Aftershock
ArchPundit
After a busy two weeks, nothing like being awoken to an earthquake. And then sitting here during the day and the aftershock.
April 2008
Daily Dolt: The Frank Burns of the 10th District Strikes Again
Team America is getting his panties in a twist because, get this, Dan Seals includes where he works on his campaign site:
A group of NU students are not so willing to let Seals slide, however. In addition to less formal protests against Seals from NU students, a formal letter has been sent to NU President Henry S. Bienen, and a letter has also been sent to the Daily Northwestern student newspaper. TA will hopefully have a copy of the Bienen letter later today.
Among other issues, these students have noted:
The School of Continuing Studies recently appointed Seals to teach a Special Topics class in Federal Policymaking one night a week for two months in Spring Quarter. While NU faculty members certainly have run for political office in the past, we are aware of no situation where the university has hired an active political candidate. Not only does this create a questionable legal dilemma, but it appears to be in violation of the rules and regulations as outlined in the Faculty Handbook.
Pages 16-17 of the handbook state: “Outside activities must not interfere with University responsibilities. In no case may such activities be carried on either directly or by implication in the name of the University without the consent of the president of the University, who shall from time to time report such arrangements to the Board of Trustees. Consent should be requested through the appropriate dean’s office. Faculty members shall not use the name Northwestern University in connection with outside activities in a manner that implies the university’s sanction or support, unless the required consent has been obtained…”
When responding to inquiries in their fields of professional competence or acting as private citizens on issues of general public interest, faculty members may use their academic titles for purposes of identification but should make it clear that they speak, write, and act for themselves and not for the institution.”
Seals repeatedly uses the title of “adjunct professor” on his campaign material, in debates and in interviews with the media, even though the university has publicly responded that he is only a visiting lecturer. His own political Web site states, “Dan is a business consultant and adjunct professor at Northwestern University.”
Many media outlets throughout the area also have referred to Seals as a professor here at NU. Despite his use of a university title, Seals has never indicated that he does not speak or politick on behalf of the university, as the Faculty Handbook requires. Failure to issue this disclaimer results in using the NU brand to further his partisan pursuits.
First, if you are hired for a job while running for office at any university and the university knows, you explicitly have permission to keep running. It’s not that uncommon and while I have no idea if it has happened at Northwestern it’s happened at Washington University with some frequency including now State Senator Jeff Smith and former US Senator Jim Talent.
Second, telling people where you work does not imply university support or sanction. That’s like claiming a resume to a new potential employer is sanctioning or supporting the applicant to get the new job.
It’s hard to imagine focusing on more trivial matters than one line in campaign literature that tells people what Seals does for a living. There’s an administration that has deeply politicized the Justice Department, illegally spied on Americans, and gotten us into a war under false pretenses and without a strategy to actually win or get out of that war, but the biggest thing one can do to help Mark Kirk out is complain about a line in a resume.
Frank: I think it was Napoleon who said, “Without discipline, an army is no more than a bunch of guys all wearing the same colour clothes.”
Potter: Napoleon?
Frank: Could have been Mussolini.
Comment of the Day
Its a pretty amazing day when you can say a "Republican snorted animal tranquilizersrecreationally" and use his own statements as sourcematerials.
Earth to Tribune: There is a Recourse
Blagojevich’s reign follows the certifiably corrupt term of George Ryan. Whenever such failed leaders don’t have the personal dignity to stop pocketing a paycheck from citizens, those citizens shouldn’t have to wait for the next election to declare, “You are serving your interests, not ours. You are dismissed.”
If a Governor is violating the Illinois Constitution or engaged in illegal conduct, there is a such a thing called impeachment. It should be used.
That said, the voters knew virtually everything they do now about the man and reelected him in 2006. We can bemoan that choice, but it was the voters’ choice.
He Knows His Pharmaceuticals
Jeebus, Stuart Levine’s pharmaceutical experience is long…
To get the proper framework for Levine’s testimony, you’ve got to imagine it coming from the mouth of a 62-year-old businessman in a gray suit and wing tips who used to make the black-tie social whirl as a major charitable fund-raiser.
Levine said he first experimented with drugs in 1972, primarily using marijuana and cocaine during that decade. He said he also tried quaaludes a couple of times in the same period and did LSD once.
In the mid-1980s, Levine said there was a change in his drug use when he began partying with a group of five male friends — two or three at a time — once or twice a month as his business schedule allowed.
For a while Levine said he was doing mostly ecstasy and cocaine, but by the mid-90s he had switched to crystal meth amphetamines and ketamine, both of which he would snort in their white powder form.
“I preferred the combination of those two to other drugs,” he said, describing the effect as “euphoria” and lowering inhibitions.
Levine usually partied on weekdays “in order to deceive my family,” he said. That made it easier for him to feign business reasons for being absent.
“On the weekends, we were all home and together,” he said.,
For the in-town parties, Levine said he met his friends at the hotel in the morning and did drugs until early evening, but always went home afterward.
“I was expected home,” he explained.
When they left Chicago, usually for Springfield but also for another town he did not name, it was an overnight trip in which they used drugs nonstop and never slept.
Levine said he would take drugs five to 10 times a night during the parties.
How did this guy not OD in all that time? These aren’t your mild experimentation drugs, these are your drug connoisseur Hunter S. Thompson mixes.
Even weirder when you know what the guy looks like:
Daily Dolt: Illinois Review and Porno Pete
Both are very upset about Steve Sauerberg hiring Teh GAY!
One suspects there is another thing at play though when this is said:
The LCR ad was designed to embarrass Bush by purposely pitting the President’s position in support of the marriage amendment directly against his VP Dick Cheney’s 2000 debate comments . . .
Now, Petey is pretty much against all things teh Gay, but there is one major thing worse than being gay, it’s embarrassing the child king.