Alliance Defense Fund & Michael Medved Talk About the "Constitutional" Challenges Ragarding the Banning of the National Day of Prayer (Plus, Atheist Call Taken)

Here is some background on the judge who ruled the National Day of Prayer as unconstitutional. Some discussion of Franklin Graham takes place as well as an atheists concern with the Day of Prayer -- who's case is shown to be vacuous when another proposition is offered.

 

"Conspiracy Show" (4-20-2010): A Caller Tries To Take Up Michael Medved's Challenge About Obama's Birth

Caller Challenges Michael Medved Using Chief Justice Marshall's Quoting Judicial Law from Papa Giorgio on Vimeo.

Judge Andrew Napolitano on Presedential Abortion Executive Order -- To Top It Off, The Order Isn't Even Signed Yet

A White House official told Fox, Obama will not sign the Executive Order Tuesday and has set no specific date to do so. Stupak predicted Obama would sign the order later this week. The White House said only that Obama would sign the order “soon.”

Christian Bed & Breakfast Woes

Suing ObamaCare -- Hail Mary (State Count Up To 14)

Victor Davis Hanson on ObamaCare (Plus, Is It Constitutional?)

We’ve Crossed the Rubicon

President Obama has crossed the Rubicon with the health care vote. The bill was not really about medicine; after all, a moderately priced, relatively small federal program could offer the poorer not now insured, presently not on Medicare or state programs like Medicaid or Medical, a basic medical plan.

We have no interest in stopping trial lawyers from milking the system for billions. And we don’t want to address in any meaningful way the individual’s responsibility in some cases (drink, drugs, violence, dangerous sex, bad diet, sloth, etc.) for costly and chronic health procedures.

No, instead, the bill was about assuming a massive portion of the private sector, hiring tens of thousands of loyal, compliant new employees, staffing new departments with new technocrats, and feeling wonderful that we “are leveling the playing field” and have achieved another Civil Rights landmark law. (NB: do the math: add higher state income taxes in most states; the new Clinton-era federal income tax rates to come; the proposed lifting of limits on income exposed to FICA taxes; and now new health care charges — and I think you can reach in some cases a bite of 65%to 70% of one’s income.)

So we are in revolutionary times in which the government will grow to assume everything from energy use to student loans, while abroad we are a revolutionary sort of power, eager to mend fences with Syria and Iran, more eager still to distance ourselves from old Western allies like Israel and Britain.

There won’t be any more soaring rhetoric from Obama about purple-state America, “reaching across the aisle,” or healing our wounds. That was so 2008. Instead, we are in the most partisan age since Vietnam, ushered into it by the self-acclaimed “non-partisan.” But how could it be anything else?....

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The Story's Against Toyota Crumble

An Arizona City Forbids In-Home Bible Studies -- Bad Law Alert

This will undoubtedly be yet another out of the myriad of wins for "our side." But it takes MONEY!

Banished! City forbids Bible studies in homes

'This letter will serve as a 10-day written notice to quit such use'

The city of Gilbert, Ariz., has ordered a group of seven adults to stop gathering for Bible studies in a private home because such meetings are forbidden by the city's zoning codes. 

The issue was brought to a head when city officials wrote a letter to a pastor and his wife informing them they had 10 days to quit having the meetings in their private home. 

The ban, however, prompted a response from the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed an appeal with the city as the first step in its campaign to overturn a provision it describes as illegal. 

"The interpretation and enforcement of the town's code is clearly unconstitutional, " said Daniel Blomberg, a member of the litigation team for ADF. "It bans 200,000 Gilbert residents from meeting in their private homes for organized religious purposes – an activity encouraged in the Bible, practiced for thousands of years, and protected by the First Amendment."

The appeal was filed on behalf of the members, all seven, of the Oasis of Truth Church. 

Pastor Joe Sutherland had been told in a letter from code compliance officer Steve Wallace that the people were not allowed to meet in a home for church activities under the city's Land Development Code. 

There had been no complaints about the meetings, which had been rotating among members' homes before the officer wrote the letter and ordered the group to "terminate all religious meetings … regardless of their size, nature or frequency," because he noticed signs about the meetings. 

The town interprets its law so that "churches within its borders cannot have any home meetings of any size, including Bible studies, three-person church leadership meetings and potluck dinners," ADF said. 

A city letter confirmed, "Given that the church is considered to be religious assembly, and given the LDC provisions prohibiting that use on Local streets without Use Permits and prohibiting it in single family residential structures, it follows that the church meetings cannot be held in the home." 

"The assembly activities associated with the church, including Bible studies, church leadership meetings and church fellowship activities are not permitted," wrote Mike Milillo, the city's senior planner. 

"This ban is defended based upon traffic, parking, and building safety concerns. However, nothing in its zoning code prevents weekly Cub Scouts meetings, Monday Night Football parties with numerous attendees or large business parties from being held on a regular basis in private homes," the ADF said.

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UPDATE: Officials in an Arizona city where workers recently told members of a small church they are not allowed to hold Bible studies in a home and then backed up the warning with an official opinion from the city planner – an issue on which WND reported – say they now hope to make changes that will allow such religious activity.

The Pledge Constitutional Again

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld two religious freedom cases in San Francisco. 

The court ruled on Thursday that the phrases "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on coins and currency are both constitutional. The legal challenges had been brought by professed atheist Michael Newdow, who had claimed the references to God disrespect his atheist beliefs.

An attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) summarizes the court's ruling. "The court saw that both the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto -- "In God We Trust" -- do not violate the Establishment Clause, but rather they acknowledge the initial premises of our founding, which is that God gives each citizen inalienable rights," explains Kevin Snyder.

The rights of atheists and agnostics are included in those inalienable rights, Snyder notes, but not at the expense of people of faith. The court stressed that there is no violation of the so-called "separation of church and state," and Snyder reports that cases such as this continue to crop up periodically because "a segment of our society, particularly in law schools...wants to remove all semblances of religion from public life."

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Judge Andrew Napolitano On Un-Constitutionality of Federal Health Care

I Am Glad FoxNews Has Kept This In the News

Sen. DeMint Talks About Land-Grabs, and An Example of Eminent Domain

Judge Napolitano on State of the Union Address: Obama Should Apologize to Supreme Court

Justice Clarence Thomas Comes Out Swinging!

 

WASHINGTON — In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.

[...]

“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”

The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.

He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907. 

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.” 

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.” 

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process. 

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”

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 (link out - below)

Justice Alito Says "Not True" To Obama During Speech -- Obama: 0 Alito: 1 (Mark Levin: "He [Obama] Lied!")

Adam Winkler: "Alito Was Rude (But Right)"

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made headlines last night when he nodded and mouthed "It's not true" in response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Facing six of the nine Justices, who were sitting right up front, Obama criticized the recent landmark Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate political speech.

Alito was right. The president was wrong about the Supreme Court decision. Obama said, "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections."

[....]

There are a lot of grounds to criticize the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision. It will allow corporations to spend shareholder money to influence the election of candidates many of those shareholders don't support. And it does open up a loophole that allows foreign corporations to influence federal elections through their U.S. subsidiaries.

But the Court did not overturn "a century of law." The provision upended by the Court was only seven years old. It was a novel innovation of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law adopted during the Bush Administration.

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New York Times

....This time, Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.

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Sam Alito Mouths "Not True" When Obama Lambasts the High Court -- It Was Not a Century of Law -- Obama and Dems are Wrong When They Say That, Alito Is Right

POLITICO's Kasie Hunt, who's in the House chamber, reports that Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "not true" when Obama criticized the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision. 

• "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong." 

 The shot of the black-robed Supreme Court justices, stone faced, was priceless. Chuck Schumer stood up behind the justices and clapped vigorously while Alito shook his head and quietly mouthed his discontent.

Charles Krauthammer on Supreme Court, Massachusetts, and Air America (the Conservative Trifecta)

First Brown, Now This Good News Coming from the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Removes Limits on Corporate, Labor Donations to Campaigns
FOXNews.com

In a stunning reversal of the nation's federal campaign finance laws, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Thursday that free-speech rights permit groups like corporations and labor unions to directly spend on political campaigns, prompting the White House to pledge "forceful" action to undercut the decision....

John Edwards Admits Paternity

Support The SEALs: Drop the Unfair and Outrageous Charges NOW! (First Video Graphic, Caution)

SUPPORT THE SEALS

(Some scenes are graphic)

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Two Navy SEALs accused in the mistreatment of an Iraqi suspect in the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors were arraigned in military court Monday, and one SEAL said he was gratified by support from the public and some members of Congress.

The judge scheduled courts-martial next month for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill. A third SEAL will be arraigned later.

The SEALs have received an outpouring of public support on the Internet, and a California congressman has led a campaign urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. About three dozen protesters, including the mother of one of the slain contractors, stood outside the Norfolk Naval Station gate Monday morning holding signs of support.

McCabe is accused of striking the detainee in the midsection, dereliction of duty for failing to safeguard the detainee, and lying to investigators. He deferred entering a plea until his Jan. 19 trial.

McCabe told reporters he was confident he would be exonerated.

"I feel very good about it," he said as he made his way through the crowd of supporters, shaking hands and thanking them. "The support is phenomenal. It makes us feel better, all these people being behind us."

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