JONATHAN TURLEY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and other schools. He is a New York Times best-selling author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (available here) and “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” (#2 on NY Times Bestseller List).
After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In 2024, a G.W. alum endowed a fellowship after him, “The Professor Jonathan Turley Public Interest and Public Service Summer Fellowship.”
In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients. He is also one of the few attorneys to successfully challenge both a federal and a state law — leading to courts striking down the federal Elizabeth Morgan law as well as the state criminalization of cohabitation.
In 2010, Professor Turley represented Judge G. Thomas Porteous in his impeachment trial. After a trial before the Senate, Professor Turley (on December 7, 2010) argued both the motions and gave the final argument to all 100 U.S. Senators from the well of the Senate floor — only the 14th time in history of the country that such a trial of a judge has reached the Senate floor. Judge Porteous was convicted of four articles of impeachments, including the acceptance of $2000 from an attorney and using a false name on a bankruptcy filing.
In 2011, Professor Turley filed a challenge to the Libyan War on behalf of ten members of Congress, including Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md); Dan Burton (R., Ind.); Mike Capuano (D., Mass.); Howard Coble (R., N.C.); John Conyers (D., Mich.); John J. Duncan (R., Tenn.); Tim Johnson (R., Ill.); Walter Jones (R., N.C.); Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio); and Ron Paul (R., Tx). The lawsuit was before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
In November 2014, Turley agreed to serve as lead counsel to the United States House of Representatives in its constitutional challenge to changes ordered by President Obama to the Affordable Care Act. The litigation was approved by the House of Representatives to seek judicial review of the claims under the separation of powers. On May 12, 2016, the federal court handed down a historic victory for the House and ruled that the Obama Administration violated the separation of powers in ordering billions to be paid to insurance companies without an appropriation of Congress.
Other cases include his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. In the Foretich case, Turley succeeded recently in reversing a trial court and striking down a federal statute through a rare “bill of attainder” challenge. Professor Turley has also served as counsel in a variety of national security cases, including espionage cases like that of Jim Nicholson, the highest ranking CIA officer ever accused of espionage. Turley also served as lead defense counsel in the successful defense of Petty Officer Daniel King, who faced the death penalty for alleged spying for Russia. Turley also served as defense counsel in the case of Dr. Tom Butler, who is faced criminal charges dealing with the importation and handling of thirty vials of plague in Texas. He also served as counsel to Larry Hanauer, the House Intelligence Committee staffer accused of leaking a classified Presidential National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times. (Hanauer was cleared of all allegations).
Among his current cases, Professor Turley represents Dr. Ali Al-Timimi, who was convicted in Virginia in 2005 of violent speech against the United States. (He was ultimately cleared of all charges in 2026). In 2020, the federal court found that there was merit in the challenges raised by Professor Turley and his co-counsel Tom Huff. Accordingly, the judge ordered his release to protect him from Covit-19 while the Court prepared a decision on the challenges. Pursuant to a court order, Dr. Al-Timimi was released from the Supermax in Colorado and the two drove across the country so that he could be placed into home confinement. He also represented Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who was accused of being the American leader of a terrorist organization while he was a university professor in Florida. Turley represented Dr. Al-Arian for eight years, much of which was in a determined defense against an indictment for criminal contempt. The case centered on the alleged violation of a plea bargain by the Justice Department after Dr. Al-Arian was largely exonerated of terrorism charges in Tampa, Florida. On June 27, 2014, all charges were dropped against Dr. Al-Arian. He also represented pilots approaching or over the age of 60 in their challenge to the mandatory retirement age of the FAA. He also represented David Murphee Faulk, the whistleblower who disclosed abuses in the surveillance operations at NSA’s Fort Gordon facility in Georgia.
Professor Turley also served as an expert defense witness in the extradition proceedings of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London. Turley was asked to testify on the likely pre-trial, trial, and appellate issues facing Mr. Assange as well as the prison conditions that he could expect upon extradition to Northern Virginia for trial.
