Senator Byrd's remarks on Judge Alito

Last Thursday Senator Bryd (D) from West Virginia made the following remarks on the Senate floor, I thought it might be a good idea to share them with you since the mainstream media wouldn't:

Obviously, something is wrong with our judicial nominations process, and we in the Senate have the power to fix it.

The Framers presumably had something better in mind when they vested the Senate with the authority to confirm “judges of the Supreme Court.” In fact, we know they did. In 1789, Roger Sherman of Connecticut defended the role of the Senate in confirming Presidential appointments. He wrote, “It appears to me that the senate is the most important branch in the government. . . . The Executive magistrate is to execute the laws. The Senate, being a branch of the legislature, will naturally incline to have them duly executed and, therefore, will advise to such appointments as will best attain that end.”

Alexander Hamilton also had high hopes for the Senate’s ability to render its advice and consent function. He proclaimed, “It is not easy to conceive a plan better calculated than this to promote a judicious choice of men for filling the offices of the Union.”

Exactly what did the Framers mean when they gave the Senate the power to “Consent” to the confirmation of a judicial nominee?

Historically, a majority of the Framers anticipated that the Senate’s confirmation or rejection of a judicial nominee would be based on the fitness of the nominee; not on partisan politics or extraneous matters.

Based on these assumptions, the Framers presumably did not expect the Senate to spend its allotted time on a nominee staging partisan warfare instead of examining his or her qualifications.

Yet, the Framers probably also would never have expected that a Senator of a nominee’s own Party would refuse to ask the candidate meaningful questions. They certainly did not intend for Senators of the nominee’s own Party to sit silently in quiet adulation, refusing to seek the truth while smiling indulgently, thus accomplishing nothing.

The Framers expected the Senate to be a serious check on the power of the President. They clearly thought that the Senate’s confirmation process ought to be fair, impartial, thorough, and exhibit appropriate respect for solemn duty and the dignity of both the process and the nominee.

I regret that we have come to a place in our history when both political parties exhibit such a “take no prisoners” attitude. All sides seek to use the debate over a Supreme Court nominee to air their particular wish list for or against abortion, euthanasia, executive authority, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, wiretapping, the death penalty, workers’ rights, gun control, corporate greed, and dozens of other subjects. All of these issues should be debated, but the battle lines should not be drawn on the Judiciary. They should be debated by the people’s Representatives in Congress.

However, too many Americans apparently believe that if they cannot get Congress to address an issue, they must take it to the court! As the saying goes, “If you can’t change the law, change the judge!”

This thinking represents a gross misinterpretation of the separation of powers: it is the role of the Congress to make and change the laws; Supreme Court Justices exist to interpret laws and be sure that they square with the Constitution and with settled law.

A better understanding of the Court’s role would do much to diminish the “hype” that now accompanies the judicial nomination process. The role of the Senate in the Alito debate is not to push legislation, or to score points for those who either support or oppose specific legislative proposals. The purpose of the current debate is to evaluate the fitness of Judge Samuel Alito to sit on the highest Court of our land which includes his temperament and his intellectual ability.

In a perfect world this heavy Constitutional responsibility of the Senate would have little to do with Party affiliation.

Wendy Wasserstien

I think it was 1990-91 when I saw a production of Wendy Wasserstien's Heidi Chronicles. It was a great production of a great play. In the 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner Wendy Wasserman chronicled the life of Heidi Holland, an art historian. Through a series of art lectures episodes of her life are recounted, beginning at her high school senior prom in the 60's and followed her experiences until the late '80's. While the play explores feminism and it's changing nature, it's really about Heidi's struggle for self-identification. We see a person looking back at the choices one makes in life, some going with the grain, others going against. We see a person whose life seems fulfilled but is still unhappy and other times someone that seems happy but still recognizes something is missing.

Critics of the play label it a feminist work. Feminist critics label it an anti-feminist piece. That's perfect, because it's these contridictions, some imposed on us, some we impose on ourselves that Wendy Wasserstein was teaching us about.

Occasionally something will happen outside of the normal routine that triggers memories of not only how I got here, but why. After watching The Heidi Chronicles was one of those moments, and this weekend learning that Wendy Wasserstien passed away was another.

