- Booyah! How long has it been since we’ve had a good federal judge impeachment? Too long, that’s how long. So big ups to Federal Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana and the U.S. Senate for reversing that trend when the Senate found Porteous guilty on four articles of impeachment on Wednesday, which will remove him from the federal bench. While accepting kick-backs and bribes might not be the most imaginative way for a judge to break the law, lying to the Senate and FBI is pretty fresh and ballsy on the part of a federal judge. And while it might seem like a dark day when one is indicted and removed from a job that came with a lifetime appointment, the reality of the situation is that Porteous is a history-maker, becoming just the eighth federal judge in the nation's history to be impeached and convicted. As part of his conviction, the 63-year-old Porteous is also "forever disqualified to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States," Sen. Daniel Inouye said during Wednesday's Senate hearing. That add-on motion was adopted by a vote of 94 to 2. The guilty verdict put an end to a saga that had dragged on since March, when the House of Representatives voted unanimously to impeach Porteous on corruption charges. "Our investigation found that Judge Porteous participated in a pattern of corrupt conduct for years," stated U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Judicial Impeachment. Porteous and his lawyer, Richard W. Westling, had hoped that the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute because it did not have credible evidence would lead to the House also dropping the case. "Unfortunately, the House has decided to disregard the Justice Department's decision and to move forward with impeachment," Westling lamented at the time. "As a result, we will now turn to the Senate to seek a full and fair hearing of all of the evidence." That full fair hearing has taken place and the end result is Porteous being removed from the bench after a 16-year run. He was appointed in 1994 and actually has not worked as a judge since he was suspended with pay in the fall of 2008. During the time frame between his suspension and trial by the Senate, Porteous nearly had his chance at history ripped when the House impeached Judge Samuel B. Kent of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas last year. However, Kent resigned after being impeached on charges of sexual assault, obstructing and impeding an official proceeding and making false and misleading statements and as such, there was no need for the Senate to convict and remove him from office. Thankfully, my man G. Thomas Porteous stepped up to fill that void………
- Aaaaaand allow the angry ranting to commence. Every time Philadelphia Eagles quarterback is given an honor or recognized in any way from here to the end of his career most likely, there will be angry animal lovers who decry the recognition as a sign of all that is wrong and evil in this world. That’ll happen when you spend 18 months in prison for running a dogfighting and gambling operation, but that doesn’t mean C-list musicians like E Street band guitarist Nils Lofgren should be penning open letters to the public and members of the media, trying to re-open wounds that a) were beginning to heal and b) were so far in the past that most of us would need to break out our telescopes to see them. Lofgren isn’t the only kook making that sort of gesture and you can be certain that more will follow his lead now that the NFL has revealed that Vick leads Pro Bowl voting, with 729,838 fan votes, 38,692 more than second-place Peyton Manning. Manning had the lead two weeks ago when the last results announcement was made, but he’s thrown eight interceptions in the past two games while Vick has continued to soar. Despite being a backup to start the season, Vick has led the Eagles to first place in the NFC East, accounting for 21 total touchdowns and throwing just two interceptions. Most fans (and especially fantasy football dorks) have forgiven or simply forgotten his dark past because they only value what he can do on the field. Others still despise his actions but realize that once someone has paid the price for their crime, they should be allowed to move forward and re-enter society just like a normal person. For these three groups, voting for Vick isn’t a huge deal. For everyone else…….get ready for some angry rants. Fan voting is just one component of the Pro Bowl selection process, although it is a virtual certainty that players and coaches, whose votes make up the other two-thirds of the equation, will select Vick to play in the game. Now it’s up to you to determine if you believe that to be a good thing or a bad thing………
- Umm, I don’t know how to put this China, so I’ll say it as directly as possible: You can't just make up your own prizes and awards when you don’t like how various groups and organizations around the world distribute theirs. While you may not like the Norwegian Nobel committee's choice of imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo as this year's Nobel Peace Prize, you cannot simply create your own and pretend that it’s legit. Liu Xiaobo is this year’s laureate according to the Nobel committee and you concocting the Confucius Peace Prize -- which comes with an award of $15,000 -- and pretend that it’s the same thing. Sure, Confucius is a major figure in Chinese history, but dropping his name on the award doesn’t make it legitimate either. "China is a great nation that has been influenced by the Confucian concept of peace for a long time," said Tan Changliu, chairman of the awards committee. "We want to promote world peace from an Eastern perspective. Europe is full of small countries that had fought each other for centuries. We don't want to see people who don't understand peace to ruin the concept." Wow, that’s rich. Playing the “nations that have fought each other and don’t understand peace” is quite the concept for a nation that has seen its share of wars over the years. Do the words Tiananmen Square mean anything to y’all? Does the image of a tank about to run over a protestor scream peace to you? Wanting to promote an ancient sage's philosophy is one thing, but don’t try to sell us on the fact that the Confucius Peace Prize is anything other that a hackneyed attempt to rip off the Nobel Peace Prize. You’re throwing this thing together so you can award it a day before the Nobel committee honors Liu in Oslo. Tan refused to give any details about his shadowy little cabal of award-givers, saying only that the committee is a non-government organization. Uh-huh, sure it’s not. Nothing in China is non-government, period. So slam together your five-person committee and give it out to whatever government sycophant you can find on short notice. But props for including Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates on the list, just to make it look legitimate. Just know that this charade isn’t going to cause anyone to forget that Liu is currently serving an 11-year sentence for "inciting subversion" and that you have wrongly branded him as a common criminal and the award as a Western plot against China. Here’s hoping that this sinister “plot” does exactly what the Chinese government fears it will do, namely create 1.3 billion "dissidents" in China. Oh, and thanks for the hilarity of the Confucius Peace Prize’s creators suggesting that it will promote China’s view on human rights to the rest of the world. As if China has a view on human rights other than the one from high above as it tramples them underfoot………
- Thanks so much, MTV, for turning New Year’s Eve into what is guaranteed to be the biggest tool-fest of both this and next year. If I’m mentioning the words tool and MTV in the same sentence, it can only mean that…..wait for it…..yup, the Jersey Shore crew is involved and sure enough, they will be front and center as MTV looks to usurp Times Square tradition by dropping its own ball this year. Of course, one could argue that MTV drops the ball on a daily basis with its never-ending slew of low-rent, terrible reality shows about spoiled girls getting lavish 16th birthday parties, teen skanks getting knocked up and raising their kids in homes sure to foster mentally scarred futures and talentless idiots living in beach houses in New Jersey. But on New Year’s Eve, there will be an actual ball dropping courtesy of MTV and inside that ball will be none other than Jersey Shore‘s Snooki. Just like the original ball dropping in Times Square, the Snooki ball will also descend at midnight to ring in the new year. Other members of the Jersey Shore cast will also be on hand for MTV’s New Year’s Bash special with host Whitney Cummings — Pauly D will DJ — and together, these half-wits (probably giving them too much credit there) will attempt to lead the crowd in the largest collective fist-pump the world has ever witnessed. And somewhere, the soul of every person watching that broadcast anywhere in the world will die just a little bit……..
- At long last, the first commercially-operated space flight has taken off and with it, the possibility of a new era in the world of space travel. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 10:43 a.m. ET and took what could be a significant step toward commercial space travel. If the Falcon 9 is able to execute a successful re-entry, it could pave the way for commercial space ventures that could eventually transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. Of course, NASA is having much of its funding ripped by the federal government, so the space agency is set to retire its shuttle fleet in 2011. Unless commercial operations take over the space race, the United States won't be shooting much of anything into orbit in the future. Wednesday’s successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket followed up on a successful test launch back in July that SpaceX officials deemed "essentially a bulls-eye." The test rocket successfully pushed past the earth's atmosphere and deposited a mock-up of its Dragon space capsule in orbit. For the record, the Obama administration plans to end NASA’s three-decade run of flying shuttles in low Earth orbit and going to and from the space station because it wants to see whether private companies can do it cheaper and more efficiently. NASA has selected SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences, to each develop an orbital vehicle to replace the soon-to-retire space fleet it has relied upon to get to the space station. Oh, and we’re also getting help from the communists, as the U.S. will be renting space from the Russians aboard their Soyuz spacecraft. The competition to see which private company can reach space first has been fierce and SpaceX is the first company to reach the launchpad. Doing so cost them almost $400 million (and counting), but SpaceX currently holds a $1.6 billion contract from NASA to transport cargo into space, so they’re not exactly going broke here. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who made his fortune as co-founder of PayPal, said back in July that if all went according to plan, SpaceX would be ready to begin flying cargo to the space station next year. "We want to see a future where we are exploring the stars, where we're going to other planets, where we're doing the great things that we read about in science fiction and in the movies," he said. There is also competition when it comes to transporting non-astronauts and government cargo to space and Spaceport America, a commercial launch facility in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2011. The primary tenant at its facility is Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which hopes to launch short tourist excursions into space in the near future. Yes sir, it’s an exciting time to be in the space exploration business………
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