High School Teaches ACLU a Lesson on Bullying

It's that time of year again. Schools are graduating and the ACLU is trying to ruin the graduating seniors' special day with their bullying tactics of threatening lawsuits, along with their partner in crime, a group known as Americans United for Separation of Church of State.

Well, I hope the Obamas are especially proud of these students this year in light of their campaign to address bullying among our youth. You see, these kids and their parents, friends and neighbors told the ACLU and their ilk to shove it and held their graduation in a church.

Quite honestly, it was the common sense answer and as anybody who was involved in this graduation will tell you, it was about logistics, not religion. One student out of the thousands who graduated took issue and this is what gave these two party-pooping sourpuss groups all the leverage they needed to threaten the lawsuit.

Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of this whole separation of church and state argument to begin with. There is no part of the Constitution which advocates such a thing. The Constitution forbids the establishment of a state religion. The founding fathers wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened and was happening in England where whoever sat on the throne dictated the religion of the country and ruthlessly prosecuted those who didn't comply.

The entire phrase "separation of church and state" actually comes from some correspondence Thomas Jefferson had with a colleague that somehow made it into the comments made by Supreme Court justices in a case ruling in 1879, and as they saym the rest is history.

The use of a facility, which just so happens to have a cross atop the roof, does not make for the establishment of religion. Nobody makes attendance at the ceremony a condition of receiving a diploma, nor does anybody have to convert or engage in any sort of religious act for that matter.

Quite frankly, I remember very little about my own high school graduation. That is in part because I graduated early and already had a full-time job while awaiting word on the various colleges I had applied to. In fact, two hours after the actual receiving of the diploma I was back at work. While graduating high school is the high point of a young person's life, I would hope it winds up being merely another bullet point on their list of accomplishments in life. Savor it while it lasts, but always, always be planning your next accomplishment.

Congratulations to all those who graduated and I wish them well in their future endeavors.

Just to end on an upbeat note, here is one young lady who already has her next graduation planned.

Child Cruelty Doesn't Translate For the ACLU

A court in Georgia has overturned the conviction and sentence of a women who brutally beat her child because she didn't have a translator for her native language in court. As always with the ACLU there is more to the story so I did some background research on this. According the site TexasTranslator here were the circumstances surrounding the case.

Annie Ling is Malay, has lived in the US since 2000 and her husband is American. Her American defense attorney Justin Grubbs, is himself married to a Malay woman and has a much clearer awareness of Annie Ling's language situation than lobbyists for increased government subsidies. Mr Grubbs explained the charges of cruelty to a child to the defendant with the help of family members conversant in both languages. He also explained the one-year sentence plea bargain offer just as clearly. The defendant rejected the advice of counsel and the case went to trial. The jury saw photographs of the beaten child and sentenced her to ten years in prison followed by five years' probation instead of the one-year sentence she could have had through the professional competence of her attorney. What got the verdict were the photographs of the badly beaten baby Catherine shown to the jurors. There is no language barrier to understanding photographs of a beaten child.

Ms Ling was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in jail along with another 5 years on probation.

I could never be a lawyer. It is just impossible for me to check my common sense at the door in pursuit of some other sort of high ideal. How do people in the legal profession sleep at night?

One question for the ACLU. Who is speaking for the child?

ACLU Sues Obama on Behalf of Terror Kingpin Awlaki

Maybe some day the ACLU headquarters will get blown up and these America-haters will snap out of it. Though I doubt that will happen. Why would terrorists attack their most ardent supporters?

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government over an alleged policy of killing American citizens who are suspected of terrorism.

The lawsuit, filed today in federal court in Washington, argued that such targeted assassinations by the government are unconstitutional.

“A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement announcing the filing of the case against U.S. President Barack Obama, the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The New York-based group, together with the Center for Constitutional Rights, brought the case on behalf of Nasser al- Awlaki, father of a U.S.-born Islamic cleric in Yemen, Anwar al- Awlaki, who is accused of having ties to al-Qaeda.

