Trump Wants $1.7 Billion Of Taxpayer Money To Pay Jan. 6th Criminals And Other Trump Allies

 It looks like a judge might toss out Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. To avoid that, Trump is now negotiating with the DOJ (which he controls) to reach a settlement. His terms are ridiculous. He's demanding an apology from the IRS, and promises to drop all audits of himself, his family, and his businesses. He also wants a $1.7 billion slush fund (of taxpayer money) to pay off the January 6th criminals and other Trump allies.

From ABC News:

Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.  

The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration's "weaponization" of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself. . . .

In addition to a public apology from the IRS, the compensation fund is believed to be the main condition for Trump to drop a series of legal actions he filed against the federal government, including the $10 billion lawsuit related to the 2019 leak of his tax returns as well as $230 million in legal claims related to the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago estate and the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office, sources familiar with the ongoing deliberations said. 

The settlement terms are expected to prohibit Trump from directly receiving payments related to those three legal claims; however, entities associated with Trump are not explicitly barred from filing additional claims, sources said. . . .

he proposed fund -- which could face significant legal hurdles -- would draw money from the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, a permanent appropriation used by the federal government to pay court judgments and settlements, sources said. 

The arrangement would be an unprecedented use of taxpayer dollars with little oversight. Under the terms of the potential settlement agreement, President Trump would have the authority to remove members of the commission running the fund without cause, and the commission would be under no obligation to disclose its procedures or decision-making process for awarding more than a billion dollars, the sources said. 

The proposed creation of the compensation fund has led some administration officials to raise ethical concerns about the arrangement -- stemming not only from Trump suing his own government but also having control of an entity that can freely hand out $1.7 billion to his allies. . . .

Trump's proposed commission is expected to be composed of five members who would issue monetary awards based on a majority vote, and the process for awarding money and the identities of the recipient could be kept private, according to sources.

Supreme Court Refuses To Fast-Track Trump's Appeals

Donald Trump is the biggest sore loser in presidential election history. He and his supporters have filed more than 60 lawsuits to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

He won only one case -- and it didn't change a single vote. It only allowed GOP election watchers to stand closer to those counting the votes.

Only one of those cases made it to the Supreme Court -- Rep. Gohmert's case demanding the election results in four other states be overturned. The Supreme Court dismissed that case without even hearing any arguments. They refused to hear the appeals from other cases.

But Trump is nothing if not obstinate. He has filed a new batch of cases, which have been rejected in lower courts. Now he is trying to appeal these to the Supreme Court, and he has asked the Court to "fast-track" those appeals.

On Monday, the Supreme Court (without comment or dissent) refused to fast-track any of those appeals.

That means they will not hear any of the cases before Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th. After that date it is likely the cases will be moot, as the Court is unlikely to hear them at all. This Court has made it clear they are not going to interfere in the presidential election.

Gohmert Sues VP Pence In Attempt To Keep trump In Office

 On this blog, I have called Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) "the stupidest man in Congress" many times. It looks like Gohmert wants to prove that is true. He has now sued the vice-president of his own party in an effort to make him violate the rules and declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election when Congress meets next week.

Here's part of how Kyle Cheney reports Gohmert's crazy lawsuit at Politico.com:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and President Donald Trump's defeated electors from Arizona may force Vice President Mike Pence to publicly pick a side in Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Gohmert and a handful of the would-be electors sued Pence in federal court on Monday in a long-shot bid to throw out the rules that govern Congress' counting of electoral votes next week. It’s an effort they hope will permit Pence — who is tasked with leading the Jan. 6 session of the House and Senate — to simply ignore President-elect Joe Biden's electors and count Trump's losing slates instead.

The lawsuit asserts that the 1887 law known as the Electoral Count Act, the vague statute that has long governed the electoral vote counting process with minimal drama, unconstitutionally binds Pence from exercising total authority to choose which votes to count.

"Under the Twelfth Amendment, Defendant Pence alone has the exclusive authority and sole discretion to open and permit the counting of the electoral votes for a given state, and where there are competing slates of electors, or where there is objection to any single slate of electors, to determine which electors’ votes, or whether none, shall be counted," the suit contends.

The lawsuit comes before Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It's unclear if he'll grant the request for an expedited judgment.

Though the lawsuit itself is unlikely to gain legal traction, it does put Pence in the position of having to either contest the suit — putting him on the opposite side of Trump and his GOP defenders — or support it and lay bare the intention to subvert the will over the voters in the 2020 election.

Criminal AG Of Texas Files Ridiculous Election Lawsuit

 Other states may have bad or incompetent attorney generals, but Texas has the worst. He is not only incompetent, but criminal also.

