The Commentariat -- Sept. 4, 2014
Internal links removed.
Sahil Kapur of TPM: "The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered a rehearing of a three-judge panel's decision to invalidate Obamacare subsidies on the federal exchange. The decision on Thursday means the case, Halbig v. Burwell, will be heard en banc -- by all 11 active judges plus the two senior judges on the original panel. The order to vacate the ruling is good news for Obamacare supporters."
** Bruce Horovitz of USA Today: "Arrests began early Thursday morning outside a busy McDonald's in New York City as thousands of emboldened fast-food workers coast to coast put down their burger flippers and picked up picket signs in a national strike that included civil disobedience as the workers rally for $15 minimum wages and the right to form a union without retaliation. Strikers began to gather in more than 100 cities early Thursday, affecting major chains from McDonald's to Wendy's to Burger King. Shortly after 7 a.m. ET on Thursday, police reportedly arrested 19 workers who sat down in the street -- and refused to move -- outside the bustling McDonald's at New York's Times Square. There are unconfirmed reports of some striking fast-food worker arrests in Detroit, as well." ...
... Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "Organizers said the police arrested more than 50 workers in Detroit for such action on Thursday morning." CW: Congrats to the Times for actually covering the strike (even if Greenhouse gives a helluva a lot of space to the restaurant industry's POV). The Times editors usually aren't much interested in populist movements. It would be swell if some accounts of the strike mentioned that taxpayers are funding restaurateurs by providing necessary public assistance to underpaid workers. ...
... J. C. Reindl of the Detroit Free Press: "More than 100 demonstrators shut down an east-side Detroit intersection this morning as part of a labor-organized national fast food strike. Detroit police said they arrested 25 to 30 of the demonstrators, who officers said sat in the roadway at Mack and Moran and refused to leave. The protestors blocked traffic for about a half hour, police said." ...
... CW: Support the workers. Pack your lunch today.
Michael Birnbaum, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Kremlin on Thursday underscored Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine, warning that such a move could derail efforts to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, as leaders of the alliance gathered for a key summit in Wales. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also told the United States not to try to impose its own will on Kiev." ...
... Matthew Weaver of the Guardian: "Nato leaders have descended on the Welsh resort of Celtic Manor for a two-day summit, which formally starts with a meeting about Afghanistan but will be dominated by discussion on Ukraine and the threat of Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria." ...
... Peter Apps of Reuters: "... preparations are under way near [Ukraine's] western border for a joint military exercise this month with more than 1,000 troops from the United States and its allies.The decision to go ahead with the Rapid Trident exercise Sept. 16-26 is seen as a sign of the commitment of NATO states to support non-NATO member Ukraine while stopping well short of military intervention in the conflict." ...
... Julie Davis of the New York Times: "President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain have called on NATO to reject 'isolationist' impulses and confront the rising terrorist threat posed by Sunni militants in the Middle East, saying the United States and Britain 'will not be cowed by barbaric killers.' 'We will not waver in our determination to confront' the militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the two leaders wrote in a joint opinion piece published in Thursday's editions of The Times of London. 'If terrorists think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong.'" ...
... CW: The Times has seriously firewalled the Cameron-Obama opinion piece, but the British government has a copy here. ...
... Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "The beheading of Steven J. Sotloff, the American journalist from Miami who had been held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, suddenly loomed larger for many Israelis on Wednesday when it emerged that he held Israeli citizenship and had lived and studied in the country for a few years.... The Israeli connection was kept well hidden ... [because of] fear that exposure of his Jewish roots and Israeli past could put him in further danger." ...
... ** Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker: "It's hard to watch the video of Steven Sotloff's last moments and not conclude something similar: the ostensible objective of securing an Islamic state is nowhere near as important as killing people. For the guys who signed up for ISIS -- including, especially, the masked man with the English accent who wielded the knife -- killing is the real point of being there." ...
