Monday round-up

Supreme Court Observes Moment of Silence for Tucson Victims
Yahoo! Buzz The Supreme Court heeded the president’s call for a moment of silence to honor the Victims of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting, convening 10 minutes before its normal 10 a.m. opening to ensure its first scheduled argument would conclude in time to participate. The “senseless shooting on Saturday caused devastating injury to persons who all, in their own way, contribute to the strength of our nation,” Chief Justice John Roberts told the courtroom as the day’s proceeding...

With rare change in schedule, Supreme Court observes moment of silence
Washington (CNN) - The Supreme Court interrupted its public session Monday to mark the nationwide moment of silence in memory of the Victims of Saturday's Mass Shooting in Arizona that left a Federal Judge dead and a congresswoman seriously wounded. Chief Justice John Roberts and his eight colleagues paused on the bench after hearing their first oral argument. Roberts had opened the session by saying, "That senseless shooting on Saturday caused devastating injury to persons who all, in their own...

Washington observes moment of silence for Gabrielle Giffords - Video
President Obama led the nation in a moment of silence on Monday, standing somberly with his wife, Michelle, their heads bowed, overlooking the South Lawn of the White House. Mr. and Mrs. Obama stepped outside the White House and with the toll of a single bell by a Marine guard, silence fell in Washington and across the nation. On the steps of the East Front of the Capitol, hundreds of Congressional aides, gathered to mark the moment honoring the Victims of the shooting in Arizona. The dead inclu...

A.M. Vitals: Abortion Rate Edged Up 1% in 2008
Yahoo! Buzz Abortion Rate Up: The U.S. abortion rate, which has been dropping over the last decade or so, edged up 1% in 2008, to 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age from 19.4 in 2005, the WSJ reports. A researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, which produced the report, says factors including the Recession and an end to falling Teenage Pregnancy rates likely contributed to the increase. Achoo!: Remember those reports that some Zicam anti-cold products blunted the sense of smell i...

Judges Berate Bank Lawyers in Foreclosures
By JOHN SCHWARTZ NYT With judges looking ever more critically at home Foreclosures, they are reaching beyond the Bankers to heap some of their most scorching criticism on the lawyers. In numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when representing the banks. Judge Arthur M. Schack of New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn has taken aim at an upstate lawyer, Steven J. Baum, referring to one filing as “incredible, o...

Los Angeles Times on Gay Heroes
Today an editorial in the Los Angeles Times compares Arizona shooting hero Daniel Hernandez with Oliver Sipple, the semi-closeted gay man who in 1975 wrestled a gun away from Manson family member Sara Jane Moore, saving the life of President Gerald Ford. Sipple's outing as a gay hero, to his mind, ruined his life. Thankfully, it's a different world for Daniel Hernandez. Sipple was known to San Francisco’s gay community, where he had taken part in some events, but he was not "out" to his fami...

Supreme Court Changes Rotine to Remember Shooting Victims
In an unusual early start to Monday's Supreme Court session, Chief Justice John Roberts announced that the justices and others in the courtroom would participate later this morning in the national moment of silence for the Victims of the weekend shoot-out in Tucson. The court convened five minutes ahead of its normal 10:00am start to allow for sufficient time between its two scheduled hour-long arguments to make sure the silent moment didn't disrupt the flow of either case. Roberts called Saturd...

Judge who died in attack had endured death threats
U.S. District Judge John Roll, fatally shot Saturday in the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was named to the federal bench in Arizona by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. He became chief judge of the court in 2006. Roll, 63, previously served as a judge in the Arizona state courts and as an assistant U.S. attorney. "We in the judiciary have suffered the terrible loss of one of our own," Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement. "Judge John Roll was a wise jurist who se...

Chief Justice Roberts: Judiciary suffered 'terrible loss'
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts condemned the Arizona shooting rampage Saturday that took the life of a federal jurist and five others, and gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Roberts released a rare public statement to address the tragedy. "The violence in Arizona today has senselessly taken five lives and inflicted tragic loss on dedicated public servants and their families," Roberts said. "We in the judiciary have suffered the terrible loss of one of our own. "Chief ...

Arizona's chief fed judge among shooting victims
(01-08) 21:38 PST Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- Named Arizona's chief Federal Judge in 2006, U.S. District Judge John M. Roll won wide acclaim for a career as a respected jurist and leader who had pushed to beef up the court's strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases. His death Saturday, at the hands of gunman apparently intent on assassinating Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, stunned those who mourned the loss of a devoted, talented and gentle man. "I have never me...

Supreme Court won't review music download antitrust case
WASHINGTON | Mon Jan 10, 2011 10:15am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a ruling that reinstated an Antitrust Lawsuit alleging major Record Labels conspired to fix prices and terms under which music would be sold over the Internet. The justices rejected without comment an appeal by a number of companies that included Sony Corp, a unit of Vivendi SA, Warner Music Group Corp and EMI Group of the ruling by a U.S. appeals Court in New York. The appeals cour...

Only Two Votes on Supreme Court to Extend Limits on Commerce Clause?
In a dissent from a denial of certiorari published this morning in Alderman v. United States, Justices Thomas and Scalia characterized the case as a lost opportunity to reassert limits on Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. Thomas wrote, "Today the Court tacitly accepts the nullification of our recent Commerce Clause jurisprudence." He was referring to U.S. v. Lopez and U.S. v. Morrison, two Rehnquist Court Cases that, for the first time since the New Deal, invalidated federal ...

Obama: US grieving, shocked over Ariz. rampage (AP)
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Monday the nation is still in shock over the shooting rampage in Arizona that left a Democratic congresswoman fighting for her life, but he commended the courage of the people on the scene who rushed to help, saying their actions reflect the "best of America." The president told reporters that Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others injured on Saturday are still fighting to recover. He said he anticipated some type of national memorial that ...

Boehner says AZ gunner attacked 'all who serve;' Ohio Gov. Kasich not worried
COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) -  Ohio Speaker John Boehner (OH-8), newly sworn in as the nation's 61st Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives last Tuesday, was miles apart in both distance and political persuasion from Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat Congresswoman a Swing District in Arizona who was shot through the head Saturday, in a shooting perpetrated by a 22-year old gunman who shot 18 people in total, five of whom died. One common connection between them, however, is their district numbe...

Obama: US grieving, shocked over Ariz. rampage
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama said Monday the nation is still in shock over the shooting rampage in Arizona that left a Democratic congresswoman fighting for her life, but he commended the courage of the people on the scene who rushed to help, saying their actions reflect the "best of America." The president told reporters that Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others injured on Saturday are still fighting to recover. He said he anticipated some type of national memorial that wou...

Supreme Court won't review music download antitrust case
The justices rejected without comment an appeal by a number of companies that included Sony Corp, a unit of Vivendi SA, Warner Music Group Corp and EMI Group of the ruling by a U.S. appeals Court in New York. The appeals court ruled that a Federal Judge had erred in 2008 in dismissing the Lawsuit filed on behalf of people who downloaded music over the Internet. They had sued Record Labels that control more than 80 percent of U.S. digital music sales. The Lawsuit accused the record companies of ...

Commerce Clause remains bullet proof
"The U.S. Supreme Court declined a chance to put new restrictions on the power of Congress, leaving intact a federal law that bars people convicted of a violent felony from owning Body Armor. The justices today turned away an appeal by Cedrick Bernard Alderman, a Washington State man who sought to overturn his conviction for possessing a bulletproof vest. He had previously been convicted of Robbery. Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia said they would have granted a hearing in the case. T...

The Supreme Court: "Originalism's" Theory and the Federalist Papers' Reality
Dawn Endico/flickr "Constitutional originalism is all the rage...." So begins Jeffrey Rosen's Week in Review article (New York Times, January 9. 2011) about political thought in the Tea Party era. Actually, "originalism" has, of course, been hotly debated for more than two decades. It is just one of many theories which judges, lawyers and academics have used in an effort to find principled limits on the Supreme Court's paradoxical power to invoke the Constitution in invalidating legislative, ...

Doctor: Gabrielle Giffords 'holding her own' after shooting
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's doctor said the congresswoman was "holding her own" at a Hospital in Tucson early Monday morning, with CT scans showing that the swelling in her brain is not getting any worse. This Story Christina-Taylor Green, 9-year-old killed in Tucson, remembered, mourned Obama calls for national moment of silence for Tucson Victims Doctor: Gabrielle Giffords 'holding her own' after shooting Giffords able to communicate, respond Gabrielle Giffords, congresswoman from A...

Court won’t overturn bulletproof vest law
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear a challenge against a federal law making it illegal for criminals to own bulletproof vests. The appeal had questioned Congress’s lawmaking ability under the Commerce Clause. The High Court refused to hear arguments from Cedrick B. Alderman, who was convicted under a federal law making it illegal for convicted criminals to own Body Armor that has been sold across state lines. Congress passed that law in 2002, citing its authori...

Lawyer says St. Peters owes $2.25 million for quarry deal
St. Peters • The former owner of a quarry that was supposed to become a garbage landfill is trying to collect about $2.25 million from St. Peters for Breach of Contract. James P. Davis' now-dissolved Quarry Holding Co. sold the 29-acre site near Friedens Road and Arena Parkway to the city for $1 in 1989. In the agreement, the city was to pay Davis gate fees for waste dumped on the site. He also was to have the right to buy back the property if the city decided to sell. The deal spawned pol...

Obama Justice Department Sides with Drug Makers to Stifle Suits to Enforce Price Discounts
Back in 1992, Congress created a program to require agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services to contract with drug manufacturers to secure price discounts for drugs provided to certain government supported Hospitals and clinics. Under the law, the drug manufacturers were required by these contracts to sell drugs to those Hospitals and clinics at no higher than “ceiling prices,” which were based on average prices offered for the same drugs. However, thanks to a dec...

Arizona shooting suspect could face death penalty
The 22-year-old loner accused of trying to assassinate a US congresswoman and killing six others, appeared in court, his head shaved, a cut on his right temple and in handcuffs. He stared vacantly at a packed courtroom and sat down to listen to whispered instructions from his attorney. Representative Gabrielle Giffords lay about a 100 miles away in an intensive care unit, gravely wounded after being shot through the head but able to give a thumbs-up sign that doctors found as a reason to hope....

Opening Bell: 01.11.11
Goldman Opens Up To Mollify Its Critics (WSJ) In a 63-page report set to be released Tuesday, Goldman says that for the first time in its 142-year-history, it will start disclosing how much revenue comes from the firm’s own trading and investing, according to a copy of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The reporting change will begin with Goldman’s fourth-quarter results later this month…Other changes include procedures to make sure the firm doesn’t take a...

You're Damn Right that America's Macho Gun Culture Played a Role in Arizona Shootings
It's not about Gun Control; it's about the devastating impact of our gun culture. As an advocate of gun control, I believe in the strong Regulation of lethal weapons. It's just common sense. But until we start changing the gun worship of far too many American males, we are going to have a difficult time stopping the ravaging of our society by bullets. More than 10,000 Americans die in gun homicides each year, a figure that far surpasses any Western nation. In Arizona, obtaining a gun is about as...