…and there was much (UNANIMOUS!) rejoicing:

Justices say GPS tracker violated privacy rights:

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days.

But the justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property.  That ruling avoided many difficult questions, including how to treat information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how to treat information held by third parties like cellphone companies.

Long story short, the government got a warrant to put a GPS tracker on Antoine Jones’ car, within the District of Columbia, within 10 days of the issuance of the warrant. The government, however, slapped the tracker on the car on day 11 (eyeroll), while the car was in Maryland (DUH); Jones eventually got charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute seriously irresponsible amounts of cocaine, in violation of federal law. Jones ended up getting life in prison, but through the spin and twirl of the appellate process, ended up with his case before the Supreme Court–United States v. Jones.

The result?  Short version: Yes, sticking a tracking device on a piece of private property is a search. /whacks police on nose with newspaper

The majority’s opinion (the court was unanimous as to the result, but split on the reasoning) fell into line with the earlier, “protected places” approach to resolving 4th Amendment controversies, instead of the more modern “reasonable expectation of privacy” doctrine that was introduced in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

Huh?

Before Katz, the Supreme Court saw the 4th Amendment as protecting certain places–namely, private property owned by the person being searched. Their decisions didn’t touch on “privacy”; the approach was based on the idea that the right to be “secure in [your] persons, houses, papers, and effects” attaches to a property interest, a violation of which is analogous to common law trespass. In 1967, the Court decided Katz, which gives us this idea that the 4th Amendment applies to any government search or seizure that interferes with a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy,” even if there was no interference with that person’s property. The Court famously stated, “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.”

In the opinion, Justice Scalia brought the Court back to its common law roots:

It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted. Entick v. Carrington, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C. P. 1765), is a “case we have described as a ‘monument of English freedom’ ‘undoubtedly familiar’ to ‘every American statesman’ at the time the Constitution was adopted, and considered to be ‘the true and ultimate expression of constitutional law’” with regard to search and seizure.  Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U. S. 593, 596 (1989) (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 626 (1886)).  In that case, Lord Camden expressed in plain terms the significance of property rights in search-and-seizure analysis:

“[O]ur law holds the property of every man so sacred,
that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour’s close
without his leave; if he does he is a trespasser, though
he does no damage at all; if he will tread upon his
neighbour’s ground, he must justify it by law.” Entick,
supra, at 817.

The text of the Fourth Amendment reflects its close connection to property, since otherwise it would have referred simply to “the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures”; the phrase “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” would have been superfluous.

Bravo, sir.

Notice what Scalia did–he went back to a British case* that was leading precedent at the time of the drafting and adoption of the constitution, and used an original intent argument as a basis for his opinion.

I love this decision. I love that the Court went back to its archaic and unsexy roots.  I appreciate their willingness to not travel down the “reasonable expectation” path when they didn’t need to. Staying true to form, I agree with Justice Scalia completely.  The outrage and the controversy lies in the fact that the Government went outside their warrant, trespassed on this man’s private property, tracked his movements, and then had the audacity to argue that this wasn’t a search.

Trespassed.
On.
Private.
Property.

The majority rightfully accuses the concurrence with attempting to make Katz the exclusive test for situations like these; after all, Katz is important, but do we really need to go down that road? It’s such a simple concept-trespass. A violation of a right I fear the legal system has brushed aside in favor of sexier concepts like privacy. What happened to Jones was classic trespassory search–more than enough to cook the cops in their own stew given the application of a little classical jurisprudence. It doesn’t hold that because physical intrusion isn’t necessary to classify the intrusion as a search, we should abandon those more formal (and dare I say, sacred) protections provided to private property.

For me, at least, the common law protecting private property is the root of all privacy law. Why can’t the government traipse onto my yard and into my house?  Because it’s mine.  It’s my home.  It’s my space.  Not yours, Government.  Why can’t the government intrude upon my privacy?  Same logic, different bubble.  There are definite privacy concerns when it comes to GPS monitoring, but there’s no reason to skip over the fundamental violation–in this case, trespassing on a private car–when that fundamental violation is staring you directly in the face.

You can read the opinion here.

Photo credit to ICanHasCheezburger.com.
Originally posted at Beyond Clause 8.

It’s like they’re not even trying anymore:

School defends ‘Occupy’ song for 8-year-olds

A Virginia school district is defending a song allegedly written and performed by a group of third graders about the Occupy Wall Street movement that conservative bloggers are calling a form of indoctrination.
The song, “Part of the 99,” was performed by children at Woodbrook Elementary School in Albemarle County, Virginia.
A spokesman for the school system said as far as they were concerned there isn’t a controversy and called criticism of the program unfortunate.
“We really don’t censor the topics that students come up with,” school spokesman Phil Giaramita told Fox News & Commentary. “This is the first time we’ve had the lyrics of one of these songs criticized.”

In case you just nodded along with the BS that just spewed from Phil Giarmita’s maw, here are the lyrics that sprang from the mouths of babes:

“Part of the 99″

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes — they’re the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent
I worked all the time
Never saw my family
Couldn’t make life rhyme
Then the bubble burst
It really, really hurt
I lost my money
Lost my pride
Lost my home
Now I’m part of the 99

Some people have it all
But they still don’t think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They’re not content
Never satisfied
Yes — they’re the 1 percent

I used to be sad, now I’m satisfied
’Cause I really have enough
Though I lost my yacht and plane
Didn’t need that extra stuff
Could have been much worse
You don’t need to be first
’Cause I’ve got my friends
Here by my side
Don’t need it all
I’m so happy to be part of the 99

That sounds like something I would have written when I was 8. Because every 8-year-old normally writes about their “yachts” and their “rides” and the ravages of unemployment. Normal 8-year-olds also use words like “content” and “satisfied”, instead of simply saying that they’re happy.

I call bullshit. Very, very obvious bullshit.

We have an organization called Kid Pan Alley to thank for this. (Don’t click the link unless you’re prepared to be subjected to Suzy Bogguss.) I went through the site, and encountered a lot of touchy-feelitude about community and diversity and embracing self-awareness. Here’s their mission statement:

(h/t Todd Starnes,by way of Weasel Zippers)

Since forever, I’ve existed within the realm of the Boy’s Club.

To be honest, it’s really not that big of a deal. The view is very nice from where I sit–lots of powerful men in suits.

I went into undergrad thinking that I was going to be an engineer; that dream was squashed by the realization that I have a personality. Maybe it was my personality that got me in trouble with the professors–the world may never know. What I do know is that I was the victim (/clutches pearls) of misogyny and sex discrimination for the first time at the tender age of 18. I’m not saying it wasn’t understandable; it’s got to be weird for these lifetime engineers to all of a sudden be dealing with an increased concentration of female brain power. But what wasn’t understandable was for me to be sent out of a professor’s office not because our conference was over, but because there was a male student waiting. What wasn’t understandable was being blatantly–we’re talking, the “make eyecontact and pointedly look away” type of blatantly–ignored in class while the male students were favored. The assignments turned in by female students were graded more harshly, and the grades of female students trended lower than those of male students.

It sucked. I dealt with it because I thought I wanted to be an engineer. Nobody ever died of chauvenism, right?

In law school, I discovered a different brand of misogyny. It’s quieter. Over the past two and a half years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to modify my personality both in the courtroom and the negotiation table; the first advice I was given when I was selected for membership on the moot court board was, “don’t come across as a bitch.” At an interview, I would never be caught dead in pants, much less shoes without at least a two inch heel–and that’s pushing the envelope. Wear a skirt, but not too short. But not too long. Wear heels–height matters. Be assertive, but not too aggressive–you might come across as a rabid feminist. That’s okay behavior for your worthless (yes, worthless) “Gender in the Law” class, but not for a true professional setting.

Also sucky? I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don’t particularly mind playing the part. When it comes to percentage of female partners, comparative income between male and female associates, and other statistics like that, though, things look bleak. Having to stack my resume has been exhausting. And yes, it is annoying to know that I will potentially make 73% (or whatever the latest statistic is) of what my male colleague makes; but all of that pales in comparison to what happens to women in the other three corners of the globe:

For Saudi women, progress comes slowly, and not at all surely

Women in Saudi Arabia won a small but promising victory this year. No, they aren’t being allowed to drive; that’s still forbidden. Most of the time, they still can’t work, travel or even open bank accounts without the approval of a male guardian. But they do have this: Saudi women can now buy lingerie in stores from female salesclerks, instead of the sometimes leering men who used to staff the counters. If this modest wave of liberalization continues, they may even get fitting rooms.

It doesn’t sound like much, but in the glacial process of modernization in the tradition-bound kingdom, it’s an important step. “This is the beginning of a real social change,” Eman Nafjian, one of the new generation of Saudi women’s activists, told me over coffee in Riyadh, the capital, last week. “It will allow more women to work in shopping malls. And that’s a step toward more opportunities for women’s employment in general.”

…and then I thought about how many stupid times a day women in America bitch and moan and complain about “equal rights.”

That’s not to say that income disparity between men and women is right, or that men should be able to discriminate against the women they work with. I’m not saying that at all, so read the rest of this post before you scroll down to the comments and start making asinine accusations. What I’m saying is that America at large should be appalled at the attitude regarding gender disparity in the west, because it is nothing–nothing–compared to what women in Saudi Arabia are put through on a daily basis.

At least in America, women have certain rights. We have the right to choose to use birth control. We have the right to choose an abortion. We are a suspect class. When these rights are unconstitutionally violated, I fully support a woman’s right to protest that violation–even when it comes to contentious issues like abortion. (If you want to get rid of a thing, you have to get rid of it within the confines of the law.) It’s wrong for an employer to pay a woman less than he would pay a man. It’s wrong for someone to treat people differently based on gender. It’s wrong for a man to feel justified in slapping me on the ass when we’re on our way into the courtroom.

But it’s also wrong for women in this country to act like lives are lost on a daily basis due to the sexism of our patriarchal overlords. There is a great difference between legitimate sex discrimination, and legitimate idiocy. There is a difference between sexual harassment, and men behaving like boys. There is a difference between traditional gender roles and gender repression. If you have to look for the injustice, it probably isn’t there–and that’s what I’m seeing in today’s society. Women–and some men, for God only knows what reason–looking for injustice. Looking for unfair treatment. Looking for a reason to point the finger and cry foul.

Looking for a reason to play the victim.

Women in Saudi Arabia don’t have to look for a reason to play the victim; they don’t have to sift through the evidence to find injustice–it’s all around. They wear it over their faces; it comes with them when they want to venture out into public. It is ingrained into their collective psyche. That ingrained, inherent injustice gives me perspective. The next time I cuss (not under my breath) about how uncomfortable my Spanx are, or how annoying it is to have to flirt without flirting just to insert myself into a conversation at a professional event (most of which feel like very a very vanilla version of Henry VIII’s court), I’m going to keep those women in mind. I’ll keep them in mind the next time I’m tempted to not force myself to go to an event on “raising awareness” about “women’s issues”; “raising awareness” is fine, but the women of Saudi Arabia who have decided to fight repression have inspired me to not only attend those events, but to stand up and ask these feminists what “raising awareness” really means. We all know about gender inequality–anyone who denies its existence either lives under a rock, or in a state of complete pigheaded denial–so what good does “raising awareness” do when we already know all about the thing we’re supposedly being made aware of?

It’s pointless, really.

American women–especially highly educated American women–who sit around with the goals of “raising awareness” and “exacting change” should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. How ridiculous we must look to the women of Saudi Arabia, whose only method of “raising awareness” is to do something brave, something that could end in arrest or public humiliation. Our enthusiasm for and embrace of the power of mental masturbation not only wastes time, it cheapens the movement. Protesting a simple request to not whip out a breast in public is not brave. Protesting a minor’s inability to pump unnatural levels of hormones into her system unsupervised is not brave. Staging estrogen-infused freakouts over nonissues is not brave–it is shallow, attention-seeking blog fodder.

Women in America fight over these issues because they are women. Womanhood is a very big deal to these people; you’d think having a vagina and a pair of breasts was something inherently special and rare. We fight because we are women, we argue because we are women, we go to work on “the issues” because we are women. Women women women. WOMEN. Sacred feminine. We are strong, we are equal, and we need special rules!

O.o

I’d like to challenge the women of America to take a look at the women of Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain, or Afghanistan, and do something truly brave. If you’re going to fight injustice and expose inequality, don’t do it because you’re a woman. Do it because you’re a person. Do it because the woman behind the veil is a person. Do it because the junior associate working late again is a person. Do it believing that personhood for all is more important than an overarching liberal agenda, or don’t do it at all.

Originally posted at THATAmyMiller.com: crawl inside the mind of the last conservative law student

I love the law.

I am, above most things, an academic. I love almost everything about what I’ve spent every day of the last eight years doing; since entering law school, my appreciation for philosophy and the rule of law has only deepened, in spite of all the late nights, liberal professors, and Red Bull-induced freakouts that occasionally end with me sleeping standing up in an elevator. (Happened. Two nights ago. Wouldn’t lie.)

Along with that appreciation has come a deep respect for, and a tireless defense of, law as a profession. The lawyer jokes are funny until they’re not jokes anymore; it’s incredibly easy to joke about the ethics, business practices, and overall brainpower of lawyers because (get ready for a dramatic declaration) lawyers are just about the easiest targets out there. Why? Because you don’t get it. I should say, you don’t get all of it; what people see when they’re exposed to law and the courts is a tiny, tiny, miniscule–nay, wee–fraction of what actually happens when a controversy becomes a case and is heard before a judge. You’ve not seen the work ad infinitum that goes in to researching and presenting a case.

I believe this is why so many people applauded Newt’s comments on reforming the judiciary during Thursday night’s debate, and why my head is now pounding through a perpetual caffeine overdose.

There I was, fresh out of my income tax final and looking for something to kill. (Only not. But…kind of. It was hard.) I parked myself in the library and settled in for a solid fifteen minutes of procrastination before snuggling up with my crim pro text and a man by the name of Miranda. I started flipping through my timeline and came across a clip of Newt Gingrich pontificating on what he believes is an overstepping in perpetuity of the judiciary. Check out the clip, then read on.

Done?

This is pandering in its worst form, especially his comment at the end about law schools fostering in their students a belief that they can dictate the law and lord it over the rest of the American people. I won’t call him a liar on this one (it depends entirely on the professor and the student), but I will call a spade a spade with regards to his debate strategy.

This segment sent me into a slow burn, and here’s why: if we start holding courts accountable to Congress for decisions in controversial cases, who, then, are we giving final authority over those controversial decisions? Congress? The same Congress who passed eighty five million pages of garbage and called it “recovery”? The same Congress who danced around a budget for hundreds of days? The same Congress who confirmed Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, Marshall, Harlan, White, and Souter to the Court? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?

We have Congress for a reason. We have courts for a reason. Some courts are more reliable than others; the 9th Circuit, for example, is notorious for being overturned on cert. Even assuming, arguendo, that Congressional oversight would fix all of our problems, would it be worth it? I think that it would not. In his response, Newt makes much of Dred Scott, Elk Grove (via the 9th Circuit) and other cases that, for one reason or another, are not looked upon with particularly high favor. Those are the bad cases, the cases that make you cringe–whether it be from the effect on the people, or from the reasoning that went into the holding. The thing about cases like Dred Scott, though, is that they were overturned. The Court looked at what happened, and went in a different direction. This is how it’s supposed to work.

Imagine for a moment a world in which appointed judges were required to bow and scrape before elected politicians every time a “controversial” (whatever the hell that means) decision came down. Can you imagine having to sit before the next Rick Santorum and explain why you ruled consistently with relevant provisions of Casey v. Planned Parenthood? Or Griswold? I’d rather clean a toilet with my own toothbrush than subject myself to the penumbras that would surely emanate from that “hearing.” Not to mention the effect the prospect of a hearing would have on the deliberation process; especially at the appellate level, judges and clerks should not have to worry any more than they already do about who their decision might send into a pearl-clutching fit of the vapors.

It’s true: the courts do overstep. Judges legislate from the bench, that that makes for results that are beyond frustrating. However, our system of checks and balances makes it possible to fix what even the courts manage to screw up; the legislature has the power to write and rewrite legislation, and the executive has the power to check the overchecking of the legislature via veto. To rip the power of interpretation away from the courts and settle it into the laps of career politicians would be beyond reckless.

I’m almost a lawyer; when I finally get to where I’m going, it will be my job to read the law, interpret it (which includes a historical analysis, so I guess we’re all historians now, aren’t we Mr. Gingrich?), and apply its principles to the hand I’m dealt.

It will not be my job to “read the American people,” and it will most certainly not be my job to pervert the law to fit the standards of a man whose job it is to put votes before principle, and acceptance in the soundbite culture before the rule of law.

Originally published over at The College Conservative

When it comes to religious freedom, Americans don’t have much to worry about…yet.

Even so, I’d be willing to say that anyone who has ever come out in defense of true religious freedom in the face of the rampant secularization has experienced at least substantial pushback (if not worse) against their religious beliefs. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re hanging out in a group outnumbered 5:1 by people who identify as L, G, B, T, or Q, try simply explaining why the church takes a strong stance against gay marriage. Or, try simply explaining to anyone under the age of 35 why Christians fight federal funding for abortion.

Try it. Dare ya.

Already, we’re looking at a country that from a cultural standpoint, at its best begrudgingly allows religion to exist under a steeple (but heaven–IF IT EXISTS!!??!!–forbid it show its face outside the doors of a church) and at its worst, would go so far as to fight night and day to destroy the ministerial exception and extend the hand of government into the inner dealings of the church. That’s the reason why I about screamed when a friend shot me this article:

Will the Senate Quietly Kill the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom?

USCIRF was created in 1998 under the International Religious Freedom Act, an initiative of Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.). It was overwhelmingly adopted by both chambers and signed into law by Pres. Bill Clinton. Its mandate was born of the concern that, when it comes to religion issues in foreign affairs, the foreign-policy establishment, the media, and secular human-rights groups have been inattentive at best. In contrast to the State Department’s own religious freedom office, USCIRF is an independent agency. It names the world’s worst religious persecutors and makes non-binding foreign-policy recommendations to the government. Its inter-faith group of nine commissioners…are appointed on a bipartisan basis.

The whole production has a budget of $4 million, and it’s done a lot with that money, from raising awareness regarding the conflict in Sudan to maintaining focus on religious persecution in places like China, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.

Read More →

All our tubes are maybe not belong to us completely…or something:

CIVIL LIBERTARIANS, RISE! EXCELSIOR! But seriously:

Several lawmakers and the current Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander are toying with the notion of creating a “.secure” domain where Fourth Amendment rights to privacy are voluntarily foregone in order to keep that corner of the Internet free of cyber criminals.

I can’t decide whether to flail, or nod and walk away from this one. The basic idea is that we could create a “dot-secure” safe zone, where financial institutions, the military, the government, etc. could operate under heavier security measures than are feasible in today’s online world.

But, Amy…what about My Rights©?! Will they be taken away in this new “secure” online world?

In a word, yes. In today’s intertubes, you enjoy all sorts of Constitutional rights; with this new system (so sayeth the aforementioned linked article), you wouldn’t have those same rights–you’d have to waive them before you were allowed to access anything.

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, INTERNETS CHECK YOU!

Calm down. Yes, it seems extreme. It is extreme. Extreme like a security checkpoint at a military base, or a background check before gaining access to the White House.

But..but…hmm.

Hmmm indeed. I took a quick look at a more detailed post on this issue, and what I read there gave me more pause than the short blurb from Fox:

Read More →

One of the joys of my life is reading through comment threads in search of comically inane content. You know what I’m talking about–tripe left by commenters who insist that Obama was born in Kenya during a CIA black-op on the eve of the Rapture. Or something.

Internet commentary exists on a continuum, ranging anywhere from “Certifiable Insanity” to “Surprising Veracity.” Much of it exists somewhere in the middle; it’s not entirely fact-based, but the opinions are solid enough to keep things on the side of legitimacy.

Thus is the nature of political blogging. It’s a jungle out there–especially now. We’re warming up for primary season, and if you’re not already politically-aware, just let me warn you: it’s going to be one for the books. Will we see 4 more years of Hope and Change ©? Will a former CEO and talk radio host get the GOP nod? Will Chris Matthews confide another leg-tingling moment? Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, however–the bloggers are out in force, and we’re not talking about a slapfight. We’re beyond slapfights. This is…Fight Club. For nerds. Nerds fueled by caffeine and the 24 hour news cycle.

Beware.

At any rate, apparently, the snark and hostility has become a bit much for the Obama administration:

Read More →

NERD ALERT!!! NERD ALERT!!! NERD ALERT!!!

Navy uses massive multiplayer online game to develop anti-pirate strategy

To fight piracy off the coast of Africa, the U.S. Navy has deployed advanced warships, robotic drones and even elite special forces. The Navy has now added a new weapon to that fight: a “World of Warcraft”-like multiplayer game called MMOWGLI. The game brings experts from around the government into a virtual environment where they can work together in developing strategies to thwart modern-day buccaneers.

MMOWGLI, an acronym contracted from ” Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet,” has undergone years of development within the Office of Naval Research (ONR). ONR scientists hope to expand the program beyond piracy, and use it to solve some of the world’s most intractable military problems.

Sweet. Life. Not only can our military singlehandedly dominate every other fighting force on the face of the planet, now they can kick our butts in World of Warcraft. USA! USA! USA!

Read More →

…it’s time to rediscover the line.

You know, the line that ABC has crossed by considering airing the pilot of a show called “Good Christian Bitches”:

The dramedy, based on Kim Gatlin’s novel of the same name, will be brought to life by famed “Sex and the City” and “90210” executive producer Darren Star. The plot centers on the life of reformed “mean girl” Amanda, played by “Talladega Nights” actress Leslie Bibb, who returns to her hometown of Dallas to find herself fodder for malicious gossip from the women in the Christian community.

Okay, okay, unswallow your tongue.

Read More →

I wrote this a few days ago as I was suffering through a 5 hour wait at Detroit Metro.

I have such an attitude problem today.

Sitting in an airport at 6:13 in the morning with no wi-fi (it’s not working for some reason…default to MS Word) and a lingering hangover is just not my idea of a good time. Ever. I actually considered laying on the floor in a corner by the gate, until I saw what was laying on the floor in other corners by other gates, and decided I didn’t want to be a part of it; hence the bloody mary and overpriced pancakes.

I’ve upgraded from “living hell” to “numbness and purgatory”…but there’s bacon, so for the moment I can’t complain.

(Update: the hipster in the next booth just ordered a bloody. The waitress is judging us.)

Anyway, my attitude problem started well before my realization that napping on the floor in the airport could result in AIDS and/or some sort of flesh-eating skin rot (which I would Google and find the proper name for IF THE INTERNET WAS WORKING.) My attitude problem started when I got off the stupid airport shuttle at 5:35 in the morning after no sleep, dealt with the ticketing agent’s crap, finally made it up to the security checkpoint, only to hear this…this woman…approach a TSA agent and ask if “the brown gentlemen” back a ways in line would be subjected to additional scrutiny.

(Update: brown people in the restaurant. My God, you’d think they’d screen these people.)

First of all, whitebread old ladies waddling around with Vera Bradley luggage do not get to call anyone a “brown gentleman.” Second, who says something like that out loud to a stranger? (Who, may I add, was also a “brown person,” and who looked like she was about three seconds away from locking this witch in the glass terrorist box and throwing away the key.) Third…

HOW ARE YOU THAT RACIST? These guys weren’t doing anything remotely suspicious. One of them was pounding his cup of coffee, and the other was questioning the existence of God over an advanced level of Angry Birds.

(Update: the brown people ordered coffee. Brown coffee. I’m not trying to say anything, but……conspiracy. A brown one.)

It was 5:45 in the morning. We all hated each other. I personally wanted to stab every TSA agent in the face with a hand-whittled shiv (Detroit has their own brand of agent…I swear they train them to be ten times more obnoxious than necessary.) But there in that line, in that moment, we banded together—Democrat and Republican. American and foreigner. Farmer’s daughter and hipster youth—under a common message:

“A…a what? She did not just say ‘brown gentlemen.’ No. My…my head is numb. Did she just ask if the brown people would get checked more thoroughly because obviously brown people are more susceptible to the allures of lipstick daggers and experimental incendiary devices? MY HEAD IS ACTUALLY NUMB FROM YOUR IGNORANCE. If I were not afraid of being tasered by a TSA flunkie, I would put my shoes, coat, laptop (separate from its bag, dammit,) bag, and ridiculous baggie of soaps and things into their respective plastic bins and beat you into a pulp right here in the line; and I don’t think that backscatter technology works on bloody pulp, so you’ll be missing your flight, you horrible old hag.”

More than one person said something, both to her, and passive aggressively into the atmosphere. I just hope the brown gentlemen in the back of the line missed what had happened.

(Update: the hipster is playing Angry Birds. We are soulmates, still being judged by everyone.)
(Updated update: the hipster left, and was replaced by a woman who has been reading over my shoulder for the past 5 minutes, and who I am fairly sure thinks that I should have been selected for additional screening. HELLO WOMAN READING OVER MY SHOULDER!!!)

Today, we were all brown people, chugging coffee and cursing the angry birds. The whole experience reminded me of something that I’ve been harping on for almost a year, and that I had apparently forgotten: at the end of the day, we’re all humans together. Jerks are jerks, racist idiots are racist idiots, and in situations like these, it doesn’t matter who’s conservative or who’s liberal, or who voted for whom; the only difference I could see was the difference between the idiot, and those of us who were willing to stand up to the idiot, just to protect two complete strangers from a level of censure they had done nothing to deserve.

And that, I think, is a big, big difference.

We should be more inclined to remember it.

Originally Posted at Pundit League

Daddy’s home:

Confession time: I’m still looking for that special someone. That’s right, gentlemen…Amy Miller is officially on the market.

Politically, that is.

There’s been a lot of chatter recently about who we’d all like to take to the big dance in 2012, and honestly, I can’t bring myself to participate. I’ve got my crushes, and I don’t see those going away any time soon, but I’m still waiting for the real thing. I’m in “like” with a few prospects (PenceRubioMyManMitch blah blah blah…), but I’m still waiting for that moment where time stops, the music fades, and goosebumps run up and down my arms in a Sally-just-saw-Harry-across-the-New-Years-Eve-party sort of way.

Watching Nigel Farage publicly eviscerate a bunch of Socialist Eurotrash, though, has brought that much closer to knowing exactly what I want in a candidate. Farage is the leader of the UK Independence Party, and he’s a badass. Watch that video again.

Can I have him? I want him!

Yes, I know I can’t have him, but I can’t help myself–that’s what I want. I want someone who can stand up and castrate the opposition while maintaining his dignity. I want someone who is able to connect with America without completely playing into the hands of his opponents. I want someone who can make friend and foe alike step back and say damn.

I’m being constantly reminded that I’m young, inexperienced, and as such should keep my opinions to myself, but I’m telling you–we need a Nigel Farage in our lives, because a Nigel Farage won’t just turn conservatives on. A Nigel Farage turns everyone on–this type of candidate will make conservatives smile, liberals scream, and (most importantly) will send the Establishment GOP running for cover.

I’m not saying we don’t have great potential waiting in the ranks, and I’m not saying that I don’t have faith in any of the up-and-coming conservative hopefuls. All I’m saying is that the best way to find the next conservative hero may not be by leaping into the ring and sinking our fangs into anyone who speaks a word against Sarah Palin. Maybe the key to maintaining our momentum and winning in 2012 is to let the hero come to us. Stop trying to convince the country that, with 2 years to go, so-and-so is the only logical choice for president. Instead, step back, and let some of these hopefuls take a crack at it.

It might be hard, but I think it will be worth the wait. I don’t want to throw myself on every grenade chucked in front of my favorite candidate–that’s a losing battle. I’m holding out for something better. I’m willing to pass up the cute guy at the bar, and wait for Richard Gere to show up on the fire escape.

But maybe that’s just me.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That would be the First Amendment. Remember it? That little thing the Founders gave us to ensure that our speech could not be stifled by the iron hamfist of overwhelming bureaucratic powergrabbage?

If you’re a bureaucrat in Florida, the answer is probably no. Behold:

Protecting Citizen Speech in Florida

Sarasota-area residents Nathan Worley, Pat Wayman, John Scolaro and Robin Stublen talk politics once a week as part of an informal political group. But in 2010, a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution prompted them to stop talking and take political action.  They want to run a simple radio ad, urging the public to vote “no” on Amendment 4.

This sort of spontaneous political speech should be easy.  As IJ Staff Attorney Paul Sherman said, “In America, the only thing you should need to talk about politics is an opinion.”

Unfortunately, Florida’s campaign finance laws make speaking out far more difficult than it should be.  Under Florida law, anytime two or more people join together to spend more than $500 to advocate the passage or defeat of a ballot issue, they become a fully regulated political committee.

/gak

Keep going:

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[Promoted from diaries - ML]

via Robert Stacy McCain, who has the exclusive.

California Reporter to Republican Candidate: “We’re not interested.”

A reporter for the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze sent an e-mail to a political consultant saying the newspaper is “not interested” in covering Republican candidate Mattie Fein, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Jane Harman in California’s 36th District.

In the e-mail sent Wednesday (see text below), Daily Breeze reporter Nick Green told consultant John S. Thomas of Thomas Partners Strategies, “Don’t call or e-mail us – we’ll call you if we’re interested. And if you haven’t got it yet, we’re not interested.”

…at least they were honest.

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Busy, busy, busy:

Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case TOTALLY justify his sleazy, treasonous behavior

(Okay, so that’s not the exact headline the New York Times slapped on their slobbering love letter to Bradley Manning, but it seemed close enough.)

I don’t know where to begin. The only redeeming quality of this piece is that they didn’t somehow invoke the race card. (Poor, beleaguered British immigrants…won’t someone please think of them?) Instead, less than three sentences into the thing, they invoke what may grow to be come the progressive machine’s new best friend…the gay card:

He spent part of his childhood with his father in the arid plains of central Oklahoma, where classmates made fun of him for being a geek. He spent another part with his mother in a small, remote corner of southwest Wales, where classmates made fun of him for being gay.

Nerdy and homosexual? Oh, the humanity.

Then he joined the Army, where, friends said, his social life was defined by the need to conceal his sexuality under “don’t ask, don’t tell” and he wasted brainpower fetching coffee for officers.

Can we somehow blame Bush for this complete and utter lack of fabulousness? Because blaming his soldier father, struggling mother, former classmates, Bible-belt upbringing, and the entirety of the population of the UK doesn’t seem to be enough:

Sometimes, former classmates said, he reacted to the teasing by idly boasting about stealing other students’ girlfriends. At other times, he openly flirted with boys. Often, with only the slightest provocation, he would launch into fits of rage.

“It was probably the worst experience anybody could go through,” said Rowan John, a former classmate who was openly gay in high school. “Being different like me, or Bradley, in the middle of nowhere is like going back in time to the Dark Ages.”

So, that happened. Later in the article, we come to find out Manning was a completely intolerable jackass who joined the Army in an attempt to get his life together. (I feel safe.) Apparently, the utter meanness of his superiors and colleagues caused Manning to “cling to” his “hacker friends,” and in what was probably a cry for help/attention/more pity/a hug, release classified information to WikiLeaks.

In a computer chat with Mr. Lamo, Private Manning said he gave the video to WikiLeaks in February. Then, after WikiLeaks released it in April, Private Manning hounded Mr. Watkins about whether there had been any public reaction. “That was one of his major concerns once he’d done this,” Mr. Watkins told Wired. “Was it really going to make a difference?”

In his computer chats with Mr. Lamo, Private Manning described how he downloaded the video and lip-synched to Lady Gaga as he copied hundreds of thousand of diplomatic cables.

“Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack,” he boasted. But even as he professed a perhaps inflated sense of purpose, he called himself “emotionally fractured” and a “wreck” and said he was “self-medicating like crazy.”

And as he faces the possibility of a lifetime in prison, some of Private Manning’s remarks now seem somewhat prophetic.

“I wouldn’t mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much,” he wrote, “if it wasn’t for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press.”

Ask and you shall receive, Mr. Manning. You wanted your picture plastered all over the world press? Wish granted. Truth be told, you’re lucky the contents of your skull aren’t plastered all over a far-flung rock face. That’s all I have to say to you.

This is serious. We’re devolving. We’ve used the race card to justify murder, and now we’re oh-so-stealthily using the gay card to justify this whiny, self-absorbed, soulless traitor’s betrayal of American soldiers, and the civilians who help them fight. Blame his past, blame his colleagues, blame whoever you want, as long as you don’t blame this man’s own selfish disdain for the value of another human life.

Manning sought infamy, but I say we should allow him one more moment in the limelight. Let’s send him over to Afghanistan, and let the Taliban thank him in person for a job well done.

He deserves it.

There’s a reason they call it “race wars”:

Gunman targeted hateful, racist, managers

Regard me (emphasis mine):

Relatives say Thornton, 34, finally cracked after suffering racial harassment in a company where he said he was singled out for being black in a predominantly white work force.

“Everybody’s got a breaking point,” said Joanne Hannah, the mother of Thornton’s longtime girlfriend.

After shooting his co-workers, Thornton hid as police moved in. He called his mother, who tried for 10 minutes to talk him out of killing himself, his uncle Will Holliday told reporters.

“He said, ‘I killed the five racists that was there that was bothering me,’” Holliday said. “He said, ‘The cops are going to come in so I am going to take care of myself.’”

What was this egregious racial violation of which he speaks?

Thornton had said he found a picture of a noose and a racial epithet written on a bathroom wall, said Hannah, of Enfield, whose daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for the past eight years.

…and? The article doesn’t mention anything else.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know the intimate details of this man’s employment situation, or try and justify the sick mindset that resulted in someone scrawling ignorant garbage all over the inside of a bathroom stall. I’m sure we’ll find out that Thornton had altercations with several of his coworkers, who had conveniently attended a tea party at some point. No, what I’m worried about is this:

“Everybody’s got a breaking point,” said Joanne Hannah, the mother of Thornton’s longtime girlfriend.

Please, somebody scream and flail if I’m wrong, but that smacks of good ol’ justification. It sounds like something you’d say, shaking your head with your eyebrows raised, before going back to tweeting about #JustinBieber’s haircut like it’s no big deal.

No big deal? Can we just step back and consider this for a second? This man, with what I will just go ahead and assume was “malice aforethought” and all that, murdered eight of his coworkers.

He didn’t fire off a nasty e-mail, or get into a slapfight in the coffee room, or cut the heads off of the secretary’s flower bouquet (I’ve seen it happen); he packed heat in his lunchbox and SHOT PEOPLE IN THE HEAD.

