It's okay by Tony

There has been considerable honking and bleating over l’affaire de johnson, the conversations that Dean Johnson had with a member or members of the Minnesota Supreme Court over DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act. Captain Fishsticks was his own cottage industry of outrage; Katie of course contributed her own brand of bile in a column that Spot discussed in The feces-flinging monkey. The pièce de résistance, however, was attorney and Republican Greg Wersal’s filing of a complaint against members of the Court.

How ironic, how incongruous, how just plain silly is it that Greg Wersal filed a complaint against judges for discussing issues or positions? Think Katherine Kersten, our dear Katie, writing a book, Opus Dei: a Sinister Cult. Think Osama bin Laden making toasts at a Crusader veterans picnic. Think Johnny Rocketseed . . . well, you get the drift.

You see, Greg Wersal has been a litigating fool on behalf of getting parties and politics into the judiciary for years. Spot wrote a little about it in the link above. And Wersal has actually done pretty well for himself and the Republican Party. In the first case, Republican Party, et al. v. White, (Wersal being one of the et als.), the US Supreme Court reversed an Eighth Circuit holding which upheld Minnesota’s ban on the discussion of substantive legal issues by candidates for judicial posts.

Here’s Justice Scalia writing for the 5-4 majority about the state of the law prior to the decision in Repubs v.White:

The short of the matter is this: In Minnesota, a candidate for judicial office may not say “I think it is constitutional for the legislature to prohibit same-sex marriages.” He may say the very same thing, however, up until the very day before he declares himself a candidate, and may say it repeatedly (until litigation is pending) after he is elected. [italics are Spot’s]

If you think that Tony’s choice of an example is a coincidence, you haven’t been paying attention, boys and girls. It is Scalia’s view that it is perfectly OK for judges to talk about DOMA and their views on it so long as there is no litigation pending before the judge. Well, of course, that’s Scalia’s view; he does it all time, in public.

Now Spot doesn’t think this is such a hot idea, but it comes from the tribe that Wersal is in. And we’ll indulge Wersal in the presumption that he has read and perhaps even understood the opinion in his own case. So let’s apply the rule to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Is there DOMA litigation in front of the Court? Nope. No problem; end of story. Wersal’s complaint is a titanic hypocrisy.

Nor is this the end of Wersal’s mischief. Katie discussed a second Wersalian endeavor in a post discussed by Spotty here. In that case, the Eighth Circuit held that judicial candidates could run with party endorsement and with the assistance of political parties. Representative Steve Simon’s recent effort to at least stem the tide of money into judicial elections went nowhere.

The arc of this story is already described, and you, boys and girls, can see what the likely ending will be.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Kevin Phillips, that is. Author Phillips is in the middle of a book tour promoting his latest book, American Theoracy. He was in town several days ago and made some remarks at a book signing. His book and his remarks are insightful, and not merely because they agree with Spot.

The subtitle of the book is The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. Phillips is sharply critical of the role of oil and Christian fundamentalism in the Republican party, saying that the party is the first religious party in the United States. Phillips writes some worrying things, and seems genuinely worried himself, about the chokehold that oil and religion have on politics in the United States.

The ironic things is that Phillips' first book, The Emerging Republican Majority, was used by Richard Nixon and Phillips himself to forge the Republican "southern strategy" that helped the Republicans secure the electoral base that Phillips finds so troublesome today.

Spotty supposes this is a case of it being important to be careful what you wish for, or in Phillips case, perhaps pray for!

Tags: Kevin Phillips American Theoracy

Out of towner wins Spotty

Dan Dewalt of Nefane, Vermont wins a Spotty for this commentary that appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today, Sunday, April 9th. A Spotty is awarded when a person pens a letter to the editor, commentary, blog post or comment, or otherwise expresses him or herself with a way that Spot wishes he had. [cash value 1/20th cent]

Why our small town called for Bush to be impeached
The worst failing of any nation is for its citizens no longer to scrutinize their government.

Dan Dewalt

On March 7, the townspeople of Newfane, Vt., crowded the 19th-century Union Hall for their annual town meeting -- one of America's last expressions of direct democracy. As the wood stove warmed the old hall, the voters dealt with town matters, and then turned to a resolution of national importance. When the debate ended, the Newfane citizens overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush -- a vote also passed by four other Vermont towns that day.

Now as calls for impeachment begin to be heard across America, some, especially those in the elite media establishment, belittle our efforts, writing them off as merely political, spurious or at best premature. They ask, what right do small Vermont towns have to weigh in on a question of such magnitude? Who are we to cast our sights beyond the demands of our roads, bridges or annual school budget? As a Vermont citizen and a Newfane town selectman, I'd like to respond.

Vermonters are asking a different set of questions. We see boys and girls, men and women from across our state, falling one by one, to come home for somber burial or partial rehabilitation. We see that the torture of captives has become official administration policy, and as a result our nation is now reviled and despised across the globe. We see an administration that spies upon our Quaker pacifists in the name of fighting "terror." We see a crumbling national infrastructure, inept and underequipped to respond to natural disasters, and heavier financial burdens placed upon those who can least afford it, all because of the hundreds of billions of dollars being drained by this administration's failing effort to place its crusading imprint upon an unwilling people who had nothing to do with the terrorism that has been visited upon us.

A growing number of patriotic Americans from coast to coast have joined Vermonters in asking: If it's not a crime to lie to the nation about Iraq's ties to 9/11, and use those lies to instigate a war, contrary to international law, what is? If warrantless wiretapping of Americans, in direct violation of the FISA Act of 1978, is not a crime, what is? If breaking our treaty obligations with respect to the treatment of military and civilian prisoners -- obligations which, according to our Constitution, are to be the supreme law of the land -- is not a crime, what is?

We ask how any American loyal to the Constitution and the laws that make us a nation could not call for a complete congressional investigation into the alleged crimes of this administration. How can any American with a sense of morality, anyone who professes to adhere to religious principles, not insist that the deceit and the violence must cease?

Every day, our moral standing in the eyes of the world is further debased. Every day that we acquiesce to these actions of our government, we debase ourselves and make ourselves unfit to be called Americans.

The worst failing of any nation is for its citizens to no longer scrutinize their government. Today, whether because of apathy, distraction or exhaustion, we are not paying attention. It will be at our peril if our awakening comes only after the government has consolidated its hold on power, and we find that scrutiny is no longer an option.

Dan DeWalt is a woodworker and selectboard member in the town of Newfane, Vt. (pop. 1,680), and the author of a successful town resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush.

Tags: Dan Dewalt speaks out on the Iraq war

Cock-a-doodle-do?

Just for the record, dogs can't crow.

For those of you coming from Bloghouse, this is perhaps what you are looking for, although Spot recommends just reading your way down there.

The law in the air

More confusion from one of Spotty’s favorite avatars of social Darwinist hunter-gatherism. Spot refers, of course, to Captain Fishsticks. Sticks is still smarting from the defeat of private and religious school vouchers in a Minnesota House committee. For a salve to his wounds, Sticks puts up a post that reprints a tract by David W. Kirkpatrick, Senior Education Fellow at the US Freedom Foundation. And a powerful belch it is.

The center piece of Kirkpatrick’s treatise is Pierce v. Society of the Sisters, decided June 1, 1925; June 1st is now Education Freedom Day according to Kirkpatrick! The quote from the opinion that the vouchers crowd loves is the following, sort of quoted by Kirkpatrick:

The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

Stirring. Really stirring. Spotty can see Sticks reading this with shining eyes. Maybe it’s just eyestrain.

Boys and girls, the use of that quotation by the vouchers crowd is an example of what Spotty calls “the law in the air.” That is, taking some pronouncement in a opinion, entirely divorced from the facts upon which the case is decided, and offering it as proof that the law is something entirely different. It’s kind of like picking Bible verses that support you.

In this case, what was challenged was an Oregon plan that required that children attend public school Suit was brought by a religious school and a military academy. In an opinion by Justice McReynolds – one of the genuine dimwits to serve on the Court, by the way – struck the law down. Kirkpatrick tells us that the holding has never been challenged. Yawn.

The case means nothing – zero, zip, zilch, nada – if the issue is public support for private educational institutions. Want to send your kids to an inferior private or religious school? Fine, just don’t expect to suckle at the public teat to do it.

By the way, boys and girls, the case was decided on the largely discredited grounds of so-called substantive due process. This was sort of government playing Captain May I? with the Court. Some of the vice-like minds on the Court, including the aforementioned Justice McReynolds, believed that the 14th amendment gave the Court the power to void legislation when that legislation seemed like a bad idea to the Court.

Comparatively speaking, today’s “judicial activists” are just pretenders.

Tags: Captain Fishsticks has an oral fixation on school vouchers

Manliness

There was an op-ed piece in the Strib this morning by Tom Feran of Newhouse News Service. It was about a book that Spotty was not aware of, "Manliness" by Harvey Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard.

Feran describes it as a “dry and tiring tome.” Boy, that’s right up Katie’s alley! Perhaps proving for all time that Harvard does have a sense of humor, Feran includes some of the wisdom of Mansfield as recorded in the book:

A manly man can accomplish big things because "he is good at ordering people to get them done."

Mansfield suggests it is unmanly to resist the impulse to sock somebody in the nose. He says Alexander Hamilton was manly for getting himself killed in a duel. Man.

. . .

"In real life today," Mansfield writes, "manly knowledge enables a man, not to be Tarzan, but to act effectively in an emergency and to fix things and solve problems without professional help."

. . .

Real life doesn't intrude on his view of women. Mansfield says spitting is "not done by female athletes," for example. And, "It is difficult for a man who is attracted to a woman not to find her cute, rather than intimidating, when she gets angry." And, "Women still rather like housework, changing diapers." And, "Now that women are equal, they should be able to accept being told that they aren't." And, "To resist rape a woman needs more than martial arts and more than the police; she needs a certain ladylike modesty enabling her to take offense at unwanted encroachment."

Spot is soliciting guesses on how long it will take for Katie to write a column about this excellent new book.

Tags: Katie probably hearts Manliness

Sigmund Spot plays chess

Ja, zat Katie, she is an open book, zat one! Today, she tells za story of za kinder in Minneapolis playing at za chess. Sigmund Spot likes chess and is glad za students are playing! But even in za story about za kinder playing games, Katie has za agenda.

Katie zes there were hundreds of za kinder playing chess recently at Washburn High School. Azzume that Katie spoke to many of zem. Out of all za kinder Katie could have chosen to quote, she picks zis one:

Kiernan Skelly, a fifth-grader at Seward School, started playing chess in kindergarten. "I like being part of a chess team because you have fun together, but it's not like football, where if one person messes up, everybody falls."

Ja, zat little Kiernan! Destined to grow up to be just as anti-social as Katie! And calculating, too:

Kiernan Skelly, the Seward fifth-grader, who is headed to the national tournament, says the benefits of chess go far beyond trophies. "I would be a different person if I didn't play chess," he says. "It's taught me to think multiple moves ahead, and to plan for the future in everything I do." [italics are Sigmund Spot’s]

Ja, maybe zat little Kiernan would have some muscle tone! You’re as bad as regular Spot! Apologize! Sigmund Spot is sorry. He really knows nothing about Kiernan, and he wishes Kiernan well at chess or whatever he choses to do in the future.

But Sigmund Spot zes zat Katie’s selection of quotes – ones zat resonate with her – tell uns more about Katie zan Kiernan.

Tags: Katherine Kersten

Be careful what you wish for

Spot has written a couple of times that the prospect of ferocious and partisan campaigns for judgeships is the yawning abyss forshadowed by l'affaire de johnson. City Pages has an article about one legislator's efforts to limit the amount spent on judicial campaigns since Greg Wersal and the Republican Party burned down the old rules. Representative Steve Simon's effort went nowhere.

