mykeystrokes.com

"Do or Do not. There is no try."

The Conservative Constitution of the United States

House members opened the 112th Congress on Thursday by reading aloud the Constitution, presumably as a first step toward fulfilling the tea party’s goal of “restoring” our nation’s founding document. However, an alternative text was reportedly circulated in secret among incoming GOP lawmakers, representing the Constitution they hoped to read aloud when the 113th Congress began. Here, revealed in public for the first time, is the Conservative Constitution of the United States of Real America.
 

TeaParty Sacred Text?

 

We, the Real Americans, in order to form a more God-Fearing Union, establish Justice as we see it, Defeat Health-Care Reform, and Preserve and Protect our Property, our Guns and our Right Not to Pay Taxes, do ordain and establish this Conservative Constitution for the United States of Real America.

 

Article I

Congress shall have only the powers literally, specifically and expressly granted herein, and no others. That means definitely, without question, absolutely, no regulation of the Health Insurance or Financial Services industries. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected not directly by the People, but by other people whom the People have elected to better represent the People.

Any law enacted by Congress and signed by the President may be overturned by the vote of three or more States if they find it burdensome, offensive, annoying or in any way touching on Health Insurance, Property Rights or Guns.

Congress shall have no power to raise Taxes except on February 29, and then only if all the People of the United States approve such a measure unanimously, in writing and in English.

Congress shall balance the Federal Budget, preferably by eliminating the Departments of Labor, Energy, Education and State.

The preceding provision shall not apply to spending for the Department of Defense, appropriations for which shall increase three times as quickly as the growth in gross domestic product and upon the approval of House leadership in conference with Boeing, Halliburton, the Ashcroft Group and Kissinger Associates.

Arizona shall have the power to regulate Immigration.

Article II

 No person except a natural-born Citizen who can produce video, photographic or eyewitness evidence of birth in a non-island American State shall be eligible to the Office of President.

The President shall faithfully execute the laws, except when, as Commander in Chief, he decides he’d really rather not.

The President shall not negotiate any Treaty without first receiving a signed and notarized note granting him permission, personally executed by every member of the Senate and the House, all 50 Governors and the editorial board of the Weekly Standard. Suspected Terrorists shall be taken to Guantanamo and drawn and quartered in a public ceremony. Trials are optional, but if they occur, must be conducted in a Military Tribunal in which coerced statements are admissible so long as they support a Guilty verdict.

Article III
  
Judges shall strictly construe this Constitution, and we mean strictly, and shall under no circumstances cite, refer to, read or mention at cocktail parties or  cookouts any  principle or provision of International Law.
 
 AMENDMENTS

1. Congress shall make no law abridging the Freedom of Speech, except where citizens desecrate the Flag of the United States; respecting an establishment of Religion, except to support Christian schools, religious apparitions in food products and the display of crosses and creches in public places; or abridging the free exercise of Religion, except to block the construction of mosques in sensitive areas as determined by Florida Pastors or the Fox News Channel.

2. The right to bear Semi-Automatic Weapons, AK-47s or Bazookas shall not be infringed by background checks, safety locks, age limits or common sense.

3. The right of Corporations, Hedge Funds, Business Leaders and Lobbyists to spend endless cash on campaigns and influence-purchasing shall not be infringed. The so-called right of Unions to associate shall be denied as fundamentally un-American and contrary to the agenda of the Chamber of Commerce.

4. Marriage and the benefits thereof shall be restricted to the Union of a Man and a Woman, consecrated in a Christian house of worship, with vows to expose any and all progeny to daily viewings of Bill O’Reilly.

5. All persons born or naturalized in the United States are Citizens of the United States of Real America only if their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were Citizens, and only if they pledge opposition to Health Insurance Reform or New Taxation. Any Citizen convicted of providing material support to Terrorist organizations, wearing clothing bearing images created by Shepard Fairey, or displaying Nancy Pelosi bumper stickers shall be stripped of Citizenship.