By now, we should be used to people playing the race card whenever possible–it’s reared its head in the healthcare debate, the immigration debate, and in the debate over whether or not Tyra picks too many white girls to be America’s Next Top Model. What gives me the willies is that his friends and relatives chose to play the race card instead of offering their condolences to the families of the people that GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD.

The news reports so far have not given any sort of indication that the shooter was seriously harassed by, or had any reason to feel threatened by, his coworkers. He said it himself–they were “bothering” him. Okay, I’ll bite–here’s a list of people that have bothered me the past few days:

1. Jason Allen
2. Justin Bieber
3. The guy who almost totaled my car for me in the parking garage this morning
4. Juan Williams, Shepard Smith, and Keith Olbermann
5. Every man who has ever addressed my chest instead of my face
6. Mormons who won’t go away
7. People who bring strollers to sales at Victoria’s Secret
8. Whoever invented pantyhose
9. Men who find it appropriate to bar-stalk me when I’m just trying to have a quiet drink with the girls
10. People who dress their pets like tiny versions of themselves

Yes, they bothered me, but I didn’t deem it appropriate to SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD.

Have I made my point?

Call me naive, but ten years ago, I don’t think anyone would have dared suggest that workplace harassment was just cause to bring a gun to work and cap your coworkers; now, it’s easier, more commonplace, and dare I say more acceptable (in MSM circles) to whip out the race card when someone screws up. The race card has been used to justify preferential treatment, entitlement programs, and now–however offhandedly and unofficially–it has been used to justify murder.

How’s that hopey change working out for you, Connecticut?

h/t to Caleb Howe

The race for Nevada’s senate seat is probably my favorite Congressional race of all–mostly because the whole thing is irritating the crap out of the progressive establishment, from the basement bloggers right on up to our friends on Capitol Hill. What once was a dead bang winner for the GOP is now anyone’s game, so say the increasingly nervous soothsayers on the left.

Personally, I blame Sharron Angle for all the drama; after all, she’s just so easy to hate! She’s smart, pretty, articulate, friendly (thank you, RightOnline,) and rose from the obscure foam of the tea party (#outrage! #racism!) to become Harry Reid’s (D-elusional) worst nightmare. Shuuuuuuun!

Hard to believe a few short months ago, the liberal camp was convinced that Harry Reid was doomed to fail at the hands of an energized, enraged conservative base. Way back in 2009, before the advent of the Angle campaign, Nevada locals were convinced that Reid was in for popcorn-and-a-coke-worthy battle of the ages. So much doom, so little time to blog about it.

All that changed, of course, with the rise of Sharron Angle–her status as “that tea party candidate” allowed the beleaguered Reid camp to rise from the ashes and sling brand new mud all over the GOP’s Last Great Hope© to defeat Reid in 2010. It was obvious from the beginning that the MSM would be chomping at the bit to cast clouds of doubt over Angle and her campaign:

Angle, who sat at a measly 5 percent in the polls in April before the national umbrella group Tea Party Express endorsed her and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into her campaign, garnered 40 percent of the GOP vote to crush one-time front-runner Sue Lowden by 14 points.

snip

…there can be no doubt the race in this decidedly purple state where Democrats have a large registration edge and which President Obama won in 2008 is now the No. 1 test of whether the tea party movement has mainstream appeal. Even tea party leaders acknowledge that if Angle does not defeat Reid, the damage to their cause will be catastrophic.

So…beautifully…passive aggressive. If I were a liberal wingnut columnist, this is exactly how I would start my attack: damn the tea party, damn their candidate, and damn their money-bombing socially-engineered anti-Obama serf-led rebellion! Wingnuts! RAAAAAARGH!

RAAAAAARGH, indeed.

Not to be thwarted by polls suggesting that Angle was fairly evenly matched with our stalwart Senator, the media started playing a new game, called “It doesn’t matter because BOTH of these candidates suck and we hate them so SHUT UP. HMMPH.” Case in point:

As a result of the early barrage of attacks, Angle is now nearly as unpopular as Reid.

In the latest poll, both Reid and Angle won “favorable” ratings from 38 percent of voters. Reid was viewed unfavorably by 51 percent — about where he has been for most of this year — and Angle is now seen unfavorably by 47 percent. That’s 4 percentage points higher than two weeks ago and nearly double what it was in June, just before she won the primary and ran into the Reid buzz saw.

The Reid buzz saw? Really? In the space of a few short months, Harry Reid has graduated from moldering wet blanket to indomitable power tool; I wonder if the MSM would flip over and sing the same song if the Tea Party decided to shake things up and endorse Barack Obama? Just a thought.

As of July 28, Rasmussen had Angle trailing Reid 43% to 45%. 58% of voters think Angle holds “extreme” views–no doubt due to our helpful friends in the MSM. Nevada “leans democrat,” Reid’s manufactured optimism is catching on, and Angle has been nearly-successfully painted as a nut. It’s not like nobody saw this coming, but it’s still unbelievable when you consider that Angle’s opponent is a perfect example of the cronyism and rabid progressivism that is currently running this great country into the ground.

Behold, the power of the liberal machine. With a wave of its swizzle stick, it was able to flip not only the media, but public opinion, in favor of a candidate who just a few short months before was seen as the lamest of all lame ducks, already stuffed and taking a turn on the Republican spit.

Lucky for us, Republicans and conservatives at large are still fighting for Sharron Angle. Those of us who pay enough attention to see what has happened remain confident that public opinion can flip right back around, especially because of the growing conservative presence in the new media. It’s time to do everything we can to amp up the fight, because you can be sure Harry Reid isn’t going to back down. Like it or not, the lefties are very good at what they do–old media, new media, fun with soundbites, everything–and they’re going to throw everything they’ve got behind the tried and true media woodchipper.

When it comes down to it, though, the woodchipper is all they have left to bank on, and that is why we keep fighting. Anyone with a single firing synapse knows that Harry Reid is a dead stick; the only thing keeping him going is the constant barrage of anti-tea party, “Angle is a loony” propaganda.

It’s dishonest and unethical, but dishonest and unethical is what the left does best.

Julian Assange is at it again:

Wiki-Leaked War Files Expose Identities of Afghan Informants

Hundreds of Afghan lives have been put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents to WikiLeaks because the files identify informants working with NATO forces.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times of London found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to U.S. forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers’ names.

Oh, well done, sir.

So, here’s a question: when is the world finally going to see this sanctimonious bastard for what he is? Remember when he “leaked” his #outrageous and #totallyundoctoredandcompletelylegitimate video of
US soldiers glorying in the violent destruction of poor innocent civilians who may or may not have been less innocent than the MSM would have liked to believe? That “leak” wasn’t at all irresponsible or anything. That, on top of this newest travesty, should solidify any and all theories that Assagne is among the worst of men.

Julian Assange is not a “whistleblower;” Julian Assange is an irresponsible, traitorous twit, and his life’s work is to put people in danger for the sole purpose of damaging the mission and credibility of the US military.

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Thus spake Luke Visconti, management consultant and Gaffemaster © at large:

Luke Visconti, owner of DiversityInc, first said on CNN that Tea Party leaders are “leveraging racism” and that they have risen to power with an “anti-black Obama” message.
When the anchor noted that black members are active in the conservative movement, Visconti responded: “There were Jewish concentration guard camps. Weren’t there?”

Real life.
It got even better, once he was asked to elaborate:

He said that black conservatives are going against their own interests in joining the Tea Party, which he described as a “creepy” phenomenon based on “hatred” and “racism.”

“There’s always going to be turncoats or people who behave in a way that’s not beneficial to the majority of the group in order to curry favor,” he said. “Why would Jewish people volunteer to help the Nazis manage concentration camps? … Well, for favors.”

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I mean it. This is not to be borne:

NAACP accuses tea party of tolerating bigotry

“We felt the time had come to stand up and say, ‘It’s time for the tea party to be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don’t tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members,’” NAACP President Ben Jealous said ahead of the debate.

“We don’t have a problem with the tea party’s existence. We have an issue with their acceptance and welcoming of white supremacists into their organizations,” he said.

Okay, NAACP President Ben Jealous, here’s the thing. I don’t have a problem with the NAACP’s existence. I just have an issue with its acceptance and welcoming of ignorant, bigoted, race-baiting losers like you. Your new closed-doors resolution does not–what was it?–empower [me] to actually look at [myself] and see that there are those who are noticing things that I think most tea partiers don’t want.” No, actually, your resolution empowers me to show up at your next meeting and offend you with my conservativeness.

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One of the greatest things about law school is all the free junk that gets thrown your way; I’ve seen a vast improvement over the free junk I got in undergrad. Not a beer coozie in sight, but here’s your free 2 GB jump drive! (INVALUABLE. LOVE. Sell my soul to Westlaw? Sign me up!)

But still, it’s not really free. My tuition pays for access to Westlaw, which certainly in turn pays for those jump drives. Still, it feels free, so I use it and I’m happy–saves me the time and added expense of running to electronic-store-Hell and shelling out 20 bucks for the same thing.

There’s no such thing as free. Even if it’s free to me, someone somewhere is paying for it; that’s why I tip bartenders for free drinks, servers for free food, and cab drivers for free rides. (I embrace the whole “I’m a girl” thing.) I’m about as wiped of the entitlement culture as a person my age can be, which is why I literally cheered out loud in the library when I read this piece in the Sun-Times:

There is no “free” lemonade.

“You must charge something for the lemonade,” I explained. “That’s the whole point of a lemonade stand. You figure out your costs — how much the lemonade costs, and the cups — and then you charge a little more than what it costs you, so you can make money. Then you can buy more stuff, and make more lemonade, and sell it and make more money.”

Long story short, this guy rolled up on a lemonade stand; the girls running the stand were giving away the lemonade, as well as candy, for free. Hopelessness and #facepalmity ensued when neither the children, nor their nanny–how twee–understood the concept of earning money. Naturally, he wrote a column about it, and naturally, that column inspired a litany of #outrage and #righteousindignation and #omgbutthechildren and #whydoyouresentthecharitablegivingofinnocentsnowflakes.

…and naturally, he replied:

Giving is great, but lemonade stand should teach entrepreneurship.

Clearly there is a great misconception that entrepreneurship and generosity are incompatible. But that’s far from the truth. Just look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — two of our country’s greatest entrepreneurs, who are in the process of giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to causes they think are worthwhile. But first they had to earn that money!

HOO-RAY. Seriously, I’m all for indulging the charitable nature of children, but I support what this guy is saying 100%. I’m going to be a jerk for a second and make a few assumptions: first, anyone who has a nanny for their kids probably has money to burn; second, anyone who would provide their kids with 3 types of lemonade, chocolate candies, and cups to give away probably has even more money to burn; and third, the fact that these girls glazed over when confronted about their “charity” says to me that they have no real concept of what it takes to earn a dollar because their parents are vapid enough to just fork over the goodies.

Yes, I’m harsh…but then again, so is life.

I’m not a parent, so I can’t say for sure, but I’m reasonably certain that if my kid bounced up to me and said he wanted to set up a stand and give things away for free, I’d have to step into the next room and have a nervous breakdown. Not because I’m against charity, but because I’d have to figure out a way to sit down and have a discussion about economic responsibility with my 12 year old, without crushing any future sense of social responsibility.

I think it’s fine to donate time, money and stuff to people who need it–voluntary acts of kindness are the legs we conservatives stand on when it comes to fighting compulsory progressive handouts. We should encourage this mindset in children, along with common-sense principles of entrepreneurship and smart money management. The purpose of an allowance is to learn about saving; the purpose of a lemonade stand is to learn about profits.

The lesson is simple: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade–but don’t be afraid to exploit the hell out of that lemonade, demand payment, turn a profit, and embrace the #evilcapitalist within. It feels good…I promise.