Entries Tagged 'Law' ↓

The colorfully eccentric conservative Boris Johnson beat out the incumbent Marxist “Red Ken” Livingstone as mayor of London, part of an overwhelming Tory victory over Labour (sic) in England’s off-year elections. According to this article, How Boris Johnson finally grew up to grasp his shot at redemption - Times Online , Mayor-elect Johnson’s lifelong ambition was to be elected President of the United States. He was born in New York, so he could actually qualify under the constitution as being “natural born.”

Unlike, maybe, John McCain!

The young girl, named Sarah Barlow, who called authorities from that Texas polygamist compound claiming that she being abused, leading to a raid and the taking of 400 children away from their mothers? Evidence has come in that indicates she was a 33-year-old African-American woman from Colorado with a history of phoning in false accusations of sex abuse. But Texas authorities still vow to “press on.” FromTexas 911 Calls Linked To 33-Year-Old in Colo. - washingtonpost.com:

SAN ANGELO, Tex., April 23 — The phone calls that triggered a massive raid on a polygamist compound in west Texas — in which a quavering girl’s voice described being forcibly married at 15 — have been linked to a Colorado woman with a history of making false claims of sexual abuse, according to an affidavit filed in Colorado Springs.

The affidavit says calls that allegedly came from “Sarah Barlow” — a teenage girl at the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside Eldorado, Tex. — actually came from numbers connected to Rozita Swinton, 33, of Colorado Springs. The affidavit also notes Swinton’s possible involvement in a series of separate but similar reports in which the young caller described being abused by a pastor, an uncle or her father.

Texas authorities yesterday said they have not determined whether the calls about the Yearning for Zion Ranch were a hoax and that they plan to press on with their investigation of possible sexual abuse there. More than 400 children are now in state custody, as authorities try to sort out what happened at the ranch run by a polygamist group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The raid of that compound in Texas with the Fundamentalist Mormons has to make us squirm. Taking over 400 children away from their mothers? Surely they weren’t guilty of anything. And even if there were abuse, their mothers surely weren’t to blame. Here is the latest.

Don’t the investigators need to be more respecting of parental rights, even in a case like this?

The California appeals court that outlawed homeschooling has decided to vacate the ruling. That doesn’t mean overturning it. Rather it means the court will reconsider the case. See here for details.

We are so used to complaining about how court system that we can be surprised when it works as it was intended to do, upholding the law and defending our rights. The Supreme Court ruled that the World Court has no jurisdiction over the United States of America.

Judging from the different justices’ comments on the oral arguments over Washington, D.C.’s gun ban, it appears that the Supreme Court will rule that the 2nd Amendment does indeed give individuals and not just corporate militias the right to keep firearms.

The linked article said that the ruling might provide for some regulation, such as of military weapons such as machine guns. But if the Constitution specifies the role of individual ownership of weapons for militias, shouldn’t that apply specifically to military weapons? And doesn’t the 2nd Amendment amount to a constitutional requirement for local militias, of local civilians keeping weapons in their home so they can, if needed, be organized into a local defense or law enforcement force? That’s basically what Switzerland does. And 18th century America. The right should indeed inhere with individuals, but what should we do with the militia provision?