Tag Archives: Judiciary

International Wiretapping Upheld

In a decision made last August 22, but not reported until now, what the left calls warrantless wiretapping, and the courts call the National Security Agency’s secret eavesdropping program, has been declared constitutional and within the powers given to the president.

The decision marks the first time since the disclosure of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program three years ago that an appellate court has addressed the constitutionality of the federal government’s wiretapping powers. In validating the government’s wide authority to collect foreign intelligence, it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration’s repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans.

Regardless, Obama has dismantling the most effective tools of the Patriot Act in mind for his first term. A testament to his selections for CIA director and DHS secretary.

To take this tool away is like trying to run a marathon blindfolded. What the left calls warrantless wiretapping of American citizens is this: a call originating from a known terrorist region and coming into the US. Who wants to bet their life that this program hasn’t helped save lives and hasn’t helped to get the bad guys? Will the resentment and refutation of the policies of George W. Bush take precedence over the safety and security of our citizens?

link: Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Power Legal

Obama And The Political Dept of Justice

While perusing PEBO’s website, I was excited to see another ‘position’  that Barack Obama and I agree on, getting political motivations out of the Dept of Justice. Frankly, it was encouraging to me that he admits to seeing it. Especially now with U.S. Attorney Patrick (Scooter Libby) Fitzgerald as Special Prosecutor  investigating llinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, detailed in this post on Dec. 10.

Q: “What will you do as President to restore the Constitutional protections that have been subverted by the Bush Administration and how will you ensure that our system of checks and balances is renewed?” Kari, Seattle

A: President-elect Obama is deeply committed to restoring the rule of law and respecting constitutional checks and balances.That is why he has pledged to review Bush Administration executive orders. President-elect Obama will also end the abuse of signing statements, and put an end to the politicization that has taken place within the Department of Justice and return that agency to its historic and apolitical mission of fair and impartial administration of justice.

(emphasis added)

Does this mean we can expect to see Barack Obama take it to Fitzgerald? Oh well, maybe I’m not on the same page with Barack on this.

related links: change.gov: Open for Questions:Response | Patrick Fitzgerald, Still The Prosecutor’s Prosecutor?

FBI Investigates Student For Palin E-mail Hack Job

It is good to see some progress being made. It will be better to see that they have the perpetrator under arrest. But for now, we know this much . . .

A person who identified himself as a witness tells 10 News that agents with the FBI served a federal search warrant at the Fort Sanders residence of David Kernell early Sunday morning. Kernell lives in the Commons apartment complex at 1115 Highland Ave. David Kernell is the son of Mike Kernell, a Democratic state representative from Memphis.

No surprise there, if true. Bi-partisan condemnation, including jail time for the perpetrator is what would be surprising. The fraud involved in hacking the private email account is one felony, and disseminating that information is another.

Unfortunately, there is not a good history for prosecution in cases such as this. In December, 1996, Alice and John Martin who recorded a cell phone conversation of Newt Gingrich, which ended up in the hands of ‘Baghdad’ Jim McDermott, then ranking member of the House Ethics Committee, who turned it over to the New York Times for publication, never served time. And neither did McDermott. He was ultimately ordered to pay over $700,000 in damages and court costs. That’s it. He is still in Congress. So I wouldn’t get my hopes up for real justice in this case either. Now, if the shoe were on the other foot?

link: Update: FBI serves search warrant against UT student in Palin case | Appeals Court rules against McDermott in taped call dispute

Saddleback Forum And Obama's Words, Just Words

The political forum hosted by minister Rick Warren Saturday night gave us a view of both candidates that none of the previous so-called debates produced. Avoiding campaign talking points, the questions Warren asked exposed the belief systems, character, and motivations of both men. And the country was better off for it.

I came away feeling like Sen. John McCain did the best that I’ve ever seen him do. Judging from reviews of others, this seems to be the overall assessment. Even from Democrats. And Obama’s performance was replete with indecision, obfuscation, and inexperience.

We all know that words mean things. And no one knows that better than Sen. Barack Obama, who made a big deal about it in a stump speech somewhere. Remember ‘Words, Just Words?

McCain came across decisive and confident. Obama, on the other hand, came across as indecisive and less confident, to the point of floundering for a way to end his sentence. Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director characterized Obama’s performance as ‘trying to impress Warren (or to put another away) not offend Warren.’ I saw it as Obama trying not to offend his base.

Two answers that Obama gave were especially revealing about his character and belief system.

On the subject of Christianity. Warren asked ‘What does it mean to you to trust in Christ and what does it mean on a daily basis? I mean, what does that really look like?’ Obama sets the stage with this quite acceptable answer.

But what it also means, I think, is a sense of obligation to embrace not just words but through deeds the expectations that God has for us. And that means thinking about the least of these. It means acting – well, acting justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.

Next question, about abortion.’At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?

McCain answered it in five words, ‘at the point of conception.’ By contrast, Obama said ‘. . . answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.’ Just a minute earlier, he was saying how he was thinking about the very least. What, the unborn, the absolute very least, don’t count? Words, just words?

He then said he is in favor of limits on late-term abortions. Well, except for the fact that he voted against a bill that would allow a live-birth aborted baby, a failed abortion, to live. What happened to the very least among us? Words, just words?

The next subject was about the Supreme Court. ‘Which existing Supreme Court Justice would you not have nominated?’ He caught himself in saying that Justice Thomas was inexperienced, which would have virtually undermined his own candidacy. But he started off with Justice Clarence Thomas. His response . . .

I don’t think that he. I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of Constitution.

Then, Barack Obama, the constitutional lawyer, said he does not like the way Justice Thomas operates. He explained himself this way . . .

One of the most important jobs of I believe the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the Executive branch on the power of the other branches and I think that he has been a little bit too willing and too eager to give an administration whether it’s mine or George Bush’s more power than I think the Constitution originally intended.

Here is another case where the party line trumps reality. Or in this case, the Constitution. There is only one job of a Supreme Court Justice, and by default is the most important one. That is, to decide cases based on the Constitution. Period. End of story. End of job description. The separation of powers was designed so that no branch, including the Judiciary, could do exactly what Obama expects it to do. It all comes back to the ideology of the liberal Democrats, which is, to use the Supreme Court to make laws that the Legislative branch cannot.

Related links: MCCAIN’S BACK IN THE SADDLEBACK | Transcript: Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency

Supreme Court Hands Another Win To The Enemy

There is not a better example of Judicial abuse then what the five liberal justices on the Supreme Court did today. They ignored precedent.

With this court, precedents are fine as long as it meets their liberal agenda, which includes the notion that the U.S. Constitution is a rough draft of the way things should be. And decisions like the one today serve to refine or update it.

The Justices have just made American citizens unsafe in a time that we are at war.

Never in the history of American jurisprudence have we given full Constitutional rights to terrorists captured anywhere in the world who commit atrocities on civilians.

They overstepped their bounds in the separation of powers. The executive branch is responsible for conducting all aspects of war, not the judiciary. They cast a pall over our entire military and the brave men and women wearing the uniform and fighting to protect us and kill the enemy. They insulted the surviving families of those who gave their life for the very same constitution that this court is abusing. And they may as well have spat on the graves of those who gave the full measure with this decision.

It is our soldiers, our citizens, that deserve the protection of our Constitution, NOT the terrorists that want to kill us.

The media and their buds on the left report this decision as a loss for Bush. It reveals to all just who they are at war with, and it isn’t al Qaeda. This isn’t a loss for Bush. This is a loss for America.

Hear it all put into context by Mark Levin in this 10 minute audio clip. H/T NewsBusters.

related links: Mark Levin | Debra Burlingame | JOHNSON V. EISENTRAGER, 339 U. S. 763 (1950)

Judge Rejects Fraud Claims Against State Farm In Katrina Lawsuit

As a follow-up to mass tort attorney Dickey Scruggs’s bribery charges in his class action lawsuit for Hurricane Katrina victims, adding insult to injury, he also loses his case against State Farm for fraud. But wait, there’s more! Any attorney that worked with Scrugg’s in this lawsuit can not represent any policyholder against State Farm in any Katrina related claim.

The case was a key lawsuit filed by embattled tort attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, who sued on behalf of dozens of storm victims claiming that State Farm routinely denied claims based on bad faith and fraud. Scruggs has since pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in an unrelated case and no longer represents storm victims.

Senter ruled earlier this month that attorneys once affiliated with Scruggs on the case could no longer represent any policyholders in lawsuits against State Farm over Katrina damages. The judge said the attorneys knew Scruggs paid two sisters who once worked for Renfroe $150,000 a year and planned to use them as so-called “whistleblowers” after they secretly copied thousands of storm damage reports. Senter said “these payments were clearly improper.”

Do you think it’s part of a conspiracy like this guy?

related link: Lawyers Being Rounded Up, In US? | Lawyers Bribing Judges?

Criminal Safe Haven Endorsed By SCOTUS

The SCOTUS decided to allow a safe haven for Rep. William (Dollar Bill) Jefferson (D-La) to conduct illegal activity by refusing to hear an appeal by the FBI.

Hiding behind the ’speech or debate’ clause of the Constitution creates a safe haven for criminal behavior. Who thinks that was the intention of the founding fathers?

related link: The Godfathers In Congress | Court Declines FBI Jefferson appeal | Best Defense Is A Good Admission?

Lawyers Bribing Judges?

Last week, mass tort lawyer Richard (Dickie) F. Scruggs, who squeezed hundreds of billions of dollars from tobacco companies, pleaded guilty to trying to bribe a state court judge in Mississippi. This, concerning a mass tort scam on insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina victims and his fees. His son, David Zachary Scruggs, reached a plea agreement today with federal prosecutors who had charged him with a role in a conspiracy to bribe a state court judge.

Is this part of a ‘design to dismantle the plaintiffs bar’ as has been suggested, or simply a matter of law enforcement? Kudo’s to the judge who did not take the bribe.

Mocking McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform

Here’s a story in today’s Washington Post that actually represents a fine tutorial on how illegal campaign contributions get to the Clinton campaign. But it could be to any-one’s campaign. The only thing missing in this article is how these ‘contributors’ who don’t have two nickels to rub together get their money back from Alonzo Cantu, a self-made multi-millionaire who literally owns McAllen, Texas, a small border town near the Rio Grande.

Well, it’s not exactly missing. Instead of checks to replace their contribution, those people do business with and get business from Cantu. There’s the quid pro quo. But try to prove that in court.

Campaign finance reform is the one thing that politicians really don’t want, but say they do. Bottom line, it doesn’t matter that congress, Bush, and the SCOTUS all had their hands in it. It needs to go.

The premise that special interests, aka money, are corrupting the politicians and that laws need to be made to limit the money, totally misses the point. If anyone is corrupt, it is the politician that does a quid pro quo or who otherwise breaks the law in money laundering and/or takes bribes like William Jefferson (D-La) did. It’s not the donor, it’s what the recipient does. Don’t re-elect a crook.

related links:
How Big Man In McAllen Bundles Big For Clinton | Way More Than The Lincoln Bedroom | Questions For John McCain and Russ Feingold