U.S. Supreme Court

Open Season: Do Laws Against Animal Crushing Videos Violate Free Speech?

Ashley Nicole Richards, who filmed herself torturing and killing kittens, puppies, cats and dogs, was the first person brought up on revised federal crush-video charges -- which backfired magnificently.

10 of Our Favorite Parody Songs to Celebrate the Day They Became Fair Use

On this day in 1994 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that parodies, commercial or non-commercial, do not violate copyright law. 2 Live Crew had applied for permission to parody Roy Orbinson's "Oh Pretty Woman," but were refused. They made the song anyway, and after a quarter of a million ... More >>

Confederate Lawyer Fights to Keep Confederate Memorial Plastered in Confederate Remembrance

The Texas Supreme Court building is the largest Confederate memorial in the world. Kirk Lyons, a lawyer with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, wants me to know this. He says it, repeats it. At the beginning of the conversation. In the middle. At the end, twice. "That building is still the largest C ... More >>

U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Michelle Gaines Case, $8 Million Judgment Remains Overturned

The U. S. Supreme Court today rejected the appeal by Michelle Gaines, the Palestine, TX woman we wrote about in August who as a teenager was broadsided by an 18-wheeler with no brakes and suffered extensive lasting brain injuries. Initially a jury had awarded Gaines more than $8 million in damages ... More >>

Texas GOP Slapped Again: Now Judges Toss Voter ID Law

For the second time this week, federal judges have dealt setbacks to grand plans by Texas Republicans to suppress the minority vote protect the sanctity of the ballot. Tuesday a federal panel found the state's new redistricting maps to be biased; today another panel has ruled that the new voter ID ... More >>

Feds Toss Out Texas's Redistricting Maps: Biased Against Minorities, Panel Says

The Texas GOP's lengthy effort to create redistricting maps that federal judges say don't discriminate against minorities hit another snag today when a three-judge panel in D.C. threw out the latest plan. The judges said the proposed maps failed to meet fairness standards using various tests and an ... More >>

An Obamacare Playlist You Can Afford

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act has now been almost two weeks ago. If you keep up with national news, or maybe just don't avoid the Internet machine, well, you have probably observed that people are still noticeably buzzing about the ruling. It does happen to be one o ... More >>

Wine and the Supreme Court Health Care Ruling

When I was a student in Italy in my early twenties, I ate twice a day in a university cafeteria, where 3,000 lire (roughly $2) got you a pasta or rice first course (usually topped with tomato sauce or tomato and meat sauce), a second course of fish or meat with a side of vegetables, a piece of bread ... More >>

SCOTUS, Obamacare, CNN Effing Up: Supreme Court Decisions In The Twitterverse (UPDATED With Keen Rick Perry Insight)

If you were two seconds late posting your "BREAKING NEWS!" report of the Supreme Court decision largely upholding Obamacare, you were left in the dust and looking like a fool, fool. Hey, dude, tell us something we don't already know! You get your news by Pony Express? Harrumph. frowny face, etc etc ... More >>

Sonia Sotomayor

Crossing the Line: Love the Beans, Hate the Beaner

One of the greatest stories I ever worked on involved neo-Nazis and burritos.

Crossing the Line: Welcome Back, Jim Crow

New laws in dozens of states could take out Barack Obama this fall.

Crossing The Line: Days of Rage

The U.S. Supreme Court and President Obama leave the undocumented and their allies no choice but to escalate civil disobedience.

Crossing the Line: Bordering on Revolution

A hostile Supreme Court. A feckless Obama administration. America's war on Mexicans has gone too far.

Cover Story: The War on Mexicans Has to Stop

America's peculiar war on Mexicans has gone too far, says this week's cover package from Village Voice Media. A hostile Supreme Court and a feckless Obama administration have resulted in abominations like Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, which gives cops all but carte blanche to question the immigration ... More >>

Is Texas Going to Have a Primary? Redistricting Maps Go Back to Drawing Board

The Texas primary is allegedly a little more than two months away, but some people still don't know what congressional or state-legislature district they're in, and the people running for those seats don't know who to court. The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected a redistricting map drawn up by a pa ... More >>

Eminem's Victory Over Label Could Have Far-Reaching Effects

Now a Recovery in more ways than one.​Eminem quietly scored a major victory in a case involving download royalties this week. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out an appeal filed by Universal Music Group, the world's largest music empire, against Eminem's former production company F.B.T. Productio ... More >>

Lack Of Social Safety Net Tying Many Musicians To Day Jobs

"I fantasize sometimes that my musical career would hit gold and help us escape these grim realities, but it's not something I really expect to happen." ​There are few issues in the current political climate more fraught with contention than whether or not the U.S. government will take a more ... More >>

Whitney Harper: Song Downloader's Appeal Slapped Down By U.S. Supreme Court

Faith Hill shall not be denied​Five record labels that sued a 16-year-old San Antonio girl six years ago for illegally downloading a bunch of shitty music the labels vomited upon the listening public can finally exhale: the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear the girl's ... More >>

Rappers Vs. Uncle Sam: N.W.A., Eminem, Kanye...

​Mike Myers will probably go down in history as the most uncomfortable white guy next to a black guy in TV history, thanks to Kanye West's unscripted outburst during that infamous Hurricane Katrina telethon. It began with Myers reading his part of the script verbatim. Two-thirds into the PSA, ... More >>

Anna Nicole Smith: The U.S. Supreme Court Decides To Get Involved

Anna Nicole Smith's court case lives on​The Anna Nicole Smith litigation, which seemingly has gone on as long as her career did, is not over yet.The U.S. Supreme Court, of all people, has decided to wade into the case and rule on whether a Houston jury made the right decision when it kept Smith fr ... More >>

"The Wreck Of The Old 97": Country's First Million-Seller

Before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all hands, inspiring Gordon Lightfoot's famous ballad, there was another wreck and another song. In 1903, The Southern Railway had a deal with the United States Postal Service for mail delivery. One of the trains involved in the mail haul was The Fast M ... More >>

Two-Thirds Of Texans Blow Off Church; Even More Don't Want No "Social Justice" With Their Religion, Thank You

Two-thirds of those polled knew who this guy was?​The latest UT/Texas Tribune poll shows some stuff to give Democrats hope (Rick Perry polling at his usual 39 percent, etc.), but there are also some interesting things in the throw-away questions on the survey.UT/TT polled 800 registered voters, an ... More >>

MoveOn.org Throws a Little Protest in Houston

Photos by Christopher Patronella, Jr.Moveon.org, throwing signs. See a slideshow from yesterday's protest.​Local members of MoveOn.org held a rally Tuesday taking aim at corporate control in Washington, delivering petition signatures to the Heights office of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and ur ... More >>

Sonia Sotomayor Critiques The Chronicle

Reads the Chron's sports section, at least when it's cited in legal briefs​The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Enron honcho Jeffrey Skilling's trial should not have been moved out of Houston, no matter what he thinks. (Skilling did better on other arguments, but overall nothing much changed.)Son ... More >>

I Wanna Be Your Dog (Or Cat): SCOTUS Edition

With the Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to nix a law criminalizing the production and sale of dog-fighting and crush videos, Hair Balls is nervously waiting to see if there's going to be a big local boom in the Houston market. After all, Harris County prosecutors are remarkably soft on dog-fi ... More >>

Jeff Skilling Gets Even More Desperate To Prove Houston's Full of Hatahs

​Today is the big day before the U.S. Supreme Court for Jeff Skilling, former Enron exec, former Manhattan party animal, current federal inmate.Among other things, Skilling's lawyers are arguing that his federal trial should have been moved from Houston because we all were so affected by Enron tha ... More >>

Quote Of The Day, From The Judge Who Had An Affair With A Prosecutor

​The odd case of Charles Dean Hood has been a subject of talk for a while. He was convicted of killing a Plano couple -- there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of doubt about it -- but he's got a unique appellate argument: The judge and his prosecutor had been lovers.Back in our cub-reporting days, ... More >>

Federal Judge Dismisses Suit Involving Alleged Spy Shot By HPD Officers

​In the court of law, it never really mattered whether Roland Carnaby was a spy, as he claimed just before police gunned him down along the highway following a high-speed chase. After all, his widow, Susan, was suing the City of Houston and a pair of its police officers in federal court for excess ... More >>

Sotomayor and cojones vs huevos

Five Great Moments In Houston's Gay History

Gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals, transsexuals and their friends will be marching in the 2009 Houston Pride parade Saturday night (this year's theme is "Out for Justice").To add to the festivities, we thought we'd recap some of the highlights of Houston's GLBT history. 1958: Ray Hill came ou ... More >>

Janet Jackson's Houston Nipple Flash Refuses To Die

What, you thought you were getting nip?The single greatest news event to occur in Houston since the turn of the century -- one that's clearly gotten more ink than Ike -- is Janet Jackson's Super Bowl-icious nipple. (Katrina we're counting as a N'Awlins event.)The Awesome Areola is back in the ... More >>

Guantánamo's Final Days

As America prepares to close the infamous camp, what about those prisoners?

The Nation Notices Harris County Ain't Killing People Much These Days

We first broke the news in October; the Houston Chronicle noticed it earlier this month, and now Time magazine has discovered it: There will be no one sent to Death Row from Harris County this year.Which, in historical terms, is kind of like saying Texas high schools will not be sending anyone to bi ... More >>

Houston Astrologers Pick The Presidential Race

This Just In: Sometimes Voters Aren't Very Informed About Candidates

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

No Pain, No Gain

Our solution for saving Texas's claim to capital punishment fame

A Matter of Trust

Creditors of an estate debt try to collect from a councilmember and the former U.S. solicitor general

Draining the Swamp

A scorched-earth management philosophy is sucking the life out of our region's wetlands

Ties That Bind?

The D.A. shares something with those he's supposed to be probing: campaign support

Best Court Ruling Best Court Ruling

The Supreme Court's sodomy decision

Back Door to History

Thank J.R. Quinn for the gay celebrations

Best Court Ruling

U.S. District Judge David Hittner

Knowing Right from Wrong

Did Johnny Penry's abusive childhood prevent him from developing a moral compass that might have stopped him from murdering Pam Carpenter? Or is he just another cold, calculating killer?

Left Return

Once burdened by debt and internal politics, a rejuvenated Texas ACLU is back mixing it up with those who dare to trample on the U. S. Constitution.

Hanging with Mr. X

Quanell comes on strong at Graham's execution, then vanishes

Trying to Make Amens

If only there were school prayer. If only it were that simple.

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