Well, This Isn't a Good Start!

Hamas Suggests Using Militants in Army

By SARAH EL DEEB and RAVI NESSMAN

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - The leader of Hamas suggested Saturday that the Islamic group could create a Palestinian army that would include its militant wing - responsible for scores of deadly attacks on Israelis - in the aftermath of its crushing victory in parliamentary elections.

Israeli officials condemned the plan, demanding that Hamas renounce violence. Palestinian security officers, including loyalists from the defeated Fatah Party, said they would never submit to Hamas control.

"Hamas has no power to meddle with the security forces," said Jibril Rajoub, a Palestinian strongman.

The Hamas chief, Khaled Mashaal, reiterated that Hamas would not recognize Israel and indicated attacks on Israeli civilians would continue as long as Israel continued to target Palestinian civilians. "As long as we are under occupation then resistance is our right," he said.

Angry police stormed the parliament building in Gaza and armed militants marched into Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' compound in Ramallah to demonstrate their rejection of Hamas' authority. Their defiance raised fears of a spike in violence between Palestinian factions.

Dave's Top Ten

Top Ten Signs The Guy In The Cubicle Next To You Is Michael Jackson

10. Fax machine always clogged with subpoenas

9. There's a llama tethered to the water cooler

8. Only cubicle that has a ferris wheel

7. Carpet is covered with sequins and monkey hair

6. Asks if office has a third option besides "Men's Room" and "Ladies' Room"

5. Borrows your Wite-Out to touch up his face

4. Recycling bin is filled with surgical masks

3. They canceled "Bring Your Child to Work Day"

2. He answers his phone with a high-pitched "hee hee"

1. Everyone around the office is asking who the new white chick is

To visit the Top Ten Archive click here....always good for a quick laugh.

The Elections in Palestine

"...I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got an armed wing. The elections just took place. We will watch very carefully about the formation of the government. But I will continue to remind people about what I just said, that if your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace. ....."

-President Bush - January 26,2006

The results of the Palestinian elections, where the Hamas Party scored a landslide victory, assures that the Middle East Peace Process will be forever altered. One has to wonder if the effect on the peace process means a turn for the worst or for the better? It's hard to sing praises for Hamas, and I am not going to do it here. Hamas is a violent terrorist group, plain and simple. Until they publicly change their platform calling for the destruction of Israel we should have nothing to do with them. I think we need to keep in mind that for all the efforts of endless peace conferences, negotiations and economic persausion, nothing might be more effective in changing Hamas' behavior than to have to carry the mantel of responsibility to bring a better life to the Palestinian people.

Are we to believe that 75% of the Palestinian electorate believes that the destruction of Israel is the most pressing issue in their lives? I think not. In 30 years the Palestine refugee issue has not gotten much better, they remain a very poor people. President Bush made this point when he stated, "When you give people the vote, you give people a chance to express themselves at the polls -- and if they're unhappy with the status quo, they'll let you know."

Even cities like Jenin and al-Birch, urban areas where some economic development has occurred, gave victories to Hamas representatives. Khalid Amayreh explained in the Palestine Times,”The people here have been fed up with rampant chaos and lawlessness, as well as the PA’s failure to fight numerous aspects of corruption like graft, nepotism, favoritism, cronyism and above all the manifestly serious abuse of governance."

For decades the Palestinians have been victimized, not by Israel, but by the self appointed body of the PLO, lead by Yassar Arafat and his cronies. The PLO leadership talked of wanting peace, talked of wanting a Palestine homeland and was rewarded with billions of dollars in economic aid. Arafat realized the more he talked the richer he and his friends could be. There was no incentive for Arafat to actual solved the problems facing his people, these problems were making him and his friends rich. While I am not happy with Hamas taking over the Palestine Authority, I am glad that a change occurred.

I can't begin to predict how Hamas is going to react with this new found power, but I didn't have any faith in the old guard to act on behalf of the Palestinians either. If you believe that the majority of Palestinian people want a better life and not war with Israel, you can only hope that Hamas realizes that the only true way to retain power in the next election is to change the status quo.

Oh My Oprah.....

For the life of me I will never understand how Oprah (last name not needed) has become the American Icon. Without a doubt, she truly is. I am not even going to argue the point, she is an icon! It would be senseless to argue about it. Proof of this was yesterday, when every news show, every newspaper, every web site featured O's(full first name not needed) confrontation with author, James Frey. Only a true icon can demand that type of attention. But I have to ask, why? What has (I don't even have to say the name) done to earn such stature?

It's not to say I don't like Oprah, there is nothing really displeasurable about her or her show (well maybe we could do without all the tears), but really she is just a daytime talk show host. So what? You can't say she invented the genre, Phil Donohue did. You can't say she took the genre to a new direction (for lack of a better word), Jerry Springer did. She is not even a very good interviewer, recently she had Anthony Hopkins read the yellow pages to her, how original! I believe Johnny Carson had Eydie Gorme sing the yellow pages 30 years ago. Nonetheless, here we were yesterday getting Oprah Overload Disease (you won't find the cure here).....Oprah apologizing for being duped, outraged that she was lied to and shocked that she would be criticized for saying that the truth wasn't important. Indeed, shocked about being criticized, now that's an icon for you.

Taping the College Classroom

Less than one week after singing the praises of Susan Estrich, she writes on the activities of the Bruin Alumni Association, an unofficial group of UCLA Alumnists who are paying students to tape their professors in the classroom. While I don't disagree with Ms. Estrich point of view entirely, I take umbrage in her willingness to protect the professor's right to academic freedom. I've never heard of this "right" before so I couldn't even begin to define what she is talking about. So I won't try! I will tell you of a story that happen to me while I was completing a "Peace and Justice" class at Xavier University during the mid '80's.

The Peace and Justice class was the only theology class (a core requirement at Xavier) that could fit into my schedule, I knew from the outset it was going to take a huge effort to keep an open mind and not put my grade in jeopardy by having a conflict with the professor. Term paper after term paper I fed the good professor exactly the point of view I thought he wanted to hear. The last topic he assigned to me was the Economic Report on Latin America, I was told that there was a copy at the university's library. Much to my surprise I found that it was written my Henry Kissenger, what I didn't know was that there was a second report written by Congressional Democrats for Economic Freedom. When I turned in the Kissenger term paper for the class finals, the Jesuit professor rejected my work (even though I was critical of part of Kissenger's thesis) and gave me 2 days to do a new paper on the second report. All because this was the view point he required. If I would not redo the paper my semester grade would be lowered from an A-minus to a D. After petitioning the Theology Department's chairman, the good priest/professor was persuaded to grade the Kissinger paper, nonetheless my semester grade was still lowered to a C.

I'm all for academic freedom so long as the "openess" that Estrich professes remains open for all point of views, and I am confident that Ms. Estrich assures this in her classroom, but it is a quality which is clearly lacking by college administrators, campus activities and perhaps, alumni groups.

Born on this day.....

"They said I was such a great prospect that they were sending me to a winter league to sharpen up. When I stepped off the plane, I was in Greenland." - Bob Uecker

Happy Birthday to Bob Uecker!

OMG Danny is that you?

The picture on the right is Danny Graves on his recent visit to his native Vietnam. When do pitchers report to training camp?

NSA Spy Program

I just wanted to weigh in on the NSA spy program that President Bush authorized. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the heck to think about this, the reporting in the mainstream media has been just terrible.

It seems clear that Article II in the Constitution has empowered the President to take such action to keep the citizens of this country safe in the time of war in his role as Commander-in-Chief. In addition, Congress, by overwhelmingly approving Joint Resolution 23, states:

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines, planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

Even though JR 23 never called for Congressional oversight (the Joint Resolution authorizing military action in Iraq did) the Bush Administration met with the Congressional Leadership more than a dozen times. That’s more than once every other month. It appears to me (based on just reading the documents – I am not a Constitution Scholar), that in the legal sense the White House didn’t do anything wrong, but ethics of authorization of eavesdropping on suspected terrorists without obtaining a warrant might be another issue. Here is where the mainstream media has let this country down. When the New York Times first reported the story on December 16, conveniently the day of Iraqi Elections, it’s clear to me that they were more interested in creating a new headline with the sole intention of embarrassing the President.

In the late 70’s Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) so that the FBI, NSA or CIA can request warrants to guard against foreign agents. The New York Times reported that in 2004 over 1700 warrants were approved. Though the Times did report that in some cases, warrants for emergency wiretaps can be obtained in a matter of hours, they never did offer any average for how long the FISA warrant process can take or would emergency warrants were able to be obtained for intercepting email and other wireless communications. Outside of the fact that the White House didn’t feel that they were legally obligated to obtain warrants for foreign communications, the timeliness of the process is the major reason why the President authorized such actions.

When the White House issues a statement such as “....We need agility and speed. We need to be able to move quickly to detect and prevent attacks….” As they do at every press briefing since December 20 (and there have been 13 since December 16), it doesn’t take a genius to ask the most obvious followup question…..”Well, exactly how long does it take to get the average warrant from FISA?” Duh! To this day I don’t have that answer and why I can’t judge the ethics of this issue.

Now this maybe cynical to say about the mainstream media, but since they are not pursuing the issue I can only assume that it's not as easy as one would think, otherwise they would be hammering Bush on that every day.

Larry King Moments.....

I don't know about you but sometimes I really miss reading Larry King's column in USA Today......Does anyone know who invented the shoe horn? That guy (or gal) deserves a pat on the back.....I can't stop thinking about Million Dollar Baby, proof that it's a great movie.....Super Bowl prediction Seahawks 32, Steelers 17...... Nobody could whistle like Bing Crosby...... Can you imagine what you would find out if you could channel the spirit of Shelly Winters?.....Seems like there is a Smith in every city I visit.

OK, I'm better now.

Xavier Musketeers

I've added a link to Xavier Musketeers Basketball under the sports section. I watched the UC/XU game, and have to comment on how bad the announcers for ESPN were. It's one thing to mess up on the score, or who the scorer was, but at times I was concerned that they were confused what teams were actually playing the game! I think at one point the announcers called the Bearcats the Royals!

A note on the Muskies: What is it with the letdown after every big game? A loss to St. Louis for crying out loud! I used to blame it on the coaching but this is the fourth coach that this has happened to: Gillen, Prosser, Matta and now Miller. Is it the post game meals they are feeding the team?

The Tomato Company

My friend Diane sent the story to me I thought I would post for all to enjoy:

An unemployed man is desperate to support his family of a wife and three kids. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and easily passes an aptitude test.

The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at minimum wage of $5.35 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day."

Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.

To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an e-mail address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day."

Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having $10 in his wallet, he walks past a farmers' market and sees a stand selling 25 lb. crates of beautiful red tomatoes. He buys a crate, carries it to a busy corner and displays the tomatoes. In less than 2 hours he sells all the tomatoes and makes 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 and arrives home that night with several bags of groceries for his family.

During the night he decides to repeat the tomato business the next day. By the end of the week he is getting up early every day and working into the night. He multiplies his profits quickly.

Early in the second week he acquires a cart to transport several boxes of tomatoes at a time, but before a month is up he sells the cart to buy a broken-down pickup truck.

At the end of a year he owns three old trucks. His two sons have left their neighborhood gangs to help him with the tomato business, his wife is buying the tomatoes, and his daughter is taking night courses at the community college so she can keep books for him.

By the end of the second year he has a dozen very nice used trucks and employs fifteen previously unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. He continues to work hard.

Time passes and at the end of the fifth year he owns a fleet of nice trucks and a warehouse that his wife supervises, plus two tomato farms that the boys manage. The tomato company's payroll has put hundreds of homeless and jobless people to work. His daughter reports that the business grossed over one million dollars.

Planning for the future, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. Then the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he doesn't have time to mess with a computer and has no e-mail address, the insurance man is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? No computer? No Internet? Just think where you would be today if you'd had all of that five years ago!"

"Ha!" snorts the man. "If I'd had e-mail five years ago I would be sweeping floors at Microsoft and making $5.35 an hour."

Which brings us to the moral of the story: Since you got this story by e-mail, you're probably closer to being a janitor than a millionaire.

Eminent Domain

Sean Hannity and Alan Combs have been all over the recent eminent domain cases that have come up since the Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. the City of New London was handed down last summer. Now in all honesty, I don't know if property transfers have increased since the ruling or if the media is just reporting more cases because of the ruling. I haven't been able to find statistics that would support the claim that Eminent Domain has been used more often since the ruling than before. However, I can tell you that the stories I have seen reported have been heartbreaking tales. The Hannity and Combs website has a few of them posted.

Eminent Domain has traditionally been used when there has been a clear public benefit, e.g. building roads, hospitals, even when a whole neighborhood has become in such disrepair that its better for the government to just tear down the buildings and start new (Washington, DC). All of these things have a direct cause towards the betterment of the community. With the Kelo decision the Supreme Courts has said that government can transfer private property to another private company because the public good is served indirectly because of the transfer, e.g. increased tax base or collateral job creation.

To me the danger of this ruling is obvious. We see how our political process is tainted by special interests groups. How can we expect the individual, the one that has lived their life in the same house for 60 years, the one that has served this country during times of war and the one that grew his small business from the ground up to have the same influence on their government as a casino owner, a mall developer or in Kelo's instance Pfizer Pharmaceuticals? In addition, in the Kelo case it wasn't even elected officials that made a decision to confiscate the lands, but a "non-profit" private development firm, whose board was appointed without public approval.

What's My Line's Line

I was up late last night watching the Game Show Network, What's My Line came on with the regular panelists and I began to think other than being on this game show what the heck did these people do to earn their fame. Well if anything it gave me another reason to surf the net.

Arlene Francis was a moderately successful Broadway actress and NYC radio host. Her favorite song was My Funny Valentine; if you need something to make you sleep you can check out her tribute page.

Bennett Cerf was an interesting character; he started Random House publishing and had a bunch of riddle, jokes and limerick books. There was an interesting web page where he discusses being the publisher for Ayn Rand (a hero of mine).

Dorothy Killgallen was the most fascinating of them all (who would have thunk it, she was definitely the Shrew on the show). A syndicated journalist/columnist, whose reporting, almost as much as anything, was responsible for getting a new trial for Dr. Sam Shepard. In addition, she was a vocal critic of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. A few days before her death, from a mix of alcohol and barbiturates (sounds familiar), she had a private interview with Jack Ruby. Supposedly she was on the verge of breaking a major story on the assassination. The autopsy declared the cause of death as undetermined and her notes from the Ruby interview have never been found. Conspiracy nuts have had a field day with this ever since. You should check out the Death of Dorothy Killgallen for more information.

Links Added

I decided to add some links of the web pages I visit most often. I identify with the political "right", but many times I'll read the left just to get some perspective and to keep up to date on the latest talking points that the left likes to use. It's amazing how in step the left can be, there must be some huge communication process so they can all stay on the same topic, for example Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshal . PETA must really hate this guy because he can beat a dead horse better than anyone (would PETA care if the horse was dead before one started beating it?). For the past few weeks he has been all over the Abramoff scandal and linking him to the Republican Party and the White House. There is a couple of problems in the left's hope that this will bring down GW.

1. The Bush Justice Department was the one that brought the charges to the grand jury.
   
2. It looks like Abramoff, like most lobbyists, played both sides of the aisle, and if he didn't I'm sure that there are others out there paying for all the political junkets that Harry Ried takes (or the sweetheart land deals his family took advantage of in Las Vegas).

In any event the Left, for the most part is rather boring, with the exception of the five I have links to (Estrich, Corn, Ivins, Kinsley and Moore). Even though I don't agree with them on virtually any issue, these five offer an original perspective. Yes, occassionally silly, but at least they aren't retreading the same talking points you read on 95% of liberal blogs. Susan Estrich is quite good, she can really frame an arguement that it becomes easy to see her point of view.

First Timer

Today there is no way you can be on the internet and not know of Blogs. I am not sure what, if any, value they might offer me, or for that matter, offer the poor soul that might so happen to stumble upon this. But I am all for conformity and thought what the heck, it seems like a lot of others enjoy these things lets see if I do too (I think this was the same reasoning I started smoking too, hmmmm, maybe I should rethink this).