TPM: Minnesota Court: Franken Won The Election
As you've probably heard, the Minnesota election court has just handed down their very much-awaited ruling: That Al Franken was the rightful winner of the most votes in the 2008 Senate election, and he is entitled to receive the certificate of election.
To make a long story short, the court -- who, by the way, are a rare tri-partisan selection of judges -- rejects pretty much every single argument that Team Coleman put forward, and either accepts all of Team Franken's arguments as is or in a somewhat modified form.
So where do we go from here?
Now remember, this is not the end. The Coleman campaign has already announced its intention to appeal, ... ... ....
- Kevin Drum adds:
So here's something to watch for: how long will it take Coleman to file his appeal? He's known this decision was coming for a long time. His legal team almost certainly knew the grounds on which he was going to lose. They've had plenty of time to prepare their argument. They could probably file it tomorrow if they wanted to.
But do they want to? If they're genuinely trying to win a Senate seat, they'll file quickly. After all, the faster they file, the faster Coleman can win the case and return in triumph to Washington. But if they don't think they can win — if they're merely trying to stretch out a losing argument as long as possible in order to deny Franken his seat — then they'll wait the ten full days. Which do you think it will be?
- TPM notes The Silence Is Deafening: Since last night's court victory for Al Franken, there's been no comment from the RNC, the NRSC or the Minnesota GOP. Time for Norm to go?
atrios seeks Sanity
Emphasis in original.Sully: And Worse It Gets Why, one wonders, would Michelle Malkin read a DHS report on fringe, far-right extremism that could lead to violence or Oklahoma-style domestic terrorism and think ... they're talking about her?
- MONTPELIER, Vt. (CBS) ― Text messaging graphic pictures of yourself could soon be legal for teens in Vermont.
Whatever the wisdom of teens sending naked pictures to each other, the idea that people are going to prosecuted for child pornography and branded sex offenders for the rest of their lives for this is absurd. It's doubly absurd because simple nudity isn't, you know, by any reasonable definition pornography anyway. But even aside from that, this stuff is increasingly going to be part of "normal" teen sexual exploration. And while we do prosecute other "normal" teen behaviors which we have deemed to be illegal - such as drinking - such prosecutions don't quite carry the weight that "convicted child pornographer" does.
Sully: Malkin Award Nominee "I don't know why community organizers in Somalia would fire on a fellow community organizer ... they could like the guy if they just had a sit-down with him," - Rush Limbaugh, on Somali militant attacks on Democratic congressman Donald Payne.
From deep inside the Malkin/Limbaugh/Faux bubble:
Sully quotes a reader on Easter With My Conservative Family
Benen observes that THEY'RE GOING TO NEED A LOT MORE TEA BAGS....A reader writes:
I celebrated Easter yesterday with my ultra conservative family. I love my family but they have gone so far to the right over the past 8 years that it is difficult to have any sort of discussion with them. I think they are typical of conservatives born in the baby boom. They are scarred by the culture wars and the hatred they have for the left is so strong that it becomes disturbing.
Another important point is that 9/11 pushed them away from any level of pragmatism. My family is originally from Manhattan, so 9/11 was taken as a very personal attack. My father worked on the 76th floor of the WTC for years, he lost a lot of friends that day...
So with this in mind I compiled a few themes from the days discussions that you might find interesting (or horrifying). None of this is ground breaking but it is interesting to see these generalizations about the current conservative movement be personified in ones family.
1. Total insulation from MSM.
Everyone refuses to read the New York Times or Washington Post. Sunday morning while getting ready for Church I put on "Meet the Press" and my father looked on with disgust and changed the channel to Fox News. At dinner I brought up an article in The Economist that was critical of Barack Obama and my uncle said that it was a socialist rag.
2. Distrust of centrists When discussing the future of the Republican party I suggested that we needed to create a bigger tent and avoid social issues that alienated us from younger voters. My GRANDMOTHER responded that we don't need the back benchers like Christopher Buckley dictating our principles. I think that line was straight from the Mark Levin show.
3. Neoconservative aspirations The most interesting part of the day, was that so much of the discussion focused on the Somali Pirate issue. It was the story of the day, but I didn't think their was that much to talk about. Surely, not as interesting as talking about Iran, Obama's budget, the economy etc. However we spent most of the day discussing Obama's lackluster response to the issue and the weakness he displayed in not acting quicker. My father was incensed that the media kept referring to this as a crime rather then an act of terrorism. His suggestion was to engage in a land war in Somalia...
It convinced me of one thing that if a new conservatism is going to flourish, it is going to have to be led by a younger generation. People born between 1947 and 1960 have way too much baggage.
It will get much much worse before it gets better.
- Sargent: Military Expert Blasts Gingrich And Right-Wing Media For Hitting Obama During Pirate Standoff
Isn’t it a big story that Newt Gingrich and some leading conservative media figures harshly criticized Obama’s handling of the pirate standoff — while it was unfolding?
I just got off the phone with a military expert and former Army Ranger who supports Republicans and Dems, and he hammered Gingrich and conservative media figures for criticizing Obama, saying that the Commander-in-chief deserved “respect” while a sensitive operation was unfolding.
“I would hope that they’re feeling a little silly today,” said the expert, Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for National Security Studies. “It’s bad form. You don’t make this a partisan issue until an operation has been assessed. It’s fair game ex post facto. But during the emergency, I think that our elected leaders deserve our respect.”
Gingrich whacked away at Obama’s handling of the standoff on Twitter over the weekend, saying it made us “look weak.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck also targeted Obama.
Exum, who advised Obama during the campaign but who also supports Republicans, hinted that the criticism bordered on unpatriotic. “If Glenn Beck loves his country as much as he alleges, he should hold his tongue when elected leaders on the ground are dealing with a very difficult situation.”
That the onetime GOP House Speaker and leading conservative opinionmakers hit Obama while this crisis unfolded seems like it might prompt some soul-searching among Republicans about the identity and direction of their party.
- Steve Benen adds:
The hostage standoff with Somali pirates really seemed to drive quite a few leading conservatives completely around the bend. The desperation to attack the president was so overwhelming, they embraced exactly the kind of tactics conservatives said patriotic Americans should never engage in.
Last night, it reached the point that Bernard Goldberg, a conservative media critic and prominent Obama detractor, told Sean Hannity on the air, "I'm sorry, Sean ... but we have to stop going out of our way to find fault with every single thing [the president] does.... If something bad happened here, and thank God it didn't, but if something bad happened here, I guarantee you, I'll tell you who would have been leading the crusade against [Obama]: you."
For what it's worth, it didn't seem like Hannity "felt a little silly."
- Greg Sargent adds:
RNC chair Michael Steele has unleashed a new attack on Obama, sending out a mass mailing attacking the President as part of the “blame America first” crowd, an apparent effort to prove to critics that he’s getting tougher with the opposition.But this might be the most interesting part: The mailing links Obama’s claim that America has shown global “arrogance” with those infamous comments in Pennsylvania, charging that Obama “indicated disdain for small town and working Americans who ‘cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.’”
As it happens, Obama made those comments almost exactly a year ago.
This effort to revive the “arrogant” meme a year later might not fall on fertile ground, what with polls showing that big majorities think Obama cares about “ordinary” people. And this highlights one of the thornier aspects of the political dilemma GOP leaders face right now.
With large majorities approving of Obama’s performance and persona, GOP leaders are trapped between a shortage of credible attacks on Obama and a base that is demanding they somehow get tougher with him. That’s forcing Republican leaders to reach for stuff like this — which in turn provides fodder for the Democratic argument that the GOP has no interest in a constructive or substantive dialog about the enormous problems facing the country. And so the cycle continues.
As April 15 approaches, this is generally the time most Americans are inclined to complain about paying Uncle Sam. It's supposed to be as American as apple pie -- we all think we're paying too much in taxes.At least, that's what we've been led to believe. The latest survey from Gallup shows these assumptions don't seem to apply right now: "A new Gallup Poll finds 48% of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is 'about right,' with 46% saying 'too high' -- one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956. Typically, a majority of Americans say their taxes are too high, and relatively few say their taxes are too low."
The same poll found that 61% of Americans believe the income taxes they paid this year are "fair."
This certainly isn't the kind of public opinion landscape Republicans were hoping for. In order for conservative talking points on the economy to be effective, Americans have to believe the current tax rates are never "about right" and anything but "fair." Broad satisfaction with taxes leaves Republicans with very little else to say.
