USA Today has posted an article stating that one out of every six dollars earned by Americans is from the government.  This income amounts to 16.2 % of personal income during the first quarter of 2009.  That is the highest percentage since record keeping began in 1929.  This includes all government benefit programs–Social Security, food stamps, medical benefits, and unemployment insurance. 

The article states that:

“In all, government spending on benefits will top $2 trillion in 2009 — an average of $17,000 provided to each U.S. household, federal data show. Benefits rose at a 19% annual rate in the first quarter compared to the last three months of 2008.”

That is not sustainable.  There has been a $209 billion increase in government benefit costs from a year ago.  Part of the problem is that we have reached the tipping point where more than 50% of Americans do not pay any income tax.  Therefore, there is no incentive among voters to rein in spending.  If this trend continues, prosperity and the American dream will become a distant memory.

According to today’s The Hill, the first draft of the Democrat plan to reform healthcare will be unveiled next week.  According to the article:

“The legislation will certainly include a federally run public plan that would provide health benefits in competition with private insurance,

“The proposal is anathema to Republicans but Kennedy favors the public plan and Obama’s letter emphasized his insistence on it. Dodd said the panel was considering four of five models for the public plan.”

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Republicans will get their first look at the bill later this week.  The idea here is to rush the legislation through before July 31st (before anyone has a chance to see what is actually in the bill).  There is nothing wrong with the idea of cutting costs of healthcare for Americans, but this is not the way to do it.  A public healthcare plan opens the door for all kinds of abuses–mismanagement, lobbying abuses, unmanageable cost overrunns, etc.–all of which we have seen in the current Medicare program.  This bill needs to be stopped in its tracks until it can be studied, analyzed, reviewed, and revised.  This bill does not need to be passed without the necessary scrutiny.

President Obama will be speaking to the Muslim world tomorrow from Cairo, Egypt.  The Wall Street Journal has an interesting op-ed by Paul Wolfowicz on the challenges involved in making that speech. 

Mr. Wolfowicz points out that there is an expectation that President Obama will walk away from what was called “the freedom agenda” of the George Bush Administration.  To walk away from this agenda would be a mistake.  President Obama is speaking in Egypt, a country that mistreats its own people, and also a country that may be pivotal in the Middle East ‘peace process’.   To act as if America supports the status quo in a country that tortures and discriminates against its own citizens would be a mistake.

According to the article:

“The denial of equal rights to women is unjust. It hurts society as a whole when half the population is prevented from achieving its full potential. The countries in the Muslim world that have developed most successfully are those — such as Indonesia, Turkey and Malaysia — where women have been able to play a substantial role. Those same countries have also benefited enormously from giving scope to Christian and Jewish minorities to prosper, although the record is imperfect. Turkey’s Jewish minority found refuge there 500 years ago from the Spanish Inquisition. In those days, when Islamic civilization was the most advanced in the world, it was also one of the most tolerant.”

President Obama needs to remind the Muslim nations of their former tolerance.  He also needs to remind them of the benefits of freedom and democracy in the prospering of a country.  Hopefully he will be as willing to put pressure on the Muslim nations to move toward freedom (and the acceptance of the existence of Israel) as he has been willing to put pressure on Israel to give up more land.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that:

“In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” He sought to downplay the expectations of the speech, but he said he hoped the address would raise awareness about Muslims.”

I took the whole paragraph because I wanted to post the whole statement in context.  However, even that does not show the full context.  What he said was:

“And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” Mr. Obama said. “And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.”

There are a few concepts in both of these statements that bother me.  If you look at the founding documents of America, we are founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic.  Many of the people who settled this country were looking for religious freedom, and our laws reflect that.  There is no religious freedom in Muslim countries.  Saudi Arabia burns Bibles and tortures people who become Christians.  Other Muslim countries have similar policies.  I am not willing to give up my freedom of religion.  If Muslims choose to settle here, they are entitled to freedom of religion, but not in infringe upon other people’s freedom of religion.  I am not willing to see America as a Muslim country.

