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I forget his name, but an Israeli general, commenting on our post 9-11 anti-terrorism measures, reportedly said: "The United States doesn't have a homeland security system. It has a system for bothering people." Here's more proof that he's right.
A federal judge in South Carolina has ordered the Government to either charge Jose Padilla with a crime or release him. Mr. Padilla, a U.S. citizen, has been held now for 2 1/2 years as an "enemy combatant."
The court's opinion and order, in pdf format, is here.
There's a lesson here for America:
AMSTERDAM -- Paul Hiltemann had already noticed a darkening mood in the Netherlands. He runs an agency for people wanting to emigrate and his client list had surged.
But he was still taken aback in November when a Dutch filmmaker was shot and his throat was slit, execution style, on an Amsterdam street.
In the weeks that followed, Mr. Hiltemann was inundated by e-mail messages and telephone calls. "There was a big panic," he said, "a flood of people saying they wanted to leave the country."
Leave this stable and prosperous corner of Europe? Leave this land with its generous social benefits and ample salaries, a place of fine schools, museums, sports grounds and bicycle paths, all set in a lively democracy?
The answer, increasingly, is yes. This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class. Dutch people pulling up roots said they felt a general pessimism about their small and crowded country and about the social tensions that had grown along with the waves of newcomers, most of them Muslims."The Dutch are living in a kind of pressure cooker atmosphere," Mr. Hiltemann said.
Chilling, no?
Meanwhile, Polipundit writes:
The president risks destroying the entire Republican coalition unless he comes out in favor of a plan ... which would end illegal immigration.
As I understand it, Europe's problem isn't so much one of illegal immigration, but, as Mark Steyn puts it, one of " ... dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed ..." But if the problem is, at least in part, one of assimilation (or, more precisely, the lack thereof, as appears to be the case in the Netherlands), America is probably doing a poor job assimilating the 10 to 12 million illegals now here, all of whom live outside the law and in the shadows.
Mr. Bush has proposed an immigration plan that, in outline at least, is mostly sensible. (You can read a full-throated defense of it here.) Among other things, the president proposes to give priority for citizenship to legal immigrants, which is as it should be. Respect for the rule of law doesn't guarantee assimilation, but it's still a necessary element of it. The president also proposes, quite rightly, to bring the supply of unskilled labor into line with the demands of our economy. To these things, I have no objection.
But here's the part that roils many Republicans and that threatens to split the GOP's coalition: amnesty for illegal aliens. From whitehouse.gov:
President Bush does not support amnesty because individuals who violate America's laws should not be rewarded for illegal behavior and because amnesty perpetuates illegal immigration. The President proposes that the Federal Government offer temporary worker status to undocumented men and women now employed in the United States and to those in foreign countries who have been offered employment here.
Notice, yes, how the statement denies support for amnesty before then proceeding to call for amnesty? Nice trick, huh?
The Orwellian doublespeak notwithstanding, granting legal status to people who arrived here illegally is amnesty. After all, what does amnesty mean, if not the excusing of people from the consequences of their criminal conduct?
Although other principles of Republican governance -- for example, federalism and fiscal restraint -- are now in tatters, respect for the rule of law is still strong in most quarters of the GOP. Most rank and file Republicans will not support amnesty, and the party will pay a heavy political price if it grants it.
Of course, some Republicans do support the president, which is why this issue threatens to divide us. For example, over The Hedgehog Blog, which defends the Mr. Bush's call for amnesty, we're asked:
Do you really think the American public has the stomach to see 10 million people deported, many of whom have been here all their lives?
Although the answer to that question is, in fact, probaby "yes" -- as it is, we arrest or deport about 1 million a year -- I think the answer is also moot. We don't have to deport them. If we're smart, we can get them to deport themselves. As others have suggested -- I forget where I read it originally, or else I'd link to the source -- any illegal alien who wants one of Mr. Bush's "guest worker" permits should be required to apply for it in his native country. The worker can then re-enter the United States legally.
And in the meantime, as Polipundit suggests, let's crack down on employers who hire illegal aliens by sending some of their executives to prison. A few high-profile prosecutions have a way of concentrating the mind.
While I'm on the subject of firearms -- see the entry below -- the NRA reports good news in Texas. Several pro-gun bills are working their way through our legislature, including:
HB 225 (by Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland), which extends the term of a renewed concealed handgun license (CHL) from 4 to 5 years;
HB 318 (by Rep. Suzanna Hupp, R-Lampasas), which establishes confidentiality of records on applicants and licensees under Texas' right to carry law (in case you didn't know, at present anyone can buy from the state a list of concealed handgun licensees);
HB 322 (also by Rep. Hupp), which reduces the license fee and lowers the minimum age requirement for a CHL to 18 for military personnel and veterans;
HB 1066 (by Rep. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy), which allows anyone from another state to apply for a non-resident Texas CHL and amends the state's reciprocity law to expand the number of states eligible for an agreement with Texas;
HB 685 (by Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs), which exempts military personnel with recent firearms instruction from having to qualify on the range before obtaining a CHL;
And, saving the best for last:
HB 823 (by Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin), which amends the Penal Code to make it lawful to possess a concealed, loaded handgun in your car or truck without a CHL. At present, you must have a license to not only carry a gun in public, but even to have one in your vehicle. This bill would amend the law to allow any person legally qualified to own a handgun to have one in their car.
It's all good stuff. If you live in Texas, call or write your legislators and tell 'em to vote "yes" when these bills get to the floor.
This picture, originally posted with no explanation of what's wrong with it, is up over at Instapundit. Following complaints from what he describes as a "veritable army of readers," Professor Reynolds updated his entry to acknowledge the safety violation it depicits. You notice that both of them have their finger on the trigger, yes? I don't mean to pick on this particular couple, whose error is commonplace; but the conduct shown here is a big, freakin' no-no, even if they're just hamming it up for the camera.
"Well, yes," Professor Reynolds writes, "but I'm prepared to make an exception for a photo-op like this one, where the firearms appear to be pointed safely." Even if we assume, arguendo, that the guns are pointed in a safe direction, there are no good exceptions to the other rules of gun safety. None.
The rules of safe gun handling follow a logical order, with each successive rule building on the ones that precede it. The first rule of safe gun handling is that all guns are always loaded. Even if you know a gun is not loaded, you still treat it as if it were loaded. This reminds us to afford firearms the respect they deserve. They are, after all, deadly weapons. (By the way, in any newspaper account of a person who has unintentionally shot another human being, what's the thing the shooter is most likely to say? "I didn't know the gun was loaded!")
The second rule is to keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, i.e. not pointed at anything you're unwilling to destroy. In the event of a negligent discharge, this rule prevents you from blowing a hole in your television -- or in your companion's head. We should never be surprised by what our bullets strike.
The next rule of safe gun handling is to keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot. Firearms do not discharge of their own volition. Any time you read an account of a gun "just going off," it's because the shooter had his finger on the trigger.
Firearms provide us with the means to protect ourselves against the criminally violent and to resist a tyrannical government. I myself own several, and have a license to carry one. Although I keep it concealed, as required by Texas law, I almost always have a gun with me whenever I'm in the public square. I am not anti-gun.
I was taught to shoot by some burly straight men who either didn't feel any homophobia or else never showed it. As we say in Texas, they learned me how. In turn, I've had the opportunity to introduce firearms to several of my friends and to take them to range with me. I had my partner, Michael, buy a gun of his own and I taught him to use it. I did so because I love him, and if ever I'm not home when a cretinous yahoo comes through the door, I want Michael to be the one left standing. I am not anti-gun.
I'm a member of the NRA and a proponent of our right, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, to keep and bear arms. But owning and handling guns is a serious responsibility; by design, firearms are dangerous. And although people can shoot for sport and have great fun doing it, guns are not toys. In this belief, I am not anti-gun.
For those of us who own guns -- and who face periodic legal and political assaults on our right to do so -- the behavior captured in the image above should drive us bananas. (I'm glad Professor Reynolds has gotten an earful from his readers; he should.) Every tragic, needless death from the mishandling of a firearm provides ammunition to our adversaries, to say nothing of the innocent lives lost.
When handled properly, firearms are safe; when handled improperly, they get people killed. I assume that nothing untoward happened to the couple pictured here. And the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen to you either, even if you violate the rules of safety. But here's the deal: in every account you'll ever read of somebody getting accidentally shot, it will be the consequence of the kind of behavior shown in that picture.
A Florida judge has given Michael Schiavo permission to remove the feeding tube that has kept his brain-damaged wife, Terri, alive for 15 years:
The ruling by Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer will allow the husband ... to order the tube removed at 1 p.m. on March 18. In the meantime, the woman’s parents, who want her kept alive, are expected to ask another court to block the order from taking effect.
I don't want to rehash this case; it's already been rehashed enough. But I do want to take issue with this statement from Cardinal Renato Martino:
If Mr. Schiavo legally succeeded in provoking the death of his wife, this would not only be tragic in itself, but it would be a serious step toward legally approving euthanasia in the United States.
That's just flat wrong, and it elides the important distinction between euthanasia, which refers to the induction of death, and the withdrawal of artificial support, which refers to the cessation of heroic intervention.
Here's the difference, expressed in practical terms.
Were Mr. Schiavo asking his wife's doctors and nurses to inject her with a lethal dose of, say, morphine, that would be euthanasia. He'd be asking them to cause her death. But that's not what he's asking. He's asking instead that they stop the human intervention preventing her death. But for the presence of that feeding tube, Mrs. Schiavo would die naturally.
Terri Schiavo's case is remarkable for the extent to which the media have covered it. But her case is not remarkable medically. Everyday in this country, in the waiting rooms of ERs and ICUs, families make a decision to cease heroic intervention -- whether in the form of a ventilator, feeding tube or other measure -- and allow their loved ones to die naturally.
If, as Cardinal Martino asserts, the withdrawal of artificial support puts us on the road to euthanasia, then we've been on it for decades and have yet to arrive at our supposed destination.
Your "small" blog might be bigger than you think:
" ... only about 20,000 blogs (a mere 0.4% of all active blogs) have a sizeable audience (more than 10 regular visitors and more than 150 hits per average day) ... "
Incidentially, Technorati now reports the existence of 7,333,841 blogs.
(Thanks to Newmark's Door.)
Jonah Goldberg, in an essay on the intersection between technology and ideology:
Maine State Rep. Brian Duprey introduced an unusual piece of legislation this month. It's a pro-life bill designed to tighten protections for the unborn. That's not the unusual part. That happens all the time. The interesting part is that Duprey's bill is designed to protect gay fetuses.
Although I think of myself as pro-choice -- for the first trimester, anyway -- I admit it: I'd vote for that bill.
Hmmm.
It's official: Canada will not participate in the U.S. missile defense program, a decision that effectively cedes partial sovereignty over its airspace to the United States.
But as Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's foreign affairs minister, put it: "Would it have been otherwise?" No, probably not.
This is fascinating. And very telling.
John O'Connor and Mark Jones are getting hitched and the Times of London carries word of it in the paper's forthcoming marriages section:
A period of engagement is announced between Mr John Christopher O’Connor and Dr Mark Bryan Jones, both of Islington, London. Following the enactment of the Civil Partnership legislation expected later this year, the couple will announce the time and location of both the civil union and subsequent church blessing ceremonies to interested parties.
Although the announcement itself is history-making -- never before in the paper's 220 years has it published notice of an upcoming same-sex partnership -- it's the other elements of the story I found both fascinating and informative.
Dr. Jones and Mr. O'Connor met on the Internet and carried on a five-month online courtship before finally meeting in person in 2002. But at the time they met, Dr. Jones was engaged to a woman -- a fact that had itself been announced in the Times. In other words, while Dr. Jones was engaged to a woman he was also engaged in a manhunt. This should have set off an alarm for Mr. O'Connor, who is evidently unaware of the truism that what people do with you, they'll do to you.
But it gets better:
"It [the Civil Partnership Act] means emotional stability and the same rights as a married couple," said Dr Jones. "It also might show other people how seriously committed we are to each other."
The Act -- which is nothing more than the codification of a legislator's musings -- means emotional stability for your relationship? Emotional stability?! Uh, no dear; it most assuredly does not. The law might affirm a relationship characterized by emotional stability, but it cannot provide it. And as for showing people how seriously committed these two are to one another, this speaks volumes:
Mr O'Connor and Dr Jones are also drawing up a "pre-nuptial" agreement over Dr Jones’s earnings before they met.
