P.S. Dogs aren't accessories.
Clenis!
As is their wont, Bush defenders have decided to discuss Clinton’s alleged misdeeds regarding warrantless eavesdropping instead of Bush’s. (Joe Conason’s latest column discusses the issue and explains the difference between then—1994, btw—and now.)
For a moment, let’s hypothesize that Clinton did exactly the same thing Bush did, but just didn’t get caught. (That’s not true, but let’s just say it, anyway.) Here’s the thing: I don’t fucking care. And it’s not because I love Clinton (because I don’t), or because he’s a liberal (which he isn’t), or any other reason in the same neighborhood as blind allegiance to the Clenis. It’s because he’s not the president anymore! And he hasn’t been for five bloody years! And I don’t give a tiny drip of dogwank what any former president did or didn’t do when it has nothing to do with what the current president is doing now. What Clinton did about wiretapping in 1994 has about as much to do with what Bush is doing about wiretapping now as pickled pigs’ feet have to do with supernovas. As it happens, I don’t care what Bush Sr. or Reagan did about wiretapping, either.
Give it a rest already. Yeesh.
The Sanctity of Mail Order Marriage
Amanda’s got an interesting post on how a new act—the International Marriage Broker Act—has been attached to the Violence Against Women Act in an attempt to help protect women who find themselves in a violent marriage after marrying an American man through a mail order bride service (and how it won’t help nearly as much as providing equal opportunities to women throughout the world would).
Mr. Shakes came to America on a fiancé visa, the same provision of the immigration code under which mail order brides emigrate. We decided to do our visa application on our own, although the traditional way is hiring an attorney who, for a sum starting around $1,500, will put together the entire package for you. It was a huge undertaking; the paperwork is voluminous and the forms can be confusing. I had to do a lot of online research, and in the process, unavoidably came across legions of mail-order bride sites, brokering relationships on the back of misogynist assumptions (of both the foreign brides-to-be and the American woman to whom they are meant to provide an “antidote”) and a significant status disparity between the two parties. It was disturbing stuff.
One of the requirements Mr. Shakes and I had to meet as part of the visa application was proving we had met in person at least once in the previous two years. No problem for us; we traveled back and forth as often as we could. But the requirement wasn’t designed for couples like us; it was designed for men who were importing mail-order brides, women they had never met face to face at all. The requirement, however, doesn’t do much for legitimizing these marriages. The marriage brokers advertised quite plainly on their sites that, after choosing a bride, men could make a quick trip, have a dated picture taken with her, and that was that. Some of them even included in their fees the option of having one’s pictures taken with multiple women—in case Choice #1 didn’t work out, Choice #2 could be seamlessly substituted.
Not all men treat mail order brides as chattel. I did see personal websites of couples who went through marriage brokers and seemed to have developed a genuine relationship. Usually older men who, by their own admission, were awkward or shy or unattractive, and who felt a mail order bride was their best hope. Younger women who, by their own admission, just wanted a better life, and felt like they hit the jackpot by meeting such a wonderful guy. Stories of their wedding, her job hunting, their children’s births. Pictures of happy families.
But those are by far the exception and not the rule. Those guys aren’t marriage brokers’ bread and butter. Their bread and butter are angry, bitter misogynists, hostile toward independent women, in search of a compliant, submissive wife-servant, all wrapped up in a beautiful, exotic package. That her friends and family will be thousands of miles away is just the cherry on top—all the easier to control you, my dear. Mail order marriage is a business, with enviable profits, and the brides are product. A mail order bride is as likely to meet a man she loves as a hooker is to be swept off her feet by Richard Gere.
In most cases, sadly, mail order marriages are little more than legal human trafficking, a state of affairs that most brokers barely bother to try to spin otherwise. Thousands of women enter the country this way every year, and yet when was the last time a Constitutional amendment was proposed to criminalize this farce of marriage?
