Harriet Miers Supreme Court Nomination

[Frank]

I don't know about you guys .. but I am a little bit
concerned about the Harriert Miers deal.  I've a
conservative by nature -- but do want a lot of
diversity on the higher court .. especially when it
comes to the real big issues.
 
Does anyone know anything about her voting record or
anything like that?
 
I found some information about her here:
http://www.townhall.com/blogs/c-log/J%2 ... 59236.html
 
and the homepage of this site seems to have some
updated news:
http://www.townhall.com
 
but seems like a lot of stuff to read thru .. can
anyone give me an overview?

                     
                     

Frank  :smile:

[Antigen]

Well, that's the trouble. Nobody seems to know much about her at all, except that she's one of Büsh's cronnies.

I have a theory, though. Just a crazy idea built on a lot of interesting details. Not to be taken too, too seriously.

Remember that the cowboy get up is just that; a costume. Büsh grew up in the lap of luxury in Kennebunkport, Maine and attended Ivy League schools before moving w/ the family down to Crawford. Crawford, btw, didin't even exist till after they built that movie set there; the Büsh production set is actually closer to David Koresh's Waco compound than to the recently incorporated city of Crawford.

I think it's very possible that GW's stint as a councelor for troubled inner city youths behind his DUI may actually have been a turn through a Straight-like program. (the children of the rich and influential always had a lightening fast program, then on to staff).

So, if I'm guessing right so far, the man is stuck like a fly in amber; every bit as much as any of us who landed up on front row in one of these programs. Moreso, as powerful ppl have powerful enemies--they're more stuck w/ each other than most of us.

So let's entertain, for the sake of argument, that George is not really buying into the program. He's actually a long term misbehaver, doing an effective job of sabotaging the Program while covering his own ass as best he can. No, no! Stay with me for a little bit. It explains a lot.

He gets up there and says hes a uniter, not a divider. And then what does he do? Why he proceeds to unite the entire world against his admin and all his business cronnies in just about the most effective, efficient way imaginable. Brilliant work, if that's what he was trying to accomplish.

Then what? Well, he almost kept a straight face through his public speeches about how his daddy's lackey, Usama, and his followers hate us for our freedom. He then proceeds to explain how, exactly, we can eliminate American freedom. So then the Saudi subjects and their repressive religious fanatics won't have anything to be jealous about and they won't hate us anymore. Brilliant!

And now, with one cronnieism scandal after another, does he appoint one of the well groomed judges who have been coddled by the Conservative movement for years? Why no, he does not. Instead, he appoints, as Bill Maher put it, the most qualified person who happened to be within 30 feet of his office at the moment.

I think he's trying to sabotage the Program. And I think he's doing a fine job of it, too.

 :nworthy:

G.W. Büsh, the most awsome and accomplished misbehaver in Program history!

Redemption: Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sins through the murder of their deity against whom they sinned.
--Ambrose Bierce

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Apostate 10/82 -
Anonymity Anonymous

[Antigen]

Ok, sorry Frank, you wanted a serious answer. Here's what the San Jose Murcury News printed Friday.

Posted on Fri, Oct. 14, 2005
 

Miers hitting the books in advance of confirmation hearings

BY RON HUTCHESON

Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - While other Americans enjoy an early fall weekend, Harriet Miers faces the homework assignment from Hades: hour upon hour of preparation for confirmation hearings that could make or break her hopes for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The process starts with a 12-page questionnaire seeking details of her professional life, her finances and anything else that might shed light on her qualifications.

When that's done early next week, she can turn her attention to a half-dozen thick briefing books on the most contentious constitutional issues before the court. By the time Senate hearings start in late October or early November, Miers will have completed a crash course in constitutional law.

White House officials and others who are familiar with her preparations said she'd paid little attention to the furor over her nomination while concentrating on the task at hand. They dismissed speculation that she might heed calls from some conservatives for her withdrawal.

