Jersey … Again!

April 10, 2014

I wrote Jersey and the Fifth Amendment on March 13, four weeks ago. No answers yet, although the news was chock-a-block full of New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson’s ruling on motions for protective orders filed by Bridget “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” Kelly (Governor Chris Christie’s former Deputy Chief of Staff) and Bill Stepien, the governor’s campaign manager. Here’s NJ.com’s NJ Judge Rules against Bridge Scandal Panel in Subpoena Fight overview of the court ruling. The story offers the level of information and detail found in most of the stories. Lots of quotes from the ruling, and statements from counsel, and not much analysis.

(The ruling is reportedly 98 pages

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Guns

April 9, 2014

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Recognize those 27 words? Yes, you just read the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The goofy far Right people dominate the comments from the pro-gun side. That’s Mike Huckabee, Ann Coulter, Rep. Louis Goemert, etc. Intermingled with that crowd, though, we get sage wisdom from the water carriers for American business and the Establishment. They tell us why gun control doesn’t work, and why freedom and the Constitution must be respected. And, and this is the one that really drives me nuts, they tell us we can’t overreact.

We can’t overreact? Why

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The Wednesday Curator – 4/9/14

April 8, 2014

Boy howdy, does Wednesday roll around quickly. (I saw CBS coverage of the Masters in a restaurant yesterday, and realized just how far into 2014 we are!) Anyway, here’re some of the web posts that have caught my eye recently.

Those who know me well know guns are not on “favorite things” list. I have avoided the subject pretty assiduously because it raises strong, strong feelings. (I have a piece mostly written that I’ve not yet finalized for that reason.) Still, I thought The Gun Is Never the Problem:  A Guide to Right-Wing Responses to Mass Shootings, from Media Matters for America, addressed clearly how one media sector reports on mass shootings. I don’t have answers here, but

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Unintended Consequences

April 7, 2014

In A Life at Fifty-ish I share the story about how Judge Harry Blackmun became Justice Harry Blackmun. For lovers of stories about unintended consequences, it’s a doozy! (To get an e-copy of A Life at Fifty-ish go to Mark Rubin Writes, click on Free Book, and fill in the blanks.)

Two other unintended consequences stories both involve sitting U.S. Senators. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is the star of our first story. He is an Alabama boy, born and raised, and a University of Alabama School of Law graduate.

Jeff Sessions became the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in 1981. President Ronald Reagan nominated him, he was confirmed by the Senate, and he served for

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At the Zoo!

April 6, 2014

I thought about the creationism/evolution battle on Friday because I went to the zoo. The San Diego Zoo. The ZOO!

We’re living in what seem like the death throes of a debate over how long we’ve been around, who placed us here on this third rock from the Sun, whether the word of the Lord explains all or nothing, etc. We can’t turn around without hearing about the debate between Bill Nye (The Science Guy) and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum. Or the hollering because Neil deGrasse Tyson did not include creationism—it was creation science for a while, but the science thing seems to be “left behind”—in his Cosmos series. Or about textbooks that must not favor the

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Monello

April 5, 2014

Monello means “brat” in Italian. Not a very nice name, but there’s a back story. Monello is the younger, less fancy sibling of Bencotto. Thus, brat fits. Both are top-drawer Little Italy food emporiums. (San Diego’s Little Italy, that is.) And I’m here to report on dinner at Monello.

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Monello focuses on food with a seriousness of purpose not found in many places. None I can think of, anyway. The sweet vermouth is homemade in the restaurant, and combines an extraordinary mix of herbs and other additions. You won’t want the bottled stuff, ever again! Cured meats are outstanding. (Prior visit.) Pastas are made in-house, and are cooked perfectly. (See below.) The mozzarella cheese last night was made

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McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission

April 3, 2014

Nearly 40 years ago in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per curiam), this Court considered the constitutionality of laws that imposed limits upon the overall amount a single person can contribute to all federal candidates, political parties, and committees taken together. The Court held that those limits did not violate the Constitution. Id., at 38; accord, McConnell v. Federal Election Comm’n, 540 U. S. 93, 138, n. 40, 152–153, n. 48 (2003) (citing with approval Buckley’s aggregate limits holding). The Buckley Court focused upon the same problem that concerns the Court today, and it wrote:

“The overall $25,000 ceiling does impose an ultimate restriction upon the number of candidates and committees with which an individual may associate

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The Wednesday Curator – 4/2/14

April 1, 2014

Wednesday has arrived; here’s the best of what the Wednesday Curator has read this week. Enjoy!

I haven’t ventured into Arizona politics much—at all?—here, and that is no accident. I did, however, find How the Right Hijacked Arizona, written by James Oliphant and published in National Journal Online on March 31, very interesting and worth my time.

He Remade Our World is the fifth installment in Mark Danner’s New York Review of Books series on, so far, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. Here are links to Rumsfeld’s War and Its Consequences Now (No. 1) and In the Darkness of Dick Cheney (No. 4). (Donald Rumsfeld Revealed (No. 2) and Rumsfeld:  Why We Live

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Snoozer!

March 31, 2014

From time to time people erupt about the Ninth Circuit, formally the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It hasn’t happened often lately, but like the swallows of San Capistrano and General MacArthur, it will return!

The entire country is divided into 12 federal judicial circuits. Eleven encompass all of the states and territories, and there is the D.C. Circuit in Washington. The appellate courts for these 12 circuits handle all federal court appeals, with limited exceptions.

The Ninth Circuit is the largest circuit, by area and population. The circuit includes Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Eleven states and territories, a huge landmass, and lots and lots

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March Madness Thoughts (and Pizza)

March 30, 2014

Fifty-nine games played, and by the time some of you read this, that number will be 60. There will be 63 total games—not counting those play-in games on the first Tuesday—in NCAA March Madness, the post-season Division 1 men’s basketball tournament. In the end there will have been lots of fun, some money exchanges between regular people, lots of coin changing hands at the sports books in Las Vegas and elsewhere, plenty of ad revenue for CBS and TBS, and a strong sense in host cities that they receive an economic boost from hosting part of the tournament, actual numbers notwithstanding. Oh, there will also be a National Champion!!!

Every year storiesstories, and

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