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What do vaping and offshore drilling have in common? Amendment 9.

The Sunshine State is no stranger to high drama come election season. This year, Florida is the place to watch if you’re curious how toxic algae has changed the Senate race or how Puerto Rican émigrés are shaping policy on the mainland. It’s also the place to be for voters with a disdain for both fossil fuels and e-cigarette vapors — they’ll get a chance to hit two birds with just one ticked oval on the ballot.

If passed, Amendment 9 would ban both offshore drilling and indoor vaping in the state constitution. A series of unusual events has led to the pairing, which only could have happened in Florida.

Florida is the sole state that appoints a commission with the power to refer constitutional amendments to the ballot. This Constitution Revision Commission only forms once every 20 years — and this is the lucky year. It exercised a unique power: “bundling” several proposals that span multiple issues into a single amendment. In contrast, if a proposed amendment were to make it to the ballot via petition, it’s bound by a “single-subject rule” aimed at preventing “log-rolling” — forcing voters to compromise one issue for another, or leading an unpopular measure to success by tying it to a more likable cause.

“Grouping some ideas which share common elements is for the benefit of the voter,” Brecht Heuchan, chair of the commission’s Style & Drafting Committee, said in a press release. “Grouping some ideas together keeps the ballot from becoming too lengthy to complete.”

The commission is now defending that reasoning in court after a retired Florida Supreme Court justice challenged six amendments on the ballot — including Amendment 9 — and charged the commission with “a form of issue gerrymandering.” In early September, a circuit judge sided with the plaintiff and ruled to have the amendments taken off the ballot, but Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly appealed.

“I’m hopeful and I have every reason to believe it will be on the ballot from November,” Lisa Carlton, author of the proposal to limit where e-cigarettes can be used, tells Grist. “We’ll have to wait and see what the final decision is.”

Carlton, a former Republican state senator, was appointed to this year’s Constitution Revision Commission by Governor Rick Scott. When it comes to pairing her proposal with a stop to offshore drilling, she’s enthusiastic.

“The issues together send a message of clean air, clean water,” says Carlton, who believes her original proposal encompassed both health and environmental benefits. “I cannot think of anything more important than protecting our near shores in Florida,” she says.

Others are worried about marrying the two issues. The Florida League of Women Voters’ endorsement of the amendment comes with a caveat: “Our concern for the environment overrides our concern about putting vaping in the Constitution.”

“Frankly, bundling offshore drilling with vaping — it’s laughable,” says Patricia Brigham, president of the Florida League of Women Voters. Asking Floridians to vote on an amendment that encompasses unrelated issues puts voters in a difficult position, she says. It also makes the amendment harder to understand.

Another pairing that has left some voters scratching their heads is an amendment that addresses both college fees and death benefits for spouses of first responders and military members killed in the line of duty.

Manley Fuller is the president and CEO of Florida Wildlife Federation, the organization that wrote the language on offshore drilling now included in Amendment 9. He wasn’t happy about the bundling at first, either — but if his organization was going to be forced to tango with anybody, he’s glad it happened to be the vaping measure.

“There were other [proposals] which were much more complicated and very divergent,” Fuller says. “Vaping was probably the least objectionable.”

It’s been a long battle to stop offshore drilling. Only recently has it become a cause with bipartisan support. Rick Scott opposed a similar constitutional ban in 2010, but he’s now running to keep his seat on a platform that challenges the Trump administration’s attempts to expand offshore drilling. If passed, Amendment 9 offers permanent protection of the state’s shores and marine habitats.

“The reason we need to put it in the constitution is to send a clear message that Floridians do not want oil or gas drilling in our state marine waters,” says Fuller.

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What do vaping and offshore drilling have in common? Amendment 9.

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These Four Cases Will Quickly Show Who Gorsuch Really Is

Mother Jones

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When newly minted Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch takes the bench later this month, he will likely have an immediate impact on a court that has been somewhat paralyzed since the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February last year. The court, evenly divided with eight members, has waited to tackle a number of potentially thorny cases, either because they were unable to agree on whether to hear them or they were reluctant to adjudicate them. Gorsuch has been confirmed just in time to change all that.

