Coffee Party Constipation

I think it's pretty safe to say that almost nobody in America was aware or cared that Coffee Party USA, the Liberal alternative to the Tea Party movement, had its first national convention this past weekend in Kentucky. On what basis do I have for this conclusion, you ask? In stark contrast to claims from the Liberal media, e.g., Newsweek, that the Coffee Party has as many as 200,000 members, only 350 people, most of whom were probably hippies in their misbegotten youth, showed up at the convention.

Here's some video from the get together. I don't know about you, but in light of the small turnout of folks who are allegedly looking for a more "moderate" tone in political discourse, the chant of "You can't stop the/a movement" seems a little...backward. Someone pass little Jonny 5 the Ex-Lax!

Just Say "No"

With the upcoming general election in November, I received the other day in the mail my Official Voter Information Guide. Rifling through it, I saw there are three people up for voter confirmation to the California State Supreme Court ("CSSC"): Ming "William" Chin, Carlos R. Moreno and Tani Cantil-Sakauye.

Both Chin and Moreno are currently Associate Justices on the CSSC, while Cantil-Sakuye was recently nominated to be Chief Justice of the court by Gov. Scharzenegger.

If I had the resources, i.e., money, I'd be waging a vigorous campaign against confirmation of all the aforementioned.

Although they have done so in varying degrees of consistency, both Chin and Moreno have shown themselves to be judicial activists with little to no regard for the will of the people. The most exemplary of this for Justice Chin was his decisive vote back in 1997 to overturn the parental/judicial consent requirement for teenage girls seeking an abortion.

As for Justice Moreno, not much more needs to be said than the fact that he was nominated to the CSSC by super liberal Gray Davis, who himself was bounced out as governor in the 2003 recall election. It is nevertheless worth noting that Justice Moreno was the lone dissenter in the state-based challenge to Proposition 8, the initiative that preserves the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.

In regard to Cantil-Sakauye, my recommended opposition to voting against her confirmation is largely based on the report that she presided over the "marriage" of a same sex couple back in 2008 when such "marriages" were made temporarily legal by the lawless striking down of Proposition 22, the predecessor of Prop. 8. That Cantil-Sakauye would do this kind of thing strongly indicates to me that she cannot be trusted to respect democratically enacted laws she may find personal disagreement with.

Your Abbeys Are Belong to Us

Lifted from Fr. Z's blog, the picture here is of Pope Benedict XVI sitting in Westminster Abbey in London, England. Benedict, I believe, is the first pope to have ever visited the abbey, which was a Catholic edifice until the advent of the English Reformation.

See the red stole the pope is wearing? That originally belonged to Pope Leo XIII, who in the encyclical Apostolicae Curae declared all Anglican Church ordinations, orders and priests to be invalid. It's almost certain Benedict knew this, and chose to wear Leo's stole in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere in England to subtly convey a specific message. Probably not the silly subject title of this post, but maybe something along the lines of letting everyone know that there's only one Christian Church, and it aint the one founded by King Henry VIII.

Misrepresenting Buckley

Professor William Jacobson at his Legal Insurrection blog does a fine take down of the so-called "Buckley Rule" that political pundits like Charles Krauthammer and the Powerline guys have lately been invoking as justification for being against Tea Party backed/conservative candidates like Christine O'Donnell.

In short, Jacobson refutes the underlying assumption that the late William F. Buckley ever intended to make a generally applicable political rule that Republicans should always support the most politically conservative candidate who has the best chance of winning. Such a rule would have been untenable for Buckley since it effectively results in what Jacobson describes as a "tyranny of the establishment."

Having thoroughly dispelled the notion that a "Buckley Rule" exists and is wise, Jacobson goes on to give the normally reasonable Krauthammer, and those who would agree with him, some sound advice:

Make your case for a particular candidate in a particular race. But don't invoke some illusory "Rule" just because you don't like the outcome.

Update: In their commitment to unity in the Republican Party, Powerline perpetuates and gives legitimacy to a typically idiotic Bill Maher troll. Nice going guys - not!

