supreme court

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News/Politics 6-27-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Slow news day.

1. The Supreme Court has thrown out a Mass. “Buffer Zone” law. Surprisingly it was unanimous.

From TheBostonGlobe  “The US Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that banned protesters within 35 feet of abortion clinics, ruling that the law infringed upon the First Amendment rights of antiabortion activists.

The decision effectively overturns about 10 fixed-buffer-zone laws across the country, from San Francisco to Portland, Maine, but offers a framework for more limited restrictions around clinic demonstrations, legal experts said.

“They’ve approved the idea of this kind of law, just not the mechanism,” said Jessica Silbey, a Suffolk University Law School professor. “It was too broad.”

State lawmakers said they would act quickly to pass legislation to provide protections for women seeking abortions and counseling. It was unclear what form the legislation would take.”

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2. The Constitutional “scholar” doesn’t seem to understand it very well. He can’t even get his own liberal appointees to agree with him.

From NationalReview  “Did you know the Obama administration’s position has been defeated in at least 13 – thirteen — cases before the Supreme Court since January 2012 that were unanimous decisions? It continued its abysmal record before the Supreme Court today with the announcement of two unanimous opinions against arguments the administration had supported. First, the Court rejected the administration’s power grab on recess appointments by making clear it could not decide when the Senate was in recess. Then it unanimously tossed out a law establishing abortion-clinic “buffer zones” against pro-life protests that the Obama administration argued on behalf of before the Court (though the case was led by Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley).

The tenure of both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder has been marked by a dangerous push to legitimize a vast expansion of the power of the federal government that endangers the liberty and freedom of Americans. They have taken such extreme position on key issues that the Court has uncharacteristically slapped them down time and time again. Historically, the Justice Department has won about 70 percent of its cases before the high court. But in each of the last three terms, the Court has ruled against the administration a majority of the time. 

So even the liberal justices on the Court, including the two justices appointed by President Barack Obama — Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — have disagreed with the DOJ’s positions. As George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin told the Washington Times last year, “When the administration loses significant cases in unanimous decisions and cannot even hold the votes of its own appointees . . . it is an indication that they adopted such an extreme position on the scope of federal power that even generally sympathetic judges could not even support it.”

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3. The IRS scandal is getting hard for the press to ignore.

From HotAir  “A handful of former IRS executive Lois Lerner’s emails released by the House Ways and Means Committee seem to be serving as a Rorschach test for political actors and members of the press alike. For some, the early reaction to those emails revealed more about an individual’s thinking about the IRS scandal, and the Republican-led House committees, than it did about the alleged misconduct of one of the country’s most powerful law enforcement agencies.”

“This does not help her case, which is already pretty bad to begin with,” CNN’s John King observed on Thursday.

“It fuels the speculation that there was actually a political witch-hunt which was motivated by politics,” Politico’s Manu Raju agreed. “It’s exactly what the administration does not want.”

“Makes it hard for the White House to say ‘This is Republicans trying to make a big partisan issue out of a mistake,’” King noted.

“And it raises the question of if this is something that’s in the emails that we have, what’s in the emails that have disappeared, that don’t exist anymore?” Associated Press reporter Julie Pace observed. “And it provides some actual tangible fodder for these hearings that are going to be happening on the Hill.”

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News/Politics 6-26-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Nope, not even a “hint of scandal.” 🙄

From WaysAndMeansHouse.gov  “Washington, DC – Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative individuals includes a sitting United States Senator.  According to emails reviewed by the Committee under its Section 6103 authority, which allows the Committee to review confidential taxpayer information, Lois Lerner sought to have Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) referred for IRS examination.

“We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States Senator is shocking,” said Camp.  “At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights.  We may never know the full extent of the abuse since the IRS conveniently lost two years of Lerner emails, not to mention those of other key figures in this scandal.  The fact that DOJ refuses to investigate the IRS’s abuses or appoint a special counsel demonstrates, yet again, this Administration’s unwillingness to uphold the rule of law.”

And now we’re starting to see why Lois took the 5th.

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2. Destroying evidence is a criminal offense too. Anyone else noticing a pattern?

From TheHill  “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the IRS share a problem: officials say they cannot provide the emails a congressional committee has requested because an employee’s hard drive crashed.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that her staff is unable to provide lawmakers all of the documents they have requested on the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, because of a 2010 computer crash.

“We’re having trouble getting the data off of it and we’re trying other sources to actually supplement that,” McCarthy said. “We’re challenged in figuring out where those small failures might have occurred and what caused them occur, but we’ve produced a lot of information.”

I’m sure they did, just nothing incriminating.

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3. Boehner is finally doing something about Obama’s many abuses of power.

From FoxNews  “House Speaker John Boehner announced Wednesday he plans to file suit against President Obama over his alleged abuse of executive power. 

“This is not about impeachment — it’s about him faithfully executing the laws of this country,” Boehner said. 

The speaker alleged that the president not only has ignored the law but “brags about it,” decrying what he described as “arrogance and incompetence.” 

Boehner had been weighing such a lawsuit in recent days, over concerns that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority with executive actions. Republicans have voiced frustration with Obama’s second-term “pen and phone” strategy of pursuing policy changes without Congress — particularly environmental rules via the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans also complained about numerous unilateral changes to the implementation of ObamaCare. “

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4. As is always the case with this administrations numbers, they’re worse than first reported. And as always, NBC does it’s best to put on a good face for the admin.

From CNBC  “The U.S. economy contracted at a much steeper pace than previously estimated in the first quarter, but there are indications that growth has since rebounded strongly.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annual rate, the economy’s worst performance in five years, instead of the 1.0 percent pace it had reported last month.

While the economy’s woes have been largely blamed on an unusually cold winter, the magnitude of the revisions suggest other factors at play beyond the weather. Growth has now been revised down by a total of 3.0 percentage points since the government’s first estimate was published in April, which had the economy expanding at a 0.1 percent rate.

The difference between the second and third estimates was the largest on records going back to 1976, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected growth to be revised to show it contracting at a 1.7 percent rate. Sharp revisions to GDP numbers are not unusual as the government does not have complete data when it makes its initial and preliminary estimates.”

The only ones blaming the weather are those looking to provide cover for the admin. Only the sycophants at NBC could claim these horrible numbers are a sign of a rebounding economy.

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5. The Supreme Court has banned warrantless cell phone searches by police.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police must obtain warrants before snooping through people’s cellphones, delivering a unanimous decision that begins to update legal understanding of privacy rules to accommodate 21st-century technology.

Police agencies argued that searching through data on cellphones was no different from asking someone to turn out his pockets, but the justices rejected that, saying a cellphone holds the most personal and intimate details of someone’s life and falls squarely within the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections.

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the unanimous opinion. “Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple — get a warrant.”

The justices even said police cannot check a cellphone’s call log because it could contain more information than phone numbers, and perusing the call log is a violation of privacy that can be justified only with a court-issued warrant.”

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News/Politics 1-13-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. First up today, two constitutional scholars, two very different interpretations.

First, Obama’s alleged abuse of executive orders will go before the Supreme Court today. You’d think he’d know better being the scholarly type, but no. Maybe this is why we can’t see his grades. 😯

From TheHill  “Nothing less than the boundaries of executive power are at stake Monday as the Supreme Court considers whether President Obama violated the Constitution during his first term.
 
Oral arguments slated for Monday will center on a trio of recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that were deemed unconstitutional by lower courts.

If they uphold the decision, experts say the justices could endanger hundreds of NLRB decisions.
 
Even more significant are the ramifications for future presidents, with the court poised either to bolster or blunt the chief executive’s appointment powers.”

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2. Here’s what Ted Cruz has to say about it. And he actually knows what he’s talking about, unlike the president, who only plays a scholar on TV.

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3. Not many people would be surprised to hear that some colleges provide things to student athletes that other students don’t receive. This piece gives you a look at  just how much help these kids receive, as well as exposing allegations of cheating, and players with 4th grade reading levels. (and in some cases under) And in yet another example of fans behaving badly, the professor exposing it is already received death threats. 🙄

From TheHuffPost  “An NCAA investigation into the football program in 2010 expanded into a probe of how the nation’s first public university provides academic help to athletes. It led to a discovery of fraud in a department with classes featuring significant athlete enrollments.”

“In a CNN story this week, Mary Willingham said her research of 183 football or basketball players at UNC from 2004-12 found 60 percent reading at fourth- to eighth-grade levels and roughly 10 percent below a third-grade level. She said she worked with one men’s basketball player early in her 10-year tenure who couldn’t read or write.”

