ALL NEWS MEDIA, NOT JUST FOX NEWS! LOL.

U. S SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS SHOULD RESIGN AND RUN FOR CONgress INSTEAD.

I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT CHIEF JUSTICE john ROBERTS NEEDS TO RESIGN FROM THE COURT AND RUN FOR CONgress INSTEAD.

WHY?

OBVIOUSLY HE UNDERSTANDS CONgress VERY WELL -- BETTER THAN CONgress UNDERSTANDS ITSELF!

IT APPEARS TO ME THAT HE ALONE KNOWS THAT WHEN CONgress SAYS "PENALTY", IT REALLY MEANS "TAX"!!

AND NOBODY ELSE IN THE COUNTRY, INCLUDING CONgress AND POTUS BARACK OBAMA, CAN FIGURE THIS OUT!

WHAT A GENIUS OF A MAN CHIEF JOHN ROBERTS IS!!!

BTW: SINCE OBAMACARE IS A TAX AND DID NOT ORIGINATE IN THE HOUSE, IS IT NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL FOR VIOLATING ARTICLE 1, SECTION 7, WHICH PROVIDES

"ALL BILLS FOR RAISING REVENUE SHALL ORIGINATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ...".

QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION: IS OBAMACARE NOT A BILL FOR RAISING REVENUE JUST BECAUSE IT ALSO ADDRESSES HEALTHCARE?

PLEASE NOT THAT OBAMACARE ORIGINATED IN THE SENATE!
ACCORDING TO HIS OBAMACARE RULING, CONgress CAN REGULATE ANYTHING AS LONG AS IT TAXES IT FIRST. INSANITY PREVAILS, FOLKS.

POTUS BARACK OBAMA LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, WAS AGAINST INDIVIDUAL MANDATE AND TOLD US OBAMACARE WAS NOT A TAX. U. S. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE AS A TAX. WATCH VIDEO AND VOTE THE BUMS WHO GAVE US OBAMACARE TAX OUT OF OFFICE!

OBAMACARE RULING GIVES LIBRULS SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT, BUT FOR HOW LONG?!

IN ANOTHER CASE OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE, U. S. SUPREME COURT FINDS CRIMINALIZING FALSE CLAIM OF MILITARY VALOR, MEDALS OR DECORATIONS VIOLATES FREE SPEECH. RULING INVALIDATES KENTUCKY'S LAW ON SUBJECT.

THE CASE IS UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ. YOU CAN READ THE OPINION HERE.

IN ESSENCE THE COURT'S SYNOPSIS IS BELOW:

The Stolen Valor Act makes it a crime to falsely claim receipt of military decorations or medals and provides an enhanced penalty if the Congressional Medal of Honor is involved. 18 U. S. C. §§704 (b), (c).Respondent pleaded guilty to a charge of falsely claiming that he had received the Medal of Honor, but reserved his right to appeal his claim that the Act is unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding the Act invalid under the First Amendment. WE AFFIRM

SHOCKER: U.S. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE!

STAY TUNED. I'LL POST THE OPINION HERE. WHAT A SHOCKER!

UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR THE COURT'S OPINION. READ IT AND WEEP.

WHAT DOES THE RULING MEAN FOR YOU? CHECK THIS OUT.

MORE ON ARIZONA'S "IMMIGRATION" LAW, FROM JOEL PETT. LOL, AND TRUE!

PHONY MITT ROMNEY AS "JOB CREATOR". ROTFLMAO!

BOWLING GREEN DAILY NEWS: A CHANGING JUSTICE [ANTHONY KENNEDY]?

A changing justice?
Arizona case shows Kennedy leaning liberal, so far

The liberal Justice Anthony Kennedy is in the house – at least for the moment.

Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the Supreme Court embraced most of the Obama administration’s view that Arizona’s aggressive immigration laws are pre-empted by the federal government’s power to determine who is or is not allowed in the country. For good measure, Kennedy also provided the deciding fifth vote to rule that mandatory life without parole for murderers under 18 violates the Constitution.

In doing so, he might have given us a glimpse of some political gamesmanship behind closed doors at the court in the run-up to Thursday’s expected opinion on President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform law.

The immigration decision squarely rejected three provisions of the Arizona law. One made it a state crime not to complete or carry the immigration papers already required by federal law. Another made it criminal for an illegal immigrant to apply for or hold a job — a rule that goes beyond the federal norm that criminalizes the employer of an illegal worker, not the worker himself. The third provision gave the police the authority to arrest without a warrant anyone whom they reasonably suspected of having committed some act that would allow them to be removed from the country under federal immigration law. (Ordinarily, if federal authorities stop a removable alien, they can’t detain him, but simply tell him that he must show up for a hearing.) The court concluded that all of these provisions were beyond Arizona’s authority to enact.

When it came to the most controversial part of the Arizona law – the so-called “papers, please” provision – the court did something rather clever. It said that the law might be read to mandate nothing more than a requirement for police to check immigration status during the ordinary duration of a legitimate stop based on reasonable suspicion of a crime. If that was all the law required, said the court, it would be constitutional.

On the surface, this holding upheld “papers, please.” In practice, though, the court took away some of the potentially frightening effects of the law, suggesting a roadmap for the state to follow in implementing it. The court said that detaining people only to determine their immigration status “would raise constitutional concerns,” implying that the length of the stop should not take longer than it ordinarily would to perform a criminal background check.

Whether this is a realistic directive remains to be seen. It is not clear what would constitute probable cause for an officer think that a person who has been stopped is an illegal immigrant, if not something discriminatory like racial profiling. Thus the court left open the possibility of a future challenge by civil rights advocates should the law be implemented in a discriminatory fashion.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor all joined Kennedy’s opinion. (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because she worked on the case while serving as solicitor general.) Ordinarily, this would mean they were satisfied with Kennedy’s position on “papers, please.”

Yet, this is not an ordinary Supreme Court term. The three liberals may have been willing to give Kennedy more room to maneuver than usual because they wanted to keep him close for the health-care decision.

Something of the kind may also have been in the mind of Chief Justice John Roberts, usually part of the conservative bloc. In a highly unusual move, Roberts joined Kennedy on the liberal side in the immigration case despite the dissenting votes of Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. We might read this as a sign that Roberts, too, was hoping to bring Kennedy to his side in the healthcare decision. A few years ago, when Kennedy was a necessary fifth vote for extending his corpus rights to prisoners in Guantánamo, then- Justice John Paul Stevens joined Kennedy and the conservatives in an important case about treaty interpretation. Many observers interpreted his vote as a gesture toward Justice Kennedy.

There are other possible explanations for Roberts’ vote in the immigration case. Under the Supreme Court’s rules, with only eight justices sitting, a 4 to 4 tie would have meant affirming the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which struck down all of the Arizona provisions including “papers, please.” By joining Kennedy’s opinion, Roberts at least assured that one of the law’s provisions would be formally upheld. There is a certain logic to this deduction, but it seems like a slender reed on which to hang Roberts’ uncharacteristic vote.

Roberts may also have been trying to shape his own image as a nonpartisan “umpire” — a term he famously used about his future role in his confirmation hearings — by voting in accordance with the Obama administration. If he intends to vote against the healthcare bill, his supporters might be able to point to the Arizona case as proof that he not partisan but objective.

In the end, however, this decision, like the health care decision ahead, came down to Kennedy. Liberals may be excited about what this might mean for health care. But they should not get too excited. At the same time that it decided the immigration case and struck down mandatory life without parole for juveniles, the court issued a one-page per curiam opinion invalidating a Montana law that limited political contributions by corporations. The opinion, with a 5-4 ideological split, explained briefly that the Montana law must be struck down under the logic of the Citizens United case that extended First Amendment speech protection to corporate donations to candidates.

The Montana case had offered an opportunity for the court – meaning Kennedy – to revisit a ruling that gave rise to the super-PACS now dominating the presidential election. Had the court given the Montana case full consideration, it might have found some way to distance itself from the consequences of Citizens United. That it did not do so suggests Kennedy is perfectly comfortable with his role as the decisive conservative vote in that momentous decision.

