The Urban Grind

Let me just say I don’t like Newt Gingrich. The man has more baggage than JFK Airport. Plus, he’ll say and do anything to get elected, which is what all politicians do. But, he has come out swinging lately by making bold politically incorrect statements, which I agree with. Nor has he backed down after all the whining by the usual suspects.

First, he spoke the truth about the fakestinians being an invented people. PLO leader Zahir Muhsein even admitted it during an interview with a Dutch newspaper.

Anyway, Gingrich is now going after activist judges.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich again blasted the judicial branch of the U.S. government Sunday and said he would be willing to send Capitol Hill police or U.S. Marshals to arrest judges and haul them before a congressional hearing.

Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,“ Gingrich said there is a ”fundamental assault on our liberties by the courts.” He defended his previously stated position that the president and Congress should have the authority to ignore court rulings they disagree with, and that in the case of extremely controversial decisions, lawmakers should have the power to subpoena activist judges and have them defend their rulings.

When host Bob Schieffer questioned how such a subpoena could be enforced, such as whether he would send a Capitol Hill police officer to forcibly bring the judge in, Gingrich said yes.

“If you had to,” he said. “Or you would instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshal.”

{snip}

“You have an increasingly arrogant judiciary,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.“ ”The question is, is there anything we the American people can do? The standard answer has been eventually we’ll appoint good judges. I think that’s inadequate. The Constitution promises a balance of the judicial branch, the executive branch and the legislative branch. The Federalist Papers say specifically the weakest of the three branches is the judiciary.

Frankly, I would love to see him go after this judge.

27 year old Lamont Pride is no stranger to jail. He was wanted for a shooting in North Carolina back in August. He was arrested yet again last month for drug possession and child endangerment charges. Here is the picture of the lovely individual.

Yet thanks to Judge Evelyn Laporte, Lamont Pride was set free only to murder officer Peter Figoski.

For once I agree with Mayor Bloomberg!

We mustn’t let a little thing called common sense interfere with the “right” of non citizens to vote in America. (Snort!) Apparently asking for proof of citizenship is inconsistent with the National Voter Registration Act. Not to mention the fact that it’s also racist, cruel, and just too much to ask (double snort).

Thanks to the mealy mouthed, spineless “conservatives,” who insisted till they were blue in the face that there was no difference between McCain and the black supremacist, America hating, marxist Muslim now occupying the White House, we now have a leftist, military hating, shariah promoting woman as our newest Supreme Court Justice.

WASHINGTON – The Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan as the 112th justice and fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. The vote was 63-37 for President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed retired Justice John Paul Stevens. Five Republicans joined all but one Democrat and the Senate’s two independents to support Kagan. In a rarely practiced ritual reserved for the most historic votes, senators sat at their desks and stood to cast their votes with “ayes” and “nays.” Kagan isn’t expected to alter the ideological balance of the court, where Stevens was considered a leader of the liberals. But the two parties clashed over her nomination. Republicans argued that Kagan was a political liberal who would be unable to be impartial. Democrats defended her as a highly qualified legal scholar.”>Supreme Court Justice!

The judge that struck down most of SB-1070 is U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who of course is a Clinton appointee. Here are the parts of the law that were struck down.

• Requiring a police officer to make a reasonable attempt to check the immigration status of those they have stopped;

• Forbidding police from releasing anyone they have arrested until that person’s immigration status is determined;

• Making it a violation of Arizona law for anyone not a citizen to fail to carry documentation;

• Creating a new state crime for trying to secure work while not a legal resident;

• Allowing police to make warrantless arrests if there is a belief the person has committed an offense that allows them to be removed from the United States.

Here are parts of the law that the Obama administration *did not* challenge:

Making it a crime to stop a vehicle in traffic to hire a day laborer or for someone looking for work to get into a stopped vehicle;

• Requiring state officials to work with the federal government regarding illegal immigrants;

• Allowing Arizona residents to file suit against any agency, official, city or county for adopting policies that restrict the ability of workers to enforce federal immigration law “to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”

Here’s Governor’s Brewer’s response:

For all you “conservatives” who kept insisting that there was NO difference between John McCain and Barack Hussein Obama, this is all your fault!

You have no one but yourselves to blame when this Wise Latina (in other words, Aztlanist shill) legislates from the bench.

To his credit, John McCain at least opposed Sotomayor’s nomination.

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.

Maybe. After experience chest pains, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had to have a second surgery to keep an artery open.

Wouldn’t it be great if President Bush could appoint a new, truly conservative Supreme Court Justice between now and November? The Democrats would become apoplectic! And it would be lots of fun to watch, and to cover in this blog.

Now regarding Justice Kennedy, I’m not a fan of any Supreme Court Justice who has the audacity to cite foreign laws, and I don’t like that he voted with the liberal bloc on Roper vs. Simmons Here are the gory details of that case:

This case, which originated in Missouri, involved Christopher Simmons, who in 1993 at the age of 17, concocted a plan to murder Shirley Crook, bringing two younger friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, into the plot. The plan was to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and tossing the victim off a bridge. The three met in the middle of the night; however, Tessmer then dropped out of the plot. Simmons and Benjamin broke into Mrs. Crook’s home, bound her hands and covered her eyes. They drove her to a state park and threw her off a bridge.

Once this case was brought to trial, the evidence against Simmons was overwhelming. He had confessed to the murder, performed a videotaped reenactment at the crime scene, and there was testimony from Tessmer against Simmons that showed premeditation (he discussed the plot in advance and later bragged about the crime). The jury returned a guilty verdict. Even considering mitigating factors (no prior criminal history, sympathy from Simmons’ family, and most significantly for the later appeal, his age), the jury nonetheless recommended a death sentence, which the trial court imposed. Simmons first moved for the trial court to set aside the conviction and sentence, citing, in part, ineffective assistance of counsel. His age, and thus impulsiveness, along with a troubled background were brought up as issues that Simmon’s claimed should have been raised at the sentencing phase. The trial court rejected the motion, and Simmons appealed.

When the case came before the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy, along with the liberal bloc decided to void the laws enacted by 20 states by ruling that minors cannot receive the death penalty.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy cited a body of scientific and sociological research [1] that found that juveniles have a lack of maturity and sense of responsibility compared to adults. Adolescents were found to be overrepresented statistically in virtually every category of reckless behavior. The Court noted that in recognition of the comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles, almost every State prohibited those under age 18 from voting, serving on juries, or marrying without parental consent. The studies also found that juveniles are also more vulnerable to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure. They have less control, or experience with control, over their own environment. They also lack the freedom that adults have, in escaping a criminogenic setting.

In support of the “national consensus” position, the Court noted the increasing infrequency with which states were applying capital punishment for juvenile offenders. At the time of the decision, 20 states had the juvenile death penalty on the books, but only six states had executed prisoners for crimes committed as juveniles since 1989. Only three states had done so in the past 10 years: Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. Furthermore, five of the states that allowed the juvenile death penalty at the time of the 1989 case had since abolished it.

The Court also looked to international law to support the holding. Since 1990, only seven other countries ? Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China ? have executed defendants who were juveniles at the time of their crime. Justice Kennedy noted that since 1990 each of those countries had either abolished the death penalty for juveniles or made public disavowal of the practice, and that the United States stood alone in allowing execution of juvenile offenders. The Court also noted that only the United States and Somalia had not ratified Article 37 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (September 2, 1990), which expressly prohibits capital punishment for crimes committed by juveniles.

Frankly, idiots like this, who base their rulings on what goes on in Third World rogue states, and on what the U.N. says, should be kept as far away from the Supreme Court as possible. They conveniently forget that their job is to judge cases based on the U.S. Constitution.

But there’s more! Kennedy pretty much negated our concept of property rights with the infamous Kelo vs. New London ruling. He needs to go!

It turns out that Jimmy Carter appointed judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who last week ruled that the NSA’s surveillance program was unconstitutional, is a Secretary and Trustee of the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan. This foundation has recently donated $45,000 to the ACLU of Michigan.

Also it looks like she should be recusing herself from another case as well:

(Judge Diggs Taylor is also the presiding judge in another case where she may have a conflict of interest. The Arab Community Center for Social and Economic Services (ACCESS) is a defendant in another case now before Judge Diggs Taylor?s court [Case No. 06-10968 (Mich. E.D.)]. In 2003, the CFSEM donated $180,000 to ACCESS.)

Frankly, if Judge Roy Moore can be thrown off the bench for merely refusing to remove a Ten Commandments display, then there should be no reason why this woman can’t be removed for being a terror supporter. And if that last statement sounds harsh, consider who appointed her.

Via The Commons Blog

Hat Tip: Ron J.

This past Friday, a judge in Oregon ruled that voter passed property compensation law, Measure 37, was unconstitutional.

Marion County Circuit Judge Mary James struck down the law as violating five provisions of the state and federal constitutions.

The law, passed as Measure 37 on the November 2004 ballot, requires that state and local governments either compensate land owners when regulations lower property values or waive the rules.

James said the statute violates equal protection provisions of the Oregon Constitution and a state constitutional ban on suspending laws.

Statement from Gov. Kulongoski

She also ruled it breaches the separation of powers between government branches, “intrudes on” legislative authority and violates due process protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Measure 37 was originally sponsored by Oregonians in Action, and voters passed the measure by 60%.

The Chutzpah of these judges!

Victoria Taft goes into more detail on Measure 37 here and here.

Rob Kremer has the following to say about the overturning of Measure 37:

The recent Supreme Court decision that said live sex shows are protected speech had to somehow make the argument that a paid sex act constitutes ??expression of opinion.?? Just what opinion might that be? Any reasonable person who reads Section 8 must conclude that the framers were referring to written and spoken opinion, not lewd acts. Yet the courts are so in love with the free speech rights that they expansively interpret it.

Not so with our property rights. If they can do the mental contortion necessary to convince themselves that a live sex act is an expression of opinion, then certainly they could be equally protective of our right to property, say, by acknowledging that regulating the entire productive use of your land away in order to achieve some public purpose just might be a ??taking.??

But no, the courts care not a whit about property rights, so they narrowly construe the definition so as to allow government to steal property value again and again.

Right on, Rob!