COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Master Obama Cynically Trading Judgeships for Health Care Votes?



Hope and Change you can choke one.


"I have therefore asked leaders in both of Houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well." -- Barack Hussein Obama


Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?
Obama names brother of undecided House Dem to Appeals Court.


BY JOHN MCCORMACK
March 3, 2010 6:15 PM
Weekly Standard

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Scott M. Matheson, Jr.: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Scott M. Matheson currently holds the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He served as Dean of the Law School from 1998 to 2006. He also taught First Amendment Law at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 1989 to 1990.

While on public service leave from the University of Utah from 1993 to 1997, Matheson served as United States Attorney for the District of Utah. In 2007, he was appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman to chair the Utah Mine Safety Commission. He also worked as a Deputy County Attorney for Salt Lake County from 1988 to 1989. Prior to joining the University faculty, Matheson was an associate attorney from 1981 to 1985 at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.

Matheson was born and raised in Utah and is a sixth generation Utahn. He received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1975, an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980.

So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother's vote?




36 comments:

  1. "Hope and Change you can choke one."

    Please tell me you didn't do that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My mother has a theory about Palin.

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  3. BERLIN, March 4 (Reuters) - Greece should consider selling some of its islands as one option to reduce debt, two members of the German parliament in Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition said.

    Just as I recommended, for US.
    Sell some stuff, it's what folks that have cash flow problems do, to stay even.

    But then there are always some that object, those that want US to live beyond our means.

    Those folk, they are not conservatives, but liberals.

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  4. I keep reading about our National debt, as a percentage of income, but never as a percentage of assets.

    If one is discussing the bankruptcy of Nations, that is all important, the debt to asset ratio, rather than debt to cash flow.

    Cash flow services the debt, assets cover it.

    What is the asset value, of the United States?

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. As to the sale of Ambassadorships and Judge's robes, that is old school.

    Why the last Ambassador to Costa Rica, his only qualification for the job, he was learning to speak Spanish, between making those fund raising calls, for GW Bush.

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  7. Greece's two main industries are Shipping, and tourism. Both are attuned to the cost of oil. Greece's Worst days lie ahead.

    Greece

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  8. The number $50 Trillion comes to mind for U.S. Households, Rat. But, I'm not for sure how Local, State, Federal, and Corporate assets figure in there.

    The most important thing is people keep confusing "debts" with unfunded liabilities. Unfunded liabilities aren't debts. Unfunded liabilities are vague, good intentions. Debts are "on paper, signed, and legally collectible."

    Our "Debt" is $8 Trillion. All the rest can (and will be) changed with the stroke of a pen.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Send all the hate mail to: fuckyou.Idonwannahearit.kissmyass.upyours

    g'nite.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dear fuckyou.Idonwannahearit. kissmyass,

    Up your's!

    Signed,
    Doug

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yeah, like unfunded medicare liabilities will leave those dependent on medicare up a creek.

    ...written off by the ever compassionate Rufus, promoter of socialized Serfdom.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Since Medicare is already actuarially bankrupt, let's have MORE Socialized Medicine!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Why have Texas and Massachusetts have different healthcare laboratories when we can have one grand Federal Plan!?
    DC Uber Alles!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Homeowner's insurance is a right for all Americans, not just a privelege for the rich. The teabaggers want to deny homeowners insurance to homes with pre-existing conditions, like ones that are already smouldering with a chimney fire or starting to slide down a mudbank. The time for debate on this issue is over. It's time we mandated universal homeowners insurance for all Americans, not just those right-wingers who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. And universal homeowners insurance should provide lawncare coverage, in the event that the grass grows. This will provide millions of jobs cutting lawns in a time when unemployment is officially 10% and unofficially perhaps double that.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Commoncents, you have been added!

    ReplyDelete
  16. How can a government program be "bankrupt?"

    ReplyDelete
  17. Arkansas Democrat Gazette, March 4


    Ralph Curry, sheriff of Adair County, Kentucky, said a claustrophobic deputy who accidentally locked himself in a jail cell and then tried to shoot his way out of it has lost his job, adding that Charles Wright has agreed to pay for the damage done to the cell.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Regarding the moose hunt in the previous thread: That was my friend Dwight Schuh, editor of Bowhunter Magazine. He did retrieve the moose, and bowhunting moose during the rut is not like shooting fish in a barrel. Go with me on this one.....

    ReplyDelete
  19. rufus said...

    "How can a government program be "bankrupt?""

    How can you be such a hardheaded, stupid, Jackass?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Gag, I agree and said so on the previous thread. A bow is one shot.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Deuce: did you get the pics I sent you guys a few weeks ago?

    ReplyDelete
  22. I did gag. send me a story with it and will do a post.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Being out of money is Not the same thing as being "bankrupt," Pineapplehead.

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  24. The is cash flow and there are assets.

    You can have lots of assets and little cash flow.

    Property poor is how it was initially described to me, many years ago.

    Though over the years the concept has expanded, with my own experiences and the observation of others in that situation.
    It can lead to bankruptcy, but that is not always the case.

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  25. The Federals are far from "bankrupt", we still have not sold a carrier group to Charlie.

    Nor the Persidio in San Fransisco.

    The Federals still have lots and lots of assets to sell and lease back, before there is even a hint of "Bankruptcy" in the air.

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  26. We can inflate or deflate the dollar. Print more dollars, raise taxes, reduce spending, etc before bankruptcy.

    We can get the situation to where it takes a wheel barrow full of dollars to buy a loaf of bread and technically not be bankrupt.

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  27. There is no such thing as a free ride. The spending and debt is going to mean real pain in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Speaking of reducing services:

    Arizona just shut down thirty of their highway rest areas.

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  29. There are private businesses along all those roads, that offer parking spaces for travelers.

    Little need for the State to provide that to drivers, for free.
    Not when private business can do the same, and pay the State, to boot.

    Little real need for the State to compete with those private, tax paying businesses.

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  30. According to the NYTimes, Arizonans put up with a lot but the rest stop closings were a step too far.

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  31. Freeloading, snowbird retirees, would be my guess, as to who is complaining.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hmm that's amazing but actually i have a hard time figuring it... I'm wondering what others have to say....

    ReplyDelete