Right wingers upset that Roberts might not hate gays enough

Michael posted earlier about Roberts doing pro bono work for the gays in the pivotal case, Romer v. Evans. Not going over well amongst the theocrats. NY Times is reporting some of the right wing haters are just none too pleased by this development:

The White House immediately sought to reassure Judge Roberts's conservative backers, telephoning prominent leaders, including Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, but it appeared that not all of them had been convinced.

Even the lard ass, drug addicted chickenhawk weighed in:

Even so, reports of his involvement echoed on conservative talk shows Thursday, generating outrage and disbelief. "There's no question this is going to upset people on the right," Rush Limbaugh told his radio listeners. "There's no question the people on the right are going to say: 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute! The guy is doing pro bono work and helping gay activists?' "

Okay, so we know the White House was in semi-crisis mode, trying to put the best spin on the situation. But, try as they will, this is the passage that is going to reverberate with the theocrats:

Walter A. Smith, who was in charge of pro bono work at Hogan & Hartson from 1993 to 1997, and who worked extensively on the Romer case, said about a dozen lawyers at the firm assisted. He said he had little trouble recruiting Judge Roberts.

"It looked like a challenging, interesting, provocative, important case," said Mr. Smith, who is now the executive director of the D. C. Appleseed Center, a nonpartisan public interest legal group. "Everybody knew that, and I think he believed it was worth his time."

Mr. Smith said part of his job was to match lawyers with cases that would intrigue them, and that his initial instinct was that Judge Roberts would be willing, despite his conservative bent. In the past, Judge Roberts has made it a point to note that lawyers do not always agree with their clients.

"Every good lawyer knows that if there is something in his client's cause that so personally offends you, morally, religiously, if it so offends you that you think it would undermine your ability to do your duty as a lawyer, then you shouldn't take it on, and John wouldn't have," he said. "So at a minimum he had no concerns that would rise to that level."

Uh-oh, Roberts might not have been offended enough by gays not to work on the case. Man, the right wingers are really going to hate that.

It's not enough that Roberts has issues with the constitutional right to privacy. No he's not a confirmed gay basher.

The GOP litmus test extends beyond overturning Roe v. Wade. You have to really, really hate the homos. I hope Sam Brownback is preparing his questions for Roberts on this subject. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What do you know? And no bullshit... Read the rest of this post...

CNN gives Novak a time out after his little fit

Okay, time out..time off...Either way, Novak's suspended:

CNN suspended commentator Robert Novak indefinitely after he swore and walked off the set Thursday during a debate with Democratic operative James Carville.

The exchange during CNN's ``Inside Edition'' came during a discussion of Florida's Senate campaign. But CNN correspondent Ed Henry noted when it was through that he had been about to ask Novak about his role in the investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity.

A CNN spokeswoman, Edie Emery, called Novak's behavior ``inexcusable and unacceptable.'' Novak has apologized to CNN, and CNN apologizes to viewers, she said.

``We've asked Mr. Novak to take some time off,'' she said.

Hey, CNN spokeswoman, his behavior has been inexcusable and unacceptable for a long time...especially that whole thing about outing a spy.

So Ed Henry was going to ask Novak about his role in the Plame Scandal. Amazing, it only took CNN 25 months to ask him about it. Read the rest of this post...

Rehnquist was back in the Hospital...but got back out

The Chief isn't doing too well these days:

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was hospitalized briefly with a fever on Thursday, the second emergency treatment for the 80-year-old ailing justice in two months.

Rehnquist was treated and released from Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., the same hospital where he spent two nights for observation and tests in July, also after running a fever.

The chief justice has thyroid cancer, and his latest health problems will almost certainly renew questions about whether he is well enough to remain on the court.

Almost certainly renew questions? You think? Read the rest of this post...

Now some idiot congressman wants to name one of our main streets in DC after Reagan

Enough already. It's time we started fighting back against this sainthood for Reagan crap. Our aiport is named after the idiot, the new international trade building, a metro stop, and now one of the biggest streets in the city? Give me a break.

Though it is funny the idiot congressman from Texas picked one of the gayest streets in the city to name after Reagan - is he trying to tell us something about the gipper? Read the rest of this post...

