French Increase Alert Level In Response To London Bombing

Both AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide.

The only two higher levels in France are Collaborate and Surrender. The increased security alert was precipitated by events in London and by a fire Tuesday, which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.......

French humor......gotta love it.

Durbin Vs. Turley

Get out your popcorn and lawn chairs. This is gonna be good.

Jonathan Turley, well-respected reporter/columnist kind of guy,
says that Senator Dicky Durbin told him a story about the meeting
he had with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Durbin said that
Roberts said he would recuse himself in any case in which his religious
views would interfere with the morality of the law in question.

Turley writes all of this down, calls Durbin's press secretary to confirm
and with all ok, prints the story.

Durbin (via his press secretary) all in a tither with Turley's account.

And Charles Hurt from the Washington Times gets the
scoop on it all.
Most excellent, Mr. Hurt.

Now, I have to say -- I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, that
Dick Durbin would deploy the religious litmus test................
so early in the process.

As for the kerfluffle over who said what to whom and when -- I'll take the word of the Surpeme Court nominee with the "deeply held personal beliefs" over the politician who views religious devotion as a vice, not a virtue.

I mean, come on. Durbin is the guy who compared our soldiers to Nazis. He has been so over the top on so many different subjects, it is hard to keep track.

Wendy Long also does a great job of talking about the dust-up over at Bench Memos at NRO.

You just can't win.

Ok, so 75,000 pages of documents are going to be released on Judge John Roberts from the National Archives and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Given the way the left is acting these days -- let's not mince words here -- like LUNATICS -- you just KNOW that some group like Earthjustice or the Sierra Club will stage some kind of mock funeral on the Capitol lawn for the trees that died to provide the paper for these documents.

There is no pleasing these people. On anything. Ever.

Just in case...

....you have a LOT of time on your hands....

Harry and his merry band of obstructionists!

"The bad news for the liberals is that they didn't win the presidential election, and they seem to be demanding not only a co-nomination but veto power before the president even makes the nomination," said Kay R. Daly, president of the conservative Coalition for a Fair Judiciary. "The truth of the matter is that no matter who the president nominates, Harry Reid and his merry band of obstructionists will do everything in their power to delay the nomination, smear the nominee, make outrageous demands and whine every step of the way."

From Charles Hurt's piece in the Washington Times today.....

"The MAINSTREAM Rap"

"THE MAINSTREAM RAP" -- it will be up on the CFFJ homepage as well.

If you have dialup -- here is the link for you to hear it....

With thanks to the awesome producers at RIGHTALK, where I have my
radio show "The Daly Report" on Wednesdays from 1 -2 PM Eastern ......who put this
excellent and accurate piece together.....

Kennedy's plan to leave Iraq...

Got this from a friend with a wicked, wicked sense of humor.

We HAVE to have that list of names! So says the Left....

So says Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. He wants to give a list of acceptable SCOTUS nominees to the President, he wants to see the list the President has -- the man has a list obsession.

Well, one of the names on the Dems list that they have conjured up is
Sonia Sotomayor from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (elevated by President Clinton to the Court of Appeals, but admittedly was nominated by President George H.W. Bush).

Just got an email from a friend about Sonia Sontomayor. Apparently, she was the recipient of a Family Research Center "Court Jester" award. Specifically, she was awarded the "Out-of-Order" award in 1998. Here's the inscription:

The "Out of Order Award," given to a judge who uses bizarre logic in lofty legalese to rationalize an absurd decision, went to U.S. District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners. She ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act covers a dyslexic law student who demanded unlimited time to take the New York state bar examination after failing it four times.

Been receiving some hilarious cartoons...

....on judicial nominations, etc.

I'll start putting them up here and there. Here's
one of them:

Rehnquist hospitalized

According to the Associated Press, Fox News and every other breaking news media, Chief Justice William Rehnquist has been hospitalized with a fever.

Now. That might seem like no big deal. Perhaps it isn't. But remember that he has been going through chemotherapy treatments for his thyroid cancer and that virtually eradicates the immune system. So in any other situation, one's immune system would kick in and take care of whatever bug is causing the infection and fever. With little to no immune system, however, it can literally ravage anything from your lungs with pneumonia to your blood with some kind of septic shock.

Prayers for the Chief Justice, wisdom to his doctors, restraint to the media in their rush to morbid speculation.

Favorite Schumerism of the week.

On the floor of the United States Senate yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer said the following:

“I certainly agree with the Majority Leader's point. The Senate is not a co-nominator, and it's the President who has to do the nominating.”

There ya go. Finally, I think he understands that it is not the Senate's role to dictate to the President of the United States who he should nominate. At the same time, however, Harry Reid has been running around demanding to see lists of names that the President is considering BEFORE the President makes the nomination. Reid apparently hasn't gotten the message that co-nominations and even consultation is NOWHERE in the Constitution.

Not that that has stopped them before.

Anyways, right after this admission by Schumer, he suggests that the President ought to go on a retreat with the Senators. A retreat.

I can see them now. At Camp David, around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and while munching s'mores, coming up with a list that everyone likes.

This President and his staff have called darned near every Senator on the Hill and asked for their opinion on the SCOTUS nomination. That is called "Consultation."

Nowhere in the Constitution.

But that hasn't stopped the Left from perverting the confirmation process before. The process is pretty simple. The Presdient "shall nominate" and the Senate shall give its "advise and consent." Then, presumably, there is an up or down vote.

The Left has created an entirely new process: whine, carp, complain and moan; then maybe let the President nominate someone; pitch a fit that the name isn't from their list of "acceptable nominees" who are "consensus, middle of the road, moderate" candidates; delay, deny, destroy the nominee's reputation, shred every decision, opinion, article or speck of hearsay; then use every procedural delaying tactic at their disponsal to deny an up or down vote.

So to hear Schumer say that the Senate DOESN'T have the right to "co-nominate" is a major step considering what he has turned this process into thanks to his insistence on using an ideological litmus test. (Never heard someone use the word "mainstream" more often in almost any conversation on this topic in my life.)

It's gonna be a long, hot summer here inside the Beltway, folks.

Scandanavian-Americans unite!

Given all of the "don't you think O'Connor should be replaced by a woman" questions I have been peppered with by the media, I think it is getting a bit silly.

Last time I checked, there are no "labels" on those august seats at the Court. Having a uterus is not a qualification to be a Supreme Court justice, last time I checked.

If that is the case, however, I suppose those of Swedish descent should be eagerly looking to Rehnquist's retirement with great anticipation. According to historical record, Rehnquist is one of only two folks of Scandanavian descent to serve on the Court. So. Scandanavian Americans, this is your chance!

It's true! I heard it from a third cousin who rotates the tires for one of Rehnquist's clerk's brothers....

The number and amount of rumors hitting Washington from Rehnquist resigning any moment to Stevens deciding to resign are truly amazing.

I am convinced that someone has dropped LSD into the DC water supply.

Rehnquist-watch is in full high alert, with cameras trained on his every move, whether or not he is "dressed to impress" for a press conference, what level of activity is going on at the Supreme Court press office and who is hiring what number of clerks for the following year.

Look, friends. The game in Washington is not "who has the information" but "who has the information FIRST."

In this case, it is Rehnquist. And frankly, I think he is enjoying this with absolute gusto!

Columns/news on SCOTUS vacancy

Robert Novak: Supreme Court politics-
Thomas Sowell: Judicial havoc: Part II-
Suzanne Fields: Eternal vigilance is the price-
Ross Mackenzie: Now is no time for Bush to relent-
Cathy Cleaver Ruse: The threatening six-
Ann Coulter: Reagan's biggest mistake finally retires-
Hugh Hewitt: The circus comes to town-
LA Times: Nomination may prove a deal-breaker-
Washington Post: Bush answers Gonzales critics-
Washington Times: Anxious Gonzales courts the right-
CS Monitor: Court nominees will trigger rapid response

From Judge Bork's opening statement - 9/15/87

The judge's authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his personal values. That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority of the electorate or of their representatives voted for.

The judge, to deserve that trust and that authority, must be every bit as governed by law as is the Congress, the President, the state governors and legislatures, and the American people. No one, including a judge, can be above the law. Only in that way will justice be done and the freedom of Americans assured.

How should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is by attempting to discern what those who made the law intended. The intentions of the lawmakers govern whether the lawmakers are the Congress of the United States enacting a statute or whether they are those who ratified our Constitution and its various amendments.

Where the words are precise and the facts simple, that is a relatively easy task. Where the words are general, as is the case with some of the most profound protections of our liberties—in the Bill of Rights and in the Civil War Amendments—the task is far more complex. It is to find the principle or value that was intended to be protected and to see that it is protected.

As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility “is to discern how the Framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know.”

If a judge abandons intention as his guide, there is no law available to him and he begins to legislate a social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his legitimate power.
He or she then diminishes liberty instead of enhancing it. That is why I agree with Judge Learned Hand, one of the great jurists in our history, when he wrote that the judge's "authority and his immunity depend upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouths of others: The momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command if it is to do the work assigned to it—if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate."

To state that another way, the judge must speak with the authority of the past to the present.
The past, however, includes not only the intentions of those who first made the law, it also includes those past judges who interpreted it and applied it in prior cases. That is why a judge must have great respect for precedence. It is one thing as a legal theorist to criticize the reasoning of a prior decision, even to criticize it severely, as I have done. It is another and more serious thing altogether for a judge to ignore or overturn a prior decision. That requires much careful thought.

Times come, of course, when even a venerable precedent can and should be overruled. The primary example of a proper overruling is Brown against the Board of Education, the case which outlawed racial segregation accomplished by government action. Brown overturned the rule of separate but equal laid down 58 years before in Plessy against Ferguson. Yet Brown, delivered with the authority of a unanimous Court, was clearly correct and represents perhaps the greatest moral achievement of our constitutional law.

Nevertheless, overruling should be done sparingly and cautiously. Respect for precedent is a part of the great tradition of our law, just as is fidelity to the intent of those who ratified the Constitution and enacted our statutes. That does not mean that constitutional law is static. It will evolve as judges modify doctrine to meet new circumstances and new technologies. Thus, today we apply the First Amendment's guarantee of the freedom of the press to radio and television, and we apply to electronic surveillance the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of privacy for the individual against unreasonable searches of his or her home.

I can put the matter no better than I did in an opinion on my present court. Speaking of the judge's duty, I wrote:

"The important thing, the ultimate consideration, is the constitutional freedom that is given into our keeping. A judge who refuses to see new threats to an established constitutional value and hence provides a crabbed interpretation that robs a provision of its full, fair and reasonable meaning, fails in his judicial duty. That duty, I repeat, is to ensure that the powers and freedoms the Framers specified are made effective in today's circumstances."

But I should add to that passage that when a judge goes beyond this and reads entirely new values into the Constitution, values the Framers and the ratifiers did not put there, he deprives the people of their liberty. That liberty, which the Constitution clearly envisions, is the liberty of the people to set their own social agenda through the processes of democracy.

Conservative judges frustrated that process in the mid-1930s by using the concept they had invented, the Fourteenth Amendment's supposed guarantee of a liberty of contract, to strike down laws designed to protect workers and labor unions. That was wrong then and it would be wrong now.

My philosophy of judging, Mr. Chairman, as you pointed out, is neither liberal nor conservative. It is simply a philosophy of judging which gives the Constitution a full and fair interpretation but, where the Constitution is silent, leaves the policy struggles to the Congress, the President, the legislatures and executives of the 50 states, and to the American people.

I welcome this opportunity to come before the Committee and answer whatever questions the members may have. I am quite willing to discuss with you my judicial philosophy and the approach I take to deciding cases. I cannot, of course, commit myself as to how I might vote on any particular case and I know you would not wish me to do that.

Alliance for Justice attacks Sen. Fred Thompson.

Ok, so it isn't just the nominee that the Left will go after -- it's going to be Senator Fred Thompson as well, who today was chosen to shepherd the President's nominee through the confirmation process.

Good to know that their venom knows no bounds.

How ironic is it that the feminists are marching in TN?

.....since it is the state in which a REPUBLICAN legislator gave women the one vote margin needed to pass the amendment for women's suffrage.

Feminists on the march.....in TN????

That's right, the gals at NOW, Feminist Majority, et.al. are at a feminist confab in TN. Caught completely off guard by the O'Connor retirement, they are "marching on the capital" in TN today to protest.....I guess.....O'Connor leaving......

Kinda hard to know what they are protesting about, given that there isn't even a nominee yet!

Sometimes I think they protest just to protest.

Recent Supreme Ct. confirmation timetables

From vacancy to justice: recent Supreme Court timetables

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fri July 1, 2005 10:53 EDT

The timetables for some recent appointments, from resignation of justices to confirmation of successors:

_Sandra Day O'Connor filled the vacancy created by the retirement of Potter Stewart. The court's term ended on July 2, 1981. Stewart had announced his plans to retire on June 18. President Reagan nominated O'Connor on July 7. Her first confirmation hearing was Sept. 9, and the Senate confirmed her on Sept. 21.

_William Rehnquist, who had been named to the Supreme Court by President Nixon in 1972, was elevated to chief justice in 1986 with the retirement of Warren E. Burger. The court's term ended on July 7, 1986. Burger had announced his decision on June 17, and Reagan tapped Rehnquist on the same day. Rehnquist's first confirmation hearing was July 29, and the Senate confirmed him on Sept. 17.

_Antonin Scalia filled the vacancy created by Rehnquist's elevation. Burger's announcement was made on June 17, 1986, and Reagan nominated Scalia the same day. Scalia's first hearing was Aug. 5, and the Senate confirmed him on Sept. 17.

_Anthony M. Kennedy was Reagan's second choice after the Senate rejected Robert H. Bork on Oct. 23, 1987. The court term had ended on June 26, and Lewis F. Powell announced his retirement the same day. On July 1, Reagan nominated Bork, but strong opposition in the Senate torpedoed the selection. Reagan nominated Kennedy on Nov. 11, his first hearing was Dec. 14, and the Senate confirmed him on Feb. 3, 1988.

_David H. Souter filled the vacancy created by the retirement of William J. Brennan. The court's term ended on June 27, 1990, and Brennan announced his plans on July 21. President George H.W. Bush nominated Souter on July 23. His first hearing was Sept. 13, and the Senate confirmed him on Oct. 2.

_Clarence Thomas filled the vacancy created by the retirement of Thurgood Marshall. The court's term ended on June 27, 1991, and Marshall announced his retirement the same day. Bush nominated Thomas on July 1. His first confirmation hearing was Sept. 10, and the Senate confirmed him on Oct. 15.

_Ruth Bader Ginsburg filled the vacancy created by Byron White's retirement. The court term ended on June 28, 1993. White had announced his plans to retire on March 19, and President Clinton nominated Ginsburg on June 14. Her first confirmation hearing was July 20, and the Senate confirmed her on Aug. 3.

_Stephen Breyer filled the vacancy created by Harry Blackmun's retirement. The court's term ended on June 30, 1994, and Blackmun had announced his plans to retire on April 6. Clinton announced the nomination of Breyer on May 14. Breyer's first hearing was July 12, and the Senate confirmed him on July 29.