The Shocking Warning Professor Allegedly Gave to Students Who Happen to Be ‘Ted Cruz-Supporting Teabaggers’

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I want an average Joe running my government like I want an average Joe performing my brain surgery.. NO THANK YOU! Smartest 10 percent please...

So, Michele Bachmann and Hank Johnson are out?

[Pooky 3,786]

So, Michele Bachmann and Hank Johnson are out?

Joe Biden is purportedly in the smartest 10% and I wouldn't want him as my President, either.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Politics is always about ideals to strive for, no matter what side you are on. That does not make them gullible positions.

It is not empty rhetoric. First of all adherents are generally NOT in power and are therefore powerless to effect significant change. It is a process.

Your comparison to the Nazis is terrible and totally off base. It is invalid liberal "commentary" like this that have helped stymie change that the Tea Party adherents wish for. They have been demonized by the media with flippant criticisms like that.

And, by the way, I should point out your use of "TBs" is offensive.

In fact, and you might consider educating yourself in world history, the comparison with the roots of what became the Nazi movement in Germany is quite apropos. Even if it weren't I am still entitled to voice my opinion, as you yours. Too bad the First Amendment didn't make the list of [sic] sacred items. For many Americans, myself included, it should top the list.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

In fact, and you might consider educating yourself in world history, the comparison with the roots of what became the Nazi movement in Germany is quite apropos. Even if it weren't I am still entitled to voice my opinion, as you yours. Too bad the First Amendment didn't make the list of [sic] sacred items. For many Americans, myself included, it should top the list.

Too bad those leaders which oppose the tea party who you support, don't hold the 1st amendment in the same high regard you do. Looks like the liberal leadership in DC wants to change it..

GASP

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303754904577530722229309932?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303754904577530722229309932.html

Rewriting the First Amendment

Chuck Schumer thinks he can improve on James Madison.

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May 6, 2014 6:51 p.m. ET

A standard liberal talking point about the Tea Party is that its constitutional designs are "extremist." But you will search in vain for any Tea Party proposal that is anywhere close to as radical as the current drive by mainstream Democrats to rewrite the Bill of Rights.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allowing unions and corporations to donate to independent political groups has driven liberals to such fits that they now want to amend the First Amendment. At a Senate Rules Committee meeting last week, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer announced a proposal to amend the Constitution to empower government to regulate political speech.

"The Supreme Court is trying to take this country back to the days of the robber barons, allowing dark money to flood our elections," Mr. Schumer said. The Senate will vote this year on the amendment to "once and for all allow Congress to make laws to regulate our system, without the risk of them being eviscerated by a conservative Supreme Court." He even rolled out retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens to pronounce his unhappiness with freedom's bedrock document.

Sen. Charles Schumer Associated Press

According to the text of the proposed revision to James Madison's 1791 handiwork, sponsored by New Mexico Senator Tom Udall, the states and federal government would have the power to regulate the "raising and spending of money" through a wide range of means "to advance the fundamental principle of political equality for all."

The real guarantee would be political advantage for all incumbents, since it's the sitting lawmakers who really benefit from any law limiting contributions to candidates or on their behalf. While Beltway boys like Messrs. Schumer and Udall have the name recognition to raise money in small increments, challengers often need the financial boost from a few individuals to get their message heard.

Mr. Schumer is conjuring the age of robber barons, but there were no general limits on what an individual could donate to a federal candidate in this country until as recently as 1974. Contrary to the outrage that greeted the Supreme Court's recent decision ending aggregate limits to candidates and political party committees in McCutcheon v. FEC, at the time that ruling was issued 32 states already had no aggregate or similar limits on contributions to candidates. That fact was so uncontroversial that Mr. Udall may not even know that New Mexico was among the 32.

Mr. Udall's amendment is careful to specify that nothing "should be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press." In case you don't follow campaign finance, that is supposed to protect newspapers and TV networks, most of which embrace Democratic causes and candidates.

The real target will be the corporations Democrats have railed against since Citizens United. But why should Warren Buffett's company enjoy free speech rights because he owns a handful of newspapers along with insurance companies, while Jeffrey Immelt's is muzzled because GE makes jet turbines? For that matter, what's to stop political groups from incorporating themselves as newspapers?

Once you've opened the First Amendment for revision by politicians, and reinterpretation by judges, anything can happen. We know liberal editors tend to lose their bearings when they write about money in politics, but is the problem so great that it's worth letting, say, Senator Ted Cruz determine whether the New York Times Co. NYT -1.81% qualifies for protection under the First Amendment?

This prospect doesn't seem to bother even the great totems of the legal left, who also see an amendment as the only way to end-run the Supreme Court. Amending the First Amendment is a "particularly worthy enterprise," Harvard's Laurence Tribe wrote on Slate.com in 2012 "given that the composition of the court prefigures little chance of a swift change in direction." Who would have thought that the legal left considered rights of speech and association to be so easily tradeable for partisan gain?

Professor Tribe added that thanks to the rise of Super PACs, campaign donors are "invisible to the electorate, though they are all too visible to the candidates who benefit." Think of the Koch brothers—or, as Mr. Tribe suggests, the "invisible" tycoon Sheldon Adelson, whose contributions to Newt Gingrich's political action committee during the 2012 GOP primary "singlehandedly sustained a floundering presidential campaign." These donors are so "invisible" that Mr. Tribe can put their names in an op-ed and his readers all know who they are.

A Constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate and ratification by 38 states, so it has scant chance of passing any time soon. Those ample checks against self-interested legislatures are another reason to thank the Founders. But who knows what might happen the next time Democrats get supermajorities in Congress, or find a Republican like John McCain willing to give their effort bipartisan cover?

The larger story here is how far the American left is willing to go to cripple their political opponents. They're even willing to write a giant loophole into America's founding charter so Congress can limit political speech. The Tea Party's concerns about eroding liberty turn out to be more accurate than even its most devoted partisans imagined.

[mota bhai 2,675]

The top 10% of adults? Dude that's what, 20 million people?

Way too high. Make that smaller. I'm thinking the 1%.

No wait, that's still 2 million.

The pool of eligible candidates for the Presidency should, at any point in time, probably not exceed 200.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

The top 10% of adults? Dude that's what, 20 million people?

Way too high. Make that smaller. I'm thinking the 1%.

No wait, that's still 2 million.

The pool of eligible candidates for the Presidency should, at any point in time, probably not exceed 200.

I have known some really great leaders in my day. Super high IQ people rarely are high function in the world people.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

The top 10% of adults? Dude that's what, 20 million people?

Way too high. Make that smaller. I'm thinking the 1%.

No wait, that's still 2 million.

The pool of eligible candidates for the Presidency should, at any point in time, probably not exceed 200.

I didn't want to say 1% .. that number is no longer PC

[mota bhai 2,675]

I have known some really great leaders in my day. Super high IQ people rarely are high function in the world people.

IQ is probably one of the worst measures of how 'smart' a person is.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

IQ is probably one of the worst measures of how 'smart' a person is.

Cause of Joe B is smart, he sure hides it well

[JohnR! 5,495]

And yet, the TBs make no mention of the First Amendment in their little manifesto. You may be on to something implying they are indeed no better than the very group they allegedly oppose...

Too bad those leaders which oppose the tea party who you support, don't hold the 1st amendment in the same high regard you do. Looks like the liberal leadership in DC wants to change it..

GASP

[Peikko 1,575]

The website based this 'article' on hearsay from a teenager? What madness is this and why would anyone care about it?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Talking about holding free speech in high regard. Interesting material I ran across today. Turns out that conservatives more so than liberals tend to support free speech only if it is the kind of speech they favor. That's especially true - and especially troubling - on the Supreme Court. There's a bias to be seen on both sides of the aisle but the bias is just off the charts with the conservative justices.

For justices, free speech means friendly speech

Justice Antonin Scalia is known as a consistent and principled defender of free speech rights.

It pained him, he has said, when he voted to strike down a law making flag-burning a crime. "If it was up to me, if I were king," he said, "I would take scruffy, bearded, sandal-wearing idiots who burn the flag, and I would put them in jail." But the First Amendment stopped him.

That is a powerful example of constitutional principles overcoming personal preferences. But it turns out to be an outlier.

In cases raising First Amendment claims, a new study found, Scalia voted to uphold the free speech rights of conservative speakers at more than triple the rate of liberal ones. In 161 cases from 1986, when he joined the court, to 2011, he voted in favor of conservative speakers 65 percent of the time and liberal ones 21 percent.

He is not alone. "While liberal justices are overall more supportive of free speech claims than conservative justices," the study found, "the votes of both liberal and conservative justices tend to reflect their preferences toward the ideological groupings of the speaker."

Social science calls this kind of thing "in-group bias." The impact of such bias on judicial behavior has not been explored in much detail, though earlier studies have found that female appeals court judges are more likely to vote for plaintiffs in sexual harassment and sex discrimination suits.

Lee Epstein, a political scientist and law professor, conducted the new study with two colleagues, which considered 4,519 votes in 516 cases from 1953 to 2011. He said it showed the justices to be "opportunistic free speech advocates."

The findings are a twist on the comment by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that the First Amendment protects "freedom for the thought that we hate." On the Supreme Court, the First Amendment appears to protect freedom for the thought of people we like.

"Though the results are consistent with a long line of research in the social sciences, I still find them stunning," Epstein said. "Shocking, really."

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The website based this 'article' on hearsay from a teenager? What madness is this and why would anyone care about it?

But it's how the right wing echo chamber works. Every time. Someone pick up a piece of garbage somewhere and puts it up. It then resonates from there across all the right wing websites, more often than not ends up on Fox News and becomes fact in the minds of the conservative sheep that mindlessly feed off said echo chamber. It becomes fact without there ever being any substance.

[GandD 5,966]

The top 10% of adults? Dude that's what, 20 million people?

Way too high. Make that smaller. I'm thinking the 1%.

No wait, that's still 2 million.

The pool of eligible candidates for the Presidency should, at any point in time, probably not exceed 200.

You should just vote for me. I'll fix it all.

[UncleBeer 244]

6. Government must be downsized.

Why? What are you afraid of?

7. The national budget must be balanced.

I can agree with this one.

8. Deficit spending must end.

And this one.

Points 7 and 8 necessitate point 6, Obvious, right?