April 10, 2017

Kagan gave Gorsuch a lesson in being the junior Supreme Court justice

Source: The Hill

When Judge Neil Gorsuch is sworn in to the Supreme Court on Monday, he will become the court’s 101st associate justice and most junior member.

Before the election and his nomination by President Trump to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch had a lesson from current junior justice Elena Kagan, the Washington Post recounted Sunday.

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Kagan said the junior justice is assigned to the monthly cafeteria committee until the next justice is confirmed. The committee helps decide the meals for when the justices dine together during oral arguments.

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The third task, which Kagan called the “most important junior justice responsibility”: They must open the door. “Literally if I’m like in the middle of a sentence — let’s say it’s my turn to speak or something — and there’s a knock on the door, everybody will just stare at me, waiting for me to open the door," she said.

Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/328046-kagan-says-there-are-three-things-the-junior-supreme-court-justice

April 5, 2017

Anti-Government Protests in Venezuela Turn Violent

Source: NY Times

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Venezuelan security forces on Tuesday clashed with protesters on the streets of Caracas as thousands gathered to protest a decision by the country’s Supreme Court to seize power from the legislature.

While the court reversed the most disputed parts of its ruling on Saturday, that did not stop crowds from massing in a large middle-class Caracas district to accuse President Nicolás Maduro of trying to eviscerate Venezuela’s democratic institutions and establish one-man rule.

The National Guard and the national police arrived about an hour after the demonstration began, firing tear gas into the throngs and deploying trucks mounted with water cannon. Armed pro-government gangs harassed protesters and shot one person in the leg, according to Ramón Muchacho, the mayor of Chacao, a neighboring district. At least eight others were hurt, he told reporters.

“I march today to see my family reunited again,” said Lilian Tintori, an opposition activist whose husband, Leopoldo López, a former mayor of Chacao, is serving a nearly 14-year prison sentence.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-protests-supreme-court.html

March 21, 2017

Is it weird that I took the day off work, so i could watch the supreme court confirmation hearing?

Seeing government in action.

March 14, 2017

White House Seeks to Cut Billions in Funding for United Nations

Source: Foreign Policy

State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trump’s administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.

The push for such draconian measures comes as the White House is scheduled on Thursday to release its 2018 budget proposal, which is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N., in next year’s budget. The United States spends about $10 billion a year on the United Nations.

It remains unclear whether the full extent of the steeper U.N. cuts will be reflected in the 2018 budget, which will be prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, or whether, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed, the cuts would be phased in over the coming three years. One official close to the Trump administration said Tillerson has been given flexibility to decide how the cuts would be distributed.

On March 9 in New York, U.S. diplomats in a closed-door meeting warned key U.N. members, including wealthy donors from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to “expect a big financial constraint” on U.S. spending at the United Nations, said one European diplomat. “There are rumors of big cuts to the State Department budget, but again, on our side, no figures,” the diplomat said.

Read more: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/13/white-house-seeks-to-cut-billions-in-funding-for-united-nations/

March 13, 2017

More people fill out NCAA brackets than actually vote

Source: Fox Sports

Here’s one thing millions of Americans can agree on: March Madness is fun, especially when there’s a little money on the line.

So fun, in fact, that more people will fill out NCAA Tournament brackets this week than voted for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential election.


Read more: http://www.foxsports.com/san-diego/story/more-people-fill-out-ncaa-brackets-than-actually-vote-031317

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The rest of the article was about gambling, so I refrained from including it, but feel free to check out the link if pure interested.

February 26, 2017

Jobless and nearly homeless, Rachel Dolezal still isn't sorry for posing as black

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s been two years since it was revealed that former NAACP branch leader Rachel Dolezal is actually white. Not only is she on the brink of homelessness, having been unable to find a job, but she’s still maintaining that she did nothing wrong by posing as an African-American woman.

“I’m not going to stoop and apologize and grovel and feel bad about it,” she told the Guardian. “I would just be going back to when I was little and had to be what everybody else told me I should be — to make them happy.”

Dolezal stepped down from her position in 2015 when her parents revealed that she was not actually African-American. While she eventually admitted to being “biologically born white to white parents,” she argued that she identifies as African-American, saying that race is “not coded in your DNA.”

She claims to have applied for more than one hundred jobs, but that no one will hire her, aside from those within the reality television and pornography industries. Even her memoir, “In Full Color,” which is due to be released in March, was turned down by over 30 publishers before one picked up the book. She currently relies on food stamps and help from friends in order to get by. She told the Guardian that she will probably be homeless next month.

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/news/national/jobless-and-nearly-homeless-rachel-dolezal-still-isn-sorry-for-posing-black/X7VdWTL2JrN78CjqsWV0JK/

February 23, 2017

Girl, 13, wins Supreme Court case regarding service dog

Source: CBS News

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with a 13-year-old Michigan girl with cerebral palsy who spent years battling school officials for the right to bring her service dog -- a goldendoodle named Wonder -- to class.

The justices ruled unanimously that federal disability laws might allow Ehlena Fry to pursue her case in court without first having to wade through a lengthy administrative process.

The ruling is a win for advocacy groups that want to make it easier for disabled students to protect their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. School officials had argued that administrative remedies are an easier and less costly way to resolve educational disputes.

Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said exhausting the administrative process is not always required in such cases. But she said further fact-finding is needed to decide whether Fry can pursue her case in court.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/ehlena-fry-wins-supreme-court-case-regarding-service-dog-wonder/

February 21, 2017

DHS issues sweeping rules for immigration crackdown

Source: The Hill

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday released details on how it will prosecute undocumented immigrants and criminal immigrants under President Trump.

The two memos from Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly expand immigration raids and the definition of criminal aliens, while diminishing sanctuary areas and enlisting local law enforcement to execute federal immigration policy.

The only Obama-era guidances left in place are those relating to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. That program is known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

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Under the memos, immigration agents in the interior of the country will be able to automatically remove any aliens who cannot prove they have been in the country for more than two years. That power was previously restricted to officers near the borders, so they could quickly detain and remove undocumented immigrants as they entered the country.


Read more: http://thehill.com/latino/320420-dhs-releases-new-immigration-rules

February 16, 2017

This is really unprecedented: ICE detains woman seeking domestic abuse protection at Tex. courthou

Source: Washington Post

This is really unprecedented: ICE detains woman seeking domestic abuse protection at Tex. courthouse

A hearing in El Paso County in Texas went from ordinary to unprecedented last week when half a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up at a courthouse where an undocumented woman was seeking a protective order against the boyfriend she accused of abusing her.

The woman, a citizen of Mexico who was living in El Paso had been driven to the courthouse by a victims advocate from the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse where she had been living.

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It was the first time in her 23 years at the courthouse, Bernal said, that she can remember ICE agents making their presence known during a protective order hearing. The agents had come to stake out the woman, identified by her initials I.E.G., because, Bernal speculates, they likely received a tip from the only other person who knew the time and place of the hearing the womans alleged abuser.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/16/this-is-really-unprecedented-ice-detains-woman-seeking-domestic-abuse-protection-at-texas-courthouse/

February 14, 2017

Germany wants Greece in euro zone, IMF says no special deals

Source: Reuters

Germany on Monday voiced support for Greece to stay in the euro zone and the European Commission dispatched a senior official to Athens to persuade it to take on further reforms to salvage its bailout accord.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, meanwhile, remained firm that as a lender the IMF could not cut any special deals for the crisis-hit country, which has received three bailouts since 2010.

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The IMF is not party to Greece's current bailout, and says it will not partake until it has assurances Greece will be able to extricate itself from a spiral of debt.

"We have been asked to help, but can only help at terms and conditions that are even-handed. In other words, we cannot cut a special sweet deal for a particular country because it is that country," Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, told Reuters in an interview in Dubai.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN15S1KN