Lauray91's Blog

WASHINGTON — Missed flights only inconvenience most people. A late flight landed Utah gun owner Greg Revell in jail for 10 days after he got stranded in New Jersey with an unloaded firearm he had legally checked with his luggage in Salt Lake City.

The Supreme Court could decide Tuesday whether to consider letting Revell sue Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police for arresting him on illegal possession of a firearm in New Jersey and for not returning his gun and ammunition to him for more than three years.

Lower courts have thrown out his lawsuit

Revell was flying from Salt Lake City to Allentown, Pa., on March 31, 2005, with connections in Minneapolis and Newark, N.J. He had checked his Utah-licensed gun and ammunition with his luggage in Salt Lake City and asked airport officials to deliver them both with his luggage in Allentown.

But the flight from Minneapolis to Newark was late, so Revell missed his connection to Allentown. The airline wanted to bus its passengers to Allentown, but Revell realized that his luggage had not made it onto the bus and got off. After finding his luggage had been given a final destination of Newark by mistake, Revell missed the bus. He collected his luggage, including his gun and ammunition, and decided to wait in a nearby hotel with his stuff until the next flight in the morning.

When Revell tried to check in for the morning flight, he again informed the airline officials about his gun and ammunition to have them checked through to Allentown. He was reported to the TSA, and then arrested by Port Authority police for having a gun in New Jersey without a New Jersey license.

He spent 10 days in several different jails before posting bail. Police dropped the charges a few months later. But his gun and ammunition were not returned to him until 2008.

Revell said he should not have been arrested because federal law allows licensed gun owners to take their weapons through any state as long as they are unloaded and not readily accessible to people. He said it was not his fault the airline stranded him in New Jersey by making him miss his flight and routing his luggage to the wrong destination.

Prosecutors said it doesn’t matter whose fault it was: Revell was arrested in New Jersey with a readily accessible gun in his possession without a New Jersey license.

Lower courts have sympathized with Revell but refused to let him sue the police.

“We recognize that he had been placed in a difficult situation through no fault of his own,” wrote Judge Kent A. Jordan of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. However, the law “clearly requires the traveler to part ways with his weapon and ammunition during travel; it does not address this type of interrupted journey or what the traveler is to do in this situation.”

The case is Revell v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 10-236.

Wayne State University has decided to pull the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award after she made what school officials are calling “anti-Semitic” remarks at a workshop on diversity held in Dearborn, Mich. 

During the workshop, called “Images and Perceptions of Arab-Americans: The New America: Mom, Apple Pie and Arab Bashing,” and sponsored by a group called Arab Detroit, Thomas reportedly told the audience of about 300: “We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists.” 

The speech garnered a standing ovation. 

Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League urged all journalism schools on Friday to remove any honors that recognize the 90-year-old journalist. 

Detroit’s Wayne State University, Thomas’ alma mater, pulled the award hours later, and issued a statement. 

“As a public university, Wayne State encourages free speech and open dialogue, and respects diverse viewpoints. However the university strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas during a conference yesterday.” 

Thomas, who is of Lebanese descent and graduated from the university in 1942, retired from her post as a White House columnist after a video clip of her making anti-Semitic remarks began circulating in June. 

She was quoted telling a rabbi that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine and “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.” She consequently lost her front-row seat in the White House briefing room, a place she had known since the Kennedy administration. 

In response to Wayne’s actions, Thomas told the Detroit Free Press on Sunday that the university had “betrayed academic freedom.”

“It is a sad day for its students,” she is quoted saying. “The leaders of Wayne State University have made a mockery of the First Amendment and disgraced their understanding of its inherent freedom of speech and the press.” 

My response: It shows her true feelings against the Jews. It appers that 90 years has never changed her feelings towards them.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/06/helen-thomas-alma-mater-pulls-award-honoring/#content

WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve’s latest attempt to boost the U.S. economy is coming under fire from Republican economists and politicians, threatening to yank the central bank deeper into partisan politics.

A group of prominent Republican-leaning economists, coordinating with Republican lawmakers and political strategists, is launching a campaign this week calling on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to drop his plan to buy $600 billion in additional U.S. Treasury bonds.

“The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment,” they say in an open letter to be published as ads this week in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

The economists have been consulting Republican lawmakers, including incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and began discussions with potential GOP presidential candidates over the weekend, according to a person involved.

The increasingly loud criticism of the Fed comes as some economic officials outside the U.S. are criticizing the central bank’s move to effectively print money, which has the side effect of pushing down the dollar on world currency markets. President Barack Obama last week defended the Fed. The move to buy more bonds, known as quantitative easing, “was designed to grow the economy,” not cheapen the dollar, he said.

The Fed, despite frequent criticism from both parties, has enjoyed considerable independence from politicians on monetary policy for the past three decades. Organizers of the new campaign predicted the Fed will increasingly find itself caught in the political crosshairs, though. A tea party-infused GOP is eager to heed voters’ rejection of big-government programs, and conservatives say a new move by the Fed to essentially print more money make it ripe for scrutiny by the incoming Republican House majority and potentially an issue in Mr. Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

“Printing money is no substitute for pro-growth fiscal policy,” said Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who has been privy to early discussions with the group of conservatives rallying opposition to the Fed plan. He said the signatories to the letter “represent a growing chorus of Americans who know that we should be seeking to stimulate our economy with tax relief, spending restraint and regulatory reform rather than masking our fundamental problems by artificially creating inflation.”

The Fed faces potential pressure of a different sort from the left as well. Some prominent Democratic congressmen, including the current chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, have endorsed the quantitative-easing move.

But if the economy continues to disappoint as November 2012 approaches, the White House and Democrats in Congress may be pressing the Fed to do more to sustain the recovery as well.

My response: Basically Americans have no confidence in the President or the Fed. Or the TSA while we’re at it.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/15/republicans-launch-fresh-attack-fed/#content

There are many theories on how to effectively secure the nearly 2,000-mile-long border the United States shares with Mexico. 

Some believe it’s building a fence to separate us from our southern neighbor, while others think adding additional surveillance equipment and Border Patrol checkpoints will help decrease the number of illegal immigrants and drugs entering America.

One thing virtually everyone close to the border security issue can agree on: America seems to be waging a third war with the Mexican cartels that will stop at nothing to smuggle humans and drugs into our homeland and the national security threat it poses.

One of the more popular ideas on how to secure the region is through the deployment of troops and creating a strong military presence along the border. In May, President Obama gave the green light for up to 1,200 National Guard troops to be assigned to the four southwest border states. In late September, armed troops started trickling in and working alongside U.S. Border Patrol agents, but the ramp up period is a gradual process since it takes a great deal of time to train the soldiers for their new mission.

According to the National Guard Bureau, nearly 900 troops are already at work: 318 in California, 447 in Arizona, 89 in New Mexico and 39 in Texas. The deployment is expected to last one year although no official end date has been made public.

The troops are primarily being used in a supportive role by assisting the army of Border Patrol agents already covering the miles of shared border and the 42 U.S.-Mexico crossings. Their jobs range from keeping a close eye on the border fence in search of people trying to cross illegally, to helping make apprehensions and completing paperwork. The mission is also designed to give Border Patrol some breathing room until it can hire more than 1,000 additional agents for the field.

Soldiers don’t have the authority to detain a suspected illegal immigrant. They’re essentially acting as extra eyes and ears for the agents and they’ve certainly got their work cut out for them when you consider close to one million illegal immigrants are estimated to attempt entry into the U.S. each year, according the Customs and Border Protection.

Since guardsman have only been in place for a short time, it’s difficult to gauge how much of an impact they’re having. History tells us their sheer presence has served as a deterrent in the past. In 2006, President George W. Bush ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the border, as part of “Operation Jump Start.” 

The program lasted two years and at its height, there were as many as 6,000 soldiers and airman deployed at one time. During that period, the number of illegal immigrant arrests went down roughly 24 percent and as much as 70 percent in some sectors of Arizona. During that mission, soldiers not only assisted Border Patrol agents but also help physically build parts of the border fence and additional infrastructure.

Many residents in southwest border states are grateful for the additional help and most feel the 1,200 troops are a nice start, but some living in border towns — where violence is spilling over into their back yards — believe President Obama’s administration could be doing more and devoting even more resources. 

Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona, told Fox News he’d like to see a contingency of troops similar to “Operation Jump Start.” Babeu said Arizona needs even more help because the state faces unique challenges since the border there is more porous thanks to the rugged Sonoran desert.

It’s estimated that roughly half of all illegal immigrants entering the U.S. do so through Arizona, which is why Babeu is seeking more assistance. Babeu and U.S. Senator John McCain have extended an invitation to Obama to visit the situation first-hand but the president has yet to make a trip. Babeu said far more than 1,200 troops will be needed to make a dent in the escalating war between the U.S. and the Mexican cartels.

For now, many residents are excited the ball appears to be rolling in the right direction. Most understand securing the border won’t happen overnight, but hope it happens sooner than later.

My response: Bring the troops home from the middle east and put them on the border. Our security comes first. The federal govt is suppose to defend and protect the U.S. first.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court Wednesday to keep the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military in place while a federal appeals court considers the issue.

The administration filed court papers in defense of an appeals court order that allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to go back into effect after a federal judge declared it unconstitutional and barred its enforcement. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is reviewing the administration’s appeal.

Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, has asked the Supreme Court to step into the case to reverse the appeals court decision that has allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to remain in effect despite the order by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips.

Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said the high court only rarely intervenes in a dispute at this stage, and “this case does not present the sort of exceptional circumstances that would warrant interference with an interim order of the court of appeals.”

The policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was lifted for eight days last month after Phillips ruled that it violates the civil rights of gay Americans and she issued an injunction barring the Pentagon from applying it. The Obama administration asked the appeals court to reinstate the ban until it could hear arguments on the broader constitutional issues next year.

President Barack Obama

, meanwhile, has pledged to push the Senate to repeal the policy in the lame-duck session before a new Congress is sworn in.

R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, criticized Obama for not pushing Congress hard enough to repeal the 1993 law and at the same time “commanding his lawyers to zealously defend ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in court.”

The matter is in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who oversees emergency filings to the court from California. He can act on his own or refer the issue to the other justices. There is no deadline for a decision.

My Response: Glad to see we’re more worried about Gays and Lesbians getting to serve openly rather than having the focus be put on border jumping, China’s navy, or maybe even that missile that went off on the coast.

The Republicans won the House, the Democrats kept the Senate, and the GOP won the tiebreaker, capturing a majority of the nation’s governor mansions.

Republicans on Tuesday wrested control of at least 10 statehouses from Democrats as they rode an anti-incumbent wave that will give them more than 30 governorships.

Democrats controlled 26 of the 50 statehouses before Tuesday’s election, and Republicans needed to win 20 of the 37 contests to seize a majority. They won in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin — all of which currently are run by Democrats. 

“Four years ago, Republicans controlled just 22 governorships,” said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. “The fact that we’ve already reached a majority tonight is a testimony to the four-year plan our governors and staff developed and executed.

“Republicans won historic victories in statehouses across the country tonight because voters are tired of the out-of-control spending and expansive growth of government,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the RGA’s vice chairman, said in a written statement. “Only two years after President Obama’s sweeping victory, voters have strongly rejected his administration’s job killing agenda. These governors-elect will fight for fiscal sanity. I congratulate them on their tremendous victories.”

Democrats were able to point to a few bright spots, including key gubernatorial victories in California, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland.

In California, Jerry Brown won his old job back by defeated billionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman.

In New York, Andrew Cuomo surged past Tea Party Republican Carl Paladino to win the the same post his father, Mario Cuomo, had held two decades ago.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick, won a second term, defeating Republican Charles Baker and two other candidates. Patrick and Obama share Chicago roots and Harvard Law degrees, and national Republicans tried hard to topple him.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley withstood a hard-fought challenge from his predecessor, former Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich. And New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch and Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, both Democrats, were also re-elected.

Denver’s Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper, was elected Colorado governor despite a challenge from both Republican challenger Dan Maes and immigration hard-liner Tom Tancredo, a former Republican House member. Hickenlooper replaces Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, who did not run for re-election.

But in other races, Democrats weren’t as successful.

In Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania, Republican Tom Corbett defeated Democrat Dan Onorato to replace Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who was term limited.

In Michigan, Republican businessman Rick Snyder, who vowed to turn around the state’s devastated economy, defeated Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, a Democrat. The current Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, did not seek re-election.

In Ohio, another closely watched race, and one of the fiercest, Republican Jon Kasich, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, defeated Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

In New Mexico, Republican Susana Martinez became the first Hispanic woman to become a state’s chief executive. She will succeed Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who could not seek re-election because he was term-limited.

In Oklahoma, U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, a Republican, became the state’s first female governor. She defeated Democratic Lt. Gov. Jari Askins to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Brad Henry.

In Tennessee, Republican Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam defeated Democratic businessman Mike McWherter to win the state’s open governorship. Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen was term-limited and could not run.

In Kansas, conservative Republican Sen. Sam Brownback defeated Democratic state Sen. Tom Holland to win the governorship. Democrat Kathleen Sebelius was elected in 2002 and again in 2006 before joining Obama’s Cabinet as secretary of health and human services. Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson replaced Sebelius but did not run for a full term.

In Wyoming, former U.S. attorney Matt Mead, the Republican nominee, defeated former state Democratic chairwoman Leslie Petersen. And Republican Utah Gov. Gary Herbert won another two years in office

A Tea Party-backed South Carolina Republican, state Rep. Nikki Haley, was elected to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Mark Sanford. Haley won over state Sen. Vincent Sheheen.

In a high-profile race for which both parties spent millions, Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has already served 10 years, defeated Democrat Bill White, a former mayor of Houston.

South Dakota’s Republican lieutenant governor, Dennis Daugaard, defeated Democratic challenger Scott Heidepriem to succeed term-limited Gov. Mike Rounds, keeping the seat in GOP hands. Alabama also remained in the Republican column as state Rep. Robert Bentley defeated Democratic nominee Ron Sparks. Republican Gov. Bob Riley is term-limited.

In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman was easily re-elected over the Democratic candidate, lawyer Mike Meister.

Both national parties spent heavily on the race. The Republican Governors Association said it spent $102 million this year, roughly half of it in 10 states it deemed crucial to the 2012 presidential contest: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Democratic Governors Association spent roughly $50 million.

My Response:This is great for conservatives winning the governor majority is much more important than winning the senate for the time being. Sucks read won but so many of the dempcrats that didnt have to run for realection this time are scared and will side wth the conservative movement.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/03/republicans-win-majority-governorships/#content

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39798646/ns/health-health_care/

Cancer patient Bob Dierker had just finished eight of 12 chemotherapy sessions when technicians broke the news.

Next time, they said, he’d get no leucovorin, the generic medication long used to battle his type of aggressive Stage 3 colorectal cancer. The drug was in short supply across the nation and he’d have to go without.

“It was like getting shot in the stomach,” said Dierker, 64, a lawyer from Fairfax, Va. “My odds just dropped dramatically because I can’t get this drug.”

Exactly how Dierker’s chances of beating the cancer will be affected is unclear, said his oncologist, Dr. Alexander Spira. Leucovorin has been used to boost the effectiveness of cancer drugs for decades, so no one knows how badly patients will fare without it. But Dierker is not alone.

Across the United States, life-saving or medically necessary drugs are running low — or running out — endangering care and increasing the odds of medication mistakes for a broad swath of patients.

Health officials say drug shortages pose a growing public health crisis, fueled in large part by financial motives of drugmakers who’ve watched low-cost generics erode their profits.

Numerous drugmakers contacted by msnbc.com either refused to comment on the shortages or confirmed only that they exist. None would discuss financial considerations.

Unprecedented numbers
“It’s disaster management, daily,” said Erin Fox, manager of the Drug Information Service at the University of Utah Health Care, who has tracked drug shortages for a decade. “The numbers are unprecedented.”

