Democrats Who Targeted Thomas And Estrada Weep Over Sotomayor’s ‘Diversity’ And ‘Story’

The quintessential defining characteristic of liberalism is hypocrisy. In a world in constant flux, that is the one thing that is always the same.

Democrats warn Republicans to oppose Sonia Sotomayor at their own peril. Because, if Republicans stand behind conservative principles and oppose Sotomayor, they will be branded as “racists” by the party that has essentially made demagogic and racist “race-baiting” part of their platform.

Democrats claim that the fact that Sotomayor is a Latina makes her beyond reproach. They weep over her “diversity.” Did they take that approach with Miguel Estrada? No, they filibustered him for two years until he finally withdrew rather than put his career in limbo forever. And do I even have to remind anyone of the “high-tech lynching” Democrats used against Clarence Thomas?

Why didn’t “diversity” matter when an African-American and a Hispanic were publicly destroyed and torpedoed by liberals?

Democrats weep over Sotomayor’s “story.” And she certainly has a story, rising out of the housing projects in the Bronx to attain to the highest courts in the land.

But, surely, you know that these same Democrats utterly and brutally ignored Miguel Estrada’s and Clarence Thomas’ “stories.”

Miguel Estrada immigrated to the United States as a teenager and spoke almost no English when he got here. And yet, in an obviously incredible story of intelligence, dedication, and hard-work, he went on to graduate magna cum laude from Columbia University before going on to earn his law degree from Harvard.

And Democrats rewarded his incredible “story” by literally blocking him forever with a filibuster, vowing never to allow his nomination to come up for a vote. After two years, he got the message and withdrew his nomination.

Not only did Sonia Sotomayor not weep over Estrada’s story, but she was a member of a radical Hispanic group that sought to kill his nomination.

What about Clarence Thomas? He grew up in abject poverty as the child of a single mother who labored as a maid. The family depended on church assistance to make it month-to-month. His community lacked a sewage system or even paved roads. When he was seven years old, Clarence’s mother was forced to remarry because the family’s house burned to the ground – and Clarence and his brother were sent away to live with his grandfather.

Is that enough of a story for you?

It certainly didn’t matter to Democrats, who savagely attacked him.

BOTH of these “stories” are more impressive and more touching – and certainly more desperate – than the story of Sonia Sotomayor. But the same people who used every tactic to oppose – including the worst kind of vicious personal destruction – are now telling us that we have to support Sonia Sotomayor or be branded as “racists.”

My God.

I remember coming across a terrible black joke:

How do you stop five black men from rape? Throw them a basketball.

This is among the worst of all racist portrayals of black men: out of control beasts unable to control their lewd sexual appetites. And it was precisely how Democrats chose to attack Clarence Thomas.

All the Democrats basically did was replace “basketball” with “coke can.” The same underlying point remained: he’s a black man; you have to know he won’t be able to keep his snake in his pants.”

There is no racism like the racism of the left, especially when they are opposing a conservative of color. He or she is an Uncle Tom or an Aunt Jemimah. A race traitor. An “Oreo Cookie” (or a “Twinkie” for a “white-acting” Asian, or a “coconut” for a “white-acting” Hispanic). You had better damn well tow the liberal ideological line and be the kind of black that liberals want you to be or they will come after you.

The woman who made the accusations against Clarence Thomas had followed on his coat tails during his rise. Anita Hill followed Clarence Thomas from the U.S. Department of Education to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to her own testimony, she acknowledges that she chose to follow Clarence Thomas – in spite of the fact that she was a career employee whose job did not depend on Thomas – AFTER she alleged that he sexually harassed her. And she waited until the statute of limitations for a sexual harassment charge had expired SIXTEEN TIMES OVER to try to torpedo him.

Hence Thomas’ characterization of a “high-tech lynching.” By Democrats. Against a candidate who brought “diversity” and had an incredibly compelling personal “story.”

The term “Borking” describes the introduction of the politics of personal destruction by Democrats.

And the politics of racial identity – perpetuating racism by endlessly focusing on and politicizing race – is at the heart of the Democratic agenda.

Sonia Sotomayor is a true believer in identity politics. In her public statements and in her legal decisions she has ripped the blindfold off of Lady Justice and made race a centerpiece of her judicial philosophy.

Sotomayor’s ruling have been overturned by the Supreme Court five of the six times a case she has ruled on has appeared before them – including one decision that was so horrendous that she was overruled 8-0. And in the ONLY case that they DIDN’T overturn they said her reasoning was atrocious. And the Supreme Court is likely to see her racial bias against white firefighters and overturn her decision yet again.

Obama and his liberal allies are saying, “Stop drawing old battle lines” against my Supreme Court pick. Obama loves to present himself as taking a lofty position above the lowly political divisions that lowly non-messiahs create.

But, this again is a measure of flagrant and blatant liberal hypocrisy: Obama voted against Roberts and Alito and sided with those who wanted to filibuster. Obama filibustered Bush’s picks on ideological grounds, and then has the “audacity of hope” to condemn Republicans for doing what he himself did?

I’m not urging Republicans to follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama and filibuster his nomination the way Obama hypocritically filibustered Bush’s nominations. But I AM arguing that Republicans should make it absolutely clear that Democrats are the most craven and cynical of hypocrites, who use race like a club to attack any opposition to their nominees who will pursue racist identity politics even as they’ve absolutely destroyed nominees of color.

Republicans should retell the stories of Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada over and over again, and demand Democrats answer why “diversity” and “compelling personal story” only matter when the candidates are liberals. They should confront Sotomayor with her statement that female Latina judges come to a “better conclusion” than a white male and ask why – given that no white male could survive such a statement – she believes there should be a racially-biased double standard. They should ask Sotomayor to account for the fact that the Supreme Court has overturned her decisions at least 83% of the time (and growing), and ask her if it has been she or the Supreme Court which has been incompetent. They should ask Sotomayor why she thinks judges should be able to “make policy,” such that she places her “Latina feminist” perspective over the Constitution.

They should ask Sotomayor why she feels that her being a Latina woman gives her a better understanding of the law than a white male, but why she campaigned to destroy the nomination of the Latino judge Miguel Estrada.  Why does she claim that ethic perspective in her case, but not in Miguel Estrada’s case?

They should ask Sotomayor to describe her “empathy” in light of her decision – fortunately overturned by the Supreme Court – which would have costs Americans billions more in energy costs.  How did siding with “extreme environmental groups” constitute empathy for ordinary Americans?

They should make it clear that the Democrats who argue that Sotomayor made a “poor word choice” and “would have phrased herself differently” if given the opportunity were the self-same Democrats who destroyed Senator George Allen for the single word “macaca” (which no one YET understands).  Why should George Allen have been driven out of public life for a single word, when Sotomayor offered a full-bodied racist statement?

They should raise all of these issues and more, and they should keep pressing until they get answers that the American people can hear and understand.

Harry Reid Calls George Bush AND His Mom A B*TCH

Let’s hear it for bipartisan unity and cooperation.

Well, how about let’s NOT and just say we did?  How about if Democrats are as nasty and vile as fermented pig manure instead?

Senate Majority Harry Reid – the man who bravely called for an American surrender even as George Bush was pushing for the strategy that would win the war in Iraq – demonstrated the Democratic standard of graciousness.

Harry Reid has his memoir out, entitled The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington. Thank God, Mark Hemingway read it so no one else has to.

He notes one particular passage that leaps out within the first three pages:

While no one expects Reid to praise George W. Bush, the degree to which he is judgmental and catty regarding the former president pretty much speaks for itself. Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a bitch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”

What’s the purpose of recording for posterity a bit of hearsay defaming a woman Reid admits he has no cause to dislike? Is Reid really so petty as to insult someone’s mother? Why yes, yes he is.

Now THAT’S just truly classy coming from the leader of the United States Senate: “You’re mother is a bitch, and you take after her.”

I once had a guy try to goad me by calling my mother a bitch.  He got exactly what he wanted, if what he wanted was a trip to the emergency room on a stretcher with blood pouring out of his face and his neck in a brace.  There’s something called “fighting words.”  And what Harry Reid said – vicariously through the mouth of someone else like the coward and weasel he truly is –  is right at the top of the list.  Bentsen may or may not have told you in confidence that he didn’t like the first lady, Harry.  But you are the one who shared the statement that Barbara Bush was a bitch with everyone else.

Too bad George Bush probably won’t follow my example.

And just realize it’s people like Harry Reid who tell conservatives that we have to support Obama and not be divisive – not that calling a former Republican first lady and mother to another president is divisive or anything.

Now, it’s particularly ironic that a guy like Harry Reid would call a guy like George Bush “a bitch” by proxy would be particuarly ironic.  Hemingway continues:

Here’s another unintentionally revealing anecdote describing Reid’s relationship with Bush. In a passage describing a meeting the two men had at the White House on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Reid writes: “That day he wore on his face a look of bravado that we’ve all come to know, and said something I will never have the words to adequately describe. But to understand what he said is to understand something profound about the problem at the heart of the administration. Speaking of the fact that the war was being used by radical Islamists for jihadi recruitment, Bush said, ‘Of course, al Qaeda needs new recruits, because we’re killin’ ’em.’ He then gave a smirk — that ‘Bring ’em on’ smirk — that we’ve all come to know. ‘We’re killin’ ’em all,’ he said.”

