tvc184

I wonder under what authority/court they are getting the subpoenas? Subpoenas aren't really hard to get but there has to be some kind of claim of a tort or criminal act.    In this case, what is the claimed act?

Unless something really big happens like a major faux pas by Abbott (think Clayton Williams), he will likely walk away easy with this one. 

  They are just divine. 

  The problem is that suing is not a right.    Civil law, like criminal law, is specific on what it covers. It includes what you can sue for and in some cases, what you cannot sue for, what the limits are  and what circumstances that allow a suit.   You mention waiving "rights" but the most intrusive laws on our lives are criminal laws where the state can take away everything up to your life yet under those laws, you can "waive your rights". You have the right to remain silent but you can certainly talk if you wish. You have the right to privacy in your home, on your person and in your papers and effects but if you wish to allow a search, you can do so.    Those are just examples but you can see that you can waive a true right that is guaranteed under the US and various state constitutions. You can definitely waive a legal ability (not right) to bring a lawsuit. It is a common phrase that you can sue someone for anything and while I understand the sentiment (meaning you can make an accusation), you can only sue for what the law "allows" you to sue for.    In Texas that is a set of laws called Civil Practice and Remedies Code that covers most of civil laws as it relates to lawsuits. 

  I was going to ask the same thing. 

  You are stretching that rubber band beyond the breaking point.    Your first example is a Muslim suing a Muslim organization in basically contract law. They are required in their own organization to arbitrate the issue in front of church clerics. From what I have seen in contract law (written and verbal) is that an agreement to use another form of mediation exists, that must happen. I know that if you buy certain things like vehicles, manufactured homes, etc., you often sign a contract says you cannot use the court system for a complaint and must use an arbitrator around the right to sue in a normal court. The only way it will get to a court of law is if the agreed upon contract (verbal or written) was not followed.    The judge in that case said that it is their church law to go to arbitration in front of the church first. If that is correct then that is no different than any other contract law where you agree to a means of mediation. I know that our union has such a contract and we cannot sue for many things unless our agreed upon process is not followed and therefor the contract violated. In fact we have sued but only to make the court get our employer back to the arbitration table, not to settle the lawsuit. We have to comply with the agreement to use arbitration.    In the second case you cite, the case was overturned on the First Amendment. The law specifically banned the use of Sharia law but did not mention any others. I did not say to ban any religion law but to ban the use of "international" or "Sharia" law.    The problem is the discriminatory nature of the amendment that spells out one specific religion but does not spell out others. Apparently by that OK constitutional amendment, you could use Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or other church doctrine to determine a lawsuit but not Sharia law. Explain to me how that does not violate the First Amendment where a single religion is named in a constitutional amendment.    How under a state constitution or the US Constitution can you spell out a single religion as the law applies to and not violate the First Amendment? I think they might have an easier job passing constitutional muster if they had said something like, judges cannot consider any religion precept in determining a court case. OK chose not to put that on the ballot but chose to single out someone that they didn't like and are shocked when someone calls them on it. 

    That is not entirely correct.    You have the right to refuse service to anyone except if it is based on race, religion or national origin (maybe some others). Toss in the EEOC and employment and you can add in things like sex, age, sexual harassment, disability, etc.    You can require people to wear shoes in your establishment, lay down safety rules, require people to not get rowdy, have some other form of dress code, etc. You can't legally say, "We don't allow blacks in here".    Hence your statement that we have the right to refuse service to anyone is not correct. Basically you can if it is not discriminatory against a protected class and we all belong to some protected class. 

  Where do they practice separation?    You can have any belief that you want but it doesn't trump the law. Let a Muslim try to beat his wife and say that it is okay by Sharia law. Sorry but he is going to jail. They just had a guy behead a person in OK under his belief of Sharia law. Is he not being held for murder?    That is why I can't make any sense of your argument. Christians can believe anything they wish but must still comply with state and federal laws.    We can only compare what they do in this country and the laws in this country. What other countries allow is up to them but there is no special status for a Muslim here under Sharia law. That is also why I can't understand how the separation of church and state (an American constitutional freedom) has anything to do with their beliefs. 

  Huh?   They only have rights because of separation of church and state?    I am not sure that means and then I don't see where it enters into this topic. 

  TDCJ is almost always hiring everything. I think their turnover is fairly high. 

