Cknolls

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 10:00 PM) I have a feeling the power will be shifting to the Dems. It won't happen overnight but the GOP has had full control and judging by approval ratings and all the negativity linked to their party, I think they will fade for the time being. My 2 cents. If the MSM has their way your are correct.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 10:04 AM) So let me see here, wiretapping US Citizens without following the rule of law is OK, because the President authorized military action without the OK of the legislative branch? Further, the Congressional resolution did not authorize war in any means. It authorized military force. There's a huge difference there. Authorizing war makes it a whole different story - but, this is a big but, Congress did no such thing. Without a formal declaration of war, we are not actually at war. The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that, "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 10:04 AM) So let me see here, wiretapping US Citizens without following the rule of law is OK, because the President authorized military action without the OK of the legislative branch? Further, the Congressional resolution did not authorize war in any means. It authorized military force. There's a huge difference there. Authorizing war makes it a whole different story - but, this is a big but, Congress did no such thing. Without a formal declaration of war, we are not actually at war. What is your definition of military force?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 12:30 PM) 1 more interesting thing...isn't it odd how the anti-judicial-activists are willing to step in and try to overturn the decision of a state's voters in this case? Doesn't federal law trump state law, and voter initiatives?

Is she the first black First Lady????????????? And would she be the first Black Female President???????????????????

I may be overlooking something, but can someone tell me what Amendment state a person's right to healthcare. Just asking.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 11:06 AM) The Gorelick story has been debunked. He did argue that case, but it was rejected and the Clinton administration did not act on it. And there's also a big difference between Aldrich Ames and eavesdropping over thousands of random citizens who might be tied in to someone who might be tied into someone. In either case, if the Ames case is true, the Clinton adminstration was just as wrong. The question would be who in the FBI authorized that search. Did that go up all the way to an executive order? Because the administrations actions regarding wiretapping did. I love the "They all do it" defense, because it's so four year old in nature. It's OK for you to do the wrong thing, because everyone else did! Who are these thousands of people? How do we know there are thousands? Do they have names? Or haven't they been leaked yet? Ames is different because it was Clinton doing it. No outcry from MSM, just praise and adulation. Do you think the Gorelick wall had anything to do with the gov't. not being able to look into Moussauis' computer files? Clinton was the best. :puke :puke

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 02:32 PM) Roberts was pretty darn close, as I noted earlier. What is his view on abortion???

