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For decades, the Republican Party has been stigmatized by the Left as being a group of racists and homophobes who have no concept of diversity. Democrats have continually preached this sermon of GOP bigotry from the ghettos of the inner cities to the ivory palaces of academia. Their message has resonated among minorities and women for years. However, when we compare the levels of diversity between the GOP leadership and that that of the Democratic Party, quite a different image appears. If you’re a young African-American man or woman, or a young Hispanic man or woman and you want to...

Who sits on the Supreme Court for life may be more important than who sits in the White House for four years. With vacancies to fill among federal judges in general and vacancies expected to occur on the aging Supreme Court in particular, the stakes are very high in the judicial appointments made in the next few years. We and our children will be living with the consequences for a long time. This looks like an opportunity that may come just once in a lifetime to make judicial appointments that will stop the courts' dangerous pattern of continually eroding away the...

Arguably the nastiest thing that happens to law students -- other than making them into lawyers -- is teaching them that law is simply politics by other means. You don't have to subscribe to the (blatantly obvious) position that Roe v. Wade, for example, no matter your politics, was an exercise in raw judicial politics; and once you see how that sausage is made, it is terribly difficult to look at any judicial decision of the twentieth century and see a process any different than a legislative accomplishment. Teaching law students this is very bad for two reasons: First, it...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger filled three judicial vacancies Friday, making his first appointments to the trial courts since winning election in 2003. Clifford V. Cretan, a 57-year-old Democrat, and John L. Grandsaert, a 52-year-old Republican, were appointed to the San Mateo County Superior Court bench. Cretan, of Burlingame, is a criminal defense attorney who also practices civil litigation. Grandsaert, of Redwood City, is a 17-year deputy prosecutor for San Mateo County. Brian L. McCabe, a 43-year-old Republican, was appointed to the Merced County bench. The solo practitioner from Merced has primarily worked as a lawyer in civil...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041124/news_lz1e24csorba.html It's hard to miss the metaphor when President Bush stepped into the middle of a heated quarrel, pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials, and straightened his shirt cuffs as he calmly returned to business. Great leaders don't stand around and allow chaos to unravel on their watch. The great leaders throughout history have always been transformational, not transactional: Lincoln's passion to save a nation and sign the Emancipation Proclamation, Roosevelt's "New Deal" and steadfast leadership during World War II, Churchill's determination to save Western Civilization, and Lady Thatcher and Reagan's steeliness that brought the...

WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush on Monday chose Carlos Gutierrez, a native of Cuba who rose from truck driver to chief executive officer of Kellogg Co. to be Secretary of Commerce.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the potential to nominate as many as three or four Supreme Court justices, there is little doubt that one legacy President Bush will have is how he shaped the views of the nation's top judicial panel. When Bush begins nominating new justices to replace the aging members of the court, one of the key battles will revolve around abortion. A recentCBS-New York Times poll found that 64 percent of those polled said they thought Bush would appoint pro-life judges who favor making abortion illegal. They may be right. A survey of the most often discussed...

Did you ever think you would read these words in a San Francisco Chronicle column? A Latino attorney general? A black woman as secretary of state? Who would have imagined it 50 years ago--or even, more recently, say, during the Clinton administration? Give President Bush credit for breaking barriers that his Democratic predecessor never got around to. Just don't tell that to white liberals thrilled with the idea of minorities doing well--as long as liberals can claim credit. If they can't, or if the minorities happen to be conservative, things can get messy. The American people are about to get...

Justice Stephen Breyer performed an enormous service for our country last week. He clarified what is at stake in the coming fights over judicial nominations. He made clear why it is important to raise our national argument over court appointments above the level of slogans and campaign speeches... Conservative politicians, including President Bush, say that they oppose judges who "legislate from the bench" and that they hope to fill the judiciary with "strict constructionists." That sounds good, because we want democratically elected politicians, not judges, making the crucial decisions. Yet, at this moment in our history, it is conservative judges...

OP-ED COLUMNIST WASHINGTON — Lord knows I have tried, over the years, to keep Colin Powell on the grammatical strait and narrow. And yet, announcing his resignation, the departing secretary of state said that after the president and he had "fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement. ..." Fulsome means "offensively excessive," and when two people agree, it's always mutual. This otherwise good man is incorrigible. We have had more substantive run-ins. After I recalled his mistake in failing to overthrow Saddam when he had the chance in 1991, Powell retorted, "Safire is getting arrogant in his old...

With all the resignations in the President's cabinet, I have heard many speculations on certain Senators taking positions. Thinking politically, that will only happen if the Senator is in a state with a Republican Governor who would appoint the successor following the Senate vacancy. That being said, here is a list of Senators in states with Republican Governors. Some would be ludicrous picks, but they are at least on the table: AL: Richard Shelby (R) & Jeff Sessions (R) AK: Ted Stevens (R) & Lisa Murkowski (R) AR: Blanche Lincoln (D) & Mark Pryor (D) CA: Diane Feinstein (D) &...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - President Bush on Wednesday nominated Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and a longtime political loyalist, to be his next attorney general. The speed with which Mr. Bush acted, only a day after making public the resignation of John Ashcroft, indicated that the president wants to get his new appointees in place before the start of his second term, 10 weeks from now. The nomination of Mr. Gonzales would also put one of his most trusted aides in a post where past presidents have wanted to have a confidant, as well as someone who can...

In a bizarre manner, Arlen Specter actually did an enormous favor to conservatives and pro-constitution forces last week. Essentially stating that pro-life court nominees need not apply, he brought to the forefront a subject about which conservatives have given up far too much ground over the years. Specter's not-so-subtle threat unequivocally confirmed a truth that naive conservatives have long been unwilling to face. The elimination of a pro-life litmus test for judicial nominees, at the insistence of the pro-abort forces some years back, effectively constituted the establishment of a pro-abortion litmus test in its place. It is altogether unfortunate that...

With Election Day come and gone, President George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee have got to be feeling fairly good. Values voters have made Republicans the majority party. Increased margins in the U.S. House and Senate give Republicans a solid majority, albeit vulnerable to filibuster. With U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) ceding his seat to former U.S. Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.), the so-called obstructionist-in-chief will be forced to watch from the sidelines. Poor Daschle. From last summer, I vividly remember seeing him enter the Senate dining room while I ate lunch with U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.). The...

Nation & World Reordering the court Bush may have the opportunity to name several new justices By Angie Cannon There may be little George W. Bush does in his second term that will have a more lasting legacy than his likely appointments to the Supreme Court. Two of the current justices are in their 80s; two are in their 70s; only one is under 65. And last week Chief Justice William Rehnquist was absent from the bench because of aggressive thyroid cancer (story, Page 60), leading to speculation that he might have to step down. Add it all up, and...

Chris Lilik wrote: From: "Chris Lilik" To: "Chris Lilik" Subject: STOP SPECTER FROM BLOCKING BUSH'S PRO-LIFE JUDGES! Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:38:22 -0500 Folks, Less than 10 hours after President Bush and conservatives’ tremendous victory, Senator Arlen Specter stated that Bush has NO MANDATE and warned that he would consider blocking Bush’s pro-life/conservative Supreme Court Justices. “Specter, as presumptive chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that he would block any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court who opposed abortion rights.” –Philadelphia Inquirer Join thousands of others across the country in sending a CRYSTAL CLEAR message to Senate...

I do not respect these polls. After all the fires are put out George Bush remains in the White House... what’s next?

KERRY: Thank you very much Well, again, the president didn't answer the question. I'll answer it straight to America. I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today — under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right.