Day: August 12, 2018

Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Hearings to Begin September 4

Admin
Brett Kavanaugh

by Fred Lucas   The confirmation hearings for federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to become the next Supreme Court justice will begin on Sept. 4 and last three to four days, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced Friday. Grassley’s announcement comes as Senate Democrats sought to further stall the hearings, demanding more documents on Kavanaugh’s service in President George W. Bush’s White House and as a lawyer on independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. “As I said after his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected jurists in the country and one of the most qualified nominees ever to be considered by the Senate for a seat on our highest court,” said Grassley in a statement. Kavanaugh has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2006. President Donald Trump nominated him July 9 to fill the vacancy of the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Grassley continued: My team has already reviewed every page of the over 4,800 pages of judicial opinions Judge Kavanaugh wrote, over 6,400 pages of opinions he joined, more than 125,000 pages of records produced…

Read the full story

Legal Loophole Protects Violent Iraqi Refugee Who Shot a Colorado Police Officer

Admin
Cem Duzel, Karrar Noaman Al Khammasi,

By Natalia Castro   On June 13, 2016, Karrar Noaman Al Khammasi should have been deported. After violating the terms of his probation, this was the day an immigration judge determined Al Khammasi should no longer be in allowed to maintain his refugee status and live in his Colorado home. Instead, Al Khammasi took advantage of a legal loophole that allowed him to stay in the U.S. Now, Al Khammasi is being charged with shooting a Colorado police officer, Cem Duzel, after being involved in a dangerous shootout last week. Al Khammasi’s story sheds light on to deep rooted flaws in our immigration system. The Gazette of Colorado explains, Al Khammasi, a native of Iraq, was granted refugee state in May 2012 and arrived in the country six months later. In 2014, Al Khammasi pleaded guilty to trespassing, soon after, Al Khammasi violated two-year probation and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In April 2016, Al Khammasi was paroled to the property of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and was ordered for deportation in June 2016. Four months later, immigration authorities argued that his trespassing conviction did not constitute an “aggravated felony” and there for his deportation proceedings must be terminated.…

Read the full story

Hundreds Of Federal Employees Will Be Moved Out Of Washington, D.C.

Admin
moving

by Tim Pearce   The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving two agencies and roughly 700 federal employees out of Washington, D.C., to save money and improve the department’s service to taxpayers. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Thursday that the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will be fully moved out of the nation’s capital by 2020, according to the USDA. A location hasn’t been picked yet. “It’s been our goal to make USDA the most effective, efficient, and customer-focused department in the entire federal government,” Perdue said in a statement. “In our Administration, we have looked critically at the way we do business, with the ultimate goal of ensuring the best service possible for our customers, and for the taxpayers of the United States.” “In some cases, this has meant realigning some of our offices and functions, or even relocating them, in order to make more logical sense or provide more streamlined and efficient services,” Perdue said. As part of the reorganization, Perdue is also moving the Economic Research Service (ERS) out from under the USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics branch. The ERS will be placed back in the Office of the Chief…

Read the full story

Drones Can Help Farmers Grow Better Crops

Admin
farmland

by Elizabeth Lee   The tools available for farming have come a long way since Dale Cope was a boy. “One of my chores for my parents is to go weed the garden with a hoe. Now, I’m not going to send a hoe out there, I’m going to fly out there with my drone, and I’m going to take care of the weeds that way,” said Cope, associate professor of practice, Texas A&M Department of Mechanical Engineering. He and a team of researchers at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, are studying how unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, can be used in agriculture to help farmers. Researchers said within the next 10 years, drones can become an important tool in precision agriculture for farmers around the world. “You can know where to apply pesticides, fungicides (and) fertilizer in specific areas of the field instead of doing the entire field,” said Cope. Conventionally, crop consultants would walk the fields looking for problematic weeds, insects and diseases, which is time-consuming, expensive and not completely accurate. “If drones can be employed, it would save a lot of time. It would be a lot more effective and accurate,” said…

Read the full story

How the Term ‘Social Justice Warrior’ Became an Insult

Admin
social justice warrior

by Abigail Herbst   Virtually everyone has heard of the term social justice warrior by now. The term has become quite popular the past few years—so big in fact, that the Oxford Dictionary added it to their dictionary in 2015. Most people by now know that when someone is accused of being a social justice warrior, it is probably not a compliment. But people who have not heard of social justice warriors may be a bit mystified by this insult. The name itself—social justice warrior—seems to refer to people who fight on behalf of society’s downtrodden. How can calling someone a social justice warrior be an insult? The answer to this question has a lot to do with connotation—the ideas or feelings attached to a word. For example, compare the difference between calling a building a house and a home. House and home may be defined the same way, but they have different connotations. A house brings to mind a building where you spend your days. A home brings to mind a place of warmth, laughter, and family. The term social justice warrior is governed by connotations as well. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a social justice warrior is a derogatory term for “A person…

