Friday, August 10, 2007

 

The KKK and the Republican Party of Texas


According to the Republican Party of Texas, "The embodiment of the Conservative Dream in America is Texas."

Do you:
1. Believe that America was founded as a Christian Nation and that the separation of church and state is a myth?
2. Oppose affirmative action?
3. Oppose anti-gun laws and support public policies which would encourage every adult to own a gun?
4. Oppose hate crime laws?
5. Support a balanced federal budget?
6. Support the death penalty?
7. Favor a flat income tax?
8. Believe that abortion should be outlawed except to save the mother's life or in case of rape or incest?
9. Believe that the practice of homosexuality ought to be a criminal?

Compare and contrast the 2000 Platform of the Republican Party of Texas (1) with the platform of the KKK Knight's Party (2).
Immigration
(1) Illegal Immigration – No amnesty! No how. No way.
With growing impatience, the American people in overwhelming numbers have asked our government to secure our borders. They now demand it and we as a party agree with the American people. Illegal aliens have, by definition, committed a criminal act. We oppose illegal immigration, amnesty in any form, or legal status for illegal immigrants. The American people remember the broken promises of 1986 and will not be misled again.
We further urge the President to: 1. build a physical barrier along the entire length of our country’s border with Mexico, beginning with urban interface locations and appropriate monitoring 2. deploy the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (I.C.E.) within the U.S. to locate and secure all illegal aliens who have previously entered our country and expedite their return to their source country and 3. expand the use of the National Guard to secure our border.

(2) Put American troops on our border to STOP the flood of illegal aliens.
America is being over run by illegal immigrants mostly from nonwhite countries who do not share the Christian European values of our nation's founders.

Federal Reserve
(1) The Party calls for the United States monetary system to be returned to the gold standard. Since the Federal Reserve System is a private corporation, has no reserves, and is not subject to taxation or audit, we call on Congress to abolish this institution and reassume its authority, enumerated by Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, for the coinage of money.

(2) Repeal the Federal Reserve Act. This illegally passed law gives control of our money to a private corporation. We must return to debt free money - interest free currency issued by Congress as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution.

Sodomy
(1) The party opposes the decriminalization of sodomy....We publicly rebuke judges Chief Justice Murphy and John Anderson, who ruled that the 100 year-old Texas sodomy law is unconstitutional, and ask that all members of the Republican Party of Texas oppose their re-election.

(2) We support a national law against the practice of homosexuality. This is a Christian nation and the Bible condemns homosexual activity and the perversion of our society which it encourages.

Abortion
(1) The Party affirms its support for a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse making clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection applies to unborn children.

(2) Abortion should be outlawed except to save the mother's life or in case of rape or incest. Abortion is nothing other than government legalized murder. While we stress the need for a moral and Christian lifestyle, we applaud those women who choose to give life rather than murder one of God's children.

Christian Nation
(1) The Republican Party of Texas reaffirms the United States of America is a Christian nation, which was founded on fundamental Judeo-Christian principles based on the Holy Bible. . .Our Party pledges to do everything within its power to restore the original intent of the First Amendment of the United States and the concept of the separation of Church and State and dispel the myth of the separation of Church and State. . . Since Secular Humanism is recognized by the United States Supreme Court as a religion, and our government–funded schools are prohibited from teaching any religion, the Party believes that Secular Humanism and New Age Religion in any form should be subjected to the same state and federal laws as any other recognized
religion.

(2) The recognition that America was founded as a Christian nation. As James Madison, known as the "Chief Architect of the Constitution stated; " We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves to control ourselves to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."


Taxation
(1) We urge that the IRS be abolished and the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution be repealed. A constitutional tax, collected and controlled by the States, must generate sufficient revenue for the legitimate tasks of the national government.

(2) A flat income tax should be introduced to allow for the funding of community, state and federal projects. This should be the one and only tax allowed. It is the only fair way to collect revenue and does not discriminate against any economic class.

Gun Control
(1)Right to Keep and Bear Arms – The Party calls upon the Texas Legislature and the United States Congress to repeal any and all laws that infringe upon the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution; and to reject the establishment of any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns. We urge the Legislature to clearly declare that it has the exclusive authority to determine where firearms may or may not be legally carried in the State of Texas, and that no other state governmental entity and no local governmental entity may regulate or prohibit the possession of firearms. We believe it is the responsibility of all gun owners to safely store and operate their firearms.

(2) Abolish all anti-gun laws and encourage every adult to own a weapon. The cure for crime in America is not take guns off the streets but to put more guns ON the streets. Violent criminals should be punished, but law abiding citizens should be allowed to defend their homes, business and families with out fear of the federal government treating them as the criminal.

Balanced Budget
(1) Balanced Budget – The Party supports full disclosure of all “on” and “off” budget spending. We demand that our federal legislators vote only for balanced budgets, and that the Social Security Fund never be used to balance the budget. In case of a budget surplus, it should never be used to increase spending. We also support zero-based budgeting.

(2) Balance the budget. Just as any family must balance their budget so must the federal government. Accordingly all present federal debt owed to the criminal private Federal Reserve corporation should be canceled.

Death Penalty
(1) Capital Punishment – The Party believes that capital punishment, when properly applied, is a legitimate form of punishment and an effective deterrent for the most severe and heinous crimes. When applied, capital punishment should be swift and unencumbered.

(2)We support the death penalty for those convicted of molestation and rape. The only way to put an end to this cycle of abuse is to stop the sexual abuser once and for all.
The 2008 platform of the Republican Party of Texas is available as a pdf document here but, as you might imagine, it isn't much different from the 2000 version.

By the way, the James Madison quotation in the KKK platform is bogus, and the reference in the Republican Party Platform to the U.S. Supreme Court recognizing secular humanism as a religion is a distorted reference to footnote 11 in the 1961 decision in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488. The footnote reference is what lawyers call obiter dictum. The Supreme Court has never held that unorganized secular humanism is a religion, the court simply noted a California case that granted a tax exemption to organized secular humanists.

Friday, July 13, 2007

 

Bong Hits 4 Jesus


Regulating broadcast “fairness” - The FCC should stay out of it.

Regulating broadcast “decency” - The FCC should stay out of it.

Campaign finance “reform” - Donations should be disclosed, but that’s it. McCain-Feingold and similar laws should be repealed or declared unconstitutional. Buckley v. Valeo was wrongly decided.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus - It’s free speech. There is no drug exception to the First Amendment. School officials should stay out of it. Morse v. Frederick is wrongly decided.

In the recent 5-4 decision in Morse v. Frederick, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the conservative majority said:
The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic. It is no doubt offensive to some, perhaps amusing to others. To still others, it probably means nothing at all. Frederick himself claimed "that the words were just nonsense meant to attract television cameras." But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one.
Wrong. The school officials should not have been given the benefit of the doubt. "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" doesn't promote the use of illegal drugs by minors. It's political speech advocating the legalization of marijuana. The government is afraid to expose high school students to a free and fair debate of the drug legalization issue for the same reason that they are afraid to expose high school students to a free and fair debate of the abstinence issue. They know the pro-legalization and anti-abstinence side would win the debate.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

 

School Vouchers: The Prince Edward County Solution

The only hope for the inner city is vouchers, so that all the churches can go in and plant Christian schools in the inner cities and capture these fatherless young people for Christ and teach them biblical discipline and so forth. It's either God or it's ruin for our country, I do believe.

Jerry Falwell, The 700 Club, September 3, 1996

Conservatives often claim that the reason they support school vouchers is because they want to save little black kids in the inner cities. Since when did conservatives give a rat's ass about little black kids in the inner city?

The real intended beneficiaries of vouchers are white, mostly Republican, parents in the suburbs who send or want to sent their children to private and religious schools. Many of these parents resent the fact that they are shelling out money for their own kids' tuition and also have to pay taxes to send other people's kids to public schools.

Whether vouchers would actually help middle income parents send their kids to the most exclusive private schools is highly questionable. Many of these schools already charge tuition in the $20,000 per year range. It is highly unlikely that any vouchers that are offered will be that high. And if, for example, vouchers in the $10,000 range were offered, the most exclusive schools would simply adjust their tuition accordingly, to $30,000 per year. Parents who can already afford a $20,000 tuition would simply take the voucher and pay the difference. They want and will pay to send their children to exclusive schools, where they will not have to mingle with the hoi polloi.

Conservatives have a litany of complaints against the public schools, many of which they are reluctant to openly discuss, that go all the way back to Brown v. Board of Education. An old segregationist saying in the South says that the Supreme Court, under Earl Warren, "Took the Bible out of our schools and put the Negro in," only they didn't use those exact words. Conservatives resented racial integration, school busing, the absence of overt Christian instruction, the presence of instruction in evolutionary biology, and the liberal political influence of public school teachers' unions, which traditionally support and contribute to the Democratic Party.

Conservatives generally attribute the idea of vouchers to the late libertarian economist Milton Friedman, who wrote Capitalism and Freedom in 1962. Friedman's ideas were frequently controversial, but he was intellectually respectable and he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1976.

Friedman surely did advocate school vouchers in Capitalism and Freedom, and he may have discussed the idea in the 1950s, but was he really the first? A little known Virginia school desegregation case, Griffin v. County School Board, 377 U.S. 218 reached the United States Supreme Court in 1964. As part of the campaign of massive resistance against the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school board of Prince Edward County simply shut down the public schools altogether and adopted a voucher or "freedom of choice" plan, explaining that
The School Board of this county is confronted with a court decree which requires the admission of white and colored children to all the schools of the county without regard to race or color. Knowing the people of this county as we do, we know that it is not possible to operate the schools of this county within the terms of that principle and, at the same time, maintain an atmosphere conducive to the educational benefit of our people.
Prince Edward County initially adopted the "tuition grant" or voucher policy in 1956, but the case makes clear that the Virginia's tuition grant program began in 1930 to aid to children who had lost their fathers in World War I.

The Prince Edward County plan was not fully implemented until 1959 due to various challenges in the federal and Virginia court systems, and various actions by the Virginia legislature, but eventually the public schools were closed, school taxes in the county were not levied, and a private organization, the Prince Edward School Foundation operated private schools for white students only. From 1959 until the Supreme Court ordered the school board to reopen the public schools, black students in Prince Edward County were effectively deprived of educational opportunities.

 

Clemency for Cash


Rent that Marie movie. Think about what Fred Thompson did after Watergate. Think about how he got his acting career started.

He represented Marie Ragghianti in the Clemency for Cash scandal involving the late Gov Ray Blanton.

Clemency for Cash.

Now Thompson is among the main ones pushing for a Libby pardon.

Conservative Republicans would never be so crass as to offer cash for clemency. No, they'd be much more indirect about the quid pro quo. Be a team player. We'll take care of the legal defense fund. It's fixed. Everything will be arranged, including a high paying job after this is all over -- provided you keep quiet and protect Bush and Cheney.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

 

The FCC, Right-Wing Talk Radio, and the Fairness Doctrine


Let me say from the outset that I'm against the fairness doctrine, for the same reason that I'm against campaign finance "reform": I think both infringe on the freedom of speech. If somebody wants to contribute their money to a candidate or political cause, they ought to be free give an unlimited amount, as long as the contribution is publicly disclosed.

The fairness doctrine was necessary back in the days when there were only a few networks. Today, there are many media outlets and it is not necessary. The FCC and other government agencies should concentrate on preventing the oligopolistic concentration of ownership of broadcast media by outlets like Clear Channel and News Corp, and forget about regulating the content.

Here's a question for conservatives who maintain that radio should be driven by consumer preferences and market forces: Are you also against content restrictions on profane and "indecent" language? I'm consistent. I'm against 'em. But I'll bet the conservatives won't be consistent. I'm betting that they have no problem with the FCC keeping this kind of material off the air.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

 

Goodling and Republican Vote Caging

I believe that the Deputy [McNulty] was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest is selecting Tim Griffin as the Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the Department's internal assessment of the Parsky Commission, and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote "caging" during his work on the President's 2004 campaign.

