More on the Supreme Court

There are two ways of thinking about this.

Obviously, Sonia Sotomayor has no business being a member of the Supreme Court. She's a blatant racist and covets the notion of appellate court judges setting all national policies. Her personal character and view of herself as dictator ought to disqualify her candidacy.

But since we're living in the Changed Land, where truth and reason are irrelevant, Sotomayor has been appointed to the Supreme Court.

With her lack of respect for the Second Amendment) among others), and her long, thorough record of voting against freedom, her opponents should include conservatives, libertarians, free-speechers, (real) liberals, judicial restraintists and more. Basically everyone but the fascists claiming to be "progressive." Sotomayor's views on the Constitution, on democracy and on America are far beyond anything most Americans would feel comfortable with.

That's the problem, so what's the solution?

I've previously written that I hoped President Obama would appoint an incompetent leftist to the Court: it's better for us if someone stupid is trying to take our rights than if someone clever is. The stupid person is less likely to succeed. And Sotomayor is, indeed, stupid. Appeals to her judicial decisions have been taken up by the Supreme Court six times in her career; five of those, she was overturned. Even the Detroit Lions were wise enough to fire Coach Rod Marinelli after his team went 0-16 last year.

So Sotomayor opponents could strategically agree to her nomination, knowing we are likely to like Obama's second choice little better than his first. Remember: Leftists helped block President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the court, citing a lack of qualifications. Conservatives also were unhappy with the choice for that reason and for an unproven record of conservatism. Bush's second choice for that seat was Justice Samuel Alito, a sharp conservative who might influence judicial philosophy for decades.

The other choice is to fight like hell. In a straight-up vote, Sotomayor will win confirmation in a runaway because Republicans just don't have the votes to stop one. But Democrats were in a quite similar position when Bush nominated Miers. Intense public review of Sotomayor's qualifications, competence and opinions on the judiciary's role in America -- perhaps compared to those of competent alternatives, even liberals -- could turn embarrassing in a hurry.

Democrats' tone in discussing the upcoming confirmation process suggests that it might be just possible to derail her.

New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer made the preposterous claim that it is 40 Republicans in the Senate (not even enough to properly filibuster) who should be under the microscope in the next few months, not the judge who wishes to become one ninth of the highest court in the land. "I think the confirmation process will be more of a test of the Republican Party than it is of Judge Sotomayor," he said.

And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has insisted that critics must be "exceedingly careful" about what they say in this debate.

These guys are quite desperate to avoid a confrontation here. That means we ought to give them one.

Our devious side might consider it a small victory to see Sotomayor on the court, instead of Alito's brilliant-but-leftist counterpart. But our best judgment is that Sonia Sotomayor does not belong there. We have to fight like hell.

Morticians Association endorses Obama plan

Another good one from our friends at Reason TV.

Thieves and Fools, Part II

This column is the second installment of an ongoing series, entitled : If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool.

With a sympathetic-to-the-cause president and huge sympathetic majorities in Congress, we find ourselves in grave danger of getting a "universal health care" system crammed down our throats.

Rather, as The Wall Street Journal editorialized today, we risk having such a program — there's just no way around this one — shoved up our asses.

According to the Journal, Medicare bean-counters recently decided to deny funding for virtual colonoscopies. Such procedures, described as CT scans of the abdomen, can detect polyps that lead to deadly colon cancer. Better still, they can do so with far less discomfort and personal ... intrusion ... than traditional colonoscopies, in which optical equipment is inserted into the body.

But the procedures are too costly for Medicare, which faces almost $40 trillion of promised benefits in coming years. So the government, which decades ago promised medical care to millions of Americans, cannot today afford high-quality, new-era services. So instead, bureaucrats think it appropriate to relegate patients to a thorough — and quite uncomfortable, no doubt — gut-check.

On the Supreme Court

When I read The Brethren a few years ago, my exceedingly high opinion of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist swelled even further.

Some tales in that book describe how Rehnquist was not only a jurist respectful of freedom, but that he was also so brilliant that he could write opinions that swayed even his liberty-hating colleagues. Some of his writings were so compelling that the statist justices voting against him on some cases realized they had to narrow the scope of their own opinions.

So when President Barack Obama nominates a replacement for the evil-minded Justice David Hackett Souter, I'm hopeful that he continues to consider Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

My own vision of a Supreme Court justice is an immensely talented, witty, diligent, workaholic with an unyielding desire to protect freedom, whose respects the Bill of Rights more than any other earthly thing.

Before nominating a person to the Supreme Court, I would wish to have satisfied every curiosity about the person's commitment to individual rights and liberties, and about the person's intellect and ability.

Granholm is among America's worst and dumbest elected officials. So if she is the one trying to persuade other court members to rob our rights, our rights should be fairly safe.

Where is the humanitarianism?

The Democratic Party claims to be the chief humanitarian political movement in America. It insists on quality education as a goal for all Americans, because children without education are hopeless.

The Democratic Party, which enacted the Great Society and the New Deal, has no qualms about spending our money to improve peoples' lives.

Until it is faced with a relatively inexpensive spending program, that is. Until it is faced with one of the few programs that is actually effective. Then the Democrats make every effort possible to kill it.

And so goes the D.C. school voucher program. President Barack Obama is smart enough to send his children to a quality private school because the public schools in that city are worthless. Now he and his Congressional allies are taking that same opportunity away from poorer kids.

Thieves and Fools, Part I

This column is the first installment of an ongoing series, which I'm calling: If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool. This piece addresses the title's second article.

Today we've learned of a plan to levy taxes on soda pop because it's bad for you. Also, other sugary drinks will be subject. And Red Bull, Gatorade, iced tea, and anything else deemed "unhealthy" could see an excise tax, if the meddling fools in government have their way.

If unhealthy things are taxed, the notion goes, John Q. American will be less likely to indulge. Thus, a lesser burden will weigh on the nation's health care system in coming years (because fewer Jan Q. Americans will suffer with high blood pressure, diabetes and general fatness). In short, everybody wins!

Except that we all lose.

If government conjures a health care entitlement and administers Benadryl to everyone with an sniffle, it will create a corollary responsibility to monitor and, whenever possible, reduce costs of that Benadryl-distribution program. So any unhealthy, or potentially unhealthy, food and drink will be subject to far-reaching regulation.

Imagine: Sin taxes on chocolate, peanut-butter cookies, ice cream, pretzels, tomato juice, eggs, beef kept on the grill too long and butter. Excises on skydiving, unprotected sex, coffee and mayonnaise. Surcharges on cheese and 147 varieties of alcoholic beverage. Hefty fees on Spam, bologna, bacon, avocados, whole milk and cheesecake.

We can discuss whether or not participating in said items is healthy. In many cases, it is not. But no other man on earth has a legitimate moral authority to make such decisions for me.

Perhaps worse still: With the corrupt and nitwitted nature of policy-making bureaucrats, "unhealthy" and "dangerous" won't be the standard used for setting such behavior-controlling taxes. Bribery, friends in high places, irrational P.R. campaigns and mindless agency mission statements will matter far more.

Take, for instance, another story we saw today. Cheerios, a healthy foodstuff, is under threat by the Food and Drug Administration for being too healthy. Because eating that breakfast cereal will lower cholesterol (and because many people with high cholesterol want to lower it on their own, without legislated mandate), the makers advertise that it will lower cholesterol. Hence, according to the FDA, that food is therefore really a drug — and not regulated nearly enough.

This is not 'our tax dollars at work.' This is our tax dollars being burned as the fuel to power engines that are destroying us.

'I hope his kidneys fail'

The White House Correspondents' Association dinner has long been a forum for good natured fun-poking at the president or his administration.

Yet here we have President Barack Obama laughing when a comedian accuses Rush Limbaugh of participating in 9-11, and then saying she hopes he dies.



Classy, Mr. President. Very classy.

Our budget makes Russia look well-managed

Nancy Pelosi is a stupid teenage girl with daddy's credit card.

Harry Reid is a financial moron who thinks it wise to buy, buy, buy on lines of credit and make minimum monthly payments into perpetuity.

Barack Obama has followed one of the most fiscally irresponsible administrations in American history -- that of George W. Bush -- and in a matter of days he has made it look like a cheapskate.

Obama has made (very public) proposals to cut spending on two occasions. First, when he encouraged the executive bureaucracy to save $100 million over 90 days by simply turning out the lights when everybody leaves and using e-mails instead of paper memos and the like. More recently he promoted the idea of cutting $17 billion from inefficient or unneeded government programs.

Compared to the trillion-dollar bailouts, trillion-dollar 'stimulus' packages, the multi-billion-dollar loans (who really thinks those will get repaid?), the balooning budgets of bureaucracies and the scary-big proposals for new giveaway programs, those cut numbers are microscopic. (The New York Times described them as laughable.) And Congress probably won't make them, anyway.

The Associated Press today reported that this year's budget deficit will approach $2 trillion, or four times the record set under the Bush Administration last year, at $90 billion. We have a national debt of $11 trillion, which has accumulated over hundreds of years, two world wars, the New Deal, the Great Society, the mission to the moon and that 40-year effort to bring down the Soviet Union.

This year alone, we'll add another $2 trillion. And that's if Obama doesn't nationalize the health care system, too.

Rubicon in our rear-view

Show of hands: Who remembers a federal government agency that has decreased its budget or cut its operation. Ever?

Yes, sir, you in the back. Oh ... you were stretching.

Ronald Reagan's 'A Time for Choosing' Speech in 1964 contained the sentence: "Federal bureaus are the closest thing we will ever see to eternal life on this planet." That line is funny; the truth it espouses is anything but.

Yesterday a couple of news outlets reported that state governments are receiving more money from federal grants than from state property or income taxes, or from any other source.

I encourage you to ask a handful of public school teachers about No Child Left Behind. Or a pharmacist about Medicare. I suspect you will find that, when the federal government starts doling out cash it also starts grabbing powers for itself. And, far too often, it creates burdens that don't achieve anything good, don't make any sense, and are just as likely to run people out of their business as they are to help anyone.

I fear we have Crossed the Rubicon on federalism. Without dramatic, revolutionary change on a scale not managed by American politicians since the Constitution was written, federalism is dead. And it is us who have killed it.

We would not accept radical encroachments on our privacy and our personal decisions if they came in one grand sweep. But they have come in many small nibbles at our liberty, and we have gone along with them without complaint.

About a month ago I wrote about the government's creeping way of taking over our lives. The feds don't have Constitutional authority to set drinking age laws or to administer public schools. But they pass out trillions of dollars a year, and they attach any strings they want to along with it.

We have to start electing legislators and executives to national office who will say, "no more money from the federal government for bail-outs to the states." And we have to start electing state officials who will say the same.

Today, the states are more beholden to the federal government than ever before. Show of hands: Who thinks that's a good thing? Yes sir, you in the back? Oh. That's right ... you were stretching.

The Internet saved my tongue

I just read a great piece from Reason about a tremendous battle for freedom. Thank God for men like Ezra Levant.

To see the story, click HERE.

Also, enjoy the video below.