Politics or ill-logic?

Sonia Sotomayor's appointment was approved by a 13-6 vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee and now goes to the Senate floor for confirmation.

Lindsay Graham was the only Republican who voted for her, and he made the ambiguous statement that he would not have chosen her, but also that Obama's nominating the first-ever Latina to the court is "a big deal." And he added, "America has changed for the better with her selection."

OK. Whatever, Lindsay. I sometimes don't quite understand you, but at least you voted for her.

But the others? Jim Sessions, as "southern" as they come, said "In speech after speech, year after year, Judge Sotomayor set forth a fully formed, I believe, judicial philosophy that conflicts with the great American tradition of blind justice and fidelity to the law as written."

They kept hammering away at her about her speeches and whether she would let her feelings or her bias sway her votes. And no one, no one, could come up with any significant evidence that this was the case in her 17 years on the bench.

So, I ask: Isn't your concern about her "liberal bias" and "swayed by empathy" stances in her speeches totally contradicted by a review of her decisions?

And isn't that, in itself, proof that she can and does put those aside when she makes her decisions in cases strictly according to the law?

Anyway, she passed the committee with flying colors. And she should sail through the Senate and be on the job when the court convenes in the fall.

Ralph

A little fun along the way

High drama in Congress, as the House Democratic Caucus meets in a locked-down, closed-door meeting for 5 hours today -- hoping to hammer out the details of health care reform and pass the bill before leaving for the August break. Even though it's clear the Senate won't meet that deadline, it would be a momentum boost if the House did get a bill passed.

Amid all that serious work, though, I guess they need a little fun.

It's not enough that the lunatic fringe believes that Obama is not a "natural born" citizen of the U.S. Now it seems that several Republican Congressmen also think so, and Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., plans to introduce a bill that would require documentation of eligibility from presidential candidates: the so-called "birther bill." That, of course, is a direct response to those who claim that Obama was not born in the U.S. and has never produced an "original" birth certificate.

It's not enough to satisfy these clowns that the State of Hawaii has officially documented that he does have a valid birth certificate -- and that the reason they cannot produce an original, paper certificate is that they have converted to electronic data archives; and when they did so, they destroyed all the old paper files. No one born in Hawaii can produce an original paper birth certificate.

Nor is it enough that two newspapers in Hawaii carried the birth announcement at the time of his birth.

But here comes the fun: a Congressman from Hawaii is introducing a resolution in the House recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of statehood for Hawaii. And as part of the "whereas-es" that you load up such resolutions with, he includes this line:

"Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii;"

That should do it, no? An Act of Congress will have declared that he was born in the U.S. It's being dubbed "the counter-birther bill."

Ralph

Mickey Nardo has distilled the documents and statements that led us to invade Iraq -- and he makes the case crystal clear, in my view, that this was a planned strategy, even before the 9/11 attacks, which by the way Iraq had nothing to do with anyway.

Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Secretary of Treasury, has said that in his first cabinet meeting (long before 9/11) Bush said that he wanted to find a way to invade Iraq.

For anyone interested in getting a perspective on it, it's well worth reading his last few posts: http://1boringoldman.com/

Here's his conclusion:

There is more than enough evidence to prove that our invasion of Iraq was already in the works before 9/11. It would be our way of launching the new foreign policy position of American dominance; of establishing an American presence in the Middle East; and would give us access to Iraqi oil fields, solving the problem Cheney discussed two years earlier . . .

The Administration of President George W. Bush, lead by Vice President Dick Cheney, used the fear and anguish Americans felt about the 9/11 attack to create a false Casus Belli [case for war] against Iraq. It was a consciously motivated act conceived in secrecy and deceit - an idiosyncratic and frankly unAmerican notion about foreign policy that was inserted into our history at great cost in dollars, lives, and international reputation. Had we had all the facts, we could’ve known the truth two weeks after the attack, but we didn’t have all the facts. We just had our pain. It was a crime. We simply cannot pass over it as if it didn’t happen. The invasion of Iraq was as great an attack on America as the planes flying into the Twin Towers…

Amen.

Ralph