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Subscribe to RSSWith so many stories in the news today, there were a few that circulated heavily in the conservative and liberal blogospheres, among them, Elena Kagan’s involvement in a Supreme Court ruling on a partial-birth abortion ban and the fate of the financial regulatory reform bill.
Many bloggers on the right weighed in on a SCOTUS ruling against a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortions in 2000, in which a former deputy assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration accuses Kagan, who was then a deputy domestic policy assistant to President Clinton, of “manipulat[ing] medical science to fit the Democratic party’s political agenda on the hot-button issue of abortion.”
In an article on the National Review website, Shannen Coffin, who oversaw the Bush administration’s ban on partial birth abortions, wrote that during the 2000 Supreme Court partial-birth abortion ruling, the court relied a statement by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as an example of medical opinion supporting the procedure, which Coffin says Kagan edited to express more certainty that the procedure is, in some cases, “the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman and a doctor should be allowed to make this determination.”
Coffin concluded in his piece that “Miss Kagan’s decision to override a scientific finding with her own calculated distortion in order to protect access to the most despicable of abortion procedures seriously twisted the judicial process. One must question whether her nomination to the Court would have the same effect.”
“If this is how Kagan is willing to manipulate facts, one can only shudder to imagine what sort of activism she would bring to the Supreme Court,” Red State’s bk commented.
And at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey wrote that Kagan’s changes weren’t “a lie, and may not even breach ethical canons for lawyers working as advocates for a cause” but added that they “call into question Kagan’s ability to be independent and her judgment as a potential jurist, and Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee should be asking Kagan to explain herself in today’s hearing.” (Which they did, prompting Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell NRO that Kagan’s responses about her association with the memo are “another example” of “the nominee’s troubles.”
Liberals, meanwhile, were focused on another headline out of Capitol Hill: the fate of the financial regulatory reform bill. Some criticized Sen. Russ Feingold for being the single Democratic holdout votes on the bill, urging him to throw his hat in the ring and vote for some – any – reform.
Regarding the financial bill’s holdup, MyDD’s Nathan Empsall warned that Feingold is cutting off his legislative nose to spite his face: “Feingold… is almost taking the position that unless we end too-big-to-fail (and it is too bad that the bill doesn't), then we should leave the current system in place exactly as it is.”
More: “I truly admire Feingold and am happy to fundraise for his re-election campaign, but I think he's making a terrible mistake here. If the bill’s strength is already losing it votes, holding out for something better will lose even more. Give Feingold what he wants and not only do the four Republicans firm up their opposition, perhaps we lose not only Bayh but Ben Nelson as well, who voted against an initial procedural motion. That takes us from a possible 61 and passage to a ceiling of 56-57 and failure.
“… If Feingold and others want to register discontent, they should vote for cloture and against the bill, but a vote against cloture is a vote for Jamie Dimon and a vote for the 2007-8 status quo.”
But at AMERICA blog, Chris in Paris stuck to the original argument that the bill just isn’t strong enough “So is it the Democrats' messaging that completely sucks or are they just complete, gutless cowards? You know they are in bad shape when they can't even pass this mild "reform" because they're too afraid to fight the GOP who can't stop supporting Wall Street's bad behavior. Either way, they suck. Why do we vote for these people?”
Ballon Juice’s mistermix resisted blaming one particular legislator, instead declaring a pox on the process that stalled the bill’s passage, including Republican Sen. Scott Brown's last-minute holdout due to the last-minute bank tax that was added. “I’d like to blame Feingold and Cantwell’s principled stances for this one, but I doubt that it mattered. Without a 60-40 majority, whoever was Republican 60th vote would have extracted some other, equally stupid compromise to get this thing passed. Brown was just the designated prima donna for this one.”
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...crickets...
Cue Nadiya Suleman..........
Yes, well ... as an attorney who has, on at least two occasions, seen opposing counsel elipse the word "not" out of a sentence in order to directly invert its meaning ... including once from a transcript of MY OWN WORDS, this alleged over-the-top advocacy by Elena Kagan doesn't impress me much.
OK, Whatever makes you feel better, Anna Molly.
