The Morning Blog

Clearly, the poor can't be allowed to make their own decisions about what they eat or drink! Heavens to Betsy, no! Next thing you know, they'll want to vote or something!

Lou Dobbs employed undocumented workers. Remarkably, he failed to contract leprosy.

Reporting on the Snyder v. Phelps case :


None of that should have mattered; a competent second-year law student could have handled it. One would simply concede that Mr. Snyder is a private person. The issue is the kind of speech. The WBC's speech, disagreeable though it might be to the majority, was aimed at issues of American social and military policy. This kind of speech is fully protected by the First Amendment. Nothing in WBC's signs was directed at Matthew or Albert Snyder personally. Church members never approached the funeral or tried to disrupt it with noise; they did not interact with Mr. Snyder, who never even saw the signs until he read news reports; the "epic" was not sent to Mr. Snyder, simply published on the Internet. Under these circumstances, letting a jury assess a multimillion-dollar verdict is plainly permitting punishment for a distasteful message on a question of public importance. The Snyders' pain is the kind of pain free speech requires us to bear.

I so very much want these people to lose for all the wrong reasons and want so very much for them to win for the right ones. They are quite possibly the most douchebaggy group in America. However, it seems as though their inner twit won't even let them win a pretty cut and dry first amendment case. It looks like they're determined to screw this one up for everybody. Read on:

But Margie Phelps spent most of her time arguing that Mr. Snyder is a public figure because he and his family had spoken to the news media about their grief for their dead son and their horror at the war in which he died. All he had to do was keep absolutely quiet. By making any public comment after Matthew's death, they became fair game for WBC. Over and over the Justices suggested, asked, begged her to assume that Mr. Snyder was not a public figure. Please, they seemed to be saying, we're not buying it, give us some other reason to vote for you. Over and over she refused."They step[ped] into a public discussion," she said.


Photos of the river of Sludge in Hungary. Looks perfectly dreadful.

Short post today. Seems like everything's keeping its head down.