  More likely he is far enough removed from the administration to sell a book on what really happened behind closed doors. 

But it reported on that radical conservative site, CNN. 

Ouch! When Jimmie Carter criticizes you for inaction, it must be getting obvious even to the worshipers. 

Ours went up with less coverage and our deductible have exploded.    The "affordable" part of Obamacare was for the people that never paid for it in the first place. I doubt that any more people (in numbers) have insurance today than before so there is no new coverage however prices have gone through the roof for paying customers.   I have read in these forums and in others that the reason for many of the increases on insurance was that under Obamacare we are not getting something like "adequate" insurance where before we were getting bare bones coverage. I hate to tell anyone with that argument but my coverage that has increased in price has not gotten better but I have lost benefits.    The bottom line is that less coverage is now more expensive. 

  Pot calling the kettle black?

For my 2¢, it is a doe with triplets if it is healthy herd. I think that a doe might "adopt" an orphaned fawn but it might be more likely that an orphan might hang out with other deer in the herd just like I have seen does hang out together.    I get lucky to hunt on a ranch in south Texas (that alone is no big deal) but the manager's son has a doctorate in wildlife management and a specialty in whitetails. Every year I see him and/or his father (I will be there again in about 5 weeks) and I ask them a ton of questions about whitetails. In a good herd (1/1 or 2/1 buck/ doe ratio) triplets are not that rare.    Yeah, that is about worth 2¢.... maybe. 

In the last couple of months I have seen Leon Panetta (Secretary of Defense, Director of CIA), Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense) and General Martin Dempsey (current Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff-basically the highest ranking member of our entire military) have all come out and said that Obama was told not to withdraw all the troops. General Dempsey said in a recent public congressional hearing that "every" member of the military leadership said that it was a mistake to completely withdraw from Iraq.   I saw today that Obama said something like, "This was not my decision".    So this guy who is the commander in chief of all our armed forces, who says where our people are deployed, who solely chooses when we leave a theater..........  now says that it was not his decision.   Everyone else is lying but him. Hmmmm.... must be a conspiracy. With all the calls from the left that every accusation against Obama is nothing but a conspiracy by the right wing, what happens now when his own inner circle/staff has come out against him? Will they all of a sudden claim a conspiracy theory? Nahhh... that would put them in the tin foil hat brigade of the far right.  Will they instead accept that when most of the inner circle picked by the president himself turns on him, there is something to it? 

  ......... all others are checked for warrants.

I write Bill Maher's scripts but that is not an issue. 

  Maybe it was in the form of political humor. 

  A perfectly acceptable portmanteau.    (...and no footballer06, I didn't have to google it, didn't read it off of wikipedia, didn't call bullets13 for some grammar lessons or otherwise plagiarize it from any other source)

  Again, I didn't get it off of anything. In fact I doubt that you can find anything I said on wikipedia other than a quote of the First Amendment and you can find that in a lot of places. 

If it is a school sponsored webpage, I can see where it is likely a problem.   As far as the group, as long as it is not a class or a school sponsored group per se, simply being a teacher does not stop someone from practicing religion as that person sees fit. 

  It is according to what you call the "same" SCOTUS. There are four different justices on Obamacare than there were on SFISD v. Doe. Basically half the court changed and with that, likely so does opinions.    As far as Christians and abortion, if people had to put down a religion or lack thereof when getting one, I'll bet that way over 50% are Christians.    The "freedom from religion" argument doesn't hold water. The only thing that matters in this and similar cases is a government entity injecting itself into the mix. They cannot stop the free expression of religion but neither can they assist in it. That is what they have been ruled to do in SFISD v. Doe where it was a school field, a school student, a school PA system at a school sponsored event. A public school district is just as much a government as the US Congress.    The First Amendment is often (and I think in this thread) misquoted or interpreted as saying the federal government can not endorse or mandate a specific religion. That is not what the FA says.    It says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". It does not say that is cannot establish law of "a" religion. It only says "religion" as in any or no religion collectively. I hear so many times when people will say that the FA only says that the government cannot establish a religion or a specific religion and it says nothing of the sort. 

  I do not need to use google to know history. What is amazing is how little of it so many people know.    I repent every day and it isn't with a borrowed Bible.    ... and you want to talk about someone else trying to sound educated. Feel free to go proselytize elsewhere.