In certain airports of America, Muslim cab drivers refuse to accept blind people as passengers if they have seeing-eye dogs (dogs are considered unclean in Islam).  Some Muslims working in grocery stores have refused to handle pork products.  Other working Muslims have asked that special allowances be made for them in the workplace for prayer rooms and prayer times.  Unless these same allowances are made for other religions, they are discriminatory.  Becoming a Muslim country would not be a step forward for America, it would be a step away from freedom.  I hope our President realizes that.

As the Obama Administration begins its push to increase the amount of ethanol required in gasoline from 10% to 15%, the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday will run an article on the actual costs of ethanol.  According to the article:

“The Congressional Budget Office reported last month that Americans pay another surcharge for ethanol in higher food prices. CBO estimates that from April 2007 to April 2008 “the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices.” Ethanol raises food prices because millions of acres of farmland and three billion bushels of corn were diverted to ethanol from food production. Americans spend about $1.1 trillion a year on food, so in 2007 the ethanol subsidy cost families between $5.5 billion and $8.8 billion in higher grocery bills.”

In addition to the extra cost to American consumers, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality — explains that the reduction in CO2 emissions from burning ethanol are minimal and maybe negative.  The article further points out:

“Both CBO and EPA find that in theory cellulosic ethanol — from wood chips, grasses and biowaste — would reduce carbon emissions. However, as CBO emphasizes, “current technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol are not commercially viable.” The ethanol lobby is attempting a giant bait-and-switch: Keep claiming that cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, even as it knows the only current technology to meet federal mandates is corn ethanol (or sugar, if it didn’t face an import tariff).”

The increased use of ethanol has not been the success that was hoped.  It has been a boon to corn farmers and that’s about it.  Because it has been good for the agricultural states, Congress has been reluctant to end an unsuccessful program.  Someone needs to find the courage to say that ethanol in America has not worked and that we need to develop our other energy resources. 

It’s ironic that when there are places in southern California where oil is literally seeping through the ground and causing pollution, the government will not allow us to drill for that oil yet we subsidize a fuel program that does not work

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. of China has bought the Hummer division of General Motors.  According to Breitbart.com:

“As part of the proposed transaction, GM said, Hummer will continue to contract vehicle manufacturing and business services from GM during a transitional period. For example, GM’s Shreveport, La., assembly plant would continue to contract to assemble the H3 and H3T through at least 2010.”

This is an interesting development.  Will Hummers be sold in the America after this deal goes through?  Evidently there are ongoing talks to sell some of the other divisions also.  According to the article, there are 16 buyers interested in Saturn and 3 interested in Saab.  The new, smaller General Motors will focus on its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC divisions.

Townhall.com has an article today on the five character flaws that are destroying America.  It’s a very basic list, here it is:

1.  Lack of personal responsibility

2.  Short attention span

3.  Excessive self-esteem

4.  Short term thinking/instant gratification

5.  Immorality

Please read the full article for the expansion of these ideas.  Some of these traits are qualities we don’t think about often, but the article explores how they impact our society in a negative way.

According to today’s Washington Post President Obama has stated that Iran has the right to nuclear energy as long as it is used for peaceful purposes.  He plans to pursue direct diplomatic talks with Iran to discourage it from developing nuclear weapons.

The article states:

“The president has indicated a willingness to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it does not respond positively to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama has said Tehran has until the end of the year to show it wants to engage with Washington.”

The question that remains unanswered is whether or not Iran will have nuclear weapons by the end of the year.

According to the News-Leader.com in Springfield, Missouri, state Representative Sara Lampe, D-138th, of Springfield, came up with the perfect solution when a group of Neo-Nazis, claiming free speech rights, succeeded in getting MoDOT to let them erect a sign for their group along West Bypass, between Sunshine and Farm Road 142 as part of the adopt-a-highway program.  She introduced a piece of legislation to rename the half mile of the West Bypass the “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway.”   The legislation was made into an amendment to a larger transportation bill that passed the House and the Senate.

According to the article:

“The bottom line: the neo-Nazis will now be helping to keep clean a stretch of road (between Sunshine and Farm Road 142) honoring one of the most famous Jewish theologians in modern history.”

