Monday Open Thread
Welcome to your Monday open thread. It’s a hot Monday after a hot weekend. Remember when everyone was bitching about the snow and cold? I miss those days.
The SCOTUS confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan begin today. Kagan is a bit of a mystery to most people because she doesn’t have a huge paper trail to follow. Apparently Republicans are having trouble with framing their arguments. They’re planning on painting her as anti-military because of the Harvard policy to bar discriminatory organizations from recruiting on campus (a policy started by her predecessor which was overturned by the Supreme Court). Apparently they’re also trying a newer strategy – she’s bad because Obama picked her.
Senate Republicans have struggled of late to come up with a coherent line of attack — though, as of yesterday, there was still plenty of rhetoric about a possible filibuster — and today, a leading Republican senator trotted out a new argument.
Judiciary Committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wrote in a column Sunday evening that “it is reasonable to worry that [Elana] Kagan is a judicial activist simply because President Obama nominated her.” […]
“The president’s judicial nominees over the past 17 months show an unmistakable determination to create a more activist federal judiciary,” Cornyn writes of Obama’s picks for lower federal courts.
I kind of like this, in large part because the argument reflects a certain degree of honesty. Why don’t Republicans like Kagan for the high court? Because President Obama nominated her. Cornyn’s concession makes this plain — if the president chose her, she necessarily has to be considered suspect.
This kind of partisanship is the opposite of substantive criticism, but I do enjoy the argument’s circular quality — Republicans are inclined to oppose Obama’s nominees because they’re Obama’s nominees.
Well, you can’t argue that this isn’t honest.
Some commenters on the thread point out that even the July 3rd deadline is not that simple, since West Virginia has already closed its candidate filing.
Does nobody want to Tea Party? The Tea Party Nation convention scheduled for July has been moved to October, two weeks from when the event was supposed to take place.
But event organizers decided to give it another shot, scheduling another convention for July. Will this one generate a little more excitement? Not so much.
A National Tea Party Unity convention that was scheduled to be held in Las Vegas in July will now take place in October, according to organizers.
The event, organized by Tea Party Nation (a national Tea Party organization) and Free America (a conservative non-profit group) and other organizations, will still be held at the Palazzo Las Vegas Resort. But Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips confirmed to CNN Saturday that the date is being moved from July 15-17 to October in order to hold the event closer to the midterm elections.
“We concluded it would more advantageous to hold the convention in the middle of October just prior to the November elections,” says Phillips in a statement.
…
The more interesting angle to this, though, is what the report didn’t mention — the “National Tea Party Unity” convention is being postponed just two weeks before it was scheduled to kick off. I’m not an expert in conference management, but it seems to me that a national group doesn’t organize a major gathering at a Las Vegas resort, lining up speakers and guests, and then scrap the whole thing two weeks before it begins unless no one was planning to show up.
Everyone’s tired of the teabaggers already.
Tags: Open Thread
Good news! In spite of Obama arguing for immunity for the pedophiles in the Vatican, today the Supreme Court ruled against them and “effectively confirmed the decision of an appellate court to lift the Vatican’s immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest in the northwestern state of Oregon.”
Good for them. Nevertheless, history will note that Obama and Holder were on the side of the pedophiles, not their victims.
Even the teabaggers are tired of teabaggers. It was just this time last year that the summer of spittle was gearing up. That seems like years ago now.
And this is why anonone is so much like a Teabagger. When faced with facts, A1 repeatedly repeats lies even when corrected over and over and over and over and over and over again.
anonone’s comments = virtual toilet paper
I must have missed the White House press conference when they announced support for pedophiles.
Wow, FIFA really does hate replays. They are considering banning replays on the giant screens inside the stadiums.
You must have missed it, jason.
“Obama admin. backs Vatican’s claim of immunity to sexual abuse lawsuits”
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0525/obama-backs-catholic-church-immunity-claim-sexual-abuse-lawsuits/
Apparently, Nemski agrees with giving immunity to the Vatican pedophiles, too.
Stupid. They need to enter the modern world. If I were an Englishman I’d be seriously pissed off in addition to being pale and vaguely effeminate.
Seriously, anonone, your linked article disagrees with your statement.
: shakes head :
A1: Good luck finding a politician (who must stand for election, as opposed to SCOTUS justices, who don’t) who would have done anything differently. That’s where our Obama criticism parts ways — I don’t expect him to commit political suicide.
Prison health care isn’t just a Delaware problem:
PEKIN, Ill. — For days before he died in a federal prison, Adam Montoya pleaded with guards to be taken to a doctor, pressing a panic button in his cell over and over to summon help that never came.
An autopsy concluded that the 36-year-old inmate suffered from no fewer than three serious illnesses – cancer, hepatitis and HIV. The cancer ultimately killed him, causing his spleen to burst. Montoya bled to death internally.
But the coroner and a pathologist were more stunned by another finding: The only medication in his system was a trace of over-the-counter pain reliever.
That means Montoya, imprisoned for a passing counterfeit checks, had been given nothing to ease the excruciating pain that no doubt wracked his body for days or weeks before death.
Geezer, he has been committing political suicide for months by death with a thousand tiny cuts.
Nemski, Obama argued for immunity for the Vatican from civil lawsuits filed by the victims of pedophile priests based on the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. An appellate court and now the Supreme Court has now said that those lawsuits can proceed. So the victims can now have the day in court that Obama was trying to deny them.
What part of that are you having trouble understanding?
The article says Montoya was brought to the prison clinic and given Tylenol. Apart from the lack of compassion for the pain – Tylenol is hard on the liver, and any clinician giving Tylenol to a patient in obvious liver failure should lose their license.
anonone you have written the following statements:
Two very different things. If you weren’t so busy sloganeering for the progressive castration of Obama, you’d see that.
They are only different to people who don’t want to see that the bottom line is that Obama was arguing for immunity for pedophile priests based on a technicality that the courts have now said was wrong. Obama was trying to prevent the Vatican’s victims from having their day is court.
Obama cut off his progressive balls himself a long time ago, in case you hadn’t noticed.
A1 you have been pwned. Just shut up and stop digging deeper.
Right, jason. Obama lost his sorry argument for Vatican pedophile immunity – so who has been pwned?
I forgot – with you, it’s all part of THE REVEAL. That’s all you got to keep telling yourself this emperor is still wearing clothes.
Interesting post by Dave Weigel on the WaPo/Journolist mess.
High Court Rules in Favor of Gun Rights
The Wall Street Journal ^ | 06-28-10 | NATHAN KOPPEL
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled for the first time that gun possession is fundamental to American freedom, giving federal judges power to strike down state and local weapons laws for violating the Second Amendment. In a 5-4 ruling, the court held that the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that binds states. “Self defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito. He was joined in reaching the result by Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Indeed. F*ck state’s rights. In fact, why do we even have state governments? So much duplication of bureaucracy. One national government is plenty.
“Geezer, he has been committing political suicide for months by death with a thousand tiny cuts.”
That’s not a very good argument for shooting himself in the head.
The funny thing is President Obama was correct. The Vatican should not be sued in American courts. There are plenty of chances to sue the American dioceses which has been done and resulted in hundreds of millions in awards. There is no need to overturn an long standing common sense principle. The foreign nation is not under our jurisdiction.
look what the evil joos and their blockade have forced the peace-loving palistinians to do:
Gaza gunmen ‘set fire to UN summer camp for children’
bbc 6/28/10
Masked gunmen in the Gaza Strip have set fire to a United Nations-run summer camp for children.
This follows a similar attack in May on another UN-run summer camp.
Some militants view the UN as a symbol of the West and claim that the summer camps allow boys and girls to mix freely – something that the UN denies.
The attackers tied up the guard at the camp in central Gaza before setting fire to chairs, tables, easels and other equipment.
Just so I understand, because the Palestinians are idiots and jerks Israel gets to steal their land? Got it.
“According to Dr. Michael Kimmel (SUNY, Stony Brook) and Dr. Ritch Savin-Williams (Cornell), one of the reasons for (so many American men now report that they are okay with same sex marriage) may be that men are now afraid to be identified with the love segregation movement because they fear people will think they’re homosexualists. With all the recent outings of anti-homosexualist culture warriors, being too anti-homosexualist now seems a bit…”
Makes sense. The most stridently anti-gay bloggers in DE are as gay as the cop from the Village People.
Homo-what? Oh, homosexualist is an England word. Well, mad-dogs and Englishmen, I guess.
That’s JC Christian being funny.
More on homosexualists.
The 2A is incorporated.
Suck on it, boys.
Suck hard.
Genius wingnut commentary aside, does anyone know if the recent SC decision overruled Slaughter-House, or was it more narrow?
Yes, Jason330, it overruled Slaughterhouse and also Cruikshank et al. The SC ruled that the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights applies to the states because it is so fundamental that it warrants displacing the ability of state and local governments to make their own sovereign choices and legislate for their own conditions. A surprisingly sensible 5:4 decision in the current political climate.
If you look at who is in the majority you have to wonder how sensible.
Anyway, that means the states are fair useless bureaucratic entities as of this week. And honestly, do we really need states in this day and age? We have Congress.
The day before the ruling overturning Chicago’s law, there were 29 shootings in the city of Chicago. While we can’t be sure, because many of the perpetrators will go unaprehended, it’s a pretty good bet that the majority of those who pulled the triggers would still be banned from owning guns because of their criminal records.
We are #1 – Delaware: The Drug Dealer’s Business Partner.
Delaware now beats Switzerland for banking secrecy, low taxes, and ability to frustrate regulators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQjSWHGO0
Jason, keep on blabbering like that and you’ll have a visit from my little friend.
Criminals can’t be stopped with gun bans. However, if their 29 victims had been allowed to be armed, they might have been shot themselves, which is no great loss.
That’s why there is no crime in Pakistan or Somalia.