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Can we please come up with a better way of arguing about Supreme Court nominees? Fellow liberals, face it: The advertisement created by NARAL, the abortion rights group that opposes John Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court, is outrageous. It ties Roberts to people who bombed abortion clinics. If this isn't guilt by association, I don't know what is. Here's what the ad says: "Seven years ago, a bomb destroyed a women's health clinic in Birmingham, Alabama." The ad then quotes Emily Lyons, whose clinic was bombed in January 1998: "When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost...

Parents of those who have died in Iraq have total moral authority. There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a President who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed. A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the United States more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here? Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged this week that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran...

New York City wants restaurants to cut their list of ingredients - and maybe some waistlines - by eliminating out trans fats. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said the voluntary change could also help fight the city's biggest killer, heart disease. To comply, chefs would have to dump many margarines and frying oils. The New York State Restaurant Association backed the move, its executive vice-president, E Charles Hunt, said on Wednesday. The fats, found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, raise diners' chances of developing heart disease, said Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Association. The Food and...

Superstar California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wil be seeking to cash in on a Rolling Stones concert later this month, the governor's office confirmed Thursday. Anyone willing to deposit 100,000 dollars in the former film action hero's political war chest will get to join Schwarzenegger at a Rolling Stones performance in Boston on August 21, according to fund raisers. The big money donors will have seats with Schwarzenegger in a luxury box at Fenway Park where the concert is being held. Contributions of 10,000 dollars will garner Schwarzenegger supporters front-row center seats at the Boston stop Sir Mick Jagger and his...

Today National President Chuck Canterbury announced the strong support of the Fraternal Order of Police for the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr. to be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court. In a letter to Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Canterbury referred to Roberts' distinguished career as both a public servant and a practicing attorney. "John Roberts has demonstrated that he will be an outstanding addition to the Supreme Court," Canterbury wrote, "and that he has rightfully earned his place beside the finest legal minds in the...

A top aide to potential Republican challenger Jeanine Pirro accused Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's camp on Friday of being the source of reports the Westchester County district attorney had taken campaign donations from firms with alleged ties to mobsters. That charge was called "baseless" by both a top Clinton aide and by state Democratic Chairman Herman Farrell. The exchange came in the wake of a report Thursday on the weekly New York Observer's political Web site, The Politicker, and a more detailed story in the New York Daily News' Friday editions about donations to Pirro's campaign committee. "It's clear the...

While Iraq is now called a main front in the war on terror, former President Bill Clinton said yesterday said he never really saw it as such. "I never thought [Iraq] had much to do with the war on terror, except that we were looking to see if there were biological and chemical agents there," he told CNN's "Situation Room." And though he said it's too late now, Clinton said he thought the UN weapons inspectors should have been allowed to complete their job: "The UN inspections were well-advised. But it was clearly not going to have anything to do...

Former U.S. President Clinton says his wife Hillary has not decided whether to run for president in 2008. In an interview Thursday with CNN, Clinton got into the upcoming New York Senate race by answering an accusation made by a potential opponent that the former first lady was using New York "as a doormat to the White House." "Jeanine Pirro is wrong," Clinton said. "Hillary has not used any doormat and, by the way, she doesn't even have a Republican opponent yet. I don't know who the Republicans are going to nominate." In her speech formally launching her Senate campaign...

Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17%, but membership in the NA of Realtors has risen 58%. ...housing boom has created jobs in two ways. Many jobs have been created, directly and indirectly, by a surge in housing construction. And rising home values have fueled a simultaneous surge in consumer spending. ...start with home building. Between 1980 and 2000, which was before the housing boom, spending on the construction of new homes averaged 4.25% of G.D.P. In the most recent quarter, ...the figure was 5.98%. That difference is equivalent to about $200 billion a year in additional...

An abortion-rights group should withdraw a "blatantly untrue and unfair" ad opposing Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, says Sen. Arlen Specter, himself an abortion-rights supporter as well as leader of the panel that will consider the nomination. Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts next month, spoke out Thursday against the ad running in Maine and Rhode Island targeting President Bush's nominee. The ad by NARAL Pro-Choice America criticizes Roberts and links him with violent anti-abortion protesters because of the anti-abortion briefs he worked on as a government lawyer. Specter called that "blatantly untrue and unfair."...