Professor Turley also agreed to serve as lead counsel representing the Brown family from the TLC program “Sister Wives, a reality show on plural marriage or polygamy. On December 13, 2013, the federal court in Utah struck down the criminalization of polygamy — the first such decision in history — on free exercise and due process grounds. On September 26, 2014, the court also ruled in favor of the Browns under Section 1983 — giving them a clean sweep on all of the statutory and constitutional claims. In April 2015, a panel reversed the decision on standing grounds and that decision is now on appeal.
Professor Turley was also lead counsel in the World Bank protest case stemming from the mass arrest of people in 2002 by the federal and district governments during demonstrations of the IMF and World Bank. Turley and his co-lead counsel Dan Schwartz (and the law firm of Bryan Cave) were the first to file and represented student journalists arrested without probable cause. In April 2015, after 13 years of intense litigation, the case was settled for $2.8 million, including $115,000 for each arrestee — a record damage award in a case of this kind and over twice the amount of prior damages for individual protesters. The case also exposed government destruction and withholding of evidence as well as the admitted mass arrest of hundreds of people without probable cause.
Professor Turley also served as the legal expert in the review of polygamy laws in the British Columbia (Canada) Supreme Court. In the latter case, he argued for the decriminalization of plural union and conjugal unions. In 2012, Turley also represented the makers of “Five Wives Vodka” (Ogden’s Own Distillery) in challenging an effective ban on the product in Idaho after officials declared the product to be offensive to Mormons. After opposing the ban on free speech and other grounds, the state of Idaho issued a letter apologizing for public statements made by officials and lifting the ban on sale for “Five Wives Vodka.”
Turley has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, including with the Florida House of Representatives. He also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá.
Professor Turley is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He has testified over 100 times in the House and the Senate. That testimony includes the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominees Loretta Lynch and William Barr as well as Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Professor Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was also found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He has been ranked in the top five most popular law professors on Twitter and has been repeatedly ranked in the nation’s top 500 lawyers in annual surveys (including in the latest rankings by LawDragon) – one of only a handful of academics. In prior years, he was ranked as one of the nation’s top ten lawyers in military law cases as well as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40. He was also selected in the last five years as one of the 100 top Irish lawyers in the world. In 2016, he was ranked as one of the 100 most famous (past and present) law professors.
Professor Turley is one of only two academics to testify at both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings. In December 2019, Professor Turley was called as the one Republican witness in the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings. He appeared with three Democratic witnesses. Professor Turley disagreed with his fellow witnesses in opposing the proposed articles of impeachments on bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations or obstruction of justice. He argued that these alleged impeachable acts were at odds with controlling definitions of those crimes and that Congress has historically looked to the criminal code and cases for guidance on such allegations. The committee ultimately rejected those articles and adopted the only two articles that Professor Turley said could be legitimately advanced: abuse of power, obstruction of Congress. Chairman Jerrold Nadler even ended the hearing by quoting his position on abuse of power. However, Turley opposed impeachment on this record as incomplete and insufficient for submission to the Senate. He argued for the House to wait and complete the record by seeking to compel key witnesses like former National Security Adviser John Bolton. His testimony was later relied upon in the impeachment floor debate by various House members and he was cited by both the White House and House managers in their arguments before the United States Senate in the Trump impeachment trial, including videotaped remarks played at the trial.
Professor Turley’s articles on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with hundreds of articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. He is a columnist for USA Today and writes regularly for the Washington Post. In 2005, Turley was given the Columnist of the Year award for Single-Issue Advocacy for his columns on civil liberties by The Aspen Institute and the Week Magazine. Professor Turley also appears regularly as a legal expert on all of the major television networks. Since the 1990s, he has worked under contract as the on-air Legal Analyst for NBC News, CBS News, BBC and Fox News. Professor Turley has been a repeated guest on Sunday talk shows with over two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox Sunday. Professor Turley has taught courses on constitutional law, constitutional criminal law, environmental law, litigation, and torts. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). His work with older prisoners has been honored in various states, including his selection as the 2011 recipient of the Dr. Mary Ann Quaranta Elder Justice Award at Fordham University.
In 2024, the Washingtonian recognized Turley as one of the most influential persons in shaping policy. His award-winning blog is routinely ranked as one of the most popular legal blogs by AVVO. His blog was selected as the top News/Analysis site in 2013, the top Legal Opinion Blog in 2011 as well as prior selections as the top Law Professor Blog and Legal Theory Blog. It was also ranked in the top 20 constitutional law blog in 2018. It has been regularly ranked by the ABA Journal in the top 100 blogs in the world. In 2012, Turley was selected as one of the top 20 legal experts on Twitter by Business Insider. In 2013, the ABA Journal inducted the Turley Blog into its Hall of Fame. In addition to teaching a course on the Supreme Court and the Constitution, he is on the board of the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Professor Turley received his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his J.D. at Northwestern. In 2008, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Law from John Marshall Law School for his contributions to civil liberties and the public interest.
Twitter: @jonathanturley
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” and “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Icon made by DinosoftLabs from Flaticon
Hey Tom,
Here’s the enemy, sport.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all
To think otherwise is just not thinking.
It’s great to read articles herein that speak openly about the debacle being foisted on this country by Obama and his Congressional minions (who have had control of the national decision-making for over two years). No one seems to recognize that Bush was not without opposition his last two years. As I recall from a past that’s getting clouded with age, that the country’s finances weren’t in too bad a shape in 2006. No one seems to remember all the Democratic support/chest thumping about going to “war” in Iraq. All of this does appear to be child’s play compared to the carnage being created (perhaps delibertly) by Obama. I’ve thought, since his past was made public, that he was being protected in a manner that was so far spread that it couldn’t be just a fluke. For the courts to protect him from scrutiny, for us to stand by while Acorn worked it’s magic unchallenged, for State’s and Universities to block access to his records, to watch him lie (and, it’s easy to watch him and KNOW when he’s really “reaching for words” to mask or avoid telling the truth when asked a direct question, that, if truthfully answered, would bring him DOWN). NO rational person, not on the Kool-Aid, could NOT know that he IS indeed, our worst enemy.
If only the national media could shake their leftist mandates, focus on the reality of what they’ve helped create, and un-do this mess before it gets any worse.
I’m a Registered Democrat who voted for Obama in the Florida primary, because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Clinton!
At that time all I knew was that he had voted “present” a lot.
Mespo you CLUELESS DOLLARLESS MORON, read what the smart people are saying about your hero Obama the Market Crasher:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK MARCH 3, 2009 The Obama Economy
As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame.
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.
Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
The Democrats who now run Washington don’t want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it’s also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length — and average job loss — of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up — unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery.
And those sources have been forming for some time. The price of oil and other commodities have fallen by two-thirds since their 2008 summer peak, which has the effect of a major tax cut. The world is awash in liquidity, thanks to monetary ease by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Monetary policy operates with a lag, but last year’s easing will eventually stir economic activity.
Housing prices have fallen 27% from their Case-Shiller peak, or some two-thirds of the way back to their historical trend. While still high, credit spreads are far from their peaks during the panic, and corporate borrowers are again able to tap the credit markets. As equities were signaling with their late 2008 rally and January top, growth should under normal circumstances begin to appear in the second half of this year.
So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year’s fourth quarter.
What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama’s agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital — financial and political — to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.
His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama’s ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.
AIG yesterday received its fourth “rescue,” including $70 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program cash, without any clear business direction. (See here.) Citigroup’s restructuring last week added not a dollar of new capital, and also no clear direction. Perhaps the imminent Treasury “stress tests” will clear the decks, but until they do the banks are all living in fear of becoming the next AIG. All of this squanders public money that could better go toward burning down bank debt.
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.
Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress — unrebuked by Mr. Obama — are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.
Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn’t help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.
Perhaps they’re reading the polls and figure they have two or three years before voters stop blaming Republicans and Mr. Bush for the economy. Even if that’s right in the long run, in the meantime their assault on business and investors is delaying a recovery and ensuring that the expansion will be weaker than it should be when it finally does arrive.
Yes, Virginia, we now have a President Doofus:
‘Fuzzy Math’ on War Funding.
Obama Begs Moscow “We will scrap missile-defense for help with Iran”.
Dow drops another 300 points; off 2,500 just since Obama inaugeration, 3,500 since Obama election, and 6,500 since Obama nomination – investor message – WE DON’T TRUST or BELIEVE IN Obama’s fruitcake answer to our problems.
Our media tell us of all the wonderous things Obama is going to do. Where he got the power to make all these crazy assertions, I can’t imagine. It’s like he’s going to wave his wand and sprinkle Kool-Aid over all the land, and all his loyal subjects will sing his praises on high, and we’ll all kneel at his feet, saying, Oh blessed one, we’re in your hands. Do with us as you will!!! And, his Dem side-kicks (disciples?) will raise their hands as one, and empower him to have his way with all who kneel before him. And no one can stand before him or his mighty sword will strike him down and be vanquished for ever-more.
Makes my blood boil!!! Makes me sick at my stomach!! Wakes me in the middle of the night, furious and frustrated because no where is there any sign of rebellion or challenges from the media!!!
God, what have we done to deserve this charlatan/usurper/liar having been granted the position to stand in front of us, and yet be the most reviled (if you doubt this, go on the streets and listen) incarnation imagineable?? And for there to be so many who support him and sing his praises as the Messiah who will delivery us to………! What has happened to this country to lead us to the brink of destruction without an up-rising, without a storming of Washington demanding a stop to this debacle?? I’ll bet we could top a million man march by a long ways. It’s likely there’d even be more people than there was at the crowning!!
Democrat Senior Senator Byrd says Obama trying to impower Presidency beyond Constitutional limits:
In a scathing letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change.
Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”…
“As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, and to virtually anyone but the president,” Byrd wrote. “They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.”
The West Virginia Democrat on Wednesday demanded Obama “consider the following: that assertions of executive privilege will be made only by the president, or with the president’s specific approval; that senior White House personnel will be limited from exercising authority over any person, any program, and any funding within the statutory responsibility of a Senate-confirmed department or agency head; that the president will be responsible for resolving any disagreement between a Senate-confirmed agency or department head and White House staff; and that the lines of authority and responsibility in the administration will be transparent and open to the American public.”
Jonathan,
Just wanted to point you to the Bush Project site. Thanks for all you do.
Steve
Dream on Al.
We the People are coming for your boys.
Mespo, welcome back.
test
ABCNEWS: CATERPILLAR CEO contradicts Obama: ‘We’re going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again’…
WIKILEAKS PUBLISHES ALL 6780 CRS REPORTS
A press release indicated that the Wikileaks site
has published 6780 Congressional Research Service CRS reports on its
website, supposedly the entire electronic output made available to all the
Congressional Offices. There are additional reports and briefings prepared
for specific offices that are not included in that electronic output.
Details are available at this page:
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Change_you_can_download:_a_billion_in_secret_C
ongressional_reports
Wikileaks says that there are are 2500 reports that had not been available
through OpenCRS in any form; a substantial amount of material. Some 4500 of
the reports are the updated versions of older reports already online.
Takili,
This seems to be a day of enlightment on this site, but, the general population doesn’t seem to have much to say. ‘Course, this all WAS predictable, considering the tactics used before and during the election. I mean, could any one have expected the quality the characters involved to have magically become honest and forthright?
Their pasts are so tainted, that to expect better of “them” is naive, to say the least. It does seem the noise on the street appears to be full of disatisfaction and “if I had only known”.
I wonder what it will take to get us out of this mess? Maybe there’ll come a way short of bearing arms, after all. I certainly hope. I’m way too old for “hand-to-hand”.
Registered Democrat who voted for BO over Billiary in the so-called Florida primary. I’m still trying to re-think that one.
Tom Fitchue
Panetta goon manhandles reporter
Don’t recall any incident in which a Bush administration official had a bodyguard manhandle a reporter, at the CIA or anywhere else.
Can you imagine the media reaction if this had happened a year ago?
Following Leon Panetta’s confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building.
There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically – and painfully – restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days.
Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man’s role. “I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside,” Strohm said.
By his account, Strohm told the man, “Please don’t touch me” more than once.
CQ’s Tim Starks objected when it happened, and later told Politico’s Michael Calderon that he’d never seen any journalist pushed around like that before.
Imagine how this would have been covered in the Bush administration.
We would have heard about it on every broadcast channel.
Keith Olbermann would have complained about Nazi tactics in silencing reporters. Media organizations would have called for Congressional investigation.
Now? This is the president the left & the media elected and the Hope and Change they wanted. The silence is deafening.
Mr.Krauthammer,
Undoubtly the best message of truth on this site. I’m in awe! Perhaps the kool-aid is wearing off, or, maybe, BO left something out of the recipe? Maybe, sometime, there will be a more wide-spread calling to delve into the birth certificate issue. Won’t be fun, but may be the fastest way to remove this blight from our lives.
Registered Democrat.
Tom Fitchue
By Charles Krauthammer
Updated: Friday, February 06, 2009
“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”
— President Obama, Feb. 4.
Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.
The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, but what’s legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.
He’d been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he’s not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don’t get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.
At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal’s private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he’d come to Washington to upend.
And yet more damaging to Obama’s image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama’s name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.
It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’s own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.
Not just to abolish but to create something new — a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the “fierce urgency of now” includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.
The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting “planted” for “ready to market” would mean a windfall garnered from a new “bonus depreciation” incentive.
After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
There are two kinds of people in the United States:
1. People who remember how horrible the Jimmy Carter years were.
2. People who are about to find out.
To be fair to Carter, though, he got off to a better start.
Thud
Obama Picks Porn Lawyer for #2 at Justice
February 3, 2009
CHICAGO – President Obama has made a major mistake and put America’s families at risk by selecting David Ogden to become Deputy Attorney General, says Fidelis, a pro-family organization.
“David Ogden is a hired gun from Playboy and ACLU. He can’t run from his long record of opposing common sense laws protecting families, women, and children. The United States Senate has a responsibility to the American people to insure that Mr. Ogden’s full record is fully reviewed before any vote on his nomination” said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis.
“Ogden’s record is nothing short of obscene. He has represented Playboy Enterprises in multiple cases, Penthouse Magazine, the ACLU, and the largest distributor of hard-core pornography videos. He has opposed filters on library computers protecting children from Internet smut, and successfully defended the right of pornographers to produce material with underage children.”
“David Ogden has collected checks from Playboy and Penthouse to fight any attempts to establish filters on federally-funded public libraries. Ogden even sued the federal government in an attempt to publish Braille versions of Playboy magazine – at taxpayer expense, of course,” said Burch.
As a lawyer in private practice, Ogden has argued for an unlimited abortion license, gays in the military, and has urged courts to treat traditional definitions of marriage as a social prejudice.
“A vast majority of Americans support parental notification before a minor’s abortion and protecting kids from Internet pornography in our libraries,” continued Burch. “Yet David Ogden has fought tooth and nail against these common sense laws protecting our children from harm. At a time when America’s families are under increasing assault, Mr. Ogden is a dangerous choice for a position whose responsibilities include the enforcement of our nation’s laws. “
I have real difficulty with the Obama administration’s obvious desire to support and expand Bush’s faith-based initiative.
During the Bush administration, I worked for Dare Mighty Things, the federal contractor that provided technical support for the faith-based initiative known as the Compassion Capital Fund. Much was made about the Bush Administration’s innovativeness in providing public dollars to support the work of faith-based organizations. This was inaccurate. Government support through a network of grants and contracts has been provided to religious organizations for non-sectarian social services for the past 50 years.
What was new was allowing federal funds to be used to support religious and quasi-religious activities under the guise of social services. This happened with a wink and a nod through the Capital Compassion Fund and related faith-based initiatives. This cannot be allowed to continue in the Obama Administration.
Additionally, I witnessed first hand, technical assistance training on how CCF grantees could legally discriminate against people they didn’t want to hire based on religious predilections. As an American, I was and continue to be offended that taxpayer dollars would be used to exclude any group of people. This, as well, cannot be allowed to continue.
Yet, beyond these challenges, there is the wider, Constitutional issue of the separation of church and state. The previous administration – certainly not the most respectful of the Constitution in general – somehow believed that the separation clause was up for grabs. It is not.
We are all diminished when government can use its substantial weight to assault the Constitution by funding the peculiarities of religious entities. Let’s hope that President Obama, as a constitutional scholar, will safeguard these vital protections by curtailing the errors of the past faith-based initiative.
You can read more about this and other matter at my blog: http://www.501cweb.com.