In practical terms, the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia will not affect the outcomes of cases, except for those that were going to be decided 5-4, with him in the majority. Now those cases will result in a 4-4 tie which means that the lower court opinion will stand. The opinions in those cases already heard but not decided and that justice Scalia was assigned to write the opinion will now have to be re-assigned.
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And so the great Malheur refuge takeover that was supposed to herald a revolution of constitutional patriots against a tyrannical government ended with a whimper as the four remaining holdouts surrendered and were arrested. Other people have also been arrested in other states.
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That is the opinion of Jon Schwarz who has seen the latest film from Michael Moore Where to Invade Next.
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As if the presidential nominating contest was not complicated enough, for some reason Democrats and Republicans diverge for the next presidential contest although they are both held on the same day. Saturday, February 20 sees a Republican primary in South Carolina while the Democrats hold caucuses in Nevada. Republicans hold their Nevada caucuses on the 23rd while the Democrats go to South Carolina for their primary on the 27th. Meanwhile the state of Washington does its own weird thing. Their Republicans have caucuses on the 20th and a primary on May 24, while the Democrats have caucuses on March 26.
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The ninth Republican debate takes place tonight. The field is now reduced to ‘only’ six people, still large but reduced from the 17 who started. That makes the stakes higher as everyone seeks to avoid being the one who is eliminated next. As in musical chairs the aggressiveness is likely to be ramped up as the field gets smaller. I am in California right now and the early debate time may clash with a social commitment with family and friends and so I will likely miss what promises to be a bruising encounter.
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I was traveling all days yesterday and so missed the Democratic debate and haven’t caught up on the news. But here are some segments of The Daily Show that deal with politics. In the first one, Republicans compete for the torture vote. As Alex Emmons writes, Ted Cruz’s definition of what he said is “generally recognized” as the definition of torture is anything but. It is an extreme definition that comes from a self-serving memo of the Bush-Cheney regime that has since been withdrawn. His claims that his own father was tortured in Cuba would be false under that definition.
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It has been announced that scientists have detected gravitational waves for the first time, after a long and arduous search that rivaled the search for the Higgs boson in the difficulty involved even though it did not match it in costs. The announcement came in the form of a paper published yesterday in the journal Physical Review Letters, based on results obtained on September 14, 2015. You can read the paper here.
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In a moment of idle curiosity, I wondered what would happen if for some reason, human beings suddenly became extinct. Not a cheery thought but I was curious about how long it would be before all traces of our existence disappeared so that a new future intelligent species or maybe extra-terrestrial visitors to Earth would see no trace that intelligent life had ever existed because all the artifacts we created had simply decomposed away. It seems hard to imagine since humans have covered the Earth with our creations but surely all things must pass at some time?
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Bernie Sanders made an extended appearance on Colbert’s show last night. The crowd gave Sanders a rousing reception. It is really strange how Sanders has become the ‘cool’ candidate. I think that it is because of the authenticity that he emanates and that he speaks truths that others don’t. The ‘why’ questions he asks and his conviction that things could and should be much better than they are now is inspiring.
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