This moron does not care what the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution says on the matter – he’s simply going to strike down the law limiting the voting rights of felons because he wants to.

A King County Superior Court judge Monday ruled that thousands of Washington felons should be able to vote even though they have yet to pay off court-ordered fines.

"It is well recognized that there is simply no rational relationship between the ability to pay and the exercise of constitutional rights," Judge Michael Spearman wrote in a ruling backing the challenge of three indigent felons.

Spearman said the state law requiring payment of all court-ordered fines and fees before a felon can vote again violates the equal-protection clause in the U.S. Constitution and the state constitution. He said "discrimination on the basis of wealth and property has long been disfavored.

Under state law, felons can petition the state to have their voting rights restored, but only after they have completed their sentences — including any probation or community service — and have paid all of their court-related costs.

State lawyers argued that the judge shouldn't make a distinction between court-ordered payments and other parts of a felon's sentence, such as jail time.

"It's rational for the Legislature to say we want you to complete everything, as opposed to start separating out sentence elements," said deputy solicitor general Jeff Even.

What’s more, the very amendment that contains the Equal Protection Clause countenances the restriction of voting rights for felons. Go here and read Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is makes it clear that a state may restrict the franchise “for participation in rebellion, or other crime”. The law in question restricts the franchise until ALL other parts of the sentence for a crime are completed, and therefore needs no additional justification. The judge has therefore engaged in a wanton act of arrogant judicial activism.

Probably the only positive point I can make is that this ninny didn't try to rule that this constituted a poll tax -- at least not from what I can tell in this article.

The state of Washington needs to engage in three separate actions. First, it must appeal the decision. Second, it must impeach the judge. Third, it must remove him from the bench. Otherwise, rule of law is dead in Washington state.

Posted by: Greg at 01:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Democrat obstructionism has claimed another well qualified Bush judicial nominee.

Henry W. Saad, one of President Bush's appeals court nominees blocked by Senate Democrats, withdrew his name from consideration, a presidential aide said yesterday.

Democrats have accused Saad, a Michigan appeals court judge, of being hostile to employment-discrimination claims and lawsuits by consumers.

"Judge Saad asked to have his nomination withdrawn, and we intend to honor that request," Bush spokeswoman Erin Healy said.

Saad's nomination to the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit was submitted to the Senate in January 2003, and he was renominated last year. His nomination was one of 10 blocked by Democrats, who used the filibuster, which allows unlimited debate, to prevent a Senate vote.

He was not included in a bipartisan agreement by 14 senators last year to avert a Senate showdown over the use of filibusters to block judicial nominees. The agreement allowed three of the 10 nominees to go to a vote.

Saad was rated "well qualified" by a "substantial" majority of the American Bar Association's committee that rates judicial nominees. Under Senate rules, Saad's nomination cannot be withdrawn until Congress returns Monday from its recess.

Notice that – “well qualified”. The Democrats are after results they like, not a judiciary full of well qualified, impartial judges.

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I just love this editorial from the Richmond Times Dispatch, a paper which I loved during my time in college in Virginia.

Stifling Dissent

In a recent speech on foreign soil, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said people who disagree with her are dangerous, irrational, slavery-loving, bigoted threats to the country.

Not in so many words, mind you. Ms. Ginsburg is far too nuanced for that. But she did say that she and her former colleague, Sandra Day O'Connor, had been the target of death threats (actually, a single menacing posting on an Internet chatroom) from the "irrational fringe" -- and that Republican Congressmen "fuel the irrational fringe" by opposing the growing practice of interpreting the Constitution in light of foreign law.

Many people have disputed the idea that Justices should base their rulings on cues from foreign countries rather than the American Constitution. Ms. Ginsburg noted that one of them was Roger Taney, in his infamous Dred Scott decision. (Because Taney was wrong about slavery, and he also believed that 2 + 2 = 4, we evidently must conclude that mathematical equation also is incorrect.) She pointed out that defenders of Apartheid in South Africa, where she gave her talk, resisted calls from abroad to end the segregation system. Oh, and Justice Antonin Scalia disagrees with her, too. Those people are all alike.

Ms. Ginsburg's thinly veiled attempt to establish guilt by association is a shopworn technique. It was exploited most famously by Joseph McCarthy to intimidate those who disagreed with him. Joseph Stalin also used guilt by association to send potential resisters of Soviet Communist tyranny to the gulag. Recently an Italian commission concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

We are not, of course, in any way suggesting that people who share Ms. Ginsburg's approach are McCarthyite Communist mass-murdering anti-Catholic plotters of papicide. We wouldn't stoop to that level.

Why does she?

Bravo!

If Justice Ginsburg feels that criticism of the Judiciary by members of the co-equal Legislative Branch of government and (even lmore unacceptable) We, the People, is unacceptable and a danger to her safety, I'm sure she can find some court case or law from North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or the People's Republic of China that she and her peers can use to trump both the clear language of the First Amendment that permits such speech and Article III, which gives Congress specific power to check the Judicial Branch.

