Questions Surrounding Proposition 8's Perry vs. Schwartzenegger

It was announced in the mainstream media that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (don't you just love that court!) has stayed resumption of the issuance of marriage licenses to same sex individuals in California pending the outcome of appeals with respect to the challenge brought over the Constitutionality of Proposition 8, a referendum and initiative passed by the California voters last year (although brought by an organization by the name of "Protect Marriage," which solicits contributions from individuals in order to continue to defend in this action nation-wide, and on whose website very little information is available in just who and what "Protect Marriage" is).

Except that it does include an "educational" component to their organization, which would lead this writer to believe that it also then just may be getting federal grant monies for its existence in addition to those solicited donations.

What truly has been interesting is the legal shenanigans going on in this case, which was filed apparently as "Perry v. Schwarzenegger," and not "Perry vs. the State of California" since it was, after all, a state initiative passed by the California voters and thus the proper defendants in the case would be the State itself, and not Governor Schwarzenegger as merely the Governor at the present time.

What is also interesting is that both the Governor and State Attorney General Jerry Brown have refused to defend in this case on the grounds that they believe that gay marriages should be afforded in California, their personal opinions which really have no grounding in either California, or the U.S. Constitution at all.

Since, of course, marriage and its definition is grounded in the "common law" upon which our Constitution was based at its signing, and marriage is an "institution" under the common law and has been for literally thousands of years in its definition as between two opposite sex individuals for the purposes of procreation, property ownership and inheritance purposes in a purely legal sense, and in a spiritual sense, a pledge of fidelity and love between the couple and God, who is pretty much on record in both the Old Testament, New Testament and Koran in just what his definition of marriage was and is in a spiritual sense.

The fact that Attorney General Brown has refused to defend in the action speaks volumes in his understanding of his powers and duties of office.

Apparently, his oath meant little as apparently did the Governor's.

There is provision, after all, for domestic and civil unions in California's statutes prior to this movement, and also legal instruments that can be bought at the local bookstores in the form of powers of attorney and the like for any and all other matters. You can, after all, leave your property to your next door neighbor or even your dog as has been the case with some eccentrics, not to mention your spouse, companion, friend, children or domestic partner with a simple will, or disinherit them if that is also your wish.

The standing issue was addressed by the 9th Circuit even in this ruling, although from the wrong angle, it appears, questioning instead of the wrong "parties of interest" to the matter the standing of this group, Protect Marriage, the sponsor of the proposition, to defend.

It appears maybe that may be the reason it was brought incorrectly to begin with - to use the standing issue as one in order to murky the waters, and force also the Governor and Attorney General to show their true colors, and set this case then up for an eventual challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court again inappropriately as not brought by the true parties in interest as the Constitutional challenge under the Bill of Rights (rather than common law "institution" which did exist in its common law form at its signing).

A court that hasn't recognized the "common law" upon which our Constitution was based for literally decades, and never more so than in the last thirty in many respects, including using foreign jurisdictional law now even for some of its renderings rather than American jurisprudence, and giving more and more "rights" to "corporate" entities, including the government itself, above those of the citizenry with respect to Bill of Rights issues in so many matters it is incredible.

I hope that before it reaches that point it is corrected to Perry vs. State of California, otherwise it would appear that any decision rendered in this matter will be null and void in either case. Since it truly isn't naming the "parties in interest" and in so NOT doing, has made the defense in this matter one in which the government appears to be facilitating this case also in order to set a nation-wide precedent with this legal technicality their scapegoat against really treason in this smoke and mirrors game.

And with the complement of the "progressively" unAmerican Supreme Court with these last several appointments particularly ones in which during those Senate hearings little questioning had to do with those justices understanding of just where their powers end with respect to Constitutional interpretation, and under what "standard" they are to reach their opinions (not judicial "case precedent" but with the intent of the framers ever present in Bill of Rights issues fundamentally, and don't think the mention of extending or expanding the definition of marriage was even entertained in their minds as a Bill of Rights "inalienable" right and outside governmental authority really, to begin with as "personal" relationships were intended to be).

The 16th again and its ramifications again rears its ugly head on this issue also, which would never be the case if the "intent" for taxation in this nation was reinstituted to its Constitutional intent.

Since there were gays back in '76 and there were marriages also, it would appear to this American Constitution believer that in such a Constitutional challenge on the "right" to marry and definition of marriage itself, which is what this case really boils down to, this would be a no-brainer.

But look for an excuse such as "good public policy" or "freedom of association" (assembly) to be their underlying rationale, in order to support that state, and the legal community at large, for another "stimulus" at the true cost of freedom and the expense of the public at large.

Then look for the medical community to get into the act mandating AIDS testing prior to issuing those licenses, so that the state (and feds in this health care reform national database that was hidden in those bills) then has a record of any and all individuals who are HIV positive, at the stroke of a keyboard, or mandate HIV treatment prior to the issuance of those licenses.

