Trumpie "judge" orders KY doctors to rape their patients with foreign object

Penetrating a woman with a transvaginal ultrasound wand against her will is rape.  And that's before we get to the requirement of lying.

And of course this asshole is one of the wingnut freakazoid fanatics Mitch McConnell has been forcing through the Senate against the will of the people.

Straight-up authoritarian torture.

From the Courier:

A federal appeals panel has upheld a 2017 Kentucky law requiring doctors who perform abortions to first perform an ultrasound and attempt to show and describe the image to the patient, as well as play an audible heartbeat of the fetus.

In a 2-1 vote, with Judge John Bush writing for the majority, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday struck down a lower court ruling that said the law known as House Bill 2 was unconstitutional because it violates the free speech rights of physicians.

Bush, in his opinion, rejected the opponents' argument that forcing the physician to perform an ultrasound that may not be necessary and describe in detail the results to the patient is a violation of free speech rights.

"We hold that HB 2 provides relevant information," Bush wrote. "The information conveyed by an ultrasound image, its description and the audible beating fetal heart gives a patient a greater knowledge of the unborn life inside her. This also inherently provides the patient with more knowledge about the effect of an abortion procedure: it shows her what or whom she is consenting to terminate."

Bush, of Louisville, was appointed by President Donald Trump.

But in a blistering dissent, Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, a Tennessee native appointed to the appeals court by former President Barack Obama, said she found the reasoning to be deeply flawed and a setback for the freedom of physicians and their patients.

More: Attorneys general across the US taking sides in Kentucky abortion case

"I am gravely concerned with the precedent the majority creates today," she said. "Its decision opens the floodgates to states in this Circuit to manipulate doctor-patient discourse solely for ideological reasons."

She added: "HB 2 is a restriction on speech that has no basis in the practice of medicine."

Gov. "What women?  They're just incubators" Bevin hailed the decision, of course, as "victory for life." Because the only lives that matter are white, straight, freakazoid, rich, repug men.

Alabama "judge" gives excised tumor right to sue doctor

You read that right.  A dangerous* clump of cells and a non-consensual sperm donor have more rights over a woman's body than the woman herself.

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist:

This is the logical bottom of the slippery slope created when the government says a clump of cells is a person: A judge is allowing an Alabama man and an embryo to sue the people that made it possible for a girl he impregnated to get an abortion. It’s the first time an embryo has ever been treated as a human being with legal rights in a court of law.

The lawsuit is over the “wrongful death” of the embryo (wrongly called a “fetus” in some articles and really wrongly called a “baby” in others). Ryan Magers (below) says he wanted the 16-year-old high schooler he impregnated to have “Baby Roe” (even though it’s not a baby and it doesn’t deserve a name), but she decided against it. 

Magers and The Embryo are now suing the Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville as well as a(n unknown) pharmaceutical company that made the abortion pill taken by the girl. 

Rather than toss out the absurd lawsuit altogether, Madison County Probate Judge Frank Barger gave it the green light to move forward with Magers representing the embryo’s “estate.”

Seriously, you gotta see what this guy looks like.

That means a six-week-old embryo — a clump of cells the size of a pea — is now legally going after the people who “killed” it.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, tweeted Tuesday that the Alabama lawsuit is a “very scary case.” It asserts that a woman’s rights are “third in line,” after the rights of a man who impregnates her and the fetus she aborts, she said.

None of this is surprising, because it’s precisely what anti-abortion legislators were hoping for when they passed the state’s “personhood” law. They want this case to be challenged so they can keep appealing until Brett Kavanaugh can force women to give birth whenever an unemployed teenager pressures them into sex. Jill Filipovic explains the potential ripple effects this case could have:

A “pro-life” victory here would give free rein to men like Ryan Magers, who allegedly coerced his teenage girlfriend into sex, allowing them even more control over those same girls’ reproductive lives and, by extension, their futures. A great many women and girls have sex with men who are abusive, controlling, or simply not men who they want to be tied to for the rest of their lives. A “pro-life” victory here would give any man jurisdiction over any woman with whom he has had sex.

In this case, the girl was pressured into sex (though her family is not calling it rape) and chose to end the pregnancy early. A judge now thinks that’s all it takes for an embryo to sue an abortion clinic.

Magers, by impregnating a girl who didn’t want his baby, now has the power to shut down methods of abortion for women everywhere, a move that would force many of them to resort to unsafe and illegal actions to procure something that’s a routine procedure in most other parts of the developed world.

Congratulations, “pro-lifers.” Your dream of ruining women’s lives is inching closer.

* the death rate for abortions is 0.6 in 100,000.  The death rate for failing to excise that tumor and suffering pregnancy is 8.8 in 100,000 - 10 times more dangerous than abortion. 

How have your Repug state legislators ruined your life today?

We were warned.  The late, great, lamented Molly Ivins warned us. When it comes to daily life, it's our state legislators who have the most control over what we can do and whether we can do it safely.

Take Kentucky's General Assembly.  Please.

Since repugs took over the state house in 2016 for full control of the legislative and executive branches, they have been systematically dismantling the structures of civilization Kentucky progressives have managed to erect.

• slashing already minimal benefits for the poor, sick and disabled.

• denying the humanity of vagina-havers and condemning them to a slow, painful death of sepsis after an illegal abortion or a lifetime of forced birth. 

• canceling all state incentives for renewable energy and slapping a giant annual tax on the owners of electric cars.

• eliminating all background checks, training and permit fees for concealed carry.  Now you can get shot and killed for failing to genuflect to the Pumpkin Traitor anytime, anywhere in the Commonwealth. 

• exempting the governor and legislators from being subject to the courts, in case any dogooding libs try to sue their motherfucking asses for all of that unconstitutional bullshit.

and, of course, the coup de grace:

• hiding from the public all records of how and why legislators are fucking us over.

Kentucky repugs did this.  But Kentucky Democrats are letting them do it.  All of this and much, much worse.

Gov. Cowardly Worm Begs Lege to Protect Him From Mean Old Judge

I don't know how Phillip Shepherd can function these days, helpless from hysterical laughter as he must be.

Tom Loftus at the Courier: 

A lot of state government's big legal cases in recent years have landed in front of Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. And they haven't always gone the way the governor or General Assembly want.

A Senate bill filed Friday would let Gov. Matt Bevin or other state officials avoid going before Shepherd.

Senate President Robert Stivers, upset with Shepherd’s handling of the big pension case last year, sponsored the measure, filed as Senate Bill 2. The low number indicates it’s a top priority of the Senate Republican majority.

Stivers, a Manchester Republican, complained in a floor speech Friday that all big state government cases and constitutional challenges should not be heard by judges elected from a single county.

Hey moron: State government cases are heard in the "single county" of Franklin circuit because that's where state government exists.

“It’s not appropriate. As I’ve termed it, it’s a super circuit judge,” Stivers said.

But Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, responded that he’s uncomfortable with the legislature meddling with the courts because it is angry over the outcome of a particular case.

“Initially, I am very skeptical of any piece of legislation which is directed particularly at one judge and one court,” McGarvey said.

Stivers' bill says claims against state officials and/or state agencies that now must go to Franklin Circuit can be redirected if a defendant requests a special judge. No reason for the request is required. And the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court would be required to randomly appoint a special judge.

In an interview last fall, and again on the Senate floor on Friday, Stivers acknowledged that it is Shepherd’s handling of last year’s lawsuit against the pension bill that sparked his interest in in the issue.

Shepherd struck down the pension bill – Senate Bill 151 – last June for two procedural reasons. He said the rapid one-day passage of the bill violated part of the Kentucky Constitution that requires lawmakers have time to consider a bill. He also said the bill was an appropriations bill, which required at least 51 votes in the House to pass. (The House vote on the bill was 49-46.)

In December, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed Shepherd. In a 7-0 ruling, the high court agreed the rapid process violated the Kentucky Constitution, but it was silent on the question of whether the bill was an appropriations bill requiring 51 votes.

SNIP

One veteran Louisville attorney who has represented both Republicans and Democrats in major state government cases, Sheryl Snyder, said Monday he believes the current system is preferable.

“I think choosing judges at random for those kinds of state government and state constitutional issues would be at the cost of the expertise that the Franklin Circuit judges build up over the years by handling those cases…” Snyder said. “Also, the decisions of those Franklin Circuit court judges are always appeal-able to the Court of Appeals and/or the Supreme Court.”

SNIP

Robert Lawson, a retired professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said Franklin Circuit judges have always properly handled such state government cases and that it is “ridiculous” to make such a change because of disagreement with a particular judge.

“This whole criticism of Judge Shepherd is outrageous,” Lawson said. “He’s very fair-minded, very competent."

Shepherd also knows repug bullshit when he hears it.

KY Repugs Cheating to Get Court Wins

Never occurs to them that Judge Shepherd rules against them all the time because they are always wrong. They never consider maybe they should stop passing unconstitutional legislation, and stop breaking laws to get that legislation passed.

No, their solution is to take state cases away from that mean old liberal judge.

From Tom Loftus at the Courier:

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd’s order striking down the new Republican-backed pension law led to a lot of criticism from majority-party leaders, including from the governor himself.

Now, some of those leaders are looking at ways to keep all the important state government cases from going to Franklin Circuit Court.

“You basically have a super circuit judge, or judges, because the venue for so many cases are exclusively here. And that shouldn’t be,” Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said in an interview.

Stivers made the point on Friday as part of a panel discussion at the Health Care Leadership Conference of the Kentucky Hospital Association.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, said during the discussion he sees support for the idea. “You’ll see some continued discussion and talk about this…But there are a lot of details that have to be worked out that haven’t been, so it’s a little bit tough to say where it’s going.”

State Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Louisville Democrat who – like Stivers – is an attorney, said he believes any such move “would be blatantly political and an abuse of legislative power.”

Shepherd, who has served as a Franklin circuit judge since 2006, declined to comment on the matter.

 That's because whiny-ass titty babies are beneath his contempt.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article221607280.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin Loses on Medicaid Again

How many is that now? Four? 27? Doesn't matter, it's way more times than any other governor has lost in court.  Gov.  I Got Mine Fuck You is on track to be the losingest governor in Kentucky history, if not nationally.

From the Herald:

A federal judge in Frankfort on Monday dismissed Gov. Matt Bevin’s lawsuit against 16 Medicaid recipients in which he had hoped to defend his controversial changes, including co-pays and work requirements, to the state’s Medicaid program.

The lawsuit was the reverse of a suit the same 16 people successfully brought against Bevin’s Medicaid changes in a federal court in Washington, D.C. — a fact that U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove noted in his dismissal order.

Bevin already chose to participate as a defendant in the Washington case, where a different judge ruled against him and the federal government in June, and he failed to show what injury the Frankfort court was supposed to redress, Van Tatenhove wrote.

“Not all disputes are capable of federal judicial review,” Van Tatenhove wrote. “Federal courts are limited in their jurisdiction, and they can only hear cases where the plaintiff can establish jurisdiction. Here, the commonwealth failed to do so.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article217012085.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin Determined to Lose Re-Election

You don't piss off the people who cook/serve your food or who cut your hair.  And you don't deliver public, deadly insults to the judge who handles all the lawsuits against your maladministration.

From the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin went after a Kentucky judge Tuesday, the day after that judge ruled against Bevin's procedural motion in a lawsuit over Kentucky's new pension law.

"I now have the most incompetent hack of a judge — I don't know if in Kentucky, but certainly one of the worst — who happens to be in Franklin Circuit Court," Bevin said in a radio interview on 55KRC, a talk radio station in Cincinnati.

On Monday, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled in a 30-minute hearing that Bevin's attorneys could not depose representatives of Attorney General Andy Beshear's office, the Kentucky Education Association and the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police.