In 2005, Fox recorded 74 drug shortages in the U.S. By 2009, the number had jumped to 166. As of Sept. 10 this year, Fox had logged 150 new shortages — in addition to 30 drug shortages still unresolved and more being reported every week.

Worse, the drugs that are in short supply are often the ones needed most. This year has seen shortages of common drugs used for basic treatments: morphine for pain relief, propofol for sedation, Bactrim injections for infections.

Sterile injectables, including the pre-filled epinephrine syringes used in emergencies for heart attacks and allergic reactions, have been particularly hard to get.

“Our usual, everyday workhorse drugs are no longer available,” said Fox. “It’s just the unavailability of everything that we need every day.”

About 40 percent of the shortages are caused by manufacturing problems, including safety issues, said Valerie Jensen, associate director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug shortage program. Nearly 20 percent are caused when firms simply stop making drugs and another 20 percent are due to production delays. The rest are chalked up to raw material shortages, increased demand, site issues and problems with parts such as syringes or vials.

But underlying them all is the profitability problem, said Jensen.

“Normally, it’s a business decision. That does lead to shortages,” said Jensen. “These are just not usually money-makers.”

FDA can’t require drug production
Despite the concerns of doctors and pharmacists — and the distress of patients — no one can force the drugmakers to address the problem.
  
The FDA has no authority to compel drugmakers to continue producing a certain drug, or to require them to make a drug that’s in short supply, Jensen confirmed. And companies aren’t required to inform the agency about impending shortages unless the drugs don’t have an alternative. Even then, there are no sanctions if they don’t.

When firms do tell FDA about a problem, the agency can’t publicly divulge proprietary information, Jensen said. Shortages on the FDA’s website are often chalked up to mysterious “manufacturing delays,” or frequently, no reason at all.

That has created a system in which pharmacists, doctors and patients may not know that a shortage exists until a drug is needed — and even then they don’t know how long it will last.

“There has been a lot of 11^th hour scrambling,” said Dr. Richard L. Schilsky, a professor of medicine and chief of hematology/oncology at the University of Chicago. “We literally don’t know from week to week who’s going to be able to be treated.”

The problem has reached such a peak that four leading groups representing cancer doctors, anesthesiologists, pharmacists and safety advocates have convened an invitation-only meeting in Bethesda, Md., on Nov. 5. They’re asking drugmakers and supply chain representatives to join health experts and observers from the FDA to hammer out solutions.

“I’m going to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and assume they don’t know the impact at the patient care level,” said Bona Benjamin, director of medication-use quality improvement at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.

But a nationwide survey of 1,800 health care workers conducted this summer by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices left little doubt about the impact on patients.

Two deaths blamed on morphine shortage
“It’s really a mess out there,” said Michael Cohen, director of ISMP, a nonprofit group that aims to reduce medical errors. “It is making us compromise the way we do things normally.”

More than half of the respondents to ISMP said that in the past year they had “always” or “frequently” encountered shortages of a list of common drugs.

One in three reported that the shortages caused medication errors that could have harmed patients and one in four said the mistakes reached patients. One in five said patients were actually harmed.

“We had two deaths where there was a morphine shortage,” Cohen said, explaining that a much more potent replacement drug, hydromorphone, was given at the level of the original, overdosing the patients.

Another patient woke up mid-way through surgery because medical crews trying to conserve the sedative propofol had given too little medication for the patient’s weight.

My Response:

I blame both the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, both for being greedy and not caring about the people they are suppose to serve and I don’t mean the shareholders or executives.

A leading national Tea Party group, anticipating big electoral gains for conservative Republicans, is laying plans to maintain pressure on new members of Congress after the Nov. 2 vote.

According to an internal memorandum reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Tea Party Patriots, an umbrella group that says it works with nearly 3,000 local groups around the U.S., is planning a multipronged campaign that includes advertising, polling, hundreds of rallies, and a summit of newly elected members of Congress early in 2011.

Tea Party Patriot leaders say they are gearing up both to fight Democratic efforts to pass legislation during the lame-duck congressional session and for a struggle with conventional Republican leaders over the loyalties of new members of Congress.

They are seeking to raise $2.8 million to promote 2,000 tea parties on April 15, 2011—ahead of the tax-filing deadline— and at least four regional conventions during the year, as well as annual polling, nationwide leadership summits, college-campus clubs and more.

Tea Party Patriots is run by a committee of leaders scattered around the country and doesn’t endorse or give money to specific candidates. But it has been instrumental in organizing national rallies that have attracted hundreds of thousands of participants. It also regularly coordinates efforts among hundreds of local tea-party groups.

The meeting of newly elected officials, the date of which hasn’t been set, is designed to keep new representatives connected to “what we expect from them,” according to the memo. Incumbent Republican members of Congress and the party’s national leadership won’t be invited, said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, in an interview.

“The incumbents have allowed us to get into the problems we are in now,” he said. “We hope to get to the freshmen before the incumbents get to them, and start twisting their arms.”

The memo cites comments regarding tea-party candidates by the former Senate majority leader for the Republicans, Trent Lott, to the Washington Post in July, when he was quoted as saying: “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/24/tea-party-group-looking-maintain-pressure-new-members-congress-elections/

WASHINGTON –  Applications  for jobless benefits rose last week for the first time in three weeks, evidence that companies are reluctant to hire in a slow economy.

The Labor Department says initial claims for unemployment aid rose by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 462,000. It was only the second rise in two months.

Despite the ups and down, claims have been stuck near 450,000 all year. Few employers see much reason to create many jobs, and some are still laying off workers.

In addition, cash-strapped state and local governments are cutting jobs, adding to the ranks of those out of work.

The four-week average of claims, a less volatile measure, rose by 2,250 to 459,000.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/10/14/applications-jobless-benefits-rise-k/#content

Washington (CNN) — The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday to find a constitutional balance between free speech and privacy in a case involving provocative anti-homosexual protests by a small church at the funeral of a soldier who died in Iraq.

Members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church protested outside the court, while inside one of their members argued they have the right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars.

But the lawyer for the fallen Marine’s father argued those protests are an invasion of privacy and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

At issue is a delicate test between the privacy rights of grieving families and the free speech rights of demonstrators, however disturbing and provocative their message. Several states have attempted to impose specific limits on when and where the church members can protest.

The church, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believes God is punishing the United States for “the sin of homosexuality” through events including soldiers’ deaths. Members have traveled the country shouting at grieving families at funerals and displaying such signs as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “God blew up the troops” and “AIDS cures fags.”

Snyder’s family sued the church in 2007, alleging invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. A jury awarded the family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million inpunitive damages, which were later reduced to $5 million.

The church appealed the case in 2008 to the 4th District, which reversed the judgments a year later, siding with the church’s allegations that its First Amendment rights were violated.

Albert Snyder, Matthew’s father, said his son was not gay and the protesters should not have been at the funeral.

“I was just shocked that any individual could do this to another human being,” Snyder told CNN. “I mean, it was inhuman.”

A majority of states across the nation have responded to the protests with varying levels of control over the Westboro church protesters. In Wednesday’s case, 48 states and dozens of members of Congress filed anamicus brief in support of the Snyders.

Church members told the court they have a duty to protest and picket at certain events, including funerals, to promote their religious message: “That God’s promise of love and heaven for those who obey him in this life is counterbalanced by God’s wrath and hell for those who do not obey him.”

The congregation is made up mostly of Fred Phelps and his family. The pastor has 13 children, and at least 54 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

He described himself as an “old-time” gospel preacher in a CNN interview in 2006, saying, “You can’t preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God.”

Church members have participated in several hundred protests across the country.

The case heard Wednesday is Snyder v. Phelps (09-751). A ruling is expected in the next few months.

My Response: I think the members of this church should be sued everytime they invade the privacy of a funeral.  They are anti-gay but are protesting at the funerals of straight soldiers that were killed just to get more attention to their cause, but it is not right to do that at someones funeral and to the family that is going through all of that. – I hope every family that sues wins millions of dollars and the church is forced to stop doing this.