law – Dull Razor

“For the children” of the day

Sometimes I stumble across things that make me upset, and I want to post about them, but then I find I find out that the news is months old. This is one of those times, but I’m going to post about it anyway because there was a recent update to the story. Take that, standards of relevance!

Today I found out that a singer named Evan Emory was facing jail time and the sex offender registry for a video he made and posted to Youtube. He was being charged with manufacturing child sexual abusive material, or in other words, making child porn. Today he made a plea deal for 60 days of jail time and two years probation.

But here’s the catch: his video was simply a video of him singing an explicit song on his guitar, spliced in with images of kids reacting to someone singing to them in a classroom. The children never heard the song – and this was explicitly mentioned in the video’s disclaimer.

So let’s think about this. What makes this so heinous? I obviously understand that it’s tasteless and crude, but is it criminal? Is it child pornography? Not remotely close.

There is certainly no drought of sexually explicit songs in the mainstream music industry. Any doubters may want to look up songs by Ludacris or Juvenile, among others. Or search for “Khia” for a Youtube hit even more explicit than Evan’s video – it has 4.5 million views.

So maybe it was the fact that it was set in a children’s classroom, or to the tune of a children’s song? Well we should lock up Gilda Radner, Steven Lynch, Katy Perry (and the SNL staff) and who knows how many thousands of Youtube comedians.

Okay so maybe it’s the illusion of having children react to inappropriate adult situations? Well then we’d best get Jimmy Kimmel and Dave Chappelle in cuffs. Chappelle might have to serve life, since in his video, kids were actually present.

The only issue I see here is in his using footage of the children’s faces without permission – which is something the parents could certainly sue for, but isn’t a crime. This is just another example of the government exploiting its power, in the name of the children, to ignore the First Amendment and exercise a little of its muscle in the hopes of getting some votes. It’s disgusting and it’s wrong – far more repulsive than Mr. Emory’s video. And that’s saying something.

Is our President engaging in an act of sedition?

My friend Scott pointed me to this today – we may have a legitimate Constitutional crisis unfolding in Washington, ladies and gentlemen.

To recap the story so far: The “Obamacare” health care bill that was passed mandates that individuals purchase health insurance. This is obviously and dramatically beyond the scope of government powers granted in the constitution. A Federal Judge ruled it unconstitutional for this reason – specifically stating that the declaratory judgement was equivalent to an injunction in this case (nothing new, this is based on precedent) – and because there is no severability clause in the bill, the entire bill is thus rendered moot.

This means that the Obama Administration has two options:

Comply with the ruling, ceasing immediately all activity enforced or mandated by the bill, or
Appeal and ask for a stay pending its hearing.

That’s it. Those are the only legal options. However, Obama’s never one to let the law stand in his way:

The White House officials said that the ruling would not have an impact on implementation of the law, which is being phased in gradually. (The individual mandate, for example, does not begin until 2014.) They said that states cannot use the ruling as a basis to delay implementation in part because the ruling does not rest on “anything like a conventional Constitutional analysis.” Twenty-six states were involved in the lawsuit.

In a blog post on the White House website, Assistant to the President and Deputy Senior Adviser Stephanie Cutter wrote that the case is “is a plain case of judicial overreaching.”

“We don’t believe this kind of judicial activism will be upheld and we are confident that the Affordable Care Act will ultimately be declared constitutional by the courts,” she added.

My favorite part is where Obama’s Administration calls it “judicial activism” – you know, the bread and butter they’ve subsisted on for years. So now we have an Administration that has come out and said plainly that they will ignore a Federal Judge’s declaratory judgement, simply because they don’t like what it says. Take a moment and ponder that. They have stated that they will intentionally disobey the law – and do so at this moment by enforcing its statutes and staffing up for further enforcement and implementation. Legally, when using force (such as, say, threat of imprisonment) to push back against enforcement of the law or of its authority, this is called seditious conspiracy:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

I find it difficult to believe anyone will bother trying to levy this charge against anyone in Obama’s Administration, but there the law stands. Regardless, it doesn’t effect the legality of what they are doing in any way. To quote my friend (emphasis in original):

Did you hear me? Obamacare is null and void. Today. Right now. And it will remain so unless and until the US Government appeals and Judge Vinson is overruled. The Appellate Court and/or the Supreme Court can agree to hear the case, but the Executive Branch can’t enforce it in any way unless a stay is granted. And if the higher court either upholds the lower court’s ruling or declines to take the case, then the only way to enact such a law is to pass a Constitutional Amendment.

That’s THE LAW. I don’t care if you like the law or don’t. I don’t care if you like Obama or Obamacare, or don’t. It is the system of rules by which every President and every Judge and Justice must play. If and when they step outside that system then they have no rightful authority and their actions against the system constitute insurrection, or conspiracy to same, which is called sedition. Any of these acts is grounds for impeachment.

There you have it, folks. How do you feel about the President baldly ignoring the Constitution of the United States, and then publicly stating he refuses to be held accountable by it? Do you care yet?

Oh, this is priceless.

Amidst the boycotts of Arizona being organized throughout California, some people are starting to realize maybe it’s not the best idea – turns out they kind of rely on our tourists for a lot of their income!

But what makes this especially good is that my friend Marek dug up this little gem – the California Legal Code already contains a law that is very similar to Arizona’s own SB1070 – except theirs is not nearly as carefully worded!

834b. (a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is
suspected of being present in the United States in violation of
federal immigration laws.
(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected
of being present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the
following:
(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen
of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent
resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time
or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of
immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall
not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date
and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding
documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien
who is present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal
justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or
leave the United States.
(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United
States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal
status and provide any additional information that may be requested
by any other public entity.
(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city,
county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with
jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent
or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited.

Notice some of the similarities: Arizona’s law calls for “reasonable suspicion,” California’s calls for “suspicion.” Both laws require LEOs to check with the feds and alert them the person is in custody if they are here illegally. The differences? California’s law requires the LEO to inform them they must obtain legal status to remain in the US; Arizona’s makes it a felony. More poignant to the current debate, however, is that California’s law places no limitations on the suspicion: there’s no “reasonable” qualifier, and there’s no clause forbidding race, color, or national origin as a factor as there is in the Arizona law.

So, hey, California Liberals? Get the plank out of your own eye before you go worrying about us. And if San Diego could go ahead and boycott the rest of the state – you know, to be consistent? – that would be great. And entertaining to watch.

Our state, our rules

The other day I mentioned that I like Gov. Brewer.

She just made it even easier. Today, she wrote for ESPN about why the calls for sports boycotts over the immigration bill are ridiculous. She covered a lot of the same stuff I had previously, and really hit home the point that the drug and human smuggling trades are big issues down here – something a lot of people seem to forget about. Last Friday, only a couple of days after the bill passed, a deputy was shot by Mexican drug smugglers – these are the illegal immigrants that people are really upset about.

Of course, Obama turned around and kept the BS flowing, touting the “Arizonans are racist” card again, this time making sure to praise the idiot owner of the Suns for making a statement against the law with the Los Suns jerseys they wore in game 2. But hey, it made Al Sharpton a fan, so it’s all good, right? This is just one more reason to watch football instead of basketball.

Arizona seems to be the focal point of the latest political firestorm, and I don’t much like it, but with every new piece of news saying that Berkeley or La Raza are pissed off at us and starting protests, the more I’m sure this is the right law to have on the books. It’s no coincidence that the main resistance to the bill inside the state is coming from Tucson; college towns are notoriously liberal, and Tucson is no exception – it, along with Flagstaff, the other college town, was one of the only two counties in Arizona to go blue during the 2008 elections.

I don’t know why I find myself surprised by each new, insane response. There’s still some part of me that believes in rationality and basic facts winning out over hysterical reactionism. Something that makes me want to think that people will finally hear the facts of what the bill says and doesn’t say and realize this is just another Sharpton stunt… but it’s not happening. The bill remains extremely popular in Arizona, and nationwide support sits between 50% and 70% depending on who you believe (Rasmussen says 59%), but all we hear about in Arizona lately is how evil and racist we are.

I’m sick of it. Get out of our business, because it’s none of yours. If the government would bother enforcing it, spending even a fraction of the cost of some of its more recent frivolities, then we wouldn’t have the problem in the first place.

I like Jan Brewer

That lady has guts.

So here’s hoping she signs HB2281 – if only to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from all the La Raza types. The bill, in short, bans classes or curricula in Arizona schools that:

Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Pretty common sense stuff, if you ask me, and stuff that Arizona’s been asking for for a long time now. In fact, it’s kind of sad that there has to be a law made to keep it out of our schools in the first place – but since the current status quo allows for ethnic studies classes that are little more than MEChA propaganda, I suppose something should be done.

I guess we can finally get on with improving the state now that Napolitano’s finally gone, hmm?