Bibden as usual misses the point

"I want to see the president of the United States succeed in Iraq. It is necessary for the president to succeed in Iraq. His success is America's success, and his failure is America's failure."
- Sen Joe Biden, (D) Del June 21, 2005

Then why don't you tell your party's counterparts to quit saying the war is a mistake and actually support our troops?

There's no such thing as home, sweet home
By Dennis Byrne, a Chicago-area writer and consultant
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0506270190jun27,0,4003233.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
In regards to the Supremem Court decsion that allows the local govt. to take away private land for "business-friendly" emminent domain
"How have we gotten to this point, where conservative judges are standing up for persons with fewer resources and liberal justices are backing the play of the powerful and influential? Perhaps the cynic would say it's because liberals salivate over any chance to enlarge government power, and because conservatives are willing to go to any lengths--even to backing the little guy--to advance property rights.The more important question, though, is: Is it right? The court has denied homeowners a constitutional protection against assaults by out-of-control local government. In response, those wishing to protect the little guy will have to be more vigilant at the local level, and ultimately fight to replace those elected officials who don't respect the basic right of domicile."

Discrimination by any name

Professor enmeshed in flap over collegiality
by Ruth Holladay
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/COLUMNISTS02/506260414/1006/NEWS01
William C. Bradford is a patriot, a veteran and an Apache Indian.
But is he "collegial"?
More on that in a bit. He fought in Desert Storm and Bosnia-Herzegovina, served as a major in the U.S. Army Special Forces and received the Silver Star.
Now the 39-year-old legal scholar is engaged in a battle on the home front -- political correctness in academia.
In 2001, Bradford was hired as an associate professor at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. His expertise is international law, federal Indian law and national security/foreign relations law. He has four degrees, including one from Harvard Law.
But he's under fire, he said, because his ideas about the war on terror do not conform to views held by Professors Mary Harter Mitchell, 52, and Florence Wagman Roisman, 66.
They are tenured, a status Bradford is seeking. Bradford said the two women have voted consistently to deny him tenure, despite good academic ratings.
In March 2004, he said, he was told during a review that someone described him as "uncollegial."
That's the new kiss-of-death buzzword. "Faculty seeking to get rid of others claim they are not collegial," Bradford said.
Bradford wrote a defense of the flag after 9/11 -- one that hung in the school lobby until some faculty objected.
He refused to sign a letter sent by Roisman defending Ward Churchill. He's the Colorado professor who called victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns."
Roisman would not comment specifically on Bradford's collegiality or lack thereof. She denied his politics was the issue.
Professor Henry Karlson, a respected senior faculty member, finds Bradford collegial and more. "He's perhaps the finest young man we have recruited."
But, yes, there is a problem. "Some members of the faculty, for reasons I cannot ascertain, are trying, for lack of a better term, to drive him away."
Students have voted Bradford their favorite teacher.
Mitchell long has been an anti-war activist. She did not return three calls on Friday.
Roisman said she is a proud member of the left. "I am a person of very progressive politics," she said. "Everybody there would tell you I am the most to-the-left person (on the faculty.)"
In winter 2003, Roisman made news for objecting to a tree with ornaments in the school lobby. After it was removed, she successfully lobbied against a new display -- an Indiana winter scene.
Then-Dean Tony Tarr weathered that storm, then resigned in 2004.
The new, interim dean is Susanah Mead, a longtime faculty member.
On Friday, Mitchell and Roisman threw a party for Mead. Only women faculty and staff were invited. Mead acknowledged she heard some rumblings about sexism.
Bradford laughed. "If a male dean came in, and only male faculty held such an event, can you imagine the outrage?"
There he goes again -- being uncollegial.

KELO et al. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON et al.

Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a concurring opinion. O'Connor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

Basically kids, if a the city wants to tear down your house to assist a developer in creating property to increase thier tax base, call the movers. The funny part is if this helps big business and harms the poor and the eldery, Republican nominated jurists sided with the little man, funny huh?
www.oyez.org
Your Justices
Stephen G. Breyer
Party: Democrat
Nominated by: Clinton

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Party: Democrat
Nominated by: Clinton

Clarence Thomas
Born: June 23, 1948
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Bush 41

David H. Souter
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Bush 41

Anthony Kennedy
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Reagan

William H. Rehnquist
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Nixon

Antonin Scalia
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Reagan

Sandra Day O'Connor
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Reagan


John Paul Stevens
Party: Republican
Nominated by: Ford

Game On

In response to the Rove remarks about Democrats and liberals being soft after 9/11 nad ht ehysterical actions of Democrats:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was asked about the recent Beltway battles over rhetoric, including the Durbin flap and said both parties need to "just take a breath and calm down." "Everybody needs to just be a little more restrained," she said.

Tlak about playing the middle ground and safe, this is the no stance rehtoric that you will hear from Hillary for a while.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050624-124200-5278r.htm

Thank you for the birthday present

Better Dead Than Fed, PETA
SaysBy Debra Saunders
Don't be fooled by the slick propaganda of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The organization may claim to champion the welfare of animals, as the many photos of cute puppies and kittens on its website suggest. But last week, two PETA employees were charged with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty each, after authorities found them dumping the dead bodies of 18 animals they had just picked up from a North Carolina animal shelter in a Dumpster. According to The Associated Press, 13 more dead animals were found in a van registered to PETA.
The arrest followed a rash of unwelcome discoveries of dead animals dumped in the area. According to veterinarian Patrick Proctor, the PETA people told North Carolina shelters they would try to find the dogs and cats homes. He handed over two adoptable kittens and their mother, only to learn later that they had died, without a chance to find a home, in the PETA van.
"This is ethical?" Proctor railed over the phone. "I don't really think so."
This is not the first report that PETA killed animals it claimed to protect. In 1991, PETA killed 18 rabbits and 14 roosters it had previously "rescued" from a research facility. "We just don't have the money to care for them," then PETA-Chairman Alex Pacheco told The Washington Times. The PETA shelter had run out of room.
The Center for Consumer Freedom, which represents the food industry, a frequent target of PETA campaigns, released data filed by PETA with the state of Virginia that shows PETA has killed more than 10,000 animals from 1998 to 2003.
"In 2003, PETA euthanized over 85 percent of the animals it took in," said a press release from the lobby, "finding adoptive homes for just 14 percent. By comparison, the Norfolk (Va.) SPCA found adoptive homes for 73 percent of its animals and Virginia Beach SPCA adopted out 66 percent."
The center's David Martosko considered PETA's hefty budget -- reportedly, $20 million -- and many contributions from well-heeled Hollywood celebrities, then figured, "PETA has enough money in the bank to care for every unwanted animal in Virginia (where it has its headquarters) and North Carolina."
Except PETA apparently prefers to spend donations not caring for flesh-and-blood animals entrusted to it, but on campaigns attacking medical researchers, meat eaters or women wearing furs. It is as if PETA prefers the idea of animals to animals themselves.
Why does PETA kill animals that might otherwise find a home? I repeatedly phoned PETA, but I never reached an official who would answer my questions. PETA's website spun the story under the banner, "PETA helping animals in North Carolina," with an emphasis on its efforts to "solve the animal overpopulation in North Carolina."
Here's more: "PETA has provided euthanasia services to various counties in that state to prevent animals from being shot with a .22 behind a shed or gassed in windowless metal boxes -- both practices that were carried out until PETA volunteered to provide painless death for the animals." Make that painless deaths for animals that could have found love.
Besides, PETA always has been about killing animals. A 2003 New Yorker profile included PETA top dog Ingrid Newkirk's story of how she became involved in animal rights after a shelter put down stray kittens she brought there. So she went to work for an animal shelter in the 1970s, where, she explained: "I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn't stand to let them go through (other workers abusing the animals). I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day."
That's right. PETA assails other parties for killing animals for food or research. Then it kills animals -- but for really important reasons, like because it has run out of room.
Martosko hopes animal lovers will learn that their donations will do more good at a local animal shelter than at PETA. "For years," he added, "we thought that PETA just cared for animals more than they cared for humans. But now it seems they don't care much for either."
No lie about not caring for people. In 2003, Newkirk hectored late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because a terrorist blew up a donkey in an attempt to blow up people. Newkirk also told The New Yorker the world would be a better place without people. She explained why she had herself sterilized: "I am opposed to having children. Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog -- it's nothing but vanity, human vanity."
Now you know. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals doesn't really like people. PETA has no use for ethics. And PETA kills animals.
***
Note to readers: My husband, Wesley J. Smith, is a senior fellow on animal rights issues at the Discovery Institute.

Wow, love the support from the Senate Dems

"There is rising concern that everything seems to be going the wrong way," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an interview.

More Hitch

The outrage about the nondisclosures in the Downing Street memos has led Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina to demand that we tell the al-Qaida forces in Iraq exactly when we intend to give up. Jones is the right-wing bigmouth who once wanted to rename French fries "freedom fries."

A Tale of Two Websites

I went to MSNBC.com & Foxnews.com at 5:50 central:

• MSNBC: no mention of the Durbin retraction, but mentions Frist "flip-flopping" on Bolton
• Fox: no mention of Frist, but enough on Durbin

Do the math

Biden says he'll run for president in 2008

Senior Democrat on Foreign Relations Committee ran in 1988
WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden said Sunday he intends to run for president in 2008, two decades after he dropped out of the race amid charges he plagiarized a British politician's speech.
If the Democrats wee playing Russian roulette, they now have three bullets in the revelover, Dean, Hillary & now Biden. I can hear Rove drooling.

John Kass, Chicago Trib sums up Durbin

"In World War II in Greece, my father was handed over to the Germans on the suspicion he aided downed British airmen. They beat him, day after day, making him dig his own grave. He played dumb to survive and it worked. An uncle was forced into a labor camp. The Nazis didn't use Christina Aguilera music on him, though luckily, he too survived.Sen. Durbin, in other places, suspected terrorists have their feet flayed with rods, their families raped; they're force-fed a quart of olive oil, then tied, seated, to a block of ice.
By your own words, Senator, Guantanamo isn't remotely like that.You don't have to apologize to the Republicans in the White House. But Senator, you should apologize to the nation.
And if you don't have the stomach for the work, please have the guts not to play partisan politics with what has to be done.
Seriously."

A Great Hitch quote

“Gore Vidal said you should never miss a chance to have sex or go on TV and my attempt to emulate this has meant quite a few late night cable appearances watched only by nutbags and political junkies. I think celebrity is not to be aimed for.”