Justice Stephen Breyer: Koran Burning Might Not Be Protected Speech

In an interview with Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos, Justice Breyer suggested that burning the Koran is not constitutionally protected speech because it seems to pose the same kind of "clear and present danger" as falsely shouting "fire" in crowded theater.

Hmmm.

There are a couple of things that can be taken from this. First, Breyer is a bigot for suggestively implying that Muslims will go all batsh!t crazy if they see copies of their holy book burned in protest. Then again, look at all the batsh!t crazy stuff that Muslims in Europe did over the Danish editorial cartoons of Mohammed. In light of this, the second takeaway is that Breyer is an effective dhimmi who is more concerned about not provoking batsh!t crazy Muslims than protecting the God-given and constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Whichever takeaway is the more accurate, Justice Breyer comes out looking like a real fool.

h/t Creative Minority Report

Blessed Are the Dhimmi?

Over this past weekend in which the 9th anniversary of 9/11 was remembered across the country, some people of different faiths gathered at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento to, as the Sacramento Bee reports, "[bless] copies of the Quran with roses of love." It's unclear whether the Cathedral or the Sacramento diocese approved this kumbaya gathering, but I can't imagine that no one in authority was without prior notice of it.

Father Anthony Garibaldi of St. Francis Church said the blessing of the Quran tonight "needs to be done - on a human level you don't desecrate other peoples' holy objects. I wouldn't want my Bible burned."

Me neither, Father. By the way, did any of your Muslim buddies at the "blessing" expressly condemn the violent acts of their fellow adherents against Christians in Indonesia? Just wondering.

h/t Creative Minority Report

The Best Supreme Court Justice is Also the Most Diverse

At about the time of the Harriet Miers fiasco a few years ago, I got into an online debate with someone over the intellectual prowess of Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court. My position, at the time and today, is that Justice Thomas has a better understanding of constitutional law than anyone on the Court, including Justice Antonin Scalia.

The guy who I was arguing with couldn't disagree with me more, repeating the tired trope that Thomas was Scalia's waterboy who simply signed off in agreement with every opinion Scalia wrote. Ignoring that this guy, who was not a lawyer, probably never even read any of Scalia's or Thomas' opinions, I politely challenged him to back up his assertion. He couldn't do it, of course, and resorted to rhetorically asking me if I was serious in my suggestion that Justice Thomas was the best Justice on the Court.

Looking back, it's too bad Supreme Conflict by Jan Crawford Greenburg hadn't been released, or maybe even written, when I got into this debate. If Greenburg's excellent book had been around, I could have referenced the passage where it was revealed that Justice Thomas had changed Justice Scalia's mind on two different cases - within the first few weeks of Justice Thomas taking his hard fought seat on the Court.

All of the above is kind of an introduction to a short New York Times article I just read about the law schools that Supreme Court Justices hire their clerks from. As therein noted, since 2005 about half of all the clerks who have worked for a Supreme Court Justice went to law school at either Harvard or Yale. Everyone else usually came from exclusive law programs at the University of Virgina, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Chicago. The lone exception to this hiring trend is Justice Thomas, who has expressly said his preference is to look for clerks from non-Ivy League schools, which the Times notes includes a place like Creighton University (which is in Nebraska). Justice Thomas' reason for this preference is simple: clerks should come from a wide range of backgrounds. For a so-called "conservative" whom many on the Left continue to wrongly accuse of not having the intellectual wherewithal to be on the Court, this is pretty "progressive," outside of the box thinking. I like it.

I've Had It. Good Bye.

Today I did something that had some personal significance. I re-registered to vote so that I could change my party affiliation from Republican to Decline to State. It's something I've been thinking of doing for a while, but never really got around to. What finally pushed me to do it, though, was what I kept reading from several "insider" Republicans about GOP U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina during her first, and probably last, debate with current Senator Barbara "Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer. These "insiders" kept saying, via Facebook and Twitter, that Fiorina was "pro-life," and wasn't it wonderful how she didn't waver from that position.

The major problem I have with these people's assertion about the pro-life bona fides of Fiorina is that it's totally disingenuous. Yes, Carly Fiorina has expressly said she's against abortion. What she has not expressed, however, is a belief that abortion is far from being a valid right under the Constitution. Fiorina has also never said whether she at least supports enacting laws which would restrict abortion access. For all anyone knows, the stance that Carly Fiorina has on abortion mirrors the famously logic challenged/contorted stance of former New York State Governor Mario Cuomo: personally against abortion, but supports the legal right to choose abortion.*

Adding to my frustration is that none of these "insiders" I have asked who actively supports Carly Fiorina has even tried to refute the gaping holes I have poked in the suggestive assertion that Fiorina believes abortion should not be a legal right, or at least an extremely limited one. These people basically just ignore me thinking that in doing so I'll go away. Well, they're right. I have gone away. But not too quietly.

*So much might even be inferred from the partial response Fiorina gave in her debate with Boxer to a question of whether she supports the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Fiorina said that since California voters have determined abortion should be a legal right, she is prepared to trust the voters' judgment.

John Paul Stevens: Dumbest Supreme Court Justice Ever?

Matthew Franck at NRO's Bench Memos blog nicely refutes a kind of homage by Yale Law School instructor Linda Greenhouse to the recently retired Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens. The context of Greenhouse's fawning is a case involving a display of the 10 Commandments on the walls of a couple of courthouses in Kentucky.

[Greenhouse] particularly admires one of Stevens’ worst notions, noting that he was “the only justice willing to articulate the position that laws incorporating the view that life begins at conception are theological exercises that should be invalidated on Establishment Clause grounds.” The “only justice” indeed. No other justice ever joined Stevens in this view, probably because it is one of the dumbest ever pronounced by a justice of the Supreme Court.

Stevens first expressed this view, to my knowledge, in his opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989), 560ff. The Missouri law at issue in that case had declared that every human life “begins at conception.” Justice Stevens professed himself incapable of seeing any “secular legislative purpose” in such a declaration, and held that therefore the law expressed a purely “theological” point of view and was thus a violation of the establishment-of-religion clause of the first amendment. But of course the “purpose” of the Missouri declaration was obvious on its face. It was intended to state, and did state, a fact as a predicate for the statutory requirements to follow. Standard textbooks in embryology, then as now, unequivocally declared the scientific fact that every human life begins at conception. What an embryology textbook cannot tell us, as a matter of biology, is what to do about that fact–what moral requirement, if any, that fact should impose on us. This is what the Missouri legislature, quite reasonably, sought to do.

You can read the entirety of Franck's excellent blog post here. There's even some St. Thomas Aquinas thrown in.

Obama Stimulus is the Economic Equivalent of Red Bull

On some of the news commentary shows I've seen, partisan Democrats are trying to put a positive spin on the Commerce Department's downward revision of the country's 2nd quarter GDP rate. What these party hacks are basically saying is that despite the fact that the economy isn't growing as fast as they'd like, there's still growth. As such, Obama's economic policies, e.g., the $800 billion so-called "Stimulus" bill, are working.

This is utter and complete hogwash. The truth of the matter is the big recovery Team Obama assured us would occur if the "Stimulus" bill was passed has not been close to being realized. For instance, Obama's economic advisors claimed that if the "Stimulus" didn't get put into effect, the unemployment rate would surpass an unacceptable 8%. As you're no doubt aware, unemployment has been well over 9% for a while now. At best, the economy as measured by unemployment is just about where Team Obama said it would be without the "Stimulus" bill.

What economic growth that has occurred and can be attributed to Obama's "Stimulus" policies is entirely unsustainable. They are basically like Red Bull. You may get a noticeable energy boost, but it doesn't last for very long. A recent illustration of this point is the home buying tax credit which expired this past spring. Although this credit did spur some demand for homes, once it was gone so too were the home buyers. We know this by the news that previously owned home sales plummeted almost 30% from June to July.

Because of its high caffeine and sugar content, Red Bull has a negative impact on one's health when used. So too with the "Stimulus" on the financial health of the nation with respect to increased debt and the burden placed on future generations to pay it back.

The bottom line here is that when you hear or see Obama and the Dems try to put a happy face on what they have done with the economy, don't buy it. Their policies are nothing more than a short fix that have failed to account for long term consequences.

