One Example Why A Big Government Is Bad

I am very strongly against a large, powerful government, primarily because a government that large is big and powerful enough to ignore our rights and trample all over ordinary people.

Here is a video that illustrates one form this danger of big government can take. In this case, Sacket v EPA, the EPA is claiming that a plot of land is a wetland, but isn't offering any evidence to that effect. They're also claiming in court that the owners of the property, the Sacketts, HAVE NO RIGHT TO CHALLENGE THE EPA'S PROTECTION ORDER IN COURT!

See what I mean? The EPA is making a claim contrary to available facts, and when they got sued for it they claimed that they can't be sued. The lower courts bought this tripe, and the case is before SCOTUS now.

Here's a video giving details of this travesty of justice.



If the player doesn't work, try this link:
http://youtu.be/40iHXAOjJ3U


Read the rest...

Will GOP Really Repeal ObamaCare?

From the moment that Obama and the Democrat-dominated Congress passed ObamaCare, Republicans have been harping on the theme of repealing it. More than half the country agrees, and that number has remained above 50% (with one or two exceptions) ever since the law was passed. So we all KNOW that, if the GOP retakes the Senate and wins the Presidency, they will push for ObamaCare's repeal.

But will they really? I don't think so, because in their hearts most Republican politicians are just as "big-government" as their Democrat counterparts, and their only TRUE complaint with it is that the Democrats passed it instead of them.

The first piece of evidence supporting my view has just arisen.

It seems that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Health subcomittee, is flight-testing an argument that could easily become an excuse as to why they don't dare repeal ObamaCare.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/214663-republicans-worry-about-health-law-repeals-impact-on-health-programs

"The administration has used the Affordable Care Act's mandatory spending, which is not subject to a vote by Congress every year, to backfill key discretionary programs," Shelby said in his opening remarks.

"The administration then diverts discretionary dollars to fund new programs. When the Affordable Care Act is repealed, many important programs like Community Health Centers and the [federal] Immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control will be in jeopardy because their base funding … has been so significantly reduced."

See? if we actually were to repeal ObamaCare, bad things would happen to health care funding. And it's Obama's fault. Now that certainly sounds like an excuse to me, and it was issued by our own Senator Shelby. Ain't that grand?

If the law was wrong, then repealing it is right. Period. Though he phrases this as a "warning" to Republicans so that they'll know what to expect "when" they repeal the law, this is more likely to be used as an excuse to explain why they didn't follow through with their anti-ObamaCare rhetoric and promises.

Thank you, Senator Shelby, for clearing that up.

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Should Limbaugh Apologize For "Slut" Comment?

As you've no doubt heard by now, Rush Limbaugh is taking a lot of heat for calling a Georgetown University student named Sandra Flake a slut. The question now is, will he apologize.

But the question shouldn't be WILL he apologize, it should be SHOULD he apologize. Let's not make any assumptions about guilt until we look at the facts.

Here's what happened. Nancy Pelosi held a hearing at which Miss Fluke spoke on the issue of Obama's mandate that insurers provide birth control free of charge. Here's the relevant portions of her comments.

"Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception)."

"Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school."

So, 40% of women are having so much sex that they can't afford the $1,000 a year it costs them to buy birth control. (The law school program lasts 3 years, so $3k divided by 3 gives us $1k per year.)

But hold on, is that really how much is costs? I did some research, and the costs vary. If you have insurance, the co-pay for the pills can run $5 - $40, which means they will pay between $60 and $480 a year on birth control ($180 - $1,440 over three years). Not $1,000 a year. Without insurance, the pills cost between $20 and $50 per month, which means they will pay between $240 and $600 a year on birth control ($720 - $1,800 over three years). STILL not $1,000 a year... in fact, the cost of birth control comes in WELL under her claimed expense of $3k over three years. And since the cost of the birth control pill doesn't run $1,000 per year, let's assume she's not referring to them. After all, we wouldn't want to assume she's lying to make her case look better, would we? That would be cynical and uncharitable...


