A New Constitution

From Political Punch at ABC News.

Picked up on open mikes, a conversation between Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and American President Barrack Obama


President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Let's see the nicest thing to said is that the President promised he would give up without cost a key negotiation item.

A more common interpretation is that his he will not announce his real post election agenda during the election, it may cost him to many votes. Who knows.


/SatireMode=On

What makes that interesting is this just floated into my computer from an alternate universe.

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Draft Executive Order to be issued the day after election (win or lose) by the President of the United States on his authority deriving from being Barrack H Obama.


The Constitution of the US is amended as follows:

Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We, Barrack H Obama, in Order to form a more perfect Commune, establish Fairness, insure domestic Tolerance, provide the Nomenklatura's Defense, promote the Welfare system, and secure the Benifits of Multiculturism to ourselves and our (unaborted) Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article 1 Section 8

1: The Congress shall have Power [Delete to end and replace with] to legislate the wishes of Barrack H Obama
Section 9
2: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
2. No privilege of Habeas Corpus shall be granted.
3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
3. Bills of Attainder and ex post facto laws may passed.
7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.Except at the direction of President Obama, Statements and account of the receipts need not be published.

Article II Section 1

1: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. Barrack H Obama. He shall hold his Office ,during the Term of four Years, for life


Article III Section 3
1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. Lesse Majesty against Barack H Obama

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, except for secularism, or permitting the free exercise thereof; or allowing the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.
shall not be tollerated

Amendment IV

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.

Privare property is an oxomoron thus it shall always be subject to searches and seizures for any reason or no reason, with or without cause.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
A person may be put in jeopardy as often as necessary to obtain a conviction, shall not have right to due process of law.


Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be tried at a time and place convenient to the prosecution,   need not be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; be confronted with the witnesses against him; have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, or have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The powers that Barrack H Obama does not delegate to the States or the People are retained by Barrack H Obama.

Admendment XIII Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Amendment XIV Section 1

1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside
Barrack H Obama is a Natural born Citizen of the United States and the State in which he resides

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

To promote the policies of Barrak H Obamma a state may abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;any state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; and  deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

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Stimulus???

Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf testifying before the Senate Budget Committee. He is responding to questions from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) the senior Republican on the committee.

ELMENDORF: What we said was, [the stimulus bill] would be a big boost in the level of GDP in the first 3 or 4 years,*** and then, relative to what would have happened to GDP without that law… the level of GDP would be a little lower at the end. That is, a net negative effect on the growth of GDP over 10 years.

SESSIONS: And in the next 10 years, since you’re carrying that debt and paying interest on it and the stimulus value is long since gone, it would be a continual negative of some effect?

ELMENDORF: Yes, it would represent a drag on the level of GDP beyond that, if no other actions were taken.


Of course, future estimates can be mistaken for many unpredictable factors, the chance of this being optimistic are probably equal to the chance they are pessimistic. But even the best case is not likely to be good.


HT:   National Review Online

Clarence Thomas: The Stealth Justice

During the Justice Thomas nomination hearings one of the things I noted was Judge Thomas said his main legal interests were business regulation and constitional jurisprudence. He would rather have been appointed to a business regulation position in the first Bush administration than an agency Civil Rights Counsel. The Senate confirmed a nominee with a publicly stated interest in business regulation while barely asking him a question on the subject and slightly more on constitional  jurisprudence. Strange priorities by the committee.  I suspect that if he had been asked questions and answered the them as written in his later decisions, he might have lost some conserative support and maybe the four vote margin by which he was confirmed.  Making him the Stealth Justice, these may well be the areas he has the most influnce on the future of American Jurisprudence. 
Justice Thomas’ opening statement to Senate committee on the Anita Hill allegations. 10 minutes but worth watching.


Jeffery Toobin writing in the The New Yorker looks at the role of Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court.  Partners: Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas succeed in killing Obama’s health-care plan?  While he does not agree with Justice Thomas on many levels this is a fair and balanced survey and he intends it as a warning to other liberals.



Walter Russell Mead gives us a succinct summary (New Blue Nightmare: Clarence Thomas and the Amendment of Doom) of the lenghty article and the implications’ for the Supreme Court.

Jeffrey Toobin’s gripping, must-read profile of Clarence and Virginia Thomas in the New Yorker gives readers new insight into what Sauron must have felt: Toobin argues that the only Black man in public life that liberals could safely mock and despise may be on the point of bringing the Blue Empire down.

In fact, Toobin suggests, Clarence Thomas may be the Frodo Baggins of the right; his lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state.

snip

There are few articles of faith as firmly fixed in the liberal canon as the belief that Clarence Thomas is, to put it as bluntly as many liberals do, a dunce and a worm. Twenty years of married life have not erased the conventional liberal view of his character etched by Anita Hill’s testimony at his confirmation hearings. Not only does the liberal mind perceive him as a disgusting lump of ungoverned sexual impulse; he is seen as an intellectual cipher. Thomas’ silence during oral argument before the Supreme Court is taken as obvious evidence that he has nothing to say and is perhaps a bit intimidated by the verbal fireworks exchanged by the high profile lawyers and his more, ahem, ‘qualified’ colleagues.

Snip

Toobin is less interested in exploring why liberal America has been so blind for so long to the force of Clarence Thomas’ intellect than in understanding just what Thomas has achieved in his lonely trek across the wastes of Mordor. And what he finds is that Thomas has been pioneering the techniques and the ideas that could not only lead to the court rejecting all or part of President Obama’s health legislation; the ideas and strategies Thomas has developed could conceivably topple the constitutionality of the post New Deal state.

Justice Thomas’ influence is summarized in three areas.

In the case of the Second Amendment, the collapse has already come. Back in my Pundit High days, anyone who dared to suggest that the Bill of Rights gave individuals the right to bear arms would have been laughed out of the class as an ignorant yahoo. These days, that is the accepted view of the US Supreme Court and most of the legal profession.

snip

The next topic for Constitutional revisionism is the expansive reading of the commerce clause that the New Deal judges used to justify the Roosevelt administration’s ambitious economic programs.  Especially relevant to the President's Health Care (sic) initiative.

Snip

The real problem will come if Thomas can figure out how to get the Tenth Amendment back into constitutional thought in a serious way.

His method seems to be avoiding the usual give and take of the Court and to write dissents or concurrences that present a well researched and argued rational that is very different different from the Courts decision.  Some trial and appellate judges seem have found these more relevant for later cases than the Courts decision.  A stealth stratagy that could have impact for decades after he leaves the court.

I have always thought that Justice Thomas, like him or not, was vastly under rated.  I would encourage you to read the articles, not just to learn about Justice Thomas but some of the key legal issues that will come before the Supreme Court.

Updated 4 Sept 2011