FISH SLUDGE:
Every year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumps 200,000 tons of toxic sludge into the Potomac River — an American Heritage Designated River, by the way — and the Environmental Protection Agency thinks the sludge is good for the endangered fish in the river. Well of course, just one more example of the Bush administration wantonly destroying our precious environment. Environmentalists are expected to be outraged — the media expected to be apoplectic. Oops! Turns out that the enviros couldn't care less, and most of the media haven't even bothered to mention it. Why? Because it wasn't the Bush EPA that justified dumping toxic sludge on the poor little fishies. It was the Clinton EPA that decided that toxic sludge is a good thing, in a report issued in 1998! Well, then, it must be OK, right? Perhaps the environmentalists will tell us again about the purity of their motives, tell us again how they are inspired solely to "save the planet", and not at all motivated by left-wing partisan politics.

HATE CRIME?:
What would happen if a white man burst into a bar, shooting at every black in sight and uttering racial epithets? The "hate crime" would be front page news for weeks, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would protest in the streets, and the media would demand the immediate enactment of hate crimes laws (and, of course, more gun control laws). But what happened when it was a black man — a man with decades of criminal history, as it turns out — doing the rampaging, targeting whites, and shouting racist comments? Well, then, never mind. After just a few days of reporting the story disappeared, and the term "hate crime" was never even used in most reports. And if the gun control laws that the left constantly brays about are so terrific, how come the only person armed during this attack was a criminal, while the law abiding patrons in the bar, the victims, were unarmed? Situations like that — unarmed victims attacked by armed criminals — happen with disgusting regularity, but gun banners still refuse to face the real world consequences of their bans. How many innocent victims have to suffer on the alter of failed gun control ideology?

LET IT BURN:

"Environmentally sound strategies such as forest thinning and controlled burns clear away small, dry, and disease-prone trees and underbrush that serve as kindling for fires and prevent healthy growth. …Yet standing in the way of these efforts are radical environmentalists who file litigation and seek to otherwise obstruct forest treatment. They would rather the forests burn than to see sensible forest management. As of last month, there were 5,000 legal challenges pending against the U.S. Forest Service, which devotes nearly 40 percent of its resources to defending against lawsuits and complying with environmental regulations." — Arizona Senator Jon Kyl.

"…governors from Western states meeting in Phoenix this week launched a broadside against environmentalists, who the governors and others say have opposed controlled burns that would reduce fire-prone undergrowth. 'We've got to clean up these forests', [Arizona Governor Jane] Hull said. 'Mother Nature is telling us to do so.' " — Arizona Republic (6/24/02).

"The Clinton and Bush administrations have pushed for some logging of dead or dying forests in particularly vulnerable areas, but have been stymied by lawsuits and protests from environmental groups." — New York Times (6/24/02).

"In thrall to environmental groups, the Clinton-Gore administration cast aside decades of forestry experience in favor of an untested philosophy known as 'ecosystem management'. … Thus did the previous administration decrease logging by 80%, ram through regulations banning roads, and use federal and state species protection acts to declare off-limits large swaths of land. ... Because loggers have not been allowed to come in and aggressively clean up these areas, the forests are choked with deadwood and underbrush. Such 'fuel' buildups were the cause of last year's [2000] fires, the worst the country had seen in 50 years." — Wall Street Journal (8/23/01).

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, asked if there was any room for compromise, replied: "I think the concern that people have had in the past is in taking out those trees that are the forest giants, and there can certainly be disagreement about that. But I hope that there is a lot of room for common ground, on trying to find some ways to thin out the forests, because otherwise those forest giants are killed in these infernos, when they wouldn't have been in the natural fires." — MSNBC (6/24/02).

Despite Norton's expression of hope for compromise with radical environmentalists, we can already see that the extremists have no intention of facing reality. A New York Times editorial blamed the ferocity of the fires on global warming, and former Interior Secretary Babbitt suggested that the fault lies with inadequate building codes. Several fire fighters have already died fighting these fires. Millions of acres of forest and hundreds of homes and structures have been turned to ash. How much more death and destruction will be chalked up to environmental extremism?

