QUESTION: If you were a passenger in a car stopped by the police, would you feel at liberty to just get out and walk away?
The answer may decide the outcome of a case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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March 31, 2007
THOSE WHO DON’T LEARN FROM HISTORY …
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, the American historian who in his 1996 book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” deprived the Germans of the belief that they didn’t know what was going on back in the day, is currently studying the history of genocides in the 20th century. One of the things he has noticed is that the politicians or military leaders who planned genocides and had them carried out rarely concealed their intentions in advance. Whether the victims were Hereros, Armenians, kulaks, Jews or later Bosnians, the perpetrators generally believed that they were justified and had no reason to hide their murderous intentions.
Today, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks about a world without Israel while dreaming of an atom bomb, it seems obvious that we — as Germans of all people — should be putting two and two together. Why shouldn’t Ahmadinejad mean what he says? But we Germans only know what we believe.
And what the Germans believe is that the United States is a greater danger to the world than Iran is.
How do people become as morally squalid as the Europeans have become?
“… AT SOME STAGE, Iran’s lethal contempt for the rule of international law is going to mean war.”
March 30, 2007
“TWO OUTSIZED PERSONALITIES CLASHED AT THE SUPREME COURT on Wednesday and one of them, Justice Antonin Scalia, was briefly silenced by a barbed comment that left other justices laughing:”
Longtime Harvard law professor Arthur Miller, rarely at a loss for words himself, was arguing on behalf of shareholders who want to sue companies for fraud.
[…]
Scalia clearly was on the side of the companies, chiming in from time to time to make Miller’s difficult task a bit harder.
After one remark, Miller let loose: “Is that because you never met a plaintiff you really liked?”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Lawyers who argue at the court are advised to devote their precious time to serious matters because jokes often fall flat.
But this one didn’t. There was laughter and an “ooh” from spectators. Justices Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas laughed for several seconds, even after arguments resumed.
Miller, perhaps sensing he crossed a line, quickly added, “I took a liberty there with the justice.”
Scalia soon had his say. When Miller urged Chief Justice John Roberts not to take him literally, Scalia cut in.
Harvard Law Professor Arthur Miller
“Let me write that down. We should not take you literally,” Scalia said.
The last word on the topic went to the genial chief justice, a generation younger than his fellow Harvard law alumnus.
“OK, you two are even now,” Roberts said.
I lost a lot of respect for Justice Scalia when he joined the majority in Raich. The Raich Court held
that Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause to prohibit the intrastate cultivation and use of medical marijuana.
No principled textualist, which Scalia claims to be, can believe that. (See the dissent by Justice Thomas.) Scalia allowed his personal disapproval of drugs to overcome his judicial philosophy.
Still, the man is an intellectual tour de force who belongs on the Supreme Court. But this little snit with Professor Miller is an example of why no president was ever going to appoint Scalia chief justice. During oral argument before the Court, Scalia too often mistakes himself for counsel to one of the parties.
HERE ARE TWO WAYS TONY BLAIR CAN HIT BACK at the Iranians for kidnapping fifteen British sailors.
Blair can capture this:
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Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export depot |
Or he can bomb this:
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Iranian nuclear research facility at Natanz |
“… A PIECE OF FAKERY DESIGNED TO DECEIVE the very people who put the Democrats back in power:” Some on the anti-war Left are understandably unhappy with congressional Democrats. Everyone who voted Democratic with a view to ending the U.S. presence in Iraq has just been shafted:
Although nothing of any significance actually happened on March 23, to read liberal commentators one would think we’d witnessed some profound upheaval, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi’s skillful uniting of the various Democratic factions. What she accomplished in practice was the neutering of the antiwar faction.
This is also revealing: “… when Bush savaged Pelosi’s bill with accusations that it gives aid and comfort to the enemy, he cemented Democratic support for it.”
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: “… you cannot reasonably argue that in 2007 Iraq is not the most critical strategic front in the war on terror.”
March 29, 2007
“NEVER HAS SO MUCH USEFUL IDIOCY ABOUT SO MANY SUBJECTS BEEN COMPRESSED INTO SO LITTLE TIME:” Truthfully, gentle reader, there is no redeeming value to this video. I share it with you soley for the gawk factor, which is high.