The younger al-Awlaki, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been marked for death by the U.S. Defense Department and the CIA, according to the organizations.

U.S. forces are trying to find al-Awlaki, saying he has been linked to plots against American targets including the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device aboard an airliner approaching Detroit in December.

Needless to say, these jokers have impeccable timing. As this story was released a couple of terror suspects of Yemeni origin were arrested.

Monday's arrests of two suspects of Yemeni descent are another example of what federal officials and observers say is a growing problem with extremism and terrorist threats emanating from Yemen.

During the past year, a number of high-profile terrorism cases -- especially those involving Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim-American cleric of Yemeni descent -- have caused concern among government officials and others concerned about anti-American threats. The CIA says it now believes that a branch of al-Qaida in Yemen is a greater threat than al-Qaida in Pakistan, the main focus since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a report last week in the Washington Post.

With his fluent English, al-Awlaki has become popular over the Internet among some radical Muslims living in the West. U.S. intelligence officials found e-mails between al-Awlaki and Nidal Malik Hasan, the Muslim man accused of going on a shooting rampage on a military base in November that killed 13 people. Al-Awlaki also is believed to have inspired the Dec. 25 bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airplane. The suspect in that case is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a native of Nigeria.

Surely the ACLU will be representing them in court.

The Boy From Brazil seems very concerned over Al-Awlaki's rights, such as they are.

It's an authoritarian scene out of some near-future dystopian novel, yet it's exactly what is happening. This is precisely the reaction of a substantial portion of the population which has been trained to believe every unproven government accusation of Terrorism. The mere utterance of the accusation -- Terrorist -- sends them into mindless, fear-driven submission, so extreme that they're willing even to endorse a Presidential-imposed death penalty on American citizens with no due process: about the most tyrannical power that can be imagined, literally.

Get a grip.

Sad News: ACLU Funding Suffers Steep Drop

Anti-American agitators hardest hit. How soon until Congress bails them out?

The American Civil Liberties Union is losing a quarter of its yearly donations now that a major donor has cut off $19 million in annual donations because of economic difficulties.

David Gelbaum said in a statement that he was indefinitely stopping the donations that had made him the New York-based group's largest anonymous donor. He's also stopping some $12 million in yearly gifts to the Sierra Club Foundation and about $50 million a year that he's been giving to an organization serving veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gelbaum says the credit crisis and his investments in alternative, clean energy companies have left him with few liquid assets.

Well, they've got a friend in the White House now, so I'm sure they'll be taken care of.

The veterans group Gelbaum has contributed heavily to does seem like a worthwhile cause at least.

When Dissent Is No Longer Patriotic

A Wisconsin man who has fought for his country in Iraq decides to protest by flying the American flag upside down. Legitimate dissent or public nuisance?

An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.

A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest — over a liquor license — continued.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

"It is not often that you see something this blatant," Ahmuty said.

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down — an accepted way to signal distress — outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.

He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Congine's upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

It's not often you'll see me agreeing with the ACLU. Considering Congine was flying the flag on his own property, I can't see what the problem is.

One can only imagine the outcry if he was protesting the war, he'd have the media hordes rushing to his side and we'd be hearing how dissent no longer was tolerated in America.

Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down.

"It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

Obama Comes to His Senses, Won't Release Abuse Photos

This is what pandering to the far left gets you. An enormous headache and the appearance of being a vacillating jellyfish.

On the upside, you're doing the right thing.

As Democrats appear to be feeling the limits of national security politics, President Obama has reversed course and will object to the court-ordered release of photos depicting the abuse of detainees.

More here.

ACLU SLAMS: “If it’s true that they’re reversing position, we find that wholly unacceptable,” ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer told POLITICO. “It’s inconsistent with the commitment they’ve made to the court and its inconsistent with the promise of transparency that they’ve repeated many times both before the election and since.”

Jaffer said the ACLU had not been officially informed of the government’s change in stance, which he earlier called an effort to “renege” on the administration’s prior promise.

From Jake Tapper:

The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees -- the same battle that led to President Obama's decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for brutal interrogation methods, many of which the International Committee of the Red Cross calls torture.

