Libertarian Leanings

Kelo loses

In a predictable split, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kelo v. New London that it is within the Constitution to allow a local government to take property from one private owner and transfer it to another in hopes of realizing higher tax revenue.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the case turned on the question of whether New London's development plan served a "public purpose." He added, "Without exception, our cases have defined that concept broadly, reflecting our longstanding policy of deference to legislative judgments in this field."

New London officials "were not confronted with the need to remove blight in the Fort Trumbull area, but their determination that the area was sufficiently distressed to justify a program of economic rejuvenation is entitled to our deference," Stevens wrote. "The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including--but by no means limited to--new jobs and increased tax revenue."

Stevens added that "because that plan unquestionably serves a public purpose, the takings challenged here satisfy the public use requirement of the Fifth Amendment."

He was joined in that view by justices Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Dissenting were justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

In a strongly worded dissenting opinion, O'Connor wrote that the majority's decision overturns a long-held principle that eminent domain cannot be used simply to transfer property from one private owner to another.

"Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power," she wrote. "Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded -- i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public -- in the process."

The effect of the decision, O'Connor said, "is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property -- and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

The ruling has broad potential implications nationwide, giving cities wider authority to condemn homes and businesses to make way for more lucrative developments.

It gets worse.

During oral arguments before the court, it emerged that the land parcels at issue were earmarked for office space and "support" for the park or marina, possibly meaning a parking lot.

How encouraging.

Via Michelle Malkin.

The counter attack begins

Karl Rove has the Democrats up in arms over his comments today, as the White House apparently has decided to go on offense.  In the wake of the truly boneheaded remarks by the Honorable Senator Richard Durbin, who compared Americans at Guantanamo to to Nazi concentration camp guards and Soviet gulag guards, Rove pointed out the what is inescapably implied by all this Democratic solicitude toward captured enemy combatants.

At a Manhattan fundraiser Wednesday night, the flamboyant architect of Bush's two presidential campaigns and now White House deputy chief of staff told members of the Conservative Party of New York State: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

John Kerry responded from the floor of the Senate, one of many Democrats demanding that Rove apologize for his remarks and step down from his White House post. 

For Karl Rove to equate Democratic policy on terror to "indictments" and "therapy" is an outrageous attempt to divide the nation at just the moment we must be unified.

I seem to have missed that part where the Democrats joined with Republicans to present a united front in the prosecution of this war.  Must have been right when I blinked.  My bad.  But let's leave aside Democratic yearnings for unity for the moment.  Their outrage over the fact that their preferred response to the terrorists has been recognized -- "preparing indictments and offering therapy" -- is unconvincing.  Just how farfetched is it to suggest Democrats would prefer to rely on indictments and therapy in the fight against terror?  Here's John Kerry on January 29, 2004 during a Democratic Primary debate.

The war on terror is less -- it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world...

Sort of reminds me of the old saying, "Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps the loudest is usually the one that got hit." Here is a yelping sampler.

"Our entire country came together after the 9/11 terrorist attacks," Pelosi said Thursday. "His shameful comments trying to revise history insult the victims of 9/11 and all of us who support them."

That's Pelosi for you, trying to equate support for the victims of 9/11 with a willingness to be strong on national defense by taking the fight to the terrorists.

Dean, now the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Rove was trying to distract attention from the failure to capture terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

"Given the miserable failures of Bush's foreign policy, it's no wonder Rove would launch this desperate attempt to deflect from the real issues and distort what Democrats say than admit what Republicans have done," Dean said.

How absurd.  Harry Reid called Bush "a liar and a loser", Dick Durbin said the Americans at Guantanamo Bay behaved like Nazis, and they're looking for apologies?  Here's what they get.

Q So will the President ask Karl Rove to apologize?

MR. McCLELLAN: Of course not, Jessica.

The Republican National Committee went on to back up Rove's comments for him by providing a list of quotes by prominent liberals that challenged the need for war after the 2001 attacks.

Soros called for "police work."

In a 2002 interview, Moore said: "To bomb Afghanistan, I mean, I've never understood this." Similarly, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said: "Afghanistan may be an incubator of terrorism, but it doesn't follow that we bomb Afghanistan."

Moveon.org urged "moderation and restraint" in responding to the attacks, the RNC said. The group also urged that "wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law" be used against terrorists rather than war.

I wonder how they keep it straight.  Arguing that they would be stronger on national defense, but against actually taking the war to the terrorists.  Supporting our troops, while calling them Nazis.  I'm betting the White House is going to keep calling them on it.

Apology explained

According to Rasmussen, public opinion was not whipped into an anti-adminstration lather by Dick Durbin's histrionics over Guantanamo. 

June 22, 2005--A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 20% of Americans believe prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated unfairly. Seven-out-of-ten adults believe the prisoners are being treated "better than they deserve" (36%) or "about right" (34%).

The survey also found that just 14% agree with people who say that prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay is similar to Nazi tactics. Sixty-nine percent disagree with that comparison. This helps explain why Illinois Senator Dick Durbin apologized for making such a comparison.

Partisan differences concerning prisoner treatment are huge. Only 7% of Republicans believe Guantanamo prisoners are treated unfairly. Thirty percent (30%) of Democrats hold that view along with 22% of those not affiliated with either major party.

Via Power Line.

Reality

Chuck Hagel:

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," he said. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is, we're losing in Iraq."

Mohammed Fadhil:

Rebuilding justice in Iraq...
The number of execution sentences against convicted criminal and terrorists that have has been declared so far is now 18; none of which has been practically executed till this moment.

An official from the "supreme judicial board of Iraq" explained that these sentences were not carried out because they represent preliminary sentences and can be subject to objections and retrials and that such cases would be-incase of objections-handed to the state attorney and then to the supreme court which consists of 14 judges to verify the sentences and give a final word about them.

Anyone who didn't live under Saddam's regime would not get the significance of the above paragraph and some might even say "what do 18 criminals represent compared to the hundreds that are getting killed or injured every month during enemy attacks and sometimes with friendly fire; people's rights are-in many cases-lost in a battle where it's not easy to discriminate between an enemy and a friend.

But to me, reading such news makes me feel the change, and gives me a growing feeling of hope and a building justice.  We're building future here that used to look like a hard-to get-dream a couple of years ago and we're ready to sacrifice today so that we can live a better life tomorrow...

And again, Mohammed Fadhil:

Constitution fever!
Public conferences and sessions in Baghdad and other provinces seem to be endless nowadays; municipalities, NGOs and forums are all very excited about Iraq's top topic which is writing the Iraqi constitution and they obviously don't want to miss the chance to take part in the historic event.  Such activities play a good role in educating the population and activating the concept of public involvement in the state's decisive steps through organizing sending the people's suggestions and thoughts to the authorities and making sure they're being considered.

During the past week, we were able to count a good bunch of interesting activities:

An advisor of the state ministry for women's affairs announced that the ministry will be holding its 2nd annual conference that would be dedicated to the issue of women's role in writing the constitution as well as providing constitutional education to Iraqi women so that they would be aware of their rights and duties in a constitutional state.  The conference will be attended by 14 foreign judicial personalities and is sponsored by the UNICEF...

OK, so which one of them do you think has a grip on reality, our man Chuck or Mohammed?

IowaHawk nails it

If you haven't seen this already, get ready for a sample of IowaHawk talent.  In this excerpt he perfectly captures the Durbin Gravitas:

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Epstein
3786 Arbor Cove
Fairfax, VA

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Epstein:

In her diaries, Anne Frank wrote, "After all that has happened, I still believe there is good in everyone." I am sad to say that after the obscene neighborhood parking situation Saturday, prompted by your son Jacob's Bar Mitzvah at Congregation Beth Shalom, I cannot reach the same optimistic conclusion.

As I witnessed one after another of your uniformed parking attendant shock troops invading my cul de sac with menacing SUVs, eventual blocking my driveway, I could not help but imagine the raw panic that must have gripped the doomed souls that inhabited the ghettos of Warsaw in 1939. Although the traffic jam eventually passed over when your took your adolescent blitzkreig on to Lazer FunZone, I am not sure I will ever fully recover from the trauma.

Never again, Mr. and Mrs. Epstein. Never again.

Sincerely,

Senator Richard J. Durbin
Washington, DC

Via Daisy Cutter.

The Gap

I offer this little exercise in arithmetic in order to demonstrate how meaningless is the incessant clamoring about the gap between the rich and the poor.

