Federal courts block Trump Adminstration's attempt to cut grants to Planned Prenthood's pregnancy prevention programs.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from cutting short grants awarded to Planned Parenthood through a federal teen pregnancy prevention program. 

U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice on Tuesday issued a permanent injunction preventing the administration from ending the grants two years earlier than originally planned, saying that doing so would cause public harm. 

"The Court determines that the public interest weighs in favor of Plaintiffs, as it would prevent harm to the community ... and prevent loss of data regarding the effectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention," Rice wrote. 

Planned Parenthood sued the administration after it ended Teen Pregnancy Prevention grants for 81 organizations across the country last summer. 

The grants were originally supposed to run through 2020, but the administration said the grants would end in 2018 instead, arguing that the program was ineffective. 

The program, created under former President Obama, funded organizations working to cut teen pregnancy rates and mostly focused on comprehensive sex ed, which can include contraception and abstinence teachings.

Of course this is a program created during the Obama Administration because Trump is laser focused on undoing EVERYTHING that Obama accomplished during his two terms in office. 

And he doesn't care who it hurts.

Federal court rejects Trump's transgender military ban. Again.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

A federal court in Seattle in a ruling on Friday shut down President Trump’s “new” ban on transgender people serving in the military, which was issued by his administration last month. 

Trump had claimed that the old ban was revoked and replaced with the new one, but U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman rejected this distinction, noting that the new documents “do not substantively rescind or revoke the ban, but instead threaten the very same violations that caused it and other courts to enjoin the ban in the first place.”


Indeed, she found the claim that the new ban has exceptions wholly unconvincing: 

The Court is not persuaded. The Implementation Plan prohibits transgender people — including those who have neither transitioned nor been diagnosed with gender dysphoria — from serving, unless they are “willing and able to adhere to all standards associated with their biological sex.” 

Requiring transgender people to serve in their “biological sex” does not constitute “open” service in any meaningful way, and cannot reasonably be considered an “exception” to the Ban. Rather, it would force transgender service members to suppress the very characteristic that defines them as transgender in the first place. 

As she did when she first ruled against the ban last year, Pechman also concluded that transgender people are a “suspect class” — a group vulnerable to unfair treatment and discrimination solely because of their identity. Thus, any rationale for categorically excluding them from service must be examined and considered with heightened scrutiny.

As my daughter would say "Booya!" 

I actually hate that phrase but it seems appropriate here.

I really cannot understand why Trump is so discriminatory about transgender folks.

I mean does he think this started out as a woman?

Not disrespecting the choice, you know live and let live, but she could at least try channeling a little femininity once in a while.

Trump's attorneys are working overtime to keep the FBI from looking at the documents they retrieved from Michael Cohen.

Courtesy of the AP: 

Lawyers for President Donald Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, have told a federal judge in New York that they believe some of the documents and devices seized from Cohen during an FBI raid are protected by attorney-client privilege, and they want a chance to review the material before prosecutors get to examine them. 

Prosecutors and the attorneys for Cohen and Trump appeared before U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood on Friday in Manhattan. 

Cohen’s attorneys say they want a chance to review documents seized in the raid on Monday and specify items they believe aren’t relevant to the investigation. 

An attorney for the president, Joanna Hendon, told the judge that Trump has “an acute interest in this matter.”

Oh yeah, I'll bet.

Here's more: 

Federal prosecutors say in a court filing that the criminal probe that led them to raid the offices of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer this week is focused on his “personal business dealings.” 

In the filing with a court in New York, prosecutors blacked out a section describing what crime they believe Trump attorney Michael Cohen has committed. 

But they provided new details on the investigation, which they said has been going on for months. 

They said agents had already searched multiple email accounts maintained by Cohen. 

The filing said none of those emails was exchanged with Trump.

(Quick note, Trump does not use email.)

Ultimately the judge granted Trump's "right to intervene," a move that allows his attorneys to review the seized documents in order to protect Trump's rights, but demanded that Cohen show up for a hearing on Monday.

And she was not at all happy.

Judge isn't denying motion now. But she isn't pleased.

"If you don't have the answers by 2 p.m. on Monday, I’m likely to discount the argument that there are thousands or more privileged documents," she tells Cohen's attorneys.

