nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

prop 8.

from the la times: In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the state high court ruled today that the November initiative was not an illegal constitutional revision, as gay rights lawyers contended, nor unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right, as Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown argued.

brilliance

there are many stupendous reasons to fill your day with this man. here is another -- his challenge to john roberts' nomination:

"The problem I face -- a problem that has been voiced by some of my other colleagues, both those who are voting for Mr. Roberts and those who are voting against Mr. Roberts -- is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases -- what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy.

In those 5 percent of hard cases, the constitutional text will not be directly on point. The language of the statute will not be perfectly clear. Legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision. In those circumstances, your decisions about whether affirmative action is an appropriate response to the history of discrimination in this country or whether a general right of privacy encompasses a more specific right of women to control their reproductive decisions or whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to speak on those issues of broad national concern that may be only tangentially related to what is easily defined as interstate commerce, whether a person who is disabled has the right to be accommodated so they can work alongside those who are nondisabled -- in those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.....

The problem I had is that when I examined Judge Roberts' record and history of public service, it is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak. In his work in the White House and the Solicitor General's Office, he seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process. In these same positions, he seemed dismissive of the concerns that it is harder to make it in this world and in this economy when you are a woman rather than a man.

But what I would like to see is for all of us to recognize as we move forward to the next nominee that in fact the issues that are confronted by the Supreme Court are difficult issues. That is why they get up to the Supreme Court. The issues facing the Court are rarely black and white, and all advocacy groups who have a legitimate and profound interest in the decisions that are made by the Court should try to make certain that their advocacy reflects that complexity."

it's like doing household chores: they won't even pay us to work for free...

from the associated press. pretty scary.

MADISON, Wis. - The recession has made finding work so difficult that the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School set up a job fair to help third-year law students find unpaid work.

The law school's assistant dean for career services says more students are graduating without jobs or being forced to delay their start dates at firms that have hired them.

Jane Heymann says that means governments and nonprofits have a surplus of applicants for volunteer positions. In some cases, they can get graduates to work free for up to a year.

Steve Means of the Wisconsin Department of Justice says he interviewed 10 or 11 law students at the volunteer fair but will likely take only three.

giant steps towards that idea of "liberty and justice for all"...

this illegalist has long been a proponent of the notion that it is unjust to deem someone acting to fulfill acute survival needs guilty of premeditated, harmful activity. i know that there are many who'd disagree with me, but thankfully this week, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Scalia definitely agreed with me.

the supreme court has spoken: the federal identity theft laws can no longer be used against illegal immigrants who use false SSIDs to get jobs.

from the NYT:

“The court’s ruling preserves basic ideals of fairness for some of our society’s most vulnerable workers.... An immigrant who uses a false Social Security number to get a job doesn’t intend to harm anyone, and it makes no sense to spend our tax dollars to imprison them for two years.

"Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said in a concurring opinion that a central flaw in the interpretation of the law urged by the government was that it made criminal liability turn on chance....

"Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in his opinion for the court, said the case should be decided by applying “ordinary English grammar” to the text of the law, which applies when an offender “knowingly transfers, possesses or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person.” The government had argued that the “knowingly” requirement applied only to the verbs in question. Justice Breyer rejected that interpretation, saying that “it seems natural to read the statute’s word ‘knowingly’ as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime.”

gays in the military? now there's an issue: those haircuts, those uniforms. who cares??

pretty interesting op ed in the NYT today...