Let's take a hypothetical rich man who makes $300,000.  Let's also take a hypothetical poor man who makes $30,000.  The gap between the rich and the poor is $270,000. 

Let's give them each a raise.  We'll give our hypothetical rich man a 5% raise bringing him to $315,000.  We'll give our hypothetical poor man a 30% raise bringing him to $39,000.  The gap between the rich and the poor is now $276,000.  The gap has widened.  I propose we conduct a group meltdown as we ponder this and worry what to do about it.

ANWR

Here's an interesting read for you.  This is now.

Here’s the spiel from Sarah James, a Gwich’in activist and spokesperson who largely personifies the tribe’s public relations and lobbying efforts:

"Gwich’in people call the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain…the sacred place where life begins."

"We are the caribou people. It is our clothing, our story, our song, our dance and our food that is who we are. If you drill for oil here, you are drilling right into the heart of our existence."

"For thousands of generations, Gwich’in people have lived closest to this fragile birthplace."

"This is human rights vs. oil."

"Any industrial development will destroy the birthplace forever, and with it, the local Gwich’in people."

There is more, in poetry, song and the culture of a people whose 15 villages convened and passed a talking stick for each person to speak "when oil companies first threatened the caribou in 1988."

But in an earlier time:

Alaskan Gwich’in attitudes toward oil exploration have changed dramatically over the years. In 1970, the tribe leased land to Exxon to conduct seismic studies. When no quantity of oil was detected, the lease was cancelled. In the late 1970s, it is widely believed that Alaskan Gwich’in sought an oil exploration lease from British Petroleum, but no agreement was concluded.

On September 4, 1980, the Alaskan Gwich’in signed a $1.8 million contract with Rougeot Oil and Gas Corporation for development. No oil was found. Signing the termination of that lease, on March 8, 1984, along with other Gwich’in leaders, was none other than Sarah James, as a Gwich’in Council Member.

Only two weeks later, on March 21, 1984, the Alaskan Gwich’in issued a formal oil and gas exploration request for proposal, specifically offering drilling rights to the entire 1.8 million acres of Alaskan Gwich’in land. Signing that request, along with other Gwich’in leaders, was none other than Sarah James, on behalf of Arctic Village. There were no takers.

And then there's this little nugget on the effect such exploration might have on the caribou herd.

The Central Arctic herd calves in the Prudhoe Bay area where Alaskan oil exploration is significant. In the early 1970s, while oil exploration in that area was developing, the population of that herd was estimated at 5,000. The most recent population estimates put the size of that herd at roughly 32,000, a more than six-fold increase in the three decades that oil exploration has been intense.

For some perspective, ANWR contains 19.6 million acres of which 17.16 million acres are protected by law.  The region in which drilling has been proposed is in the Coastal Plain, 1.5 million acres at the northern tip of ANWR. Of this only 2000 acres would be explored, if approved by congress.  This amounts to .01% of the refuge.

Complacency

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the Multinational Corps Iraq, is quoted in today's Washington Times.  The General is afraid that complacency is setting in.

"The United States has not been attacked again since 11 September. And so there's some questioning, perhaps, of whether or not what's going on here is worth it," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the Multinational Corps Iraq. "Quite honestly, I think we have a pretty clear-cut choice. We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us, as it would inevitably, as it has previously."

The comment from Gen. Vines came as American support for continued troop presence in Iraq is slipping in the polls and some members of Congress have offered particularly negative war assessments. All of this comes as the American death toll in Iraq topped 1,700 since the March 2003 invasion.

Gen. Vines, speaking via a teleconference to reporters at the Pentagon, said the "bit of complacency" stems in part from the operations in Iraq and at home that have been "relatively successful."

Asked about Americans who say Iraq is "a mess," Gen. Vines said, "I would say they don't have a good perception of what is at stake here."

To say they don't have a good perception of what's at stake is more than generous.  The disgraceful thing is that the political stakes outweigh national defense considerations.

Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, on the House floor called President Bush's decision to oust Saddam Hussein a "grotesque mistake" and "without success."

U.S. News and World Report quoted Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, as saying, "Things aren't getting any better. They're getting worse. ... The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Gen. Vines disagreed, saying there had been "significant progress throughout the country" since the transition a year ago from coalition rule to Iraqi sovereignty.

