Obama's Commitment to Political Hackery on the Bench

After being returned to the White House last year with no action by Congress, President Obama has renominated 42 candidates to fill vacancies in the Federal judiciary. Among the list of renominated candidates is the Associate Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), Goodwin Liu.

As I previously asserted and posted here, here and here, Goodwin Liu is nothing short of a radical leftist ideologue who condones judicial activism. For those reasons alone, Liu's nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should be opposed. In terms of objective qualifications like years of practice as an attorney, Liu isn't even eligible to serve as a temporary (i.e., fill-in) judge in California small claims court. Kind of tells you something about Obama's underlying motives in nominating and renominating Liu, doesn't it?

Arnold Shores Up His Disastrous Legacy as Governor

Last year in June, the 21 year old son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the role he played in the killing of a college student in San Diego. In one of his last acts as California governor, Arnold commuted the sentence:

Schwarzenegger announced the move in a batch of eleventh-hour press releases e-mailed to reporters...

...Fabian Nuñez, a Democrat, grew close to the governor while speaker. The two worked together to pass the state’s landmark global warming law, which was a signature achievement of Schwarzenegger’s time in office. Fabian Nuñez is a business partner of the governor’s chief political advisor at the consulting firm Mercury Public Affairs.

I'd like to say I'm surprised by this, but I'm really not. The list of outrageous and idiotic things Arnold has done as governor is lengthy and extends back to the early days of his term. In 2004, for example, Arnold not only tried to give driver licences to illegal aliens, he signed a bill which basically protects pedophiles. More recently, of course, Arnold enacted the above mentioned global warming law, which is a job killer and based on junk science, and refused to defend the clear lawless striking down of Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment which limits legally recognized marriages in the state as between one man and one woman.

All in all, Arnold's abuse of his authority for a political crony like Nunez is par for the course, which I guess is good if you're a left-wing political ideologue. For everyone else, it just confirms how much of a disaster Schwarzenegger's tenure as governor of California has been and will be remembered.

h/t

Being Smart Doesn't Immunize From Stupidity

In addition to being a long time judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Richard Posner is a prolific author of several high-minded books on the law and economics. Education-wise, Posner has a Bachelor's degree in English from Yale and he finished first in his class at Harvard Law School. Posner has also taught law at Stanford and the University of Chicago.

Outside of his impressive background in the law, Posner does not appear to have any formal education in theology, religion or religious history. I can't even find any information as to whether Posner is an adherent of a particular religious faith. With all this in mind, it wouldn't seem that Posner would be dumb enough to attempt to provide any public insights about the specific doctrines of Catholicism without at least doing some cursory research. Yet, Posner did exactly this with the comments he posted a couple of weeks ago on his blog. (See John Breen's excellent take down of Posner's attempt at being a theologian here.)

As much of an intellectual as Judge Posner obviously is, why would he do something so stupid as to discuss a topic that is clearly outside of his scope of knowledge? It's hard to be certain, but hubris and a condescending attitude toward the Church are probably significant factors. I haven't always agreed with Posner's conclusions on various issues about the law, but I at least respected him as a serious academic. The ignorant laden comments Posner has made about Catholicism has caused me to lose a great deal of that respect.

h/t

Ninth Circuit Panel to Hear Prop. 8 Appeal Announced

There are probably only a couple of living judges I can think of off the top of my head who could have written a worse legal justification than the one Judge Vaughn Walker wrote in striking down Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment which limits legally recognized marriages as being between one man and one woman. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is one such judge. I say this on the basis of a previous decision Judge Reinhardt once wrote where he proclaimed a constitutional right to physician assisted suicide, as well as his joining an opinion that basically found the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional.

Now comes word that Judge Reinhardt has been selected to be on the three judge panel that will hear the appeal of Judge Walker's asinine Prop. 8 ruling. This, despite the fact that Reinhardt once opined in another case that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Think his fly might be just a little bit open here? Don't expect Reinhardt to exercise some integrity and recuse himself, though. When you're a liberal hack jurist, political ideology is king and it is indistinguishable from the law.

h/t

Update: As reported by Ed Whelan, Reinhardt's wife, Ramona Ripston, was not only a campaign contributor to the No on Prop. 8 campaign, she directly consulted with the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit to challenge Prop. 8. Solid grounds for Reinhardt to self-disqualify, but again, don't expect it to happen.