Read the full story

Trump Clobbers James Comey For Hurting The FBI’s ‘Once Stellar Reputation’

Admin
Donald Trump, James Comey

by Chris White   President Donald Trump criticized former FBI Director James Comey and several other federal investigators involved in the Russian investigation Saturday for damaging the agency’s reputation. Trump thrashed Comey and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Twitter for using the nearly two-year long probe to tarnish the agency’s image. He also warned the agency not to slow walk public requests for text messages between former investigators Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. “Why isn’t the FBI giving Andrew McCabe text messages to Judicial Watch or appropriate governmental authorities. FBI said they won’t give up even one (I may have to get involved, DO NOT DESTROY).” Trump tweeted before mentioning McCabe’s wife’s involvement in Democratic politics. Why isn’t the FBI giving Andrew McCabe text messages to Judicial Watch or appropriate governmental authorities. FBI said they won’t give up even one (I may have to get involved, DO NOT DESTROY). What are they hiding? McCabe wife took big campaign dollars from Hillary people….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2018 He added in an additional tweet: “Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other…

Read the full story

Commentary: Libertarians and Donald Trump’s #MAGA Republican Party

Admin
Donald Trump

by Jeffery Rendall   Does Donald Trump upset your libertarian soul? It’s a question conservatives and Republicans are asking of late, especially in the wake of the president’s unbending defense of his America First trade policy and always front-and-center advocacy for sealing America’s southern border (as well as his travel ban and other proposed shifts in immigration procedure that would effectively limit the number and types of legal immigrants). Trump’s fondness for big government resolutions and big spending has the liberty movement upset. It’s a crack in the GOP coalition that could easily widen if not addressed. Such Trumpian measures reek of system generated “solutions,” something dyed in the wool libertarians profess to abhor. There aren’t many such (pure libertarian) creatures in elected politics these days – at least not in the Washington swamp – but those who are here are becoming restless with Trump’s willful use of state power and resources to achieve his aims. In a piece titled “Donald Trump and the libertarian crack-up,” W. James Antle III wrote at the Washington Examiner last week, “Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., confirmed on Monday he would vote for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh despite concerns over his Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Rep. Justin Amash,…

Read the full story

Storm Clouds Gather Over Nation’s Largest Union as Legal Protections Fall Away

Admin
SEIU

By Richard McCarty   The nation’s largest union had a run of good luck during the Obama years, but the last couple of years have been rough for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). For those not familiar with the union, SEIU claims 2 million members and is composed of janitors, security guards, child care workers, health care workers, bus drivers, social workers, grad students, and adjunct professors, among others. During the 2016 election, SEIU vainly spent millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton. Weeks after Clinton lost, SEIU Texas declared bankruptcy, and SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry announced the union must plan for a 30 percent cut in SEIU International’s budget by the start of this year. SEIU Texas filed for bankruptcy because it had lost a lawsuit and been ordered to pay $7.8 million to Professional Janitorial Services. The union had been angry that the company’s president refused to waive a secret-ballot unionization election so it had unfairly and maliciously attacked the company causing it to lose clients. Last summer, SEIU International bailed out SEIU Texas and confidentially settled the case. Elsewhere, due to allegations of sexual harassment, three SEIU employees have been fired, two resigned, and another was suspended over the past year. Of these six employees,…

Read the full story

Marsha Blackburn Responds to ‘Hurtful’ Violent Remarks Steve Cohen Made About Jumping Off Bridge

Jason M. Reynolds
Marsha Blackburn

Ed Henry of Fox News interviewed Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn Friday about U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen’s violent remarks about her. Henry remarked, “It seems like incivility in politics is growing worse by the day.” He then played audio of Cohen (D-TN-09) saying he wished President Donald Trump would tell U.S. Rep. Blackburn (R-TN-07) to jump off a bridge in Memphis. The increasingly erratic Memphis Democrat made the statements at a prayer breakfast last month that was hosted by former Gov. Phil Bredesen, Blackburn’s opponent in the Senate race. The audio recording revealed that Cohen said, “The big orange president…he’s going to come down here and he’s going to endorse Marsha Blackburn, because Marsha Blackburn – if he says, ‘Jump off the Harahan Bridge,’ she’ll jump off the Harahan Bridge. I wish he’d say that.” Henry asked Blackburn for her reaction to the recording and Cohen’s claim he was joking. Blackburn said, “It’s hurtful to hear that. Steve is someone who was a colleague of mine in the state Senate and then we’ve served in Congress together. I have worked with him on issues like infant mortality issues in Shelby County, and we serve in the same delegation so…

Read the full story