ACORN Funding Ban Back In Place

Back in December, a intellectually dishonest Clinton judge issued an injunction preventing the funds cutoff for the corrupt ACORN organization. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wisely has now put the injunction on hold. As Human Events reports, "The result of the stay is that the Congressional funding ban will go back into effect, and ACORN will not receive taxpayer dollars while the court reviews the case." Oral argument in the case could be heard as early as June.

Allen West: "Give Me That Damn Gavel"

Lt. Col. Allen West (ret.) is a candidate the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 22nd Congressional district. At the opening of his campaign headquarters, the colonel previewed what he will tell Nancy Pelosi upon his swearing in as a member of Congress in January 2011:

Sen. Lieberman: Administration Engaging in Terrorism Doublespeak

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Independent former Democrat who pretty much marches in lockstep with his former party except on national security issues (which admittedly is an important distinction), describes as Orwellian this in the latest of a series of terminology changes by the Obama administration.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Sunday called the administration's proposal to avoid the term "Islamic extremism" in national security references "absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive."

Lieberman revealed on "Fox News Sunday" that he had sent a letter to the president's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, saying in part: "The failure to identify our enemy for what it is, violent Islamist extremism, is offensive and contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to know your enemy."

 The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee said the letter was the product of him growing "so frustrated" with the White House over the terminology issue. He said the Defense Department omitted references to "violent Islamist extremism" in its report on the massacre at Fort Hood...

Lieberman said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not carried out by "some amorphous group of violent extremists or environmental extremists or white supremacist extremists."

Orwell considered himself a man of the Left but was quite outspoken against certain elements in the leftist movement, especially those apologists for Stalin's acts of mass murder and treachery.

Stevens Ends 34-Year Career on High Court

Although it is disappointing to say the least for those who believe in the constitution that Obama will get a second Supreme Court appointment especially so early in his presidency, it seems reasonable that a man of Justice Stevens' age, nearly 90 but still vigorous, would decide to step down. Stevens even occasionally voted with the good guys on some cases. Best wishes to Justice Stevens for continued good health. It's worth noting that the justice originally said in media interviews that he would retire in the next couple of years. Did some political operative "get to him" and convince him to retire now, rather than wait until after the next election when Republicans are expected to increase their numbers in the Senate?

The real source of heartburn is the lackluster, now-retired David Souter, the stealth liberal. As we have mentioned, any garden-variety moderate to conservative would have done a far better job on the court than Souter, including transforming those contentious 5-4 decisions into 6-3 rulings. And no hihg court justice of a conservative mind-set would have ever retired early with a Democrat in the White House. It seems there is a history of Republican presidents making grave errors in their Supreme Court nominations.

Obama will no doubt nominate a super-leftist for the court--someone who the media will immediate classify as a moderate. And this cloak of moderation will immediately be debunked by right-of-center bloggers who actually do their homework. It's too optimistic to expect an actual moderate to be nominated; after all, Obama recently recess-appointed the radical extremist Craig Becker to the NLRB. Fortunately, recess appointments only last until the end of the current Congressional session.

It's laughable in the extreme, by the way, that Sen. Leahy would call for civility in up the upcoming confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Were Republican nominees such as Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, or John Roberts (among others) treated civilly by committee Democrats? As the saying goes, "I rest my case." And since then-Sen. Obama voted against Alito and Roberts, is turnabout fair play?

Some good news on the appointee front, however. Dawn Johnson, another radical who the administration sought to install in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, withdrew her nomination.

Security Expert Warns of Gaps in Homeland Defenses

Former CIA operative Charles Faddis provides U.S. News & World Report with six potential domestic targets that he says are particularly vulnerable to a catastrophic terrorist attack:

• Military bases
• Rail and metro systems
• Chemical plants
• Liquid Natural Gas
• Dams
• Bio labs

Now a private consultant and author of Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security, Faddis says an attack on passenger rail is his worse fear. While Faddis acknowledges that DHS is correct that we can't protect everything, authorities shouldn't use that slogan as a way to dismiss all criticism of the status quo.

We need to do a better job securing the places that have a potential to produce mass casualties. That should be a priority. Is that going to stop terrorists from driving a truck bomb into a McDonald's? No. But it should stop them from driving that truck bomb into a chemical plant and killing thousands.

Appeals Court Blocks FCC's "Net Neutrality" Regulatory Authority

This so-called (and perhaps improperly named) net neutrality thing is a tangled web (no pun intended) of bureaucratic-speak. No one is losing any sleep over Comcast's problems, but in general we certainly don't want the Internet regulated by the same people that orchestrated socialized medicine. Therefore, Tuesday's decision from the D.C. Circuit must be a good thing:

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites like YouTube to deliver their content faster to users.

