During wednesday's State Of The Union address, President Obama made the following statement about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. FEC case:

"[it] open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

Obama made this statement with the entire Supreme Court in attendance. Justice Samuel Alito appeared to respond "that's simply not true" following Obama's statement.

Alito probably said Obama's words were not true because…..

Obama's words were not true.

Here's an explanation from Bradley Smith, law professor at Capital University:

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making "a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election" under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any "expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication."

The President Of The United States owes the Supreme Court an apology. I won't hold my breath.

As for the Citizens United v. FEC ruling allowing special interests to gain a disproportionate foothold in American politics………….you gotta be kidding me. We just got done bailing out Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citigroup, Bank Of America, many other banks and Wall Street firms, foreign banks, General Motors, Chrysler, GE, etc. We subsidize every special interest from Agriculture to Zoology. In Obama's health care reform, the unions got an exemption from the Cadillac tax unavailable to non-union workers. Two senators were bribed with special deals to get their votes. Lobbying on Capital Hill is a booming business. Health care reform is favored by every big health care interest – the insurance companies, big pharma, AARP, etc. They all see it as a great boon to THEIR special interests. You also didn't see tort reform in Obama's health care plan, because the trial lawyers are a huge special interest who contribute to the Democrats.

The facts are – special interests already run the USA, because they run the government. The people who get stuck with the bill are the little guys, the taxpayers. When Obama says he doesn't "think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests," I respond with a different observation – I don't think America's most powerful interests should be bankrolled by the American taxpaying public. And Obama is public enemy #1 in that regard, because he's spending more of our money than ever. And let's not forget the single largest special interest in the country – the federal government itself. Whether it's run by Democrats or Republicans, it's serving the special interests of Democrats or Republicans. And it's robbing us blind, putting the country on the road to economic ruin. Until that changes, the state of the union will never be good, and the presidential State Of The Union message will be a partisan, spin-filled crock.

But first…last night at the Q…Cavaliers 93, Lakers 87. Yes !!! That's two wins in a row over the defending NBA champion Lakers, and the Cavs did it without all-star point guard Mo Williams, who is out with a shoulder injury. Lebron rules, throwing down 37 points along with 9 assists. Get well, Mojo. Go Cavs ! (Box score)
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The Supreme Court made a ruling yesterday on a major free speech case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Here are the facts of the case, as described by The CATO Institute:

Citizens United, a nonprofit political advocacy group, produced a film called "Hillary: The Movie" about the current Secretary of State, who at the time was a presidential candidate. The movie did not reflect well on Ms. Clinton but did not explicitly advocate her defeat in the 2008 presidential contest. Citizens United planned to show the film in theatres, sell it as a DVD, and make it available on-demand on cable TV. The group also planned to run ads marketing the movie.

In a free country with freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in reading the above it seems obvious that Citizens United should have the free speech right to produce, air, advertise, and distribute their film. After all, we don't ban films, books, etc. in this country, do we ? We especially don't ban films, books, etc. that contain political speech, because free political speech is what the First Amendment is there to protect.

So, Citizens United aired and advertised their film in this free country with free speech rights, no problem at all. That has to be correct, right ???

Nope. Incorrect. It was illegal for Citizens United to air their film in the United States at the time Citizens United wanted to air it. Here's the reason, from the same CATO Institute article:

Citizens United knew, however, that distributing the movie—or even running ads for it!—was illegal under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform." That is, part of McCain-Feingold prohibited advertising about candidates funded by corporations or labor unions during primaries and general elections.

But Citizens United is a corporation—that it's a nonprofit doesn't matter—Hillary Clinton was a candidate, and the movie most definitely discussed the merits of her candidacy. Showing the movie and even advertising it would thus be illegal unless the courts invalided the relevant section of McCain-Feingold as a violation of the First Amendment (as the Supreme Court already has with several other parts of the law).

Clearly, parts of McCain-Feingold infringed upon the free exercise of political speech. This isn't a new thing, however. There is a reason for it, and here it is:

The courts have long upheld campaign finance regulations as a way to prevent corruption (or the appearance of corruption) in elections. Contributors to campaigns might buy favors from candidates once they are in office, for example, so contribution limits are supposed to deter such exchanges.

Limits on campaign contributions from corporations were designed to prevent corporations (or other large groups, such as unions) from "buying" elections and corrupting the political process. Advocates of McCain-Feingold might say, 'yes, we infringe upon free speech, but we do it for a good cause.' If a regular person like you or I can afford to donate $100 to a political campaign, while the Mega-Bucks Corporation can donate $5 million, guess who is going to get influence with that politician ? As they say, money talks.

That's the case that went before the Supreme Court.

An important point here is, Citizens United wasn't making political contributions to any campaign. They just wanted to advertise and air their film. Should they, as a corporation, have that right, even though the film contained political content ? I say, of course they should have the right. After all, other corporations are free to air political content 365 days per year, 24 hours per day, with no restrictions whatsover. We call them newspapers, television stations, radio stations, etc. Why should only media corporations be entitled to uninfringed free political speech ? What makes them special ? It's also obvious that different media corporations contain different biases. Compare Fox News to MS-NBC, for example. Vastly different. In addition, some media corporations are owned by non-media corporations. NBC, for example, is owned by General Electric, so you could say GE has unfettered rights to political speech, while other corporations like Citizens United do not. How can that possibly be considered fair or right ? It's an extremely unlevel playing field, saying THIS corporation has free speech rights, while THAT corporation does not.

Further, is it even the province of the government to create a level playing field for political speech or for political contributions ? In doing so, the government would by definition limit political speech, our most important civil right. Free speech with accompanying government regulation of political speech is a contradiction in terms. It invalidates the First Amendment.

Another aspect of McCain-Feingold to consider is this – corporations and other organized groups still donate massive amounts of cash to political campaigns, about $1 billion in the last election cycle. They just don't do it directly. They get around McCain-Feingold restrictions through PAC's, 501's, etc.

Faced with this decision, the Supreme Court ruled correctly in favor of free speech, but amazingly, it was only a 5-4 decision. The liberal wing of the court (Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, Sotomayor) all ruled against free speech, against Citizens United being able to air and advertise their film. In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy said "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits jailing citizens for engaging in political speech." It doesn't get much clearer than that, but the liberal wing of the court voted instead for censorship. They voted, in essence, to ban books. Unbelievable. In the dissenting opinion, Justic Stevens wrote the following:

The real issue in this case concerns how, not if, the appellant may finance its electioneering. Citizens United is a wealthy nonprofit corporation that runs a political action committee (PAC) with millions of dollars in assets. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), it could have used those assets to televise and promote Hillary: The Movie wherever and whenever it wanted to. It also could have spent unrestricted sums to broadcast Hillary at any time other than the 30 daysbefore the last primary election. Neither Citizens United’s nor any other corporation’s speech has been “banned,” ante, at 1. All that the parties dispute is whether CitizensUnited had a right to use the funds in its general treasury to pay for broadcasts during the 30-day period. The notion that the First Amendment dictates an affirmative answer to that question is, in my judgment, profoundly misguided.

Stevens' opinion, in short, is complete horsecrap. It isn't free speech if the government dictates when you can exercise it. To hold with Stevens, we'd also have to take MS-NBC and Fox News off the air for 30 days before the election. The NY Times would have to stop publishing political stories for 30 days before the election. No newspaper could endorse a candidate. Basically everyone in the media would have to shut up about politics during the most important political days we have, if Stevens' rationale was accepted and equally applied.

An important distinction here is that the Supreme Court only struck down the McCain-Feingold limits on independent expenditures (such as Citizens United's film). They did not strike down limits on campaign contributions, even though many media outlets are reporting it as if they had.

Read the Supreme Court opinion here.

Our Supreme Court Justices are very learned people. They come from the finest schools and study for years and years to master the law. They work their way up through the legal system, and these "best of the best" reach the pinnacle of their profession in order to decide the most difficult and pressing legal issues of the day…

Like whether a cross should be allowed to stand on a rocky outcrop in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free.

The ACLU says no, and lower courts have agreed. I guess one painted cross in the middle of nowhere means we are a theocratic state, like Iran. The ACLU thinks such things because they are such reasonable people.

Here's a photo of the offending cross. (Warning – the religious content may cause small children to go blind or start speaking in tongues.)

I apologize for subjecting you to such offensive imagery, and I sincerely hope it caused no permanent scars. I wish I could have shown you a Mapplethorpe crucifix in a jar of urine instead, something, you know, "artistic."

The offensive cross pictured above is so offensive that it's been covered up for the last few years. Here's what the offensive cross has looked like recently.

There, that's better. Now the cross looks more like a billboard. Nothing is more American than a billboard (which reminds me, please keep shopping to help us out of the recession.) Maybe we can get a Mapplethorpe-like "artist" to paint a picture of a cross in jar of urine on the blank billboard-cross that stands in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free. The ACLU wouldn't object to that. The ACLU would defend that. That's because the ACLU is filled with very reasonable folks. They are looking out for your freedoms by, um, censoring stuff.

The problem with the offensive cross is that it is on federal land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert. Because federal land is not like regular land, federal land has certain conditions. I know federal land looks just like regular land, consisting of dirt, rocks, bushes, and stuff, but it's not. Federal land is very special land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free. You can tell federal land is not the same as regular land because it has the word "federal" attached right to it. That makes it sacred land. Strike that. The word "sacred" is also probably offensive when speaking of federal land. Federal land is too special to be referred to as sacred.

We can't allow this one cross to remain on very special federal land in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free, because it could have very serious negative consequences, like this:

The above offensive crosses are on federal land at the Arlington National Cemetery. Somebody better alert the ACLU to this outrage. Personally, I can't wait for the ACLU to try to take on Arlington. Why they are messing around with one trivial cross in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert here in the land of the free is beyond me. Why go for that one cross when the motherload is right outside of Washington D.C. ? C'mon ACLU, man up. Go after Arlington. I dare you.

Certain things defy explanation. For example, Bill Ayers went from being a domestic terrorist bomber for the Weathermen to being a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Chicago-Illinois. There is no rational explanation for how that happens, for how a radical like Ayers gets in a position to shape impressionable young minds when his proper place in society should be behind bars. It boggles the mind. There is a sense of unreality about it.

I had the same sense of unreality when I saw Al "Stuart Smalley" Franken (D-MN) sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the Sotomayor hearings. Stuart Smalley is the Distinguished Gentleman from Minnesota now. How did that happen ? How did Minnesotans decide Stuart was good enough, smart enough, and that, doggone-it, they liked him ? Some Republicans will tell you that Franken didn't really win the Minnesota election, and that IS a source of controversy (Minnesota counties didn't all use the same standard for accepting or rejecting ballots. We don't really know who won), but that's not the real reason Franken is in Congress today. The real reason Franken won with just under 42% of the popular vote is that three other candidates from three other parties (Independence, Libertarian, Constitutional) split off about 459,000 votes from the Democrats and Republicans. If not for the third parties, the vast majority of those votes would have been cast for Franken's opponent, Norm Coleman, giving him an easy victory. A substantial majority of Minnesotans (over 58%) did NOT vote for Stuart Smalley, which gives me a degree of comfort regarding the collective sanity of that state. I mean, you can convince 42% of Americans of almost anything. You can even convince them that Barack Obama is doing a good job of handling the economy, though the reality is, he's doing his level best to destroy it (tax increases, massive government expansion, anti-business policies, anti-free market policies, and anti-growth policies in the midst of the worst recession in nearly 70 years). There's a sense of unreality about that too. I feel like I'm watching the socialist endgame unfold right before my eyes.

But it is what it is, and now we have Stuart Smalley in the Senate. During the Sotomayor hearings, I found myself wondering how Franken got appointed to the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law. None whatsoever. He was a poli-sci major at Harvard. After that, he was a comedian and a radio talk show host (and a failed one at that). How did he get the appointment ? Granted, the Sotomayor hearings were a joke, but I still don't think that's any reason to put a comedian on the Judiciary Committee.

Luckily for us, Senator Franken himself revealed why he was on the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law, but, doggone-it, he watched Perry Mason on television when he was a kid. Every episode, apparently, because Franken knew that Perry Mason only lost one case during his distinguished imaginary legal career (though he couldn't remember which one). Watch the following video to see how Stuart Saves The Senate:

I look forward to lots of yuks for the next four years. Too bad the joke's on us. Maybe we should elect Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to the Senate next, being the serious country that we are.

Back to Obama's war on the economy – It seems the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office isn't buying Obama's inane claim that ObamaCare will result in a net cost savings. The CBO knows that is exactly the opposite of the truth. The CBO also knows ObamaCare will not address the long-term unfunded entitlement liabilities, as the President has suggested:

Sen. Kent Conrad: Dr. Elmendorf, I am going to really put you on the spot because we are in the middle of this health care debate, but it is critically important that we get this right. Everyone has said, virtually everyone, that bending the cost curve over time is critically important and one of the key goals of this entire effort. From what you have seen from the products of the committees that have reported, do you see a successful effort being mounted to bend the long-term cost curve?

Doug Elmendorf, Director of the CBO: No, Mr. Chairman. In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Conrad: So the cost curve in your judgement is being bent, but it is being bent the wrong way. Is that correct?

Elmendorf: The way I would put it is that the curve is being raised, so there is a justifiable focus on growth rates because of course it is the compounding of growth rates faster than the economy that leads to these unsustainable paths. But it is very hard to look out over a very long term and say very accurate things about growth rates. So most health experts that we talk with focus particularly on what is happening over the next 10 or 20 years, still a pretty long time period for projections, but focus on the next 10 or 20 years and look at whether efforts are being made that are bringing costs down or pushing costs up over that period.

As we wrote in our letter to you and Senator Gregg, the creation of a new subsidy for health insurance, which is a critical part of expanding health insurance coverage in our judgement, would by itself increase the federal responsibility for health care that raises federal spending on health care. It raises the amount of activity that is growing at this unsustainable rate and to offset that there has to be very substantial reductions in other parts of the federal commitment to health care, either on the tax revenue side through changes in the tax exclusion or on the spending side through reforms in Medicare and Medicaid. Certainly reforms of that sort are included in some of the packages, and we are still analyzing the reforms in the House package. Legislation was only released as you know two days ago. But changes we have looked at so far do not represent the fundamental change on the order of magnitude that would be necessary to offset the direct increase in federal health costs from the insurance coverage proposals.

On the bright side, ObamaCare will result in more health care bureaucracy and less choice. Maybe Senator Franken can help with this issue as well. I hear he used to watch Dr. Kildare on television when he was a kid.

As with the stimulus, Obama is pushing Congress to ram the health care bill through quickly (before people find out what's in it) Here's Obama:

“This progress should make us hopeful, but it can't make us complacent. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess."

As a general principle, isn't it better to get something done RIGHT, as opposed to getting it done QUICK, especially with something as big and consequential as health care ? If the stimulus bill misfire (only 10% of the funds spent in 5 months) taught us anything, it should have taught us that. Obama continually pretends that the sky is going to fall if his policies aren't implemented immediately or sooner. It won't. The only reasons to rush a health care bill through Congress without thinking the issues through are political ones, so Obama can claim "victory." We don't need his victory. We need good health care solutions.

The Senate formally apologized for slavery yesterday, one hundred and forty four years too late, one hundred and forty four years after slavery was abolished.

Do we all feel better now ? A bunch of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery have apologized for it. Now we know that America doesn't condone slavery (and here I thought the Civil War settled that issue). Thank goodness. All those American pro-slavery groups can go pound salt. If there are any, that is, which there aren't (I hope).

But even the Senate's unaminous and meaningless kumbayah vote to apologize for slavery isn't without controversy here in grievance-based America, where it seems everyone feels slighted over something. The Senate's slavery apology contained a disclaimer which stated the apology didn't authorize any reparations claim for the descendants of slaves.

Cue the outrage. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to the reparations disclaimer.

Sigh.

To be clear, I believe reparations for slavery were in order, but they were in order 144 YEARS AGO, not now. They were in order for people who actually WERE slaves. There are no reparations in order for people who are six or seven generations removed from slavery, for people who have the same civil rights as everyone else, for people who even have MORE civil rights than everyone else (affirmative action). I agree with President Obama, who said the best reparations are "good schools in the inner city." Obama embodies the lunacy of the reparations argument. Should we pay reparations to Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, just because his skin contains the required amount of melanin ? I don't think so.

As I'm writing this, there are some teevee talking heads arguing about whether or not the coverage of Michael Jackson's death is motivated by race. One talking head is saying it is, that the media is talking about all Jackson's drug use because he is black.

Sigh.

That talking head must not remember the teevee coverage of the deaths of Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, or Elvis Presley. The media wallowed in all the minutiae of each one's drug use, ad nauseum. It's about celebrity, not race.

Speaking of race-based issues, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court ruling in the Ricci case, and ruled that New Haven discriminated against 19 firefighters (18 white and 1 hispanic) when they threw out the results of a promotion test because no blacks scored high enough to be promoted. New Haven officials were afraid of protests by civil rights groups if no blacks were promoted, so they discriminated against the 19 firefighters and denied them the promotions they earned. As with so many of these types of cases, the Supreme Court vote was split. The 5-4 majority decision was resisted by the Court's four liberal members (who think discrimination is fine and dandy as long as it's done against white people). Of note is the fact that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was one of those overturned by the Supremes. As one of the appellate court judges, Sotomayor thought discrimination against white people was hunky-dory in the Ricci case too.

