StrangeSox

That's not how I read this: (3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. You can use deadly force if it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. One problem is a bad law, but there are many. The "stand your ground" justifiable killings are new and a pretty clear expansion from the standard "castle doctrine"

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 23, 2012 -> 11:04 AM) Isn't forcible felony probably defined in the definitions section of this particular law? no, but it's defined elsewhere. I posted a link to the "stand your ground" law on the first page and to the 'forcible felony' statute in the post above.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 23, 2012 -> 10:37 AM) Well sorry, i'm not going to chance my life if I feel that threatened based on whether SS agrees with me that I don't need to meet with equal force in a particular situation. I was pointing out that you don't need to be threatened with a gun in order to justifiably use a gun. You are allowed to escalate force levels if you perceive that you are threatened. Yeah, we're anal about bad laws the lead to terrible results, like a black kid getting murdered because he was wearing a hoodie and the murderer not even being arrested. I tend to seek out legal blogs that are populated with lawyers and not mainstream/general political blogs for issues like these. If my reading of these two statutes are correct, you're legally allowed to meet any use of force at all in the commission of a felony with deadly force. FWIW I was saying that I, personally, was unaware of what a 'forcible felony' is. It is defined here: http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2011/776.08

"moderate" Republicans seem to be back-tracking a bit now in press releases on their anti-labor stances, just in time for election season. But let's not forget things like this from Mitch Daniels:

Gay man apologizes for 'ruin' of senator's marriage

I don't think I've ever crossed the street to avoid someone.

PG-13 movies are going to have a larger appeal anyway since a whole lot more people and probably the largest movie-going demographic can go seen them as opposed to an R-rated movie.

DELONG AND SUMMERS: FISCAL POLICY IN A DEPRESSED ECONOMY: CONFERENCE DRAFT

A weak version of the STOCK act passed the Senate yesterday, along with the JOBS act that is a large deregulation bill.

I know it wasn't very tough on you Mr. Romney

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Mar 7, 2012 -> 03:52 PM) #1 Micheal Jordan #2-#100 who cares #1-Dwayne Wade #2-Michael Jordan

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 23, 2012 -> 09:02 AM) Yet. It's been a year and a half. A year and a half into all the bailouts and stimulus, was everything all hunky dory? They were a hell of a lot better than March 2009. Walker's Wisconsin is heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the country.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2012 -> 09:04 AM) Geraldo Rivera using the "She was asking to be raped because of her outfit" excuse. He's not the first. To be fair to Geraldo, Treyvon was black. Doesn't everyone cross the street to avoid black youths?!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 23, 2012 -> 09:00 AM) That's the point of the statute - if someone comes at you with a gun, you should have every right to protect yourself if you reasonably believe its necessary to prevent serious harm or death. No, that's not the point. You don't have to meet with equal force. You can also shoot to kill if they are committing a "forcible felony," which I'm not sure if its clearly defined what that means.

kill whitey.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 01:50 PM) Well i meant the tea party policies in effect in Texas. Are they similar to the ones Wisconsin enacted? If so, that would negate your point that they didn't work - they just didn't work in Wisconsin (though I agree with NSS that you're fudging the numbers by not recognizing the cuts in government jobs are obviously going to lower hiring numbers). To the best of my knowledge, no, they have not enacted policies similar to Walker's Wisconsin. The numbers aren't being fudged. The conservative mantra is that cutting government will "free" private businesses and results in economic growth and more employment for everyone. It doesn't. Walker promised growth and instead there's been losses. This supports the argument that simply dismantling government doesn't reduce unemployment or create net positive effects.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 01:53 PM) I think Bush v Gore is a total outlier for most things. They were flying by the seat of their pants and were tired of the endless challenges. ie they made a bunch of s*** up to get the political end they wanted and the opinion explicitly stated that they were doing so. Maybe a year ago Scalia said in an interview that the 14th amendment doesn't protect against gender discrimination because that wasn't the original legislative intent. But he invoked the 14th amendment in favor of protecting Bush from recalls or however their terrible "logic" in that ruling actually went. Legislative intent is awesome when he can use it to justify the conclusions he wants and conveniently tossed aside when it doesn't. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010...aco_talk_toobin

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 12:23 PM) Wonder how Texas policy in the same period compares to Wisconsin. Well it is in the graphs, very well actually. Thanks to robust housing regulations, however, they weren't hit nearly as hard.

Losfan, please don't post your terrifying picture here.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) Come on. If you and I get into a fight, i'm injured, we separate and later on I come after you it's reasonable that i'm in fear of serious injury or death? That's not "reasonable" fear or what a "reasonable" person would think. That isn't the scenario at hand, though. There was clearly an brief altercation in which zimmerman was injured and martin was killed. Why have justifiable killings in florida tripled since this law was enacted?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 12:12 PM) I'd say the majority of the time that he does it it's based on something that's in the Constitution. The recent DC gun ruling is a good example. You probably view that as judicial activism, he's viewing it as just reading the plain language of the Constitution, not what the drafters intended and not what he thinks should be included. I'd bet if someone did a history of his decisions, when his rulings are a form of judicial activism they line up with something expressly written in the Constitution (or not expressly prohibited). But yes, both sides have their decision and find out the best way to use precedent/the facts to support the ruling. That's just the way it works. You don't find a woman's right to abortion in the Constitution, so you gotta find a way to argue it based on the law and public policy. I dint have a problem with heller. But look at bush v gore and then his somewhat recent statements on gender protection and the 14th. he makes a legislative intent argument to deny one and completely ignores it to reach a conclusion he likes. Conservatives are typically the loudest in complaining about activism and are completely blind to their own transgressions. That is what is annoying. I don't have a supposedly deep philosophical objection to it, while Scalia does but only when convenient. After bvg conservatives should have lost their right to complain about activist judges for a generation or two.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 08:10 AM) I'd imagine that's probably because he (1) writes a ton of opinions, especially "popular" ones, and (2) he's the most anti-judicial activism judge on the Court. His baseline rule is that Judges have no businesses making law. If a legislature passes a law, that's what society wants, and that should only be changed if it's in direct conflict with something in the Constitution. This position works 95% of the time, but some of the main areas of the law we take for granted today (privacy for example) aren't covered, so his position becomes unworkable. If you're at all interested he addresses this "problem" in his book (http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Interpretation-Antonin-Scalia/dp/0691026300). See, that is the problem. He is so staunchly against judicating from outcomes and "judicial activism," except when he isn't. The most obvious case is Bush v Gore, but iirc he had a dissent last year in the Cali prison case that explicitly reasoned from outcomes. The recent 11th amendment/fmla ruling barring residents from s uing their own state is another example of pretty blatant activism. At least the more liberal lines of judicial philosophy don't pretend to be adhering to a strict, unchanging understanding of originalism.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 07:20 AM) You are looking at "non-farm payrolls (public and private)". One of his stated goals is to reduce state government. In order to evaluate the "success" of his policies - whether you are agree with them or not - is to look at all non-public payroll numbers (including farm, by the way). If that has increased, or done better than other states, then he is "succeeding". By the way, I am not saying his ideas are good. In my view, the better picture is ALL payroll, public and private, farm and non-farm, to see the whole picture. Just saying, this is not a fair way to see how his policies are doing in terms of effectiveness. He said this would bring in tens of thousands of jobs. Instead, services are cut, pay is cut, taxes for the wealthy are cut and overall unemployment is up against a nation-wide trend of going down. If you are looking simply at ideological changes, sure, he has done that. But if you are in any way interested in the outcome of those changes, he is a huge failure. Shockingly, austerity and slashing government still didn't result in magical growth outcomes.

Some interesting results of Walker's tea party policies in Wisconsin: In other words, massive failure.