High Five to Texas

I'm spending a few days in Austin, Texas and while I was in the Capitol earlier this week, I came across this sign in a hallway:

Representative Plakon and Precourt's Role in Inspiring Florida's Lawsuit Against ObamaCare

Thousands protest in front of the Supreme
Court to support overturning ObamaCare

This week, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Florida vs. United States Department of Health and Human Services (for an excellent recap, please see this write-up by the Texas Public Policy Foundation), the lawsuit filed by the State of Florida against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "ObamaCare."

Florida's previous Attorney General, Bill McCollum, filed the complaint on March 23, 2010. The litigation was joined by attorneys general in numerous other states, and some states filed separate lawsuits, but Florida's case has been the linchpin in moving this challenge forward all the way to the Supreme Court.

ObamaCare and its unconstitutional power grab have galvanized conservatives across the country and united them in their opposition to the Obama administration. What many people don't know is the back story behind how Florida's lawsuit came to be. I recently came across some interesting information when I was doing some research for one of my last Florida clients before I leave for Massachusetts.

Give me coffee or give me death!

From Right Wing News

How the heck did I miss this?

Apparently the recent discussions about Obamacare's health care mandate and the whole kerfuffle surrounding Sandra "my law school tuition is $45,000 a year but I should get free birth control" Fluke have led some people to start examining whether the government should mandate other benefits:

Wall Street Journal | Coffee Is an Essential Benefit Too

Why it's unconstitutional for Obama to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally

I have been seeing an unusual (and somewhat alarming) Constitutional issue pop up during the last few months' debt ceiling debate: does the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution authorize the President to raise the debt ceiling without approval from Congress?

This post will be a little more legalese than you are used to reading here, but please bear with me. Obama admitted recently that his attorneys are not convinced that they could win the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment really does grant him the power to raise the debt ceiling, but the idea keeps resurfacing.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner engaged in a common misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in a recent Huffington Post interview, we have multiple examples of the current administration's, shall we say creative, view of the law (most recently with the "Fast and Furious" debacle), and now Obama has admitted he sought legal advice on the issue (which means he's thinking about doing it!), I think it's important to discuss the constitutional law issues with as many people as possible so we are prepared if the White House does try this maneuver.

Let's start with the text of Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the section that has been cited as potentially granting authority to the President to raise the debt ceiling. As you can see, there is nothing in the text that mentions the President or any sort of executive power or rights whatsoever:

One Year Later...

Happy 1st Birthday to my Blog :)

One year ago today, I published my very first blog post, appropriately titled, "Some thoughts on the First Amendment."

It's appropriate that I started this blog with a discussion of the First Amendment, because I've had to rely on my constitutional right to free speech a few times to defend myself (here, here, and here).

I draw inspiration from the motto of RedState's Erick Erickson to "fight the left and clean up the right."  Anyone who thinks that harassing or threatening me will shut me up is sorely mistaken, and the attacks have only furthered my resolve to continue criticizing those who deserve it.

It's hasn't been all fights and challenges. There's been a lot of fun in the past year. Some highlights:

• Having a front row seat to the amazing journey that was the Marco Rubio campaign (and having a good laugh at Charlie Crist's expense along the way) 

 

• Attending my first ever Conservative Political Action Conference as an Official CPAC Blogger and getting to meet in person so many of my favorite conservative bloggers.

• Meeting the hosts of one of my favorite shows, RedEye on Fox News, as well as frequent RedEye guest Stephen Kruiser, at CPAC...and then seeing some of my photos from CPAC end up on RedEye a week later:

• Being invited to be a guest on Flashpoint, local talk radio, conservative podcasts, and other media appearances. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a little (OK, very) opinionated and getting to share my thoughts and debate political topics is always a lot of fun.

• Becoming a semi-quasi-almost celebrity on Twitter. I signed up for Twitter in March 2009 as "@rumpfshaker" as a bit of a joke on my last name and this epic song, but didn't really participate in the twitterverse much until about a year ago. Now I'm followed by more than 2,200 people and consistently ranking near the top of the "Top Political Tweeters in Florida" lists that Saint Petersblog publishes each month. Twitter has been a great resource for me too, as I've crowdsourced everything from restaurant recommendations to a frightening (but fortunately quickly resolved) computer virus attack last week.

• Getting to meet so many conservative leaders and politicians over the past year, too many to list. There's really no substitute for getting to hear a candidate speak in person, unabridged and uncensored. A few minute clip of a TV interview is not the same, never mind an over-produced 30 second ad. That's why I won't ever endorse a candidate unless I've met him or her in person.

