Letter from Hillary Clinton regarding John Roberts' Nomination

I send a lot of email to Hillary Clinton regarding state and national issues -- as she is my US Senator. This is an email I got from her today regarding how she's going to vote in the matter of the nomination of John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Because you have shared with me your concerns regarding the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States, I am sending to you in its entirety my statement announcing my decision to vote against his confirmation. I hope that you will read the statement with the same care and thoughtfulness that I gave to this decision. My statement follows.

* * * * * * *

The nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States is a matter of tremendous consequence for future generations of Americans. It requires thoughtful inquiry and debate, and I commend my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee for their dedication to making sure that all questions were presented and that those outside of the Senate had the opportunity to make their voices heard. After serious and careful consideration of the Committee proceedings and Judge Roberts's writings, I believe I must vote against his confirmation. I do not believe that the Judge has presented his views with enough clarity and specificity for me to in good conscience cast a vote on his behalf.

The Constitution commands that the Senate provide meaningful advice and consent to the President on judicial nominations, and I have an obligation to my constituents to make sure that I cast my vote for Chief Justice of the United States for someone I am convinced will be steadfast in protecting fundamental women's rights, civil rights, privacy rights, and who will respect the appropriate separation of powers among the three branches. After the Judiciary Hearings, I believe the record on these matters has been left unclear. That uncertainly means as a matter of conscience, I cannot vote to confirm despite Judge Roberts's long history of public service.

In one memo, for example, Judge Roberts argued that Congress has the power to deny the Supreme Court the right to hear appeals from lower courts of constitutional claims involving flag burning, abortion, and other matters. He wrote that the United States would be far better off with fifty different interpretations on the right to choose than with what he called the "judicial excesses embodied in Roe v. Wade." The idea that the Supreme Court could be denied the right to rule on constitutional claims had been so long decided that even the most conservative of Judge Roberts's Justice Department colleagues strongly disagreed with him.

When questioned about his legal memoranda, Judge Roberts claimed they did not necessarily reflect his views and that he was merely making the best possible case for his clients or responding to a superior's request that he make a particular argument. But he did not clearly disavow the strong and clear views he expressed, but only shrouded them in further mystery. Was he just being an advocate for a client or was he using his position to advocate for positions he believed in? The record is unclear.

It is hard to believe he has no opinion on so many critical issues after years as a Justice Department and White House lawyer, appellate advocate and judge. His supporters remind us that Chief Justice Rehnquist supported the constitutionality of legal segregation before his elevation to the high court, but never sought to bring it back while serving the court system as its Chief Justice. But I would also remind them of Justice Thomas's assertion in his confirmation hearing that he had never even discussed Roe v. Wade, much less formed an opinion on it. Shortly after he ascended to the Court, Justice Thomas made it clear that he wanted to repeal Roe.

Adding to testimony that clouded more than clarified is that we in the Senate have been denied the full record of Judge Roberts's writings despite our repeated requests. Combined, these two events have left a question mark on what Judge Roberts's views are and how he might rule on critical questions of the day. It is telling that President Bush has said the Justices he most admires are the two most conservative justices, Justices Thomas and Scalia. It is not unreasonable to believe that the President has picked someone in Judge Roberts whom he believes holds a similarly conservative philosophy, and that voting as a bloc they could further limit the power of the Congress, expand the purview of the Executive, and overturn key rulings like Roe v. Wade.

Since I expect Judge Roberts to be confirmed, I hope that my concerns are unfounded and that he will be the kind of judge he said he would be during his confirmation hearing. If so, I will be the first to acknowledge it. However, because I think he is far more likely to vote the views he expressed in his legal writings, I cannot give my consent to his confirmation and will, therefore, vote against his confirmation. My desire to maintain the already fragile Supreme Court majority for civil rights, voting rights and women's rights outweigh the respect I have for Judge Roberts's intellect, character, and legal skills.

* * * * * *

Thank you for writing. For updates on this and other important issues being discussed before the United States Senate, please check my website at http://clinton.senate.gov.

Sincerely yours,
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Asshole

A video worth watching. Be sure your speakers aren't too loud if you're at work. Some
asshole might take offense.

An earlier version, just as good, if not better, can be seen


here.

Yep, them heteros do a bang-up better job than us homasexshuls

Chimpy, in all his worldliness, contends that children fare better in a home raised by opposite gendered parents. Yet, he has twin daughters with underaged drinking arrests, one with a shoplifting arrest and his brother, Jeb, has a crack-head daughter with several arrests and contempt of court citations (for leaving rehab and/or doing drugs while in rehab). She was also arrested for trying to pass a forged Xanax prescription. The latest news shows Jeb's son arrested for public drunkenness and resisting arrest. Governor Bush's comments:

"My son's doing fine. It's a private matter. We will support him. We're sad for him. But I'm not going to discuss it on the public square with 30 cameras," the governor told reporters.

What a putz. Yeah, I'm sure he's sad because the frickin' kids are making the father and their uncle look like the clowns they are.

Yeah, Chimpy, keep pressing for that "protect marriage" amendment to the constitution. I can't think of a better quote to toss out there than Bill Maher's closing dialogue from last week:

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "

HEAR! HEAR!

There Is No Compassion In Conservatism
by Libby Post

In a stunning act of contrition, George W. Bush actually took responsibility for a job done poorly. For the first time in his presidency, he admitted the fallibility of the loose confederation of political cronies he calls his administration.

Poor George. There’s no “Mission Accomplished” photo op for him here. No battleship background with thousands of adoring naval boys cheering him on as he gives the nation a “thumbs up” on our fumbling war on terror.

Now the only backdrop for George is a devastated toxic hot-zone of a city where the mostly African-American poor were left to fight their own war on terror while George, Dick, Donald and Condoleeza all fiddled as New Orleans drowned. With his approval rating at below 40 percent, the nation is giving the Commander a “thumbs down.”

As he scurries to reclaim the dry ground and fend off the Herbert Hoover-type legacy that will be his presidency, Bush looks to neo-conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute for ideas on how to rebuild the Big Easy. These are the same folks who helped to shape his domestic policies-like dismantling Social Security and destroying the environment. But hey, why not leave the responsibility to rebuild in the hands of “private entrepreneurial activity and vision” as the Heritage Foundation’s website says. After all, if there’s a buck to be made, George’s friends will be there with their hands out for no-bid contracts just as they’re with us now to bank our hard-earned paychecks as we pay over $3.00 for a gallon of gas.

The federal response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina exposes the dark reality of compassionate conservatism-it’s an oxymoron. George’s mom, Barbara, defined the contradiction in terms clearly and concisely when she toured Houston’s Astrodome and said “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this-this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

Perhaps Babs needs to spend a day in the shoes of one of the domestic refugees to see how well it’s really working. In fact, perhaps Momma Bush should try on Arpollo Vicks shoes. Vicks is a 20-year old, pre-op male to female transgender person who was arrested for using the women’s shower at an emergency shelter at Texas A&M University’s Reed Arena.

A substitute teacher at a New Orleans middle school, Vicks told officials she felt safer using the women’s showers, I assume to avoid the possibility of harassment and violence if she used the men’s shower. Their response was to charge Vicks with criminal trespass and throw her into an isolation cell in the Brazos County jail for six days. Katrina left her with no money and no way to get any so she couldn’t pay her $6,000 bail. When she was finally allowed to use the phone, she made a collect call to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization.

Rest assured, the University heard a Texas-sized mouthful from HRC, the National Center for Transgendered Equality and others. Vicks was released Friday afternoon without an apology for making her a two time victim of Hurricane Katrina.

I invite Momma Bush to try on the shoes of any gay or lesbian domestic refugee who is kept out of or mistreated by a shelter or other facility because of her or his sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status. Or walk in the shoes of those who lost a partner and will be denied Social Security survivor benefits because our relationships are not recognized. Or in the small shoes of the child of a deceased l/g/b/t adoptive or birth parent who is taken away from the surviving non-adoptive or non-biological parent because there is no legal relationship between them. The list of possible shoes to fill is quite lengthy.

But instead of really feeling anyone’s pain, Momma Bush, Baby Bush and all the yes men and women who surround him, will continue to feign empathy while trying to blind us all with the brilliance of their new thousand points of light. What they don’t realize is that their brand of light exposes an emperor with no clothes and the nation is ready to change the bulb.

Send Gays to Combat, Then Fire Their Asses!

This shouldn't really come as any huge surprise. Having served 16 years on active duty and 8 years in the reserves, I found this noteworthy. We'll keep gays on active duty if their unit is going to be mobilized/deployed but, after the unit returns, we'll discharge them and, in some cases, they're released WITHOUT an honorable discharge.

I'm sorry, but if we're good enough to stay on active duty and fight and die for this country, then we're damn well good enough to stay on active duty and serve during peacetime, too.

This "regulation" actually came about during the Clinton era...

(Santa Barbara, California) Scholars studying military personnel policy have discovered a document halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized.

The document was made public Tuesday by Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was found during research for a story for the ABC news program Nightline.

The regulation was contained in a 1999 "Reserve Component Unit Commander's Handbook" and is still in effect, according to the Center.

It states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested "prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit."

The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.

Gay soldiers and legal groups have reported for years that known gays are sent into combat, and then discharged when the conflicts end. Discharge statistics corroborate a pattern of rising expulsions during peacetime and plummeting rates during military conflicts, and Pentagon statistics confirm that, as has been the case in every war since World War II, gay discharges have declined during the current conflict in the Middle East.

But the Pentagon has consistently denied that, when mobilization requires bolstering troop strength, it sends gays to fight despite the existence of a gay ban, and some observers have insisted there is no evidence of such a practice. During the first Gulf War, Pentagon spokesman, Bill Caldwell, said the military would "absolutely not" send gays to war and discharge them when the conflict ends.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a Pentagon spokesman said that the military was not modifying its regulations on gay troops. And a May, 2005 study by the Congressional Research Service says that although gay discharges do decline during wartime, the decrease is the result of .random fluctuations in the data," not an intentional Pentagon policy of retaining gays during wars".

Meanwhile, the Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that it would again fail to meet its monthly recruiting goal and for the first time since 1999 would not meet its goal for the year.

In July, the the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law issued a report showing that if the ban on gays serving openly were lifted the military would gain 41,000 troops.

Especially in the wake of Katrina, as some have concluded that a National Guard stretched thin by deployments abroad was limited in its ability to respond to a catastrophe here at home, the added strength of more than 40,000 recruits has the potential of making a significant difference," Steve Ralls, spokesperson for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network told 365Gay.com.

"And, as we've seen Coast Guardsmen rescuing the trapped in New Orleans, it begs the question: Did those being rescued really care about the sexual orientation of those men and women who came to save them?

"Now - especially now - the Army needs every recruit it can find. Not only for war operations abroad, but for rescue missions here at home, too. If ever there was a wake-up call about the need for qualified people on the ground, it came last week in New Orleans."

National Guard spread too thin? That's because they're no longer guarding the nation! They're getting their asses shot off overseas.