I mean, geez, this is too raw even for Buzzfeed: “The American Civil Liberties Union is taking no position on legislation that would bar people from buying guns if they are on the federal government’s no-fly list — a list that the ACLU has spent the past five years arguing is unconstitutional.” Of course, principles are principles; donor contributions are donor contributions, and the ACLU’s donors are generally rather selective in what civil rights they want protected. Many of those donors would bristle at the mere expression of the commonplace observation that firearms possession is a civil right…
Tag: aclu
Whaddya know: the ACLU can actually take free speech seriously.
I don’t give much of a tinker’s dam about the Washington Redskins name – although I think that the unconscious patronizating done by the ACLU author here is remarkable in its utter lack of self-awareness, and remarkably privileged – but the important thing is that the right answer is gotten to. The right answer, in this case, being ‘keep the government out of this one.’
The Washington Redskins is a name that is offensive and perpetuates racism against Native Americans. Should it be changed? Yes. But should the government get to make that call? As we told a federal district court yesterday, the answer is no, because the First Amendment protects against government interference in private speech.
Continue reading Whaddya know: the ACLU can actually take free speech seriously.
Quote of the Day, Harry Reid Hates YOUR Free Speech edition.
On Harry Reid’s blatant attempt to kill the First Amendment:
What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week was an attempt by the ascendant part of the elite, the part that makes its living from abstraction, to vanquish the declining part, the part that makes its living from extraction. And this sorry excuse for a legislative week did more than reveal, in real time, the structure and nature of class struggle in America today. It also occasioned a sentence I never thought I would write. If only Harry Reid listened to the ACLU.
Bolding mine. Strange days, folks. Strange days, indeed.
Moe Lane
PS: While I appreciate the fact that the ACLU was fuming over this, and rightly so… I should point out: fuming is nice. Getting some of these freedom-hating Senators out of office would be even nicer.
*Is* David “Mr. Drone” Barron still on-track for Appeals Court nomination?
For the basic background, here’s what Ted Cruz’s office sent around on the subject:
“David Barron’s nomination underscores the danger of the so-called ‘nuclear option’ Democrats are using to ram through controversial nominees on strict party-line votes,” said Sen. Cruz. “The Obama Administration has been extremely resistant in providing information about its drone program, which continues with its refusal to disclose the body of David Barron’s government work.
“As a top official in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Barron authored consequential memos that justified the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens that the White House has not made public. Without question, Mr. Barron shaped the government’s policies that are roiling the public today.
“It would be a grave mistake to confirm Mr. Barron without meaningful access to the documents he authored. Any Democrat concerned about civil liberties should have profound concerns here. The Senate’s decision to allow a person such as Mr. Barron to be confirmed by a bare partisan majority without any real attempt to provide proper ‘advice and consent,’ is in the long run an even graver mistake.”
Continue reading *Is* David “Mr. Drone” Barron still on-track for Appeals Court nomination?
ACLU reverses course on further #Zimmerman prosecution: will @BarackObama… AGAIN?
It’s all about the hypocrisy, baby.
Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left has always had a stubbornly sensible streak about her when it comes to the absurdities of her side’s legal-themed shenanigans, and sometimes it gets loose. Case in point: her addressing of basic reality on the Martin-Zimmerman case, and exactly why the ACLU was smart to reverse course and get out of any further race-baiting in the form of trying for federally-spawned hate crimes charges.
Thousands may turn out to march, but millions will close their ears because of what they see as the unfair connection to George Zimmerman, a man with no history of racial animus, who a jury determined was not guilty of any crime at a trial at which no one alleged he acted out of racial animosity, and the connection to Trayvon Martin, whom they do not view as an innocent, but as someone who committed an unprovoked physical assault and unfortunately lost his life because the person he assaulted lawfully defended himself.
Others who will be turned off: Those who know that stand your ground laws had nothing to do with Zimmerman being found not guilty. He would have been found to have acted in self defense with or without the duty to retreat language, because the testimony and evidence at trial showed he had no place to retreat to once attacked by Martin.
