U.S. Judge Orders Alabama Official to Issue Marriage Licenses to Gay Couples

 

A federal judge here ordered a county official in Mobile to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

With the ruling, Judge Callie V. S. Granade of Federal District Court, enjoined the probate judge in Mobile County, Don Davis, from refusing to issue licenses to gay couples seeking to wed.

The ruling came shortly after Judge Granade heard arguments from lawyers for four same-sex couples seeking to marry and a plea for clarity from the lawyer of a local probate judge. The decision was expected to send a signal to judges statewide who are caught between a federal ruling and an order from Alabama’s chief justice.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/us/alabama-same-sex-marriage-ruling.html?

Democrats settle on Philadelphia as site of 2016 convention - Yahoo News

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats have selected Philadelphia as the site of the party's 2016 national convention, choosing a patriotic backdrop for the nomination of its next presidential candidate.

The Democratic National Committee said Thursday the convention will be held the week of July 25, 2016. The two other finalists were Brooklyn, New York, and Columbus, Ohio.

"Philadelphia's deep-rooted place in American history provides a perfect setting for this special gathering. I cannot wait to join Democrats across the country to celebrate our shared values, lay out a Democratic vision for the future, and support our nominee," said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chief, said in a statement.

Read more of story by clicking on the following:  Democrats settle on Philadelphia as site of 2016 convention - Yahoo News

District 100 Superintendent looking at Iowa again

Southeast Polk names superintendent finalists

The Southeast Polk Community School District announced three finalists to replace retiring superintendent Craig Menozzi.

The three finalists, Dr. Dick Halupnik, Dr. Nicholas Ouette and Dr. Michael Houselog, were chosen after the district board of education’s week-long process to whittle down the pool from 20 applicants and interview the top six candidates.

Board of education president Brett Handy said the three finalists were chosen from six candidates after the preliminary interviews.

“We are down to the three that we believe that would be three candidates that will fit well in Southeast Polk,” Handy said.

Handy said there were many well-qualified applicants in the pool and he was pleased with the applications he saw.

“All of them would have been very capable of being the next superintendent,” he said. “With the process, however, you have to wean some out or lose some due to their own personal or professional reasons, and now we have the three left.”

Handy said the most interesting part of the process comes next when the candidates will be able to interact with the community.

“(Moving forward) it will be about what the community likes and wants,” he said. “It’s hard to get a complete understanding of that in an hour, but you can get a pretty good read from the community that is involved.”

The three finalists will be available to meet and interact with community members during receptions at Clay Elementary library from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., from Feb. 10-12, the district said in a news release. Community members wishing to attend the receptions will be able to write their own questions as well as fill out input forms to be considered by the board of education.

The board will meet Sunday, Feb. 15, in closed session to discuss and possibly select a final candidate for the superintendent position.

Above is from:  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/02/09/southeast-polk-names-superintendent-finalists/23156355/

 

SEE Rockford Register Star coverage at:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20150211/News/150219853

 

Dr. Houselog was searching in Iowa back in 2014 and 2012, see:  http://district100watchdog.blogspot.com/2014/03/belvidere-superintendent-michael.html and http://district100watchdog.blogspot.com/2012/08/dubuque-school-board-narrows.html

Jeb Bush's emails: Total transparency or violation of privacy? - Yahoo News

 

But a quick peek at the broader Bush email archives reveals that Bush’s document dump wasn’t handled with care at all.
“Some are funny; some are serious; some I wrote in frustration,” Bush wrote in an introduction to the emails on his website. Some detail government operations and hiring procedures. And some contain the unredacted phone numbers, home addresses, and even — as The Verge first pointed out — the Social Security numbers of the people who emailed him. Every published email includes the email addresses of the recipient and the sender.
Bush may have chosen to adopt the sunshine approach to running the Sunshine State, but that doesn’t mean the many Floridians who reached out to the governor during his two terms in office were prepared to be subject to the same level of transparency.
The dump includes Bush’s correspondence with Floridians of all kinds, from retirees and schoolteachers to state and local politicians. Some of the emails, like this one from then-Florida State Senator John E. Thrasher following the 9/11 attacks, include an explicit confidentiality disclaimer, warning against copying or distribution.

Read the entire article by clicking on the following:  Jeb Bush's emails: Total transparency or violation of privacy? - Yahoo News

Both sides gear up for fight over Rauner order on union dues - Yahoo News

 

Rauner also issued an executive order Monday directing that the dues withheld from paychecks of about 6,500 employees be placed in an escrow account rather than forwarded to unions. The money will be held in the account until the court case is decided, and returned to workers if the courts rule in Rauner's favor.

Withholding the dues could keep an estimated $3.75 million from being deposited into the unions' bank accounts, according to estimates provided by Rauner's office.

"We're going to have to defend ourselves," said Dan Montgomery, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, one of the unions named in the suit. He expected a lengthy and expensive legal battle.

Others said they were starting to educate union members about the impact of Rauner's actions and were considering public mobilizations.

"Our members are resolved and think this is very unfair," said Illinois Nurses Association executive director Alice J. Johnson. "They're not going to give up. They're going to fight for their union."

It was the first real action Rauner has taken against the unions, after months of calling them "corrupt" and blaming them for many of Illinois' financial problems. The multimillionaire former businessman also said during his State of the State address last week that he wants to ban campaign contributions from public-employee unions and create local zones, sometimes referred to as "right-to-work zones," where paying union dues would be voluntary.

About 45,000 state employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements between their unions and the state. Those workers who choose to join their union pay full dues, including a portion intended to support political activity. Workers who choose not to join pay the "fair share" dues — a smaller amount intended to cover the cost of collective bargaining, handling of grievances and other non-political activities from which all workers benefit.

But Rauner says labor unions' activities — including negotiating against cuts in salary or benefits — are inherently political. He says forcing non-members to contribute part of their paychecks to those activities is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

On Tuesday, the National Right to Work Foundation said it's offering free legal assistance to any state workers who want to exercise their right to not pay dues. The group has provided similar services in Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, where GOP governors — all of whom Rauner has called his role models — have taken steps to weaken unions.

Meanwhile, union leaders questioned the timing of the lawsuit, which comes days before Rauner is set to deliver his first budget address.

"We have yet to hear one concrete idea about how he's going to pull out of this fiscal mess," Montgomery said. "Instead, what he's done are the most heinous, vicious, misinformed and misleading attacks on working people we've certainly ever seen in Illinois."

Both sides gear up for fight over Rauner order on union dues - Yahoo News

AP Exclusive: 20,000 foreign fighters flock to Syria, Iraq - Yahoo News

 

Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern.

 

Intelligence agencies now believe that as many as 150 Americans have tried and some have succeeded in reaching in the Syrian war zone, officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in testimony prepared for delivery on Wednesday. Some of those Americans were arrested en route, some died in the area and a small number are still fighting with extremists.

The testimony and other data were obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the rate of foreign fighter travel to Syria is without precedent, far exceeding the rate of foreigners who went to wage jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any other point in the past 20 years.

U.S. officials fear that some of the foreign fighters, who come from 90 countries, will return undetected to their homes in Europe or the U.S. to mount terrorist attacks. At least one of the men responsible for the attack on a satirical magazine in Paris had spent time with Islamic extremists in Yemen.

Meanwhile, the White House circulated a proposal Tuesday that would have Congress authorize the U.S. military to fight Islamic State terrorists over the next three years. A formal request for legislation is expected on Wednesday

Read the whole story by clicking on the following:  AP Exclusive: 20,000 foreign fighters flock to Syria, Iraq - Yahoo News

Kansas Weighs Risky Bet to Cover Its Pension Needs - Yahoo Finance

 

Brownback is pressing the state legislature to approve the issuance of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in so-called “pension obligation bonds.” The revenue from the bond offering would be immediately invested in the state pension fund, boosting both its bottom line and its capacity to produce investment returns. Brownback, who was reelected to a second four-year term in November, inherited a chronically underfunded pension system when he took office in 2011, though the funding levels initially fell further early in his first term.

The state will pay the bondholders from general revenue, not from the pension fund. But proponents insist this is a good deal for taxpayers, because they assume the earnings from the new money injected into the pension fund will be higher than the interest rate the state has to pay on the bonds. That means that the pension fund will stay on track to meet its growth target while the legislature, on net, spends less money to make that happen.

The catch, of course, is that this is essentially a bet. Kansas taxpayers, and possibly its retirees, would lose big if the spread between the interest rate on the bonds and the pension fund’s investment returns isn’t wide enough or goes negative.

Kansas, because of its revenue problems, was downgraded by credit ratings agencies Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s last year. Even after those downgrades, the state should be able to sell bonds offering an annual rate below 5 percent. Backers of the bond offering estimate that the state pension fund will earn 8 percent annually.

Read the entire article:  Kansas Weighs Risky Bet to Cover Its Pension Needs - Yahoo Finance