http://news.bostonherald.com/

In a last-minute show of unity, Bay State Ron Paul supporters decided to throw their votes behind Sen. John McCain last night.

About a dozen Massachusetts supporters of the Texas Congressman and GOP upstart decided to back McCain only an hour before the delegates began to cast votes for the presidential pick.

“We decided the best course of action was to give a little to get a lot,” said Chris Blanc, a Cambridge resident who supports Paul. “The Massachusetts GOP really wanted to show unanimous support.”

Paul, shunned by the Republican convention because he wouldn’t endorse McCain, has been holding daily “counter rallies” in Minnesota where devoted supporters hiss when McCain’s name is uttered.

Rep. Paul Loscocco (R-Holliston) worked with Paul sympathizers to join the delegation so all 43 delegate votes would go to McCain.

“Give a little to get a lot”? Mr. Blanc, you get nothing and took two steps backwards. Bending to the will of GOP was not what you and the other delegates were sent there to do. Thank you for undermining all the hard work and dedication of Ron Paul supporters in and outside the boundaries of Massachusetts. I’m very disappointed.

My hat goes off to the delegates of Alaska, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia who stood their ground.

When asking the delegation for nominations for president, after McCain was included the person presiding asked for any more names, Ron Paul was clearly yelled several times and was ignored without any recognition.

The following states did not give all their votes to John McCain:

• Alaska: 24 McCain, 5 Ron Paul
• Idaho: 26 McCain, 6 ?
• Maine: 20 McCain, 1 ?
• Minnesota: 35 McCain, 6 ?
• Oregon: 26 McCain, 4 Ron Paul
• Utah: 2 Romney, 34 McCain
• Washington: 36 McCain, 4 “Dr. Paul”
• West Virginia: 2 Ron Paul, 30 McCain

There may have been more states but this is all I noticed.

Sadly, states like Nevada and Montana where Paul received more votes than McCain, all their delegate votes went to McCain due to party loyalists taking over state conventions. It’s also sad that some states did not give Paul, Huckabee or Romney the votes they had actually received.

When Ron Paul received votes the announcer did not repeat his name nor vote count. Just McCain’s. However, for Utah she repeated Romney’s 2 votes. For Washington, the other announcer cut off the one repeating the vote so that Paul’s name could not be said. When repeating West Virginia’s results she caught herself about to repeat Paul’s 2 votes and quickly stopped, going on to repeat McCain’s only. I guess they think if they ignore him, not say his name 3 times… he won’t show up / go away. I think they’re mistaken.

They reported Romney got 2 votes and Paul 5. That’s obviously not correct. He was explicitly given 15 votes.

Arizona delegates made mention of Barry Goldwater being another great politician from Arizona. As did a few randomly interviewed people after the convention. Funny… John McCain, at least on domestic issues, is practically the antithesis of Barry Goldwater. Barry Goldwater Jr. had endorsed Ron Paul and was at the Rally for the Republic continuing his support just yesterday.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

It was supposed to be just another federal drug prosecution.  The federal prosecutors introduced evidence that the man on trial was involved in the black market drug trade.  The defense attorney said the government agents entrapped his client.  And then the twelve citizen-jurors retired to deliberate the outcome of the case.

But then something unusual happened.  The jury sent a note to the trial judge with the following query: Since the Constitution needed to be amended in 1919 to authorize federal criminal prosecutions for manufacturing and smuggling alcohol, a juror wanted to know from the judge where “is the constitutional grant of authority to ban mere possession of cocaine today?”

That’s a fair question.  It is a point that has been made in Cato’s publications ( go here (pdf) and here (pdf)) and a point that has been made by Justice Clarence Thomas, among many others.  Federal District Court Judge William Young was startled.  He says he has been on the bench for 30 years and has never faced a situation where a juror was challenging the legitimacy of a criminal law.  Young tried to assure the jury that the federal drug laws are constitutional because the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause quite expansively.  When the jury sent out more notes about a juror that wasn’t going to sign off on an unconstitutional prosecution, Young halted the proceedings to identify the ”problem juror.”  Once discovered, that juror was replaced with an alternate–over the objections of defense counsel.  Shortly thereafter, the new jury returned with guilty verdicts on several cocaine-related charges.

