Bookworm Room

Tweet Fellow Weasel Watcher Greg, at Rhymes with Right, came up with a good poster likening every woman’s right to have a gun to a black woman’s right to sit anywhere she wants in the bus.  That poster, combined with a discussion I had with some young ‘uns about the Bill of Rights got me [...]

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Tweet Michael Ramirez pithily sums up all the deliberate or accidental hazards in American life that exceed the risks of rifle (“automatic” or otherwise) violence: As you can see, cars are infinitely more deadly to Americans than are the rifles that are getting Progressives so excited. Those who wish to control guns think they’ve come [...]

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Tweet My fellow Watcher’s Council member, Greg, who blogs at Rhymes with Right, has put together the ultimate smack-down for those (especially those journalists) who argue that the Second Amendment extends only to muskets and other weapons in use when Congress enacted the Bill of Rights: Carrying this irrefutable logic over to the First Amendment [...]

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Tweet Years ago, during the Bush administration, Terry Gross, of NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewed a writer who was in an absolutely tizzy about Bush’s use of executive orders.  Sadly, for the life of me, I can’t find that interview.  What I also can’t find is any evidence that this author has again gone onto Terry [...]

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Tweet Today’s question:  Can President Obama use an executive order to override the Constitution? Today’s answer, courtesy of Matt Drudge is “yes, he can, but it won’t be pretty.”  (Click on image to enlarge.)

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Tweet National Review Online is running hot today, because it’s got two great articles on gun control, both of which clearly express what I was trying to tell those Marin-ites around me who are absolutely certain that (a) gun control saves lives and (b) the Second Amendment is stupid or misunderstood. Rich Lowry, armed with [...]

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Tweet Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive VP, says that our violent culture is to blame for gun violence and that, as long as the culture is what it is, school children should have police protection.  Despite the fact that the majority of Americans agree with him, the drive-by media is excoriating as if he had [...]

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Tweet In 1973, the United States Supreme Court created a federal right to abortion by finding that abortion falls into an unstated Constitutional dimension called “the right to privacy.”  (Note:  British and American common law has always recognized a right to privacy, but the Constitution makes no mention of it.)  Thus, in Roe v. Wade, [...]

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Tweet With a birthday that falls very close to July 4, I’ve always been quite proprietorial about this holiday.  One small part of my brain, while watching fireworks, always thinks “For me?  Why thank you!” Fortunately, that’s only a smart part of my brain at work.  The bigger part of my brain has a more [...]

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Tweet One of my favorite blogfriends sent me a link to John Yoo’s article excoriating Justice Robert’s decision in the harshest terms.  Yoo states plainly that the decision spells the end of individualism in America, since it expands the government’s taxing power to encompass everything.  Those who seek a silver lining (or ponies or lemonade) [...]

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Tweet Many people are asserting that, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the end is near.  I see that in op-eds, in blog posts, and in my email box.  America’s constitutional experiment is over, they say.  They might be right.  Or not. But here’s the deal:  if we give in to despair now, [...]

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Tweet [UPDATE:  Since I wrote this post, there is now reason to believe that Roberts issue his opinion for the wrong reasons, not the right ones.  If I were to rewrite this post today, I would be less charitable to the man.  Nevertheless, putting aside Roberts' motives, I stand by the substance of my post, [...]

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Tweet Don Quixote and I were talking today about the Commerce Clause.  We weren’t saying anything original.  We were simply wondering whether the Supreme Court, in ruling on ObamaCare, will address the vast reach of the Commerce Clause and whether it will (a) reaffirm that reach; (b) reverse that reach entirely (which requires reversing the [...]

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Tweet I assume that you all know by know that President Obama has issued an executive order granting amnesty to young illegal immigrants.  It’s a clever move.  Marco Rubio had already proposed something similar, so Obama can say that at least some smart Republicans are already on board with the idea.  The move will presumably [...]

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Tweet There’s a lot of buzz lately about an article David R. Dow, who is the Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center and the Rorschach Visiting Professor of History at Rice, about the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare hearings.  In it, he insists that, if the Supreme Court justices overturn ObamaCare because it’s unconstitutional, [...]

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Tweet MoveOn.org has created an online poster that has been getting a fair amount of play on Facebook.  The page is entitled “The #1 Reminder Every GOP Lawmaker Needs To See.”  It then quotes “American Hero” Jamie Raskin, a law professor, before successfully running for Maryland’s State Senate himself, testified before the Maryland State Senate [...]

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Tweet In 1965, the United States Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut, the first case to enunciate a “right to privacy” under the U.S.  Constitution.  Before Griswold, notion of a right to privacy had only existed as a common law doctrine, applicable to ones fellow citizens.  This was the first time, however, that the United [...]

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Tweet Back at the end of the 16th century, Thomas Hobson ran a livery stable (which, in pre-auto times, was the equivalent of a car rental place).  Unlike other livery stables, he refused to allow his customers free pick of horses.  Instead, they were told that they could take the horse in the stall nearest [...]

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Tweet Pathetic is a very strong derogatory word, but I think it’s apt when looking at Kathleen Sebelius’ defense for the Obama administration’s recent mandate that all employers must purchase insurance that provides their employees with birth control, sterilization and morning-after pills.  A fisking is in order (all hyperlinks in original omitted): One of the [...]

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Tweet I hadn’t looked closely at what Sebelius said when promulgating the new ObamaCare rules that require religious organizations to fund birth control, sterilization, and morning-after pills.  Hugh Hewitt, however, did look — and caught something interesting: The press release that accompanied the new rule didn’t mention “Catholics” or “Catholic institutions,” but was as obviously [...]

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Tweet On August 10, 1993, as one of the requirements for becoming a United States Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg placed her hand on the Bible and spoke the following words: I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all [...]

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Tweet You’re not imagining it.  I haven’t had a dang thing to say about Barack Obama’s brazen constitutional violation, which was also an indirect repudiation of the 2010 mid-term elections.  His decision unilaterally to declare the Senate on a “recess” and then to make “recess” appointments has been analyzed to death and I agree with [...]

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Tweet That post caption is a complete lie.  I can issue as many reminders to myself as I like, but when the spirit doesn’t move me, you could look through my house with a magnifying glass and you still wouldn’t find any profundity.  Heck, today I’m not even sure if I could come up with [...]

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Tweet I woke up this morning to find that my Leftist friends literally plastered Facebook with the above poster.  (Since I grew up and still live in the Bay Area, I have lots of Leftist friends.)  If the text on the image is unclear, this is what it says: There is nobody in this country [...]

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Tweet I presented my daughter with the following scenario: Imagine that the president you elected has been in the White House for one term.  During that time, everything that indicates the health of the country is worse than when your man came into office.  Whether one looks at the economy, national security, relations with other [...]

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