"It's somewhat akin to charging an undercover narcotics officer with possession of drugs. They committed an illegal action at the behest of and as an agent of the government. How do you hold them criminally liable for that in a court of law with the reasonable doubt standard in effect? No jury in the world would convict them in a criminal court."

Not necessarily correct. It would depend on the fact pattern, not soely on the fact that he, a gov't agent, is being prosecuted by the gov't for whom he is an agent. The gov't authorizes those agant's actions WITHIN LIMITS, most central being that, violating the law is not included among the justifiable means of defending the rule of law.

There are countless scenarios in which an undercover narcotics officer could illegally possess drugs, and be found guilty of that.

Posted at July 3, 2008 1:16 PM in response to Mr. Olbermann's Special Comment

"Why are the options presented by anti-gun folks always so black and white?"

Why are gun-nuts incapaable of thinking in terms not only of grey, but also in terms of actual reality?

While they claim to be "responsible"?

There are at minimum three -- not two -- positions on the issue.

1. Gun-nut -- gun control is unconstitutional and the same as gun banning/confiscation.

2. Hand guns should be banned.

3. Gun control has existed, in every society, since the advent of guns. It is a matter, for one, of public safety. A society's regulation of dangerous substances and objects is both sane AND RESPONSIBLE.

Such regulation is RESPONSIBLE.

Put simply, irresponsible simpleton: regulation of gun ownership is not ipso facto "anti-gun". It IS pro-public safety.

Posted at July 3, 2008 12:58 PM in response to Well Known Liberal Blogger Shot In Washington, D.C.

There's an excellent op-ed in the NY Times about the law of self-defense -- and the non-lethal alternatives to guns. Idjits who jabber about a "right of self-defense" as rationalization for the bogus "absolute right" to own guns -- er, I mean, of "self-defense" -- can either, finally, get an education in the fact that the "right" of "self-defense" has ALWAYS BEEN, and SHALL ALWAYS BE, REGULATED -- i.e., LIMITED -- or they'll put their own asses in jail.

Now that there are non-lethal alternatives to guns, one will no longer have a legitimate claim of "I had to kill him, because he pointed a pencil at me, and I hadn't any alternative."

Will have to learn, that is, that not only self-described "responsible gun owner" gun-nuts have rights, based upon bogus "arguments" about "patriotism" and "Founders/Framers," and false Jeffersonism, and the "Declaration of Independence," and the Constitution:

Those they would purportedly "defend against" -- 99 per cent of which are paranoid fantasies about the non-existent -- ALSO have rights.

One of those rights is to not be shot/killed by some self-righteous hothead who hasn't the first clue to logic, and logical "argument" -- merely claiming to be "responsibile" does not make it so -- let alone the actual history and legal history and law applying to these issues. As "ignorance of the law is no excuse," the TRULY responsible don't jabber anti-Constitution NRA irrationaliaties; instead, they ACTUALLY know the ACTUAL law, as it is their RESPONSIBILITY to know it.

Still, we have yet to hear/see ANY of these self-defined "responsible gun owners" EVER speak of "rights" OTHER THAN THEIR "RIGHT" to kill others based upon BS. Claiming to be "responsible" is not sufficient in itself in the face of centuries of law which is far more refined than is irrationally self-righteous knuckle-dragging.

Posted at July 3, 2008 12:45 PM in response to Well Known Liberal Blogger Shot In Washington, D.C.

Grover Norquist a racist?

Gee: who would ever have suspected that of him.

Posted at June 30, 2008 4:02 PM in response to Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

CT Voter --

Deal with the facts, instead of lying like a Republican:

There were TWO bills:

1. Kerry was against one, and

2. For the other.

It is the lie that he "flip-flopped" when in fact he misspoke: he was for one, and against the other.

It is no defnese of Obama to adopt a Republican lie against Kerry; it is, rather, intellectually dishonest.

Posted at June 30, 2008 4:00 PM in response to Conservative Activist Grover Norquist: Obama Is "Kerry With A Tan"

Beside the point. If the negotiations are between Iraq and the oil corporations, and the US govv't is said by Bush not to be involved, and yet the US gov't is involved -- Bushit is lying again -- then the Bushit criminal enterprise is again using taxpayer monies to pay private corporations to steal Iraqs oil -- doubtless for additional profits.

Regardless whether it is wise in international law to have an "arbitration" clause in a contract.

Posted at June 30, 2008 3:54 PM in response to Today's Must Read

That's another reason it is legitimate news: the Republican is heterosexual!

Posted at June 29, 2008 11:09 AM in response to Today's Must Read

Gee, like "family values" hypocrisy -- and using that to win a veto-proof Democratic majority in Congress is so . . . "Huffington".

Posted at June 29, 2008 11:07 AM in response to Today's Must Read

I would be helpful if folks would get the facts on this issue:

"Justice Scalia, writing for a 5/4 majority, stated: "there seems to us no doubt" that this individual right does, in fact, exist. I guess that’s true if "no doubt" means that for 200-plus years such a right has never been held to exist. Its true if "no doubt" means a split among legal scholars as to whether the right conferred by the Second Amendment is an individual or collective right."

Why is it this court, and so many lawyers and law professors -- including some who claim to be Constitutional law professors -- never make mention of the legislative history? You know, the DEBATES in the first Congress by the FRAMERS of the Bill of Rights -- which, unlike NRA tracts, is LEGAL AUTHORITY -- and that which became the Second Amendment? NO DOUBT is BS of the worst order.

