Courts & Law

Court of Appeals to hear same-sex marriage cases in April

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The federal district court cases from Nevada, Utah, and Oklahoma have all been “fast tracked” for oral argument in the Court of Appeals in early April. The case from Virginia  is “fast tracked” for oral argument in May.

6a00d8341bf80c53ef01901df0a0f0970b-piThe 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has set oral arguments in Nevada’s same-sex marriage case, Sevcik v. Sandoval,  for April 9 in San Francisco.

[UPDATE: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports “The Ninth Circuit has now cancelled the April 9 hearing date for the Nevada case. It will be rescheduled.”]

On Feb. 10, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced that she and Gov. Brian Sandoval would no longer be defending Nevada’s amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying on appeal in the 9th Circuit, based on the fact that they did not believe their appeal would succeed if the amendment had to withstand heightened scrutiny standard  following the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in SmithKline Beecham v. Abbott.

The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage is the remaining party defending Nevada’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman. There is an issue as to whether this organization even has standing, similar to the appeal of California’s Prop. 8 in Hollingsworth v. Perry.

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Neocon war criminals reemerge with talk of war in Ukraine

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The corporate media is still in thrall to the Neocon war criminals who lied this country into an unnecessary and unlawful war in Iraq based upon falsified intelligence of  “weapons of mass destruction.”

The same war criminals who authorized illegal torture, secret rendition of prisoners to black site prisons, and indefinite detention of  “enemy combatants” without charges or trial.

The same war criminals who sacrificed American lives and treasure in pursuit of their Neocon wet dream of a Pax Americana empire.

rice.cheney.bush.rumsfeld

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Sen. Gail Griffin does not like ‘Mexican’

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State Senator Gail Griffin (R-Heber) from LD 14 is a major piece of work.

Earlier this year she floated the idea of stealing a big chunk of Pima County and handing it over to Santa Cruz County because some local teabaggers wanted to secede from Pima County. Also, Pima County objects to the proposed Rosemont Mine, which Griffin denied was a motivating factor, but no serious person believes her denial.

This week Griffin’s bills to thumb her nose at the federal “guvmint” and to challenge the protected endangered species status of Mexican gray wolves are coming up for a vote in the House. As Craig McDermott posted earlier today:

LOBOMEXICANO– SB1211, allowing the AZ Department of Agriculture and “livestock operators” to kill Mexican wolves, under certain circumstances, and imposing reporting requirements on the reintroduction of Mexican wolves into the wild in AZ (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources, Monday, 2 p.m., HHR4)

– SB1212, appropriating $250K to the AZ Attorney General’s office to pay for litigation against the reintroduction of Mexican wolves into Arizona (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources)

– SCR1006, a resolution using many words to state that the legislature doesn’t like Mexican wolves.  What a surprise (House Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources)

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A shameful day in the U.S. Senate

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BlindJusticeAttorneys are not supposed to be judged by the crimes of their clients. In the United States, we believe that everyone accused of a crime, no matter how heinous,  is entitled to a legal defense by competent legal counsel.

We believe in this so much that we made it the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the Bill of Rights.

A majority of the U.S. Senate failed this fundamental principle today. Seven Democratic senators shamed themselves and their oath to uphold the Constitution by joining with Tea-Publican senators, whom are incapable of being shamed, to defeat the nomination of Debo Adegbile as an assistant attorney general.

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Tea-Publican assault on Common Core, school vouchers, and more

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education_appleBefore anyone starts to panic over Cap’n Al and his Tea Party pals killing Common Core education standards in Arizona, Senate approves ban on Common Core standards, let’s make some salient points.

Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal supports the Common Core standards, and last September proposed renaming the standards to quiet down the black helicopters caucus of the Tea Party that sees everything as a federal “guvmint” conspiracy by that secret Muslim Kenyan in the White House who wants to indoctrinate their children with godless communism, or some such nonsense.

(The Common Core standards were developed by the bipartisan National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It was only after President Obama said, “sure, give it a try” that the black helicopters caucus of the Tea Party assigned evil intent to the standards.)

Governor Jan Brewer also supports the Common Core standards and went along with Huppenthal’s scheme to rename the standards by issuing an executive order last September renaming the standards the”Arizona’s College and Career Ready Standards.”

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