Mr. Smith Returns to Washington

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." — George Washington

You may not be old enough to remember the Frank Capra’s great movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” starring Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart, but I do. It was one of those films that affected me in my early years. It’s about one man's effect on American politics. For those who have never seen the film here is a brief synopsis:

Naive and idealistic Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed on a lark by the spineless governor of his state. He is reunited with the state's senior senator--presidential hopeful and childhood hero, Senator Joseph Paine. In Washington, however, Smith discovers many of the shortcomings of the political process as his earnest goal of a national boys' camp leads to a conflict with the state political boss, Jim Taylor. Taylor first tries to corrupt Smith and then later attempts to destroy Smith through a scandal.

Smith comes up with legislation that would authorize a federal government loan to buy some land in his home state for a national boys' camp, to be paid back by youngsters across America. Donations pour in immediately. However, the proposed campsite is already part of a dam-building graft scheme included in a Public Works bill framed by the Taylor political machine and supported by Senator Paine.

Unwilling to crucify the worshipful Smith so that their graft plan will go through, Paine tells Taylor he wants out, but Taylor reminds him that Paine is in power primarily through Taylor's influence. Through Paine, the machine accuses Smith of trying to profit from his bill by producing fraudulent evidence that Smith owns the land in question. Smith is too shocked by Paine's betrayal to defend himself, and runs away.

However, Smith's chief of staff, Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur), has come to believe in him, and talks him into launching a filibuster to postpone the Works bill and prove his innocence on the Senate floor just before the vote to expel him. While Smith talks non-stop, his constituents try to rally around him, but the entrenched opposition is too powerful, and all attempts are crushed. Due to influence of the Taylor "machine", on his orders, newspapers and radio stations in Smith's home state refuse to report what Smith has to say and even twist the facts against the Senator. An effort by the Boy Rangers to spread the news results in vicious attacks on the children by Taylor's minions.

Although all hope seems lost, the senators begin to pay attention as Smith approaches utter exhaustion. Paine has one last card up his sleeve: he brings in bins of letters and telegrams from Smith's home state from people demanding his expulsion. Nearly broken by the news, Smith finds a small ray of hope in a friendly smile from the President of the Senate (Harry Carey). Smith vows to press on until people believe him, but immediately collapses in a faint. Overcome with guilt, Paine leaves the Senate chamber and attempts to kill himself with a gun. When he is stopped, he bursts back into the Senate chamber, loudly confesses to the whole scheme, and affirms Smith's innocence.

The political world changed its orbit Wednesday as Rand Paul seized the spotlight in his March 6 filibuster. Rand Paul is probably now the 2016 front-runner for president and shown the GOP’s old guard what courage and principal mean.

How can one day be that big of a deal? Because Rand Paul demonstrated a reproducible, winning formula. It was as if Ronald Reagan were granted just one day to come back to Earth to remind the Party of Lincoln of "how it's done." Rand demonstrated a repeatable formula that all Republicans can copy. It is the template that is significant.

But was March 6 "Republicans' Last Stand" or "Rand's First Stand?" What is most optimistic as the basis for this analysis is that Republican senators started showing up. The Senate floor was more crowded at 10:00 and 11:00 PM than it was at 6:00 PM. They felt it. They saw it. They "got" it. (Excepting one aged senator from Arizona who the next day stood on the floor of the Senate and viciously attacked Senator Paul personally and politically. It clicked. In other words, Republicans might possibly do more of same. If Rand disappears back into the woodwork, then March 6 will have meant nothing and Senators like John McCain will drag the GOP down to insignificance. It was McCain who said that Paul’s filibuster did not serve the American people and he was appealing to libertarian college students in their dorms. Perhaps if Mr. McCain had appealed to those libertarian college students Barack Obama would not be President today. But that is history.

Freshman Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz "got it." Cruz was all over it. Cruz gave voice to the moment best of all. Cruz threatened to go way over the top, reading from the movie "Patton" and Henry the Fifth's St. Crispin's Day speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Yet somehow, flirting with serious rhetorical dangers, Cruz captured the moment just right. Like a roller coaster, you gripped the car fearing Cruz was going to fly off into mid-air, yet to our great surprise Cruz hit his mark. He grasped the significance, to put it mildly. Cruz praised the raw bravery of "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" rather than those who die a thousand deaths in the thicket of their own worried thoughts.

Rand Paul unveiled a conservative answer to the Left's Saul Alinsky tactics:

• Rand Paul shoved Obama's agenda off the public stage. Just getting the political world talking about Republicans' message instead of Obama's means Republicans are winning and Obama is losing.
• Rand picked his issue very carefully. He chose the hill he wanted his opponent to die on. Rand showed what happens when you wisely pick the right issue to defeat your opponent with.
• Yet Rand's issue seamlessly fit within his larger philosophy. He didn't just take a cheap shot. Rand chose an example that proves his larger point. As a caller to the Chris Plante show on Washington's WMAL said, "the biggest minority in America is the individual." Rand's filibuster fit within Rand's overall defense of individual liberty — the liberty espoused by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The specific point created an effective argument supporting his larger theme.
• Rand advanced his strategic goal. The entire filibuster episode portrayed a radically different image of Barack Obama. Even among low information voters, Obama's public image just took a serious hit. Instead of being the cool guy who loves you, Obama is now the tyrant who reserves the right to kill you any time he feels like it. On an emotional level, Rand Paul undid in one day years of spin about Obama.
• Rand had a sense of the role of theatrical drama. Conservatives are rightly wary of selling an invalid argument. But even to promote the truth, one must understand that humans are emotional beings. Communicating a message in a crowded, busy world requires a feel for the dramatic — just ask Henry V.
• So Rand did this in a way difficult for the news media to ignore. In politics, if a tree falls in the forest and the news media doesn't report it, it never happened.
• Rand then hammered the issue perfectly. Who can defend U.S. Government drones assassinating American citizens inside America if they are not engaged in any violence? The issue is a blinding searchlight leaving the critters nowhere to hide. You can't say it doesn't matter. And there's no defense.
• Rand focused like a laser beam, anticipating the misrepresentation and caricatures he knew would be attempted. He repeatedly emphasized, probably a dozen times an hour, how modest his request was. He understood how his actions would be lied about, and cut the scoundrels off at the pass. He repeated what he wasn't demanding, what he wasn't arguing. He emphasized how he had voted for Obama's other nominees.
• Rand wasn't careless. His argument withstood scrutiny. And it got scrutiny. Yet he had a solid argument. Democrat Senator Dick Durbin asked about killing Osama Bin Laden. But Seal Team 6 was trying to arrest Bin Laden. It was Bin Laden's violence in resisting arrest that got him killed. Rand repeatedly emphasized that inside the USA the government should arrest people and question them, not assassinate them.
• Rand was nimble. He admitted that he hadn't planned the filibuster. But when the Obama Administration repeatedly confirmed that they believe the president has the authority to murder U.S. citizens inside the USA when they are not actively attacking anyone, Rand saw an opening and pounced. But he had the wisdom to know if it was a good opportunity or not.
• Rand Paul had guts.

Yet the GOP will be lost if it does not learn the lesson and follow Rand Paul's brilliant "teachable moment" example. Winston Churchill quipped: "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on." We will see how thick-headed Republicans are if they miss the point. John McCain and Lindsey Graham certainly did.

On the same day that Rand Paul showed us how it's done, Republicans in the U.S. House impersonated over boiled cauliflower and caved in to Obama's massive overspending. The U.S. House skipped the chance to slow out-of-control spending. The Republican House passed a Continuing Resolution at the same $3.6 trillion level — $700 billion per year higher than Federal spending in 2008. Republicans could have passed a Continuing Resolution at a lower level, especially while objecting that the U.S. Senate has not passed any budget.

I have often criticized Ron Paul on some issues, while agreeing with him on others. When Papa Paul is right, he's right, when he's not, he's not. So Senator Rand Paul really had to earn the favorable opinion of Americans, let alone Republicans. But on March 6 he surely did. McCain and Graham please step aside and let the new GOP blood rise. Welcome back Mr. Smith its be a long time.

Oh Canada

“Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.” — Ronald Reagan

If you liked the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial you’ll love this latest gambit from our neighbors to the north.

In citing Canada’s abortion laws, an Edmonton appeal court ruled that an Alberta woman who strangled her son with her underwear after secretly giving birth in 2005, will face no guaranteed jail time.

Katrina Effert was sentenced Friday for killing her newborn and then throwing the body over a fence into the neighbor’s yard on April 13, 2005, when she was 19. She was given a three-year suspended sentence by Judge Joanne Veit wherein if she abides by the court’s conditions for the next three years, she will not spend time behind bars. CBC notes the justification given by the judge for such an astounding sentence:

“The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that ‘while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support,’ she writes.

The judge noted that infanticide laws and sentencing guidelines were not altered when the government made many changes to the Criminal Code in 2005, which she says shows that Canadians view the law as a ‘fair compromise of all the interests involved.’

‘Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother.”

The CBC report states:

“The Wetaskiwin, Alberta woman convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son, was given a three-year suspended sentence Friday by an Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench judge.

Katrina Effert was 19 on April 13, 2005, when she secretly gave birth in her parents' home, strangled the baby boy with her underwear and threw the body over a fence into a neighbor’s yard.

She silently wept as Justice Joanne Veit outlined the reasons for the suspended sentence. Effert will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won't spend time behind bars for strangling her newborn son.

In her judgment, the judge rejected arguments from the Crown that the single father and the grandparent also face "the same stresses of the mind" as a mother who kills her own baby.”

“In a subsequent report by the CBC Katrina Effert cried in an Edmonton courtroom during her sentencing hearing Thursday as she apologized for killing newborn son more than six years ago:

“I'm sorry for everything that's happened," she said while fighting back tears. "Especially to my family. I put them through so much."

Two years ago, for the second time, a jury found her guilty of murder, but last May the province's highest court decided the jury made a mistake.

In a rare move, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, replacing it with the lesser one of infanticide.

The appeal court said Effert should have been given the benefit of the doubt based on psychiatric evidence.

At the sentencing hearing Thursday Crown prosecutor John Laluk recommended a four-year sentence saying, "We have to remember this is a homicide."

The maximum sentence for infanticide is five years in prison.

Royal said he was "completely taken aback by the crown's position," and asked for a suspended sentence of two to three years to be served in the community.

"What this woman needs is support and understanding," he said. "She doesn't need to be trucked off to the penitentiary".

"This is a very fine young woman who went through a tragic event.

"She seeks understanding from the court, which I suspect will be forthcoming."

Justice Joanne Veit reserved her decision until Friday afternoon.

The Crown is still waiting to hear if the Supreme Court of Canada will hear its appeal of the Alberta Court of Appeal's ruling.”

This is one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice I have ever heard of. I woman murders a living child like a farm yard chicken and throws the body over a fence into a neighbor’s yard and a judge reverses a jury decision convicting her infanticide, a crime that carries a mere five year sentence.

How our progressive dominated society has come to disregard the life of a new-born baby. If we feel it to be an inconvenience it is acceptable to dispose of it like some trash in the house.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee — except for the innocent child.

Hide Your Stradivarius

Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.” — John Locke

Federal Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided factories and offices of Gibson Guitar in Memphis and Nashville on last Wednesday, seizing wood pallets, electronic files and guitars.

Federal authorities are apparently investigating Gibson for the alleged importation and use of illegal wood.

The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday on this highly “aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.” The Journal reports that the raid this past Wednesday was not the first time that agents of Fish and Wildlife came after Gibson guitars.

Gibson is already fighting a federal lawsuit that stemmed from a 2009 federal raid, but this raid seems to have upped the stakes. As the Journal described the ongoing case:

“The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards but with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.”

The real issue here seems to be the bureaucratic minutia of federal environmental regulations that increasingly pervade all aspects of American life. Environmental regulations cover your home, your business, and now even your guitar. To lay out the over-regulation in this case, the Journal quoted John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University, who described the enormous burden of proof on guitar owners to show they aren’t carrying endangered wood:

“”It’s not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What’s the bridge made of? If it’s ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar’s headstock bone, or could it be ivory? Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever.”

Certainly, the dedication of federal resources for the harassment of a private musical instrument producer reinforces already negative perceptions about the Obama administration’s hyper-regulatory environment.

Now the tale of the Gibson guitar raid — the one focused on the legendary guitar maker’s alleged importation and use of illegal wood — has taken an odd turn. Now CEO Henry Juskiewicz is claiming the Feds told him that some of his problems “would go away” if the company used Madagascar labor.

In an interview with KMJ 105.9 in Fresno, California, Juskiewicz told host Chris Daniel that the government made the point “explicitly:”

CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?

HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.

CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?

HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes, yeah. They said that explicitly.

That’s an interesting charge. But what is it all about? Well, Juskiewicz is not referencing the latest raid, but rather a similar raid that occurred in 2009 when authorities confiscated ebony fingerboard blanks and accused the company of importing them illegally. According to Juskiewicz, those accusations are false.

Gibson has obtained sworn statements and documents from the Madagascar government and these materials, which have been filed in federal court, show that the wood seized in 2009 was legally exported and that no law has been violated,” the company says in a news release.

So why the comments about Madagascar labor? The latest raid may offer some insight. In the most recent case, the Feds say Gibson violated the U.S. Lacey Act by importing wood from India not finished by Indian workers. But Gibson says the Lacey Act only applies if foreign law has been violated, and it hasn’t been in this case:

“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

That could then explain the alleged comments by the Feds that Gibson could avoid problems by outsourcing labor to Madagascar: if workers in Madagascar finished the wood then — considering the DOJ’s interpretation of the law — there would be no problem.

It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next. According to the Journal article:

“If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar."

The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes.

It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."

Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.

Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic.”

Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic.

Still, musicians cling to the old materials. Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said.

You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas.”

Perhaps the next victims of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Anne-Sophie Mutter, or Isaac Stern with their Stradivarius or Guarnerius violins. What will happen if they leave the country with their million dollar violins and then try to reenter? Will they be asked for a certificate of the wood used by the famous 18^th century violin makers? What happens if they do not have the “proper” certification documents? Will the violins be confiscated and the great musicians fined or imprisoned? I doubt Holder would go that far as such a case would become a Cause Célèbre bringing too much attention to his tyrannical and incompetent justice department.

There may be another reason why the Feds are harassing Gibson. The Gibson Guitar Company with facilities in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Montana (all right to work states) is a non-union operation. Perhaps this is Eric Holder’s way of attacking a non-union firm to grant an advantage to one of Obama’s union buddies. Just like Boeing’s plans to open a plant in South Carolina and his support of the union rioters in Wisconsin.

This is yet another example of the tyranny being imposed by Obama’s statist government officials. We have the coercive tyranny of the Department of Education, the Department of Labor through the NLRB, the EPA with its onerous and job killing regulations, and the Department of Justice with its legal actions against Arizona and Alabama over their policies towards illegal immigrants. And now we have the Department of Interior joining the club of tyrants with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Either way, the raid has been costly on the American business that employs about 2,000 people. According to Juskiewicz, “my personal guess is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million to $3 million.”

That’s a lot of money considering the Feds have yet to file charges in the 2009 case.

Given the current economic climate, and the recent Obama administration decision to de-prioritize deportation of illegal immigrants in a way that appears to many as backdoor amnesty, the case against Gibson is raising many eyebrows.

It’s Over, Finally Over In Florida

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” — Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of The United States.

Reasonable Doubt – A standard of proof that must be surpassed to convict an accused in a criminal proceeding.”

According to the Free Law Dictionary “reasonable doubt” is:

“Reasonable doubt is a standard of proof used in criminal trials. When a criminal defendant is prosecuted, the prosecutor must prove the defendant's guilt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. If the jury—or the judge in a bench trial—has a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt, the jury or judge should pronounce the defendant not guilty. Conversely, if the jurors or judge have no doubt as to the defendant's guilt, or if their only doubts are unreasonable doubts, then the prosecutor has proven the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the defendant should be pronounced guilty.

Reasonable doubt is the highest standard of proof used in court. In civil litigation the standard of proof is either proof by a preponderance of the evidence or proof by clear and convincing evidence. These are lower burdens of proof. A preponderance of the evidence simply means that one side has more evidence in its favor than the other, even by the smallest degree. Clear and convincing evidence is evidence that establishes a high probability that the fact sought to be proved is true. The main reason that the high proof standard of reasonable doubt is used in criminal trials is that criminal trials can result in the deprivation of a defendant's liberty or in the defendant's death, outcomes far more severe than occur in civil trials where money damages are the common remedy.

Reasonable doubt is required in criminal proceedings under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In in re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1970), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the highest standard of proof is grounded on "a fundamental value determination of our society that it is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free."

Today the three-year saga of little Caylee Marie Anthony came to an end in a Florida courtroom when a jury of 7 women and 5 men returned a not guilty verdict after 11 hours of deliberation. Fox News reported at soon after the verdict was in:

“A Florida jury has cleared Casey Anthony of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, bringing to a close a case that has captivated the American public for more than three years.

Anthony, 25, wept after the clerk read the verdict, which jurors reached after less than 11 hours of deliberation over two days.

She was charged with first-degree murder, which could have brought the death penalty if she had been convicted, but the jury, after a trial lasting more than a month, found her not guilty on all charges related to Caylee's death, including aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter. She was convicted of four counts of lying to investigators and could receive up to a year in jail for each count when Judge Belvin Perry sentences her Thursday.

She likely will get credit for spending much of the past three years in jail waiting for trial, so it's possible she could be released as soon as later this week.

After the verdict was read, Anthony hugged her attorney Jose Baez and later mouthed the words "thank you" to him.

Prosecutors sat solemnly in their seats, looking stunned. Prosecutor Jeff Ashton shook his head slightly from side to side in apparent disbelief. Across the room, Anthony's father wiped tears from his eyes. Without speaking to Casey, he and his wife left the courtroom escorted by police as the judge thanked the jury.

"We felt very strongly about our case. We always felt that (the prosecution's) case was built on nothing," defense attorney Jose Baez told Fox News' Geraldo Rivera. "The jury saw through all of the fantasy and forensics and saw through a lot of the lies presented before them."

"While we're happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case," Baez told reporters shortly after the verdict was read. "Caylee has passed on far, far too soon. And what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey, because Casey did not murder Caylee. It's that simple."

"Our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction," he said.

State Attorney Lamar Lawson, meanwhile, called the verdict disappointing.

"We’re disappointed with the verdict today and surprised because we know the facts," Lawson told reporters.

Lawson, who praised the prosecution's efforts, called the trial a "dry bones" case that was "very difficult to prove" because it relied largely on circumstantial evidence.

Caylee's remains were found six months after she was reported missing, and no cause of death was ever determined -- a fact Lawson said "worked to our considerable disadvantage."

In a similar report from Reuters the not guilty verdict for Casey Anthony on Tuesday also can be seen as a victory for the U.S. justice system, despite strong public opinion that she killed her 2 year-old daughter:

“A Florida jury cleared Anthony of the murder charge she faced in the 2008 death of her daughter, Caylee, but found her guilty of lying to police about the incident.

A number of media commentators had expected Anthony to be found guilty of murder in the case, even though prosecutors were forced to rely largely on circumstantial evidence.

