Inland grandstanding on open-seas piracy

I once thought that Marty Seifert was one of the reasonable Republicans but that misconception disappeared quite a while back. There is a shortage of reasonable people in both parties in our legislature at this time.

He got so far out in right field, especially in his immigrant-baiting that Rubén Rosario of the DPP called him “Sir Punisher.” He could not wait to try to make an issue of it when an immigrant here illegally was charged with vehicular homicide after last year’s school bus accident near Marshall.

And even though the most extensive ballot recount in Minnesota history has failed to deduce any evidence of voter fraud, he is leading the state push for the national GOP goal of requiring photo identification for all voters.

[Click the label “Marty Seifert” on the right side of this page for earlier Marty Seiffert articles.]

Now, he apparently wants to take on organizations which attempt to make sure that non-citizen defendants in criminal cases receive full legal protection and the presumption of innocence that comes with it, specifically by denying public grants and tax-exempt status to such organizations.

This seems to have been triggered by the case of Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, alleged to be the only surviving hijack attempter on the Maersk Alabama, who was arraigned in Federal Court in New York yesterday. Seifert’s target is assumed to be the Minneapolis-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center, whose director has stated that his organization has no position on the guilt or innocence of Mr. Muse, that his organization had been contacted Muse’s family and that his organization is merely trying to help the family understand the US legal system.

Seifert seems to be one of those who think that if people cannot pronounce the prevailing language that they shouldn’t be here. We might infer that being haled into federal court is not sufficient reason to accommodate a failure to speak the prevailing language.

But the ones who say “if they’re going to be here they better speak our language” and who have little but contempt for those who don’t really do not have much argument here, anyway, since Muse only came here as a prisoner. We brought him and we are not in a position to let him have time to learn US language, law, and judicial processes, so maybe Rep. Seifert and those who think like him need to back off on this one, anyway.

DPP article [from AP]

Minnesota lawmaker: No funds to pirate lovers