Froth Slosh B'Gosh

In A Nutshell...

This illustrates what is wrong with the criminal justice system.

Renegade Amish Bishop Sam Mullet, convicted of federal hate crimes in a series of beard- and hair-cutting attacks on other Amish across Ohio, should go to prison for the rest of his life when he is sentenced Friday, federal prosecutors said today.

Let that sink in for a minute.  Prosecutors want to send someone to prison for the rest of his life for directing assaultive acts of barberism.

I'm not trying to minimize what Mullet did, but seeking the same sentence meted out to those who kill people is insane.

So They Went And Did That

Virginia's senate is split 20 seats to 20 seats between Democrats and Republicans.  So what did the senate do while one Democrat was at the inaguration of the President and unable to vote?  They rammed through a gerrymandered redistricting plan that eliminated a Democrats seat.

They have no shame, no shame at all.  They're not interested in governing, they're only interested in power, and how to gain or maintain it.

Shorter Joan Orie Melvin

I'm above the law.

And in a related development, her former colleagues tell her to go pound salt.

Is This About His Ego?

Frankly, I can not for the life of me figure out why Governor-Bought-And-Paid-For is suing the NCAA over the sanctions against Penn State.  The university agreed to the penalties, and while Corbett sat on the board of trustees, the Commonwealth itself doesn't run Penn State.  So why are the reasources of Pennsylvania going into a lawsuit to benefit what is essentially, an independent entity that itself accepted the sanctions, and plans to abide by them?

What possible legal standing does Corbett have in this case, if other than his overly inflated sense of importance?  How much tax money will be wasted in this appeal to the governor's ego?  Or is this just an attempt by an unpopular governor to pander to Penn State fans as he prepares to try for reelection?

I Smell A Lawsuit

The taxpayers of Chester, PA will likely pay a heavy price for their religious bigotry.

Chester County Pennsylvania commissioners rejected arguments this morning (Nov. 29) to rescind Resolution 58-10, which was enacted to exclude non-Judeo-Christian winter displays from the county courthouse lawn during the winter season. The resolution was originally intended to kick out the Freethought Society’s Tree of Knowledge from sharing equal space with the Jesus crèche and a Hanukkah menorah. This year, the Evangelical Pastafarian Church also requested a space on the courthouse lawn.

What puts the county in a more hazardous legal position, IMHO, is that the resolution only allows holiday displays owned by the county to be displayed, and the county only purchased decorations that are Judeo-Christian themed.  A county is, of course, a governmental agency, making their decision one that endorses a certain religious viewpoint.  They'd been on firmer, but still shaky ground if they allowed outside groups to put up displays (of course, that was the antebellum norm, which the resolution seeks to subvert), but again, if they did that, they'd have to open the grounds to anyone who wants to put up a display, and Resolution 58-10 appears worded specifically to exclude displays that do not conform to the Judeo-Christian norm.

If a lawsuit is filed, I do not see how any sane or sober judge could wind up ruling for the county.

 

No Nativity

Christianists lose in their efforts to force a municipality to allow them to set up a nativity on public property.

 City Council voted to ban all private, unattended displays in city parks. The city cited other reasons for the prohibition, including damage to the park's turf and some residents' statements that they would prefer unobstructed ocean views to seasonal displays.

Of course, that doesn't really mean "no nativity scene."  the display can still be erected on private property.  Perhaps the front lawn of a church would be a good place to start?

Well, Isn't This Interesting!

In apparent violation of the law and just days before the election, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted had "uncertified 'experimental' software patches" installed on voting machines in 39 counties.

Now I wonder why he would do that?

A Summary?

Why a summary?

Mitt Romney paid an effective tax rate of about 14 percent last year, his campaign said Friday while also announcing that the Republican presidential nominee had paid an average annual effective tax rate of about 20.2 percent between 1990 and 2009.

Romney made good on his pledge to release his tax returns from 2011 before the election, and went a step further than was previously anticipated in releasing a certified summary of his tax returns over a two-decade period preceding 2010.

Why release a "certified summary" for the past 20 years, instead of the actual returns?  I doubt there's anything in there showing that Romney committed tax fraud (I'm sure his tax attorneys are capable, and the IRS would be all over that if there was any "there" there.  We all know that he uses tax shelters and squirrels money away in tax havens, so finding confirmation of what we already know wouldn't be that damaging.

But there is something fishy there. Could it have anything to do with this?

Tax returns require taxpayers to state their residence address, and the Romney returns already produced, although partially redacted, state clearly that they lived in "Belmont, MA 02478" in 2012 (tax year 2011) (pdf) and 2011 (tax year 2010) (pdf):

But the Romneys, arbitrarily, refuse to disclose a copy of the returns they filed in 2010 or 2009 (for tax years 2009 and 2008) – which, perhaps not coincidentally, bracket the time period when Romney allegedly committed fraud by voting in Massachusetts when he actually resided in California. So here's the question: did Romney put his son's basement's address on the returns he filed in 2009 and 2010? Or did he truthfully use his real (non-Massachusetts) address, thus implicating himself in voter fraud?

For all the noise Republicans make over voter fraud, it would be absolutely fatal to his campaign if those tax returns showed he was living in California while voting in Massachusetes.  We'd have an actual, verifiable case of deliberate voter fraud, one committed by the Republican nominee.  And I suspect that is the real reason why those returns are not being released.

 

 

Decisions Decisions

So the Supreme Court handed down two news making decisions yesterday.  First, they declared that mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders are unconstitutional.  Frankly, I do not find this decision all that controversial.  They didn't rule that a life sentence was unconstitutional (although I find life sentences for juveniles pretty barbaric) just the mandatory ones.  What I find truly distressing is that four of the justices (and we all know which four) think locking up teenagers forever, regardless of age or circumstances, to be a good thing.  I do like that the P-G quoted Allegheny County Common Pleas judge David Cashman: 

"I've never liked mandatory sentences because I don't think a mandatory sentence applies to all the parties," he said. "People are unique."

The second newsworthy decision was the Court gutting Arizona's "Papers Please" law.  Wingnuts like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer are trying to turn lemons into lemonade by noting that the court upheld the provision allowing police to ask people they reasonably suspect to be in the country illegally their immigration status.  What everyone fails to note is that the police have ALWAYS been allowed to check the status of those they believe to be in the country illegally. Being in the country illegally is not a criminal offense, it is a civil offense, and Arizona had no right to criminalize it.  Typically, Fat Tony Scalia had a meltdown over the majority's ruling.  Apparently, states are "sovereign" when they do what Fat Tony wants, but, as in Montana's challenge to Citizens United, they're not when trying to do something he's opposed to.

 

Meanwhile, as the Court gets ready to issue its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, polling shows that majorities of Republicans and Independents like what's in the act, with the exception of President Obama's role in getting it passed.

Chipping Away At The Constitution

The Supreme Court, along the usual pro-state/anti-citizen 6-3 split, erodes the double jeopardy provision. 

The 6-3 decision holds that a jury's unanimous but tentative vote to acquit a defendant on some charges does not count as a verdict.

It came in the case of an Arkansas man who in 2009 was tried for murder and manslaughter in the death of his girlfriend's 1-year-old baby. The jury voted unanimously against the murder charge, but the foreman said they were "hopelessly deadlocked" on whether he was guilty of manslaughter. The judge declared a mistrial.

Note that the defense was not arguing that the defendant could not be retried on the charges the jury failed to agree on, but the radical Roberts court declared he can be retried on all charges, even the one the jury aquitted him of!  Outrageous!

The conservative majority of this court are not sober jurists.  They are radical fanatics, determined to do whatever they can to limit the protections offered by the Constitution to those who lack power or access to those who weild it.