Rick Perry stands out by being willing to do two things. He admits when he is wrong and he sticks to what he believes is right even when the majority disagree with him.

With regard to the former, he has readily admitted that he should have done things differently with regard to his executive order regarding HPV vaccination. Despite this, Michelle Bachmann continues her attack unabated. She even lies when she attacks him, because she talks about a vaccine being imposed on little girls. The Gardasil vaccination had a parent opt-out provision. No child was forced to be vaccinated. It would have been better to have had a legislative mandate combined with an opt-in policy. Perry openly says this, even if it doesn’t stop his opponents and detractors from ignoring it.

The only other chink in his armor is his support for a law he signed which allowed for non-citizen children domiciled in Texas without immigration documentation to be considered Texas residents for the purposes of paying college tuition. From the boos in the crowds it was apparent that most Republicans nation-wide do not support this. Nonetheless, Perry explains very clearly and carefully why he signed what was a veto proof bill passed with four “no” votes out of 183 Texas legislators, with Republicans in firm control of both chambers.

But here’s what Yankees like Michelle Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum don’t get. Texas is not the only state that has done this. New Mexico and California have as well. Not surprisingly, Arizona is the only state with an actual border with Mexico that hasn’t. In addition to Arizona, only three other states prohibit in-state tuition for children with undocumented immigration status. However, in addition to Texas, New Mexico, and California, eight other states specifically allow it. These include Kansas (passed with a Republican supermajority in both houses), Nebraska (non-partisan, but with a supermajority of members who were otherwise Republicans), and Utah (again, with a dual supermajority of Republicans), New York (split control), Oklahoma (Republican House and even split in the Senate), as well as Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin (Democratic simple majority in both houses).

Now you may be thinking to yourself, if only four states have prohibited state universities from considering undocumented students as residents, and eight have specifically permitted it, what about the other thirty-eight?  They have not legislated on the matter at all. What is not prohibited is allowed.

But back to Perry. He gets the elephant in the room. His opponents – and the debate watchers that were interviewed afterwards – have nothing to contribute to the discussion. They only have a mantra that is isn’t right for all residents of Texas to receive benefits that non-residents of Texas don’t get. Remember that it is Texas legislators who overwhelmingly chose to consider all residents of Texas as residents for the purposes of in-state tuition, at state-funded Texas universities. What his opponents don’t want to discuss is what happens if you prevent Texas residents who are undocumented from getting an education. Rick Perry tells it like it is. His opponents will never address the issue head on. They can’t and they won’t.

Perry understands the concept of a secure border. He can talk about his reasoned views. I agree with him that it is impossible to build a 2000-mile fence, but disagree that the border can be policed with “enough boots on the ground” as he likes to phrase it, making it the heaviest fortified border in the world.  Nonetheless, he also realizes that the oft-repeated sound bite that we have to secure the borders before we deal with the issue of undocumented immigrants already in the country is a bunch of nonsense.

A child who has been brought into the United States and is growing up does not have the leisure to wait for nothing substantive to be done about the border, even before nothing is done about her situation. She is growing up. She will work hard in high school while her parents work hard doing jobs for $3.00/hour that citizens won’t do at any wage. She may very well have to do this at several schools while her parents (who may be part of the 80% of agricultural workers in the U.S. who are undocumented) move around for work. They and she will work hard just to get enough money for in-state tuition – probably not at the University of Texas, like Mitt Romney wants to say – but at a small, cheap, local college. This is the real face of undocumented children. This is the person that Rick Perry’s opponents and those booing in the audience want to keep in the margins of society. Ideally they want to “send her back where she came from” (a country with no effective government run by drug cartels murdering at will in the most gruesome ways), but barring that, at least make sure she makes nothing of herself.

I will say it again (and probably not for the last time): this is the real face of undocumented children. Rick Perry gets it and it willing to talk about it, whether it is popular or not. Rick Perry gets it and Rick Perry gets my vote.

How do you get a doctorate from NCCT? Let them tell you how in their course catalog (spelling, capitalization, grammar and punctuation, including random elipses, from the original):

The North Carolina College of Theology does award degrees for LIFE-EARNED EXPERIENCE. The specific requirements for LIFE-EARNED EXPERIENCE Degrees are outlined in this catalog. NCCT DOES NOT sell degrees…Qualified applicants must submit proof of verifiable time in ministry in order to receive the degree for which he or she has applied….All applicants must meet NCCT requirement with approval of the President and Executive Board. Each individual application is assessed with consideration of various jobs and positions in which an applicant has worked within the church or ministerial realm. Many pastors and five-fold ministers are NOW deserving a Doctorate, and should rightfully be awarded. NCCT LIFE-EARNED DEGREES are identical to the degrees that are issued to students who graduate from the Satellite Extension Program or “Individual Study Program”. It is the desire of the NCCT President, Board, Staff, and Faculty to be a blessing to those in the field of ministry and offer confirmation of education to the many deserving men and women of God.

That’s right. If you have been in full-time ministry for ten to fifteen years, and you have $2,750.00 plus $60.00 application fee, plus $100.00 administration fee, plus the $860.00 graduation fee, you deserve a doctorate. They would like you to write a 25,000 word paper, which they even have the gall to call a dissertation, but that can be waived. That will get you a Doctor of Biblical Studies. If you want to have a Ph.D. you need to have been in ministry 20 years, have bought one of the other doctorates, and it will cost an additional$5,500.00, plus all the other fees. Because you deserve it. And because you have a ministry that can afford to spend the $10,290.00 in total from the offerings you have received from other people. The one thing NCCT is very clear about: no money, no degree, and absolutely no refunds if you ever realize that you paid for a worthless piece of paper.

From whence comes this idea that a degree of any kind is deserved? A degree is earned through a demonstration of academic achievement in a field of study.

NCCT will tell you not to worry about the value of your LIFE-EARNED EXPERIENCE degree, because it is accredited. According to the course catalog, NCCT is accredited through Accrediting Commission International, Inc. of Beebe, Arkansas. ACI is run by non-trinitarian Pentecostal preacher “Dr.” John Scheel who is the bishop of the Lighthouse Pentecostal Jesus Name Church of Beebe. “Dr.” Scheel got his Ph.D. from Toledo Bible College and Seminary, which had to be re-branded when it was run out of Ohio by the authorities. ACI is also a rebranding of the International Accrediting Commission (IAC) which was run out of Missouri after a sting operation.

But why have one fake accreditation with four is better? A real college doesn’t need the approval four accrediting agencies, but according to the NCCT website, they are accredited by three other bogus accrediting agencies in addition to ACI.

NCCT likes to keep things tightly controlled. The President is “Dr.” J. L. Cook. The Senior Vice-President is “Dr.” Judy Cook, the wife of J. L. Cook. The Executive Vice-President is “Dr.” Jon Cook, the son of J. L. Cook. The rest of the Executive Board includes “Dr.” W. L. Baltimore with two diploma mills doctorates, including one from NCCT;  ”Dr.” Varnie Fullwood, who got his Bachelor’s from diploma mill Zoe University (also accredited by ACI) before getting his Master’s and Ph.D. from NCCT; “Dr.” Stephen Thomas, with two diploma mill doctorates, one from Rhema University (accredited by one of ACI’s competitors and not to be confused with Rhema Bible Training Center, which does not offer degrees) and one from NCCT; and Revs. Dan and Tim Cook, who bears a striking resemblance to the other Cooks and each other.

All of the Cook sons, Baltimore, and Thomas also serve on the Thesis/Dissertation Review Board, though how the two Cook non-doctors serve on a doctoral dissertation review board further boggles the mind. Ever other member of the Thesis/Dissertation Review Board about whom I can find any further information also appears to their doctorates from NCCT or another mill.

NCCT is just one of many purveyors of bogus theological degrees. I just picked them out by chance, due to their association with Marvin Gorman, mentioned in the first paragraph. I’m sure there are others who are making just as much money out of spreading false credibility throughout the Church. But be clear about this: it is fraud and it is rife.

It may be found predominantly, but not exclusively, in Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Baptist circles. Does that mean that there is anything wrong with these groups within the Church? Absolutely not. It does mean that there is a need to be extra vigilant. Does it mean that someone has to have a real doctorate or even a real degree of any kind to minister in the Church? No. God uses all sorts of men from all sorts of backgrounds and all levels of formal and informal education.

It does mean that no one should represent that they possess formal educational achievement that they have not earned. I don’t care what else they want to say about how great their ministry is, or how fruitful it is in whatever way their group acknowledges fruitfulness, they are defrauding the Church.

I just thought it was a bit silly when I saw the late Kenneth Hagin calling himself “Dr. Hagin” after Oral Roberts gave him an honorary doctorate courtesy of ORU. But one preacher, however popular, flaunting his honorary degree does not a scandal make.

