The Dish

This from the Legal Times:

Perhaps the person on the short list who confounds conservatives and liberals alike is Judge Edith Brown Clement of the 5th Circuit, who has been on the bench since 2001. To her benefit and detriment, she makes both conservatives and liberals uneasy because she has not written many notable opinions, especially in hot-button areas like abortion and religious freedom.
Two of the most noteworthy opinions written by Clement are in the area of criminal rights and law enforcement. In Traver v. City of Edna, she wrote for a unanimous panel that allowed the plaintiff to sue police officers for violating his due process rights when they slammed his head against a car door during his arrest. In Hearn v. Dretke, a habeas case that involved a death row inmate who claimed mental retardation, she found that he was entitled to a lawyer to help with the claim — a conclusion, she noted in the opinion, she was forced to reach because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that found executions of the mentally ill were unconstitutional.

I have to say it would be hard for the Dems to mount a campaign against this woman from what I’ve read so far. The religious right may, however, get a little nervous.

Here’s the money quote from her confirmation in 2001:

“Senator Kohl: We will start with Judge Clement. In your responses to the committee’s questionnaire, your answers to a question about judicial activism interested us. You said, “Certainly, once a judge concludes that the legislature has acted within its constitutional powers, the court’s role is to uphold the law. However,” you said, “in determining whether or not the legislative or the executive branch has acted within its constitutional powers, the court should be activist in its consideration of constitutional definitions, granting of powers, and guarantees of liberties in determining the meaning of the text.” Judge Clement, could you explain what you meant when you said a court should be activist?

Judge Clement: Well, I certainly didn’t mean it in a negative sense. Judicial activism has been criticized as when a jurist oversteps the bounds of the Constitution or recognized constitutional statutes and attempts to inflict the will of the jurist on either the legislative or the executive branch or the people. What I believe is that when legislation is proposed and passed and becomes statutory that there is a presumption of constitutionality. And to the extent, the statute should be upheld and the Constitution should be enforced.

Senator Kohl: Okay, a follow-up. When the Congress decides that an issue is a matter of national concern and that it significantly affects interstate commerce, do you then think that the courts should defer to Congress’ findings?

Judge Clement: Well, of course, if the law is passed, there is a presumption, as I said, of constitutionality. So I would like to have the opportunity, of course, to review the statute, review the language of the statute, make a factual determination as to what was attempted to be accomplished by the passage of the statute, and then evaluate whether it is within the confines of the Commerce Clause, if it is permissible.

Senator Kohl: All right. Judge Clement, would you describe what you think are the key elements of the Federal right to privacy, if, in fact, you believe there is such a right?

Judge Clement: Well, the Constitution guarantees the right of privacy and the due process protection must be enforced. A statute should be considered constitutional, but, of course, if it does not guarantee due process, then it should be studied very seriously.”

Of course, this is just the beginning of the debate, if Clement does turn out to be the nominee.

“[I]f I learned one thing in my years amongst the hyper-politicized neo-hippie fascists at Wesleyan, it was that everything you do, whether you mean it or not, is a political statement. The way you dress, cut your hair, who you sleep with and how, who you talk with, who you meet with, the ‘political spaces’ you create, the way you sneeze, tie your shoes, the way you do the things you do, it all implies a political statement of sorts. And you have to be oh so careful about the political statements you make. Thus, the intellectual discourse on campus went something like as follows:

‘You offend me.’
‘No, YOU offend ME!’
‘No, you are offensive!’
‘No, I am offended! And if you respond, that’s also offensive!’
‘Don’t silence my voice!’
‘Don’t silence MY voice, you straightwhiteuppermiddleclassmalehegemonist OPPRESSOR!’
‘Don’t oppress me with your labels!’
‘You think YOU’RE oppressed?!’

…etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum [sic].” – Peace Corps volunteer Philippe André Gosselin writing from Burkina Faso on his blog. (Mad props: Rex.)

The anti-gay, anti-abortion domestic terrorist, Eric Rudolph, might be described as a Christianist terrorist. He certainly echoes some of the more extreme right-wing rhetoric about abortion. But it’s unfair to Christianists to tar them with Rudolph’s murderous brush. Christianists overwhelmingly support peaceful democratic means to advance their control over others’ lives. Rudolph’s protestations to being a Catholic are also suspect. His letters to his mother tell a slightly different story than his official line. Here’s an extract from one:

“Many good people continue to send me money and books. Most of them have, of course, an agenda; mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the assumption is made that because I’m in here I must be a ‘sinner’ in need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible.”

Friedrich strikes again. And we know what Nietzsche thought of Christianity. Just read your Allan Bloom.

Good news on the abortion front: there are fewer and fewer, although the decline is not as pronounced as during the Godless, heathen Clinton years. Go figure.

