POLITICS: Bush Nominates Harriet Miers to Supreme Court

Originally posted by RANT
No, of course not. Bush flinched and did exactly what the emerging majority asked. The only problems Democrats seem to have with her is they can't stop laughing, but they will support this "no confidence" vote Bush has made in his own ability to stack the bench.

Meanwhile speaking of rabid...

Democrats, its your best week ever

I think this actually has a lot to do with Scooter Libby. I think the nomination of Harriest Miers is Bush's advance payment on the Democratic Minority's investigation of the Valerie Plame case.

This is how it works in DC.

So, we stop looking higher up the food chain, when we're given our Wicker Man in the form of Libby. The Supreme Court stays virtually the same, maybe even moves further to the left.

It's a push.

Watch Arlen Specter and Chuck Schumer. Ted Kennedy will put up the obvious flack, for show, but if Schumer and Specter toss softballs to Miers, then the fix is really in.

As for Delay? Well Delay is just screwed over a barrel.

Originally posted by RANT
Here's her 1989 application to the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas.

This is a horribly misleading characterization of that document. It is simply a questionnaire sent to all people running for an election, and she said in it that she wasn't seeking endorsement by that organization.

Ooooops, I used the wrong spelling of a word with the same pronunciation. Two words with different meanings spelled differently that sound the same. What do you call that?

synonym - of like meaning or like name.

androgynous - 3 a) of or marked by a blend of male and female characteristics.

androgenous - producing only male offspring.

Ms. Miers is androgynous.

I am androgenous.

Androgyny recapitulates philogyny, or so my high school science teacher's t-shirt read.

Thanks for pointing that out, Marg. I stand by my corrected statement, whatever it means.

Originally posted by Icarus Rising
Ooooops, I used the wrong spelling of a word with the same pronunciation. Two words with different meanings spelled differently that sound the same. What do you call that?

Actually I am laughing so hard about the word meaning and spelling, see I had not clue as to the spelling so as usual I did the spell check and looking at the word it gave me a different spelling so I check on the meaning and that is how I change it.

But your spelling of it was the last thing that was in my mind.

Remember English is my second language so I am clueless sometimes as the spelling of some words unless I use the spell check.

[edit on 3-10-2005 by marg6043]

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Originally posted by RANT
Here's her 1989 application to the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas.

This is a horribly misleading characterization of that document. It is simply a questionnaire sent to all people running for an election, and she said in it that she wasn't seeking endorsement by that organization.

The only part I can imagine anyone having a reasonable problem with out of that sentence is the word "her."

But let's say you meant "application."

In which case I should have said, here's Harriet's voluntary response to the Lesbian and Gay Political Coalition of Dallas in which she states not only do gays and lesbians have the same civil rights as non-gay men and women, but AIDS education and support services should be considered a community responsibility.

Let me now take you back to 1989. That's as good as BEING GAY as far the Republican Party was concerned when Jesse Helms was running things. And this woman was in TEXAS.

But I'm far from proclaiming her a champion of civil rights based on that. Given all her political reinventions and appeals from the fence, let's call her what she is... an opportunist.

It aint pretty, but a temporary placeholder so needy for approval she'll probably let her administrative assistants take turns writing her "opinions" is better than an activist ideologue on the bench any day.

Sorry, this is not the Thomas or Scalia you were promised.

For anybody interested I found a tiny bid of her stand about "pro-abortion issues"

As president of the Texas State Bar in 1993, Miers was a leader in an unsuccessful fight to persuade the American Bar Association to reconsider its pro-abortion rights stance by submitting it to a nationwide referendum.

At the time, she questioned whether the group should "be trying to speak for the entire legal community" on an issue that she said "has brought on tremendous divisiveness" within the organization.

While Miers evidently did not publicly state a view on the issue of abortion at the time, one conservative cited the events to support her nomination.

I guess is enough to make the religious rights happy.

Shortened Link

[edit on 3-10-2005 by RANT]

Originally posted by Icarus Rising
androgynous - 3 a) of or marked by a blend of male and female characteristics.

Where is the female characteristics?

Okay, sorry, but Girl Interrupted!!!.

What the hell was he thinking? Wait, don't answer that.

Think about being any one of the judges across the country who has served your position loyally and ethically, who has upheld the constitution and worked to interpret the constitution to your best ability.

Bush just peed on every one of them. He nominated his personal lawyer - oh my gawd! This isn't like Michael Brown screwing the pooch with FEMA - she won't be going away folks if she can't do the job!

And that web site! MoF! RANT, I thought you had written all of that in the post as a joke... then I clicked the link!

And that black eyeliner - I can't take seeing that black eyeliner for the rest of my life. SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

What a joke.

[edit on 10-4-2005 by Valhall]

This ought to get some of the religous right riled up

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers went on record favoring equal civil rights for gays when she ran for Dallas city council, and she said the city had a responsibility to pay for AIDS education and patient services.

