Politics

The Arizona legislature and the governor have passed legislation banning the sale of t-shirts that say “Bush Lied/They Died.” The Arizona legislature voted unanimously in favor of the ban, which allows for the punishment of a year in jail for using the names of deceased soldiers to sell goods, and gives the families of such soldiers the right to collect civil damages. This is an outrageous violation of the First Amendment to prohibit perfectly legitimate political speech using factual information in the public domain. Similar bans have also been passed in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, and are in the works in Florida. In Arizona, this law also violates the state constitution (Article 2, Sections 1, 2, and 6, in my non-lawyerly opinion). Several Democrats who voted for the bill have now agreed that they should not have, and made excuses for why they did: “I shouldn’t have voted the way I did,” House Minority Leader Phil Lopes said. The Tucson Democrat blamed his vote in favor of Senate Bill 1014 on a “senior moment." Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Tucson, said he thought problems he originally had with the measure had been fixed. He acknowledged not reading the final version. And Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, conceded that she wasn’t paying attention and was totally unaware of the contents of the bill on which she voted at least twice—once after a proponent of the measure gave a short floor speech explaining the essence of the bill and why he believed it was necessary. Our governor, also a Democrat, has given an equally lame response when asked why she signed such a clearly unconstitutional bill: …gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L’Ecuyer said a divided vote would not have resulted in a veto. “Her concern is for the families who lost someone,” L’Ecuyer said. Asked if Napolitano, a lawyer, believes the measure is unconstitutional, L’Ecuyer’s only response was, “The governor signed the bill."Napolitano cannot be re-elected, and after this, she clearly should not be. Any legislator who voted for this bill should be given the boot, which means cleaning out the entire Arizona legislature. Toss the bums out! The shirts are being sold by Dan Frazier of Flagstaff, who also offers some different messages on top of the list of names of the fallen soldiers. The Arizona Civil Liberties Union has already filed a lawsuit to overturn the law (PDF). If anyone in Phoenix is interested in purchasing some of these shirts as part of a group purchase (or as my resale at cost to you, so I can work some civil disobedience of an unconstitutional law into it), please let me know. UPDATE (August 24, 2007): Dan Frazier has gone to court to get an injunction against the law, but it looks like the legislators wrote the law not only in ignorance of the Constitution, but in ignorance of what Frazier is doing–the law doesn’t ban the sale of items using the names of fallen soldiers, it bans advertising using the names of fallen soldiers. The names are not legible on Frazier’s website, so he may not fall afoul of the law. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad, unconstitutional law, however. ...

Atheists, who see prayers in Congress as unconstitutional superstitious appeals to a fictional deity, have fought against them with arguments and lawsuits, observing that the First Amendment prohibits government establishment of religion. Some Christians, on the other hand, when they see unconstitutional superstitious appeals to a fictional deity that they don’t believe in, attempt to disrupt and silence the invited speaker doing the praying. These individuals apparently think that there already is an established governmental religion of Christianity. It does seem like we’ve moved a long way in that direction under the Bush administration. And whatever happened to Matthew 6:5-6? Has it been removed from some Christians’ Bibles? “And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, in order to be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” (NASB) (Also see Pharyngula’s take.) ...

Yesterday’s New York Times reports that two or three guards at the Dar Es Salaam bank in Baghdad successfully engineered the theft of $282 million in U.S. dollars from the bank. It’s not been explained why the bank had that much money in U.S. dollars. Historical Comments Trott (2007-07-14): Looks like it wasn't actually anywhere near the amount initially reported. News reports are now saying that the value was in dinars and not dollars as originally reported. If true, it was actually less than a million dollars stolen, which seems a more plausible figure. ...

Originally, he said that he would take action if he found that someone on his staff was responsible for leaking the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA covert agent to the press. Then, he said he couldn’t comment because an investigation was underway, then, that he couldn’t comment because a trial was underway. Now that the trial is over and he can comment, he pretty much comes right out and says he doesn’t give a damn.

Blogger Jon Swift observes how a number of conservatives have stated that if only we have another successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil, George W. Bush will regain popularity, public support for the war in Iraq will be restored, and all will be right with the world. Rick Santorum, Michael Fumento, Alexander Cornswalled, Jonah Goldberg, Rudy Giuliani, and Arkansas Republican Party chairman Dennis Milligan are quoted. Milligan’s quote: “At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ],” said the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan, last month, “and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."The 29% of Americans who support Bush should apparently pray for terrorist death to be rained down upon us. Perhaps they can all join Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, whose members also believe that God hates America and that terrorist attacks are in support of his will. (Via Radley Balko at the Reason Blog.)

Department of Justice civil appellate attorney John S. Koppel has written a scathing editorial in The Denver Post: As a longtime attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, I can honestly say that I have never been as ashamed of the department and government that I serve as I am at this time. The public record now plainly demonstrates that both the DOJ and the government as a whole have been thoroughly politicized in a manner that is inappropriate, unethical and indeed unlawful. The unconscionable commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s sentence, the misuse of warrantless investigative powers under the Patriot Act and the deplorable treatment of U.S. attorneys all point to an unmistakable pattern of abuse. ...

Peter Leeson, an economist at West Virginia University, is writing a three-part series on the economics of pirate behavior and institutions. The first two parts are available online. Part 1, “An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization," describes how pirates solved the problem of predation by captains that was common among naval and merchant ships by a system of checks and balances involving written constitutions and democratically elected captains and quarter-masters–in the 1670s, before England and a century before the United States introduced similar political developments. Part 2, “Pirational Choice: The Economics of Infamous Pirate Practices," looks at the reasons for the use of the “Jolly Roger” as a pirate flag and the practices of pirate torture and pirate conscription. Part 3 has been promised for the fall of 2007… These papers are an addition to the literature about non-governmental institutions of law and order that arise within criminal organizations, in the fringes between government jurisdictions, and in areas of governmental neglect. Some other works addressing these topics include Diego Gambetta’s excellent book The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection, Robert Neuwirth’s book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, Ian Lambot and Greg Girard’s City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City, and the HBO series Deadwood and The Wire.

Nathan Zamprogno has put together a nice list of the craziness that Kent Hovind purports to believe. (Via Pharyngula.) Historical Comments Nathan Zamprogno (2007-07-06): Thanks. Although I am sure that Hovind could be nailed on a lot of these kooky beliefs himself, I should point out that my analysis is confined largely to what Hovind's entourage believes. Hovind himself was a veritable fountain of nuttiness, as is extensively detailed at sites like http://www.kent-hovind.com/If I had to go into all the woo-woo Hovind spouted over the years, the article would be three times as long. ...

Fred Thompson was minority counsel on the House committee investigating the Watergate break-in. In that role, he regularly leaked information about the investigation to the White House–in effect, he was Nixon’s “Deep Throat." Ragin' Cajun (2007-07-06): If you do not have a factual source other than that liberal link you have in your article, I suggest you do not publish kindergarten grade insults to about a man you could not compare yourself to in fear of being embarrassed. You apparently do not have much knowledge of the Watergate scandal due to the fact your source is written by democratic ninnies who spend their life criticizing others while they themselves are nothing more than idols of personal assaults conducted by the liberal section of the media. Your article was written purely out of emotion, no facts. So, the next time you go about on the Internet calling people weasels because your afraid to say it to their face, think again and check facts. ...

Historical Comments Einzige (2007-07-07): "The Ambient President"(-ial candidate)If his videos are any indication of how he plans to run things, he'd clearly be our best president ever. He'd blow Van Buren out of the water!Alas...