More pictures on the East Bay Express

From the Oakland Tribune, after the Oscar Grant verdict last night:

Police said they made 83 arrests throughout the night for violations that included failure to disperse, vandalism and assaulting a police officer. Damaged stores included a Foot Locker, jewelry store, banks and a Sears.

Meanwhile, BART officials said trains were running on time early this morning after stations opened as usual.

Flickr reports, after the jump.

More pictures from Troy Holden

More pictures from Thomas Hawk

Hawk writes:

"Overall I have to give credit to the Oakland PD for the way that they handled this very dangerous situation. I was impressed with their professionalism and how well they managed to prevent the crowd from turning into a much bigger riot than it was. It was a very tough night to be a cop in Oakland and you could tell from their own facial expressions that they were under a tremendous amount of stress maintaining the peace."

As Hawk writes, police backed into a woman on the street. A photographer he was shooting with, Keoki Seu, files this picture and reports:

This woman was apparently hit by the police car after the mob attacked the car and the car had to retreat. I did not see what happened to her, but I did see someone throw something at the police car which caused them to retreat. The woman was deaf, and her ankle looked beat up. The police would not call paramedics to get help for her.

More pictures from Keoki Seu

Hawk recommends photos by Stuart Dixon and Travis Jensen (who hadn't uploaded from last night as of this posting).

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Welcome to the end of a very weird week for news, one in which we found ourselves saying some of the same things as Ann Coulter and saw the 10th Amendment used for something besides poisoning a progressive cause.

The big Massachusetts ruling for marriage equality yesterday is not just blockbuster, but odd. U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro declared the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in two ways. First, Tauro said it violated the principle of equal protection, which is usually found in the Fourteenth Amendment but which Tauro argued from the Fifth Amendment. Second, Tauro argued that the federal government had overstepped its bounds in telling Massachusetts which couples it could consider married. That's a violation of the Tenth Amendment, he wrote, drawing on the favored constitutional provision of states'-rights conservatives.

But here's the thing: states' rights cut both ways. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley released a statement that it's "unconstitutional for the federal government to decide who is married." In this case, that concept helped the same-sex couples in her state, where marriage is legal. The concept threatens to lock gay couples in states that ban gay marriage into being second-class citizens forever.

A lot of people get mad when you compare the struggle for civil rights for sexual minorities with the struggle for civil rights for racial minorities. There are of course key, substantial differences between the two. But with regard to the legal question of whether we need a state-by-state remedy or a federal one, the comparison is clear. Gay couples living in Massachusetts have a very different set of rights from those in Mississippi. Should the federal government ultimately allow that gap in equality to persist?

Here's Coakley wrestling with the federal question on the show last night:

Keep in mind, this has to do solely with what Massachusetts has done, which is extend civil rights, as we believe it should be. We hope this leads to the extension of civil rights throughout the country. We don't think it will cause the shrinking of them. . . . What we said is that Congress cannot not, by a statute, change what Massachusetts has done. The reverse isn't true. It doesn't mean that it will affect other states right now, one way or the other. It just says that Congress cannot pass a law that the judge has found no basis but [for] you to discriminate.

We're talking about civil rights and what Massachusetts has done. We think it's a good effect for Massachusetts, and we hope it will condition the discussion for civil rights across the country.

UPDATE: And here's Andrew Sullivan, on his blog:

The Obama administration, meanwhile, now has to decide whether it will further defend DOMA in the courts, fighting against the principles of the tenth amendment so dear to conservatives or the fifth amendment so dear to liberals. The incoherence of the Republicans and the cowardice of the Democrats are now exposed more than ever.

Chris Hayes Thursday tonight, on the Oscar Grant verdict:

"A tragic trial ended with a bewildering verdict today in Los Angeles, California.

"The case began on New Year's Day, 2009, when Oakland police received a report that there had been a fight on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train. When officers arrived, they detained a 22-year-old African American man named Oscar Grant and four of his friends. Then, transit police officer Johannes Mehserle arrived on the scene. As one officer kneeled on Oscar Grant's neck, Officer Mehserle shot Mr. Grant in the back. He shot Oscar Grant, an unarmed man who had committed no crime. A man who witnesses say was attempting to diffuse the situation. The trial of former Officer Mehserle was moved from Oakland to Los Angeles due to extensive media coverage in the Bay Area. Los Angeles prosecutors have not won a murder conviction in a police shooting since 1983.

"Officer Mehserle testified that he accidentally drew his gun, located on his right side, thinking it was his taser, which he kept on his left. Today, the Los Angeles County jury of four men and eight women could have found the former officer guilty of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 15 years to life. But instead, after deliberating for about six hours over two days, they found Johannes Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Oscar Grant. The conviction carries a sentence of two to four years.

"What happened to Oscar Grant, a man who had committed no crime that day on the BART was, as it happens, caught on tape. I want you to take a look. The officer stands up and fires a shot down, killing Oscar Grant.

"It's hard to know what to say after seeing that video and seeing the verdict it resulted in. You can note that there was not a single African American juror. That it was in Los Angeles instead of Oakland. That even if Officer Mehserle was reaching for his taser it was completely and totally uncalled for. Was he going to put a jolt in Grant as he lay prone, for no reason?

"You can say that there are a lot of people in Oakland and California and across the country tonight dealing once again with a criminal justice system which seems unremittingly punitive when people that look like they do are accused of horrible things, and impossibly forgiving when those same people are the victims. Justice is rooted in fairness. This verdict specifically, and the system of criminal justice and law enforcement we've created in this country, isn't fair.

"And it's not justice."

In Boston, federal Judge Joseph Tauro has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. From Bay Windows:

In one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that Congress violated the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when it passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be considered married. In the other, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, he ruled DOMA violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Emphasis ours, because the Tenth Amendment is the same one championed by conservatives in their lawsuits against health reform. The Tenth Amendment is the one that people like Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli get so obsessed with. The Tenth Amendment is to the right wing what the First Amendment is to the ACLU. And today, now, the Tenth Amendment is about the right of gay couples to marry.

We'll have much more on the show tonight.

[Bay Windows]
[Boston Globe]
[Court ruling, Fifth Amendment (pdf)]
[Court ruling, Tenth Amendment (pdf)]

Arizona's "Papers, please" anti-immigrant law is showing signs of unintended consequences even before it goes into effect.

"We are getting to see more empty houses as the Mexican population is starting to leave. Not all of course, but quite a lot. I see it here in Surprise," Sylvia Rivera tells Patchwork Nation.

It turns out that immigrants rent a lot of houses in Arizona. Without that money, landlords say they're losing more homes to foreclosure. One of the three light pink Arizona counties on the foreclosure map above is considered by Patchwork Nation as part of "Immigration Nation."

[Patchwork Nation]

Deepwater Horizon Response photo

Next to "other reptiles," marine mammals like dolphins are the least-collected critters in BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. When responders do find marine mammals, they tend to be dead. Of the 54 gathered so far, only five were alive. Just one has been released, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service reports (pdf).

Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released guidelines for what to do if you come across a dead or distressed dolphin. Among the counsel:

• Report any dead, stranded, or distressed dolphins or other marine mammals to the wildlife hotline at 866-557-1401.
• Do not push the animal back out to sea – this delays examination and treatment, and often results in the animal re-stranding itself in worse condition.
• Do not approach, feed, or swim with the animal.
• Stay with the animal until rescuers arrive, but use caution. Keep a safe distance from the head and tail.
• Minimize contact with the animal (use gloves if necessary) and avoid inhaling air the animal has breathed out.
• Keep crowds away and noise levels down to avoid causing further stress to the animal.
• Keep dogs and other pets away from live or dead marine mammals.
• Do not collect any parts from dead marine mammals. This is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

(Headline h/t: @makobooks)

The Obama administration takes its case for a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman threw the moratorium out last month, saying the oil industry plaintiffs could likely prove the government had overstepped its bounds. Feldman, it turned out, has been heavily invested in the oil industry, including BP.

Now the Alliance for Justice checks the financial disclosure forms for the three Fifth Circuit judges picked for the appeals panel and finds they're also soaked in oil. Full report, as a pdf: Alliance for Justice report.

I feel guilty blogging this with Rachel and crew sweating it out in Afghanistan. And yet it's stuck with me, a singular theory: Air conditioning wrecked America.

Stan Cox, a science writer and author of Losing Our Cool, says air conditioning has made us fatter and less able to handle all kinds of weather. Cox says A.C. is creating demand for itself, causing global warming that makes us turn up the A.C. yet again. The U.S. now uses more electricity to cool our homes and workplaces than Africa uses for everything.

And there's more! Air conditioning launched the modern conservative movement, Cox tells Salon:

It's pretty much unanimously believed that if we had not had air conditioning, we could not have had this huge migration of population from the North to the Sun Belt, and we certainly wouldn't have seen 70 percent of all economic growth happening in the South since 1960. This has had major political implications by shifting electoral votes to predominantly red states in the South and West. In an imaginary world where air conditioning hadn't been invented, it could easily be the case that many of the big Republican victories in the '90s and 2000s would not have happened.

Maybe it's better if we just sit around and sweat, at least those of us who can.

[Salon]

(H/T: @buttermilk1)

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This Kabul marketplace is amazing, and so is the tour from Richard Engel, and so is the crowd's response to Rachel Maddow. Really, truly amazing. Tonight, the trip to Chicken Street. Photo after the jump.

Cory Gnazzo sends this photo of Chicken Street, a tourist favorite since Afghanistan was part of the "hippie highway" through Asia. "It's still filled with tourist shops," he writes. "All that is lacking or the tourists."

"We have a way out here that is unique and special. I sure wouldn't want to lose it. But for us, being able to take it away is really, really hard to swallow. Really. You know like I said, the hurricanes you could rebuild. It's only material stuff, but when you take this away it's not material. It's your life. Think about that."

That's a resident of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, telling the National Wildlife Federation what's at stake as BP's oil disaster continues polluting the Gulf of Mexico.

When Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a bill that would have allowed gay and straight couples to enter civil unions yesterday, she said in her prepared remarks, "I have been open and consistent in my opposition to same-gender marriage, and find that House Bill 444 is essentially marriage by another name."

From the pop quiz section of the press conference, Hawaii Blog reports this exchange:

Q: Can you explain why you think gay marriage is synonymous with civil unions? That seems to be what you're saying.

A: No, I'm saying I think HB444, because of its plain language, is essentially the same. Because it has the same rights, responsibilities, benefits, and protections.

So civil unions are the same, or essentially the same thing as marriage, and that's why it's wrong. In California, of course, civil unions are said to be nearly the same thing as marriage, and that's why those rites (and rights) are supposed to make everyone happy and satisfied.

Now Gov. Lingle says she wants to see the question put before state voters -- an easy proposition for an opponent of marriage quality to make. "It would be a mistake to allow a decision of this magnitude to be made by one individual or a small group of elected officials," she says. Unless that one individual happens to be Linda Lingle.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal are suing. In 1998, Hawaii voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that allowed the legislature to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, by nearly 70 percent. Hawaii's constitution also forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and it's in the very narrow space between those two concepts that the ACLU and Lambda Legal will challenge the state.