ROSE AND VALERIE, SCREAMING FROM THE GALLERY: “Dzokhar Must Go Free.” The judge did not agree. “Dzhokhar was taken away in a white prison van right after the hearing.”
Archive for 2013
July 10, 2013
YOUR SMARTPHONE as Home Command Center.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Memo To Dick Durbin: All Americans Are Journalists.
With the mainstream press in their pockets, what Durbin and others truly fear are citizen journalists and the free and open dissemination of ideas that threaten the political class’ agenda.
They don’t want bloggers rabble-rousing against ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. They hate the idea of Twitter being alight with criticisms of the left’s efforts to have government “do good things.”
They resent citizens using message boards to condemn the White House’s attempts to redistribute wealth, its imperial tendencies, its miserably failed foreign policy and its growing list of scandals.
And they certainly want to chill discussions of how the political left has abandoned — after once being a reliable defender of it — the First Amendment.
With cellphones, pads and laptops in every home and car, we are all journalists ready to document, report, record and discuss.
Washington hasn’t the moral authority to say who is and who isn’t a journalist. The First Amendment was written to stop the government from doing exactly that.
Indeed.
NO, NOT AT ALL. NEXT QUESTION? 100-Year-Old Woman Just Really Wants To Have Sex, Is That So Wrong?
21ST CENTURY LAW ENFORCEMENT: Ye gads! A kid has an ant farm? Send in the SWAT team!
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Fall of the Humanities.
AT AMAZON, markdowns on Groceries & Gourmet Food.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Women Ashamed Of Not Masturbating. “The ‘taboo’ for me, or the shame, rather, was that I was this sexually liberated, feminist woman who very much enjoys sex, who also doesn’t masturbate. I felt like everyone was doing it but me. . . . So there’s another side to masturbation shame. When the vast majority of women I know are masturbating and when what feels like the whole feminist Internet thinks you’re a prude who hates their vagina if you don’t, we may want to consider that there might be other reasons some women don’t masturbate.”
NEWS FROM OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM: While Teen Rots in Jail for Making Facebook Joke, Cop Who Talked About Killing Michelle Obama Gets Slap on the Wrist. The cop has a union. The kid doesn’t.
ROAD AND TRACK ON MICHAEL HASTINGS’ DEATH: Anatomy of A High-Speed Car Crash.
REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE: Should Men Be Allowed To Opt Out Of Child Support?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, BUSINESS-SCHOOL EDITION: WSJ: B-Schools Face ‘Existential Crisis.’ ” Graduate business programs historically fared well during economic downturns as workers sought to beef up their resumes in a tough job market, but the prolonged recession gave many prospective students pause as they worried about taking on debt without seeing clear return on the investment.”
Related thoughts from Megan McArdle.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: VIDEO: Julia Merfeld, Mich. woman, tries to hire hit man to kill husband, says it’s “easier than divorcing.”
RACIAL HATEMONGERING ON THE TAXPAYER’S DIME: Newly Released Documents Detail the Department of Justice’s Role in Organizing Trayvon Martin Protests. “Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents proving that the Department of Justice played a major behind-the-scenes role in organizing protests against George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is on trial for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February 2012.”
So not only did we have a public statement by the President that might have tainted the jury pool, but now we find the Department of Justice was involved in, basically, organizing a lynch mob?
Related: Disorder: Judge Recesses Zimmerman Trial, Excludes Damning Evidence. “Trayvon Martin’s phone had hundreds of messages discussing criminal behavior, including trafficking black-market firearms.” So maybe the folks at DOJ felt they had something in common with him . . . .
Look at the residents of this ‘gated community’ who lived just in that one spot. It is more diverse than a Democrat photo-op. This neighborhood had young and old, Asians and blacks and whites and Hispanics all living next to each other in peace, but needing gates and a neighborhood watch to protect themselves from outsiders.
Without the race-baiters — now almost exclusively to be found in the Democratic Party and its media wing — Americans get along pretty well. And it’s certainly a more diverse crowd than at Obama Campaign HQ.
INDEED: “Of all the stretches of executive power Americans have seen in the past few years, the president’s unilateral suspension of statutes may have the most disturbing long-term effects.” It’s a violation of the President’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. But the only remedy for such violations is impeachment.
FEDERAL JUDGE: Apple Conspired To Raise E-Book Prices.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A coming war between junior and senior faculty?
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: California’s Prison Nightmare.
Speaking of failed states, California’s prison system is dysfunctional and broken. Earlier this year, a Federal Appeals Court found that the state had yet to comply with the Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling that conditions in its prison system amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” The three-judge Appeals Court panel issued a stern rebuke to Governor Jerry Brown, threatening to hold him in contempt if he doesn’t begin to make serious progress towards resolving funding and overcrowding issues in the state’s prison system.
Stories like these aren’t helping Governor Brown’s case: The Center for Investigative Reporting has revealed that doctors for the prison system coerced female prisoners into being sterilized. According to the report, nearly 150 inmates at two women’s prisons were illegally pressured into having the operation between 1997 and 2010. Staff reportedly targeted repeat offenders and women likely to return to jail in a rather gruesome ploy to cut future medical expenses due to prison pregnancies.
Meanwhile, at least 30,000 inmates began a hunger strike yesterday, demanding an end to solitary confinement policies that allow California to keep suspected gang members isolated for decades without the right to have their case reviewed. The hunger strike is meant to show support for ten inmates at the Pelican Bay State Prison who have filed suit against California and are currently seeking class-action status.
While that case will have to be decided on its merits, both stories are further evidence of breakdowns in governance. Enforcing the laws and properly punishing criminals are among the most basic functions of government. It’s hard to see California as anything but another failed state if it is failing these fundamental tests.
Indeed. They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, we’d see government running roughshod over women’s reproductive autonomy. And they were right!
THE LEGAL SYSTEM as a User Experience.
DAY BY DAY, SUMMER IS FADING AWAY: At Amazon, It’s The Back-To-School Sale! For both college and K-12.
Also, today only: Canon PowerShot A2300, $59.00 (58% off).
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 62.
WHY TSA SHOULD GO AHEAD WITH ITS RELAXATION OF POCKET-KNIFE RULES: Asiana Passengers Almost Burned To Death Waiting For Box Cutters. “Reports indicate that passengers aboard crashed Asiana Flight 214 were trapped by their seatbelts while the Boeing 777 burned around them. If only someone had a knife to cut them free, even a small pocketknife. . . . But nobody had any kind of knife, because knives aren’t allowed on flights that land or originate in the United States.” A pocketknife is a tool, and can be lifesaving.
UPDATE: Until the TSA wises up, one of the commenters says that you can carry the Res-Q-Me keychain on planes, and it has a seatbelt-cutter. Anybody know more about this?