Archive for Law & Order - page 4

Today the United States Supreme Court ruled on two cases.  I won’t go into details here – I may at a later date, but I don’t think readers of this blog want to wade that deep into the law.  If you do feel like wading, here are a couple good places to do so:   SCOTUSblog     and     The Volokh Conspiracy. My intention here is to make a broader observation, especially in light of the fact that Independence Day is just a few days away. Begin Observation:  The U.S. Supreme Court consists of nine Justices and is the people’s last line of defense against an overreaching Congress or President or in this case, both.  Often, as today, cases are decided with a one justice majority, i.e. 5-4.  In my informed opinion, four of the Justices are reliably pro-government and believe in essentially unlimited government power, regardless of Constitutional text.  Since I cannot see into their hearts to divine their true intentions, I give them benefit of the doubt and assume their motives are benevolent, and their goal is to build a utopian society where all forms of entitelments are “rights”, certain favored classes have more rights than others and the government is the source and sole provider of those rights.  Should a fifth Justice join them to form a pro-government majority, we can kiss our free country goodbye since individual liberty would be impossible in such a society.  I find the prospect of their benevolence frightening, especially in light of the fact that any means they choose to achieve their ends would be done with the blessing of their conscience.

click on the picture to enlarge

No matter your ideaology, remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want can also take from you everything you have.  And take it will…because Government has nothing to give anyone that it hasn’t first taken from someone else.

I have not written a post about the missing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 since May 18th  because there have been no new developments.  Yesterday, however it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Australian Authorities have announced a new search area and are seeking bids from private contractors to search that area.

Since the plane disappeared on March 8th, thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean west of Australia have been searched, but have yielded no trace of the missing plane.  The new search area was deduced using a combination of known facts and educated guesswork.  The current assumption is that the plane’s autopilot was switched on (it could not have been accidentally engaged) after the plane deviated from it’s assigned course, and that the plane flew on it’s own for several hours after the crew was disabled, possibly from hypoxia or oxygen depletion.

This is a mystery that may never be solved.  The search area is immense and in arguably the most remote and unfriendly ocean in the world.  Even if the wreck is found it may not hold all the answers to what happened and why.  The investigation continues…

WSJ: Australian Report Postulates Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Lost Oxygen

It wasn’t that long ago we were treated to a media firestorm over possible gaffes Mitt Romney may have comitted 30 or 40 years ago.  There was in depth reporting over his behavior in Prep-School (that’s High School in case you’re wondering):  He might have been a bully!  Or that infamous family vacation where the dog’s crate was strapped to the roof of the car. Q’uelle Horreur!  Our diligent media was just doing their jobs, dont you know.  The public has a right to know what kind of person they might elect to the presidency.  Thank God we dodged that bullet and didn’t elect Romney with his binders full of women.  This Obama fellow is doing a smashing job.

Now we are finding out that Hillary Clinton once defended an accused child rapist, and through some borderline ethical conduct helped secure a plea bargain to a lesser offense resulting in the accused rapist receiving less than 1 year in jail.  Part of the borderline conduct involved proposed testimony attacking the girl’s credibility and claiming that the twelve year old victim bore some of the reponsibility for her own rape, and telling the prosecutor that they had an “expert” that would testify in court to discredit their forensic evidence.  This helped secure the plea bargain.  Then, a few years later when recounting the episode for a reporter, she laughed about her client’s obvious guilt and what a great job she did helping him beat the rap.  However, I am told, she did not put the victim “in a binder”.  The media’s interest in this story?  Zip, zero, zilch.  Why?  It’s old news.  Well so is the fact that you can save 15% on your car insurance, but that doesn’t stop Geico from running their commercials.

The rape trial was in 1975, and the incident recounted to a reporter in the mid-1980’s for an Esquire magazine article on rising politcal stars.  The reason you can’t remember it, other than the fact you might not have been born yet, is that the article was never printed.  The incident has received scant mention considering Clinton’s life and career have been so meticulously documented.  Hillary herself mentions it briefly in her first memoir Living History as an aside to to crediting herself with starting Arkansas’ first rape crisis hotline.  In 2008, Newsday journalist Glenn Thrush wrote a lengthy article about it – which his editors killed because “it might have an impact” on the election.  The tapes of the interviews and reporters notes from the original Esquire story ended up in the University of Arkansas Library archives where they were discovered by the Washington Free Beacon., and tht is how we are hearing about it now.

So if a Republican candidate may have been guilty of boorish behavior in the past, the media will leave no stone unturned in their quest to Bring Out The Truth®.  Because War On Women!  But if a Democrat candidate may have actually engaged in a war on women, well…*crickets*

Democrats – that (D) behind their names is like a damn kevlar shield with a teflon coating.  And it’s the mainstream media’s Kryptonite.

-CA screws everyone with carbon tax – wastes the money on bullet train

There is no crisis so grave that it cannot be solved with higher taxes.  Or, in this case carbon offset fees.  You see, global warming is so serious that we have come up with a scheme whereby industries that generate carbon emissions (industries that coincidentally drive our economy) will need to buy “offsets” to allow them to continue their carbon emissions.  It’s a win-win!  They get to pay to stay in business and the State gets a $1 billion payday!  And you get to pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline and probabaly damn near everything you buy.

I think the mafia used to have a program like that: “youse gets to pay us and then youse don’t get your legs broke.  Everybody wins.”  Then the government arrested, prosecuted and jailed the gangsters.  This is known as “eliminating the competition”.

The halls of the Capitol must be positively awash in the saliva of drooling legislators and lobbyists anticipating the new funding that awaits their pet projects.  There’s money a-waitin’ to be spent!  This week it was reported that as part of the budget agreement, California’s High Speed Rail would receive 25% of anticipated cap-and-trade revenue.  Anticipated cap and trade revenue.  We’re going to spend anticipated money on an imaginary train.  We could just replace the state goverment with a Sim City game.  Jerry Brown’s not gonna stand for this foolishness, right?  He’s fiscal hawk!  He wants a rainy day fund!  Oh wait…the crazy train is Jerry Brown’s pet.  He wanted 33% of the cap-and-trade “windfall” to go to the Fresno to Lodi express.  Oh, snap – no adult in the room on this one.

$250 Million probably won’t pay for the paper clips when this boondoggle gets underway.  This is like saying we need to spend $20 Billion to dig a giant hole to throw money in.  But the good news is we get to keep throwing money into it…forever!  And create hundreds of jobs!  Because – transportation!  Trains are the future!

Back in the 70’s when Richard Nixon (R) nearly caused the universe to end by awkwardly covering up some political dirty tricks in the Watergate scandal, there was an episode where it was found that some taped recordings of Oval Office conversations between Nixon and some of the Watergate players contained an 18 minute blank spot.  Anyone familiar with 1970s technology of tape recording could conceive of a legitimate error possibly causing the blank, but foul play was immediately assumed.   This conclusion was most likely correct, and Congress and the public cut Nixon no slack at all.  When threatened with impeachment, Nixon resigned.

Today we learn that as the Congressional inquiry into possible collusion between the White House and the IRS to intimidate, harrass and persecute (and prosecute, for that matter) Republican and Conservative opposition groups, the IRS claims to have lost 2 years worth of e-mails between Lois Lerner and any groups outside of the IRS, such as the White House and Democrat Members of Congress.  But, hey, no big deal.  Accidents happen!  I mean, what big companies and organizations ever take precautions against things like this?  Certainly not the IRS!  Besides – we can trust Barack Obama (D).  See the (D)?  OK then.

Nothing to see here…Move along

You don’t argue with an Aardvark

Today we are learning that a bill in the California State Senate will require written or verbal consent between two students before engaging in sexual activity on campus.  I’ll pause so you can let that sink in for a minute….the state will require two individuals to obtain written or verbal consent before having sex on campus.  Nothing in there about body language.

SB 967 was introduced by Kevin DeLeon (D. Los Angeles) – wait – I thought it was the evil Republicans who wanted to legislate bedroom activity – in response to an alleged epidemic of sexual assaults on campuses nationwide.  This is another example of the ability of California Democrats to hone in on a problem like a laser with logic so tightly reasoned there is no reasonable argument that can be made against their postion.  It goes like this:  there is an undisputed rape epidemic on our college campuses.  Undisputed.  Wait – you dispute it?  You are pro-rape.  The existing laws on the books regarding sexual misconduct are not working – we need another law.  Problem solved.  Your Welcome.

