First Door on the Left

“Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest.” — Justice Marla Luckert, Kansas Supreme Court

Tom DeLay’s defense attorneys (for an innocent man, he sure has a lot of them) want a new judge to hear his case because the current judge once contributed to (gasp!) MoveOn.org and MoveOn.org is now selling t-shirts with Mr. DeLay’s mug shot on them.

The horror!

Have you seen the DeLay mug shot? It looks like it was done by Glamour Shots. If I were on the DeLay campaign staff, I think I’d be handing the t-shirts out at campaign rallies!

As for the contribution, I think Ronnie Earl pretty much summed up that argument…

“What this means is if a judge had contributed to Crime Stoppers that judge could not hear a burglary case. Carried to its extreme, that is what I think this motion means and I think that’s absurd. We don’t live in a country where political party determines the measure of justice.”

Or do we?

Complete story here.

Update: I went to MoveOn.org to see if I could find the t-shirts in question. Instead, I found this:

MoveOn statement

(pdf)

They should put that on a t-shirt.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is really quite the card.

Ted Stevens

He got $453 million in the highway bill recently signed by George W. Bush to build a couple of bridges in his home state. $223 million of that will go for a bridge connecting a small town to a tiny island. Ferry service already exists between the town and the island, and the locals are quite happy with it.

So Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma introduced a measure in the Senate to redirect all that money. He wanted to spend it to rebuild the Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain that was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Stevens was not happy…

“I don’t kid people. If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state . . . I will resign from this body.”

Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you, Ted.

Ted needn’t have worried, though. Our good Senators defeated the measure by a vote of 82-15. They didn’t want to set a precedent. They didn’t want their pet projects to be next on the chopping block.

Thing is, the good people of Alaska were completely in favor of giving up the money to Louisiana. They don’t really need those bridges. When Sen. Stevens was informed of this, he replied:

“They can kiss my ear! That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Class act… at least he didn’t say ass.

Full story here.