Michael Steele Chews His Cud

I place my bet as to when Steele will be jettisoned from his position on Jan. 19, 2010, around MLK day, just out of spite. Other bets?

@rptrcub: Someone is fetching one of those vaudeville hooks as we speak; they must be. He is a marvel of stupidity with galloping foot in mouth disease.

TJ: EssEff multiculturalism at its worst on Muni.

The Chinese woman has some good moves…

How now, black cow.

ever dream about the dancing dwarf from Twin Peaks?
(I do constantly) anyway,
you are not alone.

In 2000, a psychiatric patient drew a picture of a man who appeared in recurring dreams. The picture was left out on the doctor’s desk, where another patient recognized it from his dreams as well! With a bit of investigation, other patients who saw the same face in their dreams were found. As of now, at least 2,000 people recognize the face as one they’ve dreamed about.

its totally him

I love Michael Steele. I want him to come to dinner and talk jive to me. That would be teh awesome.

Law.Stinque.Com and Gheyz TJ:
U.S. Dist. Judge Vaughn Walker (N.D. Cal., GHW Bush appointee) to rule at 1 pm Pacific on the motion to dismiss the Boies/Olson federal law suit challenging Prop. 8.

Whatever he rules, it’s on the fast track to the 9th Circuit, the Court of Appeals that SCOTUS loves to overturn.

@SanFranLefty: Can you live-blog the decision?

It is times like this that I feel kind of guilty picking on Mikey Steele because it feels like beating a “special needs” kid at Scrabble, but then I remember what the GOPers and their puppet masters have done to the world and my guilt disappears.

@Capt Howdy: I dream of Laura Palmer, constantly. Does that count? Oh, and that Lara Flynn Boyle, she appears quite regularly. Um, and also “Betsy” from Mad Men, and Shakira, and…

What? Oh, you’re not my therapist…

@Capt Howdy:
Alfred E Newman!

@The Nabisco Quiver are Go!:
hey I have a new one for ya
courtesy of another Lynch. Jennifers new movie looks like it will rock.

if you have not seen the last one Surveillance I recommend it most highly.
one of the best movies I have seen in years.

@ManchuCandidate:
alas
one of our smartypants IT guys had to spoil the fun:

I don’t know what this is selling (twin peaks?) but it’s guerrilla marketing
for something.

I say this because a whois shows that the domain is owned by an Andrea
Natella who apparently works for GuerrigliaMarketing.it

Domain ID:D150747616-LROR
Domain Name:THISMAN.ORG
Created On:25-Jan-2008 16:02:00 UTC
Last Updated On:24-Jan-2009 12:50:16 UTC
Expiration Date:25-Jan-2010 16:02:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R11-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:tuswXI6c1yuHmCEU
Registrant Name:Andrea Natella
Registrant Organization:Andrea Natella
Registrant Street1:Via dell’orso 43
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:ROMA
Registrant State/Province:RM
Registrant Postal Code:00186
Registrant Country:IT
Registrant Phone:+39.0668891709
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:a.natella@guerrigliamarketing.it

—–

whatever it is, I want some.

@Dodgerblue: I can live blog the decision about as well as you can, seeing as how I’m three states to the east of SF.

@Dodgerblue: Motion to dismiss denied, trial still on for January.

/per KCBS twitter.

ADD:
Motion to dismiss granted, per KTVU website.

Now KCBS headline says “Judge Dismisses Prop. 8 Challenge” but the lede says that trial is set for January.

WTF?

SF Chronicle, my local fishwrap, not following story since original posting.

@Capt Howdy: Weirdly enough, that’s the same street in Rome as one of my favorite restaurants of all time. It’s like three blocks long.

@SanFranLefty:
I still cant really decide if that means its fake viral marketing for something or if they were just hired to put up the site.

@SanFranLefty:

per twitter

Fed judge Walker rules on lawsuit against Prop 8: motion 4 summary dismissal denied, case will go to trial in January. Still ruling…

@Capt Howdy: this is from Lawdork.net:

Judge Vaughn Walker denied the Intervenor-Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal court challenge to Proposition 8. He denied all of the grounds for summary judgment sought by the Intervenor-Defendants.

Walker also ruled that a trial, or at least more evidence, is necessary before he can make a determination about what standard of review to apply when judging whether Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection or due process.

The Intervenors asked the Court to rule against the Plaintiffs based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Nelson. The Baker decision is a 1972 opinion by the Court dismissing a marriage case from Minnesota “for want of a substantial federal question.” 409 U.S. 810 (1972).

The Intervenor-Defendants, represented today in court by Charles Cooper, argued that the brief Supreme Court dismissal in 1972 meant that no federal judge could hear a similar case because the only the Supreme Court could reverse its Baker opinion. This was considered a very weak argument by many lawyers to consider the matter, particularly in light of the intervening Supreme Court decisions in Romer v. Evans and/or Lawrence v. Texas. Apparently, Judge Walker agrees.

@Dodgerblue:

Lord, Dodger, English please?

@SanFranLefty: @Dodgerblue: Does this mean, since SCOTUS loves to overturn the 9th, that we’re fucked?

I am really worried about the outcome Maine referendum on teh homosexchtual marriage and Washington State Ref 71, which is a vote on kicking domestic partnerships to the curb. Domestic fucking partnerships, which do not even go so far as gay marriage.

