Monday, October 31, 2005

Thoughts on Meirs

Ok, sorry for the delay but I’ve been meaning to blog about Meirs since her withdrawal. My desire was increased this weekend by a comment of Evan to me and last night’s talk with my brother.

The first thought- which evan brought up is the who sex thing… The idea that Miers is a replacement for O’Conner because both be women…. When O’Conner was the first to say she wanted to get off the court and Roberts was nominated to replace her.
There are many thoughts here. The first being that since Roberts was then nominated to replace the chief justice who died during Roberts confirmation, that Robert got a ‘promotion’ and thus replaced dead white dude instead of O’Conner.
I really thought it was funny when I read this weekend that Ann Coulter, a shrill woman if ever there was one [actually it’s been suggested to me that she’s a man baby!] complained that W. went wrong by feeling the NEED to pick a woman- as if to imply that being a woman is why the right disliked Meirs. In fact I did see a news program that ‘raised’ the question of whether America was too hard on Meirs because she was a woman- to which I say I hope not. I think Meirs was unqualified regardless of gender. Heck if she was a male- I think her record would be LESS impressive, as when she went to school there were very few women lawyers- so that potentially was one of her FEW accomplishments.
Now I want the most competent justice on the court… but at the same time I think there are enough GOOD judges to replace a minority with a minority. Now I’m not saying, as others are, that they have to replace O’Conner with a woman… because NOW there must be two women ALWAYS on the court, but I think that at least three of the justices (counting Thomas) should be non white dudes. As far as I’m concerned the NEXT justice shouldn’t be compared to O’Conner (though we lefties liked her better then Thomas), but should be a member of SOME minority… make the next person a Latino (but *not* Gonzoles), an African-American, a woman, a Jew or dare I say Muslim. Oh man, that would be sooo interesting if W. nominated a ‘non radical’ Muslim to the supreme court.

My second thought, which is what my brother brought up but I had already thought of, is the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend; just because the right didn’t like Meirs doesn’t mean the left should embrace her. I compared this to WWII where I feel that Stalin wasn’t much better then Hitler… who hated each other because they both wanted to rule Russia. My brother retorted that he felt that Hitler was worse and that FDR was right to align himself with Stalin against Hitler. I feel however my main point is still sound… just because my enemy hates someone doesn’t make them my friend. FDR choose to align himself with Russia, not because he liked Russia but because it made his life easier. I was very happy that the Dems kept quiet and let the repugs tear Meirs down. I think by staying out of the frey, the democrats didn’t give any fuel to the republicans… but I would hope had she gone to committee that they would’ve had a bunch of tough questions for her…
I really was worried that the republicans were actually trying to ‘sucker’ us by ‘pretending’ dislike Meirs so dems would vote for her and then turn around and vote for her.
Likewise I thought one of the most interesting things was that NONE of the republicans actually stood up and said they would vote AGAINST Meirs, they just asked W. to withdraw her. I felt that was because they knew that they were between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the rank and file seemed to be nervous about Meirs, and they need to be re-elected in 06 or 08, on the other hand W. is still in charge of the party and is a mean and petty man.

The main problem I had with the Meirs withdraw is sort of petty of me… I felt this do-over was a way for W. to get a GOOD story out. That he’s had so much bad press that picking a new Justice gives him control of a story- unlike all the other bad news.
I also was afraid that now W. has a range. He knows that Roberts was OK and Meirs wasn’t so he now gets to just find a range of who the most incompetent person he could nominate and still get in.

Update: while I wrote this, this morning, I heard that there was a new judge nominated. Samuel Alito. So more perhaps later. Just was happy that because of the way Meirs bowed out, it couldn’t be Gonzoles… as the Senate would then want him to turn over papers he gave W. about torture ‘n stuff, just like Meirs was asked.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The Pro Torturers

You've heard of PRO-life politicians; well these nine (along with W.) are PRO TORTURE.
* Wayne Allard (R-CO)
* Christopher Bond (R-MO)
* Tom Coburn (R-OK)
* Thad Cochran (R-MS)
* John Cornyn (R-TX)
* James Inhofe (R-OK)
* Pat Roberts (R-KS)
* Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
* Ted Stevens (R-AK)

I meant to write this last week but I've been busy. Last Week the senate voted 90 to 9 to STOP the horrible torture being preformed by the U.S. against the 'suspected' terrorists we're fighting. I say suspected as most of the people at Abu Graib and Camp X-ray haven't had their 'day in court' and thus haven't actually been proven to have done anything bad.
The 'bill' was created by John McCain (who knows a bit about being on the receiving end of a country's evil torture policy) and attached to a defense spending bill. As mentioned the above 9 voted AGAINST the U.S. being a country which is humane and treats it’s foes with respect. Hmmm didn’t we get rid of Saddam because he mistreated people?
(That was like the second reason for us to go to war, after WMDs but before ‘fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here’)

I list them in the hopes that any/all of their seats are up in 2006. If you live in one of these states, please start a grassroots movement to get rid of one (or two if you live in OK) of these scum.

Naturally they aren’t alone- W. has threatened to use his FIRST VETO to get rid of this. As W. has been told by his attorney, now the attorney general (Gonzales) that torture is a-ok. I mean we know that W. is a monster (who maybe should’ve been sent to ‘Nam) but we can’t get rid of him at this late date- we can however go after these nine. And maybe remind people what sort of monsters OUR side is breeding. Remember nobody above the rank of sergeant has gone to trial for torture, the little guys have gotten in trouble for ‘just following orders’ while the people who give the orders have stayed safe and secure in Washington D.C. making sure not to leave a paper trail.
Fortunately with 90% of the vote, the senate has enough people against torture to override the president’s veto… so part of me hopes that W. vetoes it; so he can lose more support and the republicans who want to run in ‘06(and president in ’08) start distancing themselves from the commander and thief.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Worldview

This past Friday I attended Aeia's classroom for an awards ceremony (she won an award for knowing all of the "palabras importantes" in her spanish immersion Kindergarten class. While there, I was standing by her classroom globe so I gave it a slow twirl.

Her globe still has the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Still has Yugoslavia...

Where is all of our education money going if they can't even afford globes that are less than 15 years out of date?