Category: Law

Judge refuses to release 4 accused of beating disabled youth

A Chicago judge refused to allow four black people caught on cellphone footage taunting and beating a mentally disabled white man to post bail and leave jail, saying they are accused of such “terrible actions” that they are a danger to society. “Where was your sense of decency?” Cook County Circuit Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil asked them on Friday during their first court appearance, sounding baffled that the suspects could be charged with such cruelty toward the 18-year-old victim.

Editorial, Jan. 8, 2017: Reform, dona t repeal, Obamacare

If Republican’s can’t convince Americans they have a replacement that’s better than the Affordable Care Act, then they’ll own the results. Which leads to the sneaking suspicion they don’t have an alternative that will provide equal or better coverage for about 20 million Americans who were able to obtain health insurance through Obamacare.

Judge refuses to release 4 accused of beating disabled youth

A Chicago judge refused to allow four black people caught on cellphone footage taunting and beating a mentally disabled white man to post bail and leave jail, saying they are accused of such “terrible actions” that they are a danger to society. “Where was your sense of decency?” Cook County Circuit Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil asked them on Friday during their first court appearance, sounding baffled that the suspects could be charged with such cruelty toward the 18-year-old victim.

Paul: Trump backs health repeal, replacement at same time

A Republican senator who challenged Donald Trump for the White House nomination says the president-elect “fully supports” repealing President Barack Obama’s health law only when there’s a viable alternative to replace it. Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled Congress are moving toward a vote on repeal legislation in coming weeks, but they anticipate a transition period of months or years to a replacement.

Obama Denies the MurderWave on his Watch

President Barack Obama used the Harvard Law Review to broadcast his claim that “there is no growing crime wave,” despite the crime wave that has killed 1,500 Americans in 2015 and 2016. His claim that crime has remained “near historic lows,” and his denial of the national murder spike, came in his op-ed published by the Harvard Law Review: “There is no growing crime wave.”

Judge refuses to release 4 accused of beating disabled youth

A Chicago judge refused to allow four black people caught on cellphone footage taunting and beating a mentally disabled white man to post bail and leave jail, saying they are accused of such “terrible actions” that they are a danger to society. “Where was your sense of decency?” Cook County Circuit Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil asked them on Friday during their first court appearance, sounding baffled that the suspects could be charged with such cruelty toward the 18-year-old victim.

Republicans face early stumbling blocks on Obamacare repeal

Republicans are unanimous in their desire to “repeal and replace” President Barack Obama’s signature health care law — but they are already flirting with not having the 50 votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate. Republicans have 52 seats in the Senate, meaning they can only afford to lose three members of their caucus before they cannot pass legislation without Democratic votes.

Editorials from around New England

Republican congressmen made a troubling move on Monday, voting in a private meeting to severely weaken the House’s independent ethics panel one day before the new GOP-led Congress was set to get to work. Republicans sought to make the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics subject to oversight by the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers, the very people the Office of Congressional Ethics is meant to police.

Hate-Crime Charges Filed in Attack on Mentally Disabled Man in Chicago

Family spokesman David Boyd and others hold a news conference Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017, in Crystal Lake, Ill., after an 18-year-old man was assaulted in Chicago earlier this week. Four people were charged with hate crimes Thursday in connection with a video broadcast live on Facebook that showed a mentally disabled white man being beaten and taunted, threatened with a knife and forced to drink from a toilet.

Poll: Most Americans Say Don’t Repeal Obamacare Without A Replacement

An overwhelming majority of people disapprove of Republican lawmakers’ plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act without having a ready replacement for the health care law, according to a poll released Friday. And judging by the letter-writing and lobbying in the first week of the new Congressional session, many health care and business groups agree.

‘There was no intent to murder. There was no violence.’ But he’s been locked up 32 years.

NORMAN BRYANT was just 15 on Jan. 29, 1985, when he joined older brother Kenneth and a 14-year-old friend in a burglary of what they believed was an empty house in West Philadelphia. When Kenneth Bryant went upstairs, he found himself face to face with the occupant, Gertrude Jones, 82. He shoved her, then went back downstairs, never mentioning the run-in to the others.

The fight to defund Planned Parenthood has very little to do…

In a one-two punch, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that Republicans plan to defund Planned Parenthood when they try to repeal the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Thursday morning, Planned Parenthood launched a national campaign focused on keeping Republicans in Congress from gutting the healthcare law, and from passing legislation to “defund” the organization.

Dems want probe of Trump Cabinet pick over stock sales

Top Senate Democrats said Thursday that the House ethics office should investigate whether stock sales by a congressman who is now one of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks broke any laws. The Democrats cited a Wall Street Journal report last month that Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., had traded over $300,000 worth of shares in health care companies over the past four years while pushing legislation that might affect those stocks’ values.

Planned Parenthood would lose funding as part of Obamacare repeal, Ryan says

House Speaker Paul Ryan leaves a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 5. Republicans plan to strip Planned Parenthood of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding as part of their rapid push to repeal President Obama’s health-care reforms, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Thursday. Ryan said a defunding measure would appear in a special fast-track bill that is expected to pass Congress as soon as next month: “Planned Parenthood legislation would be in our reconciliation bill,” he said at a news conference, in response to a question about plans to defund the organization.

Analysis: Health care battle could decide balance of power

The messaging battle is over on repealing and replacing President Barack Obama’s health care law, and the balance of power in Washington may be at stake. Democrats believe they already lost the public opinion fight over the law once, when they pushed through the Affordable Care Act in the first place, and Republicans grabbed hold of the issue to drive Democrats into the minority.

Sen. Sherrod Brown To Fight Obamacare Repeal, Push For…

A new Republican president-elect and an allied GOP-led Congress is eager to take the nation from a predictable health market during the last two years of the Obama administration to a new era of uncertainty. This inauspicious forecast comes from Open Minds , which touts itself as having “monitored everything happening in the sectors of the health and human service field serving complex consumers” since 1987.

Repeal ‘Obamacare’, but don’t hurt consumers, says Mike Pence

The Senate voted 51-48 to begin debating a budget that will prevent Democrats from using a filibuster to block future Republican legislation to scuttle the landmark health care law Donald Trump’s “first order of business” as president will be to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” but Republicans must avoid hurting consumers as they do it, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said at the Capitol on Thursday. President Barack Obama visited Congress, too, 16 days before leaving the White House, championing his landmark overhaul before Democratic lawmakers and urging them to remind voters of how the statute has helped them.

Bernie Sanders Holds Donald Trump Accountable For His Health Care…

On Wednesday, Bernie Sanders pulled an amazing move when he presented the senate floor with a massive printout of a 2015 tweet Donald sent promising not to cut funding for medicare and medicaid. In case you weren’t following, the Senate is currently in the process of debating whether or not to repeal Obamacare, so the savage exposA couldn’t come at a better time.

After Ripping Wall Street, Trump Taps Insider to Police Industry

Donald Trump ridiculed Wall Street on the campaign trail, and frequently criticized his political opponents for their ties to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Now, Trump is relying on a lawyer who has spent his career representing financial firms, and has his own close ties to Goldman, to lead Wall Street’s top regulator. Trump will pick Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jay Clayton to run the Securities and Exchange Commission, the president-elect’s transition team said in a statement Wednesday.

Trump names Wall Street lawyer Clayton as SEC chairman

” President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday chose a Wall Street attorney with experience in corporate mergers and public stock launches as his nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump announced his nomination of Jay Clayton, a partner in the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, as chairman of the independent agency that oversees Wall Street and the financial markets.

Obama, Pence To Visit Capitol Hill for Healthcare Talks

President Barack Obama is traveling to the Capitol to give congressional Democrats advice on how to combat the Republican drive to dismantle his health care overhaul. Vice President-elect Mike Pence is meeting with GOP lawmakers to discuss the best way to send Obama’s cherished law to its graveyard and replace it with – well, something.

Newhouse co-sponsors bills on healthcare, gun rights, abortion funding, undocumented immigrants

U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., was sworn in Tuesday for his second term representing the 4th Congressional District and immediately added his name to several bills and resolutions. Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 to recognize 2nd Amendment rights by ensuring valid concealed carry permits issued in one state are valid for carrying concealed handguns in other states that also recognize their own residents’ right to conceal carry.

Honest, truthful scientist fired by DOE for not defending Obama’s climate action plan

The U.S. Department of Energy is the latest government agency to be exposed for putting politics over principle after it was revealed that a top DOE scientist was fired simply for telling the truth about climate change. Reports indicate that Noelle Metting was basically canned by the Obama administration when she was caught answering questions from a legislative committee honestly, which apparently is a major no-no when it comes to anything related to climate change policy .

Ex-death row inmate in Ohio wants new trial amid new doubts

A one-time death row inmate in Ohio whose sentence was commuted to life in prison has asked a judge for a new trial based on concerns that have surfaced about a former state crime lab worker. Attorneys for Kevin Keith are questioning whether the state forensic expert provided unreliable testimony against him at his 1994 trial.

Ex-Chicago top cop blames Black Lives Matter for surge in murders

Chicago’s disgraced top cop thinks Black Lives Matter is to blame for his city’s sharp surge in violence. Garry McCarthy – who served as the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department for nearly four years before getting fired in 2015 – went on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show on New Year’s Day and accused police brutality protesters of creating a “political atmosphere of anti-police sentiment.”

Federal Hold Up For Gold Card Gun Permits Ina

Issues with the federal government are affecting a new gun permit that went into effect New Year’s Day. It’s called the gold card and it allows South Dakotans who carry it to buy a gun, without having to go through the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

US Sen. Warren seeks to pull pot shops out of banking limbo

As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block – lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test marijuana for harmful substances to firms that provide security, don’t have their banking services taken away.

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Senior House Democrats are extolling the benefits of President Barack Obama’s health care law in hopes of derailing Republican plans to gut the statute. Speaking to reporters Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the GOP will begin its “assault” on the law when the 115th Congress convenes Tuesday.