Wow. John McCain? Fail.

YouTube - "The One"- McCain hits Obama with new ad

This information does not tell us everything we need to know. Thomas shows the strongest partisan bias, but is he also an activist? Does he vote to strike down agency decisions at a high rate? To test for judicial activism and judicial restraint, we examined all the data to find which justices are most likely to strike down agency decisions.

It turns out that Breyer wins the award for Judicial Restraint. Surprisingly, the award for Judicial Activism goes to . . . Justice Scalia.

Not all that much depth, but you get a very strong sense of how things are operating in the judicial system, and it's not good.

Judicial Partisanship Awards - The Washington Independent - U.S. news and politics - washingtonindependent.com

Senior aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales broke the law by using politics to guide their hiring decisions for a wide range of important department positions, slowing the hiring process at critical times and damaging the department’s credibility and independence, an internal report concluded Monday.

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. To not pass the bar. Do not collect legal fees.

Justice Dept. Report on Hiring Finds Violations - NYTimes.com

In his email to Mukasey today, Arnebeck writes: "We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to 'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations."

"This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform,"

Ahhhh... RICO....

The BRAD BLOG : Rove Threatened GOP IT Guru If He Does Not 'Take the Fall' for Election Fraud in Ohio, Says Attorney

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has long led the conservative forces of his state, has been denied his customary position as a voting delegate to the Republican National Convention -- and it's being done by an even more conservative bunch.

Just wow...

Conservative Senator Denied Delegate Slot For Not Being Right-Wing Enough

Republican Senator Dole introduced an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the recently deceased Jesse Helms. Helms, of course, was a strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment.

Why don't we rename the Holocaust Museum after Adolf Eichmann while we're at it Liddy?

Elizabeth Dole Tries To Name AIDS Bill After Jesse Helms

This may come as a shock, but a prominent anti-homosexual Republican attorney general has apparently been caught having homosexual sex intercourse with his homosexual gay male assistant. Bonus: The dude’s wife caught him, in their bed. This is the rumor that the AG’s office has officially denied, so now of course everybody is spilling the sordid details.

I can't wait to see how this one finishes. (or to put this another way, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Wonkette: The D.C. Gossip » Anti-Gay Alabama A.G. Caught Being Gay

dc0de wrote:

Mike -
Well, you make a few good points, but completely miss on some others.

Point #1
"Is it an increase in the cost of ammo? Slightly, but marginal at most."

What about those of us who handload/reload? We can't serialize, or etch, so now it's illegal to do something we've done for years? We have to destroy our existing ammo at our own cost?

I currently reload .45cal at a COST of approximately $0.05 per round. The cheapest that I can purchase rounds today, is $0.14/round. I spent my money to purchase my reloading equipment,Legally, so that I can save money, not spend MORE. ANY COST that increases, will be MORE money out of my pocket. With these laws, it would be illegal for me to reload, cast, or other wise use my equipment. Serializing will remove my ability to SAVE money, and shoot often. No one has yet talked about how this will effect the muzzle loading communities either. I would also be forced to purchase ammunition from a limited set of ammunition manufacturers, a fact that will cause bottlenecks in the supply chain, and causing ammo prices to rise even higher. Ammo manufacturers are already closing their factories in states that are requiring serialization, due to the high costs of retooling. They are also looking at refusing to sell to other states where it is a requirement. Retooling the manufacturing lines is an expensive option, and there are issues with safety where the serialization lasers and reloading systems will need to be separated, as the laser and the powder simply don't play well together. (think big boom.)

There is little proof that the this will actually help find out anything about the shooter, and less proof that the serial number will actually survive the firing, impact and forensics process. It has already been proven that the rifle calibers will NOT survive the process.

As a legislator, my position is, ammunition manufactured for sale shall be serialized as a unique stamp in the cartridge (that is, the "brass"). Serial numbers need to be tracked to point and date of sale, we don't need recorded ID on ammo sales. That covers privacy issues, but still accelerates tracking.

If you're a reloader, you're probably not selling, and even if you are, you're not manufacturing the brass. Serialization in my book would have zero effect on you, aside from maybe increasing the cost of new rounds to get new brass. For muzzle loaders it has even less effect. No brass equals no serialization, period. The way I would implement serialization applies to the brass.

Point #2
"You become capable of determining not just caliber, but you can start pinning locations, and that helps track down the people who used the ammo illegally."

This is a meaningless statement. Caliber is easily determined when you obtain a recovered slug. Go to your local range, and ask them to show you the recovered... [ Read More (0.9k in body) ]

RE: Microstamping and Serialization | Slinging Lead...downrange...

dc0de wrote:
If you like your rights... you might want to review the links in the article...

Well I didn't really want to do this, but this is as good a time as any. As someone running for public office, this issue is a complete crock. I don't agree with microstamping. It's an enormous pain, expensive to retool, but is it a "tax" on legal gun owners? Hell no. A tax means the government gets something out of it, and in either case, the government makes no money off the exchange, in fact if anything any additional costs would get passed to the buyer, with no money going to the government, so calling this a tax is garbage.

I DO agree with serialization. Is it an increase in the cost of ammo? Slightly, but marginal at most. For law enforcement, it's a boon. Suddenly you can track where the ammo was sold. You become capable of determining not just caliber, but you can start pinning locations, and that helps track down the people who used the ammo illegally.

More than that, the same people who oppose anything like this oppose things that make sense like doing ballistics checks on all new guns pre-sale. "It's too expensive. They don't mean anything." I have news for you, ballistics evidence has been getting convictions in criminal courts for close to a century. If it doesn't mean anything, millions of people are in, or have been in, jails improperly. I don't buy that, and neither do any of the lawyers of cops I know. Is it expensive? Again, no. A couple of bucks to test fire new guns is negligible at most.

I like my rights. I like them a lot. But serialization of ammo is at most a negligible cost, and a firm step in the right direction for finding and sending people who commit gun crimes to jail. Does this deal with the 100 million guns out there already? No. It addresses the 5 million new guns added to that total each year. That is significant and useful.

Congratulations on supporting the rights of sociopaths everywhere by blocking things that can lead to their capture.

RE: Microstamping and Serialization | Slinging Lead...downrange...

Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.

Oops!

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek To Report - Politics on The Huffington Post