Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli's Growing Legal Losing Streak

As regular readers already appreciate, I view Virginia Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli to be a dangerous, delusional menace to the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Worse yet, he's a religious extremist.  And if one is an LGBT Virginian, the man should send shivers down you spine and scare the living day lights out of you because this man wants to be Governor of Virginia.  Kookinelli would make Bob "Taliban Bob" "Governor Ultrasound" McDonnell look like a flaming liberal.  Yet Kookinelli's record as Virginia's top attorney has been one of a growing list of legal debacles where he has filed lawsuits based on lunatic far right ideology only to go down in flames every time.  Thursday's health care ruling but the U. S. Supreme Court is yet the latest example of Kookinelli being flat ass wrong on his legal analysis.  Based on Kookinelli's continually flawed legal skills, he should not be attorney general much less governor.  A piece in the Washington Post examines Cuccinelli's trail of failed lawsuits. Here are excerpts:

When it comes to high-profile legal cases, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II reminds me of Teddy  .   .  .  .   the oversized, foam-headed Teddy mascot who “competes” against other presidents in fourth-inning footraces at Nationals Park.  Teddy, famously, has never won. With two new, major court defeats last week, Cuccinelli’s record is almost as woeful. 

With these latest reverses, it’s clear that Cuccinelli’s legal crusades serve primarily to win him right-wing acclaim and not to actually roll back the allegedly tyrannical liberal legislation he decries.

The ambitious Virginia conservative, who’s running for governor, lost big on Thursday when the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health-care reform act. Cuccinelli (R) had become a nationally known tea party champion by rushing in 2010 to be the first state attorney general to file suit against the law, acting just minutes after the president signed it. 

He suffered another setback on Tuesday when a federal appeals court in the District slapped down a legal case against the Environmental Protection Agency.

[Cuccinelli's]  he’s had a remarkable number of losses on closely watched cases [suits against UVA on climate change and a lawsuit against Mellon Bank] .   .  .  .  .  The twin defeats last week, however, were landmarks. For Cuccinelli and other conservative legal activists, health care and climate change have been marquee issues in which they sought to portray the Obama administration as trampling on the Constitution and threatening American liberties.  Now they’ve had their day in court – and lost. 

The reverses feel particularly dramatic because the tea party’s rhetoric about the stakes has been so apocalyptic. In his initial response to the health-care ruling, Cuccinelli called it “a dark day for the American people, the Constitution and the rule of law.”

Consider the extremity of that statement. A Supreme Court decision written by a conservative chief justice supposedly threatened “the rule of law” just because it upheld a moderately liberal social program that Cuccinelli viewed as unjustified.  

“It’s a nice spin, but a loss is a loss,” said Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond. 

The setback in the EPA case was even more resounding. Cuccinelli argued that the EPA was wrong to rely on outside scientists to help it conclude that human activity is leading to global warming.

The court mocked that contention.

So far, regardless of the legal outcomes, Cuccinelli’s courtroom drives have worked for him politically. He’s the darling of the Virginia Republican conservative base.  .   .   .   .    At some point, though, symbolism alone will not be enough. It may work at the ballpark for Teddy, who’s celebrated as lovable. But for a politician, in the long run, voters aren’t going to respect a loser. 

What is truly disconcerting is the amount of state resources Cuccinelli has squandered in pursuing frivolous lawsuits which do not sxcite anyone outside of the Kool-Aid drinking, Bible beating GOP base.  Meanwhile, legitimate issues go unaddressed.  Cuccinelli has in effect been using state funds to run a de facto GOP primary campaign.  He ought to have to reimburse Virginia for these squandered resources.

Joe Solmonese Needs to Resign

As readers know well, I am no fan of the folks at HRC who are only too happy to suck up LGBT money, describe themselves as the largest LHBT civil rights organization, and then do nothing but ass kiss politicians so as not to get stricken from the D.C. cocktail party circuit list. Oh yes, a "stern" letter or two will be issued on occasion but HRC never moves to attach severe consequences to the failure of politicians to deliver on promises. In fact, HRC's main role seems to be providing cover to lying and disingenuous politicians. And leading this clusterf*ck organization is Joe Solmonese - one of DC's best dressed - who promised back in February that he'd deliver DADT repeal this year Here's the video:


Mr. Solmonese needs to resign if DADT does not occur and I would even argue return his salary since he surely has not earned it. Pam Spaulding has likewise had enough of HRC's and Solmonese's bullshit and lays out the case for Solmonese's resignation. Here are highlights:

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It's time for the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese to tender his resignation. By any sane performance metrics, he has failed to successfully lead. Promises like those made in the "This year we are going to bring down DADT" video at the HRC Carolinas dinner on Feb. 27 were used to extract money from low-info, fat wallet attendees. It's rinse and repeat at events like that around the country and there is precious little to show for it in terms of the major promises made by Solmonese -- and this President.

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Joe Solmonese should do the honorable thing and step down. It is shameful to cash all those checks without the follow through on the job. The White House was never put under serious pressure; the late calls now in the e-blasts for the President to do something ring hollow after the toadying that has gone on for two years.

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It's a big f'ing mess because there has been piss-poor leadership by those who are lobbied in government. In turn it's the unelected, highly marketed, well-tailored representative of the entire LGBT community, Joe Solmonese of HRC, who also has to be held accountable for these failures. It's clear that those in power had no fear of the vast war chest of HRC being used to turn up the heat. No, the heat came from less well-heeled activists who didn't have the access to power, only voices and fearlessness to call out the purposeful foot-dragging and inaction.

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[F]or HRC to become the organization the community needs it to be in terms of a lobbying organization with access to our elected power brokers, it will take more than Joe Solmonese's resignation. The organization is multi-faceted and is populated with well-meaning, hard working people who deserve better leadership -- and the buck stops at Joe's desk.

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It is not divisive to ask what have we gotten for the $80 million that flowed into the coffers of the Human Rights Campaign when it comes to leadership. . . . For those who simmer with anger and immediately call any criticism the "circular firing squad", that's disingenuous. There have been plenty of kudos for what has been accomplished (including those Cinderella Crumbs); but we're talking about a long list of major issues (DADT, ENDA, etc.) that were not seriously pushed after the promises were made.

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That can only change if there is a thorough shake-up, even if only a symbolic one such as Solmonese's departure, that can signal an understanding of the magnitude of disconnect, discord and failure to lead that needs to be addressed. How that occurs is up to the board of HRC - so my little call for a change at the top is of little significance other than it's just me sharing my two cents and you all reacting to it in the comments.

Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell Seeks Funds for Failed Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Never mind that numerous studies have documented that abstinence only sex education programs do not work and, in fact, often lead to higher teen pregnancy rates. Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell could care less that such programs are a blatant waste of public funds. Nope, acting I suspect on the orders of Victoria Cobb and the faux Christians at The Family Foundation, Taliban Bob wants to pursue funding for more ineffective and religious based sex education programs. If the Christo-fascists are happy, who cares if the programs actually work or not. As for Victoria Cobb's comments, from years of experience, if Ms. Cobb's lips are moving, she's lying. One might as well rely on an Ouija board rather than any data cited or claimed by The Family Foundation. as The Virginian Pilot has coverage on McDonnell's wrong headed pursuit of such funding. Here are some highlights:
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Abortion-rights groups Tuesday denounced Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to seek a federal grant for abstinence-only sex education while shunning funds available for comprehensive pregnancy and disease-prevention instruction.
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Virginia's Health Department recently applied for a $1.27 million federal grant for supplementary abstinence instruction funds.
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"Given Virginia's economic situation, wasting $400,000 of taxpayer money for an ineffective program is not a good use of the commonwealth's limited resources" wrote Jessica Honke, the group's policy director.
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"The simple fact is that young people deserve honest information, not political ideology, in their health classrooms." The Family Foundation of Virginia defended McDonnell's choice.
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State Sen. Ralph Northam, a Norfolk Democrat and a physician, said abstinence should be the goal but said he is disappointed McDonnell chose to disregard the chance to acquire federal dollars with more flexibility of use.
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While abstinence is the only guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, Northam said, "the reality is with teenagers their hormones come into play, and abstinence-only doesn't always work."
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"We should at least teach our teenagers, I believe, all aspects of family planning and all the options that are available," Northam added. "There should be a comprehensive plan to sex education that strongly encourages abstinence-only, but it needs to be comprehensive."

What the WikiLeaks Disclosures Should Trigger But Won't

I have been against the adventurism launched by Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney in Iraq and Afghanistan from the outset. I clearly recall watching the television news as the Chimperator announced the U.S. military was going into those countries and thought to myself that Bush's hubris and Cheney's insanity would bring nothing good for the USA. Here we are years later and those fears have been confirmed. Thousands of U.S. servicemembers dead, countless thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians dead, in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars just as effectively wasted as if it had been put in a pile and lighted on fire. The recent WikiLeaks disclosures have only served to underscore the fool's errand the USA has been on from the get go. Yet what is the reaction - especially from the military which has been caught with its pants down and Barack Obama who disingenuously promised change in failed foreign policy and to be a "fierce advocate" for LGBT rights? Condemnation. But of the leaker(s) and WikiLeaks, not the misdeeds disclosed - some of which merit serious of criminal prosecution - and the utterly false premises behind so much of the deadly and costly misadventures. Not all in the media are buying into the ploy of shifting attention from what ought to properly be the focus of attention following the disclosures, but too much of the MSM is - as is the norm - merely parroting the White House and military disinformation. Sometimes being a true patriot means going against leaders who are taking the nation down a disastrous road. Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, has been charged with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code. If the leaks result in change in a failed policy, he more probably should be given a medal for exposing the lies of the military and some of the truth about what is really happening in Afghanistan. Here are highlights from some who are on target as to what ought to be happening. First from Glenn Greenwald at Salon:
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[A]s was painfully predictable and predicted, the bulk of political discussion in the wake of the WikiLeaks disclosures focuses not on our failing, sagging, pointless, civilian-massacring, soon-to-be-decade-old war, but rather on the Treasonous Evil of WikiLeaks for informing the American people about what their war entails. While it's true that WikiLeaks should have been much more careful in redacting the names of Afghan sources, watching Endless War Supporters prance around with righteous concern for Afghan lives being endangered by the leak is really too absurd to bear. You know what endangers innocent Afghan lives? Ten years of bombings, checkpoint shootings, due-process-free hit squads, air attacks, drones, night raids on homes, etc. etc.
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Numerous government officials are predictably threatening not only WikiLeaks' sources with criminal prosecution, but WikiLeaks itself. That, of course, would be a major escalation of the Obama administration's war on whistle blowing leaks, which already easily surpasses the war waged by the Bush administration. . . . . allowing prosecutions not for those who leak classified information, but also for those who receive and publish it, would obviously allow criminal sanctions to be aimed at journalists who publish or report on classifed information.
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[T]he Obama administration is now advocating changes to the law that would empower federal law enforcement agents to compel companies to turn over citizens' Internet records without a warrant or any other form of judicial oversight.
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The latter move sounds like something out of the former Soviet Union or present day China. The sad truth is that if one had reason to fear for their privacy and civil rights under the Bush/Cheney regime, things are now even worse under Obama. Yes, Obama is bringing change - but not the change he was elected to bring about. Why does the word "LIAR" keep springing to mind? Here via CNN is what the founder of WikiLeaks has to say back to Obama and the DOD:
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that he was disappointed by criticism from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over the release of about 76,000 pages of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
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Gates said Thursday that the massive leak will have significant impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures. Assange rejected that assessment Friday, saying in a release that Gates "has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Assange's statement Friday was harshly critical of Gates, particularly over deaths in Afghanistan. "Secretary Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings," the statement said. "He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed. He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground. He could have apologized to the Afghani people.
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"But he did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them. "This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others."

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Frankly, I don't believe anything Gates has to say - and my inability to believe Obama isn't far behind. Things have changed in Washington, alright. And for the worse.

Why the Army's Best and Brightest Young Officers Are Leaving

Washington Monthly has a good story on why young officers are leaving today's U. S. military (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0712.tilghman.html) and the long term damage it will cause the military. It's a long article, but can be summed up basically by citing a few principal causes: (1) an ill conceived war, (2) an equally ill conceived execution of the war , and (3) an unsustainable numbers of deployments that exhausts officers and destroys their family lives. Thank you Chimperator!!! Here are some brief highlights:

For several years now, we've been hearing alarming warnings about the strain that the Iraq War has placed on the military. Since the conflict began, around 40 percent of the Army and Marine Corps' large-scale equipment has been used, worn out, or destroyed. Last year, the Army had to grant waivers to nearly one in five recruits because they had criminal records. There are no more combat-ready brigades left on standby should a new conflict flare.

These problems are of vital concern, and are reasonably well understood in newsrooms and on Capitol Hill. But the top uniformed and civilian leaders at the Pentagon who think hardest about the future of the military have a more fundamental fear: young officers—people like Matt Kapinos—are leaving the Army at nearly their highest rates in decades. This is not a short-term problem, nor is it one that can simply be fixed with money.

A decline in officer retention, in other words, threatens both the Army's current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its long-term institutional future. And though many senior Pentagon leaders are quite aware of the problem, there's only so much they can do to reverse the decline while the United States maintains large numbers of troops in Iraq.

But the problem isn't one of numbers alone: the Army also appears to be losing its most gifted young officers. In 2005, internal Army memos started to warn of the "disproportionate loss of high-potential, high-performance junior leaders." West Point graduates are leaving at their highest rates since the 1970s (except for a few years in the early 1990s when the Army's goal was to reduce its size). Of the nearly 1,000 cadets from the class of 2002, 58 percent are no longer on active duty.

raq, in one way or another, is a driving force behind many officers' decision to leave. For some, there's a nagging bitterness that the war's burden is falling overwhelmingly on men and women in uniform while the rest of the country largely ignores it. While many officers don't oppose the war itself, returning repeatedly to serve in Iraq is a grueling way to live. One of the many reasons for this is that it corrodes their families; the divorce rate among Army officers has tripled since 2003. Internal surveys show that the percentage of officers who cite "amount of time separated from family" as a primary factor for leaving the Army has at least doubled since 2002, to more than 30 percent.

Over the past three months, I talked to numerous former officers around the country. What struck me most was their dissatisfaction with the way the Army leadership is managing the war, and the part that played in their decision to leave.

But the greatest concern is how the exodus of the best and brightest will affect the Army's long-term capacity to win wars, counter threats, and keep the peace. Today's lieutenants and captains are the pool from which three- and four-star generals will be chosen twenty years from now. If the sharpest minds aren't in that pool, we could wind up—to put it bluntly—with a senior leadership of dimwits.

Among the thousands of their peers who left the Army after the war ended, were there a small handful of exceptional leaders who might have helped the military better prepare for a post-9/11 world? "The senior leadership of the Army and Marine Corps were slow to understand the nature of the Iraq War," said Andrew Bacevich, a professor at Boston University and a retired Army colonel who served in Vietnam as a junior officer and who lost a son in Iraq.