I got one of the robocalls from Huckabee last night. I really just thought it was sad.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Want to lose a hundred or so IQ points? Have no fear. All you need to do is go here.

Just this afternoon, I was telling my wife, “Honey, I think I’m too smart. I mean, being able to read is okay, but critical thinking? Surely that’s too much.” Luckily for me, I soon read this. And now I say – Algebra? Is that even a word?

Honestly, I really, really want you to read this Breaking News! piece from the Huntsville Times. Go read it. Please.

Don’t get me wrong. If I knew Michelle Malkin and others were claiming [or at least accepting the premise] that the President, in his free time, was secretly re-designing the Missile Defense Agency logo to reflect a perfect Islamic world where everyone drank Pepsi and worshiped his administration, I would have written a post about it. Hell, I might have written a few posts about it. It’s golden!

The Homebrew Legalization bill passed the Senate yesterday. Actually, it failed first. Then later it was reintroduced with an amendment. Then it passed. If you supported the bill and were listening to the Senate audio, the ups and downs might have caused you to break some household furniture or electronics equipment.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Larry Dixon and was promoted heavily by a grassroots movement of homebrew hobbyists. This was not a Free the Hops bill (although we endorse and try to help promote it of course).

Every now and then I’m wrong.

It turns out that the Marine Corps already has a distinctive license plate. Last year, HB28 by Representative Page passed creating a Marine Corps license plate available to active duty, retired, and honorably discharged Marines. The proceeds of the extra fees goes to the Department of Alabama Marine Corps League.

So no one left out the US Marine Corps in this year’s bill. Instead, Marines once again led while the other services followed.

Thanks to former Sergeant Mike Ball for looking into this.

This is an old story that I’ve followed over the years.

The Constitution of Alabama says the persons convicted of a felony involving “moral turpitude” are not allowed to vote. Unfortunately, “moral turpitude” is not defined by either the constitution or by statute. The result has been a hodgepodge of judicial decisions, attorney general opinion, and registrars’ whim over which convictions do and do not cause a loss of voting rights. Some county registrars, in the absence of any list of which crimes do and do not involve moral turpitude, have taken the easy road and denied voting status to all former felons.

Some might suggest that any felony should cause a loss of voting rights. Aside from the fact that it’s now a felony to bring a camcorder into a movie theater, the Alabama Constitution clearly states that only crimes involving “moral turpitude” should cause a loss of voting rights. That clarification makes it clear that some felonies involve moral turpitude and some do not. So unless the constitution is amended, we need a law that defines which crimes are “an act of baseness, vileness or depravity in the private or social duties which a man owes to his fellowmen or to society in general” (G.M. Mosley Contractors, Inc. v. Phillips, 1986).

Senator Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) is introducing a bill to do that. SB257 attempts to introduce a comprehensive list of felonies which involve moral turpitude. As introduced, they would include and be limited to:

1. Impeachment
2. Murder (not manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide)
3. Rape (first and second degree)
4. Sodomy
5. Sexual abuse
6. Incest
7. Sexual torture
8. To keep this blog family-friendly, I’ll just say that there are 7 specific crimes listed that involve obscene material or acts with children. Combined with the felonies listed above, they seem to cover all the serious sex offenses.
9. Treason

Does that cover all the bases?

In the state of Massachusetts, in a Senate race with national implications, GOP contender Scott Brown nails home the upset with solid numbers (52% to 47% as I write this).

In Birmingham, the locals chose the guy endorsed by their previous felon mayor. William Bell beats Patrick Cooper with 53.6% of the vote.

I’m sure you mean well with SB268. The synopsis of the bill follows:

This bill would establish new distinctive license plate categories for active or retired members of the United States Air Force, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marines or persons honorably discharged from any of these branches of service.

Either you or the Legislative Reference Service left out a service. I mean, it’s not a huge deal. The Marine Corps doesn’t need a special Alabama license plate to feel special.

Another explanation is that someone (either you or someone at LRS) is confusing the Merchant Marines with the US Marine Corps. Merchant Mariners who served during times of war are indeed afforded veteran status, and with good reason, but they are not the same as US Marines.

You didn’t think we were done, did you? I respectfully direct you to the FTH Blog.

Over the last few years I’ve yelled “Go Gators” and even (shudder) “Geaux Tigers” for the BCS Championship Games.  I do expect to hear some Roll Tides for my troubles.

This makes me so very sad. Ruth Marcus must know, deep down inside, that the commerce clause of the Constitution does not allow for government-mandated health insurance. I would have a lot more respect for the columnist if she would acknowledge that the argument is a ridiculous, legalese way around the Constitutional limits on government but that we should do it anyway. At least then we would be having an honest conversation.

I realize some of you may not have a strong grasp about what I’m talking about, so here’s a brief history of the commerce clause.

Prior to about 1937, it was understood that the Constitution enumerated the powers of the federal government. In other words, it spelled out exactly what authority the federal government had. The bulk of these powers are enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, which begins with, “The Congress shall have the power to…” It then lists several very specific powers.  One of those powers is:

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes

Sounds reasonable. The Tenth Amendment later reaffirmed this idea that the power of the federal government was limited and reserved only to those powers granted by the authority of the Constitution.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Every single law passed by the Congress must be in accordance with a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Anything else can only be addressed by the states. This enumeration of government powers is in stark contrast to the enumeration of rights, most notably the Bill of Rights. While the Constitution must list everything the government is allowed to do, it does not list every right held by the people. (See the 9th Amendment).

Then the New Deal happened. Thanks to some political threatening, FDR was able to get the Supreme Court to allow some measures that had previously been considered clearly unconstitutional. In order to justify the constitutionality of the New Deal measures, the court accepted a vastly expanded scope of the commerce clause. In the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn, the court opined:

But even if appellee’s activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as ‘direct’ or ‘indirect.’

That decision gave Congress the power to set quotas on wheat grown on one’s own land, for one’s own consumption, within a single state, because it affected interstate commerce. The justification is that if the individual had not grown wheat on his own land, then he might instead have bought wheat from a business. That business might, in some way, have been engaged in interstate commerce. So the individual is affecting interstate commerce by not engaging in it.

That opened up the proverbial floodgate.

Today, we are in a situation that is reverse to the intention of the Constitutional writers. These days, most folks believe that rights are enumerated – most notably in the Bill of Rights (negating, of course, the second, ninth, and tenth). Federal powers, however, are unlimited and checked only by the democratic process.

That’s how Ruth Marcus can tell us, with a straight face, that a government mandate to buy a product is completely within the scope of what Thomas Jefferson, et. al. wrote in 1787.