What anonymity really means

There once was a blog called Coram Non Judice (known to regular readers of this fine blog as Caput Penitus Culus).  The blog was purported to present valid legal opinions on issues related to the FLDS raid in Texas.  The blog was run pseudonymously by a fellow identifying himself as TxBluesMan.  No one knew his real name.  No one knew what his credentials were to opine on legal matters.  No one.

When asked how he justified writing anonymously what essentially amounted to hate-filled propaganda in the guise of legal opinion -- citing precedent often, of course -- TxBluesMan compared himself to the Founders, who at times wrote anonymous tracts against the colonial government and the King.

This, of course, was complete horse hockey.  There was nothing remotely similar to what the Founders did in anything TxBluesMan wrote.  The Founders hid behind anonymity to avoid arrest for sedition.  TxBluesMan wrote anonymously for a far different reason.

Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

As the tipster who passed this story on to me wrote, "That, boys and girls, is the story of TxBluesman."

100% true and accurate. Think I'm kidding? I was accused by TxBluesMan of being pro-polygamy and pro-pedophilia for simply opining that 4th Amendment protections were violated during the Texas Stoßtruppen's raid! 

TxBluesMan is an intolerant bully.  He desperately needed to be outed.  And he was.

TxBluesMan turned out to be Sgt. Gregory Prickett, AKA the Caput a Palos, AKA The Prickette.

Once he was outed, The Prickette immediately shut down his odious blog to try to bury the evidence.  You see, now his real self was linked to his Internet self -- and real consequences awaited.

It's not pleasant when the curtain is parted and the Great and Powerful Oz is revealed to be a two-bit loser with a penchant for throwing his weight around and playing the big shot.  At least, not for Oz.

UPDATE: The same tipster who passed on the NY Times article adds the following:

Just FYI: while online at any sites controlled by Google, your "anonymity" is subject to their selective authority that may or may not conceal it.

White-hot Prickette

War.  Really, it's the only word that can begin to describe the escalation of the saga of The People vs. The Mall Cop a Palos.  To summarize the events to this point.

• The individual behind Coram Non Judice (or, as I prefer, Caput Penitus Culus -- Head Inside Ass) has presented himself/herself/itself as the legal expert for all things related to the illegal seizure of the FLDS children in Texas.
  
  
• Said individual -- while, mind you, remaining completely anonymous -- engaged in the worst sort of character assassination against those whose opinions differed from his own.  Said individuals would include The Pharisee, Bill Medvecky, ScottyL of Ye Olde Journalist, Toes, and The Vulture.  Among other slurs, these individuals have been accused of being pedophiles or pro-pedophilia.  All save Toes blog "in the clear", with their real name and other information there for all to see.  I think that all fair-minded people would agree that slurs against real people -- particularly heinous slurs like calling someone a pedophile -- done from cover of anonymity is the act of a total coward.
  
  
• A Wikipedia administrator, investigating allegations of sock puppetry/meat puppetry and of using multiple identities in those activities (clearly against Wikipedia regulations), discovered two individuals, Sgt. Greg Prickett (hereafter referred to as The Prickette*) and Natalie Malonis (a prominent anti-FLDS lawyer) were engaged in meat puppetry.
  
  
• In the course of that administrator's investigation, the admin found a link from one of The Prickette's aliases (TxBluesMan) to the execrable POS Caput Penitus Culus.  He also discovered The Pharisee, looking for TxBluesMan.
  
  
• Long story short, The Pharisee became aware of The Prickette's real name, and he was formally "outed".
  
  
• All of the aforementioned individuals previously slandered by The Prickette (save Toes, who remains ever polite) had a field day with this information.  The Prickette was called everything but a Child of God by said individuals.  Not coincidentally, every word of what was said about the Prickette by these individuals was....wait for it....TRUE.
  
  
• Bill Medvecky wrote an open letter to The Prickette's boss detailing the kinds of activities he had been involved in.
  