He has had felony charges pending for about 5 years now, but has successfully delayed their adjudication. And within the past few months has accusations of bribery lodged against him. 

Those accusations are not made by political opponents, but by his own aides.

Now he adds misuse of his public office to his growing list of misdeeds. He has filed suit against four other states (all of whom voted for Biden), claiming that they violated election law. His suit has no merit, but will probably make Trump happy -- which is probably the only reason it was filed.

Here is part of CNN's coverage of Paxton's ridiculous lawsuit:

Ken Paxton is a lawman being chased by the law. And when the Texas Republican attorney general filed a suit on Tuesday with the US Supreme Court on behalf of his state, he also became an even more rank hypocrite.

Paxton, who has been indicted on securities fraud and accused by top aides of bribery, abuse of office and other potentially criminal offenses -- charges that he has denied -- argued that a handful of battleground states destroyed the integrity of the 2020 election vote totals. He insists the US Constitution was violated by allowing their legislatures to make last-minute changes that ignored federal electoral regulations.

Earlier in the campaign, Paxton played a key role in President Donald Trump's fight against expanding mail-in ballots. Now Paxton's plea to the Court is that Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia must be found to have used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to manipulate outcomes.

If that argument has merit, he ought to have included his home state in the lawsuit.

Texas' Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott extended early voting by a week and expanded the period in which mail-in ballots could be hand-delivered. "Using his emergency authority because of the pandemic," Glenn Smith, a Texas Democratic political consultant, told me, "our governor accomplished exactly what his attorney general is saying other states did, improperly. Nonsense. None of this harmed the presidential election. It helped turnout."

But apparently, to Paxton, it's only legal if the rule changes help the GOP win.

To make his case, the Texas AG marches out the same unproven allegations numerous courts have already found specious. His paranoia includes hidden suitcases full of ballots, a secret laptop and several USB drives supposedly used to program favorable Democratic results in Pennsylvania, and even alleged videos of poll workers cheering as poll watchers are ordered out of counting rooms. Credible evidence of such allegations has never been produced, and the US Supreme Court rejected another GOP bid to block certification of the Pennsylvania result on the same day that Paxton filed his suit.

There is, meanwhile, an accumulating body of allegations against Paxton. A letter obtained in October by the Austin American-Statesman and television station KVUE, noted that a number of Paxton's top aides had reported to "the appropriate law enforcement authority" a "potential violation of law" by Paxton. The staffers insisted they had "a good faith belief that the Attorney General is violating federal and/or state law, including prohibitions relating to improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses." . . .

Paxton has already been indicted for felony securities fraud, accused of failing to register with the State Securities Board while selling stock to investors without disclosing he was making a commission. The case has been hung up on questions of venue, and payment and replacement of county prosecutors, and has slogged through appeals that have dragged it out for five years without adjudication. . . .

It's hard to believe the Supreme Court will bother to hear Paxton's case, which has the potential to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters, especially after its Tuesday ruling on Pennsylvania. But at one point it also seemed improbable that the narcissistic host of a reality TV television show could become the President of the United States.

The Most Irresponsible Performance By Presidential Lawyers

(The image of Trump's election attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was painted by Jim Carrey.)

Donald Trump is the biggest sore loser in this nation's history. Instead of conceding defeat and helping the incoming administration (as all presidents in the past have done), he has whined, lied, and even gone to court numerous times to have the election results overturned.

All of those efforts have failed, and many of his election attorneys have resigned. Trump has replaced them with the clownish and incompetent Rudy Giuliani -- a man who seems determined to completely destroy his already besmirched reputation and image.

On Thursday, Giuliani held a news conference, spewing lies and making outrageous claims for which he has no proof. Calling that "news" conference ludicrous would be a vast understatement.

The Republicans in Congress won't speak up to stop this ridiculous charade. But that is not true of everyone on the right-wing. The following is part of an editorial from the National Review -- the prestigious conservative magazine started by William Buckley.

The Rudy Giuliani–led press conference at the RNC yesterday was the most outlandish and irresponsible performance ever by a group of lawyers representing a president of the United States.

If Giuliani’s charge of a “national conspiracy” to produce fraudulent votes in Democratic cities around the country wasn’t far-fetched enough, attorney Sidney Powell ratcheted it up with the allegation that Communist-designed election machinery was used to change the vote from a Trump landslide to a narrow Biden victory. An obvious question is why, if you can manipulate the vote count via machine, you’d need to bother with old-fashioned fraudulent ballots. Powell’s story is that the surprisingly strong Trump turnout “broke the algorithm” of the corrupted machines, and then the fraudulent ballots were desperately hauled in to make up the difference.

