New Court Decision: Congress Can Withhold ACORN Funding

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like ACORN lost another round in court last week. New York’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court’s decision to re-instate Congressional funding of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) ruling that halting funding did not violate the group’s rights.

Congress finally cut off federal funding to ACORN after the controversy stirred by conservative activist James O’Keefe who videotapped various ACORN offices advising a prostitute to hide her profession in order to get federal housing funding. The “prostitute” was in truth an investigative reporter working with O’Keefe.

ACORN tried to sue James O’Keefe but its lawsuit was thrown out.

Eventually ACORN became so politically toxic that Congress eventually and properly cut off funding for the organization. In response to the actions by Congress ACORN sued to re-instate the finding claiming their rights were being violated and that Congress had given the group what amounted to a “corporate death sentence” by having the funding removed.

After winning the first round with favorable decision by a district court judge in Brooklyn, the case was appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeals. The Appeals Court ruled that the Brooklyn judge was wrong and said that since ACORN only got 10 percent of its funding from the federal government that the organization’s rights were not being violated and its existence was not endangered by removal of federal funding.

It would appear however, that ACORN is fighting a losing battle. Time will tell, certainly.
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New Court Decision: Congress Can Withhold ACORN Funding”


The United States, 2010: A Rogue Government

-By Frank Salvato

With the recent ruling by US District Judge Susan Bolton, a Clinton appointee, blocking the most contentious parts of Arizona law SB1070, we learn two things: One, that the federal government cannot be forced to enforce federal law, regardless of the fact that the law has been brought to legislation by the constitutional process, and two, that today, opportunistic political ideologues who have schemed their ways to power have all but extinguished good government in the United States of America; government that should be exclusively engaged in serving the best interests of the American people.

To be fair, Judge Bolton’s ruling does not end the issue, not by a long shot. In fact, there is a very good chance that the case surrounding Arizona law SB1070 will make it – and in an expedited manner – to the US Supreme Court. This actually bodes well for the American citizen primarily because today the US Supreme Court has a balance that actually gives an edge – even if ever so slightly – to the US Constitution and, thus, the American people. Judge Bolton’s ruling simply put those sections blocked – or deemed unlikely to withstand a challenge in the judicial system, be it from the ACLU, La Raza or the Holder/Obama Justice Department (which is tantamount to the ACLU and La Raza) – on hold until the courts resolve the issues.
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The United States, 2010: A Rogue Government”


BREAKING: Calif. Prop 8 Gay Marriage Ban Overturned

-By Warner Todd Huston

The long awaited ruling from Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, an H.W Bush Appointee and one of only two openly gay federal judges, has ruled that California’s Proposition 8 violates due process and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.

“Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples,” Walker wrote.

Judge Walker said that Prop 8 failed to “advance any rational basis” to deny gay men and lesbians the legal ability to marry.

Pro-traditional marriage activists promise to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit Court and then, likely, to the Supreme Court.
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BREAKING: Calif. Prop 8 Gay Marriage Ban Overturned”


Small Businessman Raped By Legal System

A small businessman that owns rental property was sued by a woman claiming “mental distress” because he left on her door notices that informed her of repairs, notices that he was required by law to leave for her knowledge.

This is the sort of abuse of the system that drives up costs for all of us. In Chicago it now costs renters a starting monthly rental fee of $1,000 a month for a small one bedroom apartment (sometimes two depending on what part of town). One thousand a month is absurd and in outlaying areas of the city is the amount you can get for a mortgage!

It is easy to see that constant regulations and the revolving door of the legal system because owners are being sued by every other renter causes rental prices to soar. This is why we need tort reform as this stuff acts as a corruption tax that makes the cost of living higher for all of us.

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Small Businessman Raped By Legal System”


ICarry Takes Chicago and Mayor Daley Back to Court!!

From ICarry.org…

Executive Director Shaun Kranish writes:

Although the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in McDonald that Chicago has violated an individual and fundamental right to keep and bear arms by having an outright ban on pistols (and for decades this ban did not apply to Chicago aldermen and other criminals), Daley and his cohorts have immediately responded with more outrageous restrictions.
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ICarry Takes Chicago and Mayor Daley Back to Court!!”


When Justice Serves an Ideology Instead of a Nation

-By Frank Salvato

As I was reading about the proceedings in the trial of impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, it struck me as odd that the prosecution was relying so much on the profanity-laced wiretap audio and not going, instead, straight to the source of incriminating information in the many witnesses they could call. Why aren’t they calling Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Tony Rezko, their staff, relations, acquaintances and business partners to testify instead of relying on sensationalism? The answer could be that they don’t want a conviction and/or a thorough investigation.

The notion that the US Justice Department might opt not to prosecute crimes committed by powerful elected officials isn’t new. Favoritism, in one form or another – and at varying intensities – has existed throughout the history of the United States. The foible of misplaced political loyalty facilitates this weakness in human nature. Just ask anyone who went to prison for actions or inactions taken during Watergate.
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When Justice Serves an Ideology Instead of a Nation”


Jury Damage Award Could Close Calif. Healthcare Facilities

-By Warner Todd Huston

When companies are found to have violated regulations that govern their industry, is it right that a jury of non-experts can award damages the amount of which will wipe the company off the face of the earth? That is a question that has been raised in a case recently decided against Skilled Healthcare LLC of California.

A class action lawsuit (lawsuit info here) brought by trial lawyers was filed late last year against Skilled Healthcare of California claiming that the company had violated state regulations that stipulates that nursing homes must maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient, per day (ppd). The lawsuit claimed that the nursing homes operated by Skilled Healthcare often did not meet the requirement.

Interestingly, there was never any claim from any patient that there’d been harmed or put in danger. Not a single patient claimed personal injury before these lawyers began to file their class action lawsuit.
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Jury Damage Award Could Close Calif. Healthcare Facilities”


Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama first became president and the left-wing Old Media universally indulged the claim that he was “just like FDR“? Of late the Old Media has backed off that hyperbolic statement, but at least in a single incident, Obama has proven indeed to be just like FDR. The similarity entails laws about which the two presidents lied to the public in order to sell them. And in both instances, the truth only came out in court.

For FDR it was Social Security. The Roosevelt Administration sold Social Security as an “insurance” program when it began to push for the policy. The truth is, of course, that Social security and its unemployment plan adjunct is in no way an insurance program. It is welfare pure and simple.

But FDR sold it as “insurance” anyway. In 1936, for instance, FDR sternly told an audience in Pennsylvania that it was an insurance program.
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Obama’s FDR-Like Bait and Switch”


Why Kagan is Unqualified — and Dangerous

-By Selwyn Duke

Despite being thoroughly unqualified to occupy the bench, Elena Kagan will most likely be confirmed to the Supreme Court. This is because most of our 100 senators are almost as unqualified to judge a judge as she is to be one. What is the proper criterion to apply? Well, a simple analogy illustrates the point best.

Let’s say you needed to hire a football referee. If he said that he was a “pragmatic” referee, viewed the rulebook as “living” and thus would interpret the rules to suit the “times,” would he be your man?

Since it’s the job of the rule makers to craft the rules and the referee’s role is only to determine if they’ve been broken, I think you’d be aghast. It would be obvious you were dealing with someone who didn’t know what his job was or was unwilling to perform it. And you certainly wouldn’t want to hire a referee who was giving himself the latitude to say, “This fellow here violated a rule, but since I don’t like that rule, I’m going to let his action stand” or “That guy over there has gone by the book, but I don’t like something he did, so I’ll penalize him anyway.”

A judge’s job is analogous to a referee’s. It is the legislature’s (rule makers’) place to make the rules, and the judge’s only role is to determine if they’ve been broken. How he feels about a given law is irrelevant. He is but a gatekeeper.
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Why Kagan is Unqualified — and Dangerous”


The 17th Amendment Revisited

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Original provisions of the Constitution intended to prevent Congress from enacting “dumb” laws were vitiated by ratification of the 17th Amendment.

Before ratification of the 17th Amendment it’s unlikely that a Senate committee would have needed to raise the sort of question posed by Senator Coburn during confirmation hearings on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. A Wall Street Journal editorial reports:
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The 17th Amendment Revisited”


‘Ms. Kagan, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Lesbian?’

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

The above pertinent, personal, and principled question will not be asked of the new Supreme Court nominee because no senator has the courage, commitment, and character to ask it, although only a fool or fanatic says the question is illegitimate. Even “conservative” Republicans are silent on this matter. Maybe some of them need a spinal transplant to help them take a stand. I don’t expect Democrats to take a stand since they haven’t stood for anything worthwhile since Senator “Scoop” Henry Jackson died Sept. 1, 1983 and Congressman Larry McDonald was killed the same day when Koran Air Flight 077 was shot down by Russian interceptors presumably killing all on board.

Reports have been circulating that Kagan’s chosen homosexual lifestyle is well known in the Harvard community and her partner is commonly known. She has not been trying to hide her sexual identify—until now.
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‘Ms. Kagan, Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Lesbian?’”


Wash. Post Cries: White ‘Hate’ Groups Increasing! Says Who?

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s time once again for some more left-wing hand wringing over the supposed rise of “white militias” in the era of Obama. This time it is the blather of Metro Columnist Courtland Milloy claiming that white-based hate groups have increased substantially because we have a black president. Milloy also rails about the “racial double standard” in evidence because no one is all that upset about this business. If it were black racists increasing their militia activities because of a white president, Milloy gravely writes, why the whole country would be alarmed.

Milloy isn’t the only denizen of the Old Media to make the claim that white hate groups are increasing, though. It has been an occasional claim by a dozen or so journalists since Obama’s inauguration. But is it true? Are white hate groups increasing? And is it because Obama became president? Who says so, anyway?

There is one source that each of these stories relies upon to prove that white militias and hate groups have increased under Obama. That source is the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC claims that hate groups have increased to over 900 under Obama.
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Wash. Post Cries: White ‘Hate’ Groups Increasing! Says Who?”


Supreme Court protects Chicagoans 2d Amendment Rights by Overturning Unconstitutional Handgun Ban

From the Ratowitz for Congress campaign (5th District)…

U.S. Congressional Candidate, David Ratowitz (IL-5) praises SCOTUS for upholding the 2d Amendment Rights of Chicagoans and urges Chicago’s City Council to respect the rights of law abiding citizens.

Chicago, IL, June 24, 2010– Long time transparency and pro-liberty advocate Candidate for U.S. Congress from Illinois’ 5th Congressional District, David Ratowitz supports the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago.
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Supreme Court protects Chicagoans 2d Amendment Rights by Overturning Unconstitutional Handgun Ban”


Use Evidence Even if Tainted to Convict the Guilty

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

We are told, “It is better to free 100 guilty men than risk convicting one innocent man,” but that is absurd. While no fair and sane person wants to see an innocent individual go to jail, the above statement is fraught with error. Those “100 guilty” people will be free to prey upon hundreds of innocent ones and will not be limited to one innocent person.

Because of the above warped, witless, and wicked principle, the courts, in 1966, swung to the extreme of protecting the rights of the accused at the expense of the abused with its Miranda ruling. Since then, thousands of felons have walked out of court (or never arrived there) because investigators followed numerous silly, senseless procedural rules–rules put in place to protect crooks not to ensure fairness and justice. However, that may be changing with the Supreme Court’s decision last week to soften the Miranda ruling and it should correct judicial abuse as illustrated below.

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Use Evidence Even if Tainted to Convict the Guilty”


The End of Our Legal System: Judges Joining Unions?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions are meant for one thing and one thing only: to “get” for its members. They have one purpose and that is to take as much from an employer as they can take, to get as much money and benefits as they can get away with. Unions are not interested in assuring quality workmanship, they are not interested in offering quality to customers, and they most certainly aren’t interested in efficiency and modernization. Unions have but one purpose, to extort as many goodies as possible from an employer regardless of what it does to a business or a profession. Unfortunately, in the State of New York, judges are looking to “get” from the Empire State’s taxpayers regardless of what it might do to our legal system.

The New York Post reports that New York judges are toying with the idea of throwing in with the New York teachers union, New York State United Teachers, so that they can engage in collective bargaining.

One activist judge in particular is behind this effort according to the Post. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack is a former teacher, member of the United Federation of Teachers has been agitating for a pay raise for quite some time.
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The End of Our Legal System: Judges Joining Unions?”


Does Juror Have More Authority than a Judge?

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

A juror in a criminal trial has more authority than the judge or the governor! The juror is the final defense against official tyranny. He can declare a bad law null and void, and if that is often done by informed, intrepid, and incensed jurors, it will result in new laws that are not offensive.

One juror has the right and the responsibility to declare, “This law is unjust, and I declare the defendant not guilty.” The judge can yell like a stuck pig, gnash his teeth and seethe, without recourse. He is powerless to do anything about it, and that is what most of them don’t like. It erodes their power (control). Though the defendant is guilty of breaking a law, he is innocent of committing a crime! That is jury nullification, and it is hated by totalitarians and loved by informed patriots.

Most judges get testy when discussing jury nullification and suggest or affirm that it is really “jury lawlessness,” but they are wrong. Jury nullification is firmly established in historical and legal precedents.
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Does Juror Have More Authority than a Judge?”


Illinois One of the Worst Legal Climates in the Country

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Institute for Legal Reform has completed its 2010 rankings of the lawsuit climate in the various states and Illinois comes in at a dismal 45th place. If Obama needs some help, that would be 45 out of 50 states (not 57 or 58 states as he said during the campaign). This overly litigious lawsuit climate is yet another reason why Illinois has some of the highest unemployment stats in the country.

The rankings determine how reasonable a state’s tort liability culture is as perceived by U.S. Businesses and their legal counsel offices. In other words, do businesses feel that the legal system in a state is good for or detrimental to business interests?

According to the survey, Chicago/Cook County has the single worst tort climate in the country. The respondents felt that Cook County had the most biased judges, the most corruption, the highest most unfair damage awards, and a slow, unresponsive legal process.
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Illinois One of the Worst Legal Climates in the Country”


We Have to Talk About Elena Kagan

-By Frank Salvato

The coverage of President Obama’s most recent nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, has been nothing less than incredible. Of course, the word incredible can be used in several contexts, some good and some bad. To clarify, I am using it in a context meant to mean bad…very bad…incredibly bad.

While the mainstream – or irrelevant – media waxes on about how she is a surprisingly moderate nominee for the president to have chosen, the extent of their critical examination of Ms. Kagan, former and first female Dean of Harvard Law School, consists of yarns about basketball and softball pickup games. As Marcia Kramer of CBS-TV in New York tells us regarding her relationship with the prostitute hustling Eliot Spitzer,

“Spitzer told CBS 2 HD about that time Kagan goaded him into a spaghetti eating contest. Spitzer gave up after eating seven bowls, but Kagan put the picture on the front page of the Princeton paper, no doubt with a ‘saucy’ headline.”

MSNBC’s Gabe Pressman reported on how Ms. Kagan’s nomination was a great victory for the Women’s Movement,
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We Have to Talk About Elena Kagan”


Gov Christie to NJ Supreme Court Justice: You’re Fired!

-By Warner Todd Huston

My favorite sentiment about the U.S. Supreme Court is from that rascal President Andrew Jackson. In 1832 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Worcester v. Georgia that Old Hickory wasn’t too happy with. In reply he is famous for the sentiment that the Court made its decision and proposed that “now let them enforce it.”*

Would that we had more Andrew Jacksons.

Well, perhaps we do have at least one. I nominate Governor Chris Christie for the Andrew Jackson award for 2010 because Christie is taking an extremely unusual measure for this day and age. He’s firing one of New Jersey’s Supreme Court Justices and appointing one of his own, one that will closer follow a more conservative path.

We need to see legislators exhibit a more adversarial relationship with the courts. You see, it wasn’t supposed to be that the courts ruled all they surveyed. Our system has been warped into imagining that the courts are the final word on everything. This was not supposed to be the way it worked. Courts were merely meant to read the law and adjudicate cases accordingly. And if a court ruled something un-constitutional, then it was then back in the legislature’s court to write a law that is Constitutional. Unfortunately, we’ve lost the idea that the legislatures and executives of our political system are supposed to fulfill their own roles as leaders and lawmakers. Unfortunately, they’ve all too often abdicated roles to the often unelected and unaccountable courts.
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Gov Christie to NJ Supreme Court Justice: You’re Fired!”


Father of Fallen Marine Forced to Pay Creep’s Court Costs

-By Warner Todd Huston

The creeps at the Westboro Abomination are at it again, this time finding a compliant judge to force the father of a fallen Marine to pay their further court costs from a recent case.

On March 6, 2006 Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder of Finksburg, Maryland lost his life in Al Anbar province, Iraq in service to our country. He was 20 years old.

The creeps of the Westboro “church” showed up at this young hero’s funeral and harassed the bereaving family as they laid him to rest. As a result, the family sued the creeps.

In yet another indignity to the bereaved, the Marine’s family has been ordered by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to pay the “church” $16,510 to fund their appeal process.

The Marine’s father Albert is struggling under this unfair debt.

Donate to help this family pay this idiotic court-forced fee and show these creeps in the so-called Westboro church that Americans stick by their troops.

http://www.matthewsnyder.org/help.html
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Father of Fallen Marine Forced to Pay Creep’s Court Costs”


Have You Heard? Clinton Appointed Judge Is Impeached

-By Warner Todd Huston

Judge G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton in 1994. In March of 2010 he was impeached by the House of Representatives for bribe taking and corruption. I’m just curious, but have you heard this story about this Democrat judge being impeached?

On March 11, Porteous, a Clinton appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, was impeached by the House on a startling vote of 423 “yeas” for impeachment to NO votes at all coming to the support of the judge (with 7 not voting). Now his case moves to the Senate for the final judgment.

Nathan Koppel of the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog has a nicely succinct post on the details, but the final analysis is that the Democrat judge violated nearly every article of comportment and law with his corrupt behavior.

If the Senate votes to convict, he will be the fourteenth impeached judge in American history and only the eighth federal judge to be impeached.

So, did you hear of this corrupt Democrat judge who was impeached yesterday? Do you think the Old Media will make much of this incident? Or is my report the only one you even saw?
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Have You Heard? Clinton Appointed Judge Is Impeached”


Obama Judgeship Bribery Joins Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you a member of the U.S. House of Reps or a Senator that needs some “convincing” that selling out your constituents and implementing a socialist take over of healthcare is a good idea? Well, President Wheeler-Dealer has a deal for you.

You’ve heard of the Cornhusker Kickback where a Senator from a western state can get all sorts of freebies from the government for a “yes” vote on Obamacare?

How about that ever popular Louisiana Purchase where a nice southern lady was paid off for that “yes” vote?

Well now comes Obama’s newest backroom deal in an effort to payoff a member of Congress for a “yes” vote.

Obama has now bribed a member of Congress with a judgeship to the brother to a member of the House of Reps in hopes that he will vote “yes” on Obamacare during the now upcoming reconciliation phase of the bill.
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Obama Judgeship Bribery Joins Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback”


Congress? Who Needs ‘Em? Let Obama Pack the Supreme Court

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a reader feedback opinion editorial from reader Stan Isaacs that is as outlandish as it is indicative of the disregard for the American process that liberals all too often exhibit. It is proof once again that tradition, law, and any effort at legitimacy is wholly outside a liberal’s field of interest. Winning is all they care about, voters opinions and the rule of law be damned.

What sparked Mr. Isaacs’ interest is when he somehow stumbled upon the fact that the number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices is not set in stone in the Constitution. We now have nine justices but in the past have had fewer. What intrigued him is that the number of justices fluctuated because of politics. “Political issues accounted for the changes,” Isaacs gleefully reported.

In keeping with these “political issues,” Mr. Isaacs lit upon the ideal way to help Obama finally push his left-wing agenda. He advised President Obama to add three new justices to the SCOTUS, justices that will mindlessly adhere to the grand vision of the age of Obama and will rule accordingly. This is necessary, Isaacs thinks, because the court has proven an impediment to Obama’s grand socialist design. Worse, Congress has balked at Obama’s wholesale destruction of America and has resisted his attempts to turn America into a weaker, less free version of Europe. Issacs, you see, demands a recount.

Sadly, Isaacs doesn’t seem to have the first clue why Obama’s re-design of the United States hasn’t already barreled ahead unhindered. Worse, he doesn’t seem to care.
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Congress? Who Needs ‘Em? Let Obama Pack the Supreme Court”


Buffalo Grove Ponders Red Light Cameras Monday

-By Warner Todd Huston

These last weeks have been very busy for Barnet Fagel.

When the Buffalo Grove resident heard his town’s village board was going to discuss the possibility of bringing red light cameras to intersections within the Chicago suburb, he swung into action.

The 66-year old Fagel, a traffic researcher and a highway safety advocate with motorist advocacy group the National Motorists Association, is arguably this state’s number one expert on red light camera enforcement and also the industry’s strongest critic here in Illinois.

In the past two weeks, in between promoting and participating in a Valentine’s Day red light camera protest in Chicago, and multiple media appearances, Fagel has been busy preparing his fight against Buffalo Grove’s RLCs….

Read the rest at The Expired Meter.com
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Buffalo Grove Ponders Red Light Cameras Monday”


Abortion Rates Rose in Illinois 2008

-By Warner Todd Huston

United Press International is reporting that abortion rates rose five percent in Illinois in 2008. Illinois doctors performed 47,717 abortions, the most in five years.

The state Department of Public Health reported 47,717 abortions in 2008, the latest year for which it has figures. In 1998, there were 49,403.

There is a law on the books that could bring this number down, of course, but extreme leftists and infanticide fans in the state have stalled its implementation over and over again. A Parental Notification Law for teens 17 and under was passed in 1995 and the left has been fighting it in court ever since. So far, every attempt they’ve made to have it declared unconstitutional has failed, yet each year they continue to find pliant, ant-constitutional judges to once again declare it “on hold” until its legal status can be “reviewed” and determined.
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Abortion Rates Rose in Illinois 2008″


Why Is Cook County AG Looking Into Students Studying the Wrongly Convicted?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The work of the Medill Innocence Project has already led to the exoneration of 11 inmates in Illinois. In 2000 Governor George Ryan cited the Medill Innocence Project of Northwestern University as one of the reasons he suspended the death penalty in the Land of Lincoln. It has yet to be fully reinstated.

The Medill Innocence Project has recently set its sites on the case of Anthony McKinney, convicted of murdering a security officer in 1978. The students of the Project feel that they have successfully proved that McKinney was wrongly convicted and have also succeeded in getting a judge to review the case.

One might think that thanks and accolades should be the student’s reward for their efforts to repair justice in Illinois. But for some reason Cook County prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mails of the students of the Project. You heard that right. Prosecutors seem to be investigating the students!
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Why Is Cook County AG Looking Into Students Studying the Wrongly Convicted?”


Obama’s Newest Racemongering Judge: California’s Edward Chen

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama has gone out of his way to “diversify” the federal bench with his spate of nominations of various minorities chief of which was his successful seating of the “wise Latina,’ Sonia Sotomayor, on the Supreme Court. Obama’s nominees* for 10 district court openings include four African-Americans, three Asian-Americans, one Latino and four women. One of those nominees, San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen, received a favorable vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington today.

So what sort of judge is Edward Chen? Well, for one, the left-wing American Bar Association rated Chen a “well qualified” nominee and many of his associates at the ACLU speak highly of him. As an ACLU lawyer, Chen was known for opposing English-only policies and for pushing discriminatory affirmative action ideals. He even came to the aid of gang members in one case. Chen was quite the ACLU activist between 1979 and 2001.

His ACLU history would suffice to make many wary of him, of course. But for a segment of America, working for the ACLU is not a disqualifier. So in order to judge Edward Chen one must look at his past. Discovering what Judge Chen thinks of the country upon which he apparently assumes to sit in judgment is a telling exercise. Sadly, it seems he has quite a low opinion of the nation that he will be serving.
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Obama’s Newest Racemongering Judge: California’s Edward Chen”


Ill. Supreme Court Gives Gun Owners a Small Victory

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Illinois Supreme Court has affirmed a decision by the Third District Appellate Court that ruled that the definition of a “case” for transporting a firearm does, indeed, include an automobile’s enclosed front seat console.

The current law provides for several ways that a firearm can be transported:

(4) Carries or possesses in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person except when on his land or in his own abode or fixed place of business any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm, except that this subsection (a) (4) does not apply to or affect transportation of weapons that meet one of the following conditions:
(i) are broken down in a non-functioning state; or
(ii) are not immediately accessible; or
(iii) are unloaded and enclosed in a case,firearm carrying box, shipping box, or other container by a person who has been issued a currently valid Firearm Owner’s Identification Card

IllinoisCarry.com celebrated the decision as a “huge win” for Illinois gun owners.

The case in question, People vs Diggins, involved the transportation of two unloaded firearms and two loaded magazines in the console of a vehicle driven by an individual in possession of a valid FOID card. In unanimous agreement the justices ruled the trial judge erred in denying defense the right to argue that a console is considered a “case” or “other container” under sec. 24 -1.4(c)iii and for instructing the jury that the console is not considered a “case”.

This ruling would also seem to resolve the question as to the legality of transporting unloaded hanguns in the glove box of a vehicle by IL citizens in possession of a valid FOID card.

Of course, the law still states that firearms must be carried outside of a vehicle in some sort of case specifically built for a firearm so one wonders exactly how practical this new interpretation of the law will be?

Still, this is a step in the right direction for curtailing the capriciousness of our absurdly strict gun transportation laws.
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Ill. Supreme Court Gives Gun Owners a Small Victory”


NBC’s Gregory Assumes Liberal Argument for Healthcare, Raises ‘Right Wing Conspiracy’

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a Meet the Press interview with Bill Clinton on September 27, NBC’s David Gregory seemed to assume as accepted fact that the only way to fix healthcare was for Americans to “pay higher taxes.” He also asked the former chief executive if the “vast right wing conspiracy” that his wife bemoaned in 1998 was now in high gear attacking President Obama.

During the interview, Gregory brought up the “big challenges” that Obama was facing, particularly with the healthcare issue. In his question, though, Gregory did not phrase his healthcare question by using qualifiers like “Obama says,” or “Democrats claim.” He seemed to simply take the president’s position as accepted fact without qualifiers.

On healthcare, Gregory asked Clinton if Obama was doing a good job. “And on health care, as this debate rolls through,” Gregory asked, ” do you think the President has leveled with the American people on this fact, that Americans are going to have to pay higher taxes if they want health care reform?”

Notice that Gregory asked Clinton if Obama had done a good job leveling with the American people on “this fact” and that we are “going to have to pay higher taxes” to get that reform? Gregory didn’t say, for instance, that Obama “feels” that the only way to reform healthcare is to pay higher taxes. In essence, Gregory asked his question assuming that Obama’s position is essentially true.
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NBC’s Gregory Assumes Liberal Argument for Healthcare, Raises ‘Right Wing Conspiracy’”


Why Conservatives Get Sandbagged By Liberals

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few weeks ago the Weekly Standard had a ridiculously hopeful editorial about how President Obama couldn’t possibly go any further to the left with his next SCOTUS pick because of the ideological basis upon which they sold Justice Sotomayor. For the Standard, Terry Eastland was sure that the logic by which Sotomayor was sold to the country would preclude a shift leftward for the next court pick. Unfortunately, Eastland proved once again that too many conservatives simply do not understand that liberalism does not rely on logic or consistency , it simply barrels forward with no heed to reason. You see, liberals are powermongers, not logicians. They only care about what wins not that their logic is consistent moment to moment. Eastland’s complete lack of understanding shows why conservatives are sideswiped by liberals every time.

Eastland’s main point was that during the confirmation process, Judge Sotomayor “dissented from her sponsor’s view of what a judge should be” by presenting her judicial philosophy as one based on a strict interpretation of the law. This, Eastland notes, is in stark contrast to President Obama’s apparently long-held belief that a judge needed “empathy” to be a good jurist.

Eastland notes that in 2005, then Senator Obama voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts “precisely because… the nominee came up short on the empathy measure.” Eastland then points out that early in the four-day-long confirmation process Sotomayor began “separating herself from Obama on the matter of empathy” and that her testimony eventually made explicit the difference between the nominee and her patron on that point.
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Why Conservatives Get Sandbagged By Liberals”