"When regulators strongly suggest . . . "

See: Obama's Food Police in Staggering Crackdown on Market to Kids

How much of our private lives should politicians and bureaucrats be involved in? At what point do we stop being free citizens and become mere wards of the state?

“The most disturbing aspect of this interagency working group is, after it imposes multibillions of dollars in restrictions on the food industry, there is no evidence of any impact on the scourge of childhood obesity,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.

The “Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children, Preliminary Proposed Nutrition Principles to Guide Industry Self-Regulation Efforts” says it is voluntary, but industry officials say the intent is clear: Do it, or else.

“When regulators strongly suggest a course of action, it’s treated as a rule, not a suggestion,” said Scott Faber, vice president of federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “Industry tends to heed these suggestions from our regulators, and this administration has made it clear they are willing to regulate if we don’t implement their proposal.”

It is important to keep in mind that the people pushing these “suggestions,” rules and regulations are motivated by “good intentions.” They really do believe that they are working to drive us all down the road to a healthier life.

A road paved with good intentions.

Shakedown

I think it's a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown--in this case a $20 billion shakedown.
- Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) June 17, 2010

How is that "Hope and Change" working for you?

It seems it ain't working so well for Obama's "progressive" supporters.

See: Progressives Ask: Is It Obama, Or Is It Us?

Left-wing activists described the year leading up to Barack Obama's election as exhilarating, empowering and exciting.
Now, if you ask progressives gathered for the America's Future Now conference in Washington, D.C., about the first year and a half of his presidency, they say:

"Frustrating."

"Sobering."

"Brutal."

At least, those were the reactions of, respectively, union activist Nick Weiner, University of Minnesota political science professor Dara Strolovitch, and Steve Peha, who heads an education reform consultancy.

"I had hoped for something different," Peha explains. "I had hoped for the president who ran for office, and not so much the one who's in office."

Peha says he's a pragmatist -- he knows that campaigning and governing are different. But "what I wish is that President Obama had worked a little less for his ideal of bipartisanship and a little more for the people who elected him," he says.

This is the prevailing feeling at this week's America's Future Now conference. And no one is hiding it.

There are several things to remark upon here.

One, the Obama administration has easily been the most partisan administration that this country has suffered through since Johnson. His "take it or leave it" strategy for ramming through his health-care scheme is example enough of that. On that charge, the progressives are talking out their ass. They wouldn't know what "bipartisanship" was if it reached across the isle and slugged them.

Two, Obama is the most progressive President this country has had since Woodrow Wilson. Again, his health-care scheme is proof enough of that. We could also talk about his high tax policy and his regulatory policy per Cap and Trade. Then there is that whole financial crises fiasco created by the progressive geniuses Barney Frank and Chris Dodd that Obama managed to make much worse. He even seized control of GM for goodness sake. GM is now a government run enterprise strait out of the Mussolini play book. What do the progressives want! Any more progressive and and this administration would be considering controlling political speech by taxing internet news aggregators or bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" to radio.

Three, Obama cannot realistically satisfy his hard left supporters. These are the people on the fringe of reality, more inclined to look at working through the constraints of the law and the constitution as backsliding and evidence of a spiritual weakness. These people were going to turn on him no matter what. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the schadenfreude while watching his own snakes turn on him.

Heh. . . Here is some "Hope and Change" good and hard you "progressive" dip-shits.

"We Erect Courthouses For A Reason"

See: Wash. court: Jail trial unfair to murder defendant

James Frank Jaime was convicted of killing a man during a drug deal in 2005. The judge agreed with prosecutors who for security reasons wanted to hold his trial in a courtroom at the jail, rather than in the courthouse across the street.

In an opinion by Justice Debra Stephens, the high court ruled 6-3 Thursday that the setting was prejudicial, akin to letting jurors see the defendant in shackles, and that the judge did not analyze whether the security concerns were justified.

"We erect courthouses for a reason," Stephens wrote. "They are a stage for public discourse, a neutral forum for the resolution of civil and criminal matters. ... The use of a space other than a courthouse for a criminal trial, particularly when that space is a jailhouse, takes a step away from those dignities."

And a few paragraphs later:

That prompted a separate writing from Alexander, who noted that in many counties, the jails have been located on the top floor of the courthouse. Anyone entering the building gets the sense of being in a courthouse, not a jail, he said. That's not the case in the Yakima jail.

"There is a significant difference between a jail in a courthouse and a courtroom in a jailhouse," Alexander wrote.

[Emphasis is mine.]

I realize that many people would look at the defendent in the above mentioned instance and say "Just hang the bastard!" He may well deserve to hang. Had the trial and conviction taken place accross the street, we would likely never have heard of him or even give much of a damn about him and his trial. Setting his trial in the jail house was a mistake.

Jail implies guilt.

Inteligent people, some would argue, can look past the setting of the trial in and prevent themselves from allowing the location of the trial to bias their view of the defendant. This is a bad argument on several counts, two of them notable.

Firstly, intelligence does not prevent someone from being influenced by the settings and surroundings that they find themselves in. We are all human beings, influenced emotionally as well as intellectually by the events and circumstances that we find ourselves in. We are not Vulcans, emotionally detached or dead. Settings will affect how we "feel" about something, no matter how much we "think" about it.

Secondly, juries are comprised of our "peers." That is not "peers" as in people of the same intellectual caliber or social strata, but "peers" as in people picked almost completely at random from the community that they court serves. The odds of them all being "intelligent" enough to be able to ignore the setting that the trial is staged in is . . . well, its ridiculous. Only the delusional or those that have never actually met or dealt with the public could think that a Jury would always or even often be comprised of only "intelligent" jurors.

The stage and the setting that a trial takes place in needs to command the respect of the defendants, the juries and the public at large. It must also be neutral. The defendant deserves to have a fair trial. The public needs the trials to be fair so that it can be certain that the convictions and the acquittals that result are sound and proper, even if they may not be the emotionally desired outcome.

In this case, holding the trial for this defendant in the jail was a mistake.

Should American Immigration Law Be Enforced?

We are being put to the test.

Should American Immigration Law be enforced? Do any of our laws mean anything beyond the capricious whims of the momentary elite?

These are the questions that Arizona has put to the nation.

The Democrat-Left would like to make it an issue of race. Will they succeed in confusing the enforcement of our immigration laws with racism?

We will see over the next several days and months if Americans will be cowed by the fear of being called racist by the welfare pimps and whores in our midst, or if the Rule of Law will be respected and upheld as a core principle that guides our nation.

If the the concept of Rule of Law is subverted by the welfare pimps and whores of the Democrat-Left, we will be left with a nation that pretends to respect the law, but in fact bends to the Rule of Men.