How low can they go?

The MSM is digging as deep as it can to find dirt that will stain Judge John Roberts' reputation. Intrepid AP reporters now report breathlessly that Long Beach, Indiana, the town of Roberts' birth, is Too White (unlike, say, Howard Dean's Vermont or Ted Kennedy's Hyannisport). Further, many homes in this racist enclave had deed restrictions prohibiting sale or lease to Jews or minorities. So what if the Roberts family home had no such restriction? John probably played with kids from families whose homes had such restrictions, and that's good enough for a conviction.

Protest Warrior has the goods on the GOP

New London adds insult to injury after Kelo win

I'm having trouble getting my mind to comprehend the audacity of the New London, Connecticut city planners. Fresh from their victory in the Kelo eminent domain case, the wonderful folks at the New London Development Corporation have served notice on the plaintiffs that they have been living on city land for the past five years (back to the point where the seizure was announced), and that they owe back rent for their stay there—to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases.

But wait—there's more! Any holdout who happened to be renting their property to someone else during the five year case will have to turn over all rental proceeds to the city (even if that is the landlord's only source of income).

The city's lawyers were positively giddy as they presented these demands:

With language seemingly lifted straight from The Goonies, NLDC's lawyers wrote, "We know your clients did not expect to live in city-owned property for free, or rent out that property and pocket the profits, if they ultimately lost the case." They warned that "this problem will only get worse with the passage of time," and that the city was prepared to sue for the money if need be.

But wait—there's more! NLDC's buyout offers are based on 2000 market prices, which are far below current prices. This basically means that the Kelo 7 won't be able to afford to buy another house in town.

I have a question for New London residents: How many of you are planning to vote for a single one of the city officials with direct or indirect influence over this case? If you are, does that mean you are okay with the monstrous behavior of those officials? But then again, it wasn't your property (plus five years of your life) that was taken, so what's the big deal?

It's a sad day when the WaPo lectures the GOP on fiscal discipline

It's even worse when their criticism of the GOP's wasteful spending is spot-on:

Back in 1987, when Mr. Reagan applied his veto to what was generally known at the time as the highway and mass transit bill, he was offended by the 152 earmarks for pet projects favored by members of Congress. But on Wednesday Mr. Bush signed a transportation bill containing no fewer than 6,371 earmarks. Each one of these, as Mr. Reagan understood but Mr. Bush apparently doesn't, amounts to a conscious decision to waste taxpayers' dollars. One point of an earmark is to direct money to a project that would not receive money as a result of rational judgments based on cost-benefit analyses.

Mr. Bush, who had threatened to veto wasteful spending bills, chose instead to cave in. He did so despite the fact that in addition to a record number of earmarks the transportation bill came with a price tag that he had once called unacceptable. The bill has a declared cost of $286 billion over five years plus a concealed cost of a further $9 billion; Mr. Bush had earlier drawn a line in the sand at $256 billion, then drawn another line at $284 billion. Asked to explain the president's capitulation, a White House spokesman pleaded that at least this law would be less costly than the 2003 Medicare reform. This is a classic case of defining deviancy down.

Of course, WaPo being WaPo, they couldn't resist ending with the snide question:

Remember, Republicans control the Senate and the House as well as the White House. So somebody remind us: Which is the party of big government?

The answer is that both parties are. The difference is that the parties often disagree on how to spend the ever-increasing share of our money.

(Click images to view full size)

As much as I hate leftist indoctrination in college classrooms...

...I've got to ask: Who does Congress think it is, telling colleges how to grade their students?

Meddling from Congress (apart from being unconstitutional) is more likely to provoke sympathy for the colleges. In my opinion, sunshine and ridicule are much more effective weapons against the Dark Side.

Cracks appearing in Canadian 'healthcare' system?

The Christian Science Monitor reports that, thanks to a ruling in Quebec, the first step may have been taken toward allowing private insurers to operate in Canada.

That is undoubtedly good news, but what is even more fascinating is the peek the article gives into the mentality of people who think the government should be the only dispenser of health care:

Allowing people to buy private health insurance violates fundamental rights, [Canadian Health Coalition coordinator Michael] McBane says, because not everyone will be able to afford it.

Given the realities of Canadian healthcare, McBane is arguing that everyone should be equally miserable and at risk of death due to the negligence of their government—a true legacy of socialism.

To further illustrate the absurdity of McBane's argument, we could try restating it in various ways:

• Allowing people to buy houses violates fundamental rights, because not everyone will be able to afford them.
• Allowing people to buy cars violates fundamental rights, because not everyone will be able to afford them.
• Allowing people to buy personal computers violates fundamental rights, because not everyone will be able to afford them.

We could go on and on, but the point is made. Although I was trying to be absurd with these examples, in my mind's eye I'm imagining Mr. McBane staring at me for a moment before asking, "What's your point?"

The article is revealing in one other way: Many Canadians consider private insurance to be an American thing, and that fact alone increases political opposition to the idea. It appears that some there would literally rather die at the hands of their government before admitting that America was right about something.

The left embraces McCarthyism in its attacks on Judge Roberts

As David Horowitz notes, the White House embarassed itself in the way it reacted to these attacks, and conservatives in general were not willing to cry foul:

The White House has already caved to this malicious McCarthyite attack on the Federalist Society by attempting to distance its nominee Judge Roberts from membership. Are you now or have you ever been.. Once you have reached the stage of attempting to avoid the guilt by association that the left's lynch mob is attempting to establish, you are half-way to the stake. Already the White House and its candidate have taken a beating as reward for their appeasement of hatemongers. Judge Roberts has put himself in the position of denying that he is a member of the Federalist Society. It turns out he was on one of its steering committees at one time.

The Federalist Society is no more conservative than the American Bar Association is left. Or to put it accurately, the Federalist Society is somewhat less conservative than the American Bar Association is left. And it is far less activist. The Federalist Society is principally an intellectual forum where conservatives can discuss with liberals issues that they couldn't discuss in law school venues because the totalitarian intolerance of leftwing law professors who control these schools effectively silenced them by excluding them from its platforms. The fact that the Federalist Society is an issue at all is a testament to how the witch-hunt is the essence of leftwing politics, and how successful that politics is. Imagine if conservatives had made Ruth Bader-Ginsburg's leadership role in the ACLU an issue, or her member of the American Bar Association. Or if they had pointed out that WeatherUnderground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, for example, sits on august committees and advisory boards of both organizations.

I don't think we were supposed to take this literally

I keep coming across ways people have devised to help us "stand on the word of God".

You could try having a Bible encased in the foundation of your house, but why not be doubly sure? Once the house is finished, you can walk in it wearing shoes that have inserts with Bible verses on them.

Well meaning, but... Sigh.

The GOP proves it can't handle being in the majority

...and the WaPo is having a field day with this truth (emphasis added):

Having skirted budget restraints and approved nearly $300 billion in new spending and tax breaks before leaving town, Republican lawmakers are now determined to claim full credit for the congressional spending. Far from shying away from their accomplishments, lawmakers are embracing the pork [...]

When the year started, President Bush made spending restraint a mantra, laying out an austere budget that would freeze non-security discretionary spending for five years and setting firm cost limits on transportation and energy bills. But now, as Congress fills in the details of the budget plan, there is little interest in making deep cuts and enormous pressure to spend.

Lawmakers have seen little to fear from a political backlash, some acknowledge, and Bush has yet to wield his veto pen. In fact, the White House has proved itself largely unable to overcome the institutional forces that have long driven lawmakers to ply their parochial interests with cash.

[...]

"If you look at fiscal conservatism these days, it's in a sorry state," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of only eight House members to vote against the $286.5 billion transportation bill that was passed the day before the recess. "Republicans don't even pretend anymore."

[...]

"You have to be courageous to not spend money," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), "and we don't have many people who have that courage."

[...]

"There's a rising level of frustration with the disconnect between where the vast majority of conservatives are in this country and how Congress is behaving," said former representative Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), whose Club for Growth political action committee finances the campaigns of conservative candidates. "There's going to be a wake-up call sooner or later."

When the GOP is in the minority, we get the Contract with America. When they're in the majority (and they control the White House as well), the principles of the Contract with America become as quaint and obsolete as the Constitution itself.

I have no illusions about the GOP. When in power, they're as willing as the Dems to spend like drunken sailors (although the projects are usually different). The big difference is that the GOP pretends to be otherwise at election time, and not enough of the base cares enough about the spending issue to send Congress any kind of "wake-up call".

Although I tend to vote Republican, I don't consider myself to be a Republican—why endorse a party that truly believes very little of what it professes to believe? The GOP has never gotten any money from me, and I don't expect it ever will. They spend enough of my money as it is.

It's easy to go crazy when you're spending other people's money

Whether from principle or from political calculation, Sen. John McCain lived up to his "maverick" image by being one of only four senators to vote against the $286.4 billion Highway Bill, as the AP's Jim Abrams reports:

"Egregious and remarkable," exclaimed Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about the estimated $24 billion in the bill set aside for highways, bus stops, parking lots and bike trails requested by lawmakers.

McCain, one of only four senators to oppose the bill, listed several dozen "interesting" projects, including $480,000 to rehabilitate a historic warehouse on the Erie Canal and $3 million for dust control mitigation on Arkansas rural roads.

His favorite, he said, was $2.3 million for landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California. "I wonder what Ronald Reagan would say."

Reagan, in fact, vetoed a highway bill over what he said were spending excesses, only to be overridden by Congress. Meanwhile, according to a Cato Institute analysis, special projects or "earmarks" numbered 10 in 1982, 152 in 1987, 538 in 1991 and 1,850 in 1998. The 1998 highway act set aside some $9 billion for earmarks, well under half the newest plan.

"This bill will be known as the most earmarked transportation bill in the history of our nation," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks such projects in congressional legislation.

President Bush had threatened a veto if Congress overshot his (in my opinion arbitrary) spending target, but it's almost certain that his first-ever veto would have been overridden. Quoting Abrams again:

Deciding how much will go to earmarks, however, is very much up to Congress, and few lawmakers are willing to turn down a new road or bridge in their district.

"Nothing beats a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new piece of pavement," said Peter Sepp, spokesman for National Taxpayers Union. "Road projects are regarded as a kind of government jobs program that Republicans can safely embrace."

Lawmakers were sending out press releases bragging of their accomplishments even before the bill was passed, said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "It's a symbol of why everything else is out of control, not just highways."

Never, ever underestimate the willingness of our elected representatives to buy our votes with our own money.


Another who voted against the bill was one of my senators, John Cornyn. His reasons were a bit mixed: (1) Texas didn't get enough of the money (only 92 cents of every dollar of gas tax paid in TX); and (2) The overall total was too much. Presumably he would have been happy if Texas' share was increased at the expense of other states.

Of course, the real solution to this mess is to move it closer to the people. The federal government should get out of the highway-money brokerage business altogether, and let each state be responsible for the roads within its borders. This will never happen, though, for at least two reasons: (1) States that are currently net recipients of highway funds (i.e. they get more money than they paid in gas taxes) will not allow the current system to go away; and (2) Congress as a whole would never give up such an effective vote-buying scheme.

Arlen Specter does the heavy lifting for John Roberts' opponents

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy was designed from the start to be a liberal counterpart to that right-wing cabal known as The Federalist Society. Just as the Federalist Society promotes an originalist view of the Constitution, the ACS promotes an anti-originalist (they prefer the term "progressive") view of the document.

ACS is consciously and enthusiastically against the qualities President Bush is looking for in a Supreme Court nominee.

All that said, it's still no surprise that supposedly-Republican senator Arlen Specter is not only hanging out with these folks, The Prowler reports that he's acting as point man for a lot of their opposition research on nominee John Roberts.

Given the fact that Specter is chairman of the judiciary committee, he's in a position to do a lot of damage to the president's nominee.

The Bush administration threw its considerable weight behind Specter's reelection campaign last time around, beating back an impressive primary challenge by someone who is much more reliably conservative.

The senator suffers no negative consequences for his misbehavior (ditto Sen. McCain), which as any parent knows virtually guarantees the behavior will continue.

At the very least, a way needs to be found to get Specter out of the chairman's seat.

Porky president?

The Center for Consumer Freedom notes that, although President Bush is arguably the most fit president in history, at 5'11" and 191 pounds he's still considered overweight according to the government's BMI standards.

Yes, the recess appointment of John Bolton is constitutionally troublesome

Which isn't the same thing as saying that it's unconstitutional. President Bush is, in fact, obeying the "letter" of the Constitution by appointing Bolton while the Senate is in recess:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

While the move isn't unconstitutional, it is troublesome, since this clause was clearly meant to provide for the occasion when a post becomes vacant while the Senate is in recess, and there is an urgent need for the post to be filled before the Senate reconvenes. This was a relevant issue when the Senate took long recesses, but now it's anachronistic.

But what other choice does the president have when a nominee has majority support in the Senate, but the minority refuses to allow a vote?

The recess appointment controversy would go away if, as James Taranto suggested, the Senate was compelled to vote on a nominee within 90 days of the nominee's name being submitted.

Liberal's nightmare, conservative's dream

I'm thinking that the cartoonist was trying to scare us with this image (click to view full size):

Apart from secretly being a Scalia clone, what else do They have on Roberts?

For starters, he's a Catholic. That's suddenly a valid, nonbigoted objection— since some conservatives are trying to get pro-choicers excommunicated, the Left can safely vote against any pro-life Catholic (If you try hard enough, you'll see that B really does follow from A here).

Oh, there's also his association with that sinister cabal-disguised-as-a-debate-club called The Federalist Society:

Nutty Howard Dean blames Bush for "Kelo" decision

CNSNews.com reports that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean continues to show that he's a taco short of a combo plate (emphasis added):

[Dean] said the president was partly responsible for a recent Supreme Court decision involving eminent domain.

"The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is 'okay' to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is," Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

Dean's reference to the "right-wing" court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court's liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

"We think that eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. It is for public use only," Dean said.

How can we even parse this?

Angle #1: The fact that Dean considers the court majority to be conservative tells us a lot about where he is politically, and it tells us a lot about a political party that would choose him as its standard-bearer.

Angle #2: He has no idea which justices voted to uphold Kelo, and just assumed that liberal justices would never be the author of an opinion that provoked such a negative public reaction. Again, this would tell us a lot about Dean, and would tell us a lot about a political party that would choose him as its standard-bearer.

Either way, it doesn't look good for Dr. Dean and the Dems.