Budget Puzzle

A buddy sent this to me. Pretty interesting.
Let's see how you would do!

Link

Obama and Cabinet Hit Road to Sell SOTU

President Barack Obama and his top aides launched a roadshow Wednesday aimed at putting some momentum behind his State of the Union proposals to beef up American competitiveness and spur job creation.

Just hours after delivering his address to the joint session of Congress, Obama visited three Wisconsin manufacturing companies, including firms that make energy-efficiency technology, solar power cells, and wind turbines to create electricity.

“These aren’t just good jobs that can help you pay the bills and support your families. They’re jobs that are good for all of us; that will make our energy bills cheaper; that will make our planet safer; that will sharpen America’s competitive edge in the world,” Obama said in his visit to Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc, Wisc.

With Republicans emphasizing unfettered free enterprise and less government intervention as the way to create jobs, the president stressed that the firms’ success depended not only on entrepreneurial spirit, but on government policies that encouraged companies to pursue green technology.

“The jobs you’re creating here and the growth you’ve achieved have come through hard work, ingenuity and a single-minded focus on being the best at what you do,” the president said. “And you’ve also been supported over the years not only by the Department of Agriculture, and the Small Business Administration, but by tax credits and awards we created to give a leg up to renewable energy companies.”

Obama met the CEO and founder of Orion, Neal Verfuerth in 2009, after Verfuerth was featured in Gov. Jim Doyle’s State of the State message that year. Verfuerth was an early supporter of Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Orion moved to Manitowoc in 2004, after Mirro, a huge cookware and utinsels manufacturing company, relocated to Mexico, taking 1,400 jobs with it. The unemployment rate shot up from 3 percent to 9 percent almost overnight in 2003 when Mirro left, but it settled down to 3 percent when Orion moved here in 2004, according to Kevin Crawford, a former Manitowoc mayor and Orion’s Director of Governmental Affairs.

Using many of the same facilities and machinery, Verfuerth began manufacturing green energy lighting technology that he invented in this plant. They provide lighting for 126 of the Fortune 500 companies. The company boasts that their technology reduces lighting costs by 50-60 percent.

The site for Obama’s trip was particularly well-suited for him to follow up on his “State of the Union” exhortation that America, challenged by China and India for economic superiority, is facing a new “Sputnik moment.”

“It was right here, almost fifty years ago, that a chunk of metal came crashing down to the Earth. It was part of a satellite called Sputnik that set the Space Race in motion,” he said. “Well, I want to say to you today that it’s here in Manitowoc that the race for the 21st Century will be won.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said one point Obama wanted to hammer home Wednesday was that if the U.S. hopes to compete with other countries that are making green technology a priority, some government assistance has to be part of the equation.

“We’re not going to meet the challenges that we have with China and India as they invest more and more heavily in clean energy without a plan of our own,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I think you’ll see some of that highlighted, quite honestly, on our trip.”

Vice President Joe Biden also hit the road: traveling to Greenfield, Indiana to visit a manufacturer of Lithium batteries, a critical component of electric cars. Biden touted Obama’s State of the Union goal to have 1 million “advanced technology” vehicles on American roads by 2015.

Not every part of the administration’s road trips to sell the president’s message went smoothly Wednesday.

Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills was scheduled to visit a St. Louis engineering company which develops cutting-edge inventions like a harness that helps people with spinal injuries regain the ability to walk. However, Mills never made it because her flight was canceled due to the wintry weather in Washington.

Still, several cabinet members are planning similar trips in the coming days. One member who made it out of town Wednesday: Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who went to Nashua, N.H. to visit a firm that makes high-efficiency LED lightbulbs.

By coincidence or not, many of the states getting White House attention are potential battleground states for the 2012 presidential election. Manitowoc has been a popular destination for presidential candidates, from John Kennedy to John Kerry.

But there were also reminders Wednesday that some local and state officials may buck Obama’s approach, even when it could mean federal money and jobs.

On the day after last year’s State of the Union, Obama and Biden traveled to Tampa, Fla. to announce $8 billion in grants for high-speed rail programs, including $810 million for a Wisconsin project to link Madison and Milwaukee.

However, in the audience for Obama’s Manitowoc speech was newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.), one of two governors who publicly spurned federal stimulus money for high speed rail, calling it unnecessary and unaffordable

On Wednesday, Obama made a brief reference to “connecting America and the American people with high-speed rail,” but no mention of Wisconsin’s decision to part company with the federal government on the issue. Last month, the Transportation Department redirected the money that Wisconsin and Ohio turned away to 13 other states still pursuing high-speed rail projects.

Palin Sees "WTF" in SOTU

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has her own interpretation of the “winning the future” theme of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech.

“He dubbed it a “Winning The Future” speech, but the title’s acronym seemed more accurate than much of the content,” Palin wrote in a lengthy post on her Facebook page.

WTF is a profane abbreviation that has been popularized in text messaging.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, focused her response on attacking the Obama administration’s economic policies. She also cited frustration with the projected $1.5 trillion U.S. budget deficit, 9.4 percent unemployment rate and high home foreclosures.

“Americans are growing impatient with a White House that still just doesn’t get it,” she wrote.

Palin dissected the infrastructure, education and renewable energy programs announced in the president’s speech, calling the proposals “half baked ideas” and “recycled rhetoric.”

Echoing rhetoric used by other Republicans following the president’s nationally televised address Jan. 25 before a joint session of Congress, Palin said Obama’s discussion of making “investments” in those areas was code for “increased government spending.”

“Cut away the rhetoric and you’ll also see that the White House’s real message on economic reform wasn’t one of substantial spending cuts, but of tax increases,” she wrote. “When the President talks about simplifying the tax code, he’s made it clear that he’s not looking to cut your taxes; he’s looking for additional tax revenue from you.”

PAC Account

Palin, who has hinted at a possible presidential campaign in 2012, entered 2011 with $1.3 million in her political action committee’s bank account, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Palin raised $3.6 million last year for the PAC and contributed $463,500 from the fund to candidates during last year’s midterm election campaign. Since creating the fundraising committee in January 2009, she has reported $5.7 million in donations, including $3.8 million in amounts of under $200 apiece.

The PAC’s website last fall showed gun cross-hairs over the districts of several Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was wounded Jan. 8 in a shooting spree that killed six people. Palin was criticized for the cross-hairs and for some of her rhetoric.

The Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization, announced today that Palin would give the keynote address at a celebration honoring the 100th anniversary of former President Ronald Reagan’s birthday.

Palin will “reflect on the seminal speech by President Reagan, ‘Time for Choosing,’” according to the foundation’s press release, during her Feb. 4 speech at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, California.

The following day, former Vice President Dick Cheney will address the group.

Obama and Egypt

If you haven't been paying attention to the spreading issue in the Middle East, here is your primer

President Barack Obama warned the Egyptian government against using violence against anti- government protesters and urged President Hosni Mubarak to move forward on political and economic reforms.

“The government has to be careful about not resorting to violence,” Obama said, extending the same warning to “the people on the street” who are calling for Mubarak’s ouster.

In a town hall event conducted over Google Inc.’s YouTube, Obama said he has repeatedly told the Egyptian leader that he needs to be “moving forward on reform -- political reform, economic reform.”

While Egypt is “an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues,” Obama said, the country needs “mechanisms for people to express legitimate grievances.”

Clashes between protesters and security forces continued for a third day today in cities including Suez and Ismailia, both east of Cairo, sending Egypt’s benchmark EGX30 index tumbling by the most in more than two years. While the capital remained quiet, riot police have been deployed downtown since demonstrations on Jan. 25 in which four people were killed.

Adding to the challenge to Mubarak, opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei returned to Cairo and said he will join demonstrators in the capital tomorrow. ElBaradei, former head of the United Nations nuclear agency, has urged Mubarak to step down.

Warning Against Violence

Obama reinforced his administration’s message warning both the government and the protesters not to escalate their confrontation, saying “violence is not the answer.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs earlier today urged Mubarak to seize the street demonstrations as an opportunity to enact political reforms. He stressed that the U.S. isn’t choosing sides in Egypt’s internal conflict.

“This isn’t a choice between the government and the people of Egypt,” Gibbs said at a White House briefing. “This represents an opportunity for President Mubarak and the government to demonstrate its willingness to listen to its own people.”

The White House is prepared to step up its criticism of Mubarak, a key Middle East ally, if his government intensifies its crackdown on protesters, an administration official said yesterday. Obama privately pressed Mubarak in a telephone call last week to embrace democratic changes, the official on condition of anonymity.

Stocks Plunge

The EGX30 plunged 11 percent, the most since October 2008, to 5,646.50 at the 2:30 p.m. close in Cairo. That brought the two-day drop to 16 percent. The cost to insure against the country’s debt soared 38 basis points to 383, the highest since May 2009, according to CMA prices.

Obama chose Cairo University as the backdrop to a speech he gave the Muslim world June 4, 2009, where he pledged to “seek a new beginning” for the U.S. and the Muslim world. He cited the spread of democracy as one of the five friction points between the two cultures.

When Obama began discussing democracy, the younger members of the audience clapped and cheered.

“I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose,” Obama said. “Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

Earlier this month, protests in Tunisia toppled the government and Obama issued a statement that the U.S. “stands with the people of Tunisia.” The success of demonstrators there appears to have sparked a wave of anti-government protests, including demonstrations in Yemen.

Romney Wins N.H. GOP Straw Poll

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the first presidential straw poll of the 2012 cycle, kicking off New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary election race.

Romney won with 35 percent, beating second-place finisher Ron Paul by 24 points in the WMUR-ABC News straw poll of members of the state Republican Party. In third place was former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who won 8 percent—just one point ahead of Sarah Palin, who drew 7 percent.

Because Romney has such high name recognition here and has a home in Wolfeboro, N.H., he was widely expected to win—and observers here were far more interested in who would come in second and third.

Only three candidates—Romney, Pawlenty and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum—have spent significant amounts of time on the ground in the state over the past few months. At today’s convention, Pawlenty staffed a table to promote his new book while Santorum consultant and longtime New Hampshire operative Mike Biundo had a table and worked the crowd.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint each received 5 percent of the vote, while pizza mogul Herman Cain took 4 percent.

The remaining names on the ballot garnered fewer votes than Cain, the tea party favorite and radio host who has already announced his exploratory committee. Santorum received 3 percent of the vote—tied with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Losing to even Donald Trump, who took 1 percent of the vote: South Dakota Sen. John Thune and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who both received no votes.

The poll is a strong showing for Romney, who drew 39 percent support in a Jan. 7 NH Journal poll of likely New Hampshire voters. Noteworthy is how far ahead he is of Pawlenty and Santorum, the other two candidates who have spent significant time in the state in the past year.

“It shows that Romney has a core of support here in the state and they are obviously part of the party structure and they came out and gave him their support today,” longtime New Hampshire Republican consultant Jim Merrill, who ran Romney’s New Hampshire PAC in 2008, told POLITICO.

Biundo, Santorum’s consultant, told POLITICO his boss wasn’t worried about the results. “It’s just a straw poll. And it’s early,” he said, emphasizing that New Hampshire voters expect engaged candidates and are often swayed by unexpected underdogs who work hard.

Romney pulled off a win even as party delegates elected a tea party candidate for state chairman over an establishment Republican hand-picked by former Gov. John Sununu, the outgoing chairman. Jack Kimball, who lost the GOP gubernatorial nomination earlier this year, beat Cheshire County GOP chairwoman Juliana Bergeron by just 19 votes.

Still, the straw poll’s collection of tea party candidates collectively finished far ahead of Beltway favorites like Daniels, Huntsman and Thune. Taken together, Paul, Palin, Bachmann, DeMint and Cain represented 31 percent of votes cast in the straw poll.

The delegates gathered here at Pinkerton Academy were clearly more enthusiastic about the chairman’s race than about the straw poll: 421 people voted in the chairman’s race, but only 273 voted in the straw poll.

The straw poll is an unusual undertaking for the New Hampshire GOP, unlike Iowa, where the late summer GOP straw poll in Ames each cycle is organized months in advance, is widely publicized and is open to a much larger pool of voters.

SOTU: A Preview of 2012 Race

President Barack Obama will call for a "responsible" effort to shrink the deficit but won't offer detailed plans on spending and taxes in a State of the Union address Tuesday that will presage the broad themes for political debate through the 2012 election.

The president is expected to call for "shared sacrifice" from both parties, and to reach out to the GOP with a nod to possibly lowering the nation's corporate income-tax rate as part of an overhaul of the corporate-tax code, according to people familiar with speech preparations.

The speech and the Republican response are likely to frame contrasting philosophies that will drive political discourse for the next two years. Mr. Obama has chosen "competitiveness" and "investment" as terms to guide discussion over how to create jobs, daring Republicans to resist his push for new spending in areas that he will call vital to the nation's future. He will seek to wall off education, infrastructure, science and energy from cuts, in effect making them the ground on which the 2012 campaign is to be fought.

Republicans have chosen House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to deliver the State of the Union response. Mr. Ryan has outlined a vision of smaller, less-intrusive government, extending to popular programs such as Medicare, which he would turn increasingly over to the private sector.

Since what Mr. Obama described as his party's "shellacking" in November, he has tried to appeal to the political center by moving right. He struck a deal with Republicans on taxes and has been remaking the White House with deal makers from Bill Clinton's White House schooled in bipartisan outreach. He also has reached out to business with pledges to pare regulations and consult more closely on trade, taxes and "competitiveness."

The moves appear to be yielding political results. A slew of new polls have put the president's approval ratings at levels not seen since the pitched partisan battles over Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul began in August 2009.

In his address Tuesday, the president is expected to appeal for national unity and a bipartisan effort to grapple with festering problems, especially job creation and the deficit. He will point to the tax deal and other recent bipartisan successes, and say that momentum from last month's lame-duck session of Congress must not be squandered, officials familiar with the speech say.

The president will try to keep the deficit conversation in broad terms, fearing that detailed proposals would put Republicans, Democrats and Washington interest groups into a defensive crouch before real negotiations can take place, according to those officials. White House officials, for instance, have assured Democratic lawmakers that the president will not explicitly call for cuts in Social Security benefits, though he will say changes are needed to put the program on a solid fiscal footing.

At the same time, Mr. Obama will call on both parties to be prepared to put everything on the table. That means Democrats have to be ready to look at changes to Social Security, and Republicans to consider tax-code changes to increase revenue.

Both the White House and House Republicans are making the budget deficit central to their economic programs.

Republicans want immediate, dramatic cuts to domestic programs in Congress's annual spending bills. "We have to shrink government. We have to cut spending. And we need to really look to the private sector to grow jobs," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators are focusing on restructuring the tax code and entitlement programs such as Social Security, which could have more dramatic impacts on the deficit in the long run but would do little in the short term. White House officials say Republican calls for $100 billion in spending cuts this year would choke off the economic recovery while doing little in the long run to tame the deficit.

"The American people say, don't touch Social Security, don't touch Medicare, don't cut defense. That's 84% of the federal budget," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.). who is retiring when his term ends in 2012, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "If you can't touch 84% of the federal budget...you're down to 16% of the budget at a time we're borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend."

An administration official said late last week that a tax overhaul was expected to get at least a mention in the address, in the context of improving U.S. competitiveness. The U.S. currently has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, and is one of the few major economies that tax companies' overseas profits when they're brought back home. Mr. Obama and his top economic advisers have expressed interest in cutting rates to improve U.S. investment and exports.

On Friday, Jason Furman, principal deputy director of the National Economic Council, said reducing rates on corporations "could have meaningful benefits, especially in an increasingly global economy where business activity responds to tax rates." He also suggested that the White House will focus on longer-term proposals to redesign the tax system's basic architecture.

Such overtures and a renewed focus on fiscal matters have sparked hope that a comprehensive deal can be reached to reshape the government's finances.

"The president knows full well that we're going to have to cut discretionary spending right away, and Republicans know we've got to focus on structural changes to entitlements," Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) said Sunday.

But such an agreement won't be easy. Republicans are on edge over news that Mr. Obama will call for increased "investment" in areas he believes are necessary to keep the nation competitive internationally, such as education, infrastructure, scientific research and renewable energy.

White House officials see no contradiction on spending more in some areas while pursuing some short-term spending cuts and trying to reach a broad deal on taxes and entitlements. Republican plans to immediately cut spending, especially on programs funded by the stimulus law of 2009, would kill programs that have men in hard hats right now, they say.

GOP Draws Line on Spending as SOTU Draws Near

Congressional Republicans, seeking to recapture the debate over the country’s economic recovery in advance of President Obama’s State of the Union address, warned Sunday that they would oppose any new spending initiatives and press ahead with their plans for budget cuts in every realm of government, including the military.

In a series of carefully choreographed appearances on Sunday morning talk shows here, Republicans sought to draw the battle lines for the Tuesday night speech over government spending. With Mr. Obama planning to call for “investments” of tax dollars in specific areas like education, infrastructure and technology, Republicans insisted that “investment” was just another name for spending that the nation can ill afford.

