In Other Political News

[faerieburst]

With the control of the Senate down to the absolute wire, hinging on Virginia, I thought I'd take a look around the country and see what some of the other things that people were voting on yesterday. Here's what I found:

Voted NO to medical marijuana/legalizing marijuana:Colorado, by 60% (they were actually voting to legalize it outright

Comments

[recalcitrant_lj]

"judicial immunity"?

[chiaspod]

Judges are absolved of personal liability when their actions can be considered legitimate judicial actions in regards to matters over which they have jurisdiction. So, for instance, if someone is being disruptive in a court of law and gets booted for contempt of court, that person can't turn around and sue the judge for civil rights violations. Or a judge can't be sued for libel or slander for telling someone he's a drunk who needs to seek rehab.

[recalcitrant_lj]

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

I was thinking more a blanket immunity, just cause yer a judge, which would be Bad.

[faerieburst]

Yeah, it's not the same as diplomatic immunity, which equals "I can do whatever the fuck I want in your country and you can't do a goddamn thing about it."

Douglas explained it pretty succinctly up above, so all I really have to add is this: Stripping judges of judicial immunity for their actions on the bench would do no less than cripple the legal system. It was a terrible, and terrifying idea.

And also? NOT OKAY.

~Aramada

[chiaspod]

I thought you weren't posting 'til you could ask those questions you promised so long ago.

I'm most intrigued by Arizona - voting to make English the official language and yet still holding out the hope for gay marriage.

Colorado's stance doesn't surprise me one bit - CO's been happily anti-gay for a long while now.

... what do you think is the federal mandate on stem cell research?

[faerieburst]

I wasn't, but then this was really, REALLY interesting (as opposed to most of the things that I haven't posted, which were only really interesting), so I caved. I have no will power

[chiaspod]

The mandate is, essentially, just against using *federal* dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research that uses stem cells outside the allowed lines of embryonic stem cells. There's no prohibition against embryonic stem cell research itself, and in fact private and foundation funding has increased to amounts much larger than the NIH would have provided.

[faerieburst]

"The mandate is, essentially, just against using *federal* dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research that uses stem cells outside the allowed lines of embryonic stem cells."

Yes my dear, hence the sentence "That was kind of huge in terms of federal funding being a major contributor to research going on in universities and such."

Also, I'm pretty sure that human cloning is not considered kosher yet by any faction.

While the private and foundation funding may have increased to larger than the NIH budget, that's almost 10 years of research time wasted while the private sector tried to ramp up and compensate.

No, I'm not saying this is the Republicans fault. Hi, 1995, all Democrat in the White House, all the time. I'm just happy that something OTHER than the private sector is making moves in the direction of allowing and funding such research.

What makes this cooler is that it was an amendment TO THEIR CONSTITUTION. That's HUGE. This was the first time that I am aware of that a state *protected stem cell research* in their

[butterflake]

Happy about the Missouri Stem Cell Research law. I studied with a woman in the biomedical science labs at SMSU who used stem cell research in fertility applications - good to know she can still do that.

[dporowski]

[recalcitrant_lj]

I work with someone named Paul Tran.

Everytime I hear his name, I cannot stop myself from muttering "Oh shit! It's Dr. Tran!"

[dporowski]

I kind of hope I never have that problem.

My filter is not the strongest at times.

[chiaspod]

Is his "real" name Tung?

There used to be a Paul Tran who worked at INSP.

[thugg1ns]

Note to self: Do not move to Tennessee or South Carolina.