Monday, November 21, 2011

DC Official Code §22 – 1307 (2011) v. Indians


Police urge protestors to "get on the sidewalk", but now protestors can be arrested if they will not stand single-file, lest they incommode the ghosts of the Cherokee who wander about the district, in search of the Great White Father.
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If this provision is held to be "applicable" to the sidewalk in front of the White House, it effectively negates the (g)(5) permit rules, since a large assembly of people on this sidewalk can break, or be thought to break, this law. Breaking this law, if applicable, allows the on-scene commander to cancel the permit, per (g)(6), without the need to claim the standard "central portion" violation of (g)(5)(vii).
Plus it encumbers every demonstration in the city.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Is it lawful to assemble with signs
in front of the White House?


The First Amendment protects the right of the people to peaceable assemble to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and the tenth amendment reserves to the people the right to use all means that are necessary and proper to exercise this right.
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John Marshall, on the meaning of "necessary and proper", in McCulloch v. Maryland (US Bank):
"Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional."
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It is not only the power to tax that involves the power to destroy.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Critical Legal Studies (CLS or crit.)

Critical Legal Studies is a movement in legal thought that suggests that the law tends to insulate the powerful from demands by the weak.
Now move along.