From the Associated Press:

A federal appeals court in Virginia dismissed two lawsuits Thursday that had challenged the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in both lawsuits—one filed by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, the other by Liberty University—that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue. The court did not delve into the constitutional issues.

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From Reuters:

A judge in Florida on Monday became the second judge to declare President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, ruled that the reform law’s so-called “individual mandate” went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications,” Vinson wrote.

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What do you get when you mix bureaucrats with a bunch of adorable puppies?

In Kim Houghton’s case, you get a major First Amendment lawsuit.

Kim Houghton decided after a successful, 20-year career in advertising that she wanted more.  She wanted to realize her American Dream and become an entrepreneur in a business focused on dogs.

She had the gumption to quit her job and make her dream come true:  Wag More Dogs is a high-end canine daycare located next to a popular dog park in Arlington, Virginia.  Kim commissioned an outdoor mural on her wall that has cartoon dogs, bones and paw prints as a way to give something back to the park she’d frequented for years, and build up some good will for her new business.

The mural was a big hit.  After all, who doesn’t like puppies?   Things were smooth for a few months.

And then Arlington bureaucrats got involved.

Officials blocked Kim’s building permit and told her that she could not open unless she painted over the mural or covered it with a blue tarp.

Her crime?

Painting a piece of art that—in the eyes of government officials—had too strong a “relationship” to her business.

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From AFP:

A federal judge overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage US media reported Wednesday, the latest twist in a legal saga which could have nationwide implications for the divisive social issue.

In a written opinion, Judge Vaughn Walker found in favor of rights activists who argued that a November 2008 referendum which barred gays and lesbians from tying the knot was discriminatory and therefore violated the US Constitution.

From the Associated Press:

A federal judge dealt a serious rebuke to Arizona’s immigration law on Wednesday when she put most of the crackdown on hold just hours before it was to take effect.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton sets up a lengthy legal battle as Arizona fights to enact the nation’s toughest-in-the-nation law. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said the state likely appeal the ruling and seek to get the judge’s order overturned.

But for now, opponents of the law have prevailed: The provisions that angered opponents will not take effect, including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

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Thirty-seven current Democrat U.S. Senators, along with former Senators Barack Obama and Joseph Biden, believed that Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, or Samuel Alito were not sufficiently qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Using their own standards, Elena Kagan is also not sufficiently qualified and these 39 Democrats therefore should not support her nomination.

Bork, Thomas, Roberts and Alito, at the time they were nominated for the Supreme Court, had significantly more experience, scholarship, and/or accomplishments than Kagan does now.

Bork served in the U.S. Marine Corps, in private practice for several years, as U.S. Solicitor General, as one of America’s most influential antitrust scholars, and as an U.S. circuit judge. Thomas served as Missouri’s Assistant Attorney General, in-house counsel for a major corporation, a U.S. Senate aide, Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and a U.S. circuit judge. Roberts served as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, Associate White House Counsel, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and head of the appellate practice at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), which was the oldest major law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. and which now has some 2,500 attorneys worldwide. Roberts also argued dozens of Supreme Court cases and was an U.S. circuit judge prior to his Supreme Court nomination. Alito, among other things, argued a dozen Supreme Court cases as Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General, was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and was an U.S. circuit judge.

Kagan does not have this same level of accomplishment.

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Yesterday, The Weekly Standard reported that President Obama hosted 10 Democrat House members at the White House last night:

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Apparently, Obama thinks that Matheson’s brother is qualified to become a federal judge:

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Matheson’s background reads:

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Whether or not you think former New York Republican Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno, who reigned over Albany in a triumvirate of power for 27 years, is guilty or not, he has the right to a fair trial and an impartial Judge. It appears he is getting neither.

Bruno has been indicted under the controversial ” theft of honest services” law. The same law that Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia says is unconstitutionally vague. Indeed, the US Supreme Court has taken not one but two “honest services cases” for review. The government has no evidence of bribes or improper pressure on government–required by the law–that Bruno took for his clients. Under New York Law, legislators are part-time  and are allowed to have outside income. Bruno , an non-lawyer with a business background, is a business consultant.

When the Government dropped hundreds of thousands of pages of new documents on Bruno’s defense team only days before trial Bruno’s lawyer asked Judge Gary Sharpe of the Northern District of New York for a mere two week delay. The motion was denied.

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