“With all due respect to our Democratic friends, any time they want to spend, they call it investment, so I think you will hear the president talk about investing a lot Tuesday night,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “This is not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending in very many areas.”

Mr. McConnell’s House counterpart, Representative Eric Cantor, said that his party would demand “deep spending cuts” in all areas and that the military, an area of the budget that Republicans ordinarily view as sacrosanct, would not be exempt. “Every dollar should be on the table,” Mr. Cantor said in an appearance on “Meet the Press” on NBC.

The appearances laid the groundwork for a fierce clash between the Republicans and Mr. Obama over spending, the size and scope of government and the federal deficit; that fight could have profound effects on the path the nation takes as it emerges from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It occurs against the backdrop of the early days of the 2012 presidential race, as Mr. Obama prepares for his re-election campaign and Republicans position themselves to pick a candidate to challenge him.

Mr. Obama will use the State of the Union address to argue that government should be a tool for creating jobs and strengthening a fragile recovery through spending in areas like high-speed rail, scientific research, clean energy programs and college grants — a message that appeals to Democratic voters. In effect, Mr. Obama is trying to wall off those areas from spending cuts and is daring Republicans to defy him.

Republicans are insisting that spending is not the answer; with the federal deficit already estimated at $1.3 trillion and their base still up in arms over Mr. Obama’s health care bill, which conservatives regard as the ultimate exercise in big government, they are demanding that Washington make sweeping and immediate spending cuts.

“Our Congress is going to be a cut-and-grow Congress,” Mr. Cantor said.

The public itself seems split, or perhaps confused. Americans overwhelmingly say that in general, they prefer cutting government spending to paying higher taxes, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published last week. Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch millions of lives and are the biggest drivers of the long-term deficit.

The spending versus cutting debate is, in effect, a reprise of the fight Mr. Obama has been having with Republicans since the outset of his presidency. But this one occurs in a very different political context, with a divided Congress and a president who is trying to reposition himself as a centrist after the self-described “shellacking” his party took in the midterm elections.

Now, two months after Republicans won back control of the House and increased their numbers in the Senate, vowing to make spending cuts a top priority, Mr. Obama is himself doing better in the eyes of the public. Americans are showing the first hints of optimism about the recovery and are giving the president credit for working in a bipartisan way during the lame-duck session of Congress — sentiments that are reflected in his job approval ratings, which are inching upward.

Each side is trying to gain the upper hand in the spending debate. Where Republicans campaigned on a theme of deep reductions in federal spending, calling for $100 billion in cuts this fiscal year alone, Mr. Obama is trying to sell the public a more nuanced, gradual approach.

In speeches over the past several months, and especially over the last week, Mr. Obama has outlined an approach that emphasizes growth and competition and a slow easing of government intervention in the economy — as opposed to the quick pullback Republicans want.

“To borrow an analogy, cutting the deficit by cutting investments in areas like education, areas like innovation — that’s like trying to reduce the weight of an overloaded aircraft by removing its engine,” Mr. Obama said in a December speech at a community college in Winston-Salem, N.C. “It’s not a good idea.”

The debate will take center stage on Tuesday in the House, when Republicans are expected to take up a resolution calling for sharp and immediate cuts in a raft of domestic programs. The timing, just hours before Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address, is no coincidence.

Republicans are themselves divided over how much of the budget they can realistically slash. The leadership has already acknowledged that it would be difficult if not impossible to fulfill the $100 billion campaign pledge, and instead has suggested that cuts prorated for the balance of the fiscal year would be more realistic. Tea Party conservatives are pushing the leaders to stick to the $100 billion target. Now the leaders face the task of uniting the rank-and-file around challenging the president.

“The simple message is ‘We’re broke, and there’s a lot that America can invest in without having the government do it,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist who spent years as a top aide on Capitol Hill. “I think the point that Republicans and conservatives would make is that we have already spent way too much.”

Both sides are well aware of the budget battle of 1995 between President Bill Clinton and a newly empowered Republican-led Congress, which led to a government shutdown. Pressure built for the government to reopen, and Mr. Clinton was able to paint the Republicans as extreme and salvage his presidency, going on to win re-election.

For both sides, there are risks.

After two years of watching himself be defined by Republicans as a tax-and-spend liberal — especially after the bitter debate over health care — and alienating business leaders, Mr. Obama has lately been reaching out to the business community and delivering the kind of pro-growth message that will be the backbone of Tuesday night’s address.

The challenge for the president, who won plaudits from the public for cooperating with Republicans during the lame-duck session, is to convince independents and centrists of his fiscal responsibility without further alienating his base by seeming too cooperative or moving too far toward the center.

The challenge for Republicans is to press their case for spending cuts without appearing dogmatic and irresponsible. An early test will be the coming vote on whether to raise the federal debt limit — typically a routine step that allows the government to extend its borrowing power so it does not default on its obligations. But such a move makes the Republican right deeply uneasy, and Mr. Cantor said Sunday that Republicans would use the vote as leverage to demand spending cuts from Democrats.

A main player for Republicans will be Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the new Budget Committee chairman and Speaker John A. Boehner’s choice to deliver the rebuttal to Mr. Obama on Tuesday night. Mr. Ryan is charged with writing a Republican budget document to counter the one Mr. Obama will propose. In announcing the selection of Mr. Ryan, Mr. Boehner signaled his party’s theme for the coming months.

“We’re broke,” the speaker said, adding that Republicans intended to “end the spending binge in Washington.”

Delay Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has received a three-year prison sentence following his conviction in a money laundering and conspiracy case, the latest blow to the once powerful lawmaker.

DeLay was convicted in November on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay, who was forced to step down as majority leader in 2005 after he was indicted on the state charges, has long denied any wrongdoing.