The court decision was a setback to efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to require companies to give Web users equal access to all content, even if some of that content is clogging the network.

The court ruling, which came after Comcast asserted that it had the right to slow its cable customers’ access to a file-sharing service called BitTorrent, could prompt efforts in Congress to change the law in order to give the F.C.C. explicit authority to regulate Internet service.

That could prove difficult politically, however, since some conservative Republicans philosophically oppose giving the agency more power, on the grounds that Internet providers should be able to decide what services they offer and at what price.

Net neutrality seems like such a benign term, especially to those who still believe in heavyhanded government oversight. The editors at NationalReview Online insist that net neutrality is anti-consumer.

Interstate 60 Explains the Need for Tort Reform

Interstate 60 (a U.S. highway that doesn't exist, by the way) is a road trip/fantasy comedy that was written and directed by Bob Gale, who penned Back to the Future. The 2002 film stars James Marsden, the always excellent Gary Oldman, and Amy Smart. And even though it went straight to video, Interstate 60 has cameos by some high-profile actors such as Kurt Russell, Chris Cooper, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael J. Fox. By today's standards, it's almost family entertainment (despite its R rating), and is definitely worth renting. Scenes from the movie are also on YouTube.

As with episodic movies of this genre, the main character Neal Oliver (played by Mardsen) has various weird adventures and encounters quirky people on the road in his quest. The quest has to do with Amy Smart, and a package delivery, but that's another matter. In one sequence, he winds up in the town of Morlaw, "a law-abiding community." At the city limits, a police officer pulls Oliver over and serves him with a civil lawsuit alleging that he ran over a pet cat named "Snickers" in a hit-and-run three weeks previous in front of Morlaw's courthouse. But Oliver has never been in the town before.

It turns out that every adult citizen in Morlaw is a lawyer and everyone sues everyone else. As attorney Valerie McCabe (played by Deborah Odell) explains to Marsden's character, everyone who sets foot in the town gets sued on trumped-up charges, and "it doesn't matter if there's a cause. It's how we ensure that everyone makes a living in the profession."

Sound familiar?

Odell's character even says that thrives on  the challenges offer by her career in Morlaw because everyday brings a new way of interpreting the law..."an intellectual feast," a quote which Gale included the script from Judge Bork's ill-fated Senate Judiciary testimony. While Oliver is meeting with McCabe in her office, through the picture window you can see men in suits literally chasing after an ambulance in the street! McCabe even tells Oliver that the plaintiff in his case doesn't even have a cat because he's allergic!

The lawyers in Morlaw force their clients to do all the non-legal, service oriented jobs in the town because that's the only way they can afford their legal fees. And unwary travelers just passing through, like Neal Oliver, are locked up until their cases come to trial!

Anyway, with the intervention by the character played by Chris Cooper (sorry if this is a spoiler), the "liars/lawyers" as he puts it, get their comeuppance through a unique implementation of tort reform, and everything works out for the best.

There's also an amusing sequence where the Cooper character offers a panhandler holding a "will work for food" sign an apple if he will wash the windshield of Marsden's car.

Sweden No Longer Celebrates Diversity

This disturbing news out of the town of Malmo, Sweden, would be troubling at any time of the year, but especially during the Passover season:

Marcus Eilenberg is a Swedish Jew whose family roots in Malmo run deep...Now the 32-year-old law firm associate feels the welcome for Jews is running out, and he is moving to Israel with his wife and two children in May.

That reason, he says, is a rise in hate crimes against Jews in Malmo, and a sense that local authorities have little desire to deal with a problem that has exposed a crack in Sweden's image as a bastion of tolerance and a haven for distressed ethnic groups.

Anti-Semitic crimes in Europe have usually been associated with the far right, but Shneur Kesselman, an Orthodox rabbi, says the threat now comes from Muslims.

"In the past five years I've been here, I think you can count on your hand how many incidents there have been from the extreme right," he said. "In my personal experience, it's 99 percent Muslims."

Anti-semitism seems to be on the rise in Europe generally, while the media and government keep their collective heads in the sand.

Florida Doctor Sends Patients A Message

Whether the attorneys' general lawsuit challenging the healthcare "reform" individual mandate is successful or not under the Commerce Clause, one physician has already engaged in what the law sometimes call's "self help":

A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora [Florida] urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The legal challenge about the recently enacted healthcare legislation will probably result in a 5-4 decision either way at the Supreme Court. Again, it just reaffirms how David Souter was such an incredibly poor choice for the high court. All these 5-4 decisions would likely be 6-3 had even a garden-variety moderate to conservative been appointed instead of Souter, and who retired early to make matters even worse.