Good morning!

Although the 44th year of San Francisco Pride officially began yesterday, the festivities started quite some time before. The LGBT community in San Francisco knows how to partē! And the celebration is not just here in our beloved San Francisco. In fact the Gay Pride Rainbow Flag is flying all across the world. Thanks to our awesome president Obama, he has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global.

Here’s the write from Ctv News.

Obama flying the flag for gay rights worldwide

A U.S. flag is raised alongside a pride flag on the U.S. Embassy a day before the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, June 12, 2014

WARSAW, Poland — U.S. President Barack Obama has taken the U.S. gay rights revolution global, using American embassies across the world to promote a cause that still divides his own country.

Sometimes U.S. advice and encouragement is condemned as unacceptable meddling. And sometimes it can seem to backfire, increasing the pressure on those it is meant to help.

With gay pride parades taking place in many cities across the world this weekend, the U.S. role will be more visible than ever. Diplomats will take part in parades and some embassies will fly the rainbow flag along with the Stars and Stripes.

The United States sent five openly gay ambassadors abroad last year, with a sixth nominee, to Vietnam, now awaiting Senate confirmation. American diplomats are working to support gay rights in countries such as Poland, where prejudice remains deep, and to oppose violence and other abuse in countries like Nigeria and Russia, where gays face life-threatening risks.

“It is incredible. I am amazed by what the U.S. is doing to help us,” said Mariusz Kurc, the editor of a Polish gay advocacy magazine, Replika, which has received some U.S. funding and other help. “We are used to struggling and not finding any support.”

Former President George W. Bush supported AIDS prevention efforts globally, but it was the Obama administration that launched the push to make lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights an international issue. The watershed moment came in December 2011, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the United Nations in Geneva and proclaimed LGBT rights “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”

Since then, embassies have been opening their doors to gay rights activists, hosting events and supporting local advocacy work. The State Department has since spent $12 million on the efforts in over 50 countries through the Global Equality Fund, an initiative launched to fund the new work.

Just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defence of Marriage Act last June, consular posts also began issuing immigrant visas to the same-sex spouses of gay Americans.

One beneficiary was Jake Lees, a 27-year-old Englishman who had been forced to spend long periods apart from his American partner, Austin Armacost, since they met six years ago. In May Lees was issued a fiance visa at the U.S. Embassy in London. The couple married two weeks ago and are now starting a new life together in Franklin, Indiana, as they wait for Lees’ green card.

“I felt like the officers at the embassy treated us the way they would treat a heterosexual couple,” said Armacost, a 26-year-old fitness and nutrition instructor. “It’s a mind-boggling change after gay couples were treated like legal strangers for the first three centuries of our country’s history.”

Some conservative American groups are outraged by the policy. Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, calls it “a slap in the face to the majority of Americans,” given that American voters have rejected same-sex marriage in a number of state referendums.

“This is taking a flawed view of what it means to be a human being — male and female — and trying to impose that on countries throughout the world,” Brown said. “The administration would like people to believe that this is simply ‘live and let live.’ No, this is coercion in its worst possible form.”

The American efforts are tailored to local conditions, said Scott Busby, the deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the State Department. Ambassadors can decide individually whether to hoist the rainbow flag, as embassies in Tel Aviv, London and Prague have done, or show support in other ways.

While some gay rights activists say support from the U.S. and other Western countries adds moral legitimacy to their cause, it can also cause a backlash.

Rauda Morcos, a prominent Palestinian lesbian activist, said local communities, particularly in the Middle East, have to find their own ways of asserting themselves. She criticized the U.S. and Western efforts in general to help gay communities elsewhere as patronizing.

“It is a colonial approach,” she said. “In cases where it was tried, it didn’t help local communities and maybe made things even worse.”

An extreme case has been Uganda, which in February passed a law making gay sex punishable by a life sentence. In enacting the bill, President Yoweri Museveni said he wanted to deter the West from “promoting” gay rights in Africa, a continent where homosexuals face severe discrimination and even attacks. In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions and Secretary of State John Kerry compared the policies to the anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has waged an assault on what he considers the encroachment of decadent Western values and the government last year banned “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors,” making it a crime to hold gay rights rallies or to openly discuss homosexuality in content accessible to children. Afraid for their security, some Russian gay advocates try to keep their contacts with Western officials quiet.

The official U.S. delegation to the recent Winter Olympics in Russia included three openly gay athletes. Soon after that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow opened its basketball court for the Open Games, an LGBT sporting event which had been denied access to many of the venues it had counted on. The U.S. Embassy also operates a website where Russian gay and lesbians can publish their personal stories.

Jessica Stern, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, praised the U.S. policy but said there have been missteps along the way, citing a 2011 U.S. embassy gathering in Pakistan that prompted a group of religious and political leaders to accuse the U.S. of “cultural terrorism.”

And in Senegal a year ago, President Macky Sall bluntly rebuked the visiting Obama for urging African leaders to end discrimination against gays. Sall said his country was neither homophobic nor ready to legalize homosexuality, and in an apparent jab at the U.S., he noted Senegal abolished capital punishment years ago.

“The response in the local press was voluminous praise of the Senegalese president, maybe not actually for his stance on LGBT rights, but for effectively asserting Senegal’s sovereignty, yet the two became intertwined,” Stern said.

Busby, the State Department official, denied that increased harassment by governments is ever the consequence of U.S. advocacy, instead describing it as “a cynical reaction taken by leaders to advance their own political standing.”

In some countries, like Poland, the U.S. efforts are a catalyst for change.

The embassy there financed a 2012 visit to Warsaw by Dennis and Judy Shepard, the parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student who was tortured and murdered in 1998.

A group of parents who heard their story were so shaken by the Shepards’ tragedy that they founded a parental advocacy group, Akceptacja, which is fighting homophobia. The parents are now reaching out to their lawmakers personally, in what advocates say is the conscious adoption of an American strategy of families of gays and lesbians appealing to the hearts of officials.

“The killing of Matthew Shepard represents the fear I have that my son could be hurt for being gay,” said Tamara Uliasz, 60, one of the group’s founders. “I realized that what happened in Wyoming could happen here.”

♥♥♥♥♥

Readers: I applaud Obama…And as usual there are some who are against this. Thoughts? Blog me.

So hey, back to the celebration…If you’re feeling a little envious that perhaps you’ve missed out on so much fun, no worries it’s not too late to indulge in the celebration –  today is the Pride Parade, and if you haven’t been, it is something to see.

Check out their website for details. If you attend, head out early – 1 million people are expected to join in on the celebration. Now that is a party! It should be a beautiful day around the bay  - Have fun!!

xox

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

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All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good morning!

If you didn’t get enough of the Koch Brothers yesterday, I thought a dose of them on a Monday morning too, would give you the same jolt as coffee. Get used to these big smiling faces because if we don’t stop them in this momentum they’re trying to get going, we’re going to see them a lot more than we’d like, and with grins bigger than you can imagine

This was the closed-door gathering of big donors yesterday’s article spoke of.

From The Daily Beast:

Koch Brothers Unveil New Strategy at Big Donor Retreat

*****

Readers: I HOPE you enjoyed the weekend! I certainly did. I noticed there were a flurry of comments from the ladies on Saturday, and a few from the boys too. I’m looking forward to catching up.

Oh…by the way…like the title? Did you fill in the missing word? I couldn’t help but say it because the only thing these “big donors” have is “big bucks,” and they are doing the darnedest to make sure the black man with a “big pair +,” fails at his last term in getting anything accomplished. There is no way they will let Obama, a black man, go down as the best president we have ever had. Oh…and let me remind you, their plans to do whatever they need to is all at the expense of the American people. BECAUSE THEY DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYONE BUT THEM AND THEIRS. 

The solution is simple – we know what we need to do.

PeAceOuT

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

From the NY Times:

Burning Woman

Sandra Tsing Loh’s ‘Madwoman in the Volvo’

When Sandra Tsing Loh started her book “The Madwoman in the Volvo,” her aim was to capture the experience of what she calls the “triple-M generation:” the menopausal, middle-aged mother.

If menopause just made you want to kill someone, it wouldn’t be so bad. The problem is, it makes you want to kill someone you love. And then it makes you want to love someone who’s a complete and utter moron. And there you have it: the story of half the divorces in America.

This is the story of Sandra Tsing Loh’s “change,” or, as I think of it, the Year of Bleeding Dangerously. “The Madwoman in the Volvo” is not the first book on the subject. In fact, one of the little-known side effects of menopause appears to be writing books, if the number of titles is any measure (5,115 listed on Amazon, but that was last month). Certainly, though, Loh’s ranks among the most horrifyingly amusing. The title evokes “The Madwoman in the Attic,” Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s classic look at “monstrous” women in 19th-century literature, and well it should: After reading this brave and witty memoir and realizing the extent to which we are at the mercy of estrogen, one can’t help wondering if Bertha Mason could have gotten out of that attic if she’d had a little hormone therapy.

