Posts Made By: James Brown

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

I could care less about the failings of the past. Racism has been dying for decades, just let it DIE.....LOL

This is the real issue isn't it.  I agree with you that the Democrats are weaponizing the racist deeds of generations past for today's political gain.  I think that many of their tactics are divisive, entirely unhelpful, shortsighted and wrong.  I do not think we live in a modern Jim Crow state or that white supremacists are running the Republican party.  Overt racists are pretty rare in my experience.  I'm not black though, and I respect the experiences of others who have lived different lives and seen different things than I have.  

I also agree with James.  There is work to do before we achieve Martin Luther King's dream.  I am afraid that some factions on both sides no longer want an equal and color-blind society.  We still have modern-day race problems, even though these problems are vastly different than the overt racism of past generations.     

So, Mayor Pete was historically accurate, but we don't agree on how prevalent racist decision making affected municipal and highway planning.   We argued that nuance too long.  The answer is, "to some degree." 

One real modern-day political issue is whether it was helpful or harmful for Pete to bring up past racism when he is tasked with building the national infrastructure today?  That is a legitimate criticism of Pete in my opinion.   I can certainly see however, why some people of good will would applaud Pete for airing out these historical issues.  Jim

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Well, unlike Trump, any of Biden's choices for all of his picks elsewhere in the judicial system are approved as "qualified" by the American Bar Association. TEN of Trump's picks were rated as "unqualified":
https://ballotpedia.org/ABA_ratings_during_the_Trump_administration

Hi Rod:

I learned something new today - Biden has  stopped letting the ABA vet his nominees as of a year ago.  The D norm is now the same as the Trump practice.  Nominate first and let the ABA bitch about it later.  Back in the day, when Obama was president for example, the ABA vetted the potential nominee and then Obama moved on to the next candidate before any announcement was made, if the first candidate was dinged.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/us/politics/biden-american-bar-association-judges.html
https://www.law360.com/articles/1351739/biden-won-t-wait-for-aba-to-vet-judicial-picks
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/supreme-court/biden-administration-will-not-wait-for-aba-review-of-judicial-nominees-either/
https://www.city-journal.org/bidens-identity-driven-supreme-court-nomination

This is interesting on so many levels.  First, why would Biden emulate Trump in this way?  Some argue it is because Obama had too many diversity candidates dinged before they were announced for being unqualified.  See the NYT piece (#1 above) or the Heather Mac Donald opinion piece, #4 above. 

Second, why didn't you and I know this change in policy before?  It happened a year ago after all.  The answer in my opinion is that the press is covering for Biden.  Maybe no one actually cares what the ABA thinks, but I doubt that.   

Anyway, The reason Trump had 10 "unqualified" ratings and Obama had none is twofold.  First, Obama pulled his candidate from consideration if the ABA said "unqualified," before any announcement was made.  I applaud Obama for this.  Judges have talent levels and temperaments too, and you want absolutely want the best of the best, the Tom Bradys of the profession on the Supreme Court if you can get them, not the Joe Nobody candidates.  Second, the ABA is, in my opinion, more likely to ding a conservative.  

In any case, Biden is going to build up a list of "unqualified" nominations, same as Trump.  And he will be building it up before the ABA even weighs in.

Jim 

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Hi Jim,
"In any case, Biden is going to build up a list of "unqualified" nominations, same as Trump."
I'm not sure if you mean that the judges Biden nominates are unqualified because they haven't been rated either way by the ABA or if you mean they will eventually be rated as such by the ABA. If it's the latter, then I'm not sure what you're basing that statement upon because I'm not seeing that in the citations although I can't open all of them in their entirety. Can you clarify your statement for me with further explanation?

Hi Rod - I meant the latter, bolded bit.  I totally admit that I was just being snarky.  I do not believe that Biden has nominated anyone yet who was rated unqualified after the fact.  Heck, maybe Biden never will nominate someone deemed unqualified after the fact.  I sincerely hope that the judges he nominates are top-shelf legal minds.

I stand by my position that the ABA is liberal in their outlook, so it is less likely for them to rate a liberal candidate as unqualified, especially if the rating is made after nomination.  They don't want to make Biden look bad, but they certainly wanted to make Trump look bad.  Might have been Trump's fault.  You personally have questioned ACB's qualifications because of her political lean.   ACB is objectively as qualified as anyone could be.  

We know and expect that Biden will nominate liberals.  Let's both hope that he nominates brilliant liberals with outstanding legal minds and demeanor.  Jim

Got home yesterday from a short road trip.  We stayed in the old and historic Zion and Grand Canyon Lodges.  February is a great and completely un-crowded time to visit the Utah and Arizona National Parks, if the weather cooperates, and we totally lucked out - it was cool and clear every day.

You guys all know I support the reasonable steps most all of us took to save lives, especially at the beginning of the pandemic.   The national park lodges being federal property, I expected to, and did,  wear a mask when walking around inside.  

I have been happy to wear a mask when appropriate.  FWIW I agree with pretty much everything James Lacey posted while I was gone too.  It is not like I have become a pandemic scoff.  No harm masking, even though I personally believe the pandemic has moved beyond the point where reasonably healthy vaccinated or previously infected people are getting (or giving) much benefit from perfunctory masking.  Still, masking in the lodges was not much of a burden... Especially since no one was masking while we were sitting around a big fireplace in the lodge and sipping our beverage of choice... and you bet we did that every evening.

But leave it to the feds to take things a bit too far.  The rim trail at the Grand Canyon has all sorts of spectacular overlooks, many surrounded on three sides with a 4500' drop and miles and miles of free air.  Even so, the Park Service had these signs just about everywhere, outside too!  Pretty funny, in my opinion.  No one, except for a very few die-hards actually masked up while outside.   Jim

The shadows kind of obscure that particular sign, but they were everywhere.  I took a pic of this one, because someone had slapped a little ancillary sticker on it.  See below.  This made me smile too!

FWIW, this is the Grand Canyon maybe 10 minutes after sunset.  The sky was rosy and boy was it cold!  The dim colored light really accented the canyon walls.  About a 1/4 second exposure with tripod of course.  f 4.5 with a wide angle lens (set to about 12mm).

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Beautiful pic, Jim. I'd like to see a larger version, the colors are great.

Thanks Jim - here's another with slightly different framing.  Not sure which I like better.  I took a lot of duds, messing around with exposure time, focal length and f stops before and after sunset!

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

The picture in post #2 is really quite good. 

Thanks!

Never mind.

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah... “Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us,” he said.

I feel this way all the time.  J