It shows, not only that Elena Kagan is a cynical manipulator and a liar, but that she was, in effect , practicing medicine without a license. Practicing, potentially, on every woman of child-bearing age in the country. That's what you do when you falsify a medical fact to achieve an ideological end. The fact that the ACOG went along with the distortion shows that they are corrupt as well, but they aren't running for Supreme Court.
boy lady lawyer still a lofty opinion of yourself eh? I knew all along you and Ira met on here. You were dishonest, more a liar than lawyer! hope you are still not picking up married men and then when discovered continuing for several more weeks to e-mail and text and with cute greek writings, sexual inuendos while making a love connection. You are and always will be despicable, decitful as your on line boyfrend, boo hoo, a crime of the heart eh with someone who claimed you were dating yet never met, how sick are both of you. but I reported your escapades to powers that be on newsvine and first read and hope you bear that in mind as you blog with your little friends! from now on, stick to match.com and singles bars in Plainfield/chicago, Illinois. capiche? you are not a fortune cookie/biscotta fortuna, you are a butana, that is what someone is called that goes after a married man after being confronted with the truth for yet several more weeks, after professing a half-assed apology you will never be a mensch, that is jewish for a decent human being. you are beneath contempt, reprehensible and a low life all around. now go back and share that with your little friends on first read. just bare in mind powers that be on newsvine and first read have seen e-mails betweenn you and boyfriend and know all on and off the site you did. you fancy yourself a professional you are nothing but a sad excuse for a human being, get a man and a life near where you live and leave Nj men who are married alone! even you should be able to find someone in chicago area!
Falsifying a medical fact means you're practicing medicine without a license? Tell that to everyone here who has ever called in sick for work when they weren't. Good thing none of us is "running" for Supreme Court.
one more thing butana, you are bad judge of people as Ira only has 4 yr. acctg. degree no lawyer no
doctoral thesis or masters thesis on holocaust no grandchildren, all lies with a capital LL I am a teacher not a fiction writer and sadly, married to him 38 yrs. he finished manhattan college while we were married in june 1975 he was in vietnam and navy 1969-1972 we married 12/73 couldnt make all that up
not a liar like you. 2 kids unmarried 34 &30 still at home, sad right, but dysfunctional Ira likes that !! that is who you really fell for online sucks for you and your inability to be more discerning of character!
guess I am smarter than you lady lawyer?!
The Repubs, tonight, filibustered the Unemployment Relief bill yet again, third time in two weeks. Brown stated that "These are tough times and we need to live within our means" yet he seems to forget that the unemployed need to HAVE THE MEANS TO LIVE. How dense can these Repubs be, are they TRYING to start another Civil War? If it happens, and the Gods forbid that it does, it will be more like the French Revolution and there will be many, many rich folks heads rolling. Sadly enough, many innocent people would be lost along with them. I can only hope that the Repubs wake up and realize that not only are they destroying their chances of regaining ANY power, but that they have primed a Major powder keg and are holding the match very close to the ignition point. Gods forbid that they actually light it!!
It is beyond me. I do not understand anything they do any more. DeMint has a hold on allowing the BP disaster commission to supoena people to testify. The GOP gets dumber by the day in my opinion. But, for the first time since Reagan, they have shown their real beliefs and those do not include the people.
I am fearful that they are actually looking forward to an attempted uprising by the serfs. I think that they believe that they can weather the storm, while providing themselves with an excuse to eliminate us in a way that our right to bear arms won't matter in the least. Not that it will directly affect or effect me, but I am pulling for the underdogs in this fight.
king larry is gone finally. he actually sat across from bill maher and called the bp nightmare a terrible accident. maher did not call him on it though. we now know that corners were cut. we know through eyewitness testimony that there were heated arguements about continuing on with a broken blowout preventer and bp guys won the arguement. these are criminal actions. this was no accident.
now, where was today's Obama two years ago when it would have mattered? If speech after speech would have been directed at the congress then we might have HCR (national plan or at the very least a public option) that would truly benefit the middle class. But as of today we still furnish iraq with national healthcare but not for our own citizens. shameful and a disgrace.
As I sit here with both legs in so much pain I cannot sleep(yea jill, from welding in the oil industry), and I review the day's musings, I happen across the posts for the SS comments and am amazed. There is another avenue to be tried that private industry always tries. They offer severince and early retirement packages. We do away with the cap on FICA wages. We lower the retirement age to 60. not mandatory but voluntary. This would especially be beneficial to those in physical exertion types of work(for those that don't know, that wears the body out.) This would also heavily decrease unemployment as employers would scramble to fill needed positions. BTW, companies are running very lean these days because they want to maintain this feeling of uneasiness as it gives them more leverage over employees. that's common sense. Also it is alot cheaper to force overtime on employees than to hire new ones. Profits are placed before the welfare of the nation in just about every major corporation these days. BP could have capped that well three days after it blew if they really wanted to. now our gulf is ruined for generations. go ahead and drill piyush drill!