It's unclear what step the White House will now take, whether the administration will challenge the release in appellate court with new arguments or whether it will take the case to the Supreme Court.

But the idea that the photos should not be released because they would be a national security risk for US troops is hardly a new argument.

The Bush administration had argued that an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act was needed with these photographs because of the FOIA exemption for law enforcement records that could reasonably be expected to endanger “any individual." The release of the disputed photographs, the Bush administration argued, will endanger United States troops, other Coalition forces, and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Update: Excitable Andy:

Slowly but surely, Obama is owning the cover-up of his predcessors' war crimes. But covering up war crimes, refusing to proscute them, promoting those associated with them, and suppressing evidence of them are themselves violations of Geneva and the UN Convention.

Take a deep breath.

Surprise! Holder Has Glaring Conflict of Interest With Club Gitmo

No wonder the guy is in such a hurry to shut the place down. Seems his old law firm is still in the business of representing these monsters who want to kill us.

ATTORNEY General Eric Holder toured Guantanamo Bay this week, a "fact finding" visit prompted by President Obama's "close Gitmo" order.

One wonders if his eyes were open to the facts on the ground - given Holder's evident conflict of interest.

Holder's previous job, after all, was as a senior partner with Covington and Burling - a white-shoe DC law firm that devotes considerable pro bono time to defending the Gitmo detainees. The job paid $2 million a year, and he expects to collect a like amount this year as part of his separation package.

As a senior partner, he undoubtedly had significant input on what kind of charity cases his firm picked up. He surely knew that dozens of lawyers from from his firm were among the 500-plus civilian lawyers representing the 244 or so remaining detainees (on top of military-court-appointed defenders).

Even now, his Covington colleagues continue to allege rampant torture at Gitmo. They're fighting hard to have detainees tried through the US court system - essentially given the same rights as US citizens. And their arguments and plans hinge largely on having Holder issue a bad report card.

Recent polls indicate that at least half of Americans disagree with affording the detainees legal rights on US soil. Will they have the same access to Holder's ears as his former colleagues do?

Will the people that Holder recently called a "nation of cowards" on racial issues be prepared to handle the truth from Gitmo - that, aside from three isolated cases of abuse in fall 2002, treatment at Gitmo has been transparent and exemplary?

If he tells the truth, Holder will report back that detainees are treated far more humanely and safely than in most US prisons - and are accorded religious respect in the form of individual Korans, prayer beads and orange cones in hallways during prayer time to remind US guards to speak softly.

He'll tell the president that the amount of actionable intelligence information flowing from Guantanamo is significant, has thwarted attacks on America and broken up sleeper cells here and in Europe. And that such intelligence gives us the tools to intercept al Qaeda money-laundering and cash transfers, defeat improvised explosive devices and disrupt terrorist recruiting and organizing.

Eric Holder, racial coward, doesn't care about any of that. It's all about living in the fantasy world of having people love us.

All while they plot our destruction, aided and abetted by those in our own government.

Change!

Sadly, Holder and Obama are getting their marching orders from the ACLU and the MoveOn.org bunch.

It has become an article of faith among the MoveOn.org crowd and the Democratic Party's liberal base to denounce Guantanamo as a symbol of inhumane treatment and torture. (Indeed, in his address to Congress on Tuesday, the president announced the closing of Guantanamo in the same paragraph in which he said "that is why I can stand here tonight and say . . . the United States of America does not torture.")

Yet that symbolism doesn't square with the real Gitmo.

Detainees at Guantanamo are treated far better than most American prisoners in the US jails and prisons I've inspected over the years. The unfounded accusations that are so regularly and cavalierly made about Guantanamo are a slander against the brave men and women of our armed forces, who perform their duties at that facility so professionally and under such duress.

