OPINION - Secession, Those Who Did Not Learn From U.S. Civil War

"And behold, our 51st and 52nd states" by Laura Conaway, Maddow Blog 9/4/2013

Yesterday in Siskiyou County, California, the board of supervisors voted to issue a declaration of secession from the rest of California.  The far-northern county wants to be known as the free state of Jefferson, a land removed from "loony California" and uniting non-loony counties now languishing there and in Oregon (see map at right, not including the Southern California and Nevada counties they'd like to recruit).

Seceding from a state and forming a new one requires the approval of the both the original state and the U.S. Congress.  It's almost impossible.  Siskiyou County supervisors voted 4-1 to get out of California anyway.  The Redding Record-Searchlight relays this from the meeting:

"Many proposed laws are unconstitutional and deny us our God-given rights," said Gabe Garrison of Happy Camp.  "We need our own state so we can make laws that fit our way of life."

The State of Jefferson would be our 52nd state, the 51st being the now-aborning North Colorado.  In both cases, organizers say their desire to secede stems from the conviction that rural values and rural needs are not represented well in state capitals they consider urban-centric.

It's apparently an appealing frustration.  The map for the Colorado-based 51st State Initiative has been growing.  Marked in blue below are counties where leader Jeffrey Hare says citizens or officials have shown "significant "support.  Yellow is for counties where people are actively working on secession.  Green is for counties that already have some kind of popular vote scheduled or have joined the working group.  White is for counties in Kansas that might want to come over.  And red is for Boulder and Denver, a/k/a not interested.

State of North Colorado

EGYPT - New Constitution Update

"Egypt Divided as New Constitution Takes Effect" PBS Newshour 12/26/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi signed into law a highly-debated Islamist-backed constitution. Margaret Warner reports.

"Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to NewsHour: Use Democratic Process Not Protests" PBS Newshour 12/26/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei told the NewsHour that Egypt's new constitution denied basic human values. On Wednesday, a member of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood party responded. Margaret Warner speaks to Waleed El Haddad about how the constitution outlines protection of rights and the country's economic crisis.

EGYPT - The New 'Islamic' Constitution Approved

"As Charter Nears Passage, Egyptians Face New Fights" by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MAYY EL SHEIKH, New York Times 12/22/2012

Excerpt

An Islamist-backed constitution appeared headed for approval on Saturday, propelling Egypt’s deeply divided political factions into a new phase in the battle over the country’s future.

As millions went to the polls for the final round of a referendum, all sides predicted that the charter would win approval, marking an important milestone in Egypt’s chaotic two-year transition to democracy. By late Saturday, results from over 60 percent of the polling places put the “yes” vote at more than 70 percent, according to the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the hastily drafted document leaves unresolved many questions about the character of that democracy, including the Islamists’ commitment to individual freedoms and their opposition’s willingness to accept the results of the political process without recourse to violent street protests.

The charter’s path to the referendum has also taken Egypt to the brink of civil strife, exposing the alienation of the Christian minority, the political opposition’s refusal to negotiate and the Muslim Brotherhood’s willingness to rely on authoritarian tactics.

How those tensions are managed and the new constitution is put into effect will determine whether Egypt returns to stability or plunges further into discord, and much of the region is watching the outcome of that definitive Arab Spring revolt.

Neither supporters nor opponents of the charter said they expected an immediate end to the partisan feuding that has torn at the country in the month before the vote.

The Islamists allied with President Mohamed Morsi said they intended to rebuild trust by using the new charter as a tool to battle remnants of former President Hosni Mubarak’s government. Old laws and prosecutors, the Islamists say, are protecting loyalists and holdovers while they obstruct change from within the bureaucracy and conspire with the opposition to stir up unrest. Leaders of the anti-Islamist opposition, however, said they hoped to carry the momentum of their struggle against the draft constitution into the parliamentary elections set to be held two months from now. They accused the Islamists of using the specter of a struggle against remnants of Mr. Mubarak’s government as a pretext to demonize the opposition and take over the machinery of the state.

“If we accept the legitimacy of working within the system, they have to agree that the opposition is legitimate,” said Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak and a presidential candidate who has re-emerged as an opposition leader during the constitutional debate. “The ancient regime is finished. They are imagining things. They are imagining that if you say no to the constitution, as I have done, then you are part of a conspiracy to topple them.”

Both sides of the ideological divide appeared to dig in.

“A crack has emerged in Egypt; there’s a gap, there’s blood and deaths, there’s extremism,” said Ahmed Maher, who helped jump-start the revolution as a leader of the secular April 6 Youth Group and then served as a delegate in the constituent assembly that wrote a draft of the charter. “Something has happened between Egyptians that would make the results bad no matter what the outcome” of the constitutional vote, he said, predicting further clashes before the parliamentary elections.

EGYPT - Work on New Constitution

"With Deadline Looming, Islamist-Led Egyptian Assembly Works on Constitution" PBS Newshour 11/29/2012

Excerpt

SUMMARY: Jeffrey Brown talks to the New York Times' David Kirkpatrick about the progress of Egypt's Constitutional Assembly to wrap up work on the new Egyptian constitution before its deadline after many secular and liberal representatives have walked away from drawing table, leaving Islamists to create the road map for Egypt's future.

EGYPT - Military Power-Grab via Supreme Constitutional Court

"Blow to Transition as Court Dissolves Egypt’s Parliament" by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times 6/14/2012

Excerpt

A panel of judges appointed by Egypt’s ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, threw the nation’s troubled transition to democracy into grave doubt Thursday with rulings that dissolved the popularly elected Parliament and allowed the toppled government’s last prime minister to run for president, escalating a struggle by remnants of the old elite to block Islamists from coming to power.

The rulings by Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court were quickly condemned as a “coup” by Islamists, liberals and scholars. The court’s action, coming two days before a presidential runoff, set up a showdown with the Islamists who controlled Parliament. They said Thursday night that they refused to dissolve the legislature and vowed to win the presidency despite the signs of opposition within the government overseeing the vote.

The rulings recalled events that have played out across the region for decades, when secular elites have cracked down on Islamists poised for electoral gains, most famously when the dissolution of Algeria’s Islamist-led Parliament started a civil war 20 years ago.

Citing a misapplication of rules for independent candidates, the court sought to overturn the first democratically elected Parliament in more than six decades and the most significant accomplishment of the Egyptian revolt. Many analysts and activists said Thursday that they feared the decision was a step toward re-establishing a military-backed autocracy, though it was not yet clear whether the military leadership was willing to risk a new outbreak of unrest by suppressing the country’s most powerful political forces.

The streets were mostly quiet on Thursday as organizers digested the rulings. Activists met to plot a response, and some groups announced plans for a major demonstration on Friday night.

The military rulers did not issue a statement on the court’s decision. But the Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram reported that the generals said the presidential runoff would still take place on schedule.

“From a democratic perspective, this is the worst possible outcome imaginable,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “This is an all-out power grab by the military.”

The timing of the ruling seems like a transparent attempt to undermine the Islamists just two days before Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood is set to compete in the runoff against Ahmed Shafik, a former air force general and Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister.

If the ruling is carried out, whoever wins the presidential race would take power without the check of a sitting Parliament and could exercise significant influence over the elections to form a new one. The new president will also take office without a permanent constitution to define his powers or duties. A 100-member constitutional assembly appointed by Parliament and including dozens of lawmakers may also be dissolved. And in any event, the ruling generals are expected to issue their own interim charter during the drafting.

Electing a president without either a constitution or a parliament is like “electing an ‘emperor’ with more power than the deposed dictator. A travesty,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning diplomat and former presidential candidate, said in a comment online.

"Security Forces Surround Parliament in Egypt, Escalating Tensions" by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times 6/15/2012

Excerpt

Egypt’s military rulers formally dissolved Parliament Friday, state media reported, and security forces were stationed around the building on orders to bar anyone, including lawmakers, from entering the chambers without official notice.

The developments, reported on the Web site of the official newspaper Al Ahram, further escalated tensions over court rulings on Thursday that invalidated modern Egypt’s first democratically elected legislature. Coming on the eve of a presidential runoff, they thrust the nation’s troubled transition to democracy since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year into grave doubt.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that dominates the Parliament, has said it disputes the court’s ruling and its authority to dissolve the legislature. Saad el Katatni, the Brotherhood-picked Parliament speaker, accused the military-led government on Friday of orchestrating the ruling.

The authorities set up checkpoints overnight and contingents of riot police were moving around the city to prepare for any disturbances.

As of midday the streets remained relatively quiet. Mindful of the sweltering sun, organizers called for a demonstration later, just hours before the polls are expected to open for the presidential runoff on Saturday.

POLITICS - The Birth Control Battleground

"Can White House, Religious Leaders, GOP Reach Consensus on Birth Control?"
PBS Newshour 2/9/012


Excerpts

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): The mandate is based on recommendations from the U.S. Institute of Medicine study that showed reproductive health services without co-pays leads to better women's health.
----
RAY SUAREZ: It sounds like you want something even broader, not just for the colleges and universities and hospitals, but even Catholic employers.

ANTHONY PICARELLO, general counsel, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: Well, yes, because the principle here is that of religious liberty. And it's not only religious employers that are entitled to religious liberty under the Constitution.

So all of those should be protected. They should not be put in this situation in the first place. They shouldn't be required by the government to provide, through sponsorship and subsidy, benefits that are offensive to their moral beliefs.

RAY SUAREZ: Jill Warren, is there a middle ground? Is there a position that you can contemplate that gets Mr. Picarello more of what he wants, without giving away something that you view as essential?

JILL WARREN, executive director, Methodist Federation for Social Action: The issue for me is that it's not about a religious exemption or creating some sort of compromise position. It's a position of health care and health care policy. And that is different than religion.

And even though I am part of a religious nonprofit, the United Methodist Church and the Methodist Federation for Social Action, we don't see this in any way as a religious issue. So, for me, in answer to your question, the compromise that might be sought by the Roman Catholic tradition isn't one that is of the best public good for all of us that would be covered by this policy.
----
RAY SUAREZ: . . . where does conscience attach at the nexus of three different entities, insurers, employers and the ensured, who all may want different things?

JILL WARREN: That's right. Yes, that's right.

I think that one of the points that I would like to make in our conversation is that we have a choice about what insurance we choose, whether we choose a sectarian plan or we choose a public plan, or whether we choose no plan at all, or even have access to health care as an insurance option in the first place.

So, as an individual, I can choose what health plan I might most benefit from. I think, in this case, there are insurers, as Anthony has mentioned, and there are hospitals, but they are -- there are already exemptions for conscience clauses. And there are sectarian organizations who don't have to provide these services in the first place.

Good arguments from both sides.

I side with "it's a health care issue." Especially since (as stated) there are already existing exemptions. BUT I do have an issue with an individual employer/owners of a NON-RELIGIOUS company imposing religious views on employees. An owner of a local hardware store who is Catholic (or any other religion) should NOT impose his personal religious beliefs on employees.

The counter-argument would be, those who do not agree with the owner "need not apply." But that is limiting employment to the community which should not be, especially in today's job market.

