Heartening.

“Five hundred [calls] yesterday, and right now, they’re just ringing non-stop,” said an upset staffer at the office of Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who has voted on both sides of the dispute.

Protestors have sent “hundreds or thousands” of calls to Ohio Republican Sen. Robert Portman’s Republican office, a staff member told The Daily Caller.

“That vast majority of calls today have been on that… [and] we’ve been getting calls on that for a couple of weeks,” said a staffer working for Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Robert Casey.

The calls have stiffened the spine of GOP Senators who might otherwise bend to pressure from business groups and from influential people in their home state, such as editorial writers and clerics, said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which provides a free phone service for Americans who oppose the massive rewrite.

That number is here: 888-995-8349.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (121)
Post contains 160 words, total size 1 kb.

Unexpectedly, unexpectedly. The vaunted Best and the Brightest seem to be surprised a lot more than the actual best and the brightest should be.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-quarter GDP growth would be left unrevised at 2.4 percent. When measured from the income side, the economy grew at a 2.5 percent rate, slower than the fourth-quarter's brisk 5.5 percent pace.

Details of the report, which showed downward revisions to almost all growth categories, with the exception of home construction and government, could cast a shadow over the Federal Reserve's fairly upbeat assessment of the economy last week.

Though the data is fairly backward looking, it comes as financial market conditions are tightening after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week the U.S. central bank would likely begin to slow the pace of its bond-buying stimulus later this year and stop the program in 2014.

Economists fear that could undercut growth, which has recently shown signs of picking up.

And thus we set up the next round of "This Completely Unsurprising News Is Somehow Completely Unexpected."

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (133)
Post contains 205 words, total size 1 kb.

When I say conservatives I mean Liberals. Australia's right-leaning party is called the Liberal Party.

The unpopular Kevin Rudd was deposed in a palace coup a couple of years ago by his deputy Julia Gillard. Now that she's also unpopular, he's mounted a coup against her, and now he's Prime Minister again. But still unpopular.

Australia now has the chance – should it wish to take it – of joining Canada in leading the Conservative fightback in what remains of the free West. Tony Abbott's Liberals (that's Australian for Conservatives) look set to win an outright majority, without having to do any of the grotesque horsetrading with the Greens (which have been one of the more noisome and damaging aspects of Gillard's vile, principle-free Coalition).

This Australian blogger gets into the details of the situation and the coup.

via @conservatist

Posted by: Ace at 03:21 PM | Comments (166)
Post contains 164 words, total size 1 kb.

I see a lot of people are talking about this in comments.

The prosecution's "star witness" isn't such a star.

Jeantel is mumbling her testimony, leading to delays in the courtroom. She has already allegedly perjured herself months ago by stating that she missed MartinÂ’s funeral because she was in the hospital.

She alleges that Trayvon said "White Hispanic is following me," or something like that, moments before the shooting.

Although I just started watching it, Shep and his legal expert say that Zimmerman's lawyer is doing a horrible job with this witness, avoiding every chance to impeach her, generally having no control over her. She's legal expert actually said the lawyer's malperformance could be the basis of an ineffective assistance of counsel appeal, should it come to that.

I doubt that but I guess he's doing a very poor job.

Live Video with Commentary: At Legal Insurrection, which also has several twitter timelines from people watching the trial.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (762)
Post contains 167 words, total size 1 kb.

I was intrigued by AllahPundit's characterization of the holding:

Forget the gay-marriage stuff for a second and focus on the process. Am I right in understanding that the Court’s now essentially held that if the people of a state pass a popular referendum on whatever subject and then that referendum is challenged and struck down at the trial-court level, they have no right to appeal? They get one bite at the apple and then, if the executive decides he doesn’t like the referendum enough to choose to appeal it himself, there’s nothing a single member of the public can do to ask an appellate court to reconsider the lower court’s decision — even though many millions of voters voted directly to enact the law? That seems … odd.

Could this be the case? Has the Supreme Court ruled that citizens have no rights vis a vis the permanent political class when that class chooses to ignore their popular (I mean that in the neutral, technical sense) intitiatives and referendums?

