Category: Justice

“Right to be Forgotten,” My Ass

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Robert Peston, Economics Editor at the BBC, was notified by Google that it was removing one of his blog posts from its European search index in accordance with the European Court of Justice’s recent ruling giving people “The Tight to be Forgotten”:

This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google:
Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/ robertpeston/2007/10/merrills_mess.html

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe.

Which means that to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people.

So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?

Well it has responded to someone exercising his or her new “right to be forgotten”, following a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice that Google must delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its results when a member of the public requests it.

(emphasis original)

The only person mentioned in this article was the disgraced former head of Merrill Lynch, Stan O’Neill, but the Ex-Merrill CEO has denied any knowledge of this request, though this is a kind of non-denial denial, where he might have hired a law form, or someone like Reputation.com to monitor his online presence, and they sent the request at his request.

You will notice that O’Neill did not deny that he had taken action to improve his reputation on the web, only that he lacked specific knowledge of this request.

In an update, Mr. Peston suggests that the request might have come from someone who commented on his post, since a search for Mr. O’Neill still pulls up the post, but I did a search of Google.co.uk for all of the commenter’s who left a proper name, and they all came up as well.

The Guardian revealed that they had been notified that 3 sets of articles, about a lying soccer ref, French Post-It® art, and a lawyer on trial for fraud.

This is, of course, a complete clusterf%$#, as was predicted when this ruling came down.

Pope Francis Takes Another Step Away from John Paul II

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Francis has defrocked the formal Papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, the former Archbishop Josef Wesolowski for sexually abusing boys.

You saw a bit of damage control under Benedict, but this is strong statement against JP II’s willful blindness on this matter:

The Vatican has defrocked Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, the former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic following an investigation into his sexual abuse of boys. He is the highest-yet ranking official of the Church to be so punished.

The former Archbishop, now just Josef Wesolowski, has two months to appeal his dismissal and laicization. He is no longer a priest of the Church.

Following his period of appeal, during which he may or may not choose to fight the decision, he will face a criminal trial under the Vatican City State tribunal. If convicted, he will face a jail term. The Vatican has recently updated its laws to punish with criminal penalties those who sexually abuse children and says it will take measures to ensure that Wesolowski does not flee justice.

Pope Francis has instituted a zero-tolerance crackdown on clergy who abuse children, saying they would not have any special privileges and that even high-ranking offenders would be severely and swiftly punished.

Pope Francis is the first Pope to take such drastic measures to deal with the problem of child sexual abuse in the Church although both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI also took steps to protect children. The measures now instituted by Pope Francis are the most significant in history, ensuring that offenders cannot use the Church as cover and will face certain prison time if found guilty.

This guy really is a breath of fresh air.

Who Says That Irony is Dead?

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Microsoft filed a lawsuit to seize domains from No-IP.com. Their reason?

In a blog post, Richard Domingues, assistant general counsel for the Microsoft digital crimes unit, said Microsoft pursued the seizure for No-IP’s role “in creating, controlling, and assisting in infecting millions of computers with malicious software—harming Microsoft, its customers and the public at large.” He added: “We’re taking No-IP to task as the owner of infrastructure frequently exploited by cybercriminals to infect innocent victims with the Bladeabindi (NJrat) and Jenxcus (NJw0rm) family of malware.”

(emphasis mine)

To quote the great Anna Russell, “I’m Not Making This Up, You Know.”

Seriously, “Zero Day” Microsoft, the creater of of Windows™, is complaining about someone being the “Owner of infrastructure frequently exploited by cybercriminals to infect innocent victims?”

Really?

The irony here is stunning.

And the Hobby Lobby Decision Has Already Started to Bear Bitter Fruit

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We now have the usual group of rat-f%$#s, including Rick “Invited by Obama to giva a benediction at his first inaugeration” Warren, are demanding the right to discriminate against LGBT employees:

This week, in the Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court ruled that a religious employer could not be required to provide employees with certain types of contraception. That decision is beginning to reverberate: A group of faith leaders is urging the Obama administration to include a religious exemption in a forthcoming LGBT anti-discrimination action.

 Their call, in a letter sent to the White House Tuesday, attempts to capitalize on the Supreme Court case by arguing that it shows the administration must show more deference to the prerogatives of religion.

 “We are asking that an extension of protection for one group not come at the expense of faith communities whose religious identity and beliefs motivate them to serve those in need,” the letter states.

I am so ready for Antonin Scalia to choke to death on his own bile and be replaced by a justice who is not an unethical hack.

