CNN reports that a Chilean judge has issued a warrant for former dictator Augusto Pinochet's arrest.  

Pinochet is a well-known torturer and abuser of human rights, but has thus far avoided trial on the basis that he is too sick.  First arrested in 1998 in England on a Spanish warrant, he was released in 2000 because he was deemed "medically unfit" to stand trial.

Pinochet is charged with kidnapping, homicide and torture.  The torture occured at a political detention center, Villa Grimaldi, between 1974 and 1977.

He got away with it for 30 years, but it looks as though Pinochet may finally stand trial for his crimes against humanity.  As well he should.

Just in case you were worried, the sun set this evening on a Union that still holds 50 states.  No, secession has not been imminent, but there were concerns that New Jersey might disappear in a storm of salt and puff of smoke if their crazy Supreme Court judges returned the wrong verdict on gay marriage.

In a 4-3 decision, the Court held that homosexuals are as entitled to the rights and benefits of marriage as heterosexuals.  Dissent was with regard to nomenclature ("marriage" vs "civil union"), not rights and benefits.  The Court was unanimous in its decision that "gay couples have the ``fundamental right to participate in a state-sanctioned civil marriage":

The court does not consider whether committed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but only whether those couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples (Bloomberg)

New Jersey has not, to date, passed an amendment to their state constitution banning homosexual marriage, and have a Domestic Partnership Act, passed in 2004, which allows couples some marriage rights: health and pension benefits, primarily.  The Act does not provide for family law protections (the right to make medical decisions, etc).  Without the ban and with the Act, justices concluded that homosexuals, as humans and citizens, were entitled to equal rights under the law, not proximate ones.  Part of the basis for the decision was an existing law which prohibits sexual-orientation discrimination:

There is no rational basis for, on one hand, giving gays and lesbians full civil rights in their status as individuals, and, on the other, giving them an incomplete set of rights when they follow the inclination of their sexual orientation and enter into committed same-sex relationships,'' Justice Barry Albin wrote for the majority.

The Court set a six-month deadline for the legislature to either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples, or create a separate structure for state-recognized civil unions, as Vermont and Connecticut have done.

Appeal was, of course, a foregone conclusion, regardless of the actual verdict.  Naturally, Republicans who favor a marriage ban are crying foul - activist judges, blah, elitists, blah, Monsters!, blah, blah, blah.  I expect they will seek an injunction restraining the legislature from implementation pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

New Jersey today said that gay people could love each other, and legally commit to each other, and fight, and make medical decisions, and stop talking to each other, and go grocery shopping, and buy a home, and live down the street, and go to work, and do all of the other stuff the rest of us take for granted.

And New Jersey still exists.

Good for them.

NY Times:

New York State’s highest court ruled yesterday that the Roman Catholic Church and other religious organizations must abide by a state law that requires most employee health insurance policies to cover the cost of contraception.

The 6-to-0 decision by the Court of Appeals upheld rulings by the State Supreme Court and the Appellate Division, and left intact the state’s Women’s Health and Wellness Act of 2002, which requires company health insurance policies that provide coverage for prescription drugs to include “coverage for the cost of contraceptive drugs or devices.”

The suit, brought by 10 religious organizations (8 Catholic and 2 Baptist), argued that the Women's Health and Wellness act violated their religious freedom by forcing them to act contrary to their beliefs. 

The act makes exceptions for religious employers, which are defined as religious organizations serving members of their own faith either exclusively or primarily.  It does not, however, recognize hospitals, Catholic Charities, or other ad publicum organizations as "religious employers" because they intentionally employ and serve a diverse cross-section of people, many of whom do not espouse their particular brands of belief.  "Religious employer" was originally defined so narrowly on purpose.  During its formulation "[t]hose favoring a narrower exemption asserted that [a] broader one would deprive tens of thousands of women employed by church-affiliated organizations of contraceptive coverage" (Kaiser Network)

In the ruling the judges acknowledged that the plaintiffs felt contraception to be sinful, but added that "We must weigh against (their) interests in adhering to the tenets of their faith the state's substantial interest in fostering equality between the sexes, and in providing women with better health care."  (Kaiser)  Later in the decision, the judges note that legislators had intended the law advance both women's health and inequality, citing a study which showed that women paid 68% more healthcare out-of-pocket expenses than men, primarily for reproductive services.  (NY Times)

The churches promise to appeal, on the basis that they take offense at being forced to obey a law with which they disagree (as if anyone likes following laws with which they disagree), and plan to make the secularization of their organizations the issue.  They also insist that this isn't about women's health or equality of reproductive choice at all, but about eventually forcing churches to pay for abortions.  Just like forcing them to live in the same cities with homosexuals will eventually end heterosexuality, forcing churches to marry gay couples and precipitating the end of civilization. 

Because that's what women really want, not authority and control over their own procreation, but the end of civilization.   It's our super-secret agenda.  Bwahahaha.

What these people miss, of course, is the fact that by opening a hospital or school to the public, they subject themselves to this law.  If they don't want to follow it, all they have to do is restrict their clientele to other Catholics or Baptists.  That might cut into their profits, but what is money in the face of God?

They must decide which master to serve, and if it is Caesar, they must render unto him that which is his.

I'd really like to know who tailors his pants.

Bob Ney (R-OH) pled (many people say "pleaded," which just annoys me no end.  The past-tense of plead is pled.  Pleaded might have begged or borrowed its way into the AHD, but pled originated with the word in the 1200's, and I firmly support its solid etymological history.  I am a word junkie.  Sue me.)

Yes, I have a point, thanks.

Bob Ney pled guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy and making false statements.  He also indicated he had no intention of resigning from Congress at this time.  Maybe later.

To give credit where it is due, he definitely out-balls Tom Delay (former R-TX, indicted on campaign fraud), who admittedly tried to jury-rig House rules so he wouldn't have to step down, but never went so far as to tell the entire American electorate to kiss his lily white ass. 

Ney. grafter to the star that is Abramoff, is shockingly seeking treatment for alcohol dependency.  I'm betting Mel Gibson is pissed right the hell off.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry is checking himself into Betty Ford these days, makes the job of a semi-contrite declining celeb claiming mere abject stupidity on the drink even more difficult.  Mel should sic Tom Cruise on the jerks.  Tom could set 'em straight in short order.

Anyway the Republicans are shocked, shocked I tell you, that Ney didn't resign immediately upon pleading guilty, and will continue to collect his paycheck.

Excuse me.

Hello.

Ney knew he was guilty all along.  And I guaran-damn-tee you the leadership knew it, too. The issue is not that he didn't resign today, after pleading guilty to a crime that could conceivably land him in prison for 10 years (not likely, but possible), although that's bad enough.  Uh, no.  The issue, friends, is that the man took bribes, and prostituted himself and his constituents, and lied to investigators (and Clinton lied to investigators; if Clinton did it, it's supposed to be anathema, right?).

Hastert is calling for someone else's resignation, for a change, and Tony Snow insists consistent Republican corruption has nothing whatsoever to do with the Republican Party.  He's a rather handsome man, that Tony.  Had we no brain, we might actually accept his story.  Unfortunately, our synapses function and we are forced to respond with "what an unfortunate waste of facial symmetry."

Ethically, Bob Ney should have resigned months ago.  Strategically, his staying can only help the opposition.  I'd ask who he's working for, but I don't think anyone's paying him for this stunt.

I think he just might be that stupid.