As I have been saying (or maybe screeching) for years, cries of voter fraud are an excuse to disenfranchise impoverished and elderly voters. And now, its even more clear that the fears of voter fraud were all a bullshit charade. A charade, nonetheless, that had a real impact on innocent people.

"Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the Loyola Law School, agreed, saying: “If they found a single case of a conspiracy to affect the outcome of a Congressional election or a statewide election, that would be significant. But what we see is isolated, small-scale activities that often have not shown any kind of criminal intent.”

For some convicted people, the consequences have been significant. Kimberly Prude, 43, has been jailed in Milwaukee for more than a year after being convicted of voting while on probation, an offense that she attributes to confusion over eligibility.

In Pakistan, Usman Ali is trying to rebuild his life after being deported from Florida, his legal home of more than a decade, for improperly filling out a voter-registration card while renewing his driver’s license.

In Alaska, Rogelio Mejorada-Lopez, a Mexican who legally lives in the United States, may soon face a similar fate, because he voted even though he was not eligible."

AARGH. Does this not bother you? People getting deported or jailed beause they weren't clear on voting rules? Meawhile, Georgia passed a law, and other states have passed similar measures, requiring "Voter IDs" because of so-called massive organized voter fraud. In fact, there had not been one case of voter fraud in 10 years.

Don't you ever get tired of the GOP's endless efforts to exclude people from the political process? I know I f@$&ing do!

In 5 year effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud

More Voter Fraud Outrage

"In the aftermath of a series of raids in 2004, the town council in this historic borough of 5,300 -- transformed in recent years by an influx of at least 1,300 Latin Americans -- unanimously approved a sort of immigrant bill of rights. Joining a growing list of cities enacting a no-questions-asked policy on immigration status, Hightstown now allows its undocumented residents to officially interact with local police and access city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities"

Wa-Po has a great article about towns that have adopted a sort of "don't ask don't tell" policy when it comes to undocumented immigrants. These towns rightfully recognize that harassing and arresting people won't solve the immigration problem, and definitely won't help the town be safer.

Rather, when local police decide to take a federal power (regulation of immigration) into their own hands, disaster results. The immigrant community- illegals and legals alike- become hesistant to use social services. The police aren't called in violent situations, injured people hold off as long as possible before visiting the hospital, and even school children get confused about their rights to go to school. When working people feel they can't fully integrate into the community, everybody suffers- whether through health crises, gang violence, or simply a lack of political participation by one sector of the population.

I'm glad that this town- and others- has decided to let the power to regulate immigration stay where it belongs: with the federal government.

"Looking the other way on Immigrants"

Sanctuary Cities and Illegal Immigration

k wrote:
In every field of human endeavor, we hire experts to handle things we do not have sufficient time, inclination or intelligence to learn how to handle on our own.

YES, but should we? Is it always necessary to professionalize, to make a language that the layman can't understand? Sometimes, I think law is unnecessarily complex in order to avoid violence and, perhaps, revolution.

In reality, the law is often breathtakingly arbitrary. The same case with narrow differences comes up and recieves different treatment, over and over and over again. How are the differences explained? Judicial prejudice, jury make-up, but mostly the fact that there is a theory for every argument. In th end, that may be the best system anyways (the best argument wins) but all the same, its hard to call it fair or grounded in scientific principles. (Not that you said that.)

SO- not only is the law a very different system from how it presents itself, but it seems to me to be deliberate in adding complexities to grievances that might be better served through social change and direct action. For instance, suing a grocery chain for refusing to open in poor neighborhoods would be a passive solution. Organizing community gardens would be active, and probably solve the problem more quickly. 1.5 million women suing Wal-Mart for sex- discriminination yields small individual settlements or years of litigation. 1.5 million women going on strike? Maybe immediate results. (Sometimes these courses of action could be combine, ect.)

So I guess what bothers me is that lawyers say to people: this is a legal problem that is too complicated for you to understand, let alone solve. People on all sides of the system back this contention up. Sometimes, though, this convulates issues and takes it out of the hands of those people who could be most instrumental is solving them.

And I again, I think thats bullshit. But I suppose its kind of like the weather: everybody talks about it but nobody every does anything.

RE: The People's Law Student: Why am I here?

U.S. government consultant used software programs found on the Internet to break into the FBI's computer system, where he gained access to the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert Mueller, the Washington Post reports.

Again with the hacking into govt. computers. Can't they get some spyware or something?

Hacker Invades FBI Computers, Gains Access To Passwords Of 38,000 Employees, Including Director - CBS News

(Of course in its discussion of legislative history the Court wholly ignores the President's signing statement, which explicitly set forth his understanding that the DTA ousted jurisdiction over pending cases.)

Of everything in the opinion, concurrences and dissents, nothing is as scary as this one line from Scalia. He is assigning, at minimum, the equivalence of legislative intent to a signing statement. The executive is not the legislative and equating them is a grossly pernicious error.

HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al.

Justices rule the Bush administration overstepped its authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees as part of its anti-terror policies.

AMAZING, FANTASTIC NEWS!!!! There will be more as soon as they can write it all, but OMG!!!!!!!!!!

What are they gonna say now, the Supreme Court has a liberal bias? With two handpicked Bushie appointees?

G-D BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!!

Wa-Po: SC Ruling comes down against Bush in Gitmo Case

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.
The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war. I've only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing decisions I've faced as an editor.

READ THIS

Letter From Bill Keller on The Times's Banking Records Report - New York Times

The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

BREITBART.COM - Study Says Earth's Temp at 400-Year High

You and I may or may not agree on the war. Fine. But can we agree on this? Can we agree that when a family has given the ultimate sacrifice, the life of a son or daughter, a wife, a father, a mother, when they have to hear on the news that the light of their life has gone out, that the bodies of their sons were found mutilated, or that their daughter’s legs were blown off, or been told that “daddy is missing”…can we please agree that that demands respect, gravity, and decorum? That it should inspire genuine sympathy, empathy, regret, and even grief.

I’m not saying that the President doesn’t feel those things. How would I know what he feels? I’m saying that there is a time for levity. There is a time for so-called “towel snapping.” There is a time for comedy. A press conference about a war, about death, about young men and women giving their lives is not the place for it.

Couldn't agree more.

The Blog | Michael Seitzman: Gravity and Levity or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Let The President Buy Me A Drink | The Huffington Post

According to Internet-monitoring company Netcraft, a security flaw on PayPal's site allowed hackers to steal credit card information from PayPal users.

woah

PayPal Fixes URL Used for Fraud - Yahoo! News