Daily Archives: November 22, 2011

ABA Journal: A federal appeals court once known for its conservative opinions has undergone a marked change since five of President Obama’s judicial nominees won confirmation.

ABA Journal: The chances of obtaining a tenure-track job at a law school begin to diminish after eight or nine years of practice. And that is partly why law schools are not producing lawyers who are trained in legal practice, the New York Times reports. The story quotes an unidentified lawyer who is an adjunct professor. Law practice experience “can be fatal,” he says, “because the academy wants people who are not sullied by the practice of law.”

Josh Gerstein at Politico: When Romney steps on stage tonight for another debate, this one devoted to foreign policy, that kind of China-bashing is likely to be a favorite theme. With a moribund economy, and relatively little traction for other international issues, the threat posed by cheap Chinese imports and Chinese purchases of U.S. debt is an irresistible target.

SCOTUSblog reports that City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc.. is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court again.

Wendy Wright atTurtle Bay and Beyond: Now, before even being confirmed by the Senate, she has offended the people of El Salvador. Aponte published an op ed in an El Salvadoran newspaper brashly telling the citizens it is their duty to be advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at theTellADF Blog: A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. It’s worth infinitely more than that, though, to defenders of life in the womb, who know that even a glimpse of a living child through a fuzzy ultrasound image is often enough to persuade a young mother not to abort the baby inside her.

LifeNews.com: The new regulations the state health department is planning to adopt in Virginia that pro-life advocates supported because they could close abortion clinics that don’t follow health and safety laws are headed to the governor.

European Commission: New approach to migration would establish agreements with EU neighbours and other countries to benefit the people and the countries concerned.

The Washington Post: A businessman has apologized for briefly posting a sign in the window of his Springfield gelato shop informing those in town for a convention of religious skeptics that they were not welcome at his Christian business.

LifeNews.com: One of the greatest threats to the abortion business, which has been permitted to prey on our society since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, has not come from legislation or subsequent court challenges, but from loving, caring groups of pro-life Americans, gathering together to support pregnant women through Pregnancy Care Centers (PCCs).

Christian Newswire: Following the defeat of Personhood Amendment 26, Personhood Mississippi commissioned a post-election poll to determine what factors influenced voters. Surprisingly, the poll determined that only 8% of those who voted “no” did so because they are pro-choice.

LifeNews.com: “I have no names for you, it’s presumptuous, I’m not the nominee,” Romney began, then adding, “There probably are 15 names of people, including Kelly Ayotte.”

LifeNews.com: Motorists in Texas now have the opportunity to purchase Choose Life license plates, the sales of which will benefit efforts to help women find abortion alternatives and promote adoption.

Reuters: A U.S. judge on Tuesday sentenced Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a former Chicago fundraiser for President Barack Obama, to 10-1/2 years in prison for corruption and extortion.

Tomorrow, November 23, Chief Justice Bauman of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, will render his decision in the Constitutional Reference on Polygamy.

he American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships . . .

Kevin Theriot at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: For many years, U.S. Senate Finance Committee member Charles Grassley (R-IA), has been looking into the financial practices of large media-based Christian ministries

Swiss parents are not allowed to school their children at home via webcam. The Federal Supreme Court ruled that children’s social skills were not sufficiently nurtured by such an arrangement.

The Local: As Switzerland debates allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt, a leading politician has caused consternation by comparing homosexuality to drug use.

StarTribune.com: The Anoka-Hennepin school district’s 11 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are increasing acceptance regarding sexual orientation.

MPBN.net: Supporters of same-sex marriage are actively collecting signatures for a possible campaign next fall to make Maine the first state in the country to pass gay nuptials at the ballot box. And a pair of new television advertisements airing this Thanksgiving week signals how the campaign might differ from a failed effort for same-sex marriage in 2009.

NY Daily News: The new collective bargaining agreement adds “sexual orientation” to its section on discrimination, a person with direct knowledge of the agreement told the Daily News.

Examiner.com: Colorado elected their first openly gay house minority leader. State representative Mark Ferrandino was elected to office by the Colorado constituents.

MetroWeekly: Telling the court that there are no facts in dispute in the case, SLDN lawyers argue that the court should rule on the legal issues in the case and decide those issues in SLDN’s favor. On Friday, Nov. 18, however, the Republican leadership-controlled House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group filed a notice before the court announcing that, should the federal government decline to defend DOMA in this case as it has done in other cases challenging DOMA, BLAG stands ready to seek intervention to do so itself.

Leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee introduced a bill today that extends the same benefits to same-sex partners that spouses of federal employees now receive. The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act of 2011 (S.1910) . . .

The Atlantic: American law schools are suffering a bit of an image problem. Thanks to a determined group of writers known as “scam bloggers,” it’s now an open secret that many schools admit far more students than will ever be able to find jobs after graduation. These student often leave campus with six figures of debt and, as a New York Times article argued this weekend, no ability to actually practice law.

LifeNews: Planned Parenthood has launched a new campaign designed to make it appear a large percentage of women support its abortion agenda by focusing on the percentage of women who use birth control. The only problem is the statistic is erroneous.

CBC.ca: The P.E.I. government needs to consider all the costs when making arguments about not providing abortion services in the province, says the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Washington Post: Del. Bob Marshall filed legislation Monday that states that human life begins at fertilization, and that Virginia’s laws should grant rights, privileges and immunities to what the bill calls “unborn children.”

According to reports Monday, two female students were debating who liked a 12-year-old boy more when one of the girls walked over and kissed the boy. Lee County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to Orange River Elementary School in Fort Myers, Fla., reportedly in response to the incident.

. . . She [the murdered boy's mother] said she was told that her son had a civil right to explore his sexual identity.

OneNewsNow.com: “These pro-life nurses should not be bullied into employment discrimination that is forbidden both by federal law and a court order,” Bowman contends. “The hospital is threatening to impose discriminatory ‘transfers’ or ‘changes’ in the employment conditions for these nurses because of their religious and moral objections to abortion. Such discrimination against pro-life nurses violates state and federal law, the court’s order in this case, and even the hospital’s own public statements saying that ‘no nurse must assist in procedures to which they object.’”

OneNewsNow.com: Roy Moore announced his bid for the post at news conference Tuesday morning on the steps of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.

ADF Attorney Steven Aden appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 12 mins

The New American: Attorney Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund, which is helping to represent ProtectMarriage.com in the case, said that California’s Supreme Court “was clearly right to conclude that the California marriage amendment should not go undefended just because state officials have refused to defend it. Because the people of California have a right to be defended, Proposition 8’s official proponents will be allowed to continue defending the marriage amendment. Otherwise, state officials would have succeeded in indirectly invalidating a measure that they had no power to strike down directly.”

Hospital accused of bullying nurses who oppose abortion: But according to a report from the Alliance Defense Fund, the hospital – after the judge’s order – told nurses who objected to being ordered to participate in abortions that among the “accommodations” that could be arranged would be “changes in duties, changes in scheduling, and/or transfer to another nursing position that does not involve duties that are objectionable.”

OneNewsNow.com: So, ADF is challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and attorney Joel Oster further explains the objection. “Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished by the government for exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech,” he contends. “No law or government official can rob a faith group of its constitutionally protected rights just because that official would prefer not to be removed from office.”

Judge Sends NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to Jury Trial for Firing Employee… — LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire: Coppedge is represented by William J. Becker, Jr. of The Becker Law Firm, who was supported in the case by Alliance Defense Fund. The case number is BC435600.

Courthouse News Service: The ACLU, American Jewish Committee, American Center for Law and Justice and Alliance Defense Fund all filed amicus briefs in the case.

LifeNews.com: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund says Judge Garbis’ ruling was a correct one. “The judge ruled that the law’s attempt to burden speech unconstitutionally discriminated against noncommercial, unlicensed speech on the explicit basis that it came from a perspective disfavoring abortion,” he said, calling it a “monumental decision protecting free speech and women’s health.”

DailyWrit: Justice Sotomayor has completed two years on the Supreme Court and, as she begins her third, it seems like an appropriate time to take an initial look at whether or not she has turned out to be as predictably liberal as her supporters had hoped or as her opponents had feared.

Religion Clause: Yesterday, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a new report titled Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington D.C.

Religion Clause: : In In re the Marriage of John and Angela Bell, (CA App., Nov. 18, 2011), a California appellate court upheld a trial court’s order in a marriage dissolution case preventing the father from continuing taking the couple’s young children to Mormon religious services and Sunday School without the mother’s consent.

Michael Brown at Townhall : Rush Limbaugh has now confirmed what I wrote last week, explaining to a caller on Friday, November 18th that the elephant in the room in the Penn State scandal was that the alleged pedophile acts committed by Jerry Sandusky were homosexual in nature.

The “gay identity” paradigm includes the belief that being gay is an innate characteristic which cannot change.

LifeNews.com: Herman Cain has reversed position and decided to sign a pro-life pledge on abortion a prominent pro-life group has had other Republican presidential hopefuls sign that Cain initially declined to attach his name to months ago.

News from The Associated Press: A Tibetan rights group has released graphic video of what it says is a Buddhist nun engulfed in flames on a city street in one of several apparent self-immolation protests against Chinese rule.

Fox News: Under the measure, couples who marry could face up to three years in jail, and witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to five years behind bars.

News from The Associated Press: Once seen as a threat to this North African kingdom, Morocco’s Islamist party may now be key to the government’s credibility.

Education News: The head of the nation’s largest labor union says Republican efforts to restrain the power of unions has produced a middle-class backlash across the country that could cost Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other GOP politicians their jobs.

NCRegister.com: Bishop Braxton has concluded that it’s time for U.S. Church leaders to reassess their dependence on government funds: “While many Catholics still advocate for government-funded vouchers to cover tuition at parochial schools, I am wondering if this even remains an option, when government funds comes with strings attached.”

SCOTUSblog: This is one of a continuing series of articles the blog will publish over the next several weeks, explaining more fully the new federal health care law, and the Supreme Court’s review of the constitutionality of key parts of that law. This article deals with whether any challenger to the new law’s individual mandate should have been allowed in court to try to overturn the mandate and its attached penalty. That is an issue that potentially could postpone for at least four years a decision on the constitutionality of the mandate.

SCOTUSblog: Moving to speed up its coming rulings on California’s ban on same-sex marriage, the Ninth Circuit Court on Monday joined two of its pending cases that seek to revive that measure — Proposition 8. In a brief order, a three-judge panel consolidated cases that both carry the case title Perry, et al., v. Brown, et al. (Circuit dockets 10-16696 and 10-16577).

LifeNews.com: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at it again, bashing Catholics for their pro-life position when she has promoted abortion in defiance of Catholic Church teaching at every turn.