Motley Moose – Archive

Found on the Internets …

Harry Reid In A Jam Over Controversial Obama Nominee Michael Boggs

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said Wednesday he cannot vote for Michael Boggs, a controversial Obama nominee to be a federal judge who has faced fierce criticism from progressives.

“Unless I have a better explanation. I can’t vote for him. This is a lifetime appointment. He’s said some things and made some decisions I think are not very good,” Reid told BuzzFeed. “Boggs is not somebody I’m going to vote for unless I have some explanations on why he did that deal with the rebel flag and things he’s said about abortion.”

As a Georgia state legislator from 2000 to 2004, Boggs voted to keep the state’s old flag which included the Confederate battle flag. He voted for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and for various anti-abortion bills, one of which pro-choice activists say endangers doctors.

Senators Grill Obama Nominee On Gay Marriage, Abortion, Confederate Flag

The Georgia Court of Appeals judge has come under fierce criticism from progressive advocates for a swath of votes from 2000 to 2004 as a Georgia state legislator against abortion rights, same-sex marriage and to retain the state’s old flag which contained the Confederate battle flag.

Democratic senators took the lead in grilling Boggs.

“I was offended by the flag, Senator,” he told Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) under questioning, saying it was a “terribly agonizing” decision to choose between his own conscience and the will of his constituents, whom he suggested wanted to keep the Confederate-linked flag. But he said: “I’m glad the flag was changed.”

Boggs said he was very sensitive to the views of African-Americans at the time and that those who know him recognize his vote intended no disrespect to them. “If someone is accusing someone of being a racist, I don’t know how you disprove that,” he said. […]

“I don’t think my legislative record that’s over a decade old is indicative of what kind of judge I’d be [on the federal court],” Boggs said.

Did you lack integrity then, sir, or do you lack integrity now?

Regarding the “deal” that makes Boggs part of a package to get past the archaic “blue slip” rule:

“I have noted before that there is no ‘deal’ negotiated with me as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee or with any of the other Senators,” Leahy said in written testimony. “The constitutional responsibility of advice and consent resides with each individual Senator, and there is no such thing as a binding deal that negates each Senator’s responsibility to determine the fitness of a judicial nominee for a lifetime appointment.”

Meet The Republican Judge Fighting To Bail Scott Walker Out Of A Criminal Investigation

Last Tuesday, a Republican federal judge named Rudolph Randa handed down an unusual order cutting off a criminal investigation alleging illegal coordination between several political campaigns – including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) 2012 recall campaign – and conservative groups such as the Wisconsin Club for Growth. Randa speckled his order with uncharacteristic rhetoric for a judge tasked with being a neutral and impartial arbiter of the law. At one point, he labels the criminal probe “a long-running investigation of all things Walker-related.” At another point, he compares efforts to reign in excessive campaign spending to “the Guillotine and the Gulag.”[…]

Beyond whatever ideological lens Randa brings to his courtroom, as George Zornick points out, he also has an unusually personal connection to the criminal probe that he shut down. Randa’s judicial assistant is married to a top lawyer for the Walker campaign.

Oh … and Randa’s wife is a huge contributor to Scott Walker’s campaigns.

Lifetime appointment? And lifetime permission to game the system for partisan politics.

More …

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From the White House:

White House Blog: A Numbers-Based Case for Why It’s Time to Act on Infrastructure

The United States was once known as a leader in infrastructure, and we’re slipping:

When the American Society of Civil Engineers graded our infrastructure systems last fall, they gave our road and transit systems a D, our bridges a C+, and our levees a D-.

But here’s the real problem: The funding we have in place to fix them is set to run out by fall. That puts at risk more than 112,000 active projects that are currently paving our roads and building our bridges, as well as approximately 5,600 projects that are actively improving our transit systems – not to mention the nearly 700,000 jobs that these collective projects support.

It’s time to get this done. That’s why this week, the President is calling on Congress to pass a bill to put Americans to work repairing our crumbling roads and bridges – avoiding a crisis in the short term, and helping to position our economy for long-term growth.

And today, we’re releasing a new analysis that makes a numbers-based case for exactly why we need to invest in infrastructure right now – and what it’s going to mean for all of us if Congress fails to act.

Take a look at the new analysis that the White House released today – we guarantee you’ll learn something you didn’t know. And when you do, you should pass it on.

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Good morning, Moosekind.  

The common Moose, Alces alces, unlike other members of the deer family, is a solitary animal that doesn’t form herds. Not so its rarer but nearest relative, Alces purplius, the Motley Moose. Though sometimes solitary, the Motley Moose herds in ever shifting groups at the local watering hole to exchange news and just pass the time.

It wasn’t very long ago that I wrote about “microagressions“, aka “The stuff that piles up and wears you down”. After spending Mother’s Day dealing with a few wrong-headed micro-agressors who expended a lot of keyboard energy trying to derail discussion of the racial component in the coverage of the kidnappings in Nigeria, and media coverage of African countries-period-and then logging in yesterday to look at “youthful campus racism” against Native Americans, documented by Meteor Blades,  which isn’t coming from “old people” or from “the South”,  I thought it might be a good idea to dust off the Derailing for Dummies playbook for review.  

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I’ve never really considered myself an environmentalist. I don’t live a particularly “green” life, though I recycle, don’t litter, and don’t leave lights on or other electronic devices running. But I increasingly find opposition to climate science (I don’t think they are skeptics as much as scoffers) infuriating.

I don’t even know quite what is motivating this post at the moment. But I have a family member with a science based Ph.D. who consistently raises his opposition to the findings of climate scientists every time he sees me. He argues that he’s “read the science” and that his work has always been about modeling and that the models they use cannot hope to capture the complexity of the phenomenon of climate change and that ultimately belief in anthropogenic climate change is nothing more than belief, even religious belief. This last point resonates with those who often compare the dire predictions of climate scientists and environmental activists to the apocalyptic speculation that has occurred so frequently across western history.

  Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend was lovely.

   

My weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world. You’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

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