Sometimes, There Is No "Right" Answer

Pigford II and the Eternal Problem of How to Prove Discrimination | Mother Jones

There is no perfect answer to questions of policy. This article explores that fact. It gives us a handy way of framing the realistic choices we face in setting the bar for discrimination cases:

You can either set a high bar for evidence of discrimination, knowing that it will unfairly deny compensation to lots of people who were treated wrongly. Or you can set a low bar, knowing that this will unfairly give money to lots of people who don't deserve it.

Really F*cking Awful Judicial Opinion From a *GASP* Right-Wing Court

This enrages me to the point of incoherence. Luckily, smarter, calmer folk can at least articulate why this is SO FUCKED UP.

People Writing About Things They Patently Do Not Understand

No, this isn't an alternate title for my blog. It's a lazy re-post of an evisceration of David Sirtoa, who is a dummy.

Today's Lesson In Big Government

Telling doctors how to practice medicine. Remember: Nobody actually cares about Big Government (or Federalism or the deficit, for that matter). It is all a smokescreen for an agenda. 

The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia

A great take-down of one of the most pernicious and obnoxious people in all of government.

If You Can't Win Fairly, Play Dirty

The right-wing assault on the fundamental right to vote. I am reminded of a right-wing radio show I unintentionally heard (the station's programming changed) where the host said voting is a privilege. Real Americans, the lot of them.

More here.

And this.

See here about the myth of voter fraud.

Very Restrained, Indeed

Incredibly inappropriate, biased, childish behavior from the Federal bench. Not too surprising from wingnuts in the heart of Wingnuttia.

Once Again, Justice Comes In The Form Of The Feds

Yet another reason why I tend to support centralized power.

On Sept. 4, 2005, as much of New Orleans still lay submerged in floodwaters, Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, then sergeants, and Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon, then officers, jumped in a Budget rental truck and raced with other officers to the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans, responding to a distress call on the police radio.

As soon as they arrived, witnesses at the trial said, they began firing on members of the Bartholomew family, who were trying to find a grocery store. A 17-year-old family friend named James Brisette was killed, and four others were severely wounded.

The police then began to chase two brothers, Lance and Ronald Madison, who was 40 years old and mentally disabled, who were trying to get to the other side of the bridge. Ronald Madison was shot in the back by Officer Faulcon and then stomped on by Sergeant Bowen as he lay dying.

A cover-up began immediately and eventually grew to include made-up witnesses and a planted handgun. Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, a veteran investigator, was charged with overseeing much of the cover-up.

The local D.A. screwed up (intentionally or not, we do not know) the original case against these murderous N.O.P.D. thugs.

More On The ACA And The SCOTUS

[via LG&M]

I took a Con Law class from this guy's brother. I don't know of this guy has a brother. Happy Friday, all. And don't get sick if you don't have good health insurance!

The Dead Tell No Tales

Or something like that. Anyway, the living do, and it appears George Zimmerman is a lying fuck, in addition to being a racist vigilante murderer. And the cops. Oh gosh, I can't even begin to articulate my disdain for the cops in this case. And, a bit off topic, I found this little summation of our racial history to be a good reminder that, yes, this IS a race issue.

The Intellectual Giant Of The Conservative Judiciary

[via LG&M]
Tony Scalia. If he sounds like a gangster, well, in a way, I think he is. A crude bully with no respect for the law, that is. See here for more "highlights" of the kind of garbage the right-wing zealots bring to the bench. If I had the time, I'd post about the phrase "judicial activism." It is high up on the list of terms the Right abuses wantonly.

Slippery Slope Ain't So Slip'ry

You're going to hear, and have heard, a lot of dumb arguments about the ACA. This piece, I think, disposes of one of them.

Your Right-Wing SCOTUS

Gee, you mean the mythology and the reality are at odds? Whodathunkit?

“The Roberts court’s overall record,” Professor Chemerinsky wrote, “suggests that it is not a free speech court at all.”

Meh. Just pay attention to the cases they want you to pay attention to. 

When Freedom Isn't Freedom

Must-read article about why the myth of American freedom is just that.

The ACA: Constituional

This does not mean the SCOTUS will uphold it, given the makeup of the Court. But, I think this analysis is spot-on.

Newt Is Nuts

One of the more profoundly wrong-headed and dangerous (and boy is that saying a lot) things to come from a Republican presidential candidate this time around is Newt's assertions about the courts. Scott Lemieux, one of the LG&M bloggers, has this to say about it.

This Is What Abusing The Court System Actually Looks Like

New Variations on the Patent Scam

Innovatio is also suing Caribou Coffee, Panera Bread and other stores offering free Wi-Fi because they claim that they have some kind of patent that covers Wi-Fi. They’re looking for settlements in the range of $2,300-$5,000—in other words, they’ve priced their lawsuit at nuisance value and hope that these companies will just pay them to go away, and do so before their whole scam gets tossed out of court. 

Case Study In Judicial Bias [Fixed]

Glenn Greenwald discusses Dennis G. Jacobs, the Chief Judge of the Second Circuit. As Greenwald notes, you will search long and hard before you find an opinion written in such nakedly activist, partisan terms. Jacobs, a George Bush Sr. appointee, embodies the very worst in judicial temperament, a man who is so consumed by his own ideological view of the world that he actually resorted to personally attacking the motives of the lawyers who took the case for the plaintiff.

Judges cannot, as human beings, put aside their views of the world and be the kind of judge now Chief Justice John Roberts laughably claimed he would be, that is, one who "calls balls and strikes." But to abandon any trappings of fairness in so naked a way as Jacobs does in the linked post is really astonishing, and something that should cause anyone who believes in equality in under the law deep concern.

Link below the fold.

You Can Sue The Dummy, But Not The Ventriloquist

Another legal abomination brought to you by the extremist Roberts Court.

[via LG&M]

Sometimes, You Should Be Afraid

Partisan bickering, extreme posturing, and other forms of irritating stupidity can be understood in the context of elected office, executive or legislative. However, as argued in this piece, we simply MUST have as close to a rational judiciary as possible. Wisconsin, center of the black hole, has delivered us the worst possible news regrading politics and the law. Or should I say lawlessness. FSM help the people of the Badger State, and all of us if this disease spreads.