So very, very true Leon, All of it! I hope that your legs ease up for you Bro, I know what it is like, with heavy nerve damage from my neck, through my shoulders and arms, feels like ants crawling and biting the nerves most of the time. I survive on time release morphine these days, and a slew of other meds, but is still enough to drive me crazy sometimes.
How sadly true. If republicans had their way, they would get rid of disability, social security, medicare, medicaid and unemployment insurance. Too many GOPer politicians have never done manual labor and have no empathy for those who struggle.
Hey B. that's alot like what I'm dealing with buddy. they call it neurapathy. muscle control and weakness is also getting prettyt shaky now. I tendd to have bad nights and worse nighhts...you know what I mwan. It never ceases to amaze me that some of these folks have no idea what our jobs had us do. I've been in every chemical known to man over 25 years. Man, this a BAD night!
Try and get some sleep B.
Brother, I totally feel for you, What with all the different vaporized metals and fluxes, silver solder fluxes, toluene and paints, and the inevitable grease on new coldroll...etc. etc. etc, yeah, I have soaked up my fair share of chems as well, and it sure don't help, Yeah, I know ALL about Neuropathy. Had my neck literally rebuilt from C5-6-7 and now have my own chunk of titanium installed..the doc assured me he "Had my head screwed on straight." If I had not by now I would be full quad, bone was pinching the nerves off....as is, I can barely do household chores on my GOOD days, my bad days I sleep a whole lot if the meds kick in right, or sit here at my computer all night and day til I pass out if they don't. Some days I have the shakes and shudders, which is Not nice on the neck, heck, a sneeze can really rock my day. I am only 47 yrs old, I used to be active as all heck (show me a welder who isn't) and owned my own Sword and Knife making business. I have not known a day in the past at least 10 years where I was not in heavy pain, even with the meds. Like the BP Gaffer said "I would like my life back", but this IS my life now, such as it is. All in all, I have a great family and am much loved, that goes a long ways, but with the GF unemployed and me on SSDI, with 2 kids (one a 17 yr old boy that can eat us out of house and home easily, like I was, LOL) it certainly does not make it easy, but we survive, day to day, but we are ok, for now. I hope your legs ease up on ya Bro, will send some healing thoughts your way!!
God bless you, Leon.
and God Bless B Honest, too. Chronic pain is so debilitating.
you are so right Jody. I shudder to think what would have happened had we caved to bush on privatizing social security. millions would have lost that safety net. I cannot understand how middle class and lower middle class folks can be deceived by these smokescreens and the money has not vaporized, someone made a bundle off these meltdowns. and still those like S. Angle call for the end of programs. did you hear where she actually said that unemployment checks(250.00 a week) keep people from finding work? For a full year that would only be 12 grand. yea, that's going to keep peole from finding a 40-50,000 a year job.
If I could still work I certainly would, I get $750/mo from SSI and would LOVE to be back to the welding, dirty heavy work though it is, I could be making 50-60K.yr pretty easy at this point as they ALWAYS need top notch welders, which I was!
Thanks guys, I just want my nation to care again. The only reason I tell my story is because I don't want my daughter or your children or your children's children to go through the healthcare nightmares I 've seen,. Medical issues should never cause so many overwhelming financial problems for peoplle in this country.
you shop around for furniture
you shop around for autos
you take medical tests that the prices unknown and arbituary,then get a bill for thousands of dollars 6 months down the road. that's just for tests not treatment.
Have a great day folks!!!!!!!!!!
Leon,
I too tell folks about the medical side, not for pity, fer God's sake, but to let people know just how messed up our medical and financial safety nets presently are. Being made homeless, multiple times, because of my medical difficulties and the extremely long wait to get Social Security Disability should NEVER happen to Anyone, and it is hardest of all because the injured or sick can have a very hard time taking care of themselves in a good home setting, let alone on the street with no resources other than a foodstamp card and the foodbanks. It is as if they are HOPING that you will die before they have to give up a tiny bit of 'their' money!
Hope that you are doing better today Bro, and that your day is a bright and happy one!!