... President Obama addressed the people of Estonia yesterday, making his strongest comments to date regarding Russian aggression in Ukraine:
... Conservative David Frum in the Atlantic: "The direct message [to Russia] came on Wednesday, in Tallinn, Estonia, in the sharpest language any U.S. president has used toward Russia since Ronald Reagan upbraided the Evil Empire. One by one, President Obama repudiated the lies Vladimir Putin has told about Ukraine: that the Ukrainians somehow provoked the invasion, that they are Nazis, that their freely elected government is somehow illegal.... Obama said, '[NATO's] Article 5 is crystal clear. An attack on one is an attack on all. So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who'll come to help, you'll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now." This is the ultimate commitment, given by the ultimate authority, in the very place where the commitment would be tested -- and would have to be honored. There's no turning back from that. Today, for the first time perhaps, Eastern Europeans have reason to believe it." ...
... Jonathan Alter of the Daily Beast: "In a presidency of many 'critical junctures,' this time his foreign policy legacy is truly on the line — and if he can lead now on ISIS and Putin, we'll soon forget his recent history."
John Harwood of the New York Times: "Various new restrictions on voting, which range from more stringent identification requirements to fewer registration opportunities to curbs on early voting, have been put in place. A critical election variable is whether the new limits will tilt close races.... Eight states ... have narrowed early voting times, and three of them feature Senate races crucial to Republican hopes of capturing a majority.
Dave Philipps of the New York Times: "Thousands of Vietnam-era veterans barred from receiving benefits because of less-than-honorable discharges may be eligible for upgrades under a new set of guidelines released by the Defense Department on Wednesday. The new rules offer the first guidance to military discharge review boards on how to address post-traumatic stress disorder. Many experts and veterans' advocates assert that the disorder may have contributed to misconduct by veterans who were later kicked out of the military and stripped of benefits."
New York Times Editors: "The exoneration of two North Carolina men who spent 30 years in prison -- one on death row -- provides a textbook example of so much that is broken in the American justice system. And it is further evidence (as though more were needed) that the death penalty is irretrievably flawed as well as immoral.... Virtually everything about the arrests, confessions, trial and convictions of [Henry Lee] McCollum and [Leon] Brown was polluted by official error and misconduct.... Justice [Antonin] Scalia was prepared 20 years ago to allow the execution of a man who, it turns out, was innocent."
Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "A federal judge [in New Orleans] upheld the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, going against what had been a unanimous trend of federal court decisions striking down such bans since the Supreme Court ruled on the matter last year. In his ruling, Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of Federal District Court said that the regulation of marriage was left up to the states and the democratic process; that no fundamental right was being violated by the ban; and that Louisiana had a 'legitimate interest ... whether obsolete in the opinion of some, or not, in the opinion of others ... in linking children to an intact family formed by their two biological parents.'" The plaintiffs will appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. CW: Feldman is a Reagan appointee. ...
... Garrett Epps of the Atlantic: "Unlike the recent similar opinion in a Tennessee state court, this is not an overmatched judge throwing up his hands in terror. Feldman's opinion represents a fundamental challenge, couched in terms of recent Supreme Court precedent, to the claim that United States v. Windsor requires states to allow same-sex marriage. And, I think not coincidentally, its heart is drawn from an opinion written earlier this year by Justice Anthony Kennedy -- whose vote will very likely determine the result when the marriage issue reaches the Court.... The outcome of that contest is still in doubt, and Feldman's opinion shows why."
Linda Greenhouse explains why the Supreme Court's 9-0 decision in N.L.R.B. v. Canning, viewed by most observers as a loss for President Obama, was actually "a major victory for the president" -- & for Justice Stephen Breyer. Also, as does so much, it really pissed off Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote a scathing (CW: everything he writes is "scathing" & contemptuous of those who disagree) "concurrence."
** Heather Richardson in a New York Times op-ed: "FOR all the differences between establishment Republicans and Tea Party insurgents, their various efforts to rebrand the Grand Old Party tend to start from a common premise: the belief that was the quintessential Republican, and that his principle of defending wealth and the wealthy should remain the party's guiding vision.... They would do better to look to earlier presidents, and model their new brand on the eras when the Republican Party opposed the control of government by an elite in favor of broader economic opportunity." CW: Richardson, who is an expert on the history of the GOP, is refreshingly candid in her assessment of the party.
