Redistricting panel's work questioned

Arizona Republicans Claim Religious Discrimination In Redistricting Panel
Republican lawmakers are challenging some of the early decisions of the political redistricting process - a process that was designed to exclude legislative influence. On Tuesday, the lawmakers reiterated their call for reconsideration of three nominees to the Independent Redistricting Commission. And they worried about the "chilling effect" of a Tucson man being dropped from the list, for what the lawmakers say were concerns about his Christian faith. The redistricting commission, created by th...

Christie won't get involved in Justice Rivera-Soto's protest
Gov. Christie declined Thursday to weigh in on the recent state Supreme Court Controversy over a justice's decision not to participate in decisions as long as a temporary judge remained on the bench. Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto of Haddonfield issued an opinion published last Friday, in which he said Justice Edwin Stern, appointed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner to serve after Christie decided not to renominate Justice John Wallace Jr., should not participate when there were five other justices av...

Obama's PA Ally Casey Vulnerable In 2012
Seventeen months before the Republican U.S. Senate primary and nearly two years before the next General Election in Pennsylvania, GOPers in the state are already discussing who their Candidate will be against freshman Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. in 2012. Discussion of a spirited challenge to Casey has been fueled by a just-completed Quinnipiac University Poll showing only 39 percent of state voters approve of his performance, compared to 29 percent who don’t approve. The same survey sho...

Central Falls' receivership history
May 19, 2010: Declaring fiscal insolvency, City Officials persuade a Superior Court judge to appoint a receiver, Jonathan N. Savage, to take over municipal finances. May 27: Savage cancels a Controversial agreement between the city and a friend and supporter of Mayor Charles D. Moreau to board up buildings. The terms and circumstances of the deal are being investigated by State Police. He imposes a 4.5-percent property Tax Increase for the Budget year beginning July 1. June 7: Governor Carcieri...

Court: Rapper DMX sentenced to prison for 1 year
PHOENIX (AP) — Court officials in Arizona say the rapper known as DMX has had his Probation revoked and is heading to Prison for one year. The Maricopa County Superior Court issued the ruling Thursday against the rapper, whose real name is Earl Simmons. Simmons was arrested last month for violating probation. He told KSAZ-TV in Phoenix he was kicked out of a drug treatment program because he had a drink at a Scottsdale club during a performance. Court documents allege Simmons failed to sub...

The recess appointment dilemma in NJ
The decision by Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto to abstain from all cases so long as the Court has a temporary associate raises a dilemma for all concerned, including not merely whether Governor Chris Christie will make a Recess Appointment to the Court, but whether he should or even may so act. In May of 2010, Christie refused to reappoint Justice John E. Wallace, Jr., saying that he wanted to change the temperament of the Court. Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney took exception to that and ref...

Russell Pearce Shakes Down Scores of Lobbyists, Legally
Pearce's big money-grab, and it's all legal To cop a line from the Notorious B.I.G., "Gimme the loot! Gimme the loot!" That's what Republican state Senate President-elect Russell Pearce might as well be saying with a recent e-mail announcing a Fundraiser on January 7, 2011, just three days before Arizona's legislative session begins. Suggested donation: $250 a pop. It's the so-called "host committee" for the party that is eye-opening. It includes the names of more than 70 individuals, almost e...

American Segregation At An All-Time Low
This is interesting because it’s evidence that things really are changing and in a positive direction. It’s going to take a long time to heal the racial divide that was set forth at the founding of our nation and embedded shamefully in our very Constitution when it was first written. But maybe we’re on our way to the realization of the dream of One Nation Under God, Indivisible. This also has implications for Congressional re-districting in the future…should be interest...

Measured approach to redistricting tried
Could U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, find herself in the fight of her life in 2012? Is it possible to make a Congressional Seat centered in Republican-red El Paso County truly competitive? Statehouse leaders are hoping to find out. Speaking at the Denver Press Club on Thursday, Democratic and Republican legislative leaders announced a special Bipartisan congressional redistricting committee. The 10-member group, to be composed of five Democratic and five Republican lawmakers, will ...

South, West expected to pick up House seats after census
WASHINGTON — Sun Belt states and those in the West are expected to gain even more political clout when the Census Bureau announces on Tuesday which states will gain Congressional Seats and which will lose them. Among the likely winners are Washington State, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, South Carolina and Utah. The likely losers are such Rust Belt states as Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Ohio. While it may be an insider's game, the political st...

Black segregation in US drops to lowest in century (AP)
WASHINGTON – America's neighborhoods took large strides toward racial integration in the last decade as blacks and whites chose to live near each other at the highest levels in a century. Still, segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, with Hispanics in particular turning away from whites. A broad range of 2009 Census data released Tuesday also found a mixed economic picture, with the Poverty rate swinging wildly among counties from 4 percent to more than 40 percent as the nation...

Palin: 'Double standard' for politicians who cry
Sarah Palin says there's a Double Standard when it comes to politicians who cry in public. The former Alaska Governor and possible 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate says she would be "knocked a little bit" if she cried while giving a Speech. But Palin tells ABC's "Good Morning America" that House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner gets a "pass" when he cries in public. Palin says that's OK, but that it makes women in politics work harder and "be that much tougher." Palin's comments came in an ...

Off Center
I am well aware that most Confederate Soldiers owned no slaves, and were fighting for that great, false god of American politics "State's Rights." But their leaders--political and Military--asked them to fight and die for the slaves that the Southern aristocracy owned and exploited, in a plantation system that a Roman Senator or Knight owning latifundia would have understood perfectly; except for the fact he could no longer crucify an escaped slave. Sam Houston--friend and protégé of Andrew...