“The topic of balancing academics and athletics isn’t unique to UNC, such as the AP reporting in 2011 that 39 schools had at least 50 percent of football players clustering in one, two or three majors. But the scope of problems here has often left officials sifting through what happened as much as looking ahead.

The NCAA academic violations involved a tutor providing improper help on research papers. UNC later reported fraud in the since-renamed African and Afro-American Studies department, including lecture classes that didn’t meet, possibly forged signatures on grade rolls, unauthorized grade changes and poor oversight.”

I bet a visit from the DoJ is in UNC’s future too.

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4. Like with most things from this administration, the more details you know, the less you like it.

From TheDailyCaller  “Education experts decried a new memo from the Departments of Justice and Education that instructs public schools throughout the country to cease punishing disruptive students if they fall into certain racial categories, such as black or Hispanic.

The letter, released on Wednesday, states that it is a violation of federal law for schools to punish certain races more than others, even if those punishments stem from completely neutral rules. For example, equal numbers of black students and white students should be punished for tardiness, even if black students are more often tardy than white students.”

““Schools also violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race.”

“Pullmann also worried about the effect on classrooms. She said she has spoken to teachers who experienced a breakdown in the classroom learning environment when policies like this were implemented.”

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5. Judge Jeanine Pirro is blasting Obama for failing to act on Benghazi and the IRS scandal while immediately turning the FBI loose on Christie.

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by

News/Politics 10-8-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

Republicans in Congress are beginning a probe into the Obama admin’s shutdown related nonsense.

From FoxNews  “Republican lawmakers plan to investigate mounting reports that federal officials are kicking families out of their homes and shuttering private businesses because they sit on federal parkland — describing the spectacle as an over-the-top response to the partial government shutdown. 

“We are receiving a lot of reports” of businesses being shut down, said Mallory Micetich, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee. 

She confirmed the committee is investigating these reports, as part of a widening probe into the National Park Service’s response to the partial government suspension.”

“”Many of these non-federally funded sites exist throughout the United States and operate with no staff or resources from the National Park Service,” a statement from Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee said. “This is yet another example of the Obama administration attempting to make the government shutdown as painful as possible and forcing closures of private and nonprofit operators that did not happen during previous government shutdowns.” 

That’s because they weren’t orchestrated by a vindictive President using Chicago style politics

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But as with most things, the President exempts his friends and supporters. That’s why illegal rights activist are using the Mall today when it’s closed to the commoners. And like with ObamaCare, his friends and associates get waivers.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The Obama administration quietly changed its furlough guidance Friday to allow government employees who are also union representatives to return to work and receive a regular paycheck during the government shutdown.

On the fifth day of the government shutdown the House unanimously passed a bill approving back pay for 800,000 furloughed federal workers, a rare moment of bipartisan unity, even as House Republicans and Democrats continued their bitter budget standoff.

The vast majority of those workers do not serve as union representatives and will not receive a pay check as long as the government remains shuttered. But the Office of Personnel Management Friday opened the door for some of their co-workers, those who serve as union representatives, to return to work and get their regular paycheck.”

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Gee, I wonder if this guy gets Obama’s “excepted/essential” status too?

From JudicialWatch  “A prominent Muslim advisor at the Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has close ties to a convicted Hamas fundraiser and other radical Islamist causes, including a nonprofit that proclaims sharia is the only legitimate law according to Islam.

Incredibly, this Homeland Security advisor, Mohamed Elibiary, has regular access to classified information and is a prime mover behind two of the Obama administration’s most dangerous policies; normalizing relations with domestic and foreign Islamist groups (including the Muslim Brotherhood) and arduous enforcement restrictions of laws related to material support for terrorism.

While this may seem incomprehensible to many, it’s all documented in a disturbing report published this week by the Center for Security Policy, a Washington D.C. think tank dedicated to promoting national security. The 33-page document is actually based on a lengthy, five-part interview with Elibiary, an influential member of Obama’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Elibiary admits he’s a longtime friend of a self-described Islamist (Shukri Abu Baker) convicted in 2008 of financing the terrorist organization Hamas through his U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, the Holy Land Foundation. Elibiary reveals that he donated to the Holy Land Foundation monthly until it was shut down by the U.S. government and he defends Baker, depicting his prosecution as a case of political persecution.”

