With the Hate Crime Bill, S.909 moving towards a Cloture vote on shackling the Defense Appropriations Bill with this monstrosity at 1 AM Friday morning, the Rev. Ted Pike has put out another E-Alert
HIT THE HATE BILL WHERE IT HURTS! 16 July 09
Pike intelligently points out that the way Senator Reid and his fellow thugs in the Senate Democratic leadership are trying to force through this legislation is itself an outrage, quite apart from the faults of the Bill itself.

Sen. McCain’s explosive rebuke of Senate hate bill leadership yesterday brought into high profile their Stalinist tactics and their vulnerabilities. Because of the hate bill’s inability to withstand normal legislative scrutiny, Democrats have:
1. Omitted adequate Senate Judiciary hearings.
2. Omitted any mark-up session (usually providing opponents in Judiciary with a second opportunity to debate a bill and offer amendments).
3. Omitted a Rules Committee session, providing a third opportunity for opposition to object.
4. Attached a discriminatory, unrelated, homosexual-protecting bill to the soldier-protecting arms bill.

This is an entirely valid point, and extremely important, because it gives Senators who may not have the nerve to face the vicious rage of the Homosexual Lobby a totally legitimate procedural reason to vote against Cloture.

Legislation of this importance should not be smuggled through.

Of course the reason the Senate Democrats want to smuggle it through like this is either that they think they lack the votes, or they fear the outage of the public if the contents of the Bill become widely understood.

On that matter I received an email this morning from a solid friend following my recent post:

<>I’m with you in opposition to, really, even the notion of hate crimes. But now, having just viewed the video featuring Pence and DeMint and the other guy, with all their talk about Christian pastors being forced to shut up by this bill, I looked at both the Senate and House versions. The House bill contains this:
Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by, the Constitution.
The Senate bill contains this:
(3) CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prohibit any constitutionally protected speech, expressive conduct or activities (regardless of whether compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief), including the exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment and peaceful picketing or demonstration. The Constitution does not protect speech, conduct or activities consisting of planning for, conspiring to commit, or committing an act of violence.

(4) FREE EXPRESSION- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to allow prosecution based solely upon an individual’s expression of racial, religious, political, or other beliefs or solely upon an individual’s membership in a group advocating or espousing such beliefs.
So I don’t get it. Where’s the hazard to, say, a minister preaching from the Bible? Are there things elsewhere in the bills that nullify these straightforward statements?

I replied:

I thought the video dealt well with exactly this point.

1) The Bill will stimulate more aggressive enforcement of State laws, some of which are more vaguely written

2) It opens the way for aggressive litigation which, even if it is does not win at the end of the day, threatens the target with ruinous legal expenses. This is an abuse of the legal function but is standard procedure by DAs nowadays as Paul Craig Roberts says in his complaints about plea bargaining.

3) Talking about PCR and the precise language in the bill, consider his
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/privilege.htm

“How did we end up with racial quotas when the 1964 Civil Rights Act expressly forbids them? It was primarily the work of one man, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) bureaucrat named Alfred Blumrosen, now a Rutgers University law professor. Blumrosen’s thoroughgoing and illegal rewrite of the Civil Rights Act was accepted by the Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power (1971)…. Blumrosen ignored the act and its statutory prohibition against regulatory interpretation. He bet that he could get away with rewriting the act because of the courts’ deference to the regulatory agency
Neither the clear statutory language of the act and the amendments nor the act’s unambiguous legislative history could prevent Blumrosen and the Burger Court from standing the Civil Rights Act on its head.”

With a power-hungry and legislating Judiciary such as we actually do have in this country specific language is no protection. The only hope is to deny them access to the area.

See also

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/090508_hate_crime.htm

While most of the open fighting on the other side is being done by the Gays (what a pleasure reading their websites) Blumrosen’s descendents are chilling the Champagne. Consider another foot-in-mouth comment from an ADL officer in Florida today:

blockquote> “We’ve been in the hatred business a long time,” said Andrew L. Rosenkranz, Florida’s regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, another of the series’ sponsors. Rosenkranz said he was enthusiastic…It’s a penalty-enhancement statute,” he said. “If there’s overt evidence that hate was a motivating factor in the crime … [it] could bump it up from a third-degree to a second-degree felony with harsher penalties.”