It is an extraordinary thing for a judge to meddle with the jury in the middle of its deliberations.  So, to justify his removal of the “problem juror,” a man named Thomas Eddlem, Judge Young issued a 40-page memorandum of law (pdf).  I happen to know and respect Judge Young.  I invited him to speak here at Cato about the awful federal sentencing guidelines, but his legal memorandum in this case is remarkably thin.  I will briefly respond to his substantive arguments below.

1.  Court precedents say jurors have no right to nullify.  Well, yes, that is undeniable.   But that’s like someone saying in 1950 that court precedents tell us that  ”separate, but equal” is the law of the land–go read Plessy v. Ferguson. The real question is whether those court rulings are truly consistent with the Constitution.  I would also point out that even though many modern court rulings express hostility toward jury nullification, no court has yet dared try to reverse a not guilty verdict or attempt to punish any juror who cast a not guilty vote in a jury room where the result was deadlock (not an untoward outcome, by the way).  Judges do remove jurors from time to time, but there is no punishment.  At least not yet.

2.  Judge Young writes, “The impropriety of nullification emanates from the notion that ours is ‘a government of laws and not of men,’” and he attributes that proposition to our second president, John Adams, who also authored the Massachusetts Constitution.  The quote is accurate, but Young is mixing up legal principles and does not know Adams well enough.  Like so many of America’s early leaders, John Adams was a strong proponent of jury nullification.  Here’s Adams: “It is not only the juror’s right, but his duty, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.” C.F. Adams, “The Works of John Adams,” 253-255 (1856)(emphasis added).

3.  Jury nullification undermines the rule of law. This is simply another variation of objection #2 above.  There is a logical fallacy to this objection.  Jury nullification is assumed to be improper–so it undermines “the law.”  It is like saying a presidential pardon undermines the “rule of law.”  But if the president has the power to pardon, and he does, he can exercise it (though we may or may not like the result in particular cases).  This is the way in which to understand jury nullification.  The framers of the American Constitution considered it to be part and parcel of what a criminal jury trial was all about.  Some state constitutions, such as Indiana, Maryland and Oregon, explicitly provide that juries have the power to judge the law and the facts in criminal cases.  Judges are the ones that have undermined the “rule of law” by pretending those provisions mean the opposite of what they say.

Judge Young expressed alarm about the recent Time magazine article by David Simon and his The Wire colleagues that calls for jury nullification in drug cases.  But that article has revived a debate that we should all welcome.  For much more on this subject, go here, here, here, and here.

Some other jury nullification quotes:

The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts. -Samuel Chase, U.S. Supreme Court Justice / 1796

The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice / 1920

The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy. -John Jay, U.S. Supreme Court Justice / 1794

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution. -Thomas Jefferson / 1789

http://afp.google.com/…

Pitching his message to Oregon’s environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to “lead by example” on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

Sounds like more of this green globalization totalitarianism that the far eco-left has been pushing for years. I hear more and more Obama supporters comment that they like the guy but they really don’t know who he is or what he’s about and that worries them. Shouldn’t that be a prerequisite for supporting someone? You shouldn’t be second guessing your vote because you were too lazy to do research on the guy you’re helping put into power yet enthusiastically promoted before hand.

The more Obama opens his mouth the scarier he gets. It pains me to say this but given the reality of the situation… that we will likely have an even larger majority of Democrats in the House and Senate… I’m starting to hope that if one of the top 3 are to win… McCain wins in November just to provide some sort of conflict between the two branches. The two parties and in particular McCain and Hillary are very much alike… but they have to put on a show for those who believe they are in fact quite different. That show may be enough to help minimize the damage done. This in no way means I’d vote for that warmongering idiot. Just speculating.

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/…

An open letter to the candidates
The following email was sent to the campaigns on April 18, 2008

Dear (campaign manager),

We understand Senator (Clinton, McCain or Obama) has been invited to attend a nationally televised conversation in Oregon about science and technology policy issues.

We are writing to strongly urge you to accept this invitation for the good of our nation and the planet, as well as your campaign.

This is not a science quiz; nobody cares if the candidates know scientific details or have memorized specifics, and such a forum should not take undue preparation. This is a serious policy discussion about the candidates’ vision for solving many of America’s most serious challenges, the majority of which revolve around issues of science and technology, and an opportunity for candidates to focus on big ideas and express their vision for how our country will remain innovative and competitive in the future. We understand the questions will be provided to you in advance.

The dates proposed for this event are either of May 2, May 9, or May 16, to be held at Portland State University in the midst of the Oregon mail-in primary. The format is entirely flexible. It could be a forum similar to the “Compassion Forum” the candidates recently held on faith issues, or a debate as originally proposed. But it is important that you attend. Science and technology present issues the American people care deeply about because they recognize their direct link to our country’s economic wellbeing, health, and the environment. Unfortunately, they have not gotten much attention so far in this campaign.

This proposal has the backing of PBS and three of the nation’s premier public television stations: WGBH in Boston, WNET in New York, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and would be jointly sponsored by NOVA, NOW, the AAAS, the National Academies, the Council on Competitiveness, and Science Debate 2008. We believe PBS through its 350 member stations is an ideal platform since the network has tens of millions of viewers that are extremely interested in science, technology and their link to our nation’s future.

Sincerely,

Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel; Chairman, National Academy of Engineering
David Baltimore, Chairman, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Past President, Caltech; Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1975
Peter Agre, Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg School of Public Health; Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2003
Harold Varmus, President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; past director of the National Institutes of Health; Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1989
Richard Schrock, Frederick G. Keyes Professor Of Chemistry, M.I.T.; Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2005
David Gross, Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, U.C. Santa Barbara; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004
John Mather, Project Scientist, James Webb Space Telescope; Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, 2007; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2006
David Politzer, The Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics, CalTech; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004
Leon Lederman, Past Director, FermiLab; Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois Institute of Technology; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1988
Carter Roberts, President & CEO, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

and the blackout continues…

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=753233&category=22101

A CITIZEN who watched a cop illegally park, then walk into a Chinese restaurant to wait for his food, has issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated parking violations.

Eric Bryant says he was sitting in the SanSai Japanese Grill on NW 21st and Hoyt on March 7 when he witnessed Officer Chad Stensgaard pull up and park his patrol car illegally, next to a “No Parking” sign.

Stensgaard walked into the restaurant wearing his police uniform, but did not make any arrests or citations. Instead, he turned his attention to the basketball game on television, according to Bryant. When Bryant asked Stensgaard about his vehicle, Stensgaard allegedly acknowledged being in a no-parking zone but asked Bryant, “If someone broke into your house, would you rather have the police be able to park in front of your house or have to park three blocks away and walk there?”

Bryant returned to his seat, and says shortly afterward he watched a restaurant employee hand the officer a plastic bag before he left. Unfortunately for Officer Stensgaard, Bryant had recently passed the Oregon bar exam, and decided to pursue the matter further.

“If he had acknowledged and corrected his error, we could have avoided this whole thing,” says Bryant. “But instead, he kept watching basketball and told me he wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Now, using ORS 153.058, Bryant-as a private citizen-has initiated violation proceedings against Officer Stensgaard. Bryant alleges Stensgaard was in violation of state statutes on illegal parking, illegal stopping, obeying parking restrictions on state highways, and illegal operation of an emergency vehicle or ambulance-the violations carry fines totaling $540.

Officer Stensgaard has received a Multnomah County summons to appear in traffic court on May 23. Meanwhile Bryant denies he is just stirring up trouble.

“Citizens should be concerned that he used his status as an officer of the law as justification for breaking the law,” he says.

Stensgaard declined comment through the cops’ office of public information.

I don’t know what the laws are in other states but there needs to be more of this.