Consider the entire point of the initiative and referendum mechanism: It exists as a safety valve by which the citizenry can bypass or overrule the permanent political class if the permanent political class refuses to accede to actual popular will. (And there I meant popular in the non-neutral sense.)

In the matter of Prop 8, the citizens passed an amendment. The permanent political class of the government did not like this amendment, and ignored it. That class refused to make the case in favor of the amendment when another member of the permanent political class, a federal district judge, struck it down as unconstitutional. Now the proponents of the amendment come forward before other members of the permanent political class to argue that, because no other members of the permanent political class are willing to argue in favor of the constitutionality of an amendment the citizens passed, and this latest tribunal of the permanent political class -- the Supreme Court -- tells them no, only members of the permanent political class are authorized to plead on behalf a a citizen-promulgated amendment.

The dissent* doesn't speak of a permanent political class per se, but he does speak of the Court's championing of elected officials versus citizen petitioners:

The Court’s reasoning does not take into account the fundamental principles or the practical dynamics of the initiative system in California, which uses this mechanism to control and to bypass public officials—the same officials who would not defend the initiative, an injury the Court now leaves unremedied. The Court’s decision also has implications for the 26 other States that use an initiative or popular referendum system and which, like California, may choose to have initiative proponents stand in for the State when public officials decline to defend an initiative in litigation.

What an outrageous situation! The whole point of the initiative system is to bypass the elected representatives and pass the sorts of laws the permanent political class does not like but the actual citizens do, and the Supreme Court has effectively ruled this system to be a nullity -- because the exact same permanent political class the citizens sought to bypass can render any initiative inoperative by refusing to recognize it and by refusing to defend it in court.

The permanent political class apparently has the power of veto over the citizenry -- no matter what state law may say about the initiative process or the rights of the proponents of an initiative to defend it in court, it is now, supposedly, the law of the land that the federal government invalidates such rights and claws them back in favor of the permanent political class' right to rule.

Extraordinary. An extraordinary claim for any American to make, let alone five in concert.

*Corrected: I said this was "Scalia's dissent." How wrong I was. He voted with the majority. Kennedy wrote this dissent, joined by Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor, who, if I had to guess, wanted to rule on the actual law in order to say gay marriage was required under the Constitution.

Now that I see that, I wonder what's going on here. I wonder if the majority opinion isn't a bit of gamesmanship written in order to preclude a different majority from ruling that gay marriage is the law of the entire country if the decision were to reach the merits.

On the "Permanent Political Class:" Some may object that there is no permanent political class -- we hold elections. Some representatives are beaten, others take the office. Judges retire or die and are replaced by other judges.

But that speaks to individuals. Individual representatives of the class are not permanent, as no human being is permanent. But the class itself endures and is eternal.

Or, perhaps, so it imagines.

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (316)
Post contains 811 words, total size 5 kb.

Can't disagree.

I was never a super-fan of Ayotte. I favored Ovide Lemontagne over her in the primary, and was annoyed when Palin endorsed Ayotte.

Rubio probably can't be beat but there's no harm in trying.

Palin' pitch here is about honesty and fidelity, not the issues per se. Her main problem, per her statements, is that Rubio and Ayotte simply lied to primary voters (and she herself, I imagine) and aren't trustworthy.

“Conservatives are getting ready for the 2014 and 2016 primaries. We have long memories, and there will be consequences for those who break campaign promises and vote for this amnesty bill," Palin told Breitbart News. "Competition makes everyone work harder, be better, and be held accountable. This applies to politics, too. No one is ‘entitled’ to anything."

She continued, "Rigorous debate in competitive primaries allows candidates the opportunity to explain their flip-flops. So think of contested primaries as a win-win for politicians and their voters."

...

"Every politician should be held accountable for breaking their campaign promises," Palin said during an interview on the "John Gibson Radio Show" on Fox News radio. "They turned their back on the American public, so why should they not be held accountable?"

It seems hard to make a case in favor of less honesty, candor, and accountability in politics, but I'm sure the New York Times and the rest of the Liberal Cheer Squad in the media will make that case when these two get a primary challenger. We'll hear endless whining about "extremism" in the conservative movement, and very little at all about honoring promises made to voters.

Posted by: Ace at 12:54 PM | Comments (239)
Post contains 280 words, total size 2 kb.

Via @allahpundit, Marco Rubio went to the Senate floor earlier today to defend his approach to amnesty and to remind people he's still the same old lovable guy he's always been.

“I have received numerous emails and calls from conservatives and tea party activists,” he said at the beginning of his remarks.

“To hear the worry, anxiety, and growing anger in the voices of so many people who helped me get elected to the Senate, who I agree with on virtually every other issue, has been a real trial for me,” he confessed.

But he said he told them that he would go to Washington to “fight to stop what is bad for America,” and that what we have now is, in fact, hurting America. ”I simply wasn’t going to leave it to Democrats alone to try to figure out how to fix it.”

“I got involved because I knew that if conservatives didn’t get involved in shaping this legislation, it would not have any border security reforms our nation desperately needs,” Rubio said.

I guess Rubio thinks he was elected by conservatives because they thought he was more likely to work with Democrats than Charlie Crist. Funny but my recollection is it was exactly the opposite.

I was live tweeting it and he said some things that just are flat out untrue.

First, he claims the money for border security is in teh bill and doesn't rely on future Congresses to spend it. This is untrue. Any future Congress can reprogram or delete money already authorized (which is different than appropriated).

He also said the country needs to fix the illegal immigration problem. True but this bill doesn't do that. You can do fences and agents on the border all day (and we should) but we also have to have interneal enforcement and a tracking system to make sure people who come here leave when they are supposed to. Rubio's bill doesn't have the bio-metric entry/exit system that's been mandated since the mid-90s but has never happened (sounds familiar).

Why is Rubio sounding so defensive?

Hint 1:

Rasmussen: Rubio had 73% favorable rating among Republicans in February. Now 58%. Very favorables down 44% to 21%. http://t.co/8u34BOM5yV

— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 24, 2013

Hint 2:

Former Alaska governor and tea party darling Sarah Palin said Sens. Marco Rubio and Kelly Ayotte better watch out come election time: Voters angry with their support of an immigration bill seen as a cave on amnesty will likely voice their displeasure at the polls.

...

“I think that they should be challenged,” Ms. Palin said on Fox News radio. “I don’t have a problem with heated debates and contested primaries where they have to answer to constituents regarding their flip-flopping.”

Reminder why Rubio's words are meaningless:

"Earned path to citizenship is basically code for amnesty."- @marcorubio 10/24/10 http://t.co/HmH5IqYO7M

— DrewM (@DrewMTips) June 25, 2013

Posted by: DrewM at 10:20 AM | Comments (363)
Post contains 503 words, total size 4 kb.

Popcorn.

Push back in the compliance effort is coming from an unexpected source, the senior Democratic budget writer in the State Senate, Senator Stephen Brewer, presumably with support from the Senate President as well. The amendment that was filed would force President ObamaÂ’s good friend Governor Deval Patrick (D), and his Administration, to seek a waiver from certain elements of Obamacare. The move could come to a head if the provision lands on the GovernorÂ’s desk, resulting in an embarrassing political moment for the Obama Administration since the ACA is forcing significant changes to a state law they claim acted as a model in Washington.

Keep in mind, thanks to RomneyCare Mass already has some of the highest insurance premiums in the nation.

Related(ish)- A Democrat pretending to be a Republican lost the special election to fill John Kerry's Senate term. One of his aides complains that the anti-conservative wing of the party didn't show up to help.

Personally I'm glad he lost. I'm all for RINOs if they help get the majority but this wasn't going to flip control of the Senate and even if he'd won, he'd have to run next year and would lose again.

If someone is going to vote straight Democrat, he might as well be a Democrat.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:34 AM | Comments (266)
Post contains 223 words, total size 2 kb.

My simple rule of the thumb....if you find yoursefl on the opposing side of Scalia, rethink your position.

I wonder how many "conservatives" celebrating this decision were cheering on John Roberts yesterday in the Voting Rights Act case. Funny how quickly people can go from that to the Ginsburg school of "things I don't like are un-constitutional" school of jurisprudence.

