My toothpaste caused me to fail a court-required breathalyzer. He had that condition imposed after a DUI accident that injured two people in a hit-and-run. Yes, he's a Democrat.
A Massachusetts state senator who injured two people in a hit-and-run accident has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to six months of home confinement.
Sen. Anthony Galluccio, a Democrat, pleaded guilty Friday to leaving the scene of the Oct. 4 accident in his hometown of Cambridge.
The 42-year-old has said he made a "serious error in judgment" when he drove away after his SUV rear-ended another vehicle. A 13-year-old boy and his father had minor injuries.
In Cambridge District Court on Friday, Galluccio said he deeply regrets his actions.
The judge ordered Galluccio to surrender his driver's license for five years and submit to random alcohol testing.
While he is on home confinement, Galluccio can still attend Senate sessions and votes. However, on Tuesday, Galluccio failed several breathalyzer tests, a possible violation of his probation. He blamed his toothpaste, saying it contained sorbitol, a chemical that can distort results..
Upon examination of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment to the health care legislation, Senators discovered section 3403. That section changes the rules of the United States Senate.
To change the rules of the United States Senate, there must be sixty-seven votes.
Section 3403 of Senator Harry Reid’s amendment requires that “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”The good news is that this only applies to one section of the Obamacare legislation. The bad news is that it applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Panels.
Section 3403 of Senator Reid’s legislation also states, “Notwithstanding rule XV of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a committee amendment described in subparagraph (A) may include matter not within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Finance if that matter is relevant to a proposal contained in the bill submitted under subsection (c)(3).” In short, it sets up a rule to ignore another Senate rule.
Senator Jim DeMint confronted the Democrats over Reid’s language. In the past, the Senate Parliamentarian has repeatedly determined that any legislation that also changes the internal standing rules of the Senate must have a two-thirds vote to pass because to change Senate rules, a two-thirds vote is required. Today, the Senate President, acting on the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, ruled that these rules changes are actually just procedural changes and, despite what the actual words of the legislation say, are not rules changes. Therefore, a two-thirds vote is not needed in contravention to longstanding Senate precedent.
How is that constitutional? It is just like the filibuster. Only 51 votes are needed to pass the amendments, but internally, the Senate is deciding that it will not consider certain business. The Supreme Court is quite clear that it won’t meddle with the internal operations of the House and Senate. To get around the prohibition on considering amendments to that particular subsection of the health care legislation, the Senate must get two-thirds of the Senate to agree to waive the rule. In other words, it will take a super-majority of the people the citizens of our Republican elected to overrule a regulation imposed by a group of faceless bureaucrats and bean counters.
What's most curious to me is which part of the Bill Reid attached this to. It's attached to the "Death Panel" portion of the Bill. It raises an interesting question:
But here is what everyone saying this is no big deal is missing: to my knowledge and the knowledge of those who I have consulted with on this issue, there has never been any legislation passed by the Congress with a prohibition on future Senates considering changes to previously enacted laws or regulations.
We can argue over whether or not this would be upheld, but given the refusal of the Senate GOP Leadership to fight now, we can wonder if they would fight on this in the future.
Likewise, what exactly is Harry Reid trying to prevent future Senates from repealing? Bureaucratic regulations enacted by the Death Panels. So, for example, though the Death Panels are prohibited by statute from passing “rationing” regulations, under the definitions, the panels can pass regulations setting priorities for treatment. So, they can say a 40 year old must get treatment for the same condition suffered by a 70 year old before the 70 year old can get treatment, thereby letting the 70 year old whither and die waiting for their turn.
And Harry Reid intends for the Senate, in perpetuity, to be prohibited from every changing that regulation without a super-majority of the Senate agreeing to ignore that prohibition.
Lastly, why in God’s name would the Senate Majority Leader want to make the Death Panel regulations the only thing in the Obamacare legislation that is not subject to amendment, repeal, or change by the United States Senate?!
Share the video of DeMint far and wide. Harry Reid is circumventing Senate rules, and possibly the Constitution to get this Bill passed.
In this rush to pass legislation by Christmas, the most fundamental aspect of representative democracy is being lost. The Democrats are about to pass legislation which divests the Congress of its ability to change legislation.
This is what we have come to. A Democratic majority ready to hand over a fundamental aspect of our health care system to an unelected panel without any future Congress being able to change this procedure.
Some readers have e-mailed me asking if this is constitutional. The answer is that I don't know, and in the rush to pass this by the day after tomorrow, no one will have time to fully sort through this issue. But that is the point of the rush. Load up the legislation with so many controversial points that no one can figure it all out prior to the vote.
We are like lambs led to the slaughter.
[1] At page 1032 of the bill there is a procedure giving Congress the ability to vote in early 2017, by Joint Resolution only and subject to a 3/5 majority, to dissolve IMAB. This appears to be a one shot vote, meaning that nothing can be done prior to or after 2017.
Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the
Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the
world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of
carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.
A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit
e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,”
continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in
Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the
1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.
The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research
Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East
England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands
of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue
made over the course of 13 years.
Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that
climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and
manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger
than it is.
Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the
Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report
claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the
headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon,
England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory.
Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the
country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted
by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian
territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some
other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and
observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley
Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not
show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early
21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete
data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations
facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of
meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete
observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in
large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect
more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature
distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass.
The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature
data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.
Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar
climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because
the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial
calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.
What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the
entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world
government policy is a crock.
During the last election cycle, Bill Ritter (D) was a former prosecutor. His opponent was Bob Beauprez (R) was a Congressman. Both were running for Governor.
A story surfaced that then-prosecutor Ritter offered a plea deal to a heroin dealer, user of many aliases, and illegal immigrant. Said Bad Guy then moved to California and sexually assaulted a young girl. Here is the rundown:
The events that led to an Alabama
senator's questioning of the homeland security secretary about the
firing of a single Colorado ICE agent began with a 2002 plea deal
extended by the Denver DA's office under now-Gov. Bill Ritter.
It went to a small-time heroin dealer and illegal immigrant with multiple aliases.
Walter Ramo stayed in the country, changed his name to Carlos Estrada-Medina and sexually assaulted a child in California.
When Bob Beauprez's Republican gubernatorial campaign learned, with
Voorhis' help, about Ramo, his alias and the California crime, Ramo
became the star of 2006 attack ads against Ritter, a Democrat.
As those ads went on the air, Villafuerte, who was on leave from her
job at the DA's office to work on the Ritter campaign, called a
colleague there to seek information about Ramo. A short time later,
someone at the DA's office accessed the same database Voorhis used and
confirmed that Ramo and Estrada-Medina were one in the same.
Ritter's campaign demanded an investigation. Ritter declared in a
debate that Beauprez's campaign had broken the law by accessing the
restricted National Crime Information Center computer to learn Ramo had
changed his name and committed a crime in California.
Voorhis was ultimately prosecuted on a charge of making an unlawful
access of NCIC. He was acquitted in a federal trial, but fired from his
job.
This all comes full circle, because Stephanie Villafuerte has been nominated to be a U.S. Attorney. It seems that Villafuerte has had some connection with the Voorhis investigation:
Her nomination remains controversial. On
Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman sent a letter to Attorney General
Eric Holder requesting that the Department of Justice initiate an
investigation into whether Villafuerte prodded colleagues at the Denver
district attorney's office to access the same database that led to
charges against Voorhis.
Local radio personality Peter Boyles has been all over this, while the Denver Post columnists have been silent. KHOW has a rundown of various goings on, including rumors of an affair between Ritter and Villafuerte, and Voorhis' story. Villafuerte had penned a letter, forwarded by Colorado Senators Bennett (D) and Udall (D), stating her complete innocence in the matter.
Now that this has hit the National radar, it will be interesting to to say the least.
Why did it take a Senator from Alabama to get this going? Where are Colorado's two Senators?
Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.
Federal
records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped
preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations
and communications firm headed by Penn.
Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations
campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital
television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s
polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to
federal records.
Federal records also show that a former adviser
to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly
$70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach
communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive
broadcast signals.
I'm curious. Now that the transition to DTV has happened, are those three jobs still in force, or they now unemployed?
A crazed liberal threw a tomato at Sarah Palin tonight at her Mall of America book signing. The tomato hit a police officer in the face instead. He was arrested. FOX News reported:
A man was arrested for allegedly throwing two tomatoes at Sarah Palin from the second floor balcony during a book signing event at the Mall of America in Minnesota, MyFoxTwinCities.com. reported.
Neither tomato came close hitting the former 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, but did hit a police officer in the face, the station reported.
The unidentified man may face charges for assaulting a police officer, according to the station.
Die-hard supporters treated the event like another Black Friday, lining up outside in freezing weather before the mall doors opened at 5 a.m.
Regan said the women broke away from a security guard who tried to
detain them at the front door. The security guard ran after them and
tried to block Cole from getting into the passenger’s seat of the car
in which she and Stewart were preparing to flee.
Regan said Cole “head-butted” the security guard, who fell backwards
into the vehicle. The chief said Cole then sat on the man. He grabbed
his phone and called 911, but Cole allegedly fought for the phone and
then urinated on him.
Stewart drove away with the security guard still in the vehicle and Cole holding him down, according to the chief.
The incident ended when the women stopped in the parking lot of Acme
Bedding Co., 660 W. Broadway, where authorities, still on the phone
with the security guard, arrested Stewart and Cole.
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