It Works For Me

Now about that school district in Texas that wants to arm its teachers; I think that is just a swell idea.

The entire nation of Georgia was a "Russian Armored Division Free Zone" and that worked real well for them.

Matter of fact, don't the laws here make America an "Illegal Alien Free Zone" also?

sonuvagun

Don't Spit In Texas

Another man who assaulted a cop gets a tought prison sentence, 35 years, in Texas.

DALLAS (AP) -- An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Because a jury found that Willie Campbell used his saliva as a deadly weapon, the 42-year-old will have to serve half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

He was sentenced Wednesday. Campbell was being arrested in May 2006 for public intoxication when he began resisting and kicking inside the patrol car, Dallas police office Dan Waller testified.

Campbell was convicted of harassment of a public servant.

This is the operative section of the Texas Penal Code that booted this mope through the goal posts.

§ 22.11. HARASSMENT BY PERSONS IN CERTAIN CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES; HARASSMENT OF PUBLIC SERVANT.

(a) A person commits an offense if, with the intent to assault, harass, or alarm, the person: (1) while imprisoned or confined in a correctional or detention facility, causes another person to contact the blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces of the actor, any other person, or an animal; or (2) causes another person the actor knows to be a public servant to contact the blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces of the actor, any other person, or an animal while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty or in retaliation or on account of an exercise of the public servant's official power or performance of an official duty.

(b) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree.

(c) If conduct constituting an offense under this section also constitutes an offense under another section of this code, the actor may be prosecuted under either section.

(d) In this section, "correctional or detention facility" means: (1) a secure correctional facility; or (2) a "secure correctional facility" or a "secure detention facility" as defined by Section 51.02, Family Code, operated by or under contract with a juvenile board or the Texas Youth Commission or any other facility operated by or under contract with that commission.

(e) For purposes of Subsection (a)(2), the actor is presumed to have known the person was a public servant if the person was wearing a distinctive uniform or badge indicating the person's employment as a public servant.

I've seen guys in New York get sentenced to less time for killing a cop. A felony in the third degree is not the highest offense in Texas.

Texas Criminal Penalties:
A Class C misdemeanor is punishable by a fine not to exceed $500.
A Class B misdemeanor is punishable by a fine not to exceed $2000; confinement in jail for a term not to exceed 180 days; or both fine and confinement.
A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by a fine not to exceed $4000; confinement in jail for a term not to exceed one year; or both fine and confinement.

A state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for any term of not more than 2 years or less than 180 days and by a fine not to exceed $10,000.

A 3rd degree felony is punishable by imprisonment for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years and a fine not to exceed $10,000.
A 2nd degree felony is punishable by imprisonment for any term of not more than 20 years of less than 2 years and a fine not to exceed $10,000.
A 1st degree felony is punishable by imprisonment for life or for any term of not more than 99 years or less than 5 years and a fine not to exceed $10,000.

Build The Fence

From Law Enforcement News:

Illegal Immigrant Guilty in Houston Officer's Death

A jury found an illegal immigrant guilty of killing Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

Juan Leonardo Quintero, 33, was found guilty of capital murder. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

In closing arguments, prosecutor John Jordan pointed at Quintero and told jurors, "You all will get to decide by your verdict what I told you two weeks ago -- he ain't insane, he's just a cold-blooded killer."

Jordan said that Quintero shot and killed Johnson on Sept. 21, 2006, after a traffic stop in southeast Houston because he was afraid of being arrested and could have faced deportation to his native Mexico.

During the trial, the defense told jurors that Quintero suffered from a mental defect that was caused by a childhood fall.

Houston Police Officer Rodney Johnson and dirtbag murderer.

Who's Your Texas Daddy?

The lame brain main stream media is at it again, going bonkers over pregnant youngsters at the local Mormon hangout.

31 of 53 Teen Girls Taken From Polygamist Sect Have Been Pregnant
SAN ANTONIO — Texas child welfare officials say more than half the teen girls swept into state custody from a polygamist sect's ranch have been pregnant.

Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar says 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were living on the ranch in Eldorado. Of that group, 31 already have children or are pregnant.

State officials took custody of all 463 children at the Yearning For Zion Ranch more than three weeks ago after a raid prompted by calls to a domestic violence hotline.

I am not defending the Mormon cult or whatever they are for their actions. I think it is reprehensible for men to act that way. I do have a problem however with the State of Texas taking the children away from their moms and sticking them in foster homes. I also have a problem with Fox News getting all self righteous about young child/women getting preggers when there are simply a ton of other suspects in Texas that are doing the same thing. Are these moms and dads getting marched off to jail? Are their kids being torn away from them?

Texas is one of the worst states in the Union for pregnant teenage girls. It is second only to California in total teen pregnancies, but Texas is the nation's leader in the percentage of teens that become pregnant (teenage being defined as 10 to 19 years of age.)