The Arizona immigration case is a modest victory for the Obama administration’s decision to assert federal authority against the state law. It also suggests that Obama’s team was right not to press an antidiscrimination claim before the law had been implemented, a strategy that was widely criticized by the law’s detractors. But whether that sense of victory will last out the week is another question altogether.

PHONY MITT ROMNEY WOOS LATINOS. I'M LMAO

THE SIMPLICITY OF PHONY MITT ROMNEY'S PLAN. POTUS BARACK OBAMA'S PLAN IS THE DIRECT OPPOSITE! LOL.

Peggy Noonan: Once More, With Meaning.

Once More, With Meaning
Romney can win, but he needs more than applause lines.

You know what Republicans on the ground think when they look at Mitt Romney?

“Please don’t blow it.” They think President Obama can’t win but Mr. Romney can still lose. So they’re feeling burly but anxious, hopeful yet spooked.

They see Mr. Obama as surrounded by bad indicators—bad polls, bad economic numbers, scandals. They see a grubbiness in the administration now, a vacuity. When the White House sends out spokesmen to make the case for him on the Sunday morning shows, it’s campaign operatives, like David Plouffe and David Axelrod. They more or less spin how he’ll win. Where are the heavyweights, the cabinet secretaries, the great men and women of the Democratic Party? Hiding? Unable to make the case? Not trusted to make the case? Or are the political guys the only heavyweights in the administration?

Mr. Romney is looking good, as are his crowds. Then the camera shows people in the stands behind him as he speaks, they no longer look as if they walked in off the street or put a bet on a horse and are straining to see if it breaks from the pack. Now they look like people watching their horse take the lead, with no one coming up the outside.

The Romney strategy the past eight weeks has been, in a small way, shrewd: have the candidate out there talking in a candidate-like manner, but don’t let him say anything so interesting that it will take the cameras off Mr. Obama. The president is lurching from gaffe to mess, from bad news to worse. Don’t get in his way as he harms himself.

It’s working, but won’t for long. People want meaning, a higher and declared purpose.

An odd fact: Republicans more than others, amazingly, have internalized and hold to the idea that this president has some secret magical powers he’s just waiting to unleash. Those powers normally go by the name “eloquence.” But the eloquence was always exaggerated, and to the extent it existed, there’s no sign it’s about to kick in. Do you remember any phrase or sentence the president has said in a speech or statement the past 3½ years? One? Anything, in all that talking, that entered your head and stayed there? You do not. He is interesting, his words are not. Republicans obsess on his eloquence because it allows them to pretend they lost in 2008 because the American people were gulled by pretty words. The truth is he won because he seemed the furthest thing possible from the Republicans who’d presided over two unwon wars and the great recession.

The president’s rhetorical powers are not a factor in the campaign. Mr. Romney is not more boring than Mr. Obama. That’s not a compliment, precisely, but is true.

Actually, it’s amazing that during an existential crisis—a crisis that is economic, cultural and political, and that bears on our role and purpose in the world—both candidates for our highest office have felt free to be so . . . well, insubstantial. Neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Obama has caught hold of the overall meaning of his candidacy, Mr. Romney because so far he’s chosen not to, and Mr. Obama because he’s tried and failed.

With just more than 130 days to go, Mr. Romney has to start pulling from his brain and soul a coherent and graspable sense of the meaning of his run. “I will be president for this reason and this. I will move for this and this. The philosophy that impels me consists of these things.” Only when he does this will he show that he actually does have a larger purpose, and only then will people really turn toward him. He has to tell Americans why they can believe him, why a nation saturated with politics, chronically disappointed by its leaders, and tired of promises can, actually, put some faith in him.

They want to know how America can come back. Because they’re pretty sure, down deep, that America has another comeback in her.

Mr. Romney has a tendency to litter his speeches with applause lines. They come one after another. It’s old-fashioned, and it’s based on the idea that that’s all TV wants, five seconds of a line and two seconds of applause. But applause-line speeches aren’t suited to the technological moment, when people can click on a link and listen to a whole speech if they have time. If all it is is applause lines, they’ll turn away. More important, applause-line speeches are not right for a time of crisis, because they do not allow for the development of a thought, a point of view, an insight. Those things take quiet building. Sometimes they take paragraphs, sometimes pages. They take time. But people like to listen if you’re saying something interesting.

Campaign professionals like applause lines in part because they think that’s all a campaign speech is, a vehicle for a picture of people clapping. They see the world in pictures on a screen; they are largely postliterate. They don’t care about meaning, they care about impression. But in the end, the impression is bad: distracted candidate barking lines, robotic audience clapping.

As for the president, his big campaign speech last week in Cleveland not only was roundly panned but was deeply revealing. In it—all 54 minutes of it—he attempted to make the case for his economic stewardship and his re-election.

What he revealed is that he doesn’t know the case for his own re-election.

Politicians give 54-minute speeches when they don’t know what they’re trying to say but are sure the next sentence will tell them. So they keep talking. They keep saying sentences in the hope that meaning will finally emerge from one of them.

A 54-minute speech is not a sign of Fidel-like confidence, or a love for speaking. A 54-minute speech is a sign of desperation.

It was a speech about everything—renewable energy, tax credits, Abraham Lincoln, tax loopholes, deficit imbalances, infrastructure, research and development incentives. But a speech about everything is a speech about nothing. I listened once and read it twice: It wasn’t a case for re-election, it was a wordage dump.

The president has wrestled for the past six months with themes. He’s jumped from one to another.

They are:

It’s not so bad—this indicator is up, and that one.

OK, it’s bad, but it could have been worse—my actions kept us from tanking.

It’s bad, but it’s Bush’s fault.

It’s bad, but it’s the congressional Republicans’ fault.

I have made it less bad, and I need more time to make it even less badder.

Rich people have fancy cars and car elevators, I stand for jalopies and street parking.

None of it has worked.

What does it say of a crisis presidency at a dramatic moment that a president can’t make the case for his own re-election, can’t find his own meaning?

It says the other guy can win—if he has meaning. And isn’t just a handsome stranger who says, “I’m not the last guy, I’m not the guy you don’t like.”

That won’t do this year.

editor's note: want more? go to peggynoonan.com.

U. S. SUPREME COURT HOLDS "The Eighth Amendment Forbids A Sentencing Scheme That Mandates Life In Prison Without Possibility Of Parole For Juvenile Homicide Offenders."

THE CASE IS MILLER V. ALABAMA, AND YOU CAN READ THE COURT'S OPINION HERE.

EDITOR'S NOTE: THE GIST OF THE COURT'S OPINION CAN BE READ BELOW:

"In each of these cases, a 14-year-old was convicted of murder and sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In No. 10−9647, petitioner Jackson accompanied twoother boys to a video store to commit a robbery; on the way to the store, he learned that one of the boys was carrying a shotgun. Jackson stayed outside the store for most of the robbery, but after he entered, one of his co-conspirators shot and killed the store clerk. Arkansas charged Jackson as an adult with capital felony murder and aggravated robbery, and a jury convicted him of both crimes. The trial court imposed a statutorily mandated sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Jackson filed a state habeas petition, arguing that a mandatory life-without-parole term for a 14year-old violates the Eighth Amendment. Disagreeing, the court granted the State’s motion to dismiss. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. In No. 10−9646, petitioner Miller, along with a friend, beat Miller’s neighbor and set fire to his trailer after an evening of drinking anddrug use. The neighbor died. Miller was initially charged as a juvenile, but his case was removed to adult court, where he was charged with murder in the course of arson. A jury found Miller guilty, andthe trial court imposed a statutorily mandated punishment of lifewithout parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed,holding that Miller’s sentence was not overly harsh when compared to his crime, and that its mandatory nature was permissible under the Eighth Amendment.
Held: The Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. Pp. 6−27.
——————
Held: The Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison
without possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. Pp. 6−27."

