Crap on the horizon.

"Empathy" Versus Law
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point.
That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group "representation" is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That President Obama has made "empathy" with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.
Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with "empathy" for groups A, B and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y or Z? Nothing could be further from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with "empathy" for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans.
We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law would become meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words "rule of law." And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.
Those people who just accept soothing words from politicians they like are gambling with the future of a nation. If you were German, would you be in favor of a law "to relieve the distress of the German people and nation"? That was the law that gave Hitler dictatorial power.

He was just another German chancellor at the time. He was not elected on a platform of war, dictatorship or genocide. He got the power to do those things because of a law "to relieve the distress of the German people."

When you buy words, you had better know what you are buying.
In the American system of government, presidential term limits restrict how long any given resident of the White House can damage this country directly. But that does not limit how long, or how much, the people he appoints to the Supreme Court can continue to damage this country, for decades after the president who appointed them is long gone.

Justice John Paul Stevens virtually destroyed the Constitution's restrictions on government officials' ability to confiscate private property in his 2005 decision in the case of "Kelo v. New London"-- 30 years after President Ford appointed him.
The biggest danger in appointing the wrong people to the Supreme Court is not just in how they might vote on some particular issues-- whether private property, abortion or whatever. The biggest danger is that they will undermine or destroy the very concept of the rule of law-- what has been called "a government of laws and not of men."

Under the American system of government, this cannot be done overnight or perhaps even during the terms in office of one president-- but it can be done. And it can be done over time by the appointees of just one president, if he gets enough appointees.
Some people say that who Barack Obama appoints to replace Justice Souter doesn't really matter, because Souter is a liberal who will probably be replaced by another liberal. But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with "empathy"-- which is to say, with justices who think their job is to "relieve the distress" of particular groups, rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Glimmers of Hope for the GOP
by Patrick J. Buchanan
05/05/2009

For conservatives fretful over the future of the party to which they have given allegiance, "How Barack Obama Won: A State by State Guide to the Historic 2008 Election" reads like something out of Edgar Allan Poe.
Co-authored by NBC's Chuck Todd, it is a grim tale of what happened to the GOP in 2008, and what the future may hold.

Yet, on second and third reads, one discerns, as did Gen. Wolfe's scouts 250 years ago, a narrow path leading up the cliff to the Plains of Abraham -- and perhaps victory in 2012. First, the bad news:
Obama raised the national share of the black vote to 13 percent, then swept it 95 percent to 4 percent. The GOP share of the Hispanic vote, now 9 percent of the electorate, fell from George W. Bush's 40 percent against John Kerry to 32 percent. Young voters ages 18 to 29 went for Obama 66 percent to 31 percent. And Obama ran stronger among white voters with a college education than did either Al Gore or Kerry.

Put starkly, the voting groups growing in numbers -- Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, folks with college degrees, the young -- are all trending Democratic, while the voters most loyal to the GOP -- white folks and religious conservatives -- are declining as a share of the U.S. electorate. And demography is destiny.
Other grim news: As noted here recently, 18 states and Washington, D.C., with 247 electoral votes -- all New England save New Hampshire; New York and New Jersey; the mid-Atlantic states, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland; Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota; the three Pacific Coast states plus Hawaii -- have all gone Democratic in all of the last five presidential elections. And John McCain lost every one of them by double digits.

In this Slough of Despond, where is the hope?
Despite all of the above, John McCain, two weeks after the GOP convention, thanks to the surge in energy and enthusiasm Sarah Palin brought to the ticket, was running ahead of Obama.
It was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the crash and the panic that ensued, which McCain mishandled, that lost him all the ground he never made up. Had the crash not occurred, the election might have been much closer than seven points, which in itself is no blowout.

Second, an astonishing 75 percent of voters thought the country was headed in the wrong direction. Obama won these voters 62 percent to 36 percent. But if the country is seen as headed in the wrong direction in 2012, it will be Obama's albatross.

Third, only 27 percent of voters approved of Bush's performance as of Election Day; 71 percent disapproved. Only Harry Truman had a lower rating, 22 percent, and Democrats were also wiped out in Washington in 1952.
Here is Todd's dramatic point: "With the single exception of Missouri, which barely went for McCain, Obama won every state where Bush's approval rating was below 35 percent in the exit polls, and he lost every state where Bush's approval was above 35 percent."

