posted on November 1, 2005 11:37:01 PM new
Who knew Chimpy McFlightsuit had it in him!
I've been reading up on Judge Alito since the nomination was announced, and from what I can see, he is a good pick for the Supreme Court. And despite the extreme right hailing his nomination, I think that they will soon be howling just as loud as some of the extreme left if he gets on the Court, which I have no doubt he will. Because the man seems honestly to follow the exact letter of the law instead of party ideology. I think Alito will join those past Republican judges nominated to the court that the extreme right mourns as "not being conservative enough" once on the SCOTUS bench. I know that no one will be 100% happy with him & his decisions--that's a given for anyone nominated--but I do think that Alito is about the best person who could be nominated.
Many Liberal Lawyers Say Alito Is Not an Ideologue
By David G. Savage and Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- Samuel A. Alito Jr. was quickly branded a hard-core conservative after President Bush announced his nomination, but a surprising number of liberal-leaning judges and ex-clerks say they support his elevation to the Supreme Court.
Those who have worked alongside him say he was neither an ideologue nor a judge with an agenda, conservative or otherwise. They caution against attaching a label to Alito.
Kate Pringle, a New York lawyer who worked last year on Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, describes herself as a left-leaning Democrat and a big fan of Alito's.
She worked for him as a law clerk in 1994 and said she was troubled by the instant reaction to his nomination. "He was not, in my personal experience, an ideologue. He pays attention to the facts of cases and applies the law in a careful way. He is conservative in that sense, his opinions don't demonstrate an ideological slant," she said.
Jeff Wasserstein, a Washington lawyer who clerked for Alito in 1998, echoes her view.
"I am a Democrat who always voted Democratic, except when I vote for a Green candidate, but Judge Alito was not interested in the ideology of his clerks," he said. "He didn't decide cases based on ideology, and his record was not extremely conservative."
As an example, he cited a case in which police in Pennsylvania sent out a bulletin that called for the arrest of a black man in a black sports car. Police stopped such a vehicle and found a gun inside, but Alito voted to overturn the man's conviction because that general identification did not amount to "probable cause."
"This was a classic case of 'driving while black,' " Wasserstein said, referring to the complaint that black motorists are targeted by police. Though Alito "was a former prosecutor, he was very fair and open-minded in looking at cases and applying the law," Wasserstein said.
It is not unusual for former law clerks to have fond recollections of the judge they worked for. And is it common for judges to speak respectfully of their colleagues. But for a judge being portrayed by both the right and left as a hard-right conservative, Alito's enthusiastic backing by liberal associates is striking.
Former federal judge Timothy K. Lewis said he consulted his mentor, Judge Leon Higginbotham, when he joined the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992. The late Higginbotham, a legendary liberal and a scholar of America's racial history, was the only other black on the Philadelphia-based court at the time.
"As he was going down the roster of colleagues, he got to Sam Alito. I expressed some concern about (him) being so conservative. He said, 'No, no. Sam Alito is my favorite judge to sit with on this court. He is a wonderful judge and a terrific human being. Sam Alito is my kind of conservative. He is intellectually honest. He doesn't have an agenda. He is not an ideologue," Higginbotham said, according to Lewis.
"I really was surprised to hear that, but my experience with him on the 3rd Circuit bore that out," added Lewis, who had a liberal record during his seven years on the bench. "Alito does not have an agenda, contrary to what the Republican right is saying about him being a 'home run'. He is not result-oriented. He is an honest conservative judge who believes in judicial restraint and judicial deference."
Judge Edward Becker, the former chief judge of the 3rd Circuit, said he too was surprised to see Alito labeled as a reliable conservative.
"I found him to be a guy who approached every case with an open mind. I never found him to have an agenda," he said. "I suppose the best example of that is in the area of criminal procedure. He was a former U.S. attorney, but he never came to a case with a bias in favor of the prosecution. If there was an error in the trial, or a flawed search, he would vote to reverse," Becker said.
Some of his former clerks say they were drawn to Alito because of his reputation as a careful judge who closely followed the text of the law.
Clark Lombardi, a law professor at the University of Washington, became a clerk for Alito in 1999.
"I grew up in New York City, and I'm a political independent. But I liked Judge Alito because he was a judicial conservative, someone who believed in judicial restraint and was committed to textualism," he said. "His approach leads to conservative results in some cases and progressive results in other cases. In my opinion, he is a fantastic jurist and a good guy."
Some of Alito's former Yale Law School classmates who describe themselves as Democrats say they expect they will not always agree with his rulings if he joins the Supreme Court. But they nonetheless say he is the best they could have hoped for from among President Bush's nominees.
"Sam is very smart, and he is unquestionably conservative," said Washington lawyer Mark I. Levy, who served in the Justice Department during the Carter and Clinton administrations. "But he is open-minded and fair. And he thinks about cases as a lawyer and a judge. He is really very different from (Justice Antonin) Scalia. If he is going to be like anyone on the court now, it will be John Roberts," the new chief justice.
Joel Friedman teaches labor and employment law at the Tulane Law School, but is temporarily at the University of Pittsburgh because of Tulane's shutdown following Hurricane Katrina.
"Ideology aside, I think he is a terrific guy, a terrific choice," said Friedman, a Yale classmate of Alito. "He is not Harriet Miers; he has unimpeachable credentials. He may disagree with me on many legal issues; I am a Democrat. I didn't vote for Bush. I would not prefer any of the people Bush has appointed up until now.
"The question is, is this guy (Alito) going to be motivated by the end and find a means to get to the end, or is he going to reach an end through thoughtful analysis of all relevant factors? In my judgment, Sam will be the latter."
posted on November 2, 2005 05:40:26 AM new
If you take a look back, you'll find President Bush has done a lot of "right" things in the past too.
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
posted on November 2, 2005 09:50:36 AM new
I agree, Colin. He's been a super President....strong when we needed strength....brought the economy back after all we've faced in the last 5 years....etc...etc.
And now picking TWO USSC Justices. Happy Days!!!
---------------
Sometimes they get it right: "More Democrats should have complained that Miers was unqualified. But they didn't, apparently fearing an alternative nominee, and their silence speaks volumes about the timidity and intellectual cowardice of their party's current leadership." ---Los Angeles Times editorial
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 10:14:23 AM new
Out the other side of Linda's copious mouth comes:
""Sometimes they get it right: "More Democrats should have complained that Miers was unqualified. But they didn't, apparently fearing an alternative nominee, and their silence speaks volumes about the timidity and intellectual cowardice of their party's current leadership." ---Los Angeles Times editorial ""
And when the Democrats do voice their opinion then they're "whining obstructionists"
Uh, maybe the Democrats knew that the ultra-conservative religious righties were going to sink this nomination....and they did
posted on November 2, 2005 12:26:46 PM new
Bush caused the problems our economy has faced the last 5 years and he is far from having "fixed" them as he has put us and future generations into a world of debt.
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on November 2, 2005 12:52:09 PM new
I disagree, bunni. The recession started at the end of the clinton administration.
And it was THEIR administration that signed NAFTA and the China deal...not this one. But this one had to deal with the consequences....clean up their mess.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 01:10:03 PM new
"He's been a super President....strong when we needed strength....brought the economy back after all we've faced in the last 5 years....etc...etc."
etc...etc means, " the Bush Administration has killed over 2000 American soldiers, wounded another 15,000, killed over 100,000 innocent civilians in Iraq, put this country into the greatest amount of national debt in history, his administration is now under investigation for lying under oath and perjury, outing a covert CIA agent, appointing inexperienced cronies to manage some of the most important federal agencies such as FEMA, nominated an inexperienced cronie to the Supreme Court that even his own base didn't approve of, sat in a classroom on 9/11 and did absolutely nothing while the entire city of New York went into hysterics... should I stop??? I mean, there is more I could add to the list.
posted on November 2, 2005 01:17:27 PM new
Should you stop, rusty?
No....by all means CONTINUE to make a fool out of yourself. By arguing points that the American voters decided last year weren't bad enough to vote your guy in
And continue to post in all the threads off topic....I'm just sure some whining poster will come in here and tell you YOU'RE off topic....AGAIN.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 01:26:06 PM new
"Bush caused the problems our economy has faced the last 5 years and he is far from having "fixed" them as he has put us and future generations into a world of debt."
posted on November 2, 2005 01:29:05 PM new
Boy.....so far we have one ultra-liberal/socialist that has agreed with bunni's initial post - in a half-assed way.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 05:48:00 PM new
When Bush came into office we had a large surplus. Wanting to curry as much favor as possible with the populus, he announced his idiotic "rebate" scheme--which he assured everyone would still leave a large surplus. He told us all that the "rebate" would be a big boost for people...ROFLMAO! I did the division--it worked out to $27 per month when divided by 12. Whoop-de-doo. That's sooo going to help someone in a significant way. And not only that it wasn't a rebate at all--you had to declare it as income on the next year's income tax!! But even though the amount each taxpayer got was piddly, it added up. Even that might have been OK, though it did eat into that surplus big time.
But then came Bush's tax cuts.
Personally, I love tax cuts. Who doesn't?
And even that might have been OK.
But then Bush added in the kicker in the equations: he began spending. And spending. And spending. And spending.
You don't have to be a genius to know that if you cut taxes, there will be less revenue. And that if you spend what you don't have, debt is the result. In this case a HUGE debt: last I looked it stood at almost EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS. Whoa. We went from a surplus of $5.6 Trillion to a deficit of $8 Trillion. in a few short years.
Republicans tout a booming economy and a large GNP...but it doesn't mean squat if we accrue debt at a faster rate.
The debt has to be paid somehow, by someone. And that will fall upon our children and our children's children.
Because Bush simply spends more than he takes in.
An apt quote from Dicken's David Copperfield:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on November 2, 2005 06:52:46 PM new
Okay bunni - I'll present part of my side on the projected surplus.
One that came about during clinton's FIRST administration BECAUSE HE RAISED OUR TAXES/tax rates. Again....anybody who wants the deficit to go down can vote democratic and KNOW they'll be SURE and raise your taxes.
Another part of the projected surplus came from something clinton had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with....a boom to the tech. industry. HE didn't do ONE thing to cause the economy to grow in his second term.
As an Independent myself, at that time, I thought it was absolutely WONDERFUL we elected a republican president. First of all because that meant our taxes WEREN'T going to be raised AGAIN under another democratic president.
Secondly I was extremely please that President Bush ran on a campaign of returning the overpaid taxes to those who paid them....in varying amounts according to who had paid MORE. Sorry yours was so minute. Ours wasn't.
Thirdly this administration had to deal with the cost of 9-11...billions and billions of dollars....while STILL dealing with a country in a recession...and the unemployment that was rising because of that.
Then we had two wars to pay for....expensive...and wouldn't have been any less expensive under a democratic administration. And IF a dem president HAD decided not to go to war with AQ...and that money wasn't spent there.....I'd bet my LIFE AQ would have attacked us again and again. Seeing the WEAKNESS of the dem leaders. LIke bin laden called clinton.... a paper tiger. All talk - no action. Now they know different.
Then the President increased educational spending by almost 40%.
This President increased and had to REBUILD our military because of clinton cutting them by 40% during HIS administration - ALSO money used to pay off the deficit during his administration. I believe that increase amounted to approx. 58% increase.
Then his administration passed the expensive medicare bill.....definately a socialist program, imo, which the DEMS wanted MORE spent on....growing a program we already almost can't pay to keep up with.
The transportation bill....more money for WHOM? The public...the taxpayers.
I just read today that 80% of our Nation Budget is set....can't be decreased.
But while you blame this administration for putting us so far in debt.....you appear to be forgetting how much MORE DEBT kerry was promising to put this Nation in. Estimated to be approx. $2 TRILLION dollars more than what our budget already was calling for.
So, imo, we're DARN lucky kerry wasn't elected or he would not only have put us in MORE debt than we currently are now....but would have raised our taxes to boot.
To prove that to yourself, you only have to go back and read all the promises he was making...and wouldn't/couldn't tell the American voters just how he planned on paying for any of it. SAid some nonsense about he'd figure it out once elected.....
While I will conceed this Congress has been on a spending spree....much UNLIKE the republican party normally handles the budget.....it only would have been worse under ANY democrat...they have well earned a 'tax and spend' motto from THEIR OWN past.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 07:03:18 PM new
And another thing I want to add is that your topic statement:
'Bush finally did something right for a change'
has been totally disproven. He must have been doing a LOT right....the American public RE-ELECTED HIM....even with all the whining and complain and EVERYTHING the dem party threw at him/blamed him for.
They still choose him again.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 2, 2005 10:02:46 PM new
The blinders have fallen from people's eyes now, Linda.
Once again Bush's approval rating has dropped...to a pathetic 35%. The Republican dominated Congress has fallen to an approval rating of 34%.
When polled, the majority of AMericans disapprove of the war in Iraq, Bush's energy policies, and most everything else about Bush & Co. The one thing that meets approval are his tax cuts--but if those prove to benefit (as is likely) the rich far more than the average person, even that approval will quickly fade.
The thing about neocons is that they are very loud and they try intimidation tactics to make others back down or be quiet. And since they usually listen only to their own kind, they have a tendency to believe falsely that they are in the majority even when they're not. And when they did hold a tiny, tiny majority lead, they expanded it in their own minds far past the 1 or 2 percentage points it really was. To hear neocons tell it, they won by a landslide instead of the skin of their teeth.
Republicans have gotten used, in the past few years, to being the bullies of the block. Yesterday we were treated to their shock, frustration and fury when the Democrats finally showed some balls and faced them down. Very entertaining.
Big Peepa, in another thread, likened Bush to Hitler. He/she was wrong in that. Bush is nothing at all like Hitler. But Bush & his cohorts do bring another figure from history to mind: Senator Joseph McCarthy & his cronies. As they did with McCarthy, the American people are finally beginning to shake off the the manufactured fear and domination and think for themselves. They are seeing, fully, the lies and deceit that are rampant in this administration, and the abuses it has led to.
Words echo down through the years: "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on November 3, 2005 02:11:05 AM new
I hope you feel better now that you have all THAT off your chest.
His poll numbers change nothing. He's President until 1-20-2009
One of the stats/polls that you failed to mention, for some strange reason, is that while his numbers ARE dropping.....the democratic party is NOT GAINING any more support in the polls than they have had before.
Just remember....the American people aren't ONLY upset with the Republicans.....but with the Democrats too. They gave ALL of Congress low ratings. NOT just the Republicans.
So let's just TRY to keep all this left-leaning hysteria in perspective.
And please remember that the dem party ISN'T making ANY GAIN even those this President's numbers are low.
AND he still has had the opportunity to place TWO....maybe more....USSC justices. His legacy will be remembered for generations to come.....just because he WON the election and has the priviledge to appoint these justices.
So....all you Bush haters can just put that in your pipes and smoke it.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 3, 2005 02:40:49 AM new
"Just remember....the American people aren't ONLY upset with the Republicans.....but with the Democrats too. They gave ALL of Congress low ratings. NOT just the Republicans."
hey Ron maybe theres hope for the Libertarians after all LOL
posted on November 3, 2005 07:47:23 AM new
I think Bush's approval rating is set for another drop. Now the American people discover that Bush has been funnelling money into secret prisons outside the country. Secret not only from the public but from Congress as well!
And on top of that, a top Osama bin Laden lieutenant escaped from one of them over three months ago. You remember bin Laden, don't you? The guy who was responsible for 9-11? The guy dear old Bush decided to ignore in favor of attacking a country that had nothing to do with it? And we never would have even heard about this escape if the guy hadn't been subpoenaed in a military trial...
Look out below! Bush is falling and he can't get up!!
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on November 3, 2005 07:56:59 AM new
Bunni, Osama's man conveniently escaped as his testimony was key in an ongoing military trial. I believe it more accurate to say he disappeared while in custody.
posted on November 3, 2005 01:06:03 PM new
"I think Bush's approval rating is set for another drop. Now the American people discover that Bush has been funnelling money into secret prisons outside the country. Secret not only from the public but from Congress as well! "
I agree,
I’m mad as help... (I’d still vote for him if he could run again but) I repeat, I’m mad as hell.
This is news to me.
I don't want to house this scum.
I want the problem liquidated.
Where’s that idiot that was comparing Bush to Hitler?
Hitler would have known how to take care of this problem.
posted on November 3, 2005 06:34:17 PM new
George W. Bush's chances of engaging the country with a dynamic second-term initiative were sabotaged this week. His own tax reform advisory panel Tuesday reported two plans exceeding the worst expectations. Not only would they be dead on arrival if actually sent to Congress, but they probably stifle President Bush's hopes for seriously reshaping how Americans are taxed.
The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform created 10 months ago released its report Tuesday, and it turned out to have precious little to do with what Republicans think of as reform. Instead of a low flat tax, it proposes a high graduated tax. It retains pretty much intact the dysfunctional Internal Revenue Code. It does not entertain the slightest possibility of a national sales tax.
