Has Chief Justice Roberts Lost his Mind?

On Yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justice Scalia, wrote a dissent to the failure of their colleagues to grant writ of certiori for a Virginia case where where a drunk driver was puled over and arrested following an anonymous tip. This is apparently a growing practice in several states (including CA, NH and AZ). Many states (including FL) still adhere to the doctrine that the officer must observe DUI activity before effecting the arrest. In other words the officer must have a reasonable suspicion of DUI (or some other traffic violation) before stopping the vehicle.

As it stands right now, the bar is not very high for this reasonable suspicion, giving officers broad authority to stop you and begin questioning you about your drinking that evening. The most popular is to follow someone until they "weave", which is something that all but the most conscientious drivers do.

The idea of reasonable suspicion has been around for 41 years, since Terry v. Ohio created the "Terry Stop", and investigative tool which gives officers the ability to temporarily detain someone whom they reasonably suspect to be involved in the commission of a crime. In the years since, the Terry standard has been applied to all manner of searches and stops and has become a cornerstone of search and seizure law.

The second issue with respect to this is the anonymous tipster v. citizen informant. Anonymous tipsters are assumed to be unreliable, whereas citizen informants are assumed to be reliable. I have placed a call to report reckless driving to the police before, but when I did, I gave my name and a contact number. I was a citizen informant. If the anonymous tipster standard is upheld, then the idea of reasonable suspicion itself is in doubt. I am not saying that anonymous tips can not be used, only that the officer must have some verification before he makes you do the drunk dance. The inevitable result of the outcome Roberts desires, would be the elimination of 40+ years of protection from the word of an anonymous tipster being all that stands between you and a jail cell.

I will leave you with this example of the end-state example of what the policy that Roberts is espousing would lead to:

SHERIDAN, Wyo. (AP) - Mayor Dave Kinskey passed a sobriety test after a phoned-in tip that said he may have been driving under the influence of alcohol.
After he was pulled over Saturday night and passed the field sobriety test, Kinskey had his attorney drive him to a hospital, where he had a blood-alcohol test at his own expense. The test showed that his blood-alcohol level was 0.02 percent, according to Police Chief Mike Card....
City Councilwoman Kathy Kennedy said she was with Kinskey at a motorcycle rally Saturday and saw him drink two beers over two hours.
''To me this is just a smear campaign to try to get at him due to politics. I think it is pretty bad when an off-duty city employee calls in to smear the mayor by saying he was intoxicated when he wasn't,'' Kennedy said.

Justice Roberts is a smart man, but he is letting the swirl of emotions that often surrounds DUI to cloud his judgement with regard to the greater ramifications of his actions. Remember, emotion = bad law.

Brown rules out Senate bid, will return to her Feifdom

Much to the relief of Democrats and appointment of Republicans in NE Florida, Rep. Corrinne "Sandbag" Brown has decided against throwing her hat into the ring this coming year for Mel Martinez's Senate seat. Many people thought that this may have been just a fundraising stunt to get big cash into her coffers, but I disagree. Corrine Brown has sat, safely ensconced in her gerrymandered paradise, since 1993. While it may seem strange that the Republican legislature would carve out such a horrid beast as the Third Congressional District, take a closer look at the horseshoe-shaped district as well as its neighbors:

Note how it snakes down through Downtown and Westside Jax, Western Palatka, Eastside Gainesville and the more rural (and heavily minority) parts of Marion and Volousia counties, finally ending in the town of Pine Hills, if you are wondering why this is the only town encompassed fully in this district, check out the demographics. However, the point of this little story is the surrounding districts (see the inset). The 4th, 7th and 6th are very safe Republican districts, filled by Ander Crenshaw, Cliff Stearns and John Mica respectively. The other two, the 8th and the 24th (Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas) only recently fell to the Democrats in the 2008 Obama sweep. Both could go back on a dime, Grayson barely won and has been making a name for himself as a troublemaker in the healthcare debate, Kosmas is a dull-as-dishwater Blue Dog. What does this mean? In exchange for one syntax-mangling, wig wearing moonbat, the Republicans get anywhere between 3-5 safe seats by taking almost all of the large concentrations of African Americans out of their districts. If the R's keep the State House through 2010, I expect that the 8th and the 24th will be "adjusted" further to strengthen this advantage and remove Msrs. Crenshaw, Stearns and Mica from the onerous task of having to actually win over minorities.


Don't get me wrong, having Corrine around is a barrel of laughs, I will leave you tonight with her Top 5 "greatest hits":

1. During a debate on the House Floor for a bill that would provide for international monitoring of the 2004 elections, Brown called the 200 election a coup d'etat. She was later censured.
2. During early voting in the 2004 election, Brown, stood at the entrance to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections headquarters and began passing out a "pseudo-ballot," directing people to vote for only Democratic candidates and Florida amendments that should pass. Brown did not move the mandatory 50 feet away until that afternoon, claiming she was unaware of the rule and was only trying to educate people about early voting. 
3. In 2008, whilst the peasants in Jacksonville were trying to keep floodwaters out of their home during Tropical Storm Fay, Brown allegedly places a call to mayoral chief-of-staff Adam Hollingsworth who got a sandbag crew out to her house lickety split.
4. In 1998,  a West African businessman, Foutanga Bit Babani Sissoko, had purchased a $50,000 Lexus LS400 for Brown's daughter after Brown had lobbied Attorney General Janet Reno to release Sissoko from prison. Brown denied any wrong doing. 
5. And who could forget the moment where every heart in Gator Nation beat a little faster, or went into palpitations:

On a related note, please take a look at Mike Yost, who is tilting at this windmill in 2010.

Rush Limbaugh dropped from the Rams bid. TV idiot says he wants a "plantation"

For those of you who have not been following this story, Rush Limbaugh was part of a group of investors making a bid to buy he St. Louis Rams. The group was led by David Checketts who owns the St. Louis Blues hockey team. Is appears that as of yesterday, Limbaugh was dropped from the ownership bid.

This came on the heels of significant opposition from a wide array of athletes, businessmen and commissioners, mostly based on his controversial statements about Donovan McNabb during his brief stint as a football commentator. Most of is was the same jackassery that we have come to expect from NFL players, lots of whining about how they would not play at St. Louis and would not play for the Rams. Ignoring the fact that playing in the Edward Jones Dome is an easy win and that very few players would want to play for the Rams regardless, I see no reason for them to get themselves all wadded up over something that Limbaugh said 6 years ago.

This bid also led to the usual amount of media hysteria. Particularly entertaining is Pulitzer Prize winning hack Karen Hunter who decided that the reason the Limbaugh wanted this was because he had visions of being the "plantation owner".

How this woman is qualified to comment on this topic I do not know (check out her...ahem... body of work), but apparently it was not her research skills which got her the Pulitzer because she uses a completely sourceless and apparently fabricated quote of Limbaugh lamenting that James Earl Ray was so vilified.

I am no Limbaugh fan, I despise him personally and don't like his show. However, there is no reason in my mind to think that this is some crazy racist fantasy of his to make a bunch of millionaire black men dance for his amusement. He is from Missouri, he got his start in St. Louis. He has a dream like man men do, he wants to buy his hometown team. The fact that he has been elbowed out is sad and embarrassing for the NFL.

Khamenei Dead?

The word 'round the blogosphere is that the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the madness behind the top shelf crazy that is the Islamic Republic of Iran, is either in a coma or has kicked the bucket. The sources are scarce on the ground, but the Anti-Mullah (saying that he is dead) has some excellent sources deep in Iran so this one could be the real thing.

This creates a little issue, aside from the obvious implications. The Supreme Leader is elected by a group of high level clerics called the Assembly of Experts. Right now, the Assembly is led by a gentleman named Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is a former President and political wild card.  During the unrest this summer, Rasfanjani  played coy for a little while even though he had supported the opposition. As the protests gained stream, he threw in with Mousavi in a big way, calling for new elections and speaking out publicly at Friday Prayers a popular location for political posturing by the clerics. He has not spoken at Friday Prayers since then but still maintains his position on the AoE. It is certain that Khamenei would likely have replaced him on this body, but if this report is true, a man who has opposed Khamenei now holds the power of succession in his hands.

Happy Birthday, US Navy

On Friday, October 13, 1775, meeting in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two sailing vessels, armed with ten carriage guns, as well as swivel guns, and manned by crews of eighty, and to send them out on a cruise of three months to intercept transports carrying munitions and stores to the British army in America. This was the original legislation out of which the Continental Navy grew and as such constitutes the birth certificate of the navy.

It is important to realize that the Navy was not just a convenience, it was absolutely essential. The continentals had backed themselves into a corner with their lack of real Naval power. The British Navy, by far the most powerful force up to that time, had blockaded U.S. ports, raided U.S. shipping, interfered with the trade between our allies and, most importantly, was hauling soldiers to our shores.

We can thank the delegations from Rhode Island for seeing the need and proposing something that was widely thought to be far too bold for its time. The United States had a working shipbuilding industry, but no one had made anything remotely close to a warship.

In practice, the Revolutionary Navy was largely ineffective, with one notable exception. John Paul Jones, the Scottish-born sailor is generally considered to be the father of American Naval tradition. His bold attacks on the British Isles and his legendary battle with the HMS Serapis are the beginnings of a proud tradition that survived the sail, steam, ironclads, aircraft carriers and Aegis cruisers. Happy Birthday and Anchors Aweigh.