Obama rode Bush's coattails to victory. Had Bush been at 35 percent or 40 percent, McCain might have won. But, in 2012, Obama will not have Bush to kick around anymore.
On candidates' qualities, the situation looks even rosier for the GOP. In 2008, no less than 34 percent of the electorate said that the most important consideration in a candidate was that he be for "change."
Obama was the "change candidate." He patented the brand, and he carried this third of the nation 89 percent to 9 percent.

But in 2012, Obama cannot be the candidate of change. That title will belong to his challenger, the Republican nominee. Obama will be the incumbent, the candidate of continuity.
The second most critical consideration of voters in choosing a president was "values." No less than 30 percent of the electorate said this was their primary consideration in voting for McCain or Obama.
Among values voters, fully 30 percent of the electorate, McCain won 65 percent to 32 percent, or by two to one.

What these numbers demonstrate is that liberals and neocons instructing the GOP to dump the social, moral and cultural issues are counseling Republicide. When African-Americans, who gave McCain 4 percent of their votes in California, gave Proposition 8, prohibiting gay marriage, 70 percent of their votes, why would the GOP give up one of its trump cards -- not only in Middle America but among minorities?
A conservative who could have sharpened the social, moral and cultural differences might, from the exit polls, have done far better.

McCain's diffidence on life, affirmative action and gay rights, his embrace of amnesty and NAFTA, all help explain the enthusiasm gap. Twice as many voters were excited about the prospects of an Obama presidency as were about a McCain presidency.
Lastly, on Election Day, only 7 percent thought the U.S. economy was doing well, while 93 percent rated it as not so good, or poor. The GOP will not have to wear those concrete boots in 2012.

The tide is still running strong against the GOP. But there may be one or two more White Houses in the Grand Old Party yet.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reader Comments: (109)
Pat and Chuck Todd explain well what voters were looking for in the last election but not so much why those voters believed that Obama is the man who can deliver. I suspect the reason is 'The Magical Negro'
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro
"The magical negro (sometimes called the mystical negro or magic negro) is a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble."
--did anyone not see the droves of white folks hailing the Messiah? The ones here in Boston are from the whitest areas known to man. I doubt that the majority of them ever associate with black people in their day-to-day in any meaningful way. Maybe precisely this disconnect from reality that made it so easy for them to engage in fantasy. What else, other than his color, could they possibly find so inspiring and intriguing in this underachiever, affirmative action baby nobody?

"The magical negro is typically but not always "in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint," often a janitor or prisoner.[5] He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist.[6] He sometimes fits the black stereotype, "prone to criminality and laziness."[7] To counterbalance this, he has some sort of magical power, "rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters."[6] He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom, and is "closer to the earth."[2]"
--Obama's 'former' drug use is highlighted by white leftists as if some sort of an achievement. Accusations of fraud, racism, drug use, questionable upbringing were all like putting water on a grease fire.
--Obama has none-existing past achievements. Who care? Look at him! HE IS BLACK!

"The magical negro serves as a plot device to help the protagonist get out of trouble, typically through helping the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them."
-- Whites are in financial trouble and Obama, the person involved in so many crooked deals and who demonstrated complete lack of knowledge about economics, will fix it all because he is black.
Make no mistake about it. Obama's presidential campaign started when the Magical Negro archetype was introduced in contemporary fiction, brainwashing white people, decades ago. Obama simply stepped into the role.
An Idiot’s Guide to the Magical Negro
http://blog.spout.com/2009/01/05/an-idiots-guide-to-the-magical-negro/
May 05, 2009 @ 02:30 AMFred, Boston, MA
*****
I'm not sure this conservative needs a Republican Party. Every paper I read, and every 'Ponchita' on this site purports to believe we have solved debt by creating decades more of it. We have solved international cooperation by having a crying, forgiveness tour. We have solved North Korean nukes by warning them not to launch, and then expressing disappointment. Heck, I now own controlling interest in 2 auto companies (It kind of has the same feeling as my two houses that are both worth less than I owe....). Barrack Obama is going to save our planet. He is going to battle the flu!

