Free Republic

LIVE WEBCAST - 03/05/09 California Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Proposition 8 - Same Sex Marriage 9:00AM (PST) http://www.calchannel.com The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in three cases challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a statewide ballot initiative that was passed by a majority of California voters in November 2008. The California Channel will broadcast this event live via your local cable provider and on our website*.*Due to the high demand we expect for this event, if you have problems connecting then the server has reached its...

SAN FRANCISCO - California's attorney general has changed his position on the state's new same-sex marriage ban and is now joining forces with homosexual activists to overturn the results of Proposition 8. In a dramatic reversal, Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a legal brief saying the measure that amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman is itself unconstitutional because it deprives a minority group of a fundamental right. Earlier, Brown had said he would defend the ballot measure against legal challenges from gay marriage supporters. But Brown said he reached a different conclusion "upon...

Kenneth W. Starr, the former U.S. Solicitor General who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky, will argue the case in favor of upholding a ban on gay marriage before the California Supreme Court. Starr was today named lead counsel for the official proponents of Proposition 8. This afternoon, the group filed court briefs defending the legality of the proposition, which was approved by 52% of California voters last month throwing into question thousands of marriages performed during the five months the practice was legal in the state. The briefs are in response to a...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California Attorney General Jerry Brown has changed his position with respect to the state's new same-sex marriage ban and is now urging the state Supreme Court to void Proposition 8. Brown filed a brief Friday saying the measure, which amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman, is itself unconstitutional because it deprives gay couples of a fundamental right.

The sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions. The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions.

Alex Dobuzinskis, a reporter for London-based news service Reuters, used a story about paparazzi in Malibu to revise basic facts about Ken Starr and the impeachment of former President Clinton. According to Dobuzinskis, "Malibu officials are getting advice from Kenneth Starr, the attorney whose investigation of former President Bill Clinton led to the uncovering of his sexual liaison with Monica Lewinsky and caused his impeachment." Actually, Starr was a special prosecutor investigating Bill and Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater land scandal. Monica Lewinsky was "uncovered" by lawyers for Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who was suing Bill Clinton...

WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton’s campaign compared rival Sen. Barack Obama yesterday to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the Clintons’ chief nemesis of the 1990s. Clinton herself refused to comment on the comparison, made by her chief spokesman in a conference call with reporters and in a campaign memo. Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said Obama’s statement that he plans to be more critical of Clinton’s record is reminiscent of attacks the Clintons in the investigations in the 1990s. “After a campaign in which many of the questions that voters had in the closing days centered on concerns that they had over his...

March 06, 2008 On a conference call today, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president." Ah, Mr Smarty Pants, in what way? You opened the door. It's all fair game now. How exactly is Obama imitating Ken Starr again? You mean like… HSUgate, whitewater, cattle futures, travelgate, FBI-filegate, Lewinskigate (etc; etc) Too much to list. Oh by the way, Mr Wolfson, remind me again how many times the Clintons have been under investigation? http://prorev.com/legacy.htm No Mr Wolfson, asking Hillary to release...

Ken Starr Oral Argument Bong Hits 4 Jesus "Illegal drugs and the glorification of the drug culture are profoundly serious problems for our nation." http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/06-278.pdf

A century and a half after the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that no black — slave or free — could ever become a U.S. citizen, the case's legacy is still being debated. The fallout from the 1857 decision, which helped spark the Civil War, was the subject of a mock re-hearing of the case before a 10-member court led by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at Harvard Law School on Saturday. While the decision, issued by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, is almost universally seen as the moral low point of the court's history, participants in...

Famed attorney Kenneth Starr filed a petition for the Juneau School District on Monday in the country's highest court to hear the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. Starr, of the Los Angeles-based firm Kirkland & Ellis, filed the petition in the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge the March 10 decision by the 9th Circuit Court, which ruled that former Juneau-Douglas High School principal Deborah Morse violated former student Joseph Frederick's free speech rights. Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, has taken on the case pro bono for Morse and the...

