Sdferr cites this part of the dissent by Justice Scalia:
[…] But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws?
A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the States conceivably have entered into the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court’s holding? Today’s judgment surely fails that test. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the delegates contended with “the jealousy of the states with regard to their sovereignty.” 1Records of the Federal Convention 19 (M. Farrand ed.1911) (statement of Edmund Randolph). Through ratification of the fundamental charter that the Convention produced, the States ceded much of their sovereignty to the Federal Government. But much of it remained jealously guarded—as reflected in the innumerable proposals that never left Independence Hall. Now, imagine a provision—perhaps inserted right after Art. I, §8, cl. 4, the Naturalization Clause—which included among the enumerated powers of Congress “To establish Limitations upon Immigration that will be exclusive and that will be enforced only to the extent the President deems appropriate.” The delegates to the Grand Convention would have rushed to the exits.As is often the case, discussion of the dry legalities that are the proper object of our attention suppresses the very human realities that gave rise to the suit. Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem,and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.
Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent.
My thoughts: Dissent is fairly meaningless — though I will say though that Scalia’s dissent is a good one inasmuch as it shows that the Court is now less originalist than it is concerned with its own prior precedent, regardless of how wrong that prior precedent might be.
It was a self-interested and politically correct decision, and that’s what the left has been paving the way for for years upon years upon years.
The specter of Kennedy and Roberts both ruling with the feds on ObamaCare — as Pelosi and I believe Allahpundit both predicted — is more real than I ever believed. Though it’s also true that they may believe the way they ruled here gives them cover.
Either way, basing votes on such considerations is more that just regrettable. It signals that this is all over, and that speed is the only thing left to decide how quickly.
In fact, given what the mission of this blog has been — that is, to re-tether meaning to intent in a way that is non-political and non-cynically manipulative in order to protect the very kernel foundational assumptions of a classical liberal system anchored to a stable rule of law — I see no real reason to continue. We’re over. Most people won’t know it or feel it or acknowledge it — and any number of faux sophisticates will smirk and behave dismissively of my hyperventilating hyperbole — but it’s settled science from my perspective, not because of the ruling itself, but because of what the ruling says about the relationship b/w states and federal authorities, and about the role of the actual Constitution and its legislative intent, which is now to be permanently subjugated to the PC efforts of philosopher kings and queens themselves pressured by political considerations.
How you get there matters, I’ve argued. This ruling makes clear that, from the High Court’s perspective, such is no longer true. If it ever really was.
Game, set, match to the Left.
It signals that this is all over, and that speed is the only thing left to decide how quickly.
I’m not worried about me. Much. However, I’ve been trying to fashion an exit strategy to protect my children. At this point, I’m not sure where I should go as I’m not rich enough to buy my own island or government.
I’m not certain merely buying an island would work. Larry Ellison has apparently just purchased the Hawaiian Island Lana’i, yet my guess is he’ll still be subject to Federal Sovereignty, albeit not, possibly, Hawaiian State Sovereignty. This decision does begin to throw a new complexion on the native Hawaiian movement though, don’t it?
I see no real reason to continue. We’re over.
Until SMOD arrives to put us all out of our misery, nothing’s over. Unless by “we” you mean “the Republic as currently constituted [sic/sarc].”
You weren’t going to arrest this particular trajectory at this particular time, because the juggernaut has had plenty of momentum behind it, and it was always going to play out to its logical conclusion. The gods of the copybook headings have always been right on this account.
Also, the sun will continue to rise in the east and we’ll still need to slog through another day, and that which appears to be permanent will eventually erode and collapse. Ask Ozymandias (Obamandias?) The Republic will likely fragment—or at least stop listening to Washington’s rank insanity—and the need for intentionalism (or its recognition) will continue.
We lose this round. We lose this war. We retreat to the hills, thumb our noses at the flatlanders, and do what we want anyway.
The Supreme Court has abandoned its supposed “absolutes” before. Overthrowing the old way of looking at the law for the new shinier one is how we get supreme court upsets that make us throw out laws compatible with their old ideas but incompatible with their new ones.
This is not the first time the supreme court has decided something “merely because a majority of us say so external to any reasonable legal basis and you powerless non demi-gods must now suck it!”
It won’t be the last.
And there are ways to handle it with ammendments, laws, and new cases that use other means to reason that appeals to the vanity of the flip floppers on the court.
Now it will fall to OTHER cases, new court rulings that contradict the old, and congress or electing a new president object to public pressure more than interest group pressure on this issue.
Physics Geek,
A lot of having power is being able to exert power. For my own self, I’d look at some remote part of the US — there are wide swaths of Wyoming, Montana, N/S Dakota, Nebraska, even POS Texas that in true societal collapse would be well nigh impossible for a government to exert any control over. There is simply too little major infrastructure, too much space, and too little population density. You’d have a chance to hunker down and grow some of your own food a live a little freer.
That is the direction of my plans. The fact that I actually need to implement those plans now is a little saddening. Though inevitable.
I console myself with the realization that their army of bureaucrats and lawyers has harvested all it can from the fields, and will shortly find itself starving. Small consolation, indeed.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Limbaugh has lost the thread.
Despite being a natural pessimist: What dicentra said. The present moment–the current trajectory–is no more permanent than the empire of the Caesars was. Actually, given our fiscal vortex, it’s likely to be much more transient, given how dependent it is on other people’s money.
This, too, shall pass.
It usually does.
Probably about time to start considering detonating the Article V bomb.
The present moment, in a sense — which, by the way, in this sense extends to many many decades by now, strangely enough — seems in many respects to represent the proposition that nothing is permanent, that there simply is no such thing at all which is permanent, and most especially the ‘things pertaining to men or mankind’ are not permanent. It’s a question, anyhow. And this decision seems to point to agreement with that proposition.
I’m going to wait for the obamacare decision before concluding that life as we know it is over. We’re on a continuum; there are future events (elections, Supreme Court Justice appointments) that will occur.
Not that I’m disagreeing with you, Jeff. I’ve understood for a number of years that the Republic has taken a sharp turn left and is in trouble. BUT (that was a BIG but, a Moochelle-sized but), maybe this is what is required. It may turn out that this is exactly what is necessary to reset and refresh. I have no idea what it may look like, but my planning is to be flexible enough to ride the wave.
Alito in dissent on the MILLER v. ALABAMA decision.
This seems to be generally applicable today.
The thing is, an open border is over the long term an “unsustainable” philosphy/policy no matter how stupid/leftist/arbitrary the fantasy that generated it is.
Things will happen. The public will NOT settle for it because as time goes on, incidents will increase, and support for a reversal will increase.
To put it bluntly, prohibition seemed like good idea too. Once. But in time, the the gods of the copy book headings returned and stove in skulls and were once again obeyed.
The border is no different.
A borderless state is no state and cannot maintain power. It cannot be tyrant for long because it starves and weakens itself to the point that it cannot rule and becomes an object lesson. As it tries to maintain its grip, the crowd smells its weakness.
Reality doesn’t give a fuck if it is on the wrong side of history because ultimately it writes more of the history books than fools do. Gulags and firing squads won’t ever and can’t ever make Lysenko right. Towel-capes don’t make us fly like Superman or keep us from falling when we jump off the room. When history is on the wrong side of reality then reality cuts history to shreds and we usually quickly find our new paradigm (which looks a lot like the old old paradigm) on the other side of Ragnarok while the ashes are still cooling and the mists thinning out.
The “light workers” fight Poseidon on the beach one day, elect a horse to the senate the next, and face Praetorian spears soon after. And when someone else comes along who tries the same thing they end up crying “‘Oh what an artist is lost in me!’ on the end of a dagger or spear.
(And yes I know that the historical Caligula looks a bit different than Suetonius’ version. But North Korea is a real thing that demonstrates you can’t ice skate uphill for very long without a rope to hold on to and once you are out of ropes the hill wins. )
Eventually someone forgets to pay the Goths that are reallyholding everything together and the empire “decentralizes”.
Probably about time to start considering detonating the Article V bomb.
What, by adding a “we really mean it” clause to the Constitution? What would make Washington pay attention to such a thing any more than they already do to the Ninth and Tenth?
I think it more likely that we see the erstwhile ‘sovereign states’ start flexing their sovereignty more in the coming years. Maybe it’s Arizona deciding that they’ll continue to defend their borders, Washington be damned. Maybe it’s North Dakota deciding that their legal drinking age is 17, and Washington be damned. Maybe it’s California deciding that they’re going to irrigate the Central Valley after all, and Washington be damned. Maybe it’s Texas deciding that they’ll make their own foreign and domestic policies, and Washington be damned.
If the Department of Justice gets to decide which laws it will and won’t enforce, then the sovereign states should feel free to decide which laws they will and won’t observe. BECAUSE OF THE FAIRNESS!
What happened to Article IV, sec. 4?
Desaparecido, no?
If the Supreme Court has abrogated the “sovereign” part of “indivisible Union of sovereign States,” in Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U. S. 92, 104 (1938), then it must also have abrogated the “indivisible” part.
Because as far as I’m concerned if Hinderlider doesn’t contain a severability clause, it is inseverable.
The present moment, in a sense — which, by the way, in this sense extends to many many decades by now, strangely enough — seems in many respects to represent the proposition that nothing is permanent, that there simply is no such thing at all which is permanent, and most especially the ‘things pertaining to men or mankind’ are not permanent. It’s a question, anyhow. And this decision seems to point to agreement with that proposition.
That’s a good argument. My response would be that I was thinking at least partially of our current, particularly volatile, times–the whipsawing of the electorate from 2004 on. To speak of a permanent setting of the politico-legal concrete doesn’t account for a few crucial factors on the ground.
I don’t know. I have to admit my thinking on the subject is inconsistent and muddled.
In my humble opinion Dale, I think it’s a terrible argument, simply because it’s so starkly self-contradictory. But there we are.
The bomb in article V is the right of the states to call a convention, Squid. Because of the precedent set by the first convention.
Seems to me Arizona has it’s options limited to stopping illegals right at the border. Brewer outta activate the national guard and deploy the whole bunch on the border for six months, put up “trespassers will be shot” signs, and allow zero unauthorized crossings.
Oh, and tell the feds to find a swordfish to insert sideways.
And to fill that out just a bit, the ‘there we are’ portion has been around a long time indeed, at least since the famed sophist Protagoras invoked his “man is the measure of all things” doctrine. That bitch just keeps coming back: she seems impossible to permanently put down, so long as there are people around to fall for the ruse.
Duly linked and duly depressed.
The argument that Congress, by enacting certain laws, has thereby rendered the States powerless to act in accordance with those laws fails on its face. Here’s how to get the most strident lib to recognize:
Once Congress has spoken to any issue, states and local governments are completely forbidden to address it in any way? Suppose President Obama travels to AZ for some reason or other. While he’s there, an AZ cop sees someone acting hinky, and thinks he might have a concealed weapon he’s about to use to shoot POTUS. By the logic of this ruling, the fact that attempting to assassinate the President is a Federal law precludes AZ LEOs from taking any action whatsoever.
Death Threat!
It seems to me that selective enforcement violates Article IV, sec 1 as well, even if that selective enforcement is applied to all fifty states equally.
It’s time for a Convention.
Sowell on immigration and the consequence of temporary political policy on the rule of law. from last week:
[emphasis mine]
That bolded bit is where politicians are confused these days, seems to me.
I may have to side with Jeff about pessimism being warranted. Even if we concede that it is likely that Roberts is going to deliver the opinion on ACHA, and even if we grant that it is likely that the Court will overturn at least the individual mandate, equally important is the fact that a certain Justice won’t be delivering the opinion of the Court: Clarence Thomas. In fact, when has Thomas ever written the majority opinion on a truly important case? None spring immediately to mind.
Alito, Scalia, and Roberts all are great Justices in their own right, but none are as consistent and thorough in their originalism as Thomas. I would argue that Clarence Thomas is the most strident and intellectually consistent originalist the Court has had in at least eighty years. He’s the only one who truly recognizes that we have to dismantle nearly a century of the Court’s unconstitutional jurisprudence. The only one who seems even somewhat as inclined as Thomas to reverse course is Alito – who, by the way, had the much better of the dissents (even if he agreed with the majority on Section 5).
So Thomas is basically all by his lonesome on the Court. That’s why I rolled my eyes during the debates when the candidates were asked which Justices they most admired, and they all blathered on about all four of the conservatives. Unless we get a bunch more like Clarence Thomas, nothing is truly going to change.
I meant Section 3, not 5, when referring to Alito above.
So what would happen if the State of Arizona decided to stop using state resources to investigate, jail and prosecute violators of Federal law? What if AZ decriminalizes underage drinking? Keeps the law on the books, just doesn’t prosecute? How about pot? How about cultivation? Civil rights laws? sexual grabassment laws? I bet the all-powerful state would get its knickers in a twist over that.
Squid beat me to it. but yeah man, eliminate the title ix compliance office at state universities in all but name! take the money and use it to build a giant urinal trough in the football stadium parking lot!
It is not possible to sweep the floor with such perfection that it never needs sweeping again.
Unless you seal it off as in a cleanroom environment, permitting no entrance or egress, in which case it’s of no use to anyone.
The Founders would be dismayed by our current heading but not surprised, and perhaps they’d be impressed that it took us this long to get here, given their tremendous pessimism about human society and the inevitable abuse of power.
I believe the non-enforcement thing at the state level has some precedent Mr. Cookies
Well, if we ever get a court that isn’t slavishly enamoured of its own precedents* Thomas may become the guiding light that Felix Frankfurter is popularly held to be.
*(At the next confirmation hearings, somebody ought to ask the nominee his opinion of stare decisis as it relates to Dred Scott and Plessy, not that a mere Senator would have the balls to actually do so.)
The feds won’t let it go though, and they’ll have to send in their own guys, like the t-men in chicago back in prohibition. It’ll make them spend a lot of money and resources. Shit, maybe AZ should set up welcome wagons at the border and distribute free bus tickets to LA.
and distribute free bus tickets to
LAanywhere inside the Beltway.FTFY
Put up a couple hundred billboards in Spanish talking about the housing boom in the Washington DC suburbs. Offer free passage to any illegal willing to work.
“. . . anywhere inside the Beltway.”
Because
And this really pisses me off because my youngest’s best friend’s dad is going to lose his green card because the company he’s worked for for eight years was just sold to a union shop and they don’t need him to run a crew. Because he has paperwork, he’s going to get shipped back if he doesn’t get work soon.
He was a supervisor for a company that installs swamp coolers and industrial hvac. Last week he was sealing my neighbor’s driveway. Had to underbid a van load of Travellers to get that job. The Travellers, BTW, are
almost certainlyillegal.It’s funny because while FL was fighting off the Justice Dept re: voter rolls, I told my wife that the only way forward any longer is for states to simply stop following federal directives. Feds cut off funds, states stop sending in tax revenues.
Take it a step further, and they can tell the SCOTUS that, if that body wishes to pretend the 9th and 10th Amendments don’t exist, we’ll just follow our own state supreme courts, and you can bugger off.
To me, that’s akin to a kind of secession — or grand federalist civil disobedience — and I’m all for it.
Were I a governor today, I’d be pissed off. And ready to do something about it.
Dear Arizona, go fuck yourself.
Big Sis probably does that a lot sdferr.
Rush just mentioned that sdferr.
Do Arizonans today wonder that Napolitano was once their Governor, elected by themselves? Do they reflect on the care and concern she shows for their interests by this decision, and wonder just how that care and concern would square with their own current needs and requirements, or how square with her former solicitude for their suffrage?
Nah. Probably not.
What’s actually happening is the supreme court and quite possibly the judicial system and lawyers in general are eroding their own power and prestige by being arbitrary and capricious and making the legal system look like a lie with nothing real, no integrity, no meaning to give it any weight. Eventually because of this judges and laws won’t matter. Quite possibly contracts won’t matter. We may not even have a common basis for money or any real public authority. We won’t have a social contract and we will be a civilization in name only.
Yeah, Drudge stacked it right on top of the heap.
Dear Arizona, go fuck yourself.
Shocking but not surprising. A lawless executive careens around the deck, and the Court gives it a de facto blessing by emphasizing its institutional prerogatives.
Delegitimization all around.
http://patterico.com/2012/06/25/aaron-walker-may-speak-about-brett-kimberlin/
A little bit of sunshine.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/06/supreme-court-upholds-key-immigration-status-check-provision-of-arizona-law/
It ain’t over really. They punted.
sdferr,
I commented in the Portent thread but I’ll put it here, too.
1 word for Arizonans: Trebuchet.
Install it at the border. Anyone caught crossing illegally gets a free flight home.
palaeo —
I don’t buy that spin. Look at that WT link. Realistically, it’s going to take states simply telling the feds to fuck off before anything changes.
Arbitrary and capricious is the end result of a “critical” method that holds existing social norms (or “reality,” if you prefer) are lies. That reality is a social “construct,” that integrity and weight are merely hegemonial artifacts of the existing power structure exercising it’s hegemony. True freedom is the freedom of all to behave abitrarily and capriciously!
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
(you’re going to need it)
– Normally I would assert my own years of experience would suggest that things are almost always “dangerously messed up and unstable, even to the point of civil breakdown, so nothing all that new”, arguing Jeffs feelings as typical “every generation’s” over-reaction. Normally. But then I see what passes as “brave pushback” by our earstwhile “conservative” candidate, and I’m moved to agree with Jeff’s take.
I think we’re pretty close to the definition of Phyrric victory when the Court holds that Arizona has the right to ask aliens to prove that they’re in the country legally, but no recourse when they can’t or won’t comply.
And really, why should they comply when the Feds have already announced they have no intention of helping Arizona determine the status of aliens, legal or not.
$500 and a ticket to the sanctuary city of their choice might just be the best option now.
Yup. Which is why Texas is ever more appealing.
[…] the other hand, SCOTUS has ruled that a state has no right to enforce laws that fall within the jurisdiction of […]
Funny how DHS had this announcement ready to go as soon as the Supremes upheld one piece of the law. Makes you wonder what is sitting there ready to go when the Supremes strike down the individual mandate.
“Yup. Which is why Texas is ever more appealing.”
If the feds keep texas from exploiting energy, operating the ports at full capacity, and producing power and clean water to save lizards then Texas has a pretty fixed carrying capacity. So its best if we cut the labor department and the EPA’s nuts off first and THEN move to a free(er) state. .
I disagree. The more liberty-minded people who move to the Republic of Texas, the greater the pressure to get the oilfields and ports and economy in general running at full capacity, the greater the incentive to tell Washington to fuck off.
It’s Cloward-Piven for liberty!
And the left is never satisfied…
The Left never is.
If it were, it would cease to be the Left!
Is anybody surprised that C.J. Roberts joined the majority?
I have to admit that I am. Maybe it’s just my naivete showing, or it could be there’s something more here than I understand at first blush.
So, along that line of questioning, I wonder: given that Kagan recused, were Roberts to have decided along with Scalia et al. the vote would be tied at 4-4. What then would be the outcome regarding the law? Would the decision have reverted to the decision of the 9th circuit? And if so, what would that portend from the point of view of Arizona? For instance, would Arizona be facing the complete overthrow of S.B. 1070, rather than the partial overthrow they’re now looking at? Or what?
Anybody know?
wiki
If not all of the nine justices vote on a case, or the Court has a vacancy, then there is the possibility of a tied vote. If this occurs, then the decision of the court below is affirmed, but the case is not considered to be binding precedent. The effect is a return to the status quo ante. No opinions are issued in such a case, only the one-sentence announcement that “[t]he judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.”
Thanks newrouter.
That was my suspicion, albeit a suspicion not accompanied by any fuller knowledge of the effects of the circumstances governing. For instance, suppose the Court tied on 3 of the 4 questions decided today, but unanimous as regards the 4th? Would the lower court decision be vitiated in part, the remainder staying in effect? Or because of the tie, would the lower Court decision remain in effect in the whole, despite the difference emanating from the higher Court? And so on in further possible instances, as the lawyers among us may attest should they see fit to weigh in?
Fallows just can’t get over the fact that black men now own property when decades of legal precedent say that black men are property. Damn those Republican radicals on the Court!
We’re all going to have to talk about the ongoing soft civil war, what it means, how it can resolve (if it can resolve, which, I’m not seeing it), how we approach it, what we do with it, etc., sooner or later.