If there's any scandal at Guantanamo, it is that the detainees are treated too well.
...
We are at war with Islamic terrorism. Gitmo is a major front in that war. Closing Guantanamo could well mean releasing deadly Islamic terrorists overseas or bringing them to American soil. It would be craven surrender to left-wing groups and uninformed, self-righteous world opinion. We must do all we can to convince President Obama to reverse his decision.

it would serve Obama and Holder well to remember a certain annoversary. Do they want to allow our enemies to roam free again?

Apparently so.

Fabulous! NJ Judge Makes Up Gay Divorce Law

I guess we should just overlook the fact New Jersey doesn't even recognize gay marriage, or the fact this "marriage" wasn't even performed in this country. Why, these are judges! They're accountable to nobody and can just make it up as they go along. Heck, they imposed gay marriage on Massachusetts, so why not be allowed to create new law from the bench and allow a gay divorce?

Seems to logical to me that without valid gay marriage in the state there should not be any gay divorce.

Gay marriages performed outside New Jersey are recognized in the state for the purpose of divorce, according to a ruling Friday by a judge deciding whether a lesbian couple married in Canada can split.

The wider implications weren't immediately clear, but Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson said New Jersey has a long history of recognizing marriages that are valid where they were performed.

I'm sure it was just coincidence Jacobson heard this case.

The state doesn't let gays marry but does allow civil unions. The state Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples have the rights to the same legal standing as married heterosexual couples.

The women — La Kia Hammond of Trenton and Kinyati Hammond of New Castle, Del. — were married in Victoria, British Columbia, in March 2004 and lived together in North East, Md. In 2005, La Kia, then 29, was found to have a terminal form of muscular dystrophy. She said doctors gave her two years to live.

About three years ago, she left Kinyati and moved with her daughter from a previous relationship to Trenton.

Now, she says, she is in love again and wants to marry before she dies. But without a divorce that's recognized in Canada, her lawyer says, she cannot wed again there.

The lawyer, Stephen Hyland, who is working on the case along with lawyers hired by the American Civil Liberties Union, said his client couldn't simply file for divorce in Canada because only residents can be granted divorces there.

Well isn't that just too damn bad. Maybe they should have thought about that before they got "married" in the first place.

ACLU Lays Off a Tenth of Staff, Enemies of America Hardest Hit

It's from the HuffPost, so don't click if you're repulsed by them.

Here's the heartbreaking news.

The American Civil Liberties Union, impacted by the unfolding economic crisis, laid off ten percent of its national workforce this week. Thirty-six staffers lost their jobs, including five in the Washington, D.C. legislative office, a source familiar with the firings told the Huffington Post.

A source in the ACLU's Washington office confirmed that there had been layoffs, but couldn't confirm the details. The ACLU has two separate Washington offices: a local branch that works on District of Columbia issues and an arm of the national ACLU, which works on legislative issues. The layoffs impacted the legislative office -- though the District office is not necessarily immune to a budget shortfall.

Even more delicious: Two groups that fund thia anti-American outfit were wiped out in the Bernie Madoff swindle, as we noted here last month.

Sources familiar with the ACLU's situation say that the two major foundations were the JEHT and Picower Foundations, which were wiped out by Madoff. Another major ACLU donor, Peter Lewis, has also been pounded by the economic crisis. Lewis' centrality to the funding of progressive organizations is hard to overstate. The name of the ACLU's Washington office is "The Peter B Lewis Center for Civil Liberties."

JetBlue Pays Anti-American, Anti-Israeli Agitator $240,000

Naturally this enemy of society was aided and abetted by the ACLU.

Transportation Security Administration officials and JetBlue Airways are paying $240,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit against a District of Columbia man who, as a condition of boarding a domestic flight, was forced to cover his shirt that displayed Arabic writing.

According to a civil rights lawsuit, TSA and JetBlue demanded Raed Jarrar to sit at the back of a 2006 flight from New York to Oakland because his shirt read "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic.

As Jarrar was waiting to board, TSA officials approached him and said he was required to remove his shirt because passengers were not comfortable with it, according to the lawsuit. The suit claimed one TSA official commented that the Arabic lettering was akin to wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, "I am a robber."

Oh, and if you have any doubt what this scumbag is up to, just check out his blog, a fetid cesspool of pro-Gaza bilge.

Update: The scumbag noticed the link.

dont worry, i'll get most of the money


AND, I'm sending some of it to Gaza soon.

thanks for the link
raed jarrar | 01.05.09 - 9:26 pm |

Silver Lining in Madoff Scandal: ACLU Loses $850,000

Merry non-denominational winter holiday!

Although we probably shouldn't enjoy the misery of others on Christmas Day.

Nah.

The American Civil Liberties Union sent out an emergency appeal to card-carrying members and donors this week after realizing it is a victim of Bernard Madoff's self-confessed Ponzi scheme.

"We've been hit hard in a way that no one could forecast," Alma Montcla, director of administration and finance for the left-leaning advocacy group, wrote this week.

"Two foundations that have been incredibly generous and longstanding supporters of our national security and reproductive freedom work have been victimized by the Madoff scandal - forced to close their doors and terminate their grants," the plea said.

"That means that $850,000 in support we were counting on from these foundations in 2009 simply won't exist."

Heartbreaking, isn't it? Still, don't extend much sympathy. They're still rolling in money with which to agitate against the country they hate.

The ACLU reported $80 million in income in 2007.

Who you should really feel sorry for is Elie Wiesel.

The grim news came as the Elie Wiesel Foundation, which previously said it lost $15.2 million invested with Madoff, released a statement that it was completely wiped out.

"This represented substantially all of the foundation's assets," the organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism said.

Wiesel himself lost a substantial amount of his personal wealth with Madoff, who targeted wealthy Jews and Jewish organizations for investments.

The largest political recipient of Madoff's dirty money, Charles Schumer (D-NY), is still mysteriously unavailable for comment

Update: Doug Ross reports Schumer himself, while receiving hundreds of thousands from Madoff, may have also been fleeced. That may be more amusing that the ACLU taking a hit.

'It's like Hanging a Portrait of Hitler in a Synagogue Or In a Jewish Community'

Just imagine if it were a Hitler banner. Or better yet, savor the umbrage were someone hanging a 52-by-35 image of that most evil of all creatures, Dick Cheney. The crestfallen indignity if George W. Bush were immortalized in such fashion would have protests in the streets. But since the most gruesome mass murderer of the 20th century is an idol of the ACLU and their offshoot, the NYCLU, they're apoplectic over the removal of Uncle Joe Stalin.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has demanded that city officials explain why they ordered a private art school to remove a banner displaying an image of Josef Stalin.

In a letter Thursday to the Department of Buildings, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman expressed concern that the banner was taken down from The Cooper Union after some residents of the local Ukrainian community complained that it "seemed to promote" the Soviet dictator on the 75th anniversary of a famine he imposed. The famine, called the Holodomor, killed millions of Ukrainians.

The banner was part of an art exhibit, "Stalin by Picasso, or Portrait of Woman with Mustache." Lene Berg, the artist who created the banner, said it was intended to provoke discussion about the relationship between art and politics.

The 52-foot-by-36-foot banner features a reproduction of a 1953 Pablo Picasso portrait of Stalin. At the time, the image was viewed as a critique of the Soviet leader.

But the Ukrainian community found it offensive, said Tamara Olexy, president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America.

"It's like hanging a portrait of Hitler in a synagogue or in a Jewish community," she said.

After receiving several complaints, the Department of Buildings investigated the banner's legality and determined it violated construction and zoning regulations, the agency said Friday.

"We determined the sign was too high, too large, lacked a permit and blocked the building's windows," buildings spokeswoman Kate Lindquist wrote in an e-mail. "The department does not regulate sign content."

Indeed, the do not. Since I know enough folks at the Buildings Department, they can vouch for me.

How pathetic is it the ACLU worships this genocidal maniac?

Here's a random thought: Maybe if we start erecting 52-by-36 images of Barack Obama (and frankly, are we that far from that?), will they just STFU for the next four years and go back to Free Mumia rallies?

