Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor: You Read, You Decide
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The fundamental issue at stake in the Sotomayor discussion or nomination is not her background or her gender but an issue that has implications far beyond this judge and this nomination: Is judicial impartiality no longer a quality we can and should demand from our Supreme Court Justices?
The job of a justice is to enforce the law, not the rule of empathy. And we understand that when a judge substitutes his or her personal experiences for the law, the law becomes what he or she wants it to be, not what the people, through their elected representatives, have decided it should be.The "Court of Appeals is Where Policy Is Made"
Is Judge Sotomayor Being Quoted Out of Context? You Read, You Decide:"All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is - Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't 'make law,' I know. [laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it. I'm, you know. [laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating."
"Our Gender and National Origins May and Will Make a Difference in Our Judging"
Here are some more quotes:
"I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that."
"Whether born from experience or inherent psychological or cultural differences...our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
"Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases....I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Again, you read, you decide. Read Judge Sotomayor's speech in full here.
When a judge disregards the rule of law and applies a different standard to certain groups - or, as the President would say, shows "empathy" - he or she violates this central American principle.
One Group's "Empathy" is Another Group's Injustice.
Ask Frank Ricci.
President Obama nominated a radical liberal activist to a lifetime tenure on our highest court, who will cast aside the rule of law in favor of the narrow, divisive politics of race and gender identity labeled 'empathy'.
Please take the time to tell your senators how you'd like them to vote re: her confirmation.
"OPPOSE SOTOMAYOR CONFIRMATION"
YOUR SenatorS: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...
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Back On Planet Earth
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Now the President is discovering what so many presidents have discovered before him: Saying something in a campaign is much easier than actually getting it done.
There is always an unexpected twist. Who would have predicted that a Congress clammering to close the place down, would block the president from doing just that?
And for good reason: It has suddenly dawned on everyone that there are some pretty bad dudes down there, and no one wants them in their neighborhood... [snip]
On Planet Campaign, all things are possible. On Planet Earth, it is never quite that easy, and it always costs more.
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Poll: Americans Oppose Closing Gitmo, Prison Made U.S. Safer
Another in a series of polls finding Americans are firmly to the right of the views of the current Administration was released Monday.
In this study, respondents overwhelmingly opposed the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay because -- wait for it! -- they believe the facility has strengthened national security.
"By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By more than 3-1, they oppose moving some of the accused terrorists housed there to prisons in their own states. [...]"
Not what the Obama administration, the Democrat leadership, and their media minions have been claiming for months, is it?
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NBC Skips Islamic Conversion of Shooter, Trip to Yemen
Tuesday's "Today" show completely ignored two facts about a man who murdered a soldier at an Army recruiting station in Arkansas: He had just converted to Islam and was being investigated by the FBI for a trip to Yemen.
Instead, NBC's Ann Curry, in anchor briefs throughout the show, vaguely explained that Abdulhakim Muhammad was "upset with the military."
Both ABC and CBS mentioned the conversion and the Yemen trip.
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[meanwhile]
Islamic Speakers Bureau Backed By Radical Profs
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A California nonprofit dedicated to "teaching about Islam & Muslims" at U.S. high schools and college campuses features a board of advisors that is stacked with some of the most controversial activist professors in the field of Middle Eastern studies today.
The board of Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a veritable Who's Who of Islamist apologists and activists. Leading the list is John Esposito, the founding director of the Saudi-funded Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. He famously stated that the suicide-bombing Hamas organization engages in "honey, cheese-making, and home-based clothing manufacture."
Hamza Yusuf Hanson, who is not a scholar but sits on the ING board, publicly declared his own extremism at an ISNA convention. In 1991, he reportedly delivered a speech titled "Jihad is the Only Way" to the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which is an arm of the radical organization Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan.
ING's reach is wide. Its web site lists more than a dozen affiliated organizations in North America. They reflect a broad network involved in Islamic outreach (da'wa), otherwise known as proselytizing.
ING also appears to have created a curriculum about Islam for grades 7 through 12. It also appears that the State of California, at least at one point, used ING curriculum. However, the ING links on the California Department of Education website are now dead.
It is now clear that some Middle Eastern Studies professors have ceased being observers of Islam and are now engaging in its propagation. Countless analysts have noted that Middle Eastern Studies professors substitute scholarship with apologia for radicalism. Still others openly agitate against the United States or Israel.
Elementary school, high school, or college administrators mulling a free visit from El-Genaidi's group should be forewarned about the academic engine that powers ING. ING's leading thinkers have a history of cavorting with apologists for radicalism-and the radicals themselves.
[Parents, do you know everything that your children are being 'taught'?]
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Double Speak and the Economy
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Authorities in the Obama administration keep contradicting themselves, insisting that the worst is over … and then add that the worst is yet to come:“We are now in the cleanup phase,” Bair said in a speech in Washington. “But to be honest, there’s still more pain to go.”
This kind of non sequitur is the gold standard of double speak coming out of Washington to “explain” the current economic situation.
What are the facts?
The Commerce Department on April 30 said personal incomes fell in March for the fifth time in the past six months. The S&P/Case-Shiller Index of home prices in 20 major U.S. cities dropped in February, extending a decline that began in January 2007. The Labor Department May 8 reported employers shed 539,000 jobs in April, extending the decline to 5.7 million jobs since December 2007.
The FDIC insurance fund is down 64 percent from its peak at the start of the second quarter last year, reflecting the shutdown of 22 lenders from April through December. The agency voted 4-1 today to impose a fee of 5 cents per $100 of assets, excluding Tier 1 capital, backing away from a proposal of 20 cents per $100 of insured deposits. The FDIC estimates the fee will raise $5.6 billion, lifting the fund from its lowest level since 1994.
U.S. regulators conducted unprecedented stress tests on 19 of the biggest banks, concluding on May 7 that losses could reach $599.2 billion in the next two years under economic conditions that are worse than economists forecast.
Looks like the economy is getting better because it is getting worse. (Or is it getting worse because it is getting better?) Expect many more reports from the Obama administration confidently informing us that: worse is better and better is worse.
And expect most of the MSM to report the “good news” with straight faces...
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Lomborg's 'Climate-Industrial Complex'
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Noted climate change critic Bjorn Lomborg has an article in today's Wall Street Journal that is a must read if you want to understand the forces of business and industry who are hard at work trying to profit off the global warming scare.
Referring to a similar business-government partnership during the cold war - the military-industrial complex - Lomborg dubs these "green" companies part of the "Climate-Industrial Complex" with none other than Al Gore leading the charge to making a buck off the climate change racket:
This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council. The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who actually represents all three groups: He is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.
The world's largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN's "Climate in Peril" segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas's earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore's green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.
Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.
This "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," philosophy may produce profits but only makes it clearer that other businesses will suffer the consequences of such draconian government action. And who is surprised that Al Gore would be first in line with his hand out for government goodies?
Read Lomborg's entire piece for some good background on this phenomenon.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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House Dems propose huge changes to drilling program
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Under a House Democrat-crafted bill described as a “sweeping” reform of federal drilling rules, oil and natural-gas companies would pay more to drill on federal lands and have less time to access the resources.
The measure, crafted by House Natural Resources Democratic staff, raises the royalty fees oil and gas companies pay to drill on federal lands for the first time since the 1980s. It also shortens the duration of federal leases to access those federal resources from 10 years to five.
[Translation: they're making more difficult and more expensive to get the energy we all need. And this 'reduces our dependence on foreign oil' how?
It's never been about the environment or energy.]
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GENERIC DRUGS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE EXPENSIVE IN CANADA THAN IN THE UNITED STATES
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Are there differences between the prices for prescription drugs that are most important to Canadian seniors (aged 60 and older) and their counterparts in the United States? According to the Fraser Institute, the answer is: Yes.
In 2007, Canadian seniors paid more than twice as much as their American counterparts paid for identical generic drugs. Why?
The high price of generic medicines in Canada is the result of various ill-conceived public policies that shield retail pharmacies and generic drug companies from competitive market forces.
[time and again, governments screw it up - so lets join them?]
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CONCIERGE MEDICINE
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Steven D. Knope is a local primary-care doctor in Phoenix, Arizona, who treats a small group of patients in exchange for an annual fee. Known as "concierge medicine," this practice is gaining popularity, particularly among older Americans with complex medical needs. The concept started in Seattle in 1996 with mostly wealthy patients and has since spread to people of more modest means.
- Annual fees range from $500 to $15,000.
- Doctors limit the number of patients they see and give them highly personalized attention, including detailed annual physicals, preventive care, same-day appointments and a promise to return their calls quickly, 24/7.
[Offered as an example of the many-many creative ideas that will arise in our free market to address health care -- if left free.]
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Olbermann Blames FNC & O’Reilly for Murder of Abortion Doctor Tiller
On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann placed blame on FNC host Bill O’Reilly for inciting the recent murder of Dr. George Tiller, widely known for performing late-term abortions in Kansas.