@Dodgerblue: And your local fishwrap beats the Chronic, which apparently must have fired the reporter who covers the legal beat or the LGBT beat.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches:

iin engrish.

I think it means that the motion for dismissal was from people trying to kill the suit. it was dismissed so it goes forward?
hey, I dont hang around at a legal blog for nothing.

@Capt Howdy: Correct. The lawsuit lives on, for now.

@rptrcub: @Dodgerblue: @SanFranLefty:

Doesn’t it have to go to the 9th circuit at this point no matter what? No way around that, right?

@Capt Howdy:

This is practically a legal blog at times. Well, a legal/poopy joke blog, which is the best kind of legal blog, IMHO.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: The state is the defendant, ergo the case is Perry v. Schwarzenegger. But AG MoonBeam said he’s not going to defend Prop. 8.

Therefore, the Mormoni and Catholic backers of Prop. 8 “intervened” in the lawsuit, which is what you can ask the court to let you do when you feel that a party in a current lawsuit is abdicating their responsibility (as defendant) and not robustly defending the case, or when they are compromising and not fully vindicating the rights of the plaintiff. It’s easier to intervene in a case in the early stages (like this one) and when one party clearly indicates they’re not going to fight it (like Moonbeam). Otherwise, it’s a harder test because you don’t want every fuckwit with a law degree (i.e. Taitz, Orly) or fuckwit with a fuckwit attorney to intervene in ongoing litigation as it turns into a clusterfuck.

Judge Vaughn a few months ago let the Prop. 8 backers intervene to defend their proposition. He also denied the motion by all the LGBT groups that were trying after the fact to intervene on the plaintiffs’ side.

So the “Defendant-Interveners” (aka the Prop. 8 backers) filed a motion for summary judgment (MSJ), which basically means that there are no facts in dispute, you don’t need a trial on them, because they’re conceded by the other side, and so it’s a pure question of law that the judge can rule on without needing a factual trial.

And as for the pure question of law – the case they based their argument for tossing the challenge on is pretty weak because it said that family law is a state and not a federal matter, but that case is old and there’s been intervening SCOTUS decisions looking at family law, and looking at gheyz in particular.

Also, there are facts in dispute, namely the plaintiffs are alleging a discriminatory animus in the backer’s original intent in putting the initiative on the ballot, the defendants/intervenors deny that, so it’s not a pure question of law, and so he correctly dismissed their MSJ.

Does that help? Is that coherent? I’m running on about 3-1/2 hours of sleep followed by 4 hours of flight delays.

@rptrcub: @Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Re 9th Circuit. First has to go to trial in January 2010 at district level, but since the day the case was filed Judge Walker has said he knows that it will be appealed up and so he wants to make a very deliberate, complete, and careful trial record.

Yes, the 9th Circuit is the whipping boy of the current SCOTUS. Pray for the continued health of Justice Stevens and Ginsberg, and the persuasive powers of Justice Kennedy’s former law clerks and family members/friends who are Friends of Dorothy. He did the right thing a few years ago on Laurence v. Texas and gave Scalia conniptions in the process, so you can’t write him off.

Yeah but… huh? Lawsuit? What lawsuit? SCOTUS? I have no clue.

@SanFranLefty:

That was perfect, love, thank you.

@SanFranLefty: k. Better.

Thinking is hord!!

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: I’ve worked on a lot of poopy cases, I can tell you.

@Dodgerblue: The working title of the report I’m working on for one of my projects has the word “poopy” in it.

Breaking: Heave Ho for Rushbo, per ESPN radio and interwebs (updating earlier report).

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4559454

Speaking of Teh Law, R.I.P. Judge William Wayne Justice, LBJ appointee to the E.D. of Texas who “dragged Texas into the 20th century,” to quote Bill Hobby.

@Benedick: I would like Steele to go down to Compton and talk jive to the Bloods, Crips and Mexican Mafia. I think that would be much more fun.

@Dodgerblue: As I was skimming through this thread, I initially misread that case as Pervy v. Schwartzenegger.

@SanFranLefty: That anecdote about Mrs. Justice not being able to get her hair done in Tyler because of her hubby is what you’d call a blessing in disguise.

@Jamie will regret that chorizo in the morning: That is so classic Tyler. Isn’t their Congressmen one of last week’s Douchebags of the Day? The Statesman has another great anecdote about Mrs. Justice, this time about a bouquet of flowers she received after Plyer v. Doe.

@SanFranLefty: Many thanks for the links about Judge Justice. Can’t remember now which Stinquer it was who proposed a few weeks or months back that we take more notice here of good things happening in the world. I hope whoever it was reads the Statesman article. Would that the world had many more movers and shakers like Judge Justice!

@lynnlightfoot:

That was me ; )

I did read the article. Good FSM, where have all the Judge Justices gone?

@Original Andrew: There’s still a few of them around, I’ve been privileged to be in front of a couple of them, but they’re a dying breed because they’re all from the LBJ and Carter days. I saw Judge Justice speak once at UT and the crowd (including many faculty) were basically genuflecting at his feet, and he was the most humble guy. A true gentleman in a way you just don’t see any more.
Most of Clinton’s appointees, while by Shrub standards are terrific, are rather cautious jurists. It took big balls by Judge Justice and some of the other lonely federal judges in the south to speak truth to power.