U.S. uses the Bible as “an excuse for invading other countries.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev - the U.S. uses the Bible as “an excuse for invading other countries.”While I think it is wrong to murder innocent people like the people that planted the bombs in the Boston Marathon, I think that Tamerlan Tsarnaev quote is correct.
If the American government would stop terrorizing people in other countries these terrorist acts would stop overnight.
Also from this quote it sounds like the American police force have a double standard of justice. They seem to think it's OK to flush our Constitutional rights down the toilet to help them catch alleged criminals.
U.S. officials said a special interrogation team for high-value suspects would question him without reading him his Miranda rightsSorry guys, our Constitutional rights are there to protect us from government tyrants, like the police involved in the arrest and questioning of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Final shootout, then Boston bombing suspect caught
Associated Press Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:26 AM
WATERTOWN, Mass. — For just a few minutes, it seemed as if the dragnet that had shut down a metropolitan area of millions while legions of police went house to house looking for the suspected Boston Marathon bomber had failed.
Weary officials lifted a daylong order that had kept residents in their homes, saying it was fruitless to keep an entire city locked down. Then one man emerged from his home and noticed blood on the pleasure boat parked in his backyard. He lifted the tarp and found the wounded 19-year-old college student known the world over as Suspect No. 2.
Soon after that, the 24-hour drama that paralyzed a city and transfixed a nation was over.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capture touched off raucous celebrations in and around Boston, with chants of “USA, USA” as residents flooded the streets in relief and jubilation after four tense days since twin explosions ripped through the marathon’s crowd at the finish line, killing three people and wounding more than 180.
Will cops torture Boston Marathon bombing suspect to get answers???
The 19-year-old — whose older brother and alleged accomplice was killed earlier Friday morning in a wild shootout in suburban Boston — was in serious condition Saturday at a hospital protected by armed guards, and he was unable to be questioned to determine his motives. U.S. officials said a special interrogation team for high-value suspects would question him without reading him his Miranda rights, invoking a rare public safety exception triggered by the need to protect police and the public from immediate danger.President Barack Obama said there are many unanswered questions about the Boston bombings, including whether the two men had help from others. He urged people not to rush judgment about their motivations.
Dzhokhar and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were identified by authorities and relatives as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and were believed to be living in Cambridge, just outside Boston. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died early in the day of gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury. He was run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay wounded, according to investigators.
During a long night of violence Thursday and into Friday, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman during a gun battle and hurled explosives at police in a desperate getaway attempt, authorities said.
Late Friday, less than an hour after authorities lifted the lockdown, they tracked down the younger man holed up in the boat, weakened by a gunshot wound after fleeing on foot from the overnight shootout with police that left 200 spent rounds behind.
The resident who spotted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his boat in his Watertown yard called police, who tried to persuade the suspect to get out of the boat, said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.
“He was not communicative,” Davis said.
Instead, he said, there was an exchange of gunfire — the final volley of one of the biggest manhunts in American history.
The violent endgame unfolded just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two young men suspected of planting the pressure-cooker explosives at the marathon’s finish line, an attack that put the nation on edge for the week.
Watertown residents who had been told Friday morning to stay inside behind locked doors poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.
Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved American flags. Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people cheered loudly.
“They finally caught the jerk,” said nurse Cindy Boyle. “It was scary. It was tense.”
Police said three other people were taken into custody for questioning at an off-campus housing complex at the University of the Massachusetts at Dartmouth where the younger man may have lived.
“Tonight, our family applauds the entire law enforcement community for a job well done, and trust that our justice system will now do its job,” said the family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who died in the bombing.
Queries cascaded in after authorities released the surveillance-camera photos — the FBI website was overwhelmed with 300,000 hits per minute — but what role those played in the overnight clash was unclear. State police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their night of crime.
The search by thousands of law enforcement officers all but shut down the Boston area for much of the day. Officials halted all mass transit, including Amtrak trains to New York, advised businesses not to open and warned close to 1 million people in the city and some of its suburbs to unlock their doors only for uniformed police.
Around midday, the suspects’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., pleaded on television: “Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.”
Until the younger man’s capture, it was looking like a grim day for police. As night fell, they announced that they were scaling back the hunt and lifting the stay-indoors order across the region because they had come up empty-handed.
But then the break came and within a couple of hours, the search was over. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured about a mile from the site of the shootout that killed his brother.
A neighbor described how heavily armed police stormed by her window not long after the lockdown was lifted — the rapid gunfire left her huddled on the bathroom floor on top of her young son.
“I was just waiting for bullets to just start flying everywhere,” Deanna Finn said.
When at last the gunfire died away and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken from the neighborhood in an ambulance, an officer gave Finn a cheery thumbs-up.
“To see the look on his face, he was very, very happy, so that made me very, very happy,” she said.
Authorities said the man dubbed Suspect No. 1 — the one in sunglasses and a dark baseball cap in the surveillance-camera pictures — was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, while Suspect No. 2, the one in a white baseball cap worn backward, was his younger brother.
Chechnya, where the brothers grew up, has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.
U.S. uses the Bible as “an excuse for invading other countries.”
The older brother had strong political views about the United States, said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a downstairs-apartment neighbor in Cambridge. Ammon quoted Tsarnaev as saying that the U.S. uses the Bible as “an excuse for invading other countries.”Also, the FBI interviewed the older brother at the request of a foreign government in 2011, and nothing derogatory was found, according to a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official did not identify the foreign country or say why it made the request.
Exactly how the long night of crime began was unclear. But police said the brothers carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston, then released him unharmed at a gas station.
They also shot to death a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to a report of a disturbance, investigators said.
The search for the Mercedes led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer, 33-year-old Richard Donohue, was shot and critically wounded, authorities said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his already wounded brother as he fled, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. At some point, he abandoned his car and ran away on foot.
The brothers had built an arsenal of pipe bombs, grenades and improvised explosive devices and used some of the weapons in trying to make their getaway, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded “like it was right next to my head … and shook the whole house.”
“It was very scary,” she said. “There are two bullet holes in the side of my house, and by the front door there is another.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said. He was married with a young daughter.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Students said he was on campus this week after the Boston Marathon bombing. The campus closed down Friday along with colleges around the Boston area.
The men’s father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with the AP from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is “a true angel.” He said his son was studying medicine.
“He is such an intelligent boy,” the father said. “We expected him to come on holidays here.”
A man who said he knew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Krystle Campbell, the 29-year-old restaurant manager killed in Monday’s bombing, said he was glad Dzhokhar had survived.
“I didn’t want to lose more than one friend,” Marvin Salazar said.
“Why Jahar?” he asked, using Tsarnaev’s nickname. “I want to know answers. That’s the most important thing. And I think I speak for almost all America. Why the Boston Marathon? Why this year? Why Jahar?”
Two years ago, the city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a $2,500 scholarship. At the time, he was a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing.
Tsarni, the men’s uncle, said the brothers traveled here together from Russia. He called his nephews “losers” and said they had struggled to settle in the U.S. and ended up “thereby just hating everyone.”
———
Sullivan and Associated Press writers Stephen Braun, Jack Gillum and Pete Yost reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mike Hill, Katie Zezima, Pat Eaton-Robb and Steve LeBlanc in Boston, Rodrique Ngowi in Watertown, Mass. and Jeff Donn in Cambridge, Mass., contributed to this report.
DUI and "drug war" laws are a jobs program for cops????
Let's face it the government war on liquor, along with the war on drugs is just a jobs program for overpaid cops.When you’re paying officers $50-$60 an hour in overtime to make arrests and appear in court, the cash will be gone in a flash.And of course the war on DUI also mostly about raising revenue for cities and cops with those $2,000 fines for simple DUI arrest.
Richardson: When will Arizona, cities get serious about alcohol-related crime?
Posted: Thursday, April 18, 2013 9:27 am
Guest Commentary by Bill Richardson
It was no surprise a 20-year-old man was arrested over the weekend for stabbing another man at the Country Thunder music festival in Pinal County. News reports tell of an argument escalating into violence. I’d bet excessive and criminal alcohol consumption played a part in this crime.
Country Thunder is well known for its wild parties, exhibitionism, drunkenness and violence. In 2011 an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer and Pinal County sheriff’s deputy were attacked by a drunken crowd resulting in serious injuries to both officers.
We constantly hear about violent outcomes to citizens encountering drunks and DUI drivers, but police officers contact drunks regularly and get hurt and killed. I can recall four officers, three from Tempe and one from Gilbert, in Tempe being seriously injured and killed. Two were shot — one beaten and another run over after their assailants spent the night drinking to excess at local watering holes and boozefests. Officers from Mesa, DPS, Chandler, Phoenix and other agencies have also fallen victim to criminal alcohol abusers in their communities.
[Oddly ex-cop Bill Richardson just plain forgot to mention DPS police officer Steven Svestka who was arrested, while he was drunk as a skunk at the Country Thunder concert who was busted in a woman's restroom.]
Gov. Jan Brewer’s Office for Highway Safety recently awarded an $80,000 grant to Tempe to the city get a handle on its illegal alcohol activities and related crime. Officials said the money would be used for “DUI enforcement downtown and on streets citywide, including to impact Large Party Liquor Enforcement, enhance existing Covert Underage Buyer Program in partnership with the Arizona Department of Liquor License, Control and Investigations, and limit the purchase of alcohol with fraudulent ID in liquor establishments.”
An amount like $80,000 will no doubt help pay the extra overtime in Tempe’s efforts, but what happens when the money is gone? When you’re paying officers $50-$60 an hour in overtime to make arrests and appear in court, the cash will be gone in a flash. [Sounds like a jobs program for overpaid and under worked cops. If we are going to pay them $50 or $60 an hour we should at least make them hunt down real criminals, not victimless liquor crime]
Will there be thousands for Scottsdale to help them with their booze related problems? What about Pinal County’s annual problems at Country Thunder? Will there be money for DPS and surrounding cities to deal with the problems that are pushed out of Tempe and onto the highways and into other cities? I doubt with Arizona’s budget and federal sequestration there’ll be many more handouts.
What’s going to be done long-term?
Does the Legislature need to make the criminal law violations relating to the liquor law enforcement more police friendly versus liquor industry friendly? Should it be easier for officers to make arrests for serving an intoxicated patron or allowing drunks on the premises? Should using a fake ID card to get alcohol be a more serious crime? What about a “sin tax” on alcoholic beverages and liquor licenses to pay for police to enforce liquor laws, grants for assistance, education and treatment of those with alcohol problems? [Sorry there already are hefty federal and state taxes on liquor which pretty much are sin taxes]
Should Arizona return liquor law enforcement to DPS and remove it from the state liquor board that’s run by a political appointee? Currently there are only 10 liquor board officers enforcing laws at 11,000 establishments. Should law enforcement “data mine” DUI arrest reports to look for bars that chronically produce drunk drivers? Police officers collect data on where arrested drivers were drinking but the information mostly sits in files and could be used as part of an intelligence led policing effort to prevent crime and target trouble spots. Bars have long been havens for money laundering, drugs, stolen property and the sex trade and with little or no liquor law enforcement these kinds of crimes have only flourished. Should liquor law enforcement be a higher priority for law enforcement?
There’s no question the criminal use of alcohol in Arizona has contributed to crime. [And no doubt that the "war on liquor", like the "war on drugs" is mostly a jobs program for cops and has nothing to do with public safety]
The question is, does Arizona and its cities really want to get serious about confronting alcohol related crime and the misery it causes?
Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.
Sens. Graham, McCain say Tsarnaev should be sent to Guantanamo
Government tyrants always justify their tyrannical rules by saying they will prevent crime."The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."And of course the Constitution is there to protect us from tyrants like Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCainH. L. Mencken
Sens. Graham, McCain say Tsarnaev should be sent to Guantanamo
By Richard A. Serrano
April 20, 2013, 10:33 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Saturday in a joint statement that alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be denied a defense attorney and declared an “enemy combatant.”
They added in a statement on Graham's Facebook page, "It is clear the events we have seen over the past few days in Boston were an attempt to kill American citizens and terrorize a major American city.”
The two Republican conservatives have demanded that terror suspects not be Mirandized or tried in federal courts and instead be shipped to the detainee prison on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But the Supreme Court has never said that a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil, like Tsarnaev, could be treated as an enemy combatant.
“The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans,” the senators said. “We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives. The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now.
"Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel. Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks."
In a separate tweet, Graham added, “The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to 'remain silent.'"
Tsarnaev was arrested Friday night in Watertown, Mass. He was being held at a local hospital, and a Justice Department official said he likely would be charged later Saturday. Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney in Boston, invoked a “public safety exemption in cases of national security and potential charges involving acts of terrorism” as a reason not to immediately read him his Miranda rights against self-incrimination.
In 2011, a Justice Department memo expanded the use of the public safety exception in domestic terrorism cases, so that it can be invoked in exceptional circumstances even when there is not an imminent safety threat. The changes were made after a controversy over the handling of the suspect in the Christmas Day 2009 airline bomb attempt, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was questioned by FBI agents for less than an hour before being read his rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, said in a statement that “every criminal defendant” is entitled to Miranda rights, noting that Tsarnaev became a naturalized American citizen.
“The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule,” the ACLU said. “Every criminal defendant has a right to be brought before a judge and to have access to counsel. We must not waver from our tried and true justice system, even in the most difficult of times. Denial of rights is un-American and will only make it harder to obtain fair convictions."
F*ck his Constitutional rights, he is a criminal!!!
Well at least that's what the cops seem to be saying about the alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev.Sadly the Bill of Rights is supposed to protect us from those very government tyrants who want to flush his 5th Amendment rights down the toilet.
Of course if you ask me I would tell Mr Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev to take the 5th and not say a word to the cops. It's his Constitutional right!
Debate Over Delaying of Miranda Warning
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: April 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s announcement that it planned to question the Boston Marathon bombing suspect for a period without first reading him the Miranda warning of his right to remain silent and have a lawyer present has revived a constitutionally charged debate over the handling of terrorism cases in the criminal justice system.
The suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, a naturalized American citizen, remained hospitalized on Saturday for treatment of injuries sustained when he was captured by the police on Friday night, and it was not clear whether he had been questioned yet. But the administration’s effort to stretch a gap in the Miranda rule for questioning about immediate threats to public safety in this and other terrorism cases has alarmed advocates of individual rights.
Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it would be acceptable for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ask Mr. Tsarnaev about “imminent” threats, like whether other bombs are hidden around Boston. But he said that once the F.B.I. gets into broader questioning, it must not “cut corners.”
“The public safety exception to Miranda should be a narrow and limited one, and it would be wholly inappropriate and unconstitutional to use it to create the case against the suspect,” Mr. Romero said. “The public safety exception would be meaningless if interrogations are given an open-ended time horizon.”
At the other end of the spectrum, some conservatives have called for treating terrorism-related cases — even those arising on American soil or involving citizens — as a military matter, holding a suspect indefinitely as an “enemy combatant” without a criminal defendants’ rights. Two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called for holding Mr. Tsarnaev under the laws of war, interrogating him without any Miranda warning or defense lawyer.
“Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks,” they said. “We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option.”
The Miranda warning comes from a 1966 case in which the Supreme Court held that, to protect against involuntary self-incrimination, if prosecutors want to use statements at a trial that a defendant made in custody, the police must first have advised him of his rights. The court later created an exception, allowing prosecutors to use statements made before any warning in response to questions about immediate threats to public safety, like where a gun is hidden.
The question applying those rules in terrorism cases arose after a Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. After landing in Michigan, he was given painkillers for burns and confessed to a nurse. He also spoke freely to F.B.I. agents for 50 minutes before going into surgery.
After he awoke, the F.B.I. read Mr. Abdulmutallab the Miranda warning, and he stopped cooperating for several weeks.
Republicans portrayed the Obama administration’s handling of the case in the criminal justice system as endangering national security, setting the template for a recurring debate.
In late January 2010, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family and lawyer persuaded him to start talking again, and he provided a wealth of further information about Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. Later, during pretrial hearings, his lawyers asked a federal judge, Nancy G. Edmunds, to suppress the early statements.
But Judge Edmunds ruled that the statement to the nurse had been voluntary and lucid despite the painkillers, and that the 50-minute questioning was a “fully justified” use of the public safety exception. She declined to suppress the statements, and Mr. Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
By then, the Justice Department had sent the F.B.I. a policy memo urging agents, when questioning “operational terrorists,” to use a broad interpretation of the public safety exception. The memo asserted that giving the “magnitude and complexity” of terrorism cases, a lengthier delay is permissible, unlike ordinary criminal cases.
“Depending on the facts, such interrogation might include, for example, questions about possible impending or coordinated terrorist attacks; the location, nature and threat posed by weapons that might post an imminent danger to the public; and the identities, locations and activities or intentions of accomplices who may be plotting additional imminent attacks,” it said.
Judge Edmunds’s ruling was seen by the administration as confirmation that its new policy was constitutional — and that it was neither necessary nor appropriate to put domestic cases in military hands.
Stephen Vladeck, an American University law professor, said the middle ground sought by the administration has put both the civil libertarian and national security conservative factions in a bind.
“This is the paradox of progressive national security law, which is how do you at once advocate for the ability of the civilian courts without accepting that some of that includes compromises that are problematic from a civil liberties perspective?” he said. “The paradox is just as true for the right, because they are ardent supporters of things like the public-safety exception, but its existence actually undermines the case for military commissions.”
Disbarred Maricopa County Attorney Thomas to run for governor
Hey, Hitler got elected president of Germany, George W. Bush got elected president of the USA, Ev Mecham and twit Jan Brewer got elected as governors in Arizona, so their ain't not reason that that *sshole and m*ron Andrew Thomas couldn't get elected to the governors office.Of course I wouldn't like him any better then Hitler, Bush, Mecham or Brewer. But Steve Benson would have 4 years of editorial cartoonist fun making fun of the moron in the Republic editorial cartoons
Disbarred former Maricopa County Attorney Thomas to run for governor
By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Apr 25, 2013 6:14 PM
Disbarred former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas has announced he will run for governor in 2014.
In an e-mail to members of the media, the Republican said he file paperwork today with the Secretary of State’s Office.
“I’ll be focusing on the need to protect public safety, ensure border security and fight corruption, among other issues,” Thomas said in the e-mail. “Voters will be urged to watch the video of my State Bar hearing and see for themselves how honest prosecutors are railroaded for fighting corruption in this state.”
Thomas served as county attorney from 2005 until he resigned in 2010 to unsuccessfully run for Arizona attorney general. He was stripped of his law license last year after a court panel found he acted unethically.
Thomas was once a conservative Republican icon, making his name pushing immigration control at the state and county levels. His political downfall came after he was accused of using his prosecutorial powers while in office for political purposes.
A disciplinary panel convened by the Arizona Supreme Court found clear and convincing evidence of ethical misconduct that merited disbarment.
Among the most serious findings were that he and his former prosecutors pressed unwarranted criminal charges, obtained indictments, filed a federal racketeering lawsuit and initiated investigations against his political enemies and those of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio from 2006 to 2010. Targets included judges, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and other county officials.
Thomas did not respond to an e-mail from The Arizona Republic seeking additional comment about his decision to run for governor.
Thomas joins a growing list of candidates.