Killing Fields in Afghanistan

The inestimably insightful John Hinderaker at Powerline has posted some thoughts on our impending departure from Afghanistan, and the picture he paints isn't very bright. It's bad enough that Obama foolishly announced to the whole world when U.S. troops were going to be pulled out of Afghanistan, because he basically signaled to the Taliban, our enemy, how long they needed to try and stay low and in hiding. Obama, in other words, gave the Taliban a reason to try and survive.

What's even worse, however, is that once the Taliban does come back in full force without anything or anybody there to really stop them, the horrors they will likely inflict on most Afghan women and any man who is perceived to have cooperated with the U.S. military will be countless. To say that Afghanistan might become what Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam in 1975 does not take a very big stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's more than likely going to happen. That we are basically going to allow this is truly disturbing.

A Tale of Two Endorsements: Why Sarah Palin is Starting to Piss Me Off

This past May, I posted my thoughts about why it was a mistake for Sarah Palin to endorse Carly Fiorina in the U.S. Senate Republican Party primary race here in California. Despite the fact that a proven conservative like Chuck DeVore was actually polling better than Fiorina in a head to head battle against Senate incumbent Barbara Boxer, Palin went ahead and threw her heavy influence behind someone whose conservative credentials are, at best, questionable (e.g., Fiorina backed TARP and has refused to say whether she is against abortion rights ).

Fiorina handily won the Republican nomination, and I believe Palin's well publicized endorsement played a big part in that. Chuck DeVore ended up finishing in third, only a couple of percentage points behind Tom Campbell, a liberal Republican and fairly well known former congressman from the Silicon Valley who several years ago had run for Senate against Dianne Feinstein. All things considered, DeVore did pretty well for someone who didn't have Fiorina's personal wealth or Campbell's built in name recognition.

With all this in mind, I got a little irritated when I saw this post on the Conservatives4Palin blog today which basically crows about the impact Sarah Palin had on the U.S. Senate Republican primary race in Washington State. The winner of that contest was Dino Rossi who, like Fiorina, isn't too forthcoming about his views on specific controversial issues, like abortion rights. Although, according to this local liberal rag in Seattle, Rossi does have a pro-life voting record in the Washington State legislature.

Sarah Palin, however, did not endorse Rossi. She endorsed Clint Didier, a political novice and former professional football player with the Washington Redskins. As noted by Conservatives4Palin, prior to receiving Palin's endorsement, Didier was running in fourth place in the Republican primary and polling in the low single digits - 4 percent. The final results of the primary show Didier winning three counties and over three times the amount of support he had been getting before being endorsed by Palin.

Didier clearly had a very slim chance of winning the GOP primary, even with Sarah Palin's endorsement. But her endorsement did make things a kind of interesting in terms of the final election numbers. Given the apparent impact she had in Washington, I don't think it's far fetched to believe that if Sarah Palin had endorsed proven conservative Chuck DeVore over highly questionable conservative Carly Fiorina in the California Republican primary, DeVore quite possibly could have won the GOP nomination. What makes Palin's endorsement decision even more infuriating to me is that DeVore had a better shot than Fiorina at beating Barbara Boxer. In a general election match up against long time Senate incumbent Patty Murray, I'm pretty certain Clint Didier never had as good a chance of winning than Dino Rossi. WTF with your endorsements Sarah Palin?!

Jerry Brown Sucks

If you know me or have read this blog before, my less than positive sentiment about the former governor who is trying to again become California's next governor should come as little surprise. However, my expressed belief in the overall "suckiness" of Jerry Brown has recently been underscored by the news that he is attending a private campaign fundraiser today at the Venice, California home of Jodie Evans, a co-founder of the odiously uncivil, anti-American/pro-terrorist political action group Code Pink.

How bad are Ms. Evans and Code Pink, you ask? Here's a sample from Debbie Lee, the mother of a Navy SEAL who was killed in action in Iraq:

In 2008 [Code Pink] barricaded the recruiting office in Berkeley with the blessing of the Berkeley City Council. We at Move America Forward had all we could stomach when we heard them tell the Marines they were unwelcome, unwanted intruders, not in Iraq or Afghanistan but on American soil in Berkeley, California. Americans from across the nation joined us in Berkeley to counter-protest these anti-war hippies. Numerous times they told me they support the troops but not the war, yet over and over when I asked if they had sent care packages, phone cards, written letters, or helped the families left behind in anyway, they conveniently couldn’t remember anything they had done. Yet they had a successful fundraiser to send $600,000.00 to our enemies in Iraq? Yet Jodie Evans and her Code Pink degenerates taunted me and made light of my son’s sacrifice telling me, “Your son deserved to die in Iraq if he was stupid enough to go over there.” It took every ounce of reserve in my body to not level these idiots to the ground. These same people who call terrorists “freedom fighters” says that my son, who gave up his life for their freedoms, deserved death.

By the way, don't interpret my contempt for Jerry Brown as an endorsement of his main opponent in the governor's race, Meg Whitman. The only reason I would ever cast a vote for Whitman is to prevent Brown from winning.

Why Gay Rights Activists May Not Want There to Be a "Gay Gene"

Joe Carter over at the First Things On the Square blog has posted a fascinating and thought provoking piece on natal eugenics, genetic engineering and homosexuality.

In his post, Carter notes the significant observation Francis Fukuyama made a few years ago about how most parents would select a medical procedure to significantly reduce the likelihood of giving birth to gay children, if such a procedure existed and was available. In light of this, it's worth asking gay activists* whether they'd oppose the inevitable development of genetic engineering technology that could alter or eliminate a "gay gene" should one ever be definitively discovered. Perhaps an even bigger question to ask is would gay activists support the legal right of a mother to abort her pre-born child solely on the basis of that child having the "gay gene"?

_______________

*By "gay activist" I basically mean anyone who believes same sex attraction is biologically natural and uses that belief as a basis for encouraging societal acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle.

Kind of a Chinese St. Thomas More

I think I've found a new role model. His name is Wu Jingxiong, a.k.a. John C.H. Wu. John was a lawyer and writer from China who had served in the Kuomintang government prior to its collapse at the hands of the ChiComs and Mao Zedong in 1949. After leaving/escaping China, John would become a long time professor at the University of Hawaii and Seton Hall University.

A couple of additional noteworthy things about John was that he was the principal author of the constitution for the Republic of China (more commonly known as Taiwan), and he was apparently somewhat of a pen pal with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes. His correspondence with and interest in Justice Holmes was such that John would end up writing a scholarly examination of Holmes' jurisprudence.

John was also a Catholic, who converted to the faith during his adult years at the inspiration of St. Therese of Lisieux. The admiration John had for the Little Flower was such that he wrote a short pamphlet about her teachings that you can read online here.

For more biographical information about John C.H. Wu, click through here (it's where I got almost all of the above). Like the author of the linked to blog post, I'm hoping at least one of the Catholic publishers like Our Sunday Visitor and Ignatius Press reprint John's written religious works. It'd be icing on the cake for me if some publishing company would reprint his legal/law writings.

Legal Tip (Not Advice) of the Day

For the longest time I was under the general belief that a living trust protected your assets, like a house, from creditors and lawsuits. I don't know where I got this belief from, but it's not really true. A creditor can make you pull an asset out of your trust for purposes of satisfying an outstanding debt you might owe.

Creditors of named beneficiaries to a trust, however, cannot touch the trust assets. This is possibly where I might have gotten things confused.

In any event, if you want to protect your assets from creditors beyond what the law may already provide, e.g., state homesteading laws, you should get insurance.

Clarification: The above is written in the context of a revocable living trust, wherein the trust creator or settlor is still living and the named beneficiaries possess only a future interest in trust assets.

The Gipper Goes Viral

An excellent video ad produced by the Republican Study Committee that's showing up on a whole lot of blogs, Facebook pages and tweets - at least the conservative ones.

I'm almost certain the clips of Reagan are from his 1964 "A Time for Choosing" speech.

It Seems Supreme Court Already Declared No Right to Same Sex Marriage [Updated]

How lawless has Judge Vaughn Walker acted in striking down Proposition 8? In 1971, the Minnesota State Supreme Court in the case of Baker vs. Nelson ruled that it was not unconstitutional for the government to limit its recognition of legally valid marriages to members of the opposite sex, i.e., 1 man and 1 woman.

