Free Republic

Go to the blog for the the video that accompanies this. This is MY personal story... *** My Journey Through Abortion and Backby Shari My story starts in my childhood. I grew up with 2 alcoholics and a stepfather who sexually abused me. My parents divorced when I was 9 years old and my mother quickly remarried. The sexual abuse started within a month of their marriage. I was never raped, but it was always threatened and I lived in constant fear. What a terrible thing for a child to live through. I looked at my kids at 9 years...

Update 1145am EST. Many of you are asking for the list of the anti-drilling Republicans. The group who succeeded in pressuring the GOP to cave in calls itself the "Republican Main Street Partnership." They're holding a press conference at 130pm EST in Washington, D.C. to bray about their "victory." Here's some more info: Main Street Leaders who helped broker the deal to eliminate ANWR from budget cuts: Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Rep. Jim Walsh (R-NY), Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-MI), RMSP Executive Director Sarah Chamberlain ResnicHere's the complete list of "Main Street" members in Congress. 1pm EST....

Samuel Alito is an absolutely excellent choice for the Supreme Court. In the immediate aftermath of his nomination, I suggest every person who thinks Alito is an improvement over Miers should call the Republican National Committee and donate and tell the person you talk to that you're donating because of the Alito-for-Miers swap. It doesn't matter if you donate only $5! The point is to let the Republican leadership know that if they make us happy, we'll make them happy. The Republican National Committee's telephone number is 202-863-8500.

Focus Action founder believes president was right to accept her withdrawal as SCOTUS nominee. Colorado Springs, Colo. -- Focus on the Family Action founder and chairman Dr. James C. Dobson issued the following statement today in response to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' decision to withdraw her name from consideration: "I believe the president has made a wise decision in accepting Harriet Miers' withdrawal as a nominee to the Supreme Court. "In recent days I have grown increasingly concerned about her conservative credentials, and I was dismayed to learn this week about her speech in 1993, in which she sounded...

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA), the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization, is calling for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers’ name to be withdrawn. “CWA was founded to provide an alternative to radical feminists – who claim to speak for all women – and who seek to impose policies that do not respect unborn babies, family or God. Too often these radical feminists found success, not through democratic means, but through activist courts,” said Wendy Wright, executive vice president. “Harriet Miers has shown respect for Christian values by attending an Evangelical church. But her professional and civic...

With the understanding that Harriet Miers’s Spring 1993 speech to the Executive Women of Dallas is just part of the evidence that has led me to conclude that she should withdraw her nomination, let me highlight the elements of that speech that I find disturbing. Much of the first ten pages I find unobjectionable in substance (though certainly not well composed). Indeed, Miers soundly criticizes “a shifting to the judicial system of the responsibility for making all of the hard decisions” and the unwillingness of political leaders to make these decisions: "My basic message here is that when you hear...

Blogging is not like editing a newspaper. There is a big world of important events out there--from the naming of a new Fed chairman to the passage of the Iraqi constitution, the formation of a new German government, and the fingering of the Assad family in the Hariri murder--beside the Miers nomination. But the Supreme Court is important too, a battle that must be won, and this is my place to do my part. This morning I was on The Laura Ingraham Show to unveil the new advertisements for Americans for Better Justice (betterjustice.com). They can now be seen on...

Such is the perfect perversity of the nomination of Harriet Miers that it discredits, and even degrades, all who toil at justifying it. Many of their justifications cannot be dignified as arguments. Of those that can be, some reveal a deficit of constitutional understanding commensurate with that which it is, unfortunately, reasonable to impute to Miers. Other arguments betray a gross misunderstanding of conservatism on the part of persons masquerading as its defenders. Miers's advocates, sensing the poverty of other possibilities, began by cynically calling her critics sexist snobs who disdain women with less than Ivy League degrees. Her advocates...

"George Bush's judicial appointments as governor -- before he made his pact with the far right -- were generally pro-business conservatives who tended to be moderate on some of the social issues," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, which is leading the opposition to a strongly conservative appointment. "The problem as we see it today is that he later made irrevocable promises to the right to get elected that he would give them the courts." It has been clear in recent days that the religious right evaluated Bush's Texas appointments as a way to gauge...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Herb Kohl said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers downplayed a 1989 questionnaire in which she backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in most cases. "She made the point that it was at a different time for a different purpose," Kohl, D-Wis., said after meeting with Miers for about 45 minutes. "And (she said) we should not read too much into that in terms of where she might be on the issue of privacy, and a woman's right to choose."

It seems that the pro-Miers forces really are bent on burning down the village in order to save it. White House and pro-Miers bloggers are trumpeting the revelation that Harriet Miers as a candidate for municipal office in Dallas checked the box on a questionnaire declaring herself in favor of a Human Life Amendment to the US Constitution. This news is supposed to reassure conservatives. But think for a minute about the wound the pro-Miers forces have just inflicted on conservatism. John Roberts at his hearing refused to answer questions about his personal views on abortion. He argued - as...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Norm Coleman said Tuesday he doesn't know whether he'll support Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court, saying he has many outstanding questions and he hopes to learn more about her during next month's Senate hearings. "I'm going into this with a need to have a lot more information before I make a decision," Coleman said in an interview. "I think the hearings will determine her fate. Right now, the jury is out on whether she'll be confirmed." President Bush nominated Miers three weeks ago to succeed retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. Miers, 60, has not served as...

Word out of the White House this morning is that in prep sessions for her hearings, Miers has been working on outlining her arguments that Roe. v. Wade is "settled law." This takes on greater significance given John Fund's report on the Arlington Group's conference call to discuss the Miers nomination. White House staff involved in the Miers nomination process knew this story was coming over the weekend, and have been attempting to construct some push back on it. "There really isn't any," says one outside consultant in the matter. "It's not like Roberts who had his own testimony to...

One of the things a lot of people are starting to wonder about at this point is: Why was Harriet selected for the Supreme Court when there were so many better qualified candidates? It's a given that Bush could get enough votes for any of his nominees to get them confirmed. However, many people are speculating that Bush nominated Miers because he didn't think any of the top notch candidates could make it through without getting filibusters. Don't believe it. Last time around, even before Bush selected Roberts, McCain, Graham, and DeWine basically said they'd vote for the nuclear option...

Bush Should Withdraw Nomination and Keep His Campaign Promise Orlando, FL – Today, Liberty Counsel announced that it does not support President George W. Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers for the United States Supreme Court. Liberty Counsel also calls on President Bush to withdraw the nomination and to keep his campaign promise that he would appoint Justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Liberty Counsel is a nationwide public interest litigation, education and policy organization that specializes in constitutional law. Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, stated: “I am terribly disappointed with President Bush’s decision to...

Imagine if you will, a marriage on the rocks. There's a lot of fighting, a lot of strain, & things seem to be getting progressively worse. But, all is not is lost. The couple's 10 year anniversary is coming up, the husband is promising to take a week off so he and the wife can go on a surprise trip the next Friday. This idea thrills the wife to no end! Are they going on a Caribbean cruise? To Vegas? Maybe they're even heading to London! The wife doesn't know where they're going she can't wait! Things may not have...

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America (CWA) has released a memorandum explaining its evaluation of information about Harriet Miers, President Bush’s nominee to succeed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The memo explains why CWA is unable to endorse the nomination at this time based on current information about Miss Miers. It is available on CWA’s Web site, www.cwfa.org. “CWA staff have been heavily involved in evaluating Miss Miers’ background and qualifications,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel. “We have learned nothing new that allows us to endorse her at this time. Whether we can eventually support her will...

Over the course of the past few days, I have read several justifications (by conservatives) for supporting President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, several of which have already been artfully addressed by my good friend Jeremy. One he did not address, and which has really begun to stick in my craw, is the assertion that we should support Harriet Miers because she gave us Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, Bill Pryor, and other stellar appellate court nominees. A little research reveals that this is blatantly false at worst, deceitfully misleading at best. Harriet Miers has held...

(snip) One of Miers' jobs as White House counsel was to judge the judges, including the search that ended with the Roberts pick. According to a presidential adviser who has been briefed on the chronology of the decision, senior adviser Karl Rove was less involved than he is in most major decisions. Some conservatives speculate that Rove was distracted or out of the loop because of his possible legal jeopardy in the CIA leak case, but White House officials reject that notion. The driving force was chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who took over the vetting role. "This...

Conservatives had fought hard against Gonzales, long believed to be Bush's first choice, and they believed it had reaped dividends. In the week leading up to the Miers announcement, administration officials quietly assured some leading outside advisers that Gonzales would not be the pick. "Conservatives will be happy," a White House official told one outside adviser on the night of Oct. 2, just hours after Bush had offered the job to Miers. As word quietly spread that night, several recalled that White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card had offered similar assurances to Justice Clarence Thomas at a state dinner...