No Truce With Kings

I’ve often thought that citizenship should require an examination, like the one immigrants are required to pass. But if we can’t have that, at least we ought to make people running for office pass an exam on the Constitution.

From The Agitator.

When Congress Voted Down The Fourth Amendment

Earlier this month [May, 2013 – JHC], President Obama nominated North Carolina Rep. Mel Watt to head up the Federal Housing Finance Authority. Here’s a fun little nugget about Watt that has little relevance to the job he’s seeking, but has lots of relevance to the current debates over leaks, press investigations, wiretapping, and such:

Back in early 1995, the new Republican majority set out on its “limited government” agenda with a bill to chip away at the Exclusionary Rule, the policy that says evidence found in the course of an illegal search can’t be used against the suspect at trial. (Though there are some exceptions.) During the debate, Watt introduced the following amendment to the bill:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That of course is the exact language of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The House killed Watt’s amendment by nearly a 3-1 margin.

FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe Asks Senator Lindsey Graham for His Email Password

Washington, DC- At a press conference today, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe addressed the growing list of civil liberties violations that have surfaced in recent weeks, and extended an open invitation to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to walk the walk implied by his casual dismissal of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. If he has “nothing to worry about,” he should be willing to publicly release his email password. The petition can be found at www.LindseysPassword.com.

In a Fox and Friends interview last Thursday, Senator Graham defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless surveillance of American civilians, telling the show’s hosts, “I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.” Senator Graham then went one step further, concluding that he was “glad” the warrantless surveillance activity was happening in the NSA.

Kibbe commented […] “Respectfully, Senator, we ask you to lead by example and make your email account password available to the American people. If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about. Right?”

I don’t spend a lot of time bashing sitting Presidents. Too many people do that at the drop of a hat and in readers’ eyes it just becomes one partisan’s potshots against another’s. That’s the impression I frequently get, at least.

Those who take President Obama to task for not knowing military protocols (or other minor infractions) and the folks who propagated the canard about President Bush and the upside-down book only damage their own side’s arguments in a serious reader’s eyes. Grow up and get a clue, people: avoid the temptation to score a cheap shot.

The better course in most cases is to praise public figures who do the Right Thing rather than to condemn ones who do the Wrong Thing.

But in some cases the errors are too threatening to let pass. When the current administration acts like a gang of Chicago mobsters, we need to raise hell about it.

Here’s the opening of a recent NYT opinion piece that was by James Goodale. Mr Goodale represented The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case and he’s a First Amendment lawyer and author of “Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles.”

Only Nixon Harmed a Free Press More

The search warrant filed to investigate the Fox News reporter James Rosen proved as many had suspected: President Obama wants to make it a crime for a reporter to talk to a leaker. It is a further example of how President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.

The government’s subpoena of The Associated Press’s phone records was bad enough. But the disclosure of the search warrant in the Rosen case shows President Obama has delved into territory never before reached by previous presidents.

The Justice Department obtained Rosen’s e-mail by using a search warrant in which it alleged that Rosen was a co-conspirator with a government adviser named Stephen Kim.

This conspiracy, as imagined by the Justice Department, commenced as soon as Rosen started e-mailing or talking with Kim. But reporters have the right to talk to anyone, under the First Amendment. Obama’s theory of conspiracy therefore strikes at the heart of that amendment.

To see the Congress considering exempting itself from the burdens of a law it passed is just adding insult to the injuries imposed on us by the PPACA.

But that’s just what Politico reports.

Lawmakers, aides may get Obamacare exemption

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

Read the whole thing and you’ll see that members of Congress aren’t dummies. They can see the costs of PPACA as well as any business person can.

The difference is that the people in Congress weren’t smart enough to vote against PPACA when it came time to vote on it.

Update
Ezra Klein at The Washington Post writes that the Politico article was inaccurate:

No, Congress isn’t trying to exempt itself from Obamacare

There’s a Politico story making the rounds that says that members of Congress are engaged in secret, sensitive negotiations to exempt themselves and their staffs from Obamacare.

Well, they were secret, anyway.

The story has blown up on Twitter. “Unbelievable,” tweets TPM’s Brian Beutler. “Flat out incredible,” says Politico’s Ben White. “Obamacare for thee, but not for me,” snarks Ben Domenech. “Two thumbs way, way down,” says Richard Roeper. (Okay, I made the last one up).

If this sounds unbelievable, it’s because it is. There’s no effort to “exempt” Congress from Obamacare. No matter how this shakes out, Congress will have to follow the law, just like everyone else does.

Based on conversations I’ve had with a number of the staffs involved in these talks, the actual issue here is far less interesting, and far less explosive, than an exemption. Rather, a Republican amendment meant to embarrass Democrats and a too-clever-by-half Democratic response has possibly created a problem in which the federal government can’t make its normal contribution to the insurance premiums of congressional staffers.

On Tuesday this week, I was reading an article in the Post-Dispatch: Missouri motorcyclists could go helmet-free in August under proposal. State Rep. Delus Johnson (R-St. Joseph) was proposing a "helmet holiday" during the month of August, primarily to avoid discouraging motorcycle tourists from visiting Missouri.

Like 19 other states in the U.S., Missouri requires all motorcycle riders to wear a helmet. The only two states that don’t require any riders to wear helmets are our neighbors, Illinois and Iowa. (The other 29 states require helmets based on the rider’s age.) I remember riding my first motorcycle in Illinois without a helmet. It was fun.

The article piqued my interest since I still ride a bike. It would be nice to ride without a helmet occasionally even though I appreciate the increased risk. There’s always the hope the "helmet holiday" might become year-long.

But what caught my eye in this article was a comment by another state representative. Mike Colona (D-St. Louis) countered: “There is no constitutionally guaranteed right not to wear a helmet.”

There’s the problem in a nutshell. Mr. Colona seems to believe that the Constitution is intended to govern the behavior of citizens. Worse, he seems to think that if it’s not called out in the Constitution, then it can’t be allowed. A sort of "Everything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory" type of system.

Here’s a news flash, Representative: the Constitution is intended to govern the behavior of the government. Back to Civics class, dude.

It was a really lame argument. He’d might as well have said, “There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to jaywalk” for all the sense that makes. There are no constitutional questions regarding the vast majority of state laws.

This is Missouri, Rep. Colona, and you need to show me why the state should be able to regulate its citizens in some way. It won’t do to say that we "have no right" to avoid some regulation.

Source

If you look closely, you’ll see that the dollar amounts do not add up to the sum in the label. Comment on/explanation of that at Hit & Run.