Chief Justice Rejects Cuccinelli Request to Stay 4th Circuit Sodomy Ruling

 

It appears that Ken Cuccinelli - a/k/a "Crazy Cuccinelli" or "Kookinelli" - may be headed towards another defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court (he's lost every case he's brought so far).  This time, Kookinelli's delusional quest and waste of Virginia tax dollars involves his bizarre effort to save Virginia's unconstitutional "crimes against nature" or "sodomy statute."  After a loss at the U.S. District Court and a double loss at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, Cuccinelli appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and asked that the 4th Circuit ruling be stayed (i.e., suspended from effectiveness pending final action by the Supreme Court).  Yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts added to Cuccinelli's losing average by saying "No" to the requested stay.  Here are details from the Washington Post on the latest bitch lap delivered to Cuccinelli:

Virginia’s attorney general has lost his bid to delay a lower court ruling that struck down the state’s anti-sodomy law while the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear his appeal.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday denied the request for a stay from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

In March, a divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond declared Virginia’s law against oral and anal sex unconstitutional.

Cuccinelli appealed the ruling in June, and later asked the justices to issue the stay.
His request was opposed by attorneys for a man who was convicted under Virginia’s so-called crimes against nature law.

In his appeal, Cuccinelli argues that the Texas ruling did not apply to sex acts between adults and minors. MacDonald’s lawyers dispute that analysis.

The federal appeals court said that while the Supreme Court did not expressly carve out an exception for minors, it left open the possibility of state legislatures doing so.

As noted in previous posts, it was Cuccinelli himself who led the charge to block changes to Virginia's statute that might have addressed the supposed problem that Cuccinelli now complains of.   Denial of the stay is a possible sign that the Supreme Court will refuse to hear the appeal when it takes formal action.

Hampton Roads Pride Fest Is Today

 

While the boyfriend and I are unfortunately out of town for a family event, I hope that local readers will make a point to go out to Hampton Roads' pride fest event in Norfolk's Town Point Park on the waterfront.  While we are out of town, the boyfriend and I were once again among the many financial sponsors of the event, with the big donors being Decorum Furniture and Svedka vodka at the Diamond Sponsor level.   The event begins at 12:00 Noon and runs through 6:00 PM.  There will be many vendors and entertainment to satisfy varied tastes.  A schedule of events and more information can be found here.  One event that is unique to our pride event is the boat parade - the only one in America.  This year the boat parade will be led by the American Rover pictured below.

Here's a view of the park eary this morning:

Other sponsors are as follows (please support their businesses0:

Gold Sponsors
Todd Rosenlieb and Ricardo Melendez
Jim Deming and Mark Board,
Lin Miller, Russell Allen
John Wills and Fred Bayersdorfer
Wendy Maness, Phil Copley. James Hermansen-Parker
The City of Norfolk.
Moira Wright
Silver Sponsors Mike Collins, Sandra Deane

Robert Woolfitt,

Darrell Hitchcock, 

Barry Menser & Michael Hamar
Mayor Paul D. Fraim

Bow Meow

 

Bronze Sponsors      

Randy DeMille, Sharon McDonald,

Dee Agonostini with Dragas Homes, Bill Calvert,

Charles Ford, Chris Hilliard,

The Space Above Yoga Studio,

James and Jamie Ferrell,

Danny Epperson, BeeDee McMillian,
Stacy Shaw and Emily Parker
Terry C Pearce & Susan E West

Rainbow Sponsors

Ralph and Pam Northam
Michele Finck,Alan Psimas,
Lisa Sands, Bee Dee McMillian,
Fred Hughes, Andrea McClellan

Julie Clark

 

Note that two local Mayors and the Democrat candidate for Lt. Governor personally helped sponsor the event.

"Call to Disobedience" - An Effort to Change Catholicism

I often make the case that the only way to bring change to the Roman Catholic Church is to have large numbers of Catholics walk away and, most importantly, cease funding the Church hierarchy (a portion of every dollar given at the parish level goes to the local bishop and another portion goes to Rome under the Church's feudal power structure).  Throughout the Church's history, the loss of membership and money has been the only guaranteed means to fore change.  Nonetheless, there are some valiant individuals who are seeking to change the Church from within.  One such individual is Fr. Helmut Schüller who has just finished an American tour titled "Catholic Tipping Point."  One has to how soon before the Vatican tries to silence him.  Here are highlights from the National Catholic Reporter:

Fr. Helmut Schüller's "Catholic Tipping Point" tour of the United States ended where it began: in New York. He gave an address Wednesday evening in Manhasset and on Thursday, he visited St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, where he delivered thousands of red ribbons and signatures he collected in 15 cities across the nation.

In the last three weeks, Schüller traveled from the East Coast to the West, spreading a message of "disobedience" and church reform. In each city, Schüller preached the values of the "Call to Disobedience," a 2011 document published by the Austrian Priests' Initiative. His message includes opening the priesthood to women and married people. He also advocates for a stronger relationship between the church and Catholic gay couples.

Even before Schüller stepped foot in the United States, U.S. bishops tried to block him, he said, confirming that Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and Dolan contacted Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, his bishop in Vienna, to prevent the tour.



The reaction by U.S. bishops is nothing new for the Austrian priest. "I was not surprised. It's familiar. I had heard it in Germany from the bishops there," Schüller said.

Schüller was formally banned from speaking on Catholic property in Boston, Detroit and Chicago, and the archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said Schüller could not speak on archdiocesan property in the city. But the Sisters of St. Joseph welcomed Schüller to the Catholic venue of Chestnut Hill College, a move Chaput later said was "regrettable."

In his final speaking event Wednesday in Manhasset, Schüller used his experience in the United States to make his case for reform. In the United States, he said, "priests are totally reliant on the bishops for their livelihood. These are the methods of a dictatorship." Making his point, he said in Detroit, priests were forbidden to meet with him in their own homes.

This "top-to-bottom obedience" is evident even in the sacraments, Schüller said. Because "official sinners" are turned away from Communion, he said, "the Eucharist has become a symbol of exclusion." To erase this "symbol," divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive the Eucharist, he said.

Furthermore, the church's stance on gay relationships presents another challenge for parishes across the world, Schüller said, saying the church should be welcoming on this issue rather than exclusionary. The church should "concentrate on the quality of this partnership: fidelity, respect," he said, rather than focus on whether it is a homosexual or heterosexual relationship.

 Would that there were more voices like Schüller in the Church.

More Friday Male Beauty

Dedicated to Douglas Wagner - one of the "Somerset brotherhood."

Russian Government Intimidating Journalists And Activists Before The Olympics

The parallels between the 1936 Summer Olympic Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games continue to grow.  One of the measures employed by Hitler and the Nazis was to shut down domestic media outlets that criticize the brutal Nazi policies and to intimidate foreign press officials into silence or  into publishing puff pieces that ignored the growing list of Nazi horrors.  Now, as Towleroad reports, evidence of similar efforts by Vladimir Putin's dictatorial regime are increasing.  Here are some excerpts:

News sites everywhere have been documenting the issues in Russia surrounding the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, including abuse of migrant workers, the health and environmental impacts of construction, and the rather severe problem Russia has with homosexuality. Russia's response to this dissent has been to try to intimidate and abuse journalists and activists, particularly in the lead up to the Olympic Games.

Human Rights Watch has extensive coverage of these abuses and includes accounts of the Sochi Branch of the Russian Geographic Society having its funding threatened, rejection of the Sochi Pride House, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on websites critical of the government and the Olympics, and several individual journalists and activists being threatened by government officials.
Rule 48 of the IOC bye-laws explicitly states: 

The IOC takes all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games.

Russia's treatment of journalists may wind up causing even more complications for the IOC as these abuses run directly counter to the bye-laws the IOC are obligated to uphold.

Here's more highlights from Human Rights Watch:

“Trying to bully activists and journalists into silence is wrong and only further tarnishes the image of the Olympics,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “One of the non-negotiable requirements of hosting the Olympics is to allow press freedom, and the authorities’ attempts to silence critics are in clear violation of that principle.”

Press freedom is guaranteed under the Olympic Charter, which has an entire section on “Media Coverage of the Olympic Games.” The IOC is obligated to take “all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media.” Other by-laws require that “media coverage of the Olympic Games shall not be impaired in any way….”

Starting in 2008, Human Rights Watch has documented the harassment and intimidation of activists, journalists, and others, regarding their actions and comments related to the Sochi Games.

“Preparations for the Sochi Games have been plagued with serious human rights abuses and other problems, many of which have only been brought to light through the efforts of activists and journalists,” Buchanan said. “If the IOC is committed to these issues, it should ask the Russian authorities to immediately stop harassing activists, organizations, and journalists, and investigate allegations of abuse.”

