Daily Archives: October 19, 2010

An AP report is here and a copy of the order is here.

Gateway Pundit: “A Muslim man danced on the altar of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy last week.”

CNSNews: “U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday urged Beijing to release Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, a day before Holder was scheduled to meet with top law enforcement officials in China.”

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, writing at USA Today: “Judges are not above the citizenry. The voters of Iowa have the civil right, and duty, to hold their judges accountable. And because we trust the voters to do the right thing, we look forward to Iowans voting ‘no’ on all three judges.”

Associated Press: “Poland’s influential Roman Catholic church appealed Monday to the country’s politicians to oppose in vitro fertilization, calling the procedure akin to eugenics.” More from LifeSiteNews.

CNSNews: “This December, for the sixth consecutive year, the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) will vote on a resolution presented by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) (Islamic bloc), calling on governments to act against ‘religious defamation.’”

Breitbart (AP): “Masked youths clashed with police officers and set fires in cities across France on Tuesday as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement took an increasingly radical turn.”

Lyle Denniston writing at SCOTUSblog: “Supporters of same-sex marriage have urged a federal appeals court to end the constitutional fight over ‘Proposition 8′ by ruling that no one still in the case has any right to pursue an appeal. In a lengthy new brief (found here) filed Monday, the same-sex couples also sought a ruling that a federal judge had authority to strike down Proposition 8, and to do so throughout California. The city and county of San Francisco also filed a new brief against Proposition 8 (found here). In addition, the same-sex couples filed a brief opposing a separate appeal by officials of California’s Imperial County; that document is here.”

Warner Todd Huston writing at Big Journalism: “[W]ith the news that George Soros is buying one hundred political ‘reporters’ for National Public Radio (NPR), one waits with bated breath for the left to decry the fact that a famous anti-American leftist is buying and influencing the ‘news’ . . . In fact, The New York Times doesn’t even mention the left-wing ideology of the foundation that is supplying $1.8 million to NPR so it can hire political reporters across the country.”

Christine Whelan writing at The Huffington Post: “Educated young adults are marrying and thriving in their unions, while those with less education are more likely to cohabit, less likely to ever marry and more likely to divorce if they do wed. The latest data to support this argument comes from the Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends project analysis of 60 years of Census data released last week, which finds that college-educated young adults are slightly more likely to marry by age 30 and significantly more likely to marry by age 40.”

WDBJ: “20 students showed up at Liberty High School with tape over their mouths. The group was demonstrating against abortion. When the principal learned what was happening, the protesters were asked to remove their tape.”

Yahoo (AP): “An anti-abortion rights group spending heavily to influence the midterm elections is targeting 42 House Democrats in a $1 million mail campaign aimed at turning them out of Congress. The Susan B. Anthony List, focused on electing women who oppose abortion rights, is sending mailings to more than 2 million like-minded voters spotlighting Democrats’ records on abortion.”

CBN: “‘We must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel–if possible by peaceful means,’ Kaukab Siddique said. ‘Perhaps, like Saladin, we will give them enough food and water to travel back to the lands from where they came to occupy other people.’ Siddique is an associate professor of English at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.”

Jeremy B. Rosen, Thomas F. Gede, Federalist Society: “With Chief Justice George’s imminent retirement and replacement by California Court of Appeal Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, and the high likelihood that the Governor who is elected this November may have the ability to appoint a majority of the court during his or her term in office, this is a unique opportunity to consider the work, impact, and role of the California Supreme Court. In this paper, we highlight a few important areas of law (consumer class actions, property rights, arbitration, commercial speech, and employment) where the court has been strongly divided in recent years. In those areas of great importance to California’s businesses, workers and consumers, changes in the court’s personnel therefore could result in changes in the law that push the court away from its current balance.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Foreigners keep buying Treasury bonds, despite their low yields and the falling dollar. Are foreign governments deliberately manipulating the exchange rate?”

Politico: “Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell questioned on Tuesday whether the Constitution provides for the separation of church and state.”  Similarly, the AP files this report. The Washington Post also carries this report that includes video of the debate.

John R. Guardiano writing at The American Spectator: “[W]hile O’Donnell may not have been as articulate as she should have been, she’s nonetheless right: The phrase ‘separation of church and state’ appears nowhere in the Constitution . . . The First Amendment had been designed to protect religion from governmental interference and obstruction. Today, by contrast, the courts seem intent on protecting the people from religion . . . So while the elites cluck in disapproval at what they believe is O’Donnell’s faux pas, the reality is she knows and understands the Constitution better than they do.”

