[Washington Post] Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) is robbing state lawmakers of a cherished perk long used to get them out of sticky situations: A card that allows legislators to avoid arrest while the state House or Senate are in session.
Under the state constitution, lawmakers cannot be detained except in cases of treason, felony or breach of the peace. The wallet-sized card has been used to get lawmakers out of drunken driving charges and other arrests, the Star-Tribune said.
The cards don't allow lawmakers to avoid being charged with a crime, but they cannot be detained unless charged with a felony.
Ritchie says there's no law on the books that requires his office to provide lawmakers with the card, so he said he will stop issuing them.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2014 00:00 ||
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[FREEP] U.S. Rep. John Conyers' on-again, off-again roller-coaster ride for the Aug. 5 ballot took a new twist Friday when U.S. District Judge Matthew Leitman put the 85-year-old congressman back on the ballot.
Leitman's decision, released late Friday, contradicts the Secretary of State's review of Conyers' petitions, which found earlier in the day that Conyers had less than half the required signatures of valid registered voters on the petitions he turned in to qualify for the Aug. 5 primary ballot.
But Leitman said the requirement that petition circulators be registered voters -- the issue that got Conyers booted off the ballot in the first place -- put serious limitations on the free speech rights of the circulators, the people who signed the petitions and Conyers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
put serious limitations on the free speech rights of the circulators, the people who signed the petitions and Conyers
You have got to be joking. Being forced to register to vote is an infringement on free speech? What is this, 1984?
#2
In July of 2013, President Obama nominated Leitman for a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2014 2:14 Comments ||
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#3
Oy! Hak mir nit keyn tshaynik. I got the call, what was I suppose to do? I am first a liberal democrat. This was a 'one off.' It will not happen again until the next time.
#6
Rules are for little people. In a world were there is no accountability of one's rulers, why do you keep believing the lie that its a republic or democracy? It's rigged folks. They understand its all theater, a facade, to keep the vast gullible population in line.
#8
Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution states that, "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide." This means that members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate can refuse to recognize the election or appointment of a new representative or senator.
Via the Federal Contested Elections Act of 1969, the house could determine that Conyers was not validly elected because he didn't meet the statuary requirements of his home state to be on the ballot, refuse to seat him, and call for new elections.
#9
This means that members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate can refuse to recognize the election or appointment of a new representative or senator.
Yep, they have. IIRC it involved a (R) elected in southern Indiana or Illinois on a tight return in the 80s. The Donks who controlled House refused to seat the winner. 2 years later, the vote wasn't even contestable and the guy got the seat.
While one part of official Washington worries that Russia will follow through on a recent threat to prohibit use of RD-180 engines for U.S. national security space launches, another part is working to ensure exactly that outcome. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) yesterday adopted a McCain amendment that prohibits future contracts to purchase Russian rocket engines to launch national security satellites.
The amendment also requires the Air Force to "have a full and open competition on two satellites that they tried to sole-source" and for an investigation on "undue reliance by the U.S. space industry on foreign suppliers and parts such as engines." This at the same time Elon Musk's lawsuit over the EELV contract where those engines are used in the Atlas 5 gets crazier. Elon's twitter tweets (name redacted so Rantburg will not delete)
Elon Musk:
V(ery) likely AF official {redacted by poster} was told by ULA/Rocketdyne that a rich VP job was his if he gave them a sole source contract
Elon Musk:
Reason I believe this is likely is that {redacted by poster} first tried to work at SpaceX, but we turned him down. Our competitor, it seems, did not.
Glenn Mahone, a spokesman for Aerojet Rocketdyne, said the allegations surrounding {redacted by poster}'s hiring are "completely without merit." He said {redacted by poster} began working at Aerojet only a week or two ago -- well after the contract had been awarded -- and that his hiring was vetted and cleared by the Air Force.
"We are confident in the process we followed in hiring Mr. {redacted by poster}," Mahone said.
{redacted by poster} did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.
An Air Force spokesman declined comment Friday, citing ongoing litigation over the contract. The dollars in question keep getting bigger and bigger too. First reports were 4 billion then 33 billion now 90 billion and it involves a sanctioned Russian too. I have no clue at this point what the real dollar ballpark is as it is conflated between the USAF/NRO/NSA/Nat GeoSpac/ULA/LM/Boeing/PWR/RD_Amross.
The tree keeps getting bigger and bigger each part tying into another new one.
Russian leaders shouting about taking their pieces of the ISS and splitting. World scientists including Russian beliving that the pieces have been in the ISS so long that they are vacuum welded together and not possible to separate and if separated all pieces becoming quickly unbalanced and the ISS crashing. Hints of Russia just seizing the whole thing.
The motor issue messing up the non-SpaceX manned commercial options, the ISS breakup/deorbit removing the reason for commercial manned space for NASA so torpedoing all the US commercial manned options and maybe crippling SpaceX, the only way to launch critical AF/NRO etc sats in a timely manner being Delta Vs as fast as they can make them and the same for Falcon Heavy, oh and if we just make the Russian engine in the Atlas 5 well its co-production rights run out in 2022 and if we build it past that point we risk destroying the international patent union! Whew! - Its a true ClusterF***!
#1
I should have pointed out that making the RD-180 might be wishful thinking on the part of Atlas 5 supporters as this nay-sayer points out:
I think that would depend on just what "we have demonstrated that we can build this engine" actually means. What exactly did they "demonstrate"?
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32675.msg1202647#msg1202647
has a file with pics of some of the parts they manufactured.
Thanks for that. The stator and preburner assemblies are CAD models, not fabricated hardware.
Stator vanes are easy to manufacture. I was doing that for P&W engines in the 1970's.
The other 6 items are extremely simple basic shapes that could be milled in a garage.
I see nothing there of any difficulty.
Where's the turbine generator?
Where's the fuel injector?
Where are *any* of the parts that make the RD-180 so unique?
If they had actually made those instead of these non-discript and simple parts then I would have more confidence.
Did they build anything of any difficulty?
Did they duplicate any of the metallurgy that was so unique to the engine?
Did they document any of the assembly specifications?
How much torque was used for bolting assemblies together, and which assemblies?
What was the surface finish value of mating surfaces?
Making more than 1,000 CAD models proves only that the designer can operate CAD software.
Do the CAD models fit together properly? Do those models faithfully duplicate the actual parts? Are the tolerances invoked consistent with the Russian standards? Are there proper geometric constraints on any of them or are these simply surface volumes? What kind of GD&T was invoked? How were the fluid boundaries handled? Were the design disciplines properly integrated, and to what protocols?
I don't know the answer to these, but rolling out such simple-to-make pieces is not proof of the ability to duplicate the engine. That's why I said that I think it would depend on just what "we have demonstrated that we can build this engine" actually means. So far I remain unimpressed because I could have manufactured everything I see there myself in my uncles old machine shop. A pile of simple parts does not an engine make.
#2
Johann-Dietrich Woerner, chairman of the German Aerospace Center, DLR Germanys space agency said Germany backs full approval of the extension to 2020 and also wants ESA governments to support NASAs proposed extension of station operations to 2024.
....
France has been less interested in the station than Germany and in the past has conditioned its support on Germanys continued financial backing of Europes Ariane rocket program. That condition remains, but May 20 remarks here by Frances space minister, Genevieve Fioraso, suggest that France is not contesting the extension to 2020.
In a briefing with journalists, Fioraso said France nonetheless has issues with extending its participation to 2024 without an indication from NASA that its support for rocket builder Space Exploration Technologies Corp. will not permit SpaceX to proceed with dumping, because thats what it is of cheap SpaceX rockets on the international market where they compete with Europes Ariane 5 vehicle.
[Examiner] Republicans on a House oversight panel say the Justice Department asked former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in 2010 to help them build criminal cases against nonprofit groups conducting political activity.
In October 2010, Lerner delivered an address at Duke University in which she told the audience, "everyone is screaming at us" to fix campaign finance before the 2012 election.
Appears the Koch brothers got away.
They've got much more expensive tax lawyers than do the tea party volunteers.
The IRS wasn't after the Koch brothers; the Dems have Harry Reid for that. The IRS was the hammer being brought down on the Tea Party.
Sorry. One of the great things about the country the rule of law. Like clockwork, we We have regular elections, and we generally trust institutions like the IRS to carry out their tasks in a fair and impartial manner.
It chaps my caboose to see our system of government subverted for short-term political gain; not so much because of the political advantage it gives, but because of the long-term damage it does to our trust in those institutions.
None of which justifies making imprudent remarks in an inappropriate place. Apologies.
Jesus. And with that, the monk grabbed the Master by the scruff of his neck and showed him his reflection in his teacup. And maybe cracked the teapot over his head, 'cause that's how those guys generally rolled. As for the rest of you... there is a precious jewel in this cup, which all of you may view for the miniscule remuneration of one thin dime. Apiece.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Oy! Hak mir nit keyn tshaynik. I got the call, what was I suppose to do? I am first a liberal democrat. This was a 'one off.' It will not happen again until the next time. 
