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herding cats's JournalN.J. pension funds to sue Christie over $2.4B money grab
Source: NJ.com
TRENTON — Trustees of New Jersey’s largest pension funds said they will file a lawsuit today against Gov. Chris Christie for slashing $2.4 billion in pension fund payments he promised to pay as part of a 2011 pension reform deal.
The lawsuit will ask the courts to force Christie to restore the cuts. The board overseeing the Public Employees Retirement System — the largest employee pension fund — voted in June to sue Christie.
“We are saying that money is due to the fund,” Tom Bruno, chairman of that fund said today. “It’s not something we relish doing, but frankly it’s got to be done.”
“We have a fiduciary responsibility, and that is to protect the fund, as well as to collect the monies that are due to the fund,” Bruno said.
Read more: http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/12/nj_pension_funds_sue_christie_over_pension_grab.html
8 Things To Know About The 'Cromnibus' Budget Deal Congress Just Unveiled
With government funding running out in a matter of days, congressional negotiators unveiled a spending bill for the coming year late on Tuesday night. Lawmakers and their staffs are poring over the 1,600-page document now and details of what it will mean for various programs are still emerging.
While the bill doesn’t make drastic changes to total government spending, it does contain a number of changes to public policy or funding levels that concern progressive groups and weaken programs for society’s most vulnerable. Here are seven important provisions buried within the so-called “cromnibus” bill.
Tax collectors will have to get by with a lot less money thanks to a second straight year of cuts to enforcement.
Congress got Wall Street two early Christmas presents.
The bill leaves homeless advocates out in the cold.
Affordable housing advocates are worried that the bill will harm low-income families.
The people who drive 80,000-pound trucks won’t have to sleep as often before getting on the highway.
Washington D.C.’s marijuana legalization effort might be disrupted. Or it might not be.
Campaign finance regulations are phased out.
The bill cuts $300 million from Pell Grants for low-income college students and gives it to student loan debt collectors.
Details of the changes on each item are in the article: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/12/10/3601742/cromnibus-lowlights/
Updated with the cut to the Pell Grants information.
Hayden: No One Ever Warned Us Against Overreacting to 9/11
After the Senate released its torture report, Michael Hayden, who formerly led both the CIA and the NSA, granted an interview to NBC News. Under questioning by Brian Williams, he provided no persuasive rebuttal to the report's findings. But he did offer a defense of America's intelligence community that doubles as an unwitting indictment of the country's leadership in the post-9/11 era. Here's what Hayden said as if it reflects well on the people who were in charge:
I was in government for ten years after 9/11, and let me tell ya, a phrase I never heard from anybody in any position of authority: 'Whatever you guys do about this terrorism threat, please, please don't overreact.' Never heard it, Brian.
Video at link
Like so much of what Hayden says, this is factually false. Members of Congress were in a position of Constitutional authority, and some pleaded with the Bush Administration to avoid overreacting to 9/11, as Russ Feingold and Barbara Lee can attest. But let's suppose Hayden was speaking of executive branch authority figures, in accordance with the dangerous but common view that the executive is all powerful in emergencies. It's believable that neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney nor Don Rumsfeld warned bureaucrats beneath them against overreacting to the terror threat.
What's staggering is that Hayden still hasn't figured out what a catastrophic misstep that was. Overreacting to the terrorist threat caused the U.S. to launch a war of choice against Iraq that killed thousands more Americans than Osama Bin Laden did at a cost expected to reach $6 trillion, plus thousands of lost limbs and PTSD cases. Overreacting to terrorism caused intrusive ethnic profiling of New York City Muslims that led to zero terrorism leads and intrusive surveillance on the phone calls of American citizens that stopped zero terror plots.
Read More: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/michael-hayden-no-one-ever-told-the-cia-or-the-nsa-to-avoid-overreacting/383601/
Mentally ill Texas inmate's execution stayed by federal appeals court
Source: The Guardian
A mentally ill death row inmate whose impending execution attracted international condemnation was granted a reprieve by a federal appeals court on Wednesday less than eight hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection in the Texas state penitentiary.
The fifth circuit court issued a stay of Scott Panetti’s execution so it could “fully consider the late arriving and complex legal questions at issue”.
Panetti shot dead Joe and Amanda Alvarado, the parents of his estranged wife, Sonja, in front of her and their three-year-old daughter in the Texas hill country in 1992.
As Panetti’s execution date approached his case gained widespread attention and a number of evangelical Christians, mental health groups, legal figures and prominent conservatives called for the sentence to be commuted, along with two United Nations human rights experts.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/03/mentally-ill-texas-inmate-execution-stayed-scott-panetti
Texas stirs controversy with plans to execute schizophrenic man
Attorneys and a politically diverse coalition of supporters are fighting to stop Texas from executing a schizophrenic man this week, arguing that to do so would be unconstitutional.
He confessed at trial, where he wore a cowboy costume to defend himself -- arguing he was innocent by reason of insanity -- and subpoenaed more than 200 witnesses including the pope, John F. Kennedy and Jesus. He said that only an insane person could prove insanity.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia 36 years ago, Panetti, his lawyers say, still hears voices and suffers from the delusions that the attorneys argue prevent him from understanding why he is being executed, which would violate the 8th Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-texas-execution-mentally-ill-20141202-story.html
Hill staffer Elizabeth Lauten resigns after remarks about Obama daughters
Source: Washington Post
Embattled Hill staffer Elizabeth Lauten has resigned amid a backlash over critical remarks she posted on Facebook Friday about President Barack Obama’s daughters.
Lauten, Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher's (R-Tenn.) communications director, came under fire over the weekend after posting derogatory remarks about Sasha and Malia Obama regarding their appearance at the president’s annual Turkey pardoning.
“Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class,” Lauten wrote. “Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”
Lauten confirmed her resignation to the Washington Post Monday morning.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/01/embattled-hill-staffer-elizabeth-lauten-reportedly-resigns-after-controversial-remarks/
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