Since fact and reason tend to inconvenience conspiracy theorists, I don’t know whether any of the following would be of interest to O’Donnell. But I assume your sanity:
“Melted” Steel
CLAIM: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”
“Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
MORAL CLARITY: Although the Islamic fundamentalists in charge of Iran’s government hang homosexuals and call for wiping Israel and her inhabitants off the map, they’re otherwise ethical guys, says Rosie. Not that she wants to have Ahmadinejad over for breakfast or anything…
But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
“The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”
DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE ASS: So what’s stopping him now? Does he need help with bags, or what?
Allahpundit is most assuredly correct. If the story’s true — and for what it’s worth, I believe it — John McCain is finished as a GOP presidential candidate. Of course, I’ve said for a long time now that McCain wouldn’t be the party’s nominee anyway. For while he’s a great American, John McCain is a sorry Republican. But this latest revelation of treachery may hasten his exit from the field — and, if the gods be merciful, from the party itself.
(Oh, and senator, take this other egomaniac with you. It’s spring. Deep cleaning is in order.)
March 28, 2007
GENDER BENDER: “In November, Roach originally petitioned the court saying he shouldn’t have to pay alimony to his ex-wife on the basis that his ex-wife had a name change and a sex change and is male. Therefore, his ex-wife is legally dead.”
WATCH this. You’ll like.
WALL STREET JOURNAL: “Now that these Democrats have reached a verdict, they want to hold the trial.”
MORAL OF THE STORY: Don’t hotlink.
March 27, 2007
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: Gov. Rick Perry has signed a “stand your ground” bill into law, allowing Texans to use deadly force — when legally justified — without first attempting retreat. The law takes effect Sept. 1.
Under existing law, Texans must generally try to flee from a criminal attack, if they can safely do so, before resorting to the use of deadly force in self-defense. (The law makes an exception when hoodlums break into a “habitation;” Texans have no duty to flee from their own homes.) But under the bill signed today, Texans will not have to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense if 1) they are in a place, e.g. home, office or vehicle, where they have a lawful right to be, 2) if they did not provoke their attacker and 3) if they themselves are not engaged in criminal activity. The law also shields Texans who use deadly force for self-defense from civil liability.
The text of SB 378 is here. The Texas Senate passed the bill by a vote of 30-0. The Texas House passed it by a vote of 133-13.
To be clear, your use of deadly force in Texas is justified only when, and to the degree, that you believe such force to be “immediately necessary” to protect yourself against another’s use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force and to prevent the “imminent commission” of certain felonies. (See TEX. PENAL CODE § 9.32.)
DECLINING TO BE JACKED UP: Monica Goodling, an official with the U.S. Dept. of Justice, “will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.”
In a letter to Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Goodling’s lawyer writes: “The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real. One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby.”
Liberal Joshua Micah Marshall is skeptical of Goodling’s Fifth Amendment claim:
… the most sensible defense against a perjury trap, I would have thought, would be to tell the truth. After all, to the best of my knowledge Goodling hasn’t testified on this subject before — so it’s not like they can trap her into contradicting previous sworn testimony.
I don’t know whether Monica Goodling has a valid legal reason to assert a Fifth Amendment privilege here. (Law professor Eric Muller says she does.) But I do know that she has a legitimate reason to fear prosecution for lying to Congress even if she tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As Goodling’s lawyer notes, Scooter Libby proved that you can be convicted of lying even if you don’t lie but your recollections differ from someone else’s.
So it might be, as Marshall suggests, that telling the truth is the “most sensible defense” against a charge of perjury. But that doesn’t mean it will be a successful defense.
ADDED —
D’oh! Just tell the truth! But if two or three others lie, or misremember, what then? Or if Ms. Goodling misremembers, is that a deliberate lie or an honest mistake? And who will decide — calm, objective observers or partisan Dems looking for scalps and opportunities for fund-raising appeals?
Eventually, the partisan Democrats on the Committee will have an opportunity to vote out a criminal referral to the DoJ, which can then try the case in front of a partisan DC jury. Is that really a sensible venue in which Ms. Goodling ought to try her luck?
“SOME PEOPLE ARE LOSING FAITH in the system to protect them:” The remaining residents of New Orleans are arming themselves at record rates.
