Tag: Courts

Stop using tragedies to justify unjust new laws

Predicted that after the last horrific attack there would be a push for new laws….some want laws governing guns….while others are worried about the influx of refugees…..even some worried that a persons religion should be controlled somehow….or my fave…..new laws to limit our right to privacy or assembly…..

As typical the toads never want to waste a good tragedy to find ways to enact new laws of some sort….after some horrific attack the politicians sprint to the closest news outlet and start calling for this action or that…..

From gun control enthusiasts to Donald Trump, everyone’s living by Rahm Emanuel’s maxim these days.

In the wake of tragedy, calls to “do something” can be deafening. And since politicians never want a serious crisis to go to waste—if I can borrow the infamous phrasing of Rahm Emanuel—our government is always ready and willing to respond to these calls.

Trouble is, there’s usually a reason these post-crisis policies were previously nonstarters: they’re not good ideas.

Laws made in terror, anger, and despair appeal more to our emotions than our common sense. They tend to ride roughshod over individual rights and the limits of the Constitution. They are often unjust and ill-considered, which is (understandably) difficult to see through our tears.

Source: Stop using tragedies to justify unjust new laws – Rare

If these laws are just then why does it take a tragedy for them to be proposed?

Is it just a game?

Keystone: Resurrecting The Dead

For a couple of years there was an amazing debate about the Keystone XL pipeline….you know the one…..it would carry Canadian oil from Northern Canada through the US to Houston for import to China and other points of call…

Toward the end of last year Obama put the screws to the Keystone project……

Just ahead of the president’s big speech on climate change, the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein breaks the news that President Obama will ask Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone XL pipeline if State finds the pipeline increases carbon emissions. It’s huge news that took environmentalists completely by surprise. They didn’t expect the president to address Keystone in his speech — he’s avoided discussing the pipeline at all since issuing an executive order to have State study the environmental impact some time ago.

(Salon.com)

With the announcement the peasants (environmentalists) danced…..a victory…..finally a victory!  Got another think coming…….

Now this brings me to NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement…..that worthless piece of crap that Clinton signed into law that has made so much inequality possible….. just what does this have to do with the Keystone?  You might query…….

News breaking today that Canada will take the US to court using NAFTA to re-start the project……

TransCanada could file a complaint against the U.S. if the Obama administration rejects its Keystone XL pipeline, thanks to a North American Free Trade Agreement provision that allows foreign firms to challenge the U.S. on decisions that threaten investments, President and CEO Russ Girling said. Observers say the company can make a strong argument against the U.S. under the international law. However, Shawn Howard, team lead for issues management and media relations at TransCanada, said the company is focusing its efforts on getting approval for the project instead of pursuing such a move.

If the court decides in Canada’s favor you may all thank Bill Clinton for giving them the ammunition to help destroy the environment of the US if there is a disaster……but they will not ….in the end it will be Obama’s fault….just like everything else happening in the country today…..

I thought that any celebrations was a bit premature…..and apparently I was right…..

Perversion Made Legal

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece about a local phenom, more like a perversion, that was made legal by a local court in Mass…..that perversion was the need to snap up skirt shots of women in public places.  Back then I question the need for this perversion to be defined…..well it seems that it went through the court system and has been upheld again…….for now a person can stand in a prime location and snap pics up the skirts of passing women….I know….I know….WTF?

A Virginia man caught taking photos of women’s “private areas” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was doing something “repellant and disturbing”—but not illegal, says a female judge in Virginia. DC Superior Court Judge Juliet McKenna dismissed voyeur charges against Christopher Cleveland of Springfield, Va., who got stopped by US Park Police last year after they spotted him taking photos of women on the steps above him, reports WJLA-TV. Officers found scores of photos of women’s crotches and buttocks on his camera and computer, but the judge said that they weren’t illegal and that officers had no authority to search his camera, reports the Washington Post.

“This Court finds that no individual clothed and positioned in such a manner in a public area in broad daylight in the presence of countless other individuals could have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” wrote McKenna. What’s more, “there is no evidence Mr. Cleveland positioned his camera in any way or employed photographic techniques or illumination, so as to capture images that were not already on public display.” In other words: creepy but not criminal. A subway rider in Massachusetts was let off the hook on similar charges.

Is it just me or is this just legalizing creepy behavior?  Or is it just creepy that the courts are basically condoning this perversion?

Please I would like to hear from everybody on this situation.

Once Is All It Takes

Opinion from the desk of the Editor:

 

The situation in Ferguson has brought up a few points that few people are paying attention to at this time……and could most likely not give damn in the last place…..that would be the running total the cops give the media daily of the number of arrests.

I have heard that the US is a place for second chances….do you believe that manure?  It is not!  Though the idea makes great news fodder for the MSM…….Americans punish people for their digressions of the past….especially when it is about an arrest that someone may have had in their past……

(Newser) – Whether you were charged with a crime or not, an arrest at a young age could haunt you for life. And that’s something that should concern quite a few of us: About a third of American adults—some 77.7 million people—have criminal records on the FBI’s database, and they can be very difficult to wipe clean, the Wall Street Journal reports. Just half of those records are up to date, meaning they might not include information on charges being dropped or never levied.

