Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Its All About The Hippie Punching

Republicans in Michigan passed a law preventing local governments from banning the use of plastic bags.

A new law in Michigan will prohibit local governments from banning, regulating or imposing fees on the use of plastic bags and other containers. You read that correctly: It’s not a ban on plastic bags — it’s a ban on banning plastic bags...

The new public act prohibits local ordinances from “regulating the use, disposition, or sale of, prohibiting or restricting, or imposing any fee, charge, or tax on certain containers,” including plastic bags, as well as cups, bottles and other forms of packaging. This means individual cities and municipalities are not allowed to ban plastic bags or charge customers a fee for using them.  

So much for local government knows best, eh?  I'm of the opinion that Republicans' mind set works like this:  "Will this law piss off liberals?  If yes, enact.  If no, table and think of something that will piss off liberals."  The utility of the law, common sense, and demonstrated need do not enter into the calculation.

Associate Groper Of The Supreme Court?

Well, this is interesting.

An Alaska lawyer said Justice Clarence Thomas groped her at a dinner party in 1999, a claim that Thomas said is “preposterous,” the National Law Journal reported Thursday.

The publication said Moira Smith posted on Facebook about the alleged incident Oct. 7, the night of the disclosure of Republican presidential nominee’ Donald Trump’s taped boasts about grabbing women.

The NLJ report said Smith, at the time a 23-year-old Truman Foundation scholar, said that the incident occurred at the Falls Church, Va., home of her boss. She said Thomas grabbed and squeezed her buttocks several times.

“He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him,’ ” Smith wrote, according to the NLJ report...

Thomas, in a statement through the Supreme Court’s press office, denied Smith’s allegations.

“This claim is preposterous and it never happened,” Thomas said.

Now, IIRC, Congress spent quite a bit of time and money investigating a certain president accused of having a consensual relationship with a woman.   It seems to me that if a sitting Supreme Court Justice, a person who can only be removed from office via impeachment, is accused of sexual assault, shouldn't the Congress put together an investigative committee to determine if the accusation is credible or not?  Think that will happen?  Because IOKIYAR, I seriously doubt that will happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 "She had HUGE....tracts of land!"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Resign

If your religious beliefs prevent you from doing your job, well then, its time to find a different line of work.

A county clerk has again refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, invoking her religious beliefs and “God’s authority” — this time in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against her.

This morning, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ office denied the licenses to at least two couples. At first, Ms. Davis remained in her office with the door closed and blinds drawn. But she emerged a few minutes later, telling the couples and the activists gathered there that her office is continuing to deny the licenses “under God’s authority.”

Ummm..you're a public servent.  We're not a theocracy.  Part of your job, Ms Davis, is the issuence of marriage licenses.  If you are incpable of doing that, then by definition, you are incompetent.

Grand Jury Announcement Today

Supposed to come after five P.M.  I really do not know what to expect.  The consensus among the punditry indicates a "no true bill" finding, but a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich, and it takes only nine of twelve (sounds like a Borg) to return an indictment.  We'll see, I suppose.

UPDATE:  Announcement pushed back to 9 P.M.  I'll probably be in bed when it comes (I rise for the day at 0530).

Grand jury deliberations are secret, so if the decision is a no true bill, its possible we'll never see the evidence. 

Botched Execution

I've never been a fan of the death penalty, mostly for its irredeemablity if you make a mistake, but I think most would agree that if you're going to put people to death it should be done humanly.

What was supposed to be the first of two executions here on Tuesday night was halted when the prisoner, Clayton D. Lockett, began to writhe and gasp after he had already been declared unconscious and called out “oh, man,” according to witnesses.

The administering doctor intervened and discovered that “the line had blown,” said the director of corrections, Robert Patton, meaning that drugs were no longer flowing into Mr. Lockett’s vein.

At 7:06 p.m., Mr. Patton said, Mr. Lockett died in the execution chamber, of a heart attack....

A medical technican inserted the IV needle and then the the first drug, a sedative intended to knock the man out and forestall pain, was administered at 6:23 p.m. Ten minutes later, the doctor announced that Mr. Lockett was unconscious, and the team started to administer the next two drugs, a paralytic and one intended to make the heart stop.

At that point, witnesses said, things began to go awry. Mr. Lockett’s body twitched, his foot shook and he mumbled, witnesses said.

At 6:37 p.m., he tried to rise and exhaled loudly. At that point, prison officials pulled a curtain in front of the witnesses and the doctor discovered a “vein failure,” Mr. Patton said.

Without effective sedation, the second two drugs are known to cause agonizing suffocation and pain.

I suspect that even with effective sedation, the second two drugs cause agonizing suffocation and pain.  Observers just don't notice it because the victim is sedated.

Part of me thinks we should bring back public executions, erect a gibbet in the town square and let people watch.  If they see how horrible it can be, then perhaps there would be a push to end the barbarity.  But on the other hand, I can also see it appealing to the bloodthirsty, with tasteless shows like "Sunday Night At The Executions" being broadcast.

PA Gay Marriage Ban Heads To Federal Court

Very interesting, especially with some of Judge Jones' comments:

A lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s ban on gay marriage cleared an early  hurdle today as a federal judge ruled against three motions to dismiss that were  filed by state and county-level officials...

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, of the Middle District of  Pennsylvania, noted that there was a time when federal courts did not weigh in  on gay rights claims, but that time has passed.

“The Supreme Court has decided several cases since [1972] which demonstrate  that it no longer views constitutional challenges based on sex or sexual  identity classifications as unsubstantial,” he wrote. “Finally, in June of this  year, the Supreme Court held that a federal statute defining marriage as only  between heterosexual couples violated the equal protection and due process  rights of same-sex couples who had married in states where same-sex marriage is  legally recognized.”

Of course, trying to divine how a judge is going to rule based on statements issued before the case is even heard is a fool's game, but it sure sounds like the judge will carefully weigh the arguments.

 

 

Judge Suspends PA's Voter Supression Law....Again

I wont be surprised by a permanent injunction at this point.

Pennsylvania voters will not be required to produce identification to cast ballots in November.

A Commonwealth Court judge has barred enforcement of the state's 2012 voter ID law until he makes a final determination in the case challenging the legislation.

In his ruling Friday, Judge Bernard McGinley said while poll workers asking for ID was not itself disenfranchisement, a hardship was created for voters by the state's misleading or nonexistent information on the new law's requirements.

Of course, misleading an innnacurate information is a feature, not a bug, when the intent is to try and keep as many people as possible from voting.

Zimmerman Aquitted

This is the problem with "Stand Your Ground" laws.  Since the only one who gets to tell his story is the survivor, it creates a situation where it is better to shoot first.  Under the old "must retreat if reasonably safe to do so" standard, you did not have that situation.  And as I always ask, what about Martin's right to stand HIS ground?  Personally, I thought the murder charge was a stretch, since I don't think Zimmerman had formed a predetermined intent to kill, but that the jury didn't return a manslaughter conviction is disturbing, since Zimmerman clearly in my mind, recklessly created the situation that lead to a death.

Now, compare to this:

A Florida woman who fired warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville had said the state's "Stand Your Ground" law should apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order...Alexander was convicted of attempted murder after she rejected a plea deal for a three-year prison sentence. 

To recap, a woman who fired "warning shots" (not recommended by the way, you don't know where those bullets are going to end up) gets two decades in prison for attempted murder, while not only NOT killing someone, but not even injuring anyone.

Meanwhile, Zimmerman kills someone after creating the situation leading to the confrontation, and walks away a free man.

I'm sure race had nothing to do with it.

ACORN!!

Only it isn't Acorn, it is, once again, a Republican. 

A Martinsville man pleaded guilty in Augusta County Circuit Court Tuesday to fraudulently putting voter signatures on petitions to get former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on the Virginia Republican presidential primary ballot last year.

Adam Dustin Ward, 28, of Martinsville, pleaded guilty to 36 counts of voter fraud and foregery, according to a report by NBC 29.

Ward collected thousands of signatures with similar handwriting with addresses that could not be confirmed.

I've come to the conclusion that because Republicans commit so much voter fraud and voter suppression, they just cannot comprehend that Democrats aren't doing the same.  As I've often typed, if Republicans accuse Democrats of doing something wrong, you can bet that they're doing exactly what they're charging Democrats with, only 100 times worse.

Again WIth The Nullification?

What is it with the South? Have they forgotten that these questions were settled by the sword 150 years ago?

A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.

Declaring a state religion is blatantly unconstitutional, and states do not have the right to nullify Federal rulings either. But that doesn't seem to matter once you get below the Mason-Dixon line.

House Bill 494, a resolution filed by Republican Rowan County Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford, would refuse to acknowledge the force of any judicial ruling on prayer in North Carolina – or indeed on any Constitutional topic:

"The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people," the bill states. "Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion."  

Wrong, wrong wrong WRONG! Have these people no comprehension of Article VI and The Supremacy Clause?   

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Trying to establish a state religion (presumably Christianity) and then declaring that North Carolina can ignore a Federal court ruling?  It is the very "tyranny of the majority" the Constitution is meant to prevent.

Don't make us resurrect Cump Sherman and send him down there again to teach you a lesson!