Update no.557

Update from the Heartland

No.557

13.8.12 – 19.8.12

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

The follow-up news items:

-- The Republican-led House filed a lawsuit in federal court to enforce a subpoena against Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding the government deliver records related to Operation Fast and Furious [550] – the gun-tracking operation gone wrong.  This is going way beyond the barely-tolerable threshold of political intransigence in Congress.  I have lived through more than a few constitutional crises.  In this instance, we have the infantile bickering between Republicans and Democrats in the legislative body politic.  I am not aware of an action this corrosive and this divisive in the history of this Grand Republic.  The Executive is NOT subservient to the Legislative Branch.  If this ever makes it before a judge, I trust s/he will dismiss the case outright as a political stunt.

-- Julian Paul Assange [450, 453] took refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London on 19.June.2012, after losing his appeal [462, 468, 480] to avoid a Swedish extradition writ and prosecution for sexual offences including rape.  President Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado of Ecuador has reportedly made the decision to grant the fugitive Assange political asylum for reasons unknown, since he is a fugitive from criminal justice.  The British in turn issued another arrest warrant for Assange, breaching his bail conditions.  Assange may well be confined in the Ecuadorean embassy for a very long time.

Brigadier General Tammy S. Smith, AUS, Director, Army Reserve Human Capital Core Enterprise, became the first openly homosexual, flag rank officer in the U.S. military.  Her first star was pinned on by her wife, Tracey Hepner.  Good luck, godspeed, and following winds, General.

OK!  This one is beyond me.  Harvard University researchers encoded an entire book into the genetic molecules of DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA) – the basic building block of life – and then accurately read back the text.  Other researchers have used DNA to encode poetry and popular music inside the living cells of bacteria.  The Harvard effort stands out for the sheer enormity of scale.  I can appreciate the molecular mechanics, but I do not understand why – other than we can.  If anyone has a higher level of knowledge, please share it with me (us).

Presumed Republican presidential candidate and former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts announced that he has paid an income tax rate of at least 13% in each of the last 10 years.  Don’t we all feel better now?  That said, this whole Romney tax kerfuffle is a red herring – a diversion.  If Romney did not pay enough taxes, commensurate with his income, then the fault lays with Congress, not Romney.  They are the ones who created and maintain our complex tax code that favors the wealthy who can afford their armies of lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, tax havens, and such.  Romney is simply using the loopholes created by Congress; he did not make them.  So, if we want to display our outrage, let us focus on the proper target.

Nearly two months ago, the Supreme Court of the United States of America invalidated most of the actionable sections (but not all) of Arizona’s Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (AKA S.B. 1070) – the state’s immigration enforcement law [436].  Associate Justice Anthony McLeod Kennedy wrote for the 5-3 majority – Arizona v. United States [565 U.S. ___ (2012); no. 11–182].  {Justice Kagan did not participate in this case.}  We reviewed the original district court decision – United States v. Arizona [USDC AZ case 2:10-cv-01413-SRB (2010)] [450]; and, we reviewed the 9^th Circuit’s review – United States v. Arizona [9CCA no. 10-16645 (2011)] [487].  Kennedy concluded, “The United States has established that §§3, 5(C), and 6 of S. B. 1070 are preempted.  It was improper, however, to enjoin §2(B) before the state courts had an opportunity to construe it and without some showing that enforcement of the provision in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives.”  As a consequence of the SB 1070 decision, most but not all of the state’s enforcement provisions were rejected as an unconstitutional violation of Article I, §8, Clause 4, and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (AKA IRCA, or Simpson-Mazzoli Act) [PL 99-603; 100 Stat. 3359; 6.November.1986], and must be preempted as an “obstacle to the federal plan of regulation and control.”  Oddly, Kennedy also noted, “Unauthorized aliens who remain in the State comprise, by one estimate, almost six percent of the population,” and “[E]stimating that unauthorized aliens comprise 8.9% of the population and are responsible for 21.8% of the felonies in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.”   In his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia observed, “[O]ver the past decade, over a third of the Nation's illegal border crossings occurred in Arizona.”  The consequences to Arizona are staggering.  And yet, those consequences boil down to a fine line interpretation of the law.  Scalia went on to conclude, “But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act [PL 99-603] that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.”  In another dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., wrote, “The United States suggests that a state law may be pre-empted, not because it conflicts with a federal statute or regulation, but because it is inconsistent with a federal agency's current enforcement priorities. Those priorities, however, are not law. They are nothing more than agency policy. I am aware of no decision of this Court recognizing that mere policy can have pre-emptive force.”  For this reason, I believe the dissent was correct, not the majority.  To the strict constructionists, judicial interpretation of the Constitution should be and must be confined to the Federal enumerated powers and leave the remainder to the states.  The Bill of Rights was a compromise to acknowledge that the People need some protection against the pervasive power of the State – both Federal and state.  The continuing debate, often labeled judicial activism or judicial overreach, centers upon the definition of Federal Judicial authority.  To the strict constructionists, the People are largely on their own to exercise their power at the ballot box, while the more progressive jurists see the Constitution as the means by which to homogenize individual rights across the several states, e.g., the 14^th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  The SB 1070 decision may not have quite the panache of Citizens United, yet it is equally impacting on our society.

