Judge James Ware, who succeeded Vaughn Walker, has called for briefs and scheduled a hearing on the motion by Prop 8 Defendant-Intervenors to vacate Judge Walker’s ruling on the grounds that he is 1) a homosexual and 2) in a long-term relationship and therefore 3) his ruling that invalidated Proposition 8 could directly benefit himself.

This is rank bigotry, and I’ll tell you why: Yes on 8 says Judge Walker’s ruling shouldn’t count because he’s gay and in a long-term, committed relationship that might result in a marriage should his own ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional be upheld.

Hi folks, Happy Easter! It has been a pretty frustrating week on a lot of the fronts we follow here. But that was the week that was, now it is Easter Sunday and it is time to relax, eat and have some fun, whether it is a religious holiday for you or just a good chance to chill.

Yesterday the Barry Bonds trial ended with a single conviction for obstruction of justice and a mistrial declared due to a hung jury on the other three remaining counts. There were originally five counts in the indictment, but count four was dismissed prior to the case being given to the jury.

The University of Wisconsin issued two documents in response to the request for Professor Bill Cronon’s emails: a message from the Chancellor, and a letter from the General Counsel to WI’s GOP.

At issue is the process by which top DHS officials review–and are alerted to–sensitive FOIA releases. The policy in place up until July 2010 was put in place in 2006. That is, under Michael Chertoff.

Jeremy Morlock, part of the Army Stryker “kill team” in Afghanistan, plead guilty today to killing three Afghan civilians in an Army court-martial case. Photos of Morlock and his colleagues posing with Afghan corpses were published in the German magazine Der Spiegel this week, stirring controversy about abuse, torture and defilement carried out by enlisted men and women during the occupation.

DOD is reportedly preparing to charge Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri for his role in the Cole bombing for trial in a military commission. That’s worth keeping in mind because the Gitmo order is largely based on the protective order the DC District Court uses for habeas cases. The Gitmo order chose not to simply adopt the DC District order, though, suggesting the differences may have been crafted for people like al-Nashiri.

What is going on here is a power grab, pure and simple. And not just in the Loughner case, but in a much broader federal versus state sense.

Shirley Sherrod is quite a woman, and now she has followed through on her promise and filed a lawsuit against Andrew Breitbart. Ms. Sherrod has come to the dance locked and loaded and with a very compelling story. Andrew Breitbart better strap in, it could be a bumpy ride.

Three weeks ago I woke up and started organizing my thoughts to write this post. I had no more than written the title when news started coming in hot, first on Twitter and then local news channels, that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had been shot in Tucson. In a strange dichotomy, it was both an event which brought the ugly underbelly of hate in my state into even better focus than it had been before, which is the subject of this post.