Is the Supreme Court too powerful and too political?

MoonHowler

Many people have noticed that the Supreme Court, comprised of 9 members, is far too powerful and far too political.  Go back to 2000.  Basically, the Supreme Court decided who was to be  the president of the United States.  9 people chose the President of the United States of America. Today, we are on the brink of perhaps losing health care.  Should 9 people get to make that choice?    Many people are still seething over Eminent Domain and Citizens United.  They feel the High Court has been too far reaching.  There are 100 other examples.

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White will no longer be the majority?

MoonHowler

From the Washington Post:

For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.

The latest estimates, which gauge changes since the last census, are a reflection of an immigration wave that began four decades ago. The transformation of the country’s racial and ethnic makeup has gathered steam as the white population grows collectively older, especially compared with Hispanics.

The census has forecast that non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered in the United States by 2042, and social scientists consider that current status among infants a harbinger of the change.

“This is a watershed moment,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in family issues. “It shows us how multicultural we’ve become.”

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The Tea Party: Is it a political party or isn’t it?

MoonHowler

From the Daily Press:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Radtke and roughly 30 of her Tea Party supporters stood outside the Capitol on Wednesday to protest Radtke’s exclusion from a debate featuring former Govs. Tim Kaine and George Allen.

Democrat Kaine and Republican Allen were the only two candidates for the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb to meet the qualifications laid out by event organizers, the Associated Press and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. To get an invite candidates must have averaged at least 15 percent in published polls and raised at least 20 percent of the amount of money raised by their party’s front runner.

In addition to Radtke, this left out Tim Donner, E.W. Jackson and David McCormick who are running for the GOP nomination, and Julien Modica and Courtney Lynch on the Democratic side.

Radtke consistently complained that limiting the debate to the two big-name former governors was a circumventing of the primary process and an attempt by the “mainstream media” to pick the Republican and Democratic nominees.

I am still trying to figure out if the Tea Party is a political party or not.  If not, what are they?  Is it just a descriptor? Right now, it seems like the old Republican Party has a push me/pull me relationship with people espousing TP state of mind.  On the one hand, the R’s seem to want to use them in their mix and on the other hand, they seem to feel that undo influence and pressure is coming from that wing of the party. 

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Corey Stewart Still Flirts with Upcoming Senate Seat

MoonHowler

It seems that Corey Stewart is still attempting to flirt with running for the U. S. Senate, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. In an interview, Corey boasts that people either love him or hate him:

“I’ve been a very controversial figure, and people either love me or hate me,” said Stewart, 42.

The moment of blithe self-awareness followed a ceremonial announcement of his bid for re-election as at-large chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. Elected countywide, the position answers to more than 400,000 constituents.

But with political ambition to spare, Stewart, an affable international trade attorney and spirited conservative, has designs on higher office — a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Corey still doesn’t get it.  No one I have ever talked to hates Corey.  They dislike his style of governance–that fly by the seat of your pants way of saying one thing to one person and the opposite to the next person.  Corey has a reputation for breaking his word.  He signs pledges he does not keep when a better deal comes along, such as his sell out on the Avendale property.  His total disregard for previous pledges to guard the Rural Crescent was highlighted on this blog.   Most people who know Corey say he is affable and fun to be with.   Many who know him simply don’t trust him, having been screwed over in the past.

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Restrepo: Birds Eye View of Afghanistan

MoonHowler

I just finished watching Restrepo.  It is available on Netflix.  It will also be shown again on NatGeo Monday night at 9 pm.  We have been so protected from our wars.  Only military families have suffered.  Industry and defense contractors have gotten rich.  The rest of us have basically remained untouched.

The war in Afghanistan is costing 2 billion dollars a week.  Our troops are being asked to be social workers.  Meanwhile, those same troops are suffering death, horrible brain injuries, loss of limb and overall life-altering injuries.  Military families have suffered because also because of the multiply deployments.  Children have grown up without a parent and spouses have spent 10 years with partners popping in and out of their lives. 

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Newt Gingrich: I’m not a hypocrite

MoonHowler

Oaaakaaaay.  Let’s see what Mr. Newt has to say for himself about why trying to impeach a president when he, speaker of the house, was also having an affair. 

According to Politico:

Pressed on “Fox News Sunday” about his adulterous past, Newt Gingrich said it was not hypocritical for him to impeach Bill Clinton while he cheated on his own wife because he never lied under oath.

“I don’t know what you would have had me do,” he said, getting a little testy, “because…the president of the United States [was] committing perjury. Remember, he’s a lawyer! This was not some accidental thing. And I thought the outcome was about right.”

The all-but-official candidate for the Republican presidential nomination granted that his own extramarital affairs will be an issue in the coming campaign, but he sounded hopeful that voters will, if they don’t forgive or forget, at least look the other way.

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Another Virginian considers U.S. Senate bid

MoonHowler

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Timothy E. Donner, a Northern Virginia television production company owner, is considering challenging George Allen for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. Senate race, Politico reports.

Donner, founder of Horizons Television Inc. and a member of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, is a couple of weeks away from a decision, an adviser told Politico.

If the wealthy conservative from Great Falls in Fairfax County does jump into the race, he could be one of many trying to defeat Allen, a former U.S. senator and Virginia governor.

Jamie Radtke, a tea-party activist, and David McCormick, a Hampton Roads attorney, are already seeking the nomination along with Allen.

Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart and state Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, have also hinted at runs, along with others.

The Republican ticket for the elusive Webb seat has become quite crowded, hasn’t it?  There is no reason at all for Tim Kaine to announce his intentions.  He can just sit back and let the Republicans devour each other, then decide what he is going to do.  Kaine has said he will announce  his intentions towards the end of the month.  

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P. J. Crowley forced to resign

MoonHowler

The Daily News:

State department spokesman P.J. Crowley was forced to resign after his controversial comments about suspected WikiLeaker Bradley Manning, according to multiple reports.

The abrupt resignation came after he criticized the Defense Department‘s treatment of Manning, who is being held in a military prison accused of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Speaking at an MIT seminar last week, Crowley said Manning was being “mistreated”.

“What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the Department of Defense,” he said.

An 11-page letter from Manning’s lawyer released last week detailed treatment of the Army private that included him being stripped naked, held in solitary confinement and allegedly harassed by prison guards.

Crowley did say that Manning was in the right place.

“There is sometimes a need for secrets,” he said.

Crowley, who operated a popular Twitter feed, last tweeted about the emergency in Japan on Friday.

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Doug Hampton Calls for Senator Ensign to Immediately Resign

MoonHowler

Doug Hampton is the husband of Ensign’s paramour.  Despite the fact that Ensign has said he will not run for re-election, Hampton wants to end the investigation he and his wife will have to go through as long as the senator is in office.  According to the Huffington Post:

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada man whose wife had a monthslong affair with Sen. John Ensign said in a rare statement Wednesday that the Republican should immediately resign to shield the family from an ongoing ethics investigation stemming from the extramarital relationship.

Doug Hampton, Ensign’s former co-chief of staff, said Ensign’s “callousness and lack of remorse” has prolonged the anguish caused by the 2008 affair.

Ensign announced on Monday that he wouldn’t pursue a third term to protect his wife and children from “exceptionally ugly” campaign attacks. The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating whether Ensign tried to hide the affair by securing Hampton a lobbying job.

Hampton said he, his wife and others close to them are being forced to cooperate with the investigation, a process that continues to reopen old wounds.

“His selfish, steadfast refusal to resign immediately prolongs the pain and anguish he caused,” Hampton said. “It also requires us to continue to cooperate with the Senate Ethics investigation, including disrupting our lives by requiring myself, Cindy and others close to us to return to Washington D.C. to be deposed.”

Hampton dismissed the ethical questions driving the investigation. Ensign’s parents provided the Hampton family with $96,000 described as a gift and federal criminal law prohibits congressional aides from lobbying their ex-bosses or office colleagues for one year after departing their Hill jobs.

Should Ensign step down now to spare this family any more agony?  Is Hampton making unfair demands on both Ensign and Nevada?  Is Ensign on an equal footing with John Edwards?  Doug Hampton was not only Ensign’s co-chief of staff, but the 2 families were very close as couples.  Is this the ultimate betrayal?

 

 

Morton Kondracke: “She’s A Joke Within Her Own Party’

Elena

 

From Politico’s On Media blog:

At the Roll Call/CQ election analysis session at the Ronald Reagan Building this morning, Roll Call Executive Editor and Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke blamed Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint for Republican failure to capture the Senate.

“The people who got slapped the hardest in this election — besides Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama — are Jim DeMInt and Sarah Palin,” he said. “Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin are responsible for the fact that the Senate did not go Republican. They’re the ones who are responsible for Christine O’Donnell. They’re the ones who are responsible for Joe Miller in Alaska. They’re the ones who are responsible for Ken Buck in Colorado. They’re the ones who are responsible for Sharron Angle in Nevada.”

Then Kondrake discussed whether Palin could be the 2012 nominee: “She’s a joke even within her own party,” Kondrake said. “The idea that she would be the presidential nominee is unthinkable.”

Respond. How far off base is this non-partisan discussion?

House Republicans are finding out it isn’t so easy

MoonHowler

After 2 years of hounding Nancy Peloski and President Obama, the NY Times reports trouble in River City, at least as far as the House Republican majority goes:

Under pressure to make deeper spending cuts and blindsided by embarrassing floor defeats, House Republican leaders are quickly discovering the limits of control over their ideologically driven and independent-minded new majority.

For the second consecutive day, House Republicans on Wednesday lost a floor vote due to a mini-revolt, this time over a plan to demand a repayment from the United Nations. Earlier in the day, members of the party’s conservative bloc used a closed-door party meeting to push the leadership to go well beyond its plans to trim about $40 billion from domestic spending and foreign aid this year, demanding $100 billion or more

On Tuesday  the new Republican leadership was forced to pull a trade assistance bill off the floor and the Patriot Act failed to be extended.   When asked about all the bumps in the road, House Majority Leader John Boehner responded:

Speaker John A. Boehner conceded that the fledgling majority was encountering turbulence. “We have been in the majority four weeks,” Mr. Boehner said. “We are not going to be perfect every day.”

After all the criticism of the other guys, the Republican Majority needs to get it right.  What will the next ‘swing and a miss’ be?  These folks are finding out that the easy part of the job is to sit on the sidelines and criticize, ridicule, and bring down others.   Those who were called RINOs hopefully are sitting back laughing now, especially those who lost their seats because it looked soooo easy.

These guys get the same break from me that they offered the other guys.  I don’t recall President Obama getting 4 weeks before the criticism began.  I think that started on day 2. 

 Welcome to Washington.  Now get with the program!

Beware of Those Rascally Koch Brothers

MoonHowler

From the Daily Beast:

The billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have moved to the center of the Republican establishment, donating to and guiding members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Koch Industries was the largest oil and gas donor to members of the committee—larger even than Exxon Mobil. Then the Koch brothers got the panel’s commitment in writing, with nine of the 12 new Republican members signing a pledge to oppose the Obama administration’s attempts to regulate greenhouse gases. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.) launched an aerospace company with investments from a Koch subsidiary, and his chief of staff is a former Koch Industries lawyer. Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation says the change on the committee is “like night and day.” “Now the committee treats the Clean Air Act and the EPA as if they are the enemy,” he says. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) says it’s just the reversal of when Former Chairman Henry Waxman “stacked the committee with liberal environmentalists.”

So is ‘stacking the deck with liberal environmentalists’ worse than billionaires pouring money into campaigns of those on a congressional committee?  Should the Koch brothers be determining our energy policies?  Koch Industries  has much to gain from their infusion of cash.  Koch Industries, based in Witchita  is a multifaceted company with many different products, from ranch products to roofing to energy resources. 

These folks bear watching.  According to the Los Angeles Times:

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Coburn Attempts to Block 9/11 Bill

MoonHowler

Unbelievable.  Senator Colburn of Oklahoma still tries to block the 9/11 bill and provides misinformation.

 

From Huffington Post:

The Senate did hold a hearing, however, in June, though Coburn didn’t attend it, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

To win Republican support, Democrats have slashed $1.2 billion from the cost of the bill — by cutting out a victims compensation fund. And Democrats have backed off the attempt to close tax loopholes that benefit major corporations and instead are offering to pay for the bill, according to aides familiar with the negotiations, by setting a fee on federal government contractors with foreign countries that have not signed certain procurement agreements with the U.S and by extending a fee that already exists on certain H1B visas. The latter fee had unanimous support among Republicans and Democrats earlier this year.

Support for the measure had apparently been growing before Coburn’s announcement. New York Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, two of the bill’s sponsors, both claimed Monday that the bill finally had the votes to pass. That contention appeared to be supported by the recent comments of a some key Republicans who had encouraged a Senate détente in order to send the package through to the President.

On Tuesday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani became the latest name on that list.

“This should not be seen as a Democratic or Republican issue. It shouldn’t even been seen as a fiscal issue. This is a matter of morality, it’s a matter of obligation,” Giuliani said on an appearance on a local Fox affiliate.

And last week, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said that “every Republican should vote for this bill.”

Current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, also urged the Senate to reach an agreement, saying Monday that the “time for excuses is over.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the bill’s sponsors, tells another story:

Just what is it going to take to get these people some help?

Pork, Pork Barrel Spending and Beavers

MoonHowler
Beaver Damage

I used to like the show Bulls and Bears on Saturday morning.  It made up, sorta, for the markets being closed.  It has started being far too political.  Too much politics and not enough on the stock market and money matters. 

This past Saturday was no exception.  Brenda Buttner is the host of this show and she began the discussion about pork spending.  One thing led to the other and Toby started laughing about $208,ooo being set aside in North Carolina for beaver management.  The entire panel broke up hysterically and acted like this was the dumbest use of money ever thought of.  Toby said it was code for killing them. 

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Last Minute Legislation: Cheers and Jeers

MoonHowler

The repeal of DADT passed.  The Dream Act did not pass.  DADT doesn’t take effect immediately. 

According to the Washington Post:

“This is the defining civil rights initiative of this decade,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “Congress has taken an extraordinary step on behalf of men and women who’ve been denied their rightful integrity for too long.”

Being gay has for decades been grounds for discharge, and tens of thousands of service members have been expelled after their sexual identities were exposed – sometimes under questioning. An estimated 13,000 troops have been discharged under the “don’t ask” policy that President Bill Clinton, after failing to reverse the policy, authorized as a compromise in 1993.

What people don’t remember is that Clinton put in DADT as a last resort.  He would have preferred to make being gay a non-issue.  however, Congress had threatened to make the rules stricter if Clinton issued an executive order.  Much has changed in 15 years. 

The years-long legislative debate over the policy came to an end Saturday as senators voted 65 to 31 to send the repeal legislation to President Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to eliminate the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly. Eight Republicans joined 57 members of the Democratic caucus in the vote; four senators did not vote.

 

Good for those 8 Republicans and shame on those who voted no.

As for the Dream Act, to me, it is a waste of human resource.  A country that continually complains  about social security not being sustained should try to get all the high paid workers it can.  If students work hard, keep out of trouble and have superior grades, they should be entitled to complete for college, regardless of the status of their parents.  I am tired of this sins of the father business when dealing with children. 

From the Washington Post:

On Saturday, that strategy was in ruins after Senate Democrats could muster only 55 votes in support of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a measure that would have created a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Under Senate rules, Democrats needed 60 votes to overcome Republican opposition to the bill. The House of Representatives had passed the measure this month, 216 to 198.

The irony of the DREAM Act’s failure is that it had strong bipartisan support at the start of the administration, and advocates thought it could generate momentum for more policy changes.

But as the country’s mood shifted on illegal immigration, support among Republicans and some Democratic senators evaporated, with many decrying it as backdoor amnesty for lawbreakers. Even a former co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), voted against it.

I wonder how McCain ended up voting?  Shame on those senators who voted nay.  Kids are once again victims.   Its a sad day when we crap on kids who have grown up American because of their parents.  No one is asking anyone else to pay the bill.  Just let the kids into college.