DeLay is appealing his conviction, but the sentencing is a yet another remarkable development in the downfall of a politician who was feared in the House and earned the nickname “The Hammer” during the peak of his power.

State Judge Pat Priest sentenced DeLay to a three-year term on conspiracy, and then accepted 10 years of probation in lieu of a five-year prison term on the money laundering charge. DeLay faced up to life in prison following his conviction.

“I always intended to follow the law,” DeLay told Priest before the sentence was handed down. “I’m not stupid. Everything I did I had accountants and lawyers telling me what to do and how to follow the letter of the law, even the spirit of the law.”

“Judge, I can’t be remorseful for something I don’t think I did,” DeLay added, according to CNN.

DeLay will be released on a $10,000 bond while he seeks to overturn the conviction.

At the center of the money laundering case against DeLay was the claim by prosecutors that the Texas Republican and his political allies illegally funneled “soft money” in 2002 state legislative races, a violation of Lone Star State election law.

In Sept. 2002, an organization founded by DeLay, Texans for a Republican Majority, donated $190,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee, an arm of the Republican National Committee. TRMPAC made the donation to the committee in the form of soft money — unregulated donations from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. Federal candidates and the national parties cannot accept such donations at this time.

The RNC unit then donated the exact same amount in hard money — funds raised under federal donation limits — to Texas GOP state candidates.

Texas Republicans seized control of the state legislature that year for the first time since Reconstruction and redrew a number of Democratic-controlled congressional districts. That controversial move allowed Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional districts, resulting in the ouster of several Democrats and helping cement DeLay’s power in the House.

Three years later, DeLay was indicted by then-Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle for conspiring to violate Texas election laws. Under House GOP rules, DeLay was required to step down as majority leader, and the next summer, he resigned his seat in Congress rather than face voters angered by his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal. DeLay was never charged with wrongdoing in that case.

After years of legal wrangling, DeLay’s case finally went to trial in October. DeLay and his attorneys that such transfers like that between TRMPAC and the RNC were frequent during the period when soft money was allowed at the federal level, occurring hundreds if not thousands of times.

AZ Signs "Funeral Protection" Bill

Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed a bill to create a “funeral protection zone” to keep protesters from disrupting the funerals of those killed in the mass shooting near Tucson.

The bill was a bipartisan show of support for the victims, and it passed both chambers of the Legislature on a unanimous vote earlier in the day.

Senate Bill 1101 creates a “funeral protection zone” that bans protesters within 300 feet of a funeral service. The ban applies to one hour before, during or after a funeral service. A violation is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The bill has an emergency clause, which required a three-fourths vote of the Legislature but allows the law to go into effect immediately.

“This bill passed unanimously out of both houses of the Arizona Legislature and represents a truly bipartisan effort to assure that grieving families and friends will be free from harassment and intimidation at the funerals of their loved ones,” Brewer said in a statement.

Brewer also said that last year, she instructed the state Attorney General to join 46 other states in a brief at the U.S. Supreme Court filed in support of the right of grieving families to seek a civil remedy against those that choose to protest and disrupt the funerals of their loved ones.

“Such despicable acts of emotional terrorism will not be tolerated in the State of Arizona,” her statement said.

The Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas responded to the shooting by posting a video on the YouTube website, saying, “Thank God for the violent shooter.”

He vowed to have his band of followers picket at the funerals.

In the Senate debate, Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said he would vote for the funeral bill, but he was conflicted because “even idiots have a right to free speech.”

House Speaker Kirk Adams said the bill doesn’t trample on anyone’s First Amendment rights.

“Anybody has a right to say what they want to say in this country” Adams, R-Mesa, said after the bill passed the House on a 58-0 vote. “But we have a right to regulate the time and place (of such speech).”

The bill is patterned after an Ohio law that establishes a 300-foot protection zone around a funeral location from one hour before the event until one hour after it. The Ohio law was recently upheld by the Sixth U.S. Court of Appeals, which made Arizona lawmakers confident their proposal is constitutional.

Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, made similar comments.

“This is a balance of rights,” he said. “Your rights end where mine begin.”

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, a bill sponsor, thanked the Senate for its bipartisan support, saying “tragedy is not partisan.”

“We have to do what’s right,” she said. “I feel like we’re doing something to help Tucson. Families need to grieve in peace.”

The bill passed the Legislature in record time: One day from start to finish. It was a highly unusual move, brought on by the urgency of the Tucson situation. Funeral services begin Thursday.

The bill has an emergency clause, which required a ¾ vote of the Legislature but allows the law to go into effect immediately once Brewer signs the bill.

In addition, the Republican and Democratic parties in Pima County are urging people to help form a human barricade along the funeral routes to protect the victims’ families from Phelps and his small band of vocal protesters.

Members of Phelps’ controversial Westboro Baptist Church picket funerals to draw attention to the church’s anti-homosexual views. Members last month picketed the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards

Will Tragedy Spark National Debate?

The shooting rampage in Arizona on Saturday that killed six people and critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has sparked a national debate about incendiary rhetoric and the potential for political violence.

Giffords, who was shot through the head at close range at a constituent outreach event at a Tucson grocery store, survived the attack and was at a local hospital after emergency brain surgery. She was revived from anesthesia briefly and recognized her husband, astronaut and Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, before slipping back into unconsciousness, a source close to the family told POLITICO Saturday night.

Giffords was the intended target of the shooter, who may not have acted alone, authorities said.

Federal District Judge John Roll was among those fatally shot, along with Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman and a 9-year-old girl. In all, 19 people were hit.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said in a Saturday evening press conference that the suspect in custody — previously identified as 22-year-old Jared Loughner — “has kind of a troubled past.”

