In Other News
From the BBC: Roy Moore, Alabama’s top judge, ousted over gay marriage stand
Roy Moore, 69, violated judicial ethics with an order seen as directing probate judges to deny marriage licences to gay couples, a judicial panel ruled.
The decision was a “politically motivated effort” by radical groups, he said. His lawyer has vowed to appeal.
It is the second suspension for Mr Moore, an outspoken conservative.
In 2003, he was removed for refusing to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments he installed at a state building.
He was re-elected as chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court in 2012.
I object to referring to Roy Moore as a conservative. He is a reactionary jerk who wants to impose his version of canon/Sharia law on the people of Alabama. He will run for governor again because he will be too old under Alabama law to run for the state supreme court again in 2018.
Meanwhile over at the CBC you find: Trump’s ‘idiosyncrasies not abnormal,’ says Republican stalwart Newt Gingrich. Just a suggestion, when you ask a question like that you should talk to the doctor not another patient. Gingrich was ‘invited’ to leave Congress because of ethics violations and he has not only gone through three wives, like Trump, he is on his third religion.
5 comments
Reading the opinion of the court, Roy Moore was removed for multiple ethics violations, not for his personal beliefs — he sent multiple missives to county clerks ordering them to defy a Federal court order. The content of the missives was irrelevant to the court, a pattern of ordering officers of the court to defy a Federal court order was what they were concerned about, which in turn threatens rule of law, which is why ordering such a thing is sanctionable under Alabama law. They don’t want William Tecumseh Sherman’s moldy corpse drug out of storage, draped onto a horse, and set loose on Alabama again just to prove that Federal law outweighs state law, after all.
In short, no, Judge Moore wasn’t removed because of his beliefs. He was removed because he abused his position to order people to violate a Federal court order and used arguments in those missives that he knew were false and incorrect. And his “defense” was laughable, basically being “state law overrides Federal law” – a notion that Sherman put to rest over 150 years ago.
As for Newt and his ilk, because they’ve tried marriages so many times, and have tried all the religions, of course they know what’s best for everyone else. Most of them, however, haven’t tried being female and/or pregnant, so I don’t see how that rationale works….
Judge Roy Moore, the only law west of the Apalachicola River, makes Donald Trump look like Benjamin Disraeli. They couldn’t put the real reason – the PITA is about to cost huge bucks for legal bills … again. He doesn’t ask the opinion of the other members of the Alabama Supreme Court before he does this crap because he is anointed by G-d and the vote of the people of Alabama to be the ruling authority on the law in the state of Alabama. Many of his ‘offenses’ are years old, but he wrote things down in his gay marriage order which couldn’t be ignored because it put the local probate judges in a vise being squeezed by a Federal judge and Moore and the fundies.
I couldn’t have a public job in Alabama because I certainly would not swear to uphold the Alabama 1901 constitution which doesn’t recognize any federal constitutional amendment passed since 1850. They know that many provisions are flat illegal, but they won’t/can’t amend it.
One divorce could be the fault of either or both, but a second divorce is a clear sign that you have a problem and should be removed from the gene pool to prevent future problems.
Given the general attitude in those States, it’s no surprise things like this happen (in Sacramento):
Cops try to run man down before shooting 14 times
Or that 5 Dallas cop’s were killed by a sniper during a Black Lives Matter protest. *shrug* What did the cop’s think would happen? Given just about anyone can get a military grade weapon in the USA. Duh!
That dashcam would be a murder conviction in New York. I don’t the California penal well enough to know how they would charge it. When a suspect states an intent to cause serious bodily injury and the victim ends up dead, it is a really easy case.
Everyone has decided that murder is the answer, and not the problem.