A few days ago, Hans Bader writing for Stop the ACLU reported on the hate crimes legislation Bill. This article is intended to be a further discussion of what is behind the language in the Bill. The question is, is double jeopardy a factor in this new legislative language?

The answer is kinda-sorta. It’s really more about The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine negating the double jeopardy clause in the 5th Amendment.

The government now does have the right to try hate crime suspects after they have been tried by the state, and even if already tried and found guilty by the state. This position is confirmed by a letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to members of the U.S. Senate. Read it at NationaReviewOnLine. So how does it happen a person can be tried twice for the same crime?

Here is a portion that I believe gives the DOJ the opportunity to retry a hate crime: (The text of the Bill is here).

(b) (1) IN GENERAL – No prosecution of any offense described in the subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, or his designee, that- (C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or (D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.

(b) (2) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible violations of this section.

This gives the DOJ the right to try any case on behalf of a victim they feel has not received justice, while also eliminating “the badges…and relics of slavery and involuntary servitude.”

A quick reading of the Bill might lead you to think it will simply “support” state’s with money, but it goes much deeper than the $5 million to be given to states in each of the years 2010 and 2011. If a state can “certify” the need for government assistance to “investigate or prosecute the hate crime,” then that state will get that assistance. But read about the”sham and cover” exception a few paragraphs below. We have to ask why this administration believes this legislation is necessary.

The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine expects those administering under the Doctrine to “limit” their actions. This from TheFreeLibrary:

The court did not, however, fully eliminate the double jeopardy prohibition from this context. The dual sovereignty doctrine continues to be limited by what is referred to as the “sham” exception, which was described by the Bartkus Court.

The sham exception provides that a prosecution by one sovereign cannot be used as a “sham and a cover” for another sovereign’s re-prosecution of the same defendant.

This doctrine would operate to prevent, on double jeopardy grounds, a prosecution brought by one sovereign with the encouragement and support of another sovereign that has already failed in its attempt to prosecute the same defendant.

The doctrine is founded on the rationale that the two sovereigns are acting as one. Unfortunately, this exception has been construed so narrowly as to make it difficult to be utilized successfully.

Apparently, this DOJ and Barack Obama believe that justice is not done often enough, and courts do not punish, often enough, those who commit hate crimes. So the question remains: is it possible for any violent crime to be classified as a “hate crime” when it is perpetrated against a Jewish or a white person?

[Emphasis by Lobo]

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Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson issued his second apology in 12 months Tuesday and was told to stay away from the team while the NFL and the Chiefs complete their investigation into his use of a gay slur.

As Johnson was releasing his apology, a national gay rights advocacy organization called on the league and the team to take disciplinary action against the two-time Pro Bowl selection.

#2

ESPN broadcaster Bob Griese has been suspended for one week for a remark he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

Network spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Griese would not be working a college football game this week. Krulewitz said ESPN has spoken to Griese and “he understands the comment was inappropriate.”

During ESPN’s coverage of the Minnesota-Ohio State game on Saturday, a graphic was shown listing the top five drivers in NASCAR’s points race. Fellow analyst Chris Spielman asked: Where was Montoya?

Griese replied, “Out having a taco.”

#3

Pauline Howe, 67, a committed Christian, was questioned by two police officers after she wrote a letter to Norwich City Council about its decision to allow the march.

She wrote: “It is shameful that this small, but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals.”

#4

Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson issued a written apology Tuesday evening for a comment for a month-old comment that has stirred controversy on Capitol Hill in recent days.

During a September radio interview, Grayson called Linda Robertson, an aide to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who has also worked as a lobbyist, a “K Street whore.”

Hmm, that’s weird, the last one has no consequences, despite being a supposed elected public official. Imagine had he been a Republican. Good thing he didn’t use a gay or racial slur, he might have been in big trouble.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Today, President Obama signed into law a bill that will dramatically expand the federal hate crimes law, enabling prosecutors to bring federal charges against people who were previously found innocent of hate crimes in state court. The hate-crimes provisions were added to a defense appropriations bill, which the President signed in a White House signing ceremony this afternoon at around 2:30 p.m.

The new law dramatically expands the reach of the existing federal hate-crimes law that was already on the books, by getting rid of the requirement that a hate crime affect federally-protected activities to be prosecuted in federal court. It also adds sexual orientation, gender, disability, and transgender characteristics to a law that was originally designed to protect racial minorities.

The hate-crimes bill was opposed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for allowing the reprosecution in federal court of people found innocent in state court. The Commission called the new law a “menace to civil liberties” because it is an end-run around constitutional guarantees against double-jeopardy.

As explained earlier, the bill’s sponsors seek to use it to reprosecute people in federal court who have already been found innocent of hate crimes in state court, taking advantage of the “dual sovereignty” loophole in constitutional protections against double jeopardy. Civil libertarians like Nat Hentoff and Wendy Kaminer thus object to the bill on double-jeopardy grounds. Backers of the bill, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Commissioner Michael Yaki, supported the bill partly as a way of prosecuting all over again people who were either found not guilty, or who were convicted only of ordinary crimes, while being acquitted of hate-crimes (like the teenagers acquitted of hate crimes in the Shenandoah incident, and the California case of Joseph Silva and George Silva).

Such re-prosecutions can be an enormous waste of money, and grossly unfair to the people who are reprosecuted, driving them into bankruptcy to pay lawyers to represent them all over again when they have already been found innocent in state court after an expensive trial. When the government re-prosecutes someone, it gains an enormous tactical advantage over the defendant from using the prior prosecution as a test-run, even if the defendant is innocent — making a guilty verdict possible even if the defendant is in fact innocent.

The bill also raises serious constitutional federalism issues under the Supreme Court’s Morrison decision.

Passage of the bill was aided by lousy reporting, in which some journalists, like Reuters, depicted the bill as simply a harmless measure to add sexual orientation to the list of protected characteristics covered by the federal hate-crimes law, ignoring its many other, far more important (and dangerous) changes to federal hate-crimes law.

Many supporters of the hate crimes bill want to allow those found innocent to be reprosecuted in federal court. As one supporter put it, “the federal hate crimes bill serves as a vital safety valve in case a state hate-crimes prosecution fails.” The claim that the justice system has “failed” when a jury returns a not-guilty verdict is truly scary and contrary to the constitutional presumption of innocence and the right to trial by jury.
But it is a view widely shared among supporters of the hate-crimes bill. Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum pointed out in 1998 that Janet Reno, Clinton’s Attorney General, backed the bill as a way of providing a federal “forum” for prosecution if prosecutors fail to obtain a conviction “in the state court.”

Supporters of the hate crimes bill also see it as a way to prosecute people even in cases where the evidence is so weak that state prosecutors have decided not to prosecute. Attorney General Eric Holder has pushed for the hate crimes bill as a way to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify broadening federal hate-crimes law, he cited three examples where state prosecutors refused to prosecute, citing a lack of evidence. In each, a federal jury acquitted the accused, finding them not guilty.

As law professor Gail Heriot notes, “Some have even called for federal prosecution of the Duke University lacrosse team members–despite strong evidence of their innocence.” Advocates of a broader federal hate-crimes law have pointed to the Duke lacrosse case as an example of where federal prosecutors should have stepped in and prosecuted the accused players — even though the state prosecution in that case was dropped because the defendants were actually innocent, as North Carolina’s attorney general conceded (and DNA evidence showed), and were falsely accused of rape by a woman with a history of violence (including trying to run over someone with her car) and making false accusations.

The Obama administration has long supported the hate-crimes bill, which it used as a wedge issue in the 2008 election.

As law professors like Jonathan Turley and Eugene Volokh have noted, the Obama administration recently urged restrictions on hate speech at the United Nations, joining in calls to treat such speech, protected by the First Amendment under Supreme Court rulings, as a human-rights violation in violation of international human-rights treaties. In the U.S., college hate-speech codes have been used to discipline students for criticizing affirmative action, discussing the racial implications of the death penalty, and calling homosexuality immoral. In Canada and Britain, hate speech laws have been used to punish religious criticism of Scientology and homosexuality.

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There can be no freedom of speech where there are hate crimes law.

There is no freedom where thoughts can be punished.

Ogre

Simple enuff?

Side note: Enjoy the theme song for Obama/Stalin 2012!

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What is wrong with kids today? I know that is cliche and makes me feel old to say it, but really! Is it a product of the age of entitlement? Why did the driver do nothing to stop this? How gutless! Insanity!

A Belleville West High School student was beaten aboard a bus on the way to school Monday, and a police spokesman said the beating could be racially motivated.

The 17-year-old victim was white and the teen assailants were black. Police released a video of the beating, which shows the victim being punched repeatedly while other students on the bus gather to watch, some cheering. It doesn’t appear that the victim did anything to provoke an attack and tried only to defend himself. Police said it all unfolded in a five-minute span.

The victim was trying to find a seat and was told by two students he could not sit next to them, police said. When he did sit down, one teen tried to push him out of his seat then began grabbing the victim’s neck and punching him in the face.

The victim eventually returned to his seat, but another student began taunting him a few minutes later. The victim was then struck in the face.

It was unclear what, if anything, the bus driver did to stop the attack. Students intervened to help the victim both times.

“In my estimation, it’s racially motivated,” said Capt. Don Sax of the Belleville Police Department. He said one reason he had formed this opinion was that many of the students, most of whom were black, yelled their support for the beating.

“There was absolutely no justification for the beating either time,” Sax said.

Racially motivated? Very probable. Provoked? We’ll find out soon enough. Justifiable? Absolutely not! All those that resorted to violence should be charged and the driver for doing nothing. Are white people covered under the same protection as blacks when hate crimes occur? Where is Al Sharpton when you need him?

Michelle Malkin:

I wonder where President Obama will be. He turned his friend Henry Louis Gates’s anti-police temper tantrum into a “teachable moment.” What about this truly appalling incident?

Also see Moonbattery and the Blog Professor.

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Click the more tag

• Signed executive orders to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, ban torture and end the CIA’s secret overseas prisons and define treatment of Detainees. (but, they are nowhere close to actually closing Gitmo and are still holding all those folks)
• Reversed restrictions on stem cell research. (typical Lib talking point. It was only in allowing federal money to be used for embryonic stem cell research. All other stem cell research was going on, and providing cures, something ESCs have yet to offer)
• Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Reducing discrimination based on gender, age, religion, or race. (which will create more lawsuits, so, a sop to the lawyers)
• Signed an executive order reversing the ban that prohibits funding to international family planning groups that provide abortions. Gag rule revoked (Mexico City policy). (so, using American taxpayer money to fund abortions in other countries)
• Creates the White House Council on Women and Girls “to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families.” (It says something about a liberal controlled government, which tends to employ more liberal leaning people, that they have to protect females from their policies, eh?)
• Signed a Presidential Memorandum extending federal benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers and announced support for the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act of 2009. (Which could raise insurance rates. I should say, I personally have no problem with extending benefits, though)
• Reverses U.S. position on LGBT Issues at the UN: At the “Durban Review Conference,” U.S. supports language condemning “all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation.” (The same UN conference which has voted to make criticism of Islam criminal)
• Signed executive order requiring federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change. (no big deal)
• Reversed a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives. (another sop to the unions Dems are beholden too)
• Signed executive order preventing federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.
• Created a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners. (more union sops)
• Expanded eligibility for the refinancing portion of the Making Home Affordable plan to help Americans struggling with distressed mortgages refinance at lower interest rates, even if they owe up to 25 percent more than their homes are now worth. (most of those people should live in apartments)
• Established a credit card “bill of rights”. (which will make it harder to get a credit card)
• Expanded loan programs for small businesses. (but, it is damned near impossible for small businesses to actually get them)
• Extended and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch. (can’t comment, know nothing about this one)
• Expanded eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP). (because every family making up to $85k needs someone else to pay for their health insurance for kids up to 25)
• Expanded funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners. (but, will reduce their medicare/medicaid payments, and make it so doctors become more specialized)
• Created a new White House task force on the problems of middle-class Americans, and installed Vice President Joe Biden as its chairman. (Sheriff Joe has been doing a hell of a job, eh? Has anyone even heard of this task force?)
• Appoints Vice President Joe Biden to Oversee Stimulus Plan Payouts. (How’s that going?)
• Granted a reprieve to Liberian immigrants facing imminent expulsion. (This one is a good thing)
• Directed military leaders to end war in Iraq. (and holding to the exact same plan Bush had)
• Allowing Caskets to be photographed when the return from Iraq with family approval. (interesting that, now that Obama is President, the media is now ignoring soldiers who come home in caskets, eh?)
• Released nine previously secret internal Justice Department memos and opinions defining the legal limits of government power in combating terrorism. (which only told one side of the story, and he has blocked releasing the memo’s that support the other side)
• On Arab TV Network, Obama Urges Dialogue. (and apologized for America)
• Gave a speech in Cairo engaging the Muslim and Arab world. (and apologized for America)
• Bars independent contractors from conducting interrogations of terror suspects. (but, didn’t ban all interrogations)
• Granted Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba. (Great. Sending more money out of our economy)
• Ordered the release of nearly a quarter of a million pages of records from the Reagan White House that were kept from the public during a lengthy review by President George W. Bush. (hey, where are Carter’s and Clinton’s papers?)
• Restored funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program. (and guess where the funding is coming from? If you guessed Porkulus, have a cigar)
• Released presidential records. (but not his own. I’m still trying to get the records of who was on the flight that scared the bejesus out of Manhattan. Keeps getting shuffled to different divisions)
• Required new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions. (more frigging paperwork for business)
• Pushed for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors. (gives yet another group more rights over others)
• Invites gay families to the Easter Egg Roll as part of the Obama administration’s outreach to diverse communities. (and blew off those who weren’t gay)
• Created a White House Office on Urban Policy. (how to create more grasshoppers in the hood)
• Increased funding for the NEA. (because we all need more crosses in jars filled with urine and paintings made of elephant poop)
• Appointed an assistant to the president for science and technology policy. (John Holdren thinks that population should be held in check, through forced abortions and other means)
• Funded a major expansion of AmeriCorps. (creating more Obamazombies)
• Banned lobbyist gifts to executive employees. (then he went and hired a bunch of lobbyists. I should point out, I do not think that most lobbyists are the problem. The politicians are the problem)
• Investment in all types of alternative energy. (none of which are even within decades of being viable and deployable)
• Enacted tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars. (meaning more problems with the energy grid)
• Support for high-speed rail. (in the middle of the New Mexico desert, as a sop to Harry Reid)
• Provided grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes. (I hope he has encouraged Al Gore, John Edwards, and John Kerry to make their homes more energy efficient)
• Extended unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits. (apparently, he knew his Porkulus plan would never really create jobs)
• Created the White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers to help auto industry workers transition to new manufacturing opportunities, including jobs in alternative energy. (in other words, how to put the UAW in charge of GM and do away with the profitable car lines)
• Stopped raids on medical marijuana dispensers. (eh. On this, I could care less. If smoking pot makes a terminally ill person feel OK, fine. However, if ObamaCare passes, pot may be all those folks have left to ease their pain)
• Nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic to ever serve on the Supreme Court. (interesting how when it was Bush nominating and appointing minorities and women to first time ever positions, it was “yawn” from the left)
• Appointed more than 60 openly LGBT persons to positions in the executive branch. (but is still against gay marriage)
• Issues Presidential Proclamation for Pride, proclaiming June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. (Obama’s still against gay marriage)
• Signed a mercury reduction pact with 140 other nations. (mercury reduction is a good thing. However, funny how he pushes the use of CFLs, which contain, yup, mercury!)
• Signed the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act to curb wasteful spending by the Pentagon. Intended to price contracts and budgets lower; may potentially save billions of dollars in defense. (getting rid of waste is a good thing, but, notice this is only done for the military, and not agencies and programs Democrats actually like?)
• Signed the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, which serves to protect two million acres of land and creates a new system of land conservation for the Bureau of Land Management. (but, is allowing logging in the Tongass National Forest)
• Phase out government payments to crop producers making more than $500,000 a year and eliminates subsidies for cotton storage to help trim the U.S. budget deficit. (I guess we are all supposed to wear hemp)
• Cut funding for a proposed U.S. nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain. (where are we supposed to store nuclear waste? Oh, I forgot, he wants to do away with nuclear plants, too)
• Restored Endangered Species Act Provision requiring U.S. agencies consult with independent federal experts to determine if their actions might harm threatened and endangered species. (This was done with an anthropogenic global warming bent)
• Orders The Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration “to protect and restore the health, heritage, natural resources, and social and economic value of the Nation’s largest estuarine ecosystem and the natural sustainability of its watershed.” (I like this one)
• Signed the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act designating two million additional acres of public wilderness areas the highest level of government protection from logging and other forms of commercial use and development. (back to that Tongass National Forest logging issue)
• Signed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act which will expedite the search for cures and treatments for millions of Americans living with paralysis caused by spinal cord injury, stroke, MS, Parkinson’s and many other diseases and disorders. (a sop to those embryonic stem cell researchers who couldn’t get by without federal funds)
• Established The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record, a new system for updating medical records of servicemen and women both during and after their military careers. (On the surface, I would say this is good)
• Established the White House Office of Health Reform (how to hose the nations health care system in 3 easy steps)
• Created new and stronger safety standards to safeguard the country’s food supply. (increases the cost of food)and
• Got his daughters a new puppy! (which gave the MSM a month long orgasm)

What is the author, who probably stole it without citation, missing? I notice he or she forgets to mention that fabulous Porkulus. Oh, and the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Didn’t Obama say he would make it a priority to capture him? And, oh, hey, nothing about jobs actually being created, the economy being stimulated, and New Orleans being rebuilt, all as he promised.

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The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime bill (S909) is poised to hit the floor of the Senate this week, perhaps as soon as Wednesday. *Call your Senators and tell them you want this thing stopped.

This bill is an egregious example of liberal overreach. If passed we will see any manner of [547]sexual perversions legitimized as unassailable and any crime or speech against these proclivities will be suddenly termed a “hate crime.” We will also see crimes against gays and lesbians suddenly deemed as somehow worse than crimes against straight people simply by the virtue that the victims are gay.

We will also have codified crime based on thought if this bill passes. How will a judge or prosecutor determine if “hate” was the basis for crime, anyway? How can a jury know that a gay man was beaten because he is gay as opposed to because he didn’t give a mugger his wallet? And what of religious speech against certain sexual proclivities? Will that be deemed a “hate crime” now?

Another problem with this bill is that it determines “hate” by defining the sexual proclivities against which the “hate” is perpetrated. As Representative Alcee Hastings (D, FL) said praising the bill “…this legislation addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these philias, and fetishes, and isms that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are.”

Of course, just what “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” is going to be codified by law as worthy of protection from “hate crime” and what is not? After all, to make law, definitions must be arrived at. Are we going to include pedophelia in this? If not, why not?

Finally, this thing is typical of a brand of liberal activism that jumps to action regardless of reality or facts. See, this bill was based on the 1998 beating death of Matthew Shepard of Laramie, Wyoming. After Shepard was murdered by a pair of criminals and drug addicts the claim was raised that the beating took place because Shepard was gay. It seems that truth was, however, that the pair of criminals thought Shepard had money and they wanted to rob him of it. Drugs were also a motive. They did not attack him because he was gay. Still, an entire cause was made of something that was not factually true.

In any case, this is bad law that opens the door for thought police, codifying into law as legitimate any manner of sexual perversion, not to mention that it will muddy the waters for prosecutors and judges across the country.

Call your Senators and tell them to vote no. It will only take a few minutes to do.

* Find your Senator’s contact info.

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“Akron police say they aren’t ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation. But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear. It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend’s home in South Akron. Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ”This is our world” and ”This is a black world” as they confronted Marshall and his family.

The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black. ”This was almost like being a terrorist act,” Marshall said. ”And we allow this to go on in our neighborhoods?” …

Akron police are investigating. Right now, the case is not being classified as a racial hate crime. There were no other reports of victims assaulted by the group that night.

Source

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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Representative Alcee Hastings (D, Fla.) is touting his amendment to H.R.2647, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Section 524 stipulates a “prohibition on recruitment, enlistment, or retention of persons associated or affiliated with groups or associated with hate-related violence against groups or persons of the United States government.”

As Hastings congratulates himself on a job well done — you know, cuz no one else will — one has to wonder, exactly who is it, that will determine what a “hate” group is in order to keep the armed forces free of “hate-related violence”? It turns out Hastings has given this power to the office of the Attorney General of the United States. That would be Eric Holder, the guy that wants to release Guantanamo terrorists into the interior of the country.

It is also a bit frightening to imagine that the government that issued that now infamous report calling anyone that votes Republican and has an appreciation for the Constitution, a dangerous terrorist threat, is also being given the power to determine who is and who isn’t a member of a “hate” group. There is something perversely ironic about giving the government, that determined that our military veterans are prone to terrorist activities and the lure of extremist hate groups, the power to keep haters from joining the military.

Hastings admits that the armed forces already have numerous regulations governing what sort of recruit is allowed to enter service. So, why do we need this further law?

“The Armed Forces already have a great many regulations in place regarding the prohibition on extremist activities by military personnel. But the problem is that in many instances recruiters and commanding officers are looking the other way.

So, because Hastings has spoken through the force of law, now all those hatemongers will disappear from our military. We are saved!

Of course, as I mentioned above, the key is just who or what is a “hate group”? How far does this determination go? Can we expect that who ever happens to sit in the Attorney General’s office is free and clear to make his own determination? This year Tea Party goers are persona non gratta, but if the GOP takes over should we assume that members of Moveon.org will become anathema for military service? On second thought, that might not work. No one at Moveon.org would deign to serve their country in the first place, they so “loath the military.”

In any case, we are on shaky grounds with this amendment. A “hate” group is such an amorphous term, isn’t it? And isn’t such a vague concept ripe for political gamesmanship?

The full language of Section 524:

SEC. 524. PROHIBITION ON RECRUITMENT, ENLISTMENT, OR RETENTION OF PERSONS ASSOCIATED OR AFFILIATED WITH GROUPS ASSOCIATED WITH HATE-RELATED VIOLENCE AGAINST GROUPS OR PERSONS OR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

Section 504 of title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘(c) Persons Associated or Affiliated With Hate Groups-

‘(1) PROHIBITION- A person associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence against groups or persons or the United States Government, as determined by the Attorney General, may not be recruited, enlisted, or retained in the armed forces.

‘(2) DEFINITION OF HATE GROUP- In this subsection, the terms ‘group associated with hate-related violence’ or ‘hate group’ mean the following:

‘(A) Groups or organizations that espouse or engage in acts of violence against other groups or minorities based on ideals of hate, ethnic supremacies, white supremacies, racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, or other bigotry ideologies.

‘(B) Groups or organizations engaged in criminal gang activity including drug and weapons trafficking and smuggling.

‘(C) Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed revolutionary activity against the United States Government, or the violent overthrow of the United States Government.

‘(D) Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed activity in a ‘race war’.

‘(E) Groups or organizations that encourage members to join the armed forces in order to obtain military training to be used for acts of violence against minorities, other groups, or the United States Government.

‘(F) Groups or organizations that espouse violence based on race, creed, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

‘(G) Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature.

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At what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?

What is so frustrating about these fools is that they are the politicians and greedy bastards who don’t want a cut in their profits who use bogus science or the lowest scientists in the gene pool who will distort data for a few bucks. The vast majority of the scientific minds in the World agree and understand it’s a very serious problem that can do an untold amount of damage to life on Earth.

So when the right wing f*cktards have caused it to be too late to fix the problem, and we start seeing the devastating consequences and we start seeing end of the World type events – how will we punish those responsible. It will be too late. So shouldn’t we start punishing them now?

There was a big outcry about this naked Stalinism so TPM have now taken the entry down but many conservative bloggers copied it before that. The author concerned has now apologized and retracted, perhaps realizing that incitement to violence is a prosecutable offense. So he did eventually get around to putting his camouflage on.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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