Appeals Court Rules that Prop 8 Is Unconstitutional

It was a 2-1 decision, and the opinion is a pretty strong:

“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently,” Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt wrote in the decision. “There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”

“All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation ‘marriage,’ ” the judge wrote, adding, “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”

BTW, all three judges agreed that the defendants request that the judge Vaughn Walker recuse himself was pretty much a crock of sh%$.

The precedent on this case is fairly straightforward, the Supreme Court ruling on Colorado's Amendment 2 about 15 years ago, where they said that voters can't strip rights from a group just because they make them feel squicky, the so-called "rational basis" test.

The question now is whether or not this case goes to the full appeals court (en banc), or to the Supreme Court.

And while we are on recusals.  Seeing as how Scalia has publicly, and repeatedly, made comments explicitly stating that he has pre-judged the matter, how about he recuse his flabby ass from the case?

If SCOTUS takes it, it will be closer though, as O'Connor has been replaced by Alito, who is an almost certain vote against gay civil rights.

Obama F%$#s Unions Again

First it was not following up on card check, and now, he's selling unions down the river in the latest FAA authorization, which served to gut decades of labor law.

The labor movement seriously needs to start going totally "Club for Growth" on the Democrats in the primaries.

And While We Are Talking About White House Spelunking…

It looks like the White House is preparing to cave to the Conference of Catholic Bishops on reproductive rights:

A top adviser to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign suggested on Tuesday that the administration was open to working with Catholic hospitals and universities over their objections to providing birth control services to women.

“I’m less concerned about the messaging of this than to find a resolution that makes sense,” David Axelrod said on MSNBC.

“I heard earlier Joe [Scarborough] say, ‘Well, there may be compromises that can be reached.’ We have great respect for the work that these religious institutions do. … We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventative care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions,” he explained.

Jeebus.

It's like capitulation is so firmly engrained in their DNA that they can't stand their ground even when it is to their advantage to do so.

These days, the Catholic Bishops is as likely to support Democrats as the Chamber of Commerce, so all you are doing is pissing off your base.

Am I the Only One to Call False Flag?

Symantec with an assist from the FBI, is now alleging that a group of hackers stole the source code for pcAnywhere and attempted to shake them down for $50,000.

OK, I get that. But what I doubt is the claim, coming from either the software firm, or the boyz in the Hoover building, that the miscreants are, "group of hackers associated with Anonymous and AntiSec."^*

As MP at the Stellar Parthenon BBS observes, "Anyone claiming to be raising funds in any way on behalf of Anonymous is about as kosher as bacon-wrapped shrimp."

I have no doubt that Symantec got hacked. I've suffered with their software at a number of work places, but my sense is that any mention Anonymous is something that the FBI spent a lot of time manufacturing.

After all, it looks much better in a personnel file at annual review time.

^*Tin foil hat. When I originally read the first article, there were constant mentions to anonymous, and now they are all gone.

I Guess She Could Not Handel the Pressure

Yes, the right wing hack hired by Komen as their VP for public policy, Karen Handel, has>called it quits, or as Erin Gloria Ryan so clearly states, Noted Liar Karen Handel Defensively Resigns From Komen, with a self-indulgent letter of resignation where she denies it being about politics.

I'd say, "Cry me a river," but the letter was more like "Water Music".^*

The thing is, the folks at Komen knew that she was a right wing political hack.  Not only had she campaigned for governor on defunding Planned Parenthood before Komen hired her, but she also has a long history of voter suppression and civil rights violations so bad that the Bush Justice Department called her out.

She was clearly a right wing political hack, and Komen chose to let Ari Fleischer pimp her for a cushy office job, and they knew what she was.

There are lots of better breast cancer charities out there.

Even ignoring politics, the corporate pink-washing Komen does for companies probably contribute to higher cancer rates (KFC? Seriously?) should look elsewhere.

When you add in their politics, any woman who gives them money is like a chicken donating to Colonel Sanders, because they are a a petri dish for right wing zealots who think that the problem with the world is that, "women [are] not being properly punished for having unapproved sex."


^*OK, that's it for the Handel puns.

And While We are Talking Bankster Corruption

The Missouri AG has filed criminal indictments for felony forgery over "robo-signing".

This is a remarkable development, because while what on pretty clearly was forgery, but I never expected someone to actually prefer criminal charges:

“Linda Greene” has become a household word to those on the foreclosure fraud beat. And it turns out, for once, that the work of diligent investigators such as the foreclosure attorneys around Max Gardner, and investigators like Lynn Szymoniak and Lisa Epstein led to press coverage which in turn spurred prosecutors to act.

What is striking about the indictment by a Missouri grand jury is that the Missouri AG Chris Koster has decided to challenge the banks’ party line that robosigning and related abuses were mere “paperwork problems.” He’s called robosiging what it is: forgery. The 136 count indictment is for forgeries and false declarations, and the targets are LPS subsidiary and its founder and past president, Lorraine Brown.

About f%$#ing time.

Foreclosure Sellout Settlement Update

Well, over 40 states have signed onto the deal, but the biggies, New York, California, Nevada (highest foreclosure rate in the nation), and Delaware (all the banks are covered by Delaware law, and Beau Biden is Joe's kid), are not (yet) a part of this deal, so the "deadline" has been pushed back two weeks.

We know the deal is bad.

We know that it's a sellout because:

• There has been no meaningful fact finding about wrong doing, so the deal is more like the selling of indulgences, because the only ones who know just how evil things got are the banks.
• We also know that it's a sell out because, "Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. made a last-minute demand that New York drop claims filed against them Feb. 3." which implies that they don't want even that small rock (MERS) uncovered.
• The holders of mortgage backed securities (MBS) are opposing the deal, because it allows the banks to fob off all the write-downs on them, and the banks will always spend other people's money, or as Yves Smith puts it, "the money in the end comes out of pension funds and 401(k)s."
• The deal is structure with a rather odd provision that, "states signing a nationwide accord on foreclosures will be entitled to improved terms won later by states that opt out," which makes any separate settlement prohibitively expensive for the banks.

That being said, the fact that this deal is pitting one part of Wall Street against the other, with, asset management group of SIFMA frantically lobbying negotiators for a better deal,  is a welcome development.

We also have the fact that the deal  favors 2^nd mortgages, generally held by the banks, would be favored over 1^st mortgages, which the judge who has to approve the deal might see as an illegal taking.

FWIW, if any of the biggies move, it will be California first, because (when current Governor Jerry Brown when he was AG, thanks Governor Moonbeam) they already cut a deal with Bank of America/Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the state, which eliminated most pre-2008 liability, so they have the least to gain from holding out.

What a Surprise

The USAF is determined to avoid having a meaningful close support capability. Case in point, they are cutting 5 to 10 A-10 squadrons:

The A-10 Thunderbolt II provides the type of close-air support that ground-pounders love and the Taliban dread. Although the A-10s are workhorses in the war on terrorism, the Air Force in its new budget request is planning to get rid of five squadrons.

As part of the Defense Department’s efforts to trim close to $500 billion in spending over the next decade, defense officials said Friday that the service intends to cut five A-10 tactical squadrons and two other squadrons as well.

The Thunderbolt squadrons to be stood down encompass one active-duty, one Reserve and three National Guard units. The remaining two squadrons disappearing are a Guard F-16 tactical unit and an F-15 training squadron.

Let's be clear about this: The F-35 and the F-22 cannot take over this role effectively.

The A-10 can deploy and loiter over the battlefield for hours below 15,000 feet, while the two supersonic stealth jets can loiter for something like 15 minutes before calling bingo fuel.

That Sound You Heard Was Sharon* Swearing a Blue Streak

She bleeds New England Patriot Blue, and the Super Bowl final score, Giants 21, Patriots 17, is not to her liking.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Oh, By the Way

The Mittster won the Nevada caucuses, no big surprise.

Clark County (Las Vegas) has not reported yet, so the final numbers are not available.

I'm Making a Prediction As to Romney's VP Pick

Mark Rubio.

He's Hispanic, he has real teabagger cred, and he is rather articulate and telegenic.

Of course, my record as a prognosticator sucks.

Well, This Has Me Confused

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed suit against the big banks for fraudulent use of the MERS electronic title registry.

He is claim fraud, deception, and illegal evasion of recording fees (to the tune of more than $2 billion on just the fees).

This is interesting. It appears that the settlement, for which Schneiderman is the most prominent hold out would not shut down any suits already filed.

To my mind, this is likely a bad thing, because it implies that Schneiderman is getting his ducks in a row in preparation for signing onto the sellout settlement with the banks.

I just hope that I am wrong about that last bit.

Full release from the AG after the break:

This is an Epic Prank

Righteous!

Something to add my rules to live by: Don't use prison labor to do graphic design for law enforcement:

How did an image of a pig — the infamous ’60s-era epithet by protesters for police officers — wind up on a decal used on as many as 30 Vermont State Police cruisers?

State officials Thursday pointed to the failure of the quality assurance office within the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Albans to detect a prisoner-artist’s addition made four years ago to the traditional state police logo. A spot on the shoulder of the cow in the state emblem was modified into a pig.

An investigation has begun into how the computer program was improperly modified to insert the image, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito said.

I really hope that whoever did this does not get caught.

Seriously, Susan G. Komen is Looking Worse and Worse

It looks like their latest gaffe, in which they defunded Planned Parenthood, was masterminded by Ari Fleischer:

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed. He confirmed to ThinkProgress his recent role in filling a key communication position at Komen. Fleischer stressed, however, another communications firm (Ogilvy PR) was retained by Komen to deal with crisis communications over the last few days and he has not been involved.

Seriously, this just get better and better.

Komen for the Cure isn't a charity, it's yet another Republican full employment program masquerading as a charity.

My Bad

No bank failures this week, but I missed the closing of a credit union on January 27, Eastern New York Federal Credit Union in Napanoch, NY.

So, 2 credit unions for the year,  and 7 banks.

I'm Expecting an Alien Tort Claim Act Against Apple

William Black makes the convincing case that the widespread abuse of contractors' employees in the manufacture of Apple products is the product of deliberate management decisions:

Apple has released a report on working conditions in its suppliers’ factories. It highlights a form of control fraud that criminology has identified but rarely discussed. I write overwhelmingly about accounting control fraud because it drives our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. The primary intended victims of accounting control frauds are the shareholders and the creditors. Other private sector control frauds target customers (e.g., George Akerlof’s 1970 article on “lemons”), and the public (e.g., the unlawful disposal of toxic waste, illegal logging, and tax fraud).

Anti-employee control frauds most commonly fall in four broad, but not mutually exclusive, categories – illegal work conditions due to violation of safety rules, violation of child labor laws, failure to pay employees’ wages and benefits, and frauds based on goods and loans provided by the employer to the employee that lock the employee into quasi-slavery. Apple has just released a report on its suppliers that shows that anti-employee control fraud is the norm. Remember, fraud is hidden and is often not discovered and Apple did not have an incentive to make an exhaustive investigation. Apple calls its inquiries “audits” and it is apparent that most of its information comes from reviewing written and electronic records at its suppliers. That is exceptionally revealing. The suppliers know that they can defraud their employees with such impunity that they don’t even bother to get rid of records that prove their frauds. Apple has resisted making public its suppliers and the report refused to identify which suppliers committed which violations – often for years despite repeated, false promises to end their anti-employee control frauds. Two other facts are evident (but not reported). First, Apple rarely terminates suppliers for defrauding their employees – even when the frauds endanger the lives and health of the workers and the community – and even where Apple knows that the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about these fraudulent and lethal practices. Second, it appears unlikely in the extreme that Apple makes criminal referrals on its suppliers even when they commit anti-employee control frauds as a routine practice, even when the frauds endanger the worker’s and the public’s health, and even when the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about the frauds. Apple’s report, therefore, understates substantially the actual incidence of fraud by the 156 suppliers (accounting for 97% of its payments to suppliers).

The ATCA has been used in cases like this, and what is clearly a policy of deliberate blindness to these abuse by Apple, seems to me to bean opening for a very well deserved lawsuit.