Professor Kerr has a post up that only a law nerd could love.

HJB has the roundup.

A great MLK quote, courtesy of Jonah Goldberg:

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.*

Letter from Birmingham Jail (I added the highlighted portion of this excerpt to give the quote further context)

Unfreakinbelievable:

[M]oderate hypocrisy - especially in marriages - is often the best policy. Momogamy is very hard for men, straight or gay, and if one partner falters occasionally (and I don’t mean regularly), sometimes discretion is perfectly acceptable . . . . I think the post-seventies generation - those of us who grew up while our parents were having a sexual revolution - both appreciate the gains for sexual and emotional freedom, while being a little more aware of their potential hazards. An acceptance of mild hypocrisy as essential social and marital glue is not a revolutionary statement. It’s a post-revolutionary one. As is, I’d say, my generation as a whole.

This is one of my more high-profile cases here in Macon, which some of y’all may find of interest. And here is an excerpt re: the brief I filed in that case:

Both sides agree that Ellis has the right to appoint board members, but the authority’s contention is that he should submit those appointments for City Council approval, as he does with appointments to various other boards.

Historically, Macon mayors have done this when it comes to the housing authority. But this “collective wisdom and understanding of mayors past is to be jettisoned with a swish of the mayor’s hand,” the authority’s recent legal brief arguing for summary judgment states.

“This, in a nutshell, is Mayor Ellis’ regrettable legacy: ‘It’s my way or the highway,’” the brief states.

Brookhiser in NYO:

The executive and the judicial branches do not take such a lighthearted view of the matter, however. The F.B.I. had been investigating Representative Jefferson for bribe taking for months, and their search was made after obtaining a warrant. Nor does Congress: House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.), together with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), protested the search as unconstitutional. Now, finally, we know: Twelve years in power have been too much for the G.O.P. Their batteries have worn out, and so have their brains. The Democrats will regain control of Congress this fall.

…Mr. Hastert’s betrayal of his own party’s principles is unfortunate because it suggests other betrayals. Applying the law equally is not the only part of the Contract with America that has gone the way of all toilet paper. The Contract also called for a balanced-budget amendment “to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress.” The House, to its credit, passed such an amendment, though it never became law. And now, 12 years later, here we are with an out-of-control Congress.

But House Republicans are not the most unpopular people in America. That title may be reserved for Senate Republicans, or at least the 23 of them who joined 38 Democrats to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. Illegal immigrants will not have to know English to understand this bill; it’s a welcome mat, and the Republicans who signed it are the doormats. It is not necessary for House Republicans to muster the energy they have shown on behalf of Congressional freezers to defeat the Senate bill. All they have to do is hunker down, and let House/Senate negotiations break down. If they do that, they may snatch some cred yet.

…The pity of it is that if the Democrats retake Congress, President Bush will be impeached, for three reasons: 1. because they can; 2. because Bill Clinton was; 3. because their enrages, who are a minority of the party but a majority of its committed, demand it. It would not be the first time in wartime that the tribal customs of the Anglo-Saxons have astonished the world. (all emphasis mine)

Me: With as much discontent rising among the GOP’s conservative base, I simply can’t imagine a Republican-controlled House much longer. (I’m taking for granted that the Senate will stay under GOP control) Perhaps it will last through 2008 - but, if so, it’s simply because the only party weaker, both politically and ideologically, than the Republican party is the Democratic party. My only hope for Republicans lies in the fact that I have absolutely zero confidence that Dean, Pelosi, and Reid can muster the intelligence and wherewithal to present a coherent, believable message to the American people.

Update: I have no idea why this post looks the way it does. I’ve tried everything…nothing helps. Sorry it’s a hard read.

UPDATE FROM PATRICK: I’ve fixed the post. Looks like some tags went astray.

Samuelson’s column on the immigration bill is most definitely the must-read of the AM.

The Senate last week passed legislation that Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., hailed as “the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history.” You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Washington Post, New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Yet, the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades from about 20 million (under present law) to about 40 million.

One job of journalism is to inform the public what our political leaders are doing. In this case, we failed. The Senate bill’s sponsors didn’t publicize its full impact on legal immigration, and we didn’t fill the void. It’s safe to say that few Americans know what the bill would do because no one has told them. Indeed, I suspect that many senators who voted for the legislation don’t have a clue as to the potential overall increase in immigration.

World Net Daily has the scoop.