Letter follows:

Religious Exemption Letter to President Obama

And This Decision is a Camel’s Nose Under the Tent

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In Harris v. Quinn, the Supreme Court ruled that home healthcare workers who are not members of a union do not have to pay dues for the services received.

It is better than could be expected, since they could have applied this to all public sector unions, effectively going right to work nationwide.

What I do think is that it is clear that this, along with an earlier decision, Knox v. SEIU, are an attempt to reverse the National Labor Relations Act via the death of 1000 cuts.

Eventually, assuming that the current 5-4 reactionary judge/real judge split remains in place on the Supreme Court, they will be making it  impossible for labor unions to function in the United States for the next decade.

This is partisanship masquerading as an impartial judiciary.

Yes, Hobby Lobby is Almost Dredd Scott* Bad

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The basic decision is completely incoherent and contradictory.

The gist of the decision is that private corporations can ignore basic regulations if they are “sincerely held beliefs,” whatever the f%$# means, which ignores decades of jurisprudence which slapped down various flavors of bigots, sexists, and nut-jobs who have attempted to use religion to avoid following civil law.

They say that this is so because to quote Mitt Rmoney, “corporations are people too.”

They say that it only applies to “closely held” corporations, (fewer than 5 people holding over half of the equity in the firm) but provide no real explanation for why it should so be limited, and they do not explain why it does not, for example, apply to multibillion dollar corporations like Koch industries.†

Furthermore, they say that it applies only to contraception, and not, for example, to the JW’s objection to blood transfusion or vaccination, but again, they simply say this, and provide no real justification:

This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate andshould not be understood to hold that all insurance-coverage mandates, e.g., for vaccinations or blood transfusions, must necessarily fall if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs. Nor does it provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice.

Basically, it only applies to contraception, because we care about what Catholics and right wing Evangelicals think, but not (Mercy!) Jehovah’s Witnesses.

What’s more, they redifine the definition of corporations to justify their opinion:

In other words, the Court has changed, definitionally, what it means to be a corporation under the state laws in question.

The existential condition of separateness is true even with closely held companies. The largest such companies – Cargill, Koch Industries, Dell, Bechtel, and Aramark, to name just a handful – have tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars of revenue. (In 2008, Forbes reported that the 441 largest closely held companies employed more than 6 million people and enjoyed $1.8 trillion in revenue.) They are created under the same understanding of a wall existing between shareholders and the company. They could indeed not exist otherwise – the potential liability to individual investors would simply be too great.

So in evaluating whether Congress intended the word “person” in RFRA to cover corporations, the most reasonable assumption is that the states creating such entities intended such separateness and that corporations should not carry the rights of their shareholders. To assume otherwise flies in the face of decades, indeed centuries, of corporate law assumptions.

The Court makes a second corporate law mistake. In arguing that for-profit companies can have religious purposes, the Court makes hay from the fact that state incorporation statutes typically allow businesses to be chartered for any “lawful purpose or activity.” The Court uses this corporate law truth to argue, as a descriptive matter, that some corporations in fact engage in behavior that is in conformity with the religious views of their shareholders.

………

Indeed, I will not be surprised if we see, in the coming weeks, a host of closely held corporations – and a few publicly traded ones – asserting the right to discriminate against LGBT job applicants, employees, and customers notwithstanding various state laws to the contrary.

This is an unbelievably bad decision, and, unless the Congress revokes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (the justification for the ruling), we are in for decades of counter productive anti-American religious zealotry.

This is a horrible decision, and if it had been made at the federal court level, we would assume that it would have been overturned at the appellate level before the ink was dry.

*Dred Scott v. Sandford. If you need this link, read some f%$#ing history.
†I dunno. Maybe they do want it apply to Koch industries.

I Disagree With the Rude One

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In response to the Supreme Court decision giving free reign for antiabortion protesters to intimidate doctors, nurses, and patients, the Rude Pundit suggests that we engage in aggressive in your face threatening protests outside the churches that winds up the anti-abortion terrorists:

Look at that church. Isn’t it a pretty little church? It’s St. Mary’s Church in Grafton, Massachusetts. It’s freakin’ idyllic, no? It’s also deeply invested in anti-abortion actions. The congregation participated in 40 Days for Life, an action during Lent that 17,000 churches around the world took part in, with another 40 Days planned for September 24 to November 2.

The St. Mary’s churchgoers headed over to Worcester to protest at a Planned Parenthood and to “sidewalk counsel” women there. “[I]s it worth it to stand out in the wind and rain and cold to pray in front of Planned Parenthood?” the church’s website asks. And, for them, it was. They convinced one woman to not get an abortion. You can see the baby. It’s like a taste of something that will keep them addicted to protesting. A crack baby, if you will. No doubt the church will be supporting the baby and the mother until the baby is an adult. No doubt.

Come September, and maybe even before, the parishioners will be harassing every woman who goes to the Planned Parenthood, even those just going for pap smears and help getting pregnant. And they will no doubt be joined by the anti-abortion radicals, the fetus picture carriers, the screamers, the hysterics who shame women.

“Is it really necessary to be out on the sidewalk instead of praying at home?” St. Mary’s wants to know. Look up at that picture again. What do you see in front of St. Mary’s? That’s a nice, wide, very public sidewalk. The parking lot is across the street, so most of the people attending church services on, say, a nice summer Sunday will have to walk that sidewalk, a sidewalk just like the one outside Planned Parenthood in Worcester. A sidewalk like the one that Eleanor McCullen “gently” counsels women from outside a Planned Parenthood in Boston.

 ………

 So let’s get out there, every goddamn Sunday, and head to the churches that send their lunatic Jesus-fellaters out to try to shut down Planned Parenthoods, and stand on their sidewalks, just like the one up there outside St. Mary’s in Grafton, and let’s make churchgoing a living f%$#in’ hell for ’em. Let’s bodily block the access to the walkways that lead to the church. Let’s bring signs that have pictures of women who were killed by illegal abortions. Let’s go up to them and try to convince them to convert or go atheist, following them until we are on church property and have to stop. Let’s block the street by walking back and forth in the crosswalk. Let’s force the churchgoers to need escorts to even get inside.

 Shit, let’s plaster the telephone poles with photos of the priests and church leaders, their addresses, their phone numbers. Let’s tell them as they pass, “We know where you live.” Let’s film everyone going into the church and post those on a website. Hey, it’s a public f%$#in’ sidewalk, man. Let’s scream at them about how they’re terrible people, how they support raping children, how they have given money to help silence victims. Can’t you hear their silent screams? Can’t you? F%$#, yeah.

 Going to church is a choice, no? Let’s make sure they regret that f%$#in’ choice, however legal it may be for them to make it. Then let’s see how quickly they’re begging for buffer zones.

(%$# mine)

First, and most important, is that this behavior is wrong.

Second, the methods that the Rude Pundit is suggesting require that its target already have a credible fear that they will be the target of violent terrorism.  The folks outside the Church will not be slashing tires, setting fire to the church, or shooting priests,* so any such demonstration will be almost completely without impact.

I would suggest, however, that people of good conscience refuse do make other common causes with people who go to places like St. Mary’s Church in Grafton, because consorting with terrorists, even at a soup kitchen, is still consorting with terrorists.

*Though some former alter boys might be considering this for a completely different reason.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Chris

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It looks like Jabba the Governor has yet another bridge scandal:

Investigations into the Christie administration and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in 2011, according to people briefed on the matter.

 While the inquiries were prompted by the apparently politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge last year, these investigations center on another crossing: the Pulaski Skyway, the crumbling elevated roadway connecting Newark and Jersey City. They are being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010.

 Again and again, Port Authority lawyers warned against the move: The Pulaski Skyway, they noted, is owned and operated by the state, putting it outside the agency’s purview, according to dozens of memos and emails reviewed by investigators and obtained by The New York Times.

 ………

 In bond documents describing the Skyway reconstruction and other repairs, the Port Authority has called the projects “Lincoln Tunnel Access Infrastructure Improvements.”

 The accuracy of this characterization is now a major focus of the investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. Under a New York State law known as the Martin Act, prosecutors can bring felony charges for intentionally deceiving bond holders, without having to prove any intent to defraud or even establish that any fraud occurred.

 Two veteran prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office public corruption unit are working with two S.E.C. lawyers who are experts in such bond issues, one person briefed on the matter said, and another noted that while the agencies were each conducting separate parallel inquiries, they were working together.

 In addition to criminal charges under the Martin Act, the investigations could result in civil action under the Martin Act or by the S.E.C., under federal securities laws.

Someone has lost a lot of weight for nothing, because he will never be the Presidential nominee.

Anwar al-Awlaki Assassination Memo Released in Redacted Form

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The legal justification basically comes down to the fact that the incredibly broad 911 Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) would justify lethal force.

This appears to me to be good law, but remain dubious of the facts.

Basically, and this is on a quick reading of a heavily redacted memo full of legalese, there is no mention of the actual activities that al-Awalki engaged in that had him declared a combatant, just a justification for lethal actions against American citizens who have assumed a combat role against the United States.

So, we still don’t know what he did to be declared a combatant. It could be that he was involved in major military decisions, functioning as a military officer in al-Qaida, but I’ve never seen any sort of release, either officially or through leaks, claiming this.

What we do some of what he was doing.

He produced and distributed sermons supporting Jihad, and we know that he provided religious advice to people in AQAP, including the Underoos bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

If these are the facts that led the US government, and I am inclined to believe that this is the totality of the actual facts against him.  (See my no leaks comment above)

If this is the case, then the US state security apparatus specifically targeted Anwar al-Awlaki on the basis of activities which are purely clerical in nature.

This begs the obvious question, “When do we start droning the leaders of Operation Rescue?”

After all, if pastoral support of terrorism rates assassination, the ongoing terrorism against abortion providers should be at the top of the list.

Memo, such as it is, after the break.

Wisconsin Attorney General Threatens People Who Obey Court Ruling

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I just love how right wing Talibaptist types think that the law does not apply to them:

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Thursday that same-sex couples who have wed in recent days are not married in the eyes of the law and that county clerks issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples could be prosecuted.

Also Thursday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker backed Van Hollen’s work defending the gay marriage ban but sidestepped questions on whether clerks should be charged and what his personal views on gay marriage are now.

Three district attorneys running for attorney general — two Democrats and a Republican — said they would not issue charges against clerks and their area. A Democratic state representative running to succeed Van Hollen also criticized the idea of issuing charges.

“You do have many people in Wisconsin basically taking the law into their own hands and there can be legal repercussions for that,” Van Hollen said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “So, depending on who believes they’re married under the law and who doesn’t believe they’re married under the law may cause them to get themselves in some legal problems that I think are going to take years for them and the courts to work out.”

The Republican attorney general said he did not believe same-sex couples could be prosecuted but that county clerks risked charges.

………

County clerks can be jailed for up to nine months and fined up to $10,000 for issuing marriage licenses that aren’t allowed under state law. The same section of the statutes also provides penalties for judges, ministers and others who officiate over a “fictitious marriage,” but Van Hollen did not address whether they could be charged.

………

United States District Judge Barbara Crabb last week declared that Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law. She has not yet entered an injunction instructing public officials what to do about her finding.

After all, who has to listen to some judge anyway?

Judge Crabb, could you please find this rat f%$# in contempt?

Another Reason to Shut Down the Fusion Centers

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Because they treated a consumer boycott for “Black Friday” 2011 as a terrorist event:

The documents reveal that Fusion Centers and their personnel even conflate their anti-terrorism mission with a need for intelligence gathering on a possible consumer boycott during the holiday season. There are multiple documents from across the country referencing concerns about negative impacts on retail sales.

The Executive Director of the Intelligence Fusion Division, also the Joint Terrorism Task Force Director, for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department circulated a 30-page report tracking the Occupy Movement in towns and cities across the country created by the trade association the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

He directed that the recipients of the document, who included top staff at the Washington, D.C. Fusion Center, “develop a one page product that we can send to our District Commanders to make them aware of the potential threat.”

(emphasis original)

Can you say out of control totalitarian organization?

Good, I knew that you could.

Because by Devaluing Workers and Listening Cockamamie Theories from Rich People Worked So Well for the Rest of Us

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It is sure to be appealed, but a judge in LA has just ruled that California’s teacher tenure laws are unconstitutional:

Teachers union officials denounced a ruling Tuesday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge deeming job protections for teachers in California as unconstitutional as a misguided attack on teachers and students.

 The ruling represents a major loss for the unions and a groundbreaking win by attorneys who argued that state laws governing teacher layoffs, tenure and dismissals harm students by making them more likely to suffer from grossly ineffective instruction.

 If the preliminary ruling becomes final and is upheld, the effect will be sweeping across California and possibly the nation.

 Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled, in effect, that it was too easy for teachers to gain strong job protections and too difficult to dismiss those who performed poorly in the classroom. If the ruling stands, California will have to craft new rules for hiring and firing teachers.

Rather unsurprisingly, privatizer in chief, Arne Duncan, loves this, because for Wall Street to make money off of our children, they first have to make sure that they have a cowed and cheap work force.

Interestingly enough I had occasion to look up the record of Geoffrey Canada, the hero of the anti-teacher agitprop Waiting for Superman, the former CEO of  the Harlem Children’s Zone charter schools in response to a sickeningly hagiographic article about him.

What did I discover?

  • He was paid $553,000 for a school system with just 1500 students, (link) more than twice the salary of the Chancellor of the New York City Schools (link) a system with 1.1 million students.
  • He lied about the graduation rates, basing his numbers on those the graduation rate for entering seniors, not the rate for people entering as freshmen as is the norm, which would yield a 36% drop out rate. (link)
  • He has “fired” (dumped) entire classes, including what would have been his first high school class to make his numbers look good. (link)

I have no doubt that there are good charter schools out there, but I’ve let to see one on the national stage.

You have looting behind a not-for-profit corporate façade (Rocketship), widespread forgery and fraud in testing (Michelle Rhee), sexual and financial irregularities (Kevin Johnson, Michelle Rhee’s husband), insane levels of teacher turnover (all of them), and aggressive policies to foist low performing students back on the public school district. (again, pretty much all of them)

Seriously, whenever you take a cursory look at the charter school movement, and the educational-industrial complex that supports them, there are layers of corruption and opacity that are at the core of their business models.

At the core of the issues with our educational system are societal problems of grinding poverty, a porous social safety net, and law enforcement that frequently acts more like an occupying force than peace officers in poor neighborhoods.

Until these are resolved, we will have problems educating poor children, no matter how well our schools are run.

But the current focus on fill in the box testing and privatizing education serves only to make money off the backs of our children’s future.

Thank You for Keeping Maryland Weird

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I just heard about this on the radio, and confirmed this on the Prince George’s County Police Department Facebook page:

PGPD Issues BOLO for Bunny

The PGPD is asking for our community’s help in finding the burglar who snatched a bunny costume. Please keep your eyes peeled for a 6′ gray and white furry bunny with pink ears and a pink nose.

Unfortunately, we aren’t joking. On June 6, 2014, patrol officers were called to the 4600 block of Calvert Road in College Park for a burglary. Employees discovered a storage shed had been broken into overnight. The only item taken was the costume.

Last week, we told you about how our officers helped a tortoise (http://tinyurl.com/p2wpojj ). Please help us rescue the hare now too.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Prince George’s County Police Department’s Regional Investigation Division – Northern Region at (301) 699–2601. Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call Crime Solvers at 1–866–411–TIPS (8477), text “PGPD plus your crime tip” to CRIMES (274637) on your cell phone or go to www.pgcrimesolvers.com and submit a tip online.

Posted via mobile.

This is a Good Day for Schadenfreude

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Dinesh D’Souza has just pled guilty to using straw donors in violation of campaign finance laws:

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza entered a guilty plea Tuesday to a charge that he used straw donors to make $20,000 in illegal contributions to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012, officials said.

The unexpected guilty plea came on the same day the trial for the strident critic of President Barack Obama was set to open in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The single felony count D’Souza admitted guilt on carries a maximum prison sentence of two years, but the plea agreement D’Souza’s lawyers reached with the government says sentencing guidelines applicable to the case call for a sentence of 10 to 16 months.

Judges are not required to sentence defendants in accordance with the guidelines, but usually do. Both sides reserved their rights to argue for a sentence outside that range and D’Souza’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman indicated he plans to ask Judge Richard Berman not to send D’Souza to prison.

The plea deal calls for dismissal of a second charge D’Souza faced if he went to trial: causing Long to file a false report with the Federal Election Commission. That carried a potential sentence of up to five years behind bars.

Atrios has noted that he is feeling far less schadenfreude about this than he expected, despite his being, “One of America’s Worst Humans.”

Me not so much.

This is the guy that has never grew up beyond tacky College Republican guerrilla theater that had classmate Timothy Geithner asking him, “how it felt to be such a dick.”  (And that is ignoring his rather idiosyncratic marital life)

This really could not happen to a more contemptible human being.

Bummer of a Birth Mark, Bob

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In a completely that unsurprising move, District Judge James Spencer has ruleddisgraced former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s trial should proceed:

Virginia’s former governor Robert McDonnell, once a rising star in the Republican Party, failed to persuade a U.S. judge to throw out federal corruption charges against him and his wife, Maureen.

U.S. District Judge James Spencer in Richmond, Virginia, ruled today that U.S. prosecutors sufficiently supported their charges in the McDonnells’ indictment and that the case against them, scheduled for trial in July, should move ahead. Spencer also rejected the couple’s request that their cases be separated.