Recently I was looking at the websites of various leaders involved in what is known as the “Apostolic-Prophetic” movement. A disproportionate number of them seemed to have doctorates. Cindy Jacobs even has two. It didn’t take long to discover that all of these doctorates were from “schools” of theology started run by their friends. Cindy Jacobs got her honorary first doctorate from Christian International Ministries, run by Bill Hamon. Hamon “earned” his bachelor’s and master’s from his own Christian International School of Theology before allegedly receiving an honorary doctorate from an unnamed university.

Beyond those who are using honorary doctorates to call themselves “Dr.”, there are those who are claiming to have earned doctorates. They have them from organizations like the Wagner Leadership Institute. They get credit for attending each other’s meetings and conferences or watching each other’s videos. They take two-day and three-day courses like “Discovering Your Destiny through the Fivefold Ministry Gifts” and “Apostolic Breakthrough”.  Each of these equates to “training units”. Get enough training units and you get a doctorate. Or as WLI states on their website:

WLI  desires to remain unhindered from traditional higher-level educational requirements and is not an accredited institution. WLI offers three diploma tracks: Bachelor, Master, and Doctor of Practical Ministry. Diplomas do not certify levels of attainment, but rather accumulation of training units.

You can’t get your training units simply by attending a seminar or webcast or listening to a CD or watching a DVD. You have to write a 3-5 page paper. Within 90 days. Unless you bought a CD or DVD, in which case you have one year. The paper should not have anything to do with demonstrating knowledge of the “course” content. It is only a self-evaluation. “Students fail a course only when they neglect to turn in papers on time.” Not academically up to watching a DVD and taking a year to say what you got out of it? “Students may also receive training unit credit for on-going ministry, writing books, mission trips, and pre-approved self-studies.” It is nice that WLI admits that its diplomas are essentially worthless.

However, do those who attended conferences and other meetings and sit under the teaching of these “doctors”, know where their spurious credentials were obtained? Or do they trust that Dr. Chuck Pierce or Dr. Cindy Jacobs or Dr. Bill Hamon or Dr. Rus Jeffrey or Dr. Don Lynch or Dr. Jim Goll or hosts of others have legitimate claims to use the title?

To put oneself forward as having what a reasonable person would expect to be academic credentials in the promotion of Christian ministry, when no such credentials exist, is nothing less than fraud. It is deception. Fraud and deception are not condoned by the apostles and prophets of the Bible, those who claim to be such today notwithstanding.

I wish that the rot in worthless academic credentials ended with this particular infestation, but it runs deeper and wider in the Church. Of this, more later.

It appears that a reckless disregard for the truth is okay as long as it is against the other side. The ends justify the means. In some of the hundreds of blogs and forums where these virals have been reproduced, any challenge to them is met with venom.

While I may disagree with President Obama on most issues and will undoubtedly vote for his opponent in the next general election, I cannot condone the rampant behavior of sending emails and posting any combination of personal attacks and false information. No Christian should condone it either.

If you feel so opposed to President Obama that you consider him an enemy, then you are to love your enemies.  That love is described in I Corinthians 13. It sound wonderful when being read in a wedding service, doesn’t it? Loving your enemies is when it is actually put to the test.

You are to pray for those in authority over you. It is difficult to hate someone for whom you are praying, unless you are just using your prayers to vent your feelings, like those people who try to preach sermons with their prayers if called upon during a church service. God isn’t impressed in either case.

And let’s not forget the Ninth Commandment: you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You must not lie about other people. Even Democrats. Even President Obama. Even if you think he has lied to you from time to time. There’s no quid pro quo when it comes obeying God. Even if you are a hard core theonomist and you wanted to invoke the lex talionis, an eye for an eye isn’t a lie for a lie.

To demonstrate just how bad the problem is, I am going to reproduce the contents of a viral unleashed with renewed vigor recently. However, I independently researched each claim made.  This is the list of all of Obama’s “czars” – heads of policy areas that report directly to the President.  If you care about the truth, read on.

Here’s the email in it’s original format (as best as can be reproduced in WordPress). I apologise for the small type, but that is the only way to keep it in the original table. At the end are the facts, which I have independently researched and verified.

And now the truth:

Richard Holbrooke was never a governor of New Mexico. It seems the author of this piece is somehow trying to morph him with Bill Richardson, though how exactly I don’t know, because Richardson is very pro-gun, backing and signing NM’s concealed carry handgun law. He applied for and got a permit himself. Holbrooke was a diplomat who does not seem to be on the record regarding gun control. I’m not sure how his views on gun control, whatever they were, are relevant.  He died last year.

Ed Montgomery was at one time dean of the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Maryland, not the Business School. He was Deputy Labor Secretary under Clinton, and given that Clinton was quite pro-business, it is unlikely that the #2 man in that department would be anti-business.

Jeffrey Crowley is homosexual. He has worked for years in the area of promoting access for those with HIV/AIDS, so that would make him something of a gay rights activist. It seems likely that he is in favor of gay marriage, though I have seen no evidence of the other allegations made in the email.

Alan Bersin did coordinate border law enforcement during three years of the Clinton administration, though it is a bit of a leap from that to say that it was Clinton Administration policy to keep the borders open. I don’t know how he was a failed superintendent of San Diego schools, as while he was in that job he was picked by Arnie to become California Education Secretary.

David Hayes is not a czar of any kind. He is a Deputy Secretary of the Interior. He was also Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Clinton Administration. He was involved with lots of water management issues during his first stint at Interior. He is certainly on the environmental Left, but who exactly expects a right-winger in the second tier of the Obama administration?

Ron Brown is just a bit mischaracterized. He is a Harvard Business School MBA and former investment banker. Since 1990 he has specialized in bankruptcies and employee-based turnarounds and restructurings. He did the United Airlines deal that turned it into the largest employee-owned company in the US. He was a key player in the Bethlehem Steel, ISG, and Goodyear turnarounds.

Dennis Ross worked in both the GHW Bush (Director of Public Policy Planning at the State Dept) and Clinton (special Middle East Coordinator) adminstrations. Again, he’s not a czar of anything.  He works for the National Security Council with overall responsibility for Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Middle East. I don’t know anything about his views on either gun control or abortion, or even why they would be known or relevant to his job. He became a religious Jew as a result of the Six Day War, so you can guess his views on Israel.

Lynn Rosenthal – I can’t find anything on her being an vicious anti-male feminist. She was Executive Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence from 2000 to 2006. I’m not sure how this is a bad thing. I can’t find anything about her support for male castration, though support for chemical castration as a treatment for rapists has had support from both men and women. It would not be unlikely that someone who is very active in working against domestic violence would support this view, though her support is undocumented.

Gil Kerlikowske does support gun control. A lot of Democrats, especially from big cities, do. Not a big surprise there. However, he is very opposed to drug legalization and is very clearly on the record in this regard. He is even opposed to the use of medical marijuana until more scientific evidence has been compiled to demonstrate whether or not it is beneficial and effective.

Paul Volcker became head of the Federal Reserve at the end of Carter administration and stayed in that role though almost the entire Reagan administration. He actually played a major role in turning the economy around in the early 80s. He is not a member of the Progressive Policy Institute.

Carol Brower is actually Carol Browner, who was the “Energy Czar” from 2009 til early 2011. The office has been abolished. I haven’t seen anything on her views about gun control, but I also can’t see how it is at all relevant with the job she used to have.

Joshua DuBois does not have a degree in Black Nationalism. He has a degree in political science from Boston University and a Master’s in public affairs from Princeton. He is affiliated with the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God. I can’t find anything on his views regarding gun ownership, other than pages of search results with blogs that have repeated this information. And I don’t know how the author of the email doesn’t know “what the hell a Faith Based Czar” does. It was an office created by GW Bush to support church efforts particularly in community revitalization and charity work generally.

Cameron Davis is an environmental lawyer. I can’t find anything about him being anti-business. I can’t find any reference to the quote about George Bush or anything about being an ACORN board member, other than in copies of the Obama’s Czars list email on thousands of blogs. He does not appear to have any interests that are related to the mission of ACORN.

Van Jones – as noted, he resigned. Back in 2009. Lots of media coverage. Nothing we don’t already know.

Daniel Freid is a career diplomat who was Ambassador to Poland at the end of Clinton administration, Special Assistant to the President and on the National Security Council under GW Bush until he became Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (the top diplomat in Europe) in 2005, a position he held through the first year of the Obama administration, when he was tapped for the Gitmo closure role. There is no evidence to support any of the comments made about him in the Obama Czars email.

Nancy-Ann Deparle is now a Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House. She was the Medicare administrator in the Clinton administration. Can’t find her views on health care rationing. Not sure why it matters to whom she is married.

Vivek Kundra was born in India. So what? He moved to Tanzania when he was a year old. He moved to Washington DC when he was 11. What’s most silly about this is the complete misrepresentation of what the “Information Czar” or his office does. It does does not control public information and has absolutely nothing to do with monitoring the web or email activity.