After the Supremes’ SB1070 decision (above) and the Obama administration’s publicly proclaimed leniency for young, illegal immigrants, Governor Janice Kay “Jan” Brewer of Arizona issued an executive order to deny driver's licenses and other public benefits to those same, young illegal immigrants.

“Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer blocks undocumented immigrants from receiving public benefits”

Fox News (Associated Press)

Published: August 16, 2012

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/16/brewer-blocks-undocumented-immigrants-from-receiving-public-benefits/print - ixzz23hWUGmZt

Then, we have a related, thought-provoking opinion:

“Article 1, Section 8 requires compromise”

by Jonathan Capehart

Washington Post

Posted: 5.August.2012; 06:00 PM ET

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/article-1-section-8-requires-compromise/2012/08/05/03102176-df2e-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

News from the economic front:

-- Preliminary data from the Cabinet Office of Japan indicated the country’s annualized growth was 1.4% in 2Q2012, significantly below the 4.7% in 1Q2012 and well short of the 2.3% forecast by economists, as weak exports and industrial production dragged down a surge in public investment in the disaster-stricken Tohoku area.

-- The Financial Times reported that the German and French economies showed signs of resilience as the eurozone’s two largest countries beat market expectations for second-quarter growth.

-- Russell Wasendorf Sr., the chief executive of Peregrine Financial Group, was indicted on 31 charges of lying to government regulators regarding the failed brokerage's operations, and faces a maximum sentence of 155 years' imprisonment and fines of about US$7.75M.  As they say, the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

-- Standard Chartered has agreed with the Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky of New York State to pay US$340M in fines for illegally laundering over US$250B for clients in the Islamic Republic of Iran by hiding more than 60,000 financial transactions over a decade in defiance of international sanctions.  As part of the settlement, Standard Chartered agreed to be monitored and audited by Lawsky's office to ensure compliance with U.S. Federal money-laundering laws.  Both British and U.S. Federal governments proclaimed their displeasure with the New York action.  From the public information, there appears to be little difference between this case and the Arizona immigration case noted above.  I will watch this situation with interest, to see if the Obama administration pursues New York as it has Arizona.

Comments and contributions from Update no.556:

            “My belief is that these are people who want to commit suicide and cannot do it themselves. They are driving there hoping that someone will "ROAD RAGE" and do it for them. If this does not work they will eventually pull a gun on a police officer. I don't know that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

            “And I have seen it enforced. I was coming out of Chicago on I 90.  I will admit I was attempting to drive over the speed limit. On my third failed attempt to get around the driver on the right flashing lights got everyone's attention. I thought I was going to get a ticket for something. However, the officer pulled in behind the left lane slow poke and pulled him over.  Sometimes there is actually a cop around when you need one.”

 . . . my reply:

Darrel,

         Great to hear from you.  I hope all is well with you, and you are enjoying life.

            Great observation . . . suicide by road rage!  Quite plausible!

            Also, great to know that the slower-traffic-keep-right laws are enforced somewhere.

  Take care and enjoy.

Cheers,

Cap

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)