Judicial Obstruction During President Obama's First Two Years: Updated Reports

As a service to those writing about the crisis of judicial nominations during the final weeks of the 2010 lame-duck Congress, Alliance for Justice is reissuing and updating several recent reports on the record of Republican obstruction and the increasingly dire number of judicial emergencies plaguing the federal courts. * * *Judicial Obstruction During President Obama’s First Two Years:A Compilation of Alliance for Justice Reports During the Obama Administration’s first two years, Republicans in the Senate have implemented a strategy to delay and obstruct his judicial nominations to the Courts...

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A quick thought on pop up stores

Pop up stores by national chains is supposedly the latest "phenomenon" in retail.  Of course, this has been going on in a smaller scale by small tenants and even national retailers such as Hickory Farms for many years.  The leases, being short term, are figured out and conformed and done.  But what about the long term?Some say this trend will continue over the long term.  I tend to agree.  Unfortunately I think it will depress prices unless lenders and buyers figure out a way to quantify and underwriter the pop ups, or pops enter into long term seasonal leases as a compromise,...

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Want to make money? Get out of New York and DC!

This Globest.com piece might be the best I have read in a while.  Why?  Because it makes sense:“Everybody got so burned by the downturn that they want safety and liquidity,” said Jonathan Gray of Blackstone Real Estate Advisors, during New York University Schack Institute’s 43rd Annual Conference on Capital Markets in Real Estate. Partly because everybody is chasing those same few deals in New York City, Washington, DC and a few other key markets, that means more opportunities in properties that are high-quality yet impaired....Bingo.  If you want to make good money, get...

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A borrower hit from both sides

This was published in Crain's a week ago, but it bears writing about, however briefly:The long and short?  Mega Chicago restaurateur Phil Stefani guaranteed a $7 million construction loan used to renovate the building where his office is located, and which is owned in part by Stefani and others, including the well-known local developer Keith Lord..  The loan is past-due and the lender, Harris Bank, is pushing what he described as tough new terms for an extension, including new equity and prepaid interest.Why is the project under water? In large part, because its anchor tenant, Amcore...

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AFJ signs letter with over 50 groups calling for immediate votes on judicial nominees

AFJ today joined with over 50 other organizations in sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for immediate action on President Obama’s stalled judicial nominations. With the clock running out on the 111th Congress, the groups demanded an end to the Republican tactic of blocking all nominees, even those with bipartisan support, and that votes are called on all of the two dozen pending nominees.The letter reminded the leadership that, “The obstruction of many of President Obama’s nominees through filibuster threats and anonymous ‘holds’...

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Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit calls on Senate to "Act on Judicial Nominees Without Delay"

The Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit has drafted a powerful letter calling on the Senate to "act on judicial nominees without delay." The signatories include the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, five other prominent circuit judges, and the Chief Judges of the district courts in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. These leading jurists, appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents, wrote "to emphasize [their] desperate need for judges," stating that courts "cannot do their work if authorized judicial positions remain vacant." Two nominees...

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Dramatic Disparity in Record of Senate Action on Judicial Nominees for Clinton, Bush, and Obama in First Two Years

As we reach the two-year mark of his presidency, President Barack Obama has faced unprecedented obstruction of his judicial nominees in the U.S. Senate and has fared far worse than his immediate predecessors both in having nominees approved and in relieving the federal courts of the burden of “judicial emergencies.”With the clock ticking in the current lame-duck session of Congress, AFJ has released a report entitled, Judicial Nominations in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations: Which One of These is Not Like the Others? The conclusions are stark:The number of vacancies in the federal...

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Alliance for Justice presents “Forced Arbitration and the Roberts Court: How Hidden Clauses in Everyday Contracts Can Take Away Your Rights”

On November 10, 2010, Alliance for Justice hosted a panel in San Francisco to discuss the importance and potential ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Court case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.The panel comprised three distinguished attorneys who practice in the fields of consumer and employee rights: Arthur Bryant of Public Justice, Cliff Palefsky of McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky, and James Sturdevant, AFJ board member and Principal of The Sturdevant Law Firm.This event was held just one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in AT&T v. Concepcion, which may have the effect...

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Nan Aron on Huffington Post: Rule of Law Takes a Holiday While Bush Admits Torture and CIA Gets Off the Hook

This week, along with the spectacle of former President George W. Bush bragging on national television about authorizing torture, federal prosecutor John H. Durham allowed the statute of limitations to expire without pressing charges against C.I.A. agents and attorneys who participated in the destruction of videotapes chronicling the interrogations and mistreatment of Abu Zubaydah and Abd a-Rahim al-Nashiri.Alliance for Justice is extremely disappointed that once again no one in the United States government is being held accountable for criminal acts undertaken as part of the Bush Administration's...

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Holiday Inn -- a great F&B idea or another darn upgrade?

According to this WSJ article Holiday Inn has just completed " a sweeping, global overhaul that upgraded their hotels' bedding, signs, lobbies and showers, among other things, at an average cost to [franchisees] of $300,000 a property."In the industry this is called a PIP.  So now what? On to the next one?  The next idea is to incorporate breakfast buffets (a la Embassy Suites?), socialize the meal process and streamline food and beverage service to cut back on labor costs.  This will, however, be implemented gradually, starting with some test markets to see if the idea works. ...

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Completely OT: an immigration and tourist visa proposal

Okay, I'm taking a risk here, especially after the whole "I think Sarah Palin is a lousy speaker" debacle at ICSC.  And I know this has almost nothing to do with commercial real estate. But what the heck.I am a firm believer in common sense when it comes to immigration.  As the husband of a legal immigrant, I believe in open borders -- to an extent.  If someone, for instance, is most likely going to make a significant contribution to our country, why not let that person in? Take my wife, for instance.  She jumped through years and years of hoops to obtain a green card and...

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