A PRIEST IN CRISIS: Here’s an email that speaks to the agony many Catholic priests are now going through, under the new Benedict regime:

“I have been reading your blog for a couple of months now, but never felt compelled to comment before, but I felt I had to after what I read about the possible upcoming Vatican document on banning gay men from the priesthood. The reason is that I myself am a gay Roman Catholic priest. For some reason, I was unaware of the response of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in 2002. I know that it was a response to a question of whether or not a homosexual could be ordained, but the idea that such a person is “unfit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders” certainly refers to every gay man who has ever been ordained. Reading it sent a shiver down my spine.

There is a certain irony in the statement, of course, since many who are ‘unfit’ have indeed been ordained as you well know. The response seems to assume that no one has been. On an intellectual level, I am curious as to whether the response is meant to say the a gay man could not be ordained much in the same way the Vatican argues women cannot be ordained. From this point of view it is not a question of whether it is possible; it is not because of the very nature of the person to be ordained.

For myself, the whole thing makes me even more seriously question my relationship with the institutional Church. I love what I do and the people that I serve, it is just becoming more and more difficult to be part of an organization that has formally declared me to be ‘disordered’ and has already declared that I am ‘unfit’ to be ordained. This document could be a turning point for me, and possibly other priests like me. When it comes out, if ever, my response will depend on what it has to say. I think it unlikely that a ‘purge’ of any sort might occur among those already ordained; there are just too many of us and it would do more damage than could possibly be imagined.

The question would remain for me as to whether I could continue being part of the official leadership of such an organization. Still, I feel this is where God has called me; I am just not sure that God has called me to a life of such hiddeness and hypocrisy. I don’t know if I would have the guts it would take to come out to the parish and explain why this policy is so wrong as you wrote about in your blog. It would most certainly mean that I would lose my job. There is no way that an ‘out’ priest would be left in active ministry. It is a time of great soul searching for me and for many of my brother priests who have faithfully and lovingly served the Church for years, despite their being ‘unfit’.”

The decision to remain in an institution that demonizes people for who they are is one only an individual can make. We can only pray that the many priests caught in this trap of bigotry can find a way forward to serve God and their consciences in a darkening time.

Yes, of course, James Buchanan and, for a while, Grover Cleveland. My point is about today. We have become in some ways less tolerant over the decades, haven’t we?

More great ideas from the Republican far right.

It’s a little hard to verify the Harper’s Index statement cited below, because it does not specify who the “nine” Founding Fathers were. The definitions vary in number and importance. But it is nevertheless true to say, from all that I have read, that the following seven critical early American leaders were Deists and denied the divinity of Jesus: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, and Thomas Paine. In fact, can you imagine what a senior Republican would say today about the following statement: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”? That’s from the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli, Article XI, passed by the Senate under John Adams’ presidency. No one saying that could be nominated in today’s explicitly Christianist GOP. In fact, many of the statements of the Founding Fathers sound more like Christopher Hitchens than George W. Bush – and would be characterized as bigotry by much of the Republican right. It’s important to realize that today’s Christianists are not representative of the constitutional order and philosophy of this country’s founding; and are, in fact, one of the deeper threats to the maintenance of the freedom bequeathed to Americans as a birthright. Some online resources here, here, and here.

Yes, the Wall Street Journal is correct. From the 2004 Financial Report of the United States Government, we are told that

“The increase in the present value of Medicare represents a $9,609 billion increase over fiscal year 2003. For current participants (closed group), the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (Part D) added $6,306 billion to the $9,609 billion increase over fiscal year 2003; this amount is $8,119 billion when computed for all current and future participants (open group).”

Here’s the latest GDP data. Yep: $8,000 billion beats China’s GDP of $7,300 billion. Amazing. But this is what Bush conservatism is all about: the biggest unfunded expansion of the welfare state in history. This isn’t debt. It’s mega-debt – to be paid for eventually by inflation, or tax hikes.

Two little factoids leaped out at me recently, and I wonder if they’re true. One is from the current issue of Harper’s. (Yes, I know. They won’t stop sending me the bloody thing.) In the current Harper’s Index, they say:

Number of America’s nine “Founding Fathers” who denied the divinity of Jesus: 7

The magazine ascribes the information to Frank Lambert at Purdue University. It’s pretty striking, if true. Is it? The second factoid was from the other side of the spectrum: the Wall Street Journal’s editorial of last Friday. In a sentiment with which I heartily agree, the WSJ’s editors say:

Republicans share a hefty part of the blame for creating the most fiscally unaffordable new spending program in the past quarter century: the Medicare prescription drug bill, with an unfunded liability that is larger than the GDP of every other country in the world.

Again: amazing, if true. Is it? Any help clearing these up would be greatly appreciated. You guys tend to be more accurate and far quicker than Google.