Patterico's Pontifications

11/6/2014

Sixth Circuit Upholds Gay Marriage Ban

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:13 pm



To the endless barrage of court cases holding gay marriage is a constitutional right, add one contrary view to the mix:

The same-sex marriage movement lost its first major case in a federal appeals court Thursday after a lengthy string of victories, creating a split among the nation’s circuit courts that virtually guarantees Supreme Court review.

The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit reversed district court rulings that had struck down gay marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

More important, it gives Supreme Court justices an appellate ruling that runs counter to four others from the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th circuits. Those rulings struck down same-sex marriage bans in Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Nevada, leading to similar action in neighboring states.

The opinion, in my view, is too far wordy and filled with apologetics — but one key passage stands out:

Yes, the Fourteenth Amendment is old; the people ratified it in 1868. And yes, it is generally worded; it says: “[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Nobody in this case, however, argues that the people who adopted the Fourteenth Amendment understood it to require the States to change the definition of marriage.

And that should be the beginning and end of the analysis.

So yes: now, the Supreme Court will probably take the cases up. And yes: Anthony Kennedy will get his day in the sun yet again, as he substitutes high-flown phrases and fuzzy yet peculiarly self-righteous reasoning to twist the Fourteenth Amendment into something it was never intended to be.

It won’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.

KSM: Moonlighting As Hirsute Male Model

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:07 pm



[post by Dana]

Untitled-1
“The hair will not go away because you keep waiting!”-Slogan translation

A post-election humor break: A Turkish hair removal company claims it did not know that the picture they used in its ad was none other than 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

“We didn’t know that he was a terrorist. This image is in popular use in Turkish memes on the Internet” Mehmet Can Yildiz, a representative for Epila, told the newspaper. “The guy is quite hairy, so we thought his body was a good fit for our ad.”

Yildiz added that the company “didn’t want to imply anything political.”

“I repeat: We featured him for his hair, not terrorism,” he added.

–Dana

Day Made

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:04 pm



Seen on Twitter:

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 8.13.30 PM

Breaking: Obama to Work on Sunday

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:36 am



Obama is delaying his tee time on Sunday long enough to go spend a few TV minutes with a Big Media sycophant:

Still reeling from the GOP’s “good night” during Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Obama will make a rare Sunday show appearance this weekend, granting an interview to CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Holy crap, “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer! He is going to rake this guy over the coals!!!!

I for one plan to be glued to the TV, because I can’t get enough of looking at this guy:

McConnell and Boehner: Here’s What We’ll Do: Pass a Bunch of Laws. Hey, Guys: Have You Ever Heard of Repealing Laws?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:31 am



Why was I not terribly excited about the GOP retaking the Senate? Here’s why. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have a piece in the Wall Street Journal setting forth their agenda, titled Now We Can Get Congress Going. Here are the first specifics offered:

These bills include measures authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will mean lower energy costs for families and more jobs for American workers; the Hire More Heroes Act, legislation encouraging employers to hire more of our nation’s veterans; and a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Let’s take these three ideas that McConnell and Boehner put front and center, one by one.

Finishing the pipeline is a good idea. It’s a government project, and new government projects are not really the key to turning around what ails this country. But I have no problem with this item. It should indeed be one of their first priorities. Good for them.

As for “Hire More Heroes” . . . this is just increased government interference in the free market. Businesses will hire you if you can provide them something that will make them money. Allowing businesses to do this in an unrestrained way — which government never does — allows businessmen to calculate profit and loss, and allocate resources in such a manner that benefits society at large. Monkey around with that and there are always unintended consequences. If veterans want to be hired, they need to provide a skill or service that the marketplace demands, not rely on artificial rules set by the federal government. Next!

Restoring “the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment” is just tinkering with ObamaCare to make it more palatable to businesses. Next!

Republicans should not be telling us about the new legislation they will pass. They should be telling us about the old legislation they will repeal — and why repealing it will help the common man. There is, low down in the bullet points in the second half of the article, the typical lip service paid to eliminating regulations and so forth. But there is no explanation as to why the free market is important, no details about how the federal government interferes with it, and no real plan to do anything about that interference. There is lip service paid to the idea of reducing our absurd and unsustainable debt, but no real plan about how to do that either.

It’s hard to believe anyone takes any of this seriously.

The last time Republicans were in control of Congress and the White House, we got a shiny new prescription drug benefit and not much that addressed our long-term problems. What will be different in 2016, even if a Republican does win?

Tom Woods Reveals the Flaws in “You Didn’t Build That”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:14 am



This is like an audio version of the last chapter of Rollback: a rapid-fire barrage of arguments against government. Basically, Woods takes on a guy who advocates the “you didn’t build that” theory: that we should all be grateful to government for improving our lives and giving us our opportunities. Woods is unrelenting in providing a refutation of that point of view. Worth a listen. Start at 3:19 to get to the substance.


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