Category: Civil Rights

I Approve

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Today, members of the St. Louis Rams football franchise walked out onto the field with their hands up, using the gesture made famous by the Ferguson protesters:

Members of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams came onto their home field on Sunday posing with the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture associated with the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.

 The gesture has become part of a movement designed to draw attention to the spate of shootings of young African-American men by police officers across the country.

 As player introductions began at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first, to the applause of the crowd, before being joined by their teammates.

Rather unsurprisingly, the police officer’s union is calling for disciplinary measures to be taken against these players:

Reacting to five members of the St. Louis Rams coming onto the field for Sunday’s game displaying the ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture, a St. Louis police officers fraternal organization is demanding the team discipline the players, and that the team and league issue a formal apology, reports KSDK.

 In a statement released Sunday evening, the St. Louis Police Officers Association condemned the display, calling it “tasteless, offensive and inflammatory.”

 Prior to player introductions before Sunday’s game, five players — Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, and Kenny Britt — came out onto the field first with their hands in the air prior to being joined by their teammates.

Notwithstanding some puffery from the union about the 1st amendment, it’s clear that the St. Louis Police Officers Association has no concept of civil rights.

Or, to put it another way, “Why does the St. Louis Police Officers Association hate America?”

Westboro Baptist is Going to be Fabulous, Whether they Like it or Not

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A federal judge has struck down the gay marriage ban in Kansas.

I am sure that those sociopaths at Westboro Baptist are feeling unhappy, and they deserve every bit of misery that the universe delivers to their door:

Federal Judge Daniel Crabtree today has found that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Judge has placed a temporary, one-week stay on his ruling, until November 11, unless the State of Kansas indicates it will not appeal.

The ACLU had filed the suit, Marie v. Moser, after the U.S, Supreme Court refused to review any same-sex marriage cases, including those in the 10th Circuit’s purview, Utah and Oklahoma.

Kansas voted to add an amendment to its constitution banning same-sex marriage back in 2005.

“In the past year, nearly 50 different rulings have been issued from state and federal courts in favor of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples,” Freedom To Marry notes.

Same-sex couples in Kansas had a day to marry before the state Supreme Court place a stay on an October 9 ruling.

 Fabulous!

This Will Be Before the Supreme Court in the Next 2-3 Years

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A state court in Florida just ruled that police need a search warrant to access cell phone tower data:
Americans may have a Florida drug dealer to thank for expanding our right to privacy.

Police departments around the country have been collecting phone metadata from telecoms and using a sophisticated spy tool to track people through their mobile phones—often without obtaining a warrant. But a new ruling out of Florida has curbed the activity in that state, on constitutional grounds. It raises hope among civil liberties advocates that other jurisdictions around the country may follow suit.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that obtaining cell phone location data to track a person’s location or movement in real time constitutes a Fourth Amendment search and therefore requires a court-ordered warrant.

The case specifically involves cell tower data for a convicted drug dealer that police obtained from a telecom without a warrant. But the way the ruling is written (.pdf), it would also cover the use of so-called “stingrays”—sophisticated technology law enforcement agencies use to locate and track people in the field without assistance from telecoms. Agencies around the country, including in Florida, have been using the technology to track suspects—sometimes without obtaining a court order, other times deliberately deceiving judges and defendants about their use of the devices to track suspects, telling judges the information came from “confidential” sources rather than disclose their use of stingrays. The new ruling would require them to obtain a warrant or stop using the devices.

………

The Justice Department has long asserted that law enforcement agencies don’t need a probable-cause warrant to use stingrays because they don’t collect the content of phone calls and text messages. Instead, authorities say, they operate like pen-register and trap-and-trace systems, collecting the equivalent of header information. A pen register system records the phone numbers that a person dials, while a trap-and-trace system records the phone numbers of incoming calls to that phone.

This is going to be appealed to the Federal Courts, and it will end up at the Supreme Court, where, unless Antonin Scalia chokes on his own bile in the interim, I expect a 5-4 decision saying that no warrant is needed.

This is not The Onion

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Following years of misconduct, and a federal consent degree, members of the Seattle police force have brought a lawsuit to protect their constitutional right to police brutality:

Over the past year, the Seattle police department has revised its policies on when police can use force, as part of a settlement with the Justice Department over findings that officers used frequent excessive, unconstitutional force on suspects.

But some 125 Seattle police officers responded by filing a lawsuit challenging the new rules. In their view, the new policies infringe on their rights to use as much force as they deem necessary in self-protection. They represent about ten percent of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild membership. The police union itself declined to endorse the lawsuit.

This week, a federal judge summarily rejected all of their claims, finding that they were without constitutional merit, and that she would have been surprised if such allegations of excessive force by officers did not lead to stricter standards.

The officers claimed the policies infringed on their rights under their Second Amendment and under the Fourth, claiming a self-defense right to use force. Chief U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman pointed out that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms — not the right to use them — and that the officers “grossly misconstrued” the Fourth Amendment when they claimed that it protects them, and not individuals who would be the subjects of police force or seizures.

Seriously, there is something profoundly wrong with those officers, and the fact that they carry firearms and have the power of arrest makes me want to stay away from Seattle, and vacation someplace safer, like Kabul.

The Law Giveth, and the Law Taken Away

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An appellate court for the 5th Circuit has stayed a lower court ruling striking down the Texas voter suppression law:

A federal appeals court said Tuesday that Texas can enforce its strong voter identification requirements in the November election, temporarily blocking a lower court’s ruling last week that the law was an unconstitutional effort to suppress the votes of blacks and Hispanics.

 The three-judge panel put off consideration of whether the lower-court decision, which condemned the law, should stand permanently. Rather, it said that with early voting starting on Oct. 20, a change in the rules could cause confusion among voters and poll workers, something the Supreme Court has sought to avoid in other cases.

 “Based primarily on the extremely fast-approaching election date, we stay the district court’s judgment pending appeal,” Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote on behalf of the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans.

This likely to disenfranchise about something around 600,000 otherwise legal voters.

Needless to say, this sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.

There is, however a bright side to the case as it has progressed so far:

In a 147-page opinion issued Thursday, after a two-week trial, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos had said the law “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.” She noted the lack of evidence that voter fraud was a threat and cited expert testimony that about 600,000 Texans, mainly poor, black and Hispanic, lack the newly required IDs.

Judge Ramos ruled that the law was adopted “with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose.” If her finding of intentional discrimination is upheld, it could trigger new federal oversight of Texas election procedures, something the Justice Department is seeking.

I would dearly love Texas back under DoJ pre-clearance.

I am a Cynic

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I think that the Supreme Court issuing an injunction against the most egregious parts of the Texas anti-abortion laws is just a ploy to push the political effects until after the midterms:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed more than a dozen Texas abortion clinics to reopen, blocking a state law that had imposed strict requirements on abortion providers. Had the law been allowed to stand, it would have caused all but eight of the state’s abortion clinics to close and would have required many women to travel more than 150 miles to the nearest abortion provider.

The Supreme Court’s order — five sentences long and with no explanation of the justices’ reasoning — represents an interim step in a legal fight that is far from over. But abortion rights advocates welcomed what they said was the enormous practical impact of the move. Had the clinics been forced to remain closed while appeals went forward, they said, they might never have reopened.

State officials said the law’s requirements were needed to protect women’s health. Abortion providers said the regulations were expensive, unnecessary and a ruse meant to put many of them out of business.

This is just a temporary injunction, and I’m thinking that either Roberts or Kennedy (Scalia, Alito, and Thomas voted against) will flip once it is sufficiently removed from the midterm elections.

Nope, No Voter Suppression Here ……… Move Along ………

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In Georgia, the New Georgia Project registered 80,000 new voters.

After many months, 40,000 legal registrations have remained unprocessed by the Republican Secretary of State:

Over the last few months, the group submitted some 80,000 voter registration forms to the Georgia secretary of state’s office — but as of last week, about half those new registrants, more than 40,000 Georgians, were still not listed on preliminary voter rolls. And there is no public record of those 40,000-plus applications, according to State Representative Stacey Adams, a Democrat.

Oh, yeah, did we mention: Georgia’s Secretary of State Brain Kemp is a Republican.

The secretary’s office says they are not doing anything different than usual in processing the voter applications. These things take time, they say. (Apparently months and months of time — as that is how long some of those forms have been sitting with the state without being processed.)

That’s Kemp’s story, and he’s sticking to it … except this is also Kemp’s story:

In closing I just wanted to tell you real quick, after we get through this runoff, you know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November. But we’ve got to do the exact same thing. I would encourage all of you, if you have an Android or an Apple device, to download that app, and maybe your goal is to register one new Republican voter.

Kemp said that in July, and in September, Kemp announced he was launching a fraud investigation into the registration drive, though the secretary’s office has not produced a reason as to why the state suspects fraud.

………

Monday marked the beginning of early voting in a number of Georgia counties, making the case of the 40,000 missing voters all the more urgent.

To that end, Third Sector Development announced yesterday that, after weeks of fruitless negotiations with the state, they were going to court to find out the status of the missing registrations — or, more to the point, the eligibility of more than 40,000 potential voters.

And there was also the Republican State Senator who complained that Decalb County was making it too easy for people to register.

I really hope that Georgia gigged like a frog in court, and possibly end up back under a DoJ pre-clearnace regime under what remains of the Voting Rights Act.

Sarah Palin Can See Fabulosity Visible From her House

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Another day, another ruling striking down a gay marriage ban:

A federal judge ruled Sunday that Alaska’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, paving the way for same-sex couples to begin marrying in the state for the first time. The state quickly said it would appeal the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess, despite recent higher court rulings striking down similar bans around the country.

“The court finds that Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage and refusal to recognize same sex marriages lawfully entered in other states is unconstitutional as a deprivation of basic due process and equal protection principles under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Burgess wrote in a order in the case Hamby v. Parnell, released Sunday.

The Hamby suit was filed in May by five same-sex couples. It challenged the state’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman, approved by voters in 1998. Both parties in the Hamby case made oral arguments [3] in the case on Friday.

In an email, the state said it will appeal Burgess’ ruling.

“As Alaska’s governor, I have a duty to defend and uphold the law and the Alaska Constitution,” Gov. Sean Parnell said in a press release. “Although the district court today may have been bound by the recent Ninth Circuit panel opinion, the status of that opinion and the law in general in this area is in flux. I will defend our constitution.”

Parnell was referring to a ruling last week from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled to overturn similar marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada [4]. Same-sex marriage advocates said the 9th Circuit ruling would likely lead to the quick overturn of Alaska’s ban on gay marriage because the bans were similar and Alaska also falls under the jurisdiction of that court.

Even as the state vowed to appeal the decision, officials with the state’s Bureau of Vital Statistics said they would begin accepting applications for same-sex marriage licenses at 8 a.m. on Monday.

“The license application begins the three-day waiting period before the license can be issued. All marriages in Alaska must have the marriage license issued before the ceremony is performed,” wrote Phillip Mitchell, head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics. “We expect our office will be busy tomorrow but we will make every effort to help customers as quickly as possible.”

This is not unalloyed good news, because of the comments of Phillip Mitchell, “We will make every effort to help CUSTOMERS as quickly as possible.”

They aren’t customers, they are CITIZENS.

The notion of the citizenry being nothing more than “customers” is an anathema to good governance.

It casts those citizens, and the government, as nothing more than economic actors whose obligation is to pursue their own personal best interests, with no obligations to one another.

While this might appeal to psychopaths like Ayn Rand, this is not the model for a just society.

Wisconsin and Texas Voter Suppression Laws Blocked

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These are only short term injunctions though:

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Wisconsin from enforcing its strict voter identification law in this year’s election.

 By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from civil rights lawyers who argued it was too late to put the rule into effect.

 Lawyers for the ACLU had noted the state had already sent out thousands of absentee ballots without mentioning the need for voters to return a copy of the photo identification.

 It would be “chaos,” they said, for the state now to have to decide whether or not to count such ballots because the voters failed to comply with the new law.

 Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. The six justices in the majority did not issue a written opinion to accompany the decision to lift an order by a lower court that would have allowed the law to take effect.

So not surprised that the three most right wing justices decided that keeping the n*****s from voting is more important than preventing chaos in the already started balloting.

At nearly the same time, a federal judge in Texas struck down that state’s new voter ID law on the grounds that it violated the constitutional right to vote and discriminated against racial minorities.

 Texas Atty. Gen. Gregg Abbott said the state would appeal the ruling.

 The Wisconsin and Texas cases were the two most closely watched tests of new voter rules this year. In both states, the Republican-led legislatures sought to tighten the rules for voting and to require all registered voters who did not have driver’s license to obtain a photo ID card at a state motor vehicles office.

In Texas, a gun license was acceptable too, but not a college ID, even a college ID issued by a state college.

Funny that.

Federal Court Rules that Virginia Congressional Districts are Unconstitutional

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Nope. Nothing Suspicious Here

What a surprise. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the 3rd Congressional district was drawn entirely on the basis of race, and so is unconstitutional:

A panel of federal judges on Tuesday declared Virginia’s congressional maps unconstitutional because they concentrate African American voters into a single district at the expense of their influence elsewhere.

 The decision, handed down in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, orders the Virginia General Assembly to draw up new congressional maps by April — potentially launching a frenzied and highly political battle for survival within Virginia’s congressional delegation.

 The order delivered another victory for Democratic plaintiffs hoping to break up black-majority districts, which they say have been drawn by Republicans who have used the Voting Rights Act to dilute the influence of minority voters.

 A similar case in Alabama in which Republicans prevailed will be heard by the Supreme Court this term.

 “We’re obviously thrilled with the results,” said Marc Elias, a lawyer on the Virginia case who represented two voters from the district where the unconstitutional redistricting took place. “The Republicans engaged in impermissible racial gerrymandering in a cynical effort to gain seats. . . . We look forward to the state doing a new redistricting to comply with the court’s orders.”

The current Congressman for this district won with 81% of the vote in the last election. Of course this is all about minimizing the black vote in the state by concentrating them in one place.

I wish that this had come down in time to effect this election.

Calm Down Everyone

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Yes, Justice Kennedy did grant an injunction preventing same sex marriages in Idaho and Nevada, but this is a fairly standard technical ruling to allow the Idaho AG to file an appeal:

With same-sex couples in Idaho legally free to seek marriage licenses this morning, state officials filed a last-minute plea to the Supreme Court to delay that opportunity. The plea came hours after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had struck down Idaho’s ban on gay and lesbian marriages, and then had put its ruling into immediate effect.

The filing said that the state had asked the Ninth Circuit to put its ruling back on hold so that it could be challenged before the en banc Ninth Circuit and, later, before the Supreme Court. The request was submitted to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Idaho. He has the option either of acting alone or of referring the request to the full Court.

In their application, Idaho officials argued that their case, if it gets to the Supreme Court, is narrower in scope than the other same-sex marriage cases that the Justices had refused to review on Monday. The questions it would raise are only preliminary to a return of the case to the Ninth Circuit, the document argued.

Originally this ruing included Nevada, but this appears to have been in error, as Kennedy subsequently limited the scope of the injunction to just Idaho:

UPDATE 3:18 p.m. Justice Kennedy on Wednesday afternoon issued a revised order, limiting the postponement to the situation in Idaho, thus excluding Nevada. That puts back into effect a Ninth Circuit ruling nullifying the Nevada ban, and thus clears the way for issuing marriage licenses in that state to gay and lesbian couples. The order contained no explanation of the change, but it apparently was due to the captions the Ninth Circuit had put on its order putting its decision into effect. Lawyers for a gay rights advocacy group, Lambda Legal, had asked for a clarification of the earlier Kennedy order.

Basically this is limited, and should be (relatively) short term, to allow for Idaho to file for either an en banc hearing from the Ninth Circuit or an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Obviously, committed couples in Idaho must be bumming, but this is a procedural move without a much long term significance.

It’s the First Monday of October………

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Which means that the Supreme Court has begun its new session.

Rather unsurprisingly, the court punted on gay marriage, declining to hear any of the appeals of the recent ruling striking down gay marriage bans.

This has the effect of massively expanding gay marriage, or the recognition of gay marriage:

With not a single dependable hint of its own constitutional view of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court in one fell swoop on Monday cleared the way for gays and lesbians to wed in a batch of new states — starting first in five more states, and probably adding six more in the coming weeks. If that happens in all eleven, it will mean that same-sex marriages would then be legal in thirty states and Washington, D.C.

 In seven one-line orders, released without explanation and with no report on how any Justice voted, the Court surprisingly refused to review any same-sex marriage case now before it and, in the process, prepared to lift a series of orders that had delayed such marriages while the issue remained in the Court. Almost no one had expected that to happen.

 It may take a few weeks for the Court’s action to take effect in real-world terms, in the geographic areas where federal appeals courts have struck down bans in five states — the decisions that the Justices have now left intact. Because those appeals court rulings are binding on all federal courts in their regions, those decisions almost certainly dictate the outcome in six more states.

As Maddow noted, it only takes 4 judges to put a case up for review, and the 4 right wing judges voted to support DOMA in US v. Windsor, it means that at least one judge (My money is on Roberts) who voted against gay rights voted against reviewing the cases.

It is either an acknowledgement by one of the conservative justices that society has changed, or it it a tactical decision, hoping that the next justice will be appointed by a Republican to replace Ginsbert.

In addition, we have a very interesting 4th amendment case,  where the question of whether a search is legal if the stop is is based on a misunderstanding of the law.

We also have a patent case, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., where the court is going to review whether the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Patent Court) can review the facts presented in the district court on appeal, or only address matters of law or “clear error.”  (Interestingly enough, the Patent Court ruled against the patent, and the district judge ruled for the patent.)

The fact that the Supreme Court is taking it implies to me that at least 4 justices are looking to slap down the Patent Court yet again, which has for a while engaged in a de novo review of patents when it heard appeals.

I’m also interested in Tibble v. Edison International, where workers sued their employer, because their retirement plans were high fee plans, because Edison was getting kickbacks from the plan manager.

It’s actually a statute of limitations case, since the investment choices were initially made more than 6 years before the suit was filed, but the plan was maintained for long enough that the last day was within the statute of limitations.

More on other cases here.

Your Daily Schadenfreude

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The draconian voting restrictions in Arkansas have resulted in the Republican Attorney General being dropped from the voter roles:

UC Irvine law professor Rick Hasen says this development, which he describes as coming from the “Irony Dept”, is just “too delicious”.

Leslie Rutledge, the Republican candidate for Attorney General in Arkansas, has been discovered to have been registered to vote in multiple states in addition to Arkansas, and even voted by absentee ballot in Arkansas’ general election in November of 2008 — after she had registered to vote in Washington D.C. [PDF] in July of the same year.

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Rutledge has now been removed from Arkansas’ voting rolls by the Pulaski County Clerk, after he confirmed that she was registered to vote in D.C., and possibly Virginia. The removal from the rolls may also lead to her ineligibility to be elected to office.

“For the AG candidate of the party who likes to scream about voter fraud to be registered in two (or three) places at once is ironic and amusing on its own,” writes Matt Campbell of Arkansas’ “Blue Hog Report”, which was on this story from the jump.

“However, the bigger implication is Article 19, section 3, of the Arkansas Constitution,” he adds, which states: “No persons shall be elected to, or appointed to fill a vacancy in, any office who does not possess the qualifications of an elector.” If Rutledge is not registered in Arkansas, she no longer “possess[es] the qualifications of an elector.”

I don’t expect her to be prevented from voting, nor do I expect her to be dropped from the ballot, because, after all, “Silly rabbit, voter suppression is for Democratic voters.”

I am sure that the courts will rule that way.

Still, I will enjoy a few minutes of pleasure at Ms. Rutledge’s discomfiture.

Hurray! Facebook Blinks!

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Facebook has apologized to cross dressing LGBT members who want to use their stage name, and looks to be allowing “Drag Queen” names in the near future:

Two weeks ago, Facebook was forced to address a firestorm over its real-name policy after “several hundred” drag queens and performers were targeted in a spree of user reports. On that day, Facebook responded by sending a message to those account holders: either switch their public Facebook names to “legal” names or convert their accounts to public “pages,” which lack certain normal-profile features. The affected users had two weeks to do so, which ran out today.

However, instead of disabling those hundreds of accounts, Facebook went in a decidedly different direction. A meeting between affected performers, including original complainant Sister Roma, and company officials took place at the Facebook campus today, and according to a Valleywag report, it ended with Facebook issuing an official apology and promising “substantive changes” to the real-name policy.

“Facebook agreed that the real names policy is flawed and has unintentionally hurt members of our community,” San Francisco Supervisor David Campos said to Valleywag. “Facebook apologized to the community and has committed to removing any language requiring that you use your legal name. They’re working on technical solutions to make sure that nobody has their name changed unless they want it to be changed and to help better differentiate between fake profiles and authentic ones.”

 Fabulous!

M of A – The (NED Financed) Hong Kong Riots

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Guess what? It looks like the CIA front known as the National Endowment for Democracy is dumping money into yet another so called color revolution:

Some organized “student groups” in Hong Kong tried to occupy government buildings and blocked some streets. The police did what it does everywhere when such things happen. It used anti-riot squads, pepper spray and tear gas to prevent occupations and to clear the streets.

 ………………
 Peter Lee aka Chinahand has an excellent piece on the issue at Asia Times Online. But Lee is making one mistake in that he does not consider outside influence:

Occupy Hong Kong decided to light it, starting with a class boycott and demonstrations organized by the Hong Kong Federation of Students. And, since I’m never afraid to mix a metaphor, the Hong Kong government poured fuel on the fire by pepper-spraying and teargassing it.

Who really “decided to light this”? To me the protests, and the “western” reporting about it, have the distinct smell not of tear gas but of some expensive Color Revolution perfume of “western” origin.

 So lets look up the usual source of such exquisite fragrance. The 2012 annual report of the U.S. government financed National Endowment of Democracy, aka the CCA – Central Color-Revolution Agency, includes three grants for Hong Kong one of which is new for 2012 and not mentioned in earlier annual reports:

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs – $460,000

To foster awareness regarding Hong Kong’s political institutions and constitutional reform process and to develop the capacity of citizens – particularly university students – to more effectively participate in the public debate on political reform, NDI will work with civil society organizations on parliamentary monitoring, a survey, and development of an Internet portal, allowing students and citizens to explore possible reforms leading to universal suffrage.

So the U.S. government in 2012 (2013 numbers are not yet available) hands over nearly half a million to “develop the capacity” of “university students” related to the issue of “universal suffrage” in the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive.

Why do we keep doing this sh%$?

Not only does it reduce the credibility of protesters in country, but the results (the Ukraine, Georgia, etc.) have been spotty, to put it mildly.

If the definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” the US state security and foreign policy apparatus are insane.

Nope, No Partisan Politics Here

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In another 5-4 decision split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court has blocked early voting in Ohio, at least until an appeals court rules:

With just sixteen hours before polling stations were to open in Ohio, the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon blocked voters from beginning tomorrow to cast their ballots in this year’s general election. By a vote of five to four, the Justices put on hold a federal judge’s order providing new opportunities for voting before election day, beyond what state leaders wanted.

The order will remain in effect until the Court acts on an appeal by state officials. If that is denied, then the order lapses. It is unclear when that scenario will unfold. The state’s petition has not yet been filed formally.

The practical effect of the order will mean that, at the least, early voting will not be allowed this week — a period that supporters of early balloting have called “Golden Week.” That permits voters to register and cast their ballots on the same day.

Depending upon the timing of the state’s filing of a petition for review and the Court’s action on it, Monday’s order may also mean that early voting will not be permitted on most Sundays between now and election day, November 4, and will not be permitted during evening hours — that is, after 5 p.m.

I will make a note here any suggestion that Justice Kennedy is anything but a partisan hack has been thoroughly debunked.

Then again, we knew that after his vote in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

My Mom Once Threatened This

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Only it was the threat to hand out a Marxist tract on Atheism, not Church of Satan children’s activity book:

The Satanic Temple has responded to an Orange County, Florida decision to disseminate religious materials in public school by creating complementary materials that espouse the philosophy and practice of Satanism.

Last month, a Florida judge ruled that if the Orange County school district allowed Christian groups to disseminate Bibles and Christian-oriented religious materials in its schools, it would also have to allow atheist groups to do the same.

David Williamson of the Central Florida Free Thought Community — who recently fought against Brevard County’s attempt to ban atheists from offering invocations at public meetings — sued the district over its initial unwillingness to allow atheist literature with titles like “Jesus Is Dead” and “Why I Am Not a Muslim” in the schools.

A judge dismissed that case after the school board decided to allow the materials.

The Satanic Temple took advantage of this decision, deciding to flood Orange County schools with a pamphlet entitled The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities [as an aside, it is far less interesting than I had hoped] that contains kid-friendly Satanic lessons.

My mom had a similar experience dealing with the Charlottesville school system, when my little big brother refused to take a bible, he was called a “Heathen,” my mom complained, and was told that recent court decisions allowed this.

My mom replied that this would require similar access to hand out the aforementioned Marxist tracts, and superintendent decided that, in the future, no one should hand out religious literature at school.

Normally, I do not Give a Rats Ass About Miss America, but ………

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The fact that the right wing Christofascists are freaking out because the new Miss America worked for Planned Parenthood is positively delicious:

If you thought her less than mind-blowing performance of “Happy” had Miss America fans in a snit, wait till they find out where Kira Kazantsev used to work.

The newly crowned beauty queen has opponents of reproductive choice up in arms this week over revelations that her résumé includes a stint with Planned Parenthood. LifeNews’ Steven Ertelt fumed Monday, “The woman representing the nation as the new Miss America interned for the very organization that has killed millions of Americans in abortions.” Other conservative sites have also quickly found themselves up in arms over Kazantsev’s past – Truth Revolt gasps that “Our new Miss America once interned for Planned Parenthood and she displays it proudly for all the world to see,” while Live Action News notes that “The new Miss America is an abortion supporter who worked for Planned Parenthood” and lists “her job duties at the company that snuffs out of the lives of young baby girls.” Right on cue, the outrage has now spilled over onto social media, with various patriotic Americans declaring sentiments like, “She should’ve been disqualified for Miss America.” Because the only choice for Miss America is an anti-choice Miss America.

In her LinkedIn profile, Kazantsev mentions a three-month internship with a Hempstead branch of the organization last year. She says she “Assisted delivery of programs in local public schools, teaching children about mutual respect & self-esteem” and “Conducted research on Planned Parenthood Education.” Sounds like baby killing to me! More damningly still, she’s also interned for Kirsten Gillibrand, who notoriously holds the public position that “a woman’s medical decisions should always be made between her, her family, and her doctor – not by politicians.” And as an intern for Solidarity Strategies, Kazantsev worked on political campaigns including that of pro-choice congresswoman Annie Kuster.

Awww ……… The poor little Talibaptist’s feelings are hurt.

You like a hot cup of f%$# you with that?

And I Would Have Gotten Away With it Too, If it Weren’t For Your Meddling N***ers!

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First we have Georgia State Senator Fran Millar objecting to get out the vote efforts in black ares then following this up by saying explicitly that he it is the black voter voter bit:

The Georgia state senator who ranted about excessive black voting and vowed to fight a move to expand early voting in DeKalb County defended his remarks on Facebook, saying that he would rather have more educated voters than an increase in the total number of voters.

 The Republican state senator, Fran Millar (pictured), wrote that in a comment responding to others on his post where he vowed to end Sunday balloting in DeKalb County because that area is “dominated by African American shoppers” and has “large African American mega churches.”

 “I do agree with Galloway and I never claimed to be nonpartisan,” Millar wrote. “I would prefer more educated voters than a greater increase in the number of voters. If you don’t believe this is an efort [sic] to maximize Democratic votes pure and simple, then you are not a realist. This is a partisan stunt and I hope it can be stopped. Furthermore I don’t control where people are allowed to vote but am glad Brookhaven has been added for the last week.”

This is followed up by the Georgia Secretary of State, whose job is to protect the franchise, starts a bogus investigation of a GOTV group, and then is caught on tape calling increased black votes a problem:

The audio, posted on YouTube by Better Georgia, features a man identified as Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp telling fellow Republicans at a July 12, 2014 event in Gwinnett County:

In closing I just wanted to tell you real quick, after we get through this runoff, you know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November. But we’ve got to do the exact same thing. I would encourage all of you, if you have an Android or an Apple device, to download that app, and maybe your goal is to register one new Republican voter.

Clearly the Supreme Court was either smoking some very good weed, or were a bunch of contemptible corrupt partisans, when they gutted the Voting Rights Act.

My money is on the latter.

The Talibaptists Have Seized the USAF

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The Airforce is refusing to allow an athiest airman to reenlist unless he includes “Under God” in his oath:

An unnamed airman in the United States Air Force wants to continue to serve his country. Yet, the Air Force reportedly told him that his service is unwanted unless he swears an oath that concludes with the religious affirmation “so help me God.” According to the Air Force Times, the airman crossed out the words “so help me God” when he signed his reenlistment contract. He was subsequently told that he must either swear this religious oath or leave the service.

 In justifying this decision, an Air Force spokesperson pointed to a federal law, which requires “[e]ach person enlisting in an armed force” to take an oath that concludes with the four words this airman finds objectionable. He did agree to the other portions of the oath, which includes a promise to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

This is clearly unconstitutional, as there is exhaustive judicial precedent saying that the government cannot coerce a person to profess belief, but this does not matter to the Air Force.

The US military in general, and USAF in particular, have been infiltrated by right wing Evangelicals looking to create an “Army of God”, and this is just an early consequence.

Here is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation’s take on this is well worth reading as well.  In particular, they note that the legislation in question which the Air Force is siting to exclude this airman allows for a simple affirmation:

Regrettably, this truly horrific scenario is indeed the case within the United States Air Force (USAF). Just the other day, the USAF public affairs office at the Pentagon informed the world that “Reciting ‘So help me God’ in its official reenlistment and commissioning oaths is a statutory requirement under 10 U.S.C. §502“. In short, you had better repent and swear your oath to “God” or be gone. Interestingly, that just cited U.S. Code provision (which the Air Force is pathetically using to support its “sorry, our hands are tied” position of abject cowardice here) also makes it clear that armed forces members may “affirm”, in lieu of swearing, this enlistment or commissioning oath. When one “affirms” such an oath of office, there is NO need to “swear” to “God” to do so. Such is the very distinction between “swearing and affirming.” 10 U.S.C. §502 allows either to be done by the enlisting or commissioning Air Force member. The USAF’s transparent duplicity and specious motivations for basing its new decision to force service members to swear to God are dangerous, disingenuous and despicable.

Your mouth to ……… Well, you get the idea.