UPDATED: Wisconsin Supreme Court Shoots Down Stay-At-Home Order - But Don't Think That's The End Of It

Photo manipulation for Chicago News Bench

Wisconsin state Supreme Court struck down Governor Tony Evers' order "shutting down daily life to limit the spread of coronavirus — marking the first time a statewide order of its kind has been knocked down by a court of last resort," reported The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today.

However, as noted below, at least one county has already picked up the ball and will restrict the opening of businesses. Expect other counties and municipalities to do the same.

UPDATE, May 14: As originally noted, counties and municipalities have issued their own stay-at-home orders in Wisconsin. The Journal Sentinel has an updated "roundup of counties and cities that have announced their own measures, or will be continuing to follow [Governor] Evers' order." None are exactly like the struck-down Evan's order, and no two are exactly like any of the others. Full List.

"The state's highest court sided with Republican lawmakers Wednesday in a decision that curbed Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' power to act unilaterally during public health emergencies.

The 4-3 decision was written by four of the court’s conservatives — Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justices Rebecca Bradley, Daniel Kelly and Annette Ziegler." Full Story at Journal Sentinel.

Read the entire 161-page court decision here (includes dissensions):
https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=260868

There is some confusion as to when the court's decision actually has any effect.

Don't Feed the Pigeons

Many people assume that cops must be experts about law. They're not. I don't mean this post as an insult to police officers, but the blunt truth is that the vast majority did not go to law school. And some, as we see here, don't even know an ordinance that's widely posted in their own city.

CNB photo archives

It is illegal to feed the pigeons in Chicago. So says Chicago Municipal Code Section 728-710, which calls for a fine of up to $500 for throwing food to the filthy, flying poop droppers. Addendum: After a writer wrote that "there is no Section 728-710," I felt compelled to add a link to the section in question (also see my response to "Roderick" in the comments). Read the entire Section 728-710 here. 

Unfortunately, some CPD officers seem unaware of this well-known, well-posted law. At 5:18 p.m. today, a call went out from the 24th District CPD dispatcher.

"Woman feeding pigeons at Howard and Paulina, causing a disturbance," she called out.

Immediately, an officer radioed back, "That is not illegal."

"Yeah," came the dispatcher's response. After half an hour of listening, I never heard a followup to that disturbance call.

Okay, I know, feed the pigeons is no emergency. Yes, it helps a disease-spreading pest breed and multiply, but what the heck - we allow unregulated food carts to sell unrefrigerated, unlicensed, uninspected food to humans, right? So what's one more health threat?

The big deal is that a police officer (a) did not know that it's illegal to feed pigeons, even though it's one of the most posted laws in the city, and (b) an ignorant officer overrode his ignorant dispatcher with an ignorant remark. How many other, more serious calls are called off in the same manner?

JOE MOORE'S GOOSE LIVER HISSY FIT

"THE SILLIEST LAW EVER WRITTEN," is what Mayor Daley called Chicago's ban on foie gras (goose liver pate). Today, the Chicago City Council repealed the ineffective law by a vote of 37-6. The law, which banned restaurants from selling it, but could not prevent them from giving it away.

(Snarky question: Does this mean that Joe has to give Dana Kohl's $30K campaign contribution back?)

Stores could still sell it, it was not illegal to buy or eat it, only for restaurants to sell it. The anti-foie gras ordinance was the pride and joy of its author, Chicago's 49th Ward Aldergoose Joe Moore, who wrote it in 2006. By tossing it out, the Chicago City Council gains a bit more respect.

Get this: According to the Associated Press, "The measure passed Wednesday by a vote of 37-6 with no debate. Its sponsor, Alderman Joe Moore, shouted his objections." Can you imagine mild mannered gooseboy Joe Moore shouting his objections to the rest of the Voters should remember this kind of ineffective, time wasting stupidity when Joe Moore runs for Congress in 2009.

A personal note: Joe, who is "discredited" now? The mayor - and millions of others - call your foie gras ordinance "the silliest law ever written." In spite of your lunatic fringe supporters, most of us see it that way. And today that silly law was soundly defeated. YOU, Joe Moore, are now an officially discredited fool, a laughing stock, the butt of jokes. And the national and international press is eating it up.

If Obama becomes our next president this November, we will likely see a special election called to fill the vacated Congressional seat of Jan "The Man" Schakowsky, who would likely move up to fill Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat. You can bet money that Joe Moore will be put up to run by the local Schakowsky-led Democrat Machine.

Execution: Neither Cruel Nor Unusual

Lethal injection is okey-dokey, says the U.S. Supreme Court. Fine.

T. Mannis

Reuters reports today that the U.S. Supreme Court has "rejected a challenge to the lethal three-drug cocktail used in most U.S. executions, clearing the way for a resumption of executions halted since last September." (Full story...)

Some soft hearted folks will tell you that the death penalty is cruel and unusual. In fact, it is neither.

It is not cruel.
Let's make an analogy. Suppose your child takes a cookie from the jar after you've told her that she should not, and then you ground her for two weeks as punishment. Well, most of us would agree that that would be a cruel punishment, because the punishment is out of proportion to the offense. The punishment, in common parlance, does not fit the crime. Not letting the child watch her favorite TV show that evening might more more appropriate.

