In fact, in a master stroke of jujitsu, Judge Vinson leapfrogged over the administration and said he was going to interpret the administration’s request for him to “clarify” his ruling as a request for a temporary stay of his order. And he gave the administration seven days to appeal his ruling or stop all action to implement the law.
The judge said his January 31 ruling was “plain and unambiguous” in its intent to bar the administration from moving forward with the law.
If the administration didn’t think it could comply, it should have immediately filed a motion for a stay rather than choosing to “effectively ignore the order” for two and a half weeks “and only then file a belated motion to clarify,” Judge Vinson said.
Go figure, DEUCE, a proponent of an activist judiciary!!
ReplyDeleteTrick Shot
ReplyDeleteI have been informed that we have a fine president.
ReplyDeleteHow would I feel if I lost my Google account tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteWell. In the scheme of things...
So I got down to picture number 44 here at http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/recent-scenes-from-antarctica/100019/ and I grabbed a book off the shelf and found this:
"Lees was the last to leave; he had been standing by the hut in readiness to give the Boss a tour of the premises. Only after the last boat trip had been made did he appear on the beach, frantically waving his arms, and practically diving into the boat when it put around.
From the bridge of the Telcho, Worsley watched the rescue.
"2.10. All Well!" he recorded in his log. "At last! 2.15 full speed ahead."
The adventure was over; and almost immediately it seemed as if things had not really been so bad. Somehow, in the day-to-day running of the camp, Wild had managed to make their predicament seem merely uncomfortable rather than desperate.
"I am not very susceptible to emotions...," Hurley wrote. "Yet as those noble peaks faded away in the mist, I could scarce repress feelings of sadness to leave forever the land that has rained on us its bounty and been salvation. Our hut, a lone relic of our habitation, will become a centre around which coveys of penguins will assemble to gaze with curiosity & deliberate its origin. Good old Elephant Isle."
ReplyDeleteShackleton had much to tell both his men and the outside world. But the letter he dashed off to his wife on landing again in Punta Arenas stated only the essentials.
"I have done it. Damn the Admiralty....Not a life lost and we have been through Hell."
very fine.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteObama is from Chicago, Chicago has the Cubs, the Cubs are cursed, witches curse...as do sailors, sailors are in the Navy, the Village People sang "In the Navy", the Village People are gay, therefore, Obama is the antichrist.
ReplyDeleteNext month will be one year since the passage of Obamacare. We and others warned that your present health care insurance is in jepordy.
ReplyDeleteYearly contribution limits to Flexible Spending account have been cut from $5000 to $2500. Health Savings Accounts can no longer be used for over the counter medications. Mostly likely, you will not be able to keep your Medicare Advantage plan. 700,000 seniors have already lost their MediAdvantage plans. If you have regular insurance you'll probably lose what you currently have. The Obamacare goal is to bring all insurance plans into conformance with Obamacare. Your insurance is grandfathered until "substantial changes" are made. Changes in carrier, copayment and deductible or any benefits are substantial changes and will require that your plan match or conform to Obamacare. HHS suggests that 2/3 of all business and 80% of small businesses will have to change their plans by 2013 to come into compliance.
Source: Cato Daily Podcast, Wednesday, March 2.
I read "Endurance" the account of Shackleton's ill-fated expedition. It was a shame that they had to eat their dogs but they survived and if Shackleton thought he had lived through hell, it was a frozen one. It's a story of man overcoming or surviving his own vain folly.
ReplyDeleteThat's some 'brilliant' logic, T.
ReplyDeleteSo, Ash, do you think Judge Vinson is an activist judge?
ReplyDeleteWith the world in turmoil, Obama demonstrated what is most important to him by holding two DNC fundraisers in Florida last night.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of sad, unexplainable things about life
ReplyDeleteIllinois' AG wants to publish list of gun-owners, placing lives and safety of non-gun-owners at risk.
ReplyDeleteI say go for it.
"It's a story of man overcoming or surviving his own vain folly."
ReplyDeleteJust so. Like Apollo 13 was about Man discovering the price of over-ambition and the hostility of space to his desire for glory.
Good effin' God.
Okay, if you say so.
ReplyDeleteThe real tragedy, however, was not that they had to kill and eat the dogs.
ReplyDeleteIt was the loss of Mrs. Chippy, the cook's cat.
Are there really sad, unexplainable things about life?
I don't buy it for a single minute.
There's a reason, for instance, that I once spent an entire weekend watching a marathon of Sorority Life.
All a part of the Creator's plan for the universe, which includes such seemingly regrettable things as WWII, brussels sprouts, and Donald Rumsfeld.
And you, too, whit.
Oh, and ditto Kathleen Parker today.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't have said it better myself.
There's a reason, for instance, that I once spent an entire weekend watching a marathon of Sorority Life.
ReplyDeleteAnd the reason is?
I, too, can wait.
ReplyDelete"People's curiosity sometimes gets the best of them"
ReplyDelete... JoLynn Worley, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Man Alive in Mine Shaft Abandoned
whit said...
ReplyDelete"Next month will be one year since the passage of Obamacare. We and others warned that your present health care insurance is in jepordy.
Yearly contribution limits to Flexible Spending account have been cut from $5000 to $2500. Health Savings Accounts can no longer be used for over the counter medications. Mostly likely, you will not be able to keep your Medicare Advantage plan. 700,000 seniors have already lost their MediAdvantage plans. If you have regular insurance you'll probably lose what you currently have. The Obamacare goal is to bring all insurance plans into conformance with Obamacare. Your insurance is grandfathered until "substantial changes" are made. Changes in carrier, copayment and deductible or any benefits are substantial changes and will require that your plan match or conform to Obamacare. HHS suggests that 2/3 of all business and 80% of small businesses will have to change their plans by 2013 to come into compliance."
---
"It's All Good!"
Comrade Rufus
"It's a story of man overcoming or surviving his own vain folly."
ReplyDelete---
The voice of of post-ironic, anti-heroic, Amerikan pop-"culture"
The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), was a fraud from Day One:
ReplyDeleteIt is designed to do nothing but camouflage the effects of the housing meltdown. It is based on bribery — paying the banks to modify (or pretend to consider modifying) mortgages that they really had no business or interest in modifying.
And administration of the program was entrusted to Financial Public Enemy No. 1: Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise that did so much to inflate the housing bubble in the first place while enriching its politically connected executives and committing a sustained campaign of outright financial fraud. An economically meretricious bank-bribery scheme run by a known criminal organization -
HAMP often is criticized for the fact that the great majority of the people who receive temporary (“trial”) modifications under the program ultimately are rejected, receiving no permanent modification of their mortgages. The critics suggest that this is a shortcoming of the program, the effect of bureaucratic ineptitude and governmental inertia.
That is poppycock:
The fact that most of the temporary modifications will never become permanent modifications is a built-in feature of the program, the economic incentives of which all but guarantee that outcome. The program is, to be blunt, a scam.
Here’s how it works: Fannie Mae gets paid a certain amount of money to administer the program, and its payments are structured in such a way that it has an incentive to push more people through the application process.
A former Fannie Mae insider charges in a whistle-blower lawsuit that Fannie’s main concern in administering HAMP was maximizing its own fees. (Surprise.)
The banks and “mortgage servicers” get paid to put people into modification trials, and their incentives are structured in such a way that if it makes sense to go ahead and foreclose anyway after the trial, then they make money doing that, too.
But not until they’ve extended the trial to whatever point maximizes their financial return.
"And the reason is?"
ReplyDeleteAll shall be revealed in the end, upon the reading of The Big Book of Duh.
Every imponderable explained and placed neatly within the grand design.
Incidentally, I heard on the radio driving through PA that the end is May 21st.
That's some balls, you know, coming right out with a day - and so soon, too. That's going out on a limb with some bracing abandon.
Ever higher gas prices? Mayhem in the Middle East? Public school teachers run amok in Wisconsin?
The apparent evil-doing of certain blog hosts?
Let not our hearts be troubled, but only hope it is one fine, fucking spring.
And it won't be time to spell America with a 'k' until and unless the Republicans are back in the White House.
ReplyDeleteIF, that is, we make it past the Day of Doom and sail forth to such a lesser horror in our bleak and Godforsaken future.
Trish: And it won't be time to spell America with a 'k' until and unless the Republicans are back in the White House.
ReplyDeleteYou should have took that left back at Albuquerque, toots. This is the Elephant Bar.
"This is the Elephant Bar."
ReplyDeleteMeaning what, other than that there is some still-mysterious connection between elephants and bored-senseless degenerates?
Is that light shining through the trees behind your head in the photo or are you wearing my tiara, you showboating Linux lesbian?
ReplyDeleteI heard on Fox News that it's important to fight, even if you know you're going to lose. Possibly even if there's no point, you show yourself humorously incapable, and end up suffering irreversible brain damage and the loss of body parts, not to mention every vestige ounce of pride, as a result.
ReplyDeleteIt's...it's NOBLE.
God spoke to Trish in a dream and said he endorses a Denis Kucinich/Al Sharpton dream ticket for 2016
ReplyDelete"God spoke to Trish in a dream..."
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes. Yes he did. And he said, "Trish, don't worry about a bit of it."
Oh, wait. No. That was rufus.
I wish God would speak and say deliciously scathing things about people I despise and/or fear.
I wish God would speak and say, "Trish you were so totally right. And here's this lovely en suite just for you."
I wish God would speak and...
No. Not really.
I said recently that God's been away too long.
God (haha!) forbid he's been here all along.
God forbid there is one.
God forbid there isn't.
The best quote of the day:
ReplyDelete"The trouble with quotes on the internet is you never know whether they're true or not." - Abraham Lincoln.
"No. Not really."
ReplyDeleteOkay. Yes. Really.
More to the point, though, I wish God would speak and say, "There is no reason for faith. See? It's all true."
IF, that is, we make it past the Day of Doom and sail forth to such a lesser horror in our bleak and Godforsaken future.
ReplyDeleteDidn't you say that I had a dim outlook?
Apparently the PA prognosticators don't know about the Mayan calendar:
There are only 656 Mayan Calendar Days Left...
...Until 12/21/2012...
Don't forget to Live Large!!!
THIS is what I'm talking about, whit.
ReplyDeleteThe endless mind-fucking and dreary, addled searching-about that makes certainty or conviction of nearly any sort well nigh impossible.
I blame it on Evelyn Underhill. Who I like to think is really under hill. And not having such a sweet time of it.
That she hooked up with the Catholics...Well, that just might explain a bit.
In my opinion, Underhill has an undertow.
ReplyDelete"Didn't you say that I had a dim outlook?"
ReplyDeleteI've thought about that. It's an odd thing. Definitely an unexpected thing. That I should be introduced to a wholly tragic - or worse, meaningless - outlook.
I look back at last spring and don't quite know what to make of it. Nor this one.
What the heck happened?
ReplyDeleteWe'll muddle through. We always have.
ReplyDeleteDo you believe that life evolved from nothing, T?
ReplyDeleteWhit, life requires the sun as an engine, and there was a long period of chemical evolution before life when polymer chains developed ways of propagating their pattern to new generations before thermal collisions destroyed them. Life is an eternal war against entropy.
ReplyDeleteMan is the pinnacle of this process, as is evident in the news blurb below:
A fellow in Gilbert, Arizona was pulled from a city manhole on Tuesday after he had become stuck 25 feet down a pipe. The man said he was attempting to rescue trapped children. He was also nude. And he was also on PCP, marijuana, and 'shrooms, according to the police
"We'll muddle through. We always have."
ReplyDeleteYou know, T, that's smile-worthy.
Passenger crawls into airliner's cargo hold through bathroom, steals $238,000 (UK Daily Mail)
ReplyDeletehttp://bit.ly/htPrg8
WOW! Not a TSA employee.
"What the heck happened?"
ReplyDeleteYou asked me what I had in my fridge.
Eggs, cheddar and muffins, I said. IIRC.
ReplyDeleteThen the world turned upside down.
If anyone ever asks me what's in my fridge, I'll run screaming away.
As Alanis says, "You live, you learn."
Well Trish, obviously something significant has happened in your life and given your posts it wasn't very good. It sure would be nice if you elaborated, coherently, on that which addles you but I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of your satisfying that desire. I find it funny that you have come to resemble Ms. T.
ReplyDeleteBlogger whit said...
"So, Ash, do you think Judge Vinson is an activist judge?"
No, I think he was doing his job but I am struck by the perception that those who screamed "judicial activism" in the past are wholly in favor of this judge striking down Congresses and the Administrations legislation.
...and it's not funny as in 'ha ha' but rather in the way that 'man, there are a lot of messed up folk in the world'.
ReplyDeleteRemember, the role of the judiciary is to act as a check. Part of that responsibility is ruling on the constitutionality of legislation. Judicial activism comes into play when the judiciary legislates from the bench.
ReplyDelete"I find it funny that you have come to resemble..."
ReplyDeleteI have resembled a lot of folks over the years. A lot of stereotypes.
But I have no bone to pick biblically.
I haven't that interest.
I am sure it's a wonderful book.
It's just not mine.
"It's just not mine."
ReplyDelete: )
I asked "what's in your fridge?" and the world turned upside down.
ReplyDeleteThat was a coincidence, I hope.
naw, it isn't to act as a check but rather...
ReplyDelete...well, I'm splitting hairs here but, in essence, we agree.
I'd appreciate it if you would expand on the notion of "legislating from the bench" vs "acting as a check".
It seems to me that they are both essentially the same. The judiciary's job is to interpret and apply the Law. The Government is not above the law. I have no problem with the Judicial branch overturning both Congress and the Administration. They don't reign supreme but we must guard against the tyranny of the majority.
I am a big fan of Constitutional Law.
yes trish, there are many differences between you and Ms. T your neurotic opaqueness has become noticeably similar - i.e. no real statement of a position but rather a rambling attempt to be clever whilst not being intellectually honest.
ReplyDeleteLegislating from the bench is what happens when the judiciary goes beyond the law and in essence becomes a law unto itself. For instance, for many years, the judiciary dictated school desegregation, essentially issuing the laws and the punishments. In California, a judge has presumed to reform and redesign the Californian penal system. Instead of ruling that a law or rules were wrong, improper and inadequate and leaving it at that, he became a legislative, executive and judiciary all in one.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteaye but the split hair is "beyond the law". "the Law" encompasses a lot.
ReplyDeleteFor example one could (and I'm confident the lawyers in the Obamacare case) argue that that particular judge went "beyond the law" in rendering his judgement and is thus legislating from the bench thwarting the will of the people through striking down the legislation emanating from congress.
But that is the essence of the judiciary, it is the firewall against unconstitutional laws.
ReplyDeleteStriking down legislation is not the same as writing it. Had Judge Vinson insisted on his version of healthcare reform, that would have been judicial activism.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with, I think it was Quirk, when it was first brought up that forcing folk to buy health insurance could run into Constitutional problems. Better to nationalize the service and tax to pay but I digress.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to that notion I came across this interesting article today which some might feel counters my position:
"Canadians buy U.S. health care as weak economy pushes down prices
A flailing U.S. economy has helped push down prices for medical procedures, allowing middle class Canadians who previously couldn’t afford it to head south for heart operations, hip replacements and other procedures.
Open-heart surgery once cost upwards of $100,000 in the United States, but a triple bypass can now be had for as little as $16,000 U.S. And there are bargains on hip and knee replacements too: the going rate of $53,000 can be negotiated to less than $19,000."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-buy-us-health-care-as-weak-economy-pushes-down-prices/article1931073/
There is more to the article but making certain aspects of health care a commodity has its benefits!
but that is where the black and white of law gets gray - it isn't simply a matter of an up or down decision on a particular law but rather the application of a general law on a particular situation which, in effect, renders every judicial decision a 'legislative' one.
ReplyDeleteAnother case of judicial activism was Bush v. Gore in the 2000 election. Two lower courts had ruled against Gore's attempts to bypass the established election laws in the state. The Florida Supreme court overturned its lower courts and began making new election rules. The situation became hopelessly muddled with no clear standards for a statewide recount.
ReplyDeleteBlogger whit said...
ReplyDeleteBut that is the essence of the judiciary, it is the firewall against unconstitutional laws.
I'm not a lawyer, but no, I don't believe that is the essence of the judiciary - the vetting of laws passed by congress. Rather it is the application of the laws in particular situations. Laws, and their interpretation, can conflict of course and that is where the body of law, the appeals courts, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution come into play.
