Supreme Court hears arguments on Arizona immigration law

The Supreme Court heard arguments on the Arizona immigration law. Our immigration laws need to be enforced. With the high unemployment we have, every job is needed by American citizens and legal immigrants.  

The Obama administration, which opposes those measures, has argued that the country cannot sustain a patchwork of separate immigration laws. Verrilli, who is arguing on behalf of the government, said in his brief that the Executive Branch has the power to enforce immigration policy. "For each state, and each locality, to set its own immigration policy in that fashion would wholly subvert Congress' goal: a single, national approach," he wrote. 

People come down on one side or the other of the illegal immigration argument for various reason. The argument put forth by the administration is incomprehensible. They say they want a single approach for the entire country and their approach has been to basically ignore illegal immigration. The Bush administration was pretty much the same way.

Illegal immigration is expensive for the states due to the crimes committed by some illegal immigrants, educational expenses, medical care, etc. The total amounts go into the tens of billions and possibly more. If the federal government is ignoring illegal immigration, the states will step forward with their own approach out of financial necessity. Ignoring a problem is not a proper "single, national approach".

Bill Cosby says gun owners want to kill people

Bill Cosby commented on the Trayvon Martin shooting by blaming guns.

"We've got to get the gun out of the hands of people who are supposed to be on neighborhood watch," Cosby said in his first public remarks about the case, published today.

 Apparently, people shouldn't be allowed to carry guns while on neighborhood watch even if they have a concealed carry permit. I would think that people working a neighborhood watch shift would be in more danger than the average person because criminals casing the neighborhood might notice them and want to take them out before breaking into a house. I wouldn't want to work a neighborhood watch without having a weapon on me.

Cosby goes beyond that first strange idea to make the assumption that gun owners, and more specifically those with concealed carry permits, want to kill people.

"When you carry a gun, you mean to harm somebody, kill somebody."

I spent thirteen years as a peace officer and have had my carry permit for the past several years. At no time did I ever intend or even want to kill somebody. In fact, I've always wanted just the opposite, to be left alone in peace. I carried a gun back then and still carry one now because the world can be a dangerous place. We just never know when that danger might show up and decide to involve us. If we lived in Cosby's fantasy land, we would be left defenseless to the criminals of the world who will undoubtedly be armed and willing to kill or injure us to get what they want.

Is Obama threatening the Supreme Court?

President Obama offered some additional commentary today regarding his earlier comments that the Supreme Court, as unelected people, do not have the authority to overturn unconstitutional laws. His words today seemed to be a bit of backpedaling after yesterday's comments. They were softened to say that the court has traditionally given deference to the legislature in matters of national economic concern. His comments on Monday were stronger than that and almost a challenge to the Supreme Court.

Apparently Obama hasn't studied much history because the court has overturned many unconstitutional laws in the past. They overturned Jim Crow laws, forced desegregation of schools, enforced Miranda rights. He said that the Obamacare law was passed by an overwhelming majority in Congress. It passed in the House by 219-212. That doesn't seem very overwhelming to me. Even if it had passed unanimously, that doesn't make it constitutional. We live in a constitutional republic not a democracy which means if a law violates our rights and the constitution it is null and void. Here's a hypothetical. Suppose Congress unanimously passed a law sending all blacks back into slavery. According to Obama's standard of it being an overwhelming majority, the Supreme Court should uphold the law. That would be a violation of their rights and should absolutely be overturned however. Obama has spent his term as president acting more and more like a dictator. Who knows what he will try push through when he no longer has to worry about reelection whether that's this November or in four more years.

Media Bias in the Martin/Zimmerman Case

The media bias in the Martin/Zimmerman case is difficult to believe. I've seen articles that refer to Zimmerman as "white" and one that refers to him as a "white Hispanic". I don't think I've ever seen that label applied to a person in a criminal case before. NBC recently edited the recorded 911 call to make it look like Zimmerman was focused on Martin's race rather than his actions. Zimmerman didn't mention race until the 911 operator asked for it. A CNN host mentioned that police officers and dispatchers ask for race when getting a description and implied that could be implied racism. I spent thirteen years as a police officer and when looking for a suspect it was usually helpful to have race and gender as a starting point. You're able to rule out a lot of people with those two factors alone.

The media has spent the past month falling all over themselves trying to make this case into a racist incident where there is no compelling evidence showing that it was. Hype and sensationalism, rather than facts, has been the message of the day. They have been fanning the flames of emotion among people that get their news from a headline or unsubstantiated rumor. In addition to that, they have been willing accomplices to some of the most practiced racists of our time such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the New Black Panthers.

Martin, Zimmerman, Patience and the Truth

I've read several news articles, commentaries in internet forum posts about the death of Trayvon Martin who was shot by George Zimmerman. One of the things I've noticed that has been sorely lacking has been patience at finding the truth. I've read one side and then the other claiming that the latest bit of information released shows their side is right. We still don't know and may never know all of the details. There are two sides to what happened that night and one of them is dead. The only person able to tell the entire story may or may not be telling the truth.

One thing that we do have is a lot of people pumping the public full of emotion and one sided stories. Al Sharpton is threatening to escalate the protests unless Zimmerman is arrested and charged with murder. Maybe he should be arrested but maybe he shouldn't be. The police and prosecutors need to be given time to properly investigate the incident and make the details public. What this country needs is for justice to be done and not a political response that satisfy one side or the other.