Towse: views from the hill

February 3, 2009

Justice Rehires Attorney Fired Amid Gay Rumor : NPR

Filed under: legal,news,politics — Towse @ 9:45 pm

Justice Rehires Attorney Fired Amid Gay Rumor : NPR

This should never have happened. That she’s been rehired is a good thing, but for pete’s sake, how can anyone justify this to begin with?

Off with their heads! May the people responsible be ineligible for another legal position for the rest of their lives! How dare they mess with this attorney’s life like this?

February 2, 2009

Mormons donated more to California’s Prop. 8 campaign than they’d previously copped to

Filed under: California,causes,election2008,legal,politics — Towse @ 5:52 pm

Mormon church reports $190,000 Prop. 8 expenses.

Mormon church officials, facing an ongoing investigation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Friday reported nearly $190,000 in previously unlisted assistance to the successful campaign for Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

Now there’s a huge surprise.

Up until Friday, the Mormon church had denied any direct financial support for the campaign beyond a reported $2,078 spent for bringing church Elder L. Whitney Clayton to California.

Church officials complained that Karger’s complaint was full of errors and that the church had “fully complied” with California law.

The report filed Friday contained few details about how the money was spent.

[...]

While the deadline for the report, which covers the period from July 1 to Dec. 31, is Monday, many campaign contributions by major donors and independent committees must be reported within days after they’re made.

The final reports are due today, because U.S. District Judge Morrison England late last week refused to exempt the yes-on-8 campaign from making their filings today.

If the Prop. 8 campaign was exempted from disclosure because of reports of harassments of individual donors, said Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini, the same case could be made for any controversial initiative. Courts would have to “keep the entire California electorate in the dark as to who was funding these ballot measures,” he said.

England agreed.

He noted that some of the reprisals reported by the Prop. 8 committee involve legal activities such as boycotts and picketing. Other alleged actions, such as death threats, mailings of white powder and vandalism, may constitute “repugnant and despicable acts” but can be reported to law enforcement, the judge said.

Even if there have been illegal reprisals, that would be insufficient reason to grant a wholesale exemption for a multimillion-dollar initiative campaign, England said. He also rejected the Prop. 8 campaign’s argument that the $100 disclosure limit established in 1974 should be increased for inflation, saying some states require reports of contributions as low as $25 and the Supreme Court has never invalidated them.

[ref:Prop. 8 campaign can’t hide donors’ names]

Interesting to see what comes out today that the yes-on-8 campaign was so anxious not to have come out.

October 29, 2008

Excerpts of Seven Year-Old Obama Interview Cause Stir

Filed under: election2008,legal,politics,video — Towse @ 12:38 am

City Room™ – Politics – Excerpts of Seven Year-Old Obama Interview Cause Stir

In 2001, Chicago Public Radio interviewed then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama about civil rights. Over the weekend, someone posted excerpts of the interview, edited to misrepresent Obama’s statements. The item is now catching national attention.

Click here for Obama’s full interviews.

The clips are taken from an interview that aired in January of 2001. Then State Senator Obama is one of three legal scholars interviewed for a show about civil rights. Over the weekend, someone pulled excerpts of the show and posted them to You Tube—and today, the posting caught fire on political blogs, the Drudge Report, and Fox News.

The 4 minute spliced collection of clips portrays Obama as advocate a redistribution of wealth through the power of the Supreme Court. That folds in with some allegations by the McCain Palin campaign.

The twist here is that, when heard in the context of the whole show, Obama’s position is distinctly misrepresented by the You Tube posting. Taken in context, Obama is evaluating the historical successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement—and, ironically, he says the Supreme Court was a failure in cases that it took on a role of redistributing resources.

October 26, 2008

Itzhak Perlman: Vote NO on Proposition 8

Filed under: culture,election2008,legal,video — Towse @ 5:40 am

“The Constitution of California currently sees all of our children and grandchildren as equal … Why would you change that?”

August 8, 2008

LawyerWorldLand: GOV. McGREEVY’S DIVORCE JUDGMENT IS POSTED ONLINE! OBOY!

Filed under: legal,people,yikes — Towse @ 11:46 pm

LawyerWorldLand: GOV. McGREEVY'S DIVORCE JUDGMENT IS POSTED ONLINE! OBOY!

Archer gives a summary of the divorce judgment which is online (lengthy PDF) for all to peruse.

The summary is Classic Archer.

And, yes, I trundled off to read the PDF (well, not thoroughly and not all of it) and Archer did indeed capture the spirit of the Judge’s decision.

Yipes.

(I confess that I’d forgotten who McGreevy was and then it was, oh, yeah. New Jersey. That Governor. The long suffering wife. The confessions of homosexuality. The aide who swore there’d been Friday night threesomes for years. Now I remember. Lovely.)

May 15, 2008

California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

Filed under: California,causes,legal,life,politics — Towse @ 5:25 pm

California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

Yay! Hooray! Equality!

Now onward to November when the California Protection of Marriage Act (a constitutional amendment) will probably be on the ballot to read:

SECTION 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution. to read:
Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Bah.

Today’s California Supreme Court decision [PDF]

October 16, 2007

NYC Bride Sues Florist Over Flower Color

Filed under: legal,news,people,yikes — Towse @ 9:32 pm

NYC Bride Sues Florist Over Flower Color [AP]

The florist sez he told her he probably couldn’t match exactly the color she wanted. He provided pastel pink and green hydrangeas when the bride wanted dark rust and green ones.

Ruined her day, it did.

Bride is an attorney and is suing for $400K in restitution and damages.

And get this: the original flower bill was for $27,435.14!

Yikes. I hope her dear husband knows what he’s getting into.

[More complete NYTimes article]

[tons of comments at the SFChronicle]

October 15, 2007

CAN-SPAM works?!!!?!

Filed under: culture,internet,legal,news — Towse @ 5:19 pm

Porn Spammers Get Five Years.

Nice coupla guys.

Harsh sentencing of Kilbride is credited to his attempts to prevent a witness from testifying at the trial. Kilbride received six years in prison and Schaffer received a 5-1/4 year sentence. Each was fined $100,000 and had to forfeit $1.1 million of their porn spam profits. They also had to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL, which claimed 1.5 million of its customers complained about their spam.

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