LifeNews: “The massive new abortion business Planned Parenthood opened in southeast Houston will face another large rally in opposition next week. Houston pro-life organizations are coming together on October 23 for an educational and inspirational event called Unite for Life.”

NBC 4: “A local man is indicted on six counts after he is accused of kidnapping the mother of his unborn baby and forcing her to go to an abortion clinic at gunpoint.”

“With the filing of a lawsuit in the baby Shanice case, the issue of babies born alive after an attempted abortion is once again in the spotlight . . . After she scheduled the abortion, Williams was given medication to dilate her cervix. She arrived at the clinic the next day. When the doctor failed to show up, Williams delivered a baby girl. At that point, her attorney said, ‘She came face to face with a human being, and that changed everything.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit Monday upheld a district court decision that denied the request of several Maryland state police officers to be immune from a lawsuit filed by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys representing pro-life advocates. The officers handcuffed and arrested 18 pro-life advocates for sharing a peaceful pro-life message along a public street in August 2008.

Family Research Council published this paper by Peter Sprigg earlier this year. | Related LifesiteNews report: Former Brazilian Soldiers Say they Were Forced to Have Sex with Homosexual Superior

The Susan B. Anthony List (“SBA”) filed a federal lawsuit yesterday asking the court to stop Ohio’s investigation of whether it made a “false statement” about a candidate for Congress until the court can decide whether the law they were charged under is constitutional.

Christian Today: “In an emotional evening, participants of the Lausanne Congress heard the song that Chinese leaders barred from travelling had planned to sing and the Scripture verses that they picked out for their presentation.”

The Iona Institute: “Catholic school principals have attacked First Minister Peter Robinson after he said Catholic schools foster a type of ‘apartheid’ and that State funding of such schools should end . . . Citing the need to cut costs, Mr Robinson had claimed it was ‘absurd’ to allow different education sectors, and he urged the creation of a single body to oversee all schools, the Irish Times reports.”

International Business Times: “Judge Virginia Phillips of California’s federal court rejected the U.S. government’s request to stay her injunction, Monday, a move which is likely to prompt the government to turn to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or even the Supreme Court to overturn her ruling.”

The Hill: “Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) said that not only would he not back Pelosi (D-Calif.) for Speaker again, but also that he’d heard she would not seek another term in that position.”

Christian Science Monitor: “A new ranking of the 400 biggest U.S. charities shows donations dropped by 11 percent overall last year as the Great Recession ended — the worst decline in 20 years since the Chronicle of Philanthropy began keeping a tally.”

“. . . necessary for a happy and lasting marriage: a stable job, adequate financial resources, and homemaking or housekeeping. Today the current socioeconomic situation in the United States makes the issues of a stable job and adequate financial resources exceptionally difficult for young people today.”

Eyeblast.tv (video): The good people over at My Food. My Choice! went out and interviewed some of the best chefs in New York City on looming salt bans . . .

Suad Hamada writing at The WIP: “Although polygamy is not widespread in Bahrain – according to official statistics only 4% of the male population here are polygamists – the open option for men is a major concern of Bahraini women who are mistreated by husbands who threaten to marry other women and have the power to do so by law.”

WSJ Law Blog: “The president of the American Bar Association, Steve Zack, told a gathering of law school deans and professors last week that the organization is considering requiring law schools to disclose cost and employment statistics to all accepted law school applicants.”

Deseret News: “Prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office are scheduled to meet with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Tuesday to discuss potential bigamy charges against the Lehi family.”

Lemondrop.com: “During the past two years, Verlan had constructed separate adobe homes for each wife. He married Lillie, and now he was busily courting another teenage girl named Kim. Three babies were being born into our family on average each year. Indeed, Verlan was adding many new jewels to his eternal crown. There were over 40 children in our family now — 40 kids who hardly knew their own father. Children who needed a relationship with him in the worst way. Unfortunately, Verlan never had time to spend with them.”

Reuters: “Islamist rebels killed at least three people on Tuesday as they tried to seize Chechnya’s parliament in a brazen suicide attack that showed Russia is failing to quell the insurgency on its southern flank.”

Arizona Republic: “Lawmakers in states across the country are combining to work on proposed legislation to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in this country to parents who are illegal immigrants, the sponsor of Arizona’s 2010 law targeting illegal immigration said Tuesday.”

The Independent Weekly: “STUDENTS in NSW will be offered ethics classes as an alternative to scripture classes by next year, under a proposal the government is expected to adopt. The Minister for Education, Verity Firth, will release today the findings of an independent report on a trial of ethics classes held in 10 schools over 10 weeks this year. The 102-page report, by Sue Knight and three colleagues at the University of South Australia, recommends the government adopts the ethics classes model used in the trial if it decides to establish the classes.”

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy today ordered responsive briefing on an emergency request to halt unconstitutional aspects of Maine’s public funding scheme for state candidates.

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears appears briefly [no audio] in this clip from NBC-12 covering the Manhattan Declaration seminar hosted by the Diocese of Phoenix, AZ.

The Brooklyn Paper: “City officials on Friday quietly scrubbed a controversial Sheepshead Bay mosque, which had already been the subject of months of review and protests, and ordered another probe of the project.”

Middle East Forum: “Magdi Khalil, a human rights activist at the forefront of the ‘Coptic question,’ states that ‘Egypt is on the verge of chaos and change of regime and there is a plan for Copts to pay the price of this predicted chaos, by directing the surplus violence, hate and barbarism towards them.’ This redirection onto the Copts is obvious even in subtle things: aside from the habitual anti-Copt indoctrination that goes on in mosques — all of the aforementioned demonstrations occurred immediately after Friday’s mosque prayers — Egypt’s state run public education system also marginalizes, if not ostracizes, the Copts.”

Michael Piano writing in The Daily Athenaeum (West Virginia University): “There is no constitutional or historic precedent for gay marriage or civil unions, and such matters of immense innovation of human relationships should be not be left to a few judges here and there, falsely claiming a centuries-long tradition of constitutionality to support their claims. Instead, such innovation should be left to the people and their legislatures along with their executive representatives, not judges, for judges have a job to interpret the law and its constitutionality, not make law themselves.”

Gulf News: “Egypt’s state-owned Nilesat has temporarily suspended 12 television channels for promoting religion hatred, violence and quack medicine, the information minister said on Tuesday.”

David Masci, Senior Researcher, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: “On Nov. 3, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of related cases involving a constitutional challenge to an Arizona tax policy aimed at providing scholarships for children to attend private — often religious — schools. The cases, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn and Arizona Department of Revenue v. Winn, involve a state tax credit for Arizona residents who contribute money to what are called scholarship tuition organizations (STOs), nonprofit groups that use taxpayer contributions to provide scholarships for children to attend private schools. Opponents of the tax credit contend that it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because, in their view, it allows the state to channel public money to religious schools. Those defending the tax credit maintain that it meets the constitutional standards set by the Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the 2002 ruling which upheld a school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio. Before deciding the Establishment Clause issue, however, the court will consider whether those challenging the tax credit have legal standing, which is the right to bring such a lawsuit.”

Omaha World-Herald: “A change in Omaha city ordinance that would give gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people new protections against discrimination has hit some snags.”

Christian Post: “All the while, Christians have not concerned themselves with the issue and pastors are afraid to speak out for fear of being perceived as homophobic, he lamented. Though he has published with major publishers before, no secular or Christian publisher was willing to go near his new book, titled A Queer Thing Happened to America: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been. His book was rejected by about 20 publishers, all of whom said the title needs to be changed and that the contents are too controversial . . . At the same time, he believes the GLBT issue is the greatest challenge to religious freedoms and family foundations in this generation and is something Christians cannot ignore. ‘We must pray for awakening in the church. America’s messed up because the church is messed up,’ he said. ‘This has happened on our watch.’”

LifeSiteNews: “On Tuesday morning, students from thousands of schools around the world will keep silence and refuse to speak as a protest against the silencing of countless innocent children by abortion . . . Over the past few years many schools have tried to stop students from participating. Every year. Attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund defend these students and file lawsuits to protect their rights.”

LifeSiteNews: “‘We hope this ruling will end the city’s attempts to defend its act of compelling people to participate in sexually-charged events against their moral and personal convictions,’ said ADF Senior Counsel [Joseph Infranco], who is co-counsel in the case. ‘If not, we are prepared to continue to defend the firefighters all the way to the California Supreme Court.’”

LifeNews: “A federal judge held a court hearing on Monday in the third lawsuit filed against the ObamaCare health care reform bill that contains abortion funding and has been described by pro-life groups as the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”

LifeSiteNews: “Ken Buck sparked the reaction after telling the host of NBC’s Meet the Press during a debate with his opponent Sunday that the genetic effect upon homosexuality could be compared to that of alcoholism.”

