TRUMP'S TOADY NUNES, PRESIDENTIAL POWERS, SEPARATION OF POWERS.

 http://blogs.findlaw.com/decided/2017/03/supreme-court-limits-presidents-power-to-make-temporary-appointments.html?DCMP=NWL-pro_top

No matter who is in the White House, we need to be vigilant to curb presidential powers and strengthen separation of powers.  Trump's toady Nunes is an example of the weakening of separation of powers.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/24/rep-nunes-had-duty-and-obligation-to-tell-trump-surveillance-intel.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/rep-nunes-is-a-lapdog-in-a-watchdog-role.html?_r=0

Nunes has now changed his tune, and apologize to his committee.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nunes-backs-down-assertion-trump-was-monitored-n738151

Will someone please tutor this guy on separation of powers, conflicts of interest, etc.

Nunes is an embarrassment to Congress.  Where do they find these people?

Related item on S.Ct. cutting back on Pres. power re temporary appointments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/opinion/rep-nunes-is-a-lapdog-in-a-watchdog-role.html?_r=0

 Over the last century-and-half we have seen a dangerous strengthening of the President's powers.  It doesn't matter who is in the White House.

Some of the Republicans in Congress need to decide whether their loyalty is to Trump or the Constitution and ethical standards.

THE NEW JUSTICE DEPT AND A.G. SESSIONS

"If he is confirmed, Mr. Sessions, who is considered one of the most conservative members of the Senate, will most likely push for wholesale changes and hard-line stances on immigration, terrorism, crime, drugs and guns. Democrats fear he could wipe away progress in civil rights, changes in sentencing and police accountability."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/politics/jeff-sessions-donald-trump-attorney-general.html

This is the same man who lied to Congress about any meetings with Russians. http://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/did-sessions-lie/

If you are female, black, LGBT, and pro-choice on abortion, watch out.
Reforms that help reduce police use of force, corruption, etc. imposed by federal judges under "Pattern and Practice"  lawsuits may disappear.   The primary beneficiaries of these decrees were  blacks.

Sessions later announced that he would cut back on litigation designed to lessen excessive force and other forms of abuse.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/sessions-doj-pull-back-civil-rights-suits-cops-article-1.2985012
I
t's sad the conservatives would rather defend corruption than endure change, esp. when the beneficiaries of change didn't vote for you. Another example of 'reward your supporters and punish you enemies.

TRUMP'S CLAIMS OF WIRETAPPING, THE BRITISH, ETC.

Here's the first of the tweets that started the current controversy.

‘‘How low has President Obama gone to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”-President Trump, tweet, March 4, 2017

There were later tweets dealing with the same claims.

There are a number of disturbing things about this tweet.
1.  I doubt any prior President has gone public with such a negative message about his predecessor.  He could have made his point without the bad or sick references.  This show a lack of respect and a lack of class and commitment to civil discourse in a democracy.  Trump has refused to apologize.  Does this sound a little paranoid?

2.  The information apparently came from Breitbart news and/or some conservative talk-show.  No one of reasonable caution would rely on those kinds of source to make these accusations.  Trump and his spokespeople have refused to make public the source of their information.  It does not appear to have come from the NSA, CIA or FBI.  This is immature, class and irresponsible.  He easily could have checked with those agencies.
Thus far no source  or confirming evidence have been found by the Senate Judiciary committee. Some Republicans in Congress have been critical of the President.


3.  Now Trump is claiming, without any supporting evidence, that British Intelligence carried out the wiretapping.

"WASHINGTON — President Trump provoked a rare public dispute with America’s closest ally on Friday after his White House aired an explosive and unsubstantiated claim that Britain’s spy agency had secretly eavesdropped on him at the behest of President Barack Obama during last year’s campaign.

Livid British officials adamantly denied the allegation and secured promises from senior White House officials never to repeat it. But a defiant Mr. Trump refused to back down, making clear that the White House had nothing to retract or apologize for because his spokesman had simply repeated an assertion made by a Fox News commentator. Fox itself later disavowed the report."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/trump-britain-obama-wiretap-gchq.html?_r=0

4.  The source for the claim against the British came for a Trump supporter at Fox and was later disavowed by Fox
"The saga began on Tuesday on “Fox & Friends,” the chummy morning show, where Mr. Napolitano made a bizarre and unsupported accusation: Citing three unnamed sources, he said that Britain’s top spy agency had wiretapped Mr. Trump on behalf of President Barack Obama during last year’s campaign.

