DEMOCRATS USE COURTS TO STOP REPUBLICANS

With the court indictment against Governor Perry (R, TX), Bryan Preston examines 8 cases where the Democrats tried to use the courts to hurt Republican chances in an election.  Most were frivolous, but obviously the Republican faced an image problem as a result and in some cases lost an election.

DO SANCTIONS WORK?

Elena Servettaz discusses the impact of sanctions on Russia in World Affairs.  While sanctions can have an impact she shows how they sometimes hurt the wrong people and also how some people who are on the sanctions list can work around being sanctioned.

A highly placed European diplomat confided that a number of Russian officials are worried about a new package of sanctions and are calling European embassies to find out if their name will be added to the list. The official claim until now, that it is a badge of honor to be on that list, is starting to crumble—and fast. Even Vladimir Putin, during a three-and-a-half-hour appearance on Russian television, said the sanctions were a “human rights violation.” The Russian president was talking about people added to the sanctions list after the annexation of Crimea—people like his friend Gennady Timchenko, whose wife, after the sanctions, he said plaintively, “could not pay for her operation because her credit card was frozen.”

Putin should also be concerned about himself. According to the Times of London, the US government is contemplating adding his name to the list of targeted individuals and freezing his own fortune, often estimated at $40 billion, in Swiss banks, if he decides to invade eastern Ukraine. But Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, said that his boss had complete peace of mind about this possibility.

UTAH JUDGE'S POLYGAMY DECISION

A Utah judge has ruled that certain laws against polygamy or unconstitutional.

This is an interesting decision, especially in light of how polygamy affects the status of women both inside and outside of Utah—in, say, Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Or Canada. Or anywhere. It’s as though Judge Clark Waddoups, who in his Utah decision claimed there was no “rational basis” under law for distinguishing between a man shacking up with a few women and informal but established polygamy, had ruled in a total vacuum.

But worse than a single US judge’s decision has been the reaction from so-called respectable media outlets who believe, despite all worldwide evidence to the contrary, that the ruling struck a blow for unvarnished personal freedom.

ASSESSING THE ZIMMERMAN TRIAL 7/20/2013

From Walter Olson at CNN:

People upset at George Zimmerman's acquittal are calling for awarding various new powers to prosecutors at the expense of protections for criminal defendants.

Maybe this would make it easier to hang a rap on some future Zimmerman. But it also would have an effect that its backers probably don't intend: increasing the number of persons convicted and sent to prison. As part of that effect, more young black men -- as well as more members of other groups -- will end up behind bars

 

From TalkLeft:  Criticism of Obama's reaction.

 

From National Review: 

 

Honesty about disproportionate rates of black crime requires acknowledging another truth as well: Trayvon Martin’s race could well have been a factor in Zimmerman’s initial suspicion of him. But that is because the known suspects in the recent pattern of burglaries in his neighborhood were black. Had Asians been breaking into homes, consistently with an elevated rate of Asian crime, an unknown Asian teen wandering the neighborhood could also have drawn the attention of a neighborhood-watch volunteer

 

The Hill on Florida:  Florida voted for Obama in 2012 but now it is "cesspool" of racism.

 

Reason on Florida's "stand your ground" law:  It seems to help both blacks and whites equally.

From the Faculty Lounge blog.

I have been struck by the frequency with which many commenting on this case, including the public on social media — but also journalists, scholars, and lawyers, all of whom should prize fidelity to facts — have made bald, confident assertions, often without citing any evidence, and sometimes in direct contradiction to the available evidence. This is all the more startling in light of the egregious editing of Zimmerman’s call to police the night of the shooting made early on in the reporting of the case by NBC, which is the subject of a defamation lawsuit by Zimmerman.

 

 

 

 

TRAYON MARTIN PROSECUTOR

Alan Dershowitz, liberal Harvard law professor, criticizes the prosecutor in the case in very strong language.

She submitted an affidavit that was, if not perjurious, completely misleading. She violated all kinds of rules of the profession, and her conduct bordered on criminal conduct. She, by the way, has a horrible reputation in Florida. She's known for overcharging, she's known for being highly political. And in this case, of course she overcharged. Halfway through the trial she realized she wasn't going to get a second degree murder verdict, so she asked for a compromised verdict, for manslaughter. And then, she went even further and said that she was going to charge him with child abuse and felony murder. That was such a stretch that it goes beyond anything professionally responsible. She was among the most irresponsible prosecutors I've seen in 50 years of litigating cases, and believe me, I've seen good prosecutors, bad prosecutors, but rarely have I seen one as bad as this prosecutor, [Angela] Cory.

LIBERAL HYPOCRISY

From Politico.  "Dick Cheney's Revenge."

Will the author of the Obama administration white paper on killing U.S. citizens please report for his war crimes trial right away?

If he served in the George W. Bush administration, someone would already be agitating for his extraordinary rendition to The Hague. The white paper outlines why the Obama administration believes that it can kill U.S. citizens without due process if they are senior members of Al Qaeda or an affiliate. This is not a merely theoretical legal question, as Anwar al-Awlaki found out from the business end of a Hellfire missile a few years ago in Yemen.

DRONES AND DUE PROCESS CLAUSE

An analysis of "Originalism" and the constitutionality of the Obama's decision to kill American citizens believed to be terrorists with due process as stated in the 5th Amendment of the Constitution.

WHEN DISSENT WAS GOOD

 Dissent was good when Bush was president and the evil Dick Cheney was vice-president, but now. . .
 
Remember back in what was it - 2006 or thereabouts - when left-leaning critics of President Bush couldn't stop talking about how nothing was more red, white, and blue than good old-fashioned American dissent? Why, our very country was founded by an act of dissent, didn't you know! So back when Vice President Dick Cheney - routinely likened to Darth Vader and Voldemort - was running things, the very air was filled with cries of "not in our name" and all that, because it was so damned important that the United States not contravene its basic principles even in the name of self defense!

. . .candidate Obama rejected the Bush adminstration's position that it could detain U.S. citizens as enemy combatants without pressing charges while President Obama claims the right to kill U.S. citizens without laying charges.

APPOINTMENT OF MUSLIM JUDGE IN NEW JERSEY

The issue is his commitment to sharia law.

JUSTICE GINSBURG AND EUGENICS

I have been concerned about Justice Ginsburg's quote referring to the Roe v. Wade decision that there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. Today I read my first follow-up comment on the quote in a column by Jonah Goldberg. This viewpoint is of interest to me since I have had liberal, pro-abortion friends make a similar comment about getting rid of welfare costs by having "poor" people abort their babies.

Goldberg takes us back to Margaret Sanger, the inspiration of Planned Parenthood, and notes her willingness to use eugenics to limit some population groups. However, I thought this aspect of the pro-abortion movement had died with Margaret Sanger, but Goldberg points out:

In 1992, Ron Weddington, co-counsel in the Roe v. Wade case, wrote a letter to President-elect Bill Clinton, imploring him to rush RU-486 – a.k.a. "the abortion pill" – to market as quickly as possible.

"(Y)ou can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country," Weddington insisted. All the president had to do was make abortion cheap and easy for the populations we don't want. "It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it. ... Think of all the poverty, crime and misery ... and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don't have a lot of time left."

Weddington offered a clue about who, in particular, he had in mind: "For every Jesse Jackson who has fought his way out of the poverty of a large family, there are millions mired in poverty, drugs and crime."

I am wondering how prevalent this idea is? Is it an unspoken goal that is in the thinking of pro-abortion eugenicists, but hasn't been pushed because they realize it would discredit the pro-abortion movement? Having read the German advocates of eugenics leading up to Hitler and then seeing how Hitler implemented these ideas, the consequences of population control policies is so terrible that no words can describe the horror of it.

From the Washington TImes on recent research about 30 week fetuses. (NARAL has not responded)

They weigh less than 3 pounds, usually, and are perhaps 15 inches long. But they can remember. The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation - or about two months before they are born.

OKLAHOMA ARREST

It bothered me when I read that an Oklahoma man was pulled over for having a sticker on his car window "Abort Obama and not the Unborn." In addition the secret service paid him a visit. I am not one for bumper stickers, but this struck me as a free-speech issue. Also my memory took me back to all of the similar things said about Bush and the secret service didn't respond.

ELITE LAW SCHOOLS

An argument for less-prestigious law schools as being the best option for many law applicants.

BECOMING A LAW CLERK

Volokh describes what judges are looking for when they hire law clerks.

LAW SCHOOLS WITH LOW BAR PASSAGE RATES

The ABA expects law schools to have 75% of graduates pass the bar. Several law schools seem to be having some problems.