So now let's look at what it means if she was referring to the cost of condoms. Again, according to my research, the cost of condoms vary. If the women choose to be frugal and purchase Lifestyle condoms, they can get 100 for the low price of $24.99... or $0.25 each. That means that, in order to spend $1,000 on condoms in one year, a woman would have to purchase 4,000 condoms, which means she's having sex (4,000 / 365) 10.95 times a day. If she isn't being frugal, she can get 100 Trojan condoms for $61.99... or $0.62 each. At that price, $1k would buy 1,612 condoms, which means she's having sex (1,612 / 365) 4.4 times per day.

Interesting. So, here we have a woman who is, as best as we can determine, talking about having sex 4 to 11 times per day... and she's upset Limbaugh called her a slut?

In fact, Limbaugh did more than simply call her a slut, he commented on the absurdity of people demanding the government mandate that their expensive sex lives should be entirely subsidized at no cost to them.

"Three thousand dollars for birth control in three years? That's a thousand dollars a year of sex - and, she wants us to pay for it. They're admitting before congressional committee that they're having so much sex they can't afford the birth control pills!"

He's assuming that Flake is referring to birth control pills, but as we saw, the costs of the pills don't match what she claims to spend on birth control. In truth, his comments about "so much sex" don't make any sense, because the cost of the pill doesn't increase with frequency of sex. The cost of condoms does, however, and in this example the numbers are absurdly high.

So back to the question I initially posed. Based upon what we now know of what happened, do you think Limbaugh was wrong? I mean, Miss Flake is asking that her sex life be paid for, so is it beyond the pale that we look at what that sex life might entail? I honestly don't think so.

Should Rush Limbaugh apologize for calling Sandra Flake a slut? Or should Sandra Flake apologize for demanding that her sex life be paid for by somebody else?

What do you think?

UPDATE: I've been reading articles all day long about how Limbaugh "slandered" or "personally savaged" Miss Flake. "Humiliated" is another word for what he did to her. But as I pointed out, when looked at carefully, is he really wrong?

Another thing that's happening is that Flake is being called a "birth control activist." Let me be clear, she is no such thing. Nobody is arguing that women shouldn't have birth control. What I object to, and what I presume Limbaugh objected to, is that Miss Flake is arguing that women are entitled to free birth control that is paid for by somebody else. That is, the rest of us fund her sex life. And I'm sorry, but that's just not right.

Whether you agree or disagree with the individual mandate, Obama and his supporters claim it's a way to inject personal responsibility into the system. Well, where is the personal responsibility that this woman has to obtain her own birth control for her apparently active sex life? Why should somebody besides herself and the man/men she sleeps with shoulder that burden?

It's clear that her "testimony" was little short of exaggerated propaganda to make a political point. As I pointed out in my original article, birth control pills don't cost $1k a year as she claimed, and if she's really using that many condoms than Limbaugh's comments weren't anything but the truth.

Remember the big blow up about taxpayer funded abortions under ObamaCare? Rather than pushing for individual responsibility, they are destroying it. So we have to pay for women's birth control so they can have an active sex life? And if they get pregnant, we have to pay for their abortion, too??? How is this even close to logical?

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Is It Time To Abandon The Republican Party?

This has been weighing heavily on my mind in recent weeks, and it’s time to deal with it in public. It is my considered opinion that the Republican party has abdicated its responsibility and corrupted itself to the point where it may no longer be salvageable. That it may well be time to abandon the GOP and form another party that is dedicated to responsible governing.

I say this for several reasons, but let’s start with how elected Republicans are behaving. I mean, sure, we hear them berating Democrats for everything under the sun, but how do THEY behave? How do THEY handle the power that exists in our overly-large central government?

I covered this in another blog post, but recently the Republican leadership of a subcommittee decided to arrest a liberal journalist who wanted to film their open-to-the-public committee meeting. Why? Because the journalist wanted to use this footage in a documentary that went against what the Republicans on the Committee believed. In other words, they abused their power for their own ends, ignoring things like the First Amendment and the principle of open government. Isn’t that what they repeatedly attack Democrats for allegedly doing?

