Keyword: 3branchesofgovt
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Boulder's elected leaders are expected to decide next week whether to draft and vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. For the past few weeks, activists have been showing up at Boulder City Council meetings, carrying signs, handing out "impeach" pins and asking City Council members to take up such a resolution. Similar measures have passed in cities across the country, including Detroit and Telluride.
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It is a title that would be sure to bring either fear or cheer to many Americans, depending on your political leanings: Supreme Court Justice Bill Clinton. That provocative possibility has long been whispered in legal and political circles ever since Sen. Hillary Clinton became a viable candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now a respected conservative law professor has openly predicted a future President Clinton would name her husband to the high court if a vacancy occurred. Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec said, "The former president would be intrigued by court service and many would cheer him on." Kmiec...
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Resistance by partisan ”shadow warriors” at the Department of State has limited the president’s options and is bringing us dangerously close to a military showdown with Iran, former Bush administration official John Bolton told Newsmax in an exclusive interview. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice initially had planned to provide significant aid to the pro-democracy movement in Iran, as a means of giving the president more policy options, Bolton said. But resistance by the State Department bureaucracy crippled the programs and rendered them ineffective. “[T]he outcome has been no overt program of support for democracy and no clandestine program to overthrow...
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The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved contempt resolutions against Karl Rove, the former top aide to President Bush, and Joshua Bolten, the current White House chief of staff. The vote was 12-8. The criminal contempt resolutions now move to the Senate floor, although no action on them is expected until next year. Sen. Alren Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of Judiciary, voted in favor of issuing the contempt resolutions, saying the committee's oversight responsibilities must be upheld. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) also supported the resolutions. "It is a vote that I would prefer not to make," Specter said. "It is a...
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Shadow Warriors By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Kenneth R. Timmerman, the New York Times bestselling author of Countdown to Crisis, The French Betrayal of America, Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, and Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. In 2006 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking reporting on Iran ’s nuclear weapons program. He is the author of the new book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender. FP: Kenneth Timmerman, welcome to Frontpage...
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DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Polk County judge has struck down Iowa's law preserving marriage for only a man and a woman. He ordered the county recorder's office to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Six gay and lesbian couples went to court for the right to legally marry in Iowa. Lamda Legal filed a lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of the couples in Iowa, saying they deserve equal protection under the law. Des Moines laywer Dennis Johnson represented six gay couples who filed the lawsuit after they were denied marriage licenses, and he says Hanson's ruling is a moral...
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HARTFORD, Conn. - The state Supreme Court on Monday took up the issue of gay marriage in Connecticut, the first state in the nation to pass a civil unions law without court intervention. Eight gay and lesbian couples, unhappy with civil unions, are suing over the state's refusal to grant them marriage licenses. They want the court to rule that the state's marriage law is unconstitutional because it applies only to heterosexual couples and denies gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage. The state argues that Connecticut's 2005 civil unions law gives the couples the equality they...
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Over the past decade and a half, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson has become the one of the most important figures in the state in setting prison policy, or at least trying to change it. Henderson's rulings have placed the judge firmly in control over issues ranging from use of force at Pelican Bay State Prison to internal discipline to improving medical care. They've also put him in position to direct billions in state spending into the correctional system -- with no legislative oversight. The 72-year-old judge's career has just been chronicled in Abby Ginzberg's documentary, "Soul of Justice:...
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A Ketchikan judge on Monday set aside guilty verdicts returned by a jury against the activist group Greenpeace and the captain of its boat for violating state environmental regulations during a 2004 visit to Alaska. District Court Judge Kevin Miller provided little reason for his unusual order acquitting the Greenpeace defendants except that, in his judgment, the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts."The decision to remove these verdicts from the province of the jury is one that this court does not take lightly," Miller wrote.Miller presided over the jury trial and was responding to a post-verdict request by the...