The Bush administration got an unexpected boost from a war critic, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He wrote an op-ed piece published in The Washington Post under the headline, "There's Progress in Iraq." Mr. Annan wrote, "Let us not lose sight of the fact that all over Iraq today, Iraqis are debating nearly every aspect of their political future."

The progress of which Mr. Annan speaks is something the Democratic leadership has been fighting against from the beginning.  I guess it's what you would expect.  They fight it by denying that any progress is being made, by urging that we give it up, by trying to convince us that it's hopeless.  To buy into that you have to ignore an awful lot that's happened, like the Iraqi elections, the work towards a new constitution, and the increasing reliance on Iraqi security forces to fight the terrorists. 

But then maybe in their view progress in Iraq is the same thing as public opinion on progress in Iraq.  That might explain why Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has jumped on that bandwagon.  Apparently, he has presidential aspirations. Perhaps with his eye on the polls he's finding a position on Iraq that will separate him from the pack.  He will find that it separates him from a lot of votes.

Better Idea?

William Kristol is comparing Dick Durbin's remarks that portray American soldiers as Nazis or Soviet gulag prison guards to remarks made by Trent Lott on the occasion of Strom Thurmond's birthday.  As we all know Trent Lott stepped down from party leadership under strong pressure Republican party members.  Mr. Kristol seems to think it would be appropriate the Senator Durbin do the same.

When Sen. Trent Lott made a far less damaging, but still deplorable, statement two and a half years ago, his fellow Republicans insisted he step down as their leader. Shouldn't Democrats insist that Sen. Durbin step down as their whip, the number two man in their leadership?

I think we already know the answer to that one.  Most among the Democratic leadership agree with the statements made by Senator Durbin.  Those that don't are willing to go along with him anyway.  After all, what's important to these guys is the upcoming election -- any upcoming election.  They have been hoping for and proclaiming failure in Iraq ever since we went in.  It's gotten to the point where their allies in MSM have been actively working for U.S. defeat in Iraq.  How sad that so much anti-American rhetoric comes from the Senate and the press.  Mr. Kristol concludes.

Senator Durbin is scheduled to join Democratic chairman Howard Dean at a big fundraiser at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday. I assume he will withdraw from that appearance. But if he cannot appear with his party chairman, one can ask how he can lead his party in the Senate? And if he does appear with Dean Tuesday night, and stays in his party's Senate leadership, doesn't that tell us everything we need to know about today's Democratic party?

But, will it tell us something we don't already know?

Update:  Some context by way of Instapundit: 

Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot — an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag.

Again, I think we can bet, this bit of information is not particularly relevant in the minds of the Democratic leadership.

Biden's bid

Now I see why I find myself so annoyed with Joe Biden.  He's running for President.   It explains this mode of operation of his where he proclaims himself strong on defense while at the same time, in complete disagreement with everything we do to defend ourselves.

Biden is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has used that pulpit to launch increasingly caustic criticisms of President Bush's policy in Iraq. Yesterday, he again accused the administration of failing to level with Americans about the situation there, saying the insurgency is far from being in its last throes, as administration officials have suggested.

"I think the administration figures they've got to paint a rosy picture in order to keep the American people in the game, and the exact opposite is happening," Biden said. "The exact opposite."

Biden, who opposes setting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, said that, without changes in U.S. policy, the United States faces failure in Iraq.

"If nothing changes here, we're going to be out of Iraq by the end of 2006 as a nation that has been viewed by the rest of the jihadists in the world as having been pushed out, which is a very bad thing for us," he said. "And Iraq's going to end up having imported into the center of the Middle East . . . radical Islamic terrorist cells and groups that train in the middle of that province."

Forgive me but I don't see anybody painting a rosy picture, unless you want to count the occasional acknowledgments that elections have occurred in Iraq and that a constitution is being written.  It's true that the terrorists have stepped up their attacks, but I'll go so far as to say it's in part because of encouragement from Biden and his Democratic cohorts in the Senate and House. 

Interesting to note that an obstacle to Biden's presidential aspirations has been overcome.

The Delaware senator ran for president in 1988 but withdrew from the race in 1987 amid accusations that he had plagiarized from speeches by a British Labor Party leader.

His earlier plagiarism shouldn't present any problem for Biden, since our former Commander In Chief as role model has eliminated honesty as a necessary presidential quality.  That is of course, unless you are a Republican.