Russert on Roberts

Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, recently sat down and offered some insight into Roberts and the fight ahead. Here are the important parts,

Tim Russert: A shrewd choice. He is a serious conservative – a sustentative conservative. Someone with a good temperament, someone with a good education.

And,

Russert: ...Roberts will be questioned closely on philosophy and ideology and the commerce clause and Roe versus Wade and some of those issues. I don’t think he’ll give very much, saying many of those cases may come before him, and he shouldn't comment.

And, if that’s the case, he should be easily confirmed. There are 55 Republicans – more than enough for confirmation. You only need five Democrats to prevent any filibuster and, based on my reporting over the last couple of days, if the vote were held today, he’d probably have close to 70 votes.

Talk about being beyond the filibuster! 70 votes?! Wow. Of course, that is if the vote were held today, which is to say that this number should change after the hearings - but it could go up a little bit. If he presents himself in a very proper, respectful manner, then it is possible that even with conservative views on many social issues, that he will gain the trust of some on the left; not the Boxers or Feingolds, but the Bidens and Clintons - near moderates, but not as centrist as the Liebermans and Byrds on some issues. Nonetheless, Russert is usually in the loop, so I will stick with his prediction of a "relatively" easy confirmation.

Full Article at MSNBC.

Roberts on Abortion

The San Francisco Chronicle has a vairety of quotes from John G. Roberts, the President's SCOTUS pick, on abortion. Here is one that I found quite insightful,

"Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. It's a little more than settled. It was reaffirmed in the face of a challenge that it should be overruled in the Casey decision. Accordingly, it's the settled law of the land. There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey." — Roberts, during the confirmation hearing [2003], when asked for his own views on Roe v. Wade.

Overall, my opinion is that the President probably picked someone conservative enough to not piss off the right wing, while scholarly enough to earn respect from moderates. He could have certainly picked somebody with a Scalia type of disposition, but instead went with someone of a clearer Rehnquist model. He will not be filibustered unless he says something particularly foolish during the hearings.

More quotes at SFGate.

Cunningham Does The Right Thing

Although a bit surprising, it is clearly the correct decision,

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Escondido, won't seek re-election next year, he announced Thursday, in the midst of a federal grand jury investigation into what some allege are inappropriate ties to a Washington defense contractor.

Here is a summary of the possible wrong-doings he may have committed.

A federal grand jury is investigating Cunningham's sale of a Del Mar Heights home in 2003 to a defense contractor at what may have been an inflated $1.675 million price. Mitchell J. Wade, founder of defense firm MZM Inc., sold the home nearly a year later for $975,000, losing $700,000. Cunningham also lived on Wade's 42-foot yacht, the Duke Stir, docked in Washington, D.C.

Del Mar Heights is nice, but not that nice... Anyways, it's pretty surprising to see how quickly this all got going, as much of the momentum was started by Joshua Micah Marshall over at Talking Points Memo, about a month ago when the story first broke. That's right, it was basically a blog that got the whole thing going - albeit a very powerful blog.

Expect a Republican primary lineup of nearly a dozen, as an opportunity at the House rarely comes up. Democrats probably won't have a chance at this North County district.

Full Article at NCTimes.

Death Penalty For ...... Computer Hackers?

John Tierney explains the rationale,

Professor Landsburg, an economist at the University of Rochester, has calculated the relative value to society of executing murderers and hackers. By using studies estimating the deterrent value of capital punishment, he figures that executing one murderer yields at most $100 million in social benefits.

The benefits of executing a hacker would be greater, he argues, because the social costs of hacking are estimated to be so much higher: $50 billion per year. Deterring a mere one-fifth of 1 percent of those crimes - one in 500 hackers - would save society $100 million. And Professor Landsburg believes that a lot more than one in 500 hackers would be deterred by the sight of a colleague on death row.

I see his logic, but I also see practical difficulties. For one thing, many hackers live in places where capital punishment is illegal. For another, most of them are teenage boys, a group that has never been known for fearing death. They're probably more afraid of going five years without computer games.

So that leaves us with E: something worse than death. Something that would approximate the millions of hours of tedium that hackers have inflicted on society.

Hackers are the Internet equivalent of Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who didn't manage to hurt anyone on his airplane but has been annoying travelers ever since. When I join the line of passengers taking off their shoes at the airport, I get little satisfaction in thinking that the man responsible for this ritual is sitting somewhere by himself in a prison cell, probably with his shoes on.

Very amusing.

Italy says Ciao to Iraq

I guess a number of different things (like this, this, and probably this) have scared the Italians out of Iraq. But who can really blame them for leaving a war that has no end in sight. Sure, everyone hopes for the best in Iraq and want to see the new "democratic" government triumph, but this whole idea of waiting until Iraq can guarantee its own safety is certainly not much of an exit strategy - instead, it stands as a clear cut way for the U.S. (and others) to retain influence in the region for the next century and beyond, similar to the way we have continued to "help" the Koreans and Germans. Perhaps Italy actually doesn't want to have to deal with an endless committment, but for whatever reason, it came as no surprise as the announcement was made earlier today by the Premier.

Italy plans to begin withdrawing some of its troops from Iraq in September, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday.

Speaking at the end of the G-8 summit, Berlusconi said the withdrawal plans could change because they depend on security conditions on the ground and denied it was linked to any terrorist threats against Italy.

"We will begin withdrawing 300 men in the month of September," said Berlusconi, who has come under increasing pressure in Italy over his support for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

Poor Berlusconi has been taking a battering from a number of different sources, including those within his own coalition.

Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli of the right-wing Northern League party said Friday the time had come for the United Nations to begin discussing "the progressive withdrawal of troops, beginning with our contingent, perhaps by September."

Full Article at the Washington Post.

Halliburton: We Win While You Lose

Guess who is getting contracts again?

The military has agreed to pay a Halliburton subsidiary up to $5 billion for another year of care and feeding of U.S. forces in Iraq, a military spokeswoman said Thursday.

The task order calls for Kellogg Brown and Root Services Inc. of Arlington, Va., to provide things like food and laundry service, showers, drinking water and other "quality of life" services for troops in Iraq, said Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill. The job also includes some fuel transport and other services.

Now its not just a matter of the connection between Halliburton and Vice President Cheney, its also about the number of scandals that have arisen while the company has been in charge of operations in Iraq.

Pentagon auditors have questioned tens of millions of dollars of Halliburton charges for its operations there. The company says it is a good steward of taxpayer dollars.

Full Article at Yahoo.

Activist Judges

Here is a nice article in the New York Times about the perception of Judicial Activism and the truth behind the label. Like so often heard, this attack of an "activist" judge is quite often thrown out at more liberal judges by the right wing, although often not substantiated by much evidence or justification. In a recent study, Professor Paul Gewirtz of Yale Law School looked at the truth behind the myth of activist judges by defining it in one simple way: How often has each justice voted to strike down a law passed by Congress?

The results might surprise:

We found that justices vary widely in their inclination to strike down Congressional laws. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, was the most inclined, voting to invalidate 65.63 percent of those laws; Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was the least, voting to invalidate 28.13 percent. The tally for all the justices appears below.

Thomas 65.63 %
Kennedy 64.06 %
Scalia 56.25 %
Rehnquist 46.88 %
O’Connor 46.77 %
Souter 42.19 %
Stevens 39.34 %
Ginsburg 39.06 %
Breyer 28.13 %

One conclusion our data suggests is that those justices often considered more "liberal" - Justices Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and John Paul Stevens - vote least frequently to overturn Congressional statutes, while those often labeled "conservative" vote more frequently to do so. At least by this measure (others are possible, of course), the latter group is the most activist.

Not that it matters what studies say, as we all know quite well that those on the far right are too often denying the existence of science and any sort of logical reasoning in favor of highly emotional and irrational debate. Still, it is quite incredible to see that all that they have been preaching for the last few years is nonsense when we look at the nation's highest court.