I wasn’t going to say anything about Obama’s shot at the SCOTUS, because, who cares? SCOTUS had the binding word.
But it has slowly been dawning on me how politically stupid it was: Almost all politically hot decisions are going to be 5-4 votes one way or another for the foreseeable future. So what does Obama do? He scolds the swing vote to his face in the State of the Union for the most recent majority opinion he authored.
Good luck to the next attorney trying to move Kennedy over to the administration’s point of view next term.
I mentioned the Tim Tebow pro-life commercial in the Moose Droppings below, but I may have shortchanged the subject based on the hand wringing that is going on over it.
First of all, it is amusing to me to see these feminist groups pretend that they have some kind of reverence for the Super Bowl. “It’s inappropriate for the Super Bowl.” Like the ad was scheduled to run during Ted Kennedy’s funeral or something.
Second, I expect the ad to have the same message as this powerful ad that was rejected last Super Bowl Sunday, but ran at other times:
There’s noting in there about “outlaw abortion.” The message is, “think about what you are doing before you have an abortion because the going is going to get tough; you’re aborting a person.”
That’s why people who take the position like this Jehmu Greene person took on the O’Reilly factor are being disingenuous:
“It’s that very choice that Pam Tebow had about her reproductive health decisions that this ad is trying to take away.” (Or something close to that. I’m not watching it again.)
Really? Assuming I’m right and the ad has the same message as the Obama ad how is trying to take away anyone’s right to make a decision? Are we not allowed to try to influence people’s decisions anymore? That’s probably news to the First Amendment. But, no, I believe every ad being run during the Super Bowl will be trying to influence someone’s decision: which beer to drink; which car to drive; which shaving cream to use. It’s just that people like Jemhu Greene think that free speech ends when at the point where we disagree with her.
Then there’s Joy Behar with the “Tim Tebow could have been a rapist pedophile” line:
Personally, I would love to see Behar – or anyone else – pony up the dough to run an ad with that message during the Super Bowl. “This ad brought to you by the Coalition of Nasty, Dried-Up, New York Liberal Women.”
And here’s something that maybe the creators of the Tebow ad didn’t think about: The ad could cause a spike in abortions amongst students and alumni of Florida State and the University of Georgia.
Hola Amigos. It’s been a long time since I wrapped at you, but here comes the round-up:
A lot of fellow conservatives are overexcited about Scott Brown winning. To be sure, I’m glad he beat that Marcia/Martha person, and I’m glad it will kill Obamacare for now, but let’s see what happens in November, and more importantly, what results from November.
What’s the deal with Glenn Beck getting on Scott Brown for the remark about his daughters? Hasn’t every dad since the beginning of time tried to get his daughters married off? (Especially Mormon dads?) What a weirdo Beck is.
Am I the only one that thought watching Favre in the NFC Championship Game was like watching “Lost?” No matter what he does, no matter what he changes or where he plays, his last play in the NFL is to be an interception in the NFC Championship Game which results in an OT loss for his team. The Island (Super Dome) even healed his leg after the high-low so it could be so.
Sometimes I get blue after the Christmas season. The lights come down, and it is dark and cold and wet. The fact that my birthday is in January used to cheer me up, now it just drags me further down.
However, tonight Jack Bauer arrives for twenty-four “24″ episodes. Those twenty-four “24″ episodes will lead me through this dark time of year and right into May when my favorite time of year begins.
Huzzah Jack Bauer! Who needs a Happy Light when we have you?
“I heard from a guy, who heard from a guy, who read it in a popular magazine, who got it from some guy speculating that…” is good enough to end up in the IPCC report. Brilliant. Makes the doctored data look downright legitimate.
Oh, George Will, you’re so quaint. Like Congress even pretends to care about what the Constitution says anymore. Though he does nicely sum up the way things ought to be:
More truly conservative conservatives take their bearings from the proposition that government’s primary purpose is not to organize the fulfillment of majority preferences but to protect preexisting rights of the individual — basically, liberty. These conservatives favor judicial activism understood as unflinching performance of the courts’ role in that protection.
That role includes disapproving congressional encroachments on liberty that are not exercises of enumerated powers. This obligatory engagement with the Constitution’s text and logic supersedes any obligation to be deferential toward the actions of government merely because they reflect popular sovereignty.
There isn’t anyone, including the President, who has seriously studied the Constitution that can say this health care bill would ever be considered constitutional without the tortured interpretations of the New Deal Supreme Court cases and the Warren Court. The problem is that a lot of people have talked themselves into the proposition that the Constitution actually was meant to be changed in that manner and not through the provided amendment process.
I wonder if this will be the point where enough is enough. Who knows. I’ve talked a lot about the 4-4-1 tie in the court. It’s another coin flip.
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it… They [Haitians] were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story… And the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another.
then all global warming alarmists should be held responsible for this nutty statement:
When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this [the earthquake] is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?
At least Pat Robertson’s statement makes some sense in the nutty context it is in. (Deal with devil = earthquake as God’s punishment.) I’m not sure why Gaia – or whatever – would be punishing Haiti for pumping out carbon dioxide, since I’m pretty sure the average Haitian’s carbon footprint is tiny compared to Americans, Europeans, or Japanese. Maybe Glover should have saved that for when an earthquake hits Tokyo or Los Angeles.
I don’t care about this story, but I found this paragraph funny:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described in private then Sen. Barack Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Obama is the nation’s first African-American president. [Emphasis added.]
I suppose it conforms to some rule of journalism to include the italicized sentence, but I wonder if we can just assume that everyone knows that at this point.
This story from The Namby Pamby, Attorney-at-Law made me remember a story I was going to post about one of my recent trips to court. On one hand it isn’t as funny since what I said wasn’t as funny. On the other hand it might be a little funnier since I actually said it.
I was defending a summary judgment motion in oral arguments against a lawyer I have nicknamed “Spirit of Crazy Horse.” Not because I’m a racist or because he’s Indian, since neither is the case, but because he actually released a freaking album of folk songs entitled “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” (This is the guy I wrote about here when I moved for SJ against his client a few weeks later.)
After the judge denied the plaintiff’s motion, we went back to the table to negotiate and order while other people with civil litigants took their turn in front of the judge. When it became obvious I was going to have to go back to my office to write one up Spirit of Crazy Horse took off and I stuck around to tell the judge we’d return the next week with the order.
When the two pro se litigants were done with their interminable argument, I walked up to the bar and said, “Your honor, Mr. Crazy Horse and I have to work out an order. We’ll present it next week.” Then I realized I had actually called the guy “Mr. Crazy Horse” on the record in open court.
The judge looked at me for a second and said, “Uhh… OK.” I turned on my heel and got out of the court room while the getting was good without having to explain anything. Fortunately, the judges (and other lawyers in the county) don’t have much use for Spirit of Crazy Horse, so I got away with that one. I do have nicknames for other lawyers (and some of the judges) which probably wouldn’t fly, though. I’ll have to be more careful…
The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise.
That statement may very well be true, but I find it puzzling. I am skeptical of global warming because I am in the “educated class.” Specifically my education and experience in statistics and the scientific method makes me skeptical about almost all doomsday alarmists, not just global warming. And after recent events I have only become more skeptical that there is a lot of valid science going on in the climate change field.
I understand Brooks’ point, but I don’t think someone with an AB in History ought to be casting a lot of dispersions on public skepticism when the “educated class’s” “belief” in global warming is based on about as much understanding of the issue.
