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May 2017

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 06, 2017 15 Comments
President Donald Trump plans to pursue public-private partnerships for develop the space industry, which is likely to increase the development and profitability of these firms. The State of California obviously foresees this possibility as well. Never having seen a tax that it will not try and collect, the state's Franchise Tax Board is seeking public comment on its proposal for computing taxes on commercial space transportation companies (hat-tip, Legal Insurrection reader Robert).

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 06, 2017 8 Comments
As we reported in an earlier post, the Afrikan Black Student Alliance took over a building at UC Santa Cruz this week and issued a specific set of demands, including mandatory diversity training for other students, repainting of Rosa Parks house and housing guarantees for “ALL African Black Caribbean identified students.” Along the way, some of those students shouted anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. The university has agreed to all of the student demands. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports:
UC Santa Cruz agrees to demands of students who occupied Kerr Hall UC Santa Cruz has agreed to the demands of the Afrikan Black Student Alliance after a three-day occupation of Kerr Hall, the primary administration building on campus. To loud cheers of victory, UCSC director of News and Media Relations Scott Hernandez-Jason stood before hundreds of students at Kerr Hall about 5:30 p.m. Thursday and announced that the university was committed to better serving its African, black and Caribbean-identified students.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on May 06, 2017 16 Comments
On Thursday, May 4, 2017, the Texas legislature passed a resolution calling for a Convention of States for the purpose of proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The resolution (SJR2), having a total of 72 co-authors, was passed 217 to 213 as nearly 250 supporters watched from the Gallery. The resolution comes after the Senate passed its own version on February 28, making the Lone Star State the 11th state to call for a convention as outlined in Article V of the Constitution. As Legal Insurrection has explained, Article V details two procedures for amending the U.S. Constitution. The first and most familiar way requires that congress write and propose an amendment that is subsequently sent to the 50 states for ratification. The second process for proposing and passing amendments, however, requires that two-thirds of the state legislatures submit applications for a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. 

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2017 12 Comments
French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's party En Marche claims hackers have hit the campaign just two days before the country hits the polls. Reuters reported:
Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of them were genuine.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 05, 2017 28 Comments
Back in March, two illegal alien teens were charged with raping and sodomizing a 14-year-old girl in a high school bathroom.  After conducting an investigation into the case, prosecutors have dropped rape charges against the illegals; they are still facing child porn charges, however. The Baltimore Sun reported at the time:
The two teenagers accused of raping a ninth-grader at Rockville High School last week were among tens of thousands of young people who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in 2016.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2017 6 Comments
It's really hard not to like Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. On Friday, he hosted the first "Doggy Day," which he hopes will become a regular thing. After all, Zinke likes to bring his dog Ragnar to the office as often as possible. The Hill reported:
"It does improve morale among a lot of people,” said Zinke, who rode a United States Park Police horse to the building on his first day of work after Senate confirmation.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2017 15 Comments
Failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton keeps blaming FBI Director James Comey for losing to President Donald Trump despite tons of evidence proving her wrong. The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) has produced more evidence that contradicts Hillary claims after she, once again, whined that Comey cost her the election. AAPOR wrote (emphasis mine):
Based on Figure 6, it appears that Clinton’s support started to drop on October 24th or 25th. October 28th falls at roughly the midpoint (not the start) of the slide in Clinton’s support. What’s more, the lag between when interviewing was conducted and when tracking poll results are released means that the slide in Clinton’s support probably began earlier than estimates in Figure 6 suggest. For example, the ABC News/Washington Post estimate of a tied race on October 31 was based on interviews conducted October 28-31. The IBD/TIPP estimates are based on interviews conducted during the six days prior to the date shown. Factoring in this lag, it is reasonable to speculate that Clinton’s slide began as early as October 22 or 23. There were no notable campaign events on either of those days, though the announcement that Obamacare premiums will increase occurred roughly around that time (October 25th).

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2017 4 Comments
The U.S. economy received a huge boost in April after it added 211,000 jobs and unemployment dropped to 4.4%. That's the lowest unemployment number since May 2007. From Fox News:
In an encouraging sign, the number of part-time workers who'd prefer full-time jobs has reached a nine-year low. That trend suggests that many employers are meeting rising customer demand by shifting part-timers to full-time work. During much of the economic recovery, the number of part-timers remained unusually high, one reason why steady job growth failed to produce sharp gains in pay or consumer spending.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 05, 2017 16 Comments
Earlier this week, Puerto Rico, an American territory, sought "bankruptcy" protection after years of economic downfalls and facing $123 billion in bond and pension debts. So why did it take over two years for the island to address these problems? First off, it's not exactly bankruptcy since Puerto Rico is only a territory and the island cannot receive the same Chapter 9 protections like the states. Second, it was not until last year that Congress passed the Puerto Rico Debt Relief Bill:
The legislation would create a federal oversight board, appointed by Washington, with power to restructure Puerto Rico's unmanageable debt load.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 05, 2017 7 Comments
Move over, North Korea! Californians who were awake early Wednesday morning were treated to the site of a test launch by the US Air Force of an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile.
Air Force Global Strike Command spokesman Joe Thomas told AFP from California that the test was routine and not meant to be a show of force in the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile program. The Minuteman III missile blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 0702 GMT, the strike command said in a statement.
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