It's a brave new world, boys and girls, and pity the judge who has to stand for re-election this fall. Or future litigants who will have politics to add to their worries in court.


Tags: Greg Wersal judicial elections

DeLay haiku

Spot doesn't know about the rest of you Minnesota bloggers, but he does sometimes take umbrage when others fish in our water. When it comes to Powerline, however, there is plenty to go around. From Rox Populi, some De Lay haiku. Go read the rest, including some in the comments.

Whither Powerline?
Very simple prediction
They'll blame Bill Clinton

Spot got the link somewhere, but he cannot remember where.

Separated at birth?

The wicked witch of the South and North, respectively.

Et tu, siste?

A bus ride to the Capitol: $2.00. A vending machine lunch: $2.45. Watching Senator Michele Bachmann get busted in the chops by her step-sister: priceless. Now Spot wishes he had gone to the hearing.

The Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to kill the senator’s baby. By a 5 -4 (party line, surprise, surprise) vote, the committee rejected Bachmann’s bill to put a gay marriage ban amendment on the November ballot for a public referendum. The interesting part though was the family dynamics.

Bachmann must have seen her step-sister, Helen Lafave, at the hearing, and she must have known it was not a Helpful Thing to the senator. You see, Helen Lafave is a lesbian who sat behind the senator while she testified, and then testified herself against Michele’s Baby. Spot says check out the pictures at the link.

And you thought your Thanksgivings were tense because you’re a Packer fan and your brother-in-law loves the Vikings! Spotty bets that family keeps a lot of therapists employed.

Bachmann, of course, vows revenge. What else could she vow? Certainly not acceptance or understanding.

Spot was looking at the picture of the senator in the linked story. Michele Bachmann and Katherine Harris: separated at birth? Spot’s inclined to believe it.

Tags: Michele Bachmann does not heart gay marriage

What's an overdog?

One of the things that has always impressed Spot about Katie is her willingness to stick up for the overdog.

What’s a overdog, Spotty?

Well an overdog, grasshopper, is the opposite of an underdog. Underdogs are like the plucky George Mason basketball team in the Final Four. Regrettably, underdogs usually get knocked off right away, as did George Mason. Underdogs have the potential, though, to upset the Established Order of Things. They feel a little revolutionary, which is why some people – and some dogs, too – root for them. But not Katie. Katie prefers things Just The Way They Are.

So Monday, Katie defends the Coca-Cola Company in a column titled Coke’s real sin is being a big U.S. corporation. With Katie in its corner, how could Coke lose? Anyway, there have been protests around the country, and around the world, really, over alleged human rights abuses (the death of several labor activists) by, apparently, a Coke franchisee in Colombia. And now the students as Macalester College are joining the ranks, tut tuts Katie, of places like Carlton College in Northfield and the University of Michigan. The students are trying to organize a boycott of Coke products. (Spot says, boys and girls, you should avoid them because they rot your teeth, but that’s for another day.)

Like some Asian food, Katie’s columns often leave the consumer hungry – hungry for some more information in the case of Katie, that is. Spot put his figital digitals to work on Google, and got over 400,000 hits for the search string coca cola protests Colombia. Allowing for duplicates, that probably leaves, oh, several at least!

A perusal of the links is interesting. In addition to the aforementioned callow fools, the Teamsters have joined the call for a Coke boycott.

In January the University of Michigan joined the universities of New York and Rutgers in banning all Coke products, bringing the number of bans to 21 in North America. The University of Michigan said it implemented the ban after the company missed a 31 December deadline to set up third party investigations and protocols to assess events in Colombia and India.

Another 130 colleges and universities are thought to be considering their options, according to the Center for Informed Food Choices.

With the Teamsters joining in the protests Coca-Cola is finding itself on the receiving end of snowballing protests. Teamsters members on Tuesday unanimously endorsed a resolution authorizing its leadership to seek a resolution to the dispute between Coca-Cola and student, labor and human rights groups.

Here’s an article about the NYU boycott in the lefty publication Business Week Online. It also seems that those pesky Irish – always a revolutionary bunch – are in on it, too!

What are the students’ demands? The liquidation of Coke? The crucifixion of Coke executives? Nah. The boycott is directed at obtaining an independent third-party investigation of these deaths. From the Business Week Online article:

That summer [2003], Coca-Cola declined to meet with concerned students from several universities. "At the time, we thought individual meetings [with individual schools] would be more helpful, because we could have more in-depth discussions," explains Coca-Cola spokesperson Kari Bjorhus.

In response, CKC [a student organization at NYU] members stepped up their demands, calling for an immediate ban of Coke products unless the company agreed to a third-party investigation. During the fall, CKC members talked up student senators and collected more than 1,500 student signatures on a petition, which was adopted as a formal proposal by the senate's student-life committee. In November, 2004, the student senate voted 16-4 to ban Coke products from the school unless Coke O.K.'d an investigation.

Katie thinks that’s rilly, rilly radical, although she doesn’t describe the students’ objective in her column. How hard would that have been?

The thing that really frosted Spot, though, was Katie’s gratuitous swipe at Vietnam War-era protests by students. It’s all part of the silly romanticism of liberal students, she says. Spot doesn’t remember it that way, Katie. It was college students, of course, that got the anti-war movement started against the Vietnam War. A lot of the same bunch, now grayer and rounder, are the activists against the rumble in Iraq. And no, Katie, Kent State – Four Dead in O – HI – O was not the least romantic.

One thing for sure. Spotty isn’t going to be buying any Coke until we get this thing sorted out.

Tags: Katie tut tuts over the Coke boycott

Reading material

Spotty hates to mess with his blog template. Spot predates html, bloggerspeak, or whatever. However, he did move to a new template over the weekend, trying for posts that were a little more horizontal and less vertical. You, boys and girls, will have to the judge of how well Spot got everything carried over.

While he was in the neighborhood, Spot decided to add some links that have been in his news aggregator for quite a while. They are perhaps more familiar to you than Spotty is, but if not, check them out.

Norwegianity

The Power Liberal

Three Way News

Yowling from the Fencepost

But Spot was first!

Dahlia Lithwick is a lot younger than Spot. That's why it annoys Spot so much that she writes about legal stuff so well. Take this article in Slate, for example, about Zacarias Moussaoui's death wish. Spot did write about it too. Spot's post was first but Lithwick's is better.

Reopen the Koufax voting!

The Wege certainly earned one for new lyrics to one of Oklahoma's most durable tunes. A taste:

There's a bright golden haze on the capitol,
There's a bright golden haze from the lies,
With indictments as high as an elephant's eye,
An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to Cheney.

Peek a Boo

For those of you who subscribe to the Cucking Stool, and bless you if you do, Spot has experienced some trouble with the atom.xml feed out of Booger, er, Blogger. He thinks it is fixed now. You might want to have your newsreader "rediscover" the feed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is why

Why Spotty is a Malthusian.

Another rebuttal

To the private and religious school apologists like Captain Fishsticks, Katie, John Brandl, and many Republicans, including the governor and Spot's state Senator, Geoff Michel. A recent Department of Education study says public schools do better. Christian private schools do the worst.

In "The Manufactured Crisis: "Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools" Dr. David Berliner and Bruce Biddle argued that ongoing criticism of America's public schools is baseless and partisan. [read review of book in Christian Ethics Today]. A new study released January 2006, funded by the US Department of Education, by researchers at the University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana rebuts claims on the alleged low performance of public schools [ click here for PDF of full report ]. Meanwhile, the ongoing assault on America's public schools comes from many quarters . . .

Via the always excellent Media Transparency.

wer-sal (n)

Another word for weasel. Greg Wersal, at least that’s the name he is using today, filed petition Friday for the investigation of past and current members of the Minnesota Supreme Court. You remember Wersal; he’s the knave who changed his name to “Carlson” in an unsuccessful run for the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2000. Here’s the story from the link:

Wersal? Carlson? Carlson-Wersal? What’s His Name?

In August 2000, Kiffmeyer ruled that Minnesota Supreme Court candidate Greg Wersal could use his wife’s maiden name, Carlson, on the ballot. Critics charged that the move was an attempt to pander to voters of Scandinavian descent. Wersal had not (at least not for any public purpose) used the name “Carlson” before the election, nor has he used it since. Wersal is an attorney, listed in the Martindale-Hubbell lawyer directory, but his name appears there as “Gregory F. Wersal.” Additionally, Wersal was the petitioner in a U.S. Supreme Court case relating to his candidacy (but not relating to this issue). His brief to the Court listed his name as “Gregory F. Wersal.” Greg and Cheryl Wersal also have their phone number listed under "G & C Wersal.” Still, Kiffmeyer decided that she would be engaging in gender-based discrimination against Wersal if she denied his request to adopt his wife’s name on the ballot, when wives have traditionally taken their husbands’ names.

Here’s what Carlson-now-back-to-Wersal seeks:

Wersal asked the Board on Judicial Standards and the Lawyers Board of Professional Responsibility to look into Chief Justice Russell Anderson, Justice G. Barry Anderson, Justice Paul Anderson and former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz.

"The public needs to know if judges on our highest court have engaged in unethical conduct by giving pledges, promises, assurances or mere hints as to how they would rule on an issue likely to come before the court," Wersal wrote in a letter to the two boards. He released the letter to reporters. [of course he did, Spot] [italics are Spot’s, too]

You can see how ol’ Greg might think it would be useful to have Scandinavian name!

The conduct that Wersal is complaining about arises, of course, out of l’affaire de johnson, the ethics charge made against Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson that was recently dismissed. Conservatives have been trying to keep the issue alive to try to hurt Dean Johnson politically and try to force a floor vote in the Senate on the gay marriage amendment ban bill. Captain Fishsticks has labored mightily at the project, and Spot comments here. Katie had a column excreting outrage, and Spot commented in post titled The feces-flinging monkey. Spot has a couple of other posts about the flap, too.

And now comes Wersal. For years, Wersal has been jumping up and down like the Eddie Murphy donkey in the movie Shrek shouting PICK ME PICK ME in a effort to get a seat on the Minnesota Supreme Court. He can’t get a governor to do it, so he has run for the office – unsuccessfully – a couple of times. Wersal the weasel’s petition is just a transparent attempt to set himself up to do it again.

The person with the least amount of standing on planet earth to bring a petition alleging the discussion of issues by Justices outside the court is Greg Wersal. You see, boys and girls, Greg Wersal along with the Republican Party in Minnesota are the agents of destruction in dismantling the rules against party endorsements for judges and the discussion of specific issues in judicial campaigns.

It's not the first time Wersal has taken on Supreme Court or its members. He twice tried and failed to win a seat on the Supreme Court during elections. And he was the driving force in a federal lawsuit that successfully eased restrictions on judicial campaigning.

Ironically, he helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Minnesota rules barring judicial candidates from talking about disputed legal and political issues during campaigns.

Wersal said in his letter that the 2002 decision doesn't allow judges to make pledges or promises on issues that are likely to come before them. [italics are Spot’s]

Spotty says more than ironically, how about hypocritically? No one ever said, least of all Senator Johnson, that a Justice made a pledge or promise about a DOMA vote. Nor is this the first time that Wersal has tried to harm the reputation or position of a public official. In 2001, he was part of a scheme to have Attorney Mike Hatch recalled for not defending the State’s anti-sodomy law, which was struck down.

Wersal is just another Republican trouble maker. One who thinks that he and his agenda should be on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Tags: Greg Wersal makes a cameo appearance in l'affaire de johnson

She got flowers; what did he get?

Here's Helen Thomas surrounded by some of the roses sent to her as a thank you for her questioning of Chimpy McFlightsuit at a recent newsconference.

Here's a news article about Helen and the flowers.