Continue reading the main story

Cable news blather, especially at that hour, usually vanishes at the commercial break. But on Thursday, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated the claim from the White House podium, infuriating British officials.

On Friday, Fox News was forced to disavow Mr. Napolitano’s remarks. “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary,” the anchor Shepard Smith said on-air. “Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-president of the United States was surveilled at any time, any way. Full stop.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/business/media/fox-andrew-napolitano-trump.html

TRUMP AND THE TWO STATE SOLUTION

THE settlement of Beit El . . . sits on a lonely hilltop deep inside the West Bank, between the river Jordan and the Green Line that divided Israel from its Arab foes after a ceasefire in 1949. Built on private land seized by the Israeli army in the name of security in 1970 but soon made available for settlement by Israeli civilians, it has grown into a community of 6,500 people, including 350 students at its yeshiva (Jewish religious academy). What is left of an old perimeter fence stands rusting; a new one, drawn much wider, surrounds a larger and still growing Beit El. . . .
Donald Trump has called peace between Israel and Palestine the “ultimate deal”. He has asked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to work on it. But as Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, prepares to fly to Washington to meet the president on February 15th, peace seems farther off than ever. Since Mr Trump’s inauguration, Mr Netanyahu’s government has approved 6,000 new homes in existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. On February 6th, the Knesset passed a law legalising in some cases settlers’ homes illegally built on private Palestinian property.  . .
Mr Trump, so the builders reckon, looks unlikely to put much pressure on Israel to hold back. Indeed, he gave $10,000 to Beit El in 2003. His proposed new ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is president of the American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva association. Israel’s settlers could not wish for a more sympathetic envoy, or a more sympathetic president. The occupation of the West Bank is 50 years old in June, and shows no sign of ending.  . .

 

That suits the cautious Mr Netanyahu well. His strategy for the past eight years has been to do nothing: to go on paying a degree of lip-service to the idea of the “two-state solution” agreed in outline by Israelis and Palestinians at Oslo in 1993 (with the difficult details left for later), but not to make any actual progress towards it."

Many are beginning to see the two state solution as a fantasy which ignores Israels grabbing Palestinian land, and the refusal of  Netanyahu to get seious about it.  Israeli settlers/builders will slowly continue to gobble of Palestinian land.  When Israeli's are a majority in the occupied territory they may permit a 2nd state to be created.  However, it will not be a true two state solution.  They may also decide to annex the occupied territory.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21716650-chances-peace-were-thin-even-donald-trumps-election-they-now-look

WHITE SUPREMACIST CONGRESSMAN? "OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES"

"Rep. Steve King doubled down Monday on comments he made over the weekend in which he appeared to criticize foreigners and immigrants, drawing complaints of insensitivity on social media and from some of his Hill colleagues.
King, a prominent Iowa Republican and a vocal advocate against illegal immigration, tweeted Sunday, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day” to clarify his comments, King said he “meant exactly what I said.”
“You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies. You’ve got to keep your birth rate up, and that you need to teach your children your values,” King said, paraphrasing remarks he said he’s delivered to audiences in Europe. “In doing so, you can grow your population, you can strengthen your culture, and you can strengthen your way of life.”
King said he’d like to see less of an emphasis on race in the future.
“If you go down the road a few generations, or maybe centuries, with the inter-marriage, I’d like to see an America that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same,” he said.
King, who was expressing support in his original tweet for far-right Dutch candidate Geert Wilders, predicted that “Europe will be entirely transformed within a half-century.”  This is from Fox, not MSNBC.
http://myfox8.com/2017/03/13/us-congressman-we-cant-restore-our-civilization-with-somebody-elses-babies/

See more at
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/steve-king-stirs-controversy-d-c-still-popular-iowa-n734071

Where have we seen these types of attitudes in history.  Anyone remember

APPEALS COURT RULES THAT ASSAULT RIFLES ARE NOT PROTECTED BY 2ND AMEND.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Maryland's ban on assault rifles, ruling gun owners are not protected under the U.S. Constitution to possess "weapons of war," court documents showed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided 10-4 that the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, a law in response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, by a gunman with an assault rifle, does not violate the right to bear arms within the Second Amendment.

"Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war," Judge Robert King wrote, referring to the "military-style rifles" that were also used during mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, Florida.

These are "places whose names have become synonymous with the slaughters that occurred there," he wrote, noting that the Supreme Court's decision in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case excluded coverage of assault weapons."

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-maryland-guns-idUSKBN1610JY

"Judge William Traxler issued a dissent. By concluding the Second Amendment doesn't even apply, Traxler wrote, the majority "has gone to greater lengths than any other court to eviscerate the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms." He also wrote that the court did not apply a strict enough review on the constitutionality of the law.
"For a law-abiding citizen who, for whatever reason, chooses to protect his home with a semi-automatic rifle instead of a semi-automatic handgun, Maryland's law clearly imposes a significant burden on the exercise of the right to arm oneself at home, and it should at least be subject to strict scrutiny review before it is allowed to stand," Traxler wrote.
National Rifle Association spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said, "It is absurd to hold that the most popular rifle in America is not a protected `arm' under the Second Amendment." She added that the majority opinion "clearly ignores the Supreme Court's guidance from District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects arms that are `in common use at the time for lawful purposes like self-defense."'
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/21/us-appeals-court-upholds-maryland-assault-weapons-ban.html

Trexler and the NRA are right. There are millions of 'assault rifles" in the U.S.  Go to a large shooting rangle and you will probably see lots of people suing these weapons. Large capacity magazines in semi-automatic pistols are used by much of the world's military.  Will such pistols be next to lose 2nd Amend. protection?

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-maryland-guns-idUSKBN1610JY

TRUMP AND FAMILY USING PRESIDENCY TO LINE THEIR POCKETS?

"The president’s son Eric probably said it best: “I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been.” No surprise there — nothing like a presidency to boost business. It is nevertheless shocking to see the brazenness of the ethical conflicts and watch the first family celebrate its good fortune."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/opinion/sue-while-the-conflicts-are-hot.html

CHAFETZ REVEALS HIS ATTITUDES

U.S. Rep. Jason Chafetz , R Utah, reveals his attitude.

"Well, we're getting rid of the individual mandate [in Obamacare]. We're getting rid of those things that people said that they don't want," Chafetz replied. "Americans have choices, and they've got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/politics/jason-chaffetz-health-care-iphones/

See this commentary on the statements.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2017/03/07/telling-poor-americans-choose-iphones-health-care-solution

Conservatives are especially likely to justify cutbacks in programs for the poor because poverty is their own fault.  They are poor because they are lazy, reckless, etc.  This applies to some, but not all of the poor.  It is well documented that the children of the poor start off behind their more affluent peers, and have a tougher time making it.  The claim is that successful and wealthy are superior people and that's why they have made it.  I call this the theory of affluent supremacy.

CANADIAN JUDGE RESIGNS OVER REMARKS ABOUT RAPE VICTIM

"OTTAWA — A judge who asked a sexual assault complainant in a trial why she couldn't keep her knees together quit Thursday after a scathing rebuke from the body that oversees the Canadian judiciary."
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03/09/knees-together-judge-_n_15266804.html

Looks like we aren't the only North American nation where male supremacy rules.  Where do they find these people?

2 NEW BOOKS ON POLICING

See the reviews here.  One is on police use of deadly force and the other on surveillance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/books/review/when-police-kill-frank-zimring.html?_r=0

FEDERAL

1. Fact checking Trump's latest press conference.  Multiple lies as usual.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/feb/16/fact-checking-donald-trumps-press-conference/

2.  Final fact check on Obama.  Very disappointing!
http://www.factcheck.org/person/president-obama/

Ex-Sheriff convicted of obstruction

The former Sheriff of L.A. county, one of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies, was convicted of obstructing the FBI's investigation of corrupt and violent guards at the huge county jail.

http://time.com/4703076/lee-baca-obstructing-fbi-investigation-conviction/