Tag Archives: “The law is an ass!”

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A Big Surprise!

Police: Boston Bombing Suspects Didn’t Have Gun Permits

A Massachusetts police official say the brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon before having shootouts with authorities didn’t have gun permits.

Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas tells The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that neither Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) nor his brother Dzhokhar had permission to carry firearms.

Shocking, simply shocking! Homicidal jihadists breaking the Taxachusetts gun laws!

Fear not…this will no doubt stimulate the drive for more laws to be ignored by lawbreakers.

Obamunism

Obamacare Blues

Health Care Law
63% Favor Repeal of National Health Care Plan

Support for Obamacare continues to slip:

Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.

Prior to today, weekly polling had shown support for repeal ranging from 54% to 58%. Currently, just 32% oppose repeal.

The new findings include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal of the health care bill and 25% who Strongly Oppose it.

While opposition to the bill has remained as consistent since its passage as it was beforehand, this marks the first time that support for repeal has climbed into the 60s. It will be interesting to see whether this marks a brief bounce or indicates a trend of growing opposition.

What happened to all those assertions from ObamaPelosiReid that once the bill passed and people knew what was in it that it would magically become popular? Oooops!

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Huckster’s Plans take Torpedo Hit

Former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee has controversial record of freeing criminals

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s record of freeing criminals from prison was controversial even before news that the man sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers had a lengthy prison sentence commuted by Huckabee.

The original parole and clemency papers from Arkansas may be viewed here.

The one-time Republican presidential contender granted twice as many pardons and commutations as the previous three governors of Arkansas combined, The Associated Press reported in 2007. In all, he issued 1,033 pardons and commutations during more than 10 years as governor — an average of about one every four days.

The Arkansas Huckster’s prison chickens are coming home to roost.

Huckabee’s ‘Willie Horton moment’

Mike Huckabee’s chance to be president of the United States could be going up in smoke this week.

The former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential wannabe is at the center of a story involving a “person of interest” in the shooting deaths Sunday of four police officers in the state of Washington….

This story has a long way to go before it’s played out. But, if Huckabee pardoned a man who went on to kill four cops, this will be a lot worse than the Willie Horton incident of the 1988 presidential campaign….

Huckabee’s credentials to lead the Republican party to victory in 2012 would evaporate if Clemmons indeed is the killer in the Washington case.

That’s not exactly something a “get tough on crime” political party would want on the resume of its leader.

Another RINO bites the dust!?

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Legislative History

The Worst Bill Ever
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she unwrapped last Thursday, which President Obama hailed as a “critical milestone,” may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.

In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
Features of this legislative Obamination:
•The spending surge.
The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run “exchanges” where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.
• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare.
All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to “pay for” universal coverage. While Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.

As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.
• European levels of taxation.
All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point “surcharge” on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won’t have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.

This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn’t indexed for inflation. Yet it still won’t be nearly enough
• The insurance takeover.
A new “health choices commissioner” will decide what counts as “essential benefits,” which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.

The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket.

There are more gory details listing the specifics in the piece…read it and weep!

All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged….

As Congress’s balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can’t regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated. [emphasis added]

Kill it before it grows!

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B.O. Opposes Defense of Marriage

Obama backs marriage act repeal

The Obama administration continued its half-a-loaf approach to gay rights issues Monday by filing documents claiming that federal laws banning same-sex marriage are discriminatory, even as the federal government continues to defend them.

In its nine-page brief, the Justice Department stated that the Obama administration opposes the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act as discriminatory and supports its repeal. Yet the motion also calls for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a gay California couple seeking to overturn the federal marriage law.

A little schitzo here? At least DoJ still recognizes some semblance of an obligation to go through the motions of defending Federal law against challenges.

So, otherwise , given the pattern of B.O.’s ideological background over the years, what’s to be surprised about this?

Oh, right – he DID say something about not favoring gay marriage during the campaign, but hey, that was just campaigning, so who was REALLY counting THAT!

Constitution Watch

Congress: “We don’t need no steenkin’ Constitution!”

House passes bill taxing fat AIG and other bonuses

Denouncing a “squandering of the people’s money,” lawmakers voted decisively Thursday to impose a 90 percent tax on millions of dollars in employee bonuses paid by troubled insurance giant AIG and other bailed-out companies.

In some cases the bonuses might be taxed 100 percent leaving the recipients with nothing.

So, what’s wrong with this picture?

From TechLawJournal.com

Bill of Attainder

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.

“The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply – trial by legislature.” U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

“These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment.” William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

“Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. … The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community.” James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

The Constitutional standard is clear…what’s not understandible to the Chief is the brazen disregard of that standard by a majority of the legislative lawmakers lawbreakers.

The House, and (probably soon the Senate) has pretty effectively demonstrated either their total ignorance of the Constitution (that they are allegedly sworn to uphold) or their total lack of concern for it’s provisions in the midst of their overwhelming desire to indulge in a legislative tantrum to impress the voters that they’re looking out for the little guy. The Chief isn’t sure which, if either of these, is worse than the other.  Either one is a poor commentary on the current state of our national legislooters.

Hey, I don’t like the bonus deal either…but let’s be real about this: if we really want to punish those evil executives – LET THEIR COMPANIES GO BANKRUPT! If the government didn’t give out the bailout money to start with, this whole situation would be non-existent. THAT would be a market system at work, not the fascistic pattern of government-corporate incestuous politics, favors, special interests, insider deals, etc. that has evolved over the last century

This is NOT a partisan issue. Many GOP’ers are just as bad as a lot of the Donkey Party denizens. On the other hand, there are some on both sides of the aisle (not enough these days!) that are still capable of reading the Constitution.

The Chief sends kudos to those who are still trying to uphold the Constitution, and would invoke the curses of heaven and hell upon the heads of the others.

F.E.T.E.

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Daschle’s Totalitarian “Health” Plans

So, what does anyone care about Daschle’s plans for anything any more?

Well, he night be gone, but his ideas for health care are part of the aforementioned B.O. B.S. B.O. Bill.

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan

Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy. Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors

“So far, everything’s OK”. (in the words of a man falling from the Empire State Building, as he passed the 50th floor.) Then it gets really messy:

One (emphasis added) new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).

NOTE: “…what the government deems appropriate and cost effective.” Not you and your doctor…THE GOVERNMENT. So much for any remnant of medical independence, but wait!  It doesn’t stop there:

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal…is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He [Daschle] praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

And the practical effect: Welcome to the U.K.! (or worse.)

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt. Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

Like Hitler did with Mein Kampf, Daschle has published his own vision vision of this brave new world.

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly…

In other words, once your usefulness to society is done, then you should welcome this 21st century version of the tribal elderly being cast out into the blizzard when their day is done. So much for compassionate care.

Herr Himmler, and his pet Dr. Mengele would have heartily approved of this scheme to cut out support of such “useless eaters” as the infirm elderly.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined(90-92, 174-177, 181).

!!!?

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

Right to life? What’s that any more? Nothing…that question was settled by Roe v. Wade. This is merely an all too logical extension of that attitude. The Chief isn’t a Catholic, but Pope John Paul was spot on when he warned against a culture of death.

As the cartoon character “Pogo” observed: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

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B.O.’s BS B-O Bill Passes Senate

Senate passes $838 billion stimulus bill

Well, the formless legislative blob of the Gigabuck omnibus banking, finance, and industrial nationalization act has entered the maw of the Senate, moved into the inner digestive processes of lawmaking, and inevitably, appropriately (to according to the Great One and his DonkCong adherents) completed its passage through the belly of the legislative beast and emerged as…what can described as noted above: B.O.’s B.S. Bailout Bill.

Senate passage of an $838 billion stimulus bill triggered an intense round of late-night bargaining on Tuesday, with the White House and key congressional Democrats seeking agreement on a final compromise aimed at combatting the worst economic crisis in decades.

If you don’t like it, don’t worry, your grandkids will get to pay for it, and you won’t have to be bothered…that is, unless you think rationally, and still have a functional conscience.

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Political Correctness Flourishing in UK Gov

Prisoners should not be called ‘inmates’, says MoJ

The current Labor Ingsoc government never ceases to come up with new examples of moonbattery.

Prison officers have been told not to refer to their charges as “inmates” because it might offend them. Ministers claim the age-old term is not appropriate if criminals are to be treated with “respect and dignity”.

!

Prisons minister David Hanson revealed the Ministry of Justice stance in a letter to an inmate in HMP Wakefield, in which he said: “Prison staff are expected to treat prisoners with dignity and respect and for this reason the term ‘prisoner’ should be used in preference to the term ‘inmate’.”

He went on to say the term “offender” was not inappropriate.

Hanson sounds like he’s so far removed from situational awareness that he would need the help of GPS, laser range-finders, and a police surveillance team to be able to find his posterior portions with both hands.

Fortunately for Merrie Old England, EVERYONE over there is not bereft of common sense (yet):

One prison officer leader attacked the move and warned jails have already become too soft as he called for a return to tough prisons in 2009.

Opposition MPs said it was “politically correct nonsense”.

In a scathing outburst, Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, called for an end to the “namby pamby attitude” that has led to soft prisons.

“It never ceases to amaze me, the hypocrisy of politicians and senior civil servants,” he said. “On the one hand they say we are not going to have soft prisons but on the other phraseology that has been around for a long, long time suddenly becomes offensive to our dear charges. As far as I am concerned they are convicts, they are prisoners, they are inmates.”

“We should treat them fair and properly but prison should be tough. As we come to 2009, prisons should move away from being seen and actually being soft options to be challenging and demanding places of punishment. Without that we will continue to slide down in the views of the general public and will send people out of prison more likely to reoffend.”

Hear! Hear!

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E.U. Emasculates Itself as Pirates Win

Pirates protected from EU task force by human rights

The E.U.’s have just GOT to be “stuck on stupid”.

The pirates of old at least knew where they stood if captured – they would be jailed and hung, or possibly made to walk the plank. But those policing the high seas today have no such potent sanctions to impose on 21st century buccanneers, as the human rights of the successors to Blackbeard and Captain Kidd are being put first.

The European Union’s first naval task force is due to arrive next month in the Gulf of Aden to combat the region’s unprecedented piracy scourge, which is being fuelled by the demand for cash and weapons in lawless Somalia. Ten EU countries, including Britain, have pledged support for the force – yet they may find it difficult even to make an arrest.

Uh, this is NOT rocket science guys. Nor is this a trick question: If your stupid laws forbid you from apprehending and punishing criminals…d’ya think it just MIGHT be time to change the laws?

“In the old days, when the navy would catch a pirate, they would tie his hands and feet and throw him back in the sea,” said Captain Andres Breijo, the Spanish head of the new anti-piracy mission, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph. “Now they have human rights.”

The good Captain still remembers how to deal with piracy, from the day when ships were wood, and the men were iron. Now the ships are steel, and the men…oh, yeah…what men?

SD Politics

Government vs. Government

Districts can’t pay to sue S.D.

School districts don’t have the authority to spend district money to support their lawsuit that challenges the state’s education funding system, a Pierre judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Lori Wilbur also ruled that school districts don’t have the standing to sue the state to declare its education funding system unconstitutional.

This one leaves the Chief somewhat conflicted… like happening upon a rattlesnake fighting with a scorpion. Neither side in the argument makes you want to pick a winner.

It’s a fact that SD is at the bottom of the heap for teachers’ pay scales. (It’s also a fact that the Chief is teaching at a SD school district that is at the bottom of the SD heap.) More money would be good for this, but…

The Chief has also noted in SOME cases at least, that school boards, administrators are all too willing to spend money on their pet interests, and ignore (if not actually de facto denigrate) the teachers, and their needs and concerns.

On the other hand, there’s a REAL queasy feeling when one level of government starts spending tax money to sue another level of government about not getting enough of THEIR tax money passed down the line to them, which also requires the defendent side to spend even more tax money to counter the suit.

Sort of reminds the Chief of MAFIA fighting over the take of the protection/extortion rackets.

The final upshot? No matter how it turns out…the taxpayer takes it in the shorts, and the lawyers out to do good, end up doing right well for themselves!

Anyway, this decision doesn’t bode well for the school boards in this case.

National Insecurity

Lib SCOTUS Judges Do Thier Own Thing

1 Comment

Court says detainees have rights, bucking Bush

Logic? We don’t need no stinkin’ logic!

In a stinging rebuke to President Bush’s anti-terror policies, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign detainees held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment without charges.

The Chief likes the statement made by Jon over at SD Politics about this:

I think the dissenters are likely correct. This is an example of the courts stepping in to superimpose their policy preference for that of the president and Congress. While granting habeas corpus rights and access to civilian courts to enemy combatants might be good policy (emphasis on “might”), that doesn’t mean that the Constitution demands it.

Why might these people not have such rights? First, terrorists have no legal rights, not even under the Geneva Accords. Why? First, they are not soldiers. They do not fight for a nation, therefore they are not signatories to the Geneva Accords and cannot claim protection. Their very method of action, not wearing uniforms and targeting civilians, violates international law. By not fighting for a nation and not wearing a uniform they do not even have the rights of POWs, rights granted to legitimate soldiers, which terrorists are not.

Remember all the depictions in old war movies, with partisans, spies, infiltrators, etc. were subject to summary execution?
This actually happened frequently…with both sides.

The precedent for this for the United States goes all the way back to the hanging of British Major Andros, who was involved in carrying communications while in civilian clothes in the Benedict Arnold case of treason.

The rule has been: no uniform, no legal rights – life, and death is tough! The GITMO crew is getting off easy!

G-d help us from more liberal SCOTUS Judges…which brings us back again to the matter of the upcoming Presidential election: Obamanation, Abomination; same difference!

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Moonbat Judge Halts Immigration Screening

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Judge Halts Illegal Immigrant Notices

The Social Security Administration has sent out “no-match” letters for more than two decades warning employers of discrepancies in the information the government has on their workers. Employers often brushed aside the letters, and the small fines that sometimes were incurred, as a cost of doing business.

But this year, those letters will be accompanied by notices from the Department of Homeland Security outlining strict new requirements for employers to resolve those discrepancies within 90 days or face fines or criminal prosecution, if they’re deemed to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

The judge’s ruling Friday temporarily prohibits the government from enforcing the new rules, which were scheduled to take effect Sept. 14.

This is just nutso. The suit was brought by the AFL-CIO, no doubt preferring new workers to organize, but ignoring the situation of their CURRENT workers who are losing jobs, having wages driven down, etc. due to the loose state of our borders.