At a press conference this morning with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a reporter asked President Bush whether his use of the word “ ” to describe the violence in Iraq would “convince many people that you’re still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq.”
Bush responded curtly, “It’s bad in Iraq. That help?

” and then chuckled.
Bush later said, “You know, in all due respect, I’ve been saying it a lot. I understand how tough it is, and I’ve been telling the American people how tough it is.

”
On 10/25, Bush said the U.S. was “ ” winning the Iraq war.

On 10/17, Vice President Cheney claimed the “general overall situation” in Iraq was going “ .”
QUESTION: Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating.

” You said that the increase in attacks is “unsettling.” That will convince many people that you’re still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq and question your sincerity about changing course.
BUSH: It’s bad in Iraq.

That help? (Laughter)
QUESTION: Why did it take others to say it before you’ve been willing to acknowledge it to the world?
BUSH: You know, in all due respect, I’ve been saying it a lot.

I understand how tough it is, and I’ve been telling the American people how tough it is. And they know how tough it is.
And the fundamental question is: Do we have a plan to achieve our objective?

Are we willing to change as the enemy has changed?
LINK:
Al Gore was on The TODAY SHOW and brought some sober thoughts to the discussion of the Iraq Study Group and the war.

Gore: Well, the report this morning is actually one of several studies.

There's one in the Pentagon. There has reportedly been one in the White House itself is (garbled) up. They're all basically saying the same thing, Matt–this is an utter disaster.

This was the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States and now we as a nation have to find a way, in George Mitchell’s words—"to manage a disaster." but—I would urge the president not to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it’s not about him. It’s about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there.

LINK:

Bush vs Gore v2.0

-Mr. Joseph From ...

On NBC, former Vice President Al Gore called Iraq the “worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States.” He urged President Bush “to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it’s not about him. It’s about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there.

”

TRANSCRIPT:

GORE: The fact is, this is a very bad situation. Our country has to find a way to get our troops out as quickly as possible without making the situation even worse in the manner of our leaving.
LAUER: It’s described by some as cut and stay as opposed to cut and run.

Does it [the Baker-Hamilton report] do enough to acknowledge the results of the mid-term elections and the message voters sending this administration — if these are listened to, these recommendations?
GORE: Well, the report this morning is actually one of several studies. There is one in the Pentagon.

There has been reportedly been one in the White House itself. They are all basically saying the same thing, Matt. This is an utter disaster.

This worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States. We as a nation have to find a way, in George Mitchell’s words, to manage a disaster. But I would urge the president not to — to try to separate out the personal issues of being blamed in history for this mistake and instead recognize it’s not about him.

It’s about our country and we all have to find a way to get our troops home and to prevent a regional conflagration there.

VIDEO / LINK:

..

.

Also, from ..

.

AL GORE: MOVIE STAR

A former vice president tells the Truth, ignites a global debate, and suddenly looks like a dark-horse candidate. GQ.

com presents the complete Al Gore Q A, including what he really thinks about George W. Bush.

So if you decide to run, do you think we would see the Al Gore from the movie?

Or the Al Gore from 2000?
Well, I don’t plan to run. I don’t plan to run.

And I don’t expect to run.
How many times a day does somebody ask you this?
Well, I’m doing a lot of interviews and it’s on the list of questions.

For every one of them. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that people think enough of me still in that world to ask that question.

It’s true that I haven’t, uh, gotten to the point where I am willing to completely rule it out for all time. But, that is really more a matter of the internal shifting of gears. I’m not making plans to run again.

But you’re not ruling it out?
Uh… no. [smiles]
Do you know if President Bush has seen the movie yet?

Well, he claimed that would not see it. That’s why I wrote the book. He’s a reader.

What page do you think he’s on?
I would encourage him to see the movie and read the book. I wish that he would.

Don’t you find it appalling that he won’t?
Well, you know, he’s probably no more objective about me than I am about him.
So have you been offered any other movie parts?

Yes! I actually just performed a voice-over role in a movie last week. I am reprising my role as a disembodied head in Futurama, which is being made into a movie.

There are a significant number of people who appear not to know or care that I was Vice President of the United States, but who are very tuned into the fact that I uttered the immortal line, “I have ridden the mighty moonworm.”
And that’s so much more important. So do you think you’ll get an Oscar nomination?

For the disembodied head?
For An Inconvenient Truth.
Well, I think the movie deserves one.

I’m not eligible; the movie is. But I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it.
Do you think you have ever been more popular?

Ahhhh. I think non-candidates are inherently more popular than candidates.
What is your relationship with the Clintons like now?

Good. Fine. Uh, I saw him today.

We see them every once in a while.

Do you like her?
Sure.

We worked together for 8 years, and uh, I think she’s, uh… very capable.
Could she win?
I’m not gonna get drawn into speculation about the potential candidates in 2008.

Okay, then let me ask you this. If you had to have a drink with someone tonight, and it was Bill or Hillary, you couldn’t pick both but you had to pick one, whom would you pick?
Well, Bill doesn’t drink.

Are you sure?
I’m pretty sure, yeah. So, if that were the criterion, to have a drink with them and she’s the only one that does, then it would be her.

You know, it’s not the same now as it was, of course. A lot of water under the bridge. But we have been through a lot together and I wish them both well.

Do you want your daughter Karenna to go into politics?
I want her to do what she wants to do. I think her judgment is so good, and if she were to decide to go into politics, she would be soooo good.

If I had half of the skills that she has, I would definitely be in my second term as president right now.
What does she have that you don’t have?
Perfect pitch.

Okay, on to 9-11. What were you really feeling? Was there a part of you that felt a sense of relief that you weren’t in charge that day?

You mean a sense of relief that I didn’t have to deal with it? Oh no. Not at all.

Not for one second. Not for one second. Why would I?

I mean, well first of all, it just didn’t occur to me to feel anything like that. What did occur to me was to feel what every American felt, the outrage and anger and righteous anger, and support for the President at a time of danger… And, honestly, I was focused on the reality of the situation. And I wasn’t president, so, you know, it wasn’t about me.

Now, I do wish, now that we have some distance from the events, and we have all this knowledge about what this administration did do, I certainly feel that I wish that it had been handled differently, and I do wish that I had somehow been able to prevent some of the catastrophic mistakes that were made.
Do you feel that we would be safer today if you had been president on that day?
Well, no one can say that the 9-11 attack wouldn’t have occurred whoever was president.

Really? How about all the warnings?
That’s a separate question.

And it’s almost too easy to say, “I would
have heeded the warnings.” In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail.

And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way. It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, “Well, you’ve covered your ass.” And never called a follow up meeting.

Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it.

And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job. And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off! And I don’t know why—honestly—I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay?

I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage? And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing.

I understand how it could sound that way. [Practically screaming now] But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!

But how do you really feel?
(cracks up)
What’s the nicest thing you can say about George Bush?
He made a terrific appointment of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Ok, Is there a second best thing?
I can’t think of another one, actually.
When you see the state things are in now, don’t you feel an obligation to run?

Well, I don’t think I have to apologize for devoting my life to trying to solve the most serious challenge our civilization’s ever faced. But I do understand the nature of the question, and as I said, I haven’t completely ruled it out. It’s just that I don’t expect to—and I don’t really believe that that is necessarily the best use of my skills and experience.

[sticks his tongue out and crosses his eyes]

Do you like yourself more now? Do you have more fun now?
Well, you know the old Kris Kristofferson song that Janis Joplin made famous, “Me and Bobby McGee”?

It has a great line: Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. There’s some aspects of that involved here.
What kind of freedom do you feel now that you didn’t feel when you were running?

You know my all time favorite Onion headline—you read The Onion?—sometime in the summer of 2001, the lead story on the front page had a picture of Tipper and me, and the headline was, “Gores Enjoying Best Sex of Their Lives.” And she said, “How did they know?

”
Do you have any advice on keeping a marriage together?
I think basically Tipper is the key to it.
Really?

Yeah. Love is such a complicated force, I don’t have the words to speak intelligently about it. I don’t even want to try to universalize what feels true to me, because everybody’s different and—
Yeah, but you know what?

A lot of people are real different. You’re devoted. People look at you two and you never wonder if there’s anything stupid going on.

What is it about you two?
Well, I think that communicating clearly, and making intelligent decisions about the time that you set aside for one another, not time with you and your spouse and the entire family. That’s also very important, but it doesn’t count in that category of time you need for the relationship itself.

Communicating clearly, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. That’s just really important. And if you need help, get help.

Have you been to therapy?
We went in the aftermath of our son’s accident. We had family therapy.

And you know, Tipper has a graduate degree in psychology, and she has had a fairly intensive psychiatric practice for 40 years—with one patient. I’m seriously not joking when I say the secret is mostly her. She’s just an amazing partner in life.

What’s the last really romantic thing you did for her?
I made her an iTunes list that communicated things that are important.
What was on it?

That’s too personal.
How often do you think about 2000?
Uhhhh… (feigned shock) The 2000 election?

Yes, that little tiny thing that happened in American history.
I’d almost forgotten! Oh, gosh.

You are so much more relaxed now. I think you’re having more fun this way.
Um, compared to what?

To being a candidate.
Gee, how could anything be more fun than that?

LINK:
Mr.

Gore, the Sierra Club, and Moveon.org are all making pleas for people to host screenings of An Inconvenient Truth at their homes..

.

This man should be our President right now..

.

-Mr. Joseph

From ...

On NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) argued that the broader al Qaeda network is gaining strength as a result of the Iraq war. Feingold cited Somalia, where an individual listed by the U.

S. State Department as a was yesterday named as the new leader of a militia that has of Somalia’s capital..

.
FEINGOLD: Our number one moral responsibility is to protect the American people — to focus on those who attacked us on 9/11, to not be distracted into a situation where even the administration did not have Iraq as one of the 45 countries that was connected with al Qaeda.
Our number one responsibility is to protect the American people from being killed by terrorists.

Iraq has very little to do with that at this point. Iraq is obviously a place where they’re training people, but the idea of standing up and keeping a military involvement forever in Iraq will actually weaken the American people’s ability to go after terrorists who, frankly, look like they’re taking over Somalia right now.
You know, Tim, today it was announced that a guy named Hassan Dahir Aweys is now the head of the government that has taken over in Mogadishu in Somalia.

He is on the State Department’s terrorist list. He is known as an al Qaeda operative, or somebody that is connected with al Qaeda. While we were asleep at the switch, while we were bogged down in Iraq, while we were all focused on Iraq as the be all and end all of our American foreign policy, we are losing the battle to al Qaeda because we’re not paying attention.

I asked [Coordinator for Counter Terrorism in the State Department] Ambassador Crumpton at a hearing the other day, how many people in our federal government are working full time on the problem in Somalia? He said one full time person. We’ve spent $2 million in Somalia in the last year while we’re spending $2 billion a week in Iraq.

This is insanity if you think about what the priorities are of those who have attacked us and those who are likely to attack us in the future.
VIDEO / LINK:

has more..

.

Feingold faults Bush on Somalia policy
Returning from a recent trip to Africa, Sen. Russ Feingold faulted the Bush administration for what he called a failure to develop a policy on Somalia, even as he praised U.

S. efforts to combat AIDS on the continent.
Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who will lead the Senate Foreign Relations African Affairs subcommittee next year, visited Ethiopia and Kenya, two countries that neighbor Somalia, during a weeklong trip.

An Islamic militia has taken over much of Somalia, including the capital, and the country's prime minister said this week his troops were bracing for war.
"The stakes are very high for us," Feingold said in a telephone interview.
Sen.

Norm Coleman, R-Minn., agreed the African nation needs more attention from the U.S.

Coleman said "that a major problem with U.S. policy on Somalia in recent history has been its absence.

"
"A failed state in this part of the world would be a security threat to our nation, and we need a robust strategy to ensure that this does not happen," Coleman said.
Feingold warned that the militants could have an impact not just in Somalia but in the entire region. The U.

S. has said the Islamic movement has links to al-Qaida, which Islamic leaders deny.
"So this is just the kind of situation that we should be paying real attention to, instead of only obsessing about Iraq," Feingold said.

"Our failure to have a policy in this area is a threat to the American people, and our government has a very serious responsibility to turn this around."
The State Department responded by referring to remarks made last week by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who said the U.S.

is working with all sides to prevent Somalia from becoming a safe haven for terrorists.
Feingold won passage in October of a defense bill amendment, co-sponsored by Coleman, requiring the U.S.

government to coordinate a comprehensive strategy for Somalia and the region.
Feingold said Tuesday that U.S.

policy should be to try to get negotiations going between the current secular government, known as the transitional federal government, and the Union of Islamic Courts, the umbrella group behind the militia, to create a coalition government in Somalia. The U.S.

has supported such a dialogue, but Feingold argued it hasn't done enough to start one.
In Minnesota's Somali community, the largest in the United States, American policy is a huge concern, said Omar Jamal, executive director of the St. Paul-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

"Somalis feel that the administration hasn't done anything on the Somali issue," Jamal said. "The administration's main focus was the war on terror, and right in front of our eyes, Somalia is run over by Taliban-style extremists. The administration hasn't done squat.

"
Meanwhile, Feingold praised the impact that President Bush's AIDS initiative has had on the countries he visited. The initiative, announced in 2003, targets 15 countries that have about half of the world's 39 million people who are HIV-positive.
"It's hard to ever describe this issue as good news, but I am proud of the effect that the president's program is having," Feingold said.

"We received profuse thanks for the very significant funding increases that are going into it.
"It appears that in both Ethiopia and Kenya, the government is fully behind the efforts and sees the American bilateral aid as being one of the most important things."
Feingold said that while more must be done, the progress has been striking.

He said he visited a slum in Kenya in 2002, where he witnessed a "pitiful" program to help people with AIDS.
"There was absolutely no money whatsoever for treatment," he said. "Now there is significant funding — not enough — but at least significant funding to treat people who already have AIDS.

"

LINK:

Make a note, Russ will be on Countdown tonight with Keith Olberman to discuss what the Iraq Study Group had to say...

-Mr. Joseph

A double-whammy from the Thief in Chief today.

..

Thanks to and for the clips.

..

VIDEO / LINK:

TRANSCRIPT:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken.

Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Next..

.

VIDEO / LINK:

TRANSCRIPT:
Asked if he wasn't frustrated by the seeming lack of progress there, Bush replied, "Sometimes I'm frustrated, rarely surprised. War is not a time of joy.

These are challenging times."
But when asked by NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell if he was indeed frustrated by the lack of progress in Iraq, Bush not only said that he is occasionally frustrated and "rarely surprised," he also claimed to "sometimes" be happy:

O'DONNELL: But are you frustrated, sir?
BUSH: Frustrated?

Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy.

You know, this is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country.

I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.

Well, now we have admittance...

-Mr. Joseph

Here are the official documents from the U.

S. Supreme Court Decision in Bush vs. Gore, otherwise known as Decision 2000.

This is a doozy, but it is good for your records, it is straight from the Library of Congress.

Supreme Court on Florida Election Vote Recount

By a 5-4 vote divided along conservative-liberal lines, the Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, put an end to the five-week dispute over the presidential election results in Florida and effectively elected Republican George W. Bush as the nation's forty-third president.

The decision stopped the manual count of several thousand contested ballots that had been ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, leaving Bush the certified winner by 537 votes of the state's twenty-five electoral votes, enough to give him the presidency. Although the U.S.

Supreme Court sent the case back to the Florida court for further consideration, the decision left Vice President Al Gore's attorneys little maneuvering room to pursue his challenge, and the Democratic nominee conceded the election to Bush on December 13. It was a painful decision for Gore, who had won the nationwide popular vote by approximately 577,000 votes. (Bush, Gore speeches, p.

1025)
The Court's decision capped the most extraordinary period in U.S. presidential politics in more than a century.

The November 7 election left Gore with 267 electoral votes—just 3 short of the 270 needed under the Constitution for election as president. Bush had 246 electoral votes coming out of the election. In doubt were Florida's 25 electoral votes, which would provide the margin of victory.

There Bush had a slim advantage, and for five weeks lawyers and partisans for the two sides clashed in the courts, at local elections headquarters, and even in the streets. Bush sought to preserve his slim lead by erecting legal roadblocks to the recounting of thousands of ballots that were in dispute. Needing every vote he could get, Gore demanded that all disputed votes be counted.

Throughout the ordeal, the nation and the world watched as election workers peered at ballots looking for signs of voter intent, and as judges struggled with Florida's sometimes conflicting laws to determine the state legislature's intent. It was the closest the United States had come to a constitutional crisis over a presidential election since 1876, when an election dispute dragged on for months and was finally resolved by a contentious vote in the House of Representatives.
In the end Bush won because he had two important allies working in tandem: the calendar and the Supreme Court.

Under a federal law enacted in 1887, a state's electors had to be selected by December 12 if they were to be free from challenge in the U.S. Congress.

Although nothing in the law prevented electors from being selected after December 12—in 1960 Hawaii did not select its electors until January 4—the Bush team argued that the Florida legislature had intended December 12 to be the deadline for selecting electors. Bush's attorneys then used every legal maneuver they could muster to prevent or delay voter recounts until this deadline had passed and it was too late to overturn the Bush lead. As the December 12 date approached, the final arbiter of whether additional votes would be counted was the Supreme Court, which for the first time in U.

S. history found itself in the position of being able to determine who would become president. On the key decision in the case of Bush v.

Gore, the Court's five most conservative justices sided with Bush, the conservative candidate, and the four most liberal justices sided with Gore, the liberal candidate.
The coincidence of this split did not go unremarked. Editorial writers and legal experts said that the Court should have refused to review the dispute and left it for Congress to resolve.

By injecting the Supreme Court into a political issue, the Court had weakened its own legitimacy as well as Bush's claim to the White House, those critics said. John Paul Stevens, one of the dissenting justices, said the Court's ruling “can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.” Another dissenter, Justice Stephen G.

Breyer, referred to the Court action as “this self-inflicted wound.” Nor did it escape public notice that the Republican nominee who had campaigned on states' rights had turned to the federal judiciary to overrule the Florida state courts or that his promises of inclusion did not extend to disputed ballots cast primarily by blacks, the urban poor, and the elderly.
Although most Americans accepted the Court's decision and Gore's concession calmly, it remained to be seen to what extent the controversy had damaged the public's trust in its governing institutions and in the electoral process.

Some observers predicted that the incident would discourage voter turnout in the future, especially among African-Americans and other minorities who were already skeptical about the voting process. Several news organizations immediately announced plans to perform their own recounts of the Florida ballots, while politicians and election officials across the country promised to review election laws and procedures to prevent similar situations in the future.
On December 14 Florida governor Jeb Bush announced that he was creating a special task force to investigate the integrity of Florida's election process.

He also said he would welcome an investigation by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights into allegations into voting irregularities, including incidents of intimidation directed at black voters.

Bush, the younger brother of the president-elect, and Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris, an acknowledged Bush supporter, had been accused by Gore partisans of using their offices to help thwart the recount.
March for Life..

. a failure WASHINGTON — President Bush thanked abortion opponents Monday for
helping to defend his "culture of life" agenda and for pursuing "a noble cause"
that he hopes will persuade other Americans to the "rightness" of their effort.
"You believe, as I do, that every human life has value, that the strong have
a duty to protect the weak, and that the self-evident truths of the Declaration
of Independence apply to everyone, not just to those considered healthy or
wanted or convenient," Bush said by telephone to demonstrators gathered in
Downtown Washington before a march to Capitol Hill.

"These principles call us to
defend the sick and the dying, persons with disabilities and birth defects, all
who are weak and vulnerable, especially unborn children."
Monday's rally
marked Sunday's 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized
abortion in 1973.

The president did not call for an end to abortion rights, but
identified with the aspirations of those who do.
"We're working to persuade
more of our fellow Americans of the rightness of our cause. And this is a cause
that appeals to the conscience of our citizens and is rooted in America's
deepest principles," the president said from Manhattan, Kan.

, where he delivered
a speech at Kansas State University. "And history tells us that with such a
cause we will prevail."
The rally and march on Washington comes one day before the Senate Judiciary
Committee is to vote on nominee Samuel Alito's elevation to the Supreme Court.

Abortion politics and the law are central themes in the nomination, as Alito has
been chosen to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a swing vote on the
court regarding abortion rights and other controversial topics.
Only one
Senate Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, has said that he will support
confirmation. Most other Democrats will oppose Alito, even though he won a
unanimous well-qualified rating from the American Bar Association.

Bush said
Monday he didn't know if Alito would be filibustered.
"We've got legislators
to write law. The judges are to interpret law.

...

He is a very, very smart,
capable man. When you talk to Sam Alito you think, 'smart judge.' He's written a
lot of opinions, his judicial philosophy is clear and his judicial temperament
is sound.

That's why the American Bar Association" voted unanimously for him,
Bush said.
Analysts say abortion politics explains the Democrats'
hostility.
"Democratic senators can't afford to own this nominee.

If they
vote for Sam Alito and he drops the hammer on Roe, they might not recover," said
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.
Chief Justice
John Roberts won confirmation in September on a vote of 78-22. Twenty-two
Democrats and one independent joined all 55 Republicans in supporting Roberts'
confirmation.

The perception among many opponents of Alito is that he will
shift the balance of the court on abortion. But a former O'Connor law clerk said
O'Connor wasn't alone in charting the court's direction on the
issue.
"There's no doubt the composition of the court remained static for
about 10 years.

Justices Kennedy and O'Connor were together perhaps a swing
vote. So it is inaccurate to say that O'Connor was the swing vote," said former
clerk Andrew McBride.
McBride gave the example of 1992's Planned Parenthood
v.

Casey, a case in which key aspects of Roe v. Wade were upheld but states were
given more freedom to impose regulations on access to abortion. Thirty-four
states have since passed laws requiring parents either to be notified or to give
consent when their underage daughters seek abortions.

Even with all the
abortion opponents assembled in Washington and in other cities on Monday,
supporters of abortion rights held their own strong showing over the weekend. A
rally on Sunday focused on the Alito nomination, urging the Senate to reject
him. They held a candlelight vigil in front of the court, waving signs that
read: "Alito--No Justice For Women," and "Keep Abortion Legal.

"
Members of
Congress, including Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J.

, Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Melissa
Hart, R-Pa., addressed the rally in Washington.

They encouraged young people
opposed to abortion to run for public office.
"It's time to get off the
streets and into the government suites," Smith said.
While many abortion
rights rallies were held on the actual day of the anniversary, abortion
opponents took Monday to rally in several locations.

In St. Paul, Minn., Katie
Whitte braved below-freezing temperatures outside the state capitol to march for
the first time against abortion.

"This year is special for me because I am a
mother out of wedlock," said Whitte, 20, whose daughter is 5 months old. "I
wanted to get the message out that life is important. It doesn't matter what
your circumstances are.

"

In light of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rite and while Ex-President Clinton is out looking for money to donate to the victims, George W. and his father are out doing what they can.

Anyway...

Recently, I asked my mom if she would vote for Hillary Clinton if she ran in '08. My mom, being a feminist, answered "yes". I asked, "What about Condi Rice?

" She answered, "no". So, I say, why not? And she answers -- "Because she doesn't have a brain.

"
Things that are so simple like that are sometimes the best answer.
Also, Bush nominated a woman to replace O'Connor. He also assured the neocons that she is "one of them".

She has NEVER been a judge. She was a "close friend" of Bush. I also love how she was the "best [George W.

] could find."
Great..

. this is really going to offset the balance of the Court. One sure fire conservative and Roberts (who is a trump card -- he could go either way).

Not good.
Roberts WAS appointed -- damn, although Russ Feingold approves of him, so it's not the end of the world.
Not much else, the new pope is apparently having talks about married priests.

Yeah, right. Like that'll ever happen -- we'll see, I guess.
Also, on the subject of the Church, check out my other blog for the lyrics of a song that I wrote called, "The Catholic Rap".

That's it for now,
posted by Mr.