To put this in another way, the religious beliefs of an employee should NOT be a prerequisite for employment in a company not run by a religious organization.

SUPREME COURT - Tracking With GPS Needs Warrant, Sometimes

"Want to Use a GPS-Tracking Device? Get a Warrant, Supreme Court Tells Police" PBS Newshour 1/23/2012

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): In 2005, police secretly attached a GPS device to a Jeep owned by Antoine Jones, a Washington, D.C., nightclub owner. Information gathered from tracking his movements eventually helped bring about his conviction for cocaine trafficking.

Today, though, the Supreme Court ruled the police action was a violation of the Constitution. The decision itself was unanimous, but the justices were divided in their reasoning, as they grappled with tricky issues of law, technology and privacy.

CALIFORNIA - Gun Open Carry Issue

"New handgun regulation faces federal lawsuit" by Ryan Gabrielson, California Watch 1/4/2012

A new California law that prohibits the carrying of an unloaded handgun in public already is under legal attack.

Charles Nichols, a Redondo Beach resident, filed a lawsuit late last year in federal court against the state seeking to overturn restrictions on where he can display a handgun.

AB 144, which took effect this week, expands California’s firearm regulations to prohibit people from openly carrying an unloaded handgun outside of a person’s home or vehicle. It already was illegal to publicly carry a loaded handgun.

Nichols’ complaint contends that such state laws violate the Second Amendment, protecting the right to keep and bear arms for personal safety.

California law allows handgun owners to openly carry their weapons only when they are in imminent danger.

Handgun restrictions have been at higher risk of reversal since 2008, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down strict regulations on the weapons in Washington, D.C.

California’s restrictions should face a similar fate as those of the nation’s capital, Nichols argues in the lawsuit. “By banning fully functional, loaded handguns from being openly carried for the purpose of self-defense, (California’s statute) is a more restrictive ban than the law struck down in (Washington) as unconstitutional,” he wrote.

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, wrote AB 144 and said the law in no way infringes on gun owners’ rights.

“We’re not taking anybody’s right to hunt away, or anybody’s right to be a security guard, or to protect your home,” Portantino said. “But you don’t need a gun to buy a cheeseburger or to buy a cup of coffee.”

The legislator described the measure as closing a loophole in state law, which previously regulated handguns only when they contained bullets. A person could openly display a handgun if the ammunition was in a jacket pocket.

This scenario alarmed police across the state, who received calls to check unconcealed weapons in public, Portantino said. The California Police Chiefs Association supported the legislation.

“The problem was caused by the proliferation of unnecessary display of weapons,” Portantino said.

Advocates for openly carrying firearms contend that state and local governments are reaching beyond their discretion with AB 144 and similar laws.

Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and expert in firearm regulations, said the gun-rights crowd has a point. According to the Supreme Court’s ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, “the right to keep and bear arms includes a right not just to possess guns, but also to bear them in the sense of carry them,” Volokh said.

However, the federal courts have upheld regulation of concealed weapons, which require a special permit in much of the country.

California’s concealed weapons permitting process varies by location and is operated by county sheriffs or city police departments. In his complaint, Nichols cites his difficultly in obtaining a concealed weapon permit as further justification for openly carrying a handgun.

In the 19th century, Volokh said, the public viewed concealed weapons with suspicion. Now, people prefer not seeing firearms.

“By today’s standards, carrying openly is seen as an in-your-face sort of act in a way that carrying concealed is not,” he said.

This is a case where I can see both side of the issue as pertinent.

SUPREME COURT - Warrantless GPS Tracking

"Supreme Court Hears Landmark GPS Tracking Case" PBS Newshour 11/8/2011

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Now we turn to the high-profile case before the Supreme Court today, where the justices questioned if the government can track a suspect using a GPS device without a warrant. At the heart of the case is an individual's constitutionally protected privacy in today's high-tech world of real-time surveillance.

Here now to bring us the highlights from today's oral arguments is Marcia Coyle of "The National Law Journal."

Welcome back, Marcia.

MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal: Thanks, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, tell us first the facts of the case.

MARCIA COYLE: OK.

The police and the FBI attached a GPS tracking device to the undercarriage of Antoine Jones' car. Jones was a suspected drug dealer. They didn't have a warrant. They monitored the movement of the car 24 hours per day for 28 days. Some of the information gathered was used to convict him of conspiracy to deal drugs.

A federal appellate court later reversed his conviction, finding that the use of the GPS device without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

More excerpts

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, it sounds like today, from what I read, the justices were asking a lot of questions.

MARCIA COYLE: It was a very active argument. It was the government that brought the appeal to the Supreme Court, since they lost below.

And Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben, representing the government, told the justices that earlier Supreme Court cases have said there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when you travel on public roads. The GPS device, he said, exposed nothing that wasn't already exposed to anyone who cared to look at this car.

And he also said it was no different than if the police had assigned 10 agents to tail Jones' car for 24 hours a day for a month.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how did the justices response to this line of argument?

MARCIA COYLE: The justices -- a number of the justices seemed very uncomfortable with how far the government's argument went.

Justice Breyer, for example, said, if you win, you would be able to monitor the movements of every citizen in the United States, and that suggests sort of an Orwellian, "1984" scenario. So he pressed -- and so did the other justices -- pressed the government on what protection is there here from something like that happening?

And Mr. Dreeben said, well, there are other constitutional principles that can come into play if there are abuses or if the court is afraid that something is chilled here. There's the First Amendment. There's equal protection.

But he said, we're not talking about monitoring every citizen. This is a case where police were monitoring a suspected drug dealer.
----
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, finally, Marcia, what's -- the sense is, what, that the justices could draw a line, privacy, high-tech device, that they could choose to draw that narrowly, broadly? What?

