Santorum Slaps Down Scarborough

RUSH: Some audio sound bites. John McCain, on Meet the Press, was asked by David Gregory: "You're worried about tone of the campaign. You've been in some nasty fights yourself politically. Do you think this is having a toll, this Republican primary?"

MCCAIN: This is the nastiest I have ever seen. It's a result of the worst decision the United States Supreme Court has made in many years, the Citizens United decision where you have naivete and sheer ignorance, uh, the majority, uh, of the Supreme Court, uh, just unloosened all mo -- released all money now.

Oh, folks, by the way, you gotta remind me tomorrow. On Saturday night, we watched Game Change. This movie... This movie is a joke! I've read the reviews of this movie by Republican conservative media people. They should have excoriated this movie. This movie is an outright embarrassment. It is so over the top! It's a cartoon that pretends to reflect reality! It was horrible. Kathryn walked out of it after an hour. It's a two-hour movie. She got up and left the room! This McCain sound bite made me think of that because it's about him and Palin and their campaign. This Citizens United Supreme Court decision, that's not the problem here. Money is not the problem in politics. Anyway, Santorum responded to this. He was on CBS This Morning today, and Charlie Rose said, "Senator McCain said that this the dirtiest campaign he's ever seen."

SANTORUM: Yeah, he should tell the guy, uh, that he's supporting to stop spending tens and tens of millions of dollars running negative ads. It's not Rick Santorum who's been running all the negative ads or even Newt Gingrich. It's Mitt Romney who's systematically just gone out there and run a negative campaign, has had no positive vision for this country, and spends billionaire dollars, uhh, to tear down every single opponent that's in his path.

RUSH: That happened in '08, too. And that's why there was the animosity for Romney back then. So that's Santorum's answer to McCain. "Hey, it's not the money; it's the guy spending it," is Santorum's point. "It's not the money. It's not the gun. It's the guy pulling the trigger." It's the same thing. But McCain has to say this. McCain-Feingold, campaign finance reform, all of that. But it's an absurd premise that the money is the problem. Then this morning on Scarborough's show on MSNBC, Santorum was again the guest, and Scarborough said, "Rick, just so you know, I've been critical of the focus on this issue of contraception. I brought it up to you today because we've talked about it a lot, and certainly now that we have you here, we want you to respond to it. Let's move beyond the issue of contraception. Rick, what are you doing?"

SANTORUM: Hold on one second. Go and come to any of my now almost thousand town hall meetings and let me assure you: I don't think the word "contraception" has ever come up. Let's just deal with reality instead of what the media trying to do which is to pigeonhole you and tell a narrative. We are losing our freedom. We have a government that is getting bigger and bigger. We have a group of elites who think they can run our lives better than we can run it ourselves. And unfortunately we have another candidate in the Republican Party, uh, who believes the same things as Barack Obama when it comes to the big issues of the day of government control of your life. And in specific, the biggest overreach of government and be that is in the area of health care --

SANTORUM: -- and on that score, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are the same. And that's what we can't have in this election.

SCARBOROUGH: Well, I have certainly talked about your focus on this in the past, and you've known me for a long time. Do you think I'm trying to pigeonhole you and stereotype you?

SCARBOROUGH: Why would I? I think my record on this in -- in Congress is the same as yours. All I'm saying is, it is a legitimate issue.

SANTORUM: Joe, the only reason I talk about this issue, as I said, is with respect to government mandates on people of faith. That's why this issue continues to be talked about and should continue to be talked about in the context of government forcing people of faith to do things that are against the religious beliefs -- something the federal government has never done and should never do when it comes to whether it's the Catholic Church or any other legitimate religion.

This is an issue because of Barack Obama violating the Constitution, acting without the authority to mandate that people who conscientiously object to these things must provide them. That's why it's in the news. It's in the news because Obama wants it in the news because Obama wants to be able to construct this phony Republican war on women. Nobody was talking about contraception until one of Obama's operatives, George Stephanopoulos at ABC News, brought it up in a question to Romney. It was in a Republican primary debate on January 7th in Manchester, New Hampshire.

It was not being discussed until then, and Stephanopoulos' question came literally out of the blue. And Romney said (paraphrased), "I don't know what you're talking about, George. This is silly. Nobody wants to ban contraception." Well, it turns out that Obama wanted to mandate that the Catholic Church buy it for everybody. If you want your own contraception, go down to Walmart and get it. It's five bucks or nine bucks. Going to do it! Why does everybody else have to pay for it? And where's the Obama get the authority to tell the Catholic Church or any other church or religious school to buy it for somebody?

Its an issue for the states to deal with

Nonsense.

That son of a bitch Warren in US Vs. Brown threw out the provision in Taft Hartley that required union leadership to sign affidavits that they were not communists.

As a result, union leadership is comprised of nothing but.

No worker in the US should be held hostage to unions period, compulsory union dues are unconstitutional under the first and 14th amendments, and the unions need to be stripped of their ability to steal money from workers paychecks on a national and State level.