And this isn’t an isolated incident, I’m sad to say. Republicans are showing again and again that, despite the crowd-pleasing rhetoric that they want to limit the size and power of government, they are very comfortable, even happy, to use that power for their own ends. They CLAIM to want to limit the power of government, to reduce spending, and to rein in a government that is too involved in too many areas of our lives… but do they really mean it? Perhaps a few do, but not the majority of elected officials, and not the leadership of the GOP itself. They LIKE that power, and they want to maintain their access to it.

And the way they are behaving regarding elections these days is not only disgusting, it’s downright dishonest. I mean, think about it…


I’ve heard for the past four elections how absolutely critical it is that we get a Republican elected, because the Democrat candidate (fill in the blank) is the devil incarnate and will destroy our nation as we know it. They use this to encourage us to “come together” behind “whoever the nominee” eventually is. And WHY do they do this? Because they know most of us wouldn’t vote for the people they want as our candidate, and they must win.

They know we won’t support their choices, because fiscal conservatism has disappeared from the Republican party. The people we refer to as conservatives today, such as John McCain, Mitt Romney, and George Bush, we would have once called moderates. And those we call moderates today would once have been called liberals. And the liberals? They used to be the extreme left wing of the party.

As we’ve seen in recent elections, the Democrats tend to nominate candidates who are more and more liberal. The Republicans see this and decide to nominate… a moderate candidate. Why? Because the fiscally conservative candidates “can’t win,” so we have to go with a moderate. In effect, this has shifted the entire spectrum to the left, to the point where a candidate who says we shouldn’t spend our nation into bankruptcy is considered a raving, right-wing lunatic.

Victory for the Republican party has come to mean winning at the ballot box. It doesn’t really matter what the candidate believes or how he will govern. As long as he is a Republican, then the party has won a victory. And that victory has come to be the end-all be-all for the party, trumping such mundane trivialities as wise governing.

The entire nominating process for the Republican party has been subverted. Exit polls for every election contest so far has shown that “electability” is the single most important criteria considered by voters. And the GOP leadership has encouraged this for years. How many have heard somebody say that ANY Republican is better than Obama? Do they seriously want us to believe that having an ‘R’ next to their name is reason enough for us to choose them? Are they insane?

In years past, the primary process was the time for voters to examine the qualities of the various candidates in order to choose the one whom we believed was most qualified at this time to be President of the United States. We used to use this process to select a man we believed would govern wisely and well. But with this new focus on “win at any cost,” we don’t do that anymore. And if we don’t look at the qualities of the candidates now, during the primaries, when will we do so?

Under the system as it now stands, we never do.

With “electability” as the most important quality for a candidate, this means that we don’t CARE what the candidate is like. We’ll elect a liberal if he’s the nominee… just as long as he’s got that ‘R’ next to his name that means we won. The Republican party would count it as a victory if a raging liberal was elected President. That is, if that candidate was fielded by the Republican party. Don’t believe me? They were ready to do it with John McCain, and they’re ready to do it with Mitt Romney.

The nominating process has to be the point where we select the qualities of the candidate, and if we don’t, then how do we ever expect to get a good candidate? With our current structure, we can’t.

For these reasons, and other related reasons that I haven’t iterated here, I think it is time for us to seriously consider abandoning the Republican party. They don’t care about the Constitution or fiscally conservative governing, all they care about is winning elections and wielding power. So why should we stay with them, since they will not represent the things we want them to, the things they claim they do?

Whether we shift to an already existing third party (like the Libertarians or the Constitution Party) or we start a brand new party of our own, it is past time we shed the baggage of so-called “leaders” who are more interested in using the system to acquire power for their own ends than they are in wisely governing our nation. It is time to jettison this dead weight and form a new, leaner party dedicated to doing what the Republicans have grown too fat and lazy to do.

The sooner we realize that the Republican Party, as it stands today, is as much the enemy of good governance as is the Democrat party, the sooner we can start trying to effect real reform. If we decide against this course of action, if we decide we’re okay with approving pre-selected “moderates” or “liberals” to run as Republican candidates and ultimately fail to fix our problems, then we share the responsibility for this nation’s demise.

So, what do you say? Are you ready to do what we clearly have to do?

UPDATE: Here's an article showing that three of the four Presidential candidates would actually INCREASE the federal debt over the next decade. It's a good illustrator of my point, and another reason to ditch the GOP.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/23/new-report-on-gop-primary-contenders-say?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29

"The remaining trio of conventional GOP presidential wannabes—Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich—aren’t serious about cutting spending, or about truly improving the nation's long-term fiscal path. They’re invested in the rhetoric of debt reduction, but not the policies that would make it happen."

Read the rest...

Outrage: US Politicians Arrest Journalists

Ladies and gentlemen, I haven’t posted in a while because my work and theatrical performance schedule is packed, but this one is important.

When the Republicans took the House in 2010, many people were ecstatic. I advised caution, telling them that too often the GOP is just like the Democrats, using government power for their own purposes when it suits them. Many of my Republican friends have told me repeatedly that the GOP is the only chance we have to stop the Democrat-led erosion of our civil rights.

If I told those friends that a Congressional panel had not only ejected a camera crew from an open and public committee meeting but also had them cuffed, arrested, and led away by capitol police, I know what they’d say. They’d point to this as a perfect example of why we need more Republicans in office.

The only problem is that this incident, which occurred on February 1, featured the REPUBLICANS arresting the journalists and the Democrats protesting the action.

You read that correctly: in this case, the fascist, freedom-hating, secrecy-desiring politicians were those who my Republican friends claim are fighting for our rights and freedoms. Allow me to go into detail.


I first found this story on the Huffington Post, but it was also confirmed by other sources, such as the Los Angeles Times and Politico. Here’s what happened.

On February 1, 2012, the US House subcommittee on Science, Space and Technology was meeting to discuss the process of “fracking”, i.e. the practice of injecting high-pressure water with some chemicals added into shale beds to fracture the formations and release pockets of oil or natural gas. A gentleman by the name of Joshua Fox was in attendance with his film crew.

Now we have to talk a moment about Mr. Fox, because he produced a documentary called “Gasland” that was critical of fracking. As you might imagine, many Republican proponents of the process were less than happy with the documentary, and have criticized it publicly. But Mr. Fox wanted to cover this meeting for possible inclusion in a future documentary.

So there was Mr. Fox with a small camera crew, intending to film this open meeting of the subcommittee. The meeting was already being filmed by CNN, but Fox wanted to control his own camera shots. But there was a problem. You see, he didn’t have a permit to film. Oh, he’d TRIED to get a permit, but he’d been denied. He claims it's because the ranking GOP leadership disagreed with his politics. And since credentials and permits are often dispensed without deference to the First Amendment, he may have a point. I mean, the goal of the permit is to prevent dozens of crews from crowding the meeting space, but with only their camera present that wasn’t much of an issue.

So there he was with a camera in a meeting that was open to the public, and the Republican leadership objected. They objected so strenuously that Fox was cuffed and arrested by Capitol Police. The incident, ironically, was filmed by a staffer using his cell phone. So CNN’s camera was okay, a staffer’s cell phone camera was okay, but Fox’s crew was so over the top that he just had to go to jail.

On the cell-phone footage, Democrats can be heard urging the Republicans to stop the arrest and let him film the open-to-the-public meeting. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

So, Republicans are the ones who want open government? Not this time, because it would have conflicted with their politics. Republicans are the ones who care about our freedoms and rights? Again, not this time.

What my friends miss is that the Republican delegation in Congress is made up of PEOPLE. And many Congressional candidates run for office because they’re attracted to the power of the office. That means they like to exercise that power… Which is just what they decry the Democrats for doing.

It is with great sadness that I report to my friends that, once again, we have proof that Republicans like government power and are just as prone to abuse their authority as are Democrats. If you’re looking to the Republican party to protect our freedoms and rein in government abuses, you will be thoroughly disappointed.

I looked, and I was unable to find statements from Boehner or any Presidential candidate that chastised the subcommittee members that imprisoned a journalist for trying to record a meeting that was both open to the public and being filmed by one other crew. Not one. And to quote one of my favorite movies of all time, “the maxim under the law is that silence betokens assent.”

The sad truth is that Republicans are in the game of gaining and using the political power that comes with a large, powerful government by claiming to want a smaller, less intrusive government. It’s sneaky and dishonest… at least with Democrats we KNOW they want an all-powerful central government that can control most aspects of our private lives, because they’ll happily TELL US THAT! With Republicans, the goal seems similar, but they’re lying to us about it.

I don’t care if you disagree with Mr. Fox’s political views, he has the absolute right to hold those views and to make as many documentaries as he likes. And politicians have no business arresting him for trying to film public meetings.

This doesn’t surprise me… and I apologize to my Republican friends if I’ve hurt them with this revelation. But it is the truth, and we need to recognize it.

If you trust either of the two major political parties to fight for us and our rights, you will be disappointed. There is no power for them in doing that, and they want that power. They like to use that power.

The sooner we all recognize this, the sooner we can start looking for a viable alternative that might, just MIGHT try to do what the Republicans are falsely claiming they want to do. Before it’s too late… assuming it’s not ALREADY too late.

For those who'd like to read the news stories on this, here are the links:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-gasland-director-fox-arrested-filming-house-subcommittee-20120201,0,4337363.story

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72326.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/house-republicans-order-j_n_1246971.html?mrefid

And here's a link to Mr. Fox's response to the incident:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/01/416951/gasland-director-josh-foxs-statement-on-his-fracking-hearing-arrest/?mobile=nc

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TSA v Rand Paul: Constitutional Crisis?

Something interesting happened this morning, and I'm wondering if we've got a Constitutional violation by the TSA. Allow me to give you some background.

Earlier this morning, Senator Rand Paul was attempting to catch a flight to Washington DC to attend a Senate session. When going through the full-body scanner, TSA officials apparently found "an anomaly" and told Senator Paul he'd have to be patted down. Senator Paul refused the pat-down, was escorted out of the security area into a small cubicle, and the situation was eventually resolved and he was allowed to catch a later flight.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57363889-503544/rand-paul-detained-by-tsa/

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky on Monday found himself in a showdown with the Transportation Security Administration in Nashville, Tennessee after refusing to undergo a full-body pat down. Paul was later re-screened and booked on a subsequent flight.

The senator went through the scanner at the airport but was told there was some sort of "anomaly" with the scan and would have to get a full-body pat down, Paul's chief of staff Doug Stafford told CBS News. Paul did not consent to this and offered another scan, but the TSA insisted on the pat down.

According to the Associated Press, Paul said he was "detained" in a small cubicle in the airport, which is about an hour from his Bowling Green, Kentucky home, and missed his flight to Washington for a Senate session.

The TSA disputed the characterization that Paul was "detained." The TSA told CBS News that Paul wasn't detained at any point, though he triggered an alarm during a routine screening and refused to complete the screening process.

The TSA is pushing back, saying Rand Paul was treated "like everybody else."
http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/tsa/205765-tsa-defends-treatment-of-sen-rand-paul

The Transportation Security Administration defended its treatment of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at the Nashville International Airport Monday, saying the lawmaker was treated like every other passenger it processes.

The problem is that Rand Paul isn't "anybody else," he's a sitting United States Senator who was on his way to attend a Senate Session. Let me quote the relevant article of the Constitution for you... Article 1, Section 6.

(The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.) (The preceding words in parentheses were modified by the 27th Amendment.) They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

The Constitution clearly indicates that Congressmen can't be stopped from attending a session, or when "going to and returning from the same." Senator Paul was traveling to attend a session, and the TSA stopped him from traveling. Senator Paul says he was "detained" in a small cubicle, while TSA denies that characterization. Folks, if TSA escorted me away and stuck me in a cubicle, I would conclude (as would any reasonable person) that I was being detained. While the Constitution specifically says "arrest," with today's "indefinite detention" powers that were unheard of in the Founders' age, I'm reasonably sure SCOTUS would rule that any detention is also banned.

So we have a potential Constitutional crisis brewing here... It all depends on how much Senator Paul wants to make of it.

Personally, I hope Rand Paul pushes this as hard as he possibly can. Because TSA would eventually have to agree to treat Congressmen differently than everybody else, and that could well ignite a firestorm of protest against the invasive screening procedures.

This situation is incredibly recent, so let's see what happens over the next couple of days.

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Breaking: SCOTUS Rules On 4th Amendment

SCOTUS has issued a ruling in a Fourth Amendment case that claimed attaching a GPS device to a car was a violation of the 4th amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Apparently, they ruled unanimously that a GPS device attached to a car "constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment" and therefore requires a warrant.

I'm not finding anything linkable at this time, but I'll post them as they become available.

UPDATE: If you're interested, here is the text of their decision in a PDF file:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1259.pdf

The Government obtained a search warrant permitting it to install a Global-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle registered to respondent Jones’s wife. The warrant authorized installation in the District of Columbia and within 10 days, but agents installed the device on the 11th day and in Maryland. The Government then tracked the vehicle’s movements for 28 days. It subsequently secured an indictment of Jones and others on drug trafficking conspiracy charges. The District Court suppressed the GPS data obtained while the vehicle was parked at Jones’s residence, but held the remaining data admissible because Jones had no reasonable expectation of privacy when the vehicle was on public streets. Jones was convicted. The D. C. Circuit reversed, concluding that admission of the evidence obtained by warrantless use of the GPS device violatedthe Fourth Amendment.


Held: The Government’s attachment of the GPS device to the vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 3–12.

(a) The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Here, the Government’s physical intrusion on an “effect” for the purpose of obtaining information constitutes a “search.” This type of encroachment on an area enumerated in the Amendment would have been considered a search within the meaning of the Amendment at the time it was adopted. Pp. 3–4.

(b) This conclusion is consistent with this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, which until the latter half of the 20th century was tied to common-law trespass. Later cases, which have deviated from that exclusively property-based approach, have applied the analysis of Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, which said that the Fourth Amendment protects a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy,” id., at 360. Here, the Court need not address the Government’s contention that Jones had no “reasonable expectation of privacy,” because Jones’s Fourth Amendment rights do not rise or fall with the Katz formulation. At bottom, the Court must “assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 34. Katz did not repudiate theunderstanding that the Fourth Amendment embodies a particular concern for government trespass upon the areas it enumerates. The Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test has been added to, but not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test. See Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 176; Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56, 64. United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276, and United States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705—post-Katz cases rejecting Fourth Amendment challenges to “beepers,” electronic tracking devices representing another form of electronic monitoring—do not foreclose the conclusion that a search occurred here. New York v. Class, 475 U. S. 106, and Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, also do not support the Government’s position. Pp. 4–12.

(c) The Government’s alternative argument—that if the attachment and use of the device was a search, it was a reasonable one—is forfeited because it was not raised below. P. 12. 615 F. 3d 544, affirmed.

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a concurring opinion. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

UPDATE: Somebody else finally got around to writing about it...
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/205753-supreme-court-rules-warrantless-gps-tracking-is-unconstitutional

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Court Rejects Perry's VA Ballot Appeal

If you'll recall, only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney were able to get on the ballot in Virginia. Perry and company have been trying to use the courts to get on the ballot, but so far no luck. Another court just rejected perry's appeal.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/court-rejects-perrys-va-ballot-appeal-111181.html

The appeals court confirmed the argument that Perry waited too long to challenge the law, and should have done so before he failed to qualify for the ballot.

"If we were to find Movant’s delay excusable, we would encourage candidates to wait until the last minute to bring constitutional challenges to state election laws," the decision reads. "Once a candidate learned he had been denied a place on the ballot, he would take his disappointment to the courthouse and hapless state election boards would be forced to halt their scheduled election processes to wait for a ruling."

The judges note that even long-shot candidates in the past have managed to meet the state's signature requirements, meaning they are clearly feasible.

Now, I've made no secret of the fact that I support Ron Paul for President, and this situation does him a favor by putting him head-to-head with Romney. Nevertheless, I am disappointed that Virginia will only feature two candidates on their ballot. Strict ballot access laws are a bad thing, because they restrict the choices that voters can have.

The legislature was talking about changing the law to make it easier to get on the ballot. That would be a good thing... too bad it probably won't happen in time for their primary this year.


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