Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

As we all know the Alito hearings are underway. This is an extremely important process where our very bright Senators get to question the candidate and weigh all the issues - then after careful consideration we can begin the veto battle.

Seizing this great opportunity with his legislative acumen and both hands Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, "asked Alito about Congress' ability to pass laws on Internet pornography". Dewine even managed this question with a straight face. He said porn deserved a "lower level" of protection under the first amendment. I am sure you have heard of the chart the framers put in the constitution in the members only section which details the "levels" of protection, you have to be a "premium subscriber" to the constitution to see the chart but its there (and yes I know we do treat things such as threats and hate speech on a different "level" - a not allowed level - but there is no scale for items which are completely lawful).

In a time of great debate about presidential authority, due process, torture, secret prisons, intellectual property, separation of church and state, imminent domain, abortion rights and many more of what some have coined "important" issues (some of these things yes others did inquire about, but room aplenty exists to delve further) Dewine saw his opportunity to insert the incredibly hard and sticky issue of banning Internet pornography into the debate. He did this in order to "protect our children from being exposed to pornography on the internet" (because of course that is the very function of government and not really relevant to PARENTS at all - well that and so that government can be that much smaller and more flacid and that much more non socially involved - several of his great Republican ideals).

Dewine of course wins the "giant throbbing pricklicker" award of the day for this line of questioning at this event (for the record, I think he might like that award, I have no intent to annoy him).

Banning pornography ... WTF? And thats what we ask Alito about? Yes the SCOTUS has already twice struck down such efforts on constitutional bases but it would really be nice to see the hill in general get a clue about reality. Porn itself is not bad (while there is much bad porn on the net, maybe we could ban that, require the participants to be attractive and cut it out with all the strange fetish stuff), protecting children from it is a fantastic idea but potentially not the governments job and the concept of passing laws that are actually enforceable seems to be entirely lost.

Sidetrack - the reason I said earlier "then after careful consideration we can begin the veto battle anyway" is thus. Personally I am impressed with many of the things Alito says about his judicial philosophies, not all but some. However the mere fact that Bush had an opportunity to unite people and pick a less controversial candidate, and could have had someone in the middle roll in likely even last year, after his entire "best nominee ever" mess and he then went with basically the most divisive candidate possible pretty much guaranteed the battle regardless of what happens in the hearings. Alito is very careful and articulate in his answers, but he will of course also be judged on his past actions, memos and judicial records which are the very things that have made him divisive in the past. That said, when it comes to the veto battle I do not think the Repubs will have to votes to overturn - and likely we will be back at the asinine "nucular" option. Repubs seem willing to remove judicial filibusters, though they exist for great reasons, there is already a way to override them, and Repubs themselves have been very fond of them in the past. It may be a giant ass with smoke being blown, but at the same time the current Repub culture seems to be one of force things in at whatever cost. Bend the intelligence, forgo the investigations, screw the pesky ethics issues, sneak stuff in late at night on holidays and by voice vote as much as you can, etc. The current group of people in charge of the Senate probably actually WOULD change the rules to get what they want, waaaaah!, rather than themselves recommending the Prez present a nominee with more general appeal, or do the work to get the votes to USE the rules to break a filibuster (which of course is not likely based on the nominee). Its a long and nuanced issue, but yes the battle is looming and I dont think it really scares democrats much. Go ahead and go nuclear that will probably really work well for you in the long run, brilliant.