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Abernathy Strategies
RepublicanGazette
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 "When news breaks, we fix it" Published daily except some days
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The Republican Gazette welcomes Emails to the Editor and press releases. All submitted items must include the name and contact information for the author of the article, and all articles will only be published with the author's name included. Thank you for reading and participating in The Republican Gazette, another of West Virginia's most biased publications.
All opinions are those of The Republican Gazette and its editor, Gary Abernathy, except letters or commentary signed by others, and do not reflect the views of anyone else, including clients of Abernathy Strategies.
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Having Fun With Mojo
If Obama wins, all my plans are up in smoke!
Hey kids! Mojo here! So have you been following the presidential election? I have! I'm a little nervous, though! I'd hate to think I wasted all my time buttering up to Bill and Hillary for nothing! I mean, Bill and I really bonded! Remember? I even got him in here for a big Democratic Party fundraiser! Now Hillary's on the verge of blowing the whole deal! Geesh! Are you telling me she can't even beat a less-than-one-term senator from Illinois? This changes everything! Now I have to try harder to get reelected! I wasn't so worried about it before! I McCain moves within 249 delegates of nomination
JOHN McCAIN
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday moved within at least 249 delegates of officially securing the GOP presidential nomination with convincing wins in the states of Wisconsin and Washington. As of this writing, McCain has picked up at least 942 delegates -- just 249 short of the 1191 needed to lock up the Republican nomination.Mitt Romney, who dropped from the race and endorsed McCain, is second with 271 delegates (delegates Romney has now asked to support McCain), while Mike Huckabee, who continues to campaign, has 245.With most of the Romney delegates added, McCain is virtually assured of locking up the nomination on March 4.Starcher's angry recusal marred by flawed reasoning on influence, personal insults against staffer
In recusing himself from the Caperton-Massey case last week, Justice Larry Starcher once again found himself winding down the deep rabbit hole of what he considers judicial reasoning in arguing for Justice Brent Benjamin to also recuse himself.Starcher not only compares a situation in 1996 in which his campaign accepted thousands of dollars in contributions, to the 2004 campaign wherein Don Blankenship spent millions in an independent expenditure effort. In the process, Starcher set what may well be a sad precedent -- he attacked not just Brent Benjamin, but one of Brent Benjamin's law clerks.Starcher writes that in 1996, Charles McElwee, then a senior partner at Robinson & McElwee, asked Starcher to recuse himself from a case because Starcher's campaign committee had received nearly $37,000 from various trial lawyers. Starcher notes that he did indeed step aside as the trial judge in that asbestos case.Then, Starcher goes on to attack McElwee, now serving as Benjamin's senior law clerk. Starcher writes that McElwee now makes $90,000 a year in that position, but why this is relevant to anything is never explained. It was apparently just a personal jab that the very bitter Starcher found necessary to inject.Starcher goes on to say that the $37,000 in question from his 1996 campaign pales in comparision to the reported $4 million spent by Don Blankenship in 2004. What Starcher fails to note, of course, is that in the '96 case, the contributions in question went into his own campaign. The money spent by Blankenship in 2004 was through an independent effort completely outside the control or influence of Brent Benjamin.What Starcher and others who want Benjamin to recuse himself from Massey cases seem to be doing is producing a formula whereby outside influences can force judges to step off the bench at the whim of one party or the other.For example, let's say John Doe is a candidate for the Supreme Court and is considered friendly to business interests. Completely without his encouragement or permission, various business groups -- or one or two wealthy businessmen -- bind together to spend millions in independent expenditures to help elect him.
LARRY
STARCHER
Once elected, Justice Doe is pressured in case after case by every union or trial lawyer interest to recuse himself from any case connected to said business interests because, they say, he is obviously beholden to those interests who supported his campaign.For Justice Benjamin to step aside because his election was indirectly supported by someone with funds beyond his control or influence would be a dangerous precedent, and would open the door to frivolous motions for recusal against certain justices in almost endless cases, if enough individuals had supported a particular justice with sizable amounts of money.The fact is, every justice on the court who is considered friendly to frivolous litigants, namely Starcher and Joe Albright, should recuse themselves from practically every case that comes before them because of the amount of money ploughed directly into their campaigns by trial lawyers with vested interests in cases before the court.The latest buzzword from the Starcher-ites is that Blankenship's efforts have created a "cancer" on the court.In fact, it is the effort to politicize the recusal process that has created the cancer. The union and trial lawyer Democrats have grown desperate. They fear that the result of the 2008 election could result in a Supreme Court beyond their control.Through means which have not yet been made public, they came up with private pictures showing Justice Spike Maynard vacationing with Don Blankenship. They waged open warfare on Maynard and Benjamin, and in a last gasp effort, Starcher gambled, mistakenly, that his own recusal might force Benjamin to recuse himself as well.There has indeed been a serious illness on the court. Part of the cure happened in November 2004, and another step to wellness happened with Starcher's decision not to seek reelection. The election of Beth Walker this November -- and, in the absence of a second Republican candidate, the reelection of Spike Maynard -- could mark a return by the court to health and vitality, and an end to the sad, vicious and desperate political tactics we have witnessed in recent weeks through the unsavory efforts to politicize the recusal process.was planning to take a cabinet position in the Clinton administration, like Secretary of Energy! Now, I have to try harder to get reelected, and that's not as easy as it used to be, what with all the state workers and teachers and retirees so darn mad at me! It wasn't supposed to work this way! Hillary was supposed to have this all wrapped up by now, and the Republicans were supposed to be the ones fighting all the way to their convention! Four more years of being governor? What am I supposed to do during a second term? Sometimes I hate politics!
