The Supreme Court Gets it Right on Police Evaders

In an unusually one-sided and resounding 8-1 decision, we learn by way of this story that the U.S. Supreme Court has afforded liability to police officers who use reasonable force to end high speed chases. I'm certainly no fan of the police, but I've represented enough criminal defendants to know that running from them only makes whatever was going on that put you on their radar screen a hundred times worse, and in most states, if you flee in a motor vehicle, that's a felony. There's a reason fleeing in a car from the police is a felony...it's because a vehicle is a massive, deadly weapon that can endanger the lives of the public at excessive speeds when running from the police.

If the police officer was simply speeding with his siren blaring for fun or in a non-life threatening situation, then a different liability standard should be used and the officer should be held accountable based on the circumstances of his particular case. In this decision, however, the defendant was going to be pulled over by an officer for a speeding violation, but he fled, reaching speeds of up to 100 MPH and endangering the lives of many people along the way. The officer successfully used the bumper of his own vehicle to end the chase, but the fleeing suspect became a quadriplegic. While that is extremely unfortunate, the paralyzed man never should have succeeded in his initial lawsuit against an officer who was simply doing his job. This man put at risk his own life, and the officer did not force him to flee, so the officer was correctly found not to be liable in this lawyer's humble opinion. This was a rare common-sense, correct decision from the Supremes...maybe they should try it more often.

New Job Status Report

As most of you know and as I detailed in my last post, I started a new job, and as of today, I've been there two weeks. Although my official training period is over, the expectation is that it will be up to six months before I've really found my groove and learned the nuances of what I'll be doing on a day to day basis. I've done more intellectual heavy lifting these past two weeks than I did my last two years at my most recent job, and I really enjoy that challenge. I am learning new things about some areas of the law I already knew things about and other areas that I had no experience with, and these are things I actually wanted to learn about and gain experience in. That desire certainly helps me enjoy my work more than I ever have before. Not only that, my new co-workers have been very helpful so far in showing me the ropes, and they seem to be very nice and friendly folks personally. Also, the structure of my job allows for employees to be rewarded for excellent work...the more they produce, the more they earn. What a radical concept that is! It's nice to be working somewhere that challenges me, allows me professional growth opportunities, and rewards me financially for doing good work. I'm excited to learn more and grow with the company, and I can't wait to see where it takes me.

For the time being, I'm still a bit of a nomad in terms of my living situation though. I stayed a couple of weeks on a friend's couch, and I'm staying the next couple of weeks at another friend's rental house, but thankfully, it looks like my apartment, which is a few blocks from my office, should be ready for me to move into in a couple of weeks. Until then though, I'm enjoying the quiet of the country afforded by the rental house, but I'm not so crazy about the commute (about 30 minutes one way). Even so, I've not had to pay rent in either place, and that helps me out getting on my feet financially in a new place, so I very much appreciate my friends who are helping me. In times past, I've helped friends in that way and expected nothing in return, and it looks like what goes around does come around, even in the case of good things. Once my living situation is settled, I'll get back to the full-time business of being involved with my church the way I want to be, working out the way I'd like, and pursuing my hobbies and interests as much as possible. That's just as exciting as finding a job I love, and I'm ready for it to happen...so I say to the Lord and to the calendar, bring it on!

Paris Hilton Goes Directly to Jail...No Passing Go or Collecting $200

OK, so I couldn't help passing along this piece of news after a good chuckle...just read this story via MSNBC. Although Paris Hilton has no discernible talents of any kind, because of her name, relentless partying, and just being a ho' in general, she is a celebrity. After some thought, I've decided to tone down my sense of glee just a bit. I've seen clients in my days as a public defender who got the book thrown at them when they didn't deserve it, and it looks like this judge may have gone overboard, but only a little. Just because she is a celebrity doesn't mean she should get special treatment, but neither does it mean she should get punishment beyond what's appropriate. I think because she did violate her probation, her excuses didn't fly, and because she showed up to court late, a good ten days in jail plus a crapload of community service that would keep her busy on the weekends for the better part of the summer would have been a more appropriate sentence. Maybe she'll realize now that the law applies to her too, but I doubt it. Consider this karma for all the crazy, stupid stunts she's pulled over the years and gotten away with, but that still doesn't mean the judge should have hammered her quite as hard as he did.

The Dangers of Denial by Academia, Liberalism, and Socialism

In this post, Emperor Misha lays some vicious lumber to the idiocy of everyone who lives in a unicorn-inhabited la-la land where they think that evil doesn't exist, and that when it does, it can be emoted away, rationalized and/or solved. If the denial experts, most of whom fall into one or more of the above categories, began by acknowledging these 7 very clear and simple truths, a lot of junk science and outright stupidity would be history in very quick fashion. Read the whole thing.

1. There is evil in our world.

2. That evil can and moreover, will manifest itself in barbaric, murderous acts unpredictably random by their very nature.

3. The pathology of the human mind is perfectly capable of planning and perpetrating harm on it’s fellow man regardless using whatever is available for instruments of destruction and mayhem.

4. Evil isn’t a manifestation of some created social/cultural injustice perpetrated by the actor. Evil has no set of precursor events, nor does it need any. Hearing Abba muzak riding an elevator could very well turn otherwise sane humans into psychopaths.

5. No change in social, economic or cultural behaviors will prevent evil from emerging in some fashion. That emergence may or may not manifest in mass murder or overt violence, it’s irrational prima-facie and impossible to predict all possible permutations. By definition it will happen and repeatedly as it’s endemic to any biological-animal process.

6. Evil will affect enough humans within a sufficient behavioral/psychological template that they will band together in order to perpetuate their pathology. History has observed numerous groups with behavior that just can’t be justified by rational analysis as other than pure evil. There will always be an Al-Qaida, Hitler, Stalin, Kim-Jong Il, somewhere, someplace.

7. The liberal mindset will always search for rationality of emotion within that which again, by definition cannot be explained or prevented by any rational remedy. Therein lies the danger of liberal, emotive rationalization. It leads to more hand-wringing, foolish social or cultural solutions, only to be blind-sided by the next malignant outbreak of evil.

Ted Nugent, A Rock Star and Celebrity With a Brain on the VT Massacre

By now, the mass self-flagellation and calls for large-scale gun control (if not confiscation) have begun, with any number of braindead celebri-tards and mushbrained members of the MSM leading the charge. I won't spoil it for you because the whole thing needs to be read, but Ted Nugent lays down the law quite well for the anti-gun lobby, complete with examples of how translating the current round of suggested insanity re: guns would look if applied to other tragic incidents in America's history...good times indeed. If you're looking for more black belt displays in the art of verbal takedown, look to Emperor Misha here, Mike at Cold Fury here, and see why Fred Thompson should be the next President of the U.S. in 2008 here.

By Ted Nugent
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Rock guitarist Ted Nugent has sold more than 30 million albums. He's also a gun rights activist and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. His program, "Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild," can be seen on the Outdoor Channel.

WACO, Texas (CNN) -- Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby's Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.

Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.

Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby's Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden "feel good" politics.

She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.

No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a "cult of agriculture fertilizer" following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh's heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted "steak knife control" as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.

Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.

Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.

Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun ban. Feel better yet? Didn't think so.

Who doesn't get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?

I'll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that's who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to "feel good" is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

Pray for the families of victims everywhere, America. Study the methodology of evil. It has a profile, a system, a preferred environment where victims cannot fight back. Embrace the facts, demand upgrade and be certain that your children's school has a better plan than Virginia Tech or Columbine. Eliminate the insanity of gun-free zones, which will never, ever be gun-free zones. They will only be good guy gun-free zones, and that is a recipe for disaster written in blood on the altar of denial. I, for one, refuse to genuflect there.

Muslim "Charities" = Terrorist Money Launderers...?

According to this report by Judicial Watch, quite a few of the most prominent Muslim "charities" in America have, at a minimum, a high number of ties to known terrorists and terrorist organizations. Some of the highest officers and representatives of some of these organizations have even been found guilty in American courts (which, ironically, provide them far more due process protections than their beloved sharia courts) of providing material aid to terrorist organizations. Read the whole thing and judge for yourself, especially the conclusion below, but I'd say it's pretty damning for the organizations. I also pray that the spineless weasels in Washington would get over their cult of political correctness and monitor these groups in such a way that shows our government takes seriously the threat of radical Islamic jihadists and the propaganda arms right here on our own soil, but I won't be holding my breath.

CONCLUSION

"Many radical Islamic organizations are alive and functioning in
the United States, operating under the guise of “mainstream”
charities. They are jeopardizing United States national security
by supporting terrorist groups working to destroy the U.S. and
the American way of life but, disturbingly, the United States
government seems to turn a blind eye to their activities in the
name of political correctness."

A Cornucopia of Links on the Virginia Tech Massacre

First and foremost, my deepest sympathies, condolences, and prayers go out to the deceased and all their families. This is a horrible tragedy and the worst school massacre in the history of our country. Other than the completely proper mourning, remembrance, and grieving, this is not a time for knee-jerk political reactions, runaway emoting, large-scale gun seizure, or any other such idiocy. Rather, it is a time for reflection on how this happened, how to prevent it happening again, and calling on the carpet every moron socialist who would exploit this tragedy to take away yet more of our ever-eroding freedoms. In that vein, here are some links on heroism in the face of tragedy, part of the idiocy in high places that set the stage for this tragedy, and some vicious, might, righteous swings of the cluebat to the skulls of the resident mushbrains who want to make it easier for such tragedies (or worse) to happen again...read them all.

HEROES

From Emperor Misha, here is the story of a brave VT professor and Holocaust survivor sacrificing himself for the lives of his students. In death, he became the civilian equivalent of Jason Dunham, Rafael Peralta, and countless other military heroes who laid down their lives for their fellow man. May God welcome him and bring peace to his grieving loved ones.

ACCESORIES

Once again, from Emperor Misha, we can thank the Virginia Legislature and the gun-grabbing ninnies at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for making sure that the gunman on the Blacksburg campus was the only one carrying heat on that fateful day. I sometimes wonder how it must feel to be accessories in the snuffing out of thirty-three human lives, but unlike these crime-enabling slapnuts, I'm glad I don't know and hope I won't have to find out.

CLUEBAT HOME RUN CHAMPIONS

The silver medalist is Emperor Misha, who absolutely lays waste to a mainstream media moron (pardon the redundnacy) suggesting a repeal of the Second Amendment before the victims are even named and before their bodies are cold and in the ground.

But the co-gold medalists and Clue Bat Home Run Champions are the ever wise Mrs. DuToit, who preaches more common sense re: gun policy and the Second Amendment than the entire MSM combined here and here, and dispenses massive doses of wisdom re: living like a sheepdog and not a sheep here, and Greg at Gonzo's Bar and Go Go Grill, who mercilessly lays the verbal smackdown to liberals, anti-gun ding dongs, and VA Tech Administrators everywhere here. All I can say is DAMN! That will leave a mark and ruin some folks' rest of the week...HAHA!