Authorities, Dupnik said, have “some reason to believe that he came to this location with another individual and there’s reason to believe that the other individual [may] in some way be involved.”

Dr. Peter M. Rhee, head of the trauma center at the Univeristy of Arizona’s hospital, said Saturday that he is “very optimistic about recovery” for the 40-year-old Arizona Democrat — though he did not say whether he believed such a recovery would be full.

The rampage shocked the political and law-enforcement communities in Arizona and Washington — not to mention Americans around the country, who sat glued to television sets waiting for definitive information among inaccurate early reports that Giffords had been killed.

In Washington, Capitol Police were on higher alert regarding lawmaker security, and the House schedule was postponed for the week.

Even as new details trickled out Saturday night, the story played out on television, Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere, quickly turning into a referendum on the state of American political discourse and igniting a heated discussion about the line between passionate anti-government anger and something more sinister.

Dupnik, the local sheriff, confronted that argument with startling directness and emotion in his news conference. He drew a line between the shooting and “unbalanced people and how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government.”

He addeed, “Unfortunately, I think Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

Members of Congress expressed shock at the shooting and concern for their own safety.


“One of the most critical requirements of a free nation like the United States is free and enlightened public discourse,” Michigan Rep. John Dingell, a 55-year veteran of the House, told POLITICO Saturday night. What happened in Tucson “is hardly consistent with the principles that you and I believe in,” he said.

Someone using Loughner’s name expressed anti-government opinions in YouTube videos, one of which, posted on Dec. 15, begins with the words, “My final thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner.”

In one image from the video, these words appear onscreen: “If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon. I define terrorist. … if you call me a terrorist then the argument is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist. Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is ad hominem.”

Another video calls the residents of Arizona’s 8th District – which Giffords represents – illiterate.

The suspect was “tackled” at the scene by “two brave individuals,” the sheriff said. Another official, Pima County Deputy Rich Kastigar, said that the weapon used was a pistol with an extended magazine — meaning it was equipped to fire more bullets than a standard clip.

As victims continued to be identified late Saturday, their profiles painted a portrait of the humble business of congressional district work. One of the dead was Giffords’ 30-year-old community outreach director, Gabe Zimmerman, who was engaged to be married. The 9-year-old girl, active on her student council, tagged along with a neighbor. Another, a 75-year-old pastor, was standing in line to talk to the congresswoman when he was hit.

Sources said Giffords’ district director Ron Barber was among the injured and was in critical condition.

Lawmakers have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the potential for political disagreements to turn to violence, particularly in the wake of volatile town hall meetings during the debate over the nation’s new health care law and campaign-year remarks by some candidates that were construed as tolerant of violence.

Then-Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who represents a neighboring Arizona district, fled a similar “Congress on Your Corner” event in 2009 when some of her constituents became verbally aggressive in demanding that she answer their questions about the health care overhaul.

On Saturday, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) told MSNBC that “angry” constituents can be unsettling to lawmakers.

“I have to say honestly there are times when sometimes it’s frightening,” Pingree said. “It can be a somewhat nerve-wracking experience.”

In a televised address, President Barack Obama called the incident a “tragedy for Arizona and the entire country” and said he had sent FBI Director Robert F. Mueller to the scene.

Obama spoke with Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Saturday afternoon. Boehner and his staff stayed in close contact with congressional leaders in both parties, as well as House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood.

Partisan finger-pointing began quickly, with some liberals pushing the idea that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had encouraged violence against Giffords by putting her on a “target” list for defeat in the mid-term election.


Palin issued a statement Saturday offering her “sincere condolences” to the families of Giffords and the other shooting victims.

“On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice,” she posted on her Facebook page.

While “target” lists are a staple of congressional electoral politics, remarks by other candidates, including Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, have come closer to encouraging violence outright.

During her campaign against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Angle discussed the possibility of finding “Second Amendment remedies” if Congress did not become more responsive what she believed to be the public will.

Media reports about the shooting were often conflicting on Saturday, and Giffords aides were forced to push back against news outlets that reported early on that the congresswoman had been killed.

Lawmakers expressed outrage at the shooting spree.

“An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve,” Boehner said. “Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country.”

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), speaking on MSNBC called the shooter a “monstrous degenerate.”

In the wake of the shootings, Capitol police warned that “all members and staff are advised to take reasonable and prudent precautions regarding their personal security.”

It was the first such attack on a member of Congress since Leo J. Ryan was killed when he led a delegation to Guyana to investigate cult leader Jim Jones. A Congressional Research Service report from 2002 identified 60 lawmakers who had died of reasons other than natural causes while in office — though most were the victims of transportation accidents or suicide.

Assassins have gunned down several sitting members of Congress, including New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, who was campaigning for president in Los Angeles, and Louisiana Sen. Huey Long in 1935.

Capitol police officers Jacob J. Chestnut, Jr., and John M. Gibson, died in the line of duty in July 1998, when armed assailant Russell Weston stormed past a Capitol security checkpoint outside the office of then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Giffords was a target of intimidation efforts during the health care debate: A brick was thrown through her district office window.

Politics and Violence Merge

A few days, or at the very least, a few hours – in an earlier era, people would have taken a breath before plunging into a remorseless debate about the political implications of an obscene act of violence.

Not in this era.

Within minutes after a gunman’s shots—bullets that killed a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and four others, and left a congresswoman clinging to life—activists of all stripes were busy, first on Twitter and blogs, then on cable television, chewing on two questions that once would have been indelicate to raise before the blood was dry:

Who in American politics deserves a slice of blame for the Tucson murders? And what public officials find themselves with sudden opportunities for political gain from a tragedy?

By day’s end, the argument that the political right—fueled by anti-government, and anti-immigrant passions that run especially strong in Arizona—is culpable for the Tucson massacre, even if by indirect association, seemed to be validated by the top local law enforcement official investigating the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D).

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government—the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, an elected Democrat, at a news conference Saturday evening. “And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

Some Republicans responded with indignation—why should the alleged act of an apparently deranged young man with a record of barely coherent, and only vaguely ideological rantings get charged to their account?

Others acknowledged what they called an unavoidable reality—flamboyant or incendiary anti-government rhetoric of the sort used by many conservative politicians, commentators and tea party activists for the time being will carry a stigma.

A senior Republican senator, speaking anonymously in order to freely discuss the tragedy, told POLITICO that the Giffords shooting should be taken as a “cautionary tale” by Republicans.

“There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now?” said the senator. “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”

The vast majority of tea party activists, this senator said, ought not be impugned.

“They’re talking about things most mainstream Americans are talking about, like spending and debt,” the Republican said, before adding that politicians of all stripes need to emphasize in the coming days that “tone matters.”

“And the Republican Party in particular needs to reinforce that,” the senator said.


The references to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 echoed in other ways. That horror, which killed 168 people including many children, helped then-President Bill Clinton stigmatize extreme anti-government rhetoric and re-energize his presidency at a time when Newt Gingrich and conservative Republicans were riding high in Congress.

One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

Another Democratic strategist said the similarity is that Tucson and Oklahoma City both “take place in a climate of bitter and virulent rhetoric against the government and Democrats.”

This Democrat said that the time had come to insist that Republicans stand up when, for example, a figure such as Fox News commentator Glenn Beck says something incendiary.

Conservative intellectual William F. Buckley denounced the conspiracy theories and darker rantings of the John Birch Society, this Democrat said, “but these guys don’t seem to be willing to do that.” Not long after the shooting, at about 10:10 a.m. in Arizona, some took to Twitter to note that Sarah Palin had targeted Gifford in symbolic crosshairs—plainly intending to target her for political defeat, not for physical violence. By the end of the day Saturday, a website showing a gunsight on Giffords’ and 19 other Democratic districts had been taken off line, though a Google cache showed that it was still posted as late as 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.

Some Republicans have scrambled to portray alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner as an unbalanced loner, and pointed to a high school classmate’s account that, four years ago, he had left-wing views. Democrats are framing his attack as the tragic-but-inevitable end result of a right-wing political culture that has become radicalized since President Obama’s election.

“Today we have seen the results” of “irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric,” former Democratic senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart wrote on Huffington Post. “Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage.” No politician – not even the most strident partisan on the left – is suggesting that any mainstream conservative feels anything but horror over the Tucson shootings. Yet assassinations are by definition a political act, and solo actors in the past have shaped American history on many occasions.

Loughner, it seems, was a deeply agitated, even paranoid, 22-year-old, not a tea party radical. But he was also politically aware – he referred on his MySpace page to Giffords’ 8th District –and acted in a district and state that have been defined over the last two years by the bitter immigration debate and against a backdrop of incendiary rhetoric and images of firearms at town hall meetings. This context guaranteed that this act of violence would not be viewed in isolation. Liberal commentators such as MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, who on a special Saturday evening show said he was sometimes guilty of over-the-top rhetoric, made an impassioned plea for more restraint and civil debate. But he also guaranteed that the political temperature would rise by devoting most of the show to the still-undocumented assertion that conservative political rhetoric helped send someone with a predisposition to violence over the edge. He called on a long roster of politicians like Palin and defeated Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle (who once spoke of “Second Amendment remedies” for conservatives to rein in Congress) to “repudiate” past rhetoric and demanded that commentators like Beck and Bill O’Reilly offer “solemn apologies” for giving “oxygen to those deep in madness to whom violence is an acceptable solution.”


Though they put it less stridently than Olbermann, many Democrats made clear in statements that they agree.

“I put a lot of blame on…the rhetoric,” said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a longtime gun control advocate. “You had some pretty high up political people saying, ‘Get your guns out –we’re going to take our country back’ —you have to be careful. Politicians have a very strong responsibility to be careful on what they say. We’ve got to tone the rhetoric down.”

Many of Giffords’ colleagues kept their statements focused on expressing their sadness over the tragedy and concern over her condition. But a subtle difference could be detected between the simple denunciations of many Republicans and some Democrats’ efforts to begin putting the moment in context, and to frame the episode as the result of a toxic political debate.

“This tragedy serves as a grim reminder that we, as a nation, must redouble our efforts to promote civility and respect for differing viewpoints in our political discourse,” said Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) in a statement.

A top Democratic strategist was less subtle: “He seems somewhat incoherent but does seem to be stridently anti-government,” the strategist said.

But Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, sought to preempt any attempt to link the rhetoric of the far-right with the Arizona tragedy, tagging Loughner as crazed.

“The best way to avoid politicizing it is to not make a political issue out of it,” said King. “It’s a horrible tragedy. From what we know it’s a deranged person, and I think any other discussion at this time does politicize it.”

Another House Republican went a step further, saying: “From what I can tell on the web this guy looks liberal. He’s definitely crazy.”

On talk radio, other conservatives did the same, emphasizing that Loughner seemed far-left.

But Republicans, too, are aware of the poisoned climate. Former GOP Rep. Jim Kolbe, who represented Giffords’ congressional district for 22 years before retiring in 2006, said in an interview Saturday that he increased security at his town hall meetings toward the end of his time in Congress when the debate over immigration grew more heated along the border.

“I never got through a town hall without a lot of very nasty things being said and a lot of shouting,” Kolbe said. “There has been a lot of emotion around the immigration issue.”

Kolbe said that by the time he retired “half to two-thirds” of his town halls were staffed by an off-duty police officer.

But he emphatically noted that Tucson should not be singled out.

“This kind of thing can happen anyplace,” said Kolbe.


The tone was set Saturday, though, by some of the hardest-edged Internet partisans.

Liberal blogger and activist Markos Moulitsas was even blunter, charging two prominent Republicans with egging on acts of violence, Angle and Palin.

Moulitsas linked to an image of Palin’s map, writing on Twitter: “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.”

Palin, for her part, released a statement saying that she and her family would pray “for peace and justice” and offering “sincere condolences … to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.”

But she also moved quickly to scrub her website of the imagery that had the Giffords seat in a gun’s crosshairs.

A spokeswoman for Palin, Rebecca Mansour, reacted to criticism of the former Alaska governor on Twitter with a brief message: “Politicizing this is repulsive.”

Though the afternoon’s responses were laced with politics, one veteran of Oklahoma City suggested the finger-pointing was just one response to the sheer trauma of the event.

“Everybody looks for motives. They can’t understand why someone would commit such an unforgivable act and they look for motive,” said former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who took office just months before Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building. “In the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, it was a left-wing motive. In the case of Tim McVeigh, it was a right-wing motive. In both cases, terrible things occurred.”

“I’m sure we’ll surgically diagnose this over the next few weeks and months,” Keating added.

For politicians, however – and most especially for the president – Keating pointed to the Oklahoma City experience as a model for trying to stay above politics.

“The most important thing for a leader to do is to embrace the people in a moment of tragedy and agony, to unqualifiedly say that this conduct is unforgivable and justice will be done, but in the meantime we have to hold together as a people and pray together as a people,” he said.

But of course Oklahoma City also illustrates how much more quickly the political culture moves than 16 years ago. Back then, the political debate did not begin in earnest until five days after the bombings, when Clinton in a speech in Minneapolis denounced conservative commentators with “loud and angry voices” who he said “spread hate” and “leave the impression…by their very words, that violence is acceptable.”

At the same time, Clinton political advisers privately embraced a ghoulish reality: The tragedy had been good for the president’s standing. Dick Morris, then Clinton’s top consultant, wrote the president a memo shortly after the bombing about how to maximize the advantage: “A. Temporary gain: boost in ratings. B. More permanent gain: Improvements in character/personality attributes—remedies weakness, incompetence, ineffectiveness found in recent poll. C. Permanent possible gain: sets up Extremist Issue vs. Republicans.”

1st Amendment and Tuscon Tragedy

Hold on, there, sheriff.

Before the crime scene had even been fully analyzed, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was quick to blame free speech after the horrific attack Jan. 8 in Tucson, Ariz., that left a federal judge and several others dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gravely wounded.

“Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that,” Dupnik declared in a press conference. “That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”

And in an interview earlier that day on MSNBC via local NBC affiliate KPNX, Dupnik said, as quoted by politico.com: “It’s time that this country take a little introspective look at the crap that comes out on radio and TV.”

The sheriff has company. The next day FBI Director Robert Muller suggested that threats posted on the Internet were also in the blame mix.

Gentlemen, do the names Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray ring a bell? How about Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Sara Jane Moore, John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman? None of those assassins and would-be assassins needed talk radio, TV political panels or Facebook to prod them into committing their vicious acts.

It seems rather irresponsible for elected officials to speculate on motivations for murder before an investigation is even two days old. What evidence besides their personal feelings do Muller and Dupnik have for their views? Here's some information from ABC News that they may not have considered:

A Pima Community College student, ABC reported, said he took a poetry course with with the suspect, Jared Loughner. "One day [Loughner] started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby," classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. "The rest of us were looking at him in shock ... I thought this young man was troubled."

Fellow student Lydian Ali, also remembered the outburst, ABC said. "A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber," Ali said.

Does this sound like someone tuned in to talk radio?

And let's drag Sarah Palin into this while we're at it. A political map on her website used rifle-scope symbols to "target" Democrats for election defeat in 2010. Sounds bad. But then you look at a similar strategy map drawn up by Democrats. It used bull's-eye targets, according to Outside the Beltway.

And President Barack Obama said of his political opponents June 13 in Philadelphia: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

Calls have gone out from political leaders to tone down the rhetoric. But how do we know when it's toned down enough? Is it true, as Sheriff Dupnik seems to think, that overheated rhetoric can cause deranged people to act out the dictates of their disconnected minds? What about John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Reagan in order to impress actress Jodie Foster? Was that Foster's fault too?

"Squeaky" Fromme was a disturbed environmentalist, Sara Jane Moore a militant civil rights activist. Did we blame inflamed rhetoric for their acts? Shouldn't we blame primarily those who commit atrocities, rather than any supposed climate of speech?

Nobody has proposed regulating speech yet as a result of this tragedy. But let's tone down the overheated rhetoric about so-called overheated rhetoric. Free speech should not be under investigation or on trial here.

In a profound irony, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' reading on the floor of the House of Representatives last week had a special resonance. It was the text of the First Amendment.

Scalia Weighs in on 14th Amendment

Justice Antonin Scalia has weighed in on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, leaving women's rights activists seething.

In an interview with California Lawyer, Scalia said that the Constitution itself does not protect women and gay men and lesbians from discrimination. Such protections are up to the legislative branch, he said.

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

This is not the first time Scalia has weighed in on the 14th Amendment as it relates to the protection of women's rights. In September, Scalia told an audience at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law that, "If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex...you have legislatures."

In 1996, Scalia was the only justice to dissent in the Supreme Court decision that ended the 157-year tradition of state-supported, all-male education at Virginia Military Institute. In his dissent in the case United States v. Virginia, Scalia wrote:

...the tradition of having government funded military schools for men is as well rooted in the traditions of this country as the tradition of sending only men into military combat. The people may decide to change the one tradition, like the other, through democratic processes; but the assertion that either tradition has been unconstitutional through the centuries is not law, but politics smuggled into law.

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