Motley Moose – Archive

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

Hello. My name is Hollede…er Holz or just Holli and it is nice to see so many new folks here. I jumped into this crazy little forest of the herd when Teh Moose first got started. Good times. Just check out some of the diaries from just before the 2008 elections through, well, now I think. I haven’t been very active over the few years, but in my honest opinion we were on fire during election seasons and even not so much election season (when is that these days?) Like I said good times.

I really wish we were having good times now. Maybe it is just me, but the Democrats should be firing up NOW and be extra ready when the Republican party bursts into flames

I wonder how many times he has had to say “I fundamentally disagree with that” over the past 11 years. Some things never change.

Happy Solstice, everyone. At my house we celebrate this day with the mantra, “May you walk in peace and love.”

I work in non-profit. In short, I translate perspectives from people living in a war-addled country for a western ear. An American ear.

As I watch the media whip into a froth about Iraq, I can’t help but notice that our perceptions about nation building are similar to our more misguided ideas about humanitarian aid. They both start by thinking that “they” are a problem that “we” can solve. Or control.

Today marks the Summer Solstice. Astronomically, it looks like this:

The Summer Solstice occurs exactly when the Earth’s axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun at its maximum of 23° 26′. The seasonal significance of the Summer Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual shortening of nights and lengthening of days. That will occur on June 21st at 10:51 UTC (6:51am Eastern, 5:51am Central, 4:51am Mountain, and 3:51am Pacific Time).

Today and tomorrow the sunrise (near where I live) will be 5:15am and sunset will be 8:29pm … 15 hours and 14 minutes of sunlight. On Winter Solstice, six loooong months ago, sunrise was at 7:15am and sunset was at 4:22pm, barely 9 hours of sunlight.

On Monday, the sunrise will be one minute later, signalling the waning of the year. But that’s Monday and today we have 914 minutes of sunlight to enjoy!!

(Don’t forget to hover!)  

The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President previewed Monday’s first-ever White House Summit on Working Families where he will bring together businesses leaders and workers to discuss the challenges that working parents face every day and lift up solutions that are good for these families and American businesses. Many working families can’t afford basic needs like childcare or receive simple benefits such as paid family leave that are common in most countries around the world.

When hardworking Americans are forced to choose between work and family, America lags behind in a global economy.  To stay competitive and economically successful, America needs to bring our workplace policies into the 21st century.

  Make sure you let your peeps

  know where to find you!  

The summer solstice (known as “Litha” in Neopaganism) will occur on 21 June 2014 at 6:51 a.m. EDT. In Australia, however, the summer solstice occurs on or about 21 December.

Found on the Internets …

John Doe prosecutors accuse Scott Walker of running ‘criminal scheme’ during recalls

Schmitz cited a May 2011 email from Walker to prominent Republican strategist Karl Rove saying that Johnson would lead the coordination.

“Bottom-line: R.J. helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin. We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities),” Walker wrote to Rove on May 4, 2011, according to the filing.

Johnson, a Walker campaign consultant, is also a top adviser to Wisconsin Club for Growth, a conservative group that was active in the recall elections. Prosecutors allege Johnson used Club for Growth as the “hub” for coordination between the Walker campaign and conservative groups engaged in issue advocacy.

Prosecutors: Walker’s Campaign ‘Tacitly Admitted’ Breaking The Law

In a court filing responding to motions from the targets of the investigation, Schmitz countered arguments from Walker’s campaign, which goes by the name Friends of Scott Walker (FOSW), and the outside groups about what kind of coordination was allowed under Wisconsin law.

“Movants argue that ‘coordination’ of political activities that do not arguably involve express advocacy cannot be a crime under Wisconsin law,” he wrote. “These arguments fail to recognize or misinterpret Wisconsin statutes, administrative rules, and G.A.B. formal opinions. Movants have also ignored controlling Wisconsin case law. Indeed, in their submissions, movants – FOSW, Citizens for a Strong America, Inc. (CFSA), Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Inc. (WMC) and Wisconsin Manfacuturers & Commerce-Issues Mobilization Council (WMC-IMC), and Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG) appear to have tacitly admitted to violating Wisconsin law.” […]

Walker’s campaign declined to directly address the contents of the documents released Thursday.

“Two judges have rejected the characterizations disclosed in those documents,” Alleigh Marré, the campaign’s press secretary, wrote.

Oh, is this one of the judges?

“I am persuaded the statutes only prohibit coordination by candidates and independent organizations for a political purpose, and political purpose, with one minor exception not relevant here … requires express advocacy,” [state Reserve Judge Gregory] Peterson wrote in an order included in documents released Thursday. “There is no evidence of express advocacy.”

In the alternate right-wing universe, “elections” have no “political purpose”. I suspect this is the other judge.

Datamining from BlueCheddar

The [Journal Sentinel] article says there are 12 conservative groups that are suspected of illegally coordinating with Scott Walker and his “close confidants”:

“The governor and his close confidants helped raise money and control spending through 12 conservative groups during the recall elections, according to the prosecutors’ filings.”

So this is why Walker could maintain a placid demeanor through all the turmoil and upheaval that he caused us. It must really ease a man’s worried mind to have a powerful, monied team in the wings doing whatever it takes, laws be damned.

As prosecutors state in Exhibit C of the released documents:

“No court has ever recognized that secret, coordinated activity

resulting in “undisclosed” contributions to candidates’ campaigns and used to circumvent campaign finance laws is protected by the First Amendment. Accordingly, the purpose of this investigation is to ensure the integrity of the electoral process in Wisconsin.”

More news …

Good morning, Moosekind. TGIF!

SCOTUS Watch …

Until the term ends on June 30, the Supreme Court will be releasing opinions on Monday and Thursday mornings. SCOTUSblog will liveblog here today starting at 9:45 Eastern.

SCOTUSblog: October 2013 Term, major cases pending

McCullen v. Coakley, No. 12-1168 [Arg: 1.15.2014 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the First Circuit erred in upholding Massachusetts’s selective exclusion law – which makes it a crime for speakers other than clinic “employees or agents . . . acting within the scope of their employment” to “enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk” within thirty-five feet of an entrance, exit, or driveway of “a reproductive health care facility” – under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, on its face and as applied to petitioners; (2) whether, if Hill v. Colorado permits enforcement of this law, Hill should be limited or overruled.

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National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, No. 12-1281 [Arg: 1.13.2014 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): (1) Whether the President’s recess-appointment power may be exercised during a recess that occurs within a session of the Senate, or is instead limited to recesses that occur between enumerated sessions of the Senate; (2) whether the President’s recess-appointment power may be exercised to fill vacancies that exist during a recess, or is instead limited to vacancies that first arose during that recess; and (3) whether the President’s recess-appointment power may be exercised when the Senate is convening every three days in pro forma sessions.

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Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, No. 13-356 [Arg: 3.25.2014 Trans./Aud.]

Issue(s): Whether the religious owners of a family business, or their closely held, for-profit corporation, have free exercise rights that are violated by the application of the contraceptive-coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, No. 13-354 [Arg: 3.25.2014 Trans.]

Issue(s): Whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq., which provides that the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless that burden is the least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest, allows a for-profit corporation to deny its employees the health coverage of contraceptives to which the employees are otherwise entitled by federal law, based on the religious objections of the corporation’s owners.

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Riley v. California, No. 13-132 [Arg: 4.29.2014 Trans.]

Issue(s): Whether evidence admitted at petitioner’s trial was obtained in a search of petitioner’s cell phone that violated petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights.

More news …