In Franklin County, Tennessee, children may want to avoid the house of Dale Bryant Farris, 65, this Halloween . . . or houses near him. Bryant was arrested after shooting a 15-year-old boy who was with kids toilet-papering their principal’s front yard. Bryant came out of his house a couple of houses down from the home of Principal Ken Bishop and allegedly fired at least two blasts — one hitting a 15-year-old boy in the right foot, inner left knee, right palm, right thigh and right side of his torso above the waistline.
For those ghosts and goblins heading out tonight, the blog wants to offer useful legal and practical guidelines for the risk averse as well as the wealth maximizing readers. The wonderful video below on how to trade candy falls into the latter category.
Below is today’s column in USA Today in which I discuss the increasing revenue acquired through car searches and seizures. Some of these stops are thinly disguised drug checkpoints where a sobriety stop quickly turns to questions about drugs and drug money. Police are using pretextual stops and DUI stops as a way to circumvent the Supreme Court decision in City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000), where the Court drew the line at drug checkpoints and ruled that such stops were unreasonable even though it ruled a few years earlier that DUI checkpoints were reasonable. The DUI ruling was denounced as an all-to-familiar ruling from the Court which abandons principle for convenient compromises. Many warned the Court that it was placing the country on a slippery slope where road blocks would be thrown up around the country in the name of fighting drunk driving while searching for other things. The Court ignored the warnings and soon roadblocks appeared across the country. There is admittedly limited data on such practices but there is sufficient antedoctal evidence to raise a concern of the emerging pattern.
This week we saw how NSA Director General Keith Alexander called on the government to find a way to stop the free press from being . . . well . . . a free press and publish Snowden documents. This follows statements from Sen. Dianne Feinstein and other denouncing both Snowden and the media despite admissions (as a result of those disclosures) that the government has made a variety of violations of U.S. and international laws. Now, even as his country decries the disclosure of over monitoring of foreign leaders and citizens, British Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he intends to stop English papers like the Guardian of informing of the public of the content of these Snowden documents.
Law professors at Cleveland-Marshall are alleging Dean Craig Boise has crossed the line from the merely sarcastic to the outright satanic in issuing $666 raises to professors who were members of a labor bargaining unit. While others received raises of $5,000 or $3,000, the six professors who were union organizers received the increases that reflected the “sign of the beast.”
The Dallas Safari Club has come up with its own version of the Gourmet Club featured in the hilarious comedy The Freshman. However, rather than pay to eat one of the last animals of an endangered species, the Dallas Safari Club is auctioning off the right to shoot one of the most endangered animals in the world: a black rhino. The auction is being done in conjunction with the Republic of Namibia to sacrifice one of 5,055 remaining rhinos to raise money. Thus, ostensibly to raise money to protect the rhinos from continued illegal hunting, Namibia and the Club are advertising the thrill of shooting of an endangered rhino.
Continue reading “Dallas Safari Club To Auction Off Right To Shoot An Endangered Black Rhino”
There are news reports out this morning on a new poll stating that “76 percent of Americans are True Believers.” However, I find it more remarkable that basically one-fourth of Americans said that they do not believe in God. Given the continued lure of faith-based politics, it is remarkable that atheists and agnostics still have so little influence on politicians. There are few groups that can claim one out of four Americans and yet politicians continue to denounce those who do not believe in God. That includes people who simply say that they do not know one way or the other. The poll has some other interesting facts.
For civil libertarians, there may be no more unsettling statements than “Dianne Feinstein is here to protect civil liberties.” Of course, it is not quite that bad. The Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has been the greatest champion for the creation of the massive surveillance of U.S. citizens and effectively blocked any demand for a perjury prosecution of National Intelligence Director James Clapper for lying about the programs. She has called for the prosecution of Edward Snowden for revealing years of deceitful or false statements made to the public. She has criticized the media for disclosing information on the programs despite admissions that of unlawful conduct by the government after the disclosures. No, none of that bothers Dianne Feinstein. However, she is outraged by the monitoring of foreign leaders and promised a “total review” surveillance program.
Continue reading “Feinstein: I Will Investigate The NSA . . . To Protect Foreign Leaders”
NSA documents released by Edward Snowden have revealed years of false statements by the government, the capture of calls and emails from every citizen, the monitoring of tens of millions of people globally, the surveillance of world leaders including close allies, and the perjury by National Intelligence Director James Clapper. It has caused the Obama Administration — after denials of violations — to admit violations of U.S. laws and abuse of surveillance powers. Now General Keith Alexander, NSA director, says enough. We simply cannot stand any more disclosures of wrongdoing so Alexander wants to see actions taken against the media to prevent further disclosures.
There is a troubling story outside of Washington where journalist Audrey Hudson’s home was searched by federal agents who took documents related to stories and reportedly asked her about stories that she had written that were critical of the Federal Air Marshal program. The agents had a warrant to search for unregistered firearms and a “potato gun.” That apparently required a pre-dawn raid by armed agents of the U.S. Coast Guard, Maryland State Police and the Department of Homeland Security. Presumably, the family was believed to have a whole bushel of potatoes that were considered an arsenal.
We have another trademark fight where a major company demands the sole right to a common feature or phrase or lettering. In this case, it is Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey that is going after the small distiller of Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey. The objection is that the white whiskey named for a famed Appalachian moonshiner is using a square-shaped bottling with similar labeling that looks like the square-shaped bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
There could be an interesting torts case developing in Fargo, North Dakota where hundreds of church members were exposed to hepatitis A by Bishop John Folda in masses at four different churches. Folda contracted hepatitis while at a conference for newly ordained bishops in Italy. Grazie!
Continue reading “Do You Accept The Body Of Christ . . . And Hepatitis A?”
As the world joins in opposition to the U.S. attack on privacy worldwide, President Barack Obama has to face awkward meetings with world leaders of allied countries who were subjects of his surveillance. Some reports have stated that Obama personally approved the monitoring of Angela Merkel’s telephone three years ago. Now, the National Security Agency (NSA) is insisting that Obama did not order the monitoring personally. I am not sure what is worse: that Obama ordered interceptions of allied leaders like Merkel or that the surveillance state is so large that functionaries now have the discretion to order such surveillance. Merkel may not find it as more assuring that Obama didn’t order her monitoring than the notion such she is just another target delegated to discretion of lower level officials. It is also not clear if Mike Rogers is going to suggest that Merkel should also thank us for the monitoring.
Continue reading “U.S. To Merkel: Don’t Worry A Functionary Ordered Your Surveillance”
Sheldon Adelson, American mogul, believes that President Obama is not only mollycoddling Iran but failing to use a key vehicle for diplomacy that has too long been ignored: nuclear weapons. Adelson called on Obama to nuke Iran last week. Not Tehran mind you. We would start with a nuclear explosion in the Iranian desert.
We have seen in the last year a shocking return of the Chinese government to the practice of public confessions that were regular displays during the Cultural Revolution. Environmentalists, dissidents, and reporters have been frog-marched in front of television audiences to confess their evil ways and praise the authoritarian government for teaching them the correct path of obedience. The latest is Chen Yongzhou, 27, who committed the sin of writing about fraud committed by Zoomlion, a Chinese heavy machinery manufacturer. In a pathetic nine-minute confession, Yongshou apologizes to Zoomlion for his lies and deceit in covering the alleged fraud. The public demonstration led many to question the official account of the bribing of a reporter.
Continue reading “Chinese Journalist Shown In Public Confession After Accusing Company Of Fraud”