pinko

This is one of the reasons defence attorneys prefer trial by jury rather than by a judge.

I guess we all see things differently. I felt the prosecution did a fine job with the evidence that was available to them and that the jury failed to properly consider the jury instructions in reaching the conclusions that it did. The problem with your analysis of the decision is that the jury seems to have relied on extraneous information offered up by Jose Baez in his opening statement most of which lacked an evidentiary basis. Secondly it also appears the jurors lacked the necessary understanding of the evidentiary burden of beyond a reasonable doubt substituting instead a standard of no doubt. While these jurors had a mandate to make such a decision it appears to me that the decision made was patently unreasonable. By the way that legal system you attribute to the Americans is one adopted from the British for the most part.

This is a most unfortunate relic of the past. If you look at the way Canada was populated and how it was initially formed you will better understand how such a premise was recognized. If I had my way such a policy would not exist.

That certainly appears to be the trend.

Polls aren't the be all end all but they do provide a gauge at a given point in time.

As lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to debate the possibility of a deal to raise the debt ceiling, new polling from the Washington Post and ABC News makes clear the political highs and lows of a number of proposal being bandied about. When asked for their opinions on a wide range of possible ways to bring down the national debt, raising taxes on the wealthy in a variety of forms is without question the clear winner. The biggest loser? Touching entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid and SocialSecurity. More than seven in 10 respondents in the Post/ABC poll 72 percent said they favored the idea of raising taxes on those making $250,000 or more to help shrink the debt. While, not surprisingly, 87 percent of Democrats supported such a move, so did 54 percent of self-identified Republicans. And, nearly six in 10 people said they would support raising taxes on oil and gas companies, including 55 percent of Republicans who agreed with the idea. Those numbers suggest that the notion that any tax increase is anathema to the party base a belief that seems to be guiding much of House Republicans negotiating strategy to date may be misguided or, at least, overstated. Other popular debt-reducing proposals included raising taxes on hedge funds (64 percent support) and raising taxes and/or premiums for wealthier Americans on Medicare (61 percent) and Social Security (66 percent). While majorities were open to the idea of making more affluent Americans pay more for entitlement programs, the idea of making major changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security for the general population were broadly unpopular. Seventy-two percent of people opposed cutting spending on Medicaid as a means of debt reduction, while 54 percent disagreed with the idea of raising the retirement age for Medicare from 65 years old to 67. Fifty-three percent didnt like the idea of making changes to Social Security so that benefits increased at a slower rate. (Narrow majorities of Republicans opposed those proposed changes to Medicare and Social Security, for what its worth.) The polling makes clear why President Obama has, in the last several weeks, focused heavily on the idea that wealthy people, oil companies and, of course, corporate jet owners should be paying more in taxes as a way to shrink the nations debt. The public is very much behind that idea. Of course, Obama has also floated the concept of and continues to push for a grand bargain that would put entitlement programs on the table. Depending on what gets cut and when Obama could be sacrificing some (most? all?) of the political goodwill he gains by pushing tax reforms aimed at the affluent if a package gets done that alters Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Thats only if you believe the idea of a grand bargain is still possible, however. Viewed broadly, the polling suggests that most people are still taking a not in my backyard approach to solving the debt crisis. The wealthy and oil/gas companies that continue to churn profits are an easy political target but wont solve the debt problem alone. Taking on entitlements is a tougher road for any politician to travel, since those changes cut across a much broader swath of the American electorate and remain deeply unpopular. Washington Post

I notice the Group of Six has fashioned a plan that has support on both sides of the aisle in the Senate. It appears to address all the issues on either side of the political divide at least in the Senate.

It is a stretch to say there is broad support for the US in Canada.

Tue, 07/19/2011 - 12:03am — Joe Conason Follow The National Memo Editor-in-Chief Joe Conason on Twitter: @jconason Former President Bill Clinton says that he would invoke the so-called constitutional option to raise the nation’s debt ceiling “without hesitation, and force the courts to stop me” in order to prevent a default, should Congress and the President fail to achieve agreement before the August 2 deadline. Sharply criticizing Congressional Republicans in an exclusive Monday evening interview with The National Memo, Clinton said, “I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy.” Lifting the debt ceiling “is necessary to pay for appropriations already made,” he added, “so you can’t say, ‘Well, we won the last election and we didn’t vote for some of that stuff, so we’re going to throw the whole country’s credit into arrears.” Having faced down the Republican House leadership during two government shutdowns when he was president -- and having brought the country’s budget from the deep deficits left by Republican presidents to a projected surplus -- Clinton is unimpressed by the GOP’s sudden enthusiasm for balanced budgets. But he never considered invoking the Fourteenth Amendment -- which says “the validity of the US public debt shall not be questioned” – because the Republicans led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich didn’t threaten to use the debt ceiling as a weapon in their budget struggles with him. According to Clinton, the Gingrich Republicans thought about that tactic before rejecting it -- and Treasury officials who served under Clinton commissioned legal research on the president’s power to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval. While some legal scholars believe the Fourteenth Amendment requires Congress to fund the debt that results from its appropriations, and therefore empowers the president to raise the debt ceiling, others vehemently disagree. Like President Obama, Clinton is a former law professor who once taught the Constitution, and he understands that the extent of presidential power remains highly controversial, whether the issue is waging war or increasing the debt. “Here’s what happened, as I remember – but let me back up a second,” Clinton said. “I have read accounts of that time where people at Treasury have been interviewed, and they say they did look into [the president's authority to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval].” As for the Republicans, “they did think about doing that" -- withholding approval of a higher limit -- "and I knew they were thinking about it.” But the question ultimately did not arise for Clinton, he says, because his opponents in Congress decided “they didn’t want to get caught” in a position where they appeared to be repudiating the debt incurred by their own party’s two previous presidents. “The reason that raising the debt limit is so unpopular is that people think you’re voting to keep [increasing] deficit spending, instead of voting to honor obligations that were already incurred,” he said. “I think [the Gingrich Republicans] figured I’d be smart enough to explain to the American people that they were refusing to pay for the expenses they had voted for when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were president. And that would make ‘em look bad.” Obama could offer precisely the same explanation in the present circumstances, where most of the current debt can be traced to the profligate military spending and tax cuts of the last Bush administration. Just as the nation’s debt had tripled or quadrupled between 1981 and 1993, in the dozen years of Republican rule before Clinton’s first inauguration, as he points out, so the second Bush administration plunged the budget from surplus to deep deficit before Obama spent one penny on economic stimulus or anything else. Although Clinton says that if he were in Obama’s place he would raise the debt ceiling without legislation – “if it came to that” -- he believes the crisis will be resolved before August 2. “It looks to me like they’re going to make an agreement, and that’s smart.” Next: Who Clinton thinks will "win" if a debt deal is achieved, why he is "proud" of Obama, and how he would structure a "good deal" for America http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/exclusive-former-president-bill-clinton-says-he-would-use-constitutional-option-raise-debt?om_rid=NsfrMk&om_mid=_BOJXexB8caNsqM

One member of my family spent three years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area pursuing a fellowship. By the way my sister has dual citizenship. She has both American and Canadian citizenship.

Your reading skills are quite deficient. It must be that inferior American education system.

It is even more bizarre in Houston. As Bush-Cheney knows the many fat folks resident in that city live on the kinds of food you talk about. Bush-Cheney should get off that pompous ass of his and do some useful.

Are you one of those fat people?

Houston again tops fattest city list By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY Pity poor Houston — dubbed the fattest city in the country for the third year in a row by Men's Fitness magazine. On the other end of the spectrum, Honolulu tops the list of fittest cities. The rankings appear in the February issue, on stands Monday. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-01-01-cities-usat_x.htm

Houston has a disproportionate number of obese people within its boundaries and the city itself is highly polluted.

Do you support the subsidies given to the oil and gas industry in Alberta?

Real estate is reasonably priced here and in our case the house is bought and paid for and as well the dog died and the kids have long since left home.

This is a Canadian website. By the way what is so special about Houston?

You seem to do a lot of guessing.

I have family on both sides of the border.

I'm okay. We have central air and the basement is fully finished. In the hot weather I spend the majority of my time in the basement.

Not necessarily. A move to Vancouver is being contemplated.

Well said my friend.

Somewhat similar to what the states in the USA obtain from their central government.

Exactly