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A federal judge Thursday struck down Nebraska's ban on gay marriage, saying the measure interferes not only with the rights of gay couples but also with those of foster parents, adopted children and people in a host of other living arrangements. The constitutional amendment, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman, was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2000. U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon said the ban "imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights" of gays "and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiffs' right to petition or to participate...
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Virginia Court Strikes Down Law Against Sex By Singles POSTED: 4:20 pm EST January 14, 2005 RICHMOND, Va. -- The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down an archaic and rarely enforced state law prohibiting sex between unmarried people. The unanimous ruling strongly suggests that a separate anti-sodomy law in Virginia also is unconstitutional, although that statute is not directly affected. The justices based their ruling on a U.S. Supreme Court decision voiding an anti-sodomy law in Texas. "This case directly affects only the fornication law but makes it absolutely clear how the court would rule were the sodomy law...
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Sound Transit can continue to collect its motor-vehicle excise tax, even though the tax was repealed by Initiative 776 two years ago, a judge ruled today. King County Superior Court Judge Mary Yu agreed with Sound Transit's argument that ending the tax now would unconstitutionally interfere with a contract it signed with purchasers of agency bonds in 1999. In that contract, Sound Transit promised to keep collecting the 0.3 percent tax until the bonds are paid off. That isn't scheduled to occur until 2028, and over the next 24 years the tax will generate far more revenue than the $350...
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Amendment Banning La. Gay Marriage Tossed By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer BATON ROUGE, La. - A state judge Tuesday threw out a Louisiana constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, less than three weeks after it was overwhelmingly approved by the voters. District Judge William Morvant said the amendment was flawed as drawn up by the Legislature because it had more than one purpose: banning not only gay marriage but also civil unions. Michael Johnson (news - web sites), an attorney for supporters of the amendment, said he will appeal the ruling. A gay rights group challenged the amendment on several...
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federal judge has followed his leftist compatriots down a steep slope, and compared the current president of the United States with Hitler and Mussolini, reports the New York Sun. Not only does he call the election of George W. Bush in 2000 - through the electoral process upon which this country's elections are based - illegitimate, Guido Calabresi went on to juxtapose President Bush with two of the most vile dictators the world has ever known. In Calabresi's own words: "In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States ... somebody came to power as a...
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About 100 teenagers — armed with ear-splitting screams and hand-lettered signs — rallied Saturday in Westwood in support of marriage for same-sex couples. "It's important for everyone to be able to live the way they want to," said Kate Heller, 16, a student at Winward School in West Los Angeles. Two teens from Winward's new Gay-Straight Alliance, Sarah Freed, 17, and Joe Goldman, 14, organized the Federal Building rally, which drew students, gay and straight, from high schools across Orange, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, along with parents, teachers and a fluffy white poodle. John Duran, mayor of West Hollywood,...
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Two state supreme courts dealt same-sex marriage a pair of setbacks today, as the Arizona panel refused to hear a case brought by two homosexual men, and California justices, in hearing arguments in a San Francisco case, appeared to disapprove of the city's mayor issuing licenses to couples of the same gender. In the Grand Canyon state, the Supreme Court decided not to hear Standhardt v. Arizona, a case brought by two single men who were denied a marriage license. The Arizona Court of Appeals dismissed the suit on Oct. 8, and the homosexuals sought review by the state Supreme...
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JEFF JACOBYThe end of the gay marriage debate? By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 16, 2004 THIS IS THE week that same-sex marriage comes to Massachusetts, and thus to the United States. The fundamental building block of civilization is about to undergo a radical change -- a change opposed by a majority of American adults. How did this happen? The joining of gay and lesbian couples in marriage may turn out to be the most consequential development of our lifetimes. How did we get here? The answer to that question has several parts. At the most obvious level, the...
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The court would have to decide if the 4,000 marriages remain valid, if they would be automatically be voided or of they could they be voided at some time in the future. Assuming Newsom's defeat, which many legal scholars predict, the court asked: "Would the marriages that have been performed and registered nonetheless be valid, would the marriages be voidable or would the marriages be void?" Lockyer has already told the court in briefs that the marriages, which have left the newlyweds in a state of legal limbo, are invalid and that those married should get their $82 fees refunded.
