The Ultimate In Elitist Entitlement
Oct 15, 2010 Political
Michelle Obama went to Illinois and cast her early ballot (I wonder who she voted for) and while she was IN the polling place she discussed voting and how important it was for people to vote to keep her husband’s agenda going.
This violates Illinois election law which states:
“No judge of election, pollwatcher, or other person shall, at any primary or election, do any electioneering or soliciting of votes or engage in any political discussion within any polling place [or] within 100 feet of any polling place.”
Of course there was nothing done about this. In fact, she was given a pass because of who she is.
A top Ilinois State Board of Elections official tells the DRUDGE REPORT that Mrs. Obama — a Harvard-educated lawyer — may have simply been ignorant of the law and thus violated it unintentionally.
“You kind of have to drop the standard for the first lady, right?” the official explained late Thursday. “I mean, she’s pretty well liked and probably doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
You have to drop the standard for the first lady? Seems to me that she should be held to a higher standard especially since she is a LAWYER and Harvard educated at that.
No, we drop the standard for the elites. This is why they do not pay their taxes and run afoul of the very laws they force us to comply with. Ignoring the law is an elitist entitlement.
The only thing that made sense in the quote is that she probably does not know what she is doing.
Ditto for her husband, for whom she illegally campaigned.
You can bet the standard would not be dropped if the violator had been Laura Bush…
Source:
Drudge
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: election laws, illinois, lawyers, michelle obama, standards
Why No Tort Reform?
Oct 31, 2009 Political
Because Tort Lawyers have bought and paid for the Democratic Party
The monstrosity of a health care bill is not good for the country. The Democrats claim it is deficit neutral and that it will save money in the long run but that is a lie. Nothing the government does saves money. Massachusetts has the same kind of plan and that state is rationing care and raising rates.
If the health care takeover was a good idea it would take effect immediately but Obama and his Democrats know that it is not going to perform as claimed and that is why it will not take effect until after the 2012 presidential election. Obama hopes to win a second term and he knows that he cannot win if the bill takes effect immediately because by the next election the flaws will be quite evident and he will be booted out the door.
The claim of the Democrats is that they are trying to save money. Democrats do not save money. For that matter, it is hard to find anyone from either party that is good at saving money. Having said that, there are plenty of plans that can actually save money. The Republicans introduced a number of reform items to do just that and the Democrats voted against them. Then Senator Barack Obama, the guy who says we have to do this NOW, voted against them. If saving money were truly a priority then tort reform, which was part of those plans, would be included. Tort reform would save money and no matter how much it ended up being, it would be saved. But Democrats can’t have tort reform because the tort lawyers own a piece of that party.
The bill that Pelosi introduced demonstrates that very clearly. The bill provides a payoff to the tort lawyers as evidenced by this as reported at Big Government:
Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages. [emphasis in quote at Big Government]
There will be incentives if states adopt alternatives to liability litigation (like perhaps arbitration) but if a state has enacted the alternatives of limiting attorney’s fees or capping damages then it is not eligible. Those two items constitute tort reform. Limiting attorney’s fees and capping awards are the meat and potatoes of tort reform but if any state uses that then it loses the ability to receive incentives for any alternatives to litigation that it might devise.
This is a way for the government to ensure that states do not take it upon themselves to enact tort reform. This is the payoff to the tort lawyers. Democrats (and they wrote this bill) have ensured they will keep their buddies in tort law in business.
It is nothing more than a payoff and it stinks. The Federal Government is cutting states off at the knees to protect the lawyers by including a provision that discourages them from enacting tort reform, an issue the Democrats do not want addressed. Obama was blowing smoke up our collective rear ends when he said he would look at, and consider, options for tort reform.
This bill weighs 19 pounds and is nearly 2000 pages. This is but one item that pays off supporters and in the next week we will see more information as people read through it.
Writing a bill behind closed doors, without Republican input, and hiding this kind of stuff in it is not my definition of transparent.
How do people not laugh when the ObaMao Reich claims to be the most transparent in history?
Maybe we could have asked Pelosi that when she introduced it if she had not barred everyone except those chosen by her from attending the event. That is another demonstration of this Reich’s transparency.
Wake up America.
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Tags: health care, lawyers, lies, Obama, payoffs, Pelosi, tort reform, transparency
Stupidest Idea- Ever
Oct 20, 2009 Political
Well, the Fifth Circuit Court has opened the door for victims of Hurricane Katrina to sue possible emitters of “greenhouse” gases for their plight- never mind that many of them have moved elsewhere and gotten on with their lives.
Also, do not mind the fact that “Global Warming”, ostensibly the grounds for suit, is still hotly contested as real or not. If you ask Al Gore, who stands to make oodles of money from all his green projects, AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is a danger to us all.
If you ask others, not so much- especially when many of the people who previously had touted AGW now have had to reverse themselves and admit that the earth has actually cooled in the last ten years.
That aside, these lawyers (yes- there will be lawyers) are going to go after any and all deep pockets industries they can think of in a bid to get lots of money- not necessarily for their clients, but certainly for themselves. Gotta look out for number one, right? They are doing this even when it is hard to prove, A)- that these specific industries have in fact specifically contributed to AGW, and B)- that this alleged AGW aggravation spawned Hurricane Katrina, or Rita, or any other storm. After this year, with no hurricanes making landfall, and no damage from these storms, have they a case? I don’t think so.
For years, leading plaintiffs’ lawyers have promised a legal assault on industrial America for contributing to global warming.
So far, the trial bar has had limited success. The hurdles to such suits are pretty obvious: How do you apportion fault and link particular plaintiffs’ injuries to the pollution emitted by a particular group of defendants?
Today, though, plaintiffs’ lawyers may be a gloating a bit, after a favorable ruling Friday from the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, which is regarded as one of the more conservative circuit courts in the country. Here’s a link to the ruling.
The suit was brought by landowners in Mississippi, who claim that oil and coal companies emitted greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming that, in turn, caused a rise in sea levels, adding to Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity.
blogs.wsj.com
There was no rise in sea levels- that is plain bull- what happened was simple storm surge. Sure storm surge sucks, but that is life plain and simple.
In the 1880s, there was a town on Matagorda Bay in Texas called Indianola. It was a nice town, poised to become a hub of major commerce, having both a port, and a railroad that ran through the town.
A Hurricane came through, a pretty strong one by all accounts (they had no way to measure the strength of hurricanes back then), and hit Indianola head on, literally wiping it off of the face of the earth, leaving only the railroad tracks. People who survived, did so by climbing trees to escape the storm surge, which went inland as far as twenty miles.
When the survivors climbed down, assessed the situation and began to clean up and bury the dead, they vowed to rebuild. After all, they reasoned, that was a freak storm, and would never happen again.
So they rebuilt, better than before, and in less than a year, had their town up and running again (all without any federal assistance).
That next year, another major Hurricane came and wiped them out again, this time destroying even the railroad tracks. Now, there is no port- there are no railroad tracks. Indianola is just a sleepy little bait camp stopover now, and that will be all it ever is again.
But you see, this is before Global Warming, before even the industrial age had much of any effect- before oil and gas, there was just coal, and that was not even in great use here.
So what is the broader significance of the ruling? We checked in with Jackson for his take.
At a minimum, he says, the ruling will invite more climate-change litigation in the future.
“With this decision,” he says, “you are now pretty well assured of seeing others file these kinds of claims.”
Last month, he notes, the Second Circuit held that states and municipalities had standing to sue to impose on caps on certain companies’ greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s an overview from Skadden of that ruling.
In contrast with the Second Circuit, the Fifth Circuit case may be particularly inviting to tort lawyers, since the New Orleans court opened the door to “a case by private litigants, a class action, seeking an enormous amount of damages,” Jackson says.
Still, Jackson notes, the Katrina case is at an early stage, and the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “does not mean there is enough causation evidence to survive a motion to dismiss.”
blogs.wsj.com
Lawyers sure do stick together, don’t they- and they can smell money, even when they have to make up “facts” to suit their case. The people of New Orleans deserve to be able to look ahead and get on with their lives, not stuck in a rut, waiting to see if some lawyer can get them a payday. Stuck in a courtroom, they will never be able to look ahead. The only people who will get rich off of this ridiculous set of claims will be the lawyers, as the case will be bounced from court to court faster than Serena Williams can volley a tennis ball.
This really is The Stupidest Idea- Ever.
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What Is Torture?
May 9, 2009 Political
This is the question du jour- actually more like the question of the year(s). In 2002, President Bush wanted to know the answers to that question and some questions related to that primary query. How do you define torture- is it something that produces excruciating pain and fear, or does this definition extend to discomfort?
Were the captured terrorists on the battlefield due the Geneva protocols, since they were not part of a Nation- State’s army, wore no uniforms, and behaved according to no code of ethics? These people came from various places, much like mercenaries, but unlike mercenaries, they did not wear a country’s uniform. The only way in which they were similar was in their hate for the West, and the United States in particular.
The fighters, as has been said, had no code of ethics, where they might protect the innocent as best as they could, rather, they used these innocent women and children as human shields in the way of cowards. They were not warriors- far from it- but like dogs cowering behind protection, they would boast in their videos that they could defeat their enemy. What pompous asses they were and are.
So what do you do with creatures like these? President Bush asked several lawyers to draw up legal opinions on the treatment of these terrorists, keeping in mind the Geneva Protocols regarding armed combat. The trouble with this, was that the Geneva Convention didn’t really address this situation- it was outdated with respect to the treatment of what should be called “extra- national” combatants- people who might fight for a cause but not a country.
There had always been an extra element of danger as regards the absence of a uniform- a person had no Geneva Convention protections, because then a person was treated as a spy, and the treatment was much rougher, and could (and often did) include torture. So were these people spies, because they wore no uniform? The legal minds, as they often do, split hairs. The Taliban and Al- Qaida fighters were somewhere in between, hiding among the innocent populace like cowards, but they definitely were not covered by the Geneva Convention and its rules.
So, since they were not one thing- spies- and were not regular army, the legal minds felt that perhaps, while we don’t torture, we could tweak their questioning somewhat. Now came the wrangling of just what constitutes torture. Is it physical pain, disfigurement, permanent disability? That was an easy yes, so scratch that- but what about perceived pain, anticipatory pain, or mental distress? Those are harder problems to deal with, because they are subjective- what bothers one will not bother another.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? This is what lawyers do, and these lawyers did their job, to the best of their abilities, to try and realistically find answers to these ambiguous questions. This was not an easy job, because no matter the final answers they gave, someone would object, as we can see now.
It turns out that the real objections are political, not moral- just observe Nancy Pelosi, who knew in 2002 that these methods were being used, and her question then was not some moral objection, no- her question was, ” Is it enough?” In the wake of 9/11, she wanted to be sure that we wouldn’t be struck again- but now, with several years distance between her and 9/11, she has conveniently “forgotten” her acceptance, and just wants to use this problem for her own political gain.
The lawyers are the ones caught in the middle here, and they are not deserving of this- what they did, they did as well and faithfully as they could, not with venom and spite, seeking to gleefully inflict pain, but to find where the definition of torture lay, and how far we, as a nation, could go in trying to protect ourselves and still keep the moral high ground. This was a question that, considering the paradigm shift in warfare and terrorism that had occurred, needed to be defined and delineated for future use.
Now, I personally do not believe that water boarding is torture- it is extreme discomfort, but then these people deserve some extreme discomfort. I do not believe that putting a caterpillar in a box with a prisoner is torture, even if he is extremely scared of the insect. I believe that these people are getting some of what they deserve, because you have to understand one thing-
These people were not just picked up off of a street, they had been fighting and killing our armed forces, sometimes in cowardly ways. They would torture, and they would behead our troops. The treatment we have put them through doesn’t even come close to their activities. If you are too squeamish to handle the details, perhaps you need to read the comics, and do not read the news, because there need to be people who will do the rough stuff that is needed to protect our nation, or we won’t have a nation.
That is a fact that most liberals fail to grasp- we will not keep our selves safe by trying to be universally liked- that is a strategy that just does not work. Sometimes you have to show that you are willing to be disliked, in order to be secure. All these lawyers did was to try and find the limits to which we would go to be secure.
They cannot be faulted for that.
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Tags: lawyers, liberal cowards, terrorists, torture