“This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed — for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Sept. 12, 2001
– Hunter S. Thompson, Sept. 12, 2001
The State Affairs Committee of the Texas State Senate is taking up HJR 6, the Texas anti-Gay Marriage Amendment, tomorrow afternoon (Thursday May 19) at 5:00 pm in the Senate Chamber. For more information or to take action visit the LGRL of Texas website, here:http://www.lgrl.org/action/alert.php?alertID=52
Call your State Senator and tell him or her the Texas Legislature already has had enough exposure on the Daily Show this session.
Would be interested in your analysis of Priscilla Owens, please let us know your opinions on this nomination.
Owen’s record by Independent Judiciary. Files are .pdf (don’t they ever learn?). Long list of opposing organizations, mostly progressive/left.
Finally, in one Jane Doe case, another justice complained that “to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”
The justice who wrote that was Alberto Gonzales, who is now Bush’s general counsel.
Owen also could usually be counted upon in any important case that pitted an individual or group of individuals against business interests to side with business.
This issue has been complex for me.
First, I am adamantly opposed to changing the Senate Rules for the purpose of confirming Bush’s nominations.
Second, I have actually used only one of Justice Owen’s opinions to any great degree in my legal work. In a dissent in S.V v. R.V., 933 SW 2d 1, she issued a dissenting opinion arguing for a liberal view of the time in which a victim of sexual abuse as a minor could bring a lawsuit for redress after attaining majority. She was alone in her dissent – Cornyn and Gonzalez voted with the majority, and the opinion has a great deal of powerful language about the trauma which victims of child sexual abuse endure, and she argued that denying these people access to Texas Courts after they turn 20 was tantamount to returning Texas to the days when rape could not be prosecuted without corroborating testimony.
Third, if there is a compromise I would much rather see her confirmed than Janice Rogers Brown. I do not find Justice Owen as extreme as Justice Brown, and I do feel that my clients would get a fair hearing from her in the Fifth Circuit. My appellate work has been in the federal system so I have not appeared before Justice Owen in the Texas Supreme Court and have no direct experience with her.
Fourth, Bush should have nominated someone else. Several of her present or former Republican colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court would have flown through confirmation with little problem.
I hope this helps.
Yes it does, thank you for your time in clarifying and helping me understand more on this nomination.
VERY helpful! Thank you for this.
about the “piano man”? A couple experts on TV last night said that they think he’s pulling a hoax. Has he still not said a word to anyone?
Piano Man story at BBC
I didn’t notice this story until now. It has a certain cinematic feel to it: Rain Man meets Shine, perhaps?
Reminds me of Norway’s legendary first jogger, I suppose sometime in the early 80s: a US General serving at the NATO HQ at Mt. Kolsås near Oslo. One fine day the police picked up a sweaty foreigner running aimlessly about a suburban neighborhood. Since the man was unable to explain what he was doing in a way that made any sense, they stuck him in the Gaustad Psychatric Hospital.
Imagine the poor dude: “Let me go, I’m a General at NATO!” “Sure you are. Come with us General, we’ll take you to meet Napoleon.”
Now that was a rational way to deal with joggers – and at least some American Generals.
OMG. I’ve never heard that story. When did he get out?
In 1997, as an old and somewhat bitter man.
Just kidding… I don’t know, but presumably it didn’t take long to establish his identity.
About # 185 on your priority list but nevertheless here it is:
NOTE:
Liberals are a coalition party of conservatives and far right parties. “Liberals” here is a misnomer.
2005 PARTY STANDINGS – Total 79 seats
Liberals: 46
New Democrats: 33
Holy cow. That’s a huge change.
“Nowhere was the NDP resurgence more evident than on Vancouver Island,
where the party took nine of 13 seats. Four years ago, the entire Island went Liberal.”
Graph of election results
Popular vote,
“Liberals” 46%,
NDP (New Democratic Party) 41%,
Greens 9%
Two national newspapers endorsed the “Liberals.” BC newspapers are owned by
CanWest Global Communications Corp. run by the Asper family who are “Liberal” supporters.
I ask you. Is this any way to conduct foreign policy?
Journalist Ole Berthelsen’s new book on relations between Norway and USA after the Iraq war – “En frelser, en prest og en satan” (A savior, a priest and a Satan) – charts how the long-standing bonds between the two nations were tested but saved by faith.
Based on documents and many interviews, with both central and anonymous sources from both countries, the book concludes that Bondevik’s background as a Lutheran priest was a crucial ingredient in maintaining close ties with the Bush administration.
Relations were at their shakiest after the US ambassador to Norway, John Doyle One, gave a speech where he strongly implied that a lack of support for the US effort in Iraq could be a turning point, and mean a lack of protection in the future.
Norwegian politicians made it clear they would not be pressured to alter their stance, and a day later Bush called PM Bondevik.
Bondevik defended his basic decision not to participate in a war action on his personal Christian-ethical beliefs, and Bush would not dispute this point with a clergyman.
“Norway is a good friend of the USA and I must respect a decision a friend takes on the basis of his conscience,” Bush told Bondevik.
Bondevik reportedly pledged humanitarian support to the rebuilding of Iraq and asked that they pray for each other.
This conversation and Bondevik’s argument is said to have made a deep impression on Bush, who later told Bondevik he had no need to explain his stance. According to several sources, Bush told Bondevik: “You are a man of God, and I like to see myself in the same way.”
So if the PM at the time had happened to be Labour’s Jens Stoltenberg – a secular humanist whose position on Iraq equals Bondevik’s – then US-Norwegian relations would now be measurably chillier? Well, okay…
Arf,
I wanted to get as far away from politics last night as I could so I turned the tv channel to UPN to watch the debut of ‘Chaotic’-the home movies so to speak showing Brittany Spears and her husband, boyfriend at the time, doing and saying mind numbingly inane things…
I just kinda stared at the tv in a stupor of fascination at the complete vapidness of the whole deal…and it was also billed as ‘can you handle our truth’ or some such crap..truth?…she can barely string intelligent thoughts together. One mindnumbing tidbit was her saying she’d had sex 3 times that day…gee thanks for that info, I guess now I can die happy knowing Brittany had sex 3 times in one day.
I guess this post might be getting as vapid as Brittany herself although it certainly did take my mind off politics in a trainwreck sorta way.
And on par with the whole Anna Nicole Smith debacle.
Anna Nicole Smith: My daughter and went through a period of time when we sought out her show just because we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Did the same with Ozzy Osbourne’s show … our jaws hit the floor.
I felt like you last night, Chocolate, and was so glad that “House” was on. It was an especially good episode.
I really couldn’t watch more than several of the Anna shows. I actually got embarrassed for her. Kinda sad really the way she is being exploited and does this to herself.
<FONT COLOR=blue> THANKS ARMANDO! </FONT>
First post successfully launched just before midnight 00:00 PDT.
Got to run … politics can’t wait much longer.
Kind regards,
Adrian
aka new creve coeur
The Hague Thursday May 18, 2005 09:00 AM Local Time
First post new creve coeur @dKos
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité