Adrift at Sea

Cruisin for a Bruisin     

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

AskMarion: The similarities between the horrific voyage of the Carnival Triumph and the tragic voyage of the dysfunctional ship of state we call America are many. We have a ruling class consisting of the President, Congress, Judiciary, Central bankers, Media titans, and goliath corporation CEOs who care not for the citizens of this country. You are ignorant peasants in their eyes. They only care about maintaining and expanding their wealth, control and power through the complete capture of our financial markets, political system and media propaganda to the masses. The health and welfare of the peasants isn’t even on their radar screen. The ruling class steering this ship of fools have no interest in the truth or the best long – erm interests of the country. The vast majority of the passengers on this impaired listing ship prefers to believe the propaganda and lies spewed by the captain and his minions. They prefer the illusion of safety and security to the truth about the real condition of this ship. When the engines of this ship come to a grinding halt, their illusions will be shattered. Big government will come up small when it counts. The government propaganda and public relations will be revealed as nothing but hot putrid air and fecal matter.

Speaking of fecal matter, President Obama’s State of the Union address, which was watched by 33 million (down from 52 million in 2009) believers, was a perfect reflection of the thinking that led to the Carnival Triumph disaster. The reality facing the country is: $220 trillion of unfunded entitlement liabilities; a $16.5 trillion national debt; annual deficits exceeding $1 trillion; 48 million citizens on food stamps; 11 million people on SSDI; a true unemployment rate of 23%; true inflation exceeding 5%; record high gasoline prices; 0% interest rates for senior citizen savers; free money for criminal bankers provided by their sugar daddy Bernanke; not one criminal prosecution of a Wall Street executive for the greatest financial fraud in history; a war department that spends $1 trillion per year and fights undeclared wars around the world; a chief executive that invokes dictatorial executive orders to murder Americans with his fleet of predator drones and imprison citizens indefinitely without charges; and a bureaucratic nightmare called Obamacare that will drive up deficits, drive up healthcare costs for every family, enrich the healthcare industrial complex, drive doctors into retirement, and drive small businesses into bankruptcy.

Rather than deal with this reality, Obama chose the Carnival Cruise Line method of public relations, misinformation, denial and delusion. He has embraced the Big Lie concept as if he had created it. With a straight face he proposes “investments” in infrastructure, new jobs programs, new education initiatives, more green energy projects, pollution control schemes, bailing out more underwater mortgages, and raising the minimum wage, all done for the children – and it won’t add one cent to the deficit. Instead of leveling with the American people and explaining the dire economic issues confronting our nation that require sacrifice, reality based thinking, and tough choices, we got more platitudes, class warfare, divide and conquer, phantom spending cuts, disingenuous twisting of the truth, intellectual dishonesty and fuzzy math. Public relations spin created by Madison Avenue maggots and pronounced grandly by corrupt puppet politician hacks will not prevent the catastrophic engine failure that will leave this country adrift in a sea of its own feces.

Our cruise of illusions and delusions is headed for troubled water. The math challenged citizens on this ship have been enjoying the 24 hour pizza buffet without the labor required to pay for the bounty. When your leaders boldly lie and tell you we don’t have a spending problem, refer to proposed spending increases as “investments”, and hail $1.6 trillion of spending cuts that did not happen, you’ve got a ship that will be signaling SOS in the imminent future. Both political parties are laughable in their blathering about spending cuts as Bush and his Republican cronies drove spending from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.0 trillion in 2008 with their unfunded wars, unfunded new entitlements (Medicare Part D), Wall Street bailouts, and creation of police state agencies (DHS); while Obama and his Democrat co-conspirators have driven spending up to $3.8 trillion in four years with new unfunded entitlements (Obamacare), expansion of warfare in the Middle East (they sit on top of “our” oil), $800 billion stimulus handouts, $60 billion hurricane relief pork handed out for $25 billion of uninsured losses, and bailing out banks, auto companies, homeowners, and other gamblers who took undo risks and lost to the tune of hundreds of billions. Politicians and the inhabitants of this country have forgotten there are consequences to their actions and inactions.

Carnival Cruise Line is trying to buy off the passengers with refunds and $500 bribes to keep them quiet and sedated, while protecting their continued hundreds of millions in profits and million dollar bonuses for their executives. The ruling class in the United States has bought off the American people with entitlement promises that can’t possibly be honored, food stamps, SSDI, tax rebates, homebuyer tax credits, loan modification programs, Cash for Clunkers, payroll tax cuts, $1 trillion of taxpayer financed student loans, taxpayer financed subprime auto loans, and a myriad of other handouts designed to keep the masses sedated, while the ruling class continues to pillage the national wealth. It’s as if the entire country has been charging their food, drinks, excursions, and purchases to their room number and the bill has reached $16.5 trillion, rising by $3 billion per day. This voyage is reaching an end and the bill is coming due. The engine is on fire but the captain is telling us all is well. Eventually, everyone will know the captain lied.        

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Leonard Cohen – Everybody Knows

VIDEO:  Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows

h/t to MJ

Related:

It Finally Hit Me: Barack Obama Will Never Be Held Responsible for Anything

Technorati Tags: Nietzsche,truth,ship of state,ruling class,ruling elites,low-informed voters,divide and conquers,Big Business,banksters,Big Brother,osterich syndrome,smoke and mirrors,critical thinking,connecting the dots,Executive Branch,Congress,Judiciary,Carnival Cruise Lines,manipulation of the public,propaganda

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE PROBES JUSTICE KAGAN‘S ROLE IN OBAMACARE AT GOP’S REQUEST

The House Judiciary Committee has launched an inquiry into Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in the health care overhaul at the request of 49 Republican House members.

The probe will examine whether Kagan, who served as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general prior to her Supreme Court nomination, will be required to recuse herself for cases challenging the health care law, and the accuracy of her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearings last July, CNS News reported.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday, House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) requested “relevant documents and witness interviews in order to properly understand U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in health care legislation or litigation while serving as United States Solicitor General.” Smith requested they be made available by July 29.

Federal law bars Supreme Court justices from being involved in cases where their impartiality could be questioned or they previously served in an advisory capacity related to the case at hand.

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) led 48 of his Republican colleagues in a letter to Smith and House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) on June 24, pointing to statements made during her hearings the House members called “contradictory” to released Justice Department documents and urging an investigation.

Kagan said in written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had no involvement in developing the government’s legal responses to the health care law and was never asked her views or offered them, according to the Washington Times.

Fleming issued a statement Thursday applauding Smith’s request to Holder:

“I am confident that this investigation will uncover even more evidence that Justice Kagan was involved in Obamacare defense activities, contrary to her Senate confirmation testimony. How can any reasonable person believe that Justice Kagan can be impartial on ANY Obamacare case if she was involved in formulating a defense of this destructive law?

Video:  Rep. Fleming Discusses Call For Kagan Investigation

Posted on July 7, 2011 at 2:49pm by Madeleine Morgenstern

Source:  The Blaze

Vote No on Sonia Sotomayor

CONSTITUTIONAL OPINIONS

Absent a miracle, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will take a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nevertheless, the Republican minority still has an opportunity to use her nomination to educate the American people about the dangers of politicizing the judiciary.

President Barack Obama made a politically astute pick. Sonia Sotomayor is a competent jurist who symbolizes hard work, personal achievement, and ethnic diversity.

However, as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) argued during the hearing on John Roberts, "the burden of proof for a Supreme Court justice is on the nominee." Judge Sotomayor has not met that burden.

While talking up her background, Sotomayor's advocates have emphasized her moderate record on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. However, Circuit Court judges remain constrained by the possibility of Supreme Court review -- and the hope of advancing to the high court. Judge Sotomayor's testimony was useless, as intended, in assessing her judicial philosophy. Writing in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick concluded: Sotomayor "dodges, hedges, and evades her way through softball and hardball questions alike." Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) put it more harshly: the Judge was "evasive, lacking in substance and, in several instances, incredibly misleading."

In trying to assess how Justice Sotomayor would behave, we should consider the president's expectations. Then-Sen. Obama, who voted against both John Roberts and Samuel Alito, emphasized the "quality of empathy." While most cases can be decided on the basis of case law and precedent, said Sen. Obama, there remain five percent which "can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world words, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." Alas, this latter category, however few in number, accounts for most of the important issues about which we most care and which most divide us.

Sonia Sotomayor's rhetoric and background suggests that she shares the president's general perspective. For instance, she has been involved in ethnic identity activism and politics throughout her college and professional life. She spent 12 years as a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which promoted the usual ethnic agenda of coerced diversity and multiculturalism as well as the usual liberal agenda including support for abortion and opposition to capital punishment.

