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In 2018, Pope Francis and the Vatican signed an agreement with the Chinese Communists that, among other things, gives both sides a say in the appointment of bishops. This agreement was ignored by Beijing three months ago when they unilaterally named Bishop Joseph Shen Bin to lead the Diocese of Shanghai. Instead of standing up to the Beijing bullies, Francis gave in and announced on Saturday that he had accepted the Communist’s appointment despite Beijing’s blatant violation of the 2018 accord. The Church in China is sharply divided between the “official” Catholic Church sanctioned by the government and an “underground”...

One official with the National School Boards Association who penned a letter to President Biden likening some parental behavior at local school board meetings to “domestic terrorism” has been appointed to a federal post. The New York Post reports that Viola Garcia, the president of NSBA, was appointed by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to the National Assessment Governing Board, established in 1988 during the latter stages of Ronald Reagan’s second term. The organization “oversees and sets policy for the National Assessment of Education Progress,” the paper reported. Known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” the governing examines student performance on a...

MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack has been appointed to the new Biden-Harris administration as the new Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Pollack has led MassDOT since 2015, at the beginning of Governor Charlie Baker’s first term. Before she joined the state government, Pollack had been Associate Director for Research at the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, and an attorney and director of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF). As a CLF attorney in the 1990s, Pollack helped negotiate a package of significant transit improvements that the state promised to build as mitigation...

Some of you have proposed having state legislatures appoint electors directly under Article II Section 1 of our federal Constitution, which provides that "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may be entitled in the Congress..." I think that is a most excellent idea given that Joe Biden appears to have anger and dementia problems, has offered bribes of up to $7000 and $10000 to have parents and student loan borrowers vote for him and clearly has...

Well, this was expected. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is out at the end of the month. Kyl served previously in the Senate before retiring after the 2012 elections. He left public life, but agreed to fill in temporarily for the late Sen. John McCain. Gov. Doug Ducey, who handily won re-election this year, now has to appoint a replacement. Could it be Martha McSally, who barely lost to Senator-elect Kyrsten Sinema in November? It’s still possible, but word is spreading that her stock has fallen in the governor’s office. One of the reasons was reportedly due to her campaign team’s...

Last week, federal authorities fined Munilla Construction Management $25,868 for “serious” safety violations in its role as the contractor on the Florida International University bridge that collapsed in March, killing six people. The morning after the collapse, Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said the department’s homicide squad would explore criminal charges for contractors such as MCM. “We’ve got to look at the reality that there may be some negligence down the line,” Perez said. Perez answers to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who appointed him director in January 2016. Miami-Dade is the only county in Florida where the...

Ray Lucia, who gives investment advice in a nationally syndicated radio program, today (June 21) won his case at the Supreme Court. The high court split 7 to 2 in Lucia’s favor. It was not a surprise, because of the court’s current conservative bent. An administrative law judge had banned Lucia from the securities industry in 2013 on the grounds that his Buckets of Money investment strategy used false information. In September of 2015, the full commission upheld the administrative law judge’s ban.

Presidents correctly and rightfully expect their appointees to at a minimum, remain silent about policy differences, especially in areas where they have no expertise. President Trump is not one to suffer fools at high levels. A recent potential appointee seemed to wish to score political points at the expense of the President.  Dean L. Winslow made a basic, rookie error. He lost. From washingtonpost.com: At my hearing, jet-lagged and in mourning over those killed, I was asked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) about the military discharge status of the shooter. He had been given a bad-conduct rather than dishonorable discharge...

President Trump announced more than three dozen appointments Friday night for key administration positions. The president intends to nominate Richard Grenell to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany. Grenell served in former President George W. Bush’s administration as a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations.“For nearly two decades, he has served as the primary communications adviser for public officials at the local, state, Federal, and international levels, as well as for a Fortune 200 ranked company,” the White House statement said. “Mr. Grenell is the longest serving United States spokesman at the United Nations (2001-2008) having...

Now that the election has settled the question of who will appoint the next Supreme Court justice, we have spent a considerable amount of time analyzing who might get Donald Trump’s appointment. Perhaps a better way to look at that question will be to recall the context in which it gets made. Earlier this week, Justice Samuel Alito laid out the potential agenda for a court in which an originalist replaces the late Antonin Scalia — and reminded the Federalist Society of the bullet conservatives dodged in the election: Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday laid out a possible agenda for...

White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain may have become an accidental folk hero to fans of crushing bureaucracy everywhere on Wednesday, when a U.S. senator asked high-ranking Obama administration officials to describe his work. The vague answers sounded like something plucked out of a Dilbert cartoon. 'Even though the President has named a so-called Ebola “czar” to coordinate our response,' Senate Appropriations Committee ranking Republican Richard Shelby complained, 'all reports indicate that he has no actual authority to direct government agencies here.' He asked two cabinet secretaries and two other experts what Klain has 'brought to the table' in...

What actions have been taken to prevent any fast and loose footwork? Question posed to all-- especially those with contacts... like w/ McConnell. Newt Gingrich can tell them how to do this in perpetuity until January 20, 2017. Somebody answer how to find this out, and result, and then... admin. please remove. Thank You.

Washington, February 14, 2016 India-born judge Srikanth Srinivasan favourite for elevation In this September 27, 2013 photo, Sri Srinivasan takes oath as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Srinivasan is among President Barack Obama's likely options as he looks for a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. He was Mr. Obama's principal deputy solicitor general, most notably working on the successful fight against the Defence of Marriage Act. Death of a serving judge of the U.S. Supreme Court has set off acrimonious...

Journalist Marcy Wheeler was the first to point out that Christie's timeline was off. While it was widely expected around the time of the 9/11 terror attacks that Bush would appoint Christie as a U.S. attorney, the former President didn't announce his intention to nominate Christie until December 2001. Christie was confirmed and began work as New Jersey's top prosecutor in January 2002.

If you aren’t familiar with the name Kamala Harris, you should be. The LA Times describes the California Attorney General thusly: “Aty. Gen. Kamala Harris is a veteran prosecutor, a skilled political leader and a promising politician who is sure to figure in California’s future.” She’s been called a “female Barack Obama” and she’s just as far-left as you might imagine.

RICHMOND, Va. – A third federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Obama´s recess appointments of three National Labor Relations Board members was unconstitutional. A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals joined federal appeals courts in the District of Columbia and Philadelphia in ruling that the Senate wasn´t really in recess when Obama filled the vacancies during an extended holiday break in January 2012. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the D.C. case. However, the legal dispute may have been resolved politically. Obama on Tuesday nominated two new NLRB appointees to replace those

President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board. The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions. The ruling also throws into question Obama's recess...

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) announced its opposition to the potential appointment of former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as Secretary of Defense, citing a long list of actions Hagel has taken that raise alarms about his failure to support Israel. Hagel is said to be the leading contender to replace Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is expected to step down early next year. The RJC outlined a number of instances highlighting Hagel’s anti-Israel record: In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hizbullah a terrorist organization; In October...

With only the formality of the Republican National Convention standing between them and the November election, the “Comeback Team” of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan has a little less than three months in which to convince a majority of the American electorate it is better equipped to govern the country for the next four years than its Democrat counterpart. If these two Republican leaders wish to get a jump start on accomplishing that goal, there is one person with whom they quickly should set up an appointment – Texan T. Boone Pickens. Romney noted in his speech last Saturday at...

After making Gov. Scott Walker the issue in a Milwaukee County Circuit Court race, state Administrative Law Judge Carolina Maria Stark led Walker's appointee, incumbent Circuit Judge Nelson Phillips III, in Tuesday's primary. Stark and Phillips will advance to the April 3 general election, edging out Glendale Municipal Judge Chris Lipscomb on his third try for the circuit bench. Walker appointed Phillips, a former state and federal prosecutor, to the Branch 17 seat in October. Stark made that appointment a campaign issue, saying she didn't apply for the post because she didn't want to be associated with Walker. She works...