 

What a perfect way to handle the situation!! 

Now that it’s no longer General Motors, but Government Motors, some changes will be made.  The extreme environmentalists that are friends of this administration want GM to now manufacture ‘green’ cars.  The problem is that the American public has not been particularly interested in ‘green’ cars.  So how do you change the market place?  Easy, raise the cost of fuel to the point that driving anything else is impractical.  So let’s look at one of the early steps in that direction.

According to the American Thinker, Representative Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee is proposing measures that will limit the production of domestic energy supplies.  This will make us more dependent on foreign oil and more subject to the price hikes that come our way because of that dependency. 

The measures proposed:

• End the “payment-in-kind” option that allows companies to pay royalties in oil and gas rather than cash. Mr. Salazar has said he would consider ending the program.
• Tighten royalty payment rules through new penalties, elimination of interest on overpayments, and other adjustments.
• Consolidate Interior Department leasing activities into a new Office of Federal Energy and Mineral Leasing, and end leasing by the Minerals Management Service and the Bureau of Land Management.
• Require the adoption of five-year plans for oil and gas leasing on federal lands similar to those developed for offshore leasing.
• Create an Oceans and Coastal Trust Fund funded by revenues from Outer Continental Shelf leases and royalties.
• Impose new environmental restrictions to curtail pollution from offshore oil drilling.
• Impose royalties for the first time on uranium mining.

It’s amazing to me that at a time when the oil producing countries of the world are not our friends, a Representative is moving to make us less energy independent. 

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an article on the growing school choice movement among both Democrats and Republicans.  South Carolina state Senator Robert Ford says that the new civil rights struggle is about the quality of education in public schools, he feels that in order to receive a quality education, African-American children need school choice.  He states, “We need choice like Obama has. He can send his kids to any school he wants.”

The article points out:

“The danger for Democrats still opposed to school choice is that Mr. Ford represents widespread frustration among black voters who see Mr. Obama in the White House and now expect real change to occur in their communities. Black voters could come to support conservative education policies (if not GOP candidates).

Typically, school-choice fights involve Republicans and a handful of Democrats pushing vouchers for a limited number of poor kids in inner cities. That’s fine as far as it goes. But, as is evident in Washington, D.C., it doesn’t go far. With just a few thousand families receiving vouchers, congressional Democrats are confident that they can kill the school-choice program in D.C. without provoking a voter backlash.”

South Carolina is looking at a program of tax credits to allow lower and middle income familites access to better schools.  Let’s hope this program catches on in other states.

It looks as if the neverending Minnesota Senate election may be coming to an end.  According to The Hill, Senator Coleman and Al Franken will face off before the Minnesota Supreme Court on Monday.  According to the article:

“At issue in the appeal is whether or not the panel overseeing Coleman’s election challenge erred in including some absentee ballots while disqualifying others. Coleman’s campaign alleges that the court inconsistently allowed ballots.”

The basic issue here is “one man, one vote”.  Frankly, I don’t think there is a way to get a fair verdict on this vote.  The only real way to handle this particular election is to throw the vote out and have a do-over.  The audit trail of too many votes has been lost, and an equal standard for counting the votes has not been applied.

Yesterday’s Power Line has notes by Paul Mirengoff on a discussion between John Hinderaker (one of the authors of Power Line) and Andy McCarthy concerning the upcoming hearings in Congress on Sonia Sotomayer.  The conclusion they draw is very simple.  Paul states:

“I’ve argued many times that Republicans must apply whatever standard the Democrats use when a Republican president makes a Supreme Court nomination. For if the two political parties don’t employ the same standard, one of them will have an unearned advantage when it comes to what is arguably our most important institution.”

Because this makes perfect sense, it probably won’t happen.  Paul points out that the Constituion sets no standard for confirmation.  Up until recently, the President’s choice for judges was approved almost automatically in deference to the President.  That changed when Democrats came to rely so heavily on the Supreme Court to bring about changes they could not enact through the normal political process.  At that point, the Democrats wanted more input into judges even when they did not control the executive branch.  That’s how we got where we are today.