I don't believe the activist gay community has any idea how they are being used over a fundamental right to privacy of their personal lives and sexual preferences, until it hits them in about five years down the road, brought by another government funded legal defense or civil rights group, as this massive politically brought case and its defense clearly is using those licenses for more taxation and profit for either the government, or its select global industries. And "science and technology" seems to be their baby at the present time most of all.

Those domestic relations lawyers looking forward to those fees for the divorces and pre-nups are also licking their chops right about now, and the hotel, tourism and wedding planning industries in that state.

Not to mention the number of "new jobs" for judges and lawyers this will also create, for those domestic relations courts, and the county justices of the peace that will now also be needed to increase those county coffers at "for profit" prices for those licenses, although with California continuing to expand its budgets and cry poverty at the same time it continues to bankrupt its citizenry.

Schwarzenegger is, after all, not simply an avowed "capitalist" for California in for profit governmental public/private partnerships, but a personal one too.

Wonder how much he has invested in the hotel, resort and medical industries personally that just might profit from his personal, rather than Constitutional, views? Or Attorney General Brown, who has his eye on heading that state after Mr. Scwarzenegger steps down, from all reports.

If it is mandated that insurers must cover gay individuals and their domestic partners equally with herterosexual individuals without taking "risk" into consideration, or the high cost of those in vitro and other alternative reproductive costs that are "class" distinctive and are instead spread amongst the pool of policy holders, it appears that the global corporatists have found another way to "socialize" the costs of health care for higher risk groups to all - so just watch the costs of those policies skyrocket, instead of getting more affordable as the Obama Administration touted during that farce of a Health Care Reforem legislation.

I guess the costs and profits for all those drug manufacturers for this "new" disease treating the symptoms hasn't been enough, since according to my research the patent on inferon and some of those other expensive drugs is scheduled to expire in 2013, just prior to when the new mandates for health care for all begins.

This is a disease, after all, that has become an industry in and of itself along with breast cancer "awareness" and those recommended tests and races have brought in a bundle to the medical community for "reasearch", although few strides in really preventing or curing those diseases has been in sight.

I would question whether the instances of new cases of breeast cancer, as with AIDS, are going up or if some of these "treatments" themselves are resulting in new cases, such as annual invasive radioactive breast x-rays, and live virus injections and treatments.

Hello, gay community, it just might be that you are being had.

Arizona's "New" Law Feeds Lawyers, Politicians, State, Jails

With all the brouhaha surrounding the recent passage into "law" in Arizona of "new" legislation in order to address the illegal immigrant situation and problems in that state, most of it political in nature and focusing on using once again "racial profiling" as the outcry by all those liberal groups and special interests, little has been said insofar as truly just what this legislation was intended to insure for the lawyers, politicians, state coffers and the privatized jail system.

It appears to me that this "new" law, as with most of the others which have been passed in Arizona since Reaganomics, is simply meant to insure a steady income stream for those two political parties and their members, who derive the bulk of their campaign funding on both sides of the aisle from - you guessed it - the lawyers and legal profession in one form or another.

This bill will be challenged, of course.

In fact, the outcry has been such that special interests groups such as MALDEF, the National Coalistion of "Christian" Clergy (primarily Catholic from all appearances) and a host of others will be filing their federal lawsuits real soon.

And since the federal government through the 9th Circuit has given "standing" to non-Americans and illegal immigrant groups within also the past several decades through their lawyers, the federal judiciary, Congress also passed another of its "Acts" in order to provide for taxpayer paid fees and costs to those civil rights lawyers for such cases, even when most of these "civil rights" and special interest groups for foreigners are already also the recipient of federal grant monies due to the fact that most of these groups also claim to have a purported "educational" focus.

Several years ago, due to an initiative passed by the Arizona citizens way back when calling for balanced budgets, the State of Arizona also has progressively began privatizing some of its state and local jail and prison facilities - of course, after all those jails were funded by the taxpayers in order to build in the first place.

The penal industrial complex is now rivaling the military industrial complex in the costs to the taxpayers now also due to the progressive criminalization of even minor offenses in this country for not simply foreigners, but also American citizens.

Bail costs also which are tied into statutorily set fines and fees for these minor offenses have also made it more and more likely that many Americans (not to mention a great many of those Mexican crossers, not the big time drug dealers and auto thief hoppers) cannot even make those bail sums, and thus are incarcerated then sometimes days or weeks before entering their pleas - since the state and federal court systems have become so over loaded and expensive due to this progression, with the state also then receiving sums in federal grants for "maintenance" of those prisons by the head count.

It appears more and more that crime truly does pay - the state court system, and privatized state 'corporate" jails, that is, for their budgetary and revenue needs most of all.