I'm not going to get into the standing issue which is technical, though Scalia rips the majority apart there too. Here's some of what he said about the majority's decision on the merits (pdf).

(Emphasis mine)

There are many remarkable things about the majorityÂ’s
merits holding. The first is how rootless and shifting its justifications are. For example, the opinion starts with seven full pages about the traditional power of States to define domestic relations—initially fooling many readers,
I am sure, into thinking that this is a federalism opinion. But we are eventually told that “it is unnecessary to decide whether this federal intrusion on state power is a violation of the Constitution,” and that “[t]he State’s power in defining the marital relation is of central relevance in this case quite apart from principles of federalism” be-cause “the State’s decision to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import.” Ante, at 18. But no one questions the power of the States to define marriage (with the concomitant conferral of dignity and status), so what is the point of devoting seven pages to describing how long and well established that power is?

...

The majority opinion need not get into the strict-vs.- rational-basis scrutiny question, and need not justify its holding under either, because it says that DOMA is unconstitutional as “a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” ante, at 25; that it violates “basic due process” principles, ante, at 20; and that it inflicts an “injury and indignity” of a kind that denies “an essential part of the liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment,” ante, at 19. The majority never utters the dread words “substantive due process,” perhaps sensing the disrepute into which that doctrine has fallen, but that is what those statements mean. Yet
the opinion does not argue that same-sex marriage is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 720–721 (1997), a claim that would of course be quite absurd. So would the further suggestion (also necessary, under our substantive-due-process precedents) that a world in which DOMA exists is one bereft of “‘ordered liberty.’” Id., at 721
(quoting Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 325 (1937)). Some might conclude that this loaf could have used a while longer in the oven. But that would be wrong; it is already overcooked. The most expert care in preparation
cannot redeem a bad recipe. The sum of all the Court’s nonspecific hand-waving is that this law is invalid (maybe on equal-protection grounds, maybe on substantive-dueprocess grounds, and perhaps with some amorphous federalism component playing a role) because it is motivated by a “‘bare . . . desire to harm’” couples in same-sex marriages. Ante, at 20. It is this proposition with which I will therefore engage.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:34 AM | Comments (398)
Post contains 1067 words, total size 7 kb.

SCOTUSblog reports that Justice Kennedy struck DOMA sec. 3 on equal protection grounds in a 5-4 decision.

The decision (PDF) is here.

The class to which DOMA directs its restrictions and restraints are those persons who are joined in same-sex marriages made lawful by the State. DOMA singles out aclass of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognitionand protection to enhance their own liberty. It imposes a disability on the class by refusing to acknowledge a status the State finds to be dignified and proper. DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others. The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This opinion and its holding are confined to those lawful marriages.

Also, CJ Roberts telegraphed the outcome in the Prop 8 case in his dissent in Windsor:

We may in the future have to resolve challenges to state marriage definitions affecting same-sex couples. That issue, however, is not before us in this case, and we hold today that we lack jurisdiction to consider it in the particular context of Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Interesting. I'll be back with that PDF in a minute.

Back on DOMA: Let's talk consequences: Gay spouses may now file joint taxes, may donate jointly, may petition for legal residence for non-citizen spouses, may now obtain changes to their passports (married name corrections) the same as straight spouses. Military gay spouses are now entitled to the same survivor, housing, PX, and travel benefits as straight spouses.

That's off the top of my head. There are probably a great many other consequences under federal law.

Alright, and on Windsor: It's also a 5-4 decision by the Chief Justice, joined by Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. Proponents did not have standing to appeal the district court judge's decision. The decision of the Ninth Circuit is vacated. Justice Kennedy dissents, joined by Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor.

Fairly interesting break-down, but not unexpected. (No really.) Standing has been a particular project for CJ Roberts and Scalia, who view it as a gatekeeping function to keep inappropriate cases out of court.

If you will recall, the district court held that Prop 8 was unconstitutional.

Final update so I can get a chance to read the decisions: The Perry decision is here (PDF).

Also, I hate to say I told you so, but sometimes in this life we have to do things we hate, don't we.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:04 AM | Comments (1056)
Post contains 486 words, total size 3 kb.