Lurker > WastelandCowboy

Perhaps the best example of that dismantling is in the area of campaign finance. O'Connor, onetime GOP leader of the Arizona Senate, voted to uphold landmark campaign finance legislation in 2003 only to see the court reverse that decision seven years later, after Alito replaced her.

While O'Connor was on the court, a majority of justices continued to support legislation that regulated campaign fundraising. But after her retirement and the Alito appointment, Kennedy wrote the court's 5-to-4 decision in Citizens United, the 2010 case that remade the way campaigns at every level are conducted.

The decision unleashed an ever-growing flood of cash into political campaigns. It reversed a century-old understanding that had sought to prevent corruption by barring corporations, and later labor unions, from spending their general treasury funds on candidate elections.

For Kennedy, reversing that legal understanding from the early 1900s was the realization of a long-held view of free speech.

"Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy," Kennedy wrote in the Citizens United decision, "and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual."

In general, there is probably no greater example of Kennedy's approach to the law, and how it will almost certainly differ from President Trump's nominee, than the question of how to interpret the Constitution: whether the Founding Fathers intended their creation as a static document, bound by the literal meaning of its words, or whether those words represent concepts of liberty to be interpreted over time.

In a 2003 decision that struck down a Texas law criminalizing private homosexual conduct, Kennedy said that the Founders understood that they were writing a document for the ages.

"They knew time can blind us to certain truths," he wrote in Lawrence v. Texas, "and later generations can see that laws, once thought necessary and proper, in fact serve only to oppress."

The men and women on President Trump's list of potential replacements disagree with that view, for the most part. They side with the late Justice Antonin Scalia and his successor Justice Neil Gorsuch, as well as other conservatives on the Supreme Court today, who believe the nation is bound by the original intent of the Founders.

During his presidential campaign, in a bid for the support of social conservatives, Trump issued two lists totaling 21 names and pledged to pick his first Supreme Court nominee from those lists. He did just that in naming Justice Gorsuch to fill the open seat once occupied by Scalia.

People involved in that selection process say that the president intends to expand that list a bit now. He might add Judge Brett Kavanaugh from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and possibly former Solicitor General Paul Clement, a highly regarded Supreme Court advocate who served in the George W. Bush administration. Clement's main drawback in the president's mind, though, is said to be that he has no judicial track record to examine.

Back in consideration are some of the names on the previous list: Judge Thomas Hardiman, of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, and Judge Raymond Kethledge, who serves on the Sixth Circuit, which covers a large part of the Midwest. Hardiman was the runner-up last time and is known as a staunch gun rights advocate. All four are in their early 50s.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement Wednesday, setting the stage for what promises to be an epic political battle over his replacement.

A Trump nominee is likely to be far more conservative than Kennedy, who, though appointed by President Reagan, voted with the court's liberals in some key cases.

Kennedy, who will turn 82 next month, made the announcement one day after the court handed down its last pending opinion for the 2017-18 term. He said he would continue to serve through July 31 of this year.

There is little doubt about Kennedy's mark on history. Quite simply, he remade the face of marriage in America. More than any other justice, he was responsible for the advancement of LGBT rights. He wrote four of the court's opinions on the subject over nearly two decades, and ultimately declared marriage between two people of the same sex a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family," Kennedy said in his opinion. "In forming a marital union two people become something greater than what they once were."

On a court that has become increasingly conservative, Kennedy's role has been pivotal. In 5-to-4 decisions, his vote has usually determined the outcome on some of the hottest legal and social issues of the day not just gay rights, but abortion, campaign finance, gun rights, affirmative action, the war on terror and the death penalty.

President Trump has pledged to nominate a replacement who will almost certainly vote differently on many of these issues, putting some landmark decisions in jeopardy from Roe v. Wade to the legalization of same-sex marriage.

That will please and reward conservative groups that have supported him. At the same time, it will galvanize opposition among Democrats, and potentially even some moderate Republicans.

The confirmation rules this time, however, will be different from the get-go. When Democrats threatened to delay Trump's first nominee, Neil Gorsuch, earlier this year, Republicans voted to exempt Supreme Court nominations from filibusters, which required a super-majority of the Senate to cut off debate.

