US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2286

On September 11 2015 06:13 Acrofales wrote:

Huh? The price fixing was happening in ANY case. It's due to the patent system. What's different is the increased demand due to the current heroin epidemic.

Complaining about price fixing in this case is pretty stupid, because this is not due to price fixing. It's due to demand being up, meaning they can now "fix" the price at a higher place and there will be people buying it.

Obviously I don't buy the increased price due to "increased manufacturing costs", unless the pharmaceutical company is also getting shafted and it is in fact supply of the raw materials that is limited (a slight possibility, if some kind of highly specialized chemical is involved).

Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the legal debate over same-sex marriage by declaring it a constitutionally protected civil right, attorneys general and governors who fought it are receiving unpleasant souvenirs of failure: Invoices from the attorneys who beat them.

States that defended same-sex marriage bans — most did, to some extent — are now being asked to pay the legal fees for those litigants under a 40-year-old federal law that says the court “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party … a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.”

Or as Michigan attorney Dana Nessel put it: “It’s the price governments pay for defending bigotry.”

Defeat won’t come cheap — or, in many cases, without further legal wrangling.

Michigan is weighing its response to a $1.9 million demand from attorneys for April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, plaintiffs in one of the four cases that went to the Supreme Court and was decided in June. In Kentucky, another state involved in the Supreme Court showdown, the bill for services rendered is $2.1 million. South Carolina has been ordered to pay $130,000, and Florida’s attorney general is fighting a tab of about $700,000.

Several states have struck agreements already. Pennsylvania settled for $1.5 million, Wisconsin for $1.05 million, Virginia for $580,000, Oregon for $132,000, Colorado for $90,000, Utah for $95,000 and North Dakota for $58,000. The varying prices reflect the length of the battles or their intensity.

“This is exactly what Congress created this law for,” said Stephen Rosenthal, a Miami-based attorney who fought Florida’s ban. “It’s a recognition that people need lawyers to fight the government, which has lots of lawyers, when they feel their civil rights are being violated. To encourage lawyers to take these cases, you need to provide the potential to get paid in the end.”

The attorneys general of Michigan, Florida, South Carolina and South Dakota did not respond to requests for comment.

On September 11 2015 07:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
http://ppfa.pr-optout.com/ViewAttachment.aspx?EID=mr9WXYw4u2IxYnni1dBRVno+V8Cw7YQyzA56sTKFpKM=

feel free to criticize the polling methodology

On September 11 2015 08:55 Gorsameth wrote:

For all the weird stuff the US legal system can have I have to say I like this one tho. It probably get abused like most other things but I like the intent of it.

On September 11 2015 07:21 KwarK wrote:

So your objection is to specific elements of the heavily edited and slanted "expose" and not to abortion generally?

On September 11 2015 07:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
http://ppfa.pr-optout.com/ViewAttachment.aspx?EID=mr9WXYw4u2IxYnni1dBRVno+V8Cw7YQyzA56sTKFpKM=

feel free to criticize the polling methodology

On September 10 2015 10:13 Acrofales wrote:
I disagree. Mainly based on this: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/08/3699192/kim-davis-myths/

It seems pretty ironclad.

EDIT: disagree with cowboy. Slaughter seems to know what´s up.

Myth #1: Marriage licenses issued without Davis’ signature are invalid.
...
However, a simple sentence found in Kentucky law seems to clear things up. According to statute 61.035, “Any duty enjoined by law or by the Rules of Civil Procedure upon a ministerial officer, and any act permitted to be done by him, may be performed by his lawful deputy.” If Davis can issue licenses, so can her deputies. There is little to suggest that these licenses would or could ever be rejected as legal and binding.

Myth #3: Kentucky could accommodate Davis without forcing her to resign.
...
but then suggested that Gov. Steven Beshear (D) didn’t do what he could when requiring state officials to abide by the Obergefell ruling. This would have required calling the Kentucky legislature back for a special session to pass legislation changing how marriage licenses are issued.

The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business. This means an employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice his or her religion.

Examples of some common religious accommodations include flexible scheduling, voluntary shift substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practices.

On September 11 2015 09:59 Cowboy64 wrote:


From the article:


Here they openly admit that there is a clear ability for a reasonable religious accommodation. In fact, they have gone to great lengths here to particularly point out that four other clerks are currently issuing gay-marriage licenses, and that those licenses are valid. I accept their debunking of Myth #1. However the problem comes in here:


There are already four other people who are currently issuing "valid" marriage-licenses. It required no special session, it actually just required one judge to issue an order. He specifically rejected this, instead requiring her to personally authorize the marriage licenses.

As far as providing sources is concerned, I prefer primary sources:

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/ib114.pdf


Your article is wrong, and thus your opinion is based on flawed facts.

Here is some info on reasonable religious accommodations.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
(emphasis added)

In this instance, there is no undue hardship upon the employer, as there are other people who could potentially issue the marriage licenses. The judge's argument against the "absent" argument was that it had no legal precedent, as if there is not 1) great legal precedent for reasonable religious accommodations, and 2) as if every legal precedent was at some point unprecedented.

I encourage everyone to read more about this issue though, and not blog posts from a website, but actual, primary sources.

While defending Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis’s refusal to issue marriage licenses out of her religious opposition to same-sex marriage, Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford — which held that all blacks, free or enslaved, could not be American citizens — is still the law of the land even though no one follows it.

Radio host Michael Medved quickly pointed out to the former governor of Arkansas that the decision was overturned by the 13th Amendment. (Although the 13th Amendment ended slavery, the birthright citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision.)

“I’ve been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, ‘How dare you say that, uh, it’s not the law of the land?’” Huckabee said. “Because that’s their phrase, ‘it’s the law of the land.’ Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”

After correcting Huckabee, Medved then asked the candidate if he would attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling with a constitutional amendment.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Huckabee replied. “Because, in the case of this decision, it goes back to what Jefferson said that if a decision is rendered that is not borne out by the will of the people either through their elected people and gone through the process, if you just say it’s the law of the land because the court decided, then Jefferson said, ‘You now have surrendered to judicial tyranny.’”

“The Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage decision made a law and they made it up out of thin air. Therefore, until Congress decides to codify that and give it a statute it’s really not an operative law and that’s why what Kim Davis did was operate under not only the Kentucky Constitution which was the law under which she was elected but she’s operating under the fact that there’s no statute in her state nor at the federal level that authorizes her,” Huckabee said before Medved cut him off for a break.

On September 11 2015 12:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Huckabee keeps going further off the deep end. With this stupid remark of his, he's about 3/5 closer to being thrown in an asylum.

He doesn't have any significant polling numbers, so I don't understand why anyone even cares what he says.

On September 11 2015 13:33 Yoav wrote:


The reason he's going off the deep end (and this goes just as much for Graham and Jindal) is that he barely registers in the polls and so he needs media coverage any way he can get it.

On September 11 2015 09:59 Cowboy64 wrote:


From the article:


Here they openly admit that there is a clear ability for a reasonable religious accommodation. In fact, they have gone to great lengths here to particularly point out that four other clerks are currently issuing gay-marriage licenses, and that those licenses are valid. I accept their debunking of Myth #1. However the problem comes in here:


There are already four other people who are currently issuing "valid" marriage-licenses. It required no special session, it actually just required one judge to issue an order. He specifically rejected this, instead requiring her to personally authorize the marriage licenses.

As far as providing sources is concerned, I prefer primary sources:

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/ib114.pdf


Your article is wrong, and thus your opinion is based on flawed facts.

Here is some info on reasonable religious accommodations.

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
(emphasis added)

In this instance, there is no undue hardship upon the employer, as there are other people who could potentially issue the marriage licenses. The judge's argument against the "absent" argument was that it had no legal precedent, as if there is not 1) great legal precedent for reasonable religious accommodations, and 2) as if every legal precedent was at some point unprecedented.

I encourage everyone to read more about this issue though, and not blog posts from a website, but actual, primary sources.

On September 11 2015 13:37 Plansix wrote:

Even if he is spouting the most flawed legal theory I have heard in a while. All states much overturn blue laws prohibiting women and blacks from owning property, voting or whatever else those laws covered. Sure they are unenforceable due to the 14th Amendment and basically useless. But Huckabee says they still matter, after all this time and who are we to argue.

On September 11 2015 14:41 Yoav wrote:


Is there another meaning of "blue law" than "Sunday work prohibition?" I'm a bit confused by your post.

Kentucky clerk Kim Davis will return to work next week after having been jailed for contempt of court, and one anti-government group wants to make sure she never winds up behind bars again.

The Oath Keepers, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, as a “fiercely anti-government, militaristic group,” say they have their sights set on defending the Rowan County clerk, who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

In a phone call with Jackson County Kentucky Sheriff Denny Peyman, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes said members of his group had reached out to Davis's legal team and were already forming an on-the-ground presence in Kentucky's Rowan County, but remained tight-lipped on specifics, Right Wing Watch reports. Rhodes said his group's action had nothing to do with same-sex marriage, but instead was focused on his belief that Davis had been illegally detained after being found in contempt of court by not issuing marriage licenses.