Earlier this week, Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller — aka “Mr. Noun, Verb and Unconstitutional” — filed a lawsuit seeking to disenfranchise write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski’s voters who misspelled Murkowski’s name.  In an amusing twist, Miller’s lawsuit was originally assigned to one of his former supervisors, a federal judge with a pretty low opinion of Joe Miller:

The federal judge originally assigned to hear Joe Miller’s lawsuit to challenge how write-in ballots are counted took himself off the case Wednesday because of the “negative opinion” he held of Miller. . . .

“The process for filling a part-time magistrate judge position is lengthy, a fact well known to Mr. Miller because he had gone through that process,” [Judge John] Sedwick wrote in an order from his chambers. “Mr. Miller’s failure to give reasonable notice of his resignation left the court with no judicial officer resident in Fairbanks, and no ability to fill the vacancy for many months. This incident caused me to form a negative opinion of Mr. Miller.”

At the time, Sedwick was the chief federal judge in Alaska and Miller’s supervisor.

Judge Sedwick is only the most recent in a long string of Miller’s former supervisors who were turned off by his poor conduct in the workplace.  Former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker, who supervised Miller when he worked as a part-time attorney for the borough, was forced to discipline Miller for engaging in unethical activity.  Likewise, Miller’s former supervisor at a law firm he worked at for three years explained that “we at this firm were not eager to have him stay, and so when he announced he was leaving, we were relieved.”

Yesterday, the chairmen of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report outlining their recommendations to reduce the budget deficit. The report has sparked a furious debate over what measures should be taken to reduce U.S. debt.

Today, ABC News’s George Stephanopolous interviewed Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) about the Commission’s recommendations. The senator repeatedly praised the proposals, distancing himself from other leading Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA), who has roundly condemned the deep cuts to social services advocated within them. At one point, Stephanopolous asked Conrad if he would vote for the proposals as written. The senator didn’t give a direct answer, but said that there’s no way to reduce the deficit in a way “that’s not controversial and difficult.” He then reminded the ABC host that today is Veterans’ Day, and that we should “think of what they sacrificed for this country. If some of us have to sacrifice a political career to get this country back on track then so be it. It has to be done”:

STEPHANOPOLOUS: Could you vote for these proposals?

CONRAD: Look, we’re going to have a chance to change them. But I am going to vote for proposals that do as much as this does to reduce the debt [...] There is no way doing it that’s not controversial and difficult. But you know today is Veterans’ Day. You think of what they sacrificed for this country. If some of us have to sacrifice a political career to get this country back on track then so be it. It has to be done.

STEPHANOPOLOUS: That is an admirable sentiment, sir, it doesn’t appear to be shared by other members of the Commission.

Watch it:

What Conrad failed to mention as he was invoking American veterans to praise the commission’s report is that it one of its recommendations could seriously hurt the veteran population. One of its proposals is to “establish co-pays in the VA medical system and change the co-pays and deductibles for military retirees that remain in that system,” meaning that it asks America’s veterans to shoulder a greater financial burden in order to utilize the VA system — in a way, moving it towards privatization, and undermining the principle that America will pay to take care of its warriors. (HT: DailyKos diarist Barbara Morrill).

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress reported that Rep.-elect Allen West (R-FL) — who received unusually strong backing from national Republicans — had hired Joyce Kaufman, a Florida right-wing radio host to be his congressional chief of staff. Kaufman has a long history of making offensive and inflammatory comments, and a House of Representatives standards official told ThinkProgress that hiring Kaufman, who said she would continue to do work for her radio station, was “potentially problematic.” “There may be potential confidentiality issues” in her duel roles, the official said. But today on her radio show, Kaufman said she will be not be taking the job because she does not want to be subject to an “electronic lynching”:

“I will not be used in an electronic lynching by proxy,” radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman just said, announcing why she won’t come to Washington to serve as the Broward Republican’s chief of staff. The conservative host’s appointment earlier this week touched off an uproar on the Internet — and TV — and Kaufman said she doesn’t want it to tarnish West, calling him a “distinguished, monumental man.”

“You guys can do all the things you want to me, but I will not participate in you trying to destroy him,” she said on her radio show, apparently referring to the press — whom she is now calling “vermin.”

West confirmed the news in a statement, saying, “It is with deep regret that this congressional office and the people of CD 22 will not have Joyce Kaufman as my chief of staff.” However, he said he will still rely on Kaufman for “counsel.” Following ThinkProgress’ report, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow highlighted a statement from Kaufman promoting violent insurrection, saying that “if ballots don’t work, bullets will.” Watch it:

Oklahoma voters recently celebrated the novelty of becoming the first state to ban the non-existent threat of Sharia law. Under the “Save Our State” constitutional amendment, Oklahoma courts are forbidden from considering or using international and Sharia law in their rulings. Beyond the obvious First Amendment problems with the law, in their zealous “war” against the phantom Sharia menace, Oklahomans might find unexpected collateral damage to the Ten Commandments, businesses, and now, Native Americans.

Oklahoma has the second largest population of Native Americans in the U.S and law experts like Oklahoma University law professor Taiawagi Helton point out that language in the law banning courts from looking at “legal precepts of other nations or cultures” could pose a problem if applied to tribal legal cases, as the tribes are considered sovereign nations. In fact, the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission released an official memo on October 20 explaining how the “lack of specific tribal law language” could “damage the sovereignty of all Oklahoma tribes” and “starkly reminds [the Commission] that some Oklahoma lawmakers forgot that our nation and state were built on the principles, blood, and back of other nations and cultures, namely, ou[r] tribes”:

[The law]completely ignores the possibility that an Oklahoma state court may be called upon to apply the law of any of the 39 Indian tribes located with the borders of Oklahoma to resolve a dispute.[...]

The language of this proposed amendment starkly reminds us that some Oklahoma lawmakers forgot that our nation and state were built on the principles, blood, and backs of other nations and cultures, namely, out [sic] tribes. It also ignores that Oklahoma tribes have become valuable economic partners with the State that it cannot afford to ignore or exclude.

If SQ 755 is approved, the lack of specific tribal law language could easily be interpreted by a state judge to leave no room to refer to a tribe’s law to determine the existence of a valid waiver of a tribe’s sovereign immunity, for example. Thus, SQ 755 has the potential to provide state court judges with yet another opportunity to further erode tribal sovereignty. A state court judge could rely on the amendment’s absence of recognition of any tribal law to avoid or disavow its application.Tribes and tribal members should be aware of this glaring omission for Oklahoma courts to look to and apply our tribal laws when appropriate, and vote on this question accordingly.

Ohio University international law professor Peter Krug said Oklahoma businesses that deal with companies overseas could also suffer as “many transactions between companies rely on international treaties to uphold contracts” and “lawyers could take advantage of the lack of clarity in the language” to challenge cases.” “I think we will see extended legal arguments from both sides, and, quite honestly, any court decision that addresses [the amendment] will likely be appealed,” he said.

Fortunately, as Helton notes, it is unlikely that courts will uphold the law. A federal judge’s temporary order to block the law on Tuesday certainly lends credence to that notion.