David Rubenstein gives $10 million to Montpelier, home of James Madison

Philanthropist David M. Rubenstein announced Saturday that he is giving $10 million to Montpelier, the historic Orange, Va., home of the nation’s fourth president, James Madison.

The donation comes on the heels of Rubenstein’s gifts of $5 million to the White House Visitor Center in September and $12.3 million to Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee, in July.

He also paid $7.5 million of the $15 million cost of the repairs to theWashington Monument after the 2011 earthquake.

The Montpelier gift, announced at the site, will fund reconstruction, refurnishing and archaeology at the plantation that Madison’s family occupied with its slaves for several generations.

Montpelier is about 90 miles southwest of Washington. Madison served as president from 1809 to 1817. When he retired, he moved with his wife, Dolley, back to the plantation where he had grown up and where his mother still lived.

David M. Rubenstein, pictured in this file photo, announced Saturday that he is giving $10 million to Montpelier, the historic Orange, Va., home of the nation’s fourth president, James Madison, who also helped write the U.S. Constitution. (Jeffrey MacMillan/Jeffrey MacMillan )

“I do believe that we should learn more about our history, and particularly history relating to the rights and freedoms that this country has,” Rubenstein said in a telephone interview Thursday night.

“James Madison, as a person who lived in Montpelier and was the father of our Constitution, I think making sure that more people know about him is probably a good thing,” he said. “I wanted to try to make Montpelier a more attractive destination.”

“Montpelier, like Monticello and like Mount Vernon, are homes of great American leaders from that era,” he said. “And more and more Americans, I hope, will visit them.”

Monticello was Thomas Jefferson’s home. Mount Vernon was George Washington’s home.

Rubenstein — the billionaire co-founder of the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based global private equity firm — has a passion for U.S. history and has made numerous major history-themed donations in the past.

He said he called Montpelier several months ago and asked whether he could visit. “I came down and looked around,” he said, and was struck by the story of Madison’s diligence, learning and behind-the-scenes work ethic.

“He devoted himself entirely to public service,” Rubenstein said. “He got things done.”

I Have a Few Words for Justice Antonin Scalia and His Ignorance About the Separation of Church and State

I’m not really sure if there are many people walking this planet who I have such utter disdain for as I do Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He’s an arrogant blowhard who has no business on our Supreme Court. But there he’s been for nearly three decades, since Ronald Reagan appointed him in 1986.

He’s a big reason why I’ve advocated that Supreme Court Justices should have limits on how long they can sit on the bench. It’s absurd to think that a justice could be appointed and rule for several decades. Not only that, but it’s nearly impossible to remove one from their position. They’re not elected and have almost no system of checks and balances. For all intents and purposes, they’re a group of nine dictators that wield power over the United States and there’s almost nothing Americans can do about it.

Well, during Scalia’s time on the Supreme Court he’s made it pretty clear that his personal views drive his interpretation of our laws. Not our actual Constitution. He’s often ruled against cases that sought to protect civil rights, women’s rights, equality for women and minorities.

In other words, he’s nothing more than a radical right-wing conservative wearing a robe. He defines what it means when someone uses the term “activist judge.”

Take for instance his recent comments where he essentially pissed all over our First Amendment, claiming that religion should be favored over secularism.

In One Sentence, Michele Bachmann Proves How Ignorant Republicans are about the Constitution

I often comment about how hypocritical Republicans are when it comes to our Constitution. They’re usually the first to stand on a pedestal and speak about the importance of “Constitutional values,” yet they seem unable to even grasp the basic fundamentals of what that even means.

And while most people with common sense already know this, Michele Bachmann perfectly showcased Republican ignorance about our Constitution in one sentence.

While speaking with conservative host Lars Larson, Bachmann said that gay people have “so bullied the American people and they have so intimidated politicians that politicians fear them and they think they get to dictate the agenda everywhere. Well, not with the Constitution you don’t.”

Though almost perfect, her next sentence really showcased true Republican ignorance about the Constitution.

“If you want take away my religious liberties,” she continued, “you can advocate for that but you do it through the constitutional process and you don’t intimidate and no politician should give away my religious liberties or yours.”

And that’s the sentence that shows the true ignorance Republicans have about our Constitution.

Advocating for equal rights for homosexuals isn’t “bullying” or “taking away” anyones religious liberties. It’s simply saying that it’s unconstitutional to discriminate against homosexuals based on religion - because that’s what our First Amendment says! 

First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..”

Notice the whole part about not establishing religion? That means it’s unconstitutional (be it on a state or federal level) to pass laws that are derived from religious beliefs.

End of story.

So, there’s no need to “advocate” to take away her religious liberties on a Constitutional level because the First Amendment to the United States Constitution already does that for us. 