Indeed, the semi-official slogan of the Tea Baggers' events tomorrow is "T.E.A.: Taxed Enough Already." It was hard enough to make this argument shortly after the president signed the largest middle-class tax in history; it's even harder in light of poll results like these.
You can't have a "red scare" when Americans aren't terrified of socialism, and you can't mount a tax revolt if Americans think current rates are reasonable.
This is the side of the Obama administration that is pissing Dems off. A lot.
Friday night revisited April 13: The Obama administration announced it was going to appeal a federal ruling that allows prisoners at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan to challenge their imprisonment in court. Why is this a big deal? Rachel Maddow is joined by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
NYT Editorial: The A.B.A. and Judicial Nominees
President Obama has decided to restore the American Bar Association’s traditional role in vetting judicial nominees. There is a real value in having knowledgeable lawyers who have firsthand experience with the justice system vetting prospective judges.
As the A.B.A. resumes this role, a new study suggests that it may have a liberal bias. There is little support for this claim. Indeed, there are signs that the group has been cowed by conservative critics in recent years into approving less-than-qualified nominees. The A.B.A. needs to ensure that its evaluators make assessments based on the nominees’ merits, not on political pressure.
The A.B.A. reviewed prospective judges at the White House’s request for decades, until the Bush administration — responding to conservative charges that the group had a liberal bias — stopped asking for its input. The Senate Judiciary Committee continued to seek the A.B.A.’s evaluations.
A study by a University of Georgia professor and two other political scientists reviewed those ratings from 1985 to 2008 and found that President Clinton’s nominees were 14 percent more likely than the Republican presidents’ choices to receive a “well qualified” rating.
Rather than being a result of bias, this disparity may reflect the degree to which recent Republican presidents put ideology ahead of excellence in selecting judges. Based on the last eight years, it is especially hard to argue that the A.B.A. has been a liberal force on judicial selection. The group regularly gave “well qualified” and “qualified” ratings to some of President George W. Bush’s most deeply flawed nominees.
The A.B.A. gave its highest rating to Leslie Southwick, a nominee to the New Orleans-based United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. As a state court judge in Mississippi, Judge Southwick signed on to terrible rulings, including one in favor of a white social worker who was fired for calling a black colleague a “good ole nigger” and one that berated a bisexual woman for having a homosexual relationship and took her child away.
Republicans have already made clear that they intend to challenge Mr. Obama’s judicial nominations. Conservatives will undoubtedly keep trying to intimidate the A.B.A. The group’s screeners should evaluate the Obama nominees based on their qualifications, judicial temperament and views of the law — without imposing any ideological litmus tests. If the A.B.A. does its job well, it can once again play a valuable role in choosing the next generation of federal judges.
Benen: CHENEY PROVES UNPERSUASIVE....
About a month ago, Dick Cheney told CNN he believes President Obama has made decisions that will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack."The comments drew quick rebukes from the president, vice president, and attorney general, and officials including Gen. David Petraeus and former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) both publicly disagreed with Cheney's assessment.
As it turns out, Cheney apparently hasn't convinced the public, either.
Seventy-two percent of those questioned in the [new CNN] poll released Monday disagree with Cheney's view that some of Obama's actions have put the country at greater risk, with 26 percent agreeing with the former vice president. [...]
CNN Polling Director Keating Holland pointed out the partisan divide evident in the results. "By a 53 percent to 46 percent margin, Republicans agree with Dick Cheney," he said. "But more than nine in 10 Democrats believe that Obama has not made the country less safe from terrorism. They are joined by more than seven in 10 independents who don't see an increase in the threat from terrorism since Obama took office."
It's a reminder of why congressional Republicans would prefer to see Dick Cheney stay quiet in some undisclosed location: Americans tend to reject what he has to say. He wasn't credible or persuasive in office, and his stature has hardly improved since.
Chris Cillizza added, "[T]he current leadership vacuum atop the Republican party allows for figures like Cheney and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh to -- at times -- speak for the GOP, a detrimental development for a party searching for a way forward rather than a look back."
What's more, poll results like these also reinforce the notion that Republican arguments about national security through a partisan frame -- the media-backed idea that Democrats are less credible on keeping Americans safe -- simply doesn't work anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment