HANK'S LEGAL CORNER

I WOULDN'T MIND IF PHILLIP GARRIDO GOT RAPED IN PRISON.

2011-07-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

I'm watching the Jaycee Dugard interview on ABC now, and I wouldn't mind if Garrido gets raped in prison.

Why?

He needs to learn a fucking lesson. He needs to learn that women and children are NOT, and NEVER WERE sex objects. He needs to feel the pain he caused Jaycee, and his last two known victims. He needs to LEARN and RE-LEARN from his fucked up twisted mind and dick He needs to feel pain and retribution that he has caused. If bad prison experiences doesn't help him, GIVE HIM A LOBOTOMY!

Sorry, but sociopaths need to either LISTEN or lose a brain. If they haven't learned the first time, it should be permanent lock-up.

TED TURNER SHOULD NOT HAVE SOLD CNN

2011-07-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

From Yahoo:

Nancy Grace Leads Media Outrage Over Anthony Verdict

By Robert Dougherty

PostsWebsite .By Robert Dougherty
Yahoo! Contributor Network – Wed, Jul 6, 2011

COMMENTARY/ HLN host Nancy Grace has been attacking Casey Anthony for years, and the end of her trial was no different. Predictably, Grace had choice words for Anthony after her acquittal, saying on her HLN show that "the devil was dancing" following the verdict. Although the jury concluded there wasn't enough evidence to convict the Florida mother, that wasn't enough to sway Grace, or other TV personalities.

Whenever there is a hot-button trial, disappearance or legal media circus, Grace is usually the one to lead the charge and hysteria. It was no different with this case; the former prosecutor was one of the first to extensively cover the disappearance and death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. After authorities focused their attention on Casey, the coverage turned quite hostile.

The fervor reached a climax after Tuesday's verdict when, against all odds and media coverage, Anthony was found not guilty. Naturally, after spending months and years arguing otherwise, Grace railed against the defense, who she claimed was performing a "champagne toast" afterward, and argued the media was blameless compared to the "tot mom."

Other than Grace, the biggest outrage over the verdict was shown by Bill O'Reilly, especially when Geraldo Rivera tried to defend the jury's ruling. O'Reilly outshouted him, according to Entertainment Weekly, stating "I am so angry about this verdict!"

Outrage from O'Reilly and Grace is nothing new or unexpected, given their reputations. Since these controversial figures are at the center of the media coverage, it only makes the subsequent doubt and criticism more obvious.

Anthony's attorney, J. Cheney Mason, attacked "incompetent talking heads" for leading a "media assassination" of her client, while CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin conceded that the "media's performance will be something we should all discuss."

As in the sagas of O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and the Ramsey family, the media helped fuel the fury over this high-profile case. The press and public will once more debate whether coverage went too far, then promise to tone it down -- at least until the next scandalous murder and accused murderer comes along.

Anthony was tailor-made for Grace and the other talking heads to attack given her questionable character, ever-changing stories about what happened, and her attitude while Caylee was missing. Yet even the talking heads have to realize by now their fury alone cannot convict someone in a court of law. (Emphasis added.)

*****************************

Nancy Grace should just go home, and have another baby.

She is a sexually deprived bitch.

She should get a Trojan Triforia vibrator.

Grace (or the lack of grace thereof) should move out of CNN, period. She spent three years with pitchforks on air wishing that Casey Anthony would leave this Earth with a fried head. Yes, I think that Casey, and/or her parents had something to do with Caley's death. Caley is another Angel in Paradise. Nobody else in the Anthony family would come close. But driving the case for the conviction and death of Casey solely based on bitchiness, lack of facts, lack of hearing all sides of the story, lack of civics among the people who still believe in fascist, old-world notions of criminal justice bull shit, does not get the people to understand why Casey would get time served. Grace had everybody to believe that Casey was guilty as sin, and had everybody believe that Casey "killed" Caley because she wanted to PAH-TY! True, Casey lied, and to that extent, does deserve the misdemeanor convictions. She also couldn't shut the fuck up. At least the Stanislaus County D. A., could convict Scott Peterson, and they had better evidence to convict him of murdering his wife and unborn child. She'll finally be free after begging everybody in jail to bail her out.

The sad part is that there are men and women in prison that are in there for a hell of a lot less than what was presented to the Jury to seek a murder conviction of Casey. It's time to periodically review ALL cases to make sure that the guilty are GUILTY and still guilty, not wasting taxpayers' monies on prison overcrowding because fascist D. A.'s rather play "gotcha games" than proving their cases beyond a reasonable doubt. As for Grace, no wonder she is no longer a Deputy D. A. for she is a DEVILSPAWN! She's a DEVILBITCH!

So is the entire broadcast media! WHERE'S THE FUCKING BOTH SIDES?!! If both sides are not presented, no wonder why people thought that Casey should get the chair. Shitty organizations like CNN and Fox do a disservice of presenting only one side of the story instead of all sides. If this is "news", I'm Anne Frank. This is a solemn joke. If you want news, watch Democracy Now!, not Reichstag T. V.

...

CASEY ANTHONY; D. A. DROPPED THE BALL, AND WHY CNN AND THE REST OF THE MEDIA ARE NO BETTER THEN FOX NEWS!

2011-07-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

AND I'M NOT A CONSERVATIVE!

Fox News is a media center for conservative politics. "Content Directives"? Did I ever learn that at Mt. SUC? The term did not even exist between 1983-1986.

The reason why I mention this is because CNN Headline News' Nancy Grace wanted everybody to believe that Casey Anthony was guilty as sin, and I still believe that Casey killed her daughter. However, Grace whipped up this fantasy that Casey was the culprit, and like Scott Peterson, Casey couldn't shut the holy fuck up, and even in Jail! What was not on any news network and station (except Democracy Now!, and Pacifica Radio who had real news stories to actually cover) was that the State of Florida (the Deputies Attorney General responsible for prosecuting this "mother") had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey killed her two year old daughter. We can blame the Jury, the Defense attorneys, etc., but like Gilbert Garcetti, Tom Sneddon, and all other overzealous D. A.'s that believe that bad publicity equals guilty verdicts, they will not win guilty verdicts before ANY jury.

What does this say? There's no such thing as a "liberal media" They didn't show that there were "holes" in the prosecution, or the other "what if's". They, all headed by Grace (as if grace existed as all) painted Casey as a drugged-out PAH-TY girl who didn't care about her missing and dead daughter. Let's face it. If having "bad judgment", sitting alone was a felony, then Casey is so fucking guilty as hell. The "bad judgment" motive only proved just that. The Jury didn't believe that Casey was responsible for murder. If the media is to perform a public service, all avenues should have been aired, but the media has stooped to the level of the Star and the National Enquier. If this is what we expect from the media, then the blind, dumb, and stupid would elect the likes of Palincunt and Bitchmann for President, because people are stupid. These people will believe everything in print or on TV, because "they wouldn't print it (or air it) if it wasn't true." Sorry, MY KIDS WON'T BE RAISED TO BE STUPID!!! HELLO?!!!

I want everybody to read Amy Goodman's "Exceptions to the Rulers", because it's time to grow a brain (and a pair), and find out the opposite of whatever Paul Harvey never said. Electric Chair or not, Casey Anthony is destroyed. It's time for the public to understand "reasonable doubt", and that the Constitution exists to PROTECT ALL, not just the vile.

THOUGHTS ABOUT PAST CASES

2011-07-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

Well, Joseph Edward Duncan III pleaded guilty to killing the little boy from Banning. Don't worry, people. He faces the Federal Death Penalty in Montana, and is still under an Idaho death sentence. Stay tuned.

Phil and Nancy Garrido both pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping Jaycee Dugard. She'll be on ABC Sunday Night. Phil Garrido deserves to be in jail for the rest of his life, but I'm sure people will be writing about Nancy Garrido on how naive and stupid she made her life to be, and how wrong the Jehovah's Witnesses are.

Brian David Mitchell will no longer watch "Charmed", but will be watching his back every few seconds, and beg for Administrative Segregation.

Mitchell thought he could be a Bishop, Stake President, or even an Apostle, but he wasn't close to be "Bishop material". He was desposed to being sexually active probably because he was probably molested by his dad, and he just refused to stop. In early as 1975, Apostle Boyd K. Packer spoke about self-control. WHERE WAS MITCHELL? Every Church President since David O. McKay taught against illicit sex. What we have here is an apostate raised by an apostate family that refuses to get help all of this time. Now, Mitchell will spend the rest of his life in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for kidnapping and raping a 14-year old four times a day. He's no better than Warren Steed Jeffs, another horny idiot.

JERRY BROWN IS MAKING A BIG MISTAKE

2011-01-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

He has the State's Justice Department file for Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court to stop the Injunction to restore Medi-Cal funding. This also effects my dad's right to receive assistance to In-Home Support Services; otherwise, my dad would be evicted from his mobile home.

The case is Maxwell-Jolly v. Independent Living Centers, and Brown's main concern is that it would bankrupt the State, because it can't afford to pay for Medi-Cal and everything else.

LET IT!

Whose fault is it:

REPUBLICANS!

It started way back to Howard Jarvis and Proposition 13. It SEVERELY cut property taxes, and it was championed by Republican politicians. It also enacted a two-thirds vote requirement in the Legislature to raise taxes. Still, Republicans want the State to continue cutting everything to "improve the economy" (MY ASS!). All the State has done is make more people poorer, and piss off more people in this State.

Bill Maher said it best last year when he said that reducing the debt by cutting taxes is like getting a hand-job is going to clean the garage. Instead of cutting Medi-Cal and related services, here's what the State can do:

RAISE THE FUCKING TAXES!

HELLO?!!!

Why should we wait for Republicans to grow balls?!!! They have fucked this State in the last 33 years, by giving reduced services, shabby schools, shabby colleges, etc. Instead of filing frivolous appeals to the Supreme Court, they should RAISE THE FUCKING TAXES TO PAY OFF THE DEBTS, AND THEN RESTORE FUNDING BACK TO 1978 LEVELS. WE SHOULD ALSO NOT HAVE TO PAY COMMUNITY COLLEGE TUITION, OR HIGH CSU AND UC TUITION!!! EITHER THE GOP BEST AGREE TO RAISE TAXES TO HELP ELDERLY, DISABLED, POOR, WOMEN, CHILDREN, STUDENTS, ETC., OR THEY SHOULD BE RECALLED THIS YEAR!

My father, Henry Frederick Ramey, Sr. ("Old Man Ramey"), will turn 90 on March 3, 2011. It is time we give the Seniors the respect they need and restore FULL MEDI-CAL SERVICES!

25 STATES STICKING THEIR FINGERS UP THEIR COLLECTIVE ASSES!

2010-12-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

From Digby:

Priorities

by digby

Yikes:

State legislators in 25 states (see list below) planned to introduce SB 1070 clones in upcoming legislative sessions, according to Immigration Impact. Of course, not all — or even most — of these laws will pass. However, Republicans picked up the most seats in the modern era of state legislatures in 2010 — more than Republicans did in 1994 or Democrats in the post-Watergate wave of 1974. Republicans hold both houses and the governorship in fifteen states (sixteen including Nebraska’s unicameral legislature).

Florida elected Republican Rick Scott — who ran ads against his primary opponent for his opposition to Arizona’s law — for governor along with Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature. Scott supports “measures like the Arizona law.” When asked by Wolf Blitzer of CNN whether he would push the legislature to bring a bill to him, he said, “I don’t have to, the legislature’s already focused on it.”

Both House and Senate versions of immigration enforcement bills in Florida require aliens to carry documentation with them or risk being incarcerated and fined. Both bills state that nothing may prohibit local officials from “sending, receiving, or maintaining information relating to the immigration status of an individual.” If local officials do not comply, then the state attorney general may sue those officials. The Florida legislative session begins in March.

Legislators in Tennessee — which now has a Republican governor, House and Senate — plan to introduce a SB 1070-like bill in the upcoming session. The Tennessean reported that State Sen. Bill Ketron is drafting a bill that would criminalize illegal immigration, but attorneys are working to make sure the bill conforms with the state constitution. Ketron — like Arizona legislators — received help in drafting the bill from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that writes conservative “model legislation” for states.

Colorado is a good example of a state where a SB 1070-like bill stands no chance of passing. State Senator-elect Ken Lambert (R) said he would introduce a bill into the legislature next session. “I don’t care if it is litigated,” he said. “It is clearly something the people want. The will of the people has been ignored by Democrats for too long.” However, the Democratic governor-elect, John Hickenlooper, opposes the measure; incidentally, he defeated Tom Tancredo — who gained a national profile for his vehement opposition to illegal immigration — in the general election.[...]

If states don’t take up SB 1070-like bills, in-state tuition — or even admission to public universities — for illegal immigrants is likely to be a big issue, especially after the failure of the DREAM Act during the recent lame-duck session of the U.S. Congress.

But if the DREAM Act — allowing a path to citizenship for children brought to the U.S. illegally with their parents after completing two years of college or military service — cannot pass, it remains highly unlikely that Congress will pass any immigration reform in the near future. Which means many Republican-controlled states, unburdened by divided government, may fill in the gap.

—–

States with SB 1070-like legislation in the works: (PDF)

Most likely to pass: Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina

Maybe: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia

Less Likely: Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island

I consider it a triumph of our new found tolerance and diversity that it's taken so long to get into full-on, hysterical xenophobia. Believe it or not, that's progress.

I'd just note that contrary to popular myth about the Tea Partiers being only concerned with fiscal matters, this issue is very big.

ANOTHER REASON WHY I WON'T BE IN ANY DELUSIONAL SUNSET!

2010-09-17T01:08:00.000-07:00

This was at Alternet:

Glenn Beck To Fat People: ‘I Say Let Them Die’

Posted by igorvolsky on @ 5:38 amArticle printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasyURL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/16/glenn-beck-to-fat-people-%E2%80%98i-say-let-them-die%E2%80%99/

This post originally appeared on Think Progress.

Since First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled her Let’s Move! program to fight obesity, conservatives have portrayed the effort as a government assault on personal freedoms and liberties. After the administration released a report on obesity in May, Matt Drudge ran a headline saying, “White House seeks controls on food marketing” and on his Fox News show, Sean Hannity asked: “Does every American family need a dietitian appointed by the government to tell them that this food is going to make you fat and this food is not?” Yesterday, Glenn Beck joined the act, criticizing Michelle Obama for encouraging restaurants to “offer healthier versions of the foods that we all love.” He also joked that fat people should die:

BECK: When I heard this I thought, get your damn hands off my fries, lady. If I want to be a fat fat fatty and shovel French Fries all day long, that is my choice. But oh oh, not so fast anymore. Because now we have the new fact, whether you like it or not, we have government health care now. … You know those fat people sitting on their couches? And I mean really fat. I don’t mean not like me. I mean the people who’s skin grows into the couch. … I say let them die. I say punish the person who’s been bringing them the milk shakes that allowed them to eat and not get up off the couch. Am I too harsh?

Watch it:

Beck was being facetious, but obesity is, in fact, a killer. The Wonk Room examines the obesity epidemic and details what the White House plans to do about it. (H/T: MMFA)

****************************************************
I, Hank Ramey, am fat.

Beck reminds me of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin. He died a miserable death. This was after he slandered thousands of people calling them Communists or simply "un-American".

Beck claims he's going to be "blind". Here's what I want to see done with that Glenn Goldenass Beck Asshole:

1. He can be mangled to death. After he dies, he WON'T be with his parents, wife, and kids. He will be running around naked in his psychological hell. After some torment, he asks God to help. Guess Who says, "I never knew thee"? It would be more than 1,000+ years before his Judgment Day.

2. He can be paralyzed and speechless. He'll be in an auto accident and be a quadlapegic. Each time he shits uncontrollably, he'll be unable to tell anybody he needs help. He'll be worse than what Martin Lawrence suffered in Runtledat.

3. He can be blind for real. Remember when Dan Rather was attacked? He wasn't blind, and was able to identify his attackers. Goldster Beck could be beaten severely while blind, but absent witnesses, could Beck do the same?

Beck is the ultimate, spineless, draft-dodging PUSSY! He needs to suffer like McCarthy. This bitch of a cunt doesn't deserve to be on the planet. If this is a Tea Party leader, it's 1933 in Germany again!

If cunts like Beck keep saying that fat people should die, Heaven have mercy on that PUSSY! If you want to see what pussies are, look at pictures of hanged Nazi War Criminals. Beck can join them!

NOTE TO THE JUDAS CUNT TRAITOR NOT RELATED TO LAWRENCE O'DONNELL

2010-09-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

If Hitler ever invaded America, Christie from Delaware would have turned Jews to the Gestapo. Well, that Judas Cunt Traitor would have been taken out and either shot or hung from the highest tree! Sorry, but Anne Frank would have been a greater writer, a great actress, or even a great politician today. Her ashes sit among ruins outside of Hamburg, Germany because some Nazi Kraut Kunts thought that certain people were not human.

Anne Frank was an "illegal", and a 15-year old human being. There are girls her age who have dreams beyond our imaginations. Follow your dreams. CARPE DEIM! (And wait till you get married before getting pregnant.) Cunts like Palin, Angle, and Delaware Christie would put women back to being barefoot and pregnant with bruises. Anne didn't want to be a second-class woman like her mother and Mrs. Van Daan.

STOP THE FUCKING INSANITY! VOTE DEMOCRAT!

UPDATE (!!!): David Irving, the Nazi denier, wants to give tours of Auschwitz. Please pass this around, especially to BRITAIN (!). To Irving, have you watched the American and British films of the conditions of the concentration camps? Have you read the Nuremberg Trial Transcripts? The January 20, 1942 Conference at Wansee Transcripts? He also says that the Diary, kept by one Anneliese Marie Frank (See her pic above.), is a forgery. Anne's Diary has been verified as vaild true account by the Royal Dutch War Museum. Our Troops and the British did not fight Hitler and the Nazis solely for their health. Then-Princess Elizabeth didn't work as a Royal Army Mechanic solely for her health. In addition to the Jews being murdered by genocide, about a million British died due to serial bombing by the Nazis. I suggest for the sake of the Crown over there, that David Irving can shut the bloody fuck up, or join Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin in that awful, shitty, bloody hell that will be prepared for them after DEATH!

VOTE LIBERAL! VOTE LABOUR! VOTE SOCIALISTE! VOTE SPD!

FUCK YOU, DAVID IRVING! SAY HI TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND, MAHOOD ADMINIJAB!

WHY I DON'T HEAD INTO A DELUSIONAL SUNSET?

2010-09-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

I love this song, and I also think that Sara Bareilles is sexee! However, this is my interpretation of "King of Anything". The ultimate person that can interpret "King of Anything" is Sara herself.

Now, my analysis:

Keep drinking coffee, stare me down across the table

While I look outside

So many things I’d say if only I were able

But I just keep quiet and count the cars that pass by

It is apparent that Sara didn't want to be pigeonholed. Who wants to be? Nobody wanted to be defined as somebody they're not. It has unfortunately been that way for centuries. Name your group, and everybody defines others as something they're not.

You’ve got opinions, man

We’re all entitled to ‘em, but I never asked

So let me thank you for your time, and try not to waste anymore of mine

And get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe, but I’m not drowning

There’s no one here to save

Don't bother to save Sara. Don't bother to save anybody else by trying to be condescending, and think that your opinion is superior to anybody else.

Who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

This is clearly the tactics of sociopaths. There are still people in the record industry that feel that women are sex objects, dogs/bitches, play-things, people to be easily manipulated, etc. These same sons of bitches are the ones that encouraged her to write "Love Song". Women are your daughters, wives, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, etc. They gave birth to you. They changed your diapers, bathed you, fed you, clothed you, helped you with your homework, took you to school and to church, etc. John Mayer had a hit song years ago telling "fathers, be good to your daughters..." The ultimate sociopaths are O. J. Simpson, Phil Spector, Scott Peterson, Brian David Mitchell, Phillip Garrido, etc. It's because most men are not taught since birth that women are human beings that care, and also share a place with men in society. These assholes that are telling Sara to be somebody else couldn't cut it as a singer and/or a songwriter themselves. They think they know everything, but don't know shit. Humility is clearly absent in these assholes. "Who died and made you king of anything" is a variant of "who died and made you king" or "who died and made you God?" Of course this not limited to women-haters. The prisons are full of them, because they let it go to their heads, and they get caught. They're like the fictitious Gordon Gecko. Thousands of polticians are also like this, and it's because we are in too many wars, and the economy is in the toilet, because they play for the highest bidder instead of serving the people.

You sound so innocent, all full of good intent

Swear you know best

But you expect me to jump up on board with you

And ride off into your delusional sunset

"Delusional Sunset?" Who do I picture as that? Glenn "Vick's Under the Eyes" Beck interposed on a sun during a sunset. People like Beck are State Hospital patients.

I’m not the one who’s lost with no direction

But you’ll never see

You’re so busy making maps with my name on them in all caps

You got the talking down, just not the listening

It reminds me of of the people who type in all caps thinking they know all the shit, but actually don't know shit. They're like the fake "experts" who think they know everything, but never studied the subject. They think they know everything because they think they're all shit. They are reverse King Midases, everything they touch turns to shit. Look at the United States since 1994.

And who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

All my life I’ve tried to make everybody happy

While I just hurt and hide

Waiting for someone to tell me it’s my turn to decide

I don't know why Sara had to "hurt and hide". This is certainly an issue only for her to disclose. This is certainly not just an issue over what song to write and perform. It goes back to the original premise that she didn't want to be pigoenholed and redefined as somebody she is not.

Who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

Who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

Who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

Who cares if you disagree?

You are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be?

Who died and made you king of anything?

Let me hold your crown, babe.

What Sara is really saying is she has the record industry by the balls and dangling them from the high rise.

The entire song also has a political message. It tells these Tea Baggers that they can't demean and act against people who are different than you. The whole problem is that Tea Baggers are a bunch of sociopathic dumb stupid Nazi bunch of bull shitters clearly beholden to Corporate America. They want to ban Islam, deport all "Mexicans", keep workers unemployed where our jobs are shipped overseas for slave wages, gut our education system, and starve our seniors to death. SORRY! ALL AMERICANS WILL NOT JOIN THE GOP'S DELUSIONAL SUNSET! AMEN!

Watch Sara Bareilles - King of Anything Music Video here

I DON'T FUCKING SUPPORT JOSEPHIEND MILLER, OR eWHITMAN!

2010-08-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

There was an ad on my site asking cunts to support Joe Miller for U. S. Senate, or eWhitman for California Governor. If you are a Senior, do not give ANY money to Miller, or any Sarah Palin-backed candidate. In fact, give money to these candidates:

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/scottmcadams
https://donate.barbaraboxer.com/page/contribute?source=generic_web
https://secure.harryreid.com/ee/index.php/contribute
https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6235/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=3647

DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO ANY REPUBLICAN! Why support cunts, assholes, and the galactically stupid? The GOP will take your Social Security, and spend it on $300 nuts and toilet seats. They gave us the Recession like they gave us the Depression in the 1930's. BEWARE!

Please also send Jerry Brown to his third-nonconsecutive term as Governor of California:

https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5749/t/4559/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2479

REPEAL ALL OF SB 1070 (AND RECALL THE BASTARDS!)

2010-08-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

I submitted this blog entry, because I'm afraid we are repeating history. This land, all of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, most of Colorado, parts of Wyoming and Kansas, and the Oklahoma Panhandle, were all once MEXICO. On January 24, 1848, we signed a treaty with Mexico, guaranteeing the rights of Mexicans and Indians still living in the stolen land as American citizens. What has this Government done? They have killed thousands of people, stolen their land, denied them the right to vote, and openly discriminated against them. For the last Century, millions of White Anglo-Saxon Polacks have all demanded that all "Mexicans", regardless of whether they were born here, which country they actually emigrated from, and what papers they have, BE DEPORTED. I have one thing to say for all of this:

FUCK YOU!

There's a very special person that is mentioned from the Article. Her name is Anneliese Marie Frank. She was born on June 12, 1929. Her father served in the Imperial German Army in World War I. Her father gave her a diary on her 13th birthday. About three weeks later, she went into hiding with her parents, her sister, and five others. She kept the Diary for 26 months, until August 4, 1944, when I believe a Judas, Wilhelm Van Maaren, called the Gestapo, who later arrested the Franks, the Van Pels, and Dr. Pfeffer. Only Otto Frank survived. Anne was born a Jew and GERMAN, and she died a Jew and GERMAN! The coup of the Enabling Act was nothing more than a violation of the Weimar Constitution. Her Diary is the best read book of all time third to the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
Recently, Marg Baker said that "they" should be put into camps. SHE CAN SUCK MY DICK AND BALLS BLUE!
This story and all other stories should be promulgated to show and prevent any and all atrocities against all Latinos. If we don't, some Ana Maria Francisquez would write her own Diario, and I shudder to hear of the consequences. Joseph Smith said by 1844 that the Constitution shall hang by a thread. It will happen. I am hoping it will not happen in my lifetime.
LONG LIVE SACRED GERMANY!
VIVE LA FRANCE LIBRE! (I say this because if France and Britain did prepare, then any invasion of Holland, Belguin, and Luxembourg would not have taken place.)
From The Tuscon Citizen:

Border Patrol takes father and leaves family on side of road in Tucson 2010

by Three Sonorans on Aug. 21, 2010, under Civil rights, Headline news

Friday nights are usually a time to relax as the work week comes to an end.

You might have to wait an hour just to get into your favorite restaurant, new movies are opening, and bars and clubs await their recently paid cogs of the capitalistic machinery for a night of libations.

For other families the night is more reminiscent of Anne Frank’s experience.

Anne Frank was an "illegal"

Beautiful human beings, intelligent humans, loving human beings… but that does not matter during certain eras of history. Certain groups of humans, children of God, our brothers and sisters on the same family tree of life, become dehumanized through the dominant power’s policy and targeted and hunted down like animals.

Life lived in hiding.

Let me say something to the dominant power — Republicanism in Arizona — about why you will never solve the problem and in fact only make things worse.

I understand your simplistic perspective “Illegal is illegal.” Wow what insight!

Speeding is illegal also, and yet the same forces behind SB1070 were the same forces behind taking the freeway cameras down because so many were being fined.

I thought illegal was illegal? What do you have to be afraid of? Just don’t break the law by speeding, and you have nothing to worry about.

But of course simplistic mantras are necessary and furthermore suffice for many living here because of our dead-last ranking in education (49th or 50th depending on your source). When education fails, human brains fail to mature and transcend into higher dimensions of existence. From our childhood of repetition — daily allegiance to a flag that was made in China, multiplication tables, prayers — some fail to see the bigger picture.

Illegal is illegal. Repeat.

What does this even mean? Who determines illegality, and you do know that second use of the word illegal is not the same first use… unless of course there is no depth to the sentence and it is simple a comparison of letter content.

Before I digress any further, let me share an experience from my Friday night.

I was headed to meet up with some friends at around 7:30pm and I got a message about cop and Border Patrol traffic incident on the south-side of Tucson. I left my camcorder with night-vision at home, but I at least could capture something from my cellphone.

I came across a group of crying children on the side of the road. They were crying for their father.

Let me preface this with something else. This disrupted family was clean. Combed hair, clean clothes, some with the highly-advanced ability to switch languages using only their brain. My point here is that they were not animals nor were they “dirty Mexicans.”

They are human beings.

Just like any human being, a mother and children will cry when their father is taken from them. The only difference between the dog-catcher and Border Patrol are the words on their vehicle. When you are Latino in Arizona, when you are unable to “show your papers” reminiscent of that other fascist era of the 1940s, you are like a dog that needs to be caught and caged.

You are not a family man. You are not a child of God. You are not a brother or sister in Christ, or whatever God you pray to. You are a dehumanized animal known only as an illegal to members of this Christian nation.

You see, if they were to recognize the divine soul within Latinos, the “temple of the Holy Spirit” or all that other stuff these same haters of humans learn on Sunday morning, these types of Friday nights would not happen. Most Latinos are Christian also, so where is the fellowship?

One last thing.

Not all parts of SB1070 were delayed. If you are driving in a vehicle and at least one passenger is undocumented, even if they are your family member you are now charged with “human smuggling.”

Then when you see crime stats that show an increase in “human smuggling” in Tucson, and people freak out, and then even more National Guard are called out to deal with this emergency, well now you know a little more about who these “human smugglers” are.

So much is contained in a word. If only Arizonans had the proper educational training to understand how a brain even creates the conception of words and how their meaning is derived as neural transmission via synapses between neurons…

Snap out of it Three Sonorans! Illegal is illlegal, repeat!

How soon we forget…

MY VERSION OF BAD ROMANCE

2010-08-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

By Stefani "Lady Gaga" Germanotta:

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!

Ro mah ro-mah-mah

Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Want your bad romance

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!

Ro mah ro-mah-mah

Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Want your bad romance

I want your ugly

I want your disease

I want your everything

As long as it’s free

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love

I want your drama

The touch of your hand

I want you leathe-studded kiss in the sand

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love

You know that I want you

And you know that I need you

I want it bad

Your bad romance

I want your loving

And I want your revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!)

I want your loving

All your love is revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!

Ro mah ro-mah-mah

Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Want your bad romance

I want your horror

I want your design

‘Cause you’re a criminal

As long as your mine

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love, uhh

I want your psycho

Your vertigo stick

Want you in my room

When your baby is sick

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love

Love-love-love

I want your love

You know that I want you

And you know that I need you

(‘Cause I’m a freak bitch, baby!)

I want it bad

Your bad romance

I want your loving

And I want your revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!)

I want your loving

All your love is revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!

Ro mah ro-mah-mah

Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Want your bad romance

Work-work fashion baby

Work it

move that bitch crazy

Work-work fashion baby

Work it

move that bitch crazy

Work-work fashion baby

Work it

move that bitch crazy

Work-work fashion baby

Work it

I’m a freak bitch baby

I want your love

And I want your revenge

I want your love

I don’t wanna be friends

J'veux ton amour

Et je veux ton revenge

J'veux ton amour

I don't wanna be friends

[J'VEUX TON AMOUR

VIVE LA FRANCE LIBRE!

SI SE PUEDE!]

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

(I don't wanna be friends)

Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

(I don't wanna be friends)

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!

(Want your bad romance)

Caught in a bad romance

(Want your bad romance)

I want your loving

I want your revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!)

I want your loving

All your love is revenge

You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

(Want your bad romance)

Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

(Want your bad romance)

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh!

(Want your bad romance)

Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh!

Caught in a bad romance

Rah rah ah-ah-ah!

Ro mah ro-mah-mah

Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Want your bad romance

WHO REALLY WROTE SB 1070?

2010-08-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

It wasn't a zealous apostate. It was a descendant of a Croatian immigrant at FAIR.

From Alter Net:

Az’s immigration law was penned by a hate group

Posted by Devona Walker on @ 4:12 pmArticle printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasyURL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/28/azs-immigration-law-was-penned-by-a-hate-group/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternet

Why does the mainstream media ignore that when covering it?

The immigration mess in this country is not a fake problem. But the debate surrounding how you solve it is completely artificial. Immigration reform has been the most politically divisive issue in this country for going on six years. That is insanely idiotic when you consider that both sides essentially agree on how to solve it. You cannot find one (unless you are talking to those racist nativists) anti-immigration group that honestly believes this country can or should deport millions of illegal immigrants. Likewise, you cannot find one pro-immigrant advocate who believes we should not do more to enforce the rule of law and secure our borders.

It all boils down to who is going to blink first. Who is going to take up this fight, which is political suicide in the short-term for Democrats and in the long-term for Republicans? [The later, look at California after Proposition 187.]

And which one do you do first? Do you secure the borders first? Or do you start a legal process by which illegal immigrants currently in the country can begin a process of becoming a legal citizen? Yes, amnesty folks. Despite all the vitriol on the anti-immigrant side of things, there is not one expert among them who does not believe that “amnesty” in some form must be a part of solving our current immigration mess.

Today, a judge in Arizona temporarily shot down the most controversial parts of the state’s stringent immigration enforcement law. It should be noted that she would not have taken that step if she had not thought there was considerable merit in the federal case against the state of Arizona.

The truth is the law doesn’t have a chance of becoming law as it is written. It does not merely encourage, but requires racial profiling. But it also violates due process. It sets up a system in which the innocent can be indefinitely detained without any proof they are illegal. Validating someone’s immigration status at present takes several days and the Department of Homeland Security has already been sued several times for detaining legal citizens. [See the song, video, and movie "Born in East L. A."] If the federal government can’t get it right, with all the resources and training available to them, how do you think some small-town Arizona cops will fare? [They also wanted us to "read the bill". They should have READ THE FUCKING CONSTUTITION, but it's a useless point with them. More to come.]

But the really inexcusable thing about this whole immigration farce is that the folks penning these “enforcement-only” immigration statutes around the country, know these laws are not enforceable or legal.

The little-known secret behind this whole “anti-immigrant” movement is that the laws are not written by individual legislators, but the legislative arm of a far right anti-immigrant group called FAIR, that is the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Each bill serves as test legislation for future bills. They have built this movement entirely upon bias, fear and emotion and have no intention of actually helping resolve the immigration mess in this country. Their ultimate goal is to repeal the 14th amendment, which is citizenship by birthright. They want to create a situation where you are not necessarily a U.S. citizen simply be the act of being born in this country. They feel citizenship should be reserved onto to children born in this country and whose parents were also American citizens. They also feel admittedly that Latinos, not necessarily illegal immigrants, are a threat to our country.

It should be noted that in our last presidential election we had two choices, Sen. John McCain and Barack Obama. If these birthright folks had their way, neither would be eligible for U.S. citizenship. Obama’s father was Kenyan and McCain wasn’t actually born in this country.

It should also be noted that the far right folks fueling the anti-immgration debate and writing the immigration statutes are not at all in line with most Americans concerned about the rate of illegal immigration, the impact on social services, public schools, or necessarily the potential that exist for the Mexican drug war to spill over into U.S. cities. These folks are not even in line with groups like the (conservative) Center for Immigration Studies, they are simply exploiting the immigration tensions that exist to further their nativist movement.

The last 11 states that enacted immigration statutes had direct connections to FAIR. FAIR is a fairly controversial group. It has been listed since 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. It’s not necessarily immigration legislation that caused them to receive this distinction but because of its historical ties to a Eugenics Foundation (Eugenics is a pseudo-science founded in the late 1800s that deals with the improvement–as by control of human mating–of hereditary qualities of a race or breed). [It was also this movement that created scientific racism, which isn't based on science at all. It is scientific racism that was the foundation of Plessy v Ferguson (1896), and 58 more years of racial segregation. It was also the basis of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany to commit genocide of six million Jews and millions more non-Germans.]

SPLC has also investigated FAIR’s founder John Tanton, a guy who has been warning for years, not about illegal immigration, but a “Latino onslaught.”

“In a majority of the states where legislation has been proposed or discussed, the leading lawmakers behind the bills are associated with FAIR’s legislative arm, a group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) that operates in at least 35 states,” it was reported in Colorlines.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, FAIR has received more than $1 million in grants from the Pioneer Fund, a group that promotes the notion that blacks and Latinos are inherently less intelligent than whites. [Since scientific racism and segregation are not based on constitutional law, it is no wonder why trolls on various internet groups continue to repeat FAIR's nonsensical bull shit. It is clear that they want segregation back. The Fourteenth Amendment abolished the nonsense that Blacks and everybody else was inferior. There was no constitutional basis for "separate but equal" in the first place. It was based on clearly untested fear and prejudice that is based on copmplete ignorance. While the forefathers initially made Blacks as three-fifths of a person, it was intended in the long run that at least every man would be free and equal as intended. They (FAIR) don't like the Warren and Burger Court rulings, and don't like the current civil rights laws on the books. They want to go back to the way they were in 1896. They are like the KKK without the bedsheets.]

In at least seven of the 11 states where these “immigration enforcement” statutes have been proposed, there are legislators “drafting” them that are member’s of FAIR’s state legislator’s group and Arizona is no exception.

In South Carolina, it was Rep. Michael Pitts. Pitts is a listed as a member of SLLI. The language in the South Carolina bill is strikingly similar to the one in Arizona. In Missouri, SLLI member Rep. Brian Nieves signed on as a co-sponsor of a draconian anti-immigrant bill recently referred to a legislative committee. In five other states–Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Texas–the same is true.

Kris Kobach, a lawyer who works with the FAIR legal arm, IRLI, helped write Arizona’s SB 1070. [From Croatia, how amazing?]

Why is Arizona any different?

Well, until now, FAIR’s strategy appears to be to have been to eat away at the rights of immigrants along the margins. That is, all the states up until this point, have not had significant immigrant populations or problems in terms of illegal immigration. Instead, FAIR chose conservative strongholds where they would be able to find legislators who found it politically advantageous to propose stringent immigration enforcement statutes. But in terms of really affecting the lives of immigrants, these bills were not that consequential — as those states do not have large populations of immigrants. This, of course, also meant there would be little resistance and pushback from Latino voters.

The difference in Arizona is that it does have a large Latino population. After Arizona, they will probably be emboldened enough to take on Florida, New York, Texas and California. [They already failed in California with Proposition 187.] Arizona is a very critical test case for the anti-immigration crowd. And this federal suit is equally critical when it comes to stopping the madness long enough to address the problem at hand.

Read the story.

***************************************************************

Devona Walker is a veteran print journalist. She has worked for The Associated Press and the New York Times company. Currently she is the senior political and finance reporter for theloop21.com. She lives in Columbia, Missouri where she is working on a Master's in Public Policy and her first novel.

SIGN UP CINDY SHEEHAN'S NEWSLETTER.

2010-07-31T20:46:00.000-07:00

TO RECEIVE MY LATEST BLOGS, RADIO SHOW NEWS, AND ACTIVISM UPDATES!

LIKE ANGLE, LIKE PALIN

2010-07-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

It goes to show you that when Republicans are in trouble, they don't want the press to cover them, which is why they run like pussies and cunts.

From theimmoralmajority.blogspot.com

Sarah Palin admits she quit as Governor because of the media.

From the Daily Caller:

From a remote location on an island off Alaska’s coast, former Governor Sarah Palin is blasting what she describes as the “sick puppies” in the media who immediately and ruthlessly attacked her when Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign.

By "attacked her" she really means "investigated her", which to Palin must have seemed like an attack since, up until then, the Alaska media had rolled over to have its tummy rubbed every time she walked into the room and rarely asked her any difficult questions, or in Palin parlance, "gotcha questions."

In exclusive remarks to The Daily Caller, Palin described “hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’” descending upon Alaska in the days after she was picked by McCain.

She said the media became a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor and faults, in part, the McCain campaign for failing to vigorously defend her.

I have heard that "hordes of Obama opposition researchers" claim since the day Palin was picked as Old Man McCain's arm candy, but in fact most of the reporters who came up here were simply trying to learn more about this newly minted national politician who hardly anybody knew anything about.

Hell I was doing research as well, and I can assure you that NOBODY paid me a dime to do so.

Palin chose to be a public figure at the highest level, as a candidate in a presidential campaign, arguably inviting the most intense scrutiny imaginable.

“It was too obvious to me, my family, my administration and anyone else who knew me (and my record) that we were in a defenseless position the minute I gave my acceptance speech and the hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’ had descended upon Alaska,” Palin told The DC.

Palin, whose conflicts with key McCain campaign staffers are infamous, said the campaign could have stood by her more firmly.

“To not have had the McCain campaign staff defend my record was an insurmountable challenge, because once a bell is rung, it’s impossible to un-ring,” Palin said.

I believe what Sarah is referring to here is the McCain campaign's refusal to lie about Todd Palin's membership with the Alaska Independence Party.

“It didn’t help, either, that the hours and hours of interviews with the likes of Katie Couric resulted in a few minutes here and there of selected snippets of my annoyed answers. (I naively had not believed at the time of some of the badgering questions [for example, questioning my pro-life position] that the editing process would fulfill their biased purpose),” Palin said.

Another ridiculous accusation. Palin also recently looked like an idiot while being interviewed by Bill O'Reilly, was THAT also edited? The truth is that the woman always looks like an imbecile unless somebody asks her only soft ball questions or scripts them with her ahead of time. And often that does not help either.

“I said, ‘Enough. Political adversaries and their political friends in the media will not destroy my State, my administration, nor my family. Enough.’ I knew if I didn’t play their game any longer, they could not win. I would not retreat, I would instead reload, and I would fight for what is right from a different plane.”

So there you have it from "Mama Grizzly" herself. Palin quit the job she was elected to, because she simply could not stand up to the media and the bloggers.

There you go Republicans, THAT is the woman who energizes your base like no other, the woman who is the darling of the Teabaggers who are actively hijacking your party.

Good luck with that.

By the way, just so we are all on the same page, NOBODY fears the media unless they have something to hide. Remember that.

THEY SHOULD CONTINUE TO STOP OFF-SHORE DRILLING

2010-07-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

From theimmoralminority.blogspot.com:

I have a new hero and his name is Judge Ralph Beistline, the man who said NO to offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea.

From ADN:

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline said the Minerals Management Service failed to analyze the environmental effect of natural gas development despite industry interest and specific lease incentives for such development. The agency analyzed only the development of the first field of 1 billion barrels of oil -- despite acknowledging that the amount was the minimum level of development that could occur on the leases.

The agency also failed to determine whether information it acknowledged was missing before the sale was relevant or essential under environmental law, or whether the cost of obtaining that information was exorbitant.

Beistline enjoined all activity under the lease sale pending additional environmental reviews.

Caroline Cannon, president of the Native Village of Point Hope, an Inupiat Eskimo whaling community of more than 700 on a peninsula jutting into the Chukchi, said news of the decision brought tears of joy in the village.

You know I think that last line, pretty much says it all.

KEITH OLBERMANN IS SO SPOT ON!

2010-07-22T01:31:00.000-07:00

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?", Mr. Welch to Sen. Joe McCarthy, now a dead man.

Glenn Beck should not be a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He is not a Christian of any kind by any remote way.

Jesus Christ fed the poor, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He gave the Sermon on the mount on the basis of "come, follow Me." He chased thieves out of the Temple.

He died on the Cross. He told the thief next to Him, "for tomorrow you will be in Paradise." He died. He went to the dead in the dark. He visited all the righteous, taught all the repentant, and opened the Gates of Heaven.

He then left His tomb.

Mary Magdaline was looking for Him. She thought He was the gardener, and begged to take His body.

Jesus came back.

He also visited the Native Americans, the Polynesians, and the Ten Tribes.

---------------------------------------

"Senator [Dan Quayle], I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Sen. Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 Vice Presidential Debate.

Beck, I was in the Pre-Existence. I was with Jesus Christ. I knew and still know Jesus. He is my Best Friend

You sir, are no Jesus Christ.

You don't know Jesus Christ.

As Keith Olbermann would say, "you sir, are an idiot."

YOU ARE A MOR-ON!

You weren't the first. It was Andrew Notsobriteassbitch that launched the attack on Shirley Sherrod. The clip where it was claimed that she discriminated against a White farmer was severely edited. The point was to show that Obama is a "racist", and will hurt and discriminate against White people. The entire Fux Propaganda Channel is trying to promote this and other allegations, such as Obama was born in Kenya, and that Obama is some sort of "Muslim" "Socialist" or "Fascist".

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961, the 17th anniversary of the day Anne Frank and seven others were arrested by the Gestapo (Richard Belzer, the future Det. Munch, was also probably riding in his birthday present with his cousin, the future Arthur Fonzerelli, that day.), in Honolulu, Hawai'i. He was not born in Kenya, or anywhere out of the United States. They don't like Obama as President, BECAUSE HE IS BLACK.

Hitler didn't like Jews, because they were Jews.

"They passed a law in '64 to give others a little more.", Bruce Honrsby and the Range, "That's the Way It Is".

GET THE FUCK OVER IT!

THIS IS 2010, NOT 1960!

The Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party of 1860. It is a shell of the Democratic Party of 1860.

Ayn Rand Paul stated on the Rachel Maddow Show that he wanted segregation back. The Republican Party and its supporter, the Fux Propaganda Channel, have not condemned Paul; therefore, they are just as racist as the Southern Democrats were in the 1960's. Ask Latinos in Nazizona.

---------------------------------------------

"She [Anne Frank] asks as if we started the War. Did we start the War?", Herman Van Pels ("Van Daan"). "The Diary of Anne Frank".

"We didn't start the fire! It was always burning as the world was turning!" Billy Joel, "We didn't start the fire!"

Glenn Goldenass Beck is a fraud. He advertises for Goldline. Goldline has ripped off thousands of people for thousands of dollars, including seniors. He is also a liar, and is not close to be a journalist. The Fux Propaganda Channel is just that, a cable channel to spread unfounded conservative propaganda, and then pose it as news. It is a giant amonium nitrate (bull shit) factory. Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and the rest of the staff are no better than Joseph Goebbels, and the Ministry of Information and Propaganda.

I say all this because Shirley Sherrod was asked to resign by sending a text by cell phone on the way back to Athens, Georgia, because she was going to be a topic of Glenn Beck's show on the Fux Propaganda Channel.

Beck is a liar, fraudster, and thief. He should be excommunicated from the Church. I would not sustain him in any Church Office! His ass should be dragged to Congress and interrogated and interviewed by a House Committee. It does not matter if he is blind, HE IS ALREADY SPIRITUALLY BLIND! His acts in destroying people should force him to be humble. He is nothing more than Father Coughlin and Morton Downey, Jr. Beck is an embarrasment to the Church. He should, for his mental and physical health, must quit his radio and TV shows, if he is ever going to be closer to God again. If he doesn't, the Fux Propaganda Channel signed it's own death warrant. They are Joseph Goebbels and Joseph McCarthy combined, and if they don't understand it, then we are not the United States of America, but United States Hospital. Welcome to the Insane Asylum.

Sharron Sherrod should get her job back. Obama ought to quit pretending that the Republicans are going to be "bipartisan" when they want to go back to the days between 1994-2008. FUCK THEM! They started the Great Depression in the 1930's and started this Recession. It wasn't the Democrats. Between 2001-2009, the Republicans spent monies like they're the bunch of drunken sailors. It fine time in 2010, this November, more of them should be defeated, not less. Nancy Pelosi will remain the Speaker, and Harry Reid (Righteous and sane man) will remain the Senate Majority Leader. The Republicans and the Fux Propaganda Channel all drank the Kool Aid. So did Tom Vilsack. He should text his resignation on the Beltway.

Nikita Khrushchev said in "Enemy at the Gates", "He's [Marksman Vasili Zaytsev] making the Germans shit in their pants!"

The Republicans and the Fux Propaganda Channel should shit their pants.

Rue Britannia.

Viva la Revolucion!

Vive la France Libre!

Es lebt unser heiliges Deutschland!

United We Stand!

Go to hell Glenn Beck!

KEITH OLBERMANN IS SO SPOT ON!

This is also from theimmoralminority.blogspot.com:

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment for July 21, 2010.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hard to hear. But extremely important that it be heard.

More from digbysblog.blogspot.com

Civil Rights and Shirley Sherrod's Family

by batocchio

Earlier this week, Digby posted some of Shirley Sherrod's speech - the parts Andrew Breitbart and his team chose to hide. (Media Matters has the video.) If you haven't seen it yet, it's pretty moving and thoughtful.

Three recent posts delve more into her story, her father's and her husband's.

"Hosie Miller: Shirley Sherrod's dad, and a casualty in a forgotten war," by Will Bunch:

How unusual was it for a black man to be killed by a white man in the Deep South up through the mid-1960s with no one brought to justice. Way too common. We hear a lot about one particular killing in Mississippi -- the 1964 murder of a trio of civil rights activists that included two white college kids from up North -- but in reality dozens of black men were killed for taking a stand, for trying to vote or just on a whim. If you want to read something sobering, check out this letter from 2007 from the Southern Poverty Law Center, asking the FBI to investigate some 74 additional unsolved deaths from the era.

"The civil rights heroism of Charles Sherrod," by Joan Walsh:

People who care about civil rights and racial reconciliation may eventually thank Andrew Breitbart for bringing Shirley Sherrod the global attention she deserves. Really. Her message of racial healing, her insight that the forces of wealth and injustice have always pit "the haves and the have-nots" against each other, whatever their race, is exactly what's missing in today's Beltway debates about race. What's even more amazing, but almost completely unexplored in this controversy, is the historic civil rights leadership role of her husband, Charles Sherrod, an early leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who served on the front lines of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the early 1960s.

Despite Breitbart's attempt to cast Shirley Sherrod as The, um, Man ("The Woman" doesn't have the same ring), out to keep oppressed white folk down, under our first black racist president, she turned out to be the opposite, an advocate of justice for everybody. Given that history, it's fascinating to learn more about her husband, an early SNCC leader known for being willing to work with white volunteers even after tension developed over the role of whites in the organization. Charles Sherrod is important for much more than the fairness with which he treated whites, but given Breitbart's attempt to make his wife the poster woman for black "racism," that footnote to his leadership history is particularly noteworthy. If there's anyone more clueless about our civil rights history than Breitbart, as well as more abusive to it, I'm challenged to think of who it might be. He tests my commitment to nonviolent social change, but I'll share the work of Charles Sherrod to remember my values.

"Shirley Sherrod and the Dark History of Baker County," by Elizabeth Holtzman:

The bad news is that the forces of racism and those who cower before it are alive and well. The good news is that both the Spooners, the poor white farmers that Ms. Sherrod helped, and Ms. Sherrod were able to reject that racism to find what connected them. The best news would be if the country would decisively cast off the legacy of Sheriff Screws, Sheriff Johnson, and all the racist evil they represent.

Out here in L.A., some of the local PBS stations have been re-running Eyes on the Prize this year. I doubt Breitbart will watch it, but it seems it's always timely.

WHAT ABOUT SEX OFFENDERS?

2010-07-11T01:10:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Marc Klaas' daughter Polly was murdered when she was 12 years old and he has
devoted his life to protecting children from murderes/sex offenders since then.
Are the laws in place which limits sex offenders to where they can live really
helping or are they backfiring? Marc Klaas says that there needs to be a way to
differentiate certain sex offenders from others and then make the punishments
equal.

Video Link |
YouTube Channel

NOT EVEN THE NEW YORK GOVERNOR IS IMMUNE

2010-07-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

From: sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

07/08/2010

By Mark Hamblett

Former Governor George E. Pataki and other officials can be sued for the involuntary civil commitment of violent sexual predators without notice or a hearing upon the completion of their prison terms, a federal judge has ruled.

Southern District Judge Jed S. Rakoff concluded that Mr. Pataki, the former commissioners of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, the state Office of Mental Health and others are not shielded by qualified immunity for actions that "rather blatantly violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights."

The inmates were shuttled directly from prison to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center after Mr. Pataki unilaterally promulgated a Sexual Violent Predator Initiative in September 2005. He acted after the Legislature several times failed to enact a civil confinement statute.

Judge Rakoff said the governor's initiative ran afoul of U.S. Supreme Court case law and, in any event, "no balancing of public and private interests can remotely justify what happened here."

The state Attorney General's Office has appealed Judge Rakoff's decision in Bailey v. Pataki, 08 Civ. 8563, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Both the office and Mr. Pataki, now of counsel at Chadbourne & Parke, declined comment yesterday.

Six plaintiffs sued Mr. Pataki and several officials alleging a politically motivated conspiracy to violate their civil rights.

The governor's program authorized involuntary civil commitment pursuant to New York Mental Hygiene Law §9.27, which allows two state-employed psychiatrists to commit, without a prior judicial hearing or determination, "any person alleged to be mentally ill and in need of involuntary care and treatment."

But in 2006, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in State ex rel. Harkavy v. Consilvio, 7 N.Y. 3d 607 (2006), that post-release commitment could only occur through Correction Law §402, which permits transfers of inmates to civil confinement in a psychiatric facility only upon a judicial determination made after notice, hearing and examination by court-appointed psychiatrists.

Before the Harkavy decision, the six plaintiffs were all near the end of their prison terms when they were transferred to the psychiatric facility.

After briefing and oral argument, Judge Rakoff dismissed some claims against some of the defendants. But he left in place allegations against Mr. Pataki and his former aides under 42 U.S.C. §1983 for violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments, conspiracy under §§1983 and 1985, state constitutional claims and state law claims for negligence and gross negligence, and claims by three of the plaintiffs for false imprisonment.

'Essential Requirements'

In his opinion Tuesday, Judge Rakoff cited Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480 (1980), in which the U.S. Supreme Court called involuntary psychiatric commitment "a massive curtailment of liberty" that cannot be done without adequate due process protection, including notice and a hearing.

"The fact that a citizen has been previously convicted of an offense involving sexual violations in no way deprives him of this protection," Judge Rakoff said, adding that the plaintiffs' evidence shows that "none of the essential requirements set forth in Vitek was met."

The plaintiffs, he observed, were transferred "without the slightest advance notice" after being evaluated by two physicians prior to transfer. And he said there was nothing in the record, when viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, that suggested it was infeasible to accord procedural safeguards to the inmates.

The judge rejected the defendants' claims that their actions were objectively reasonable and not in violation of clearly established law. He added that "it would have been the easiest thing in the world" to follow all the required procedures.

"This is so obvious that no reasonable defendant official could have failed to miss it," Judge Rakoff said.

He said the plaintiffs had put forth evidence that could lead a jury to conclude that the officials knew they were violating the inmates' rights but persisted "in a deliberate decision taken for political reasons."

"To deprive plaintiffs of their constitutional rights for political gain can never be reasonable," he said.

And while Mr. Pataki and the other defendants "vehemently" deny they acted for political advantage, he said, "plaintiffs have proffered sufficient competent evidence to make this a jury question."

Plaintiffs' attorney Ameer Benno said it was absurd for Mr. Pataki and others to claim qualified immunity because they are being indemnified under Public Officers Law §17.

"The whole doctrine of qualified immunity is based on the idea that public officials should be able to act in a way that is bold and decisive without fear of personal litigation," Mr. Benno said. "This perpetrates a fraud on the community, which is not aware that these officials are not going to pay out of their own pocket."

Assistant Attorneys General Edward J. Curtis Jr., Jane R. Goldberg and Matthew Silverman represent the defendants.

After Mr. Pataki left office in 2006, the Legislature enacted Article 10 of the Mental Hygiene Law, which established a process for civil confinement of sexual offenders.

NO ACTUAL INNOCENCE PROVISION? BULL FUCKING SHIT!

2010-07-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

This is clearly judicial activism by these conservative Judges. Instead of doing their duties; they're are finding ways not to handle justice.

From circuit9.blogspot.com:

Lee v. Lambert, No. 09-35276 (7-6-10) (O'Scannlain joined by Wolle, D.J.; concurrence by N. Smith). AEDPA does not have an innocence exception to its statute of limitations. That was the decision by the 9th, where the panel reversed and remanded a granting of relief by a district court. The petitioner had been convicted of various counts of child molestation in Oregon, but his challenge, with a compelling innocence claim, was outside AEDPA's statute. The 9th chose this case to quash any assumption that there was an exception for innocence, stating that it was basically a waste of time and judicial resources and that district courts are deciding cases differently (see pp. 9533 & 9534). The decision by the 9th boils down to the plain language of the statute and that Congress was aware of such a possible judicial created exception, but did not fashion such an exception in the final legislation. The decision by the 9th creates a circuit conflict with the 1st, 5th, 7th, 8th, and now 9th, aligned against the 6th. N. Smith concurred, focusing on the lack of AEDPA deference given to the state courts by the district court under AEDPA.

YOU GO CINDY!

2010-07-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

General Atomics ought to shit their pants.

From cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com:

General Atomics Afraid of Peace of the Action by Cindy Sheehan

Jackwagons

Cindy Sheehan

Last week I was getting ready to head out to DC for Peace of the Action’s Sizzlin’ Summer Protest when I got a call with a 202 (DC) area code. This is how the conversation went:

Me: Hello, this is Cindy.

Caller: Hello, my name is (I forget) from PM Realty in Washington, DC.

Me: And? What can I do for you?

Caller: I was looking at your website and I noticed that I represent one of the clients you are going to protest next week and I want to know what you are planning.

Me: I am protesting a lot of places, which do you represent?

Caller: I represent the landlord?

Me: The landlord of the White House? Can you please be more specific?

Caller: I represent the landlord where General Atomics has offices.

Me: Oh (this was what I thought he was talking about), and what do you want to know?

Caller: Well, exactly what do you have planned?

Me: Well, I can tell you what we don’t have planned—we aren’t going to call a drone strike on the building and drop a hellfire missile on it.

Caller: I have to protect my clients.

Me: From what? Peace activists?

Then I hung up.

Today, my colleague, Josh Smith and I went to 1899 Pennsylvania Ave where General Atomics has its offices to recon for our protest tomorrow. If you go to the website of General Atomics, not only will you find out exactly where its offices are (they are not hiding), you will find out that General Atomics builds Predator unmanned aerial vehicles that are used by the US military to drop Hellfire missiles from thousands of feet above on to mostly civilian targets and have killed thousands of innocent people.

When we arrived at the building that is directly across the street from the World Bank in the NW quadrant of DC, we walked right in the front door and right up to the front desk (Josh was wearing his Peace of the Action shirt) and asked a uniformed security guard what floor GA is on. She looked at a list on the desk and said: “Third floor.” We thanked her and left. The reason we wanted to confirm that GA is in the building is because when we protested at the Joint Command for the Gulf Disaster in New Orleans, there was some controversy if we were protesting at the right place.

So, Josh and I left GA and walked across the street to the CVS to grab a cold drink. We walked back across the street to head for the Metro at Faragut Wast, and three men were congregated in front of 1899 Penn Ave checking us out. Two of the men were “suits” and one was a black man who was dressed in street clothes, but with a badge around his neck.

I took some pictures of the entrance and the address, and the black man quickly approached us. He said: “We want to know why you entered the building and asked what floor General Atomics was on.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Security for General Atomics,” he answered.

Josh: “We asked because we wanted to know what floor it was on.”

Security: “Why do you want to know?”

Me: “It’s really none of your business.”

Josh: “Just stay away from us.”

Security: “Okay, okay.”

Then we walked away.

We cut through some buildings on the way to the Metro Station so I could find a bathroom. Josh and I went down to the train platform and were chatting about and chuckling about General Atomics being so concerned about a few people standing in front of their building with a banner, when Josh said: “Hey, isn’t that the security guy!?”

I turned around to where Josh was pointing, and sure enough, he was walking past us with a ball-cap on, carrying a backpack. When he saw that we recognized him, he sheepishly tipped his cap to us and said: “Hey, how’s it going?” Then he walked past us.

A train pulled up that wasn’t ours, so we jumped on it and tried to make our way back to where we were staying in a non-direct way.

So—what is this all about?

On Monday, my wallet was stolen and literally a few minutes after it was stolen, someone tried to use it at a DC Target Store to buy EXACTLY 911.00 worth of merchandise.

What are these evil “Jackwagons” up to?

What does Jackwagon mean? I don’t know, but I heard it today and liked it and without using profanity, it fits!

If you are able, join Peace of the Action as we protest an evil war profiteer in DC. (Safety in Numbers).

For more info go to www.PeaceoftheAction.org

PS: If Josh and I “disappear” call General Atomics and ask what they did to us.

FINALLY, THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES NAZIZONA

2010-07-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

Now if the pass immigration reform in Congress, we'd be in business.

From bsnorrell.blogspot.com:

U.S. Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
ACLU and Other Groups Also Challenging Law Laud Obama Administration's Action
BY ACLU

WASHINGTON, July 6 -- The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit today challenging Arizona's recently enacted racial profiling law known as SB 1070. In taking this extraordinary action, the federal government has sent a clear message that it will not tolerate state laws that invite racial stereotyping and profiling and interfere with federal immigration priorities and policies.
The American Civil Liberties Union, along with a coalition of leading rights groups, filed a lawsuit in May challenging the constitutionality of the law.
The civil rights coalition includes the ACLU, MALDEF, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) – a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice – ACLU of Arizona, National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP is serving as pro bono co-counsel in the case.

The following statements can be attributed to members of the coalition, as listed below.

Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project:

"We commend the Obama administration for taking this critical step to negate Arizona's unconstitutional usurpation of federal authority and its invitation to racial profiling. The administration's lawsuit is a cannon shot across the bow of other states that may be tempted to follow Arizona's misguided approach. We will continue to aggressively pursue our legal challenge and welcome the Justice Department's participation in the battle to preserve American values of fairness and equality."

Linton Joaquin, General Counsel of NILC:

"States planning to follow in Arizona's misguided footsteps should take note: the United States cannot and should not allow immigrants and communities of color to be targets of hateful racial profiling legislation that puts their civil liberties on the line. We are pleased to see that the government has exercised its legal right to protect the rights of those within its borders and ensure that federal issues remain squarely in the federal domain."

Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona:

"The Obama administration's action against this 'show me your papers' law sends a loud and clear message against state laws that institutionalize racial profiling of Latinos and result in an erosion of trust between law enforcement and the community. There has been a long history of racial profiling of Latinos in our state, particularly in Maricopa County, causing witnesses and victims of crime to be less willing to come forward. We will fight vigorously to keep this law from going into effect, and welcome the administration's efforts toward the same goal."

Julie Su, Litigation Director, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, a member of Asian American Center for Advancing Justice:

"We welcome the Department of Justice's action against Arizona's law that invites racial profiling of anyone who might be perceived as being foreign, including Asian Americans. We hope the DOJ's challenge to this discriminatory law signals a willingness on the part of the federal government to address the myriad ways that our country's broken immigration system affects Americans and those who seek a better life by coming to America. We need federal action to prevent more cities and states from introducing copycat measures that violate core American values of fairness and equality."

Chris Newman, Legal Director, NDLON:

"The Department of Justice has the legal and moral obligation to challenge SB 1070, not just to protect civil rights in Arizona but also to defend the federal government's exclusive authority to define and implement United States immigration policy."

Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and Chief Executive Officer of the NAACP:

"In filing this lawsuit, the Obama administration has taken a strong and principled stand against Arizona's discriminatory law. African-Americans have the misfortune of being all too familiar with the pernicious effects of racial profiling, and we welcome the addition of the administration to the broad spectrum of organizations already challenging this unconstitutional law. Laws that encourage discrimination have no place in this country. We are confident that the courts will prevent it from ever taking effect."

Organizations and attorneys on the case, Friendly House et al. v. Whiting et al., include:

ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project: Guttentag, Omar Jadwat, Cecillia Wang, Tanaz Moghadam and Harini P. Raghupathi

MALDEF: Thomas A. Saenz, Nina Perales, Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon, Victor Viramontes, Gladys Limon, Nicholas Espiritu and Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal

NILC: Joaquin, Karen Tumlin, Nora A. Preciado, Melissa S. Keaney, Vivek Mittal and Ghazal Tajmiri

ACLU Foundation of Arizona: Dan Pochoda and Annie Lai

APALC: Su, Ronald Lee, Yungsuhn Park, Connie Choi and Carmina Ocampo

NDLON: Newman and Lisa Kung

NAACP: Laura Blackburne

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP: Bradley S. Phillips, Paul J. Watford, Joseph J. Ybarra, Susan T. Boyd, Yuval Miller, Elisabeth J. Neubauer and Benjamin Maro

Roush, Mccracken, Guerrero, Miller & Ortega: Daniel R. Ortega, Jr.

More information about the Arizona law, including an ACLU video and slide show, can be found at: www.aclu.org/what-happens-arizona-stops-arizona

SOURCE American Civil Liberties Union

PALIN A NOMINEE; YES. PRESIDENT PALIN? NEVER!

2010-07-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

If she ever becomes President, I'm Anne Frank!

From theimmoralminority.blogspot.com:

Chris Matthews lays out how Palin could win the GOP nomination, and he is absolutley right. And the people who should be the most frightened by that prospect are in the GOP.

The question of whether Sarah will, or won't, throw her Naughty Monkey Pumps into the ring is now academic. She will.

She cannot win the general, and I seriously doubt she will win the primary, but she is DEFINITELY going to run! That is why there is such a push to tie up all of the loose ends in Wasilla and to get Levi back into the camp.

I am currently scouring the state looking for REAL patriotic Alaskans willing to come forward and tell the unvarnished truth about Sarah Palin. If you are one of those people, or know one, please contact me at gryphen2009@yahoo.com. I will be more than happy to listen to your story.

IT'S TIME OBAMA TO PACK THE SUPREME COURT

2010-07-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

It seems that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court want their own judicial activism. They're fucking hypocrites. They don't want "judical activism" on liberal issues, but only on conservative ones. Fine, it shouldn't happen. We should have more liberal Justices on the Supreme Court to prevent going back to the Stone Age. If it encourages more liberal judicial activism, then hell yes. The Warren and Burger Courts were right in the first place.

See the L. A. Times.

RUSHED LIMBURGER NEEDS TO KEEP HIS PROMISE TO MOVE TO COSTA RICA

2010-07-05T03:29:00.000-07:00

From digbysblog.blogspot.com:

Inalienable Gasbags

by digby

Rush Limbaugh says Elena Kagan wants to flush the Declaration of Independence down the toilet:

KAGAN: Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I'm not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws, but my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.

RUSH: And to hell with the Declaration of Independence. She is basically just throwing the whole concept of natural law down the toilet and flushing it. She is throwing the Declaration of Independence down the toilet. [Did she say or imply it? Bull shit!]

I wonder how he explains the arch conservative Texas School Board's decision to downgrade Jefferson in their schoolbooks because they've traced "separation of church and state" to him.

Conservatives have a very hard time with the founding documents because they really don't believe in human rights --- they believe in property rights, which they confuse with freedom. Glenn Beck even changes the terms of the Declaration by making up a story out of whole cloth about how Jefferson originally wrote "life, liberty and property," but it was changed to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" by northerners in the Continental congress because of slavery. It didn't happen.

I just have to share this extended comment by Rush about inalienable rights. It's hilarious:

Rush: Now, I know the Declaration of Independence is not law, but the Declaration of Independence defines us as a people. One of the reasons why this is one of the greatest countries on earth is the Constitution and the founding documents -- all of them, including the Declaration. "We are all endowed by our Creator, certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. If the government, whatever branch, will not stand for those things, who will? Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, held the Declaration above even the Constitution, its ideals at least.

So it makes sense that those who seek to re-enslave us, loosely defined, would feel the opposite way. They've convinced themselves that there is a "living, breathing Constitution," which means there's no Constitution at all. [Shows how much Rushed is a stupid dumb fuck cunt!] The Constitution is what they want it to be at any given moment. So inalienable rights -- an absolute guaranteed by God no less -- they find threatening. [Must be on Oxycotin all of these years, the last 60 of them!] And we're about to put somebody who obviously holds this view on the United States Supreme Court. I wonder if Elena Kagan would agree that all human beings have an alien right to live in the United States and become US citizens. [Fine, support amnesty, you shithead!] Obama clearly does. Obama vomited the cliche line: "These people are only seeking a better life." The implication was, "They're only seeking a better life! Who are we to tell 'em they can't have a better life?" So I guess the people coming here illegally, they got all kinds of rights and we're going to make sure that they are enshrined somewhere. In the process, the natural rights and conferred rights of American citizens are going to take a hit administered by this administration. [What citizens? Corporate "citizens"? People with money? Of course, but Rushed doesn't give a shit about the middle and poor classes, so why the fuck does Unclear Asschannelled put him on 600 stations? To copy the movie "Network"?]

I guess Rush thinks our "Creator" didn't mean for all those aliens to have inalienable rights -- indeed, those "natural rights" are reserved for Americans. Like I said, very confused.

If you haven't read the Declaration recently, it's worth looking at today. It, along with Bill of Rights, is the best realization of the founders' idealistic vision.

HAS ARIZONA CHANGED OVER THE YEARS? NO!

2010-07-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

From bsnorrell.blogspot.com:

Arizona's White Supremacy: A New Look for Old Racism

Art by Marco Frucht.

Article by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON- Arizona's new push for racist laws by the governor and legislators exposes a truth that many want concealed. Not only have white racists taken over control of Arizona lawmaking, but they are now battling to disguise their intentions, and the fact that racism toward people of color thrives in Arizona.

For Indigenous Peoples living in their homelands on the US/Mexico border, the racial profiling is already constant. People of color are already constantly stopped, detained and questioned for no reason by the US Border Patrol and police along the border.

Both the US Border Patrol and police officers along the border act with impunity. They stop, detain and question people without reason. (This even happens to me, a news reporter, when I travel with Tohono O'odham. I am stopped, detained and questioned for no reason.)

The abuse does not stop here. Ofelia Rivas, O'odham human rights activist, has been handcuffed and thrown up against a police vehicle as a Tohono O'odham police officer, a non-Indian, tried to silence her. She has been held at gunpoint by Border Patrol. Other O'odham have been beaten by Border Patrol agents, some in front of their young children.

As for the migrants in the desert, it only takes a look at federal court records in Tucson to see that US Border Patrol agents get away with murder. They shoot and kill people for throwing rocks. They murder people at close range without provocation.

Unless one lives in the border region, and is either a person of color, or spends time with people of color, the truth is not always apparent.

Racism thrives within the US Border Patrol and in police departments along the border, from California to Texas.

The Arizona governor and legislators will not be able to conceal the racism that infests Arizona. Marciopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a living symbol of racism in Arizona, a living symbol that injustice and racism flourish in Arizona law enforcement.

The armed patrols stalking migrants in the desert are another dangerous infestation of racism, one of the many hate groups in Arizona.

Racists in Arizona are always looking for laws and rhetoric to avoid the truth, to put a new spin on their quest for power.

But the truth is, the United States was colonized by immigrants, immigrants who murdered entire Indian Nations and kidnapped, tortured and murdered blacks as slaves. The colonizers of the United States carried out a holocaust.

Just as Arizona lawmakers want to put a spin on their racism, the United States conceals the true foundation of its colonization, which was carried out by murderous white immigrants.

WE WERE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! THE REALITY OF SARAH PALIN

2010-07-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, I've called Sarah Palin a cunt. Why? She's the stupidest bitch around. Born an Idawhore, she is raised either by just as ignorant parents or is an older sister who feels that she has to be better than everybody else. I have a sister like that (but she's still a Democrat). The problem is that Sarah feels that she doesn't have to be better than everybody else; SHE IS BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE, despite her limitations. If she was going to be a journalist, what type of education did she get?

Now, I don't always like Jim Hill. However, he's a better football player than most Americans (Hell, he played for the Chargers.). He knows football, and has been off and on KNXT/KCBS-TV and recently with KCAL-TV for over 35 years. When Jim Hill jumped to KABC-TV, KCBS-TV hired Keith Olbermann from KTLA, and he became the sports anchor until 1992 when KCBS-TV changed general managers, and insisted on having Jim Hill back. KCBS-TV then fired Olbermann, despite being over-qualified and sarcastic. Olbermann didn't become a hit on KTLA by doing what Palin did, merely read from a teleprompter and whose only qualification was having tits and ass. Olbermann wasn't a Mr. Olympian, quarterback, pitcher, point guard, or jockey, but he delivered sports news with eloquence, even though Hill still had 15 years experience at the time. Playing favorites at KCBS-TV don't work very well still, and they haven't been doing good since 1975 when they fired Jerry "From the Desert to the Sea, and to all of Southern California" Dunphy as Anchor. Both Olbermann and Hill are qualified as Sports Anchors. Who the fuck is Sarah Palin?

Palin is the bitch you want to beat up in Carson, California in broad daylight. She is a diva bitch who thinks she knows everything, but actually doesn't know shit! She sits on a pedastal thinking that she's all holier than thou. She is actually a sociopath, which is now typical of the Republican Party. I don't like Hill, but after seeing Sarah for the last two years, Hill can do a better job at being the Governor of Alaska (In a good way, not like what Tony Montana said to Seidelbaum after he got arrested.).

If McCain got elected as President, we certainly would have been in a Depression with Marie Antoinette Palin of Idawhore/Alaska next in line. People would be so sad and pissed, doctrines such as Communism would be appealing as it was in 1932. In the ghettos, it would have been worse than the French Revolution, because that Revolution was at least organized hell. She still wants offshore drilling. TELL THAT TO THE PEOPLE OF LOUISANA! She no concept on anything correct. She makes the actual Marie Antoinette look like Kirsten Dunst in real life. She attracts the stupid American types who have no clue on constitutional rights, economics, history, etc. She believes in being Born Again as in God does everything and provides. Yeah, right! God invented physics, and He knew that if people have to do anything, effort must be applied. This issue was already conclusively decided before the Creation. Satan and his followers went down to Earth without a body because he wanted to force everybody to be good, and everybody to get back to Heaven. On top of that, he wanted all the Glory. Sound familar?

Olbermann, now of MSNBC's "Countdown", has called her an idiot. That is being too nice. If she ever became President, she would make Nixon a liberal Democrat. (And hell, Nixon was a crook!) Nobody with a college education would vote for such a cunt. She lacks compassion for people, especially the poor and minorities. Why would she support Jan Sewer and SB 1070? She doesn't give a shit about Latinos. She also doesn't give a shit about Asians and Blacks. I was in a cunt rant against Palin when she said in 2008 "S---- beat the Bitch" as in Obama get the nomination over Hilary Clinton.

President Barack Obama did not earn his title by being on "America's Most Wanted", by ditching school and tagging private property, by playing Nintendo all day, by rapping about rape, or being a drugged-up overhyped athlete. His mother made him do his homework at 4:00 a. m. in the morning. Name a Black parent that does that. Not many. Our President does not need to be referred to a title of a now-discredited restaurant! He was very elected, and he EARNED the title as President of the United States. Bush had to get help from the U. S. Supreme Court in 2000, and the Ohio Supreme Court in 2004 to be SELECTED as President. President Obama has a MANDATE! Bush is a spoiled spoon bitch and cunt! As for the cunt Palin, she needs to be left on a iceberg drifting from Alaska! We need brains not stupidity at the White House, and to quote Vice President Joe Biden, "YES, IT'S A BIG FUCKING DEAL!"

Now, from deadlawyer.blogspot.com:

The Myth of the Constitutional Lawyer

My favorite news columnist today referred to Barack Obama as a “constitutional lawyer.” I forgive her, because the term was relevant to her point, even though there really is no such thing.

When I was a twenty-something law school graduate aspiring to be the world’s greatest trial lawyer, I landed a job working for a large insurance carrier. The position had been a stepping stone for many of the most respected and successful trial lawyers in my city, as it offered a wealth of courtroom experience and the opportunity to dole out millions of dollars in settlements in a short period of time to feeding-frenzied personal injury lawyers.

For a relatively modest salary, expense account, and company car, I exclusively defended lawsuits against employers insured by our company brought by employees who claimed to be disabled on account of a work-related injury. This was a specialty area of practice, with a dearth of paperwork, and the primary function the development of favorable trial testimony from tricky witnesses.

The critical component of any case’s value was expert medical testimony. Whether it be an orthopedic surgeon, neurologist, heart specialist, or psychiatrist; a medical expert was required to prove or disprove disability. The employee’s lawyer would hire a doctor to examine the guy (or gal) and to testify the guy was in his opinion disabled, and we would hire one to examine him and testify he was not. They had their whores; we had ours.

Because courts move at the pace of a physically-challenged snail, and because they schedule trials and witness testimony therein like a cable TV company on acid (“sometime between 9 am and 5 pm tomorrow, next week, any Tuesday afternoon on a first-come, first-served basis; or one of those same times six months from now”), doctors are usually allowed to testify by deposition. The lawyers, a court reporter, and the doctor hold court in the doctor’s back office.

Medical opinions are rendered in response to the legal device known as the hypothetical question. You ask the doctor to assume a certain set of facts, hopefully for your sake the relevant facts developed or to be developed in all the other trial testimony, and then ask for his opinion based on those assumed facts. It’s the other lawyer’s job to object like crazy to the question because the assumed facts are all BS.

One day at one such deposition about a year into the job, a well-established plaintiff’s lawyer who once held my job asked the standard hypothetical question, and because I wanted to impress him, I let loose with a series of pro forma, dippy-shit objections to his question. As the court reporter struggled to keep up with me, the other lawyer chuckled inwardly. Incredulous, he looked at me with the disdain reserved for someone who was wasting his time, and declared “I suppose next you are going to object because it’s unconstitutional.”

I grinned and stood admonished, as there is almost nothing more irrelevant to the everyday practice of law than the United States Constitution.

The Constitution broadly defines the authority of the Supreme Court, the extent of and limitations on Congressional and Executive power generally. Those powers do not have to be explicitly stated, they can be “implied”, or ancillary to one of the powers specifically listed in the Constitution. That notion is reinforced by the “necessary and proper” clause of Article I, Section 8.

The document also broadly outlines a “federalist” system, where a national government coexists with the government of each of the states. Amendments to the Constitution generally have further ensured in general terms the protection of individual rights, and further defined limitations on federal or state power.

The bottom line is that rarely does a legal problem or question get answered by a reference to a specific part of the Constitution. The provisions of the document are interpreted through a series of ostensibly precedent-setting appellate case decisions by the Justices of the Supreme Court—in other words—largely according to the politics of the day. Politics change, and what were case precedents one day can get overturned the next. What might be constitutional in one era; segregation for example, may be reversed and held to be unconstitutional in another.

The pace of constitutional interpretation and change thereto has but minuscule bearing in the professional lives of 99.8% of all lawyers. State trial courts almost never declare laws or practices unconstitutional, and state appellate courts do so with only slightly more frequency than almost never. Federal trial judges will occasionally in egregious cases declare a law or practice unconstitutional; however, much of constitutional doctrine is developed in case controversies by the federal courts of appeals, with the final rules determined by the United States Supreme Court largely through its power of discretionary review, called “certiorari”.

“Constitutional lawyers” in effect are lawyers who practice regularly in the United States Supreme Court, a very select group. Though many of them are brilliant, able, and scholarly, it is not necessarily their ability to understand the Constitution that qualifies them for their jobs. More often, it is their work and political connections combined with their familiarity with the practices of the United States Supreme Court and its Justices that result in their employment and appellation as “Constitutional lawyer.”

Barack Obama probably said the word “constitution” once during his two summers in Chicago as a clerk with the law firms of Sidley Austin and Hopkins & Sutter, and he would have been referring to his ability to digest the food and drink at a firm function rather than the eighteenth century document.

Obama secured a plumb job right out of law school at the University of Chicago in order to write his first book, and he almost immediately thereafter became an instructor in Constitutional Law at the law school without ever having practiced law. He was, in name, hooked up with a Chicago civil rights and neighborhood development law firm for a few years while he taught Constitutional law, but my bet is that he was fairly inactive with the firm. He then became state lawmaker, then President. He hardly ever practiced any law at all, much less enough or the type to be called a “Constitutional lawyer.”

That does not mean; however, that he is not extremely well-qualified. It is hard to say what effect his racial background had, because it surely cut both ways. He was held back in some ways because he was black, and he advanced in some ways because he was black. Regardless, you do not graduate from Columbia, graduate from Harvard Law School where you serve as editor of the Harvard Law Review, and teach Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago unless you are an exceedingly gifted, brilliant, and hard-working man.

Nor do you become state lawmaker and rise to the office of the President, particularly given his background of relatively few, if any, connections to wealth and power, unless you are an exceedingly skilled and effective politician.

Compare those qualifications with, say, a “constitutionalist” beauty pageant contestant who found it necessary to attend 4 different relatively small colleges in the Northwest, who takes a job as a sportscaster reading a teleprompter (not that there’s anything wrong with that), shortly thereafter marries into an Alaskan fishing business, becomes the mayor of a small town in Alaska, and then rises to Governor of Alaska, a job she quits halfway through to acquire riches from her new-found 15 minutes of fame as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008.

I suppose in large part it depends on your politics, but let’s get real, this is really a no brainer—who would you rather have appointing people to interpret the United States Constitution?

We do not need to kill the Constitutional Lawyer, he never really existed. The Politicians do.

GOD HAS NO PLANS FOR WOMEN TO BE RAPED

2010-07-03T23:21:00.000-07:00

But the devil, from the time of Adam & Eve, has always promoted false doctrine. This time, Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle, cunt and idiot, wants to force women to have babies by rapists who raped them.

Now, I'm personally not in favor of abortions for all purposes, but to demand that a rape victim keep her baby, then you must go back to the State Hospital you escaped from, and take your legal meds.

This reminds me of a Season 12 episode of E. R. that aired in 2006, a month after the Christmas episode. At the end of the Christmas episode, Abby tells Luka, her once again boyfriend, and the new E. R. Chief the good news (unless you're the asshole type that doesn't want to pay child support) that she's pregnant. Maybe after having a bipolar mother and brother, it is debateable about whether she needed an abortion (she didn't). Another part of the post-Christmas episode was a 15-year old came to the E. R., because she was pregnant. She later admitted that she was date-raped, but her fucked up parents wanted her to keep the baby. They might as well play "kick the baby"! Why should any child who has been raped "serve a sentence"?!!! No child should be forced to a) carry a child to term that wasn't her fault to begin with, and b) raise a product that was made by a violent ASSHOLE (rape is not a crime of sex, but a crime of violence)! What if the 15-year old was raped by a Phillip Garrido-type? It should be noted that Garrido raped a California woman in Reno in 1976. The problem is that the rape victim had to endure the act of violence, and then she is asked or demanded to endure nine months of hell because of the rapist, and further raise the son or daughter of the rapist for the next 18 years! Angle is a cunt, dingbat, meatball, meathead, bitch, whore, and is absolutely stupid! Why should anybody vote for a coldless and heartless bitch?

[UPDATE: I could have send everybody to TNT to watch the E. R. reruns, but I found out tonight that they don't air them now. Fuck, the original Star Trek lasted only three years, and everybody is into that? E. R. had been on the air for 15 years. A few series like Gunsmoke and the original Law & Order lasted 20 years. It's fine time to have Gunsmoke, Law & Order, and E & R Conventions.]

I can see it now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid being reelected. It would not happen if:

1. Reid's opponent was "Reaganesque".
2. Reid's opponent gave coherent views to voters.

In order to avoid being "Martha-Coaxleyed" out of office, Reid should still campaign like hell, but with Angle being more stupid than a retarded person, it makes you wonder what the Republican Party has been up to. The Republincans better find better messages to the voters, or we may have a one-party nation, because the other party is ran by State Hospital escapees or everybody in the South is "high on the Jack Daniels' supply".

"Lesson No. 2, don't get high on your own supply."-Elvie Hancock, "Scarface".

From Eschaton:

God Has A Plan For Women To Be Raped

Unlike some, I don't find being against a rape exception to be any more repugnant than being against choice generally. It's much more morally consistent to be against all abortion than it is to be against all except a few that are ok. It's one of those carveouts designed to give the squishy middle crowd a Sensible Centrist position on the issue.

But having the view that raped and impregnated women are all part of God's plan, well, interesting God you've got there.

NANCY GARRIDO STILL WANTS TO SEE JAYCEE DUGARD

2010-07-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

WHAT A CUNT!

Nancy Bocanegra Garrido wants to still see Jaycee Dugard. She makes Sarah Palin a rocket scientist (but Sarah's still a cunt). This Nancy cunt bitch gets busted last August, and comes across as "Who me?", and "Why me?" It's like it's not her fault for:

1. Marrying rapist Phillip Garrido.
2. Helping to kidnap Jaycee.
3. NOT calling the Police!
4. Looking stupid and oblivious for the last 20 years.

Instead of seeing Jaycee Dugard, Nancy should do this:

1. Talk to her own real family, the Bocanegras.
2. Divorce Phillip Garrido.
3. Confess to her minister from the Jehovah's Witnesses (OK, I disagree with their beliefs, but she was raised in that religion, so she should say it to the people she's familiar with).
4. Plead guilty.
5. ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR HER OWN ACTIONS! She's acting like a stupid 13-year old juvenile. She's over 50. GROW THE FUCK UP!
6. Accept the fact that Jaycee or her kids are not your family. They are related to Carl and Terry Probyn, Jaycee's parents who had missed her for two decades BECAUSE YOU HELPED KIDNAP JAYCEE!

There are parts of Marsy's Law (Prop. 9) that I do agree with. Jaycee and her family don't want anything to do two MASTER MANIPULATORS. Nancy is just in another scheme by Phillip Garrido to manipulate his case so that he can get another "early release" and pull the same $20 million shit that he did to get out of the 50-year Federal sentence he was supposed to serve for the 1976 kidnapping and rape of Katie Calloway Hall. Unless Nancy fesses up, Phil and Nancy both need to be locked up and thrown away the key.

From the Oakland Tribune:

Nancy Garrido's lawyer argues for visit by Jaycee Dugard and kids

By Sam Stanton Sacramento Bee

Posted: 06/26/2010 07:53:01 AM PDT

Updated: 06/26/2010 03:17:33 PM PDT
Everybody wants to see Jaycee.
Nearly a year after kidnapping victim Jaycee Lee Dugard was found alive, she remains the subject of intense legal and emotional wrangling as the case against her accused abductors slowly inches forward.
On Friday, the latest appeal came from Nancy Garrido's lawyer, who suggested it may be better for Dugard and the two children she had in captivity to see Nancy Garrido privately before she faces her in court.
Nancy Garrido is accused along with her husband, convicted rapist and kidnapper Phillip Garrido, of snatching Dugard off a street in 1991 when she was 11.
The pair are accused of holding her captive until Dugard was freed in August, and they are now in jail awaiting trial on rape and kidnapping charges that could send both to prison for life.
On Friday, following an uneventful court hearing, Nancy Garrido's attorney said he thought such a private meeting would be helpful.

"A couple of shrinks I've talked to say it may be beneficial for Jaycee and the kids to see Nancy before actually seeing them in a court," attorney Stephen Tapson said after the hearing in Placerville.

Tapson noted that a court order forbids the Garridos from trying to contact Dugard, now 30 and living in seclusion with the two girls she bore to Phillip Garrido, the first after she became pregnant at 13.

But he said whatever doctor may be counseling Dugard could reach out to the El Dorado County district attorney for such a meeting.

"A lot of people don't understand, she loves those kids, she loves Jaycee," Tapson said.

"And this is a relationship born of evil, but at the end it came down to a family relationship and she honestly, truly misses them.

"And people will say that's terrible because it's (Nancy Garrido's) fault, but it's a fact and a fact that she misses them."

It is not the first time Tapson has described how much Nancy Garrido misses the three.

But El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, whose office has been so protective of Dugard and her privacy that his court documents refer to her as "Jane Doe," has made it clear that Dugard wants no contact with the Garridos.

"Ms. Doe has emphatically stated to our office that she does not want any contact with the defendants or their attorneys," Pierson's office stated in a February court filing.

Dugard also has made it clear she wants no contact with a man who has attended two previous court hearings in Placerville and is trying to prove that he is her father, the result of a brief relationship with Jaycee's mother three decades ago.

Dugard, who is expected to testify at trial, has not attended any of the hearings that have been dragging on since last August. But one of Phillip Garrido's former victims — Katie Callaway Hall — has made regular trips from her Nevada home to watch the proceedings.

Hall, abducted and assaulted by Garrido in 1976, makes the drive with her husband, Jim, and says she expects to watch all of the trial.

"I'm hoping to be an eyewitness to this entire event and make sure that no rock goes unturned," she said after Friday's hearing, "and if I can be of any assistance, that's what I'm here for."

Friday's five-minute affair consisted of the judge agreeing to allow the Garridos to speak to each other in the El Dorado County Jail by telephone once in July and once in August, continuing a previous order that allowed five-minute calls between the couple.

The judge also set the next hearing date for Aug. 20, although real evidence in the case is not expected to be presented until early October.

Meanwhile, the defense is poring over documents and evidence prosecutors have turned over.

"We've got another 10,000 pages coming Tuesday, so we'll see," Tapson said.

FINALLY, SOME CIVIL JUSTICE FOR JAYCEE DUGARD.

2010-07-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for a while because I wanted to do anytrhing I can to have SB 1070 repealed on Facebook. However, I found out about two days ago that Jaycee Dugard and her family will get $20 million from the State for all of their parole agents not doing their fucking job! $20 million still won't fully compensate Jaycee and her real family for all of the heartache they have suffered.

From Time:

California Gives Kidnapping Victim Jaycee Dugard $20 Million

By: Megan Gibson

In an almost unanimous vote, California legislators are settling kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard's claim against the state for $20 million. Almost unanimous? So, who's the guy who voted against her claim?

Honestly, the Dugard case is one of the most unbelievable and disturbing kidnapping cases in recent memory. Kidnapped at age 11, Dugard was raped and held captive for 18 years. She had two children while in captivity, fathered by her abductor Phillip Garrido who, along with his wife Nancy, is awaiting trial. And he was on parole for most of that time!

A November report by California Inspector-General David Shaw revealed that, “Garrido committed numerous parole violations and that the department failed to properly supervise Garrido and missed numerous opportunities to discover his victims."

Dugard, who was held in a shed for much of her imprisonment along with her two children, is seeking compensation for psychological, physical and emotional damages. In January, Dugard filed the claim against the state for not properly monitoring Garrido and it was passed Thursday with a 30-1 vote in the Senate and 62-0 vote in the Assembly.

Now $20 million is a lot of money and California has been grappling with budget cuts for some time now, but who could really vote against this? 18 years!

Fortunately for Dugard and her children, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be signing off on the bill. (via CNN)

MY OWN MANIFESTO

2010-06-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

This Manifesto shall be superseded by one from President Thomas S. Monson, Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of which may be a bitter pill, but if the Church is sending 60,000 Missionaries worldwide to preach the Gospel of the Lord, laws such as Arizona’s SB 1070 must be repealed or declared unconstitutional, and certain Members of the Church are in danger of being apostates with the reputation of Warren Steed Jeffs.

The Mission of the Church is being frustrated by the anti-immigration fervor being promulgated by certain Members of the Church. SB 1070 was authored by Church Member and State Sen. Russell Pearce. Pearce has allied himself with known White Supremacists, with whom that they hate Latinos, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, Polynesians, Catholics, Jews, etc. Facts that support the passage of the bill are very erroneous in that the rancher that was supposedly murdered by one or more undocumented immigrants. However, the rancher may have been murdered by one or more citizens of the United States.

The goal of SB 1070 is for peace officers in Arizona to stop anybody who appears to be an undocumented immigrant. That means that without further training, any Latino of Mestizo descent would be stopped, and if not carrying any identification or proof of citizenship or legal residency would be arrested, and in some cases deported to Mexico or elsewhere, without establishing probable cause for the stop or arrest, and would also deny due process and equal protection of the laws to the same.

Pearce also advocates denying citizenship to babies born in the United States to unborn immigrants. These little children have done nothing wrong, and to deny their citizenship is the equivalent of infant baptism, a solemn mockery!

The Book of Mormon states on its Title Page that it’s intent is to convert Gentiles, Lamanites, and Jews. We Mormons believe that the Lamanites are the ancestors of Native Americans, Polynesians, and those of mixed blood, i. e., Latinos who are of Mestizo descent, or descendants of Whites who in Spanish and Portuguese Colonial times, interbred with Native Americans. Descendants of Lamanites are descendants of the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh. The goal of the Church and its Members, including it’s 60,000 full-time Missionaries, is to recover the Gentiles, Lamanites, and Jews, not condescend, harm, or even kill.

The actions of Pearce, and every so-called “Mormon”, who is in support of SB 1070, and similar pro-hate legislation are not of my Church, and it’s Mission to teach the Lord’s True Gospel. The Goal of the Church is to baptize the people, convert them without condescension, and to prepare the people for the Second Coming of our Lord. The actions of Pearce, and every so-called “Mormon”, have already affected the Church’s Missionary efforts in Arizona and may end up affecting the Church’s Missionary efforts in all other 49 States and territories, and worldwide.

Another supporter of SB 1070 is also a well-known radio and Fox News host who is also a so-called “Mormon”, GLENN BECK. This moron, who has the audacity of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Father Coughlin, has insulted Jews, equated liberalism with the Holocaust, and is defrauding his listeners and viewers into being defrauded by Goldline, a firm that has defrauded buyers and sellers, in which Beck, and hosts like him, have encouraged his listeners and viewers into buying gold from his sponsor, Goldline. Beck, “who has no sense of decency”, should not be worthy of having any Temple Recommend signed by any Bishop and Stake President of the Church.

Leviticus 19:33-34 (KJV) states that:

“And if a stranger sojourn with the in your land, ye shall not vex him.

“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

The same Author of Liberty said in Matthew 5:43-44 (KJV) that:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

*************************************************It is fine time that the people, Mormon and non-Mormon alike, should form a United Front, and endeavor to defeat all pro-hate legislation, and to fight for civil and human rights for all. Anybody in favor of legislation, such as SB 1070, and acts to discriminate should not be Mormons, but apostates, and no person who discriminates against another for being different than the other should ever be elected or appointed to any office.

We need to sponsor referenda, where available, against pro-hate legislation, to defeat and recall those who sponsor pro-hate legislation, and find persons aggrieved and injured or about to be injured to sue and have pro-hate legislation declared unconstitutional as against the State/Provincial Constitution, and the National Constitution where enacted.

One more thing, as Chairman of the Frank-Hubner-Scholl Movement of the White Rose, I not only named the Movement after Anne Frank and Sophie Scholl; I also named the Movement after Helmut Hubner, who after he and his two friends passed anti-Nazi leaflets, were caught by the Gestapo. Where his two friends went to concentration camps and survived, Hubner was beheaded by the Nazis. Hubner was a Mormon.

I implore my President, Barrack Hussein Obama, to push for immigration reform, this year, and no later. We have a duty and a sacred honor, and as Benjamin Franklin said, “we must all hang together, or we must all certainly hang separately.”

We must also end the divide in the United States for a false prophet, Osama bin Laden, once predicted that the United States presence in Afghanistan would result in it being dissolved in the same way as the Soviet Union was. Bin Laden is a murderer, but a true prophet of God, Joseph Smith, said in the 1840’s that “the Constitution shall hang by a thread.” We are getting close to that Prophecy, and if there are no righteous, the Constitution would be no better than the toilet paper the Weimar Constitution was written on.

Please give this to all politicians, and pass this to all Groups on Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Yahoo, and everywhere else.

NEVER AGAIN!

UNITED WE STAND!

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

SINN FEIN!

I, I AIN’T GONNA GO TO SUN CITY!

THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS ARE LYING MOTHER FUCKERS

2010-06-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

From freestudents.blogspot.com:

The xenophobic Right, which loves to verbally bash immigrants, has repeatedly pushed the canard that immigrants cause crime. They claim that there is a crime wave hitting American due to immigrants and repeat claims that crime in border states is particularly bad. What they don't do is show crime statistics. These are the kind of people, so ignorant of evidence, that they think an anecdotal story suffices.

Let us go to ground zero is the immigration debate: Arizona. It is there that Republicans pushed through an infamous anti-immigration bill that has many people shocked and concerned. So what has happened in the Arizona border towns? Not much actually, as the Arizona Republic found when it talked the police chiefs in those towns.

Nogales, Arizona shares the border with Nogales, Mexico but the Arizona town says it doesn't know what the anti-immigration crowd is talking about. Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez says: "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."

The Republic says that they looked at the FBI Uniform Crime Report and statistics provided by local police agencies which "show that the crime rates in Nogales,Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade..." They also found: "Statewide rates of violent crime also are down."

Politicians, mainly, if not exclusively Republican, have made speeches about crime along the Arizona border. But Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, from Pima County, says: "This is a media-created event. I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure." In Cochise County the "crime rate has been 'flat for at least 10 years, the sheriff added."

The Republic reports: "While the nation's illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent." If illegal immigrantion causes crime then shouldn't crime rates rise with more immigration,not fall? In Arizona the violent-crime rate "dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available."

This decrease in crime in "crime-ridden" Arizona—if you believe the hype about immigrants—continues to show up in the most recent statistics as well. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Arizona's major cities all registered declines" in crime and:

In Phoenix, police spokesman Trent Crump said, "Despite all the hype, in every single reportable crime category, we're significantly down." Mr. Crump said Phoenix's most recent data for 2010 indicated still lower crime. For the first quarter of 2010, violent crime was down 17% overall in the city, while homicides were down 38% and robberies 27%, compared with the same period in 2009.

Sure there is crime related to drug smuggling and it is growing in many ways. But that is not illegal immigrants by any means. Your typical undocumented worker can't afford cocaine to smuggle, they are lucky to afford the cost of getting themselves across the border. The violence we see is drug war related and as long as drug profits are high, which is a result of the war on drugs, then smuggling will be associated with violence. And the more violent our drug warriors become the more violent the smugglers will be. But this is not related to immigration: legal or illegal.