Don't let that discourage you, though, from writing the court to let it know just how wrong it is that Reinhardt is on the panel to hear the Prop. 8 appeal.

Whoopi Poop

Rank hypocrisy by politically liberal celebrities is nothing new, as is their penchant for making mindless and unsubstantiated charges against people they think they disagree with. But I wanted to share Whoopi Goldberg's recent rant against bloggers (presumptively conservative ones, but maybe also liberals), because of the underlying homage it makes to one of the greatest fictional comics (in my slightly warped mind, at least) to grace this Earth - Triumph the Insult Dog.

They don't have to find out if they are even current in their information. They don't have to do any of that. And then that is picked up and made into some other story on another station, and it becomes the truth. See, I think fact outweighs assumption. So if you have facts in your hands, then you can talk, then you can have a conversation and say I hated what you did, blah, blah, blah. And I want to know who’s saying it so I can say, well, I think you're wrong here, you missed this. But you can't do that. People just, they poop on you and they walk away.

On a side note, I've seen an episode of Conan O'Brien's new show on TBS, and it seems really lacking.

Power Line's Unbecoming Self Righteousness

Shortly after TEA Party favorite Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware Republican Party nomination for U.S. Senate back in September, several prominent center-right blogs like Power Line persistently complained that O'Donnell was a bad choice and Delaware Republicans/TEA partiers were giving up an almost certain pick up of Joe Biden's old Senate seat with the "moderate" (i.e., liberal) Mike Castle.

Now that O'Donnell has since lost the election to self-described "bearded Marxist" Chris Coons, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line just can't refrain from basically wagging his finger at and telling O'Donnell supporters, "I told you so." Although the tone of self-righteousness is a bit subtle, it's nevertheless noticeable. But lost among the veiled condescension by Mirengoff is his failure to recognize the impact that he and his Power Line cohorts might have had in O'Donnell's predicted loss in the general election. It didn't help, for instance, that they lent legitimacy to the idiotic troll that O'Donnell had once dabbled in witchcraft - while she was in high school. Power Line also conveniently fails to mention the fact that Mike Castle acted like a complete sore loser and refused to back O'Donnell after she won the primary. Had Castle done so, I don't think it would have been unreasonable to believe that O'Donnell's chances of winning would have increased significantly.

Mirengoff concludes his blog post by expressing hope that conservatives don't repeat the "blunder" of nominating another Republican candidate like Christine O'Donnell. I just about wanted to punch through my computer screen when I read that.

2010 California General Election Recommendations

As I've previously blogged, this is the very first general election that I will not be voting as a registered Republican. Without any sense of obligation to support a a candidate just because he or she won the Republican primary, I can vote for whomever I want. And believe me, there are a few elected government positions where the Republican candidate is less than desirable from a conservative standpoint.

So, without further adieu, here are my recommendations for selected state-wide offices and ballot initiatives (I might add to or change the list if more information becomes available):

Governor - Meg Whitman Although Whitman is not really all that conservative, e.g., she is pro abortion rights and against Arizona's illegal immigration bill, she at least is pro-business and is the only viable alternative to Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, who as far as I know, never held a private sector job in his life. I'm personally looking at my vote as not for Whitman, but against Moonbeam.

U.S. Senator - Carly Fiorina Almost a clone of Meg Whitman with a dash of the questionably conservative John McCain, a political mentor to Fiorina. A lot of state GOP establishment types, including Fiorina herself, have disingenuously claimed Fiorina is "pro-life." Fact of the matter is that all Fiorina has ever said is that she is personally against abortion. Fiorina has never said she is against abortion rights, and in fact has suggested she supports them as long as the voters of California do so. A cop out to be sure, but since the only alternative is Barbara "Please Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer, this is a another "hold your nose" ballot cast.

Lieutenant Governor - Karen England You're going to have to write England in, as she only recently got her campaign going for this almost useless office. The Republican nominated candidate, Abel Maldonado, is pretty much a Democrat in Republican clothing.

Secretary of State - Damon Dunn I think Dunn is a former NFL player. Anyway, a couple of friends are big supporters of his, so that's why I'm making this recommendation.

Treasurer - Mimi Walters Walters is a former Assemblywoman from Orange County who was very effective, and Bill Lockyer is a career political liberal hack from, if I remember correctly, the East Bay.

Attorney General - John Eastman Like England, you'll have to write Eastman in. He doesn't have an active campaign going, having lost in the primary to the Republican nominee Steve Cooley, but I'm writing Eastman in anyway because Cooley is liberal and Democrat Kamala Harris is even more of a liberal hack.

Superintendent of Public Instruction - Diane Lenning Another write-in candidate. Just do it.

California Supreme Court - Vote 'No' on Everyone (Cantil-Sakauye, Chin and Moreno) Cantil-Sakauye is untrustworthy in light of the report that she presided over a same-sex marriage during the period of time before Prop. 8 was approved by voters. Chin voted to strike down the law requiring parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion. Moreno is a flat out liberal political hack in a black robe.

Prop. 19 (Marijuana Legalization) - No I've actually kind of struggled with this recommendation, but because the initiative would be in direct conflict with operative Federal law, I can't support it.

Prop. 20 (Congressional District Drawing) - Yes If this passes, the drawing of district lines is taken out of the hands of the politicians whose main objective, of course, is to make sure they always have voters to keep them, and their party, in office.

Prop. 21 (Vehicle License Surcharge) - No Sounds like a tax hike.

Prop. 23 (Suspends Implementation of Air Pollution Control Law) - Yes The law this initiative would suspend is based on global warming junk science.

Prop. 25 (Simple Majority to Pass State Budget) - No This initiative states that the two-thirds vote requirement to impose and raise taxes would remain in place. However, not all taxes are called "taxes." Many are called "fees" for the specific purpose of avoiding the two-thirds vote requirement for taxes. You can bet there will be "fees" stuck in a state budget that requires only a simply majority to pass.

Prop. 26 (Fees Approved by Two-Thirds Vote) - Yes See above on Prop. 25.

Prop. 27 (Eliminates Commission on Redistricting) - No This is basically the exact opposite of Prop. 20. Not having a Redistricting Commission would perpetuate the existence and entrenchment of career politicians. That has obviously not worked well for California.

Anti-Prop 8 Attorneys Have Jumped the Shark

If you're a fan of pop culture, you'll recognize that "jumping the shark" is a term that basically means doing something that is over the top and absurd.

Lawyers representing the parties who are challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 (the California constitutional amendment which legally defines marriage as being between one man and one woman) have seemingly "jumped the shark" with the arguments they recently submitted to the Ninth Circuit of Court of Appeals. As pointed out by Ed Whelan, an example of the over the top rhetorical tactics employed by anti-Prop. 8 lawyers Ted Olsen and David Boies is found in their conclusion which opens as follows:

Last month, in a widely publicized tragedy, a young Rutgers student jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge after being outed on the Internet as gay. A few days later, across the Hudson River in the Bronx, two 17-year-old young men were beaten and tortured to the brink of death by a gang of nine because they were suspected of being gay. Incidents such as these are all too familiar to our society. And it is too plain for argument that discrimination written into our constitutional charters inexorably leads to shame, humiliation, ostracism, fear, and hostility. The consequences are all too often very, very tragic.

Within the general context that the above appears, it's pretty obvious that Olsen and Boies are saying there's a causal connection between not legally recognizing same-sex "marriages" and gay teen suicide (as well as apparent anti-gay induced violence*). Now, I'm pretty certain this clear suggestion isn't supported by any hard data. Indeed, as the linked to posting by Ed Whelan discloses, there is actually available hard data to refute such a connection (in regard to gay teen suicide*).

So why would Olsen and Boies suggest this outrageous and easily refutable link between same sex marriage and gay teen suicide? This is only speculation, but I think it's principally because they know who their audience is and they have no qualms of trying to exploit it in their favor. Unfortunately, given the earned reputation of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as a liberal and lawless court, this objectively ridiculous tactic by Olsen and Boies is more than likely going to work. Heaven help us all.

*I have subsequently added this text.

Let's Rock

A Federal District Court judge in Florida today gave the green light to 20 states that are challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. Obama's Dept. of Justice tried to dismiss the lawsuit primarily on grounds that Congress acted under its constitutional authority to impose and collect taxes. The exercise of said authority, of course, was disingenuously denied by Obama during the health care debate.

News that the lawsuit by 20 states can go forward is very encouraging, especially in light of the recent setback caused in a similar legal challenge by the Thomas More Law Center. Hopefully, the the judge in the 20 states lawsuit won't be the ideological hack that the judge in the Thomas More Law Center case obviously was.

On a side note, it seems that several Volokh Conspiracy blog contributors think Obamacare could be found constitutional under a Necessary and Proper Clause analysis. It's interesting from an academic standpoint, but in the end I think it requires a great deal of tortured logic for anyone to argue that the government may constitutionally force an American citizen to purchase and/or effectively pay for someone else's health insurance.

More Liberal Hackery From the Bench

Following up on her ruling last month that the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is unconstitutional, Federal District Court Judge Virgina Phillips imposed a "world-wide" injunction that basically lets all the happy people in the military come out of the closet, or footlockers, and flaunt their sexual disorders.

That Judge Phillips has egregiously abused her authority with this ideologically based ruling and injunction is without question. The woman is clearly trying to make a name for herself a-la fellow judicial lame brain Vaughn Walker. I'm hoping someone or people in Congress will oblige Judge Phillips by introducing articles of impeachment against her.

When Liberal Activist Judges Go Wild

David Kopel at The Daily Caller has a nice layman's analysis of the recent Federal court decision in Thomas More Law Center vs. Obama, a case which challenges the constitutionality of Obamacare; specifically, the law's mandate that almost everyone carry health insurance. Failure to comply with the mandate results in a hefty fine.

As noted by Kopel, the District Court in Michigan upheld Obamacare on the basis that Congress acted within its scope of power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. The underlying premise for this basis couldn't be any more ridiculous and without legal grounding:

The choice not to buy a federally-designed insurance product is not an activity at all. It is inactivity. Judge Steeh, however, said that not buying insurance is an “economic decision.” Which is true, since all inactivity, including not purchasing products, is in a sense an economic decision. If you’re sleeping, you’ve made the “economic decision” not to spend your time working to make money.

So according to Judge Steeh, Congress can use the interstate commerce power to force you to make the “economic decision” to buy a bureaucratically-designed insurance policy that you don’t want.

However, the Supreme Court has never held that Congress can regulate any “economic decision.” Such a ruling would convert our Constitution of limited, enumerated powers into a grant of unlimited central power. The American people of 1787 never would have ratified unlimited central power, nor do Americans support such power today.

That Judge Steeh had to invent the “economic decision” theory demonstrates that a conscientious judge who wants to uphold the health control law can’t find a plausible way to do so within existing Supreme Court doctrine.

This, of course, isn't the only legal challenge being made to Obamacare, and it's more than likely that Judge Steeh's decision will be appealed. It is, nevertheless, distressing to see the blatantly injudicious lengths that some of these judges will go to, e.g., making legal doctrines up out of whole cloth, in order to sustain an obviously unconstitutional law they find ideologically appealing.

It's Like Having a Funeral for Your Dead Goldfish

Divorce ceremonies are apparently a growing phenomena in Japan:

One in four marriages in Japan now ends in divorce, yet it's still considered a cultural taboo. Increasingly popular ceremonies help some Japanese cope with the country's changing social norms, according to divorce ceremony planner Hiroki Terai.

Michiko's soon-to-be ex-husband, Taka, says the idea was surprising to him. He had never heard of a divorce ceremony when Michiko brought it up.

But when he looked at the brochures on-line -- which explained that the divorce ceremony was like a wedding ceremony, with a different outcome -- he decided some sort of formal closure to their marriage might provide him with emotional closure as well.

Illustrative of a culture that is increasingly becoming self-absorbed on the individual level? Seems like it.

With a fifty percent divorce rate, I fully expect divorce ceremonies to be the next big thing here in the U.S. very soon.

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.