Econ 101: April 9, 2012

Welcome to ThinkProgress Economy?s morning link roundup. This is what we?re reading. Have you seen any interesting news? Let us know in the comments section. You can also follow ThinkProgress Economy on Twitter.

• About 40,000 AT&T workers are staying on the job this week, even though their latest contract expired over the weekend. [Associated Press]

• Economists fear that the mild winter may have artificially inflated the last few months of job growth data. [Washington Post]

• Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President Obama’s nominee to lead the World Bank, is facing criticism due to his lack of finance experience. [Wall Street Journal]

• Across the country, federal funds for jobless training are drying up. [New York Times]

• The Treasury Department has frozen executive pay at the final three firms that received extra funds during the 2008 bailout. [The Hill]

• Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said it is unlikely that Congress will come to an agreement on spending before the November election. [The Hill]

• Education advocates are criticizing the fact that 14 of the nation’s 20 largest school districts report no incidents of bullying or harassment. [Education Week]

• How big banks are profiting off a poorly designed program meant to help underwater homeowners. [ProPublica]

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/09/460302/econ-040912/

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April 9 News: 3,200 Tennesseans Urge Governor
Haslam to Veto Anti-Science Education ‘Monkey Bill’

Below is our morning round-up of the latest in climate, environment and clean energy. Here is what we?re reading. What are you?

Alaska polar bears are losing their fur and U.S. Geological Survey scientists don’t know why. [Associated Press]

The French energy company Total estimates that its North Sea Elgin field gas well is leaking about 200,000 cubic meters of natural gas per day. If the gas continues escaping at that rate, and all of it reaches the atmosphere, it would approximate the annual global warming impact of 35,000 Americans. [Inside Climate News]

Hundreds of world landmarks from Berlin?s Brandenburg Gate to the Great Wall of China went dark Saturday, part of a global effort to highlight climate change. [Washington Post]

It?s been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records weren?t just broken, they were deep-fried. [Washington Post]

The price of a barrel of oil remains stable, but the demand for gasoline continues to creep up, with Americans having spent 8.7 percent of their income on gas in March, according to AAA. [ABC News]

The United Kingdom this week launched a ?24 million contest to support up to two pilot wave energy projects, with the government aiming to scale up clean technology to power more homes and businesses and curb carbon emissions. [The Malta Independent]

A letter delivered to Gov. Bill Haslam’s office yesterday urges him to veto recently passed legislation that ensures teachers will be permitted to teach the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of theories like evolution. [Nashville Scene]

Related Post:

• Anti-Science ?Monkey Bill? Passes Tennessee Senate

 

 

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/04/09/460313/april-9-news-3200-tennesseans-urg
e-governor-haslam-to-veto-anti-science-education-monkey-bill/

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On This Day In History April 9

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow GazetteThis is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.Find the past "On This Day in History" here.April 9 is the 99th day of the year (100th in leap years) in[...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29570/on-this-day-in-history-april-9

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Mitt Romney's Lying is the Real Voter Fraud

By @TedFrier

Forget ACORN. If you really want to know who's defrauding millions of Americans out of their right to vote it's Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. And they've got lots of ways to do it.

One of the most popular is obvious enough. In those states where Republicans control both the governor's office and state legislature a systematic effort has been underway in earnest over the past two years to erect barriers to voting by those traditional Democratic Party constituencies such as the elderly, the poor and the young who might stand in the way of the Conservative Movement's drive for a monopoly of power.

But another form of voter fraud is less obvious since it involves stealing people's votes by - and let us not flinch from the word - lying to them.

In a glorious eight-minute dissection (what Fox News would surely call a shrill and unhinged screed) Rachel Maddow cites chapter and verse to prove her case that "the degree to which Mr. Romney lies, about all sorts of stuff, and doesn't care when he gets caught, may be the single most notable thing about his campaign."

Maddow Blog editor Steve Benen has been filing regular updates to what he calls the "Chronicles of Mitt's Mendacity," which are now up to Volume XII.

For example, campaigning in Wisconsin, Romney complained "The President put an ad out yesterday, talking about gasoline prices and how high they are. And guess who he blamed? Me!"

Not true, says Benen.

