Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova: SCOTUS Aware DOJ Advising Universities To Disregard Their Ruling On Race Based Admissions, Preparing To “Slap Them Down”

Relevant portion starts at 3:15.

Update to this story.

Joe DiGenova is a Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. He spoke on WMAL this morning, noting that the DOJ actually advised universities in writing to ignore the SCOTUS ruling on race based admissions. The ruling determined that you could not use race as the primary factor in determining admission. Yet, the DOJ letter advises the universities that they could carry on as they had been doing.

DiGenova said the SCOTUS was prepared to smack down the DOJ in “a big way”, that they were aware of the DOJ letter sent out to disregard their ruling and might even cite to it in their decision in an upcoming Michigan case.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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Johnny Carson’s Lawyer Spills All in New Book– Including that Carson Carried a .38 and Frank Gifford Had An Affair with His Second Wife

Johnny Carson relied for years and years on the silence of his personal lawyer, Henry Bushkin. Now Bushkin has published a memoir in which he spills all about Carson. The book is already readable on Amazon.com although set up yet for Kindle. Bushkin says he, Carson, and a private eye went into Joanne Carson’s NY apartment– she was Johnny’s second wife–to find out who she was sleeping with. It turned out to be Frank Gifford.

Carson sobbed. Carson, Bushkin says, carried a .38 pistol on his hip in a holster. Here’s Johneeeeee…..” I realized,” Bushkin writes, “that I was probably one of the very few people who ever saw Johnny Carson cry.”

“Joanne has broken my heart,” Carson told Bushkin, “to the extent I ever had one.”

Bushkin says Carson wondered what Gifford had that he didn’t. “Gifford plays three positions on the field,” he said. “I could only get Joanne to go for one or two,” Carson joked. “I think I’ll use that in tomorrow’s monologue.”

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Via: Showbiz 411

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DOJ sends letter to Universities telling them to ignore SCOTUS ruling on using race in admissions…

I was listening to Attorney Joe DiGenova this morning on WMAL and he pointed out how the DOJ had recently sent a letter to universities telling them they could ignore the June ruling by the Supreme Court on using race in admissions. The Supreme Court, in a nearly unanimous ruling, said that universities could use race in admissions but not as a dominant factor. But in this letter the DOJ is instructing universities to continue with the same racial preferences that the Supreme Court had just barred them from using:

WSJ – Obama Administration regulators have made a specialty of ignoring Congressional intent, and even black-letter law. Now they’re showing the same disdain for the Supreme Court with advice to universities about interpreting racial preferences in the wake of June’s Fisher v. University of Texas ruling.

In a September 27 letter to university presidents, civil rights officials from the Departments of Justice and Education wrote that the Court’s decision in Fisher means that universities can continue with their same racial-preference policies. According to the Administration’s version of events, the ruling was merely a tweak on 2003′s Grutter v. Bollinger decision that racial preferences could be used to achieve “diversity” on campus.

…

That must be news to the Supreme Court, which in an 8-1 opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy rebuked Texas precisely because it had failed to heed Grutter. That decision said schools could use race in admissions but not as a dominant factor. In practice, however, the University of Texas like most other schools implemented a race-dependent admissions program and figured no one would notice. In Fisher, Justice Kennedy called that unacceptable and ordered courts to give universities “no deference” in subjecting racial preference policies to “strict scrutiny,” or the highest level of judicial review.

Via: The Right Scoop

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Closed for the Busy Season

Northern New England is in its glory; now and for the next week or so.  The leaves are nearing peak color and until yesterday, there has been a big high pressure zone parked over the area so the weather has been what would once have been described as "heavenly." It has been raining now but in a few days, the sun will shine again and the leaves will still be there, in full.  And for that, Washington can take no credit.

However … it has done something that will cause some small business people, who depend on this season, to suffer.  According to the Caledonian Record, the U.S. Forest Service has closed 21 campgrounds and many more camp sites in the White Mountain National Forest and part of the government "shutdown."

What is called "leaf-peeping season" generally brings more than half a million visitors to New Hampshire, “pumping nearly $90 million into the economy.”

One campground owner who has had contracts with the government since 1992 estimates that he will:

… lose $50,000 from the fully booked campsites -- unless a deal is reached. 

The law is the law, of course.  And a shutdown is a shutdown. Partial or not.  But one wonders if a government less haughty and not so inclined to view citizens as subjects might not have lost the paperwork on this one.  

For just a couple of weeks, anyway. 

Via: Weekly Standard

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OBAMA’S RECKLESS DEFAULT FEAR-MONGERING

Never before has an American president threatened and risked the U.S. economy and financial markets the way Barack Obama has in recent days. For his own narrow political ends, Obama and his minions have actually accused the Republican party of deliberately provoking a Treasury debt default because they don’t agree with the Obama position on the continuing budget resolution and the debt ceiling.

“As reckless as a government shutdown is … an economic shutdown that results from default would be dramatically worse,” Obama said on Thursday. Clearly targeting Republicans, he said a default would be “the height of irresponsibility.”

Then, on the same day, Obama’s Treasury Department released a brutal statement that said a default would prove catastrophic, causing credit markets to freeze and leading to “a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”

So who exactly in the Republican ranks is calling for a Treasury debt default? Who? The GOP disagrees with Obama on the budget and health care, but no Republicans have ever said they favor defaulting on the nation’s debt.

What’s going on here?

Via: Human Events

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Peter King: No, I won’t sign the Democrats’ discharge petition to force a House vote on ending the shutdown

Via the Corner, the exciting conclusion to Friday afternoon’s drama about the Dems trying to force Boehner to bring a clean CR to the floor. Pelosi sent a letter to him on Saturday signed by 195 House Democrats calling for a vote; that means all she’d need for a successful discharge petition is 22 House Republicans to sign too — and coincidentally, there are 22 House Republicans who’ve said things to the effect that a clean CR would be awfully nice right now. Peter King, whose incessant Cruz-bashing has made him the new de facto RINO Pope, is of course one of them. Surely he’ll sign Pelosi’s petition, then, right?

Nope. “It’s not going to go anywhere,” he says, and he’s right. Like I said Friday, it’s one thing to bash the Cruz wing and call for an end to the shutdown, it’s another to promise your vote to Nancy Pelosi. If you’re going to jump off that bridge, you want to make sure the other 21 Republicans who’ve called for a clean CR are prepared to jump with you. Otherwise, you’re risking a ferocious conservative backlash over a discharge petition that’ll ultimately fall short of the 217 it needs, which means you’ve risked everything for nothing. And remember — King already has some experience with seeing Great RINO Revolts fall flat. Beyond that, joining Pelosi to force an end to the shutdown on October 14th would destroy Boehner’s leverage in negotiating ahead of the debt-ceiling deadline on October 17th. If the RINOs signal that they’re willing to cross party lines to avoid a shutdown, Obama will feel more inclined to dig in on the debt limit. That puts Boehner in an exceptionally tough spot, trying to defend the debt-ceiling stalemate to the public as a deadlock between Republican and Democratic priorities when a critical mass of his caucus will have already joined with the Dems on the CR in the name of ending fiscal stalemates.

So, nope, no discharge petition. Even King RINO has lines he won’t cross.

Via: Hot Air Continue Reading.....

PAUL: Obama’s response to shutdown is just ‘shut up’

It has been said that politics is the art of compromise. Try as they may, Washington leaders hardly ever get absolutely everything they want.

Polls show Americans are worried about the implementation of Obamacare — worried about keeping their current health insurance plans, the new law itself, the exchanges, potential fines, personal privacy, keeping their jobs, their work hours and a host of other issues too numerous to list here. Both the country and the Congress have much to discuss.

Right now, though, President Obama refuses to engage in any debate or discussion. The president is demanding that he get 100 percent of what he wants, and if he doesn’t, he and his Democratic allies in the Senate will keep the government shuttered.

Republicans have offered compromises that might stop or dull some of the negative effects of Obamacare but that would also pass a budget and keep the government functioning. Still, Mr. Obama refuses to budge. He will not even consider compromise.

Republicans are told that the law has already passed and that we’re being obstructionists for attempting to question or modify it. However, since when in this country after a law is passed is it eternally set in stone? When has it ever been true that Congress cannot look at and alter or improve existing law?

Via: Washington Times

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