I am warming up to this...
www.conservativemusiconline.com
May 05, 2009 @ 03:39 AMLance Morrison, CA
***
It isn't likely a conservative will ever take the White House again. A Republican might, but he certainly won't be conservative. The demographics will be just too far out of wack to allow it. By the time Obama is done, there will be another 10M newly legalized Democrat voters in addition to 5M stimulus government job created Democrat voters. That's tough, no impossible, to overcome. I live in California, I see the future (a public sector job created for every private sector job lost, ten on the dole come in for every top bracket taxpayer that leaves) and it is neither pretty nor sustainable.
May 05, 2009 @ 04:07 AMDan Anderson, Fremont, CA
***
---"It was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the crash and the panic that ensued, which McCain mishandled, that lost him all the ground he never made up."---
Understatement of the year. Voting WITH Obama on Bush's bailout was possibly the dumbest move in election history.
May 05, 2009 @ 04:57 AMClark Kent, North Georgia
***
What both parties lacked in the last four elections is ethics. Another word for ethics is honesty. Another word for honesty is truth. Neither the Reps or the Dems have either.
What won the last election was the simple fact Soetoro (aka Obama) was able to conceal his past lack of ethics better than McCain who has a history of shady dealings both in Arizona and Washington.
Soetoro, to be absolutely truthful, is hiding a past that makes McCain look like a saint; witness the FACT that he (Soetoro) has spent over a million dollars on lawyers specifically to keep his past from becoming public knowledge.

There is a simple litmus test that government on any level won't or can't address: When government becomes immoral and blatantly unethical, the populus will take license and soon follow suit; a father cannot preach ethics to his son or daughter on the one hand and act like a drunken fool on the other.
Unfortunately, since we no longer have a Constitution as a guide, both government and the populus are adrift in uncharted waters where any port will do in the tempest we find ourselves in at the moment. That port can be one composed of pirates or priests and only when the waters subside will those adrift know which...

Civilization cannot take much more of current world, national and local politics. We have become bankrupt both in money and morals -- which brings us back to ethics. If there is no more ethical behavior, nor likely to be, civilization will cease to exist and this experiment in human governance will deteriorate at an exponential pace.
Did anyone see it coming?
Was anyone looking?
May 05, 2009 @ 05:06 AMJoe7000, Mesa, Az
***
Pat correctly says that demographics is destiny.
And the demographic trends favor Dummycrats.
According to Dick Morris several years ago, Dhimmicrats gain about a half of one percent every year over the Republican Party. That means in every next presidential election, the Republicans have to do 2 points better than they did in the previous election just to remain even.

And this doesn't take into account the massive amount of Dumbocrat voter fraud that has already occurred and will only increase in the future.
And Republicans have only themselves to blame for this. After the court-decided election in 2000, the Repuboicans had a gold-plated opportunity to demand a radical cleansing of the voter rolls and of voting itself, lest the nation risk a return to the post-election turmoil that ensued in 2000.

Computerized voting with fool-proof means of matching eligible voters with biological proof of identity such as retinal scans would have been the way to go. Tying this with online voting could have ended forever the need to go down to the local school to cast a vote.
But the Republicans under George Herbert Hoover Bush Jr. did NOTHING.
So GO SUFFER, smart guys -- you all DESERVE it.

PS: Here's another badly-needed election reform: Just as, when one applies for a passport, one must provide proof of eligible citizenship, so too, when one publically announces an intention to run for the nation's highest office, one should be required, as a matter of law, to prove one's constitutional eligibility to hold that office.
Obama did NOT do that and there IS a REASONABLE DOUBT that he is eligible. It is not only a travesty; it is also dangerous to the nation's welfare and must never happen again.
May 05, 2009 @ 05:09 AMJames A. Nollet, Milkowice, POLAND
***
If blacks ever figure out what the Democratic party has done to them over the years, they will be the most conservative voting block this country has ever witnessed.
www.nbra.info/ is worth taking a look at. Astonishing!
May 05, 2009 @ 05:28 AMFulghumInk, Pinehurst,

I will be the first to admit to being annoyed by automated phone instructions that direct me to press “one” for English and “two” for Spanish. It is more than a minor inconvenience. It is a matter of principle. If immigrants are to make a meaningful contribution to society they must do a little work before they are given all of society’s benefits. That includes taking the time to learn English. It’s the same logic that was used to put me through a semester of pledging before being admitted to the ranks of the Sigma Chi fraternity in 1986.

But the statist says he does not want American institutions to teach immigrants our language, our history, and our culture. He says he does not want to do so because of his commitment to the religion of moral relativism. He says that to do so would send the wrong message that American culture is somehow better than other cultures.
Of course, the statist is being less than truthful. The very fact that we are flooded with immigrants shows that we are superior to other countries like Mexico. The fact that past nations like East Germany have had to build walls to keep people in, not out, shows they are aware of their inferiority. We don’t need to worry about hurting their collective feelings.

So the statist may as well admit that it is not out of principle – as if moral relativism can, indeed, be principled – that he makes immigration so easy. The reason is one of raw power. He wants more votes in order to advance the statist agenda.
The statist may, from time to time, claim that his stance on immigration is pragmatic rather than principled. This is at best an unprincipled distortion of the truth. He cannot claim that amnesty is a “solution” to the “problem” of filling low wage jobs that poor people will not fill. It is his stance on immigration that drives down wages in the first place. Surely one cannot claim credit for solving the problems he created himself.

It is hardly surprising that the statist mentality leads not just to a desire to erode borders but, also, to a desire to erode our national defense. Those who are unwilling to see our nation as superior are hardly in a position to argue for military superiority. The same mentality that leads to faith in moral relativism leads to faith in the United Nations. But George Washington saw things differently. In 1793, he said the following:
There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
At a time when America is flirting with statist policies, other nations are moving beyond their own borders in search of resources, which, if obtained, could drastically change our standing in the world. Russia is claiming the North Pole as its own in order to obtain more oil. China is making contracts with Latin America in pursuit of the same goal.

Meanwhile, the statist is unconcerned. America is only five percent of the world’s population. But it consumes twenty-five percent of the world’s energy supply. The statist “solution” to the “problem” of such global inequality is to make America poorer.
This statist mentality is so pervasive that it threatens our economy, our national security, and every aspect of our individual liberty. Its advance has been made possible, not just by Democrats, but also by unprincipled Republicans. Herbert Hoover made FDR’s New Deal possible with protectionist policies following the stock market crash of 1929.

George W. Bush has similarly enabled President Obama with his TARP policies of 2008. His statement that he “abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system” will live in infamy. It has secured his place in history as the Republican Jimmy Carter – a president so inept that he took down an entire party for a whole generation.
But thank God groups like the Young America’s Foundation and the Leadership Institute are working to produce a new generation of conservatives who will help rebuild this nation based on conservative principles. And thank God Mark Levin has written Liberty and Tyranny to show them just how to do it.

I believe Mark Levin is correct in asserting that we must limit the Supreme Court’s judicial review power. We must do so by establishing legislative veto power over Court decisions with a supermajority vote of both houses of Congress. That would be more in line with the Framers intent than the status quo.
I believe Mark Levin is also right in asserting that we must end the monopoly of government education by applying anti-trust laws to the National Education Association. We must do the same for the American Federation of Teachers.

Whatever we do, we must act soon. For, it was Ronald Reagan who warned us: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our grandchildren what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Source: Mark Levin (2009) Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. New York: Simon and Schuster.

http://townhall.com/Columnists/MikeAdams/2009/05/08/immigration_and_self-preservation

I’m giving Mark Steyn’s new book Lights Out: Islam, free speech and the twilight of the West a rave review, and not just because he mentions me in the Author’s Note. And on page 214. And somewhere else, I think. (Come on: did you really expect me NOT to mention that...?)

No, its because Steyn is incapable of writing a tedious line. As reviewers noted about his last book, the demographic doomsday tome America Alone, reading Mark Steyn can be the most fun you’ll have getting depressed.

In Lights Out, Steyn chronicles his year from hell. Canada’s oldest magazine, Maclean’s, printed an excerpt from America Alone that speculated on the effect increased Muslim immigrant birthrates were having on European society, and, by extension, America.

Published on DickMorris.com on May 24, 2009

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta, who recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.
More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself." She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.

In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama's end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action. As Metternich wrote "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments." By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat. The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel's life is in danger. If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews. No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference. One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death. Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence. Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility. Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons. And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel. We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country. If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb. And neither is Hillary Clinton.
Obama may have held the first White House cedar, but he's not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!

If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews.

It is one of the signs of our times that so many in the media are focusing on the life story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States.
You might think that this was some kind of popularity contest, instead of a weighty decision about someone whose impact on the fundamental law of the nation will extend for decades after Barack Obama has come and gone.

Much is being made of the fact that Sonia Sotomayor had to struggle to rise in the world. But stop and think.
If you were going to have open heart surgery, would you want to be operated on by a surgeon who was chosen because he had to struggle to get where he is or by the best surgeon you could find-- even if he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had every advantage that money and social position could offer?

If it were you who was going to be lying on that operating table with his heart cut open, you wouldn't give a tinker's damn about somebody's struggle or somebody else's privileges.
The Supreme Court of the United States is in effect operating on the heart of our nation-- the Constitution and the statutes and government policies that all of us must live under.

Barack Obama's repeated claim that a Supreme Court justice should have "empathy" with various groups has raised red flags that we ignore at our peril-- and at the peril of our children and grandchildren.
"Empathy" for particular groups can be reconciled with "equal justice under law"-- the motto over the entrance to the Supreme Court-- only with smooth words. But not in reality. President Obama used those smooth words in introducing Judge Sotomayor but words do not change realities.

Nothing demonstrates the fatal dangers from judicial "empathy" more than Judge Sotomayor's decision in a 2008 case involving firemen who took an exam for promotion. After the racial mix of those who passed that test turned out to be predominantly white, with only a few blacks and Hispanics, the results were thrown out.
When this action by the local civil service authorities was taken to court and eventually reached the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Sotomayor did not give the case even the courtesy of a spelling out of the issues. She backed those who threw out the test results. Apparently she didn't have "empathy" with those predominantly white males who had been cheated out of promotions they had earned.

Fellow 2nd Circuit Court judge Jose Cabranes commented on the short shrift given to the serious issues in this case. It so happens that he too is Hispanic, but apparently he does not decide legal issues on the basis of "empathy" or lack thereof.
This was not an isolated matter for Judge Sotomayor. Speaking at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, she said that the ethnicity and sex of a judge "may and will make a difference in our judging."

Moreover, this was not something she lamented. On the contrary, she added, "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."
No doubt the political spinmasters will try to spin this to mean something innocent. But the cold fact is that this is a poisonous doctrine for any judge, much less a justice of the Supreme Court.

That kind of empathy would for all practical purposes repeal the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" to all Americans.
What would the political spinmasters say if some white man said that a white male would more often reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic female?

For those who believe in the rule of law, Barack Obama used the words "rule of law" in introducing his nominee. For those who take his words as gospel, even when his own actions are directly the opposite of his words, that may be enough to let him put this dangerous woman on the Supreme Court.
Even if her confirmation cannot be stopped, it is important for Senators to warn of the dangers, which will only get worse if such nominations sail through the Senate smoothly.

Link

God save us from liberal "empathy." After President Barack Obama announced his empathetic Supreme Court nominee this week, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, we found out that some people are more deserving of empathy than others.
For example, Judge Sotomayor apparently "empathized" more with New Haven, Conn., government officials than with white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied promotions by the city on the basis of their race.

Let's hope she's as empathetic to New Haven residents who die in fires fought by inferior firefighters as a result of her decision.
In the now-famous firefighters' case, Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven Fire Department administered a civil service exam to choose a new batch of lieutenants and captains. The city went so far as to hire an outside consultant to design the test in order to ensure that it was job-related and not racially biased. (You know, just like all written tests were pre-screened for racial bias back when we were in school.)

But when the results came in, only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to earn promotions.
Such results never entice Democrats to reconsider their undying devotion to the teachers' unions that routinely produce students who can't read, write or do basic math. Obviously, disadvantaged children from single-parent homes suffer the most from inadequate public schools -- and their tragic outcome bedevils the entire society for the rest of the students' lives.

Instead, Democrats hide the failure of government schools by punishing the high-scoring whites, Asians and Hispanics, who presumably learned everything they know at home. (If only successfully applying a condom were relevant to firefighting, public school graduates raised in single-parent homes would crush the home-learners!)
So naturally, New Haven city officials decided to scrap the exam results and promote no one.

Seventeen of the high-scoring whites and one high-scoring Hispanic sued the mayor, John DeStefano, and other city officials for denying them promotions solely because of their race.
The district court ruled that there was no race discrimination because the low-scoring blacks were not given promotions either -- citing the landmark case, One Bad Apple v. The Rest of the Barrel. (That's the sort of sophistry we're taught in law school.)

Concerned that Sotomayor's famed "empathy" might not shine through in cases such as Ricci v. DeStefano, the Democrats are claiming -- as Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said on MSNBC -- that she was merely applying "precedent" to decide the case. You know, just like conservatives say judges should.
This was an interesting claim, in the sense that it was the exact polar opposite of the truth.

To be sure, there is "precedent" for racial discrimination by the government, but Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education. If Sotomayor had another case in mind, she wasn't telling: The lower court's dismissal of the firefighters' case was upheld by Sotomayor and two other judges in an unsigned, unpublished opinion, titled, "Talk to the Hand."
Not only that, but Sotomayor's fellow Clinton appointee, Jose Cabranes (who sounds like an "empathetic" fellow), issued a blistering dissent from the appellate court's denial of a rehearing specifically on the grounds that the case "raises important questions of first impression in our Circuit -- and indeed, in the nation."

A "case of first impression" means there's no precedent. If there were a precedent, it would be a case of, at least, "second impression."
If it were merely "empathy" that explained liberal judges' lawless opinions, one might expect some liberal judges to have empathy for the white and Hispanic firefighters being discriminated against today, and others to have empathy for the hypothetical black firefighters discriminated against in times past.

But all liberals only have empathy for the exact same victims -- always the ones that are represented by powerful liberal interest groups. As Joe Sobran says, it takes a lot of clout to be a victim.
Thus, the media and Democrats seem to find successful Hispanic attorney Sotomayor much more "empathetic" than successful Hispanic attorney Miguel Estrada.

After aggressively blocking Estrada's nomination to a federal appeals court during Bush's first term solely on the grounds that he is Hispanic and was likely headed for the Supreme Court -- according to Senate Democrat staff memos -- now Democrats have the audacity to rave that Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice!
If Sotomayor is not more empathetic than Estrada, liberals at least consider her more Hispanic -- an interesting conclusion inasmuch as Sotomayor was born in New York and Estrada was born in Honduras.

Forty-four of 48 Senate Democrats voted to filibuster Estrada's nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with congressman and professional Hispanic Raul Grijalva assuring them that just because "he happens to be named 'Estrada' does not give him a free ride."
The truth is liberals couldn't care less about Sotomayor being Hispanic. Indeed, liberals often have trouble telling Hispanic people apart, as James Carville illustrated on "Good Morning America" Wednesday morning when he kept confusing Miguel Estrada with Alberto Gonzales.

"Empathy," in Liberalspeak, is nothing but raw political power.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," "Godless," "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans" and most recently, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32042

Shortly after President Obama nominated her to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, I read Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s now famous words:
“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.”

My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice.
With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree. The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted).

So it is to her words -- the ones quoted above and others -- to which we should turn, for they show that the issue here is not racial identity politics. Sotomayor’s words reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system -- that everyone is equal before the law.

The Central Question: Is American Justice No Longer Blindfolded?
The fundamental issue at stake in the Sotomayor discussion or nomination is not her background or her gender but an issue that has implications far beyond this judge and this nomination: Is judicial impartiality no longer a quality we can and should demand from our Supreme Court Justices?

President Obama apparently thinks so. Other presidents, Republican and Democrat, have considered race and gender in making judicial appointments in the past. But none have explicitly advocated the notion that judges should substitute their personal experiences for impartiality in deciding cases. And certainly none have asserted that their ethnicity, race or gender would make them a better judge over a judge from a different background.

Here is how President Obama explained his criteria for appointing judges earlier this year:
“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.”

No Group Has Benefited More From Impartial Justice Than the Less Fortunate
With these words, President Obama is cleverly inviting his critics to come out swinging against empathy for the less fortunate among us. But Americans are smarter than this.

We understand that the job of a justice is to enforce the law, not the rule of empathy. And we understand that when a judge substitutes his or her personal experiences for the law, the law becomes what he or she wants it to be, not what the people, through their elected representatives, have decided it should be.
Most tragically, it is this principle of judicial impartiality -- of justice, not just for the rich and the powerful, but for all -- that has most benefited the vulnerable and the downtrodden in America.

No group has needed or continues to need justice -- that can’t be predetermined by wealth or privilege -- as much as the less privileged. President Obama doesn’t seem to grasp that, by weakening judges’ adherence to the rule of law, he is also weakening the very foundation of equal justice for the less fortunate Americans he wants to help.

The “Court of Appeals is Where Policy Is Made”
How does Judge Sotomayor come down on the issue of a judge’s fidelity to the law?
Here is what she told a Duke University Law School audience in 2005 (emphasis mine):

“All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is -- Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don't 'make law,' I know. [laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it. I'm, you know. [laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating.”

Is Judge Sotomayor Being Quoted Out of Context? You Read, You Decide
If Judge Sotomayor, by her own words, believes the judge’s bench is “where policy is made,” what kind of law can we expect her to make as a Supreme Court Justice?

The Berkeley Law School speech in which Judge Sotomayor made the comments that I quoted at the outset of this newsletter -- that a “wise Latina” would make a better judge than a white male -- has been widely cited.
The White House is now claiming that critics are taking Judge Sotomayor’s comments in that speech out of context. So in the spirit of “you read, you decide” I am linking here to Judge Sotomayor’s speech in full.

As you read it, see if you agree with those respected legal scholars who have concluded that the speech as a whole isn’t as damaging as the Judge’s “wise Latina” comment -- it’s worse.
“Our Gender and National Origins May and Will Make a Difference in Our Judging”

Here are some excerpts from the speech (emphasis mine):
"I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that."
"Whether born from experience or inherent psychological or cultural differences...our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

"Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in 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."
Again, you read, you decide. Read Judge Sotomayor’s speech in full here. Then let me know what you think at Newt.org.

“Equal Justice Under Law” Is Chiseled in Stone on the Supreme Court
The central principle of American justice -- and perhaps the single, great idea of America -- is equal justice before the law.

This idea is expressed in the words “all men (and today we would say all men and women) are created equal.” It means that Americans stand before the law, not as members of groups, but as individuals.
"Equal justice under law" is in fact chiseled in stone on the front of the Supreme Court building -- and for good reason.

When a judge disregards the rule of law and applies a different standard to certain groups -- or, as the President would say, shows “empathy” -- he or she violates this central American principle.
One Group’s “Empathy” is Another Group’s Injustice. Ask Frank Ricci.
When a judge views Americans as members of groups and not individuals, one group’s “empathy” becomes another group’s injustice.
Nowhere is the injustice that results from judging Americans as members of groups and not as individuals more evident than in Judge Sotomayor’s ruling in the case involving Frank Ricci, a New Haven, Conn., firefighter.

Ricci quit his second job and studied 13 hours a day in 2003 for a civil service exam he hoped would earn him a promotion to lieutenant in the New Haven Fire Department. And when Ricci took the exam, all his hard work seemed to pay off. He got one of the highest scores. But because no African-Americans scored high enough on the exam to be promoted, the city of New Haven threw out the results of the test and promoted no one.

Frank Ricci, 16 other white firefighters, and one Hispanic firefighter sued the city, claiming they were denied promotions on the basis of their race. A district judge dismissed the case, and a three- judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. One of those judges was Judge Sotomayor.

An Opportunity to Have a Debate About Equal Justice for Americans Like Frank Ricci
The Supreme Court is currently hearing the Ricci case, and a ruling is expected next month, likely in the midst of hearings on Judge Sotomayor’s nomination.
Legal experts expect the Supreme Court to reverse Judge Sotomayor’s ruling. But however the high court rules, this is a moment for America to have a full, honest and open debate, not just about the impartiality of our judges, but about equal justice before the law for Americans like Frank Ricci.

Which Judge Sotomayor Will Show Up on the Supreme Court?
In fairness to the judge, many of her rulings as a court of appeals judge do not match the radicalism of her speeches and statements. She has shown more caution and moderation in her rulings than in her words.

So the question we need to ask ourselves in considering Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation is this: Which judge will show up on the Supreme Court, the radical from her speeches or the convention liberal from her rulings?
It’s no small question. Judge Sotomayor is 54 years old. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is 89. Judge Sotomayor has the potential to spend more than 30 years on the Supreme Court. There, unlike on the court of appeals, she will have no reason to show caution. On the high court, Judge Sotomayor will not have to worry about a higher court overturning her rulings. As a Supreme Court Justice, she will do the overturning.

The stakes are very high with this nomination. Has President Obama nominated a conventionally liberal judge to a lifetime tenure on our highest court? Or a radical liberal activist who will cast aside the rule of law in favor of the narrow, divisive politics of race and gender identity?

Let me know what you think at Newt.org.
Your friend,
Newt

For a man of his impressive educational credentials, Barack Obama has sometimes shown a surprising ignorance of history.

During the 2008 campaign, when challenged on his pledge to meet with foreign tyrants without preconditions, he said that presidents from Franklin Roosevelt on had met with leaders of enemy nations. Funny thing, but in my books on World War II, I haven't been able to find the chapters on the Roosevelt-Hitler and Roosevelt-Tojo summits. In his speech in the Tiergarten last summer, he told us that the Berlin Wall came down thanks to "a world that stands as one." My recollection is that the world was standing as two, and one side wanted to keep the wall up.

The good news is that in his speech to "the Muslim world" in Cairo last week, Obama showed a surer grasp of the past. The bad news is that he still has more to learn.

Obama got some important things right and pounded them home to his audience. Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. "Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant and hateful." Al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11. "These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with." America's bond with Israel is "unbreakable." Good, though perhaps undercut later in the speech. "The richness of religious diversity must be upheld -- whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt." Very good, though lacking any reference to Saudi Arabia, perhaps because the list of sects not tolerated would be too long.

"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," Obama said, "one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect." The unfortunate implication is that the United States did not respect Muslims before his inauguration. But then he went on to make points that George W. Bush made repeatedly in the seven years after Sept. 11.

"America is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam." "All people yearn for certain things," including free speech, democracy, the rule of law, "the freedom to live as you choose." He also echoed Bush in his criticism of "a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations."

Like Bush and other American presidents, Obama hailed the United States as "one of the greatest sources of progress the world has ever known." And the candidate who treated our mission in Iraq with scorn seems to have felt obliged to acknowledge that "the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein" and that the government of Iraq is "democratically elected."

But he still has some history left to learn. "No system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other." But that's what the United States did in Germany and Japan, and in Iraq, as well. As one of the Democratic senators who insisted that the Iraqis meet benchmarks, Obama was a micromanager in that process himself.

"We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity" into Afghanistan. No, it was by choice; we could have stayed out and depended, as we did after the attacks of the 1990s, on homeland defenses. And as for his claim that "Islam has always been a part of America's story," that's a stretch, and one that requires airbrushing out the war against the Barbary pirates.

Most disturbingly, Obama seems to have gotten the history of the Israel-Palestine issue wrong. The plight of the Palestinians since 1948 or 1967 is not the moral equivalent of the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust, as Obama's "on the other hand" segue suggested. Nor are private statements by Arabs accepting the continued existence of Israel the moral equivalent of Israeli governments' public willingness to negotiate with Palestinians.

Obama seems not to have learned from previous presidents' attempts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement that no solution is possible without an interlocutor willing to let Israel live in peace. His attempt to muscle Israel into stopping even natural growth of settlements beyond the 1967 line applies pressure to the party already willing to make peace. Obama needs to brush up on the Barbary pirates, but even more so on the last 40 years of Middle East history.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/08/obama_needs_to_brush_up_on_middle_east_history_96889.html

Australia: Christian Pastors Taken to Court to Silence Criticism of Islam