Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (81947)	10/20/2010 3:40:49 AM
From: Sully-	2 Recommendations Respond to of 90947

Decrees Of Separation IBD Editorials Posted 10/19/2010 06:55 PM ET First Amendment: A law school audience fell into fits of laughter when a Senate candidate asked, "Where in the Constitution is separation of Church and State?" In fact, the phrase is nowhere in the document. Tuesday's debate between Delaware's U.S. Senate hopefuls before what was described as a crowd of "legal scholars and law students" at Widener University Law School in Wilmington generated quite some mirth among the assembled elites. Tea Party-favored Republican nominee Christine O'Donnell had the temerity to ask her opponent to cite the provision of the Constitution that separates church and state. There is, of course, no such passage. Those scoffing law scholars might want to look at the Constitution's unadorned text instead of the judicial activist law review articles that take up so much of their day. What the Constitution does say, in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — a restriction imposed upon the state to prevent its interference in religious practice. Talk-radio king and Landmark Legal Foundation President Mark R. Levin explained the confusion of liberal judges and trial lawyers in his 2005 book, "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America." The "Wall of Separation" phrase comes not from the Constitution, but from President Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. As Levin notes, the obscure comment was virtually ignored for nearly a century and a half. It wasn't until 1947 when Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black ruled in the Everson case — which actually upheld the use of taxpayer money to transport children to Catholic and other parochial schools — that the Jefferson metaphor was used to establish "the anti-religious precedent that has done so much damage to religious freedom." Levin's argument is similar to that of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In his dissent in a 1985 ruling against silent school prayer, Rehnquist pointed out: "There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson." He called Jefferson's "wall" "a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging." In his book "The Theme is Freedom," veteran journalist M. Stanton Evans points out that this false view of the Founders as "separationists" led to "a revolution in our legal theory, educational system, and religious practice — including such departures as barring Christmas manger scenes from tax-supported settings." Columbia Law School Professor Phillip Hamburger in his 2002 book "Separation of Church and State" argues that the early Americans enacted the Establishment Clause to prevent the corruption of religion by worldly influences, and that "the constitutional authority for separation is without historical foundation." Is it any wonder that the newest Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan, did not require the study of constitutional law when she was dean of Harvard Law School — but did require the study of foreign law? Those future federal judges graduating Harvard might catch onto the fable liberal activists have gone to such trouble weaving. Maybe we should start calling the First Amendment's Establishment Clause the "Free Exercise of Religion Clause"— since that's what its plain language protects. Perhaps then there would be fewer false decrees from judges and fewer laughs when a citizen politician states a constitutional truth. .

To: Sully- who wrote (81947)	10/20/2010 4:03:54 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Gee, why would so much of PA be under a frost advisory if we're in the "hottest year ever"?. Our average low around here is in the low 40's right now. FWIW, at 4 am it's 35º & the temps are still falling, yet TWC predicted a low of 45º. Hmmmm....... Frrom The Weather Channel; Frost Advisory for: Allegheny Beaver Bedford Blair Butler Columbia Fayette Franklin Fulton Greene Huntingdon Juniata Lawrence Mercer Mifflin Montour Northumberland Perry Schuylkill Snyder Southern Centre Southern Clinton Southern Lycoming Union Washington Westmoreland weather.com

To: Sully- who wrote (81947)	10/20/2010 1:26:40 PM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Respond to of 90947

On eight separate occasions, President Barack Obama has referred to the “green economy” policies enacted by Spain as being the model for what he envisioned for America. Later came the revelation that Obama administration senior Energy Department official Cathy Zoi — someone with serious publicized conflict of interest issues — demanded an urgent U.S. response to the damaging report from the non-governmental Spanish experts so as to protect the Obama administration’s plans…But today’s leaked document reveals that even the socialist Spanish government now acknowledges the ruinous effects of green economic policy. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com