What these “activist judges” and “lawless President Obama” are doing is simply adhering to the Constitution which says laws cannot be based on religion.

It’s also ironic that these judges, who are making rulings based on the Constitution (which the Supreme Court sided with when they overturned DOMA), are actually using the “constitutional process” for which Bachmann seems to be advocating.

But the real problem is conservatives like Bachmann just don’t like how reality is proving time and time again that their values don’t seem to be Constitutional. They long for a version of our Constitution that exists in their minds, just not in reality.

When ‘Religious Liberty’ Was Used To Justify Racism Instead Of Homophobia

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

– Judge Leon M. Bazile, January 6, 1959

The most remarkable thing about Arizona’s “License To Discriminate” bill is how quickly it became anathema, even among Republicans. Both 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called upon Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto this effort to protect businesses that want to discriminate against gay people. So did Arizona’s other senator, Jeff Flake. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Indeed, three state senators who voted for this very bill urged Brewer to veto it before she finally did so on Wednesday, confessing that they “made a mistake” when they voted for it to become law.

The premise of the bill is that discrimination becomes acceptable so long as it is packaged inside a religious wrapper. As Arizona state Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R) explained, lawmakers introduced it in response to instances where anti-gay business owners in other states were “punished for their religious beliefs” after they denied service to gay customers in violation of a state anti-discrimination law.

Yet, while LGBT Americans are the current target of this effort to repackage prejudice as “religious liberty,” they are hardly the first. To the contrary, as Wake Forest law Professor Michael Kent Curtis explained in a 2012 law review article, many segregationists justified racial bigotry on the very same grounds that religious conservatives now hope to justify anti-gay animus. In the words of one professor at a prominent Mississippi Baptist institution, “our Southern segregation way is the Christian way . . . . [God] was the original segregationist.”

God Of The Segregationists

Theodore Bilbo was one of Mississippi’s great demagogues. After two non-consecutive terms as governor, Bilbo won a U.S. Senate seat campaigning against “farmer murderers, corrupters of Southern womanhood, [skunks] who steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms” and a host of other, equally colorful foes. In a year where just 47 Mississippi voters cast a ballot for a communist candidate, Bilbo railed against a looming communist takeover of the state — and offered himself up as the solution to this red onslaught.

Jon Stewart DESTROYS Fox ‘News’ for Cherry-Picking the Constitution!

Watch Jon Stewart call out Fox “News” liars, like Eric Bolling, for cherry-picking the Constitution to suit their agenda.  In fact, as Stewart points out, the ONLY Amendment they seem to give a s**t about is the 2nd one.

Stewart brilliantly goes over the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th Amendments, showcasing Fox’s blatant hypocrisy in only insisting on the rigid interpretation of one; the right to bear arms.

Watch Jon Stewart destroy Fox wannabe constitutional scholars in this clip, courtesy of Comedy Central:

The Daily Show
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Atheist Sent To Jail For Rejecting God, In Blatant Violation Of The Constitution

The Constitution doesn’t apply, apparently, when it comes to atheists. Barry Hazle, an avowed atheist from California, has had his parole revoked, and you’ll balk at why. According to Courthouse News Service, Hazle rightfully sued his parole officer, several corrections officials with the state of California, and Westcare Corp. for revoking his parole after his “congenial” refusal to acknowledge a higher power in a required 12-Step Program.

Hazle said that he had already expressed discomfort with participating in religiously based drug treatment programs after a plea of “no contest” to a methamphetamine possession charge. Despite the fact that everyone involved knew he was was an atheist, Hazle was released from prison into a 90-day treatment facility, where all of the programs available followed the 12 step method, which requires the acknowledgment of a higher power. When Hazle refused to participate, the staff reported him to his parole officer, and he went back to prison for 100 days.

Hazle filed a Federal civil rights suit seeking damages for false imprisonment and other civil rights violations. San Francisco U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell found the defendants in Hazle’s case liable for civil rights violations. However, when he turned the case over to a jury, they awarded Hazle zero damages.

Hazle appealed for a new trial, and was denied. Finally, a three- judge panel of the 9th Circuit found that Hazle was entitled to damages in his civil rights suit. From Judge Stephen Reinhardt:

The district judge’s finding of liability establishes that Hazle suffered actual injury when he was unconstitutionally incarcerated. Given this undisputed finding that Hazle’s constitutional rights were violated, and applying the rule that the award of compensatory damages is mandatory when the existence of actual injury is beyond dispute, we hold that the district judge erred in refusing to hold that Hazle was, as a matter of law, entitled to compensatory damages. We therefore reverse the district judge’s denial of Hazle’s motion for a new trial.

