PUBLIC MARKS from jasontromm with tag law

A federal judge turned back pro-abortion objections against the Choose Life license plates in Illinois saying motorists have the free speech rights to purchase them and place them on their automobiles. U.S. District Judge David Coar said protests from abortion advocates don't trump the First Amendment. Coar also said the state must issue the specialty license plates as long as the sponsors of it meet normal requirements on the design and number of motorists wanting one. Tom Brejcha, an attorney with the pro-life Thomas More Society law firm that represented the sponsor, hailed the ruling.

A state senator whose first wife suffered a painful death wants the state to legalize medical marijuana use. Sen. Bill Mescher of Pinopolis says the issue has been on his mind for about 20 years. “My first wife died of lung cancer -- a long, agonizing death,” the Republican lawmaker said. A doctor said marijuana might help ease her pain and nausea from chemotherapy, but South Carolina law wouldn’t allow it, Mescher said. People won’t let dogs die with that kind of suffering, he said. “It’s been on my mind ever since.”

Legal and law enforcement experts have begun to express outward skepticism about claims by a teacher that he killed JonBenet Ramsey. John Mark Karr told reporters in a press conference last night in Thailand he was with the 6-year-old beauty queen when she died nearly 10 years ago. He said the death was accidental, as part of a botched kidnapping effort.

An Indiana judge fed up with teenage traffic violators is kicking them in the seat -- the driver's seat. Porter Superior Judge Julia Jent is sentencing the ticketed teens to the embarrassment of riding the school bus, if they are found guilty in her courtroom. The judge, said she knew she had reached the teen when the girl started crying outside her courtroom. With that, she figured she found the right punishment. "Oh my God, you would have thought I gave her and her mother the death penalty," Jent told the paper.

One of the things the President and his evacuation team must do is follow the law -- or at least people say the President is not above the law, so it’s better that he obeys it. A law especially pertinent to this situation is the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which -- in part -- requires the government to charge evacuees commercial fare plus a dollar for government evacuation. Obeying the law, the State Department had planned to make the evacuating Americans sign a note pledging to reimburse the U.S. government before they got on board. They were charging the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus -- usually $150-$200. When House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi heard about this, she quickly asked her staff to find the nearest microphone. They found CNN, to which Pelosi declared, “A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon.” ()() Incidentally, Nancy voted for the law which requires the state department to charge evacuees. Didn't she read the bill before voting for it?

Bad guys have superior firepower, can eavesdrop on communications of American law enforcement Hundreds of rounds of automatic-weapons fire rained down on South Texas sheriff's deputies and Border Patrol agents from the Mexican side of the border as they investigated a horror story told by two American brothers who fled across the Rio Grande fearing for their lives. ()() One more reason we need to stop the flood of illegal aliens coming into our country. Time for our Border Patrol agents to move up to M-16's and machine guns.

Dear Jorge plans to address the nation tonight, a speech wherein he will almost surely attempt to deceive citizens into believing that he does not wish the mass migration from Mexico to continue unabated. He will likely offer some negligible resources for law enforcement and border security – resources which will never materialize – in return for an amnesty program that will grant American citizenship to the Mexican nationals who have helped lower America's wage rates by 16 percent over the last 32 years. And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work."

Is the national ID card the next step toward the imposition of the biblical "mark of the beast" Christians believe will be required to buy and sell during the Last Days? That's the contention of a growing group of believers who are working to turn back the approval of the Real ID Act by Congress last year. Public Law 109-13 requires the national ID portion of the plan go into effect by May 2008. ()() It's probably not "the mark," but it's a step toward it.

“The president does not need to wait on Congress to exercise line-item veto power,” said Dr. Coburn. “Under the law, wasteful earmarks that are only listed in conference reports can, and should, be ignored by executive branch agencies. If the president takes this stance, Congress will back down because they will be making an argument they will never win with the public. No rational voter will tolerate Congress holding up appropriations for vital services or national defense priorities so politicians can secure their earmarks and pet projects. I hope the president does not hesitate to use this power that is already at his disposal.”

They may opt to use a statewide referendum to repeal the law, denying those who supported the ban the opportunity to take it all to the way to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Should Planned Parenthood lost the ballot vote, it could still file a lawsuit against the ban. ()() I'm pretty sure they would have trouble even getting a referendum on the ballot. Who's going to sign a petitition in favor of killing babies?

Back in December the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that it is unconstitutional for Congress to force law schools that object to discrimination against gay people to give the military access to their recruitment programs.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays.

The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the state's 24-hour waiting period for abortions, a decision that turns the focus of the legal battle to federal court. The unanimous ruling Tuesday by Missouri's highest court focused on whether the 2003 law ran contrary to the state constitution. The judges rejected arguments that it was overly vague and deprived people of liberty and privacy rights.

A Federal judge has turned back a request from the Planned Parenthood abortion business to stop enforcement of a parental notification law that requires it and other abortion centers to let the parents of a minor teen know when she's thinking of having an abortion.

Protesters of cartoons insist Islam forbids any image of prophet Frieze depicts Muhammad among 18 "lawgivers" on wall above Supreme Court justices' bench While Muslims engaged in violent protests worldwide over caricatures of Muhammad have insisted any image of their prophet is considered blasphemous, a prominent frieze in the U.S. Supreme Court portrays the Islamic leader wielding a sword.

Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided, but not because the Supreme Court presumed to legalize abortion rather than ban it. Roe was wrongly decided because abortion simply is not a constitutional issue. There is not a word in the text of that document, nor in any of its amendments, that conceivably addresses abortion. There is no serious argument based on the text of the Constitution itself that a federal "right to abortion" exists. The federalization of abortion law is based not on constitutional principles, but rather on a social and political construct created out of thin air by the Roe court.

Liberal Democrats waged an eleventh-hour attempt Monday to block Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation, arguing that he would tilt the high court further to the right.