Sociologist Robert Sampson looked at crime trends in the US and compared them to immigration patterns. More immigrants didn't lead to more crime, which is what should have happened had there been a direc link between the two. If you look at the chart here you will see the time line shows American crime trands from 1990 to 2004 (this is from a 2006 article). You see crime rates dropping as immigration rates increased. Around 1998 crime rates stagnated for the most part, but immigration fell. So as immigration rates were increased crime fell, and when immigration fell crime rates stopped falling.

Sampson wrote:

Yet our study found that immigrants appear in general to be less violent than people born in America, particularly when they live in neighborhoods with high numbers of other immigrants. We are thus witnessing a different pattern from early 20th-century America, when growth in immigration from Europe was linked with increasing crime and formed a building block for what became known as "social disorganization" theory.

In today's world, then, it is no longer tenable to assume that immigration automatically leads to chaos and crime. New York is a magnet for immigration, yet it has for a decade ranked as one of America's safest cities. Border cities like El Paso and San Diego have made similar gains against crime. Perhaps the lesson is that if we want to continue to crack down on crime, closing the nation's doors is not the answer.

Professor Tim Wadsworth, from the University of Colorado read what Sampson wrote and decided to test it. The University press release reports what Wadsworth found:

Drawing from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and U.S. Census data, Wadsworth analyzed 459 cities with populations of at least 50,000. Wadsworth measured immigrant populations in two ways: those who are foreign-born and those who immigrated within the previous five years.

Wadsworth focused on medium and large cities because about 80 percent of violent crime takes place there. Wadsworth said distinguishing legal and illegal immigration is difficult, as the U.S. Census does not track those numbers, but he notes that immigrant citizens and non-citizens often live together in the same communities.

He tracked crime statistics for homicide and robbery because they tend to be reported more consistently than other crimes. Robberies are usually committed by strangers -- which increases the reporting rate -- and "homicides are difficult to hide," he said.

Wadsworth looked to see if crime rose as immigration rose and fell as immigration declined. Instead he found the opposite: "cities that experienced the largest growth in the population of foreign-born and newly arrived immigrant populations experienced the largest decreases in violent crime between 1990 and 2000." Wadsworth's conclusions corresponded with those of Sampson, and instead of showing a rise in crime because of immigration, the records showed that crime dropped.

THE PROTEST AGAINST THE BORDER PIGGIES CONTINUES

2010-06-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

From bsnorrell.blogspot.com:

Activists Lockdown and Occupy Border Patrol, Demand End to Militarization

Activists Lockdown & Occupy US Border Patrol Headquarters Demanding End to Border Militarization, Protesters Cited and Released
More at O'odham Solidarity: http://www.oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/
VIDEO:http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/05/video-lockdown-occupation-border-patrol.html

Press statement
Tucson, AZ – At approximately 1:00 p.m. on Friday, May 21, 2010 more than a dozen people occupied the Tucson Headquarters of the US Border Patrol to draw attention to impacts of border militarization in Indigenous Communities. Six people, including Alex Soto a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation and a volunteer with the group O’odham Solidarity Across Borders, locked themselves together for up to 3 and 1/2 hours. “Indigenous voices have been ignored. In our action today we say NO MORE!” Soto said.

Banners were hung, including one placed over the reception window that read, “Stop Militarization of Indigenous Lands Now." Traditional songs were sung and the group chanted, “Border militarization destroys Indigenous communities!” and “No raids, no deportations! No SB1070, no racist laws!” Approximately 30 Border Patrol agents flooded the lobby of the headquarters and scrambled to react. Roads to the headquarters and adjacent air force base were shut down. Tucson City Police were eventually called and began preparing an extraction of the peaceful resisters.

A diverse crowd of up to 70 people quickly gathered outside the Border Patrol headquarters to support those locked down inside. Ofelia Rivas of O’odham Voices Against The Wall, an elder in support of the action stated, “It was a historical and powerful moment for people of all color to unite with O’odham to stand in solidarity for human rights and to see the next generation take a stand”.

At approximately 4 p.m. the peaceful resisters negotiated the conditions of their release on their terms. Their requests to consult with Tohono O’odham elders to negotiate terms of release were denied by Tucson Police. The protesters decided to unlock and were cited for two misdemeanors each of trespassing and disorderly conduct. The resisters were released just outside the premises to join supporters where they gathered in traditional prayer and rallied against border militarization for another hour. Community members including members of the Pasqua Yaqui, Tohono O'odham, and Dine' Nations reacted emotionally when two Wackenhut Corp. buses left the Border Patrol compound filled with undocumented people. The detainees responded with returning the symbol of resistance - a raised fist.

“This is just one action of many that makes visible the invisible crimes against humanity that occur every day on the colonial border,” stated one of the peaceful resisters. “We commit to honoring the prayers and call for support of the people most impacted by border militarization, the Indigenous Peoples who’s lands we are on and migrants who seek a better life for their families. We cannot not allow government agencies, border patrol, ICE or reformist agendas to further their suffering. We will continue our actions of peaceful resistance for human dignity and respect for all peoples.”

The action also denounced SB1070 and HB2281 as racist laws that are a part of an ongoing system of genocidal policies against Indigenous Peoples and migrant communities.

For previous Press Statement, please see attachment.
Note to editors, high resolution photos attached; Photo credits: O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective

Media Contacts:
Alex Soto (602) 881-6027
Leilani Clark (520) 982-5687
stopboardermilitarization@gmail.com

FREE JAMIE WEST

2010-06-01T02:38:00.000-07:00

From gamso-forthedefense.blogspot.com:

I've got something of a love/hate relationship with Scott Turow. And it's all about the rule of law.

Like virtually every other soon-to-be law student, I read One L, his fictionalized account of his first year at Harvard Law School. Perhaps it's because I was older, preparing to switch sides in the university classroom from teacher to student, but unlike many readers and soon-to-be law students, I didn't find the book frightening. I found Turow's responses so naive and annoying that they overwhelmed the nastiness. In any event, it left me less than enthusiastic.

On the other hand, I thought Presumed Innocen t, despite the weirdly contrived plot gimmick, to be absolutely terrific. The courtroom scenes were rendered brilliantly, the prose just enough of a touch above the norm for crime fiction. I was a fan.

Then Turow wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine discussing legal ethics and legal education. Along the way, he mentioned the ethics charges that had been brought against him as an AUSA.

Indeed, the most dismal -and disappointing - moment I have endured as a lawyer arose last year in a sharp dispute over ethical duties. In June 1987, a Federal appellate court in Georgia rebuked me severely for my role as a United States prosecutor in allowing a defense lawyer who was seeking to cooperate with the Government to secretly tape-record a conversation with one of his clients about a drug-selling scheme that the lawyer admitted he and the client were planning. When I protested, the court responded by suggesting that my conduct regarding the defense lawyer might have constituted obstruction of justice. Various public officials and scholars spoke out in my defense, and, after a full investigation, the Public Integrity Section of the United States Department of Justice publicly vindicated me and my superiors in the Justice Department who had directed my actions, stating that the conduct in question fully complied with Federal law. I believed - and continue to believe - that neither clients nor lawyers have the right to plan crimes secure from government law-enforcement efforts.

When I read that back in 1988, I was in my first year as a lawyer in private practice. I was struck then, and am struck now, reading it again, that when your boss declares you behaved ethically in doing his bidding, that's vindication. It's not that I think Turow did in fact breach the ethics of the profession. I don't know nearly enough about the situation to weigh in on it. But I knew then, and know now, that there was something wrong with Turow's analysis. I wrote a lengthy letter to the Times laying out my position. They published three short paragraphs.

I agree with Scott Turow's call for serious exploration, in the law schools and out of them, of ''an understanding of the moral issues that govern law.'' But I am also concerned about what seems to me a misunderstanding, by Mr. Turow and much of the profession, of what those moral issues are.

When Mr. Turow reports his public vindication from charges of unethical conduct and provides as evidence a statement by the public integrity section of the Justice Department that he and his superiors in the Justice Department had not violated any law, he shows a blindness to the issues he addresses. It is the same blindness that former Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d showed in his similar declaration that he was vindicated when the independent prosecutor decided not to seek an indictment against him.

It doesn't matter, here, whether Mr. Turow or Mr. Meese actually did violate any rules, laws or ethical standards. What matters is that neither one can see that it is possible to adhere to every rule and code around and still be immoral.

I'm not sure I was particularly fair to Turow in those paragraphs (or in the much longer letter which I cannot check because I no longer have a copy - or cannot find it if I do), though I think the point itself sound.

Some years later, Turow wrote Ultimate Punishment, which I think one of the very best books on why capital punishment should be abolished. If the state is going to be in the business of killing people, it should bear the burden of proof regarding the need/virtue/wisdom/something for doing so. Starting as an agnostic on the question of abolition, Turow studied the death penalty in the real world and concluded that the state could not meet that burden. Amen.

All of that is by way of explanation for my love/hate relationship. If it seems a set up for a review of Turow's new book, Innocent, it's not. I intend to read Innocent, but I have not yet done so. Perhaps a review will come in time. But not today.

No, what led me to this today is that the Times just reprinted on-line (is that an oxymoron? a mixed non-metaphor?) an op-ed Turow wrote back in 2000 shortly after the Supremes decided Dickerson v. United States, holding that Miranda warnings were constitutionally mandated.

Turow praised Dickerson's conclusion. He noted that despite years of whining and posturing, Miranda seems to have had little real-world consequence. Those arrested still confess an astonishingly large percentage of the time. (That's true even of innocent arrestees, but it's a wholly different issue.) And those confessions are admitted in court nearly always.

Nor is my experience idiosyncratic. After a couple of hours of computer research, I could not find a single reported decision in Illinois in the last 12 months in which a confession was suppressed or a conviction reversed because of a Miranda violation.

To a great extent, as the court recognized on Monday in Dickerson v. United States, courts and cops have accommodated themselves to the rule. The more conservative justices who ascended to the Supreme Court after the Warren years have narrowed the decision's grand mandate, refining, for example, what amounts to interrogation for Miranda purposes, or sometimes allowing subsequent statements to be admitted even if a defendant initially claimed his Miranda rights.

As for the police, the court is right when it says that law enforcement practices have adjusted to Miranda's strictures. As a prosecutor, I never noted that federal agents much resented Miranda, even though some, like those in the Internal Revenue Service, were required to give warning when simply questioning someone.

In eight years, I never had a statement excluded from evidence because of the Miranda rule. The agents accepted the standard and often applied it skillfully. I remember a veteran F.B.I. agent dispensing the Miranda warnings to a suspect before we took him before a grand jury, a practice required by the Justice Department. As one of my colleagues commented, the warning sounded so avuncular, you just about expected the agent to put his arm around the prospective defendant's shoulders.

Turow's point was clear. The bad guys don't go free because of Miranda. Indeed, even Miranda did not. After the Court threw out his confession, he was tried again and convicted again because he had confessed another time - in a setting to which Miranda did not apply. Or consider the alleged would-be bomber of Times Square who apparently confessed for days, at length, warnings (which were eventually given, after a period of interrogation Miranda permits) be damned.
But Turow's point wasn't that Miranda should remain the law because it's worthless. Rather, he said, it's vital. Miranda, he says, "is an expression of some fundamental concepts about the law we all should hold dear." He mentions equality (everyone gets the warnings, rich and poor, educated or not, powerful or powerless) and then gets to the meat of the matter.

But cops should recognize that no matter how noisy their protests, or how much they chafe, they are always going to be subject to civilian authority. Catching bad guys is important, but it is not the only thing this society values; we also care about certain minimal standards of decency in the government's treatment of citizens and limits on the authority of the state.

The requirement to recite Miranda is an important reminder to the police that the war on lawlessness is always subject to the guidance of the law. This week's decision, by a court that is not perceived as particularly hostile to law enforcement, is a needed reaffirmation of that message.

Which is, of course, the real point. More relevant now than ever, perhaps, as the war on drugs morphs into the war on sex and into the war on terror - all of which are variants on the war-on-whatever-we-can-be-made-to-fear.
And which brings me to Georgia and the prosecution of Jamie Weis. He's been sitting in jail in Georgia, awaiting trial, presumed innocent, for more than four years. The State wants to kill him one of these days. For some time, he was represented by Robert Citronberg and Thomas West, Atlanta capital defense lawyers. Then the state ran out of money to pay them. What to do?
In November 2007, the prosecutor had an idea: Take Citronberg and West off the case and appoint the state public defender to represent Weis. According to Marcia Coyle, writing in the National Law Journal, Judge Johnnie Caldwell thought that a good plan.

"This court is going to do something it has never done, which I believe it has the inherent authority to do under the Constitution of this State, as well as under the rules of the Uniformed Rules of the Superior Court, and that is in this instance I am going to remove defense counsel from this case," said Caldwell, who resigned last month amid an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed a female divorce lawyer.

Weis is now before the Supreme Court. He claims that he's been denied his right to counsel and his right to a speedy trial. The speedy trial issues are what they are. The right to counsel claim is something else, and a matter of grave importance.

Weis wants the justices to make clear that "lawyers are not fungible," said lead counsel Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

Indigent defendants, Bright said, have the same Sixth Amendment right to continuity of counsel once the attorney-client relationship is established as do those defendants with the means to hire lawyers. That right, he and his colleagues contend, was violated in the Weis case, when two appointed attorneys were removed because the state ran out of money to pay them. "I think we have the complete breakdown in this case," Bright said. "The legislature just didn't put enough money into the system and it ran out of gas."

Indigent defendants may not have a right to counsel of their choice, Bright argues, but once they have counsel, the state cannot remove them at its convenience.

In the U.S. Supreme Court, Bright argues this is not a counsel-of-choice issue but an issue of continuity of counsel. Only Georgia, Louisiana and two federal circuits -- the 2nd and 6th -- refuse to recognize that, once the attorney-client bond of trust and confidence has been established, counsel cannot be removed absent some extreme circumstances. "There's a whole string of [lower court] cases saying, unless the lawyer is just disabled or engages in contemptuous behavior, you can't sever the relationship," Bright said. "This wasn't about Weis' seeking preference of counsel but opposing counsel moving to remove counsel. I think the Court will be offended by that."

Criminal law scholar Joshua Dressler of Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law and ethics scholar Monroe Freedman of Hofstra University School of Law said Bright's distinction is an important and valid one. Freedman is more emphatic, saying, "It is so clear this was a violation of fundamental rights that it should be the easiest of cases and should never have occurred in the first place."

We're talking here, as Turow was in the Times Magazine and the op-ed and Ultimate Punishment (see how I cleverly wind back to where we began) about the rule of law and a sense of fundamental fairness.
All the more reason to suspect that the Court won't hear the case. Or that, if it does, Weis will lose.
And if he does, we all do.
Which is, once again, what Turow was saying back in 2000 on the op-ed page of the Times.

MAYBE WE SHOULD TELL BP TO FUCK OFF AND DIE!

2010-06-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

TO RAND PAUL AND ALL OF HIS SUPPORTERS:
FUCK YOU!!!!!!
Tell me it's "un-American"? Tell that to every Louisiana fishermen and their families.

From www.eschatonblog.com:

This is all going to work out so well.

BP has told the Environmental Protection Agency that it cannot find a safe, effective and available dispersant to use instead of Corexit, and will continue to use that chemical application to help break up the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico.BP was responding to an EPA directive Thursday that gave BP 24 hours to identify a less toxic alternative to Corexit -- and 72 hours to start using it -- or provide the Coast Guard and EPA with a "detailed description of the alternative dispersants investigated, and the reason they believe those products did not meet the required standards.

From reports on the ground it's sounding like BP is just claiming as their own territory anywhere the oil goes. It's like their invading army.

THIS VIRGINIA STORY IS WAY OUT OF PROPORTION

2010-06-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

This is why online vigilante cults should be shut down, the police can handle the job, and the vigilantes tend to screw everything up.

05/21/2010

By Will Thomas

Det. Wells has made 29 arrests in last three years

STAFFORD - Sexual predators are targeting children across the country and even if the criminal is thousands of miles away in another state or country, they can still chat with your kids online.

Detective Darryl Wells with the Stafford County Sheriff's Office hunts down these predators.

"Through undercover operations we try to seek out these mostly white, adult men who target children," Wells told FOX 5.

The detective's investigations have resulted in 29 arrests in more than three years. Wells has more than 30 years of law enforcement experience and said this is his most rewarding work.

- Wow, the media and everyone else says this is such a major problem, so if that is true, why only 29 arrests in three years? Seems like it's not much of a problem to me. Also, see this study, which said this was all blown out of proportion.

FROM THE WORDS OF A WHITE NAZI

2010-06-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

In turn from patriotboy.blogspot.com:

There was a lot of confusion at Stormfront.org when their favorite candidate, Rand Paul, backtracked on his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but a proudly Aryan commenter named WhiteRights set everyone straight:

Why can't patriots get into political office, pretending that they like Martin Luther King and all the liberal sacred cows and then vote in our interests? The important thing is: How will Rand Paul vote?

We're in a transitional period right now guys. We can't just break out the SS uniforms and start goose-stepping our way into power right now.

JIGGLING THE BORDER PIGGIES. I LOVE IT!

2010-06-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

From bsnorrell.blogspot.com:

Occupation of Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson

OCCUPATION OF BORDER PATROL HEADQUATERS DAVIS-MONTHAN AIRFORCE BASE, TUCSON, AZ

More at Censored News homepage:

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Photo KVOA

OCCUPATION OF BORDER PATROL HEADQUATERS DAVIS-MONTHAN AIRFORCE BASE, TUCSON

FIRST NATION AND MIGRANTS OPPOSE SB1070 DEMAND DIGNITY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND END TO BORDER MILITARIZATION
For Immediate Release Media Contacts:
Friday, May 21, 2010 Leilani Clark (520)982-5687

“The militarized border imposed by the U.S. has lead only to cultural and environmental destruction of the indigenous peoples whose land is on or near the border. This militarization brings death and terror for indigenous peoples from other parts of the continent migrating to this land.”

Press statement
TUCSON – More than a dozen people occupied Border Patrol headquarters at Davis-Monthan Airforce Base today in an act of peaceful resistance. The group includes members of Indigenous Nations of Arizona, migrants, people of color and white allies. Six people used chains and other devices to lock themselves in the building. These Arizona residents disrupted the Border Patrol operations to demand that Border Patrol (BP), Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), their parent entity, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Obama administration end militarization of the border, end the criminalization of immigrant communities, and end their campaign of terror which tears families apart through increasing numbers of raids and deportations.

The protesters also call on the State of Arizona to repeal the racist Senate Bill 1070 that criminalizes immigrant communities on the state level, makes it illegal to transport or harbor an undocumented person regardless of family relationship, requires police agencies to engage in racial profiling, and ultimately is an attempt to ethnically cleanse Arizona of those with brown skin. This act of civil disobedience was only the latest in an increasing wave of direct action targeting the federal government’s terrorist immigration policies.

Border militarization destroys Indigenous communities.

The development of the border wall has lead to desecration of our ancestors graves, it has divided our communities and prevents us from accessing sacred places.

Troops and paramilitary law enforcement, detention camps, check points, and citizenship verification are not a solution to migration. We have existed here long before these imposed borders, my elders inform us that we always honored freedom of movement. Why are our communities and the daily deaths at the border ignored? The impacts of border militarization are constantly made invisible in the media, the popular culture of this country and even the mainstream immigrants rights movement which has often pushed for “reform” that means further militarization of the border, which means increased suffering for our communities.

Indigenous communities such as the O’odham, the Pascua Yaqui, Lipan Apache, Kickapoo, and Cocopah along the US/Mexico border have been terrorized with laws and practices like SB1070 for decades. Indigenous people along the border have been forced by border patrol to carry and provide proof of tribal membership when moving across their traditional lands that have been bisected by this imposed border; a border that has been extremely damaging to the cultural and spiritual practices of these communities. Many people are not able to journey to sacred sites because the communities where people live are on the opposite side of the border from these sites. Since the creation of the current U.S./Mexico border, 45 O’odham villages on or near the border have been completely depopulated.

On this day people who are indigenous to Arizona join with migrants who are indigenous to other parts of the Western Hemisphere in demanding a return to traditional indigenous value of freedom of movement for all people. Prior to the colonization by European nations (spaniards, english, french) and the establishment of the european settler state known as the United States and the artificial borders it and other european inspired nation states have imposed; indigenous people migrated, traveled and traded with each other without regard to artificial black lines drawn on maps. U.S. immigration policies dehumanize and criminalize people simply because which side of these artificial lines they were born on. White settlers whose ancestors have only been here at most for a few hundred years have imposed these policies of terror and death on “immigrants” whose ancestors have lived in this hemisphere for tens of thousands of years, for time immemorial.

In addition, the migration that the U.S. government is attempting to stop is driven more than anything else by the economic policies of the U.S. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA have severely reduced the ability of Mexicans and others from the global south to sustain themselves by permitting corporations to extract huge amounts of wealth and resources from these countries into the U.S. This has led to millions of people risking the terror and death that so many face to cross into the U.S. looking for ways to better support their families. Thousand of women, men, children and elders have died crossing just in the last decade. If the U.S. really wants to reduce migration it should end its policies of exploitation and wealth extraction targeted at the global south and instead pursue policies of economic, environmental and social justice for all human beings on the planet, thus reducing the drive to immigrate.

The protesters are demanding:

-An end to border militarization
-The immediate repeal of SB1070 and 287g
-An end to all racial profiling and the criminalization of our communities
-No ethnic cleansing or cultural genocide
-No border patrol encroachment/sweeps on sovereign native land
-No Deportations
-No Raids
-No ID-verification
-No Checkpoints

-Yes to immediate and unconditional regularization (“legalization”) of all people
-Yes to human rights
-Yes to dignity
-Yes to respect
Yes to respecting Indigenous Peoples inherent right of migration

RON AND RAND PAUL ARE UN-AMERICAN

2010-06-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

These two Polish Jews are sheer hypocrites big time. Their statements on libertarism are great, but then they want them to apply only to White people.

Rand Paul might as well bite the bullet. He DESERVES to embar-ASS himself on the Rachel Maddow Show when he advocated for segregated lunch counters. Unless you have been in a 46-year coma, the United States Congress adopted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was signed by President Lyndon Johnson that same year. That law finally made it illegal in all 50 states and territories to have separate accommodations for all races, and in all areas of life. There are no more "Whites Only" and "C----ed Only" signs anywhere.

However, with Rand Paul's nomination and passage of Arizona's SB 1070, the racist tide of the Republican Party has reared its head. They "want their country back"-WARD! Bill Maher was right when he said "I want my country to go FORWARD!" Rand Paul's statement that President Obama was "un-American" in Obama's comments against British Petroleum, well I have a question to these two Polish Jews:

WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE FISHERMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES WHO WILL LOSE THEIR LIVELIHOOD, YOU MOTHER FUCKING ASSWIPE NUTJOBS?!!!!!

So much for Sarah the Stupid Cunt Palin, and "Drill, Baby, Drill!" The Democrats should not lose, but win in November, since it was the Republicans that backed the oil industry thanks to their GENEROUS CONTRIBUTIONS!

From tiodt.blogspot.com:

Rand Paul, the new Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky is a hero of the Tea Party.

Some hero. For starters, he said that he believes businesses should have the right to refuse seating to minority customers. Welcome to the Kentucky of 1955.

And now he's out there saying that President Obama and his administration are anti-business and "un-American" for criticizing oil giant British Petroleum over their handling of the oil spill.

I guess "American values" now includes having no clue how to stop the gusher, and it's perfectly OK (pro-business) if you kill off miles of coastline for at least a generation. Hey, it's 'business,' right?

One almost has to feel for minority leader Mitch McConnell. He and Senate political architect John Cornyn (R-TX) pushed his state's other Republican Senator, the gaffe-prone Jim Bunning, into retirement so he could put his hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson up against the Democrats in the general. But then Paul beat Grayson Tuesday, and by a large margin. And then the past reached out and grabbed him. Don't blame Democrats for that either. Paul's past statements are public record; if Grayson was too dumb to look them up, well maybe he should have. Paul said it, didn't he? And it was Paul, and Paul alone, who contended that not only is it wrong to criticize an oil company for an oil spill, but in fact that to do so is 'un-American.' Presumably that's his favorite adjective, one we can expect to hear pop out of Paul's mouth frequently if he ever gets to the U.S. Senate. Joe McCarthy, anyone?

This has all backfired so exquisitely on McConnell, that Bunning, who was known to resent McConnell for pushing him out of the Senate, can hardly be blamed if he is having a secret but hearty laugh about this somewhere.

Kentucky Republicans have made their choice. Now they have to live with him, at least until November.

Also from www.eschatonblog.com:

Rand Paul was supposed to on Meet the Press this Sunday, but he cancelled.

Perhaps they could invite on the person who got the most votes in a Kentucky Senate primary that day?

Bet not.

********************************************************
Why wasn't Rand Paul on Meet the Press? Because Rand Paul is
A BIG FAT PUSSY!
When you open your big dick mouth on the Rachel Maddow Show, and then don't have the balls to be on Meet the Press, it's open season (figuratively speaking).

WHY IS DORA REALLY BRUISED?

2010-06-01T01:27:00.000-07:00

Parents, share this with your kids. From dreamacttexas.blogspot.com:

What will Arizona to do Dora the Explorer? Will this keep Dora from traveling around the world. Just what country does she really belong to? If she is released, will she help the DREAMers in their struggle?

--

Los Angeles Times - May 21, 2010

Dora the Explorer's immigration status comes under question in Arizona law's aftermath

TIME FOR THESE BORN AGAINS TO SHUT THE HELL UP!

2010-06-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

These people call themselves "Christians?" I wonder what Bible they have been reading, because the Bible I have read, does not teach the hate and anger they show by the blog post they have posted. The person who wrote this, claims to be a therapist. Did they even once check out the facts for themselves, or like most people, take them at face value? And if this person is a therapist, I feel sorry for whomever they "treat!"

05/20/2010

By Aaron Welch

Jessica Lunsford…Caylee Anthony…Haleigh Cummings…Jessica Vargas…Trenton Duckett…and the list goes on. These are just a few of the names of children who have been killed or are missing here in the state of Florida, many of them in the Central Florida area. In the shadow of Disney World there are predators who would seduce and harm our children in ways we cannot imagine. As a test, I went to the sex offender and predator database for Florida and typed in the addresses of my home and of my work. Immediately hundreds of registered sex offenders popped onto the screen. It was startling and terrifying all at the same time. The Department of Justice estimates that, on average, there is one child molester per square mile in the United States. They also estimate that the average child molester victimizes between 50-150 children before he is arrested. Anna Salter, in her book “Predators”, cites research that says 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys will have sexual contact with an adult. She also notes that 3 years old is the most common age that sexual abuse occurs.

As a therapist, these figures startle and intrigue me; the fact that there are so many predators out there…mostly men, who are so emotionally deranged or wounded themselves that they are willing to commit unspeakable acts on young children. As a counselor, this is almost overwhelming to me in its magnitude.

As a parent……a father….a daddy………..it angers and disgusts me to my very core. As my awareness rises in this arena my protective instincts hit overdrive. As I see case after case on the news of missing children and children who have been victimized in some way and of the children that didn’t make it, whose remains have been discovered somewhere, carelessly discarded by someone who only viewed them as an object of that person’s warped and self-centered idea of pleasure, I am outraged and irate. I truly wish that I could assist the police on every one of these cases. I think of what Jessica Lunsford endured and mourn over what never should have happened to her. I reflect on Caylee Anthony and pray that there is justice for that little girl. The case concerning Haleigh Cummings haunts me every time I hear anything mentioned about it. Why can’t they find her??? And then I think of my little boy and my precious little girl and I wish I could keep them with me every minute of every day so they are protected and will never have to worry that they could part of this list.

And so, because I am limited in how I can offer assistance to the community in fighting this horrible epidemic….because I am not in a position to strap on a gun and hunt down the predators who stalk and pursue our children…I write.

This will begin a series of articles on how we, as parents, can better-protect our children from predators. I will be sharing research I have found in my training as a sex offender treatment specialist and other research that is out there from various authors and many others who have gone further than I in the fight to save our children. My prayer is that the articles I write will be a resource for parents that will give them greater courage and knowledge to protect their kids. The police cannot do it alone. After viewing the database, I know that there are too many predators out there for the limited number of law enforcement officers, try as they might. We, as the community, as parents, must join the fight. We must not sit back and just hope that our children will not be one of those chosen as targets. We must become informed about the nature of predators and learn as many safeguards as possible that will make our children a more difficult target than most predators want to focus on. We cannot be with our children 24-7, as much as we wish we could. However, we can gather the tools we need to become “parent warriors” who are alert, informed, and who arm their children with the emotional and safety-oriented weapons they will need as they venture into a world that is not as safe as we want it to be.

So fellow parents, though I write with the knowledge I have gathered as a therapist, the heart of these articles will be from my role as a daddy, one that is very protective of his babies, would fight to the death for all of them, and who wants to help you to fight for your own family. Together, we can make a difference.
- "Together, we can make a difference." Not with this kind of hypocritical attitude. I have many studies linked on this blog, which you can read, and I urge you to VERIFY the facts, who are they coming from, do they have a motive, etc! Get the real facts, not just disinformation spread by the self-serving media and politicians.

Aaron Welch is a licensed mental health counselor, nationally certified counselor and certified sex offender treatment specialist. He strives to fight for the hearts of his clients and empower them to build a legacy that impacts the world. He is part of a team of experts at “The Lifeworks Group, Inc”. For more information about Aaron or Lifeworks, please visit www.lifeworksgroup.org or www.legacycounselingservices.org

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A LICENSE, DON'T BOTHER SUING

2010-06-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

From juzthefax.blogspot.com:

Good Try, But No Cigar!

Creativity among attorneys is a critical component of the profession. Attorneys have an ethical obligation to represent their clients zealously and within the bounds of the law. One recent attempt at creativity, albeit an unsuccessful one, occurred in Capital Construction Management of NY LLC v. East 81st St. LLC, NYS Supreme Court, New York County (Decided: April 30, 2010).

In Capital Construction, a construction manager lacking a requisite New York City home improvement contractor's license, performed work or caused work to be performed for the rehabilitation and redevelopment of a condominium project. When the project owner had trouble paying the balance due for the work (i.e., approximately $700,000.00), the contractor and the project owner entered into a loan repayment agreement providing for additional interest.

Three checks issued to the contractor bounced, and the contractor sued to recover on the uncollected checks, but not for the work performed or on the loan repayment agreement. Instead, it moved for summary judgment in lieu of complaint based on the fact that the checks were instruments for the payment of money only. It's important to note that the existence of a valid home improvement license must be plead as an allegation since, in New York, the failure to possess a valid home improvement license required by the State or locality at the time of contract and performance of the work is an absolute bar to recovery. By moving for summary judgment in lieu of complaint on the checks rather than for the work or on the loan agreement, the contractor attempted to "end run" the requirement of a home improvement license, a claim on which it was unlikely to recover based on the facts of the matter.

The Court didn't buy the argument and held that allowing the contractor to circumvent licensing and related requirements in this instance would violate public policy. The Court stated: "[A] home improvement contractor must comply with two separate tests to advance a claim: (1) a valid license at the time of pleading, and (2) a valid license at the time of the contract and work. If the contractor cannot meet both tests its claim must be dismissed" [citation omitted]. Here, the contractor admitted that the checks were issued for work performed, and the Court simply would not permit itself to be misdirected by focusing on the uncollected checks rather than the lack of a requisite license. The contractor's Motion was denied.

I agree with the Court's decision here. However, I think this is a good example of an attorney being creative by pushing the envelope. While the argument failed to win the day, in many instances creative lawyering can broaden legal horizons and remedy injustice.

BARRIOZONA.COM

2010-06-01T00:53:00.000-07:00

From arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

Barriozona

A great website worth visiting: barriozona.com. There are a lot of interesting videos and news on major issues around the racist Arizona law. Check it out.

TOM HOME IS AN ASSHOLE

2010-06-01T00:49:00.000-07:00

From arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

The Jackass Behind AZ Ethnic Studies Law

via TPM

"(Tom) Horne, the state's superintendent of public instruction since 2002, has long sought to kill the Tucson school district's ethnic studies classes, including La Raza studies -- and he wrote the bill to target that single program. "It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," he has said of ethnic studies classes that, he claims, teach Hispanics to resent whites..."(READ MORE)

THE GOP SHOULD BE ALL BE DEAD IN NOVEMBER

2010-06-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

THEY LOST THE LATINO VOTE!

From arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

GOP Alienates Hispanic Voters

–via Washington Post

"Since the Arizona controversy, this gap can only have grown. In a matter of months, Hispanic voters in Arizona have gone from being among the most pro-GOP in the nation to being among the most hostile...

Immigration issues are emotional and complex. But this must be recognized for what it is: political suicide. Consider that Hispanics make up 40 percent of the K-12 students in Arizona, 44 percent in Texas, 47 percent in California, 54 percent in New Mexico. Whatever temporary gains Republicans might make feeding resentment of this demographic shift, the party identified with that resentment will eventually be voted into singularity. In a matter of decades, the Republican Party could cease to be a national party..."(READ MORE)

THIS REMINDS ME OF ADM. YAMAMOTO'S STATEMENT ABOUT A SLEEPING GIANT

2010-06-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

From: arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

Mexican President Calderon Speaks to Congress

YouTube has gone mad as has the right wing extremists (racists). Who knew the President of Mexico could set them off into such a crazed tizzy. For the sheer entertainment value, it's worth simply looking at the comments on various news sites and political blogs to see these hate-filled people go off their rockers.

(Link)

MANY CITIES TOLD ARIZONA TO FUCK OFF

2010-06-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

From arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

Seattle Joins Arizona Boycott

–via Crooks and Liars

Yesterday, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to boycott Arizona by ending official city travel there and resolving, when practical, to cut off future contracts with Arizona-based businesses. That makes Seattle the 11th city to endorse a boycott of the state in opposition to its controversial immigration law. Five of the boycotting cities are in California: Los Angeles tops the list as the biggest, and its boycott could deliver the most painful blow to Arizona's economy, as the city has $58 million in existing contracts with Arizona companies, according to the L.A. Times...

Here's a list of the cities that have announced travel and/or city contracts boycotts so far:

- Seattle, Washington
- El Paso, Texas
- Austin, Texas
- Boston, Massachusetts
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Boulder, Colorado
- San Diego, California
- West Hollywood, California
- San Francisco, California
- Los Angeles, California
- Oakland, California

[More cities have since included Baldwin Park and South El Monte, California.}

(READ MORE)

OHIO MAY SAY GOODBYE TO A BAD LAW

2010-06-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

05/20/2010

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the Ohio Supreme Court still hasn’t come down with its decision in State v. Bodyke, the case challenging the constitutionality of the Adam Walsh Act, despite having held oral argument on the case back in November. Oral argument in another case last week, State v. Richey, brought some of those issues back up again, and perhaps gave a glimpse of the various justices’ thinking.

Richey pled no contest to sexual imposition, a third degree misdemeanor, back in 2006. Two years later, Richey found himself reclassified as a Tier I sex offender under the AWA, and asked that his plea be vacated.

Most of the attacks on AWA has centered on the due process and ex post facto problems in changing the rules after the game’s been played: people who’d not been subject to any registration requirements, or had completed them, now found themselves subject to new requirements. There’s another argument, though, based on the provision in the US Constitution which prohibits a state from enacting legislation which “impairs the obligations of a contract ”: A plea bargain is a contract between the parties, and additional terms can’t be imposed after the contract is entered into. Richey went a little further and argued that he could not have made a “knowing, intelligent, and voluntary” guilty plea if the legislature could subsequently amend the law to impose new and more dire consequences upon that plea.

There may be some basis for that argument; I know of one case where a pre-AWA plea was entered into with the express stipulation that the defendant would not be classified as a sex offender. Unfortunately, Richey’s case doesn’t present nearly as solid a basis for that claim: he was classified as a sex offender under the pre-AWA law. Justice O’Connor bailed out Richey’s lawyer in oral argument by suggesting that his best argument was not that AWA lengthened Richey’s reporting requirements, but that it dramatically increased the penalty for failing to registration: under the old law, such failure was the same degree as the underlying crime, which here was a third-degree misdemeanor. Under the AWA, failing to register is at least a fourth-degree felony.

O’Connor’s comment is interesting for another reason. Justice O’Donnell argued that the trial judge was under no obligation to advise Richey of anything regarding registration as a sex offender, since registration is regarded as “remedial,” not punitive. In fact, that argument has been the lynchpin for upholding past sex offender laws, in both the Ohio and US Supreme Courts: you don’t get into the due process and ex post facto arguments if you’re talking about a civil, not criminal, matter.

Of course, the argument that prohibiting somebody from living where they want, requiring them to show up at the sheriff’s office every now and then and putting them in prison if they don’t, and putting their pictures up on the Internet and declaring them pariahs isn’t “punitive” has become increasingly tenuous. Everybody bought the first time the Ohio Supreme Court looked at sex offender laws in State v. Cook in 1998, but by the time the Court examined the immediate precursor to AWA a decade later in State v. Ferguson, three justices — Lanzinger, Lundberg Stratton, and Pfeifer — had jumped off the “it’s only remedial” boat. Put O’Connor in that camp, and you’ve got the four votes to limit AWA to prospective application.

There’s another card in play here: the US Supreme Court’s decision two months in Padilla v. Kentucky (discussed here), where the Court held that a lawyer may have rendered ineffective assistance by telling his client that there would be no immigration consequences to a guilty plea, when in fact it resulted in deportation proceedings against the client. It’s not a perfect fit — the voluntary nature of the plea is at issue in Richey, while Padilla concerns ineffective assistance of counsel — but there’s room for arguing some overlap, as Justice Lundberg Stratton brought up. Deportation is unquestionably a civil proceeding, and although Ohio has a law which specifically requires a non-citizen to be advised there might be immigration consequences following a plea, many states do not, and in the absence of such a law those consequences are deemed “collateral,” and do not have to be part of the plea colloquy. Yet the civil nature of the proceedings and their collateral status did not deter the Padilla court from concluding that the defendant had to be properly advised of them.

What’s more, the Padilla opinion noted that the immigration consequences could be far more severe than those of the underlying conviction, an argument which applies with equal force to Richey’s situation, as noted by Justice Lanzinger: the requirement registering as a sex offender for the next fifteen years, and facing imprisonment for 6 to 18 months if he doesn’t, is much more significant than the 60 days he served in jail for the sexual imposition.

As I said, Richey’s case isn’t the best set of facts for this argument, and ordinarily I wouldn’t want to predict the outcome. But I think there’s a decent chance of the whole case being mooted. As Justice O’Connor pointed out in the first minute of oral argument, if Bodyke holds that AWA can’t be applied retroactively, that takes care of Richey’s problem. Given some of the comments in Richey, that might just happen.

CHECK YOUR APPELLATE TIME LIMITS, YOU MAY LOSE RIGHTS AS STATED HERE

2010-05-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

05/20/2010

By Jeffrey M. Nye

Today’s ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Clayborn, 2010-Ohio-2123 [PDF] may offer some insight into whether the Court will strike down the Adam Walsh Act, which reclassified sex offenders and in many cases extended indefinitely their reporting or registration requirements.

The issue in Clayborn was simply the amount of time in which an offender who is classified under the Adam Walsh Act has to appeal. Appellate Rule 4 states that in a criminal case, a party has 30 days after entry of judgment to appeal. But in a civil case, a party has up to 30 days after being served with notice of the entry of judgment. In other words, in a civil case if the clerk fails to serve notice of the judgment under Civ.R. 58(B), the appeal time is extended, but in a civil case it’s not. The Court held that sex offender classifications under the Adam Walsh Act can only be appealed under the more stringent criminal rule, not the more lenient civil rule.

What does this have to do with the validity of the Act itself? Good question. The Adam Walsh Act, also known as R.C. Chapter 2950, required the state to re-classify all existing sex offenders into one of three new tiers. The reporting requirements for each tier were significantly more stringent than the prior reporting requirements. For example, an offender who had been convicted of a sexual battery may have been previously classified as a sexual offender and ordered to register annually for ten years. Under the Adam Walsh Act, that person (so long as they were still within that ten-year notification period) would be classified as a Tier III offender and would have to register every 90 days for life.

Many offenders have challenged the law as unconstitutional. A variety of theories are usually trotted out, including the separation of powers doctrine, equal protection, double jeopardy, and plea-bargain-as-contract. Particularly relevant here, though, is that the petitioners usually argue that the Adam Walsh Act violates the prohibition on retroactive laws in the Ohio Constitution (Article II, Section 28) or the ex post facto clause in the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Sections 9-10).

To my knowledge, all Ohio appellate courts have rejected these arguments to date. They tend to rely on the 1998 Ohio Supreme Court case of State v. Cook (83 Ohio St.3d 404), in which the Court approved the sex offender classification law enacted in 1997, known as Megan’s Law. The Cook Court held, among other things, that the sex offender law was a “merely remedial” law, and not a “substantive” law. The Court explained that “the General Assembly’s purpose behind R.C. Chapter 2950 is to promote public safety and bolster the public’s confidence in Ohio’s criminal and mental health systems,” and further found that “[t]he statute is absolutely devoid of any language indicating an intent to punish.” As directly and bluntly as possible, the Court said that “R.C. Chapter 2950, on its face, clearly is not punitive.”

“Merely remedial” and “not punitive” are other ways of saying “civil, not criminal.” In other words, the Cook Court’s approval of the classification system is based on a finding that the sex offender registration was a civil statute, not a criminal statute.

The significance of the Clayborn holding should be evident: the Court has now said, at least for purposes of protecting appellate rights, that the Adam Walsh Act must be treated as a criminal statute, not a civil statute.

Challenges to the Adam Walsh Act are pending before the Court right now. In November, for example, the Court heard argument in In re: Darian J. Smith, in which the petitioner contested the validity of the Adam Walsh Act on ex post facto and retroactivity grounds (docket available here). The decision in Clayton may indicate a tendency to strike down the Adam Walsh Act, or at least its retroactive application.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE ARIZONA 4!

2010-05-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

From dreamacttexas.blogspot.com:

The Famous 4 in Arizona make the NYT

---

Editorial

Courage in Arizona

Published: May 19, 2010 - New York Times

Four young immigrant students risked everything on Monday when they sat down in Senator John McCain’s office in Tucson and refused to leave. They were urging passage of the Dream Act, a bill offering a citizenship path to illegal immigrants who, like them, were brought to the United States as children, too young to have willfully broken the law...link to complete NYT article

ON TESTILYING

2010-05-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

I always thought the word "testilying" came from my compadre Jack "Viva La Revolucion" Gerritsen. From criminaldefenseblog.blogspot.com:

The Cop Lied, To Me

IN 1994, Alan Dershowitz coined the phrase "Testilying." The practice of giving false testimony against a defendant in a criminal trial, typically for the purpose of "making the case" against someone they believe to be guilty when legal technicalities weren't followed to the letter during the arrest of the suspect, or while searching the immediate area.

So cops lie. We all know that. It's something we don't like to talk about because it brings out the "so what, they're guilty anyway" crowd. Of course everyone will say "that's terrible," and "that's just wrong," but deep down inside those that wonder why we even have defense lawyers, there is the thought that it really doesn't matter. These are the same people who believe that a 1% error rate on the death penalty, is the "price we pay for having the death penalty." (Yes, someone actually said that.)

So in a Miami courtroom last week, it happened in one of my cases. No, this wasn't a high profile case where the public was screaming for a conviction. This was an old misdemeanor case that no one cared about, except my client, and the 4 prosecutors clamoring to object to all that was being asked. (Tip to a young prosecutor: When you've been practicing about 5 years, you'll realize that if it's that irrelevant, there's really no reason to object so much.)

This case involved two officers that pulled over my client. During a chance encounter with one of them, this officer told me they did not observe the same driving pattern observed by the other officer.

No, I didn't have a witness standing next to me. Just me and the officer.

I ran back to my office and on the same day, filed a motion laying out the details of the conversation.

It would be a few months before the motion was heard.

"Do you remember having a conversation with me?"

"Yes."

"It was out in the hallway."

"Yes."

"You said he wasn't weaving."

"I never said that."

Not, "I don't remember," or "I'm not sure exactly what I said," "I never said that."

"You never said that?"

"No."

This went on for a little while.

In the end, the testimony of both officers was enough for there to be reasonable suspicion for the stop. I don't disagree,

But this cop lied.

What struck me was the fact that not the judge, who knows me well, nor the four prosecutors, who haven't been practicing a year and don't know me at all, acted like anything was amiss.

No one thought to ask "is Mr. Tannebaum making all of this up?" "Is Mr. Tannebaum lying?" I kept looking around the courtroom, and noticing that everyone was carrying on as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

I'm glad this happened. These are the things that reinvigorate my passion for the practice. It reminds me that for every prosecutor and police officer I respect and may even be friendly with, there is an undercurrent of shit in our system that affects defendants everyday. This is why defense lawyers must remain vigilant.

And that's the truth.

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court, and the author of The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer.

WHY I DON'T LIKE COYOTES AND OUR CURRENT IMMIGRATION POLICY

2010-05-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

From nnirr.blogspot.com:

520 Weeks of Witness to Human Rights Crisis

Coalición de Derechos Humanos Celebrates Ten Years of Raising Voices for Justice and an End to Border Militarization

The human rights crisis that exploded after Arizona Governor Brewer signed into law SB1070, which gives local police the power to stop and arrest individuals for their immigration status, is over sixteen years in the making. SB1070 is the offspring of U.S. border security and immigration control policies that deliberately funnel migrants through the state's deadliest and desolate regions.

Thursday, May 20, 2010, marks the 520th consecutive week of a Thursday night community vigil organized by the Coalición de Derechos Humanos at El Tiradito shrine in Tucson, Arizona, to remember and honor the thousands of individuals who have perished on the U.S.-Mexico border as a result of U.S. militarization of immigration and border control.

Ten years ago, the Coalición de Derechos Humanos (DH) began a vigil to recognize all victims of U.S. border security policies. In 2000, DH reported the recovery of 136 human remains solely on the Arizona border region. Now, from October 1, 2009 to February 28, 2010, DH reports an astounding 110 human remains recovered on the border over five months.

Since 1994, when the current border security strategy was implemented by the Clinton Administration on the entire U.S.-Mexico border region, more than 5,000 migrants deaths have been recorded on the U.S. side of the Mexico border.

Please join or support the Coalición de Derechos Humanos at the 520th weekly vigil Thursday, May 20, 2010, 7:00pm, at El Tiradito Shrine (Cushing and Main Streets) Tucson, AZ

In addition, May 20th marks the 13th year anniversary of the killing of 18-year old Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. by U.S. Marines in Redford, Texas as the young man tended the family's goats:

Esequiel Hernandez, Jr.* May 14, 1979 - May 20, 1997

Join DH to commemorate the fallen on the 520th weekly vigil, a pledge to bear witness to the deadly border and its victims.

Background to the Human Rights Crisis in Arizona

NAFTA Border Control of Migrant Labor

Why are migrants dying and disappearing in the deserts and mountains of Arizona and in parts of California New Mexico and Texas?

The U.S. deliberately "funnels" migrants into the most dangerous and desolate regions of the border to supposedly dissuade them from coming to the U.S. This strategy was implemented as the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, was being negotiated and signed. NAFTA, instead of addressing the displacement of workers caused by "free" trade policies, put the costs of NAFTA on Mexico and specifically undermined the rights of migrant workers.

Border security and control strategies have been the policy of how migrant workers are integrated into the U.S. labor force. NAFTA and subsequent U.S. border security policies have made migrant workers, including Indigenous people and other people of color communities on the border, more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. SB1070 is the latest form of labor control policy based on anti-immigrant racial profiling and discrimination.

"Prevention through Deterrence" means Migrant Deaths

Called "prevention through deterrence," the U.S. government implemented the current border security and immigration control strategy in 1993 on the El Paso, TX-Ciudad Juárez sector of the border as "Operation Blockade." The strategy was then extended to the entire border in 1994, as Operation Gatekeeper in California, Operation Safeguard in Arizona and Operation Rio Grande in south Texas.

Operation Blockade was implemented in September 1993 by then Border Patrol Sector Chief Silvestre Reyes that consisted of placing one Border Patrol agent with a Bronco jeep about every thousand yards across the entire width of the El Paso-Juárez metropolitan region on the borderline. BP Sector Chief Reyes under then-INS director Doris Meisner piloted the strategy that is responsible for causing the death, disappearance or, if they survive the ordeal, immense suffering and damage to the health of thousands of migrants.

The U.S. implementation of the border security strategy was part of the U.S. pact under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was signed and ratified by Congress in November 1993.

The goal of the now 17 year old U.S. border security strategy was to force migrants who chose to cross without authorization or inspection through the desert and out of the safer urban areas. Instead of offering options to enter legally, the U.S. offered migrants choose between not crossing or risking their lives and health to reunite with their families and seek work to survive.

How to End the Human Rights Crisis at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The human rights crisis at the border is the result of U.S. immigration and border control polices, practices and strategies that criminalize status, militarize immigrant and border communities, link immigration enforcement and services to the politics of national security. Ultimately, the U.S. border reflects the imposition of "free" trade policies and economic development that forces workers to move to find work -- in many cases into involuntary international migration -- and makes them vulnerable to hate and exploitation.

Communities have to learn each others histories and find common ground to roll-back the hate and end the policies that foment and bolster the anti-immigrant climate.

At the heart of this is building long-lasting and durable relationships between border and non-border communities, immigrants, Native American peoples, communities of color and working people. This relationship is strategic to expose, prevent and stop the current trading of rights that is central to "comprehensive immigration reform." Rights trading means that the rights of communities are negotiated away as part of the deal-making for immigration reform. The rights of border and immigrant communities have always been offered head first to satisfy the xenophobia and calls for "border security."

In 2007, NNIRR worked with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) to bring an African American and black immigrant delegation to the Arizona border to see first-hand the devastating results of the U.S. militarization of immigration and border control policies, practices and strategies.

In 2006, NNIRR with the Coalición de Derechos Humanos brought a national delegation of grassroots community groups and leaders to meet with their counterparts in the Arizona border region and dream a different border based on justice and human rights. These are were our recommendations to solve the human rights crisis at the border :

Implement routine programs of legalization that expand access to visas and provide access to permanent residency including future flows. Systematic legalization programs – recognizing human, labor, environmental, and civil rights – will ensure that migrants have options to unite with their families and avoid mortal danger.

End the deadly border enforcement strategies; instead protect the human rights and constitutional liberties of all immigrants and communities on the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes but is not limited to issuing sufficient visas so that all migrants that wish to can enter the country legally and safely and are not forced to choose between risking their lives crossing through the desert and mountains or subjecting themselves to inhumane violations of their rights and abuse just to reunite with their families and find work to survive.

Demilitarize the U.S.-Mexico border and cease all enforcement policies, practices, measures, laws, and strategies that criminalize migrants forcing them into crossing through the most dangerous areas in the mountains and deserts where hundreds die every year. And, prevent the initiation of policies, laws, practices and measures to militarize the U.S.-Canada border;

Address the backlog and facilitate family reunification by increasing visas and more legal options allowing migrants to cross safely and not risk their lives at the hands of smugglers, unscrupulous employers, or immigration officials who act with impunity and jeopardize public safety;

Repeal draconian federal criminal laws that prosecute and incarcerate migrants for merely crossing the border without inspection.

End the deportation of permanent residents, including ending indefinite detention or its expansion, preserving due process rights and restoring access to the courts and meaningful judicial review for all immigrants.

Develop bi-lateral migration policies and practices that uphold the human rights of migrants, which are accountable to independent, civilian community-based monitoring and oversight;

Restore the civil rights, civil liberties and human rights of border communities and immigrants everywhere.

Grant unrestricted crossing rights for members of Indigenous nations and communities living on both sides of the border.

Enhance the safety of border communities and protect migrants by demilitarizing the borders, including tearing down the walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, and establishing accountability mechanisms for independent civilian and community-based monitoring and oversight;

Clearly and publicly declare its opposition to private vigilante groups and the hateful acts they perpetrate, and prosecute any criminal activity against immigrants and others;

Create an independent monitoring and accountability mechanism that directly engages impacted communities in holding the Department of Homeland Security accountable for its immigration enforcement and detention policies and initiatives;

Transfer federal spending from border militarization to genuine “border security” programs including health care, housing, education, living wages, social security and fair trade between communities straddling the border and other nations;

Stop collaborating with other countries targeting migrants for arrest and detention and cooperate with neighboring nations to implement economic and social policies that effectively resolve problems of unsustainable development caused by “free” trade policies, which are the root cause of forced displacement and involuntary international migration;

End and reverse the privatization of border control and national security operations, which is rewarding private security contractors that have abysmal human rights records and corruptive practices in Iraq, Palestine, New Orleans and elsewhere;

Abandon all plans to militarize the U.S.- Canada border, virtually and physically, as contemplated in recently passed Congressional legislation calling for a “study” of the militarization of the northern border, including the high technological surveillance of the U.S.- Mexico border.

De-link the policies and politics of national security and the “war on terror” from all immigration services and enforcement and give priority to “human security,” fulfilling the human rights, economic well-being, civil liberties, labor protections, health, safety and freedom from fear and instability, for all communities and individuals regardless of their citizenship or immigration status; and,

Transfer all border and interior immigration services and enforcement functions now under the Department of Homeland Security back to the Department of Justice, including the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Bureau of Border Protection and Customs, and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, previously under the Immigration and Naturalization Services.

Address the root causes of involuntary migration and forced displacement in sending countries by ending “free” trade and other structural adjustment programs imposed on the global south by U.S.-controlled international financial institutions. Support sustainable economic development instead.

Make the United States a true partner in international cooperation by ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

MR. PRESIDENT, ARE YOU LISTENING?

2010-05-31T22:55:00.000-07:00

From dreamacttexas.blogspot.com:

But My Mom Doesn't Have Any Papers

A second grader told Michelle Obama her concerns about "people being taken away." Click here to see video
-
Huffington Post - May 19, 2010

First Lady Michelle Obama Questioned by Second-Grader Worried About Her Mom's Immigration Status

A second-grader stole the show today, even as U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon held a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House.
While the two Presidents spoke about the need for immigration reform and about concerns over Arizona's harsh new law -- without saying anything new or different -- down the road in Silver Spring, Maryland, First Lady Michele Obama and Mexico’s First Lady Margarita Zavala visited an elementary school to speak with a class of second graders...link

ABC News’ Karen Travers reports what happened when a young girl spoke up:
The student shyly raised her hand and said, "My mom ... she says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn't have papers." Mrs. Obama replied: "Yeah, well that's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right." The girl then said quietly, "But my mom doesn't have any ..." and trailed off. Mrs. Obama replied: "Well, we have to work on that. We have to fix that, and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right."

Also from arizonaboycott.blogspot.com:

THE SUPREME COURT NEEDS TO RELEARN DUE PROCESS

2010-05-31T22:47:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

05/18/2010

By Matt Kelley

Yesterday in a disappointing ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court green-lighted the federal practice of detaining sex offenders for years — even after their sentences end.

The court ruled 7-2 in United States v. Comstock that it was okay for Congress to allow authorities to continue imprisoning people after sentence completion, so long as a judge sees “clear and convincing” evidence that the person would be likely to re-offend.

It's not often that I agree with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, but as I wrote when this case was first argued, Scalia is right when he argues that the practice is unconstitutional.

Sadly, the two were the only ones to dissent in this latest ruling — the only ones to stand up for sensible sentencing practices and clear limits on the government’s power. As Thomas wrote, "The fact that the federal government has the authority to imprison a person for the purpose of punishing him for a federal crime — sex-related or otherwise — does not provide the government with the additional power to exercise indefinite civil control over that person.”

Sex offenders are already subject to frequently changing, and expanding, punishments. Sex offender registries keep getting bigger and bigger, and registration and residency requirements appear to be getting increasingly strict each year. Often, judges and juries sentence someone for a sex offense without knowing the nearly unlimited extent of the punishment to which that person's being condemned.

Although only 100 or so people are currently locked up past their sentences, that's 100 too many. Civil commitment is a backhanded maneuver that circumvents courts in order to extend punishment outside of the public eye.

In deciding Comstock yesterday, the court granted the federal government the power to incarcerate Americans without due process . Likewise, they also reinforced the dangerous notion that no punishment for sex offenders is ever too great.
- And that means they can lock you up without reason as well, just like they are doing with terrorists at Guantanamo.

LAWS LIKE JESSICA'S LAW DON'T MAKE YOU SAFE, BUT ONLY SHIFTS THE CRIME AROUND

2010-05-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

So how long is California going to continue to play the "sex offender shuffle?" See the video at the end, which is from 2006.

05/18/2010

_____ Says His Family Was Evicted After Neighbors Found His Brother's Megan's Law Listing

CARLSBAD - A Carlsbad family is being forced to leave their neighborhood after a relative was found listed on the Megan's Law website.

“We moved here to be safe and the neighborhood's turned on us,” said _____ who lives in a Carlsbad neighborhood with _____ and their two children.

In 2007, _____’s brother, _____ was sentenced for burglary. _____ was released from prison two weeks ago

“[He] had no place to go, [so] we let him stay here for about a week,” said _____.

However, _____’s brother is a registered sex offender. _____ said his brother is not dangerous and the offense happened 25 years ago and involved a girlfriend.

But when _____’s picture appeared on the Megan’s Law website, neighbors launched an effort to get rid of them.

Neighbors worried that the next John Gardner might be just around the corner.

A 10News poll found 73 percent of San Diegans polled wanted to receive e-mail alerts if a sex offender moved in to their neighborhood. Eighteen percent said no, and eight percent were not sure.

Though _____ is now gone, he was legally entitled to live there.

“He’s still registered here, but doesn’t stay here now,” said _____.

_____, who closely resembles his older brother said he’s being targeted.

“We’re the ones in fear now because of a bunch of comments that say a child molester drives a black BMW; everything from that to people saying they’re worried they’re not safe in their own homes,” said _____.

“I didn’t realize people could get that ugly,” said Grove.

One neighbor said he’ll be glad when the family moves.

Another neighbor said everyone was on edge after what happened to Amber and Chelsea.

“I think it’s an incendiary environment and think people are in fear, checking Megan’s Law weekly,” she said. “I know I am and that’s how they saw it right away.”

Though the family is moving to another place, they said their next move would be to see an attorney.

Video Link

IF YOU'RE IN FLORIDA FILE YOUR COMPLAINT WITH THE ACLU

2010-05-03T02:06:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

This goes for all other states as well. Contact your local ACLU and file a complaint. If you do not, then nothing will change, so FILE A COMPLAINT NOW!

It was strongly suggested by the Florida Civil Rights Association (Contact) that we (we meaning RSO's, and or their family members) start filling complaints. The FCRA cannot do anything with the educational material that I sent them via mail except "get educated" with it. We (the RSO community have to FILE A COMPLAINT in order to even discover whether their attorneys can assist us or not. Without a complaint, no attorney can take action on behalf of anyone or any group.

The FCRA also said that we as individuals MUST START filing mass individual complaints to the ACLU (Contact) and FCRA. Once the complaints start "massing up" (stacking up) this is a good indication that there are similar issues in neighboring counties. This means that "individuals" have to initiate the complaint with the ACLU at their web site or send it via a letter to their mail box, and initiate the complaint with the Florida Civil Rights Association (FCRA) website or send the complaint via letter to their mail box.

Nothing starts until WE INITIATE THE COMPLAINT(S)

I realize that there have been complaints sent into the ACLU from different parts of our state, but if you look at the complaints sent in against civil rights violations or constitutional challenges compared to the TOTAL POPULATION OF RSO's, then you can see that we are lacking in the volume of complaints that need to be submitted.

Also, the ACLU and the FCRA cannot divulge your name or address when you file a complaint. They are bound by law to give you anonymity. RSO's or their family don't need to be afraid to make a complaint. In fact, this is the only thing that will get them rolling on our behalf is if we start filling individually, then they will look at us as a massive group. Both the ACLU and FCRA are looking for commonalities in our complaints. And we have plenty, I assure you!

I have included the web site address of the ACLU and FCRA at the bottom of this email. It is imperative that every one make a complaint, even if you don't know if the complaint is valid. Let the lawyers decide that. You may not have a case but an RSO or their family member 5 counties over may have the same issue but their complaint may have additional info that will cause the lawyers to assist them. That case can be then used as a precedent for all of us later. FILE YOUR COMPLAINT(S).

I was also told that even if a bill has not been made into a law yet by vote, if you believe that your civil rights will be violated if it becomes law, you should immediate write out your complaint and be ready to send it in. Don't wait!

The politician's have gotten away with far too much already and we have sat by and done nothing. Start filling your complaints with the ACLU and FCRA NOW. They cannot ignore a group of determined, helpless, poor class of citizens that want justice and relief from the problems the politician's have caused.

Lastly: DO NOT CALL THESE AGENCIES. They do not have the staff to answer the phones. Send your complaint in by mail and ask for confirmation or use their web sites.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link to the ACLU to file a complaint: http://www.aclufl.org/get_help/index.cfm

Here is the ACLU's mail address for those who need to mail it in:

ACLU of Florida

4500 Biscayne Blvd.

Suite 340

Miami, Fl 33137

Attn: Complaint Form Inside

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link to the FCRA to file a complaint: http://fcranews.com/Complaint.html

Here is the ACLU's mail address for those who need to mail it in:

Florida Civil Rights Association

P.O. Box 593248

Orlando, Florida 32859

Attn: Complaint Form Inside

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD THROW OUT THE INDEFINITE TIME A SEX OFFENDER IS REQUIRED TO STAY OUT OF CUSTODY

2010-05-03T01:45:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

01/12/2010

By Matthew Bigg and Will Dunham

(Reuters) - Supreme Court justices on Tuesday expressed skepticism about the Obama administration's argument that the U.S. Congress can keep sex offenders in custody for an indefinite time beyond their prison sentences.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan (Contact), the administration's top courtroom lawyer, urged the justices to uphold a 2006 federal law providing for the continued detention of sexually dangerous federal inmates who have completed their prison terms.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked Kagan why the federal government's authority in such cases does not end when the prisoner's sentence is done.

The Supreme Court in 1997 ruled that U.S. states could confine dangerous sex offenders to mental institutions after they serve their sentences. The issue on Tuesday was whether the federal government also had that authority.

Politicians from both U.S. political parties have backed tougher measures to deal with sex offenders in the U.S. criminal justice system to try to make sure they do not commit repeat crimes.

Crime has been a major issue in U.S. politics and many elected officials are sensitive to any accusations from opponents that they are too lenient on violent convicts. There has been ongoing public concern over repeat sexual offenders.

'TAKING OVER EVERYTHING'

Of the nine Supreme Court members, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia appeared the most troubled by the law.

Scalia told Kagan he was unimpressed by her argument that the federal government had to step in because some states might not confine prisoners who pose a danger. "This is a recipe for the federal government taking over everything," Scalia said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that under the government's theory, any dangerous person could be held indefinitely.

A U.S. appeals court struck down the law for exceeding the limits of congressional authority and for intruding on police powers the U.S. Constitution reserves for the states, many of which have their own similar laws.

The law had been challenged by five inmates who had been kept in custody at a federal prison hospital in North Carolina after their sentences ended.

The federal law defined "sexually dangerous" as someone who suffered from a serious mental illness, abnormality or disorder and would have difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.

Kagan defended the law. Of approximately 15,000 federal prisoners who have engaged in sexually violent acts or child molestation, the government has identified only about 100 inmates for detention after serving their sentence, she said.

Kagan ended her argument by saying that Congress took the reasonable step of making sure the federal government can continue to hold a sexually dangerous, mentally ill prisoner when the state would not act.

G. Alan DuBois, an assistant federal public defender in North Carolina, argued that the law should be struck down and said the government's power to hold someone ended once the prison sentence has been served.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

IF THE GUY IS STILL TOO POOR TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT, GIVE HIM AN ATTORNEY!

2010-05-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

From kennedy-law.blogspot.com:

Indigent by any other name

I had an interesting experience sitting in Judge Jim York's court over in the Family Law Center this morning on an enforcement action. While we were waiting to go before the court, the parties in a suit to revoke the father's community supervision was called (apparently the father had been held in contempt for nonpayment of child support and then failed to pay the back due amount).

Judge York informed the father that since confinement was a possibility should the judge revoke his community supervision that he was entitled to the same rights as a criminal defendant -- one of those rights being the right to appointed counsel if he was indigent.

As proof of his inability to hire an attorney, the father produced pay stubs showing he had a job and was making $10 an hour. Judge York then looked at the father and told him that he was going to deny him an appointed attorney because, although he couldn't afford an attorney, he was not, by definition, indigent.

I sat and thought about that for a second and was dumbfounded (particularly since the next case on the docket involved a doctor and his wife getting a divorce and the court had appointed an attorney to represent the interests of the children (who had no risk of going to jail.).

After I got back to the office I pulled down my copy of Black's Law Dictionary and looked up the meaning of indigency. According to Black's, the "inability to afford an attorney" renders one indigent for purposes of the Sixth Amendment.

Oops. Score one for Harris County.

BOYCOTT ARIZONA! IT'S GOING TO BE A BLUE STATE!

2010-04-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

Today's Republicans are so shitty, they are so far right, the following people today would be called liberal Democrats:

1. Ronald Reagan, Sr. Yes he was a crook. Famous for saying, "Well... I don't remember." However, he favored amnesty for undocumented aliens. That, and raising some taxes would today give him a "liberal" tag today.

2. Richard "I'm not a crook" Nixon. Sen. Barry Goldwater and two other Republicans told Nixon that he only had 15 No votes, and he needed 34 votes to save him before being convicted in an Impeachment Trial in the Senate. He resigned, but former President Bill Clinton jokingly said that Nixon was a "Communist". He proposed and later signed various laws that none of today's Republicans would endorse.

3. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Many Anti-Communist Republicans already said that he was a "liberal"; he didn't back Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and near the end of his Presidency, he lamented that this Country was an ever-increasing "military-industrial complex".

4. Barry Goldwater. Later in the 1970's and 1980's, he was pro-abortion, detested religious leaders interfering in politics, and many of his views today would make him more of a Kennedy-Johnson Democrat today than he was in 1964.

The Republican Party today is nothing more than a vile shell of what Southern Democrats held before the 1960's. Even former Senator Tom Tancredo wants to bring back "literacy tests" that denied Blacks and Latinos from voting. The anti-immigration stances of the Republicans/Tea Baggers won't bring Latinos into the Republican Party anytime soon.

In Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, it will encourage racial profiling against Latinos. HAVE THEY WATCHED THE MOVIE "BORN IN EAST L. A."?!! Obviously not. They, the GOP, have as much brain cells as Karl Pilkington. Fans of Fux Propaganduh Channel were described by a former employee of theirs as "trailer-trash".

This is a major Gestapo ploy! Jews in Nazi Germany were also required to carry I. D.'s as well as wear a yellow star. Where the fuck is Michelle Bachman, that stupid cunt!

The goal of the Republican Party is now to disenfranchise Black and Latinos, and to hold on to what power they have left. Even if the Immigration Reform bill currently pending in Congress is "amnesty", give them five more years, they'll be registered Democrats. The way Republicans/Tea Baggers have acted towards Latinos, citizen or not, registered alien or not, the GOP's acts makes them so afraid, you will only get more registered Democrats.

Look at California, Republicans have alienated Latinos to a point where they lost GOP registration, not gained. More alienation in Arizona would cause that State to be a Democrat/Blue State. It's only a matter of time.

Until the law, Arizona Senate Bill 1070, is repealed, the State should be boycotted to send a message. Like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they woke up a sleeping giant. The Latino vote would change the State for the better, not worse. Latinos are not stupid. They will vote against anything that is not in their interest.

As for Drug Cartels coming into Arizona, legalize Pot! It will be on this year's ballot. Are they like Vic on the T. V. in "Scarface" of whom Tony Montana said "that's because you got your head up your culo"? Legalization will drive the Tony Montana-types elsewhere. These are the same people that not now detest Thomas Jefferson.

Republicans are slow-fucking themselves into oblivion. The more people they alienate would cause them to lose votes. It's no longer the party of Lincoln, the party of big business, or the party of the Cold War. By associating with former Southern Democrats and Born Again idiot preachers, the Republican Party is going towards the lowest common denominator with a shrinking voter base. Sooner or later by 2020, Arizona and Texas will be Blue States because more Latinos will be citizens and Democrats, and Republicans would eventually wind up like the Whig Party, GONE!

Until the Bill is repealed, BOYCOTT ARIZONA!!!

CASUAL POLICE OFFICERS SHOULD BE TAKEN OUT AND HACKED!

2010-04-21T01:28:00.000-07:00

It makes me sick! A beating is a beating is a beating. WE DIDN'T SEND A HALF A MILLION MEN UP OHAMA BEACH IN NORMANDY FOR THEIR PERSONAL HEALTH!!! Police Departments that use Nazi tactics ought to be sued up the hilt until they are bankrupt, and the voters should recall their asshole Councilmen or Supervisors until their Police Departments are cleansed from this psuedo-Nazism. Otherwise, the voters GET WHAT THEY DESERVE!

From criminaldefenseblog.blogspot.com:

Roll The Tape, And Hold The Stale Defense

The onslaught of videotaped beatings of suspects has created the following script:

1. Beating is taped.
2. Tape is shown all over the world.
3. Outrage over police conduct is expressed.
4. Defenders of the police conduct proclaim that not everything is on the tape. (sometimes that's actually true).
5. Public is asked to withhold judgment.

Now watch this:

Brian Tannebaum is a criminal defense lawyer in Miami, Florida practicing in state and federal court, and the author of The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer.

A THOROUGH ARTICLE ON WHAT WE NEED ON SEX OFFENDERS

2010-04-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

Melissa Hamilton

University of Toledo College of Law

Temple Law Review, Forthcoming

Abstract:

This article argues that the new preventive law focus in sex offender laws is largely ineffective and too costly to personal liberty. The application of sex offender laws involving civil commitment, sex offender registration, and residency restrictions is often based on an individualized analysis of future dangerousness, i.e., the risk the defendant will sexually recidivate. In assessing future dangerousness, experts and courts place heavy emphasis on the use of actuarial tools, basically checklists that mental health experts use to derive statistical estimates of risk. This article provides substantiation that actuarial tools, while enjoying the imprimatur of science, suffer from significant empirical faults. Yet courts are largely abandoning their gatekeeping roles in accepting the experts’ testimony using actuarial tool predictions of risk without critical review as required by the Daubert and Frye evidentiary standards. The paper theorizes that this is likely a pragmatic strategy considering the current political and public thirst for retribution against sexual predators. But, use of this empirically-challenged science exacerbates the practice of applying sex offender restrictions to inappropriately labeled individuals. Finally, this article takes advantage of the interdisciplinary trend of engaging social science with the law on expert evidence. More specifically, it offers an empirical assessment of future dangerousness opinions within the Daubert/Frye scientific evidence frameworks. The significance of the conclusion reached in this article is clear: if the law continues to rely upon suspect science that results in the wrong individuals being subject to liberty-infringing sex offender laws, then the drain on criminal justice resources will leave the truly dangerous offenders without sufficient supervision at the risk of public safety.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

WE NEED CHELSEA'S LAW LIKE WE NEED HOLES IN OUR HEADS

2010-04-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

They don't do squat. It didn't work for Jessica's Law, so why do we need to compound the situation.

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

This is just absurd, IMO. The man accused has not even been to court and found guilty yet, but everyone has already found him guilty and condemned him, and in the typical knee jerk reaction, they are pushing for another law in the name of a dead child, to target sex offenders, and it has not been proven yet he actually did the crime or she was sexually abused. At least from what I have seen. The man may indeed be guilty, but why not wait until after the trial and all the facts come out before you assume things! Nathan Fletcher, IMO, is an evil sick man. He did not waste any time before he jumped on this to make himself look better, even while the parents are still mourning and emotions are going crazy. They did the same thing with John Walsh as well.

Video Link

Video Link

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

WE NEED TO STOP BEGATTING ABUSE, NOT MOKE LAWS NAMED AFTER DEAD KIDS

2010-04-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

As in the typical knee-jerk reaction, they quickly add more punishment to all sex offenders. And the man who has been charged with the crime, has not even been found guilty yet!

04/12/2010

By John Wilkens

Provisions of Chelsea's Law unveiled in the state Capitol today might not be the best approach for how to rein in sex offenders, two experts said.

Jill Levenson (Email), a human services professor at Lynn University in Florida who analyzes sex-crime policy, wondered about the timing of the measure, noting that the state Sex Offender Management Board is currently studying sex offender policy and will be forwarding recommendations to improve the system.

“When these kinds of crimes happen they are tragic and scary and it’s not surprising that people want to find ways to prevent them from happening again,” she said. “But maybe before passing laws there should be a thoughtful analysis of what happened, a careful autopsy of what went wrong. We need to understand how to provide better case management instead of trying to come up with another one-size-fits-all law.”

She said some of the measure’s features — GPS tracking, mandatory-minimum sentences, parole for life — “aren’t necessary for everybody and they do become very costly.”

The offender board was tapped by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Contact) to review state handling of the 2000 molestation case of convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner III. He now stands accused of raping and killing Chelsea King, 17, of Poway, for whom the Chelsea's Law proposal is named.
- He's accused, but has not been found guilty yet, and yet everyone is assuming he did do the crime and have already condemned the man. Why don't you wait until after the sentencing before acting in the typical knee-jerk reaction. He may be guilty, but he may also be innocent, and stop naming laws after dead people! [UPDATE: Gardner already pleaded guilty.]

Marc Renzema, a criminal justice professor at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and an expert on GPS tracking, was also cautionary.

“I’m all for extended supervision, but not necessarily GPS for life,” he said. “We don’t have a clue just yet about the psychological impact or even the deterrent impact of ‘forever’ monitoring.”

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

AT SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE IN REHABILITATION

2010-04-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

Feared for their safety? Why? Because they are a bunch of motorcycle priests? Come on! God bless this pastor for sticking to the word of God.

04/11/2010

By ERIC CARPENTER

BUENA PARK – Leaders of a planned protest outside a Buena Park church that runs a group-home program for convicted sex offenders canceled the protest Sunday, saying they feared for their safety.

But, they said, they will keep up pressure on governmental officials to close the homes, located in a quiet Anaheim neighborhood with lots of children.

The church's pastor, The Rev. Jose Mata, spoke to a reporter outside the church Sunday, saying he is aware of the neighbors' concerns, but he believes in his church's mission and won't move or close the homes.

Neighbors learned last month that the church, Holy Ground Christian Fellowship, was renting two Anaheim homes within blocks of each other and running them as group homes for 11 sex offenders – six in one home, five in the other.
- Please visit this Christian Fellowship web site, and send them an email. They are looking for ways to help spread the word that not all ex-sex offenders are dangerous. Also see the comments to this blog post below.

That outraged many neighbors who said it has created suspicion and fear, prompting some parents to keep their children indoors.

Community leaders announced last week that they would picket the church on the 7600 block of Ninth Street in Buena Park on Sunday. But protest leader Linda Liptrap-Gutierrez – whose home backs up to one of the Anaheim group homes – drove by the church Saturday, then decided to call off the protest.

"There was a lot of tagging on structures, it appeared gang-infested and I didn't want our neighbors to feel unsafe," she said.

The church, near Beach Boulevard, is in a commercial suite next to apartments. The group homes are about 10 miles away from the church.

Betsy Mata, Jose's wife and the director of the group-home program, agreed that it is a "rough neighborhood" and said it was wise of the protesters to stay away.

"We serve this neighborhood. We've had to break up fights (outside) before," Betsy Mata said. "And if people came in with protest signs, I couldn't predict what might happen."

Jose Mata said the church, which caters to outsiders seeking to turn around their lives through Christianity, was founded eight years ago and has 60 members. They started the mission to rehabilitate sex offenders 2 1/2 years ago.

Six convicted sex offenders are living in a house on the 1700 block of North Rutherford Street; five more offenders are living at a home on the 1700 block of North Meadowlark Lane.

The group-home residents also are required to attend Sunday services at the church. None wanted to speak to a reporter, Jose Mata said.

He and his wife knew they were tackling a "taboo issue in society." But the sex offenders are screened and closely monitored, he said.

"I am a father myself. I get why neighbors have concerns," said Mata, 57, whose son is 33. "I would have these people living with me, if I could, but there are tough restrictions on where they can live – and these homes are some of the few places where they can live."

Group homes for sex offenders cannot be close to schools or parks.

"I believe these are men committed to turning their lives around through Christ," Mata said. "Some people will tell you the only way they will change is with a bullet through their head. We don't believe that. They made mistakes. And with love and compassion, they can change."

Liptrap-Gutierrez said she understands the social issue and she, too, is a Christian. "This is not a battle of who is more Christian, it is about right and wrong," she said. "I realize these men need help, but it is not right for them to be living in our neighborhood, putting the burden on us."
- Yes, it is about right and wrong. And being a Christian, or God fearing person, is part of that.

Community leaders met with state Sen. Lou Correa (Contact), D – Santa Ana, on Friday to air their concerns. They plan to petition the Anaheim City Council for help Tuesday.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

EXAMPLES OF GHETTOS: OHIO

2010-04-21T00:13:00.001-07:00

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

They cluster because of the laws being passed. When is the media going to investigate why offenders cluster instead of more fear-mongering?

04/12/2010

By Ron Regan

AKRON - It's one of the largest concentrations of sex offenders in Ohio. A Five On Your Side Investigaton exposes where even child molestors can be housed on a street loaded with children.

The neighborhood is located near Delia Avenue and West Exchange Street, just west of downtown Akron.

Concerned neighbors have complained their mailboxes are being stuffed with sex offender notifications. Those notifications are required by law and sent by the Summit County Sheriff's Department when rapists and child molestors move into a neighborhood.

- It's not just rapists and child molesters, like you are leading everyone to believe, it's all sex offenders.

The neighborhood is not far from two elementary schools and children can easily be spotted playing outside on lawns and sidewalks.

"For the children, that's what I'm worried about," said one resident. "There's a bunch of them go to school. A bunch on this street. I don't like it. That's too close."

Our investigation found a total of 19 sex offenders living within just a few blocks of the area.

Another resident who saw the list of sex offenders called it "horrifying."

"I think its very sickening that our community has to suffer this way," she said.

Efforts to speak with sex offenders were met with resistence.

"I've got enough problems, I don't need--if you know what I mean," said one sex offender who declined to talk.

Rev. Eric Kirksey lives behind one home that houses nine registered sex offenders, including six tier 3 offenders.

"They're all risks, as far as I'm concerned," said Kirksey, who reached for a sex offender notification card he just received this week.

- Wow, spoken from a true hypocrite pretending to be a religious person.

Tier 3 offenders include those convicted of rape and sexual battery.

Neighbors on Delia Avenue call it a "sex offender hotel." It's called "The Exit Program" and is operated by a Columbus based non-profit that's helped more than 50 sex offenders transition from prison to neighborhoods.

Michelle Johnson is the program's executive director and said it helps keep offenders off the street and placed in a monitored facility.

One man who lives in the home said "for the most part, they are just a bunch of decent guys."

It's a program that has received plenty of support, including letters to program officials from Akron's Chief of Police who wrote it "helps promote safe neighborhoods."

Another letter from the Summit County Sheriff's Department said the program "helps offenders to more likey succeed and not re-offend."

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction also wrote a letter supporting the program calling it "an exceptional program."

Corrections officials report that taxpayers spent $262,000 last year on the program in Akron and Columbus.

In Ohio, there are no laws barring multiple sex offenders from living in one home or neighborhood.

But concern among neighbors has reached Ward 4 Councilman Russel Neal who said he was unaware of the facility until resident contacted him.

"There are a lot of children in the neighborhood", said Neal. "If they're concerned, I'm concerned"

- Yeah, you are a councilman, who wants to exploit the issue to look good to the people. There are kids everywhere, and the offenders have to live somewhere.

Neal said he plans to call a series of neighborhood meetings to educate the community.

- Yeah, to incite fear so he can help further his own reputation and career maybe! [This asshole Councilman might as well got tar and feathers!]

Video Link

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

WE DON'T NEED ZONES!

2010-04-21T00:07:00.000-07:00

That's like saying that we need to rebuild the Warsaw Ghetto.

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

06/30/2006

By Kerry Howley

"Paranoia," University of Maryland Professor C. Fred Alford, has said, "is the will to meaning." In the U.S. of late, paranoia has become the will to zoning. Pick a vice—guns, drugs, smokes, fast food—and you will find zoners pushing it to the fringes of any place children may congregate, mapping large and often redundant circles with schools, parks, and playgrounds at their whitewashed centers. The urge to zone has long been confined to things people do, its target activities thought best confined to the fringes of a decent society. But the increasing popularity of criminal registries has spawned a trend of zoning out people themselves.

Sex offenders are the ultimate fish-in-a-barrel political target. Absent any apparent upswing in crime, pervert bashing seems to be in vogue. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has signed 14 anti-sex offender bills this month. (''Is there anything left we can do to sex offenders with a few days left in the session?'' a state rep joked to reporters.) In Virginia, a new law requires every college and university to send applicants' personal information to state police, where it will be checked against sex offender registries. Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich is campaigning on a new sex offender hotline. Indiana, Colorado, and South Dakota have new laws, to name just a very few among the many states on the anti-offender high this summer.

For the moment, boilerplate sex offender legislation includes residency zoning, laws that typically require registered offenders not live within 1,000, 2,000, or 2,500 feet of day care centers, schools, bus stops, or other randomly chosen but suitably Mayberry-evoking public gathering places. To the extent that there is a theory at work here, it appears to be that men and women who have committed sex crimes will re-offend if permitted to spend their nights within 2,000 feet of public places where children gather during the day.

It would take an impressive zone indeed to actually separate children from sex offenders—the kind of zone that keeps out the parents, grandparents, priests, friends, and acquaintances who commit (by conservative estimates) 80 to 90 percent of those crimes. Zoning schemes, according to Sarah Tontochi at the Atlanta-based Center for Human Rights, are based on the "stranger danger myth," which Tontochi feels actively does harm by underemphasizing the very real danger of abuse-by-acquaintance.

In any case, the restrictions are likely to destroy the integrity of existing registries. Reasonable people can disagree about whether marking public personal information on ex-cons is a good idea, but zones make the costs of registering stratospheric as compared to the cost of not registering at all. As law enforcement officials in Iowa, the first state to impose residency restrictions, have come to realize, the requirements send offenders underground.

Couple the enormously elastic definition of sex offender, which tends to swallow the inane and victimless along with the truly heinous, with the blunt tool of residency zoning, and you're bound to hurt a lot of people whose crimes are hardly worthy of the name. One such case is Wendy Whitaker, who performed oral sex on a 15 year old boy 10 years ago, when she was 17. Whitaker owns a home near a church daycare center in Georgia; police forced her to leave that home last year. She then moved in with her brother, whose niece will go to school next fall. Since a school bus will pick up her niece from the house, Whitaker will again be in violation of the law if a new bus stop zoning law passes. According to the Southern Center for Human Rights, which is fighting the Georgia legislation, thousands of people will be forced to move if the law takes effect. Twenty-five of those are in nursing homes.

New public places emerge all the time, and zoning laws leave it to the highly sexed psychic powers of offenders to choose a home where authorities will not plop a public park, school, or day care center. Entire towns are easily covered, forcing offenders to move locales. But once one town adopts an ordinance, pushing sex offenders to neighboring towns, the tendency is for those towns to do so as well, provoking an arms race of circle drawing as offenders bounce from city to city. It is exile by attrition.

As with flag burning, the appeal of such legislation flows from politician to populace, its highest purpose being to smoke out politicians who oppose it. The problem with zoning proposals is that, unlike recent Republican values grandstanding in D.C., they tend to pass.

In a larger sense, recent national debates about redistricting should give the non-registered pause. It is possible to collect vast amounts of personal information about residents of any locality, to aggregate and act upon any number of data sets voters unknowingly provide. The high art of gerrymandering reminds us that it's not just sex offenders who are living highly mapped lives; let he who is without vice build the first zone. If the country really is suffering a bout of paranoia over hypothetical strangers, the sentiment would be better directed at politicking neighbors.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

WHY AMERICANS SHOULD BE SLOW TO PLEAD "GUILTY"?

2010-04-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Number One Reason: Michael McArdle.

This man was victimized by his own lawyer, Valdean Watson, because Watson believed that lawyers are "trustees" not advocates. He had McArdle plead guilty through his therapist. This was after the previous lawyer was trying to get his case based on a vigorous First Amendment defense.

If a person is actually guilty then he should plead out, BUT if he's only guilty of a lessor offense or NOT GUILTY at all, then he should be tried, and be defended by a COMPETENT lawyer who knows what he is doing. Drugged-out, drunk, lazy, shystering, etc., lawyers need not apply.

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article | Purchase the DVD

Click the link above to see the videos from this show, and the others below!

If you are innocent or not, NEVER ACCEPT A PLEA DEAL!

06/17/2004

INTRODUCTION:
It is the centerpiece of America's judicial process: the right to a trial by jury system that places a defendant's fate in the hands of a jury of one's peers. But it may surprise many to learn that nearly 95 percent of all cases resulting in felony convictions never reach a jury. Instead, they are settled through plea bargains in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence.

"The real American justice system is unlike anything depicted on Law & Order and Court TV," says producer Ofra Bikel. "I know I was stunned when I realized that only about 5 percent of all felony convictions result from jury trials. The rest are settled by plea bargains. And these deals aren't always to the defendant's advantage."

"The Plea" tells several stories -- different people, different charges, different parts of the country, all with one thing in common: the difficult dilemma of confronting a plea. The program also interviews experts on the criminal justice system.

"The Plea" is Ofra Bikel's latest investigation into America's criminal justice system. Her previous reports include "The Burden of Innocence," "Requiem for Frank Lee Smith," "An Ordinary Crime," "The Case for Innocence," "Snitch," and the trilogy of programs entitled "Innocence Lost".

When Charles Gampero, Jr. was arrested and charged with murder in the second degree in 1994, the 20-year-old insisted he was innocent. While admitting to having hit the victim while trying to break up a fight outside a bowling alley on the night in question, Gampero said the victim was very much alive when he left him.

Given numerous unanswered questions in the case -- including statements by the victim's family, who said the man had been the target of harassment and vandalism by unknown parties in the weeks before his death -- Gampero was convinced that a jury would believe his story and acquit him of the charges.

But a jury would never hear his case. After jury selection had begun, Gampero and his family say the judge pressured the young man to accept a plea bargain that would send him to prison for seven to 21 years.

"[The judge] told me point blank—he said, 'I will give your son 25 to life, so you better take the plea, or if you don't take the plea, he's getting it,'" says Charles Gampero, Sr., whose son is now entering his ninth year in prison. "We took the plea agreement thinking that the judge knew what he was talking about and my son would be home by the time he's 27," Gampero Sr. says. "It didn't work out."

To overworked and understaffed defense lawyers, prosecutors, and jurists, plea bargains are the safety valve that keeps cases moving through our backlogged courts.

"The system would collapse if every case that was filed in the criminal justice system were to be set for trial," says Judge Caprice Cosper of the Harris County Criminal Court in Houston, Texas. "The system would just entirely collapse."

Critics, however, contend that the push to resolve cases through plea bargains jeopardizes the constitutional rights of defendants, who may be pressured to admit their guilt whether they are guilty or not. In Erma Faye Stewart's case, for example, she says her defense attorney encouraged her to accept a plea bargain when she was arrested in a major drug sweep based upon information provided by a police informant who was later deemed not credible. The 30-year-old mother of two steadfastly maintained her innocence, but says her court-appointed defense attorney didn't want to hear it.

"He was, like, pushing me to [plead guilty and] take the probation -- he wasn't on my side at all," says Stewart, who tells FRONTLINE that after spending 25 nights in a crowded jail cell, she decided to follow her attorney's advice. "Even though I wasn't guilty, I was willing to plead guilty because I had to go home to my kids. My son was sick."

After accepting the plea bargain and 10 years' probation, Stewart was freed. What she didn't know was that under the terms of her probation, she would be required to pay a monthly fee to her probation officer. Her felony conviction also meant that the single mother was banned from the federal food stamps program. Within three years of pleading guilty to a crime she says she didn't commit, Erma Faye Stewart had fallen behind in her probation payments and been evicted from her home.

"One reason that a lot of people plead guilty is because they're told they can go home that day, because they will get probation," says Steve Bright, a defense attorney and law professor who serves as director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. "What they usually don't take into account is that they are being set up to fail."

Other defendants in "The Plea" describe being pressured by prosecutors and judges into accepting plea bargains that resulted in them spending years behind bars for crimes they say they didn't commit. Those who refuse to cut a deal, insiders say, are often rewarded with extra-harsh prison sentences as a lesson to future defendants.

A case in point: Patsy Kelly Jarrett. In 1973, the 23-year-old North Carolina resident drove to New York with a friend for a summer-long vacation. It was only when the police showed up at her door three years later, Jarrett says, that she learned that sometime during their New York stay, her friend had robbed a gas station and murdered the attendant.

While the evidence against Jarrett's friend was concrete, the only evidence against Jarrett was the statement of an elderly witness who said he saw a car at the time of the crime with someone inside. The man did not know, however, whether the person was a man or a woman.

To avoid a trial, prosecutors offered Jarrett a plea bargain: If she would plead guilty to the robbery, they would drop the murder charge and give her a five- to 15-year prison sentence.

"I told my attorney, 'I can't, I can't do this,'" Jarrett tells FRONTLINE. "And he said, 'Well, my hands are tied. We want to drop the murder charge on you if you'll plead guilty to the robbery.' And I said, 'But I haven't robbed anybody.'"

Convinced that the jury would believe her, Jarrett refused the plea bargain and took her chances with a trial. She was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.

"I believed in the American system of justice," Jarrett says from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, where she has spent the past 27 years of her life. "I really believed that, you know, just tell the truth and the judge and jury will hear you and nothing will happen to you. But I was wrong…."

Twelve years into her prison sentence, Jarrett's case was reversed after the prison warden became convinced of her innocence and asked a new defense attorney to take up her case. The state decided to appeal the reversal, but first offered Jarrett another plea bargain: If she would admit to committing the crimes with which she was charged, she would be sentenced to time served and released.

In "The Plea," Jarrett's lawyers describe how they urged her repeatedly to take the plea bargain. She refused. The state won its appeal, and Jarrett's 25 years to life sentence was reinstated.

"It's just morally wrong to say you did something you know in your heart you didn't do," says Jarrett, who will not be eligible for parole until 2005. "I might have walked free physically, but in my spirit and in my soul, I would have had to have lived with that the rest of my life. And I couldn't live with me like that. I can live with me better in here."

Update: In the spring of 2005 Kelly Jarrett had her first parole hearing and was granted parole. She will be released June 13, 2005.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

WE NEED A NEW SUPREME COURT

2010-04-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

Here's part of the reason why:

From secondcircuitcivilrights.blogspot.com:

Another case falls into the Garcetti graveyard

Things changed when the Supreme Court in 2006 tightened up the legal standards governing the rights of public employees who speak out on the job. The old formulation was that you can't suffer retaliation for speaking out on matters of public concern. The new test, in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006), is that speech arising from your "official duties" is not protected speech, no matter how important the subject matter.

The Garcetti cases are now starting to trickle in from the Second Circuit. A few months ago, the Court of Appeals rejected a First Amendment retaliation case where a public school teacher filed a grievance complaining about how the school disciplined an unruly student. (Weintraub v. Board of Education, 593 F.3d 196 (2d Cir. 2010)). This time around, the Court of Appeals rejects a case where a public employee advocated on behalf of a subordinate who complained about profiteering on public property.

The case is Huth v. Haslin, decided on March 11. Huth was the supervisor. Archer was the subordinate who told Huth that Thruway employees were selling bootleg DVD's on Thruway Authority premises. Archer also told Huth that a supervisor was engaging in reverse discrimination in the workplace. Huth conveyed this information to her supervisor, Bloomer. The Thruway Authority then accused Huth of unrelated misconduct, prompting her to bring a lawsuit. Afterwards, the Thruway Authority demoted Huth, which led to an amended complaint alleging that she was demoted in retaliation for the lawsuit.

Huth's case fails for two reasons. First, the Court of Appeals (Cabranes, Hall and Stein [D.J.], tells us, "Huth passed along Archer’s concerns about the actions of certain Thruway Authority employees to the head of Huth’s division and that she did so at daily meetings when they discussed the employees in their division. We have no difficulty concluding that such speech was made not as a 'citizen' but, rather, pursuant to Huth’s official duties as a Thruway Authority employee and supervisor."

But what about the lawsuit? Doesn't it violate the First Amendment to suffer demotion in retaliation for challenging an (allegedly) false charge of misconduct leveled against her in retaliation for reporting a subordinate's complaint about illegal behavior at work? In other words, does the initial lawsuit alleging retaliation for reporting illegal conduct qualify as First Amendment activity? This may surprise you, but the answer is no. The lawsuit was not protected activity under the First Amendment. The Second Circuit summarizes its reasoning:

The record also makes plain that Huth’s present lawsuit, asserting claims for monetary and punitive damages, does not qualify as speech "on a matter of public concern." Huth’s original complaint, which she contends was protected speech and the basis for defendants’ further retaliation, alleged only that defendants retaliated against her for specific statements she made to her supervisor and for the union activities of Archer. Much like other public employee speech that we have held not to be protected from retaliation by the First Amendment, Huth’s lawsuit was "personal in nature and generally related to her own situation.”

Why is this so? Because Huth's lawsuit did not reflect that she "wanted to debate issues of ... discrimination, that her suit sought relief against pervasive or systemic misconduct by a public agency or public officials, or that her suit was part of an overall effort ... to correct allegedly unlawful practices or bring them to public attention.” Since the original complaint was personal in nature and was not part of a broader effort to grieve systemic problems in the workplace, it does not qualify as First Amendment activity.

WHY OKIES ARE STOOPID?

2010-04-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

They believe in fascism.

From sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com:

Original Article

04/12/2010

By ROBIN BLUMNER

For the last generation we've put criminal justice policy in the hands of legislators with one injunction: Hang 'em high. Words like "rehabilitation" and "gain time" were excised from corrections vocabulary as if they were Bolshevik propaganda.

Punishments got tougher, fines stiffer, tolerance for mistakes became "zero." But there have been costs to this, both apparent and hidden. And now that states are facing crippling budget deficits, they are beginning to see that criminal law written solely to mete out punitive retribution is no longer affordable.

Our jails and prisons are stuffed with 2.3 million people. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, according to the nonprofit advocacy group the Sentencing Project. To save bucks on all this human warehousing, states are taking some obvious steps to reduce the population. California has just revised its parole system to eliminate requirements that low-level offenders check in regularly.

The state expects fewer people will return to jail for missed meetings with a parole officer. But another byproduct is that ex-offenders with jobs won't have to figure out how to make meetings, leading to more stable employment.

This points up the hidden expense of our criminal justice system, which is how absurdly difficult it makes life for people trying to abide by the rules once they are released.

We purposely stack the odds. And this myopic policy wrings tremendous costs from individuals, families, communities and ultimately entire states.

The extent of some of these obstacles is documented in a report on Florida's "cash register justice" by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The report details how the Florida Legislature has imposed user fees on offenders for the costs of the criminal justice system, burdening them with debt loads that make a successful re-entry a pipe dream.

The report found that since 1996, criminal defendants have been slapped with more than 20 new categories of financial obligations.

The fees are imposed to recoup the cost of prosecution and defense, court costs, housing, food and medical care. Offenders are charged for their probation supervision, substance abuse treatment and their own electronic monitoring.

Tom Bakos, who runs a residential re-entry program in Gainesville, Fla., told the Brennan Center that about 80 percent of his clients are charged from $100 to $300 per month in financial obligations related to their interaction with the criminal justice system.

For people out of prison who usually qualify for some of the state's lowest-paid work — an average Florida prison inmate reads at a sixth-grade level — this can make subsistence impossible.

Florida then takes it further. When people cannot keep up with their payment plans, depending upon the county, their driver's license may be suspended, which can lead to job loss or new offenses for driving on a suspended license. If they fail to show at a hearing on a missed payment a warrant is issued for their arrest.

Florida also heaps late fees and collection fees on delinquent payments. In 2009, the Florida Legislature required that collection agents be used after 90 days, allowing a surcharge of up to 40 percent on the amount owed.

The state essentially invites recidivism by laying the groundwork for failure. Call it counterproductive, heartless or insane, any one fits.

As states grapple with ways to dig out of their budget holes, they should address the hidden costs as well as the apparent costs encumbering their states. By ending these blood-from-a-stone corrections policies, more people would leave prison with the real possibility of putting the past behind them. This in turn would reduce recidivism and make more taxpayers out of tax burdens. Long-range thinking, anyone?

See Also:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin