judge | The Obama Diary

Posts Tagged ‘judge

Oct

wrap-up

Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Articles
Tags: %, 99, act, ad, american, Bachmann, Barack, Boehner, cantor, carlos, Congress, dadt, economy, eric, freedom, funny, gabby, Gabrielle, Giffords, hilarious, Inauguration 2009, jobs, john, judge, julie, Kelly, legion, lip, lipreading, Mark, Mason, Mathis, merit, Michele, Obama, occupy, of, Olympic, on, percent, perry, pete, photo, photos, plaza, politico, poster, President, press, progress, rail, railroads, reading, rick, shipments, smith, souza, Street, tommie, video, videos, wall, washington

President Barack Obama talks with staff in Senior Advisor David Plouffe’s West Wing office at the White House, Oct. 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

****

Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic): Remember when President Obama wouldn’t even utter the word “Republican”? Those days are long gone. And maybe, just maybe, the change in rhetoric is starting to pay off.

We’re now into week four of the administration’s campaign to promote its jobs proposal. And instead of dialing down the pressure, Obama has been dialing it up….

…. A new ABC-Washington Post poll suggests that, so far, Obama’s campaign is working …. public support for the elements of his jobs bill is high. And, more important, Obama has opened up a substantial gap with the Republicans over which party voters trust more to handle “job creation.”

… whether or not the Democrats have every single member in line is less important than whether they have 50 votes to pass it – because if they have the 50 votes, then the obstacle to enactment won’t be Democrats. It will be Republicans….

And that ought to matter to the voters. Everybody assumes Obama is campaigning hard for his jobs plan primarily to make a point to the voters about who stands for what, in advance of the 2012 elections. That’s probably true. But he’s adopted this posture because Republicans refuse to compromise. And if Republicans start to pay a political price for holding up popular legislation, there’s still a chance they will relent – and pass legislation before the year is done….

Full post here

****

Based on Symmetry’s brilliant twitpic here (Thanks Meta)

****

Business Week: Railroads shipments are the highest in almost three years, helping to defy concerns about a double-dip recession.

Total rail volumes averaged 381,831 carloads in August, the most since October 2008 … these shipments represent the bulk of materials for industrial production, so rising volumes show the economy is still growing…

… since reporting quarterly earnings in July, the three largest U.S. railroads haven’t given any indication of a sharp decline in demand similar to 2008 and 2009, when volumes fell as much as 24 percent on an annual basis.

…. Earlier this month, CSX’s Chief Financial Officer Oscar Munoz said he isn’t concerned about “any kind of overarching sort of dire circumstances around the corner,” as there is still a “general level of optimism” among customers and suppliers.

“Sure, things have moderated, but there is no one in that near state of panic that we saw certainly in late ‘08 and ‘09,” Munoz said….

****

Greg Sargent (Washington Post): John Boehner has a new line he’s trying out to justify the Republican House’s rejection of Barack Obama’s jobs bill: “We’re legislating. He’s campaigning. It’s very disappointing.”

Huh? Really?

… legislating? The House of Representatives? The 112th Congress? Hard to believe that Boehner could say that one without bursting out laughing. The current House has done hardly any legislating at all. They could barely pass a bill to keep the government’s lights on back in the spring, and they almost send the nation into default in the summer…..

And outside of that there’s … well, almost nothing. As Obama pointed out today, there is no Republican initiative that can meaningfully be called a jobs bill…

…. The key here is that real legislating requires compromise, especially during times of divided government. And House Republicans have no intention of compromising with either the Senate or with Barack Obama … Even now, if Boehner really offered to deal on jobs, I don’t think anyone doubts that Obama would hop off the campaign trail and try to work something out. But there will be no legislating, because the House isn’t going to do it.

No matter what talking points John Boehner might trot out.

****

About one thousand people gather and form a large ’99%’ in the middle of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, October 6

Thanks nintendowii10

****

Perry and Bachmann finally talk some, err, sense:

****

GOPolitico’s race-baiter supreme, Julie Mason – get over it Julie, your President is black – had yet another pitiful dig at the President today for not mentioning, when he hosted the Texas A&M University women’s championship basketball team at the White House, that her beloved Rick Perry attended the college. Maybe Julie missed her buddy Knoller’s tweet…..

The President invited Perry to the White House?! See, that’s what you call class, Julie – you should try and acquire some one day

****

Captain Mark Kelly hugs his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, after receiving the Legion of Merit from Vice President Joe Biden during a retirement ceremony in the Secretary of War Suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

****

The photo I love more than any:

Forty years after their silent protest at the 1968 Olympics, Gold Medalist Tommie Smith hugs Bronze Medalist John Carlos, and their wives Delois Smith and Charlene Carlos after Barack Obama is officially sworn in as the President of the United States. (Boston Globe/Stan Grossfeld)

****

Night everyone

Apr

‘as if wisconsin dems weren’t angry enough’

By Chipsticks 19 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: benen, clerk, corrupt, corruption, county, court, criminal, David, donor, election, fraud, investigation, JoAnne, judge, Justice, Kathy, Kloppenburg, Nickolaus, Prosser, republican, steve, supreme, voter, Wisconsin

Steve Benen: … it looked as if JoAnne Kloppenburg had pulled off a miracle in the the state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, narrowly defeating conservative Justice David Prosser. Yesterday, an expected discovery of thousands of votes quickly tilted the race in the other direction:

“The tally of a close Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which had come to be a referendum on Republican leadership in the state, turned upside down on Thursday evening: the incumbent justice, viewed as a conservative, took a lead of more than 7,000 votes after a clerk in one Republican-leaning county announced she had initially failed to report some 14,000 votes.”

The discovered votes came from Waukesha County, a suburban GOP stronghold, where county clerk Kathy Nickolaus cited a computer mishap for the error.

… it’s worth noting that Kathy Nickolaus is a Republican donor who’s been involved in a series of controversial elections, including a ballot mix-up in 2004, sample ballots in 2005 that accidentally told voters who to vote for, a 2007 incident involving touch-screen voting, and perhaps most importantly, a 2002 controversy in which Nickolaus was granted immunity as part of a criminal investigation into Republican misdeeds in the State Assembly.

This is the same Nickolaus who yesterday uncovered a net gain of 7,000 votes for the Republican candidate who was trailing in a closely-watched judicial race … Hmm.

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, Nate Silver noted that it’s likely nothing nefarious has transpired .. But just for the sake of conversation, I’d love to know what the reaction would be – from Republicans, on Fox News, etc. – if the situation were reversed…

Full article here

****

Even if there’s nothing fraudulent going on here, how on earth is a woman with Kathy Nickolaus’s track record allowed to be county clerk?

Apr

supreme justice

By Chipsticks 4 Comments

Categories: All Videos and Articles
Tags: bitch, brothers, court, David, election, governor, JoAnne, judge, Justice, Kloppenburg, koch, Prosser, republican, Scott, stupid, supreme, total, video, walker, Wisconsin

Thank you TeamObama2012 for this video

From last night’s post (here): ….Call it the miracle of Wisconsin … With 100 percent of precincts reporting, the liberal candidate for state Supreme Court justice, JoAnne Kloppenburg, boasts a whopping 204 vote lead over the longtime incumbent and conservative Wisconsin fixture David Prosser…

…That there will be a recount appears inevitable … but this is a fairly amazing result. In February, Kloppenburg managed to get only 25 percent of the vote in a primary contested by four parties. Prosser was considered a shoo-in … just six months later, the Tea Party tide, at least in Wisconsin, has been matched by a wave in the opposite direction.

Mar

muppet show update

By Chipsticks 34 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: 2012, Barack, benen, comical, election, funny, gop, hilarious, jones, judge, line-up, Obama, President, presidential, roy, steve

Steve Benen: In case it seemed the freak-show qualities of the GOP field couldn’t get worse, also note that disgraced former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, kicked off the bench for refusing to acknowledge federal law, is also interested in launching a presidential exploratory committee.

WSJ: Remember Judge Roy Moore? He was the Alabama Supreme Court chief justice removed from office over the Ten Commandments monument he erected outside the state courthouse. Now, he’s about to jump into the presidential election in Iowa…

Eight years after a state panel removed him from the bench over the commandments spat, and five years after he lost in the Republican primary in the Alabama governor’s race, the 64-year-old judge is preparing to launch a presidential exploratory committee and enter the Iowa fray, according to multiple Iowa GOP officials.

Judge Moore’s entry in Iowa will only intensify the feverish competition among GOP hopefuls for the state’s large bloc of evangelical voters … the pack this time is likely to include former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain. Judge Moore could bring the field to six…

Mar

the fightback

By Chipsticks 11 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: Barack, bargaining, collective, court, courts, judge, Obama, President, Scott, union, walker, Wisconsin

Chicago Tribune: A Wisconsin judge has temporarily blocked the state’s new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect. The ruling was handed down this morning by Judge Maryann Sumi in a lawsuit filed by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne.

Ozanne contended a legislative committee that broke a stalemate that had kept the law in limbo for weeks met without the proper 24-hour notice required by Wisconsin’s open meetings law. A separate lawsuit that Sumi will also consider alleges full Senate’s vote on the law was improper.

The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the measure last week and Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law on Friday. Both Walker and Republican leaders insist it was enacted properly.

The law can’t take effect until it’s formally published by Secretary of State Doug La Follette, a Democrat. He has 10 days after the governor signs a law to publish it, and he has said he plans to use all the time allotted to him before doing so on March 25.

Ozanne, also a Democrat, wants Sumi to grant an emergency order blocking La Follette from publishing the law while a judge weighs the merits of his case.

Democratic Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk filed a similar lawsuit last Friday. Falk also sought an emergency order blocking publication, but Judge Amy Smith denied it and said Falk’s attorneys had failed to prove the law’s implementation would cause irreparable harm as the lawsuit works its way through the courts. Falk later asked the law be blocked on a non-emergency basis.

Feb

fair and balanced?

By Chipsticks 9 Comments

Categories: All Photos and Articles
Tags: act, Affordable, ap, Barack, benen, bias, care, court, courts, coverage, health, healthcare, judge, main, media, monthly, msm, new, Obama, politico, post, President, rulings, steve, stream, times, washington, york

Steve Benen (Washington Monthly): We talked a few weeks ago about the very different ways in which the media responds to court rulings on the Affordable Care Act. Those upholding the constitutionality of the health care law get very little attention, while conservative rulings against the law are literally treated as front-page news.

Now that there’s a new federal court ruling – Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in support of the law on Tuesday, becoming the fifth to rule on the merits – let’s take a moment to reevaluate this.

Three federal district courts have said the Affordable Care Act meets constitutional muster; two have reached the opposite conclusion. Here’s how four major media outlets have covered the rulings, in the order in which the decisions came down: See here for statistics

…the discrepancy is overwhelming. In every instance, conservative rulings get more coverage, longer articles, and better placement …. the Washington Post couldn’t bother to run a single article – not one – about the Kessler ruling…

…it seems very likely the public has been left with the impression that the health care law is legally dubious and struggling badly in the courts because that’s what news organizations have told them to believe.

Read full article here

Feb