Monthly Archives: May 2005

Apparently, some judges don’t take that whole separation of church and state to seriously: “A Wiccan activist and his ex-wife are challenging a court’s order that they must protect their 9-year-old son from what it calls their ‘non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals.’

“The Indiana Civil Liberties Union has appealed the stipulation written into the couple’s divorce order, saying it is unconstitutionally vague because it does not define mainstream religion.”

This is abhorrent! Who said that a judge gets to decide whether or not a certain religion is appropriate for a child? Isn’t that a parent’s obligation? And how dare a judge presume to discredit a religion becuase they consider it non-mainstream!

“Barry Lynn, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said judges cannot substitute their religious judgment for that of parents in regard to the upbringing of children.

“‘This is an absurd result, because in the eyes of the law being a pagan should be no different from being a Presbyterian,’ he said.”

Apparently, Hillary Clinton isn’t sure what an Iraq exist strategy should be: “Hillary reacted like a vampire being shown a cross or an ABC executive seeing the ratings for their Trump TV movie? then offered up the following head scratcher:

You know, I am not one who feels comfortable setting exit strategies. We don’t know what we’re exiting from. We don’t know what the situation is moving toward?. How do we know where we’re headed, when we don’t know where we are?”

This does clear one thing up for me, though: No Hillary in 2008! Please, dear god, Democrats, please don’t nominate her!

Okay, so I’m out for a couple of days and a couple of major news stories break. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop drinking!

Anyway, as everyone knows by now, the Senate reached a compromise to avoid the nuclear option. The AP’s short version of the deal: “Under the agreement, Democrats would pledge not to filibuster any of Bush’s future appeals court or Supreme Court nominees except in ‘extraordinary circumstances.’ For their part, Republicans agreed not to support an attempt to strip Democrats of their right to block votes.”

Add it all up, and what does it lead to? One big, stinkin’ pile of dung for the Democrats. What, exactly, did the Dems get out of this? The three most controversial judges will be confirmed. The Dems can only filibuster in ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ and there is no guarantee that the nuclear option won’t be re-introduced if the Dems do decide to stage a filibuster. After all, who gets to decide what qualifies as an ‘extraordinary circumstance?’ Don’t buy the Republican’s grumbling about this: this was all a win for the Repubs.

I understand why this was done: the Dems weren’t sure that they had enough votes to withstand a vote on the nuclear option. But if there were ever a time to take a risk, this was it! As it stands, all this did was delayed a vote. And if the Dems didn’t have the votes now, they won’t have them in a couple of months, either. Why not make the stand right here? If you get the votes, then you don’t have to worry about the nuclear option again. If you don’t get the votes, then there’s an excellent chance that the nuclear option could be used to guarantee Democratic gains in the ’06 elections.

Instead, we get nothing. Theoretically, we still have the ability to filibuster. But watch how quickly that ability is taken away the first time that the Dems try to use it. Bill Frist basically said as much. He is chomping at the bit to break this compromise and re-introduce the nuclear option.

This was a bad call. Bad, bad, bad.