I can't imagine that the sanctity of marriage advocates really believe these are healthy marriages. Instead, I suspect they just don't have much interest in preventing a practice that sublimates women more handily than anything their 30+-year push to legislate deference has managed to accomplish.
Blue Tribune
Chicago is, to put it mildly, a fairly quirky political town. It has a well-known history of corruption, which hasn't actually faded into history. Chicagoans assume City Hall is corrupt, no matter who (or whose son) is occupying it; they expect regularly scheduled stories about kickbacks and nepotism—and they don’t particularly care, as long as the trains are on time. Corruption is regarded as the price of running the Windy City well, and so there’s a high tolerance and forgiving attitude about the occasional scandal. (The governor’s mansion is a different matter with a different set of expectations altogether.)
Another bit of oddity is that even though Chicago is a resolutely blue town, the Chicago Tribune is a conservative paper. So it’s rather startling to see a column by conservative Steve Chapman (former writer for The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, and National Review, among others, and Alito apologist) bashing the administration:
President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.Ouch. And it just gets worse.
He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
What we have now is not a robust executive but a reckless one. At times like this, it's apparent that Cheney and Bush want more power not because they need it to protect the nation, but because they want more power. Another paradox: In their conduct of the war on terror, they expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it.When the Trib gets this itchy, you know Bush is in trouble.
Statehouses Up For Grabs
A Wall Street Journal piece previews the challenges for Republicans in next year's gubernatorial races. "Republicans hold 28 seats overall, including 22 of the 36 up for election. In pivotal states such as Ohio, Florida, California and Colorado, they are girding for battles."It’s the math, is it? Well, okay…I guess I can see that.
"Republican gubernatorial struggles are only somewhat related to the party's other national problems: President Bush's weakened standing, policy setbacks, intraparty bickering and ethics scandals. At least eight Republican governors aren't seeking re-election because of term limits or other reasons." Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), chairman of the Republican governor's association, "predicts Democrats could win between three to six of those seats."
Said Romney: "The math is not in our favor this cycle."
1 terrible GOP administration
+ 1 out of control GOP Congress
= FU2
Customer Disservice
I just got off the phone with my girlfriend Miller, who is just one of my absolute favorite people on the planet, and just had her second run-in with obnoxious retailers in as many weeks. The first was when she made a call to a shop in Florida she came across online, which makes specialty wallets. She was looking to get a Pulp Fiction-style “Bad Ass Motherfucker” wallet for someone, and her order was rejected by the proprietor, who told her, “Ma’am, I just can’t produce an item with those kinds of cuss words on it.”
Miller, who has never had much interest in politics, and is by no means a radical lefty, went off on a tear about conservatives that scorched the phone in my hand, although I think she was really most offended by the fact that someone had the temerity to use the term “cuss words” in adult conversation.
Today, she told me about purchasing 8 wine glasses at Crate & Barrel, to which she had received a gift certificate from her employer. She brought the glasses to the counter to ask if they would hold them while she finished her shopping, so they wouldn’t get broken, and was told no by three rather snooty cashiers.
“No?”
“No, we’re not doing that today. We’re too busy.” (Said the three cashiers at one counter, none of whom were assisting any customers.)
“Fine, I’ll just buy these then.” No further sale.
She was then told, upon requesting a box, that they “aren’t boxing today.” Apparently, the management had given their staff the ability to refuse holding and boxing purchases because they expected to be quite busy, but failed to consider that at least some of their staff would not have the common sense to realize some items—such as $100 of fragile flutes—still necessitate boxing for transport.
After noticing that Miller was the only customer for miles (and being on the receiving end of a gobsmacked, “Are you serious?” from said customer), one of them finally offered to box the glasses for her.
“And the irony is, it’s Boxing Day,” I said.
Wah wah wah.
485 Children Still Missing 4 Months After Katrina
And FEMA’s at the center of the controversy. Again. Go read Scout Prime, who’s got the story.
I’d like to think this isn’t as bad as it sounds, but recent history does not bode well for such hopefulness.