Todd Stern was never the White House Chief of Staff under any president. He was a supporter of Kyoto in that he was the chief US negotiator. He does favor cap-and-trade. I can find no statements where he is opposed to US business prosperity. This seems to be inferred from his support of cap-and-trade.

Dennis Blair is not chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR does not have a chairman. It has a president, who is Richard Haass. Blair is not even on the board of directors, nor is there any information that he is even a member. Blair is also not the Intelligence Czar. He hasn’t be Director of National Intelligence since May 2010. He did not stop the guided missile program, nor was he ever in a position to do so at any point in his career.

George Mitchell is no longer the Middle East Peace Envoy. His record as an envoy is well known, as he was instrumental in the successful Northern Ireland peace process. I can’t find any reference to his views about Israel being split up. He does support the two-state solution, which does not seem to be supported by the author of the email. I don’t know what his anti-nuclear, anti-gun, pro-homosexual views have to do with his work as a diplomat. He is a liberal Democrat who was working for a liberal Democratic administration. Where’s the shock in that?

Kenneth Feinberg was chief of staff to Ted Kennedy in the late 1970s. However, the statement that he got rich off the victims of 9/11 is about the worst lie in this whole thing. He worked pro bono for 33 months as the Special Master of the 9/11 compensation fund appointed by John Ashcroft.

Cass Sunstein has never been a judge, so he hasn’t ruled on anything. He has odd views on the First Amendment, but they have nothing to do with his job. He is a law professor. He is a judicial minimalist and supported John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court.

John Holdren has a bachelor’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and a PhD in theoretical plasma physics from Stanford. Seems like he has some science training. He is a member or fellow of lots of organizations, but the Sierra Club doesn’t seem to be one of them. The label “anti-business activist” seems to stem from his incorrect predictions of environmental and resource troubles resulting from economic and population growth early in his career in the 1970s.

Earl Devaney hasn’t ever been in a position to try to take guns away from Americans. He is an expert in white-collar crime as a former Special Agent in Charge of the Fraud Division of the Secret Service. He was Inspector General in the Department of the Interior from 1999 to 2009 – throughout the entire GW Bush adminstration. The information about his positions on the Mexican border and his “statement blaming US gun stores for drug war in Mexico” appear to exist only in the mind of the author of this email. Of course even if they did exist, they would irrelevant to his current job, or in fact, any other job he has ever held.

J. Scott Gration, Maj. Gen. (retired), was born in St. Charles, Illinois. He grew up in the Congo, because his parents were missionaries there. Again, there is no evidence that believes the US does little to help third world countries or that he supports higher taxes to support the UN. He is not a member of the CFR. He was the Special Envoy to Sudan (which makes him a “czar” in the mind of email author) but he is now the Ambassador to Kenya.

Herb Allison was appointed to head Fannie Mae in September 2008 by GW Bush after it was placed in conservatorship. He was called in to help clean up the mess and had nothing to do with creating it.

John Brennan is the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center under GW Bush. Rather than being an “Anti CIA activist”, he worked at the top levels of the CIA, including as chief of staff to George Tenet when he was CIA director, then appointed deputy executive director of the CIA in March 2001 under Bush. He then became director of the CIA’s Terrorist Threat Integration Center. He has a BA in political science from Fordham and an MA in government from the University of Texas. How is this “no training in diplomatic or Gov. affairs”? For the last decade he has been the top expert in government at the job he is now doing. The stuff about open borders with Mexico and disbanding the military is simply made up.

Aneesh Chopra was the Virginia Secretary of Technology. Does “No Techonology training” mean that he doesn’t have a computer science degree? Since the role has to do promoting technological innovation, it doesn’t seem relevant what his views on health care are. However, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that he is an anti-doctor activist or supports doctors working exclusively for a government health care program. If anything, the Advisory Board Company, of which he was Managing Director is very pro-doctor and works to help doctors have more of a voice in hospital management.

Adolfo Carrion, Jr. was not born in Puerto Rico – not that it should matter – but was born in New York City. He’s a former member of the the New York City Council and Borough President of the Bronx. Before that he was an associate pastor and a school teacher with a degree in urban planning. He’s not a slum lord and does not own lavish homes and condos. I can’t find any quotes or information on wanting higher taxes to pay for minority housing or health care.

Ashton Carter has not said anything about wanting private weapons in the US destroyed or supporting a ban on gun ownership. He is a veteran of both the Clinton and GW Bush administrations. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy under the former and a member of the International Security Advisory Board under the latter. He’s been a member of member of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board through both of the previous administrations. Rather than having “no other policy”, his whole career has been involved in shaping Defense Policy when he’s not been teaching it at Harvard.

