India’s Supreme Court Restores an 1861 Law Banning Gay Sex

Altaf Qadri/Associated Press

Gay rights activists at a protest in New Delhi on Wednesday. A law that was reinstated on Wednesday had been ruled unconstitutional in 2009.

GARDINER HARRIS | New York Times | December 11, 2013

NEW DELHI — The Indian Supreme Court reinstated on Wednesday a colonial-era law banning gay sex, ruling that it had been struck down improperly by a lower court.

The 1861 law, which imposes a 10-year sentence for “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with man, woman or animal,” was ruled unconstitutional in a 2009 decision. But the Supreme Court held that only Parliament had the power to change that law.

There is almost no chance that Parliament will act where the Supreme Court did not, advocates and opponents of the law agreed. With the Bharatiya Janata Party, a conservative Hindu nationalist group, appearing in ascendancy before national elections in the spring, the prospect of any legislative change in the next few years is highly unlikely, analysts said.

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Afghan Pact Would Keep US Troops Until 2024

45th Munich Security Conference 2009: Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Repubic of Afghanistan, during his speech on Sunday morning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thom Shanker and Rod Nordland | The New York Times | November 21, 2013

Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the United States and Afghanistan had finalized the wording of a bilateral security agreement that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024 and set the stage for billions of dollars of international assistance to keep flowing to the government in Kabul.

The deal, which will now be presented for approval by an Afghan grand council of elders starting on Thursday, came after days of brinkmanship by Afghan officials and two direct calls from Mr. Kerry to President Hamid Karzai, including one on Wednesday before the announcement.

Just the day before, a senior aide to Mr. Karzai had said the Afghan leader would not approve an agreement unless President Obama sent a letter acknowledging American military mistakes during the 12-year war. But on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry emphatically insisted that a deal was reached with no American apology forthcoming.

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Pact May Extend U.S. Troops’ Stay in Afghanistan

Massoud Hossaini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In Kabul,  an Afghan police officer stood guard near the site where thousands of elders and leadership figures are  convening this week to consider the language in a bilateral security agreement with the United States.

THOM SHANKER and ROD NORDLAND | New York Times | November 20, 2013

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Wednesday that the United States and Afghanistan had finalized the wording of a bilateral security agreement that would allow for a lasting American troop presence through 2024 and set the stage for billions of dollars of international assistance to keep flowing to the government in Kabul.

The deal, which will now be presented for approval by an Afghan grand council of elders starting on Thursday, came after days of brinkmanship by Afghan officials and two direct calls from Mr. Kerry to President Hamid Karzai, including one on Wednesday before the announcement.

Just the day before, a senior aide to Mr. Karzai had said the Afghan leader would not approve an agreement unless President Obama sent a letter acknowledging American military mistakes during the 12-year war. But on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry emphatically insisted that a deal was reached with no American apology forthcoming.

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Hawaii Governor To Sign Gay Marriage Bill Wednesday

English: Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii as a member of the 109th United States Congress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carlos Santoscoy | On Top Magazine | November 13, 2013

Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie is expected on Wednesday to sign a bill legalizing gay marriage in the state.

“I look forward to signing this significant piece of legislation which provides marriage equity and fully recognizes and protects religious freedoms,” Abercrombie said.

The Democratic governor is expected to sign the bill Wednesday morning during a signing ceremony to be held at the Hawaii Convention Center.

Gay and lesbian couples will be able to marry in the state starting December 2.

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Boehner Says No to Conference With Senate Immigration Bill

Matt Fuller | Roll Call | November 13, 2013

(Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Just when you thought a comprehensive immigration overhaul in the House was dead — yeah, it’s still dead.

Speaker John A. Boehner dashed the hopes of Democrats and advocates of a comprehensive approach on Wednesday, when he appeared to close off the avenue most likely to succeed — going to conference on the Senate’s immigration bill.

“Frankly,” Boehner told reporters, GOP leaders “have no intention of ever going to conference” with the Senate-passed comprehensive immigration overhaul bill, even if Republicans pass a bill of their own.

“We’ve made it clear that we’re going to move on a common sense, step-by-step approach in terms of how we deal with immigration,” the Ohio Republican said. “The idea that we’re going to take up a 1,300-page bill that no one had ever read, which is what the Senate did, is not going to happen in the House.”

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Scalia’s Chance to Smash Unions: The Huge Under-the-Radar Case

photograph of the justices, cropped to show Justice Scalia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Josh Eidelson | Salon | Reader Supported News | November 13, 2013

A Supreme Court case being argued Wednesday could take away a tactic that’s kept unions alive

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on an under-the-radar case that could deal a major blow to already embattled U.S. unions. As Harvard labor law professor Benjamin Sachs told the New York Times, the case now facing Antonin Scalia and company could be “the most significant labor case in a generation.”

The case, Unite Here Local 355 v. Mulhall, involves the constitutionality of “card check neutrality agreements” between unions and companies they’re trying to organize. That’s the technical-sounding term for agreements that pave the way for unionization by restricting companies from running union-busting campaigns, and by committing companies to recognize a union and start negotiating if a majority of workers sign union cards, rather than holding out for a government-supervised election. In exchange, unions can agree not to publicly shame and slam the company – which means calling off the kind of public pressure campaign often necessary to compel companies to sign away their union-busting rights.