Continue reading ACLU reverses course on further #Zimmerman prosecution: will @BarackObama… AGAIN?
US Supreme Court reaffirms right of people to videotape cops. …Freaking *Illinois*.
Nice to see that the ACLU isn’t completely useless:
The Supreme Court has rejected an Illinois prosecutor’s plea to allow enforcement of a law aimed at stopping people from recording police officers on the job.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that found that the state’s anti-eavesdropping law violates free speech rights when used against people who tape law enforcement officers. The law sets out a maximum prison term of 15 years.
Here’s a really good, really useful rule of thumb for handling any Constitutional situation not explicitly spelled out in the document in question: if the question at hand is Would the Founders have trusted federal, state and/or local government to do X without some kind of oversight then the default answer is going to be The answer is going to not just be “No.” It’s going to be “HELL, NO.”
Idiot.
Moe Lane
DGA Martin ‘Whitebread’ O’Malley (D, MD) speaks on Republican racism!
So. We got Maryland Governor and DGA head Martin O’Malley out there SNEERING about us awful, awful racist Republicans (for the full effect, assume that I’m fluttering my hands like I’ve got the St. Vitus’ dance):
Using Governor Rick Perry (formerly) of the RGA for that, too. You see, good old Martin here really, really respects the heck out of Rick, you understand; despite the fact that he’s voluntarily a member of a racist and prejudiced group like the GOP. Isn’t that just… well, Caucasian… of Ol’ Whitebread O’Malley?
No, my sneer’s deliberate, too. And much more justified. Consider this:
- The progressive, inclusive DGA currently being run by Whitebread O’Malley has precisely one racial minority among its members: MA governor Deval Patrick. Apparently Democrats don’t like voting for ethnic minorities – at least, not statewide.
- The racist, regressive RGA ran by Rick Perry? Four: Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, and Brian Sandoval of Nevada. Odd how that happened, no? – And so enthusiastically, too. Continue reading DGA Martin ‘Whitebread’ O’Malley (D, MD) speaks on Republican racism!
ACLU: Election fraud is a civil right.
Admittedly, attempting to do so has been done so many times in this country…
…that someone surveying the situation might be forgiven in thinking that it’s implicitly permitted: but no, we don’t actually want election fraud to happen. When it does – like it did in Pennsylvania – and we can catch them at it, we put the people who did it on trial.
And then, apparently, we have the ACLU wander in and pick the wrong side to defend (via No Sheeples Here). They’ve decided that paying people to commit election fraud is constitutional:
PITTSBURGH — The community organizing and voter registration group Acorn filed a federal lawsuit here Wednesday claiming that a state statute that is being used to prosecute some of its former employees is unconstitutional.
[snip]
Acorn hopes the lawsuit will prevent criminal prosecution of its local leaders and office, which have been under investigation by Mr. Zappala’s office for eight months, said Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which is representing Acorn.
See also the American Spectator, which in another article notes the real estate links between the NYT and ACORN. Just in case anyone was wondering why the sympathetic tone.
Breaking: White House to fight release of detainee photos.
As Jim Geraghty notes, all of Obama’s promises come with an expiration date. All of them.
Obama Opposes Releasing Photos of U.S. Detainee Abuse
President Obama has decided not to release photos which the Pentagon had planned to released by May 28 in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.President Obama has decided not to release hundreds of photos potentially showing U.S. military personnel abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
A senior administration official told FOX News that Obama met with his legal team last week and told them that he did not feel comfortable with the release of the photos because he believes they would endanger U.S. troops, and that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.
Last week.
President Obama Reverses Course on Releasing More Detainee Abuse Photographs
President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge’s order, and had changed his mind.
The president “believes their release would endanger our troops,” a White House official says, adding that the president “believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.”
They decided this last week. One wonders why it took them this long to mention it. Even the usual “new polls came in” excuse won’t fly, this time: we knew Friday that the Democrats were losing the initiative in this argument.
All very odd.
Crossposted to RedState.