The gang that can’t shoot straight
15 comments June 30th, 2008
The hunt for Osama bin Laden has been STYMIED by the incompetence of the Bush administration.
Archive for June, 2008
Oil and gas companies hold leases on 68 million acres of federal land they are not developing
22 comments June 30th, 2008
Sixty-eight million acres is a whole lot of territory — more than the size of Illinois and Pennsylvania put together.
It’s also 45 times the size of the area the energy companies want to explore in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska.
The question arises: Why don’t the oil and gas companies explore in some of the 68 million acres of federal land on which they hold leases rather than risk environmental damage to ANWR?
The answer: They’re not sure there’s much oil and gas in those 68 million acres, and they don’t want to spend the money finding out.
Another question: If they’re not sure, why have they bothered getting leases?
Answer: Hey, mind your own business.
Yet another question: What’s the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act?
Answer: It’s legislation that would forbid the granting of new leases on public land to oil companies that aren’t using the leases they currently have to actually drill for oil.
The bill came up for a vote in the U.S. House last week and failed. Nearly all the Democrats voted for it, and nearly all the Republicans voted against it.
HERE’s the roll call.
Call me Patrick Hussein Cunningham
5 comments June 29th, 2008
Some of Barack Obama’s supporters are ADOPTING his middle name to show solidarity in the face of the nitwits who want you to think “Hussein” is an un-American moniker.
Marriage Protection Amendment sponsored by a prostitution patron and a restroom Romeo
5 comments June 27th, 2008
You remember Republican Senators David Vitter and Larry Craig, don’t you?
They’re conservative guardians of all that is good and decent in our society, and they’re SPONSORING a constitutional amendment that would protect marriage from…well, from whatever it is that same-sex couples might do to that venerable institution.
Never mind that Vitter has been known to patronize hookers and that Craig has been known to solicit sex in public washrooms.
Evangelical blowback against blowhard Dobson
10 comments June 27th, 2008
Not everyone in the Christian evangelical community is pleased with Dr. James Dobson’s intemperate attack on Barack Obama, as we see HERE.
No wonder Dobson’s organization is suffering a decline in membership and revenues.
No ice at the North Pole this summer?
7 comments June 27th, 2008
I wonder what the global-warming deniers will have to say about THIS.
Here are a few guesses:
”Yeah, well Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet, y’know. And he uses a lot more energy at his house than I do at mine.”
“I know a TV weatherman who says this stuff is a big hoax perpetrated by socialists and other girlymen who want to take away our Hummers and make us ride bicycles.”
“I noticed that it was kind of cool around here this past spring. So much for global warming.”
“We don’t need polar bears, anyway. I mean, what good are they?”
“Helloooo! I get my ice from the fridge, not from the North Pole. Don’t you?”
“This is just a cyclical thing. We’ll have another Ice Age any day now.”
McCain flip-flops on judicial activism
19 comments June 26th, 2008
John McCain SAID today that the Supreme Court was right to overturn a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. — and I agree with him on that point (though not on every aspect of his statement).
But let’s face it: This ruling was a classic example of judicial activism, which conservatives like McCain are forever bemoaning.
Just last month, McCain had this to say:
The moral authority of our judiciary depends on judicial self-restraint, but this authority quickly vanishes when a court presumes to make law instead of apply it…
In the shorthand of constitutional discourse, these abuses by the courts fall under the heading of “judicial activism.” But real activism in our country is democratic. Real activists seek to make their case democratically — to win hearts, minds, and majorities to their cause. Such people throughout our history have often shown great idealism and done great good. By contrast, activist lawyers and activist judges follow a different method. They want to be spared the inconvenience of campaigns, elections, legislative votes, and all of that. They don’t seek to win debates on the merits of their argument; they seek to shut down debates by order of the court. And even in courtrooms, they apply a double standard.
Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered “settled law,” and everything else is fair game.
OK, well then let’s examine the background of the handgun case that was decided today.
The ordinance at issue was adopted by the duly elected representatives of the people of Washington, just as similar ordinances in other locales were adopted by elected officials.
The high court had no precedent on which to rely in making its decision. Never before in the more than 200 years since the Bill of Rights was adopted has the Supreme Court said that the rights afforded by the Second Amendment apply to individuals.
Never before have any of the tens of thousands of gun-control laws in this country been overturned by the Supreme Court on Second Amendment grounds.
The folks who wanted to overturn the Washington ordinance and others like it didn’t pursue the matter in the way that McCain prescribes. They didn’t persuade the people’s elected representatives to repeal the handgun ban. No, they did what McCain said is wrong to do: They got a court to act in their favor.
Again, I don’t disagree with the overall thrust of today’s ruling. But I wish the right-wingers who are always complaining about judicial activism would finally admit that their agreement with this ruling amounts to hypocrisy.
Judicial activism is what courts do — and are supposed to do — when ruling on the constitutionality of laws and ordinances. That’s what the high court did in overturning laws against abortion, and that’s what it did today.
We can disagree with a court’s reasoning in applying the Constitution in a particular case, but let’s not be so obtuse as to say such judicial activism is always wrong regardless of the particulars.
Colin Powell to endorse Barack Obama?
3 comments June 26th, 2008
Political columnist Robert Novak SAYS the former secretary of state is fed up with the Bush administration and the current direction of the Republican Party.