FORCED UNIONISM IS NO DIFFERENT THAN SLAVERY

If the workers love unions so much they will be happy to voluntarily send them dues.

Criminalize Government employee unions, blatantly illegal mechanisms for raping taxpayers by bribing leftist politicians with money and votes in exchange for unsustainable compensation and benefits.

There’s nothing patently illegal about a POTUS issuing an executive order immediately ending withholding of union dues nationwide, and ordering the National Labor Relations Board to get a Federal Court Order enforcing the Presidents decision

Lets fight it out in the courts, and lets make it a campaign issue, with the promise to end compulsory withholding of union dues one of the first acts of a new GOP Administration.

Its stupid to allow the left (Communists) to use the same mechanism the IRS uses to fund themselves.

U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. BROWN, 381 U.S. 437 (1965) 381 U.S. 437

UNITED STATES v. BROWN. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. No. 399.

Argued March 29, 1965.

Decided June 7, 1965.

Respondent was convicted under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for one who belongs to the Communist Party or who has been a member thereof during the preceding five years wilfully to serve as a member of the executive board of a labor organization. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding 504 violative of the First and Fifth Amendments. Held: Section 504 constitutes a bill of attainder and is therefore unconstitutional. Pp. 441-462.

(a) The Bill of Attainder Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 3, was intended to implement the separation of powers among the three branches of the Government by guarding against the legislative exercise of judicial power. Pp. 441-446.

(b) The Bill of Attainder Clause is to be liberally construed in the light of its purpose to prevent legislative punishment of designated persons or groups. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333; United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 . Pp. 447-449.

(c) In designating Communist Party members as those persons who cannot hold union office, Congress has exceeded its Commerce Clause power to enact generally applicable legislation disqualifying from positions affecting interstate commerce persons who may use such positions to cause political strikes. Pp. 449-452.

(d) Section 504 is distinguishable from such conflict-of-interest statutes as 32 of the Banking Act, where Congress was legislating with respect to general characteristics rather than with respect to the members of a specific group. Pp. 453-455.

(e) The designation of Communist Party membership cannot be justified as an alternative, “shorthand” expression for the characteristics which render men likely to incite political strikes. Pp. 455-456.

(f) A statute which inflicts its deprivation upon named or described persons or groups constitutes a bill of attainder whether its aim is retributive, punishing past acts, or preventive, discouraging future conduct. In American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 , where the Court upheld 9 (h) of the National [381 U.S. 437, 438] Labor Relations Act, the predecessor of 504, the Court erroneously assumed that only a law visiting retribution for past acts could constitute a bill of attainder, and misread the statute involved in United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 , which it sought to distinguish from 9 (h), as being in that category. Pp. 456-460.

(g) The legislative specification of those to whom the enacted sanction is to apply invalidates a provision as a bill of attainder whether the individuals are designated by name as in Lovett or by description as here. Pp. 461-462.

334 F.2d 488, affirmed.

Solicitor General Cox argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Yeagley, Nathan Lewin, Kevin T. Maroney and George B. Searls.

Richard Gladstein argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Norman Leonard.

Briefs of amici curiae, urging affirmance, were filed by Melvin L. Wulf for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California et al., and by Victor Rabinowitz and Leonard B. Boudin for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case we review for the first time a conviction under 504 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, which makes it a crime for a member of the Communist Party to serve as an officer or (except in clerical or custodial positions) as an employee of a labor union. 1 Section 504, the purpose of which is to protect [381 U.S. 437, 439] the national economy by minimizing the danger of political strikes, 2 was enacted to replace 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act, which conditioned a union’s access to the National Labor Relations Board upon the filing of affidavits by all of the union’s officers attesting that they were not members of or affiliated with the Communist Party. 3 [381 U.S. 437, 440]

Respondent has been a working longshoreman on the San Francisco docks, and an open and avowed Communist, for more than a quarter of a century. He was elected to the Executive Board of Local 10 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union for consecutive one-year terms in 1959, 1960, and 1961. On May 24, 1961, respondent was charged in a one-count indictment returned in the Northern District of California with “knowingly and wilfully serv[ing] as a member of an executive board of a labor organization . . . while a member of the Communist Party, in wilful violation of Title 29, United States Code, Section 504.” It was neither charged nor proven that respondent at any time advocated or suggested illegal activity by the union, or proposed a political strike. 4 The jury found respondent guilty, and he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed and remanded with instructions to set aside the conviction and dismiss the indictment, holding that 504 violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. 334 F.2d 488. We granted certiorari, 379 U.S. 899 .

Respondent urges - in addition to the grounds relied on by the court below - that the statute under which he was convicted is a bill of attainder, and therefore violates Art. I, 9, of the Constitution. 5 We agree that 504 is void as a bill of attainder and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals on that basis. We therefore find it unnecessary to consider the First and Fifth Amendment arguments. [381 U.S. 437, 441]

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