7/28/2005
Once again, I’m the bearer of bad news. I’m very sorry to report that Jim is once again in the hospital on life support. On Saturday, July the 16th, I took Jim to the hospital because of chest pain. As you might expect, he was admitted to ICU and a series of tests were run. Unfortunately, the doctors were not able to find a cause for the pain. However, he was unable to maintain blood oxygen saturation levels. After several days, he had improved to the point where the doctors felt that they needed to do a surgical procedure in order to correct a narrowing in his trachea that had been caused by two previous tracheotomies. After he was put to sleep, but before the procedure began, he developed a severe case of pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs). The doctors performed another emergency tracheotomy, and placed him on life support.
At this time, he is in critical condition and there is not a whole lot that can be done except to monitor his condition and give supportive care. The doctors are hopeful that his lungs will be strong enough in several more days to remove him from the ventilator; at which time he can once again begin the long road of physical rehab.
Please pray for Jim’s recovery and that the Lord would provide the physical and emotional strength that we, as a family, need in order to support Jim.
Guy (Jim’s Dad)
7/14/2005
Over the last several months I have made a good friend in Joseph from The New Oklahoma Democrat. He’s also a great blogger who puts a lot of thought into his posts. While we rarely agree on issues, I have found that Joseph is reasonable and willing to listen to the other side. That’s why today I can’t help but tweak his nose a little over a post that he has written on activist judges. First, his position:
If we look at the reality of the situation, the problem that lies at the heart of most “judicial activism” is the fact that the Constitution doesn’t and was never intended to provide an answer to every single problem that comes into our courts of law. It is, for lack of a better word, a basis and guideline that was intended to give us a strong foundation on which to build our system of government.
While it is true that no answer will ever please everyone, I have an idea that I believe will satisfy most among us. I propose that make and amendment in the Constitution stating that because the Constitution does not provide an answer to everything, when an issue that it does not address is brought before the Federal courts (like abortion fore example), the court should be allowed to make a ruling to the best of its ability that provides an answer for the problem in question. However, the ruling should be only temporary as the court should at the same time be able to order the appropriate level of government (Federal or other) to pass a law or Amendment that provides an answer to the issue at hand. Until the time that Congress or other legislative bodies should address the issue, the court ruling should be held to be the law and thus legally binding.
As I said above, Joseph is a great blogger (well worth a daily read) and a good friend, but, I disagree with him on most issues. Here’s my side if the story. The constitution directly addresses what to do on issues not covered in the bill of rights. The tenth amendment says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”. This means that issues not covered in the constitution are to be decided by the individual States. Abortion is one of these issues. But, in Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court “found” the right for a women to abort (kill) her unborn child. This is what the right means by activist judges. The real solution to the problem that Joseph outlines in his post is to nominate and appoint a strict constructionist to the bench. Then we won’t have to worry about having an activist judge in the vacant position.
I just found a great blog… or I should say he found me. Conformation Whoppers is the latest blog to join the fray in the attempt to set the general population straight on exactly what’s at stake in the confirmation war. Mr. Gross has a great post today in response to a John Leo column:
Edith Jones, A Fifth Circuit judge & possible Supreme Court choice, argues that the “reigning legal philosophy” is responsible for the bitter politics that surround judicial nominations. Jones charged that legal elites (”mandarins of the law”) have long since come to view the courts as agents of social change. Federal judges, & later state judges, caught onto this heightened view of their power. Then, as judge-made law invaded politically sensitive areas, it provoked a political reaction.
Jones thinks it’ll take decades to repair the damage & return to assessing Supreme Court nominees according to their brains & fairness rather than their propensity (or lack of it) for advancing their politics on the bench. According to Jones, writing in the University of Richmond Law Review, “The restoration of more civil & objective selection processes won’t occur until the reigning legal philosophy becomes less ambitious & overweening.” This will come about, Jones says, only “when the rule of law is again tethered to respect for the executive & legislative branches of government, to traditional legal craftsmanship, to continuity, to moral values, & to limited social aims.”
This is precisely what’s at stake in this fight. It isn’t just that activist judges make absurd rulings. It’s also that activist judges make rulings on things that the Founding Fathers meant for state & U.S. legislatures to deal with. Activists jurists think that everything must meet their approval. The Founding Fathers clearly intended that the legislative & executive branches were meant to be the vehicle for setting the laws of the land. The judicial branch was meant to determine whether the laws passed by the legislature & signed into law by the President run contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
I suggest you go and check it out. When you get done with reading that come back and check out my response to a post by a good friend; The New Oklahoma Democrat. I hope to have that post up later today.
7/7/2005
This story is continuing to develop. We are now being told that there were four blasts — three in the subway and one on a bus. Officials are reporting forty five dead with approx. one thousand injured. A “like minded” group — a group not associated with Al Queada but holding the same “values” — has claimed responsibility for the attack.
What I cannot understand is why the media is calling this a crime. Like 9/11, this is not a crime this is an act of war. I suspect that in the coming hours and days the Brits will be forming a strategy for a counter attack. Whether this will come in the form of military action or civilian police action remains to be seen. Regardless, Thinking Right fully supports our friends across the Atlantic.
My prayers are with our friends and allies across the Atlantic. Al Queada has struck again, they have set off seven explosions that have struck at the heart of the London transportation system. At least 300 people have been hurt bad enough to require treatment at the hospital.
7/4/2005
Dems Laying Ground For Litmus Test
It is apparent that the Dems are laying ground for a litmus test for any Supreme Court nominee put in front of the Judiciary Committee. On one of the Sunday morning shows yesterday Senator Schumer stated that all questions were legitimate.
“All questions are legitimate,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. “What is your view on Roe v. Wade? What is your view on gay marriage? They are going to try to get away with the idea that we’re not going to know their views. But that’s not going to work this time.”
This line of questioning is completely inappropriate. How can a judge be fair or even be perceived as fair when they have already gone on the record with an opinion on a particular case.
The other issue with the tack that the Democrats are taking is that they continue to mischaracterize the advice and consent clause. Advice and consent is exactly that. It doesn’t mean you get to filibuster a nominee and prevent an up or down vote. The MSM has been a willing accomplice to this lie, for example, take this quote from a NYT news article today:
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, held open the possibility of a filibuster against a nominee deemed out of the mainstream by Democrats. “I have no intention of filibustering, but he - it depends on who the president sends,” Mr. Biden said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
It depends on who the resident sends? Mr. Biden doesn’t seem to understand that the constitution doesn’t call for a super-majority on court appointees. He doesn’t seem to understand that it doesn’t give the minority the right to bully the majority into doing things their way.
One other thing that galls me about the MSM portrayal of the filibuster battle is that the entire Senate has rejected the nominees. Once again, from the NYT article:
A nominee rejected this time would join 12 others rejected over the years by the Senate. At least 16 nominees withdrew, declined their nominations or had their votes postponed.
The Senate didn’t reject the nominees, the Democrats filibustered and have employed endless stalling tactics. Most of the 16 nominees that withdrew did so because they didn’t want to put themselves or their families through the silly nitpicking and muckraking that Senate Democrats have employed over the last four and a half years. As I said earlier, this will be a long, hot, divided summer, those of us on the right in the blogging community will have our work cut out for us combating the lies and mischarecterizations employed by the left. Let the games begin….
It’s Going To Be A Long Hot Summer
Radio Blogger Reminds us that Sen. Frist is in for a long hot summer because the resignation of Justice O’Connor = extreme circumstances. He also reminds us that when you break it all down, the only thing the Dems care about is a womans right to kill on demand.
How can a national political party ever be taken seriously when the only plank in their platform that is the one that they’ll go to the most lengths to protect, is the ability to kill on demand?
It’s going to be a long, hot summer. Senator Frist, I don’t envy you. You are going to have to do some extraordinary things, because the Democrats have already decided that the mere fact Sandra Day O’Connor resigned, is an extraordinary cirumstance. The Democrats are terrified that abortion is in jeopardy of being terminated prematurely in this country, and that too extraordinary for them to act rationally.
Long, hot summer indeed.
With Liberty and Justice For All
Happy Independence Day!! On the day that we celebrate our own independence, let us not forget the cost of freedom or the Iraqi’s and Afghani’s who are fighting right now fighting for their own freedom.
7/2/2005
One of the most disturbing things that I have noticed with papers nationwide is the tendency to publish “News Analysis” in the news section. To the untrained reader — considering that the article is in the news section — it appears to be a normal news article. It is not. In fact, most times this news analysis has more business in the op-ed section than in the news section. This is the case with a piece in the NYT this morning. “O’Connor Held Balance Of Power” is strictly an opinion piece, but it is in the news section. On their morning email the NYT puts this article front and center at the top of the email in the “Top Stories” section.
Although this particular article isn’t as overtly biased as some, it is still peppered with both praise and condemnation of Justice O’Connor for her decisions over the last 24 years. I suppose it is too much to hope for that the NYT and other papers (LAT, WaPo, etc.) will change their policy of putting “News Analysis” in the section clearly marked for straight news pieces.
7/1/2005
Swing voter Sandra Day O’Connor has stepped down from her position on the Supreme Court. This will mark the start of the filibuster battle in the Senate. For those of you who thought that that battle ended with the ill conceived compromise between Senate Dems and RINO’s, you were mistaken.
The idea that Democrats will filibuster anyone to the right of O’Connor isn’t big news. The big story will be whether or not the Republicans can hold it together and bring some reason into the court. This nomination will define the abortion rights debate for the next decade at least. It is my prayer that we will finally be able to bring the culture of life into the court. Let the battle begin!!