Mickey

I could easily see Colin Powell running as well but there would be so many candidates splitting the republican moderate vote (Rudy, McCain, Powell) that they would get iced in the primaries by the far righty in the mix whoever that might be.

I have a hard time seeing Rudy veering to the right on social issues to get the vote of the right in trying to nab the nomination. I think Sam Brownback is running and although Rudy would clean his clock in the northeast and west, Rudy would get thrashed in places like South Carolina and the midwest. The struggle within the Republican party between its extremists and its moderates is probably inevitable. It is what happens when a party is successful to the point of dominance. For that to happen your tent has to get bigger and once it is, the resulting diversity leads to conflict. Sooner or later that struggle gets played out in the form of a Presidential primary. As for the specifics of your question, I think they are both just too strong or less charitably, too ego driven to play second fiddle to one another. If either were to get the nomination and do so without changing their positions on social issues all that much (non-gay baiting, basically pro-choice, etal), I think they would win easily. I think either could carry states like Pennsylvania and even New Jersey and without them the democrats wouldn't have a prayer. Of course, If John McCain couldn't beat George Bush in 2000, why would he be able to beat the neo-con candidate of 2008 be it Brownback or whoever?

I am beginning to suspect that ol' George can't resist making a little mischief here and there. This nomination could potentially tick off just about everybody. The right clearly wanted a rock-solid nominee on abortion whose views were pretty will known and who would almost guarantee a filibuster/nuclear option fight. They didn't get that. In that sense, even though this nominee might turn out to be as hostile to Roe as Pat Robertson, this is a defeat for the far right. I think those middle of the roaders who stopped the nuclear option are likely the ones whose views carried the day here. However, for all we know, no such convoluted concerns or intricate political strategy was in play. Maybe he just nominated her because he likes her and thinks the world of her legal abilities without a lot of thought on what she thinks of the Commerce Clause. That isn't meant as a criticism, just a hunch that Bush places a premium on trust and friendship rather than political calculations. Is it really cronyism to go with the people you trust and admire the most? Maybe there is such a thing as "good" cronyism?

A mystery candidate. She should show up for the hearings wearing the Riddler's costume, you know, the one with all the question marks on it. Or she could wear a T-shirt that says "My buddy got to be President and all I got is this lousy Supreme Court nomination." I heard she is single, never married in fact. She has no kids and is a real workaholic which can be a good thing. Married to the job I guess. I wonder though what personal perspective she might have or lack. Not that it would have anything at all to do with whether or not she should be confirmed. I'm just curious as to how many "confirmed bachelors" have been on the court and whether that experience invested any of their opinions whith a special insight or in fact, their opinions suffered from lack of insight at the other end. If she was from the left I am sure we would hear all sorts of nasty things about her life as a woman devoted to her career rather than a family. I wonder if the reverse will hold true, will women on the left find her careerism and powerful ambitions to be a plus? Will there be folks on the right who find that kind of personal history to be worrisome? My guess is that the issue will be the elephant in the room. Democrats will be too reticent to tag a woman with being too ambitious or to be critical of a lifestyle choice by a woman which centers on her career. At the same time, I think it would be hard for the Schafly crowd to extoll the virtues of a woman whose entire life begins and ends with the workplace. I think she will be confirmed as easily as was Roberts. Too much of a mystery for anyone to know enough about her to get all worked up over.

Sorry bib, I forget how emotional you can get over these things. Don't worry, it will never happen, sleep tight mighty mite.

Why do you invest so much of your time in insulting strangers? What do you get out of that? Are your arguments so weak that you have to add personal insults to get any attention?

I don't think he went out of his way really. There were a ton of amicus briefs filed from international groups. I don't think he could really look at non-capital cases involving juveniles. The question was whether or not there is a consensus regarding the execution of juevniles whether or not their is a consensus to try them as adults to avoid the get off scott free provisions of tryin minors is an entirely different question. The logic of including states that ban all executions is exactly what was done in the Atkins case. He didn't pull it out of thin air, that was based on the direct application of precedent. Besides, the beliefs of the states that believe all executions are cruel and unusual are just as entitled to be counted as a vote against executing children as any others. That would be like saying that the states that are kinda sorta agaisnt capital punishment, at least of kids, matter more than the opinions of the states that are really, really, really, against capital punishment, especially of kids. My objection is that on a case by case basis, you would likely find that all the states would want some kids executed and in others, none of them would. The one size fits all approach is lazy. Not all executions of juveniles are cruel and unusual and certainly, some executions of juveniles would in fact be cruel and unusual.

I'm sure Earle is going to get swiftboated so that very soon all we will be talking about his him and not any potential wrongdoing by the Hammer. Funny thing is that on this board all you ever hear is how corrupt politicians are and how they should all go to jail. Well, here is an indictment seeking to put one of them in jail and all of a sudden the politician is an innocent victim and the prosecutor is the corrupt one. How exactly is Washington ever going to get cleaned up if not by tossing a few big fish into the bass-o-matic when they get caught with their hands in the till? If absolute power corrupts absolutely, how crazy is it to think that just maybe a leader with absolute power is absolutely corrupt? Nah, can't be. Must be a politically motivated, evil, out of control prosecutor. Free The Hammer

Well the point I was trying to make was that whether or not Tom Delay was indicted has zero to do with whether or not Republicans will go after democrats. The "gotcha" game didn't start with the indictment of little Mr. Delay.

Why is it so important to you to disagree and insult rather than to simply disagree? There comes a point where it is simply juvenile.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA , you are just so freaking funny. That one is just so clever I can see why you repeat it so often, sure beats having an original thought now doesn't it? As always, a less than smart a$$ comment to mask your lack of anything worthwhile to add. Why actually make a semblance of a point when you can indulge your juvenile penchant for insults? How old are you anyway, 12? 13?

I think you are confusing the right to say what ever you want and the right to have people agree or applaud you for it. He can say whatever he wants and in response, others have the right to say what they want as well. Thus, we can say that he was wrong to make those comments without denying his right to make them. In fact, I am glad he did because he lets us all know a little bit more about how he thinks.

As long as we are making connections.....racism causes a higher rate of poverty among its victims and increased poverty leads to all sorts of ills which, together combine to lead to higher crime. Thus, the best way to lower crime rates would be to kill racists, not black babies. Of all things he could have used in his twisted analogy, he used race. The debate here seems to be over whether he is a racist or simply very stupid. I suggest a third possibility, perhaps he is a stupid racist.

Like they wouldn't have been otherwise. Does the name Kenneth Starr ring a bell?

He believes that killing black children would lower crime rates. You are presuming because of an assumed higher crime rate among blacks. If you killed the kids of Clarence Thomas, Bill Cosby, Martin Luther King, etc, etc, etc. do you think that would lower the crimer rate? Why wouldn't it, they are black aren't they? Is it possible that to lower the crime rate in the absurd manner he was poking fun at what you would need to do is abort babies who you know are later going to committ crimes. That would seem to make more sense. Of course, maybe to Bennett aborting a baby you know is going to committ crimes later and aborting a black baby is the same thing. Being black doesn't predispose one to becoming a criminal. The link between poverty and crime on the other hand is pretty clear. If what he needed was for the analogy were people statistically enegaging in more crime, then why not use a race neutral reference such as "the poor". If he had to make a stupid point in a stupid way then he could at least have talked about aborting the babies of the poor. He didn't, he chose black babies. Was that a wild stab or did he do that for a reason and if so why? I really can't beleive that there is a spirited defense of Bennett on this one here. And you guys wonder why you get like .00001% of the black vote.

You agree that killing black babies would lower the crime rate? Not total crimes, but the crime rate. If so, why? Why would killing black babies specifically, he mentions no others so lets not put words in his mouth that he did not say, have an effect on the number of crimes committed per x amount of people, ie, the crime rate?

We need to fix what's wrong. We need to be more disciplined. We need to turn it around.

What they neglect to mention is how they got out of their gaps to begin with. My understanding is that it was due in large part to this new phenomenon that is sweeping the league right now, really, it's all the rage. They call it "blocking". What happens is that your big players knock the defensive players on their collective a$$e$ thereby taking them right out of their gaps. We should try it sometime.

Her viability as a candidate depends entirely on women. The so called gender gap would be where she might have a glimmer of a ghost of a chance. I think we are more likely to have a female VP first before we have a female President. I see Hillary as a possible VP candidate paired with someone like Wesley Clark.

I read the whole episode, including the morally reprehensible part. What he doesn't explain is why killing black babies would lower the crime rate by his thinking? Lets see.....less blacks=less crime, thus more blacks=more crime thus black=criminal. Nope, nothing objectionable there. I'm glad he thinks that killing black babies would be morally reprehensible, kudos to him on that one, standing ovation even.

Exactly, honest to goodness racism isn't half as bad as false outrage. That's the real problem we should all be on the lookout for, false outrage the scourge of our times. Racism? Pish-posh. Oh when will people finally realize that more white people have suffered far more terribly at the hands of false charges of racism than minorities have suffered at the hands of real racism?

Did you give a speech to your co-workers stating emphatically that something happened after it was pointed out to you that in fact, it didn't happen? Was this a Nigerian vaccine by any chance? Perhaps you told them not simply that your data was "promising" but instead that there was "no doubt" the Cheney vaccine would succeed?

I'd be upset if I thought that racism still exists but since I have learned from my time here on this board that racism, if it even ever existed, has long since gone extinct so that all claims of racism in the present must therefore be false, this kind of thing no longer bothers me.

That is why NY doesn't have nearly as many problems on this front as others with no such program do. Fact is though that the $100 (I think it is much higher, more like $250 according to one of my clients) is not enough to cover the costs. The program, I'm sure is paid for mostly by tax payers which is really the issue I keep repeating. We have to either deny treatment or find a way to pay for it. For kids in the Health Plus system in NY, we pay for it with a combo of money from the recipient and tax payer money. It may not be the best way but it does at least address the problem that you have to either deny it or pay for it, we pay for it. It is at least rational. *Edit: I checked the Child Health Plus costs and if you are poor enough, that is very, very poor, the plan is practically free or close to it but if you make much at all, you have to pay the full premium for the managed care plan just like anyone else. For example, a single mother with 2 kids making over 2,600 per month would pay the full shot and she would not be on the plan, just the kids.

What is and is not needed is a detail. Principal remains the same, we do not turn down needed medical treatment to patients because they can't pay for it. That is why hospital ER's are so full. If the point is that if we were just tighter in what we will and will not pay for, the whole problem would go away, then it is not a point, it is a fantasy. Routine care like a case of poison oak is not the kind of expense we are choking on. Try about 5 or 10 years of intensive on-off care for a kid with leukemia or some rare, chronic, eventually fatal disease like Krabbe's Disease. Try a liver transplant or traumatic amputation. Uninsured people are just as susceptible to those kinds of tragedies as anyone else. The costs for that kind of treatment is mind boggling. If your answer to the problem, since you weren't at the meetings, is to authorize hospitals to let kids die in the emergency room parking lot from treatable diseases simply because they can't pay and have no insurance, fine, run for office on that platform and see how many votes you get. As for the car insurance thing, sometimes peopel lose legs in non-car accidents. Sometimes they lose a leg in a car accident and the other driver has no insurance or inadequate insurance. Often the victims own insurance limits are insufficient to cover such a huge hospital bill. You may answer, "tough, should have bought more insurance". Problem is, you still have the same issue, a person needs medical care beyond their financial abilities (which is why they didn't buy more insurance) and we have to decide, are we going to pay for it or let them rot? It keeps coming back to that core question, not every one can afford the treatment they need or to pay for sufficient inusrance. Do we deny them treatment or do we pay for it? It is a really, really, really crappy choice but the answer isn't to pretend that we can avoid it by simply letting care givers worry how to pay for the treatment we mandate they give or by just letting people suffer and die for lack of cash. If we want to not pay for this stuff, fine, cancel medicaid and tell hospitals that they can treat or not treat whoever they want based on ability to pay. The result will absolutely be lots and lots of untreated sick people suffering and dying. If there is anybody out there who wants that, raise your hands. As for the rest, accept that we have to pay for it and find a way to do just that.