Judge Robert Bork, 1927-2012, died today, age 85. His friend John Podhoretz writes his obituary,
Perhaps the most important legal scholar of his day, whose work on matters ranging from anti-trust to the complexities of privacy laws was both accessible and deeply considered, Bork was exactly the sort of choice serious-minded people should have welcomed. The Court had been in large measure the province of lightweights who were considered politically safe or somehow controllable, men who possessed no intellectual compass and were either the captives of their clerks or of the conventional wisdom. His nomination did the Court credit. It was an effort to elevate it.
But no. Nothing like the campaign to deny Bork the Supreme Court had ever been seen before. It was a systematic campaign of personal destruction undertaken by liberal interest groups who had come to see the growing conservatism of the Reagan-era judiciary as an existential threat to them. Only a year earlier, Antonin Scalia had been affirmed by a 98-0 vote in the Senate, but in the interim, Democrats had taken hold of the body in the 1986 elections and the stage was set for a new era of personal destruction in the pursuit of a supposedly higher good.
I had the honor of briefly meeting Judge Bork a few years ago. He was one of the most brilliant men of our times. Adam J. White points out that
The changed course of future Supreme Court nominations was the Bork nomination’s most obvious legacy, but that was not its only legacy. Indeed, the Bork nomination’s most significant impact may be not the manner in which Supreme Court justices are selected, but rather the content of constitutional law itself. For while Bork himself was pilloried for embracing an originalist approach to constitutional law, his nomination’s failure laid the basis for originalism’s eventual success. The Bork hearings galvanized conservatives and challenged them to refine originalism to achieve greater political effectiveness.
White concludes, “Only 25 years after Robert Bork suffered public defeat at the hands of Ted Kennedy and the left, the most interesting question in constitutional law is not whether conservatives can prevail with originalism, but whether liberals can prevail without it. Welcome to Robert Bork’s America.”
No doubt Fidel Castro will die, and keeping track of the rumors has become a pastime not only for all Cubans but also for all Latin America watchers – including the ones, like myself, who bring up the Zombie Fidel. And Cubans are restless.
This at first sounds like progress. But it doesn’t come close to setting Cubans free to roam the world. Citizens will still be required to secure a passport validation stamp, and for many Cubans the costs will add up to more than the fee for the white card. The stamp can also be withheld at the discretion of the regime.
As spelled out in the law, scientists, doctors and anyone deemed to be of high value to the state will have a hard time getting permission to travel—and even if they get it, they will have to wait five years between filing an application and actually boarding a plane. An editorial in the Cuban state newspaper last week said that the regime intends to protect itself from “the theft of talent applied by the powerful,” i.e., the U.S. The law also stipulates a catchall rejection category marked “defense and national security interests.” Translation: Nobody gets out without the dictator’s blessing.
HAVANA — Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time in months, a top hotel executive told The Associated Press on Sunday, challenging persistent rumors that the aging revolutionary is near death.
The 86-year-old leader dropped off a Venezuelan guest at the Hotel Nacional on Saturday afternoon, then stayed for about half an hour to chat with hotel staff, commercial director Yamila Fuster said.
este sábado, la influyente revista Veja publicó que uno de los condenados, el publicista Marcos Valerio Fernandes (cuyo grupo publicitario pagaba a los diputados y a la tesorería del partido de Lula con prestamos fraudulentos de bancos estatales), ha dicho que “Lula era el jefe” de toda la trama que juzga el STF. “Todo lo que hacía era del conocimiento de Lula”, lanzó. Aunque el abogado de Valerio negó la declaración (una aparente amenaza cifrada), ésta podría ser la primera acusación directa en contra del ex presidente.
In the short-term, the Party is trying playing the immigration card a few weeks before the U.S. presidential election. Why? In part, because it can. They think they can influence votes in South Florida’s large Cuban-American community by using the immigration/family reunification talisman to divide voters in Miami. I can think of at least one Congressional race where this could become an minor issue, but it is mostly quixotic.
An offshore remittance company called Caribbean Transfers financed a complex money-laundering ring that moved more than $30 million in stolen Medicare money from South Florida into Cuba’s banking system, federal authorities said Thursday.
The revelation surfaced in the widening case of a now-convicted check-cashing store owner who was first believed to be at the center of the federal case. It marked the first time that investigators traced tainted Medicare proceeds to Cuba’s state-controlled bank.