So this time, the president will make his choice knowing that he only needs to get a majority of the Republican-controlled Senate to approve his nominee. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has proven adept at keeping his troops in line on judicial nominations.

Still, the pressure will be intense, and the stakes high.

If anyone has doubts about how different the court would likely be when a centrist conservative like Kennedy is replaced by someone more hard-line, there is the example of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement in 2006. President George W. Bush chose Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor, and the effect has been profound; O'Connor has even complained privately that Alito is systematically dismantling her legacy.

In the early 1960s, Jackson was working in a steel mill when he formed or regimented, with regular daily practice scheduled by the tempestuous family head a band sourced from his five sons: Jermaine, Jackie, Marlon, Tito and the youngest, Michael, as its charismatic lead singer.

Through performances at local malls and talent shows, the group quickly cultivated a sterling local reputation, eventually taking top prize in a contest at the Apollo Theater in New York in 1967, when Michael was 9 years old. After auditioning in July 1968, The Jackson 5 was signed to Berry Gordy's legendary Motown Records in March 1969. The group released its first single, "I Want You Back," that October, becoming its first No. 1 hit the following January. The group's first album, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, would tally an astounding 10 million sales over just 10 months; the following April, the Jackson 5's classic "ABC" would dethrone The Beatles' "Let It Be" from the top of the singles chart.

Later in life, however after "Jackson Mania" and Saturday morning cartoons, solo careers and meet-and-greets with the Queen of England a darker public picture of the Jackson family's internal life was slowly revealed.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993, Michael Jackson revealed that the drive behind his and his brothers' early success was a harsh regime enforced by Joe, bordering on physical and mental abuse.

Joe Jackson and some of the other Jackson siblings denied those allegations, describing the treatment as in line with the stern discipline practices of the day.

"There was a lot of love in that little house," Jackie Jackson, the eldest brother, is quoted as saying in The Jacksons: Legacy. "My mother was the sweetest woman you could ever meet. ... My father was the one who cracked the whip."

In a 2007 interview with The Chicago Defender, Joe Jackson explained that his form of discipline was not unlike any other black family of the era. "Yeah, I whipped my kids and back then there was nothing wrong with that," he said. "Nowadays people want to call the police on you. The people complaining about what I did got whippings from their parents too."

Despite the internal tensions the allegations caused within the family, Jackson was seen holding his son's hand as they walked into the Santa Barbara County Superior Court, before Michael's 2005 trial on charges of child molestation, and never wavered in maintaining his son's innocence.

In fact, Jackson acknowledged Michael did not exactly have the most idyllic of childhoods, saying it may have influenced the public's perception of The King of Pop. As he told CNN in 2013: "Well ... Michael was a big old kid himself. He was still had the mind of a kid. But he loved kids so much. And the things that he didn't have, he tried to help them to have it."

When questioned about any regrets in that CNN interview, Jackson replied: "Well, I'm glad I was tough, because look what I came out with. I came out with some kids that everybody loved all over the world. And they treated everybody right."

Additional reporting by Andrew Flanagan.

Joe Jackson, patriarch of the legendary Jackson family, which included Michael and Janet Jackson, has died, the estate of Michael has confirmed in a statement. No cause of death was given, though he had reportedly been diagnosed with cancer.

Officially, Joe Jackson was a band manager, taking five of his sons from a locally celebrated pop vocal group in Gary, Ind., in the mid-1960s to international acclaim, acting as the launchpad to superstardom for his son Michael. Their paths, however, would be revealed through the decades as ones paved in checkers.

Joe Jackson, born in Alabama on July 26, 1928, was the eldest of six children of Samuel and Chrystal Jackson. Jackson's parents separated in 1942, leaving Joe to travel between his father in Oakland, Calif. and his mother in East Chicago, Ind., before settling in the latter.

In his early 20s, while moonlighting in a blues band with his brother Luther, Joe met Katherine Scruse, whom he would marry in November 1949. (It would be his second, following a brief marriage that was annulled.) Rebbie Jackson the first of their 10 children was born in 1950; Jackie in 1951; Tito in 1953; Jermaine in 1954; La Toya in 1956; Marlon in 1957; Brandon in 1957; Michael in 1958; Randy in 1961; and Janet in 1966.

Already have it pre-ordered.

WastelandCowboy posted...

LittleRoyal posted...

WastelandCowboy posted...

You have nothing to cook?

Theres nothing in your fridge, cupboards, etc?

Post what you got and well whip something up ala Chef PotD.

Okay! Umm

Well I have some macaroni but Im not hungry for it, theres pizzas but thats not healthy enough, some eggs I may use, saffron, green onion, I obviously have rice and noodles, and I have seaweed somewhere I think, beef and chicken broth, carrots, tomatoes, leftover duck from last night, spinach, cauliflower...thats basically it

You have eggs, spinach, tomatoes, and leftover duck. With the exception of the duck as Ive never used this in omelettes, you could make a tomatoes and spinach omelette.

I went with a tomato and spinach omelette.
It cane out wrong because I dont make omelettes, but honestly it was good so I think Ill practice that more!

Thank you
^^*hugs*

Oh so TC actually has food? What a shitshow of a topic.

WastelandCowboy posted...

You have nothing to cook?

Theres nothing in your fridge, cupboards, etc?

Post what you got and well whip something up ala Chef PotD.

Okay! Umm

Well I have some macaroni but Im not hungry for it, theres pizzas but thats not healthy enough, some eggs I may use, saffron, green onion, I obviously have rice and noodles, and I have seaweed somewhere I think, beef and chicken broth, carrots, tomatoes, leftover duck from last night, spinach, cauliflower...thats basically it

The backlash includes the website TrumpHotels.org, a satirical takeoff on the president's actual resort business website (whose address ends in .com). Instead of featuring photos of pools and golf courses, the site highlights images of detained children and adults living in fenced cages inside warehouse-like structures.

Republicans in Congress have pledged to pass a new immigration law aimed at addressing concerns about migrants' safety and legal protections while also satisfying conservatives who want to clamp down on illegal border crossings.

The political process is playing out amid intra-party discord and mixed messages from the White House as NPR's Kelsey Snell reports including Trump's suggestion to ignore the issue until November, when he predicts Republicans will add to their majorities in Congress.

Over the weekend, Trump said via Twitter, "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order."

Updated at 12:13 p.m. ET

The Pentagon will build tent camps at two U.S. military bases to house people who cross the southern border illegally, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday.

The defense chief did not give details about the locations of the bases that would contain the camps. However, NPR's Tom Bowman reports that the two military bases are in Texas.

Migrant families will be housed at Ft. Bliss, an Army base outside El Paso, according to Bowman. Unaccompanied migrant children will be housed at Goodfellow Air Force Base, outside San Angelo. The Pentagon has been told to prepare for up to 20,000 unaccompanied minors, though it's unclear whether all will be housed at Goodfellow or more bases will be called upon.

Mattis said he expanded role in immigration enforcement is part of the armed services' logistics and support mission, Mattis noted. As for how the process began, he said other government agencies had asked the Pentagon for help in housing detained migrants.

The news comes one week after President Trump said, "The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility." He added, "Not on my watch."

Of the military's plan to build camps, Mattis said, "providing shelter for people without shelter we consider that to be a logistics function that is quite appropriate."

The secretary described the plan to reporters on board his plane as he traveled to Asia to visit his counterparts in China, South Korea and Japan.

Mattis compared the temporary camps to the military's response during a humanitarian crisis. "This is something that we can do," he said. "Again, whether it be refugee boat people from Vietnam, people who've been knocked out of their homes by a hurricane absolutely, it's appropriate the military provide logistic support however it's needed."

The Trump administration has pledged "zero tolerance" for illegal immigration, and the president has shaped and reshaped the policy. Meanwhile, the U.S. government separated more than 2,500 children from their parents at the border over a recent weeks-long period.

The Department of Health and Human Services said over the weekend that it has been able to reunite 522 of those children with their families after they were taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

The family-separation policy met with nearly universal outrage, and the president altered his policy last week. As a result, family units who are taken into custody after immigrating illegally are now subject to being detained together.

Trump's policy brought accusations that it was both illegal and cruel to separate migrant families to put children into large holding facilities hundreds of miles away from their parents and caregivers. It also raised serious questions about what the government was doing to keep track of those kids, to ensure their parents could find them.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Zeus posted...

WastelandCowboy posted...

As if youre even worth tracking down.

Bored trolls need to do something with their massive amount of free time.

Hi pot, meet kettle.

Zeus posted...

Because literally none of that describes me. Not even the free time. And that general ethos epitomizes the extreme left -- who use absurd retaliatory measures to drive their agenda and punish anybody who doesn't march in line -- whereas I'm a centrist who finds those kinds of acts despicable. But nice lazy trolling.

WastelandCowboy posted...

As if youre even worth tracking down.

Bored trolls need to do something with their massive amount of free time.

That's dumb.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Zeus posted...

White-collar work, though. I held pink-collar and blue-collar jobs while in school.

@Zeus

Come now, what does the all-mighty "Zeus" do at his "white-collar" job? Does he do clerical office work or does he order around subordinates?

Don't be shy. Everyone else said what they do.

You get what you get, @WastelandCowboy and the rest of the Zeus Fan Club. If I went into specifics, it wouldn't be terribly hard to track me down.

White-collar work, though. I held pink-collar and blue-collar jobs while in school.

green dragon posted...

He's just trying to understand the world we live in.

Good point. We are all martians to him.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Zeus posted...

Well, I mean, it's Jen, so....

For fucks sake, Zeus. For once in your life, stop adding fuel to the fire and shut the fuck up.

But seriously, it's Jen.

Well, I mean, it's Jen, so....

The White House unveiled a plan Thursday to merge the Education and Labor departments into a single Cabinet agency: the Department of Education and the Workforce. The proposal is part of a 132-page document outlining a broad restructuring of the federal government. The changes would require congressional approval.

The merger is part of a plan announced last year by Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, to "make government lean, accountable, and more efficient." It also reflects the administration's focus on career technical education and skill-building for today's students.

The consolidation would create, within the new department, four subagencies, including one called the American Workforce and Higher Education Administration. This agency would, according to the proposal, "bring together current [Department of Labor] workforce development programs and [Department of Education] vocational education, rehabilitation, and higher education programs," eliminating some redundancy across multiple agencies.

The proposal would also create subagencies devoted to K-12 education, research/evaluation/administration, and enforcement. The latter would enforce both worker protections and civil rights laws that protect the nation's students.

"The federal government is long overdue for a serious overhaul," Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement. "The proposed Department of Education and the Workforce is recognition of the clear relationship between education policy at every level and the needs of the growing American workforce."

Foxx's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said in a statement that "the Department of Labor is no more equipped to oversee elementary education policy than the Department of Education is prepared to enforce standards for coal mine safety. The logic behind this proposal is painfully thin."

On the campaign trail in 2015, President Trump told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that he would consider cutting the Education Department if elected. When he took office, he proposed major budget cuts, and his secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, has overseen a vast rollback of Obama-era guidelines that protect transgender students and advise colleges how to respond in the event of an alleged sexual assault. Recently, in the name of efficiency, the Office for Civil Rights began dismissing claims of civil rights violations.

The Education Department currently employs almost 4,000 people and spends billions of dollars to help level the playing field for students from low-income families. It sends about $15 billion to K-12 schools that serve underresourced communities and roughly twice as much in Pell Grants to low-income college students. The new proposal would also task the current Federal Student Aid office with creating a "Next Generation Financial Services Environment" that would "emphasize a mobile-first, mobile-complete strategy enabling and encouraging customers to fulfill all their needs on mobile devices."

President Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education in 1979, and it began operating the following year. Trump isn't the first to attempt big changes there. During his presidency, Ronald Reagan tried to eliminate the department altogether, to no avail.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states can collect state sales taxes from online retailers on consumer purchases. The decision overruled a decades-old precedent that had protected out-of-state sellers from being required to collect such taxes.

States stand to gain billions of dollars with the ruling, which marks a new era in an Internet economy that has boomed over the past decade and become a dominant force. Home goods seller Wayfair and other e-commerce companies had attempted to challenge a South Dakota law that levies taxes on purchases made through certain online retailers.

The decision will also have dramatic consequences for small online retailers that do business in many states.