After showing a number of clips of O’Reilly and other FNC personalities attacking Tiller, Olbermann encouraged his viewers to request that businesses like restaurants that run FNC on their televisions change the channel because"Fox News Channel will never restrain itself from incitement to murder and terrorism – not until its profits begin to decline, when its growth stops." ... "the goal here, to get this blindly irresponsible man and his ilk off the air," ... "we must again make the world safe for people condemned by the Fox News Channel."
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NBC Suggests Bill O'Reilly Fueled Murder of Dr. George Tiller
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NBC, frequently the object of Bill O'Reilly's scorn for its biased presentation of the news from the left, provided him with fresh evidence Monday evening as the NBC Nightly News, unlike the ABC and CBS newscasts, found it newsworthy in a story on the murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller to highlight Bill O'Reilly's critical remarks regarding the doctor.
Why?
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Liberals Blame O'Reilly for Tiller Murder, Silent on Military Recruiter Shooting
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While the far left is blaming Bill O’Reilly and the pro-life movement for the death of George Tiller, another shooting has left military recruiter William Long dead at the hands of an anti-military Muslim convert.
Mainstream liberals like Keith Olbermann and news sources like NBC have already blamed O'Reilly for Tiller's death, as have websites like Salon, the Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos.
Markos Moulitsas may have celebrated the deaths of Blackwater fighters and wished for a similar fate for Michelle Malkin, but nevermind that.
And Olbermann did call our troops fighting in Iraq "cold-blooded killers," but that obviously had nothing to do with the hate some on the left feel against the military.
To be sure, I'm not saying that Olbermann or Kos are somehow to blame for one lunatic's deranged actions, I am simply saying that those two lunatics are responsible for their own deranged comments. Saying that someone is responsible for murder based on their civic dissent is nothing more than first-degree fear mongering.
While Michelle Malkin, Allahpundit, Red State, and other conservative bloggers have denounced Tiller's murder, Keith Olbermann, Think Progress, the Huffington Post, haven't even mentioned William Long's murder at the recruiting center as of this writing.
[Is Code Pink to be 'held accountable' for the actions of the wacko in Little Rock? Sounds absurd, but there's a serious undertone in the campaign against Fox that should alarm all American.]
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[Then there's this piece asking the question...
given his/their repeated flirtations with the idea.]
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Call the Offices of Pelosi & Reid and Urge Them to Allow a Vote on the BFA
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Media Research Center (MRC) President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell yesterday recorded a video thanking the MRC Grassroots Action Team - made up of more than 600,000 individual activists - for their signing nearly 400,000 Free Speech Alliance (FSA) petitions which were delivered yesterday to the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Leader Reid's is (202) 224-3542.
We humbly suggest you say something along the lines of:"Please tell (Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid) that the Broadcaster Freedom Act (HR 226 and S. 34) deserves an immediate stand-alone vote of the full (House or Senate)."
Be polite, be genteel. Be frequent. ;-)
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Our Political Class Is the Problem, Not the Solution
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Just when you thought our politicians could not sink any lower, along comes another batch of shocking revelations about their despicable conduct. The pathetic, grasping pettiness is as depressing as the spectacular abuses of allowances.
The entire political class across all three major parties appears to have the ethical standards of a swarm of sewer rats...
[Wait: three parties - oh; it's Britain, excuse - by the title and description I just assumed...]
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77% See Politicians Unwillingness to Cut Government Spending as Bigger Problem Than Voter Resistance to Tax Hikes
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For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government.Seventy-seven percent (77%) of voters say the bigger problem in the United States is the unwillingness of politicians to control government spending. Just 14% say the problem is that voters are unwilling to pay enough in taxes.
These findings parallel results in California just before voters there rejected several ballot initiatives aimed at raising taxes. After that vote on Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggersuggested the state might need federal financial help, but voters nationwide oppose any bailouts for California and other economically troubled states.
Just 28% of all voters say, generally speaking, that increases in government spending help the economy, down seven points from February. Fifty-three percent (53%) now believe spending increases hurt the economy, and seven percent (7%) say they have no impact.
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans and 61% of unaffiliated voters believe increased government spending hurts the economy. Democrats tend to hold the opposite view--49% of those in Barack Obama’s party think more government spending is good for the economy, while just 27% say it hurts.
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GOP Should Run Against the Power of the Center
By Michael Barone
Move to the center. That's the advice Republicans are getting from quarters friendly and otherwise. It seems to make a certain amount of sense. If opinion is arrayed along a single- dimension, left-to-right spectrum and clustered in the middle in a bell-curve pattern, then a party on the right needs only to move a few steps toward the center or just beyond to convert itself from minority to majority status.