I have no faith in the system to protect me. It’s rare for the system to actually protect anyone. Usually the system shows up after the fact to give you — or your surviving loved ones — a case number. Only you can protect yourself. Unlike the police, you will be on the scene when you need help.
It’s statist myth that the law exists to protect us. It does not. The law exists to 1) provide formal notice of conduct punishable by fine, imprisonment or death and 2) to afford due process to those accused of such conduct. Both of these functions are important to liberal societies, which value justice under law. But neither of them can keep you from getting raped or maimed or killed.
March 25, 2007
AN ODE to the Goracle. Enjoy:
“White guilt offsets for sale; inquire within”
Relatedly, see this on “conspicuous virtue.”
March 24, 2007
DID YOU KNOW THIS? I didn’t: “A gay man who works for a libertarian advocacy group is one of six Washington residents who filed the lawsuit that prompted a federal appeals court last week to overturn a D.C. law prohibiting residents from keeping guns in their homes.”
The man is Tom Palmer and he works for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
On March 9, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit invalidated the District’s ban on keeping handguns in the home.
Palmer says a gun saved his life “25 years ago when he and a male companion were threatened by a group of 19 or 20 young men on a deserted street in San Jose, Calif:”
“They shouted anti-gay epithets and they made death threats,” Palmer said. “We ran and they chased us.”
Seconds later, Palmer pulled out a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol he owned legally and pointed it at the youths, whom he was certain had planned to harm or kill him and his companion in a gay bashing incident.
“It stopped them in their tracks,” he said. “The leader of the group stared at the gun and said, ‘Do you have a permit for that?’”
I’ll take my .45 caliber Glock — and yes, I do have a permit for it and the training to use it — over a “hate crimes” statute any day. It’s little comfort to know that your attacker may — or may not — be apprehended and may — or may not — receive a long prison term while you repose in the ICU or under a head stone. I prefer the approach noted by others, namely that armed gays don’t get bashed in the first place.
WHAT’S YOUR ANTI-DRUG?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER DOES what a bumbling Alberto Gonzales should have done from the get-go. He explains — clearly and honestly — the Bush Administration’s decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys:
… there are thousands of laws on the books and only finite resources for any prosecutor to deploy, which means that one must have priorities about which laws to emphasize and which crimes to preferentially pursue.
Those decisions are essentially political. And they are decided by elections in which both parties spell out very clearly their law enforcement priorities. Are you going to allocate prosecutorial resources more to drug dealing or tax cheating? To street crime or corporate malfeasance? To illegal immigration or illegal pollution? If you’re a Democrat today, you call the choice “political” to confer a sense of illegitimacy. If you’re a neutral observer, you call the choice a set of law enforcement priorities reflecting the policy preferences of the winner of the last presidential election.
For example, both voter intimidation and voter fraud are illegal. The Democrats have a particular interest in the former because they see it diminishing their turnout, while Republicans are particularly interested in the latter because they see it as inflating the Democratic tally. The Bush administration apparently was dismayed that some of these fired attorneys were not vigorous enough in pursuing voter fraud.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Pursuing voter fraud is not, as The New York Times pretends, a euphemism for suppressing the vote of minorities and poor people. It is a mechanism for suppressing the vote of (among other phantoms) dead people. Conservatives have a healthy respect for the opinion of dead people — conservatives revere tradition, which Chesterton once defined as “the democracy of the dead” — but they draw the line at posthumous voting.
If the White House decides that a U.S. attorney is showing insufficient zeal in pursuing voter fraud — or the death penalty or illegal immigration or drug dealing — it has the perfect right to fire him. There is only one impermissible reason for presidential intervention: to sabotage an active investigation. That is obstruction of justice. Until the Democrats come up with any real evidence of that — and they have not — this affair remains a pseudo-scandal. Which would never have developed had Gonzales made the easy and obvious case from day one.
RUDY GUILIANI IS GAINING on John McCain … in Arizona. In the last two months, Rudy has gone from 13 points to 25 among Arizona Republicans, while favorite son McCain has dropped from 40 to 34.
March 23, 2007
ANN ALTHOUSE: “Women’s rights or multiculturalism: pick one. Either there is equal justice under the law or there is not.”
March 22, 2007
“THIS IS A TERRORIST WAR AGAINST US:” Rudy says the term “war on terror” — which implies a war of our choice — is a misnomer.
THREE PROFESSORS OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW discuss whether the Bush Administration can successfully claim executive privilege against congressional subpoenas for testimony from the president’s aides. The discussion is both fascinating and informative.
This particular panel splits 2-1 in the president’s favor.
BOOMERANG: “[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi frequently says that President Bush must heed the message that American voters sent in November 2006. Who knew that message was to fund the war while undermining the war effort and to spend more tax dollars on pork?”
March 21, 2007
“THOUGH MUCH HAS BEEN MADE about the Supreme Court’s small docket this Term, I am now more intrigued by the slow pace of its decision-making.”
WE’LL BE BACK: “Not yet three months into their first congressional majority since 1994, the Democrats are acting like the Republicans they condemned for fiscal freewheeling.”
During the first few weeks of their return to power, I was actually impressed with the Democrats. And as a Republican, I was afraid. The Democrats were pursing a modest, inoffensive “100 hours” agenda and more or less behaving themselves. Americans voters would not, I think, depose a modest, well-behaved party, and they might even reward it.
But only months later, I’m much less impressed and not at all afraid. Per Gallup, congressional job approval is now down to 28%, even lower than the president’s. Assuming the party leadership takes care to recruit strong candidates and to target its resources properly, the GOP should do just fine in the 2008 elections. At a minimum, Republicans should reclaim the ten or so seats that “belong” to them.
There’s still time, of course, for Democrats to turn things around. (There’s also still time for them to make other, serious mistakes.) But my point is Republicans have reason to be optimistic.
March 20, 2007
FOUR YEARS AFTER THE INVASION of Iraq, you’ve got questions. Christopher Hitchens has answers.
I’VE RARELY BEEN PROUDER OF OUR PRESIDENT: “A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides speak about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.”
Bravo!
And here’s the bottom line on it all: “[Mr. Bush] added that federal prosecutors work for him and it is natural to consider replacing them. While saying he disapproved of how the decisions were explained to Congress, he insisted ‘there is no indication that anybody did anything improper.’”
That’s good, Mr. President. Keep the message simple, clear and short. “Stick it” would be even better.
BONG HITS 4 JESUS:
Here’s the transcript from yesterday’s oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in Morse v. Frederick.
Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times filed this report, which reads in part:
A majority of the court seemed willing to create what would amount to a drug exception to students’ First Amendment rights, much as the court has in recent years permitted widespread drug testing of students, even those not personally suspected of using drugs, under a relaxed view of the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick:
Oral argument in Morse v. Frederick does reveal some of the worst aspects of sharing a bong. The first being paranoia. Because according to Kenneth Starr, former righteous independent counsel — now tanned Californian law-school dean — the fate of the drug wars depends upon the unconditional school message that drugs are bad, yet schools cannot enforce that message because smartass kids keep undermining them. Starr’s alternative (and if you ask me, far more paranoia-inducing) universe: Schools get limitless discretion to craft broad “educational missions” and are then free to squelch any student speech that “undermines” them.
This from law professor Ann Althouse:
The school’s real objection is that a pro-drug message undermines the message it endorses. That is, they don’t want disagreement and debate. They still convey their anti-drug message all the time, and this student isn’t interrupting them or even distracting anyone from hearing that message. He’s just delivering a counter-message on another occasion, and they object to the argument. That should be held to violate the First Amendment.
Finally, from Tony Mauro at the First Amendment Center:
By the end of yesterday’s hourlong argument before the Supreme Court, two things seemed clear on both ends of the spectrum of possible outcomes.
First, the Court balked at giving schools a broad charter to censor any speech that merely falls outside the school’s educational mission. But second, the Court also seemed resolved that Principal Morse — and school officials like her in the future — should not be held personally liable for misinterpreting the welter of nuanced and conflicting Court precedents on student free speech.
Somewhere in the middle is where the Court will likely rule, with a nod toward both student speech and the need for school discipline. And the push toward center ground may come from the Court’s newest justice, Samuel Alito Jr., who in a series of questions made clear his concern about giving school officials too much power to restrict student speech. If student speech can be censored for the sole reason that it is contrary to a school’s educational mission, Alito said, schools can simply expand their mission statements to justify censoring any speech they don’t like.