This phase of Loh’s life begins as it does for so many of us, with the niggling suspicion we’re losing our minds. At 47, this performer, radio commentator and author-essayist-memoirist (“Mother on Fire” et al.) thought her midlife crisis was behind her. She had already blown up her life by having an affair and leaving her husband. (And perhaps in a further sign of her unbalance, writing about it in The Atlantic.) Here she is, two years later, in a seemingly all’s-well-that-ends-well relationship with her bashert. Only all is not right, not at all. Now she’s doing things like pulling off the road and sobbing uncontrollably about the death of her kids’ hamster. Hammy did not even live with her. Oh, Life’s cruelty.

This was the tip-off that something was amiss, and the hamster incident catapults Loh into a frenzy of self-improvement familiar to all of us who’ve heard the siren song of Eckhart Tolle. Loh is determined to get her groove back. Joining her similarly estrogen-deprived friends, she attempts “happiness projects” and extreme couponing and cruising the aisles of Crate & Barrel and playing computer solitaire “like some addicted lab rat.” Then there is the fanatical dieting and working out to lose the midlife spare tire. She finds a trainer so overzealous she fantasizes about paying Equinox a second fee to make her go away. She joins Loseit.com, and when she and her friend admit that they, like every other woman on the planet, are failing to note their liquor consumption accurately, they consider forming an online support group for cheaters, drunkfatfriends.com. “It’s all we can do to watch HGTV until noon and not overdose on antidepressants, and that itself is sad. Because are we not still women? Do we not still roar? Do we perhaps need our own female version of a Fight Club?”

Soon Loh’s irritation at her own emotional incontinence turns into something more frightening. She begins to resent Mr. Y, her new love, finding fault with him when he dares to have a life that does not entirely revolve around her. How long, she wonders, before she votes him off the island? She eventually concludes that no one husband can ever really suffice: “Your first husband is the provider; your second husband is the one who talks to you; my third husband will be a cat. If I am lucky.”

Worse still, she sees echoes of her mother’s behavior in her own behavior toward her children. At first she wildly overreacts to any perceived slight: When one tween daughter is teased online, she stations herself outside the culprit’s class, preparing to pounce, an avenging angel in a fanny pack. Eventually, over the course of the year, she finds it hard to listen to her two daughters, just as her loving and dutiful mother, during menopause, could not bear to hear young Loh prattle on. Loh becomes convinced she no longer loves her children, even as they begin to protect and make excuses for their increasingly fragile mother. She is miserable.

And then, she is saved. Not by God or psychotherapy or even the love of her very good man, but by a dab of topical estrogen cream on her wrists. Better living through chemistry.

Throughout the haze of loss and anxiety, Loh sees two larger truths. First, there’s the issue of timing: Women turning 50 right now are doing something a little different, and arguably nuts. Our mothers lost their parents earlier, and had children earlier too. We are living longer, and having children later. This means that at 50, many of us have parents who are still alive and need our care. (Loh is appalled to discover her 89-year-old diapered father is now demanding Viagra, and apparently availing himself of an at-home service that offers “healing hands.” Not the Church of Christ ministry; something else. I know. Ew.) At the same time we waited to have children, and while they’re going through their own bodily upheaval, drowning in a tsunami of hormones, we’re chasing the fumes. So we are living through what is one of the most physically and emotionally trying times just at the moment when everyone around us seems to need us most. No wonder there’s a lot of crying and throwing Thanksgiving dinner down the garbage chute.

And then there’s the issue of what menopause does. Common wisdom says it makes us crazy, and historically treatment for “hysterical” women going through the change ranged from opium to ovary removal. Far from being seen as a natural event, it’s seen as a disease of deficiency. And in some ways of course it is. But just as Oliver Sacks perceived the ability in disability, so Loh describes the gains we make when we are no longer floating on a cotton candy cloud of estrogen, the body chemical that makes women “want to help people and serve people and cut up their sandwiches into ever-tinier squares.” Seeing the world more clearly is not always a good thing; we are, for a time, rawer than we once were, less able to skate on the surface. On the other side of it all, though, is wisdom; we can and do have more freedom, see more clearly, think more clearly, get things done. Hillary Clinton may have had the brains to be president at 35, but somehow I feel more comfortable, indeed delighted, with nuclear capability in the hands of a 70-year-old woman.

