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11
Oct 2012

Atlas Shrugged, Part II

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The second installment in this three part series opens tomorrow, October 12, 2012, in select theaters (to find one near you, check here). With less than a month til the election, and the clear parallels with this administration’s philosophy and the “bad guys” in  the movie…is there any chance this movie could impact the outcome of the election? Hopefully it will at least clarify some of the major economic issues.

Reason has a couple of videos from the world premiere of Part II and talking with the cast of the movie about its possible impact. Early reviews generally suggest this second movie is better than the first. The Slate review discusses in detail some of the casting changes that will be noticeable, especially for those of us who plan to review Part I on Netflix before tomorrow night:

For all the mockery, for all the liberal gloating about box-office numbers, the first Atlas film accidentally cast too many successful actors. Taylor Schilling, the original Dagny Taggart, went on to co-star in The Lucky One and the upcoming Ben Affleck movie about the Iran hostage crisis.  “She’s a bona fide movie star now,” says Aglialoro. So she’s been replaced by Samantha Mathis, a ’90s star who’s been mounting a kind of comeback. The rest of the cast is also new. It’s libertarian cinema by way of Doctor Who.

And it completely changes the tone of the story. Schilling’s Taggart was all ice and sneers, storming into meetings without disturbing her bouffant. Mathis replaces the sneer with a pout. “Where are they?” she asks her assistant Eddie, as they ride through an emptied-out Manhattan, fueled by $40/gallon gas. “Where are the people who could make a difference?”

“I’m sitting next to one of them,” says Eddie. Taggart/Mathis holds back a sigh.

Our Rearden in Atlas I was Grant Bowler, who treated the character like a smart fed-up tech whiz beset by Asperger’s syndrome. He’s been replaced by Jason Beghe, who woke up hung-over and crammed his mouth full of gravel. His wife catches him coming home from a night with Dagny (in a very un-Rand touch, we don’t see them having sex), and he dares her to divorce him while he changes into fresh clothes.

This casting change definitely works. Rearden has to deliver the big speech of Part II, when he’s called in to a star chamber for selling his metal to a friend and violating the government’s new “Fair Share” law. (In the novel, it’s the “Equalization of Opportunity” law.) On the page, Rearden’s speech is pretentious in all the best ways. “It is not your particular policy I challenge, but your moral premise,” he says. “If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above, and against my own—I would refuse.” Onscreen, Rearden/Beghe boils this down into a short defense of “job creators.” And it works! The Rand-curious audience wants to stand up and cheer for this hard-working, word-chewing businessman who’s just trying to pour some damn metal.

Here is the official trailer (click here to view in YouTube):

Make plans now to make opening night a success.

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10
Oct 2012

“Obama Style”

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Must Watch Video (click here to view in YouTube):

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30
Aug 2012

Convention Videos, Day 2

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Some more highlights, this time from Wednesday night’s session (for access to all videos, click here).

Governor Susana Martinez (click here to view in YouTube)

Secretary Condoleezza Rice (click here to view in YouTube)

Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan (click here to view in YouTube)

And for the Ron Paul fans, a look at the Paul delegate walk out (click here to view in YouTube)

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Categories: 2012 Election
16
Aug 2012

This Paul Ryan Fellow

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As we close in on the GOP National Convention and celebration of the party’s candidates, I thought it appropriate to consider Romney’s VP pick a bit critically. What do our readers think? Is everyone as excited about the Ryan pick as social media sites would have us believe? Any reservations? Jump in on the comments.

First up, there is the always important reminder that it’s not the second member of the ticket who sets policy:

 Mitt Romney on Wednesday unequivocally disavowed more than $700 billion in Medicare spending cuts proposed by his new running mate, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

In an interview on “CBS This Morning,” Romney was asked how he squared his running mate’s plan to cut spending on the popular healthcare program for the elderly with his criticism of President Obama for making the same reductions.

More from the LA Times here. For more on Ryan and Medicare, check out Steve Chapman’s post here.

Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a hard look at Ryan’s actual record on fiscal issues, and it’s not all that pretty:

Ryan voted for nearly every request to raise the debt ceiling during his 14 years in Congress. He voted for TARP, the GM bailout and most of the recent stimulus giveaways. He also voted to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on a credit card, which added another trillion dollars to the government’s debt. And he voted to assault the Constitution by supporting the Patriot Act and its extensions, as well as Obama’s unconstitutional proposal to use the military to arrest Americans on American soil and detain those arrested indefinitely.

We have a rough idea of how Obama would bring about government control of private industry through Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. From Ryan’s voting record, we have a rough idea of what Romney-Ryan would bring us: more of the Bush-era big government. In other words, Ryan is just another big-government Republican holding himself out as a fiscal conservative. Even his controversial budget proposals—which the House approved, but the Senate declined to address—would have increased government spending. It was less of an increase than Obama wanted, which is why the Senate Democrats refused to consider it, but it was not a cut in spending.

More along these lines from Jesse Walker here.

So where do PubliusNM readers stand on the Paul Ryan pick?

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Categories: 2012 Election, Economy
10
Jul 2012

Roberts off the Rails?

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In the wake of the surprising ObamaCare decision, a great deal of the post-decision commentary has focused on Chief Justice Robert’s role — and particularly on the suggestions that he switched his position mid-course:

Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy – believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law – led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

Read Jan Crawford’s full story here.  An interesting aspect of the story, beyond the obvious, is the evidence the story shows of leaks from the Supreme Court — an institution that is historically known for a lack of such leaks. The Volokh Conspiracy folks have some interesting posts on the leak story, see here and here. Slate has an informative story explaining that the Court’s reputation for a lack of leaks is actually undeserved:

The Supreme Court isn’t supposed to be like other institutions. It’s supposed to be something more, a place above partisan squabbling, insulated from the unseemly back and forth of politics. The court’s nine justices are the final arbiters of our biggest legal questions, and much of their work is supposed to be done behind closed doors. They hold oral arguments and release decisions—and remain a mystery to most people.

That’s what made CBS’s Jan Crawford’s story on July 1 so shocking. Crawford reported that Chief Justice John Roberts voted to strike down the heart of the Affordable Care Act before changing his mind and siding with the court’s liberal bloc. Her story cited “two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations” among the justices, and it noted that Roberts’ “switch” was “known among law clerks, chambers’ aides and secretaries.”

The collective reaction of pundits and legal commentators seemed to be, gasp, “How could this happen? How could the Supreme Court leak?” Harvard Law School’s Jack Goldsmith hadjust argued that the court is typically “better at stopping leaks” than other government institutions. Time’s Adam Sorensen described Crawford’s story as a “once-in-a-lifetime scoop.” Robert Shrum, like many others, described the leaks as “unprecedented.”Meanwhile, Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote on the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy that “the leak is pretty incredible” and that he “can’t remember anything quite like” it.

No doubt the leak is incredible, and no doubt the justices are good at keeping secrets. But there is nothing unprecedented about the Supreme Court dishing on what happens behind the red curtain. The court has a long and colorful history of leaks that dates back to the mid-19th century. Just like last week, leaks have sprung in the past commenting on a decision soon after the justices released it. Inside accounts of the personal relationships among the justices have long been served up to journalists. Indeed, some court opinions have leaked even before the justices had a chance to announce them.

Moving on from the leak issue, there are a great many stories analyzing the decision itself. Here are a few:

Also interesting are the looks at the aftermath of Roberts’ switch:

It’s also worth checking out Rasmussen’s post-decision poll of the public’s view of the Supreme Court reported on July 1:

Public opinion of the Supreme Court has grown more negative since the highly publicized ruling on the president’s health care law was released. A growing number now believe that the high court is too liberal and that justices pursue their own agenda rather than acting impartially.

A week ago,  36% said the court was doing a good or an excellent job. That’s down to 33% today. However, the big change is a rise in negative perceptions. Today, 28% say the Supreme Court is doing a poor job. That’s up 11 points over the past week.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on Friday and Saturday following the court ruling, finds that 56% believe justices pursue their own political agenda rather than generally remain impartial. That’s up five points from a week ago. Just half as many — 27% — believe the justices remain impartial. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

On an interesting end note, Tom Goldstein has a lengthy investigative piece detailing the ten minutes or so on decision day when two major news outlets actually had the story wrong.

