Category Archives: crime
Don’t Question Authority
The Justice Department has labeled Fox News reporter James Rosen a co-conspirator with Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Kim was charged with violating the Espionage Act for divulging classified information. The feds used the co-conspirator charge to violate Rosen’s first amendment rights. They snooped through his personal email account, phone records and his parents’ phone number. The way Eric Holder’s Justice Department sees it, asking questions about classified information (i.e., journalism) is illegal.
Kirsten Powers reminded readers that the Obama administration and its posse have had it in for Fox News from the get go, insisting that Fox isn’t a real news operation. Much of the mainstream-media remained silent on that charge though Jack Tapper would be an exception. When Tapper asked where the White House got off saying thousands of Fox employees don’t work for a media organization Jay Carney replied, “that’s our opinion”.
Obama recently told Ohio State students not to question authority. Looks like he really meant it.
Justice Department and AP
The Department of Justice is providing tougher oversight of the AP than it did of its own ATF during the Fast and Furious scandal.
Miranda
FBI agents thought they had 48 hours to extract terror information from Boston Bomber suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev. They were surprised when a federal judge strolled into his hospital room and read him his rights. The judge’s drop by was initiated when the Justice Department (home of the FBI) filed charges against Dzhokar.
Dzhokar’s dead brother, Tamerlan, once said that he didn’t have any American friends because he didn’t understand them.
Dzhokar, on the other hand, seems to understand Americans just fine. He immediately shut up.
Guns and Abortion
The Roe v Wade decision of 1973 established a woman’s constitutional right not to bear children. The constitutional right to bear arms was ratified by 3/4 of the states in 1791.
As the president would say, the public’s views have “evolved” on social issues. People are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality in general and same sex marriage in particular. Ten states plus the District of Columbia now recognize same sex marriage.
Abortion is trickier. According to a Quinnipiac poll 63% still support the Roe v Wade decision. Yet in a USA Today Poll only 28% believe it should always be legal, 52% say sometimes legal, and 18% never legal. Eighty percent feel it should never be legal in the last trimester of pregnancy – Dr. Gossnell’s sweet spot.
Unfortunately, that last trimester is also the sweet spot for politicians like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. While scolding the gun lobby’s “willfull lies”, the president blindly supports an abortion lobby that leads to barbaric practices like Dr. Gossnell’s.
(Journalists have been shamed into providing more coverage of the case.)
Shelter in Place
Law enforcement seem to love the media until they don’t. The digital wanted poster of the two Boston Marathon suspects was displayed on millions of screens and quickly led to the demise of suspect number one, and the capture of number two. The same media, however, inadvertantly gave away police positions with initial images of the search.
