Independent News and Politics

April 10, 2012

Well, it is official:  Santorum has dropped out of the 2012 Republican primary race, and Romney stands alone as the only candidate to have won a significant number of state contests.  Although Gingrich and Paul are still technically in the race, there’s no way they can win outside of an incredibly rare and unlikely brokered convention.

However, this victory for Romney is a Pyrrhic one:  every nationwide and state-by-state poll shows Obama winning in November by a comfortable margin.  According to the state electoral tracker at Real Clear Politics, Obama already has the 271 electoral votes required to win re-election.  Even if Romney could carry every single toss up state, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

The big shift in this election may be looked back on as the time when the evangelical-led, socially conservative movement finally died.  Before birth control resurfaced, Romney had a slim margin among women voters.  After the ridiculous attack from the right against womens’ reproductive rights, this marginal support turned in to a 2:1 landslide in Obama’s favor.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has upheld strip searches – for literally any arrest.  Forgot to pay a parking fine?  Caught jay-walking?  Maybe the officer just says you were hostile and resisting a lawful order!

It doesn’t matter how trivial the offense is, and it doesn’t matter if the police have no reason to actually suspect that you’re hiding contraband.

The worst part of this ruling isn’t just the mockery the court makes of American civil rights, but rather how the ruling directly undermines the authority of the courts:

In addressing this type of  constitutional claim courts must defer to the judgment of correctional officials unless the record contains substantial evidence showing their policies are an unnecessary or unjustified response to problems of jail security.

Essentially, the Supreme Court of Justice in the United States finds itself powerless to second-guess the actions of correctional officers unless the abused prisoners can deliver evidence that they will surely be prevented from collecting in the first place.

So who can regulate the actions of correctional officers in this land of law and justice?

Apparently, no one.