Doug Berman, a criminal law professor at Ohio State University, said popular opinion came to the conclusion the 25 year-old Anthony was guilty, but that jurors must hold to a higher standard than the average citizen watching on TV.

That standard is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

"In some sense, it's a sign that the system worked well," Berman said. "The job of the system is not to turn this into a Hollywood ending, but to have all the actors in the system do the job to the best of their ability."

Josh Niewoehner, a Chicago attorney who worked on the successful defense of R&B singer R. Kelly against charges of child pornography, said he welcomed the Anthony verdict.

"It's a good day for justice in the sense that you have to prove every element of every crime beyond a reasonable doubt," he added.

The case against Anthony, who had faced the possibility of the death penalty if found guilty of murdering her daughter, was short on forensic evidence, such as Caylee's time or manner of death, Berman said.

Berman said popular television show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has influenced jurors in recent years, by giving them the false impression every case has the same clear-cut forensic evidence featured in that fictional series.

"There's been a lot of speculation that lay jurors have now gotten even less likely to convict, because they're under the false impression that every case is going to have some sort of forensic smoking gun," he said.

Because of the tragic nature of 2 year-old Caylee Anthony's death, many in the public felt someone must be held responsible and they saw Casey Anthony as that person, experts said.

"Popular opinion did find her guilty, which is why we have so many people right now in shock," said psychologist Gregory Jantz, author of "Overcoming Anxiety, Worry and Fear" and founder of counseling and treatment center A Place of Hope.”

Many Americans are stunned today that Casey Anthony has been found not guilty by a Florida jury for the murder or manslaughter of her 2-year old daughter, Caylee Marie. Not only that but critics are already taking to the media and speaking out, suggesting that the Florida jury rendered the wrong verdict.

After all, how could a jury acquit such a person when it’s so apparent that the defendant lied?

But the jury didn’t totally acquit Ms. Anthony. They found her guilty of lying to law enforcement because that’s the charge the prosecution was able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

Proving anything ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ is the highest standard under the law. It is much more severe than the civil standard of proving a case ‘by a preponderance’ of the evidence, or the evidentiary standard of ‘clear and convincing.’

Florida criminal case jury instructions say that, “a reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt, a speculative imaginary or forced doubt on the other hand, if after carefully considering, comparing and weighing all the evidence there is not an abiding conviction of guilt, or, if having a conviction, it is one which is not stable but which waivers and vacillates, then the charge is not proved beyond every reasonable doubt and you must find the defendant not guilty because the doubt is reasonable. It is to the evidence introduced in this trial, and to it alone, that you are to look to that proof.”

In layman's terms, jurors must render their verdict only on the evidence presented to them in court and they cannot to let their imagination or speculation guide their decisions. In this case the jurors honored those instructions. They complied with the law.

Perhaps one of the most compelling pieces of circumstantial evidence in this case was the fact that someone did an Internet search for the word “chloroform,” on Ms. Anthony’s computer 84 times in March 2008, only a couple months before Caylee went missing that summer. That is undeniably very suspicious. But is it proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Anthony murdered her daughter? It may not even be evidence by a preponderance of the evidence, which is significantly lower.

Many Americans are frequently confused by the verdict in many high profile criminal cases, the O.J. Simpson case probably being the most memorable. There was initially a great deal of compelling circumstantial evidence that suggested that Mr. Simpson killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in Brentwood, California. However, Simpson was found responsible for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a civil suit where the “preponderance of evidence” was the guiding legal principle to the jurors.

I am a person who believes the victim is often overlooked in criminal trials. I am pro death penalty and I believe that society and the victims deserve retribution for crimes against them.

I believe here were three reasons Casey Anthony got off scott-free with the murder of her two-year old daughter; over-charging by the prosecution, contradictions in the forensic evidence and a jury that was tired and wanted to go home.

Over Charging by the Prosecution

The prosecution decided to charge Casey Anthony with first degree murder, a capital offense in the state of Florida. Yes, there were lesser charges the jury could have fallen back on, but they decided that she was also not guilty of those charges.

The State had a weak first degree case based on circumstantial evidence with little solid forensic evidence and most of all they lack a definite cause of death. While circumstantial evidence has brought in guilty verdicts in death penalty cases such as Scott Peterson. In this case, with the weak forensics and lack of any DNA the prosecution was walking on his ice by going for the death penalty. Even though this jury was “death penalty qualified” there were several jurors who had reservations against the death penalty but said they would “try” to base their decision on the evidence even if that decision would result in the death penalty. I seriously doubt if someone against the death penalty will change their minds when push comes to shove. It’s just not human nature. This jury was predominately anti-death penalty, especially for a 25-year old woman who they saw as a victim of a dysfunctional family. After three years of pretrial waiting and the arguments of her defense attorney Casey Anthony became the victim.

Contradictions in the Forensic Evidence

Casey Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez, did a brilliant job of pushing his “fantasy forensics” argument into the heads of the jurors. While most of the legal pundits were quick to criticize his attack of the forensics like the duct tape and search for chloroform I felt he was effectively planting the “shadow of doubt” in the minds of the jurors, and that’s all this jury needed.

I watched most of the defense’s closing arguments on Sunday and I must confess, that as a lay person as the jurors were, I was becoming convinced and developing a doubt as o the prosecution’s case. However, all of the other circumstantial evidence would have led me to a guilty verdict on one of the lesser charges. Something this jury decided against.

The Jury was Tired and Wanted to go Home,

After almost a month of being sequestered without access to family and friends, no TV, no phone call, no newspapers and no internet these 17 jurors (12 jurors and 5 alternates) were tired of the trial and wanted to go home. The 11 hours of deliberation bears a great deal of evidence to my statement. they did not want the death penalty and did not want to convict on the lesser charges. They wanted it done so they could go home. I do not believe, no matter what future interviews with jurors will show, they based their decision on reasonable doubt but on the shadow of doubt. We, as a society, have become so accustomed to TV trials lasting 15 minutes on the crime scene shows like CSI and reality shows that we expect definite forensic evidence to convict a criminal. These are TV shows that have forensic labs that no city, county or state has. Even the FBI does not have the magical technology that is shown on TV.

This trial will make it more possible for criminals to walk who can hire lawyers that are clever enough to obfuscate the evidence with their alternative tales and arguments of fantasy forensics. We do not live in a perfect TV world where we know who the criminal is from the beginning of the show and where science wins out in the end. We live in a world where, without a confession, we rely to a great degree on circumstantial evidence to convict a criminal.

Jurors are not supposed to base their decision on what may see obvious to the average person watching the news. They are supposed to base their verdict on the evidence, nothing more. That’s the law.

Shortly after the verdict was read in Florida, Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez told the press, “We have the greatest constitutional system in the world, and if the media and other members of the public do not respect it, it will become meaningless.”

What many people often think is the product of a flawed justice system that allows the guilty to walk free is actually the finest example of our judicial process and the constitutional framework that designed it.

Casey Anthony’s verdict should remind us of the sanctity of civil liberties and due process rights, and how fortunate we are to live in a country where those constitutional principles are honored.

Those civil liberty protections, the ‘little things’ that that we take for granted are precisely what we will depend on most if we are the ones who are falsely accused. It is what reminds us that we live in America, and that despite its occasional miscarriages of justice we wouldn’t – or shouldn’t have it any other way.

No matter what is said there is a little girl who was murdered and thrown into a swamp to rot away. Will justice ever be found for Caylee Anthony? There’s an old saying that goes; “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck,”

Spooky Dude is at it Again

“The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.” — Frederic Bastiat, The Law

In his treatise on the law Frederic Bastiat wrote:

“This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:

1. 1. The few plunder the many.
2. 2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. 3. Nobody plunders anybody.
4. We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these three.

WIBC News in Indiana reports that Planned Parenthood of Indiana returns to business as usual as a federal court ruling restores state funding:

“Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana are back to business as usual, following Friday's court order requiring the state to honor its contracts with the group.

Two HIV specialists laid off last Tuesday after funding ran dry are back on the job. And Planned Parenthood has shelved plans to limit clinic hours, as it did last week.

"We had contingency plans going into this preliminary injunction request because we didn't know how we would fare," Planned Parenthood of Indiana president Betty Cockrum says. "Those will remain in place, and, happily, on the back burner."

Planned Parenthood sued to block a new state law banning state funding for groups which perform abortions. Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled late Friday that federal Medicaid rules prohibit the state from picking and choosing among family-planning providers.

The agency which administers Medicaid had already advised Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration it couldn't restrict funding, but FSSA officials say without a court order, they would have no choice but to follow the law, even if it jeopardized some or all of the state's federal Medicaid dollars.

Attorney General Greg Zoeller contends Planned Parenthood had no right to go to court because the state has not yet exhausted its administrative appeals of the agency ruling. A spokesman says the state will appeal Pratt's ruling.

Cockrum says it's the first time all year Planned Parenthood has been able to pause for breath. The organization fought successfully against Sixth District Congressman Mike Pence's attempt to push a defunding law through Congress, then unsuccessfully against the parallel measure at the statehouse.”

According to a report in Yahoo News:

“This is a positive step in what likely will be a long legal battle," said Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. "We are encouraged by the judge's ruling, but know our work is not yet done."

Planned Parenthood said the judge's ruling noted that public interest "tilts in favor" of granting the injunction because federal officials threatened partial or total withdrawal of all Medicaid dollars to the state, a loss of as much as $5 million if the law was enforced.

"If dogma trumps pragmatism and neither side budges, Indiana's most vulnerable citizens could end up paying the price as the collateral damage of a partisan battle," the judge said in the opinion quoted by Planned Parenthood.”

This is yet another example where the law is being used to plunder the people of Indiana. The Indiana legislature, acting in behalf of the voters that elected them cut of state funding for Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills. Because of the coercive power of the law, acting on the basis of the loss of Medicaid funding, Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled late Friday that federal Medicaid rules prohibit the state from picking and choosing among family-planning providers.

Planned Parenthood argues that these federal Medicaid dollars do not go to fund abortions, as the federal laws prohibits under the Hyde Amendment. But herein lays the issue of merging of federal and state dollars with private contributions, something called opportunity costs. Suppose I get $100 dollars from the federal government, $100 dollars from the state government and $200 dollars from private sources to run my business. I offer a selection of family planning and health care services allowed under the law, but my abortion services do not get enough from the private donors to support the number of abortions I offer. This means I would have to curtail the abortion part of my business by laying-off staff that does the abortions. So what do I do? Simple, I mix all of the dollars into one pot and subsidize my overhead with the federal and state dollars thus allowing my private funds to continue with the federal and state prohibited abortions and claim that no federal or state dollars are going for abortions. This is called opportunity costs. In essence I am running an abortion business with virtually no overhead by using the people’s money to run my business. This is also called plunder.

Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt just abused her power under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution and spit in the face of the Tenth Amendment by using the coercive power of federal dollars to enforce the tyranny of the federal government on the people of Indiana. The Tenth Amendment states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

And Article III, Section 2 states:

“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.”

Where is it stated in the Constitution that the federal government has the authority to intervene in an issue of state funding of a private business? In the past seven decades activists federal judges have been exerting more and more plunder on our lives, Bastiat warned us of this 160 years ago. Economist Walter Williams writes in his forward to the revised translation of Bastiat’s The Law:

If Bastiat were alive today, he would be disappointed with our failure to keep the law within its proper domain. Over the course of a century and a half, we have created more than 50,000 laws. Most of them permit the state to initiate violence against those who have not initiated violence against others. These laws range from anti-smoking laws for private establishments and Social Security “contributions” to licensure laws and minimum wage laws. In each case, the person who resolutely demands and defends his God-given right to be left alone can ultimately suffer death at the hands of our government Bastiat explains the call for laws that restrict peaceable, voluntary exchange and punish the desire to be left alone by saying that socialists want to play God. Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. To them — the elite —“the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.” And for people who have this vision, Bastiat displays the only anger I find in The Law when he lashes out at do-gooders and would-be rulers of mankind, “Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

The progressive left, who believe plunder in the name of the greater good, want to take total control of the federal judiciary system. They believe what they can’t accomplish though our democratic republican form of government they can bring about through the courts. Now they have the financial support of George Soros — the spooky dude — to do just that. Fox News reports that billionaire George Soros is trying to stack the courts:

“Billionaire George Soros spends tens of millions each year supporting a range of liberal social and political causes, from drug legalization to immigration reform to gay marriage to abolishing the death penalty.

But a less well-known Soros priority -- replacing elections for judges with selection-by-committee -- now has critics accusing him of trying to stack the courts.

Most non-federal judges around the country are selected by voters in elections. But some states use a process called “merit selection” in which a committee – often made up of lawyers – appoints judges to the bench instead.

Soros has spent several million dollars in the past decade in an attempt to get more states to scrap elections and adopt the merit method. Supporters say it would allow judges to focus on interpreting the law rather than on raising campaign funds and winning elections.

“Merit selection would end the money race and get judges out of the fundraising business,” Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts -- a group that has received money from Soros’ Open Society Institute -- told FoxNews.com.

But critics say that if judges are picked by committee -- often, a committee of lawyers -- that will give left-wing judges the upper hand.

“The left can’t get their agenda through the legislatures anymore … so they think they can get their agenda through by taking over the courts,” attorney Colleen Pero, author of a new report titled "Hijacking Justice," told FoxNews.com.

Pero’s report found that Soros, through his Open Society Institute fund, has given $45 million over the last decade to “a campaign to reshape the judiciary.” But that number is hotly contested by Justice at Stake, the group that got the most Soros money.”

Soros and his Open Society organization has funded numerous media outlets including NPR, Media Matters and MoveOn.org, in order to control the public dialog and dictate his left-wing progressive agenda in this country. With the rise of the conservative media and blogs the people of this country have been fighting back against Soros’ efforts. Now “spooky dude”, seeing that his money is not garnering he results he wants is focusing on our judicial system to achieve the plunder the desires. The progressive left has learned that what they cannot accomplish at the polls they can get in the courts. There are more than enough bone-headed lawyers and law professors out there that will fit his mold. All he needs is the change in the law and his money to permanently transform America.

Soros is also funding liberal groups seeking top election posts in battleground states. The Washington Times reports:

A small tax-exempt political group with ties to wealthy liberals like billionaire financier George Soros has quietly helped elect 11 reform-minded progressive Democrats as secretaries of state to oversee the election process in battleground states and keep Republican “political operatives from deciding who can vote and how those votes are counted.”

Known as the Secretary of State Project (SOSP), the organization was formed by liberal activists in 2006 to put Democrats in charge of state election offices, where key decisions often are made in close races on which ballots are counted and which are not.

The group’s website said it wants to stop Republicans from “manipulating” election results.

“Any serious commitment to wresting control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count,” the group said on its website, accusing some Republican secretaries of state of making “partisan decisions.”

SOSP has sought donations by describing the contributions as a “modest political investment” to elect “clean candidates” to the secretary of state posts.”

In a 2008 poll conducted by Helium online 27% percent of those responding to the poll stated that the United States would not exist 100 years from today. That’s 1 in 4 of those responding to this unscientific poll who believe we will not be the nation our founders envisioned. Thirty years ago I am sure this would not have been the result. More and more Americans are becoming less optimistic about the future of our Republic and our ability to live free lives and preserve our right to property.

As Ronald Reagan stated at his speech in front of the Statue of Liberty on September 1, 1980:

“But restoring the American dream requires more than restoring a sound, productive economy, vitally important as that is. It requires a return to spiritual and moral values. Values so deeply held by those who came here to build a new life. We need to restore those values in our daily life, in our neighborhoods, and in our government’s dealings with other nations of the world”

Or as Benjamin Franklin said outside of Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended when Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked him, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." If George Soros has his way we will have a monarchy of the progressive Left.

Seventy-One Shots: The Death of Jose Guereña

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. — Mark Twain

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik infamously railed in January of this year that Arizona is a “Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

One must wonder if the “prejudice and bigotry” he considers endemic to Arizona is to blame for the death of U.S. Marine veteran Jose Guereña, killed when Dupnik deputies gunned him down in his home. They fired 71 shots. They hit him 60 times. And then, as if this wasn’t enough, Dupnik’s deputies blocked paramedics for an hour and 14 minutes from approaching the scene, denying Guereña treatment until he was assuredly dead.

Dupnik’s SWAT team initially claimed that Guereña fired at them while they were serving a warrant — as he slept. They claimed that his bullets hit the bulletproof shield that the entry team hid behind, and that the barrage of bullets they fired back was in self-defense.

Only, Guereña never fired his weapon. Awoken by his wife with screams that men with guns were invading his home and threatening his family, Jose Guereña armed himself with a AR-15 rifle and crouched in the hallway. The SWAT team unloaded upon Guereña on sight. He apparently recognized the home invaders as police. He took 60 rounds, but never — as the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was forced to admit — took off his weapon’s safety as he was being killed.

The Arizona Daily Star reports:

“The wife of a Tucson man killed in a Pima County SWAT raid May 5 pleaded for five minutes with 911 dispatchers to send an ambulance for her mortally wounded husband, audio records show.

Often through tears and sometimes in broken English, Vanessa Guereña, tells 911 operators that her husband had been shot by a "bunch of people" who opened the door of their southwest-side home and "just shoot him." Meanwhile, dispatchers worked to determine if she was calling from a house where the SWAT team was serving a search warrant, audio released Friday by Drexel Heights Fire Department reveals. It takes about an hour for waiting medics to know what happened, and the man is dead before fire crews are allowed into the home.

Jose Guereña, 26, a former Marine, was sleeping after the graveyard shift at Asarco Mission mine about 9:30 a.m. when his wife woke him saying she heard noises outside and a man was at their window. Guereña told his wife to hide in a closet with their 4-year-old son, his wife has said. He grabbed an AR-15 rifle and moments later was slumped in the kitchen, mortally wounded from a hail of gunfire.

For about five minutes after Guereña was shot, his wife stays on the phone trying to explain what happened and asking for an ambulance.

More than a week later, few details about the investigation that brought the SWAT team to the home Guereña shared with his wife and their two young sons are known. Details of the search warrant have not been made public and deputies would not comment on what was seized from the home.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department has provided no details about the investigation that prompted the raid and little information about the moments leading up to 71 gunshots being fired at Guereña, whose gun had the safety on. He was shot 60 times, doctors told the family. Initially the Sheriff's Department said Guereña fired at officers, but they retracted that this week. Drexel Heights provided audio of the 911 calls after the Star filed a public records request.

Vanessa Guereña, 27, continuously asks the operator to "please, please" send somebody to help her husband in a call in which she seems desperate, frustrated and panicked and says she could hear people talking outside.

About a minute into the 911 call a dispatcher who says she is with the Sheriff's Department comes on and asks if the SWAT team was at her house. Guereña sounds confused, and says her husband isn't talking to her anymore. She then talks over two operators who are trying to figure out if the house in the 7100 block of South Redwater Drive is among those targeted to be searched that morning as part of an investigation.

The operator asks again if there were law enforcement officers at her house and Guereña says yes, that they're outside. She then adds that they had come inside earlier, shot her husband and pointed a "big ol' gun" at her. She grabbed her son and worried she would be shot.”

It was, you’ll recall, a claim Dupnik made in the wake of Jared Loughner’s bloody rampage at a “Congress in your Corner” event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, where six were killed and 14 others were injured — including, gravely, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Dupnik was attempting to blame the conservative Tea Party movement for the shooting when he made the comment. And even after it was revealed that Loughner’s few known political views had been described as “quite liberal,” and were in fact muddled at best, he refused to retract his slur.

So when Dupnik’s teams attempted a complicated four-house raid of minority families looking for drugs, perhaps bigotry and prejudice really was in play.

Perhaps Dupnik’s officers assumed every Hispanic accused of being a drug dealer really was one, and perhaps they assumed that the tenant of a home protecting his loved ones must be a bloodthirsty cartel member waiting in ambush. Is that why they gunned down a tired, hard-working father sleeping off a night shift at the local copper mine? A Marine veteran of Iraq that had the discipline not to fire — a discipline that a trigger-happy SWAT team which has now killed three men in less than a year cannot itself exercise?

Not only has the Pima Sheriff’s Department tried to justify firing 71 shots at one man in a small hallway, hitting him (thankfully, just him) 60 times in a home where his wife and child were present. They’ve attempted to justify their refusal to let a team of paramedics treat Guereña, who was still miraculously alive after being sprayed mercilessly with bullets. It takes a competent SWAT team just a handful of minutes to “clear” a residential home during a raid. Dupnik’s SWAT team refused to declare the scene “clear” for an agonizing one hour and 14 minutes, and not until Jose Guereña had already died.

A cynic might be tempted to suggest Dupnik’s SWAT team was waiting for the only witness to their assault to die. Considering how the Sheriff’s Department has acted since they stormed the home, a rational person might be tempted to agree.

Not content to blame the victim for his own death, they attempted to insinuate he was a drug dealer, even though they were forced to admit under direct questioning that no drugs were found in his home, and that a clumsy cop falling down may have triggered the bloodbath.

Vanessa Guereña claims that neither she nor her husband heard the officers announce themselves as police. As anyone who has ever seen an episode of any popular police reality show knows, no entry team waits 15 seconds after announcing themselves to batter down a door and rush the inhabitants — as Pima County Lt. Michael O’Connor claims his SWAT team did. Identical scenes of immediate entry upon announcement (or after breaching), without giving those inside a chance to react, is a standard tactic captured again and again.

Why Lt. Michael O’Connor decided to tell a mistruth about a well-known, heavily documented, and highly standardized technique isn’t immediately clear. Perhaps it is because of the inevitable wrongful death lawsuit to be filed against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department on behalf of Vanessa Guereña and her two children. Or perhaps it is because of the possible DOJ civil rights investigation. Perhaps Dupnik’s employees simply are unable to act any more professionally after a raid than they do during one.

No-knock warrants are typically used to surprise the target of raids and keep them from disposing of evidence, with possible violence from the offender cited as justification for the military-style use of heavy armor and machine guns.

Jose Guereña’s death was entirely preventable. Over-armed, over-amped law enforcement is causing far more harm to the public than other tactics and techniques possibly could.

The over-militarization of law enforcement agencies and over-use of SWAT teams is an idea that needs to be revisited in a sane society. Too many good people have been traumatized, and too many killed, under the flimsiest of circumstances.

Guereña was a Tucson native and Flowing Wells High School graduate. He joined the Marines in 2002. He served two tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2005 as part of the Yuma-based MWSS-173. After surviving two tours of duty in Iraq, only to lose his life in an encounter with Clarence Dupnik’s keystone cops, Jose Guereña was buried with full military honors.

The Guereña family has retained the services Christopher Scileppi to file a wrongful death suit against Pima County and Sheriff Dupnik. He has also requested the Justice Department to open an investigation into the shooting. Will Eric Holder do so or is only concerned about the Black Panthers? On the other hand where is NCIS when we need them.

It’s Always up to the Judges

"I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him 'father.'" — American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Fox News reports that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi strikes down Wisconsin collective bargaining Law:

“Wisconsin's law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public workers was struck down Thursday by a circuit court judge but the ruling will not be the final say in the union fight that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol earlier this year.

The state Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for June 6 to decide whether it will take the case and Republicans who control the Legislature could also pass the law a second time to avoid the open meeting violations that led to the judge's voiding the law Thursday.

Gov. Scott Walker pushed for the law as a way to help balance the state budget. His spokesman had not seen the ruling and had no immediate comment. Spokesmen for Republican leaders in the Legislature also did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Walker and Republican leaders have said they would pass the law again as part of the state budget next month if necessary.

A spokesman for Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office defended the state, did not return a call. Ismael Ozanne Whil, the Dane County district attorney who argued for striking down the law, also did not immediately return a message.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open meetings law during the run-up to the bill's passage in March. She said that renders the law void. She had previously put the law on hold temporarily while she considered the case.

Sumi said violating the open meetings law betrays the public's trust.

"The court must consider the potential damage to public trust and confidence in government if the Legislature is not held to the same rules of transparency that it has created for other governmental bodies," she wrote in a 33-page decision. "Our form of government depends on citizens' trust and confidence in the process by which our elected officials make laws, at all levels of government."

The law called for public workers at all levels, from janitors at the state Capitol to local librarians, to contribute more to their pension and health care costs, resulting in savings to the state of $300 million through mid-2103. The law also strips them of their right to collectively bargain any work conditions except wages. Police and firefighters are exempt.”

In another, but unrelated case the United States Supreme Court has upheld Arizona’s law penalizing employers over illegal immigrant workers in the case of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting. The Associated Press reports:

“The Supreme Court has sustained Arizona's law that penalizes businesses for hiring workers who are in the United States illegally, rejecting arguments that states have no role in immigration matters.

By a 5-3 vote, the court said Thursday that federal immigration law gives states the authority to impose sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized workers.

The decision upholding the validity of the 2007 law comes as the state is appealing a ruling that blocked key components of a second, more controversial Arizona immigration enforcement law. Thursday's decision applies only to business licenses and does not signal how the high court might rule if the other law comes before it.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a majority made up of Republican-appointed justices, said the Arizona's employer sanctions law "falls well within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the states."

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, all Democratic appointees, dissented. The fourth Democratic appointee, Justice Elena Kagan, did not participate in the case because she worked on it while serving as President Barack Obama's solicitor general

Breyer said the Arizona law upsets a balance in federal law between dissuading employers from hiring illegal workers and ensuring that people are not discriminated against because they may speak with an accent or look like they might be immigrants.

Employers "will hesitate to hire those they fear will turn out to lack the right to work in the United States," he said.

Business interests and civil liberties groups challenged the law, backed by the Obama administration.

