Gay Marriage at SCOTUS

Several hundred supporters of gay marriage and several dozen opponents (the latter mainly religious and mainly opposed to abominations in general, single or betrothed), gathered at the Supreme Court today while it heard arguments.

The Cato Institute filed an amicus brief.  reason magazine covers it here; the DC gay news weekly Metroweekly covers it here.

Most of the crowd was aware of the arguments being advanced in some detail and felt the court will uphold gay marriage decisions of lower federal courts.  They just aren’t sure whether it will be upheld as a Constitutional right that exists that all states must recognize, or whether it will just be that all states must recognize via the “full faith and credit” clause any gay marriage from another state.

(I will be uploading photos and videos to this post throughout the afternoon.)

Here’s a lesbian couple who’ve been together 33 years:

Here’s a reporter from the conservative Media Research Center interviewing someone with the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce: 

One of many “Gay-9s” in attendance.  While they ranged from Italian greyhounds to bulldogs to muts, this rainbow ascoted poodle was the gayest of them all.

Here’s a reporter from Mother Jones interviewing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence:

A fairy was granting marriage equality wishes with a sparkly wand:

There was chanting back and forth between he pro- and anti-gay forces: 

New Yorker Jimmy LaSalvia, formerly of Log Cabin Republicans and then founder of GoProud, now an Independent, was here just to visit his former town of residence (D.C.)

Supporters of marriage equality unfurl a rainbow banner:

(Libertarian and LGBT groups may use any of these photos or videos, just give a photo credit.)

Daniel Schulman On the Koch brothers

EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Today on The Robert Wenzel Show: Daniel Schulman T…: Today’s Guest: Daniel Schulman Discussing His Book:   Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’…

Does "Mother Jones" hire the retarded?

Now that everyone recognizes that when the State allocates most medical resources it will be deciding who lives and dies, Mother Jones covers this while still trying to deny it.

Maybe they pay their interns and writers less than WalMart does, like The Nation?

Rod Lamkey Jr./ZUMAPress

In 2009, Sarah Palin claimed Obamacare would create “death panels,” or bands of bureaucrats who would decide whether old or disabled Americans were worthy of medical care. That notion turned out to be a figment of her imagination. But now, a growing cohort of Democratic lawmakers is cozying up to the idea, charging that the cost-cutting board that Obama’s health care law creates will indeed hurt people on Medicare, The Hill reports.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) have all signed onto bills repealing the powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel created by the Affordable Care Act that will make recommendations on how to reduce Medicare spending once Medicare cost growth reaches a certain level.

The lawmakers have said they oppose the board because it would limit care for Medicare patients, even though the health care law says that any cuts would have to affect doctor reimbursement rates or the prices for certain drugs, not patient care.

All five lawmakers are worried about losing their seats in 2014. Barber, Kirkpatrick, Sinema and Esty have also voted with Republicans to delay the law’s individual and employer mandates—the requirements that Americans purchase insurance and that employers of a certain size offer coverage, respectively.

The Democratic death panel fear-mongering follows an editorial that former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean wrote in the Wall Street Journal in July. He called for a repeal of the cost-cutting board because, he wrote, it would have the effect of rationing care by making it hard for doctors to make money from Medicare. Dean has worked as an adviser to a major DC lobbying firm that does work on behalf of the healthcare industry, which would see profits cut if the board goes into effect.

Major healthcare industry players like the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, and the pharmaceutical lobby have supported repeal of the board, arguing the panel would cut providers’ pay arbitrarily.

Palin predicted folks would come around on death panels. “Though I was called a liar for calling it like it is, many of these accusers finally saw that ObamaCare did in fact create a panel of faceless bureaucrats who have the power to make life and death decisions about healthcare funding,” she wrote on Facebook in 2012.

But Republican lawmakers don’t seems to appreciate the Dems’ aisle-crossing. The National Republican Congressional Committee slammed the Democrats for “desperately trying to jump off the ObamaCare train.”

Tanks as Protection Against Dangerous Libertarians

N.H. City Wants a “Tank” to Use Against Occupiers and Libertarians

Concord police listed the nonviolent groups as domestic terror threats in a federal grant application.

—By Gavin Aronsen

| Tue Aug. 6, 2013 

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A Lenco armored police vehicle, parked near an Occupy DC camp in 2012. Mr. T in DC/Flickr

After the public release of a document in which he suggested that Occupiers and libertarians pose a domestic terror threat to Concord, New Hampshire, the city’s police chief has backed away from the claim.

In an application to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking more than $250,000 to purchase an armored police vehicle, the capital city of New Hampshire specified the local branch of the Occupy movement and the Free State Project, an effort to recruit “liberty-loving people” to relocate to the Granite State, as potential sources of terrorist action.

“The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type,” the filing reads. “We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges.”

Read our story about New Hampshire’s libertarian utopians.

The application was obtained by the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union (NHCLU) through a public records request, and is one ofmore than 250 filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to trackwhat it sees as the increasing militarization of police departmentsthroughout the country.

While the sovereign citizens movement has a history of racism and violence, Police Chief John Duval now says that he doesn’t actually believe the Free State Project or Occupy New Hampshire are domestic terror threats. “I wish I would have worded things different in retrospect,” he says. “I understand why their eyebrows are raised about that.” He chalks up the wording to the limitations of writing a detailed proposal in only three pages and says it was meant to refer to the “unpredictable nature of unpredictable people who attach themselves to otherwise lawful situations.”

Duval has no plans to issue a formal apology, but he has exchanged emails with Carla Gericke, president of the Free State Project, to explain his position, which he has also attempted to clarify with local reporters

Read the rest at Mother Jones..