Archive for March, 2011
Why hasn’t Judge Sumi recused herself from the Wisconsin lawsuit?
Judge Maryann Sumi
I can’t believe Judge Maryann Sumi is still overseeing the Wisconsin collective bargaining lawsuit. More and more things are surfacing that show that she clearly has a conflict of interest.
(from Big Government)
Last week Judge Maryann Sumi, one of the most liberal judges in one of the most liberal counties (Dane) issued a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of the recently passed collective bargaining bill.
Considering Sumi’s son is Jake Sinderbrand,a former field manager for the AFL-CIO and a data manager for the SEIU State Council. Today he runs Left Field Strategies, a firm that runs political campaigns. Judge Sumi should have recused herself in this case. A judge must disqualify herself whenever she has a personal bias towards either party in the case. Considering unions employ her son, Judge Sumi has a vested interest in maintaining the union status quo.
The applicable standard when deciding to recuse oneself is whether an average person would think the judge would be biased. In this case, it’s clear that an average person could see the potential for bias. If a judge, like Judge Sumi, refuses to recuse herself she may be subject to sanctions. Additionally, if an appellate court finds a judgment rendered when the judge in question should have been recused, it may set aside the judgment and return the case for retrial.
Before this decision, Judge Sumi already created controversy in the Budget Repair Bill saga when she refused to issue an order forcing striking teachers back to work instead of continuing to spend their work day protesting at the capital.
Today Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen asked the appellate court to set aside the temporary restraining order. The Justice Department said that the Legislature’s own rules trump notice requirements in the open meetings law. One expects they could also call into question Sumi’s conflict of interest if need be.
Now it’s being reported that her husband donated to 3 of the senators (aka “The Badger 14″) who fled the state a few weeks back and her son donated to Tom Barrett, the Democratic opponent of Scott Walker.
I’m just thinking that she may not be able to rule on this case in an unbiased fashion.
But…what do I know?
The Holocaust to be taught to Gazans
The UN wants to teach students in Gaza about the Holocaust as part of their human rights curriculum. I’m not so sure this will go over very well with Hamas.
(via Jihad Watch) Muslims can only be victims, and Jews can only be aggressors. Anything that could possibly arouse sympathy for those “strongest in enmity” to Muslims (Qur’an 5:82) is bad for business, and clearly Hamas cannot tolerate that. Toward the end of the report, we find out the Palestinian Authority can’t, either. And they’re supposed to be the “moderate” guys.
“Hamas protests UN plans to teach Gazans about the Holocaust,” from the Associated Press, March 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):
The United Nations has launched a new plan to teach the Holocaust in Gaza schools, drawing fierce condemnation from Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers, school teachers – and even the body tasked with peace negotiations with Israel.
If implemented, it would be the first time most Palestinian children learn about Jewish suffering. But the outcry underscores how sensitive the issue is to Palestinians.
“Playing with the education of our children in the Gaza Strip is a red line,” Hamas Education Minister, Mohammed Asqoul told a website of the group. He said Hamas will block attempts to teach the Holocaust regardless of the price.
The uproar erupted after a UN official told a Jordanian daily in February that UNRWA, the main UN agency serving Palestinian refugees, would introduce a short case study about the Holocaust to Gaza students as part of its human rights curriculum.
“Instead of pre-emptive accusations, it is important for Palestinians … to fully understand the tragedies and suffering that happened to all people through generations, without divvying up facts and taking things out of context,” the official, Sami Mushasha, was quoted as saying.
UNRWA representatives refused to comment on the record, but one official said the agency was committed to introducing the curriculum for the next school year, beginning in September.
He added that officials were hesitating because they feared Hamas would incite loyalists to damage UN schools or harm their teachers if they introduce the materials. He requested anonymity because he was barred from discussing the matter with the media.
Hamas frequently accuses the UN of spreading immorality, and unknown assailants have attacked the agency’s property in the past, including the torching of summer camps last year.
Since Hamas seized power of Gaza in 2007, it has viewed the UN as the main challenger to their influence in the coastal territory. Officials have tried to limit the international group’s vast influence in Gaza, where it operates schools for some 200,000 children.
But the controversy over teaching the Holocaust in Gaza is more than a power struggle between the UN and Hamas, whose militant officials frequently deny the Nazi genocide of European Jewry ever occurred.
Many Palestinians are reluctant to acknowledge Jewish suffering, fearing it would diminish recognition of their own claims. Views range from outright denial to challenging the scope of the Holocaust.
Even Hamas’ bitter enemy, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank, reacted angrily to the UN plan. And the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the chief body tasked with negotiating peace with Israel, rejected the idea.
“Teaching the Holocaust to Palestinian students in UN schools is unacceptable,” said Zakaria al-Agha, a member of the PLO’s executive committee.[...]
Yet even if the UN moves ahead with the plan this year, it could face another obstacle: its own schoolteachers. In about a dozen interviews, they said they did not want to teach the materials and warned of rebellion.
“The agency will open the gates of hell with this step,” said one schoolteacher, Sami. “This will not work.”
I’m taking bets on whether or not this program actually gets off the ground.
Wednesday Open Thread: March 23, 2011
What’s on your minds this Wednesday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
Madness: Obama claims installing a democratic system is now goal in a country where a democratic election would result in an Islamic thugocracy
As unsavory as the likes of Kadaffy and the Hutt-like royals in various Muslim-majority countries are, these thugs are immensely preferable to the Iran-like Islamic theocracies that would result if elections were held in Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc.
Muslim countries need secular dictators, no matter how weird or gross, to maintain some semblance of rational government…since Islam has no distinction between church and state and Islamists win elections in Muslim countries using the full thug arsenal of violence, threats, and religious zealotry that ultimately installs mullahs and ayatollahs to power.
This is the Obama Doctrine: to destabilize secular Middle Eastern regimes and replace them with Islamist, radical governments.
Hope!
Change!
Madness!
Palin-free Dancing With the Stars down 20% in ratings
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/22/dancing-with-the-stars-premiere-kicks-up-a-win/
Without Bristol Palin on the show, Dancing With the Stars is down 20% in the ratings.
It looks like Bristol’s season will indeed be the show’s highest rated…as we expected.
I have no interest in watching this show ever again (unless Willow, Track, or Piper compete in the future), but hope Kirstie Alley wins the mirror ball trophy.
The woman has been savaged by the tabloids for years, and was hilarious on Cheers. She also seems, like Bristol, to be trying her heart out…so go Kirstie go.
Effort emerges to strip Obama of Nobel Prize, which he laughably never deserved to begin with
http://m.digitaljournal.com/article/304909
Since Marisa Tomei still holds the random, out-of-the-blue Oscar she won for “My Cousin Vinnie” and Whoopie Goldberg is still an Academy Award winner despite the fool she makes of herself daily on “The View”, there is no reason to believe an effort to strip Obama of his undeserved joke of a 2009 Nobel Peace Prize will succeed…but it’s good the Kool-Aid has worn off enough internationally for this to be said aloud.
The man is an unfunny, incompetent joke whose presidency has descended into dangerous chaos…more so every day.
If he had any sense at all, he would have declined the undeserved Peace Prize back in 2009, instead of accepting an honor he did not earn.
So that hubris and chronic narcissism is coming back to haunt him.
Just as it rightly should.
Kennesaw State University new provost caves in to accusations of Marxism
Timothy Chandler
A couple of weeks ago I did a story about the new provost-elect at Kennesaw State University in Marietta, Georgia. Timothy Chandler was slotted to take over the job this July but it had been discovered that he had done a paper the slanted towards Marxism and once exposed…..there was a rather large backlash from the public. Well…the people have spoken and Dr. Chandler has decided “not to take the job”.
(AJC) Accusations of Marxism and being un-American proved too much for Kennesaw State University’s newly selected provost, who withdrew his acceptance of the position on Thursday.
Timothy Chandler, tapped last month as KSU’s new provost, had been criticized in recent weeks for a 1998 academic paper he co-authored that cited Communist philosopher Karl Marx.
A local Cobb County newspaper accused Chandler of having an obvious fondness for Marx and vehement dislike of capitalism, and was critical of his association with the paper’s co-author who went on to publish theories linking the Bush administration to the 9/11 attacks.
The surrounding controversy sparked debate within the community on both sides of the issue and on KSU’s campus.
“I have decided it is in the best interest of Kennesaw State University for me to withdraw at this time,” Chandler said in a statement released by KSU. “… I have now come to believe that the recent distractions caused by external forces would interfere with my effectiveness as provost.”
Chandler, a British-born senior associate provost at Kent State University in Ohio, was slated to begin his job, second in command to President Dan Papp, at KSU in July. He will keep his job at Kent State.
Given the circumstances, Chandler made the right decision, said Earl Holliday, an assistant professor in KSU’s Department of Educational Leadership and member of the faculty senate.
Earlier this week, after prompting by Holliday, the senate ended a meeting without voting on a resolution of support for Chandler. The senate president did not return calls for comment Thursday.
“For the candidates we bring to campus — and I’m sure [Chandler] is a very talented person — but I think matching their skill set with the university community is very important,” Holliday said.
News of Chandler’s decision was spreading quickly around campus on Thursday, and some students were disappointed at the outcome, said Ali Kamran, student government president.
“Students are disappointed at the personal attacks on [Chandler] and with the narrow-mindedness of people who wrote negative comments about the situation,” Kamran said. “They’re talking about academic freedom and having to start the search all over again.”
Otis Brumby, publisher of the Marietta Daily Journal, which first criticized Chandler’s work, said he was not surprised by Chandler’s announcement.
“A college like KSU is dependent on public funding through the Legislature and private sources, and when asked if [Chandler] could be effective, Papp said I’m not sure,” Brumby said. “It seems Papp, even though he didn’t say it, must have made up his mind that this was the best decision for the university.”
Public funding dependent on public support?
What a novel idea.
Could we possibly apply the same principle to NPR and Planned Parenthood?
You bet.
Not all of Chile was glad to see Obama…
Protesters in Santiago
It looks like Barack Obama has lost his “mojo”. Protesters in Santiago, Chile turned out to show their displeasure of “The One”.
(AFP)- Two peaceful demonstrations were held in Chile Sunday protesting the upcoming visit of President Barack Obama and rejecting a recently signed US-Chilean nuclear agreement.
Some 2,000 people marched in downtown Santiago against Obama’s visit on Monday in an event organized by the environmental group Greenpeace.The protesters were angry that Chile signed a nuclear energy agreement on Friday with the United States despite Japan’s huge atomic crisis.
Some 300 people, including influential union leaders and members of Chile’s Communist Party, earlier marched in the downtown Plaza de Armas carrying banners that read “Obama Persona No Grata” and “Gringos Go Home.”
“This demonstration is to reject Barack Obama’s militaristic policies,” protest organizer Ricardo Sole told AFP.
The shine has definitely worn off. No support on the far left and no support on the right.
Do you think Obama is starting to see the BIG picture?
Probably not.
Tuesday Open Thread: March 22, 2011
This picture speaks a thousand words
I think this picture is great. You’ve probably noticed that I get a lot of things from Moonbattery. I love this site so I encourage you to visit it.
So…..what’s on your minds this Tuesday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
Pigs fly: Michael Moore finally right about somethingk demands Obama return the Nobel Peace Prize he previously won “for awesomeness”
It was clear immediately back in 2009 when the Nobel Committee awarded Obama the Peace Prize “for awesomeness”, instead of actual achievement, that the Nobel Prize would forever cease to mean anything.
Which is exactly what happened.
It became a sad, unfunny joke of an award…on the shelf with all the People’s Choice and MTV Movie awards flung in the general direction of Will Smith all these years, in Hollywood’s rush to prove how much it loves a skinny black actor who has never amounted to anything.
But, he’s “awesome”, allegedly, and gets awards I can’t imagine him winning if he was white and possessed the range of “talent” he’s shown on film.
Europe similarly wanted to prove how much it was okay with a black US president, so it flung what used to be Earth’s most respected award at him.
The Nobel Prize is now on par with a Golden Globe…and it will look even more ridiculous because of Obama’s actions in Libya.
American lives should not be risked in a country with no strategic value to America. As bad a man as Kadaffi is, the militant Islamic freakshow that will replace him if he’s ousted is a nightmare everyone should clearly see.
The emerging “Obama Doctrine” seems to be something along the lines of “encourage as much chaos as possible wherever there is a chance Islamist theocracies can replace secular dictatorships so every Muslim majority country becomes a mini-Iran”.
The next major award Obama will receive will no doubt be from the Carter Institute in Atlanta, for evidently finishing what was started in 1979.
Will Smith will probably portray Obama as he accepts it…though it looks like Michael Moore won’t deign to direct it.