Here’s Paul Ryan’s take (click here to view video at foxnews):


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Categories: Constitutional Rights, Health Care, SCOTUS
28
Jun 2012

ObamaCare Decision: Early Roundup

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For those wanting to dive right in, here is the opinion.

Up front, there are two silver linings: (1) the court did NOT vote that the Commerce Clause allows for the individual mandate (tiny solace there); (2) states CAN opt out of the Medicaid expansion without losing all federal funding — they only lose new funds. As Lyle Deniston of SCOTUSblog pointed out this morning:

The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should be understood as a major blow to Congress’s authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition.

Other good news is political: this now gets hung around Obama’s neck for the duration of the election cycle.

On to the early explanations and analysis.

SCOTUSblog’s early “In Plain English” explanation of the decision from the Live Blog:

The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.

The WSJ’s early analysis is out here:

 The court said Congress was acting within its powers under the Constitution when it required most Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty—the provision at the center of the two-year legal battle.

The ruling is a victory for Democrats and President Barack Obama, who had passed the biggest reworking to the health system since the creation of Medicare in the 1960s and faced the prospect of the court nullifying their effort. It also averts disruption for hospitals, doctors and employers who have spent more than two years preparing for changes in the law.

* * *

Although the law survived the court challenge, it faces an uncertain future. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and GOP congressional leaders have pledged to repeal the law if they take control of Congress and the White House in November elections.

The court’s decision, while a relief to Democrats, could further energize voters who dislike the law to back Republicans in November. And it forces the Obama administration to continue defending the unpopular insurance mandate.

On the other hand, the court’s blessing could itself shape public opinion of the law, particularly among independents and undecided voters who view the justices as relatively free of the partisan agendas of the government’s elected branches. Polls consistently show that the public places greater confidence in the Supreme Court than either Congress or the presidency, although the justices’ approval ratings have slipped somewhat over the past year.

Analysis from SCOTUSblog:

Salvaging the idea that Congress did have the power to try to expand health care to virtually all Americans, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of the crucial – and most controversial — feature of the Affordable Care Act. By a vote of 5-4, however, the Court did not sustain it as a command for Americans to buy insurance, but as a tax if they don’t. That is the way Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., was willing to vote for it, and his view prevailed. The other Justices split 4-4, with four wanting to uphold it as a mandate, and four opposed to it in any form.

Here is early commentary from Reason:

In the main dissent from today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, four justices (Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito) say the individual health insurance mandate goes beyond anything that has passed muster under the Commerce Clause before:

The striking case of Wickard v.  Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942), whichheld that the economic activity of growing wheat, even for one’s own consumption, affected commerce sufficientlythat it could be regulated, always has been regarded as the ne plus ultra of expansive Commerce Clause jurisprudence. To go beyond that, and to say the failure to grow wheat (which is not  an economic activity, or any activity at all) nonetheless affects commerce and therefore can be federally regulated, is to make mere breathing in and out the basis for federal prescription and to extend federal power to virtually all human activity.

Thomas goes further in a separate dissenting opinion, where he reiterates his longstanding position that the “substantial effects” test underlying Wickard “is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress’ powers and with this Court’s early Commerce Clause cases.” Quoting himself, he says the test “has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, agrees with the dissenters that the mandate does not qualify as a regulation of interstate commerce (which is why his argument rests on the tax power instead)

On the lighter side, Katherine Mangu-Ward compiles the broccoli references in the opinions here.

From Roger Pilon at CATO:

Even though the Supreme Court action today is a setback for those of us who’ve fought for decades to revive limited constitutional government, it’s hardly the end of the road. The ideas this litigation put in play – in the court decisions below, in the oral arguments before the Supreme Court, and in the huge debate that has taken place across the country – will not go away. They’re the ideas of limited constitutional government that are as compelling today as they were when the Founders first articulated them over two centuries ago, even if this Court has found itself unable to give them force in this case.

But it’s not simply that the ideas are now “out of the bottle” as they haven’t been for a very long time. More deeply, it’s because they address the fundamental problem the nation faces today – out-of-control government, at all levels, giving us a looming economic disaster – that they’ll increasingly be in play. After today’s decision, it will fall to the people themselves, who’ve opposed this legislation from the beginning, to elect a Congress that stands for restoring limited constitutional government, such that a future Court will be better able to do what this Court should have done.

Human Events has some early GOP reactions:

The first reaction I saw came from Sarah Palin, via Twitter: “Obama lied to the American people.  Again.  He said it wasn’t a tax.  Obama lies, freedom dies.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann, who said she would be present in the courtroom when the decision was announced, was quick to Tweet as well: “SCOTUS announced ObamaCare substantially upheld.  Disappointing, but we move forward and we WILL repeal it.”

Statement from the office of House Speaker John Boehner: “The president’s health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire.  Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety.  What Americans want is a common-sense, step-by-step approach to health care reform that will protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a lower cost.  Republicans stand ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country ObamaCare.”

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) was blunt: “When they look back on the American system of once-limited government, June 28, 2012 will stand as a definitive date in the advance of government tyranny.  Today, a slim majority of the Supreme Court turned our Constitution on its head, and ruled that the federal government, in effect, can force upon the American people anything it damn well pleases – as long as it is called a tax.  Unlimited federal power, combined with judicial activism, has crafted a new regime that has destroyed our Founders’ vision.”

Read full piece for more. Speaker John Boehner has promised a new vote to repeal ObamaCare in the U.S. House the week of July 9.

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Categories: 2012 Election, Constitutional Rights, Health Care, SCOTUS
28
Jun 2012

ObamaCare Decision: The Chief and the Liberals take the day (updated)

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As the pundits begin their dissection, those of us disappointed with today’s ruling upholding ObamaCare can thank Chief Justice John Roberts, who we can now confirm without question is a government-apologist at heart.

For those of you who support judicial restraint and believe in deference to the legislative process without any strenuous review — you have found your hero in John Roberts who stuck with that narrative today.

According to SCOTUSblog’s Live Blog coverage this morning, this is the “money quote from the section on the mandate”:

Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it.

UPDATE: IJ has some disturbing statistics on the High Court and upholding government actions, again, for those of you worried that the Court might actually, you know, do the job of striking down laws that are unconstitutional.

For more on this topic, check out IJ’s Government Unchecked report.

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11
Jun 2012

What’s Gary Johnson Up To?

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Gary Johnson is continuing his run for President as the Libertarian Party nominee and recently appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (click here to view on the Daily Show site):

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Categories: 2012 Election
29
May 2012

Free Speech and the Internet

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The Institute for Justice’s latest case raises some very interesting First Amendment issues in this day of new media and even for us here at PubliusNM as bloggers.

The firm explains the case in this short video (click here to view in YouTube):

For more information on the case, visit the case page. Check out Steve’s blog here.

What say our PubliusNM readers? Should folks like Steve in the video be forced to jump through government regulatory hoops before providing dietary advice for a fee? What about other health advice? More importantly, do you believe the government’s regulation would actually serve to protect the public from harm in a case like this, or do more to prevent small-time guys like Steve from competing with larger companies? And if you believe the government does protect the public in this way, do you believe that is the proper role of government? Why or why not?

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Categories: Constitutional Rights
28
May 2012

Happy Memorial Day*

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“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We did not pass it to our children in the bloodstream.  It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”  Ronald Reagan

“The willingness of some to give their lives so that others might live never fails to evoke in us a sense of wonder and mystery. One gets that feeling here on this hallowed ground, and I have known that same poignant feeling as I looked out across the rows of white crosses and Stars of David in Europe, in the Philippines, and the military cemeteries here in our own land. Each one marks the resting place of an American hero and, in my lifetime, the heroes of World War I, the Doughboys, the GI’s of World War II or Korea or Vietnam. They span several generations of young Americans, all different and yet all alike, like the markers above their resting places, all alike in a truly meaningful way. Ronald Reagan

(View Reagan’s 1985 remarks in YouTube)

Ronald Reagan, Remarks at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia

May 26, 1986

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it singlehandedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward — in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom andChaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen — the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it — three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam — boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.

A music video to close, tribute by Trace Adkins (click here to view in YouTube):

*For those who may reasonably question the propriety of wishing a “Happy Memorial Day” I recommend Kenneth Anderson’s post on that subject at the Volokh Conspiracy.


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