6. Aliens, of this world or another, shall have none of the rights guaranteed herein to Citizens.

7. Corporations shall have all of the rights guaranteed herein to Citizens, and then some.

8. No White Male shall be denied equal protection of the law through Affirmative Action or otherwise. In keeping with the intent of the Framers, as discerned by the Honorable Justice Antonin Scalia, distinctions on the basis of sex shall not be deemed to deny equal protection.

9. The right to be uninsured and make other people pay the costs of one’s Health Care shall not be infringed under any circumstances.

10. Congress shall make no law limiting Americans’ right to warm the Planet by using all the energy they darn well please.

11. The Unborn shall have the rights to life, to vote, to bear arms, to practice Religion except in a mosque in Lower Manhattan (see First Amendment) and to make campaign contributions, but once the child is born, it shall have no rights if it is an Alien (see Sixth Amendment).

12. No one may be required to do anything He or She does not want to do. Ever.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the Members present the Sixth Day of January in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven. In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our names, [REDACTED]

By: David Cole who teaches Constitutional Law at Georgetown University and is the legal affairs correspondent for the Nation : Published, Washington Post-January 6, 2011

January 11, 2011 Posted by | Constitution | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Narrowly Dodged Bullets: John Roberts’s Dissenting Opinions

Activism at it's best...and you're worried about Elena Kagan?

Chief Justice John Roberts once again presided over a banner Supreme Court term for wealthy corporate interests. In the term ending today, a 5-4 Roberts Court unleashed a flood of corporate money into American democracy in Citizens United v. FEC. And the same five conservative justices strengthened corporate America’s power to force consumers and workers into a secretive, privatized court system that overwhelming favors corporations in Rent-a-Center v. Jackson.

Yet Roberts’s 5-4 giveaways to corporate America only tell half the story. Indeed, Roberts has authored or joined numerous radical dissents that would give powerful corporate interests sweeping immunity from the law. This stands in stark contrast to his confirmation hearing promise to display “humility” and accept his own “modest role” as a justice.

  • Immunity for drug companies: A dangerous drug was injected into the arm of a woman named Diana Levine in 2000, eventually costing her half her right arm and her career as a professional musician. A Vermont jury ordered the drug’s manufacturer to compensate Levine, but Roberts joined a dissent in Wyeth v. Levine that would have held drug companies largely immune from state law. Had this dissent prevailed, states would be powerless to protect women like Levine from drug defects or defective drug labels discovered after the Food and Drug Administration approves a drug for use.
  • Protecting rogue banks: Roberts joined a dissent in a similar case, Cuomo v. Clearinghouse, arguing that federal regulators properly gave the banking industry broad immunity from state law—despite no legal basis for doing so. Had Roberts’s views carried just one more vote, state fair-lending laws and many other consumer banking protections would have effectively ceased to exist.
  • Justice for sale: After A.T. Massey Coal Company—the same company whose negligent safety record led to the death of 29 miners in a recent explosion—lost a $50 million verdict, its CEO paid $3 million to elect a sympathetic justice to a state supreme court. This justice then cast the deciding vote overturning the verdict against Massey—a 1,667 percent return on the CEO’s investment. Roberts’s dissent in Caperton v. Massey said this bought-and-paid-for judge was under no obligation to recuse himself from Massey’s case.
  • Deceptive marketing: Finally, Roberts voted to cut off deceptive advertising claims in Altria v. Good. In his eyes the tobacco industry should have extensive immunity from state laws preventing fraudulent marketing.

Roberts rarely finds himself in dissent since he leads a bloc of conservatives committed to protecting corporate interests. Nevertheless, his few dissenting opinions in corporate immunity cases reveal a willingness to aggrandize corporate power even more so than he already has in cases like Citizens United or Rent-a-Center.

Such zealous advocacy would be entirely appropriate were Roberts still an attorney for corporate interests. He gave up that role, however, when he became a judge. It’s time for him to live up to his promise to be modest and humble in his decision making.

By Ian Millhiser | June 28, 2010-Center For American Progress; Photo-SOURCE: AP/Nick Ut

June 28, 2010 Posted by | Supreme Court | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment