Bush Nominates Judge Samuel Alito to US Supreme Court

[SOS2008]

I'm elated to hear that coming from a woman. Definately a topic for a different thread but one I can personally relate to.

This happened to one of my brothers too. I don’t understand how a woman can think that having a child will bring her more security. It created financial strain for my brother for many years (now he has custody), yet her life was still more difficult for her as a single mother. Anyway, they had not been seeing each other that long, and my brother could have taken measures to protect himself.

I highly doubt that, as of right now, anybody on this board knows jack about him. I could be wrong, though, if somebody lives in his district and he has been particularly noteworthy.

I think you are right that we are all just learning more about Alito.

I'm not as concerned about him in terms of over-turning Roe v Wade specifically, but more concerned about the court becoming too conservative overall. What really concerns me has been the increasing role of religion in politics (in the Republican Party at this time), and the various branches of government, most notably the Executive branch at this time. It is frightening to think that one special interest group can dictate so much to the rest of the country. This is a big part of the reason for resistance to this president on this nomination.

 

[deckart]

This happened to one of my brothers too. I don’t understand how a woman can think that having a child will bring her more security. It created financial strain for my brother for many years (now he has custody), yet her life was still more difficult for her as a single mother. Anyway, they had not been seeing each other that long, and my brother could have taken measures to protect himself.

Condoms work. I'll look it up but there are cases for child support against sperm donors! Watch your... stuff.

I've got to start another thread.

 

[deckart]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05140/507736.stm

 

[BobG]

And typically if there is a divorce, it is the woman who has custody of the children, and often men abandon them. So it affects her far more than him.

It is true that the woman usually gets custody of the children (about 85% of the time in sole custody cases). That just raises another question - why? Is that because it's usually the best solution? Of households where the wife was given sole custody, 25% have incomes below the poverty line vs. 15% for households where the father has sole custody (the percentage is 6% for two-parent households).

Alito's dissent is as much about the balance between father's rights and mother's rights as it is about pro-abortion and anti-abortion. It really isn't the model case to prove his stance on abortion itself, in spite of the right pointing to it with elation and the left pointing to it in dismay (unless you're pointing at it because it erode's a woman's control over the children, which is a related, but separate issue).

Edit: Link to http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf

Edit: Alito doesn't really seem to have any earth-shattering decisions that cement his ideology one way or the other (although the machine gun case could raise some eyebrows). Instead, he has a long record of positions more conservative than his associates - sometimes by a little, sometimes by quite a bit.

 

[Informal Logic]

I didn't see anywhere that it said the husband should have veto power over the woman's desire to have an abortion, it just said that a woman needed to inform her husband before she went off and had an abortion.

I meant it is controversial in regard to not having to inform the husband of pregnancy when the husband is not the father. In the eyes of the fundamentalists, it would seem to be condoning unfaithfulness, just as birth control condones sex (in the eyes of the fundamentalists).

 

[deckart]

I think Alito will make an excellent SC Judge. The nomination process should be a real a spectacle.

 

[BobG]

Here's an http://www.slate.com/id/2129107/nav/tap1/ that compares Scalia and Alito. The main difference is that Scalia is a more liberal judge than Alito (actually, it would be more accurate to say Scalia is more of a libertarian than Alito, since Scalia couldn't be mistaken for a liberal).

As conservative as Scalia is, aside from free speech cases, Scalia tends to stick up for individual rights. In fact, Scalia, the most conservative member of the court joined Stevens, the most liberal member of the court, in a dissenting opinion on a case involving an American citizen that was captured as an enemy combatant by American troops in Afghanistan.

Alito's only siginificant dissent sticking up for individual rights didn't actually address individual rights at all. His dissent was based on a belief that Congress did not have the right to http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/wbardwel/public/nfalist/us_v_rybar.txt, since mere possession doesn't affect interstate commerce. (Interestingly, Rybar, the person possessing the machine gun, used the US vs Miller Supreme Court case as a defense. In the US vs Miller, the Supreme Court ruled that ownership of a sawed off shotgun wasn't protected under the 2nd Amendment, since a sawed off shotgun did not bear "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" Rybar's defense was that a machine gun was more useful as a military weapon and should be protected under the 2nd Amendment.)

Alito sticks it to Congress when the issue is federal government vs. state and local governments, but tends to side with government (federal, state, or local) against individual rights.

 

[deckart]

Maybe I will be able to own an authentic AK-47 someday after all :)

 

[SOS2008]

SC Round II - Alito Update

Trouble with the Supreme Court nominee again. Judge Alito ruled in favor of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Company. Unfortunately, Judge Alito had $400,000 in Vanguard Mutual Fund funds at the time, after he had written to the Senate saying he would disqualify himself from any case involving Vanguard Mutual Funds. Oops!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10003274/

So is lying lying? Or is this okay since this was such a small amount of money--well to some it is several years’ income.

 

[faust9]

Maybe I will be able to own an authentic AK-47 someday after all :)

You already can.

 

[Skyhunter]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10003274/
So is lying lying? Or is this okay since this was such a small amount of money--well to some it is several years’ income.

Here is a little more on the case.

The White House, asked about the seeming contradiction between Alito's two statements, said that Alito was put on the case due to an error by a computer system that should have warned that he was taking a Vanguard-related case, because the investments were listed in the database.

Asked why Alito did not recuse himself after learning that it involved Vanguard, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized those who are raising questions about Alito's actions.

That is the way they operate. Don't answer the question. Attack the questioner.

 

[SOS2008]

Here is a little more on the case.
That is the way they operate. Don't answer the question. Attack the questioner.

It is still early in the confirmation process, but if more of this kind of thing comes to light, this nomination may not go through as smoothly as has been predicted. Even Pat Buchanan expressed concern about the appearance of unethical behavior. After all, judges, especially SC judges are held to the highest standard of all.