MARCIA COYLE: They could. There is a narrow way to solve this -- or resolve the case. And that is just to look at the attachment of the GPS device, was that a seizure, and not deal with the more complicated issue of search and reasonable expectations of privacy in the world today.

I thought Justice Alito had a -- really hit the nail on the head when he said, before the Internet age, our sense of -- much of our privacy resulted from difficulty in traveling and gathering information. But with computers, you can now amass a huge amount of information. He said, so what now? Is everything fair game? Or where are the limits?

And that's what the justices have to juggle. Where -- or is there a limit? Is there a line to draw?

My personal view is in agreement with the government view....

• There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public setting, like driving down a public road (or walking)
  


• Using a GPS is no different than having LEOs tailing a suspect


• In this particular case, the suspect is a known criminal with a record

....but there does HAVE to be a legal reason to tail ANY citizen, with or without a GPS.

POLITICS - House Tea-Party's Non-Negotiable Terrorist Demand

"Shields and Gerson on Debt Bill Scramble, Reid's Next Moves" PBS Newshour 7/29/2011

Note: Gerson represents the conservative voice, Shields is the liberal voice

Excerpts from transcript

MICHAEL GERSON, Washington Post columnist: Well, I think it would be fascinating, if it weren't so frightening.

We have a situation where about 10 percent of the Republican Caucus in the House wanted to humiliate their own speaker in order to get a vote on a balanced budget amendment that is symbolic and completely irrelevant to the process. I think that's a sign of weakness on the Republican part.
----
JIM LEHRER (Editor, Newshour): Explain -- pick up on what you said earlier. Just explain it one more time, while this whole constitutional amendment thing is symbolic and it will have no effect at all on anything we're talking about now, that they're talking about.

MICHAEL GERSON: No, I completely agree with that.

You're instructing the Senate. The House is instructing the Senate to have a two-thirds vote in order to get a future increase in the debt deal for a constitutional amendment. I don't think you can instruct the Senate to do a two-thirds vote on the sun rising in the east effectively. They're not going to accept that under any circumstance. And so it was entirely symbolic.

JIM LEHRER: And that, even if they did get that vote, it then has to go to the -- there's a long process to amend the Constitution of the United States.

REMINDER: Constitutional Amendments require ratification by 3/4 of the States (Article V)

MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: It's illusionary. It's -- they're kidding themselves.

But it's a fig leaf that -- to bring on conservatives who are against the original plan, to give them sort of a rationale that they could go back to their people and say, we got this balanced budget.

Jim, it doesn't even say -- it doesn't say what the balanced budget amendment is. It says a joint resolution called a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It doesn't say what it is, whether it requires a two-thirds vote, as one of the proposed ones did. To raise any taxes at all, a two-thirds vote would be required.

So it's ludicrous, if it weren't so reckless. We're trifling right now with the well-being of the United States economy, which is in tough shape, and with the good faith and credit of this country, which has never been tampered with in 222 years.
----

MICHAEL GERSON: Yes, Congress would have to vote against it.

So I think that the elements of a deal are here. You know, the problem from my perspective is, this is the easy stuff, because it doesn't deal with taxes, because it doesn't deal with entitlements. The question is -- it doesn't even solve the deficit problem. But it's been such a problem just to get the easy stuff.

The question is that the rating agencies, the credit rating agencies and others have, can they do the harder stuff right down the road? That, I think, is the real difficulty.

MARK SHIELDS: One of the things that hasn't been addressed, Jim, is -- and Republicans stand guilty of this, quite frankly -- this is the first time anybody has ever done this with the -- raising the debt ceiling.

JIM LEHRER: Use it to do...

MARK SHIELDS: Use it as a non-negotiable terrorist demand. And if anybody...

JIM LEHRER: Non-negotiable terrorist demand?

MARK SHIELDS: That's essentially -- that's essentially what was done in the House of Representatives.

If you put a penny...

JIM LEHRER: Paul Krugman in The New York Times this morning called it extortion.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, if you put a penny of revenue, a penny of revenue, if you even suggest that a registered nurse in an emergency room and a New York firefighter shouldn't pay taxes twice the rate of a hedge fund manager, we leave. We're not going to be a party to that. That's -- that's basically where they were.

But more important than that, to use this vehicle, to think this is only a one-time precedent and that next time that there's a Democratic Congress and a Republican president that this isn't going to be used again vengefully, I mean, you talk about the poisoning of the Washington well, this does it in spades.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree; the well is poisoned beyond...

MICHAEL GERSON: I think it helps poison the well.

Reference made in video: "The stranglehold on domestic policy" by Michael Gerson, Washington Post 7/28/2011

SUPREME COURT - California Video Game Law

"Citing Violence in Fairy Tales, Justices Strike Down Calif. Video Game Law" PBS Newshour Transcript 6/27/2011

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The Supreme Court ended its term today with a pair of major decisions that turned on the constitutional right to free speech. By 7-2, they agreed to throw out a California statute that banned the sale and rental of violent video games to minors. Supporters of the law argued that the games allow children to simulate grotesque acts of violence.

But the video game industry said the games should be treated like any other form of entertainment. The court also struck down a provision of Arizona's campaign finance system that provides extra money to publicly funded candidates when they face well-funded rivals.

Joining us now to discuss the court's final rulings of the session is NewsHour regular Marcia Coyle of "The National Law Journal."

Marcia, starting with this California statute that was tossed out, give us the genesis of this.

MARCIA COYLE, "The National Law Journal": OK.

