Another Bush Crony Nominated

[Jim]

This woman has never even been a judge and she is getting nominated to the Supreme Court.

[Torn Rose]

yeah, George is going 2 for 2.

[furrygirl]

We good Christian folk done gots ourselves a new judge to cast the sinners from our midst!

Seriously, though, I'm sure glad that after the FEMA debacle, we've learned to put experienced people in high branches of government. I'm so relieved to know that my right to govern my own uterus is now a decision to be made not by myself or my doctor, but by the former "Texas Lottery Commission chairwoman".

[Torn Rose]

Sept. 11 scramble
As staff secretary, Miers was with the president in Florida when the terrorist attacks unfolded on Sept. 11, 2001, and she later remembered the regard she felt for him as she scrambled to help prepare his remarks to the nation that night. “It took some time, and the president saw me hurrying to give them to him,” she recalled. “He said, ’Good hustle.’ He made me feel good that I was contributing. Typical.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9577329/

“She’s a quiet, highly respected force and someone who is seen as not having any agenda other than the president’s,” he said.

“She never seeks the limelight,” Spellings told Business Week. “She’s just extremely devoted to the president.”

[Simon]

See how many times someone says "trailblazer" speaking about her today.

I think we just don't understand good 'ole George W.

Where he comes from, and the way he was raised, you only get someone you don't know to do something if you don't already know anyone who does it, or know someone who knows someone. Using people you don't know, and who isn't at least a friend of a friend, is just a signal that you don't have enough friends or that no one likes you. From his vantage point, I'm sure young George just does not understand what all the fuss is about over just "puttin' your friends to work."

I mean, what the hell, no one gets their oil wells drilled by strangers, do they?

Simon

[smoo]

hey furry, r vs w will never be overturned. you and your uterus should be just fine.when will democrats grow a set of balls and speak out? against the war, against the croniism. the dems are bound to lose in 2008 because they are pussies. with the exception of howard dean of course.

[Jim]

To even hear the turning over of Roe v Wade would rip this country apart. The past Chief Justice said that and that is why they would never hear the arguments.

And here is an interesting fact...
Roe V Wade only federally insures that abortions are legal in all 50 states. Funny that Roe was fighting for her right because abortions were illegal in Texas where she lived. If it were overturned, the states would still be able to make it legal to have an abortion.

[RawAlex]

smoo, R v W is not on the "never overturn" list... it just requires that a clear majority of the court be totally conservative, and the right case come up (and trust me, with a conservative court, the case will come up). It won't be direct, but an indirect picking away at that the ruling. There is at least one case in the current term that will hit on the edges of the ruling.

Just like a building, you can keep pulling out the supports and it will keep standing until one day someone leans on the side, and the whole thing falls over. The intention of Bush and his most conservative backers isn't to build Rome in a day, but to set the stage for a VERY long and gradual turn to the right that will bring the court to a very conservative position overall without any sudden turns that would wake the public up.

Appointing a guy with limited judicial experience as the chief Justice, and then nominating someone with NO judicial experience is a major slap in the face to all the long serving circuit court judges, and an insult to the American people.

I personally feel that someone with little out front experience, who is overtly religeous, and who lacks fundimental judicial experience is not someone you want to have on the court of the next 20 - 30 years. There are plenty of good, solid, experienced judges out there in the federal circuit courts that are much more known and much more proven candidates than this woman. Nominate one of them, nominate here as a federal judge, and give her a few years to learn how it works when you put the robes on.

Alex

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Jim

To even hear the turning over of Roe v Wade would rip this country apart. The past Chief Justice said that and that is why they would never hear the arguments.

And here is an interesting fact...
Roe V Wade only federally insures that abortions are legal in all 50 states. Funny that Roe was fighting for her right because abortions were illegal in Texas where she lived. If it were overturned, the states would still be able to make it legal to have an abortion.

Jim, sorry, but you are incorrect. If the federal court overturns RvW, the default would be no abortions. it would require that each state then pass a legalizing law, which would be doubtful if the federal court has ruled against. Any new "abortion allowed" law would immediately be challenged in court, and with a heavy federal ruling against, it would be hard to get them to stick.

Also, don't forget that many states have republican governors inplace, which would make passing such a law more difficult.

The implications here are huge.

Alex

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Appointing a guy with limited judicial experience as the chief Justice, and then nominating someone with NO judicial experience is a major slap in the face to all the long serving circuit court judges, and an insult to the American people.

Alex

Alex - actually the appointment of people without judicial experience happens a lot - the last was William H. Rehnquist

[SirMoby]

35 people justices have been appointed without any experience at all.

What concerns me was her speech when she finds it exciting "To serve The President"! Obviously she has forgotten that her current job and the one that she has just been appointed to are designed to serve the people of the USA and not a single individual.

It's unfortunate that the American people will not pick up on such statements that obviously make her totally unqualified for any political office

[Tommy]

even if Roe v Wade was over turned

it would cause a huge fallout in the GOP
I think they would lose a lot of votes

and then states would be able to ban abortion or let it go as is

I think left states like NY and Ca would never ban it

[Torn Rose]

I just love hearing him bitch about “Activist Judges” and then he appoints a puppet. This is a bad thing and I think she will pass as easy as Roberts and I guarantee she will answer just as many questions as Roberts.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Alex - actually the appointment of people without judicial experience happens a lot - the last was William H. Rehnquist

Agreed. But they are exceptiosn rather than the rule, I don't think there is much historical justification for appointing two judges in a row that have effectively no real history or experience in ruling from the bench.

This isn't even borderline transparent. Woman who has helped Bush for X number of years gets nominated for a very plum job (which she would only have to do for 5 years before receiving an insanely high pension).

They can't even keep the door to the back room closed long enough to get things done.

Alex

[Linkster]

Alex - actually the same year that Rehnquist was appointed, Lewis Powell was also appointed and had never been a judge - these were both in 1972.
Prior to that there were at least 30 others out of the total 99 that had never been a judge before taking the post on the Supreme Court so it is not unusual at all. Some notable Chief justices that were not judges before were Chief Justices John Marshall and Earl Warren.

Now you want controversy over appointments of friends - go back to LBJ when he appointed Abe Fortas - that was real cronyism and it was publicized so much that he resigned the court three years later.

This woman has some unusual things in her past that might make it a little difficult to pass the Senate even on the conservative side - as far as R v Wade - she refused to support the Texas bar Association's issuance of support for the decision back when the ruling happened originally. However she also donated money to Al Gores campaign (of course back then Texas was all democrat) back in 1988.

[Linkster]

Alex - BTW - even the first Chief Justice in this country - John Jay - was never a judge before sitting on the supreme court - he was President of the Continental Congress and then negotiated the Paris treaty which basically ended the Revolutionary war. And you want to talk about skirting issues - he was nominated by G Washington and 2 days later the senate confirmed him

[SirMoby]

I don't think it's wrong to appoint someone with no experience since that has happened often and quite frankly many judges may be too close minded because of thier experience.

What bothers me is this appointee makes it clear that she wants to serve The President and not the people. That makes her unqualified.

[RawAlex]

Even the conservatives don't like her:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9444

The supreme court should be the place where the best judges in the land end up. The people who have the experience dealing with the issues on the ground, have heard many legal arguments in the past, and have proven themselves able to put their personal views aside to deal the with issues before them by consulting the constitution and the law, not the bible or by having a prayer session.

Judges toil for years to move up the ranks, and many good, solid, and proven judges exist in the top federal circuits who could graduate to the top level - the the experience and understanding required to go right to work without rocking the boat.

The senate judicial committee should have one look at this nomination and say "sorry, we want someone with a little experience to make up for that new chief justice who doesn't even know how to put robes on right yet". She may be smart and she may be loyal, but she also has no history and no way for anyone to "judge the judge". Roberts was just about a blank canvas, and Meirs is the total absence of even canvas, just an empty studio with "nothing to see here" on the door.

Alex

[furrygirl]

You're a damn fool if you don't think that one of Bush's most important goals as president is to "outlaw abortion", which is, according to his personal beliefs and those of the people who elected him, tantamount to mass genocide.

Oh, Bush won't try to overturn Roe V Wade. Any 10 year old knows that term, it's too inflammatory, it attracts attention from even the dopiest of apolitical mouth-breathers in this country.

No, he won't take away the rights of women to have abortions. He'll *give rights* to those voiceless masses called zygotes and fetuses. We already have the Peterson decision where is has been legally established, in a blue state, that a fetus is a person. It BLOWS ME AWAY how few people found that court decision to be a big deal with massive implications.

Here's how it will start. First, we'll grant civil rights to 3rd trimester fetuses (40 weeks is full term, FYI). After all, as the Peterson ruling set up, is a fetus could possibly maybe "live" as preemie, then it's a legal human being. But, with the aid of medicine and science (which these people seem to think is Satan's trickery unless it benefits them), we have fetuses that survive at 22 weeks. That's 2nd trimester territory! So, we'll grant rights to 2nd and 3rd trimester fetuses.

Now all's you have to do is make it as hard as possible for women to get first trimester abortions, and we're almost set. Cut funding, go after clinics with zoning regulations or audits or inspections or smear campaigns, have public high schools show kids pictures of dismembered fetuses, open those fake "clinics" that coerce scared pregnant women into "not killing their baby", and get your constituents to protest and bomb abortion clinics even more. Make it scary and difficult enough to for women to get cells sucked out of their uterus early on, and they're stuck with the fetus until the end.

Well, the poor ones, anyhow. Women with money were flying to Europe to abortions when it was illegal here, and that trend will just pick up again. To keep in line with all of reproductive control history, it's the poorest amongst us that get stuck with unwanted children.

[Toni KatVixen]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Alex - BTW - even the first Chief Justice in this country - John Jay - was never a judge before sitting on the supreme court - he was President of the Continental Congress and then negotiated the Paris treaty which basically ended the Revolutionary war. And you want to talk about skirting issues - he was nominated by G Washington and 2 days later the senate confirmed him

Yes, but he was also one of the authors of the Federalist Papers arguing for the Consititution, so who better to enforce it?

[Linkster]

furrygirl - I would think that if he holds to his previous opinions that he stated even when grilled by stout conservatives during his first run for president - he wont pursue actually outlawing anything at the federal level - but would completely support states rights as part of his "strict constitutionalism" stance allowing them (and hence his picks for Supreme Court) to rule abortion illegal in specific states. The problem is that if you get a majority of states supporting that stance (and right now with the weight of the republican party they could) it would be a simple matter to create an amendment to the constitution and have it ratified by enough states to pass and the Supreme court would not strike it down if they are a majority of these strict constitutionalists. It would then be up to a majority of American people to change that in the future through the election process if they ever got off their apathetic asses and took an action - but since they have let the IRS stand for 100 years as an illegal amendment to the constitution I doubt that this "little thing" would rile up the population of this country.

Keep in mind that Bush publicly stated in his questioning prior to the first election that his devotion to the strict constitutionalism would allow him to even support overturning the Dred Scott case that was a major lead-up to the Civil War

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by KatVixen

Yes, but he was also one of the authors of the Federalist Papers arguing for the Consititution, so who better to enforce it?

I totally agree although he only wrote 5 articles for the papers - and they werent very enlightening - he also was not very well liked by Americans for his role in the Treaty with Britain as he gave up everything that the revolution was fought for - but he did stick to strict constitutionalism during the three cases the court heard under him. The big problem back then was that the Supreme court was also the court that took the role of all of the present day district courts - and actually it was his refusal to be the Chief Justice a second time that caused the establishment of actual separate District Courts to relieve the burden on the supreme court - they didnt have cars back then so they had to go on horseback to different districts for cases

[RawAlex]

Dred Scott is exactly the reason why "strict consitutionalism" is a very scary thing. It is a stand that leads (fairly directly, I might add) to a 100% christian-catholic state with "tolerance" for other religeons providing that they do not infringe on the rights of the "good people".

Abortion is just a single issue in a sea of issues that could turn the clock back to to Feb 6th, 1795.

http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofhe...rth/1bc5b.html

It's a disgusting thought.

Alex

[Linkster]

Alex - not to worry - I doubt Canada would join in on the going back to our old puritanical ways

[RawAlex]

Sadly, actually, we are heavily influenced by our neighbor to the south on many issues. Legalization of pot has sort of ended up in a sort of limbo because "the us doesn't like it".

We could become the haven for porn dodgers the same as we did for draft dodgers in the day, I guess.

Alex