Powell the Disappointer
Continuing his slide into disgrace and eventual irrelevance by chipping away at his own backbone out both sides of his mouth, Colin Powell has decided to come out as both sort of for and sort of against the administration’s secret spy program. Or, perhaps more accurately, clever enough to acknowledge it wasn’t lawful, but hackish enough to defend the administration, anyway.
"My own judgment is that it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants," Mr. Powell said. "And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it. The law provides for that."Mr. Shakes—bring me a neck brace, stat! I’ve suddenly got a nasty case of whiplash.
But Mr. Powell added that "for reasons that the president has discussed and the attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way."
"I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions," he said.
Asked if such eavesdropping should continue, Mr. Powell said, "Yes, of course it should continue."
Powell also noted he had not been told of the program while he was serving as Bush’s Secretary of State, which is, of course, no surprise at all, considering that Powell was never part of that particular in-club. The only thing that I find surprising is his insistence on remaining even remotely loyal to the Bushies. I’ll never understand why an honorable man who dedicated his life to serving this country would compromise both his own personal integrity and the fate of the nation by becoming a useless hack for this particular collection of bandits.
I’ve Been Tagged…
…by Coturnix with the seven times seven meme. So here goes.
Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. Live life well.
2. Make sure Mr. Shakes feels loved and appreciated every day.
3. Never pass up an opportunity to tell someone I love that I love them.
4. Read as much as I can.
5. Write as much as I can.
6. Become fluent in several more languages.
7. Run for president and win. (Of the Morrissey fan club*—what did you think I meant?)
Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Vote for a conservative.
2. Give up caffiene.
3. Act—I’m a total plank.
4. Play Rachmaninov—my hands are too small.
5. See anything but blobs without my glasses (or contacts).
6. Juggle more than two items.
7. Play any sport extremely well.
Seven Things That Attract Me to...Blogging
1. The people involved in blogging—other bloggers, commenters.
2. Another excuse to write.
3. Reading lots of interesting stuff every day.
4. Catharsis.
5. Exchange of ideas.
6. Helps me improve my paltry programming skills.
7. Endless possibilities.
Seven Things I Say Most Often
1. Babel.
2. Wev. (My shortened form of “whatever.”)
3. Fuck.
4. Totally.
5. Get stuffed.
6. What? (Because I’m deaf in one ear.)
7. HAHAHAHAHAHA! (Approximation of my loud horse laugh.)
Seven Books That I Love
1. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
2. A Tale of Two Cities
3. The Secret History
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany
5. Beloved
6. Parts Unknown
7. Life of Pi
Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again
1. Lord of the Rings trilogy (cheat)
2. All the Star Wars films (cheat)
3. Garden State
4. Harold and Maude
5. Love Actually
6. The Indiana Jones films (cheat)
7. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Seven People I Want To Join In Too
1-7. Anyone who wants to—and if you do, let me know in comments!
-----------------
* I'm not really in the Morrissey fan club.
NSA Program: Vast Data Mine; Much Larger Than White House Admitted
It’s like a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting…and knitting…and knitting. The basics of the newest revelation: The NSA traced and analyzed internet and telephone communications both coming in and going out of the US by “tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries,” making the volume of information surveilled without warrants much larger than the White House has acknowledged.
American telecom companies have the NSA backdoor access to “streams of domestic and international communications,” so that they might, in addition to eavesdropping, find patterns in communications that might highlight suspicious activity: “who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages.”
This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.Remember the ricin bust that happened in north London in 2003? The location of that bust was blocks away from the home of a close friend of mine, someone to whom I speak on a daily basis by internet and at least weekly by phone. Did communications emanating from that area or placed to that area subsequently get higher scrutiny? Were our conversations listened to? I hope our discussions of faucets and habitual recitation of Woody Allen lines provided some amusement.
[…]
A former technology manager at a major telecommunications company said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
"All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there's been much more active involvement in that area," said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.
Such information often proves just as valuable to the government as eavesdropping on the calls themselves, the former manager said.
