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Senator Durbin and the FDA Viciously Attack Dietary Supplements, 7-26-11

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Tuesday granted a temporary injunction to stop the state's new voter identification law.

The ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan will stop the law from taking effect for the state's April 3 presidential primary election.

The Milwaukee branch of the ...

HOUSTON — Former Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford, whose financial empire once spanned the Americas and made him fabulously wealthy, was convicted Tuesday of bilking his investors out of more than $7 billion through a Ponzi scheme he operated for 20 years.

A day after telling U.S. District Judge David ...

CRANSTON, R.I. (AP) — An 81-year-old woman from Newport, R.I., won last month's $336.4 million Powerball jackpot, sleeping with the winning ticket in her Bible until coming forward to claim the sixth-largest U.S. prize on Tuesday, a family representative said.

At a news conference at state lottery ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — A Rutgers University computer system manager told jurors on Tuesday that it appears the computer of a former student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man was used in two video chats on Sept. 21, 2010.

That ...

HARTFORD, Conn. — The mild winter that has given many Northern farmers a break from shoveling and a welcome chance to catch up on maintenance could lead to a tough spring as many pests that would normally freeze have not.

Winters are usually what one agriculture specialist calls a "reset ...

Gizmodo: Police Drone Crashes into Police:

The Montgomery County (Texas) Sheriff's Office had a big day planned. After becoming the first department in the country with its own aerial drone ($300,000!), they were ready for a nice photo op. And then the drone crashed into a SWAT team.

. . .

Not only did the drone fail [at 18' altitude], and not only did it crash, it literally crashed into the police. It's no wonder we're not able to find a video of this spectacular publicity failure. Luckily, the SWAT boys were safe in their Bearcat.

This would be a fine one-off blooper story if it weren't for some upsetting implications. This is exactly why we have reason to raise multiple eyebrows at Congress, which wants to allow hundreds of similar drones to fly over US airspace. These drones are still a relatively young technology, relatively unproven, and relatively crash-prone. The odds of being hit by one are low, of course, but should a Texas-style UAV plummet ever happen in, say, a dense urban area, nobody would be laughing. Not all of us are driving around in Bearcats. [Examiner]

NEW YORK — A group of expert hackers who attacked governments and corporations around the globe has been busted after its ringleader — one of the world's most-wanted and most-feared computer vandals — turned against his comrades and secretly became an informant for the FBI months ago, authorities said Tuesday.

...

Defendant used a buddy’s work computer to do internet searches on “how to kill a baby, how to have a miscarriage, and how to find a missing person.” He was told before the search that the company could see it. The computer was password protected but the search history was available to IT. He was convicted of arranging the murder a 14 year old he impregnated. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the internet search history after the computer was turned over the police after the murder. State v. Robinson, 2012 Kan. LEXIS 149 (March 2, 2012). [The court did not have to go this far to show a lack of REP in the search history. It was somebody else's computer, and he assumed the risk it would be found and turned over to the police. That's all it had to say.]

An officer approached a van parked too long in a McDonald’s parking lot and he saw the occupants “moving frantically as if they were trying to hide something or retrieve something.” He yelled, “‘Show me your hands,’ and moved toward the front of the van; neither individual complied.” He pulled his gun, and ordered them from the vehicle and then searched for a weapon. This did not constitute an arrest, and was for officer safety. State v. Walker, 2012 Ohio 847, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 739 (2d Dist. March 2, 2012).*

The fact that defendant was a little slow in responding to an officer’s command to put his hands on the steering wheel does not justify a protective weapons search of the car. The officer first called him "reluctant," then qualified it. In addition, the government used every innocuous fact to attempt to show reasonable suspicion and came up short [damaging its credibility in the meantime; like a lawnmower and weedeater in the trunk must have meant the defendant was trading for drugs]. United States v. James, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28355 (E.D. N.C. January 19, 2012).*

Trash pulls and a records check of the resident showing a drug history was probable cause for issuance of a search warrant for drugs in the house. State v. Mooney, 2012 Ohio 852; 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 745 (5th Dist. February 23, 2012).*

Police responded to a shooting call and asked for permission to look in defendant’s house to see if anyone was shot. Defendant let them in. The officer could see marijuana and scales in plain view in the kitchen and, through a floor heating vent, he saw marijuana in baggies. The officer removed the vent grill and pulled out what he could. Then he went to the basement to get the rest by removing the ductwork. All this was reasonable. State v. Smith, 2012 Ohio 845, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 737 (2d Dist. March 2, 2012).*

WASHINGTON — More than 70 percent of students involved in school-related arrests or cases referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or African-American, according to an Education Department report that raises questions about whether students of all races are disciplined evenhandedly in America's schools.

Black students are more than three times ...

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Barack Obama is obsessed with words, and he never learned to make a short speech. The Israelis understand that, however well-meaning he may be. The president may even believe most of the stuff he hears himself say.

Mr. Obama made another pretty speech to the American Israel Public Affairs ...

