Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis went on an epic rant Thursday against the white-shoe firm Kirkland & Ellis for sending a rookie lawyer to defend media giant Facebook against two lawsuits filed by more than 20,000 plaintiffs accusing the social network of facilitating terrorism.

How dare they!?  Don’t they know that Garaufis is important?

He filled in that gap in their knowledge, though.

You tell your folks back at Kirkland & Ellis that if they think so little of this court that they didn’t send a partner here to talk about this kind of problem which implicates international terrorism and the murder of innocent people in Israel and other places.  I think it’s outrageous, irresponsible, and insulting.

I’m important, dammit!

Then he gave away his ruling on the case—developed even before the case had been heard in his august court.

Garaufis suggested that Facebook has a “social responsibility” to solve the problem raised in the suits. But when Burcher blandly replied that a lawsuit was not the proper vehicle, the judge unliked that answer.

“I’ve been a lawyer for 41 years and a judge for 16 years and I’m not having this discussion with you,” he said.

Never mind the importance of that particular discussion in this pretrial conference.  The judge is a very important man, and Facebook’s lawyer just wasn’t a big enough deal to be worthy of His Eminence’s presence.

This is a judge who needs to be removed from the case, and very likely should be removed from the bench.

The New York Court of Appeals, the State’s Supreme Court, has inserted itself into the political debate concerning who is a parent.  It’s entered the moral debate, too, but its ruling is a legal and political one:

New York’s highest court Tuesday upended how the state legally defines parenthood, reversing course on a 25-year-old ruling that had blocked many same-sex couples from seeking the court’s help in custody disputes.

Until now, New York only recognized as parents those with a clear adoptive or biological tie to a child, shutting out those who otherwise may have played a key role in a child’s upbringing.
…
The court ruled that going forward, a partner can seek visitation and custody if it is shown “by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together.” The court recognized that some people could even deserve custody if they came into a child’s life after the birth, but said now isn’t the time to set a rule for such situations.

The Court justified its ruling in this way:

Tuesday’s decision by the New York Court of Appeals said society has changed in recent decades and that families formed by gay couples need to be protected.

And there’s this by Susan Sommer, an attorney at Lambda Legal:

Finally, New York is bringing its law in line with the reality of thousands of children who need protection for their relationships[.]

No, even if society has changed, this is a political decision that legitimately can be made only by that society—the citizens of New York, themselves or through their elected representatives.  The courts have no proper role to play in the political arena; they have only in a judicial one—which is to apply the law as it’s written (or strike it altogether if they can make the case that the law in question is unconstitutional).  The courts’ role does not include making law from the bench.