From this Thursday's New Day on CNN, Inside Politics host John King and guests Tamara Keith from NPR and The Atlantic's Molly Ball did their best to try to dismiss what they called the "Elizabeth Warren caucus" in the Democratic party and her ability to potentially put the brakes on this godawful "cromnibus" spending bill that Congressional leadership and the White House are doing their best to ram through before anyone has a chance to see what's in it.

As we've already discussed here, "there are a lot of reasons why this budget deal shouldn't happen, but gutting Dodd-Frank might be one of the biggest" but you'd barely know it from listening to the pundits on CNN. Rather than focus on whether Warren has a point about how damaging it would be to dismantle the protections that were passed in Dodd-Frank and how unbelievable it is that anyone would want to stick the taxpayers with the cost of another bailout that all of these politicians continually pretend they're opposed to, it was all politics with these people.

They'd rather compare Warren to Ted Cruz, dismiss her objections because they don't believe the progressive caucus in the Democratic party is large enough to have any influence, and then paint her objections as just another fundraising ploy for liberal groups that would like to see her throw her hat in the ring and run for president.

Which now pits Warren a Pelsoi against Reed and Obama who are pushing for passage.

I admit, I don't really know the exact definition of rape these days.  What happens if both people are drunk and, days or weeks later, one of them decides because they couldn't remember what happened, it must be rape?

Best Motion Picture (Drama):

• Boyhood
  
• Foxcatcher
  
• The Imitation Game
  
• Selma
  
• The Theory of Everything

• Into the Woods
  
• Birdman
  
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
  
• St. Vincent
  
• Pride

• Richard Linklater, Boyhood
  
• Ava DuVernay, Selma
  
• Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
  
• Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman
  
• David Fincher, Gone Girl

• Julianne Moore, Still Alice
  
• Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
  
• Reese Witherspoon, Wild
  
• Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
  
• Jennifer Aniston, Cake

• Julianne Moore, Map to the Stars
  
• Amy Adams, Big Eyes
  
• Emily Blunt, Into the Woods
  
• Helen Mirren, The Hundred Foot Journey
  
• Quvenzhané Wallis, Annie

• Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year
  
• Keira Knightly, The Imitation Game
  
• Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
  
• Emma Stone, Birdman
  
• Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

• Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
  
• Steve Carrell, Foxcatcher
  
• Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
  
• David Oyewolo, Selma
  
• Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler

• Michael Keaton, Birdman
  
• Bill Murray, St. Vincent
  
• Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
  
• Christoph Waltz, Big Eyes
  
• Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice

• Robert Duvall, The Judge
  
• J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
  
• Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
  
• Edward Norton, Birdman
  
• Ethan Hawke, Boyhood

Personally, my eyebrows were raised upon noting Jennifer Aniston's nomination as best actress in a motion picture drama. But then, I've yet to see Cake, for which she's been receiving glowing reviews for her performance, so I reserve judgment. For their part, critics are expressing surprise that both Angelina Jolie's Unbroken and Clint Eastwood's American Sniper were completely shut out of this nominations.

If you're also interested in the Golden Globes' TV nominations, as well as nominations in the technical categories, CLICK HERE.

"More Boston residents are living in emergency shelters than in any of 25 major cities surveyed nationwide, according to a report released Thursday by the US Conference of Mayors."

That's not %, that's total.  In other words, Boston, a city of 650,000 has more homeless people than LA, with a population of 3.8 million.

Also:
"A quarter of the city's homeless adults have jobs. In Trenton, N.J., by comparison, only 4 percent are employed."

So it's not that unemployment is too high, it's that housing costs are astronomical.

The silver lining?
"Few of the homeless people in Boston are on the streets, in part because of the Massachusetts "right to shelter" law that guarantees qualified families a place to stay."

The federal agency that will play a pivotal role in guiding the sentence of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell has recommended that the onetime Republican rising star spend at least 10 years and a month in prison and 12 years and 7 months at most, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The guidelines recommended by the U.S. probation office are preliminary ones, and even if finalized, U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer is not required to follow them. But experts said Spencer typically heeds the probation office's advice, and judges in his district have imposed sentences within the recommended range more than 70 percent of the time in recent years.

"It's of critical importance," said white collar criminal defense attorney Scott Fredericksen. "The fact is, the vast majority of times, courts follow those recommendations closely."

To be sure, the matter is far from settled. Calculating an appropriate range of sentences in the federal system is a complicated, mathematical process that takes into account a variety of factors, including the type of crime that was committed, the defendant's role in that crime and the amount of the loss. A probation officer is tasked with analyzing each factor objectively, then using the federal sentencing guidelines to calculate an appropriate range of penalties.

SNIP

The range is particularly notable because last December, prosecutors offered to let McDonnell plead guilty to just one count of lying to a bank as part of an agreement that would have meant he could be sentenced to three years in prison at the most, and probation at the least. Importantly, though, McDonnell would have been required to sign a statement acknowledging that he helped Williams's company at the same time the businessman was giving him loot, fully shouldering blame for a relationship he has insisted was not criminal and was driven largely by his wife.

In his original statement, Wilson said he fired once inside the car. He told the grand jury he fired twice. Physical evidence appears to back up his initial story. p49

Is this the PA's backhanded way of admitting that Wilson lied to the Grand Jury???

Anyway, there went the struggle for the gun inside the Tahoe, as physical evidence shows that only one shot was fired in the Tahoe and it hit nobody and drew no blood and was found inside the door panel leaving no evidence to back up Wilson's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd story.

Physical Evidence is proving to be the best witness and it is not backing up Wilson here.  

And then there is this regarding Brown's final "charge":

Brown's furthest point away from where he fell was at the blood drippings at Markers 19/20 shown at Photo #82 here

From there he came forward 22 feet over ~7 seconds as 10 shots are fired at him.

So was that move forward a charge, a walk or a stumble. Let's do the math:

22ft/7 seconds means that he was moving toward Wilson at a blazing speed of 3.14 ft/sec.

Charging speed is 7.4 ft/sec while walking speed is 4.4 ft/sec.

Brown was significantly below even walking speed during his final 7 seconds, especially when you consider that he was already moving forward from Markers 19/20 when Wilson let loose his final10shot/7second barrage on him.

Anyway there goes the "charge" claim. He couldn't have even been moving forward at walking speed either. It was more like at stumble speed as many witnesses testified.

It's not that we didn't know he died of a gunshot wound but it says he died of what they call in the movies a "gut shot".
Which is not only supposed to be really painful it's seem possible he might have been saved if the two idiot cops had made any attempt to save him.

 Blaming the person who was done a criminal act upon for that criminal act is not the 'answer" . The answer lies wihthin the the 'act' itslelf. sorry for all my mistakes - just quit work and I did not even realize this was a "weekend" night.

Another site questioning the stat and the claim of an epidemic or culture of rape on college campuses.

I guess my whole objection or concern is this seems familiar to the media frenzy of the 80s and 90s when it came to child abuse at day cares.   Lots of reporting, whoopla and some actual crime but the overreacting led to lots of innocent people being charged and kids being used as show props in trials when nothing had happened to them.

One rape is a rape to many and I think the issues we have in college campuses have more to do with the attitudes young people bring with them to college regarding sex and the environments that are created on these campuses for inappropriate behavior both by regular students makeing bad choices and more importantly predators that use the free for all to their advantage.   This is were many who go out of their way to make sure we don't blame the victim miss something.   Yes it's never the victims fault but for a true predator the culture and casualness that many young people have for sex these days mixed with the loss of social skills to me makes this problem harder to deal with.   Instead of worrying that all boys might do this we need to focus on how men and women work together to avoid the few boys that we know will.

To me that is why this stat is so harmful.  It makes it seem as if these campuses are crawling with sexual deviants.  Instead you have many young people experimenting and experiencing sexual freedom mixed with alcohol and for the most part it simply leads to unnecessary drama and guilty feelings the next morning but inside this dynamic it also exposes young women to real danger.

Also what sends all my libertarian alarm bells ringing when I start to read that people are advocating always believing the victim, punishing anyone who is accused automatically and most disturbing having college administrators meet out justice separate and before local law enforcement.  I'd argue this approach makes it worse because actual predators are simply expelled rather then put into the criminal justice system and with such distortion of our traditional justice system it is almost certain that innocent young men will be caught up in the wake.