• My "12 seconds of fame" - discovering Charlie Crist's debut TV ad for his new gig at Morgan and Morgan, posting it on YouTube, and watching it go viral the next day (43,000 views and counting).

• What I've enjoyed most of all is hearing from all of you. It's been fun getting feedback from friends or meeting new people who read the blog or follow me on twitter. I really do appreciate all your support and encouragement, and thank you for your continued interest in my little corner of the internet.

A few semi-interesting statistics about this blog...

Most viewed posts:

• It was only a matter of time
• Just in case you aren't sick of post-election commentary yet
• What's the deal with the tan?
• My thoughts on this year's amendments 

Top traffic sources/referring sites:

• Google
• Facebook (both from my Facebook page and other's pages)
• Twitter
• Linkiest (Thank you John Hawkins for listing me on your sites!)
• Conurls (an excellent listing of conservative blogs, news, videos and more)
• Right Wing News (Again, thanks John Hawkins)
• Sayfie Review (from the Sayfie Review Twitter Ticker)
• Rick Scott for Florida (the original campaign site is down now, but I was listed on the Bloggers for Scott Blogroll)
• The Other McCain (Stacy has only linked me a few times, but each time, the Fedora has brought me a huge spike in traffic)

Visitors - Top Countries:

• United States (94% of traffic is from the U.S., all other countries are <1%)
• Canada
• United Kingdom
• India
• France
• Germany
• Australia
• Israel

Visitors - Top States

• Florida (60%)
• New York (6%)
• District of Columbia (4%)
• California
• Georgia
• Texas
• Virginia
• Illinois
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina

Browsers used to access this site:

• Internet explorer - 46%
• Firefox - 28%
• Safari - 9%
• Chrome - 8%
• Mobile - 4%

Operating Systems:

• Windows - 77%
• Macintosh - 12%
• iPhone - 3%
• BlackBerry - 1%
• Other Unix - 1%
• Linux - 1%
• Android - 1%

To all of you who have been there for the entire year, those of you who found me along the way, or those of you who are new readers, THANK YOU. I'm looking forward to sharing the years to come with you.

FYI - you can join the Sunshine State Sarah Facebook page, follow me on Twitter @rumpfshaker, and sign up for "A Daily Dose of Sunshine," a free email subscription to this blog.

Arizona: The debate we SHOULD be having

Much has already been said and written about Saturday's tragic events in Tucson, Arizona. As a nation, we are united in our horror and sadness over the heartless murder of six innocent people, and the wounding of nineteen more, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Well...sigh...we should be united...

In an alarming and shocking turn, many on the Left instantaneously blamed the Right, before anyone had any information about the beliefs or affiliations of the shooter, much less his name.

Far-left blogger Markos Moulitsas, who runs the Daily Kos website, posted on his Twitter account almost immediately after the news broke, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."  Jane Fonda, apparently forgetting her own violent rhetoric during the Vietnam War (not to mention that nasty little episode where she posed for publicity photos on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun) also used her twitter account to blame Palin, Glenn Beck (whose name she repeatedly misspelled as "Glen Beck"), as well as "the violence-provoking rhetoric of the Tea Party."  Mainstream media outlets also joined the blame game, with pundits like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and the New York Times' Paul Krugman pointing fingers at the "violent rhetoric" of conservatives.  

Within hours of the shooting, facts started coming out about Jared Lee Loughner, facts that did not fit with the Left's "Crazy Violent Tea Partier" narrative.  Loughner was a registered independent, and his high school and community college classmates described him as "quite liberal" and "left wing."  He listed the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf among his favorite books, and stated in a YouTube video (video removed by YouTube; mirror site here) that the U.S. Constitution was "treasonous laws."

Even today, several days later, there is still zero evidence tying Loughner to the tea party or any conservative organization or school of thought, and his personal beliefs, both as expressed in his own words and as relayed by those who have known him the past few years, are directly antithetical to the beliefs of the tea party (e.g., the Constitution is revered by the tea party; never decried as "treasonous"). 

Loughner also exhibited an obsession with language and grammar.  There is more justification to blame Strunk and White for inspiring Loughner's actions than Sarah Palin,  who recently garnered attention for making up the word "refudiate," but of course we can all take a step back and say that it makes no sense to blame a grammar book for the actions of a madman. 

The Left is also ignoring their own violent sounding rhetoric, but political rhetoric had absolutely nothing to do with Loughner's violence.  There is ample evidence that he has been a unhappy, troubled, mentally disturbed young man for a very long time.  He was kicked out of his community college and was told he was not allowed to re-enroll until he had a mental evaluation proving that he was not a danger to himself or others, and he reportedly had a history of making public death threats to people in the community. Loughner had apparently been fixated on Giffords since at least 2007, according to interviews with his friends, who describe in detail his bizarre statements about her and disturbing behavior.

Not to be deterred by facts, today I am still hearing politicians and journalists on television crying out for a end to "violent rhetoric."  However, the real problem, in my opinion, is not just that the Left is completely wrong in blaming political rhetoric, but that they are totally missing the point.  

The debate shouldn't be about our political rhetoric, but rather about how we deal with mental illness in this country.   

I am not a doctor or psychologist, but I have seen multiple discussions that Loughner's obsession over certain details, fixation on Giffords, antisocial behavior, and odd "if-then" cadence of his speech and writings indicate a high likelihood of certain paranoid/schizophrenic disorders.  Regardless of the accuracy of diagnosing mental illness via YouTube, the facts surrounding his expulsion at  Pima Community College should have been the impetus to get Loughner a mental health evaluation, at minimum, if not active treatment.  He wasn't expelled for cheating on a test or not paying tuition; the campus police were involved, repeatedly, in a series of "classroom and library disruptions" caused by Loughner.  One of his professors, Ben McGahee, feared for the safety of his students and pushed the administration to remove Loughner.  One classmate, Lynda Sorenson, emailed her friends last summer about Loughner, writing, "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon...I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast..." 

Decades ago, we used to incarcerate the mentally ill in asylums, involuntarily sterilize them, and subject them to horrific medical procedures like lobotomies (in many cases, without informed consent).  This abusive treatment didn't just happen in Nazi Germany, but here in the United States.  Let me be very clear, I am absolutely not suggesting that we return to the eugenics-inspired methods of the past.  But I do think that we should have a open and brutally honest discussion about whether the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.  We are more worried about damaging a student's self esteem or inviting lawsuits than making sure that someone in mental trouble gets help.

Let's also recognize that not all mental illness leads to violence.  Many people, probably even some of your own friends or family, struggle daily with a wide variety of challenges ranging from depression to obsessive-compulsive disorders to schizophrenia without ever causing harm to anyone.  But it is still vitally important that these people obtain effective treatment, both to help them live the best life that they can, and also to catch and hopefully prevent the small percentage who may have violent tendencies. 

For a poignant and intensely personal discussion on this issue, please check out Chris Barnhart's blog, Chris is Right, in which he writes about his own mental illness in the context of the Arizona shootings:

The problem with mental illness is that one can’t easily test for it. Sure, there are psychiatric evaluations, but most of those require oral testimony from the patient him or herself. You can’t find mental illness in a blood screen, or by swabbing the cheek with a Q-Tip.

Oftentimes, psychiatrists judge symptoms based solely on interviews with a patient, and rely on that patient to be honest. Then, based on those symptoms, and what impact they have on a patient’s life, diagnoses and treatment plans are established.

The unavoidable complication here is that many people with paranoid psychoses often see psychiatrists and the mental health “establishment” as part of “the conspiracy,” whatever their particular conspiracy is. So, when interviewed by a psychiatrist, they lie.

...The point I’m trying to make here is that, even if the AZ shooter had undergone a psychiatric evaluation, they might not have caught the seriousness of his condition. And, even if they had assessed him as psychotic, medical and therapeutic treatment may not have prevented him from acting on his psychoses.

Barnhart also addresses the fact that mental illness should not negate Loughner's culpability for his crimes:

I am not suggesting in any way that the shooter’s alleged mental illness, or the lack of treatment, absolves him of the consequences of his crimes! String the bastard up.

...People with mental illnesses still have powers of reasoning and, in most cases, a strong sense of right and wrong. I hope I’m living proof of that. I may not be currently fit to be a full member of society, but I can still apply logic and ethics to my thoughts and my choices. Just because I talk to myself out loud when I walk down the street doesn’t mean I’m free from culpability if I choose to destroy someone’s well-being, property or life.

No matter how mentally ill Loughner might be, it was his choice to take the actions he took, rather than getting help or simply stewing in his own juices. He alone is responsible for his crimes, and he should be punished for them, just like anyone else would be.

Last night on Hannity, Dr. Keith Ablow had the following comment:

Our system of mental health care is shattered.  We don't know what to do.  We don't have a strategy for the Jared Loughners of this world.  And we'd better get one.  Because this is a health issue.  There's nothing political about his act.

It is time that we put politics and political correctness aside and look at how we handle mental illness.  We can't just lock up everyone who acts a little nutty, but standing aside and waiting until someone gets hurt before we intervene is not the answer either.

And regarding the continued focus on political rhetoric...I am absolutely against any attempts to control, suppress or restrain our free speech.  In my opinion, our loud, passionate, and even obnoxious political speech is a net positive.  I am glad that we have the freedom to have debates, hold up posters protesting our government, write stupid and ugly things on the internet, and just plain yell at each other.

We have gone through a series of close, highly contentious elections in the past few years (the 2000 "hanging chads", Bush's re-election in 2004, the Democrat's takeover of Congress in 2006, Obama's election in 2008, and now the Republican victories in 2010), and each time we have handled the transfer of power from one leader to another, from one party to another and back again, without bloodshed.

We have a record of peaceful political transitions that are the envy of the world.  In too many other countries, political power is held only by the barrel of a gun, and dissenting speech is brutally oppressed.  Human beings are passionate and emotional creatures, and I believe that having the freedom to engage in "violent" rhetoric provides a vital outlet to examine and challenge ideas without actually engaging in violent acts.  

So go ahead and be loud, be passionate, be opinionated.  Criticize other people if you think what they are saying is offensive.  Debate back and forth.  Challenge our elected officials.  Demand answers from candidates.  Examine ideas.  Question why things are being done the way they are.

Free speech is a great American tradition that must be preserved, especially in times of tragedy.  We should not let the ugly actions of a disturbed young man distract us from that important principle.  Saturday's events had nothing to do with Left or Right, Republican or Democrat, and everything to do with the devastating effects of untreated mental illness and the savage and heartless decisions of Jared Lee Loughner.

Unconstitutional + Useless = TSA

Here's an interesting op-ed at the Washington Post by Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, about the legal issues behind a recent lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center challenging the constitutionality of the controversial body scanners being used by the TSA at our airports:

Washington Post | Why the TSA pat-downs and body scans are unconstitutional

Courts evaluating airport-screening technology tend to give great deference to the government's national security interest in preventing terrorist attacks. But in this case, there's a strong argument that the TSA's measures violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Although the Supreme Court hasn't evaluated airport screening technology, lower courts have emphasized, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in 2007, that "a particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it 'is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.' "

In a 2006 opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, then-Judge Samuel Alito stressed that screening procedures must be both "minimally intrusive" and "effective" - in other words, they must be "well-tailored to protect personal privacy," and they must deliver on their promise of discovering serious threats. Alito upheld the practices at an airport checkpoint where passengers were first screened with walk-through magnetometers and then, if they set off an alarm, with hand-held wands. He wrote that airport searches are reasonable if they escalate "in invasiveness only after a lower level of screening disclose[s] a reason to conduct a more probing search."

 As currently used in U.S. airports, the new full-body scanners fail all of Alito's tests...

...Broadly, U.S. courts have held that "routine" searches of all travelers can be conducted at airports as long as they don't threaten serious invasions of privacy. By contrast, "non-routine" searches, such as strip-searches or body-cavity searches, require some individualized suspicion - that is, some cause to suspect a particular traveler of wrongdoing. Neither virtual strip-searches nor intrusive pat-downs should be considered "routine," and therefore courts should rule that neither can be used for primary screening.  

I strongly encourage you to read the rest of the article.  It makes it clear that the TSA is not only not using the best available technology, but is engaging in violations of our privacy far beyond what is necessary, and without any additional security benefits.  For example, scanner machines are available which do not create a complete detailed image of the person's naked body, but instead, "[i]f the software detects contraband or suspicious material under a passenger's clothing, it projects an outline of that area of the body onto a gender-neutral, blob-like human image," and that image can then be analyzed to determine if secondary screening of that passenger is necessary.  The fact that the TSA machines are capable of recording, storing, and transmitting images is also problematic.

I am supposed to fly next month and I am sincerely hoping that before I head to the airport, the TSA engages in some serious evaluations of its policies, either voluntarily or because one of these lawsuits forces them to do so.  I shouldn't have to chose between being groped by a stranger or giving the government a naked photo of my body in order to board a plane, especially when neither of these things actually helps keep us any safer.

Look what the body scanners miss...this is a video of Adam Savage, from Discovery Channel's Mythbusters show, sharing an experience he had with the TSA recently (warning, NSFW language):

YouTube | What the F***, TSA?

Did you see that?   He had two 12" razor blades with him.  Twelve inch razor blades!  Remember, the 9/11 hijackers committed their horrific acts with box cutters, which have a similar blade, but smaller!

The scanner machines missed these razor blades.  Completely missed them.  "WTF" is right!