Fox News Panel: Mat Staver, Kim Davis’ Lawyer is "Ridiculously Stupid"

Given the manner in which Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel has brought endless frivolous cases and urged his "clients" to ignore the law and legitimate court rulings, I continue to be amazed how he has avoided disbarment.  Perhaps it's merely another case of the undeserved deference given to religion and those who demand special rights under the cloak of religious belief.  That said, you know Staver's stock even among wingnuts is tanking when a panel of Fox News experts conclude that Staver and his arguments on behalf of four times married Kim Davis, the now jailed Rowan County Clerk, is "ridiculously stupid." It is rare for me to agree with Fox News, but in this case, the Fox News analysis is 100% on target.  Here are highlights via The Raw Story:

A panel of legal experts on Fox News came to the conclusion on Monday that Kim Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver, was “ridiculously stupid” for asserting that the Supreme Court did not have constitutional authority to strike down same-sex marriage bans. 

On Monday’s edition of Happening Now, trial attorney Chip Merlin pointed out that anyone who violates a judge’s order should “expect to be thrown in jail.”

“She can still practice her faith,” Fox News host Gregg Jarrett noted. “Just not on the job in a way that interferes with the legal rights of the citizens she serves. And in fact, the U.S. Supreme Court said so nine years ago.”

“She’s a hypocrite,” criminal defense attorney Sharon Liko agreed. “She’s applying for the job of a martyr. She wants to practice her faith by not issuing marriage licenses. Yet, she will not agree to let the deputy county clerks issue marriage licenses even if it’s okay with their faith.”

“When she took the job she swore to uphold the law,” Jarrett explained. “We rely on government officials to do that. They can’t just pick and choose what laws they like, which ones they don’t. If they were allowed to do that, wouldn’t that lead to chaos, anarchy and so forth?”

“Whether the Supreme Court has constitutional authority?” the Fox News host said. “Article III Section 2 of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court constitutional authority to decide constitutional issues!” 

Jarrett added that Staver’s statement appeared to be “stunningly obtuse.”  “That’s a very polite way of putting it,” Liko replied. “I would say it’s just a ridiculously stupid statement.

This woman has a choice, she can either follow the law — she can do her job — or she can get out.”

It is far past time that Staver was disbarred and his parasitic con artist vehicle be put out of business.  His is an embarrassment to the legal community. 

Is the GOP Bi-Polar on the Issue of "Activist Judges"?

Hypocrisy is among the main hallmarks of today's GOP - along with racism, homophobia, the embrace of ignorance and an obsession with controlling women's "lady parts."  One place where the hypocrisy is most evident is the constant GOP cries and rants over "activist judges."  Under the GOP's definition, judges are liberal activists when they rule against the GOP's agenda or strike down legalized bigotry as is currently happening as one GOP backed state constitutional amendment denying gays civil marriage rights is struck down after another.  But when a judge upholds a pet GOP law, then they are deemed to be wonderfully doing their job and performing their constitutional duty.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this bi-polar- and highly hypocritical - behavior.  Here are excerpts:

There was a time not too long ago when Republicans decried “activist judges.” Now they’re lamenting that judges are not being activist enough.

“Unfortunately, the courts have been reluctant to exercise their constitutionally conferred power,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) proclaimed at a hearing Wednesday. He called on the courts “to check the president’s overreach,” and he complained that “the federal courts have read their own powers much more narrowly” than they should.

This new found love of activist judges is the latest manifestation of what has been called Obama Derangement Syndrome: The president’s opponents are so determined to thwart him that they will reverse long-held views if they believe that doing so will weaken his stature.

Republicans have, for example, long deplored the filing of “frivolous lawsuits.” But at Wednesday’s hearings, they were contemplating legislation that would authorize either chamber of Congress to file lawsuits against President Obama — even though legal experts, including one of the Republican committee members’ own witnesses, have said the efforts would fail.

After law professor Elizabeth Price Foley presented the panel with “a road map of how the House can establish standing to sue the president,” the committee’s ranking Democrat, John Conyers (D-Mich.), pointed out that earlier this month she penned an article for the Daily Caller titled, “Why not even Congress can sue the administration over unconstitutional executive actions.”

She wrote: “Congress probably can’t sue the president, either. The Supreme Court has severely restricted so-called ‘congressional standing,’ creating a presumption against allowing members of Congress to sue the president merely because he fails to faithfully execute its laws.”

[S]uing the president isn’t any more practical because the courts have long refused to settle such disputes between the elected branches. This means the proposed bills, and Wednesday’s hearing, were really about the GOP effort to delegitimize Obama.

There are legitimate questions to be asked about the long-term shift of power from the legislature to the executive, but it’s suspicious that Republicans are alarmed about abuses of power by Obama that are relatively minor compared to those undertaken by George W. Bush.