Attribution: epa.gov

Farmers be warned: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Monsanto in its suit against an Indiana farmer who planted its genetically modified seeds without paying the company. The case has been closely watched for its bearing on companies that hold patents on DNA molecules and other self-replicating products, but Justice Elena Kagan stressed that the court was ruling narrowly, addressing only the farmer’s violation of patent law. The farmer first bought seeds for a crop of soybeans that had been engineered to be resistant to the pesticide Roundup, which is also a Monsanto product. But for his second crop, he took a mix of seeds from a grain elevator, sprayed them with Roundup, and planted seeds from the plants that survived, exploiting what he believed to be a loophole in the contract.

Remember folks, loopholes are only for the fabulously wealthy.

By Lois Beckett, ProPublica

In mid-April, Kansas passed a law asserting that federal gun regulations do not apply to guns made and owned in Kansas. Under the law, Kansans could manufacture and sell semi-automatic weapons in-state without a federal license or any federal oversight.

Kansas' "Second Amendment Protection Act" backs up its states' rights claims with a penalty aimed at federal agents: when dealing with "Made in Kansas" guns, any attempt to enforce federal law is now a felony. Bills similar to Kansas' law have been introduced in at least 37 other states. An even broader bill is on the desk of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell. That bill would exempt any gun owned by an Alaskan from federal regulation. In Missouri, a bill declaring federal gun laws "null and void" passed by an overwhelming majority in the state house, and is headed for debate in the senate.

Mobilizing the pre-Civil-War doctrine of "nullification," these bills assert that Congress has overstepped its ability to regulate guns — and that states, not the Supreme Court, have the ultimate authority to decide whether a law is constitutional or not.

The head of the Kansas's State Rifle Association, an  affiliate of the National Rifle Association, says she put the bill together and found it a sponsor. While the NRA regularly lauds passages of states' gun-rights laws, it stayed silent on Kansas' law, and, so far, has kept a low profile on nullification. (The group did not respond to our requests for comment.)

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Current TV’s John Fugelsang, Salon.com staff writer Irin Carmon, and comedians Elayne Boosler and Lizz Winstead consider a spate of extremely restrictive abortion laws that have passed or are being considered in states across the country. Some, like a proposed law in Arkansas and another in North Dakota, directly violate Roe v. Wade by banning abortions before viability.

“The majority of Americans want abortion to be safe and legal,” says Carmon. But the restrictions that are being passed are not medically necessary, so why do people support them? “If you ask people why they’re passing (these restrictions), their particular end is to ban abortion, not make women safer.”

The U.S. Supreme Court released same-day audio recordings of oral arguments in a case that seeks to strike down a federal law that prevents legally married gay couples from receiving a range of federal benefits that go to other married people.

In the second day of hearings on same-sex marriage, the language of the US supreme court justices has been closely watched.

The quote of the day goes to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in a discussion about the Defense of Marriage Act, said that it had imposed on the US a two-tier system. According to the New York Times, she told the court:

"There are two kinds of marriage: the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday joined the four liberals on the Supreme Court in questioning the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples. The court-watching website SCOTUSblog said that it looks “80 percent likely” that the Supreme Court will strike down DOMA. But the conservatives on the court questioned President Obama’s unwillingness to defend DOMA in 2011 -- a possible sign that they could be cautious about striking down the law. The now widely unpopular law, signed in 1996, bans any federal institution from recognizing same-sex marriage.

Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis have been deeply involved in the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage. They were two of the plaintiffs in the historic 2008 lawsuit that held California’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution. They have been together for 26 years and married in 2008 before Prop 8 passed. Both work at Marriage Equality USA: Gaffney is the media director, and Lewis is the legal director. In addition, Gaffney reflects on the legal challenges surrounding his parents’ marriage -- his mother is Chinese American, and his father is white. In 1948, the California Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage, but other states did not recognize their marriage.

