Bulldozed: The book a Texas developer didn’t want you to read
Roger Kimball is posting about Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land, the book his firm Encounter Books published,
which was the subject of a defamation suit brought by the wealthy Texas developer H. Walker Royall. Royall must have really disliked the book. He sued:
1. Encounter Books (of which I am the publisher);
2. The author, Carla Main;
3. The law professor Richard Epstein, whose tort was to have provided a blurb for the book (yes, you read that correctly: Epstein wrote a blurb: Royall sued him);
4. A Texas newspaper, whose sin was to have run a positive review of the book;
5. And the hapless author of that review.
It lead to A free speech fight as big as Texas, which has a happy ending as it also is a victory for free speech,
In ruling this way, the court preserved the right to criticize government without fear that persons who do business with municipalities will sue, saying they were personally defamed by mere association with government. One can easily imagine the chilling effect the absence of this protection would have on free speech in an age of public-private real estate partnerships, bank bailouts, the Solyndra loan and other government forays into the private sector.
And, remember,
You can buy Bulldozed’s Kindle version and read it right away.
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Catapult over the border!
Illegals leaving Arizona
Associated Press reports that the Arizona law may be having the desired effect:
Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Ariz. law
Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.
Supporters of the law hope it creates jobs for thousands of Americans.
“We want to drive day labor away,” says Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, one of the law’s sponsors.
An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona’s illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.
The law’s supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.
…
A study of immigrants in Arizona published in 2008 found that non-citizens, mostly in the country illegally, held an estimated 280,000 full-time jobs.
Because of this, Following Passage Of Arizona Law, At Least Seven States Contemplate Anti-Immigrant Legislation. The Wonk Room‘s post shows a chart (below) listing the legal immigration enforcement efforts in Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah:
| STATE | BILL | STATUS |
| Utah | Require immigrants to carry proof of status, require law enforcement officers to question anyone they believe is in the country illegally, and target employers who hire or transport undocumented immigrants. | Legislation still has to be drafted, but Rep. Stephen Sandstorm (R) claims he “has the support to do it.” |
| Georgia | Nathan Deal (R), who is running for Governor, wants to propose legislation that mirrors Arizona’s. | Tentatively pending Deal’s election. |
| Colorado | Today, Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis (R) said that if he were governor, he would seek to pass something “very similar” to what Arizona enacted. | Tentatively pending McInnis’ election. |
| Maryland | State Delegate Pat McDonough (R) “plans to start sending a survey to every candidate for the General Assembly — along with the candidates for governor — asking them whether they agree with Arizona’s approach.” | McDounough’s survey will start being circulated this week as he hopes to “know who is in favor of the Arizona bill and who is not” by this summer. |
| Ohio | Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones and Ohio Rep. Courtney Combs (R) sent a letter to Gov. Ted Strickland asking him “to employ” his “leadership role” “to assure legislation is passed that will mirror” Arizona’s. | Strickland’s press person says he “hasn’t had an opportunity to review Arizona law” and is concerned it might be unconstitutional. |
| North Carolina | Local anti-immigrant groups claim that lawmakers have told them that “the chances similar legislation will be filed here is over 95%.” | The same groups also concede that such legislation wouldn’t “get far” in their state. |
| Texas | Republican state Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball says she plans to push for a law similar to Arizona’s. | Riddle says she will introduce the measure in the January legislative session. |
| Texas | Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb of 30,000 people, passed an ordinance written by IRLI lawyer Kris Kobach which would prevent landlords from renting houses or apartments to undocumented immigrants. | Last month, a U.S. District judge ruled the ordinance unconstitutional. IRLI is helping Farmers Branch repeal the District judge decision. |
| Missouri | The state legislature is considering a law, likely written by Kobach, that would make it unlawful for any person to conceal, harbor, transport, or shelter “illegal aliens” and would also make it a crime for undocumented immigrants to transport themselves. | The bill has been referred to the Missouri House International Trade and Immigration Committee. |
| Oklahoma | Restrict the ability of undocumented immigrants to obtain IDs or public assistance, give police authority to check the status of anyone arrested, and make it a felony to knowingly provide shelter, transportation or employment to the undocumented. | After IRLI filed an amicus brief in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of HB 1804, the court refused to reconsider its decision that prohibits Oklahoma from enforcing two of the main parts of HB 1804. |
| Nebraska | Residents in Fremont Nebraska likely will vote in July on a proposed ordinance to ban the “harboring,” hiring and renting to undocumented immigrants. | Last Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that there was no authority to stop an election on the ordinance following a petition filed by Kobach. |
Puppy 1, coyote 0
Cool news of the morning: Texas Governor Rick Perry packs a .380 Ruger loaded with hollow-point bullets, scores a coyote.
Texas gov. shoots, kills ‘wily’ coyote during jog
On this particular morning, Perry said, he was jogging without his security detail shortly after sunrise.
“I’m enjoying the run when something catches my eye and it’s this coyote. I know he knows I’m there. He never looks at me, he is laser-locked on that dog,” Perry said.
“I holler and the coyote stopped. I holler again. By this time I had taken my weapon out and charged it. It is now staring dead at me. Either me or the dog are in imminent danger. I did the appropriate thing and sent it to where coyotes go,” he said.
Perry said the laser-pointer helped make a quick, clean kill.
On the GOP governor primary in Texas
GM Roper has an article on the goings-on in Texas, Heavyweight Showdown in Texas GOP Primary for Governor
A popular U.S. senator and an incumbent governor headline a close race, but a feisty conservative activist is gaining ground.
Among the contenders,
Last but by no means least is the most conservative of the bunch, Debra Medina. A Republican Party activist and the former Wharton County Republican Party chair, as well as the former state coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty, Medina is an admitted long shot, but she has seemingly pushed an awful lot of the right buttons with her share of likely voters
Medina, “the most conservative of the bunch”… but wait, don’t the Democrats claim that anyone of Spanish surname (be it by marriage or by descent) belongs to them?
Mass murder madness
Are all terrorists crazy?
Classmates: Hasan defended suicide bombings, held Islamist views. Money quote:
Despite the controversy that his schoolwork created, classmates did not view Hasan as mentally unstable or psychotic, the source said.
But the question being asked is if the perpetrator of the guerilla attack is insane or not. The meme is that he went beserk from listening to the horrible war stories he listened to from his patients, soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You would think there would be a veritable epidemic of cases such as Hasan.
Charles Krauthammer writes on Medicalizing mass murder
It’s been decades since I practiced psychiatry. Perhaps I missed the epidemic.
But, of course, if the shooter is named Nidal Hasan, who National Public Radio reported had been trying to proselytize doctors and patients, then something must be found. Presto! Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder, a handy invention to allow one to ignore the obvious.
And the perfect moral finesse. Medicalizing mass murder not only exonerates. It turns the murderer into a victim, indeed a sympathetic one. After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won’t find it in DSM-IV-TR, psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), is known as “compassion fatigue.” The poor man — pushed over the edge by an excess of sensitivity.
Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. “SoA” — Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It’s a danger, clear and present.
ShrinkWrapped posts on Islamist Terror and Psychosis
The problem for all of those wondering about Major Hasan is that they are restricted by their own frame. In a vacuum, an American who believes that the United States is waging war on Islam, that the West, especially the Jews and Americans, conspire to keep the Muslim world in despair, and that murdering unarmed American soldiers is an assured way to gain entrance to Paradise as a Jihad martyr, would be considered to have lost contact with reality. Unfortunately for a Muslim int he Ummah these “delusional” ideas are shared by a significant portion of their coreligionists. If major Hasan is delusional and psychotic then so are members and supporters of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Wahhabi and Deobandi Islam, and a host of other sects and groups. The only way Major Hasan could be considered mentally disordered based on his belief structure would be were there to be an idiosyncratic component. For example, if he were to believe that he is the embodiment of Mohammed, we would be correct to think of him as psychotically deluded, just as we characterize the multitude of psychotic patients through the ages who were convinced they were Jesus Christ.
The conundrum for all the sages in the media and our government remains how to determine that Major Hasan was a lone psycho rather than a Jihadi. We may well be treated to an interesting juxtaposition as Khaled Sheik Mohamed, during his trial, espouses the same motivating “delusions” as major Hasan at his trial. The reporting in the MSM should be fascinating.
No doubt about it, the lawyers are getting the workings of an insanity defense on both the Hasan and Mohamed cases.
The only insanity lies in us believing they are insane.
Fort Hood massacre: Guess who’s tied to a 9/11 imam
Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.
My first question is, why is the UK’s Telegraph doing this investigation, instead of journalists from American newspapers?
But never mind that. The article continues,
Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.
But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.
“I told him, ‘There’s something wrong with you’. I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”
He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan’s request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.
Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday’s massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.
Hasan proselitizes to patients while posting on suicide bombers and the Army finds nothing wrong with that?
It’s worth noting that there’s Nothing ‘Sudden’ About ‘Sudden Jihad Syndrome’
At CNN, American Muslim radicals cheer Fort Hood shootings:
Don’t miss the guy who says “I love [Osama Bin Laden] more than I love myself”, who wants Israel wiped off the map and calls Obama a murderer.
UPDATE
Richard Fernandez asks, What happened at Walter Reed?
What happened at Walter Reed? Did Hasan have an influential patron? If Hasan had exhibited certain disturbing tendencies, and if he was in fact being scrutinized by law enforcement, then what was achieved by moving him to Fort Hood, except putting distance between Hasan and whatever was in Washington DC? What hypothesis could cover so many disparate facts? Many questions remain unanswered. There’s not enough data yet to conclude anything.