The article concludes:

“A system of deference will yield a Judge Bork or a Justice Scalia. A system where Congress denies deference will yield a Justice Kennedy. And one can only imagine who (if anyone) such a system would have produced if the vacancies President Bush filled had come open in 2007.

But the days of deference are over and Republicans would be fools to even think about reinstating them during the presdency of Barack Obama.”

I have no idea what the correct response to this nomination is.  I do know that the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayer will put the white male on the endangered species list as far as finding employment or getting a fair hearing in her court.

Yesterday’s National Review posted an article by Larry Kudlow about what has happened to General Motors.  He points out that the taxpayers now own General Motors, but that we will never get our money back.  Mr. Kudlow points out:

“Instead of putting the failed car enterprise into bankruptcy six months ago — where Carl Icahn or Wilbur Ross could have bought it — the Bush administration chose Bailout Nation. Under Team Obama, that bailout has morphed into full-scale government ownership. Twenty billion dollars of TARP money is already invested in GM, with another $50 billion on the way. And that number could easily double unless GM car sales miraculously climb back to 14 million this year. That’s highly unlikely, with car sales now hovering around 9 million a year.”

The article points out that with the government running General Motors (the government has had no experience running a car company), the extreme environmentalists will pressure the company to make ‘green’ cars which most Americans won’t buy.  However, if you enact energy policies that bring the price of gasoline back up to nearly $5 a gallon, people may buy these cars.  That is what I see the Obama Administration moving toward.  They have blocked all drilling of domestic oil, and they really don’t have a solid alternative energy to fuel our cars and industries.  We are heading into a period of severe lifestyle changes for the average American–and they will not be positive changes.

Larry Kudlow also points out some things from an interview he did with Dick Cheney::

“Cheney was very critical of Obama’s big-government spending-and-borrowing policies, too, telling me that there are only two ways out: inflating the money supply or big tax increases. He doesn’t like either. Yes, Cheney believes Obama has taken Bailout Nation and government stimulus way beyond anything the Bushies ever contemplated. Nevertheless, the damage is done.

“Cheney recalled Bush’s having said that “we have to suspend free-market capitalism in order to save free-market capitalism.” So the big question is this: How long before we resurrect free-market capitalism, and how much damage will current policies do in the meantime?

“I won’t lose my faith in this country’s long-term future. But the issue of how much damage we sustain before returning to the policies of free-market economic growth is very much on my mind.” 

I totally agree.

This is the link to the YouTube video of the three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day.  According to the Washington Times, the political appointees in the Justice Department overruled the carreer lawyers on how the case should be handled.  According to the article:

“A Justice Department spokesman on Thursday confirmed that the agency had dropped the case, dismissing two of the men from the lawsuit with no penalty and winning an order against the third man that simply prohibits him from bringing a weapon to a polling place in future elections.”

The video is disturbing, but the legal aspect of what has happened since is even more disturbing.  I have felt for a while President Obama will be a one-term President.  When the chickens come home to roost on his economic policies, his big plans for cap and trade, health care, and when Americans can no longer buy the cars we want because government environmental radicals are giving us small, unsafe cars, he will face a challenger from his own party as well as the Republican Party.  That scenario, however, assumes an honest election.  With ACORN being given government money to be a major part of the 2010 Census, and the Black Panthers patrolling the polling places, an honest election becomes something of a challenge.

With this kind of legal decision, we are in danger of becoming a banana republic.  We are in danger of becoming all the things we have condemned in other countries since our founding.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a very good op-ed piece about the rules the White House has put in place for the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayer.  The President’s first rule is that the discussion should be about her biography–growing up poor, child of a single mom, getting into Princeton and Yale, etc.  The article points out that her background is very similar to that of Justice Clarence Thomas, but somehow the left has treated his story differently.   The article reminds us:

“By the president’s measure, the nation couldn’t find a more empathetic referee than Justice Thomas. And yet here’s what Mr. Obama had to say last year when Pastor Rick Warren asked him about the Supreme Court: “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation.””

Hmmm.  The double standard has reared its ugly head again.

