Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Big Government tell me I’m apparently not the only person who remembers the Republican Establishment’s reaction to Reagan:

You had to live through it to recognize the metamorphosis. During those early days of June 2004, as the nation mourned the passing of Ronald Reagan, you would have never known he had been ridiculed and treated with disdain for most of his political career—not only by Democrats but by establishment Republicans. Frankly, I was stunned by the display of love and gratitude in 2004.

As the Reagan motorcade drove toward the Reagan Library for the final tribute, ordinary citizens along the route were paying their final tributes as well. It was an amazing moment.

But it was not always so.

Yet another testament to the great love the Republicans have for members of their party who are actually capable of winning elections. Somehow he sees the same parallel with Palin that I do.

Imagine that!

Bad Lawyer tells the story of a Judge in Washington State that is in some trouble:

[The] court ruled Thursday that King County District Judge Judith Eiler violated rules requiring judges to be ‘patient, dignified, and courteous’ to defendants, lawyers and others.

Five justices, led by Justice Jim Johnson, ruled in favor of the five-day suspension plus censure. But four others insisted that Eiler should be subject to a 90-day suspension recommended by the Commission on Judicial Conduct.”
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I’ve witnessed this routine many times over the years. As I’ve said previously, there is some frustration on the part of some judges that they are powerless to actually affect behavior of the defendants who appear, oftentimes, again and again before them. The judges aspire to say something that might register in a positive way on these folks that will work to the advantage of the justice system and the community. This is especially true in “small law” courts.

At Simple Justice we see that Judge Judy is to blame.

Nowhere in the judges’ handbook does it require jurists to employ sugarcoating or gobbledygook in the performance of their duties. But when you put on a robe, part of the deal is that you exercise discretion and hold that sharp tongue. It’s not that judges don’t think that people are idiots, but they can’t say it. They just can’t.

The problem, of course, is that Judge Judy is unbelievably popular, maybe even one of the best things to happen to the legal system, as far as the public is concerned, in a long time. People love to watch Judge Judy jump to baseless conclusions and rip people’s lungs out through their nose. Swift, brutal justice. How fun! Unless you happen to be the one whose nostrils are at stake

How many people back in the 60’s took up Science because of the Professor from Gilligans Island or Scotty from Star Trek? If you decide to get into the law because of Judge Judy, it just might not be what you imagine to be. etiquette

You’ve read and examined my opinion of Gay Marriage. Making the case for the other side a blogger I respect who is just as nice in person as she is committed to what she believes, my friend Cynthia Yockey:

The fundamental rationale social conservatives advance for denying equal treatment to lesbians and gays under the law — including the liberty and freedom to choose sexual partners and spouses on the same bases that straight people use: sexual attraction and love — is that gays are intrinsically evil.

This of course is not the Catholic position but the number of people who make that argument is not insignificant to say the least.

Read her whole post and her others on the subject. Her opinion is worth hearing and understanding. After all once can’t be secure in one’s own opinion and beliefs and be unwilling or unable to hear the other side without rancor.

During the Atlanta campaign W. T. Sherman used flanking maneuver after flanking maneuver to push Joe Johnson back through Georgia. The one exception was Kennesaw Mountain where his frontal assaults were repulsed. After that defeat, he went back to the flanking tactic that took To paraphrase Ken Burns from The Civil War “Sherman never admitted it was a mistake but never did it again”. Like Sherman in the early days of the campaign Sarah Palin made some mistakes dealing with the media, also like Sherman, she didn’t let those early defeats stop her demonstrating why she is invaluable to conservatives.

When the media attacks Palin doesn’t sit and take it, or play under their rules, she counterattacks:

Yesterday, PolitiFact.com fact-checked my statement about the coming $3.8 trillion Obama tax hike – the largest tax increase in history. They did such a bad job of it, however, that I feel compelled to fact-check the fact-checkers.

And because her primary method of counterattack is Facebook that means she can answer on her terms. Try and twist a soundbite out of that:

Unfortunately for PolitiFact, no such proposal exists. They admit as much, by the way, when they state that “There are no formal congressional proposals yet to keep the Bush tax cuts in place, so we don’t have precise estimates from official sources like the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.” That doesn’t stop them, though, from claiming I “confuse the issue” by “using numbers that assume all the tax cuts are going away. That is not the Democratic plan nor is it President Obama’s plan.”

Plan? What plan? There is no plan. All we have is smoke and mirrors based on an old Obama campaign pledge.

Defense? Never heard of it. It’s really something what a pol can do when the McCain Campaign isn’t managing how they respond. If only every republican was willing to fight back on their own terms.

Read the whole post it is devastating as is the challenge at the end:

PolitiFact doesn’t dispute the $3.8 trillion estimate of the cost of repeal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. It admits that “Palin’s estimate of $3.8 trillion over 10 years is within a reasonable range, if you’re talking about all taxpayers.” And yet somehow it continues to argue that I’m wrong, based on a proposal it admits doesn’t exist which in turn is based on a phantom campaign pledge which Democrats have already broken anyway. I call that a “Pants on Fire” statement.

To prevent PolitiFact from making similar mistakes in future, it would be helpful if the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership finally mustered the courage to table their plans to let the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out. You can argue in favor of a multi-trillion dollar tax hike in an age of economic uncertainty and mass unemployment, and we’ll argue for fiscal sanity combined with serious spending cuts. I for one look forward to such a debate.

If sure the White House is dying to have that debate, I know congress wants that debate so badly that democrats are rethinking taxes.

How many Republicans do you know if the same spot would have played “Duck and Cover”? Now if the Poli”fact” (and yes after this I put the “fact” in quotes) is reported so must her response, and if it is NOT then the question becomes: Why?

What would we do without her?