Supporters expressed confidence that Miers' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee will quiet critics who question her qualifications for the nation's highest court. But they acknowledged that any embarrassing mistakes by the nominee could doom her chances.

"One thing that characterizes Harriet is that she is extremely diligent. She's going to be prepared," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a committee member. "The temptation will be great for some to try to match wits with her on constitutional issues. There's some danger that senators might demonstrate not her lack of knowledge, but their own."

Miers will go before the panel about a month after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. faced the same committee. The timing is both a blessing and a curse for her.

Miers, a former corporate lawyer in Texas, has nowhere near Roberts' experience with constitutional law, so he's a tough act to follow.

But she also gained some advantages by going second.

As White House counsel, she was directly involved in preparing Roberts for his confirmation and watched the hearings closely.

"The great benefit of this hearing is that we just went through it. It had to have helped her," said David Leitch, a former deputy White House counsel who helped prepare Roberts. "You've got a whole transcript to see what people are interested in. It's an excellent road map."

Roberts' experience also offered guidance on the kinds of questions that Miers can dodge, including any related to how she might vote on abortion or other politically charged issues. Roberts' refusal to answer tough questions frustrated some committee Democrats but helped him avoid controversy.

Although Miers is still in the early stages of her preparation, plans call for her to participate in question-and-answer sessions with top constitutional lawyers after she digests the briefing books. Those informal sessions will evolve into more formal "murder boards," relentless grillings that more closely resemble confirmation hearings.

Roberts wasn't videotaped during his practice sessions, but Miers might be. Some White House officials worry that her quiet, low-key approach may need to be pumped up for television.

The practice sessions, Washington's version of moot court for law school students, have taken on more importance since the defeat in 1987 of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Although Bork was considered a brilliant lawyer, even by some who disagreed with his conservative views, he flopped as a hearing witness.

Former Reagan White House Counsel Arthur Culvahouse, Bork's handler, has said his biggest regret from those years is his failure to prepare the nominee for the partisan hostility he experienced. Officials in the Bush White House are determined to avoid the same mistake with Miers, who could face tough questions from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

"A good performance by her in the hearings will seal the deal," said Washington lawyer Christopher Bartolomucci, another participant in Roberts' preparation.

By all accounts, Miers is well aware of the stakes.

"She knows the hearings are an important part of the process," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "She'll be ready."

---

© 2005, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
 

I find it very telling of sickeningly familiar 'thinking'. Obviously, she knows and her handlers know and, presumably, the commander in thief knows that the woman is not qualified for the position. Otherwise, why the crash course?

This may seem entirely nonsensical to most people. Maybe they think he litterally just hands out important appointments to friends like birthday presents. Maybe they assume that there's some kind of cash pay off going on.

That's not what I think, though. Seriously. I'm not kidding this time. I think the president honestly believes that anyone with the right (his) religious ideology and fervent faith is better qualified than anyone to do anything.

He came right out and said it. When asked why he chose her, he said "I know her heart." And I believe he was telling the truth; he was ernest in his delivery and he didn't stutter (as he so often does, especially when talking about anything other than blowing stuff up).

But there's another reason why I believe it. Look at the people surrounding this president, his little brother down there in Florida and his dad before them. Never mind the Saudis, though they fit this pattern too. Some of the people closest to this president have been deeply involved in the founding and operation of Straight, Inc. They now call themselves Drug Free America Foundation (which, I would posit, is exactly equal to an American Taliban).

But I knew these people's thinking intimately, as every former Straightling does. I, myself, was placed in a position of total authority over other children by the time I was 15. And, believe me when I tell you, at that particular point in time none of us were in any kind of shape to be training a frigging dog, let alone taking care of other people's children while holding them captive. I've seen a confessed rapists given authority over more little boys. It's not that the staff and group wanted to see those little boys raped again. It's that we had that fervent a faith in the Program to correct anything; in the moment we believed that the rapist, having worked his program on that problem, was in recovery and, therefore, more trustworthy than your average Joe.

I think Büsh qualifies his people based on a similar criteria. What does it matter what a particular individual knows or can do. If they're following God's miraculous directives, any warm body will do.

so long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
--stephen Hawking, English scientist

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Apostate 10/82 -
Anonymity Anonymous

[Anonymous]

Harriet has to be one of the ugliest bitches I've seen. BARF!

[Antigen]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/p ... 7549.shtml

The Conservative Manifesto
By DOUG THOMPSON
Oct 19, 2005, 05:58
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Many plots exist around the world to overthrow The United States of America.

Some ferment in the caves of Afghanistan, others in terrorist hideouts throughout the Middle East and still more in the governments of North Korea, Iran and God-knows-where-else.

Yet the most dangerous threat to this country, to our very way of life, festers here at home, in the halls of Congress and the West Wing of the White House. It spills out daily in the rabid rhetoric of the extreme right wing ? the conservative cabal whose goal is no less than total seizure of our government and complete domination of the lives of all Americans.

One only has to look at the bitter debate over President Bush?s nomination of White House Counsel Harriett Miers to see the conservative plan in action. The rabid right-wing demands proof that that Miers will vote to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark case affirming a woman?s right to choose. Nothing less will do.

This is the extremist conservative mantra ? absolute adherence to a narrow-focus agenda. Republicans demand that all members of their party march in lockstep. Anyone who departs even one little bit is labeled a ?RINO,? (Republican in Name Only) and ostracized from the party.

Conservatives consider the Constitution an ?outdated document,? a phrase used by current attorney general Alberto Gonzales in a memo justifying torture of prisoners and abuses of civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act, a rights-robbing law created by his predecessor, John Ashcroft, a Bible-thumping ex-Senator who lost re-election to a dead man and who, as both attorney general and governor of Missouri, was slapped down more than once by the State Supreme Court for refusing to enforce laws of that state, laws he said ?violated the will of God.?

Underneath the bluster and propaganda, conservatives embrace an intolerant view of the world. Homophobia and racism runs rampant through the ranks of the right-wing. They preach homosexuality is a ?crime against God.? They pay lip service to equality but stick to the racism that has dominated their beliefs since the days of slavery.

Right-wingers consider God one of their own. They invoke the deity?s name often, usually by misquoting the Bible or misconstruing a religious intent in a lame attempt to justify their actions. Bush even claims God told him to invade Iraq and says God has spoken to him ? a vision that may be more the result of an alcohol-induced haze than any actual divine intervention.

They want religious dogma replacing scientific fact in school curriculums, demand that all Americans ? even those who chose to exercise their freedom of religion by embracing other beliefs ? to adhere to their fundamentalist view of the world and seek punishment of those who do not.

Conservatives want a public radio and TV network that reports slanted news from a right-wing point of view. Control of the media is always a first step in overthrowing a current system of government.

They want to give the FBI expanded powers to wiretap Americans without court order or oversight and they want to give the CIA the right to spy on Americans within the boundaries of the United States. By most reports, the CIA is already doing this but the right wing wants to make it the law of the land.

Again, such steps come straight from the government-overthrow handbook: Create a police state, keep tabs on a nation?s citizens. Karl Marx talked of such tactics in A Communist Manifesto. Adolph Hitler did the same in Mein Kampf.

Overt overthrow is not yet part of the Conservative Manifesto. Like Marx and Hitler, those who control the extreme right-wing elements of the Republican Party know that governments are best destroyed from within, by infiltration of the party politic, by using propaganda and fear to control the hearts and minds of the people

Is it happening? Damn right it is. Take a hard look at life around you today. Do you enjoy the same freedoms you once enjoyed as an American? Are you safer? Is America safer?

Once you answer those questions, ask and answer another: Who took these things away from you? Osama bin Laden? Or the right-wing controlled government of the United States of America?


© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue

Who is this Thompson guy anyway?

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