But Miers opposed repeal of the Texas sodomy statute — a law later overturned by the court on which she will sit if confirmed — in a survey she filled out for a gay-rights group during her successful 1989 campaign.

The survey by the Lesbian/Gay Coalition of Dallas provides a hint of Miers' thinking on homosexual rights issues that could come before the court. Although she came to a coalition meeting to answer questions during the campaign, she said at the time that she was not seeking its endorsement.
Miers On Rights

She believes in equal civil rights for gays but opposes the repealing of laws that ban their practice?

Good to hear that she is so committed to gay rights

I'm still under the weather and not feeling a bit good, so I'm just going to throw out what I've found and see if some one else runs with it.

Harriet Miers is only listed with 12 cases in her time as a lawyer.

pview.findlaw.com...

Two of these cases were at the Texas state level and in both cases, she represented the corporation.

First she represented Microsoft in Microsoft versus Manning.

www.napil.com...

A class action suit about how the MS's DOS 6.0 was a POS that caused loss of data on certain consumer's PCs due to compression issues. When the problem was brought to light MS came out with the "fix" DOS 6.2 and tried to charge for it. The class action was to force MS to give the 6.2 away because they hadn't adequately tested 6.0. Miers represented MS and tried to get the class action kicked out because data wasn't lost on EVERYBODY's computer, and therefore since the class action would be giving 6.2 to EVERYBODY it wasn't fair.

She lost.

The other one was Disney vs Esprit Finance. She represented Disney. I don't know what Esprit was trying to get out of Disney, but Miers got it kicked out of court on jurisdiction issues.

Mainly she's a politician and not a lawyer if you want to be real honest. She's served most of her time in the past 15 to 20 years as member at large on the Dallas City Commission and also as head of the Texas Lottery Commission.

In an article written for the Dallas Bar Association entitled From Law to Politics: A Natural (And Costly) Transition which I believe was written in 1999 she states:

Former State Bar of Texas President Harriet Miers served as a Dallas City Councilmember before she ran for the State Bar seat. Miers sought an at-large seat on the Council in 1988 because "I very much liked being able to represent the entire city, as opposed to any specific area of the city."


However, she adds, she was also pushing to get rid of at-large seats because "at that time in our city's history, I felt that it was not appropriate to continue at-large seats." Critics of at-large Council seats contended they effectively discriminated against minority voters.


Miers, who is now president of Dallas' Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, soon found herself on another campaign trail running for the State Bar post. In both races, she says, she learned much about being an effective politician.


"The best advice any politician can get is to surround themselves with capable, well-meaning people-get good advisers," she says. "Expect to spend a lot of time. I don't think there's anything more grueling than a campaign because the success is so dependent on the effectiveness of the candidate, reaching out to people and communicating an effective message.


"Rest up before you do it."

www.dallasbar.org...

By the way, in an article out of Dallas/Ft. Worth written in June of this year WFAA predicted this:

Who knows, the president may do the same thing with this nomination he did when he picked a running mate in 1999; rather than select one of the well-known top contenders, he called on the man who conducted the running mate search for him, Dick Cheney, to join him on the ticket.

Imagine that: Justice Miers.

It’s a stretch, but you never know.

shortened link

Appears Miers has been on the other end of litigation as well. I have found a civil suit for damages filed by Jim Leslie Hines against what appears to be the Dallas City Commission with Ms. Miers listed as a defendant. Can't find details on what this was about, or the ruling in the case. Case number 9007019C in the District Court 3 in Texas.

But the more interesting thing is her time at Locke Purnell Rain Harrell Legal firm. A firm that appears to specialize in petroleum industry litigation.

I don't know if she did a darned thing while she was there...just can't tell one way or the other. Seems she was at that firm at the same time she was playing City commission member.

But there's interesting stuff on Locke et al.

Locke, Purnell is a big PAC donator

Open Secrets Cached page

But they're also sponsors of the British-American Project:

www.tlio.demon.co.uk...

I had never heard of BAP.

www.baponline.org...

But this is an odd deal. There are two articles on their own site that attempt to make fun of people who view the organization in a conspiratorial sense, and to be quite honest - I hope these people don't think they succeeded at eliminating doubts about their organization. You really ought to read these two articles:

www.baponline.org...

www.baponline.org...

I mean seriously, if you read the first one you don't even need to go looking for conspiracy - the guy as much admits the New Labour party was begun by happenstance ** by an inexplicable high number of BAP members.

whatever

Also here's a Google search on BAP:

British-American Project Search

Well, there you have it. I give a resounding on this dealio.

[edit on 10-4-2005 by Valhall]

[edit on 4-10-2005 by RANT]

between roberts and miers I would suggest bush is looking to his legacy, in other words he's looking towards the day he might need some friends on the court.

Originally posted by grover
between roberts and miers I would suggest bush is looking to his legacy, in other words he's looking towards the day he might need some friends on the court.

Can you spell 'Anti Terror Laws'?

I was thinking more along the lines of having friends in place in order to bail his sorry rear end out, just like his daddies buddies did. Can you spell high crimes and mistomeners?

Originally posted by Valhall
Well, there you have it. I give a resounding

on this dealio.

Granted, I had to look high and low to find it, but I've found the prerequisite scolding of all you conservative sell-outs that doubt our fearless leader.

The American "Thinker" (not a paradoy)

Don't misunderestimate Miers
October 4th, 2005

President Bush is a politician trained in strategic thinking at Harvard Business School, and schooled in tactics by experience and advice, including the experience and advice of his father, whose most lasting political mistake was the nomination of David Souter. The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court shows that he has learned his lessons well. Regrettably, a large contingent of conservative commentators does not yet grasp the strategy and tactics at work in this excellent nomination.

What follows is the most words I've ever seen used by anyone to say absolutely nothing, but here's the synopsis.

Smart people can't be trusted.

Experience is bad.

"One of us" is good.

"Dumb like me" is better.

Then it wraps up the lesson with Miers' actual qualifications for Supreme Court Justice:

According to a source in her Dallas church quoted by Marvin Olasky, Harriet Miers is someone who taught children in Sunday School, made coffee, brought donuts: "Nothing she's asked to do in church is beneath her."

As the court’s new junior member, the 60 year old lady Harriet Miers will finally give a break to Stephen Breyer, who has been relegated to closing and opening the door of the conference room, and fetching beverages for his more senior Justices. Her ability to do this type of work with no resentment, no discomfort, and no regrets will at the least endear her to the others. It will also confirm her as the person who cheerfully keeps the group on an even keel, more comfortable than otherwise might be the case with a level of emotional solidarity.

But there is much more to it than group solidarity, important though that ineffable spiritual qualty may be. Ms. Miers embodies the work ethic as few married people ever could. She reportedly often shows up for work at the White House at 5 AM, and doesn’t leave until 9 or 10 PM. I have no doubt that she will continue her extraordinary dedication to work once confirmed to the Court. She will not only win the admiration of those Justices who work shorter hours, she will undoubtedly be appreciated by the law clerks who endure similar hours, working on the research and writing for the Justices. These same law clerks interact with their bosses in private, and their influence intellectual and emotional may be more profound than some Justices might like to admit.

Ladies and gents, that's called "hustle."

[edit on 4-10-2005 by RANT]

I haven't found anybody that can give qualifications. Even the state supreme court justice what's-his-face she's been dating for some time...I thought maybe when they approached him he'd say something like

"Yeah! I've taught her a few things about constitutional law. Don't worry folks, pillow-talk goes a long way!"

but no...he couldn't even squeeze that much support for her abilities. Instead he says (I paraphrase very closely)

"She always remembers people's birthdays. Heck, she'll be at the store at 1 in the morning buying a gift for somebody and I'll say, 'can't this wait?' And she just comes right back and says 'Absolutely not! It must be done now!' "

I guess that's the hustle you're referring to. Well, at least all the other Supreme Court Justices will get a birthday card and cute box of chocolates every year!

[edit on 10-4-2005 by Valhall]

I have been bagging my head with this one, with Roberts I kind of took that one as the right game that Bush played to keep conservatives happy.

But for some reason the second nomination may have been part of a game that he is playing to his very own benefit.

After been under pressure from conservatives, liberals and religious groups to pleased them, with a more moderate candidate or a more reconstructionist one, or just as simple as playing the gender game, this time he has done what he feels like it.

What is that? Well the only qualifications his candidate has is just been his personal friend and confident, I bet he would have love to name Rove to that seat, but Rove is too controversial.

But instead Bush wants to bring somebody that in his own words is “More like him”.

Then we come to the question how Bush really, really is.

Its he really, really against gay rights? Its he really wanting to take away abortion rights?

Actually thinking about it. . . one of the things that most religious followers that voted for him can agree on is the fact that Bush didn’t perform on the issues of gay and abortion rights the way they wanted. Right?

Originally posted by marg6043


Actually thinking about it. . . one of the things that most religious followers that voted for him can agree on is the fact that Bush didn’t perform on the issues of gay and abortion rights the way they wanted. Right?

I can't answer for them, but I can say he has performed just the way I wanted him to on these issues - with no action at all. These issues should not be at the federal level.

Originally posted by Valhall
These issues should not be at the federal level.

On that I agree with you one hundred percent, even at state level is becoming a hard issue to sell is many that would love to see stronger laws concerning these issues.

When it comes to Miers I beleive that she will do what Bush has done, she in supreme court seat will stay neutral on the issue.

[edit on 4-10-2005 by marg6043]

Just another little tidbit of info:

Miers Briefed Bush on the Bin Laden (determined to attack in the US) Memo