For what it's worth, it's confirmed - that was Jenna dry-humping the bf in Adams Morgan

Not that there's anything wrong with it, well, from my perspective at least.

Anyway, as you may recall, we reported the other day that one of our super secret double background agents saw Jenna and beau dry humping (better than dry heaving) in an Adams Morgan bar near AMERICAblog world headquarters. Well, longtime Jenna paparazzi Wonkette mentioned our Jenna sighting, but noted that we didn't sound totally convinced it was her.

Well, Wonky, thanks to another of your posts which includes a pic of of Jenna and boyfriend, our super secret source says bf is definitely the guy who was defending the honor of the young Bush lass the other night. Per our agent: "Jenna was there for a couple of hours right next to us so I had plenty of time to get a good look at her and the photo of her boyfriend is definitely the guy she was with."

PS Even the NY Daily News reported our story! Read the rest of this post...

Novak flips out on CNN, screams "That's Bullshit!" and storms off the set

Oh my God. It's rather amazing. Novak just rips off his microphone and storms off the set. Jesus Christ that's unprofessional. And it's not like the exchange he was having with Carville was any big deal. Methinks RoveGate is hotter than we all realized. Read the rest of this post...

The War On Drugs Goes To Pot

Rolling Stone has a fine rundown of the ludicrous war on drugs -- ludicrous because Bush is focusing all his energies on throwing people with a joint into jail while failing to tackle the scourge of hard drugs that have exploded on his watch, like the abuse of meth.

Since 1992, according to a recent analysis of federal crime statistics by the Sentencing Project, arrests for marijuana have soared from 300,000 a year to 700,000. The government spends an estimated $4 billion a year arresting and prosecuting marijuana crimes -- more than it spends on treating addiction for all drugs -- and more and more of those busts are for possession rather than dealing. One in four people currently in state prisons for pot offenses are classified as "low-level offenders."

In New York, arrests for possession -- which now account for nine of every ten busts -- are up twenty-five-fold during the past decade. In Memphis, marijuana arrests are up nineteenfold, and large spikes have also been recorded in Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Houston....

The war on pot diverts money and manpower from fighting far more harmful drugs. While the feds target pot smokers, a burgeoning meth epidemic is swamping rural communities, especially in the West and the Great Plains. Nearly half of state and local law-enforcement agencies identify meth as their greatest drug threat -- compared with only one in eight for marijuana -- and more than 1 million Americans use the highly addictive drug, which is linked to violent crime, explosions and fires at meth labs, severe health problems, and child and family abuse.

In 2003, drug agents busted a staggering 10,182 meth labs, and the fight against meth is straining the resources of local police and sheriffs in small towns. But the White House has proposed slashing federal aid for rural narcotics teams by half. "If those cuts go through, they're going to totally wipe us out," says Lt. Steve Dalton, leader of a drug task force in southwest Missouri.

Hey, if you get stoned every night, you are going to do serious damage to your body. Getting drunk every night is also a really bad, unhealthy (and pathetic) thing to do. But I'd rather see the government focus on busting violent criminals and the violent hard drugs linked to them and leave alcohol and marijuana abuse to health officials. And busting people who use marijuana because it relieves some of the pain of chemo is just sick. Read the rest of this post...

Correction: Bush Says War On Terror Is Back And Better Than Ever

Bush team can't stay on message or agree what message is. Quack, quack. Read the rest of this post...

We're at War I'm on vacation

Following up on Michael's post below, this one line from Reuters sums it all up:

"The comments by the number two man of al Qaeda make it clear Iraq is a part of this war on terror, and we're at war," he told reporters at his Texas ranch.

We're at war, he's on vacation for five weeks. We're at war, he's setting records for the longest Presidential vacation.

And you will recall, it was during a similarly long vacation in 2001, that he was handed a memo that read "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S." and did nothing. Read the rest of this post...

Al Qaeda Exploits Bush Naming Of Deadline

Yep, Bin Laden's number two man releases a video "demanding" Bush do what Bush has already made clear he is planning: to pull out of Iraq no matter what. "If you don't leave today, certainly you will leave tomorrow...." Vile people. But media savvy. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Have at it... Read the rest of this post...