California passed the law 2005 that prohibited the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. And a violent video game, they defined, was one that gave the player the option of killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting a human image.

It also lacked -- would lack any serious literacy, artistic, political, or scientific value and would appeal to a minor's morbid or deviant interests.

GWEN IFILL: Well, how do all of those things -- that sounds pretty awful.

(LAUGHTER)

GWEN IFILL: How does killing, maiming, dismembering, and sexual assault fit under the rubric of free speech protection?

MARCIA COYLE: Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for a 7-2 majority today.

And he said, basically, California was asking the court to create a new category of unprotected speech. The court has found unprotected speech in only a handful of cases, things like obscenity, fighting words. He said that there was no long history or tradition in this country of prescribing minors' access to violent content.

And he gave as an example Grimm's fairy tales, which he said were grim indeed. And he said, for example, Cinderella's three evil step-sisters had their eyes plucked out by doves. Hansel and Gretel got rid of their captor by baking her in an oven.

GWEN IFILL: But the reader of those books didn't actually pick up a virtual gun and pluck out the eyes of Cinderella's sisters. So -- so, you -- what's in these games that we're talking about. They're very -- probably, anybody with a teenager at home is familiar with them.

MARCIA COYLE: Right. Right.

What's in the -- exactly in the games?

GWEN IFILL: Yes. I mean, what, shooting, running blood?

MARCIA COYLE: There is everything. There's shooting. There's killing. There's rape. There's urinating on women or children.

The next step for Justice Scalia, though, was to say, OK, California, you have this law. In order to pass scrutiny under the First Amendment, there has to be a compelling reason for the law. And the law also has to be narrowly drawn to achieve that interest.

California argued that there were studies showing that you could -- you could link the playing of these violent video games to increased aggression in minors. Justice Scalia said the studies weren't sufficient, that they were conflicting. They were inconclusive.

So there was -- the compelling interest wasn't there. He also said it wasn't narrowly drawn. For example, it was underinclusive. It only singled out violent video games, not violent books, not violent movies. And it was overinclusive. There are actually some minors whose parents don't care if their children have these violent video games. But they were swept in to the prohibition as well.

GWEN IFILL: So, there -- it was 7-2. So there were two dissents.

MARCIA COYLE: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: Who dissented and why?

MARCIA COYLE: The real dissents were by Justice Thomas and Justice Breyer.

Justice Thomas has long believed that the drafters of the First Amendment never envisioned minors having First Amendment rights or access to speech except through parents or guardians. That ended it for him. This law was constitutional.

Justice Breyer felt that there was sufficient evidence here that the court should defer to the legislature's judgment in California, that this law should be upheld. He asked, for example, does it make sense, under the court's precedents, that you can prohibit the sale of a magazine showing nude women to a 13-year-old boy, and yet you're going to protect the sale of a video game in which that same 13-year-old, acting virtually, bind, gag and kill a woman?

There is one inaccurate measure used by Justice Scalia (if the report is accurate), parents who allow their child to have violent video games are NOT effected by the California law. Parents can still buy the game for their child, the law just prohibits sale directly to children.

HUMAN RIGHTS - Homophobic Conservatives LOOSE Big-Time

"New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law" by NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL BARBARO, New York Times 6/24/2011

Excerpt

Lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born.

The marriage bill, whose fate was uncertain until moments before the vote, was approved 33 to 29 in a packed but hushed Senate chamber. Four members of the Republican majority joined all but one Democrat in the Senate in supporting the measure after an intense and emotional campaign aimed at the handful of lawmakers wrestling with a decision that divided their friends, their constituents and sometimes their own homes.

With his position still undeclared, Senator Mark J. Grisanti, a Republican from Buffalo who had sought office promising to oppose same-sex marriage, told his colleagues he had agonized for months before concluding he had been wrong.

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”

Senate approval was the final hurdle for the same-sex marriage legislation, which was approved last week by the Assembly. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the measure at 11:55 p.m., and the law will go into effect in 30 days, meaning that same-sex couples could begin marrying in New York by late July.

Passage of same-sex marriage here followed a daunting run of defeats in other states where voters barred same-sex marriage by legislative action, constitutional amendment or referendum. Just five states currently permit same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia.

At around 10:30 p.m., moments after the vote was announced, Mr. Cuomo strode onto the Senate floor to wave at cheering supporters who had crowded into the galleries to watch. Trailed by two of his daughters, the governor greeted lawmakers, and paused to single out those Republicans who had defied the majority of their party to support the marriage bill.

“How do you feel?” he asked Senator James S. Alesi, a suburban Rochester Republican who voted against the measure in 2009 and was the first to break party ranks this year. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

The approval of same-sex marriage represented a reversal of fortune for gay-rights advocates, who just two years ago suffered a humiliating defeat when a same-sex marriage bill was easily rejected by the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats. This year, with the Senate controlled by Republicans, the odds against passage of same-sex marriage appeared long.

"Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces" by MICHAEL BARBARO, New York Times 6/25/2011

Excerpt

In the 35th-floor conference room of a Manhattan high-rise, two of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s most trusted advisers held a secret meeting a few weeks ago with a group of super-rich Republican donors.

Over tuna and turkey sandwiches, the advisers explained that New York’s Democratic governor was determined to legalize same-sex marriage and would deliver every possible Senate vote from his own party.

Would the donors win over the deciding Senate Republicans? It sounded improbable: top Republican moneymen helping a Democratic rival with one of his biggest legislative goals.

But the donors in the room — the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by the hedge fund managers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb — had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with their more libertarian views.

Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million.

Steve Cohen, the No. 2 in Mr. Cuomo’s office and a participant in the meeting, began to see a path to victory, telling a colleague, “This might actually happen.”

