http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501309.html
Alito's Smoking Gun By Harold Meyerson Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A19 Samuel Alito could not have put it more plainly. "The Constitution," he wrote in a 1985 job application he posted to the Reagan administration's attorney general, Ed Meese, "does not protect a right to an abortion." The folks charged with getting Alito confirmed as Sandra Day O'Connor's successor are insisting that the judge's declaration is not a smoking gun. Alito's subsequent record on the federal appellate bench, said Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, "shows he has indeed put his personal views on abortion aside." And in the Washington Times story that revealed the existence of the application, an unnamed Republican official insisted, "the issue is not Judge Alito's political views during the Reagan administration." The issue was the hundreds of opinions Alito had authored in the years since, in "none of which is it evident what his political philosophy is." Now, maybe I'm cockeyed here, but I don't read Alito's abortion assertion as either personal or political. A personal view would say, "I'm opposed to abortion." A political declaration would say, "Abortion is a bad public policy." But those aren't the sentiments that Alito voiced. What he said, if you'll pardon the strict construction here, is that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Which is a viewpoint, if agreed to by five Supreme Court justices, that can change the law, and social fabric, of the land. Alito's advocates argue that he never once called for overturning Roe v. Wade during his 15 years on the appellate bench. But appellate judges interpret the law within the framework that the Supreme Court lays out. Supreme Court justices can change that framework when they see fit -- and they do. Those are the Supreme Court decisions that make the history books, and there are a number of them. Deference to precedents may be a pillar of the law, but -- and on this, conservatives and liberals agree -- it is clearly less of one for Supreme Court justices than for appellate and trial judges. Alito's champions would have us believe, however, that he will defer even to precedents that he regards as unconstitutional -- despite the fact that the job of a justice is precisely to determine what is and isn't constitutional. That's asking us to believe a lot. Clearly, the senators charged with questioning Alito will ask him if he still believes what he wrote 20 years ago. In this instance, since his assertion to Meese was so unequivocal, not answering has to be taken as a de facto yes. He could argue, I suppose, that Roe is more settled point of law now, 32 years after the decision, than it was in 1985. But do time and repeated citation really validate a ruling that Alito viewed -- and unless he tells us otherwise, still views -- as unconstitutional to begin with? Do Alito's constitutional views count for nothing? Did George W. Bush appoint him simply to leave everything as is? Alito's antipathy toward Roe wasn't the only high point of his '85 job application. He also noted that he disagreed with the Warren Court's decisions "in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment." Reapportionment? By far the most notable reapportionment decision of the Warren Court was its famous one-man, one-vote ruling, which required state legislatures to create districts of equal population. By 1985 this decision -- unlike Roe -- had won universal acceptance. What on earth did Alito disagree with here? The disenfranchisement of pasture and cow? Alito's memo to Meese was, to be sure, a job application, and the assertions people make when applying for jobs tend to the hyperbolic. But Sam Alito comes off as one of nature's straight shooters, and I see no reason to take his declarations as anything other than accurate representations of his beliefs. Which means, unless he's reversed his thinking or unless deference to precedent trumps his deepest beliefs on constitutionality, that Justice Samuel Alito would, given the opportunity, abolish a woman's federal right to reproductive choice. It's not personal for him; it's constitutional. But it's plenty personal for the American people. *** A Foul Tragedy Democrats fled in the face of danger By Garrison Keillor November 2, 2005 http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2375/ We Democrats are at our worst when we try to emulate Republicans as we did in signing onto the "war" on drugs that has ruined so many young lives. The cruelty of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is stark indeed, as are the sentencing guidelines that impose mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug possession-guidelines in the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act that sailed through Congress without benefit of public hearings, drafted before an election by Democrats afraid to be labeled "soft on drugs." As a result, a marijuana grower can land in prison for life without parole while a murderer might be in for eight years. No rational person can defend this; it is a Dostoevskian nightmare and it exists only because politicians fled in the face of danger. That includes Bill Clinton, under whose administration the prosecution of Americans for marijuana went up hugely, so that now there are more folks in prison for marijuana than for violent crimes. More than for manslaughter or rape. This only makes sense in the fantasy world of Washington, where perception counts for more than reality. To an old Democrat, who takes a ground view of politics-What is the actual effect of this action on the lives of real people?-it is a foul tragedy that makes you feel guilty about enjoying your freedom. If suddenly on a Friday night the red lights flash and the cops yank your teenage son and his little envelope of marijuana into the legal meatgrinder and some bullet- headed prosecutor decides to flex his muscle and charge your teenager-because he had a .22 rifle in his upstairs bedroom closet-with a felony involving the use of a firearm, which under our brutal sentencing code means he can be put on ice for 20 years, and the prosecutor goes at him hammer and tong and convinces a passive jury and your boy's life is sacrificed so this creep can run for Congress next year-this is not your cross alone to bear. If the state cuts off your right hand with a meat cleaver on my account and I don't object, then it is my cleaver and my fingerprints on it. I don't dare visit Sandstone Federal Prison here in Minnesota for fear of what I'd see there: People who chose marijuana, a more benign drug than alcohol, and got caught in the religious war that we Democrats in a weak moment signed onto. God help us if we form alliance with such bullies as would destroy a kid's life for raising cannabis plants. Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion, now in its 26th year on the air. _____________________________________________________ portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left. To subscribe, unsubscribe or change settings: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside *** On Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7 pm in Mosher 1 Occidental College will host the screening of an important new film, "WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price" by Robert Greenwald, who also directed the film, "Outfoxed." The film -- which is being shown across the U.S. this week on campuses, union halls, religious organizations, community centers, and theaters as part of the Wake-Up Wal-Mart campaign -- takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop. Following the film there will be a discussion with a representative from the successful "Stop Wal-Mart" campaign in Inglewood last year and a presentation about the efforts of workers at the Glendale Hilton hotel to unionize for better working conditions. This event is co-sponsored by UEPI, SLAC, Human Rights and Film Club, Progressive Christians Uniting, College Democrats, Gender Equity Club, The Women's Center and the ICC. See "Wake-Up Wal-mart" http://www.wakeupwalmart.com. Free. Info/Directions at (323) 259-2913 *** Want to stop the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and US adventurism throughout the world? Come join STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS TO STOP THE WAR at their conference on Saturday, November 19, from 8 to 5:30 PM at Manual Arts High School, 4131 South Vermont in Los Angeles. http://stopthewarconference.org/ Speakers, participatory workshops, and strategy sessions will address causes and consequences of these policies, and what we can do to stop them. Topics include the nature of the war system and its relation to racism and economic injustice at home. Featured speakers include John Bellamy Foster, co- editor of the Monthly Review, photo-journalist David Bacon, Michael Zweig of US Labor Against the War, KPFK's own Sonali Kolhatkar, and documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent, along with Vicky Castro of Gold Star Families for Peace; the Rev. James Lawson of SCLC and ICUJP; Stephen Rohde of the ACLU, and Don Broder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Students, teachers, campus workers, ESP's, parents, veterans, and military families are especially invited to attend. The conference is sponsored by a coalition of teachers' unions, student groups, and peace and justice organizations. The Media Sponsor is KPFK. For more information and registration, please visit www.StopTheWarConference.org, email [EMAIL PROTECTED], or call 310-704-3217. The conference is dedicated to the memory of Joe Hill, a labor and anti-war activist and songwriter, who was executed by the State of Utah on November 19, 1915 ------------------------ Yahoo! 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