by Chuck Stanley
I am advising Professor Turley that I am out of here. There have been profound changes in my life this past week, and I no longer wish to play.
I will not be reading, nor responding, to any comments. If any are addressed to me, you will be talking to yourself. If this does not make sense to you, you can find my writings on Daily Kos (as Otteray Scribe) and Flowers for Socrates.
Have a nice day.
By Cara L. Gallagher, Weekend Contributor
Futility. Making sense of both public knowledge and opinion of the third branch of government is an exercise in futility. Either people love to hate the Supreme Court or they know nothing about it. There’s no middle ground. I wrote about Court rancor two years ago when Pew Research Center released data from a survey taken at the end of a big term. The timing of the poll, rather the release of the poll results, struck me as convenient given the rulings on same-sex marriage cases Part I, affirmative action, and voting rights had come down three months before. It seemed poised to affirm conventional wisdom that public reaction to the decisions falls in either the “Love it” or “Hate it” camp. There is seldom any middle ground to the average voting age citizen. Follow that up with “What do you think of the job the Court is doing?” and the answers are an ambiguous “Meh…” or return to “Same response. Hate it.” Continue reading “Public perception and the SCOTUS: Love to hate it or “Meh…””
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contibutor
It has happened again. Several big banks have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and are paying billions in fines for their admitted transgressions.
“On Wednesday, four large global banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland — pleaded guilty to a series of federal crimes over a scheme to manipulate the value of the world’s currencies. The Justice Department accused the banks of collusion in one of the largest and yet least regulated markets, noting that at one bank one trader remarked “the less competition the better.”
That lack of oversight, coupled with the pressure to squeeze profits from a relatively middling business, set the stage for this scandal, one that unfolded nearly every day for five years. The crimes described on Wednesday also painted the portrait of something more systemic: a Wall Street culture that enabled many big banks to break the law even after years of regulatory black marks after the crisis.” New York Times Continue reading “Bankers Make a Mockery of the Law, and No One Goes to Jail”
We had a great party with friends to watch the seventh and final game of the Western Conference Championship last night. I was, of course, thrilled by the crushing win by the Hawks and the return of the team to the Stanley Cup. This is the third Stanley Cup appearance for the Blackhawks in five years. They have won five Stanley Cup championships since their founding in 1926 as part of the “Original Six” NHL teams with the Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers.
Continue reading “Blackhawks Head To The Stanley Cup But Should The NHL Move To Deal With The Ducks”
We previously discussed the growing trend of posing dead bodies at funerals in activities that were most associated with the deceased from a woman at a kitchen table to a young man partying with a beer in his hand. The family of Puerto Rican taxi driver Victor Perez Cardona outdid the competition by having his entire taxi on display with the deceased at the wheel. You can see the pictures at these sites (here and Fox.
In the ultimate signal from the FIFA leadership that it cares little about corruption or public opinion or even criminal prosecution, Sepp Blatter, 79, was reelected as FIFA’s president for a fifth term by the world governing body’s 209 member associations. FIFA officials are still be processed as arrestees in the corruption investigation in the United States, but that was not a barrier to Blatter who has been accused for years of ignoring and even encouraging corruption in the organization.
The details on the indictment of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, 73, have remained hazy with some notable gaps in the underlying criminal enterprise alleged in the complaint. The theory is that Hastert was paying millions to a blackmailer and tried to hide the payment through “structuring” of withdrawing less than $10,000 to avoid reporting to the federal government. What is interesting however is that the underlying alleged blackmailer has not been charged. There is also the question of the subject of the earlier “misconduct” and whether it could be charged. Some offenses like child molestation can be charged many years after the fact. Hastert was indicted on two counts for charged with lying to the F.B.I. and the structuring of withdrawals, both carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
We have previously discussed the struggle that creationists have with the daily disclosures of scientific research, particularly the discovery of fossils and other items that are dates in the millions rather than thousands of years. It is hard to maintain that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. However, Canadian Edgar Nernberg has shown just how easy it is to live in denial. Nernberg was not just confronted with a fossil from over 60 million years ago, but he actually found it in his basement. However, Nernberg does not think God is trying to tell him something. He maintains that “There’s no dates stamped on these things” and it proves nothing if you just reject isotopic dating and basic geology.
The hearing on the Administration’s motion to dismiss the House challenge was heard yesterday in Washington, D.C. as reported widely in the media. (Wall Street Journal, NBC, Daily Mail, Rollcall, New York Times,AP, The motion is now under advisement and the parties will wait for a decision on whether the House can be heard on the merits of this historic challenge. If the Court rules against the motion, the parties will then be able to present their arguments on the merits of the constitutional challenge. If the Court rules for the motion, the case can proceed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for review. (Thanks to Claire Duggan for the photographs)
Continue reading “FEDERAL COURT HEARS SEPARATION OF POWERS CHALLENGE”
There is a remarkable story out of Belgium where researchers have not only identified a 200-year old skeleton discovered beneath a parking lot at the Battle of Waterloo site as a German soldier, but identified the soldier as 23-year old Friedrich Brandt, was a member of the King’s German Legion of British monarch George III. The pictures shown here actually reveal the minimal still lodged between Brandt from the wound that killed him.
Continue reading “Scientists Find Likely Identity of Intact Skeleton Unearthed at Waterloo Site”
A Georgia grand jury has indicted former police officer Justin Gregory Craven (left) for the shooting death of an unarmed driver, Ernest Satterwhite, 68, through his car window following a car chase. What is interesting about the case is the grand jury rejected homicide charges and the prosecutors then asked and received a charge for discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
Continue reading “Georgia Officer Indicted In Shooting Of Unarmed Driver”
Amnesty International has issued a report accusing Hamas to a campaign of abduction, torture and wanton executions of Palestinians during last year’s conflict in the Gaza Strip. The report identifies roughly two dozen Palestinians who were shot and killed by Hamas and dozens of others who were arrested and tortured.
Continue reading “Amnesty International Accuses Hamas of War Crimes”
D.C. police are searching for this man who was shown on a video (below) assaulted a 63-year-old man and knocking him out — and then robbing him of $1.
Continue reading “Police Search For Suspect Who Assaulted 63-Year-Old Man and Stole $1”
At 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear argument on the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, et al., No. 1:14-cv-01967 (D.D.C.). The defendants are the Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury, and the secretaries of those two executive branch agencies. The Administration is seeking to prevent the Court from reaching the merits of this historic case, which was authorized by an affirmative vote of the entire House of Representatives on July 30, 2014, and which the House filed for the purpose of protecting our constitutional structure.
Continue reading “FEDERAL COURT TO HEAR HISTORIC CHALLENGE OVER SEPARATION OF POWERS”
For those of us who have been vocal critics of the flagrant and open corruption of FIFA, there is finally some good news. Swiss authorities swooped into a hotel Wednesday and arrested some of the top soccer officers on corruption charges in the United States. The police notably went to one of the most expensive hotels in the world where these officials were treating themselves to another gold-plated over-the-top meeting with views of the Alps and Lake Zurich. They were led from the five-star hotel in an early morning raid, but many will be disappointed that one official remained in his luxury hotel room untouched: Sepp Blatter (right), FIFA’s longtime president who has ruled over one of the most corrupt organizations in sports for years. While the slogan of FIFA is “For the Game. For the World,” it has been run for the benefit of its leadership for decades. This prosecution, not FIFA, can be properly embraced as “For the Game. For the World.” Continue reading ““For the Game, For the World”: Swiss Police Raid FIFA Meeting And Arrest Senior Officials in Corruption Investigation”