The story of how same-sex marriage became legal in New York is about shifting public sentiment and individual lawmakers moved by emotional appeals from gay couples who wish to be wed.

But, behind the scenes, it was really about a Republican Party reckoning with a profoundly changing power dynamic, where Wall Street donors and gay-rights advocates demonstrated more might and muscle than a Roman Catholic hierarchy and an ineffective opposition.

And it was about a Democratic governor, himself a Catholic, who used the force of his personality and relentlessly strategic mind to persuade conflicted lawmakers to take a historic leap.

“I can help you,” Mr. Cuomo assured them in dozens of telephone calls and meetings, at times pledging to deploy his record-high popularity across the state to protect them in their districts. “I am more of an asset than the vote will be a liability.”

The remainder of the NYT article contains the details of the "closed-door meetings and tactical decisions that led to approval of same-sex marriage."



"After N.Y. Passes Same-Sex Marriage Law, What's Next for Proponents, Foes?"
PBS Newshour 6/27/2011


A blow FOR Human Rights, equal treatment under the law (Constitutional Right), and AGAINST the homophobic conservative movement.

There is no more sacred Human Right than the relationship between consenting adults.

CONSTITUTION - Supported by Mississippi Supreme Court

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
"The Politics of the Pledge"

POLITICS - Libya, War Powers, and Congress

"Libya, War Powers Start White House, Congress on Collision Course" PBS Newshour Transcript 6/15/2011

Excerpt

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Charlie, start us off by explaining some of the pressure that has built up from Congress. Its concern over the scope of the mission, questions of legality. What are you hearing?

CHARLIE SAVAGE, The New York Times: There's definitely been -- as you -- you used the word restive. That's a good word. Increasingly, members of both parties in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, have been asking questions about how is it that the United States has gotten itself involved in this NATO-led air war in Libya, whether the president had the legal authority to do that on his own, whether he still has it now that -- now that it's dragged on under the War Powers Resolution, how much it's costing, who's really on the ground in Libya that we're helping out.

And there was a bipartisan rebuke, as you said, a couple weeks ago in the House. And now yesterday, with this letter from Speaker Boehner, pressure on the legal theory bolstering all this is ramping up.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, there was a response today. You have had a chance to take a look. What -- what are the main arguments?

CHARLIE SAVAGE: Well, the argument that the administration is putting forth is that the War Powers Resolution, which is a 1973 law that says that, if the president has initiated hostilities on his own, without congressional permission, he has to terminate them after 60 days, a deadline that appeared to pass on May 20, that that law doesn't apply to what the U.S. military is doing in Libya.

The constellation of activities that we're doing there, refueling, surveillance, some drone strikes, and other supporting role to our NATO allies, doesn't rise to the level of hostilities, as it -- under that law, because U.S. forces aren't on the ground. The Libyan forces are not returning fire on the U.S. There's not a risk of casualties. And the whole thing is constrained by the U.N. Security Council resolution to a limited mission.

Their argument is an assertive interpretation, to say the least, of this statute. And it will be interesting to see how Congress responds to it.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, well, Jamin Raskin, let me turn to you for some background on this resolution we're talking about. As Charlie said, 1973, comes out of the Vietnam War. What was it intended to do?

JAMIN RASKIN, American University's Washington College of Law: Well, Congress was interested in restraining what it saw as an imperial presidency. And, at that point, of course, it was Richard Nixon. And they saw him as someone who'd been pursuing aggressively, along with prior presidents, an undeclared, unauthorized war in Vietnam.

And the dilemma they saw was that if presidents could get the country into war without a congressional declaration Congress would never be able to pull the country out, because the refrain would be, you have got to support the troops.

So, their thought was, either we should be declaring a war or we will give a limited window, this 60-day window, for the president to initiate hostilities, that it would -- that the president would notify Congress of after 48 hours, and then would have to get out within 60 days unless there was an intervening authorization by Congress of the conflict.

Most presidents have sort of dodged the legal authority of the War Powers Resolution.

JEFFREY BROWN: What does dodged mean?

JAMIN RASKIN: Well...

JEFFREY BROWN: I mean, they have pushed back, they have ignored or pushed...

JAMIN RASKIN: Some have asserted it's unconstitutional.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JAMIN RASKIN: Others have filed reports -- many have filed reports in compliance with it, but they say that it's not pursuant to the War Powers Act, but it's consistent with the War Powers Resolution.

And I noticed that the Obama letter also uses the language about consistency with the War Powers Resolution. But what's interesting to me is that the president today didn't cast doubt on the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. He's doing whatever he can to avoid a head-on collusion with Congress.

He's simply saying that the current conflict doesn't rise to the level of hostilities within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution. And that argument appears to have been worked out by Harold Koh, who is a key lawyer in managing this war effort.

The question becomes, is President Obama conducting a "war" when we have no troops "on the ground" and it's being lead by NATO?

NATIONAL SECURITY - In the Name of, Our Rights Jeopardized

"F.B.I. Agents Get Leeway to Push Privacy Bounds" by CHARLIE SAVAGE, New York Times 6/12/2011

Excerpt

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (opens in new page), according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order.

Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I. general counsel, said the bureau had fixed the problems with the national security letters and had taken steps to make sure they would not recur. She also said the bureau, which does not need permission to alter its manual so long as the rules fit within broad guidelines issued by the attorney general, had carefully weighed the risks and the benefits of each change.

“Every one of these has been carefully looked at and considered against the backdrop of why do the employees need to be able to do it, what are the possible risks and what are the controls,” she said, portraying the modifications to the rules as “more like fine-tuning than major changes.”

Some of the most notable changes apply to the lowest category of investigations, called an “assessment.” The category, created in December 2008, allows agents to look into people and organizations “proactively” and without firm evidence for suspecting criminal or terrorist activity.

Under current rules, agents must open such an inquiry before they can search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database. Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search such databases without making a record about their decision.

Our question, as American citizens, should be "do we trust these guys to observe our Constitutional Rights?"

My answer, NO we cannot. This jeopardizes our Constitutional Rights in the name of National Security. An argument that many a totalitarian government use.

We should NEVER sacrifice our rights in the name of security. Doing so, in reality, only weakens the U.S.

IMMIGRATION - Another "Show Me Your Papers" State

"Alabama governor signs tough new immigration law" by the CNN Wire Staff, CNN 6/9/2011

Excerpt

Alabama's governor has signed what he billed as tough illegal immigration legislation, requiring police to check the status of anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally when stopped for another reason.

The bill, due to come into effect on September 1, was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert Bentley on Thursday.

Its passage makes Alabama the latest in a series of states, including Georgia and Arizona, to weigh controversial new laws aimed at tackling illegal immigration.

Civil rights groups and the Mexican government have been quick to condemn the move.

According to a factsheet presented by Alabama House Republicans, the bill will require law enforcement officers "to attempt to determine the immigration status of a person who they suspect is an unauthorized alien of this country".

The legislation also makes it a criminal offense to provide transport or housing to an illegal immigrant. The state will have to check the citizenship of students and any business that knowingly employs an illegal immigrant will also be penalized.

Ah, yes. Another "show me your papers" Nazi State.

ARIZONA - Win for Constitutional Law

"Birthright citizenship, immigration bills fail in Republican-held Arizona Senate" by Kris Alingod, AHN News 3/18/2011

Arizona's GOP-held Senate has voted down five immigration bills that would have, among others, forced the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the 14th Amendment. The state last year enacted a controversial immigration law allowing police to detain people suspected of being illegal immigrants.

Republicans split during the vote late Thursday, with some joining Democrats to defeat what critics said would require education and health professionals to become immigration law enforcers.

One bill, SB 1611, was a proposal from Republican Senate President Russell Pearce banning illegal immigrants from state universities and community colleges.

It also would have required kindergarten and grade schools to ask parents for documentation of the legal status of their children. Moreover, the bill would have prohibited aliens from driving in the state and buying a vehicle.

Pearce was the author of SB 1070, which was approved last year, heightening debate nationwide on how to institute meaningful immigration reform.

Two measures introduced by state Sen. Steve Smith related to medical treatment and education.

SB 1405 would have required hospital workers to report illegal immigrants and patients unable to provide proof of legal status. The bill does not deny medical care for aliens who need emergency care but would deny admission to those who do not need non-emergency service.

The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association had urged lawmakers to vote against SB 1405, warning that hospitals would be burdened to check the citizenship of all patents, which amounted to more than 3.4 million in 2009.

The group added that the bill would compromise medical care because patients, including children and the elderly, or their families would have to bring documentation, and the admission of urgent but non-emergency patients could quickly become an emergency situation without proper care. Hospitals also follow "pre-admit orders" from doctors seeking to expedite treatment for patients.

"Since pediatric and elderly institutionalized patients generally do not carry any of the identification," the association had said. "With an average length of stay of four days, many of these patients would be ready for discharge before the hospital can review and confirm the prescribed identifying documentation."

Smith's other proposal, SB 1406, requires the Department of Education to gather data on the legal status of students and submit reports on how much the state is spending to educate students who are illegal immigrants.

The two other bills rejected by the senators would have sought a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry had made clear that it opposed all five bills, citing concerns among business leaders about another immigration controversy affecting their companies and employees.

Chamber president Glenn Hamer said in an op-ed that despite staying neutral during last year's passage of SB 1070, Arizona companies were directly affected by the law.

"Conventions were canceled, companies lost contracts, boycotts were carried out and the state’s image took a hit. There was an economic price to pay for Arizona going it alone," he said.

Hamer said he had received a letter signed by 60 business executives and another from 20 local chambers urging lawmakers not to redefine the concept of citizenship and to "instead direct its energy to pressing Congress for meaningful immigration reform."

"These chambers and executives are not part of some conspiracy to flood the U.S. workforce with cheap labor," he said. "It’s rare for individuals of such prominence to take such a public stance on a controversial issue, but it’s indicative of how damaging they believe passing these laws could be to Arizona’s future."

The five measures are part of a larger push by the GOP in several states to deny birthright citizenship to aliens. But the initiative in the Grand Canyon State faces particularly difficult questions, including the granting of citizenship to Native Americans only in 1924.

In the U.S. Senate, two lawmakers are pushing a resolution to "close a loophole" in the 14th Amendment. Under the proposal from Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Paul Vitter (R-LA), a child born on U.S. soil must have at least a parent who is either naturalized, a legal citizen, an legal immigrant or active member of the military before citizenship is conferred.

The resolution from Paul and Vitter were introduced after the DREAM Act, a Democratic bill providing children of aliens a path to citizenship if they finish two years of either college or military service, failed in the Senate.

Despite having safeguards such as age limits and years of residency before the bill is enacted, Democrats had failed to gain enough support for the legislation.

Republicans had criticized the bill for giving amnesty to illegal immigrants and exacerbating the nation's fiscal problems. They had warned it would promote "chain migration" in spite of a provision banning students from sponsoring members of their extended family.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), had argued, "Young people were brought to the U.S. and should not be punished for their parents' choices."

Anti-Constitution Arizona GOP looses again.

