Me on Alito so far...

I've been combing through this guy's background, looking at rulings he's made & what his arguements have been, and I must say I'm shocked:

So far I see no reason to oppose Alito.

I'm not saying he's the type I would personally nominate, hell no. There's a couple things that are somewhat questionable, but they end up being nitpicky upon closer inspection. For example:

-"C.H. v. Olivia et al.". Spotted in summary form in Wikipedia's listing on Alito, that had me raising an eyebrow thinking his view in this was a sign of religious nuttery. Then I took a look at the details of the matter (summarized fairly accurately here in case you don't have all day) & saw that the point being made was less "how DARE you keep Jesus out of the schools!" and more like "y'know, insulting some kid's parents is probably not a good idea regardless of what they believe". So, question mark dropped.

-"Doe v Groody". Saw this one first on a news site, don't remember which one. Alito argued that searching a mother & daughter during a search of a residence didn't violate their rights. Obviously, my first impulse was to cry foul. Then I saw that though they weren't referred to explicitly in the warrant the request for it included searching all occupants -- which would cover them. If anyone is in the wrong on that one, it is whoever authorized the warrant in the first place; such a blanket grant of authority is troubling to say the least, but it was not Alito that granted it. No sense in blaming him for that one.


Add to having cleared up those bits that much of what interest groups are complaining about are issues where he's actually correct (i.e.: stating that the commerce clause doesn't give congress the power to ban machine guns) or are incidents that were created by screwy interpretation to begin with that he didn't have the power to clean up then (i.e.: ACLU v. Schundler), plus sufficient proof that the Bible-Thumping class isn't exactly getting what they expect (his rulings on abortion are actually a mixed bag), and his background actually stacks up to be decent. Again, I am shocked.

Unless he shows himself to agree with Luttig on US citizens being "enemy combatants", I'll have to just accept this one. He's not the fire-breathing Bringer of the Congressional Handcuffs I would've wanted, but he's qualified (read: not Miers), not an open Jesus freak (read: not Owens), & pretty even-keeled.

Disproportionate response

After the shit in the national soup that was the Kelo ruling, the House of (alleged) Representatives has brought a knife to a gunfight:

Conservative defenders of private property and liberal protectors of the poor joined in an overwhelming House vote to prevent local and state governments from seizing homes and businesses for use in economic development projects.

The House legislation, passed 376-38, was in response to a widely criticized 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court last June that allowed eminent domain authority to be used to obtain land for tax revenue-generating commercial purposes....The bill would withhold for two years all federal economic development funds from states and localities that use economic development as a rationale for property seizures. It also would bar the federal government from using eminent domain powers for economic development.

It now goes to the Senate, where Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has introduced similar legislation. (emphasis mine)

Don't stroke yourselves just yet: this bill doesn't actually do much if anything. Note that it refers to "federal economic development funds": national taxpayer dollars going to state & local projects. Yet most eminent domain doesn't involve federal-level tax money.

So what exactly IS this legislation? Simple: a threat to withhold from the state & local level money they do not deserve in the first place, as punishment for an act that usually doesn't involve national tax dollars. It'll really make no difference.

The only real benefit to this is that the vote serves to expose the most craven of the political class. If you're so obsessed with power that you won't even co-sign to such a piddling empty expression, even though it has nothing but benefit to you politically, then it is a shame that we cannot legally do more harm to you than to merely vote for someone else.

Click here for the Yea/Nay/Too-busy-for-the-people's-work list. Efforts need to still be made to do away with this naked aggression i.e.: a constitutional amendment AT LEAST revoking this ridiculous power to take one person's property and hand it to another in hope of getting more taxes out of it, if not the most preferable move (IMO) of realizing that "eminent domain" is an awkward relic of the proto-industrial age and abolishing it entirely. In the immediate term though, it can't hurt to target everyone not listed in the "yea" column for a landslide defeat.


(Props to Hammer of Truth for the link)

The point?

If I didn't look at something like this -- an anti-state.com blogger's definition of anarcho-capitalism -- and think to myself "what's the difference then?", I'd be an anarchist.

Anarchy is really a misnomer if you think about it. There is still hierarchy in any ordered society, all we are arguing over is how to protect it and/or what the source of that order is. The definition given at that site sounds to me more like a homeowner's association on steroids than a state of anarchy, and I can't stand homeowner's associations (since they tend to override the principle of He Who Pays The Bills Makes The Rules: if I'm paying for a house, no force on earth should be able to dictate to me what I can and cannot do with it, period). If there is still going to be an organization that can tell you what you're allowed to do, and your only recourse -- barring a lucky break w/ the "court" -- is to leave, then how is that not a government?

"That mud don't make itself..."

Kevin Carson spots someone asking the question that never gets asked: "once we get the oil out of the ground, what about the junk moved around to get it?"

Market externalities suck, yais...

Lightning strikes twice

Once in a blue moon the media actually does its job. I'll happily acknowledge it when it comes up. for example:

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents....

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Now, think about this for a moment. We have secret prisons across the globe, run by the CIA. It's claimed that we're only using them for al-qaeda operatives. Yet 1) the cries of not-so-fast are very public & 2) the accomplishments of the "war on terror" (if there are any) are an enigma.

This can only mean one thing: they're lying. Most of those people being waterboarded (a method of torture) and whatnot can't possibly be al-qaeda, otherwise who would oppose it? Al-qaeda isn't covered under the Geneva Convention, what are we hiding?

Best. Opening. Lines. Ever.

Jake Sullum owns your soul:

When Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated, Democrats worried that he was willing to overturn the Endangered Species Act. Now they're warning that Samuel Alito, President Bush's latest Supreme Court pick, is hostile to federal gun control.

Together, presumably, Roberts and Alito would bring us two votes closer to an America where Congress is powerless to prevent the machine-gunning of arroyo toads. I wish. (emphasis mine)

If it's any indication of how long I've been a proud nut, I recall awhile back I considered me & a few friends going into wooded areas with Tec-9s & destroying as many animals as we could find -- big, small, didn't matter -- and lamented the passage of the "assault weapons ban" for denying us such an excursion.

I was 12 at the time.

Ouch...

In the real world...

As if the Vikings didn't have ENOUGH problems:

An already dire situation got worse for the demoralized Minnesota Vikings with confirmation Monday that quarterback Daunte Culpepper will miss the rest of the season with a devastating injury to his right knee.

Culpepper, a three-time Pro Bowl pick coming off a career year whose effectiveness had fallen off dramatically this season, tore his anterior cruciate, medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments in Sunday's 38-13 loss at Carolina. (emphasis mine)

Damn, usually ONE of those tearing means your season is over. All three?

If I were him I'd just retire now.

Here comes the Info-flood

More information about Sam Alito than you can deep-throat:

SCOTUSblog on Alito

Law.com profile

Wiki (w/ links to other sites)

A US News profile, w/ material not mentioned in the others


Anything else important as it comes...

Was only a matter of time

Miers was a blip:

Rebounding from the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush is poised to select between two of the nation's leading conservative federal appeals court judges - both experienced jurists with deep backgrounds in constitutional law - for what promises to be a bruising Senate confirmation battle.

With an announcement expected Sunday or Monday, administration officials have narrowed the focus to Judges Samuel Alito of New Jersey and Michael Luttig of Virginia, sources involved in the process said. (emphasis mine)

Figures. The people that Bush actually listens to aren't actually concerned with following the Constitution, oh no. The alpha & omega of their "philosophy" -- if you can even call it that -- is for their politicians to have absolute power, period. Notice the difference between what the complaint of bloggers was about Harriet Miers and what his foot soldiers were saying?

No doubt that Luttig would be acceptable to his crew. He's an authority loving jackass always willing to ignore the Constitution when it suits the whims of Bushophiles, they're gonna love him like monkeys love bananas.

Of course, they'll be putting the final nail in the coffin, but since when did they care about liberty?

Update @ 12:56 PM 103105 -- eh, off by one:

Stung by the rejection of his first choice, President Bush on Monday nominated appeals court judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court — mollifying his conservative base but angering Democrats who said Alito could divide the country over abortion and gun rights.

“Judge Alito has served with distinction on that court for 15 years, and now has more prior judicial experience than any Supreme Court nominee in more than 70 years,” Bush said, drawing an unspoken contrast to his first choice, Harriet Miers.

As usual, the barking from Dems is nowhere near what's relevant. Irrational appeal to authority? Nope, they like that. They're more concerned about the typical "liberal" interest group garbage -- note how quickly they whip out their opposition to the 2nd Amendment?

I reserve judgement on this guy, as I don't know as much about him. But if I spot a Luttig-like redflag then he will be opposed. The Constitution is much more specific about holding US citizens without charges than it is about abortion, that's one "litmus test" that actually makes sense to use.