Before there were former Sens. Trent Lott & John Breaux lobbying against U.S. sanctions on Russia's Putin-connected Gazprombank, there was the U.S. lobbying firm Ketchum giving Vladimir Putin & his top aides pointers on how to make a good impression on the West & encourage foreign investment in Russia. As Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times reported August 31, "The Russian officials, [according to former Ketchum consultant Angus Roxburgh], were initially convinced they could pay for better coverage, or intimidate journalists into it." Roxburgh told the Daily Beast that "Ketchum's aim ... 'means helping them disguise all the issues that make it unattractive: human rights, invasions of neighboring countries, etc.' ... In [State Department] filings, the company said it worked with Time magazine to have Mr. Putin named the magazine's Person of the Year in 2007." ...
... CW: Say what? Time uses PR firms to pick its Person of the Year? That explains a lot: like why Newt Gingrich has been Time's Man of the Year & on at least four other Time covers while Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, has never even made the cover. I believe I'll hire Macon-Peeples-Devine to see what they can do for me. Should come out something like this:
Jill Lepore of the New Yorker: "... there are three photographs I cannot delete from the album in my head: a nine-year-old girl in pink shorts, holding an Uzi at a firing range in Arizona; a police sniper perched on top of an armored tank in Ferguson, Missouri; and a black-masked terrorist in a desert, about to behead an American journalist. Gun, rifle, knife."
Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "Michael R. Bloomberg will reassume the leadership of his business empire only eight months after ending his final term as mayor of New York. Late Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg told close confidants and senior executives of Bloomberg L.P., a financial data and media company, that Daniel L. Doctoroff, its chief executive and a longtime friend and lieutenant, would leave the company at the end of the year and that he would take over."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Oh, Why Can't the U.S. Be More Like ISIS? CW: I couldn't think of any reason to link to a story about Sean Hannity's "exclusive" interview of "Duck Dynasty"'s patriarchal idiot, but Ed Schultz provides it:
Beyond the Beltway
Sari Horwitz, et al., of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this week will launch a broad civil rights investigation into the Ferguson, Mo., Police Department, according to two federal law enforcement officials.... The federal officials said the probe will look at not only Ferguson, but other police departments in St. Louis County.... The investigation is in addition to a Justice Department probe into whether Officer Darren Wilson, who fired the fatal shots, violated [Michael] Brown's civil rights." ...
... Radley Balko of the Washington Post: "Some of the towns in St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink..., loud music..., zoning violations..., trespassing, wearing 'saggy pants,' business license violations, and vague infractions like 'disturbing the peace' or 'affray' that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations.... There are many towns in St. Louis County where the number of outstanding arrest warrants can exceed the number of residents, sometimes several times over.... If you were tasked with designing a regional system of government guaranteed to produce racial conflict, anger, and resentment, you'd be hard pressed to do better than St. Louis County."
... Kevin McDermott of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon lifted on Wednesday the state of emergency he declared in riot-torn Ferguson almost three weeks ago -- a move that effectively ends the possibility of a special prosecutor in the investigation of Michael Brown's death."
... Jeremy Kohler of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "As a child, Michael Brown was never found delinquent of the juvenile equivalents of Missouri's most serious felony charges and was not facing any at the time he died, a court official said Wednesday. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch filed a petition Aug. 22 asking a judge in the St. Louis County Family Court to open any juvenile records on Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old shot to death last month by a Ferguson police officer.... The petitions went to a hearing Tuesday with St. Louis County Family Court Ellen Levy Siwak, who took the case under advisement. But disclosures during and after the hearing on Tuesday put to rest claims by blogger Charles C. Johnson and others that Brown was facing a murder charge at the time he was shot to death." ...
... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "It can't be too hard to get a juvenile record in Ferguson, where in 2013 there were 10,000 more arrest warrants issued for nonviolent offenses than there were residents of the town. So you criminalize virtually everyone (or, you know, everyone black or brown or poor), then use their criminal records as your excuse for killing them in the street. It's appalling and shameful, and it's clearly the policy in Ferguson. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch should be ashamed of itself for seeking Michael Brown's juvenile records that may or may not exist; Charles C. Johnson is clearly beyond shame." (See also lengthy piece by Radley Balko linked above; citing poor people for minor offenses is a long-running scam in the St. Louis burbs.)
Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times: "A group representing 69 California mayors, including Los Angeles' Eric Garcetti, sent a letter Wednesday to Gov. Jerry Brown, urging him to sign legislation that would make it easier to temporarily remove guns from individuals believed to be dangerous.... Meanwhile, some gun-rights groups, including Liberal Gun Owners Assn., have sent letters to Gov. Brown urging him to veto the bill.... Eric Wooten, president of the association..., said the bill, AB 1014, would provide an 'enormous disincentive' for gun owners to seek help by criminalizing mental and substance-abuse problems."
Shawn Boburg of the North Bergen Record on Port Authority officers' accounts of the GWB closing: "Several [officers] immediately heard gossip in a police break room that the closures were part of a dispute between Christie and Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, who had declined to endorse the governor for re-election. The officers described the resulting traffic as 'horrible' and 'horrific,' and at least one urged a reversal of the operation, only to get warnings that his remarks over the radio were 'inappropriate,' according to his attorney. It's the first indication that police charged with patrolling the bridge recognized and notified superiors of the chaos being caused by the lane closures." The summary report of the officers' testimony, written for the legislative committee overseeing the investigation, is here.
Matt Zapotosky & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Jurors deciding the public corruption case of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, have begun their third day of deliberations."
Joe Coscarelli of New York: "A 36-year-old woman in Brooklyn has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime, plus aggravated harassment, for spray-painting PG-13 punk sentiments on police vehicles and a public school wall in Williamsburg. Her allegedly hateful messages included 'Nazis=NYPD' and 'a wrongful arrest is a crime.'"
Senate Races
Brian Lowrey of the Wichita Eagle: "In a stunning development, [Democratic] candidate Chad Taylor asked Wednesday that his name be removed from the ballot, paving the way for independent candidate Greg Orman to face U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts head-on in November.... Orman's candidacy, buoyed by television commercials and social media, has received national attention. Although he trailed both major party candidates in the polls, several analysts saw him as the candidate with momentum in the race. Taylor's decision to quit came the same day that more than 70 former Republican lawmakers endorsed Orman." ...
... Update Uh-Oh. Alexandra Jaffe of the Hill: "Two election law statutes have raised questions about whether Taylor gave sufficient cause to remove himself from the ballot, and, if so, whether Democrats must ultimately choose a candidate to replace him. Kansas Republican Party Executive Director Clay Barker told The Hill that Taylor is now back on the secretary of State's list of general election candidates, while a legal team analyzes the statutes. ...
... Manu Raju of Politico: "A Democratic candidate for the Senate seat in Kansas has withdrawn from the race, paving the way for a serious third-party contender against longtime Republican Sen. Pat Roberts -- and jolting Republicans' calculus for retaking the Senate." ...
... Nate Silver. Meh. This improves the Democrats' chances of retaining the Senate from 35 percent to 38 percents. He concedes to a 90 percent! margin-of-error on the Roberts-Orman race, as he found "a series of methodological problems" in the only poll to test an Orman-Roberts contest. ...
... This report by Silver, written before Taylor dropped out of the race, gives Republicans a 64 percent chance of taking control of the Senate. ...
... BUT. Sam Wang in the New Yorker: "During the past two weeks, polls in other states have moved even more in the Democrats' favor. It's safe to say that thanks to Chad Taylor's decision, the Democratic Party is now the odds-on favorite to retain control of the Senate."
James Hohmann of Politico: "Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn debated like the underdog in Georgia Thursday. After slipping behind in polls following last month's runoff, she came out swinging at Republican David Perdue during a 45-minute forum at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce's annual Congressional luncheon in Macon.... Nunn also tried to distance herself from Barack Obama.... Perdue largely ignored Nunn. He discussed losing his own health insurance plan because of Obamacare and focused on the federal debt in nearly every answer. Nunn hammered him several times for backing last fall's government shutdown."
