Demonstration this morning outside of Sen. Rubio's office...

...re his unprincipled refusal to issue the blue slip for Will Thomas.  From the Miami Herald:

Thomas’ supporters in the legal community say Rubio is unfairly distorting the judge’s record to pander to the Tea Party and other Republican right-wingers.
Thomas would be the first openly gay African-American federal judge.
Tuesday’s rally is being led by Rev. Carl Johnson, of Miami’s 93^rd Street Baptist Church.
“He is well trained in the law. He has a good, honest and discerning character that makes him an outstanding judge,” Johnson said of Thomas, a longtime state court judge.
The group of between 30 and 40 supporters will rally Tuesday outside Rubio’s West Miami-Dade Office, 8669 NW 36th St., at 10:30 a.m.

Other news:

-- Lewis, Tein & Calli win.  Again.  This time it's Judge Thornton who issued the sweeping victory.

-- Judge Seitz orders kosher meals at state prisons by July 1 for "all prisoners with a sincere religious basis for keeping kosher."  I'd have a sincere belief in just about anything to get out of eating the slop they try to pass as food in state prisons.

-- A federal judge has blocked the NSA spying program because it violates the 4th Amendment.  From the NY Times:

A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as “almost Orwellian” and suggesting that James Madison would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.       

The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the government to stop collecting data on the personal calls of the two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records of their calling history. But Judge Leon, appointed to the bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, which he said could take at least six months.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote in a 68-page ruling. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.