June 25, 2012

Temporary Victory: Aaron Walker's First Amendment Rights Restored; Judge Stays Brett Kimberlin's "Peace Order" Against Him
— Ace

The "peace order" issued by an incompetent judge had stripped Aaron Walker of his First Amendment rights, ordering him to not mention Brett Kimberlin publicly.

That order has been stayed, with a full hearing to decide if the order should stand or fall on July 5th. Note, however, that emergency relief (as here) is usually given only when there is a "substantial" likelihood of prevailing on the ultimate merits, so, at the moment, it seems likely the peace order will be struck down on July 5th, too.

Part of the order remains -- they didn't seek to get the order's directive that Walker not harass, threaten, contact, trespass on the property of, Brett Kimberlin. Etc. Of course, Walker never did that, and has no intention of doing such things. I imagine that that stuff will be struck down on July 5th as well, because all people have a general obligation to not do such things. It's called "The Law." But you don't get peace orders against people to not do such things, unless they've shown a determination to do them in the past.

Pretty much the judge (Rupp, who seems on the ball) signed Walker's proposed modification of the peace order as Walker's attorney (Bours) submitted it.

Patterico says there's something "interesting" about the response Kimberlin filed. Patterico says this response did not address the questions before the court -- about prior restraint, incitement, Brandenberg v. Ohio, free speech -- but rather spun out a welter of fresh accusations against Walker.

But that's not the "interesting" thing (that is just the Standard Kimberlin Lawsuit Conveyor Belt). Patterico says he'll discuss the "interesting" thing later.

Walker himself will be discussing this later. Now that he has the rights of an American citizen restored to him.

Top Quotes From Citizen K: A long, sordid career of almost ceaseless lawbreaking and lies.

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 AM | Comments (80)
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Barack & Michelle Reveal Details of First Date, In Ad For Yet Another Sweepstakes
— Ace

This isn't as "toe-curling" as the Daily Mail's headline promised.

Parts of it might even be cute, if it didn't come off as contrived, and if it wasn't yet another case of creepy Cult of Personality messaging. The fact that these details are revealed as inducement to get people to sign up for a lottery to join the first couple on Date Night does not speak well to the genuineness of the disclosures.

Bonus: All winners are really losers, as they'll be subject to $560 in taxes. Payable to Mr. Obama's Treasury Secretary. (via Ben, from the sidebar) more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:38 AM | Comments (159)
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SCOTUS News: No ObamaCare Today, Other Big Decisions Announced. UPDATE: ObamaCare On Thursday
— DrewM

Quick rundown:

Court invalidates mandatory life sentences with no chance of parole for juveniles on 8th Amendment grounds.

Montana's law barring corporate donations to state and local campaigns was ruled unconstitutional (pdf), effectively affirming and expanding reach of Citizens United. On most days this "mini-Citizens United" would be a really big deal.

Arizona Immigration law struck down in parts (pdf) but provision allowing local police to check status upheld but subject to future challenge based on enforcement.

The provision making it illegal to hire illegal immigrants was thrown out. That's a blow to states trying to get involved in dealing with illegal immigration, as that was a common tool.

Scalia is reading his dissent from the bench so....it should be a fun read.

Kennedy wrote the Arizona decision so there's a good chance Chief Justice Roberts wrote ObamaCare decision. Read into that speculation what you will. (Theory via Ben Domenech on Twitter)

See Gabe's post below for background on these cases.

More on all of this soon.

Via SCOTUS Blog: The Court announced all pending decisions will be released on Thursday.

Fun note on Arizona law: "Wise Latina" Justice Sotomayor joined all the other participating justices (Kagan recused herself) in upholding the "racist" so-called "show us you papers" provision.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:55 AM | Comments (283)
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Supreme Court Warm-Up
— Gabriel Malor

So today is hopefully the big day. Aside from Obamacare (which, don't get cocky) and U.S. v. Arizona (again, don't get cocky) the Court has four other argued cases pending. In a normal year, three of these would be major cases on everyone's radar, but they've been kind of drowned out by the two big cases.

United States v. Alvarez, on the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act. This one is a free speech case asking whether Congress violated the First Amendment by criminalizing lies about whether a person has received military medals or other honors.

Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, on the constitutionality of life sentences for juvenile offenders. These are two cruel and unusual punishment cases asking whether it is permissible to sentence a fourteen year-old to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The fourth case, First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards is about mortgage kickbacks and everyone's favorite issue: standing.

We will certainly have coverage when the Supreme Court starts issuing this morning at 10 Eastern.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:33 AM | Comments (400)
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Top Headline Comments 6-25-12
— Gabriel Malor

Happy Monday.

Today is the final day scheduled for Supreme Court opinions, but the high court could add (and some folks are saying will add) a decision day on Wednesday or Thursday or both.

As far as news goes, lets start with two items that you may have missed late last week.

First, Obama's Secret Service confiscated all the forks at the Latino luncheon he spoke at on Friday. It was an unusual enough move to bear comment.

Second, Joy Behar, apparently, one of Current-TV's talk-scrunts (who knew?) says that gay conservatives only like Gov' Romney because they lust after his sons. NoH8, Joy.

In new news, some postal workers are holding a hunger strike to protest people not using the post office anymore, or something.

Spain formally asks the eurozone for a 100 billion euro bank bailout.

There's a good article from Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner on how Sen. Hatch forced Microsoft to play politics.

Finally, one of these things is not like the others... more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (128)
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June 24, 2012

Tropical Storm Debby (tmi3rd)
— Open Blogger

Good evening, Morons and Moronettes. I'm tmi3rd, and tonight, we take a moment to try to make some sense of the very uncooperative Tropical Storm Debby. Thanks to Maetenloch for letting me jump in so soon after posting the ONT. Thanks, bro.

As of 7 PM CDT, Tropical Storm Debby was nearly stationary about 115 miles south-southwest of Apalachicola, FL, or 195 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. Top sustained winds are 60 miles per hour, and the minimum central pressure was 990 millibars, or 29.23 inches. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect from the Mississippi/Alabama border east to the Suwanee River in Florida. A Tornado Watch is in effect over the majority of the west coast of the Florida peninsula

Discussion below the fold...
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:31 PM | Comments (76)
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Overnight Open Thread (6-24-2012)
— Maetenloch

End of the weekend for some, just another day for others, but all are welcome at the ONT party.

And good news - if you emailed me about being banned, pixy says you can now comment again. So you have that going for you.

The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media - 2012 Edition

As judged by a semi-qualified bunch of mostly well-known conservative blogger-types according to utterly subjective criteria that mean nothing.

But you're still gonna click through and pore over them anyway despite what the restraining orders say.

secupp1michellemalkin21katiepavlich21danaloesch1

And here are the results from previous years for reference purposes...

The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media (2011 Edition)
The 20 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media (2010 Edition)
The 15 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media (2009 Edition)

more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:00 PM | Comments (456)
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The Gaming Thread....It's Back Edition
— Gang of Gaming Morons!

Afternoon 'Rons and 'Ettes! Zakn here! I apologize for the absence of the Gaming thread. I've been working a ton, so I neglected working on a post. Neglect no longer!

In our last Thread I brought up the Humble Indie Bundle V. They sold almost 600,000 bundles raising just over 5 million bucks. A portion of that went to a great Charity called Child's Play.

Point you ask? Yes. So i've been playing a grip of Super Meatboy. That's so last year you might say. Agreed. Where I'm going with this is Indie Game: The Movie. A bunch of professional nerds I follow on teh Twitters were raving about it, so I went and paid my 10 bucks (I think it's on Netflix streaming as well) for the DRM free edition. The Movie follows the people that made Super Meatboy, and Phil Fish who made Fez. Everyone has been losing their bowels about Fez, so I was interested. It was neat to see the ups and downs of these dudes as they went through the grinder making and marketing their games.

If you run a small Business, I recommend watching it. Small 2-3 Dude shops versus large companies of 700+ developers more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 10:40 AM | Comments (133)
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There is one SMOD...
— CAC

And Levitated Mass is His prophet.
-Book of Moron, 6:9

He has made His presence known, and his followers shall be most numerous today, particularly since it is free for all SoCal residents until closing this evening.

The first reviews are now in, and I'm sure you morons will have some fun with this one in particular. I will have mine up shortly after my pilgrimage.

LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, just east of Fairfax.

Just a disclaimer, which I seem to have to put in every thread relating to His Graniteness: this was paid for entirely with private funds- including compensating any city workers (police, etc) hired for safety/coordination. None of your tax dollars went to this. Those went into the Miramonte School for Sanduskys-in-training.

Posted by: CAC at 09:41 AM | Comments (436)
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Sunday Morning Book Thread 06-24-2012: Revisionism Edition [OregonMuse]
— Open Blogger

brain-2a upside down.jpg
Everything You Know Is Wrong

Good morning to all of you morons who can read. Ha ha, I crack me up. Anyway, this week I'd like to highlight some books that go against the received wisdom of our age.

The third-rate burglary

Everyone knows that the Watergate scandal was The Greatest Constitutional Crisis In The History Of The Nation, right? That's what the liberals who are busy writing our history books say, anyway. But lost in the madness is this book, which is an absolute must-have for every conservative. It's no longer in print, but used copies are readily available, and I got my copy for a couple of bucks on Amazon. Victor Lasky, a conservative columnist back in the day and who has long since passed on, meticulously documents how everything, every dirty trick, wiretapping, enemies list, etc, that the Dems and their allies in the press excoriated Nixon for, was routinely practiced by Roosevelt, Truman, JFK, and (especially) LBJ. Our intrepid watchdogs of the press more or less looked the other way when the Democrats were playing hard-ball politics, but with Nixon, it was, as we've already noted, The Greatest Constitutional Crisis In The History Of The Nation. One customer reviewer on Amazon put it this way:


Lasky describes a meek, confused Republican Party that believes P to Q4 is an agressive move. Meanwhile Democrats kick, scratch and bite off ears in going after their prize of power.

Some things never change.
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:26 AM | Comments (147)
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