Judge Elia Cornejo Lopez has been accused by Texas lawyer Nat C. Perez of a rather unique form of abuse: cookie coercion. Perez has filed an unusual motion for recusal that lists, among other complaints, Lopez’s alleged pressure on Perez to buy her daughter’s girl scout cookies. He suggests that a couple boxes of “Thanks-a-lot” would go a long way with Lopez and that he refusal meant he could not “Tag-a-long” in cases. . . but he did get a judicial “Shoutout”
Continue reading “Thanks-A-Lot: Texas Attorney Accuses Judge of Pressuring Him To Buy Girl Scout Cookie”
Category: Politics
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has struck down the graphic warning images on cigarette packages in an important opinion on corporate speech rights. I have been a long critic of the images on both constitutional and policy grounds. Previously the Sixth Circuit rejected the same free speech claims.
Continue reading “Graphic Cigarette Labels Struck Down By D.C. Circuit”
You may recall how recently an array of high ranking Israeli officials in the Netanyahu government, including National Security Council head Ya’akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, briefed ultra-Orthodox rabbi and Shas leader Ovadia Yosef on the proposed war with Iran in the hopes of receiving his blessing. Both the war (which Netanyahu reportedly wants before the U.S. presidential election) and the need to get nod from a religious leader were criticized, including by some of us who noted the extreme views of Yosef. Now, Yosef has called upon Jews to pray for the death of Iranians and the destruction of the nation of Iran. Now we have spiritual leaders is both countries calling on God to annihilate whole countries as examples of divine and moral justice.
Continue reading “Leading Israeli Rabbi Calls For The Death of Iranians and Destruction of Iran”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
According to Huffington Post, the following 2010 interview that Michael D. Higgins, the current president of Ireland, did with Boston conservative radio talk show host Michael Graham went viral recently.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Judith Jarvis Thomson, professor emeritus at MIT, provides some interesting thought experiments in her article entitled In Defense of Abortion. Thomson acknowledges the problem of determining the particular moment during gestation when a fetus becomes a human being, so she starts by granting that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. From there, the argument usually goes that, since every person has a right to life, a fetus has a right to life. The fetus’s right to life supersedes the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Rep. Todd Akin, Republican senatorial candidate from Missouri: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” Now you can buy a bottle to collect these vital toxins.
“Unless you’ve been in a soundproof booth for the past three days (lucky you), you’ve probably heard a lot about this mysterious chemical that women can produce on demand to prevent them from becoming pregnant. For centuries, women have, according to anti-choicers, been able to ward off becoming impregnated by their rapists by emitting this substance during their rape. Despite being a miracle of science and biology, we’ve never known its name.”
H/T: Pharyngula.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The issues discussed on this blog are wide-ranging even though at base we are all about upholding the Constitution and ensuring civil liberties. The disputed election of a President began this millennium in controversy, underlined by a horrific terrorist attack and the prosecution of two unnecessary wars. These wars have lasted longer than any other American war save for the Viet Nam debacle. They have resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians, more than eight thousand of our troops, tens of thousands of soldiers with crippling injuries and unprecedented suicide rates among both active and inactive members of our armed forces. Trillions of dollars have been wasted on these adventures in the imperialistic pursuit of empire and no end is in sight, although our complicit corporate media has ceased to find interest in coverage of the continuing devastation.
As we know the linchpin for these phony wars was the attack on 9/11 by a team of Saudi Arabians purportedly working for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. However, the blueprint for this endless quest for America Hegemony was made public in 1997 with the publishing of the manifesto for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century . This conceptualization laid out plans for a putative American Empire and its’ signatories prominently included those who would become part of the administration of George W. Bush. A list of those signatories will continue after the page break, with the most prominent in bold links. Continue reading “Lest We Forget”
Prince Harry’s latest drunken escapade is now laid out for hundreds of millions to see in all of his naked glory . . . except for people in England. The Royal family moved quickly to effectively bar British newspapers from publishing the photos under the English libel laws, which I have criticized in the past as both draconian and restrictive of free speech. Now the Sun is bucking the effective order from the palace and now running the photos. In the meantime, millions of Brits were able to see the photos barred in newspapers but simply turning on their computers.
Lubbock County Judge Tom Head is opposed to the reelection of Barack Obama but does not simply confined his objections to unemployment or civil liberties or those mundane political concerns. Head has called for a tax increase to prepare for “civil war” if Obama is elected. He insists that Obama is planning to turn over the United States to the United Nations in this second term. He wants to prepare Lubbock for the invasion of United Nations troops as well as the riots and demonstrations that are likely to occur following the reelection of Obama.
It could be the homosexual version of the Tawana Brawley case. In Lincoln, Nebraska, former University of Nebraska women’s basketball star Charlie Rogers crawled to a neighbor’s house covered in blood with anti-gay slurs of “dyke” and “c*nt” curved into her skin. Her case became a rallying point for the community which is debating a “fairness ordinance” to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. However police now say that she faked the attack.
Continue reading “Lesbian In Nebraska Charged With Allegedly Faking Anti-Homosexual Attack”
Despite the harsh conditions for women living under the Sharia laws, Iran has a long history of highly educated women. Indeed, women have been outnumbering men three to one in entrance exams — and outperformed men in many tests. Iranian clerics have mandated a new policy that will surely wipe out that deficiency among men: they are effectively barring women from dozens of degree programs and universities as a whole in some cases. It is a devastating blow for women’s rights and will lock millions of women into lives of subjugation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly wants to attack Iran before the U.S. elections. If true, it is a demonstration of the predictability of U.S. politics. Netanyahu knows that both Romney and Obama are seeking the support of Jewish voters and would be less likely to denounce such a unilateral attack before November. Indeed, they might even help fund the war with additional U.S. loans and military support. What is equally bizarre is the scene of top Israeli officials going to the ranking Rabbi in Israel to get his approval for the attacks. We are accustomed to seeing such influence by religious figures in Iran, but officials have been shuttling back and forth to get the nod from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
While Rep. Akin may have doomed Republican efforts in retaking the U.S. Senate, a Minnesota state representative may have done the same for Democrats in that state. Rep. Kerry Gauthier, 56, has admitted to having a liaison with a 17-year-old boy at a rest stop but insists that it was all perfectly legal since the boy was over 16 years old. The thing that struck me as the most interesting is his claim that it is not a crime to have sex at a rest stop in Minnesota.
Some strategists believe that Rep. Todd Akin may have not only saved the most unpopular Democrat in the U.S. Senate but could well have kept the Senate in Democratic hands. It is too early to tell, but Akin yesterday let the deadline pass for withdrawal without a court order and refused to yield to demands from leading Republicans that he drop out. He appears hoping that the Republicans in the state would prefer to send a man viewed internationally as a dysfunctional moron rather than accept six more years with McCaskill. What is even more disturbing, however, is Akin’s view of his own conduct. In refusing to leave the race, Akin said that he simply mad a bad choice in using “one word in one sentence on one day.”
Continue reading “Akin: I Just Used One Word Incorrectly”
Massachusetts Judge Cheryl Ann Jacques is facing a bizarre misdemeanor larceny charge for allegedly misrepresenting the features of a combination crib-and-playpen set she sold on Craigslist. Jacques, 50 sold the Graco Pack ’n Play to Tracey Christopher, 39, for $75. It sells for roughly $150 new. Christopher insisted that there were parts missing but that Jacques refused to return her money. On both this allegation and a prior ethics charge, the level of scrutiny does not appear (in my view) justified by the underlying allegations.