AP: "Sen. Kay Hagan [D] accused Republican challenger Thom Tillis [RTP] of shortchanging education as a leader of the North Carolina Legislature on Wednesday night, and he cast her as a rubber stamp for President Barack Obama in the first debate of a close and costly race with national stakes."
... The Charlotte Observer fact-checks the candidates' debate claims. Via Greg Sargent.
Gubernatorial Race
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "A Democratic nominee [for governor of Alaska -- Byron Mallott --] and an independent candidate [-- Bill Walker --] are teaming up for a unity campaign bent on unseating Gov. Sean Parnell (R).
Congressional Race
(Alleged) Criminal Edition
Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times: "A woman who raised funds for Representative Michael G. Grimm [R-N.Y.] pleaded guilty on Wednesday to illegally funneling money to his 2010 campaign.... After the federal inquiry, which stretched beyond two years, prosecutors charged Mr. Grimm this year with 20 counts related to tax evasion on a health-food business he ran on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. On Tuesday, a judge set a Dec. 1 trial date for Mr. Grimm, who is campaigning for a third term in November." ...
... CW: Grimm, who represents Staten Island, is leading his Democratic opponent, Mark Murphy, by 5.4 points. Because who wouldn't want to vote for this guy?:
Presidential Race
Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post's wacky conservative blogger is shocked by Rand Paul's sudden transformation from isolationist to interventionist: "After declaring certain Christian defenders of Israel to be 'warmongers,' arguing we could not defeat the Islamic State without being an air force for Iran, opining we didn't have a national security interest in Syria or Iraq, accusing interventionists of abetting the Islamic State's rise and decrying Hillary Clinton as too hawkish, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has decided that if you can't beat the 'neocons' he might as well join them.... At some point Paul will be asked to explain this complete about-face -- and break the news to the UC-Berkeley kids that he's in favor of war.... The turnaround is so sudden and so at odds with all he has written and said in the past few months that the question will naturally arise: Is he jettisoning his worldview to revive a presidential campaign? If so, the libertarian extremists who followed Paul the Elder may need to find a new isolationist." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "WaPo neocon Jennifer Rubin is in full hooting, gloating triumph, luxuriating in Paul's sudden conversion to the faith community of Republican 'hawks' before reminding herself to make it clear the man's too erratic to be entrusted with power. Meanwhile, Rand-o-phile Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, normally self-assured of her opinion about absolutely everything, conducts a defense of Paul that's as incoherent as the Kentucky senator's own statements of late."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Joan Rivers, the raspy loudmouth who pounced on America's obsessions with flab, face-lifts, body hair and other blemishes of neurotic life, including her own, in five decades of caustic comedy that propelled her from nightclubs to television to international stardom, died on Thursday in Manhattan. She was 81.... The State Health Department is investigating the circumstances that led to her death, a state official said Thursday."
Washington Post: "The death toll from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has surpassed 1,900 people, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday. More people have now died in this epidemic than in all previous Ebola outbreaks combined."
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Reader Comments (11)
On Randy's puzzling about face: Maybe Mr. Paul inadvertently copied the wrong Wikipedia article. Maybe when he utters today's hurriedly and thoughtlessly plagiarized position, he's as bemused as anyone else by what comes out of his mouth...
I remember some fine writerly advice I heard once, attributed I believe to Frank O'Connor. "How do I know what I think 'til I see what I say?" When it comes to writing, the notion that the process of putting thoughts into words forms those thoughts as much as it expresses them makes perfect sense.
But it's hardly the way one wants to see his or her President's foreign policy urges expressed. If you like today's new edition, I supposed you could say the position is evolving. If you don't, you might term it inconsistent.
Or in Lil' Randy's case, simply random, joyfully driving his foreign policy bumper car across the nation and the world.
How do these people get to become judges?
If you read the link to the Times story about the decision in New Orleans upholding Louisiana's ban on gay marriage you'd have to wonder if it was Ronald Reagan who appointed Judge Feldman or Girolamo Savonarola.
Feldman's logic might even put off bug-eyed medieval prelates.
But like many conservatives, solipsistic wingnut logic is its own reward. No need to offer any coherent, legal, or rational explanation for your decision, all that's required is "it's so because I say it's so. Nyah, nyah".