John Lewis: "Well, I was very impressed and encouraged by the way he[Justice Anthony Kennedy] talked about the real lives of those 40,000 children of same-sex couples. I think that the evidence is actually quite clear that lesbian and gay people are doing wonderful jobs raising kids. There’s actually a tremendous amount of study having been devoted to the issue. There’s decades of experience. Last week, the American Academy of Pediatricians came out in favor of marriage equality, and that’s a very, very strong endorsement of how having the freedom to marry for a family is actually very beneficial to those children."

A full transcript of Gaffney and Lewis' exchange with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! is available here.

UPDATE:

There are not 5 votes to strike down #prop8 and recognize equal right to #ssm at this time

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 26, 2013

Breaking: key vote Kennedy VERY uncomfortable striking down #prop8. Suggests dismissing case. Would leave in place 9th Cir pro-#ssm ruling.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 26, 2013

Breaking: 1st update- #prop8 unlikely to be upheld; either struck down or #scotus won’t decide case. More in 30 mins.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) March 26, 2013

The Supreme Court will take the forefront in the same-sex marriage debate on Tuesday and Wednesday when it hears arguments on the constitutionality of California’s controversial Proposition 8 and the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act. If the court strikes down DOMA, married gay couples will be allowed to receive federal benefits in states where same-sex marriage is legal, but it would still be legal for states to outlaw gay marriage, although that would change if Proposition 8 is declared unconstitutional. And things are getting personal: Chief Justice John Roberts’s gay cousin, San Francisco resident Jean Podrasky, will attend Tuesday’s hearing, and she said she “absolutely trust[s] he will go in the right direction.” Meanwhile, in France, hundreds of thousands attended an anti–gay marriage rally in Paris, with dozens arrested as the police fired tear gas on the crowd.

The Hill:

The whole ruling might hinge on this question. Same-sex marriage proponents say marriage is a fundamental right. Lower courts in the DOMA case have agreed, and it’s a view that would require the court to approach DOMA and Proposition 8 with extra scrutiny.

DOMA’s supporters, though, say marriage isn’t a fundamental right, but rather an institution the government created to serve the goal of promoting procreation.

John Eastman, chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, said states have the right to make their own laws to encourage people to have children.

“I think there’s this over-arching issue of whether this is a civil right, that the court should decide against majority rule, or a policy decision,” he said.

As long as the court agrees that reproduction is a key function of marriage, Eastman said, DOMA and Proposition 8 could stand.

Now I see what Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed's blathering on the TV on Sunday was all about. David reported that Reed said that the "primary purpose of marriage was procreation." But lesbian Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen shot Reed down with "The point of marriage is love and commitment."

Reed insisted, however, that he is correct and shot back with "What I said is the verdict of social science is overwhelming and irrefutable," refusing to look at at Rosen, who is a same sex parent. It can safely be said that Ralph Reed is a fraidy cat freak.

By Suevon Lee, ProPublica, Jan. 7, 2013

U.S. gun policy is set by both state and federal law. We previously published an explainer on the ways states have eased gun restrictions. But federal policy, too, has become more gun friendly in recent years — and we're not just talking about the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the handgun ban in Washington, D.C., and held that people have a right to keep guns in their homes.

Here, we outline five federal policies relating to guns you may not have known about:

1. A federal firearms trace database is off-limits to the public.

How often do federally licensed gun dealers sell guns that are then used in crimes? It's hard to know, because for nearly a decade such gun trace data has been hidden from the public. Even local law enforcement had been, until recently, barred from accessing the database for anything but narrow investigations.

Under the Gun Control Act of 1968, licensed dealers are required to record certain information about a buyer and the gun's serial number at the point of sale. These records go into a database maintained by The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A tool to catch criminals, the database in the early 2000s became a political flashpoint, as the Washington Post details. Outside research tying seized guns to a small handful of dealers spurred the federal government to impose tougher sanctions and inspections on gun retailers and manufacturers.

But those sanctions sparked a backlash: Since 2003, the Tiahrt Amendments, so named after the former Kansas Republican congressman who introduced the measures, have concealed the database from the public. Prior to 2010, local police could access the database only to investigate an individual crime but not to look for signs of broader criminal activity.

