Criminal law, Politics, Science, Society

Dead Men Do Tell Tales (Of Rigged Elections)

Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

If you’ve never heard of King Lincoln v. Blackwell, don’t be too surprised.  Project Censored calls the outsourcing of the 2004 Presidential elections in Ohio “one of the most censored stories in the world.”  Originally filed on August 31, 2006 in Ohio, King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell is an ongoing civil case to decide if the the Ohio Secretary of State at the time, Kenneth Blackwell, violated the Civil Rights Act (42 USC §§ 1983 and 1984) and the 1st, 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution by conspiring to “deprive and continue to deprive Ohioans of their right to vote and have, in fact, deprived and continue to deprive Ohioans of their right to vote by, in a selective and discriminatory manner, unfairly allocate election resources (such as voting machines), institute a system of provisional ballots, purge voter registrations, and broke the bi-partisan chain of custody ballots”.  The vote at the heart of the issue is the 2004 Presidential election where, in defiance of exit poll data, there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.

New filings include a revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell.   Connell died shortly after giving his deposition in a small plane crash that is described as “suspicious”*.  In life, Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and their personal minister of propaganda, Karl Rove. Connell ran a private IT firm called GovTech that created the controversial electronic voting system that Ohio used during the election.  GovTech’s system transferred Ohio’s vote count late on election night to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by a company called SmarTech. That is when the alleged vote shift happened that led to Bush’s unexpected victory.

Continue reading “Dead Men Do Tell Tales (Of Rigged Elections)” →

Bizarre

The (Nearly) Frozen (Not So) Dead
Paging Mr. Poe . . .

Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

An unidentified 50 year old asthmatic South African man has a chilling story to tell.  Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive.   Last Saturday in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, the  man went to sleep and almost had that fear come true.  His family, thinking he was dead, called a local undertaker to come get the body.  The undertaker then transfered the undead body to a local mortuary where morgue owner Ayanda Maqolo checked the body for a pulse and found nothing.  The body was put in body bag and then to a freezer for storage.  Much to the surprise of the mortuary workers, who thought they were hearing a ghost at first, some twenty-one hours later the man woke up inside the freezer and began calling for help.  “He screamed for help and made an almighty din in the morgue,” said Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo.  The man was taken by ambulance to Saint Barnabas Hospital where he was treated for hypothermia and dehydration and released.  His family was having a meeting to discuss funeral arrangements when they were informed he was still alive.  They were, of course, delighted to have the grandfather back and unharmed. Ayanda Magolo, however, did experience some side-effects.”I couldn’t sleep last night, I had nightmares,” he said. “But today I’m much better.” South African officials are reminding people that it is not a good idea to pronounce a person dead yourself and call the undertaker.  Such evaluations should be made by paramedics, doctors or other qualified personnel.

Source: BBC, AP, Times Live

~Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Constitutional Law, Courts, Society

Black Student Can’t Be Valedictorian

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

McGehee High School, southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas, would not let Kymberly Wimberly, 18 and black, be valedictorian even though she had the highest GPA. A white student was named as co-valedictorian even though the white student had a lower GPA. Wimberly’s mother, who works at the school as its certified media specialist, heard school personnel express concern that her daughter’s status as valedictorian might cause a “big mess.”

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Courts, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court

NY’s Marriage Equality Act Sees First Court Challenge

Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

In This Corner: NY Governor Andrew Cuomo ...

A coalition of conservative groups filed for an injunction in a Livingston County, New York Supreme Court (a trial court in NY parlance) asking the judge to overturn New York’s same-sex marriage law. New Yorker’s for Constitutional Freedom (NYCF) seek to enjoin operation of the law claiming that procedural requirements for the legislation were ignored, legislators were promised huge campaign contributions in exchange for their vote by NYC Mayor Bloomberg, and that Governor Andrew Cuomo violated the three-day review period by falsely issuing a “message of necessity” to the Legislature to speed up passage of the legislation. Through their lawyers, Liberty Counsel, the conservative action group also claims the public and lobbyists were shut out of the process.

Continue reading “NY’s Marriage Equality Act Sees First Court Challenge” →

Congress, Justice, Politics, Society

The Solution to the Debt Crisis is an Easy One.

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger

I have a slightly different take on the debt ceiling discussion started by Mike Appleton earlier.  The Debt ceiling issue is on every cable and broadcast TV channel and on just about every website and blog including here on Prof. Turley’s blog. The debt limit and its feared default has controlled the airwaves for weeks now, and it isn’t going to end soon if the news reports are to believed. The Democrats want increased revenue and the Republicans want cuts only to spending in order to convince both sides to do something that was done about 19 times during the preceding administration without much fanfare from either side. No matter who you support there is an easy solution to the problem and the majority of Americans agree with it. The Hill Continue reading “The Solution to the Debt Crisis is an Easy One.” →

Congress, Politics

The Phony Debt Ceiling Debate

Submitted by Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger

Humorist Tom Bodett observed on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me” this weekend that if we raise the debt ceiling any higher, we won’t be able to paint it.  In addition to being funny, his comment was more intelligent than most of what passes for debate on the issue.

Raising the debt ceiling is hardly a difficult decision to make, requiring that Congress answer only the following questions:

1. Are we unable with existing revenues to pay our debts as they become due?

2. Do we have the ability to borrow the funds necessary to cover the shortfall?

3. Will the additional borrowing push us over the existing debt ceiling?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Congress has always managed to get through the process rather easily, voting to increase the debt ceiling 74 times since 1962.  So why the current impasse on a routine matter? Continue reading “The Phony Debt Ceiling Debate” →

Congress, Criminal law, Society, Torts

Tiger By The Tail: Dem Leadership Struggle In Wake Of Latest Sex Scandal

Rep. David Wu has long been identified as a major liability for the Democrats. The first Chinese-American elected to Congress, Wu has displayed mental instability for years. He is now accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend.

Continue reading “Tiger By The Tail: Dem Leadership Struggle In Wake Of Latest Sex Scandal” →

Academia, Politics, Religion, Science, Society

Science Marches On . . . Even In Texas
Charles Darwin

Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Last Thursday, July 21, the Texas Board of Education in an 8-0 unanimous vote opted to keep teaching evolution in high school biology classes using approved scientifically accurate textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers. They did not approve of the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC. Four times as many people showed up to testify in favor of the scientifically accurate texts as showed up to oppose them.

Continue reading “Science Marches On . . . Even In Texas” →

Animals, Environment, Science, Things That Tick Me Off

Coming To A Beach Near You: Polar Bear Swims 426 Miles

Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Their shrinking ice floe habitat under constant assault by climate change, polar bears are taking to the water to preserve their species.  One female swam the equivalent distance between Boston and Washington D.C. in an effort to find more suitable habitat. The migration has caused a sad side-effect, as according to study author, George Durner, a USGS research zoologist, “Bears that engaged in long-distance swimming were more likely to experience cub loss.” Five of eleven polar bears that made these swims lost their cubs in the process.

Continue reading “Coming To A Beach Near You: Polar Bear Swims 426 Miles” →

Constitutional Law, Society, Supreme Court

New Toy For The National Surveillance State

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

The new toy is Automatic License Plate Reader/Recognition (ALPR), and a cool toy it is. It basically reads every license plate its cameras see and compares that data to a list. That list might contain the license plates of stolen vehicles, the license plates of drivers with suspended licenses or no insurance, and “Amber Alerts.” This all happens automatically, in real-time.

The systems also stores the date and time of every license plate and the corresponding GPS coordinates, even for law-abiding citizens. Therein lies the potential for abuse.

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International

Day 3-4: Heux, France (The Arrival of the Plague Doctors)

Courtesy of Allison Made McBain
This morning we are off to the market in Mezin — a market that has existed for hundreds of years.  In lieu of a detailed blog this morning, I give you my friend, Allison Made McBane and one of her sons, Alexander.  They are wearing a mark called the “plague doctor” mask.  It was taken at the Chateau on the Roman well.

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Academia, Columns, International, Military, Politics, Society

The American Quest for Empire

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

A startling thought occurred to me recently and that is while I’m only approaching the age of sixty-seven, I have lived in eight decades on this planet. Every one of those eight decades has had an American involvement in a foreign war. To be sure there is a massive degree of difference in magnitude let’s say between World War II and Grenada, but both were wars nonetheless. There is a common thread in all of these involvements that goes beyond the immediate causes and that is the quest for Empire. A persistent undertone in American thought has been expansive since Jefferson made The Louisiana Purchase. While this need to expand hasn’t always been present in the public political debate as a motivation, those whose thoughts held sway over the political and intellectual backbone of our country openly discussed it. While America, which initially remained primarily an agrarian nation, was expanding into the vast frontier of this continent, our dreams of empire focused on taming the country and overwhelming its Native American population. By the mid Nineteenth Century, the industrial revolution influenced American thought and the need to expand to acquire natural resources, replaced agrarian needs, while making the taming of the frontier more urgent.

Given our constitutional underpinnings and the magnificent sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, many felt qualms about our displacement of Native Americans in our expansion westward. Darwin’s Origin of The Species, published in 1859 became an instant sensation for intellectuals worldwide and for those with the power to shape a nation’s thought processes. Social Darwinism, survival of the fittest, was the new model for developing rationales and mythologies, which absolved the country of residual guilt in our struggle with the native population and allowed opinion shapers and ideologues to frame the issue in terms of the struggle of civilization against savagery.

Continue reading “The American Quest for Empire” →

Uncategorized

Rush Limbaugh Runs Hot and Cold on Weather Indices

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

Is much of America really in the midst of a brutal heat wave? Nah! It’s really not as hot as you may think—or feel. So says radio talk show host and weather meister Rush Limbaugh.  Ignore those news reports warning that the temperatures are soaring into the stratosphere. According to Rush, the mercury isn’t really rising as high inside thermometers as reports claim.

Here’s what Rush had to say recently about what’s really going on weatherwise:

They’re playing games with us on this heat wave, again. Even Drudge. Drudge getting sucked in here. Going to be 116 in Washington. No, it’s not. It’s gonna be like 100, maybe 99. A heat index, manufactured by the government to tell you what it feels like when you add the humidity in there.

116. When’s the last time the heat index was reported as an actual temperature? It hasn’t been, but it looks like they’re trying to get away with doing that now. 116. Drudge is just linking to other people reporting. He’s not saying it, I don’t want to misunderstand, but he’s linking to stories which say 116 degrees in Washington. No!

It’s going to top out as 102, 103. It does this every year. We have this every year. There’s a heat dome over half the country, midwest is moving east. And it happens every summer. Every summer.

Continue reading “Rush Limbaugh Runs Hot and Cold on Weather Indices” →