Another Romney campaign ad argues that Obama "has managed to pile on nearly as much debt as all the previous presidents combined."

Not even close, says Benen.

In the same ad, Romney claimed "President Barack Obama named himself one of the country's four best presidents."

That's blatantly untrue, says Benen. And on and on and on it goes.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank was equally gob-smacked by the audacity of Romney's dishonesty.

Writing about Romney's most recent speech in Washington, Milbank judged as "incorrect, wrong, false and fictitious" Romney's claims that: 1.) President Obama: was responsible for the "weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression;" that 2.) eliminating Obamacare would save "about $100 billion a year;" that 3.) Obama was "taking a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it;" and that 4.) the President had created an "unaccountable panel, with the power to prevent Medicare from providing certain treatments."

Milbank noted that Romney's speech earned no fewer than three "Pants on Fire" ratings from PolitiFact for his bald faced lies - just some of the more than 32 times PolitiFact has flagged Romney for similar fibs, falsehoods and fabrications.

Not only does Romney's lying seem gratuitous it's also epidemic on the right. In his New York Times column on Saturday, Joe Nocera marvels at conservative efforts to pull the plug on the growing popularity of Chevrolet's electric hybrid Volt by flat out lying about the vehicle recently named European Car of the Year and coming off its best month yet with 2,200 cars sold.

Yet for months, the conservative propaganda machine has been mocking the Volt as "roller skates with a plug," says Nocera.

Nocera quotes the Volt's inventor, legendary auto executive Bob Lutz ("who is about as liberal as the Koch Brothers") as dismissing as "nuts" conservative criticisms of a car that he says makes "a significant achievement in the auto industry."

In his Forbes blog, Lutz counters what he called the "rabid, sadly misinformed right." But Nocera says Lutz "has largely given up" on conservatives after even his conservative intellectual hero, Charles Krauthammer, described the electric car as "flammable."

Although Lutz remains deeply conservative, Nocera said he's "become disenchanted with the right's willingness to spread lies to aid the cause."

With the nation now celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of the classic movie To Kill a Mockingbird, Mitt Romney reminds me of that loathsome pair, Bob and Mayella Ewell, the father-daughter tandem who Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch described as "victims of cruel poverty and ignorance" who brought false charges of rape against the Negro tenant farmer Tom Robinson in "the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted."

Like Atticus's all-white, Southern male jury, Romney seems to assume that American voters will merely "go along" with his assumption - the "evil assumption" - that all Democrats lie, that all Democrats are immoral beings, that all Democrats are not to be trusted.

It should be noted that Atticus Finch lost his case before a jury that was more receptive to its own prejudices than to the truth. And if Mitt Romney also exhibits that "cynical confidence" his falsehoods won't be doubted, the reception he got from the Newspaper Association of America last week may explain why.      

There was Mitt Romney standing before a gathering of journalists, making a series of "incorrect and dishonest accusations," writes David Corn, and not once was Romney "hooted out of the room" by the nation's top reporters. Indeed, says Corn, "he faced no penalty" at all.

The nation's press, like Attitus' backward Alabama jury, has its own rigid and time-honored codes that prevent it from seeing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And among them, says Atlantic magazine's James Fallows, is the "false equivalence syndrome" - that  "objective-seeming" method of covering the news that unwittingly and inexcusably awards Republicans a license to lie when the media give equal credence to "both sides" in every dispute even when one of those sides just makes stuff up.

It has never been enough for a people to merely have the formal right to vote. That vote must also count for something when cast by an "informed" voter whose choice is an accurate reflection of the voter's genuine wants and beliefs.

While it may not be possible to plant democracy at the end of a bayonet it has always been possible to create the appearance of democracy using physical threats or force. We are all familiar with the cynical charade of right wing dictators and left wing revolutionaries whose legitimacy derives from the fact they got themselves "elected" when they were the only candidates allowed on the ballot or if voters were  manipulated and coerced.

It is also possible to manufacture an artificial legitimacy through lies and distortions of the critical information voters need to make an informed judgment on the important issues of the day - the bare minimum that's required in a democratic political system that claims to be based on "consent of the governed."

And a party or a candidate that seeks political power by depriving voters of their rightful connection with reality is engaged in a coup d'etat every bit as real as if the overthrow had been carried out with guns.

But let's be clear. Lying is not merely a moral failing. In a democratic republic like ours whose legitimacy is rooted in popular sovereignty and consent of the governed the routine, almost promiscuous fabrication of basic facts by Republicans and Republican candidates like Mitt Romney is as much a theft of a citizen's right to vote as if that citizen was prevented from ever voting at all.


Read The Full Article:
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romneys-lying-is-the-real-voter-fraud

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Everybody says Mitt Romney has already won, so
why is he carpet bombing Rick Santorum's home state

(Jim Young/Reuters)
 Mitt Romney says it's over. Republican super delegates say it's over. But his campaign and his Super PAC are nonetheless planning another wave of television ad carpet bombing, this time in Rick Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania.

The $2.9 million advertising campaign will run in the Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Erie, Altoona and Philadelphia media markets until the April 24 primary election.

Within a week, the ads will run in the Pittsburgh market. The Romney super PAC Restore Our Future is airing commercials on cable channels statewide.

Romney himself offered an insight into his campaign's thinking:

"Look, we all want to win our home states," Romney told the Tribune-Review. "I won Massachusetts, Gingrich won Georgia and I expect that Mr. Santorum will win Pennsylvania."

That statement combined with the fact that Romney is trying to win Pennsylvania suggests he's trying to pressure Rick Santorum to get out of the race before Pennsylvania in order to avoid the embarrassment of losing his home state, which recent poling suggests is entirely possible.

But whether Santorum stays in or out, doesn't Mitt Romney already have the nomination locked up? Why should he worry about Santorum? The answer is that Romney won't really have the nomination locked up until he hits his magic number. What he's got locked up is the ability to win the nomination; nobody can stop him but himself.

But between now and when he hits the magic number, Rick Santorum can embarrass Romney?and force him to work for the nomination. Romney is likely to lose many of the states that vote in May if Santorum stays in, and given that he's only at 41 percent in the latest Gallup tracking poll of the GOP primary, he still hasn't convinced a majority of Republicans that he'd be their best candidate.

Romney doesn't want that, so he's trying to force Santorum out by winning Pennsylvania. It's a strategy that might work, but if it fails?if Santorum stays in, and wins his home state despite Romney's efforts?it will only strengthen Santorum's ability to embarrass Romney.

6:43 AM PT: Mitt Romney is putting a temporary hold on negative ads due to the illness of Rick Santorum's daughter Bella:

Romney pulls negative ad from PA airwaves "until further notice" due to Santorum's daughter's hospitalization
— @michaelpfalcone via webRomney, however, will still be on the air:This is ad the Romney camp will be running in PA: http://t.co/... swapped in for an anti-Santorum spot
— @michaelpfalcone via webIt's telling that the only thing that can keep Romney from attacking is something as tragic as Santorum's daughter's illness.

Read The Full Article:
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omney-has-already-won-so-why-is-he-carpet-bombing-Rick-Santorum-s-home-state-

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Judicial Review Doesn't Mean What You Think it
Means

Last night while I was asleep, highly placed sources whom I cannot identify (because they don?t exist) assured me that Attorney General Eric Holder originally wrote this first draft of a letter he was ordered to submit to Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit. The final letter has quite a different tone. But those of us who cherish the rule of law can dream that he might have actually sent Judge Smith the following instead.

 

Judge Jerry E. Smith

Circuit Judge

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

 

Dear Judge Smith,

 

Lawyers tell an anecdote about a psychiatrist who finds himself in heaven. St. Peter says, ?We?re so glad you?re here, we have a psychiatric emergency!?

The psychiatrist is puzzled. ?How can that be?? he asks. ?Surely the souls of the blessed are free from all pain and torment. Why would they need a psychiatrist??

?It?s not the blessed,? says the saint. ?It?s God. He has terrible delusions of grandeur?he thinks he?s a federal judge!?

This story came to mind when I learned that on April 3 of this year, you instructed Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Kaersvang, representing the United States in the case of Physicians Hospitals of America v. Sebelius, to produce a letter from this office reaffirming the adherence of the United States to the doctrine of judicial review. You cited recent remarks by President Obama suggesting that a decision by the United States Supreme Court to invalidate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would represent an ?an unprecedented, extraordinary step? that would furnish a ?good example? of judicial activism.  

This letter is a truthful response to this court's order and the issues of jurisdiction and judicial ethics it raised. Because it is truthful, it will never be filed with any court. Nonetheless, I will take this imaginary opportunity to state that the proper response to your order is a regretful refusal to comply on the grounds that it was made in excess of your jurisdiction, that it raises serious issues about your fitness to serve the United States in a position of honor and trust, and that it tends to bring discredit on the federal judiciary.

My refusal to respond is based upon the case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the practice of judicial review of federal statutes for constitutionality. The case concerned an unconstitutional attempt to enlarge the subject-matter jurisdiction of a federal court. The Court's decision invalidated § 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which apparently granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus to James Madison, then Secretary of State. Because Art. III § 2 cl. 2 of the Constitution grants the Supreme Court original jurisdiction only in a limited set of proceedings, the Court reasoned, an attempt by Congress to give it original jurisdiction in other proceedings was unconstitutional and void. Marbury reaffirmed that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and any attempt by them to exercise power over parties and questions not before them is what the common law called coram non judice?an extrajudicial act that deprives them of their judicial power.

Similarly, your order to an employee of the Department of Justice to critique and explain remarks made by the President of the United States was entered in excess of the Court's jurisdiction.

Simply put, at this time you have no jurisdiction over the President of the United States.

The defendant in the case at bar is not a case against the President. It is against the government of the United States, which is defending the constitutionality of an act of Congress enacted pursuant to the procedures set out in Article I, and signed into law by the President pursuant to Article II. Once those acts are completed, the ACA became the law of the land, and any constitutional test against it in any court is against the government itself. Ms. Kaersvang?s client in this action is not the President, it is the United States of America.

For this reason, the President?s remarks are not part of the record. Recently, the head of your branch of government, Chief Justice John Roberts, who not long ago berated a government lawyer who was attempting to discuss matters not in the appellate record. ?If they weren?t in the record, I don?t want to hear about them,? the Chief Justice said. ?You appreciate that rule, that we don?t consider things that aren?t in the record.?

In Marbury, Chief Justice John Marshall explained that the Supreme Court could exercise no jurisdiction whatever over the President in his political capacity as chief executive: ?The province of the Court is solely to decide on the rights of individuals, not to inquire how the Executive or Executive officers perform duties in which they have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted to the Executive, can never be made in this court.?

Presidents since Thomas Jefferson have criticized the federal courts. Jefferson pardoned persons who had been duly convicted of violating the Alien and Sedition Act, and in so doing, said, ?nothing in the Constitution has given [the courts] a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide for them.? Abraham Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address, ?if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.?

In his ninth Fireside Chat, in March 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt charged that ?[t]he Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body. When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress - and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws.? The Court was at that moment, as it is now, consider challenges to several important government programs before the Court.

 In recent years, Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan (who appointed you to the bench), George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush have harshly criticized the Court for decisions of which they disapproved. There is nothing unusual or improper in political criticism of the courts in general or of the Supreme Court in particular. The United States Supreme Court said as much 70 years ago in the case of Bridges v. California, which held that neither a citizen nor a newspaper could be haled before a court to answer for criticism of its decisions made in a public forum. ?The assumption that respect for the judiciary can be won by shielding judges from published criticism wrongly appraises the character of American public opinion,? wrote Justice Hugo Black for the Court. ?For it is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.? 

Judge Smith, an institution which survived the scorn of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt will withstand President Obama's criticism. Abuse of your jurisdiction has the potential to do far more damage to the judiciary than do the President?s commentary. No one seriously asks that judges do their jobs without regard to their underlying political views. But the people have a right to expect that judges will not act as naked partisans. 

You can be forgiven for having forgotten your proper sphere in the constitutional system. You've had a lot of bad examples. Two Justices of the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia, have openly associated themselves with the President's political enemies. In the recent health-care oral argument, Justice Scalia played by turns the roles of bully and buffoon. Judge Roger Vinson's District Court opinion in the Health Care Cases read like a transcript of a far-right talk-radio show. Judge Henry Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia heard a challenge to the ACA even though a partisan political consulting firm of which he is part owner had a business relationship with the politician bringing the case. Chief Judge Richard Cebull of the District of Idaho sent out an openly racist email disparaging both President Obama and, remarkably, his mother. He ?apologized? by explaining that he had only used racist language because he is ?not a fan? of the President: ?I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama.? In the judge?s mind, the intent to show disrespect to the President was acceptable.

Not since the Sedition Act Crisis of 1798 has any segment of the federal judiciary come to occupy a position so clearly defined by unprincipled, lawless allegiance to one political party and open, personalized hostility to the other. Certainly the ?activist? courts your political patron criticized never, even in the cases they arguably got wrong, personalized them as a quarrel with the President of the United States.

In sum, Judge Smith, it would be improper for this office to grovel before you. To be a federal judge is a great honor. A judge responds to the honor by transgressing the limits on his jurisdiction or his role is no longer a judge; he is a thug with a hammer.

 

Not signed,

 

Eric Holder

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/judicial-review-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means

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Judicial Review Doesn't Mean What You Think It
Means

Last night while I was asleep, highly placed sources whom I cannot identify (because they don?t exist) assured me that Attorney General Eric Holder originally wrote this first draft of a letter he was ordered to submit to Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit. The final letter has quite a different tone. But those of us who cherish the rule of law can dream that he might have actually sent Judge Smith the following instead.

 

Judge Jerry E. Smith

Circuit Judge

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

 

Dear Judge Smith,

 

Lawyers tell an anecdote about a psychiatrist who finds himself in heaven. St. Peter says, ?We?re so glad you?re here, we have a psychiatric emergency!?

The psychiatrist is puzzled. ?How can that be?? he asks. ?Surely the souls of the blessed are free from all pain and torment. Why would they need a psychiatrist??

?It?s not the blessed,? says the saint. ?It?s God. He has terrible delusions of grandeur?he thinks he?s a federal judge!?

This story came to mind when I learned that on April 3 of this year, you instructed Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Kaersvang, representing the United States in the case of Physicians Hospitals of America v. Sebelius, to produce a letter from this office reaffirming the adherence of the United States to the doctrine of judicial review. You cited recent remarks by President Obama suggesting that a decision by the United States Supreme Court to invalidate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would represent an ?an unprecedented, extraordinary step? that would furnish a ?good example? of judicial activism.  

This letter is a truthful response to this court's order and the issues of jurisdiction and judicial ethics it raised. Because it is truthful, it will never be filed with any court. Nonetheless, I will take this imaginary opportunity to state that the proper response to your order is a regretful refusal to comply on the grounds that it was made in excess of your jurisdiction, that it raises serious issues about your fitness to serve the United States in a position of honor and trust, and that it tends to bring discredit on the federal judiciary.

My refusal to respond is based upon the case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the practice of judicial review of federal statutes for constitutionality. The case concerned an unconstitutional attempt to enlarge the subject-matter jurisdiction of a federal court. The Court's decision invalidated § 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which apparently granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus to James Madison, then Secretary of State. Because Art. III § 2 cl. 2 of the Constitution grants the Supreme Court original jurisdiction only in a limited set of proceedings, the Court reasoned, an attempt by Congress to give it original jurisdiction in other proceedings was unconstitutional and void. Marbury reaffirmed that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and any attempt by them to exercise power over parties and questions not before them is what the common law called coram non judice?an extrajudicial act that deprives them of their judicial power.

Similarly, your order to an employee of the Department of Justice to critique and explain remarks made by the President of the United States was entered in excess of the Court's jurisdiction.

Simply put, at this time you have no jurisdiction over the President of the United States.

The defendant in the case at bar is not a case against the President. It is against the government of the United States, which is defending the constitutionality of an act of Congress enacted pursuant to the procedures set out in Article I, and signed into law by the President pursuant to Article II. Once those acts are completed, the ACA became the law of the land, and any constitutional test against it in any court is against the government itself. Ms. Kaersvang?s client in this action is not the President, it is the United States of America.

For this reason, the President?s remarks are not part of the record. Recently, the head of your branch of government, Chief Justice John Roberts, who not long ago berated a government lawyer who was attempting to discuss matters not in the appellate record. ?If they weren?t in the record, I don?t want to hear about them,? the Chief Justice said. ?You appreciate that rule, that we don?t consider things that aren?t in the record.?

In Marbury, Chief Justice John Marshall explained that the Supreme Court could exercise no jurisdiction whatever over the President in his political capacity as chief executive: ?The province of the Court is solely to decide on the rights of individuals, not to inquire how the Executive or Executive officers perform duties in which they have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political or which are, by the Constitution and laws, submitted to the Executive, can never be made in this court.?

Presidents since Thomas Jefferson have criticized the federal courts. Jefferson pardoned persons who had been duly convicted of violating the Alien and Sedition Act, and in so doing, said, ?nothing in the Constitution has given [the courts] a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide for them.? Abraham Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address, ?if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.?

In his ninth Fireside Chat, in March 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt charged that ?[t]he Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body. When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress - and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws.? The Court was at that moment, as it is now, consider challenges to several important government programs before the Court.

 In recent years, Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan (who appointed you to the bench), George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush have harshly criticized the Court for decisions of which they disapproved. There is nothing unusual or improper in political criticism of the courts in general or of the Supreme Court in particular. The United States Supreme Court said as much 70 years ago in the case of Bridges v. California, which held that neither a citizen nor a newspaper could be haled before a court to answer for criticism of its decisions made in a public forum. ?The assumption that respect for the judiciary can be won by shielding judges from published criticism wrongly appraises the character of American public opinion,? wrote Justice Hugo Black for the Court. ?For it is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.? 

Judge Smith, an institution which survived the scorn of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt will withstand President Obama's criticism. Abuse of your jurisdiction has the potential to do far more damage to the judiciary than do the President?s commentary. No one seriously asks that judges do their jobs without regard to their underlying political views. But the people have a right to expect that judges will not act as naked partisans. 

You can be forgiven for having forgotten your proper sphere in the constitutional system. You've had a lot of bad examples. Two Justices of the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia, have openly associated themselves with the President's political enemies. In the recent health-care oral argument, Justice Scalia played by turns the roles of bully and buffoon. Judge Roger Vinson's District Court opinion in the Health Care Cases read like a transcript of a far-right talk-radio show. Judge Henry Hudson of the Eastern District of Virginia heard a challenge to the ACA even though a partisan political consulting firm of which he is part owner had a business relationship with the politician bringing the case. Chief Judge Richard Cebull of the District of Idaho sent out an openly racist email disparaging both President Obama and, remarkably, his mother. He ?apologized? by explaining that he had only used racist language because he is ?not a fan? of the President: ?I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama.? In the judge?s mind, the intent to show disrespect to the President was acceptable.

Not since the Sedition Act Crisis of 1798 has any segment of the federal judiciary come to occupy a position so clearly defined by unprincipled, lawless allegiance to one political party and open, personalized hostility to the other. Certainly the ?activist? courts your political patron criticized never, even in the cases they arguably got wrong, personalized them as a quarrel with the President of the United States.

In sum, Judge Smith, it would be improper for this office to grovel before you. To be a federal judge is a great honor. A judge responds to the honor by transgressing the limits on his jurisdiction or his role is no longer a judge; he is a thug with a hammer.

 

Not signed,

 

Eric Holder

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/judicial-review-doesnt-mean-what-you-think-it-means

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Cheers and Jeers: Monday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE?

The Week Ahead

Monday Hope and optimism sweep America as Congress remains in recess for another week.

The President and First Lady host the 2012 Easter Egg Roll on the south lawn of the White House. This year, the child who finds the coveted "golden egg" wins a billionaire backer for his or her future class president election campaign.

Tuesday The small business index for March is released. As usual, the report is dismal because people accidentally keep stepping on them.

President Obama goes to Florida Atlantic University in Boca to push for passage of the "Buffett Rule." It, of course, requires insurance companies to provide free care for anyone who blows out their flip-flop, steps on a pop-top, cuts their heel and has to cruise on back home.

