Why Is Cook County AG Looking Into Students Studying the Wrongly Convicted?

October 27, 2009 | Filed Under Chicago, Cook County, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, State Government, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The work of the Medill Innocence Project has already led to the exoneration of 11 inmates in Illinois. In 2000 Governor George Ryan cited the Medill Innocence Project of Northwestern University as one of the reasons he suspended the death penalty in the Land of Lincoln. It has yet to be fully reinstated.

The Medill Innocence Project has recently set its sites on the case of Anthony McKinney, convicted of murdering a security officer in 1978. The students of the Project feel that they have successfully proved that McKinney was wrongly convicted and have also succeeded in getting a judge to review the case.

One might think that thanks and accolades should be the student’s reward for their efforts to repair justice in Illinois. But for some reason Cook County prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mails of the students of the Project. You heard that right. Prosecutors seem to be investigating the students!
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Obama’s Newest Racemongering Judge: California’s Edward Chen

October 16, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, California, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, President, Race, Senate, Society/Culture, State Government, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama has gone out of his way to “diversify” the federal bench with his spate of nominations of various minorities chief of which was his successful seating of the “wise Latina,’ Sonia Sotomayor, on the Supreme Court. Obama’s nominees* for 10 district court openings include four African-Americans, three Asian-Americans, one Latino and four women. One of those nominees, San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen, received a favorable vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington today.

So what sort of judge is Edward Chen? Well, for one, the left-wing American Bar Association rated Chen a “well qualified” nominee and many of his associates at the ACLU speak highly of him. As an ACLU lawyer, Chen was known for opposing English-only policies and for pushing discriminatory affirmative action ideals. He even came to the aid of gang members in one case. Chen was quite the ACLU activist between 1979 and 2001.

His ACLU history would suffice to make many wary of him, of course. But for a segment of America, working for the ACLU is not a disqualifier. So in order to judge Edward Chen one must look at his past. Discovering what Judge Chen thinks of the country upon which he apparently assumes to sit in judgment is a telling exercise. Sadly, it seems he has quite a low opinion of the nation that he will be serving.
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Ill. Supreme Court Gives Gun Owners a Small Victory

October 13, 2009 | Filed Under 2nd Amendment, Anti-Americanism, Chicago, Constitution, Cook County, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Guns, Illinois, Judges, Security/Safety, State Government, Supreme Court, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Illinois Supreme Court has affirmed a decision by the Third District Appellate Court that ruled that the definition of a “case” for transporting a firearm does, indeed, include an automobile’s enclosed front seat console.

The current law provides for several ways that a firearm can be transported:

(4) Carries or possesses in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person except when on his land or in his own abode or fixed place of business any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm, except that this subsection (a) (4) does not apply to or affect transportation of weapons that meet one of the following conditions:
(i) are broken down in a non-functioning state; or
(ii) are not immediately accessible; or
(iii) are unloaded and enclosed in a case,firearm carrying box, shipping box, or other container by a person who has been issued a currently valid Firearm Owner’s Identification Card

IllinoisCarry.com celebrated the decision as a “huge win” for Illinois gun owners.

The case in question, People vs Diggins, involved the transportation of two unloaded firearms and two loaded magazines in the console of a vehicle driven by an individual in possession of a valid FOID card. In unanimous agreement the justices ruled the trial judge erred in denying defense the right to argue that a console is considered a “case” or “other container” under sec. 24 -1.4(c)iii and for instructing the jury that the console is not considered a “case”.

This ruling would also seem to resolve the question as to the legality of transporting unloaded hanguns in the glove box of a vehicle by IL citizens in possession of a valid FOID card.

Of course, the law still states that firearms must be carried outside of a vehicle in some sort of case specifically built for a firearm so one wonders exactly how practical this new interpretation of the law will be?

Still, this is a step in the right direction for curtailing the capriciousness of our absurdly strict gun transportation laws.
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NBC’s Gregory Assumes Liberal Argument for Healthcare, Raises ‘Right Wing Conspiracy’

September 29, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Corruption, Health, Hillary Clinton, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Republicans, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a Meet the Press interview with Bill Clinton on September 27, NBC’s David Gregory seemed to assume as accepted fact that the only way to fix healthcare was for Americans to “pay higher taxes.” He also asked the former chief executive if the “vast right wing conspiracy” that his wife bemoaned in 1998 was now in high gear attacking President Obama.

During the interview, Gregory brought up the “big challenges” that Obama was facing, particularly with the healthcare issue. In his question, though, Gregory did not phrase his healthcare question by using qualifiers like “Obama says,” or “Democrats claim.” He seemed to simply take the president’s position as accepted fact without qualifiers.

On healthcare, Gregory asked Clinton if Obama was doing a good job. “And on health care, as this debate rolls through,” Gregory asked, ” do you think the President has leveled with the American people on this fact, that Americans are going to have to pay higher taxes if they want health care reform?”

Notice that Gregory asked Clinton if Obama had done a good job leveling with the American people on “this fact” and that we are “going to have to pay higher taxes” to get that reform? Gregory didn’t say, for instance, that Obama “feels” that the only way to reform healthcare is to pay higher taxes. In essence, Gregory asked his question assuming that Obama’s position is essentially true.
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Why Conservatives Get Sandbagged By Liberals

August 19, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, President, Republicans, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few weeks ago the Weekly Standard had a ridiculously hopeful editorial about how President Obama couldn’t possibly go any further to the left with his next SCOTUS pick because of the ideological basis upon which they sold Justice Sotomayor. For the Standard, Terry Eastland was sure that the logic by which Sotomayor was sold to the country would preclude a shift leftward for the next court pick. Unfortunately, Eastland proved once again that too many conservatives simply do not understand that liberalism does not rely on logic or consistency , it simply barrels forward with no heed to reason. You see, liberals are powermongers, not logicians. They only care about what wins not that their logic is consistent moment to moment. Eastland’s complete lack of understanding shows why conservatives are sideswiped by liberals every time.

Eastland’s main point was that during the confirmation process, Judge Sotomayor “dissented from her sponsor’s view of what a judge should be” by presenting her judicial philosophy as one based on a strict interpretation of the law. This, Eastland notes, is in stark contrast to President Obama’s apparently long-held belief that a judge needed “empathy” to be a good jurist.

Eastland notes that in 2005, then Senator Obama voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts “precisely because… the nominee came up short on the empathy measure.” Eastland then points out that early in the four-day-long confirmation process Sotomayor began “separating herself from Obama on the matter of empathy” and that her testimony eventually made explicit the difference between the nominee and her patron on that point.
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The Supreme Court And The Commerce Clause

July 20, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Free Trade, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, Thomas Brewton | No Comments

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The Constitution’s commerce clause has been stretched beyond recognition to justify traveling the road to tyranny by obliterating the 9th and 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

The Constitution’s Article I, Section. 8 says, inter alia:

“The Congress shall have Power…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes…”

In the hearing for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, she was asked to comment upon the Constitution’s commerce clause. Senator Dianne Feinstein inquired about the extent to which the Court can restrain Congress’s use of the commerce clause to regulate anything and everything it lays eyes upon. As Senator Feinstein noted, that will become particularly important as Congress and executive branch regulatory bodies embark upon procrustean regulations under President Obama’s proposed “green” legislation.
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Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Liar?

July 18, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, John Armor, Judges, Liberals, President, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law | No Comments

-By John Armor

Here is what Judge Sotomayor said in her opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. She said, “my judicial philosophy… is simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make the law — it is to apply the law.”

On seven occasions, one by example in an opinion, she made clear an opposite opinion, that the outcome of a case decided by a judge of her style of decision-making, can and should be varied according to the “experience” of the judge. She wrote and published, “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion that a while male who hasn’t lived that life.”
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CNN’s Analysis, Sotomayor a ‘Cautious and Careful Liberal,’ is Left Rhetoric Exemplified

July 14, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Race, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you want to see how liberals in the media “do” their thing, nothing has been a better example than the analysis by CNN’s Jeffery Toobin. We’ve highlighted some on-air work of his Sotomayor coverage, but he also has a written piece on CNN.com that is a perfect example of how the left spins rhetoric to legitimize leftist precepts.

In his July 13 piece, for instance, Toobin calls Sotomayor a “cautious and careful liberal” like Ginsburg and Breyer. So, it makes one wonder, has Toobin ever called anyone on the right a “cautious and careful conservative”?

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One Reason Our Healthcare System is in a Mess: Trial Lawyers

July 8, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Corruption, Health, Judges, Liberals, President, Society/Culture, Taxes, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

OK, my headline is admittedly too simplistic. In fact, the whole medical malpractice milieu is sorely in need of a fix. We have unnecessarily large awards to aggrieved patients, crushing insurance costs to doctors to cover malpractice, a situation where defensive medicine drives up costs, and an entire industry of lawyers whose job it is, apparently, to rape the system and cause it to be burdensome for all of us. On top of that, we have a national party in the Democrats assisting these very destructive lawyers to do just that. This is a part of our medical system that truly needs reform.

We can start by getting Democrats to stop doing everything they can to bend over backwards for the John Edwards’ of this world — ambulance chasers extraordinaire. Democrats are the reason this has gotten so bad. And imagine, we are trusting to Democrats to “fix” what they, themselves broke with the greedy assistance of the trial lawyers.

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A New 4th of July Declaration of Independence

July 5, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Founders, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, Rights, Socialism, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Thomas Brewton | No Comments

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The 1776 Declaration was a resolution to throw off the tyranny of big government.

Borrowing from the 1776 document, the history of the present political administration is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute socialist tyranny over these states. When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security.

Democrat/Socialists have made judges dependent upon their ideological will alone. They have erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out our substance. To support socialist labor unions they have threatened to cut off our trade with all parts of the world. They have altered fundamentally the forms of our government. They propose, for specious, scientistic purposes, to destroy major mining and manufacturing industries.
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Obama’s Racist Judge

June 30, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, President, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Soon the Senate will take up the cause of President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. In the news this week, one of her decisions that appeared before the current court was reversed. With Sotomayor in the news, then, it is time to look her over once again. It must be said, though, that any close scrutiny finds her wanting.

To begin with, it’s shocking that President Obma has nominated for a spot on the Supreme Court a judge whose decisions have been reversed or rejected in five out of the six times her cases appeared before that august body. Additionally and by her own admission, she was admitted to Princeton ahead of other law students as a result of affirmative action despite having lower grades. She once gleefully called herself a “perfect affirmative action baby,” even as her grades were “highly questionable.”

“My test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at Princeton or Yale,” Sotomayor once said on a discussion panel during an event sponsored by a non-profit law organization in the 1990s.

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Ivy League Realism

June 24, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Founders, Government, Corruption, History, Journalism, Judges, Liberals, President, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Thomas Brewton | No Comments

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The social justice views of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor have deep roots.

Several recent articles in both liberal-progressive and conservative media attributed Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s interpretation of the law to the doctrine of legal realism. Specifically mentioned in that connection was 1920s and 30s legal scholar Jerome Frank.

In fact, Mr. Frank was just one voice, although a prominent one, among many legal scholars who articulated the doctrine of legal realism. That doctrine’s genesis goes back to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s 1881 lectures at Harvard law School, later published as The Common Law. Holmes in 1902 was elevated to the Supreme Court by President Theodore Roosevelt, a Harvard graduate and early member of the Eastern liberal-progressive establishment.
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Sotomayor, Thomas, Twain, and the NY Times

June 11, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Government, Corruption, John Armor, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Race, Society/Culture, Supreme Court | 1 Comment

-By John Armor

One of Mark Twain’s well-known quotes is this: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The humor works because it is based on truth. We all know there are those who play games with statistics to support a false conclusion. One of Twain’s own examples was that “the number of Methodists and murderers is rising at the same rate in the Nebraska Territory.” That “proved,” of course, that Methodists are murderers.

It is also possible, however, to present a lie by constructing a discussion with nothing but hard, provable facts. The New York Times demonstrated that fact today (Sunday) with a frontpage, above the fold article comparing Sonia Sotomayor, nominee to be a Justice on the Supreme Court, with Clarence Thomas, who has been a Justice since 1991. The title of that article is, “For Sotomayor and Thomas, Paths Fork at Race and Identity.”

I have read extensively on the backgrounds of Justice Thomas and Judge Sotomayor. I am satisfied that almost all of the facts about the childhoods, educations, writings and careers of these two judges in this article are accurate. It is true, as the article states, that both suffered great racial prejudice at all stages in their lives. It is true that they reacted somewhat differently to that prejudice.
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Lawyers Proving the ‘Slippery Slope’ is Real

June 7, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you’ve spent any time at all on Internet message boards or in college debate class you’ll have seen the rafters vibrate with righteous condemnation against the “slippery slope argument.” It is claimed that a worst case, ultimate extrapolation of a thing is a bad argument because it isn’t necessarily a truism. Supporters of the Second Amendment, for instance, are scolded by liberals when the supporter says that any new gun law is “one more step to banning guns.” The gun restricter says that the gun supporter is employing a “slippery slope” argument and that it is idiotic to claim that one new law must mean that a gun ban is the ultimate outcome. One doesn’t necessarily follow the other.

It is a logical conclusion, of course, that one step won’t necessarily lead to a series of other steps. But, humanity isn’t ruled by logic and those small steps that ultimately lead down the road to ruin are far more common than not. Here is another example of how one step led to another to bad effect and, as is far too often the case, the situation at hand was made in the arena of the law. And recently that slope descended even further down that road to hell.

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Ruling: Telcoms Not Liable for ‘Illegal Spying’

June 4, 2009 | Filed Under Congress, Constitution, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Islam, Islamofascism, Judges, Liberals, Security/Safety, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like the anti-Bushies lost another one this week when lawsuits against telecommunications companies claiming that they assisted the Bush administration in “illegally spying on Americans” were dismissed in San Francisco.

Federal district judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Congress didn’t violate the Constitution by allowing the U.S. attorney-general to “certify privately to the court that the companies had been asked to co-operate in an antiterrorism programme authorised by the president.” Vaughn cited a law that retroactively gave the telecoms immunity.

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An Open Letter to Sonia Sotomayor

June 1, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Business, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, History, John Armor, Judges, Liberals, Military, Morals/Sex, Race, Religion, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law | No Comments

-By John Armor

Dear Sonia, May I call you Sonia? We’ve just met but I feel I’ve known you forever, because of your “compelling story.” I’m an elderly, white male who’s a lawyer. But wait, I’m not that dull and dismissible. I’ve had my “story” moments.

Remember that psychologists’ list of the ten worst things that can happen to a person? Losing your job, or house, getting divorced, going bankrupt, facing death, burying a child. You know, nasty stuff. I’ve been through almost everything on that list, some more than once. You pick yourself up and continue on as best you can. Big whoop.

Having a “story” does not qualify anyone for the Supreme Court (or other high offices). Here are some examples. There have been four men who fit the following definition: They were born in humble circumstances, far from the centers of power in their nations. They suffered many losses and defeats in their early careers. Still, each of them became the leaders of their nations at a time when their nations faced potentially fatal wars.
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Unprofessionalism at the Boston Herald: White Men Attacked

May 30, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Feminism, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald has done it again. She’s unleashed her deathless prose filled with soaring rhetoric and high concepts all revealing her infinite sagacity. OK, that was just sarcasm. In truth, Eagan has given us another example of the sort of low-end, guttural, sputterings that we have become so used to seeing drip like sour milk from her pen. Her latest Boston Herald piece is a prime example of the unprofessionalism that pervades her work.

In a posting titled “Men in throes of Supreme panic,” Eagan gets into her best name calling mode against all those eeeevil “white men” out there that might find reason to oppose President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, a woman well known for positing that female Hispanics are inherently better judges than white men — a sentiment that if reversed would be considered a racist statement.

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Conservatives: Oppose Sotomayor at Your Own Risk?

May 27, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Feminism, Government, Corruption, Judges, Liberals, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few of our newly minted spokesmen for all those seemingly ubiquitous new Republican moderates out there are starting to say that if we oppose Sotomayor, we do so at our own risk. By this they mean that if we are seen to oppose a strong Hispanic woman we will be hurting our chances further with Hispanic voters. To this one can only say poppycock. Sotomayor should be opposed and vigorously but not because of anything other than her rather un-judicial judicial philosophy.

No one, not one conservative commentator or politician, cares a whit that Sotomayor is Hispanic. There simply is no expectation of opposing her because she is of Latino heritage. And so, because of this, there should be no reason whatever to shy from criticizing her qualifications and philosophy. Further, to allow moderates on our side or anyone on the left to equate our opposition to a racial objection is illegitimate and should be vociferously denied.

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International Busy Body Laws Waning?

May 21, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Communism, Constitution, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Europe, Foreign Policy, Government, Corruption, Israel, Judges, Liberals, Rights, Security/Safety, Socialism, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, UN, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are we beginning to see the first cracks in the idea of “universal jurisdiction,” the international busy body “law” that said that any nation can arrest the leaders of any other nation and try them for “war crimes”? Let us hope we are, at least.

Now, I’ve always contended that the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals was a mistake. Not because those Nazi scum were innocent, far from it. But, rather, because it set a bad precedent that contended that the “international community” was qualified to capture, prosecute, and punish “war criminals.” This entire concept is made to order if one wants to destroy national sovereignty but not for one much interested in the rule of law. In fact, it is a direct assault on any rule of law because it invites the capricious rule of the mob (by reflecting current world opinion) on just who is and who is not a “war criminal.” Not to mention that the assumption that a world body can make these determinations must as a matter of course preclude any power over its own people by the individual nations involved. The determination of the “world community” will and must supersede national legal rulings — unless those rulings happen to agree with that world opinion which only makes the national decision at best perfunctory and certainly pointless.

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Want Another Bigot on the Court? You Got It.

May 13, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Free Speech, Government, Corruption, John Armor, Judges, Liberals, Race, Religion, Rights, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Supreme Court, The Law | No Comments

-By John Armor

Sometimes even when you attend an event, and take part in it, it still takes time to understand it. I had the honor to speak at the Knoxville Tea Party, as Ben Franklin, a printer from Philadelphia. The visible, massive driving force for that and all 750+ Tea Parties with 1+ million people in attendance was taxes. But the real issue was larger and deeper than taxes.

When the mainstream media attempt to deal seriously with this phenomenon, they phrase it as “conservative” as opposed to “liberal.” Sometimes it’s no such thing. The Tea Parties are related to the present issue of the “rebranding” of the Republican Party.

Long ago, when ice covered the Earth and the last dinosaurs were staggering to their deaths, I was in advertising. “Rebranding” meant putting a new name and a new slogan on an old product that the people demonstrably did not want. That change was intended to market the goods despite endemic defects.
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"Governments are instituted among men,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776




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