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Some feel that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin received too much money as a trial lawyer. From the Register:
"Des Moines lawyer Roxanne Conlin has been sued by a national group of plaintiffs lawyers for not sharing with them a portion of the $75 million in fees that she and a Minnesota law firm received in a settlement in Iowa's civil antitrust case against Microsoft."
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There's been a lot of talk about the NAACP and racism recently, most notably revolving around the ridiculous charge that most Tea Party members are racist. This is a monumentally inaccurate charge, and I expect more from an organization as historically significant as the NAACP. However, a news story today was especially interesting, and the woman involved was promptly criticized by the NAACP. From Huffington Post:
"Shirley Sherrod, a USDA official in Georgia, has resigned after publicly admitting that race played a factor in her decision to limit how much aid would be given to a white farmer."
The NAACP agrees with her resignation, tendered to Iowa's own Tom Vilsack.
"We concur with US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod for her remarks at a local NAACP Freedom Fund banquet."
Preferring to help one race over another is unfortunate, and it's certainly good for groups such as the NAACP or the Tea Party to criticize trace elements of racism whenever they can, in the interest of American values of freedom and equality.
Quick update: The white farmers in question have come out in defense of Sherrod, and Sherrod has said that she holds no animosity for those farmers, despite her comments. To be honest, all of these years later, I absolutely believe her, and I'm quite sure that Sherrod is sorry for the unfortunate comments that she made. As for the NAACP, they have retracted their criticism.
Interesting enough, she lays some of the blame on the NAACP because of:
the NAACP's recent resolution calling on the Tea Party movement to repudiate racist elements within it...The controversy has led one Tea Party group to oust another because of a blog posting by the second group's leader.
Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams posted on his blog a faux letter from Jealous to President Abraham Lincoln in which Williams ridicules the organization's use of "colored" in its historic name and uses multiple stereotypes to bolster his point. The National Tea Party Foundation expelled Williams' organization from its coalition as a result.
Sherrod on Tuesday called the NAACP "the reason why this happened. They got into a fight with the Tea Party, and all of this came out as a result of that."
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On a separate note, I'm glad that the aforementioned Mark Williams was expelled from the Tea Party Coalition. His letter was unhelpful and rather inappropriate.
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Apparently several liberal journalists wished to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright during President Obama's presidential campaign.
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Finally, the constitutionality of Obamacare is currently being challenged in court. If you read only one New York Times article this year, make sure it's this one. After you finish with it, read this abstract which deals with the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Here's a quick version for those who may not have time to read both articles.
1. During the health care debate, the following exchange occurred on ABC:
“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”
When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”
2. This bold statement from Obama makes sense, because President Obama promised not to create any new taxes, especially for the middle and lower class.
3. After the the law was challenged in court, the President's legal team, realizing that the law was most likely unconstitutional using the commerce clause, made the switch, and said that Obamacare is indeed a new tax...most likely an excise tax.
4. It may not matter, because according to Steven Willis and Nakku Chung from the University of Florida, this health care excise tax, for all intents and purposes, in unconstitutional.
5. However, we do know that the President conveniently promised that Obamacare was NOT a tax before it passed, and then stated that it was a tax, only after it was passed into law. It's a classic bait and switch, which of course, is change we can believe in!
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