What's wrong with citing rulings by judges in other countries, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer asked attendees at the American Bar Association Convention in Chicago on Tuesday. Conservatives led by justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have criticized Breyer for backing up opinions with references to rulings from abroad, such as a 2002 Death Row case in which Breyer cited decisions by British and Canadian courts and the European Court of Human Rights. The Supreme Court ". . . should not impose foreign moods, fads or fashions on Americans," Justice Thomas wrote in response. But Breyer said Tuesday, "We're not...

An extended African-American family, most of whom reside in Maryland, today announce the settlement of their discrimination claim against a vacation rental condominium resort in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which barred them from using its swimming pool. Among other things, the settlement of the complaint filed by the Lawyers' Committee and the law firm of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, provides the plaintiffs with monetary compensation, the amount of which cannot be disclosed under the agreement. Over 100 African-American family members alleged that they were racially discriminated against when they stayed at Baytree III, part of the Baytree Plantation in Myrtle...

Internet search giant Yahoo is claiming to be king of the information hill, shoving aside rival Google when it comes to enabling people to find things online. The reservoir of data that Yahoo taps into for Internet searchers has swollen to more than 20 billion documents, images and audio and video files, Jennifer Stephens of Yahoo told AFP. "It is not a surprise," Stephens said. "It is something we've been working on...we really are the most comprehensiive index on the Web and people should try us." Google's website indicated on Wednesday that is combed slightly more than eight billion online...

There is no link between sugar and obesity because health problems linked to weight gain are caused by increased consumption of calories and a lack of exercise, a U.S. sugar industry group said Wednesday. "Every major, comprehensive review of the total body of scientific literature continues to exonerate sugars intake as the causative factor in any lifestyle disease, including obesity," Andrew Briscoe, president and chief executive of the Sugar Association, said at the annual meeting of the main U.S. industry group American Sugar Alliance. The Sugar Association promotes the consumption of sugar as a part of a healthy diet and...

Her husband is a liability, her ambitions are said to be national, and her detractors say she is a flip-flopping dupe. But less than 24 hours after Jeanine Pirro announced she would be challenging Hillary Clinton for the latter's Senate seat in New York, she is already proving a tough match for the former first lady. In what promises to be one of the most closely watched electoral battles of next year, Ms Pirro, 54, a district attorney from suburban Westchester, kicked off her campaign in Manhattan yesterday. Article continues "I think New Yorkers deserve a senator who is going...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead over potential Republican opponent Jeanine Pirro has slipped, but still remains hefty, a statewide poll reported Wednesday. The WNBC-Marist College poll, conducted by Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion, had the former first lady leading the Westchester County district attorney, 50 percent to 28 percent. Clinton led Pirro, 64 percent to 28 percent, in an April poll from the Poughkeepsie-based institute. The poll was conducted Tuesday, one day after Pirro announced that she would seek the GOP nomination to challenge Clinton's re-election bid next year. "Some of Hillary's soft support went to undecided," said Marist...

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford, Texas, ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed. A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the United States more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we Americans will have to fight them here? Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged Tuesday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq. And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare...

The following exchange took place at a meeting I attended before the Congressional recess began last month. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO): "I am reasonably optimistic that we will be able to pass both the Transportation and Energy Conference Reports before we go out." Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. (Jim) Inhofe (R-OK): "I am not as optimistic as my friend Roy. I think the Democrats may try to prevent these bills from passing so they can go home and claim we are a do-nothing Congress." Fortunately for the country Blunt was right. But I'll tell...

The Florida State Guardianship Association has chosen Michael Schiavo as its "Distinguished Guardian of the Year" for 2005, outraging many in the pro-life community. Schiavo is the former husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-injured Florida woman whose life ended March 31 by court-ordered dehydration at her husband's request. While admitting that Schiavo was a "controversial choice," Michelle Kenney, president-elect of the association told the Associated Press that her group decided to bestow the honor on Schiavo because of his "commitment" to honoring what he claimed was his wife's wish "not to be kept alive artificially." "We see a lot of...

Even with the assistance of sloppy reporting from major newspapers, some leftist groups' increasingly desperate attempts to smear Supreme Court nominee John Roberts are, so far, meeting with well-deserved failure. The big-money political left has tried to trip up Judge Roberts on the subjects of abortion, his Catholic faith, his adoption of two children, the withholding of internal memos he wrote for the solicitor general's office, and most recently on civil rights. Each attack has been baseless. For instance, NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly the National Abortion Rights Action League) is running an ad right now saying that John Roberts is...