Margie Burns

Quick update: Pastor Terry Jones, Rush Limbaugh high school classmates

margieburns — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:17:14 -0400

Quick update: Pastor Terry Jones, Rush Limbaugh high school classmates

This short item shd be a footnote to today's blog entry on Roy Atchison and the GWBush DOJ, since Terry Jones is in the Northern District of Florida. But the blog posts are too long to accommodate many more inserts.

From Politics Daily and picked up at Talking Points Memo: As prominently noted on the Cape Central High School web site, Terry Jones, now of Koran-burning infamy, and Rush Limbaugh were classmates together in a relatively small school.

This uber-political stunt by the self-proclaimed pastor now fits into a ...

Roy Atchison, Part 2: The friendliest workplace in Florida?

margieburns — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:55:23 -0400

The Friendliest Little Old Workplace in Florida?

This blog entry is the second of a series of articles on John David Roy Atchison. Atchison, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola office, was arrested in Detroit in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007. Arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Department of Justice in the Bush ...

Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

margieburns — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:52:28 -0400

Roy Atchison: On the Paper Trail of a Pedophile, Part 1

Bush DOJ, revisited: This blog entry is the first of a series of articles on John David Roy Atchison. Atchison, anAssistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola office, was arrested in Detroit in September 2007 on charges relating to pedophilia. He committed suicide in federal prison in October 2007. Arrest and suicide were not foregrounded by the Department of ...

"Health Insurers Plan Hikes," and could the timing be sweeter?

margieburns — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:48:34 -0400

Health Insurers Plan Hikes

The Wall Street Journal reports it straight, up to a point, and the headline says it all—in a move brazen even for this period of unbridled corporate thuggery, “Health insurers plan hikes” just before the November 2010 elections.

To its eternal credit, WSJ also reported straightforwardly today that insurers are blaming the rate hikes on the health care bill—except that that item is couched in the no-fault, no-blame ...

The silly season and sour envy; WashPost campaigning against Obama, Dems

margieburns — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:57:00 -0400
The silly season and sour envy; WashPost campaigning against Obama, Dems

Heads up: For anyone who has not yet noticed, it is now after Labor Day, and the Washington Post is launching an all-out campaign against Obama, Democrats in both houses of Congress, and basically anything most people in this country might ever have voted for. The current campaign in the Post parallels the Post's earlier campaign against health care reform, almost exactly.

First they ignore you: just as it spent years ignoring any possibility of or need for health insurance reform, the Post spent more than a year ...

To whom did Blagojevich 'try to sell a senate seat'?

margieburns — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:57:33 -0400
To whom did Blagojevich 'try to sell a senate seat'?

The Blagojevich trial is over, and with a richly deserved black eye for the prosecution. On 23 out of 24 counts with which U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, in Chicago, tried to sandbag the defendants, the jury declared a mistrial. Blagojevich was found guilty on one count, lying to the F.B.I., the Martha Stewart kind of conviction.

As of today, the story making the rounds is a statement by a 21-year-old guy on the jury that the deadlock came from one juror. Time will tell whether the lone-holdout story is ...

BP oil spill may be spreading east

margieburns — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:27:17 -0400
BP oil spill may be spreading east

This may not be the time for I-told-you-so's. But I was worried from early on about the common denominator in BP's response to the oil gusher at the Deepwater Rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

The common denominator? --Apparently, their main emphasis was to keep as much away from the surface as possible.

The most recent news is that BP's use of 'dispersants' may have created plumes of oil on the ocean floor, now being detected far eastward of the oil rig disaster.

As I wrote previously, BP seemed to be doing ...

Blagojevich jury hung: There was no case

margieburns — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:58:58 -0400
Blagojevich jury hung: There was no case

To make one thing clear at the top, I have no prediction about the verdict in the Blagojevich 'trial'. It is often difficult to read a jury, and most attempts are fatuous. I did not make predictions about the outcome even in the trial of Irve Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Jr., where I was present in the courtroom half the days--unlike most of the commentators. I cannot predict the jury verdict in a trial I have not seen and heard.

The important point about the Blagojevich trial is that there is little or ...

Hillary Clinton would not be good assassination insurance

margieburns — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:06:43 -0400
Hillary Clinton would not be good assassination insurance

In one of those political non-stories that get floated periodically, a few media outlets are trying to pump up a suggestion that Vice President Joe Biden should be bumped from the Democratic ticket in 2012--to be replaced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This is the kind of item that gets pushed during summer doldrums.

It is easy to see why the GOP and its media allies would willingly boost this suggestion: Hillary Clinton was far less popular than Barack Obama in the last election cycle, especially among young people, and proved ...

Why is the National Rifle Association helping the drug cartels?

margieburns — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:28:08 -0400

Why is the National Rifle Association helping the drug cartels?

Amid all the fanfare and the genuine carnage in the increasingly violent war among and between Mexican drug cartels, there remains one dirty little secret.

While loudly trumpeting an unbridled right of citizens to bear arms north of the border, the National Rifle Association in this country is all but openly assisting the most violent of the violent Latin American drug ...