Category: Uncategorized

Many commentators believe that Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, which says the U.S. House chooses the President when no one gets a majority of the electoral college vote, injures independent presidential candidates, or the presidential nominees of new parties. But Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., a member of the Wall Street editorial board and a columnist for that newspaper, writes here that the provision would actually help Michael Bloomberg if he ran for president this year as an independent.
This article at The Moderate Voice discusses Jenkins’ column and quotes extensively from it. …read more

Scotusblog has this explanation about what happens to U.S. Supreme Court decisions that haven’t been issued yet, but in which the initial vote after the oral argument resulted in a tentative 5-4 decision, in which Justice Antonin Scalia was in the majority. As the article explains, such tentative votes don’t count, and there may be many 4-4 decisions. On a U.S. Supreme Court tie, the ruling of the lower court stands.
This article explains the consequences for several high-profile cases.
For election law, the first impact of Scalia’s death may be in Harris v McCrory, 15A809, the North Carolina gerrymandering …read more

Los Angeles, CA – Real Time host Bill Maher took his support for the legalization of marijuana around the U.S. to new highs on Friday, lighting up a joint to make his point. Maher blasted the hypocrisy of marijuana laws in the U.S. during his weekly television segment on Friday.
“Somehow, this is the year that everything from socialism to mass deportation is on the table and voters love the authentic guys who speak their minds, but when it comes time for Congress to consider common-sense pot legislation, it’s like smoking a joint with Woody Harrelson; they just won’t pass it.”
Maher …read more

On February 12, the Socialist Workers Party announced that its 2016 national ticket will be Alyson Kennedy for president, and Osborne Hart for vice-president. This is only the second time that the SWP has nominated a woman for President; the first time was in 1972, when Linda Jenness ran.
The Socialist Workers Party has now nominated a presidential candidate for 18 elections in a row. Besides the Democratic and Republican Parties, the only other U.S. political parties that ever did that were the Prohibition and Socialist Labor Parties.
The 2016 campaign now has four parties with “Socialist”, “Socialism”, or “Workers” …read more

Austin, TX — A video uploaded to Youtube this week shows an ominous precedent being set in America. Offending someone is now grounds for police action.
A preacher near the University of Texas at Austin documented this death blow to the freedom of speech. The preacher was voicing his opinion on anal sex, just outside of the campus when students became ‘offended’ and sought out state force to punish the man for his speech.
When the officer came up to the preacher, he essentially explained to him that the 1st Amendment is irrelevant, “The law says if you offend someone, and they …read more

Even though February 15 is a holiday, North Carolina legislators will start working on new U.S. House districts on February 15. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link. …read more

#TSA ignoring both the existing law and a court order. Solution? The Write the Laws Act Retweet

Do you hate the thought of being visually stripped and ogled by strangers watching you on their “porno scanners?” Do you worry about possible radiation from invasive machines? TOUGH! Step in and raise your arms citizen. The same goes for your spouse… your kids… your grandmother.

To make matters worse, the process for federal rulemaking was completely ignored in this instance. Federal agencies are required to do things like publish findings and solicit public comment before imposing a rule. We think that’s constitutionally insufficient (as …read more

On February 12, U.S. District Court Judge Andrea R. Wood issued a one-page order, granting the Illinois Libertarian Party’s motion for summary judgment that the Illinois full-slate law is unconstitutional. The decision will be issued later. The minute entry says, “For the reasons stated in the Memorandum Opinion and Order to follow, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment is granted and Defendants’ motion for summary judgment is denied.”
The full-slate law was passed in 1931. It was probably passed to thwart the Communist Party, which had a very popular activist named Claude Lightfoot, a leader of Chicago’s African-American community. …read more

Mississippi holds its presidential primary on March 8. Willie Wilson petitioned to get on the ballot, and met the 500-signature requirement. The Democratic Party at first thought the petition needed 100 signatures in each of the old five U.S. House district, so they did not certify his name to the Secretary of State. Then the party became aware that there is no distribution requirement in effect, but by then some ballots had already been printed and mailed to overseas absentee ballots.
On February 10, the Mississippi Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the mistake should be corrected. …read more