Rule Number 2 is that the Republicans are not allowed to criticize Judge Sotomayer.  She is the first Latina women to be nominated for the Supreme Court and is thus above reproach.  The article mentions:

“The Beltway media also dutifully latched on to this White House talking point, reporting threats from leading Democrats, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who intoned that Republicans “oppose her at their peril.””

Where was this idea when Miguel Estrada was nominated to the Court?  Mr. Estrada withdrew, after the Democrats waged seven filibusters against a confirmation vote (holding up his nomination for two years).

I would hate to see the Republicans become as petty as the Democrats were in dealing with Supreme Court nominations, but there are some valid questions about this nominee.  Hopefully they can be asked in a civil manner.  I don’t believe the Republicans in the Senate can stop her appointment, but I do believe they have an obligation to make clear what her stand is on discrimination and other issues.  There is an article out on the internet today that she is a member of the group La Raza, which is somewhat radical in its beliefs.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but if it is, it is troubling–she needs to be asked about it.  Again, I believe she will be confirmed, but we need to make sure the voters of America understand who she is. 

The above headline is a quote from Andy Borowitz quoted on the Huffington Post and on the American Thinker.  The article at the American Thinker is written by Ethel C. Fenig and titled, John Bolton, prophet.

It is a shame that politics kept John Bolton from being our ambassador to the UN.  He might have made a difference in that feckless organization.  At any rate, he has successfully sized up the situation with North Korea and Iran in regard to their nuclear porgrams.  The article at American Thinker quotes his comments:

What the North has lacked thus far is the political opportunity to test without fatally jeopardizing its access to the six-party talks and the legitimacy they provide. Despite the State Department’s seemingly unbreakable second-term hold over President Bush, another test after 2006 just might have ended the talks.

So far, the North faces no such threat from the Obama administration. Despite Pyongyang’s aggression, Mr. Bosworth has reiterated that the U.S. is “committed to dialogue” and is “obviously interested in returning to a negotiating table as soon as we can.” This is precisely what the North wants: America in a conciliatory mode, eager to bargain, just as Mr. Bush was after the 2006 test.

If the next nuclear explosion doesn’t derail the six-party talks, Kim will rightly conclude that he faces no real danger of ever having to dismantle his weapons program. North Korea is a mysterious place, but there is no mystery about its foreign-policy tactics: They work. The real mystery is why our administrations — Republican and Democratic — haven’t learned that their quasi-religious faith in the six-party talks is misplaced.

It is becoming very obvious that we live in a world where negotiations with rogue nations are not currently working (as if they ever did).  Meanwhile, we have cut our funding into missle defense, and President Obama is talking about America giving up its nuclear weapons.  Peace is a wonderful concept, but the lessons of history should have taught us that peace is only possible after bullies are dealt with decisively or when the ‘good guys’ (the freedom-loving countries of the world) have enough power and strength of purpose to keep the bullies from bullying.

Just a note on the folly of negotiating with tyrants–the deal that Chamberlain made with Hitler to devide Czechoslovakia was made without the input of the then president of Czechoslovakia, Eduard Beneš,.  Is President Obama going to negotiate a Middle East peace treaty that divides Jerusalem without the consent of the Israeli government?  Will the result be the same?

According to a blog called The Muqata, this is the Arab nations plan for peace in the Middle East supported by President Obama:

1. Removal of all Israeli communities in the West Bank
2. Creation of a demilitarized Palestinian State within the 1967 borders of the West Bank.
3. Right of Return for all Palestinian refugees to this new state.
4. Removal of Israel’s sovereignty over East Jerusalem, and its transferal to the Palestinians to be the capital of their state.
5. Removal of Israel’s sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem — and it will be run by the international community.

There are a few things to consider here.  Essentially, the Arabs want to go back to the borders of Israel that existed before they invaded Israel in 1967.  If those borders did not bring peace then, why are we to assume that they will bring peace now?  This plan is a death warrant for Israel.  This plan was drawn up without the participation of Israel.  If you are going to have a peace plan, shouldn’t all the parties involved negotiate it?  The international community has never run anything successfully, why in the world would we let them start with Jerusalem?  The right of return would destroy Israel as a Jewish state.  Jerusalem should never again be divided–when Israel controlled Jerusalem, all religions of the world had free access to their holy places there, when the Arabs controlled it, the Israelis were not allowed to go to the wailing wall.  Who is going to give the assurance of a demilitarized Palestinian State?  The UN?  They haven’t done such a great job of ending the weapons smuggling that’s going on now! 

There is something very underhanded going on here.  President Obama knows that Prime Minister Netanyahu will never agree to this ‘peace’ proposal.  President Obama wants ‘peace’ in the Middle East at any cost (even, I believe, if it means that Israel no longer exists).  Watch for the Obama Administration’s subtle attempt to bring down the Netanyahu government so that Israel elects a weaker leader that might go along with this horrible idea.

Yesterday’s The Hill ran an article by Roxana Tiron on the North Korean nuclear testing.  The lead paragraph stated:

“President Obama’s national security adviser on Wednesday said that North Korea’s recent nuclear detonation and missile tests are not “an imminent threat” to the safety and security of the United States.”

I’m sure that Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones is aware that the technology of the missles tested indicates that these missles could reach Alaska and California and possibly a few other states.  General Jones stated that he felt the threat was that the North Koreans would share their technology with other countries or terrorist organizations.  That is a serious problem, but meanwhile we have a belligerent government with an unstabe leader setting off nuclear weapons and rockets.  It seems to me that we need to rethink our missle defense spending cuts about now.

General Jones also noted that:

“Nothing that the North Koreans did surprised us,” Jones said. “We knew that they were going to do this, they said so, so no reason not to believe them.”

OK.  Then why, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he will wipe Israel off the map, don’t we believe him?

I hate to be negative, but I believe nothing will be done about the North Korean tests.  China has no real incentive to prevent the spread or use of these weapons.  China has no reason to want to protect South Korea–during the Korean War, we were fighting Chinese forces.  The only real answer to this problem is to allow Japan to have nuclear weapons.  Not a great idea, but one that at least might cause the North Koreans to pause before doing anything drastic.

This information that follows is from a website called The Long War Journal.  I am unfamiliar with the website, but the information there I have also seen in various other places.  My reason for citing this information is so that everyone can be aware of the type of people the current administration is considering resettling into America.

On April 20 of this year, Abdul Haq, the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (“ETIP”), was added to the list of designated terrorists compiled by the US Treasury Department.  The UN placed Haq on its list of persons associated with Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, or the Taliban on April 15.

According to the article:

“Currently, seventeen Uighur men who are suspected members or associates of the organization are detained at Guantánamo. Five other Uighurs who were detained at Gitmo were previously released to Albania in 2006. The men are all from China’s Xinjiang region and are alleged to have traveled to Afghanistan to join the ETIP/ETIM’s jihad.”

Although these are Chinese terrorists, they have been trained in terrorism to be used against all western countries.  Although the Uighurs have denied any connection to Al Qaeda or the Taliban, Uighur detainees also admitted to training at a terrorist camp in the Tora Bora Mountains. That camp was run by Abdul Haq and Hassan Mahsum, and was most likely supported by al Qaeda and the Taliban.

These are the men that President Obama is attempting to relocate in Virginia (providing them with housing and financial assistance).  If that happens, Americans will be financially supporting the very people who want to kill them.  It makes no sense at all!  Please read the entire article at The Long War Journal for further information on who the Uighurs are.

Today’s Washington Times has an article which points out that Judge Sonia Sotomayer has been reversed three out of the five times her Circuit Court sent a case to the Supreme Court.  There is also a fairly strong possibility that the Supreme Court will overturn her decision on the Connecticut employment discrimination case.

I’m not overly upset by this.  The cases that get sent to the Supreme Court are generally the complex cases that need the wisdom of the Supreme Court, I don’t think being overturned there is a horrible thing. 

My concern is this:  every member of the United States Senate took an oath of office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Does the appointment of this woman to the Supreme Court uphold the Constitution?  She has publicly stated that she believes that as a Latina woman, her decisions will be better than the decisions of a white male.  That sort of racial preference is not constitutional.  That is part of my dilemma.

The other part of my dilemma is that I truly believe that any President of the United States should be allowed to appoint the people to office that he chooses.  Unless there is some sort of ethical issue or moral issue, I think that this nomination has to go through.  I believe that this woman will be bad for the country–I do not see her as an unbiased judge–but she is the President’s choice. 

If Judge Sonia Sotomayer is confirmed to the US Supreme Court, we will have a new endangered species–the white male.  There are two things about this lady that are very troubling.

1.  According to an article in the New York Times earlier this year, in 2001, Ms. Sotomayer stated in a speech:

“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,”

2.  According to an articel in the New York Post today:

“In one of her most notable decisions, as an appellate judge she sided last year with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters. The city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. Coincidentally, that case is now before the Supreme Court.

In the former quote, she dismissed the value of any life experience of a white male in making judgments.  In the latter situation, white men who had qualified for a promotion were denied that promotion because they were white.

If a white man’s experience has no value and he can be denied a promotion because of his race, are all men still ‘created equal’?  Both the quote and the ruling seem to go completely against The Declaration of Independence, which is one of the founding documents of our country.  Admittedly, it took us a long time to deal with slavery, but the idea was that all men were equal under the law.  This lady seems to think that some men are more equal than others.

I suspect Judge Sotomayer will be confirmed–the Republicans do not have enough members to block her nomination–nor would they risk the Hispanic vote.  Because we do not have enough principled men in the Senate, she will become a Supreme Court Justice.  The founding fathers would be shedding many tears over what is happening to our country with this choice. 

On Sunday I posted an article from the New York Post about the closing of Broadway from 42nd to 47th Street to automobile traffic.  The post was rightfully concerned about this change in the New York City traffic pattern (New York City is not known as a ‘fun’ place to drive under any circumstances).  Pedestrians thought it was a great idea, cab drivers were furious.

Today was the first day the new traffic pattern was tested by commuter traffic.  According to today’s New York Post, things went very well.  But–particularly in New York, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.  Shop owners were complaining that business was down because the tour buses were not stopping in front of their stores.  A Coca-Cola delivery man was complaining that he was not able to park closer to the places where he was delivering the soda.  He had to walk further and leave his truck idling longer.  The people you would expect to be happy about a pedestrian mall were complaining–the motorists were doing fine!! I love it!!

President Obama has chosen Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court Nominee.  The New York Times ran an article on her in May of this year discussing some of her views as a judge.  She is quoted in the article as saying (in reference to 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,”

I am offended by this statement.  A person reaches legal conclusions based on the law and their education in the law–not on their ethnic background.  To assess the value of a person’s opinion on the basis of their racial or ethnic background is racism.  Ms. Sotomayor may regard it as constructive, but it is rasicm.  A white male has also lived a life.  It may be a different life than hers, but it has equal value, and each life has lessons learned by experience.  Legal cases need to be decided on the basis of the law–not on the basis of anyone’s ‘experience’–that is what the courts are suposed to do.

The confirmation hearings on this nominee need to be watched by every American.  We have a choice to be either a nation of laws or a nation of ‘experience’ and emotions.

Postscript:

According to today’s New York Post, in its article about Sonia Sotomayor:

“In one of Sotomayor’s most notable decisions, as an appellate judge she sided last year with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters. The city threw out results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough. Ironically, that case is now before the Supreme Court.

That ruling has already drawn criticism from conservatives, and is likely to play a role in her confirmation hearing.”

This case was covered here on RightWingGranny.com on April 27th which linked to a George Will column in the Washington Post on April 26 of this year.

Stay tuned!! 

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on what has happened in Maryland since they ‘raised the taxes on the rich’.  According to the article:

“The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”

“One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.”

We need to look at the states as testing grounds for the consequences of government policies.  When you raise taxes, revenue goes down.  This has been proven statistically (see The Laffer Curve:  Past, Present, and Future at Heritage.org).  The article at Heritage was written in June of 2004 and still holds true.

New York State is experiencing a loss of high-income people because of changes in their tax policies, and Maryland is doing the same.  Our state governments need to learn how to cut spending and lower taxes–not increase spending and raise taxes.