B-Man
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Bernie SandersVerified account @SenSanders 21m21 minutes ago Our political system by and large is owned and controlled by big money interests.
Bernie.(and everyone else)......It's never occurred to you to reduce the power politicians have to lessen this graft?
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Bad judgment .....................of course.
Poor leadership...................goes without saying.
Self serving........................exactly.
But impeachable ?
No.
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Is Sonia Sotomayor hearing cases or arguing them herself?
Last summer we were already watching the debate over Puerto Rico’s failing finances boil over as their governor threatened US lawmakers with electoral consequences if their municipalities and state run utility companies weren’t allowed to declare bankruptcy. That’s a tall order to fulfill because current law treats the territory differently from the fifty states, forbidding them from doing so to escape their debts. Amending those laws to create a special allowance for them is currently under debate in Congress, but it’s unclear if there is sufficient support for the measure. The bankruptcy question reached the Supreme Court this week, with Puerto Rico’s chief creditors for their utilities arguing that they shouldn’t be stiffed on the money owed. Given the straight forward wording of the law, this one appeared to be a no brainer until, as Noah Feldman of Yahoo Finance News describes it, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor stepped in and basically argued Puerto Rico’s case for them.
Before Tuesday, I’d have said that Puerto Rico had no chance to win its legal fight to let its municipalities and utilities declare bankruptcy. That’s how the island hopes to resolve its overwhelming debt problems,but the federal bankruptcy code says that it can’t…Then Sonia Sotomayor stepped in. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court rarely change the outcome of a case, yet Tuesday’s session may turn out to be the exception. In a fascinating and unusual argument, Justice Sotomayor, who is herself of Puerto Rican descent, spoke by my count an astonishing 45 times. Sotomayor left no doubt that she was speaking as an advocate…First, Sotomayor walked Puerto Rico’s attorney, Christopher Landau, through his own argument with a precision that exceeded his own. She answered other justices’ hostile questions for him, better than he did. Then she dominated Matthew McGill, the lawyer for the creditors of Puerto Rico’s electrical utility, who are fighting the bankruptcy bid. In the second half of the argument, the other justices mostly stood by and let her go at him.Last summer, when we first began covering this story, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit delivered a unanimous ruling saying that the law simply doesn’t allow for this to happen.
For their part, Puerto Rico is arguing that they should be able to craft their own bankruptcy laws outside of the federal system. Sotomayor not only bought the argument, but apparently argued it on behalf of the the defendants better than their own attorney did.
What’s really strange here is that the other liberal justices, originally skeptical of the premise, seemed to allow Sotomayor to sway them, bringing them around to her position.
Justice Elena Kagan did something that’s rare in an oral argument: She announced that Landau (speaking under Sotomayor’s tutelage) had clarified her view. “Ithink I get what you’re saying now, which I didn’t when I started,” Kagan told Landau. Initially, Kagan had seemed skeptical that Puerto Rico’s argument could be made to fit the statutory text. Now she was claiming to see the light…Justice Stephen Breyer, who had seemed skeptical of Landau’s position, also appeared to change sides, or at least to be considering doing so.There’s another wrinkle to this case because this time the court will be deciding the case with only seven justices voting. (Samuel Alito is recused.)
As an aside, this is yet another example of how the lack of a replacement for Antonin Scalia doesn’t stop the court from performing its duties, this time to the advantage of the liberal justices.
The real question here, however, is how much the justices are supposed to be hearing cases as opposed to arguing for one side or the other themselves. The fact that Sotomayor is of Puerto Rican heritage herself shouldn’t really be a factor here so much as asking if it’s appropriate for her to be essentially acting as the advocate for one of the parties seeking a decision. Challenging the arguments of the two sides is normal, but Sotomayor seems to be contradicting everyone in a robe who has heard the case before her, claiming that Puerto Rico can essentially rewrite the laws to suit their own needs.
And people still worry that we’ve politicized the Supreme Court to the point where it no longer serves its designated purpose. Amazing, eh?