"The Internet's prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The 5-4 decision defied the usual conservative-liberal lineup with Kennedy joined by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and conservatives Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas. The conservative chief justice, John Roberts, dissented along with liberals Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Forty-five states rely on sales taxes for revenue, and for states that have no income tax, sales taxes are very important. Estimates of how much money the states are losing vary dramatically, ranging from more than $200 billion over five years to a recent estimate from the Government Accountability Office of between $8 billion and $13 billion per year.

Indeed, Justice Gorsuch once called the current system "a judicially created tax shelter."

And, in 2015, Justice Kennedy suggested that he was prepared to overrule the Supreme Court's 1967 and 1992 decisions in light of modern realities.

For much of the last decade, states have been pressing Congress to fix the problem, to pass a bill that levels the playing field. But Congress, buffeted by anti-tax groups, has walked away from the issue.

In a span of less than two months, U.S. officials have separated some 2,300 children from their parents after they crossed the border into the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security. And the administration's policy has attracted sharp rebuke from the U.N. high commissioner on human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein.

"The thought that any State would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable," he said Monday, in comments opening the 38th session of the Human Rights Council.

Hussein pointed to criticism from the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics who referred to the border policy as "government-sanctioned child abuse" and noted that the U.S. is the only country not to ratify the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

"I don't think [Tuesday's withdrawal] is linked to Prince Zeid's criticism of U.S. immigration policies," Gowan acknowledged, explaining that the high commissioner is technically separate from the council. But, Gowan added, "The timing looks just awful for Nikki Haley and Secretary Pompeo."

After more than a year of complaints and warnings some subtle and others a little less so the Trump administration has announced that the United States. is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley announced the decision in a joint statement to the media Tuesday.

The move comes as little surprise from an administration that frequently has lambasted the 47-member body for a gamut of perceived failures including what Haley has called the council's "relentless, pathological campaign" against Israel, a staunch U.S. ally.

In a speech to the council last year, Haley delivered something amounting to an ultimatum: Either the Human Rights Council can "address its chronic anti-Israel bias" and clean up its roster of member countries which includes Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia and other countries with dubious human rights records of their own or the council can bid the U.S. farewell.

"If the Human Rights Council is going to be an organization we entrust to protect and promote human rights, it must change," Haley said in remarks to the Graduate Institute of Geneva, the same day as her speech at the council. "If it fails to change, then we must pursue the advancement of human rights outside of the Council."

Trump's diplomatic team is not the first within the U.S. to voice such criticism.

When the council was first established in 2006, the administration George W. Bush withheld its membership over similar concerns. And when the Obama administration announced in 2009 that it would reverse course and seek membership, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. at the time, Susan Rice, said the decision was made out of a belief "that working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights."

Several U.S. critics, in condemning the decision Tuesday, echoed precisely this desire for reform as a principal reason to stay in the council, not leave it.

"The UN Human Rights Council has always been a problem. Instead of focusing on real human-rights issues, the council has used its time and resources to bully Israel and question Israel's legitimacy as a sovereign state," Rep. Eliot Engel, the ranking Democratic member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement Tuesday. "But the way to deal with this challenge is to remain engaged and work with partners to push for change.

"By withdrawing from the council, we lose our leverage and allow the council's bad actors to follow their worst impulses unchecked including running roughshod over Israel."

And Richard Gowan, a fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, told NPR's Michele Kelemen that there is another potential issue muddying the waters of this decision: the recent condemnations leveled at the Trump administration's immigration policies by international human rights officials.

Zikten posted...

SushiSquid posted...

Unbridled9 posted...

As such I have no qualms of lifting the ban and, if it needs to be banned again, banning it for actual reasons as opposed to basically going 'Think of the children!'

Cannabis was originally banned in the United States because fuck Mexicans. No seriously, that's the reason. It's also why we call it marijuana. It's all a racist policy and has been from the beginning. It's terrible.

On topic, I don't use cannabis nor care to, but it should be as legal as alcohol. It's certainly safer. Trump isn't doing anything to work toward that, to my knowledge, and doing one good thing doesn't make him a good President.

Also because it was a competitor to the tobacco industry, who has alot of pull with the government.

Also the cotton industry.

Didn't the maker of that "ciri describing cyberpunk" just take clips of cyberpunk and make a trailer that went along with Ciri's speech?

Nicholas Angel ?