- Of the new Omni-bust budget deal Jim Bovard sez: “Republican congressional leaders are like a football coach who believes the secret to winning is to punt early and often.”
- Rand Paul sez stop the bill — and he has some fairly decent ideas for alternatives.
- OTOH, Marijuana.com sez there are a couple of decent provisions in the 2,000 page monster sellout.
- On the other other hand, the USPS announces a completely unsurprising but curiously retro policy on carrying publications that contain — gasp! — ads for the dreaded Demon Weed. One wonders why they couldn’t have just kept their mouths shut and carried the mail, given that the times are changing.
- FIJA-philes win another “jury tampering” case. (H/T jed)
- This book sounds intriguing. Possibly futile, but maybe a good picker-upper for the freedomista remnant. And who knows? Millennials are showing a heartening interest in liberty; it might inform and encourage them, too. It’s Robert Curry’s Common Sense Nation: Unlocking the power of the American idea. Review by John Tamny. And of course … Amazon link.
- Ya really gotta wonder how people discover such stuff. Apparently you can break into Linux systems (with Grub2 bootloaders) by pressing the backspace key 28 times. A fix is already in the works. (H/T MJR)
- Cabin Porn! (via Kyle MacL in comments). Not yuppie tiny-house pretensions, but the real deal.
Linux: Looks like Linux Mint (at least 17.1) defaults with grub-pc, not grub2. So the backspace trick doesn’t work.
Gotta love that Denver free-speech case. You would think that even a public prosecutor would know that it was a loser; any first-year law student interning in his office could have told him that. And I have difficulty believing that it will even provide him with any ammunition for his re-election campaign (elected prosecutors sometimes take on losing cases merely to burnish their “tough on crime” credentials with the public); most of the public doesn’t care about this issue one way or the other.
But the last sentence in that article, “explaining” jury nullification, is about the worst description I’ve ever seen.
Rand Paul: “It’s absurd that conservatives would agree to any new spending”
No it’s not. It’s standard operating procedure. Sorry, the ever increasing debt and deficits are not only the creation of liberals.
On that jury tampering thing, the last sentence is, “Jury nullification is based on an obscure legal act from the 1600s that allows jurors to acquit defendants because they believe a law is immoral or unjust.” Obscure? I am rolling my eyes…
Little wife brought home a movie, “Max” about a dog used in war (Afghanistan) whose handler is killed, a Marine. It’s clearly a movie that would appeal to conservatives, who no doubt would be horrified at the idea of a gun confiscation. What was his handler and the other troops doing over there in Afghanistan? They were confiscating Afghan’s guns…
Cognitive dissonance… the movie was also notable, in that the bad guy sounded like one of us, questioning why we are over in Afghanistan. I guess it was produced by the Ministry of Propaganda.
Laird and Paul B have already touched on the FIJA article and I only wanted to offer to copy-paste a series of quotes from our founding fathers as to the value that They placed upon jury trials and jury nullification. IF desired simply send me her address so that I can educate the poor dear and relieve her of her ignorance and misery. [ rolls eyes]
In the course of our local move from one county to another, I got several jury summonses and I had some FIJA information about jury nullification and was planning to ask that the judge explain jury nullification if I had gotten selected. Glad to see it getting some press here in Colorado.
I’m the FIJA contact person in Wyoming, and one day I got a call from a young woman seeking more information. She was seriously discouraged when she learned that FIJA is geared to nullify bad law, not providing a way for people to get out of being part of a jury.
I don’t get many calls, but there are few of even those who have any idea what a fully informed jury might be.
It’s possible that wearing a FIJA t-shirt when reporting, would get your out of jury duty.
http://cheezburger.com/8595480576/cute-photo-of-dog-with-cone-laying-with-kitten
jed says:
“It’s possible that wearing a FIJA t-shirt when reporting, would get your out of jury duty.”
True that BUT then you cannot nullify the bad law or rescue the person being railroaded through the war on some drugs can you?
I have only been called twice and only served once but the trial was a straight forward attempted murder case and the defendant did admit to stabbing the victim (who survived) seven times.
Like ML I too am a FIJA contact person in my state and don’t get many calls at all. I think most folks don’t know about FIJA/AJI.
FWIW, whenever I see anyone on a forum or other venue say they are called up for jury duty, I give them the fija spiel and point them at the website. Eventually people will hear about it.
The omnibus spending bill has lots of hidden morsels. Included in it at the last minute is CISA, Cyber Information Sharing Act. It essentially allows surveillance without even the pretense of a warrant. This article calls it the “Second Patriot Act” Read it and weap:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-18/congress-just-passed-second-patriot-act-and-nobody-noticed-how-cisa-became-law
I hate to sound gloomy before Christmas, but with Obama promising executive action on guns after the holidays combined with the CISA/2nd Patriot Act, we are very quickly approaching a totalitarian state. They’re not even making an attempt to mask it any longer.
We rented Max as well. What were the bad guys doing? [gasp] Running weapons to Mexico. At least the source of the full-auto rifles and RPGs wasn’t a local gun store.
And they had the “ammo catches fire and bullets shoot everywhere” mistake.
OTOH one of the badguys was a local cop.
I sent the following to the author of the jury nullification article:
Jury nullification is not based on an obscure court case. It is the central purpose of trial by jury. It allows the people to veto the edicts of the king, who is no less tyrannical because he is elected.
I have never served on a jury. I’ve only been summoned a few times, and that was for low-level courts (magistrate or city). But if given the chance I would gladly serve, and in the right circumstances would vote to nullify. What’s interesting is that in my state (SC) both the federal and model state jury questionnaires contain questions designed to sniff out closet “nullifiers.” For example, the federal court questionnaire includes the following: “Regardless of any opinion you may have concerning a particular law, would you be able to set aside your feelings and follow the law as stated by the judge?”
I would lie.
“Regardless of any opinion you may have concerning a particular law, would you be able to set aside your feelings and follow the law as stated by the judge?”
Though I applaud your willingness to lie like a good Freedom Outlaw, IMHO, you wouldn’t actually have to fib. They ask if you’d set aside your feeeeeeeeeelings. (Sheesh.) They don’t ask if you’d set aside your principled convictions.
Problem solved.
Penmanship. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/12/16/improve-your-cursive-handwriting/