To my surprise and delight I have learned that I am being considered by Governor Jerry Brown for an appointment to the local Superior Court. After 20 years of practice as a criminal defense attorney, I am highly honored to be receiving this consideration. Unfortunately it has been "suggested" to me by those familiar with the process to avoid pubic user blogs, even anonymous ones, at least until a decison is reached. As such, I will not be posting on this site for a while.
I am told that even with my name now on the Governor's list under consideration there still is only about a 1 in 3 chance of recieving the appointment. Reputation and ability helps get a person onto the list, but in the end, politics plays the central role in actually recieving the appointment.
Au revoir.
Close to one in three American teens and young adults get arrested by age 23, according to a new study by researchers at University of North Carolina-Charlotte. The arrests are for everything from underage drinking and petty theft to violent crime, researchers said. "The vast majority of these kids will never be arrested again," said John Paul Wright, who studies juvenile delinquency at the University of Cincinnati's Institute of Crime Science. read more
Different people will take this different ways, but Jeffrey Goldberg tells us that six members of the Walton family (the original owners of WalMart) have more wealth than the bottom 30 % of Americans. Here's where he says it:
In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans.
And given that he quotes us here at Forbes on the point, he's almost certainly right.
The question is, what are we to make of this point?
Michael Tomasky: How can Barack Obama, as this new NBC/Marist poll has it, be beating Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in South Carolina, of all places? The leads are narrow -- it's just 45-42 over Romney and 46-42 over Gingrich. ... Is it conceivable that 10 months and three weeks from now, Obama could actually win the state? If it happens, we will know that the Republicans are headed off the cliff. And that is precisely where we should all hope they go. read more
President Barack Obama heralded the end of the Iraq war Monday, telling Iraq's neighbors that the United States would remain a major player in the region even as it brings its troops home. "Our strong presence in the Middle East endures," Obama said. "And the United States will never waiver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests." About 1 million U.S. troops have cycled through Iraq since the war began almost nine years ago. Obama said the military can withdraw from Iraq "with honor and with their heads held high."
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