He will also shape the future when, on April 13, he participates in his first court conference, where the justices decide which new cases to hear in the new term and which they’re rejecting. Decisions from that meeting may demonstrate quickly whether fears Senate Democrats have raised about his views on everything from religious freedom to gay rights to corporate power were on target.

Here are a few of the pending cases where Gorsuch will have an opportunity to make an early mark:

Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission: In 2012, a Colorado baker named Jack Phillips refused to make a custom wedding cake for two men getting married in Massachusetts, one of the few states where same-sex marriage was legal at the time. The couple was planning a reception in Colorado, where they lived and wanted to celebrate. Phillips claimed making the cake would violate his religious beliefs. The couple sued and has prevailed at every level in Colorado courts, which found that baking a gay wedding cake would not violate Phillips’ free speech or religious freedom rights, but refusing to make one would constitute illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation.The case has been stuck in conference purgatory, relisted multiple times for consideration, but probably not for long.

The gay-cake case seems custom-made for Gorsuch, who was one of the lower court judges who ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, the craft store that claimed providing health insurance to its employees that covered contraception violated its corporate religious freedom rights. The Supreme Court later upheld the ruling in a 5-4 decision, and critics have warned it will be used to justify the kind of anti-gay discrimination at issue in the cake case. The presence of Gorsuch on the high court, instead of Merrick Garland, President Obama’s court nominee who was denied the seat by Senate Republicans, is likely to be decisive. It probably doesn’t bode well for the LGBT community, despite Gorsuch’s claims to have gay friends.

Salazar-Limon v Houston: Even though police shootings have been in the news and the source of intense protest over the past couple of years, the eight-member Supreme Court seems to have been reluctant to wade into the fray. This case is another one that’s been languishing at the court for many months, waiting for a decision on whether it will be heard. It involves what might be called the “reaching for the waistband” defense frequently deployed by cops who shoot unarmed people of color.

In 2010, 25-year-old Mexican immigrant Ricardo Salazar-Limon had a wife, children, and a construction job. One night after a long day of work, he was out with friends and driving to see another friend when a Houston cop pulled him over for speeding. He had no criminal record, no outstanding warrants, a valid drivers’ license, and insurance on his truck. He was in the country legally and was unarmed. But the cop told Salazar he was going to jail and tried to put him in handcuffs. Salazar jerked back and walked towards his vehicle, annoyed because the officer refused to even tell him why he might be going to jail. As he was walking the officer told him to stop and then shot him in the back, leaving Salazar paralyzed from the waist down.

Salazar sued the police department alleging excessive force. In his defense, the officer claimed that he feared for his life when he shot Salazar because he had moved his hands towards his waistband while walking away. It’s the same argument that’s been employed by cops in at least two other shootings of unarmed citizens in Houston, and it works. The District Court dismissed Salazar’s case, and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision. The Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether a court can dismiss a case against an officer in a suit for excessive force “by concluding that it is an ‘undisputed fact’ that the person reached for his waistband just because the officer said he did.”

The facts in this case are infuriating, yet it’s clear that the court has been unable to get the requisite four votes needed to hear it. Whether Gorsuch will provide that additional vote is anyone’s guess, but criminal justice reformers shouldn’t hold out hope that he’ll change the outcome. He’s ruled in a similar case before. In 2013, he wrote the majority opinion in a 10th Circuit ruling dismissing a lawsuit brought by the parents of a man who was tased in head by a cop and died. The cops in that case also used a “reached for his waistband” defense.

Alaska Oil and Gas Association v. Zinke: One of the biggest concerns raised by those opposing Gorsuch’s confirmation was that his record suggested he would be hostile to environmental regulations and the agencies that create them. That theory will be tested soon after Gorsuch’s swearing in, with a case involving the fate of polar bears.

In 2008, the Bush administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service officially declared the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Two years later, the agency designated 187,000 square miles around the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Alaskan North Slope as critical habitat for the bears, which created new restrictions on oil drilling in the region. The Alaskan oil industry sued and alleged that the Fish and Wildlife Service had overreached and made an arbitrary decision in selecting the boundaries for the critical habitat. The trial court partially agreed, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision and sided with the wildlife agency. The appeal of that decision is pending before the Supreme Court, which will decide in the next few months whether to hear the case.

