Whitehouse Archives - Page 4 of 22 - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

December 1st, 2022 at 08:36am by Alex Miller

Same-Sex Marriage in the US: From Defense to Respect

The US is poised to formally enshrine marriage equality in law, as opposed to allowing the practice via Supreme Court fiat. Same sex marriage, first legalized in Massachusetts in 2003, was validated in all fifty states by the Obergefell v Hodges decision in 2015. But recent events with the overturning of Roe v Wade and its abandonment of federally guaranteed reproductive freedoms have shown just how fragile governance by judicial rulings can be, and advocates have been pushing hard for legal codification of the right to same-sex unions.

November 18th, 2022 at 08:07am by Alex Miller

Joe Biden’s 2022 Solar Return

On November 20, 2022, US President Joe Biden turns eighty years old, the oldest person ever to serve in that office. Although he has not made his candidacy official, Biden routinely offers, when asked, that it is his “intention” to run for reelection in 2024, just shy of 82, which would make him 86 when he hands off to the next president in January of 2029. We’ll see.

August 17th, 2022 at 08:53am by Alex Miller

AAA Profile: Liz Cheney

If anyone had told me two decades ago that I would be admiring, let alone praising, someone with the last name of “Cheney”, I’d have said they were nuts. But that’s just the sort of uncomfortable position many progressives find themselves in these days, when contemplating the recent performance of Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), daughter of the former Vice President, vis-a-vis the actions of Donald Trump and the bastardization of the GOP.

August 12th, 2022 at 02:32pm by Alex Miller

And So It Begins: DJT & the FBI

On Monday, 8 August 2022, FBI agents executed a legal search warrant of former US president Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, looking for classified documents still in his possession. When leaving the White House in January 2021, Trump absconded with reams of classified material, in violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the National Archives has been trying to get them back ever since. In February, 15 boxes of such papers were returned, but investigators had cause to believe this was not the extent of the purloined trove, and a legal pas-de-deux had been danced between the Justice Department and Trump lawyers for months since, with negotiations and subpoenas having little effect.

July 5th, 2022 at 07:47am by Alex Miller

Have Gunn, Will Gavel

Proving it has its finger firmly on the pulse of the corpse of America, the US Supreme Court on June 23 ruled that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, effectively upping the ante on concealed carry legislation that is sweeping the nation. This in the wake of recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, with more than two-thirds of Americans polled supporting tougher gun regulation. For more than a century, New York has had a gun safety law that bars the concealed carry of a firearm without a permit and requires good cause to obtain the permit; the conservative supermajority on the SCOTUS struck it down 6-3, ruling for the plaintiff in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The case was the first the SCOTUS had weighed in on Second Amendment issues since 2010.

April 8th, 2022 at 08:15am by Alex Miller

AAA Profile: Ketanji Brown Jackson

The United States Supreme Court just got a little more diversified, with the history-making confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as its newest Associate Justice, the first black woman to sit on the bench. Jackson was confirmed by the full Senate on Thursday, April 7, with a bipartisan vote of 53-47, and will replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer when the new session convenes in October. A native of Washington DC, Jackson was raised in Florida, is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School (where she edited the “Harvard Law Review”), and previously clerked for the Justice she is replacing.