Democrat and former Arizona Board of Regents Chairman Fred DuVal, Republican and former Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman and Americans Elect party candidate John Mealer have already formally filed to run. Republicans Sen. Al Melvin and Secretary of State Ken Bennett have formed exploratory committees, and numerous others have indicated an interest.
xxx
Sourceput in pot section I think it is a violation of the 1st Amendment which makes it illegal to mix religion and government, when the FDA makes it illegal for women of any age to have access to birth control pills. And of course just like the "war on drugs" this silly rule almost certainly violated the 10th Amendment. http://www.azcentral.com/business/news/free/20130501morning-after-pill-ruling-challenged.html Justice Department appealing morning-after pill decision Associated Press Wed May 1, 2013 5:41 PM WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is appealing a judge's decision lifting all age limits on the Plan B morning-afer birth control pill and a cheaper generic. The federal government says the judge who issued the ruling had exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while the appeal is underway. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of New York had given the Food and Drug Administration until Monday to lift all age limits on Plan B and cheaper generic. The judge mandated that emergency contraception be sold just like aspirin. On Tuesday, the FDA said anyone 15 or older could begin buying one brand, Plan B One-Step, without a prescription — two years younger than the current age limit of 17. http://www.azcentral.com/news/free/20130502womens-groups-decry-appeal-morning-after-pill.html Women’s groups decry appeal on morning-after pill Associated Press Thu May 2, 2013 7:32 AM WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to appeal a court order lifting age limits on purchasers of the morning-after pill set off a storm of criticism from reproductive rights groups, who denounced it as politically motivated and a step backward for women’s health. “We are profoundly disappointed. This appeal takes away the promise of all women having timely access to emergency contraception,” Susannah Baruch, Interim President & CEO of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said in a statement late Wednesday. “It is especially troubling in light of the Food and Drug Administration’s move yesterday to continue age restrictions and ID requirements, despite a court order to make emergency contraception accessible for women of all ages. Both announcements, particularly in tandem, highlight the administration’s corner-cutting on women’s health,” Baruch said. “It’s a sad day for women’s health when politics prevails.” The FDA on Tuesday had lowered the age at which people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 — younger than the current limit of 17 — and decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near the condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters. It appeared to be a stab at compromise that just made both sides angrier. After the appeal was announced late Wednesday, Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said, “The prevention of unwanted pregnancy, particularly in adolescents, should not be obstructed by politicians.” She called it a “step backwards for women’s health.” Last week, O’Neill noted, President Barack Obama was applauded when he addressed members of Planned Parenthood and spoke of the organization’s “core principle” that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their health. “President Obama should practice what he preaches,” O’Neill said. In appealing the ruling Wednesday, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn’t have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available. The Justice Department’s appeal responded to an order by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York that would allow girls and women of any age to buy not only Plan B but its cheaper generic competition as easily as they can buy aspirin. Korman gave the FDA 30 days to comply, and the Monday deadline was approaching fast. In its filing, the Justice Department said that Korman exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while that appeal is under way, meaning only Plan B One-Step would appear on drugstore shelves until the case is finally settled. If Korman’s order isn’t suspended during the appeals process, the result would be “substantial market confusion, harming FDA’s and the public’s interest” as drugstores receive conflicting orders about who’s allowed to buy what, the Justice Department concluded. Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials insisted Wednesday that both the FDA and the Justice Department were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. But the decision to appeal was certain to irk abortion-rights advocates who say they can’t understand why a Democratic president is siding with social conservatives in favor of limiting women’s reproductive choices. Current and former White House aides said Obama’s approach to the issue has been heavily influenced by his experience as the father of two school-age daughters. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have also questioned whether there’s enough data available to show the morning-after pill is safe and appropriate for younger girls, even though physicians groups insist that it is. Rather than take matters into his own hands, the Justice Department argued to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Korman should have ordered the FDA to reconsider its options for regulating emergency contraception. The court cannot overturn the rules and processes that federal agencies must follow “by instead mandating a particular substantive outcome,” the appeal states. The FDA actually had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Sebelius overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn’t be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own. Sebelius’ move was unprecedented, and Korman had blasted it as election-year politics — meaning he was overruling not just a government agency but a Cabinet secretary. More than a year later, neither side in the contraception debate was happy with the FDA’s surprise twist, which many perceived as an attempt to find a palatable middle ground between imposing an age limit of 17 and imposing no limit at all. Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it’s not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages. “We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high,” Breuner said. Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, “we know that it is safe for those under 15,” she said. Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone. Social conservatives were outraged by the FDA’s move to lower the age limits for Plan B — as well as the possibility that Korman’s ruling might take effect and lift age restrictions altogether. “This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters,” said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council. If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn’t begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists — and Korman, in his ruling — said has been discredited.
Criminalizing Children at School
Of course the real solution is to get rid of the government schools and replace them with private schools which are accountable to the parents and children, not government bureaucrats and unions.Basically the government schools have become a jobs program for teachers, administrators, and cops and are run for the sake of the teachers, administrators, cops and unions, not the parents and children.
Now the cops seems to want to use recent shootings to turn the schools into a bigger jobs program for police officers. And this article addresses some of that.
Criminalizing Children at School
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: April 18, 2013 13 Comments
The National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be placed in the nation’s schools. But a growing body of research suggests that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety. It can also create a repressive environment in which children are arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds — like cutting class or talking back — that once would have been dealt with by the principal.
Stationing police in schools, while common today, was virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the surge of juvenile crime during the ’80s, followed by an overreaction among school officials. Then came the 1999 Columbine High School shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1 percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.
The belief that police officers automatically make schools safer was challenged in a 2011 study that compared federal crime data of schools that had police officers with schools that did not. It found that the presence of the officers did not drive down crime. The study — by Chongmin Na of The University of Houston, Clear Lake, and Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland — also found that with police in the buildings, routine disciplinary problems began to be treated as criminal justice problems, increasing the likelihood of arrests.
Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on. Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected than their white peers.
In Texas, civil rights groups filed a federal complaint against the school district in the town of Bryan. The lawyers say African-American students are four times as likely as other students to be charged with misdemeanors, which can carry fines up to $500 and lead to jail time for disrupting class or using foul language.
The criminalization of misbehavior so alarmed the New York City Council that, in 2010, it passed the Student Safety Act, which requires detailed police reports on which students are arrested and why. (Data from the 2011-12 school year show that black students are being disproportionately arrested and suspended.)
Some critics now want to require greater transparency in the reporting process to make the police even more forthcoming. Elsewhere in the country, judges, lawmakers and children’s advocates have been working hard to dismantle what they have begun to call the school-to-prison pipeline.
Given the growing criticism, districts that have gotten along without police officers should think twice before deploying them in school buildings.
Andrew Thomas for governor
Andrew Thomas for governor (curse for Arizona, blessing for the media)Posted on April 25, 2013 4:46 pm by EJ Montini
Andrew Thomas for governor (curse for Arizona, blessing for the media)
Along with a number of my brothers and sisters in the news business I received this precious gift of an e-mail this afternoon from disbarred former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas:
“Dear Members of the Media:On behalf of hardworking members of the media, some of whom (okay, me) are always looking for ways to make their lives easier, I’d like to send along this response.“I will be filing my paperwork at the Secretary of State’s Office tomorrow at 3 p.m. to run for Governor of Arizona. I will be making a few remarks and answering a few questions for media organizations that attend. Joining me for the filing will be some key supporters.
“I am confident public surveys will show upon my filing that I am a leading candidate for Governor.
“I’ll be focusing on the need to protect public safety, ensure border security, and fight corruption, among other issues.
“Voters will be urged to watch the video of my State Bar hearing and see for themselves how honest prosecutors are railroaded for fighting corruption in this state.
“Andrew Thomas
“Former County Attorney”
Dear Mr. Thomas,Thank you.
Most “blue laws’’ were enacted from pressure by religious groups who believed Sunday was a day to be used for prayer and reflection.
States Turn to Striking Down 'Blue Laws'
Monday, 29 Apr 2013 02:52 PM
By Bill Hoffmann
Lawmakers in four of 11 states that ban hunting on Sundays are considering the elimination of those century-old “blue laws.’’
North Carolina, Connecticut, Massachusetts and West Virginia are now studying the laws that many residents believe are out of date and a hindrance to commerce and personal freedom, according to USA Today. [Sorry these unconstitutional laws were out of date the day they were passed]
Other states that ban Sunday hunts are Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
The Coalition to Lift State Bans on Sunday Hunting is supported by groups such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Rifle Association, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation and Archery Trade Association.
“Today, 11 states either prohibit or restrict hunting on Sunday. Were these states to eliminate these outdated restrictions, and simply allow hunting on all Sundays within the dates of the current hunting season, it is estimated that over 27,000 new jobs would be created,’’ the coalition said in a statement.
“These are good jobs, paying over $730 million in wages, and contributing about $2.2 billion in additional economic activity to the states in question.’
Most “blue laws’’ were enacted from pressure by religious groups who believed Sunday was a day to be used for prayer and reflection.
State Sen. Clark Barnes, a West Virginia Republican, who introduced a bill to kill the ban in his state, said the only day of the week some hunters have free is Sunday.
“Many of them work during the week and would like to hunt on the weekends,” Barnes told USA Today.
Muzzling free speech about taxes
By George F. Will, Published: April 23
— James Madison, Federalist 48
The government has done this, and the court has declined to do its duty to enforce constitutional limits. Herewith an illustration of why conservatives must abandon their imprecise opposition to “judicial activism” and advocate for more vigorous judicial engagement in protecting liberty from the vortex of the regulatory state.
Spirit, Allegiant and Southwest are low-cost carriers that have thrived since the deregulation of the airline industry, which began in 1978. The government retains a narrow authority to prevent deceptive advertising practices. But as the airlines argued in petitioning the Supreme Court to hear their case, the government is micromanaging their speech merely to prevent the public from understanding the government’s tax burdens.
The government’s total price rule forbids the airlines from calling attention to the tax component of the price of a ticket by listing the price the airline charges and then the tax component with equal prominence. The rule mandates that any listing of the tax portion of a ticket’s price “not be displayed prominently and be presented in significantly smaller type than the listing of the total price.” The government is trying to prevent people from clearly seeing the burdens of government.
These three low-cost carriers compete for the most price-conscious travelers, and they want to tell those travelers which portion of a ticket’s cost the airlines control. The government, far from regulating to prevent customer confusion, is trying to prevent customers from understanding the taxes and fees that comprise approximately 20 percent of the average airline ticket.
Timothy Sandefur, of the public-interest, limited-government Pacific Legal Foundation, notes that decades ago the Supreme Court, without justification in the Constitution’s text, structure or history, created a binary First Amendment. So today the amendment gives different degrees of protection to two kinds of speech — strong protection to political speech, minimal protection to commercial speech.
The court has never clearly defined the latter but has suggested that commercial speech proposes a commercial transaction between the speaker and the audience. And the court has held that freedom of commercial speech cannot be abridged if the speech is neither false nor deceptive and if it is not related to an illegal activity.
Note two things. The airlines’ speech the government is regulating with the total price rule would be protected even if it were just commercial speech. And it actually is political speech: It calls its audience’s attention to, and invites disapproval of, government policy.
In permitting the government’s regulation of this speech, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held, 2 to 1, that the total price rule “does not prohibit airlines from saying anything; it just requires them to disclose the total, final price and to make it the most prominent figure in their advertisements.” But this ignores the government’s obvious purpose of preventing the airlines from drawing attention to the government’s exactions.
In their brief asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit’s decision, the airlines noted that the government is forbidding them to do what virtually every American industry does — advertise the pre-tax price of their products. Shirts and shoes and salamis are sold with the pre-tax sum on the price tag.
D.C. Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph, dissenting from the court’s permission of this unauthorized and indefensible regulation, asked: How can the government’s supposed interest in consumers having “accurate” information be served by requiring “significantly smaller” typefaces for taxes and fees that make up a larger share of the prices of the low-cost airlines than of the older airlines? Randolph said the government’s purpose is “to control and to muffle speakers who are critical of the government.”
Government is violating one of the natural rights that the Founders said government is “instituted” (the Declaration’s word) to protect. This episode confirms conservatism’s premise that today’s government is guilty of shabby behavior until proven innocent. And conservatives enable such behavior when their unreflective denunciations of judicial “activism” encourage excessive judicial deference toward the modern executive’s impetuous vortex.
Phoenix police to hold gun-buyback event Saturday
New law soon will hinder similar efforts
By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Fri May 3, 2013 10:11 PM
Three months before a new state law goes into effect requiring police to sell any weapon they receive, Phoenix officials plan to destroy as many guns as residents bring them.
Those efforts begin Saturday with a gun buyback at three churches in the city, and two more events are scheduled later this month.
After that, gun buybacks coordinated with Phoenix police will likely cease.
A law Gov. Jan Brewer signed this week requires police to sell any weapons they receive, whether the guns are abandoned, lost or forfeited to the agency through a court order. A bill with the same intent — requiring agencies to sell weapons instead of destroying them — was approved last year, but officials in Phoenix, Tucson and other cities took a literal reading of that legislation and determined that it applied only to weapons that departments receive through court-ordered forfeiture.
Police have until the new law takes effect to continue their current practices. In Phoenix, that means destroying weapons.
“There’s been no emergency clause indicating that (the law) is going to go into effect immediately,” Phoenix police Sgt. Steve Martos said of the legislation.
The checks that police want to run on each weapon, which include records queries to ensure that the gun was not reported stolen and a ballis-tics test to determine if the weapon was used in a crime, will take additional time, Martos said.
“Obviously, there’s a little bit of pressure,” said Martos, a department spokesman.
The buyback is anonymous, with no information collected on the donor, and police ask that weapons arrive unloaded and in a trunk or pickup bed where officers can safely remove the guns.
As long as the guns are functioning, they can be exchanged for gift cards.
“It’ll almost be like a drive-through process,” Martos said.
The buybacks should not result in additional costs for police personnel.
The events will be staffed with Phoenix’s neighborhood-enforcement team officers who would already be on the clock and do not typically have “first-responder” duties, Martos said.
A group called Arizonans for Gun Safety donated $100,000 to purchase grocery-store gift cards that will be given out in exchange for weapons, including $200 for assault weapons and $100 for handguns, shotguns and rifles.
That’s far more than police have offered at similar past events, Martos said.
Phoenix police brought in a little more than 200 weapons at the city’s last buyback in 2011, when they had $10,000 worth of gift cards.
“We almost had to start turning people away because we were running out of gift cards,” Martos said.
An event in Tucson in January produced similar results — about 200 weapons for $10,000 worth of grocery gift cards — but came with an unanticipated wave of controversy.
Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik organized the event, which was paid for through private donations he coordinated in about two weeks.
Charles Heller, spokesman for a Tucson-based non-profit that promotes gun rights, said the event was a self-gratifying effort put on by people who want to believe that removing a few hundred weapons from circulation could somehow impact the crime rate.
The new legislation has spurred Tucson residents into action, Kozachik said.
He added that there is no shortage of ideas about how to get around the new law, including suggestions that the weapons be auctioned with a minimum bid of $100,000 to thwart buyers or sold for 1 cent to artists who will melt them down and use them in installations.
He applauded Phoenix’s effort to beat the legislative clock.
The buyback events will be held at from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Southminster Presbyterian, 1923 E. Broadway; Sunnyslope Mennonite Church, 9835 N. Seventh St.; and BetaniaPresbyterian, 2811 N. 39th Ave.
For more information, call 602-547-0976 or go to www.azfgs.com.
And of course just like the "war on drugs" this silly rule almost certainly violates the 10th Amendment.
Justice Department appealing morning-after pill decision
Associated Press Wed May 1, 2013 5:41 PM
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is appealing a judge's decision lifting all age limits on the Plan B morning-afer birth control pill and a cheaper generic.
The federal government says the judge who issued the ruling had exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while the appeal is underway.
U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of New York had given the Food and Drug Administration until Monday to lift all age limits on Plan B and cheaper generic. The judge mandated that emergency contraception be sold just like aspirin.
On Tuesday, the FDA said anyone 15 or older could begin buying one brand, Plan B One-Step, without a prescription — two years younger than the current age limit of 17.
Women’s groups decry appeal on morning-after pill
Associated Press Thu May 2, 2013 7:32 AM
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to appeal a court order lifting age limits on purchasers of the morning-after pill set off a storm of criticism from reproductive rights groups, who denounced it as politically motivated and a step backward for women’s health.
“We are profoundly disappointed. This appeal takes away the promise of all women having timely access to emergency contraception,” Susannah Baruch, Interim President & CEO of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said in a statement late Wednesday.
“It is especially troubling in light of the Food and Drug Administration’s move yesterday to continue age restrictions and ID requirements, despite a court order to make emergency contraception accessible for women of all ages. Both announcements, particularly in tandem, highlight the administration’s corner-cutting on women’s health,” Baruch said. “It’s a sad day for women’s health when politics prevails.”
The FDA on Tuesday had lowered the age at which people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 — younger than the current limit of 17 — and decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near the condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters. It appeared to be a stab at compromise that just made both sides angrier.
After the appeal was announced late Wednesday, Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said, “The prevention of unwanted pregnancy, particularly in adolescents, should not be obstructed by politicians.” She called it a “step backwards for women’s health.”
Last week, O’Neill noted, President Barack Obama was applauded when he addressed members of Planned Parenthood and spoke of the organization’s “core principle” that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their health.
“President Obama should practice what he preaches,” O’Neill said.
In appealing the ruling Wednesday, the administration recommitted itself to a position Obama took during his re-election campaign that younger teens shouldn’t have unabated access to emergency contraceptives, despite the insistence by physicians groups and much of his Democratic base that the pill should be readily available.
The Justice Department’s appeal responded to an order by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York that would allow girls and women of any age to buy not only Plan B but its cheaper generic competition as easily as they can buy aspirin. Korman gave the FDA 30 days to comply, and the Monday deadline was approaching fast.
In its filing, the Justice Department said that Korman exceeded his authority and that his decision should be suspended while that appeal is under way, meaning only Plan B One-Step would appear on drugstore shelves until the case is finally settled. If Korman’s order isn’t suspended during the appeals process, the result would be “substantial market confusion, harming FDA’s and the public’s interest” as drugstores receive conflicting orders about who’s allowed to buy what, the Justice Department concluded.
Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials insisted Wednesday that both the FDA and the Justice Department were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. But the decision to appeal was certain to irk abortion-rights advocates who say they can’t understand why a Democratic president is siding with social conservatives in favor of limiting women’s reproductive choices.
Current and former White House aides said Obama’s approach to the issue has been heavily influenced by his experience as the father of two school-age daughters. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have also questioned whether there’s enough data available to show the morning-after pill is safe and appropriate for younger girls, even though physicians groups insist that it is.
Rather than take matters into his own hands, the Justice Department argued to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Korman should have ordered the FDA to reconsider its options for regulating emergency contraception. The court cannot overturn the rules and processes that federal agencies must follow “by instead mandating a particular substantive outcome,” the appeal states.
The FDA actually had been poised to lift all age limits and let Plan B sell over the counter in late 2011, when Sebelius overruled her own scientists. Sebelius said some girls as young as 11 were physically capable of bearing children but shouldn’t be able to buy the pregnancy-preventing pill on their own.
Sebelius’ move was unprecedented, and Korman had blasted it as election-year politics — meaning he was overruling not just a government agency but a Cabinet secretary.
More than a year later, neither side in the contraception debate was happy with the FDA’s surprise twist, which many perceived as an attempt to find a palatable middle ground between imposing an age limit of 17 and imposing no limit at all.
Any over-the-counter access marks a long-awaited change, but it’s not enough, said Dr. Cora Breuner of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which supports nonprescription sale of the morning-after pill for all ages.
“We still have the major issue, which is our teen pregnancy rate is still too high,” Breuner said.
Even though few young girls likely would use Plan B, which costs about $50 for a single pill, “we know that it is safe for those under 15,” she said.
Most 17- to 19-year-olds are sexually active, and 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds have had sex, according to a study published last month by the journal Pediatrics. Sex is much rarer among younger teens. Likewise, older teens have a higher pregnancy rate, but that study also counted more than 110,000 pregnancies among 15- and 16-year-olds in 2008 alone.
Social conservatives were outraged by the FDA’s move to lower the age limits for Plan B — as well as the possibility that Korman’s ruling might take effect and lift age restrictions altogether.
“This decision undermines the right of parents to make important health decisions for their young daughters,” said Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council.
If a woman already is pregnant, the morning-after pill has no effect. It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg. According to the medical definition, pregnancy doesn’t begin until a fertilized egg implants itself into the wall of the uterus. Still, some critics say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it may also be able to prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, a contention that many scientists — and Korman, in his ruling — said has been discredited.
Top Eight Reasons Why Nobody Should Vote for Andrew Thomas for Governor in 2014
By Ray Stern Fri., Apr. 26 2013 at 5:33 PM
Andrew Thomas is running for governor. Here are our eight top reasons why he shouldn't get a single vote.
Andrew Thomas followed up on last year's rumor that he might run for governor with an official announcement today.
Knowing that anything's possible in Arizona, the so-called meth lab of democracy, we thought we'd put out this helpful voting guide.
So, without further ado, we offer you our best eight reasons why you'd have to be nuts to vote for Thomas:
See also: Andrew Thomas, Disbarred and Disgraced Ex-Prosecutor, Is Actually Running for Governor
8. Two words: Cuckoo, cuckoo. When we heard he'd announced, we grew more worried than ever for his mental health. Powerful evidence he's lost it: Thomas said he believes a survey would show he's the most popular candidate among voters for the 2014 election. Since his disbarment, Thomas has been known to bring a piece of lumber to interviews like he thinks he's Buford Pusser.
7. He's a loser. Sure, Thomas won two elections to become county attorney, in 2004 and 2008. But his political career is better defined by his losses. Thomas blew a bid for Arizona attorney general in 2002, failing to win against Democrat Terry Goddard. Seeing that his political career was on shaky ground following his legal abuses from 2008-2010, Thomas resigned from his office in April of 2010 and launched another campaign for state attorney general. It was close, but he lost to Tom Horne. A couple of years later, Thomas lost the biggest the fight of his life -- for his law license. Thomas didn't even bother to appeal the state's decision to disbar him.
6. Thomas is a Harvard-educated moron. You know what we mean -- he's book-smart and very well-educated, but without a lick of common sense. Why did he think launching a dirty attack on a newspaper that criticized him (this one) would be a good idea? Of course he ended up making a public apology for that one. Stoo-pid!
5. Thomas has displayed a severe lack of judgment in picking his allies. He put a great deal of his trust in Dave Hendershott, Sheriff Arpaio's ultra-shady former chief deputy, who told others that Thomas was an "idiot."
4. Maricopa County voters have long though of themselves as "tough on crime." Thomas, an ideologue who once wrote a book on crime that suggested a return to public stockades, took the concept to abusive ends. He failed to make plea deals when appropriate, threw the book at nearly everyone and brought criminal charges when none were warranted. "He horrendously overcharged cases," says Valley lawyer Marc Victor. Back in 2007, Victor represented a woman who's brother loaded a gun without the woman's knowledge, leading to an accident in which the woman grazed her daughter with a bullet. Thomas' office wanted the woman convicted for a designated "dangerous" offense that would have given her mandatory prison time, even though the daughter hadn't wanted to press charges.
3. The bigoted policies he pushed against undocumented immigrants were a failure. Immigrant criminals were not deterred by the possibility that they might not be able to post bail. Immigrant smugglers continued to work the Phoenix metro area; the general decline in immigrants of the past few years is due to the weaker economy and boosted border enforcement, not fear of Thomas or Sheriff Arpaio. A scheme started by Thomas and continued by County Attorney Bill Montgomery that jails and prosecutes low-level immigrants for conspiracy to smuggle themselves into the country has brought only extra suffering to would-be workers, not stemmed the tide of immigrants.
2. Thomas is dishonest. He's a disgrace to the legal profession. He's a liar. He's a perjurer. He's a corrupt politician and grand-stander. He's incompetent. He's vindictive. He's a bad lawyer, in general. And that's just what the legal panel that disbarred him had to say about him. Some folks think he's even worse.
1. His misguided sense of "justice" and inability to play nice with others has cost Maricopa County many millions of dollars. The financial damage he could cause to the state if put in an even more powerful position could run into the billions. Just today, the Board of Supervisors voted to approve a hefty, $1.4 million settlement to more of the victims of Thomas and Arpaio's ill-fated political schemes. As we noted in a blog post about the settlement, Arizona simply could not afford Thomas as governor.
States repealing 'Blue Laws' that ban hunting on Sunday???
Sadly most of our elected officials consider themselves to be royal rulers who are not limited by the Bill of Rights or the Federal and state constitutions. And as a result we have thousands, if not 10s of thousands of laws that are unconstitutional, such as these blue laws that ban hunting on Sundays.
No First Amendment rights when it comes to taxes????
"The government’s total price rule forbids the airlines from calling attention to the tax component of the price of a ticket by listing the price the airline charges and then the tax component with equal prominence ... The government ... is trying to prevent customers from understanding the taxes and fees that comprise approximately 20 percent of the average airline ticket."
“The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.”
But under today’s regulatory state, which Madison could hardly have imagined, the legislature, although still a source of much mischief, is not the principal threat to liberty. Suppose a federal executive department flagrantly abused its regulatory powers for the unmistakable purpose of suppressing truthful speech that annoys the government. If you assume the Supreme Court would rectify this assault on the First Amendment’s core protection, you would be mistaken.
Phoenix City Council members are gun grabbers
Phoenix City Council members are gun grabbers who want to flush the Second Amendment down the toilet???
I suspect this includes Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton,
Vice Mayor Bill Gates, Thelda Williams, Daniel Valenzuela,
Jim Waring, phoney baloney Libertarian Sal DiCiccio,
Michael Nowakowski, Tom Simplot and Michael Johnson.
Justice Department appealing morning-after pill decision
I think it is a violation of the 1st Amendment which makes it illegal to mix religion and government, when the FDA makes it illegal for women of any age to have access to birth control pills.
8 Reasons not to vote for Andrew Thomas for Governor
Source
Police officer accidentally shot in leg by fellow cop
Remember, only police officers can be trusted with guns. Well at least that's what the cops want us to think.Police officer accidentally shot in leg by fellow cop
By Rosemary Regina Sobol and Adam Sege Tribune reporters
7:33 a.m. CDT, May 7, 2013
A Chicago police officer was shot in the leg by a fellow officer who had fired at a charging dog Monday night in the Englewood neighborhood, authorities said.
The shooting happened about 9 p.m. in the 1200 block of West 72nd Place as Englewood District officers were responding to a call of a burglary in progress, according to a police statement.
Two officers and a supervisor went to the second-floor landing of the building, where they were confronted by a "vicious dog," according to police.
When the dog charged toward them, an officer fired a single shot that struck the dog and also hit another officer in the thigh, according to a police source. It was unclear if the bullet struck the officer or the dog first, the source said.
Paramedics took the 42-year-old officer in good condition to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was treated and released, authorities said.
Investigators from the Chicago Independent Police Review Authority responded to the scene, spokesman Larry Merritt said.
chicagobreaking@tribune.com
San Jose cop frames man for rape with phoney lab report!!!
You expect a fair trial??? Don't make me laugh!!!!Next if you are naive as a 3 year old you probably think San Jose Police officer Sgt. Matthew Christian was fired and sent to prison for his crimes. Again don't make me laugh!!!
However, the police officer, Sgt. Matthew Christian, remains on the job and is now assigned to the Traffic Investigations Unit, said SJPD spokesman Albert Morales.If you are naive as a 3 year old you probably also think that it is illegal for the cops to lie to people in an attempt to get them to confess to crimes. Again you are totally wrong on that. The police routinely lie to folks to pressure them into confessing to crimes.
In hopes of extracting a confession, Christian created a "ruse" crime report indicating that Kerkeles' semen had been found on a blanket, while the actual report revealed no semen. Such a tactic is legal -- at that stage of a case.The most common police technique in the world which is used to get confessions from suspects is called the "9 Step Reid Method". And cops that use the "9 Step Reid Method" to get confessions routinely lie to the people they question.
If you read up on the "9 Step Reid Method" you will discover it is a modern variation of the old "beat em with a rubber hose" method used to get confessions by the police.
Only the physical rubber hose is replaced with a "mental rubber hose", and the physical beating is replaced by a "mental beating".
The "9 Step Reid Method" routinely gets false confessions.
San Jose poised to settle case involving cop and phony lab report
By Tracey Kaplan
tkaplan@mercurynews.com
Posted: 05/06/2013 06:12:00 PM PDT
SAN JOSE -- A local man who was held over for trial on the basis of a phony lab report cooked up by a police officer and presented in court by a prosecutor is poised to win a legal settlement with the city for $150,000.
On Tuesday, the San Jose City Council is expected to approve the settlement with Michael Kerkeles of San Jose. Under the agreement, the city must also pay Kerkeles' legal fees, which could be at least $1 million because the federal civil rights case dragged on for six years and included a hard-fought appeal.
Kerkeles declined to comment, but one of his lawyers said the case has taken a major toll on him. Not only was Kerkeles at work when the sexual assault of a developmentally disabled woman supposedly occurred, the lawyer said, but his wife also was in her home office, steps from where the alleged rape took place.
"It's a significant sum, but Mr. Kerkeles certainly wouldn't trade the money he got for what he went through," lawyer Matt Davis said.
Fake crime report
The evidence that Kerkeles' rights had been violated was bolstered last year when prosecutor Jaime Stringfield admitted she misled the court about the lab report. She was suspended for a month by the state Supreme Court, based on a recommendation by the State Bar, which licenses attorneys. She had already resigned from the District Attorney's Office to pursue a teaching career, but is currently licensed to practice law.
However, the police officer, Sgt. Matthew Christian, remains on the job and is now assigned to the Traffic Investigations Unit, said SJPD spokesman Albert Morales.
The injustice unfolded after Kerkeles was accused in 2005 of sexually assaulting the developmentally disabled neighbor with the mental acuity of a 7-year-old.
In hopes of extracting a confession, Christian created a "ruse" crime report indicating that Kerkeles' semen had been found on a blanket, while the actual report revealed no semen. Such a tactic is legal -- at that stage of a case.
Kerkeles asked for an attorney, so the report was never actually used as a ruse. Instead, it was presented in court after the District Attorney's Office lost two preliminary hearings in the case.
'Huge mistake'
On both occasions, the judge found the woman was not a competent witness and there was insufficient evidence to hold Kerkeles over for trial on charges.
But at the third preliminary hearing, then-prosecutor Stringfield elicited testimony from officer Christian regarding the contents of the ruse report. The officer's testimony was that semen had been found on the blanket, prompting the court to find there was probable cause to hold Kerkeles over for trial.
"In our view, that was a huge mistake," San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle said, referring to the presentation of the phony document in court and Sgt. Matthew Christian's testimony about it.
There were several indications that the report was false. For one thing, the officer used a phony name for the crime lab analyst. It was also dated within a day of the evidence being seized -- contrary to normal DNA examinations, which take considerably longer to complete. Stringfield had in her file a real report that did not find semen on the bedspread.
"It's a good number ($150,000) to settle the case for," the city attorney said, "given the (legal) risks."
Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com/tkaplanreport.
And of course it's not just the Muslim religion that enslaves woman, the Christian and Jewish religions have just as bad of a track record as the Muslim religion does.
Women in Pakistan town can't vote. Why? Because men say so
MATEELA, Pakistan (AP) — For decades, not a single woman in this dusty Pakistani village surrounded by wheat fields and orange trees has voted. And they aren't likely to in next week's parliamentary election either. The village's men have spoken.
"It's the will of my husband," said one woman, Fatma Shamshed. "This is the decision of all the families."
Mateela is one of 564 out of the 64,000 polling districts across Pakistan where not a single woman voted in the country's 2008 election. The men from this village of roughly 9,000 people got together with other nearby communities to decide that their women would not vote on May 11 either.
Next week's election will bring a major first for democracy in Pakistan — the first time a civilian government has fulfilled its term and handed over power to another. But women still face an uphill battle to make their voices heard in the political process, as voters, candidates and in parliament, where they hold 22% of the seats in the lower house.
Women represent only about 43% of the roughly 86 million registered voters, according to election commission data. In more conservative areas like Khyber Paktunkhwa province and Baluchistan, the percentage drops even further.
In places like Mateela, the fact that men decide women should not be allowed to vote is a decades-old tradition. Some men say women don't have the mental capacity. Other times they don't want wives and daughters to leave the house.
Some simply don't see the point.
At a recent gathering in the village, about 100 miles south of Islamabad, activists tried to encourage the opposite. The Association for Gender Awareness & Human Empowerment, an independent group working to increase voter participation, met with residents, trying to encourage them to let women vote.
Mateela's men sat with male activists in a courtyard near the village mosque. Secluded behind a gate, the women sat on a concrete floor and listened to a female activist talk about the benefits of voting.
Yar Mohammed, one of the village elders, insisted it isn't a matter of discrimination. The problem, he said, is that the local polling station is mixed gender. The men worry that their wives and daughters will be harassed, so they want a separate women's station. In some places, but not all, polls are specified for men or women only.
None
Pakistani villagers work in a field on the outskirts of Jhang Bahtar, near Islamabad, Pakistan.(Photo: Anjum Naveed, AP)
"We stop our women from going to polling stations because we think if they do, men would tease them by staring or touching them," he said.
Mateela's women certainly want a political voice. They talk of their desire to see better roads, schools where their daughters can get an education and a reliable supply of gas for cooking and heating.
They don't directly defy their fathers and husbands — but they do lobby them to change their minds.
One resident, Mohammed Shamshed, said the women in his family "come up to us and say, 'We want to vote.'"
"But we tell them that it is a collective decision," he said.
Rubina Arshad said things are slowly starting to change as men and women become more educated. "This is the tradition and the culture, from many, many years ago. We could not cast the vote," she said.
Another deterrent to women voting has been that many don't have the proper identification card, called a CNIC card. Historically, many men in conservative areas haven't seen the need to send their wives or daughters to get the ID card or haven't wanted to pay for it.
But activists say that has begun to change in recent years — in large part because it makes more financial sense for men. Poor women who want to receive money through the Benazir Income Support Program, a government plan to give money to poor people, need a valid ID card. And many programs that give out aid to flood victims or people displaced in fighting in the tribal areas also require an ID card.
"These two have tremendously enhanced the registration of women," said Muddassir Rizvi, CEO of the Islamabad-based Free and Fair Election Network. "If they see an advantage of a relationship with the state, then they agree to things."
There are other encouraging signs as well, with more women competing in the elections.
In Pakistan, 60 of the 342 seats in the lower house of parliament, known as the National Assembly, are reserved for women. They are handed out to parties in proportion to how they do in the overall race, so women don't have to campaign publicly for them. But women can also run for the general seats, in competition with men on the campaign trial. In 2008, 64 women ran for general seats and 18 made it to the parliament.
This year, the number of women contesting general seats has jumped to 161, out of a total of 4,671 candidates, according to data provided by U.N. Women, which focuses on women's empowerment and gender issues. Elections for provincial assemblies saw a bigger rise, with 355 women running among nearly 11,000 candidates, up from 116 in 2008.
The type of women running has also changed.
Traditionally, many female candidates have been from wealthy, land-owning families and were seen more as a continuation of political dynasties than as women entering politics in their own right. Benazir Bhutto was famous for being Pakistan's first female prime minister, but she was also the daughter of a powerful political family.
Experts say many of the women running this year are from the middle or even lower classes. A woman in the tribal area of Bajur is running for parliament, marking the first time a woman has ever run for election from the conservative tribal areas that border Afghanistan. In the southern city of Hyderabad, a Hindu woman is also running for election.
Still, the number of female candidates is extremely low, and most run as independents without the support of a political party.
The Pakistan People's Party, the party that Bhutto headed before her assassination in 2007, is fielding women candidates in only 7% of the races. A PPP spokeswoman, Sharmila Farouqi admits that is not enough.
"There is a perception that women cannot contest elections against men due to many reasons," she said. "There is a need to encourage and support women."
When they do get into the parliament, women tend to get down to business.
According to FAFEN's data, female lawmakers last term asked more questions and submitted more bills and resolutions than men.
The women also banded together to help pass five pieces of important legislation protecting women, including laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, according to Farkhanda Aurangzeb, from the Islamabad-based Aurat Foundation.
In Mateela, the men say they are willing to let women vote if the election commission sets up a separate polling station. But the commission said that isn't possible because the voting lists had already been finalized.
Abdul Hamid Abbasi, an activist from AGAHE, tried to convince the tribal elders that allowing women to vote will increase their power at the polls.
"You can change your fate by electing a good candidate," he says. "It won't be possible without the active participation of women voters."
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Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed, Rasool Dawar, Zarar Khan, Sherin Zada and Anwarullah Khan contributed to this report.
When a person does their prison time the government should back off an leave them along.
Now "sex offenders" sounds like a really nasty, evil crime, but in Arizona the law says you are a "sex offender" if you have to go to the bathroom really bad and take a leak in an alley. So most of the sex offenders in Arizona, are not the perverts the law makes them out to be. I don't know what the law is in Florida where this article is from.
I wonder how the public would react if the cops decided to post signs in people yards notifying the world that they were dangerous pot smokers or jay walkers.
Home signs warn of presence of predators
Associated Press Tue May 7, 2013 4:42 PM
STARKE, Fla. — Brian Speer thought he had completed all of his obligations when he registered in Bradford County as a convicted sex predator after serving an eight-year prison sentence for child molestation.
But now, in addition to submitting to a public registry for sex offenders, he has a permanent reminder of his crime posted right in his front yard: a bright red sign reading, “Brian Speer is a convicted Sexual Predator and lives at this location.”
The sign is one of 18 the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office erected in mid-April outside the homes of convicted sex predators.
The signs have been praised by many residents in the small rural county southwest of Jacksonville, but some question whether the new measure reaches too far and could be harassment against people who have served jail terms and already submit to the public registry. Neighboring Baker County started a similar program six years ago.
“I think it’s a lot of bull,” said Speer, who was convicted of lewd or lascivious molestation in 2004. “I believe that anybody that has any criminal background should have a sign in front of their house if we have one in front of ours.”
Bradford officials say they are working within the discretion afforded by state statutes, which mandate that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement use the Internet to notify the public of all sexual predators and requires that a sheriff or police chief conduct community notification of a sexual predator’s presence.
It does not specify how that community notification must take place. It traditionally has been done through fliers, print and television media, and websites, but Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith thought his office could do more.
The federal Sex Offender and Registration Act, passed in 2006, sets minimum standards for sex offender notification across the country. There is no central database to track how agencies notify residents, but counties and towns in other states have tried sign programs with mixed success. Judges have ordered signs to be posted outside the homes of specific sex offenders in cases in Texas, Louisiana and Oregon.
Sign placement also has been shot down. In 2009, a Kansas appeals court overturned a judge’s order requiring a sex offender to post signs on both his home and vehicle.
In Bradford County, Smith said that when his chief of jails told him about Baker County’s sign program, he jumped at the idea.
Brad Smith, the office’s chief of operations, said the sheriff cleared it with the county attorney. The sheriff then floated the idea on social media in March, with an overwhelmingly positive response, and the first signs were posted April 16.
“We realized it was not only a good idea, but something important to ensure that a consistent notification was being made,” Brad Smith said. He said residents not living in Bradford County when original notifications go out could be unaware of a sexual predator’s presence. With permanent signs, that is less likely.
He also said cost was not an issue: The signs cost $10 each, and inmate labor is used to erect them.
[ie slave labor]
Baker County Sheriff Joey Dobson said he is proud of the new program and happy others are adopting it.
“I know the predators are not real fond of it,” he said. “I understand, but I think it’s important for the community to know where these people live.”
The signs are only for sexual predators, not for all sex offenders, Brad Smith said. Florida defines a sexual predator as someone who has been convicted of a first-degree sex crime such as child molestation or sexual battery or has been convicted of two second-degree sex crimes such as solicitation of a minor or lewd, lascivious, or indecent assault. A judge also can designate a person a sex predator.
Bradford County has 98 registered sex offenders, and 18 were predators at the time the signs were erected.
On the Facebook page for the sheriff’s office, about 1,000 people combined have “liked” a pair of posts about the new signs.
Mike Rowe, 27, recently moved to Bradford County. He said that though he doesn’t have children, he thinks the signs are positive. He said he was “fine with authorities doing whatever they can to notify us where these people live.”
Starke resident Rashonda Green, 26, has three children and lives down the street from sexual predator John Goodman, who has two convictions for lewd and lascivious exhibition. She said that because the community is small, most people were already aware of his status and that the sign was an invasion of privacy.
No one answered the phone at a number listed for Goodman.
“I felt embarrassed for him,” Green said. “It seems like it’s a little too much. Kids living in the neighborhood read (the sign) and are asking questions like ‘What is a sex predator?’ I think he should be able to live in peace at least. It’s a little over the top for me.”
For now, though, the signs aren’t going anywhere.
“If they’re a sexual predator, we’re not going to sugarcoat it or give anybody any preferential treatment,” Brad Smith said. “We’re going to put the sign out there.”
Sadly this judge in Texas seems to agree with that definition
of freedom of religion. Something I am sure the creators of the
First Amendment did not intend.
Judge rules for cheerleaders in Bible banner suit
Associated Press Wed May 8, 2013 12:28 PM
BEAUMONT, Texas — A judge ruled Wednesday that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.
State District Judge Steve Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In a copy of the ruling obtained by Beaumont station KFDM, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”
The ruling ends the case in Thomas’ court. A lawsuit over the banners had been scheduled for trial June 24.
In October, Thomas granted an injunction requested by the cheerleaders allowing them to continue displaying religious-themed banners pending the lawsuit’s outcome. Thomas at the time said the school district’s ban on the practice appeared to violate the students’ free speech rights.
School district officials had barred the cheerleaders from displaying banners with religious messages such as, “If God is for us, who can be against us,” after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained. The advocacy group said the messages violated the First Amendment’s so-called Establishment Clause, which bars the government — or a publicly funded school district, in this case — from establishing or endorsing a religion.
Attorneys for the cheerleaders, who were supported by the Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based nonprofit law firm, argued the girls’ First Amendment rights to free speech were being violated by the school district and that the messages on the banners were not asking anyone to believe in Christianity or accept the faith.
The cheerleaders in Kountze, located about 95 miles northeast of Houston, received support in their lawsuit from various state officials, including Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who filed court papers seeking to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of them. A Facebook group created after the ban, Support Kountze Kids Faith, has more than 45,000 members.
The school district eventually reversed course and supported the banners, a move that prompted Thomas to issue his summary judgment so as to avoid a trial.
Vatican: Mexico’s folk Death Saint is blasphemous
Associated Press Wed May 8, 2013 6:29 PM
MEXICO CITY — The Vatican’s culture minister says Mexico’s folk Death Saint is a blasphemous symbol that shouldn’t be part of any religion.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi says worshipping such an icon is a degeneration of religion.
The Santa Muerte is a skeletal figure of a cloaked woman with a scythe in her bony hand. It is worshipped both by drug dealers in Mexico and by the terrified people who live in drug-torn neighborhoods.
Ravasi spoke Wednesday at a dialogue among believers and nonbelievers in Mexico City as part of the Vatican’s “Courtyard of the Gentiles.” The program was started in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, who said the Roman Catholic Church should hold such meetings so nonbelievers could get to know God.
I guess not.
And I guess it's a lot safer for the cops to hunt down and arrest teenagers who take nude photos of themselves instead of hunting down real criminals like bank robbers and rapists.
Students Face Child Porn Charges in Nude Sexting Scandal
ETIWANDA, Calif. (KTLA) — They are nude self-portraits, taken by teenage girls, now on display in cyber space for everyone to see.
A sophomore boy at Etiwanda High School who tweeted nude pictures of at least four underage girls at nearby Rancho Cucamonga High created more than teenage Twitter drama.
His actions have now led to a criminal investigation.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident as a suspected case of child pornography.
But it’s not just the teenage boy who tweeted the nude photos who may have committed a felony, according to a department spokesperson.
Any underage girl who takes a nude self-portrait and texts it from her phone is committing the same crime.
Fellow students believe the boy collected the nude pictures from the girls’ ex-boyfriends, then sent them out in order to gain popularity on Twitter.
–Carolyn Costello, KTLA News
IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups
Associated Press Fri May 10, 2013 9:03 AM
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.
Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.
In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.
“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.
“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.
Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.
Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.
The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members’ political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.
Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.
“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.
Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack
Student charged in nude pope parody
Associated Press Fri May 10, 2013 11:47 AM
PITTSBURGH — Carnegie Mellon University Police have filed indecent exposure charges against a female student who paraded nude from the waist down while dressed as the pope.
CMU President Jared Cohon says in a Friday morning statement that charges were filed against the unnamed woman and an unnamed male who was also nude, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.
Cohon says the school upholds the right to create works of art but public nudity is a violation of the law. Last week Cohon apologized for the April 18 incident after Bishop David Zubik of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese complained.
Zubik says in a statement Friday that freedom of expression does not mean people should be allowed to disrespect anyone’s religious belief.
Hualapai chairwoman leads through Skywalk battle
By Felicia Fonseca Associated Press Sat May 11, 2013 8:18 AM
FLAGSTAFF — The Hualapai Tribe has one of the most sought-after landscapes in the world: a slice of the Grand Canyon where tourists can raft the Colorado River, take an aerial tour and soak up American Indian culture.
What draws the majority of tourists to the canyon’s remote west rim is not nature itself but a horseshoe-shaped glass bridge that juts out from the canyon.
The Grand Canyon Skywalk also is at the center of the biggest legal battle the tribe has ever faced. Leading the tribe through the fight with a Las Vegas developer who invested $30 million to build the attraction is Sherry Counts, a talkative 55-year-old chairwoman whose personal struggles led her to God and then politics.
“We have a lot to lose here,” Counts said. “We have our business, and the most important thing is tribal nations, (we) have our sovereignty. And if we allow a businessman to come and take over our tribe, then we lose that power. And I don’t want to lose because I feel like my ancestors fought for that.”
The land to which her ancestors returned after the U.S. Calvary forcibly marched them through the mountains of western Arizona wasn’t always home for Counts.
Like many tribal members, she was sent away to boarding school and graduated from high school in California. Before returning with some hesitation, she grappled with the death of her 3-day-old daughter, the suicides of her foster father and youngest brother, along with thoughts of her own life ending as she drank and partied.
She found renewed hope in her sons and a church ministry she says guided her into politics.
“That’s what gives me comfort, that’s what gives me peace and hope about what we’re going through as Hualapai people,” she said. “I know I was placed there for a reason, and I know positive is going to come out of it.”
Just what that is, God hasn’t been so clear about, she’s says.
Counts has associate’s degrees in psychology and social work, and has worked as a substance abuse counselor and coordinator on the reservation. She’s taking classes online to earn a bachelor’s degree in management.
Counts first secured a Tribal Council seat in 2000, hoping to give tribal members a greater voice in government. She was serving as vice chairwoman in 2007 when the Skywalk opened and praised the developer, David Jin, as a visionary. Tourists swarmed the reservation, forcing the tribe to scramble for more cash registers to take the money coming in.
When Counts left elected office in 2008 after unsuccessfully running for the chairwoman’s post, the disagreements over money from the Skywalk already were percolating. She stepped back into campaigning last year after council members had been suspended, arrested and recalled, though not all of that was due to the Skywalk dispute. Some have appealed.
Her campaign promises were simple: to be honest and treat people fairly.
Dominique Yaramata has become close friends with Counts over the past 12 years. The cousins were taking a college math class together that Counts struggled with but eventually passed. Her determination, promotion of education on the Hualapai reservation, spirituality and interaction with tribal members impressed the 33-year-old Yaramata.
“It’s not an authoritative thing where ‘I’m the boss and you listen to me,’” she said. “They’re still human beings and she just talks to them as a friend instead of trying to intimidate. I think that’s really worked well.”
Her faith hardly goes unnoticed.
“Chairwoman Counts has a very deep, spiritual, religious base from which she works,” said Diane Enos, president of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona. “She has given her life now to her community and trying to make things work better for them.”
This year, Counts became the subject of a recall petition that wasn’t submitted because it lacked enough signatures. It alleged that her actions as chairwoman could compromise the tribe’s sovereign immunity, that she wasted tribal money on legal fees and that she’s misrepresented the success of the Skywalk since the tribe took over sole management.
Robert Bravo Jr., who once served as interim chief executive of the tribal business now running the Skywalk, said the current leadership hasn’t been upfront about visitation and revenue, and hasn’t done enough to bolster the Skywalk’s image in light of the ongoing litigation.
“What are they doing to mitigate all the negativity? What are they doing positive to tell the people to come out and visit us?” he said. “Nothing. I haven’t seen anything at all. To me, that’s a huge concern as a tribal member.”
The way Counts see it is that opinions will fly regardless of what she says or does. Of the Skywalk operation, she said the tribe is “OK, we’re managing, considering,” but acknowledged the public’s perception isn’t wholly positive because of the infighting in the council that has created factions and divided community members, and the legal battle with Jin.
The tribe is steadfast in its belief that had Jin finished a visitor center, the two sides wouldn’t be locked in a dispute over the Skywalk contract. Jin contends the work wasn’t done because the tribe never ran utilities to the building and says he’s owed years of management fees.
The tribe enforced eminent domain over the contract, essentially writing Jin out of his management role last year.
An arbitrator later awarded Jin more than $28 million in the contract dispute, but the judgment is being appealed by the tribal business that was running the Skywalk but that has declared bankruptcy. Most recently, Jin filed a defamation suit against Counts, the tribe’s public relations firm and other tribal members saying they have sullied his reputation.
Dave Cieslak, one of the non-tribal defendants who also is a tribe spokesman, called it frivolous and a charade.
Had she been chairwoman when the contract dispute erupted, Counts said she believes she could have talked through it with Jin and resolved it without getting the courts involved. But that’s not the circumstance she encountered and she’s vowed to stand legal ground.
“I’ll fight. I’m going to stand here and fight ‘til the end,” she said. “If my ship goes down, I’m going to be right there with it. But I don’t believe that’s going to happen … Every business goes through some negatives, but it only serves to make you stronger. And you have to believe in what you’re doing, and I believe.”
I wonder if the IRS also singled out groups for harassment that are critical of the "war on drugs" like NORML and the Libertarian Party??? And of course atheist groups who demand that the government honor the First Amendment and not mix religion and government.
IRS targeted groups critical of government, documents from agency probe show
By Juliet Eilperin, Published: May 12
At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.
The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that “criticize how the country is being run” and those that were involved in educating Americans “on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
The staffers in the Cincinnati field office were making high-level decisions on how to evaluate the groups because a decade ago the IRS assigned all applications to that unit. The IRS also eliminated an automatic after-the-fact review process Washington used to conduct such determinations.
Marcus Owens, who oversaw tax-exempt groups at the IRS between 1990 and 1999, said that delegation “carries with it a risk” because the Cincinnati office “isn’t as plugged into what’s [politically] sensitive as Washington.”
Owens, now with the firm Caplin & Drysdale, said that before the agency’s most recent reorganization, it had a series of “tripwires in place” that could catch unfair targeting, including the fact that the IRS identified its criteria for special scrutiny in a public manual.
“There’s no longer that safety valve, and as a result, the IRS has been rolling the dice ever since,” said Owens, who worked at the agency for nearly a quarter-century and now represents some organizations seeking tax-exempt status.
The IRS came under withering attack from GOP lawmakers Sunday. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, described the practice as “absolutely chilling” and called on President Obama to condemn the effort.
“This is truly outrageous,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding that even though White House spokesman Jay Carney has said the matter deserves an investigation, “the president needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.”
In March 2012, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, told Congress that the agency was not targeting conservative groups. On Sunday, the agency declined to answer questions about whether senior officials asked IRS exempt organizations division chief Lois G. Lerner and her staff in Cincinnati about this heightened scrutiny before testifying it did not take place.
“There has to be accountability for the people who did it,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding: “And, quite frankly, up until a few days ago, there’s got to be accountability for people who were telling lies about it being done.”
The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.
The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.
Of the 298 groups selected for special scrutiny, according to the congressional aide, 72 had “tea party” in their title, 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12.” Lerner, who apologized Friday for the targeting of such groups, described it as a misguided effort to deal with a flood of applications for tax-exempt status. She did not release the names of the groups.
On June 29, 2011, according to the documents, IRS staffers held a briefing with Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” She raised an objection, and the agency adopted a more general set of standards. Lerner, who is a Democrat, is not a political appointee.
But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to social welfare groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012, the agency decided to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the appendix in the IG’s report.
The agency did not appear to adopt a more neutral test for 501(c)(4) groups until May 17, 2012, according to the timeline in the report. At that point, the IRS again updated its criteria to focus on “organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit.)”
Campaign reform groups have been pressing the IRS for several years to conduct greater oversight of nonprofits formed in the wake of the Citizens United case, given that many have become heavily involved in elections. “But this isn’t the type of enforcement we want,” said Paul Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “We want nonpartisan, non-biased enforcement.”
Loyola Law School professor Ellen Aprill, who specializes in tax law, said any groups that have applied for tax-exempt status has “opened themselves up to scrutiny” by the IRS. “It’s part of their job to look for organizations that may be more likely to have too much campaign intervention,” she said. “But it is important to try to make these criteria as politically neutral as possible.”
Aprill said one of the problems is the agency’s top officials have not provided clear enough guidelines on what constitutes too much political activity for a social welfare group because it’s been “a hot potato,” and that now with this new controversy, “it’s going to make it even more difficult to do so.”
Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, said the IRS subjected her group to a series of unreasonable requests after it applied for tax-exempt status in June 2010. The requests came in early 2012, Walker said, after being initially informed by an official in the Cincinnati field office that he was “sitting on a stack of tea party applications and they were awaiting word from higher-ups as to how to process them.”
The agency asked the group’s treasurer to supply information on its “close relationship” with current candidates and elected officials as well as future candidates, along with detailed information about its contributors and members. It also asked for transcripts of any radio interviews its officials had done and hard copies of any news articles mentioning them.
“That would take me years to do,” Walker said, noting that in some cases, Chinese media outlets referred to her organization. “Am I responsible for every news article across the globe?”
The group had even more difficulty providing transcripts and details of speakers at its events, since they hosted informal gatherings such as “rant contests” where anyone could come and express their views.
While the IRS awarded the Waco Tea Party tax-exempt status about six weeks ago, Walker said the group was now considering suing the agency since the process not only consumed time and effort but prompted the group to scale back its 2012 get-out-the-vote operation. “We were afraid to do it and get in trouble,” she said.
Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, said that even though the agency’s actions intimidated tea party adherents, he gives the IRS “credit for standing up and admitting” it targeted them. And while only two of the agency’s officials — the commissioner and the chief counsel — are political appointees, Russo said the administration needs to conduct better oversight.
“The culture is set at the top,” Russo said. “Obviously you can’t control what every employee does. But you have to set a standard, particularly with the IRS, to be squeaky clean.”
Josh Hicks and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Playing politics with tax records
By Editorial Board, Published: May 10
A BEDROCK principle of U.S. democracy is that the coercive powers of government are never used for partisan purpose. The law is blind to political viewpoint, and so are its enforcers, most especially the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. Any violation of this principle threatens the trust and the voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends.
So it was appalling to learn Friday that the IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. It was almost as disturbing that President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have not personally apologized to the American people and promised a full investigation.
“Mistakes were made,” the agency said in a statement. IRS official Lois Lerner explained that staffers used a “shortcut” to sort through a large number of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status, highlighting organizations with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. The IRS insisted emphatically that partisanship had nothing to do with it. However, it seems that groups with “progressive” in their titles did not receive the same scrutiny.
If it was not partisanship, was it incompetence? Stupidity, on a breathtaking scale? At this point, the IRS has lost any standing to determine and report on what exactly happened. Certainly Congress will investigate, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised. Mr. Obama also should guarantee an unimpeachably independent inquiry.
One line of questioning should focus on how the IRS’s procedures failed to catch this “shortcut” before its employees began using it. Another should center on how this misguided practice came to light, and on what the IRS planned and plans to do about it. Ms. Lerner was responding to a question when the news first came out; it’s not clear whether the government intended otherwise to disclose what had happened. Nor have officials been clear whether disciplinary measures have been taken.
Did some officials hope never to reveal this wrongdoing? Did others hope it could quickly get lost in the weekend news cycle? Misguided, if so. We hope to hear Democratic leaders as well as Republican ones loudly saying so.
The agency said that it now has rules in place to make sure this sort of thing never happens again. How could such basic safeguards not have existed in the first place? And what are the new rules? In response to our questions, officials did not say.
Thankfully, it’s a safe bet that the decision on whether to answer such questions won’t rest solely with the agency for much longer.
Lingering questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups
By Josh Hicks, Published: May 13, 2013 at 6:00 am
The Internal Revenue Service left Washington abuzz over the weekend with a Friday admission that it singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2012 election cycle.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is expected to release a report on the matter sometime this week, with the findings based on an audit the agency conducted at the request of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The Washington Post and other media outlets have obtained details of that report, but many questions remain about the targeting actions. We’ll get to those below, but first let’s review a few things about this development.
Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that reviews tax-exemption applications, has described the targeting efforts as an “absolutely inappropriate” means of dealing with the high volume of applications after the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, which allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums, as well as to register for tax-exempt status as long as their “primary purpose” was not political.
Documents obtained from the upcoming report show that Lerner’s division repeatedly redefined what types of groups it should single out for special scrutiny.
The targeting of conservative groups started around March of 2010, according to the audit documents. But Lerner, a Democrat, “instructed that the criteria be immediately revised” after a briefing on the matter in late June of 2011.
The IRS adopted a more generic set of standards the next month, but it changed the criteria again in January 2012, deciding to look at “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,” according to the audit documents.
In May 2012, the agency finally settled on a more neutral standard, targeting groups “with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention,” the documents said.
The Washington Post has created a timeline to show how the search criteria changed and what IRS officials told Congress at various times.
Now for those lingering questions.
How high did this go?
No media outlets have provided an answer yet as to whether anyone in the White House or the Treasury Department, which oversees the IRS, knew about the targeting.
The White House has simply said it supports more formal investigations and disciplinary action, if necessary. Lerner has stated that she did not contact the Obama administration about the matter.
Did the IRS target liberal groups as well?
Documents from the inspector general’s report show that the IRS singled out groups with names containing “tea party,” “patriot,” and “9/12 Project,” as well as nonprofit organizations that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution. (9/12 Project was founded by right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck).
Those search criteria match the profile of conservative groups that were active during the 2012 election, but the latter two don’t necessarily rule out liberal organizations. For example, the left-leaning group Patriot Majority could have raised a flag, either by accident or deliberately.
The IRS targeted 298 groups for special scrutiny, according to a congressional aide with knowledge of the report. Seventy-two had “tea party” in their title, while 13 had “patriot” and 11 had “9/12,” the aide said.
The audit documents do not expressly state whether the IRS targeted liberal applicants, but it’s possible.
Why didn’t officials acknowledge targeting when lawmakers inquired?
At least three House Republicans asked the IRS about its policies toward reviewing tax-exemption applications after complaints that the agency was singling out conservative groups for intense scrutiny.
Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent queries to Lerner from the Oversight and Government Reform committee, while Charles Boustany (R-La.), a member of the Ways and Means committee, demanded answers from the IRS.
On March 27, 2012, Issa and Jordan asked Lerner how the IRS selected groups for special scrutiny and which organizations were chosen.
Lerner’s reply didn’t mention the targeting of conservative groups — even though the audit documents show she knew about it by then — or name any entities that the IRS had singled out. Instead, she said identifying the targeted applicants that were ultimately approved would require additional work — a “manual review of each file” — and that IRS code prohibited her from providing information about groups that were not approved.
A timeline provided by the Ways and Means committee indicates that the IRS made no mention of targeting conservative groups in five separate responses to inquiries by Boustany.
Did the IRS commissioner talk to Lerner before testifying to Congress?
The Washington Post posed this question to the IRS, but the agency did not respond. Why does it matter?
In March 2012, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified on this issue before a House Ways and Means subcommittee, adamantly denying that the IRS singled out groups for special scrutiny. “There’s absolutely no targeting,” he said. “This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people [who apply for tax-exempt status.]”
That testimony came nearly 10 months after Lerner instructed her division to change its search criteria. Had Shulman consulted her, he might have known about the agency’s targeting — assuming Lerner would not withhold that information.
For more federal news, visit The Federal Eye, The Fed Page and Post Politics. To connect with Josh Hicks, follow his Twitter feed, friend his Facebook page or e-mail josh.hicks@washpost.com. E-mail federalworker@washpost.com with news tips and other suggestions.
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