New York Times: “Beyond that, conservatives say they are guided by less partisan motives: the fervent belief, shared by some liberal groups like the A.C.L.U., that the First Amendment should prevent the government from enacting campaign finance restrictions that can chill free speech, even if it means giving anonymity to donors and rights to corporations.”

New York Times Editorial: “[Bruesewitz v. Wyeth] is about whether the family of a girl, who they said was badly injured by a vaccine, can sue the manufacturer in a state court. Or are they barred by a 24-year-old federal law that blocks this sort of lawsuit if ‘the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable?’ That prohibition is called pre-emption, a hot issue in constitutional law because it is at the heart of the balance of power between states and the federal government — the meaning of federalism.”

New York Times: “The Chinese government plans a further reduction, of up to 30 percent, next year in its quotas for exports of rare earth minerals, in an attempt to conserve dwindling reserves of the materials, the official newspaper China Daily said Tuesday.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial, “China’s Rare Earths Gambit” [full text via Google News]: “If this continues over the next few years, it will put big multinationals in a bind: Either move high-value production processes to China, or get out of certain lucrative businesses. Beijing has always driven a hard bargain with foreign firms, using the allure of its giant domestic market to force technology transfers. Rare earths represent an even bigger crowbar with which to pry out Western corporate trade secrets.”

Related: Chinese monopoly on rare earth elements poses grave danger

KVOA.com: Supporters say the courses promote heritage, but Dr. Tom Horne, Superintendent of Public Instruction says la raza studies intimidate and divide students based on race. In a statement to News 4, Dr. Horne who is named in the suit says quote, “I have letters from teachers and former teachers detailing the radical agenda that takes place in these classes.”

Missoulian: “Saying a U.S. Supreme Court ruling trumps Montana’s unique historical circumstances, a Helena district judge Monday threw out as unconstitutional the state’s 1912 law banning direct corporate spending for or against political candidates or political parties.”

Andrew Bostom writing at Pajamas Media: “Wilders’ assessment [of Islam] not only comports with scholarly observations made (primarily) before the advent of the postmodern Western scourge of cultural relativism, it is supported by contemporary hard polling data from 2006 -2007, and a more recent follow-up reported February 25, 2009. At present, overwhelming Muslim majorities — i.e., better than two-thirds (see the weighted average calculated here) of a well-conducted survey of the world’s most significant and populous Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries — want these immoderate outcomes: ‘strict application’ of Shari’a, Islamic law, and a global caliphate.”

Andrew C. McCarthy, writing at National Review Online: “Moreover, as I’ve noted on several occasions, the point of jihad is to spread sharia, the Islamic legal system whose installation is the necessary precondition to creating an Islamic society . . . Consequently, one can be an Islamist without engaging in violent jihad, which is precisely the case with the vast majority of Islamists. The fact that they are not terrorists does not mean — as we wish it would mean — that they are not extremists. While they abstain from the use of force (particularly against other Muslims), staggering majorities of Muslims throughout the world favor the implementation and strict application of sharia.”

Pat Buchanan writing at Townhall: “Is Europe’s adventure in international living about to end? . . . Across Europe, there is a resurgence of ethnonationalism that is feeding the ranks of populist and anti-immigrant parties that are gaining respectability and reaching for power . . . But the awakening of Europe’s establishment to the shallow roots of multiculturalism will likely prove frustrating and futile . . . For not one European nation, save Iceland and Albania, has had a birth rate for decades that is not below zero population growth.”

NCPA: “New York taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year on health insurance coverage for retired state and local government employees, many of whom are too young to be eligible for Medicare. But the mounting ‘pay-as-you-go’ bill for retiree health care is just the tip of a much larger iceberg, says E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.”

Pioneer Press: “A Hastings pastor who endorsed several political candidates from the pulpit Sunday has prompted [the Americans United for Separation of Church and State] to send a letter to the IRS stating the church has violated its tax-exempt status . . . Last month, some 100 pastors endorsed political candidates from the pulpit in an event organized by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.”

“A Pentagon spokeswoman says recruiters have been told that they must accept gay applicants, following a federal court decision striking down the ban on gays serving openly in the military.”

Sify News: “Ritch Savin-Williams, professor of developmental psychology and director of Cornell University’s Sex and Gender Lab, has said that there is absolutely no scientific evidence of an ‘epidemic of gay youth suicide,’ or even that gay youth kill themselves more frequently than do straight youth.”