The measure was signed into law in 2007 by Democrat Janet Napolitano, then the governor of Arizona and now the administration's Homeland Security secretary.

The employer sanctions law has been only infrequently used. It was intended to diminish Arizona's role as the nation's hub for immigrant smuggling by requiring employers to verify the eligibility of new workers through a federal database. Employers found to have violated the law can have their business licenses suspended or revoked.

Lower courts, including the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, previously upheld the law.”

While these cases are distinctly different they have one thing in common — the will of the people through their elected representatives be challenged by the left. In the Wisconsin case it’s about the unions finding a sympathetic county judge who will over rule the will of the legislature and the governor. After rioting in Madison and a boycott by the Democrat members of the Wisconsin State Senate legislation was passed to curtail the bargaining capabilities of the public service and teachers unions.

The legislation was eventually passed by the elected Republican majority. It did not take long for the losing Democrats find a sympathetic and Democrat county judge and file suit against the new law. The judge reached into her bag of tricks and found a reason to overturn the law. No doubt this will go to the Wisconsin Supreme Court where the law will be upheld by the conservative majority and the Democrats will no doubt look to he federal court for relief. This is what the Democrats do. When they lose at the ballot they turn to the courts.

The Arizona case is different, but similar in the challenge. This is a law that gives the state of Arizona the authority to impose sanctions on employers who hire unauthorized (illegal immigrant) workers. In this case the Court said:

“The Chamber of Commerce of the United States and various business and civil rights organizations (collectively Chamber) filed this federal preenforcement suit against those charged with administering the Arizona law, arguing that the state law’s license suspension and revocation provisions were both expressly and impliedly preempted by federal immigration law, and that the mandatory use of E-Verify was impliedly preempted. The District Court found that the plain language of IRCA’s preemption clause did not invalidate the Arizona law because the law did no more than impose licensing conditions on businesses operating within the State. Nor was the state law preempted with respect to E-Verify, the court concluded, because although Congress had made the program voluntary at the national level, it had expressed no intent to prevent States from mandating participation. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.”

The Court stuck to the Tenth Amendment in its decision:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

These two cases are indicative of how the courts and judges have usurped the will of the people and their elected representatives. They interpret the Constitutions of the federal and state governments based on their political agendas. The latest example was the Senate’s defeat of the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals —than God.

Liu is one of the new brand of “constitutional scholars” who believe the Constitution must adapt to changes in the world — just like Obama. Liu has also aligned himself with progressive legal groups, including the American Constitution Society, where he is chairman of the board of directors. That's prompting opponents to argue that Liu is "too far outside the mainstream" to take a seat on a court just one step below the Supreme Court of the United States.

"He believes the Constitution is something judges can manipulate to have it say what they think culture or evolving standards of decency requires of it in a given day," said the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Republican Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

"Liu believes that judges have the authority to impose their views using clever verbal camouflage to disguise what they're doing."

Liu opponents point to a number of his writings, including a book he co-authored in 2009 called "Keeping Faith with the Constitution," in which the authors opine about their concept of judicial interpretation.

"Applications of constitutional text and principles must be open to adaptation and change as the conditions and norms of our society become ever more distant from those of the Founding generation."

That theme — that the Constitution's text and principles must be adapted to changes in the world — repeats throughout the book and raises eyebrows among conservatives.

The ACS is an extreme left-wing group that believes we should literally tear up the Constitution — a document that has severed this nation well for over two hundred years — and become an oligarchy of judges, not representatives of the people. They believe they know better than the people and the Founders. Mr. Liu and his cohorts at ACS have repeatedly shown a lack of respect for the Constitution as the Supreme law of the land:

Mr. Liu holds a radical view of constitutional rights. For example, in his 2008 Stanford Law Review article he supports a judicial role in establishing constitutional welfare rights--i.e., "affirmative rights," to education, shelter, subsistence, health care and the like, or to the money these things cost. This is the view of rights President Obama raised that caused a stir, and which Judge Sotomayor rejected when asked if she took such a view during her confirmation hearing.

In a 2006 article entitled "Education, Equality, and National Citizenship", Liu suggests that the Constitution "assigns equal constitutional status to negative rights against government oppression and positive rights to government assistance on the ground that both are essential to liberty."

Mr. Liu has stated: "it becomes pretty clear why 'originalism' or 'strict construction' don't make a lot of sense. The Framers deliberately chose broad words so they would be adaptable over time."

Mr. Liu recklessly attacked the nominations of Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. In the case of Roberts, he wrote, in an op-ed, that "[h]is legal career is studded with activities unfriendly to civil rights, abortion rights, and the environment." These unfounded charges were dismissed by judicial experts on both sides of the aisle and Roberts was confirmed with bi-partisan support.

Mr. Liu actually testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Alito. Liu testified that then-Judge Alito was "at the margin, not the mainstream," and that the America envisioned by his record on the bench "is not the America we know. Nor is it the America we aspire to be." Alito was also confirmed with bi-partisan support.

In a 2008 Stanford Law Review article, Mr. Liu wrote that judges should engage in "socially situated modes of reasoning that appeal to the culturally and historically contingent meanings of particular social goods in our own society" and to "determine, at the moment of decision, whether our collective values on a given issue have converged to a degree that they can be persuasively crystallized and credibly absorbed into legal doctrine." According to a Washington Times editorial: "Mr. Liu's goal was to create a judicially enforceable, constitutional right to welfare."

It has been noted that Mr. Liu doesn't meet the standards for federal judges outlined by the American Bar Association. These standards include "at least 12 years' experience in the practice of law" and "substantial courtroom and trial experience." Mr. Liu, who is only 39 years old, hasn't even been out of law school for 12 years and has no experience as a trial lawyer.

42 of California's 58 county district attorneys opposed Liu's nomination in a March 2010 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying they believe Liu is hostile to the death penalty.

Mr. Liu implies racial quotas should continue indefinitely and in remarks before the American Constitution Society in August of 2003 advocates reviving "the idea of remedying societal discrimination as a justification for affirmative action."

Mr. Liu offered an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court in which he and others argued that the state's ban on same-sex marriage (approved twice by the voters of California) was unconstitutional.

According to a trustworthy source, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel initially vetoed Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu’s candidacy for the Ninth Circuit on the ground that Liu’s left-wing record made him too controversial. But new White House counsel Robert Bauer, eager to please the Left, successfully pushed back.

Judges and potential judges like Goodwin Liu are anathema to our Constitution and the principles and values of our founding fathers. This is just another reason we must return the Congress and Presidency to Republican control. We don’t need judges like Goodwin Liu or anyone connected with the ACS or ACLU.