Be careful what you wish for...

As Think Progress notes, the Miers withdrawal was not a victory. While Miers may have turned out to be a fanatical wingnut, we have hard evidence the new nominee already is:

ALITO WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE:
In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito concurred with the majority in supporting the restrictive abortion-related measures passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in the late 1980’s. Alito went further, however, saying the majority was wrong to strike down a requirement that women notify their spouses before having an abortion. The Supreme Court later rejected Alito’s view, voting to reaffirm Roe v. Wade. [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1991]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW RACE-BASED DISCRIMINATION:
Alito dissented from a decision in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. The majority explained that Alito would have protected racist employers by “immuniz[ing] an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the ‘best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.” [Bray v. Marriott Hotels, 1997]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW DISABILITY-BASED DISCRIMINATION:
In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, the majority said the standard for proving disability-based discrimination articulated in Alito’s dissent was so restrictive that “few if any…cases would survive summary judgment.” [Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991]

ALITO WOULD STRIKE DOWN THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT:
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) “guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one.” The 2003 Supreme Court ruling upholding FMLA [Nevada v. Hibbs, 2003] essentially reversed a 2000 decision by Alito which found that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. [Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, 2000]

ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES:
In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]

ALITO HOSTILE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS:
In two cases involving the deportation of immigrants, the majority twice noted Alito’s disregard of settled law. In Dia v. Ashcroft, the majority opinion states that Alito’s dissent “guts the statutory standard” and “ignores our precedent.” In Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, the majority stated Alito’s opinion contradicted “well-recognized rules of statutory construction.” [Dia v. Ashcroft, 2003; Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, 2004]

ALITO SUPPORTS KICKING PUPPIES:
In Rover v. Winthrop, Alito dissented from the majority in arguing that a police officer did not violate a puppy's constitutional rights when he repeatedly kicked it in the behind during a routine traffic stop. [Rover v. Winthrop, 2005]

OK, the last one was entirely made up here in the offices of the Courier (or was it?). I believe the replacement of Miers with Alito can be found on page 231 of the Be careful what you wish for primer.

Reader Mailbag - Inspiration Down Under

A reader wrote in about the current Candorville storyline, in which Lemont is interviewing a Hurricane Katrina survivor:

Dear Darrin Bell,

I thought you may like to know about something you inspired me to do. I contacted the State Emergency Service in my home state (Victoria, Australia), and suggested that (if they don't already do so) they develop and maintain a database of volunteers who would have space to carry extra people in an evacuation - and offered my family as volunteers.

I thought about how many empty car seats would have left New Orleans before the hurricane struck. I thought about the fact that we would have four adult seats and two child seats available, if we had to evacuate. And I decided to do something about it, not just on a personal level, but on a state level.

You were not the only inspiration, but the stories of the people Lemont has been interviewing, and the fact that they're based on true stories... well. I've done something. However small. And should we have to evacuate here, for real, I'll at least try to carry out people who need it.

J.V.
Victoria, Australia

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Circling the Drain - Perjury and Obstruction of Justice

It's looking more and more likely that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald may indict Scooter Libby on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. The New York Times is reporting that previously undiscovered notes taken by Scooter Libby himself prove beyond doubt that he learned the identity of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife from Dick Cheney. However, in sworn testimony given before the Special Prosecutor, it looks like Libby perjured himself by claiming he first learned her identity from journalists, and obstructed justice when he declined to name Dick Cheney as his source.

"It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry."

...

"The notes help explain the legal difficulties facing Mr. Libby. Lawyers in the case said Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury that he had first heard from journalists that Ms. Wilson may have had a role in dispatching her husband on a C.I.A.-sponsored mission to Africa in 2002 in search of evidence that Iraq had acquired nuclear material there for its weapons program.

But the notes, now in Mr. Fitzgerald's possession, also indicate that Mr. Libby first heard about Ms. Wilson - who is also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame - from Mr. Cheney. That apparent discrepancy in his testimony suggests why prosecutors are weighing false statement charges against him in what they interpret as an effort by Mr. Libby to protect Mr. Cheney from scrutiny, the lawyers said."

Mr. Fitzgerald is expected to announce whether he will indict either Libby or Karl Rove (or both) on Friday when the term of the grand jury expires. You'd think Fitzgerald would announce his decision a few days early, to give cartoonists a chance to get something in before press deadlines Friday.
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Serenity Now

The thing about being a married 30 year-old with bills to pay and work to do, is that you rarely have time, money or the inclination to see even the most kick-ass movie twice in the theater. For the first 20 or so years of your life, having your shoes stick to the floor while a brat sitting behind you kicks your seat is sort of charming. Especially if you bring a date, in which case you don't notice all that because you're trying to time your popcorn-reaching just right so you brush against her hand with yours. But by 30, it gets kind of old -- and that's before you factor in the $30 you're going to spend for two tickets, popcorn, a hot dog and a drink. Even if you still love seeing first-run films in the theater, odds are good you aren't going to see any one film twice in that theater.

2005, despite the hype about Hollywood being in the dumps, has been a good year for films, at least as far as I'm concerned. Revenge of the Sith largely washed away the bitter taste of the first two prequels. Batman Begins showed this fan of Tim Burton's films that they had been jokes - pretenders - all along. Sideways, which many have taken to labeling "overrated" (no doubt because calling anything "overrated" always bestows some unearned cool points), was engrossing. And now there's Serenity.

The New York Times has a dead-on writeup of Serenity, the new film by Joss Whedon based on his defunct TV series, "Firefly."

It probably isn't fair to Joss Whedon's "Serenity" to say that this unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas's aggressively more ambitious "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith." But who cares about fair when there is fun to be had? Scene for scene, "Serenity" is more engaging and certainly better written and acted than any of Mr. Lucas's recent screen entertainments. Mr. Whedon isn't aiming to conquer the pop-culture universe with a branded mythology; he just wants us to hitch a ride to a galaxy far, far away and have a good time. The journey is the message, not him.

Somehow, with a fraction of the budget, Whedon and the vfx wizards at Zoic Studios created a universe every bit as fantastic and realistic as Lucasfilm did for Star Wars. But damn, the writing and the characterizations in this film are something to behold. Not because of how impressive they are, but because of how down to earth they are.

Serenity cost $40 million to make, and word on the Net is if it earns $80 million (at least $40 million domestic), we'll get at least one more sequel. So far it's earned about 1/4th of that domestic number. In an ordinary world that would be great news, but we're living in a world where a film that doesn't open big is considered DOA unless it gets enough word of mouth business to keep it on screens for a few months (like Big Fat Greek Wedding a few years back).

Trust me, guys, this film is worth seeing, even if you're not familiar with the TV series it was based on (all the backstory is included in the first five minutes of the film). It's worth seeing even if you're not a fan of science fiction, because this is an engaging, fun and poignant story about a group of people down on their luck who discover something to believe in. The people and their relationships are what's important here, not the visual effects. Science Fiction is only a genre they chose to tell the story in, but this could just as easily have been told as a Western, or as a contemporary action drama. These people could just as easily be driving around in Toyotas to escape Homeland Security rather than flying around in space ships to escape an interplanetary alliance, and it would be just as entertaining.

There aren't too many films I'd care to spend $30 to see more than once. I would have seen Batman Begins five times if I could have rounded up enough people to go with me. I saw Serenity a few days ago, but I'm going to see it again this Friday in Emeryville, partly to do my bit toward making sure we get a sequel, but mostly because that's just how good this movie is. Who's with me?
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Rita Evacuees Can't Believe They're Being Housed In Jail

The current Candorville storyline has been prescient, unfortunately.

What's a cartoonist to do when real life keeps pace with satire?
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Cartoonists Without Borders

A few of us are building a web site to help direct donations to the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts. As Michael Jantze put it, "our goal is to make sure we all stay focused on the needs of the victims for the long haul."

Check it out at CartoonistsWithoutBorders.com


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Candorville Asks for Katrina Accountability

Here we go... Today Candorville begins its look at the response to Hurricane Katrina -- the most pathetic response to a disaster I've witnessed in my lifetime. I was expecting the usual head-buried-in-sand responses to this week's strips, but so far I've only received one. Maybe the failures of our leaders this time were too obvious and irrefutable.

Monday: In today's strip, as the rest of the nation did two weeks ago, Lemont puts two and two together. A reader from Northbrook, IL had a problem with that:

"The assertion that many of the first responders from Lousiana were in Iraq is a lie. There is enough objective blame to be assigned, why throw up smoke screens?"

Now, I was expecting e-mails from people who simply don't think the Katrina disaster should be discussed on the comics page, or from people repeating the childish "blame game" retort (a weapon that those deserving of blame have always used whenever someone suggests they should be held accountable for their inept behavior). But I wasn't quite expecting an e-mail from someone who's been on Mars for the past two weeks and wasn't aware that large numbers of Gulf Coast National Guard troops are stationed in Iraq (with their equipment, which would have come in handy in New Orleans) and were unable to respond to the hurricane.

What's next, an e-mail saying "Hurricane? What hurricane? That whole thing is a lie. Why throw up smokescreens?"

I haven't even begun to talk about the racial aspects of the response, but the more first-hand accounts you read, the more clear it becomes that the racial element is very real, and very disgusting.

Tuesday:Today's strip comments on the two photos that have been making the rounds around the Internet. One shows a Black person wading through chest-deep water, carrying food. The Black person is called a "looter," while the White couple is depicted as "finding" the food. The other shows a White couple doing the same. A Chicago reader was offended by Candorville raising the issue:

"Liberals dislike George Bush because they say he never admits to a mistake. Yet when a substantial portion of the black community in New Orleans behaves abominably in the face of a natural disaster, liberals blame the media.

You have a thug in your strip for whom you cut no slack. Why make excuses for thugs in New Orleans?"

As Snopes points out, there were reasons for the different labels. But those reasons are immaterial, as far as I'm concerned. Here's my response:

"I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. Taking food in a situation like that is no crime. You know you'd do it too, and you'd be right to do it to feed yourself and your family. Taking TVs and stereos is wrong (and White people did that too, but for some reason we didn't see images of that on CNN), but a "substantial portion" of the Black community filled their bags with pampers and food, not with DVD players."

Has anyone seen a photo of a White person in New Orleans described as a "looter?" In two weeks of searching, I haven't found one. Surely they exist, but they're not easy to find.

Whatever the reason, Blacks were more likely to be called "looters" and Whites were more likely to "find" or "take" food (not just in those photos, but on coverage I witnessed with my own eyes on CNN). The Supreme Court long ago (in the area of voting rights, but it applies everywhere IMO) settled that discrimination of results is just as bad as discrimination of intent, and I agree with that. The news services should have taken into account the circumstances (a mostly poor Black area, no food for days, no way to get to an ATM machine, and no money obviously meant most of the people taking supplies would be Black). In light of the circumstances the Media should have refrained from calling ANYONE a "looter" if they were only taking what they needed to survive. I believe taking this sort of situation into account when establishing guidelines for reporting is the Media's responsibility, and in their coverage of that part of the tragedy, they came up short.
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