The McDonnells are accused of accepting vacations, loans, private plane rides and other benefits in exchange for using the governor’s office to benefit businessman Jonnie Williams, who at the time headed Star Scientific Inc. (STSI) and was trying to promote the dietary supplements made by the Glen Allen, Virginia-based company.

I half expect that the jury to, “Find the defendants incredibly guilty,” to quote Mel Brooks.

There is Justice in the World

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Asa Hutchinson, one of the ‘Phant ratf%$#s who have pushed voter ID laws to suppress the poor and minority vote, was turned away from the polls because he did not have a voter ID:

Asa Hutchinson, who won the Republican nomination in the race for Arkansas governor Tuesday, forgot his ID when he went to the polls, despite backing the state’s new voter ID law, according to the Associated Press.

Christian Olson, a spokesman for the Republican candidate, told the AP that Hutchinson believed the situation was a “little bit of an inconvenience” and that a staffer retrieved his ID so he could cast a ballot. Olson said the former congressman still believes voters should be required to show an ID.

Hutchinson’s campaign has not responded to msnbc’s requests for comment. This post will be updated when it does.

Tuesday was the first time the state’s voter ID law affected an election, and Arkansas voters were required to show identification at the polls, according to the AP. Last month, a judge struck down the voter ID law, finding it unconstitutional. But the judge said that the law would be enforced during the state’s primary.

I can imaging what was going through his head at that moment, “You cannot stop me from voting, I am white!”

Fabulous!!!!

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Not only did a federal judge overturn Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban, but he cited Antonin Scalia in his opinion:

Upon striking down Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban Tuesday, a federal judge cited Justice Antonin Scalia’s “cogen[t]” argument that the Supreme Court had essentially paved the way for nationwide marriage equality last year.
Here’s the relevant passage from George W. Bush-appointed Judge John E. Jones III in his 39-page opinion:

As Justice Scalia cogently remarked in his dissent, “if [Windsor] is meant to be an equal-protection opinion, it is a confusing one.” Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2706 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Although Windsor did not identify the appropriate level of scrutiny, its discussion is manifestly not representative of deferential review. See id. (Scalia, J., dissenting) (observing that “the Court certainly does not apply anything that resembles [the rational-basis] framework” (emphasis omitted)). The Court did not evaluate hypothetical justifications for the law but rather focused on the harm resulting from DOMA, which is inharmonious with deferential review.

It was a reference to Scalia’s scathing dissent against the Court’s 5-4 opinion that struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages. The Reagan-appointed justice warned that the majority decision — despite officially staying neutral on whether gay marriage was a Constitutional right — relied upon reasoning that would lead to that conclusion.

I will note that referencing a minority opinion does not seem to me to be a common thing, (Note however, that I an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit*) but this is the 2nd or 3rd time that a judge has cited Scalia in making a decision invalidating a gay marriage ban.

I’m beginning to think that the Federal Judiciary is conspiring to offer a very well deserved f%$# you to Fat Tony Scalia.

*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!!!

I Guess that Steve Jobs is Really Dead

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Apple and Google have agreed to drop the patent suits that they have filed against each other:

Two giants of the mobile phone industry, Apple and Google, have agreed to drop all current patent infringement lawsuits between them, they said Friday.

“Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform,” the companies said in a joint statement. They have not agreed to cross-license each other’s patents, however.

Apple filed a lawsuit with the U.S. International Trade Commission in 2010 against Motorola Mobility, which was subsequently acquired by Google. Google has since agreed to sell the smartphone business to Lenovo, but the deal has not yet closed.

Many of the lawsuits Apple has filed against other smartphone makers, including Samsung, involve Google’s Android operating system. This deal announced Friday does not affect the Apple-Samsung lawsuit, however.

It’s a limited state step, but it is one that Steve Jobs would have taken.

Reasonable and measured was simply not a part of his DNA.

Fabulous!!!!!

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Gay Marriage is legal in Oregon:

Today Judge Michael McShane struck down Oregon’s discriminatory state constitutional amendment that denies committed gay couples the freedom to marry, ruling that it violates the U.S. Constitution. The ruling is the 17th consecutive victory in state and federal court for the freedom to marry since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Windsor v. United States in June 2013. The ruling is the 13th win in federal court for marriage since June.

The order is effective immediately – meaning that today, same-sex couples across the state will be able to marry!