Motley Moose – Archive

Actually, that’s basically the whole diary.  The only thing I want to hear from him is an unqualified apology.  And I doubt he’s ever apologized to anyone.  Not to Leahy for cussing him out on the floor of the Senate.  Not to the chap he shot in the face.  No one.  I’ll bet if he accidentally stepped on your foot and spilled hot coffee down your shirt in an elevator he wouldn’t apologize.  

I don’t want to read about Megyn Kelly “schooling” him.  Why should she get to use him to feign journalistic responsibility and rational thought?  I don’t want Rand Paul and Pat Buchanan using him to create an illusion of vibrant political diversity in the GOP.  I don’t want anyone beyond the local Jackson Hole media covering him.  

So, that’s my argument.  He should really really really shut the FREAK up already.  Really.

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 …

Last night, I watched the much-awaited documentary Hubris, narrated by Rachel Maddow, which laid out for us all how the Iraq war was sold to the American public. I had to watch this show, not to help me make more sense of a war that has deeply and probably permanently affected/afflicted me, but to fill in some of the blanks, and there are many, because I was very disinterested in politics at the time I was deployed. I was just a happy Reservist, enjoying my Microsoft career and my weekend drills (along with the special interpreter missions that occasionally sent me to France, ooh la la!).

After 9/11, everybody knew we’d be going to war. I was just as surprised as my Microsoft teammates and managers when I showed up for my next shift — we all kinda suspected that anybody in the military would be immediately ordered to duty or something. But that’s not how it happened — I know now that Bush and company needed time to prepare their lies case for invading. And I just wasn’t paying attention to all that. I knew I’d be proud to serve my country in that way if called upon, but all that politics stuff was boringgg, and I trusted that those in positions of power were doing the right thing, protected by all the checks and balances our wonderful system of government puts in place. I didn’t even own a TV set, only listened to contemporary French music, not radio, got all my news via the Internet, but glossed over anything pertaining to Congress, the President, all those people up there doing Very Important Work.  

We are not afraid. That’s the message residents of the small town of Standish, Michigan would like to send to Liz Cheney and the rest of the fraidy-cats on the Right according to a report on Greg Sargent’s blog.

The Plum Line report includes a five-minute mini-documentary commercial released by Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, showing a few residents of Standish who oppose housing Gitmo prisoners in the local prison.

What the video doesn’t show you is the overwhelming majority of people in Standish who support the move. The video claims that the local politicians are acting against the wishes of the townspeople. A claim like that is ridiculous. If the opposition is as strong as opponents claim then any politician who acted against their wishes would be facing a recall.

The intrusion by outside groups and politicians is reminiscent of the recent NY 23 election fiasco. Cheney’s group isn’t the only outside fear monger. The town was “blessed” by the presence of one of Michigan’s leading GOP embarrassments in the person of Pete Hoekstra R-MI shortly after the first reports that the prison was under consideration. There were other outsiders and they all had a common theme – be afraid, be very afraid.

Apparently, these outsiders don’t know the people in this area any better than they knew the people of up-state NY when they ran Scozzafava out of the race.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.

Other than that, President Obama and Dick Cheney were in complete agreement in their speeches yesterday on torture and Guantanamo Bay.