In other words, even before they're hitched, they're already opening an escape hatch and making sure it's big enough for their money to follow them through it. Ain't that sweet?
In this, the first announcement of its kind, we see in the appalling details a microcosm of what marriage has become and why same-sex marriage is now conceivable, not only in Europe but here too. After all, these men are only mimicking the behavior they've observed in others. (You can imagine, yes, an identical announcement from a heterosexual couple?)
Whatever it was or meant in the days of yore, marriage is no longer a sturdy foundation for the raising of children; or a way to protect women from isolation and poverty after they've spent their youth as mothers; or an institution that provides structure and stability to our communities. Today it's just a benefit-laden mechanism for joining together two adults who say to one another: "I'll love you until I don't." As evidenced by this first announcement of a forthcoming gay union, rooted as it is in betrayal and foreshadowing an exit strategy, the contemporary understanding of marriage does not require sobriety or a view to depth or durability.
As the Rev. Donald Sensing wrote: " ... gay marriage, if it ever comes about (and it will) will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it."
From Janet Daley's excellent essay "Freedom? Why Europe's not bothered," published yesterday in the London Telegraph:
I have written before on this page that European hatred of the United States has a great deal to do with jealousy of American self-belief. But there is an element of shame there, too. Because Europe knows that it has sold the pass. It has traded liberty for security: the safety of consensus, the reassuring unfreedom of bureaucratic control and an over-regulated economy.
American talk about spreading freedom is not just gauche; it is a reproach.
Quin Hillyer of Southern Appeal:
To get right to the point: I predict that the pessimistic gnashers of teeth will not see their worst fears realized in the Kelo v New London case. I predict that the Supreme Court WILL NOT rule against Kelo and the other homeowners. This is not to say that they will rule for them, but only that they will, at the very least, keep the case open on remand for lower courts to reconsider in light of wisdom offered by SCOTUS.
I sure hope he's right.
I always enjoy reports of firearms with unique features; for example, I noted here the Glock that fired if you touched the owner's arm. Although the maker of this sidearm is not identified, it's evidently capable of being fired by a chair:
According to the father, the son then struck him with the chair, hitting him on the head and shoulders, causing the gun to discharge ...
Who knew?
News out of the U.S. Supreme Court is dispiriting.
First, in connection with Kelo v. New London, the property rights case I wrote about here, SCOTUS Blog reports that " ... based on the impression left by the oral arguments, the government-side is going to win today's property rights cases overwhelmingly."
That's just one take on oral argument, of course. But the folks at SCOTUS Blog are Supreme Court litigators and I trust their impressions. If they're right, Professor Bainbridge sounds the correct note: "Get ready to roll it up."
Second, in Johnson v. California, the Court dealt a heavy blow to California's " ... unwritten policy of racially segregating prisoners in double cells in reception centers for up to 60 days each time they enter a new correctional facility." California asserted that " ... this practice ... is necessary to prevent violence caused by racial gangs." The Court didn't reject the practice outright, but instead ordered the appeals court, which had affirmed it, to review the practice again and this time subject it to "strict scrutiny." "Strict scrutiny" is almost always fatal to government classifications based on race.
I can't think of this case without thinking of Rodney Hulin. The justices, who inhabit a dainty and rarefied world populated by sycophants of every race, have probably never heard of Rodney. A small-framed, white 16-year-old who was sent to prison following the commission of a boyhood prank, Rodney suffered unimaginable cruelty -- until he hung himself -- attendant to the racial realities of our Nation's prisons.
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennyslvania, has apparently decided he doesn't need the support of conservatives in his 2006 re-election campaign.
Let's beat the Christmas rush and predict now that his seat switches to the Democrats.
(Thanks to Kip.)
If you're interested in the RSS feeds of big city newspapers, you'll be glad to know that the Houston Chronicle is now syndicating its content. This disclaimer accompanied the paper's announcement:
HoustonChronicle.com RSS feeds are available for personal use in a news reader or for non-commercial use on a Web site or blog.
Nice, huh? A blog-friendly newspaper. Compare and contrast.
Justice Antonin Scalia has a well-earned reputation as the most ideologically conservative member of the U.S. Supreme Court; consequently, I think many imagine him as a fire breathing, law-and-order jurist who worships unreservedly at the Altar of the State's Case. But Justice Scalia proved again today why he is, in my judgment, among the justices most sympathetic to the rights of criminal defendants.
From the syllabus in Smith v. Massachusetts:
Petitioner was tried before a Massachusetts jury on charges related to a shooting, including unlawful possession of a firearm. At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, petitioner moved for a not-guilty finding on the firearm count because "the evidence [was] insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a conviction." [citation omitted]
The trial judge granted the motion, finding no evidence to support the requirement of the unlawful possession count that the firearm have a barrel shorter than 16 inches. The prosecution rested, and the trial proceeded on the other counts. Before closing argument, the prosecution argued that under Massachusetts precedent, the victim’s testimony that the defendant shot him with a "pistol" or "revolver" sufficed to establish barrel length. The judge "reversed" her previous ruling, allowing the firearm count to go to the jury. The jury convicted petitioner on all counts.
In affirming, the Massachusetts Appeals Court held that the Double Jeopardy Clause was not implicated because the trial judge's correction of her ruling had not subjected petitioner to a second prosecution or proceeding, and held that [a state rule of criminal procedure] did not prohibit the judge from reconsidering her decision.
The Supreme Court reversed.
Resolution of this case was close, as evidenced by not only the vote, 5 to 4, but also by the odd line up of justices: Scalia, O'Connor and Thomas (conservatives) and Stevens and Souter (liberals) in the majority; and Ginsburg and Breyer (liberals) and Rehnquist and Kennedy (conservatives) dissenting. But in a close case implicating the rights of the criminally accused, where is Justice Scalia? Siding with the defendant.
It's not the first time.
Bush calls for greater U.S.-European unity to spread freedom
(Editorial cartoon courtesy of Cox & Forkum.)
If you're a homeowner, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument tomorrow in a case that should be of interest to you. In Kelo v. New London, the Court will consider " ... whether local governments have the power to condemn land for private enterprises aimed at boosting local tax revenue - rather than for traditional public projects such as bridges, roads and parks."
Ms. Kelo and her fellow petitioners are trying to stop the city of New London, Connecticut -- or, more precisely, the New London Development Corporation, a private entity to which the city surrendered its power of eminent domain -- from taking their land and turning it over to private developers, who plan to erect a tax-generating hotel and conference center.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, in relevant part, " ... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." In construing the meaning of "public use," the Connecticut Supreme Court backed the city's plan, which, the court said, " ... is projected to create in excess of 1,000 jobs, to increase tax and other revenues and to revitalize an economically distressed city." But Ms. Kelo's attorneys say the court " ... incorrectly equated 'public use' with the ordinary 'public' benefits - taxes and jobs - that typically flow from private businesses' enterprises."
The Institute for Justice has more.
Here's Mickey Kaus on Doug Wead, who secretly recorded his phone conversations with then-Governor George W. Bush and has now turned over some of the tapes to ABC News and the New York Times:
The treachery is that Doug Wead waited until after the election:
"I don't want some little kid doing what I tried ...."
"The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check. ... "
"I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays. ... "
[When told that a supporter was saying he'd promised to not hire gays] "No what I said was I wouldn't fire gays. ... "
"I am going to tell the truth and do the right thing, dammit, without fear or favor, with malice toward none and charity toward all--and if my political advisers tell me that will cost me power and fame, so be it!"OK, that last one was made up. But another round of explosive front-page revelations from secretly recorded phone conversations like today's and Bush's approval will hit 70 percent.
He-he. I don't know if I'd go that far. But I will say that the only thing revealing about these tapes is that they show Mr. Bush to be the same man in private that he is in public, which seems to me a good thing.
For those who wonder how I can feel respect and affection for a president who's given his (nominal) support to the Federal Marriage Amendment, I commend your attention to the transcript above. Dubya is just a good ol' boy from Texas who may not have the most sophisticated understanding of gays and lesbians, but he's not a bigot either. Plus, he's the man who signed the law that put a gun on my hip, which is the best "hate crimes" prevention you can get anywhere.
Here below a few selected items from this week's offerings by the more than 100 blogs to whose RSS feeds I subscribe. I subscribe using FeedDemon, and you can too. (By the way, my endorsement of FeedDemon is not compensated; it's just an expression of appreciation for useful and user-friendly software.)
Overlooked by the blogosphere, says Ralf at Chicago Boyz: Russia's role in Iran's nuclear program. By the way, when you see him again next week, look again into Vladimir Putin's eyes, Mr. President. I'm pretty sure he has democratic retinopathy, but that's only my professional opinion.
Clayton Cramer commends our attention to the criminal travel plans, now cancelled by the FBI, of eight NAMBLA members. For the uninitiated, NAMBLA is the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a nefarious group that supports sex between men and teenage (or even pre-teen) boys. Only two days ago, I drew your attention to the prostituting in Houston of teenage girls, whose customers were not gay men. I am, like a Fox, fair and balanced.
Christopher of Legal XXX assures us he has not abandoned his blog, which is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. You can bookmark Christopher -- he deserves it -- by clicking here.
On the reasons for the war in Iraq, Normblog, clinging to the notion that the truth matters, says some on the left need their memories refreshed.
Red State identifies, correctly in my view, the issue on which the GOP is in danger of putting itself at odds with the will of the American people and therefore losing its majority. I myself remain hopeful that the rest of us will excise the party's Wall Street Journal wing -- lots of money there but few votes -- and save ourselves, to say nothing of the Nation's civic and fiscal health.
Associated Press:
A lesbian who split with her partner after adopting the woman's biological children must pay child support, the Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled.
The woman adopted her partner's children in 1997. A few years after their breakup, she tried to vacate the adoption. Around the same time, the children's biological mother, who had remarried and divorced a man, filed for child support.
A three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that the woman who adopted the children must contribute to the cost of raising them.
"Whether a parent is a man or a woman, homosexual or heterosexual, or adoptive or biological, in assuming that role, a person also assumes certain responsibilities, obligations, and duties," Judge John G. Baker wrote in a 22-page ruling.
This woman adopts her partner's children -- which means, as a matter of law, they're her kids, too -- and she needs a court to tell her that she has a responsibility to them?
Hello?
Aldous Huxley, English novelist (1894 - 1963):
That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.
Washington Post, on the risks of private retirement accounts:
Because Social Security is often the biggest or the only source of retirement money for the poorest Americans, low-income workers would be hit particularly hard if the markets plunged and they were left with smaller benefits than they would have received under the current system.
Yes, if the markets plunge for 20 years or longer, the poor will have problems. So will we all -- and retirement security probably won't be the most pressing among them.
Under any reform Congress adopts, participation in a partially privatized Social Security account is sure to be voluntary. People who believe that such accounts are unacceptably risky can remain fully invested in the current Social Security program. But I'm thinking they should make their choices and let us make ours, eh?
Secondly, the privatized accounts will be made up of regulated, long-term, diversified investments:
In devising a structure for the private accounts, the Bush administration is modeling its proposal after the Thrift Savings Plan, a tax-deferred retirement investment plan similar to a 401(k). The idea is to minimize risk for people at the outset by offering as few as three to five diversified investment funds.
Under the emerging Bush plan for Social Security, the default investment would be a "life cycle" account. It would begin with investments that have greater potential for both risk and reward and shift to safer bonds as a worker ages, officials in and outside the administration said.
Or, as the Heritage Foundation puts it:
"Life cycle" accounts ... automatically [reduce] the proportion of stocks as the worker gets older, thus locking in past gains and sharply reducing the chance of major losses in the years approaching retirement.
Finally, opponents of PRAs assume that the current system carries no risk. But that's by no means certain. When, beginning in 2018, Social Security starts to spend more than it collects and the Government is forced to grapple with an empty "Trust Fund" -- which holds IOUs, not cash -- we're going to have cut benefits or raise taxes or both. How do we know that the voters of tomorrow will accept the sharp tax increases that'll be necessary to pay scheduled benefits?
