Just received a welcome press release from the Committee for Justice.

Senate Democrats, led by Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy, pictured left, have hamstrung the nation's federal courts by obstucting the confirmation of Bush nominees. The critical shortage of judges only grows more critical.

Confirmations are headed for a "historic low for a two-term President in modern times," stated GOP Senator Arlen Specter, pictured below right, the ranking Republican on that committee.

Specter has been holding Increasingly frustrated Republicans at bay, trying to appeal to Leahy.

Time is apparently up....

On February 29 Specter, pictured left, wrote Leahy a letter calling for a bipartisan protocol and timetable to confirm judges. Democrats scoffed at President Bush's likewise proposal in 2002.

If this fails, there will be a "showdown," according to the press release.

The last showdown was averted by the Gang of 14, a group of 7 Dems and 7 GOPers who created a bloc to force compromise. John McCain headed the Gang, you'll recall, a point of contention among conservatives ever since, although this did pave the way for Alito and Roberts' confirmations.

The press release speaks of "hardball tactics" and "Specter... ready to lead his colleagues into battle." I called the release writer, Curt Levey, to explain what sort of ruckus the Republicans might make. Curt said:

Republicans can threaten to deny a quorum to Leahy in committee; they can slow things down on the Senate floor; they can block specific pieces of legislation they know Leahy really wants. Anything they do to raise the visibility of the issue is helpful.

This is an issue that cuts the Republican way. The more visibility, the more Democrats want to make it go away. The biggest trouble they can cause is to have a confrontation, get a lot of media publicaity. The last thing in the world [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid or Obama wants is for judges to be a big issue this fall.

Yes, according to the release, one tactic will be to put Obama on the hotseat. The man calling for bipartisanship and an end to acrimony should not oppose bipartisan rules for judicial confirmations, right?

The Swamp added this:

Leahy won't say it, but if he and the Democrats are indeed running a kind of four-corners offense to delay consideration of nominees, it may be in their best interest to do so. If either... Clinton or... Obama is elected president in November, pending judicial nominations will likely lapse or be pulled and replaced by nominees more palatable to Democrats. That was undoubtedly was very much in the mind of Specter and McConnell as they made their remarks Monday.

[Leahy photo courtesy of CBC News; Specter photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated;

Anderson Cooper divulged some interesting information while asking an interesting question during the CNN debate last night with the remaining Republican nominees for president:

On July 6, 1981... Ronald Reagan wrote in his diary about Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. And the Reagan Library has graciously allowed us to actually have the original Reagan diary right here on the desk....

And in it, he wrote by his hand, he said, "Called Judge O'Connor in Arizona and told her she was my nominee for Supreme Court. Already the flak is starting, and from my own supporters. Right-to-life people say she's pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice."...

[W]as she the right choice?...

Certainly Reagan's thoughts on O'Connor have been public information for a long time, but not to me. Recall at the time Roe was only 8 years young, and parsing on being "personally" pro-life had not yet bloomed into what we know it to be today: functionally pro-abortion.

Also interesting is that Reagan apparently asked O'Connor The Question, and she apparently answered him or made her ideology public, a point Republicans and judicial nominees intensely avoid these days, thinking the code phrase "strict constructionist" rather than "pro-life" fools anyone.

The candidates' transcribed answers are below. To summarize, Huckabee refused to answer but gave a mini-speech on being pro-life; Paul said no; McCain refused to answered but reiterated he would appoint justices in the mold of Roberts and Alito, "who have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution"; Romney said no, reiterating same, and adding Scalia and Thomas to his list.

Candidates' responses to Cooper question on whether they would have nominated Sandra Day O'Connor as Supreme Court justice, as Reagan did:

HUCKABEE: History will have to determine that, and I'm not going to come to the Reagan Library and say anything about Ronald Reagan's decisions. I'm not that stupid. If I was, I'd have no business being president.

I think we need to talk about why the issue of right-to-life is important. For many of us, this is not a political issue; this is an issue of principle and conviction. And it goes to the heart of who we are as a country.

If we value each other as human beings and believe that everybody has equal worth, and that that intrinsic value is not affected by net worth, or ancestry, or last name, or job description, or ability, or disability, then the issue of the sanctity of human life is far bigger than just being anti-abortion.

It's about being pro-life and exercising that deep conviction held by our founding fathers that all of us are equal and no one is more equal than another, recognizing that once we ever decide that some people are more equal or less equal than others, then we start moving that line, and it may include us some day.

And that's why for many of us -- and me included. Let me be very clear: I'm pro-life. I value every human being. And I would always make every decision always on the side of life every time I could, without equivocation.

COOPER: Yes or no, Congressman Paul, was Sandra Day O'Connor the right choice?

PAUL: I wouldn't have appointed her, because I would have looked for somebody that I would have seen as a much stricter constitutionalist.

COOPER: Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: I'm proud of Sandra Day O'Connor as a fellow Arizonan. And my heart goes out to her family in that situation that they have today. And I'm proud of her.

The judges I would appoint are along the lines of Justices Roberts and Alito, who have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America. I'm not going to second-guess President Reagan.

COOPER: Governor Romney?

ROMNEY: I would approve justices -- I would have favored justices like Roberts and Alito, Scalia and Thomas. I like justices that follow the Constitution, do not make law from the bench. I would have much rather had a justice of that nature.

On Monday the Supreme Court declined to consider the appeal of a lower court ruling uphodling a 2002 New York state law forcing some religious employers to cover contraceptives in their health insurance drug plans, which violated their religious beliefs.

Four points on this....

1. The groups suing, which included Baptists, Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and Seventh Day Adventists, correctly argued, as quoted by the Associated Press:

If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well.... And if it can compel church entities to subsidize abortions, it can require hospitals owned by churches to provide them.

2. As a DC pro-lifer involved in public policy emailed:

The very existence of this case underscores the urgent need to break the link between health insurance and employment. If we all were able to buy our own health insurance, we could group together according to our moral principles. If the Knights of Columbus, for instance, were able to sell health insurance as they now sell life insurance, then Catholics would be able to own health insurance that did not violate their conscience. Ditto for Mormons, Southern Baptists, Muslims, and so forth.

Are you aware that 46% of workers in employer-sponsored health insurance plans are in plans which cover abortion? Those people are subsidizing abortion - against their will, and probably without their knowledge.

I know that health insurance reform seems to be a long way from the life issue. But it is intimately connected to it. Everything we care about in the life battles connects sooner or later with health insurance reform.

If you want to reform health care, you have to reform health insurance. If you want to reform health insurance, you have to reform the federal tax code. That's because when your employer buys your health insurance neither he nor you pay any tax on it - but your employer owns it and you have no choice about it. But the federal tax code is the reason individuals can not afford to buy their own health insurance.

That must change, or there can be no freedom of conscience in health insurance. So when you hear about "conservatives" wanting to create a personal health care tax credit, please understand that this is a very pro-life initiative as well as a "conservative" one.

3. Is this over? Two points of view. Arguing yes, as quoted by the AP:

"We thought the addition of Roberts and Alito and the fact that we included churches would make a difference. It didn't. I think the battle has been fought and lost," said Dennis Poust, spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops.

Arguing no:

"The Supreme Court likes to have issues percolate for a while at the lower courts. They also look for the best vehicle to address a specific issue. This very well could end up at the Supreme Court," said [Jordan] Lorence [attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund].

My pro-life public policy email friend also thought no:

I think (hope?) they're biding their time for a better case, at the right time... in which they can accomplish something definitive. I'm glad they didn't get into this and end up with a half-baked decision that did as much harm as good.

4. To date, 23 states have passed laws forcing employers to cover birth control pills. Who is behind the push? Planned Parenthood, which makes a ton of easy money from selling contraceptives, made all that easier by submitting claims to insurance companies. An AP article quoted the JoAnn Smith, president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State:

"Every state court that has heard this case has affirmed that the law helps to provide access to basic health care. Today's decision by the Supreme Court not to consider the case protects the religious freedom of women and families."

FPA is a PP lobby group.

From the Baltimore Sun, this afternoon:

You'll have two chances to see Clarence Thomas in the next few days, likely two more than you've had in a very long time.

The notoriously private justice will be on CBS' 60 Minutes Sunday and then on ABC throughout the day on Monday, culminating in an extended interview on Nightline. Monday is the first day of the new Supreme Court term.

Thomas is availing himself for interviews in advance of the release of his new book, "My Grandfather's Son."

Rush will also play a 1-1/2 hour interview Monday he taped with Thomas yesterday.

According to a CBS advance story yesterday:

In his first television interview, in which he discusses his childhood, his race, his rise to Supreme Court Justice and his job on the nation's highest court, Clarence Thomas says the real issue at his controversial confirmation hearings 16 years ago was abortion....

Saying the issue was "the elephant in the room," Thomas also tells 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft that the hearings he called at the time a "high-tech lynching" harmed the country....

Thomas, whose Supreme Court positions on abortion issues have been conservative, says the confirmation hearings in which he was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee -- allegations he continues to deny -- were really about abortion. "That was the elephant in the room ... That was the issue. That is the issue that people are apparently so upset about," he tells Kroft. "[That is the issue] that you determine the composition of your Supreme Court and your entire federal judiciary, it seems now," says Thomas.

[HT: son Tim]

Here's an opportunity to learn the basics while furthering the work of the premier pro-life bioethics law firm in the country:

Legal Extern

Americans United for Life, a national public-interest bioethics law firm defending human life through vigorous legislative, judicial, and educational efforts, is seeking two highly-qualified and motivated law students to serve as legal externs during the fall semester. The externships are unpaid and may be undertaken for credit (as approved by their law school) or to fulfill other graduation requirements.

Start date is September 2007.

See page 2 for qualifications and contact info.

(Recall Dan McConchie is VP and Exec. Dir.)

Qualifications:

Excellent legal research and writing skills

Demonstrated initiative and attention to detail

Ability to work with minimal direct supervision. Candidates are not required to be in the Chicago area, but must be available by telephone and email.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Externs will work closely with AUL attorneys in researching, drafting, and editing scholarly articles. These articles will be published in a variety of resources and venues including AUL’s Defending Life (a comprehensive state by state guide to life issues), a new volume on state supreme courts, law reviews, national magazines, and websites.

Legal research and drafting of amicus briefs and educational material on life issues including abortion, bioethics, healthcare rights of conscience, and the end-of-life.

Contact: Denise M. Burke, Vice President & Legal Director

(312) 568-4740

denise.burke@AUL.org

Interested candidates should email a resume to denise.burke@AUL.org.

Starting Date: September 2007

Biblically, one definition of a fool is a person who doesn't know when to shut up.

The blogger who on the Wonkette site won the award for crassest comment about Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' July 30 seizure, ("Chief Justice John Roberts has died in his summer home in Maine. No, not really, but we know you have your fingers crossed.") is at it again.

