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Via law prof Althouse comes this story of a losing streak.

Ask Not For Whom the IRS Trolls. It Trolls For Thee.

While everybody in a justified uproar about the IRS scandal (and the hearings this week only made its wretched "leadership" look worse), there's a new response/"defense" making the rounds on social media, and I just have to shake my head.  Some lefty people are actually defending the IRS.  They do this despite the fact that the IRS confessed to purposefully going after particular organizations based specifically on their political (and now apparently even religious) convictions.  And you don't think this sort of behavior is wrong?  Really?  Really?

Apparently these folks are fine with the capricious abuse of power as long as it's their team doing the abusing.  The overarching principle that "abuse of power is bad" seems to go right past them.  Partisan ideology makes people blind, blind, blind.  Guys, the government beast that today bites the neighbor whom you hate can tomorrow just as easily bite you.

I've give you this as the quote of the day:

The IRS targeting citizens for political reasons is not simply another Washington scandal. At issue is something that strikes at the very heart of who we are as a people, what we believe as Americans and what this country has always stood for. 

The First Amendment was written to protect many different types of expression. But the Founding Fathers' primary concern -- and a first principle for every generation of Americans that followed -- was the protection of political speech. Apparently, the IRS was even targeting people who criticized how the country was being run. 

Protecting citizens' right to speak out against their government has always been an integral part of what separates us from tyrannical regimes. What the IRS did is how the KGB used to target dissidents. It is how they deal with troublemakers in China. 

It is not how we treat American citizens. Our Constitution guarantees it. 

... This is not about Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal. It is about arrogant and unrestrained government vs. the rule of law. 

Preach!

Touché!

Awesome: "IRS Asks for Reading List, Tea Party Group Sends Constitution."

Perspectives on the Rand Paul Filibuster

I was trying to write an honest-to-goodness analysis of the filibuster (I meant to include links like this, this, this, this, this, and this in my discussion of how even though I don't agree with Rand on a number of things in general, I was overjoyed to see him "hack" politics and bust out of the business-as-usual DC opacity to engage a much wider audience ... When was the last time you watched C-SPAN in delight while social media exploded as a conversation about civil liberties took off?  Be honest.  Never), but in the end, my congenital inability to resist a joke has overpowered me.  You may enjoy a rather more visual explication, gentle reader?

How Twitter, Facebook, and social media responded:

How Rand Paul fans see him and the filibuster:

How John McCain and Lindsey Graham see Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and everybody else who rallied to Rand:

How McCain and Graham see themselves:

How Rand Paul fans see McCain and Graham:

How C-SPAN sees Rand Paul:

How libertarians hope this conversation about civil liberties, limits of executive power, and government overreach turns out:

How Mad Minerva treated the filibuster as it happened:

"Just the Beginning": Rand Paul on His Own Filibuster

The junior senator from Kentucky has a piece in the Washington Post. It's fascinating to see what he has to say as he looks back on that electrifying experience.  I'm working on a post on all that, but for now, do see what Rand Paul has to say for himself.  Goodness know it's more interesting than what John "Wacko Bird" McCain and his minion Lindsey "Senator from McCain" Graham have been (bitterly? even enviously?) squawking.

For our quote of the day, let's take a snippet from the Kentucky senator, shall we?

I hope my efforts help spur a national debate about the limits of executive power and the scope of every American’s natural right to be free. “Due process” is not just a phrase that can be ignored at the whim of the president; it is a right that belongs to every citizen in this great nation. I believe the support I received this past week shows that Americans are looking for someone to really stand up and fight for them. And I’m prepared to do just that.

Dare We Hope

... that somehow out of the filibuster we might get a new GOP that focuses on freedom, liberty, limited government, and American optimism?  that presents a shining vision of America in opposition to the miserable pettiness of the status quo and its power-grubbing mandarins? OHGODPLEASE.  Paul, Rubio, Cruz, et al are making me dare to hope a little.  It's terrifying and exhilarating all at once.  Let it start here with the pushback against the abuse of power.  As Rand Paul just said, this isn't about Republicans or Democrats, but about executive power and the US Constitution.

UPDATE: It's 11:40 PM, and we're all still up and a-filibusterin'.  How much longer can everyone keep going? Honey, grad students don't sleep as a matter of course.  We're in for the long haul (while doing schoolwork, natch).  (Meanwhile, I note that a bunch of other people are finally showing up on the Senate floor to jump on Paul's bandwagon.  Shamed into action, eh?  GOOD.  Do the right thing for the wrong reason, eh?  So long as the right thing gets done in a snakepit like DC.)

Tweet of the Day on Raul Paul's Filibuster Against Drones

The spectacle of Rand Paul's filibuster today (still going as I type, with 10 Senators involved now!) has been eating up the news, so I'm not going to babble much about it here other than to say that it's pretty darn awesome.  It was high time somebody poked the establishment in the eye about this.  I think you all might also appreciate this observation that just appeared via Twitter:

That awkward moment when your Nobel Peace Prize-winning President won't promise not to kill US citizens. #StandwithRand
— Jary (@Jary798) March 7, 2013

Oh, heck with it. Here's the beginning of the whole thing: 

Watch More News Videos at ABC | Technology News | Celebrity News

“I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court, that Americans could be killed in a cafe in San Francisco or in a restaurant in Houston or at their home in Bowling Green, Ky., is an abomination. It is something that should not and cannot be tolerated in our country.”

John Yoo on Drone Policy

More interesting thoughts on the recent drone memo.  Previous thoughts here.

Quote of the Day: Deciding When a Citizen Becomes an Outlaw

A thought about designating targets:

I hear some people talking past each other on Obama's self-declared right to assemble a Kill List of Americans and order their deaths, sans any kind of external check or procedural safeguards.

Charles Krauthammer says that anyone who has taken arms against America has forfeited his right to citizenship.

I agree -- but agreeing that the power to declare such a person as forfeit[ing] his citizenship is a government power is very much not the same as saying that such power resides within a single person, the President, in his sole discretion.

Agreeing that such a power resides somewhere in the federal government is not the same as agreeing it rests within a single fallible man to decide whom to kill and whom to spare. 

Related: the "crazy bastards" standard, Michael Ramirez's latest political cartoon, and Dignified Rant's thoughts.

Worst Op-ed of 2012 Is ... *Drum Roll* ...

TA-DA!!  Coming in at the last possible minute, this thing takes the cake.  Honestly, at first I thought this had to be something by the Onion.  I mean, a constitutional law professor saying we should chuck the Constitution.  Hahaha - Oh, you're serious. I am further bemused/amused to see this. (Scroll down to realize that Glenn Greenwald and I are actually on the same page. LOL!)  Anyway:

Just in under the wire, a clear winner for dumbest and most incoherent NYT Op-ed of 2012:is.gd/DCMMbp
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald)

Quote of the Day: Sen. Rand Paul and A New Standard

This is too hilarious not to post even though I should be working:

I will tell you, since I know this record of this debate will be widely read, that I want to make formal objection to the "crazy bastards standard." I don’t really think that if we’re going to have a "crazy bastards standard" that we shouldn’t have a right to trial by jury, because if we’re going to lock up all the crazy bastards, for goodness sakes would you not want if you’re a crazy bastard to have a right to trial by jury?

All right. For using the term "crazy bastard" repeatedly in an actual Congressional debate about terrorism, you get your own blog tag, snarky Rand.

Here's the video:

 

Never Too Soon

Last night I was just noting to a friend that Ryan/Rubio 2016 could possibly be the hottest GOP ticket ever.  I was mostly just making a quip (the boys are undeniably cute, though - hey there, female demographic!), but maybe it's not such a bad idea to start thinking ahead.  The GOP old guard has had its shot; it's time for the new generation - my generation - with fresh approaches to have a go.  The 2016 election is in only 1,459 more days, heh.

Rant: I Hate Everything About "The Innocence Of Muslims" Except Its Right To Exist

Take a look at this passionate rant from one of the movie sites that I sometimes visit.  Language warning.  Oh, then contrast with this opposing take by the Los Angeles Times, the ending of which has the most clueless paragraph I've read in a while.

Irony of Ironies: It's Constitution Day Today

Right on the heels of the Nakoula debacle!  Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights beginning with the First Amendment.  Remember, as Franklin said, what we have is "a republic if you can keep it."  

Memes of Outrage

Yup, what happened at midnight in California looks just as bad now in the harsh light of day.  That image of  Nakoula Basseley Nakoula being hauled away should be the image that ends the career of the president who let it happen on his watch!  You call that defending the Constitution?  I mean, seriously.  The whole point of the First Amendment is protecting even the most objectionable and offensive of people.  Yes, dirtbags have rights too.  That's why America rocks.  Now, last I heard, making an idiotic low-budget Youtube video is not a crime.  Oh, but this is a video that the government happens not to like ...  WELL, IT'S STILL NOT A CRIME.

But, as the Insta-Prof has suggested that we all publicize the incident and our indignant disapproval, there is a new Internet meme that has sprung up overnight.  I give you one of my favorites as it modifies the famous phrase associated with Voltaire about disapproving of what you say, but ...

Fine print.

In the interest of fairness, a contrarian view.  The Insta-Prof (remember Reynolds 2016 with flamethrowers for embassy protection!) doesn't buy this, and I don't either.  That stupid video had been online since July 1.  It's a little too convenient to say, hey, on September 11 Embassy-Storming Week began, so a mere 4 days later when the bloody-minded mobs are howling about this video we'll haul Nakoula off in the middle of the night ... amid a blaze of media trucks for ... probation violations. 

UPDATE: People are meme-ing the hell out of this image.  Good.  Let this photo haunt the administration all the way to Election Day.

I Can't Believe This Is Happening

What fresh hell is this?  Or this?  I confess to using language unbecoming a lady.

Law enforcement knocks on your door at midnight and hauls you away in handcuffs not because you committed an actual crime, but because you made a video.  

This happened in AMERICA.

UPDATE: The responses of two law professors - Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse.  On a related note, law prof Eugene Volokh argues that stuff like this will only lead to more violence.

Nerd News: A Horrible Campus Speech Code

Unbelievable.  Comply or be expelled.  You know, you don't lose your constitutional rights when you step onto your campus.

Quote of the Day: Waiting for the Supreme Court

I found this rant rather refreshing amid the increasingly fervid utterances from Left, Right, and Center about the Supreme Court's forthcoming decision on Obamacare and the individual mandate.  What do you think?

The very idea that we sit on the edge of our seats, eyes toward Washington DC, waiting on the deliberations and dispositions of nine mortals to tell us how much of our liberty we get to retain is preposterous.  It is offensive and repulsive to a free people.  

A Law Prof Ponders the HHS Mandate Catholic Lawsuit

You recall the recent slate of lawsuits filed by 43 Catholic institutions.  I had previously linked to an opinion by a Hahvahd law professor.  

Now here are some thoughts by a professor of constitutional law at the Catholic University of America as he eviscerates the New York Times' editorial on the subject: "The Times is wrong in every conceivable way about the mandate, religious-liberty law, and the lawsuits."  Oh, my!

The HHS Mandate, the Catholic Lawsuit, and "We're All Catholics Now"

Here are a few more thoughts about the massive slate of 12 lawsuits filed yesterday by 43 Catholic institutions including the University of Notre Dame. Blurbs: