NPR and the First Amendment

There is one aspect of the Juan Williams firing that has been totally ignored as far as I can tell. Private Corporations can and do censor their employees and it is perfectly legal for them to do so under most circumstances. Especially if they are recognizable as representing the corporation as Juan Williams was, because they are then effectively speaking for the corporation. But there is an aspect that everyone seems to be glossing over. NPR is a government entity. They may get significant outside monies as well, but they also obtain government funding and as a result are considered a government entity. The first amendment does not apply to private entities, but it DOES apply to the government. Ergo, NPR does not have the same censorship rights MSNBC or FOX might have over their employees. That is an aspect of this incident that is being completely ignored.

Why elections have consequences....

Elena Kagan, Obama's Supreme Court pick, is a moron, as is her fellow liberals on the court. She (and they) just voted against an execution, not because she felt the guy was not guilty, or that execution is wrong or any of the typical stuff you'd expect. No, she voted against it because she was concerned about the safety of one of the drugs in the drug cocktail. The SAFETY of the drug! The one that is supposed to KILL THE PRISONER. Um, how exactly is the safety of the drug an issue if the whole point is to kill him?

Keep it on the table!

Reverend Broden is being lambasted for stating that revolution, in the event that all other means of effecting governmental change should fail, should not be taken off the table. Why is this at all controversial? That is our birthright as a nation! This is how we became a nation to begin with! That is the whole point of the second Amendment. It isn't to hunt, it isn't even for self defense, although it serves both of these functions. It's sole purpose is to ensure that the populace shall ALWAYS have the means of overthrowing a tyrannical government. Because the founding fathers knew, perhaps better than anyone, that ALL governments can, and probably eventually will become, tyrannical. And therefore ultimately the last check and balance on the system is a populace who decide that "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

Baby Steps in Wisconsin

A Clark County Judge in Wisconsin has dismissed a charge of carrying a concealed weapon (a knife in this instance) in violation of Wisconsin's Concealed Weapons law. Wisconsin bans ALL concealed weapons. The judge, citing the recent McDonald V Chicago U.S. Supreme Court ruling, dismissed the charges on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional. However, at this juncture the ruling only applies to his court. It is expected that the ruling will be appealed. The DA has 20 days to do so, however the DA may chose not to do so in order to maintain the Status Quo instead of running the risk of invalidating the law state wide. We will know more in the coming weeks.

And the beat(down) goes on...

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has ruled that 20 states my move forward with their lawsuit against the Obama administration to halt Obamacare on the grounds that it is a constitutional overreach of the commerce clause and it violates the tenth amendment as well.

Fiudiciary Duties

When a corporation sells an asset, that corporation has a duty to it's shareholders to get the best possible price for the sale of that asset. If it fails to do so, the shareholders have the legal recourse to sue to stop the sale of that asset. Newsmax offered a bid to buy Newsweek from the Washington Post and were widely believed to have offered the most money for the publication. The Washington Post is a publicly traded company traded on the NYSE. WaPo, however decided to sell it to Sidney Harman, for exactly one dollar plus the assumption of outstanding debt. I think it is safe to say Newsmax offered much more than that. So my question to WaPo shareholders is, are you going to sit there and let them screw you like that? or are you going to fight this sale in order to get the maximum returns on your investment?

Inflation coming to a store near you.

Those of us with half a brain have been saying for a while now that the only possible result of the Fed printing money like it's going out of style is massive inflation. But up until now, the Fed has been holding interest rates at historic lows artificially. The current administration has been pointing at this and saying our fears of hyper-inflation are baseless. Well, those chickens are finally coming home to roost, and covering everything in chickenshit in the process. The Fed is finally admitting that they will be forced to raise interest rates and trigger inflation.

I told you so.

YOU do the math!

Photo credit CSteven Tucker

New definitions of rape

A few months ago, I posted a story out if Israel where a Palestinian Arab lied to a Jewish woman about being Jewish in order to have sex with her. At the time I thought this was just a wierd quirk of Israeli law or something, but now a similar case has come from Canada. Where in hell does this end? What if you tell them that you love them to get in the sack with them? Or that you'd call them tomorrow?

These people are insults to every person that has ever truly been raped.