Posted on 10/31/2005 3:12:28 AM PST by kcvl
Per Fox News...
"Let's ride towards the sound of the guns."
"I like the sound of that. Run away, and you will live. Stay and fight, and you may die. But only those who are willing to fight will live in freedom."
I like the tagline chris1 has and I think it is most appropriate here:
chris1 ("Make the other guy die for his country" - George S. Patton)
Let this be the hill the Dems die on. LET'S ROLL!
Awesome. Or could be Althzheimers ;-)
================================
The Mild-Mannered Scalia
Samuel Alito Jr., 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Shannon P. Duffy - The Legal Intelligencer - 03-03-2003
There's a nickname for federal appeals Judge Samuel Alito Jr. that captures two things at once -- his particular brand of legal conservatism and a recognition that his credentials are strong enough to put him on any Republican president's short-list for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some lawyers call the judge "Scalito."
Roughly translated, the nickname means "Little Scalia," suggesting that Alito, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, has modeled himself after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
With Alito in President George W. Bush's sights as a possible high court nominee, the question is whether he can both overcome the nickname and somehow live up to it.
In some ways, the Scalito moniker hits the mark. In his 13 years on the 3rd Circuit, Alito has earned his stripes as a strong and intelligent voice on the growing conservative wing of a court once considered among the country's most liberal.
As with Scalia, lawyers say that Alito's vote is easy to predict in highly charged cases.
But where the nickname misses is temperament, or what some might call personality. Personality-wise, on the bench and in person, Alito is no Scalia.
Though he's a frequent dissenter and not at all afraid to disagree with his colleagues, Alito's opinions are usually devoid of passion. And his tone during oral arguments is probing but always polite.
For that reason, the 52-year-old Alito might be exactly what Bush is looking for to fill the first or, more likely, a second vacancy on the Supreme Court if the opportunity arises. Alito declined to comment for this article.
Alito's résumé reads like a recipe for high court consideration -- beginning with undergrad studies at Princeton, perhaps the Ivy League's most welcoming home for conservatives seeking elite educations, and a law degree from Yale, the Bush family's sentimental favorite.
After a clerkship with a 3rd Circuit judge, Alito worked as a front-line federal prosecutor in New Jersey for four years.
But soon after President Ronald Reagan was elected, Alito joined the Office of the Solicitor General, staying for four years and helping to decide what position the administration would take in cases up for review by the Supreme Court.
That was followed by a three-year stint at Main Justice as a deputy assistant attorney general.
In 1987, at the age of 37, Alito was appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, a post he held until he was tapped in 1990 by the first President Bush to join the 3rd Circuit.
On the hot-button issues, Alito has been consistently conservative.
In ACLU v. Schundler, Alito wrote the majority opinion holding that a city's holiday display that included a créche and a menorah did not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it also included secular symbols such as Frosty the Snowman and a banner promoting racial diversity.
On abortion, Alito was the lone dissenter in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking abortions to inform their husbands.
Alito argued that the Pennsylvania law's restrictions should have been upheld.
"The Pennsylvania Legislature could have rationally believed," Alito wrote, "that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."
The case went on to the Supreme Court, resulting in a 6-3 decision that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade and struck down the spousal notification provision of the law. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in his dissent, quoted Alito's underlying dissent and said he agreed with his reasoning.
In fact, over the years, Alito has been a frequent dissenter. And, unlike in Casey, he has sometimes been vindicated, when the Supreme Court reversed his colleagues and made his view the law.
In Homar v. Gilbert, Alito dissented from a ruling that a state university had violated a campus police officer's due process rights by suspending him without pay immediately after he was arrested on drug charges. The Supreme Court later agreed with Alito's view that no hearing was required because the criminal charges showed that the suspension was not baseless.
Perhaps Alito's most memorable dissent came in 1996 in Sheridan v. Dupont, a sex discrimination suit that forced the 3rd Circuit to tackle fundamental questions about the plaintiff's burden of proof.
