Open Thread

In today's open thread I grant you a specific, personal waiver to bring up whatever's on your mind. Really. Whatever you want. This open thread is, in fact, three times more effective than any other, and you can quote that!

Comments

[Kagro X]

On my mind this morning: John Roberts and the latest administration stonewalling.

The White House has seen and knows what's in Roberts' papers. That's how they know they don't want them released. The Senators who have to vote, however, have not seen them.

Just as in the run-up to the war, the White House claimed the Congress "got the same intelligence" they did, so this claim, too, that the Senate has all the information it needs to vote, will be a lie. The White House gets to hide its cards, while the Senate has to cast "faith-based" votes.

It's been -- shall we say? -- an interesting progression.

They said they shared intelligence about the war, and now we know that not only was that a lie, but so was the intelligence itself.

Then, by the time the Bolton nomination rolled around, they stopped even pretending they were sharing intelligence.

Now, not only do they refuse to share it, they pretend it's privileged!

What's next? Demanding disclosures from the Senators who'll vote on the replacement for Rehnquist?

So I think there's a grain of some strategy there, too. If selling it as "stonewalling" isn't making inroads with the public, try "fairness." The White House knows what's in those papers. That's why they nominated him. After all, it couldn't be his long and distinguished record as a jurist. There isn't one. The White House knows something the Senate doesn't, and they're not sharing. Everything you needed to know about the relationships between co-equal branches of government you learned in Kindergarten.

[DemFromCT]

On my mind is stem cells.

Here in California, some research institutions want to broaden the gene pool by recruiting women who want to donate eggs in the cause of science. Much work remains to be done on setting protocols and ensuring that women aren't exploited in such arrangements. Yet in the minds of many researchers and ethicists, such egg donations are morally sound, and based on a reasonable principle: If individual women want to donate eggs, just as they donate blood or a kidney, they should be allowed to do so.

Frist, along with many in Congress, apparently disagrees. Four years ago, Frist laid out 10 principles for federal funding of stem cell research. His first was, "Ban embryo creation for research." Despite the Republican mantra of getting government off people's backs, Frist clearly wants to control how women use their eggs.

With similar ambiguity, Frist also opposes a technique - known as therapeutic cloning - that many scientists say will help them understand the origins of certain inherited diseases. Therapeutic cloning or "somatic cell nuclear transfer" involves replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized egg with the DNA of a person who has, say, Parkinson's disease or juvenile diabetes. Scientists then cause these designer blastocysts to divide, creating multiple stem cells with tailor-made genetic characteristics.

Dr. Evan Snyder, a stem cell scientist at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, said it's hard to tell at this point how important therapeutic cloning will be. But he doesn't want his hands tied.

"It's kind of like being an artist. You don't know what you're going to draw but you don't want someone telling you that you can't use the color green or any other color."

Frist is a slippery eel with presidential ambitions. What's the difference between his 'support' for stem cell research and snake oil? Perhaps less than you'd think.

Frist - excuse me, Dr. Frist, as he likes to be known - bears close watching.

[John Lopresti]

A Roberts document link list less one. An appreciation of cautionary note on Frist.
For KX: Here I post a few links from MSM this week which was overflowing with Roberts news.
For DemCT: No stem cell left behind law of 2006.
First, KX's topic:
For some reason I thought it worth relocating the WA-PO list of the new document release from SG; it is probably just as well I did not find it: this week's SG documents released were very carefully selected, certainly, by every senior Republican operative throughout government in WA-DC, and revealed little about Roberts. The links I retrieved to old documents from WHC days are the ones which ignited such fury a week ago, and everyone has these now, though I post the article link below; a sidebar there produces about 8 pdf files the Roberts to Fielding memos.
Roberts was the civil rights attorney for Reagan, and evidently for Bush senior as well, not that either of those two presidents was very impressive in civil rights matters. At least, that is how I still perceive them; rather, the major incentives of those two Presidencies were in other realms.
My sense of the source of the dispute now coming from Democrats on the Judiciary Committee is to them Roberts is a very known factor; they have pinpointed memos that bare multiple lines of communication, some of those sealed by Bush-junior. At dKos Sherlock Google expounds on this at great length. The skinny is Bush senior was going to be the next target of the hearings, but the political operatives decided to protract the Senate hearings to shield Bush until after the election; at which juncture he pardoned all the gents who would have been witnesses against him. A truly novel if somewhat ignoble use of the presidential pardon; kind of a self forgiveness. Hey, these are liberated times; I am glad he could go on living, and shed the sense of guilt, not to say responsibility.
Thing is, in so doing the presidency itself as an institution was tainted. SG at dKos has all the details, and probably the document references and research to back it up; except the Roberts documents and working papers would show more.
If KX wants the MSM links on my Roberts favorites of the week list, they appear at the end of this post below the footnote line.
DfCT: I find incongruous, as have other public commentators, that one month Frist is preaching to the choir, literally, at a revival gathering proclaiming his love of life and polemically denigrating Democrats as people with little respect for life, or some such neocontorted demagogic line. Then he breaks with the president on stem cell research. In the CA papers there was a next day interview with the physician who leads our state sponsored stem cell research organization, who observed Frist had used technical syntax which if read closely actually would constrain research. More of the No Child Left Behind; or what do they call the pro-pollution law, the Clear Skies Law or some such. I doubt Frist really wants to break from the pack, though he has a few more months to do so before his announced retirement takes effect. I see him as someone ill suited to the pressures of political life; and I do not trust him. I have worked with attorneys and doctors professionally a while. I hope he grows spiritually from the WA-DC experience. We shall see where the Senate goes; I doubt if he is at the helm still in the next SCOTUS nomination, that he would hesitate in the slightest to opt for the Cheney illegal plan of tyrannically declaring the cloture rule null and void. A nondescript Group of 14 Senators already has placed a grandstand in the middle to capitalize on that eventuality.
Roberts and Frist are very similar in my view, in their intellectual conceit which disregards personal rights. Roberts represents the unchaining of Thomas and Scalia; SCOTUS is headed for stormy seas soon. Frist is the captain of the ship of the Senate who is pointing the vessel toward shoals.
These processses are going to impact mainstream Republicans, though their leadership refuses to address that as a talking point.
These are times of great innovation in groups within the Democratic Party. It may take work, but the Democratic Party will be improved as a result. Keep an eye on the incompleteness in Frist's arguments. I wonder if he is wholeheartedly in favor of the nuclear power plants money remaining in the energy bill. There is a huge difference between using radioactivity to conduct a red blood cell scan, and releasing radioactivity into streams and storing it in caves under guard for the duration of its 250,000 year half-life.

KX, the Roberts article links are below. Quite unlike my usual habit, which is to take vectors from the best commentators, today instead after making my list based on my browser's own history, I thought it would be interesting to see what WA-PO's own site specific Google engine would reveal searching for Roberts and SG articles: that search engine produced 26 pages of article titles. That is where Sherlock Google, Empty Wheel, and others among investigative journalism's finest take their cue; I have excessive time commitments to check into that this morning.
The Roberts short list:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/31/AR2005073100696_3.html
Roberts policy pointman for the minor gambit to slow expansion of civil rights in the Reagan first term presidency.

Separation of powers congress v judiciary; and vertical jurisdictions within judiciary
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080301843.html

Belated peer evaluation by ABA 15-member committee
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072801023.html

Link to six of the most stark, though very short and very early Fielding document set Roberts' authorship
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072101782.html

Roberts protege of Starr
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/la-na-solicitor5aug05,1,3196740.story

Roberts interesting distinction in comparison to Estrada: Senate committee more demanding in Estrada request for dossier, Senate committee asking for only a comparatively few Roberts memos
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401802.html

Flanigan Abramoff connection
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-flanigan29jul29,1,6786183.story?coll=la-headlines-nation#Scene_1

Sorry for the final entry; I am tracking the Fitzgerald story, as well, and Flanigan is another principal who is a known in WA-DC inner circles, and once again getting a promotion.
John

[emptypockets]

On my mind is getting a job... picking a city to live... owning not renting... a car, a yard, kids... domesticity.

If I publish this winter, interview next fall, maybe I can get there by summer '07. Seems like a long time to wait.

[emptypockets]

ok, ok, I can't resist a stem cell discussion it seems. Is this: "[Frist] breaks with the president on stem cell research...[but] used technical syntax which if read closely actually would constrain research." made easier by a "no details please" campaign like this: "KISS... I'm for stem cell research and Bush is against it... [the public] ain't never gonna understand it like you do." which itself seems incongruous with this: "As in the past, greater awareness of the stem cell debate is associated with support for stem cell research."

I'm not sure either way.

[emptypockets]

this space intentionally left blank (just closing italics tag I left open).

[john brown]

Saw your comments about Abramoff in Daily KOS and, not knowing how to enter that discussion, thought I'd point you to another of his dealings, this time on Guam http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/08/shed-little-light-on-black-hole.html. My goodness that guy is busy http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/08/correction-and-update-re-abramoff.html

[Rosie]

I thank you for your comment.

[Adam-Smith]

Hi!
My name is Adam!

[FreeLanddd]

Cheap Cialis
Cheap Cialis
Cheap Viagra
Generic Viagra
Generic Viagra
Firstly, Cialis can be taken with or without food about 30 minutes to 1 hour prior to sexual activity. Thus, you have minimum chance of missing a dose. Secondly, once you have had a Cialis pill, its effect lasts for around 36 hours which is 4 times longer than Viagra or any other erectile dysfunction pill. That's why its been often funnily referred to as the "weekend pill" meaning if you have a pill on Friday you will go as strongly through Saturday and Sunday. One more thing, when I stated that Cialis is user friendly it doesn't mean that you can have it as and when you like, at your own sweet will. It's a prescribed drug and should
Generic Viagra
Generic Viagra
Generic Viagra
Generic Viagra
Generic Viagra

[GenaSuslik]

Hi

Do you like Ramstein?

[Eskimosik]

Hail

What do you think about this? When it happens?