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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
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Pope's political leanings,.
From MSNBC we have this nugget about the new Pope's political leanings.
He was an important player in the American dispute last year over the church’s attitude toward Catholic politicians like Sen. John Kerry, who favor abortion rights. With one bishop saying he would deny Holy Communion to Kerry, Ratzinger helped guide the U.S. prelates’ discussion of the matter. The cardinal said that while bishops ultimately could decide to withhold the sacrament, they should meet with, teach and warn politicians first. Ratzinger also said that voters would be guilty of “cooperating in evil” if they backed a candidate specifically because he or she supports abortion rights or euthanasia.
This is not exactly a live and let live or wait and see first kind of guy. He meddles. Remember that it's not just about abortion either. I admit sometimes to feeling queasy about abortion. I don't like it but unless society is willing to help people take responsibility for children it is kind of unrealistic to ban abortion. This anti-sense push also promotes unprofessional pharmacists that refuse to dispense ordinary birth control and are against condoms. Come 2008 and if the Democrats have an abortion rights or contraception education plank in their national platform it's not hard to guess which way he'll go on this- and not be afraid to use his influence to push others as well.
[BOPnews]
9:21:49 PM 
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Teenage Wasteland.
Chris has a good post up on the latest case of immigrants abused in the name of security. Two Muslim teenage girls are in custody based on an extremely vague charge that they "plan to be suicide bombers." Officials have... [Body and Soul]
8:00:26 PM
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The biggest activist judge .
Adam Cohen in the NYT,
Psst ... Justice Scalia ... You Know, You're an Activist Judge, Too
The idea that liberal judges are advocates and partisans while judges like Justice Scalia are not is being touted everywhere these days, and it is pure myth. Justice Scalia has been more than willing to ignore the Constitution's plain language, and he has a knack for coming out on the conservative side in cases with an ideological bent. The conservative partisans leading the war on activist judges are just as inconsistent: they like judicial activism just fine when it advances their own agendas.
Justice Scalia's views on federalism - which now generally command a majority on the Supreme Court - are perhaps the clearest example of the problem with the conservative attack on judicial activism. When conservatives complain about activist judges, they talk about gay marriage and defendants' rights. But they do not mention the 11th Amendment, which has been twisted beyond its own plain words into a states' rights weapon to throw minorities, women and the disabled out of federal court.
The 11th Amendment says federal courts cannot hear lawsuits against a state brought by "Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State." But it's been interpreted to block suits by a state's own citizens - something it clearly does not say. How to get around the Constitution's express words? In a 1991 decision, Justice Scalia wrote that "despite the narrowness of its terms," the 11th Amendment has been understood by the court "to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition of our constitutional structure which it confirms." If another judge used that rationale to find rights in the Constitution, Justice Scalia's reaction would be withering. He went on, in that 1991 decision, to throw out a suit by Indian tribes who said they had been cheated by the State of Alaska.
[...]
The classic example of conservative inconsistency remains Bush v. Gore. Not only did the court's conservative bloc trample on the Florida state courts and stop the vote counting - it declared its ruling would not be a precedent for future cases. How does Justice Scalia explain that decision? In a recent New Yorker profile, he is quoted as saying, with startling candor, that "the only issue was whether we should put an end to it, after three weeks of looking like a fool in the eyes of the world." That, of course, isn't a constitutional argument - it is an unapologetic defense of judicial activism.
Among other things....
[The Sideshow]
7:59:25 PM
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Karl Rove on the Media.
Rove Decries Media Approach to Government :The media have started applying the horse race style of campaign coverage to daily reporting on government, leading to adversarial reporting that can obscure the truth just to create conflict, President Bush's chief political strategist said Monday.Excuse me if I can't work up much sympathy for a guy who has made a career of obscuring the truth to create conflict to get his guy elected. What a creep. And what a hypocrite. Besides, what fucking media is he talking about? The sorry, corporate and government Church of State run public relations propaganda outlets that have taken over our once respected newspapers, newsweeklies, and broadcast media? Guys like Karl Rove invented it. The chickens are coming home to roost.
[South Knox Bubba]
7:59:34 AM
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Public Opinion of Health Care
To help round out our series of posts on health care, I was going to survey the survey evidence about the public's opinion of their health care system in various countries. But Kevin Drum has beaten me to it: check out his post for the story. The punchline: the US ranks 14th out of 17 countries for satisfaction with health care... but Americans who receive government-provided health care (i.e. the poor and the elderly) are significantly happier with their health care than the rest of us. Kash
6:02:58 AM
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Selling out America.
Somehow I keep waiting for Republicans to care about our country and our government enough to believe that they would put their personal convictions above the Bush agenda. Steve Clemons brings us the words of the Nelson Report on what...
[The Left Coaster]
5:58:28 AM
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© Copyright
2005
Michael Mussington.
Last update:
5/1/2005; 4:29:08 AM.
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