Playinghardball
Playinghardball's JournalNixon announces members of Ferguson Commission
Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday swore in the members of the Ferguson Commission — a committee he formed to address the “social and economic conditions” highlighted by protests after the killing of Michael Brown.
The appointees have been selected by the governor from a pool of more than 300 people who applied. Nixon introduced them Tuesday afternoon at the Missouri History Museum.
The co-chairmen of the organization are the Rev. Starsky Wilson, president and CEO of the Deaconess Foundation and pastor of St. John's United Church of Christ in St. Louis, and Rich McClure, chairman of the St. Louis Regional Board of Teach for America, former president of UniGroup Inc. and of Civic Progress.
Nixon announced the formation of the commission last month. At the time, he said it was not an attempt to prepare the community for the possibility that Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson won’t face charges at the state or federal level. A St. Louis County grand jury is weighing whether to indict Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, on Aug 9.
That decision is expected any day. On Monday, Nixon declared a state of emergency and called up the Missouri National Guard to help deal with the aftermath of the grand jury's decision.
More here: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/ferguson-commission-members-announced/article_018cc5a3-d3db-5296-a581-75ca49921153.html
California AG “Shocked” To Learn Her Office Wanted To Keep Eligible Parolees In Jail To Work
Lawyers for California Attorney General Kamala Harris argued in court this fall against the release of eligible non-violent prisoners from California’s overcrowded prisons — because the state wanted to keep them as a labor force.
Harris, a rising star in the Democratic Party, said she learned about the argument when she read it in the paper.
“I will be very candid with you, because I saw that article this morning, and I was shocked, and I’m looking into it to see if the way it was characterized in the paper is actually how it occurred in court,” Harris told BuzzFeed News in an interview Monday. “I was very troubled by what I read. I just need to find out what did we actually say in court.”
The Supreme Court found California’s prisons were so overcrowded in 2011 that the conditions violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Since then, California has been under federal court supervision as it seeks to comply with the order that the state reduce its prison population. In February, the state had agreed to reduce its population by releasing non-violent prisoners with only two felonies who had served half their sentences.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that attorneys in Harris’ office had unsuccessfully argued in court that the state could not release the prisoners it had agreed to release because “if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.” Those prisoners, the Times reported, earn wages that range from “8 cents to 37 cents per hour.”
More here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamserwer/some-lawyers-just-want-to-see-the-world-burn
Bernie Sanders: Washington works well if you're a big corporation like Verizon...
· 19h 19 hours ago
Washington works well if you're a big corporation like @Verizon
Love your guns and bible? You might want to actually, you know, read your bible...
Zach Green ?@140elect · Nov 15Love your guns and bible? You might want to actually, you know, read your bible. #uniteblue
From POTUS to SCOTUS: Obama’s Big Move?
With the recent midterm results and his equally disastrous poll numbers, it’s hard to believe that President Obama hasn’t at least daydreamed about having another less demanding, less thankless job. And with two Supreme Court decisions on the horizon that could undo some of his most significant presidential legacies, it is even harder to believe he hasn’t daydreamed about one job in particular: being a Supreme Court Justice.
His clashes with Congress and increasing isolation seem to make it abundantly clear that President Barack Obama would rather play just about any game—including, or perhaps especially, golf—than politics. Yet he happens to have picked a line of work in which playing politics, or politicking as some call it, is just as much a part of the job requirements, as signing, or vetoing, a piece of legislation. So would President Barack Obama have been happier on the nation’s highest court than in the nation’s most recognizable house?
“I love the law, intellectually,” Obama said in a recent interview with The New Yorker, before saying “being a Justice is a little bit too monastic for me.” And yet that doesn’t change the fact that he might have ultimately had a greater impact on the issues he cares about as a member of the Supreme Court—and that being a justice might be a more natural fit with who he is as a person.
Every president hopes to have at least one signature accomplishment or issue his administration can be remembered for. President Obama was poised to have two: healthcare reform and significant advancement on LGBT rights, specifically same-sex marriage. But after a surprising vote from Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to give the Affordable Care Act a reprieve in 2012, the Court is now planning to review another key portion of the law, with a ruling scheduled to come down by June 2015. That ruling could leave millions of those currently benefiting from Obamacare without the necessary subsidies to stay insured, and set the groundwork for a larger dismantling of the law.
More here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/17/from-potus-to-scotus-obama-s-big-move.html
Love your guns and bible? You might want to actually, you know, read your bible...
Love your guns and bible? You might want to actually, you know, read your bible. #uniteblue
President Obama meets survivor Mary Lee...
President Obama meets survivor Mary Lee after laying a wreath at the memorial of the USS Peary in Darwin, Nov 17, 2011. Mary was 9 at the time of the bombing by Japanese aircraft which resulted in the sinking of the Peary on February 19, 1942
http://theobamadiary.com/
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