If you'll indulge me, I need to express this beyond my Twitter posts: I am proud of my brother, Rush...

Based on a CI’s tip, the details of which had panned out completely, as soon as defendant was stopped, the officer reached for the center console and found a gun where the CI said it would be. Also, there was cocaine there. Defendant was not secured at the time it happened, and it “cleanly” fit within the Michigan v. Long protective weapons search exception. United States v. Ware, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 4425, 2012 FED App. 0244N (6th Cir. March 1, 2012) (unpublished).

It was a reasonable condition of supervised release in a child pornography case to submit to searches of any computers or devices which may access the internet. United States v. Grigsby, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 4423 (9th Cir. February 27, 2012) (unpublished)*:

The district court did not abuse its discretion by imposing a condition of supervised release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) requiring that Grigsby submit to searches and seizures of computers and related devices. "Subjecting computers and other devices able to access the Internet to monitoring, search and seizure is critical to preventing [Grigsby] from viewing or obtaining child pornography." United States v. Goddard, 537 F.3d 1087, 1090 (9th Cir. 2008). This condition of supervised release is sufficiently narrow because it applies only to those devices connected to the Internet. See United States v. Quinzon, 643 F.3d 1266, 1272-74 (9th Cir. 2011) (analyzing an identically-worded condition of supervised release).

Defendant had no standing to challenge the search of his mother’s and sister’s house. He lived elsewhere, but he only occasionally spent the night there; he didn’t on the day in question. He was there, but he fled when the police showed, and that was an abandonment of whatever expectation of privacy he had in the premises. United States v. Oliver, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27701 (E.D. Tex. March 2, 2012):

The Court finds that Oliver has no expectation of privacy in the PR 2623 residence. The evidence shows that, at the time of the search, the residence was owned by his mother and sister, but not by him. Oliver lived in a home with his wife in Longview, Texas. Further, Oliver, at most, only sporadically slept at the residence. Additionally, there is no evidence before the Court that on May 1, 2009, when officers executed the search, Oliver was present in the home when the search was conducted. The Government alleges that Oliver was there and fled immediately before the search began. Thus, if Oliver was not present in the home during the search, Oliver cannot claim an expectation of privacy. Further, if as the Government contends, Oliver was present in his mother and sister's home at the time of the search but fled immediately before the search began, then he abandoned any expectation of privacy he had in the home upon fleeing the premises.

Claimant’s vehicle was stopped for crossing the fog line three times in a mile while being followed. Officers noticed that the truck appeared to be modified while following it. After a dog alert within minutes of the stop, the vehicle was towed to a nearby garage, and they drilled a hole for a fiberoptic scope that revealed plastic wrapped packages. The mechanic figured out how to activate the electrically operated truck bed revealing the cash. After the cash was found not to be drugs, the claimant and his passenger were released six hours after the stop. The stop and search were legal. United States v. One Million, Thirty-two Thousand, Nine Hundred Eighty Dollars in U.S. Currency ($1,032,980.00) 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27639 (N.D. Ohio March 2, 2012).*

Anyone who believes America's culture wars are behind her should have started out Friday reading The Washington Times.

Rick Santorum is claiming Oklahoma as his "Super Tuesday Home State" according to this report. Santorum states:

"I don't have my home state up on Tuesday like Congressman Gingrich or Gov. Romney, though Gov. Romney has about five home states--I don't know how that works--but I don't live that kind of life. I have one home state. But I can tell you that if I feel like if I have any home state up on Super Tuesday, it's here in Oklahoma."

Actually, Rick Santorum was born in Virginia and has lived in Virginia since the 1990's. Virginia is a Super Tuesday state and would seem to be a good fit for him to claim as a "home state," especially if every state Romney travels to is a "home state." Virginia is also an important swing state. But Santorum failed to submit any signatures to qualify for the Virginia ballot, which is somewhat of an embarrassment given his ties to the region.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich's SuperPAC, Winning Our Future, is running an ad that claims Romney is "not the type to pump his own gas." I'm not sure if Romney has ever commented on Newt's $500,000 Tiffany's story, but Newt is acting like he isn't a millionaire himself.

If we are going to attack Romney, let's do it on his past liberal positions, Romneycare, and substantive issues. It makes it quite difficult to make an argument against the left's use of class warfare when we are so willing to do it for our own political gain.

See Also: Super Tuesday Preview

Photo: Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum. Source: Gage Skidmore

Super Tuesday: Class Warfare Edition originally appeared on About.com Conservative Politics: U.S. on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 08:44:40.

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Mitt Romney snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Michigan by unveiling a pro-growth, 20 percent tax-cut plan.

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana woman who saved her two children by binding them together with a blanket and shielding them with her body as a tornado ripped apart their house lost parts of both her legs, which were crushed by the falling debris, her husband says.

Stephanie Decker, a 36-year-old ...

There are undoubtedly many people who are alive today because of James Q. Wilson...