The three parties filed a lawsuit April 11 against the state's new public pension law.

Because anyone and everyone who disagrees with Dear Leader is an idiot and a traitor.

Maybe it's just a giant, long-term piece of performance art.

ACLU Stops a New Law Aimed At Killing Kentucky Women

Give more money to the Kentucky ACLU.  Right now, it and teachers are the only ones standing between us and the New Feudalism, now with more Gilead!

From the Herald:

Kentucky's new law banning a common procedure for second-trimester abortions was temporarily put on hold when a federal judge signed an order setting the stage for another courtroom battle between the state and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Under the joint consent order signed late Thursday, state officials agreed to take no action to enforce the law pending a ruling on the ACLU's request for a preliminary injunction.

"This brings immediate relief to women across Kentucky who have had their appointments canceled and care delayed if not pushed entirely out of reach," Andrew Beck, senior staff attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said Friday. "In the meantime, we'll continue to fight this law and look forward to seeing the state in court."

OK, everybody, all together now: A fetus is not a child, not a baby, not a human anything until it is breathing oxygen. What a woman does with her own body, especially including getting rid of growing tumors, is None. Of. Your. Fucking. Business.  Restricting abortion doesn't stop abortion; it just kills women.  Abortion On Demand Now!

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article208824739.html#storylink=cpy

War on Women on Verge of Major Victory in Kentucky Court

Had to be Mississippi, right?  The first state to lose its last and only abortion clinic?  Or Kansas, where the freakazoids murdered Dr. George Tiller.  Oklahoma or Idaho or Alabama.  One of those deep-red, backward, shitty states full of slope-headed, mouth-breathing morons who can't abide women having control over their own bodies.

Not Kentucky.

Bruce Schreiner of the AP:

Its survival on the line, Kentucky's last abortion clinic is bracing for a pivotal legal showdown with health regulators and the state's anti-abortion governor that could determine whether Kentucky becomes the first state in the nation without an abortion clinic.

The licensing fight, set to play out in a Louisville federal courtroom starting Wednesday, revolves around a state law requiring that EMW Women's Surgical Center have agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in the event of medical emergencies involving patients.

State regulators defend those conditions as "important safeguards" to protect women's health. The clinic in downtown Louisville counters that the requirements lack any "medical justification" and amount to an unconstitutional barrier to abortion.

But the case's significance goes beyond a debate about state law.

"The stakes in this case couldn't be higher: the very right to access legal abortion in the state of Kentucky is on the line," said Dr. Ernest Marshall, who opened the clinic in the early 1980s.

SNIP

The lawsuit is one of two pitting the clinic against the state. The other lawsuit is challenging a new Kentucky law requiring doctors to conduct an ultrasound exam before an abortion, then try to show fetal images to the pregnant woman. The law says she can avert her eyes.

EMW gained an ally in its licensing fight when Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky was allowed to join EMW's lawsuit. Planned Parenthood argues that Bevin's administration has used the transfer agreements to block its requests for a license to provide abortions in Louisville.

EMW's legal team believes the case "falls squarely" within a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Texas regulations that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet certain standards for outpatient surgery. The Supreme Court has found that access to an abortion must be guaranteed, but it remains to be seen whether eliminating every clinic in a single state would pass that test.

"Will we build on the momentum of last year's Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights?" Marshall said. "Or will Kentucky be the harbinger of a future where the right to abortion only exists if you live in the right zip code?"

Read the whole infuriating thing.

Lawsuits Work: ACLU Wins a Huge One Against Trump

Talking Points Memo:

Federal Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York has issued a temporary stay on President Trump's immigration executive order. The ruling is in response to a petition by the ACLU on behalf of two individuals at JFK airport. The ruling does not overturn or even stop all aspects of the Executive Order. It applies to people who have already arrived in the United States and prevents them from being deported under the Executive Order. My understanding is that the stay has effect nationwide.

From the ACLU yesterday afternoon:

This morning the ACLU and several other legal organizations filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqi men who were en route to the United States when President Trump issued an executive order banning many Muslims from entering the country.

The lead plaintiffs were detained by the U.S. government and threatened with deportation – even though they have valid visas to enter the United States.

One plaintiff, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked for the U.S. military. His life was in danger in his home country due to that relationship. A former Obama administration official and platoon commander during the invasion of Iraq said on Twitter yesterday that Mr. Darweesh "spent years keeping U.S. soldiers alive in combat in Iraq."

The family of the other plaintiff, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, was also threatened because of perceived ties to the United States. His wife and 7-year-old son are lawful permanent residents living in Houston, Texas and were eagerly awaiting his arrival. Mr. Alshawi’s son has not seen his father for three years.

Tellingly, Trump’s executive order authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to admit refugees on a "case-by-case" basis, for people of a minority religion in their home countries. In effect, Trump has barred Muslims from entering the United States, while favoring the entry of Christians.

Mr. Darweesh was just released from detention at John F. Kennedy International Airport this afternoon, but Mr. Alshawi and others remain in detention. The ACLU and its supporters will not stand for the Trump administration’s unconstitutional discrimination. Today, and every day, we will fight back.

For more information on our lawsuit, please see https://www.aclu.org/cases/darweesh-v-trump.

If you're not white, male, christian, straight AND conservative, the ACLU is the only thing standing between you and Guantanamo.  Give like you know it. 

And be at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville tomorrow, Monday, at 6 p.m. for the big Pro-Immigrant rally.

The Resistance: Lawsuits

Donate to your favorite mouthpieces now:  ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Human Rights Campaign, Southern Poverty Law Center and more

 

Wonkette:

Taking a page from the GOP playbook, Democrats are getting ready to stall, sue, and resist Republican and Trump policies now that the crooks and cranks from the fringes of politics are being pulled in and propped up.

KY Supreme Court to Bevin: Stop Strip-Mining State Economy

Really, the best part of all of these court decisions stomping on Gov. Lying Coward's balls is how his propaganda shop responds exactly the way any democratically-elected five-year-old would.

Marty Finley at Louisville Business Journal:

Kentucky's highest court has ruled against a recent round of higher education budget cuts made by Gov. Matt Bevin, which touched off an increasingly hostile legal battle with Attorney General Andy Beshear.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled 5-2 Thursday to reverse a Franklin Circuit Court decision to uphold the cuts, which Beshear has repeatedly argued are illegal.

The Supreme Court's conclusion states that "the Governor's reduction of the allotments of the Universities in this case exceeded his statutory authority to revise allotments under KRS 48.620(1) and his authority to withhold allotments under KRS 45.253(4)."

"Whatever authority he might otherwise have to require a budget unit not to spend appropriated funds does not extend to the Universities, which the legislature has made independent bodies politic with control over their own expenditures," the ruling continued. "We therefore do not reach the question of whether his actions were constitutional, as the statutes do not give him the authority to act as he proposed. For these reasons, the Franklin Circuit Court's order upholding the Governor's actions is reversed, and this matter is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

SNIP

Beshear released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling.

"Today, the Supreme Court enforced Kentucky law, reminding us that 'the governor, like everyone, is bound by the law.' Based on today’s ruling, I am calling on Gov. Bevin to immediately release the $18 million he wrongfully withheld from our public colleges and universities. As the court stated, it is my job as Attorney General 'to vindicate the public rights of the people of the Commonwealth, and I will continue to do so. I am also calling on the governor’s office to use today's ruling as a turning point. It is time for him to stop attacking, and to instead join me in building a better Kentucky. We live in a state where far too many of our children are abused. Our seniors face daily scams that seek to rob them of their hard-earned savings. Thousands of victims of sexual assault have been denied justice based on our rape kit backlog. And our communities face the most deadly drug epidemic imaginable. These are the problems Kentuckians expect us to address, and they are problems that all of us — Democrats, Republicans or independents — can address together. So I would hope that after today, the nasty press releases and name-calling stop, and the governor joins us for the real work that needs to be done to help Kentucky families."