UPDATED: Additional illumination from the always sharp Kip at A Stitch in Haste. I especially enjoyed this snippet (emphasis in the original):
Social Security, under DOMA, is the mostly blatantly anti-gay federal program ever conceived -- far worse than "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (both of which, incidentally, courtesy of the Democratic pervert-president, Bill Clinton). Partnered gays are 100% screwed under the current system. If you're gay and you don't know about the Social Security spousal benefit and how it's affected by DOMA, then, with all respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. Learn the facts, and get mad. Very mad.
Did last week's report that a New York gay man had been infected with an HIV superstrain hearld the emergence of a new, more virulent epidemic? Maybe not:
The virulent and highly drug-resistant case of AIDS recently found in a New York City man is similar in some ways to two Canadian cases that appeared in 2001 and did not lead to the spread of a "supervirus," as some fear may happen in New York.
The Canadian cases turned out to be readily treatable despite their worrisome features. The infected patients -- two men who had no contact with each other -- are alive and in good health, said the physician who treated them. He originally described the unusual findings two years ago in a medical journal.
[...]
The dramatic downhill course the New York patient took could have meant that his HIV was especially virulent, but it could equally reflect preexisting weakness in his immune system that has nothing to do with the strain of virus.
"We know the whole progression to disease is multifactorial. It has to do with the patient, and it has to do with the virus. We don't know yet why some viruses cause rapid disease and some don't," said Miguel Quiñones-Mateu, a virologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
From an opinion by the Iowa Supreme Court:
Immigrant access to driver’s licenses has surfaced as a controversial issue in Iowa and throughout the United States, and it frames the issue presented in this appeal. Yet this case does not require us to pass upon the merits of the competing policy arguments surrounding this issue—that is the role of the legislature. Rather, our task is to determine the legality and constitutionality of the practice in Iowa of denying driver’s licenses to illegal aliens residing in this state. For the reasons that follow, we conclude the practice is both legal and constitutional.
The court's opinion is here; the Washington Times has a related report here.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution -- to a dog.
The court's opinion, in pdf format, is here.
(Thanks to How Appealing.)
This is Judge John Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. His name might be of some interest to you because it's reportedly on the top of the short list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court:
In spite of Roberts' quiet manner, his credentials -- former Rehnquist law clerk, deputy solicitor general, top-flight practitioner at Hogan & Hartson and, in the estimation of some, the finest oral advocate before the high court in the last decade -- are speaking for him and winning fans. Add to that a brief 20-month tenure on the [D.C. appeals] court that provides few targets for Democrats, and Roberts is emerging as a top candidate for the high court.
Full story here.
Many of the prostitutes getting banged by straight men in Houston are as young as 13, the Houston Chronicle reports. "Houston," says a local police captain, "is the sex capital of the United States, according to the girls on the street." In fact, the problem of female juvenile prostitution in Houston is so pervasive as to have drawn the attention of the FBI. That is not a flattering development for my city.
The story, which ran today, is buried deep in the paper's metropolitan section. (Click the link and see if you can find it.) Except for those who scour the Chronicle or read this blog, nobody is ever going to see it.
I wonder: had the Chronicle learned that gay men here were boning 13-year-old male prostitutes, would that story have ran in the paper's basement, or might it have been featured more prominently -- perhaps on the top fold of the front page, under a banner headline?
As the blogosphere has demonstrated lately, more than once and in spectacular fashion, America's legacy media suffer from a left-leaning political bias. But they suffer from other sorts of bias, too.
(When you fatigue of searching at the link above, here's a direct link to the story.)
George F. Will on the president's "austere" budget:
It proposes spending 38 percent more than the government was spending when Bush became president. It would slice off only thin slivers here and there: Remember, entitlements and interest are two-thirds of the budget and discretionary domestic spending is just 17 percent. It calls for a 3.6 percent increase over last year's spending total. Discretionary spending unrelated to security is slated to decrease only 0.7 percent. The net cut of 1 percent of the Education Department's budget is a mere nick to a budget that has grown 40 percent under Bush.
Total spending proposed by the president: $2.57 trillion. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush has promised to veto any decrease in spending for the new prescription drug benefit for seniors, even though that program is facing a $324 billion cost overrun.
I don't think it was true even at the time President Clinton said it, but plainly it's not true now. The era of big government -- really big government, no less -- is not over; it's only just begun.
(Background here.)
The Democrats are demagoguing Social Security reform, which is bad enough. But to make matters worse, says Charles Krauthammer, the president has not well-articulated the nature or urgency of the crisis:
I do not know if the president's Social Security reform will pass, but if it does not, its demise will be traced to that point in the president's State of the Union address when he warned that the system would go bankrupt in 2042. It was a disastrous moment.
[...]
Let's start with basics. The Social Security system has no trust fund. No lock box. When you pay your payroll tax every year, the money is not converted into gold bars and shipped to some desert island, ready for retrieval when you turn 65. The system is pay-as-you-go. The money goes to support that year's Social Security recipients. What's left over is "loaned" to the federal Treasury. And gets entirely spent. It vanishes. In return, a piece of paper gets deposited in a vault in West Virginia saying that the left hand of the government owes money to the right hand of the government.
The truly important date, Mr. Krauthammer reminds us, is not 2042 but 2018, when the system will start to pay out more in benefits that it collects in taxes. "We now have," he writes, "13 years rather than 20 or so before the system starts bleeding red."
As promised yesterday, I want to follow-up on my post about same-sex marriage -- or, more accurately, on some of the reaction to it -- and on John Derbyshire's column on the origins of homosexuality.
Over at The White Peril, which tracked back to my post, a reader named Michael left a comment in which he wrote:
I think [Paul's] post is incredibly insulting and incredibly untrue. He must have a very low opinion of our ability to form monogamous relationships.
And ...
... to say that gay people can't control their sexual impulses any more than straight people is akin to the arguments for lynching black men who slept with white women in the last century.
Nowhere did I write that gay people can't control their sexual impulses. I wouldn't write that; it's not true. Rather, I suggested that if you made divorce all but impossible to get and prosecuted adultery as a crime, you wouldn't find many gay men interested in getting married. In fact, if those conditions defined marriage in America, there would be no campaign for same-sex marriage. (Even as it is, few gay men elect to marry in the one U.S. jurisdiction where it's available to them.) But by this, I don't mean to say that gay males are somehow constitutively incapable of monogamy. I just think that not many of them choose it, or at least they don't choose it over the long haul.