  
• The Prickette issued a Cease and Desist order to The Pharisee, Bill Medvecky, and ScottyL to "stop calling him names and telling on him".  Big pussy!  At the time, I was just a wee bit bent that he hadn't included me in that order.  I didn't realize how lucky I was.
  
  
• The Prickette escalated.   He published pictures of The Pharisee's daughter on that cesspool of a blog, FLDS Texas, in a clear effort to intimidate and extort The Pharisee to back off.
  
  
• The Pharisee countered by contacting just about everyone associated with the university where The Prickette works to alert them to the kind of stalker sociopath they have working for them.
  
  
• The university, clearly seeing the potential liability they faced if they did nothing about this whack-job placed The Prickette on Administrative Leave.
  
  
• Now the other shoe has dropped, so to speak.  The Prickette has sued The Pharisee, Bill Medvecky, ScottyL, and the Wikipedia administrator for $1 million big ones and filed an ex parte which enjoins these gentlemen to desist in their accurate but hurtful name calling against The Prickette (Greggie!  Whatever happened to "sticks and stones..."?).   The full document can be read here.
  

Does anyone still doubt that we're dealing with a borderline personality here?  The Prickette sees absolutely nothing wrong with slandering innocent people, threatening their employment, threatening their relatives(!).  But reveal who he is and the kind of things he's done over the past two years...and he's first in line at the courthouse, ready to sue your ass.

Prickette, you're every bit the sniveling coward I thought you were the first time we had the opportunity to exchange views.  Wait, we didn't exchange views so much as I shared an opinion regarding the 4th Amendment violations I perceived regarding the flimsy warrant the Texas Stoßtruppen used as an excuse to search EVERY HOME IN THE FREAKING COMMUNITY and you called me a pedophile.

If I were the gentlemen named in your lawsuit -- particularly if I were The Pharisee -- I'd counter-sue your sorry ass.  I would guess that the aforementioned folks kept records of their "interactions" with you, just as I have.  I believe the things you've done to all of us from cover of anonymity completely dwarf the things these guys have allegedly done to you "in the clear".

Loser.

* Prickette was chosen as Mr. Prickett's non de guerre for the following reasons.  First, the name "Prickett" is pronounced "prick-ETT".  Second, the suffix "-ette" is used as a feminine diminutive.  This results in Prickette - a prick, only smaller and less masculine.

Coram Non Judice - an update

The proprietor of Coram Non Judice and I have been going round-and-round all day today (click here to see the exchange; it starts a little more than half way down the page (search on 'Vulture' to see where it starts).

Mr. Non Judice is a real piece of work. Every time I make a point, he veers in a different direction. First it was "the FLDS act more like Nazis than the Texas Police supporting the raid" in answer to my point about the government slowly getting us used to paramilitary raids on weirdos so that they can branch out in suppression of any group deemed to be outside the mainstream.

Then he objected to my use of the word 'blitzkrieg' as a description of the raid when I was pointing out how grossly over-the-top the militarized police presence, in full combat regalia, was.

Then, when I pointed out the legal fallacy of a warrant naming one person being used as justification for the search of the ENTIRE COMMUNITY he fell back on "no one was deprived of their rights...there was a warrant".

Then, to counter my next volley, where I asserted that nowhere in the Constitution does the armed invasion of an entire community even BEGIN to be authorized by a mere warrant, he accused me of being a supporter of PPSG (Pedophile Polygamist Support Group)! To further add insult to insult, he called my thinking "muddled and unclear". My response:

Which part of "I don't support the FLDS, their beliefs, or their alleged pedophilia" don't you understand? Doing wrong in an attempt to "do right" is STILL WRONG. Yes, there may be child abuse and pedophilia going in at El Dorado. But does that make illegal search and seizure okay?

Think through the consequences. The Law of Unintended Consequences is a bitch.

I have no idea what is "muddled" and "unclear" about not wanting the Constitutional protections of the 4th Amendment to be violated notwithstanding the righteous cause being paraded about as the justification for doing so.

This earned me this rebuke.

It is clear that you don't understand the Constitution nor the law.

And your opinion still doesn't matter...

Now it was time for that winning Vulture charm to show through.