In March, Bevin made an immediate 4.5 percent cut in state spending for colleges and universities in order to ease the burden of the state's $30 billion pension debt at the time.

In April, Bevin lowered the cuts to $18 million— about 2 percent — and restored funding to Kentucky State University. But although Bevin reduced the cuts, Beshear said they were still illegal.

From the trumpist toddler's press release:

"We are disappointed in the Court’s decision today and strongly disagree with its reasoning. The Attorney General clearly does not understand the severity of the pension problem which became the nation's worst funded plan under the watch of his father's administration. 

You already know every word of it is lies. 

Yes, Kentucky's state pension system is a mess.  It's a mess because for more than 20 years - including four years under repug governor Ernie Fletcher and more than a decade with a repug-run state senate - Kentucky has failed to properly fund the pension system as required by law.

The general assembly failed to fund the pension system because it was way easier to steal money from impoverished retirees than to address the Commonwealth's third-world tax system that strips workers of hard-earned income to let millionaires and billionaires - like Matt Bevin - skate.

Bevin Gets Stomped by Planned Parenthood

Oh, man, I can't wait to see what unconstitutional shit the forced birthers in the Kentucky General Assembly come up with to try to get around the new judicial consensus in favor of abortion RIGHTS.

From the Courier:

A Jefferson Circuit Court judge has tossed out a lawsuit by Gov. Matt Bevin's administration against Planned Parenthood that alleged the reproductive health organization illegally provided abortions at its new clinic in downtown Louisville.

In dismissing the lawsuit filed by Bevin's general counsel, Steve Pitt, Judge Mitch Perry found that Planned Parenthood had, as it had claimed, been following directions of state officials when it began offering abortions in December as part of its effort to obtain a state license.

Lawyer Thomas Clay, who represents Planned Parenthood, said his clients were "very pleased" with the decision.

"It remains to be seen whether the Bevin will accept this decision or whether it will seek appellate review," Clay said.

You mean appellate review to the new pro-abortion majority on the Supreme Court?  Is Gov. Pants Shitter that eager for a beatdown from Notorious RBG and Sonia "Supreme" Sotomayor?

Go ahead, motherfucker. 

Matt Bevin Is Killing His Own Children and Yours

Because that's what celebrating the failure of actions to reduce climate warming does: it guarantees that young people are going to be living on a planet that no longer supports human civilization.

From the Herald:

FRANKFORT, Ky (Feb. 9, 2016) - Today, Governor Matt Bevin made the following statement applauding the Supreme Court decision to freeze the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan regulations:

“Today's Supreme Court ruling is a huge win in the fight against Obama's disastrous Clean Power Plan. The Court's decision to freeze these illegal climate regulations is a victory in our efforts to save our coal jobs and protect Kentucky families from skyrocketing energy prices. We will continue to challenge these regulations as the litigations continue in court.”

Kentucky is among a coalition of states challenging the EPA rules. On January 21st, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet joined with other states and stakeholders to submit comments to the EPA regarding the Federal Plan Requirements for Greenhouse Gas Emissions and implementation of the Clean Power Plan. 

Not to mention that Governor Lying Coward is still refusing to establish a working relationship with the truth.  Climate regulations are not illegal, the rotting carcass of Big Coal will never create jobs, conservatards have been predicting skyrocketing energy prices for thirty years and it ain't happened yet.  Bought gas lately?  

Bevin to Bankrupt Kentucky on Refugee Lawsuits

Our repug guv-elect said Kentucky won't accept them. That stupidity is going to cost Kentucky taxpayers millions.

TPM:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Monday against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) on behalf of the refugee agency that redirected a Syrian refugee family from Indiana to Connecticut at the request of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to keep the governor from withholding any state or federal refugee resettlement funds from Exodus Refugee Immigration, Inc., and states that Pence's rejection of refugees from Syria is unconstitutional.

"This lawsuit is calling out Governor Pence on his unconstitutional bluff," Judy Rabinovitz, deputy legal director of the ACLU's immigrants' rights project, said in a statement. "He does not have the power to pick and choose between which lawfully-admitted refugees he is willing to accept. Singling out Syrian refugees for exclusion from Indiana is not only ethically wrong, it is unconstitutional. Period."

Governors do not have the authority to block refugees from living in their states, since the federal government sets immigration policy. And experts say that targeting refugees from certain regions is unconstitutional and could invite lawsuits.

But the lawsuit filed by the ACLU notes that when Exodus had to redirect a Syrian refugee family to Connecticut at the last minute, the agency had to spend its own funds to find the family a new home.

"Exodus Refugee Immigration had expended both staff time and resources in preparing for the Syrian refugee family who did not come to Indiana. These resources were necessarily diverted from other projects and from assisting other refugees," the complaint reads.

SNIP

In a statement issued in response to the ACLU lawsuit on Tuesday, Pence's office said that the state will continue to suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana.

Moron.  Stand up, Hoosiers and impeach this idiot before you lose everything.

Silly People: Justice Is For Corporations

Corporations are job killers, not job creators.  They are tax avoiders, not tax payers. They are subsidy-suckers, not economy-growers.  And they are criminals who con American citizens out of our rights to seek redress for injury.

 

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

Which is to say (as I have), the corporate beast has slipped its collar. Now you are wearing it. The beast holds the other end. One of the behind-the-scenes players in the class-action saga? John G. Roberts Jr. By the time the antitrust case of Italian Colors (a restaurant) v. American Express reached the Supreme Court, Roberts was chief justice. In ruling for American Express, Justice Antonin Scalia defended arbitration, noting, “The antitrust laws do not guarantee an affordable procedural path to the vindication of every claim.” Even if class action is the only viable method for individuals to take on a corporation. In other words, puny humans, you are SOL.

Thinking back to George W. Bush and the heyday of agitation for tort reform, it is no wonder that the phrase has all but disappeared on Capitol Hill. The justice system corporations used to complain was out of control a decade ago is working just fine now, so long as it incarcerates poor people in private, for-profit prisons (debtors' prisons, in some cases) and large companies have found a way to bypass it and get favorable judgments behind closed doors. Trial by a jury of peers violates an essential rule of the new power dynamics: corporate persons are your betters, not your peers.

Update: Fight back at faircontracts.org [h/t RP]

Kim Davis = Sharia Law

Dead. On.

 

Rude Pundit

If you don't get it, let's make it clear: This is an attempt to enact fundamentalist Christianity as law. It is an attempt to make religious doctrine take the place of secular legal decisions. It is, in theory and operation, no different than the Shariah law that cowardly conservatives fear will overtake the nation, with Muslim Obama as chief mullah or some such shit. You can say you prefer your flavor, but it's still motherfuckin' ice cream. (Note: The Rude Pundit really wants some ice cream.)

Oh, we'll have the usual parade of suspects, of craven politicians leaping to Davis's defense, of talk radio dogs woofing away to their anus-sniffing audience. You know, though, the Rude Pundit may not understand the desire to avoid the stink eye of God, but he knows where inspiration for such fuckery comes from.

The Republican Party is made up of fundamentalists of one type or another now. If your only stance on any issue is "My way or not at all," if you're going to threaten to shut down the working of the government because you don't like Planned Parenthood or you need answers on Benghazi or you need to represent for your state's dead president, then why wouldn't someone think it's fine to stop the gears of local government to please their angry gods.

$2 Million Taxpayer Bucks and Counting to Defend Criminal Freakazoids

UPDATE, 2:40 p.m.: Of course she's defying the order.  She's a filthy, hate-filled freakazoid bitch, and that's what filthy, hate-filled freakazoid bitches do.

So the Sixth Circuit, having been slapped down on human rights by the Supreme Court, is passing the slapping on down to vicious, hateful freakazoid bigot Kim Davis.

Who will, of course, appeal to the Supreme Court, costing the Kentucky taxpayers yet more millions of dollars.

Because Davis is claiming she is a state official and therefore her legal fees should be paid by the state. That is, me and four million of my fellow victims of this crap xian piece of shit.

Meanwhile, a much better case is being made by the ACLU of Kentucky for the state's taxpayers to cover the legal costs of the ACLU having to fight Governor Beshear through the Supreme Court over his refusal to extend human rights to human beings.  That's $2 million that should have to come out of Beshear's plenty deep personal pockets.

The rumor is that Beshear "fell on his sword" by fighting the gay marriage case in order to protect Attorney General Jack Conway in his race for Governor.  Apparently, some idiot at the Kentucky Democratic Party thought this little ploy would let Conway attract the gay vote (and campaign bucks) and avoid the freakazoid attack.

In 10 weeks, Conway's gonna lose that race by 30 points.  What exactly will this stupid, expensive, counter-productive fight over extending human rights to human beings have accomplished?

Kentucky Landowners Deal MotherFrackers a Setback

Do you like your backyard?  Do you prefer it not have a giant, ready-to-explode high-pressure pipeline full of toxic waste running through it? Then thank Kentuckians United to Restrain Eminent Domain (KURED), who just won a victory over the Bluegrass Pipeline terrorists.

Today, the Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the Franklin Circuit Court ruling from last year that purveyors of fracking waste, oil, gas or anything else that is not a public utility cannot use eminent domain to force their way onto your land.

Renowned environmental attorney Tom Fitzgerald, representing KURED and Franklin County landowner Penny Greathouse, sued to stop the Bluegrass Pipeline from using the threat of eminent domain to terrify landowners from Pendleton County to Marion County into signing over their land for a toxic-waste pipeline.

Although the initial ruling by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd applied only to Franklin County, today's Court of Appeals decision applies throughout the Commonwealth.

That means that Kinder Morgan, which is trying to get federal approval to re-purpose a pipeline through east-central Kentucky to carry fracking waste, also cannot use eminent domain powers to force easements from landowners.

Bluegrass Partners, whose Bluegrass Pipeline project has been suspended for the last year, may still appeal to the state Supreme Court.

But meanwhile, this is a victory for genuine grassroots organizing and determination.  KURED members are not out-of-state groups or politicians or celebrities; they are the people whose land Bluegrass Partners threaten: retired people, farmers, women religious, young couples who started asking their neighbors about these strangers with the lying faces and the papers to sign.  They got together, educated themselves, found landowners threatened in other counties, stood together and shouted NO!

And won.

Did Ferguson Report Speed This KY Police Misconduct Settlement?

They arrested the first black kids they came across, and kept them in jail for 70 days.  $1.5 million is a pittance. These kids' lives are ruined.

I doubt this is a unique incident, or that Louisville Metro police procedures could stand up to the glare of a DOJ investigation.

From the Courier:

Metro Louisville will pay a $1.5 million out-of-court settlement to four young black men who were misidentified and wrongly arrested in March 2014 after mob violence downtown, according to attorneys on both sides.

Larry Simon, local counsel for the men, who were dubbed the "Misidentified 4," said details will be announced at 10 a.m. Thursday at a news conference.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Simon said attorneys also will announce a "call to action regarding flawed witness identification procedures that have repeatedly resulted in egregious wrongful arrests and convictions."

SNIP

They were arrested through an identification process that the Metro Louisville Police Department acknowledges in its policy manual is inherently suggestive.

A Courier-Journal story last March described how a woman reported that she was robbed at gunpoint of her cellphone and purse but, with her boyfriend, could only describe the perpetrators as black, ages 16 to 20, and wearing black hoodies.

The story described how Louisville Metro Police confronted the first four black men they found two blocks away — only two of them were wearing hoodies — and violated department policy in allowing the victim and witness to remain together as they identified the men, who were standing on the sidewalk under the glare of a police spotlight.