Edward Snowden gives 14 hours of interviews to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post, one of the reporters who has been given access to his documents. The article summarizes much of what he has done but in the excerpts below, I give some bits that describe how and why he did what he did and what his life is now like in Russia. [Read more…]
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the appeal by the state of Utah to issue a stay of the US District Court judge’s ruling to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. In its ruling it said: [Read more…]
The “holiday for the rest of us”. [Read more…]
After the US District Court judge Robert Shelby declared on Friday that the Utah ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, marriage licenses started being issued while the government filed a motion with him asking him to stay his order pending appeal. The government, perhaps fearing that many more same-sex couples would get married while the judge considered their motion for a stay, also filed an emergency motion with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals asking them to immediately impose a stay. [Read more…]
It is a measure of how out of touch I am with popular culture that I often learn about a media phenomenon only long after it has been around or if it goes down in flames. Sometimes the names associated with the phenomenon (Honey Boo Boo, Miley Cyrus, the Kardashians) lurk in the fringes of my consciousness because the news headlines feature them but I know next to nothing about them. [Read more…]
I wrote recently about the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties case that is pending before the US Supreme Court that will test the limits of the Free Exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment and the reach of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 that says that any government action that impinges on a person’s religious freedom must have ‘compelling interest’ and no other less restrictive choice of action to achieve its ends. [Read more…]
Me reading the comics while Baxter the Wonder Dog takes a nap by my side.
Blogging will be more sporadic over the holidays as I will be together with my children and their significant others. Now that they are older and living independent lives elsewhere, these times together are few and far between and to be savored. I thought that I would pass on a couple of personal recommendations. Others should feel free to add their own in the comments. [Read more…]
The good news out of Ohio is that the Medicaid expansion program has been upheld by the courts. This was part of the Affordable Care Act that was meant to take care of the people who fell into a gap, who earned too much (although still poor) to be eligible for Medicaid but did not earn enough to get affordable insurance through the new health exchanges. [Read more…]