SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A gunman opened fire at U.S. Congressmen and others who were gathered at a practice this morning for the Congressional Baseball Game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and at least four others were reportedly injured. The gunman, who has been identified by unnamed sources as James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries:
A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a morning baseball practice, wounding at least five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).
The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.
The wounded also included two Capitol Police officers and a congressional aide, according to one law enforcement official and witness accounts.
Congressman Scalise was shot in the hip and is in stable condition.
Hodgkinson's motive may have already been identified by the media:
A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rhetoric against President Trump, including a post that reads: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."
Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that he became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders's campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.
Also at LA Times, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hill, and CNN.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:49PM (7 children)
We had fifty perfectly capable governments out in the States. If CA wants Single Payer health care they can give it a go. And if TX wants to try their ideas they should also be free to give it a try. The Federal Government was intended to be more of a cross between NATO and the original Eurozone, a mutual defense and trade zone. It was believed a single government couldn't govern something as diverse as the original colonies, and we are far larger and far more diverse in our beliefs now.
It doesn't work. Look at the Constitution, pay close attention to that list of enumerated powers and the 9th and 10th Amendments. Those words were not written as the "E Plub Neista" for Chiefs and Sons of Chiefs in a bad Star Trek episode, it isn't the exclusive domain of the Supreme Court either. It was intended for YOU to read and understand. So prove you are as smart as an average 18th Century colonist and go read the damned thing for yourself. Read it with the tech eye like it was an ISO or IETF document and assume the words mean exactly what a dictionary [gutenberg.org] of the time says they mean. Then explain how 90% of what the Federal government currently does is actually permitted. And that is why everything feels like it has 'gone wrong.' Because it has been 'wrong' since before we were born and rapidly getting worse.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:10PM (5 children)
You have to get the Supreme Court to take the word "affects" out of the Interstate Commerce clause first.
Note: yes, I know that "affects" does not appear anywhere in the Interstate Commerce clause, but the Supreme Court seems to think it does.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @08:31PM
Wouldn't it be far simpler to simply remove them on the grounds of being either illiterate or generally being incompatible with the concept of Laws? Stop being polite and call them out for what they are, tyrants. There IS no legitimate 'other side' on this question this side of the rabbit hole to Wonderland, the words mean what they say or they don't and we admit we live in a lawless land governed by whoever has the most guns and will to use them. The Foe feeds on our politeness and urge to compromise, be 'bipartisan' and such but there can be no compromise with chaos and evil.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:28PM (3 children)
If it were possible (I can't see that it is), it would be better to take the Supreme Court out of the constitutional validity process altogether. After all, article III doesn't assign any such power to them, article V specifically assigns that specific elsewhere, and the only actual reason the Supreme Court is pseudo-officially in the process at all is because they arrogated to themselves that power in Marbury v. Madison / 1803 (after exercising said power without even that blatent reach-around in Hylton v. United States / 1794.)
There are a number of very good reasons why putting the Supreme Court back into its actual constitutionally specified role would be the optimum path. Unfortunately "reasons", at least as far as they apply to the good of the nation, no longer seem to have much in common with our political process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:36AM (2 children)
Sorry, this is absurd. Article V concerns the power to alter the Constitution, not to determine which laws are authorized under the Constitution (thus valid) and which conflict with the Constitution (thus invalid). The inability to distinguish these powers is part of the problem.
In point of fact, the Constitution seems to have been written with the assumption that, having sworn to uphold the Constitution, Congress will simply refrain from passing unconstitutional laws. Since this turns out to be wishful thinking... somebody has to have the power and responsibility to throw the unconstitutional laws out.
That responsibility can't lie with Congress, because any law is already approved by at least a majority of Congress -- if an unconstitutional one is passed, they've already chosen to disregard the Constitution. It also shouldn't lie with the Executive, because of their role in signing/vetoing laws -- they could at best be trusted to fight laws passed over their veto, but since someone's gotta handle the rest, I can see no point in splitting the power on this basis. Short of creating a fourth branch specifically for this role, the judiciary is it by default.
I'm not convinced the judiciary being the exclusive holders of this power is really the right option (there's some things to be said for the idea of a separate branch), but their exercise of this power is an utterly unsurprising practical result of the Constitution as written, not some great seizure of power.
Anyway, to turn the question on it's head... what do you propose the courts should do, under the Constitution as written, when Congress passes an unconstitutional law? Let's make it a simple, concrete example, using an uncontroversial section of the Constitution... Congress passes a law (in peacetime) requiring people within x miles of military bases to quarter soldiers in their homes. A soldier is assigned to a house, the homeowner bolts the door and refuses him entry, and eventually the civil police come by and arrest the homeowner.
The Congress should refuse to pass the law because it's plainly unconstitutional.
The President should veto the law because it's plainly unconstitutional.
If we'd added a fourth branch charged with constitutional validity, they should reject the law because it's plainly unconstitional.
The soldier should refuse the order to invade an unwilling homeowner's spare room, because it's an unlawful order.
The police should refuse to arrest the homeowner.
The prosecutor should refuse to press charges.
But if all those fail, when the homeowner is in court, charged with violating a law that is plainly unconstitutional, and contesting none of the facts... what happens next?
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:49AM
Everyone who serves in the Federal government, from the lowliest clerk or soldier to a POTUS of Judge takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. So no, a Judge couldn't violate that Oath. He could not enforce a clearly unconstitutional law. He also has no authority to strike that law from the books though. He simply doesn't enforce it in his court, possibly creating a Constitutional crisis depending on the law in question.
But the lawlessness has gone far beyond that level. Judges now invent whole new laws, which is unconstitutional on its face, that power belonging exclusively to the Legislative Branch, the courts now enact taxes to fund the laws they write which usurps the House's exclusive power to tax. Then there is the unescapable fact that the laws these judges 'enact' would be utterly unconstitutional even if lawfully passed and signed. So who judges the judges? Your logic fails into an infinite spiral of suck at that point.
The best solution I can see is leave the courts some power to reject an unconstitutional law but admit that if the other two branches are truly Hellbent on a course of action they get their way... at least until the next election. So formalize a process with an actual Amendment allowing the SCOTUS to strike a law or part thereof, but Congress can override with a 2/3 majority. Such an override also removes the Justices who voted for the strikedown to eliminate the conflict from recurring and also to ensure they only use the power sparingly. Also give the States the power to both strike down an act of Congress, a SCOTUS decision or an executive order with the same 2/3 of States inside a six month window. Power balanced against power is the American Way.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:17PM
Your error is fundamental. You assume the judiciary will do the right thing. But they don't. That's why we have unconstitutional searches and seizures; that's why we have unconstitutional ex post facto laws; that's why we have unconstitutional "free speech zones"; that's why we have massive unconstitutional infringement on the right to keep and bear arms; and so on.
When congress creates an unconstitutional law, we can observe this – the constitution is written in plain English – and vote them out. We, the people, have the power to object, to bring in those who would undo the problem within just a few years – as long as it's just legislation. This eliminates the massive conflict of interest that is created by the government saying its own laws are okay.
Whereas a supreme court position is an appointment for life. When you get bad justices in there – as we have had for many decades now – we're stuck with them. Which in turn means that bad law – "case law" – made by the justices themselves can stand for a much longer time, and we have no political control over that. As we have seen. Repeatedly. They have to die or retire before there's even a chance of the people having an indirect effect.
It should be up to us. Not a government entity we can't say yea or nay to.
The judiciary was intended to be the weakest branch of government. Not the most powerful. You know how it became the most powerful? Case law.
But don't worry. None of this will change. The mold is set; the future will be more of the same. So relax and enjoy being ruled by a majority among nine. That old constitution thing is just a piece of paper anyway, no need for the people to have any say about it. Right? Right?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday June 15 2017, @04:00PM
You obviously have had very limited dealings with state governments. Basically, all of the stuff you see going wrong at the federal level are even worse at the state level, and often even worse than that at the county and local level. Corruption and incompetence are both common and have surprisingly little effect on electoral success.
It's not all that surprising when you think about it: There are about 550 federal office-holders, a couple thousand state-level office-holders, and hundreds of thousands of local-level office holders. At each level, your chance of advancing in power and salary by getting a better political office is fairly low, because there just aren't any spaces above you in the food chain to fill, and the simple fact that you're already in office helps you tremendously electorally so there's very little threat of losing your office. So instead of trying to work up to being governor or something, many, especially those who have reached their level of incompetence, instead try to boost their earnings via corruption.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.