Courting Disaster
The unaccountable elites who safeguard democracy. :-/
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June 2008
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Common Sense Reigns … er, Supreme
by McGehee
63°F. and fair in Coweta County, GA
Now the debate over voter photo ID goes back where it belongs: the legislative branch.
States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.
Twenty-five states require some form of ID, and the court’s 6-3 decision rejecting a challenge to Indiana’s strict voter ID law could encourage others to adopt their own measures. Oklahoma legislators said the decision should help them get a version approved.
The ruling means the ID requirement will be in effect for next week’s presidential primary in Indiana, where a significant number of new voters are expected to turn out for the Democratic contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
The results could say something about the effect of the law, either because a large number of voters will lack identification and be forced to cast provisional ballots or because the number turns out to be small.
Supporters of the law say it’s all about preventing fraud.
Indiana has a “valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,’” said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Stevens said that Indiana’s desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law’s requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver’s license serves as the identification. »
Supreme Court says states can demand photo ID for voting
Which is not to say those who benefit politically from voter fraud at the polls won’t keep trying to prevent states from adopting standards that meet with the Court’s approval. They’ll lie and grandstand as usual—but at least there they have to convince hundreds of elected and accountable people all across the country, instead of just five lawyers in black robes.
I wonder what impact this ruling will have on presidential campaign strategy in those states that have photo ID requirements? Heh.
Update: And then there’s California.
[People] [Government] [Courting Disaster] [Politics] [Elections]
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February 2008
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Let’s Get This Straight
by McGehee
42°F. and sunny in Coweta County, GA
First it was the ridiculous idea that Bill Clinton could become Hillary’s vice-president (in the increasingly unlikely event that she could become president). Now this:
The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.
“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.” »
McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out
There is nothing in Article II of the Constitution that requires a presidential candidate born after the formation of this country, to have been born within the national boundaries of the United States. The qualifications are as follows: at least 35 years of age, a natural born citizen of the U.S., and resident within the U.S. for no less than 14 years.
...to me, a simple layman who has a passing understanding of the English language, the interpretation is simple: if you were a U.S. Citizen at the moment of your birth, either through your presence within the United States or by dint of having at least one American parent, you are a “natural born citizen.” If you had to petition to become a citizen, you are a “naturalized citizen.” To my mind, the universe of citizens is broken in to two parts: natural born and naturalized.» Natural born citizen
Exactly.
I never wanted John McCain to be president. I don’t want him to receive my party’s nomination at the convention later this year. But as far as the U.S. Constitution is concerned the only concern with McCain is his demonstrated lack of respect for the First Amendment (McCain-Feingold).
But there isn’t even anything in the Constitution that says a candidate who has written unconstitutional legislation is ineligible to be president. John McCain is therefore eligible.
The question of whether he should be elected is entirely a political matter. As it should be.
[People] [Here's Your Sign] [Government] [Courting Disaster] [Politics] [Elections] [Election 2008]
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December 2007
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9:59 pm Thursday
December 6, 2007
No backtalk
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Call Them What They Are: SAFETY-Free Zones
by McGehee
43°F. and partly cloudy in Coweta County, GA
Like Instapundit, I haven’t posted here about the Omaha mass murder—but I think I’m pretty much in sync with Prof. Reynolds:
But it’s worth noting—since apparently most of the media reports haven’t—that this was another mass shooting in a “gun-free” zone. It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free.
In a similar vein, I’m cheered somewhat by this development of local importance:
The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a Coweta Superior Court decision and ruled that Coweta County’s ordinance prohibiting guns in parks is preempted by state law.
The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Tuesday to overturn a decision by Judge Jack Kirby. In June, Kirby ruled in favor of Coweta County in a suit filed against Coweta by Ed Stone and gun rights group Georgia Carry.
Stone, a Coweta resident and president of Georgia Carry, had appeared before the Coweta County Board of Commissioners earlier this year. He told the commissioners that the rule forbidding guns in county parks was preempted by state law.
When the county refused to change the rule, Stone and Georgia Carry sued.
[...]
Georgia state law states that “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall regulate in any manner gun shows; the possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or components of firearms; firearms dealers, or dealers in firearms components,” according to the opinion.
“The plain language of the statute expressly precludes a county from regulating ‘in any manner… carrying… of firearms,’” according to the opinion. “Under these circumstances, the preemption is express and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise.” »
Gun ban in parks overturned
Plain language should be interpreted as though the legislature meant the meaning to be equally plain. The county had argued that the county may “enhance” state law, but that’s a general rule that is clearly and explicitly superseded by the state law in question. When the state law says, “no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall...”, that doesn’t mean, “unless they really really want to.”
I’m always in favor of courts reading the law to mean what it plainly says. It’s just too bad it’s so newsworthy when it happens.
[Our Times] [Courting Disaster]
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November 2007
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7:54 am Thursday
November 1, 2007
No backtalk
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God Hates Haters
by McGehee
50°F. and sunny in Coweta County, GA
Baltimore—A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
[...]
Earlier, church members staged a demonstration outside the federal courthouse. Church founder Fred Phelps held a sign reading “God is your enemy,” while Shirley Phelps-Roper stood on an American flag. Members of the group sang “God Hates America” to the tune of “God Bless America.” »
Anti-gay church must pay Marine’s father $11 million
Every so often our justice system actually lives up to its name. These birds have no redeeming value, even as compost.
[People] [Government] [Courting Disaster] [Wackadoodle] [Get Offa My Lawn!]
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October 2007
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Still So Right It’s Embarrassing
by McGehee
81°F. and cloudy in Coweta County, GA
Years ago, something dawned on me in what might very well be my first genuine blinding flash of the obvious.
Back then, a favorite slogan among gun owners and others who support the individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment was, “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?”
Always quick to react, the collective-right side came back with, “What part of ‘well-regulated militia’ do you not understand?”
I’d never seen it anywhere else, so for all I know I was the first to come up with it: “What part of ‘the right of the people’ do you not understand?” If the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear arms” isn’t an individual right, it’s the only one of several so labeled in the Constitution that isn’t.
GWU law professor Jonathan Turley, no friend of the NRA, agrees:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace.
Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right—consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.
None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that ... here’s the really hard part ... the NRA may have been right.
He’s not the first liberal law professor to come around to this view in the last ten years or so, only the latest.
H/t: Dean Esmay.
[Courting Disaster]
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12:08 pm Tuesday
October 2, 2007
No backtalk
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Slow but Exceedingly Fine
by McGehee
78°F. and sunny in Coweta County, GA
I previously posted on this 13 months ago.
A Fairbanks man was sentenced to more than 18 years in prison Monday for his role in the death of a world-renowned physicist.
In April, a jury found Byron Frank Geisinger, 47, guilty of of manslaughter and drunken driving. Authorities say Geisinger slammed his full-sized pick-up truck into the back of a sedan rented by Yong-Ki Kim, 74, his wife and son as they were sightseeing along Chena Hot Springs Road last September. Yong-Ki Kim was killed in the accident while his wife and son suffered minor injuries. »
Driver gets 18 years in death of physicist
Not mentioned in today’s article is this, which I commented on last fall:
...a driver and front-seat passenger were injured and a 74-year-old man in the back seat was killed—and the driver of the truck that hit them ran into the woods as astonished witnesses looked on.
[...]
The driver claims he left the scene to try to get help, though with other drivers right there having seen the crash, you’d think the best way to get help would be to stay put and flag somebody down.
In other words, that drunkard is probably going away for a long time.
Looks that way.
[Alaska] [Here's Your Sign] [Courting Disaster]
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12:00 pm Tuesday
October 2, 2007
No backtalk
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I Wonder Why That Might Be
by McGehee
73°F. and fair in Coweta County, GA
I can kind of sympathize with Britney Spears’ lawyer—apparently it’s not necessary to represent oneself to have a fool for a client—and I guess I can’t really blame him for trying to spin this even though, as he says, the order in question was handed down before he boarded the leaky rowboat that is Spears’ defense (or whatever you call it in family court).
Trope says another reason behind the judge’s temporary custody ruling “was a claim by Mr. Federline’s attorney that she had not complied with a previous order the court had made—before I came on board (as lawyer)—about having a random drug and alcohol test.”
Trope adds: “There’s no evidence that she actually failed a test.”
However, the courts see the failure to take a test as the same thing as not passing the test. »
Britney’s Lawyer Reveals Reasons Behind Custody Ruling
Back when I was in school, it was generally pretty clear that you couldn’t pass a test if you didn’t take the test.
Again, it’s this poor sap’s job to try to put a positive less negative face on the whole thing, but I think most people understand that the court didn’t order Britney to “not fail” a drug test.
[Here's Your Sign] [Courting Disaster]
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