Tag: Nominees

Awkward!

We have all had those awkward moments in life…..you know like what to do with that free hand on a date…..or after sex when you bend over to get your pants and you fart….or when you are there to defend your thesis to a panel of hostile inquisitors because you are challenging conventional wisdom of the Founding Fathers…….we all have those moments, if not then you have NOT lived at all…….

Jon Huntsman has had an awkward moment……when he chose to announce his candidacy for the GOP nomination, he chose the very place the Reagan announced in 1980, a park in Jersey with the Statue of Liberty in the background….the problem is with Huntsman you could not see the statue and his head was framed by a tourist ferry….awkward!

It only got more so……the credentials issued to the press in attendance had the candidate’s name mis-spelled….John instead of Jon….awkward!

There is more……the press corps was to journey to New Hampshire for his speech in the Granite state…they were to fly on a separate plane……they were taken to the wrong plane….the one they were on was bound for Saudi Arabia…..awkward!

None of these will make or break his candidacy….just some minor bumps on the road to the nomination…just nice to see that even beautiful rich people can have awkward moments just as the rest of us humans.

Like I said…this is NOT a big deal….just shows that “Sh*t Happens!”….no matter how rich or dashing you maybe…..”Sh*t Happens”!

Who To Choose?

It is official!   President Obama’s search for a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his retirement Friday, picks up where Obama left off last year.

Who will it be?  Who gets the nod?  Who?  Who?  Who?  It is time to change the complexion of the Court…and I am NOT talking about skin color….

USA Today is reporting on the leaders in this race for the seat:

Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created when Justice David Souter retired. Three other candidates he interviewed for that vacancy remain possibilities: U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Chicago-based U.S. Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood.Among other legal figures likely in the mix, based on their credentials and backgrounds, are Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, Attorney General Eric Holder and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who worked as an assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration.

All would most likely be good selection, but why do we need another judge?  Why not let someone who actually interprets the Constitution on a regular basis have a go?

My vote (for what it is worth) would be Jonathan Turley…..why?

He is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He lives in D.C. with his wife Leslie. He served as the consultant to the Florida House of Representatives on constitutional issues and also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He was also ranked among the nation’s top 500 lawyers in 2008. (He was previously ranked in the top ten military lawyers as well as one of the forty top lawyers under the age of forty).

His articles on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with over 500 articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. He is on the Board of Contributors of USA Today. In 2005, Turley was given the Columnist of the Year award for Single-Issue Advocacy for his columns on civil liberties by the Aspen Institute and the Week Magazine. Professor Turley also appears regularly as a legal expert on all of the major television networks. Since the 1990s, he has worked under contract as the on-air Legal Analyst for NBC News and CBS News to cover stories that ranged from the Clinton impeachment to the presidential elections. Professor Turley is often a guest on Sunday talk shows with over two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox Sunday.

(Thanx to wiki for the bio on Turley)

I think he would be the perfect addition to the Court because he is intelligent and has experience in constitutional law…that would be a first for the Court….a person who actually works with constitutional law and understands it well enough to teach it to our future leaders……plus he is well known to Congress for his numerous times testifying and he is known by academia as a well versed teacher and interpreter of the Constitution……

Obama could do a lot worse, but he could do NO better than nominating Jonathan Turley to SCOTUS…..it is time to nominate for experience and not for connections…..

The Circus That Is Sotomayor

Oh Hell–I was not going to get pulled into this debate because I think it is just plain silly–but after watching the hearing on Tuesday….I feel I must say something….anything.

What a crock of crap!  The Repubs are just playing silly!  They have nothing……and are trying to make something out of nothing.  They are failing…but that is nothing unusual…they have been failing since the 2008 election.  But they try…and try…and try….and each time they look more lame in the eyes of people with half a brain.

Okay on to the hearings…..my first reaction to Graham was…”you have got to be kidding”.  He basically told Sotomayor that she needs anger management;

“Now, let’s talk about you. I like you,” he said, to laughter from the audience. He then read anonymous comments from lawyers in New York who called Sotomayor overly “aggressive” and a “terror on the bench.”

This from the man that was the cheerleader for the angriest person in Washington, John McCain.  It is silly.  Beyond the shear absurdity of Graham’s comment, I want to know if Sotomayor was a man would that question or issue had been raised?

Then there was Kyl, whose job it was to bring up her “wise Latina” statement from 8 years previous to which Sotomayor responded:

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked whether Sotomayor would agree with President Obama’s statement that suggested there was space in judicial decision-making for “empathy” for certain disadvantaged groups. But Sotomayor flatly rejected that approach.

“We apply law to facts,” Sotomayor said. “We don’t apply feelings.”

She did an excellent job at bitch slapping the senator from Arizona saying that if he would watch the whole speech then he would see that she had a lot more to say that is being overlooked by the Repubs.

And then I got to watch the ranking Repub on the hearing bench, Sessions.  I have tried to see just what it is he is trying to do and the best I can come up with is….he is still pissed about being turned down as a judge in the 80’s and he just wants to get even.  This guy needs to go back to Alabama and get over himself.  Unfortunately, he came off as the stereotypical old white guy racist from the South.  Someone please tell him to shut up!

And there was a statement that about 80% of her decisions on the appellate court had been overturned by the Supreme Court…..someone needs to remind the Repubs that is what the Court does….that is why they are there…..Just another shot to the ass of the GOP…apparently they have NO idea what the Supreme Court does….or it is more important to attack a person than to get to the truth.

All in all she held her ground and answered each attack with truth and calmness.  She WILL be confirmed…the GOP is just doing what they do best….play games.

Pelosi Gets A Rest

Obama has made his choice for a judge to replace the retiring one on the Supreme Court…how fortunate for Pelosi…she now gets a temporary break from the bashing she has been taking at the hands of the conservatives, both on air personalities and the not so popular bloggers on the right.

Well at least the conservatives are consistant, they are still attacking a woman.  I asked the question about a month ago here on Info Ink.  I asked if the GOP and its lot were sexist.  I aked because of the attacks they, the GOP, have been having against women, like Pelosi, Sibelius and Napolitano.

Pelosi was in China trying to get them to cooperate on climate change and probably got very little of the cooperation she was looking for since she has been an outspoken critic of the government in China.  Her only good news for now is that Sotomayor is taking all the heat that she would be getting, at least for now.  I am sure that she is only getting a temporary lapse and the bashing will soon return.

Anyway, I digress..the conservs are taking careful aim at Sotomayor.  They have attacked her IQ, her name, her eating habits, her temperment and a racist.  All their attacks are just so damn silly……so damn lame…….and so damn predictable.

She will be confirmed……Repubs just want to have their say……it is all just a fundraising ploy….she will be confirmed.

Treasury The Most Important Position

At least for the time, president-elected will be judged by who he will put into the leadership role of the Treasury.
Now, as President-elect Obama considers his choice for Treasury secretary, Summers’ name is again front and center. But this time, the decision is not so clear. Obama faces conflicting advice from his close advisors, from Capitol Hill and from important Democratic constituencies.

Others warn that Summers’ sharp elbows and his penchant for controversy could make him a damaging distraction at a time when the nation and the new president can least afford it. And they worry that Summers’ wide-ranging knowledge, expansive personality and combative impulses could clash with the president’s desire to have the White House deeply involved in the biggest problems facing the new administration.

These voices argue that a more reassuring pick might be the venerable former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, perhaps teamed with New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy F. Geithner.

Obama’s choice will have huge symbolic importance, offering voters an early chance to assess his judgment and decision-making process. Regardless of who is chosen, the Treasury secretary will play a central role in the administration’s economic team — influencing the substance of policy and how effectively it is pursued

THe choice that most are going with, at least in this guessing stage is Summers.
From the outset, Summers’ career has been marked by soaring achievement and recurring controversy.

He seemingly was born to be an economist. Both his parents were economists and two uncles — Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow — won the Nobel Prize for their work in the field. Summers was named an assistant professor at MIT even before finishing his doctorate, and was one of the youngest faculty members to be granted tenure at Harvard.

But as chief economist of the World Bank in the early 1990s, he drew fire after approving a subordinate’s research paper that suggested poor African nations might make money by taking in the trash of developed nations.

He survived the African trash send-up to join the Clinton Treasury Department, working his way from one senior position to another until he became Robert E. Rubin’s deputy and successor as secretary. He became Harvard president at age 46.

I think they will not go with a Wall Street insider, it would be more prudent to pick someone from academia.