He’s behind the Obama admin’s embrace of the Brotherhood as well.

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The ATF and Obama admin are trying to block the publication of a book on the Fast and Furious gun walking scandal.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The Bureau  of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main  whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book, claiming his  retelling of the Mexico “gun-walking” scandal will  hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency, according to documents  obtained by The Washington Times.

ATF’s dispute with Special Agent John  Dodson is setting up a First Amendment showdown that is poised to bring  together liberal groups like the American  Civil Liberties Union and conservatives in Congress who have championed Mr.  Dodson’s protection as a whistleblower.

The ACLU is slated to  become involved in the case Monday, informing ATF it  is representing Mr.  Dodson and filing a formal protest to the decision to reject his request to  publish the already written book, sources told The Times, speaking only on the  condition of anonymity.”

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Uh-oh, sounds like someone’s getting a trip to the woodshed. Good.

From WeaselZippers  “Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova: SCOTUS Aware DOJ Advising Universities To Disregard Their Ruling On Race Based Admissions, Preparing To “Slap Them Down”

“Joe DiGenova is a Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. He spoke on WMAL this morning, noting that the DOJ actually advised universities in writing to ignore the SCOTUS ruling on race based admissions. The ruling determined that you could not use race as the primary factor in determining admission. Yet, the DOJ letter advises the universities that they could carry on as they had been doing.”

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by

News/Politics 10-7-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

The shutdown continues. And so does the petty nonsense and closings.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Most of the furloughed Department of Defense civilian employees will be recalled, according to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who acknowledged that government lawyers interpreted a Pentagon funding law passed on the eve of the shutdown too narrowly.

“Today I am announcing that most DOD civilians placed on emergency furlough during the government shutdown will be asked to return to work beginning next week,” Hagel said Saturday.”

“House Republicans passed the Pay Our Military Act to the Senate on the eve of the government shutdown in order to insulate the Pentagon from the effects of the lapse in government appropriations.

The Senate passed and President Obama signed the measure, but the Pentagon furloughed about 400,000 civilians anyway.”

Of course they did. This is supposed to be painful because that’s what Obama wants.

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Boehner continues to refuse a stand alone CR.

From Bloomberg  “U.S. Speaker John Boehner said the House can’t pass an increase to the U.S. debt ceiling without packaging it with other provisions — a nonstarter for President Barack Obama.

“We are not going to pass a clean debt limit,” Boehner said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program. “The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit.”

“Boehner said he believed the country could end up in default if Obama doesn’t negotiate. “That’s the path we’re on,” Boehner said.

Boehner’s comments came as the stalemate between the White House and House Republicans showed little sign of thawing just 11 days from when Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew told lawmakers the U.S. will exhaust measures to avoid breaching the debt ceiling. The House and Senate aren’t scheduled to be in session today and there are no meetings planned between the two sides.”

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Say it with me now….. Most transparent administration evah! 🙄

From HotAir  “Remember when the media rushed to talk about transparency in the Barack Obama “Hope and Change” era? Good times, good times.  Leonard Downie, who once worked as the executive editor of the Washington Post and wrote a novel about Washington corruption and the Iraq War, finds a bigger and non-fictional problem in the successor to George W. Bush.  Downie gives the Post a preview of his report from the Committee to Protect Journalists which outlines the Obama war on reporters and their sources:

“A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and the intelligence agencies that told people to freeze and retain any e-mail, and presumably phone logs, of communications with me,” Sanger said. As a result, longtime sources no longer talk to him. “They tell me: ‘David, I love you, but don’t e-mail me. Let’s don’t chat until this blows over.’ ”

Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, “This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”

Many leak investigations include lie-detector tests for government officials with access to the information at issue. “Reporters are interviewing sources through intermediaries now,” Barr told me, “so the sources can truthfully answer on polygraphs that they didn’t talk to reporters.”

Nice.

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And a new term of the Supreme Court is about to start. Should be some interesting cases to follow.

From TheLATimes  “The Supreme Court term that opens Monday gives the court’s conservative bloc a clear opportunity to shift the law to the right on touchstone social issues such as abortion, contraception and religion, as well as the political controversy over campaign funding.

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News/Politics 2-28-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

As always, Open Thread.