The book ends with Loh’s 50th-birthday party, “the one last event in your life, after your wedding . . . where friends, family and acquaintances can be guilted into showing up, and they can be guilted into bringing a gift, even if it’s a joke gift.” Predictably she pingpongs between sheer joy as she concocts her dance-mix playlists (it’s all about “Brick House”) and dread that there will be only a few awkward guests, and crickets. The party is rocking, and one friend toasts Loh with words that deeply move her, if only because she prays they are true: “Instead of running from fear, she moves toward pleasure.”

Wouldn’t we all like that written on our tombstones? The ending may seem a little forced — one can hear an editor pleading with the sardonic Loh, For the love of God, leave ’em with a little hope — but I’m buying it anyway. “The only event like a 50th birthday — the only event that celebrates and commemorates you as a grown-up, with a full, adult life, will be your funeral. So let this celebration of your fully golden self happen when you are alive. And have some cake, for God’s sake.”

Thanks. Make mine chocolate. And while you’re at it, splash on the rum and light it on fire.

*****

Readers, especially the Ladies:  Want to say something here? :) Blog me.

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

Speaking of rulings…

From Think Progress:

Seven Big Cases The Supreme Court Will Decide In June That Could Change America

“The generally accepted notion that the court can only hear roughly 150 cases each term gives the same sense of reassurance as the adjournment of the court in July, when we know the Constitution is safe for the summer.”

– Future Chief Justice John Roberts, April 19, 1983

It’s Supreme Court month again. According to the Court’s official calendar, the final day of the Supreme Court’s current term is the last day of this month — which means that, barring extraordinary circumstances, we should know how the justices intend to resolve each of the issues currently pending before them by June 30.

Among the issues facing the justices are the president’s power to fill top jobs in the face of a recalcitrant Senate, a legal attack on public sector unions, a case questioning when police can search all the data that can be accessed on a person’s cell phone, and an attempt to give employers sweeping immunity from laws they object to on religious grounds. Here are some of the most important cases to be decided this month:

Recess Appointments

On the eve of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, a case that could effectively eliminate the president’s constitutional authority to temporarily appoint government officials while the Senate is in recess, the Obama Administration’s position looked grim. In the lower courts, judges split entirely on partisan lines when they considered this issue — and there are five Republicans on the Supreme Court and only four Democrats. Yet the oral argument in Noel Canning went even worse for the administration than the partisan results in the lower courts would suggest. Clinton-appointed Justice Stephen Breyer said that he could not find anything in the Constitution that will “allow the president to overcome Senate resistance” to a nominee. Obama-appointed Justice Elena Kagan suggested that “it was the Senate’s job to decide” when it’s in recess.

Though there are two possible ways that the justices could snuff out the recess appointments power, the distinction between them is largely academic — in either event a Senate that was determined not to permit recess appointees from taking office will be able to do so. That means that the impact of this decision could be felt in 2015. If Republicans take back the Senate, and the Supreme Court cuts off his recess appointments power, President Obama will be defenseless if Senate Republicans refuse to confirm anyone that he nominates to any job.

The biggest impact of a decision against the administration, however, could be felt in 2018. The reason why President Obama made the recess appointments that triggered this lawsuit in the first place is because the National Labor Relations Board — which has sole authority to enforce much of federal labor law — was about to lose the minimum number of members it must have in order to operate. Though this impasse eventually broke in 2013 when Senate Democrats threatened to change the Senate’s rules if necessary to confirm nominees to the NLRB, the members of that board only serve five year terms. Thus, if Republicans control the Senate in 2018, they could shut down the NLRB by refusing to confirm anyone to fill its empty seats — andshut down most of the legal protections that allow unions to exist in the process.

Harassment at Women’s Health Clinics

A Massachusetts law creates a 35-foot buffer zone around the entrances to abortion clinics that no one may enter unless they have legitimate business within the clinic or are just passing through to reach another destination. This law prevents abortion protesters, ranging from the plaintiffs in McCullen v. Coakley — who claim that they “try to engage women who may be seeking abortions in close, kind, personal communication, with calm voices, caring demeanor, and eye contact” — to much more aggressive opponents of abortion from getting in the way of women seeking care within the clinic. They also make it harder for clinic workers to become victims of violence. According to one abortion rights activist, “[w]hat began as peaceful protests in the 1970s escalated to blockading clinic entrances, arsons and bombings, acid attacks, stalking and kidnapping doctors and their families, and even murdering reproductive health care staff.”

