September 11, 2015

Kim Davis Ask Appeals Court To Halt Marriages In Her County

Source: TPM/BuzzFeed

Kim Davis -- the Kentucky clerk who stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the Supreme Court gay marriage ruling -- is taking another stab at stopping same-sex marriages in her county.

Her lawyers filed a petition Friday with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking the court to halt an order by a district judge requiring that marriage licenses be issued to all couples seeking them, Buzzfeed reported.

The district judge, Judge David Bunning, initially ordered Davis on Aug 12 to issue licenses to the four couples who brought a lawsuit against her for refusing to oversee their marriages. A stay to that order brought by Davis' lawyers was denied by the appeals court as well as the Supreme Court.

Bunning expanded the order Sept. 3 to apply to all Kentucky couples seeking for marriage licenses in the county, which Davis' lawyers say in Friday's petition "lays waste to well-established principles of jurisdiction and due process in the federal court system."

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kim-davis-expanded-order

September 11, 2015

S.C. Attorney General Threatens To Sue Obama Over Nuke Fuel Plant (Again)

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's top prosecutor is warning the Obama administration that he's prepared to sue — again — if a nuclear fuel processing project isn't made a priority.

Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a letter this month to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz that they should discuss a path that preserves the mixed-oxide project and "avoids litigation." The Savannah River Site project is part of an agreement with Russia to turn weapons-grade plutonium into commercial reactor fuel.

South Carolina sued last year after the administration said it wanted to shutter the project, citing billions in cost overruns and project delays. The suit was dropped when the administration agreed to temporary funding.

The overruns and delays have led the administration to slash funding and propose shutting down construction to search for cheaper alternatives.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/alan-wilson-threatens-sue-obama

September 11, 2015

House Vote To Approve Iran Nuclear Deal Fails

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led House has gone on record against the Iran nuclear deal, but the symbolic vote will not stop President Barack Obama from implementing the agreement.

After three hours of hot-tempered debate, the House voted 269 to 162 on Friday to reject the deal.

Senate Democrats voted on Thursday to uphold the accord with Iran, overcoming heavy GOP opposition to hand Obama a victory on his top foreign policy priority.

The Senate action guaranteed that any legislation disapproving the pact will never reach Obama's desk.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/house-vote-iran-deal-fails

September 11, 2015

Ex-Romney Aides United in Stopping Trump

Former aides to Mitt Romney “are curiously aligned once again in common cause, a stem-to-stern effort that has united old comrades even as they nominally play for different teams: stopping Donald Trump,” the Boston Globe reports.

Said one: “We are united. It’s a common goal and not just for Romney people, but for anyone invested in Republicanism, conservatism, and anyone who gives a flying (expletive) about what we’re trying to do here. Even if you’re not getting paid, this isn’t good for anybody.”

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http://politicalwire.com/2015/09/11/ex-romney-aides-united-in-stopping-trump/

September 11, 2015

‘Lifesaving’ study points to overhaul in treating high blood pressure

Source: New York Times


Friday, September 11, 2015 10:32 AM EDT

Declaring they had “potentially lifesaving information,” federal health officials said on Friday that they were ending a major study early because it has already conclusively answered a question cardiologists have puzzled over for decades: how low should blood pressure go?

The answer: way lower than the current guidelines.

For years doctors have been uncertain what the optimal goal should be for patients with high blood pressure. The aim of course is to bring it down, but how far and how aggressively remained a mystery.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/health/blood-pressure-study.html?

September 11, 2015

1 Michigan Tea Partier Resigns, Other Ousted After Bogus Gay Sex Scandal

Source: TPM/Detroit Free Press

After faking a gay sex scandal to cover up an affair, Michigan state Rep. Todd Courser (R) resigned and Rep. Cindy Gamrat (R) was expelled from the Michigan House early Friday morning.

Courser's alleged extramarital affair with Gamrat was exposed by the Detroit News in August after Courser reportedly asked one of his aides to leak that Courser was spotted with a male prostitute. Courser later claimed that he faked the gay sex scandal to expose blackmailers.

The Michigan House disciplinary committee recommended on Thursday that both Courser and Gamrat be expelled for their roles in the affair and cover-up, prompting a lengthy debate on the state House floor.

Early on in the debate, Democratic lawmakers refused to vote to expel the Tea Party lawmakers until they had more information on the Republican-led investigation into the lawmakers' actions, according to the Detroit Free Press. After an initial vote to expel Courser and Gamrat failed on Thursday night, the state House reconvened shortly after midnight to try again.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/todd-courser-cindy-gamrat-resigned-expelled

September 11, 2015

States that fought same-sex marriage owe millions in legal fees

Many states are now required to pay a ‘reasonable’ portion of fees for attorneys who represented same-sex couples

September 10, 2015 5:00AM ET

by Steve Friess @stevefriess

Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the legal debate over same-sex marriage by declaring it a constitutionally protected civil right, attorneys general and governors who fought it are receiving unpleasant souvenirs of failure: Invoices from the attorneys who beat them.

States that defended same-sex marriage bans — most did, to some extent — are now being asked to pay the legal fees for those litigants under a 40-year-old federal law that says the court “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party … a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.”

Or as Michigan attorney Dana Nessel put it: “It’s the price governments pay for defending bigotry.” Defeat won’t come cheap — or, in many cases, without further legal wrangling.

