News: May 2009 Archives
It's hard for me to interpret what President Obama is saying in defense of Sonia Sotomayor:
President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge. "I'm sure she would have restated it," Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.
There are several ways this could be interpreted, and I think the President was intentionally ambiguous so that we can each believe in the way that makes Sotomayor look the best in our own minds.
1. Sotomayor didn't mean what she said. She meant to convey an entirely different meaning, and she would have restated herself to convey that meaning if she had the opportunity. (Which she didn't?)
2. Sotomayor meant what she said, but if she had known that she would be nominated to the Supreme Court eight years later she would have phrased it more ambiguously so that her beliefs couldn't be so easily held against her.
3. Sotomayor meant what she said but now wishes she could take it back because she has changed her mind.
4. Sotomayor meant what she said but now wishes she could take it back because she thinks it will hurt her chances of being confirmed.
Is there another option? Which of these really speaks well of a person who could very well get a life-long appointment to the Supreme Court?
A couple is claiming that a San Diego County official has threatened to shut down their home Bible study unless they apply for a permit. Please.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"
The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.
Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
If this happened (I smell a hoax) there's no way their Bible study will ultimately be stopped. It's ludicrous.
Why do I smell a hoax? Saying "amen" and "praise the Lord" cannot possibly be on any list of questions that the county uses to determine whether or not a religious use permit is required for anything. I just find it hard to believe that any government employee would ask those kinds of questions, even if a permit were legitimately required.
What's with Drudge's photos of North Korean soldiers? Here's the one he has up now:
And here are North Korean soldiers from 2005:
a) The only action shot available is "let's share binoculars".
b) Val Kilmer's bloodline is thinning, but not yet extinguished.
My opinion of President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is very easy to discern from this despicably racist and sexist quote:
In 2001, Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge, gave a speech declaring that the ethnicity and sex of a judge “may and will make a difference in our judging.”In her speech, Judge Sotomayor questioned the famous notion — often invoked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her retired Supreme Court colleague, Sandra Day O’Connor — that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when 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,” said Judge Sotomayor[.]
Stuart Taylor bottom-lines it:
Imagine the reaction if someone had unearthed in 2005 a speech in which then-Judge Samuel Alito had asserted, for example: "I would hope that a white male with the richness of his traditional American values would reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life" -- and had proceeded to speak of "inherent physiological or cultural differences."
I fully expected President Obama to nominate a liberal "living constitutionalist" to the Supreme Court, but I find it reprehensible that he selected a racist bigot.
Wendy Long says that Sotomayor isn't just a liberal, she's an activist:
Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench. ...She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.
Tome Goldstein looks at the political dynamics:
For Republican Senators to come after Judge Sotomayor is not only hopeless when it comes to confirmation (something that did not deter Democrats in their attacks on Roberts and Alito) but a strategy that risks exacting a very significant political cost among Hispanics and independent voters generally, assuming that the attacks aren’t backed up with considerable substance.
Yep, elections count. Republicans lost. The President gets to seat anyone he wants on the Court, and he chose someone that both baits Republicans to oppose her and simultaneously hurts us if we do. I think it's a lesser loss to highlight the shortcomings of her philosophy but let her sail through mostly unopposed.
(HT: Ilya Somin, Ann Althouse.)
Instapundit has the best line so far on the anger California politicians are feeling for the voters who turned down the massive tax hikes the politicians needed to continue funneling taxpayer money to the public employee unions.
IN CALIFORNIA, BLAMING THE VOTERS. Stupid voters. Can’t we import better ones from Mexico or something?
It's funny because it's sad. I haven't written much about the ongoing crisis in my home state for just that reason: it's depressing to see a place you love go down the tubes.
So what about California? A reader asks. Ummm, that's a tough one. No, wait, it's not: California is completely, totally, irreparably hosed. And not a little garden hose. More like this. Their outflow is bigger than their inflow. You can blame Republicans who won't pass a budget, or Democrats who spend every single cent of tax money that comes in during the booms, borrow some more, and then act all surprised when revenues, in a totally unprecedented, inexplicable, and unforeseaable chain of events, fall during a recession. You can blame the initiative process, and the uneducated voters who try to vote themselves rich by picking their own pockets. Whoever is to blame, the state was bound to go broke one day, and hey, today's that day!
Unfortunately, I think she's right. That's part of why I left the state in 2006.
Courtesy of reader Mark Polege here are some more pictures of the Tea Partiers who greeted President Obama in Arnold, Missouri last week.
Not the ~10,000 who were at the Tax Day Tea Party a couple of weeks ago, but we conservatives tend to have to work for a living.
