This sucks
 

Opponents of the Constitutional Amendment argued, prior to the election last fall, that bad unintended consequences would happen with this bad law if it passed. Fortunately, the good people of the great State of Ohio blissfully ignored them!

And in other good news, Ohio legislators are debating the very same kind of "Academic Freedom" bill that is causing such a stir in Florida!

Huzzah!

aV

This sucks
 

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"His public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the charge because of the new wording in Ohio's constitution that prohibits any state or local law that would "create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals."

Before the amendment, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. The gay marriage amendment no longer allows that. "

A third-grader could have foreseen this. Why didn't they change the DA statute simultaneously to not "define the unmarried couple as a family", but merely apply the statute to people living together, or some better-worded option?

Activists! Activists! Get them off of the Judiciary! Activists!
 

You could start with the 11th Amendment if you wanted to align yourself, however temporarily, with the Federalists. Or, alternatively, assuming that a judgement on a chose in action is property, you could assert that the bill is a bill of attainder, barred by Article II, IIRC. Another approach would be to simply note that nowhere does the Constitution grant Congress the power to deprive a State of its right to have its own courts' judgments enforced within that State.

And all of those arguments can be made without getting into our common law tradition.

Looming crisis in Social Security Trustee Report
 

Let medicare go bankrupt, and there might eventually be fewer old people living longer to burden the Social Security system. It's a win-win.

Looming crisis in Social Security Trustee Report
 

I am sorry but that argument really bites. Reforming either of these two programs will take a huge political undertaking and a vast amount of political capital. For years Social Security was considered the third rail of politics - if you touch it you die. Everyone from both parties always talked about how Social Security was in trouble, but no one dared propose a rational solution because it would piss off a powerful special interest groups and insure your defeat in the next election. Bush has defied the conventional wisdom and has taken on social security, and it has not destroyed him (at least not yet). Now that something is actually being done, and the problem is at least being faced people actually say - well why don't we forget this and focus on a bigger problem. As if this kind of momentum can be created with a snap of a finger. We take care of it now, or we ain't getting another chance. It would be like during WWII after the invasion of Normandy, someone saying, you know, Japan is actually a bigger threat because they can hit the US mainland, so lets pull everyone out of europe, then lets beat Japan, and then we can go back and deal with the European problem. We will never have the chance to reform Social security like we have now, to drop it and turn to Medicare before finishing the job would be beyond stupid. Yes, Medicare is a bigger problem, but it can be dealt with after social security.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

Bill Bennet in the National Review:

• The "auxiliary precautions" of Florida government — in this case the Florida supreme court — have failed Terri Schiavo. It is time, therefore, for Governor Bush to execute the law and protect her rights, and, in turn, he should take responsibility for his actions. Using the state police powers, Governor Bush can order the feeding tube reinserted. His defense will be that he and a majority of the Florida legislature believe the Florida Constitution requires nothing less. Some will argue that Governor Bush will be violating the law. We think he will not be violating the law, but if he is judged to have done so, it will be in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr., who answered to a higher law than a judge's opinion. In so doing, King showed respect for the man-made law by willingly going to jail (on a Good Friday); Governor Bush may have to face impeachment because of his decision.
  
  In taking these extraordinary steps to save an innocent life, Governor Bush should be judged not by the opinion of the Florida supreme court, a co-equal branch of the Florida government, but by the opinions of his political superiors, the people of Florida. If they disagree with their governor, they are indeed free to act through their elected representatives and impeach him. Or they can vindicate him if they think he is right. But he should not be cowed into inaction — he should not allow an innocent woman to be starved to death — because of an opinion of a court he believes to be wrong and unconstitutional.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

Unbelievable in what sense?

I think it would be ludicrous to impeach someone over one pretty minor issue. Just as the reelection of Pres. Bush was not, as he frequently interprets it to be, a wholehearted endorsement of his every thought and policy by the entire country, the wacko shit Gov. Bush is pulling over Schiavo isn't a single issue that should torpedo him.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

You should repent, and come back to the family church- your high school sweetheart is still waiting for you

http://la.cacophony.org/CS_snake.gif

I Find This Unbelievable
 

In suggesting that a politician should act in accordance with moral law, whatever that is, rather than the actual law. I had this same critisism for Gavin Newsom when he starting marrying people, even though I disagreed with the law.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

The stripes and scaliness are a little disconcerting, but he's got the length, the thickness, and incredible control.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

Orval Faubus stood in the school-house door, believing that integration of the schools was wrong. His national reputation was not thereby improved.

I Find This Unbelievable
 

But he didn't get impeached.

My sibling went Central High in LR, btw, not that you care, and I remember when they filmed the TV movie. Good times!

I Find This Unbelievable
 

I'm trying to remember if Bennet had any problem with the California rulings allowing for gay marriage. Weren't those actions squarely in line with the philosophy he's promoting here?

I Find This Unbelievable
 

What's your favorite restaurant on the River Walk?

I Find This Unbelievable
 

Rosa Parks wouldn't get up, believing that segregation of the buses was wrong. Her national reputation was much improved.