June 23rd, 2008
Check out Barack Obama’s new “presidential seal” …
Here’s the actual presidential seal:
Yeah, that’s a bit much on Obama’s part.
He may want to stay focused on winning his race for president, not pretending to be president.
More discussion here and here.
UPDATE 1
Obama drops his “presidential seal” …
Barack Obama’s communications director said Monday that the presidential seal the campaign unveiled last week at a meeting with Democratic governors won’t be seen again.
“That was a one time thing for a one time event,” Robert Gibbs told CNN.
June 23rd, 2008
Hillary Clinton, the presidential wannabe, will join Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for a campaign even this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire.
From an Obama campaign news release:
FRIDAY: Senators Clinton and Obama to Campaign Together in Town of Unity, New Hampshire
Candidates received 107 votes apiece in Granite State town
CHICAGO, IL— Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama announced today that they will hold a “Unite for Change” Rally this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire. Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary.
More details to be announced soon.
FRIDAY, JUNE 27
Unity, NH
UNITE FOR CHANGE RALLY
UPDATE 1
The Trib has more.
June 23rd, 2008
Will the great flood of 2008 save Rod Blagojevich’s political career?
It’s doubtful, given the Illinois governor’s extreme unpopularity (his popularity rating neared 13 percent in recent months) and his ongoing troubles (continuing federal probe of his administration, talk about possible impeachment and his fundamental difficulty with managing state government).
But it’s clear that catastrophic flooding of Illinois communities was, for Blagojevich over the last week, the gift that kept on giving. Each day, the governor traveled to flood-ravaged scenes while his handlers focused on producing a steady stream of news releases highlighting the governor’s efforts.
From the AP …
When Gov. Rod Blagojevich stopped to visit volunteers filling sandbags to fight floodwaters threatening this Mississippi River town, the spotlight was not on impeachment. Or his ongoing feud with lawmakers. Or the conviction of his top political fundraiser.
Instead, the Democratic governor was greeted with smiles and handshakes — even by 25-year-old Quincy Republican Kent Voth, who took a break from shoveling sand to mug for a picture with Blagojevich.
“I’m glad he came,” Voth said.
Besides offering the governor a chance to show himself as a leader with his finger on the pulse of real concerns in Illinois, the flood was a great distraction last week from matters the governor would perhaps rather not focus on.
For starters, there’s that state budget plan the governor claims is more than $2 billion out of balance. The governor has done his best to make a big fuss about how he believes this budget plan is unconstitutional, but he has yet to say exactly what he might do to rectify the problem.
Will he veto the budget? Call lawmakers back into special session? He won’t say. The next fiscal year — a year for which this state does not have a budget — begins July 1.
The flood gave the governor a week off from that intensifying public conversation. He’s just a hard-working governor trying to make things right for the hard-working, regular people of Illinois, and not the least bit concerned about all that budget and impeachment talk, after all.
Today, the governor plans to continue his publicity tour:
EAST ALTON – Governor Rod R. Blagojevich will sign a new law allowing Mississippi river counties to collect funds for emergency levee repair and flood prevention to provide immediate assistance to areas affected by recent flooding in Illinois.
WHO: Governor Rod R. Blagojevich
Mayor Don Sandidge
State Sen. Haine
State Sen. James Clayborne
State Rep. Jay Hoffman
State Rep. Dan Beiser
State Rep. Tom Holbrook
Alan Dunstan, Madison County Board Chairman
Mark Kern, St. Clair County Board Chairman
WHEN: 2:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Melvin Price Lock & Dam
1 Lock and Dam Way
East Alton, IL 62024
The flood also served as nifty cover for Blagojevich to skip a forum that Barack Obama sponsored on Friday to show support for his presidential bid from Democratic governors (like Blagojevich).
Obama’s people said they had in fact invited Blagojevich to attend (Blagojevich is Obama’s home-state governor), but it’s hard to imagine Obama and his people weren’t happy not to have Blagojevich sharing the stage with Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee. Obama must worry about the luster of his own spotlight.
June 23rd, 2008
As you may know, I’ve taken a keen interest in the fact that judges tend to refuse to consent to breath tests — or, in many cases, roadside sobriety tests — when arrested for DUI.
A motorist faces a mandatory license suspension for refusing to blow, but he or she denies the state solid evidence of intoxication. (There is no such mandatory suspension for refusing a road sobriety test.)
Who knows the law better than a judge? They tend not to blow.
Well, Kane County prosecutors have an answer for motorists who refuse to blow: They’ll take blood to prove intoxication, with or without consent.
From the Tribune:
The county’s first “no-refusal weekend” was aimed at repeat offenders who have found a loophole in Illinois law that issues a penalty for refusing a Breathalyzer test that is less severe than having another DUI conviction.
More than 40 percent of 158 drivers arrested on a DUI charge in April in Kane County refused the test, a number that parallels national statistics, according to authorities.
Without blood-alcohol evidence, “it’s much more difficult to win a refusal case,” Kane County State’s Atty. John Barsanti said.
While new in Illinois, the legal tool has become popular in other states. But it also has raised constitutional and ethical questions from defense attorneys and health officials.
UPDATE 1
A man who refused to provide blood, even after prosecutors secured a warrant for that blood, is now facing a contempt charge.
Stehlik is scheduled to be in court at 9 a.m. Friday. Assistant State’s Attorney Clint Hull said there is no set guideline for contempt of court sentencing, but typically it is less than 180 days in jail. A judge could find someone in contempt, but sentence them to no time, Hull said.
In the future, Barsanti expects avoiding criminal contempt will be the final incentive for drivers who won’t comply with breath or blood tests.
“If the judge finds him in contempt, that will give us some direction,” Hull said.
June 23rd, 2008
The Politico.com today published a mostly glowing profile of Barack Obama’s time as president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama was the first African-American to head the prestigious student-run publication.
The eight dense volumes produced during his time in charge there — 2,083 pages in all — show the Review to have been a decidedly liberal institution, albeit one in transition as its focus on race and gender was contested by both liberals and conservatives. Under his tenure, the Review published calls to expand the powers of women, African-Americans and the elderly to sue for discrimination.
But Obama, who this March referred to “identity politics” as “an enormous distraction,” was not so easily pinned down. He published a searing attack on affirmative action by a former Reagan Administration official. And when, in an unusual move, he selected a young woman from a non-Ivy League law school to fill one of the Review’s most prestigious slots, she produced an essay focused on individual responsibilities as much as on liberties, which criticized both conservative judges and feminist scholars.
The article quotes scholars whose work the Law Review, under Obama’s direction, published. It also walks through the focus of several of those articles.
It concludes:
In the end, though, Obama’s time on the review mirrored other aspects of his life. Even in the staunchly liberal milieus in which he’s spent his entire adult life, Obama has managed to lead without leaving a clear ideological stamp, and to respect and even at times embrace opposing views. To his critics, that’s a sign of a lack of core beliefs. To his admirers, it’s the root of his appeal.