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 10:21 AM) I would think its a real big deal if someone claimed membership to a group who's sole purpose was keeping his alma mater white and male - bragged about it to get a government job in 1985 (which is only 21 years ago, and helped lead to his first judicial appointment) - and now claims to not even remember the group exists or that he was even a part of it. If he never was a member (which it turns out he wasn't), he lied on his resume for political purposes and Notre Dame footballl coaches have been fired for the same thing. Sorry, but I hold my Supreme Court justices to a higher standard than Notre Dame football. This shows a willingness to lie for political purposes and the kind of lie he makes would show where his allegiance lies. If he was a member, rather than eschew or even downplay his membership when he applied for the position in 1985's Reagan administration, he trumpeted it. One year after the organization had been disbanded and disgraced as being a racist and chauvinist organization. Rather than claim it a mistake of his youth, he chose to highlight it as a reason why the government should employ him. Again, I'm not sure I want someone of that ethical character in the Supreme Court. And that's why that subject is or should be fair game in a Supreme Court hearing. Did we forget that the ABA said he was well qualified? Oh, they are part of the Bush cabal, I forgot.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 13, 2006 -> 08:54 AM) I have to sort of agree with Rex here. The GOP'ers in this thread are being awfully whiney, defensive and, frankly, sound like their own stereotyped versions of "leftists". I'm sorry but I don't feel one bit badly about Alito getting grilled or his wife being in tears. This man is looking to be nominated to the highest court in the land - I would expect BOTH parties to grill Alito like a steak at the family BBQ. We need to. He's not exactly being forthright, or open about his background and views. And frankly, while I don't think he's way-right (as some Dems seem to fear), I do think he's far too politically minded and wishy-washy for SCOTUS. Just my take. I don't see in this guy what we saw from Roberts - a man dedicated to the law with every bone in his body. And that's what I'd want from anyone on SCOTUS. Tell me the last Scotus nominee that answered all questions to your satisfaction?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:35 PM) Did Mrs. Alito's coaching not cover the fact that her husband might actually be asked to explain how his documented history as a conservative idealogue and basically someone who will apparently say anything to get a job leaves him qualified to sit on the high court? Conservative idealogue? To who???? Kennedy,Schumer, and Durbin? All fine Centrists, right???? GMAFB. You are losing at the ballot box and now you are losing in the courts. I love the smell of Conservatism in the morning.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 10:13 PM) I understand that you understand the orders of magnitude difference between losing your son and watching your husband get a Senate beatdown, so I won't even dwell on that. But, don't you think Mrs. Bomgardner/Alito expected that her husband was going to be put on the spot during the confirmation hearings? I very much suspect the outburst was for effect, to paint the Dems as big bad bullies for doing their job. Especially when interview opportunities were being lined up with associates of hers within an hour of the incident. Mrs. Alito may have received some coaching as well I'd guess. Regardless of the outcome, and despite the MSM saying quick confirmation is iminent, the Dems should filibuster. Alito failed to substantively engage his record during the hearings, and so failed to sway anybody that he is anything more than an extreme conservative idealogue. I think if the Dems filibuster and ultimately Alito is confirmed anyway(likely), that is still far preferable to letting the nomination go unchallenged. During the filibuster, lots of time can be given to spelling out not only Alito's character and positions, but also the executive abuses that have come to a head in the NSA affair and the fact that that sort of consolidation of power in the executive suits Judge Alito just fine. Throw in several re-readings of the Constitution, especially the 4th amendment, and have every Democratic Senator note that they in no way intended for the 9/14 Joint Resolution for the use of force in Afghanistan to extend the executive authority to conduct warrantless surveilance against US citizens. The MSM will be unable to ignore all of that and will finally have to explain the facts of some of these issues to the public. They will not filibuster. They will lose. Repubs are not f***ing around this time. If they filibuster this time and lose, it will make it that much harder to filibuster the next candidate to the court. The Dems will paint themselves as serial filibusterers. Won't look good in the eyes of America. A resonable person would expect their spouse to be questioned diligently and th thoroughly, but character assasination should not be tolerated in these hearings. The whole Vanguard shenanigans was a disgrace. Vanguard was not a party to that suit. They were the transfer agent for funds held by the husband. Hence, Alito was not required to recuse himself. Unlike Stephen Breyer who sat in on at least six cases involving Lloyds of London while being a shareholder of the said company. Details details. Dems hate being outsmarted, but it is not too hard to outsmart this bunch of tools. Kennedy is an embarassment and should be knocked down a few pegs. Him questioning anyone about character and morality is the height of hypocrisy.

St. Cyril & Methodius in Lemont.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 12, 2006 -> 02:01 PM) Actually, in 2004 - I don't believe there was a net change in house seats except for Texas for either party. You want gerrymandering? check this out. http://home.wlu.edu/~journalism/J203/nc-12.htm

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 10:27 PM) I expect a 55-45 vote on this. Party line. And if the Dems wanna say "Hell No," that's fine. I just don't expect a filibuster. I'm guessing at least 59. Pryor, Nelson(NE.), Lieberman, Landrieu. Possibly Lincoln, Nelson(Fla.).

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 10:21 PM) No. He signed right up because he's a racial (and sexist), bigoted asshole. Tell it the ABA. Well qulaified!!!!!!! Enough said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger :finger

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 10:14 PM) So if our President chooses to imprison every arab because its a war on terror, that's ok because its any means necessary? What if he decides to wiretap on a possible Presidential candidate in 2008 because there might be suspicion that this person at one time may have had some communication with Osama Bin Laden - real or not. Since congress said "any means necessary" and he deems it necessary, I guess that would be OK too under your definition. In this case the law provides the necessary means. You don't even have to get a warrant before you start wiretapping in National Security cases. You just have to go to the supersecret FISA court within 72 hours of starting to wiretap an individual. It might be a pain in the ass, and mean some extra paperwork for some folks in the NSA, but in my opinion ensuring our rights, freedom and way of life is what this "war" on terror is all about. And doing a little extra paperwork to ensure it happens seems to be the right thing to do. What if pigs fly out of my ass?????

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 06:31 PM) No it's not. A state of war is. Unless we formally declare one, we aren't technically in one. And his powers are limited. Like Kosovo? Bring home the troops.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 02:43 PM) This cannot be true. Has anyone checked snopes on this? You cannot make s*** like this up...

Pro-choice Criticisms of Roe This is a work in progress. One key source of this info was Ed Whelan’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution. A John Cornyn press release was also a helpful resource. Because legal arguments are often very nuanced, I am working to get links to the full texts of all the quoted materials so that readers can view these quotations in their full context. With some articles, this process is more difficult than with others. (All underlines are added by me.) Laurence Tribe — Harvard Law School. Lawyer for Al Gore in 2000. “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” “The Supreme Court, 1972 Term—Foreword: Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law,” 87 Harvard Law Review 1, 7 (1973). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court “Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the court. … Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.” North Carolina Law Review, 1985 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward Lazarus — Former clerk to Harry Blackmun. “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose, as someone who believes such a right has grounding elsewhere in the Constitution instead of where Roe placed it, and as someone who loved Roe’s author like a grandfather.” …. “What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent - at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed.” “The Lingering Problems with Roe v. Wade, and Why the Recent Senate Hearings on Michael McConnell’s Nomination Only Underlined Them,” FindLaw Legal Commentary, Oct. 3, 2002 “[A]s a matter of constitutional interpretation, even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum — will tell you it is basically indefensible.” “Liberals, Don’t Make Her an Icon” Washington Post July 10, 2003. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Saletan — Slate columnist who left the GOP 2004 because it was too pro-life. “Blackmun’s [supreme Court] papers vindicate every indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference.” “Unbecoming Justice Blackmun,” Legal Affairs, May/June 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Hart Ely — Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” …. “What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-à-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it.… At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking.” “The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade,” 82 Yale Law Journal, 920, 935-937 (1973). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Wittes — Washington Post Roe “is a lousy opinion that disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue about which they care deeply.” “Letting Go of Roe,” The Atlantic Monthly, Jan/Feb 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Cohen — Washington Post “[T]he very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision — the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution — strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.” …. “As a layman, it’s hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision. But it is not hard to say it confounds our common-sense understanding of what privacy is. “If a Supreme Court ruling is going to affect so many people then it ought to rest on perfectly clear logic and up-to-date science. Roe , with its reliance on trimesters and viability, has a musty feel to it, and its argument about privacy raises more questions than it answers. …. Roe “is a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up. It seems more fiat than argument.” …. “Still, a bad decision is a bad decision. If the best we can say for it is that the end justifies the means, then we have not only lost the argument — but a bit of our soul as well.” “Support Choice, Not Roe” Washington Post, October 19, 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Dershowitz — Harvard Law School Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore “represent opposite sides of the same currency of judicial activism in areas more appropriately left to the political processes…. Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy)…. [C]lear governing constitutional principles … are not present in either case.” Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 (New York: Oxford) 2001, p. 194. Cass Sunstein — University of Chicago and a Democratic adviser on judicial nominations “In the Court’s first confrontation with the abortion issue, it laid down a set of rules for legislatures to follow. The Court decided too many issues too quickly. The Court should have allowed the democratic processes of the states to adapt and to generate sensible solutions that might not occur to a set of judges.” “The Supreme Court 1995 Term: FOREWORD: LEAVING THINGS UNDECIDED,” 110 Harvard Law Review 6, 20 (1996). “What I think is that it just doesn’t have the stable status of Brown or Miranda because it’s been under internal and external assault pretty much from the beginning…. As a constitutional matter, I think Roe was way overreached. I wouldn’t vote to overturn it myself, but that’s because I think it’s good to preserve precedent in general, and the country has sufficiently relied on it that it should not be overruled.” Quoted in: Brian McGuire, “Roe v. Wade an Issue Ahead of Alito Hearing,” New York Sun November 15, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey Rosen — Legal Affairs Editor, The New Republic “In short, 30 years later, it seems increasingly clear that this pro-choice magazine was correct in 1973 when it criticized Roe on constitutional grounds. Its overturning would be the best thing that could happen to the federal judiciary, the pro-choice movement, and the moderate majority of the American people. …. “Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it.” “Worst Choice” The New Republic February 24, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Kinsley “Against all odds (and, I’m afraid, against all logic), the basic holding of Roe v. Wade is secure in the Supreme Court. …. “…a freedom of choice law would guarantee abortion rights the correct way, democratically, rather than by constitutional origami.” “Bad Choice” The New Republic, June 13, 1994. “Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision…. “Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing abortion state by state anyway.” “The Right’s Kind of Activism,” Washington Post, November 14, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kermit Roosevelt — University of Pennsylvania Law School “t is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. “This is not surprising. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether. It supported that right via a lengthy, but purposeless, cross-cultural historical review of abortion restrictions and a tidy but irrelevant refutation of the straw-man argument that a fetus is a constitutional ‘person’ entited to the protection of the 14th Amendment. …. “By declaring an inviolable fundamental right to abortion, Roe short-circuited the democratic deliberation that is the most reliable method of deciding questions of competing values.” “Shaky Basis for a Constitutional ‘Right’,” Washington Post, January 22, 2003. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archibald Cox — Watergate Special Prosecutor, Harvard Law School “The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations…. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution” The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government, pp. 113-114 (1976)

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 02:06 PM) In other words, Kennedy is being a blowhard. The Spectator’s Prowler has sources who report this: According to Senate Judiciary sources, Sen. Ted Kennedy this morning was informed that a number of media outlets - including the New York Times, as well as both Democratic and Republican staff from the committee - had reviewed a wealth of documents related to Concerned Alumni of Princeton and that there was no evidence that Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito played a major role personally or financially in the organization at any time. This information was passed to Kennedy after he raised the issue of possibly requesting a subpoena for all of CAPs documents before he entered the hearing room for the third day of confirmation hearings. “We told him we’d gone through it, and that seemed to be the end of it,” says a committee staffer. So big surprise that despite knowing what he needs to know, Kennedy decided to simply create a few moments of entertaining political theater for the nightly news.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 01:24 PM) Releasing the documents really has become important, seeing as Alito's conveniently selective amnesia seems to clear up once his past is put under his nose for him to see. When a critical review of CAP published by an alumni committee that featured alumnus Bill Frist found that the group's "distorted, narrow and hostile view of the University" had "misinformed and even alarmed many alumni" and "undoubtedly generated adverse national publicity," then maybe we can understand why his membership in the group was something he flaunted for Ed Meese but hid during all his other job interviews. David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times has already seen them and there seems to be nothing there: Mr. Morgan's memorandum and other records of Concerned Alumni are contained at the Library of Congress in the papers of William A. Rusher, a leader of the group and a former publisher of National Review. Those records and others at Mudd Library at Princeton give no indication that Judge Alito, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was among the group's major donors. He was not an active leader of the group, and two of his classmates who were involved and Mr. Rusher said they did not remember his playing a role.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 10:58 AM) The day before that, the only guest Today featured talking about Alito was Fred Thompson (Retired Republican Senator.) But you forgot to mention that Matt Lauer called Alito an ultra conservative. With hosts like Couric and Lauer, the Today Show has two liberals on screen all the time.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 08:48 AM) Chris Matthews carries water for whoever can help him. He's not a liberal or conservative. He's just an opportunist. And bats*** crazy to boot. You are kidding, right? The guy wrote speeches for Carter.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Jan 11, 2006 -> 08:47 AM) Conservative Pundits on Cable News with their own shows: Bill O'Reilly Sean Hannity Brit Hume Lou Dobbs Joe Scarborough Tucker Carlson Liberal pundits on Cable News with their own shows: Alan Colmes Bat s*** crazy pundits on Cable News with their own shows: Rita Cosby Larry King Nancy Grace Chris Matthews Liberal media, indeed! Olbermann??? Olbermann?????????? Liberal??????? How about network TV. Koppel, Jennings(predeath), Brokaw, Rather, Scheiffer, Williams, Meet the Press, Stephanopolous, Face the Nation, shouls I stop?