Michigan is weighing its response to a $1.9 million demand from attorneys for April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, plaintiffs in one of the four cases that went to the Supreme Court and was decided in June. In Kentucky, another state involved in the Supreme Court showdown, the bill for services rendered is $2.1 million. South Carolina has been ordered to pay $130,000, and Florida’s attorney general is fighting a tab of about $700,000.

Several states have struck agreements already. Pennsylvania settled for $1.5 million, Wisconsin for $1.05 million, Virginia for $580,000, Oregon for $132,000, Colorado for $90,000, Utah for $95,000 and North Dakota for $58,000. The varying prices reflect the length of the battles or their intensity.

more
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/10/states-that-fought-same-sex-marriage-charged-millions-in-attorney-fees.html

September 11, 2015

Cameron, Hollande and Merkel: Why we support the Iran deal

By David Cameron, François Hollande and Angela Merkel September 10 at 1:02 PM

David Cameron, François Hollande and Angela Merkel are, respectively, the prime minister of Britain, the president of France and the chancellor of Germany.

The U.S. Congress is voting this week on whether to support the agreement that our countries, along with the United States, Russia and China, reached with Iran to curb its nuclear program. This is an important moment. It is a crucial opportunity at a time of heightened global uncertainty to show what diplomacy can achieve.

Iran’s nuclear program has been a source of concern for more than a decade. Iran claimed that its ambitions were purely civil: All countries have the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. But as recently as two years ago, we faced an alarming expansion in Iran’s program: a growing stockpile of uranium, some of it enriched up to 20 percent; an increase in the number of centrifuges, including more powerful new-generation machines; a deeply bunkered enrichment facility at Fordow; and the near completion of a research reactor at Arak capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. And, of course, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had limited visibility of some aspects of Iran’s program.

This posed a serious threat — not only to the security of Iran’s neighbors and for Israel, but also to our countries. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East would have added a disastrous new element to an already unstable region.

We had a shared responsibility to deal with this threat. The long history of fruitless nuclear talks with Iran did not give strong grounds for optimism. Nevertheless, two years of tough, detailed negotiation have produced an agreement that closes off all possible routes to an Iranian nuclear weapon in return for phased relief from nuclear-related sanctions.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cameron-hollande-and-merkel-why-we-support-the-iran-deal/2015/09/10/a1ce6610-5735-11e5-b8c9-944725fcd3b9_story.html?

September 10, 2015

Senate Dems Block GOP Move To Embarrass Obama On Iran Deal

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

UPDATE: Sept. 10, 2015, 4:34 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats voted to uphold the hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran on Thursday, overcoming ferocious GOP opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.

A disapproval resolution for the agreement fell two votes short of the 60 needed to move forward as Democratic and independent senators banded together against it. Although House Republicans continued to pursue eleventh-hour strategies to derail the international accord, the outcome in the Senate guaranteed that the disapproval legislation would not reach Obama's desk.

As a result the nuclear deal will move forward unchecked by Congress, an improbable win by Obama in the face of unanimous opposition from Republicans who control Capitol Hill, GOP candidates seeking to replace him in the Oval Office and the state of Israel and its allied lobbyists in the U.S.

Beginning next week, Obama will be free to start scaling back U.S. sanctions to implement the agreement negotiated by Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers. The accord aims to constrain Iran's nuclear ambitions in exchange for hundreds of billions of dollars in relief from international sanctions.

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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/iran-nuclear-deal-gop-block-fails

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BREAKING NEWS

Senate Democrats clear way for Iran nuclear deal

Thursday, September 10, 2015 4:08 PM EDT

Senate Democrats delivered a major victory to President Obama on Thursday when they blocked a Republican resolution to reject a six-nation nuclear accord with Iran, ensuring that the landmark deal will take effect without a veto showdown between Congress and the White House.

A procedural vote fell short of the number needed to break a Democratic filibuster. It culminated hours of debate on the Senate floor and capped months of discord since the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China announced the agreement with Iran in July.

Debate over the accord divided Democrats between their loyalties to the president and their constituents, especially Jewish ones, animated the antiwar movement on the left and exposed the waning power of the Israeli lobbying force that spent millions to prevent the accord.

Read more

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GOP Plot To Block Iran Deal Fails In Senate

Senate Democrats stunted a Republican-led plan to block the Iran nuclear deal Thursday, delivering President Obama a major victory.

Josh Rogin ✔
@joshrogin

Senate vote to end debate on resolution of disapproval on @TheIranDeal fails 58-42.
4:18 PM - 10 Sep 2015

11 11 Retweets favorites

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/iran-nuclear-deal-gop-block-fails

September 10, 2015

Donald Trump On Bobby Jindal's Attacks: Who?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump responded on Thursday to attacks from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal by suggesting he'd hardly even heard of his GOP rival.

Jindal has consistently ranked at the bottom of the polls, and the GOP frontrunner was happy to point out that out, according to a tweet by Bloomberg politics managing editor Mark Halperin.

Jindal called Trump a "narcissist" and "egomaniac" and released a video Wednesday suggesting actor Charlie Sheen as Trump's running mate.

Mark Halperin ✔
@MarkHalperin

.@realDonaldTrump reply to @BobbyJindal attack...is....dismissive. #TrumpClassic
3:11 PM - 10 Sep 2015

36 36 Retweets 39 39 favorites

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-bobby-jindal-who