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New Jersey nonsense: Actor faces 10 years in prison for using a prop gun in movie
How insane are New Jersey’s gun laws? Governor Chris Christie has had to issue two general pardons in order to stop or reverse gross miscarriages of justice over nonsensical prosecutions. Will Christie go for the hat trick? Carlo Goias had better hope so, before he does a ten-year stretch in prison because he used a pellet gun while making a film in the Garden State:
Carlo Goias, whose stage name is Carlo Bellario, was charged under New Jersey’s strict gun law. It requires permits for firearms, including the airsoft gun Goias used while filming a car chase scene.Goias rejected a plea deal offer Tuesday that could have sent him to jail for less than a year. He faces up to a decade behind bars because of prior felony convictions that prosecutors say include theft and burglary.“I was shooting a movie — I wasn’t committing a crime intentionally,” Goias recently told The Associated Press. “Robert De Niro doesn’t ask Marty Scorsese is if he has gun permits. We’re actors. That’s for the production company to worry about.”Some state lawmakers say the case highlights the need for New Jersey to change its gun laws.Some say? It’s true that Goias hasn’t exactly been an angel, and with his record, no state would allow him to possess firearms. However, in other states, no one would have accused Goias of doing so. A pellet gun does not use gunpowder, so it’s not a firearm — except in New Jersey. The Airsoft gun Goias had doesn’t even fire metal pellets — it fires nonlethal plastic pellets under power of compressed air. It’s a prop, not a threat.
More to the point, it would be clear to anyone except a New Jersey prosecutor that there was not only no criminal intent, there was no danger of a crime at all. Goias was acting in a low-budget film, not participating in a heist. The production startled some in the neighborhood, who misunderstood what was happening and called the police. Instead of recognizing this as a misunderstanding, the police arrested Goias, who then got held in jail for four days while his friends and family tried to raise enough money to meet the $10,000 bail demand.
Four days in jail. For using a non-lethal air-powered pellet gun. While making a movie. And the case is hardly over — the district attorney plans on prosecuting Goias for felony possession of a firearm to send him back to prison. Goias, who at least had been trying to become a productive member of society, might end up stuck in the criminal cycle for the rest of his life because he took a part in a low-budget movie.
Clearly, no film production company of any size should ever do business in New Jersey. And just as clearly, the state’s legislature should take action to put an end to these insane prosecutions of people who have no intent to commit any crime at all. In the meantime, though, Christie should get his pardon pen at the ready to put an end to this injustice, too — if he hasn’t packed it up along with his presidential aspirations.
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Interesting.
Boy, Victoria really gets around
Ms. Toensing was chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.
Victoria Toensing, an attorney representing Benghazi whistleblower Greg Hicks
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But I'm with you. I think his campaign is theater designed to unravel Hilary's opponents and make her appear to be the moderate choice.
As is the Sanders Campaign.
Sure, she is to the right of the Leftist Socialist...........................................
but she is just as far from the Center Moderate as Cruz is from the right.
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Hey dip$#!+, did you even bother looking at the AD? My commmet was on the AD specifically. I'll leave it to up to the viewers to decide if an attack ad that concludes with "...vote for Ted Cruz on Tuesday", was in support of Ted Cruz. Seriously you are on big dumbass.
Edit: yeah right, I see you edited your post to acknowledge the ad now. One of your dumbf#&@ friends must have pointed it out to you. You certainly show no signs of being able to carry out simple fact checks.
Hilarious
You are obviously too sensitive to post on a political board.
and too shallow to understand that a registered Anti-Trump super-pac, wants someone else to win
would just as easily have said Vote for Rubio if he was still in 2nd,
or vote for Carson, if he was still in first.
Situations change.........being Anti-Trump doesn't.
Thanks for the laugh though.
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The establishment super PAC that ran the ad with Melania, in that same ad advocated voting for Cruz.
I wish that they had not mentioned Ted Cruz's name, but it is incorrect to say that they are simply a Cruz super-pac.
