Miers Withdraws

Obviously one of you forwarded my last post to the White House. Good Job!

The conservatives said they were upset by the emergence yesterday of two speeches in which Ms. Miers said that self-determination should guide decisions involving religion and the law, and in which she cited conservative betes noires Janet Reno and Justice Ginsburg as female role models.

http://www.nysun.com/article/22140

The only thing Ginsburg and Reno should be used for is... a reminder of what we are opposed to. (You though I was going to say "target practice" didn't you?)

Is Miers NUTS? Remember, Justice Ginsburg wants the age of consent lowered to 12, wants to legalize prostitution, believes "international opinion" should influence SCOTUS rulings, hates the concept of a 'Boys Club' and 'Girls Club', and believes co-ed prisons are a jim-dandy idea:

But the left is so reliant on its balance argument that when Republican senators, and this writer, pointed out that Justice Ginsburg had posited that prostitution was constitutionally protected and that the age of consent should be lowered to 12, the same people who have distorted the records of Bush judicial nominees echoed in outrage and obfuscation. The problem is that it's true.

In papers Ms. Ginsburg wrote while she worked for the ACLU, she argued against criminalized prostitution and said that it was "arguably within the zone of privacy protected by recent constitutional decisions." In lawyer-speak that means that she, at least, tended to think prostitution fell under the constitutional right to privacy. She did not say "some would argue" or that it was "arguably not within the zone of privacy." And if arguably Mrs. Ginsburg did not aim, as her defenders say, to lower the age of consent, she was guilty of sloppy lawyering when she recommended that a statutory-rape law that had the consent age at 16 be replaced by a proposal that had it at 12.

But that is not all. The woman nominated to replace Roe's leading dissenter, Byron White, was not only pro-abortion, she wrote that the federal government should be constitutionally required to subsidize elective abortions. She urged coed prisons; criticized the Boy and Girl Scouts for perpetuating "gender" stereotypes; and suggested that "Parents Day" might replace Mother's and Father's day. Ms. Ginsburg had also opined that a law restricting the rights of bigamists "is of questionable constitutionality since it appears to encroach impermissibly upon private relationships."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/nextjustice/?id=110007324

More on Miers actions are here:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/27/D8DGD4B82.html

...including this tidbit:

Other candidates mentioned frequently included conservative federal appeals court judges J. Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Karen Williams, Alice Batchelder and Samuel Alito; Michigan Supreme Court justice Maura Corrigan; and Maureen Mahoney, a well-respected litigator before the high court.

Amen! Let the cat-fight begin!

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

So, I've held off on this topic for as long as I can. Earlier this month, President Bush achieved what could be his most arrant consensus, permeating across all political boundaries with his nomination of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. Unfortunately, the consensus was "...huh?"

Having picked a virtual nobody from nowhere, W has sent journalists (and others) scattering like marbles tossed on an ice rink looking for clues on who Harriet Miers is and more importantly, what to make of her. Wisely, most democrats seem to be content to sit back and watch the drama unfold before them while conservative commentators bicker back and forth. Some, like Senate minority leader Harry Reid even warmed up to the selection, saying "I like Harriet Miers."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051003/pl_nm/bush_court_miers_dc

Hmmm... Bad juju.

So what is my take on this selection? Dump her!

I have unequivocally supported W in 2000 and 2004 for the primary reason of SCOTUS nominee selection. Granted, there were other reasons - not the least of which being the alternatives were hypocritical, special-interest whoring, liberal buffoons. No matter what else W did or didn't do, picking SCOTUS nominees was going to have the single biggest and most lasting effect on our nation and our day to day lives. And yes, bigger than a war in Iraq.

Bush promised to select nominees that were "in the mold of Scalia and Thomas." Great! That's what I want. However, as is well known among those who pay attention, stealth nominees have not been kind to conservatives.

If Harriet Miers is not a Scalia-Thomas clone, this will be a huge betrayal by those who elected Bush, who anticipated at least one opening on the SCOTUS bench during his term. This betrayal, in my opinion, could never be forgiven. Certainly there are alternatives to Miers with a much clearer judicial history.

Now lets say she is a Scalia-Thomas clone. She is also 60. One of the stated reasons Bush selected Miers is that he knows she won't change her opinion in 20 years. This I agree with since she likely will not be breathing in 20 years.

The fact is nobody knows about Harriet Miers. Addressing this, Bush has said, "trust me." While I do not question his whose overall honesty and integrity, I do not trust him with a matter this important. He simply does not have the track record for me to do this.

President Bush has betrayed me with his amnesty program for illegal aliens - oh sorry, "temporary guest workers." He betrayed me by signing that horrible attack on the first amendment called the McCain-Fiengold campaign finance reform bill. He betrayed me by showing no ability to control runaway discretionary spending. He has never vetoed anything. How "conservative" is he?

The new estimates show that, under Bush, total outlays will have risen $408 billion in just three years to $2.272 trillion: an enormous increase in federal spending of 22 percent.

Government agencies that Republicans were calling to be abolished less than 10 years ago, such as education and labor, have enjoyed jaw-dropping spending increases under Bush of 70 percent and 65 percent respectively.

http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-31-03.html

That article from the CATO institute is over 2 years old. Do you think these drunken sailor ways have improved?

I suspect that neither Bush, nor the Republican senate feels they can get a known, strong conservative nominee through - even though the improperly named "nuclear option" would allow them to do so, quite legally. Why? Because democrat senators, knowing their counterparts are enjoying the tax funded pig-trough as much as they do, will shut down all senate "business" (a.k.a. vote buying) if judicial fusion occurs.

I believe Bush selected Harriet Miers because he trusts and believes in her. I however, consider neither Bush, and by association Miers, conservatives.

How to Succeed Without Really Trying

Hello Thinkers,

Some of you have asked me what I think about W's selection of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. I'll get that opinion out this week. In the words of President Bush, "Trust me."

However, this event developed over the weekend and with most interesting news articles, there are at least 3 other "unwritten stories" that are there if you look close enough, sometimes more. After a long Saturday morning of baby tending and removing computer viruses, I took a lunch break and hit the couch. I did the usual quick channel surf over a bowl of soup and stopped at FNC. There was a large crowd of black men breaking into a store with blaring text at the bottom of the screen indicating this was happening in Toledo, OH.

From what I saw and heard reported, an American Nazi group planned a march in Toledo protesting gang violence. (I'll leave the usual First Amendment debate out of this.) As one might expect, counter protests began and things got ugly fast. Fox had a live local feed from a helicopter camera crew as roving gangs of almost exclusively young black men looted a store, broke into a bar (eventually burning it) and terrorized the neighborhood. Once the violence started, the American Nazi group march was ended and they either left or were escorted from the area.

I quickly surfed the other news stations as the violence, captured live, was unfolding. I knew the answer to my unspoken question before I touched the remote. Only Fox was covering this.

So what was the headline from ABC News/AP on Sunday?:

"White Supremacists Riot in Toledo, Ohio"

and

"Mayor of Toledo, Ohio, Declares Emergency, Sets Curfew After Hundreds of White Supremacists Riot"

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1220242&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

...Now granted, I was not in Toledo to witness this. However, I did watch it for the better part of an hour and the only white people I saw (and hence the only ones who could be logically considered "White Supremacists") were the news people reporting it. So for this event, and the aforementioned news story, here are the "unwritten stories" that I see:

1. Misleading reporting - in this case outright lies.
2. Journalistic Sin of Omission.
3. A society doing the stupidest thing imaginable.
4. Case study: How to get the results you want with the least possible effort.

First there is 1. Misleading reporting. The headline of the article EXPLICITLY states that the rioters were "White Supremacists." In the interest of political correctness, ABC News and AP wants you believe that white supremacists were the ones who looted the stores, burned down a family tavern and rioted. They didn't.

Next, let's look at 2. Journalistic Sin of Omission. The ABC/AP article does little, if anything to inform you that the looting and arson was done by roving gangs of young black men - and not white supremacists as their headline says. Would this standard of reporting be the same if young white men rioted at a Louis Farrakhan march? Reading the article, you might be able to figure out what happened - or you might not.

TOLEDO, Ohio Oct 16, 2005 - Protesters at a white supremacists' march threw rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores and cursed the mayor for allowing the event. Mayor Jack Ford said when he and a local minister tried to calm the rioters Saturday, they were cursed and a masked gang member threatened to shoot him. At one point, the crowd reached 600 people, officials said.
...
Rioters set fire to 86-year-old Louis Ratajski's neighborhood pub, Jim & Lou's Bar, but he and his nephew escaped the flames.
...
One group of men pounded on a convenience store, and others overturned vehicles.
...
"It's exactly what they wanted," Ford said of the group that planned the march, which was canceled because of the rioting.
...
Officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas canisters and flash-bang devices designed to stun suspects, but the groups continued throwing rocks and bottles.
...
Finally, police marched shoulder-to-shoulder down the street shouting to people to stay inside, and the crowd of several hundred broke up.

...Also, of all the images that ABC News could put on their website, they chose one obscure enough to mask the features of the "protesters."

I do not, nor have I ever supported the American Nazi party. But if they were out to protest against your demographic, would you think the best response is arson and looting? This brings us to 3. A society doing the stupidest thing imaginable and 4. Case study: How to get the results you want with the least possible effort.


The best thing these "protesters" could have done was to prove the American Nazi party wrong. Instead, they chose to add credibility to the Nazi's argument. Just plain stupid. I'm certain the Nazi's were toasting their horrible success late into Saturday evening. Probably at about the same time ABC News and AP decided to throw their credibility out the window.

I expect ABC News will either rewrite or kill this link as it is a flagrant example of PC bias in their reporting. Check out these sites that are covering this and include screen shots of the original ABC/AP news story:

http://newsbusters.org/node/2277
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003733.htm