I couldn't locate an image of this banner (if someone does, feels free to link it or email me), but found a fascinating image of a 1902 Stalin here that I don't recall seeing before. A young greaseball-looking Stalin, only a couple decades before he decided to exterminate millions of people.

Hippie Freaks Riot, ACLU to Investigate

I figured with some oddball outfit named the Rainbow Family, there were probably a few ACLU lawyers already in attendance.

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses.

"They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident.

"People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show."

About 7,000 people have arrived at the gathering near Big Sandy in the Wind River Mountains for the annual Gathering of the Tribes, a seven-day event of fellowship, partying including illicit drug use, praying, and living on the land.

They camp on Forest Service land around the country every year, but the Rainbow family's nonhierarchical methods -- no one can speak for the Rainbows, much less sign a land use permit -- often have stymied their relationships.

But rarely do the tensions escalate into violence.

The Forest Service's Incident Command Team in Rock Springs issued a press release Friday morning, saying officers were patrolling the main meadow of the gathering Thursday evening when they contacted a man who fled and was later caught. Another Rainbow was detained for physically interfering.

Officers began to leave the area with the subjects and were circled by Rainbow participants, according to the news release from Rita Vollmer of the Incident Command Team.

Ten officers were escorting the detained subjects when about 400 Rainbows surrounded the squad, and more officers were requested, according to the news release.

"The mob began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers. Crowd control tactics were used to keep moving through the group of Rainbows," the news release said.

Other law enforcement agencies were called to the scene, the news release said.

Officers made five arrests; one officer suffered minor injuries and was cleared by a local hospital; and a government vehicle sustained damage, the news release said.

"This lawless behavior is unacceptable and we will not tolerate it," said John Twiss, Forest Service director of law enforcement. "The safety of our employees, public and Rainbow participants is our number one priority, and we will continue to protect everyone on the national forest."

Then along come the lawyers, clearly with nothing better to do that stick up for these overaged brats.

This will give you an idea what kind of weirdos we're dealing with.

Most practice a spirituality that merges, meshes and perhaps mushes a variety of religions into a quasi-New Age movement espousing love, peace, justice and meditation.

In other words, they're Grade-A moonbats.

Here We Go Again: Jesus Painting Deemed Unconstitutional

If the day comes when we're living under Sharia law, will the ACLU have the stones to sue over paintings of Mohammed? Of course not. They'll be the first ones executed by the Islamofascists, so the point is moot.

Ironically, while they're not busy defending the rights of terrorists at Club Gitmo, they're still busy obsessing over paintings of Jesus.

These people really need to get their priorities straight. Oh wait, their priority is destroying America.

Never mind.

Displaying a portrait of Jesus in the foyer of a Louisiana courthouse is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled this week, siding with civil libertarians who sued over the display.

But inserting Jesus within a group portrait of historic figures at the courthouse is permissible, the judge said.

In a ruling filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle awarded "nominal" damages plus attorneys' fees and costs to the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana in its case against Slidell City Court, Judge James Lamz and St. Tammany Parish, which partially finances the court.

Lemelle said during a hearing last September that he would have ordered court officials to remove the Jesus icon if they hadn't already expanded the display to include portraits of other historic "lawgivers," including Moses, Charlemagne and Napoleon Bonaparte.

His ruling this week echoes those remarks and explains that the expanded display is constitutional because a reasonable observer wouldn't see it as sending a religious message.

However, Lemelle concluded that the plaintiffs' constitutional rights were violated by the original display, which depicted Jesus presenting the New Testament above the words, "To Know Peace, Obey These Laws."

"Context" is the "crucial factor" in determining if a religious display is unconstitutional, Lemelle wrote.

Lord, this is so tedious. Oops, can I used ther word Lord in a blogpost?

J. Michael Johnson, an attorney representing the defendants for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian civil rights group, said he is disappointed by Lemelle's ruling and may file an appeal.

"It's unfortunate that the ACLU seems to be on a search-and-destroy mission for all things religious," he said.

ACLU Defending Larry Craig's Bathroom Antics

A bit of a stretch here, no?

ST. PAUL, Minn. - In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy.

Craig, of Idaho, is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let him withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct stemming from a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport.

The ACLU filed a brief Tuesday supporting Craig. It cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms "have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

Seriously, how much privacy are you entitled to in an airport bathroom?

OK, you have a door to the stall. That's to shield you while you do the deuce.

Outside of that, I don't see where you you have any reasonable guarantee of privacy to engage in gay sex.

Besides, most of the public doesn't want to be subjected to this.

What don't they understand?

Homeless Overrun Los Angeles

Anyone who lived or worked in New York City during the 1980s into the mid-1990s knows well about the homeless plague that severely damaged the quality of life.

The left misguidedly blamed the problem on Ronald Reagan without even addressing the pathologies that lead to a person winding up on the street.

Thankfully, Rudy Giuliani began addressing the problem with a crackdown on quality of life issues and things have steadily improved to date under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

However, out west, cities such as San Francisco have now been totally overrun, and just now are realizing something has to be done.

However, down the coast in Los Angeles, the problem is getting worse and there's no hope in sight, apparently.

L.A. Falters Where N.Y.C. Got Smart

FOR years now, on any given evening, downtown Los Angeles has looked like a photo shoot from the Great Depression, with more than 5,000 homeless camped on sidewalks and streets. Some tents are tidy, well kept and seemingly well provisioned; others are filthy and decrepit. And some people are just sleeping on benches or concrete. All are living without bathrooms - or any running water except from hydrants.

This is a huge, dramatic version of the kinds of encampments (72 in all) that Mayor Bloomberg shut down all over New York last summer. It's also a vision of what might have hit this city if our leaders hadn't refused to take the politically correct course on street homelessness.

L.A.'s problems are about to get worse. Thanks to a recent agreement between the city government and the local American Civil Liberties Union branch, the mess will soon expand citywide. Homeless people in Los Angeles will be allowed to sleep on the streets and sidewalks of any neighborhood, from Skid Row to Bel-Air, from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Call it a Bloomberg strategy in reverse.

Before this, police officers could remove anyone who violated L.A.'s overnight sleeping ban, which applied everywhere but downtown. Now, under the settlement, the city can't enforce the ban anywhere, even in residential neighborhoods, until it builds 1,250 units of "supportive housing" - which is at least three years into the future.

It's terrible public policy - a capitulation to the worst ideas of the 1960s and '70s, when street people roamed American cities while advocates and officials told irate citizens that nothing could or should be done.

It gets even more depressing.

Read it all.

If You're Unsure, Don't Join the Army

The military is designed to kill people and break things, a noted philosopher once said.

Which is why you need to get the soul searching out of the way before you join.

Otherwise, you wind up becoming an ACLU mascot.

"Love thy enemy" -- U.S. soldier gets discharge

A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.

Capt. Peter Brown -- who served in Iraq for more than a year and was a graduate of the elite U.S. military academy West Point -- said in a statement issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union that he was relieved the Army had recognized his beliefs made it impossible for him to serve.

"In following Jesus' example, I could not have fired my weapon at another human being, even if he were shooting at me," said Brown, who plans to continue seminary classes he began by correspondence while in Iraq.

While in Iraq, Brown processed insurgents and detainees, the NYCLU said.

Brown said he had no conflict between his faith and military service until after he graduated from West Point in 2004 and began to study scripture and his belief.

UPDATE: More from Allahpundit.

Supremes to Decide Photo ID Law; "May Deter Democrats From Voting"

It figures any move to legally show your true identity at the ballot box would have the Democrats up in arms.

They claim to want clean elections, so why should something so innocuous as a valid photo identification have them fretting?

Court to decide photo ID voting law

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Tuesday it would decide whether voters can be required to show photo identification, a move that can limit participation of the elderly and poor in elections.

The justices, acting ahead of next year's national elections, said they would review Indiana's voting law, which is considered one of the most restrictive in the country. It requires voters to present photo ID like a driver's license or passport.

Now how exactly that's restrictive, they don't explain.