— erica orden (@eorden) April 13, 2018

Part of the Fed's argument against the executive privilege claim is that Cohen is a fraud of a lawyer:

Michael Cohen is a fraud of a lawyer who works exclusively for President Trump, federal prosecutors charged Friday. 

“Cohen has told at least one witness that he has only [one] client — President Trump,” the lawyers wrote in court documents, challenging Cohen’s claims that records seized in raids on his home and office Monday should be protected by attorney-client privilege. 

And he’s barely doing any “legal work” for Trump, either, they claim. 

“[Reviews of the records] indicate that Cohen is in fact performing little to no legal work, and that zero ­e-mails were exchanged with President Trump,” according to the brief, filed in Manhattan federal court. 

In fact, the criminal investigation into Cohen isn’t about his work as a lawyer, “but rather relate[s] to Cohen’s own business dealings,” the feds argued.

According to Michael Avenatti there is a "very good chance" that some of the siezed documents pertain to his client, Stormy Daniels, and he suggests that she might just show up on Monday to observe the hearing.

Sure, why not?

After all it really isn't a party until the porn star shows up, right?

Judge rules that AR-15's and other assualt weapons "fall outside the scope of the 2nd Amendment."

#BREAKING Court upholds our enforcement of the Massachusetts assault weapons ban. Declares that the AR-15 and other assault weapons "fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment and may be banned." https://t.co/H3ed25UPqo pic.twitter.com/YPG3MWLC0x

— Maura Healey (@MassAGO) April 6, 2018

Courtesy of CBS News:  

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Massachusetts' ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, saying in a ruling released Friday that the weapons fall beyond the reach of the Second Amendment. U.S. District Judge William Young said assault weapons are military firearms and aren't protected by the constitutional right to "bear arms." Regulation of the weapons is a matter of policy, not for the courts, he said. 

"Other states are equally free to leave them unregulated and available to their law-abiding citizens," Young said. "These policy matters are simply not of constitutional moment. Americans are not afraid of bumptious, raucous and robust debate about these matters. We call it democracy." 

Democratic state Attorney General Maura Healey said the ruling "vindicates the right of the people of Massachusetts to protect themselves from these weapons of war." 

"Strong gun laws save lives, and we will not be intimidated by the gun lobby in our efforts to end the sale of assault weapons and protect our communities and schools," she said in a statement. "Families across the country should take heart in this victory," she said.

Look at that, common sense does still actually exist in this debate over guns.

I think that gun policy in this country is finally going to get a much needed makeover.

One that is long overdue.

Federal judge to Paul Manafort's lawyer “I don’t really understand what is left of your case.”

Courtesy of Reuters:

A federal judge tore into all of the legal arguments that a lawyer for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort made on Wednesday in his long-shot civil case to convince her that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has run amok and should be reined in.

“I don’t really understand what is left of your case,” U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said to Kevin Downing, Manafort’s attorney, after peppering him with a lengthy series of questions. 

Manafort filed a civil lawsuit on Jan. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who appointed the special counsel, in a key legal test of how far Mueller’s mandate extends. 

Jackson did not say when she might rule on the civil case, which the Justice Department is seeking to dismiss.

Manafort's accusation that the Mueller investigation had gone off the rails in its investigation of his past interactions with Ukraine and Russia, was essentially undermined by the revelation that Rod Rosenstein specifically directed Mueller to do just that: 

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told special counsel Robert Mueller in a classified August 2, 2017, memo that he should investigate allegations that President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was "colluding with Russian government officials" to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, prosecutors in the Russia probe revealed late Monday night. 

Mueller was also empowered by Rosenstein to investigate Manafort's payments from Ukrainian politicians, a cornerstone of the Trump adviser's decades-long lobbying career that has resulted in several financial criminal charges so far.

That does not leave Manafort a legal leg to stand on here, which is essentially what this judge is explaining to his lawyers.

All Paul Manafort has to do to make much of this go away is to flip and start voluntarily cooperating with the Mueller investigators.

The fact that he will not do that makes me think that there is more here than simply defending his former boss.

