Posted on 07/02/2005 7:34:34 AM PDT by 26lemoncharlie
Activists rev up rhetoric ahead of historic confirmation battle
Activists revving up for a fierce confirmation battle responded immediately yesterday to the announcement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement, warning Americans that her replacement will have a profound influence on America's most divisive cultural issues.
"It is inevitable that this confirmation battle will revolve around values," said Gary Bauer, president of Virginia-based American Values and former Republican presidential candidate. "The administration should not be afraid of such a debate."
The website of the National Organization for Women opens with an "Emergency Alert" pop-up that warns "Justice O'Connor Resigns ... Women's Lives on the Line."
Beneath photographs, the site's front page says, "These are the faces of women who died because they could not obtain safe and legal abortions. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, these pictures could include your daughter, sister, mother, best friend, granddaughter. ... Don't let George W. Bush and the U.S. Senate put another anti-abortion justice on the Supreme Court."
Meanwhile, pro-life groups plan to join forces for rallies, prayer vigils and demonstrations at the Supreme Court, beginning three days before confirmation hearings start and continuing until the process ends.
Brandi Swindell, director of one of those groups, Generation Life, said young people understand the importance of filling the new vacancy.
"The abortion forces and the courts have been fighting against our right to live and we are determined to see that come to an end," she said. "It is my hope and prayer that our generation will be the one to help overturn Roe v. Wade."
O'Connor's retirement will create the first Supreme Court vacancy in 11 years. The 75-year-old justice, who said she plans to leave before the start of the court's next term in October, cited her age and said she "needs to spend time" with family." Her husband, John, suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
President Bush said he expects to announce his selection after returning from the upcoming G-8 Summit in Europe.
People for the American Way, among the more vocal critics of previous conservative judicial nominees, said that with O'Connor "providing the swing vote on critical 5-4 decisions regarding privacy, reproductive rights, affirmative action, government neutrality toward religion and more, we cannot overstate the profound impact her replacement could have on the direction of American law and society."
The group said it hopes Bush will select a "consensus nominee" after consulting senators from both parties, "but given his track record, the odds are good that he will nominate someone who threatens our rights and liberties ... ."
In that case, the group said, it "will have to mount a tireless campaign this summer to keep that nominee from being confirmed by the U.S. Senate."
The American Civil Liberties Union "expressed great concern that the Bush administration will replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ... with a nominee whose judicial philosophy is fundamentally opposed to the progress made in protecting individual rights over the past century."
The ACLU said that as a matter of policy, it will only oppose nominees to the Supreme Court "that are fundamentally hostile to civil liberties."
Only two nominees in the group's history have been opposed, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and former solicitor general and law professor Robert Bork.
The ACLU said the new justice could directly affect the outcome of some of the most divisive legal questions the country faces.
"The nominee could, for instance, reverse the court's growing discomfort with the death penalty; grant the president greater authority to detain Americans without charge, trial or access to counsel in the name of national security; and uphold troubling parts of the Patriot Act."
"The nomination battle for O'Connor's replacement comes at a critical moment for civil liberties," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "The stakes could be as high as they were during the Bork nomination battle of the 1980s."
Democrats: Extremists need not apply
Yesterday, Bush praised O'Connor as "a discerning and conscientious judge and a public servant of complete integrity" and said he would recommend a replacement who will "faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our country."
Sandra Day O'Connor
Addressing the upcoming confirmation battle on Capitol Hill, Bush said the nation "deserves a dignified process of confirmation, characterized by fair treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote."
The White House will not comment on possible nominees, but names mentioned in Washington include Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and federal courts of appeals judges J. Michael Luttig, John Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Michael McConnell, Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, lawyer Miguel Estrada and former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson are among other possibilities.
Democratic leaders quickly warned President Bush not to try to replace O'Connor with someone whose views they consider extreme, the New York Times reported.
"Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason and moderation on the court," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the minority leader. "It is vital that she be replaced by someone like her, someone who embodies the fundamental American values of freedom, equality and fairness."
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged Bush to "replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a consensus candidate, not an ideologue."
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who called O'Connor "a mainstream conservative," said Bush's replacement "affects each and every American and has the potential to impact every facet of constitutional law and the freedoms this country was founded upon."
"If the president abuses his power and nominates someone who threatens to roll back the rights and freedoms of the American people, then the American people will insist that we oppose that nominee, and we intend to do so," Kennedy said.
Responding to similar comments by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Illinois Family Institute Executive Director Peter LaBarbera urged the White House to disregard the advice and choose a Supreme Court nominee like Anthony Scalia or Clarence Thomas "who will interpret the existing constitution -- not create law by citing one that is 'evolving.'"
"Clearly, liberals like Durbin want another Republican Supreme Court judicial nominee who abandons conservative ideals, such as David Souter or Anthony Kennedy," said LaBarbera. "This would be a colossal mistake for the administration."
LaBarbera said Americans are "deeply frustrated by activist liberal judges who create laws that would never be passed by Congress or state legislatures -- such as the Lawrence v. Texas decision that found a de facto national 'right' to sodomy just 17 years after sodomy laws were ruled constitutional."
LaBarbera urged Durbin and his Illinois colleague, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, to refrain from trying to "Bork" the new nominee and engage in "People for the American Way-type" hyperbole in the confirmation process.
Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America, said the president "has the historic opportunity to keep faith with the promise he has repeated numerous times, which is to name justices who are like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas."
"The Democrats have shown that their filibusters and condemnations of the president's circuit court nominees were baseless," LaRue said. "They will threaten more of the same unless he names a clone of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example."
In his remarks yesterday, the president said he would consult with the Senate on the nomination, but LaRue said Bush "should not yield to the left's demands."
"The Constitution is clear that it's his right alone to make nominations, and the Supreme Court agrees," LaRue said.
"O'Connor was known as a 'swing vote' but that's no reason for the president to swing away from his promise and yield to the left's demands not to 'upset the balance of the court,'" she said. "That's not a constitutional requirement. The American people understood and relied on his promise to name judges who will interpret the law and not write it. They expect him to keep that promise."
Bauer said that while the administration need not ask nominees about specific controversies, it should be confident the nominee has a philosophy that has "no problem with 'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, with the Ten Commandments on courthouse lawns, and with the understanding that marriage is between a man and a woman."
"This is a time for us to reflect on the noble purposes of our highest court, which was to serve as a reliable standard bearer of our Constitution," Bauer said. "It's purpose was not to make the law twist and turn to suit the changing tastes of foreign opinion, but to maintain the ideals that formed the heart of this great nation."
Bauer said that as chairman of Citizens to Confirm Clarence Thomas, he witnessed "the kind of vicious character assassination that has come to be the hallmark of our judicial confirmation process."
"It does not have to be that way," he said, "but the fear of that kind of event must not prevent the president from nominating someone who believes the Constitution means what it says. The temptations to read between the lines, to pander to the whims of political correctness has led to bad law and confusion. We need a justice committed to interpreting the Constitution that our Founding Fathers left us."
Mat Staver, who argued before the high court in favor of Ten Commandments displays, noted O'Connor voted against the Commandments in both recent cases, consistently backs abortion rights and sided with the majority in the key homosexual-rights case that overturned Texas laws banning sodomy.
Staver, head of Liberty Counsel, said the announcement "marks the beginning of an historic shift in America. Her replacement will be critical to determine the future of the Supreme Court. ... We must insist that her vacancy is filled with a justice who respects the rule of law and the Constitution."
Alan Sears, head of the Alliance Defense Fund, said he hopes the new justice "will interpret the Constitution as it was written and intended by the founders of our nation."
"Justice O'Connor leaves a mixed legacy with regard to religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family," he said. "At times, we were pleased with her rulings, such as in the 1995 Rosenberger decision, the first big Supreme Court victory ADF backed, which led to many legal dominoes falling with regard to equal access. But she became a major proponent of international law, rewrote the Constitution by finding a 'right' for sodomy, and allowed the nightmare of abortion to continue in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Stenberg v. Carhart decisions."
Ken Connor, chairman of the Center for a Just Society said, "You cannot underestimate the significance of who will replace Justice O'Connor."
"From the right to life to the Pledge of Allegiance to property rights, no area of American life is untouched by our nation's courts," he said.
Connor emphasized that "one of the keys to President Bush's election victories was his commitment to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the constitution and not legislate from the bench."
"Though the Left will do everything in their power to stop him from fulfilling that promise, the president must view this fight, along with the war on terror, as the most important in his presidency," Connor said. "His dedication to this battle will greatly shape his final three years in office and the long-term significance of his administration."
Connor pointed to the recent 5-4 ruling on property rights as an example of how important O'Connor's replacement will be.
"With so many 5-4 decisions re-shaping our nation, we need a nominee we can count on once their lifetime appointment begins," he said. "There are too many quality Supreme Court candidates worthy of a confirmation fight, and worthy of a seat on the court, for us to accept a nominee who is chosen only because he or she will easily win Senate confirmation."
Allan Parker, president of the Texas-based Justice Foundation, said it's "contemptible" that O'Connor looked "to other nations when interpreting our Constitution."
"We support President Bush's desire to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court with someone like Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas," Parker said. "Supreme Court justices should adhere to the rule of law and interpret the Constitution -- not make law based on their personal ideology or legal theories.
Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said his group will help lead the rallies, prayer vigils and demonstrations at the Supreme Court building.
"We are keenly aware that it was judges who removed prayer from the public schools and decriminalized abortion which resulted in the deaths of 45 million children," Mahoney said. "It was the courts that attempted to remove 'One Nation Under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance and it is now courts that are trying to redefine marriage and the family. There can be no more critical decision that President Bush will make then who he nominates to the United States Supreme Court."
The death rate of American females is 100%. Sadly, in a country of such wealth, women continue to die every day. And it's all George Bush's fault!
Like fornicating for virginity. Purposely kill millions to prevent a few accidental deaths.
The left will be in full cry. We need to jam conservative judges down their throats and let the political chips fall where they may. The Republicans should know the chips will fall our way but who knows about this group of Republicans? We can depend on the ambitious rhinos to pander to the leftist media.
The left is a small group of Americans whose voice is amplified by an even smaller group of power seekers and useful idiots.
The unions and their millions of dollars and forced political assistants are a big free asset for the left. That includes labor unions like the AFL-CIO, the UAW, the airline unions, the actors guild, the performers unions, the unions for the restaurant and hotel workers, all government employees, state and federal as well as many locals, and the the teachers unions who forcefully extractsd money from the members' paychecks to fatten themselves and support the Democrat Party. That is a lot of free money for the left which we have to go out and raise.
There are quite a few NGOs who pretend to be otherr than they are who raise a lot of money for the left. AARP comes immediately to mind.
The media is for all practical purposes free campaign workers and advertisers for the left. They slant the news to fit the leftist spin. We hear none of the good news from Afghanistan and Iraq, just a constant drum beat of death, gloom, and doom. Morals and religion, especially Christianity, are vilified while homosexuality and promescuity are condoned and protected. Racial and class divisions are promoted while decrying racism et al. The poor are kept poor by the stifling of free enterprise and the promotion of government handouts.
Throw in even more money from the outside from people like Soros and the Chinese and the left has quite a treasure chest with which to promote themselves and denigrate us. They intend to overthrow our government and change our lives for the worse.
Judges are their next best hope since they can't garner enough support from the people. We have to suck it up and fight them as Churchill implored the British to do during WWII.
Good points, if you listen to them you would think abortion is like getting your finger nails clipped.. maybe even make you healthier.
Another thing is since when are liberals for owning your own body(even though in this one case it is someone else's body on the line)..
Really if you listen to Teddy Kennedy or Howard Dean, we are all chattel of the state to have our every move controlled for our own good(by them). Women aren't allowed to drive without a seatbelt,or inhale marijuana in the 'utopia' they created.
NOW smooches up to politicians who want to systematically take away a woman's right to defend herself against violent criminals. I don't know why anyone takes them the least bit seriously.
Lol:).
To assume they even care about women is a mistake. NOW is just like the ACLU, PETA, NAACP, the National Council of Churches, etc. They are organizations whose names and stated goals are a fraud. They are leftists who want to take over and destroy our form of government and our freedom.
Free and easy abortion denigrates the value of each individual life and by repitition, life in general. Once the individual is minimized the collective is maximized and the collective is the government.
You know that and I know that, I just can't figure out why everyone else can't ask that question.
NOW has had "hate Bush" crap on their website for years. NOW can pound sand. Time for the nuclear option.
One side resolutely insists on approaching the debate as "stopping the murder". A more incendiary way to phrase it is hard to imagine.
The other side insists on just as mindless a rhetorical hand grenade, this post being a good example: "... womens' lives are on the line".
A pox on both their houses.
The concept of actually making a resolution possible presently is not in the mix. This is due not only to the hyperbole, but also to a real, palpable societal ill; a real disease which is as obvious as diptheria, syphilis and the plague, and every bit as disruptive and damaging to society.
I call this malady "Rhetorical Cognitive Dissonance". The ability to string together absurdities, contradictions and stupidities with the real or pretended ability to totally ignore or dismiss the absurdities, contradiction and stupidities. Thought is a distant memory.
The objectives and differences of each group are actually pretty simple.
The pro-abortion group insists that abortion is a "right" as important as the First and Second Amendments; absurdity No. 1. Being a "right", it allows them to use the fallacy that a right is not really a right, unless one has the money to exercise it (or the intelligence to budget for it). Therefore the public (the rest of us) is obligated to fund unlimited, open-ended abortions.
The other side, considering the whole concept of abortion murder, would prohibit it all together, under any circumstances, pubicly or privately financed. Period.
Not exactly the best circumstances for a "cease fire" type resolution, which is crystal clear, at least to me.
Define abortion as a personal choice, but prohibit absolutely and permanently the public financing of it directly or indirectly.
If the "concern" to enable abortions as casually as getting a tattoo is real, and honest, private funding can, and would deal with the necessary ones and discourage the "casual" ones born (if you'll pardon the expression) out of convenience, selfishness and stupidity.
But back to the bigger problem, the saturation in all of our society with the "Rhetorical Cognitive Dissonance" infestation. Just the recognition of it should be troublesome. It has invaded every nook and cranny of public cultural and political debate, and also, of course international relations. The UN has been reduced to babbling incoherent speech and actions more appropriate to "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest": cute, but totally useless, dysfunctional, pathological and counterproductive.
Unless we recognize the illness and resolve to eradicate it totally and permanently, like polio, we can expect an endless set of crises, domestic and international, into the dim, distant future.
Eradicating it is simple: whenever it is attempted, the response should be, "that is silly if not stupid; We will not dignify it* by even debating it".
* "It" being a proposal, a complaint, expressions of "outrage", demands, threats or the usual juvenile techniques that pass for adult debate these days, both domestically and internationally.
Must millions of little ones die?
Exactly right! "Choose abortion, not guns!"
I don't see how they live with themselves.
I'm not buying this.
O'Connor's brand of pragmatism has been praised by the MSM. Pure pragmatism works fine when you are dealing with animals on a ranch, but not when you are dealing with vulnerable humans.
There once was a justice named Sandy,The old cowgirl dragged the USSC about as far left as she could without embarrassing herself 100%
Whose voice sounded sweet, just like candy.
But her mouth, it is said,
Shouted, "Off with its head!!
If baby's not found to be dandy."
And NOW says that preborn humans are chattel of their mothers.
I once met a gal from a ranch,
Whose logic could make a babe blanch.
NOW called preborns "chattel,"
Sandy thought they'd said "cattle."
She stampeded the judicial branch.
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) - http://www.alliancedefensefund.org
Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) - http://www.thomasmore.org
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) - http://www.aclj.org
The Rutherford Institute - http://www.rutherford.org/
Stop the ACLU Coalition - http://www.stoptheaclu.org
Here are a few examples of how two of those organizations are fighting back:
ADF Contacts Over 3,600 School Districts Over Attempts To Censor Christmas
ADF: 700 lawyers ready to fight ACLU lawsuits
ADF: Pentagons' Warning About Boyscouts Is Absurd
Thomas More Law Center: Town of Palm Beach Pays $50,000 In Attorney Fees Apologizes To Women In Nativity Lawsuit
Additional information:
The ACLU must be destroyed: Joseph Farah supports Boy Scouts, urges Americans to fight back
Citizens mobilized to stop ACLU (seeks to consign group to 'ash heap of history')
ACLU fulfilling communist agenda
Revealing FACTS on the ACLU from its own writings
See how YOUR Senator or Representative ranks with the ACLU
This group just started on December 3, 2004 and are looking for new members to their yahoo group
My Personal Anti-ACLU Blog (Check it out and leave a comment!)
ACLU ready to bork whoever Bush nominates.
Yeah lives are on the line. The more abortions, the more women are going to be dead and never born.
I agree 100%. Women's lives ARE on the line. The psychological damage done once it finally sinks in that you've killed your own child can be devastating.
My kid would be 27 this year. I'd probably be a Grandma by now. I destroyed a lot when I chose to destroy that little life rather than face the hardships of being a young, possibly single mother. (I did marry the father a number of years later; not that it made one whit of difference.)
The rhetoric from the NOW hags and the liberals does such an incredible amount of damage to women's psyches, and to the fabric of our society as a whole. It simply amazes me these days that people can't see them for what they are: Destroyers of life, that want YOU to come down that same god-forsaken path.
Strong words, I know, but a subject way too close to home for me some days.
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