Let's stay with that analogy. Suppose the child stole a bag of cookies from the local convenience store and you found out about it. To ground her for two weeks would not be cruel, as most of us would agree that this punishment is appropriate.

Flash forward and suppose your child is all grown up. She murders one of your neighbors by deliberately feeding him poison-laced cookies. Would it be appropriate to ground her for two weeks? Or is something, say, more appropriate in order?

To make a person who stole property return the property or reimburse the true owner of the property for its value is not cruel. It is appropriate. To execute a murderer, who stole somebody's life and can never return it, is not cruel. It is appropriate.

Can the death penalty be cruel? Yes. It can be administered cruelly. Being drawn and quartered, for example, or being burned alive. But to administer a lethal injection - even though it can sometimes cause some discomfort - is not cruel. It is done with the humane intention of minimizing suffering, as opposed to many traditional forms of execution which are intended to maximize and prolong suffering.

It is not unusual.
This is much easier. What is the definition of "unusual"? The Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines it as "different from what is usual or expected." The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "(1) not habitually or commonly done or occurring. (2) remarkable; exceptional."

The death penalty has been a traditional form of punishment for thousands of years in most cultures around the world. For over 200 years, it has been used in the United States. Therefore, it cannot reasonably or honestly be called unusual.

This is not to say that one cannot make a reasonable argument against the death penalty, but to call it cruel or unusual is intellectually dishonest. Whereas it can be cruel, it is not necessarily cruel. Given it's widespread and common use throughout history, it simply cannot be called unusual.

Forty Eight Out of Fifty Do...

...Illinois is one of two that don't.

http://www.handgunlaw.us/

What do the other states know that we can't seem to come to grips with?

Stay Out of Jail Card

Giganto hat tip to Levois for this: For bloggers: A stay-out-of-jail card

Chicago's Foie Gras Inspector?

Ian Froeb wants to be the official foie gras inspector for the City of Chicago. He says so in his brilliant little post, "Just Ducky," in the Riverfront Times web site. It'll make you chuckle. Unless, of course, you're a squeamish, weak livered liberal or something. Hire me as the official inspector of Chicago's foie gras ban. I will dutifully visit as many restaurants as necessary until I've located every last spot still serving the delicacy. My terms are surprisingly reasonable. There is only one stipulation: I must sample every foie gras dish I find, just to be certain. I wouldn't want to expose the city to any lawsuits. READ THE FULL POST...

Baggy Pants and Foie Gras

You never thought you'd see gourmet food item foie gras and low-rent fashion item baggy pants mentioned together, did you? No, me neither, but they have something in common. There are proposed bans on both. Of course, in Chicago, we already have a foie gras ban in place, and it was ruled constitutional by U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning recently. (Of course, it would also be constitutional for the City Council to repeal the ordinance.) To be consistent, Judge Manning would have to uphold a ban on baggy pants. Manning just ruled that a city can indeed ban a legally produced item such as foie gras. Manning's ruling, then, would serve as precedent for a ban on baggy pants. This means that supporters of Chicago Alderman Joe Moore's foie gras ban would be dishonest and hypocritical if they attack a baggy pants ban as unconstitutional. (Want to bet that they will anyway?) Generally speaking, guys who wear their pants like the moron shown in the photo (right) have IQs about the same as their waist size. On the other hand, I have great respect and admiration for women who wear their pants as shown by the lady in the other photo here. So, I'm torn by news stories about legally banning the butt-crack look. The law should be equally applied, right? What a quandry. The town council of Delcambre, Louisiana is considering a ban on baggy pants. The mayor said he would "sign an ordinance the town council approved this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or certain parts of the body." Y'know, if you look real close at this lady's pants, they're not actually baggy. They're low below her waist, true, but the cut is not baggy. There might be a loophole here.

Unequal Hatred For All

Two white people were brutally murdered by some black men back in January. I've been watching this story for months, more interested in how the media handled it than the actual murder. The most interesting thing about the way the media handled it was, frankly, that they did not handle it. Virtually no coverage. Why? Because it was too uncomfortable for editors to categorize. To sensitive. Too challenging to the meaning of "hate crime," which is what some are insisting it was. I admit I was reluctant to jump on the story until now, partly because it was hard to substantiate due in no small way to the lack of mainstream media coverage. It was difficult to tell the nutter reports from the legit ones. Needless to say, a lot of white supremicist types jumped this story early on. It was all over the neo-nazi sites and similar web pages. But today it's front page news in the Chicago Tribune, and you don't get more mainstream than that. The story is about the double murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, "a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date" back in January 2007. The murders were incredibly heinous and brutal. Both Channon and Christopher were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and ultimately murdered. Both Channon and Christopher were white. Their accused killers are black. Was this a "hate crime?" An excerpt from today's Chicago Tribune story (emphasis mine): But it's not just conservative whites and extremists who have criticized the national silence over the Knoxville case. "Black leaders are not eager to take this on because it's one more thing that would cast a negative light on African-Americans," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an author and nationally syndicated black columnist who has written frequently about the reluctance of black leaders to denounce crimes committed by blacks against whites. "There's already an ancient stereotype that blacks are more violent and crime-prone, anyway." Country music star Charlie Daniels, who lives 150 miles from Knoxville, contrasted scant coverage of the Christian-Newsom murders with the national media frenzy that erupted last year when a black woman accused three white members of the Duke University lacrosse team of raping her at a party. Which begs the question: Was the black woman who falsely accused the Duke lacrosse players herself guilty of a hate crime? The boys were found to be innocent. The accuser was found to have lied repeatedly; she fabricated the crime that she accused them of. Why? Out of hate? Writer Ellis Washington was an editor at The Michigan Law Review and a law clerk at The Rutherford Institute. He graduated from John Marshall Law School and is a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. Washington recently wrote a column titled "Are hate crime statutes constitutional?" An excerpt (emphasis mine): The irony of the hate crime statutes is that they were conceived, promoted and enacted into law by socialists, progressives, liberals, leftist pols and activist groups like the ACLU, People for the American Way, MoveOn.org, NAACP, NOW and the Human Rights Campaign, and codified into law by liberal activist judges who have nothing but utter contempt for the original intent of the constitutional Framers and the rule of law. However, in line with the zeitgeist of this post-rationalist age, they carve out a class of special punishments against the criminal defendant that has violated one of their protected groups – minorities, women, atheists, gays, Islamic terrorists, anarchists, illegal aliens. This, dear reader, is the height of cynicism and a shameless perversion of the rule of law and the Constitution. FULL ARTICLE... A few years ago, some gay people in the largely gay "Boys Town" Chicago neighborhood raised the roof about some idiots in a car driving around yelling things at them. "Fags!" I've had drinks with friends in some of the clubs in Boys Town, and you regularly hear gays calling each other "fags." It's like some blacks, who shout "Hey Nigga!" at each other from across the street. The gays didn't like the guys in the car calling them "fags." I don't blame them. Sure, the idiots in the car meant to insult. The remarks were probably meant as hateful. But was it a "crime?" The offended gays said it was. But what if the situation was reversed? Let's ramp it up. If a straight person kills a gay person, is it a "hate" crime? Let's cut to the chase and ask, if somebody is different from their victim, does that make the crime a "hate" crime? One more notch: If a white person kills a black person, is it a hate crime? If a black person kills a white person, can it be a hate crime? If a dwarf kills a tall person, is it a hate crime? Presidential Candidate Ron Paul says this about hate crimes legislation: Hate crime laws not only violate the First Amendment, they also violate the Tenth Amendment. Under the United States Constitution, there are only three federal crimes: piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. All other criminal matters are left to the individual states. Any federal legislation dealing with criminal matters not related to these three issues usurps state authority over criminal law and takes a step toward turning the states into mere administrative units of the federal government. FULL ARTICLE by Ron Paul... If a murder is classified as a "hate crime," is the dead victim more dead because the killer hated him? Of course not. But it adds a new layer to the legal case. It costs the taxpayers more money. It also causes resentment amongst members of groups that are not "protected," as Ellis Washington notes. The question, "Why don't we have the same protection against 'hate crimes' that that group does?" is a valid - and frequently asked - question. RELATED: Black Racism: The Hate Crime That Dare Not Speak It's Name Outside the local Wichita press, however, virtually the only media to report this hate crime were Frontpagemagazine.com and the American Renaissance newsletter. While the federal government rushes to Los Angeles to investigate an incident in which a handcuffed youth was slammed into the hood of a car and punched by an officer, a pall of silence still blankets the horrendous racial murder of four young people whose murderers are now on trial. The difference in the responses to these two stories can hardly be attributed to anything other than the skin color of the perpetrators and the victims involved. Apparently the sexual torture and brutal executions of four promising youngsters is of no interest to the nation's moral guardians, because the victims happen to be white. FULL ARTICLE... ABC News: New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder Six years ago, on a cold October night on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., 21-year-old gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead.... The story garnered national attention when the attack was characterized as a hate crime. But Shepard's killers, in their first interview since their convictions, tell "20/20's" Elizabeth Vargas that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays. FULL STORY... House Passes Hate Crimes Bill Protecting GLBT Americans, Women, and People with Disabilities - FULL ARTICLE... CAIR's Hate Crimes Nonsense - article by Daniel Pipes Specifically, the number of "anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States" has gone up dramatically. FULL STORY... RealClearPolitics - Articles - Why Not Hate Crimes For All? The bill simply asserts that hate crimes affect such commerce and are committed using articles that have "traveled" in interstate commerce. FULL STORY...

Dysfunctional Mexico

Your reading assignment for Sunday. "President Felipe Calderon hopes to accomplish the sweeping immigration reform Washington has failed to adopt - not just cracking down on the southern border but also creating a guest-worker program and improving conditions for illegal Central American migrants." Full article... "Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven't been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill. "That's too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico." Full article... "At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the US look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve our illegal immigration problem." Full article... Mexico’s Glass House - Article about the hypocrisy of Mexico's demands on the United States for immigration "reform," and a look at highlights of the Mexican constitution. Mexican Constitution (from Organization of American States)