Some journalists told Human Rights Watch that local authorities sought to control negative or critical information about Sochi by pressuring editors to present Olympic preparations exclusively in a “positive” light. In addition, several independent online news sources and blogs that post critical materials about Olympics preparations faced highly coordinated, disabling denial of service attacks, where hackers rendered the sites inaccessible.

“Press freedom is a central tenet of the Olympic Charter and no successful Games can take place in an atmosphere in which journalists are afraid to report on stories of legitimate public interest,” Buchanan said. “The IOC should insist that the Russian authorities guarantee full media freedom for each and every journalist reporting in or traveling to Sochi.”

Harassment and intimidation of civil society in Sochi should be seen against the backdrop of the crackdown on human rights in Russia that has been underway for 15 months since the May 2012 inauguration of President Vladimir Putin.

During that time new laws were adopted restricting public assemblies, re-criminalizing libel, criminalizing religious insult, introducing additional restrictions on internet content, expanding the definition of treason, and banning “propaganda” for “nontraditional sexual relations.” A nationwide, government campaign to force nongovernment groups that accept foreign funding and engage in vaguely-defined “political activity” to register as foreign agents aims to curtail a broad range of work by independent organizations.

 All of these actions are reprehensible.  But they should not be a surprise.  After all, Putin is a former KGB thug.  Now we are seeing that he's changed very little from his KGB days.

Conservatives Against Christie

The so-called Republican establishment continues to reap what it sowed in allowing the Christofascists and equally reality denying Tea Party crowd to hijack the party base.  Among the likely 2016 GOP candidates, one contender would not immediately be radio active to independents and more conservative Democrats:  Chris Christie.  The problem is, however, is that Christie is anathema to the Christofascists and Tea Party crowd who seem unable to forgive Christie for (i) seeking federal funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's devastation to New Jersey, and (ii) embracing Barack Obama's support for New Jersey.  Allahpundit questions whether Christie could overcome the far right's hatred of him to win the nomination.  Here are excerpts:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%). Just three percent (3%) prefer another candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Good news for Christie-haters: He’s also leading the field — by double digits — when Republicans are asked who they’d least like to see win the nomination. (His new nemesis, Rand Paul, is a distant second.) This is why I keep thinking that, for all the slobber over his “electability,” he might be so widely and deeply disliked by a small but significant minority of righties that they end up staying home if he’s nominee and costing him the election. To be “electable” with a few percentage points’ worth of conservatives sitting out, he’d have to offset them by grabbing more centrist Democrats than expected from the Democratic nominee. How likely is that if Hillary’s the pick and Bill Clinton’s out there every day for her on the trail? Every candidate tacks toward the center after he’s nominated, but Christie would tack further than most — not just because he’s inclined to, but because he might have to in order to make up those lost conservative votes.

It’s time (already!) to stop thinking about national polls for 2016, though, and to start thinking in terms of Iowa and New Hampshire.

A new Granite State Poll  . . . . The poll’s new leader is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, at 21 percent. He is followed by Paul at 16 percent, former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 10 percent, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) at 8 percent and Rubio at 6 percent.

Rubio’s a special case in that he’s a Florida native and could, in theory, win there even if he loses the first three major primaries, but imagine how many “Rubio disappoints again” stories will be written before then. New Hampshire is going to be even tougher than usual next time too thanks to Christie’s and Paul’s likely candidacies: Each of them, in very different ways, seems better suited to NH’s maverick-y sensibility than Rubio does.

One other fun fact from the Rasmussen poll: Among Democrats, Christie is the guy they’d most like to see win the GOP nomination — and Jeb Bush, by far, is who they’d least like to see win. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? If you’re a Dem, you’d love to run against a guy named Bush, especially if you’re carrying the dynastic liability of nominating someone named Clinton. Or do Democrats really think Jeb would be that formidable in the general?

Friday Morning Male Beauty

Bayard Rustin to Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom

Speaking of learning from history, President Obama is taking a step that one can only hope will open the eyes of some of the cretin like black pastors who continue to be the willing water carriers - dare we say trained circus dogs? - for white supremacist leaning anti-gay organizations.  He has announced that Bayard Rustin - Martin Luther King's gay right hand man who organized the 1963 march on Washington - will receive a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Sadly, Rustin has been largely hidden from the history of the Civil Rights movement because of his sexual orientation.  A piece in Bilerico Project looks at the news.  Here are excerpts:

The White House announced today that the venerable Bayard Rustin -- a pioneer in the African-American and LGBT civil rights movements, confidante and advisor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington -- will be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor.

A press release from the White House notes that the award, which will be presented in a ceremony later this year, is given to individuals who have "made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The press release gives the following biography for Rustin:

Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.

LGBT organizations reacted with praise. HRC:

"Bayard Rustin's contributions to the American civil rights movement remain paramount to its successes to this day," said HRC President Chad Griffin. "His role in the fight for civil rights of African-Americans is all the more admirable because he made it as a gay man, experiencing prejudice not just because of his race, but because of his sexual orientation as well."

Rustin was active in the struggle for civil rights for sixty years, from organizing early freedom rides in the 1940s, to serving as key advisor to Dr. King, to helping found the A. Philip Randolph Institute. But his advocacy was far from limited to the rights of African Americans. He worked to end apartheid in South Africa, fought for the freedom of Soviet Jews, worked to protect the property of Japanese Americans interned during World War II, and helped highlight the plight of Vietnamese "boat people." And in the 1980s, he also spoke up for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, testifying in support of anti-discrimination legislation in New York. "Bayard Rustin dedicated his life to advocating for fairness and equality and overcame prejudice to help move our nation forward," added Griffin.

It is sad that Rustin did not receive the recognition he deserved while he was living.

Russia: The Rest of the Story Behind the Anti-Gay Laws

In the early 1930's, Germany's economy was a disaster with soaring inflation and economic instability.  Circumstances that helped set the stage for Hitler's rise to power and the scapegoating of the Jews to distract public attention from the failings of the government.  In today's Russia we see a similar picture: government corruption (Putin and his cronies are thought to be looting the country), a flagging economy, decreases in life expectancy and birthrate.  Someone needs to be blamed and something is needed to distract the attention of the public that ultimately it is Putin and his government who are to blame.  Hence, just as Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws,  we have seen Russia enacting anti-gay laws to target a minority for the foes of Russian society.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the perils of being a business owner in Putin's Russia (where opposition to Putin's regime can lead to charges of "economic crimes") and some of Putin's efforts to save his own ass and retain power.  Here are excerpts:

A business owner in Russia has a better chance of ending up in the penal colony system once known as the gulag than a common burglar does.  

More than 110,000 people are serving time for what Russia calls “economic crimes,” out of a population of about three million self-employed people and owners of small and medium-size businesses. An additional 2,500 are in jails awaiting trial for this class of crimes that includes fraud, but can also include embezzlement, counterfeiting and tax evasion.

But with the Russian economy languishing, President Vladimir V. Putin has devised a plan for turning things around: offer amnesty to some of the imprisoned business people. 

The amnesty is needed, he said, because the government had “overreacted” to the threat of organized crime and the inequities of privatization and over-prosecuted entrepreneurs during Mr. Putin’s first 12 years in power as president and prime minister. 

Russia’s economy does need help. In the first quarter, growth fell to a rate of 1.6 percent because oil prices are level. And in that economic climate, few Russians seem willing to risk opening a new business that might create jobs and tax revenue for the government. 

In 2010, the police investigated a total of 276,435 “economic crimes,” according to the Russian prosecutor general’s office, whose statistics show burglary and robbery are prosecuted less than economic crimes. 

So many Russian business owners are doing time that support groups have sprung up in Moscow for their families known as “The 159 Society.” It takes its name from the article on fraud in the criminal code. Rus Sidyashchaya, or Russia Behind Bars, organizes weekly dinners for the wives of imprisoned businessmen. 

Russia’s infamous penal colonies, rural camps swirled in barbed wire, appear today much as they did when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote “The Gulag Archipelago” in the 1960s. But at least one of every 10 prisoners today is a white-collar convict.

One of those Mr. Titov championed was Ruslan V. Tyelkov, whose short arc from businessman to inmate illustrates both the entrepreneurial spirit that still simmers in Russia and the risks.  . . . In 2010, Mr. Tyelkov spent the equivalent of $31,000 for 25,000 yards of Chinese-made leopard-print fabric suitable for chairs and sofas. “It’s very popular here, not only for furniture but cloths, wallpaper, sheets, shoes, bags, everything.” 

With no warning, the police arrived at his warehouses and removed every roll on six flatbed trucks, handing it over to a competitor, ostensibly for storage, though it was later sold. Then they arrested Mr. Tyelkov, who spent a year in pretrial detention. 

The crime? The police said they suspected copyright infringement of the leopard design. “It was funny at first,” recalled Mr. Tyelkov of his initial meeting with the police. “I asked, ‘Who owns the copyright, a leopard?’ ”  Mr. Titov’s later investigation confirmed the police had colluded with a competitor to seize the merchandise under the pretext of a criminal case, so it could be sold for a profit. 

In Russia, the police benefit from arrests. They profit by soliciting a bribe from a rival to remove competition, by taking money from the family for release, or by selling seized goods. Promotion depends on an informal quota of arrests. Police officers who seize businesses became common enough to have earned the nickname “werewolves in epaulets.”  

Yes, it sounds like what Hitler and his SA did in the 1930's.  Businesses could be destroyed and fortunes lost based on the whims of Nazi officials and cronies.   Putin and his regime govern in a similar mode and if Putin was serious about improving Russia, he'd be dealing with the widespread corruption.  Instead he's persecuting gays.  It speaks volumes about the man and none of it is good.  As for the rest of the world, we don't seem to ever learn from history.

Government Shut Down - The GOP Obsession with Obamacare

So far many of the dire warnings of the GOP demagogues about Obamacare have failed to come to fruition and in a number of states it appears that premiums will be less expensive that the doomsday Cassandras predicted.  It seems that other than the Tea Party/Christofascist crowd, the only folks screaming are greedy business owners who view employees as modern day serfs and similarly greedy doctors who claim poverty while living far better than most of the populace (I have yet to meet a poor doctor in my legal practice - I tend to avoid them as clients because most are obnoxious and don't want to pay for services rendered).  So why is the GOP willing to shut down the federal government that will harm vast numbers of individuals and businesses?  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP obsession with destroying Obamacare and throwing millions of Americans back into an uninsured status. Here are highlights:

With the right wing in full-throttle defund-Obamacare mode, everyone seems to be wondering whether the August recess will bring a rerun of the now-mythical Summer of ’09, when the Tea Party came into its own and changed the national conversation on health care. One question seems to be whether the continuing Obamacare obsession will eclipse immigration reform.

But the Asheville Citizen Times of North Carolina offers an account of something else entirely: A GOP Congressman, Patrick McHenry, getting confronted by a constituent — one Skip Edwards — who is upset with his votes to repeal Obamacare, because of his own medical and financial situation. What’s particularly interesting is Rep. McHenry’s claim that he supports parts of the Affordable Care Act, chiefly the bit prohibiting discrimination against people with preexisting conditions:

Edwards and his wife, both 63, had health insurance until he lost his job during the recessio

n and the East Asheville couple found themselves in financial trouble despite staying relatively healthy.

Edwards and others wondered why McHenry would vote against a plan they feel is better than nothing at all. He said he would not vote for something he feels is bad policy.

McHenry floated a few familiar GOP solutions — allowing the buying of insurance across state lines and increasing competition — but Edwards said he wasn’t satisfied.

It’s easy to rail about Obamacare’s evils inside the safe confines of the conservative media echo chamber. But it may not be so easly for GOP lawmakers to explain to their constituents that they support repealing specific provisions in Obamacare, i.e., the ban on discrimination against preexisting conditions. 

[A]s unpopular as Obamacare admittedly remains, the battle over health care in 2014 may also be partly decided by the prosaic question of which side is perceived as genuinely wanting to fix our health care system. It remains to be seen whether suggestions such as those McHenry offered will be enough.

On top of this, conservative are putting heavy pressure on GOP lawmakers not just to keep trying to repeal Obamacare, but to shut down the government to force an Apocalyptic stand against the law. If it’s hard to explain repealing certain parts of the law, how will GOP lawmakers explain shutting down the government to defund it?

It also remains to be seen whether such episodes will get anywhere near the play that will likely be lavished on tales of Obamacare implementation going awry. Sure, constituents who don’t want the law’s provisions taken away may not be wearing funny three cornered hats or holding up signs proclaiming that tyranny has arrived on American shores, so they may not get much media attention. But surely they are an important part of the story, too.

Truth be told, the GOP simply doesn't care about a vast portion of the American population.  We're disposable garbage,  especially if we are black, Hispanic, or gay.