On appeal by the losing parties, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 summarily dismissed Baker on grounds that the case lacked a "substantial federal question." That's literally all the Court said. However, as a matter of procedure, this summary dismissal by the Court was apparently the equivalent of a decision on the merits. If that in fact is what it means, then the ruling in Baker that marriages may be legally limited to people of the opposite sex is binding precedence upon all lower federal courts.

In his written decision, Judge Walker entirely ignored Baker v. Nelson, even though it contained identical issues and the case was raised by lawyers defending Prop. 8. As a matter of law, then, Walker's ruling should be overruled by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals without much discussion. Whether the most liberally activist and overturned court will do so, however, is a whole different question.

Update: Maggie Gallagher at the National Organization for Marriage lists some key excerpts from the emergency motion brief filed by Prop. 8 lawyers to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The big takeaway is that Judge Walker was determined to strike down Prop. 8, even if that meant ignoring binding legal precedence and grossly abusing his discretion as a federal court judge. Regardless of whether you support legal recognition of same sex marriage as a matter of public policy, you should really be upset at how Walker has conducted himself in this case. I personally don't think it's too far fetched to suggest that Walker be impeached.

Is Law School Becoming a Fool's Errand?

That's the question Mr. Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, addresses in this video with his fellow legal scholars John Yoo and Richard Epstein.

Having watched the whole 18+ minute video, I'm not exactly sure anyone ever suggested an answer. If you were to ask me whether law school is a waste of time, my response would be the same general response that lawyers tend to give to a question posed to them/us by a non-lawyer: it depends.

Putting aside the fact that many, if not most, states make possession of a valid law degree a prerequisite to taking their bar/licensing exams, I would say law school is generally a waste of time if all you want to be is a practicing attorney.

If, however, you wanted to be a legal academic like Messrs Reynolds, Yoo and Epstein, then law school would obviously be necessary.

Given these short answers, I suppose I wouldn't have been a very good guest on Instapundit's web show. Not that I would have been invited anyway, since I'm just a regular "working class" lawyer in a state where I understand there are more of us than in the entire country of Japan.

h/t Volokh Conspiracy

Gay is Apparently the New Black [Updated]

When asked by Chris Wallace where in the Constitution is there a right to same-sex (i.e., gay) "marriage," former Bush Solicitor General and co-lead attorney for the parties who challenged California's Proposition 8 answered with a rhetorical question that it exists in the same place where there is a right to interracial marriage. Of course, no such right is expressly stated in the Constitution, but the Supreme Court has previously determined within the context of state racial segregation laws banning interracial marriage that marriage in general is a fundamental right that is constitutionally protected.

OK, via Ted Olson's comments in the video below, we now know for certain that pro-gay "marriage" advocates are hanging their hats on the premise that same-sex attraction is race. I personally find this ridiculous, but I'd be interested in reading any defense for this position.



A couple of pet peeve house cleaning items: I wish people would stop referring to Proposition 8 as a "ban" on same-sex "marriage." The democratically approved state constitutional amendment simply provides a legally recognized definition. To "ban" something basically means to outlaw it. Proposition 8 outlaws nothing.

I also wish people would stop saying Proposition 8 prevents homosexuals from getting married. Again, it does no such thing. In effect, Proposition 8 limits a legally recognized marriage to 1 male and 1 female. Said male and female may either be heterosexual or homosexual. There is no exclusion from marriage on the basis of sexual orientation. Under Proposition 8, "marriages" between members of the same sex are not legally recognized. Such is true regardless of whether these "marriages" are between couples of the same sex who are homosexual or heterosexual. (Oh, can same-sex couples only be homosexual? Why?).

Update: In his interview with Chris Wallace (the above embedded video was edited by whoever posted it on YouTube), Ted Olson repeated the assertion in Judge Walker's written decision that lawyers defending Prop. 8 said they didn't have to prove or provide evidence of the procreative purpose of marriage. That assertion by Walker is patently false. For Olson to knowingly perpetuate Walker's false assertion really reflects poorly on his character.