In the book The Male Couple, David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison detail the findings from their study of 156 gay male couples in San Diego, California. As support for my point, this study is not without its problems. In the first place, it was conducted in the early 1980s, before the advent of the AIDS crisis. The sample size was small and the participants were drawn from a single city. It's at least possible, if not likely, that a contemporary study, made up of a larger and geographically representative sample, would produce findings that differ from the ones McWhirter and Mattison chronicled.
But what these researchers found is, I think, still consistent with the anecdotal impressions many of us have even now of our gay brethren. And what they found is this: in their first year together, almost all of the gay male couples in the McWhirter/Mattison study reported their relationships as sexually monogamous. But the longer the couples stayed together, the less likely they were to remain monogamous. And of those who had been together five years or longer, none reported monogamy.
Why is that? I'm not a clinical psychologist and I don't play one on this blog. But were I to venture a guess, I'd say that the longer a male couple remains together, the less threatened the partners feel by extra-relational sex. But whether that or something else explains it, McWhirter and Mattison found among gay couples a behavioral choice you wouldn't find among their heterosexual counterparts. No well-designed study of married straights is going to produce anything close to a 100% self-reported sexual infidelity rate among those at or past their 5th anniversary.
It's not hard to understand why. If nothing else, heterosexual infidelity carries a risk to which gay men never give any thought:
Admittedly, heterosexual intercourse, procreation, and child care are not necessarily conjoined . . . but an orderly society requires some mechanism for coping with the fact that sexual intercourse commonly results in pregnancy and childbirth.
Gay men have other sexually-related risks to worry about -- and whether they worry sufficiently about those risks is now a matter of public debate -- but they never worry that their recreational sex partners might get pregnant. On the other hand, few married heterosexual women want to contemplate the possibility of their husband fathering a child with another woman, which explains, in part, their usual objection to extra-marital sex.
And it is, I think, the absence of women -- and not the presence of a constitutive defect -- that allows male couples to choose extra-relational sex. Or, to put it another way, in gay men we see the expression of male sexuality sans the restraining influence of the female. (Which explains why the crafting of rules, e.g. a prohibiton on adultery, which are rooted in the nature of the male-female relationship, are inapposite to the experience of the male couple and would make marriage unappealing to them.)
Finally, in a comment you'll find here, Joey writes to say that my understanding of gay men is in error and that I've given myself over to my "bitter queen aspect:"
Sorry this "PC" of me has to correct you, but I've seen your type plenty of times before, and that's just "bitter queen talk." It feels like it's impossible to find a life-long commitment, especially with the younger crowd, but being a part of the younger crowd, I can tell you, it's there, it's just harder to find.
I do not dispute that gay men form long-term commitments. I do dispute that those commitments are usually monogamous. And if I'm wrong about that, then why has Joey seen "[my] type plenty of times before" and what makes mongamous relationships "harder to find"? (For the record, I don't feel bitter. In fact, I feel grateful; I managed to "marry up." Not only is my partner an uber-educated, multi-lingual man with a zest for life and a heart of gold, he's also cute as hell.)
Now, on to John Derbyshire, about whose column yesterday on the origins of homosexuality I also promised to remark. Having acknowledged his view "that most homosexuality is inborn, or acquired early in life" -- a view I share -- he goes on to write:
Homosexual behavior is a social negative, suggesting as it does that normal heterosexual pairing, the bedrock institution of all societies, is merely one of a number of possible, and equally moral, "lifestyles," and thereby devaluing that pairing ...
But if, as Mr. Derbyshire believes, homosexuality is "inborn, or acquired early in life," then how can it suggest itself to the heterosexual, who was not born with the disposition to it, as merely one of several possibilities? For reasons that I do not understand and cannot explain, many paleoconservatives appear to believe that homosexuality is somehow irresistibly seductive, capable by the mere power of its example of "devaluing" the heterosexual norm. It's mind-boggling.
A nuclear-armed North Korea is presumably as disconcerting to the Chinese as it is to us. But even if North Korea does in fact have a nuclear weapon, China will probably do precious little about it; like the United States, her options are limited.
For reasons explained at the link, we probably cannot apply effective economic sanctions against North Korea and military intervention doesn't seem likely -- or prudent.
We'll stomp our feet for awhile and shuttle diplomats to and fro. But here's what we'll ultimately do about North Korea's declaration that she has a nuclear weapon: accept it.
Because I have things to accomplish here at the house, this will be my only entry tonight. But I'll be back tomorrow with a follow-up to the post below on same-sex marriage.
In the meantime, here's a sample of John Derbyshire's column today on the origins of homosexuality. Mr. Derbyshire, derided by some as a homophobe, is the National Review writer for whom Andrew Sullivan named the Derbyshire Award.
My own inclination, therefore, is to believe that most homosexuality is inborn, or acquired early in life, possibly by infection, or by biochemical imbalances in the womb, perhaps helped along by some genetic predisposition. As I have said, the human personality is a thing of fantastic complexity and mystery, and I am sure there are cases of socialization, "imprinting," and conversion (in both directions), too. These are, however, fringe phenomena, occurring in small numbers. Most homosexuality is, I believe, inborn, or acquired very early in life.
The issue is confused by the fact that homosexualists, who obviously have the biggest axe to grind here, are the most vocal proponents of the can't-help-it school of thought. "We are born this way," they say. "Therefore it is mean of you to discriminate against us!" Whether the second proposition follows from the first, I shall come to in a moment. That they are indeed born that way, though, I find highly probable. Since I am not a homosexualist, nor even a homosexual (the first of those words names a type of ideologue; the second, a type of personality) — and since I in fact believe that homosexual behavior is a social negative, and ought to be discouraged — it's a bit odd to find myself in the same theoretical company as the homosexualists.
I'll have a follow-up to this tomorrow, as well. Enjoy your evening and I'll see you tomorrow afternoon.
(Update: See today's cartoon above.)
Dimitri Vassilaros, columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
If social conservatives really wanted to protect marriage, the Marriage Protection Amendment would prohibit divorce.
[...]