Your going to hears lots of grievance-mongering and spin about the Ricci case, but there is no reason for any of it. This country was founded on the notion that all men are created equal, and equal protection under the law is mandated in our Constitution. We have a Civil Rights Act that says you may not discriminate against people based upon race. That goes for ALL races. That's why slavery and Jim Crow laws were wrong. All we should do in this country is give everyone the same opportunity (as in, all the New Haven firefighters had the SAME opportunity for promotion, regardless of race. They all took the same test. That's equality). When we go beyond that to dictate outcomes based solely upon race, we violate our own principles and make a mockery of them.

It's time to get beyond race, as well as all the other false constructs that divide us. I've watched the civil rights movement go from one of righteousness in the 60's to the "gimme" entitlement mindset of today. No. You aren't entitled to anything in this country, except the equal opportunity to achieve or fail. After that, it's up to you, no matter who you are.

To all Republicans in Congress who are afraid to oppose Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor because she is a Latina….

Are you kidding me ?!?! Grow a pair.

Sotomayor's ethnicity has nothing to do with her qualifications (or lack thereof) for the Supreme Court. Sure, the Democrats will play the race card (as they always do) if you oppose her, but those same Democrats had no problem opposing a Latino Bush nominee, Miguel Estrada, to the D.C. Appeals Court in 2001. The Democrats filibustered Estrada's nomination, and Sotomayor's own legal group helped sink Estrada. Somehow, the Democrats opposition to Estrada didn't alienate the entire Hispanic vote, which is what some GOP wimps fear if they oppose Sotomayor.

I'm not even saying Sotomayor shouldn't be confirmed. It's too early to make that judgement, but, as I outlined in a previous post, there are some significant questions that must be asked of Sotomayor during her confirmation hearings, and if Republicans don't ask them, nobody will.

The Washington Examiner describes the alleged "box" the GOP is in regarding Sotomayor:

Some Republican operatives fear that GOP senators will dig through Sotomayor’s past but do little about it during the nomination hearings out of fear that heavy criticism will paint them as insensitive. Sessions in particular has a problem. He lost his 1986 bid to become a federal judge after Judiciary Committee Democrats accused him of being a racist, citing past statements about the American Civil Liberties Union and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Democrats and especially the liberal blogosphere are watching Sessions closely, looking for any move they could label a racial attack, and their scrutiny could undermine his ability to go after Sotomayor on her record.

“Unless a shoe drops, I think there will be limited discussion and then her nomination will pass,” one GOP operative said.

Complicating matters for the GOP is that Sotomayor is not just a minority, she is Hispanic. Hispanics represent a fast-growing segment of voters whom Republicans hope to win over.

“Republicans want to placate their base, but they aren’t going to want to alienate Hispanics,” Soper said.

What a crock that is. What, because Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions was accused of being a racist by Democrats 23 years ago, now Sotomayor gets a free pass, even though Sotomayor has made her own race-based comments that need further clarification ? I don't think so.

For whatever reason, the Republicans have never confronted Democratic Supreme Court nominees with the same level of bloodlust in which Democrats have gone after Republican nominees (think Robert Bork or Clarence Thomas). Bork's nomination was so hostile that it even gave rise to a new verb – to get "borked." It's worth listening to "Liberal Lion" Ted Kennedy's disgusting attack on Bork one more time:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy… President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Democrats are even warning Republicans not to go after Sotomayor, she of the inspiring story, who went from a Bronx housing project to the Supreme Court. President Obama referred to Sotomayor's "extraordinary journey," as if she is Sojourner Truth or something. Do you remember anyone ever talking about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas like that ? Thomas journey was every bit as extraordinary as Sotomayor's, if not more so. Here's a bit of it:

Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small, impoverished African American community. His family are descendents of American Slaves in the American South. His father left his family when he was two years old. After a house fire left them homeless, Thomas and his younger brother Myers were taken to Savannah, Georgia, where their mother worked as a domestic employee. Thomas' sister Emma stayed behind with relatives in Pin Point.

When Thomas was 7, the family moved in with his maternal grandfather, Myers Anderson, and Anderson's wife, Christine, in Savannah. Anderson had little formal education, but had built a fuel oil business that also sold ice. Thomas calls his grandfather "the greatest man I have ever known." When Thomas was 10, Anderson started taking the family to help at a farm every day from sunrise to sunset. His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance; he would counsel Thomas to "never let the sun catch you in bed."

Yet, the centerpiece of the Thomas confirmation hearings was a pubic hair in a Coca-Cola, because, you know, you can't have an inspirational story if you're a conservative. If you're a conservative, you get the "high-tech lynching of a black man."

Republicans have to get over this fear of being called racists, especially when it's coming from loons, such as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who said the following about Republican opposition to Sotomayor:

"I think that she’s [Sotomayor] going to have to defend everything that Republicans choose to attack her on, that’s the nature of the adversarial process at this point. In fact I think that it is, it’s rich to have Rush Limbaugh, he of Barack The Magic Negro fame, attacking people for being racists at this point. I mean, certainly the attack on Sotomayor, to the extend that it is based on her race, to the extent that the attacks on her are based on the idea that she was an affirmative action choice – I think that’s probably the weakest ammunition they’re going to have against her. I mean you don’t get to be summa cum laude at Princeton on the basis of some sort of favoritism, you don’t get to be Phi Beta Kappa on the basis of somebody trying to do you a favor or trying to redress some past wrong. So if they want to lead with attacking her on the basis of race and affirmative action, I think it means she’s going to have a pretty easy confirmation process."

Notice how Maddow erects a straw man by saying Republicans will attack Sotomayor based upon her race, when, of course, Republicans will do no such thing. Republicans don't care about Sotomayor's race any more than they cared about the race of Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Michael Steele, or a host of others. It appears only liberal nutjobs like Rachel Maddow care about race, and who fricking cares what they think ???? The race card is about the sorriest card in the deck these days.

To the fearful GOP'ers – do your job and ask the tough questions. You don't have to act like the vile Ted Kennedy did with Bork, but this is important. A Supreme Court nomination is for LIFE. You don't get any do overs.

There's something about the notion of liberal judges versus conservative judges that has always bothered me. I was taught that justice is blind, which means justice should be neither liberal nor conservative. Justice should be neutral on political matters. Justice should apply the law. When politicians like President Obama start saying they want judges with empathy for certain groups of people, we are being led astray. I know I wouldn't want to stand in front of a judge with empathy for groups A and B if I was a member of group C. In such a scenario, I'm pretty sure that justice is not what I would get. In such a scenario, a kangaroo court is much more likely. I don't want a judge who is a liberal activist or a conservative activist. I don't want a judge who is trying to fix all the problems of society. That is not the role of a judge.

I don't want a judge who says things like the following, which were said by Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor:

"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."

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

"All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made."

Judges should not make policy, and the law doesn't change based upon your gender, race, or cultural background. The law exists outside those things, and should be equally applied. Judge Sotomayor says she has great respect for the Constitution, as all Supreme Court justices should, but there is one recent decision she made where she didn't apply any Constitutional principles at all. In fact, she completely ignored them. That case was Ricci v. DeStefano, where Sotomayor upheld a lower court ruling dismissing a racial discrimination claim. Here are the facts:

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, voted to deny a racial discrimination claim in a 2008 decision. She dismissed the case in a one-paragraph statement that, in the opinion of one dissenting judge, ignored the evidence and did not even address the constitutional issues raised by the case.

The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, involved a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who filed suit in 2003 claiming that the city of New Haven, Conn., engaged in racial discrimination when it threw out the results of two promotion tests because none of the city’s black applicants had passed the tests.

Each of the plaintiffs had passed the exam. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The city threw out the results because it feared potential lawsuits from activist groups if few or no minority candidates were promoted. The city also claimed that in addition to potential lawsuits, promotions based on the test results would undermine their goal of diversity in the Fire Department.

The firefighters sued, arguing that New Haven was discriminating against them by deciding that the tests would promote too many white candidates and too few minorities.

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor issued an order that affirmed Arterton’s decision, issuing a one-paragraph judgment that called Arterton’s ruling “thorough, thoughtful, and well reasoned.”

But according to dissenting Judge Jose Cabranes, the single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument–ignoring the facts of the case.

“(T)he parties submitted briefs of 86 pages each and a six-volume joint appendix of over 1,800 pages; plaintiffs’ reply brief was over thirty pages long," Cabranes wrote.

"(O)ral argument, on December 10, 2007, lasted over an hour,” Cabranes explained, adding that more than two months after oral arguments, Sotomayor and the majority panel upheld the lower court in a summary order “containing a single substantive paragraph.”

Cabranes criticized Sotomayor and the majority for not explaining why they had sided with the city in their new opinion.

“This per curiam opinion adopted in toto the reasoning of the District Court, without further elaboration or substantive comment, and thereby converted a lengthy, unpublished district court opinion, grappling with significant constitutional and statutory claims of first impression, into the law of this Circuit,” Cabranes wrote in his dissent.

Judge Cabranes also said that Sotomayor’s opinion failed to address the constitutional issues of the case, saying the majority had ignored the facts of the case as well.

“It did so, moreover, in an opinion that lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal. Indeed, the opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case,” the judge criticized.

“This Court has failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal,” Judge Cabranes concluded. “If the Ricci plaintiffs are to receive such an opinion from a reviewing court they must now look to the Supreme Court. Their claims are worthy of that review.”

To me, this looks like Sotomayor had empathy for one group, but no empathy at all for another group, the plaintiffs. It looks like Sotomayor's brand of "justice" takes off the blindfold and evaluates the worth of one person relative to another. It looks like Sotomayor wasn't even thinking about the merits of the case at all, only with the implications it might have for Sotomayor's preferred groups of people in the future. I wonder if those 19 New Haven firefighters are impressed by Sotomayor's brand of empathy.

The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Sotomayor on this case.

Baffle 'em with you-know-what.

If Washington D.C. has a credo, that must surely be it. The media isn't far behind.

But before I get into that, I'd like to take a moment to thank President Obama for saving us all from last week's swine flu pandemic (worldwide epidemic). Just think, if Bush was still the President, we'd probably all be dead now. Plus, Obama saved the country for the bargain basement price of $1.5 billion, which hasn't even been spent yet. Oh man, that Obama is GOOD.

The media was speculating today that the recession has bottomed out, because we only LOST 539,000 jobs in April. This rosy optimism came because the experts had predicted job losses of over 600,000. The media left out that the government hired 66,000 people to do the census, and the government hired many others as well (which accounts for almost the entire difference between the projections and the actual job numbers). Those government jobs are all on the taxpayer dime, of course, and add nothing to economic growth. The private sector is still hemorrhaging jobs as fast as ever, but I guess the media is looking for something positive to hand their hat on, because Obama is the president now, and that means CHANGE has come. Call me crazy, but I'll say the recession is over when we start CREATING jobs instead of losing them. The media's optimism comes in spite of the fact that GDP shrunk by 6.1% in the first quarter, and that we're $11 trillion in debt, and that we'll be running a $1.8 trillion deficit this year, and that we have massive deficits projected as far as the eye can see, and that Obama is projected to double the national debt in four years and triple it in eight years, and that unemployment is 8.9%, the highest in 25 years, and that we had a Treasury bond auction with demand so weak that we had to pay higher interest rates just to continue selling our long-term debt (which will raise Obama's deficit and debt projections even higher), and that our industrial base is vanishing, and that what's left of it is collapsing, and that we have massive unfunded entitlement liabilities looming on the horizon (growing at the rate of $2 trillion yearly), and that most of our state governments are broke, and that many banks failed the stress tests (they need $75 billion more bailout dollars, with more surely to come), and that credit still isn't flowing after $700 billion spent on TARP, and that companies all across the country are cutting back the hours of the workers they are retaining, and that if you add the folks who have fallen off the unemployment rolls to the unemployed numbers, unemployment comes out close to 15%, and that the federal government is spending dollars it doesn't have at an all-time record pace, and that the government is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, and that the government has committed a total of $12 trillion thus far in fighting the recession, and that on top of that, Obama wants to raise energy prices through the roof and create lots more entitlements…………

I guess other than that, happy days are here again.