Using information from these sites (National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, US Teenage Pregnancy Statistics - 2000 pregnancy statistics) it appears that Texas has the highest percentage of teenage pregnancies within the ten to nineteen year old population group (81,800 pregnancies out of 3,427,615 teens or 2.4%). New York is second at 57,950 pregnancies out of 2,620,865 teens; Florida is third at 49,890 out of 2,325,893 teens and California is fourth at 115,850 pregnancies out of 5,455,796 teens. The USA had 841,450 teen pregnancies out of a populations of 41,896,732 teens or 2%.

And where does Utah, the home of those zany child-marrying polygamists rank in this mix? Utah had 5,730 pregnancies out of 383,197 teens or 1.5% of the teen population.

This changes somewhat when female children under the age of 15 are isolated from the rest of the teen population. Florida now has the dubious distinction of having the greatest percentage of any state's 10 to 14 yr children getting pregnant (1,450 out of 1,156,495 or 0.13%) New York is second at 0.12%, Texas and California are tied at 0.10%.

The nation as a whole is 0.09% - 19,640 pregnancies out of 20.8 million 10 to 14 year old girls.

Utah is 0.04% - 70 out of 187,823.

So where, other than the Mormons, are the mass arrests in Texas? Or any other State for that matter? For the children's sake of course.

Doug Patton has an excellent read on this:

Government-Approved Religions and Cults
By Doug Patton
April 28, 2008

So, let me make sure I have this straight. Hate-filled Islamic Madrassas are okay. To discriminate against them would be racial profiling.

Homes with two parents of the same sex are just fine. In fact, any “family” involving a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender relationship is to be tolerated — even encouraged. All enlightened people know this. To do anything but promote deviant lifestyles is narrow-minded, homophobic and borders on hate speech.

Even a cult like Scientology is winked at because it its most public practitioners are Hollywood stars who look prosperous and pretty, not dowdy and weird.

But God help any group which holds unusual religious views, whose fundamentalist Mormon adherents look strange and choose to withdraw from society to protect its children, and which runs afoul of the standard government definition of what comprises a religion.

I have deliberately waited several weeks to write about the raid by state authorities on the compound near Eldorado, Texas, but I am finally ready to opine on the subject.

I think it was Waco without the flames.

Make no mistake: there is no excuse for child sexual abuse. It should be punished with much greater severity than it is in most venues in this country. But as far as can be determined so far, the only evidence available in this case is an anonymous phone call from a female who claimed to be 16 years old and who said she was being forced to have sex with her 49-year-old “husband.” On the strength of that phone call, Texas authorities raided the compound, took more than 400 children into state custody and denied them access to their mothers. Worse, it appears these children may be placed in foster homes or even put up for adoption.

(Interestingly, the only person so far connected with the anonymous phone call is Rozita Swinton, a Colorado woman who also happens to be a Barack Obama delegate to her state’s Democratic convention. This is no reflection on Sen. Obama, but it would be interesting to see what the mainstream media might have done with the story had she been a Republican, especially if she had been committed to Mormon Mitt Romney.)

I personally know of situations where concerned neighbors and/or family members have tried in vain to get children removed from homes where one or both parents have been guilty of exposing their young children to dangerous drugs, including Meth. In one case, a case worker from Child Protective Services was quoted as saying, “We know they use drugs, but we can’t do anything about it.”

Why, then is a state government allowed to use military tactics and weaponry to raid a peaceful group of people on the strength of an anonymous phone call? For the same reason, Janet Reno’s Justice Department got away with burning the Branch Davidian compound to the ground, killing men, women and children in the process. It is the same reason the Clinton-Reno regime was allowed to take Emilio Gonzales at gunpoint and return him to the misery of Castro’s Cuba. Because we, the people, allowed it. There was not a sufficient outcry from the public to stop it. Unfortunately, I don’t believe there will be enough to stop this travesty, either.

If there is evidence of child abuse, or any other crime, by all means prosecute the perpetrators. But when government decides that hundreds of children should be taken from their mothers because the group to which those mothers belong is not on the sanctioned list of politically correct beliefs, America has crossed over into a dangerous area of government-approved religions and cults. And yours could be next.

____________________________________________________________________________

© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
____________________________________________________________________________

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at: dougpatton@cox.net.

Sha'ria Law - In Texas?

There has been quite a flap over the Archbishop of Canterbury saying that sha'ria law in England is "unavoidable." In a Rotti thread, LC Maxxdog posted a Pet Jawa link reporting that a Texas Court has recently approved a contract specifying that sha'ria law can apply in private contracts:

The Second Court of Appeals of the State of Texas has rendered a ruling on the enforceability of shari'a judgments rendered by imams. According to the Texas appeals court, it's all good.

You've heard of the Texas Courts. Ladies and gentlemen, make way for the Texas Islamic Courts!!! The parties will ask the courts to refer the cases for arbitration to Texas Islamic court within "Seven Days" from the establishment of the Texas Islamic Court panel of Arbitrators. The assignment must include ALL cases, including those filed against or on behalf of other family members related to the parties.

Each party will notify the other party, Texas Islamic Court, and their respective attorneys, in writing of the assignment of all the above Cause Numbers from the above appropriate District Court to Texas Islamic Court. In general, private arbitration agreements are enforceable by government courts.

Shari'a arbitration agreements are one type of private arbitration agreement. Without a theory as to why shari'a arbitration agreements shouldn't be enforced by the courts, I'm not sure what else the appeals court could have done in this case. Still, this is not a welcome development.

No indeed. Does this mean that felafels with BBQ sauce will become the staple for millions of Texans? I doubt it, but Americans should be aware of what they are signing. God forbid you enter into a contract with a Muslim and you are unaware that the contract calls for sha'ria law to decide how contract disputes will be settled.

Jawa then linked to a thread at the Volokh Conspiracy where the comments seemed to favor the notion that this was acceptable because the courts were issuing an opinion on whether or not a private contract could specify that sha'ria law would be used to interpret the contract should any issues arise. A link to this article dispelled any such notion for me. From the Times On Line:

Has the Archbishop gone bonkers?

Forgive the stark clarity of my headline, but sometimes when writing about the Archbishop of Canterbury, clarity is what is needed. I ask this of readers here, because this is the question put to me time after time this afternoon by incredulous commentators of every variety, stunned into blunt expression by the Archbishop of Canterbury's uncharacteristically clear comments on Sharia in Britain. The Archbishop believes adopting aspects of sharia law into British law would help maintain social cohesion. But who exactly is asking for this? No Muslim organisation in Britain has requested it, I could not find any who even wanted it. Instead, Muslims I spoke to this afternoon seem fearful of the effects the Archbishop's latest remarks will have on those already prejudiced against their community. As well they might be. His speech was delivered this evening at the Royal Courts of Justice in Strand, London. (Update: do read this interesting analaysis from Propaganda Box.)

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, responded: 'English law is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and, in particular, our notions of human freedoms derive from that tradition. In my view, it would be simply impossible to introduce a tradition, like sharia into this corpus without fundamentally affecting its integrity.' Read his full comments here. Also see here for a legal opinion from barrister Dr James Behrens.

Sheikh Michael Mumisa, an Islamic scholar at Cambridge University and who is affiliated to Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations at the Woolf Institute, said: 'I do understand that by sharia law here he means only the personal status laws of Islam such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and not its penal code.”

Mumisa, author of the book Islamic Law: Theory and Interpretation, continued: 'I disagree and believe that the introduction of such laws within the UK will undermine the rights of Muslim women. Moreover, some senior Muslim clerics in the UK want more than just the personal status laws and would prefer that the penal laws were introduced as well.'

A few days ago, the Archbishop argued also for the abolition of the blasphemy law -as long as it was replaced by something even more severe. People should be punished for daring to voice thoughts that were hurtful to others, he said, even when that hurt was unintentional. Now it seems he wants women, children, all of us in fact, to have to kow-tow to some of the strictest, harshest and most draconian laws dreamed up by any religious system, ever, anywhere in the world.

There might not be no-go areas for non-Muslims in Britain, as he recently argued against the Bishop of Rochester. But this is certainly the way to go about creating them.

Is the Archbishop of Canterbury unaware of the history of the Church he has been chosen to lead? Coming from Wales is no excuse, as until the early years of the last century, Wales was part of the Church of England as well. The Church of England was born out of an express desire to rid Britain of a foreign, ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Article 37 of the 39 says: 'The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.' Queen Elizabeth I early in her reign decreed that the Crown had restored to it 'the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical and spiritual, abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same'.

And now Queen Elizabeth II's very own Archbishop - and let's not forget she is his Church's Supreme Governor - wants to introduce a new 'jurisdiction into this realm of England.' And an Islamic one at that!

It is one thing for judges to take Sharia into account, as has happened in Germany. It is quite another to follow the line the Archbishop is suggesting. It led to near disaster in Ontario, Canada two years ago [this happened in 2005 - here is a link to one of the protest sites ~sig94] and would created untold and unnecessary distress here were it to be implemented here.

The Archbishop has staked everything on trying to maintain unity in his own Anglican Communion. At the same time, he is advocating a policy that could only fragment the society around him.

This is a very powerful statement. But another even more moving account of Sha'ria law in England can be found at the end of the article.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to a woman who works in an advocacy role for Muslim women in an area that, quite independently of the Bishop of Rochester, she described as a 'no-go area' for non-Muslims. Her clients were women in the process of being sectioned into mental health units in the NHS. This woman, who for obvious reasons begged not to be identified, told me: 'The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing western clothes.

There can be many reasons. The women are sent for asssessment to a hospital. The GP referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned. She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?'

My interlocuter went very red and almost started to cry. Instead, she began shouting at me. I was a member of the press. 'You must write about this,' she begged.

'I can't,' I said. 'Not unless you become a whistle-blower. Or give me some evidence. Or something.'She shook her head. 'I can't be identified,' she said. 'I would be killed. And so would the women.'

So there you have it. After weeks of wondering what to do, inspired by the Archbishop, I've taken her word that she is telling the truth, respected her anonymity, and written it anyway.

And this, I imagine, is what the Archbishop wants for the whole of England. As they used to say in my father's country parish: 'Heaven preserve us!' I wonder what they're saying there today. Expressions somewhat shorter and sweeter, I fear.

I don't think the Archbishop is bonkers. I think he is an idiot.