Fakery: “Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. Paul Ryan officially unveiled their proposal for a line-item veto…”

From JSOnline.com:

Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. Paul Ryan officially unveiled their proposal for a line-item veto that would allow the president to trim earmarks from spending bills.
How brave and courageous of them…except, its a fake out.
A line-item veto is not constitutional.
Authority for a President to have a line-item veto can only come from [...]

The 4th Amendment, The meaning of “Unreasonable” and the so-called Civil Libertarian Left

On Tech Dirt, I saw this – “FBI Asks Congress To Ignore The Whole ‘Probable Cause’ Part Of The 4th Amendment” :
So, in case you haven’t been paying attention, the text of the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against [...]

Fun: Independence Day Quiz

The online quiz is here – http://games.toast.net/independence/ .
I got 28 out of 30.

How To Have the USGOV Make Better Laws

I promoted my reply up from a new comment/rant on an old post.
Congress passes many bills which are clearly unconstitutional. I wish the president would veto those. If the executive branch declares an intent to not follow something unconstitutional I am ok with that (the exec branch took an oath to uphold the constitution, not [...]

Constitutional Amendment Barring Courts From Relying On Foreign Law? Yes. Please.

I spotted a link to this at Instapundit:
Rosencranz makes several points (and my summary us unlikely to do justice to his remarks). The Constitution, he notes, draws its legitimacy from the consent of the governed and the American Revolution was motivated, in part, in opposition to the imposition of foreign rule on the colonies. [...]

Bad Ideas and Distractions: US Secession Movements

Zenpundit has a post on modern US Secession movements with links.
It was interesting following the links. They are all bad ideas.
I found a roundup at wikipedia. That is were I came across the People’s Republic of the North Star.
Zen rightly notes that this was settled with the Civil War. There is no legal Secession.

Don’t Play Loose With the Constitution: Cheney Apparently is a Dick

So, Dick Cheney thinks he is part of the Legislative branch when it suits him.
The VP is part of the executive Branch. He is not part of the legislative branch because one of his duties is to preside over the Senate.
The Supreme Court Chief Justice is not a member of the legislative branch because he [...]

Constitutional Oops: The Vice President Would Preside At His Own Impeachment Trial

Instapundit points out:
The Senate has the sole power to try impeachments. The Vice President is the President of the Senate. He presides. The Constitution provides for only one exception in cases of impeachment: “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” That’s because of the obvious conflict-of-interest of having [...]

Why the Proposed DC Vote in the House is Not Constitutional

The House has gone ahead and passed a bill giving DC voting representation in the House.
This is an unconstitutional measure alot of time and money is going to wasted on this.
This is being discussed on REDDIT.
Here is my contribution showing exactly why it is not constitutional:
Representatives can only come from states and must be a [...]

Model Constitution

My Mom emailed me this joke:
(2 ) Our Constitution “They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, and it’s worked for over 200 years. And, we’re not using it anymore.”
Funniness (or lack of funniness) of the joke [...]

DC Vote in the House: Clearly Unconstitutional

In the Washington Post:
The research arm of Congress says that legislation to give the District a vote in the House of Representatives is probably unconstitutional, a finding that could jeopardize its chances of passage, officials and analysts said yesterday.
Duh.
What are they talking about?
The D.C. vote bill seeks to gain bipartisan support by increasing the size [...]

Constitutional Amendment Needed To Close Loophole On Presidential and Vice-Presidential Eligibility

An article was posted to REDDIT suggesting that by means of a loophole, how Bill Clinton could become President again:
On its face, that seems to suggest that Clinton could be vice president because he is only barred from being elected president a third time, not from serving as president.
I thought it was more silliness/stupidness from [...]

Expel Disgraced Congressman Ney

If the House membership had any sense of honor and public stewardship (ha!), they would expel per the US Constitution disgraced Representative Bob Ney.
What are they waiting for? Cowards.

Creating A Better 4GW Legal Framework

Arnold Kling writes in TCSDaily:
If we are going to describe people as enemy agents or traitors in a time of war, then we need a procedure for identifying the enemy. We do not want the decision of who is a spy or who is a traitor left entirely to the discretion of the President and [...]

Our Lucky Constitution and Entrepreneurialism

I was reading this at an Althouse post:
The writer makes a connection between our old Constitution and our willingness to fight wars. Do you see that connection?
Some thoughts offhand:

Could the same things that lead to stable constitutional rule set lead to a greater willingness to be bold?
Is war-fighting willingness to change and shape the [...]

Fixing a Loophole: US Constitutional Amendment to Require the Speaker of the House to Be a Full Member

So, I followed some link to link to link and ended up on the wikipedia page for the US Speaker of the House of Representatives. Much to my surprise this is what I read:
Likewise, there is no Constitutional requirement that the Speaker even be an elected representative in the Congress.
What was that?
Article One of the [...]

The Wikipedia Article on the Electoral College Is Excellent

You should read it.

Suggested 26 US Constitution Amendments (Part 9 of 8): A Few More

This PurpleSlog post is the last entry in US Constitutional Amendment series.
This post: A Few More Ideas

Suggested 26 US Constitution Amendments (Part 8 of 8): Bad Ideas

This PurpleSlog series will suggest 26 amendments, (plus 2 “stretch” amendments). Additionally I will note 9 common amendment ideas that I think should be passed on.
This post: Common Amendment ideas I think are a bad idea.

More on the Supreme Courts Geneva Accords Ruling

Mark Steyn (always a good read) writes:
Ah, but you’re not a Supreme Court justice. The reason why this was an ”armed conflict not of an international character” is that al-Qaida is not a nation. So an article designed to cover internal local conflicts in signatory states within a convention designed to exclude unlawful combatants has [...]

Suggested 26 US Constitution Amendments (Part 7 of 8): Strech

This PurpleSlog series will suggest 26 amendments, (plus 2 “stretch” amendments). Additionally I will note 9 common amendment ideas that I think should be passed on.
This post: Strech Amendments

Suggested 26 US Constitution Amendments (Part 6 of 8): General

This PurpleSlog series will suggest 26 amendments, (plus 2 “stretch” amendments). Additionally I will note 9 common amendment ideas that I think should be passed on.
This post: General Purpose Amendments, second installment

Research on the Line-Item Veto

Greg Mankiw’s Blog has an article on the Line-Item Veto, looking at evidence of the effecivenss of the Line-Item Veto which conclues:
The bottom line: The line-item veto is a tactic of conservatives running scared in a vain attempt to control the growth of government.
In my Amendment series I included a proposed line-item variant that I [...]

Badger Blog Alliance Asks: Why are some people so against the flag protection amendment?

Badger Blog Alliance Asks: Why are some people so against the flag protection amendment?
My answer to this is threefold:

There is no epidemic of domestic flag-burning
I see no future constitutional crisis if one breaks out
There are more important amendments to consider first

Update: Dan of TDAXP has changed my mind. Read about it in the comments.

Suggested 26 US Constitution Amendments (Part 5 of 8): General

This PurpleSlog series will suggest 26 amendments, (plus 2 “stretch” amendments). Additionally I will note 9 common amendment ideas that I think should be passed on.
This post: General Purpose Amendments