Oh yeah, and we're still fighting two wars, Obama has no idea what to do with the Gitmo prisoners, we're funneling money to Hamas, we're pondering whether to charge Bushco with war crimes, Pelosi's STILL lying about her knowledge of waterboarding even after the leaked CIA information proves she lied her butt off, Obama is looking for a Supreme Court Justice who is "empathetic" to certain groups as opposed to one who follows the law, the price index is rising in while we're in the depths of recession, Iran is almost certain to have nuclear weapons soon, the Pakistan government is in jeopardy (and Pakistan has nukes, which just maybe could be a problem if the Taliban gets their hands on)…

But other than that, everything's coming up roses.

Plus, Obama cut $17 billion from the budget. Golf clap for Obama. What the media left out of that story was that Obama isn't reducing the deficit by that $17 billion, oh no, he's going to use that money for OTHER government programs, so the net savings to taxpayers is ZERO. This is what passes for fiscal responsibility in the new Obama CHANGE era.

But it's all good. Thar's a new sheriff in town, and he reads that thar teleprompter REAL good.

Never mind that in order to avert fiscal armaggedon, Obama is going to have to come up with a tax increase of proportions never before contemplated in this country's history. By my reckoning, it will have to be at least $2 trillion per year to cover the deficits, interest on the debt, and the unfunded entitlements. It's either that or make drastic government spending cuts, and you know our new sheriff ain't 'bout to do that. Only them thar rightwing extremist fellas talk that kind o' crazy talk.

Welcome to the age of universal government.

I've gone on several rants on this blog previously about what a Ponzi scheme Social Security is. I now realize I've been thinking too small. It isn't just SS that is a Ponzi scheme. It's our entire federal government, and that Ponzi scheme is unraveling. The new funds required from the taxpayers can no longer keep up with the demand for funds the federal government requires. Like all Ponzi schemes, even one on as grand a scale as our government, it is destined to collapse.

But remember, put your hand over your mouth when you cough, and wash your hands frequently. Then everything should be fine.

We might as well elect this guy.

But first, a joke:

"President Bush blasted Congress for not allowing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Democrats said it wouldn’t do any good, because it wouldn’t produce oil for 10 years. You know, the same thing they said 10 years ago." – Jay Leno

That joke is funny until you really think about the ramifications of all these years of inaction on ANWR and other domestic oil and energy production that has been blocked by the Democrats. Thanks for nothing, Dems. Hope you're happy now. What's that you always say about helping the little guy ? We don't need your kind of help.
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Barack Obama's criteria for selecting Supreme Court Justices displays a serious lack of knowledge of how our system of government works. Obama would turn the judicial branch into a legislative branch who would judge cases according to "social and economic justice", as opposed to the rule of law. The following exchange between Megyn Kelly of Fox News and Rudy Giuliani captures the essence of it:

KELLY: It's funny you should mention that, Mr. Mayor, because Barack Obama in a statement responding to John McCain's point today said and I quote, "Barack Obama has always believed that our court should stand up for social and economic justice, and what's truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves."

[Giuliani starts laughing]

KELLY: Why the laughter?

GIULIANI: Well, the laughter because that is not what a judge in the American legal system is supposed to do. That is not a really responsible definition of a judge. The judge is supposed to interpret the law. And the law is written by other people. It's written by members of the Congress. It's written by framers of the Constitution. It's written by the people when they amend the Constitution.

And then a judge has to have a certain, I would say, dedication to trying to interpret what other people mean and sometimes cannot put their social views into action. This is a very fair issue. John McCain would appoint judges who are more, I would call, originalists in terms of trying to define the meaning that other people had.

I think Senator Obama has made the case very strongly that John McCain has made that, he will appoint social activist judges, judges who tend to try to solve social problems rather than trying to figure out what does the law mean?

KELLY: Yes. Remember Mr. Mayor, during the confirmation hearings for Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the Democratic senators asked him, "Will you stand up for the little guy?" And he said, "Only if the little guy deserves to win under the law."

GIULIANI: Of course. It's not about – this isn't about little guy, big guy, small guy or a large guy, it's about the law. It's about what's fair, what's just, what is the law say. A judge is the interpreter of the law in the American legal system, not someone who creates it.

KELLY: Let me ask you.

GIULIANI: If you end up — if you end up making a judge of somebody who creates the law, then you've made a judge into a legislator, and you really have totally distorted our separation of powers.

The President Of The United States must swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Obama has clearly stated here that he would not do so, and instead would seek to overturn the rule of law by appointing Justices who would judge cases based upon the social and economic status of the participants rather than the application of the law. This would undermine our entire Justice system, and subvert the power of the Legislative branch as well.

I know Obama supporters are more interested in those words 'hope' and 'change' than anything else, but this position of Barack Obama's should disqualify him from being the President. This is government 101, and Obama either doesn't understand it or intentionally wants to destroy it. Either way, it's entirely unacceptable.

YES WE CAN [say 'NO' to this fool]. This story should be ALL OVER the media airwaves, because it affects every american and our entire system of government. This is an issue that people SHOULD care about. We can't afford to let the Left hijack our system of justice in this way. On an importance scale from 1 to 10, this is a 10. We can't let Obama lead this undermining 'change'. Some change is bad, and this change would be very bad indeed.

Anyone who disagrees, please go read a textbook on America's system of government, asap. This is a public service announcement.

I'm sick of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright being all over the news. The racist old fool has already gotten far more air time than he deserves, so I'm not going to bother getting into Wright's latest rounds of silliness and nonsense with Bill "Neville" Moyers and the National Press Club. Hatemongers shouldn't get this much free publicity. Hatemongers shouldn't be treated as if they have legitimacy.

Instead, I'll just ask a simple question.

If John McCain attended the Rev. David Duke's church for 20 years, and Timothy McVeigh hosted a fundraiser for McCain at McVeigh's house (assuming McVeigh hadn't already taken the down elevator to his special place in hell), would anybody vote for John McCain ?

Not a chance.

So, why are people still voting for Barack Obama ?

As Obama himself has said repeatedly, judgement counts. Indeed, judgement is paramount. Obama has displayed very poor judgement.
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The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of voter id law in Indiana by a vote of 6-3 (I can't imagine what those 3 justices in the minority were thinking). Of course voter id law is constitutional. This one wasn't even a close call for the Supremes. Republicans applauded the decision, saying it will reduce voter fraud, while Democrats said it squelches their long and storied history of voter fraud keeps the poor and elderly from voting.

In a related story, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the requirement to buy rods, reels, and bait places an undue burden on the people when it comes to fishing. Justice David Souter enthusiastically agreed, adding that the requirement for oars also places on undue burden on rowboaters. The ACLU is expected to bring lawsuits against fishing and boating manufacturers shortly. "It's an issue of social justice," added candidate Barack Obama.

Alright, maybe I made that last paragraph up, but it still sounds about right to me.
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Speaking of the Supreme Court and "social justice," get a load of Obama's qualification list for appointing justices to the Court:

Obama opined that deciding the "truly difficult" cases requires resort to "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." In short, "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.

Obama has explicitly declared: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old–and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges."

As the Weekly Standard so very correctly observed, you couldn't have a broader call for lawless judicial activism than what Obama has just described there. The Supreme Court is supposed to be a dispassionate interpreter of the U.S. Constitution. Obama openly seeks to turn the Court into a political instrument of social justice. Heaven help us if this man becomes president.

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account." –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823

It sounds like Thomas Jefferson was against activist judges in 1823. So is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was interviewed by Lesley Stahl of CBS on 60 Minutes. Scalia also doesn't care for the phrase "living Constitution," preferring instead the concept of "originalism", which is the interpretation of the Constitution as written and intended by those who wrote it.

Scalia supplies the reasoning:

"It is an enduring Constitution that I want to defend," [Scalia] says.

"But what you're saying is, let's try to figure out the mindset of people back 200 years ago? Right?" Stahl asks.

"Well, it isn't the mindset. It's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution," Scalia says.

"As opposed to what people today think it means," Stahl asks.

"As opposed to what people today would like," Scalia says.

"But you do admit that values change? We do adapt. We move," Stahl asks.

"That's fine. And so do laws change. Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want, abolish laws against homosexual conduct. That's how the change in a society occurs. Society doesn't change through a Constitution," Scalia argues.

He's on a mission as an evangelist for originalism, at home and around the world.

For example, he visited the Oxford Union in England.

"Sometimes people come up to me and inquire, 'Justice Scalia, when did you first become an originalist?' As though it's some weird affliction, you know, 'When did you start eating human flesh?'" Scalia told students, who replied with laughter.

They may be laughing, but in the U.S. Scalia is a polarizing figure who invites protestors and picketers. There haven't been many Supreme Court justices who become this much of a lightening rod.

"I’m surprised at how many people really, really hate you. These are some things we've been told: 'He’s evil.' 'He's a Neanderthal.' 'He’s going to drag us back to 1789.' They're threatened by what you represent and what you believe in," Stahl remarks.

"These are people that don't understand what my interpretive philosophy is. I'm not saying no progress. I'm saying we should progress democratically," Scalia says.

Back at the Oxford Union, Scalia told the students, "You think there ought to be a right to abortion? No problem. The Constitution says nothing about it. Create it the way most rights are created in a democratic society. Pass a law. And that law, unlike a Constitutional right to abortion created by a court can compromise. It can…I was going to say it can split the baby! I should not use… A Constitution is not meant to facilitate change. It is meant to impede change, to make it difficult to change."

The most important words in the above exchange were Scalia saying, "I'm saying we should progress democratically." The Supreme Court is not the lawmaking branch of government (or at least it shouldn't be). Laws regarding abortion and gay marriage should be decided by the people, not by 9 black robes. If the people want to amend the Constitution to reflect changing values, then they can amend it (with great care), but don't use the Supreme Court as an end run around the legislative process.

This should not be a conservative vs. liberal matter (even though it seems to be). This should be a matter of understanding the role of the Court and understanding what it's limitations are supposed to be.

Naturally, during the Scalia interview, the topic of the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court ruling came up.

"You wanna talk about Bush versus Gore. I perceive that," [Scalia] replied. "I and my court owe no apology whatever for Bush versus Gore. We did the right thing. So there!"

"People say that that decision was not based on judicial philosophy but on politics," Stahl asks.

"I say nonsense," Scalia says.

Was it political?

"Gee, I really don’t wanna get into – I mean this is – get over it. It's so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn't even close. The vote was seven to two," Scalia says.

(CBS) Moreover, he says it was not the court that made this a judicial question.

"It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question. It was he who brought it into the Florida courts. We didn't go looking for trouble. It was he who said, 'I want this to be decided by the courts.' What are we supposed to say? 'Oh, not important enough,'" Scalia jokes.

"It ended up being a political decision" Stahl points out.

"Well you say that. I don't say that," Scalia replies.

"You don’t think it handed the election to George Bush?" Stahl asks.

"Well how does that make it a political decision?" Scalia asks.

"It decided the election," Stahl says.

"If that’s all you mean by it, yes," Scalia says.

"That’s all I mean by it," Stahl says.

"Oh, ok. I suppose it did. Although you should add to that that it would have come out the same way, no matter what," Scalia says.

Somehow, I don't think Democrats have gotten over it, but Scalia is correct, they should. There was only one decision to make, and the Court made the right one.

I don't always agree with Scalia. I think his logic on cruel and unusual punishment as pertaining to torture is, well, tortured. But I agree with Scalia more often than I do most of the other Supremes. Anyway, read the interview. At the very least you should find it interesting.

There is a case about Indiana voter ID law coming before the Supreme Court. Under voter ID legislation, voters would have to show proper photo ID in order to vote. Conservatives generally support this law, saying that it will reduce voter fraud. Liberals generally oppose the law, claiming that voter fraud is their constitutional right.

Okay, liberals don't actually cop to their intent to perpetrate fraud. Instead, they dream up illogical and imaginary arguments to oppose voter ID, like the one NY Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse gave to PBS host Gwen Ifill on the program Washington Week In Review. TimesWatch has the story. Following is an excerpt:

Gwen Ifill: "What is objectionable about that (Voter ID) ? It doesn't seem unreasonable on its face."

Greenhouse: "Well, what's objectionable about it is what kinds of IDs are people likely to have? If it's state issued, it's a driver's license — not everybody has one. If it's federally issued, it's a passport. There's not a photo on your Social Security card. There's not a photo. So the disparate impact of a law like this falls on the elderly, the poor, people with disabilities, and so on. And the Indiana law is a tough one. If you show up without the requisite ID you can cast a provisional ballot which will only be counted if within 10 days you get yourself to a county courthouse, a county clerk, and you either get the ID or you get a substitute ID from the Motor Vehicle's Office, for which you have to show ID to show you're entitled to that. So the federal judge, Judge Posner, who wrote the majority opinion upholding this law for the Appeals Court said, yes, it will have a disparate impact and it's going to hurt Democrats because poor people are more likely to be Democratic voters. It will hurt them, but it won't hurt them much. The individual vote isn't that important and the state interest in preventing voter fraud is substantial enough that it's worth the price. That was his way of tackling it."

Evidently, Greenhouse has never heard of a state ID, which is a photo ID for people who don't drive a car (Indiana offers them for free). Maybe she just forgot, LOL. Or maybe she's full of….well, you know. And who are these people who supposedly don't have ID's ? Do they really exist ? Greenhouse cites the elderly, the poor, and the disabled. I never met an elderly or disabled person in my life who doesn't have ID. They usually have LOTS of ID, unless Greenhouse is talking about people who are severely mentally disabled. Then she may have a point, but I don't think those folks are really flocking to the polls. Even if they are, they need a companion to guide them through the process, and that companion can bring the ID. That leaves the poor. Are there legions of poor people who are engaged enough in the political process to get out and vote, but not engaged enough to get an ID ? I seriously doubt it. A photo ID is pretty important these days for all manner of things apart from voting. I doubt you can even get food stamps without one.

The other non-argument argument Greenhouse throws out is that voter fraud isn't a big enough problem to justify a remedy like voter ID. She attempts to portray voter ID as suppressing the individual vote, which is specious, and then uses that to say the state interest to protect against voter fraud isn't compelling enough to override it. The first time I heard this tactic from the left, I thought my head was going to explode. They've been telling us for 7 years that Bush stole presidential elections, but now they do a complete 180 degree turn and say voter fraud is no biggie, all because it's the convenient position for them to take at the moment. Such hypocritical statements belong in the political Hall Of Shame.

So, Greenhouse and the left's objections to voter ID law are a sham. They are a mirage to distract from the truth (like so many of their other positions). You see, there ARE people in america who don't have valid photo ID's, and they ARE all part of the Democratic 'base'. Illegal aliens come immediately to mind. Convicted felons are another. They may have photo ID's, but they will be fake ID's. Liberals want to save these folks the time and trouble of getting that fake ID made up. That's pretty much what people like Greenhouse mean when they speak of the 'disparate impact' of voter ID legislation. Voter ID discriminates against CRIMINALS, and criminals apparently make up a big enough Democratic voter bloc for liberals to fight for. If they didn't, they wouldn't be making up all these phony arguments, would they ?

The next president may get to nominate several candidates for the Supreme Court. Here are the ages of some of our current Justices:

John Paul Stevens is 87. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 74. Anthony Kennedy is 71. Antonin Scalia is 71. Stephen Breyer is 69. David Souter is 68.

Supreme Court appointments are not supposed to be partisan affairs. I know that sounds pretty naive given the combative nature of the Court nominations these days, but they really aren't. We aren't supposed to be looking for judges who are liberals or conservatives. We are supposed to be looking for judges who will apply the law as written. In fact, if we get Supreme Court justices who do anything other than that, who put their own ideology into their rulings, we have big problems, because that subverts our democratic process. It subverts the will of the people, the Congress, and the president. It nullifies the separation of powers, because the Supremes are not answerable to the people. We can't vote them out of power. They are appointed for life. They are the final word, short of amending the Constitution. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, 'when the Supreme Court says it, it's pretty much like God said it'. For once I agree with Nancy.

And we should be pretty careful about the Gods we pick.

There have been nominees who were rightly rejected because they were not good picks, like Harriet Miers (why Miers, when Brownie was available ?!?!), and others who were rejected because they didn't fit the correct partisan profile, like Robert Bork. The former is good. The latter is bad. Excessive politicization is harmful here.

When you hear politicians advocating for judges who are strict contstructionists (like Romney does), you have politicians who are on the right track, because those judges will uphold the constitution as written. When you hear politicians advocating for judges who hold specific positions on specific issues (like Hillary does), you have politicians who are definitely on the wrong track, because we don't want judicial partisans or activists. That is not the role of the Supreme Court. That should be left to the other branches of government. There's a good reason justice is supposed to be blind.

As an example, look at the poster boy for all judicial activist decisions, Roe v Wade. Regardless of one's views on abortion, due to the original judicial activism displayed by the Supreme Court in that case, where the constitutional right to abortion was magically and incorrectly created out of thin air, the issue of abortion has become a litmus test for all future Supreme Court judges. It has led to a politicization of the Court where there should be none. What the Roe v Wade decision did was overrule all state law regarding abortion. In effect, Roe legalized abortion through the back door, by making anti-abortion laws unconstitutional. It trumped the will of the people. That ain't supposed to be how it works.

In summary, we want Supreme Court judges who will outlaw moveon.org and mandate a balanced budget………………..Gotcha ! Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.