yellowwing
12-15-04, 12:10 AM
Its not rich vs poor, or race vs race, its looking like Left vs Right.
That story of the Judge's $50,000 Halloween costume was just the end of the story. Much more happened before his bosses suspended and fine Judge Timothy Ellender.
Times-Picayune, October 18, 2004 (http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1098080828298600.xml)
By Gwen Filosa
...At his closed-door hearing before the [Judicial] commission in June, Ellender called four witnesses, all black, who testified that he is fair and impartial. The judge had apologized to all four, including State Trooper Gary Williams and lawyer Kevin Thompson, and all said they took him at his word...
...A week later, the Houma newspaper reported Ellender's costume, and a national media blitz ensued. Within days of the news reports, the commission received six written complaints, including letters from Justice Bernette Johnson and the Terrebonne NAACP, along with one from 32nd Judicial District Judges George Larke, John Walker, David Arceneaux and Randall Bethancourt.
"A week later," okay the NAACP took offense when they had momentum. The ACLU does the same, you can pick any of their challenges.
But wait! The Right is also making moves, propaganda and law.
Legislature not happy if ACLU is (http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2487007)
Salt Lake Tribune 12/13/2004
by Paul Rolly and JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells
The Utah Legislature is scrapping its 15-year practice of putting constitutional evaluations on its bills, partly because the American Civil Liberties Union loves them. After all, if the ACLU likes it, it must be bad for Utah, right?
In a letter from House Speaker Marty Stephens and Senate President Al Mansell, lawmakers were told that the Subcommittee on Oversight, made up of legislative leaders, voted to change the rule requiring every bill to have a constitutional review note from legislative lawyers.
From now on, a constitutional review note will accompany the bill "only if, in the opinion of the drafting attorney, the bill would have a high probability of being found unconstitutional." All other bills will include the preordained statement: "Based on a limited legal review, this legislation has not been determined to have a high probability of being held unconstitutional."
The letter noted that the legislature's chief counsel, Gaye Taylor, was once told by an "organization that makes it its business to legally challenge legislation" - the ACLU - "that it uses these legislative review notes as a starting point to determine which bills to legally challenge."
Well hey, that's what civil liberty watch dogs are supposed to do. But it is too bad they don't make the same efforts to Second Amendment Rights.
Even Pat Buchannan is sounding the panic and fear alarms. When talking about Macy's Department Store's adoption of "Season Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" or Target's enforcement of no solicitors, including the Salvation Army:
It needs to be said. What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity - the manifestations, the symptoms of a sickness of the soul, a disease a Vatican diplomat correctly calls "Christianophobia," the fear and loathing of all things Christian, coupled with a fanatic will to expunge from the public life of the West all reminders that ours was once a Christian civilization and America once a Christian country.
But the Right is making more than news column noise. They are getting legal victories also:
Florida judge terminates challenge to faith-based emergency children’s shelter (http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/story/?id=551)
ADF Media Relations, Release Date: 2004-11-24
MIAMI-A Florida judge yesterday threw out a challenge to the state’s use of a faith-based emergency children’s shelter to conduct judicial reviews on parental fitness. The state has a contract with the shelter, His House, to provide foster care services and to monitor the parents of children in foster care.
"This is a major victory for faith-based organizations willing to provide much needed social services," said Joel Oster, counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "Florida needs compassionate adoption and foster care organizations to come to the aid of vulnerable children. His House is one of only nine such organizations in southern Florida willing to step up to the plate."
In 2002, the Florida Department of Children and Family initiated proceedings to terminate the parental rights of Roman Silva, whose children had been placed in foster care through the His House shelter. The state required the shelter to provide a judicial review on his progress, or lack thereof, in once again becoming a fit parent.
After the court concluded, based in part on a report prepared by His House, that Silva was not completing his required objectives, Silva sought to exclude His House simply because it is a religious organization. For that reason, Silva claimed that the shelter’s preparation of a judicial review violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
This is a tough on one for me to think about. Protection of children is paramount. But the idea of letting a church determine fitness of a parent is really pushing boundaries.
Last but not least, the FCC is kow-towing from pressure from the Right. They recently fined the Fox Network 1.2 million for Married by America obscenities:
Activists Dominate Content Complaints (http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731656)
MediaWeek, December 06, 2004
By Todd Shields
...For example, the agency on Oct. 12, in proposing fines of nearly $1.2 million against Fox Broadcasting and its affiliates, said it received 159 complaints against Married by America, which featured strippers partly obscured by pixilation.
But when asked, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau said it could find only 90 complaints from 23 individuals. (The smaller total was first reported by Internet-based TV writer Jeff Jarvis; Mediaweek independently obtained the Enforcement Bureau’s calculation.)
And Fox, in a filing last Friday, told the FCC that it should rescind the proposed fines, in part because the low number of complaints fell far short of indicating that community standards had been violated.
"All but four of the complaints were identical -and only one complainant professed even to have watched the program," Fox said. It said the network and its stations had received 34 comments, a miniscule total for a show that had a national audience of 5.1 million households.
One activist from the Right cost them $1.2 million because of conservative values.
What’s that Chinese Curse? “May you live in interesting times!”
That story of the Judge's $50,000 Halloween costume was just the end of the story. Much more happened before his bosses suspended and fine Judge Timothy Ellender.
Times-Picayune, October 18, 2004 (http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1098080828298600.xml)
By Gwen Filosa
...At his closed-door hearing before the [Judicial] commission in June, Ellender called four witnesses, all black, who testified that he is fair and impartial. The judge had apologized to all four, including State Trooper Gary Williams and lawyer Kevin Thompson, and all said they took him at his word...
...A week later, the Houma newspaper reported Ellender's costume, and a national media blitz ensued. Within days of the news reports, the commission received six written complaints, including letters from Justice Bernette Johnson and the Terrebonne NAACP, along with one from 32nd Judicial District Judges George Larke, John Walker, David Arceneaux and Randall Bethancourt.
"A week later," okay the NAACP took offense when they had momentum. The ACLU does the same, you can pick any of their challenges.
But wait! The Right is also making moves, propaganda and law.
Legislature not happy if ACLU is (http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2487007)
Salt Lake Tribune 12/13/2004
by Paul Rolly and JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells
The Utah Legislature is scrapping its 15-year practice of putting constitutional evaluations on its bills, partly because the American Civil Liberties Union loves them. After all, if the ACLU likes it, it must be bad for Utah, right?
In a letter from House Speaker Marty Stephens and Senate President Al Mansell, lawmakers were told that the Subcommittee on Oversight, made up of legislative leaders, voted to change the rule requiring every bill to have a constitutional review note from legislative lawyers.
From now on, a constitutional review note will accompany the bill "only if, in the opinion of the drafting attorney, the bill would have a high probability of being found unconstitutional." All other bills will include the preordained statement: "Based on a limited legal review, this legislation has not been determined to have a high probability of being held unconstitutional."
The letter noted that the legislature's chief counsel, Gaye Taylor, was once told by an "organization that makes it its business to legally challenge legislation" - the ACLU - "that it uses these legislative review notes as a starting point to determine which bills to legally challenge."
Well hey, that's what civil liberty watch dogs are supposed to do. But it is too bad they don't make the same efforts to Second Amendment Rights.
Even Pat Buchannan is sounding the panic and fear alarms. When talking about Macy's Department Store's adoption of "Season Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" or Target's enforcement of no solicitors, including the Salvation Army:
It needs to be said. What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity - the manifestations, the symptoms of a sickness of the soul, a disease a Vatican diplomat correctly calls "Christianophobia," the fear and loathing of all things Christian, coupled with a fanatic will to expunge from the public life of the West all reminders that ours was once a Christian civilization and America once a Christian country.
But the Right is making more than news column noise. They are getting legal victories also:
Florida judge terminates challenge to faith-based emergency children’s shelter (http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/story/?id=551)
ADF Media Relations, Release Date: 2004-11-24
MIAMI-A Florida judge yesterday threw out a challenge to the state’s use of a faith-based emergency children’s shelter to conduct judicial reviews on parental fitness. The state has a contract with the shelter, His House, to provide foster care services and to monitor the parents of children in foster care.
"This is a major victory for faith-based organizations willing to provide much needed social services," said Joel Oster, counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "Florida needs compassionate adoption and foster care organizations to come to the aid of vulnerable children. His House is one of only nine such organizations in southern Florida willing to step up to the plate."
In 2002, the Florida Department of Children and Family initiated proceedings to terminate the parental rights of Roman Silva, whose children had been placed in foster care through the His House shelter. The state required the shelter to provide a judicial review on his progress, or lack thereof, in once again becoming a fit parent.
After the court concluded, based in part on a report prepared by His House, that Silva was not completing his required objectives, Silva sought to exclude His House simply because it is a religious organization. For that reason, Silva claimed that the shelter’s preparation of a judicial review violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
This is a tough on one for me to think about. Protection of children is paramount. But the idea of letting a church determine fitness of a parent is really pushing boundaries.
Last but not least, the FCC is kow-towing from pressure from the Right. They recently fined the Fox Network 1.2 million for Married by America obscenities:
Activists Dominate Content Complaints (http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731656)
MediaWeek, December 06, 2004
By Todd Shields
...For example, the agency on Oct. 12, in proposing fines of nearly $1.2 million against Fox Broadcasting and its affiliates, said it received 159 complaints against Married by America, which featured strippers partly obscured by pixilation.
But when asked, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau said it could find only 90 complaints from 23 individuals. (The smaller total was first reported by Internet-based TV writer Jeff Jarvis; Mediaweek independently obtained the Enforcement Bureau’s calculation.)
And Fox, in a filing last Friday, told the FCC that it should rescind the proposed fines, in part because the low number of complaints fell far short of indicating that community standards had been violated.
"All but four of the complaints were identical -and only one complainant professed even to have watched the program," Fox said. It said the network and its stations had received 34 comments, a miniscule total for a show that had a national audience of 5.1 million households.
One activist from the Right cost them $1.2 million because of conservative values.
What’s that Chinese Curse? “May you live in interesting times!”