Washington Examiner: “To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem so obviously true that they are beyond debate. Among those perceived truths: The restrictive rules of engagement that they have to fight under have made serving in combat far more dangerous for them, while allowing the Taliban to return to a position of strength.”

Mark Schneider, American Enterprise Institute: “As the cost of higher education rises, more and more students are struggling over the decision to attend college. But they now have help from PayScale.com, which recently released data on the return on investment (ROI) from over five hundred colleges and universities. This Outlook interprets the data using Barron’s selectivity categories, revealing that ROI increases as colleges become more selective and that the ROI from public colleges and universities tends to be higher than from private ones.”

Associated Press: “The front-page newspaper story featured a list of Uganda’s 100 ‘top’ homosexuals, with a bright yellow banner across it that read: ‘Hang Them.’ Alongside their photos were the men’s names and addresses.”

Associated Press: “A coalition of booksellers and Internet content providers will ask a judge to stop Massachusetts from enforcing an expansion of state obscenity law to include electronic communications that may be harmful to minors.”

Complaint: American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, et. al. v. Coakley, No. 10-11165 (D. Mass.)

CBS News: “New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office.”

Washington Blade: “Attorneys for Bishop Harry Jackson, the minister who has led efforts to kill D.C.’s same-sex marriage law, filed a petition last week asking the U.S. Supreme to weigh in on whether the city should allow voters to decide whether to overturn the law . . . The group is being represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative religious-oriented litigation group that has challenged same-sex marriages laws in other states.”

Associated Press: “Turkey’s president on Tuesday urged politicians in Germany not to exploit the issue of immigration for political gain and said they should instead help Turks better integrate.”

Associated Press: “A leading rights watchdog is accusing Saudi courts of empowering men to abuse their positions as guardians of female relatives.”

Associated Press: “Lawyers for a Dutch politician who has harshly criticized Islam argued at his trial Tuesday that he has the right to issue warnings about the religion’s spread in Europe and should be acquitted of inciting hatred and discrimination.”

The Christian Post: “Students at over 3,000 schools in 29 countries are participating in a 24-hour period of silence Tuesday to remember the 50 million unborn children that have been aborted since 1973 . . . ADF Senior Counsel [David Cortman] says he has heard of . . . infringements. ‘In several cases, students were prohibited from passing out pro-life fliers, from wearing arm bands, from wearing the pro-life shirts,’ he said.”

The Olympian: “Olympic College administrators are already planning to revise controversial procedures used to enforce a free speech policy adopted during the summer. [The] Anti-Choice Project, is considering legal action against the college in response to the policy . . . [Jonathan Scruggs], an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said he is still gathering information and was unable to comment on any potential case, but said there was some cause for concern on behalf of his client . . . Vice President of Student Services Dan Chacon sent an all-campus e-mail announcing the policy was indefinitely suspended pending a review.”

The News-Gazette: “A University of Illinois faculty committee investigating the dismissal of adjunct professor Kenneth Howell says he lacked essential academic due-process protections, a situation faced by hundreds of other non-tenure-track instructors at the UI . . . Howell’s attorney, senior counsel [Jordan Lorence] at the Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz., praised the committee for ‘taking such a strong stand in favor of academic freedom.’”

ADF Blackstone Fellow David Manni writing at The Christian Post / Advancing Religious Liberty: “I’ve always thought the debate on abortion revolved around an issue of framing . . . [I]t has always seemed so simple to me, if I could only get a person to see that, foremost, an embryo is a human life deserving of dignity and respect – all other arguments become weak and inconsequential. If we start from this premise, there is no wiggle room . . . It is axiomatic that those who control the foundation of an issue regulate the content of any ensuing discussion.”

The New American: “‘We hope this ruling will end the city’s attempts to defend its act of compelling people to participate in sexually-charged events against their moral and personal convictions’ said [Joseph Infranco], Senior Counsel for the fund. Infranco warned: ‘If not, we are prepared to defend the firefighters all the way to the California Supreme Court.’ He noted that the sexually explicit nature of the conduct by some parade participants could not be repeated in polite company.”

“By promising to print more money, it’s giving Congress an excuse to avoid critical tax and spending cuts. merica’s structural growth problems are clearly focused in small business and stem from high taxes, regulatory threats and the central control of credit. But the Fed’s stimulus policy supports government over the private sector and big business over small—meanwhile, giving Congress an excuse to impose crippling increases in taxes and spending.”