I may have misheard, sdferr, but I think it gets kicked back to the lower court.
sdferr, damned if I know off the top of my head as to the tie-breaking on issues within a USC appeal, but my first-blush guess would be your first option. Until I do some research (which chance gets fainter with each hour the sun is past the yard-arm), my official answer would be an emphatic “Maybe”.
As to your last comment re sooner or later, perhaps a pw convention in some central location. Sooner rather than later, since I think sooner is catching up with later very quickly nowadays.
I’m crossing my fingers on the hope Mr. Levin has a word or two to say on the subject.
The former subject that is, rather than the latter.
In a sense Levin answered the background question (unarticulated above) right out of the box.
“Bizarre”. “Incoherent.” — Levin
Now he’s on about sanctuary states and cities as unconstitutional. In-state tuition as unconstitutional. Calls for people of standing to sue. Like I said.
It won’t make SCOTUS again; but it will point out that we live in a surreal, post-constitutional republic where the rule of law is a caprice and largely a ruse.
Due, in large part, to a filthy soft-headedness not unlike what this writer eviscerates.
Turns out liberty has a price tag of constant vigilance.
“I disagree. The more liberty-minded people who move to the Republic of Texas, the greater the pressure to get the oilfields and ports and economy in general running at full capacity, the greater the incentive to tell Washington to fuck off.”
California has a bigger population that texas and feeds about half the country. Whole valleys of farmland were allowed to die because fish might get sucked into the water pump. Nobody did SHIT about it and one summer is all ti takes for the people who moved in to realize that they need to move back out because there isn’t enough water and power to support everyone. A lot of the pressure will be “get the fuck out outsiders and go home”.
So you might wan to blunt the claws of the labor department and the EPA before you call for a mass migration to half arid state that has just had its own water, fuel and labor rights restricted by federal laws and regulations designed to bring it to its knees. Yes, a massive civil disobediance and de facto “peaceful rebellion” secession would be beautiful it sure didn’t work out that way for California which was a richer, more populous state with more power. I’m not sure that Glen Beck and such can change that in Texas.
I’m staying here in Oklahoma, next to all the natural resources y’all are going to be needing.
Submitted: That the law enforcement community will likely obey the orders of their chain of command absent a major breakdown of law and order; the armed services will be more likely to question the legality of orders to supress the civilian population.
FuknA, that was a thread-killer.
What are the Oklahoma gun laws like? Do they have a castle doctrine on the books?
I agree with your assessment, RI Red. The cops would have no trouble oppressing the citizens.
President Ronald Reagan – Liberty State Park
us folks can do better views
His answer to all of this misery? He tries to tell us that we are “only” in a recession, not a depression, as if definitions—words–relieve our suffering.
Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
I have talked with unemployed workers all across this country. I have heard their views on what Jimmy Carter has done to them and their families.
They aren’t interested in semantic quibbles. They are out of work and they know who put them out of work. And they know the difference between a recession and a depression.
Let Mr. Carter go to their homes, look their children in the eye and argue with them that in is “only” a recession that put dad or mom out of work.
Let him go to the unemployment lines and lecture those workers who have been betrayed on what is the proper definition for their widespread economic misery.
Human tragedy, human misery, the crushing of the human spirit. They do not need defining–they need action.
And it is action, in the form of jobs, lower taxes, and an expanded economy that — as President — I intend to provide.
Call this human tragedy whatever you want. Whatever it is, it is Jimmy Carter’s. He caused it. He tolerates it. And he is going to answer to the American people for it.
While I’d support a Convention fully, Ernst, I have no faith that the mendoucheous squishbags that infest our political system would pay attention to the results of that Convention any more than they do the current Constitution.
The conventioneers can simply exclude them Darth. Put the name to them and keep ’em out. No-one at war would invite the enemy to participate in their strategic deliberations.
A tie means nothing changes. Only a majority rules.
[…] “Would the States conceivably have entered into the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court’s holding?” ~Justice Scalia dissent @ 06.25.2012 If AZ is powerless to secure its territory, “we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent.” ~Justice Scalia @ 06.25.2012 Ref: On dissent in the AZ ruling 06.25.2012 […]