"If they get content, that's useful to them too, but the real plum is going to be the transaction data and the traffic analysis," he said. "Massive amounts of traffic analysis information - who is calling whom, who is in Osama Bin Laden's circle of family and friends - is used to identify lines of communication that are then given closer scrutiny."
To be honest, more concerning to me than being listened to is the coercion and resulting complicity of telecom companies to aid the administration in its end-run around existing surveillance laws:
Coincidentally (ahem), one of the FISA court’s recent concerns has been their legal authority over calls outside the US that happen to pass through American-based telephonic switches.Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States' communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.
The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.
One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.
[…]Historically, the American intelligence community has had close relationships with many communications and computer firms and related technical industries. But the N.S.A.'s backdoor access to major telecommunications switches on American soil with the cooperation of major corporations represents a significant expansion of the agency's operational capability, according to current and former government officials.
Phil Karn, a computer engineer and technology expert at a major West Coast telecommunications company, said access to such switches would be significant. "If the government is gaining access to the switches like this, what you're really talking about is the capability of an enormous vacuum operation to sweep up data," he said.
"There was a lot of discussion about the switches" in conversations with the court, a Justice Department official said, referring to the gateways through which much of the communications traffic flows. "You're talking about access to such a vast amount of communications, and the question was, How do you minimize something that's on a switch that's carrying such large volumes of traffic? The court was very, very concerned about that."No wonder the Bush administration decided to render them impotent by virtue of exclusion from the process. Can’t have a court concerned with a little thing like the law get in one’s way.
(Crossposted at Ezra's place.)
Happy Holidays
It’s getting a bit late in the day, and so before everyone disappears for the weekend and the holidays, I wanted to wish you all oodles of joy and best wishes. Whatever you are celebrating or not celebrating, I hope you enjoy yourself and stay safe and healthy.
(I’ll be around; in a theme continuing from Thanksgiving, we’re celebrating a week late this year.)
Much love,
Melissa
aka Shakes
Radiating Good Will
Not only does this seem very dubiously legal, but it doesn’t even seem like a particularly effective idea:
In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.Yes, but if a delivery man isn’t actually delivering anything, and just hangs about with no legitimate reason to be there, it’s called trespassing. If that’s the best defense they’ve got, it’s not much of one.
[…]
The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.
[…]
"The targets were almost all U.S. citizens," says the source. "A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal."
The question of search warrants is controversial, however. To ensure accurate readings, in up to 15 percent of the cases the monitoring needed to take place on private property, sources say, such as on mosque parking lots and private driveways. Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. "If a delivery man can access it, so can we," says one.
Meanwhile, monitoring radiation levels does absolutely nothing to protect against the use of, say, C-4. And monitoring Muslims does absolutely nothing to protect against guys like this.
When, oh when, will it become patently obvious to the American electorate that these douchebags have no fucking clue about effectual national security or domestic civil liberties, and instead just randomly shoot buckshot everywhere and hope they hit something—and if an innocent bystander, or a dearly held right, is made a casualty in the process…oh, well. That’s the price of freedom.
Movie Recommendation
I watched a great movie last night: The Girl in the Café. It wasn’t a theatrical release; I think it may have just been an HBO movie. (I checked for the Netflixers among us, and yes, it’s available for rental.) The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis, who is probably one of the best television and screenwriters working today, contributing to Black Adder, Mr. Bean, and The Vicar of Dibley series, and writing the screenplays for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, both Bridget Joneses, and Love Actually. He is a splendid writer of dialogue and has a keen eye for teasing out the most interesting bits of relationships of all sorts—romantic couplings, family ties, friendships.
Every time we talk about movies, his work comes up—usually Four Weddings and Love Actually, and so I wanted to mention The Girl in the Café. It’s got all the things fans of those films love about his work (and it also stars Bill Nighy, who played aging rocker Billy Mack in the latter), and has the additional draw of being a political film. Nighy plays a civil servant who works for Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as the story begins, they are preparing for the G8 Summit in Reykjavik. The lion’s share of the story takes place with the Summit as a backdrop, and I won’t spoil anything by giving away any more details than that.
