By Rick McKee from the Augusta Chronicle in Augusta, Georgia on 02 July 2010.
It is a sheer pleasure teaching English to someone who really wants to learn it! This adjective is used to give emphasis to a noun to give it a greater amount of degree. It has the meaning of ‘extreme.’
Later on, the caricature of Kagan asks Larry King, the interviewer, to grant her a point of personal privilege. If you grant something, like a request, you accord or allow them something.
‘A point of personal privilege’ is a very formal, parliamentary expression usually asked for when a member what to speak out to defend his personal rights, reputation or conduct.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives (Président de l’Assemblée) of the state of Massachusetts, Salvatore F. DiMasi, resigned in January of this year after having been charged with taking large financial kickbacks for giving lucrative state contracts to a software company. A kickback is money illegally paid to someone in exchange for something they have done for you. Due to being federally indicted for this illegal activity, the speaker resigned his position. If you are indicted for a crime, this means you have been formally accused or charged.
He has also been indicted on other charges and the latest bombshell is extortion! It is a bombshell because the latest news is unexpected and shocking. The news is dropped like a bomb. Extortion is a crime in which someone gets money or information from someone else by using force or threats.
If convicted (proven guilty by a court of law) on all the federal charges, DiMasi could serve hard time in the slammer for 185 years! Hard time is urban street English for the time spent in prison. You often hear the expression, “He’s serving hard time” or simply “He’s serving time.” The slammer is a very informal name for a prison. It is called the slammer because when you are prisoner, the guards slam (claquer) closed the door behind you.
Traditionally, the House of Lords was the highest court in the United Kingdom. As of today, a new judicial institution takes over that role; the UK now has a Supreme Court! To learn more about the new UK Supreme Court, go to Sky News at :
NOTE! I apologize, link to image and PDF became inactive over time.
For a more readable version of this front page, you can save a pdf format of it by going HERE! To visit this newspaper’s homepage, go to: http://www.freep.com/
- As everybody knows, President Obama, speaking to a joint session of Congress on the 9th , addressed health care reform. The President said that the time for bickering is over. Bickering is a noun to describe arguing that has no significance and is unimportant. The noun is derived from the verb, to bicker which means to argue over things that are unimportant. In other words, Obama believes that the arguments against his health care plan have no merit and the debate should stop. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/NEWS15/909100384/1318/
- The state of Michigan is confronting a problem in their judicial system. Pettyspatsare clogging up the courts! Petty refers to something that is unimportant and insignificant. A spat is an brief and usually unimportant argument. If two lovers are having an silly fight, we might call that a lovers’ spat. As you know, Americans are quite litigious and the problem in Michigan is that a lot of these petty spats are clogging up the courts. In other words, these cases are blocking and slowing down the system. The term is used often to describe pipes, tubes and waterways when they are blocked. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/NEWS05/909100395/1322/PPO-requests--petty-spats-clog-up-courts (if you read the article, you’ll need to know what a PPO is : https://www.msu.edu/~safe/facts/ppo.htm)
- If you have a major success, you score big! The Ford Motor Company has been struggling to get the same publicity for its new electric car as General Motors has been been getting. Ford Motors scored big when they announced that they got a gig on the Jay Leno Show! A gig is an idiomatic expression for a public performance. In this case, the car will be featured in a segment of the show where celebrities are going to race it. Most of the time, a gig is used by singers and comedians. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/BUSINESS06/909100338/1322/Ford-scores-big-Leno-gig
U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of Texas pleaded guilty in February, admitting he lied to investigators about nonconsensual sexual contact with two employees in his courthouse. As part of a plea agreement, other countsalleging sexual misconduct were dropped.
Kent was the first federal judge to be charged with sexual crimes while in office.
He has submitted his resignation, but made it effective June 1, 2010, meaning he would be paid for a year while in prison.
That drew a heated response among some members of Congress, and a House Judiciary Committee task force unanimously approved four articles of impeachment against Kent on the grounds of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and providing false statements to federal investigators.
Before the House vote, Judiciary Committee member Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, said to House members that Kent collecting a salary of about $174,000 while in prison constituted "an attempt to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from the American people."
The decision on whether to convict Kent will be made by the Senate. A conviction would mean he would lose his seat on the federal bench and his pension.
Kent, who turns 60 this month, was sentenced in May to 33 months in prison and began serving the sentence Monday. He was ordered to undergo treatment for alcoholism while in prison.
An attempt to reach Kent's attorney for comment was unsuccessful Friday afternoon.
President George H.W. Bush nominated Kent, who took his seat on the bench of the Southern District of Texas on October 1, 1990. Kent is the 14th federal judge to be impeached by the House. The last impeachment -- on charges of lying to a federal grand jury -- was of Mississippi Judge Walter Nixon in 1989.
See the post below to understand the impeachment process in the United States.
Traditionally, the House of Lords was the highest court in the United Kingdom. As of today, a new judicial institution takes over that role; the UK now has a Supreme Court! To learn more about the new UK Supreme Court, go to Sky News at :
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/19/U.S.impeachment.judge/index.html?eref=rss_politics
U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of Texas