Anyway, onto this week’s shining examples of human compitence:

Joker Busted!

JULY 28–Meet Spencer Taylor. The Michigan man, 20, was arrested early yesterday morning for allegedly trying to steal Batman posters and other collectibles from a theater showing “The Dark Knight.” As can be seen in the below mug shot, Taylor went to the Three Rivers Cinema multiplex in costume as the Joker. According to cops, he was charged with larceny and malicious destruction of property, and had to pose for booking photos in and out of character.

Not a whole lot to be said here. Mr. Taylor, your life’s ambition seems to be wanting to be a 2-bit thug following in the footsteps of a crazed psychopath. Enjoy your time in lockup – it’ll take more than a phone call to get out of there if they do it right.

But what’s really missing from the illegal immigration argument? No, it’s not the national security issues of the drug cartels on the southern border. No, it’s not the anchor babies stories, or the story of Raemon and Campos (sp), or other border agents who were silenced for what they did down on the border. No… the argument we should be having, the argument that should be the PRIMARY focus of this debate…well, it looks something like this:

From the NYT (Not my favotire source, but they hit a grandslam on this one)

After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries
July 27, 2008
After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries

By JULIA PRESTON

POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants, they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.
Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through the night, sometimes six nights a week.
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”
At first, labor officials said the raid had disrupted federal and state investigations already under way at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher plant. The raid has drawn criticism for what some see as harsh tactics against the immigrants, with little action taken against their employers.
But in the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.
Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they were.
Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.
In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
To investigate the child labor accusations, the federal Labor Department has joined with the Iowa Division of Labor Services in cooperation with the state attorney general’s office, officials for the three agencies said.
Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration lawyer in private practice in Des Moines, is representing many of the young workers. She said she had so far identified 27 workers under 18 who were employed in the packing areas of the plant, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including some who were not arrested in the raid.
“Some of these boys don’t even shave,” Ms. Parras Konrad said. “They’re goofy. They’re teenagers.”
At a meeting here Saturday, three members of the House Hispanic Caucus — including its chairman, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois — heard seven immigrant minors describe working in the Agriprocessors plant.
Iowa labor officials said they rarely encounter child labor cases even though the state has many meatpacking plants.
“We don’t normally have many under-age folks working in our state,” said Gail Sheridan-Lucht, a lawyer for the state labor department, who said she could not comment specifically on the Agriprocessors investigation.
Other investigations are also under way. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining accusations of sexual harassment of women at the plant. Lawyers for the immigrants are preparing a suit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations.
Federal justice and immigration officials, speaking on Thursday at a hearing in Washington of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said their investigations were continuing. A federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids is hearing evidence.
While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.
In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”
So far, 297 illegal immigrants from the May raid have been convicted of document fraud and other criminal charges, and most were sentenced to five months in prison, after which they will be deported.
A spokesman for Agriprocessors, Menachem Lubinsky, said the company could not comment on an active investigation.
“The company has two objectives in mind: to restore its production to meet the demands of the kosher food market and to be in full compliance with all local, state and federal laws,” Mr. Lubinsky said. Reports of labor violations at the plant “remain allegations only, that no agency has charged the company with,” he said.
The Agriprocessors kosher plant here has been owned and operated since 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin and his family. His son Sholom was the plant’s top manager until he was removed by his father in May after the raid. The plant’s products are distributed across the country under brands including Aaron’s Best and Aaron’s Choice.
Most of the young immigrants were hired at Agriprocessors after they presented false Social Security cards or other documents saying they were older than they were.
But in an interview here, Elmer L. said he had told floor supervisors that he was under 18. He asked that his last name not be published on advice of his lawyer, Ms. Parras Konrad, because he is a minor in deportation proceedings.
“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.”
Elmer L. said that he regularly worked 17 hours a day at the plant and was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime consistently.
“My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.”
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.
Gilda O., a Guatemalan who said she was 16, said she worked the night shift plucking chickens. She said she was working to help her parents pay off debts.
Another Guatemalan, Joel R., who gave his age as 15, said he dropped out of school in Postville after the eighth grade and took a job at Agriprocessors because his mother became ill. He said he worked from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. in a section called “quality control,” a job he described as relatively easy that he got because he speaks English.
But he said he and other workers were under constant pressure from supervisors. “They yell at us when we don’t hurry up, when we don’t work fast enough for them,” said Joel R. He and Gilda O. did not want their last names published because they are illegal immigrants and they were not arrested in the raid.
Most of the young immigrants have been released from detention but remain in deportation proceedings. Ms. Parras Konrad said she will ask immigration authorities to grant them special four-year temporary visas, known as U visas, which are offered to immigrants who assist in law enforcement investigations. Iowa labor officials are considering supporting some of those requests, Ms. Sheridan-Lucht said.
Agriprocessors executives said they had begun an overhaul of hiring and labor practices, starting with hiring a compliance officer, James G. Martin, a former United States attorney in Missouri. In an interview, Mr. Martin said the company had contracted with an outside firm, the Jacobson Staffing Company, to handle its hiring, and new safety officers, including one former federal work safety inspector.
Mark Lauritsen, a vice president for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried to organize the plant, said he remained skeptical. “They are the poster child for how a rogue company can exploit a broken immigration system,” Mr. Lauritsen said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 28, 2008

An article on Sunday about a raid at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, in May that captured more than 20 under-age illegal immigrant workers misstated part of the name of a union that has tried to organize at the plant. It is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, not the International Food and Commercial Workers Union.[/quote]Here it is: no punches pulled because of being PC, no holding back because we like our god-damn cheap orange juice. Illegal immigration is modern day slavery. And we should god-damn know better.

I’m sure not every place that employs these 12+ million people is this bad. Every week I’m cashing checks that people who I know are here illegally are bringing to me from the work they do at the chicken plants. (You eat Tysons? Georges? Pilgrim’s Pride? Perdue? Cargil? You better believe it. Shenandoah Valley is food processing central for the east coast, and they employ only one kind of worker.) These people are getting paid next to nothing – a working wage that forces them into houses reminiscent of the 1930s New York projects – two, three and four families living on top of each other in a 3-room place.

You know what? Yeah, there’s a lot of drug runners, violent freaks, criminals streaming across the border. But most of these people aren’t like that. It’s time we stopped this crap. It’s time we sealed both damned borders and our coastal imports, and get this problem solved once and for all. The answer is not mass amnesty – that does nothing to stop these companies from hiring more slave labor. The answer is not mass deportation – that’s not going to end this practice either. But it’s time we drew a line in the sand, it’s time we make everyone foreign and domestic start respecting our laws. Seal the border, slam it to the businesses doing this to other human beings, and make the legal immigration process easier and faster.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Every word of that is true today. But only if we start taking responsibility for it, and stop acting like the antebellum south; making excuses because it’s inconvenient to do otherwise. (And yes, I say this as a southerner.) We have always been a nation of hope, a nation of opportunity. A nation where Liberty holds up her torch so you don’t have to hide in the shadows, unless you disrespect liberty itself. It’s time we guard the golden door – and let in those who are willing to live under that light.

And damn us for every minute we let this slavery continue.

–J.L.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the handgun, rifle, and shotgun ban in Washington D.C. was an egregious violation of the 2nd Amendment, affirming that it is the right of the individual citizen to bear arms, not just in the form of a government regulated militia.

More to follow as details and the rulings are released later today.

Update 1: Ruling was a 5-4 decision, with Scalia writing for the majority, which included Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito. Stevens wrote for the minority, joined by Ginsberg, Breyers, and Souter.

This ruling does NOT impact the ban on ownership of guns by felons and the mentally insane, nor does it affect current standing restrictions on the sales of firearms. (Delay, permit checks, licenses, etc.)

–J.L.

So, the legislators in the affected states are opposing this ruling, and are vowing to rewrite these laws anyway, to force the Supreme Court to address this issue again. Good.

One thing important to remember about all SC rulings – they are not laws. They are guidelines for lower courts to follow – in short, they set precedent, so it’s highly likely that all lower courts will rule in the same manner as the Supreme Court. However, in terms of law, they only have absolute authority in the specific case they heard. All other cases are simply “assumed” to follow in the same path. Thus, these states are absolutely in their right to ignore this ruling and pass new laws – they’ll simply be unable to enforce them until the SC reverses its ruling today.

More on the rest of today’s upcoming rulings, especially the gun ban, later.

–J.L.

CNN: Inmate Tries to Escape, Falls into Police Chief’s Office

So, apparently, these two glue-sniffers decided to try and escape through a tiny air vent. One got stuck, the other falls through into the chief’s office on his attempted escape. Knowing what these facilities are like, the duct was likely made of nothing more than sheet metal.

For their humorous escapades, we honor these two jailbirds with the first Torches & Pitchforks Idiot of the Week award. Enjoy guys! And next time, try digging a tunnel with a spoon.

–J.L.

The video can be found here: MoveOn.Org “Alex” video

The transcript:

A mother, holding a baby, holds him up and says:

“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he’s my first. So far his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. And so, John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

Coming from a military background, I find this ad particularly insulting. The US armed forces is a 100% volunteer force, and while an open draft is maintained under law, it has not been used since the end of the Vietnam war. Every man and woman currently serving does so by their own choice, as a willing adult volunteer. To imply that anything else would be the case is insulting to the troops, demeaning to their position, and ungrateful for the gift that these men and women have shed blood to give you – the right to put such an audacious advertisement out in the first place.

Note: MoveOn.Org is the same organization that took out a full page ad in the New York Times displaying the “General Betray Us” advertisement prior to the most recent hearing on the progress on the Iraq war. As a foot note to that, let me say this, for those who’ve not had the opportunity to be raised in the military ideals: know that there is no greater insult to a soldier than spewing that he or she betrayed his country, his family, and everything they fight for. None. It should be a mark of shame that MoveOn ever took this advertisement out, but apparently that’s not good enough for them.

May they be thankful that there are such brave men and women, who they chose to disparrage, who fight to protect their right to exist.

–J.L.

…out of global warming hysteria. In order to green up the city, and prevent cars from idling, they’re going to ban all restaurant drive throughs. This is likely to be followed up with any other drive throughs, including prescription pickup, banking, etc.

This town sounds like a homeowners’ association gone nuts. If I were living in this city, I’d be picking up my business and leaving – while it is probably within the authority of the city to do this, the idea that the local government should be so intrusive in the day to day affairs of business is absurd. Especially when such an action will not only have zero impact (we’ll do a global warming post on this later), being on a scale too small to fit, but will likely cause more environmental damage than if they’d let it be. (Cars produce more emissions during start-up than when idling.)

–J.L.

The Supreme Court released three rulings today, leaving four before it closes session for 2008. (Those are to be announced tomorrow.) Let’s touch on each of them and what they mean:

No Death Penalty for Child Rapists

The court heard a case brought up against a law in the state of Louisana that allowed for anyone who raped a child under 12 years of age to receive capital punishment. In a 5-4 ruling, with Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, the court has decided that the death penalty is not “proportionate to the crime”, and is in violation of the cruel andunusual punishment clause of the eighth amendment. This overturns similar laws in five additional states.

The court said nothing in regard to the use of capital punishment for murder or treason. (The two most longstanding uses for it.) Earlier this year, the Supreme Court affirmed that the death penalty via lethal injection does not violate the cruel and unusual clause. Further, in 1977, the Supreme Court declared that the death penalty is not an appropriate sentence for the rape of adults. Until this case (had it gone the other way), no one had been executed for any form of rape since 1944 in the US.

Reaction to this seemed to be negative across major political figures:

“The opinion reads more like an out-of-control legislative debate than a constitutional analysis,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican. “One thing is clear: The five members of the court who issued the opinion do not share the same ‘standards of decency’ as the people of Louisiana.”

The decision resonated in the presidential campaign, too, where Democrat Barack Obama objected to it. Obama said there should be no blanket prohibition of the death penalty for the rape of children if states want to apply it in those cases.

Robert Jindal is, in addition to the Gov. of Louisana, a rising figure of prominence in the Republican party – and likely a future presidential nominee (if not McCain’s VP selection this time). Obama…well, we all know who he is. I’m actually surprised he responded this way – kudos to him for taking what most Americans would consider a more sensible rationale towards this hideous crime.

This case is what it is. I find myself disagreeing with the court on this one, but the implications of the case are obvious. I’m just left with one last hope on this: When Justice Kennedy said that the death penalty was not “proportional to the crime”, do you think he really meant that the convicted should get a life sentence with a 400lb, solid muscle cellmate named “Molly”? Because, I could actually go for that ruling.

In general, I’m conflicted on the death penalty – you could talk me into either way. I don’t like the government having the authority to put people to death; general snowball/hill idea here. However, I think there are some people who simply cannot be rehabilitated under any circumstances, and it does us little good to hold them forever – some crimes are simply deserving of death. If it must be done, then a fair and open trial should be the only way it happens.

Some would argue that the death penalty sets an example to other would-be criminals. While I would normally agree with this, I’m forced to say “Not in our legal system”, where the average death row sentence takes 25+years to carry out.

Court Slashes Penalties for Exxon-Valdez

The Exxon-Valdez oil spill has finally made it to the Supreme Court. Only took a short eternity. Environmental groups were suing Exxon for 2.5 billion, saying they needed to take responsibility for environmental damages. The Supreme Court disagreed, lowering the total penalty to roughly 500 million, saying that the original penalty was far too harsh, given that while Exxon was originally at fault for the spill, their actions after it happened in immediately cleaning it up and repairing the environment negated the majority of their liability.

Is what it is. There’s no precedent setter here, this is just a final ruling. Fascist environmental groups are pissed, I am therefore happy.

Court Rules on Specific Testimony for Murder Case

This one’s a little odd. A man was convicted for murder partly based on a recording of his girlfriend calling the police to claim that he had assaulted and threatened to kill her. The court ruled that the man was to be retried based on the fact that there is a constitutional right to face your accuser, even if you are responsible for that accuser not being present. The ruling was a 6-3, with Justice Scalia writing for the majority, and Justice Breyer for the minority opinion. Further, the ruling does not overrule a previous ruling saying that if you kill someone to prevent them from testifying in court, that testimony need not be thrown out.

I had to do a double-take on this one. My first reaction was to vehemently disagree with the ruling – after all, if you kill someone, it’s pretty hard for them to testify against you. But, two things made me think this one through again: 1) you have a constitutional right to face your accuser. In all cases. 2) In the US justice system, you are innocent until proven guilty (unless it’s a speeding ticket or a traffic camera…that’s another post for later). It is therefore impossible to reconcile the idea that “This testimony can stand because you killed her so she can’t be here” with the idea that “well, you didn’t kill her in the eyes of the law until the jury says so”.

Further, under such circumstances, the recording falls under the same category as a diary entry by the victim – legally such matters can be used to get a search warrant or the like, but in the court room, amount to hearsay at worst and circumstantial evidence at best. In short, a prosecution needs better evidence than this.

This is a case where the decision might be uncomfortable, but for the rights of the accused to remain intact in accordance to our Constitution, it had to be made. Kudos to the majority for a tough decision here.

The fourth and final case announced today had to do with whether or not a tribal court on a Federal Indian Reservation had the right to try non-tribal members. The Supreme Court put extreme limitations on their ability to do so, establishing that the rules are similar to foreign nations trying American citizens. Story is here.

Meh? Don’t steal from casinos?

Tomorrow, they’ll be ruling on the DC gun ban. This one should be fun. There’s been some inside-the-beltway rumors that it’s going to be a plurality ruling… if that’s the case, we have some problems.

–J.L.

Not certain I like the layout, but we’ll go with this for a temp. Feedback on this one v. the old theme?

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Endorses “Fairness Doctrine”

Little background first:

The Fairness Doctrine traces back to 1949, and until 1967 was applied to broadcasting licences on a selective, case-by-case basis. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission picked up the Fairness Doctrine as a general policy, under the auspices of President Johnson and the Democratic controlled Congress. It remained a matter of communications policy under President Reagan axed it in 1987 as an unconstitutional burden on the broadcasting companies and the right of free speech of the people.

So what is the “Fairness Doctrine”? The Fairness Doctrine argues that the radio airwaves are to be considered public band in all cases, and because of that, the government should have the right to regulate them. In this regulation, the government will enforce an “equal air time” on all broadcasters who discuss any political matters. What this means is that all broadcasting companies who, for example, play Rush Limbaugh’s three hour radio program, will be required to put a liberal host on their station for a three hour period.

So, what’s the issue?

The Fairness Doctrine amounts to government censorship over the radio news industry which has been governed by the rules of a free market since 1987. The radio networks are not supported by taxpayer dollars, but rather by paid advertising during broadcasting. As such, the content of the radio programs are determined not by broadcast managers with a particular political bent, but rather by the listening audience, who, in getting what they want to hear, cause the stations to net a higher advertising revenue. It’s the same formula TV stations use – higher ratings = higher charges to advertise during that period; or, more people tuning in = more money for the broadcasting station.

So, what happens when the “Fairness Doctrine” is implemented by the government to control what speech is on the airwaves? Well, each broadcasting station would have to undertake the arduous task of record keeping by-the-minute how much talk time is spent on each particular viewpoint, and then offset that with an opposite view, as determined by a bureaucrat in the FCC. Failure to do this could result in massive fines, or the loss of their broadcasting licence. A single political activist could send a letter of complaint to the FCC and have a station stripped of all rights to do business, or held up in litigation for months in a federal circuit court. Stations residing in smaller towns would simply abandon the format rather than risk their business as a whole – switching instead to, say, home gardening tips, or music content only. In effect, it is a government censorship that violates the entire spirit of the First Amendment.

It should be further noted that the Fairness Doctrine of the 60s and forward extended not only to political talk, but to religious broadcasts as well – every hour of any religious discussion on the airwaves had to be offset by an atheist discussing their point of view on the subject.

It’s not as though the left hadn’t tried to make their way into the broadcasting market either. The largest liberal broadcasting network is known as Air America – existing between 2004 and 2006, when a money laundering scandal forced them to shut down. Air America never made more than 1.2% of the total market share, being popular in cities such as Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin. Other cities, such as Los Angeles and San Fransisco also maintain prominent liberal radio stations. The problem such stations faced, however, was one of geography and demographics. Radio is an ideal format for bringing a message across large distances relatively cheaply – the equipment necessary to listen to it is both cheap and mobile. However, most liberal populations tend to live clustered, in city areas, where the expansive range available to radio is meaningless. The map to the left, though only by state, illustrates this problem. The vast geographic expanse of the conservative base lends itself more to radio than any other broadcast format; unlike print and television, which thrive in urban environments. As such, the radio only-effects of the Fairness Doctrine amount to a political squelch on what is perhaps the primary forum for the conservative movement.

In short, this is an effort by those Democrats controlling Congress to squelch political speech. Congressman Mike Pence (R-Tenn) has put forward a bill called the Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, which would ban the Fairness Doctrine for all time. This is necessary, because as it is now an act of Congress is not required to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine – only an order from the President, and Obama has refused to say where he stands on this issue. (An indicator that he supports it – however, the Fairness Doctrine polls badly with the left and the right both, it is only popular among elected officials.) Congressman Pence’s bill is currently being held in committee, awaiting the last few signatures he needs to force it out of legislative holding. In the article above, Pelosi is asked that if he gets the requisite signatures, will she allow the bill to be voted on in the House? Her reply is telling:

“No,” the Speaker replied, without hesitation.  She added that “the interest in my caucus is the reverse” and that New York Democratic Rep. “Louise Slaughter has been active behind this [revival of the Fairness Doctrine] for a while now.”

Here, she basically admits that the leadership of the Democratic party has every intention of reviving the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine is a reprehensible assault on the free speech rights of the people. At its core, it is fundamentally wrong – the notion that the government somehow owns radio wave signals is akin to saying the government owns sunlight. It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to censor political speech in opposition to those currently in power, because those backers of the FD know full well that stations will sooner silence themselves than try to balance a misguided concept of equal airtime. This form of attack on speech is exactly the purpose the first amendment serves – to prevent the silencing of the minority political position, and force an open transparency in government.

–J.L.

Update: Apparently, this is being followed in the great down under as well – for a good summary of what’s going on, check out this article as well.