Oh, shit. Well, now that you've explained it, it's all good.
Feldman, in this decision, signals his wingnut hater bona fides with his use of the right-wing invention of the same sex marriage slippery slope, popular with religious nutballs and other denizens of the dark ages, which is, if we allow gays to marry, what's next, Fathers marrying daughters? Aunts marrying nephews? The guy actually says this in his decision. Really.
Now I won't ask anyone to bother trying to figure out how one gets from allowing regular, normal adults who happen to be of the same sex and would like to tie the knot same as everyone else, to pervert dads wanting to marry their little girl. I can imagine an earlier draft of this decision where he felt obliged to cross out the part about people wanting to marry animals (lookin' at you Rick Santorum). Must'a killed him to leave that shit out. But don't think he wasn't thinking it.
But you know what's worse? Nino Scalia prob'ly thinks the same thing.
I mean, it's one thing to hold a different but rational and defensible legal position. It's another thing to be an unstable loony.
So how the fuck do these people get to be judges?
Ken,
I've always wondered about that rug on Li'l Randy's head.
I thought it was there as a landing pad for his wingnut propeller hat. But I may be wrong. That's not a propeller hat. It's a weather vane. Or should that be whether vain?
Oh-oh. Is that a call coming in? Oh shit, it's Judge Feldman on the (homo)phone!
Sorry guys. We've all been band, er, I mean banned.
Ken,
One more thing about Li'l Randy's about-about-about face.
Frank O'Connor's notion of thoughts forming words which in turn form or refine thoughts, is a reasonable one. Don't we all do some of this? But we also, along with O'Connor and every other decent writer, go through drafts and revisions and further editing before deeming it ready for publication. You should see all the craziness I cut out for some comments, especially when I start down zany paths cut by one or two little words (see previous comment).
And of course, it's always a pleasure to see a politician who is able to accommodate evolving thoughts and use them to refine his or her positions, but the Little One's positions change so quickly and so often it feels like they aren't evolving so much as revolving.
And how one gets from "war is bad" to "bomb the shit out of 'em" in one fell swoop beggars, at least, my imagination. And I got a pretty good one.
One thing I can't imagine, however, is President Paul. And while it gladdens my heart that Jennifer Rubin, forever the excitable thirteen year old winger, sees through his bullshit, this all may change over the next year or so. The Republicans' famous deep presidential bench is considerably less deep these days, what with indictments and investigations, and as yet to be uncovered scandals.
It's not outside the realm of the possible that Randy could keep spinning, like a top, until he collapses in the Oval Office.
Remember, where the right is concerned, logic rarely matters. And too many of those infamous "undecideds" and independents don't pay attention until a week before the election.
So changing direction with each new adverb that slides in under that rug may not be a bad plan for the Buddha boy.
Re: the legalities of the drop out of the Dem. candidate in Kansas to leave way for the Independent to face off against Pat Roberts.
There seems to be lots of questions regarding the legalities of the issue, but according to a commentator on DailyKos who seems to sound like (s)he knows what (s)he's talking about, it could be just a smokescreen of Republicans trying to whine and pout as it appears there's precedent from these situations and there was no poo-pooing previously.
Commentator tmservo433:
"Here's what happens.
The state party has to form a quorum to vote on a replacement. In order to do that, all party delegates in the state must be notified and provided 14 days in order to meet.
This means that if the state sends out a notice today (likely, I'll post when it goes out) they could set the meeting anywhere from the 18th and beyond.
In a nominating meeting, several steps occur..
(1) There must be a proof of a quorum, or else there can be no nominations made
(2) Nominations must be verified as 'interested party' and then a vote must be held.
The vote must meet a quorum.
Sept. 20 is the last day to submit a name which would appear on military and early ballots.
Sept. 25 is the last possible day to submit a name.
In either case, Chad Taylor's name will not appear on the ballot.
Other names are swirling around, but right now, those of us who are involved in the whip of this vote will tell you it is UNLIKELY (but not impossible) that another person will be named, though I have spent all night (and I mean all night) fielding this question.."
and
"The person interpretting it that way is Clay Barker, he's the Republican head of Party. He isn't a legal authority on anything.
The argument is whether or not he needs a statement of incapability of performance. Even Republicans who have been briefed and asked this locally in the party and in the Republican party tend to say that his statement of withdraw does not in any way require a statement of specific incapability, despite that interpretation.
And that is required is his declaration that he cannot, etc. etc. which he did complete, by citing section and notes.
(R)s may want to create a legal fight about this, but if that is the case, fine.. but every source I have says it is unlikely they do it.. and if they do, Taylor stays on the ballot and throws his support to Orman..
But the odds of that happening are low.
This is a great way to keep the story hot for a day or two, but doesn't reflect how this has been handled here or how either party has actually talked to each other in the last 24 hours.."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/04/1326940/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Morning-Digest-Whoa-Another-red-state-drop-out-makes-life-hell-for-Republicans#comments
@Akhilleus asks "How do these people get to become judges?"
Reagan nominated, & the Senate confirmed, Feldman's appointment to the federal bench in 1983. Three years later, in Bowers v. Hardwick, "The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to engage in homosexual acts in private, upholding a Georgia law. The majority said the 'right of privacy' under the Due Process Clause does not give homosexuals the right to engage in sodomy. The 'right to privacy' protects intimate marital and familial relations, but the Court said it does not cover gay sodomy because 'no connection between family, marriage, or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other has been demonstrated.'"
That's where Marty's head is: stuck in the '80s, when the vast majority of Americans would have agreed with the Court's decision.
Conservatives don't move forward with the times; they move backwards against the times. I'm probably being far to generous to place his mindset in the 1980s; it's more likely moving toward POVs prevalent among the elite a century earlier.
Marie
@ safari: Thanks for the explanation.
Marie
Marie,
My vote is in for your ascenion to Time's Person of the Year, but since it doesn't count, good luck with that.
Since they started this do in 1927 only four women have made the cover. Only two since 1952 and neither of them were Americans (Queen Elizabeth II and Corazon Aquino).
And in the last 20 years or so they've handed covers to Newtie, The Decider (twice), Bill Clinton Pecker Chaser Ken Starr, and Vlad the Mad.
So don't feel too badly.
If you were a combination of Madame Curie, Jane Addams, Sally Ride, Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, and Joan of Freakin' Arc, you'd still probably lose to out to Ted Cruz.
And speaking of Rosa Parks, who actually SHOULD have been a person of the year, in the year of her famous bus ride, 1955, Time selected Harlow Curtice, CEO of GM, for making a billion dollars that year.
Wasn't that special?
Priorities haven't changed a whole helluva lot since then.
Hey kids, remember that wild and crazy guy, Senator Bqhatevwr from Massachusetts who's not really from Massachusetts anymore because he's from New Hampshire? The guy who once claimed that kings and queens and heads of state all craved an audience with him because, bqhatevwr?
Yeah, that guy.
Well, you see, he's a Republican, right? And what do Republicans always say they're going to do? Shut down the government? Well, they do say that, but I'm talking about that other thing they always say is so important to do, that thing they claim Democrats can't or won't do.
Create jobs....riiiigggghhht.
But guess what? That really isn't such a big deal anymore. Who says? Why, Jowly Boy Mitch McConnell for one. Not long ago he sniffed that creating jobs wasn't his thing. His "thing" might actually be sucking up to (and sucking off) the Koch Kings and Maybe Sheldon Adelson while he's down there on his knees. But know who else doesn't give a shit about creating jobs? Senator Bqhatevwr. Yeah, for real.
And it's all on tape, from a town meeting in New Hampshire, yesterday.
Of course Jowly claimed that he didn't say what he did say and I'm pretty sure Racist Beefcake Boy Scott Brown will follow suit and claim that he didn't say what he did say even though he's saying it on YouTube.
Those Republicans. Such cards, aren't they?
Bqhatevwr.
Here's an article from The New Republic that adds to your concerns about Ferguson's intimidation (maybe better called 'rape') of the poor.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119249/fergusons-lesson-local-government-poses-real-threat-liberty?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=TNR%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=TNR%20Daily%20Zephyr%20with%20LiveIntent%20-%2009042014