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A Shocker: Ahmadinejad Still Wins After Partial Recount

Iran Officials Declare Ahmadinejad Victorious After Partial Recount

Monday, June 29, 2009

Iranian officials have declared the hotly disputed presidential election to be correct after a partial recount.

State television reports that Guardian Council Secretary Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati presented Minister of the Interior Sadegh Mahsouli a letter Monday saying the council has approved the election after a recount of 10 percent of the ballots.

Requests for a new election and allegations of voting irregularities have been rejected.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529349,00.html
Tags: Iran   election  
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Citizen United v Federal Election Commission to be Reargued

I mentioned this case in my preview for today's rulings and it is the case involving the documentary that was critical of Hillary Clinton and the issue was whether it violated campaign finance laws. This case will be reargued in the next term.
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Kennedy Decided the Case Once Again in Favor of Ricci

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4, in which the most dangerous justice ruled in favor of Ricci and the other 17 firefighters. Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, and Justice Kennedy ruled in favor of Ricci. While the four liberals who believe they can destroy the Constitution at will, Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg, and Breyer voted to discriminate those who did better than the every other candidates. This is the danger of affirmative action and race-based programs and why the Supreme Court is the most dangerous branch of our government if we have justices who want to destroy our Constitution by ruling on empathy or the good of the public.
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Ricci v Destefano to be Decided Today

This important case which deals with reverse discrimination, will be decided tomorrow by the United States Supreme Court. Also, tomorrow will be Justice Souter's last day. First of all I can't stand the phrase reverse discrimination because any way you cut it, it is still discrimination. So I will call it the discrimination case. For those of you who don't know the story here is the issue at hand from SCOTUS Wiki:

Whether municipalities may decline to certify results of an exam that would make disproportionately more white applicants eligible for promotion than minority applicants, due to fears that certifying the results would lead to charges of racial discrimination.


That is an issue because 18 firefighters (white and hispanic) in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, claimed discrimination when they did not get promotions over some of the black candidates, even though they scored better than everybody else. They claimed discrimination, while the city said they were afraid of being accountable for racism and discrimination. They sued the city and Mayor DeStefano. The main plaintiff is Frank Ricci. This case eventually went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals after the federal district court ruled for the city of New Haven. This is where the case gets interesting because President Obama's nominee Sonia Sotomayor sat on the three judge panel. There was no opinion rendered, instead just a quick summary judgment and Sotomayor's actions were questioned by Clinton appointee Judge Jose Cabranes who asked for a rehearing en banc, but when that was denied, he asked the United States Supreme Court to take up the matter.

And this is where we are today. The case is very important and hopefully the firefighters get what they deserve for scoring exceptionally better than the rest of the candidates. Because of political correctness and affirmation action and every other race-baited program that is supposed to boost up the minority, instead other races are being left behind, which create these problems. I'm pulling for Frank Ricci and the other 17 firefighters.


Also to be decided today is Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, which deals with the documentary that was critical of Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign season.

The issue at hand from SCOTUS Wiki:

Whether federal campaign finance laws apply to a critical film about Senator Hillary Clinton intended to be shown in theaters and on-demand to cable subscribers.
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June 29th in American History

1953 - The Federal Highway Act authorized the construction of 42,500 miles of freeway from coast to coast.


June 29, 1972

Supreme Court strikes down death penalty

In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as "cruel and unusual punishment," primarily because states employed execution in "arbitrary and capricious ways," especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation's highest court had ruled against capital punishment. However, because the Supreme Court suggested new legislation that could make death sentences constitutional again, such as the development of standardized guidelines for juries that decide sentences, it was not an outright victory for opponents of the death penalty.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5134

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Iran to Start Partial Recount

Iran Starts Partial Recount of Vote

Recount of disputed presidential election begins after riot police use tear gas and clubs in protest crackdown
Tags: Iran   election  
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I Wish the United States Would Strike North Korea's Nuclear Facility

N. Korea Says U.S. Plotting 'Pre-Emptive Nuclear War'

Pyongyang criticizes the U.S. for positioning missile defenses around Hawaii, calling it an attack plot
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Analysis of the Cap and Trade Roll Call

Michael Barone's analysis show why the passage of the biggest tax in American history is not so clear in the Senate:

Anatomy of the House cap-and-trade roll call

By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
06/28/09 2:09 PM EDT

                 The House Democratic leadership succeeded in passing the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill by a 219-212 margin. In all, 44 Democrats voted against the bill, and 8 Republicans voted for it. It’s always interesting to examine the roll call on a close vote on an important issue—when members are voting for keeps and when some significant number of members cross party lines. And House roll call votes provide useful clues in gauging the legislation’s possible fate in the Senate.

                This bill was passed by the votes of one-third of the nation—the Northeast (New England, NY, NJ, DE, MD) and the Pacific coast (CA, OR, WA, HI), as the following table shows. Just over half the votes cast for it came from those two regions.
 
                                UNITED STATES               219         212
                                Northeast & Pacific             110          31
                                Rest of US                             109         181


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Anatomy-of-the-House-cap-and-trade-roll-call-49384712.html
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Environmental Groups Tied to Republicans Who Voted for Cap and Trade Bill

Republicans who helped pass "cap and trade" benefitted from environmental donations

By: Kevin Mooney
Commentary Staff Writer
06/28/09 3:10 PM EDT

House Republicans who received campaign donations from environmental groups helped make up the narrow margin of votes needed to send the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill over to the U.S. Senate.

The legislation passed by a vote of just 219 to 212 on Friday with critical assistance from eight Republicans. They are: Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Mike Castle (Del.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), John McHugh (N.Y.), Dave Reichert (Wash.), Chris Smith (N.J.).  This support proved critical with 44 Democrats voting against the regulatory scheme.
Political Action Committees (PACs) connected with the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Ocean Champions and Republicans for Environmental Protection have made donations to most of these same eight Republican lawmakers in recent election cycles, according to OpenSecrets.Org.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Republicans-who-helped-pass-cap-and-trade-benefitted-from-environmental-donations-49385812.html
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Honduran President is Ousted

Honduran President Is Ousted in Coup

Esteban Felix/Associated Press

Soldiers entered the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and disarmed the presidential guard on Sunday, military officials said

Published: June 28, 2009
MEXICO CITY — The Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by the army on Sunday after pressing ahead with plans for a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election, in the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/americas/29honduras.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Tags: Honduras  
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Governor Sanford You Really Should Resign

Defiant SC gov considered resigning, but won't



SULLIVANS ISLAND, S.C. – Quit. Retreat from public life.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Sunday that his first thought as the scandal broke about his extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman was to leave office with 18 months to go in his last term. Close spiritual and political associates urged him to instead fight to restore the public's — and his family's — trust.

"Resigning would be the easiest thing to do," he said he thought.

He's sticking it out and now faces endless questions about the affair, whether he used public money to visit his lover and whether his 20-year marriage will continue. Add to it a barrage of criticism from South Carolina politicians who think the two-term Republican should step down.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090628/ap_on_re_us/us_sc_governor


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June 28th in American History

1778 - Mary "Molly Pitcher" Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his gun after he was overcome with heat.


June 28, 1836

Former President James Madison dies

On this day in 1836, James Madison, drafter of the Constitution, recorder of the Constitutional Convention, author of the “Federalist Papers” and fourth president of the United States, dies on his tobacco plantation in Virginia.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=735


1902 - The U.S. Congress passed the Spooner bill, it authorized a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama.

June 28, 1965

U.S. forces launch first offensive

In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces, 3,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade--in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese airborne unit--assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contract with the enemy. One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded. The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=1935


1972 - U.S. President Nixon announced that no new draftees would be sent to Vietnam.

1978 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the medical school at the University of California at Davis to admit Allan Bakke. Bakke, a white man, argued he had been a victim of reverse racial discrimination.

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that a Nebraska law that outlawed "partial birth abortions" was unconstitutional. About 30 U.S. states had similar laws at the time of the ruling.

2004 - The U.S. turned over official sovereignty to Iraq's interim leadership. The event took place two days earlier than previously announced to thwart insurgents' attempts at undermining the transfer.
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What's in the ObamaCare Bill?

Reading ObamaCare Bill Endangers Human Health
Fiscal responsibility be damned!

By Deroy Murdock

Betsy McCaughey reads massive healthcare bills so you don’t have to. 
  
New York’s former lieutenant governor, now chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, fired the torpedo that ultimately sank HillaryCare. While the sheer girth of that 1,431-page legislative juggernaut intimidated nearly everyone, McCaughey devoured it. Her resulting January 1994 New Republic article, “No Exit,” unmasked HillaryCare’s previously overlooked warts and sores. The horror that McCaughey revealed eventually spelled that initiative’s doom. 

McCaughey has done it again. In a June 19 Wall Street Journal op-ed, she dissected the 615-page draft of Ted Kennedy’s Affordable Health Choices Act. The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill is, essentially, the Senate’s version of ObamaCare. McCaughey’s “light reading” is scarier than Stephen King.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGU3YTI0ODliNjlkYzJmOWE2ZWU1ZjJkOWE5MDNmYjA=
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No Words to Describe

Scandal of the girls as young as 12 having abortions every year

Abortions are being carried out on dozens of girls aged 12 and 13, according to official figures.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent

More than 450 teenagers below the age of 14 terminated pregnancies between 2005 and 2008, including 23 girls aged 12, the statistics from the Department of Health disclosed. Over the same period, 52 teenagers terminated four or more pregnancies before they reached their 18th birthday, as the total number of “repeat terminations” hit record levels across England and Wales.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/women_shealth/5666419/Scandal-of-the-girls-as-young-as-12-having-abortions-every-year.html
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