Okay, Mr. Constitutional Expert - show me where it says that ONE (or two - if you insist) F'ING WARRANT is sufficient to justify setting up a military-style perimeter around a village for purposes of searching ALL RESIDENCES IN THE VILLAGE w/o respect to whether the individuals dwelling therein ARE EVEN NAMED IN THE F'ING WARRANT, and then I'll shut up.

My opinions may not matter to you, Mr. High-and-Mighty-Legal-Expert, but my 'couldn't care less' quotient remains unaffected.

You and your chums here are nothing but bombastic authoritarians who think that any generic warrant is sufficient justification for any little thing der Staat wishes to do to its citizens.

Enjoy Amerika. It seems to fit you.

So...do I think Mr. Caput Penitus Culus (that's Latin for 'Head Inside Ass') will ever come around to my way of thinking? Not a chance in hell! This assclown is so steeped in his self-perceived superiority because......wait for it.....HE'S A LAWYER...that he'll never accept the error of his thinking, particularly when his foil is a computer programmer who doesn't even have a college degree (*GASP!!!!*)

I'm probably done arguing with old Culus. He's WAAAAAAAAAY too smart for me. Probably better looking, too. And more popular.

Tool.

Wiener of the Week - Updated

Normally the WotW is simply the Vulture poking at some governmental asshat through the bars of their bureaucratic cage with the pointed and barbed stick of vitriolic language. But today, it's personal.

This assclown seems to think that people like Toes and me who are appalled at the actions of Texas CPS and the militarized goon squad that supported it in the raid on the FLDS are, at best, stupid, at worst, supporters of pedophilia.

Let me set the stage for you. Sore Toes and a Broken Heart is an excellent blog that serves to document the invasion of the FLDS "compound" by Texas Stoßtruppen and the subsequent legal machinations engineered by Judge Barbara Walther, who, rather than sitting on a judicial bench, should be in jail for her contributions to this abortion of justice.

Mr. Coram Non Judice (ooooooooh! He MUST be smart! He knows Latin! I'm so effing impressed!) took umbrage to a recent post by Toes in which she called into question the legality the both the search warrant used to justify the invasion as well as the legality of expanding the scope of that warrant from a single individual to the ENTIRE community.

Mr. I'm-smart-'cause-I-know-Latin savaged Toes, accusing her of being a "lawyer wannabee" and implying that she's pro-pedophilia.

When Toes brought this up on her blog, I made a comment in her defense that Mr. Self-Important found offense with. But rather than blast me, the commenter, he blasted Toes, for not censoring me!

Her argument would be stronger if one of her last commentators didn't use the term "strumtruppen," which she then moderated and approved.

I followed up at his blog with the following comment (entered verbatim)

SOOOOOOOOOO....you have a problem with my characterization of the amassed SWAT forces that invaded the FLDS "compound" as sturmtruppen. Boo-fricken hoo! Do you have a better word for militarized troops in body armor armed with automatic weapons and backed by armored vehicles?

Don't be disingenuous! Pull your head out of your dogma and look a little deeper at what has been a decades-long trend. Right now they only persecute "oddball" religious groups like the Branch Davidians and the FLDS. But, mark my words, they're working their way up to the point where ANY group of citizens whose views are outside the mainstream can be targets. People like you are "useful idiots" -- putting forth the government line ("this case says 'blah blah blah' so it's okay") and making future atrocities more likely.

Yeah, let's round up the weirdos who MIGHT be engaging in pedophilia! Let's round up all the weirdos, period! One day you'll be saying, "Hey, wait! I'm not a weirdo - I'm mainstream! Get away from me!" as you're led away for being a Mormon, or a blogger, or simply for belonging to DAR. Then maybe you'll understand the viewpoint of people like Toes and me.

Note: this comment still hasn't appeared on Mr. Genius' site yet. Maybe he'll censor me, since Toes wouldn't.

Congratulations, self-important assclown! You're the Wiener of the Week!

UPDATE: My comment finally did get posted 13 hours after I originally posted it. Now let's see what kind of response I get. I'm not nice like Toes, so it should be interesting.