Moreover, her rhetoric reflects an extreme judicial vision. Perhaps Sotomayor's most famous comment, repeated in substance on at least seven occasions, came in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal: "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." Six years ago in a speech at Seton Hall she declared: "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, … our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

She returned to this theme many times: "My experiences will affect the facts that I choose to see as a judge." Moreover, "there is no objective stance, but only a series of perspectives -- no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging." Indeed, "our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that."

There's more, however. She also believes that judges are to change the law. For instance, she complained: "The public expects the law to be static and unpredictable. The law, however, is uncertain and responds to changing circumstances." Of course, changing the law cannot be left to legislators: "Our society would be straightjacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial, and political conditions."

Indeed, "A given judge (or judges) may develop a novel approach to a specific set of facts or legal framework that pushes the law in a new direction."

After all, she contends: "change -- sometimes radical change -- can and does occur in a legal system that serves a society whose social policy itself changes. It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive civilized but always evolving society." As she declared in a videotaped talk, the "Court of Appeals is where policy is made" and where "the law is percolating."

One need not have an idealized vision of the law to find these sentiments profoundly disturbing.

Empathy has its place -- perhaps in a trial judge understanding a defendant's motivations, and passing sentence. However, empathy is a dubious guide to statutory and constitutional interpretation. Some of the most important cases either revolve around a party with whom empathy is impossible or involve multiple parties who all deserve empathy.

Diversity has value, but Sotomayor did not argue diversity would improve collective decision-making. She said that her ethnicity and gender would improve her decision-making.

Moreover, stereotypes can be seriously misleading. Nine white men delivered the death blow to racial segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. One of the New Haven firefighters who challenged the city's "pro-minority" employment policy in Ricci v. Destefano was Hispanic Ben Vargas.

No one would disagree that as society changes, so must laws and practices. That is why the Constitution allows amendments and legislatures exist. Our political system leaves most decisions on "change" up to the legislative and executive branches. Turning a group of nine jurists, irrespective of how diverse and empathetic, into a continuing constitutional convention puts all liberties at risk.

WHICH BRINGS US BACK to the question: what kind of justice would Sonia Sotomayor make?

Her overall judicial record may look moderate, but her opinions in several critical cases -- President Obama's five percent -- cause real concern.

There is Ricci v. Destefano, for instance, the much noted case in which New Haven tossed the results of a carefully created promotion test for firefighters because it did not like the racial composition of those who passed. The 2nd Circuit, in an opinion joined by Judge Sotomayor, perfunctorily affirmed the verdict for the city. Yet without question the city had acted in a racially discriminatory fashion. And the city appeared to base its decision on political considerations, not any reassessment of "business necessity."

Sotomayor's opinion was even worse on procedural grounds. Her one paragraph dismissal seemed intended to limit the likelihood of Supreme Court review. Yet Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, complained that the controversy involved "significant questions of unsettled law," and was a case of first impression with no relevant Supreme Court precedent. The high court took the case and the majority of five ruled for the firefighters. The minority of four also disagreed with Sotomayor's opinion, indicating that the case should have been remanded for trial to assess the city's conduct.

Another worrisome case is Didden v. Village of Port Chester (New York), in which Judge Sotomayor demonstrated her disdain for property rights. In 1999 the city created a "redevelopment" area and designated a developer to handle all land seized by Port Chester. In 2003 he asked the property owners who planned to build a pharmacy on their land for either $800,000 or a half interest as partner in the project. They refused, and the next day the city condemned the property, transferring it to the developer so he could build a Walgreens. Sotomayor dismissed the owners' claim in six paragraphs.

Judge Sotomayor said the statute of limitations for the redevelopment law expired in 2002 -- a year before the disputed taking occurred. She went on to uphold the extortionate seizure of property as required by the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London. Yet the majority in that case warned: "the mere pretext of a public purpose, where its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit," was not a "public use" as required by the Constitution. And what could be a better example of the use of eminent domain for private benefit than a well-connected developer getting the city to back his attempt at private extortion?

Then there is Maloney v. Cuomo, which involved a challenge to state gun restrictions after the Supreme Court voided Washington, D.C.'s gun ban in District of Columbia v. Heller. Judge Sotomayor dispensed with the claim in an 11-word conclusion relying on an 1886 case (Presser v. Illinois) which applied the 2nd Amendment only to the federal government. However, Presser did not address the so-called "incorporation" doctrine, by which the Bill of Rights was applied to the states through the 14th Amendment (the "incorporation" process did not begin until decades later).

Moreover, in Heller the Supreme Court for the first time affirmed an individual right to own firearms. The Court distinguished Presser and indicated that an inquiry into incorporation would be necessary in the future. In fact, the liberal 9th Circuit confronted the challenge, ruling in April that the 14th Amendment did "incorporate" the right to own firearms. Judge Sotomayor apparently relied on ancient precedent to avoid having to make a pro-gun ruling.

In Hayden v. Pataki Judge Sotomayor ruled that the Voting Rights Act did not bar states from disenfranchising felons. Indeed, the 14th Amendment explicitly authorized states to do so. In three short paragraphs the judge asserted that the law was clear -- after the majority spent 36 pages detailing evidence on why the VRA did not intend to overturn a nondiscriminatory process predating the sort of discrimination the VRA was passed to combat.

Perhaps most important is the case which received little attention but which underlies every Supreme Court nomination: Roe v. Wade. Judge Sotomayor has said nothing about the issue and her few rulings on the issue shed little light. However, the White House has assured its supporters on the issue. Moreover, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in which she was active was a leading proponent of abortion.

The issue is not whether one believes abortion should be legal. But Roedoes not deserve to be called constitutional law. Rather, it is an act of judicial usurpation, unsupported by constitutional purpose, original intent, and legal precedent. For a nominee for the high court to embrace Roe suggests that they will not carry out their duty to faithfully interpret and apply the Constitution.

ONE FINAL ISSUE OF NOTE is the use of international law to interpret the U.S. Constitution and law. No doubt, thoughtful legislators will consider foreign experiences in assessing social problems and deciding how to resolve them.

But as Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation detailed, Judge Sotomayor appears to believe that foreign cases should be used by judges -- and justices -- to shape U.S. law through judicial interpretation, never mind what the American legislators who passed the law believed.

Earlier this year Judge Sotomayor opined: "international law and foreign law will be very important in the discussion of how to think about the unsettled issues in our legal system." She also declared: "unless American courts are more open to discussing the ideas raised by foreign cases, by international cases, that we are going to lose influence in the world." That's a dubious claim, but even if true, why should the judiciary worry about America's international influence?

Judge Sotomayor tried to walk back her earlier remarks when she testified. Nevertheless, her basic beliefs seem clear. In her foreword to The International Lawyer, published in 2007, she said: "the question of how much we have to learn from foreign law and the international community when interpreting the Constitution is … worth posing." [Emphasis added.] It is not xenophobic to ask: why should international cases have any role in interpreting the Constitution?

The interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and law should be based on the intentions of the Americans who drafted and approved the measure at issue.

Sonia Sotomayor appears to be a decent person and a capable jurist. But her oft-expressed radical ideas and dismissive treatment of fundamental liberties suggest that she is likely to be a less measured justice than judge. The rule of law, and thus the original constitutional system based on individual liberty and limited government, would suffer. Average Americans of all backgrounds would be the ultimate victims.

Judge Sotomayor has not met Sen. Durbin's burden of proof. The Senate should vote no on her appointment.

By Doug Bandow on 7.30.09 @ 6:08AM

Mr. Bandow is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and D.C. bars. This article is adapted from a talk for the Federalist Society.

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

No On Sotomayor To Protect Second Amendment Rights

You and I know that it is extremely important that a Supreme Court justice understand and appreciate the origin and meaning of the Second Amendment, a constitutional guarantee permanently enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The record of Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, on the Second Amendment should causes cause every patriotic American grave concern over her treatment of this enumerated constitutional right.

Last year, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment guarantees to all law-abiding, responsible citizens the individual right to keep and bear arms, particularly for self-defense. Following Heller, the Supreme Court is almost certain to decide next year whether the Second Amendment applies to states and local governments, as it does to the federal government (see NRA v. Chicago and McDonald v. Chicago.)

While sitting as a federal judge on the Second Circuit Appeals Court, Judge Sotomayor revealed her views on the right to keep and bear arms in Maloney v. Cuomo, a case decided after Heller, yet holding that the Second Amendment is NOT a fundamental right, that it does NOT apply to the states, and that if an object is "designed primarily as a weapon" then that is a sufficient basis for total prohibition -- even within the home!

Earlier, in a 2004 case, United States v. Sanchez-Villar, Sotomayor and two colleagues perfunctorily dismissed a Second Amendment claim, holding that "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." Imagine if such a view were expressed about other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, such as the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments!

Call, email or fax your Senator to vote “NO” on Sotomayor

United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121

Senators from your State.

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson