May 2009 - Posts

Sotomayor: The Courts are “Where policy is made”

Here's a copy of the statement made by Supreme Court judicial nominee Sonia Sotomayor at Duke University Law School in 2005.

“Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know I should never say that, because we don’t ‘make law.’ I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it . . . you know.”

Let's hope that the Republicans dig hard on this statement.

Of course, the Dems will wink at it since they desire to have liberal judicial activists on the court.

 

Posted by Right-Mind | 2 comment(s)

Profound shift in kind of families who are home schooling their children

USA Today has an interesting article about the shift in homeschooling families.

Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.

What else has nearly doubled? The percentage of girls who are home-schooled. They now outnumber home-schooled girls boys by a wide margin.

As of spring 2007, an estimated 1.5 million, or 2.9% of all school-age children in the USA, were home-schooled, up from 1.7% in 1999.

The new figures come from the U.S. Department of Education, which found that 36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide "religious or moral instruction"; 21% cited concerns about school environment. Only 17% cited "dissatisfaction with academic instruction."

Perhaps most significant: The ratio of home-schooled boys to girls has shifted significantly. In 1999, it was 49% boys, 51% girls. Now boys account for only 42%; 58% are girls

I think that many homeschooling parents have discovered that it's one thing to have daughters home with mom all day; but it's completely different having boys home with mom all day...

Posted by Right-Mind | 5 comment(s)
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Troy: The Hot-Spot in North Idaho?

That according to KLEW:

 It's gone by several names, Huff's Gulch, Vollmer and most notably Troy.

The old logging town, just 15 minutes outside of Moscow, is surrounded by trees and filled with charm and friendly people.

"The best part of Troy is definitely the people, the small town atmosphere, it's an amazing place to grow up," said Beth Bailey.

"What's nice is that you can wave and people will wave back," said Filling Station owner Tim Bickford.

Bickford owns Troy's newest hot spot called the Filling Station. The sandwich, smoothie and coffee shop caters to bicyclists riding the trail from Moscow.

"The bike trail links us to the big city," said Bickford. "They come in here and we have a lot of people coming from Pullman, riding their bikes from Pullman. It's a nice bike trail."

"The big city"? Moscow? I guess compared to Troy. But still...
And Bickford has plans to get more bike riders to visit Troy. He wants to build a bridge over the creek so riders will stop in downtown and he hopes to build a site where people can stay the night.

"That strip of land over there, there is nothing there, so eventually when that bridge gets in, it's in the talking stages, we'd like to put in some camp spots and some RV hookups over there so people have a place to stay," said Bickford.

Downtown Troy is growing with a new nursery and art gallery. But what's great about Troy is the natural experience.

About three miles up the road is tranquil Spring Valley Reservoir.

"I've spent lots of summer day out there and it's a gorgeous place, a great place for fishing, tooling around in the boat, kids swimming and playing around, lots of hiking, it's a great place to be," said Bailey.
Posted by Right-Mind | with no comments

Passport please

Starting Monday, anyone crossing back into the U.S. from Canada or Mexico will need a passport or approved travel documents; post office says order now, because there is at least a three week wait.

See http://www.klewtv.com/news/46504137.html

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Abortionist George Tiller Shot Dead as he walked into Church Services

Murder is murder — whether done by the abortionist himself or by the suspect they have apprehended.

Murdering the abortionist isn’t the way to stop the genocide.

From The Wichita Eagle:

A suspect in this morning's fatal shooting of George Tiller is in custody and on his way back to Wichita, deputy chief Tom Stolz of the Wichita Police Department said today at a news conference.

The 51-year-old male suspect was arrested about three hours after the shooting without incident near Gardner on Interstate 35.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation.

Tiller was serving as an usher at the church, one of six ushers listed in the church bulletin. He was handing out bulletins to people going into the sanctuary minutes before being shot.

A church member who did not want to be identified said the gunman threatened another person at the church after the shooting.

Tiller's family issued a statement through Wichita attorneys Dan Monnat and Lee Thompson.

"Today we mourn the loss of our husband, father and grandfather. Today's event is an unspeakable tragedy for all of us and for George's friends and patients.

"This is particularly heart wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace."

Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

Obama Claims Right to Yank Sotomayor Post-Confirmation

From the Washington Examiner:

As concerns grow that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor may not be a reliable pro-choice vote on the high court, President Barack Obama today attempted to calm fears of abortion rights advocates.
 
The president, who as a state senator opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that mandates medical care for a living baby after a botched abortion attempt, said that even if Judge Sotomayor makes it through the confirmation process, her judicial career could still end suddenly.
 
"It's the job of the Senate Judiciary Committee to protect our Constitutional limits on 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' to ensure that unwanted fetuses don't usurp the rights which the Founders intended for post-umbilical citizens alone," said Obama.
 
"I don't have a litmus test. I don't know where Sonia stands on Roe v. Wade," he said, "I expect Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to aggressively draw her out on the issue. But if she survives that, she's not necessarily in the clear."
 
The White House legal team has reportedly developed several post-confirmation strategies the president could employ to "ensure the desired outcome."
 
"Although historically, we have allowed Supreme Court Justices to serve as long as they breathe, have a beating heart, vibrant brain waves or voluntary muscle movement," Obama said, "that doesn't mean we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. In any case, if during her hearings she starts to struggle and display pro-life tendencies, don't expect me to jump in with any last-gasp attempts to rescue her." 
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Climate change conference in Washington, DC

Let’s hope that right-minded individuals in this country can prevent us from pursuing chicken-little political shenanigans to our financial ruin.

AynRandCenterFrom the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:

Next week, the Heartland Institute will host its Third International Conference on Climate Change; June 2nd in Washington, DC. The Ayn Rand Institute is a co-sponsor.

The event follows closely on the heels of a previous conference, which took place in New York City in March (see here and here)–but the new conference couldn’t be more timely. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce just approved a comprehensive climate and energy bill, the Waxman-Markey “American Clean Energy and Security Act,” which would impose energy impoverishment in a variety of ways: forced energy conservation programs, a cap-and-trade system rationing U.S. carbon emissions, a renewable energy mandate forcing us to use expensive, impractical forms of energy, and more.

The event is intended to acquaint Congressional staff with the views of scientists and economists who oppose green climate and energy policies. Hopefully, it will help inject a measure of reason into the Congressional debate before the bill comes up for a vote.

In any event, I will be there and will have lots to report after the conference. Stay tuned.

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All about who makes the choice

I missed this when it was first posted last Friday.

The following letter to the editor appeared in Friday’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

All about who makes the choice

Change is certainly in the air - our new president is fulfilling his promise. He, a pro-abortion president, got to speak at the nation's strongest Catholic school, Notre Dame, and here's how the news reported his reception:

"Obama entered the arena to thunderous applause and a standing ovation from many in the crowd of 12,000. But as the president began his commencement address, at least three protesters interrupted it. One yelled, "Stop killing our children!" The graduates responded by chanting "Yes we can!," the slogan that became synonymous with Obama's campaign."

Let's see if we got this straight: Obama, who within days of taking office, OK'd federal funding for abortions overseas and was warmly welcomed at a historically pro-life institution. When those against killing babies publicly expressed their desire to stop the murder of several thousand children (every day), the young people getting degrees that day answered glibly (and in unison) that they are just fine with letting the killing go on. Did I get that right?

Apparently not only has Notre Dame "changed" its convictions on abortion, it seems their students are fine with that change.

Now, what was that German expression for "pro-choice?" Oh, yes ... "The Final Solution."

Then, as now, it's all about who gets to make the "choice" and who doesn't have any choice. Isn't change great?

Tom Garfield, Moscow

Posted by Right-Mind | 3 comment(s)

Stiffing GM's Creditors Will Backfire

This is an excellent article!

From the International Business Daily:

The Law: Sure as the sun rises, the U.S. government's manhandling of GM and Chrysler bondholders will ripple outward, striking not only companies and their ! creditors but the very basis for U.S. power and prosperity.

 

Historians pinpoint the beginnings of U.S. power at 1811, with the liquidation of the First Bank of the United States, founded by Alexander Hamilton. Amid the winds of the War of 1812, First Bank ignored political pressure and insisted that even British bondholders, from the nation the U.S. was preparing to fight, be paid in full. The debt was paid because that was the law.

 

This single act reverberated for years. Word got back to Europe that the word of this fledgling country was good, even with enemies. As a result, European capital to finance the great steamships, railroads and other engines of American growth flowed.

 

"The return of their funds became an important chapter in American finance because it showed that the government was willing to do business on an impartial basis, ! and that would influence future British investments for decades to come," wrote Charles R. Geisst in his 1979 "Wall Street: A History."

 

Scroll to 2009. What's good for General Motors is no longer what's good for America. GM and Chrysler faced restructuring in a last-ditch bid to avoid bankruptcy. But unlike 1811's British lenders, their bondholders have been treated like enemies.

Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

Atheist Ad Campaign Targets Moscow, Idaho

From OPB News:

North Idaho is one of the targets of a new media campaign by atheists.

The American Humanist Association is running bus and billboard ads in selected cities around the country. Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports the organization picked Moscow, Idaho for its unique mix of people.

That’s an understatement. The People’s Republic of Moscow is well known for its 60s wanna-be’s and pot-heads with too much money.

Here’s the radio commentary.

Along Highway 95 near the Idaho-Washington border, there’s a billboard that reads.

Roy Speckhardt: “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.”

Roy Speckhardt is the executive director of the American Humanist Association.

The billboard is an offshoot of an advertising war that the atheist organization has been waging with Christian groups, using buses in London and Chicago.

The atheists decided to expand their message to cities like Philadelphia, Dallas and -- Moscow, Idaho. That’s where the University of Idaho is. Washington State University is eight miles away. 

Speckhardt says it’s a unique place for the atheist message.

Roy Speckhardt: “You have secular folks. You have people of strong religious values. You have a surrounding area that is very, very conservative in its political beliefs.”

Speckhardt says the response to the billboard has been mixed, but positive enough that his group will soon post messages on billboards in Spokane, Seattle and Portland.

Posted by Right-Mind | 2 comment(s)

More Republican Hypocrisy

From LewRockwell.com blog:

So, Republicans are upset that Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Why?

She was nominated to the U.S. District Court in New York by Republican George H. W. Bush and confirmed on unanimous consent of the Senate. Then, when she was nominated by Bill Clinton to be a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, 25 Republican senators voted to confirm her.

And back when Clinton nominated the ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, only 3 Republicans out of 44 in the Senate at the time voted against her.

The Republicans are a little late to be opposing Ms. Sotomayor. 

HT: Chris W.

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County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies

Priceless — using zoning laws to shut down Bible Studies.

From 10News in San Diego.

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

HT: Gabe R.

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Breaking News: Swine flu confirmed in Whitman County

The following is from the online edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

Health officials announced the first officially confirmed case of swine flu in Whitman County this morning.

The H1N1 influenza infection was identified in a 20-year-old Washington State University student who became ill on May 19.

Oink!

Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

Sarkozy in climate row over reshuffle

6f68385c-882a-11da-a25e-0000779e2340[1]From the Financial Times:

President Nicolas Sarkozy's desire to appoint an outspoken climate-change sceptic to a new French super-ministry of industry and innovation has drawn strong protests from party colleagues and environmentalists.

Claude Allègre argues that global warming is not necessarily caused by human activity. Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to "giving the finger to scientists", said Nicolas Hulot, France's best-known environmental activist.

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Trouble Brewing for AIG and Federal Government: Constitutional Challenge of AIG Bailout Allowed to Proceed

From the Thomas More Law Center:

Proclaiming that times of crisis do not justify departure from the Constitution, Federal District Court Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff allowed the lawsuit against Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board challenging the AIG bailout to proceed.  The lawsuit was filed last December by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and attorney David Yerushalmi, an expert in security transactions and Shariah-compliant financing.

In his well-written and detailed analysis issued yesterday, Judge Zatkoff denied the request by the Obama administration's Department of Justice to dismiss the lawsuit.  The request was filed on behalf of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board - the named defendants in the case.  In his ruling, the judge held that the lawsuit sufficiently alleged a federal constitutional challenge to the use of taxpayer money to fund AIG's Islamic religious activities.

HT: David D.

Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

Quick takes on the Sotomayor nomination

The nomination of a Hispanic for the Supreme Court will remind conservatives of the case of Miguel Estrada, a promising Hispanic conservative that the Democrats filibustered -- at the circuit court level -- and in 2003, Estrada gave up the battle.

Here’s one priceless exchange from ABC’s This Week on February 9, 2003, with an ABC reporter now working as a talk-show host on National Public Radio:

MICHEL MARTIN: Miguel Estrada is a very promising young lawyer who went to some excellent schools, had excellent clerkships, has a good work record. What he lacks in judicial background he makes up with a compelling life story....And you know what that’s called George? Affirmative action. He is an affirmative action candidate as practiced by the Republican Party and the conservative movement....

GEORGE WILL: Michel, affirmative action, in the Michigan style, would be to give Estrada 20 extra points. He didn’t get that. He got the highest possible rating by the ABA.

Tim Graham, Newsbusters:

She has a mixed reputation, with a questionable temperament and no particularly important opinions in over 10 years on the Second Circuit. Most notably, she was part of the panel that summarily affirmed the dismissal of Ricci v. DeStefano, where the City of New Haven denied firefighter promotions based on an admittedly race-neutral exam whose results did not yield the “correct” racial mix of successful candidates. Sotomayor’s colleague José Cabranes—a liberal Democrat—excoriated the panel’s actions and the Supreme Court will likely reverse the ruling next month.

If this is the kind of “empathy” the president wants from his judges, we are in for a long summer—and more bitter confirmation battles in the future.

Ilya Shapiro, Cato@Liberty:

President Obama's radical new nominee to replace Associate Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, used to serve on the board of LatinoJustice PRLDEF (White House backgrounder), one of the racial grievance groups that helped to sink the judicial nomination of Honduran-born Miguel Estrada in 2003.

Along with groups such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), LatinoJustice fought a war of attrition against President George W. Bush's 2001 nomination of conservative Miguel Estrada, a Honduran-born immigrant, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Democrats in the Senate filibustered the nomination and a weary Estrada withdrew from consideration in 2003.

Today LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, hailed the nomination of Sotomayor on the basis of her ethno-cultural heritage. "As the second largest and fastest growing population in America, with a large pool of qualified individuals to choose from, it was wholly appropriate for the president to nominate a Hispanic," the group said in a written statement. (PDF)

Human Events has collected some quotes that suggest Sotomayor is not troubled by her lack of judicial impartiality:

  • “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
  • "I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
  • “I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that -- it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”
  • “All of the Legal Defense Funds out there -- they're looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is -- Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't ‘make law.’ ”

Matthew Vadum, American Spectator

Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.

"Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

Stephen Dinan, Washington Times

Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor represents a potential threat to U.S. consumers and to the economy in terms of energy and the environment.

In her 2007 Second Circuit decision in Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA 475 F. 3d 83, Judge Sotomayor sided with extreme green groups who had sued the U.S. EPA because the agency permitted cost-benefit analysis to be used in the determination of environmental protection technology for power plant cooling water intake structures.

Fortunately, Judge Sotomayor’s decision was recently overturned by the Supreme Court, fittingly on April 1, 2009 (Entergy v. Riverkeeper, No. 07-588).

Had the EPA been required to abide by Judge Sotomayor’s decision, American consumers would have been forced to pay billions of dollars more in energy costs every year as power plants producing more than one-half of the nation’s electricity would have had to undertake expensive retrofits.

Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com regarding one of those reversed decisions

I applaud the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her confirmation would add needed diversity in two ways: the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court. While her record suggests excellent educational and professional qualifications, now it is up to the Senate to discharge its constitutional duty for a full and fair confirmation process.

Meaning, of course, that only a misogynist racist would oppose her.

Newbie Democrat Arlen Specter confirms that Sotomayor's gender and ethnicity are the main reasons why she should be confirmed

Via C-Pol

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Sotomayor hates white people

Update: Note to my favorite blog-stalker, Tom Hansen. I did not write this. This is from The Political Cesspool. Please attribute it to the right person. And the citation was fine (see below where it says “cross-posted from”? Learn to read, blog-stalker!).

Finally, I post things I agree with and disagree with. You will know what I think by what I myself say. I know that’s going to be a problem for you, Tom-Tom: you’re going to have to learn to read.

First via Focus on the Family:

Conservatives are concerned that Sonia Sotomayor - President Barack Obama's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court - will indulge her Left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally interpreting the law.

"From what we know about her, Judge Sotomayor considers policy-making to be among a judge's roles, no matter what the law says," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst at Focus on the Family Action. "She disregards the notion of judicial impartiality."

Sotomayor admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2001 speech at Berkeley, she said she believes it is appropriate for judges to consider their "experiences as women and people of color," which she believes should "affect our decisions." She went on to say in that same speech: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Cross-posted from The Political Cesspool:


Sotomayor hates white people

Which is why Obama wants her on the Supreme Court. You know those white firefighters who have been in the news lately because they passed the promotions test, only to have the city throw the test scores out because no blacks passed? Their case is before the Supreme Court right now.

Guess who ruled against the white men in a lower court? Yep, Sonia Sotomayor. She didn’t just rule against them. She displayed her sheer contempt for them by writing a one paragraph opinion dismissing their claims without even addressing their arguments or the facts of the case. This sort of thing is unheard of, and even a fellow judge criticized her for her contemptuous treatment of the white firefighters.

But according to dissenting Judge Jose Cabranes, the single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument–ignoring the facts of the case.

“(T)he parties submitted briefs of 86 pages each and a six-volume joint appendix of over 1,800 pages; plaintiffs’ reply brief was over thirty pages long,” Cabranes wrote.

“(O)ral argument, on December 10, 2007, lasted over an hour,” Cabranes explained, adding that more than two months after oral arguments, Sotomayor and the majority panel upheld the lower court in a summary order “containing a single substantive paragraph.”

Cabranes criticized Sotomayor and the majority for not explaining why they had sided with the city in their new opinion.

Of course Sotomayor sided with the city, and opposed the white men who had been mistreated because of their race. The city was violating their rights on behalf of blacks. Case closed.

When you hate white people, the laws, arguments and facts of the case are of no import whatsoever. It was non-whites vs. whites, and Sotomayor didn’t need any “facts” to decide how to rule. The non-whites get what they want, and white people get screwed. That’s what Equality and Diversity are all about - hating white people. And Sotomayor made it clear with this and other rulings that she believes the white man has no rights the law is bound to respect. That’s why Obama wants her on the Supreme Court, because she has “empathy” for minorities, which means hatred of whites.

Posted by Right-Mind | 5 comment(s)

President for Life

Yes, there are some moonbats out there who so idolize Obama that they have introduced legislation to repeal the 22nd Amendment and make him king president for life.

This is from Washington Watch:

H. J. Res. 5, Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.

Here’s where you can read the actual bill. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.J.RES.5:

I wonder how they would have felt about doing the same for Bush?

HT: Bill J.

Posted by Right-Mind | 2 comment(s)

FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts

From Wired:

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.

“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”

HT: Chris W.

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California Supreme Court upholds ban on new same-sex marriages, but lets existing marriages stand

From CNN:

California Supreme Court upholds ban on new same-sex marriages, but lets existing marriages stand.
Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

Pollution Politics and the Climate-Bill Giveaway

Here is NO change you can believe in — all hot air and no substance.

Remember the words of H.L. Mencken:

  • "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
  • "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
  • "All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of every industrious and well-disposed man."
  • "I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."
  • "If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    President Barack Obama was emphatic during his campaign and after his election: The best way to fight climate change is to cap carbon emissions and auction off tradable permits to emit carbon.

    "If you're giving away carbon permits for free, then basically you're not really pricing the thing and it doesn't work -- or people can game the system in so many ways that it's not creating the incentive structures that we're looking for," he told the Business Roundtable in March.

    His budget director, Peter Orszag, was blunter: "If you didn't auction the permit, it would represent the largest corporate welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States," he told the House Budget Committee in March.

    This past week, Rep. Henry Waxman's House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a climate-change bill that gives away 85% of the emission permits until 2026. President Obama applauded, calling the bill "a historic leap."

    Huh?

    The point of climate-change legislation is to raise the price of activities that emit carbon so consumers and businesses engage in fewer of them, and favor alternatives that contribute less to climate change. Taxing carbon is one way to do that, but it's unpopular.

     20090524clip_image001

    HT: Ashley L.

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    New Forum For Citizens of North Idaho

    Michelle Copher, a mother of six, lives up in Priest River (Bonner County) and has started a site called North Idaho Citizen Press.

    Here's her mission statement:

    The North Idaho Citizen Press was created to be a place where as citizens we can learn and discuss from one another. We hope to become the place you come for all your news relating to politics and social issues in North Idaho. Citizens, not media professionals or politicians, will be the contributors to this site. We want to hear about corruption in politics, special interest groups and their effects, failures and successes of the justice system, the beliefs and actions of politicians, taxes, and issues involving education, the environment, business, and infrastructure in our area and at the State level.

    We do not wish to become a gossip column or rumor mill. We will do our best to ensure that articles submitted here are well-researched and accurate.

    This is really an effort to have the power that People of the United States have always claimed. In order to have that power, we must have the knowledge.

    I recommend you take a minute to check it out.

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    Moscow City Government Symbolically Egged

    The following editorial by Henry D. Johnston appeared in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

    In the early hours of last Thursday morning, four geniuses for the cause of environmentalism pelted the glowing orb that is James Toyota with about five dozen eggs.

    They also were kind enough to leave a note explaining the attack was in retaliation for Toyota's perpetuation of "the ignorant use of fossil fuels."

    They believed in the cause enough to leave contact information behind, since they wrote the note on the receipt from purchasing the eggs in the first place. That gave law enforcement all the information they needed to identify the four suspects and reward them appropriately with criminal charges.

    Moscow’s own Darwin Award winners.

    I'm glad these four morons stood up against Toyota, because everyone knows they are the worst brand when it comes to all things "green." Perhaps by staging this protest they were able to stop some unwitting family from buying a gas-guzzling hybrid.

    Give me a break.

    Trying to blame a local auto dealer for single-handily keeping our country dependent on foreign oil is just plain crazy.

    Maybe it's something in the water - or perhaps Moscow just has more tie-dye per capita than Pullman - but it seems that while Pullman has its fair share of local squabbles, they seem further and fewer than the "life and death" situations always facing Moscow.

    To put it another way, it seems that Moscow spends more time cleaning up symbolic "eggings" than Pullman does.

    Some years ago, Moscow had Walmart wanting to invest into our community by building a Super Center. They were driven away by some very angry and vocal opponents who did all they could to keep "retail Satan" from entering our city limits again. We haven't heard from Walmart since.

    Attention then focused to the ever-growing problem of boarding houses and the malfeasance without a permit that exists in our residential neighborhoods. After many months and committee meetings, the recommendation was "do nothing." That wasn't good enough, and the issue was pressed further until an already toothless ordinance was changed to appease a select few.

    If you check city records, you'll find that a proposal for a new coffee retailer, already approved by the Board of Adjustment, was killed by the council because of a citizen appeal. Dig deeper and you'll also find that one neighbor's protest blocked a new driveway that 99.9 percent of Moscow could care less about.

    Sandwich-board signs were the big issue last summer, and after much hand-wringing and regulating, a new sign ordinance was born. As I drive around Moscow, I notice that nothing has really changed with street-side advertising, and it makes me wonder what the big deal was to begin with.

    And I won't even get into the ludicrous fishing expedition that Wayne Fox has embarked on with his numerous public records requests. When asked what he was looking for, Fox only said he is "looking for lots of things."

    Very much like the egging at James Toyota, these incidents took time and resources to "clean up," and for the most part have yielded minimal positive results.

    It's time for the silent majority of Moscow to become the vocal majority and quash these "flash in the pan" issues that do nothing but hinder our city government from tackling the real issues facing our city.

    If we don't, well, we can just plan on continuing to get egged. 

    Posted by Right-Mind | with no comments

    President Obama to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court

    From CNN:

    President Obama to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

     

    Posted by Right-Mind | 2 comment(s)

    U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter predicts five-day mail delivery will be reality

    U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter told attendees this morning at the second annual National Catalog Advocacy & Strategy Forum that he is convinced his proposal for five-day mail delivery will become a reality.

    When Potter proposed five-day mail delivery in January, many politicians and catalogers were shocked. "I know a lot of people thought I was out of my mind bringing this up," Potter said. "Some thought it was political suicide."

    But Potter said that he viewed the concept as proper stewardship. "Raising rates isn't the way to go at this. It would drive more volume away. Delivery is something we're going to have to change if we're going to live with this lower volume."

    In 2000, an average of 5.9 pieces of mail was delivered to every stop, every day, Potter said. That average figure has now dropped to 4.7. "We're going to continue to take cost out within the constraints of our collective bargaining agreements."

    Potter's contention that a move to five-day mail delivery is inevitable received some support on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)- chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia Subcommittee-addressed the issue during a subcommittee hearing titled, "Nip and Tuck: The Impact of Current Cost Cutting Efforts On Postal service Operations And Network."

    "The Postmaster General has discussed the possibility of moving to a five-day mail delivery schedule, and we may be at or near the point where we need to seriously consider this option, by researching associated savings and service impacts," Lynch said. "I understand that this is not a decision that will be made lightly."

    Lynch added: "Despite plans to cut costs this year by $5.9 billion, postal officials still anticipate losing a total of $6.4 billion by year's end-primarily due to the recession and its negative impact on mail volume."

    Posted by Right-Mind | with no comments

    S&P cuts New York Times rating deeper into junk status

    Right-minded individuals have known for years that the NY Times was in junk status.

    Now the markets agree.

    Via Reuters:

    Standard & Poor's on Thursday cut its rating on the New York Times Co (NYT.N) deeper into junk status, citing rising leverage in the midst of a newspaper industry slump.

    A drop in ad revenue aggravated by the long U.S. recession will likely lead to a spike in leverage at the Times by 2010, S&P said in a statement. The rating agency said it expects the economy to begin to recover late this year, but there is significant uncertainty about when the newspaper ad slump will begin to heal.

    S&P downgraded the Times' corporate credit rating by one notch to B, the fifth-highest junk rating, from B-plus. The outlook is stable, meaning another downgrade is not expected over the next two years.

    The New York Times last month reported a $74.5 million first-quarter net loss because of a 27 percent drop in ad revenue and poor performance at The Boston Globe.

    Posted by Right-Mind | 1 comment(s)

    Super Wal-Mart Still Coming to Moscow-Pullman

    As reported in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

    Rumors have swirled locally in recent weeks that Walmart is considering moving its proposed Pullman super store into the Hawkins development, but Walmart spokeswoman Karianne Fallow indicated last week that a late-2010 opening at the Southeast Bishop Boulevard site is expected.

    We’ll just have to drive farther to get super-low prices.  

    Posted by Right-Mind | with no comments

    Whitman County convinced Hawkins will come through

    As reported in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

    Whitman County officials are confident Hawkins Companies still plans to build a large-scale shopping center just inside the state line despite a series of delayed start dates.

    County Commissioner Greg Partch admitted Hawkins' proposed 700,000-square-foot retail development in the Pullman-Moscow corridor is in a "holding pattern," primarily due to the state of the national economy.

    Hawkins spokesman Jeff Devoe did not return repeated calls seeking comment. Last year, he estimated the company would have at least part of the development in place by summer or early fall of this year, with a Lowe's hardware store as the centerpiece.

    But the slumping economy and Whitman County's uncertainty over how much state financing it would receive to develop public infrastructure at the site led Partch to estimate construction could start in July 2010 at the earliest.

    "Everybody is kind of taking a wait-and-see approach right now with the economy being the real guiding factor here," he said.

     

    Posted by Right-Mind | with no comments
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