The World Around You

Both Attorney General Bill Pryor and the Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama released statements to respond to Roy Moore’s actions

Attorney General Bill Pryor almost immediately released a statement saying he would not assist Moore in violating the court order.

“As attorney general, I have a duty to obey all orders of courts even when I disagree with those orders,” said Pryor, who added that he personally believes the commandments can be displayed constitutionally.

Pryor did not indicate what specific action, if any, he might take.

…

Justice Gorman Houston, the senior associate justice, said he was convening a conference of the associate justices Thursday afternoon “to assure that the state of Alabama is `a government of laws and not of men,’ as our Constitution requires,” Houston said. He said he also wanted to insure that Moore’s failure to obey an order of a federal court would not make it difficult for state courts to enforce federal court orders.

Moore’s attorney, Phillip Jauregui, later read a statement from Moore criticizing Houston’s stand.

“Judge Houston does not understand the importance of this case to our state and our nation,” Moore said in the statement.

Amazing how it’s everyone else that doesn’t understand how importance this is, except Roy Moore.

Purdue senior women’s basketball forward, Shereka Wright, has been named one of 30 preseason candidates for the inaugural John R. Wooden award. She is an outstanding player and I hope this is just the beginning of the buzz surrounding her and this year’s team.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – The chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court said Thursday he will not remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, defying a federal court order to remove the granite monument.

“I have no intention of removing the monument,” Roy Moore said at a news conference. “This I cannot and will not do.”

Moore said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop any removal.

After hearing some more of the discussion this morning on the Moore controversy I found a very good outline of two of the major issues that are raised by his supporters. What’s truly valuable about this particular discussion is that I found it on the website of a school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, check it out here.

Summary: Separation of church and state is not some new idea invented by the courts, it has a long history. Also, most people would have a hard time naming one founding father who was Christian, much less many of them (Thomas Jefferson? Nope; Thomas Paine? Nope; Benjamin Franklin? Not by most people’s definition…)

Did they believe in a god? Yes, most of them did. Did they believe in a Judeo-Christian god? No.

My take: In God We Trust does not mention whose god. Under God in the pledge of allegiance (which wasn’t added until 40 years ago) does not mention whose god. Bringing these much less exclusive wordings into play claiming the need for consistency is wrong and ignorant. The Ten Commandments comes from a very specific religous tradition.

Keep heads bare, SouthTrust tells customers

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Businesses often impose dress codes on employees, but SouthTrust has gone a step further: Customers are forbidden to enter branches of the bank wearing hats or dark glasses.

The Birmingham-based bank has posted signs at entrances informing customers of the policy, which also bans hoods and helmets. The idea is to deter robbers.

“This is a proven crime prevention measure and a proven deterrent,” said David Oliver, a SouthTrust Corp. spokesman. “We haven’t received any negative feedback.”

A similar program in Massachusetts has had positive results. Some robbers were caught because they followed the rules and entered the bank without covering up.

“It is going to potentially inhibit bank robberies, and more importantly, it will produce better imagery from the surveillance cameras,” said Ralph C. Thomas, who heads the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s violent crimes and fugitive unit in Washington.

Customers wearing certain types of dress — a nun, an Orthodox Jew, a Sikh in a turban or a burqa-clad Muslim woman, for example — won’t necessarily be asked to remove head coverings.

Well there’s the information the bank robbers need. A change in uniform is now going to be necessary. No more hats and dark glasses, now all robbers will be dressed as nuns!

The USA Today editorial page discusses the Roy Moore case and makes the same central argument I have made about the contention that the commandments are the basis of our law,

Moore’s actions test whether the Supreme Court is the ultimate authority for interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Otherwise, Moore, as the officer of a state court, can thumb his nose at a long history of Supreme Court rulings.

Proponents describe the Commandments as an important but benign acknowledgement of the origins of universal law. But a close reading suggests they’re largely concerned with religion:

• The First Commandment to most Christians — and the Second to Jews — is “thou shalt have no other God before me,” a religious doctrine subscribed to by many Americans, but certainly not all.

• More than half of the Commandments’ biblical text is about religious observance: no idolatry, no misuse of the Lord’s name and no work on the Sabbath, for example.

The Supreme Court considers the matter settled: Three attempts to reopen the issue were turned away in the past three years.

They go on to urge the Court to quiet the cases that are popping up all over the country. This debate needs to be settled, but it does not appear there has been a conflict in the circuit courts of appeals on this issue. There were different sets of facts in each case and each case appears to have been decided correctly based on established law.

War Liberal posts an interesting article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An Atlanta police “Officer of the Year” was arrested Wednesday on federal racketeering charges as an alleged leader of a notorious drug gang.

Officer David Alan Freeman, 38, is among 16 people indicted since March as members of the Diablos gang, which authorities describe as “very violent.”

Freeman was arrested after a morning “roll call” to start his 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift. The officer was assigned to the Zone 1 district in the northwest part of the city.

He is charged with warning the Diablos of police investigations, confiscating drugs from arrested suspects in rival gangs and attempting to recruit gang members.

The officer had been named “Officer of the Year” for his zone just two weeks ago. I’ll bet they’re going to re-examine how they choose the Officer of the Year next time around.

Governor Riley began putting forward the right answer to what happens if the plan fails. Plan B is not to put more money into a broken system.

I absolutely agree. If Ammendment 1 fails, and I’m still not convinced that’s a foregone conclusion, the Governor and Legislature should not just patch the hole with higher sales or use taxes. They should make the draconian cuts they have threatened, let the school districts who are teetering on bankruptcy go bankrupt and close, cut off funding for “non-essential services” like senior services and children’s services. This vote will mean nothing if there are not consequences for voting no.

I will be having a long discussion with my state senator and representative on September 10th if this plan fails. I do not want them to support another band-aid for the problems facing our state. People need to see the consequences. Many people honestly believe the government is “crying wolf”, they need to see that the problems are not imaginary. The Governor needs to continue to provide leadership and propose a budget that will meet the expected revenues and put the blame where it belongs when people’s needs are not met, on those who voted No on September 9th. The case has been presented, if the people reject it we all will have to pay the consequences.

UPDATE: Don’t forget that John Giles has contended that the government is not responsible for helping the poor and disadvantaged, the churches are. So, when services are cut, citizens should be directed to their local faith-based organization for assistance.