Pollster Scott Rasmussen told a local radio host this week that if GOP Congressman Ron Paul were to pursue a third-party candidacy next fall — which he considers unlikely — Paul would draw more votes from Barack Obama than from the Republican nominee. That is how upset the anti-war Left is with the president, Mr. Rasmussen said.<\/p>\n
Wow.<\/p>\n
And if the Obama administration has upset that traditional Democratic constituency with its \u201cforgetfulness\u201d over closing the Guantanamo POW camp and speeding up withdrawals from our counterproductive, hugely expensive “nation-building” enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan, you don\u2019t even want to ask how happy traditionally left-leaning civil libertarians are about the administration\u2019s stance on the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n
Obviously, this administration hates the Second Amendment. When Robert Levy and Clark Neily of the Cato Institute launched the gun rights case that became District of Columbia v. Heller, the administration argued — unsuccessfully, thank heaven — that there was no Second Amendment right for residents of the District of Columbia to own handguns to defend their homes. (And no, they certainly didn\u2019t add that it would be more militarily useful for residents to own machine guns, offering to hand them out at cost.)<\/p>\n
The Tenth Amendment? The Obama administration continues to prosecute those who dispense marijuana to medical patients in California, ignoring that state\u2019s \u201cCompassionate Use\u201d Act. Federal juries aren\u2019t even allowed to hear that defendants were complying with state law when arrested. (For the record, federal laws take precedence only when enacted \u201cpursuant to the Constitution,\u201d which delegates to the federal government no authority over drugs or medical practice.)<\/p>\n
The Fourth and Sixth Amendments? The Justice Department recently argued before the high court — unsuccessfully, again — that police should require no warrants to plant a GPS tracking device on a suspect\u2019s car. And 95 county sheriffs from around the country gathered Monday at the Tuscany Resort in Las Vegas to applaud speakers who warned that the new National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Obama mere weeks ago, does away with a huge chunk of the Bill of Rights, allowing U.S. citizens to be detained indefinitely without trial by military authorities on the mere say-so of anonymous government agents who identify them as \u201cenemy combatants.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s left? Well, at least the Obama administration still defends the FIRST Amendment\u2018s freedom of speech, right?<\/p>\n
You had to ask.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration was back in court last week, trying to convince a skeptical judge that tobacco companies should be required to put large, gruesome, graphic photos on cigarette packs to show that the habit kills smokers and their babies.<\/p>\n
Cigarette makers told U.S. District Judge Richard Leon they can\u2019t be forced to spread the government\u2019s anti-smoking advocacy with \u201cmassive, shocking, gruesome warnings\u201d on products they legally sell. Attorneys for the Obama administration countered that the photos of dead and diseased smokers it wants on all cigarette packs are \u201cfactually uncontroverted.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also uncontroverted that a certain percentage of car buyers can look pretty gruesome after they\u2019re maimed or killed in car wrecks. Could the government mandate color photos of those crash victims pasted to the window of every new car in the showroom — bigger and gorier photos on smaller cars, which are less safe than weightier models? Pictures of dissected cadavers with colon disease or pancreatic cancer on packages of processed meat products?<\/p>\n
Judge Leon has already ruled that cigarette makers are likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop the requirement, on First Amendment grounds. That\u2019s why the judge blocked the rule from taking effect until after the lawsuit is resolved.<\/p>\n
Leon found in his earlier ruling that the nine graphic images approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June — including a color image of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat — go beyond conveying facts about the health risks of smoking, into advocacy. And that\u2019s a critical distinction in a case over compelled speech, speech which (to rub salt in the wound) the manufacturers would have to pay for.<\/p>\n
The judge showed no sign that he was changing his position in favor of the government after the hour-long hearing Wednesday. \u201cIt sounds like they are headed to a place where you have to watch a 10-minute video before you can even buy a pack of cigarettes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tobacco lawyer Noel Francisco said the government is free to try to tell Americans how to live their lives, but not to require cigarette manufacturers \u201cto serve as the government\u2019s unwilling spokesman in that paternalistic endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what does this administration care about the First Amendment? The government shouldn\u2019t be bothered by the dried-up, faded words of dead 18th-century slave owners like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, who sought to bestow upon us a central government of sharply limited powers, right?<\/p>\n
Well-meaning faceless bureaucrats should be able to force people to do anything they want, as long as it\u2019s \u201cfor the greater good of the many.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right … comrades?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pollster Scott Rasmussen told a local radio host this week that if GOP Congressman Ron Paul were to pursue a third-party candidacy next fall — which he considers unlikely — Paul would draw more votes from Barack Obama than from the Republican nominee. That is how upset the anti-war Left is with the president, Mr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,17,21,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election","category-big-brother","category-free-speech","category-groundhog-day"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-fp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}