Shortly after President Obama took office, his opponents began combing through constitutional history looking for discredited ideas they could revive to block progressive advances. Many embraced tentherism, the belief that everything from Social Security to Medicare to national child labor laws violates the Constitution. Two conservative federal judges recently took this even further, suggesting that all labor, business or Wall Street regulation should be treated as if it were just as constitutionally suspect as Jim Crow or government-enforced speech codes. Numerous lawmakers, including Govs. Rick Perry (R-TX), Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Bobby Jindal (R-LA) embrace nullification, the unconstitutional idea that states can simply invalidate federal laws that they don’t want to follow. And, conservative orthodoxy now proudly embraces the ridiculous idea that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Missouri state state Sen. Brian Nieves (R) puts most of these efforts to shame, however. In a rambling, somewhat incoherent proposed amendment to his state constitution, Nieves combines parts of the most unconstitutional tactics revived in the last three years, and mixes them in with a fundamental misunderstanding of conservative legal theory. As the amendment’s summary explains, Nieves proposal provides that:

The state also shall not recognize, enforce, or act in furtherance of any federal actions that: restrict the right to bear arms; legalize or fund abortions, or the destruction of any embryo from the zygote stage; require the sale or trade of carbon credits or impose a tax on the release of carbon emissions; involve certain health care issues; mandate the recognition of same sex marriage or civil unions; increase the punishment for a crime based on perpetrator’s thoughts or designate a crime as a hate crime; interpret the establishment clause as creating a wall of separation between church and state; or restrict the right of parents or guardians to home school or enroll their children in a private or parochial school or restrict school curriculum.

The state is also required to interpret the U.S. Constitution based on its language and the original intent of the signers of the Constitution. Amendments to the U.S. Constitution shall be interpreted based on their language and the intent of the congressional sponsor and co-sponsors of the amendment.

Much of this proposal is utter gobbledygook. It’s not at all clear, for example, what it means for Missouri to “recognize” a federal law regulating emissions or punishing hate crimes more severely than others. So long as Nieves’ proposed amendment isn’t read to suggest that Missouri can somehow prevent the federal government from enforcing its own laws — something that would be clearly unconstitutional — much of the amendment’s text would actually do nothing at all.

Parts of it, however, call for outright defiance of the Supreme Court and other binding judicial decisions. The amendment defines a “federal action” to include any federal “judicial ruling.” So Nieves’ amendment is nothing less than an attempt to declare Roe v. Wade inapplicable to Missouri, in addition to any future decision ensuring marriage equality or any current decision enforcing the Constitution’s guarantee of church/state separation. Southern states tried to do the same thing to Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s. It wasn’t constitutional then and it remains unconstitutional today.

The most bizarre part of Nieves’ amendment, however, is its declaration that the Constitution must be interpreted based on the “original intent” of its signers. Leading conservative jurists, such as Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, abandoned this method of interpretation decades ago, and for good reason. The framers themselves rejected the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted according to their own subjective intentions, so Nieves’ amendment actually creates a paradox. Judges will be required to rely only on the framers’ original intent, but the framers’ original intent was that judges should not rely on their original intent.

Ultimately, Nieves’ amendment simply shows the unseriousness that far too many conservatives bring to the Constitution. His amendment is useless at some points, wildly unconstitutional at others, and seems designed to make judges’ heads spin as they try to resolve the fact that the amendment contracts itself.

Last Saturday, Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky delivered a homily in which he claimed that President Obama “now seems intent on following a similar path” to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Yesterday, Jenky attempted to walk back some of this claim:

“Based upon the current government’s threatened infringement upon the Church’s religious exercise of its ministry, Bishop Jenky offered historical context and comparisons as a means to prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions,” said Patricia Gibson, chancellor of the Peoria Diocese.

“Bishop Jenky gave several examples of times in history in which religious groups were persecuted because of what they believed,” Gibson said. “We certainly have not reached the same level of persecution. However, history teaches us to be cautious once we start down the path of limiting religious liberty.”

First of all, nothing Obama has done — including his recent policy guaranteeing women’s access to contraception — violates the Catholic Church’s religious liberty under the United States Constitution. As conservative Justice Antonin Scalia (who happens to be Catholic) explained in a seminal Supreme Court decision more than two decades ago, “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” In other words, so long as a law applies universally to the faithful and the non-faithful alike, it does not offend the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom.