“There is a myth that if you are arrested and cleared that it has no impact,” says a Georgetown law professor. Not so, as the Journal reveals in several personal stories:

  • Precious Daniels, 39, of Detroit, was arrested over disorderly conduct in a 2009 protest. The charge was dropped, but when she applied for a Census Bureau job, the Bureau noticed her arrest. She was unable to prove she hadn’t been convicted because, she says, the courthouse said it had no record of her case.
  • One Jose Hernandez was arrested for sexual assault in 2012; thing is, he was the wrong Jose Hernandez. Charges were dropped, but he still had to pay $22,500 in bail and hire a lawyer to have his record expunged. “Needless to say, that hasn’t happened yet,” he says. His family is still paying off loans related to the case.
  • Barbara Ann Finn, 74, ran into trouble when she applied for part-time school cafeteria work. The school district in Maryland said her fingerprints matched FBI records. It’s unclear why, but she has a theory: In 1963, she was with a friend who was shoplifting. Finn was taken into custody, released, and “never thought any more about it.” Documents show she wasn’t charged, but she hasn’t been able to have the record expunged because—as in Daniels’ case—local officials can’t seem to find it.

Click for the Journal‘s full story.

With our form of “justice” you are not innocent until proven guilty only in the minds of mental midgets…..when arrested you are paraded before the press as a convicted person and it stays with you throughout your life…yes even if you are proven innocent.

Take a person that is arrested as a child pornography….they are paraded to the press who runs story after story on the subject and the person….and then when the person is found to but not guilty nothing is written or broadcast on their behalf……the person is screwed for the rest of their life.  The person may be innocent but the community has convicted them and that is where it is at.

So one arrest is all it takes to destroy a person and their chance for a normal life.

And we call it JUSTICE!

A Win In Mississippi?

From time to time I will write about situations in my state, Mississippi…….it has always been a poor state and in my opinion it is poor for one reason and one reason only……conservative politics.

Awhile back Mississippians voted down the personhood BS of the GOP….that was a win and then the ultra-conservs set about making it impossible for any abortion clinics to remain open by using a tactic of “emitting privileges”……it worked along with some “standards” that are not required by any other medical clinic….again trying desperately to close the one remaining abortion clinic in the state……but with all this effort by the conservs someone crapped on their parade…….

(Newser) – A law that would have forced the only abortion clinic in Mississippi to close appears doomed after a federal court ruled against it once again. An appeals court panel decided 2-1 that State House Bill 1390, which requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, would shift Mississippi’s constitutional obligations onto other states by forcing the Jackson clinic to close, CNN reports. “Pre-viability, a woman has the constitutional right to end her pregnancy by abortion,” but the law “effectively extinguishes that right within Mississippi’s borders,” the judges wrote.

The court didn’t strike down the law itself, but “I think the way they ruled on those arguments essentially dooms the law,” a constitutional law expert tells Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger. He describes the ruling as a huge victory for the Jackson clinic, where doctors had been denied admitting privileges by all seven hospitals within a 30-minute drive. Gov. Phil Bryant—who said he wanted the state to be “abortion-free” when he signed the bill into law—says he’s disappointed by the ruling and wants the case to go in front of the entire court instead of a “divided panel of judges.” A similar law goes into effect in Louisiana on Sept. 1, and legal experts believe it won’t face the same issues as the Mississippi law because at least one of the state’s five abortion clinics will be able to remain open, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

But never fear…..the Right is NOT finished…..I am sure they will find yet another BS issue to use to try and close that one remaining clinic…..but for now…..it is a victory for choice.

Are We A Country Of Legal Rights?

Daily Agitator

I am sure that this will get some people’s dander up….but keep in mind that I am NOT making a call on guilt or innocence…….

I was not gonna post anymore on the Anthony trial but since the media has turned this into a three ring circus….I feel I must!

We Americans are proud of our country especially because of our rights and freedoms, at least that is what we are told to be proud of daily, but (there seems to to always a but) there are times that I have a hard time understanding the thinking…..Americans are an emotional people, and at times act in a contrary way than what the Constitution and such say…….

By now everyone with hearing knows that Casey Anthony was been found not guilty of murder….my most appreciative thing about the trial was listening to Nancy Grace self destruct and her head explode at the verdict, that aside….I do not post too often on gossipy crap but this time I will make an exception……

People are all over the media saying what a travesty of justice has been done……of course these are all personal opinions….but look at from a legal point of view and leave the media induced emotionalism behind……the prosecution did not prove its case beyond a shadow of doubt…..is that not what our laws say…..innocent until proven guilty?  The prosecution did not prove its case on her guilt.  That should be enough for the citizens, but instead the media has turned this into a circus for the sake of ratings…..I am not voicing my opinion on whether she is guilty or not, my opinion is just that MINE, I am however saying that because were are a nation of laws and procedures and after a trial of her peers she was found to be not guilty and that should be enough for the people….the system worked the way it was designed to work…..

All the hysteria and emotions that have been poured out by the people is disgusting…….there have even been death threats and physical harm threats against the people on the jury because they did NOT find this person guilty……they did not act the way that the media wanted and so now we have every nut job being trotte3d out to a mic so we can hear what the media wants us to hear….this is unacceptable….if these dirt bags want to harm someone then go after the prosecution, because they did not make their case…..but leave the people on the jury alone…..

And why do all these people think Anthony is guilty?  Basically, because the media made the case against her few of the hysterical people were in the courtroom to hear the evidence so they are talking smack brought on by the media……

Like I said earlier, I am NOT making a judgment on the verdict or the guilt of the person…I am speaking from a purely analytical point of view…..my biggest bitch is that the media has the power to convict a person even before a trial and then has the power to question the verdict to the point that Americans go bat shit crazy and will possibly break the law…if so, where does that serve the public’s best interests?

Are You Sure We Are Talking About Iowa?

The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday finding that the state’s same-sex-marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where marriage is legal.

In its decision, the court upheld a 2007 district court judge’s ruling that the law violates the state constitution. It strikes the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman.

“The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa constitution must be declared void even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion,” said a summary of the ruling issued by the court.

Are you sure we are talking about Iowa?  A unanimous decision?  All the others like New Hampshire or California were split decisions, but Iowa?

This is a great civil rights victory for gays and will be interesting to see where it will lead.  Will other states follow suit?

This Is Just Pathetic!

I heard of this and I tried to ignore it for as long as I could.  But thanks to the media and Conserv a/holes and their emails, I feel I must comment.

Among those filing lawsuits is Alan Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. Keyes’ lawsuit seeks to halt certification of votes in California. Another lawsuit by a Kentucky man aims to have a federal judge review Obama’s original birth certificate, which Hawaiian officials say is locked in a state vault.

Other lawsuits have been filed by Andy Martin, whose case was dismissed in Hawaii, and by an Ohio man whose case also was dismissed.

The most famous case questioning Obama’s citizenship was filed in Pennsylvania in August on behalf of Philip J Berg and sought to enjoin the Democratic National Committee from nominating Obama. The Supreme Court declined to accept the case. Earlier, a federal judge rejected it for “lack of standing”, ruling that Berg had no legal right to sue.

In cases like these, judges sometimes believe the matter is best left to political institutions, such as the Electoral College or Congress, said legal scholar Eugene Volokh of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The remaining case with the highest profile is Donofrio v Wells. Since it was distributed by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to other justices for conference, the case gained undue importance for people unschooled in how the court works, Volokh said.

Is it about time for these morons to return to their holes and go back to sleep….Enough is Enough!  This is wasting the time and money of the courts.  OKay let them continue and if it is not resolved in their favor they pay ALL court expenses.  And in return, they will be shown to be in error and subject to a hefty fine for wasting the time of the courts.  Sour grapes is one thing–moronic bullshit is another…may I suggest to those involved in these lawsuits….if your IQ ever reaches 100 I would sell and take the beating.

Please let the country and courts return to sanity and let them focus on “real” problems that the people are facing.

New FLDS UpDate

The Texas Supreme Court affirmed yesterday that state officials should not have seized scores of children from the ranch compound of a polygamist sect, agreeing with an appellate court that the group’s beliefs were not, by themselves, proof of abuse.

The decision, issued yesterday afternoon in Austin, did not immediately bring the release of the more than 460 children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound near Eldorado, Tex. But it did seem to make that outcome very likely. Child-protection authorities said yesterday evening that they would comply if the trial court judge ordered the children returned.

Because the case involves state law, not federal statutes, legal experts said the Texas Supreme Court was as high as an appeal could go. That court agreed with a decision last week by the state Court of Appeals for the Third District, which rejected arguments at the heart of the state’s case.

“On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted,” the nine-judge Supreme Court ruled. The court found that the protective services department had removed all the children after an April 3 raid, disregarding less-drastic options. “The Family Code gives . . . broad authority to protect children short of separating them from their parents and placing them in foster care.”

As I have said in the past, I am not a follower of the FLDS, but I also see this as a civil rights situation and IMO the Texas Supreme Court has made a good decision.

Court Rules Against Texas In FLDS Raid

Texas overstepped its authority when it removed some of the 460 children taken from a polygamist compound last month, a state appeals court ruled on Thursday.

Texas Child Protective Services last month raided the isolated compound in west Texas and removed the children in response to allegations of abuse.

But the court said that the state had not proven that the children were in immediate physical danger, and therefore were improperly separated from their parents.

“Essentially this decision from the Third Court of Appeals said that Child Protective Services had absolutely no evidence that would justify them going in there and removing these children from this household,” said Cynthia Martinez, who represents 48 of the mothers whose children were removed.

How will this effect the children and the parents…time will only tell, but the track of civil rights has been returned to…..maybe now the rights of the children will become more important than the harassment of a religious sect.