Hate crime series brings bias to the floor
DON CRINKLAW Sun Sentinel July 16 2009

In other words, the State will seize the chance to punish someone for his political opinions, if he gives it the chance by getting convicted of a conventional crime. Get ready for Life imprisonment for speeding while Republican!

In the first place, this bill is about privileging some favored groups . In the longer run, it is – and is intended as – a long stride towards political policing.

This is really sleazy:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Monday announced his intent to introduce the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act as a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill this week.

I don’t know if Leahy will be able to pull this off. Apparently, it doesn’t have enough support to pass on its own, so the ploy is to attach it to something that has to pass.

Existing hate crimes law covers race, color, national origin, or religion, but only where the victim is engaging in one of the following federally protected activities: (1) attending or enrolling in a public school or public college; (2) participating in a benefit, service, privilege, program, facility or activity administered by a state or local government; (3) applying for or working in private or state employment; (4) serving as a juror in a state court; (5) using a facility of interstate commerce or a common carrier; or (6) enjoying public accommodations or places of exhibition or entertainment. The bill eliminates the outdated “federally protected activities” requirement and expands the federal government’s ability to prosecute crimes targeting victims because of their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.

In other words, eliminate all “outdated” federalist limitations on federal intrusion into state business.

As you may or may not be aware, murder and other crimes of violence are already against the law in just about any state you can name. Most states already have hate crimes legislation, as well. The initial point of this bill is to violate the Constitution’s prohibition on double jeopardy by giving prosecutors two bites at the apple with politically unpopular defendants. Leahy’s press release explains that it will be used when “a state prosecution has failed to vindicate the federal interest against hate-motivated violence” – i.e., when a state jury has acquitted somebody the feds don’t like.

The long term goal is likely to lay the groundwork for eventually prosecuting dissident voices on the Internet, such as, oh, me.

You can read what the two discriminated-against firemen had to say here. (Vargas’s testimony is toward the bottom here.)

It sure would have been better theatre to have plain-spoken witnesses like these guys testify first before the Senators and Sotomayor plunged into the legalistic thickets.

And here’s today cross-examination of Sotomayor by Sen. Kyl, who pretty much comes out and chants liar-liar-pants-on-fire over Sotomayor’s claim that she was just following precedent in trying to deep-six Ricci. “What precedent?” Kyl aks repeatedly and never gets a satisfactory response.

There’s so many weird customs here that apparently preclude asking obvious questions like, “Judge Sotomayor, on Ricci, you say you were bound by precedent as a non-Supreme Court judge. But now you want to be a Supreme Court Justice. How would you have voted on Ricci as a Supreme Court Justice and why?”

One of the conundrums of American law is that cognitively-demanding tests that are legally frowned upon due to disparate impact in hiring and promotion are perfectly A-OK in the university classroom … even when they are the exact same test.

I experienced this firsthand in 1982 when I walked into the offices of a 2-year-old marketing research firm in Chicago that was the first research firm to use data from supermarket scanners. I had just earned an MBA from UCLA with double concentrations in marketing and finance, and had letters of recommendation from the most quant-intensive professors that I was the second best quantitative marketing analyst in that year’s graduating class. (The best one, no fool, opened a scuba diving shop in the Florida Keys.) I was looking for a job in marketing model, but they didn’t have any openings, so they asked if I was interested in the more general Client Service area. (more…)

The Washington Post’s Capitol Briefing reports

The Senate convenes at 9:30 a.m. ET to resume consideration of S.1390, the Department of Defense Authorization Act. There will be a possible cloture vote on a hate crimes amendment introduced by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The Senate calendar linked to above says:

Following morning business, the Senate will resume consideration of S.1390, the Department of Defense Authorization Act. Earlier today, Senator Reid filed cloture on the Hate Crimes amendment. We will continue to work on an agreement to have that vote tomorrow. If we are unable to reach an agreement, the cloture vote would occur at 1:00am Friday morning.

