Yes, there is such a person and she believes she has some jurisdiction over you!  Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque visitedSacramento“under [her] mandate,” where she met with a community of homeless people.  She saw a “lack of access to adequate water and sanitation and adequate housing.”  She also found that parks, with their public restrooms, were closed at night, and thatSacramento“criminalizes public urination and/or defecation.”  All of this causes her to conclude that international human rights may be violated.

This is one of those classic cases where theU.S.signed, but did not ratify, an international treaty.  But one little-known implication of that, under international law, is that the signer agrees not to do anything to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty pending a ratification decision.  This is why President Bush “unsigned” the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, which President Clinton had signed but the Senate had not ratified.  I think there’s plenty of room to argue here that Sacramento’s sanitation and water problems, while serious, are not defeating the treaty, but then the U.N. Human Rights Commission doesn’t usually worry a lot about possible limits on its jurisdiction.

Apparently it’s time to rewrite those American Government textbooks about federalism.  Yes, some issues are still local, some state and some federal.  But if you sign one of those treaties the global governance people are forever advancing, local issues can become global in scope.  In the end, it seems clearly preferable to take your beating for not signing apparently inconsequential, feel-good treaties, rather than have the U.N. show up to inspect your toilets. 

Please click here for a link to Advancing a Free Society:  http://www.advancingafreesociety.org/

The case will surely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, though perhaps first to the full 9^th Circuit. No same sex marriages will be performed in the meantime.

So many questions are raised:  

• Should 2 federal judges substitute their judgment for the people’s vote?
• Should states or the federal government decide social questions?
• Will other states have to recognize California’s gay marriages?

 Only the Supreme Court can now say.

To listen to the audio please click on the link:  http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/634418

In announcing recently that the Fairness Doctrine would be wiped off the books, the Federal Communications Commission took one small step into the information age. Characteristically, the commission was decades behind the times, and it left other media regulation still stuck in the industrial age and in serious need of rethinking.

A major problem with government regulation of business is that it is based on markets and technologies as they exist when the rules are imposed. In the case of radio, this body of law has largely been the Radio Act of 1927, the Communications Act of 1934, and the Fairness Doctrine adopted by the FCC in 1949. There were fewer than three thousand radio stations in the country in 1949, compared to the fourteen thousand that ply today’s robust and competitive market.

The Fairness Doctrine required radio stations to air opposing points of view. So, for example, if a radio host or guest favored a particular policy, the station was obligated to air a message against. Perhaps this made some sense when a geographic market had few stations, but today, with satellite radio, Internet radio, and thousands more terrestrial stations, every point of view under the sun can find its way onto the air. For decades, the market itself has provided protection for minority points of view, so the primary question should be why it took government so long to catch up to market realities.

If the Fairness Doctrine were enforced today, there would be no Rush Limbaugh, no Sean Hannity, no talk show hosts with a point of view. Whether you enjoy their programs or not, these radio talkers have rescued and re-energized talk radio. If a listener wants balance or fairness, he or she can simply turn the dial to another station whose talkers have a different point of view. Rather than diversity on every program, there is a diversity of programs and even a variety of distinctive stations and networks—a market that achieves the same fairness goals intended by the outdated Fairness Doctrine.

In the end, like many government regulations, the Fairness Doctrine had become a political football as much as an agency rule. The FCC suspended it during the Reagan years but didn’t take it off the books. Then for years, concerned about the rise of conservative talk radio, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate threatened to put it back in force. Finally it died as part of President Obama’s push to satisfy business that he was seeking to streamline government and eliminate unnecessary regulation. Even now, the moldering regulation doesn’t seem fully dead. Some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, for instance, have called for reinstating it. Such is the life of federal regulatory schemes.

What federal agencies in general, and the FCC in particular, need to be concerned about is whether federal regulations continue to make sense as markets and technologies develop. In that sense, eliminating the Fairness Doctrine was no better than a baby step into the information age. What about the equal time rule, a kind of companion to the Fairness Doctrine? It requires that if one candidate for an office appears on the broadcast media, other candidates must be given equal time. This rule also is anachronistic and has been so swallowed up in exceptions as to be meaningless. If Donald Trump had run for president, for example, his appearances on The Apprentice might require equal time for other candidates, unless the show were on cable television, which is a meaningless distinction in these days of cable and satellite TV. If a candidate sits down for a few minutes with Letterman or Leno, another exception for “news/interviews” illogically comes into play. Isn’t it time for equal time to go the way of the Fairness Doctrine?

And how about government subsidies and funding for public broadcasting? Again, the support may have made sense when there were only three or four television networks. If there’s a need for public broadcasting’s programs today, shouldn’t they compete for funding and airtime with everyone else? I find little justification for a nearly bankrupt government to spend money on television and radio programming when we live in a 24/7 media cycle. Yet taxpayers continue to provide more than $400 million for public broadcasting, roughly 15–20 percent of its budget, and some executives in that business make more than the president of the United States. Further, it drags the government directly into questions of political content, exemplified by the controversy surrounding commentator Juan Williams and the termination of his contract by National Public Radio. The bipartisan budget deficit commission recommended phasing out taxpayer subsidies to public broadcasting.

So, one cheer for the FCC for burying the Fairness Doctrine. But let’s hold off on three cheers until more work is done to align government policy toward the media with the market realities of the media age in which we live.

We are in the midst of a major tug of war between a growing federal government and the power of the states. And now, having decided to hear both the Constitutional challenge to Obamacare and the attack on Arizona’s immigration law, the Supreme Court is correctly weighing in on two of the biggest federal power grabs in recent years.

At issue in Arizona is whether federal immigration law preempts, in effect, any state action on the matter.  Arizona argues persuasively that its law complements federal law and is essential because the feds aren’t controlling the problem. 

Both healthcare and immigration are important politically, just months before the election. But they are more important for maintaining state powers under the 10^th amendment.

To hear the audio please click here:  http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/631941

At one level, the President is framing the big issue of the election in his favor—that our economic problem is not government spending and deficits, but income inequality.  It may not be the defining issue of our time, but he’d like it to be for his reelection.

He’s also coming down on the wrong side of the long debate in America between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.  As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1800s, the French believe in equality and security whereas Americans believe in freedom. 

The President says the Republican economic approach is old school, but there’s nothing older or more inappropriate than Obama’s European style socialism and class warfare.

To hear the audio please click here:  http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/630301

The winds of postmodernism and diversity are trying to blow God out of the public square.  Cases have challenged “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, “in God we trust” on our money, and now public prayer at county commissioner meetings. 

The point of the Establishment clause was to prevent the government from establishing state religions, not to remove God from the public square entirely.  Indeed, the Founders said that a free republic requires a virtuous people which, in turn, requires faith. 

The case has now been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we should all hope they have a better sense of history and the Constitution.

To listen to the audio please click on the link:  http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/629229

Courtesy of Townhall.com

 victory when the U.N. cultural arm, UNESCO, voted to admit them to membership. But the win came at a high price—the U.S. will end its financial support, which comprises 22 percent of the agency’s budget. 

There is an established and objective test for statehood, which Palestine does not meet. But in recent years, a competing postmodern approach says, if other nations think you are a nation-state and treat you as one, then you must be one. 

It is this kind of international legal nonsense that Palestine is pursuing, seeking to get its statehood card punched by every international body and nation it can. The U.S. is right to oppose this end-run by vetoing it in the Security Council, voting against it elsewhere, and declining further funding to bodies that give into it. Otherwise international law reflects little more than the mood of international leaders on a given day.

To listen to the audio please click here:  http://townhall.com/talkradio/dailycommentary/628327

GUESTS: David Davenport, Hoover; Jeff Foust, Space Review; Mark Schroeder, Stratfor; Bob Zimmerman, Behind the Black…

To listen to the podcast please click here:  http://www.wabcradio.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=33447&ID=2324604

Courtesy of Townhall.com

are also witnesses to the most expansive exercise of federal power since the New Deal.

Following massive federal intervention in the economy, and the unprecedented requirement that everyone buy health insurance, the Obama Administration continues its takeover of K-12 education in the face of Constitutional and legal constraints.

The latest is the Department of Education’s decision to issue waivers to states on some of the toughest “No Child Left Behind” requirements, but only if the states present plans the feds like for future reforms.

It’s one more step down the road of federalizing K-12 education, the one thing that almost anyone would say should be a state and local, not a federal, matter.

This growth of federal power is breathtaking and dangerous and needs to be stopped.

To hear the audio commentary, please click on this link:  http://ht.salemweb.net/townhall/audio/mp3/93d037cd-aa59-4923-8299-49db63a93d9a.mp3

While candidates are busy raising money and positioning themselves for the first primaries, one early maneuver in the 2012 presidential campaign is taking place in state legislatures: consideration of the National Popular Vote Bill. California recently became the eighth state to enact this legislation, which would form an interstate compact requiring member states to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote, effectively eliminating the Electoral College without the transparency and burden of amending the U.S. Constitution.

But those who are frustrated by the Electoral College—especially Democrats who feel Al Gore unfairly lost the presidency in 2000—overlook the real benefits it provides, as well as its importance to our federalist system. State legislatures should count the cost very carefully before overthrowing the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

For starters, a single national popular vote would alter the way presidential campaigns are conducted. Under the Constitution, there are really fifty-one separate state elections (plus the District of Columbia), and candidates compete aggressively in any state where they might win electoral votes. In the last week or two of a presidential campaign, candidates are likely to cross the country, seeking to win electoral votes in ten to fifteen key battleground states. This keeps the campaign alive in virtually every geographic region and in contested states both large and small. Candidates are forced to address regional issues and local voters as they seek to win the necessary electoral margin.

By contrast, a campaign that is based solely on the national popular vote would be conducted very differently. Candidates would concentrate their efforts in large metropolitan areas, where voters are highly concentrated, and the premium on impersonal media campaigning, whether through older media such as television or new media such as Facebook and Twitter, would greatly increase. Can one really argue that spending more money to capture digital media followers, and conducting more televised events in New York or Los Angeles, creates a better campaign for voters?

The problem of recounts, alone, should give a state legislator pause about voting for the National Popular Vote Bill. Votes must be counted and reported at some stage, and doing so at the state level means the extent of any recount is thereby limited. In 2000, for example, the Florida recount was difficult and lengthy, but nevertheless contained to one state. Imagine the likelihood, then, of a nationwide recount if state electoral votes were essentially irrelevant, as they would be under the National Popular Vote legislation. A national recount would certainly take many months to complete, creating uncertainty about identifying and seating a new president on a timely basis. Given the litigious nature of recent elections, such a prospect is hardly remote.

Ironically, one of the arguments in favor of the National Popular Vote Bill is that it would make every vote count and, in that sense, be fairer than the present system. But in the end, the new approach essentially trades one kind of fairness for another. Imagine, for example, a Virginia voter who is a Democrat and her state is carried by the candidate of her party. But if the Republican candidate wins the national popular vote, the elector in her state will actually cast “her” vote in favor of the Republican. What is fair, or even representative, about that? Such are the vagaries of tinkering with the two-hundred-year-old electoral system.

In a larger sense, this end run around the Electoral College would also kick down an important pillar of our system of federalism. The U.S. Constitution does not establish a pure democracy, but rather a federal republic. The genius of a republic is that while not every element is purely democratic, several checks and balances, as well as intentional balances of power, work together to make certain that the “cool deliberate sense of the community” is carried out, as it says in Federalist No. 63. Roles are assigned to both the people and the states. For example, the U.S. House of Representatives is based upon population and is referred to as “the people’s House,” but the U.S. Senate is based upon state representation. Similarly, in electing a president, there is a role for the people (the popular vote) and a role for states (the electoral vote). These checks and balances of constitutional federalism should not be easily bargained away by means of an interstate compact.

Indeed, those who feel the present system of voting is unfair have two constitutionally proper remedies, both of which are superior to the end run of the National Popular Vote Bill. First, they can amend the Constitution and eliminate the electoral system in a straightforward and transparent way. Of course, this would require an affirmative vote of two-thirds of each house of Congress and approval by three-fourths of the state legislatures, an intentionally difficult bar to reach.

A second, more readily available alternative is to encourage states to move away from their winner-takes-all method of allocating electoral votes. Under the Constitution, states are free to decide how to allocate their electoral votes, according to their popular vote. All but two states allow the winner of their popular vote to receive all the state’s electoral votes; the remaining two, Maine and Nebraska, allocate electoral votes according to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district. This would address a primary concern of some who seek reform by making presidential elections more competitive in states where one party dominates electoral politics. For example, in California, a state rich in electoral votes but dominated by one party, allocating electoral votes by congressional district would create competition in many regions of the state and attract candidates to come more frequently and campaign. If electoral reform is needed, this would be preferable from almost any point of view.

The National Popular Vote Bill is gaining some bipartisan momentum by concentrating on the superficial fairness of a popular vote and by ignoring the practical advantages of the Electoral College and the deep and longstanding values of the federalist system. When states having enough electoral votes to win an election (270) have signed, the compact goes into effect. The bill raises sufficient constitutional questions that it will doubtless be challenged if and when it becomes effective. In the meantime, one can only hope that enough state governors and legislators will see through the superficial appeal of the bill and, as Benjamin Franklin urged, keep the republic.

To link to the article in the Hoover Digest, 2011 No. 4 please click here:  http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/95536