Right Wing Popcorn

LifeNews.com reports that Rehnquist will serve another term since O'Connor has retired. Apparently his health situation is improving.

Here's a primer from Slate on the potential nominees for Supreme Court Justice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor.

And one from The New York Times.

Len Munsil, lawyer and Executive Director of the Center for Arizona Policy, has this to say about the legacy of fellow Arizonan and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"Sadly, when our history as a people is written, this will be Justice O'Connor's legacy: she was a judge who was given a rare opportunity to do something courageous and significant and just, something that would have restored an important element of American self-government, and something that would have allowed many unborn lives to be spared - and she blinked."

. . . Sen. Brownback will have a tricky road appealing to a conservative base he needs to win a 2008 Presidential nomination if President Bush nominates Alberto Gonzales. Read it here.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS, continues to draw the ire of the biological research community with his proposed "Human Chimera Prohibition Act of 2005."

LJWorld.com: Chimeras sound like something out of a science fiction movie, a fusion of human and animal cells to create something in-between. But they’re real.

“From the moral perspective, to create a human that is less than fully human or to create an animal that possesses particularly unique human aspects should be a serious concern for all of humankind,” Brownback said in a written statement to the Journal-World.

Kudos to Sen. Brownback. He has been an effective voice in this debate.

After dumping short and long term pension commitments under the cover of bankruptcy court, United will emerge "unscathed." Though we are no fan of organized labor at Right Wing Popcorn, we're no fan of breaking one's word either. United negotiated a contract they should have honored. Honor dictates that one take the difficulties as well as the glories of leadership. Better to have fought to keep the pension plan in place going down than to emerge with the scar of thousands of retirees scrambling to survive when they should be receiving the fruits of commitments made. Here's the link to the story.

E. Thomas McClanahan makes the case against the strained reasoning of the left on Iraq:

"The 'Bush-lied' crowd, in other words, is relying on knowledge that could only be acquired through a policy they opposed--the invasion that brought down Hussein's regime." . . . In effect, Pelosi and her ilk are saying that we should have believed the Iraqi dictator over our own intelligence services when he said he had no chemical or biological weapons — even though he had used them in the past and no credible source was willing to take him at his word.

Michelle Malkin notes how turmoil over the Supreme Court's Kelo v. City of New London decision continues. She especially points out how that is happening in New London itself. Residents are up in arms over the unconstitutional use of eminent domain there.

Logan Darrow Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, has petitioned the town of Weare, NH to build a hotel at 34 Cilley Hill Road. This would be an everyday non-event until one considers the person residing there now, Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Clements argues that the city of Weare will receive much greater tax revenue with a hotel on this property, and would therefore benefit from the enforcement of immanent domain. This, of course, is the argument behind the recent Kelo v. City of New London case which was supported by Souter.

Freestar Media, LLC: "The proposed development, called 'The Lost Liberty Hotel' will feature the 'Just Desserts Cafe' and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel 'Atlas Shrugged.'"

Well done Mr. Clements! This would be an appropriate monument to the excesses of Supreme Court hegemony over the actual language and intent of the Constitution.

Maybe the same thing could be done at 125 Broad Street in New York City at the ACLU headquarters. Just think of it: a brand new hotel bringing in more tax revenue per square foot than office space. On the first floor is the new home of New York Evangelical College with adjacent Court House which hangs the Ten Commandments above the bench.

IowaHawk has found evidence that Dick Durbin is having a bad run in the customer service area. Thankfully, these few samples give us an example of patience and tolerance from one of our Senate leaders.

Zach Wendling opines about Kelo:

"Now that development interests official[ly] trump property rights, I think it's natural to wonder, 'What trumps development interests?' "

This makes me consider that now with government help I can get rid of my pesky neighbors and get that green space my boys have been craving!

Here's a great new blog I came across today: Dry Creek Chronicles.

Arkansas State Representative Jim Bob Dugger and his wife are expecting a new child, and it will bring their family up to sixteen children.

Now that's family values!

The Indianapolis Star, a Gannett Co. newspaper, has been charged with religious discrimination in a lawsuit brought by two former editorial writers, James Patterson and Lisa Coffey.

INDIANAPOLIS: "[Patterson and Coffey have charged in court that] top newsroom managers 'consistently and repeatedly demonstrated ... a negative hostility toward Christianity.'"

The two are asking to be reinstated at the paper, and be compensated for lost income, benefits, emotional distress and unspecified punitive damages.

"Lisa and I aren't the only employees that have been driven away from this company and we thought it was time for someone to say, 'Goodness gracious. This isn't right,'" Patterson said.

This is consistent with the changes which have taken place at the Star since Gannett purchased Central Newspapers, the former parent company of the Star and the Arizona Republic. The editorial bent has turned decidedly more liberal and news reports have become much less local and more liberally oriented with editorial decisions following the precedent of Gannett's mega paper, USAToday.

In fairness, the editorial staff maintains two decidedly Christian writers, Russ Pulliam and Lori Borgman. Pulliam is the scion of the paper's founding family, but his role on the editorial staff has been greatly reduced to general legislative and community commentary. Borgman writes a stay-at-home-mother oriented humor column which is in the Erma Bombeck tradition which sometimes espouses decidedly Christian ethical advice and insight.

The Indianapolis Star (history) was founded in 1903 and was brought to prominence after it was purchased in 1944 by Eugene C. Pulliam. The Pulliam family was a highly influential and conservative voice in the midwest for many years until Pulliam's son, Eugene S. Pulliam, died in 1999. Shortly thereafter, it was sold to Gannett Co.

Madeline Albright Bashes President Bush on International Abortion Funding proving once again that the Grim Reaper is the patron saint of 70's feminism.

Kudos to Feminists for Life.

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Hugh Hewitt interviewed a 6 year-old girl with a dreadful disease, Microscopic Polyangiitis (MPA), named Meagan. He promoted her website, Megan's Home, and asked all to support.

Please visit, sign her guestbook and help if you can.

Hat Tip: Captain's Quarters.

Did anyone happen to notice Sen. Richard Durban, D-IL, on C-SPAN last night playing for the camera.

Normally when discussion takes place on the floor of the Senate, the Senators face The Chair. Durban, in an obviously empty room, was looking straight at the camera.

Was anyone listening?

Christopher Hitchens, on the Laura Ingraham show today discussing the success of Iraqi elections, brought a correction to those in the MSM who think all Sunni Arabs in Iraq are sympathetic to Saddam and the insurgance.

To the contrary, according to Hitchens, Saddam's family was a "mafia style family from Tikrit" and did not represent all Sunnis.

The upshot, according to Hitchens: those who tout all out Sunni rebellion don't know "Sunnis from Shinola."