The Interocitor

Never Again

Thirty years ago, today:

Janice Rogers Brown, Part 24

Captain Ed links to an awesome speech by California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rice Brown, in which she speaks about Truth, Justice and the American Way, and how little these seem to matter in America today. It is ironic to the point of self-reference that this exceptional woman should be bedeviled by the anklebiters, lie-mongers and wardheeling crap artists that pose as statesmen in the US Senate is beyond belief. I'd say she's worth 20 of them, but twenty times zero doesn't add up. Maybe negative 20 of them....

Go read the speech -- and take your time -- and tell me this is someone we should keep off the bench without so much as the courtesy of a vote. Even if you disagree! If she's "out of the mainstream, as her detractors say, that doesn't speak well for the mainstream.

Compare her to, say, Justices Kennedy, Souter, Stevens, Rehnquist, O'Connor or Breyer. Or Thomas or Ginsberg for that matter. Maybe Scalia could keep up. The only problem I have with her nomination is that it's only for the DC Circuit, but give it time...

Also worth reading is her speech to the Federalist Society (pdf) I previously linked here. See also here, here, here, here and here.

That was Then...

Some choice quotes from the left on filibusters, back when it was Clinton's agenda that was being stymied:

One unpleasant and unforeseen consequence has been to make the filibuster easy to invoke and painless to pursue. Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes.....an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose
--NY Times editorial 1/1/95

I respectfully suggest that everyone who is nominated is entitled to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor. . . .It is not appropriate not to have hearings on them, not bring them to the floor and not to allow a vote.
--Senator Joseph Biden 3/19/97

Down the drain goes President Clinton's economic stimulus package, washed away in the putrid flood of verbiage known as a filibuster....Call it a power game. Call it politics as usual. Call it reprehensible.
--Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, 4/23/93

(quotes via Powerline)

And They Wonder Why News Conferences are Few

According to Drudge, CBS, NBC and FOX all switched away from Bush's news conference to run their evening programming: Trump, Survivor and Paris Hilton [That's gotta hurt]. Next time the media whines about how Presidents hold so few of these things, they need to look at their own side of the street.

And Trump, Survivor and Paris Hilton? Vast wasteland is undertatement, given that.

Don't MoveOn

It's ironic to see an organization named "MoveOn" demonstrating FOR filibusters. But according to JohnJWalt that's just what they're doing. Quite the Progressive little bunch, huh?

(via Instapundit) Photo here

Setting the Stage on Filibusters

Senate Majority Leader Frist took the floor today and offered a compromise on changing Senate rules. The changes would prevent judicial obstruction, both by filibuster and at committee level -- the latter something Republicans engaged in quite often during the Clinton years. He also offered to guarantee 100 hours of debate on each nominee. But, he rightly pointed out:

Never in 214 years -- never in the history of the Senate -- had a judicial nominee with majority support been denied an up-or-down vote…until two years ago.

In the last Congress, the President submitted 34 appeals court nominees to the Senate. A minority of senators denied ten of those nominees -- and threatened to deny another six -- up-or-down votes.

They wouldn’t allow votes, because they knew the nominees would be confirmed and become judges. The nominees had the support of a majority of senators.

Now, in this new Congress, the same minority says it will continue to obstruct votes on judges. And, even worse, if they don’t get their way, they threaten to shut down the Senate and obstruct government itself.

Throughout this debate, we have held firm to a simple principle -- judicial nominees deserve up-or-down votes. Vote for them. Vote against them. But give them the courtesy of a vote.

Yet judicial nominees have not been given that courtesy. They’ve gone 2, 3, even 4 years without a vote. Now 46 seats on the federal bench are vacant -- as case after case and appeal after appeal stack up.

One nominee -- Priscilla Owen -- has served 10 years as a justice on the Texas Supreme court. She won reelection with 84% of the vote in Texas, yet she can’t get the courtesy of a vote to be confirmed by the Senate.

Judicial nominees are being denied. Justice is being denied. The solution is simple -- allow Senators to do their jobs and vote.

Dr. Frist also indicated that there was no compromise possible that involved withdrawing nominations. Good, that, since he'd not be Majority Leader long if he offered anything of the sort.

Harry Reid and the Democrats seem to rejecting this out of hand, blaming right-wing extremists (i.e. anyone to the right of David Souter) for the impasse. One would hope that this rejection would be seen for what it is, making the coming hostile rule change more acceptable to the public. But the MSM spin seems to be written by Reid himself, so who's to say.

You Won't See This in Doonesbury

Day By Day (c) Chris Muir 2005

I do wonder where Sam had the gun stashed, though....

Bob Dole on Filibusters

Bob Dole, hardly a neo-anything, has this to say about the time-honored practice of judicial filibuster:

When I was a leader in the Senate, a judicial filibuster was not part of my procedural playbook. Asking a senator to filibuster a judicial nomination was considered an abrogation of some 200 years of Senate tradition....

This 60-vote standard for judicial nominees has the effect of arrogating power from the president to the Senate. Future presidents must now ask themselves whether their judicial nominees can secure the supermajority needed to break a potential filibuster. Political considerations will now become even more central to the judicial selection process. Is this what the framers intended?

Hmmm .. so, changing the rules in order to restore Senate tradition is radical, but abusing a loophole that has been spurned as unthinkable for 200 years is not?

Clearly, the "nuclar option" is misnamed. The Democrats are the onew who went nuclear in 2001 -- the belated Republican response is more nuclear defense than offense.

Canada's Liberals Snatch Oblivion from the Jaws of Defeat

The Canadian Liberal Party has just signed its death warrant. Ostensibly, the pact the Liberals signed with the hard left New Democratic Party will provide them with an additional 19 votes in parliament for an expected no-confidence motion next month. Maybe yes, maybe no, but if they avoid a snap election it will take every last vote and then some, even with this. What did they give up? C$4.8 billion, or C$250 million (US$ 200 million) per NDP vote.

The problem is, should a snap election be called anyway (as still appears likely), the Liberals not only will be handling a set of scandals bigger than Watergate, but will have annoyed their party's center (there is no "right") -- driving them to the Conservatives. Further, they will have encouraged the left to vote for a suddenly meaningful NDP, rather than the fading Liberals. This was a snap election the Liberals might have exited with near parity with the Conservatives. Now if it happens they're going to lose every last marginal seat they possibly can.

I had thought they'd be smarter than this. Foolish me. I should have remembered that a politician's first instinct is to put off pain in the hopes that it can be avoided entirely. Usually it just means much more pain later, and this will be no different.

Why are they doing this? My bet is that they need to stay in power because they don't want the oppostion in charge of investigating the Sponsorship scandal.

Canadian coverage starts with Angry in the Great White North.

Janice Rogers Brown, Part 23

Benedict has a first-hand report on the Janice Rogers Brown speech that the LA Times reported Tuesday. He says that the Times report was shallow, out of context and biased. Why am I not surprised?

The West Wing

I like "The West Wing." I liked it better when Aaron Sorkin was writing it, but it's one of the more intelligent shows on TV. But something nags at me. It's not the hopelessly liberal politics or the associated moral-superiority schtick, or even the mangling of what Republicans are all about.

It's 9/11, or rather the lack of it.

While the show did do a special post-9/11 show, it was carefully put outside the plotline of the regular sequence. This is understandable -- having President Bartlett grapple with 9/11 would have made each episode hostage to current events, dating the show in a matter of weeks. Comparisons between Bartlett and Bush would be inevitable, and Bartlett would either start acting a lot like Bush or be seen as a terminal wimp. So they had to ignore it. Even Tom Clancy hasn't been able to face 9/11 head-on.

But that's not it either. What I think it is, is that not only does Bartlett appeal to Democrat political preferences, the 9/10 world that persists on West Wing is increasingly the world that the Democrat Party sees as the real one. Life imitates art, and the Democrats worldview increasingly mimics the fictional world of a TV show. For much the same reason.

Book Reports

I've been back in a book-reading mode and neglecting my bloggish duties. So sue me. But anyway, I've got a few to recommend if you're into current SF.

• Richard Morgan, Woken Furies (****1/2 [out of 5])
  Morgan is one of the hot Scottish writers who've burst on the SF scene in the last five years. This is the third and likely last in the Altered Carbon series. Set about 500 years in the future, where human flesh is simply a "sleeve" for the mind (assuming you have the money for your next one) and the "Settled Worlds" are ruled by a corrupt and immortal oligarchy backed by the threat of overwhelming military force. Takeshi Kovacs used to be one of the elite soldiers who kept the "peace"; he got disgusted and quit, taking odd enforcement jobs for anyone who could pay. Think of it as noir with blasters. Now he's back on his homeworld and caught up in a hopeless revolution, where the 400-year-really-dead leader of the last revolution has inexplicably come back to life. Or has she? Whatever happened is making a hash of things though, and no one will let Kovacs sit it out -- especially the other Kovacs that someone illegally double-sleeved. (British edition available now, US version September)


• Charles Stross, The Hidden Family (****1/2)
  This is the second book in the Merchant Princes series, by another of the Scottish crowd (another is Ken MacLeod, also recommended). It seems that there are a number of parallel worlds where history has run a bit differently, and a few humans (from one of the other ones) have the hereditary power to walk between them. The Clan, originating in a feudal nightmare where the Dark Ages never ended, uses our world as a source of wealth and power back home. Miriam, whose mother escaped the clan to our world finds about her power and is promptly haulled back "home" by the feudal clan, many of whom think their lives would be easier if Miriam was dead. Since they won't let Miriam leave and she wants things like running water and electricity, her solution is to reform the clan and pull their world out of the 8th century, using modern business methods. A hostile takeover, if you will.
  
  Charles Stross is channelling Roger Zelazny's Amber here, as well as engaging in what he calls "Dark Lord Revisionism" -- the idea that those pastoral kingdoms of Tolkein and such were horrid for the common folk and Sauron might have had a point. (Available July)

Outside the Mainstream?

One of the points I think have been overlooked in the argument over judicial appointment filibusters is just how seldom filibusters have been used. Democrats are always claiming that Republicans do the same thing, and have blocked judges that they thought were "outside the mainstream." Yet the facts don't support this claim.

In the entire 20th Century, only one federal court nomination was filibustered: Justice Abe Fortas's nomination to be Chief Justice in 1968. Yes, the Republicans indeed did do this, but the situation was extreme: not only was this a Chief Justice appointment, in 19-flipping-68, to a Court that was already heavily liberal, but it was made by a highly unpopular lame duck president in the middle of a presidential election campaign -- one that the Democrats were expected to lose (and did).

The fact that Justice Fortas was later shown to be ethically challenged didn't help either. He withdrew his name as Chief Justice when it came out that had he accepted a $15,000 speaking fee while sitting on the Court (which just wasn't done). Shortly thereafter, amid accusations Fortas had accepted another $20,000 from a financier who was facing federal charges, he resigned as Associate Justice in disgrace. Yet this is the lone poster boy for the Democrat's filibuster strategy.

Today, the Democrats are filibustering twelve appeals court appointments, which is 12 times the number filibustered in the entire history of the Republic preceding. Claiming that this is business-as-usual doesn't pass the laugh test. The Republicans have, with one exception, given every Democrat appointee the basic courtesy of an up-or down vote. In nearly all cases, qualified Democrat appointments are approved overwhelmingly. If anything, the only precent for the Democrat behavior is previous Democrat behavior.

Consider: When Bill Clinton appointed the ultra-liberal Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the Supreme Court, she was approved 97-3. Contrast this with the Democrat treatment of Justice Thomas and Judge Bork, or the 12 hostage judges currently being blocked.

The Republic went for 215 years with only one judicial filibuster. All of a sudden there are twelve such ongoing. Far from being a "time-honored right of the minority", it's simply an abuse of the Senate rules. Somebody needs to make the point of order and end this aberration.

If these 12 are really "outside the mainstream" as the Democrats claim, they'll lose the confirmation vote -- by any reasonable definition of mainstream in a multiparty state.

UPDATE: Patterico finds a particularly noxious example of anti-historical nonsense in the LA Times.