The Jeff Sessions Justice Department looking for way to take authority away from Federal Courts.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Last April, when a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the Trump administration’s effort to ban entry to people from six Muslim-majority nations, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took to conservative talk radio to vent his frustration. “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” he told host Mark Levin. 

Residents of Hawaii pointed out that it was every bit as much a state as the other 49, but Sessions was making a broader legal point, one that the Supreme Court will now consider. The Justice Department wants to permanently remove the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions—orders that stop a policy from taking effect until the court has officially ruled on its legality. Instead, a Hawaiian judge overseeing a travel ban case brought by the state of Hawaii would be able to block the ban only in that state. The implications, if the Supreme Court agrees with the Justice Department, will be enormous for the future of judicial review and the federal government’s balance of power. 

Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the administration’s efforts to implement a hardline immigration agenda. More than a year into Donald Trump’s presidency, attempts to crack down on sanctuary cities, end Obama-era deportation protections for Dreamers, and block nationals from Muslim-majority countries have been stopped by federal judges enacting nationwide injunctions.

Okay this might actually be the MOST troubling thing we have learned about this administration.

The Founders wanted there to be three co-equal branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial.

And the Judicial is the one that is tasked with protecting the constitutional rights of American citizens.

If the Trump Administration were actually successful in pulling this off, that would mean that each state's court system would determine what was a constitutionally protected right in their jurisdiction ONLY.

That means that some states could block gay marriage, women's rights, civil rights, equal pay, essentially EVERYTHING.

That would overwhelm the Supreme Court almost overnight, and if Trump gets one more judge on the panel they would be loathe to do anything to challenge a state's right to remain in the dark ages.

Federal Judge smacks down Trump's attempt to repeal DACA.

In the middle of the intense political fight about the DACA program for dreamers, a federal judge in California just issued a nationwide injunction ordering the administration to start the program back up again, saying the decision to kill it was improper. pic.twitter.com/Op9zneahWy

— Michael D. Shear (@shearm) January 10, 2018

WOW: Federal judge orders the Trump administration roll back its rescission of #DACA. Basically, to put it back on the books!

“The agency action was not in accordance with law because it was based on the flawed legal premise that the agency lacked authority to implement DACA.” https://t.co/W3e5PrS9ls

— Cristian Farías 🍮 (@cristianafarias) January 10, 2018

This is big as Trump has been using DACA as a negotiating tool to manipulate the Dems into supporting that stupid border wall of his.

This news of course pissed Trump off big time.

It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018

Actually I am not convinced that even with Trump's newly placed Supreme Court judge that they will support Trump's repeal of this law.

And even if they do that is still many months down the road, and the 2018 elections are coming soon. 

Senate confirms nominee for federal judgeship who has never tried a single case.

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

Brett J. Talley, President Trump’s nominee to be a federal judge in Alabama, has never tried a case, was unanimously rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s judicial rating committee, has practiced law for only three years and, as a blogger last year, displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing “Hillary Rotten Clinton” and pledging support for the National Rifle Assn. 

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a party-line vote, approved him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. 

Talley, 36, is part of what Trump has called the "untold story" of his success in filling the courts with young conservatives. 

“The judge story is an untold story. Nobody wants to talk about it,” Trump said last month, standing alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the White House Rose Garden. “But when you think of it, Mitch and I were saying, that has consequences 40 years out, depending on the age of the judge — but 40 years out.”

The Trumpification of America is right on track.

Unqualified judges, inexperienced cabinet members, and unrepentant sexual predators in the Senate.

Donald Trump was a change candidate alright, and just look what he has changed us into.

The man who secretly taped Planned Parenthood workers is facing more legal trouble, and now so are his attorneys.

It was not I who was handcuffed, manhandled, and kept in a holding cell Wed afternoon last week--it was the 1st Amendment. @PPact @AGBecerra pic.twitter.com/UWfpr1yztO

— David Daleiden (@daviddaleiden) April 13, 2017

Nice try, but no it was just you.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

The anti-abortion activist behind the videos accusing Planned Parenthood of selling “baby parts,” as he put it, could be going to prison. And now his criminal defense lawyers could join him. 

Late last month, David Daleiden and his team of criminal attorneys allegedly flouted multiple injunctions and court-issued seals by posting more shocking videos of abortion providers and identifying 14 of the John/Jane Does participating in the state criminal complaint against him and his recording partner Sandra Merritt. Those names were previously under a court seal. 

This apparent defiance of court orders may end up landing Daleiden and his criminal attorneys in contempt of both state and federal court, potentially resulting in fines and jail time — and disbarment for the lawyers. 

Daleiden’s work once caused multiple congressional investigations and nearly shut down the government. Two years and multiple lawsuits and legal hurdles later, the 28-year-old and his Planned Parenthood investigation have faded out of the headlines.

That's true, the last I wrote about Daleiden was back in March when California charged him, and one of his assistants, with invasion of privacy.

Now it appears that he is once again on the wrong side of the law:  

A federal court issued a preliminary injunction in a now two-year-old civil lawsuit brought by NAF, blocking Daleiden, his lawyers and any third party from releasing any new footage or names of those filmed until the case is closed. US District Judge William Orrick granted the injunction in February, 2016 in response to NAF’s claims of “death threats and severe harassment” against its employees. After the state of California brought a separate criminal case against Daleiden and Merritt in March of this year, the list of names of those accusing them was placed under a confidential court seal as well. Daleiden and his criminal attorneys published the videos and the list of names anyway. 

And last week, Daleiden’s criminal defense lawyers hired a criminal attorney of their own. That attorney, Vicki Ileen Podberesky, did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.

So now this guy's attorneys have have a lawyer of their own?

Now why does that seem so familiar?

This guy is a scum sucking POS.

And I would not spend five seconds on him if he were not a prime example of the kind of guerilla tactics the Right Wing uses these days and attempts to pass off as "real journalism" while attacking actual established media outlets as "fake news."

One of the federal prosecutors that Trump tried to get rid of refused to go gentle into that good night. So he got fired.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Preet Bharara, the crusading U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who was asked to submit his resignation letter Friday, along with the 45 other U.S. Attorneys held over from the Obama administration, has yet to do so, a federal law enforcement official tells The Daily Beast.

Since receiving the letter demanding his resignation Friday afternoon, Bharara has yet to speak to the press or to his full office. Friday evening, the law enforcement official said, Bharara told his section chiefs that he’d yet to submit the requested letter and may instead challenge Sessions to fire him.

Hey we may have another Sally Yates on our hands.

As it turned out Bharara did indeed refuse to hand in his resignation, so Trump did what Trump does best.

I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) March 11, 2017

To be clear Trump just had his Attorney General fire a federal prsoecutor who was in the middle of investigating his potentially illegal ties to Russia.

And if that was not scandalous enough, guess who else Bharara is in the middle of investigating?

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:   

The feds are conducting an “ongoing criminal investigation” of Fox News Channel and whether Rupert Murdoch’s company hid from investors the payments it made to employees who alleged they were sexually harassed, an attorney alleged in court Wednesday. 

Attorney Judd Burstein — who is representing former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros in a suit against the cable news network and its ex-chairman Roger Ailes — said one of his other clients had received a subpoena on Monday to testify before a federal grand jury. 

“I was told by the U.S. attorney’s office there is an ongoing criminal investigation, relating to these allegations, all of these allegations,” Burstein said, referring to the avalanche of sexual harassment claims that resulted in Ailes’ departure from the network he built.

Wait for it......

The subpoena, issued by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office, noted “alleged violations of criminal law by Fox,” Burstein said. 

BANG!

That's right folks the same federal prosecutor that was likely investigating Trump's ties with Russia was also investigating criminal charges against Fox News.

And now he has been shitcanned. 

Not in a million years would all of this be a believable piece of fiction writing, and yet it is happening right now in real life.

Federal appeals court rules that conceal carry is not a constitutional right.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Dealing a blow to gun supporters, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Americans do not have a constitutional right to carry concealed weapons in public. 

In a dispute that could ultimately wind up before the Supreme Court, a divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said local law enforcement officials can place significant restrictions on who is allowed to carry concealed guns. 

By a vote of 7-4, the court upheld a California law that says applicants must cite a "good cause" to obtain a concealed-carry permit. Typically, people who are being stalked or threatened, celebrities who fear for their safety, and those who routinely carry large amounts of cash or other valuables are granted permits. 

"We hold that the Second Amendment does not preserve or protect a right of a member of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public," Circuit Judge William A. Fletcher wrote for the majority.

Of course right now if this goes to the Supreme Court there will be a split decision and this ruling will stand.

And once either President Obama, or President Hillary Clinton, appoint a judge to replace Scalia there is very little doubt they will side with this decision.

In other words it looks as if men with tiny penises walking around with guns tucked into their sweaty ass crack to prove how macho they are, may soon be a thing of the past. 

Gee, won't that be a shame.

Federal court rejects case brought by group claiming that taking religion out of Kansas science textbooks was in fact establishing a state sponsored religion. WTF?

Courtesy of ARS Technica:

A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss a case brought in Kansas by a religiously-minded group of parents and students. The plaintiffs were concerned about their home state’s adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). 

As Ars reported back in 2013 when the case was first filed, the NGSS standards are a nationwide attempt to improve science education in the US. They have been backed by organizations such as the National Research Council, National Science Teachers Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

This case, COPE v. Kansas Board of Education, is a notable victory for science—and a blow to the creationist crowd and its progeny. 

The Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) has lead the charge against the NGSS in Kansas, and claims that these new standards are actually a form of religious indoctrination. (The NGSS have been adopted by 18 states, including Kansas.) How could COPE come to that conclusion? Because, it argues, the NGSS do not include any religious explanation for the origins of life and the universe. Therefore, according to the group, the NGSS in Kansas violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which forbids the government's ability to "establish" a state-sanctioned religion.

So let me see if I have this straight. By removing all reference to any religious mythology about the origins of life and the universe, these textbooks are essentially establishing a state sanctioned religion in its place.

Damn that is a truckload of stupid.

You know trying to understand that just killed so many of my brain cells that it's almost like I was educated in a Kansas public school.

One of the former Oregon protesters files claim against feds of $666,666,666,666.66 for damages she suffered from "works of the devil."

Shawna Cox

Courtesy of KATU:  

Shawna Cox, one of Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupiers facing federal charges, has filed a court document claiming federal damages from the works of the devil for $666,666,666,666.66. (Oh, well that seems like a reasonable amount.)

The document was filed in US District Court Wednesday, and quickly tossed by a judge who said Cox's claims were "not cognizable in this criminal proceeding and will not be addressed in this case."

The document also accuses the Feds of trying to execute her and the other occupiers.

Well damn, I guess they DO suck at their job then don't they?

Cox also claimed that the Malheur Wildlife Refuge federal employees did not refuse to show up for work out of fear of being shot, but rather because they felt guilty.

I don't know what they are supposed to feel guilty about but it apparently makes sense to this lunatic, but sadly for her not to the judge.

Federal judge denies Cliven Bundy bail. Good thinking judge. Update!

Courtesy of OPB: 

A federal judge in Portland denied bail for Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy at a hearing Tuesday. 

Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart agreed with prosecutors that Bundy posed a flight risk, is a danger to the community, and should be held in jail while awaiting trial. 

“I agree with the government, if he’s released and goes back to his ranch that will be the last the court will see of him,” Stewart said.

Wait, do you mean the judge thinks that simply because this yahoo flouts the law at every turn, and believes that as a sovereign citizen they don't apply to him, that he might not show up for a court date?

Like I said, smart judge.

I wonder how the Bundy boys are enjoying all of their God given freedom right about now?

Update:  It looks like the feds have now indicted some of the morons from the Oregon standoff, with crimes committed during the 2014 Nevada standoff.

Courtesy of Oregon Live:   

Ammon Bundy, brother Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne and Peter Santilli -- already indicted in the armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon -- now face federal indictment along with Cliven Bundy in the 2014 armed standoff near the Bundy ranch in Nevada. 

The indictment charges the four with 16 felonies: one count of conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, one count of conspiring to impede or injure a federal officer, four counts of carrying a firearm in a crime of violence, two counts of assault on a federal officer, two counts of threatening a federal law enforcement officer, three counts of obstructing justice, two counts of interfering with interstate commerce by extortion and one count of interstate travel in aid of extortion. 

It also levels five counts of criminal forfeiture against each defendant. If convicted of the offenses, they would have to forfeit property obtained from the proceeds of their crimes, totaling at least $3 million, including cattle at the so-called Bunkerville Allotment and Lake Mead National Recreational Area in Nevada. They also would have to forfeit firearms and ammunition used in the April 12, 2014, standoff with federal authorities.

I love the smell of justice in the morning, don;t you?

In a shocking turn of events a federal court has rejected a Nebraska woman's request to sue all of the gay people. And they call this a Christian nation!

Courtesy of The Blot Magazine:

 A woman’s quest to have homosexuality legally defined as a “sin” has been rejected by a federal court in Nebraska. 

In an order dismissing 66-year-old Sylvia Driskell’s civil lawsuit, federal judge John Gerrard found that the Auburn resident’s suggestion that homosexuality was against the teachings of God was not something the court could decide one way or another. 

“The court may decide what is lawful, not what is sinful,” Gerrard wrote in his three-page order released on Wednesday. The judge said Driskell failed to comply with the court’s rules for pleading, including setting forth a demand for relief. 

Driskell, who called herself an ambassador to God and Jesus Christ, filed a neatly handwritten seven-page application with the court last month. In it, Driskell sought to sue the entire gay population worldwide for committing what she claimed was a sin in defiance of the teachings of God. In her pleading, she cited several Biblical passages to support her arguments, many of which seemed to be largely in opposition to gay marriage.

As I wrote earlier I am still not sure why Christians feel the need to persecute gay people if they really believe that God is planning to charbroil them for their sins once they shuffle off this mortal coil.

However as an "Ambassador for God" you might think that they would at least hear this lunatic's case.

After all she might have a point. And not merely the one that her hair barely conceals from the public.

I think it's pretty obvious that this is yet another example of secular law overriding the Sharia law Christian law that many Americans believe should inform our legal decisions.

Besides, how much fun would it have been to watch this case unfold on all of the cable news channels?

But noooooo, some judge had to screw the whole thing up with "logic." Like that ever comes into play in our court system.

Federal court finds that the government systematically collecting the phone records of American citizens is illegal. I knew it!

Courtesy of Reuters:  

A U.S. spying program that systematically collects millions of Americans' phone records is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, putting pressure on Congress to quickly decide whether to replace or end the controversial anti-terrorism surveillance. 

Ruling on a program revealed by former government security contractor Edward Snowden, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the Patriot Act did not authorize the National Security Agency to collect Americans' calling records in bulk. 

Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for a three-judge panel that Section 215, which addresses the FBI's ability to gather business records, could not be interpreted to have permitted the NSA to collect a "staggering" amount of phone records, contrary to claims by the Bush and Obama administrations. 

"Such expansive development of government repositories of formerly private records would be an unprecedented contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans," Lynch wrote in a 97-page decision. "We would expect such a momentous decision to be preceded by substantial debate, and expressed in unmistakable language. There is no evidence of such a debate."

The appeals court did NOT rule as to whether or not the spying violated the Constitution, and they also declined to call a halt to the program citing the fact that parts of the Patriot Act are up for renewal on June 1.

So what happens now?

It is hard to imagine that the United States is going to dismantle the program even in the face of this ruling, governments typically do not give up this kind of power voluntarily.

Which leads me to believe that the Congress might instead vote to alter it in a way that makes it more palatable to the legal system (They are already talking about doing that.), or that the government will challenge this ruling and take it to the Supreme Court.

And let's face it, the way the Supreme Court lines up right now it seems unlikely they will rule against the program.

It is also time to admit that, regardless of our personal feelings about the guy, without Edward Snowden this would never have gone to trial.

In fact most of us would be blissfully unaware that our phone records were even being tracked.

Federal judge strikes down gay marriage ban in Alabama. That's right freaking Alabama!

Courtesy of Raw Story:

 A federal judge struck down Alabama’s ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional on Friday, clearing the way for the conservative southern state to become the 37th U.S. state where gay marriage is legal. 

In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade found that the ban does not further Alabama’s goal of protecting the ties between children and their biological parents, and that it is harmful to the children of same-sex parents. 

“Those children currently being raised by same-sex parents in Alabama are just as worthy of protection and recognition by the state as are the children being raised by opposite-sex parents,” she wrote. 

Granade did not place a stay on her ruling, meaning that if Alabama does not successfully petition to have the law put on hold, same-sex couples will be eligible to apply for marriage licenses when clerk’s offices open.

I think at this point it is all but impossible to the Supreme Court to rule against marriage equality in any way.

At least let's hope that's the case.

Federal judge throws out challenge from Joe Arpaio calling the President's immigration reforms unconstitutional.

Courtesy of Reuters: 

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit brought against Barack Obama by an Arizona police chief who called the U.S. president's sweeping immigration reforms unconstitutional, saying the plaintiff lacked legal standing in the case. 

Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied the demand by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for a preliminary injunction to halt the policies. 

Arpaio, who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," filed the case last month, saying Obama had overstepped his powers by bypassing Congress and ordering the changes himself.

No the President did not overstep his powers, but you sure did you pink underwear pimping piece of shit.

American pastor who helped craft Uganda's "Kill the Gays" legislation to be tried for crimes against humanity.

Courtesy of Death and Taxes:  

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Pastor Scott Lively’s petition to have a crimes against humanity lawsuit against him dropped. 

The anti-gay pastor will stand trial in a federal court in Massachusetts for his part in crafting Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act, popularly known as the “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill was largely the product of a workshop held in Uganda by Lively and two other american anti-gay activists, focused on “how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how ‘the gay movement is an evil institution’ whose goal is ‘to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Look, apparently you can still get justice in America.  Assuming of course that he is eventually convicted.

This bill in Uganda has spread fear throughout the gay community, and among those who have friends and family who are gay. And resulted in a dramatic spike in the number of attacks on homosexuals.

Of course these charges have done little or nothing to change Lively's homophobia:

Lively said that homosexuality is a Satanic attack “on the very essence of who we are” that God has deemed a more offensive abomination than mass killings: “When you look in the Bible, there are sins that you would think of as worse, you know, murder or mass murder, but what does it come down to? Leviticus 18 tells the Hebrews exactly what it is that God identifies as the most rebellious behavior, the behavior that causes the land to actually vomit out its inhabitants and every item on that list, except for child sacrifice, is sexual perversion, and child sacrifice is often a form of sexual perversion. So that’s where we are.” 

“Homosexuality is not just another sin,” he added, “it is the sin that defines rebellion against God, the outer edge of rebellion against God and it is the harbinger of God’s wrath, that’s why the Scripture gives the warning, ‘as in the days of Noah.’” 

Oh yeah this guy needs to spend some real quality time in prison. 

This, this is why we need to always vote Democrat.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Democrats have reversed the partisan imbalance on the federal appeals courts that long favored conservatives, a little-noticed shift with far-reaching consequences for the law and President Obama’s legacy. 

For the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents considerably outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. The Democrats’ advantage has only grown since late last year when they stripped Republicans of their ability to filibuster the president’s nominees. 

Democratic appointees who hear cases full time now hold a majority of seats on nine of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. When Mr. Obama took office, only one of those courts had more full-time judges nominated by a Democrat. 

The shift, one of the most significant but unheralded accomplishments of the Obama era, is likely to have ramifications for how the courts decide the legality of some of the president’s most controversial actions on health care, immigration and clean air. Since today’s Congress has been a graveyard for legislative accomplishment, these judicial confirmations are likely to be among its most enduring acts.

Yes, this is how we protect our country and our civil liberties from the conservatives who have tried to knock us back to the judicial stone age.

Just imagine if Hillary wins two terms. Justice Kennedy is 78, as is Scalia.

Ginsberg is 81 and Breyer 76.

The others are somewhat younger, but you never know what can happen with a person's health.

And besides even if Hillary only manages to replace Scalia on the conservative side of the bench, and the not always reliable Kennedy she will have made an incredible impact on this country for decades to come.

And of course that does not take into consideration all of the federal judges that will, and have been, appointed during the Obama and Clinton administrations.

Just look how many Obama has appointed already.

Yes this is where the real political impact is felt, and of course the conservatives are well aware of that fact. So expect this next election cycle to make the previous look like a trip to Disneyland.