And if she finds that she cannot get a majority behind her unAmerican goal of suppressing and delegitimizing criticism of the courts on the clearly specious grounds of an epidemic of violence and threats against judges, perhaps she can safeguard her own miserable hide by resigning. I'm sure the Justice Department already has a suitable slate of possible replacements to send over to the president for his consideration.

More At: Colossus of Rhodey

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The Democrat obstruction continues – time for the GOP to go nuclear.

On May 9, 2001, President Bush nominated U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle of Edenton, N.C., to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. It took nearly four years for the Judiciary Committee to send his nomination to the Senate floor. It has languished there for more than a year with no prospect for Senate confirmation and no apparent interest by the Republican leadership.

Boyle has been on the federal bench for 22 years, and his only liability is that he is a conservative who spent a year on Sen. Jesse Helms's staff. While he is the Bush appellate court nominee who has been waiting for confirmation the longest, he is not alone. Ten other prospective appeals judges face Senate inaction, with the window of opportunity in the second Bush term already closing.

They seem unaffected by last year's avoidance of a constitutional crisis over the confirmation process and the approval of two Supreme Court justices.

Five years is enough time for deliberation – vote now on Terrence Boyle, an extraordinary jurist who is being obstructed merely as political payback.

And while you are at it, give these folks a vote as well.

-- Brett Kavanaugh, White House staff secretary. First named to the District of Columbia Circuit by Bush on July 25, 2003, Democrats blocked the routine retention of his nomination at the end of the last Congress and now demand a second hearing to delay any hopes for him. His liability is being a senior Bush aide and a former assistant to independent counsel Kenneth Starr
.
-- William Haynes, general counsel of the Defense Department. A former General Dynamics executive nominated to the 4th Circuit, he has been blocked by Democrats for his association with the Pentagon's enemy combatant policies as a protege of vice presidential chief of staff David Addington.

-- Michael Wallace, a Jackson, Miss. lawyer. He was named to the 5th Circuit six weeks ago to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Judge Charles Pickering. A former aide to Sen. Trent Lott, Wallace faces the same opposition from the Left that filibustered Pickering until he reached the bench on a Bush recess appointment.

There is not a single extraordinary circumstance among these nominees – just politics-as-usual by the Democrats. Use that majority or loose it, Senators.

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A very long time ago, most folks learned that if you regularly take money from someone, they can pretty well set any condition upon its continued receipt. For most of us, that lesson came in the form of parents punishing us by not paying us our allowance.

College and university administrators, along with law professors, are so far removed from the real world that they had forgotten this lesson that most folks learn by the time they are about seven-years old. The Supreme Court had to slap them upside the head with a unanimous 2x4 to re-teach that lesson.

The Supreme Court, in a case stemming from the military's policy toward gays, unanimously upheld today a federal law forcing colleges and universities to permit military recruiting on campus over their objections.

The universities, specifically law schools, had argued that making them host military recruiters on campus or lose federal funding was a form of "compelled speech" that made it appear that they were endorsing the government's exclusion of gays in the military, thus violating their rights of free speech and expression under the First Amendment.

What these over-educated idiots failed to recognize was that nobody was compelling these schools to do anything. All they had to do was get off the federal teat, and the requirement would disappear (presumably -- but more on that later). No, they wanted that cash and the right to cut the strings that went along with it. In that, they remind me of an old episode of the Andy Griffith Show, in which Opie argued he should get his allowance without doing any chores, since an allowance is money kids are "allowed" to have.

After all, nobody requires these schools to take federal grants for research, Pell grants, guaranteed student loan money, or other federal government cash that flows into their coffers. All they need to do is spend the endowment money to provide financial aid, and get private grants for research projects, and they would be free of the requirement to allow military recruiters on campus. No cash, no chores.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous court, swept their arguments aside.

The law, called the Solomon Amendment, "neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court. "Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military's congressionally mandated employment policy. . . .

"Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the military's policies," Roberts wrote.

The law regulates conduct, not speech, the court said. And unlike flag-burning, which is protected under prior decisions, the hosting of recruiters is not "expressive" conduct that sends out a message as a form of protest.

More to the point, their argument was bound to fail for the same reason that a school that claimed that ending seregation was compelled speech and a violation of freedom of association (and implicitly, freedom from association) would be bound to fail. In fact, these arguments parallel the arguments of segregationists quite nicely. Heck, upholding their position would have undone Title IX and the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that ended segregation in higher education.

And having brought such a frivolous argument forward, they got a decision that goes well-beyond what they complained about.

The U.S. Supreme Court sharply rebuked America's far-left law professors today, ruling unanimously (that's 8-0, Justice Sam Alito having joined the court too late to participate) that Congress was within its authority to withhold federal funding from law schools that discriminate against military recruiters. In the case, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the court actually went further (citations omitted):

The Constitution grants Congress the power to "provide for the common Defence," "o raise and support Armies," and "o provide and maintain a Navy." Congress' power in this area "is broad and sweeping," and there is no dispute in this case that it includes the authority to require campus access for military recruiters. . . .