Having named a commission to make recommendations instead of using his own administration to devise a plan, Bush faces this dilemma: He can either buy into a reform that is going nowhere or, alternatively, disregard his panel's work and start from scratch. It is unlikely the graduate of Harvard Business School who now occupies the Oval Office would take the unconventional latter approach.
What the panel came up with is hard to believe. The two options propose four and three tax brackets, respectively, with top rates of 33 percent and 30 percent, down from the present 35 percent. Even John Maynard Keynes, no supply-sider, said 25 percent is the highest acceptable rate. The measly rate reductions were added belatedly by the panel, which intended to retain 35 percent until it found its plan generated enough extra money to make cuts and still keep the package revenue neutral, as the president requested.
The extra revenue results from repealing deductibility of state and local taxes, ending tax-free health insurance supplied by employers and capping home mortgage deductions. While largely leaving alone the Revenue Code's maze, the panel rips into three of the most popular tax benefits.
This strange product results from the panel, instead of recommending a new tax framework, concentrating on one specific -- and expensive -- goal: to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, estimated to raise the taxes of 21 million people in 2006 and 52 million in 2015. When the 1986 tax reform failed to clean up the code and many zero taxpayers remained, the AMT was instituted.
Thanks to inflation, AMT covers so many upper-middle-income taxpayers that its elimination has become one tax cut favored by Democrats. But why would a Republican president's commission lock into a Democratic priority? Because the Bush panel's dominant figure is former Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, a Democrat with a reputation for compromise but a record of partisan loyalty.
Breaux's Republican co-chairman is former Sen. Connie Mack of Florida, who ran with supply-siders on Capitol Hill but now seems most interested in cancer research. Hopes that the panel's membership would recommend real tax reform plunged when Bush appointed a third legislator: 77-year-old former Rep. William Frenzel of Minnesota, who as the House Budget Committee's ranking Republican in the '80s was the bane of supply-siders.
Most disheartening for reformers about the presidential panel is what it omits. It does not include the innovative, daring plan of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina for an 8.5 percent retail sales tax and an 8.5 percent business transfer tax on companies. Yet, Bush has declared that ''a sales tax is an option we should consider seriously.''
''Rather than giving the president a sales tax option,'' said Lawrence A. Hunter, chief economist of the Free Enterprise Fund, ''the panel took it upon itself to decide for the president, limiting his options. That isn't what the panel was supposed to do.'' DeMint's plan, of course, would eliminate the AMT, as would any far-reaching tax reform.
When Republicans in 1994 assumed control of Congress, the party's leaders assured me that tax reform would be high on their agenda. In 11 years, however, Republicans have not begun to resolve conflict between a flat tax and a sales tax. Bush as president ignored the issue until this year and then named a commission instead of drafting a proposal. What emerged this week suggests that the president and the Republicans have squandered a precious opportunity.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 3, 2005 06:37:14 PM newbut I do think that Alito is about the best person who could be nominated.
That is what Bush said about his first choice. Now if H.M. was the best qualified person Bush could find, I guess Alito is the second best.
Now was Bush lying the first time, or is he just to stupid to see Alito was more qualified than H.M.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 3, 2005 07:28:42 PM new
"Now was Bush lying the first time, or is he just to stupid to see Alito was more qualified than H.M."
Just like baseball, this is a different inning and a new pitcher. Coaches can do that. They do what’s best for the team.
Amen,
Reverend Colin http://www.reverendcolin.com
posted on November 4, 2005 06:14:04 AM new
bunni - I don't know what your position would be on requiring a 2/3 majority vote before increasing spending....but just wanted to share this with you. It shows, while you complain about the deficit growing, just WHO does and doesn't support 'capping' spending.
And in this vote....no democrats would agree to a 2/3 vote. But republicans did, although it appears fewer and fewer from EITHER side want to stop/slow down their spending.
----
Fiscal conservatives were defeated soundly by Republicans and Democrats on attempts to deepen the spending cuts.
Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, proposed requiring any future discretionary spending increases over the fiscal 2006 level to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Only defense and trust-fund spending would be exempt.
"Permanently is a long time," said Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat, who led the opposition.
But Mr. Inhofe said that was the point. "If you're really serious about doing something about these deficits, this is your chance to do it," he said, reminding Republicans that the taxpayer groups would be watching the vote.
It lost a 67-32 vote, with all 32 yes votes coming from Republicans.
[taken from today's WashTimes]
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