I’ll say he is entitled. And if the damages awarded are something insanely small, we’ll know where this nation stands with regards to the First Amendment: it only applies to some. Then again, we already knew that, didn’t we?

Good Golly Gee!

More Proof Right-Wing Christians Don’t Care About The Constitution!

In Tennessee, right-wing theocrats on the Anderson County Commission voted to put the county’s motto, “In God We Trust,” on the outside of the county courthouse. Steve McDonald, Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church said

“This is people standing up for what they believe in.  We have a right to the democratic process and majority rule.”

Oh yeah? This is the kind of attitude the South had when it wanted to continue enslaving black people.  You do NOT have the right to shove your religion down our throats and offend the Constitution no matter how many of your kind there are!

Man dubbed the 'Fourth Amendment Flasher' settles with TSA, airport security

A man who stripped nearly naked to make a point about his constitutional rights scored a victory today after forcing airport personnel to study up on the First and Fourth Amendments, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Aaron Tobey, known as the "4th Amendment Flasher," was arrested in 2010 by the Transportation Security Administration and Richmond International Airport security after stripping down to his underwear - much beyond the point mandated by protocol - with a portion of the Fourth Amendment written on his chest in black marker: "The right of the people to be secure...against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Though charges were ultimately dropped, Tobey sued the TSA and the airport, and following a year and a half of legal proceedings the respective organizations involved have now settled. The details of the settlement read like an civil libertarian fantasy realized, and involve Richmond's airport security personnel being forced to brush up on American Government 101: "Richmond International Airport officials announced this week that their security officers underwent a special two-hour training course on the First and Fourth Amendment rights of passengers as a part of a settlement with Mr. Tobey," writes WSJ's Jacob Gershman. The TSA, as part of a separate settlement that likewise involved no monetary payout as originally sought by Tobey, appears somewhat less humbling. The TSA has "agreed not to appeal the ruling or further prosecute Mr. Tobey for interfering with TSA procedures," Gershman informs.

Is Your Congressman Co-Sponsoring A New Amendment Banning Gay Marriage?

There are 29 Republicans who just became the most anti-gay Congressmen in America. After the Supreme Court last week ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, Republican Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) introduced a bill proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would forever ban same-sex marriage across the nation. The bill now has 28 co-sponsors.

The bill’s introduction is a staggeringly stupid idea that could only come from a Republican, and only from a member of Congress. The bill is akin the the GOP’s 38 repeated attempts to repeal Obamacare — and it will never garner a supermajority of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, nor will it ever win the three-fourths majority of all state legislatures it requires to actually amend our Constitution, which is something that hasn’t been done — even in less polarized times — since 1992, and that amendment, the 27th, was introduced in 1789.
(To be historically fair, the 26th Amendment, allowing the right to vote at the age of 18, was introduced and passed in the same year — 1971.)
So, the Supreme Court rules that DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, is unconstitutional.
Two days later, Rep. Huelskamp introduces a bill that supposedly will amend the constitution to make only “one-man, one-woman” marriages legal, because, you know, religious freedom, liberty, and protecting civilization.
He picks up 28 co-sponsors — all Republicans, of course — for the bill, House Joint Resolution 51.
They are, alphabetically, per GovTrack.us:
Barton, Joe [R-TX6]
Bridenstine, Jim [R-OK1]
Brooks, Mo [R-AL5]
Broun, Paul [R-GA10]
Duncan, Jeff [R-SC3]
Fleming, John [R-LA4]
Franks, Trent [R-AZ8]
Gohmert, Louie [R-TX1]
Hall, Ralph [R-TX4]
Harris, Andy [R-MD1]
Hultgren, Randy [R-IL14]
Johnson, Sam [R-TX3]
Jones, Walter [R-NC3]
Jordan, Jim [R-OH4]
Lankford, James [R-OK5]
Meadows, Mark [R-NC11]
Neugebauer, Randy [R-TX19]
Palazzo, Steven [R-MS4]
Pearce, Stevan “Steve” [R-NM2]
Pittenger, Robert [R-NC9]
Pitts, Joseph [R-PA16]
Schweikert, David [R-AZ6]
Shuster, Bill [R-PA9]
Smith, Christopher “Chris” [R-NJ4]
Stockman, Steve [R-TX36]
Walberg, Tim [R-MI7]
Westmoreland, Lynn [R-GA3]
Wolf, Frank [R-VA10]

Where did that come from?

The teabaggers only like the second amendment everything else is expendable!

Representative Brings The House Down With A Single Sentence

Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims took a stand to stop House Bill 818, legislation that would prohibit state-run insurance from covering abortions. This would effectively ban any Affordable Care Act insurance plans from covering abortion costs. Translation: Lower-income women in need of abortions can't afford them. The quote of the year starts at 0:07 and ends at 0:16.