It’s Tuesday, January 17th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, it’s the “Law of Unintended Consequences” segment, courtesy of The Obamao’s overreach and the WSJ‘s William McGurn….

Obama Brings Back the Constitution

Thanks to his executive overreach, Americans take a renewed interest in our fundamental governing document.

Conservatives can be a grudging lot. That’s especially true when it comes to President Obama. Even where he’s been in the right—whether it be killing Osama bin Laden or promoting charter schools—we can be stingy with praise. So let us now, in full public view, credit his greatest public service as president: He is sending Americans back to the Constitution.

Yes, in the Bush years the air was also thick with accusations that the Constitution was being “shredded.” We now know that the professed concern for the Constitution was fake. We know it was fake because the same Bush claims of executive authority in war that provoked such apoplexy in our pundits, professors and politicos have for the most part been embraced by Mr. Obama—all to the distinct sound of silence.

Today we have a wholly different order of constitutional complaint. Where the accusations against Mr. Bush were led by prestigious law faculties and law firms, those against Mr. Obama reflect a more popular hue. Where the indictments of Mr. Bush were largely limited to war policy, those against Mr. Obama’s extend broadly to all areas of policy: foreign, economic and social. And where critics of Mr. Bush were obsessed with outcome, the discontent with Mr. Obama has been magnified by the uneasy sense that he is changing the fundamental rules of the game.

This awakening started with the tumultuous legislative path to Mr. Obama’s health-care victory. Along the way, Americans watching were given an education in words like “cloture” and “filibuster,” and saw the leaders of the Democratic House and Senate consider a maneuver whereby the House would “deem” the Senate version of the health-care bill to have passed without having to vote on it. That left a bad taste. (Not to mention the infamous….

It proved only the beginning. Since then, Mr. Obama’s aggressive disregard for any constitutional limit on what he wants to do has come to define his approach across the board.

On foreign policy, his State Department hires a Yale Law dean who roared like a lion when the issue was President Bush’s war powers but now offers the lamb-like justification for intervention in Libya on the grounds that the shooting there somehow did not constitute a war.

On economic policy, he fills his White House with “czars” to manage important aspects of national policy without the burden of congressional approval. Similarly, he invokes a ridiculous notion of Senate recess to prevent Congress from asking any questions about the vast powers of the dubious new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or its even newer leader. And the constitutionality of his signature achievement—the health-care law—is now before the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile on social policy, the same Supreme Court, ruling 9-0, rejects as unconstitutional and labels “extreme” his administration’s argument that the First Amendment does not protect a religious organization’s right to choose its own leaders. (Can anyone remember the last time ANY government case was unanimously rejected by the SCOTUS, let alone THIS particular court?!?)

If these issues were confined to the law blogs and law journals, they would make for lively debate. Yet Mr. Obama’s overreach has provoked something unique. This is the rise of a populist movement with the historically unpopulist priorities of making the federal government smaller and insisting on its constitutional limits.

The press has mostly missed this aspect of the tea party. (Talk about missing the obvious!) Perhaps some find it impossible to take seriously the idea that ordinary men and women might have a valid take on the Constitution. Certainly the champions of a living Constitution have done their darndest to load up judicial decisions with whatever gets them to their destination, whether it be evolving standards of decency, foreign law, or the ever multiplying emanations and penumbras of constitutional protections. In this way Justices substitute their own opinion for the law, as William O. Douglas did in Griswold v. Connecticut, where he discovered a hitherto unknown constitutional right to privacy. (Which, like a constitutional right to an abortion, exists only in the minds of Liberals.)

These all make constitutional disputes more complex. That complexity in turn contributes mightily to the conclusion that only the courts have the competence to decide them.

We are learning, however, that ordinary Americans who never before heard of the Commerce Clause are perfectly capable of grasping the argument that if the federal government can require a citizen to buy a product in the market, there’s nothing he can’t be forced to do. As Republicans head into their South Carolina primary, the preferred press narrative appears to be of a party riven by differences that are intractable. What this misses is the larger constitutional point on which Republicans are mostly united and by which so many are driven: that what’s at stake in the 2012 election is the process our founders gave us for resolving these debates.

When it comes to the founding document of the U.S. government, many of its teachers must go through life struggling to find ways to make its dusty clauses exiting and relevant. You can say Mr. Obama probably will not like where a greater public familiarity with the Constitution is likely to take us politically. But you can’t say the former University of Chicago professor hasn’t made it exciting.

And we look forward to the familiarity and excitement continuing to grow well into 2013 and beyond….with The Obamao and the rest of his band of merry Marxists watching harmlessly from the sidelines!

In related item, the first nail has already been set, poised and ready to be hammered into the coffin:

Obama Administration Taken to Court Over ‘Recess Appointments’

A right-to-work organization is taking the White House to court over the president’s controversial decision to install three new members on the National Labor Relations Board without Senate approval. The legal challenge came after the three new members approved a legal response in an existing lawsuit. The plaintiffs asked the judge on Friday to rule that their participation is invalid because President Barack Obama did not have the authority to appoint them.

“We asked [the judge] to consider the question of whether they are constitutionally seated,” said Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation. Without legitimate appointments, they can’t participate in the lawsuit, Mix told The Daily Caller. And without their participation the board does have the quorum needed to implement the new regulations that the foundation opposes.

Then there’s this from the Granite State:

Same-Sex marriage faces test as New Hampshire lawmakers consider repeal

The same-sex marriage movement is about to face a critical test, as New Hampshire lawmakers prepare to vote on a proposal to repeal the state’s 2009 gay marriage law.

With a vote expected on the House floor as early as Wednesday, foes and supporters of the law are clashing in a battle over whether New Hampshire will be the first state to reverse the tide of same-sex marriage with a legislative vote. The debate marks a sharp contrast to the landmark decision last summer to legalize gay marriage in nearby New York, the largest state to approve the unions.

“It’s very significant,” New Hampshire state Rep. David Bates, the bill’s sponsor, told FoxNews.com. “This will be the first place ever, anywhere in the world, where a legislature has reversed its position on same-sex marriage. … That hasn’t happened anywhere.”

Yet the bill’s chances are unclear. Republicans have an overwhelming majority in both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature, but not all Republicans are on board with Bates’ bill. And Democratic Gov. John Lynch has vowed to veto, in which case repeal supporters would need to rally a two-thirds majority to override the governor’s objections.

Bates said he expects the bill to pass the legislature, but that the “real question” is over the veto override.

This brings to mind a comment we made to TLJ shortly before the 2008 election.  We expressed to Jenny our worst-case, end-of-America-as-we-know-it scenario in which the Dimocrats gained control of the Oval Office, the House and a 60-vote majority in the Senate….and a complicit and compliant federal judiciary served as a rubber stamp for any law or policy they wished to pass, regardless of its constitutionality.

Frankly, our fears, while somewhat lessened, have yet to be completely relieved.  And if we’re thankful for anything, it’s that Team Tick-Tock pursued as aggressive an agenda as they did.  For if they’d approached the Marxification of Amerika less like a revolution, and more like acclimating a frog to water that will ultimately prove his demise, we might well already be boiling.

Following up on our earlier item regarding the Marines demonstrating their respect for Islamic terrorists, here’s….

Allen West on the Marines Incident: ‘Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell’

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends The Weekly Standard an email commenting on the Marines’ video, and has given us permission to publish it.

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

As Blogger Bob Lonsberry observed of one professionally-sensitive Pentagon p*ssy in commentary entitled….

You Pee for Me, Marine

“This is egregious, disgusting behavior,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby. “It turned my stomach.” Kirby’s branch of the service is not listed, but I’m guessing it’s Girl Scouts.

It turned his stomach? We are a nation at war. We’ve had thousands of Americans die. We’ve brought hundreds of thousands home with losses of limb and mind, and THIS turns his stomach?

That’s not exactly a warrior spirit.

No….but Kirby’s pusillanimous politica- correctness is only in keeping with the example being set at the top:

Backlash against Muslim soldiers?  Can anyone think of one….just ONE….single instance of a backlash against Muslims anywhere in the United States, let alone in the ranks of the U.S. Military?!?

Casey’s retired….but his servile spirit, unfortunately, lives on.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch with The Gang That Still Can’t Shoot Straight, the WSJ‘s thoughts as….

Huntsman Drops Out

A campaign with good ideas but an odd distaste for Republicans.

Jon Huntsman’s withdrawal as a candidate Monday won’t change the dynamics of the GOP Presidential contest, but it does hold a lesson or two about how to conduct a campaign. Such as: It’s hard to win the Republican nomination when you start out by attacking Republicans.

The former Utah Governor had an intriguing resume, an attractive record in the Beehive State, and the potential to appeal to the social, economic and national-security branches of the GOP coalition. Along the way, he offered his own solid proposals on tax reform and too-big-to-fail banks, and he was the only candidate to wholeheartedly endorse Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform.

Yet his agenda never had a chance to resonate because he began his campaign by agreeing with the political left that Republicans have a “serious problem” because they are too often “antiscience” on such issues as global warming and evolution. Mr. Huntsman had a conservative record but often sounded while campaigning as if he didn’t want to be associated with conservatives. This pleased the media because it reinforced their biases, but it naturally turned off GOP audiences.

Strangely for a man of his overseas experience, Mr. Huntsman also chose to run to the left of President Obama on Afghanistan and U.S. national security. This also lacks appeal in the GOP, save for the Ron Paul precincts that Mr. Huntsman had little chance of winning. In New Hampshire, where he focused his campaign, Mr. Huntsman drew mainly moderate and liberal voters, which is what an endorsement from the Boston Globe gets you.

Yesterday Mr. Huntsman offered a notably terse endorsement of Mitt Romney, who may pick up some of the former ambassador’s supporters. Meanwhile, the rest of Mr. Romney’s competitors are all staying in the race and may once again divide the non-Romney vote in South Carolina. Mr. Romney must be living right because he sure has been blessed by his competition.

We hope Huntsman finally finds his true calling: campaigning as a Dimocrat.  Hey, by many accounts, B. Hussein may be looking for a new running mate!

And in the Environmental Moment, courtesy today of the WSJ, we find the pot pretending not to be black:

Obama Discovers Natural Gas

Another election-year transformation.

A re-election campaign is a terrible thing to waste, and this year’s race is already producing miraculous changes at the Obama White House: The latest example of a bear walking on its hind legs is the President’s new embrace of . . . natural gas from shale.

Last week the White House issued its latest report on jobs and it includes a section on “America’s Natural Resource Boom.” The report avers that a few years ago there were widespread “fears of a looming natural gas shortage,” but that “the discovery of new natural gas reserves, such as the Marcellus Shale, and the development of hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract natural gas from these reserves has led to rapidly growing domestic production and relatively low domestic prices for households and downstream industrial users.”

Please pass the smelling salts to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Lisa Jackson at the Environmental Protection Agency.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the White House has favorably mentioned the Marcellus Shale, the natural gas reservoir below Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other Northeastern states. And now he’s taking credit for this soaring production.

As the White House report puts it: “Of the major fossil fuels, natural gas is the cleanest and least carbon‐intensive for electric power generation. By keeping domestic energy costs relatively low, this resource also supports energy intensive manufacturing in the United States. In fact, companies like Dow Chemical and Westlake Chemical have announced intentions to make major investments in new facilities over the next several years.”

And that’s not all: “In addition, firms that provide equipment for shale gas production have announced major investments in the U.S., including Vallourec’s $650 million plant for steel pipes in Ohio. An abundant local supply will translate into relatively low costs for the industries that use natural gas as an input. Expansion in these industries, including industrial chemicals and fertilizers, will boost investment and exports in the coming years, generating new jobs.”

We checked to see if someone slipped a press release from the Natural Gas Council into the White House report by mistake, but apparently not.

The report does add the obligatory disclaimer about hydraulic fracturing that “appropriate care must to be taken to ensure that America’s natural resources are extracted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner” with safeguards “to protect public health and safety.” But no one disagrees with that.

The catch is that this endorsement runs against every energy policy pursued by the Obama Administration for three years. The Institute for Energy Research reports that royalties from oil and gas drilling have fallen more than 90% since 2008 because of Interior Department permitting delays and rejections.

The EPA recently issued a flawed report on groundwater contamination that could shut down the fracking process the President is now touting as a jobs producer. EPA’s political goal is to grab power to supercede state drilling regulation. The industry regards new EPA authority as a real threat to its future.

Each year Mr. Obama has also supported a $40 billion tax hike on the oil and gas industry because, as he put it in 2009, the tax code “encourages overproduction of oil and gas” and “is detrimental to long-term energy security.” Even the Securities and Exchange Commission has imposed extensive new reporting requirements on oil and gas fracking companies.

It’s certainly smart politics for Mr. Obama to distance himself from the anti-fossil fuels obsessives, and no doubt his political advisers are hoping it helps this fall in the likes of Ohio and Pennsylvania. On the other hand, this could be a one-year wonder, and if he wins Mr. Obama might revert to form in 2013. (Like there’s any question?!?) A good test of his sincerity would be to replace Ms. Jackson and Mr. Salazar.

By the way, that’s not natural gas The Obamao’s discovered….

….just another enormous pocket of hot air!

On the Lighter Side….

Wrapping things up on a nautical note, in an eerie echo of General Casey’s Ft. Hood fiasco, the Costo Concordia debacle has FINALLY gotten serious:

Missing raised to 29 in Italian cruise disaster

No….it’s not the human tragedy; rather….

Italy’s cruise liner tragedy turned into an environmental crisis Monday, as rough seas battering the stricken mega-ship raised fears that fuel might leak into pristine waters off Tuscany that are part of a protected sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

Magoo