Oh, the horror. Naturally, this comment of Bush’s is followed up with pages of Reid recollecting the perfectly composed monologue he gave in response. (It also helpfully explains in exacting detail why the surge plan then being considered wouldn’t work, with no acknowledgment in retrospect that it did.)

And here’s what happened two days later: “I publicly said that the war is lost.” Perhaps Reid should have worried that one of the United States’ most powerful politician’s declaring the war lost would be a ginormous jihadi-recruitment tool. But no, after pages of describing what a dangerous, shoot-from-the-hip, totally-unwilling-to-genuflect kind of guy George W. Bush is, Reid responds to the remark that will forever define his political career by reiterating that he won’t apologize for having said it.

Let’s see: one man whines, “This war is lost” and tries to surrender.  The other man – who stands up and stands behind a strategy that ended up reducing the number of American casualties even as it turns the tide – wants to stand up and fight the enemies of America who would murder her citizens and soldiers.   And the one that says, “This war is lost” is saying the guy who stood and fought is a bitch?

Perhaps Harry Reid’s next memoir can be entitled, The Manly Art of Surrendering To Terrorist Murderers.

You want to look at a “bitch,” Reid, find yourself a mirror.

Obama Reveals His Porkulus Was Bogus In His Own Bogus Claims

Pardon my language, but the Obama stimulus bill was crap.  It hasn’t produced squat.  It was a gigantic $3.27 trillion socialist spending giveaway that has rightly been called “the Generational Theft Act of 2009.”

First we had Barack Obama, then Joe Biden, falsely claiming that they had the porkulus plan had created or “saved” 150,000 jobs.  There is no proof that any such number of jobs have been created (the figure is actually merely an estimate of what Obama’s own economic advisers say they think the stimulus bill is doing, and not based on any evidence whatsoever of its actual effects).  And for what it’s worth, I can claim that I “saved” 150,000 jobs – and you just try to prove that I didn’t.

Any rational human being has to mock Obama for claiming he “created or saved” jobs.  The national media would NEVER have allowed George Bush to get away with such pinheaded partisan polemics.  By contrast, the mainstream media wouldn’t even allow Bush to claim he kept America safe in spite of the obvious fact that he clearly did.  Even five years after 9/11, fully two-thirds of New Yorkers said they were still “very concerned” about another terrorist attack on the city.  Everybody thought we’d be attacked by terrorists again.  Bush kept the American people safe by carrying the fight to the enemy on foreign soil.  Yet the media that has blithely allowed Obama to claim he “saved” jobs has bitterly resisted allowing Bush to claim he “saved” lives.

Obama’s arguments that the stimulus worked have increasingly come to sound like Hitler’s claims that the invasion of the Soviet Union worked.

Among other problems is the fact that only 3% of the stimulus funds have been actually spent so far, which precludes it as a factor in any discussion of “economic recovery.”  Particularly when the states and regions that were hardest hit by the bad economic conditions didn’t even get any money.  And please don’t forget that conservative predicted that the funds wouldn’t go out fast enough to make any difference in any short-term economic recovery, and complained that the people weren’t given enough time to pass a better bill.  Congressional Democrats didn’t even read the bill that they rushed through the process.

Obama’s own rhetoric proves how terribly flawed his arguments and ideas were.

Obama promised Caterpillar workers in Peoria, Illinois that laid-off workers would be rehired if his “Death to America Act” (aka his stimulus bill) passed.   Not only was that a complete fabrication, but 2,400 additional workers have been laid off since the passage of porkulus.

But now there’s an even BIGGER bogus ‘Bama baloney claim that has been utterly refuted by actual reality.  In a March 7 speech in Columbus, Ohio, Obama said the following:

Now there were those — there were those who argued that our recovery plan was unwise and unnecessary. They opposed the very notion that government has a role in ending the cycle of job loss at the heart of this recession. There are those who believe that all we can do is repeat the very same policies that led us here in the first place. […]

So for those who still doubt the wisdom of our recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children because we passed this plan. I ask them to talk to the nurses who are still able to care for our sick, and the firefighters and first responders who will still be able to keep our communities safe. I ask them to come to Ohio and meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan. (Applause.) I look at these young men and women, I look into their eyes and I see their badges today and I know we did the right thing.

These jobs and the jobs of so many other police officers and teachers and firefighters all across Ohio will now be saved because of this recovery plan -– a plan that will also create jobs in every corner of this state. Last week, we announced that Ohio would receive $128 million that will put people to work renovating and rebuilding affordable housing. (Applause.) On Tuesday — on Tuesday I announced that we’d be sending another $935 million to Ohio that will create jobs rebuilding our roads, our bridges, and our highways. (Applause.) And yesterday, Vice President Biden announced $180 million for this state that will go towards expanding mass transit and buying fuel-efficient buses -– money that will be putting people to work, getting people to work. (Applause.)

Altogether, this recovery plan will save and create over three and a half million American jobs over the next two years.

Well, what has happened since the applause lines?  What has happened since the Teleprompter of the United States was packed up and hauled away?

The AP article covering the event noted that Obama “suggested that critics talk to 25 police recruits in Ohio’s capital city who owe their jobs to stimulus spending and ‘talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children because we passed this plan.’”  It also described how “Obama touted the 114th police recruit class as proof that the stimulus plan, which drew scant Republican support in Congress, is paying dividends.”

That article also presented the Republican prediction that the stimulus would be a failure, and why it would be a failure.  The very last sentence in the article says:

Breann Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Rep. Pat Tiberi, one of eight Ohio Republicans who voted against the stimulus, noted that the money that saved the recruits’ jobs will run out next year. [Columbus Mayor] Coleman hasn’t said how he’ll pay the officers’ salaries after that.

Look what has happened since:

Without tax increase, 300 police officers to be laid off
By Robert Vitale  May 26, 2009   THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Nearly 300 Columbus police officers – 17 percent of the force – will be laid off next year if voters don’t approve an income-tax increase on Aug. 4, Columbus Police Chief Walter Distelzweig said this morning.

“If we receive additional revenue, these cuts would not be made,” Distelzweig said.

The 2010 budget plan he unveiled this morning is based on revenue projections without the proposed tax increase. The Police Division would shrink by 324 officers, with 297 layoffs and 27 retirements, according to the chief.

If the cuts happen, the division would have fewer officers than in any year since 1993. Columbus had 91,000 fewer residents then.

Potential layoffs would affect the 25 recruits whose class was saved by federal stimulus money this year. Officers hired during the past four years likely would lose their jobs, Distelzweig said.

And I’d be willing to bet the jobs of all the firefighters and nurses and teachers Obama talked all that smack about are in the same boat.

In other words, Obama created 25 jobs and saved about 300 others – until they were told to expect their pink slips less than 3 months later.  And it only cost $3.27 trillion dollars.  There’s your tax dollars at work.

How is it that jobs that have already been “saved” by Obama’s gargantuan stimulus plan now have to be “saved” again by a massive state tax increase?

About the only jobs that are being created by porkulus seem to be making the road signs that falsely advertise currently nonexistent construction projects.

We’ve also learned the poor are getting poorer under Obama’s “stimulus.”

Obama’s stimulus was based on bogus and failed economic theory that won’t work.  The President of the European Union has called Obama’s plan “the road to hell” and argued that it “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”  China’s Director General of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission has expressed fear that Obama would
“devalue not only your [US] currency but the currencies throughout the world.”  Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Obama about his country’s own failed experiment with socialism and urged against “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence.” And “analysts are increasingly concerned about the Treasury’s ability to fund costly economic rescue measures that are expected to drive this year’s budget deficit to $1.75 trillion.”

Don’t take my word for it that the stimulus was the gargantuan fraud that Republicans claimed it would be; just look at what Obama promised would happen, versus what actually HAS happened.

Is Obama Closing Dealerships As Political Punishment?

I’ve been trying to sort out why it would be beneficial to shut down car dealerships when the auto industry is facing bankruptcy.  After all, more dealerships means more car sales.  And it would very much seem that more sales would be a good thing for a struggling industry.

It would be one thing if the dealerships were corporate-owned.  Corporations shut down underperforming locations all the time in order to consolidate cash and improve profitability.  But the dealerships that are being closed are NOT corporate-owned; they are private.  So you kind of have to wonder what is going on.

On possible reason is that fewer dealerships will be able to create more sales and therefore create more “buzz” by improving facilities and having more potential customers.  Call it the “wow” factor.

In any event, the real question is why some dealerships are closed and others are allowed to remain open.

One big example in my own local area is Dodge City Chrysler in La Quinta, the management of which was stunned to find the dealership on the closure list.  They are appealing the decision, but intend to remain open even if they are “closed” by Chrysler as a service department and as a pre-owned dealership.  The only thing that stands in the way of that plan would be that the current zoning laws don’t allow used car sales.  But the city promises to work with Dodge City if the appeal fails.

Why close down Dodge City?  It’s turning a profit.  It’s successful.

The answer, it turns out, may be “an enemies list.”