A JUDICIARY INDEPENDENT OF THE NATION:
Igniting a different kind of firestorm, a Ninth Circuit Appeals Court panel ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it includes the words "under God". The Senate wasted no time passing S.Res.292 criticizing the ruling as "inconsistent with…First Amendment jurisprudence", and after the vote Majority Leader Daschle (in a classic case of image over substance) asked all Senators to be at their desks the next morning to recite the Pledge. Daschle, of course, is a prime accomplice in thwarting confirmation of judges who would reject reasoning such as that of the Ninth Circuit. Activist judges (who think they have a license to redefine an "evolving" Constitution in any way that suits them) are just the sort of judges that Daschle and his fellow leftists adore, the sort they would love to see populate the entire federal judiciary. Daschle's criticism of the decision is thus simply rank hypocrisy and a stark fear that democrats would be hit by fallout from the public anger at the decision. The House followed with H.Res.459 the next day. Some members opposed the resolutions because the votes took time away from their unconstitutional agenda to authorize the next program of legalized theft called prescription drug benefits.

This case is not a unique example of judges far exceeding the bounds of their legitimate authority. Last week, for example, a federal judge decided he was competent to dictate foreign policy, and rejected the authority of the State Department to designate international groups as terrorist organizations. The issue here is far more serious than who appoints judges, or whether those judges are called conservative or liberal, "strict constructionists" or advocates of a "living" Constitution. This is about the arrogant and totally unaccountable judiciary that now rules this country. If the overwhelming congressional votes supporting S.Res.292 and H.Res.459 fairly represent the will of the people of the United States, what does all this say about our federal judiciary?

The "wall of separation" language that people quote to oppose all official reference to religion comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, but Jefferson was, as were most of the Founders, deeply religious. Inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington are his words, "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Unlike most modern-day judges, Jefferson was not at all disturbed by official references to God (he closed his first Inaugural Address with a prayer to "that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe" for peace and prosperity, and his Declaration of Independence spoke of the unalienable rights with which people "are endowed by their Creator"). But Jefferson did have serious concerns about the dangers to self government posed by an unaccountable judiciary:

"The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will." (1807)

"Having found from experience that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow, [the judiciary] consider themselves secure for life. A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." (1820)

"It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation." (1821)

"…the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary — an irresponsible body…working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed." (1821)

"We already see the [judiciary] power, installed for life, responsible to no authority (for impeachment is not even a scare-crow), advancing with a noiseless and steady pace to the great object of consolidation. The foundations are already deeply laid by their decisions for the annihilation of constitutional State rights and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the engulfing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part." (1822)

Once interpretation of the Constitution is cut adrift from the original intent of those who wrote it and ratified it, upon what is the new "evolved" meaning to be based? Into what does the Constitution "evolve", and who decides? Once the Constitution no longer means what it says, then it means whatever a judge says it means. Based on what? Public opinion? Obviously not, because the reaction to this decision shows quite clearly that the vast majority of the people, as well as their elected representatives, disagree. So if the "evolved" meaning of the Constitution is not based on the explicit text, is not based on the original intent of the Founders, is not based on public opinion or majority will, is not based on the votes of the people's representatives, upon what is it based? It was once said that we are a nation of laws, not of men, but that is no longer true; for the meaning of the supreme law of the land is now dictated solely by the personal beliefs of individual judges. Lower courts can be overruled by higher courts, but ultimately, the personal beliefs of the nation's highest judges become as immutably binding as the dictates of the most autocratic kings of old. Constitutional amendment is no curative, because judges will still "interpret" any amendments however they please. Can it really be true that the Founders of this nation, dedicated as they were to individual liberty and self government, threw off the shackles of King George and then intentionally re-enslaved themselves to a new group of unaccountable kings called judges?

Roll Call votes: