Sex Offenders Chased by Day Care Center
It seems that some Orlando area sex offenders, unable to find housing elsewhere after being released from prison, wound up living at a trailer park. Said trailer park was near a school bus stop. Local parents, quite reasonably concerned, tried but failed to have the bus stop moved. Apparently, "According to the release conditions placed on sex ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 21, 2009 15:07
Marijuana Legalization Support at Record High
While a majority still supports criminalization, more Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according the latest Gallup survey. Lydia Saad (a family friend) provides the analysis: Gallup's October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 20, 2009 09:30
Three Felonies a Day
Radley Balko argues we are now seeing the fruition of Ayn Rand's fear that government would eventually declare "so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws" in order to extend its power. Part of the drop can of course be explained by mass incarceration—America leads the world in the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 20, 2009 09:10
Obama’s Federalist Approach to Medical Marijuana
In new guidelines announced today, the Obama Administration has decided that it will deferring to the states on enforcing marijuana laws when those states have laws allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 19, 2009 13:36
Fairey Admits Obama Hope Poster Based on AP Photo
Stephen Fairey, the author behind the iconic "HOPE" poster that symbolized Barack Obama during much of the campaign and since, now admits it was based on an AP photo. On Friday night, Fairey's attorneys -- led by Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University -- said they intend to withdraw from the case and said the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 18, 2009 08:37
Obama’s Nobel Unconstitutional?
Ron Rotunda and Peter Pham argue in today's WaPo that it would violate the Constitution for President Obama to accept the Nobel Peace Prize while in office. Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 16, 2009 10:31
Letterman Reveals Affairs, Extortion Attempt
David Letterman was the victim of an extortion attempt and took a novel approach: going public. Michael Schneider for Variety: On the show, Letterman sat down behind his desk and asked his audience whether they wanted to hear a story -- and the crowd enthusiastically cheered, not knowing what they were about to hear. According to the host first received a package three ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 2, 2009 08:38
Funkentelechy vs. the Option Syndrome
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry has coined the phrase "Option Syndrome" to describe the destructive effects of undecipherable legalese on society. [T]he overwhelming majority of legal documents involve redundant, unnecessary, overwrought, undecipherable legalese. Just try to read the terms of service to the next website you subscribe to. You’re never quite sure if they’re going to be able to buy your newborn from you. This is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 29, 2009 09:45
Roman Polanski Arrested, Fighting Extradition
Roman Polanski, who fled the United States in 1977 after conviction for raping a 13-year-old, has been arrested in Switzerland and is fighting extradition to Los Angeles. Polanski, who fled the United States in 1978, was detained Saturday after arriving to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. It was not clear why U.S. authorities had chosen this ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 28, 2009 07:50
Youthful Sex Offenders
A posting at a blog called Classically Liberal, which apparently covers this topic with some regularity, draws attention to the criminalization of adolescent sex. Not long ago a curious adolescent or child, caught exploring, or playing doctor in the back yard, was given a talking-to, sent to bed early, and warned to not do it again—a warning most heeded for at ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 25, 2009 06:14
Census Worker Lynched in Kentucky
A census worker was found hanged in Kentucky in a bizarre and grisly case. When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: "Be careful." The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 24, 2009 09:34
Sotomayor: Overturn Corporate Personhood
It appears that Sonia Sotomayor will be an activist judge after all. During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled. But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 17, 2009 09:48
Obama: Violating Habeas Corpus Okay When It’s Not At Gitmo
This must be some of that "change" that Obama is always talking about: a change of names, anyway. The Obama administration is putting a new plan in place at Afghanistan’s Bagram air field detention facility to bring indefinite detentions there — a practice viewed as a replication of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility’s more noxious functions — to an end. What ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 15, 2009 10:07
Andrew Sullivan and the Rule of Law
Jonathan Last has somehow obtained a memorandum [PDF], dated yesterday, written by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings in the matter of Andrew Sullivan, who was caught in a federal park with small amounts of a controlled substance but whom the U.S. Attorney declined to prosecute in the "interests of justice." To wit: Paying the $125 fine would make ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 11, 2009 14:06
Shouting ‘Liar’ in a Crowded Congress
The big news surrounding President Obama's latest heathcare speech is that South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" in response to the claim that illegal immigrants would not be covered under universal coverage: AP ("Obama heckled by GOP during speech to Congress"): The nastiness of August reached from the nation's town halls into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as President ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 10, 2009 08:02
