group identity is away from Republicans, and toward Democrats.”
Gee, self fulfilling prophecies tend to turn out that way, don’t they? Pete Wilson was right, and the Wall Street Journal cheap labor greedheads and Bush/Rove immigration romanticizers were wrong. And they have made it worse for the rest of us in the GOP.

Moreover, WHICH immigrants? There is no group more opposed to their attending college than the Asian American population. Those people will reward Republicans if college attendance is ended for those here illegally. Also it will open the doors for disadvantaged African Americans. Enrollments were cut by 30,000 and you want illegal student attendance. Our focus should be on educating U.S.A. Citzens first, then legal resident aliens, then legal foreign students.

And punting and blaming this mess on the feds is pointless. Arizona and other states are showing the way and acting where the corrupt and/or out of touch feds will not. And by taking action, Republicans WILL win elections. Heck, even a near majority of *legal* Mexican Americans are happy with Governor Brewer.

Friday, July 22, 2011

And they still call her "stupid"....


And they still call the petulant man-child of a president "smart":
          After listening to the President’s press conference today, let’s keep in mind the following:
This is the same president who proposed an absurdly irresponsible budget that would increase our debt by trillions of dollars, and whose party failed to even put forward a budget in over 800 days! This is the same president who is pushing our country to the brink because of his reckless spending on things like the nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” boondoggle. This is the same president who ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations and demonized the voices of fiscal sanity who proposed responsible plans to reform our entitlement programs and rein in our dangerous debt trajectory. This is the same president who wanted to push through an increase in the debt ceiling that didn’t include any cuts in government spending! This is the same president who wants to slam Americans with tax hikes to cover his reckless spending, but has threatened to veto a bill proposing a balanced budget amendment. This is the same president who hasn’t put forward a responsible plan himself, but has rejected reasonable proposals that would tackle our debt. This is the same president who still refuses to understand that the American electorate rejected his big government agenda last November. As I said in Madison, Wisconsin, at the Tax Day Tea Party rally, “We don’t want it. We can’t afford it. And we are unwilling to pay for it.”

Now the President is outraged because the GOP House leadership called his bluff and ended discussions with him because they deemed him an obstruction to any real solution to the debt crisis. 
He has been deemed a lame duck president. And he is angry now because he is being treated as such.
His foreign policy strategy has been described as “leading from behind.” Well, that’s his domestic policy strategy as well. Why should he be surprised that he’s been left behind in the negotiations when he’s been leading from behind on this debt crisis?

Thank you, GOP House leaders. Please don’t get wobbly on us now.

2012 can’t come soon enough.
I couldn't have said it better myself. How does it feel for the Demunists to be "pwned" by a snowbilly?
But I must also give credit to House Speaker John Boehner for standing firm and not going wobbly. I think he has *finally* figured out that the last time he tried to negotiate in good faith with the Obamunist and the Commiecrats, he got boned over the FY2011 budget.
Remember that fiasco? Cutting a relatively trivial $100 billion from a budget with $1.5 trillion of deficit spending wouldn’t have been particularly impressive, but John Boehner let himself be bargained down to $38 billion, and then had the Congressional Budget Office estimate that those “unprecedented” and even “draconian” cuts actually amounted to a mere $352 million.
For the Demunist Commiecrats, racking up massive debt is a feature, not a bug, in their social(ist) (computer) programs. it justifies more confiscatory taxation and accordingly more nanny state control over us kulaks and petty bourgeois.

Monday, July 04, 2011

Independence Day?



Mark Steyn points out how we are losing ours, as the Obamunists push us toward becoming another banana republic:
....in America "Independence" seemed as much a statement about the character of a people as a designation of jurisdictional status. The first Americans were British subjects who had outgrown a British king as benign and enlightened as any ruler on the planet. They demanded "independence" not from foreign rulers of another ethnicity but from their own compatriots with whom they had a disagreement about the nature of government. Long before the Revolutionary War, small New England townships governed themselves to a degree no old England towns did. "Independence" is not about the replacement of a king in London with a president in Washington but about the republican virtues of a self-reliant citizenry free to exploit its own potential.

Please, no snickering. The self-reliant citizen? In the damning formulation of contemporary American vernacular, he's history — as in over and done with, fuhgeddabouttim. What's left of that founding vision on this less than Glorious Fourth of July 2011 in the Brokest Nation in History? "You go talk to your constituents," President Obama taunted Republicans on Wednesday, "and ask them, are they willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate-jet owner continues to get a tax break?"

In the Republic of Brokistan, that's the choice, is it? Give me safe kids or give me corporate jets! No corporate aviation without safe kiddification! In his bizarre press conference on Wednesday, Obama made no fewer than six references to corporate-jet owners. Just for the record, the tax break for corporate jets was part of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" — i.e., the stimulus. The Obama stimulus. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid stimulus. The Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Democratic-party stimulus that every single Republican House member and all but three Republican senators voted against. The Obama–Corporate Jet stimulus that some guy called Obama ostentatiously signed into law in Denver after jetting in to host an "economic forum."

Charles Krauthammer did the math. If you eliminate the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Corporate Jet Tax Break, you would save so much dough that, after 5,000 years, you would have clawed back enough money to cover one year of Obama's debt. Five thousand years is the year 7011. Boy, our kids'll really be safe by then. I see some leftie at MSNBC has just been suspended for characterizing the president's performance on Wednesday as that of a demotic synonym for the male reproductive organ. So I shall be more circumspect and say only that even being a hollow unprincipled demagogue requires a certain lightness of touch Obama can't seem to find.

Speaking of corporate jets, did the president fly commercial to Denver? Oh, but that's different! He's in "public service." A couple of weeks before he flew Air Force One to Denver, he flew Air Force One to Williamsburg, Va. From the White House (well, via Andrews Air Force Base). That's 150 miles, a 30-minute flight. He took a 747, a wide-bodied jet designed to carry 500 people to the other side of the planet, for a puddle-jump across the Potomac.

Oh, but it was for another "economic forum." This time with House Democrats — the ones who voted for the Obama Corporate Jet Tax Break. "Economic forums" are what we have instead of an economy these days.....And the least the beneficiary of such decadence could do is not condescendingly lecture those who pay for their own transportation. America's debt is an existential crisis, and playing shell games with shriveled peas of demonizable irrelevancies only advertises your contempt for the citizenry.
(...)
What else isn't "the same for everyone"? A lot of things, these days. The president has a point about "tax breaks." We have too many. And on the scale of the present tax code that's a dagger at the heart of one of the most basic principles of free societies — equality before the law. But, of course, the president is not opposed to exemptions and exceptions and special privileges on principle: After all, he's issued — what is it now? — over a thousand "waivers" for his own Obamacare law. If you knew who to call in Washington, maybe you got one. If you didn't, tough.

But that's the point. Big Government on America's unprecedented money-no-object scale will always be profoundly wasteful, stupid, and arbitrary (as in those waivers). But it's not republican in any sense the Founders would recognize. If (like Obama) you're a lifetime member of the government class, you can survive it. For the rest, it ought to be a source of shame to today's Americans that this will be the first generation in U.S. history to bequeath its children the certainty of poorer, meaner lives — if not a broader decay into a fetid swamp divided between a well-connected Latin American–style elite enjoying their waivers and a vast downwardly mobile morass.