Democrats spend untold millions with their annual voter registration drives, how about taking the time between now and next November helping issue photo IDs?

Or are they afraid all those mysterious votes them seem to conjure up in certain precincts might suddenly disappear?

The 2005 law has been challenged by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Indiana Democratic Party, who charge it unfairly limits the right to vote, especially affecting the elderly, poor, disabled or homeless.

Opponents of the law said those people often can't afford the costs of obtaining identification documents or have trouble negotiating the bureaucracy involved in applying for them.

Well, cry me a river. If you're too lazy or incompetent to get a photo ID, then it's your problem that you may not be eligible to vote.

As if it weren't obvious enough such a law will affect Democrats most, this subhead should remove all doubt.

MAY DETER DEMOCRATS FROM VOTING

A U.S. appeals court upheld the law, acknowledging it would discourage some people from voting and was more likely to deter Democratic voters than Republicans.

Is that because maybe Democrats are more prone to voter fraud?

State Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said granting Supreme Court review of the issue now would likely prompt a spate of lawsuits across the nation that would disrupt the 2008 presidential primaries and create new uncertainty over the validity of all voter identification requirements.

He said the justices should wait for another case after the 2008 elections.

But the Supreme Court rejected that recommendation. It is expected to hear arguments in the case early next year, with a decision due by the end of June.

Fair enough. That will give these hapless Democrats more than four months to get off their asses and get a valid photo identification.

It's 11:54: Do You Know Where Your Privacy Is?

The clowns from the ACLU apparently have nothing better to do with their time (no pun intended) than to instill more fear in Americans.

Clock to tick down U.S. privacy

"Surveillance Society Clock" created by the American Civil Liberties Union will symbolize the encroachment of government spying on private citizens as part of the war against terrorism — and the ticktock is fast approaching midnight.

"The extinction of privacy is a real possibility," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "We believe that privacy is not yet dead — it is a patient on life support."

The online clock is patterned after the "Doomsday Clock," created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 to warn against a nuclear holocaust. Midnight symbolized a total "1984"-style "surveillance society."

"Every generation deserves its own clock," Mr. Steinhardt said in a teleconference yesterday announcing the project and a new report on mass surveillance by the government.

He said that an explosive increase in new technology and data mining is fueling the trend and creating a false sense of security — from satellites to national-identity systems, the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, DNA data-banking and Web search engines that store every query, even satellites.

"The false security of a surveillance society threatens to turn our country into a place where individuals are constantly susceptible to being trapped by data errors or misinterpretations, illegal use of information by rogue government workers, abuses by political leaders — or perhaps most insidiously, expanded legal uses of information for all kinds of new purposes," the report says.

"We are far too close to the midnight of a genuine surveillance society, and the second hand has not stopped sweeping around the dial," the report says.

Anything they can do to weaken this country, this Communist frontgroup will pursue with zeal.

"This might have seemed like a crazy idea 20 years ago, but it is no longer a crazy idea and this is the direction in which we are moving," Mr. Steinhardt said. "September 11 has only accelerated the trend."

A broken clock is right twice a day. When was the last time these idiots were right about anything?

Teens Clueless on Constitution Day

Well, I have to admit I had no idea it was Constitution Day either.

WASHINGTON - Constitution Day is here and many teenagers know little about commemorating the document's signing.

A study being released Monday by a foundation that focuses on journalism and the First Amendment found that 51 percent of high school students questioned had not heard of the day when they are required by law to learn about the Constitution.

Of course, such a day didn't exist back when I was in high school, and it's just a recent creation.

Constitution Day was created by Congress in 2004. It was the brainchild of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who carries a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. The law requires any school and college receiving federal money to teach about the Constitution on or about Sept. 17.

Schools can determine the kind of educational program, but they must hold one each year.

Boston University this year will distribute Constitution Day bookmarks and host Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, for a lecture. Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, will hand out pocket copies of the Constitution and serve patriotic meals colored in red, white and blue in the school cafeteria.

Thank goodness we have a presidential candidate who takes his marching orders from The Constitution.