Today, I would like to provide the American people with an update on the White House transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. Our transition team is working very smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. Truly great and talented men and women, Patriots indeed, are being brought in, and many will soon be a part of our government, helping us to make America great again.
My agenda will be based on a simple core principle; putting America first. Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers.
As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It’s about time. These include the following:
On trade, I'm going to issue our notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores.
On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs. That's what we want. That's what we've been waiting for.
On regulation, I will formulate a role which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. So important.
On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyberattacks and all other form of attacks.
On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker.
On ethics reform, as part of our plan to “drain the swamp,” we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration, and a lifetime ban on executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.
These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class. I will provide more updates in the coming days as we work together to make America great again for everyone. And I mean everyone.
Donald Trump’s overwhelming victory in Tuesday night’s New Hampshire primary makes him, according to both betting markets and many analysts, the favorite to win the Republican nomination. Trump has been written off as an entertainer and circus clown, but he has been tagged with another, much more serious label: fascist. Trump’s campaign has stirred bigoted feelings in the electorate and played to voters’ worst fears and prejudices. And so far, it’s working. Two-thirds of New Hampshire Republicans, according to exit polls, favored Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration.
To discuss Trump’s rise and its historical echoes, I called Robert Paxton, a leading authority on the history of fascism. A regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and an expert on Vichy France, Paxton has written numerous books on European history. We discussed the ways in which Trump is and is not a fascist, whether Trump believes what he says, and why now, of all times, so many Americans seem to be embracing him. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
A new study says women around the world know less about politics than do men, regardless of how progressive a country is in terms of gender equality.
The United Kingdom's Economic & Social Research Council recently measured the media systems and national political knowledge of men and women in 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Colombia, Greece, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Norway, the U.K. and the United States. The study found that news consumption is primarily a male activity, with national populations that watch TV news – particularly public service broadcasters – better informed about politics than those who don't.
Researchers found that gender-equality laws factored little into whether women were politically knowledgeable.
"Our finding that the gap between men and women's knowledge of politics is greater in Norway – a country ranked globally as one of the very highest in terms of gender equality – than in South Korea – a country with a much lower equality rating – is particularly striking," Professor James Curran, director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre at University of London and lead researcher of the study, said in a released statement.
The study also found that economic status did not affect the knowledge gap: women were more widely behind men in "advanced" economies, such as those in the U.K. and U.S., than in less-advanced economies such as in Colombia.
"The fact that throughout the whole world women know less about politics than men and that this is as true for people in Norway as it is in Colombia is really very surprising," Curran said.
Of the coverage measured, women were interviewed or cited in 30 percent of television news stories from the 10 countries measured. In all 10 countries, women tended to appear in "soft news" stories, covering topics such as family, lifestyle and culture.
The countries with the widest gaps between genders were Canada, Norway and the U.K., where men claimed to be exposed to TV and newspapers significantly more than women.
The study goes onto say that the reason for the gap could be rooted in male-biased media content, less leisure time and greater unpaid work undertaken by women at home and social norms inherited from past generations.
"Whatever the reasons, our research shows that globally in the 21st Century those who are most likely to be knowledgeable about politics and current affairs are older men in advanced industrial nations," Curran said in the release.
Health Status, Health Care and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S.
June E. O'Neill, Dave M. O'Neill
Does Canada's publicly funded, single payer health care system deliver better health outcomes and distribute health resources more equitably than the multi-payer heavily private U.S. system? We show that the efficacy of health care systems cannot be usefully evaluated by comparisons of infant mortality and life expectancy. We analyze several alternative measures of health status using JCUSH (The Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health) and other surveys. We find a somewhat higher incidence of chronic health conditions in the U.S. than in Canada but somewhat greater U.S. access to treatment for these conditions. Moreover, a significantly higher percentage of U.S. women and men are screened for major forms of cancer. Although health status, measured in various ways is similar in both countries, mortality/incidence ratios for various cancers tend to be higher in Canada. The need to ration resources in Canada, where care is delivered "free", ultimately leads to long waits. In the U.S., costs are more often a source of unmet needs. We also find that Canada has no more abolished the tendency for health status to improve with income than have other countries. Indeed, the health-income gradient is slightly steeper in Canada than it is in the U.S.
Travelgate
After the inauguration in 1993, the Clintons fired the White House travel office employees, allowing their wealthy Hollywood friends to take over the lucrative travel business. This led to investigations by the FBI, DOJ, GAO Oversight Committee, and the Whitewater Independent Counsel. The Clintons claim the firings were due to financial misdeeds, but the employees were cleared on all counts. Hillary Clinton allegedly played a central role in the firings, yet in her sworn testimony she claimed she was not involved. The Independent Counsel found this to be factually inaccurate, and that she made factually false statements. The Clintons were forced to remove their friends and reinstate the previous employees.
Hillarycare
President Clinton put his wife in charge of the most expensive program in the country. It was a national outrage that the unelected, unqualified first lady was going to design America's health care system. In a 1993 interview Hillary Clinton admitted, “I am not an expert on health care. I'm not somebody who has studied it.” Hillary Clinton kept the Presidential Task Force on National Health Care Reform shrouded in such secrecy that a federal judge threatened to hold the administration in contempt. Two years later the health care plan was a 1,342 page nightmare, including gatekeepers, health alliances, purchasing cooperatives, new and higher taxes, and restrictions on choosing doctors. Physicians, hospitals, large and small businesses, insurance companies, Democrats, Republicans, and the general public rejected the program, and it failed disastrously. The General Accounting Office put a price tag of 32 million dollars on Hillary Clinton's healthcare fiasco. For dishonesty, Hillary Clinton and others were fined four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Court costs to taxpayers were seven hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1996, with Hillarycare fresh in their minds, Americans voted both the Senate and the House in to Republican hands for the first time in over four decades.
Whitewater
In 1994, President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, initiated an investigation focusing on fraud accusations against the Clintons regarding their real estate venture, White Water Development Corporation, co-owned with their friends Jim and Susan McDougal. Hillary Clinton was the central figure, and the probe revealed pervasive conflicts of interests between the Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Clinton was partner, and its client Madison Guarantee, owned by Clinton business partner Jim McDougal. Hillary Clinton claimed billing records subpoenaed and critical to the investigation were lost. It is presumed they were stolen from Vince Foster’s office the night he died. 19 months later, following the Clintons’ acquittal, many of the ‘missing’ records reappeared in the Clintons’ residence. As they were covered with Hillary Clinton's fingerprints, she fell under suspicion of obstruction of justice. Their business partner, Susan McDougal, refused to testify against the Clintons assuring they were not charged. Susan McDougal went to prison for her silence but was pardoned by President Clinton. 15 Clinton associates were convicted of 40 federal crimes related to Whitewater. The independent counsel’s report highlighted the president abundant and calculating lies under oath, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power during this case. Many other alleged abuses were uncovered. The four and a half year expanded investigation cost taxpayers 145 million dollars.
Cattlegate
Hillary Clinton's trades and cattle futures raise suspicions of improprieties, as her very first trade of five thousand dollars quickly turned into over four hundred and ninety thousand dollars. She refused to release her tax returns for the years in question. Hillary Clinton insisted that she made all the investment decisions herself. The investigation proved her trades were actually placed by her friend, James Blair, through the brokerage firm, Refco. James Blair was outside counsel for Tyson Foods, the largest employer in Arkansas, which is state-regulated. The perception was Mrs. Clinton received preferential treatment and incredible financial returns as a way to garner favor with her husband, then Governor of Arkansas. Refco was investigated and paid the largest fines in the history of the exchange.
Filegate
The Clinton administration improperly requested and received FBI background reports on 900 Republican officials. Hillary Clinton allegedly initiated the request to add data to her ‘enemies list’ leading to three separate investigations. In 1996 in testimony, the White House personnel security director refused to name Hillary Clinton as the source of the request, and he was forced to resign. Hillary Clinton claims she was guiltless and was called a ‘congenital liar’ in the New York Times.
Clinton Legal Defense Fund
The fund was established so individuals or companies hoping to garner favor with the President could help pay the Clinton endless legal bills.
Pardongate As he was leaving office in January, 2001, President Clinton pardoned 450 people for crimes ranging from cocaine trafficking, kidnapping, and terrorism. Several pardons personally benefited Hillary Clinton and were investigated for direct ties to her New York Senate bid. Marc Rich, a billionaire fugitive owed the government over 160 million dollars and was charged with tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and trading with Iran. Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, a close friend of the Clintons, donated over six hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton Presidential Library just prior to the pardon. Mrs. Rich also gave fourteen thousand dollars to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund and 135 thousand dollars to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. The ‘New Square Four’ were elders of a Republican voting Hasidic community convicted of defrauding the government of millions of dollars. Candidate Clinton met with their grand rabbi. Hillary Clinton received their votes and the New Square Four received their pardons. Hillary Clinton claimed, “I did not play any role whatsoever in the pardons.” Hillary Clinton's brother, lawyer Hugh Rodham, charged high fees to use his family influence to obtain presidential pardons. Carlos Vignali, a Los Angeles drug lord, paid Rodham over five hundred thousand dollars, and his sentence for cocaine trafficking was commuted. Almon Braswell, a scam artist, paid Rodham over 250 thousand dollars and was pardoned for defrauding senior citizens of millions of dollars.
FALN Terrorists
Fighting for Puerto Rican independence, the FALN exploded 138 bombs in New York City, Chicago, and Puerto Rico during a 10 year reign of terror. 13 innocent people were killed and over 80 maimed. New York City Councilman Jose Rivera met with Hillary Clinton proposing pardons for FALN members in return for Puerto Rican support in her Senate race. Two days later, President Clinton pardoned 16 FALN terrorists. These pardons were condemned by Democrats and Republicans, the house and senate, the FBI, the US Attorney, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Fraternal Order of Police. Another probe into Clinton wrongdoing ensued when Congress requested additional information; President Clinton claimed executive privilege preventing anyone involved with the pardons from testifying. Hillary Clinton claimed no involvement in or prior knowledge of the decision. Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter called these “shameless pardons disgraceful.”
Senate Candidate Clinton Campaign Finance Investigations
The largest political fundraiser in US history became the largest election fraud in history. In the year 2000, the fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's New York Senate race was attended by 1300 people, including the Hollywood elite and the Democratic leadership. In violation of federal election statutes, an individual, Peter Paul, financed the entire event. Peter Paul was also a convicted cocaine trafficker. In violation, Hillary Clinton was involved with the solicitation of funds and the coordination of the gala. In violation, Hillary Clinton requested in writing an additional 150 thousand dollars from Peter Paul in untraceable securities. The Clinton campaign’s filings with the federal elections committee stated the event only cost five hundred thousand dollars. The actual price tag was 1.5 million. Senator Clinton was fined over fifty thousand dollars for “purposely underreporting” the cost of the event. In another campaign finance fraud, Hillary Clinton ignored FBI warnings and accepted over nine hundred thousand dollars from scam artists and felon Norman Hsu.
Senator Clinton
Hillary Clinton Senate tenure was undistinguished. In seven years, she introduced only three minor bills which became law, including the naming of a post office. She helped secure millions in federal assistance for a New York developer. Ethics questions arose when the businessman donated over 120 thousand dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Senator Clinton did not support English as the official language of the United States government. And she enthusiastically voted for the Iraq War resolution.
Senate Rules Violations
Hillary Clinton ignored Senate rules and reporting requirements for the hiring of staff and not-paid fellows, breaking the Senate code of official conduct, and hiding multiple conflicts of interest. She was investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
2008 Presidential Candidate Clinton
Hillary Clinton's long history of campaign finance abuses continued. Jeffrey Thompson and other fundraising bundlers for her failed 2008 presidential campaign pled guilty to conspiracy and campaign finance law violations. In the primaries, Democrats nominated the little-known Junior Senator Obama over the well-known scandal-ridden Hillary Clinton.
Madam Secretary
In 2009, President Obama nominated Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. In 2014, the State Department spokesperson was asked to identify one tangible achievement from Hillary Clinton's four years as Secretary of State. She responded, “I am certain those who were here at the time, who worked hard on that effort, could point out one.” Secretary Clinton's tenure had no signature doctrine or diplomatic breakthrough. It was however four more years of scandals. The Clinton State Department wasted 80 million dollars on a US consulate in northern Afghanistan, which will never be completed. Under Clinton's name, the Foreign Service gathered details on foreign diplomats, our allies, and officials of the UN, including internet user names, email addresses, credit card numbers, fingerprints, frequent flyer account numbers, and work schedules. The Clinton State Department lost approximately six billion dollars due to improper filing of contracts. The FBI, CIA, and the DOJ requested that Boko Haram be designated as a terrorist group so the agencies could pursue them. Secretary Clinton declined, and the group continued its reign of terror, including the kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria.
State Department Scandals and Cover-ups
A special investigator for the state department claims probes into illegal acts by the Diplomatic Security Service and ambassadors were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off under Hillary Clinton. These include sexual assaults by State Department security officials in Beirut, ‘endemic’ engagement of prostitutes by Hillary Clinton's security detail, drug use by State Department contractors in Baghdad, and solicitation of child male prostitutes by US ambassador to Belgium. Secretary Clinton spokesperson claimed Hillary Clinton had no knowledge of any of the scandals in her State Department. “We learned a bit from the media and don't know anything beyond what's been reported.”
Clinton Secrets
The Presidential Records Act allows restricted access to documents for 12 years after leaving office. Now 14 years later, the Clintons are still withholding thousands of records from the public. Over 300 Freedom of Information Act requests have been ignored, suggesting more damaging revelations about the Clintons. It is difficult to separate the Clintons’ personal and political financial ventures from those of the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times expose on the Clinton Foundation details “moral and fiscal chaos, shameless fundraising”, and calls it “mired in conflict of interest.” Run by old Clinton friends, it has been grossly mismanaged and despite enormous donations ran multi-million dollar deficits. Already rife with conflict of interest, the Foundation's offices are now shared by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Americans can give twenty three hundred dollars to presidential candidates, but there are no limits on donations to foundations. Hillary Clinton cannot legally accept campaign donations from foreigners, but no restrictions apply to foundations. Secretary of State Clinton traveled to Moscow and pressed the Russian government to purchase planes from Boeing. Two months later, contract in hand, Boeing donated nine hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton Foundation. The foundation support from foreign interests, hoping to influence us policy, is a grave concern. Foreign donations to the foundation increased by seventy percent when Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008. Saudi Arabia has financed terrorists, has an abysmal women's rights record, and punishes homosexuality by death. And yet the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest supporters of the Clinton Foundation. In a Clinton co-presidency, every large donation could raise suspicions of improprieties or influence peddling and lead to non-stop investigations.
Many qualified and deserving politicians, Democrat and Republican, women and men are waiting to lead this country.
1791 - The Democratic-Republican Party is formed by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson against Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party. The Democratic-Republicans strongly opposed government overreach and expansion, the creation of a national bank, and corruption.
1804 - Andrew Jackson purchases the plantation that will become his primary source of wealth.
1824 - The Democratic-Republican Party split. The new Democrats were supported by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, and the National Republicans were supported by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay.
1828 - Andrew Jackson is elected President of the United States.
1830 - Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, whereby the Cherokee and other native tribes were to be forcibly removed from their lands.
1831 - Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, whereby the Supreme Court ruled that Cherokee Nation was sovereign and the U.S. had no jurisdiction over Cherokee lands. Andrew Jackson had already started to enforce the removal of the Choctaw.
1832-33 - The Whig Party is formed in opposition to Jackson’s government expansion and overreach in the Nullification Crisis and the establishment of a Second National Bank. The Whig Party successfully absorbs the National Republican Party.
1838 - Many Indian tribes had been forcibly removed. Under Jackson, General Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers forced the Cherokee from their land at bayonet point while their homes were pillaged. They marched the Cherokee more than 1,200 miles to the allocated Indian territory. About 5,000 Cherokee died on the journey due to starvation and disease.
1854 - The Whig Party dissolves over the question of the expansion of slavery. Anti-slavery Whigs and anti-slavery democrats form the Republican Party with their sole goal being to end slavery.
1861 -The election of President Lincoln spurs the beginning of the Civil War.
1862 - Lincoln writes a letter where he declares he wishes to preserve the union regardless of the morals on slavery. He issues the Emancipation Proclamation, whereby all slaves in Union territories had to be freed. As states came under Union control, those slaves too had to be freed.
1863 - Frederick Douglass, former slave and famous Republican abolitionist, meets with Lincoln on the suffrage of emancipated slaves.
1864 - Lincoln revised his position on slavery in a letter to Albert G. Hodges stating “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
1865 - Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders at the Appomattox Courthouse to Union victory. After Lincoln’s Assassination, Democrat President Johnson issues amnesty to rebels and pardons the slave owners of their crimes.
1865 - The 13th Amendment which ended slavery passed with 100% Republican support and 63% Democrat support in congress.
1866 - The Klu Klux Klan is formed by Confederate veterans to intimidate black and Republicans through violence, lynching, and public floggings. They gave open support to the Democrat Party.
1866 - The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is vetoed by Democratic President Andrew Johnson. Every single Republican voted and overturned the veto. 1868 - The 14th Amendment which gave citizenship to freed slaves passed with 94% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress.The first grand wizard of the KKK, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest is honored at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
1868 - Representative James Hinds who taught newly freedmen of their rights is murdered by the KKK.
1870 - The 15th Amendment which gave freed slaves the right to vote passed with 100% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress.
1871 - The violence of the KKK grew so savage that congress passed the Enforcement Acts to repress their influence.
1875 - Democrat Senator William Saulsbury speaks out against the Civil RIghts Act of 1875, claiming it will allow “colored men shall sit at the same table beside the white guest; that he shall enter the same parlor and take his seat beside the wife and daughter of the white man, whether the white man is willing or not, because you prohibit discrimination against him.“
1884 - A train conductor orders Ida B. Wells, a black Republican woman, to give up her seat and move to the smoking car. Wells was an investigative journalist who worked for a Republican journal to expose the horror of lynching. She advocated for the 2nd amendment rights for blacks so that they could protect themselves, and she denounced the Democratic Party for treating blacks as property unequal to whites.
1892 - Democrat Benjamin Tillman is re-elected to the Senate. He was a white supremacist who boasted his participation in lynchings. He is quoted saying that “as long as the Negroes continue to ravish white women we will continue to lynch them.”
1915 - Democrat President Woodrow Wilson screens KKK promotion film Birth of a Nation. The film pictured blacks as ignorant and violent savages, and the Klu Klux Klan as rescuers and protectors of the civilized world. The popularity of the movie revived the Klu Klux Klan which had previously gone extinct. Reportedly Wilson said about the film that “[it] is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”
1919 - The 19th Amendment which officially gave women the right to vote passed with 82% Republican support and 54% Democrat support in congress.
1924 - Thousands of Klansmen attend the 1924 Democratic National Convention.
1933 - The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state.”
1933 - Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes the Agricultural Adjustment Act with the well-meaning goal to help farmers and sharecroppers. Instead, though it aided white farmers, it resulted in increased unemployment and displacement of black farmers.
1933 - FDR established the National Recovery Administration to stimulate business recovery by forcing employers to pay higher wages for less work. This relief program was enforced on a local level and allowed Jim Crow racism to flourish, resulting in many blacks being fired to be replaced by whites.
1934 - The Federal Housing Administration is introduced under FDR. The FHA made homeownership accessible for whites, but explicitly refused to back loans to black people or even other people who lived near black people.
1936 - The Roosevelt Administration finally begins vying for the black vote. Though the relief programs neglected blacks, their communities were bombarded with advertisements. FDR began to garner black support though the vast majority remained economically unchanged and locked into poverty.
1942 - FDR orders American citizens of Japanese ancestry from their homes into interment camps without due process after the bombings at Pearl Harbor.
1953 - Senator Robert Byrd is elected into congress and remains a staunch Democrat until his death in 2010. He was a prominent member in the KKK and praised by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
1955 - Democrat Richard Daley is elected mayor of Chicago. He resisted residential desegregation, defended public school segregation, and used urban renewal funds to build massive public housing projects that kept blacks within existing ghettos.
1957 - The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is passes with 93% Republican support and 59% Democrat support.
1963 - After the assassination of JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn into office. LBJ was a Democrat remembered by a famous quote: “I’ll have them niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years.”
1965 - The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passes with 94% Republican support and 73% Democrat support.
1968 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. MLK voted Republican.
1960-70s - A total of 24 Democratic members of congress switched to become Republican over a 20 year period. The majority of democrats in that time period remained democrats.
1995 - Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama is published. Obama discusses how the urban cities would become the new plantation for blacks under Democrat political bosses: “The plantation, the blacks have the worst jobs, the worst housing, police brutality rampant; but when the so-called black committee man come around election time, we’d all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. Sell our souls for a Christmas turkey. White folks spit in our faces, and we reward them with the vote.“
2009 - Hillary Clinton lauds Margaret Sanger, KKK advocate, white supremacist, and eugenicist at the 2009 Planned Parenthood Honors Gala: “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life.”
The U.S. homeownership rate is at levels last seen during the Johnson Administration. The cornerstone of the American Dream is simply getting much more difficult to achieve. There are many reasons for this but a large one is that home prices are inflated relative to what Americans are making. If this were a real market, then prices would balance out. But in a negative interest rate environment favoring banks easy money is used for investing purposes. Big investors bought a large amount of inventory and now the market seems to be dry with inventory – yet rents and prices are up. While the homeownership rate looks like this:
UTAH, PETITIONER v. EDWARD JOSEPH STRIEFF, JR.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF UTAH
[June 20, 2016]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins as to Parts I, II, and III, dissenting.
The Court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong. If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant. Because the Fourth Amendment should prohibit, not permit, such misconduct, I dissent.
"Having said that, we face one immediate question: Can our Supreme Court nomination and confirmation processes, so racked by discord and bitterness, be repaired in a Presidential election year? History teaches us that this is extremely unlikely."
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