June 29, 2018

Two times the American people overruled the Supreme Court

The first time was the infamous Dred Scott decision. It was an outrageous decision. It wasn't just about slavery being legal in slave states. It also said that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, declared the Missouri Compromise illegal, and took away citizenship from African Americans in free states. That is, the goal was to make slavery legal EVERYWHERE. People were outraged. It led directly to the Republican takeover of Congress in 1858 and Lincoln's victory in 1860.

The Second time was during the New Deal. In Roosevelt's first term, the Supreme Court struck down many New Deal programs as unconstitutional. Roosevelt complained that the nation was being held back by "nine old men." The Democrats won a resounding victory in 1936. Not only was Roosevelt re-elected, they gained 12 seats in the House and 5 seats in the Senate, extending their already huge advantage. Shortly after this victory, The Supreme Court upheld a state minimum wage law, something they had decided against less than a year earlier. Both decisions were 5-4. Justice Owen Roberts had switched sides, and he would continue to side with the liberals in future New Deal cases. Memoirs of both Justice Roberts and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes stated that they both took on a more liberal view in response to the popular vote.

On Edit: After a few comments, I add this. Both times the American people won looked very different from each other. I don't think we are headed for civil war and I don't think any conservative justice will switch sides. So if it happens a third time, it will probably look very different. Perhaps it will be by court packing after 2020. Roosevelt tried that and failed in 1937, but as he himself said, "he lost the battle but won the war."


#BlueWave2018
#BlueWave2020
#GOTV

June 22, 2018

An overlooked clue to Cohen's flip - his new lawyer.

https://twitter.com/NormEisen/status/1009600827194052608




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An overlooked clue to the likely coming Cohen flip: his new lawyer is a former SDNY prosecutor who worked with Comey & for Preet. And every single one of his partners in his firm is an SDNY USAO veteran who either worked for &/or with Comey or Preet. They were hired to do a deal.

June 3, 2018

Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience

If spiritual experiences have a neurobiological basis, does that mean we will always have some form of religion with us? For purposes of this discussion, I'd like to point out that religion does not equal belief in gods. There are religions that don't have gods or where gods are minor elements. But all religions talk of spiritual experiences.



Date:
June 1, 2018
Source:
Yale University

Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.

Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences, according to a study published online May 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

"Spiritual experiences are robust states that may have profound impacts on people's lives," said Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry, of the Yale Child Study Center, and of neuroscience. "Understanding the neural bases of spiritual experiences may help us better understand their roles in resilience and recovery from mental health and addictive disorders."

Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events. Researchers at Yale and the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University interviewed 27 young adults to gather information about past stressful and relaxing experiences as well as their spiritual experiences. The subjects then underwent fMRI scans while listening for the first time to recordings based on their personalized experiences. While individual spiritual experiences differed, researchers noted similar patterns of activity in the parietal cortex as the subjects imagined experiencing the events in the recordings.

More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180601170056.htm

June 3, 2018

Giuliani threatens to go to court if Mueller subpoenas Trump

Source: The Hill

Rudy Giuliani on Saturday threatened to take special counsel Robert Mueller to court if he attempts to issue a subpoena against President Trump.

"If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court," Giuliani said in an interview with ABC News. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, joined Trump's legal team in April.

Giuliani’s warning arrived just hours after The New York Times revealed that Trump's lawyers sent Mueller a 20-page letter in January arguing that Trump couldn’t obstruct justice because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/390432-giuliani-threatens-to-go-to-court-if-mueller-subpoenas-trump

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The constitutional crisis is coming.