EDITOR'S COMMENT: NOTICE THE COURT ONLY HELD THE STATUTE CANNOT MANDATE THE PUNISHMENT. SO PRESUMABLY, JUDGES AN JURIES CAN STILL IMPOSE IT!

U. S. SUPREME COURT POOH-POOHS ARIZONA "IMMIGRATION" LAWS, AND RE-AFFIRMS ITS RULING ALLOWING CORPORATIONS TO SPEND LIMITLESS AMOUNTS OF MONEY ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. SO LET THE WEEPING AND WAILING COMMENCE FOR SOME FOLKS, BUT NOT ME!

YOU CAN READ THE ARIZONA OPINION HERE, AND THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE OPINION HERE.

EDITOR'S NOTE: IN THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW CASE, THE COURT HAD THIS TO SAY:

"A Montana state law provides that a “corporation may not make . . . an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” Mont. Code Ann. §13–35–227(1) (2011). The Montana Supreme Court rejected petitioners’ claim that this statute violates the First Amendment. 2011 MT 328, 363 Mont. 220, 271 P. 3d 1. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, this Court struck down a similar federal law, holding that “political speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because its source is a corporation.” 558 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 26) (internal quotation marks omitted). The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does. See U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. Montana’s arguments in support of the judgment below either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case."

IN THE ARIZONA "IMMIGRATION" CASE, HERE IS THE ESSENCE OF THE COURT'S RULING:

"An Arizona statute known as S. B. 1070 was enacted in 2010 to address pressing issues related to the large number of unlawful aliens in the State. The United States sought to enjoin the law as preempted. The District Court issued a preliminary injunction preventing four of its provisions from taking effect. Section 3 makes failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor; §5(C)makes it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to seek or engage in work in the State; §6 authorizes state and local officers to arrest without a warrant a person “the officer has probable cause to believe . . . has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States”; and §2(B) requires officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to make efforts, in some circumstances, to verify the person’s immigration status with the Federal Government. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, agreeing that the United States had established a likelihood of success on its preemption claims.
Held:
1. The Federal Government’s broad, undoubted power over immigration and alien status rests, in part, on its constitutional power to“establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” Art. I, §8, cl. 4, and on its inherent sovereign power to control and conduct foreign relations, see Toll v. Moreno, 458 U. S. 1, 10. Federal governance is extensive and complex. Among other things, federal law specifies categories of aliens who are ineligible to be admitted to the United States, 8
U. S. C. §1182; requires aliens to register with the Federal Government and to carry proof of status, §§1304(e), 1306(a); imposes sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized workers, §1324a; and specifies which aliens may be removed and the procedures for doing so, see §1227. Removal is a civil matter, and one of its principal features
2 ARIZONA v. UNITED STATES
Syllabus
is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials, who must decide whether to pursue removal at all. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for identifying, apprehending, and removing illegal aliens. It also operates the Law Enforcement Support Center,which provides immigration status information to federal, state, andlocal officials around the clock. Pp. 2–7.
2.
The Supremacy Clause gives Congress the power to preempt state law. A statute may contain an express preemption provision, see, e.g., Chamber of Commerce of United States of America v. Whiting, 563 U. S. ___, ___, but state law must also give way to federal law in at least two other circumstances. First, States are precluded from regulating conduct in a field that Congress has determined must be regulated by its exclusive governance. See Gade v. National Solid Wastes Management Assn., 505 U. S. 88, 115. Intent can be inferred from a framework of regulation “so pervasive . . . that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it” or where a “federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230. Second, state laws are preempted when they conflict with federal law, including when they stand “as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67. Pp. 7–8.
3.
Sections 3, 5(C), and 6 of S. B. 1070 are preempted by federal law. Pp. 8–19.
(a)
Section 3 intrudes on the field of alien registration, a field in which Congress has left no room for States to regulate. In Hines, a state alien-registration program was struck down on the ground that Congress intended its “complete” federal registration plan to be a “single integrated and all-embracing system.” 312 U. S., at 74. That scheme did not allow the States to “curtail or complement” federal law or “enforce additional or auxiliary regulations.” Id., at 66–67. The federal registration framework remains comprehensive. Because Congress has occupied the field, even complementary state regulation is impermissible. Pp. 8–11.
(b)
Section 5(C)’s criminal penalty stands as an obstacle to the federal regulatory system. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), a comprehensive framework for “combating the employment of illegal aliens,” Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 535 U. S. 137, 147, makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or continue to employ unauthorized workers, 8
U.
S. C. §§1324a(a)(1)(A), (a)(2), and requires employers to verify prospective employees’ employment authorization status,
Cite as: 567 U. S. ____ (2012) 3
Syllabus
§§1324a(a)(1)(B), (b). It imposes criminal and civil penalties on employers, §§1324a(e)(4), (f), but only civil penalties on aliens who seek, or engage in, unauthorized employment, e.g., §§1255(c)(2), (c)(8).IRCA’s express preemption provision, though silent about whether additional penalties may be imposed against employees, “does not bar the ordinary working of conflict pre-emption principles” or impose a “special burden” making it more difficult to establish the pre emption of laws falling outside the clause. Geier v. American Honda Motor Co., 529 U. S. 861, 869–872. The correct instruction to draw from the text, structure, and history of IRCA is that Congress decided it would be inappropriate to impose criminal penalties on unauthorized employees. It follows that a state law to the contrary is an obstacle to the regulatory system Congress chose. Pp. 12–15.
(c) By authorizing state and local officers to make warrantless arrests of certain aliens suspected of being removable, §6 too creates an obstacle to federal law. As a general rule, it is not a crime for are movable alien to remain in the United States. The federal scheme instructs when it is appropriate to arrest an alien during the removal process. The Attorney General in some circumstances will issue a warrant for trained federal immigration officers to execute. If no federal warrant has been issued, these officers have more limited authority. They may arrest an alien for being “in the United States in violation of any [immigration] law or regulation,” for example, but only where the alien “is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” §1357(a)(2). Section 6 attempts to provide state officers with even greater arrest authority, which they could exercise with no instruction from the Federal Government. This is not the system Congress created. Federal law specifies limited circumstances in which state officers may perform an immigration officer’s functions. This includes instances where the Attorney General has granted that authority in a formal agreement with a state or local government. See, e.g., §1357(g)(1). Although federal law permits state officers to “cooperate with the Attorney General in the identification, apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States,” §1357(g)(10)(B), this does not encompass the unilateral decision to detain authorized by §6. Pp. 15–19.
4. It was improper to enjoin §2(B) before the state courts had an opportunity to construe it and without some showing that §2(B)’s enforcement in fact conflicts with federal immigration law and its objectives. Pp. 19–24.
(a) The state provision has three limitations: A detainee is presumed not to be an illegal alien if he or she provides a valid Arizona driver’s license or similar identification; officers may not consider race, color, or national origin “except to the extent permitted by the
4 ARIZONA v. UNITED STATES
Syllabus
United States [and] Arizona Constitution[s]”; and §2(B) must be “implemented in a manner consistent with federal law regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens.” P. 20.
(b)
This Court finds unpersuasive the argument that, even with those limits, §2(B) must be held preempted at this stage. Pp. 20–24.
(1)
The mandatory nature of the status checks does not interfere with the federal immigration scheme. Consultation between federal and state officials is an important feature of the immigration system. In fact, Congress has encouraged the sharing of informationabout possible immigration violations. See §§1357(g)(10)(A), 1373(c). The federal scheme thus leaves room for a policy requiring state officials to contact ICE as a routine matter. Cf. Whiting, 563 U. S., at ___. Pp. 20–21.
(2)
It is not clear at this stage and on this record that §2(B), in practice, will require state officers to delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify their immigration status. This would raise constitutional concerns. And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns. If the law only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption—at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives. Without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume §2(B) will be construed in a way that conflicts with federal law. Cf. Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 277. This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the lawas interpreted and applied after it goes into effect. Pp. 22–24.
641 F. 3d 339, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded."

EDITOR'S COMMENT:BUT NOTICE THE COURT SAID IT IS OK FOR POLICE TO QUESTION FOLKS ABOUT THEIR IMMIGRATION STATUS IF THEY HAVE BEEN LEGALLY STOPPED.

HOWEVER, I SUSPECT THIS EXCEPTION WILL BE SHOWN TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY UNWORKABLE IN ACTUAL PRACTICE. IT IS FRAUGHT WITH CONSTITUTIONAL DANGERS REGARDING RACE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE OF HISPANIC DECENT.

MORE PHONY BUSINESS FROM MITT ROMNEY. LOL.

Words To Live By, Words Of Wisdom, And Words To Ponder, As PATRIOTIC LIBERTY LOVERS LIKE ME.

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
-- Albert Gallatin, letter to Alexander Addison, 1789

Penn State's Jerry Sandusky Found Guilty On 45 Counts In Child Sex-Abuse Trial. I MAY BE THE ONLY ONE, BUT I SURE HOPE HE ROTS IN PRISON.

Sandusky found guilty on 45 counts in child sex-abuse trial
By CURTIS TATE

BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Jurors convicted Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of child sex abuse Friday, ending his high-profile trial, but opening another painful chapter in which more victims might come forward and Penn State University could find itself the defendant.

Sandusky, 68, will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. Judge John Cleland revoked bail, so Sandusky will be jailed until his sentencing.

Since his arrest in November, Sandusky has maintained his innocence. But a jury of seven women and five men, many with ties to Penn State, decided otherwise, finding him guilty of all but three of the 48 charges against him.

The jury's verdict came shortly before 10 p.m. EDT Friday. He was found not guilty of the most serious charge, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of one alleged victim, and counts of indecent assault against two others.

Sandusky looked down as the jury foreman read the verdict.

The case shocked a community and a country that had become accustomed to college sports scandals, but none like this. The possibility that an assistant football coach and trusted community leader could have abused so many children over so many years without anyone suspecting - or acting on their suspicions - sent a chill down the nation's spine.

It also called into question the judgment of university officials who learned more than a decade ago of Sandusky's behavior but failed to report it to police. Two former university officials, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, were charged with perjury in the case, and a third - former Penn State President Graham Spanier - could face charges as well.

Sandusky's conviction has far reaching implications for Penn State. Many of the assaults took place in campus facilities. The verdict could result in damage awards to the victims in the tens of millions of dollars.

Sandusky's defense team argued in court that he was a virtuous man who helped children through a charity he founded, and that his accusers embellished or made up stories of child sex abuse to collect generous settlements from Penn State.

Defense attorneys poked holes in the accusers' testimony, noting inconsistencies and challenging how the frequency and severity of the abuse evolved over time with prodding from police and prosecutors. Jurors heard from numerous character witnesses, including Sandusky's wife, Dottie, who testified that she never observed inappropriate behavior between her husband and any child.

But jurors also heard from eight young men who were participants in Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile. They testified that Sandusky bought them gifts and meals, took them on trips and gave them football tickets, then sexually assaulted them in locker room showers, in hotel rooms and in Sandusky's home.

Jurors heard graphic testimony from the young men about how Sandusky began with mild affection, such as bear hugs and kisses on the forehead, and progressed to more sexual contact. They said Sandusky fondled them and performed oral sex on them - and he expected them to do the same. They said he attempted anal penetration with his fingers or his penis. Some were as young as 10 or 11 when the abuse began, and it continued for years.

Jurors also heard from former assistant coach Mike McQueary, who testified that he witnessed Sandusky raping a boy in the shower in a campus football building in 2001. He reported the incident to head coach Joe Paterno, but Sandusky was never charged. Paterno told university officials, but they only barred Sandusky from bringing Second Mile children to campus. Neither Paterno nor McQueary followed up on the matter or took it to police.

The McQueary testimony was a sticking point for the jurors, since they did not hear from the alleged victim, who has never been identified. Further testimony from McQueary's father and a family friend may have muddied the waters. The jurors spent most of the morning Friday reviewing some of that testimony.

Jurors also asked for clarification over another locker room shower incident where the alleged victim did not testify, nor did the retired janitor who saw the alleged assault. That witness lives in a nursing home, and jurors heard from one of his former colleagues instead.

The sequestered jurors were unaware of two additional accusers who came forward in the waning days of the trial - one of them Jerry Sandusky's 33-year-old adopted son, Matt. Lawyers for Matt Sandusky confirmed Thursday that he was prepared to testify against his father in the trial as a rebuttal witness and that he would have told jurors his father sexually abused him.

An Ohio man said in an interview with NBC on Thursday that Jerry Sandusky had abused him, too, in much the same manner as the eight young men who testified in court. Travis Weaver, 30, already has filed a lawsuit against Sandusky.

Robert Weisberg, a criminal law expert at Stanford University, said he finds it unlikely that prosecutors will bring additional charges on behalf of other accusers. They won conviction on most of the original charges against Sandusky, who will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. Another trial would be unnecessary, Weisberg said.

"It's going to seem futile and vindictive," he said.

The fallout of Sandusky's arrest, trial and conviction tarnishes the reputation of a university that most considered above board, said John Thelin, an education professor at the University of Kentucky and the author of books and articles on college sports scandals.

"The irony is that Penn State got so much mileage out of being clean," Thelin said. "It's going to be a lasting toll on the institution and its self-confidence."

The impact of Sandusky's arrest was felt immediately last fall when the Penn State board of trustees abruptly fired both Spanier and Paterno, its beloved head football coach of 46 years.

Paterno was never charged in the Sandusky case, and he never got to testify in the trial. But before the 85-year-old icon died of lung cancer in January, he said he regretted not doing more.

Other college football scandals last year cost coaches their jobs, but Thelin said the Penn State scandal may have been a watershed moment.

"Successful coaches are some of the most untouchable figures in American life," he said. "I wonder if this will alter that."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/06/22/2235100/sandusky-found-guilty-on-45-counts.html#storylink=cpy

WATCH THE NEWS REPORT OF THE VERDICTS:



WATCH THE PROSECUTORS REACT TO THE GUILTY VERDICTS:



WATCH HIS INCOMPETENT ATTORNEY REACT TO THE VERDICTS:



WATCH A JUROR'S REACTION TO THE VERDICTS:

GETTING INTO COLLEGE IS HARD. LOL.

FOURTH AMENDMENT WINS AGAIN, AS FEDERAL JUDGE FINDS STRIP SEARCHING OF JUVENILES DETAINED FOR NON VIOLENT OFFENSES ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL ABSENT PARTICULARIZED SUSPICION OF ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.

Juvenile jail's strip search of Perry County teens ruled unconstitutional
By Jennifer Hewlett

A federal judge has ruled that a Kentucky juvenile detention center's screening of two Perry County teen half-siblings while they were naked was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure.

U.S. Senior District Judge Karl S. Forester made the ruling June 14 in a 23-page document that also addresses other legal issues in the case, which stems from the intake screenings of the two juveniles at the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center in 2009. The teens were jailed after being charged with underage drinking, charges that were later dismissed.

The parents of the Perry County teens filed suit against the two jail guards who conducted the screenings, Mitchell Gabbard and Rebecca Harvey; the director, superintendent and assistant superintendent of the Breathitt facility — Gary Sewell, Gary Drake and Jeff Voyles; then-Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice commissioner J. Ronald Haws; and then-deputy state juvenile justice commissioner A. Hasan Davis.

Forester said that since at least 2004 in the U.S. Sixth Judicial Circuit "unclothed visual observation of a juvenile accused of a non-violent offense violates the Fourth Amendment in the absence of individualized reasonable suspicion of possession of contraband."

The judge said that not only were the searches of the teens — a girl, 14, and a boy, 15 — while they were naked unconstitutional, but a state juvenile justice department blanket policy to screen all juveniles while unclothed when brought into facilities overseen by the department was unconstitutional as well. (The department's policy was changed and refined — it now calls for youths to be wearing state-issued garments while being screened by guards — before Forester issued his ruling.)

Forester said the jail guards and Breathitt detention center and state officials were not eligible for qualified immunity as officials as to the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims. The defendants have filed notice that they are appealing Forester's decision to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The case was scheduled to go to trial in September, but, in light of the notice of appeal, Forester has suspended the trial date.

"We're elated at the ruling by Judge Forester that the strip search of these juveniles is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment," said Lexington attorney Joe Childers, who represents the teens' parents. "The ruling is important not just for my clients, but for all juveniles who might be arrested for minor offenses in the state."

Stacy Floden, spokeswoman for the state Department of Juvenile Justice, said the department had no comment due to ongoing litigation.

At the time the Perry teens were arrested, the state juvenile justice department had a policy of screening all detainees while unclothed during their intake at facilities overseen by the department. Those intake screenings were done to check for signs of illness, injury, abuse or neglect. The department also had a policy for what it called "strip searches," which required a reasonable suspicion of contraband, including illegal drugs and weapons, and prior approval from a high-ranking official at a detention facility before such searches could be done.

Forester said that the defendants have said that the purpose of the searches of the Perry County half-siblings was not to discover contraband, but to document obvious signs of injury, illness, infection or abuse. The judge said that neither of the guards at the Breathitt facility was medically qualified to identify infection or disease. The teens "were subjected to the strip search without regard to the need to articulate any reasonable suspicion that they may have any underlying medical condition or injury," the judge also said. Forester said the state juvenile justice department's "body ID" process policy circumvented its reasonable suspicion and prior approval requirements.

"Simply put, the reasons for performing the intake strip search at BRJDC simply do not justify the serious invasion of personal privacy suffered by the juvenile plaintiffs," Forester said.

The lawsuit was initially filed in Breathitt Circuit Court, but was moved to U.S. District Court in Lexington.

The Perry County half-siblings, identified in court documents only by their initials, K.S. and J.S., were arrested and charged with underage drinking by Hazard city law enforcement officers in June 2009. The youths had been attending a party at a private home in Perry County, following a middle school graduation, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit indicates that police were called because juveniles at the party were thought to have been drinking alcoholic beverages. Police instructed several of the juvenile party-goers, including the half-siblings, to come outside, and the officers gave them breath analysis tests. About five teens in all were arrested, but the host's mother, who was apparently asleep in a bedroom of the home, was not arrested, according to Childers.

According to the lawsuit, K.S. and J.S. were taken to a hospital for blood-alcohol tests. Then, on orders from Perry County District Judge LeAnn Stephens, they were detained at the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

The teens were fingerprinted, taken to shower areas and instructed to remove all of their clothing. Then the guards visually inspected their nude bodies, according to the suit.

In December, Haws, who has since retired, issued a directive saying that body identification or visual inspections of youths without clothing were not to be conducted at department facilities. The policy change came a day after Forester said in another court document that he thought the body ID process at the Breathitt detention center was unconstitutional.

In April, Davis, now acting juvenile justice department commissioner, issued another directive outlining new procedures for the inspection of youths entering facilities overseen by the department. That directive calls for youths to be wearing state-issued boxer shorts and tank tops while being screened. The directive says that clothing changes are to be done in private, outside of view of staffers, and that youths are to be allowed to shower privately during the procedure.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, said it was constitutionally permissible to strip search adults arrested on minor offenses upon intake at a jail, prison or detention facility, without suspicion of contraband.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has not decided whether juveniles, as opposed to adults, may be strip searched upon intake to a juvenile detention facility when arrested for a minor offense," Childers said. The Perry County case "will permit the courts, first the Sixth Circuit, and possibly the Supreme Court, to clarify whether the rule announced in April . . . applies equally to juveniles," he said.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/06/22/2234346/juvenile-jails-strip-search-of.html#storylink=cpy

POTUS BARACK OBAMA'S HYPOCRISY IN FULL DISPLAY.

Obama asserts presidential powers he once spoke critically of
By Steven Thomma and William D. DOUGLAS

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is starting to channel his inner Cheney.

For years, Obama talked about the limits on presidential power. Now, driven either by principle or political expediency, he’s working to build and maintain a powerful presidency that pushes the edge of what it can do, while often telling Congress and the courts to mind their own business.

In the last week alone, he refused a subpoena to share Justice Department emails with Congress, told courts he doesn’t have to justify his claimed power to assassinate suspected terrorists and decided to stop deporting certain illegal immigrants even though Congress has refused to enact a law to do that.

Those moves cap a slow buildup of executive branch power since Obama took office in January 2009. Some actions build on war powers seized by the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Some assert new domestic authority.

Taken together, they reinforce the strengthening presidential power that Cheney pursued ever since he served as White House chief of staff to Gerald Ford and watched Congress take power away from a presidency weakened by Vietnam and Watergate.

“Particularly with regard to national security powers, Obama is as vigorous in exercising those powers, and expanding some of them, as his predecessor,” said Gene Healy, the author of the book “The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.”

At the White House, Press Secretary Jay Carney spoke Thursday of separation of powers rather than checks and balances, casting the decision to shield the Justice Department as part of the broader principle of presidential authority.

“It is his responsibility as steward of the executive branch to retain the capacity of this administration and every administration going forward to function appropriately and independently from the congressional branch of government,” Carney said.

“The assertion of privilege has to do with the absolute necessity of retaining the executive branch’s independence enshrined in the Constitution in the separation of powers to allow it to appropriately and independently . . . deliberate and respond to these kinds of inquiries.”

Obama started out more skeptical.

As a candidate in 2007, for example, he criticized Bush for using executive privilege to shield aide Karl Rove from congressional questions about politics in the Justice Department.

“There’s been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there’s something a little shaky that’s taking place,” he said then. “There doesn’t seem to be any national security issues involved. . . . I think the American people deserve to know what was going on there.”

This week, Obama asserted executive privilege to shield the Justice Department from a subpoena for emails, part of a congressional investigation into a possible political cover-up in the wake of the Fast and Furious gun scandal.

Last year, he rejected pressure to stop deporting the children of illegal immigrants, noting that Congress hadn’t yet approved the proposed DREAM Act, which would allow him to do that.

“Sometimes when I talk to immigration advocates, they wish I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself,” he said in Texas in May 2011. “But that’s not how a democracy works. What we really need to do is to keep up the fight to pass genuine, comprehensive reform. That is the ultimate solution to this problem.”

Last week, his administration announced that it would use prosecutorial discretion to stop the deportations of those young, illegal immigrants.

This week, his administration argued in a late-night court filing that it shouldn’t be required to reveal anything about its policy of targeting suspected terrorists abroad for death by drones, even if they’re U.S. citizens.

“We continue to have profound concerns with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the president should be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts,” said Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“That the administration believes a power so sweeping should be exercised in secret is astounding.”

While Obama’s moves in the last week drew news media attention, others have been less noticed.

Earlier this year, he said he’d allow 10 states to stop obeying an unpopular education law as long as they agreed to new stipulations. The waivers from the No Child Left Behind act came as Congress has been unable to agree to a new national education law.

“It’s not simply that a waiver is granted, but that it comes with strings attached,” Healy said. “The administration as a condition of lifting some of the strictures will require certain actions that were never written into federal law. . . . The executive branch is essentially rewriting law with elements that never passed the legislature.”

The president also decided to stop defending the legality of another law, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton to stop gay marriage from spreading across state lines.

If Obama is asserting power for the executive branch, the legislative branch Thursday remained divided about what if anything it could or should do.

“That’s what presidents do,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Trying to defend DOMA, that’s certainly within the discretion of the president and the attorney general. Immigration, that’s one where nobody was doing anything. Everybody agreed something needed to be done but nobody was doing anything. So I think it was appropriate for the president to step up.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., sees a trend. “I think the narrative is building that they’re using executive power in a way that is uncomfortable to a lot of people,” he said.

In addition to the other recent examples, he noted Obama’s use of “recess” appointments to get nominees into the executive branch when the Senate objects but is arguably not in session. But Graham said it was up to the people, not Congress, to change that.

“The ultimate corrective tool in a democracy is not the opposite party as much as it is the people,” he said. “If they think you’re getting out of bounds, they’ll whack you. We’ve been whacked. He’s going to get whacked.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/21/153365/obama-asserts-presidential-powers.html#storylink=cpy

POTUS BARACK OBAMA TAKES A TOUGH STAND ON EGYPT. LOL.

WE CONGRATU;LATE MIAMI HEAT FOR SIMULTANEOUSLY SCORCHING AND SILENCING OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER TO WIN THE COVETED NBA CHAMPIONSHIP. MAYBE, NEXT YEAR THUNDER CAN GIVE US A ROAR INSTEAD OF A WHISPER!

CHECK OUT ESPN.COM OR HERE FOR MORE.

In A Welcome News, Kentucky Supreme Court Limits Police Use Of "Protective Sweeps" That Do Away With Our Constitutional Right To "Be Secure In Our Homes Against Warrantless Searches And Seisures". There Is A God!

Ky. court limits 'protective sweeps' by police
By BRETT BARROUQUERE

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lexington police told Crystal Lynn Guzman that, unless she agreed to allow a search of her apartment, an officer would remain with her while another got a warrant.

Guzman consented to a warrantless "protective sweep" search in the early hours of Sept. 10, 2008, which turned up cocaine and drug paraphernalia and resulted in Guzman's arrest.

But the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the threat of getting a search warrant amounted to an impermissible ruse by officers, who had no probable cause for a warrant. The ruling and threw out Guzman's conviction as well as the evidence seized in the search.

The ruling sets new limits in Kentucky on how far police officers may go to gain access to homes and vehicles without a search warrant.

"Even when a search is authorized by consent, the scope of the search is limited by the terms of its authorization," five justices wrote in an unsigned opinion.

Justice Bill Cunningham wrote in a concurring opinion that using the threat of a search warrant without probable cause to get the document has become a dangerous and much used technique that "could be an exploding land mine."

"When you have consent to enter into one's living room, you are not invited into the kitchen, or the bedroom, or the basement," Cunningham wrote. "Here, we are talking about the suppression of drugs. When the issue appears squarely before us in full bloom, it could mean the suppression of a murder weapon. Hopefully, this writing will help us avoid that more critical situation."

When making an arrest, police have the right to search and control the immediate area around where the incident happened for their own safety. But, when making an arrest in a home, officers generally need some evidence of criminal wrongdoing in another part of the residence to continue searching. Without consent or an emergency circumstance, officers have to stop the search unless a warrant is granted.

In this case, officers went to Guzman's apartment after a neighbor complained about possible drug transactions. Officers found Guzman and a man on the floor having sex when they arrived. Once Guzman turned on a lamp, officers asked if anyone else was in the apartment, to which Guzman responded no. Officers saw a blanket covering a doorway and conducted a "protective sweep" of the apartment.

During the sweep, an officer found a spoon in the kitchen sink that had drug residue on it. That's when an officer asked for permission to search the entire apartment. Guzman refused and officers threatened to get a warrant do to so.

The justices noted that there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing seen in the living room and were told that no one else was in the apartment. Without consent, officers should not have conducted the sweep or been in the kitchen, the justices wrote.

The justices noted that the "ancient" Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, as well as Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution, protect citizens from warrantless search and seizures and "do not discern between rich or poor."

"This apartment, its occupants, and their unseemly activities may not have measured up to an acceptable standard of decency," the justices wrote, but that didn't give officers the right to search the home.

Cunningham noted that the method used by police "is fraught with constitutional problems."

"Misinformation or deception by a law enforcement officer for purposes of obtaining consent to search will not be upheld," Cunningham wrote.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/06/21/2232923/ky-court-limits-protective-sweeps.html#storylink=cpy

Editor's comment; A great win for "We, the people".

Editor's note: The case is CRYSTAL LYNN GUZMAN V. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY, 2010-SC-000415-DG (2012) and can be read here.

Sanford, Floriduh, Police Chief Who "Played Footsie" With George Zimmerman In The Killing Of Trayvon Martin Fired.

Sanford, Fla., police chief behind Trayvon Martin case is fired

The Sanford police chief who failed to arrest George Zimmerman immediately after the fatal shooting of Miami-Dade teen Trayvon Martin four months ago — and brought national attention and derision to the Central Florida city — has been terminated.

The announcement was made late Wednesday night by Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte, who said in a news release that Police Chief Bill Lee “has been relieved of his duties” effective immediately. The chief had been on paid leave.

Bonaparte implied the firing stemmed from the impact of Lee’s handling of the Trayvon Martin on the city of Sanford.

“I have come to this decision in light of the escalating divisiveness that has taken hold of the city,” the manager said in the statement. The decision was made after a meeting earlier in the day.

The shooting of the 17-year-old that has sparked national outrage also has painted Sanford in an unfavorable light across the country.

“After much thoughtful discussion and deep consideration for the issues facing the city of Sanford, I have determined the police chief needs to have the trust and respect of the elected officials and the confidence of the entire community,” Bonaparte said in the statement. “We need to move forward with a police chief that all the citizens of Sanford can support.”

A nationwide search will begin for a replacement.

According to Lee’s employment agreement, he will receive a severance of three months and one week’s salary, in addition to any earned time off.

“I wish Chief Lee all the best in his future endeavors,” Bonaparte said.

In a text message to The Miami Herald late Wednesday, Ben Crump, attorney for the Martin family, commented on Lee’s firing.

“It’s our understanding that Sanford’s elected leadership felt that it was in the best interest to discharge Chief Lee in order to move on and rebuild community trust. We agree and stand by that decision and will do whatever we can to cooperate with any pending internal investigations of the PD and in helping the city of Sanford through this purging and healing process,’’ Crump wrote.

Richard Myers, former police chief of Colorado Springs, assumed the duties of interim police chief in May after Lee stepped aside temporarily. Lee had taken the $102,000-a-year job after a 27-year career at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.

In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Lee became a lightning rod for the anger that spread across the country after the incident on Feb. 26.

Trayvon, of Miami Gardens, was visiting his father’s girlfriend in Sanford while on a 10-day suspension from a Miami-Dade high school.

Zimmerman was ultimately charged by a special prosecutor and faces a charge of second-degree murder.

Lee’s 10-month tenure as police chief of Sanford’s 140-officer department looked like it was near an end when he submitted his resignation in March because of the backlash over the lack of an arrest.

Activists, students and ardent supporters across Florida and the country held rallies and marches to push for Zimmerman’s arrest, They included more than 1,000 Miami-Dade high school students. In protest, they wore hoodies and carried Skittles candy, as Trayvon had in his final moments. The Rev. Al Sharpton held a rally with thousands of supporters in Sanford.

In a press conference in March after Lee agreed to remove himself, he said:

“While I stand by the Sanford Police Department, its personnel and the investigation that was conducted in regards to the Trayvon Martin case, it is apparent that my involvement in this matter is overshadowing the process,” Lee said . “I do this in the hopes of restoring some semblance of calm to the city, which has been in turmoil for several weeks.”

Pressure for his resignation also had come from within the Sanford government. The Sanford City Commission issued a 3-2 vote of no confidence against Lee in March, and Bonaparte said at the time that Lee needed to be let go in order to let the city “move forward.”

But his resignation was refused in April by the Sanford City Commission, which said Lee’s spotless record showed there needed to be further review to determine if he failed in his duties. The key message of the meeting was that the commission wanted to wait for an outside agency to review the situation.