There is absolutely no comparison whatsoever between requiring religious groups to follow the exact same laws as everyone else, which is what the United States Constitution calls for, and singling out particular groups for persecution or even genocide, which is what Adolf Hitler did. Jenky is simply wrong suggest that applying the law equally to everyone starts America “down the path” to persecuting the faithful.

Needless to say, Jenky’s initial suggestion that Obama in any way resembles two of the greatest mass murders in human history has not sat well with Jewish groups. Earlier this week, Chicago’s Anti-Defamation League demanded an apology from Jenky, noting that “there are few, if any, parallels in history to the religious intolerance and anti-Semitism fostered in society by Stalin, and especially Hitler, who under his regime perpetuated the open persecution and ultimate genocide of Jews, Catholics and many other minorities.”

The organization Faithful America launched a petition calling on Bishop Jenky to apologize for his initial comparison between Obama and Hitler. You can sign their petition here.

[HT: Nick Sementelli]

Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) unveiled the members of his task force assigned to investigate the effects of the state’s “Stand Your Ground” laws that have come under intense scrutiny and criticism in recent weeks after the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.

But critics were quick to notice some of the curious appointments made by Gov. Scott’s selection committee.

Take State Representative Dennis Baxley for instance. He was chosen as a member of the task force despite the fact that he authored H.B 249, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. His version of the bill was used by corporate front-group ALEC as a template for similar pieces of legislation that are now in the books in half the country. And in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Baxley has repeatedly defended the law.

Two other lawmakers, State Senators David Simmons (R) and Gary Siplin (D), were part of the state senate that unanimously passed the senate’s version of the bill. Rep. Jason Brodeur, another co-sponsor of the House bill, is also a member of ALEC. Of the four lawmakers appointed to the 17-person task force, all of them voted for or co-sponsored the Stand Your Ground law.

The task force’s bias towards supporters of the Stand Your Ground law is easily explained by the makeup of the selection committee responsible for choosing who would have a seat on the task force. Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll, who is also heading the task force, was a co-sponsor of the House bill and voted for it in 2005. As did fellow selection committee members Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon. Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford was not in the legislature in 2005 when the law was passed, but is currently listed as a member of ALEC.

Despite the strong showing by Stand Your Ground supporters and members of ALEC, opponents of the law appear to have been shut out by the selection committee. Local newspaper The Brandenton Herald reports:

Other Democratic lawmakers, including some from Trayvon’s hometown of Miami Gardens, expressed interest in serving on the task force as well, but were not selected or informed of a formal application process. Many of those lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to pass gun control legislation in the past.

During a bond hearing this morning in the murder case involving George Zimmerman, various members of the Zimmerman’s family testified that the killer of Trayvon Martin is not a security threat and should be released on bail. The father of George Zimmerman said his son always “turns the other cheek.”

During the proceeding, prosecutors revealed some new pieces of evidence from an affidavit of Zimmerman’s ex-girlfriend testifying that he attacked her. Media outlets had previously reported that, in July 2005, Zimmerman and his ex-girlfriend had a physical altercation.

While interviewing Zimmerman’s current wife, the state proscecutor read from an affidavit by the ex-girlfriend. She alleged in the sworn statement that he “pushed her,” then slapped her with an open hand to the mouth and “asked her how it felt.” She said he “picked me up and threw me on the bed” and then “grabbed me again.” Zimmerman’s wife responded that her husband was simply trying to “protect himself from being attacked by her.” Watch it:

Zimmerman subsequently filed an injunction against his ex-girlfriend claiming that she was the aggressor in the incident.

Defending his son this morning, Zimmerman’s father said, “I’ve never known him to be violent at all, unless he was provoked.”

The Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads Super PAC and Crossroads GPS 501(c)(4) organizations have the same president, same spokesman, same mailing address, and same right-wing ideology. Both groups can, thanks to the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org rulings, accept unlimited sums of money from individuals and corporations — a privilege they’ve wielded to raise $100 million for the 2012 cycle alone and to run millions of dollars worth of political television ads. But one key difference separates the two entities: disclosure. While American Crossroads must publicly identify its major contributors, Crossroads GPS does not make the names of any of its donors public.

