Doesn't Bruegger open a floodgate for judicial review of sex offender sentencing? Two issues of big importance - 1)green light on challenging an unconstitutional law as "illegal" 2)allowing individual challenges to cruel and unusual rather than being restricted to a facial challenge do i understand it correctly?    

By B John Burns
October 2, 2009

This is how my mind works.

I got back from Court at about lunch time this morning.  My internet home page is the Des Moines Register’s website.  The headline at the time was “Iowa high court overturns mandatory sentence in statutory rape case.”  That’s MAJOR news.  I’m about to either click on there or to go directly to the Supreme Court website, when I see the next headline on the list.

“And the Best Tenderloin in Iowa winner is. . .”

Well, State v. Bruegger took the back seat.  And, in case you didn’t see the story, the best tenderloin in Iowa is Brad Magg’s tenderloin at Goldie’s Ice Cream Shoppe in Prairie City.  Second best is TC’s Point After in DeWitt.  Honorable mentions  (out of 393 nominations) went out to The Corner Station in Manning, and Tojo’s Bar and Grill in Jamaica.

So now I can read the Bruegger opinion, right?

No.  Now I have to walk downstairs to Battani’s and get myself a tenderloin.  Not the best in Iowa, probably, but the closest.

So then I can return to the office, unpack my tenderloin, fries, and chocolate chip cookie and dive into Bruegger.

We’ll definitely take the Bruegger decision.  It’s a big win for us.  But, Man, this Court is making some big trouble for us down the line.  There’s some clown running for Governor right now whose sole platform apparently is that we should vote out all the Supreme Court justices because they stood up and held that a ban on marriage based upon sexual orientation violates equal protection.  But this is REALLY going to draw out the nuts.

Yesterday (9-23) was my last day to work.  I’ve completed 16 years as a senior judge and 41 total as a judge.  I look forward to more golf and travel.

By B John Burns
September 9, 2009

Bill Clinton offered some advice to President Obama on the eve of his address to a joint session of Congress concerning the issue of health care.  The advice was simple.  Forget about the Republicans, he said.

I agree.

I realize that one of the things that drew a lot of us to Barack Obama the candidate was his expressed interest in not shutting out voters and public servants holding viewpoints contrary to his.  Much of his selection of advisors and cabinet members to date has been patterned after Abraham Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals.”  Like Lincoln, President Obama believed he could govern more effectively by incorporating into his circle a diverse range of viewpoints, and not simply surrounding himself with yes men.

And now the little people who lost all their power last November are screaming about being left out of the debate.  They are using words like tyranny to describe the efforts of the President and Congress to try to make good on their campaign promises.  When the one individual in our lifetime whose personal history stands as a living example that ANY American has the opportunity to lift him- or herself to the pinnacle of their endeavors makes an effort to address our youths to encourage them to make the best of themselves, the little people who lost all their power last November spew this crap about the President trying to indoctrinate children with his Socialist agenda.  I respectfully propose a simple and clear response to those people – FUCK them.

Fuck them.