Worried About Whose Rights

Michael Ramirez at IBD

Might not the Democrats be worried about the wrong people's rights?

Bill of Rights Video: Ted Nugent on the 2nd Amendment

In this 3-minute video, "Sweaty Teddy" holds forth on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Short and sweet.



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Larry Craig: Attorneys Will Argue Foot-Tapping is "Free Speech"

Senator Larry Craig's attorney's will argue that his foot-tapping and hand gestures under an airport bathroom stall is nothing more than free speech, protected by the Bill of Rights. Thus, Craig will attempt to take his place beside John Peter Zenger, Martin Luther King and others in the pantheon of American heroes who fought for First Amendment rights.

More on the wide-stanced crusader from the Star Tribune:

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota's disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting, according to a new court filing.

This is the first time Craig's attorneys have raised that issue. However, an earlier friend-of-the-court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Craig's foot-tapping and hand gesture under a stall divider at the Minneapolis airport are protected by the First Amendment.

Craig has been trying to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct. A judge turned him down earlier this month, and now Craig is taking his request to the state Court of Appeals. The Republican at one point said he would resign but now says he will finish his term, in January 2009.

The Larry Craig saga continues. Across the land eyes threaten to roll right out of the socket, onto the floor, past Boise and onto Malibu, where they'll seek some rest and relaxation from this ridiculous story of "Larry Craig--Real American Patriot".

by Mondoreb & Little Baby Ginn



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Wal-Mart Employee Gets Butt Pic: Oh the Humanity!

Earlier, The Statesman.com had this little tid-bit up for perusal.

A Wal-Mart employee was arrested Monday after he took cell phone pictures of a shopper’s bottom, Round Rock police said.

The shopper said she heard a camera click behind her as she walked through the store at 4700 East Palm Valley Blvd. When she turned around, she saw 23-year-old Baldemar Vela acting as if he were talking on the phone, according to an arrest affidavit. …”

This raised the hackles of GTL. Reaction from Gun Toting Liberal:

Oh, so it’s A-Okay for the Wal-Mart loss prevention team to zero in on the private areas of their customers all day long as they shop, but if one of the “stock guys” do the same with their cellphone camera, it’s a freaking FELONY?

Frankly, I have to wonder where the line is drawn — a Wally-World shopper with a nice “bottom” is rummaging through the aisles of China’s NUMBER ONE CUSTOMER and an employee drills down for a “close-up” and the employee goes to prison, while the same thing happens in the loss prevention room, courtesy of OTHER employees, and there’s “no harm, no foul”? How does this make any damned sense?

Having worked closely several years ago with Wal-Mart LP guys all over the country, I can say that they don't "zero in on the private areas of their customers all day long". One of the reasons is, a lot of the LP 'guys' are girls. But the LP crew is usually motivated by a higher purpose: promotions through busting shoplifters: money trumps voyeurism, in most cases.

But it's a good premise.



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Southwest Airlines Fashion News Update:Does Southwestern Have The Right To Tell Passengers What To Wear?

[image: PRweb]
by Mondoreb

The recent news of another dispute, over what can or cannot be worn while flying on Southwest Airlines, has sparked debate on the Internet. Who was right: the customers or Southwest Airlines? Does Southwest Airlines or Jet Blue have the right to tell its customers what they can or cannot wear when they fly on their planes? Do the customers have a constitutional right to wear whatever meets their standards?

First, five recent stories:

1-From CNN,Oct. 5:
Southwest Airlines said it will apologize to a passenger who was told he would be removed from a flight if he didn't change clothes, the second time in recent months the budget carrier has been forced to do so.

Joe Winiecki, of Largo, Florida, boarded a Southwest flight in Columbus, Ohio, wearing a fictional fishing shop T-shirt which featured the words, "Master Baiter.

2-From USA Today, Sept. 13:
A second young woman has come forward to claim that Southwest Airlines employees made her cover up on a recent flight.

Setara Qassim told KNBC-TV in Los Angeles that a flight attendant confronted her during the trip from Tucson, to Burbank, Calif., and asked if she had a sweater to go over her green halter-style dress.

Qassim, 21, said she was forced to wrap a blanket around herself for the rest of the flight. She complained that if Southwest wants passengers to dress a certain way, it should publish a dress code.

3-From Today, MSNBC, Sept. 11:
It doesn’t take much to get thrown off an airplane these days, as Kyla Ebbert found out when a Southwest Airlines employee told her she was too bare for the air. Two months later, she’s still trying to figure out what was wrong with her outfit.

In an exclusive appearance Friday on TODAY, Ebbert modeled the outfit she says she wore on the flight in question. It consisted of a snug-fitting white top with a scoop neck that stopped just short of showing cleavage.

4-From CNN
Southwest Airlines kicked a woman off one of its flights over a political message on her T-shirt, the airline confirmed Thursday, and published reports say the passenger will sue.

Lorrie Heasley, of Woodland, Wash., was asked to leave her flight from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., Tuesday for wearing a T-shirt with pictures of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a phrase similar to the popular film title "Meet the Fockers."

5-From Blue Bayou
That the tale of a man barred from a JetBlue flight because he was wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script on it (until he changed into a shirt provided by the airline) is unfortunate, but not surprising.

Raed Jarrar had already cleared security last Aug. 12 when a Transportation Security Administration officer told him his shirt - which read, "We Will Not Be Silent" in Arabic and English - made fellow passengers uncomfortable.

Okay, that's the stories, now the prosecution (the airlines) and the defense (the customers).
For the customers:

All the above passengers, with defenses that included the 1st Amendment and the above-mentioned Joe Wieniecki's "Who's to say what's offensive? (Southwest Airlines, apparently.)

Jarrar was more vocal. "I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it's my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a T-shirt with Arabic script," Jarrar told the radio show "Democracy Now" after the incident.

Also, Blue Bayou:
Note to officials: it is better to be silent and risk being thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.

The idea that Arabic script makes you appear to be a terrorist makes sense only if you assume that all Arabic-speaking people, include American architects, are terrorists. And if you assume that terrorists are really, really stupid and will wear clothing that draws attention to themselves while engaging in their missions of destruction.

For the airline:

From Jacob G. Hornberger at Future of Freedom Foundation and Lew Rockwell.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Bill of Rights does not operate as a control over private actions. Instead, its restrictions are limited to conduct by officials of the federal government. Read the First Amendment carefully. You’ll notice that it expressly prohibits Congress, not private individuals and corporations, from depriving people of such fundamental rights as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

GU Wonder at Flyer Talk:
Flying is no more a privilege than walking is. Movement is instrumental to freedom; whether that movement be by land, air or water does not alter the fundamental right of free persons to move through the public space in one's own country, through all those countries willing to permit it, or through international space (including international waters, airspace, etc.). The means of doing so or not doing so is another matter. That is, growing wings (or not) neither enhances nor diminishes the fundamental right to movement through public spaces.

The winner? The airline, of course. There is no "constitutional right" to fly on someone else's privately owned airplane. It's easy to see how passengers could be fooled into thinking they had this "right". Americans are bombarded daily by the Mainstream Media, trial lawyers and the Democrat Party about their various "rights": the "right" to health care, the "right" to a certain wage, the "right" to do--well, just about anything the Left can name, as long as someone else is paying for it.

Southwest Airlines is running a business and has to take all it's customers into account, not just the vulgar, outspoken few. And if the customers don't like it, they can fly U.S. Air.

And that would be their legitimate right.




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Kennedy the Key VoteGuantanamo Bay Detainees Case:Supreme Court Begins News Term

by Hummmbert

The detainees at Guantanamo Bay case is on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court. The big question this time around for court-watchers: Which way will swing voter Anthony Kennedy vote? He voted with the court's liberals the last several times.

From The AP -- The Supreme Court begins its new term Monday with the justices expected to announce they declined to intervene in hundreds of cases.

The court, which by law convenes the first Monday in October, also will hear arguments in two cases, a Washington state dispute over its political primaries and an appeal from New York that asks when taxpayers must foot the bill for expensive private school for special education children.

The new Court term could lead to enhanced rights for terrorism detainees, a ruling against part of a child pornography law and shorter prison terms for crack cocaine dealers. Little seems changed on the bench, where Justice Anthony Kennedy remains the decisive vote between four conservatives and four liberals.

Court watchers will be trying to discern clues as to how Anthony Kennedy will be voting on the Gitmo case. Kennedy remains the key to two earlier decisions.

On the court's calendar, the headline case so far involves the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees. The justices twice before have ruled that suspected terrorists held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba could pursue challenges to their indefinite confinement in U.S. civilian courts.

Each time, the Bush administration and Congress, then under Republican control, have changed the law to try to limit the detainees' rights.

"This is the most generous set of procedures ever afforded to a nation's military adversaries in the history of the world. They are, however, far short of what would be afforded a U.S. citizen caught up in the civilian justice system," said Brad Berenson, who served under Bush in the White House counsel's office.

Kennedy voted with the court's liberals in both earlier cases; many scholars expect him to do so again.

The big queestion remains: Which way will Kennedy swing to this time? Will Guantanamo Bay detainees be treated as prisoners of war, criminals or something in between?


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IRAN CRACKS DOWN on Everyday People

The Burqua-less, TV Watchers, Coffee Shops Had Best Beware!


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by Little Baby Ginn
According to a recent AP Story, Iran is stifling sources of immorality among their people. The groups that were targeted by police is an interesting menu of what passes for "immoral" in the Islamic Republic these days.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran is pressing on with one of its toughest moral crackdowns in years, warning tens of thousands of women over slack dress, targeting "immoral" cafes and seizing illegal satellite receivers, local media reported on Monday.

No word out of Iran on what other groups have been targeted. A travel advisory is expected soon warning burqua-less women travelers to avoid Iran.

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