None of this would matter as much if the New Deal National Labor Relations Act, which commits the federal government to encourage collective bargaining (seriously, that’s what it says), actually ensured that it was up to a company’s workers, not its management, whether to have a union contract. But the government-supervised National Labor Relations Board unionization process is, depending on your level of cynicism, either “broken” or “fixed” against workers. It’s rife with opportunities for bosses to delay, gerrymander and intimidate workers – including holding mandatory on-the-clock anti-union lectures full of ominous “predictions” – without breaking the law. And research suggests it’s also marked by rampant illegality – including alleged illegal firings in a third of election campaigns – that’s perhaps predictable given that the worst-case scenario for scofflaw CEOs is usually reinstating an employee months later with back pay. Even if pro-union workers win an election, the law alone doesn’t make corporations offer real contract concessions, and a year after the vote workers are about as likely as not to still be without a union contract.

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State says same-sex couples in Montgomery County have no place seeking inclusion in lawsuit

English: Photo I took of Same-Sex Marriage lines Feb. 15, 2004 in SF (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jenny DeHuff | Mainline Media News | September 3, 2013

NORRISTOWN — In a legal brief filed Wednesday in Commonwealth Court, the Pennsylvania Department of Health argued that the inclusion of same-sex couples as “intervenors” in the state’s lawsuit against the Montgomery County register of wills would be “unnecessary, redundant and superfluous.”

Thirty-two gay and lesbian couples awarded marriage licenses by Register of Wills and Clerk of the Orphan’s Court D. Bruce Hanes last week asked a judge to add their names as “intervenors” in the Health Department lawsuit. In its brief, the state, which had until Wednesday to respond, argued that the couples’ interests were already properly served by the arguments made by Hanes and his attorneys.

“In short, this case is about one thing: whether a local official may willfully disregard a statute on the basis of his personal legal opinion that the statute is unconstitutional,” says the brief, which was authored by James D. Schultz, attorney for the commonwealth. “This court need not and should not delve into the clerk’s motives or reasons for his disregard for the rule of law and dereliction of his duties under the law.”

Judge Found NSA Ran Roughshod Over the FISA Court for Years

Seal of the United States Department of Justice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Charlie Savage and Scott Shane | The New York Times | Reader Supported News | August 22, 2013

A  federal judge sharply rebuked the National Security Agency in 2011 for repeatedly misleading the court that oversees its surveillance on domestic soil, including a program that is collecting tens of thousands of domestic e-mails and other Internet communications of Americans each year, according to a secret ruling made public on Wednesday.

The 85-page ruling by Judge John D. Bates, then serving as chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, involved an N.S.A. program that systematically searches the contents of Americans’ international Internet communications, without a warrant, in a hunt for discussions about foreigners who have been targeted for surveillance.

The Justice Department had told Judge Bates that N.S.A. officials had discovered that the program had also been gathering domestic messages for three years. Judge Bates found that the agency had violated the Constitution and declared the problems part of a pattern of misrepresentation by agency officials in submissions to the secret court.

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Secret Court Rebuked N.S.A. on Surveillance

The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CHARLIE SAVAGE and SCOTT SHANE | New York Times | August 21, 2013

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sharply rebuked the National Security Agency in 2011 for repeatedly misleading the court that oversees its surveillance on domestic soil, including a program that is collecting tens of thousands of domestic e-mails and other Internet communications of Americans each year, according to a secret ruling made public on Wednesday.

The 85-page ruling by Judge John D. Bates, then serving as chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, involved an N.S.A. program that systematically searches the contents of Americans’ international Internet communications, without a warrant, in a hunt for discussions about foreigners who have been targeted for surveillance.

The Justice Department had told Judge Bates that N.S.A. officials had discovered that the program had also been gathering domestic messages for three years. Judge Bates found that the agency had violated the Constitution and declared the problems part of a pattern of misrepresentation by agency officials in submissions to the secret court.

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Big Pharma’s Private War on Drugs

Medical Drugs for Pharmacy Health Shop of Medicine (Photo credit: epSos.de)

Peter Andrey Smith | American Prospect | August 1, 2013

Pharmacy robberies have spiked in large part thanks to illegal demand for OxyContin. A look inside the drugmaker’s efforts to protect its product and the pharmacists at the front lines.

On a Wednesday afternoon this spring, with overcast skies and gas-slicked puddles on Utopia Parkway, some two hundred pharmacists gathered on the fourth floor of St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens, for the Fifty-Fourth Annual Dr. Andrew J. Bartilucci Pharmacy Congress. The plainclothes professionals sat around tables draped with red tablecloths, sipping plastic cups of coffee and occasionally glancing at their phones.

At approximately two o’clock that afternoon, John P.  Gilbride, Caucasian male, five foot six, medium build, clean-shaven, wearing a dark suit and glasses, entered a rear door of the room carrying a leather satchel. He stood with his head down before walking to the lectern and opening a PowerPoint presentation. Four massive bulls-eyes were splayed out on the conference room walls. “Pharmacy robberies and burglaries are taking place across the country at an alarming rate,” he said. “Do you talk about it? Do you prepare for it? We all had fire drills as kids. The same thing goes for pharmacy robberies.”

No one stirred. Gilbride talked as if he’d given the talk before. He flipped to a schematic of what appeared to be a Rite Aid in an anonymous Florida parking lot, notable only for its lack of “Twenty Percent Off” ads in the front windows. “The walls,” he said. “What are they made of? Is it easy for someone to cut a hole and break in from the gift shop next door?” He said he’d seen drugstores with netting installed in the drop ceiling. “It’s just an idea,” he said. “Just some things to think about.”

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