Let me save you some time: There is nothing in there that will inform your opinion of Mitt Romney.
How do I know? Because I saw many of the exact same documents months ago, after requesting them from a Bain Capital investor. What I quickly learned was that there was little of interest, except perhaps for private equity geeks who want to know exactly how much Bain paid for a particular company back in 2006. Sure I would have loved the pageviews, but not at the expense of tricking readers into clicking on something of so little value.
Let’s go over what Gawker believes it found:
“Mitt Romney’s $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income.”
There actually is plenty of data on Romney’s Bain-related holdings. For example, Bain’s own website lists most of its active private equity portfolio companies. Then there are third-party databases operated by such organizations as Dow Jones, Thomson Reuters and CapitalIQ — each one of which includes searchable lists of past Bain Capital deals (often with detailed financial information). And, finally, Bain isn’t really in the business of doing tiny purchases of unknown family businesses. When it buys something, there is almost always a press release and/or media coverage. Perhaps Gawker hasn’t yet discovered the magic of Lexis-Nexis. Maybe it should sign up for the daily Term Sheet email.
“Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested… Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands.”
I get it. “Cayman Islands” is supposed to be code for tax avoidance or shady dealings. But the reality is that most private equity firms form Cayman-domiciled funds to accommodate investors based outside of the United States (particularly when those funds also are making some non-U.S. investments). One private equity fund formation attorney I spoke with says that the Caymans structure usually doesn’t have real tax benefit for the non-U.S. investors, but that they nonetheless feel more comfortable. He added that, for most U.S. private equity executives, the Cayman structure has little to zero impact in terms of personal taxes.
Gawker Media has been going through a big corporate revamp over the past year or so. The ultimate parent company has never been in the U.S.: it used to be Blogwire in Hungary, but now Blogwire Hungary has become a subsidiary of a Cayman Islands entity called Gawker Media Group Inc, which also owns various U.S. operations like Gawker Media LLC, Gawker Entertainment LLC, Gawker Technology LLC, and Gawker Sales LLC.
If the above link doesn’t work, try the cache, via Rusty Weiss, who has more,
Then there’s this little tidbit of information; something regarding obscene profits, untaxed revenue, and side-stepping the IRS…
The Hungarian companies get all of Gawker’s international income, which flows in from 13 different salespeople in ten different countries and which, since it’s international income flowing to a Hungarian company owned by a Cayman Islands parent, is basically pure profit which never comes close to being taxed in the U.S. The result is a company where 130 U.S. employees eat up the lion’s share of the U.S. revenues, resulting in little if any taxable income, while the international income, the franchise value of the brands, and the value of the technology all stays permanently overseas, untouched by the IRS.
As Rusty says, “This is weapons-grade hypocrisy…” but what else can you expect?
Romney, however, is running on the economy, and is committed to making America energy independent by 2020. You can read his white paper below the fold, (more…)
Heritage held a press conference with Bob Fu, President of China Aid and Tiananmen Square student leader and Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers. Both have long established relationships with Chen.
It is worth noting that Chen shares with Cuban dissident Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet a concern for the rights of women not to endure forced abortions.
Following the release of a video that has received nationwide attention showing Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey abortion center helping alleged sexual traffickers cover up their crimes with abortions and STD testing, Governor Chris Christie has vetoed a bill funding Planned Parenthood.
A new undercover video shows Planned Parenthood officials in New Jersey telling a pimp and his prostitute assistant how they can get abortions for young teenage girls who, Planned Parenthood officials are informed, are Asians in the country illegally and forced into the sex trade. The staffer was later fired for her actions.
The Perth Amboy abortion center where the video is filmed is the second-largest Planned Parenthood center operated by Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey and the abortion business plans to double its number of abortion centers in the state.
Christie has already yanked state taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood but the state legislature sent him a bill to restore the taxpayer funds.
It is to be noted that this is, in fact, the second time Christie has yanked taxpayer funding of the organiztion. Planned Parenthood has already had to close clinics in NJ, due to the funding squeeze caused directly by Governor Christie.
Furthermore, Christie’s office referred the matter to the New Jersey attorney general – who is now calling for an investigation of the incident.
It takes a special kind of moral obtuseness to come up with Nancy’s particular brand of theology. Nancy professes to be a devout Catholic.
First, the statement that she follows Jesus Christ’s public policy (emphasis added):
“And that Word,” Pelosi said, “is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.
Hey Nancy, ever hear of separation of church and state? As Sister Toldjah put it,
First, I don’t have to tell you how flaming red the OutrageOmeter would be right now if Pelosi’s words were instead uttered by George “Dumbya” Bush during his two terms. There’d be so much fretting, sweating, handwringing, mouth foaming, demands for “clarification” – and that’s just from the MSM.
What Would Jesus Abort? That should be the question Nancy Pelosi answers after assuring voters that she must craft her public policies to meet with the approval of Jesus Christ when He returns at the end of time. Pelosi must be hoping that she’ll have enough time to figure out an explanation for voting against a ban on partial-birth abortions
Never mind that the Pope took Nancy to task over the issue of abortion. In the Church of Nancy, it’s all about a good Word.
Here is how the trick would work: In the House, the Rules Committee sets up the parameters for debate on legislation. House leaders are considering a complicated rule that would be structured so that a vote on the rule setting down the structure for the ObamaCare debate would allow the Senate’s version of health care reform to pass without a vote. First, there would be a vote on a rule. If the rule is passed by the House, then the House would vote on a health care budget reconciliation measure that is an amendment to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill. If that reconciliation measure passes, then reconciliation goes to the Senate and the ObamaCare legislation is deemed passed without a direct vote. The plan for the legislation is unclear. House leadership will either structure the rule to either immediately present ObamaCare to the President for his signature or they will hold the bill and deliver it only if the Senate passes a health care reconciliation measure. Either way, the Constitution and the American people are the losers.
Understand that this procedure is drafted in a way so your average American can’t understand it. The simple way to understand the situation is that the House is trying to pass a bill without a vote.
The Constitution states that the House and Senate are supposed to pass identical versions of a bill before the President can sign it into law. One of the reasons for this tricky procedure is to provide cover for moderate Democrats who don’t want to vote for the Senate-passed ObamaCare bill because it includes the federal funding of abortion.
The rub is that, according to the Senate parliamentarian, reconciliation is permitted only for bills that amend existing law, not for amendments to bills that have yet to be enacted. This means that, for the Senate to be able to avoid a filibuster, House Democrats first have to vote for the identical bill that passed the Senate last Christmas Eve. That means voting aye on the special deals, aye on abortion coverage, and aye on high taxes on expensive health-insurance plans. Challengers are salivating at the prospect of running against incumbents who vote for these provisions.
Enter the Slaughter solution. It may be clever, but it is not constitutional. To become law—hence eligible for amendment via reconciliation—the Senate health-care bill must actually be signed into law. The Constitution speaks directly to how that is done. According to Article I, Section 7, in order for a “Bill” to “become a Law,” it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate” and be “presented to the President of the United States” for signature or veto. Unless a bill actually has “passed” both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law.
Fraud has been at the heart of this medical care takeover plan from day one. The succession of wholly arbitrary deadlines for rushing this massive legislation through, before anyone has time to read it all, serves no other purpose than to keep its specifics from being scrutinized– or even recognized– before it becomes a fait accompli and “the law of the land.”
I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life yesterday afternoon,
I asked her about her about how she was received at Princeton University when she visited a couple of years ago.
She was well received, however, the questions from the audience “showed the lockdown on information women’s studies departments have had on college campuses – the lack of information on women’s options other than abortion.”
For instance, her audience “had not heard arguments on how abortion hurts women.”
To me, it is a non-religious issue. She agreed, and explained that “the data is clear there are so few women who would willingly choose abortion.” We both agreed that the push for abortion lets men off the hook too easily.
I mentioned to Charmaine that local newspapers serving the Princeton area frequently carry advertising offering female Princeton students $10,000 for donating an egg. Charmaine talked about the dangers involved in egg donations, and the risks of complications. Worst yet, it points to “the commoditizing of women.”
Judge Robert Bork, 1927-2012, died today, age 85. His friend John Podhoretz writes his obituary,
No doubt Fidel Castro will die, and keeping track of the rumors has become a pastime not only for all Cubans but also for all Latin America watchers – including the ones, like myself, who bring up the Zombie Fidel. And Cubans are restless.