Nevertheless, it is likely that the Supreme Court will strike this Massachusetts law down. At oral argument, even Justice Kagan seemed concerned that the 35-foot buffer zone may be too large. The biggest question inMcCullen, however, isn’t whether Massachusetts’ law will survive, it is whether any similar buffer zone law will also be declared unconstitutional. In its 2000 decision in Hill v. Colorado, the Supreme Court upheld a Colorado law prohibiting anyone from “‘knowingly approach[ing]‘ within eight feet of another person, without that person’s consent, ‘for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with such other person.’” Hill was a 6-3 decision, but two members of the Hill majority — Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor — have since been replaced by the more conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. If the Roberts Court’s new majority chooses to overrule Hill they probably have the five votes necessary to do so.

Cell Phone Searches

As a general rule, the police must obtain a warrant before they can search a person’s possessions. One long-standing exception to this rule, however, is that police may make a warrantless “search incident to arrest” — that is, when a person is lawfully arrested, the police may search the person being arrested and anything they find on the person.

When this rule was developed, however, cell phones did not exist and modern-day smartphones were not even imaginable. For this reason, the justices who created this rule had no conception of a world where police could arrest someone for a minor crime — potentially something as minor as jaywalking — and then go on a fishing expedition through a person’s entire email inbox, the text messages they sent to their friends and their romantic partners, and any apps they may have downloaded onto their phone to help them manage their finances. One case currently pending before the justices, Riley v. California tees up the question of if and when the police may search the information contained on a suspect’s smartphone without obtaining a warrant. A companion case, United States v. Wurie presents the related issue of whether police may search an ordinary cell-phone’s call log without a warrant.

Public Sector Unions

Public sector unions operate under two legal restrictions: they may not require non-members to fund the union’s political activity and they must bargain on behalf of every worker in a unionized shop — even if a particular worker does not belong to the union. Thus, the union may not encourage non-members to join by bargaining for benefits that only apply to union members. To recoup the costs of bargaining on behalf of non-members, however, the union may charge those non-members what are known as “agency fees.” These agency fees are now under attack in a lawsuit known as Harris v. Quinn.

The purpose of these agency fees is to prevent non-members from free-riding off the dues paid by their co-workers who do join the union. The benefits of collective bargaining through unions are significant — according to one study, unionization raises worker wages by about 12 percent — but, without agency fees, each individual worker would have little incentive to pay for the collective bargaining services that make these high wages possible.

In a 2012 case called Knox v. SEIU, the five conservative justices indicated that they were ready to declare agency fees unconstitutional — at least when it comes to public sector unions. At oral argument, however, Justice Antonin Scalia appeared surprisingly sympathetic to the pro-union arguments. The fate of public sector unions, in other words, likely rests with Justice Scalia.

The Viability of Treaties

Bond v. United States is, if nothing else, a testament to legal conservatives’ ability to play the long game. A vengeful spouse named Carol Anne Bond, who stole toxic chemicals from her employer and used them in a failed attempt to poison her husband’s mistress, is represented by Paul Clement — the de facto Solicitor General of the Republican Party — as part of an effort to undermine the United States’ ability to comply with its own treaty obligations. Bond’s actions violated a federal law implementing the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, which makes it a crime to “receive, stockpile, retain, own, possess, use, or threaten to use” a chemical weapon. Clement argues that applying this law to his client is unconstitutional, because that would require Congress’ power to be read too expansively.

The problem with this argument is that the Court established nearly a century ago that, when the United States enters into a valid treaty, “there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute [implementing the treaty] . . . as a necessary and proper means to execute the powers of the Government.” Should the Court limit or overrule this previous decision, the immediate impact would be relatively small compared to what could follow later — Congress still has considerable power to make laws under its power to regulate commerce and its other constitutionally granted powers, though Clement’s has also fought to shrink these powers as well. If the justices ultimately embrace the broader conservative effort to shrink the government’s authority until it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub, a decision in Bond’s favor could make it difficult for the United States to comply with environmental treaties and other international obligations.

Your Boss and Your Bedroom

Finally, the most watched case this term is likely to be the Hobby Lobby litigation, which raises the issue of whether religious employers can refuse to comply with a federal rule requiring their health plans to cover birth control. If the oral argument is any indication, supporters of this rule should not be optimistic. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the only member of the five justice conservative bloc who expressed sympathy for the government’s arguments, later accused Solicitor General Don Verrilli of making an argument that could enable Congress to require corporations to pay for abortions. Given that Kennedy, with one exception, has avirtually unblemished anti-abortion record since joining the Supreme Court, this is an ominous sign for the rule at issue in this case.

