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Today

Taney challenges Abe’s suspension of HC

On May 27, 1863, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney of Maryland issued Ex parte Merryman, challenging the authority of President Abraham Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, the legal procedure that prevents the government from holding an individual indefinitely without showing cause. On May 25, John Merryman, a vocal secessionist, had been arrested in Cockeysville. Although military officials continued to arrest suspected Southern sympathizers, the incident led to a softening of the policy.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Senator for the VA

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, has been all over the media discussing the VA scandal.

However, I can’t find Mr. Sanders reflecting on his own role in the fiasco.

Last September, Sanders argued, “The VA is making progress in reducing the disability claims backlog. I meet very often with General Shinseki, (and) with (VA Under Secretary) Allison Hickey to see the progress that they are making.”

Apparently Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, needs new glasses.

As the public and the president were discovering the depth and breadth of the scandal, the Vermont senator moved quickly to defend the VA: “The Veterans Administration provides very high-quality healthcare, period. It’s not perfect.”

“Not perfect” indeed.

Sanders also warned of “a rush to judgment,” noting emphatically, “We don’t know how many veterans died.”

As the scandal spread nationwide, the good senator . . . freaked out. “There is right now as we speak a concerted effort to undermine the VA,” he told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

“What are the problems?” Sanders asked himself. “The problems is . . . you have folks out there now — Koch brothers and others — who want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely.”

How possible future cuts might prevent the VA from getting the job done at present remains unclear.

On Thursday, Sanders blocked Senate consideration of HR 4031, which had passed the House by a whopping bi-partisan 390–33 vote. The bill would have given the VA Secretary the power to replace managers who weren’t producing for patients.

Senator, let our vets go . . . let them escape the bureaucracy to seek the care they deserve.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Averroës

After logic we must proceed to philosophy proper. Here too we have to learn from our predecessors, just as in mathematics and law. Thus it is wrong to forbid the study of ancient philosophy. Harm from it is accidental, like harm from taking medicine, drinking water, or studying law.

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Accountability national politics & policies

Politic Precision

While running for the Senate, Elizabeth Warren informed Lawrence O’Donnell and his MSNBC audience that she didn’t understand how Congressfolk could keep playing the stock market while in office. She trotted out the notion of stock management via blind trusts.

She and O’Donnell understand that members of Congress have apparently irresistible opportunity to leverage for their private benefit insider information and their power to change policy. It’s no secret: many a pol enters Congress as moderately upper middle class only to leave lining his coffin in gold.

“I realize there are some wealthy individuals — I’m not one of them — but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios,” she insisted.

Her clumsy, folksy “lot of stock portfolios” statement let her pretend not to be rich, when, in truth, she’s a multimillionaire living in a $5 million house . . . but with stock only in one company.

Politic precision.

In the Washington Examiner recently, Byron York explained her nuanced answer to the question of whether she was “going to run for president”:

Warren’s response was, “I’m not running for president.”


That’s the oldest lawyerly evasion in the book. Warren, a former law professor, did not say, “I am not going to run for president.” Instead, she said she is “not running,” which could, in some sense, be true when she spoke the words but no longer true by, say, later this year.

How Clintonian. She pretends not to be wealthy while running on “inequality,” and then — while pitching a campaign book — pretends not to be running for the presidency at all.

And misses the obvious anti-corruption planks: complete, minute-by-minute Web-based congressional investment transparency. And term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

William of Ockham (Occam)

It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.

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Today

Argentine War of Independence, Scopes indicted, blind man atop Everest

On May 25, 1810, citizens of Buenos Aires expelled Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros starting the Argentine War of Independence.

On May 25, 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school. The Scopes Trial — formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial — drew intense national publicity, as reporters flocked to Dayton, Tennessee, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free.

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links

Townhall: Freedom of Choice for Vets

Another scandal for the president. Another defeat for his beloved socialism.

See this weekend’s Common Sense column at Townhall.com . . . and then come back here for some backstory:

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Today

Hancock elected prez of congress, Irish Rebellion of 1798, HMS Hood sunk

On May 24, 1775, John Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress. Hancock’s involvement with Samuel Adams and his radical group, the Sons of Liberty, won the wealthy merchant the dubious distinction of being one of only two Patriots (the other being Sam Adams) that the Redcoats marching to Lexington in April 1775 to confiscate Patriot arms were ordered to arrest. When British General Thomas Gage offered amnesty to the colonists holding Boston under siege, he excluded those same two men from his offer.

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video

Video: Arkansas Term Limits Hidden in Ballot’s “Ethics Issue” Wording

Tim Jacob talks about the current term limit situation in his home state of Arkansas:

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Today

SC ratifies Const, Bolivar the Liberator, First black MOH winner, Artie Shaw born

On May 23, 1788, South Carolina became the 8th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Other May 23 events include:

* 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar entered Mérida, where he was proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”), leading the invasion of Venezuela.

* 1900: Sergeant William Harvey Carney became the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in a Civil War battle fought 37 years prior, in 1863.

* 1958: Birthday of American comedian and game show host Drew Carey.