Federal agency overreach is something Gorsuch has a clear record on. He wrote a lengthy concurrence to one of his own opinions on the 10th Circuit, calling on the Supreme Court to limit the requirement that judges defer to federal agencies such as Fish and Wildlife when considering the implementation of laws made by Congress. This may be a sign that, despite his love of skiing, Gorsuch probably is not going to side with the polar bears.

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer: The court agreed to hear this case last year, shortly before Justice Scalia died, but it took its own sweet time scheduling it for oral arguments. When it finally did, a year later, the case was set for the second-to-last week of arguments for the term. The court’s reluctance to decide this case may stem from the fact that it’s the most controversial church-state separation case on the docket this year, and the closest thing to a culture war case that’s likely to break out before the court recesses in June.

Here’s how we described it last fall:

A Michigan church applied for a grant from Missouri’s Scrap Tire Grant program for assistance resurfacing a playground at its preschool with a safer, rubber top made of old tires. While the church’s grant proposal was well rated, the state ultimately turned it down because the state constitution prohibits direct aid to a church. The church sued, with help from a legion of lawyers fresh off the gay marriage battles. They argue that Missouri’s prohibition, originally conceived as part of an anti-Catholic movement, violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, especially when the money was going to a purely secular use.

While this might have been an easy win for the church before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who was on the court when the justices took the case in January, the remaining eight-members might not be quite so well-disposed to rule in its favor. Forcing taxpayers to underwrite improvements to church property is in direct conflict with some of the court’s earlier rulings. Critics see a ruling for the church as a slippery-slope sort of argument, leading to compulsory government support of religion, which the Founders deeply opposed.

Once again, Gorsuch’s views in Hobby Lobby and religious freedom seem likely to predispose him to support church, but we’ll know more about his position on April 19, when he will be on the bench for the oral arguments in this case.

Liberal court watchers, having lost the confirmation fight, are now moving into breath-holding mode as they look to these cases for clues as to just what sort of justice Gorsuch is really going to be. As Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center said Friday, “Now that he has been confirmed, we certainly hope that Justice Gorsuch will fulfill Judge Gorsuch’s commitments: To be an independent jurist, to be a good judge who respects precedent, to be an originalist who respects the Constitution’s radical guarantee of equality, and follows the text and history of the Constitution wherever it leads.She added, “The burden remains on Gorsuch to prove that he will be a Justice who fairly applies the law and the Constitution and does not, contrary to President Trump’s promises, just represent certain segments of the population.”

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These Four Cases Will Quickly Show Who Gorsuch Really Is

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Donald Trump’s Foreign Business Partners Got VIP Treatment During the Inauguration

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump vowed to wall himself off from his business interests when he became president—but at least two of his wealthy foreign business partners attended his inauguration as VIPs, where they watched the swearing-in from prime seats, partied with Trump insiders, and posed for pictures with Trump’s children and grandchildren. Here’s just one example of their incredible access during the inaugural festivities: The wife of one of Trump’s partners, Indonesian billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo, posted a video from inside a vehicle driving the locked-down parade route after the ceremony, as police officers stood at attention and spectators waited behind barricades for a glimpse of the new first family.

Penjagaan ketat dan ratusan ribu penonton memadati pinggir jalan protokoler untuk melihat “inaugural parade”

A video posted by liliana tanoesoedibjo (@liliana_tanoesoedibjo) on Jan 20, 2017 at 2:52pm PST

Despite repeated warnings from ethics experts that he needed to take dramatic steps to separate himself from his sprawling business empire, Trump entered the Oval Office with unprecedented conflicts of interest, including lucrative partnerships with a slew of rich foreign developers around the globe. At a press conference on January 11, Trump announced he would place his assets in a trust controlled by his sons—though not a blind trust, as experts had recommended—and that his company would cease cutting new deals with foreign interests during his time in office.

But Trump made clear that existing foreign deals would remain in place. Partners in two of those projects—Tanoesoedibjo, with whom Trump is developing a pair of luxury resorts in Indonesia, and Hussain Sajwani, a Dubai-based real estate developer who has licensed Trump’s name for luxury villas and lush desert golf courses—attended the inaugural festivities.

The conflict-of-interest laws that govern all other federal employees don’t apply to the president, but Trump’s foreign entanglements take him into ethically murky terrain. Some experts, including the lawyers who advised George W. Bush and Barack Obama, believe some of his dealings with foreign partners could violate the Constitution. Days into his presidency, in fact, Trump was hit with a lawsuit spearheaded by prominent ethics lawyers alleging that he is in breach of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving financial benefits from foreign governments. The clause typically applies to payments or gifts from foreign officials and governments, but Tanoesoedibjo offers a good example of just how convoluted Trump’s conflict issues could become. Tanoesoedibjo, who has previously run for office in Indonesia, has formed his own political party and, in the wake of Trump’s victory, is contemplating his own presidential run.

Both Tanoesoedibjo and his wife, Liliana, documented their trip to the inauguration on Instagram, starting with a pre-inauguration visit to New York, where the couple met with Donald and Eric Trump at Trump Tower and then lunched with Donald Jr.

In Washington, the couple posted photos of themselves at their room at the Trump hotel, at a reception where they mingled with a Trump resort executive, and on the steps of the US Capitol at the inaugural ceremony, where Tanoesoedibjo gave an interview to Voice of America. In the interview, Tanoesoedibjo dismissed conflict-of-interest concerns over Trump’s business dealings with foreign partners.

Trump’s inaugural committee offered major perks to donors who contributed at least $100,000 toward the event, including a complimentary shuttle service to ferry them and their guests to and from events. But as foreign nationals, the Tanoesoedibjos—and the Sajwanis—are prohibited by law from contributing to this or other political committees. Neither the White House nor the Trump Organization responded to requests for comment about the Tanoesoedibjos’ and Sajwanis’ attendance at the inauguration.

After the swearing-in ceremony, the Tanoesoedibjos posted more photos of the festivities, including some showing them posing with the families of Eric and Donald Trump Jr.

The Tanoesoedibjos’ social-media posts also show that Hussain Sajwani attended Trump’s inauguration. Sajwani is a wealthy Middle Eastern businessman, based in Dubai, where he is the chairman of DAMAC Properties, a real estate development firm that has partnered with Trump to open Trump-branded golf courses and luxury villas in Dubai. The newest course is set to open early next month. At Trump’s New Year’s Eve celebration at Mar-a-Lago, he praised Sajwani, who he said was in attendance.

At his January 11 press conference, Trump said he was so committed to eliminating possible conflicts of interest that he had recently turned down a new deal with Sajwani.

“Over the weekend I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great great developer from the Middle East,” Trump said. “Hussein, DAMAC, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down. I didn’t have to turn it down because as you know I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president.”

But he didn’t address his ongoing deals with Sajwani. According to Trump’s last personal financial disclosure, filed in May, the president earns between $2 million and $10 million a year from his licensing deals with DAMAC.

Bersama Hussain Sajwani, Chairman & CEO Damac Group, perusahaan properti dari Dubai, partner Trump Organization

A photo posted by Hary Tanoesoedibjo (@hary.tanoesoedibjo) on Jan 21, 2017 at 1:38am PST

In an interview earlier this month, Sajwani reportedly said he thought Trump’s election would be good for his business. “Naturally, I think we will benefit from the strength of the brand going forward,” he told CNBC.

In an Instagram post just hours after the inauguration, Ali Sajwani, Hussain Sajwani’s son, was more effusive, writing that “the world is looking forward to a lucrative eight years ahead!”

With the man who will #MakeAmericaGreatAgain !

It’s not clear whether the younger Sajwani (who describes himself as an owner of DAMAC on his LinkedIn page and public bio) attended the inauguration or if the photo is from an earlier encounter. A spokesman for DAMAC did not return a request for comment.

Update: A third foreign business associate attended Trump’s inauguration and posted photographs of the festivities on Instagram. Joo Kim Tiah, the son of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest men, is Trump’s partner on his new Vancouver hotel tower, slated to open in early February.

A photo posted by Joo Kim Tiah (@jookimtiah) on Jan 20, 2017 at 9:39pm PST

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Donald Trump’s Foreign Business Partners Got VIP Treatment During the Inauguration

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Self-driving truck uses first shipment to deliver Budweiser. Sigh.

Turns out, they’re not all true.

The Republican presidential nominee appeared on Herman Cain’s radio show on Tuesday, and he had quite a bit to say about wind and solar power, and birds too. Here’s part of the transcript, courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with our fact-checking notes added in brackets:

Trump: Our energy companies are a disaster right now. Coal. The coal business is — you know, there is such a thing as clean coal [False]. Our miners are out of work — now they’re just attacking energy companies like I’ve never seen them attack anything before.

They want everything to be wind and solar. Unfortunately, it’s not working on large-scale [False]. It’s just not working [False]. Solar is very, very expensive [False]. Wind is very, very expensive [False], and it only works when it’s windy [False].

Cain: Right.

Trump: Someone might need a little electricity — a lot of times, it’s the opposite season, actually. When they have it, that’s when you don’t need it. So wind is very problematic [False] and — I’m not saying I’m against those things. I’m for everything. I’m for everything.

Cain: Right.

Trump: But they are destroying our energy companies with regulation [False]. They’re absolutely destroying them [False].

Cain: But their viability has to be demonstrated before you shove it down the throats of the American people. That’s what you’re saying.

Trump: In all fairness, wind is fine [True]. Sometimes you go — I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Palm Springs, California — it looks like a junkyard [False]. They have all these different —

Cain: I have.

Trump: They have all these different companies and each one is made by a different group from, all from China and from Germany, by the way — not from here [False]. And you look at all these windmills. Half of them are broken [False]. They’re rusting and rotting. You know, you’re driving into Palm Springs, California, and it looks like a poor man’s version of Disneyland [False]. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen [False].

And it kills all the birds [False]. I don’t know if you know that … Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they’ve killed so many eagles [False]. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds [False].

But solar and wind power are on a meteoric rise, whether Trump likes it or not.

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Self-driving truck uses first shipment to deliver Budweiser. Sigh.

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Junk food is a human rights issue, a U.N. expert warns.

Turns out, they’re not all true.

The Republican presidential nominee appeared on Herman Cain’s radio show on Tuesday, and he had quite a bit to say about wind and solar power, and birds too. Here’s part of the transcript, courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with our fact-checking notes added in brackets:

Trump: Our energy companies are a disaster right now. Coal. The coal business is — you know, there is such a thing as clean coal [False]. Our miners are out of work — now they’re just attacking energy companies like I’ve never seen them attack anything before.

They want everything to be wind and solar. Unfortunately, it’s not working on large-scale [False]. It’s just not working [False]. Solar is very, very expensive [False]. Wind is very, very expensive [False], and it only works when it’s windy [False].

Cain: Right.

Trump: Someone might need a little electricity — a lot of times, it’s the opposite season, actually. When they have it, that’s when you don’t need it. So wind is very problematic [False] and — I’m not saying I’m against those things. I’m for everything. I’m for everything.

Cain: Right.

Trump: But they are destroying our energy companies with regulation [False]. They’re absolutely destroying them [False].

Cain: But their viability has to be demonstrated before you shove it down the throats of the American people. That’s what you’re saying.

Trump: In all fairness, wind is fine [True]. Sometimes you go — I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Palm Springs, California — it looks like a junkyard [False]. They have all these different —

Cain: I have.

Trump: They have all these different companies and each one is made by a different group from, all from China and from Germany, by the way — not from here [False]. And you look at all these windmills. Half of them are broken [False]. They’re rusting and rotting. You know, you’re driving into Palm Springs, California, and it looks like a poor man’s version of Disneyland [False]. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen [False].

And it kills all the birds [False]. I don’t know if you know that … Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they’ve killed so many eagles [False]. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds [False].

But solar and wind power are on a meteoric rise, whether Trump likes it or not.

Original article – 

Junk food is a human rights issue, a U.N. expert warns.

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Court’s CFPB Ruling Is Part of a Dangerous Trend

Mother Jones

Conservatives are thrilled about yesterday’s court decision regarding the CFPB. Here’s Iain Murray:

In a rare victory for the Constitution and American political tradition, the US Court of Appeals from the DC Circuit today found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was “structurally unconstitutional.” The offending structure consists of an independent agency with a single, all-powerful executive director. The Court found that structure fell between two stools — an agency with a single head needs to be accountable to the President, while an independent agency needs to have internal checks and balances by having a multi-member commission format like the SEC and others.

This judgment echoes the arguments the Competitive Enterprise Institute and its co-plaintiffs have been making in a separate court case, where my colleague Hans Bader argued, “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s lack of checks and balances violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. Its director is like a czar. He is not accountable to anyone, and can’t be fired even if voters elect a president with different ideas about how to protect consumers.

There’s no telling if this ruling will hold up on appeal, but if it does, the CFPB director will now serve at the pleasure of the president. This means that President Trump could fire Jeopardy champion Richard Cordray and instead install Apprentice champion Omarosa to oversee America’s financial industry. Luckily, it appears we will be spared that indignity.

I don’t expect this ruling to have a big impact in real life. Basically, it means that a new president will be able to install a new CFPB director immediately instead of having to wait a year or two for the old one to finish out her term. In the long run that’s likely to have a neutral effect on party control of the bureau. As for being able to fire the director without cause, that’s mostly hemmed in by political considerations anyway.

At a practical level, then, I don’t have much heartburn over this. On a more abstract level, though, it represents a disturbing trend from conservatives. In this case, their real problem with the CFPB is that they don’t want to regulate the financial industry at all. Likewise, their problem with Obamacare is that they don’t want to provide poor people with health coverage. Their problem with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is that they hate regulations that offend their business backers.

But conservatives can’t go to court on those grounds, and there’s nothing obviously illegal or unconstitutional about any of these liberal initiatives. So instead they contrive some other hair-splitting argument. The CFPB is too independent. The individual mandate violates a shiny new constitutional doctrine custom built just for Obamacare. The Clean Power Plan uses the wrong interpretation of the word “system.” These arguments vary in their legitimacy, but that hardly matters. Their goal is not legal brilliance. Their goal is to provide conservative justices with a facade they can use to overturn liberal legislation.

And it works, because these days conservative justices treat hot button cases—and, tellingly, only hot button cases—as a way to enforce their political opinions when they can’t do so through the ballot box. This is not a healthy trend.

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Court’s CFPB Ruling Is Part of a Dangerous Trend

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The Justice Department Just Sued Ferguson for "Routine Violation" of Residents’ Civil Rights

Mother Jones

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The US Justice Department has sued the city of Ferguson, Missouri, following months of “painstaking negotiations” with local officials and more than a year of investigating their alleged discriminatory and unconstitutional practices.

The Justice Department launched its investigation into the Ferguson Police Department after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer in August 2014, sparking months of protest across the country and public outcry over the use of deadly and excessive force by the police.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the Justice Department was filing a lawsuit against Ferguson one day after the city council rejected a proposed settlement that sought to “remedy literally years of systematic deficiencies.” The Justice Department spent more than six months negotiating a settlement with local officials after it identified widespread civil rights violations and racial discrimination in the Ferguson Police Department’s stops, searches, and arrests. It also alleges that local court proceedings violated the due process of residents. The city council’s rejection of the agreement, Lynch said, “leaves us no further choice.”

Here is the full text of the lawsuit:

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Ferguson-DOJ-Lawsuit (PDF)

Ferguson-DOJ-Lawsuit (Text)

Here’s the full text of Lynch’s remarks:

Good afternoon and thank you all for being here. I am joined by Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division.

Nearly a year ago, the Department of Justice released our findings in an investigation of the Police Department of Ferguson, Missouri. Our investigation uncovered a community in distress, in which residents felt under assault by their own police force. The Ferguson Police Department’s violations were expansive and deliberate. They violated the Fourth Amendment by stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without cause and using unreasonable force. They made enforcement decisions based on the way individuals expressed themselves and unnecessarily escalated non-threatening situations. These violations were not only egregious – they were routine. They were encouraged by the city in the interest of raising revenue. They were driven, at least in part, by racial bias and occurred disproportionately against African-American residents. And they were profoundly and fundamentally unconstitutional. These findings were based upon information received from Ferguson’s own citizens, from Ferguson’s own records and from Ferguson’s own officials. And they demonstrated a clear pattern or practice of violations of the Constitution and federal law.

After announcing our findings one year ago, we began negotiations with the city of Ferguson on a court-enforceable consent decree that would bring about necessary police and court reform. From the outset, we made clear that our goal was to reach an agreement to avoid litigation. But we also made clear that if there was no agreement, we would be forced to go to court to protect the rights of Ferguson residents. Painstaking negotiations lasted more than 26 weeks as we sought to remedy literally years of systematic deficiencies. A few weeks ago, the Department of Justice and Ferguson’s own negotiators came to an agreement that was both fair and cost-effective – and that would provide all the residents of Ferguson the constitutional and effective policing and court practices guaranteed to all Americans. As agreed, it was presented to the Ferguson City Council for approval or rejection. And last night, the city council rejected the consent decree approved by their own negotiators. Their decision leaves us no further choice.

Today, the Department of Justice is filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the city of Ferguson, Missouri, alleging a pattern or practice of law enforcement conduct that violates the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution and federal civil rights laws. We intend to aggressively prosecute this case and I have no doubt that we will prevail.

The residents of Ferguson have waited nearly a year for their city to adopt an agreement that would protect their rights and keep them safe. They have waited nearly a year for their police department to accept rules that would ensure their constitutional rights and that thousands of other police departments follow every day. They have waited nearly a year for their municipal courts to commit to basic, reasonable rules and standards. But as our report made clear, the residents of Ferguson have suffered the deprivation of their constitutional rights – the rights guaranteed to all Americans – for decades. They have waited decades for justice. They should not be forced to wait any longer.

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The Justice Department Just Sued Ferguson for "Routine Violation" of Residents’ Civil Rights

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Watch the Moment the Gloves Finally Came Off Between Trump and Cruz at the GOP Debate

Mother Jones

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During Thursday’s GOP debate, Sen. Ted Cruz was forced to weigh in on his eligibility to run for president of the United States—a controversy Donald Trump has been vigorously fanning as the Canadian-born senator has risen in the polls.

Cruz’s initial annoyance was palpable, but it was clear he was prepared for the “birther” issue to come up. Throughout the campaign, Cruz has avoided hitting back against Trump. But this was the moment the gloves finally came off.

“The Constitution hasn’t changed,” Cruz said. “But the poll numbers have. And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling.”

Watch the tense exchange below:

Link: 

Watch the Moment the Gloves Finally Came Off Between Trump and Cruz at the GOP Debate

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Texas Governor Wants to Add 9 New Amendments to the Constitution

Mother Jones

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has a plan to make America great again: Add nine new amendments to the Constitution. On Friday, fed up with Supreme Court rulings that have gone against conservatives as well as the regulatory actions of the Obama administration, the first-term Republican issued a 92-page report outlining his proposed tweaks to the founding document and calling for a national constitutional convention to make it happen.

The “Texas Plan” is as follows:

I. Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.

II. Require Congress to balance its budget.

III. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from creating federal law.

IV. Prohibit administrative agencies—and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them—from preempting state law.

V. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

VI. Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.

VII. Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.

VIII. Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.

IX. Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a federal law or regulation.

Clearly, Abbott has been listening to way too much of the Hamilton soundtrack.

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Texas Governor Wants to Add 9 New Amendments to the Constitution

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Oregon Sheriff Handling School Massacre Shared a Sandy Hook Conspiracy Video

Mother Jones

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The month after the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County, Oregon, posted a video called “The Sandy Hook Shooting – Fully Exposed” to his personal Facebook page. The video makes a number of conspiratorial claims, including about there being more than one shooter and that the grieving parents who appeared on news reports were acting.

The sheriff, who has done an admirable job in not glorifying the perpetrator from yesterday’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College, is also an avid guns rights supporter and a possible member of the Oath Keepers, a group that claims to be upholding their oath to defend the Constitution from any perceived threats—such as expanded gun control.

Excerpt from:

Oregon Sheriff Handling School Massacre Shared a Sandy Hook Conspiracy Video

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