The first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, as collated by Representative James Madison, and submitted by him to that Congress, reads as follows -- and note especially the final clause, and my interlineations which refuse to be illiterate or intellectualy dishonest:

"The right of the people [PLURAL*] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated [UNDER LAW] militia being the best security of a free country: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service [not "individual self-defense" against "criminals"/gum'mint] in person."
_____

*It is "We the people" -- not, "I the people," or "We the individual".
_____

The final clause -- which obviously concerned "conscientious objection" -- exemption from military duty for reasons of conscience -- was the ONLY posited "individual" "right" debated as concerned that which became the Second Amendment. And OBVIOUSLY that posited "individual" "right" was voted DOWN, therefore -- OBVIOUSLY -- the Second has nothing whatever to do with "individual" anything.

Let's keep it simple:

1. Under the newly-ratified Constitution the first Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- debated and framed the Bill of Rights, including that which became the Second Amendment.

2. That Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- submitted the draft Bill of Rights to the several states for ratification on September 28, 1789.

3. Ratification of the Bill of Rights was completed on December 15, 1791.

4. On May 8, 1792, Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- enacted the "Militia Act," which implements US Con. Art. I., S. 8., Cl. 15 and 16 -- the Second Amendment notwithstanding.

5. As the militia is OBVIOUSLY within the scope of the Second Amendment, and the "Militia Act" OBVIOUSLY regulates the militia, then the Second Amendment -- NRA lie notwithstanding -- DOES NOT "protect" anything within its scope FROM rule of law/regulation.

6. 5. means: IF the Second Amendment "protected" an "individual" right -- which it OBVIOUSLY does not do -- then that "individual" right would NOT be "protected" by the Second Amendment FROM rule of law/regulation.

The only "reason" there is a "debate" about whether the Second "protects" an "individual" "right" is that that legislative history is either unknown to the "debaters" or ignored by them.

(There is also a "debate" because -- gun-nuts in particular -- of ignorance of American history. The Founders themselves engaged in not only gun control -- as does any sane society -- but also prohibition and "grabbing". Among the guns they confiscated were those held by those who were "disaffected with the revolution" and the Tories. There was no counter-"revolution" because the Founders had DISARMED the Tories.

Their views did not change with the ratification of the Contitution and Bill of Rights -- as the foregoing makes conclusively clear.

Posted at June 27, 2008 5:17 AM in response to SCOTUS Rules that 2nd Amendment Is an Individual Right

"Justice Scalia, writing for a 5/4 majority, stated: "there seems to us no doubt" that this individual right does, in fact, exist. I guess that’s true if "no doubt" means that for 200-plus years such a right has never been held to exist. Its true if "no doubt" means a split among legal scholars as to whether the right conferred by the Second Amendment is an individual or collective right."

Why is it this court, and so many lawyers and law professors -- including some who claim to be Constitutional law professors -- never make mention of the legislative history? You know, the DEBATES in the first Congress by the FRAMERS of the Bill of Rights -- which, unlike NRA tracts, is LEGAL AUTHORITY -- and that which became the Second Amendment? NO DOUBT is BS of the worst order.

The first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, as collated by Representative James Madison, and submitted by him to that Congress, reads as follows -- and note especially the final clause, and my interlineations which refuse to be illiterate or intellectualy dishonest:

"The right of the people [PLURAL*] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated [UNDER LAW] militia being the best security of a free country: but no person [INDIVIDUAL] religiously scrupulous of [AGAINST] bearing arms shall be compelled [INVOLUNTARY] to render military service [not "individual self-defense" against "criminals"/gum'mint] in person."
_____

*It is "We the people" -- not, "I the people," or "We the individual".
_____

The final clause -- which obviously concerned "conscientious objection" -- exemption from military duty for reasons of conscience -- was the ONLY posited "individual" "right" debated as concerned that which became the Second Amendment. And OBVIOUSLY that posited "individual" "right" was voted DOWN, therefore -- OBVIOUSLY -- the Second has nothing whatever to do with "individual" anything.

Let's keep it simple:

1. Under the newly-ratified Constitution the first Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- debated and framed the Bill of Rights, including that which became the Second Amendment.

2. That Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- submitted the draft Bill of Rights to the several states for ratification on September 28, 1789.

3. Ratification of the Bill of Rights was completed on December 15, 1791.

4. On May 8, 1792, Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- enacted the "Militia Act," which implements US Con. Art. I., S. 8., Cl. 15 and 16, the Second Amendment notwithstanding.

5. As the militia is OBVIOUSLY within the scope of the Second Amendment, and the "Militia Act" OBVIOUSLY regulates the militia, then the Second Amendment -- NRA lie notwithstanding -- DOES NOT "protect" anything within its scope FROM rule of law/regulation.

6. 5. means: IF the Second Amendment "protected" an "individual" right -- which it OBVIOUSLY does not do -- then that "individual" right would NOT be "protected" by the Second Amendment FROM rule of law/regulation.

The only "reason" there is a "debate" about whether the Second "protects" an "individual" "right" is that that legislative history is either unknown to the "debaters" or ignored by them.
______________

Scalia, as some sort of "strict constructionist," should know that when one wants to determine "original intent," in order to "correctly" interpret the Contitution, one goes to the legislative history -- the Framer's debates. That is true both for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

But, as is usual for Scalia, he will tell any lie to reach whatever his personal political goal, and make that the law of the land.

Posted at June 27, 2008 5:02 AM in response to SCOTUS decision good for gun control?