Mark Steyn, at NRO, has this to say about Ann Coulter’s recent Kafkaesque experience in Canada:

A couple of days ago, I mentioned François Houle, the leftist apparatchik and provost of the University of Ottawa who threatened Ann Coulter with criminal prosecution before she’d even set foot on Canadian soil.

M. Houle warned Miss Coulter not to “promote hatred.” As this young lady points out in her report from the university, the only hate-promoter here is the buffoon Houle, whose barely veiled threats led to a gang of menacing Houligans (le mot juste) getting the event closed down. Alliances between the state’s ideological commissars and street mobs are a familiar feature of certain kinds of societies, and I suppose Canada will soon get used to its membership of this unlovely club. Ann Coulter says of her experience in the Great White North: (more…)

The Citizens United decision is a powerful rebuke to the forces that believe our Constitution is less a solid foundation of our democracy then a political pretzel to be bent and twisted into any form the politicians choose.  Sadly, far too many journalists and other people who really should know better blindly accept this bizarre vision of our founding documents.  They allow themselves to be seduced by the notion that the foundations of our democracy are actually barriers to “progress” that can simply wished away instead of firm principles that, if they are to be changed at all, can be amended only with the overwhelming and express consent of the governed.

The Left often argues that the Constitution is a “living” document, by which they really mean that the plain text is irrelevant and that over time the Constitution’s provisions inevitably morph into – surprise – something that just happens to correspond exactly to their precise policy preferences.  And so the “Living Constitution” grows, but less like a mighty oak than a patch of weeds.  Take the Commerce Clause, originally drafted to allow the federal government to control trade between the states but today a bloated behemoth that provides an excuse for every Congressional power grab that comes down the pike — including, if Nancy Pelosi is to be believed, “health care reform.” (more…)