But the world is a lot more complicated than that. Opinion is not arrayed on a single dimension, but flies all over the place in two or three or even four dimensions (which is to say it changes over time). New issues crop up, and old issues appear in a different light. Success in politics often comes not from readjusting one's stand to conform with current opinion, but in redefining what is at stake and reframing issues so that you have majorities on your side.
It's arguably good policy as well as good politics to run against this over-powerful center. Bailout favoritism and crony capitalism not only misallocate economic resources, they also sap faith in the fairness of our institutions. After World War II, Democrats wanted to retain wartime high taxes, pro-union labor laws, and wage and price controls -- all manipulatable for political benefit by political insiders. Republicans ran in 1946 on the theme of
"Had enough?"
The 1946 Republicans didn't move to the center. They ran against the power of the center and permanently redefined where the center of the political spectrum was. That's a path today's Republicans might want to consider...
[Recommended > ]
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MSNBC claims Palin got zero support for her idea, only it wasn't hers, and others supported it
Gov. Sarah Palin "got precisely zero support for her call for Alaska's Democratic Senator Mark Begich to resign because Ted Stevens' corruption conviction was overturned."
Rachel Maddow on Monday, April 6th, 2009 in an episode of her MSNBC show.
... But the idea was pushed by Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican chairman who first proposed it, and it was backed by conservative blogs. ConservativeHQ.com, for example, sent out an e-mail alert saying, "The people of Alaska, and all Americans, must rise up and demand that Mark Begich resign."
But Wev Shea, a former U.S. attorney now in private practice in Anchorage, did not specifically call on Begich to resign but he endorsed the idea of a special election and told the New York Times, "There’s a groundswell all over the state for a special election."
So Maddow left her viewers with two incorrect impressions -- that Palin had initiated the idea for Begich's resignation, and that no one else supported her. In fact, it wasn't Palin's idea, and she wasn't particularly wedded to it, and others supported it. We find Maddow's claim False.
[The fear, and so drumbeat, continues...]
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When Words Don't Mean Anything
Victor Davis Hanson
Rather than an attempt to defend empirically Sotomayor's suggestion that Latinas are superior, in the judicial sense, to white men, we have been given a variety of postmodern contexts, constructing what she "really" meant: She was merely talking about the advantages of poverty that she thinks she has experienced that are not true of white men; she was only "joking"; she was making an intricate case for diversity, etc. — any explanation other than the natural one that was elaborated on later in her diatribe, namely that she believes the color and gender of a person impart wisdom or less than wisdom.
With the advent of Obamaworld, the centrist veneer sometimes rubs off the race/class/gender/religion talk and we see the fundamentalism in its essence — in the impromptu moments of the campaign it was Michelle's "mean country" and first-time pride in the U.S., Obama's "typical white person," Pennsylvania clingers, and original contorted defense of Reverend Wright, then there was Eric Holder's "cowards" outburst, and now Sotomayor's Latina tribalism.
In each case, once the race/class/gender animosity is revealed, there is a brief hesititation to see how well the media will come to the rescue and "contextualize" the remark, and when that fails there is the obligatory qualifier "maybe not the best way of putting it," "wrong word," "if I had to say it over, I'd . . ." The point being that, in the D.C. gotcha culture, these are never gotchas due to the race, gender, or class of the perpetrator.
I think the unifying explanation is that such wonderful people either simply are incapable of racialist remarks, or that the good that they otherwise stand for so overshadows the embarrassments as to make them not embarrassments at all.
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Israel not without friends
It’s easy to be misled by elements of Western media and academia that seem to prefer terrorists and radical Islamists to Israel. The diplomatic balance sheet from Israel’s standpoint is quite good, pretty remarkably good, better than it has been for a very long time... [snip]
Countries with which Israel has great relations: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and also those of the European Union and Nato. Moreover, there is a long list of former Soviet Bloc states which understand the difference between a democratic state defending itself and a bunch of ideologically driven, dictatorship-worshipping terrorists. They include the new EU chair, the Czech Republic, and a dozen others, of which Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Poland can stand as examples. And last but not least most of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Friends can disagree; a lot of these actions are publicity stunts or attempts to show the countries in question have ‘balanced’ policies [or simple cowardice toward jihadists] Regarding what is important —— things like normal relations, trade (including military-related equipment), basic support, sanctions against extremist enemies —— these relationships deliver. In all these cases, then, Israel’s relations are quite good.
That’s a remarkable balance sheet whose positive elements should not be underrepresented.
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