Nevertheless, the question of how the government loses this case is almost as important as if it loses. Clement, who argued this case on behalf of the religious employers, called for a truly sweeping rule — laws burdening a corporation’s purported religious faith must survive the “most demanding test known to constitutional law.” At times, plaintiffs invoking “religious liberty” have claimed exemptions from a wide range of laws, including laws banning race discrimination, bans on gender discrimination, the minimum wage, Social Security and most recently, laws protecting LGBT Americans. Though these aggressive kinds of religious liberty claims have historically not received a sympathetic ear from federal judges, Clement’s broad rule could give at least some of them a second life.

It’s not at all clear that the Court will give Clement what he asked for, however. Though Kennedy seemed inclined to rule in Hobby Lobby‘s favor, he also worried about what would happen to the rights of employees who might be hurt by their boss’ decision not to follow the law. This suggests that Justice Kennedy may hand a victory to Hobby Lobby without endorsing the sweeping legal immunity for businesses that object to the law on religious grounds that Clement called for in his brief. Nevertheless, however the Court decides, the issue of whether anti-gay business owners can invoke “religious liberty” to discriminate against LGBT Americans is not going away. Indeed, it’s likely that a raft of bills seeking to expand religious conservatives’ ability to ignore the law will follow the Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby, regardless of what the justices decide.

*****

Readers: There are some big juicy issues here. Pick one that is especially meaningful to you and start talking. Blog me.

Peace & Love…

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

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michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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Good morning!

LK: This one’s for you. I believe it to be the latest from what I could find. Again, I HOPE you, your family and friends are doing okay.

From ForeignPolicy.com

Fight Club, Donetsk

Meet eastern Ukraine’s emerging warlords.

DONETSK, Ukraine — On a recent sunny afternoon in Donetsk, Vadim Kerch was holding court in a dark office in the former headquarters of Ukraine’s security service, which has been occupied since last month by a group of rebels who call themselves the Russian Orthodox Army. Kerch is one of their two commanders.

A local resident was appealing to Kerch for help. At the end of May, the man said, armed men claiming to be part of the pro-Russian uprising seized his car in the neighboring city of Makeyevka and then called him asking how much he was willing to pay for its return.

Between answering calls on his cell phone, Kerch told the supplicant to get to the point. One of the half-dozen Kalashnikov-toting rebels grouped in a loose circle around the desk spoke up, noting that at least 46 vehicles had been carjacked in Makeyevka. Finally, Kerch promised to go with the newly appointed “people’s prosecutor” later that day to get the car back.

“Today is full of bullshit rather than war,” he joked.

When pro-Russian protesters first occupied the Donetsk regional administration building in April, different rebel groups and units staked out each of the 11 floors. Since then, these motley bands have been eclipsed by three powerful, armed factions: the Russian Orthodox Army, the Vostok Battalion, and Oplot. Each is built around an influential commander who spends his time not only waging the ongoing guerrilla war against Kiev’s forces, but also dispensing harsh justice and detaining civilians, sometimes for prisoner exchanges. Each group has several hundred men, including Russian volunteers, and heavy armaments. (During a recent visit to Vostok’s base, I saw four fighting vehicles, two anti-aircraft guns, numerous rocket-propelled grenades, and surface-to-air missiles.)

Are these commanders the backbone of an emerging independent East Ukraine, or are they burgeoning warlords staking out their turf for whatever comes next?

So far, Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” to take back eastern Ukraine has united the rebel leaders in the defense of the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk “People’s Republics,” even though each has his own vision of the region’s political future. The rebels largely view the new Kiev government as an American puppet dominated by ultranationalists and “fascists” and have called on Russia to deploy troops.

Ukraine’s Health Ministry said last week that at least 270 people have died in eastern Ukraine since the military operation began in April, though this number has since risen to at least 330. In the bloodiest day of fighting yet, rebels killed three border guards in Mariupol on Saturday, June 14, and shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane outside Lugansk, killing all 49 servicemen on board.

But President Petro Poroshenko’s efforts toward de-escalation, including the promise of a cease-fire if rebels agree to lay down their arms, could soon test these commanders’ willingness to submit themselves to a greater authority. Their real allegiances — whether to the Russian government, a certain local oligarch, the people’s republics, or simply themselves — remain unclear.

Vostok is the most battle-ready group, led by Alexander Khodakovsky, a thoughtful man with a closely shaved head and goatee who was formerly the head of an elite special forces unit. The third major armed force inDonetsk is Oplot, a civic organization and mixed martial arts club espousing clean living and pan-Slavic nationalism that in Donetsk has been transformed into a militia under the command of Alexander Zakharchenko, a sardonic former mechanic with a potbelly and a deep tan.

But there are other emerging warlords too. Igor Girkin, who goes by the nom de guerre Strelkov and is alleged by the Ukrainian government to be a Russian intelligence agent, controls the besieged city of Sloviansk, where journalists have been abducted and two rebels from competing groups were recently executed on his orders. Last week, he arrested the “people’s mayor” of Sloviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev. In the next region over, the city of Lugansk and several nearby towns are under the control of the Army of the Southeast, whose founder, Valery Bolotov, recently traveled to Russia to recuperate from an assassination attempt. “Only our army is preserving the safety of Lugansk residents,” Vladimir Gromov, the head of counterintelligence in the Army of the Southeast, told me.

Several other small cities in the region are largely under the control of strongman commanders, from Igor Bezler — a former lieutenant colonel in the Russian army and also an alleged intelligence agent — in Gorlovka to a group of Russian Cossacks in Antratsyt. Bezler, who is known by the nickname “Bes” or “Demon,” recently appeared in a video in which he appeared to execute two Ukrainian intelligence agents by firing squad. (Some analysts have said the video may have been staged.)

A symbolic moment in the transition from hodgepodge groups of men with clubs to a few heavily armed militias came at the end of May, when members of the Vostok Battalion kicked all rebels who were not members of the self-appointed government out of the Donetsk administration building. Many saw the tense showdown as a move by Vostok to establish itself as the premier power in Donetsk, but Khodakovsky said the “show of force” was a side effect. The real goal, he said, was to punish looters who had stolen alcohol and other goods from a supermarket that was abandoned during heavy fighting at the airport that killed at least 50 of Khodakovsky’s men, including 31 Russian citizens.

A rash of marauding that has hit eastern Ukraine in recent weeks has positioned militia commanders as the ultimate arbiters in their locales. Strelkov even ordered the shooting of two of his men for “looting, armed robbery, kidnapping, [and] leaving battle positions,” according to an execution order posted online that appeared to be stamped and signed by Strelkov.

These days, eastern Ukraine’s countryside is largely a lawless territory dotted with checkpoints run by pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces, while the cities have retained a sense of order. But all three Donetsk militia commanders told me that criminality is on the rise.

“We catch several looters every day,” Zakharchenko, Oplot’s commander, told me. “They steal cars, rob people on the street, steal from stores, and commit other provocations.” Most police have declared fealty to the new People’s Republic and are powerless next to the heavily armed militants around the region. The regional head of police resigned after speaking with pro-Russian protesters who stormed his headquarters shortly after the start of the uprising in April.

Kerch said law enforcement officers have been “demoralized” by the rebel movement. “The police are used to working with criminals, but now there are many people with machine guns in the city, and far from all of those who started taking part in this movement think about their homeland first and foremost,” he said. “Donetsk People’s Republic bandits who weren’t around before now wear the symbols and masks and rob people.”

To crack down on such actions, rebel militias have conducted day and night patrols, sometimes working with police and volunteers. In Donetsk, violators are not shot, Khodakovsky said, though they may be publicly humiliated, such as two men in a recently published video who were forced to sweep sidewalks wearing signs saying, “I’m a thief.” But Kerch said executions could be warranted in wartime.

The outbreak of kidnappings and detentions in rebel-held areas, however, reveals the darker side of vigilante justice, including that meted out by rebel commanders. Reports by the United Nations, theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Human Rights Watch have suggested that the number of abductions in eastern Ukraine is growing. Journalists, local citizens, and OSCE monitors have been held hostage. The local rights organization Prosvita recently estimated that 200 people are being detained illegally, a number that Kerch confirmed. Zakharchenko said Oplot alone is holding 40 to 50 prisoners.

An electoral commission member from Donetsk, who wished to remain anonymous, said he and three friends were seized three days before the May 25 presidential election and held for six days in the basement of the security services building where the Russian Orthodox Army is headquartered. They were interrogated, beaten, and tortured with electroshocks. Their captors shot live bullets into the wall next to them. The electoral commission member was later hospitalized with a ruptured eardrum, a basal skull fracture, and a kidney contusion, he said. Although the man was blindfolded, he said his main interrogator had a strong Russian accent. Another 20 to 30 people were being held in the basement with him.

Kerch said he was holding prisoners, including two “looters” who had stolen the man’s car in Makeyevka, but declined to comment further. (Kerch said he had returned the car to its owner.) He said the Russian Orthodox Army is “actively searching” for Kiev agents.

The Russian Orthodox Army also seized Nikolai Yakubovich, a local pro-Kiev activist and advisor to Ukraine’s security council, and exchanged him for rebel prisoners. In a video filmed during his captivity, one of Yakubovich’s eyes is bruised shut and he shows signs of other injuries.

Dmitry Verzilov, an electoral commission member and district council member in Donetsk, said he himself was seized for several hours when he went to speak to rebel leaders about the hostage problem. He was thrown in the basement of the Donetsk administration building, where he says he counted 83 prisoners. A Donetsk People’s Republic spokesperson denied that prisoners were being held in the basement of the administration building.

In another hint of the growing lawlessness, Maxim Petrukhin, an aide to Donetsk People’s Republic chairman Denis Pushilin, was gunned down by a passing car in the city center in broad daylight on Sunday. Pushilin said “Kiev agents” were likely to blame.

Donetsk People’s Republic leaders have said each militia will oversee certain areas of law enforcement and military operations. But the commanders say there is no clear separation of duties yet, and all remain a law to themselves, with their alliances hard to guess. All three major Donetsk units were suspected of working with local oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and an ally of former President Viktor Yanukovych, after their fighters stopped an angry crowd from storming his residence and guarded it for days after. The militia leaders said their men were simply trying to prevent mass disorder.

Their ties to the Kremlin are also unclear. Mark Galeotti, a professor of global affairs at New York University and an expert on Russian security services, says that Khodakovsky was known as an officer of the “more close to Moscow variety” in Ukraine’s special forces, where Russian agents were notoriously pervasive. Gromov in Lugansk was recently photographed in Moscow with Russian nationalist MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky. But the three Donetsk commanders denied direct links with the Kremlin and said they had obtained their weapons from captured military installations.

Kiev has accused Russia of sending men and weapons into eastern Ukraine, including a pair of tanks that it said had come across the border on June 12. Rebels said they had seized the tanks from a military warehouse. (I saw three tanks flying a Russian flag outside Donetsk later that day.)

If the rebellion’s military leaders are receiving money from Russia, it is most likely from nationalist oligarchs such as Konstantin Malofeev, who previously employed both Sloviansk commander Strelkov and Donetsk People’s Republic Prime Minister Alexander Borodai at his firm, according to reporting by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazetaand well-known journalist Oleg Kashin. Malofeev also funded a separatist leader in Crimea, Kashin reported.

The Donetsk militia chiefs say they are loyal to the Donetsk People’s Republic, though those ties seem informal and in some cases tenuous. ”There’s no Donetsk People’s Republic; this is all just some project that I don’t understand,” Khodakovsky said. “I didn’t vote in the referendum [on independence]. I didn’t vote for this. I just faced a choice: to be with my own people or to be against my own people. Russia is my country. I served there. My relatives live there.”

Their end goal is also vague: Zakharchenko said he would be able to lay down his weapons when “no tanks or fighting vehicles are pointing their barrels at me.” But for now they remain united in a conflict against what they see as an unjust, aggressive government in Kiev. “A Russian man invented this in World War II,” Zakharchenko said, gesturing to a huge Simonov anti-tank rifle pointing out of a window next to his office below a Soviet-built television tower, “and Russian men are still using it to defend their homeland.”

Although Poroshenko has pledged amnesty for rebels who agree to lay down their arms, he specifically excluded those who have committed grievous crimes. Given that Borodai and Pushilin were slapped last week with charges of terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government, militia leaders can more likely expect prosecution than amnesty if Kiev retakes the east. Their actions have also divided the local populace, a majority of which opposes the rebels’ tactics. If the stalemate continues or if eastern Ukraine successfully separates from the rest of the country, will these men eventually relinquish their power and risk their personal safety? Or will they begin fighting among themselves?

“If we put down our weapons by agreement, there are always people who don’t want to do so because they’ve gotten used to the power that weapons give them,” says Khodakovsky, the Vostok Battalion’s commander. “We will have to detain them and force them to.”

*****

Readers: Do you have anything to report? Blog me.

Social Butterfly: I think you’ll be saying “Thank you, Mr. President” again. Did you read the recent write on gays confirmed to the federal bench?

Peace & Love.

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

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Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2014

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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