Jo’s Cafe

These people will use the Man in the Moon soon … they’ve lost it folks, flat just lost it.

Via CNSNews.com, from the Boston Globe:

Democrats shift strategy on Roberts
Plan to use Katrina to highlight racial and economic divide
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | September 7, 2005

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said yesterday that they will invoke the vast disparities in income and living conditions laid bare by the Hurricane Katrina disaster to sharpen their questioning of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. at his confirmation hearings next week.

The scenes of devastation featuring primarily poor African-American residents in New Orleans have highlighted the widening gap between rich and poor, said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

With Roberts having urged a narrow interpretation of civil rights laws in the past, Senate Democrats will link the scenes of economic hardship with the constitutional and legal issues that surround efforts to address racial and economic inequalities, he said.

”We have made very important progress over the period of the last 50 years in knocking down walls of discrimination so that people can participate and be a part of a changed America,” said Kennedy, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. ”And he’s going to be asked to explain some of his advice that would have, I think, undermined that progress in important ways.”

I think??? You’re not sure??? Oh wait, that’s right — you’re STILL not sure if Mary Jo was driving the car or not, I get it now.

So now it’s Judge Roberts’ fault that people failed to get out of New Orleans.
So now it’s Judge Roberts’ fault that the Mayor failed to call for mandatory evacuations of New Orleans.
So now it’s Judge Roberts’ fault that the levee broke.
So now it’s Judge Roberts’ fault that Katrina was in formed off the coast of the US.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he, too, will pursue questions raised by Katrina in the Roberts hearings. In addition, civil rights leaders whom Democrats have called to appear at the hearings said they also intend to refer to the scenes from the hurricane-ravaged region.

[...]

Leahy said he watched the scenes of hardship on television with a growing sense of anger over the inability to deliver services to those who depend most on the government, issues he said would come up during the Roberts hearings.

”We’ll have legitimate questions as to the authority of the federal government — the central authority of the government — but also the ability of individuals to seek redress if they don’t get the help that they expect,” Leahy said.

Memos Roberts wrote as an aide in the Reagan administration are expected to be fodder for Democratic criticism of his civil rights record. He argued against the constitutionality of affirmative action, pushed to make it easier for school districts to evade busing as part of court-ordered desegregation, and argued for a scaled-back version of the Voting Rights Act.

Later, as an appeals court judge, Roberts also urged a narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause, one of the tools Congress has used to pass federal laws on a host of issues affecting civil rights.

The hurricane served as a stark reminder that many Americans remain politically powerless and economically repressed, despite laws designed to help in areas like education, voting, employment, and housing, said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

What? Why is it Judge Roberts’ fault that there are poor in New Orleans?

What the hell does a hurricane and people remaining politically powerless have to do with anything? And what the hell does Judge Roberts’ have to do with it?

There are still people in New Orleans that have not left, and are STILL refusing to leave. Why is that Judge Roberts’ fault?

It’s not folks — it’s just the loony lefts way of going after anything touched by President George W. Bush.

But Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said Democrats will be overreaching if they tie Katrina’s aftermath to Roberts. As a lawyer and a federal appellate judge, Roberts has established a commitment to upholding the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress, Cornyn said.

”Trying to connect this nomination hearing for Judge Roberts with the disaster of Katrina, I think, is a stretch,” he said.

Exactly.