Interesting coincidence over the weekend. Ater watching hours of coverage about the "Movie Massacre" in Colorado, I started looking for something a little lighter. Ended up watching an interview on CNN, Piers Morgan talking to Supreme Court Justic Antonin Scalia, who's just published a book called Reading Law, with a co-author whose name escapes me. The co-author also participated in the interview.
Scalia takes a conservative view of the U.S. Constituion. He was appointed by Ronald Reagan, and seems healthy enough to remain at his post for a while yet.
I didn't see the whole interview, but at one point, Piers Morgan seemed to be trying to define how Scalia -- and other judges -- draw the line between their personal attitudes and their interpretations of the Constitution. Morgan seemed to regard "torture" as synonymous with "cruel and unusual punishment," the latter banned by the Constitution. Scalia noted that "torture" isn't necessarily "punishment." Punishment comes after conviction of a crime; tortue, maybe not.
Morgan asked Scalia if he'd made an decisions that disagreed with his personal views. One biggie was about the issue of burning the U.S. flag. Scalia said, "If I were king" flag-burners would go to jail. However, as a Supreme, he voted that flag-burning is a legitimate expression of political views, and therefore it's protected under the 1st Amendment.
So then today I'm watching I think it was "Fox Media Watch," which discusses bias in the media, among other media-related stuff. Someone brought up the issue of disclosure. That is, the democrats are getting all flustered and demanding about the Republicans disclosing exactly who is donating money to the Romney campaign. I should add, much of this has been disclosed already -- the big donors, anyway.
Among these big donors is Frank L. Vandersloot, founder of a company called Melaleuca Inc., which sells vitamins and cleaning products much the way Avon or Amway does -- through its sales agents setting up their own "pyramid" sales organizations. Vandersloot has donated $1 million or more to Romney, and even serves as an officer in a Romney superpac fundraising organization.
Oddly enough, over the last few months, Vandersloot has been fingered for an IRS audit, and the Labor Dept. is also looking into his employing three Mexicans every year for the last five years as hands at his ranch in Idaho.
Vandersloot has been investigated before. It's the pyramid-style sales organization of Melaleuca. Those kinds of things can make a lot of people unhappy. They may be pressured to join one or another sales reps' groups, they may find the product a lot more difficult to sell than they suspected. Who knows, they may have legitimate complaints about their dashed expectations.
At any rate, Vandersloot is in a position to be regarded as "low-hanging fruit" by an organization like the Chicago branch of the democratic party, which tends to use less than admirable tactics itself to get its own way. So they're attacking Vandersloot -- and using the might of the federal government to do it.
I suspect this is why the democrats want disclosure of Romney's donors -- so they can sic the IRS on them and God knows what other agencies and dirty tricks practitioners who don't give a damn about the United States or what it stands for. "Just give me my plum." Or, in this case, my $5 million for a shell corporation that will go bankrupt, at taxpayer expense. That's got "Chicago" written all over it.
Of course, as I recall, Bill Clinton tried something like this, too, but he was called out on it publicly and it seemed to stop.
Interesting contrast, though, between conservative Scalia defending the Constitution even when he doesn't agree with it, and the Comrade and his merry marxists burying a Republican donor under federal investigations in efforts to create a "chilling effect." That means scaring people out of supporting Romney.
We'll see if anything like ethics or a sense of honor stops the Comrade from pushing this any further. Actually, from what I've seen of him so far -- and from what I know about Chicago -- I doubt it.
Another reason to get rid of this guy. And the donkey he rode in on.
Save the Republic.
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