Despite the relaxing of some restrictions, parts of the original Tiahrt Amendment remain in place. The ATF can't require gun dealers to conduct an inventory to account for lost or stolen guns; records of customer background checks must be destroyed within 24 hours if they are clean enough to allow the sale; and trace data can't be used in state civil lawsuits or in an effort to suspend or revoke a gun dealer's license.

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View more videos at: http://nbcconnecticut.com.

The Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned the sexual assault conviction of a man who had sex with a woman who “has severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old and cannot verbally communicate.” The Court held that, because Connecticut statutes define physical incapacity for the purpose of sexual assault as “unconscious or for any other reason so uncommunicative that she was physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act,” the defendant could not be convicted if there was any chance that the victim could have communicated her lack of consent. Since the victim in this case was capable of “biting, kicking, scratching, screeching, groaning or gesturing,” the Court ruled that that victim could have communicated lack of consent despite her serious mental deficiencies:

When we consider this evidence in the light most favorable to sustaining the verdict, and in a manner that is consistent with the state’s theory of guilt at trial, we, like the Appellate Court, ‘are not persuaded that the state produced any credible evidence that the [victim] was either unconscious or so uncommunicative that she was physically incapable of manifesting to the defendant her lack of consent to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged sexual assault.’

Anna Doroghazi, director of public policy and communication at Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services expressed concern that “The court’s interpretation of what it means to be ‘physically helpless’ jeopardizes the safety of people with disabilities.”

“By implying that the victim in this case should have bitten or kicked her assailant, this ruling effectively holds people with disabilities to a higher standard than the rest of the population when it comes to proving lack of consent in sexual assault cases,” Doroghazi said. “Failing to bite an assailant is not the same thing as consenting to sexual activity.”

Video and transcript via BillMoyers.com.

The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel and Jamie Raskin, constitutional law professor and Maryland state senator, join Bill to discuss how the uncontested power of the Supreme Court is changing our elections, our country, and our lives.

“We wanted to bring attention to how this court has empowered the 1% at the expense of the 99%,” says vanden Heuvel. “How it is now working for big business, for corporate power against the interests of ordinary citizens in this country.”

A full transcript of the discussion follows below the fold.

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Voting Rights Act: The State of Section 5

by Suevon Lee ProPublica, Aug. 30, 2012,

Aug. 30: This post has been updated.

A single provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been playing a key role on the election front this year. Section 5 has blocked photo voter-ID laws, prohibited reduced early-voting periods in parts of Florida and just Tuesday barred new redistricting maps in Texas.

It's the reason South Carolina is in federal court this week to try to convince a three-judge panel its photo voter-ID law will not disenfranchise minorities. It's the reason that Texas went to trial on the same issue last month — and on Thursday, lost.

Not surprisingly, then, Section 5 is increasingly the target of attack by those who say it is outdated, discriminatory against Southern states and unconstitutional.

Under the provision, certain states and localities with a history of anti-minority election practices must obtain federal approval or "preclearance" before making changes to voting laws. In present day, that requirement is burdensome, "needlessly aggressive" and based on outdated coverage criteria, two petitions filed in July with the U.S. Supreme Court argue.

Section 5 applies to nine states — Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia and Alaska — and currently to parts of Florida, California, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and New Hampshire. The original coverage formula looked at whether states imposed unfair devices like literacy tests in November 1964, whether less than 50 percent of the voting-age population was registered to vote as of that date, or if less than 50 percent of eligible voters voted in the November 1964 presidential election. In 1975, the formula expanded to include jurisdictions that provided election materials only in English when members of a language minority made up more than 5 percent of voting-age citizens.

Momentum is building at the highest levels to narrow or even eliminate this provision. In a 2009 majority opinion to a Section 5 challenge from Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 in Texas, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that preclearance and the coverage formula "raise serious constitutional questions," though the justices didn't settle them at the time. In January, in a separate concurrence to the judgment in the Texas redistricting case, Justice Clarence Thomas stated that Section 5 is unconstitutional (for more on how that case reached the Supreme Court, see our previous explainer).

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