Monica Goodling Opening Statement, May 23, 2007

So, exactly what is "vote caging"?
Caging has also been used as a form of voter suppression. A political party challenges the validity of a voter's registration; for the voter's ballot to be counted, the voter must prove that their registration is valid.

Voters targeted by caging are often the most vulnerable: those who are unfamiliar with their rights under the law, and those who cannot spare the time, effort, and expense of proving that their registration is valid. Ultimately, caging works by dissuading a voter from casting a ballot, or by ensuring that they cast a provisional ballot, which is less likely to be counted.

With one type of caging, a political party sends registered mail to addresses of registered voters. If the mail is returned as undeliverable - because, for example, the voter refuses to sign for it, the voter isn't present for delivery, or the voter is homeless - the party uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent. It is this use of direct mail caging techniques to target voters which probably resulted in the application of the name to the political tactic.
Wikipedia

 

Goodling Two Shoes Blames McNulty

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's former White House liaison denied Wednesday that she played a major role in the firings of U.S. attorneys last year and blamed Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty for misleading Congress about the dismissals.

McNulty's explanation, on Feb. 6, "was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects," Monica Goodling told a packed House Judiciary Committee inquiry into the firings.

She added: "I believe the deputy was not fully candid."
Why Monica was going to take the Fifth.
"I may have gone too far, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions," Goodling said. "And I regret those mistakes."

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., hammered Goodling on her decisions to hire prosecutors who favored Republicans.

"Do you believe they were illegal or legal?" Scott asked.

"I don't believe I intended to commit a crime," Goodling, a lawyer, answered.

"Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?" Scott said.

"I believe I crossed the line, but I didn't mean to," she responded.
Associated Press - Yahoo

Monday, October 31, 2005

 

Scalito and Dred Scott


The Volokhmort blog is buzzing about Scalito's concurring opinion in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Farmer, 220 F.3d 127, 152 (3d Cir. 2000), which it contrasts with his better known opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Presumably, the purpose of this buzz is to give some reassurance about Scalito's deference toward precedent.
A little background: while the opinions in Planned Parenthhod v. Farmer were being prepared, but before they were published, the SCOTUS issued it's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, a case which everyone agrees controls Planned Parenthhod v. Farmer. Here is the opening paragraph from Scalito's concurrence in Planned Parenthood v. Farmer:
I do not join Judge Barry's [majority] opinion, which was never necessary and is now obsolete. That opinion fails to discuss the one authority that dictates the result in this appeal, namely, the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 120 S.Ct. 2597, 147 L.Ed.2d 743 (2000).

The real Scalia is known for the choice first sentence in his dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart:
I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court's jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott.

Stenberg v. Carhart

So does Scalito believe that Dred Scott was a good decision, or doesn't he?

Saturday, October 29, 2005

 

Juxtapose These


Prussian Blue in their Aryan wear T-shirts

Cover of Jonah Goldberg's latest book

Somehow, I get the idea that Lynx and Lamb are not liberals.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

 

1993 Miers Speech Has Right-Wing Upset


Self-Determination Bad ------ Baaaaaaad
Might Interfere With Plans For Theocratic Fascist Nanny State
Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers said in a speech more than a decade ago that "self-determination" should guide decisions about abortion and school prayer and that in cases where scientific facts are disputed and religious beliefs vary, "government should not act."
In a 1993 speech to a Dallas women's group, Miers talked about abortion, the separation of church and state, and how the issues play out in the legal system. "The underlying theme in most of these cases is the insistence of more self-determination," she said. "And the more I think about these issues, the more self-determination makes sense."
. . .
"This is going to be very disturbing to conservatives because I think it shows that she is a judicial activist," said Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel for the Liberty Counsel, which frequently argues constitutional cases from the conservative perspective. "This concept of self-determination could clearly be read in support for things like abortion or same-sex marriage, and it's a philosophy that cuts a judge loose from the Constitution."

Washington Post

Freedom is Slavery, Snowball is Trotskii, Self-Determination is Judicial Activism. Remember that.

 

This Is NOT A Parody


WASHINGTON (Reuters) October 26, 2005 - The White House is not amused by The Onion, a newspaper that often spoofs the Bush administration, and has asked it to stop using the presidential seal on its Web site.
The seal was still on the Web site www.theonion.com on Tuesday at the spot where President George W. Bush's weekly radio address is parodied. . . .
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said people who work in the executive mansion do have a sense of humor, but not when it comes to breaking regulations.
"When any official sign or seal is being used inappropriately the party is notified," Duffy said.
Reuters

 

SpankO 'Reilly


How Spanking Won WWII and Changed the Course of History
by Bill O'Reilly
Now in the Great Depression, every American got spanked. And those Americans went to war during World War II and won the very intense conflict and showed bravery across the board, the Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation, almost down to the man, was spanked, 'cause that's the way we did it in America. OK?

Media Matters

Spanking and falafel? Hmmmmmmmmmmm???

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

 

Does Anybody Really Take the Rove/Dobson Story Seriously?


Here's what you have to believe.

Michael Luttig: "No way."
Janice Rogers Brown: "Count me out."
Michael McConnell: "I wouldn't even consider it."
Priscilla Owen: "Forget it."
Edith H. Jones: "Not on your life."
Joy Clement: "Sorry, I'm satisfied where I am."
Alex Kozinski: "Those nasty Democrats ask too many mean questions."
Samuel Alito: "Ask somebody else."
Emilio Garza: "I've just never wanted to be on the Supreme Court."
Karen Williams: "After what they did to John Roberts? I just couldn't put my family through that."
Miguel Estrada: "It's not worth it."
Maura Corrigan: "But People for the American Way would be against me. I just don't think I could take it."
Connie Maria Callahan: "Not interested."
Alberto Gonzales: "Get somebody qualified, like Harriet Miers."

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

 

Does Frist's Story Even Make Sense?


Frist says that his only purpose in divesting his blind trust of HCA stock was to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. But wait a minute, avoiding any appearance of a conflict of interest was the purpose of setting the blind trust up in the first place. Sure, Frist knew that he contributed the HCA stock to the blind trust, but if the trust was truly blind, how would he have known that the trustees hadn't already sold the stock? And if the trust was truly blind, why would he still be worried about conflicts of interest?

In the country of blind trusts, the one-eyed trust is King.

 

Anna Nicole Smith Goes All the Way


All the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, that is. So whaddaya think, was the suit for tortious interference with an inter vivos gift in the Texas probate court a core proceeding or merely a related matter for purposes of bankruptcy law?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

 

George W. Bush Hates Midgets


George W. Bush hates midgets. He also hates dwarves and pygmies.

I'll bet if any of those little Homo floresiensis guys were still around, Bush would hate them too.

Friday, August 12, 2005

 

It's Watergate All Over Again


A couple of significant recent articles by Murray Waas and Walter Pincus indicate that indictments are looming for high administration officials Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in connection with the Plame investigation.

In discussing the Waas article, Congressman John Conyers asks: "Why Won't Scooter Libby Grant Judith Miller a Personal Waiver?"

"Libby met with Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame. This meeting, six days before the publication of Robert Novak's infamous column outing Mrs. Joe Wilson (Valerie Plame), is a "central focus" of the Fitzgerald investigation.

The kicker: "Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby's failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller's decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003."

Kevin Drum gives the "nickel version" of the theory deduced from Pincus's Washington Post article by Armando at DailyKos.

"In July 2003, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told reporters that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, had been responsible for sending him on his fact finding trip to Niger the previous year.

However, virtually every source says that's not true. The CIA maintains that senior officials in the counterproliferation division chose Wilson, and that Plame's only role was to write a memo about his credentials that they asked her to write.

In fact, as of July 2003, there was only one source that said the trip was Plame's idea: the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which had written a memo in June about the affair.

Therefore, that State Department memo must have been Rove and Libby's source of information about Plame — and if that's the case, it's bad news for the White House since the memo clearly marked the information about Plame as classified. (Further tidbit: Is it possible that this memo was what Rove was talking about when he told Time's Matt Cooper that "material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission"?)"

Thursday, August 11, 2005

 

Republican Party of Minnesota v. White


JUSTICE KENNEDY: So a candidate says, "This is the worst decision that's come down since Dred Scott, it's a plague on our people, it's an insult to the system, but I'm not telling you how I'll vote." (Laughter.)

MR. GILBERT: Your Honor, that's the point.

Keep an eye on Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002) when John Roberts tries to evade specific questions during his confirmation hearings.

In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, Wersal, a Republican judicial candidate, along with the Republican Party, challenged a Minnesota ethical canon that prohibited candidates for judicial office from announcing their position on disputed legal issues.

The Supreme Court's decision was 5-4. Guess who voted in favor of Wersal and the Republicans? Guess who voted that it's okay for judicial candidates to announce their positions on disputed legal issues? Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and O'Connor, the five conservative conspirators of Bush v. Gore infamy, that's who.

Think the Republicans will still be agreeing with the decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White when Roberts comes up before the Senate? They'll probably say something like, "Oh, but that's different, Republican Party of Minnesota v. White concerned elections, not the appointment of a federal judge." But why should that make any difference?

Oyez has a brief summary of the case, an MP3 file of the oral argument, and a transcript of the oral argument.

"Judicial activism," "strict constructionism" nothing but meaningless, imprecise fluff - Scalia


MR. GILBERT: [H]e talked about his judicial philosophy. He has said that he can't talk about his judicial philosophy. He did. He said, "I'm a strict constructionist," and he criticized the Minnesota Supreme Court for being a judicial activist. But more --

JUSTICE SCALIA: What does that mean? I mean, that's so fuzzy, that doesn't mean --

MR. GILBERT: Well, but --

JUSTICE SCALIA: -- that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't say whether you're going adopt the incorporation doctrine, whether you believe in substantive due process. It is totally imprecise. It's just nothing but fluff.


 

Oyez, Oyez


Oyez.org is a great U.S. Supreme Court resource. For example, the site has a podcast, a collection of audio files from the arguments of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts before the court.

Oyez.org has extensive resources for a number of significant Supreme court cases, such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Bush v. Gore, and Roe v. Wade, including case briefs, links to full text opinions on Findlaw and MP3 files of oral arguments. Oyez.org also sells a collection of oral arguments on CD in Real Audio format.

Recently, Oyez began posting transcripts of the oral arguments in some cases. Sometimes the oral arguments contain little known facts that one can't find in the published opinion. For example, the oral argument in Roe v. Wade reveals that it was legal in Texas for a woman to perform an abortion on herself.

The State of Texas, represented by Assistant State Attorney General Jay Floyd, began its oral argument to the nine black-robed male Justices in Roe with this choice remark:

"Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Court: It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word."

Justice Potter Stewart is famous for his remark in Jacobellis v. Ohio

"I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court's decisions since Roth and Alberts, that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. "

In Roe, Stewart had this to say about freedom of choice:

JUSTICE STEWART: How do you suggest, if you're right, how do you... what procedure would you suggest for any pregnant female in the State of Texas ever to get any judicial consideration of this constitutional claim?

MR. FLOYD: Your Honor, let me answer your question with a statement, if I may. I do not believe it can be done. There are situations in which, of course as the Court knows, no remedy is provided. Now I think she makes her choice prior to the time she becomes pregnant.

That is the time of the choice. It's like, more or less, the first three or four years of our life we don't remember anything. But, once a child is born, a woman no longer has a choice, and I think pregnancy then terminates that choice.

JUSTICE STEWART: Maybe she makes her choice when she decides to live in Texas.


Wednesday, August 10, 2005

 

Dionysian Cultures Are Superior To Apollonian Cultures


Well they are, aren't they?

Onward Decadence and Bohemianism!

 

Xurely You Dzhest!


Senatorial candidate Katherine Harris (R-FL) claims the mainstream media has published altered photographs of her in an effort to cause her make-up to look buffoonish.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?