Take a bite outta my heart tonight.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:19 AM | Comments (103)
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Jeez, there has been a fairly constant murmuring in the MFM over the past 6-8 months over the general opaqueness of the Obama administration. It sounds to me like some ivory tower J-profs, drifted out of touch with the street reality of the working stiff Obama knob polishers and got bitch slapped hard.

Welcome to the new post-racial America where everyone, even liberal journalism professors, are racists.

...In June, the 98-year-old Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) issued a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to demand greater access and transparency between government officials and the media...

...Some said they felt the AEJMC's resolution had less to do with the demand for access and more to do with the country's struggle with accepting a black president...

...Sandra Chance, a panelist and journalism professor at the University of Florida. "President Obama promised a change and made a commitment to that. We're still hopeful that that promise will be kept...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 10:52 PM | Comments (82)
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The Israeli's were trimming a tree on their side of the border they share with Lebanon when some fools in the Lebanese Army thought that would be a good time to shoot at the Jews.

How egregious was the action of the Lebanese? Even the UN took Israel's side.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, Unifil, said Wednesday that it had concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees that lay within their own territory before a lethal exchange of fire with Lebanese Army troops, largely vindicating IsraelÂ’s account of how the fighting started.

...Israel told the United Nations around 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday that it was planning to trim a tree on a narrow strip of land the Lebanese believe should be on their side of the border, Mr. Le Roy said. The United Nations then informed the Lebanese, who objected. Mr. Le Roy said that his troops began negotiating between the two sides, but that Israel had decided to go ahead after a few hours, leading to a clash around 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday.

“We asked for more time for both parties to agree,” Mr. Le Roy said.

An Israeli commander, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist were killed in the border skirmish, the worst clash in the area in four years.

Juan Cole however knows exactly who the good and bad guys are.

The Israeli army says it was their tree, which they wanted to remove to get a better view of Lebanon. The Lebanese army says it was their tree and that the Israeli troops crossed the border to chop down the woody miscreant. The Israelis say that they warned the Lebanese army of what they were doing by megaphone. The Lebanese say that the Israelis repeatedly violate Lebanese sovereignty, indeed have done so thousands of times since the 2006 war.

CouldnÂ’t they, like, have called in the UNIFIL United Nations peacekeepers to cut down the trees? That is what UNIFIL is there for. Some trees were worth the lives of Lebanese troops and a journalist and that of an Israeli officer?

One surprising thing is that the Lebanese army showed such spunk in the face of the perceived Israeli affront. They know very well that they are vastly outgunned, and of course the Israeli military hit them with fire from helicopter gunships and artillery pieces. What made them so bold, that they shot and killed an Israeli officer over the tree removal?

Is it just me or do you get the sense Cole would like to take the Lebanese soldier responsible for this out for a celebratory dinner?

I know Cole doesn't like Israel and seems to want to ignore its existence but here's a note professor...sovereign nations don't have to get permission or ask for help to do whatever they want on their own territory.

If you are asking your self, "Juan who now?", he's the go to guy for the like of Andrew Sullivan and other anti-Israeli writers when Walt and Messerschmidt Mearsheimer are busy. Cole has made a few previous appearances here at the HQ. We haven't written about him in awhile, it's good to know he's still a loathsome bastard.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:31 PM | Comments (47)
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Good evening and happy Hump Day all

Reverse Engineering The In-n-Out Burger

So here's how one guy methodically reverse-engineered an animal-style Double-Double down to the exact proportion of ingredients in the sauce.

Meanwhile another chef has discovered the secret to the unique taste of their burgers. Short answer: Mustard.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:45 PM | Comments (516)
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Some folks in comments before were super-bitchy that I wrote: "I haven't had a chance to dig into the details yet, but as I expected, Judge Walker made extensive factual findings that will insulate his decision on review."

Here's why that matters: in an equal protection or due process challenge like this case, findings of fact are reviewed on appeal for "clear error" while legal conclusions are reviewed "de novo." In other words, the appelate courts will give great deference to the trial judge's findings of fact, but can completely throw his legal conclusions out the window.

The fact that Judge Walker made pages and pages of factual findings indicates to me that he was extremely conscious of the standards of review and used the shoddy performance of proponents to produce evidence (who were actively sabotaged by putative-defendant the State of California) as a means of protecting his decision somewhat from appellate review.

What are some of these now-protected factual findings, you might ask? Ambinder summarizes them. The biggies for purposes of appealing this case:

1. Marriage is and has been a civil matter, subject to religious intervention only when requested by the intervenors.

2. California, like every other state, doesn't require that couples wanting to marry be able to procreate.

3. Marriage as an institution has changed overtime; women were given equal status; interracial marriage was formally legalized; no-fault divorce made it easier to dissolve marriages.

5. Same-sex love and intimacy "are well-documented in human history."

10. "Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital union."

11. "Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals."

12. "The availability of domestic partnership does not provide gays and lesbians with a status equivalent to marriage because the cultural meaning of marriage and its associated benefits are intentionally withheld from same-sex couples in domestic partnerships."

13. "Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages."

The findings will only be overturned on appeal if the evidence of record indicates they are "clearly erroneous." Because proponents presented relatively little evidence, that's highly unlikely.

More importantly for Judge Walker's purposes, those findings go directly to the legal questions in the case. If, for example, Judge Walker is right that domestic partnerships do not provide equivalent status as marriage then it becomes very difficult for the appeals court to say there's no problem with Prop 8 because gays have domestic partnerships. The factual finding is that gays are still worse off. So, by writing it this way, he has protected his legal conclusions by enshrining their factual predicates.

Now there's nothing improper about that, generally. For example, in a bench trial for theft, if the judge determines that the defendant stole from the victim, well, of course he's going to make that factual finding. The legal conclusion that the defendant is guilty follows. It makes sense that the appeals courts would give deference to that factual finding because the trial judge was in the room, got to see all the testimony and evidence. He's "closer" to the facts, so his understanding of the facts gets some deference. On the other hand, the trial judge has no more facility with the legal question -- whether the determined facts add up to a conviction -- than the appeals courts, so there's no deference.

But it's a more difficult situation when we're not talking about obviously factual determinations. Judge Walker made a factual finding that sexual orientation is a fundamental characteristic of a human being. Eesh, "fundamental characteristic" sounds awfully legalistic to me. And his second factual finding, that California has no marital requirement of fertility, goes a long way towards tossing out the proponents' entire argument that traditional marriage is necessary to promote procreation and a stable environment for child-rearing.

Anyway, that's why I wrote "I haven't had a chance to dig into the details yet, but as I expected, Judge Walker made extensive factual findings that will insulate his decision on review." He made pages and pages of factual findings. I expected him to do that because ain't nobody that doesn't expect this decision to be on its way to the Supreme Court.

Oh and something else to worry about: Can the proponents appeal? I think so, but I don't know so. The case was initially (and still, technically) Perry v. Schwarzenegger. That is, the State of California is the named defendant. But Governor Schwarzenegger declined to defend Prop 8, so the Protect Marriage folks intervened. They've been referred to throughout the litigation as "the proponents", but their legal status is "defendant-intervenors."

I have no idea if a "defendant-intervenor" can appeal as if he were a defendant (maybe some lawyer-morons can put me some knowledge). Because I expect they're going to have to. Governor Schwarzenegger, who already declined to defend Prop 8, isn't going to do it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:24 PM | Comments (464)
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SenGillibrand (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-N.Y.]): A true victory for #equality! V pleased Judge Walker has found #Prop8 to be unconstitutional.

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (349)
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FreakyBoy:

What's dear leader going to say?

As I recall, he was against gay marriage.... or at least said he was.

Will he have Holder file against this ruling?

Yes, I imagine he'll use every means at his disposal to stop this, just as he did with Arizona.

Oh, PS, Judge Walker--

Thanks for the extra 7% turnout in November!!!

Hugs and kisses,

Ace

PS Suck the barbed cock of Satan.

Temporary Stay Granted... until appeal.

Thank God for small favors, eh?

Via Legal Insurrection.

This feels to me like Waterloo. This is the judicial establishment gone utterly lawless.

I don't know if we're a democracy if this decision stands up.

What are votes worth? Nothing, apparently.

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (324)
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The ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger just came down. The judge overturned California's Prop 8, the state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

It's 186 pages, so it'll take some time to unpack, but here's the conclusion:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that oppositesex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

A copy of the decision can be found here (the Court's own webpage has, predictably, crashed).

I haven't had a chance to dig into the details yet, but as I expected, Judge Walker made extensive factual findings that will insulate his decision on review.

As I noted in the run-up to the case, this isn't just an equal protection challenge, but also a due process case. The judge found for the plaintiffs on both claims. In other words, he's saying that there is a constitutional right to gay marriage and also a constitutional right for gays not to be discriminated against in a state marriage regime.

More to come.

Crap. Double Post: Ace got to this first, but I'm gonna keep adding here as I read the decision and as things further develop. Be sure to check Ace below, as he has additional thoughts on this.

One thing unmentioned so far -- last night the proponents, expecting this outcome, filed a motion to stay the injunction (PDF) before it was issued. That motion has not been ruled on yet and was not addressed by Judge Walker in the decision.

Evidence. On the argument that "marriage is for procreation and child-raising", the proponents struggled to provide evidence. And that's where things went off the rails:
more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:55 PM | Comments (159)
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Really?

All these years and we hadn't noticed.

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in
singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.
Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than
enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that oppositesex
couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California
has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and
because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its
constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,
the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Via Gabe.

More: The argument offered by those seeking to keep Prop 8 in place was, actually, my preferred argument: The state does not have an interest in propagating love. It has an interest only in fostering stable families (meaning: with children). Straight marriage is directly implicated by this interest, since most married couples have children. Gay marriage is irrelevant to this interest, since few gay couples have children (and none, of course, naturally by the couple itself).

The Court claimed this was a post-hoc rationalization, and, in any case, "irrational."

Further, it claimed that those who had pushed Prop 8 relied upon unfair stereotypes of gays and other considerations, such as the strong desire of almost every parent on earth (liberal or conservative) to not have his kid told about gay sex and gay marriage in school. Since the thrust of these new laws is always "There is no difference, and it's illegal to treat things differently," the only way to prevent this is to enshrine the difference in law.

The judge, however, found this to be proof of "animus" towards gays and therefore the law must be unconstitutional.

He has, with his little typewritten missive, declared unconstitutional every single state law that distinguishes between gay and straight marriage. He has ruled that gay marriage is a Constitutional right which may not be denied any person.

This ruling is not restricted, except by circumstance of the case, to California.

I think that David Bowie's Life on Mars? best represents my beliefs about this odd ruling.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (217)
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Can it happen?

Based on the huge margin on Prop C -- I wouldn't count any Republican out who's down 12 or fewer points in the polls before the election.

Posted by: Ace at 11:50 AM | Comments (167)
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