I'm Really Tired of This

Once again, the terrorists infesting the Sunni Triangle kill a prisoner of war. Yet the US is still respecting the rights of people caught planting bombs that kill women and children. I think we should not.

One of the reasons we uphold the Geneva Convention is so that our folks are treated similarly. But what happens if they are not? To continue to play by the "rules" makes it incredibly unlikely that anything will change. We need to accept that there are no rules in this knife fight and get on with it.

It's rather odd that, domesticly, it's OK to shoot looters during riots or natural disasters, yet in wartime, under martial law, we can't exercise the same force against people less deserving of the benefits of law.

I've said this for a while now, and I see no reason to change my mind. Perhaps if we'd been this ruthless at the beginning of the insurgency it wouldn't have spread, but when the other side is routinely executing captives, we're utter chumps to be respecting their "rights."

At the very least, Capt. Rogelio Maynulet should be pardoned.

Did Blackmun's Clerks Write Roe?

In a very controversial feature article in Legal Affairs, David Garrow asserts that Justice Blackmun deferred much of his work to his clerks -- possibly to the point where they determined his vote. His analysis of Blackmun's papers includes evidence that Blackmun's signature decision, Roe v Wade, had considerable input in form and direction from his clerks.

Frampton [a clerk] also told Blackmun about an analytical distinction that would prove crucial in the final Roe and Doe opinions. "I have written in, essentially, a limitation of the [abortion] right depending on the time during pregnancy when the abortion is proposed to be performed," Frampton explained. "I have chosen the point of [fetal] viability for this 'turning point' (when state interests become compelling) for several reasons: a) it seems to be the line of most significance to the medical profession, for various purposes; b) it has considerable analytic basis in terms of the state interest as I have articulated it. . . ."

"By selecting viability," Bezanson [another clerk] asked Blackmun, "would you not be suggesting that prior to that point no limitations could be placed on abortions (except those permitted in your opinions as they now stand)." Bezanson then offered an analysis that decisively shaped how Roe would balance the woman's right and the state's interests throughout pregnancy...

This is disputed by others, however, including the Chairman of Legal Affairs, Seth Waxman, who says

Like most of this magazine's readers, I never had the privilege to clerk for a Supreme Court justice or to meet Justice Blackmun. But my work before that court and its justices leaves me certain, and saddened, that this issue of Legal Affairs departs from its worthwhile mission.

As they say, incoming...

(via Jim Lundgren at Volokh)

Dead or Dying, You Decide

According to Broadcasting & Cable, there's a debate about network news shows: Are they simply dying, or are they already dead? Sam Donaldson wants to pull the plug:

"I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through."

...God forbid, if someone shot the President, which network would you turn to? It will be cable, the Internet--something other than General Hospital being interrupted.

Jeff Greenfield disagrees:

If it's dying, it's dying a very slow death," Greenfield said. Although the network news monopoly was "smashed" by cable, broadcast news will redefine itself, though he didn't yet know how.

When you find out, Jeff, let us know.

How to fix the schools?

Dan Weintraub asks for ideas on how to fix the schools, for a major piece on the future of the schools. Got a better idea than "more money"? Let him know.

Why Spam and Phishing are Still So Easy

A few years back, it looked like the Internet gurus were poised to stop most spam, or at least spam that pretended to be from legitimate domains. Similarly the proposals, known as RMX or SPF, would have taken a big bite out of virus distribution and "phishing" (e.g. those eBay and Paypal password scams).

The idea was to have each ISP check that the mail actually came from where it said it did -- if it said joe@aol.com, then it really ought to have come from an AOL server, not some ISP in Minsk.

Fast forward several years and we're still waiting, as technical cat-fights and overreaching by an unnamed software monopolist have tossed the whole thing back into committee. Here's a great article on the blow-by-blow details on the delayed approval for SPF, RMX and/or Sender ID.

According to more recent reports, all have made up and work is proceeding.

Hopefully so, and soon.

As I Said...

Hugh Hewitt nails the LA Times for it's opening article on the papal selection process. As I said last week, the media frenzy over predicting something they can never understand has just begun.

What's laughable is the constant comparisons between John Paul II and John XXIII, as though these are the end-points of Catholic thought. Never mentioned is Paul VI's incredibly conservative reign. Splitting that difference was what John Paul I & II's very names were all about....

Freedom + 2

See Iraq the Model's post on the second anniversary of Saddam's fall.

The 9th of April has proven that the free world now has the guts and the required determination to make the change and throw the legacy of the past century behind its back; dictators shall be endorsed no more and the struggle will continue until humanity is freed from its dark nightmare that lasted way longer than it should have.

The winds of change that have blown away the tyrant in Iraq have begun to reach more and more people everyday and the heroic stand of Iraqis is inspiring freedom lovers in Beirut and Cairo, Kuwait and Bahrain, Arabia and Damascus; people are screaming enough is enough; enough for tyranny, enough for repression and enough for slavery.

Some naysayers and losers will say that terror had marked the past two years in Iraq but we the Iraqis believe that terrorism is merely the defeated remnants of evil fed by the other tyrants who got terrified from the fall of their demonic master. They're holding onto a weak thread that will soon be broken no matter how hard they try.

Speaking of which, see what CNN and the NY Times have to say about the anniversary.

At least the Times notes that the crowd fell well short of the "milllions" that al-Sadr predicted. Maybe as many as "thousands." Then again, the CNN story has the item (20 paragraphs down) about the CBS-hired terrorist "reporter" US troops shot while he was accompanying a suicide bomber.

Bad CBS! No Pulitzer!

NY Times Obeys Foreign Prior Restraint

The NY Times has finally reported, briefly, on the Canadian Adscam scandal testimony, now that the publication ban is lifted. Yesterday, they reported on the Captain's Quarters challenge to the ban, but studiously refrained from reporting on the testimony itself.

This brings up the following question: Why did the mighty New York Times honor a foreign publication ban in the first place? After all, this is the bastion of Press Freedom that took the Nixon Administration all the way to the US Supreme Court (US v New York Times) over just such a publication ban in the Pentagon Papers case.

Does the NY Times respect Canadian courts more than American ones? Is it just a simple case of political preference? It's really hard to believe they didn't know what the testimony was. Why the silence?

UPDATE: And if this was a matter of cross-border distribution worries (unlikely), why did the rest of the mainstream media also obey the ban? Surely few of them have Canadian editions.

UPDATE2: Welcome Instapundit and Daily Pundit readers. Feel free to look around.

SF Moves to Exempt Blogs

After a withering firestorm of ridicule, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has moved to exempt blogs and other sources of news and commentary from their new electioneering law.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh attempts to parse the SF ordinance. Not to be confused with a fisking.

MSM on Canada vs the Captain

Howard Kurtz has a column up in the Washington Post about Ed Morrissey (Captain's Quarters) and the Adscam publication ban. Not too favorable to Canada. The London Free Press has it, too.

Still waiting for the New York Times article on the press ban...after all, it's hardly a secret:

"While senior opposition politicians and staff denied the rumours of clandestine meetings and possible non-confidence motions, it's apparent that most politicos in Ottawa are aware of the substance, if not the minute details, of last week's testimony."

You'd think the Times would be against prior restraint of the press, as their case involving the Pentagon Papers established that government had no such right.

Papal Rumour Mill

I expect non-stop rumour-mongering for the next 15-20 days on "who will be the next Pope." No one speaking will have a clue, of course.

Will Blogs Bring Down Canada's Government?

The Liberal Party of Canada has a problem. Apparently the party apparatus has been looting Canada's treasury to support its electioneering for almost a decade, funneling money through dummy government contractors. Under the claim that they must protect "fair trials" of the small fish that have been indicted so far, testimony naming big fish -- up to and including the Prime Minister's office -- is being suppressed by a publication ban.

Worse, the Liberals may be planning on calling a snap election before the gag order expires. Whether this is the best of bad options for the Liberals remains to be seen -- surely anything but a lapdog press would scream holy hell if they tried that in a free country. Which I still assume Canada is.

Luckily for Canada, there is this Internet thing. Lucky also that a Canadian judge's order isn't meaningful in the USA. The Captain's Quarters has an outline of some of the forbidden information, with others sure to follow. When the dam breaks, and it will, the Canadian Government may fall as completely as the Mulroney Conservatives did. Maybe worse, if the Quebec nationalists have their way -- Canada without Quebec would be a far different place.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

UPDATE: Winds of Change has a great analysis of the issue.

UPDATE 2: Small Dead Animals has many posts on the subject, from a Canadian persepctive.

In Memorium: John Paul II

"As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left us in a bad time."
--E.B. White

Where is John Sirica When We Need Him?

TIME Magazine's 1973 Man of the Year, John Sirica was faced with a problem: he was presiding over the trial of James McCord and Frank Sturgis, who were caught burgling the Watergate office of the Democrat National Committee. A plea bargain was offered by the Nixon Administration, but Sirica would have nothing to do with it and rejected it. Instead he sentenced the burglars to the maximum allowed.

As a result, the burglars broke and implicated higher-ups, and the Watergate coverup began to unravel.

Which brings us to Sandy Berger. Does the judge presiding over Berger's plea bargain have Sirica's integrity? Likely not.

More Berger on Wizbang! and Baldilocks

Spot the Real Felon

One of these people lied to a cop about a stock sale that was chump change to her and where any damage done could have been fixed by writing a check. She was acquitted of any wrongdoing in the stock sale itself. She did 4 months in prison for this lie and is now under house arrest. She can no longer be an officer of the billion-dollar company she built from scratch.

The other one stole and destroyed classified documents which were critical to the 9-11 inquiry, in order to hide his, and his President's, responsibility for not preventing the attacks. Then he lied to the FBI and the 9-11 Commission about stealing the documents and, presumably, about their contents. His penalty? It's a misdemeanor for which he'll give up his security clearance for the balance of the Bush presidency. There are people doing 20 years for less.

What bullshit. What is it about the Clinton administration and perjury? Time to pardon Martha.

Chris Muir's Day-by-Day has it so right:

No Free Press in Canada

Now and then I get lectured by Canadians about how Evil George is plunging the world into totalitarian darkness -- that our precious freedoms of speech and the press and the right of dissent are going by the wayside. I ask them about things like McCain-Feingold, but they're down with that, of course. I ask them about Canadian bans on receiving American television, but that's to support Canadian culture, you see. But how on Earth do they explain this?:

The possible collapse of the Liberal minority government is once again a hot topic on Parliament Hill, fuelled by reports of explosive new testimony at the sponsorship inquiry.

Although exact details of the testimony cannot be revealed due to a publication ban, there are reports its disclosure would prove so devastating that Paul Martin's Liberal minority could fall if it became public.

Luckily Parliament is still a free speech zone. Wonder what they cover up when they all agree on it?

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

UPDATE: "It's the coverup that kills you."

AN NDP MP slammed Justice John Gomery's decision yesterday to shield the testimony of major AdScam players with a publication ban. Gomery granted a partial ban on Groupaction Marketing boss Jean Brault, Coffin Communication head Paul Coffin and former sponsorship head Chuck Guite until the end of their fraud trials scheduled to begin in early May.

Winnipeg MP Pat Martin said Gomery's ruling only serves to protect the Liberal Party from embarrassment by witnesses sure to shed light on whether the sponsorship program was used to funnel federal funds into Grit coffers.

"We need to know the extent of the political interference," Martin said yesterday.

What could be worse than the FEC?

Why, the city/county of San Francisco, which is considering a law to require local bloggers to register with the city's ethics commission and report all expeditures over $1000. Further:

Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.

The SF Board of Supervisors is set to vote on the measure on April 5th, 2005.

UPDATE: Reading the proposed law's text one notes that it does not specifically include bloggers, but it does include electioneering communications over the Internet. I'll leave it to the lawyers to decide if the original report is overwrought.

Juxtaposition

Sometimes the ads that get inserted into my Lektora RSS reader headlines seem uncannily tagged to the news.

Schiavo's Case May Reshape American Law
Terri Schiavo's legacy may be that she brought the issue of death and dying to the battle over "the culture of life."

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Pope's Condition Worsens as World Prepares for Papacy's End
The Vatican announced today that Pope John Paul II's breathing was shallow and his kidneys were failing to function properly.