Open Thread
I’m back at the controls in Philly. I tore what little was left of my right rotator cuff...
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Author: Martin Longman
Open Thread
I’m in Grand Rapids. The pain of this funeral cannot be overstated. I’ll be back...
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Casey at the Court
Bush did what I predicted. He gave us a life-raft nominee intended to shore up his base. Bush has three years to go. He’s like a prize fighter in a 12-round bout who get’s knocked down twice in the first round. He has no legs, he doesn’t know where he is, or where the next punch is coming from.
Grabbing and clutching, he just wants to buy some time to clear his head. Meanwhile, he is trying to bribe the judges, on the off chance he can remain standing to the final bell.
By putting Porter Goss at the CIA, Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security, John Negroponte at the NIA, Abu Gonzales at Attorney General, and attempting to put his personal lawyer on the Supreme Court, he hopes to cover up his abuse of the intelligence community, his torture policy, and his other crimes.
The nomination of Samuel Alito represents Plan B. He now proposes to overturn Casey and Roe, and anyone who fails to support Bush through his many travails, is effectively abandoning the anti-choice movement at THE critical time.
He is betting that all his failings will be overlooked in the interest of doing away with a woman’s right to choose.
By replacing O’Connor with Alito, he flips the Casey case.
Alito has argued that significant restrictions on a woman’s right to choose are constitutional. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Alito argued that all of the proposed law’s restrictions on a woman’s right to choose -– including a spousal-notification provision struck down by the Third Circuit and, later, the Supreme Court -– were constitutional. Alito dissented in part because he would have gone even further than the rest of the court.
it fell to O’Connor, along with fellow Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy and George H. W. Bush appointee David Souter, to complete the unfinished business of Roe v. Wade with Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. Their joint opinion, establishing that “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives,” stands as a hallmark of judicial sanity, and as the Supreme Court’s most firmly persuasive articulation of women’s rights.
So, this is the showdown we have all feared and hoped to avoid. Alito is on the record as opposing Casey. He is not a stealth candidate. He is openly hostile to women’s reproductive rights. The American people do not support overturning Roe or Casey. Arlen Specter claims to be pro-choice. He is the only pro-choice Republican on the Judiciary Committee, but he is the Chairman. Arlen needs to know that he is the last roadblock preventing a right-wing steamroller from crushing the federal protections of a woman’s right to choose.
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Open Thread
Good morning.
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A Tragic Loss
Today has been a tragic day. I received a phone call at 7 AM this morning from my friend, Wolverine Writer. WW was my college roommate, I was the best man at his wedding, and he runs the BooTrib store for us. Last night, at around 8:30 PM, his 20 year old daughter and her friend were broadsided by an 18-wheel truck. WW’s daughter died instantly. The last we heard, her friend was in critical condition.
I’ve known his daughter since she was seven years old. I have fond memories of taking her around New York City, showing her the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center, Greenwich Village, Central Park.
She was a beautiful girl, smart, sweet, inquisitive, with a good heart. She will be badly missed.
I don’t have much to say about this. Sometimes our loved ones die for no discernible reason. There is no moral component to it. It just is. And then we want to grab the world by the throat and insist it abide by some moral code, that it supply us with some reason or justification for the misfortune we encounter. And the world stares back, offering no defense.
Nicole meant the world to her father. She was one of the nicest people I have ever been fortunate enough to know. She was 20-years old and headed to a haunted house celebration.
WW wanted her to grow up to be an outstanding adult. I wanted that too.
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