It’s one thing to harass and arrest protesters causing trouble. Those ‘anarchists’ who damage property should be dealt with. It’s an entirely different thing to raid homes of individuals who have done nothing and to harm or arrest members of the press who obviously are not causing a problem. These people are thugs. Can anyone not understand why the so called authorities are disliked when they so blatantly infringe the very first amendment to the US Constitution, required by the anti-federalists in order to secure those rights from government infringement.

http://www.cnn.com/…

The state of Texas should not have removed more than 400 children it took from a polygamist sect’s ranch, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Earlier this year, authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas, after they received reports of child abuse.

About 460 children were taken from the ranch, which is run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamist sect linked to the jailed “prophet” Warren Steed Jeffs.

Parents have denied the claims of abuse and have been fighting to get their children back.

This is a great turn of events. Just in the past days I’ve heard that another court in Texas hearing some part of this case told the mothers that if they wanted their children back they’d have to repudiate their religion. As I understand it that’s an unforgivable sin, blasphemy. If true that’s absolutely disgusting. Effectively asking them to choose between eternal damnation or their child. In any case this ruling is the first positive thing to come out of this travesty. Hopefully it continues on this new path. Unfortunately even if nothing is ever found likely no one from the State will be held responsible for this. No charges will be brought or if they are nothing will come from it. No restitution. The Nuremberg defense will be used and at worst maybe a reprimand or a bureaucrat or two will loose their job. Nothing however to change the likely pre-existing belief the FLDS had that the modern world was controlled by Satan. They have no doubt now.

It bugs me that as much as the MSM talks about this case they still don’t really mention that the original call was a fake. That the whole operation was completely unfounded. That several if not dozens of the women are over the age of 18 yet kept in custody as children. Likely they prefer to stay with the younger ones but it’s still disgusting.

Update:

Here is the AP version:

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect’s ranch.The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were “legally and factually insufficient” under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

From the Associated Press:

WAUSAU, Wis — Cars lining the street. A house full of young people. A keg and drinking games inside. Police thought they had an underage boozing party on their hands.

But though they made dozens of teens take breath tests, none tested positive for alcohol. That’s because the keg contained root beer.

… Nearly 90 breath tests were done, and officers even searched locked rooms for hiding teens…

You never which terrorists might be at these root beer keggers, right?  Reno 911 writers take note.  I’m surprised that the kids weren’t charged with some kind of frivolous charge for not actually breaking the law.

From the Associated Press:

NEWARK, N.J. - Bartenders can be responsible for drunken drivers who visit their establishment even if they do not consume any alcohol there, a state appellate court ruled yesterday in a move that lawyers said expanded the duties of tavern operators.

In a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel found that the estate of a man killed when his drunk friend drove off the Garden State Parkway can sue the Cape May bar they visited before the accident.

The driver, Frederick Nesbitt III, 19, was not served alcohol at the bar, but he had been drinking beforehand with the friend, James A. Hamby, 21.

The AP article continues and detours into he-said-she-said between the drunk driver and the waitress. That aside, the court’s ruling could have some scary implications for business operators. Now, not only will bartenders be required to keep a tab of how much you order under their watch, but they will be expected to gauge how drunk you are when you walked in the door. Short of everyone blowing a breathalyzer before entering any business with a liquor license, how does the court expect this to work? Nevermind that the bartender had nothing to do with intoxication off premises, social behavior has to be the worse metric to use.

Sex offenders in NJ are now required to take lie detector tests as part of their parole.

Recidivism rates amongst sex offenders are high, the validity of polygraph tests is questionable, the equipment and training to do this is expensive and I’d like to see some statistics as to its effectiveness.

http://www.libertarianunderground.com/…

Someone over at Paulunteer.com noticed this, and it’s quite amazing.  First Fox blatantly left Paul out of the New Hampshire round table debate, and now this.  Could they be any further from “fair and balanced”?  It’s amazing that I once considered Fox to be less biased, or at least biased more in my direction.  It turns out that if you deviate from their party line at all - that is, the neoconservative Republican establishment (a relatively recent turn for Republicans) - all pretense of journalistic objectivity goes straight out the window.

Anyway, here’s the “smoking gun”.  First, from The International Herald Tribune:

Now, Fox News:

You may notice if you follow the Fox News link they now include Paul. The version that Fox apparently had up first was from here. You can clearly see it was later updated to the expanded AP article from here. Notice also that the statement about Huckabee, Giuliani and McCain is not in the older version. Given that the second one is more wide spread and has it’s own page I’m guess it was released after the one not including Paul. The AP screwed up and Fox just copied it. Happens all the time. Paul supporters: calm down. I wouldn’t put it past Fox to do something like this but I think it’s obvious in this case they haven’t.