LOS ANGELES - Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being fomented by Republicans who want to divide America. "I'm proud of him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it," he said of Bush during a "Cafe con Clinton" breakfast speech to the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group. Clinton said Bush's roots in Texas — which has one of the nation's largest Hispanic...

People suffer all sorts of indignities, but few things are more difficult to take than being falsely accused of misconduct. It is difficult to defend yourself both because it hard to prove a negative and, if you defend yourself strenuously, you risk appearing guilty for protesting too much. Do you remember Bill Clinton's vicious savaging of special prosecutor Ken Starr and how his goon squad twisted every negative revelation against Clinton into a sin of Starr's? They distorted the Starr Report from a meticulously documented record of a president's perjury and obstruction of justice into a pornographic novel penned by...

Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, seemed an unlikely ally at first glance for a Stockton murderer-rapist facing execution Tuesday. Michael Morales' lawyers rejoiced in their recruitment last month of the prominent Republican attorney, who had just won clemency for a condemned Virginia inmate, to make the case to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare their client's life. At the very least, Starr's involvement was guaranteed to draw attention to the case. Instead, much of the attention has been drawn to Starr, and what he knew about a bizarre sequence of events in which documents...

IT NOW appears that defense attorneys for Michael Morales, who is scheduled to be executed Feb. 21 for the 1981 rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell, submitted phony affidavits in their attempt to win clemency or otherwise prevent the execution. One of those attorneys is Ken Starr, who worked so hard investigating allegations that President Clinton committed perjury. Now Starr has fallen so low as to present documents that, according to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office, were "false and forged." Will there be any consequences? There should be. Last week, as The Chronicle reported, Starr and longtime Morales...

San Francisco -- Former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and a Los Angeles attorney said Monday they would withdraw unreliable affidavits from jurors submitted to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of a bid to spare a murderer and rapist from execution. The documents supporting clemency for Michael Morales purportedly made by six trial jurors were denounced by prosecutors Friday as forgeries, but the defense team stood by them until Monday when they said they would withdraw five of the six. In a letter to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, attorney David Senior said he and Starr were "withdrawing any and all...

Prosecutors: Kenneth Starr, lawyer sent fake letters Lawyers: Bogus letters sent to governor asking to spare client's life Saturday, February 11, 2006; Posted: 3:18 p.m. EST (20:18 GMT) vert.starr.ap.jpg Kenneth Starr in a file photo. He was the special prosecutor in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Become a Paralegal Earn your paralegal degree online while keeping your own schedule. Accredited &... www.kaplan.edu Become a Paralegal Today Free information on how to earn your paralegal degree from FMU Online. Study at... www.fmuonline-degrees.com Paralegal Education Free info and links about becoming a paralegal - schools, degrees and more. www.infobeagle.com More Useful Links •...

San Francisco -- Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California's governor to spare the man's life, prosecutors said Friday. The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn't say that," Barankin said. San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week were "untrue"...

Morales' roommate says she did not withdraw testimony. Prosecutors opposing clemency for Michael Morales, scheduled to be executed Feb. 21 for the 1981 murder of a young woman near Lodi, accused his lawyers on Monday of fabricating a statement by a witness that purported to withdraw her trial testimony against Morales. In papers filed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Charles Schultz called the document submitted by Morales' lawyers last month "an outright forgery" and said it showed that none of the assertions in his appeal for clemency were believable. They backed up their claim with...

A POLITICAL sidebar that made surprising news the last few weeks is a phrase in a 1985 job application from now-Judge Sam Alito questioning the Warren Court's reapportionment decisions. That tidbit sent shock waves through the political and pundit classes. It shouldn't have. Justice-to-be Alito's statement wasn't an attack on equality, voting rights, or protecting victims of racial discrimination. It was a simple observation that a liberal court created a doctrine that, however salutary, has significant problems. Americans have long embraced the ideal of equality from ''all men are created equal" forward. Equality did not mean identical political influence in...