Wiener of the Year 2008

It's here! The moment you've all been waiting for -- that is, if you don't have a life.

The Wiener of the Year is the highest dishonor that can be bestowed on a person or group of people by this Vulture. A WotY is someone who has surpassed all other scoundrels and asshats during the past year. It takes a LOT of effrontery against mankind to get a WotY, trust me.

Last year's Wiener was Mike Nifong, the asshat prosecutor of the Duke lacrosse rape fiasco. His prosecutorial malfeasance was stunning in its self-delusion, not to mention the damage done to the lives of the young men railroaded by Nifong. He was head-and-shoulders beneath all other contenders.

First, I'd like to introduce the runners-up.

• King George the Dim. This is twice that this future Wiener Hall of Fame legend has been a runner up. He received consideration based on his bailout of the auto industry against the wishes of the American people after the bailout bill was quashed by the Senate. King George proved yet again that he doesn't give a rodent's hindquarters what the Constitution says nor what the will of the American people is.

• John McCommie. This is the guy who ran Bob Dole's 1996 campaign all over again and had the audacity (through his surrogates) to throw Sarah Palin under the bus as the scapegoat for his loss to the Media's Lord and Savior, Barack Obama. McCommie was every bit as loathsome and unpalatable a candidate as I thought he would be. And he proved to be every bit the core belief-lacking toad I always knew him to be.
  

• Governor Rod Blagojevich. Holy graft and corruption, Batman! Most years this guy would be the hands-down Wiener. He is the quintessence of every stereotype of a corrupt Chicago politician. That he continues as governor and refuses to step aside even in the issue of naming BO's replacement in the Senate demonstrates the utter shamelessness of this clown.

• Congress. Where to begin? This country club for the politically connected voted for bailout money for their rich friends when the banks and investment houses all cratered. They steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the need for energy independence, placing all of their faith in yet-to-be-developed "new technologies". They have bought in hook, line, and sinker to the Religion of Man-Made Global Warming. They continue to try to regulate every aspect of our lives. And, as the frosting on the cake, they accepted a self-awarded pay increase at the end of a year in which the economy is struggling and many Americans are unemployed or have lost their homes.

• Texas CPS, in conjunction with Texas Stoßtruppen. I can't do the whole FLDS fiasco justice here. Details are spread throughout this blog, but the best source for information on this story is Sore Toes and a Bleeding Heart. This is one of the worst examples of Nanny State tyranny that I've seen in my lifetime. The founders were rolling in their graves as this disaster was unfolding.

• Big Media (the BM for short). It was S-O-O-O-O tempting to make the BM this year's Wiener. The BM's behavior throughout the election in pimping for their Lord and Savior Barack Obama was beyond contemptible. Their behavior of late in inflaming Depression fears in the public is nearly as contemptible. They are, collectively, as pompous, imperious, and out-of-touch a group of people as anyone on this planet outside of Congress.

• The Team Elephant elitist establishment. These asshats mismanaged, misread, and bungled every opportunity to reach the American people. Worse yet, their hitwomen in the so-called conservative commentariat wrote one hatchet job after another targeting Sarah Palin, the one bright spot in the entire gawd-awful election process. Team Elephant is in danger of going the way of the Whigs and the Federalists, but they're absolutely convinced that they need to be Team Donkey Lite if they want to win elections. Bye-bye, Elephants!

But those are just the runners-up. The Wiener by far surpassed each and every one of these individuals or groups. Drum roll, please! 2008's Wiener of the Year is Judge Barbara Walther.

Judge Walther is every freedom loving person's worst nightmare. She personally drove the entire FLDS debacle from her lofty position as a Texas District Judge. She was in up to her eyeballs, from the first warrants all the way until the final slapdown by the Texas Supreme Court and beyond. This reprehensible Nanny State-worshiping shrew determined in that empty head of hers that Crimes had been committed! in the FLDS compound and that she would ride in with her Stoßtruppen and save the day. Then, after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the stolen children must be returned to their parents, she undertook a scheme to undermine the Court's ruling! The Court had to rebuke her directly to get her to finally comply with their order.