Divorce, by definition, is the threat to the "sacred" institution. So let's use that in a counterattack. Let's put those who would deny Americans that most basic civil right, on the defensive. Let's see if marriage really is a sacred cow or just something to be milked politically.
For any social conservatives reading this blog, I'm going to tell you a surefire strategy for putting the kibosh on same-sex marriage. If you can get the Nation's legislators and prosecutors to do exactly two things, the gay community itself will end the campaign for equal marriage rights. I guarantee it.
Are you ready? Here we go. (By the way, I do mean every word of this.)
First, repeal no-fault divorce statutes wherever they exist and require anyone seeking a divorce to show cause why it should be granted. Set the bar high. A history of physical abuse should constitute acceptable cause, but not vague "irreconcilable differences." When people marry, they should know that the law takes their vows seriously; once a couple says "we do," the partners should understand that they will probably be without legal recourse for dissolving their union.
Second, make adultery a crime (in states where it isn't already) and then actually prosecute it. I admit this goal might be complicated by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas. But I've read that decision three or four times and I'm not convinced that it presents an absolute bar to the criminalization of adultery. And in any event, there's only one way to find out. Bring up a defendant on charges. It won't be hard to find one.
If you can do these two things, I guarantee that the gay community will shut up about same-sex marriage. Indeed, you would have created an institution from which all but a few gay men would recoil in horror. You'd be saying to them, "Look, if you get married, you're probably going to have to stay married to this one partner for your whole life. And if you have any sex outside your relationship, you risk going to jail."
Hardly any gay men, especially those in their 20s or 30s, will want to hear that. And fewer still will want to be part of it. The PC crowd will jump me for saying so, but it's the truth. (I admit, lesbians may be another story. But lesbians don't set the gay community's political agenda. Middle class gay males set the gay community's political agenda. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, ladies; I'm just saying that's the way it is. But you already know that, don't you?)
You think I'm kidding about all this? I'm not. I'm serious as cancer. Moreover, I've just described public policy goals that would restore and protect traditional marriage. Easy divorce is a contemporary development in our law. And for most of our Nation's history, adultery was at least socially, if not always legally, penalized. (Bill Clinton managed to stay in office even after his extracurricular activities became a matter of public record. Do you think John Kennedy could have done the same?)
Of course, it's not politically possible -- or at least it's not in most states -- to repeal no-fault divorce laws or to prosecute adultery. But if you understand why those things aren't possible, you understand why same-sex marriage is possible -- or at least why it seems so to gay people.
When social conservatives talk of defending traditional marriage, to what traditions do you refer? To the ones Americans established only 30 years ago, when they decided that the rules by which their parents lived were inconsistent with personal happiness? If traditional marriage is inconceivable to most gay men, it's also now inconceivable to most heterosexuals.
In the past, the rules and attitudes pertaining to marriage were consistent with, and supportive of, the institution's larger-than-self (and heterosexually-oriented) social purposes. Yes, people married for love and they hoped for a lifetime of happiness. Weddings were then, as they are now, occasions for joy and expectation. But as a matter of both law and custom, the happiness of the couple wasn't ultimately dispositive. Marriage had a social purpose to serve, and it served that purpose whether or not the couple was happy.
If marriage was to keep women out of poverty and provide children with a stable home life, it made sense to make divorce difficult. If marriage was intended to corral the procreative consequences of heterosexual sex, it made sense to stigmatize adultery. These purposes also made marriage inapposite to the experience of gay men, which is why marriage rights weren't on the agenda of the liberation movement to which the Stonewall riots gave birth.
But today, for reasons we need not explore here, Americans see marriage as a vehicle for meeting the needs of the individual, and they require that their marriages not be inconsistent with their personal happiness. Unsurprisingly, our law and social customs now reflect this new understanding of marriage's purposes.
But where the old purposes of marriage served to disqualify gay men and women from admission to the institution, the new purposes invite them. Two gay men are indisputably capable of staying married only for so long as they're happy with one another. What's uniquely heterosexual about that?
Strip marriage of the rules that make it unappealing to gay men but keep all the nice perks that come with it -- what, you think we don't want our partners to have health insurance? -- and you get the inevitable. You get a political campaign driven by middle class gay men, possessed as all middle class Americans are of a suffocating sense of entitlement, that will not relent until it succeeds.
You're a social conservative who wants to protect traditional marriage? Fine. You can have what you want. All you have to do is get your neighbors to submit their own marriages to the rules of tradition.
You'll understand if I don't hold my breath.
Associated Press:
During a meeting Friday with the Democratic black caucus, Dean praised black Democrats for their work for the party, then questioned Republicans' ability to rally support from minorities.
"You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room?," Dean asked to laughter. "Only if they had the hotel staff in here."
Ummm, hmmm.
(Thanks to Best of the Web.)
(Update: See today's cartoon above.)
Democrats, are you ready to rumble? From the Associated Press:
President Bush on Monday sent the Senate 20 judicial nominees, including several who were blocked in his first term, signaling a new fight with Democrats.
[...]
The Democrats' ability to stall White House picks for the federal bench was one of the most contentious issues of Bush's first term. With a Senate comprised of 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and a Democrat-leaning independent, Democrats still have the 40 votes necessary to uphold a filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has threatened to try to change Senate rules to force confirmation votes if Democrats carry out their filibuster threats.
Among the names resubmitted from last term, my favorite: Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court. Mr. Bush has nominated her to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, generally seen as the second most powerful court in the country.
Columnist George F. Will once remarked that Americans are philosophically conservative but operationally liberal. As it turns out, that observation applies as much to Republicans as it does to anyone else.
Who knew?
Last month, in Illinois v. Caballes, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the warrantless sniff of a drug-detecting dog was not unconstitutional when used on your car. Your home maybe next:
The new petitions in the Texas cases grew out of a use of a drug-detection dog at a private home in Houston on October 4, 2000. A local police officer recruited a sheriff’s deputy, who specialized as a narcotics dog handler, to take a dog named Rocky for a walk around the exterior of the home of David Gregory Smith. There was no warrant for that search.