Miami Herald staff writers Frances Robles and David Ovalle contributed to this report.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/21/153273/sanford-fla-police-chief-behind.html#storylink=cpy

Nick Anderson Cartoons "Operation Crass And Spurious". LOL.

POTUS Barack Obama, A Hypocrital Critic Of Executive Priviledges, Asserts One Making Hypocrital Republicans "Furious" Real "Fast While They Forget President George W. Bush Invoked The Same Priviledges Six Times During His Tenure. Watch News Video And TSK, TSK!

watch more:

HIGH FRUTOSE CORN SYRUP IS KILLING US. STOP THE INSANITY, PEOPLE! WATCH VIDEO.

This Nick Anderson Cartoon Sums Up The Justice Department Of Late! BOINK!! ROTFLMAO!!!

I Present To You Today More Cartons About PHONY Mitt Romney. LOL.

The Catholic Church Takes A Stand Against Sex Abuse! ROTFLMAO!!

Words To Live By, Words Of Wisdom, And Words To Ponder.

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824

Children Of Illegal Immigrants. LOL.

POTUS Barack Obama (Hoover) Has Spoken!

CONgress And Wall Street Banker. Laugh, If You Feel Like It. I Don't!

Prosecutors "Pound" Penn State University's PERVERT, Jerry Sandusky, Like "Wet Sand On A Sand Sculpture". Watch Video.

Obama: The Private Sector Is Doing Just Fine!

George Zimmerman's Wife, Shellie, Arrested And Charged With Perjury. Watch Video.

watch:


read more here.

Well ... This Cartoon Makes Me Laugh -- AGAIN. LOL.

Peggy Noonan: What's Changed After Wisconsin.

What’s Changed After Wisconsin
The Obama administration suddenly looks like a house of cards.

What happened in Wisconsin signals a shift in political mood and assumption. Public employee unions were beaten back and defeated in a state with a long progressive tradition. The unions and their allies put everything they had into “one of their most aggressive grass-roots campaigns ever,” as the Washington Post’s Paul Whoriskey and Dan Balz reported in a day-after piece. Fifty thousand volunteers made phone calls and knocked on 1.4 million doors to get out the vote against Gov. Scott Walker. Mr. Walker’s supporters, less deeply organized on the ground, had a considerable advantage in money.

But organization and money aren’t the headline. The shift in mood and assumption is. The vote was a blow to the power and prestige not only of the unions but of the blue-state budgetary model, which for two generations has been: Public-employee unions with their manpower, money and clout, get what they want. If you move against them, you will be crushed.

Mr. Walker was not crushed. He was buoyed, winning by a solid seven points in a high-turnout race.

Governors and local leaders will now have help in controlling budgets. Down the road there will be fewer contracts in which you work for, say, 23 years for a city, then retire with full salary and free health care for the rest of your life—paid for by taxpayers who cannot afford such plans for themselves, and who sometimes have no pension at all. The big meaning of Wisconsin is that a public injustice is in the process of being righted because a public mood is changing.

Political professionals now lay down lines even before a story happens. They used to wait to do the honest, desperate, last-minute spin of yesteryear. Now it’s strategized in advance, which makes things tidier but less raggedly fun. The line laid down by the Democrats weeks before the vote was that it’s all about money: The Walker forces outspent the unions so they won, end of story.

Money is important, as all but children know. But the line wasn’t very flattering to Wisconsin’s voters, implying that they were automatons drooling in front of the TV waiting to be told who to back. It was also demonstrably incorrect. Most voters, according to surveys, had made up their minds well before the heavy spending of the closing weeks.

Mr. Walker didn’t win because of his charm—he’s not charming. It wasn’t because he is compelling on the campaign trail—he’s not, especially. Even his victory speech on that epic night was, except for its opening sentence—”First of all, I want to thank God for his abundant grace,” which, amazingly enough, seemed to be wholly sincere—meandering, unable to name and put forward what had really happened.

But on the big question—getting control of the budget by taking actions resisted by public unions—he was essentially right, and he won.

By the way, the single most interesting number in the whole race was 28,785. That is how many dues-paying members of the American Federation of State, County and Municiple Employees were left in Wisconsin after Mr. Walker allowed them to choose whether union dues would be taken from their paychecks each week. Before that, Afscme had 62,218 dues-paying members in Wisconsin. There is a degree to which public union involvement is, simply, coerced.

People wonder about the implications for the presidential election. They’ll wonder for five months, and then they’ll know.

President Obama’s problem now isn’t what Wisconsin did, it’s how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn’t go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker’s place, where the money is.

There is, now, a house-of-cards feel about this administration.

It became apparent some weeks ago when the president talked on the stump—where else?—about an essay by a fellow who said spending growth is actually lower than that of previous presidents. This was startling to a lot of people, who looked into it and found the man had left out most spending from 2009, the first year of Mr. Obama’s presidency. People sneered: The president was deliberately using a misleading argument to paint a false picture!

But you know, why would he go out there waving an article that could immediately be debunked? Maybe because he thought it was true. That’s more alarming, isn’t it, the idea that he knows so little about the effects of his own economic program that he thinks he really is a low spender.

For more than a month, his people have been laying down the line that America was just about to enter full economic recovery when the European meltdown stopped it. (I guess the slowdown in China didn’t poll well.) You’ll be hearing more of this—we almost had it, and then Spain, or Italy, messed everything up. What’s bothersome is not that it’s just a line, but that the White House sees its central economic contribution now as the making up of lines.

Any president will, in a presidential election year, be political. But there is a startling sense with Mr. Obama that that’s all he is now, that he and his people are all politics, all the time, undeviatingly, on every issue. He isn’t even trying to lead, he’s just trying to win.

Most ominously, there are the national-security leaks that are becoming a national scandal—the “avalanche of leaks,” according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that are somehow and for some reason coming out of the administration. A terrorist “kill list,” reports of U.S. spies infiltrating Al Qaeda in Yemen, stories about Osama bin Laden’s DNA and how America got it, and U.S. involvement in the Stuxnet computer virus, used against Iranian nuclear facilities. These leaks, say the California Democrat, put “American lives in jeopardy,” put “our nation’s security in jeopardy.”

This isn’t the usual—this is something different. A special counsel may be appointed.

And where is the president in all this? On his way to Anna Wintour’s house. He’s busy. He’s running for president.

But why? He could be president now if he wanted to be.

It just all increasingly looks like a house of cards. Bill Clinton—that ol’ hound dog, that gifted pol who truly loves politics, who always loved figuring out exactly where the people were and then going to exactly that spot and claiming it—Bill Clinton is showing all the signs of someone who is, let us say, essentially unimpressed by the incumbent. He defended Mitt Romney as a businessman—”a sterling record”—said he doesn’t like personal attacks in politics, then fulsomely supported the president, and then said that the Bush tax cuts should be extended.

His friends say he can’t help himself, that he’s getting old and a little more compulsively loquacious. Maybe. But maybe Bubba’s looking at the president and seeing what far more than half of Washington sees: a man who is limited, who thinks himself clever, and who doesn’t know that clever right now won’t cut it.

Because Bill Clinton loves politics, he hates losers. Maybe he just can’t resist sticking it to them a little, when he gets a chance.

Too Many Are John Edwards-Like in World Of Politics." YEP!

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial | Too many are John Edwards-like in world of politics

John Edwards is guilty of something, but apparently not breaking federal election laws.

A North Carolina jury found him not guilty of one charge of campaign-finance fraud and deadlocked on five others. But anyone who paid attention to his six-week trial knows Edwards is at least guilty of being immersed in a rotten culture where politicians think nothing of using donated money for personal expenses.

Two donors spent almost $1 million to help Edwards conceal his pregnant mistress from his dying wife and the public during his 2008 presidential campaign. The charade was continued even after he dropped out of the Democratic primary and fantasized about being appointed attorney general. But the money didn’t wash through his campaign account, so he wasn’t guilty of violating campaign-finance laws.

The whole sordid episode should prompt Congress to pass legislation requiring candidates to report large gifts, including the no-show and low-show jobs some take to support themselves during campaigns. When politicians accept favors from “friends,” the public needs to know who those friends are and what they might want from the politician.

Details of the lengths Edwards took to conceal his affair are salacious. But more disturbing is how the case showed the ease with which politicians suck up to the rich and powerful in search of campaign cash and skip over ethical lines without breaking a sweat.

Some critics question why the Justice Department even pursued this case. The people who anted up the money to keep Rielle Hunter hidden couldn’t have been expected to testify. Fred Baron died in 2008, and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon is 101 years old.

But just because a case might be tough to tackle doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t try to go after politicians who blithely forget their responsibilities to the public, try to cover up their misdeeds, and then, when caught, use strained rationalizations and technical loopholes to get off. A federal grand jury is looking into whether former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, had donors spend $250,000 to hush a woman who had threatened to file a sexual harassment suit against him. The ex-wife of Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois complained to the Federal Election Commission that he hid campaign-fund payments to a girlfriend.

Both the Kirk and Richardson cases may sound like “Jerry Springer Show” episodes, but they more importantly suggest how politicians find ways around election laws to cover their sleazy behavior.

The gray area between what is legal and what isn’t is too broad. That breadth allowed Edwards to slither right into the gray that led to last week’s mistrial.

“While I do not believe I did anything illegal or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong,” Edwards said to the cameras. Of course, he was not the least bit specific about that “awful, awful lot that was wrong.”

It gets old listening to unctuous politicians like Edwards say they broke no laws and then see them show contrived remorse as if that excuses their bad behavior. Americans want to expect more from their leaders. They want them to be honest, but too many, like Edwards, fail that test.

Words To Live By, Words Of Wisdom, And Words To Ponder, As PATRIOTIC LIBERTY LOVERS LIKE ME.

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."

-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1, 1787

Joel Pett Is Still Funny. ROTFLMAO!

Why Barack Obama May Be In Trouble -- Except He Lucked Out And Got PHONY Mitt Romney As An Opponent.

Bonus Cartoon: Democrats' Wisconsin Cheese. ROTFLMAO!

University Of Kentucky Lays Off Many Of Its Staff.

Peggy Noonan: The Long Race Has Begun.

The Long Race Has Begun
Will Romney do what it takes to capitalize on Obama’s weak start

And so it begins. We have a Republican nominee in Mitt Romney and a Democratic nominee in Barack Obama.

It is a marathon, not a sprint, but the pace is quickening. In five months we will have chosen a new president or doubled down on the current one.

Superficially both men have some things in common. Starting from the outside, they are both handsome, tall and fit. They care how they look, and how they look has had something to do with how well they’ve done. Both are academically accomplished, with three Harvard degrees between them. Each has spent much of his adult life a step apart from America’s big, messy, varied center, one as a political star and the other a star of business. Neither has ever been a loser, which is unfortunate: Losertude is a great teacher, an orienter in life; it tells you not everything you touch will turn out well. This is important information for a president. Both are highly verbal in the sense of being—well, verbal, of speaking words with great fluidity. When you ask them a question, a stream of words flows. In a way they remind me of what a court reporter once said about the testimony of William F. Buckley: “High syllabic content!”

They are different people with different personalities, temperaments and characters. The most consequential difference for the election’s purposes is that one has fully absorbed the general assumptions, attitudes and sympathies of the political left, and the other the general attitudes, assumptions and sympathies of the political right. That’s what should—should—make the next five months interesting, and the outcome important.

Some facts right now:

Republicans are starting to think they can win, and Democrats are starting to think they could lose. This didn’t use to be true.

There is much talk of the president’s brilliantly targeted high-tech campaign. By November we will know how much difference a brilliantly targeted, high-tech campaign makes. Is it a revolution in political outreach, or a geeky mirage?

Neither candidate has struck on a theme, though both seem to think they have. At the moment both candidates are generally understood as biographies: “I’m the successful businessman,” “I’m the breakthrough president.” This accounts for a certain frustration among voters: “I don’t want a biography, I want a plan.”

Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have risen to the top of the American political system in an intensely political era. And yet neither loves politics or appears to have a particularly oversized gift for it. This is a central and amazing fact of the national election.

Mr. Obama has become actively bad at politics. Here is an example of how bad. Anyone good at politics does not pick a fight with the Catholic Church during a presidential year. Really, you just don’t. Because there’s about 75 million Catholics in America, and the half of them who go to church will get mad. The other half won’t like it either.

If you’re good at politics, you quietly allow the church what it needs to survive, which actually is no more or less than what’s long been provided by the U.S. Constitution.

If you’re good at politics but ideologically mean, you string the church along throughout the election year, offering “temporary full waivers” or some such idiotic phrase—politicians love to make up idiotic phrases—on conscience, and then revoke all protections in 2013, after you’ve been re-elected, and have the fight then.

Only if you are really, really not good at politics do you alienate the bishops of a great faith in an election year.

A smaller example. If you’re good at politics, you don’t humiliate a friend and ally who popped off about your campaign strategy. You don’t send Cory Booker on a rhetorical perp walk and make him recant. You quietly accept his criticism, humbly note your disagreement, hold a grudge, and keep walking.

A more important example, and then we’ll move on. The president opened his campaign with a full-fledged assault on his opponent. This is a bad sign in an incumbent! An incumbent should begin his campaign with a full-fledged assertion of the excellence of his administration—the progress that has been made, the trouble that has been avoided, the promise that endures. You’ve got to be able to name these things. Then, once you’ve established the larger meaning of your administration—with wit and humor, and in a tone that assumes fair minded Americans will see it your way—you turn, in late summer, to a happy, spirited assault on the poor, confused, benighted and yet ultimately dangerous man running against you.

The president’s campaign is making him look small and scared.

Mr. Romney, too, has had his bad moments. Donald Trump this week is an example. Mr. Trump brings with him the freak-show aspects of the primaries. Mr. Romney has to kick away from that, start a new chapter, begin an appeal to the sane center. Does he think keeping Trump close gains him some kind of right-wing street cred? My goodness, who does he think lives on that street?

More important, when you’re good at politics you know what you have to do, if not immediately then soon. Mr. Romney has to give us a plan. He has to tell us his priorities. To lead is to prioritize, to choose: “We will take this path, at this speed, toward this end.” He hasn’t done this yet. He told me last week of some immediate intentions—repeal ObamaCare, and move boldly to unleash America’s energy resources—he called them “newly discovered and extraordinary.”

Fine. But afterward I realized these issues are immediately and personally associated with President Obama. They are not associated with the president I suspect Mr. Romney really has on his mind, George W. Bush.

Mr. Romney should be talking about the big things, taxing and spending, and offering a plan on both, a hierarchal declaration of needs. But taxes and spending are issues that are associated with Mr. Bush, and not happily. That, I suspect, is a reason Mr. Romney avoids addressing them at length or in a way that’s easily understood. He doesn’t want the Obama campaign to accuse him of being “just more Bush,” of peddling the same medicine that helped make us sick. That was Ronald Reagan’s 1984 charge against Walter Mondale, that all he offered was the empty, warmed-over liberalism of the past.

The Romney camp doesn’t want to be accused of warmed-over Bushism. So they shy away from clarity on central issues. But you can’t avoid central issues. If you try, your candidacy and message will robbed of vividness, made a blur.

Mr. Romney should face what didn’t work the past 12 years. Republicans took some wrong turns, and they know it. Centrists and independents know it, too. Candor here, delivered in a spirit of honesty, without animus, would seem not like a repudiation but a refreshment. And this would be deeply undercutting of Mr. Obama, who needs this race to be a fight between two parties, not a fight between a past that didn’t work and a future that can.

The Bush family will understand. They respect politics, and its practitioners.