Politics – Page 219 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Problems of Amateur Journalism

Freedom of the press is not absolute. Professional journalists generally know their limits. Apparently the guys behind the ACORN sting operation didn’t, and are now facing felony charges.

The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap DemocraticÂ Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in downtown New Orleans,Â arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O’Keefe aided and abetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office’s telephone system.

A fourth person, Stan Dai, was accused of aiding and abetting Basel and Flanagan. All four were charged with entering fedral property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

While I’m sure Landrieu has skeletons in her closet she’d not like seeing the light of day, there are good reasons why it’s unlawful to tap a Senator’s phone or bug an office. Senators, particularly those who sit on some key oversight committees, have access to information that’s sensitive for national security purposes. O’Keefe did good work taking down ACORN, but he went too far here. He’ll be lucky if he beats a felony rap on this one.

ANRPC Looking for Gun Permit Rationing

It’s a little known provision of New Jersey’s one-gun-a-month law that it doesn’t apparently allow the police to ration purchase permits; according to New Jersey law, you can still apply for as many purchase permits as you want, you just may not use them to buy more than one gun in a month time period. This was a key element of ANJRPC’s lawsuit. Nonetheless, there are reports that police departments are rationing permits anyway, and now ANJRPC is looking for some help:

We are looking for anyone who has applied for more than one permit to purchase a handgun and has been told by their police department that they may only apply for one permit per month.

Please contact us immediately to let us know. Email toÂ defendfreedom at earthlink dot net

So if you know someone, or are someone over in Jersey, who this applies to, be sure to contact ANJRPC. I suspect they are looking for some cases to bolster their lawsuit.

Constables Not the do Nothing Job Many Assume

There’s been speculation among Pennsylvania gun nuts that getting yourself elected Constable, which isn’t hard in a lot of areas, was a shortcut to being able to own Title II firearms (machine guns, etc), and a quick ticket to a nationwide carry permit. This always hinges on the belief that being a Constable is a do nothing job. But it turns out it’s not.

Smoke a Pipe?

The nanny staters are coming for you next.

Free Speech

Dave Hardy notes some interesting tidbits in the dissent in the Citizens United case. Namely that the dissenters on the court seem to believe that there ought to be no free speech rights for corporations. So we have free speech as individuals, but if you get together in a group you have no free speech.

Makes sense to me! It used to be you could count on the “liberal” wing of the Supreme Court to be steadfast in defense of civil liberties. I guess not anymore.

Don’t Deliver Pizza in Philly

I know, it’s hardly new advice to readers here. But apparently things are getting worse with the second fatal attack on pizza delivery guys in a two weeks.

I guess that quest to “minimize” the right to self-defense is working out pretty well for the city. I guess the only hope Philly has for economic recovery is a bustling underground economy that has a side effect of improving the economy of putting people underground.

Practical Translation of Yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision

I’m not going to bore you with the complexity of campaign finance laws. Really, it’s tedious. But my prediction is that the end result voters will actually see will be an increase in attack ads.

The Morning Call‘s John Micek has rounded up some insights, one in particular stands out:

Larry Ceisler, a Democratic consultant from Philly, said he thinks that while corporations might hesitate, unions will jump in with both feet. He also said that there’s a risk that unfettered corporate speech might drown out candidates’ own ads, which could cost them control of their own messages.

“For instance, if an entity is supporting a candidate and doesn’t think the message is tough or sharp enough, they can go in and do it themselves,” he told the newspaper. “That could be good for a campaign – or disastrous.”

I would be willing to put money on the fact that groups will now go more negative earlier than any candidate will. It’s unfortunate, but it is the likely result. In the Brown-Coakley race, her campaign worked alongside national groups to bombard the airwaves in the last week with nothing but negative ads against Scott Brown. Yes he was elected, but you can’t really argue they didn’t work. Rasmussen found on election day that voters who made up their minds in the last few days before the election broke for Coakley at a higher rate. He also found that more of Coakley’s supporters were really going to vote against Brown rather than for Coakley than vice versa. Unfortunately for Coakley, she just didn’t get the ads on the air early enough.

After that loss, I would say to expect more and expect them earlier. Though hopefully they will stay off of the Weather Channel this time around.

UPDATE: Marginal Revolution has posted word clouds from both the majority and dissenting opinions to give you a better idea of what each side was focused on.

Campaign Finance Decision Out

The case is Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. Looks like a bit of a judicial trainwreck, much like McConnell v. FEC was, but the good news is we’re rid of many of the restrictions, including restrictions on independent corporate expenditures, which would apply to groups like the National Rifle Association. So this is a positive development for us in the Second Amendment community.

For some expert opinion on the matter, see SCOTUSBlog, Volokh, and the Election Law Blog.

Improvements in LTC System

Looks like the state is looking to make some improvements in the License to Carry application process, so make it more standardized and quicker. This looks overall positive to me. Â We need more standardization. As it stands, our Sheriffs often like to use processes for application that are out of line with general practice in the state. For instance, Montgomery County gives you a “police card” to take to your local PD and get them to sign off on the application. They will do same day issue, but the process isn’t nearly well defined enough under state law, and more standardization I think can only be a positive thing.

II

Possible threeper flag spotted at a Brown victory rally? Did a bit of searching, and it would seem it’s an unrelated flag.

UPDATE: Whoops. It would seem Traction Control found it too. I didn’t notice the second flag was a link.