Barbara Walther is the poster child for Judicial Activism. She embodies the "I know best" ideology of the activist judge, who seeks to rule as a sort of benevolent dictator over people who had no say in their appointment to the high and lofty position they hold. She needs to be impeached. Now.

Barbara Walther, you despicable freedom-loathing shrew -- you're the Wiener of the Year for 2008!

The Sarah Palin wild card

Big Media (BM for short) is absolutely apoplectic. This is an outrage!

First, John McCommie chooses a VP candidate outside of their comfort zone. They do NOT like being surprised! They had already prepared their hatchet pieces on Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Tom Ridge. Now, because McCommie picked this...this....this OUTSIDER!....they were going to have to actually work instead of going with their preconceptions.

It didn't take long for BM to sharpen their axes and go nuts on poor Ms. Palin and family. They called her everything but a white woman. Contrast this with the even-handed to glowing reviews of Senator Hairplugs from just one week before; he was the "everyman" because he rides Amtrak. Sarah Palin? She's a psycho abusive parent because she hunts and works outside the home! Talk about hypocrisy! The people who brought us "women who don't work don't count" are now decrying a woman who works!

Oh, and let's not forget the pregnant 17-year-old daughter -- surely this is obvious proof that teaching abstinence doesn't work! (Thank God the girl isn't FLDS! She'd be forcibly ripped from her home by Stoßtruppen in armored vehicles armed with assault weapons).

It's been considerably quieter on the BM front concerning Ms. Palin today. Why? Maybe her speech yesterday has something to do with it. Now, I didn't actually see the speech; there's no way I stay up that late for anything but a 49ers game. But I read the complete speech, and I've gotta say -- she rocked it.

So now what? Is she enough to overcome McCommie's inherent unlikeability? Can she topple the Team Donkey center of gravity, Obama the mega-talented orator? Is she enough of a factor for Team Elephant to convince Americans to put the King George the Dim years behind them?

We shall see.

All I know is that they could have nominated Jesus Himself as McCommie's VP candidate and I still wouldn't vote for that tool. Sorry, Sarah!

Militarized Police run amok in PG county

Tip of the Beak to Rachel Lucas for calling my attention to this steaming mess.

Prince Georges county (PG county or "piggy" county to you out-of-staters) is a highly schizophrenic place. There is the PG county of bedroom suburbs of Washington, DC; places like College Park and Silver Spring. Bowie and Laurel. But much of the county sits hard against the worst and most crime-ridden Wards of DC. Places with names like Suitland and Capitol Heights. High-crime places.

But now, thanks to the PG County Sheriffs Department, the phenomena of increasingly militarized and out of control local police forces has come home to Maryland.

Don't believe me? Ask the mayor of Berwyn Heights. He's seen it, up close and personal.

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase.

Apology? APOLOGY?!?!?! We're the Law! We don't have to apologize.

Mayor Calvo is calling for a Federal investigation of the invasion. Good luck there, Mayor. Who do you think it was that provided all of those neat toys for destroying homes to the PG County Sheriffs Department in the first place?

Apparently the PG County Sheriffs Department likes to get their aggression on versus family pets.

In once such case, Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house.

So, what's it going to take before the sheeple are sufficiently roused to decry this Cops-vs-Citizens war that the Federales have fueled? Is it when the Stoßtruppen move beyond killing pets to killing homeowners? Oh, I'm sorry. They're already there in some parts of the country.

Wake up, people! The next house the Stoßtruppen crash could be yours!

Finally....indictments

It started with a false tip from an anonymous source, who turned out to be a woman with mental issues who routinely calls police with false tips. Their ranch/compound was raided by Stoßtruppen with armored vehicles and automatic weapons. Their children were taken from them at gun point, and only returned when the Texas Supreme Court overturned a stateist judge's ruling and then had to force the nanny-fascist to comply with their ruling.

But all along they (the FLDS men) were guilty, right? After all, would Der Staat have descended upon their little enclave with such a display of force if they weren't? I mean, for a display of force THAT ostentatious, surely ALL of the men in the compound MUST be guilty of SOMETHING, right?

