President Obama has named West Point graduate Brenda Sue Fulton to the Board of Visitors of West Point. The board, which operates under a 1972 law is empowered to “inquire into the morale and discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods, and other matters relating to the academy that the board decides to consider.”. It is made up of seven members of Congress and six Presidential appointees. Her appointment is historic and a symbolic step forward...

The former First Lady has died at age 93. In addition to being one of the most down to earth and kind people to serve as First Lady she also made news herself on several occassions. Her openess with her battle with breast cancer helped bring a formerly taboo subject into the light and is credited with saving thousands of lives. Women who would not have otherwise asked their doctors about it did so and many were saved. The Betty Ford Center for Substance Abuse has also saved many lives. By all accounts...

Talk about a dream lawsuit and an idiotic reaction from the bank. The story is that 28 year old Ikenna Njoku received a first time homebuyer tax credit and asked the IRS to deposit the refund in his Chase bank account. The IRS sent the $ 9,000 to Chase but Njoku’s account was overdrawn, so Chase deducted the amount he owed and sent him a check for $ 8,400. He took the check to Chase to cash but the teller was suspicious and questioned the validity of the check. In fact it took so long that...

Just when you thought they could not get lower. The story is of a Syrian teenager arrested in the recent protests. Ordered by guards to call President Assad his “beloved President” he responded by using a phrase from the protests, asking for “freedom and the love of God for his country” The teen was already bound by the hands but the *eight or nine* guards responded by beating him repeatedly on the arms, legs, back, genitals, head and feet until he bled from the nose, ears,...

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has lifted off and is headed into space on the last ever shuttle mission. After 30 years of service the program is at an end. This means that the US will not have a manned program for a while, though we will send people up via the Russian program. Having heard some commentators complain about the ‘waste of money’ that NASA is I feel compelled to point out that the entire NASA budget is roughly 0.4% of the budget (in other words for ever dollar we spend less...

The last shuttle launch is on the horizon. The schedule calls for a launch at 11:23 am on Friday (Eastern Time) but the weather does not look to cooperate (70% chance of a scrub). But I do expect a launch this weekend Details can be found at the NASA website

A quake with a magnitudeof 7.8 has struck off the coast of New Zeland prompting a series of tsunami warnings for New Zeland and Tonga. The poor people have already suffered greatly, prayers that this does not result in any more suffering.

A 3 judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court Of Appeals has just ordered the stay on the court ruling that struck down be lifted. This could mean that the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy would have to stop within a matter of days, however oral arguments on the broader issue will be held at the end of August so things are not complete yet. Details to follow

A wonderful article from CNN on why equality is so important.

The Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that the Democrats and Republicans can choose one candidate to run in the special election to fill the vacancy in the 2nd Congressional District. This election came about when Congressman Heller was named to replace resigned Senator Ensign. In short the ruling says that the parties may each choose their nominee without a primary, which means the GOP candidate will be former State Senator Mark Amodei and the Democrats will run State Treasurer Kate Marshall. Had there...

She was found guilty of providing false information to law enforcement officers but was found not guilty on the key murder, manslaughter and child abuse charges. Sentencing will be Thursday

A few factoids to wrap up our Independence Day celebrations 1. The resolution on Independence was actually passed on the 2nd 2. The first public reading was on the 6th. 3. John Hancock, the first to sign, did so on August 2nd and nobody but the Congressional secretary was there to see it 4. The last signature didn’t happen until as late as 1781. So really we can keep celebrating for another month…………..

A perfect commentary on how government works these days

In 2-1 vote the US 6th District Court Of Appeals has ruled that the mandate provision of Health Care Reform is valid. As a bit of background, the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to ‘regulate commerce among the several states’. It has been determined that this allows them to regulate any activities with a significant impact on interstate commerce. One of the key cases that set down this rule was Wickard v. Filburn which had to do with government regulations on wheat farming....

UPDATE: JURY FINDS BLAGO GUILTY ON 17 COUNTS Experts are now commenting on possible sentence for Blago, looks like he’ll be looking at about a decade behind bars. The jury has convicted former Governor Soprano on 17 of the 20 counts against him. He was found not guilty on one count and they hung on two counts. He was found guilty on all counts related to the alleged (or perhaps no longer alleged) effort to sell President Obama’s US Senate seat. Some of the charges he was found guilty...

It isn’t done but it’s over. The 33rd Senator just confirmed a YES vote New York stands up for freedom ! ************************************ Amendment has passed 36-26 AP reporting ‘Veteran GOP Senator to vote Yes’ That should give us vote #33 ************************************************ The debate is currently proceeding on an amendment to provide protections for religious organizations and the assumption is if it passes the bill will too. The amendment would mean churches...

The greatest detective ever to work for the LAPD has passed. Feel free to share your favorite episodes and films by the great Mr. Falk

While the topic of marriage equality has dominated the media the last few days the issue of DADT remains important and I came across some comments that I thought worth sharing “Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple. It says, ‘Raise an army.’ It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation.” How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” Now I think these...

While I have been reluctant to make too much of this story news is coming out this morning that he will resign from the House, hopefully allowing us to focus on real stuff. A news conference is set fot 2pm in New York.

The court voted 4-3 to uphold the law and was very critical of the lower court ruling. This particular case centered on whether the legislature violated the open meetings law which requires 24 hours notice of votes on a law. This law was passed with only 2 hours notice. The court based the decision on the fact that the 24 hour law is held to apply to regular committee meetings but not to conference committee meetings. There was a specific exemption written into the law for this purpose. Needless...