My guess? The Court will (and should) reject Kenneth Starr’s argument that school officials should be more or less at liberty to punish any speech they think inconsistent with their “educational mission.” The justices will instead adopt the rule suggested by Edwin Kneedler, the Deputy Solicitor General: School officials may punish students who advocate the commission of an unlawful act.
March 18, 2007
BOO-HOO. Fox News anchor Brit Hume has managed, yet again, to set the Left’s hair on fire. (True, that’s not hard to do, but Brit seems to do it a lot. Fox News figures prominently in the imagination of the “reality-based community.”) On Fox News Sunday, Hume called into question the veracity of Valerie Plame Wilson’s claim that she did not recommend her husband, Joe, for a 2002 trip to Niger to assess reports that Saddam’s Iraq was trying to buy uranium:
HUME: And the other thing that needs to be noted here is when she says that she had nothing to do with getting her husband the trip, that flies in the face of the evidence adduced by the Senate Intelligence Committee whose findings were released not on a partisan basis — the bipartisan findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was that she very much did have something to do with it, that she recommended him and that she put it in a memo.
WALLACE: So she was lying under oath?
HUME: I think that there is reason to question her credibility on that point.
Faiz at Think Progress calls Hume’s remarks a “smear:”
Hume’s false claim originated from a statement attached to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq that was released in 2004. In an addendum to that report, Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Christopher Bond (R-MO), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wrote definitively, “The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador’s wife, a CIA employee.” The right-wing, including columnist Bob Novak, have taken the statement written by three Republican senators and falsely attributed it as the “unanimous” conclusion of the Senate report. [Links in original.]
If you click on the first link in that quote, you’re taken to this report by WaPo’s Walter Pincus, who does indeed confirm that three GOP senators wrote separately to express an unambiguous view of Ms. Wilson’s role in her husband’s trip.
But here’s what else Pincus reported: “The full Senate committee report says that CPD officials ‘could not recall how the office decided to contact’ Wilson but that ‘interviews and documents indicate his wife suggested his name for the trip.’” This is quite consistent with Hume’s assertion that Plame’s testimony flied “in the face of the evidence adduced by the Senate Intelligence Committee.” [Emphasis added.]
It’s okay to tell the story, guys. But when you do, take care to tell the whole story and not just the parts that suit you. (This is especially important when, as here, the rest of the story undermines your complaint.)
Here, by the way, is the relevant section of the committee’s report. (See p. 4 of the pdf.)
NEW YORK TIMES: “A Supreme Court case about the free-speech rights of high school students, to be argued on Monday, has opened an unexpected fissure between the Bush administration and its usual allies on the religious right.”
Morse v. Frederick, No. 06-278, is probably better known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog explores whether the Court improvidently granted certiorari in this case and should therefore dismiss it.
GEORGE F. WILL SAYS the decision of a federal appeals court to invalidate the District of Columbia’s sweeping gun ban “should alarm the Democratic Party.”
A WARNING FROM EUROPE: “If the authorities refuse to uphold the laws designed to protect us and keep passing new laws that threaten the freedom of our children and the survival of our nations, we will sooner or later have to decide when civil disobedience becomes not just a right, but a duty. And I fear what will happen once we reach that point, which may not be too far off. Judging from the recent uprisings in Utrecht, this process has already begun.”
Others have been writing for a long time now on the calamity — no, candor: on the violence — that’s coming to Europe, and why
What do you call a jurisdiction split between post-Christian secular gay potheads and anti-whoring anti-sodomite anti-everything-you-dig Islamists? If Kurdistan’s an awkward fit in Iraq, how does Pornostan fit in the Islamic Republic of Holland?
I have often thought that if we could just get the Left, both in Europe and the United States, to view Muslims as it now views Christians, we might adopt public policy that could avert the trouble ahead. But that misses the point, doesn’t it? Ibid: “Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb.”
WERE I TO VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT for president, I’d vote for Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. Here’s one reason why.
Keep your eye on Gov. Richardson. If there’s any second tier candidate who’s going to break into the first tier, it’s him. He’s already leading the pack among Internet Democrats.
March 17, 2007
“IN THE ABSENCE OF A DEMONSTRATED NEED, we are not at liberty to disregard the fundamental constitutional requirement of a search warrant.” What federal courts permit, the Vermont Supreme Court will not:
Police need a warrant to search a vehicle even after they arrest an occupant except under extraordinary circumstances, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 3-2 decision notable for its acerbic language and its break with federal precedent.
The ruling, which represented a rare departure from frequent unanimity, said the state constitution provides Vermonters with greater protections from unreasonable searches and seizures than does the federal Bill of Rights.
[…]
“The warrant requirement is robust, alive and well under the Vermont Constitution. It’s gasping on life support under federal law,” said Michael Mello, a professor at Vermont Law School in South Royalton.
According to Vermont’s highest court, “The question presented in this case is whether law-enforcement officers may routinely search a motor vehicle without a warrant, after its occupant has been arrested, handcuffed, and secured in the back seat of a police cruiser, absent a reasonable need to protect the officers’ safety or preserve evidence of a crime. We hold that such warrantless searches offend the core values underlying the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures embodied in Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution. Accordingly, the trial court judgment to the contrary is reversed.”
The full opinion in State of Vermont v. Brian E. Bauder is here in plain text. More backfill from the Burlington Free Press here.
KAIMIPONO D. WENGER at Concurring Opinions:
Question one: If a buyer has a weak credit history and a low-paying job, should he take out a hybrid mortgage — with a low teaser rate for the first two years — in order to buy a house that he couldn’t otherwise afford?
Question two: Assuming that a simple calculation will show that in two years, the monthly payment on this new mortgage will jump to a level the owner can’t actually pay … should the owner then spend what little leftover money he has to add new features (a new deck) to the house?
No, he shouldn’t.
In other breaking news, it’s apparently a bad idea to stick a knife into a plug socket.
THE BULLY AS STALKER: A 16 year-old boy who repeatedly called a classmate “whore” and “fat bitch,” among other things, is guilty of stalking as defined by the Nebraska penal code, according to the state supreme court.
The court’s opinion in State of Nebraska v. Jeffrey K. is
here.
Kudos to the Nebraska Supreme Court for its manifest reliance on the intent of the legislature in determining the meaning of the state’s anti-stalking statute (the Nebraska Supreme Court didn’t make Jeffrey K’s conduct a crime; the Nebraska Legislature did); for the clarity of its written opinion; and for making the legal principles of appellate review in Nebraska easily understandable to the layman.
OH SURE: “Congressional investigations into the firing of U.S. attorneys are about checks and balances, not politics, says Sen. Dianne Feinstein.”
You believe that, don’t you?
But here’s the best part — best because it reveals a true scandal:
The record shows that this was a premeditated plan to remove U.S. attorneys and replace them indefinitely with others — who might not be qualified — without Senate confirmation. The means to accomplish this was a provision slipped into the 2006 reauthorization of the Patriot Act with no notice. [Emphasis added.]
Do I understand Sen. Feinstein correctly? Is she saying that members of Congress vote on bills without knowing what’s in them? If so, her ‘no politics’ claim would have more credibility if she and her colleagues spent less time writing publicity-seeking op-eds and more time reading the legislation they pass.
March 16, 2007
SIDEBAR: Ever kill time over at Found Magazine? It works like this: “We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles — anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life.” And then they post that stuff on the Net.
This postcard, posted on March 19, 2006, is my nominee for the best find ever.
March 15, 2007
APPARENTLY I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM AS A RELIGION. Listen:
March 14, 2007
“THE RATE OF KILLINGS OF US TROOPS IN IRAQ HAS BEEN ON THE DECLINE, down by 60 percent, since the launch of the new security measures in Baghdad, according to statistics revealed by the Multi-National Force-Iraq Combined Press Information Centre.”
Relatedly, “A front-page story in The Post last week suggested that the Bush administration has no backup plan in case the surge in Iraq doesn’t work. I wonder if The Post and other newspapers have a backup plan in case it does.”
HT: PJM
“ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO TODAY DEMANDED THE PROMPT RESIGNATION OF ALL UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton.”
Those who do not learn from history will get shafted by those who have conveniently forgotten it.
U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president. Nuff said.