The 11 Republicans on the Powerful House Ways and Means Committee
Veteran fiscal conservative Congressman Peter Roskam (R, IL) has announced the names of the 10 Republicans that are joining him on the House Ways and Means Committee, the powerful committee that has jurisdiction over taxes, trade, and programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Peter Roskam is the Representative for the 6th Illinois Congressional District which is situated just west of Chicago. He is about to begin his third term in Congress and will advance to the position of Chief Deputy Wh...

Convicted lawmaker can still vote in House, draw pay
As a convicted felon, he now can't legally run for office. And he can't vote on Election Day. But state Rep. Ismael "Kino" Flores, the Palmview Democrat who was sentenced to five years of Probation earlier this week on felony ethics charges, remains a legislator in good standing in the Texas House. He's still entitled to his $600-a-month, Taxpayer-paid Salary as a legislator. The reason: There's no law or rule that prohibits convicted Felons from serving in the House if they are convicted while ...

Superior Court hopeful defends 1992 slay trial
Accusations regarding a botched decades-old Murder case roiled the Confirmation Hearing yesterday of a Candidate for the Superior Court bench. With her two young daughters looking on as a packed Governor’s Council lapsed into finger-pointing and shouting, Renee P. Dupuis slammed what she called the “slanderous allegations” of a Cambridge defense attorney. Kevin J. Mahoney testified that when Dupuis was a top Bristol County prosecutor, she withheld crucial exculpatory evidence ...

Rehnquist reverses course on states' rights.
The Supreme Court surprised everybody by ruling Tuesday that even State Governments have to obey the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Liberals and women's groups are hailing the opinion and love-bombing its author, Chief Justice Rehnquist himself. Still, it's a very odd opinion, especially to anyone who remembers the debate over family leave 10 years ago. The court was expected to add this case, Nevada v. Hibbs, to a series of rulings in which it has held that State Governments are exempt f...

The Revolution Next Time?
Linda Greenhouse on the Supreme Court and the law. Tags: Health Care reform, Judge Henry E. Hudson, Justice William Rehnquist, Supreme Court It has been 15 years since the Rehnquist court began applying the constitutional brakes to assertions of federal power that had seemed unassailable since the New Deal. Its first target was modest, a five-year-old federal statute called the Gun-Free School Zones Act that most people had never heard of, which made it a federal crime to ...

The day's most popular stories
TV Meteorologist accused of filing false Sexual Assault report: An on-air Meteorologist for New York's WABC-TV has been arrested, accused of falsely reporting an attempted Sexual Assault to police, a story she later recanted, according to the New York Police Department. Object shot out of sky above Israel: The Israeli Air Force shot down an unidentified flying object over the Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev Desert Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said. Opinion: Marriage gap is bad for ...

Can Congress Force You to Be Healthy?
HENRY E. HUDSON, the Federal Judge in Virginia who ruled this week that the Individual Mandate provision of the new Health Care law is Unconstitutional, has become the object of widespread derision. Judge Hudson explained that whatever else Congress might be able to do, it cannot force people to engage in a commercial activity, in this case buying an Insurance policy. Critics contend that Judge Hudson has unduly restricted Congress’s authority to regulate interstate commerce, the principa...

It's a Penalty . . . It's a Tax . . . No, It's SUPERMANDATE!
So the latest talking point I'm seeing is that the Individual Mandate is no Big Deal--just a tax dodge like we've always had. The government is raising taxes, and then giving a deduction of equal size to those who buy Health Insurance. Why the fuss? Well, for starters, this is not what they wrote in the law. They called it a penalty. Now they're worried that maybe their commerce clause powers aren't quite as great as they thought, suddenly it's a tax. Judge Hudson argues that in fact Supreme Cou...

Search for new UMass president narrowed
The field of Candidates to replace outgoing Umass President Jack Wilson has been whittled to fewer than 10 after the search committee met for over three hours Thursday to discuss its next move. Umass Trustee James Karam, who chairs the search committee, said the Candidates on the pared-down list will be interviewed a second time in January, after which the committee will publicly recommend three or four finalists to the full board. Karam said starting the search over from scratch was “nev...

Search for new UMass president narrowed
The field of Candidates to replace outgoing Umass President Jack Wilson has been whittled to fewer than 10 after the search committee met for over three hours Thursday to discuss its next move. Umass Trustee James Karam, who chairs the search committee, said the Candidates on the pared-down list will be interviewed a second time in January, after which the committee will publicly recommend three or four finalists to the full board. Karam said starting the search over from scratch was “nev...

Jury adds $81M to award
A Suffolk Superior Court jury awarded another $81 million in Punitive Damages yesterday to the estate and son of a lifelong Roxbury smoker after determining tobacco giant Lorillard, Inc. enticed her and other neighborhood Children to smoke by passing out free Cigarettes. The verdict came two days after the same jury awarded the estate of Marie Evans $50 million in compensatory damages and her son, Willie Evans, $21 million. “The jury understood that what Lorillard had done to ...

$81M Damages for Giving Black Kids Free Cigarettes
Thursday, December 16, 2010 By Staff, Associated Press Boston (AP) - A jury has awarded $81 million in Punitive Damages to the estate and son of a Boston woman who started smoking at age 13 after a Tobacco Company allegedly began trying to hook black Children. The son and estate of Marie Evans, who died of Lung Cancer, sued Lorillard Tobacco Co., claiming his mother began smoking after Lorillard gave away free Cigarette samples at the Boston housing project where she lived. The Suffolk Supe...