Showing posts with label William A Jacobson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William A Jacobson. Show all posts

May 9, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Legal Insurrection "Tuesday: one of the busiest election days of 2012"

Anne Sorock:
"Ballotpedia, the “interactive almanac of state politics,” has an excellent run-down of Tuesday’s elections across the country.

While we’ve already reported to you on what’s at stake in Wisconsin and Mourdock’s challenge to Lugar, there are other key elections in Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia to note.

According to Ballotpedia:
  • There is a same-sex marriage amendment in North Carolina and “ten state executive offices up for election this year…more statewide races than any other state. Of the 20 primary races, 13 are contested and only one – the Republican primary for attorney general - has no candidates.”
  • In West Virginia, all but one incumbent is unchallenged: “Five incumbents are seeking re-election and only one, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, faces a primary challenger - Arne Moltis. The state’s current agriculture commissioner, Gus Douglass, is retiring after serving 48 years in office. Five Democrats and one Republican are vying for his seat.”
  • They also explain why, in Indiana, you won’t see Mitch Daniels on any ballot – he’s term-limited out of seeking another term for governor. ...."  (Read more?  Click title)
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

March 31, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Legal Insurrection "What if you threw a Two Million Man Global March on Jerusalem, and almost no one showed up?"

(See alternate coverage here)

William A. Jacobson:
"The Global March on Jersusalem has been promoted for months as a means by which up to two million people would crash Israel’s borders.

Israel geared up, and issued warnings.

And waited.

And waited.

And all that showed up were a few thousand people at the Gaza border (forced back with one shot and killed).  In Lebanon, as expected, the Hezbollah-run protest took place at Beaufort Castle, away from the border.  On the West Bank, a few hundred rock throwers attacked security checkpoints, but were driven back with non-lethal methods:
Clashes broke out at Qalandia checkpoint, where demonstrators burned tires and threw stones as they advanced towards the Israeli side. Israeli soldiers fired tear-gas and stun grenades and used a wide arsenal of riot-dispersal systems, including the foul-smelling “Skunk” and “Scream,” a system that unleashes a high-frequency blast of sound.
There were modest sized protests in neighboring countries, but no March on Jerusalem.
All in all, the hype did not live up to the hype.

But the Israelis are and should remain on guard...."(Read original post?  Click title)
  
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."
 

March 29, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Legal Insurrection "Zero "

William A. Jacobson:
"It’s easy to find unanimous votes in favor of various bills and resolutions in the House of Representatives, but unanimously against?

Let me know if this is truly historic, or just profoundly embarrassing for Obama:
President Obama’s budget was defeated 414-0 in the House late Wednesday, in a vote Republicans arranged to try to embarrass him and shelve his plan for the rest of the year.

The vote came as the House worked its way through its own fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, written by Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan. Republicans wrote an amendment that contained Mr. Obama’s budget and offered it on the floor, daring Democrats to back the plan, which calls for major tax increases and yet still adds trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.
Not even Nancy Pelosi voted for it.

It doesn’t look promising in the Senate, either, which last year unanimously defeated Obama’s budget, 97-0."

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

March 23, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Hot Air Blog "Bill Maher: Get off my back, America"

'Allahpundit':
"I’m torn. I could happily live another 10 lifetimes without having to deal with phony, politically calculated, outrageously outrageous outrage. Ann Romney, in fact, did an elegant job on CNN last night urging everyone (ahem, Newt) to lighten up over Robert DeNiro’s lame but innocuous joke about America’s white First Ladies.

Just one question: What makes Maher think the outrage in his case is phony?..."
(Read more?  Click title)

The outrage against Maher is far from phony.  Such hypocrisy.  As in the way of rightful things, the saga of Sandra Fluke mirrors back with a daily dose of commentary (mostly from men) that is returning fire in honorable ways.

Such as Jim Klein of New Castle, Colorado as he questions Maher's defenders and Limbaugh's critics: "After reading the opinions of Erica Griffith and Candy Norvell in the March 17 edition regarding the comments of Bill Maher, as well as those of Rush Limbaugh, I felt compelled to respond.

I have several questions for these ladies. First, how does Bill Maher's use of profanity in describing Sarah Palin not fall into the realm of complete bigotry?

Second, how does Rush Limbaugh's opinion that the taxpayer shouldn't foot the bill for a woman's contraception fall into the category of cultist behavior?

Now, it turns out, that Sandra Fluke was paid by the Democratic Party to make her statements to Congress in order to remove focus from the issue of the Obama administration's constitutional violation of a church's right to deny services that go against its beliefs. After all, a woman can get contraception from places like Planned Parenthood, if she so chooses. Why else, then, did Sandra Fluke recant her earliest statements?..."
(Read more, Click here)

Michael McReynolds of Carbondale, Colorado as he does the math for Flukes contraception spending:  "Rush Limbaugh never actually called Sandra Fluke a slut. He did criticize groups who believe they have a right to free contraception. He also pointed out that it's unconstitutional for the president to mandate that a religious organization fund activities they find morally wrong.

At the end of the segment, he pointed out that women, like Sandra Fluke, expect someone else to pay for their sex. Then he asked the question: “What does society call a woman who expects to be paid for sex?” Splitting hairs? Sure. But this letter isn't about Rush, it's about Sandra Fluke.

Some suggest that Ms. Fluke is a victim: hardly. By her own admission, Ms. Fluke knew Georgetown was a Catholic university and contraception was not included in the student health plan. Rather than choose a university where contraception is part of the plan, she choose Georgetown to pick a fight (her words on “The View”).

So now she's a reproductive rights activist. What is a reproductive rights activist? Do we live in China where the state limits your right to reproduce? Or is it that one should not have to be personally responsible for their reproductive activity?

Ms. Fluke testified that she spends $1,000 a year on contraception. Isn't anyone curious about how much contraception $1,000 will buy? Assume the co-pay for the doctor visit for birth control pills is $15. Chain pharmacies (Walgreens, Wal-Mart, et. al.) in the Washington, D.C., area offer generic birth control pills for $9 per month, totaling $108 per year. That's $123 per year.

So where does she spend the remaining $877? Let's assume she spends it on condoms. At an average price of 20 cents per condom, $877 will buy 4,385 condoms, or 12 condoms per day. So I'll ask the question that's begged: What does society call a woman who burns through 12 condoms per day?..."

More op-eds hit the air daily on the controversy Fluke started:

Elizabeth Harrington:  "Thirty-year-old Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who told a House Steering and Policy Committee hearing convened by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last month that contraception can cost a student $3,000 during law school, told CNSNews.com on Tuesday that she did not know that the Target store 3 miles from the Georgetown Law campus sells a month's supply of birth control pills for just $9...." 

William A. Jacobson: "Just as Bill Maher was pleading for an “amnesty” in the political correctness war to silence speech, Media Matters was committing $100,000 to an advertising campaign urging people to call local radio stations to complain about Limbaugh...."

'SandBox Nanny' comes back to a post by  John Scotus/Tree of Mamre today:  "That pretty much sums it up. Romney believes in business. He believes in decency (which is not at all, by the way, a moral value, see here), he believes that he is good and would make a good president, and he believes in his family. But that is about it. Yet, apart from the bit about business, we have just described Obama. If this is all Romney’s candidacy comes down to, then it is not really worth the trouble voting for him. Seriously.

I believe that the most important issues facing America today all come down to moral values. Since I believe that, I just have to say that I cannot be bought. And, essentially, by promising that he can heal the economy, but being uninterested in anything else, Romney is wanting to buy my vote. This is the same deal being peddled in Asia. This is the same deal the Japanese bought into. Buy the votes of the people by promising them economic prosperity, and then ignore them after the election. And this deal leads to nothing but the economic and spiritual death of a country.

I would rather die fighting than sell my vote in such a cheap and tawdry deal.

So, no, unless Romney is able to convince me, for example, that he will–at a bare minimum–appoint pro-life judges, I will not vote for him, even if it means Obama is reelected.

I refuse to sell my soul–or my vote–merely for low gas prices or economic prosperity. America means too much to me...."

And ends with the words of Michael McReynolds of Carbondale, Colorado:
"The real problem is gas at $5 per gallon in some parts of the country, real unemployment at 19 percent, a national debt of $16 trillion ($6 trillion in the past three years), and GDP at 2 percent. And we're arguing about free contraception."

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."