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First, a feel good story. Well, at least for me and fellow Yankee fans. The rest of ya’s, probably not. 😯

Say Hello! to the next generation. 🙂

From FoxSportsSouthwest

“Andy Pettitte is just like any other baseball dad who happens to have played 17 MLB seasons for the New York Yankees and Houston Astros and won five World Series titles.

“He sends me a text before every game that says, ‘Good luck buddy, to God be the glory.’ ” Josh Pettitte said. “He’s just a bystander now.”

Well, sort of. The younger Pettitte, who plays for Deer Park High School near Houston, threw a no-hitter on Friday against the Boerne (Texas) Champion Greyhounds. He struck out 10 and walked one, and then admitted it is pretty helpful to have one of the best pitchers of a generation as your father.”

Cue my maniacal laugh. 🙂

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Next, an Update.

Key provisions of the Voting Rights Act appear to be in jeopardy. Maybe it’s just me, but the lawyer for the DoJ sounded unprepared for the obvious questions from the Justices.

From NBCNews

“Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them.”

“When Verrilli defended the section 5 of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts asked him, “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African American voter turnout?”

Verrilli said he did not, to which Roberts replied: “Massachusetts. Do you know what has the best, where African American turnout actually exceeds white turnout? Mississippi.”

Roberts then asked Verrilli which state has the greatest disparity in registration between whites and African Americans, and again Verrilli did not know.”

Pete Williams is pretty upset. 🙂

And if you feel like checking out the comments be warned. This is NBC after all, so cries of voter suppression and racism are the norm.

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Meanwhile, President Obama has Verrelli calling on the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA.

From CNSNews

“On Friday, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli formally filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court, calling the  law unconstitutional and “discriminatory against gays and lesbians.”

“It is abundantly clear that this discrimination does not  substantially advance (the government’s) interest in protecting  marriage, or any other important interest,” Verrilli wrote in the  67-page document.

“The Statute simply cannot be reconciled with the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection,” he said.

Conservative legal experts like Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, say the government’s position is “outrageous.”

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Mr. Woodward should have seen this coming. It is after all, the Chicago way.

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Lawmakers are attempting to override the Obama admins decision to declare the Ft. Hood shootings “workplace violence”. They are correct. Call it what it was. Terrorism, motivated by Islam.

From PJMedia

“Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), whose district includes Fort Hood, told PJM the base is soldiering on, but a recent ABC News interview in which the officer who shot Hasan during the rampage says President Obama has “betrayed” the victims came as no surprise to him.”

“Carter just introduced yet again legislation to ensure that the victims and victims’ families in the Fort Hood attack are eligible for the same treatment, benefits, and honors as Americans killed or wounded in an overseas combat zone.”

“Major Hasan was connected, influenced by Alwaki,” Wolf said. “The administration thought Awlaki was dangerous enough that they killed him with a drone missile… It’s got to be fairly significant, the fact that they did this to an American citizen.”

“The people at Fort Hood, the wounded have been getting a very, very bad deal with Panetta,” the congressman continued. “It clearly is a terrorist attack. It is not workplace violence and by not calling it that, it’s a failure.””

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And once again, or still, Texas shows how it’s done. Don’t panic, it’s not another future Yankee player. 🙂

From Forbes

“Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a quick tour of California to remind business owners that life’s a whole lot easier in the Lone Star State. Perry’s California critics called him “Governor Oops” for his miscues during the presidential debates, and Gov. Jerry Brown dismissed the Texan’s recruiting drive as “not a burp,” and barely even a certain bodily release of gas.

Laugh away, Californians. But Perry is playing the stronger hand here. Texas trounced the rest of the country our latest survey of the Best Cities for Good Jobs, with five metropolitan areas in the Top Ten, including the four best cities to find jobs in the next few years.”

And it’s not just low paying service industry jobs as liberals allege.

“One explanation that is definitely false: Texas isn’t growing on the backs of underpaid, non-union workers. While Texas is a right-to-work state, many of the highest paying jobs in the Dallas area are with unionized defense manufacturers like Bell Helicopter and Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-35 Lightning II fighter at a mile-long plant in Fort Worth.”

““People say it’s all low-pay jobs, so I looked at employment growth by wage quartile,” she said. And guess what? Not only is the Dallas-area per-capita income of $39,548 comfortably above the national average of $37,000, but it’s growing fastest in the top half of wages above $16 an hour.”

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