The proposed law is a virtually impenetrable (no pun intended) force field against reckless or unlawful college student sexual activity.  The law only covers sex acts committed on campus.  DIABOLICAL!  No one will figure a way around that.  It requires written or verbal consent.  Aren’t most of these guys attorneys?  The first thing you learn in pre-pre law (which is watching Law & Order) is that a verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  I’m surpised they don’t require a time stamp on that verbal agreement.  Well, at least it’s for the children.  It is for the children isn’t it?  It’s gotta be.  Yeah, it’s for the Children.  What’s the matter?  You don’t like children?  Pro-rape child hater.

Remember back when Bush was President and during the whole Congessional Inquiry into the Iraq WMD kerfuffle, the name of Washington socialite CIA employee Valerie Plame was published in a news article, and the the Special Prosecutor spent two years going after Scooter Libby for it finally convicting him of something like inadvertently making a false statement?  Good times… anyhoo, turns out now that some of Obama’s folks just outed the CIA Chief in Afghanistan.  Oh well…sh*t happens.  Sorry about that.  Investigation? Special Prosecutor?  Nah… it was just a clerical error.  Besides – see that “D”?  That’s for Double Standard.  Also it’s a get out of jail card so just move along.  Why?  Because shut up that’s why.

They’re just stupid that’s all

Bonus:  Here’s one of the things you’ll find if you google “Sh*t Happens:  click this link to see it happening (not literally!)

I didn’t want to have to write anything about this little puke who committed six murders in Santa Barbara.  But since all law-abiding gun owners are now apparently to blame I have to speak up.

There is already a law against murder.  If a lunatic is willing to violate that law multiple times then some silly regulation about how or when he can buy a gun legally will not deter him.  Even if you could make guns completely illegal and have every single one of them magically disappear there would still be at least 4 dead people here.  Assuming the nut would find some way to off himself.  The one, the only issue to consider here is how can we change our current system to deal with people who are known to be mentally ill and potentially dangerous, other than to clean up the mess they leave when they finally snap.  Maybe you smart people out there can think about that instead of how to deprive gun owners of their civil rights.  

…because we refuse to look.  Whenever someone does look, they find…voter fraud.

Another local independent investigation, this time in Lee County Florida, has turned up evidence that non-citizens are registering to vote and are in fact voting.  How can this happen?  Easy.  On the voter registration form, simply check “yes” box where it asks if you are a US citizen and then sign the form, attesting to the truth of the statement.  That’s it.  No proof required.

Reporters at Fort Myers, Florida TV Station WBBH decided to look in the possibility that ineligible people were voting and so contacted local election officials.  They got no help there, since county election officials apparently have no authority to attempt verification of a potential voter’s eligibility.  They don’t check – they just process the forms.  So the reporters cast their own net – a very narrow net.  They obtained, from the county government, cards that people send in when they refuse jury duty for one reason or another.  They selected the cards that gave “non-citizenship” as the reason, then crossreferenced those names with voter registration rolls and – voila!  94 non-citizens registered to vote.  In one county.

There is a note of bitter irony here also.  These people are voting yet refusing jury duty.  They are illicity claiming one of the benefits of citizenship while shirking one of the responsibilties.  Nice.

Lastly, if you say that there were “only” 94 illegal voters, remember this: this was one county in Florida.  There are 67 counties in Florida, and if the numbers are extrapolated then there were potentially 6,300 illegal voters.  And these investigators cast a very small net, using only jury duty refusal cards as a starting point – a very small percentage of the population is even contacted for jury duty.

By the way, it is a felony for an illegible person to register to vote and vote.  I’ll be waiting to see if anyone is charged or prosecuted.

Nothing to see here…move along.

Classic Rock and lawsuits go together like…like…well it just seems ike a lot of classic rockers sue each other.  And now lawyers for the family of deceased “Spirit” guitarist Randy California may file suit against Led Zeppelin to ensure that California gets a writing credit on Stariway to Heaven, which California claims Led Zeppelin “ripped off’ after the groups toured together in 1968.  The basis of the lawsuit is that “Stairway to Heaven” is plagiarised from the Spirit song “Taurus”  Give a listen and see what you think.  Personally, I don’t hear it.

What I find interesting though, is that the bands Led Zeppelin and Spirit toured together in 1968 – today the Led Zeppelin guys (the surviving ones) are wealthy music icons, and Randy California is basically unknown and apparently died penniless.  Such is life.

For Randy California – some of us know who you are.  For what it’s worth, thanks.  If you don’t remember any Spirit tunes, this is probably their most famous song.  Enjoy: