From the article: Trump had tried to claim that as a former president he should enjoy "absolute immunity from criminal prosecution." He also claimed that he should be exempt on the grounds of "double jeopardy," unless he had been impeached and convicted while in office.

But Judge Tanya Chutkan bulldozed these arguments in a 48-page ruling, and concluded a former president can be investigated, prosecuted, and imprisoned for crimes committed while in office"because committing crimes is not technically part of the president's job.

"Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free' pass," Judge Chutkan wrote. "Defendant's four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens."

From the article: The bills were introduced three months after The New York Times published a story examining the impact of corporate-backed investment on Charlotte, N.C., where, in 2022, investors purchased 17 percent of the city's homes in cash, often outcompeting first-time buyers who rely heavily on mortgages.

In a pattern repeated in cities around the country, corporations focused on modestly priced houses, frequently in neighborhoods with large Black and Latino populations, and converted the properties to rentals. In one neighborhood in east Charlotte, Wall Street-backed investors bought half of the homes that sold in 2021 and 2022. On one block, all but one home that sold during that period sold in cash to an investor who rented it out.

Wall Street entered the single-family rental market in the aftermath of the 2008 housing crisis, plucking up homes in foreclosure. Its influence has been growing ever since. By June 2022, institutional investors owned 3 percent of all single-family rentals nationwide, but in more affordable markets they owned a considerable market share; in Charlotte, they owned 20 percent, according to the Urban Institute. Even as the housing market slows, investors have remained active, buying 26 percent of the single-family homes that sold in June 2023, according to CoreLogic, a data analytics company.

#2,

That was a pretty good guess.

The man accused of killing six people and injuring three more in a deadly shooting spree was dishonorably discharged from the military in 2015 because of a domestic violence incident, according to authorities.

Police believe Shane Matthew James Jr. killed his parents at their home in northeastern Bexar County before driving to Austin on Tuesday and fatally shooting four more people.

This is the world Texans have overwhelmingly voted to live in. If they're not happy with their families/friends/neighbors being gunned down maybe they should do something about it next year.

The GOP is soft on crime

Zionist's children are taught the exact same thing about Palestinians, what does Lady G have to say about that?

People who keep these things as pets deserve what they get. I'm just glad it was their own child an not a neighbor's.

The party of law and order, ladies and gentlemen.

More: The decision to allow the January 6 lawsuits against Trump to proceed was unanimous among the three judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Greg Katsas concurred with the decision, and Judge Judith Rogers concurred in part.

The decision allows three lawsuits against Trump from Capitol police officers and members of Congress who are seeking recovery from emotional distress and physical injury from the attack to move forward.

The complaints largely rely on a federal law prohibiting individuals from conspiring to prevent someone from holding federal office.

From the article: It would be of little use to tell the folks around me " the people of my conservative hometown " that Barton wasn't a real historian. They wouldn't care that his lone academic credential was a bachelor's degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University. It wouldn't matter that Barton's 2012 book on Thomas Jefferson was recalled by Thomas Nelson, the world's largest Christian publisher, for its countless inaccuracies, or that a panel of 10 conservative Christian academics who reviewed Barton's body of work in the aftermath ripped the entirety of his scholarship to shreds. It would not bother the congregants of FloodGate Church to learn that they were listening to a man whose work was found by one of America's foremost conservative theologians to include "embarrassing factual errors, suspiciously selective quotes, and highly misleading claims."

All this would be irrelevant to the people around me because David Barton was one of them. He believed the separation of church and state was a myth. He believed the time had come for evangelicals to reclaim their rightful place atop the nation's governmental and cultural institutions. Hence the hero's welcome Barton received when he rolled into FloodGate with his "American Restoration Tour."

Anyone else expect him to show up again involved in some sort of future terrorist activity against the US?

What atheist activism? The man is Christian.

Facts have never mattered to tor when it comes to his religious soapbox.

He sees a Christian activist doing something awful in the name of their god and uses that Christian's actions to denigrate atheists. It's pathetic.

Heh, now I can't stop thinking about Kevin putting on a Grimace costume and dancing around trying to him cheer up.

At most jobs your religious beliefs are not a welcome topic in the office. No one wants to hear that crap.

A visual representation of the moment the gag was lifted.

From the article: For decades, the Sheriff's Department has been plagued by gangs of deputies running roughshod over certain stations and floors of the jail. The groups are known by monikers such as the Executioners, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members often bear the same sequentially numbered tattoos.

During his swearing-in ceremony nearly a year ago, Sheriff Robert Luna spoke of the need to "eliminate deputy gangs" from the department. Though he created a new office to do that, the department has not yet settled on a policy banning gangs or gang tattoos.

One hurdle to clear before implementing any sweeping new policy is the back-and-forth of the bargaining process with labor leaders, including ALADS.

"We've been hearing that the reason we can't move forward with passing an anti-gang policy " which is the first step in making good on the pledge to get rid of them " is because the sheriff has to negotiate with ALADS," said Sean Kennedy, who chairs the Civilian Oversight Commission.

"Those sessions are taking much longer than we anticipated," Kennedy said. "And then, when we hear that he'll be meeting and conferring with an organization with a tattooed Regulator on the board of directors, it makes everyone believe that we're engaged in a futile process."

He must have a new line of edibles coming out.

Protesting a political party's policies - at a party headquarters building, not the US Capitol - is nothing like trying to disrupt the transition of power processes that are the core of our democracy.

A few more snippets from the article: "Most people, even devout Christians in most cases, don't want to live in a theocracy," Huffman said. "It is extreme and disturbing and totally antithetical to the way our government was founded and has existed for all these years."

--

Like a lot of people, when Johnson was elected speaker last month, Rep. Mark Pocan didn't know him from Adam. "I'm going to assume that he's not going to govern like a theocrat until I see elsewise," said Pocan, who married his husband in 2006 and now chairs the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus. "I'm going to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. But certainly, we are watching everything he does very closely given his past statements and activities."

--

Johnson's views are "pretty much the embodiment of the extreme MAGA wing of the Republican caucus," Pocan added. "He's essentially a cleaned-up version of Marjorie Taylor Greene. He's presentable, he smiles, he comes across as congenial. But his views are probably some of the most extreme around " especially around gays and lesbians " that I've seen in all of Congress."

--

Johnson has described the separation of church and state as an overstated myth, arguing that when the Founders wrote the First Amendment, they "wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around."

"He's just making that up out of whole cloth," Huffman said. A 2021 Pew survey found that "even among White evangelical Protestants and highly religious Christians, fewer than half say the U.S. should abandon its adherence to the separation of church and state (34% and 31%, respectively) or declare the country a Christian nation (35% and 29%)."

Kim Stanley Robinson wrote an interesting book - called Red Moon - about just this topic a few years ago.

They're fighting for land that's largely not desirable outside of religious significance.

This is the single dumbest thing you've said all day and shows a profound lack of understanding of the Arab/Israeli conflict.

Native Americans fought for land that was not only their holy sites but also were the ranges required for their nomadic lifestyle.

Just a few minutes ago you were telling us how the had no concept of "home." Which is it?

A: if you ignorethe massive protests over the pipelines a few years ago then the last "uprising" was 1971s Alcatraz takeover by the AIM. A mere 80 years after wounded knee. The Nakba was almost that long ago.

B: You don't think the Palestinians are fighting to get out of Gaza? Bless your heart.

#79,

Yes. I'd point you to the struggles of the American Indians and their fights to retain their land against America's ethnic cleansing as a example if I thought you were capable of making the connection. People will fight for what they consider their homes even if they were forcibly removed from them a generation or more ago.

You're commenting in my thread, JPW, Corky didn't find me I posted this topic. Your narcissism is comical. Get over yourself.

One can only assume she died of embarrassment.