A Center for Public Integrity analysis of the two groups reveals that of the combined $123 million raised by the two groups in 2010 and 2011, $76.8 million, or 62 percent, was secret money contributed to Crossroads GPS. That money came from fewer than 100 individual donors — meaning an average donation of more than $750,000.

Crossroads GPS has made more than $1.3 million in “electioneering communications” — independent broadcast ads referencing federal candidates, run shortly before an election — since its formation. While the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as McCain-Feingold) required that groups identify the donors who pay for these types of ads, a 2007 Federal Election Commission regulation effectively neutered this requirement.

A recent federal court ruling struck down that regulation, but the Commission has yet to implement the ruling and says it may appeal. It is unclear whether this ruling might force groups like Crossroads GPS to disclose their donors, retroactively. But, to this point, citizens have had no way of determining who is really behind these ads.

The combined $123 million raised in two years, it is worth noting, is more than Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) spent on his entire 2008 presidential general election campaign. And in addition, American Crossroads has already raised another $49 million in the first quarter of 2012, giving the Super PAC about $100 million for this cycle, according to Politico. Crossroads GPS only reports its fundraising totals once a year.

With giant corporations and billionaire activists dominating the airwaves and overwhelming the political process, Crossroads and similar organizations continue to show just how wrong the Supreme Court’s 5-4 majority was in thinking “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

Our guest blogger is Brendan Fischer, a law fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) works to distance itself from the NRA-bill it backed as a “model” adopted in dozens of states, it may be hoping that people will not continue to dig into the damage done by its long love affair with gun groups, like the gun-industry funded NRA and fringe groups with ties to white supremacists like Gun Owners of America (GOA).

GOA’s Executive Director is Larry Pratt. In the early 1980s, Pratt and the GOA were outspoken supporters of the white rulers in South Africa during apartheid, calling a press conference in 1984 to present “evidence” that allegedly tied Bishop Desmond Tutu to an effort to violently overthrow the white minority regime in the country. In 1990, Pratt wrote a book titled “Armed People Victorious” based on his study of death squads in Guatemala and the Philippines, and advocated for similar “citizen defense patrols” in the United States. The idea reportedly caught on in 1992, when Pratt addressed a three-day meeting of neo-Nazis and Christian Adherents organized by white supremacist Pete Peters. He shared the stage with a former Ku Klux Klan leader and an Aryan Nation official.

Pratt also held leadership roles in ALEC for many years. His relationship with ALEC began in 1978, when ALEC began an effort to oppose a constitutional amendment giving the District of Columbia full voting rights in Congress. When Pratt was elected to the Virginia State Legislature in 1981, he took a leadership position in ALEC. He sat on ALEC’s board even after he left the legislature, serving as its treasurer into the 1990s.

Meanwhile, the organization Pratt helped lead shared his passion for relaxing guns laws. For decades, ALEC quietly helped advance key parts of the gun agenda, including not only bills that may protect vigilante shooters but that also lead to more armed people on the streets who may cite laws like Florida¹s so-called Stand Your Ground or “Kill at Will” bill. ALEC’s agenda is detailed at the Center for Media and Democracy’s ALECexposed.org. Even though GOA left ALEC years ago, it was a long-time member and leader. GOA leapt to the defense of Florida’s law, ratified by ALEC, in the wake of the shooting of unarmed high school student Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.

GOA’s Larry Pratt hit the airwaves in defense of Zimmerman, the 28-year-old man who shot and killed Martin. Pratt branded 17-year-old Martin as “an aggressor,” based on the account of an alleged eyewitness who would only identify himself as “John,” and described Martin as having knocked down his attacker and Zimmerman acting in self-defense.

Cenk Uygur remarked on his Current TV program: “Funny how the kid with no gun is the one who, in your mind, gave up all his rights. But Zimmerman, the … stalker who called the police 49 times [in many cases] on black males…he has all the rights in the world.” Uygur also noted that no other witnesses corroborated “John’s” account.

Consider this, Pratt’s long-standing ties to white supremacists forced him to step down from his role as co-chairman of Pat Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign. Too radical for Pat Buchanan? That’s all we need to know.