Legislators in the Knesset gave initial approval to a law that would make it a crime to deny the right of Israel to exist — mandating a year in prison for such an exercise of free speech.
Continue reading “Israel Moves To Criminalize Statements Against Israel’s Right to Exist”
Category: Constitutional Law
Theodore B. Olson, the U.S. solicitor general under Bush and his lawyer in Bush v. Gore, and David Boies, who represented former vice president Al Gore in that case, have joined forces to challenge Proposition 8 in federal court after this week’s loss in the California state court system.
Continue reading “Olson and Bois Team Up on Proposition 8 Challenge”
What happen when you hold a trial and the police are the ones who take the Fifth? That question was answered by Cook County Circuit Judge Clayton Crane who ordered a new trial for Gangster Disciple member Cortez Brown, who alleged that he was forced to confess during beatings in custody.
While buried by the news of the Sotomayor nomination, yesterday was a disappointing day for many of us who favor same-sex marriage. The California Supreme Court voted 6-1 to uphold Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. The only good news for couples is that the Court ruled that the 18,000 unions licensed before the proposition would not be invalidated.
President Obama has selected Judge Sonia Sotomayor of United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She has an inspiring life story and gave a moving speech at the White House. She is not the intellectual powerhouse that many academics had hoped for. However, many nominees did not find their voices until after years of service on the Court. I discussed the nomination on this segment of Countdown. [For an update on debunking conservative and liberal attacks in this debate, click here]
Continue reading “The President’s Pick: A Review of Sonia Sotomator’s Rulings”
The late Rev. Jerry Falwell always insisted that he spoke for “the moral majority.” However, it appears that his university, Liberty University, is equally interested in silencing what they consider to be the “immoral minority.” The school this week shutdown the the Liberty University College Democrats as inimical to their moral mission. The Republican Student organization was retained.
Continue reading “The Price of Liberty: University Bans Democratic Student Organization on Morality Grounds”
A French judge has ordered a magazine off newsstands for publishing a photo of a Jewish man Ilan Halimi, who was allegedly tortured to death. The alleged culprits are facing trial. Judge Phillipe Jean-Draeher based his decision on the “exceptional” attack by Choc magazine on the feelings of Halimi’s mother and sisters.
Continue reading “French Judge Censors Magazine to Protect Feelings of Family in Torture Case”
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has claimed another American hero. Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an F-15E Strike Eagle with nine Air Medals, including one for valor for assaulting an Iraqi ambush position while under heavy anti-aircraft fire has been discharged for liking men instead of women.
Continue reading “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Hero Pilot Discharged for Being Gay”
Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, have disappeared in the wake of losing the court fight to block chemotherapy needed to save Daniel’s life. He is suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and an x-ray on Monday showed that the tumor had grown.
Continue reading “Minnesota Mom Flees with Ailing Son To Avoid Chemotherapy”
We have seen a number of cases on this blog where prosecutors fought efforts by prisoners to obtain DNA tests that might prove their innocence — only to be proven innocent once the tests were performed. Prosecutors are rarely denounced for these reprehensible efforts. The story in the New York Times indicates that prosecutors are continuing to oppose such testing even in states that passed new laws guaranteeing such testing.
Continue reading “Prosecutors Still Opposing DNA Access for Prisoners Despite New Laws”
The Frisco Independent School District in Texas was faced with complaints about Gideon volunteers hanging around outside of schools to pass out bibles to children. They solved the problem by inviting them into the school where free bibles are now made available to the students — a move that has caused some parents to object.
Continue reading “Texas School District Resolves Controversy Over Christian Groups Distributing Bibles Outside of Schools By Inviting Them Inside”
CIA Director Leon Panetta struck back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi today in a memorandum to CIA employees saying that she was fully and truthfully briefed in 2002. He indirectly accuses Pelosi of “making hay out” of the CIA and misrepresenting her briefing for political purposes. I discussed the Pelosi story last night on this segment of Countdown.
Continue reading “Haymaker: Panetta Contradicts Pelosi and Says That She Was Fully Briefed”
President Barack Obama continued his replication of the Bush policies today with the disclosure that he will now restart the controversial Bush tribunal system — now to be called the Obama tribunal system. This follows Obama’s adoption of an even more extreme theory of executive privilege in court, the reversal of the decision to comply with a court order and turn over abuse photographs, the continuing effort to extinguish dozens of public interest lawsuits on privacy violations, and the proposed adoption of the Bush policy of holding detainees indefinitely without trial, here. In the meantime, he and Attorney General Eric Holder continue to block the appointment of a special prosecutor despite mounting evidence of war crimes committed by the prior administration. I will be discussing these recent developments tonight on Countdown.
Continue reading “Bush 2.0: Obama To Continue Military Tribunals”
A former high-ranking state department official has come forward with the explosive report that then Vice President Dick Cheney called for the torture of an Iraqi prisoner to establish a link between al Qaeda and Iraq in the midst of the political controversy over the misrepresentations that led to the Iraq invasion. Cheney was one of the main figures pushing this justification, which was found based on false intelligence. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, adds yet another piece of evidence that the torture program was not based on a “ticking bomb” justification and was not based on the faux legal opinions of lawyers like Judge Jay Bybee and Professor John Yoo.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has continued her effort to explain past statements on torture and her failure to act to stop a war crime after she was briefed on the torture program. After being contradicted by both documents and one of her aides, Pelosi has now accused CIA officials misleading her in 2002.
Continue reading “Pelosi Now Claims That She Was Misled By CIA”