The California Supreme Court has sent back a case challenging the practice of security patting down fans at games for the San Francisco 49ers. The Court ruled that it lacks sufficient information to determine if the policy is an illegal invasion of privacy. It is the legal equivalent to an incomplete pass.
Two season ticket holders sued the team in 2005 and two lower courts ruled with the 49ers and dismissed the lawsuit. Daniel and Kathleen Sheehan sued with the help of the ACLU but the team argued that fans consent to such searches when they buy tickets.
Here is the opinion: s155742
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That Was Then, This Is Now: The Filibuster
On March 29, 2005, the NY Times ran an editorial defending the filibuster, and lamenting its own editorial short-sightedness during the Clinton years:
The Senate, of all places, should be sensitive to the fact that this large and diverse country has never believed in government by an unrestrained majority rule. Its composition is a repudiation of the very idea that the largest number of votes always wins out. *** While the filibuster has not traditionally been used to stop judicial confirmations, it seems to us this is a matter in which it’s most important that a large minority of senators has a limited right of veto. …
A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the “nuclear option” in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton’s early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it’s obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide.
Fat chance! Today the Times ran two op-eds denouncing the “segregationist’s tool,” the filibuster. This is an excerpt from Jean Edward Smith’s “Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound”:
In the entire 19th century, including the struggle against slavery, fewer than two dozen filibusters were mounted. In F.D.R.’s time, the device was employed exclusively by Southerners to block passage of federal anti-lynching legislation. … The number more than doubled under Lyndon Johnson, but the primary issue continued to be civil rights. Except for exhibitionists, buffoons and white southerners determined to salvage racial segregation, the filibuster was considered off limits.
I guess that tells us all we need to know about today’s Republicans. Of course, nothing similar will be said when the Democrats are again in the minority in the Senate.
Another Democrat Tax Dodger
This time it’s Ron Kirk, nominated by President Obama as U.S. Trade Representative:
Kirk owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to pay them, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday. The committee said the taxes arise from Kirk’s handling of speaking fees he donated to a scholarship fund that he set up at his alma mater, and for his deduction of the full cost of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team.
The Democratic Party has a culture of entitlement, greed and corruption. It is remarkable that, even though Obama’s vetting team must be excruciatingly sensitive to the issue, it is evidently hard to find prominent, high-income Democrats who pay their taxes in full.
I don’t think any administration has ever had an official baseball cap before, but this one seems like a no-brainer for the Obama team:
Another Campaign Promise Bites the Dust
We’ve often been critical of the Associated Press for its left-wing agenda journalism, but this article, by Andrew Taylor, is surprisingly balanced. It’s titled, “Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork:”
Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election. …
Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.
Of course, using wasteful spending to buy votes is the essence of the Democrats’ electoral strategy, so no one should be surprised that Obama has, once again, walked away from his campaign promise. Change? Forget about it!
dollarless?
What kind of venal fascist half-wit even thinks that’s an insult?
Rhetorical. Asked and answered.
Stockless:
Thanks for cutting and pasting another’s words when intelligent thoughts elude you. I’ll argue with someone with a mind, not simply a “Copy” button. I suspect the “smart people” you refer to, on average have about the same IQ as that college drop-out crowd, Limbaugh, Hannity, and, of course,that valedictorian, Beck.
Speaking of Doofus’, how’d you do at Harvard? President of the Law Review like Obama, I’d bet.
Mespo you CLUELESS DOLLARLESS MORON, read what the smart people are saying about your hero Obama the Market Crasher:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK MARCH 3, 2009 The Obama Economy
As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame.
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.
Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
The Democrats who now run Washington don’t want to hear this, because they benefit from blaming all bad economic news on President Bush. And Mr. Obama has inherited an unusual recession deepened by credit problems, both of which will take time to climb out of. But it’s also true that the economy has fallen far enough, and long enough, that much of the excess that led to recession is being worked off. Already 15 months old, the current recession will soon match the average length — and average job loss — of the last three postwar downturns. What goes down will come up — unless destructive policies interfere with the sources of potential recovery.
And those sources have been forming for some time. The price of oil and other commodities have fallen by two-thirds since their 2008 summer peak, which has the effect of a major tax cut. The world is awash in liquidity, thanks to monetary ease by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. Monetary policy operates with a lag, but last year’s easing will eventually stir economic activity.
Housing prices have fallen 27% from their Case-Shiller peak, or some two-thirds of the way back to their historical trend. While still high, credit spreads are far from their peaks during the panic, and corporate borrowers are again able to tap the credit markets. As equities were signaling with their late 2008 rally and January top, growth should under normal circumstances begin to appear in the second half of this year.
So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year’s fourth quarter.
What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama’s agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital — financial and political — to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his “stimulus” spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest.
His Treasury has been making a similar mistake with its financial bailout plans. The banking system needs to work through its losses, and one necessary use of public capital is to assist in burning down those bad assets as fast as possible. Yet most of Team Obama’s ministrations so far have gone toward triage and life support, rather than repair and recovery.
AIG yesterday received its fourth “rescue,” including $70 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program cash, without any clear business direction. (See here.) Citigroup’s restructuring last week added not a dollar of new capital, and also no clear direction. Perhaps the imminent Treasury “stress tests” will clear the decks, but until they do the banks are all living in fear of becoming the next AIG. All of this squanders public money that could better go toward burning down bank debt.
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they’re no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.
Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress — unrebuked by Mr. Obama — are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.
Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn’t help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.
Perhaps they’re reading the polls and figure they have two or three years before voters stop blaming Republicans and Mr. Bush for the economy. Even if that’s right in the long run, in the meantime their assault on business and investors is delaying a recovery and ensuring that the expansion will be weaker than it should be when it finally does arrive.
Stockless:
“Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.”
*****************
Prove it, don’t just shout it, lest you be compared with any three year old. Even the dumbest Republican (and that’s saying something) knows that post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments are fallacious.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Mespo, you moron.
The stock market is down 5,000 point since Bama was nominated, 3,500 points since he was elected, and 2,500 points since his inaugeration.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
Don’t give us this crap about the market tanking under Bush; the market is tanking BECAUSE of the DOOFUS Obama.
There could be worse reasons for the 49ers ending up in California Court. At least there’s no steroids involved here!
Hey Stocky:
Just a quibble, but the market dropped 5000 points under Bush. But that’s besides the point. What if it crashes to 2000, or even lower. So what! Will we die? Will goods no longer need to be produced and services stop being required? Will we do what our grandfathers and grandmothers did and soldier on, or just run around like we did after 9-11 and make every hasty, ill-considered fear driven decision we could to get us to this point? Believe it or not we are made of sterner stuff, or do your brave neo-con friends fear the loss of their money more than life itself. When you neo-cons quit equating your self-worth with your net worth, you’ll reach level of maturity I never even hoped for you. We’re better than the mob or herd you presume us to be,and we need none of your totalitarian fear-mongering. Go to the buildings’ ledges and ponder you’re fate, while the rest of us get right back to work building a country you never knew since you could never see it over your stacks of “unearned” income, and happy jaunts out of the country on “holiday”. Real courage does not come from rattling sabers or landing on carrier decks, but confronting the danger calmly, deliberately, and, perhaps most importantly, with grace. Great tribulation always involves a reckoning and pruning. I think I am beginning to understand why you have so much to fear. HUIC HABEO NON TIBI!
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
STOCK MARKET OFF 2,800 POINT JUST SINCE INAUGERATION DAY!
AMERICA IS VOTING WITH ITS POCKETBOOK; NO TO OBAMA!
Voters Skeptical of Dems’ Leftward Lurch
March 1, 2009
Inside the Beltway and the media bubble, Barack Obama is still the man of the hour. On CNN, his speeches are even compared to sex. (Someone needs to have a talk with that commentator. I don’t think he’s doing it right.) The Democrats obviously believe that they are in a unique historical moment, of which they can take advantage by moving the country decisively to the left.
There is strong evidence, however, that the American people are not excited about the Dems’ leftward lurch. Last week, President Obama gave his first State of the Union address to an adoring Congress and unveiled his administration’s first budget. What happened? His approval rating declined.
Scott Rasmussen has been tracking Obama’s “approval index,” which is the difference between those who “strongly approve” of his performance and those who “strongly disapprove.” Today the approval index declined to + 8, the lowest level in Obama’s brief tenure in office.
Overall, 58 percent approve of Obama’s performance so far, while 40 percent disapprove. It’s nothing special for a newly-elected President. Jimmy Carter was more popular at this stage of his administration.
What’s happening here is that, while media types swoon over Obama’s way with a teleprompter, voters are focusing on something else–the consequences of higher taxes, unprecedented federal spending and control over the economy, and crushing levels of debt. The more they focus on those things, the less they like them.
DANCING THE RECESSION AWAY: CONGA LINES, PARTIES, COCKTAILS AT OBAMA WHITE HOUSE…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.
Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.
Obama says this is the worse economy since the Depression but he sure seems to have the time and our money to party at the White House.
Yes, Virginia, we now have a President Doofus:
‘Fuzzy Math’ on War Funding.
Obama Begs Moscow “We will scrap missile-defense for help with Iran”.
Dow drops another 300 points; off 2,500 just since Obama inaugeration, 3,500 since Obama election, and 6,500 since Obama nomination – investor message – WE DON’T TRUST or BELIEVE IN Obama’s fruitcake answer to our problems.
We know have a President Doofus:
‘Fuzzy Math’ on War Funding.
Obama Begs Moscow “We will scrap missile-defense for help with Iran”.
Dow drops another 300 points; off 2,500 just since Obama inaugeration, 3,500 since Obama election, and 6,500 since Obama nomination – investor message – WE DON’T TRUST or BELIEVE IN Obama’s fruitcake answer to our problems.
As a member of the bay area I have attended many 49er and Raider games. I gladly submit to a pat down to ensure that one of the many knuckleheads who addend these games do not enter the stadium with a weapon.
Here’s an interesting passage from the opinion:
“Those who provide private entertainment venues, including the 49ers’ at NFL football games, have a substantial interest in protecting the safety of their patrons. But when the security measures substantially threaten a privacy right, courts review the policy for reasonableness under the circumstances. Here, we cannot do so because the record does not establish the circumstances of, or the reasons for, the patdown policy. The 49ers’ have not yet given any justification for its policy.”
I will be interested to see what statistical data they will provide to justify the patdown. I would like to know if metal detectors/wands could do the same or better job, and if there are other less intrusive ways of handling this search. I have been to many sporting events, and patdowns are the exception not the norm. I bet the Justices would like to know this information too.