The Media’s Malpractice on the Melania Trump Ad
http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/03/24/medias-malpractice-melania-trump-ad/
Trump says the group that made the ad, the Make America Awesome PAC is a pro-Cruz SuperPAC. Cruz says they are not.
The media has been reporting on both of these assertions and letting the viewer decide.
This is absolute malpractice, because the objective facts, including the FEC reports, indicate clearly that they are an independent anti-Trump PAC, period. There simply is not a universe in which there are facts indicating that Ted Cruz has anything to do with this PAC.
The right way to report on this story is to say, “Donald Trump claims that this ad is from a pro-Cruz SuperPAC, but that is simply not true,” and then to stick a microphone in Trump’s face and ask why he’s lying about it.
They have been anti-Trump since their inception.
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Can I hazard a guess that you, also, thought Mittens would beat Obama and had polls to show for it?
I put as much faith in polling as it deserves.
I wanted Gov. Romney to win, After September, I knew that it would not occur.
May I now ask you, why someone thinking that Ted Cruz has a chance in November is "SO SAD" ?
You are stating that Senator Cruz would have absolutely no chance against Hillary Clinton.
It seems as if you are the one dealing in unrealistic absolutes.
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You actually believe that. Sad!
Cruz is a joke.
Get with the program dude, voters aren't buying the establishment $#!+ anymore. Not just repubes, if Hillary didn't have the DNC super delegates, she'd be in serious trouble of losing to the outsider Bernie.
I'm not sure where this "Cruz would have absolutely no chance" drumbeat is coming from.
Yes....he would face an uphill challenge, but he is only 3-9% behind Hillary now...........early on in the process.
When faced with a younger (relative (newcomer) as a choice, against a tired, very well known political hack like Hillary
your declaration really rings a little hollow.
She has a large unfavorable rating, on the left and the right.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_cruz_vs_clinton-4034.html
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Border Patrol expects surge of migrant children just in time for GOP convention
Washington Examiner ^ | 3/23/16 | Joel GehrkeOne could ask..........How can they know this so far in advance ?it's almost like it is planned. -
I would like to see a dome.
I cant remember the last time bad weather has worked to the Bills advantage
CBF
Amen.
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What Cruz did was worse. Good money was spent attacking Trump's wife in a TV ad whereas all Trump did here was re-tweet something someone else tweeted first.
I respectfully disagree.
This is Donald's official twitter handle.
He chose to resend those images out.
Cruz also relented that the ad itself, made by the Liz Mair-led super PAC Make America Awesome, was uncalled for too.
“That ad was completely inappropriate and we had nothing to do with it,” Cruz told The Daily Beast. “It wasn’t our campaign. It wasn’t even a super PAC affiliated with us in anyway. It was a totally separate group. I don’t know the person who did it—we have no involvement with them whatsoever.”
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SIXTH-ANNIVERSARY THOUGHTS: Obamacare Was Going to Lower Health Care Costs. What Actually Happened.
Hawking the Affordable Care Act (ACA) six years ago, President Barack Obama said, “Every single good idea to bend the cost curve and start actually reducing health care costs [is] in this bill.”Team Obama projected that their version of health care reform—replete with the bells and whistles of “investments” in health information technology, health care delivery and payment reforms—would translate into big cost reductions for individuals, families and businesses. In his iconic health care “talking points”, the president said that the “typical” family would see a yearly $2500 savings in their health costs.Those family cost savings, of course, have not materialized.Inyear six, even with lower than anticipated enrollment in the health insurance exchanges and the refusal of 21 states to participate in the law’s Medicaid expansion, the health care cost curve is still on an upwardly mobile trajectory.It is fueled by sharp increases in both public and private health care spending.Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data show that total per capita health insurance spending will rise from $7,786 in 2016 to $11,681 in 2024. Looking at the future of employer-based health insurance costs, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that job-based premiums are poised to increase by almost 60 percent between now and 2025.Obamacare’s cheerleaders have allowed their exuberance to outrun their supply lines. Medicare trustee Charles Blahous best summarized the problem:“Given how the ACA’s advocates touted the law as ‘bending the cost curve down and reducing the deficit’ while occasionally in the same sentence crediting it with expanding coverage to ‘more than 94 percent of Americans’, many Americans could be forgiven for not understanding that those two goals were in conflict.”Obamacare cannot deliver the impossible (even if it were good public policy— and it isn’t).It’s like the whole thing was just a gigantic fraud, sold with a pack of lies.
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Horrible picture at the link
I strongly advise you not to open it................
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Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump 19h19 hours ago Just watched Hillary deliver a prepackaged speech on terror.
She’s been in office fighting terror for 20 years- and look where we are!
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Washington Post: Why the campaign to pressure Republicans to confirm Merrick Garland is failing.
Because, even the (most) low info Americans can see the hypocrisy of Reid, Biden, Clinton, and Schumer.
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President Obama has sat for several interviews with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. Goldberg has written them up superbly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/
The interviews dealt with Obama’s worldview, basically: his foreign policy, his conception of America’s place in the world.
I’m going to comment on all this, in two sets of notes. The first is here. And I’d like to excerpt something — pardon the length — and then quote from a news story. Here’s the item I close today’s notes with:
Nowhere is Obama more misguided, I think, than in his understanding of the scope of the Muslim problem. Listen to him: “There is a violent, radical, fanatical, nihilistic interpretation of Islam by a faction — a tiny faction — within the Muslim community that is our enemy, and that has to be defeated.”
I grant you that a tiny portion — a teeny-tiny portion — of Muslims carry out atrocities: fly planes into buildings and so on. If that were the extent of our problem, we would have a happily manageable problem.
But a huge portion of Muslims either cheer on, defend, excuse, or don’t mind the tiny portion. And that is our problem.
{snip}
Why was Salah Abdeslam, from the Paris attacks, able to hide out for so long in that Brussels suburb? Because his neighbors were his fellow terrorists and murderers? No. Because they sympathized.That is our problem.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/cornerKrauthammer’s Take: Obama Views Terrorism as ‘the Background Noise of Our Time’
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner -
The Hypocrisy behind the Student-Renaming Craze
University students across the country — at Amherst, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UC–Berkeley, and dozens of other campuses — are caught up in yet another new fad.
This time, the latest college craze is a frenzied attempt to rename campus buildings and streets. Apparently some of those names from the past do not fit students’ present litmus tests on race, class, and gender correctness.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433149/politically-correct-college-campuses-hypocritical-renaming-craze
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Ken was a great Tom Jefferson too.
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Per this article, they tried to water the original bill down to satisfy everybody,
and now (of course) it satisfies no one
Disney, Marvel Threaten Boycott If GA Gov Signs Religious Freedom Bill -
I'm sure you're happy with this guy's interpretation of the Quran. It fits your vision of Islam. But I can do the same thing with other people's interpretations as well. Who's right? Who's wrong?
I'm going with him.
Dr. Nabeel Qureshi is a global speaker with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) and the author of three books, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity (Zondervan, February 2014), Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward (Zondervan, March 2016), and No God But One—Allah or Jesus (Zondervan, August 2016).
Nabeel Qureshi holds an MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School, and an MA in religion from Duke University. He is currently studying Judaism and Christianity at Oxford, pursuing his doctorate in New Testament Studies. He divides his time in Atlanta and Oxford with his wife and baby daughter.
Is Closing Gitmo and Releasing Terrorists Impeachable?
in Politics, Polls, and Pundits
Posted
I do not disagree 3rd,
I wish that I could see a way to make that clear to the part of America that doesn't see the danger of too much executive power.
(It only seems to matter if The Donald gets it) ....................If the left uses it its okay I guess..........
But it is my opinion that at this point, the country is better served by simply stopping Mr. Obama's overreach for 45 more weeks,
and not giving him any other platform to preach from.
Let him fade away to the "Back Tees" of history.
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