(VDARE.com emphasis)

Amazing that this massive erosion of traditional American freedoms should be rammed through with only two hours hearings, no debate, and a cloture vote to attach it to a totally different Bill.

Nicholas Stix has posted an excellent commentary: The “Hate Crimes” Bill Will Cost You Nothing but Your Freedom: Tell Your Senators to Vote No! on WebCommentary

The Family Research Council has produced a fine film clip “Hate Crimes Update” attacking S. 909, the Hate Crimes Bill (see below). For some reason, it does not seem to be accessible on its website, but it has been picked up by a number of Christian sites (Hat Tip Causa Nostrae Laetitiae).

The piece features excellent remarks by Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN). VDARE.com has never had occasion to praise Rep. Pence before: he richly deserves our praise for stepping forward in this dark hour. There is also an exemplary performance by the ever-reliable Senator Jim De Mint (R-SC).

“Hate Crimes Update” is a sophisticated presentation because it focuses on the likely effect of this legislation of the interpretation and enforcement of the similar laws that already exist in the States. This was exactly the aspect highlighted for applause by Senator Diane Feinstein D-Ca) in her petulant tirade at the Senate Judiciary hearing on s.909. As I remarked:

This of course renders null any assurances given about the administration of S.909 itself – many of the State laws are broader and more loosely written.

Law enforcement and Judicial proceedings are in reality highly fluid and malleable – and susceptible to political influence and fashion. That is why no one knows where S.909 will take us. – and why it needs ample discussion and a stand-alone vote, both things the Senate Democrats appear determined to avoid.

There is, in addition, the issue of intimidation. As Pence says (Minute 2:32 – 2:59)

“…the larger and more pernicious aspect of hate crimes legislation is the chilling effect…It’s the sermons that never get preached because Pastors…might simply not want to run the risk of running afoul of legislation…that bears upon how one addresses particular moral issues”

The ideological core of the video are the statements by David Barton, President of Wallbuilders, particularly in Minute 1:22 – 2:22, where he points out that House Democrats refused to allow the insertion of language

to exclude Pastors reading the Bible as not being a Hate Crime…the fact that it was voted down in Congress says explicitly what they’re after

(Minute 1:42-50)

and also Minute 3:00 – 3:58 where he advances the argument that the cost of litigation is repressive, regardless of the prospects of prevailing.

VDARE.com’s specific interest here, of course, is the immigration debate and the National Question. Consider

Groups harness Web’s power to sow hate By MOISES MENDOZA Houston Chronicle July 15 2009
This rambling piece reports that ultra right groups use the Internet and alleges that

the number of crimes against Hispanics ballooned in 2007 nationally, the last year comprehensive FBI hate crime data is available. That year there were 595 reported anti-Hispanic crimes compared with 426 four years before. A report this year from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Educational Fund attributed the increase, in part, to rising anti-immigrant sentiment

It is obvious where this is going.

On a brighter note, the Rev. Ted Pike reports that Senator John McCain was provoked to make some anti S.909 remarks on Wednesday: MCCAIN RIPS INTO ‘IRRELEVANT’ HATE BILL AMENDMENT! 15 July 09

VDARE.com is not about to start praising McCain, but this underlines that the Democrats have problems with this bill. Pike later reported that things might be looking up

Senate offices today report “hundreds” of calls critical of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, S. 909. This contrasts sharply with yesterday when pro-hate bill calls, primarily generated by the homosexual Human Rights Campaign, outnumbered those of Christians/conservatives…
Yet, despite this encouraging trend, the hate bill remains very much alive! Throughout Wednesday pro-hate bill Democrats, including Sens. Levin, Durbin, Feinstein, and Cardin argued passionately for passage of S. 909. The top issue of contention remains the inappropriateness of attaching the hate bill, protecting homosexuals but not soldiers, to the arms bill…

If they want this thing so much, the rest of us had better be dead against it!