Are we winning yet?

Guess not.

The explosion that killed 14 marines in Haditha yesterday was powerful enough to flip the 25-ton amphibious assault vehicle they were riding in, in keeping with an increasingly deadly trend, American military officers say.

In recent months the roadside bombs favored by insurgents in Iraq have grown significantly in size and sophistication, the officers say, adding to their deadliness and defeating efforts to increase troops' safety by adding armor to vehicles....

"This was a catastrophic event," said Sgt. Jason Knapp, an Air Force bomb technician who arrived at the scene of the multiple attacks the next morning. He found a foot from one of the American soldiers in the shallow water of a nearby canal. "It was pretty disturbing," he said.

Military personnel involved said the attack last month indicated to them that a new and deadly bomb-making cell singling out American patrols was operating near the large allied military base at the airport, an area that two officers said had seen little insurgent activity in months.

Read the rest of this post...

Republicans: The New Democrats

The Democrats were always mocked by Republicans as "tax and spend" liberals. But guess what? That's a lot smarter and more responsible than being a Republican who decides to "tax less for rich people and spend a LOT more."

Bill Clinton was fiscally responsible and had the booming economy to show for it. Bush and the Republicans are spending money like drunken sailors, while giving bigger and bigger kickbacks to the super-wealthy in the form of lowering estate taxes and other bonuses that only benefit a tiny 1% of the population.

Republicans are the new "Democrats." If you want a fiscal conservative who is pledging to stay within their means, vote Democratic. If you think our country's economy should be run by people behaving like a college student with his first credit card, vote Republican.

As threader Jerry put it, "We've never known what the GOP would do if they controlled all three branches of government, and now we do: record deficits, wars without end, rampant corruption, isolation from the world community, invasion of privacy and a looming theocracy. Happy? Read the rest of this post...

Are you a rat pack Democrat?

I like it.

We Democrats need to be the tough guys again. We used to be the thick knuckled steel workers, the big burly football fans in the cheap seats, the lunch pail Joe Six Pack with the big heart. We used to have class. We used to be Frank Sinatra with a martini glass and a "don't fuck with me" look in his eye. That's where we need to go. We need to be Rat Pack Democrats again....

it's vowing to never shrink from a junk yard brawl with a Republican carrying a Bible. Get outta here, fuck face. That's what Sinatra would have said. "My buddy Sammy's a Jewish black man...take your crucifix and shove it up your ass." Then he'd go to church on Sunday and roll his eyes at the priest when he started preaching about abortion from the pulpit....Jesus Christ, buddy, get real!

Read the rest of this post...

What? Me Worry?

US News says Rove ain't got no worries.

White House officials and senior Republican strategists are bracing for a new round of attacks on Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's involvement in the CIA leak probe, as Democrats move to take advantage of the slow news cycle in August. But insiders say they don't expect to hear anything new in the charges.

"There is no new news," says one senior White House adviser and Rove ally. "Rove is cool as a cucumber."

So, out a spy during wartime....and be cool as a cucumber. In any other administration, a treasonous traitor would be sweating in jail. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Admits Defeat In War On Terror

"The New Yorker" nails it: Bush's "rebranding" of the war on terror isn't just silly Orwellian wordplay. Bush is admitting defeat. Per George Packer:

The Administration is admitting that its strategy since September 11th has failed, without really admitting it. The single-minded emphasis on hunting down terrorists has failed ("Hearts and minds are more important than capturing and killing people," Gregson said). The use of military force as the country's primary and, at times, only response has failed, and has stretched the Army and the Marines to the breaking point. Unilateralism has failed. "It's not a military project alone, and the United States cannot do it by itself alone," Douglas Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy and a leading advocate of going it alone with military force, said on his way out the Pentagon door and into private life (good luck, fellas!). The overwhelmingly American character of the war has failed, isolating moderate Muslims -- who, in the end, are the only hope for political change -- or driving them closer to the radicals. Loading the entire burden of the war onto the backs of American soldiers, while telling the rest of the citizenry to go about its business, has failed, even as public relations: in a recent Gallup poll, only thirty-four per cent of Americans said that we are winning the war on terrorism. The phrase has outlived its enormous political usefulness.

They credit numerous groups for making the case for a broader, less war-based war on ideology, but don't mention one obvious person: John Kerry. But enough of that.

Bush has already floated the trial balloon of pulling out troops next spring and no one blinked an eye. How can they possibly justify setting a deadline? The insurgency is stronger than ever. More people are being killed this year than last. The Iraqi defense ministry is utterly unprepared to take over the security of the country. And Bush has repeatedly misled the American people about the number of Iraqi troops who can provide defense on their own, without our help. Iraq is not even close to stable. Don't get me wrong, even if we fail completely in making anything positive out of a bad situation, no soldier who dies for their country while following orders and behaving honorably has ever died in vain. But it will be a tragic loss of life if Bush abandons Iraq to boost midterm elections and allows a beleaguered country to sink into civil war and despair.

"The New Yorker" says Bush is right to finally recognize the "reality-based" common sense worldview endorsed by Kerry, the 9-11 Commission and others.

The Administration is right to reconsider its strategy, starting with the language. Will anything else follow? The global struggle against violent extremism would inspire more confidence if, for example, the Administration hadn't failed to include funding for democracy programs in Iraq beyond the next round of elections there; or if Karen Hughes, the President's choice as Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, hadn't left the job empty for five months while waiting for her son to graduate from high school; or if the White House weren't resisting attempts by Congress to regulate the treatment of prisoners; or if Karl Rove would stop using 9/11 to raise money and smear Democrats. No one really knows how American influence can be used to disinfect Islamist politics of violent ideas. This is the first problem. The second is that the Bush team has shown such bad faith, arrogance, and incompetence since September 11th that it seems unlikely to figure it out.

According to the last numbers of the Pentagon circa Sen. Joe Biden (numbers no one in the Bush Administration has questioned and which Bush is careful to allude to in his public comments):

Iraq has 2000 troops capable of fighting on their own. 2000.

Iraq has maybe 9000 troops who can fight with our help.

The rest of the numbers they thrown about are meaningless because those people can't fight with or without our help and there's growing evidence they couldn't be properly armed even if they were capable.

So, 2000 troops. Let's assume Bush increases that number 100% by next spring. Heck, let's make that 200%. Okay, 1000%. Fine, let's be super-generous and say 2000%. That will mean by next spring Iraq has, if they're lucky, 40,000 troops capable of fighting on their own to secure a country WE can't secure with the best fighting force in the world. Questions for Scotty:

Why is Bush announcing deadlines that the insurgents can just wait out?

Is Bush declaring success with violence up and the insurgency stronger than ever? What would constitute failure?

Does Bush expect the American people to ignore the facts on the ground?

How many troops does Bush expect to keep nearby in case Iraq falls apart?

Is Bush willing to let Iraq fall apart or will he simply send the troops back in?

We've been told repeatedly that troops would need to be in Iraq for years to come. Why are they suddenly being pulled out in time for midterm elections when electricity isn't on regularly even in Baghdad and a ride to the airport is still a death-defying journey?

It couldn't be much worse right now in Iraq, considering the $300 billion we've spent and the lives lost. How can the President call this a success? If it's not a success, why is he planning to pull troops out as long as it doesn't deteriorate even more?

Isn't President Bush admitting defeat? Read the rest of this post...

Constitutional Right to Privacy at Risk

It's not just overturning Roe v. Wade that the right wingers want. It's eliminating the right to privacy which the Supreme Court established in 1965 in a case called Griswold v. Connecticut. In that case, a doctor was arrested for distributing contraceptives. Yes, contraceptives.

In a column in the Reverend Moon's paper on Monday, Bruce Fein, (he's a Republican lawyer who is always on cable TV who really creeps me out), trashed the right to privacy. In fact, he equates the right to privacy with a liberal political agenda. And of course, Bruce Fein has to haul out all the old right wing chestnuts to attack the right to privacy:

If the assertion means individuals are crowned with privacy rights to do anything that gratifies, then polygamy, same-sex "marriage," access to child pornography, or using addictive drugs are constitutional rights.

Fein worked in the Reagan Justice Department with young John Roberts we learned from Bloomberg. We also learned that Mr. Roberts doesn't believe in the right to privacy either:

In a Dec. 11, 1981, memo to his boss, Attorney General William French Smith, Roberts referred to a comment by former Solicitor General Erwin Griswold that derided the ``so-called `right to privacy''' that formed the basis of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide.

Griswold, also a former dean of Harvard Law School, was ``arguing as we have that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution,'' Roberts wrote in the memo, among papers released by the National Archives and Records Administration in advance of his Senate confirmation hearings set to begin Sept. 6.

Robert, then a special assistant to Smith, attached a draft thank-you letter that he recommended the attorney general send praising Griswold for sounding ``some of the themes I have been addressing recently'' about courts ``restricting themselves to the proper judicial function.''....The documents released by the National Archives also include a ``Draft Article on Judicial Restraint'' stating that courts should not ``discern such an abstraction in the Constitution'' as the ``right to privacy.''

The Supreme Court invoked that right in 1965 to overturn a Connecticut law that outlawed contraception. The draft article said ``the broad range of rights which are now alleged to be `fundamental' by litigants'' bear ``only the most tenuous connection to the Constitution.''

Neither Roberts' name nor initials are on the document, though the same box contains a Sept. 30, 1981, memo to Roberts from Bruce E. Fein, an associate deputy attorney general, that suggested inserting a paragraph into ``your draft article on judicial activism.''

Roberts is heading toward confirmation. That means the right to privacy is in trouble. It's been on his agenda...and the agenda of the hard core right wingers for decades.

This is a guess, just a guess, but I bet there are some men in America, probably in Red States, probably who voted for Bush, who have benefited greatly from the right to privacy established in Griswold. Those contraceptives probably have prevented an awful lot of messy situations from occurring. And, Roe v. Wade probably got some of the guys out of a jam, too. In other words, all those men out there who think this is just a lot of talk about women's rights, better start paying attention.

Most Americans didn't believe they would get a Supreme Court that would take away their rights. But that's what the right wing theocrats wanted....and that's what Bush and Rove are giving them. Read the rest of this post...

Guess who's building your nuclear weapons

Intelligent design wackos.

Every weekday the "Sandia Daily News" publishes bits of information about lectures, meetings, classes, news, etc. of relevance to the lab. Yesterday, August, 3, this tidbit showed up that I thought was rather eyebrow raising:

(NM) Intelligent Design presentation: The Christians in the Workplace Networking Group will sponsor a showing of Unlocking the Mystery of Life at the Steve Schiff Auditorium Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The presentation explains the theory of Intelligent Design and challenges the theory of Darwinian evolution. For a video tape of Michael Behe’s earlier visit to Sandia and presentation on the same topic, titled A Response to Criticisms of a Theory of Intelligent Design in Life Chemistry, contact xxxxxxxx. Questions about Wednesday’s presentation to xxxxxx.

Yep, these are the people designing our nuclear weapons. And you have to love the name of the group "Christians in the Workplace." Excuse me? I really hope that some other Christian group, made up of normal Christians, asks to set up their own Christian workgroup. Maybe even call it "The Normal Christian Workgroup" or "Sane Christians for a Bigot Free Sandia" or "Noah's Ark Didn't Include Dinosaurs Working Group."

If we wanted priests working at our national labs, we'd hire them. Not to mention, I think it's entirely Christian to oppose bigotry. I certainly hope all the Christians and Jews and Muslims and people of other faiths call this "Christian" group on their anti-religious bigotry every time they try to do something anti-gay. After all, if it's anti-gay and I'm a gay Christian, then it's anti-Christian, by the wacko's logic. What's good enough for the intelligent design goose... Read the rest of this post...

Harry Reid On John Roberts

Have you read "The New Yorker" profile of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid we linked to earlier? It's worth checking out. Here's the most important stuff: Reid's impressions of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Reid compares him to Souter (his lips to God's ears!) and thinks Roberts was a non-controversial choice Bush made because he felt in a weak position. Reid insists they named a number of people that would have had the Dems jumping up and down in anger and Roberts wasn't one of them.

