The Urban Grind

Hat tip: Ron L Via Facebook

After the Sandy Hook shootings, most people will be quick to hop on the gun control bandwagon. But it’s not that simple. As it is now, Connecticut’s gun laws are some of the strictest in the country. Obviously, that didn’t stop Adam Lanza.

Thanks to the deinstitutionalization laws put into effect in the 1960′s, schizophrenics and other mentally ill individuals were moved out of state mental hospitals.

In the 1960s, the United States embarked on an innovative approach to caring for its mentally ill: deinstitutionalization. The intentions were quite humane: move patients from long-term commitment in state mental hospitals into community-based mental health treatment. Contrary to popular perception, California Governor Ronald Reagan’s signing of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act of 196712 was only one small part of a broad-based movement, starting in the late 1950s.13 The Kennedy Administration optimistically described how the days of long-term treatment were now past; newly-developed drugs such as chlorpromazine meant that two-thirds of the mentally ill “could be treated and released within 6 months.”14

At about the same time, two different ideas came to the forefront of American progressive thinking: that there was a right to mental health treatment, and a right to a more substantive form of due process for those who were to be committed to a mental hospital. If there was a right to mental health treatment, then judges could use the threat of releasing patients as a way to force reluctant legislatures to increase funding for treatment.15

The notion of due process for the mentally ill was not radical. American courts have been wrestling with this question from the 1840s onward.16 While perhaps not up to the exacting standards of the American Civil Liberties Union, by the end of the nineteenth century, there was something recognizably like due process before the mentally ill were committed.17 What changed in the 1960s was the result of ACLU attorneys such as Bruce J. Ennis, who claimed that less than 5 percent of mental hospital patients “are dangerous to themselves or to others” and that the rest were improperly locked up “because they are useless, unproductive, ‘odd,’ or ‘different.’”18

Until the 1960s, courts used a medical model when considering commitment: the government’s actions were part of “the historic parens patriae power, including the duty to protect ‘persons under legal disabilities to act for themselves.’ . . . The classic example of this role is when a State undertakes to act as ‘the general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics.’”19 Instead, public safety alone became the legitimate basis for commitment, and with it, a more exacting standard, a bit less than is required for convicting criminal defendants.20

Neither a right to treatment nor a more demanding application of due process alone was particularly destructive, but in combination they made hundreds of thousands of seriously mentally ill people homeless,21 where many died of exposure22 and violence.23 They fell through the cracks, living shorter, more miserable lives, and often greatly degrading the quality of urban life for everyone else.24 A fraction became something quite a bit more unsettling than the mentally ill person begging on the street or disrupting the public library: they became the mad mass murderers of the modern age.

Advertisers have been pulling their ads from the Glenn Beck show on Fox News. In case you’re wondering what Mr. Beck said that was so terrible, he simply called Obama a racist, and said that he hates white people.

Here’s a list of the advertisers who have pulled their ad schedules from Beck’s show:

Among the advertisers to pull spots from the popular cable talk show are Geico, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway /quotes/comstock/13*!brk.a (BRK .A 101,505, -645.00, -0.63%) /quotes/comstock/13*!brk.b (BRK .B 3,325, -26.98, -0.80%) , Procter & Gamble /quotes/comstock/13*!pg/quotes/nls/pg (PG 52.01, -0.29, -0.55%) , Sargento Cheese and Progressive Insurance /quotes/comstock/13*!pgr/quotes/nls/pgr (PGR 16.26, -0.17, -1.04%) , according to the companies and Color of Change, one group that is organizing a campaign against the program.

This whole witch hunt is being organized by a group called Color of Change.

I checked their website and found one thing that really caught my eye. The co-founder of this group is one Van Jones, who is now Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

I wanted to learn more about this Van Jones fellow, so I did a web search. It turns out that just like his boss, Mr. Jones is a black supremacist and a marxist. Birds of a feather really do flock together.

In the next post, I write about how what we can do to help Glenn Beck. So stay tuned.

Barack Hussein Obama has not even become President, yet he’s having his Truth Squad in Missouri go after people who say that Obama’s not a Christian. He tells his supporters to “get in people’s faces” and the Obama brownshirts do exactly as he says.

Now we have an Obama supporter named Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, who admits to using government computers to dig up dirt on Joe the Plumber.

Here’s a picture of the beotch.

Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, confirmed today that she OK’d the check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher following the Oct. 15 presidential debate.

She said there were no political reasons for the check on the sudden presidential campaign fixture though the Support Enforcement Tracking System.

Amid questions from the media and others about “Joe the Plumber,” Jones-Kelley said she approved a check to determine if he was current on any ordered child-support payments.

Such information was not and cannot be publicly shared, she said. It is unclear if Wurzelbacher is involved in a child-support case. Reports state that he lives alone with a 13-year-old son.

“Our practice is when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight, we often take a look” at them, Jones-Kelley said, citing a case where a lottery winner was found to owe past-due child support. “Our practice is to basically look at what is coming our way.”

{snip}

At least four state computer checks on Wurzelbacher were conducted shortly after Republican John McCain frequently brought up “Joe the Plumber” during his final presidential debate with Democrat Barack Obama on Oct. 15.

Yeah right!

It turns out that Ms Kelly has donated $2,500 to the Obama campaign.

Joe the Plumber is now thinking of suing and I hope he goes through with it.

Also, a Toledo police clerk has also been charged with snooping on Joe.

Hat tip: Cyberella

Cyberella was nice enough to round up a bunch of links from interviews of Obama and other leftists on the Chicago public station WBEZ. I haven’t listened to all of them. But I believe that on the segment covering the Supreme Court and civil rights, we have the entire context of how Obama was to spread the wealth, or as he puts in “redistributive change.”

So when you all get a chance, please download these audios before they get scrubbed, listen to them, and pass them along. You’ll need Real Player to listen to them.

Bill Ayers on Student Activism March 29, 2000

John Ayers on School Reform July 27, 2000

Rashid Khalidi on the Aftermath of Sept 11, Sept 12, 2001

Barack Obama on Slavery and the Constitution Sept 6, 2001

Barack Obama on the Court and Civil Rights Jan 18, 2001

Barack Obama on The Right to Vote Feb 27, 2001

Barak Obama on Redistricting Apr 23, 2001

First there was the Obama truth squad in Missouri, and now Obama is having the Secret Service intimidate a private citizen who spoke out against Obama.

Normally, I wouldn’t copy a blogger’s entire post, but I think the word about this needs to get out. So here’s what happened, according to Jessica Hughes.

On Wednesday the 1st of October I received a call on my cell while in the car with my husband. It was a woman who identified herself as calling from the Obama Campaign. The phone # she called from was 903-798-6020 which lists as “Obama Volunteers of Texarkana” (Texas).

She asked if I was an Obama supporter to which I replied:

“No, I don’t support him, your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the State Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets; I think you should find something better to do with your time.” I hung up.

Thursday, October 2, I answered the front door to find the Secret Service. Immediately I thought of the call and was furious that apparently you are not allowed to call Obama a Socialist without the Secret Service coming to investigate. Instead, they asked me about the following comment, relayed by the Obama Volunteer of Texarkana who called me, unsolicited on my cell phone:

“I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor.”

My husband laughed and told them “No, she called him a socialist but she never said a word about him dying.” I gave them my actual quote. The woman asked insolently “Oh? Well why would she make that up?”

I replied that I supposed she wasn’t happy about what I said about her candidate and the Agent said “That’s right, you were rude!” The last time I checked being rude wasn’t a crime in America.

Luckily the big file they had gathered on me didn’t indicate mental instability or a past life of stalking/crime, however they did want to know how I felt about Obama. That was my limit. I told the Agent in no uncertain terms that my thoughts were not pertinent to their investigation, that this was America and the last time I checked I was allowed to think whatever I wanted without being questioned by the Secret Service. In fact, even if I had said what she claimed, that isn’t a threat. I told them (again) and my husband verified that the statement reported by Obama’s volunteer was a lie. I asked them if there was a tape of the call and they said no. I said, “So on the word of a ticked off Obama supporter you are on my porch with no other evidence and you want to question me about my THOUGHTS!?”

They informed me that there was no evidence she was an Obama supporter…someone calling from his campaign…are you kidding?

I was not allowed to know the name of my accuser at which point they informed me that it wasn’t like I was in a court of law, YET, as if this was a good thing. I recognized this as a veiled threat. I told them I would happily go to court since I did nothing wrong and at least then my accuser would have to face me rather than sending the thought police to my house.

They then said they were trying to do me a favor, that they came to me first before “embarrassing you by going to all your neighbors and family”, another threat? I told them to be my guest and talk to whomever they wanted but they weren’t going to investigate my thoughts on my porch.

They also informed me that it would be easier if the next time a supporter calls me I just say “Yeah sure count me in, or just hang up” apparently so she won’t get her undies in a bundle and give them more useless trips. Yeah right. I said “Look, someone calls me unsolicited on my cell phone to ask me to support their candidate and I can’t tell them why I don’t?” I said I was sorry they made a wasted trip but if they had a problem with some made up lie they needed to go talk to her about it because it wasn’t my fault they had to drive from Houston for nothing.

At one point I went inside and got a notepad to record their badge numbers and they refused to show me their badges. They had done the quick flip when they arrived. I asked for a card and the female Agent refused to give me one stating “You’re not going to get a card.” The male Agent gave me a card and told me I could contact Houston with any questions.

The fact that the volunteer lied, the fact that the Secret Service came to my house to question me about my thoughts and feelings and threaten to embarrass me to my neighbors and go to court if I didn’t cooperate is not really the tragedy here. Because that girl on the phone doesn’t have the pull to send the Secret Service to my home. Someone high in the ranks of a campaign working for a man who may be the next President of the United States of America felt comfortable bringing the force of the Federal Government to bear on a private citizen on nothing but the word of a partisan volunteer.

I want to file a counter complaint that false charges were made, that a false report was given to a peace officer. The Secret Service told me I cannot because they will protect the identity of the complainant. I also want the file they have on me destroyed and I want to know that my phone isn’t tapped et cetera. I am hearing a lot of “Out of our Jurisdiction”.

Do I also hear jackboots?

The Obama brownshirts are at it again. This time, they want to make it illegal for people to say anything “bad” about their Obamessiah. In other words, the people of Missouri will not be allowed to say that Obama is a Muslim, terrorist loving America hater, or that it should be obvious judging by the scum he associates with. No! These thugs want people to focus on the “important issues,” like how Obama will soak the “rich,” and how he’ll suck up to every thug dictator so that the rest of the world will like us.

The Governor of Missouri is of course, outraged.

JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts – not a free society.”

Despite the seriousness of plotting a terrorist attack, some would like for there to be a different set of rules if the suspect is a U.S. resident. That happens to be the case with one Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who is being held in a South Carolina military brig.

Al-Marri’s capture six years ago might be the Bush administration’s biggest domestic counterterrorism success story. Authorities say he was an al-Qaida sleeper agent living in middle America, researching poisonous gases and plotting a cyberattack.

To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president’s wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely.

{snip}

The FBI interviewed al-Marri that October and arrested him in December as part of the Sept. 11 investigation. He rarely had been attending classes and was failing in school, the government said.

When investigators looked through his computer files, they found information on industrial chemical suppliers, sermons by bin Laden, how-to guides for making hydrogen cyanide and information about chemicals labeled “immediately dangerous to life or health,” according to Rapp’s court filing. Phone calls and e-mails linked al-Marri to senior al-Qaida leaders.

In early 2003, he was indicted on charges of credit card fraud and lying to the FBI. Like anyone else in the country, he had constitutional rights. He could question government witnesses, refuse to testify and retain a lawyer.

On June 23, 2003, Bush declared al-Marri an enemy combatant, which stripped him of those rights. Bush wrote that al-Marri possessed intelligence vital to protect national security. In his jail cell in Peoria, however, he could refuse to speak with investigators.

A military brig allowed more options. Free from the constraints of civilian law, the military could interrogate al-Marri without a lawyer, detain him without charge and hold him indefinitely. Courts have agreed the president has wide latitude to imprison people captured overseas or caught fighting against the U.S. That is what the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is for.

But al-Marri was not in Guantanamo Bay.

Frankly, I don’t understand the fuss. During World War II, when German saboteurs were caught in the U.S., they were given military trials, and then they were executed. The same thing should happen to this guy. But unfortunately, we’re stuck with sleazebucket lawyers and America-hating college professors, who defend these scumbags. These people are exactly like the AIDS virus, in that they attack and undermine America’s ability and will to defend herself.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed their lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic spying program.

The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated a 2006 order by a lower court in Detroit, which had found the post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity to be unconstitutional, violating rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers.

Now if I remember correctly, that moonbat Judge who made that original moronic ruling was Dhimmi Carter appointee Anna Diggs Taylor(?). And this totally serves that moonbat right.

U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, one of the two Republican appointees who ruled against the plaintiffs, said they failed to show they were subject to the surveillance and therefore do not have standing for their claims.

Now as much as I lately think most Republicans are full of excrement, it seems like their appointees have something between their ears. And as usual, the same cannot be said of their Donk counterparts:

U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Lee Gilman, a Democratic appointee, disagreed, saying he felt the plaintiffs were within their rights to sue and that it was clear to him that the surveillance program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Now if only more judges would stand up to the ACLU and throw their stupid lawsuits out of court!

Via Something And Half of Something

He did this by notifying the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington DC that they no longer have the jurisdiction to consider the many habeus corpus petitions filed on behalf of terrorists at Guantanamo.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that “no court, justice, or judge” can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

Beyond those already imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, the law applies to all non-U.S. citizens, including permanent U.S. residents.

{snip}

Habeas corpus, a Latin term meaning “you have the body,” is one of the oldest principles of English and American law. It requires the government to show a legal basis for holding a prisoner. A series of unresolved federal court cases brought against the administration over the last several years by lawyers representing the detainees had left the question in limbo.

Needless to say, the law professors and the people over at the anti-American, pro-terrorist Center For Constitutional Rights are not happy, which I think it’s a good sign.

The administration’s persistence on the issue “demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce [the clause] in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it,” said Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor involved in the detainee cases.

On Tuesday, the appeals court granted a petition by lawyers for the detainees to argue against the new law. Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the detainees, said yesterday that he expected the administration to file a motion for dismissal of all the cases before the defense challenge is heard.

“We and other habeas counsel are going to vigorously oppose dismissal of these cases,” Warren said. “We are going to challenge that law as violating the Constitution on several grounds.” Whichever side loses in the upcoming court battles, he said, will then appeal to the Supreme Court.

If at first you don’t succeed, sue and sue again.