The issue in Sheridan was whether a plaintiff in a sex discrimination case can survive summary judgment simply by casting doubt on the employer's proffer of legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the adverse employment decision.
More specifically, the question was how the 3rd Circuit should interpret the 1993 Supreme Court decision in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, which held that once an employer offers legitimate reasons for its conduct, the presumption of discrimination is "rebutted" and "drops from the case."
After Hicks, the federal circuits split, with a few creating what came to be known as the "pretext-plus" standard, meaning plaintiffs must do more than merely cast doubt on an employer's explanation to have the case go forward.
In Sheridan, a 12-judge en banc panel rejected the pretext-plus theory, saying it was "within the province of the jury" to decide when discrimination had occurred.
Alito, the lone dissenter, argued that his colleagues were going too far by allowing plaintiffs to get their case to a jury whenever they managed to cast any doubt on the employer's version.
"If the majority had merely said that ... a defense motion for summary judgment or judgment as a matter of law must generally be denied, I would agree," Alito wrote.
But, he said, his colleagues had established a "blanket rule" against summary judgment that was legally "unsound."
>>>At least he will appease Coulters lust for an elite education. <<<
I thought Coulter's first choice was Janice Rogers Brown.
Taken in context, Laura Bush was correct. It WAS possible, as she was asked, that there was an element of sexism in the reaction to Harriet Miers. It was not only possible, it happened.
Before Laura ever said a word, I noticed the demeaning comments, clearly gender-based, from some of Harriet's immediate bashers. They literally raised my hackles and sickened me. I was sorry to be associatiated with such people by being on the same website.
If you did not see that, you are willingly ignorant and blind. It was literally everywhere. You could not look around without seeing it coming out of the woodwork like roaches. I will proudly stand up for Laura taken in the context of what she said.
Nor am I angry that Laura said she would like to see a woman named. You are free to disagree with her. But there isn't anything wrong with her saying it. Ruth Bader G. is now the only woman on a Court of nine, and she is an embarrassingly flaming Lib.
I don't like that myself, and I will never apologize to you or anyone else for that view.
Don't presume to lecture me on when and how to post.
OK. It looks like President Bush has kept his promise (finally...) to appoint someone in the mold of Scalia and Thomas.
Now, is Bush ready to pull out the heavy artillery? Are the spineless Senate Republicans ready for the fight of the ages? Are WE ready for this battle? I hope so, because so much rests upon it.
Nelson of FL has been a consistent AYE vote when it came to cloture in the 108th Congress.
My understanding, from all accounts (not the Rats) is that Roberts was, in fact, replacing Rennquist, not O'Connor, post-death. Had he replaced O'Connor, he would have required two senate confirmations to move to Chief Justice from replacing O'Connor; O'Connor agreed to stay while the President continued to look for someone (Miers) to replace O'Connor.
Which one? I appear to have many.lol
The Republican Senators have to realize that they have seen the last stealth pick from the president for this vacancy or any possible additional vacancies in his second term. The Senate has been thrown to the wolves and rightfully so. Its time to earn those fat paychecks we provide to them or cut them from the payroll.
No, he's replacing O'Connor, who is still on the court.
If this pick upsets Harry Reid, he can't be all bad. LOL
Seriously, I hope that the President will invite the Senate Republicans to the White House and give them all a good slapping around, so they will do their utmost to get this guy in.
I would like to know why George Mitchell is being inflicted upon us this morning on Fox. Oh, thank goodness, now Tony Snow is on.
The Easter Bunny, who else?
Which is one of the few reasons I supported him in the first place.
Very good! LOL!
Being Catholic doesn't necessarily mean slam dunk on any issue. During Sunday's mass my priest listed in the laundry list of let us pray offerings:
"For lawyers, journalists and public servants trying to get the truth out, let us pray"
I about choked on my roasry beads. First time I felt like walking out of mass. I stayed silent with the response on that one.
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