This is lawyering worthy of the comments section of Breitbart News.

If there’s serious evidence for any of this, Giuliani and co. need to produce it immediately. Waving around affidavits at a press conference without allowing anyone to examine them doesn’t count. . . .

This magazine has always taken voter fraud seriously, and we hope that any that occurred in this election is exposed and prosecuted. But it’s important to recognize that the broad contours of the 2020 presidential vote make sense. At the RNC press conference, Giuliani made much of how the count switched against Trump after he established initial leads on Election Night in key states. Yet this was expected and a function of the fact that same-day ballots strongly favoring Republicans were counted first, and early votes strongly favoring Democrats were counted last.

Across the country, the basic picture is the same, without any notable anomalies — Trump excelled in rural areas, got wiped out in urban areas but often by slightly smaller margins than in 2016, and lost soundly in suburban counties, which proved decisive. . . .

Getting nowhere in court, the White House appears to be shifting to a political strategy based on blocking the certification of results and getting state legislatures to appoint Trump electors in states Trump lost. This is a profoundly undemocratic gambit that, if it were to enjoy any success, would precipitate a major constitutional crisis. The Constitution gives state legislatures the power to appoint electors, but it has been the norm for legislatures to appoint those electors on the basis of state elections for about 200 years. For any legislature to turn around now — solely because its party’s candidate lost and refuses to accept the result — and appoint electors in defiance of the public will would lack all legitimacy. It’d also be legally dubious, at best, to bypass state laws establishing elections as the mechanism for selecting presidential electors.

The most obvious way to prevent this travesty is for Republican state legislators to continue to reject it, the way almost all have done to this point. But they haven’t yet experienced a potential full-court press from Trump and his supporters (the Republican leaders of the Michigan state senate and house have been summoned to a White House meeting today). It’s also important for Republican senators to speak out against this effort and make it clear that they won’t stand for it when it comes time for Congress to consider electors. Finally, it’d be best of all if the president reconsidered going down this route.

He’s turning a narrow election defeat into a bid for infamy.

Gore Vs. Bush Attorneys Of 2000 Says This Election Is Over

Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the election. He's claiming the election was "rigged" and was rife with fraud perpetrated by Democrats.  

And he has filed numerous lawsuits to try and overturn the election results so he can stay in the White House for another four years. Most of those lawsuits have been tossed out of court, because they have not offered any evidence of their claims of fraud.

Some on the right are trying to justify the lawsuits by comparing them to the Bush vs. Gore court fight in the 2000 election. But that was a much different matter. And the two attorneys from that lawsuit -- David Boies (for Gore) and Theodore Olson (for Bush) -- say their suit was not the same as Trump's frivolous lawsuits. They say the 2020 election is over.

Here is some of what those two attorneys had to say in an op-ed they collaborated on for The Washington Post:

Twenty years ago, we represented the opposing sides in Bush v. Gore. We still don’t agree about how the Supreme Court ruled, but we completely agree that nothing in that case — or in the Supreme Court’s decision — supports the challenges now being thrown about in an attempt to undermine President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Yet, over the past week, we have heard repeated assertions that the outcome of this election is somehow in doubt, as it was in 2000.

It is not. Biden will be president. There are many areas of policy on which we disagree. But no matter how you voted in this election, that is the clear outcome. The nation’s laws and shared values dictate that Americans now unite to support democracy, national security, the public trust in institutions and the urgent work of the next administration.

It is also important for the public to understand why 2020 bears no resemblance to 2000.

The presidential-election controversies currently playing out in various parts of the country are not repeats of Bush v. Gore.

That case involved the agonizingly close election in a single state, Florida, the outcome of which was to be decisive in the election for president that year. A mere 500 or so votes separated candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore. The Supreme Court ultimately concluded that there were separate and conflicting vote-counting standards in different parts of Florida that violated the Constitution. The justices halted a late Florida Supreme Court order for a statewide recount. . . .

It is clear to us, and by now to most Americans, that former vice president Biden won, including in the six states central to the challenges being mounted by President Trump’s lawyers.

The margins in those six states range from 10,000 votes in Arizona to more than 145,000 votes in Michigan. Evidence of systemic or widespread fraud or miscounting in those states has simply not been found, and recounts rarely, if ever, change the outcome of elections by more than a few hundred votes.

Trump would have to overturn the outcome in more than one of those states to change what is apparent as the clear result of the election. It is time to accept that Biden won the election and it is time to accept that result and come together as a nation. . . .

Past losers of presidential elections, however stinging their defeats, have ultimately decided to make peace with the opposing camp. Former vice president Gore did so, admirably, when Bush v. Gore was resolved. The sooner that Trump and his supporters accept the election result, the better it will be for the nation.

And The Lawsuits Have Started Over Trump's "Emergency"

The chart above is from a new NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist Poll -- done between February 15th and 17th of a national sample of 807 adults, with a 4.6 point margin of error. It shows the public does not like (or support) Trump declaring a national emergency to build his border wall. Only 36% approve, while 61% disapproves (about 6 out of 10 people). That's a gap of 25 points favoring disapproval of Trump's action. It's obvious that Trump has just created more problems for himself.

But public disapproval is not his only problem. Sixteen states have joined together and filed a lawsuit against the emergency order. They seek to stop it. Filing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the state of California was joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia.

This is just the beginning of what could be a protracted court battle, and other lawsuits are sure to follow. There won't be a wall built anytime soon.

NY Attorney General Files Suit Against Trump Foundation

The Trump Foundation is supposed to be a charity. It's not. It's just another scam by Trump to fleece the public (like his fraudulent Trump University). The board governing the foundation has not met for years, and no Trump has donated to it for many years. And while the foundation donated little (if any) to real charities, Trump and his family used it as a personal piggy bank.

The Attorney General of New York (Barbara Underwood) has had enough. She has filed suit against the foundation and the Trump family. She is alleging that the foundation violates state and federal charity laws, and had an illegal connection to the Trump campaign. She is asking that the foundation be dissolved, and $2.8 be paid in restitution, plus other money as penalties for the illegal activity.

Good! This was long overdue.

Melania Sees Being First Lady As A Business Opportunity

Melania Trump has filed suit against the Mail Online, and its print version The Daily Mail, for publishing an article last August that said she had worked as a prostitute. The article was later retracted, but had already been read by millions of people.

I can understand the lawsuit. If the article was wrong (and I'm sure it was), then she probably has a good case for defamation. What bothers me is that she has filed the lawsuit because it could hurt her business opportunities as First Lady. Here is a statement from the filing by her attorney (Charles Harder).

Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person…to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.

These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance.

Yes. You read that right. She's suing because the article could have hurt her chance to turn being First Lady into a very lucrative money-making venture. This represents a radical departure from First Ladies of the past. Those First Ladies, of both parties, dedicated them selves to causes that would benefit the people of this country -- not themselves.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. The original posting on the White House website about Melania touted her jewelry line on QVC. Evidently someone pointed out how tacky that was, because the reference to QVC has since been deleted.

She is just following the lead of her husband. Donald Trump has refused to separate himself from his many businesses, making it more than likely that his presidential decisions will benefit those businesses (and further enrich Trump). If her husband sees the presidency as a business opportunity, why shouldn't see see being First Lady the same way?

It seems obvious that the Trumps simply don't have the ethics the public has a right to expect of occupants of the people's White House.

Another Sign Of A Very Troubled Presidency (Lawsuits)

The charts above are from npr.org.

It would be an understatement to say the Trump administration is off to a rough start. Poll after poll has shown that Trump is the most unpopular president to ever take office -- the only president to have more people viewing him unfavorably than favorably. But that is not the only yardstick to judge the Trump administration is already a very troubled one.

Although Trump has only been in office a couple of weeks, he has had many lawsuits filed against him. In just the first two weeks of his presidency, there were 55 lawsuits filed -- far more than the last three presidents. Bill Clinton had 5 lawsuits filed in the first two weeks, while George W. Bush had 4 and Barack Obama had 5.

Most of the lawsuits (40) were filed on his executive order about refugees and travel. Lawsuits were also filed on civil rights (9), immigration policies in general (4), financial conflicts of interest (1), and cutting federal funding to sanctuary cities (1).

It looks like the new Attorney General is going to be spending a lot of time just defending the policies Trump has instituted in just the first two weeks.

Greens & Libertarians To File Suit To Be Included In Debates

Green Party and Libertarian Party beliefs and policies are miles apart -- but they both share one thing. They are ignored by the powers that be when an election season rolls around. Both the media and the Commission on Presidential Debates ignore the Green and Libertarian Party candidates. They don't give them any media coverage and don't allow them to participate in candidate debates.

This effectively shuts them out of the political process by giving voters the impression that they must choose between one of the two major parties (Democrats or Republicans). And they do this in spite of the fact that both the Greens and Libertarians have qualified for enough state ballots to theoretically have a chance of winning enough electoral votes to win the presidency.

To say this is unfair is a huge understatement -- it is un-American and anti-democratic. And it makes our government less responsive to the will of the people than in most other democratic countries (where a multitude of parties are given equal access to the electoral process).

I'm not saying that every tiny party or splinter group should get equal access (although an argument can be made for that). But any party that qualifies for the state ballot should get equal media coverage -- and any party that gets on enough state ballots to theoretically get 270 electoral votes for the presidency, should get equal coverage from the media and should be invited to participate fully in all presidential debates.

Both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party currently qualify for full inclusion in the political process. While their views may not currently represent the views of a majority of Americans, the same can be said many times of both major parties -- and the Greens and Libertarians deserve to be able to get their beliefs and policies before the American electorate. It would make our democracy more inclusive, and I believe it would enhance the rather pitiful voter participation in this country.

And it looks like both the Greens and Libertarians are tired of being excluded. They have joined forces to file suit to be included in the presidential debates. Here is how the website of Our American Initiative describes the proposed action:

The 2012 presidential and vice-presidential nominees of both the Libertarian and Green parties are joining forces to challenge the Commission on Presidential Debates and its use of selection criteria that limit participation in general election presidential debates to the Republican and Democratic nominees.

The Our America Initiative, a non-profit advocacy organization, is coordinating the legal challenge. In addition to announcing the plaintiffs in the legal action, Senior Advisor for Our America Initiative, Ron Nielson, also announced the legal team that will handle the lawsuit. The plaintiffs will be represented by Rocky Anderson, former Salt Lake City mayor, 2012 Justice Party presidential nominee, and respected public interest attorney, and Bruce Fein, a nationally-known constitutional lawyer who served as Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan.

In addition to 2012 Libertarian presidential and vice-presidential nominees Gov. Gary Johnson and Judge Jim Gray (Ret.) and Green Party nominees Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, plaintiffs in the lawsuit will also include the candidates’ campaign organizations and both the Libertarian and Green national parties.  When finalized, the lawsuit will be filed in federal court in Washington, DC.

The legal challenge will maintain that the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private organization, formed by the chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, unfairly and intentionally limits participation in the nationally-televised debates to the Democratic and Republican nominees — placing other national party nominees at a severe and unjust disadvantage. 

The proposed remedy will be that the debates include candidates who are legally qualified to serve and whose names appear on enough states’ ballots to potentially secure a majority in the Electoral College.  In 2012, that threshold would have allowed participation by the Libertarian nominee Johnson and the Green Party’s Stein, as well as the two parties’ vice-presidential nominees.

This won't give them complete equality in access to the political process, but it would be a very good start -- and if they were invited to the presidential debates, it might encourage the media to give those parties (and their candidates) more coverage. I hope they win this suit, because both parties have earned their place in our political system.

Public Says No To The GOP Lawsuit Against The President

All of the charts in this post were made from information in the new CBS News Poll. That survey was done between July 29th and August 4th of a random national sample of 1,344 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a CNN / ORC Poll that showed a significant majority of the public opposed the GOP's filing of a lawsuit against President Obama (or any effort to impeach him). Now this new CBS News Poll not only verifies this anti-lawsuit feeling, but shows the Republicans are not winning anyone over with their excuses for that lawsuit. The public understands that this is just a political move -- an effort to demonize the president and try to shift blame away from their own failures before the November election.

I believe the Republicans are getting desperate. While many pundits still claim the Republicans will do well in the coming election (probably just because the party out of power historically does most of the time), the polls are showing something very different. These polls show that while the public is not too thrilled with either of the major parties, they have much less respect for the Republicans than for Democrats.

And this CBS News Poll also verifies that. As the charts below show, the Democrats own a 7 point advantage when poll respondents are asked which party more closely reflects their own personal values -- and a 4 point advantage when asked which party they currently plan to support in House races. That's because only 29% have a favorable view of the Republican Party, while 41% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party -- a significant 12 point difference.

The voters are in an anti-incumbent mood, and that mood is aimed more at the Republicans than the Democrats. That's why the Republicans are making desperation moves like suing the president.

Most Americans Oppose Lawsuit Or Impeachment By GOP

These charts were made from information contained in a recent CNN / ORC Poll. That survey was done between July 18th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,012 adults, and has a margin of error of 3 points (8.5 points or less for the individual groups).

The Republican Party in most states is now controlled by a combination of teabaggers and evangelicals, and this has pushed its elected representatives in Washington far to the right. And to please that extremist base, congressional Republicans have blocked any effort by President Obama to fix the economy, raise wages, repair our crumbling infrastructure, and create badly needed new jobs.

But even this total obstruction and refusal to compromise with Democrats on anything has not satisfied the party's extremist base -- a feeling based on those voters' unhappiness with an African-American inhabiting the White House. These base voters are demanding that their congressional representatives do even more to oppose the president -- and those representatives, in an effort to avoid facing a teabagger opponent in the primaries, have responded with a couple of ridiculous ideas.

The first is to file a lawsuit against President Obama. This suit alleges the president has failed to enforce all the provisions of Obamacare. The crazy part is that they are claiming he has not enforced a law that they have opposed since it was passed -- and have tried to repeal more than 40 times. The suit has no merit, but they aren't really serious about it anyway -- but only trying to keep their base happy by causing problems for the president.

The other idea is to impeach the president, and more congressional Republicans are talking about this than ever before. Of course, there is no basis for this since the president has done nothing that would justify his impeachment. But like the lawsuit, these Republicans know they could not impeach the president and are only talking it up to please their extremist and racist base.

But while these ideas may play well in the party primaries, they are not going to help them in the general election. That's because, as the charts above show, a substantial majority of Americans oppose both the lawsuit and impeachment. I think the Republicans are just shooting themselves in the foot again (a foot already riddled with bullet holes), and these crazy ideas may well hurt the party in the general election. This just gives Democrats more unpopular ideas to campaign against.

Indiana Same-Sex Marriage Ban Tossed By Federal Judge

Indiana has joined a growing list of states that have had their same-sex marriage bans declared unconstitutional by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Richard Young announced on Wednesday that he was striking down Indiana's ban. Judge Young did not stay his decision, so same-sex marriages can start in that state -- unless Indiana's Attorney General, who has said the decision will be appealed, is able to get a stay from the appeals court or the Supreme Court.

Now there is only one state (North Dakota) left with an unchallenged ban on same-sex marriages. All other states have either legalized same-sex marriages, had their bans struck down and are waiting on an appeal, or are having their ban challenged in a federal court. Hopefully, the appeals court decisions will start coming in soon, so we can move on to the next level. The Supreme Court is no longer going to be able to avoid making a decision on this issue (whether states banning same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution) -- as it has been doing for quite a while now.

UPDATE -- The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has just upheld the federal court decision that tossed out Utah's ban on same-sex marriage. The decision was temporarily stayed to give Utah time to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. This is what we've been waiting for. The Supreme Court must accept this case and finally decide this issue, or let the appeals court decision stand (which would legalize same-sex marriage in Utah, and probably across the nation). The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that:

". . . the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state's marital laws."

"A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union." 

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Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center (the foremost organization fighting hate in this country) has decided to strike a blow for gay/lesbian rights in a different way. They want to outlaw the repulsive and damaging "reparative therapy" (which holds that gays/lesbians can be cured through therapy). They have filed suit in New Jersey against one of the clinics offering the reparative therapy, accusing it of fraudulent practices. If they win the New Jersey case, it will provide a blueprint for attacking these horrible clinics across the nation. Here is how they describe their effort on their website.

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) fraudulently claimed to provide services that “convert” people from gay to straight. These services, known as conversion therapy, have been discredited or highly criticized by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the New Jersey conversion therapy organization for fraudulent practices. The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, charged that JONAH, its founder Arthur Goldberg, and counselor Alan Downing violated New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act by claiming that their counseling services could cure clients of being gay.

The lawsuit describes how the plaintiffs – four young men and two of their parents – were lured into JONAH’s services through deceptive practices.

Customers of JONAH’s services typically paid a minimum of $100 for weekly individual counseling sessions and another $60 for group therapy sessions. The lawsuit describes sessions that involved clients undressing in front of a mirror and even a group session where young men were instructed to remove their clothing and stand naked in a circle with the counselor, Downing, who was also undressed. Another session involved a subject attempting to wrestle away two oranges – used to represent testicles – from another individual.

Downing and other JONAH counselors also used techniques that left clients alienated from their families. These techniques encouraged clients to blame their parents for being gay, going so far as to have clients participate in violent role play exercises where they beat effigies of their mothers.

JONAH, formerly known as Jews Offering New Alternatives for Homosexuality, was founded by Goldberg, a former Wall Street executive and attorney who was previously convicted of three counts of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to defraud the federal government. He was ultimately disbarred from being an attorney.

Aside from being junk science, conversion therapy also promotes the idea that gay men and lesbians choose their sexual orientation, a position that encourages a climate of anti-gay bigotry.

The American Psychological Association has expressed concern that conversion therapy practices, such as those espoused by the National Association for Research Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), “create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” JONAH’s practices include discredited methods invented by NARTH co-founder Joseph Nicolosi with no sound medical basis.