Today, after listing my blog "among some self-righteous conservative folks" who thought the comment was asinine, Culture Warrior quipped, "From all of this outrage, you would think I actually took a shot at the guy."

Now, this is the same blogger who called Ann Coulter the c-word and accused her of an unspeakable act for "spew[ing] unparalleled hate" by her f-word (the other one) joke about John Edwards.

Touche.

As our commenter Laura first reported yesterday, according to the Associated Press this morning:

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure at his summer home in Maine yesterday, causing a fall that resulted in minor scrapes, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said. He was to remain in a Maine hospital overnight....

Roberts, 52, underwent a "thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern," Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement. Roberts had a similar episode in 1993, she said. Doctors called yesterday's incident "a benign idiopathic seizure," she added.

Left bloggers, given a stern talking to by their poobah Kos only last week to talk nice, are wishing for a death sentence or making other crass statements....

Wonkette:

Chief Justice John Roberts has died in his summer home in Maine. No, not really, but we know you have your fingers crossed.

Delilah Boyd:

What I learned Today: Supreme Court Justice's Foaming At The Mouth Is "No Cause For Concern."

Justinsomnia :

Who’s Idiopathic? Chief Justice John Roberts.

Irregular Times :

... [Roberts] was on a dock in at his vacation home in Port Clyde, Maine. I know Port Clyde. It’s not exactly a bustling metropolis. It's a sleepy little town by the ocean, with bed and breakfasts and rental cottages. It's the kind of place that people like John Roberts go to in order to relax.

So, I doubt the suggestion in the Daily News article that these seizures could be brought on by stress. The kind of stress that is required to bring on seizures is pretty rare in places like out on the golf course or on a boat dock at a vacation home. If John Roberts really is having stress-induced seizures that lead him to lose consciousness and fall down while playing golf and walking out on the dock at his oceanside vacation home, then he's a maniac.

There is something other than stress that can induce "seizures" that make people fall down and lose consciousness: Psychoactive drugs.... How do we know that Justice John Roberts isn't losing consciousness because he's on some kind of drug obtained by prescription or on the street?

Democratic Underground [hat tip: Lonewacko]

ThomCat: I hate to wish anyone ill, but I hope his tenure on the supreme court is a short one.

kaygore: If there is a God, then he is not too young to become the right-hand maiden to Satan in the inner reaches of Hell.

antifaschits: [responding to a request for prayers] why? karma, if it exists, will probably kick this SOB in the teeth. Except, unlike 40,000,000 americans, he has access to the best of the best health care plans in the world. If, unexpectedly, he sees his own frail human life, his ability to suffer and die, his future pass before his eyes, like it does to hundreds of thousands each day in this country, if it educates him about the harm he inflicts on others, then, yeah, I can see hoping for him. But more likely than not, he won't. He will not recognize life as most of us see it. He will continue in his neocon way of viewing things, and simply add fat to the fire when he recovers and returns to the bench.

aquart: [responding to the request for prayers] Okay: Dear Lord, May the evil John Roberts does come back to him and only him, from every place it has gone, from everyone it has harmed.

kaygore: Better prayer. Dear God, Please release Satan's hand-maiden, John Roberts, from his worldly cares and allow him to join once again with the Prince of Darkness in the lowest reaches of Hell. We pray this in the name of your son, our lord, Jesus. Amen.

Bornaginhooligan: I prayed. But it didn't come true.

NoodleyAppendage: See. That's what happens when you attempt to goose step down the stairs. Neocon, pro-fascist horseplay is inherently dangerous.

GoddessOfGuinness: After a fall...He must have tripped on his preconceived notions... ...the ones he didn't bring with him to the job.

Onlooker: I think the hatred is tongue in cheek, but .... How can he be decent when he uses his power to infringe on women's rights, civil rights, and worker's rights? He's a person whose decisions can affect the well-being of millions, and he has done far more harm than good. He may be a decent man in his private life, but he's a dangerous man on the SC.

youngdem: Just because he looks like a decent man doesn't mean he is..He is an evil, UNAMERICAN man... Ted Bundy also looked like a decent man. This one is just a serial killer of fundamental rights.

mitchum: F*** that noise; he's a [expletive deleted] lowlife fascist

Massachusetts: May Roberts and every other Bu$hco appointed treasonous Bastard rot in hell for their interpretive abuse and misuse of OUR (WE THE PEOPLES), Constitution and Rights! NO SYMPATHY HERE! MAYBE EXXON OR ONE OF THE BIG CORPS WHO CARE LESS ABOUT OUR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE WILL SEND HIM SOME LILIES.

eppur_se_muova: Great, just don't bring him back. nt

mitchum: F*** him; it wouldn't bother me if that was a one way trip

Finally, on my own blog, Laura:

Wow! All of you who prayed for the demise of a Supreme Court justice may have just received your wish. I got my wish when I found out it was ROBERTS.

And they call us "vitriolic," their favorite term - next to "misogynist."

It goes without saying the engine propelling the abortion movement has been the courts, starting with Roe v. Wade.

Protecting abortion was the biggest reason why the Left tried to stop President Bush's two Supreme Court nominees. But the Gang of 14 - which I detested at the time - stymied them.

Now the Left is gearing up for the mother of all Supreme Court nomination battles, the one which could lead to the reversal of Roe.

I drew your attention last week to liberal Justice Breyer's shocking betrayal of the separation of powers by whispering in liberal Republican Sen. Specter's ear that he might want to take a closer look at recent decisions following the addition of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court. (Where are the journalists investigating Breyer's breach? Where are Congressional calls for an inquiry?)

I also highlighted the speech at a recent Planned Parenthood fundraiser given by the grande dame of liberal journalists, Helen Thomas, in which she warned, "It seems the present conservative [U.S. Supreme] Court is targeting Roe v. Wade and there's not much you can do about it unless Congress is willing to deal with these touchy subjects. Without pressure, I doubt they will."

MSM's attempt to arouse Americans' suspicions of an increasingly sound Supreme Court, obviuosly to tamper with the next nomination should it be on Bush's watch, has now begun. Yesterday's Washington Post headline:

Fewer See Balance in Court's Decisions;
Bush Nominees Have Made Panel 'Too Conservative' for Many, Poll Indicates

The Indianapolis Star's headline...

Poll: More Americans say Supreme Court 'too conservative'

"Many"? "More"? How about 31%? Here's the story:

About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" in the two years since President Bush began nominating justices, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll....

The public seems to have noticed the shift. The percentage who said the court is "too conservative" grew from 19 percent to 31 percent in the past two years, while those who said it is "generally balanced in its decisions" declined from 55 percent to 47 percent.

The poll spotlighted two recent Supreme decisions, that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban was constitutional and racial quotas for university admissions were unconstitutional.

Where were the polls asking whether the Supreme Court was tilting too liberal after its 5-4 Kelo eminent domain decision, before the addition of Roberts and Alito?

I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that there is health or retirement news about one of the current Supremes of which the public has not yet been made aware.

[Photo of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts are courtesy of the Washington Post.]

From The Politico, yesterday:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation....

The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado....

Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, drew attention last month for suggesting that Roberts and the conservative majority were flouting stare decisis, the legal doctrine that, for the sake of stability, courts should generally leave past decisions undisturbed....

"I only noticed it in a couple of cases," Specter said of the court overturning or undermining precedents. But Breyer, in their Aspen conversation, said "there were eight."

The liberal concern for stare decisis is code for wanting Roe v. Wade left alone, which is pathetic. They know the ruling can't stand on its own.

Most disturbing is Breyer's overt attempt to undermine Roberts and also influence the political process in judicial selections, altogether compromising the separation of powers.

There was also this:

The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP and future nominees because Democrats are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court moved quicker and more dramatically than advertised to overturn or chip away at prior decisions.

I didn't see before how a Bush nominee who was strict constructionist could make it out of the Democrat-controlled Senate alive. Now it seems impossible. On the bright side, Bush's legacy is already clear.

I recently heard the next Supreme nomination will be fought like the Battle of Armageddon, since the next justice could provide the Roe v. Wade tipping vote. Well, the Battle has just begun, even before there is a nominee to draw and quarter. Unable to get Supreme nominees to show their Roe hand, Democrats relied on their answers re: stare decisis. Now they'll say they can't count on that.

And stare decisis? Good thing it's not a rule written in stone. If so, Dred Scott would still be the ruling of the land, and we wouldn't have Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.

Interestingly, Roberts was asked during his confirmation hearings if he supported the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Liberals should be asked the same question.

[Specter photo and caption are courtesy of The Politico.]

In the past few days, pro-lifers were handed two major First Amendment court victories of significant impact.

1. On June 22 an Ohio federal district court judge ruled that a state branch of the powerful pro-abortion National Education Association cannot force teachers to become union members who have religious objections to abortion. (It's incredibly stupid that a profession would seek to kill off its clientele in the first place .)

This ruling has broader implications, as the AP explained: "An employee whose religious beliefs conflict with the political positions of their labor union cannot be forced to pay dues...."

2. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wisconsin Right to Life, striking down a portion of McCain-Feingold. I gave the backdrop to this decision April 26.

Explained National Review Online....

McCain-Feingold made it a federal crime for any corporation to broadcast, 30 to 60 days before an election, any communication that mentions a federal candidate for elected office and is aimed relevant voters.

Wisconsin Right to Life is an ideological corporation that accepted funding from other corporations. Its members wanted to run ads in 2004 urging citizens of their state to contact its two senators and urge them to oppose a filibuster of judicial nominees.

Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the senators and a co-author of the law in question, was running for reelection. WRTL's advertising plans thus constituted a federal crime. At least, they were a crime if the relevant part of McCain-Feingold was constitutional as applied to WRTL.

In fact, McCain-Feingold was constitutionally invalid in this case and probably many others.

I blogged almost six weeks ago on the court battle between now-divorced TX couple Augusta and Randy Roman [pictured above] over the fate of their three frozen embryos. On May 30, the LA Times synopsized the dispute:

Augusta wanted to take possession and have them implanted, agreeing to release Randy from any financial or parental obligation. Randy wanted the embryos destroyed, or at least frozen indefinitely.

The dispute has now taken an interesting turn. Reported the LAT:

Roman vs. Roman now rests with the Supreme Court of Texas, one of a number of divorce cases nationwide in which the custody dispute has revolved around microscopic clumps of cells that are considered - by most states, at least - to be property and not human life....

As the cases proliferate, the odds grow that the issue may eventually come before the U.S. Supreme Court. Augusta and Randy Roman said in recent interviews that they intended to appeal to the higher court if they lost in Texas.

