Supremes vs. Obama…

A lot of people were surprised yesterday when Justice Ginsberg issued a stay of the Chrysler bankruptcy,  but I am quite sure she would not have done so had not at least three of her colleagues expressed an interest in the matter.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Supreme Court,  having totally botched its job in the matter of eminent domain,   returns to sound jurisprudence and enforces contract law,  which will NOT permit His Oneness to stiff the Chrysler and GM bondholders,  who are by contract to be paid first.

This matters,  because if the High Court fails,  Obama will have wiped out two centuries of contract law.    If the government can ignore or remake contracts,   they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.  Who of sound mind and minimum fiscal prudence will agree to invest in anything?

Since Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings are set to begin on July 13,  this may provide for an additional avenue of awkward questions for the nominee.

UPDATE:  You can straighten out your fingers –  the Supreme Court wimped out,  and the Chrysler sale to Fiat can proceed.

Dissembling continues…

So far,  the only media outlet to mention  the petition demanding Obama release his birth certificate is FOX News.    However,   Politico.com has put up a video link of Robert Gibbs answering a question from reporter  Les Konsolving about the birth certificate.

Note that Gibbs repeats the claim that the birth certificate was posted on the Internet during the campaign.    That simply is not true,  and I have trouble believing Gibbs doesn’t know the difference between a certificate of live birth,  commonly called a “short-form”,  and a birth certificate,  or  the “long-form” Kinsolving referred to.

In most states y0u could be born on Mars and be registered as a “live birth” versus a stillborn birth,  but that still doesn’t make that registration your birth certificate.   A long-retired physician friend tells me that the registration of live births was a useful necessity back in the days when most babies were born at home,  because unless there was a record of baptism at some religious institution,   there was no other means of establishing a child’s existence at birth.

Indeed,  being born in a hospital  is a relatively modern arrangement even in the U. S.,  and is still a rarity in much of the world,  which is why certificates of live birth still serve their purpose.   You need not be a conspiracy buff to  wonder why the Obama administration continues its dishonest campaign strategy,   much less its expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to quash court cases,   if there is nothing to hide.    Perhaps Kinsolving will ask that question next.

It strikes me as off-kilter for Democrats to quickly claim John McCain wasn’t a natural born citizen because he wasn’t born in the U. S.,  yet dismiss all calls for Obama to release the same item McCain did.

For lousy advice….

If Republicans want to take some stupendously bad advice,  based primarily on Jacob Weisberg’s affection for Republicans like,  er, Colin Powell,  who endorsed Obama and voted for him and recently said Americans wanted to pay more taxes to get more services,  they can follow this Slate piece.

http://www.slate.com/id/2219279

Britain’s Labour Party debacle…

If the woes of Gordon Brown’s Labour Party in Merry Olde  are of interest  to you,  bookmark Ian Dale’s  blog and the Conservative Home blog.    Both are very well written by people who thoroughly understand the territory.

By the way,  if you haven’t been keeping up with the genesis of the mess,  a newspaper got hold of information on what the politicians have been charging British taxpayers for,  including  cleaning the moat of a country estate,  and pornography.

What you may not know is that American politicians nearly all go on an  end-of-year buying spree rather than have a few unspent pennies in their taxpayer-funded office accounts be returned to the Treasury.    Speaker Pelosi has decreed that House members expense reports be put on line by August 1st.    Of course,  they will be in  PDF format and thus not searchable,  but we are assured that they are “looking into” ways to make them so.    I wouldn’t hold my breath on that last part,   since that is how Democrats prevent bills from being searched.    I believe  Dr. Coburn will offer similar legislation for the Senate.