Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. Continue reading “Merry Christmas!!!”
Category: Constitutional Law
A Saudi court has ordered the editor of a Saudi Arabian website to be tried for apostasy, and possibly executed, due to his criticism of the role of religion in the Saudi Kingdom. Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, was arrested in June and originally charged with insulting Islam. The court has now upgraded the charge to apostasy.
Continue reading “Saudi Editor Faces Death Penalty For Apostasy Due To Writings About Religion”
Life under Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to return to the old Soviet standards this month after a Chechen newspaper was closed following an embarrassing comment by the editor-in-chief in the presence of the Russia strongman. Worse yet, people actually laughed when Belkis Dudayeva, the editor-in-chief of Kadyrov’s Path, asked a question that began with “Thank God that Chechnya has now become a region of peace and prosperity…”
Continue reading “Newspaper Closed After Editor Asks Putin An Embarrassing Question”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
Lost in the headlines about the Fiscal Cliff and the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, was the gubernatorial appointment to the United States Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Jim DeMint. Sen. DeMint was arguably the Tea Party’s Senator and his impending departure from the Senate to accept the position to head up the Heritage Foundation would have left a gaping hole in the Tea Party’s influence in the Senate. There is nothing to worry about because South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley named Tea Party Congressman Tim Scott to replace DeMint in the Senate. Rep. Scott was just elected to the House of Representatives in 2010 and has already made a big name for himself in the Tea Party world by suggesting that President Obama should be impeached if Obama attempted to go around the House of Representatives during the last debt ceiling fiasco! Continue reading “The Latest Tea Party Darling”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I don’t know about you but I was certainly happy that I woke up this morning. For a few years now there has been great speculation that the world was going to end yesterday. As I fell asleep about 1:00pm last night it was with knowing that in Mexico it was three hours earlier and so that the dread prediction of the world’s end by the Mayan Calendar still may have been possible. The whole idea was a blatant misrepresentation of Mayan belief and hoax-like, yet that didn’t prevent many from making this non-story into yet another way to frighten people. Frightening people with made-up nonsense seems to be a human trait and certainly has been exploited throughout history for one sort of gain or another.
Fear not though, because just as the collective We has just bitten one bullet, another comes along to frighten us once again with disaster and that “disaster” will occur on December 31, 2012, as we come to the end of another turmoil ridden year in societal intercourse. I’m writing, of course, about the “Looming Fiscal Cliff” that has been so very prominent in what our mainstream media calls “news and commentary” and our leaders of both parties call governance. My opinion and that of many others with far more economic expertise than myself, is that the “Fiscal Cliff” is a mere “bogeyman”, used by those politicians on the Right and the Left as leverage to accomplish their particular political agendas.
Since one of the interests of this blog is the Constitution and the consequent Rule of Law that should be its’ result, this comes within our purview because serious issues of national interest are being driven by false mythology grown to myth like proportion. Let’s look at what is behind this mythology and its propaganda. Continue reading ““The Fiscal Cliff” an Example of Myth and Propaganda”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The 5-4 Supreme Court case of Rosenberger v. University of Virginia has been cited by those arguing that the government may not impose viewpoint-based restrictions by revoking the tax-exempt status of the Westboro Baptist Church. The case involved the University’s refusal to use the Student Activities Fund (SAF) to pay for a Christian student newspaper, Wide Awake. The University argued that an SAF Guideline prohibited funds going to an activity that “primarily promotes or manifests a particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.” The District Court ruled for the University, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit disagreed saying that there is a “presumptive violation of the Speech Clause when viewpoint discrimination was invoked to deny third party payment otherwise available.”
There is a new disturbing video (below) showing police abuse this week. The video shows a Texas state trooper performing what was claimed to be a cavity search on the roadside on suspicion of possession of marijuana. It appears that while states like Colorado are legalizing marijuana, Texas is allegedly doing cavity searches to find someone in possession of weed. I guess it should be no surprise when you are driving on the George Bush Turnpike. The two women — Angel Dobbs, 38, and her niece, Ashley Dobbs, 24 — subject to the humiliating search are now suing the police.
We have previously discussed the curious definition of prostitution in this country. Many libertarians and others believe that consenting adults should be able to consent to such arrangements. My long-standing interest is the legal definition (and fairness) of the criminal code in defining prostitution. If someone agrees to have sex for money, they are arrested as a prostitute. However, if you accept money to have sex with multiple people in a porn movie, you are an actress. Now, Cheryl Cohen Greene, a 68-year-old grandmother and cancer survivor, adds another possible exception. She is a “sexual surrogate” who works with men who are sick or disabled in ‘sexual therapy.’
It takes a lot to get most of us to give a Tinker’s damn for the homophobic extremists at the Westboro Baptist Church. However, the people may be close of doing just that. Citizens are passing around petitions to have the church declared a hate group and strip it of its tax exempt status. This type of political movement targeting an unpopular vote raises all types of alarms for civil libertarians. Declaring certain groups as “hate groups” by popular demand smacks of majoritarian dominance. It also reaffirms the concerns, which I have written about previously, that hate laws are increasingly being used to stifle free speech. It is equally troubling to find the petition on the White House website.
Continue reading “National Petition Drive Seeks To Strip Westboro Church Of Tax Exempt Status”
I have previously written how Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez has lead a national effort to jail citizens who film police in public — a major deterrent to the use of the single most important technology in fighting police abuse. She was previously criticized by the Seventh Circuit for her “extreme” arguments to strip citizens of their first amendment rights. Now Alvarez has added to her rather notorious reputation with a bizarre claim as part of a 60 minutes piece on a litany of wrongful convictions by her office. She suggests that the fact that a serial rapist’s DNA was found on the body was not proof of the innocence of five teens because he might have come across the girl’s dead body later and had sex with it.
Continue reading “Cook County Anita Alvarez Under Attack For Bizarre Claim In CBS Interview”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I originally had a guest blog planned for today on a completely different topic, but I ran across an article in Friday’s Huffington Post, that changed my direction. Since I was a youth I have been aghast at the fact that I grew up in a country where such things as homosexuality and abortion were prohibited by law. It seemed like this was too personal an interference by the State into the personal affairs of people and that this interference often ruined people’s lives. Then too, I grew up in New York State, where for so many years divorce was unobtainable leading to such ridiculousness as Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s wife having to establish Nevada residence in order to obtain a divorce from him. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that religious dogma had no business invading our legal system.
Although there were many prior years of a movement building up in support of abolishing Abortion Laws, the decision of Roe vs. Wade in 1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade was a breathtaking and welcome surprise. Immediately after, however, there started the blow-back against that decision that almost forty years later continues with fervor and intensity. The opposition cites “The Bible” as the source of their angry opposition and claims that their religion, as encoded in “The Bible” describes abortion as murder, with the life of the child beginning at fertilization. When they quote “The Bible” of course they mean the “New Testament” and what they call “The Old Testament”. Jews actually don’t recognize the term “Old Testament”, to us it is called the “Torah”, since Jews believe that their “Torah” was never replaced by a “New Testament”. The anti-Abortionists need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs, since the Gospels don’t discuss the abortion issue. Like much that exists in Christian Dogma today, there is a need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs since there is no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus ever spoke on some matters. Christian “Torah” citation though is haphazard in that they choose what portions to recognize and what portions to ignore. The sentiments of those Christians against abortion are based in the “Torah”. What if their citation of this venerable book stemmed from an incorrect translation of it many, many centuries ago? If they cited it incorrectly in the first instance, doesn’t that destroy their whole argument that abortion is murder in God’s eyes, especially if the writers of the “Torah” never understood abortion to be murder? This is what I’d like to discuss. Continue reading “The Specious Roots of the Anti-Abortion Controversy”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Most wartimes presidents are not known for their preservation of civil liberties. Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and Roosevelt’s internment of Americans of Japanese descent are infamous examples. During the War of 1812, President James Madison, whether through principles or practicality, or a combination of both, set an example that no other president has followed. Biographer Ralph Ketcham deemed Madison the “unimperial president.”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought by weapons more properly used on a battlefield. Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.
Pope Benedict XVI this week raised an outcry among civil libertarians and gay activists by blessing Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, who has promised to pass the country’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a “Christmas gift”. Kadaga’s bill would execute gays who are found to be “repeat offenders.”
Continue reading “Pope Blesses Ugandan Leader Who Wants To Execute Gays”
Mohammad Safi appears to have found the American dream. In 2006, Safi graduated from a medical school in Afghanistan. He then came to the United States and began working as a psychiatrist at a California mental hospital. By 2010, he made $822,302. As California struggles with this economic crisis and shuts down needed social programs, the state is still paying absurd annual salaries like Safi’s. His windfall is due entirely to the failure of the correctional department to meet minimal standards of care for prisoners. The state waited to be ordered to meet mental health standards before having to go into a bidding process to quickly secure such doctors. This set off an instant wage war with the mental health department, which had to bid higher for its doctors. The result? Some 16 California psychiatrists, including Safi, made more than $400,000