As Rocky sniffed at the door of a garage that was a part of the residence, the dog gave a positive alert that there were drugs inside. Based on that indication, police obtained a search warrant, and found some 660 grams of methamphetamine. The drugs were found in a rear corner bedroom, well away from the garage. Smith and Kristian Lehr Stauffer, who was in the home when the search was carried out, were charged with and convicted of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. They petitioned the Supreme Court for review after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to hear their appeals.
The Supreme Court is evidently interested in the cases, having ordered Texas to brief them.
Of course, Mr. Smith actually had drugs in his home. People who do not have drugs in their home have nothing to fear from drug-detecting dogs, right? From Justice David Souter's dissent in Caballes:
The infallible dog ... is a creature of legal fiction. ... their supposed infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the limitations of the dogs themselves, or even the pervasive contamination of currency by cocaine.
Indeed, a study cited by Illinois in this case for the proposition that dog sniffs are “generally reliable” shows that dogs in artificial testing situations return false positives anywhere from 12.5 to 60% of the time, depending on the length of the search.
In practical terms, the evidence is clear that the dog that alerts hundreds of times will be wrong dozens of times.
And when will the police discover that the dog is wrong? After they've tossed somebody's home, yes?
Senate majority leader Bill Frist, R-TN, says he has the votes to make the Democrats suck it up:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he has the 51 votes needed to change Senate rules and make it easier for Republicans to overcome Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees, but he hopes such a change won't be necessary.
Go to CNN's website, enter the words "fat chance" in the search bar, select "CNN.com" (as opposed to "The Web") and hit enter.
Here's the first story you'll get:
Howard Dean promised cheering supporters Wednesday night he would harness their energy to lead the Democratic Party back to power in the halls of Congress and the White House by 2008.
(Thanks to the guys at Glock Talk.)
Five evangelical Christians in Philadelphia have been arrested and charged with violation of Pennsylvania's Ethnic Intimidation Act for using a bullhorn to proclaim that homosexuality is a sin.
"Hate crimes" statutes are supposed to protect gays and lesbians, among others, from acts of violence. But assault, regardless of the victim's sexual orientation, is already a crime everywhere. Moreover, according to the FBI, there were 1,239 crimes in 2003 motivated by anti-gay animus. How did hate crimes law protect those victims?
As the case from Philadelphia shows, hate crimes statutes can be used to punish thought and expression. (By the way, whatever happened to the First Amendment?) But they protect no one. Police and prosecutors show up after a crime has been committed. Rarely do they prevent enmity-based violence. The only person who can keep you safe and prevent you from becoming the victim of a hate crime -- or any other violent crime -- is you. And isn't prevention to be preferred over the drama of playing Cassandra while confined to an ICU bed?
In Texas, gays and lesbians have the option of stopping a hate crime before it happens. It's the option I've chosen for myself. You can learn more here.
I assume that everyone reads Mark Steyn and so linking to him seems rather pointless. But on the off chance that you haven't yet seen his column today, don't miss it. He tells the story of a jobless German waitress who faces the loss of her unemployment benefits because she won't take a job as a whore.
From an editorial by the Free Lance–Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia:
Republicans may strike back using a novel parliamentary procedure. Sixty votes are needed to break a filibuster--a tough hurdle with only 55 GOP senators. Changing Senate rules by a simple majority vote to sidestep filibusters--the so-called nuclear option--would allow nominations to come before the full Senate for "consent"--or not. This is only fair: Many of the nominees mugged by the minority enjoy bipartisan support and would be confirmed in an up-or-down vote unshadowed by the politics of showdown.
The Judicial Conference of the United States has classified 18 appeals court vacancies as "judicial emergencies," meaning that there are too few judges in some circuits to effectively mete out justice. It's time a little justice came to the Senate, too. After four years of perverse political games, Majority Leader Bill Frist should mash the button and launch the big boy.
For those who like to remind us that Republicans won't be in the majority forever and that exercising the "nuclear" option is therefore not in our interests, I say how sweet of you to be concerned for us. But I'm confident that if the tables were turned, the Democrats would have nuked us long ago. They would never tolerate this behavior from Republicans. Why we've tolerated it from them for so long, I have no idea.
Moreover, when a Democrat returns to the White House, guess what? His nominees should also receive an up-or-down vote. Elections have consequences, and when you lose one, you lose the prerogatives that come with winning. That applies no less to Republicans than it does to Democrats.
It's enough already. Now bring the forces to DefCon 1 and open the silo.
In an effort to be congratulatory, I remarked today to a liberal Democratic friend and Howard Dean supporter: "Well, your man is chairman of the DNC now."
With eyes rolling, he replied: "Yes, and your man is commander in chief."
Touché.
As it has in every war since WWII, the military is discharging fewer homosexuals than it otherwise would:
The number of gay and lesbian service members discharged under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has dropped by almost half since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is at its lowest level since the Defense Department began keeping such figures in 1997.
[...]
Overall, the total number of service members discharged under the policy on gays in the military has dropped from a high of 1,227 in 2001 to 653 in 2004.
It's possible, of course, that fewer gay troops are making their sexual orientation known; that would explain the drop in discharges. But it's also possible that necessity is the mother of languorous policy enforcement.
Behold, the power of blogs.
Ed Morrissey has got to be feeling pretty good this morning. At least among the 100 or so blogs I track everyday, nobody covered the story of Eason's Fables as much -- or as well -- as Ed did. He's been like the proverbial dog with a bone, gnawing relentlessly on Eason Jordon's slander of U.S. troops.
Mr. Jordon is gone now, and Ed, among others, played an important role in his departure. The legacy media learns yet again that it is indeed a brave new world out there -- one in which accountability features prominently.
Debra Saunders on yet another folly of the drug war:
In 1998, Congress passed an amendment in the Higher Education Act to deny federal financial aid to college students convicted for possession or sale of illegal drugs. In America, you can be convicted for rape, murder or drunk driving and still qualify for federal aid -- as long as you didn't smoke pot.
The law wasn't in effect when Mitch Daniels went to school. While at Princeton, Mr. Daniels was convicted of smoking marijuana and then went on to make nothing of his life -- unless you count the time he served as budget director for the Bush administration or his election in November as the new Republican governor of Indiana.
I'm don't know enough about the operations of the Massachusetts judiciary to know what, if anything, to read into this, but it sure is interesting:
Opponents of same-sex marriage call it an unexpected and remarkable move: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on a request to