I don't know the details of the Bush vs Gore case and its legal implications but if memory serves the whole issue is still very muddied. In general it has been treated as a 'narrow' case. I guessing though....
ReplyDelete"no real statement of a position but rather a rambling attempt to be clever whilst not being intellectually honest."
ReplyDeleteI don't much like crowds.
You can sail through them when you're alone.
When you're two it's harder.
you can be a lot of things on the internet but being interesting ain't so easy...
ReplyDeletein short - mean what you say and be honest.
ReplyDeleteAll the rest of the stuff, that opaque alluding and desire to be clever is, well, tiresome.
good night!
"in short - mean what you say and be honest."
ReplyDeleteFuck you very much.
"that opaque alluding and desire to be clever"
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I wouldn't have to opaquely allude if I understood WHAT THE FUCKFUCKFUCK is going on around here.
Clever?
Buddy, I have NEVER IN MY LIFE felt myself so terribly unclever.
It's like that SNL skit in which some poor, clueless schlub finds himself on a Japanese game show where the penalties for wrong answers involve the lopping-off of appendages.
As to the matter of being interesting, you fat, yawning decadent, about the only interesting thing left on the internet is porn.
And I'm abstaining.
The Elephant Bar now somehow makes me think of Omegle.
ReplyDelete(Rhymes with Beagle!)
Honestly, if I understood what was going on, I wouldn't be here. Would I? It is, however ironically, my innocence (stirred together with some frighteningly bad judgment) that has me occasionally coming back.
Is it really that bad?
ReplyDeleteBuddy, I have NEVER IN MY LIFE felt myself so terribly unclever.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I feel which is okay because I find that I have little to offer. Sometimes I feel drained.
"Is it really that bad?"
ReplyDeleteWhat? My judgment?
Oh, yeah.
Well, then, whit. Look me up when you're in town (or just follow the buzzards, which circle overhead) and we'll share terrible uncleverness.
You, me, and the Ranger.
ReplyDelete"Sometimes I feel drained."
ReplyDelete[She hangs her head and sighs.]
"That was a coincidence, I hope."
ReplyDeleteKnow what I hope?
I hope that you don't actually know whether it was or wasn't.
I hope, with every fiber of my being, that what you know, whit, is precious little.
And I mean that with every drop of smiling hatred that I can muster.
ReplyDelete: )
ReplyDeleteSee?
No.
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not see. I have three clues but you should be happy because I know precious little if anything.
ReplyDeleteGuns, car keys, and keyboards should be kept away from depressed alcoholics.
ReplyDelete"No, I do not see."
ReplyDeleteThat's remarkable, whit, given that I've addressed my astonishing...predicament...here many times over the past few months.
The feigning of ignorance, in combination with the occasional sly acknowledgment and even surprisingly direct reference, is tiring.
The main actors in my "real" life are somewhat more helpful but there, too, it's an endless feedback loop between them and the Bar, or them and other media.
There's an endless feedback loop, too, between myself and the same media.
It has its humorous moments as well as those of sunny diversion, but mostly it's stretches of dull torture between hours of soul-squeezing anguish.
At the end of the day, I am confronted with the inhuman.
Whatever intelligence it possesses, it is lacking for a distinctly, uniquely human element.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am caught between.
I envision it sometimes as two massive celestial bodies of opposite nature passing slowly and silently, however impossibly, within mere feet of one another. Like the moon gliding darkly over the earth. Lying flat on my back and reaching up to let my fingertips graze lightly along its surface as it floats along overhead. The only soul alive.
Remember that Farside strip with the vulture donning the cowboy's hat and clothes? "Howdy! Howdy! Howdy! Look at me, fellas, I'm a cowboy!"
Does the inhuman like to play dress-up, rummaging through mother's closet and dad's dresser, for an afternoon or an eternity of make-believe at being a man or a woman or a child? President or princess or petty potentate? Grocery store clerk, mailman, secretary? Sailor, soldier, scamp?
I think it does.
And I think I get to be its audience of one.
"...make-believe at being a man or a woman or a child? President or princess or petty potentate? Priest? Grocery store clerk, mailman, secretary? Sailor, soldier, scamp?"
ReplyDeleteI've answered via email.
ReplyDelete