Somewhere Between Good News and Bad News

SCOTUS

The good news:  SCOUTS is going to take up the whole legal theory of disparate impact in the 2013-2014 term.

The bad news:  The same SCOTUS that ruled today (even Scalia) that states can’t require proof of citizenship to register to vote is going to take up the whole legal theory of disparate impact in the 2013-2014 term.

Neutral news:  The majority, concurring and dissenting opinions, however they vote on this case, should be interesting to read.

If they find in favor of disparate impact jurisprudence, then virtually all statutory law is threatened, simply because almost all statutory laws, from murder on down to local dog code ordinances, have a “disparate impact” on blacks and Hispanics.

Back to the Past

Jefferson City

For the second time in three years, SCOMO finds in favor of the unaccredited-transfer law.

The good part about that is that I’ve already broadcast my feelings about this law, twice.

Hope-a-Dope

Washington, D.C.

LAT:

Obama administration reverses course on Plan B pill

The emergency contraceptive will be available over the counter with no age restrictions, the government announces, pending a judge’s approval.

The Obama administration dropped its long-standing opposition to over-the-counter sales of a controversial morning-after pill Monday and decided to permit consumers of any age to buy Plan B One-Step without a prescription.

In papers filed in federal court in New York, government attorneys announced that the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services would remove age and point of sale restrictions on the emergency contraceptive, pending approval by U.S. District Judge [*****]

The decision would not apply to similar brands of emergency contraceptives, or to a two-pill version of the same drug, which is manufactured by the Israel-based pharmaceutical firm Teva. Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote in the court papers that other manufacturers could submit approval applications, but the FDA might grant Teva “marketing exclusivity.”

Obama wanted OTC Plan B for everyone of any age all along.  The judge’s ruling just gave him cover; any pretense of the DOJ ever appealing or balking at the judge’s ruling was entirely for show.  If Obama and his DOJ was so upset, they would press on with their appeal.

This is why I say — Public statements are useless, judicial appointments tell all.  By their fruits, ye shall know them.

I know the Federal judge who made this ruling is a Reagan appointee.  I also know that Obama wouldn’t appoint anyone to the Federal judiciary who wouldn’t make the same ruling.

And also…to those of you who think that this will result in a reduction of the Bellcurvius or Comprehensive population, keep dreaming.  That bun in the oven often becomes a welfare check.  They’re not running to the store to buy OTC Plan B.

Ramblings of Judges

New York

Ramblings of Paul:

Judges Not Understanding Their Role

Many of you have now heard that a federal judge has ordered the FDA to make the Emergency Contraceptive pill available to all ages.  Here is the decision, if you want to read all 59 pages.  case

Please forget the politics or the actual benefits of not having underage unwanted pregnancy.  I am not addressing these issues.

My problem with this decision relates to the very common problem of Judges overstepping their roles.  We have a separation of powers for a reason.  Judges are not put on the bench to perform executive functions.  Instead, they are there to review executive decision to determine if they are arbitrary or capricious.  This is a very high standard.

Go there to read the rest.

And yes, I can link to this source material because “Paul” has the good sense not to plaster the judge’s name all over creation.  Then again, if Paul is who I think he is, he has a really good reason to critique the judiciary in the generic rather than isolate judges by name then slam slam slam.

Here’s the angle I’m grinding over:  If this judge’s ruling becomes policy, then anyone of any age will be able to buy levonorgestrel.  So we’re saying that 12-year old girls can buy levonorgestrel from any given retailer that sells it, but a 20-year old cannot buy a concealable firearm from a FLFD.  Okay…

If a 12-year old girl is buying levonorgestrel, this means that some postpubescent human male has very recently had vaginal intercourse with her.  Which means statutory rape in almost all instances.

Really Really Want

Washington, D.C.

Politico:  Republican barnacle class wants SCOTUS to “get it over” and legalize gay “marriage” right away.  Their reasoning is that if SCOTUS does that, it will take the issue off the table as a wedge issue for the left, and in fact will take it off the table as an issue in general.

Sure, just like Roe v Wade did for aborticide.

This is why you read this space, and why I get paid the big bucks — To translate this kind of bullshit into English.

What this really means is that the barnacle class of Republican consultants is for gay “marriage,” and they want SCOTUS to rule in favor of it as forcefully as they can so they have the skirt of a SCOTUS decision to hide behind, an excuse not to oppose it and to marginalize people and candidates who want to oppose it.  The Neal Boortz right-libertarian types, who wish the “religious right” would just shut up and go away (but keep on voting Republican), are coveting that SCOTUS is as profound on the “libertine” side of the gay “marriage” cases in front of them right now as they were in Roe v Wade.  They can say, “the issue is settled, the Supreme Court has spoken, so quit talking about social issues.”

Here’s an analogy I can use for our side — The Heller and McDonald decisions.  With SCOTUS precedent firmly on our side, it is for our side of the 2A question a convenient bludgeon to demoralize the other side.

SCOTUS Takes Affirmative Action

Washington, D.C. and Michigan

Will hear an appeal on Appeals-6 overturning MCRI, and will hear it sans Kagan, who had to recuse herself because she argued against MCRI while she was still USSG and while the issue was working its way up the Federal judiciary.

I took SCOTUS granting cert as a clue that it wants to overturn App-6, and that Kagan won’t be invited to the party is even better news.

Don’t Throw Away That Key Just Yet

Chardon, Ohio

That he is.

But before you think he’ll actually do life without parole, remember the Miller v Alabama decision from SCOTUS last year, relating to life without parole sentences for those under 18 (at the time they committed their crimes).  While the Federal judiciary might let the life without parole sentence stand here, they might not.  The state might have to give him the “chance” of parole many decades down the road.

“Killer” above said as he was being sentenced:

“The hand that pulls the trigger that killed your sons now masturbates to the memory,” he said, then cursed at and gestured obscenely toward the victims’ relatives.

Oh yeah, killer.  Joke about sex metaphors just as you’re about to enter prison.

Risky Business

Springfield, Illinois

Quinn and Madigan are both sitting at 14 at the blackjack table.  Quinn says hit, Madigan says hold.

Yeah, maybe SCOTUS would overturn the 7th.  But maybe they wouldn’t, and in the process, they would set a big precedent relating to both CCW and interstate reciprocity thereof, and perhaps also bork a lot of these post-Sandy Hook gun grabber bills.  However, under Madigan’s hold strategy, Illinois can pass CCW legislation in theory but is so gutted and watered down that it might as well not exist, and since it would have no reciprocity, we still wouldn’t be able to cross the river while carrying.

Ask Ruth

See-BS “News”

Breitbart:

From Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman:

I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie. For example, most of our greatest Presidents — Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts — had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.

To be clear, I don’t think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago. Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn’t a natural-born citizen. So what? Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control. I understand, though, that’s not everyone’s view, and I’m eager to talk with people who disagree.

But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do. So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago. Worse yet, talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion. Instead of a question on policy, about which reasonable people can disagree, it becomes a test of one’s commitment to our foundational document and, so, to America itself.

This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today. If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.

Sure, because the Founding Fathers had nothing to do with America…except for founding it.

But if the going mentality is that the Founders are as “alien” as the “French or the United Nations,” then no sweat — Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants members of the Federal judiciary to consider “international law.”  And what’s with all this liberal bashing of the French and the UN all of a sudden?  I thought they loved them.

In Permanence

SCOTUS

Sonia Sotomayor to Savannah Guthrie:  We “still need affirmative action.”

Of course, we’ll always “need” it, as long as there is a pipeline of wise Latinas that need lifetime sinecures.  Because…you know…social justice.

This takes the big mystery on how she’ll rule in affirmative action cases…unless it won’t, and there never was any mystery.

Not Chicago

Downtown

His name is Ronnell Hood.  He fired at a St. Louis City cop with a rifle.

He threw himself on the mercy of the court.

The ACA wanted 20 years.

The judge gave him four years.

SLPOA and newly minted Police Chief Sam Dotson outraged.

First off, look on the bright side:  He got four years — Chief Keef didn’t even do a month for shooting at a Chicago cop.  Then again, the Mississippi River is wide, very wide.  Even though it’s literally too low for comfort right now.

Second, why is Dotson and his cavorting with the anti-white pro-black “Ethical Society of Police” self and his banter about embracing a civilian review board (giving cracker jack box theology degree black preachers veto power over the actions of white cops) outraged at all?  You’d think the social justice-y aspect of this story would make him happier than a pig in slop.

Third, I won’t link to the story because it names the judge who only gave him four years, because the judge is actually a crucial part of the story.  But I looked her up.  And yes, I’m sure he saw her, and figured that he’d get a relative slap on the hand if he threw himself onto her “mercy.”  Her CV lists her as a graduate of Howard Law School and a Bob Holden appointee, which should tell you everything.

Ball’s In SCOTUS’s Court

Chicago

Appeals-7 strikes down blanket prohibition on CCW in Illinois.  The majority opinion seems to be begging for support for the legal diagnosis from SCOTUS that CCW is implied within the Second Amendment, just as aborticide was implied within the Fourth Amendment in Roe v Wade.  You can’t make any predictions with the current SCOTUS (hint:  John Roberts), but if they either bless this decision on the part of Appeals-7, or grant cert and decide the same thing, then all the dominoes fall into place:  CCW is implied in Amend-2, Amend-2 is an individual right (Heller) incorporated onto the states (McDonald), and that combined with the FF&C clause in Art IV Sec 1, means that you’ve got national reciprocity in CCW.

In the real world, it won’t be that easy, though, even if the people in black robes do what we want.

A couple of other notes from today’s decision:  Illinois tried to use an English statute from King Edward III, issued in 1328, to defend its position.  Also, there is a 2004 decision called US vs Mayo from a case in Richmond, Virginia, that would seem to mean that New York City’s Stop-and-Frisk is probably going to make it through the Federal judiciary.

Bend Over. This Won’t Hurt a Bit.

Obamaland

“It was just a tax,” John Roberts said.

“Taxes are perfectly constitutional,” John Roberts said.

Stoopid John Roberts.

OTOH, we now have 4th Amendment grounds to use to attack the IM in Federal court.

Excellence: It Looks Like America

New York

IOW, it looks like England and Germany with a scattering of other parts of Europe thrown in for good measure.

NYDN:

White firefighters rally at Brooklyn federal court over FDNY hiring

There was a big crowd outside courthouse, but only 36 of the 180 people scheduled to speak at a formal hearing inside show up

More than 200 white firefighters rallied Monday outside a Brooklyn courthouse against the court-ordered fix for the FDNY entrance exam — but a hearing being held inside on the controversy was an almost total bust.

(snip)

Each speaker inside, mostly current firefighters, was allowed two minutes to vent.

“Seniority was earned in the dead of night when these benefactors were home sleeping,” said firefighter Matthew Bland, a nine-year veteran.

“I am concerned for the future of my department … Standards must remain high,” said Chief Nicholas Corrado, the highest-ranking FDNY officer to testify.

“I feel I’m being discriminated against because I’m Caucasian,” firefighter Michael Butt said.

The judge has blocked out his entire calendar through Thursday for a so-called Fairness Hearing, but he was able to adjourn Monday’s proceeding at 11 a.m. after the list of speakers was exhausted.

The FDNY, which is 89% white, is facing sweeping changes in the way it recruits and hires firefighters in the wake of a federal lawsuit filed in 2007 by the U.S. Justice Department and the Vulcan Society of black firefighters.

(snip)

After devising a new entrance exam and spending millions on recruitment efforts, a record number of minorities took the test last spring and nearly half scored 97 or better, making them likely to be considered for hiring.

Outside court, members of the Vulcan Society and their lawyers said the speakers inside have their facts all wrong.

“To stand here and say that the people who are going to be hired are unqualified is false,” said Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “They are going to have to pass the same screening tests as anyone else.”

The problem is, the tests have been made so easy that just about anyone can pass it.  That’s the La Griffe 101 theory:  Make the test so easy that most blacks can pass it, then do a random lottery drawing among those who passed to see who gets hired.  I think adjunct to that is those hired will then get a secondary test to see whether they actually do any work or whether their only work will be showing up for employee photo day to have a photo of a “diverse” FDNY to satisfy the affirmative action vultures.

The FDNY is probably the institution left in New York City that really looks like America.

Mature Minds

Des Moines

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has commuted all state inmates who did get life sentences for pulling murders as juveniles to fixed sentences of sixty years, to comply with the recent Miller v Alabama decision, and to give certainty to the families of the victims so they don’t have to endure a bureaucratic re-sentencing procedure.

This means that the earliest age which such a convict will get out of prison is 74.

SCOTUS’s reasoning in the Miller v Alabama decision is that a juvenile’s brain isn’t mature.  Well, by 74, their brain will be plenty mature.

Of course, if they’re lucky to live to see the age of 74, most of them will be stepping out of prison and into a grave.

John Roberts Is Officially Friendless

Washington, D.C.

Confirmed:  Benedict Roberts originally voted unconstitutional, then changed his horse mid-stream.

If he thinks he was making a new set of friends by doing this, he was sadly mistaken.  We have no use for him anymore, and because he didn’t sign on to the ICC rationale, the left really doesn’t like their new “friend,” either.

Roberts just sentenced himself to life in solitary confinement.

 

Nine Wordy Lawyers

Your Blogmeister’s Desk

I got around to reading the ObamaCare opinions.

This is not a profound precedent-setting set of jurisprudence.  Instead, it is the result of  nine wordy lawyers (a wordy lawyer — yeah, I know, what are the odds) grasping at straws (in the case of five of them) and writing op-eds.

These SCOTUS rulings need not be as long as they are.  Personally, I think each judge’s opinion needs a thousand-word limit, and that is sufficient to detail the meat of their legal reasoning.  Or, if they want to spout, have their clerks put the meat of the reasoning in bold, so we can skip all the superfluous stuff.

The only thing this ruling accomplished is (for now) to keep ObamaCare square with the current set of nine people who hold the final interpretive power over the Federal Constitution.  It will not be precedent for future Supreme Courts or lower levels of the Federal judiciary, because the five justices that voted to uphold did so for different reasons.  Roberts said that the mandate was okay because it seems to be a tax, while the four libs said that it was okay because of the ICC, and Ginsburg went so far as to write a “dissenting” concurring opinion, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a winning justice dissent from the winning opinion.  In reality, Ginsburg wrote what Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer thought.

This why the interpretation that the cloud of upholding has a silver lining of “not because of ICC” is wrong, and those who think that are grasping at straws.

As far as jurisprudence goes, this issue is far from resolved, even at the SCOTUS level.

First Impressions

Your Blogmeister’s Desk

I won’t be able to read the whole thing until tonight, all 193 pages of it.

But from the confusing media reports, the individual mandate was struck down if you look at it through the lens of a mandate, but upheld if you look at it through the lens of a tax.  Sounds familiar.  If the majority thought of it as a tax, and kept it, then most of ObamaCare would stay.

The fallout if that’s the case:

1.  Obama has broken his “no new taxes” pledge by implication.  Expect to hear that a lot from the Romney campaign.

2.  Look for a lot of companies to drop their employee health plans, and give them raises that are equal to the “tax.”

3.  Nothing serious will happen to or about ObamaCare until the Presidency, the Senate and the House are all controlled by the same party.  Which means nothing but talk will happen until at least January 21.

4.  Treachery, thy name is John Roberts.  He’s quickly becoming Bush 43′s analogue of Bush 41′s David Souter.

Sanity Carries the Day

Florida

A Federal trial level judge based in Tallahassee has given the state of Florida the go-ahead to purge its voter rolls of illegal aliens.  His reasoning is that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 doesn’t apply to people that aren’t eligible to vote.

The more worrisome ramification for Florida and every other state is this:  How were illegal aliens able to register to vote?  Better close that loophole ASAP.

Another issue relating to Florida in particular is convicted felons and voting.  Florida is one of the few states that has a blanket prohibition on convicted felons voting.  Most states, Missouri included, allows convicted felons to start voting again once they are out of prison and through with probation.  The rub is that Bellcurvius has a hard time finishing their probation, so they don’t get off of it until very late in life.  The Bellcurvius civil rights groups whine about the disparate impact on Florida-style blanket ban on felons voting, but the truth of the matter is that the system Missouri and most states use has an even bigger disparate impact on blacks, precisely because of the nature of allowing those who finish probation (black ex-cons have a harder time doing this than white ex-cons) to return to voting.  On top of that, white ex-cons are probably less likely to vote Democrat than comparable whites of their socioeconomic class, because they were penned up with violent racist blacks for a number of years, and Patterson’s First Axiom kicked in.

This judge’s ruling does not address that aspect.

Out With A Bang

Washington, D.C.

We will finally hear from SCOTUS tomorrow on ObamaCare.  They have to decide tomorrow, for it’s the last day of the term.

If the individual mandate is declared unconstitutional and it being so intertwined with the rest of the bill takes down most or all of ObamaCare, then the Democrats won’t have anyone to blame but themselves.  They tried to argue in court that the individual mandate wasn’t a mandate, but was nothing more than a per capita tax on people who had at least a certain income level and didn’t have a qualifying health insurance plan.  The problem with that argument is that the White House wanted to keep the fact that they argued that as far under the vest as possible, because that would have broken his “no new taxes for people who make under x a year” promise.  And, as a matter of fact, the tax isn’t a tax, it is clearly stated as a fine as a punishment for a “criminal offense” of not directly or indirectly purchasing or earning something.

I don’t even know if per capita fixed dollar amount taxes are even constitutional, even under Art 1 Sec 9 Clause 4 and the 16th Amendment combined.  What might make it constitutional is that, pretending the fine for violating the individual mandate is a tax, those liable for the tax must have a certain income, so the Federal judiciary might be convinced that this is nothing more than an unusual income tax.

Here We Go

Washington, D.C. and Detroit

The fallout begins.

AP:

Court ruling offers inmates rare chance at freedom

DETROIT (AP) — The Supreme Court ruling that banned states from imposing mandatory life sentences on juveniles offers an unexpected chance at freedom to more than 2,000 inmates who have never been able to seek release and had virtually no hope that their prospects would change.

(snip)

Virtually all of the sentences in question are for murder. When Henry Hill was an illiterate 16-year-old, he was linked to a killing at a park in Saginaw County and convicted of aiding and abetting murder.

Hill had a gun, but he was never accused of firing the fatal shot. Nonetheless, the sentence was automatic: life without parole. He’s spent the last 32 years in Michigan prisons.

“I was a 16-year-old with a mentality of a 9-year-old. I didn’t understand what life without parole even meant,” Hill, now 48, said Tuesday in a phone interview.

And now he has the maturity of a 12-year old.

He heard about the Supreme Court decision while watching TV news in his cell.

“I got up hollering and rejoicing and praising God,” said Hill, who used to renovate homes for a living. He would like to go back to his old trade and be a mentor to children. “The last three or four years, they always put young guys in with me.”

“Used to renovate homes for a living” when he was 16 years old?

With the way some people deify the Supreme Court, he wasn’t too far off to “praise God.”

The rest of the article brings up an angle I didn’t consider — These juvie lifers will have to get new sentencing hearings, which means the families of the victims will have to go through that all over again.

Remember Shitavious?  This ruling will affect him.  Also possibly affected will be the murderer of SLPD Officer Norvelle Brown.

Oh, and don’t worry about it.  They’ll be back in prison before too long.  Hopefully the crime they pull which puts them back where they should have remained all along won’t be against some innocent person.

WSJ, WTF?

Wall Street and Washington, D.C.

WSJ sub-headline in an Op-Ed on SCTOUS’s SB 1070 ruling:

The Supreme Court unanimously rejects a White House power grab.

Huh?  They gutted half of it, Obama’s ICE will summarily ignore the consequences of most of the half they left intact.

Leave it to an open borders paper to see the world through the lens of stupid.  The mind that alters…

Today’s Other SCOTUS Ruling

It came out this morning before SB 1070, and therefore, it got lost in the hubbub.

States cannot hand out mandatory life without parole sentences for anyone under 18 convicted of any crime, including murder.  However, this is not the same thing as out and outright prohibiting life without parole as a possible punishment for anyone under 18 who commits murder.  An earlier SCOTUS decision (Graham v Florida ) totally exempts U-18s from life without parole sentences for non-homicidal crimes, and then course there is Roper v Simmons, which totally takes the death penalty off the table for U-18s.  What SCOTUS is saying here with Miller v Alabama today is that state judicial systems must show flexibility in sentencing juveniles-certified-as-adults who commit murder.

However, I think the disparate impact (to borrow one of the judiciary’s favorite phrases) is that U-18 murderers will no longer get life without parole.  Going forward, you know that the defense attorneys for U-18s given life sentences will drag the sentence into court on Miller v Alabama grounds every time.  The states, seeking to avoid the hassle, will either give long fixed terms or life with occasional parole hearings to U-18 murder convicts.

I won’t delve into the court’s actual decision, you can read it yourself.  But it seems perfectly obvious to me that this very same Supreme Court would, if given the chance, find both the death penalty and life without parole for adult criminals to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and almost completely gut the concept of criminal responsibility for most people under the age of 18 in most circumstances, and there’s an outside chance, using Elena Kagan’s rationale in this case as precedent, that they would pretty much exempt many blacks, juveniles or adults, from most criminal responsibility.  How can you read what she has to say here and not come away thinking this?

Again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m just a well educated amateur.

Kennedy Writes an Op-Ed

And Roberts agreed with it.  Therefore, it has the effect of a judicial ruling.  SB 1070 isn’t dead, but significantly crippled.  The following is my interpretation of my first cursory reading of the 76-page set of opinions.   I’ll have to delve into the ramifications later.

DISCLAIMER:  I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.  The following is the personal opinion of someone who considers himself to be a well-educated and well-read amateur.  Someone who is a legend in his own mind, but has trouble convincing everyone else.

Majority Opinion

Kennedy wrote, and Roberts, Ginsburg and Breyer signed on.  Kagan recused herself because she helped prepare the Feds’ case while she was Solicitor General.

All of Section 3 is gone, because it was found to be substantively preemptive of Federal immigration law.  Section 5c is gone because 1986 IRCA (Reagan amnesty) did not include much punishment against illegal aliens who illegally seek work in the United States because the Feds thought they needed the cooperation of the illegals themselves to nail their real targets, those Americans that employ illegal aliens.  Section 6 is borked because, unbelievably, it’s not necessarily a Federal crime for illegal aliens to be in the United States, which has ramifications for a story I had in this blog a few days ago.  The majority opinion references a 1984 case called INS v Lopez-Mendoza to make that point.  Therefore, the illegality of illegal aliens being in the country only exists when the Federal government decides for one reason or another that it should be enforced. Section 2c is upheld because Congress has not yet disallowed sub-Federal officials from communicating with the Federal government about the presence of illegal aliens.  (Though we all know that ICE will instruct the states to turn them loose in most instances).

Dissenting Opinion I

Scalia wrote.  It’s more of a semi-dissension semi-concurring opinion.

Section 6 should have been upheld because Federal law that seems to preempt state action are really only limits on the power of Federal officers, therefore, states can have immigration policy that has different punishments than Federal law proscribes, even if Federal law must be the basis for states to determine who is and is not an illegal alien.  Section 3 should have been upheld because Federal immigration policy doesn’t just affect the Federal government, it also affects Arizonans in Arizona, and also that the Federal government isn’t much in the business of enforcing immigration law, ergo without state enforcement, there is little real enforcement.  Section 5c should have been upheld because the Federal refusal to state punishment for illegals illegally seeking employment should not be interpreted to imply preemption of states having their own punishments.  Scalia answers the Federal argument about scarce resources by stating essentially that your lack of money to put a lock on your front door doesn’t preclude me from putting a lock on my front door if I can afford it, and that it was dippy for the Feds to challenge Arizona’s unique enforcement of uniform Federal immigration law when the Feds just a few weeks ago essentially ignored its own Federal immigration law by granting executive order amnesty to Dreamers.

Dissenting Opinion II

Thomas mostly agrees with Scalia, but for a different reason:  The ordinary meaning test.  Thomas holds that nothing in SB 1070 is preemptive of Federal immigration law because they have the same obvious intent, the same goals and substance.  Thomas also fears that Kennedy’s reading of the preemption doctrine is arbitrary.

Dissenting Opinion III

Alito agrees with allowing 2b to stand because it’s outlandish for a President to state that nobody should be allowed to enforce laws that he doesn’t want to enforce, and also that the politics behind the enactment of Federal legislation isn’t necessarily the same as constructionism or the law itself on its face, and also that law should not be subservient to the ephemeral policy and budget priorities of a Federal law enforcement agency.  Agrees with Kennedy on Section 3.  Mostly agrees with Scalia on 5c, but notes that 1986 IRCA has a preemption clause on employer sanctions but no preemption clause on employee sanctions.  Section 6 should have been upheld because sub-Federal officers making arrests on Federal laws don’t preempt exclusive Federal authority over the disposition of removal cases.

Because America Is Suffering For a Lack of Lawyers

Cali Supremes:  Illegal aliens can be admitted to the bar.

Ironically, as a newly minted officer of the judicial system of the state of California, Mr. Garcia is not allowed to advise his clients to violate the law, all the while his continued presence in the United States is a crime.

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

The way the media were waiting anxiously this morning to see if SCOTUS would rule on ObamaCare and SB 1070 reminds me of the huddled masses outside the conclave of eligible Cardinals inside The Vatican when they’re in the process of choosing a new Pope.  The only thing the Supreme Court building doesn’t have is a chimney that can emit either black or white smoke.

Did the Framers intend for the Supreme Court to have divine status, and its building to be some sort of temple or altar, and for its rulings to be divinely-inspired pronouncements?

It’s just one-third of the power of the Federal government.  Chill out, people.

Wins For Civil Rights

PART I

Read all about it.

The civil rights laws need to be amended or reformed.  Aside from the usual arrest warrants that a judge must approve, law enforcement needs an additional and separate raid warrant, to justify to a judge why a no-knock raid rather than a plain ordinary street arrest is justified.  The raid warrant should have the names of law enforcement officers that will both participate in the raid and guarantee the accuracy of the information.  If they knock back the wrong house, then every cop on the raid warrant is instantly fired, and loses his or her accumulated pension and benefits.

PART II

A Federal trial level judge based in Chicago has invalidated part of the city’s post-MacDonald “loosened” firearms laws as unconstitutionally vague.  The issue revolves around Chicago’s “unlawful use of a weapon” statues not being clearly defined.  And of course, as is the Chicago Way, anyone who violates this law (and it could be anyone), loses his or her post-MacDonald “rights” in the city.

I’ve been saying all along that the Heller and MacDonald decisions were correct, but underpowered.  The lawyers for Messrs. Heller and MacDonald should have asked for the cities of Washington, D.C., Chicago and eventually others to be put under a consent decree.  That would mean that those cities would have to get the approval of a Federal judge before changing any firearm laws and ordinances, to prevent them from dicking around.

Why Now?

Rush floated a theory that has been in the back of my mind since Friday.

Obama must have a mole in SCOTUS (Kagan) and he must already know that they’ll find in favor of SB 1070.  Obama needed to pander to illegals before that.  Otherwise, he would have saved this card until October.

In related news, Rubio does not seem to be on the Romney short list for VP, at least according to a Romney campaign leak to ABC.  My bet is that this “leak” is deliberate, that Rubio was, but now that he’s too toxic in the wake of Obama’s amnesty, the Romney camp is deliberately engaging in “Rubio was never considered” subterfuge to take the heat off Romney.

Calculus Of Another Sort

Volokh:

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that several Asian-American groups have filed an amicus brief opposing the University of Texas’ affirmative action program, which is being challenged in Fisher v. Texas, an important affirmative action case before the Supreme Court:

A brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court seeks to shake up the legal and political calculus of a case that could determine the constitutionality of programs in which colleges consider the race or ethnicity of applicants. In the brief, four Asian-American organizations call on the justices to bar all race-conscious admissions decisions, arguing that race-neutral policies are the only way for Asian-American applicants to get a fair shake.

A Texas-style “top X% of the high school graduating class” policy is particularly harmful for Asians, because they tend to do better in high school than in college, because high school is about spouting while college is about thinking.  In a high school with a lot of Asians, you’ll have so many 4 or near-4 GPAs that a 3.8 is below the top 10%.  An Asian with a 3.8 and below the top 10% won’t get in, in favor of a student at Taco or Ghetto HS in the top 10% of his or her own class who would be lucky to be in the 2.xx at the 3.8 Asian’s school.

Of course, on my care-o-meter, the effect of quasi-AA college admissions on Asians registers a big fat zero.  The real victims are whites who think independently, and don’t like to spout, and have a little trouble with conformity, so their HS GPAs will be lower, even though the college environment is tailor-made for them.

One Reason Why We Need the Death Penalty

5:

Vincent McFadden death sentence upheld in Missouri Supreme Court

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (AP) – The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction and death sentence of a St. Louis area gang member for the fatal shooting of a witness.

The court on Tuesday rejected 14 arguments raised by Vincent McFadden, who was convicted of the July 2002 killing of Todd Franklin.

Prosecutors at McFadden’s original trial said he was a member of the 6 Deuces gang. They also said Franklin had testified against two of McFadden’s fellow gang members who robbed Franklin and were sent to prison.

The Supreme Court in 2006 overturned McFadden’s original conviction because prosecutors used challenges to remove five potential black jurors, leaving only one black person on the jury.

Three black jurors served on his retrial, when McFadden again was convicted and sentenced to death.

To protect witnesses for the prosecution in criminal cases.