Republican majority victimization

Perhaps Mike Spaniola’s Guest Commentary, “Republicans must educate public, not debate Democrats” (MichNews.com, Apr 26) qualifies as “In-depth”, but I’m pretty sure he betrays the rest of the web site’s “Conservative, Honest News & Commentary” slogan. To start with, I’m sure members of any movement could point to a few court cases decided against their positions as “evidence” of a runaway activist judiciary, but that hardly presents a complete picture. In fact, 53 percent of federal judges were nominated by Republican presidents and 9 of 13 circuit courts now have a Republican majority. While some might call these “statistics”, Mr. Spaniola thinks they represent a “myth of a conservative tilt” pushed by America’s “Democrat-dominated media”.

The depth of Mr. Spaniola’s inconsistency would be fun to observe if it weren’t so misleading to his readers. In one moment, he betrays his “republican” beliefs by pushing democratic populism, and in the next he writes off public opinion on behalf of his personal opinion. For example, he says that “judicial appointment… have allowed Democrats to usurp the will of the people”, but then he cites and dismisses an opinion poll with favorable results for Democrats, saying the truth is “obvious to most Americans.” He decries federal and state who overturn laws they deem unconstitutional, rather than leaving it to a popular vote – then he claims that Democrats are using “selective, unethical back-door political maneuvers.” Just so we’re clear: there should be state and federal referendums on issues where Mr. Spaniola, our personal arbiter, believes judges are wrong and popular opinion backs him up. However, if those who oppose him work within the framework of the constitution and the rules of the Senate, THAT would be a back-door political maneuver.

I wonder if he was using the same language in the 90’s, when Republicans used the same techniques to block Clinton judicial appointments? No, says Mr. Spaniola, what we are no witnessing is all sour grapes. I guess all those liberal “activist judges” never got around to changing the constitution’s position on the Senate making its own rules. The only intellectual consistency here is that whatever Republicans try to do is good, and whatever Democrats try to do is bad. Never mind that sometimes both groups have tried to do the same things.

This article is just silly. I too could spate a list of decisions which I interpret as furthering the conservative movement at the cost of defying the law, but I will refrain as I am neither trained as a judge nor was I party to all of the details in any given case. I will note that unlike the House of Representatives, which was designed to be more directly representative of voter will, the Senate was designed specifically to balance the House and protect the rights of the minority. That’s why North Dakota sends as many senators as Texas, and it’s why the filibuster and other rules exist in the first place: the Senate is designed for compromise and moderation as compared with the tempestuous nature of the House.

It amazes me, and is telling of our times, that technicalities of procedure have been elevated to such a heated political level that Mr. Spaniola urges that Republicans not even engage in debate with Democrats over this relatively fine point. He uses every misguided trick in his book to convince us that even when Republicans control every branch of government, they are still the victims.

Episode XVI: A New Pope

So there's a new pope:



I'm surprised to learn that it's former actor John Ratzenberger. I didn't even know he was religious, let alone that religious. Or even Catholic for that matter. When asked about the work ahead, Ratzenberger (now known as Pope Clifford XVI) said, "Okay. Everyone to your stations. Let's go!" Ratzenberger was immediately criticized for being too conservative; a story circulated from earlier in his career, when he issued the order to close shield doors that endangered the lives of two officers in a local mililtia. A local bear-creature yelled, and then some midget in a cramped robot costume beeped.

Insert your own Cheers/"Hey Normy" joke.

RIP Basil and Clementine

Newsflash: John Bolton is a douche. Maybe I'm the first person to point this out, who knows.

In more important news, our two pet rabbits died yesterday. I won't share the grusome details but luckily Dana was there to comfort Basil in his final moments. (Clementine had already passed.) As anyone who knows us is aware, we'd had Basil for about three years. He was rescued from an abusive situation by the New Jersey House Rabbits Society, a wonderful group of strangely obsessed people with big hearts. As we had long since decided that these would be our last rabbits (we have a long history with sickly rabbits and were particularly attached to Basil, who has outlived several "wives"), I've been comforted by happy memories from our living/dining rooms in Somerville and our old Edison apartment. I can remember all of our little furballs, but especially Basil, doing the things rabbits do best: running around at top speed, scratching up our new furniture, jumping straight in the air and over obstacles, peeing on the nice new off-white plush carpeting, crunching happily away on their veggies, licking our mirrors, shoving their heads beneath our feet for attention, humping our arms (and each other), bouncing off walls, biting off chunks of fur from one another, trying to chew through wires, menacing our cat Denton, keeping overnight guests awake, curling into us to go to sleep, chewing holes in our coats and pillows and sweaters, tossing their toys around and grunting and squeking and chasing and nipping us for attention...

We're obviously upset at the suddenness of it all but when you think about it, we gave Basil more happy years with us than he'd had unhappy ones previously, and any other rabbit who was lucky enough to spend time in our house got the royal treatment too. Almost any of our friends and guests from the past few years are bound to have some funny memories of these guys and it seems more appropriate to think about how their lives enriched ours than our loss. So, yeah.