Same-Sex Marriage Ban Contested On Religious Grounds

There is an unusual court case happening in North Carolina. It is a case that seeks to overturn North Carolina's Amendment One -- an amendment to the state constitution passed in 2012 that bans all same-sex marriages in the state. Now you may be wondering what's so unusual about that, since their have been many court cases across the nation seeking to overturn same-sex marriage bans. But those cases generally attacked those bans on Fourteenth Amendment grounds (that they denied equal rights to same-sex couples), while this case attacks the ban on First Amendment grounds -- that it denies the religious rights of ministers and churches.

On Monday, Rev. Geoffrey Black, the national president of the United Church of Christ (which has 1.1 million members and 5,100 churches nationwide, with 24,000 members and 155 churches in North Carolina) announced that his organization has joined several North Carolina ministers (and a rabbi) and some same-sex couples to challenge the ban in court. The North Carolina religious figures are Senior Pastor Nathan King of Trinity Reformed UCC, Rabbi Jonathan Freirich of Temple Beth El, Pastor Robin Tanner of Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church, Pastor Nancy Allison of Holy Covenant UCC, Rev. Nancy Kraft of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, and Rev. Joe Hoffman of First Congregational UCC. These religious organizations are located in Charlotte, Concord, and Asheville, North Carolina.

The lawsuit alleges that the ban violates the rights of these religious leaders, their churches, and church members by preventing them from exercising their religious right to perform same-sex weddings for their members and for church members to attend and celebrate those weddings. Rev. Hoffman said:

"As a senior minister, I am often asked to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples in my congregation."

"My denomination authorizes me to perform these ceremonies, but Amendment One denies my religious freedom by prohibiting me from exercising this right."

And attorney Jonathan Martel, who is working on the case, said:

"The core protection of the First Amendment is that government may not regulate religious beliefs or take sides in religious controversies."

"Marriage performed by clergy is a spiritual exercise and expression of faith essential to the values and continuity of the religion that government may regulate only where it has a compelling interest."

This is an ingenious attack on the odious marriage ban, and it just might work. I have always thought the court attacks on same-sex marriage by the religious right were specious at best. While those churches and ministers may well oppose same-sex marriage, which is their right, none of them would be forced to perform same-sex weddings or even approve of them if the ban did not exist. But the existence of the ban does prevent other ministers and churches from exercising their own religious rights, since it prohibits them from performing church-sanctioned weddings.

I have always believed that these bans on same-sex marriages violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, but this lawsuit has opened my eyes. I now believe it violates both the Fourteenth and First Amendments to the Constitution. I think this argument should probably be included in any future court cases. And I'm not even sure it would require the participation of any religious leaders, since any religious same-sex couple could claim their religious rights were being violated by denying them the right to a church-sanctioned marriage.

I don't often praise religious figures on this blog -- but these ministers (and rabbi) have earned my respect.

A Terrible Idea

Prisons for profit may be one of the worst ideas that conservatives have come up with. Right-wingers would like to think that the private sector can always do everything better than the government. That is simply not true, and prisons are one area where government does much better. As the picture above implies, when you build a private for-profit prison you must fill it with prisoners (so the private owners can maximize their profit -- which can easily lead to people being sent to prison, when they could have been dealt with in a less restrictive and more effective way.

Private prisons are also just lawsuits waiting to happen (which the government would be liable for, since they send the prisoners there and pay for their keep). They pay their guards less, and therefore get an inferior quality employee (who is probably not properly trained, since training costs money). The owners also have the desire to cut corners on food, medical care, and other things to squeeze out a little bit more profit -- most of which could easily result in other lawsuits, since the Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners have a right to decent food, good medical care, and proper shelter.

The government sends people to prison, and that means the government is responsible for those people while they are in custody. Putting them in the care of a for-profit penal institution is just asking for trouble (which will surely come). And in the long run, it will be more expensive.

Tort Reform Is Not Health Care Reform

The Republicans claim they have a better health care reform plan. The centerpiece of their reform plan is something called "tort reform". This would basically protect doctors and hospitals from being sued when they cause damage to their patients.

Supposedly, it would work something like this -- if we make it illegal to sue them for causing medically serious and sometimes life-threatening mistakes, then they'll happily give us cheap and quality medical care. And if you believe that, I've got some ocean-front property in Amarillo that I'll sell you real cheap.

This doesn't sound like health care reform to me. It sounds more like just another way to screw the poor consumer (who was already paying too much to the offending doctor or hospital).

Here is a good example of why this kind of tort reform would be a terrible idea. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which is normally respected as an excellent hospital, recently overdosed patients with radiation during the process of giving them a CT scan. The error occurred when "the hospital reconfigured a scanner to improve doctors' ability to see blood flow in the brain."

The overdosing started in February of 2008, and was not realized until August of this year when the hospital learned about a patient's hair falling out. By that time, at least 206 patients had been overdosed.

Now one would think that since the fault here lies completely with the hospital, the hospital would immediately notify the patients and offer to take care of any medical bills caused by the error. After all, a radiation overdose could easily result in a life-threatening cancer. So what did the hospital do?

The patients did get a call from a doctor, who asked about any short-term side effects. But the patients were not told they had received an overdose of radiation, or that there could be long-term health problems associated with it. They were also not offered free medical care for any long-term effects.

If this famous hospital would try to hide their culpability, how do you think lesser hospitals would act? Frankly, this kind of thing sounds like what lawsuits are made for -- especially if cancer or other long-term effects do show up.

How would the Republican "tort reform" help these patients? It obviously wouldn't. It would cost these patients thousands of dollars in future medical costs, and very possibly their lives.

That's not my idea of decent health care reform.

Wiccan Religion Wins Battle Against U.S. Gov.

The Wiccan religion has won its court battle with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The Wiccans had sued the VA to allow its believers in the U.S. military to have the symbol of their religion placed on their headstones when they died. The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State had backed the Wiccans in their court battle.

The VA said they had agreed to the court settlement in the interest of the soldier's families, and to save the American taxpayers the cost of further litigation. This means the Wiccan symbol, a five-pointed star, will join 38 other symbols that have been approved by the VA to put on the graves of American soldiers.

Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said, "This settlement has forced the Bush Administration into acknowledging that there are no second class religions in America, including among our nation's veterans."

There are currently 11 requests pending for the Wiccan symbol to mark the graves of American soldiers. The VA says these requests will be honored within 14 days.

This is a victory for religious freedom in America. In a truly free country, citizens should be allowed to practice the religion of their choice, or choose not to practice any religion at all. The government should not interfere. It has no business telling Americans that any religion or religious symbol is not approved.

These soldiers honored America with their military service. It was wrong for the U.S. Government to dishonor their memory by denigrating their religion. The VA was right in its decision to stop the court battle and recognize the Wiccan symbol.

This small victory for Wicca is a huge victory for all Americans.

Another Lawsuit For Farmers Branch

A couple of months ago, the city of Farmers Branch [just north of Dallas] passed some bigoted ordinances that were like a slap in the face to over 37% of its population -- Hispanics. The ordinances make it a crime for landlords to rent to undocumented immigrants, make English the official language of the city and directs it's police department to enforce federal immigration laws.

Of course, the bigoted ordinances totally ignore some realities about the state of Texas. Not only were Hispanics in Texas for hundreds of years before white settlers came, but many Hispanics fought with the rebels who won Texas' independence from Mexico. You just need to look at the names of many Texas counties and cities to see the large number of Hispanic heroes in the state.

Hispanics have always been a valuable part of the population, history and culture of Texas, and they always will be. The ethnic bigotry shown by the Farmers Branch city council cannot change that fact.

The ordinances are bigoted because while they are aimed at a specific portion of our population, they really do not address the one issue which could really have a dramatic effect on illegal immigration -- the employers who take advantage of undocumented workers so they won't have to pay a decent wage.

It won't matter how many ordinances are passed or fences are built, the illegal immigration will continue as long as there are jobs for them to fill. All these ordinances will accomplish is to make life harder for all Hispanics -- even those who are citizens and legal residents.

It also is going to cost the citizens of Farmers Branch thousands of dollars to defend the silly ordinances in court. There has already been one lawsuit filed by a real estate broker and Farmers Branch resident, saying the city council violated the state's open meetings law in passing the ordinances.

Last Friday, three apartment houses joined together and filed another lawsuit against the city. They are asking a federal court to declare the rental ordinance to be unconstitutional. They are also asking the court to stop the ordinance from going into effect on January 12th.

A petition has been submitted to the city council with 1400 signatures demanding a vote on repealing the ordinances. Only 726 signatures were needed for the election to be held -- probably next May.

The ACLU and several Hispanic organizations are also considering lawsuits. Some may consider this as "piling on". I say the more the merrier. The city has embarrassed themselves, the Metroplex and the entire state of Texas. They must either withdraw the ordinances or pay the price for their bigotry.


UPDATE -- Well, that didn't take long! Today, the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund have filed suit against the city of Farmers Branch. The plaintiffs are a couple of landlords, some Hispanic citizens, and some children who are U.S. citizens, but fear the ordinances will force them to seperate from their parents.

This makes three lawsuits and a repeal petition now. Looks like Farmers Branch bought themselves a lot of trouble with their bigoted ordinances.