Earlier this week, The Supreme Court decides that major corporations should have the right to contribute as much as they want to political candidates. These Supreme Court judges are so out of touch with the real world it is a shame. Anyway here is President Obama speaking on just that.
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via HuffPost
RNC Chairman Michael Steele isn’t shying away from highlighting race as a signifying issue of the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination hearings.
In an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown on Tuesday, the Republican Party leader insisted that white males would not be granted even-handed jurisprudence under a Court with Obama’s nominee.
“God help you if you’re a white male,” said Steele. “If you’re seeking justice, this may not be the bench you want to go before.”
The remarks come at a time when Republican officials have attempted to remove any semblance of racial politics from their opposition to Sotomayor’s nomination. Earlier on Tuesday, Sen. Mel Martinez, a Hispanic Republican from Florida, defended Sotomayor’s now-infamous “wise Latina” remarks as sensible. Continue reading
With the unprecedented amounts of gaffes on TV this is just in time, but if they don’t step in to curb all the innuendos in these commercials than monitoring the shows is kind of pointless.
via AdAge
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In a decision that — for now, at least — makes even the most random utterances of expletives punishable by law, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling stating that so-called fleeting expletives are not suitable for broadcast on public airwaves.
Even so, a cautious optimism has emerged among TV networks that things will eventually work in their favor. A lower court has already ruled that sanctions against the random expression of profanity on live broadcasts are “arbitrary” and difficult to enforce, and the Supreme Court has remanded the case back to that same legal body.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court essentially reversed an earlier ruling in a case known as Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said the idea of sanctioning random utterances of profanity is “capricious,” and such expressions are not as dangerous or harmful to viewers as regular use of profanity that has sexual or excretory connotations. The case stems from a 2002 broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards on News Corp.’s Fox during which Cher and Nicole Richie uttered expletives, as well as a 2003 NBC Golden Globes broadcast on NBC during which U2 frontman Bono declared, “This is really, really fucking brilliant.” Continue reading
via XXL
Lil Wayne was offered a second chance in court today (April 23). After originally ruling that he would admit a gun as evidence in Weezy’s ’07 weapons possession case, Manhattan Superior Court Judge Charles Solomon has decided to reconsider.
The Associated Press reports that Solomon decided to reopen the hearing on whether or not to include the .40 caliber handgun in the case upon prosecutor Joan Illuzi-Orbon’s request. In light of learning of an undisclosed conversation between the arresting officer and the New Orleans rap star, Orbon asked the judge to re-evaluate.
As previously reported the woman busted Wayne after she boarded the Grammy-award-winning tour bus allegedly smelling marijuana. She claims to have witnessed Weezy trying to hide a gun as she approached him on the vehicle. Wayne’s lawyer Stacey Richman believes the officer falsely claimed that she smelled smoke in order to illegally get into the vehicle. The rap star had just finished a performance at the Beacon Theatre.
Wayne, who pled not guilty and is free on $70,000 bail, is scheduled to return to court on May 20.
via SOHH
Lil Wayne attorneys were denied a request to have a 2008 felony drug and weapons case pushed back to the Grand Jury by a judge Tuesday (April 14) afternoon.Arguing a lack of evidence led to the case being brought to Superiour Court, Wayne’s lawyers appeared in court yesterday requesting their motion.
In their motion, which was based on the misconduct with weapons charge, attorneys James Tilson and Natman Schaye argued the Grand Jury was not given all the elements involved in the alleged offense, and that led to an errorneous finding of probable cause. Superior Court Judge Mark Wayne Reeves, who is presiding over the case, said he based his decision on having read the Grand Jury transcripts as to what the factual basis of the offense was, the statutes the offense fell under and that there is a different standard of finding of probable cause between a trial jury and a Grand Jury. (Yuma Sun)
Weezy was originally arrested January 2008 on multiple felony charges.
The latest legal entanglement for the rapper came when a search of his tour bus at a border checkpoint near Dateland, Arizona, uncovered nearly 4 ounces of marijuana, more more than 1 ounce of cocaine, 41 grams of ecstasy, drug paraphernalia, $22,000 in cash and a .40-caliber pistol that was registered to Wayne in Florida, where he has a concealed-weapons permit. Wayne was released from a Yuma County jail after posting $10,185 in bail. (MTV)
Tilson previously requested the case be sent back late last year. Continue reading
via CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The number of executions in U.S. prisons hit a 14-year-low in 2008, continuing a downward trend and coinciding with a drop in juries handing out death sentences, according to a year-end report.
The Death Penalty Information Center estimates 111 defendants will be sentenced to death this year, the lowest figure since executions were reinstated in 1976.
Just 37 people were put to death in 2008, compared with a record amount of 98 executions in 1999. Texas carried out nearly half of this year’s executions, and one state outside the South carried out executions — Ohio, with two. No executions are scheduled for the rest of the year.
The reduced figures were helped by a de facto Supreme Court moratorium that put off any capital punishment for the first four months of 2008.
The high court ruled in April that lethal injection procedures in Kentucky were constitutional, lifting an unofficial ban on the procedure that had been in place for about eight months while the justices considered the appeal. That case involved convicted murderers Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling, who both remain on death row in that state. Continue reading
Ah, there is a god afterall!
via Daily News
Hillary Clinton says there is almost no chance of her running for President again – and she has absolutely “no interest” in joining the Supreme Court.
“I am not seeking any other position than to be the best senator from New York that I can be,” Clinton told Fox News Tuesday.
Clinton, who narrowly lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama this year, said the odds of her launching another bid for the White House were “probably close to zero.”
“There’s an old saying, bloom where you’re planted,” Clinton said. “I love being in the Senate.” Continue reading
The federal branch of Government has made another ruling against the current Administration, further undermining the legitimacy of the Bush presidency but also opening the possibilities of bringing these war criminals to justice but we’ll see how the controlling Dems will play this hand out, after all this should bolster their attempts to snatch up Karl Rove now.
via Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge ruled against the Bush administration in its fight with Congress over a probe into the firings of U.S. attorneys by refusing on Tuesday to delay an order that current and former White House aides comply with congressional subpoenas.
Federal judge John Bates ruled that he would not put off his July order that former White House counsel Harriet Miers testify to Congress, and that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten surrender documents related to the 2006 firings. Continue reading
I cram to understand why the Supreme Court would overturn a ban on guns for the District of Columbia when just last month the police militarized a section of D.C. and regulated traffic in and out of a zone that was plagued by gun violence. Why say you are trying to get firearms off the streets but you turn around and allow citizens to arm themselves? The article below illustrates how citizens are scrambling to arm themselves, but in response to what? What is the rush for armaments about?
via AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dale Metta, who manages a gun shop just outside the District of Columbia limits in Maryland, has had to turn away dozens of city residents wanting to buy handguns in recent days. Never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court just struck down Washington’s 32-year-old ban on possessing handguns.
“I’d like to sell anything I have,” said Metta. But he won’t just yet – not until the city draws up new regulations.
The Supreme Court’s decision June 26 rebuffed the strictest gun law in the nation.
The National Rifle Association called it “a great moment in American history.” But prospective gun buyers and sellers said they remain on hold, awaiting the response of D.C. officials who are scrambling to draft new handgun regulations that comply with the court ruling.
via Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that individual Americans have the right to own guns for personal use, and struck down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital.
The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the country’s high court has addressed whether the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a right tied to service in a state militia.
In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.
He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.
Full article [here]
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