Their lawyers believe such a case could provide the court with one of several means to undermine another Texas reproductive rights case, Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed a right to abortion. In that case, the justices explicitly avoided speculating on when life begins, but asserted that the unborn are not "persons" as encompassed by the 14th Amendment. Absolved of the need to balance the rights of the unborn against those of a pregnant woman, the court found that a woman's right to privacy allowed her to terminate a pregnancy.

However, the Roe decision came five years before the birth of the first test-tube baby. Socially conservative legal theorists, buoyed by the court's recent decision to uphold [the partial-birth abortion] ban... believe a case involving frozen embryos could give an increasingly conservative court one vehicle for reconsidering the rights of the unborn, and to do so apart from the issue of a woman's right to control her own body....

Two points: The LAT reported the Supremes were "absolved of the need to balance the rights of the unborn" in their Roe decision.

Actually, they absolved themselves, which is the reason why experts on both sides of the abortion debate agree the Roe decision was shaky. About that, then-Chief Justice Harry Blackmun stated in the Roe decision:

The appellee ... argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the 14th Amendment ... If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.

Which brings me to point #2. If and when Roe is overturned, it will be not on the basis of whose rights trump, woman or embryo/fetus, but on the personhood of the embryo/fetus.

Proi-abortion columnist Charles Krauthammer said this in his syndicated column on May 11:

Legalizing abortion by judicial fiat ( Roe v. Wade) instead of by democratic means has its price. One is that the issue remains socially unsettled. People take to the streets when they have been deprived of resort to legislative action.

The other effect is to render the very debate hopelessly muddled. Instead of discussing what a decent society owes women and what it owes soon-to-be-born infants, and trying to balance the two by politically hammering out regulations that a broad national consensus can support, we debate the constitutional niceties of a 35-year-old, appallingly crafted Supreme Court decision....

I hope for the day when Roe is overturned, not because I want to see abortion criminalized - I once voted in a Maryland referendum to keep abortion legal if Roe is ever repealed - but to sweep away this ridiculous muddle.... Abortion is already so contaminated with legalisms, why not turn the issue into one of simple democracy? Let the people decide. Let them work it out the way everything else in this country is worked out -- by political argument and legislative accommodation.

Just got this from a friend. The news is almost two weeks old and should have been headline but wasn't. Not sure why. The other side could certainly use it for fundraising and fearmongering. From Kaiser Daily Reports, May 1:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday in a speech at the University of Delaware said that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that effectively barred state abortion bans, is not a precedent he is willing to accept, the Wilmington News Journal reports. "When you give the court the power to insert new rights, you also give it the power to take out old rights," he said, adding, "The right to abortion on the part of a woman is the end of the right to live on the part of the fetus"

This was an important statement because pro-aborts of late, knowing Roe was a faulty decision, have been trying to say Roe v. Wade must stay simply because we're all so used to it.

This is called the principal of stare decisis in legal terminology. Ruth Bader Ginsberg invoked it in her April 18 dissent against the pba ban decision. Liberal senators harped on this point when interrogating then-Supreme nominees Roberts and Alito.

Scalia is saying that argument won't work with him in consideration of reversing Roe.

[Hat tip: Arlene; photos courtesy of Wilmington News Journal]

By Hisman (as one totally sold out to Jesus Christ)

Way to go Supreme Court. This is round 1, there's 14 more to go....eye of the tiger, eye of the tiger.

I have been accused on this blog of being an abusive father and a woman hater because of my absolute and unwavering stand against the murder of children in the womb. Well, whoever you think I am, I would like to encourage any woman coming to this site to take heart from the story of the "Power of One". It's principles can be applied to any situation where standing firm is the only true choice. John 16:33, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

As an engineer and student of mathematics, applying a logarithmic scale to one abortion, not one beating heart is stilled, but countless beating hearts. Conversely, one person can make an exponential difference for the good as well, please choose life. God is counting on you, literally.

You can be a history maker, you can change the world. Stand firm against any that are intimidating you into having an abortion. Abortion is murder and you do not have to stand alone. Have that beautiful baby now growing inside your bosom. Read on...........from the Allied Defense Fund



Emily Brooker

Several months ago, I shared the story of Emily Brooker, the social work student who underwent intense interrogation by hostile faculty members at Missouri State University for refusing to follow "orders" to send a letter to the Missouri state legislature supporting adoption by those who engage in homosexual behavior.

This "letter" was not the first time that Emily had been subjected to the homosexual agenda at Missouri State. As a freshman, she was assigned to openly display "lesbian behavior" in public and then write about her experiences! Emily declined to engage in such behavior, but wrote a paper anyway in fear of academic intimidation.

But last fall when a social work professor tried to force her to violate her beliefs again, Emily took a stand. She was slapped with a "Level 3 grievance" - the most serious charge possible - resulting in possible withholding of her degree and the two-and-one-half hour interrogation by the school's "ethics" committee.

David French

David French, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom filed a complaint on Emily's behalf in federal district court. The school settled - removing the grievance from Emily's record, agreeing to pay her tuition for two years of graduate school, and the professor who gave the assignment was removed from his administrative duties and placed on academic leave for the rest of the semester. And as blessed as all this was, it gets even better yet!

The school also commissioned an independent investigation of the social work program. The commission's report came back last week. I'll let David French report from here:

"...the university announced the results of the investigation, and - to the administration's infinite credit - the report is not a whitewash. In fact, I've never read a more stinging indictment of an academic department. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the report was the authors' call for accountability and consequences. Here are their first two recommendations for fixing the problem:

Close down the school; disband the faculty and restart the School after a short period...This option ensures ridding of all toxic faculty...
Eliminate those faculty who are identified as major contributors of the problem and find ways to remove them from the faculty...
Emily Brooker's case could represent a watershed moment in higher education in Missouri. For the first time in a long time, an administration has the courage to step up and acknowledge mistakes. For the first time in a long time, an internal academic investigation has resulted in a call for real reform. Emily's case has already led to the American Council of Alumni and Trustees (ACTA)-inspired Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act, and now it seems to be leading to genuine institutional self-examination. Students take note: there is hope, and a bit of courage can go a long, long way. "

I want to thank God and salute Emily for standing by her convictions and taking a bold stand for the Truth in an incredibly hostile environment. Emily's courage proves that the legal battle to preserve our First Liberty - religious freedom - can and will be won if we rely on Christ (John 15:5), and are willing, like Emily, to challenge injustice. Thank you for making it possible for ADF to be there for courageous young adults like Emily - so that they know they are not alone and can stand up to the leftist orthodoxy on tax-funded university campuses and, one by one, change the world.

http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/pressrelease.aspx?cid=3916&referral=E0407D

By Valerie Jane:

What is a candidate to do with this new ruling?

Some have already reacted. Here are just a few quotes:

Barack Obama:

"I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women."

Rudy Giuliani :

"The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion. I agree with it."

John Edwards:

"I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women."

Mitt Romney:

"Today, our nation's highest court reaffirmed the value of life in America by upholding a ban on a practice that offends basic human decency. This decision represents a step forward in protecting the weakest and most innocent among us."

Hillary Clinton:

"This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother."

According to many of the pro-choicers who visit us, this ruling is "not a big deal".

I think some people disagree.

By Mary Kay Hastings

Take a moment. Pour yourself a cup of tea. Have a cookie. Think about this.
Life comes down to "moments". So much can happen, and change in just one "moment'.

Take a sunrise. One moment it's dark, and the next moment it's morning.
Or how about one moment your a single woman, then you stand at the altar, say I do, and in single moment, you are now a married women, bound to someone for life.
Then there are the moments when a person takes their last breath. Alive one moment. Dead the next.
How about the moment a baby take it's first step, or the moment of you first kiss...

Well, you get the idea...Kodak even has a jingle about them "Celebrate the moments of your life...(musical notes?)

Last night everyone was on here ganging up on HisMan and as a result got to bed very late (or early) and are probably now sleeping.

While you were sleeping an odd thing happened. One of those aforementioned moments occurred.

Last night, Partial Birth Abortion was a legal and viable option for killing the unborn..

But this morning, in a matter of moments, a vote was taken by the supreme court, and now, just like that (what do you guys say? oh yes, SNAP)
PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION IS ILLEGAL AND NO LONGER A VIABLE OPTION FOR KILLING THE UNBORN...WITH NO CHANCE FOR APPEAL.

Hope none of you choked on your tea. Hope you all slept well. I know I did.
One lump or two? Would you like a little crow with your cuppa?

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.
The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.
It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.
Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.
More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday's ruling.
Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.
"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.
Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

You mean the way we tolerated and applauded the federal intervention of the ruling Roe vs Wade...hmmmm, very interesting, hypocritcal, but veeeerryyyy interesting.

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.
The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.
Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.
In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision.
The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.
But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday's ruling.
Kennedy's dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

I think I'll skip the tea. Maybe break open a bottle of Champagne instead...
mmmmmmmm......oments.

[smiling baby photo courtesy: Valerie]

I received this note from an Albert Bryson on election day:

Sorry, Jill. Santorum has to go. I will vote for Casey. Santorum backing of Spector in 2004 primary is a betrayal to us pro-life voters. I can not vote for him period. I know it may harm the pro-life cause. Principle is more important than political party. Besides the irresponsible Republicans in Washington have to go. Unfortunately Santorum is a big spending conservative senator.

I sent Albert this response today:

Albert, Well, actually you've given me relief. If and when a Supreme Court position opens within the next 14 months, it is now your responsibility to ensure a pro-lifer fills the spot, not mine. Thanks.

I also wonder about principles that admit one's decision may harm the pro-life cause. What sort of principles are those?

From Human Events, November 4:

For weeks, commentators have speculated that significant numbers of conservatives, alienated by over-spending, the Iraq War, and other perceived GOP disappointments, will stay home on Election Day, giving one or both Houses of Congress to Democrats. But for those who care about reforming the Supreme Court, sitting this one out may soon look like a mistake of historic proportions.

For the past several weeks, there has been a rumor circulating among high-level officials in Washington, D.C., that a member of the U.S. Supreme Court has received grave medical news and will announce his or her retirement by year’s end. While such rumors are not unusual in the nation’s capital, this one comes from credible sources. Additionally, a less credible but still noteworthy post last week at the liberal Democratic Underground blog says, “Send your good vibes to Justice Stevens. I just got off the phone with a friend of his family and right now he is very ill and at 86 years old that is not good.”

Normally, this news might be too ghoulish to repeat publicly. Nevertheless, with the election just days away, it is news that should be considered....

There are unconfirmed reports that IL gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka indicated earlier this spring she didn't need conservatives to win.

Whether or not that's true, we will likely find out, and this isn't just whiny saber-rattling by IL conservatives.

Nationally, conservatives are showing their displeasure with an aberrant president and legislature by walking and threatening to walk.

This week, in an unprecedented move, conservative leaders boycotted a Tuesday meeting at the White House with Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to discuss judicial nominees. These meetings are rare; this was the first in over a year. Typically, 60-70 attend. But this time WH and Senate staffers nearly outnumbered the 15-20 who showed.

(See Page 2 for posting of articles detailing this from The Hill and Congress Daily AM not available online.)

News watchers will not then wonder why the issue of judicial nominees suddenly rose in prominence the past few days on the GOP Senate and WH agendas.

Peggy Noonan addressed this issue on a larger scale in her piece, "Baseless confidence," in today's Wall Street Journal:

[T]he administration and the Congress are losing their base, and it isn't because of the media....

The Republicans talk about cutting spending, but they increase it--a lot. They stand for making government smaller, but they keep making it bigger. They say they're concerned about our borders, but they're not securing them. And they seem to think we're slobs for worrying. Republicans used to be sober and tough about foreign policy, but now they're sort of romantic and full of emotionalism. They talk about cutting taxes, and they have, but the cuts are provisional, temporary....

What's a voter to do? Maybe stay home, have the neighbors over for some barbecue....

Party leaders say they're aware they're in trouble, aware of a sense of stasis in the country. They are going to solve the problem, they say, by passing legislation. They're going to pass a budget. And they're going to pass an immigration bill, too. People will like that.

But no they won't. The American people are not going to say, "I am relieved and delighted our Congress passed a budget." They will be relieved and delighted if Congress cuts spending. They would be relieved and delighted if Congress finally took responsibility for the nation's borders. They won't be impressed if you just pass bills and call it progress.

Party leaders are showing a belief in process as opposed to a belief in, say, belief. But belief drives politics. It certainly drives each party's base.

One gets the impression party leaders, deep in their hearts, believe the base is... base. Unsophisticated. Primitive. Obsessed with its little issues. They're trying to educate the base. But if history is a guide, the base is about to teach them a lesson instead.

Certainly the ILGOP old guard goes so far as to taunt its base as base, unsophisticated, primitive, and obsessed with its little issues. How much more should it expect a boycott, at least in the governor's race.

The marriage amendment will bring conservatives out, but expect Judy to be snubbed, be it formally or organically driven. Social conservatives around the state tell me they physically will not be able to vote for her. Principles drive social conservatives to politics... and away.

Congress Daily AM

Conservatives Let Absence Do The Talking At Judges Meeting

May 10, 2006

White House officials and Senate GOP leadership aides met with conservatives group Monday to outline President Bush's plans for a looming Senate battle over judicial nominations this year, but several conservative leaders decided to boycott the gathering to show their frustration over the issue, according to sources.

Manuel Miranda, executive director of the conservative Third Branch Conference, who called for the boycott, said several conservative leaders agreed they needed to send a message to the White House and Senate GOP aides.

Miranda declined to name which conservative leaders decided not to attend the meeting, but said the gatherings typically include 60 to 70 conservative leaders. A conservative strategist who was at the meeting said it was "well-attended and upbeat," with 15-20 conservatives at the table.

White House and Republican leadership aides have been trying to quell conservatives' frustrations that the party is not quickly moving to nominate and approve appellate court nominees.

Although Majority Leader Frist announced last month that he would schedule a vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia before the Memorial Day recess, conservatives have complained that the majority leader needs to schedule more votes on other nominees.

Conservative leaders discussed the boycott in a conference call Monday morning, specifically expressing dissatisfaction with White House Counsel Harriet Miers, according to Miranda. Several conservatives accused Miers of rejecting numerous recommendations for vacancies on federal courts.

There are 43 vacancies on the federal bench, with 18 pending nominees, according to the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary's Web site.

The conservative groups also disagreed with a recent assessment that Bush has an 87 percent success rate for confirming judges. They contend the number includes district judge nominations. On appellate court nominees, conservatives say Bush has a 71 percent confirmation rate, but if all pending nominees are confirmed it would rise to 89 percent. Compared with past administrations, Bush has been less successful, the groups contend.

This year's debate over the hotly contested issue kicks off today when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on Kavanaugh's nomination. Democrats demanded another hearing last week, citing concerns that Kavanaugh participated in Bush's decision to allow warrantless domestic wiretapping and that he received a lower rating from the American Bar Association last month.

An ABA official said in a statement Monday that a 14-member committee downgraded its rating because new interviews with judges and associates raised concerns about Kavanaugh's experience and objectivity. The panel changed the rating from "well-qualified" to "qualified" in April.

But the ABA official added Kavanaugh remains qualified to serve on the federal bench.

"This nominee enjoys a solid reputation for integrity, intellectual capacity and writing and analytical ability," the statement noted.

Judiciary Chairman Specter said Monday "there's not a whole lot of difference" between the two ratings. "That's just a shading, and I think that in either interpretation, it comes out that he's ... a mix of qualified and well-qualified, which is pretty good," Specter added.

_______________

The Hill

By Alexander Bolton

Presidential adviser Karl Rove and White House counsel Harriet Miers yesterday told conservative activists and Senate staff that the administration would soon send the names of more than 20 judicial nominees to Capitol Hill for confirmation.

The undertaking to move ahead came at a 2:30 meeting at the White House that was boycotted by leading conservatives upset at the slow pace of nominations, according to people who attended the meeting.

Conservatives are upset by the Senate’s slow pace on judges since the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court in February. They are frustrated that the White House has sent few nominees with strong conservative records.

Conservatives are also angry that Senate Republicans agreed to hold a second Judiciary Committee hearing on D.C. Circuit Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh today.

Prominent conservatives who have played instrumental roles in the battle over the federal judiciary but skipped the meeting included Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; former Attorney General Edwin Meese, chairman for the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies; and Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. A representative for the Committee for Justice didn’t attend either.

Rove’s participation in the meeting could mean the White House intends to emphasize the judiciary to rev up the conservative base in the run-up to the midterm election. The judiciary, because of its power over social issues, is a leading concern of the base. Rove is likely to spend more time wooing the base since he was shifted from a policy-oriented to a purely political-strategy role last month.

During a conference call hosted by Leo earlier yesterday, one participant called for conservative leaders to skip the White House meeting because of frustration over the state of judicial nominees. The participant said that by missing the meeting conservative leaders would send a strong statement that GOP leaders needed to have a serious discussion on judicial nominees.

Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) who now chairs the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservative organizations, also called for a boycott during the call. He said he had about 50 participants on his call but did not know many of those who listened in.

The White House meeting was supposed to include a broad coalition of conservative activists. One participant said White House, Senate and Republican National Committee staff nearly equaled the number of conservative leaders who showed up.

But White House staff scrambled to dispel the notion of a brewing rebellion. At the meeting, Tim Goeglein, the White House liaison to conservative activists, gave a list of explanations for each prominent conservative not at the meeting. The point was to show that their absences were because of scheduling conflicts and not because of an intentional boycott. But the rarity with which such White House meetings are held seemed to undercut the explanations.

One participant said the White House could begin submitting judicial nominations to the Senate by the end of the week. Another said Rove and Miers did not give a clear timeline but indicated the nominations would come soon.

Yesterday’s meeting was scheduled to thank conservatives for their work on behalf of President Bush’s nominations to the bench, particularly Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, both of whom the Senate confirmed within the past year.

The last time White House officials held a meeting about judges with a broad array of conservative activists and leaders was the beginning of 2005, according to one activist.

The White House has nominated only four candidates among 18 vacancies on the federal appellate circuit, including two nominees to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals whom conservatives view as liberal-leaning. They are California Judge Sandra Ikuta and Milan Smith, who is the brother of Sen. Gordon Smith, a liberal-leaning Republican from Oregon. There are 56 vacancies in the federal judiciary and 33 judicial nominees pending before Congress, according to the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice.

Conservatives are also upset that Republicans have allowed the nominations of strong conservatives to languish in the Senate, despite having a 55 seat-majority in the chamber.

One controversial conservative nominee, Michigan Judge Henry Saad, withdrew his nomination earlier this year. Senate Republicans have also made clear that there is not likely to be action on 9th Circuit nominee William Myers and 4th Circuit nominee William Haynes.

Last week Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed that Democrats would filibuster Kavanaugh and 4th Circuit nominee Terrence Boyle.

Conservatives were told yesterday that Kavanaugh’s nomination could be voted on by the end of this week.

"I might say, 'This is Pete; he juggles. Your son will never juggle because he won't have any arms. He'll be cut to pieces.'"

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Scheidler's favor for the third time in the landmark case, NOW vs. Scheidler. NOW sued in 1986 for conducting sit-ins at abortion mills.

NOW's filing under the RICO statute alarmed protestors of other venues and thus brought together strange bedfellows with Scheidler against NOW, including Martin Sheen and PETA.

In 2003, the Supremes ruled 8-1 in Scheidler's favor, but the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals incredibly refused to implement the decision in 2004. Yesterday's unanimous ruling dealt a death blow to NOW's case... hopefully.

"It's over now," Scheidler said, according to the Trib. "I think it's over."

As we begin public debate over Roe v. Wade via Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court, reporter Timothy Carney has compiled a list of anti-Roe opinions by pro-choice renowns.

In light of what's at stake, what they write is surprisingly - no, shockingly - honest and also provides strong validation. Here's one example:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

North Carolina Law Review, 1985

One of the extraneous reasons pro-lifers wanted a pro-life Supreme nominee was to provoke public discussion about this indefensible and catastrophic decision. Let the games begin.

Hat tip: Manuel Miranda

From today's Washington Times:

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" in a 1985 document obtained by The Washington Times.

"I personally believe very strongly" in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III.

Read complete story on page 2.

The Washington Times
Alito rejected abortion as a right
By Bill Sammon
November 14, 2005

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" in a 1985 document obtained by The Washington Times.

"I personally believe very strongly" in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III.

The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House will release today from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

In direct, unambiguous language, the young career lawyer who served as assistant to Solicitor General Rex E. Lee, demonstrated his conservative bona fides as he sought to become a political appointee in the Reagan administration.

"I am and always have been a conservative," he wrote in an attachment to the noncareer appointment form that he sent to the Presidential Personnel Office. "I am a lifelong registered Republican."

But his statements against abortion and affirmative action might cause him headaches from Democrats and liberals as he prepares for confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled for January.

"It has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly," he wrote.

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

A leading Republican involved in the nomination process insisted that this does not prove Judge Alito, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a constitutional right.

"No, it proves no such thing," said the Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In fact, if you look at some of the quotes of his former law clerks, they don't believe that he'll overturn Roe v. Wade."

Judge Alito sided with abortion proponents in three of four rulings during his 15 years as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, usually based on existing law and technical legal issues rather than the right to abortion itself.

"The issue is not Judge Alito's political views during the Reagan administration 20 years ago," the Republican official said. "It's his 15 years of jurisprudence, which can be evaluated in hundreds of opinions. And in none of those opinions is it evident what his political philosophy is.

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a long history of advocacy on behalf of liberal causes, but she was evaluated on her 13-year record as a federal judge and her jurisprudence, not her belief that there was a constitutional right to prostitution or polygamy."

Although Judge Alito's conservatism has not been particularly evident in his legal rulings, it was abundantly clear in his job application 20 years ago.

"I believe very strongly in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement, and the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values," he wrote.

"In the field of law, I disagree strenuously with the usurpation by the judiciary of decision-making authority that should be exercised by the branches of government responsible to the electorate," he added.

The document also provides the clearest picture to date of Mr. Alito's intellectual development as a conservative.

"When I first became interested in government and politics during the 1960s, the greatest influences on my views were the writings of William F. Buckley Jr., the National Review, and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign," he said. "In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment."

Republicans are relishing the opportunity to defend Judge Alito's support for judicial restraint, saying it puts him squarely in the majority of American public opinion.

As evidence, they pointed to public outrage over a 2002 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that said the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. More recently, the Supreme Court has ruled that government can seize property and give it to a private party for the sake of the "public good." Other Supreme Court rulings have cited international law.

"We're delighted to have a debate over judicial philosophy and the proper role of courts in America," a Republican strategist said. "That's a debate the Republican Party wins every time."

Republicans also pointed out that Judge Alito's devotion to Reagan administration policy was reminiscent of those of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who also served in the Reagan administration and was confirmed in September by all Republicans and half the Democrats in the Senate.

"The notion that working for the Reagan administration is a disqualifier for serving on the Supreme Court was decisively refuted by 78 votes earlier in the summer when John Roberts was confirmed," said the official close to the Alito nomination process.

Copyright © 2005 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

A few of my pro-life friends are tentatively taking a position against President Bush's current Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, because three of four abortion rulings he has made during his tenure as a circuit court judge were anti-life.

I'm not. I support Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Here are a couple columns to consider:

"Why Alito's the man for the true conservative agenda," by John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff, November 6, 2005, Washington Post

"How do we know Alito would overturn Roe?," by Joseph D'Agostino, November 7, 2005, Human Events

Additionally, Judie Brown of American Life League has written in favor of Alito's nomination, and we all know she's tough. (Hat tip: Prolifeblogs.com)

All three pieces are reprinted in their entirety on page 2.

Washington Post
Why Alito's the Man for the True Conservative Agenda
by John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff
November 6, 2005

For conservatives, it was a teaching moment, and a kind of vindication. Two months ago, millions of Americans watched as Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, billed as a conservative Republican, sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee, smoothly and confidently responding to the grilling of Democratic senators who had hoped to trip him up and expose him as an "outside the mainstream" danger to American jurisprudence. Roberts was smart, good-humored and sensible. The Democrats, very often, were not -- think of Joe Biden's outburst accusing Roberts of providing "misleading" answers.

Roberts kept his cool, showing the public a conservative who not only knew the law, but had the kind of temperament and balance we conservatives want in a Supreme Court justice.

The memory of that moment is one of the reasons why we responded with a collective sigh of relief to Harriet Miers's withdrawal as a Supreme Court nominee, and with unanimous praise for President Bush's selection of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the bench. Once again, we believe we have an opportunity for a teaching moment. Alito, like Roberts, will run rings around the Democratic senators -- even if, this time, the Democrats can remember where the strike zone is.

Most conservatives -- even those who supported her nomination -- were uneasy about Miers's thin qualifications for the court. We know that Roberts is only one of a number of brilliant judicial conservatives whose accomplishments make them highly qualified for the Supreme Court. The Republican talent pool is deep and broad, in a way that it was not when Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were appointing judges.

Beginning with Nixon, most Republican presidential candidates have run against liberal activism on the court and, when elected, have tried to appoint more conservative justices. But the legal profession generally did not share in the populist view that the Warren Court of the day (named for Earl Warren, who served as chief justice from 1953 to 1969) often usurped legislative authority and invented rights. Only now has a new generation of conservative lawyers come of age, many of them influenced by the Federalist Society, which was founded in 1982 to propound the philosophy that "it is the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be." These men and women, many of whom are serving on the lower federal courts, now provide a solid roster of candidates for the Supreme Court.

Conservatives were also troubled by the lack of any clear evidence of Miers's judicial philosophy. This was not a matter of imposing a litmus test with respect to Roe v. Wade , or any other issue. In fact, the White House's effort to provide credible evidence that Miers would likely vote to overturn Roe (evidence that didn't exist in the case of Roberts, whom conservatives supported enthusiastically) did not assuage conservative critics. The administration failed to understand that conservative disappointment over the selection of Miers was not cynical and result-oriented, but principled and philosophical. Liberals' complaints about the way conservatives reacted to Miers seem rooted in their disappointment that they now face a mismatch like the one Roberts presented, coupled with their dismay at the prospect of another outstanding conservative justice.

Focusing on what it means to be a "conservative" in this context highlights a basic asymmetry between how the left and the right look at the Supreme Court. Until the past few decades, nominations to the court were generally noncontroversial. The court was not viewed as a political power center, and most people assumed that a judge would affect their lives only if they happened to have a case before him. Thus, as recently as 1962, Justice Byron White was confirmed just 11 days after being nominated by President John F. Kennedy, by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate following a Judiciary Committee hearing that lasted a single morning.

What happened to turn Supreme Court nominations into mini-Armageddons? Liberals increasingly came to view the court as a legislature of last resort, where policies too liberal and too unpopular to be enacted by real legislatures could be mandated by fiat of the court's liberal majority. The right to abortion ( Roe v. Wade , 1973), abolition of the death penalty (temporarily, anyway, in Furman v. Georgia , 1972), and recognition of a right to homosexual sodomy ( Lawrence v. Texas , 2003) are just a few of the more high-profile liberal policies that the court has imposed in recent decades. No conservative doubts that the next item on the liberal constitutional agenda is requiring the states to recognize gay marriage.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are willing to settle for what they can get from Congress and the state legislatures, and (since the New Deal era, at least) have not viewed the court as a vehicle for imposing conservative principles on an unwilling public. Roe , for example, rests on a right to privacy that the court discovered lurking among the penumbras of various constitutional provisions. If conservatives reasoned like liberals, they could try to put the penumbras to work for them. For instance, the federal income tax could be found to violate the right to privacy because it requires taxpayers to open up their private records to the government. But no conservative argues for anything of the sort.

When conservatives say that we want "conservative" judges, or "strict constructionist" or "constitutionalist" judges, what we mean is pretty simple: We want judges who won't make stuff up. We want judges who won't view the Constitution as a mirror in which, at every turn, they see reflected their own opinions and policy preferences. We want judges who will play it straight, read the Constitutional or statutory text (our text, not foreign ones, which the court has relied on in cases like last session's Roper v. Simmons , which held execution of juveniles to be unconstitutional), and apply it as fairly as they can to the individual case before them.

If that were all, liberals would be left with little to say. But there is one thing more: The corollary of the proposition that judges shouldn't make up stuff that isn't in the Constitution or laws is that judges also don't have the discretion to ignore language that is in the Constitution or the laws. Thus, the interstate commerce clause must be recognized as a limitation on Congress's power to regulate the economy, as Judge Roberts noted in the case of the "hapless toad." The Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws can't be ignored every time a public university wants to prefer some applicants over others, based on race. And the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms can't be treated as if it got repealed somewhere along the way.

It is in connection with such issues that liberals often argue that conservative judges are really just as "activist" as liberal judges, if not more so. This is based on the observation that conservatives sometimes hold statutes unconstitutional because, for example, they exceed the constitutional limits on federal power. But again, liberals overlook a fundamental asymmetry: It is activist to import something into the Constitution that is not written there, based on one's own policy preferences. It is not activist to apply and enforce the Constitution as it is written. That, on the contrary, is the duty of every state and federal judge.

This is the context in which conservatives have hailed Alito as a more solidly conservative, or reliably conservative, choice than Harriet Miers or past choices such as O'Connor and David Souter. Not because Alito, or we, have a secret agenda to invalidate legislation that conflicts with conservative beliefs. Rather, because Alito has a track record of deciding cases based on the facts and the law, not upon his own personal opinions and preferences. And because he has demonstrated the courage required to read the Constitution without glossing over the terms that modern liberals find inconvenient -- as, for example, in his opinion in United States v. Rybar , which Democrats are trying to twist into an endorsement of private ownership of machine guns. Alito, noting that machine gun ownership was already regulated under state law in all of the states making up the Third Circuit, simply followed Supreme Court precedent in recognizing that the commerce clause is not a blank check that negates the concept of limited federal government.

The Miers-Alito moment shows that conservatives prefer demonstrated excellence to its absence, openness to stealth, and adherence to constitutional text to the promise of any particular result. Which makes it amusing to hear liberals, disgruntled at the replacement of a thinly qualified stealth candidate with a nominee who has a 15-year judicial track record and an intellectual capacity they don't dispute, accusing conservatives of cynicism.

John Hinderaker and Paul Mirengoff write for the Power Line blog and practice law in Minneapolis and Washington, respectively.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

_______________

Human Events
How Do We Know Alito Would Overturn Roe?
by Joseph A. D'Agostino
November 7, 2005

Washington’s conservative and pro-life activists are almost uniformly pleased with the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito as the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Alito has a long record of intelligent, conservative, by-the-text interpretation of the Constitution and law that promises an excellent Supreme Court justice.

Yet a few pro-lifers point to cases in which Alito did not rule in a pro-life direction. I believe their criticism rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of judges’ proper role.

Alito, nicknamed “Scalito” for the similarity between his judicial philosophy and that of current Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, is Catholic and married with two children. He would be the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court, putting Catholics in the majority on the court for the first time—though one of those Catholics, Justice Anthony Kennedy, issues rulings that have nothing to do with the Catholic faith, the Constitution, or anything other than the opinions of the fashionable elite people that his weak mind finds itself among.

Alito’s mother Rose told the Associated Press, “Of course he’s against abortion.” That’s a positive sign, but he could be one of those personally-opposed-but-type Catholics such as Sen. John Kerry. And some people who know Alito are saying he has such respect for precedent that he will not agree to overturn Roe v. Wade. The same could still be true of new Chief Justice John Roberts.

So how do we know Alito would rule to overturn Roe and other precedents of grave concern to pro-family Americans, such as those severely restricting religious freedom? The fact is, we don’t. As far as is known publicly, Alito has never promised to overturn Roe, and he certainly won’t between now and the Senate vote on his confirmation expected January 20.

Disturbingly, the New York Times reports that Alito told far-left Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) that the judicially depraved William Brennan was one of his favorite Supreme Court justices. Let’s hope Alito meant he liked Brennan’s personality.

What we do know is that Alito has had a strong, career-long reputation for strict interpretation of the Constitution and law, and that conservative legal experts agree that he has abided by that philosophy in his 15 years as a federal appeals court judge. He is a former prosecutor who worked for conservative, pro-life President Ronald Reagan. For at least 15 years, he has been a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative-libertarian lawyers’ group that advocates interpreting the Constitution rather than making it up.

It is highly unlikely that Alito would use a secret decoder ring to find a right to abortion embedded in the Constitution as the Supreme Court apparently did in 1973. The danger with Alito, as with Roberts, is that he would accept a long-standing precedent even though it was wrongly decided in the first place. But Alito knows that Supreme Court justices are called upon to reverse precedents from time to time, and everything about his background and philosophy indicates that he will do so.

Alito has made four especially controversial rulings on abortion during his time on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Alito’s pro-life skeptics note that three went against life. They do not understand that judges are not supposed to make policy decisions, but merely apply the law. This is especially true of lower court judges, who must follow the precedents of higher courts. Alito not only should not have inserted pro-life views into his rulings beyond what the law allows, but could not have successfully done so: In its fanaticism for abortion on demand, the U.S. Supreme Court has long nullified ASAP any pro-life legal efforts anywhere in America. Any clear-cut deviation from Roe v. Wade by Alito or any other judge probably would not have saved any unborn children, and would only have served to expose him as a pro-life judicial activist.

When he thought he could allow restrictions on abortion, Alito did so. He dissented in his appeals court’s 1991 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He argued that a legal provision requiring women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion was not an “undue burden” on the right to abortion under Roe’s definition, especially since a woman who claimed she feared abuse from her husband was exempted from the requirement. This could be called a pro-life decision, but it was one in which Alito tried to stay within the Roe framework.

In Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center for Women v. Knoll (1995), Alito decided that the federal government could override a Pennsylvania law that required women who wanted Medicaid to pay for a rape or incest abortion to report the crime to the police. This case did not revolve around abortion per se, but around the authority of the federal government, which was paying for the abortions in these instances. Alito decided that the feds, who ultimately administer Medicaid and were reimbursing the states for these abortions, had the final say here.

In Alexander v. Whitman (1997), Alito decided that parents cannot sue for damages due to wrongful death of an unborn child as they could for a born child. The unfortunate reality is that unborn children are not persons worthy of protection by the Constitution as the Supreme Court has interpreted the document, so Alito’s decision made sense.

In Planned Parenthood v. Farmer (2000), Alito concurred that New Jersey’s ban on partial-birth abortion violated Supreme Court precedent.

Interestingly, he did not join the court’s majority opinion in this case, even though he agreed with its decision, but wrote his own concurring opinion emphasizing that he agreed with striking down the law only because of Supreme Court precedent striking down a similar Nebraska law. He criticized his court majority’s opinion for trying to justify its decision using methods other than citing Supreme Court precedent. “I do not join Judge Barry’s opinion, which was never necessary and is now obsolete,” wrote Alito. “That opinion fails to discuss the one authority that dictates the result in this appeal, namely, the Supreme Court’s decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, 2000 (U.S. June 28, 2000). Our responsibility as a lower court is to follow and apply controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

Some pro-lifers may not accept these explanations. They want all judges to forbid abortion every time they can. Such action would challenge our ordered, hierarchical legal system and undermine the argument that pro-family, pro-life Americans have been making for decades: That judges should not impose their moral beliefs as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade, but leave such decisions to the other two branches of government.

In the real world, while pro-life jurists are earning their stripes, they have to work within the system—and if every judge made up the law as he saw fit, we would have chaos.

One may object that Alito had a moral responsibility to try to prevent every abortion he could, because every abortion is an intrinsically evil murder, even if the Supreme Court would have immediately overruled him.

Let us note that refraining from the commission of an intrinsic evil is always required, but preventing others from committing evil is not.

Should American Catholic judges refuse to grant divorces? Should they imprison those who publicly spread heresy, which St. Thomas Aquinas argued is a worse sin than murder because it kills the soul? It seems they should not, at least not until the legislature outlaws these acts.

Given what we know, Alito appears a fine choice for the Supreme Court.

Pro-lifers should thank President Bush for his nomination.

Copyright © 2004 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

_______________

American Life League
Judging the Judge – Alito and Abortion
By Judie Brown
November 9, 2005

Sometimes pro-lifers rival the pro-abortion crowd in their hysterical hyperbole. Such is the case regarding President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel Alito. While I am not attempting to defend the man or use a crystal ball to read his mind and determine what he might rule in the future, I do believe it is prudent to examine precisely what he did do when it came to cases involving abortion.

This is necessary because many of my frenzied colleagues are positive that the judge is pro-abortion. How else, they ask, could Judge Alito "believe" that the New Jersey partial-birth abortion ban was unconstitutional at the same time that he believed that abortion was unconstitutional? My friends have read the news reports detailing how Alito ruled. They have taken at face value media characterizations that three of his four rulings came down on the pro-abortion side. So, they assume that means that Alito is pro-abortion.

Well, it's not quite that easy, nor should it be that political. Alito is not running for political office; he is a judge whose job is supposed to consist of interpreting the law, referring to previous Supreme Court decisions and then deciding a particular case based on what his examination reveals.

Let's take a look at his 2000 decision in the New Jersey partial birth abortion law, from which we can learn a great deal. The New Jersey law came before the judge after the U.S. Supreme Court, on June 28, 2000, had ruled in Stenberg v. Carhart that the Nebraska partial birth abortion law was vague. The court also ruled in that case that because the Nebraska law did not contain a health of the mother exception, it created an undue burden on women.

On its face, this Supreme Court decision was stunningly pro-death. Nobody is going to argue on that point at all. But the fact is the court had ruled on this law; this decision had to be taken into account by Judge Alito and his fellow appellate court judges when evaluating the New Jersey law. Their decision was rendered on August 15, 2000. Upon examination, Judge Alito found the New Jersey law unconstitutional.

Does that necessarily mean that Judge Alito found abortion constitutional? Frankly, I doubt it. And if it does, then I am pro-abortion too! I see the so-called partial birth abortion ban laws as vague, contradictory and wholly inadequate. There isn't one such proposed law that is really a ban on anything. They all contain a "life of the mother" exception. There isn't one such proposed law that bans all late term abortion procedures, but rather they are unanimous in singling out one procedure, known medically as the D and X, and then writing into the law a reason to go ahead and kill the baby anyway if the "life of the mother" is threatened.

Well give me a break! Such a law denies the personhood of some babies and does nothing but undermine the cause of restoring personhood. And there you have it.

I am not a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, but I find the law immoral.

On the other hand, Alito is a judge and he found the law, consistent with previous court rulings, unconstitutional. He is a judge; he examined the facts the way a judge should, and he rendered a decision. That is all he did. My statement was a personal position based on moral principle. His decision was not. His decision was based on a careful interpretation of the law itself and court precedents.

As pro-lifers we insist that judges stop making up the law as they go along, and simply interpret the Constitution with care. That is what Judge Alito was, in my view, attempting to do.

And that is why, in his 1991 dissenting opinion, regarding the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, he defended the right of fathers to be consulted before mothers submit to aborting their child. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives a mother a right to kill her baby, but there is recognition of parental authority based on precedent, and so the judge had every reason, as a strict interpreter of the law and judicial precedent, to rule in defense of father's rights.

Judge Samuel Alito also stated in 1997, while nearly concurring with the Third Circuit holding in Alexander v. Whitman , "I think that the court's suggestion that there could be 'human beings' who are not 'constitutional persons' is unfortunate. I agree with the essential point that the court is making: that the Supreme Court has held that a fetus is not a 'person' within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. However, the reference to constitutional non-persons, taken out of context, is capable of misuse."

Here we have a judge who has examined a case, ruled almost with his fellow judges against the pro-life interest, but made the most salient point I have read in years. Did he have to suggest that viewing some human beings as non-persons was unfortunate? No, he did not. He made the statement precisely because he is aware of what the framers of the Constitution intended.

If that is so, Judge Alito is sane, he is principled, and he is a man who will truly judge a case on its constitutional merits rather than political mumbo-jumbo, a condition which both pro-lifers and pro-aborts suffer from now and then.

I, for one, will wait and see what the judge does once he is seated on the Supreme Court. In the meantime, I do encourage my fellow pro-lifers to assess what it is they want the Supreme Court to do in the coming years.

If we do not want a court to do as the Roe v. Wade/Doe v. Bolton court did by usurping the lawmaking power of 50 states while simultaneously assigning an entire class of human beings to non-personhood, then we should be hoping and praying for wise judges, not Republican mouthpieces. We should be anticipating a future when Supreme Court judges will revisit the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, confident that the words contained therein are permanent guidelines rather than seasonal suggestions.

Will Judge Alito see it that way? Time will tell. So let's put away our harpoons and our bullhorns, and get down on our knees.

Judie Brown is president and co-founder of American Life League, the nation's largest Catholic pro-life educational grassroots organization. She is a recognized expert on the sanctity of human life and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Mrs. Brown is the author of three books.

My column today on WND.com, "Throwing babies out with the floodwater," begins:

The good news is that Hurricane Katrina destroyed five of nine Louisiana abortion mills, although their displaced vermin were scurrying around shelters within 72 hours handing out free morning-after pills and abortions. Here, have a little more death and destruction – no charge!

I go on to wonder what looters might have spotted floating in abandoned mills, and to discuss the plight of pregnancy resource centers.

Read this week's column on WorldNetDaily.com.

In preparation for the rhetoric we've heard and will hear re: President Bush's nomination of John Roberts (or any nomination he would make), please get your Crying Wolf bingo cards ready! This comes courtesy of Senator John Cornyn.

See page 2 for a sample of the Groundhog's Day shenanigans, also courtesy of Cornyn:

2005

"Women's Lives on the Line!"

Dateline: Washington, D.C. - President George W. Bush nominates John Roberts to Supreme Court. National Organization for Women's website declares: "Bush Picks Anti-Roe Judge... Women's Lives on the Line."

1990

"Ending freedom for women!" "Women will die!"

Dateline: Washington, D.C. - President George H.W. Bush nominates David Souter to Supreme Court. Molly Yard, then-president of NOW declares: "I tremble for this country if you confirm David Souter" because, by considering Justice Souter, "you are really considering ending freedom for women in this country."

NOW also tells United States Senate: if Souter is confirmed, "women will die."

1975

"Blatant insensitivity to discrimination against women!"

Dateline: Washington, D.C. - President Ford nominates John Paul Stevens to Supreme Court. Nan Aron, then-President of Women's Legal Defense Fund, testifies in opposition to Stevens on grounds he's shown "blatant insensitivity to discrimination against women." Further faults him for "predisposition to rule adversely in cases which women bring under the Equal Protection Clause."

1971

"Record of continued hostility to the law!"

Dateline: Washington, D.C. - President Nixon nominates Lewis Powell to Supreme Court. During confirmation hearing, Civil Rights lawyer Henry L. Marsh III testifies that Powell has "record of continued hostility to the law."

Were these charges vindicated by the Justices' decisions on the bench? Of course not. After many years of Justices Souter, Stevens, and Powell, we are happy to report: Women are still free. The rule of law is still respected.

For example: Justices Souter and Stevens have voted in favor of the constitutionality of abortion in virtually every single case ever decided by the Supreme Court, and Justice Powell joined two of the most liberal Justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court-Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall-in some of the very first holdings in this country's history that gender discrimination violated the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

Factoids on Judge John Roberts' hearing length and amount of questioning

Judge John Roberts testified for approximately 22 hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 10 hours longer than William Rehnquist when he became Chief Justice, 5 hours longer than Ruth Bader Ginsburg , and 4 hours longer than Stephen Breyer.

William Rehnquist:

"In nearly 12 hours of answering Senate Judiciary Committee questions, a confident Rehnquist was praised by Republicans while he parried aggressive questioning from Democrats about his public and private life." (Richard Carelli, "Despite Democratic Questions, Rehnquist's Confirmation Prospects Look Strong," The Associated Press, 8/1/86)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for approximately 17 hours. (C-SPAN Store Videos Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hearing, www.c-spanstore.org, Accessed 9/15/05)

Stephen Breyer:

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): "Just for reference because people like statistics and records, Judge [Stephen] Breyer was 18 hours and he was through.” (C-SPAN 3’s "Judge Roberts Confirmation Hearings," 9/14/05, 6 p.m.)

John Roberts:

John Roberts testified for approximately 22 hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 9/13-9/15/05)

Judge Roberts has answered many more questions than Justice Ginsburg:

Throughout her Supreme Court nomination hearings, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg only answered 216 questions. (Transcript Of hearings on the nomination of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 7/20/93 – 7/22/93)

Throughout his Supreme Court nomination hearings, Judge John G. Roberts answered at least 510 questions. (Transcript Of Fourth Day Of Hearings on the Nomination of Judge John Roberts, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 9/15/05)

Gotta read this column, in today's New York Times. Hysterical!

The column is posted on page 2 if you can't get the NYT online.

New York Times

By David Brooks

Arlen Specter Welcome to Day 3 of the confirmation hearings of John Roberts. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind the nation of what a wonderful job I'm doing chairing this committee, and I'd like to let the ranking member tell me so.

Patrick Leahy Absolutely, Mr. Chairman! And let me kick off this morning's platitudes about the grandeur of our Constitution by quoting its first three words, "We the People." That means that here in America the people rule - except on issues like abortion, where their opinions don't mean spit.

Specter Very well put, Senator Leahy! And welcome Judge Roberts back before our committee.

John Roberts Jr. Aw, shucks. This has been a humbling experience, Mr. Chairman. To think that a boy from an exclusive prep school and Harvard Law could grow up and be nominated for the Supreme Court - it shows how in America it's possible to rise from privilege to power! That's the hallmark of our great nation.

So while, of course, I can't talk about specific cases, or any emotions, weather patterns or sandwich meats that may come before the Supreme Court at any time between now and my death in 2048, I do want to reiterate that I feel humbled by this experience. I feel humbled that my wife is dozing off behind me. I feel humbled by this committee's inability to lay a glove on me. And I feel modest. You see this suit? I skinny-dip in this suit. That's how modest I feel.

Tom Coburn Well put, Judge Roberts. Yet when I think of the polarization that still divides this great nation ... waaaahhhh ... waaaahhhh. (Senator Coburn breaks down weeping.)

Jeff Sessions This may be a good moment to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that in this country unelected judges don't write the laws. We have unelected lobbyists to do that. Under our system, judges merely interpret the law and decide presidential elections.

Specter Senator Sessions, let me interrupt you right there. We're not here to argue among ourselves and ignore the nominee. We're here to deliver 30-minute speeches disguised as questions and ignore the nominee. So let me turn to Senator Bid - -

Coburn And when I think of the flaws in the reconciliation process! And the gerrymandering! Oh, the suffering! Oh, the humanity! Waaaahhhh ... waaaahhhh. (Senator Coburn collapses and is taken back to his office on a stretcher.)

Specter As I was saying, Senator Biden, you have the floor.

Joseph Biden Jr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought this might be a good moment to give the committee a complete history of my heroic sponsorship of the Violence Against Women Act, but before I do that I'd like to interrupt myself by mentioning that I ride the train every day, often speaking with regular Americans, but before I do that I'd like to interrupt my interruption of myself by asking the chairman to restrain the nominee. During my first round of questioning, the nominee continually interrupted my questions by trying to give answers. I could barely keep up my train of thought on stare decisis.

Edward Kennedy Starry De Cysis? Didn't she do a fan dance down at that old burlesque house in Providence?

Roberts Mr. Chairman, I certainly don't mean to draw attention to myself, for, as I have said, judges are like umpires - not home plate umpires, but those umpires stuck way out by the right-field foul pole. Nobody ever went to a game to watch the umpires.

But as you know, Judge Ginsburg, during her confirmation hearing, had herself wrapped in duct tape for fear that any involuntary reflex gestures she might make would mar her impartiality in deciding cases later on. Following her example, I have decided to spend the rest of these hearings in a soundproof booth, sunk in a tank of ravenous sharks and accompanied only by the illusionist David Copperfield. But before I go into isolation, I would like to mention the intense modesty I feel at this moment, notwithstanding the fact that not a single one of you slobs could have charged $700 an hour the way I did in private practice.

Richard Durbin Judge Roberts, before you go, one of the ways we in the Senate prove our superior souls is by emoting mawkish sentimentality on cue. Would you please emote sadness and pain on behalf of politically powerful but downtrodden groups?

Roberts I am emoting, senator.

E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com

Manuel Miranda is former counsel to GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and founder and chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of grassroots organizations following judicial issues. He writes a thrice-weekly column in the Wall Street Journal. He has three observations on yesterday's US Senate hearings on the confirmation of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Read them on page 2.

Also, Roberts is a Catholic. Following are transcripts of overt anti-Catholic questions by Senators Specter and Feinstein yesterday with Roberts' responses:

RELEVANT ROBERTS HEARINGS TRANSCRIPTS 9/13/05

SEN. SPECTER: And let me digress from Roe for just a moment because i think this touches on an issue with ought to be settled. When you talk about your personal views, and as they may relate to your own faith, would you say that your views are the same as those expressed by john kennedy when he was a candidate, and he spoke to the greater houston ministerial association on september of 1960, quote, i do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me, closed quote?

ROBERTS: I agree with that, senator, yes.

SPECTER: And did you have that in mind when you said there is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying the precedent as well as Casey.

ROBERTS: Well, i think people's personal views on this issue derive from a number of sources. And there is nothing in my personal views based on faith or other sources that would prevent me from a fly -- applying the precedent of the court faithfully under principleses of starry decisus.
_______________________________________________________

FEINSTEIN: In 1960, there was much debate about President John F. Kennedy's faith and what role Catholicism would play in his administration. At that time, he pledged to address the issues of conscience out of a focus on the national interests, not out of adherence to the dictates of one's religion. And he even said, I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. My question is: Do you?

ROBERTS: Senator, I think the reason we have the two clauses in the Constitution in the First Amendment reflects the framers' experience. Many of them or their immediate ancestors were fleeing religious persecution. They were fleeing established churches. And it makes perfect sense to put those two provisions together: no establishment of religion and guaranteeing free exercise. That reflected the framers' experience.

FEINSTEIN: You can't answer my question yes or no?

ROBERTS: Well, I don't know what you mean by absolute separation of church and state. For example, recently in the Ten Commandments case, the court upheld a monument on the Texas Capitol grounds that had the Ten Commandments in it. They struck down the posting of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse. Is it correct to call the monument on the Texas Capitol grounds with the Ten Commandments, is that an absolute separation or is that an accommodation of a particular monument along with others that five of the justices found was consistent with the First Amendment?

So I don't know what that means when you say absolute separation. I do know this: that my faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role in judging. When it comes to judging, I look to the law books and always have. I don't look to the Bible or any other religious source.

Miranda observations for 9/13 US Senate hearings on Roberts Supreme Court confirmation:

1) In my estimation, having studied the tapes, transcripts, and live performances of scores of appellate and high court nominees, -- and also prepared several nominees in murder boards, Judge Roberts's performance yesterday was near perfect. In fact, in 2003 his performance was the best we had ever seen, although no one could perform more bravely than did Bill Pryor. I am not troubled at all by his cautious and correct answers to questions concerning Roe and the right to privacy.

2) While I am not troubled, I empathize with the potential for despair that many of my friends may have experienced. I believe that the Roberts hearings offer an opportunity. We should impress upon the White House that they cannot do this again. They cannot nominate someone without a clear record on Roe. A record such as the late Chief Justice was nominated in 1986 by Ronald Reagan. For this president, the ultimate prize is to end the stigma that sunk his father's legacy. When the President promised he would appoint judges like Scalia and Thomas, it was not their views on the Clean Sewers Act that he was trying to signal to us -- it was code for Roe. He knew it, we knew it. There are currently short list judges that have records on Roe and we should now expect them to be nominated. Not just to keep a promise, but as a matter of decency. At some point those who despair must be given some clearly marked reason for hope.

3) I pray that it is not left to Catholics to point out the offense and outrage of the questions posed below. I will not risk offending anyone of another faith by drawing the obvious observations and "what ifs." . Two years ago, Archbishop Charles Chaput pointed out that anti-Catholic bigotry was alive and well in the U.S. Capitol. Below is the proof of that. Notice the raw intolerance and disrespect that the Senator from California shows as she utters the words "dictates of one's religion." As a Catholic who understands that my religion invited and does not dictate, I am heartsore over these questions. Certainly, this is not an inter- religion issue. It is secularists versus people of faith. The John Kennedy question is more than a nose inside the tent of imposing a constitutionally prohibited religious test It is the smelly, slobbering camel. If anything it's use disturbingly shows that we have not progressed much in 45 years, and are travelling in the wrong direction.

NARAL has just released its new ad attacking Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. View it here.

In particular, I love all the video clips and photos of happy families... with kids.

People for the American Way not surprisingly announced yesterday it will oppose the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. PFAW says Roberts on the SC will "endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half-century."

But the Committee for Justice reminds us to consider recent amicus briefs filed by PFAW:

People for the American Way opposes…

racial quotas in college admissions.

"Next time PFAW talks about the mainstream, consider the source," says CFJ.

posted at 4:27 PM

August 19, 2005
Context of Roberts abortion "tragedy" statement

Pro-lifers on the watch for evidence of John Roberts position on abortion may be interested in reading the context of his statement that abortion is a "tragedy," from yesterday's Washington Post:

In 1985, Philip Dreisbach, an official of the California Pro-Life Medical Association, asked Reagan to send a telegram of support that could be read at a memorial service the group was holding for 16,500 aborted fetuses found in plastic barrels stored behind the home of a pathology-lab director.

Roberts told Fielding on Oct. 4 that he had "no objections to the President sending a message to the memorial service. The President's position is that the fetuses were human beings, or (at) least cannot be proven not to have been, and accordingly a memorial service would seem an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy. My concern is sending another message to Dreisbach, who was prepared to misuse the previous Presidential message on a gruesome anti-abortion display. I recommend approving the telegram, but making certain the recipients understand it cannot be used in any future materials."

My thought is that Roberts did not have to call abortion a "tragedy"... that this was potentially subjective opinion.

posted at 9:43 AM

Dem left/centrist split evident in CA senators

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Although their views on the core issue of preserving abortion rights are identical, their styles and strategies are wildly different. Judging from their statements so far, [California senators Barbara] Boxer and [Dianne] Feinstein appear likely to split on the nomination of Judge John Roberts.

Their strikingly divergent approaches, analysts say, reflect a deeper divide within the Democratic Party over how to handle the Roberts nomination while trying to win back the White House and Congress.

Boxer is an agitator from the left who threatened in a speech in San Francisco this month to "use all the parliamentary tools I've been given as a U.S. senator" to delay a vote on Roberts if necessary, stopping just short of threatening a filibuster.

Feinstein is a moderate who, the day after he was nominated, declared Roberts safe from filibuster barring some shocking revelation....

Feinstein left her first private meeting with Roberts last month singing his praises. "I don't think there's anybody on the court quite like he will be," she said, describing him as "very impressive" and exuding "humility and modesty."...

Feinstein was notably absent -- as was Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, another moderate -- from a press conference last month where seven of the Senate's nine Democratic women announced a Web site -- democrats.senate. gov.askroberts -- for citizens to provide the senators questions to ask the nominee at his hearings.

See page 2 for another tidbit from this article indicating the left's agreeement (Carville) that its agenda isn't politically winnable, including it's radical position on abortion:

Also from aforementioned August 19 San Francisco Chronicle article:

Since her November election to a third term, Boxer "has tracked to the left, freed from the constraint of trying to get re-elected and I think also energized by the example of the Howard Dean candidacy," said Bruce Cain, a UC Berkeley political scientist and incoming director of the UC Center in Washington. "She's carved out a role for herself as a spokesperson for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

A recent focus group of rural voters in Wisconsin and Arkansas by Democracy Corps, a polling firm run by Democratic strategists James Carville and Stanley Greenberg, found that Democrats are well positioned to address voter concerns over the Iraq war, job security and health care costs. Their Achilles heel is the social issues that promise to be the focus of the Roberts hearings.

"As powerful as the concern over these issues is, the introduction of cultural themes -- specifically gay marriage, abortion, the importance of the traditional family unit and the role of religion in public life -- quickly render them almost irrelevant in terms of electoral politics at the national level," the report said.

Some Democrats -- Cain counts Feinstein among them -- "don't want to look like they're opposing someone who's a reasonable candidate. They want to keep the Democratic Party on a centrist path."

posted at 8:49 AM | Comments (33)

August 15, 2005
Chicago Sun-Times editorial against NARAL

I observe several firsts in response to NARAL's outrageous ad against John Roberts, including chastisement by pro-abort legislators and other pro-abort organizations; public display of infighting within the NARAL, as demonstrated by its communications director quitting suddenly Friday; a retraction by NARAL; and now this, an editorial against NARAL from at least one nationwide newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times. See page 2 to read editorial.

Hat tip: Reader Dan. G.

9:55a CST update: Here's another anti-NARAL editorial, from yesterday's Kalamazoo Gazette.

Chicago Sun-Times

Pro-choice group's reckless ad was disservice to public

August 15, 2005

The pro-choice umbrella organization, NARAL, gambled and lost big time. By airing a television advertisement that tied Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to crazed and violent anti-abortion activists, NARAL risked undermining its very important mission: to protect and defend every American woman's right to choose. Under pressure from politicians such as Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, NARAL decided to yank the ad Thursday night.

"The NARAL advertisement is not helpful to the pro-choice cause, which I support," Specter sternly wrote to NARAL's president, Nancy Keenan. He added that the ad was "blatantly untrue and unfair."

The commercial was broadcast on cable networks and on stations in Maine and Rhode Island. It focused on a case that Roberts argued before the Supreme Court when he was working for the first President Bush. The 1991 case, Bray vs. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, was an understandable effort by those working at abortion clinics to prevent demonstrators from blocking access to those clinics.

The clinic supporters had argued that since only women could become pregnant and seek abortions, the anti-abortion activists were effectively expressing sexual discrimination by impeding the way. Roberts wrote a brief on behalf of the government suggesting opposition to abortion does not equate to discrimination against women's rights. Later, after there had been other explosive incidents at other clinics, Roberts clarified his argument, saying the government was not supportive of the demonstrators' goals, just their right to peaceful protest.

Whether or not one agrees with Roberts' brief -- the government won the case -- the NARAL ad was wrong, offensive and extreme in its suggestion that Roberts supported the reckless and criminal actions of abortion protesters. Even Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan group from the University of Pennsylvania, argued the ad used "the classic tactic of guilt by association." And some NARAL supporters, such as Catholics For a Free Choice, expressed deep concern about the "intemperance" of the message.

NARAL has an important mission to preserve abortion rights. In 87 percent of the counties in the United States there is no abortion provider. Some states have rolled back women's access to contraception and their ability to get a legal abortion. Kansas has even sought access to the medical records of women who have had late-term abortions. The 1977 Hyde Amendment prevents Medicaid from paying for abortions.

NARAL can object to Roberts' nomination, but it needs to deliver its message in a reasoned and truthful way and offer a counterpoint to the sometimes raucous voices of those who want to make abortion illegal. It needs to take the high road and pick its battles more judiciously.

posted at 8:42 AM | Comments (1)

August 12, 2005
"Government opposes swift rulings on abortion"

Scotusblog.com has posted insightful information re: the pro-life battle in the courts. It begins:

The Bush Administration has mounted a wide-ranging challenge in the Supreme Court to the power of federal judges to stop new anti-abortion laws before they go into effect. In a friend-of-court brief filed Monday in a pending case from New Hampshire, the U.S. Solicitor General has argued that abortion restrictions should be blocked from enforcement only if they are invalid in all possible circumstances -- an argument that lower courts have increasingly refused to accept. That is an issue the Supreme Court has never explicitly decided....

Hat tip: Reader MQuinn

posted at 8:06 PM | Comments (28)

NARAL can't abort fallout from ad

NARAL thought it would stop the bleeding by pulling its false ad insinuating that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts condones abortion clinic violence. Au contraire.

FactCheck.org has just released an update to its original analysis of the NARAL ad to include an analysis of NARAL prez Nancy Keenan's nonretracting retraction of the ad. States FactCheck.org, in part:

... But NARAL continued to defend the content of the ad. President Nancy Keenan sent a letter to FactCheck.org calling the ad "completely accurate" and saying our conclusion that the ad is false "should be retracted"....

Nancy Keenan herself said during the Aug. 8 news conference announcing the ad: "I want to be very clear that we are not suggesting that Mr. Roberts condones or supports clinic violence. I know he said he finds bombing and murder abhorrent." Yet her ad conveys the opposite, showing pictures of a bombed clinic and a bombing victim while saying that Roberts supported a clinic bomber and violent fringe groups and that he excuses violence.

After considering NARAL's arguments, we stand by our judgment that their ad is false. The message contained in the juxtaposition of words and powerful images is that Roberts condoned the mayhem being shown on screen, which even Ms. Keenan has stated is untrue. We are not retracting our article. Instead, it is NARAL that is withdrawing its ad.

posted at 3:17 PM | Comments (1)

Red flags over Roberts

Like Ann Coulter here, here, and here, Don Feder gives conservatives pause for thought in his latest column on Supreme nominee John Roberts:

Everything we know about John Roberts says here is a man who's been polishing his resume since age six -- a go-to guy who wanted to be liked by his colleagues, a savvy lawyer who put his conscience in a blind trust to advance his career....

Before last week's revelations, it was still possible to give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. Not any more....

[Read rest of excerpt on page 2.]

In an August 4th article, the Los Angeles Times disclosed that as a partner with the high-octane DC law firm of Hogan & Hartson, in the mid-1990s, Roberts helped a homosexual group engineer one of the most disastrous Supreme Court decisions of the past two decades.

In Romer v. Evans (1996), the Court overturned an amendment to the Colorado Constitution - passed by 53% of the state's voters - prohibiting municipalities from enacting so-called gay rights laws (conferring special status based on bedroom behavior). It was the first time the Court recognized homosexuals as a protected class for civil rights purposes.

Romer led directly to Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which declared laws against homosexual sodomy unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court ever finds a right to same-sex marriage banging around in the 14th. Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, Romer will be the precedent.

In his blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia (supposedly the president's model for Supreme Court nominees) said the majority opinion in Romer: "has no foundation in American constitutional law and barely pretends to. The people of Colorado have adopted an entirely reasonable provision.... Amendment 2 (the initiative the Court threw out) is designed to prevent piecemeal deterioration of the sexual morality favored by a majority of Coloradans, and is not only an appropriate means to that legitimate end, but a means that Americans have employed before. Striking it down is an act, not of judicial judgment, but of political will."

And Bush's first Supreme Court nominee helped facilitate this national disaster.

posted at 8:16 AM | Comments (62)

August 11, 2005
NARAL pulls ad

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC just announced NARAL has pulled its deceptive ad insinuating Supreme Court nominee John Roberts supported abortion clinic violence.

8:02p update: The Associated Press just confirmed it.

posted at 7:57 PM | Comments (2)

NARAL's attack ad against Roberts is hurting... NARAL

I love any trigger that provokes a conversation about abortion, be it favorable or not. The point is to keep the topic in the faces of the American people, so they can't avoid thinking about it.

The new NARAL ad that slams Supreme Court nominee John Roberts appears to be a win-win-win for our side. Not only is NARAL paying to discuss abortion on tv, the ad itself is backfiring.

Meant to portray Roberts as someone who condones abortion clinic violence - which most fair minded people would automatically question - the ad is calling NARAL's character into question in front page news stories. See, for example:

• NY Times, "TV Ad Attacking Court Nominee Provokes Furor"

• Portland Press Herald, "TV stations urged to pull Roberts ad"

Of greater magnitude, MSM is interrogating NARAL about the ad, as CNN reported yesterday. [See page 2 for excerpt.]

In addition, the ad is causing infighting and a public spat among pro-aborts, as reported in the aforementioned NY Times. [See page 2 for excerpt.}

Excerpt from yesterday's CNN report where MSM interrogates NARAL prez on ad: