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January 7, 2010
Exclusive: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up! (1/7/10)
Whenever you think general incompetence by those who purport to serve by the consent of the governed can’t get any worse, think again:
“Fed Judges: Felons should get vote” (Associated Press, 1/6/10)
OLYMPIA, Wash. | Incarcerated felons should be allowed to vote in Washington to ensure that racial minorities are protected under the Voting Rights Act, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the 2000 ruling of a district judge in Spokane. That judge had ruled that state law did not violate the act, and dismissed a lawsuit filed by a former prison inmate from Bellevue.
The two appellate judges ruled that disparities in the state's justice system "cannot be explained in race-neutral ways."
The issues the ruling raises about racial bias in the justice system are not unique to Washington state, said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., group promoting sentencing reform.
"They are issues that permeate the justice system and are relevant in every state," he said.
A spokeswoman said state Attorney General Rob McKenna is weighing the state's next step.
The lawsuit was filed by Muhammad Shabazz Farrakhan of Bellevue. He was serving a three-year sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for a series of felony-theft convictions when he sued the state in 1996.
Ultimately, five other inmates, all members of racial minority groups, joined as plaintiffs.
The lawsuit contended that because nonwhites make up a large percentage of the prison population, a state law prohibiting inmates and parolees from voting is illegal because it dilutes the electoral clout of minorities.
(read the entire article here)
felony (noun): an offense, as murder or burglary, of graver character than those called misdemeanors, esp. those commonly punished in the U.S. by imprisonment for more than a year
Part of the punishment of committing a felony is that you lose your right to vote. So now Washington State has to give felons the right to vote because the civil rights of minorities are being infringed upon? What about the civil rights of the victims of their crimes? What’s next, giving them back the right to own firearms?
Figures this ridiculous ruling came from the uber-liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Profiling? Heavens, Not Us!” (Jack Dunphy, Pajamas Media, 1/5/09)
We must all be inconvenienced so that none of us is offended. Profiling? Heavens, not us! And we are now told we must further entrust our safety to technology in the form of body scanners that might detect the combustible undergarments of any passenger who happens to be chosen to enter one, this despite the knowledge that al-Qaeda terrorists have already used a technique to conceal explosives [4] that would render such body scanners worse than useless.
(read entire article here)
Nothing like putting an entire society under the gun – and thus watering down the effectiveness of security measures – so that a minority group won’t feel singled out, even though the jihadist terrorists all come from that particular group. Wait, was that comment profiling? Fifty lashes with a wet noodle.
“Dennis Blair vs. the Intelligence Community” (Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard, 12/30/09)
What's creepy is: a) Blair's throwing the intelligence community under the bus while sucking up shamelessly to the president; b) The notion that "individual suicide terrorists" constitute a "new tactic," which – if believed by anyone other than Blair – would make the entire intelligence community look like idiots; c) The implication that the intelligence community has been failing to "outthink, outwork and defeat the enemy's new ideas" – as if the enemy has come up with brilliant "new ideas," and, again, as if the American intelligence community – until and unless spurred on by Denny Blair – are a bunch of dopes; and d) The fact that the lapses that characterized the Christmas terror attack were as much the responsibility of other departments as of the core intelligence agencies.
(read article here)
There’s really not much else we can say.
Brought to you by the editors and research staff of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (1) | Sign Up for FSM Updates!
I think any right explicitly described in the constitution should be abridged, in no way shape or form especially if that right does not directly endanger or harm the liberties of others. Therefore restricting violent felons from carrying guns away from their homes should and is constitutional because they have demonstrated that can or have been violent.... check out this article about a ruling that would make felons vote: This is a government for and by the people
http://keironjackman.wordpress.com
and check the article on felons (light out)
posted by: republicanblack
Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 04:54 PM
