Sunday Funny.

Via Chipsticks...

Good advice,..

...from Fixer...

From the "Credit where it's due" file.

If it's due. Goldy suggests that Rob McKenna might be due the benefit of the doubt...

Even though an overwhelming majority of constitutional scholars had weighed in that the mandate appeared to be constitutional, perhaps it is unfair to use this ruling to impugn McKenna’s legal acumen. Perhaps McKenna merely made the political calculation that the conservative majority on the court would ultimately prove be just as politically unprincipled as he is, and thus toss out the ACA regardless of clearly established precedent?

Politically unprincipled or legally inept?

Why choose one?

Heh™.

Via Crooks & Liars...


Yep, you can click it bigger.

From the "You can't fool all the people..." file.

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 6/14-17. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (no trendlines):

Q: Since 2000 do you think the Supreme Court has become more partisan, less partisan, or stayed about the same?

More partisan: 56
Less partisan: 9
About the same: 31
Not sure: 4

Not much to add beyond "Well, duh!"

Signs of the times.

Via Laura Clawson...



Kids and daddies, too.

Occupy the courts.

H/T Bluegal.

Oops.

Think Progress...

Rick Perry Draws A Blank On Key Supreme Court Case Overturning Texas’ Anti-Gay Laws He Defended

It's really no fun when they just fall over.

Congratulations Justice Kagan!

WASHINGTON — Solicitor General Elena Kagan won easy Senate confirmation Thursday to the U. S. Supreme Court, where President Barack Obama's nominee will make history as three women will serve at the same time on the nine-member court.

Congratulations women, too!

68-31

Justice Sotomayor.

Oath on Saturday. Hurrah!

From the "Civics 101" file.

The basic notion is fairly widespread, but to snag an example from thin air, as it were, CNN's John King (h/t Fixer) sums it up pretty well…

You know, we had an election in November. What we thought we got was united government, a Democrat in the White House, a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. Instead it seems that we just have a different kind of divided government. You have a Democratic President that's fighting with wings of his own party in congress, including, this is from Democracy for America.

Sadly, the "we" that King is speaking for here is a pretty big group of folks. Sad because it demonstrates so well the widespread ignorance about the government created by the U.S. Constitution. Parliamentary governments already existed when the founders established the world's first constitutional democratic republic. The differences between our nation's government and those which preceded it were well considered and deliberate. The lack of constitutional provision for political parties was well considered and deliberate.

It was never intended that there be a government united along partisan lines in the United States of America. Our constitutional separation of powers depends on a measure of division between the executive and legislative branches of government, with the apolitical (in the sense that they are not directly responsible to a general electorate) branch established as the referee of such conflicts as might arise from the intentionally inherent tension. Each branch was granted areas of authority, some exclusive, some shared, some competing, some, on occasion, conflicting.

The inherent divisions go even deeper. While parliamentary governments may have bicameral legislatures, the so-called upper houses are often largely ceremonial chambers for nobility and elder statesman, with heavily circumscribed policy authority. The United States Senate was designed to be stronger, with it's own exclusive areas of authority and its necessary assent in the actions of the larger House of Representatives. Of course, the power of the purse is reserved to the presumably more representative and accountable members of the House. That alone, the ability of the lower house to economically strangle any initiative by the Executive or the Senate, creates the real nuclear option in American government and is, again, a point of division by design. (The only Speaker in my memory to have pushed that button was Newt Gingrich, and it didn't work out so well for him, but the button's still there. The House can close the public purse to any or everything.)

No, partisan zealot that I am, I don't expect the government to march in lock step to a party line simply because the party that supports Constitutional governance is in control of the political branches. In fact, because the Democratic Party is dominant in Washington D.C. at this time, I expect and applaud the fact that these divisions are appearing. I like Speaker Pelosi best when she aggressively defends the prerogatives of the House, and am most dismayed by Majority Leader Reid when he less assertive in defense of the authority of a Senate majority.

The separate branches should reflect the different interests of their varied constituencies. While the founders had hoped that the factions of their days might not harden into the parties of the present era, it is the Democratic Party that seeks to most closely realize that founding ideal by offering a political home to a broad cross-section of ideologies. As Democrats, we only require that those ideologies do not conflict with the central principle of a government conducted along Constitutional lines - a government, that is, of laws, rather than of men.

Men and women of varying ideologies representing various constituencies should reflect divisions, regardless of party affiliations. It's in the Constitution. The fact that every American hasn't learned this by the eighth grade, let alone by the time they become national broadcasters, is one of the more serious threats to our republic.

This concludes today's lesson.

(Fixer, by the way, takes this in another direction, leading to a post about corporate ownership of the machinery of government, root, branch and regardless of party. That's another of the more serious threats to our republic, and I commend his observations to you.)

So what you're saying…

Nick Beaudrot...

...if you take the view that the police state has gone too far in enforcing drug laws and that any reduction in police powers or complications in prosecuting drug crimes is a good thing, today was a good day.

…is that today was a good day.

Good.

Let's hope they're not listening,,,

...to Peggy Noonan. Not that there's much risk, given that she sounds somewhat rational on the call for a confirmation fight over Sonia Sotomayor...

Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent? How about gain the attention of people who aren't already on your side?

I've never really understood the whole "excite the base" strategy, anyway. Isn't the "base" supposed to be made up of folks who are with you regardless? Democrats call 'em yellow dogs, Republicans call 'em, what? Lunatics? They sure spend enough time howling at the moon...

Ya' think?

John "I don't support torture, I just vote for it" McCain…

"Justice Sotomayor may be qualified and we will examine that, but I think I would not have nominated her."

No foolin'? Ya' think maybe that's a reason you lost?

Just one reason out of a bunch, of course, but a big one, I figure...

Quote of the day.

"I commend President Obama for nominating a well-qualified woman."

Sen. Olympia Snowe on Sonia Sotomayor.

Yep, we can get this done for the new Court term.

Regarding Supreme Courts…

…it sounds like Obama got it right, but…


Graphical hat tip to SamGrace, who, I'm sure, would encourage you to spread it around. There's a range of sizes and styles here.