With Thursday’s 13-to-5 vote endorsing the nomination of John Roberts to be chief justice of the United States, the Senate Judiciary Committee was acknowledging the obvious — Roberts’ sterling credentials and seemingly bottomless legal knowledge. Some of the "yea" voters also rightly were taking Roberts at his word, however incomplete that might have seemed, that he would rule by the law and not by ideology or personal religious views. Time will tell whether senators’ trust was misplaced, but for now, Roberts seems an excellent nominee and deserves easy confirmation in the full Senate next week.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The reason the Roman Catholic Church is settling multimillion-dollar lawsuits is not that a relatively small number of priests abused children — as unconscionable as that is. Rather, it is that key church leaders knew about the abuse and yet did little about it or, in cases in Wichita and now Philadelphia, aided the abuse by moving the sex offenders to new parishes, where they violated more children.
In the latest case, a grand jury determined that two cardinals in the Philadelphia Archdiocese concealed sexual abuse by more than 60 priests for four decades. According to the report released Wednesday:
"To protect themselves from negative publicity or expensive lawsuits — while keeping abusive priests active — the cardinals and their aides hid the priests’ crimes from parishioners, police and the general public. . . . Archdiocese leaders have endangered and harmed children in parishes and schools by keeping known abusers in ministry and transferring discovered abusers to assignments where parents and potential victims are unaware of the priests’ sexual behavior."
As usual, some church leaders went on the attack, accusing the messenger of Catholic-bashing. But it’s clear that, in these cases and others, those who were supposed to be shepherding their flocks were more concerned about protecting themselves and their institution.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
After all the millions the maker of the “Girls Gone Wild” videos and DVDs has made filming party girls in New Orleans, it’s only appropriate — I guess — that he is donating the proceeds from future sales of his Mardi Gras-themed DVDs to the Red Cross. Still, the Red Cross must feel a little uncomfortable knowing that its relief work is being funded in part by sales of “GGW Doggystyle.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Had Katrina fizzled somewhere south of the U.S. coast, Michael Brown’s shocking lack of qualifications to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency might never have been exposed. At least members of Congress are trying to show they learned something, by publicly questioning whether 36-year-old Julie Myers, a Shawnee native, is the right boss for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a crucial agency with 20,000 employees and a $4 billion budget. Maybe her experience as a federal prosecutor and an associate to Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr is apt; she’s said to know a lot about money laundering and drug smuggling. But especially post-Brown, it’s hard not to suspect that two other credentials made her Bush’s pick: Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and she just married the current chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (also her former boss).
Posted by Rhonda Holman
link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901930.html?referrer=email
In the necessary process of trying to keep sex-related businesses out of Old Town and the arena district, the Wichita City Council risks unnecessarily barring new tattoo and piercing shops from opening in those blocks. Since body artists won the right to open shops in the city limits in 1998, five businesses have given new, youthful life to formerly moribund blocks of East Douglas, fitting right into free-spirited Old Town. The rezoning wouldn’t force out the businesses already open, but it would limit expansion and prevent others from opening. The city needs to rethink this check on a service business that long ago went mainstream.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
To hear Michael Moore tell it, no member of Congress would be caught dead letting a child of his or hers go to Iraq. Some have, though — to their credit and their nation’s benefit. Those whose kids have been deployed to Iraq reportedly include Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; Todd Akin, R-Mo.; and Joe Wilson, R-S.C. And the son of Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., just shipped out with a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division. True, that’s not very many troops, given the size of Congress. But any and all Americans willing to serve their country are worthy of unreserved praise.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
