Programs in Bridgeport

The Connecticut Post: describes a day-long prgram in one of Bridgeport's public high schools:

"Back-to-back presentations included talks by students from Newtown High School's elective sociology class — that features a study unit on gender and sexual orientation — discussions by gay and lesbian adults about their work and social experiences, ice-breaker games, and film clips centering on how family and friends react to someone revealing they are homosexual. 'We basically tried to pick clips that the kids can identify with at some point,' said Cynthia Kosc-St.Onge, a special education history teacher who advises Bassick's Gay-Straight Alliance along with Kris Burns, teen health social worker for the school.

The conference also featured a performance by 20-year-old Geo Creed Wyeth (stage name: 'Tha Novice'), a transgender dancer, musician and writer who just completed his sophomore year at Yale University.

Also, Central High School's student peer-education drama group, Profiles, acted a scene titled 'GayWorld.' It was about a homophobic young woman who learns about discrimination when she suddenly finds herself in an all-gay environment."

The amount of social propaganda in the public schools is increasing dramatically, and it only goes one way: advocates for traditional marriage can't get a hearing in Bridgeport. I bet this "homophobic young woman" was portrayed as a conservative Christian.

Travel on Special Interest's Dime

AP: Lawmakers Belatedly Disclose Trips:

"Scrutiny of Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review has found."

Surprise, surprise. In one of my previous posts, I linked to a site listing all privately-funded congressional travel. I noted that Delay was well down the list, and that the top 20 travelers were all Democrats. It turns out even this amount of travel was understated. Both Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to clean up their travel reporting, but still have not fully succeeded in complying with the rules.

Why are the Democrats are trying to single Delay out on this one? I don't get it.

Reid's Version of Comity

How many times do you try to pet a dog with a history of biting, Senator McCain?

Yahoo! News:

"But whatever elation the negotiators felt, the Senate's Democratic leader did not share it.

In the privacy of his Capitol office last Monday night, Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., asked for commitments from six Democrats fresh from the talks. Would they pledge to support filibusters against Brett Kavanaugh and William Haynes, two nominees not specifically covered by the pact with Republicans?

Some of the Democrats agreed. At least one, Sen. Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, declined.

Details of Reid's attempt to kill the two nominations within minutes of the agreement, as well as other events during this tumultuous time, were obtained by The Associated Press in interviews with senators and aides in both parties."

New York Times:

"Dr. Frist was told by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, his Democratic counterpart, on Wednesday that enough Democrats would join Republicans to invoke 'cloture,' allowing a final vote on Mr. Bolton.

The aide, who would speak only without being identified when discussing conversations between the two leaders, also said Dr. Frist had intervened with the administration to try to get an intelligence briefing that would satisfy opponents of the nomination."

McCain needs to quit negotiating on behalf of the Republicans!

Abortion Statistics

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organization, reports statistics regarding abortion in the United States, including the reasons women give for their abortions. About 90% of over 1.3 million abortions each year are ascribed solely to convenience -- that is, it would be financially and/or emotionally inconvenent to have a baby. The health, either of the woman or child, is only at issue in at most 6% of the cases.

According to the Institute, rape and/or incest is the reason for abortion in 10,000--15,000 cases each year. This number is clearly questionable. Even allowing for gross underreporting of rape and incest cases, this would mean that 1 out of every 6 rapes would result in pregnancy, which violates medical probability. At most 200-500 pregnancies each year could be the result of rape. The Institute's statistics are based on abortion-seekers self-report. If these numbers aren't just manufactured, then women may be hiding their real reasons for seeking an abortion. However, even if these statisitcs are accurate, rape and incest are clearly not the reason abortion is legal in this country. To cite rape and incest in debates on abortion is disingenuous.

1.2 million unborn are killed each year for convenience . . . according to the abortion advocates' own statistics. An Overview of Abortion in the United States

Now, what does this have to do with my posts on judicial nominees? I do strongly believe that results-oriented judicial philosophy is wrong. I do not want "judicial activists" of any stripe. But, that is not true of the Democrats. Ultimately, blocking Bush's judicial nominees comes down to this one thing: preservation of abortion for convenience.

Blubbering Voinovich

What's with Voinovich? He blubbers on the Senate floor because the Bolton nomination is SO IMPORTANT, but he didn't care enough about it to actually show up for the confirmation hearings or meet with Bolton privately when that opportunity was given him. When did it become so critical for him?

Bench Memos

Matthew Franck sees it the way I do.

Bench Memos on National Review Online: "There is another blow here, and it wounds more deeply. All the talk about preserving the traditions of the Senate in this agreement has it exactly backwards. The Democrats already broke with those traditions, and this deal endorses the new order of the ages, albeit under 'extraordinary circumstances' that remain to be defined. In the long history of the filibuster since John C. Calhoun, while its practical use and intent has often been simply to obstruct, the only defense any senator has ever made of it in public is not that it is a weapon of mass obstruction, but that it is a delaying tactic, a defense against hasty majorities, an invitation to full and leisurely debate on the floor before decisions are made. Even in recent weeks this has been the refrain of the Democrats.

McCain's Sanctimonious Seven (sorry, I left out Chafee in an earlier reference to the Six) have been snookered by that old vulture Robert Byrd into a new understanding of the filibuster — that it may be legitimately used, and legitimately defended, as a form of absolute obstructionism by a party that has the votes to prevent cloture. Not the principle of measured deliberation, but the principle of minority rule — an essentially anti-republican principle — has been enshrined in this agreement. Once again in his long career, it is Byrd who has changed the rules, and without seeming to have done so."

Sold Down the River by McCain, et. al.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

We respect the diligent, conscientious efforts, to date, rendered to the Senate by Majority Leader Frist and Democratic Leader Reid. This memorandum confirms an understanding among the signatories, based upon mutual trust and confidence, related to pending and future judicial nominations in the 109th Congress.

This memorandum is in two parts. Part I relates to the currently pending judicial nominees; Part II relates to subsequent individual nominations to be made by the President and to be acted upon by the Senate's Judiciary Committee.

We have agreed to the following:

Part I: Commitments on Pending Judicial Nominations

A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit).

B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit).

Part II: Commitments for Future Nominations

A. Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.


B. Rules Changes. In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress, which we understand to be any amendment to or interpretation of the Rules of the Senate that would force a vote on a judicial nomination by means other than unanimous consent or Rule XXII.

We believe that, under Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, the word "Advice" speaks to consultation between the Senate and the President with regard to the use of the President's power to make nominations. We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration.

Such a return to the early practices of our government may well serve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate.

We firmly believe this agreement is consistent with the traditions of the United States Senate that we as Senators seek to uphold.

Notes:

1) McCain, et. al. gave up much more than they got. They agree to oppose a rules change, but permit the Democrats to filibuster judicial nominees except under "extraordinary circumstances." That, of course, will be any Supreme Court nominee Bush puts forward, unless he abandons his principles.

2) The agreement implicitly chastises Bush for not consulting with Democrats on nominees, insinuating that he is the one who abandoned tradition. It remains silent on the outrageous practice of the Democrats with regard to judicial nominees, beginning with Bork, continuing with Clarence Thomas, and culminating in their systematic blocks. Especially egregious is their practice of propagating outrageous smears.

3) Reid's slimeball character assassination of Saad worked. He has been rewarded for his McCarthyism.

4) This self-appointed group of Republicans defer to Byrd: a man who has changed the rules four times in the past. These fools were taken in.

Preemptive Shutdown

Even though at this stage the Senate is simply following the regular order in debating a judicial nominee, the Democrats have shut down all committee meetings.

Today's newspapers have all labeled Frist's actions extreme; at best they might concede there is fault on both sides for escalation of partisanship in the Senate. But, who is taking the extreme action here?

Demagoguing the filibuster debate

Excellent op/ed by Charles Fried in the Boston Globe today

Demagoguing the filibuster debate: "The Constitution does not say one word about filibusters, but it does state that ''each house may determine the rules of its proceedings.' Does it speak by implication? In the case of impeachments ''no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members' of the Senate. Either house may expel a member for disorderly behavior but only with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of that house. Treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the senators present. The president's veto may be overridden by two-thirds of each house. And to propose amendments to the Constitution, two thirds of both houses are necessary. It is therefore a fair inference that, unless another voting rule is prescribed, in all other cases only a simple majority is required. And no other rule is prescribed for the voting on each house's rules. To say that in a democracy majority rule is at least the default rule is hardly wild speculation."

With Disrespect

My Dad used to tell me you could get away with saying anything if you just prefaced your remarks with "Respectfully ..." He was joking, of course! But the White House press corps take this seriously. Correspondents from ABC News and the New York Times engaged in an egregiously disrespectful exchange with Scott McClellan:

TERRY MORAN: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage them to help --

TERRY MORAN: You're pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them --

TERRY MORAN: It's not pressure?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --

ELISABETH BUMILLER: You've already said what you're -- I know what -- how it ends.

This does not capture the snide arrogance of this exchange.

This is how the mainstream media react when one of their own is found out to have been so enamored of an anti-Bush story as to run with it without corroboration from anyone other than a single anonymous source. They expose their animus even more fully, betraying the mindset that makes this kind of mistake possible.

Republican Overreach

"But the clincher is the current imbroglio over federal judges. Democrats brazenly overturn two centuries of Senate precedent on judicial nominations — then they have the gall to threaten to shut down the institution if they don't get their way. That's Republican overreach? "

When Democrats overreach - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED - May 19, 2005:

Negotiation 101

Today's Washington Post story, Gloves Off As Senators Start Debate On Judges:

"The 'six and six' proposal, as it is called, would obligate Democratic signatories to forswear backing a filibuster against future judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances. In return, the six GOP signers would agree to vote against efforts to ban judicial filibusters, the aides said."

This is exactly what I'm afraid of. These accomodationist Republican Senators should not negotiate for the party. They obviously don't know how!

1. The Democrats reserve for themselves the option of filibustering in "extraordinary circumstances," but the Republicans abandon the nuclear option altogether. They ought at least to reserve the nuclear option for "extraordinary circumstances," too.

2. The Republicans have allowed the Democrats to open their negotiations from an outrageously illegitimate starting point, and thay have met them more than half way. They concede more than they get in return. They accept de facto the legitimacy of party-line, systematic, sore-loser blocking of nominees based on judicial philosophy rather than competence.

3. The Democrats define their own illegitimate terms, leaving the agreement open-ended. Note that the phrase used is no longer "extreme" because the Democrats have labeled every Bush nominee an extremist. Every time Bush nominates someone consistent with his policies and philosophy, it is "extreme" in their eyes. They have so cheapened that word that even these appeasement Republicans recognize it no longer has weight. So, the Democrats concede a change of terminology, but unilaterally define for themselves what is an "extraordinary circumstance." Does anyone doubt that a Bush nomination for Supreme Court will automatically constitute an "extraordinary circumstance?"

4. The Republicans demonstrate no familiarity with the track record of their opponents. Know your opponent is the first rule of negotiating. Joe Lieberman tried to do away with all filibusters in 1995 with the Lieberman-Harkin act. Robert Byrd is the architect of this strategy, having set the precedent for changing Senate Rules. How can anyone believe these men are negotiating in good faith?

These moderate Republicans are not keeping faith with over 63 million Americans who voted for Bush.

Filibusters: More Position Switching

More evidence to support my view that a compromise with the Democrats would be foolish. In 1997, one of their legal apologists, Erwin Chemerinsky (Duke), argued in a Stanford Law Review article that the filibuster rule was unconstitutional. Yesterday, he wrote in the L.A. Times that limiting the filibuster for judicial nominees is a "cynical exercise of raw power." Is there any doubt that these thinkers will switch back to their previous position when convenient for them, and provide scholarly justification for doing so?

Patterico’s Pontifications on Filibuster:

"In his L.A. Times op-ed, Chemerinsky decries Republican efforts to change the filibuster rule for judicial nominations. He argues that the Senate should follow its “long-established rules for changing Senate procedure” — and that any attempt to change those rules would not be based on constitutional principle:

The GOP plan to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominations would do lasting damage to the Senate. Not only do the Republicans hope to do it without following the long-established rules for changing Senate procedure but, if they’re successful, they would eliminate a key check, guaranteeing their party’s absolute control over Supreme Court appointments.

. . . .

The major problem with the nuclear option is that it is a cynical exercise of raw power and not based on constitutional principle or precedent.

This is stunning hypocrisy, in light of Chemerinsky’s law review article, in which Chemerinsky explicitly encouraged the Senate to embrace a version of the “nuclear option.” The article urged the Senate to change Rule XXII, the rule requiring a two-thirds vote to change the rules for ending filibusters. Chemerinsky argued that Rule XXII is unconstitutional."

Nuke It, Already

Wow! Here's an endorsement of the "nuclear option" from an unexpected source, the L.A. Times:

Nuke It, Already: "We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution. "

NYT: Advocating Frustration of Democracy

Senator Frist Approaches the Brink

Of all the hollow arguments Senate Republicans have made in their attempt to scrap the opposition's right to have a say on President Bush's judicial nominees, the one that's most hypocritical insists that history is on their side in demanding a "simple up-or-down vote" on the Senate floor. Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics, from filibuster threats to stealthy committee inaction on individual nominations, in blocking hundreds of presidential appointments across history, including about one in five Supreme Court nominees. This is all part of the Senate's time-honored deliberative role and of its protection of minority rights, which Republican leaders would now desecrate in overreaching from their majority perch.

Republican majorities blocked more than 60 judicial candidates during the Clinton administration by denying them committee hearings through the use of anonymous "blue slip" holds by individual lawmakers and a variety of other tactics just as effective, if less visible, than the filibuster. The majority leader, Bill Frist, who is zealously planning to smash the Senate rules, took part himself in a filibuster of a Clinton appeals court nominee.

Questions:

1. What did the NYT say about the Democrats previous move, in 1995, to do away with all filibusters, including legislative? What did they say when Republicans used the filibuster? "... the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, . . . an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose." New York Times editorial 1-1-95, "Time to Retire the Filibuster." The NYT will certainly change its stance yet again if the Democrats are ever in power again.

As I've said, I hope these moderate Republicans remember what the Democrats tried to do in the past, egged on by the MSM, and aren't fooled into thinking they will respect so-called "time honored tradition" in the future.

2. If both Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics to block presidential appointments in the past, many of them, such as the "blue slip," just as effective as the filibuster, then why are the Democrats going berserk about the filibuster? Why don't they just use their other "just as effective" tactics?

Obviously these other tactics are not as effective. The Democrats cannot actually win a majority or persuade the majority through rational argument and influence; they want to reserve for themselves the ability to block what they cannot accomplish otherwise. This is an admission of bankruptcy.

3. What deliberative role is the New York Times talking about? Harry Reid has already declared that the Democrats will not accept 100 hours of debate, or "any" amount of debate on nominees. Debate and deliberation are obviously not their goal. The Democrats are trying to block all public deliberation. All we've seen, and will see, on the Democrat's side is McCarthyite character assassination.

4. Is the NYT really so undiscerning as to not understand the difference between a filibuster threat by a few Senators, including Frist in the Paez case, and a systematic, party-enforced, actual, indefinite filibuster triggered entirely by opposition to judicial philosophy --- and probably religious belief?

The New York Times compounds their hypocrisy by accusing others of it.

In September the New York Times is going to start charging people $49 to read their editorial pages on-line. Whose idea was that?

Sex and Montgomery County

Another very well-written article in the Weekly Standard, this time on the sex-ed curriculum in Montgomery County, Sex and the County:

An advisory committee was put together in November 2002 to recommend a new program of 'health education' dealing with 'sexual variation.' The program, when it was finally written, reflected the liberal orthodoxy of the education establishment. With the claim to teach in an authoritative way about health and sex, the program put forth a series of 'myths' to be corrected with 'facts.' But the myths were not all mythical, nor the facts all factual. And the authors could not restrain themselves from pronouncing on the moral dimness of people holding opposing views, including the theological backwardness of those religions that continue to honor the tradition of Jewish and Christian teaching on these matters.

(I forget whether this requires a subscription -- some of their articles do; others don't.)

One of the most alarming aspects of this controversy is the poor quality of theological reasoning this advisory committee endorsed. For example, the teacher resource materials argues for moral equivalence of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the Bible by pointing out that there are many heterosexual practices the Bible condemns as abominations: rape, incest, etc. The obvious reply to this is that the Bible never condemns heterosexuality per se, but it does homosexuality.

The Scariest Nominee

Excellent story at National Review Online, Peter Kirsanow on Janice Rogers Brown:

To Democrats, Janice Rogers Brown is the scariest nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the history of the republic. Since her nomination nearly two years ago, she has been the subject of the most vitriolic and persistent attacks ever leveled against a nominee to the federal bench other than Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

The black sharecropper's daughter, born in segregated Alabama, has been excoriated as a closet member of the Ku Klux Klan who, at least according to the Senate minority leader, would like nothing better than to return America to 'Civil War days.' Left-leaning political cartoonists depict her as an Aunt Jemima on steroids, complete with exaggerated physical features typically found only in the racist literature distributed by hate groups. ...

... What's driving the hysteria? Three things: demographics, abortion (more specifically, the doctrinal approach that produced Roe v. Wade), and impending Supreme Court vacancies.

As Professor Steven Calabresi of Northwestern University Law School has noted, Democrats are determined 'not to allow any-more conservative African-Americans, Hispanics, women or Catholics to be groomed for nomination to the High Court with court of appeals appointments.'

Democrats are afraid of diluting their appeal to their base. The more conservative African-American, Hispanics, women, and Catholics there are, the less credible the Democrats' claim to exclusively represent their political and economic interests.

NARAL and Mud Slinger Reid Finding Dirt Together

A story by Robert Novak on RealClearPolitics.com: Probing Judges

He[Mike Rice] and Craig Varoga, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are partners in a California political consulting firm. Their May 5 petition requested financial information on 30 appellate judges in all but one of the country's judicial circuits, including nine widely mentioned Supreme Court possibilities. Varoga & Rice's client: NARAL Pro-Choice America.

One of the appellate judges who learned that his financial records were sought by a Democratic political consulting firm told a friend that he felt violated by this political intrusion. He did not know that the firm's client was NARAL.

The abortion advocacy group surely was not asking the judges' views on abortion. Nancy Keenan, who has been NARAL's president some five months, told this column her organization is concerned about "out of touch theological activists" becoming judges. Why seek financial information from them? She said the disclosure information might help identify the "character" of judicial nominees.

How can anyone really claim these judicial nominees aren't being targeted for their religious beliefs? Reid's front organization, funded by NARAL, is clearly looking for financial information to disguise a religious test of judicial nominees.

Fineman: Ready to Blow

Politics: Ready to Blow - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com

Newsweek's Howard Fineman likes to portray himself as politically neutral. However, isn't it suspicious that he hangs the outcome of the coming filibuster showdown on a few Republican moderates? Not once does he contemplate the suggestion that the Democrats, who have violated over 200 years of Senate tradition, moderate their stance. There is not a single allusion to a "Democratic moderate" in his article, despite the heading of his article: "a few moderates hope for middle ground." Never in the history of the Senate -- with the exception of Fortas, who had ethical problems, and who opposed by both parties -- have judicial nominees been filibustered. This is the historically extremist position.

I do not believe any compromise is in order because a compromise legitimates an extremist negotiation starting point. By far the most desirable solution, one that everyone looking at the long term would agree on, would be no change to the Senate rules so long as the Democrats restore Senate tradition and quit filibustering judicial nominees. They would have to acknowledge that they have abused Senate rules and violated Senate tradition. They would also have to offer some guarantee that they would not violate their agreement.

However, the Democrats cannot offer any credible guarantee. And so, reluctantly, Senate Republicans must write honorable tradition into the Senate rules. The tradition has been not to filibuster judicial nominees, the change to Senate rules will only apply to this situation. Sen. Frist's proposal does not apply to the legislative filibuster.

Why can't the Democrats offer a credible guarantee?

The Democrats have a history of trying to destroy the filibuster when in power. The argument that someday Republicans will be in the minority and will need the protections of the filibuster assumes too much. If the Democrats ever do get back into power again, what will stop them from changing the Senate rules in their favor? The memory of Republican restraint? I doubt it!

Sen. Robert Byrd led the creation of precedents in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 to stop filibusters. In 1995, nine current Democratic senators sought to put an end to all filibusters, even legislative, a step much more radical than anything contemplated here. Senators Bingaman, Boxer, Feingold, Harkin, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Lieberman, and Sarbanes have already displayed a readiness to bend their principles as politically expedient. They have betrayed a willingness to take extreme positions in the past. What credible guarantee can they offer that they will not do it again?

It is far more reasonable to think they will change the Senate rules in their favor as soon as they get the chance than to think they will respond in kind to a "moderate" concession.

Also, the Democrats are led by a man who does not respect existing Senate rules with respect to confidential files, illegally characterizes these FBI files, and ignores a memorandum of understanding with the White House on treatment of nominees. What guarantee can there be that this man will suddenly learn integrity and keep his word?

No. For these reasons I support Frist's action and hope he presses on with it:

1) It codifies what was the Senate tradition until Democratic extremists highjacked the process.
2) A compromise would legitimate an illegitimate negotiation starting point.
3) The Democrats are much more likely to change the rules themselves in the future than to respect a concession today. Fineman couldn't find a single Democratic moderate.
4) The Democratic leader won't adhere to any agreement anyway.

Diplomatic (I Hate Republicans and Everything They Stand For) Dean Does it Again

Boston.com: Dean rips DeLay at convention:

"Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Party, said yesterday that the US House majority leader, Tom DeLay, ''ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence,' referring to allegations of unethical conduct against the Republican leader."

With models of civility like Dean around, I can really see why people think it's the Republicans who have lost the art of civil discourse,

How did this man get this job? He was the governor of a tiny little state with a population of about 630,000 people. The mayor of a large city has greater responsibility. He, obviously, didn't even have to learn any self-control to do the job.

Is there a web site anywhere keeping track of Dean's stupid statements?