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…but that's not possible. Here's how the Washington Post's Dana Milbank began his Page 1 analysis of the White House's newly announced position on gay marriage: "With President Bush's embrace yesterday of a marriage amendment, the compassionate conservative of 2000 has shown he is willing, if necessary, to rekindle the culture wars in 2004." This neatly encapsulates everything that's wrong with inside-the-Beltway discussions of the culture war we currently find ourselves in. Presidents do not start culture wars; they react to them. They can fan or soothe passions, but they cannot create divisions that don't already exist. Indeed, both Bush...
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Abraham Lincoln once observed that America was founded on a proposition, and that Thomas Jefferson wrote it. He was referring, of course, to the section of the Declaration of Independence that begins, "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . " The reality, though, is that we are founded on a debate over what Jefferson's proposition means. And the current struggle over gay marriage is but the most recent chapter in that longstanding American argument. The words that started the current controversy were written by John Adams. In 1779, Adams almost single-handedly drafted the Massachusetts Constitution. It was...
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Three top Senate conservatives have told GOP conservative groups to lay off Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who helped trigger a controversial investigation into leaked Democratic Judiciary Committee documents. Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), both members of the Judiciary panel, personally delivered that message to a group of nearly 20 conservative leaders last week. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) also briefly attended the meeting on Capitol Hill. The 90-minute session grew heated at times, as the visiting conservative leaders repeatedly interrupted the senators and questioned their handling of the memo controversy....
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That's what it says now. Discuss amongst yourselves...
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<p>SAN FRANCISCO — The first of two judges to listen to objections to gay marriage in San Francisco delayed until at least Friday whether to block the city from continuing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.</p>
<p>The second judge will take up a different petition Tuesday afternoon.</p>
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Article XXX. In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men. ----CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS Maybe I'm missing something, but when the State Supreme Court of Mass. orders the Legislature to pass a law, are they not in direct violation of this article of...
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<p>Republicans have "perhaps thousands" of internal Democratic judiciary memos like the 14 that caused a stir on Capitol Hill last fall, says a Republican staffer who resigned after an investigation into how the documents were obtained.</p>
<p>"Only a small amount of [documents downloaded from Democratic computer servers] have been made public," said Manuel Miranda, former judicial-nominations counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. "The ones made public are the least indicting of the ones."</p>
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University of Western Ontario and well-known among lawyers as one of the most prominent legal commentators in Canada. Everyone who still appreciates our national heritage of freedom under law should ponder his latest book, aptly titled, The Most Dangerous Branch: How the Supreme Court of Canada Has Undermined Our Law and Our Democracy. With this title, Martin ironically alludes to the assurance by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers on June 14, 1778, that the people had nothing to fear from the powers conferred on the judiciary by the proposed Constitution of the United States. He wrote: "The judiciary, from...
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Wednesday of a condemned inmate who was part of a lawsuit that challenged one of the drugs used to carry out the death sentence. Kevin Lee Zimmerman won his reprieve about 20 minutes before he could have been put to death for a fatal stabbing and robbery at a Beaumont motel in 1987. In a brief order, Justice Antonin Scalia stopped the punishment pending an additional order from him or the court. ``I'm disappointed,'' Zimmerman told a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman, Michelle Lyons. ``I was ready to...
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<p>For gay Americans and our millions of allies, 2003 is the year that just kept on giving.</p>
<p>Again and again and again, we were given reason to celebrate. And now, largely because we advanced in 2003 as never before, 2004 promises to be very exciting -- and very scary.</p>
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The first killing of an abortion doctor by an anti-abortion activist happened in 1993. Since then, six more people have been killed in attacks on abortion clinics, which is fewer people who ended up dead by being in the vicinity of recently released Weatherman Kathy Boudin. Most of the abortionists were shot or, depending upon your point of view, had a procedure performed on them with a rifle. This brings the total to: seven abortion providers to 30 million fetuses dead, which is also a pretty good estimate of how the political battle is going. The nation embarked on...
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<p>The source of the memos is unclear. The sheer volume of the memos, however, suggests that the memos weren't simply misplaced by someone – they appear to have been intentionally leaked by a Democrat. Also, the memos, which begin in late 2001, cut off suddenly in April 2003. This suggests that they came from a former staffer, rather than someone who recently accessed Democrats' computers. Finally, the only information blacked out in the memos is staffers' names. Whoever leaked these memos did not care about the Senators, but apparently knew the staffers and cared enough to spare them embarrassment.</p>
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U.S. Supreme Court rewrites Constitution and 3,000 years of history WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today rewrote the U.S. Constitution and 3,000 years of legal history by striking down the Texas sodomy law in a 6-3 decision. The court overrode the Constitution, the history of American law, and its own precedent by declaring in Lawrence v. Texas that there is a right to privacy to protect private, adult consensual sexual activity. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, and only Justices Scalia and Thomas and Chief Justice Rhenquist dissented. The majority reasoned, unbelievably, that because of the trend in state...
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SCOTUS sided with the perverts.
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Denver Post al knight List of rights keeps growing By Al Knight Denver Post Columnist Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to overrule one of its decisions made just 17 years ago. There are good reasons it should pass up the opportunity. The request, arising from a Texas sodomy case, undermines the notion of stare decisis - a Latin phrase that describes the policy of courts to avoid disturbing settled legal precedent. In the Bowers vs. Hardwick decision in 1986, the nation's highest court said, "The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon...
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With the recent publicity surrounding Sen. Rick Santorum's remarks on the issue of sodomy, almost everyone on FR must be familiar by now with the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas.Petitioner Lawrence and his special friend are trying to overturn a Texas law against homosexual sodomy. There are two issues in this case: 1) Is there a constitutional right for any two adults to engage in any kind of consensual sex, as long as it's behind closed doors? The petitioners say yes, there is, and are asking the court to agree. 2) Does it violate the 14th amendment's guarantee of...
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And then there's the one about the surly Bush-lovin' U.S. Supreme Court, soon to be deciding whether a gay Texas couple violated that state's law by having consensual homosexual sex in the privacy of their own home without first taking the necessary precaution of moving the hell away from homophobic big-haired gul-dang panty-bunched Texas in the first place.
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NewsMax.com Monday, March 31, 2003 Leftist Establishment Whitewashes Stalinists The dire warnings in George Orwell’s "1984” are alive and well in the U.S.A. The leftist establishment is downplaying the word "communist” if not wiping it from the vocabulary. Having been embarrassingly wrong all along about Soviet and worldwide communist intentions during the Cold War, the "respected” pillars of academia and communications are ignoring communist pasts or prettying up the records of campus speakers and old hard-line leftists who die. In Sunday’s Washington Times, Arnold Beichman writes that Columbia University had invited Eric Hobsbawm, whom the university describes as a "noted...
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More than sodomy The Supreme Court is hearing a case challenging a Texas law against "homosexual conduct," but the real issue is whether the government can regulate private lives in the first place. March 26, 2003 | Conservatives and liberals alike have tended to avoid public debate about Lawrence vs. Texas, a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court that challenges a Texas law criminalizing "homosexual conduct" -- that is, sex between consenting adults of the same gender. The law is fundamentally un-American, but instead of opposition spanning the political spectrum, there have been the familiar unprincipled divisions along partisan...
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The constitutional challenge to the Texas "homosexual conduct" law that the Supreme Court will take up next week has galvanized not only traditional gay rights and civil rights organizations, but also libertarian groups that see the case as a chance to deliver their own message to the justices. The message is one of freedom from government control over private choices, economic as well as sexual. "Libertarians argue that the government has no business in the bedroom or in the boardroom," Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute, said today, describing the motivation for the institute, a...
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