This case does not require us to determine when a condition placed on university funding goes beyond the "reasonable" choice offered in Grove City and becomes an unconstitutional condition. It is clear that a funding condition cannot be unconstitutional if it could be constitutionally imposed directly. Because the First Amendment would not prevent Congress from directly imposing the Solomon Amendment's access requirement, the statute does not place an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds.

That is, Congress could force colleges and universities, even if they receive no federal funding, to treat military recruiters equally. It's very impressive that Chief Justice John Roberts, Rumsfeld's author, was able to command unanimous support for such a sweeping decision.

In other words, Congress is within its power to require each and every college and university to allow recruiters on campus REGARDLESS OF THEIR TAKING FEDERAL MONEY. Not only did they roll snake-eyes in this crap shoot, the dice burst into flames and exploded when they came to rest on the table.

UPDATE: This gem from Chief Justice Roberts' opinion is pointed out by the proprieter of Okie on the Lam in LA

"Â…Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters, and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the militaryÂ’s policies. We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policyÂ… Â…Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

Ouch!

MORE AT: Colossus of Rhodey, Blogs for Bush, GOPBloggers, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Independent Conservative, Stop The ACLU, Iowa Voice, Publius Rendevous, Ace of Spades, Red State Rant, Yankee Sailor, Sister Toldjah, Random Thoughts Of Yet Another Military Member, Amy Proctor, Flopping Aces, Protein Wisdom, Left Wing = Hate, Small Town Veteran

OPEN TRACKBACKING: Conservative Cat, Mark My Words, Don Surber, Basil's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Third World Country

Posted by: Greg at 01:56 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Alito's just a little too busy defending himself in the 3rd Circuit, still trying to weasel out of his Judicial Misconduct Complaint

Posted by: JimBD at Wed Mar 8 16:37:09 2006 (GoE0N)

2 Wrong, Jim. He was not seated when the case was heard.

Now feel free to get back on your knees for the loon in PA, now that you are done wasting bandwidth here.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Wed Mar 8 17:43:48 2006 (EqS+g)

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Would someone tell this arrogant woman that President Bush won the elections of 2000 and 2004 – and that there is no constitutional basis for his blocking the nomination of a judge out of a fit of pique.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California announced Wednesday she will block the nomination of an Idaho judge to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals because she contends the seat should go to someone from California.

Feinstein, a Democrat, made the announcement during 6th District Judge Randy Smith's nomination hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington.

Smith was picked by President Bush in December to replace Judge Stephen Trott, who moved to Idaho from California after his appointment to the court in 1988. Trott declared senior status in December 2004, meaning he will take a much lighter caseload. Since then, Idaho has not had an active judge on the court.

Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said the seat should go to a California judge because tradition holds that judgeships remain in the same state. They have been protesting since last March after they learned the seat was promised to Idaho.

"To allow a judge's personal choice of where to live to change the allocation of future Court of Appeals sets a dangerous precedent," Feinstein told the Judiciary Committee. "As this nomination ignores the judicial needs of the 9th Circuit and the state of California, I must oppose it, and I intend to place a hold upon this nomination."

In other words, Dianne Feinstein believes that Idaho is not entitled to any judges on the 9th Circuit – California is just too important. It is time to go nuclear on this nomination, as it is the clearest case of obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism.

Oh, and by the way – no more nominees from California. Fill every California judgeship with out-of-staters. After all, payback is a bitch -- and so is Senator Feinstein.

MORE AT Sensible Mom, Idaho Times, Idaho Examiner, Confirm Them

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Must every situation turn into a lawsuit – and must the claims be so expansive?

A woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging a Chicago steakhouse was negligent when it served her a salad in which an olive still contained a pit.
Michelle Brass filed the suit in Cook County Circuit Court against Gibsons LLC and Mykonos Import-Export Inc.

Brass was eating a salad at Gibsons on April 10, 2004, when she bit into an olive, striking her tooth on the it, causing herself pain and injuries, the suit claims. The menu showed the salad contained pitted olives, the suit claims. Due to her biting into the pit, Brass claims she had to pay for medical care and miss work.

The suit alleges Gibsons placed a defective and unsafe product in the salad, allowed the pit to be served inside the salad, and failed to properly inspect the product prior to serving. Mykonos was accused of importing a defective and unsafe product. The suit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

Let’s see here – surely there is (or was in the past) a better way of dealing with such injuries. Business owners would pay legitimate bills for legitimate injuries, and either absorb the cost or submit it to insurance. I’m willing to bet that some such offer was made by Gibsons, if only for the benefit of PR. I don’t doubt that Mykonos would have done the same.

But “importing a defective and unsafe product”? I think that everyone recognizes that, every now and then, an olive pit is going to be missed in the pitting process and make it into the can or jar. That isn’t a defect – and pits in olives hardly make olives “unsafe”.

Sounds to me like Ms. Brass and her lawyer are out to make a quick buck out of what is really nothing more than an accident. And if the restaurant and he manufacturer were reckless or negligent in their conduct, couldnÂ’t the same be said of Ms. Brass, who obviously failed to exercise reasonable care in her consumption of the salad?

Posted by: Greg at 02:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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