HUMAN RIGHTS - Unconstitutional DOMA Update

Marriage, Civil Unions, whatever, IS a matter of Human Rights. I cannot think of anything more applicable to the core of Human Rights and Civil Rights as the relationship between consenting adults.

I believe that government, at ANY level (local, state, federal) should NOT interfere in this area.

It is also my belief that DOMA is government support of a religious doctrine which IS clearly unconstitutional. Marriage is NOT the exclusive domain of ANY religion.

"In Policy Shift, President Orders Halt to Legal Defense of Marriage Law" PBS Newshour Transcript 2/23/2011 (includes video)

Excerpts

GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The Obama administration reversed course today when it announced it will no longer defend in court a federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Attorney General Eric Holder's letter to House Speaker John Boehner read: "The president and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation warrant heightened scrutiny, and banning recognition for legally married same-sex couples is unconstitutional."

At the White House today, Press Secretary Jay Carney stopped short of endorsing gay marriage outright.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: The president's personal view on same-sex marriage, I think you all have heard him discuss as recently as the press conference at the end of last year.

That is distinct from this legal decision. The decision is that we will -- the administration will not defend the Defense of Marriage Act in the Second Circuit.

Furthermore, the president directed the attorney general not to defend -- because of the decision that it's not constitutional -- defend the Defense of Marriage Act in any other circuit, in any other case.

GWEN IFILL: ....Explain something to me. We heard Jay Carney today make the distinction between a legal decision that the president and the attorney general made and a moral decision. What is that distinction?

CHARLIE SAVAGE, The New York Times: Well, most of the debate over gay marriage in this country has been a very -- on the moral issue, the very basic issue, should gay people have a right to get married?

But this debate, it moves past that one level to a legal issue about what happens after they have already gotten married. There are now eight states, plus the District of Columbia, that either issue marriage licenses to gay couples or recognize such marriages if performed elsewhere.

And so that has raised a new issue, which is this. If there are two sets of gay -- of married couples in a state whose are -- whose marriages are lawfully recognized by that state, is it constitutional for the federal government to treat those people unequally, to hand out certain benefits to one set of marriages -- married couples and not to another based on their sexual orientations?

GWEN IFILL: So, remind people who don't watch this, follow this all the time what exactly the Defense of Marriage Act is, what it did, what it was intended to do.

CHARLIE SAVAGE: The Defense of Marriage Act was passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1996, a presidential election year.

And it was designed to stop the growth of gay marriage, which then had not even gotten going, but you could see it on the horizon. And so the key issue, the provision that's at issue in these lawsuits that triggered this decision today, says that the federal government will not recognize a marriage unless it involves a man or a woman.

So even if the state of New York, say, says this lesbian couple is lawfully married, this gay couple is lawfully married, the federal government will ignore that -- that distinction. And so when it comes to certain benefits, like, for example, the surviving spouse in a marriage who inherits property from their dead husband or wife does not have to pay estate taxes on that.

But the federal government is charging estate taxes to surviving couples who are in gay marriages, even if those marriages are recognized under their state's laws.

GWEN IFILL: So, what the White House is saying today and the Justice Department is saying today is that they are going to ignore a federal law. They're not going to do what they can to pursue or defend a federal law. How unusual is that?

CHARLIE SAVAGE: Well, I wouldn't say they're going to ignore it. In fact, they're making clear that they're going to keep enforcing this law, unless and until there's a definitive ruling from the courts that says this is unconstitutional, and you, the federal government, must not enforce it.

What they're saying is, when people challenge these laws, when they file a lawsuit saying this violates our constitutional rights, we have a right to equal protection under the law, you can't do this, federal government, the Justice Department is no longer going to come into court and say, no, no, Judge, you should get rid of this lawsuit; there's a perfectly valid reason why this law is constitutional.

They're going to leave the law undefended. And that means that maybe Congress, more likely just the House of Representatives, will appoint its own lawyer to come in as a friend of the court to defend the law, or maybe a judge in a lawsuit will appoint a lawyer to at least make the arguments that the law is constitutional, but the full weight of the Justice Department will no longer be backing these laws in court.

SUPREME COURT - Freedom of Religion Wins Again

"High court rejects new case on 10 Commandments" by AP, San Francisco Chronicle 2/22/2011

The Supreme Court has passed up a chance to take another look at a six-year-old ruling that struck down the display of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses.

McCreary and Pulaski counties had appealed recent lower court rulings barring them from posting the commandments, despite changes to the displays to include multiple religious and government documents.

The counties were hoping that those differences, as well as critical changes in the composition of the high court, would lead the justices to take up their appeal.

But the court declined to do so Tuesday, without comment.

When are these people going to learn that freedom of religion = government (at ANY level) cannot promote ANY religion. Freedom of religion is a right of individual people to practice and promote.

SUPREME COURT - Inconsistency Applied to Corporations?

"Supreme Court hesitant to extend 'personal privacy' restrictions to corporations" by Robert Barnes, Washington Post 1/19/2011

Excerpt

It might be an understatement to say the Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical that corporations have "personal privacy" rights that would prevent the government from releasing documents about them.

At times, the justices were almost mocking in their questions.

The case stems from AT&T's claim that the government should not release certain information about the company when requested under federal public records laws.

Wait, I obviously have missed something. Like their logic.

This is the same Supreme Court that said corporations could have unlimited funding of election campaigns, parties, etc, AND hide that information from the electorate (public)?

Can anyone explain their inconsistency? IF companies do NOT have "personal privacy" (personal like human being) but they DO have the same Constitutional Right as citizens (human beings) when it comes to political funding!???