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Kenneth W. Starr, investigator of President Bill Clinton and longtime pillar of the conservative legal establishment, has endorsed President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court. During a question-and-answer session after a speech Thursday in Los Angeles, Starr said he "supported the nomination" of Sonia Sotomayor, according to a statement issued by his office at Pepperdine University Law School, where he is dean. Starr told the gathering at Loyola Law School that he "thinks very well" of Sotomayor, whose nomination has triggered strong opposition from conservative groups. The statement added that Starr still wants "a variety of issues" explored at Sotomayor's...

Yesterday - less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 - the Court finally issued its decision... all 185 pages of it! By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision here as it appears on the Court's website. While there were no real surprises in the decision, and it looks...

She SHOULD, but will she?

Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel whose investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal led to President Clinton's impeachment, is carrying the mantle of the right again, defending California's gay marriage ban. The former solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush has been dean of Pepperdine University's law school since 2004. In December, Proposition 8 supporters announced that Starr would be lead counsel in fighting the legal challenges brought by gay-rights groups. "The addition of Dean Starr to this legal conversation will provide useful guidance for the Court in resolving these important issues," Andrew Pugno, general counsel for ProtectMarriage.com and the Proposition...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The mood was somber among gay rights supporters after a bruising, three-hour hearing before the justices of California's highest court, who expressed considerable skepticism at the idea of overturning the state's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. Thursday's arguments pitted the right of the people to change their constitution against the right to wed. The California Supreme Court's seven justices indicated a wariness to override the will of voters, who approved Proposition 8 in November - 4 1/2 months after the same court had ruled 4-3 to legalize gay marriage. Couples like Chloe Harris, 28, and Frankie...

Kenneth W. Starr, the former U.S. Solicitor General who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica L. Lewinsky, will argue the case in favor of upholding a ban on gay marriage before the California Supreme Court. Starr was today named lead counsel for the official proponents of Proposition 8. This afternoon, the group filed court briefs defending the legality of the proposition, which was approved by 52% of California voters last month throwing into question thousands of marriages performed during the five months the practice was legal in the state. The briefs are in response to a...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has told fans to stop sending letters and requests for autographs, saying mail will be thrown away after October 20 because he has too much to do.

Excerpt - The bitterness Susan McDougal held toward special counsel Kenneth Starr, who headed the Whitewater real estate investigation, has been replaced with g ratitude, she said Friday at the Women’s Action for New Directions Mother’s Day luncheon. “The judge looked over at the independent counsel’s table and thanked them for their prayers, as if God had something to do with our convictions,” McDougal said about the trial that ended in her conviction. McDougal was convicted in 1996 of four counts of felony fraud and conspiracy relating to illegal loans obtained through the Small Business Administration. In September 1996, U....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60911-2001Oct2.html Lloyd Grove reports Clinton kept secret diary tapes that were not handed over to Starr.

Excerpt - LITTLE ROCK — Susan McDougal of Camden, a friend and former business partner of President Clinton’s who became well-known in the late 1990s for refusing to cooperate with a special Whitewater prosecutor, on Tuesday sought to have her federal grand jury testimony unsealed. “There’s going to be a movie produced about Susan’s role in this [the Whitewater investigation], and there’s some information in her grand jury testimony that’s relevant to that, and Susan and I think the public ought to have aright to know about it,” said her attorney, Bobby McDaniel of Jonesboro. McDaniel said the testimony, as...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his former colleague in the Solicitor General's office, attorney Carter Phillips, talked about Supreme Court advocacy and deliberation. The conversation covered both sides of the bench with Justice Alito discussing what expectations he has of the arguments before him, and Carter Phillips talking about his strategy when presenting case to the Court. Mr. Phillips has argued 54 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Pepperdine University School of Law Dean Starr and Consitutional Law Professor Kmiec facilitated the conversation. Opening remarks by Ken Starr included reflections on William French Smith, the 74th attorney general. Pepperdine...

LONDON (AFP) - Fans have rushed to buy the first "new" Beatles album for a generation -- a radical remixing of some of the group's most famous songs -- more than 35 years after the break-up of the iconic band. "Love", which has the backing of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, comprises 26 of the Fab Four's hit songs, but many of them mixed together using previously unheard material from the studio. "I hope this will help people to hear Beatles music again," said Giles Martin, son of the group's original producer Sir George Martin who is often...

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who investigated whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative for political payback, has spent $1.4 million in his probe over the past three years, his office reported yesterday -- a figure that establishes him as remarkably frugal in the ranks of recent special investigators. Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigations of President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica S. Lewinsky and his ties to the failed Whitewater land investment cost $71.5 million and took eight years. Independent Counsel David M. Barrett's examination of Clinton housing secretary Henry G. Cisneros over...

WASHINGTON, May 25 — The Senate cleared the way on Thursday for a top aide to President Bush, Brett M. Kavanaugh, to be confirmed for the federal appeals court, avoiding a partisan showdown over a nomination that had been stalled for three years. Senators voted, 67 to 30, for a floor vote on the nomination, expected on Friday. Democrats said Mr. Kavanaugh, who was on the staff of Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, was too partisan and lacked the experience for the appellate bench. But the senators were unwilling to block the nomination using...

San Francisco -- Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California's governor to spare the man's life, prosecutors said Friday. The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn't say that," Barankin said. San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week were "untrue"...

SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers for a death row inmate, including former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, sent fake letters from jurors asking California’s governor to spare the man’s life, prosecutors said Friday. The jurors denied they thought Michael Morales deserved clemency because some of the testimony at his trial may have been fabricated, said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. “We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn’t say that,” Barankin said. Story continues below ↓ advertisement San Joaquin County prosecutor Charles Schultz also said the letters sent to Gov. Arnold...

THE NETWORK television newscasts and big-city papers that set the tone for most "reporting" from Iraq have done Americans a disservice by concentrating solely on the "bad news" in that country. Worse, at least some of the skewed reporting appears to be the result of deliberate bias. Consider a tidbit relayed by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The New York Times on Oct. 26 ran a story that included a vignette about a Cpl. Jeffrey Starr from the state of Washington who "died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq," four months before his...

On Wednesday, the NYTimes published a 4,625-word opus on the "2,000 dead" milestone--a "grim mark," read the headline--on page A2. Among those profiled were Marines from the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, including Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr. Here's an excerpt from the Times' passage about Cpl. Starr: Another member of the 1/5, Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to re-enlist. Corporal Starr believed strongly in the war, his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett Community College near his parents' home in Snohomish,...

Ringo Starr's old house to be taken down and stored as 11 streets are demolished By Charles Clover, Environment Editor(Filed: 19/09/2005)The house where Ringo Starr was born will be taken down brick by brick and preserved, after an entire quarter of Toxteth is demolished around it, Liverpool City Council has announced.The city's housing chiefs have been bitterly criticised by heritage groups and residents for plans to demolish the first home of the Beatles drummer in the Welsh Streets area.   Saved: the former home of Ringo Starr in Madryn Street The demolition is part of a £54 million regeneration...

CHICAGO - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts skipped the American Bar Association's yearly meeting, but big-name conservatives like Kenneth Starr and Theodore Olson were there to promote his credentials. Roberts' nomination to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is a watershed for lawyers. And with Senate confirmation hearings just a month away, he was the inescapable subject at the meeting of the country's largest lawyers group. Top conservatives, from Starr and Olson to Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, were attending the meeting and serving as unofficial ambassadors on Roberts' behalf. "For those people...