One thing [Reid] asked [Roberts] was how he felt about Supreme Court precedents -- in particular, on what grounds they might be overturned. "Precedent is so important to me in the law," Reid told him.

Roberts, Reid recalled, said, "'Oh, on the Supreme Court you can change precedent only if there's this and this,' and he was rattling them off. I hope I didn't act surprised, but I'd never heard anything like that before." Roberts, in Reid's view, left no doubt that he would be very reluctant to overturn precedents. To do so, Roberts had said, the Court would first have to consider a series of objective criteria, two of which stood out: whether a precedent fostered stability in the nation; and the extent to which society had come to rely on an earlier ruling, even a dubious one. "I thought it would be more of a weaselly answer than that, but he said you have to meet all these standards before you can change a precedent," Reid said.

The more I read about Roberts, the less I'm convinced. Certainly, it seems unlikely he is the sort of broad, mainstream judge that most Americans want -- the average Joe wants to leave radicals to academia and think tanks, not the highest court in the land. True, Roberts doesn't seem to espouse a truly fringe judicial philosophy like Bork, just one that is very, very, very far to the right. He's not strong on voting rights. Heck, Roberts thought the Reagan Administration was too moderate at times and NEVER thought it was too conservative on any issue. Not one. (If you know of one, let us know.)

Roberts seems like a far right conservative who wants to pay undue deference to the executive and legislative branch. Doesn't Roberts know it's "checks and balances," not "whatever you say, Mr. President"?

Still, Reid has spoken to him and quizzed him and gotten some answers that reassure him. And as we posted, Roberts did pro bono work that benefitted the gay rights cause. I sure hope Reid is right. Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich says Hackett near victory is a warning to Republicans

And it is. Read the rest of this post...

Paris Morning Open thread

Ha! Michael should know better. When I go to bed, all the phones come off the hook. It's a trick I learned in college after mom, thinking she was so smart, decided to call me at 7:30AM since she "knew at that hour she'd find me." Too smart by half, ma.

Just had breakfast, the favorite patisserie across the street (one of the best in Paris, I'm told) is OPEN for August, yeah! Got some pain au chocolats :-) Now doing a bit of work, then promised myself I'm running around and sight-seeing all afternoon. Can't decide between just walking around the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame or the Marais, or hitting the Louvre. Such hard choices. Read the rest of this post...

Harry Reid On George Bush

"The New Yorker" has a very good profile of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid by Elsa Walsh. Well worth reading -- he's definitely a social conservative (Mormon) and I can't REALLY give my heart to someone who doesn't think I deserve the same basic civil rights as everyone else in this country. (Call me crazy.) But he's tough and a seasoned backroom dealer. My favorite anecdote is about when Reid was overseeing (with others) gambling for the state of Nevada and someone tried to bribe him. Reid helped the cops set up a sting. But when they were busting the guy, Reid tried to strangle him because he was so angry the guy thought Reid could be bribed! My kind of fellow.

Reid's most interesting perspective is on the filibuster. Some of us have been wary of the deal, which included putting through three of Bush's stalled nominees and, arguably, holding off the "nuclear option" showdown for another day, rather than defeating it. Reid says simply he wasn't certain he could win over enough Republicans to defeat it and was glad he didn't have to find out. Fair enough. But here's a doozy you'll love -- Reid's comment on Bush at a public speech. At an elementary school, no less.

"I didn't come here to beat up on President Bush," he said. "But I have served three Republican Presidents. President Reagan -- I cared a great deal for him, and he got most of what he wanted. If you disagreed with him, he did not hold it against you." He went on, "President Bush No. 1 is such a nice person. Some of my most prized possessions are the three letters he wrote me. But this President is totally different. He takes after his mother. It's either his way or no way. It's very, very difficult." Even Reid seemed surprised by the depth of his reaction. "I'm sorry to give you this report on President Bush," he said, "but that's how I feel."

Ouch. Read the rest of this post...

John Roberts Did Pro Bono Work On Gay Rights Case

Hey, maybe he's into the Supremes in more ways than one. The LA Times reports that nominee John Roberts did some significant work on the 1996 case that marked one of the first legal triumphs for gays at the Supreme Court. Read the rest of this post...