Gary Samore – there is no evidence whatsoever that he is a former communist. There’s no evidence he’s suggested the US destroy all Weapons of Mass Destruction unilaterally. This is all just made up.

So there you have it, if you have managed to read all the way to the end. I don’t like having to even appear to defend the current administration, but standing up for the truth sometimes means having to do things we don’t like.

First, it has nothing to do with what happened to Caylee Anthony. It only has to do with what the Casey Anthony defense said happened to Caylee, which no one believes anyway. However, since murdering a child is already a crime and often an enhancement toward a death sentence, even when someone who might have done it gets away with it, the only new law available is one that covers what didn’t happen.

Second, what didn’t happen doesn’t happen very often. That’s what made Casey’s defense so unbelievable. It’s not what people do. Why do we need to create legislation for a non-existent need?

Because it meets a wholly different need. We need to feel good about ourselves. We need to feel that even though the law couldn’t do something to help Caylee, if we pass a law in her name, however remotely connected to actual events, we are creating some sort of justice for her. Is the need to feel good about ourselves, however ephemeral, a reason to enact laws?

Third, legislation by knee-jerk reaction is pretty much always a bad idea. Let me give an example from my other country, home to the Mother of Parliaments and the Mother of All Knee-Jerk Reactions. In August 1987, Michael Ryan, a mentally unstable man with a fascination for firearms, perpetrated what became known as the Hungerford Massacre. He killed 15 people  using a Beretta 9mm pistol, a Chinese version of the AK-47, and an M1 carbine. This is the first time that anyone in Britain had committed this sort of gun crime.

In response, Parliament outlawed all semi-automatic and pump action rifles and shotguns, any shotguns other than single shot or double barrel, and any shotgun with less than a 24 inch barrel. Remember, a shotgun was not even used in the crime. Also outlawed were any revolvers other than muzzle-loaders. Remember, a revolver wasn’t even used in the crime. At this point, it probably won’t surprise you that they also outlawed rocket launchers and mortars. To top if off, the Home Secretary (the cabinet minister in charge of law enforcement) was given the power to prohibit any firearm or ammunition not on the list, should he find it wise (or ideologically congruent) to do so.

All this legislation didn’t stop Thomas Hamilton from killing sixteen 5- and 6-year-olds in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996. The obvious answer was more legislation. The Conservative government wouldn’t do it, but lost in a landslide the next year. The first legislation by the Labour government was to outlaw all of the weapons left out of the previous ban and impose a mandatory five-year sentence for owning a gun.  As a result, gun crime in the UK has steadily climbed, from one-off incidences to regular occurrences.

So why do I give a worst case scenario for knee-jerk legislation? Surely the Caylee Anthony case and response is nothing like that. The problem is that we become accustomed to accepting knee-jerk reactions. We become accustomed to finding our national salvation in legislation, whether it is moral or economic, like destroying an economy with massive government debt in the pursuit of fixing a problem that was caused by massive debt in the first place.

Governments always over-react and when they over-react quickly, they tend to over-react disastrously. Even in the case of Caylee’s Law, look at the domino effect already in motion. The non-reporting of a child death is suggested in one case in Florida. I currently know of proposals for a Caylee’s Law in Alabama, Oklahoma, Maryland, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and of course Florida. One organization is pushing for a federal law.

This is all with a matter of days after the Casey Anthony acquittal. Had Casey been found guilty, these proposals would never have been considered. Justice would have been seen to have been done and everyone would have felt good about themselves. What does this say about the need for Caylee’s Law?

No one seems to realize that she’s actually being punished rather harshly. First, she’s gotten the maximum sentence. Second, she’s been sentenced to serve the penalty for each of the four count consecutively. Third, Florida is very stingy with time off for good behavior.

So many people seem to want the three years she’s been in prison to be substitute punishment for the murder she probably committed. It just doesn’t work that way. If she’s declared not guilty, she can’t be punished in a backhanded way. If her liberty has been deprived and she is found guilty of anything, she has to be credited for the time. That’s the way the law works for everyone else, and everyone is equal under the law.

I know it is hard for the public to stop rubbernecking at the train wreck that is the dysfunctional Anthony family and the tragedy of Caylee Anthony’s death. Surely there is another personal tragedy somewhere for people to latch onto and invest emotion. Let the law to its job.

Three years is three years.

Move along…

The whole issue Leal’s lack of access to Mexican consular officials after his arrest has been litigated.  Let’s set aside the facts that Leal never revealed his Mexican citizenship after his arrest and that his lawyers never raised the issue before, during or after trial, including his first trip up the habeas corpus ladder. When he filed a petition based on President George W. Bush’s order to the states that they review the cases of the 51 Mexican citizens on death row across the country at that time, that was fully litigated and denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the highest criminal appellate court in Texas). He then filed a second federal habeas petition which was denied by the district court, appealed, and rejected by the Fifth Circuit in 2009 (573 F.3d 214).

The current administration and the media have tried to bolster their position (and yes, it is the same position) by suggesting that Bush endorsed the ruling of the International Court of Justice that led to his order that the states review the Mexican cases. Rather, Bush only ordered the review because he thought he was duty-bound to do so, because the US was a signatory to the Optional Protocol Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes to the Vienna Convention, which says that ICJ decisions are binding on the parties before it. He was under the impression that the Optional Protocol was binding on the states. However, in 2008 the US Supreme Court said no, in Medellín v. Texas (552 U.S. 491). Since the Supreme Court, not the Executive Branch, decides what is and isn’t the law, it didn’t matter what President Bush thought and it doesn’t matter what President Obama thinks.

The Supreme Court said no because the Optional Protocol is not self-executing. In other words, it requires enabling legislation. Now at the last minute, the Administration is arguing to the Supreme Court that enabling legislation has been filed in Congress and the Court should wait to see if it passes.  This is the only arrow left in the quiver of the Administration and it is blunted, bent, splintered and missing fletchings.

Congress has had three years since Medellín to pass enabling legislation. It chose not to do so with the proposed Avena Case Implementation Act of 2008, introduced into a Nancy Pelosi-controlled House of Representatives by four liberal Democrats. It never made it out of committee, not to mention across the Capitol.

Now Senator Patrick Leahy has introduced S. 1194. It has no chance of passage, despite the Administration’s repeated assertions that it’s strong support makes a difference. I seriously doubt it would get through the Senate, but it doesn’t have the tiniest hope of getting through the House. It is telling that amicus brief goes on and on about the Senate and does not even mention the House of Representatives.

It is not even as if the passage of S. 1194 would have any effect on the execution of Humberto Leal. It might give him a chance to have a court determine whether not having had consular access unfairly prejudiced his case. The chances of success in such a challenge are infinitesimal. Leal’s guilt in perpetrating a gruesome crime is indisputable. Even the Mexicans admit that.

The last shred of his case, if the Supreme Court were to stay the execution, and if the Congress were to pass S. 1194, is a court might find that had the Mexican government hired the right attorneys for him (if they even would have done so at the time), those attorneys would have presented evidence in his punishment phase differently so that the jury would not have given him a death sentence. The Administration insists in its brief that unless this charade is played out, relations with Mexico will be irreparably damaged and all Americans traveling abroad will be put at risk. There is simply no credibility in any of this.

Unlike the characterizations by the Administration and media, this case has nothing to do with Texas refusing to follow international law. The Supreme Court answered that in 2008. This cases had been litigated and re-litigated, examined and re-examined, for years. It is time for the sentence to be carried out and the Obama Administration to stop interfering.

It tells us that the media likes pretty people and good story. And that we are easily led. Caylee Anthony had what in the UK could be considered the Madeleine McCann factor. Madeleine was the three-year-old British girl who abducted while her family was on holiday in Portugal in May 2007. She has never been found, but she has never been out of the headlines. She’s a pretty little girl with attractive parents who are doctors. Madeleine was certainly not the only British child to go missing  in 2007, but it would be hard to realize that from the media coverage.

How many other small children have been murdered in the United States since Caylee Anthony in 2008? How many have been neglected and abused? Sadly, most of them aren’t as photogenic as Caylee with mothers who act as bizarrely as Casey, or maybe they would have been noticed by the world at large. Maybe we would have been just as outraged when the parents were let go, often without the scrutiny of a trial or other judicial process.

I could give you examples from my own client list when I had a small inner-city neighborhood general civil and criminal practice that would make you upset and angry.  That is, if you were so incline to have a fraction of voyeurism that America at large has had for the Casey Anthony trial. However, I don’t have pictures and video and live court proceedings with celebrity commentators. None of the perpetrators or victims were particularly photogenic. It is unlikely that there will be any demand for me recount my stories and change the names to protect the guilty.

Yes, Caylee Anthony’s death was a terrible thing and Casey Anthony’s trial may very well have ended up in a miscarriage of justice. Many people have felt the need to vent their righteous anger. Most don’t realize it is anger they never would have had, but for the opportunity cable news channels found to grab advertising revenues.

But what are we doing about the terrible things that are happening much closer to home? What would happen if we invested the emotional effort expended on a family tragedy in Florida in praying for the needs around us? Into whose lives can we invest our time, so that they do not become a statistic unworthy of notice by FoxNews, CNN, and Court TV?

The Information Age, with instant access to the whole world, can be a good thing. It can also mess with our priorities. You can’t change a thing about Caylee and Casey Anthony. You can change the lives around you.

Those who wanted a conservative response from the Court got it and now many of them don’t like it. Let’s summarize what the opinion of the Court, written by Justice Scalia, said:

First, a legislature cannot create new categories of speech unprotected by the First Amendment simply by weighing the value of the new category against its social costs and then prohibit it if it fails the test. Unlike sexual content, there is no American legal tradition of protecting children from violent content. Second, because the California law in question imposes a restriction on the content of protected speech, it is invalid unless the state can demonstrate that it passes the strict scrutiny test. In other words, it has to demonstrate a compelling government interest and has to be narrowly drafted to serve that interest. California said the compelling interest was helping parents who wish to restrict their children’s access to violent videos. Scalia said no, parents can choose what their children watch and the voluntary rating system is there to help them. And stores don’t have to sell the videos to children. Thus, children are already protected.

As might be expected, Scalia strictly construed the First Amendment. If some other form of speech were before the Court, we would be glad that he did. We would be glad that he and the justices in the majority hadn’t created a new legal tradition. The view taken by Justice Alito, concurring in the judgement but not for this reason, and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, is that the framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated modern technology and so we have to fill in the gaps for them. How many times have conservatives decried that very principle being applied in the past? We want a conservative, strict constructionist court unless it is inconvenient.

As to the second line of argument, Scalia said that if California had a compelling interest in keeping children from watching violence, it would have to outlaw Saturday morning cartoons, which for generations have depicted extreme violence. Likewise, it would have to outlaw violence in movies available to children. However, instead of comprehensively addressing the issue, it simply responded with a knee-jerk reaction to a new distasteful form of depiction.

The decision was 7-2 because even Alito and Chief Justice Roberts recognized that California had not drafted the legislation strictly enough to pass constitutional muster. “For better or worse, our society has long regarded many depictions of killing and maiming as suitable features of popular entertainment, including entertainment that is widely available to minors.” (Alito concurring in judgment, slip opinion at 6)  California would have had to have been very specific about exactly which kinds of depictions were illegal for minors and then demonstrated the compelling reason to “help” parents with regard to those depictions.

Finally, I need to address some flawed reasoning floating out there in the op/ed columns by writers who are convinced that they are much more in touch with the real world that the justices. For convenience, and since I’ve already linked to him, I’ll use Cal Thomas as an example. Thomas writes:  ”Justices should step out of their safety zones and experience life on urban streets where mortal combat is for real and shootings are as commonplace as corrupt politicians. Where do armed teenagers in roving gangs get the idea that life is cheap and can be so easily taken without regard to social mores?” Thomas fails to recognize that gang violence far pre-dates the latest (or even the earliest) round of video games.

In this case, Scalia notes, the State of California tried to use psychological studies that

purport to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children. These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively (which would at least be a beginning). Instead, nearly all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology. They show at best some correlation between exposure to violent entertainment and minuscule real-world effects, such as children’s feeling more aggressive or making louder noises in the few minutes after playing a violent game than after playing a nonviolent game. (slip opinion of the Court at p. 12-13, internal citations omitted, emphasis mine)

Does this mean that disgusting violent video games are good, for children or otherwise? No. Are they offensive to Christian morality in suggesting that life is cheap and disposable? Certainly. However, we don’t use a combination of our disgust and specious arm-chair psychology to cut a chunk out of First Amendment jurisprudence.

The Supreme Court did not rule in favor of children having access to violent games. Rather, it ruled in favor of parents controlling access to violent games.

I will venture to suggest that as a father of nine, Justice Scalia knows a bit about raising children. He also knows a bit about the Constitution. I agree with him that it is better to keep the latter out of the business of the former.

I considered clearing out the archive, but I have left the old posts up because I think there some worthwhile things to read. I’m sure there are a few clunkers in there somewhere and a bit of radicalism that may have since mellowed in my middle age. I might go in later and clean things up, but maybe not.

I hope to blog about things are productive for the various ventures, professional paths, avocational interests and spiritual walk I pursue, some of which are looming on the horizon as I enter into a very big new phase of life.