Apr
20
2012

URLs du Jour

2012-04-20

  • Team Obama Apparently the offer to have dinner with (just) President Obama wasn't generating enough campaign dough, so Julianna Smoot spammed me yesterday:
    Want to meet George Clooney and Barack Obama -- at Clooney's house?

    He's hosting supporters at his home next month to help build support for this campaign and elect President Obama in November. And he's saving seats for two grassroots supporters like you and their guests. It's just not a chance most people get -- well, ever.

    What follows points you to a page to enter a drawing in exchange for a $3-and-up campaign contribution. But if you read the fine print, you'll find a link to this page where you can enter for free.

    So: a chance to (a) check out George Clooney's house; and (b) give President Obama a piece of your mind. Without having to donate to the campaign. What are you wai… oh, you've clicked already.

  • Jonah Goldberg has a new blog in support of his new book The Tyranny of Cliches. Which I already have on order.

  • Congressperson James McGovern represents a long Massachusetts district, and he's no fan of the Constitution as written. He's proposed the "People's Rights Amendment" to the Constitution. It ostensibly would undo the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United by definition; where the Constitution mentions "people, person, or persons", the Amendment explicitly restricts the language to "natural persons" only.

    UCLA lawprof Eugene Volokh outlines just what that would mean:

    So just as Congress could therefore ban the speech of nonmedia business corporations, it could ban publications by corporate-run newspapers and magazines — which I think includes nearly all such newspapers and magazines in the country (and for good reason, since organizing a major publications as a partnership or sole proprietorship would make it much harder for it to get investors and to operate). Nor does this proposal leave room for the possibility, in my view dubious, that the Free Press Clause would protect newspapers organized by corporations but not other corporations that want to use mass communications technology.
    And there's more. All of it enabling a chilling and unprecedented power grab by the state.

    Supporters of this travesty include Nancy Pelosi. In a more sensible nation, support for such an Amendment would cause an ignominious defeat in a subsequent election. Instead…

  • I'll be setting the iPod to play The Band on my way home tonight. RIP, Levon. Check out Marc Cohn's great tribute from a few years back:


Last Modified 2022-10-05 8:05 AM EDT