Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, is a mother living in a Sudanese prison with her 20-month old son awaiting for the implementation of the latest example of abuses under Sharia law. Ibrahim is a Christian and a Sharia court judge in Khartoum sentenced her to be hanged for refusing to renounce her religion after she gives birth to her second child and nursed her child for two years. She was given three days to renounce her faith to avoid flogging and hanging. It is that like perverse type of accommodation that has defenders claiming that Sharia law is really more humane and enlightened than Western law. For the rest of humanity, it is an unspeakable atrocity.
Category: Politics
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Weekend Contributor
It has happened again. A mass killing at the hands of a person armed with knives and three semi-automatic handguns and 400 rounds of ammunition. This time the alleged shooter stabbed three to death and then went on a shooting spree that ended with at least three more dead and a total of 8 injured/wounded people from gunshot wounds and 5 more injured by his knives or by being hit by his car. Continue reading “The NRA Has Blood on its Hands”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The confusion as to what constitutes lawful medical marijuana grows with federal deference and ten year punishments for doing so, the United States Department of Justice is prosecuting five rural Eastern Washington residents accused of growing sixty-eight medical marijuana plants in a private collective. The accused include a seventy year old man who states he uses the medicine to treat pain from a job related injury, his wife for her arthritis, and their son.
What compounds the severity for these five individuals is that within the thirty-eight acre property, two of the defendants’ residence had inside several firearms, including rifles which are used by the family to hunt and for protection from wild animals. Firearms are very common in residences in rural Eastern Washington. Yet, the firearms in relation to the marijuana grow add an additional five year minimum sentence, adding to the defendants’ minimum of ten years imprisonment, something the senior defendant claims to be a “death sentence.”
What is rather extraordinary in this effort by the department of justice, despite guidelines in not allocating resources to prosecute medical marijuana patients, the defendants claim it was a misunderstanding of Washington’s medical marijuana laws that caused them to go from legal users to being potentially imprisoned for ten years.
I recently testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. Obama has repeated suspended provisions of the health care law and made unilateral changes that were previously rejected by Congress. He has also moved hundreds of millions from one part of the Act to other parts without congressional approval. Now, his administration is reportedly changing key provisions of the ACA to potentially make billions of dollars available to the insurance industry in a move that was never debated, let alone approved, by the legislative branch. Ironically, I just ran another column this month listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority.
The public schools in Washington, D.C. continue to set a record for per pupil costs in the nation. The District has long been the most expensive system in the country and reportedly spends roughly $30,000 per student in a system that continues to produce appalling results in national studies. The latest such study is by the respected National Center for Education Statistics which has found that in 2013 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not “proficient” in reading and 81 percent were not “proficient” in math.
We have yet another example of the perversity of justice under Sharia law. The latest case comes out of Iran where university students have filed a criminal complaint against famed actress Leila Hatami, who recently starred in the Oscar-winning film, A Separation. Some Iranians were outraged when Hatami accepted a customary peck on the cheek from Gilles Jacob, the President of Cannes Festival, as she arrived at Cannes Film Festival to serve as a member of the prestigious jury. Not only is such a sign of affection a crime in the Islamic Republic but (gasp) Hatami was wearing a head scarf that did not entirely cover her hair from being seen by men. She is now subject to jail and flogging under article 638 of Islamic Criminal Justice. The Sharia law calls for 50 lashes.
I recently discussed the impact of federal drug sentencing laws on the federal judiciary and correctional systems at the Seventh Circuit Conference in Chicago. A Texas case this week shows how such cases also inundate the state systems, including cases involving only marijuana. While marijuana possession and sale has been legalizes in Colorado and Washington, Texas continues to take a hardline approach to such cases. Jacob Lavoro is looking at a possible sentence of life in prison after being caught with 1.5 pounds of brownies and 1 pound of marijuana as well as $1,675 in cash.
Continue reading “Texas Teen Faces Five To Life For Selling Pot Brownies”
For months, the Obama Administration has been dealing with the growing revolt among the states over federal marijuana laws. Twenty states and the District of Columbia legalized medical marijuana use over the opposition of the federal government and medical use. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have legalized the sale and possession of marijuana. It is a classic conflict between states and the federal government under federalism. Some of us view the states as asserting a classic police power in an area that was left to the states under our federalism principles. Now the Obama Administration has said that it will withhold water from state-licensed pot growers in Washington state and Colorado. The decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is particularly problematic given the fact that the federal government has stepped in to take effective control of the water resources in these states and now appears to be using that control to try to coerce states to change their laws to satisfy the federal government.
Washington’s city government has long been a symbol of poor management, wasteful programs, and gross inefficiencies. That image was reaffirmed this month after the city turned a program to replace trash bins into an utter disaster. Shortly before the primary election, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) rushed the new cans out to every citizen. The program was so rushed that there appeared to be no system in place to collect the old cans. Now, it appears that the city has not only been chucking new cans but it has not been recycling the plastic cans — simply pumping them in Virginia for incineration. However, the city charged two people who tried to reuse the discarded bins.
There is an interesting decision out of Geneva where Switzerland’s Federal Tribunal, their top court, ruled that a Nazi salute is not a criminal gesture if it meant as a personal statement. For Americans, it is a decision that may seem oddly framed since we treat such gestures as clearly protected. However, given the criminalization of Nazi symbols in Germany and France, the ruling is viewed as a more liberal approach to free speech. Even jokes have been criminalizes in England and France.
Momentum continues to grow across the country as another federal judge, this time in Pennsylvania, struck down a state ban on same-sex marriage. The decision of U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III brings the number to 19 states where such marriages are now legal. Such court-ordered changes do not necessarily reflect as significant change in public opinion though a recent polls shows a record 55 percent in support of this basic right. Twelve district courts have now struck down such laws. The case is Whitewood v. Wolf, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68937 (May 20, 2014) (M.D. Penn.).
Continue reading “19: Pennsylvania Federal Judge Strikes Down Ban On Same-Sex Marriage”
After his 2-1 reversal of his conviction for money laundering, Tom DeLay is back raising money for a new campaign: the Josiah Project which seeks to reintroduce faith and morality into politics. In one interview with Matthew Hagee, the son of controversial paster John Hagee, DeLay lamented the lack of morality in Washington and “the Hammer” added a celestial framer to the usual list of Madison, Mason, and others.
Below is my column this week in American Legion Magazine which juxtaposed my view of the Obama presidency with the opposing view of William Howell, the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago. Notably, a ranking member of the Administration this week wrote that more executive actions are being planned by the White House. These opposing articles capture the two very different perspectives of the evolving use of executive power in our tripartite system.
Continue reading “A Question of Power: The Imperial Presidency”
For many years, I have questioned the constitutionality of criminalizing swearing (here and here and here and here). As many know on this blog, I do not like profanity and we delete such comments on this site. However, we are a private site. The issue changes dramatically when people are arrested for foul language and subject to penal sanctions. It is part of the criminalization of America where pet peeves of politicians are ramped up to criminal offenses to make a point. The latest such move is found in Brighton, Michigan (shown here on Main Street) where police will be charging people with disorderly conduct for swearing. They just will not say what will constitute criminally foul language.
Continue reading “Michigan City Moves To Criminalize Swearing”
I previously wrote about the growing controversy over the delay of General Motors in dealing with its defective ignition switches — a defect that appears to have caused multiple deaths. Now the company has agreed to pay a $35 million civil penalty for delays in responding to defect. If this seems ridiculously small, it is. The fine is the largest that can be imposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) under a federal law protecting companies from higher penalties. The Administration is trying to get Congress to approve the Grow America Act, which contains an increase of fines for the most serious violations from $35 million to $300 million.