I just adored it. And, honestly, I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in seeing a great, unabashedly liberal political film, too.
Dick
After a four-day overseas trip that took him to four countries in the Middle East, Vice President Dick Cheney really wanted to get his iPod charged for that long return flight to Washington.His plane? His plane?! Uh, no. Air Force Two is America’s plane. It belongs to the taxpayers whose money paid for it—not Dick Cheney. He might want and expect the American taxpayer to hand over to him every last thing their money has bought and paid for, and he might have had some serious success by way of Halliburton stock options, but he doesn’t own Air Force Two yet. It isn’t his bloody plane. And all of us, including him, would do well to remember that there’s a difference between America—and what it owns—and the administration. I hope this country will still be here long after the cretins currently at its helm are dead and gone.
Since it is his plane, the vice president's iPod took priority and was plugged into one of the only working power outlets on Air Force Two, frustrating reporters who were trying to file stories.
There’s an Easier Way…
I would like to officially call a moratorium on television commercials that use the “There’s an easier way…” premise. They drive me berserk.
I think the concept started in the marketing of cleaning products. And many years ago, they were tolerable. The stock harried housewife would be using some old-school cleaning product to scrub some surface, and then she’d be given the new product, only to declare it so much easier, then throw her old product in the garbage. Fair enough.
Now the concept is used to sell everything, and, in what I can only assume is an attempt to be “funny,” the marketing geniuses behind these adverts show someone doing something in a way no one does them. Instead of the stock harried housewife using an old-school cleaning product, it’s now the equivalent a woman lighting a cigarette with a blowtorch and setting her kids on fire. “There’s an easier way—ABC Lighters!” Or a man looks at his pictures of his son’s soccer games, but the album is, sadly, just full of CDs holding digital images, rather than any pictures. “There’s an easier way—Joe’s Pharmacy digital prints!”
No one was lighting cigarettes with a blowtorch or putting CDs in a photo album before ABC Lighters or Joe’s Pharmacy got the technology to print digital pictures. No one was finding themselves unable of detangling wet hair, or shaving, or brushing their teeth, or applying lipstick without smearing it all over their faces, or taking out the garbage, or drinking hot beverages without spilling them, or doing any one of a number of everyday things without the task resulting in some catastrophe before the miracle products to prevent such tragedies came along.
The actual commercial that finally broke this camel’s back was advertising a laser level. Better than this other stinking laser level that left its users with a crooked mantel. To demonstrate how crooked the shelf was, and thereby how crappy other laser levels are, the bowling ball the couple has put on their mantel rolls off the tilted shelf into their aquarium, which then shatters on the floor. No one puts a bowling ball on a mantel!!! And neither of them make a move to try to catch the ball; they just stand there and watch it happen. It’s so absurd that it drives me bonkers every time I see it.
Enough. Find a new hook. I am declaring “the easier way” dead.
Friday Blogrollin'
Stop by and say hello to…
(new home of Gary, who previously
authored American Regression)
Thoughts That Get Stuck in My Head
Marginal Notes
Healthy Policy
Daily Dissent
The Refugees
Meanwhile, Back at the (Exploding) Ranch...
Rumsfeld Says U.S. to Cut Iraq Troop Levels
FALLUJAH, Iraq - Just days after Iraq's elections, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday announced the first of what is likely to be a series of U.S. combat troop drawdowns in Iraq in 2006.
Rumsfeld, addressing U.S. troops at this former insurgent stronghold, said President Bush has authorized new cuts below the 138,000 level that has prevailed for most of this year.
Rumsfeld did not reveal the exact size of the cut, but the Pentagon said the reductions would be about 7,000 troops, about the size of two combat brigades. The Pentagon has not announced a timetable for troop reductions, but indications are that the force could be cut significantly by the end of 2006.