Tent City in Arizona is a MISDEMEANOR jail faciity, although more and more run as a maximum security facility, and houses over 2,000 inmates periodically, housing misdemeanor offenders in surplus army tents at times in 120 degree or more heat.

While the local county minimum security lockup that the Arizona taxpayers paid for decades ago, during the 1990's was instead turned into a "no kill" animal shelter - in effect the animals, most of them pit bulls which are now the subject of riders on most insurance policies, are housed in air cooled comfort while MISDEMEANOR offenders in Arizona (many of them small time drug users, not large scale suppliers) are housed in army tents with port-a-johns.

The common law intended in this country in "making the punishment fit the crime" has been turned upside across the nation now progressively in order to meet state budgetary requirements, with fees and fines now configured in order to make budget, rather than address the crime itself or the economic circumstances of the average American.

And in order to gain more and more revenue for discretionary purposes, true governmental functions are being privatized so that most of the taxpayer's monies can be used for political reason and not in providing for those governmental services which those taxes were intended to provide in any manner whatsoever.

Mandatory seat belt laws throughout the country range from $25 per infraction, to in some states approaching $100 - over ten times the average hourly wage for a crime which is a victimless crime and in which less than 5% of the driving population are involved in accidents involving any significant property damage or injury, and at a time when cars are now built with stringent safety requirements to begin with such as air bags, engines which are designed to drop down in the event of even minor collusion, and passive restraint systems.

Since it is the "corporate" and civil rights lawyers who are also writing a great deal of both federal, and state, legislation - it appears more and more that legislation is being written in order to feed their industry, without any Constitutional foundation whatsoever behind much of it.

Including this "new" Arizona law, since this new law will certainly drain the coffers of the Arizona taxpayers in the costs now to house these "criminals," AND provide state trials for them, rather than simply being deported and returned by the U.S. Marshall's office as was done in the past for misdemeanor offenders after discovery of their immigration status, and in the fees and costs which those lawyers will receive for the trials of those misdemeanor or felony offenders under the law providing for legal fees and costs for any and all actions which can in any way be designated a "civil rights" action.

And in the process, then be given access to immigration lawyers in any event after some of those large scale drug dealers or auto thieves beat their raps.

Instead of being dismissed at the state level due to lack of jurisdiction and handed over to the federal courts for trial and processing - the state has attempted to assert not simply its jurisdiction authority, but also its financial authority over them, through this legislation and now has extended access to the state courts in addition to the federal courts for a great many of these individuals, at the Arizona taxpayers double expense - and the expense of all Americans since the states receive federal pork funding also for their budgetary needs without apportionment by population, but simply by state and municipal "corporate" lobbying.

In effect not simply affording them "due process" but now even "abuse of process" and unequal privileges and immunities in many respects over legal and lawful Americans charged with offenses who must be satsified with public defenders if indigent, and don't qualify then for "civil rights" lawyers as Americans and thus not a "protected" class - which is why the "racial" and "national origin" card is being used for these "non-Americans" so frequently by these lawyer led groups.

What a mess. And the bureaucrats in Arizona, it appears, are simply once again using this issue as their own job stimulus, and for their future campaigns and eventual taxpayer paid pension plans.

I actually don't expect this legislation to be reversed for some time as it winds its way through the federal court system, with all the delays and hair splitting that will go on with respect to this rather loosely worded "law."

I mean time IS money, after all.

For both the lawyers, and for the State of Arizona - all at the expense of those whose rights they have truly violated in this political gamesplaying.

That of the American and Arizona true citizenry.

Including those bureaucrats themselves ironically, ultimately and their posterity.

Governmental Overkill: Woman Fined 1.9 Million For "Pirated" Works

CNN reported another incidence of corporate/governmental overkill now going on in our nation with respect to the recording industry's pursuit of any and all Americans that download songs or sounds without paying for them from the internet.

Now I admit there is quite a problem with this for writers and other artists, especially due to the fact that there is a clear lack of regulation over the commercial websites that market to the public for writers and artists in order to make the ad revenues and also for other nefarious purposes.

And there are citizens who abuse the Internet also as a free source of material which is, under U.S. laws and those of most countries which are under "common law" civil provisions (including Canada, Britain and most of the European nations in the EU) with respect to copyright protection for artistic works.

Many citizens also have been misled to believe that since the Internet is a public communications tool, that any and all material on it are covered under public domain provisions.

That is not the case anymore than you can copy text out of a library book simply because it is in the library.

The problem with this particular case was not so much the infraction, but the costs of the trial and the award involved for going after a woman who illegally downloaded five songs, which due to judicial error and technicalities with respect to jury instructions given ended up resulting in two different jury trials in a federal court. It didn't even meet the CIVIL threshhold for an afforded trial by jury, since those limits are $20.00 under the Constitution.

And while U.S. citizens throughout the nation now under the new criminal DUI "social drinking" levels and laws are denied jury trials in many states throughout the nation due to another redefinition and unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling in effect attempting to eliminate the right to trial by jury for "ALL criminal matters," by inserting the words "unless the term of incarceration is six months or more," this trial was initiated over a civil infraction actually due to the financial "loss" involved for five downloaded single songs.

There is an has been a move to criminalize such activities which has been in the works for years and this may be the case, but if so would appear the criminal fines and penalties are still out of whack for the actual infraction and loss involved here, in my and most rational citizens opinion. This would clearly have been a criminal misdemeanor, since the amounts involved don't even meet the civil jury trial minimum of $20 under the Constitution.

Apparently, the jury found her guilty, and the amount of the "fine" imposed was 1.9 million, over the amount of the original award in the first trial of $220,000. "Cruel and unusual punishment" doesn't even begin to describe how ludicrous the actual award was, and also the lengths that the federal courts went to in order to prosecute this woman and mother of four.

There was absolutely no report or evidence, apparently, that she had redistributed the works, or made any profit off of her illicit activity. So the loss involved to the recording company as the "injured" party under both civil and criminal common law according to the "proof" of damages required in such a case as this would have simply been the amount of the cost of the retail price for the music, which was less than $5.00.

Of course, now there will be another appeal, and the legal fees at this point must also be off the charts, and wonder just exactly why the judge didn't simply throw this case out the window due to the amount of the proveable damages involved as less than even the provisions for civil minimums for jury trials.

It did not state also whether or not the jury actually did determine the award, or whether these "fines" were determined under federal statute and levied by the federal judge which has become the case with many a "political" case meant to set a precedent or as a tyrannical power move by the federal government, and if that was the case, we do have a bunch of governmental officials that are off their rockers in again their lack of even giving any cursory value to the Constitution. Fines in that amount are beyond what any "average" American could pay and nothing more than again tyrannizing the public for the record executives, apparently.

I wonder if the jury instruction was given that the jury had the power to actually also examine the law and the penalties for applicability in this case based upon the actual facts and losses involved.

True bootleggers would have redistributed the work, and then there would have been certainly more to gain in going after those that are profiting off of pirated works, not simply for their own enjoyment.

You can make a tape off a radio station, for heaven's sakes, or a CD from your friends purchase which carries no penalties at all unless it is also "resold" for commercial purposes and meets the damage threshhold.

If this was a jury determined award, I wonder if the lawyers voir dire in the jury selection determined whether or not any of these jurors were record executives, or federal employees.

And with awards such as these, it would appear our federal government is flush with cash due to their tyranny and are truly bankrupting the citizenry with such abusive practices, so perhaps had more than enough in the kitty rather than borrowing from the Fed at the public's expense, in order to bail out at least one of those automakers without also placing the debt on the public - since this poor woman is going to be paying this off for the rest of her life, in addition to funding the Big Three.

More importantly, it appears due to the publishing by CNN of this case it is simply another example of governmental tyranny on the public more than anything.

This mother was simply made an example, so I truly wonder how "impartial" that jury was, or whether it actually was one of her "peers," or a loaded jury with public federal or state employee "professional" jurors which is becoming more and more the case when there is a governmental agenda involved, or when there is federal grant monies tied in with some of the convictions (as in the low level DUI laws now), since there are strings attached to most of those pork sums sent "back home" by the feds in order to keep the states in line with the federal agendas, and the funding rolling in.

Unbelievable.

Maybe going after the Chinese and Taiwanese designer rip-off artists who import to their buddies living in the U.S. through the mail and ports of entry would be a much better use of our courts, and those internet scam artists now luring writers and artists making ad revenues of their designs and work for advertising purposes, and then attempting to shelter themselves from any and all liability if such work is redistributed either intentionally or accidentally within their non-negotiable "terms of service" agreements written also by their "corporate" lawyer scam artists.

We don't need free speech regulation of the internet unless harassment and stalking websites and engaging in repeated and profane personal attacks are involved, we need "corporate commercial" regulation of the scammers preying on the public, and paid governmental "grant money" bloggers promoting their propaganda for governmental purposes, both political and for their "corporate" personal gain, such as the Republican, Democratic and other mainstream extra-Constitutional fringe "party" members, marketers and spin doctors spewing party platforms and their agendas as "Constitutional" positions.

That, too, is civil fraud, and actually worse, criminal treason ala Benedict Arnold, the highest criminal "public" offense "against the state" and people in this country under the governing law, the U.S. Constitution and intent of the founders. And neither private citizens, nor especially public servants or individuals have any inherent immunity in that respect, especially for intentional negligence or intent in their public servant positions, since their oath is to the Constitution and not "public opinion" or "state or personal interests."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html?eref=rss_topstories