Wednesday The state of the economy takes center stage as the Federal Reserve unveils its latest "Beige Book," aka the "Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions." SPOILER ALERT: a misplaced decimal point erases the deficit.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio suffers a brief moment of lucidity. It quickly passes.

Tonight on The Colbert Report: Michelle Obama.

Thursday Providence, Rhode Island residents get an ominous feeling in their gut, as if something nefarious is about to take place exactly two months from today. They shake it off, thinking it's probably just gas.

America's Republican governors issue a joint statement of apology to their supporters after they realize they've gone a full day without signing a piece of anti-woman legislation into law.

Feeling confident, the Red Sox announce their intention to win a game before the end of the month.

Friday The University of Michigan announces the consumer sentiment for April. In a sign that things are getting better, Americans' opinion goes from "[bleep!!!]" to "[bleep.]"

President Obama flies Jetpack One to Columbia for the Summit of the Americas. And of course all the other leaders there suddenly want a jetpack, too.

The spring fiddlehead forecast is released and, once again, experts are torn between "boiled" and "pickled."

Saddle up. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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The Struggles of the War Correspondent

You may have heard that there is a certain kind of breed of journalist who becomes a war correspondent. Maybe they're thrill-seekers to begin with, or maybe the rush of reporting from war zones changes them, but many of them keep returning over and over again to one hotspot after another, putting their lives at risk for the sake of their job. Some of them are wounded, some are even killed. Some, I'm sure, suffer from the same kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers endure. What we don't often hear, though, is those reporters talking candidly about it as something that is perhaps not too healthy.

That's why this segment on the Public Radio Exchange program Howsound is so striking. Kelly McEvers, a terrific NPR reporter based in Baghdad, opened up in a surprising way about her feelings about what she does and the effect it has on those around her:

"I have a problem. I mean that's, you know?Yeah. I like that stuff [war reporting]. It's a problem. I mean, I wouldn't do this if I didn't like doing things that are a little bit, you know, not safe. It's a problem. It's a big problem. My husband's theory is that I do not have a worry gene, or a worry compartment in my brain. He, of course, has it in spades; he has like twice as much worry as anyone I've ever met. I do not, in the moment, I don't have really a certain kind of capacity to think about the worst-case scenario. I don't know. Don't know why. And so when I go and do stuff like that, it's just sort of like, it's not a blind sense that everything is going to work out fine, but it's kind of close to that? I can joke about it, but it's something I've actually considered very deeply in recent months, because things have gotten so out of hand in the Middle East, and two guys who died in Libya, one of them was a really good friend of mine. But you know, I talk to a shrink about it. We have a shrink on retainer that we can use. I call him when I need to. We talk a lot about adrenalin addiction. There is such a thing. You can get really hooked on adrenalin, just like you would on heroin. People who do this kind of stuff for a living, all the time, there's definitely an addictive sort of element to it, which I thought was really fascinating. My family gets really upset. It's a problem."

There are other kinds of people who may have this kind of adrenalin addiction, particularly people who do extreme sports like BASE jumping. But reporters like McEvers put their lives at risk in service of the rest of us, no less than the people in uniform. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 16 journalists have been killed in the line of duty so far this year; since 1992, the number is 910.

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http://prospect.org/article/struggles-war-correspondent

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Bait and Convert

The 2012 Republican primaries were without question the most religious party contest in memory. Nearly all the major candidates put their religious beliefs at or near the center of their public personas, from the puritanical scold Rick Santorum, to the prayer warrior Rick Perry, to Newt Gingrich, producer of books and movies on the importance of God in American politics. As for the Almighty himself, He apparently told no fewer than three separate candidates (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Santorum) that they should run. Awfully sneaky of Him not to tell them they were going to lose, but who has time to consult the fine print when you're hearing messages from above?

Yet in the end, the candidate who prevailed was the one least interested in talking about his religion. That's not because Mitt Romney isn't devout, but because he's all too aware that his Mormonism presents some political complications. Many evangelicals consider the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) a heretical cult, and significant numbers of Americans say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president. For instance, in a Gallup poll last year, 22 percent of voters?including 18 percent of Republicans and 19 percent of independents?said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. Of course, there's a good chance that will change when we're talking about a particular Mormon running on the Republican ticket against a particular president (though as one evangelical pastor said, " f it's Romney and Obama, as far as I'm concerned, Satan's flipping a two-headed coin and his head's on both sides."

So Republicans are getting ready to defend their standard-bearer against religious bigotry?or, more properly, getting ready to charge Democrats with such bigotry. Last week, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch told them to prepare for the coming assault. "You watch, they're going to throw the Mormon church at him like you can't believe it," he said. "For them to say they aren't going to smear Mitt Romney is bologna. It's way out of bounds, but that's what is going to happen." Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, responded that Hatch's prediction was "just preposterous."

And I'm sure she's right when she says the party and the president's campaign would never do such a thing. It would be insane for the Obama campaign to suggest that people should vote against Mitt Romney because of his religion (and not only because there are so many other good reasons). But that doesn't mean Mormonism won't be at issue, because there will be people outside the campaign eager to discuss their problems with the LDS church. The church's aggressive support of California's Proposition 8 outlawing gay marriage is sure to come up. Romney recently got asked by a Ron Paul supporter if he believed it is a sin for a black person and a white person to get married. He responded with a firm "no," but you can be it won't be the last time the Mormon church's history on race?it long held that blacks were cursed by God, a position it officially cast off only in 1978?will be discussed.

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At least one media figure, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell, is about as critical of Mormonism as people get in polite society. He recently said "Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it. Forty-eight wives later, Joseph Smith's lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion that he invented to go with it, which Mitt Romney says he believes." (O'Donnell is referring to Fanny Alger, a 16-year-old girl whom Smith took as his first plural wife. His timing is off?Smith's relationship with Alger began after the religion had already begun?but it's fair to say that Smith's interest in women other than his original wife played a rather important part in the development of polygamy as a religious doctrine.) This is hardly the first time O'Donnell has gone off on this topic, and you can bet he'll do it again from his perch at MSNBC.

But it's rare that candidates of any religion have to grapple publicly with the actual tenets of their faith or their church. Catholic politicians, for instance, will sometimes have to explain their divides with Rome, which essentially come down to this: Catholic Democrats believe the Church is right on caring for the poor and the death penalty, but wrong on abortion, contraception, the status of gay people, and the ordination of women; Catholic Republicans believe the reverse. But the truth is that there isn't a major religion whose scriptures and history don't contain a whole lot of absolutely crazy stuff. Adherents of the older religions have come to ignore most of those scriptures, which makes them less than eager to start quizzing candidates about them. Nobody was going to start exploring the rationale behind keeping kosher with Joe Lieberman, despite the fact that in today's world Jewish dietary laws are arbitrary and absurd (settle down?I'm Jewish, so I get to say that). But maybe they should have.

My position has long been that candidates should be forced to talk about the specifics of their religious faith only in proportion to the amount they use that faith as a political tool. If, like Rick Santorum, you go around talking about how we need more religion in politics and how your firm and unswerving belief in Christianity is the basis of everything you think and know, then you ought to be asked some questions about this thing you say is so important to you. For instance, the Bible says quite clearly that disrespectful children should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21), and that if you beat your slave but the slave lives, then no harm, no foul, because the slave is your property (Exodus 21). What does Rick Santorum think about that?

That's a game we could easily play with Mormon scriptures, and the fact that they're unfamiliar to most people would make it a little more interesting. But as Romney said to that Ron Paul supporter, "We're just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view." A discussion is the last think Romney wants; what he'd much prefer is to mention religion briefly, and then move on.

In the end, that will make this a general election campaign like most others we've seen, even if one of the candidates comes from a minority religion. The last presidential candidate who spoke at length about his religious beliefs was the born-again Jimmy Carter. Even George W. Bush, who said in the primaries that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, became far more circumspect and ecumenical when he had to appeal to the broader electorate.

So all both parties' candidates will say on religion is, "I'm a Christian." Barack Obama says it because so many Americans remain convinced that he isn't, and Mitt Romney says it because so many Americans remain convinced that his church isn't. Chances are that the campaign won't change too many minds on either proposition.

Read The Full Article:
http://prospect.org/article/bait-and-convert

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