Andrew Sullivan:

“A Bavarian pope had a unique opportunity to reflect on the role the Church played in providing two millennia of religious anti-Semitism which paved the way for the atheistic, racist anti-Semitism of Nazism. Benedict punted. History will remember that.”

“I was unimpressed by his speech. It was a function of resilient denial - denial that the German people had en masse backed Nazism long after its true nature had become known; and denial of the criminal silence and acquiescence of the Vatican hierarchy during that period of time.”

Translation: “The Pope doesn’t approve of me engaging in homosexual behavior or support gay marriage, and I really hate him for that.”

Good.

(LvBlawgfather)

A big Hotty Toddy to the Rebs for laying the smack down on Vanderbilt to win the SEC baseball championship.  If only our football team could do so well…

Stanley Kurtz has an excellent piece over at the Weekly Standard, which notes, inter alia:

More important, by training us to see marriage as a civil rights issue, gay marriage advocates have largely defanged all of these structural arguments. Redefining the family is increasingly seen as a fundamental right. And the courts are beginning to agree. In his prize-winning law review essay “Polygamist Eye for the Monogamist Guy,” Michael Myers argues that if the Supreme Court interprets Lawrence v. Texas the way the Massachusetts Supreme Court did in its decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the right to polygamy will logically follow.

The solution is to treat marriage as a social institution whose fundamental purpose is to encourage mothers and fathers to build stable families for the children they create. Same-sex marriage breaks this understanding, thus encouraging the sort of unstable parental cohabitation we see in Europe, where cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents

This is where the “sweet mystery of life” logic leads you, folks.

So saith Jimmy Akin.

Ahmadinejad: We stand by our statements because we’re honest and act legally. We’re no fraudsters. We only want to claim our legitimate right. Incidentally, I never threatened anyone - that, too, is part of the propaganda machine that you’ve got running against me.
You don’t frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you….I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

There’s the NRO perspective.  Then, there’s this logic-defying Opinion Journal perspective.

John Derbyshire explains the likely decision-making calculus of the average currently-illegal immigrant. 

The way the immigration rules are (and, on the Senate plan, will continue to be) structured, citizenship isn’t actually worth a damn unless you just have some irrational, sentimental desire to be an American. It is, in fact, a bit of a nuisance in one respect. Citizens have to do jury duty, but green-card holders don’t. The positive things that citizenship gets you are the right to vote, and the right to hold certain government jobs needing security clearance. Otherwise there isn’t a whole lot of difference between citizenship and green-card status. Both are liable for the same taxes; both have to register for the draft. Since only around half of U.S. citizens bother to vote in national elections, the other half would, for all practical purposes, be better off as green-card holders, in that they’d be excused jury duty. And in fact there is a campaign for giving voting rights to aliens—New York City Council has debated a bill on the subject—so even in the matter of voting, citizenship may not be a benefit for much longer.

Plus, one may wonder just how thoroughly the voter registration bureaucracy would distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in an increasingly immigrant-filled future.

Yeah, I know.  In the South football is king.   But for me, baseball is still the sport.  I’m a huge college baseball fan and a season ticket holder for my alma mater.  Even though I could do without the DH and the ping of aluminum bats, there is still something pure about college baseball.  Very few kids even have full scholarships–they are playing because they love the game.  And what a game it is. 

This weekend Clemson won the ACC Baseball Tournament.  Now it is time for the NCAA Regional and then Super-Regionals.  Then off to Omaha.  The tournament and Omaha make college baseball.  It’s a lesson college football should learn by scrapping the BCS. 

Here’s the video of the speech I referenced earlier this week.

I encourage you to watch it and listen to reaction of many in the crowd. 

Methinks not.

The natural consequence of “choice.”

Wilfred McClay reviews Douglas Brinkley’s book about Hurricane Katrina.  (HT: Prof. Knippenberg on NLT.)

Myrna Blyth gives some pointers on how to observe the day.

Christopher Hitchens ends his WSJ column with this:

“Always think of it: never speak of it.” That was the stoic French injunction during the time when the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had been lost. This resolution might serve us well at the present time, when we are in midconflict with a hideous foe, and when it is too soon to be thinking of memorials to a war not yet won. This Memorial Day, one might think particularly of those of our fallen who also guarded polling-places, opened schools and clinics, and excavated mass graves. They represent the highest form of the citizen, and every man and woman among them was a volunteer. This plain statement requires no further rhetoric.

Suzanne Fields‘ op-ed in the Washington Times worries about the erosion of the teaching of history in the US, and quotes a verse from In Flanders Fields.

You can visit the website of the Arlington National Cemetery, here, and other national cemeteries, here.

The President’s remarks at Arlington today are here. Video is here.

Here’s a sketch of one’s North Mississippi hamlet’s tribute to its veterans.

War movies all day on TCM and AMC.

We honor the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Human Events Online is all over this issue. You can see how your senator voted here. As far as Republicans…..it’s getting easier now to seperate the wheat from the chaf and see who the real conservatives are. It’s clear to me that for many senators this issue is not about immigration. It must be about government espansion and pandering to a group of potential new voters. Gag me. And, by the way, Human Events wants to hear from you regarding the impact of this vote on Republican presidential wannabes in ‘08. So far, senators such as Cornyn and Sessions are doing the Lord’s work.

But take ye comfort in knowing that it will all be done in the name of tolerance.

Tolerance for me, but not for thee.

It seems that Challies’s review of Driscoll’s book, Reformission, that Steve linked to yesterday, has caused so much of a ruckus, that Tim added another post to clarify some points. Essentially, he’s trying to get across to his readers that he never intended his book review to become a defense or a condemnation for Driscoll’s pastoral style. He simply used a couple of excerpts to point out a few personal concerns. But reading through yesterday’s comments and reading this new take by Chailles today, I have to wonder (as it pertains to Driscoll’s methods of ministry): what’s the big deal?! So he cusses a little. Has a few beers. Tells guys to quit crying, man up, and move on when they slip up and watch pornography. Again, what’s the real problem here? 

It disturbs me to see the masses of people that came out of the woods to slice and dice Driscoll on these issues. Ever since I “retired” from vocational ministry, and moved into the “real” world, I’ve found it interesting and sad to see just how far removed the evangelical church is from actual society. I realized for the first time that many of the things that consume the average fundamentalist evangelical are absolutely foreign to the outside world. Not to say that those things (i.e doctrinal quibbles, church politics, etc.) aren’t often important or necessary at times, but rather that they simply aren’t understood or relevant to the average “non-church-goer.” What’s even sadder than the fact that evangelicals are slowly becoming irrelevant, is the fact that they simpy don’t know it. I sure didn’t.

I really don’t care to write a whole lot on this (even though I suppose I already have), but when I read hundreds of comments from readers condemning Driscoll’s antics (i.e. a few blue comments and a beer) without ever addressing his results (i.e. thousands have come to Christ through his short ministry), i get a little more cynical over the current state of Evangelical Christianity. Is this what we really care about? “Damn,” I hope not. His ministry is thriving and engaging culture in a part of the country that has tended to show little regard for Chrisitian society and ideology. But does that matter, so long as he cusses every now and then in his sermons? Doesn’t seem to…and that’s unfortunate.

Anyway, I’m not here to defend Driscoll per se, (or, to condemn evangelicals for that matter) but to simply suggest, that a missional and emergent understanding of ministry is one that needs to be viewed and considered. As the larger evangelical movement finds itself drifting further from the culture, a missional understanding of the gospel may just be the very thing that helps it find relevance again. At the very least, take notice that it’s working in some places…just ask the changed lives at Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

That’s Judge Kavanaugh to you, Senator Clinton.

Congrats, Brett!

The AJC has this report.

Here are the features of the bill, which was drafted by the office of Teddy Kennedy: 

Urging the hiring of 1,000 more Border Patrol agents this year and 14,000 by 2011.

Endorsing Bush’s plan for a short-term deployment of National Guard troops to states along the border with Mexico.

Calling for the construction of 370 miles of fencing on the border.

The guest worker program would admit 200,000 individuals a year. They eventually could apply for a green card, which confers legal permanent residency.

A separate program envisions admission of an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers who also may apply for permanent residency

For illegal immigrants, those in the country for five years could stay, keep working and eventually apply for citizenship. They would have to pay at least $3,250 in fines and fees, settle back taxes and learn English.

Illegal immigrants in the country for more than two years but less than five would have to travel to a point of entry before re-entering the United States legally and beginning the lengthy process of seeking citizenship.

An immigrant in the country illegally for less than two years would be required to leave with no guarantee of return.

Here’s my problem with the amnesty provisions.  The Senate depends on the illegal alien, the person who broke the law, to come clean and truthfully inform the government of how long they have resided here.  Yeah, right.  Many of these aliens already have fraudulent documents, so obtaining “proof” that they have been in the U.S. for more than five years should be no problem.  In other words, this might as well be amnesty for the lot of them.