My, what interesting timing. Those in-the-crapper approval ratings are finally starting to make you bastards nervous, eh? Or is there another reason that you're suddenly getting your shit together?
That could include substantial reductions well before the November midterm congressional elections, in which Bush's war policies seem certain to be a major issue.
Ah.
Well, at least we can feel confident about this, right? After all, you guys are always insisting that everything's hunky-dory in Iraq, and now that the elections are done, it's a virtual paradise, right? Those purple fingers were the magic wands that made everything there all better, right? Right?
Iraquis March, Say Elections were Rigged
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Large demonstrations broke out across the country Friday to denounce parliamentary elections that protesters called rigged in favor of the main religious Shiite coalition.
In Baghdad, unknown assailants kidnapped a Sudanese diplomat and five other men as they left prayers at a mosque, a spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry said. An Iraqi Foreign Ministry official said he had not heard of the abduction.
As many as 20,000 people demonstrated after noon prayers in southern Baghdad Friday, many carrying banners decrying last week's elections. Many Iraqis outside the religious Shiite coalition allege that the elections were unfair to smaller Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups.
"We refuse the cheating and forgery in the elections," one banner read.
Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidaei of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a major Sunni clerical group, told followers during Friday prayers at Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque that they were "living a conspiracy built on lies and forgery."
"You have to be ready during these hard times and combat forgeries and lies for the sake of Islam," he said.
The U.S. military said two soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Baghdad Friday. No other details were released. At least 2,163 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Well, Fuck.
(Like the circles that you find...in the cross-posts of your mind...)
Stock up on Dramamine
Because the frantic spinning on this baby is sure to make you sick as a dog. (Bolds mine)
Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in a June 1985 memo that the ruling that legalized abortion should be overturned, a position certain to spur tough questioning at January's confirmation hearings.
We can only hope. I'm crossing my fingers for very tough questioning, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe we'll luck out and he'll never make it that far.
In a recommendation to the solicitor general on filing a friend-of-court brief, Alito said the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled."
The June 3, 1985 document was one of 45 released by the National Archives on Friday. A total of 744 pages were made public.
The memo contained the same Alito statements as one dated May 30, 1985, which the National Archives released in November — but with a forward note from Reagan administration Solicitor General Charles Fried acknowledging the volatility of the issue and saying that it had to be kept quiet.
Well, gee, why would they want to be so sneaky?
In paperwork released earlier from Alito's time in the Justice Department's solicitor general's office, he recommended a legal strategy of dismantling abortion rights piece by piece. And as part of an application for a job as deputy assistant attorney general, Alito said the Constitution does not guarantee abortion rights.
Uh-huh.
In the memo, Alito focused on a woman making an informed choice and states rights.
"While abortion involves essentially the same medical choice as other surgery, it involves in addition a moral choice, because the woman contemplating a first trimester abortion is given absolute and unreviewable authority over the future of the fetus," Alito wrote. "Should not then the woman be given relevant and objective information bearing on this choice? Roe took from the state lawmakers the authority to make this choice and gave it to the pregnant woman. Does it not follow that the woman contemplating abortion have at her disposal at least some of the same sort of information that we would want lawmakers to consider?"
Consistent with his previous writings, Alito said these arguments would be preferable to a "frontal assault on Roe v. Wade."
"Informed" choices. Uh-huh. "Objective information." Yeah. So who gets to write this "objective information" and "inform" women?
You know what? Whoever this person is, I bet he has one of these on his bumper:
(Yes, "he." You don't actually think they'd let a woman near this, do you?)
I love these "less government" Republicans that have no problem with government control over the bodies and choices of women.
In his memo, Alito said the government, in its argument, might be able to nudge the court and "to provide greater recognition of the states' interest in protecting the unborn throughout pregnancy, or to dispel in part the mystical faith in the attending physician that supports Roe and the subsequent cases."
Say. No. More.
(Cross-Poster, wider than a mile... I'm crossing you in style someday...)