Yesterday it was reported on by the AP that indictments have FINALLY been handed down. Surely there must be dozens, right?

A Texas grand jury Tuesday indicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs on a charge of felony sexual assault of a child. Five of his followers have been indicted as well.

Attorney General Greg Abbott said four of Jeffs' followers are charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under the age of 17. One of the four faces an additional charge of bigamy.

Abbott said a fifth follower is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse.

Okay, let me get this straight. After...what has it been? 2? 3 months? After all this time, they hand down six indictments. Six. They send an effin' army, they steal the children of every family living there...and they could only come up with charges against six of them!

I hope the state of Texas is damn proud of their government agents. The Stoßtruppen. The Child Protective Services. Judge Walther and all judges of a like mind with her. Your tax dollars at work.

Justice for the FLDS/Nancy Grace is a Fascist

You could have knocked me over with a feather. A Texas appeals court has determined that Texas CPS had no right nor cause to seize the children of the FLDS cult.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

Wait! Are you telling me that you have to have proof before you can take people's children? [/sarcasm]

This isn't just a victory for the FLDS. This is a victory for the Constitutional protections of each one of us.

But there are some among us who are perpetually less interested in justice and freedom and much more interested in righting perceived (if not factually provable) wrongs.

When I got home last night, Mrs. Vulture was watching Nancy Grace. I used to enjoy Nancy Grace the first several times I watched her show. But now, to me, she's just a screeching fascist. Last night was no different.

Her panel for the discussion of the FLDS ruling consisted of two male defense attorneys who defended the decision (quite well, I might add). The remainder of the panel consisted mostly of shrewish Naziettes whose idea of reasoned debate consisted of baseless (and, so for, evidence-less) charges. "Young girls barely into puberty are being forced to marry and have sex!" "They beat their wives - that's why they make them dress that way, so the bruises won't show!" "There's proof of physical abuse against the children!"

The Vulture had a one word reply for each of the baseless statements of the Fascistas - "Okay - where's the indictment?"

This is what separates the freedom lover from the Statist. The freedom lover believes that when one is accused of a crime, said crime should be investigated, evidence of guilt should be presented before a court, and judgment should be rendered by a jury of his or her peers. The Statist, on the other hand, believing that Der Staat is the solution to all problems, likes to take shortcuts. "Shoot first, ask questions later" takes a whole new meaning when you're talking about situations like this one where 460+ children have been needlessly traumatized because some übermommy decided that crimes have been committed and action must be taken by Der Staat!

I very much dislike the FLDS cult. I very much dislike the way that they treat their women, like cattle. I very much dislike and distrust cults in general. But in the United States of America, under the Constitution, even the most unlikeable cult has rights, and NO ONE, not the government, not the Texas Stoßtruppen, and certainly not the Texas übermommies, can abridge those rights.

Thank God there's still one court in this land that understands and abides by that. And thank God that Nancy Grace isn't our ruler!

More Texas police news

Photo Courtesy of Crane News in Crane, Texas

What do they put in the water in Texas that makes their cops act the way they do? I mean, come ON! They make the Maryland State Police look like a collection of Emily Posts. They seem to view themselves as the law, and God help anyone with the temerity to defy them.

Just ask Brian Barnes, a professional storm chaser. He dared to "talk back" to the law and wound up in jail for it.

"I told him that I was helping out the National Weather Service in San Angelo, and they were relaying my reports to Midland. He told me he didn't care, and that I needed to go."

Barnes thought it was his obligation to stay put and follow the storms, a decision that landed him in jail.

"He jumped out and put me in handcuffs. I turned around and I remember him slamming me up against his vehicle, and then it all got kind of scary."

Among the witnesses was Dennis Greer, who had a similar run-in, with the same deputy, just minutes earlier while he was shooting pictures of the same storm for the local newspaper.

"His first words to me were, 'are you a blankety-blank idiot?' He told me if I didn't leave, I was going to jail, flat out," Greer said.

Nice.

Better still is the phony, trumped-up charge hung on Mr. Barnes.

Barnes was arrested at a road side park on Highway 385 and charged with obstruction of a highway or other passage way.

According to witnesses, there is plenty of room on on the road in front of the park for a vehicle to get by. That's why they are questioning the validity of the charge.

Dennis Greer says, "The guy wasn't blocking anything. He was able to drive a full size truck by with no problem."

Doesn't matter. You didn't follow direct instructions from the law.

The cop was abusive, used foul language, and used unnecessary force on a man who neither posed a threat nor resisted arrest. Apparently, that's par for the course in Texas. The FLDS were REALLY smart not to resist the Stoßtruppen who invaded their ranch.

Wiener of the Month

The WotM for April is quite the no-brainer. Who else could it be but the Stoßtruppen from Texas?

Wrong.

THIS nanny-state worshiping asshat is the Wiener of the Month.

Get a load (and I do mean a load) of this.

Lawyers for the FLDS members – who reside not only at YFZ but also at compounds located in Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, and Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada -- have been arguing in the press that the entry and removal of the children constituted a "massive" violation of due process. Others have argued that the authorities' actions represent the unfair targeting of one religion.

Each of these arguments is singularly misguided.

Exqueeze me? Misguided? Would you care to explain how the state-sanctioned kidnapping of 400+ children on the flimsiest of leads is acceptable? Oh, she would LOVE to explain it!

Whether or Not the Caller Was Legitimate, the Important Point is the Lack of Any Government Misconduct and the Serious Evidence of Crimes to Children

Yeah....that would explain the hundreds of indictments that have been....what do you mean, there haven't been any indictments? I'm S-O-O-O confused. /sarcasm

A Sect In Deep Denial of Its Crimes Cannot Be Trusted with Its Children

Are you shitting me? So now it's Law Enforcement's job to judge, on the spot and without any sort of judicial or jury review, not only whether a crime has been committed, but also whether there are delusional people among those being raided, which is immediate grounds for kidnapping their children? Lady, put down the crack pipe!

This raid was about child abuse, and as I explain above, it is not really any different than authorities entering a drug den or a private home where there are credible accounts of abuse. The child protective services universe is sufficiently stable by now that whoever is sexually abusing a child can be made to stop. It is the best interest of the child that determines government action.

"It is the best interest of the child that determines government action." That actually scares me. I exaggerate not.

Okay, were this just some random donkey spouting inanities, I could perhaps overlook it -- after all, you don't see me going off on the contributors to The Daily Kos, do you? But this ISN'T some random asshat - this is a Princeton University law professor!

Marci Hamilton: for your gross ignorance of the United States Constitution and your complete lack of understanding of basic common-sense law, you are the Wiener of the Month for April!

Wiener of the Week

The WotW for this week is none other than Judge Barbara Walther, the incompetent fascist judge who this past week decided that, notwithstanding the fact that the call to CPS that triggered the whole FLDS fiasco was a fraud, the children seized by the Texas Stoßtruppen should remain in state custody.

Understand, the alleged "marriages" of girls under the age of consent to old horny bastards, if true (it used to be in this country that you were presumed innocent until proven guilty, in case you've forgotten -- our government certainly has!), are worthy of maximum jail time for the horny old coots.

But...and this is of paramount importance...EVEN HORNY OLD PERVERTS HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

But Ms. Walther (trust me, she wants to be called Ms.) is apparently of the opinion that Constitutional protections are null and void when it comes to "protecting the children". She has that certainty of correctness so common among liberals. She "knows" that crimes have been committed, and they were committed against, gasp, THE CHILDREN! So screw the rights of these weirdos. The children must be protected against the statutory rape that certainly awaits them back at the ranch! Never mind that, statistically speaking, the young women among the group (particularly those ages 12-15) have a greater chance of being raped, abused, even killed in foster care than they ever had at the ranch.

But that's neither here nor there; with liberals, it's always intentions that matter, results be damned.

Judge Barbara Walther, you are, most deservedly, the Wiener of the Week.