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January 16, 2019 0 Comment apgov
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Mayor with gun protests high security at New Mexico Capitol

Santa Fe New Mexican – All Nathan Dial wanted was a piece of paper explaining the rules. The semi-automatic pistol he wore on his right hip might have delayed a response to his request.

Dial, 50, mayor of the small Southern New Mexico town of Estancia, went to the state Capitol on Tuesday not only to hear Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s first State of the State address, but to get written confirmation of new rules banning weapons of all kinds during joint sessions of the state House and Senate — such as the one in which the governor gave in her speech.

“Every time I see some infringement on the Second Amendment, I don’t just follow blindly,” said the soft-spoken U.S. Army veteran on the opening day of the 2019 legislative session. “I seek clarity. I understand there is a safety issue, but why is there a safety issue here all of a sudden?”

Dial, who took his oath of office 10 months ago with a gun on his hip, said he’s attended many sessions at the Capitol in past years while openly armed and never encountered a problem.

On Tuesday, however, he faced Capitol security guards and New Mexico State Police officers who were present to enforce the new weapons ban, implemented by the Legislative Council in December.

In a 60-day session, like this one, lawmakers usually hold six to 12 joint sessions in the House chamber, said Raúl Burciaga, director of the Legislative Council Service, an arm of state government that drafts bills for legislators.

Security guards and state police were polite and professional, Dial said, and no one tried to disarm him of his pistol, held in a U.S. Cavalry holster that dated back to at least the 1940s.

But they did not allow him into the House chamber for Lujan Grisham’s address.

Instead, they referred him to one of three committee hearing rooms on the third floor of the Capitol, where the speech was being simulcast for overflow visitors who could not get a seat in the House gallery, already packed with some 300 people.

He wondered why weapons were not banned in the committee rooms.

“If guns are such a threat,” Dial said, “are [legislators] saying they are more important than their constituents in those rooms?”

About 100 spectators in one of those rooms had to contend with a poor-quality simulcast that broke up several times during the governor’s talk. They missed the live rendition of the national anthem, sung by soprano Abigail Rethwisch — a member of the Santa Fe Opera’s apprentice program in 2017 and 2018 — and much of the business that comes before the State of the State, such as legislative staff appointments and a House vote that led to Rep. Brian Egolf, a Santa Fe Democrat, being elected again as speaker.

There were few other complaints from the hundreds of people who had lined up as early as 10 a.m. to make their way through a security checkpoint outside the House chamber in hopes of grabbing a seat in the gallery.

Capitol security officers swept electronic wands over each visitor and their belongings, such as backpacks, to check for firearms and other weapons. Some larger bags were left on a table outside the House chamber.

Police officers and security guards said they did not find any weapons, aside from the one on Dial, and reported no other problems during the procedure.

Raphael Baca, the Capitol’s building superintendent, also said he had received no reports of problems on the security line.

The crowd gathered to hear Lujan Grisham overwhelmingly favored the new governor, offering several enthusiastic standing ovations during her 50-minute address and breaking into a collective chant of “MLG” at the end.

About an hour later, Baca gave Dial a draft of the new weapons ban. Dial said he planned to post it on his Facebook page and talk with a regional National Rifle Association representative about it.

If he were going to get arrested at the Capitol, Dial said, “I don’t want it to be for carrying firearms, but for disorderly conduct. But I’m not being disorderly.”

Correction: The original version of this story said that Nathan Dial was carrying an automatic pistol. It was actually a semi-automatic pistol.

Source: US Government Class

January 15, 2019 0 Comment apgov
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Brexit Vote: With Just Hours to Go, Parliament Debates E.U. Withdrawal Plan

New York Times – For Britain, the big vote is finally here.

After two and a half years of negotiation, argument, predictions and posturing, Parliament will finally decide on Tuesday on a bill dictating the terms of Britain’s departure from the European Union, one of the most important votes lawmakers are likely to cast in their careers.

• Prime Minister Theresa May has struggled to convince Parliament — and Britain — that the divorce deal she negotiated with Brussels is the best way forward. But she hasn’t made the sale. The House of Commons is expected to defeat the deal by a wide margin, and no one is certain what will come next.

• Much is at stake: Britain’s place in Europe, its economic future and possibly the survival of Mrs. May’s Conservative government.

• Debate should end late this afternoon, with voting scheduled to start at 7 p.m. in London (2 p.m. Eastern). Four amendments to the agreement will be considered before there is a vote on the bill itself.

At long last, the final day of debate began, with Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, making the government’s case.

Ordinarily, a legislator in that position would face the opposition benches, but Mr. Cox repeatedly turned to address critics on the Conservative side, an indication of how steep an uphill battle the government faces.

“Do we opt for order, or do we choose chaos?” he demanded. “What are you playing at? You are not children in the playground.”

Mr. Cox, an esteemed trial lawyer, has a booming voice and formidable rhetorical skill, but he chose an image he may regret. The agreement, he said, is like an airlock linking two space capsules — a brief stop on the way to an as-yet-unknown long-term pact with the European Union.

Within minutes, opponents seized on the metaphor.

“On the other side of the airlock is a complete vacuum,” said Hilary Benn, a Labour member and chairman of the house’s Brexit committee.

Dominic Grieve, a Conservative lawmaker, said, “We will either choke to death as a nation in the airlock or, when the door finally opens, we will find the landscape little to our liking.” — Richard Pérez-Peña

Since June 2016, when 52 percent of British voters approved a referendum to leave the European Union, everything has built up to the vote on Tuesday. The bill would determine the trade and immigration relationship between Britain and the bloc through the end of 2020, while a permanent agreement is negotiated.

Long before lawmakers began debating Prime Minister Theresa May’s bill in December, it seemed doomed.

She postponed the vote for a month, rather than face a humiliating defeat, as she tried to win new promises from Brussels. But the parliamentary calculus has not changed.

Mrs. May’s Conservative Party is divided over the plan — one of her whips stepped down on Monday so that he could vote against it, the latest in a long string of Brexit-related resignations — and the opposition parties overwhelmingly oppose it. — Richard Pérez-Peña

With Prime Minister Theresa May’s bill expected to lose, the question dominating British politics is: What comes next?

If the agreement is not approved, she would have until Monday to present a backup plan to Parliament. The range of possibilities is wide, unappealing and a bit bewildering.

If the deal loses by a narrow margin, she might be able to win a few concessions from Brussels and return to Parliament for a second vote. But if the defeat is a crushing one, that option is likely to be unavailable.

As things now stand, Britain will leave the European Union on March 29. Neither Mrs. May’s government nor the European bloc wants that to happen without an agreement in place — most experts predict that a no-deal Brexit would be chaotic and economically damaging.

With little time left to negotiate anew, the prime minister may be forced to ask Parliament to postpone Brexit.

She could also call a second referendum, an option favored by lawmakers who hope that British voters have changed their minds.

The Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, wants to force early elections, and seems likely to call for a vote of no confidence in the government.

But a note of caution about those who would write off Mrs. May when the situation looks bleak. She has been here before. And before that. And, yes, before that, too. — Richard Pérez-Peña

The vote will provide little of the detail that businesses need to plan their operations, but it could at least narrow the options.

“The longer this Brexit political drama continues, the less and less attractive the U.K. is going to be” to investors, Iain Anderson, the executive chairman of the consulting firm Cicero Group, said last week.

Although many businesses are preparing for the worst-case scenario — crashing out of the European Union without a deal in place — they have also been vocal in warning against it.

“Make no mistake, no-deal cannot be ‘managed,’ ” Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, said last week.

The government has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to ease public anxiety over a no-deal scenario. Last week it created an artificial traffic jam to test how to manage disruption at the border, an exercise that was widely derided.

Manufacturers fear that a no-deal exit would wreak havoc on just-in-time manufacturing, which relies on parts crossing borders and arriving within minutes of assembly. — Amie Tsang

There are many objections to the Brexit bill, making clear that no approach to leaving the European Union commands anything close to majority support.

Hard-line pro-Brexit Conservatives argue that the deal ties Britain much too closely to European trade rules for the foreseeable future. Many contend that a no-deal exit from the bloc would be preferable.

The 1998 accord that brought peace to Northern Ireland guarantees free movement of goods and people between that part of Britain and the Republic of Ireland, a European Union member. But many Conservatives, and the Democratic Unionist Party, a small group in Northern Ireland allied with Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, object to the way the proposal would protect that guarantee.

The deal Mrs. May reached with Brussels includes a “backstop” that would keep Northern Ireland more closely tied to the bloc than with the rest of Britain if the two sides are unable to reach a long-term agreement by the end of 2020. Critics say that would effectively divide Britain in two.

There are lawmakers in several parties who oppose Brexit in any form and want a second referendum. And Mrs. May has accused the opposition Labour Party of political opportunism, by simply opposing anything her government tries to do. — Richard Pérez-Peña

He’s the unlikeliest star of this season of Brexit, alternately reviled and adored and often on tabloid front pages: John Bercow, the House of Commons speaker. His job, as the highest authority in the chamber, is to preside over debates and, mostly, to get members to shut up.

The role is supposed to be strictly nonpartisan.

But Mr. Bercow — easily recognizable with his floppy silver hair and booming voice — now finds himself in the position of an umpire who makes a controversial call in the early innings that could tip the whole game.

Last week, a member of Parliament proposed requiring Prime Minister Theresa May to return within three days to announce what the government would do next if the original deal was rejected. She previously had 21 days to decide.

By Parliament’s arcane rules (it mostly hinged on the meaning of “forthwith”), Mr. Bercow should have rejected that amendment. But he didn’t. And Parliament passed it by a slim margin.

That decision tipped the balance of power to Parliament from Mrs. May’s government, and will let lawmakers weigh in with alternatives.

And Mr. Bercow may not be done yet. Commentators said it could end up being the most radical shift in relations between the government and Parliament since the speaker defied King Charles I in 1642. — Benjamin Mueller

Source: US Government Class

January 15, 2019 0 Comment apgov
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Judge bars Trump administration from adding citizenship question to 2020 census

CBS News – In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal judge blocked the Commerce Department from adding a question on U.S. citizenship to the 2020 census. The case will likely be reviewed by the Supreme Court.

“Secretary Ross’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census — even if it did not violate the Constitution itself — was unlawful for a multitude of independent reasons and must be set aside,” U.S. District Court Judge Jess Furman wrote in a court filing made public Tuesday morning. “To conclude otherwise and let Secretary Ross’s decision stand would undermine the proposition — central to the rule of law — that ours is a “government of laws, and not of men.”

In his ruling, Judge Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ decision to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census, unveiled in March 2018, could lead to “a significant reduction in self-response rates among noncitizen and Hispanic households” and to “hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people” being uncounted by the census.

Furman added that the manner in which the change was rolled out violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a federal statute.

Kelly Laco, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said the agency was “disappointed” by the district court’s ruling, arguing that a citizenship question has been included in previous federal questionnaires throughout American history.

“We are disappointed and are still reviewing the ruling. Secretary Ross, the only person with legal authority over the census, reasonably decided to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 census in response to the Department of Justice’s request for better citizenship data, to protect voters against racial discrimination,” Laco wrote in a statement to CBS News Tuesday.

When Ross announced that he was reinstating the citizenship question on the 2020 census questionnaire, he said it was in response to a request from the Justice Department for better citizenship data to assist in its enforcement of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But critics believe the Commerce Department’s proposal would lead to low response rates among immigrants and distort congressional apportionment to favor Republicans. They believed both citizen and non-citizen immigrants would hesitate to answer the citizenship question, fearing reprisals from the Trump administration and its hardline immigration agenda. If these immigrants do not participate in the census, critics argue, they will not be counted for congressional apportionment — the process through which seats in the House of Representatives are distributed among states.

The Trump administration is expected to appeal the district court’s decision to the Supreme Court, where a conservative-leaning bench could rule in its favor.

Paula Reid and Zachary Hudak contributed to this report.

Source: US Government Class

December 14, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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New Mexico Supreme Court says private and religious schools can get state-funded textbooks

Santa Fe New Mexican – Advocates for a state program that used public funds to provide textbooks to private and religious schools had reason to rejoice Thursday when the New Mexico Supreme Court rejected claims that the practice violates the state constitution.

The 3-2 decision followed a debate that came down to fundamental questions about religious discrimination and the separation of church and state.

The parents who filed the court challenge — Cathy “Cate” Moses of Santa Fe and Paul Weinbaum of Las Cruces — argued the program subsidized religious institutions with tax dollars and violated the New Mexico Constitution, which prohibits using education funds “for the support of any sectarian, denomination or private school, college or university.”

But religious and private schools involved in the suit countered that excluding them from the program amounted to discrimination and was based on a constitutional amendment grounded in anti-Catholic animus and woven into the laws of many states long ago.

“I’m pretty excited about the decision,” said Eric Baxter, an attorney for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., which argued that state constitutional amendments prohibiting the practice sprang from an effort to stamp out Catholic influence in public life around the time New Mexico became a state.

“It’s a really good opinion … and great for the students of New Mexico, great for religious liberty in New Mexico and great for the state Supreme Court,” he said.

As recently as 2015, the New Mexico Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs in the case. But the U.S. Supreme Court told New Mexico to reconsider the case after issuing an opinion last year that found it discriminatory to exclude religious institutions from some government programs simply because those organizations are religious.

So, on its second go around, the state’s high court changed its stand.

A majority decided the textbook program’s benefits do not amount to “support” for schools as outlined in the constitution. Rather, justices argued that the books, which are issued to schools through the state’s Public Education Department, go to students and benefit them and their parents, and not the schools.

“The textbook loan program furthers New Mexico’s legitimate public interest in promoting education and eliminating illiteracy,” Justice Barbara Vigil wrote in the majority opinion. “We conclude that the [program] provides a public benefit to students and a resulting benefit to the state. Any benefit to private schools is purely incidental. …”

Moreover, the majority decided, the program does not violate a part of the New Mexico Constitution prohibiting appropriations of public money for private benefit.

Justices Petra Jimenez Maes and Charles Daniels signed on to Vigil’s opinion.

The director of Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham’s transition team said she accepted the court’s decision, writing that “for over a half century, the New Mexico legislature has made textbooks available to all students regardless of where their parents chose to enroll them in school.”

“The Governor-elect and her administration will comply with the court’s ruling and ensure that private school students are entitled to participate in New Mexico’s longstanding textbook loan program,” Dominic Gabello wrote in an email.

The court’s only two Republicans dissented. Chief Justice Judith Nakamura suggested that the majority had misinterpreted the scope of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Excluding private schools from using the state’s textbook program would not amount to religious discrimination because the state excluded all private schools, not just religious institutions, she argued.

“The decision by the drafters of our state constitution that state largess be directed to the public schools alone, and not to private schools, is rationally supported by the legitimate principle that doing so ensures that the public schools of our state are maximally financed … ,” Nakamura wrote in her dissent, joined by Justice Gary Clingman.

Santa Fe attorney Frank Susman, who represented the plaintiffs, said Thursday he thought Nakamura’s argument was “much more logical and made sense and followed the law.”

Susman said one article of the state constitution makes it clear that the state should not give any “aid” to any person, and the three justices who issued the ruling seemed to ignore that.

He said he isn’t sure what options he has in terms of pursuing further legal action.

Baxter said it’s possible the plaintiffs could petition the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the case. But he said he thinks it’s unlikely that the outcome would be any different.

The state stopped providing textbooks to private school students following the 2015 court decision. Baxter said it’s unclear if the state would resume providing books before the start of the next fiscal year on July 1.

Public Education Department spokesman Chris Eide did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: US Government Class

December 8, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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Termed-out New Mexico governor is picky with pardons

Santa Fe New Mexican – With less than a month left in office, termed-out Republican Gov. Susana Martinez has pardoned a total of just three people in New Mexico, a state with a robust history of forgiveness by governors.

The Governor’s Office confirmed that Martinez issued three pardons in 2012 and no others. She did not respond to a request for comment on her approach to pardon applications.

A former district attorney and proponent of reinstituting the death penalty in New Mexico, Martinez has added restrictions on pardons that rule out candidates convicted of sexual offenses and multiple drunken-driving violations.

The Governor’s Office indicated it neither keeps a list of pardon applicants and denials nor tracks overall numbers. It did not immediately provide access to pardon applications.

Martinez has denied at least 72 pardon applications, including 13 cases in which the New Mexico Parole Board recommended approval, according to records provided by the board Friday.

Martinez’s two immediate predecessors each pardoned scores of people for a variety of convictions.

Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson famously dabbled with and eventually denied a request to posthumously pardon the 19th-century outlaw known as Billy the Kid in the killing of a sheriff. Richardson did commute the life sentence of a woman who killed her allegedly abusive husband.

Former Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, an early proponent of legalizing marijuana who later ran for president as a Libertarian, commuted a sentence in 2002 for a woman who was convicted of stealing a small amount of money apparently because of addiction.

She was sexually assaulted by prison guards, and Johnson expressed outrage that the guards received lesser sentences than the woman did for her nonviolent crime.

In New Mexico, the power to pardon resides solely with the governor. A pardon restores citizenship rights such as the ability to vote and run for public office. It does not expunge public records.

The Restoration of Rights Project currently lists New Mexico among states where pardons are infrequent or uneven, alongside states including Louisiana, New York and Hawaii.

Democratic Gov.-elect Michelle Lujan Grisham takes office Jan. 1 after defeating Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce.

In 1986, Democratic Gov. Toney Anaya commuted the death sentences of five men awaiting execution in a move to thwart his elected Republican successor.

The governor-elect at the time, Garrey Carruthers, had promised to quicken the pace of the executions.

New Mexico repealed and replaced capital punishment in 2009 with mandatory lifetime sentencing.

Source: US Government Class

December 7, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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Trump says he’ll name Heather Nauert as next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

CBS News – President Trump has chosen Heather Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he said Friday morning. Nauert is currently the spokeswoman for the State Department.

Mr. Trump said on Friday morning she is “very talented, very smart, very quick.” In a Friday morning tweet, Mr. Trump confirmed her nomination.

“I am pleased to announce that Heather Nauert, Spokeswoman for the United States Department of State, will be nominated to serve as United Nations Ambassador. I want to congratulate Heather, and thank Ambassador Nikki Haley for her great service to our Country!” Mr. Trump wrote.

Nauert has been on the short list for ambassador to the U.N. since Haley announced that she was stepping down from her post in October. Formerly a Fox News anchor, she came to the administration in 2017. She will have to be confirmed by the Senate to become ambassador to the U.N.

Although some have speculated that Haley may challenge Mr. Trump in 2020, Haley has said that she will support the president.

“I can promise you what I will be doing is campaigning for this one. So I look forward to supporting the president in the next election,” Haley said at a press conference while sitting next to Mr. Trump.

If Nauert is confirmed, she will be taking the position at a challenging time for the U.N. because the Trump administration has cut funding of many programs and withdrawn from several international agreements.

Nauert would become the U.S. top multilateral negotiator as the powerful 15-nation Security Council is stymied on many of the world’s biggest crises, including non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the conflict in Syria, on how to handle North Korea, on Russian aggression in Ukraine, on the Middle East, and most recently on the crisis in Yemen, CBS News’ Pamela Falk noted from the U.N.

Richard Gowan, a senior fellow at U.N. University, said that Nauert is a “good spokesperson” and would probably handle the public diplomacy part of the role “quite adeptly,” but he also pointed out that “she will also have to handle behind-the-scenes negotiations on issues like the Korean sanctions. That’s very tough diplomacy.”

One U.N. historian, Stephen Schlesinger, a fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, told CBS News’ that Nauert’s appointment is “a grave disappointment,” and it “shows Trump’s scant regard, even contemptuous attitude, toward the United Nations. This will only further damage US prestige around the globe.”

However, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, offered support for Nauert’s nomination. The Trump administration has cultivated close ties with Israel. Haley would often stand with Israel during U.N. votes regarding the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

“Ms. Nauert has stood by the State of Israel in her previous positions, and I have no doubt that the cooperation between our two countries will continue to strengthen as ambassador to the U.N. In the past two years, we have worked closely with Ambassador Nikki Haley to change the hostile spirit in the U.N., which has led to unprecedented achievements,” Danon said in a statement.

The U.N. has had several female ambassadors from the U.S. The post is not always a Cabinet-level position.

CBS News’ Major Garrett, Fin Gomez and Pam Falk contributed reporting. 

Source: US Government Class

December 7, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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Supreme Court’s double-jeopardy case holds Mueller probe implications; Kavanaugh vote key

FoxNews –  A Supreme Court case concerning double-jeopardy rules is receiving outsized attention due to its potential implications for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

At issue in the case heard Thursday is whether and when being tried in state and federal courts for the same crimes is permissible. Under a current constitutional exception, it has been allowed for years.

A court reversal here could be far-reaching – and represent a sea change in how state, federal and tribal criminal cases are handled.

The justices raised tough questions Thursday about being tried twice for the same crime in different jurisdictions – “a double whammy,” as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it – yet a majority seemed inclined to preserve what the Trump administration calls 170 years of precedent allowing an exception to the double jeopardy provision.

Justice Elena Kagan said respect for precedent (known by the Latin phrase stare decisis) is a bedrock principle.

“Part of what stare decisis is, is a kind of doctrine of humility,” she said, “where we say we are really uncomfortable throwing over 170-year-old rules that 30 justices have approved just because we think we can kind of do it better.”

But Justice Neil Gorsuch warned against prosecutorial zeal:

“With the proliferation of federal crimes, I think over 4,000 statutes now and several hundred thousand regulations, the opportunity for the government to seek a successive prosecution if it’s unhappy with even the most routine state prosecution is a problem.”

Yet the status quo being defended by the Trump DOJ holds potential implications for the Trump-tied targets of the Russia probe.

The intriguing relevance to Mueller’s investigation would be if one of the defendants charged or convicted in the broad investigation — such as Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort — were to be pardoned by the president for various federal offenses. Would a state then be allowed to pursue its own separate charges, including tax evasion or corporate fraud?

The Supreme Court’s ruling could have an impact on the answer.

Trump himself has not ruled out such a pardon, and Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced separately in two federal courts next February and March.

That pardon scenario was not raised in Thursday’s 80-minute Supreme Court oral argument, but lawyers from both sides raised a host of worst-case scenarios to boost their positions. The argument was delayed a day in respect for the national day of mourning and funeral for the late President George H.W. Bush.

The Constitution’s double-jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment prohibits anyone being “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”

But the high court has also recognized the “separate sovereignty” between state and federal prosecutions – meaning similar charges for the same conduct but in different jurisdictions.

In the current appeal, Terance Gamble was arrested, charged and convicted for gun possession by a felon in both Alabama and federal courts, with his sentences served concurrently. He is set to be released from prison in 2020, three years longer than he would have if convicted only in Alabama.

The Trump Justice Department – backed by three-dozen states, including New York and Texas – wants to preserve the long tradition of discretion for successive prosecution in state and federal courts.

In the arguments, several justices worried about the fallout from tossing this sovereign exception. Justice Stephen Breyer worried it would make it harder to prosecute sexual and domestic violence on Indian reservations, among other cases.

“Look at the door we’re opening up,” he said. “There are briefs that say remember the civil rights world where people were, with victims of a different race, simply killing them or worse, and the state” would never convict, and the federal government could be prevented from getting involved.

Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh said overturning the exception would also apply to foreign prosecutions, making it potentially impossible to hold accountable terrorists who kill Americans overseas.

“If prosecution is part of the national security efforts of the United States, federal prosecution, then your position would substantially hamper those national security efforts,” Kavanaugh told Gamble’s lawyer Louis Chaiten.

But the newest justice also raised a counter-argument. “From the perspective of negative liberty, freedom from government oppression or government regulation, your rule strikes some as an infringement of basic concepts of individual liberty,” he told Justice Department lawyer Eric Feigin. “You didn’t get me the first time; you’re going to take another crack at it.”

Kavanaugh added that overturning precedent requires showing an earlier decision was not just wrong, but “grievously wrong, egregiously wrong.”

And Ginsburg questioned when it would be in the national government’s interest to use its broad discretion to file subsequent charges.

“Federalism is usually invoked because it’s a protection of the liberty of the individual,” she said, “but here the party being strengthened is not the individual, it is the state’s freedom and the federal government’s freedom to prosecute the same offense, in this case the felon in possession.”

Justices Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas – normally on opposite ideological sides – have both urged their colleagues to revisit this issue. Now with Kavanaugh aboard, he could be the wildcard that decides the matter.

Dual prosecutions in state-federal courts have become more common in the past two decades, particularly involving acts of racial animus or violence.

Feigin told the high court the federal prosecutions of those charged in mass shootings at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October and at a Charleston, S.C., church attended by African-Americans in 2015 were properly labeled hate crimes and violations of civil rights that had different legal elements from the state murder charges the defendants would face.

And the man accused of deliberately plowing his car into marchers protesting a white supremacy rally in Charlottesville last year — killing one woman — also faces federal hate crime charges. His state trial will go to the jury this week.

But the attorney for Gamble cited cases going back to Europe in the 17th century that he said supported the long-established idea of no exceptions to the double-jeopardy rule.

The case is Gamble v. U.S. (17-646). A ruling is expected by the spring next year.

Source: US Government Class

December 5, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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Facebook let some companies exploit users’ friends data

CBS News – Facebook gave some companies preferential access to user data — including invites to friends in users’ networks — without clearly getting permission, according to excerpts from emails released Wednesday by the U.K. Parliament. The social media giant and its founder Mark Zuckerberg also mulled ways to charge outside companies for user data, the email excerpts show.

Apps from companies including Airbnb, Netflix and Lyft were “whitelisted” — allowing full access to users’ friends — even after Facebook said in 2015 it had phased out that feature. “It is not clear that there was any user consent for this, nor how Facebook decided which companies should be whitelisted or not,” wrote Damian Collins, a Conservative MP leading Parliament’s major Facebook investigation, in a preamble to Wednesday’s release of Facebook emails.

The emails also show CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing ways to encourage users to share more on Facebook in a way that would “increase the value” of the network.

“We’re trying to enable people to share everything they want, and to do it on Facebook,” he emailed on Nov. 19, 2012, according to the documents. “Sometimes the best way to enable people to share something is to have a developer build a special purpose app or network for that type of content and to make that app social by having Facebook plug into it. However, that may be good for the world but it’s not good for us unless people also share back to Facebook and that content increases the value of our network.”

According to Collins, Facebook also sought to minimize the fact that its Android app was able to gather users’ call and text histories, knowing that feature would be controversial.

The release comes as part of a lawsuit by Six4Three, a small developer, against Facebook. Six4Three sued Facebook after the 2015 changes effectively eliminated the access that Six4Three’s app, called Pinkini, needed to operate.

In a statement Wednesday, Facebook called the case “baseless” and said the email documents “are only part of the story and are presented in a way that is very misleading without additional context.”

“We stand by the platform changes we made in 2015 to stop a person from sharing their friends’ data with developers. Like any business, we had many internal conversations about the various ways we could build a sustainable business model for our platform. But the facts are clear: We’ve never sold people’s data,” the statement said.

According to Collins, the Facebook emails show it aggressively went after competitor apps, “with the consequence that denying them access to data led to the failure of that business.”  At the same time, the emails appear to show Facebook accommodated large companies that could become paying customers.

The emails also indicate that Zuckerberg considered charging for data access at least as far back as 2012. An email from Zuckerberg on Oct. 7, 2012, five months after the company went public, spelled out some possibilities for charging developers:

I’ve been thinking about platform business model a lot this weekend…if we make it so devs can generate revenue for us in different ways, then it makes it more acceptable for us to charge them quite a bit more for using platform. The basic idea is that any other revenue you generate for us earns you a credit towards whatever fees you own us for using plaform. For most developers this would probably cover cost completely. So instead of every paying us directly, they’d just use our payments or ads products. A basic model could be:

Facebook maintains that it never sells user data, but many data-privacy advocates say the distinction between selling data and charging companies to access users based on their data is a rather fine line for practical purposes.

CNET’s Dan Patterson and CBS News’ Graham Kates contributed reporting.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Source: US Government Class

December 3, 2018 0 Comment apgov
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Why George H.W. Bush wanted Trump at his funeral

(CNN) – George H.W. Bush can perform one last, posthumous service to his country this week by orchestrating a rare moment of unity and a short-term truce in the rancorous politics swirling around the crisis-stricken Trump presidency.

The remains of the former president, who died at home in Texas on Friday night at 94, will be brought to Washington on Monday to allow the nation to bid farewell to a man whose one-term presidency looks better with each year that passes.

The ex-commander-in-chief will lie in state at the US Capitol ahead of a state funeral service in Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday that will see a meeting of the world’s most exclusive club — that of former presidents.

For a few days, a building showdown over a possible partial government shutdown may ease, and the increasing threat posed to the Trump presidency by special counsel Robert Mueller could fade into the background.

Despite antipathy between the Bush family and President Donald Trump, the 41st president made clear he wanted America’s current leader to be at the funeral, putting the institution of the presidency above personal animosities.

Trump has confirmed he will attend the event, which follows a series of national disasters and tragedies and moments of public mourning that have caused critics to fault his behavior as short of that expected of a president.

To his credit, Trump canceled what was certain to be a contentious news conference at the G20 summit in Argentina on Saturday out of respect for Bush. He also sent one of the iconic blue-and-white 747 jets that serves as Air Force One when a president is aboard to Texas to carry Bush’s casket.

“We’ll be spending three days of mourning and three days of celebrating a really great man’s life,” Trump said in Argentina in a gracious tribute.

“So we look forward to doing that, and he certainly deserves it. He really does. He was a very special person.”
But Wednesday’s ceremony still promises to be an awkward moment of political theater for Trump, since he will come face-to-face with former presidents and other top officials whom he has attacked in recent days.

Just last week for instance, Trump retweeted an image that pictures former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, along with former campaign rival Hillary Clinton, behind bars. Trump often beams at rallies as his crowds chant “lock her up!” about the former Democratic nominee. And Michelle Obama wrote in her new autobiography that she will “never forgive” Trump for his conspiracy theory about Obama’s birthplace that launched the real estate mogul and reality TV star’s political career.

Trump is likely to come face to face with all four in the National Cathedral before a huge television audience. The encounter will highlight how several of the former leaders, including Obama and Clinton, forged close relationships with their Republican predecessor as well as the friendly relations between them and Bush’s son, former President George W. Bush.

No such ties exist between that trio and the current President, who often criticizes his predecessors and has given no sign of taking advantage of their advice and experience of doing one of the toughest and loneliest jobs in global politics.

The President also belittled another of the elder Bush’s sons, former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, during the 2016 campaign, and in July, mocked a signature quote by the 41st president about a “thousand points of light,” which was later used as the name of his charity.

Unavoidable comparisons
Wednesday’s state funeral will offer similarities and contrasts to the final farewell for John McCain in September, to which Trump was not invited after mocking the Arizona senator during the 2016 campaign for being shot down and imprisoned in Vietnam nearly 50 years before.

McCain’s service, by the late Republican senator’s design, became an extended comparison between his heroism, capacity to reach across the aisle and ethos of service and the self-promoting behavior often displayed by Trump.

Such analogies are likely to be perceived again in the tributes to Bush, who was almost universally regarded as a gentleman and a throwback to a more civil and magnanimous era of politics.

Still, with Trump attending, and if he desists from his trademark inflammatory politics, the nation’s divides could be papered over, at least for a few days.

Bush’s passing also looks set to postpone one of the final political showdowns of the year — a funding controversy entangled in Trump’s demands for $5 billion in funding for his border wall.

A source briefed on the talks told CNN that lawmakers are considering taking up a one-week spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown by a Friday deadline, since Congress will be out of session at the beginning of the week ahead of Bush’s ceremonies.

Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday night that he would be open to such a solution.
“I would absolutely consider it and probably give it,” Trump said.

Source: US Government Class