We find out the decision to close dealerships was made by the Obama administration’s task force, and NOT by Chrysler.  And we begin to find out a great deal more about the dealerships that were closed, and what political contributions they made to which political causes, as well as dealerships that are being allowed to remain open, and what political contributions they made to which political causes.

ChryslerDealershipShutdown examines the political donations of dealerships scheduled to close versus those that are being allowed to remain open and leads to a frightening conclusion: it very much appears that dealerships are being closed down because of their political contributions, rather than because of purely business considerations.

What follows is an article by Doug Ross dated May 27, 2009:

Dealergate: Stats demonstrate that Chrysler Dealers likely shuttered on a partisan basis

This work builds upon the research done by numerous parties, most notably Joey Smith. It is a follow-up to my original post, entitled “Did anti-Obama campaign contributions dictate which Chrysler dealers were shuttered?” The odds that these closings occurred without partisan bias are roughly equivalent to the odds that Jean Claude Van-Damme will grab a Best Supporting Actor Oscar next year for a remake of Terms of Endearment.

How did the U.S. government’s “car czar” decide which Chrysler dealers to close and which would remain open? No one appears to know, not even the President of Chrysler:

…Lawyer Leonard Bellavia, of Bellavia Gentile & Associates, who represents some of the terminated dealers, said he deposed Chrysler President Jim Press on Tuesday and came away with the impression that Press did not support the plan…

“It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers,” Bellavia said. “It really wasn’t Chrysler’s decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President’s automotive task force.”

Follow the evidence trail, below, and judge for yourself.

Dealers on the closing list donated millions to Republicans, $200 for Obama

The initial pass at the list of shuttered dealers showed they had donated, in the aggregate, millions to Republican candidates and PACs and a total of $200 to Barack Obama.

In fact, I have thus far found only a single Obama donor ($200 from Jeffrey Hunter of Waco, Texas) on the closing list.

Another review of all 789 closing dealerships, by WND, found $450,000 donated to GOP presidential candidates; $7,970 to Sen. Hillary Clinton; $2,200 to John Edwards and $450 to Barack Obama.

Now, and this is important, Chrysler claimed that its formula for determining whether a dealership should close or not included “sales volume, customer service scores, local market share and average household income in the immediate area.”

Dealer Jim Anderer told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto he can’t comprehend how his dealership can be among those killed: he stated that his sales volume ranking is in the top 2 percent of all dealers.

Furthermore, Anderer says explanations aren’t forthcoming. “They won’t tell us. They seem to be running for cover right now because they won’t give us a solid explanation. They come up with all these reasons, but none of them seem to make sense… This is insanity. The government is stealing my business. And they’re telling me there’s nothing I can do about it… There was no process that you could put your finger on and say, ‘Hey, we cut 25 percent of the lowest performing dealers.’ They didn’t do that. Nobody will give us a real clear explanation of the formula that they came up with.”

The odds of a non-partisan process being employed can best be illustrated by RLJ.

The Mysterious Case of RLJ

In Smith’s research, one company kept popping up on the list of dealerships remaining open. The company is RLJ-McLarty-Landers, which owns six Chrysler dealerships. All six dealerships are on “the safe list.”

RLJ’s owners “are Steve Landers (long-time car dealer, 4th-generation dealer), Thomas “Mack” McLarty (former Chief of Staff for President Clinton), and Robert Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television and co-owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats)… McLarty campaigned for Obama in 2008, and Johnson has given countless amounts of money to Democrats over the years.”

Smith examined RLJ’s markets, which I’ve illustrated below.

Bentonville, AR Market

1. Bentonville, AR Landers-McLarty (RLJ owned)
2. Springdale, AR Springdale Chrysler-Jeep (owned by Harold Schwartz)
3. Springdale, AR Steve Smith Country

Springdale is about 15 miles south of Bentonville.

The 2 Springdale dealerships gave no money to any political candidates since 2004. The 2 dealership will close in June while the RLJ-owned dealership in Bentonville will remain open.

The Landers-McLarty dealership will have no other Chrysler dealers within a 20-mile radius of the dealership.

The closest competitors will be in Pineville, MO (22 miles away) and Fayetteville, AR (27 miles away).

Huntsville, AL Market

1. Huntsville, AL Landers McCarty D-C-J (RLJ Owned)
2. Athens, AL Champion Chrysler Dodge (owned by Jeffrey Hamm)
3. Decatur, AL Cloverleaf C-D-J (owned by Kevin Morris)

The dealerships in Athens and Decatur gave no money to any political candidates since 2004. Landers-McCarty and the Athens dealership will remain open while the Decatur dealership will close in June.

Here is a link to the document containing the information gathered on RJL-McLarty-Landers. It appears that the company will benefit greatly from the reduced competition in their markets. For the most part, the dealerships that are forced to shut down in the 5 markets have either given no money to candidates or have donated to GOP candidates in the past…

Branson, MO

There are 4 dealerships within 30 miles of Branson, MO.

1. Branson, MO Tri-Lakes Motors (RLJ owned)
2. Ava, MO Davis Dodge (owned by Larry Davis)
3. Ozark, MO Heritage Chrysler-Jeep (owned by Kay Church)
4. Ozark, MO Ozark Dodge (owned by Kay Church)

Mr. Davis and Ms, Church gave no money to any political candidates since 2004.

The RLJ owned dealership in Branson will remain open while the other 3 dealerships will be forced to close in June.

Tri-Lakes Motors in Branson (RLJ owned) will have no other Chrysler dealers within a 30-mile radius of its dealership…

Lee’s Summit, MO

There are 5 Chrysler dealerships near Lee’s Summit:

1. Lee’s Summit Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep (Lee’s Summit, MO)
2. Crawford’s Raytown (Jeep) (Raytown, MO)
3. Mitch Crawford’s Holiday Motors (Chrysler) (Raytown, MO)
4. Raytown Dodge Company (Dodge) (Raytown, MO)
5. Milner-O’Quinn Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep (all 4 brands) (Harrisonville, MO)

#1 is located in Lee’s Summit and is owned by RLJ-McCarty-Landers.

#2, #3, and #4 are located 9 miles northwest in Raytown, MO and is owned by Michael Crawford.

#5 is located 19 miles south in Harrisonville, MO and is owned by Charles O’Quinn.

The Lee’s Summit dealership will remain open while the other 4 in Raytown and Harrisonville will close. The Lee’s Summit dealership will have no other Chrysler dealerships located within at least a 20 mile radius. All of the local competition will be wiped out due to the Chrysler closings.

Bossier City/Shreveport, LA Market

There are 3 dealerships in this market:

1. Bossier City, LA Landers DCJ (RLJ owned)
2. Shreveport, LA Roundtree Automotive Group
3. Shreveport, LA Bob Post/Hebert’s Town and Country

Marshall Hebert (owner of Hebert’s Town and country) gave $4,250 to GOP candidates, $2,500 to Dem candidates, and $1,300 to the NRCC since 2004. Mr. Hebert is also on the National Auto Dealers Association Board of Directors representing Louisiana.

Frank Stinson (owner of Roundtree) gave $24,000 to GOP candidates and $3,400 to Demcocratic candidates since 2004.

The Bossier City dealership owned by RLJ-McCarty-Landers and the Shreveport dealership owned by Marshall Hebert will stay open. The Shreveport dealership owned by Stinson will be forced to close.

But that’s not all

Smith and various tipsters also point to Lithia Motors. Sidney Deboer will “come out a winner” due to the shutdown of various competitive dealerships.

Of 29 existing dealerships, Smith reports that Lithia will likely have a net gain of three new dealers after the dust settles (they lose just two and may gain five). Debeor has donated nearly $15,000 to two Democrat candidates and approximately $8,250 to four GOP individuals.

What are the Odds?

All other factors being equal, what are the odds that RLJ’s dealerships would remain open while all other area dealerships would be shuttered? The approximate odds of such an occurrence can be calculated. 789 of the Chrysler’s dealerships are closing, which represents 25% of the total (according to MSNBC).

Recall that Chrysler claimed that its formula for determining whether a dealership should close or not included “sales volume, customer service scores, local market share and average household income in the immediate area.”

Thus, the odds that any, randomly selected, single dealership would remain open is roughly 75%. The odds that a single dealership would close is roughly 25%.

In the Bentonville, AR territory, the odds that RLJ would remain while its competition gets axed is .75 * .25 * .25 = .046875 (4.6%).

In Huntsville, AL, the odds are .75 * .25 * .25 = .046875.

In Branson, MO, .75 * .25 *.25 *.25 = .01171875.

In Lee’s Summit, MO, .75 * .25 *.25 *.25 *.25 = .0029296875.

In Shreveport, LA, .75 * .25 *.75 = .140625.

What are the odds of all of these RLJ dealerships remaining open while their competitors are wiped out? Maybe 1/10,000,000 of 1%. Yes, that’s one ten-millionth of one percent.

Approximately the odds that I’ll win American Idol. Or that you’ll land two frisbees, simultaneously, on each of Barack Obama’s teleprompters during one of his televised speeches.

Hello, mainstream media: anyone listening? How about you, class-action lawyers?

What we find is that RLJ dealerships whose ownership has close ties to the Democratic Party remain open in teritory after teritory, while competitors who gave to Republicans are closed down again and again.

Something isn’t right.

Red State has more, offering links to stories of dealerships that are closed, and clearly shouldn’t have been, as well as describing the Republican connections to dealerships that ended up on the closure list.

Richard Nixon created an enemies list of major political oppoenents in order to “screw” political enemies, by means of tax audits from the IRS, and by manipulating grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, and by other means.

If the dealership closures are a form of political attack, this would be FAR worse than Nixon’s abuse of power, simply because Nixon and Colson used a scalpal to cut at enemies; whereas Obama and his Task Force are using the equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

We’re talking about somewhere around 20,000 employees at these 789 dealerships.

Let me repeat the words of the attorney to deposed the president of Chrysler:

“It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers… It really wasn’t Chrysler’s decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President’s automotive task force.”

Even Nixon never dreamed of abusing his presidential power like that.

Obama Enraging Enemies And Alienating Allies

Remember how the left kept screeching that Bush had alienated our allies and enraged our enemies? Remember how they said that Barack Obama would make the world love us again? Well, the Democrats get to wear their soiled underwear over their own heads, now. Because now we get to see on a nearly daily basis just how truly full of pure partisan garbage they have been for years.

N. Korea Says It Conducted 2nd Nuclear Test

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced Monday that it successfully carried out a second underground nuclear test, less than two months after launching a rocket widely believed to be a test of its long-range missile technology.

North Korea, incensed by U.N. Security Council condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch, had warned last month that it would restart it rogue nuclear program, conduct a second atomic test as a follow-up to its first one in 2006, and carry out long-range missile tests.

And North Korea just test-fired a missile. “The Yonhap news agency report Monday comes just hours after the communist nation declared that it successfully conducted a nuclear test.”

And what is North Korea saying today?

N. Korea threatens to attack US, S. Korea warships

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas’ disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime’s underground nuclear test.

Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul’s decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.

But, but, but we’ve got OBAMA now. And the world is supposed to be wonderful again. Maybe Kim Jong-Il hasn’t heard that we’ve got Obama now?!?!

Obama did his “no preconditions appeasement offer” to Iran. And Iran responded by testing ballistic missiles in what is widely regarded as an open act of contempt and defiance of the United States.

We learned in March of this year that Iran can make 50 nukes with the material they’ve produced so far.

Iranian forces recently crossed into Iraq to launch attacks on Iraqi Kurds. In open defiance of the United States.

Obama wants to dialogue ad infinitum while “Iran vows to continue [it’s] nuclear program.”

And how is Obama responding to this Iranian resolve? Headline: “U.S. may cede to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Israel – an alienated ally of the United States – is well aware that it has been betrayed by Barack Obama. And when Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear program – and it will – that will be a crisis that Barack Obama will have caused due to his own weakness and lack of resolve.

And the whole planet will erupt into “enraged enemies” and “alienated allies.”

As an additional plus of Obama’s weakness, the net result of an Iranian nuclear program will be that Sunni Muslim countries – who have worried over Shiite Iran’s nuclear ambitions – will develop their own nuclear weapons programs.

I’ve been SAYING that an Obama administration would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons ALL ALONG. Back in April of last year, in urging support for McCain over either Obama or Clinton, I wrote:

A President John McCain can assure the Iranians, “We attacked Iraq when we believed they represented a threat to us, and we will do the same to you. You seriously might want to rethink your plans.” A President John McCain can say to Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, “We have stood by Iraq even when it was difficult, and we will do the same for you. You don’t need those weapons; the United States will be there for you.”

And Obama, who can’t say ANY of that, is already blinking.

But let’s leave the unpleasant future that will be caused by Barack Obama and continue our present tour of enraged enemies and alienated allies under his current rule.

Russia just warned Ukraine and Georgia (remember Obama’s pathetic and appeasing message to Russia following its invasion of Georgia?) over moving toward the West by joing NATO. They won’t stand for it. And they clearly aren’t even the least bit afraid of any American response.

Russia took Obama’s measure back in August 8, 2008. And they know his response will be to shrink back and conceal himself behind meaningless “citizen of the world”-speak that will enable Russia to do whatever it wants.

CNN reported on April 30th that “Terror attacks have spiked dramatically in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

And, goodness gracious, Pakistan and its 100 nuclear weapons are in very real danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban. A top adviser to the US Central Command has warned of the very real possibility of Pakistan collapsing within six months.

Well, that aint good. Wasn’t Obama supposed to make all our problems go away as he overcame all of Bush’s evilness with his magnificent wonderfulness?

Obama failed to win any support from European allies in Afghanistan, something he and his liberal allies repeatedly criticized Bush for failing to deliver as they promised that they would. The U.S. in Afghanistan is as much on its own as it ever was under Bush.

And so, while Obama sits atop the throne, the “security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating” under his rule. The U.N. says “Human rights in Afghanistan are worsening, marked by setbacks for women, attacks on freedoms and seeming impunity for perpetrators.”

Obama has called for the same sort of surge strategy in Afghanistan (see also here) that he himself personally demonized Bush for pursuing in Iraq.

Reporters in Iraq note “a dramatic increase in spectacular attacks against Iraqi civilians and increasing attacks against occupation forces” by al-Qaeda.

We are facing a growing problem with pirates off the coast of Africa. And Obama is facing a particularly significant threat from Sudan and its dictator, Omar al-Bashir.

Clearly, our enemies haven’t become our friends. Not even a little bit. In fact, they are more hostile and more aggressive than ever. Not that the propagandist media that spent years writing about how Bush creating unrest all over the world would ever point that out.

How about our friends and allies? Surely they love us more, now that Obama is president. Surely the days of alienation are over, right? RIGHT?

Not so much.

You remember me telling you that the EU isn’t giving Obama any help in Afghanistan? Well, they’re not giving Obama any help in closing down Gitmo, either. As much as they like to rail against America for the evils of Gitmo, they won’t take their own people back which would enable us to close it down. Just like they wouldn’t under Bush. And the same countries that won’t take their Gitmo detainees are using our other terrorist detention facility in Bagram as their reason.

That’s not very helpful. I feel alienation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy basically thinks Obama is a turd, calling his policies “‘utterly immature’ and comprised of ‘formulations empty of all content.’” That rather sounds like a heaping dose of alienation talking, to me.

The EU president called Obama’s stimulus spending “the road to hell.” Mirek Topolanek further said that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.” The ABC News article already cited reports on “simmering European differences with Washington.”

Doesn’t that kind of sound like “alienation”? Doesn’t it?

Obama had previously ignited fear of a trade war with Europe with his “buy American” policy. The EU trade commissioner warned Obama that Europe would fight back. Obama also ignited the threat of a trade war with our third largest trade partner, Mexico, after he tried to renege on a trade deal in order to reward US unions.

Obama also inspired a great deal of British outrage toward America when he casually snubbed Prime Minister Gordon Brown and insulted our greatest ally.

Obama then proceeded to insult and undermine our relationship with our second greatest ally, Israel, with an inexcusable gesture of cold indifference for a top Israeli general.

Perhaps liberals believe that Obama’s disgrace America tour was a step in the right direction. I think he made a fool out of himself and undermined the prestige and respect of the once-great United States of America.

Russia and China have similarly sounded, well, VERY ALIENATED toward Obama and his policies.

Russia has warned Obama about what they view as his ruinous socialist policies.

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

Luo Ping, Director-general for the China Banking Regulatory Commission, is on record saying, “We want some kind of a guarantee that your money is going to be worth something if you keep spending so much over there and devalue not only your currency but the currencies throughout the world.” He went on to say, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion, $2 trillion, or more dollars, we know the dollar is going to depreciate.”

And, yeah. Don’t think I didn’t notice from the above link that the mainstream media truly doesn’t want us to know what China thinks about the ruinous course we are pursuing under Obama.

And all the while, we’re warned that “an economic storm with China is still coming for Obama.” In other words, in terms of alienation with China, you aint seen nothin’ yet.

Pardon me for pointing this out, but I’m just not feeling the love.

The same propaganda machine that undercut and undermined President Bush at every imaginable turn is going well out of its way to avoid reporting on just how much damage Barack Obama has done on the international front. They who routinely blamed Bush for everything won’t blame Obama for anything.

Whether liberals are honest about it or not, Obama has been a gigantic dud in terms of the glorious promise of overcoming all the bitterness in the world that Bush supposedly created. For one thing, Obama hasn’t actually “overcome” anything of the sort; for another, he has created a great deal of international bitterness all by himself.

Who’s the Real American in This Picture?

We’ve got a little movie for you today.  There’s a hero and a villain.  And your job is to decide which is which, boys and girls.

[Youtube link]

So here’s the plot.  A business in Reno is flying a Mexican flag above the American flag which, among other things, is a violation of the law in the United States.  As the local media begins to report on the story from the scene, a large bearded man (that would be Jim Brossard) walks up to the flag pole, pulls down both flags, and cuts the American flag off the pole (with what he wants to make sure everyone knows is an American Army knife).

Brossard says – and I’d very much like to quote him:

“That is what happened.  Right there.  I’m Jim Brossard.  And I took this flag down in honor of my country.  With a knife from the United States Army.  I’m a veteran.  I’m not going to see this done to my country.  If they’re going to fight us, then they need to be men.  And they need to come and fight us.  But I want someone to FIGHT me for this flag.  They’re not going to get it back.”

And with that Jim Brossard, turns and walks away from the camera – and right past the Mexican (let’s just agree to assume that he’s a Mexican due to the whole, ‘I think I’ll fly the Mexican flag above the American flag today’ thing) business owner and his amigo.

The reporter approaches the business owner – who is still watching Jim Brossard walking away with his flag – and asks, “So what do you think of that?”  The Mexican business owner walks over to the flag pole and retrieves his Mexican flag – which big bearded guy had tossed on the ground – and picks it up as the reporter asks, “No comment?  What do you think of that?  What are you trying to accomplish, at least?  Anything?”

And the Mexican business owner wordlessly goes into his place of business with his remaining flag and shuts the door, which features a sign bearing the words, “No persons under 21 allowed.”

I’ve reported.  You decide.  Who’s the Real American?  Big bearded guy or Mexican business owner, with his interesting choice in flag-order?

Who is the hero and who is the villain?

I didn’t have to ponder this one for very long: Jim Brossard, big bearded guy, I salute you!

I would offer to buy you a drink, Mr. Brossard, but I see you’ve already got that big can of whoop-ass in your hand.

MARKETING TIP: SOMEBODY FROM HARLEY-DAVIDSON SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO GIVE THIS MAN A ROAD KING AND SIGN HIM AS THEIR CORPORATE SPOKESMAN.

Now, all of this said, this story is also part of a larger debate: which group of politically-active people is one the side of big bearded guy, and which group of politically-active people is on the side of Mexican business owner?

Let me just take a wild guess and suggest that he AINT on Nancy Pelosi’s side of the argument.

You can almost hear the cries of metropolitan liberals:

“That great big mean bully!  He’s got a knife.  He’s got a knife! HE’S GOT A KNIFE!!! Somebody call the police and have that terrible man arrested!

That awful man is a racist, and he’s bitter, and he hates immigrants just like President Obama said!  He’s probably got guns, too!  What’s that?  He’s a veteran?  See?  HE’S ONE OF THOSE RIGHTWING EXTREMISTS just like the DHS said!

He’s why we need sanctuary cities!  To protect poor immigrants from hateful men like THAT!”

Conservatives are routinely told that they’re losing Hispanics.  But if Hispanics are going to support one of their own proudly flying his Mexican flag over the American flag on American soil over Jim Brossard’s righteous outrage, I frankly don’t give a damn.

I’ll take Jim’s side any day.

I sure get the sense he’d take mine.

Sonia Sotomayor: Another Radical In Robes

In a nutshell: Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge whose decisions have nearly always been overturned by the very Court to which she aspires, as well as a judge who has expressed racist views.

Let us begin with her racist views.

Have you ever seen the statue representing justice?  Ever notice that “Lady Justice” is wearing a blindfold?

Lady Justice wears the blindfold so that she will NOT be biased by what her eyes see.  She will not notice the race, the gender, the religion, or any other such factor.  Instead, she will balance each case before her with the scales of justice, as determined by the law.

We immediately discover that Judge Sonia Sotomayor has no resemblance whatsoever to Lady Justice.  As CNN provides:

At a 2001 U.C. Berkeley symposium marking the 40th anniversary of the first Latino named to the federal district court, Sotomayor said that the gender and ethnicity of judges does and should affect their judicial decision-making. From her speech:

“I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society….

“I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that – it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others….

“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 am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” [U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 10/26/2001]

Judge Sotomayor has ripped the blindfold off, and makes race and gender major focal points of her view of “justice.”  That she feels that a Latina woman is able to reach a “better conclusion” than a white male is simply racist.

Imagine for a single nanosecond that a white man said, “I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.” Imagine the OUTRAGE.  Her statement is every bit as racist; but it is radically leftist, and so it is ignored for any purpose of criticism.

What about the scales of justice that Lady Justice uses to weigh cases?

Sonia Sotomayor lacks proper scales, as well.  She certainly lacks impartiality, by her own acknowledgment.

First of all, let us see how she views the law:

In a 2005 panel discussion at Duke University, Sotomayor told students that the federal Court of Appeals is where “policy is made.” She and other panelists had been asked by a student to describe the differences between clerking in the District Court versus in the Circuit Court of Appeals. Sotomayor said that traditionally, those interested in academia, policy, and public interest law tend to seek circuit court clerkships. She said, “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. [audience laughter] Okay, I know. I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it. I’m, you know. [audience laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating. Its interpretation, its application.” [Duke University School of Law, 2/25/2005, 43:19, http://realserver.law.duke.edu/ramgen/spring05/lawschool/02252005clerk.rm%5D

Should judges legislate from the bench?  Should they make policy?  Sotomayor clearly acknowledges her view, even as she recognizes how radical and wrong it is, and therefore says the pro forma things to cover her arse.

She uses her position on the bench to impose her views upon the law, to make policy rather than allow the legislative branch to make policy and issue verdicts on the basis of the laws that are written.

Chief Justice John Roberts once put it this way:

“Judges are like umpires.  Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.”

Amazingly, this statement has been attacked by the left.  That is because they want a judge to be able to change the color or shape of the baseballs, or change the size or length of the bats, or subjectively alter the way the game is called.  And they believe that a judge should be able to call the game in a way that favors one chosen side over another (using their “empathy” or their preference for a particular race, for example).  Because THEY are the side that features the activists judges who will do those things to favor leftists causes and arguments.

Justice Scalia, in his response to ACLU president Nadine Strossen’s favoring judicial activism and finding opinions in foreign law that corresponded with the verdicts they wanted to impose, said:

“Someday, Nadine, you’re going to get a very conservative Supreme Court… And you’re going to regret what you’ve done.”

Because the left would howl in unholy outrage if rightwing justices abandoned the Constitution the way the left have and imposed their own views and sought their own sources to justify their subjective rulings.  If you’re on the left, imagine how you would feel if a far right judge invoked sharia law to suppress the homosexual agenda, and you’ll understand how conservatives feel about judicial activists invoking European law to promote it.  We didn’t place ourselves under the authority of European law; we placed ourselves under our very own Constitution.

Justice Roberts made another relevant and powerful statement:

“I had someone ask me in this process — I don’t remember who it was, but somebody asked me, you know, ‘Are you going to be on the side of the little guy?’ And you obviously want to give an immediate answer, but as you reflect on it, if the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then, the big guy is going to win, because my obligation is to the Constitution. That’s the oath.”

But this ISN’T the oath that Sonia Sotomayor will hold herself to.  Rather, she will pull off the blindfold, and judge cases by race and by gender.  And she will “make policy” rather than follow the law.

What did Thomas Jefferson say about the threat of Supreme Court Justices imposing their own will upon the Constitution and imposing laws on the nation based on nothing but their own wills?

“This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.” —Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114“The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51

“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.” —Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277

I don’t hear Jefferson praising “empathy” as the defining quality of of our Supreme Court Justices. I don’t hear him lamenting that a Latina woman isn’t on the bench due to her superior wisdom over his own (as a white man).  I don’t hear him praising Sotomayor’s desire to “make policy” from the bench.  In fact, what I hear Jefferson doing is rolling in his grave over the abomination that Barack Obama’s and Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy is inflicting upon the nation.

Finally, Sotomayor doesn’t make good law.  Too many times, her activist decisions have been overturned.  Of the cases in which she ruled that went before the US Supreme Court, Sotomayor has been reversed fully five out of six times.  And the one time she WASN’T reversed, her reasoning was unanimously faulted by every single justice:

Cases Reviewed by the Supreme Court

• Ricci v. DeStefano 530 F.3d 87 (2008) — decision pending as of 5/26/2009

• Riverkeeper, Inc. vs. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2007) — reversed 6-3 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)

• Knight vs. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2006) — upheld, but reasoning was unanimously faulted

• Dabit vs. Merrill Lynch, 395 F.3d 25 (2005) — reversed 8-0

• Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. vs. McVeigh, 396 F.3d 136 (2005) — reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Alito)

• Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 299 F.3d 374 (2000) — reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)

• Tasini vs. New York Times, et al, 972 F. Supp. 804 (1997) — reversed 7-2 (Dissenting: Stevens, Breyer)

Sonia Sotomayor is a judge who has been humiliated with an 8-0 smackdown of her judicial reasoning.

And the case that is “pending review” – Ricci v. DeStefano (aka the New Haven firefighter case), is precisely the sort of terrible and racist reasoning that should demonstrate how unfit for the highest court in the land Sonia Sotomayor truly is.

A couple of paragraphs from an excellent article on the case:

Mr. Ricci’s saga started in 2003. At the time, he was one of more than 100 firemen who took a written and oral exam that the New Haven Fire Department (NHFD) administered in order to determine whom it would promote to fill 15 openings for lieutenant and captain positions. In preparation for the test, Ricci, a dyslexic who struggles with reading and retaining information, simply outworked most of his competition. He spent more than $1,000 to purchase books that the city had recommended as useful study guides, and he studied for 8 to 13 hours each day. When the test scores were ultimately tabulated, Ricci’s name was near the top of the list. The promotion should have been his.

It didn’t happen that way. It soon emerged that New Haven’s black firefighters, on average, had performed quite poorly on the same test that Ricci had aced. In fact, not a single African American had scored high enough to qualify for a promotion. When word of this got around, a number of local black leaders with political influence thundered that the exam itself was to blame, arguing alternately that it was racially biased on the one hand, and a poor predictor of an applicant’s potential to fulfill the duties of a leadership position on the other.

This is exactly the sort of thing that Roberts was talking about in his analogy.  We had a law in place; we had a universally recognized system of promotion.  One man, in particular, tried to work as hard as he could within the rules that were supposed to be for everyone, and aced the exam.  But Sonia Sotomayor decided she didn’t like the results, and so she changed the rules quite literally after the game had already been played.

Let’s demand a justice who rules according to the law without prejudice rather than a justice who makes prejudice a basis for her rulings.  Let’s demand a justice who understands that she is under the rule of law rather than a justice who uses the legal system to “make policy.”

We don’t need another radical in robes.

The American people have enough black-robed masters and government bureaucrats imposing their will upon us in blatant disregard of the intent of the Constitution which is supposed to be our source of law.  We have enough officials who conflate their own power and explode the size and role of government as master over every sphere of our lives.  We can do far better than Sonia Sotomayor.

Why Israel WILL Strike Iran’s Nuke Program

An article from Haaretz.com makes it obvious why Israel will have no choice but to strike Iran, assuming the poll is indeed accurate:

1 in 4 Israelis would consider leaving country if Iran gets nukes’
By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent

Some 23 percent of Israelis would consider leaving the country if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, according to a poll conducted on behalf of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Some 85 percent of respondents said they feared the Islamic Republic would obtain an atomic bomb, 57 percent believed the new U.S. initiative to engage in dialogue with Tehran would fail and 41 percent believed Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear installations without waiting to see whether or how the talks develop.

“The findings are worrying because they reflect an exaggerated and unnecessary fear,” Prof. David Menashri, the head of the Center, said. “Iran’s leadership is religiously extremist but calculated and it understands an unconventional attack on Israel is an act of madness that will destroy Iran. Sadly, the survey shows the Iranian threat works well even without a bomb and thousands of Israelis [already] live in fear and contemplate leaving the country.”

Women are more fearful than men that Iran will obtain nuclear weapons: 83 percent of female respondents said they fear such a scenario in contrast to 78 percent of men; 39 percent of women said they would consider leaving the country in such an event as opposed to 22 percent of men.

Age was also a factor for respondents: 89 percent of those aged 42 and above said they were fearful of a nuclear Iran, in comparison to 61 percent of those aged 18 to 41.

Some 80 percent of left-wing voters and 67 percent of right-wing voters expressed deep concern over a nuclear Iran. Respondents describing themselves as centrists were the most fretful, with 88 percent saying they feared Iran would obtain the bomb.

The poll was conducted among 509 people representative of Israel’s adult population.

Prof. David Menashri’s omniscience and gift of divine foreknowledge as to what Iran will do when they get military nuclear capability notwithstanding, there is clearly a great deal of fear among Israelis as to what will happen when a regime that has repeatedly threatened to annihilate them will do when it gets the bomb.

When a nation like Israel has nearly a quarter of their population seriously considering leaving the country if Iran gets the bomb, it becomes clear that Israel has no choice but to act.  A quarter of the population fleeing would mean the end of the state.  When 85% of the population fears something, the country’s leadership has no choice but to deal with the threat.

Would Israelis hold back if they believed the United States would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?  Probably.  But the problem is, they don’t believe that.  And they certainly no longer believe that America under Obama is on their side.  When George Bush was president, fully 88% of Israeli Jews believed the president was “pro-Israel”; today under Obama, only 31% of Israeli Jews think so.

Why would there be such a shocking deterioration of confidence in such a short time?  We can go back to such moments as when he pandered and flip-flopped on the status of Jerusalem – first saying it must remain the undivided capitol of Israel, and then saying the city was merely another final status negotiation point.  Intelligent Jews saw the vacuum of character and commitment that day.  But an even better reason would be the cold indifference the Obama administration displayed toward Israel in  snubbing a senior Israeli general during a recent scheduled visit.

We learned in March of this year that Iran can make 50 nukes with the material they’ve produced so far.

Obama appears willing to dialogue ad infinitum while “Iran vows to continue [it’s] nuclear program.”  Does anyone truly believe that Israel is willing to sit idly by indefinitely while Iran continues to dramatically progress in its obvious goal of developing a nuclear arsenal?

And how is Obama responding to this Iranian resolve? Headline: “U.S. may cede to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Israel – an alienated ally of the United States – is well aware that it has been betrayed by Barack Obama. And when Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear program – and it will – that will be a crisis that Barack Obama will have caused due to his own weakness and lack of resolve.

An Israel that does not implicitly trust the United States will take matters into its own hands and attack Iran to defend its right to exist.

If Barack Obama is wise, he will realize that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has absolutely no recourse but to strike Iran unless the latter country’s nuclear program is dismantled within a very short time window.  Obama will realize that such a strike would have grave international ramifications.  He will realize that such a strike could literally result in global destabilization that could even lead to World War III.  And he will seriously begin to ratchet up the pressure on Iran to abandon a program that a country with the world’s second largest proven oil reserves and the second biggest natural gas fields clearly doesn’t need.

But Obama is NOT wise.  So he will do nothing more than quibble over words while Iran – which just launched a ballistic missile capable of striking Israel in an act of clear crystal-clear defiance (with all due respect to Prof. David Menashri’s omniscience) – continues to advance it’s nuclear program to correspond with its successful missile delivery system.

The world will label such an attack “unprovoked.”  A very real question is to what extent Obama will join that chorus.

I would agree that such a strike WOULD be “unprovoked” if it weren’t for the fact that Iran has called for Israel’s destruction.  I would agree that it would be “unprovoked” if Iran or any of the Muslim countries around Israel who would similarly develop their own nuclear weapons had recongized Israel’s right to even exist.  I might even agree tht such an attack would be “unprovoked” if Iran called Israel “Israel” instead of “Zionist entity.” But when a leader of a rogue terrorist regime such as Iran publicly calls for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” the stakes get pretty high when he acquires nuclear weapons that could accomplish precisely that stated goal in the flash of a mushroom cloud.  Particularly when Ahmadinejad last year repeated his threat against Israel, predicting Israel “will soon disappear off the geographical scene.”  Particularly when such a leader has publicly identified himself as an adherent to a radical apocalyptic movement within Islam that calls for violent action to usher in the “Twelth Imam.” Particlarly when he has claimed that he has special insight into Allah’s will.

That leaves Iran literally arming for Armageddon, and any other interpretation is frankly naive.

Some claim that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t wield real power.  But that argument falls rather flat on its face when the man who DOES – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly denies the Holocaust and calls Israel “a cancerous tumor.”  And the obvious implication of “cancerous tumors” is that they need to be “wiped off the map” and “disappear.”

As an additional plus of Obama’s weakness, the net result of an Iranian nuclear program will be that Sunni Muslim countries – who have worried over Shiite Iran’s nuclear ambitions – will develop their own nuclear weapons programs.  If it’s not bad enough for Israel that Iran is going to develop nuclear weapons, it’s still worse yet that other Muslim countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are almost certain to follow suit by developing their OWN nuclear weapons.

A nuclear arms race in the craziest part of the world is bad enough for the world; but for Israel it is a clear and present danger, if anything – the Holocaust itself included – has ever been.

I’ve been SAYING that an Obama administration would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons ALL ALONG. Back in April of last year, in urging support for McCain over either Obama or Clinton, I wrote:

A President John McCain can assure the Iranians, “We attacked Iraq when we believed they represented a threat to us, and we will do the same to you. You seriously might want to rethink your plans.” A President John McCain can say to Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, “We have stood by Iraq even when it was difficult, and we will do the same for you. You don’t need those weapons; the United States will be there for you.”

And Obama, who can’t say ANY of that, is clearly already blinking – just as I and many others have been predicting he would.

How can anyone wonder why Christians are seeing the pages of the Bible becoming the headlines of tomorrow?

Let’s briefly review what the Scriptures say about Israel, Iran, and the last days.

Zechariah 12:2-3 says, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem.  On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves.”

The time is coming when this prophecy, written before two of the three major religions that made its fulfillment possible even existed, will be ultimately fulfilled.

Ezekiel 38-39 describes a massive coalition that will attack Israel led by Russia and Iran.  This coalition of nations are already allied with one another.  The long-ago-prophesied attack only awaits a trigger – such as the impending Israeli strike against the nuclear plants that Russia has built for Iran.

Now Vice President Joe Biden predicted a major international crisis, and indicated that it would not appear as though the Obama administration had any idea whatsoever how to resolve it.  Iran’s determination to continue its nuclear program, the resulting Israeli strike against Iran, and the ensuing chaos in the most volatile part of the world to follow, will certainly more than fit that bill.  The same Joe Biden, for what it’s worth, had previously said that Barack Obama wasn’t ready to deal with foreign policy.

The New Testament predicts a coming Antichrist, or beast, who will ride in on his white horse to save the day, during a time of massive military conflict and economic crisis (Revelation 6:1-6).

I never understood how Americans would come to literally worship this false Messiah (Revelation 13:1-4) and embrace the one-world economic system he would impose (Revelation 13:16-18).  At least, not until the coming of Barack Obama and his literally being hailed as a “messiah.” The picture seems crystal clear, now.

I’ve written so many articles about the looming financial disaster Obama’s spending is creating for the future that it is hard to pick one.  But a ten trillion ton anvil is poised to fall on our economy in the form of massive and unsustainable debt, and send the entire world into chaos.

What will happen to the world after Barack Obama’s policies bankrupt America?

I put much of this scenario together in an article entitled, “Welcome to the hell Barack Obama is marching us toward.”

I don’t know whether the “Twelth Imam” will come or not.  But I do know that the beast is coming.

I hope you’re ready when that future comes for you.

The Obama Apologize For America Tour Continues With A Performance In Dresden

Do you have a relative who served the United States during World War II?  Perhaps you yourself served?

I hope you are suitably ashamed for what you and your country did.  Because your president has used the omnipotent power of his sacrosanct hindsight to declare that your nation was involved in war crimes.  Remember when the Obama DHS said we should be afraid of our combat veterans? Apparently it’s not just the ones returning home now; it goes back to at least World War II.

Be ashamed.  Be very ashamed.  Shame, after all,  is the hip new way to be “patriotic.”  The more ashamed you are to be an American, the better an American you are.  That’s change you can believe in.

We are now beginning to uncover the true extent of the Bush/Cheney evil.  Apparently, these two men  (who are of course worse than Hitler) spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars secretly building a time machine so they could bomb Dresden and Tokyo – and  drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – all in a Machiavellian campaign to blame the Democrats who were running the country during World War II for their war crimes.

And a selective release of memos from the OSS (the WWII-era forerunner of the CIA) will confirm this.

The evils of Bush and Cheney transcend both time and space.  Just as they extend into the future, they also reach back into the distant past.

Fortunately, Barack Obama discovered this despicable plot, and is now revealing it to the world.  In this saga, Obama plays the role of Austin Powers; and Dick Cheney masterfully fills the role of “Dr. Evil.”  [And please overlook the fact that Dr. Evil is actually just Austin Powers playing a different role].

We have Barack Obama to thank for reminding us yet again how genuinely evil America truly is – particularly when he can place the blame for that evil on everyone but himself and those who share his radical leftist ideology.  We can now join Michlle Obama in having never been proud of America until Barack Obama became president.

We’ve already seen the first Obama Apologize for America Tour.  Now its time for the first of (undoubtedly) many sequels.

From Atlas Shrugs:

OBAMA TO APOLOGIZE TO GERMANY FOR WWII?

****TOP MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND POST***SCROLL FOR UPDATES AND NEW POSTS***

The latest inconceivable Obamaction is yet another unbecoming apology in Europe, this time in Germany for WWII. John Rosenthal suggests, “As bizarre as it may seem, President Obama’s impending trip to Dresden suggests that German revisionists have a friend in the White House“.

And American Thinker adds, “the message Obama intends to send by visiting both sites is clear; while the Germans did bad things during World War II, they were also victims of Allied atrocities.”
(Over at Free Republic)

The latest German reports suggest Obama’s principal German destination will  be Dresden. According to an article in the local paper Die Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, representatives of the German and American governments met in Dresden last Wednesday to discuss preparations for the visit. An American security detail is reported to have already scoped out sites in the city: presumably for a public speech.

The symbolic significance of a visit to Dresden by the American president — especially one undertaken in connection with a D-Day commemoration in France — may be missed by some Americans, but it is absolutely unmistakable for the German public. For Germans, Dresden is the symbol bar none of German suffering at the hands of the Allies. The city was heavily bombed by British and American air forces in February 1945, toward the end of the war. According to the most recent estimates of professional historians, anywhere from 18,000 to at most 25,000 persons died in the attacks. These numbers come from a historical commission established by the city of Dresden itself. But far higher numbers — ranging into the hundreds of thousands — have long circulated in Germany and beyond. The bombing of Dresden is commonly described as a “war crime” in German discussions.

Alleged crimes committed by the Allies against Germans and Germany have indeed become a sort of German literary obsession in recent years, with numerous books being devoted to the subject. The taste of the German public for the theme was made particularly clear by the enormous success of author Jörg Friedrich’s 2002 volume The Fire [Der Brand], which is about the Allied bombardment of Germany. The book’s success was so great that Friedrich and his publisher quickly followed up with a picture book on the same topic titled Scenes of the Fire: How the Bombing Looked.

Obama should spend the day tending to the graves of our brave and glorious dead, who sacrificed their lives so that Europe could live on to descend into a pathetic, amoral collectivism. Europe owes us an apology for squandering our blood and treasure on a morally bankrupt transnational gobbledy goop EU wallowing in pathetic collectivism.

Time for a history lesson. What better day to teach the foreign exchange student in the White House a lesson about American exceptionalism, heroism, and greatness?

America’s European Arrogance (hat tip Joan S)

1. The American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne, France. A total of 2,289 of our military dead. We apologize.

2. The American Cemetery at Ardennes, Belgium. A total of 5,329 of our dead. We are so ashamed of our arrogance.

3. The American Cemetery at Brittany, France. A total of 4,410 of our military dead. Excuse us.

4. Brookwood, England American Cemetery. A total of 4,680 of our dead. We are such an evil country.

5. Cambridge, England. 3,812 of our military dead. What on earth were we thinking?

6. Epinal, France American Cemetery. A total of 5,525 of our military dead. Please forgive us.

7. Flanders Field, Belgium. A total of 3,680 of our military. We are so sorry.

8. Florence, Italy. A total of 4,402 of our military dead. We are a bully nation.

9. Henri-Chapelle, Belgium. A total of 7,992 of our military dead. They deserved what they got.

10. Lorraine, France. A total of 10,489 of our military dead. FDR and Truman were lying war criminals.

11. Luxembourg, Luxembourg. A total of 5,076 of our military dead. Arrogant oppression, pure and simple.

12. Meuse-Argonne. A total of 1,4246 of our military dead. Just think of how many civilians they killed.

13. Netherlands, Netherlands. A total of 8,301 of our military dead. They were murderers.

14. Normandy, France. A total of 9,387 of our military dead. Baby killers, one and all.

15. Oise-Aisne, France. A total of 6,012 of our military dead. They were torturers, too.

16. Rhone, France. A total of 8,61 of our military dead. Remorseless killers doing the bidding of an evil nation.

17. Sicily, Italy. A total of 7,861 of our military dead. What can America ever do to redeem itself?

18. Somme, France. A total of 1,844 of our military dead. Arrogant war-mongers of an arrogant nation.

19. St. Mihiel, France. A total of 4,153 of our military dead. War criminals.

20. Suresnes, France. A total of 1,541 of our military dead. Oh, God in heaven, please forgive us for being such an arrogant country.

The total number of Americans buried at the cemeteries above is 104,366 — a mere fraction of those who died liberating Europe — and yet an American president who confuses arrogance with leadership feels the need to apologize in Europe for the country he obviously holds in contempt. (hat tip JoanS)

It is virtually unthinkable that Obama could give a speech in Dresden and not allude to the bombing of the city. Most of the city’s historical monuments — which Obama’s advance team were apparently inspecting — were severely damaged or destroyed in the bombing and had to be rebuilt. Moreover, for Obama to visit both Dresden and Buchenwald would suggest precisely the sort of outrageous parallels that have become commonplace in Germany at least since the publication of Friedrich’s The Fire.

(As so happens, although tens of thousands of persons died there, Buchenwald was not one of the camps specifically devoted to the extermination of Jews. But far be it from Obama to know that. When, during the election campaign, he first referred to his Uncle Charlie’s WWII exploits, he said that his uncle had helped to liberate “Auschwitz.” Moreover, Charlie Payne did not really participate in the liberation of Buchenwald either, but rather in that of Ohrdruf: a lesser-known, affiliated camp some sixty kilometers away.)

Europe traded the lives of 6 million Jews for 55 million Muslims. Good luck with that.

And Ovamit is apologizing.

Germany began bombing Allied population centers during the Battle of Britain in a campaign that came to be known as “the London Blitz” for several months in 1940  And in a total war, the Allies had no choice but to respond in kind.  And we began to bomb the city of Dresden into the stone age beginning in February, 1945 in an effort to force a maniac regime to finally submit.

If you punch me in the mouth, please don’t have the unmitigated gall to ask me to apologize to you for my punching you right back in the mouth.  Because, if you do, I will punch you in the mouth AGAIN for attempting to insult my intelligence.

Liberals seem to love the concept of moral hazard.  Their mindset seems to be, let us spread the evil from the side of evil over to the side of good, and criticize the good for defending themselves against the evil.  This is why they are such unrelenting critics of law enforcement over and against the criminals; why they routinely condemn legitimate businesses over and against those who try to take advantage of them; why they demonize banks for making bad loans over and against those who grab such loans and then renege on them; and why they undermine our magnificent warriors over and against the terrorist murderers whom they are trying to fight.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to debate Barack Obama at the U.N. It would actually be an interesting debate: which one would blame America more?

Today, on Memorial Day, allow me to honor all of our great veterans – including those valiant airmen who flew incredibly dangerous missions over Dresden.

On Keith Olbermann’s Deceitful and Depraved Attack of Dick Cheney

I remember exactly what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001.  I was a grad student at the time, getting ready for my first class with the television running in the background.  Just before the first large passenger plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center something caught my attention just in time to see it happen live.  [Note: please see the update at the conclusion for a correction].

And the day froze into shock, numbness, dismay, terror, and a rising anger.

The broadcasters were talking to themselves about whether this was an accident, or an intentional attack.  I didn’t need them to tell me what it was: like many other Americans, I knew exactly what had just happened.

And then the second plane struck the second tower.  And shortly afterward the cameras began to catch specks falling out of the towers that turned out to be Americans throwing themselves out of top story windows to their deaths in order to avoid the even more agonizing death by burning.

President George Bush had been President for just over six months.  But I would have felt EXACTLY the same sense of horror and outrage whether Bill Clinton, or Al Gore, or George Bush was President.

It wasn’t about being a member of a political party, or who was President or what party he was from; it was about being an American whose country had just been attacked.

That’s just no longer the case, though.  I no longer feel that way.

Barack Obama’s constant unrelenting blaming of the Bush administration for virtually every problem under the sun was bad enough; Obama’s description of Bush “torture” and his releasing of CIA memos intended to politically hurt the Bush administration at the expense of informing our enemies exactly how we would and would not interrogate them was bad enough; House Speaker Nancy Peolosi’s demagoguery of the Bush administration over its “torture” and her subsequent lies that she herself had been informed about such “torture” and done nothing was bad enough; but it just never seems to end.

But the following example of Bush Derangement Syndrome finally sent me over the top:

Transcript of Keith Olbermann’s remarks on MSNBC:

The delusional claims he has made this day could be proved by documentation and firsthand testimony to be the literal and absolute truth, and he still, himself, would be wrong because the America he sought to impose upon the world and upon its own citizens, the dark, hateful place of Dick Cheney`s own soul, the place he to this hour defends, and to this day prefers, is a repudiation of all that our ancestors, all that for which our brave troops of two years ago and two minutes ago, have sacrificed and fought.

Olbermann acknowledges that EVEN if Dick Cheney is telling the truth and his own liberal allies are lying, it doesn’t matter.  Because he thinks Cheney and his vision for America are evil.  So truth be damned.  That is the warped mind of the true ideologue.

And he then uses a rhetorical flourish to indicate that our troops have suffered for Cheney’s hateful vision.

What Olbermann, evil liar that he truly is, fails to mention is that our “brave troops” who “have sacrificed and fought” actually think JUST LIKE Cheney and DON’T THINK like Olbermann.

I can cite the political polls of our soldiers to show that they overwhelmingly supported the conservative agenda and opposed the liberal one.  We find that 68% of active duty military personnel supported John McCain, versus only 23% for Barack Obama.  But it’s better to simply let you see another story that features a video as to how our Marines felt about George Bush versus how they felt about Barack Obama.

Another example occurred just this morning on The View, with two veterans who lost legs to roadside bombs answering Barbara Walters’ “was it worth it” question by saying without hesitation that they would both return to the fight if they could.  Barbara Walters was clearly stunned by their answer, and didn’t say another word.  Our veterans are NOT victims of Bush or Cheney or anyone else; and every attempt to portray them as such is a contemptible lie.

If Keith Olbermann had even a shred of personal honesty, integrity, character, or virtue, he would not have dragged American soldiers into his hateful polemic given that they themselves are on the very side that Olbermann so utterly despises.  But Olbermann doesn’t have any honesty, integrity, character, or virtue.

So he warps the men and women who supported George Bush and Dick Cheney so overwhelmingly into victims.

Olbermann says:

Gee, thanks for being motivated by the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans to go so far as to take a serious second look. And thank you, sir, for admitting, obviously inadvertently, that you did not take a serious first look in the seven months and 23 days between your inauguration and 9/11. For that attack, sir, you are culpable, morally, ethically. At best, you are guilty of malfeasance and eternally lasting stupidity. At worst, sir, in the deaths of 9/11, you are negligent.

Again, if Keith Olbermann had so much as a shred of personal or professional honesty, he wouldn’t say something like this.

Let’s review the list: 1) In 1993 Bill Clinton ran from Somalia after a battle with Islamic insurgents that left 18 American servicemen dead; 2) Also in 1993 the US suffered a terrorist attack in the form of the first World Trade Center bombing that killed 6 and wounded more than 1000 Americans; 3) In 1995 the US suffered its first domestic terrorist attack at the Oklahoma Federal Building that left 168 Americans dead; 4) In 1996 19 American servicemen were killed in a Saudi Arabian terrorist bombing of the US military Khobar Towers barracks; 5) In 1998 there was a simultaneous terrorist bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people; 6) In 2000 the USS Cole was attacked by terrorists, leaving 17 American servicemen dead.

There may well have been more, but that is all I can remember.

Most of these attacks were revealed to have clearly been done under the direction of Osama bin Laden by his al Qaeda terrorist organization.  In spite of this fact, President Clinto repeatedly passed up on opportunities to take bin Laden into custody even when Somalia literally offered his head on a platter.

How can Keith Olberman in good conscience so blame Bush and Cheney for 9/11 when the Clinton administration had never taken terrorism seriously themselves?  But Olbermann doesn’t have a good conscience.  He is a truly depraved human being.

Bill Clinton failed to take 9/11 seriously for the same reason George Bush failed to take it seriously in the six months of his administration preceding the 9/11 attack: because we hadn’t been hit hard enough yet.  Clinton should have learned from the attacks America suffered throughout his entire presidency; and Bush should have paid attention to Clinton’s disastrous track record.

Olbermann said:

You saved no one, sir. If the classified documents you seek released really did detail plots other than those manufactured by drowning men in order to get it to stop, or if they truly did know plans beyond the laughable ones you and President Bush have already revealed, hijackers without passports, targeting a building whose name Mr. Bush could not remember, clowns who thought they could destroy airports by dropping matches in fuel pipelines 30 miles away, men who planned to attack a military base dressed as pizza delivery boys, forgetting that every man there was armed, and today, the four would-be synagogue bombers, one of whom turns out to keep bottles of urine in his apartment, and is on schizophrenia medicine.

Olbermann is simply lying here.  CIA director George Tenent – who was appointed to his position by Bill Clinton – said that the enhanced interrogations by themselves were “Worth more than the FBI, CIA and NSA put together.” Career intelligence professional and CIA Director General Michael Hayden said, “fully half of the government’s knowledge about the structure and activities of al Qaeda came from those [harsh] interrogations.” In fact, President Obama’s very own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” A Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005 notes that “the CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.’ . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.”

So the man popping schizophrenia medicine and washing it down with his own bottled urine is none other than Keith Olbermann and everyone at MSNBC and everyone who watches the network.  It certainly isn’t Dick Cheney.

Olbermann saves his ugliest and most hateful remarks for last:

You saved no one, Mr. Cheney. All you did was help kill Americans. You were negligent before 9/11. Your response to your complicity by omission on 9/11 was panic and shame and insanity, and lying this country into a war that did nothing but kill 4,299 more of us. We will take no further instructions from you, sir. And let me again quote Oliver Cromwell to you, Mr. Cheney. “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of god, go.”

I’ve written about other things that Keith Olbermann and his “guests” have said.  Only very recently Janeane Garofalo said:

This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know, you can tell these type of right wingers anything and they’ll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become — it’s like showing Frankenstein’s monster fire. They become confused, and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don’t know, because their limbic brain, we’ve discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring. Is Bernie Goldberg listening?

And there was Keith Olbermann and Michael Musto engaging in about as hateful of an attack as one can possibly imagine against Miss California Carrie Prejean for the simple reason that they despise her right to express her own views about an issue that most Californians and most Americans agree with her over.

Keith Olbermann is a vain, petty, vindictive, vicious, hateful, and truly ugly human being.  And MSNBC would do far better broadcasting in place of pro-terrorist al Jazeera than it is doing here.  Both networks run basically the same message.

But Keith Olbermann’s rant against Dick Cheney and every conservative who agrees with him rose to such a level of hatred, such a level of vicious, bitter, ugly, deceitful, and frankly evil rhetoric, that it transcends anything I have ever heard.

Right now, liberals like Keith Olbermann are teeing off on conservatives for waterboarding when we now learn that liberals like Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats were fully briefed on “enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed,” and neither said or did anything to prevent such techniques.  And even the very liberal new CIA Director under Obam0, Leon Panetta, essentially says Pelosi is lying.  How are their attacks now anything but partisan demagoguery?

And right now, liberals including Barack Obama himself are deceitfully claiming the moral high ground even as the new liberal administration takes many of the same positions that it hypocritically and demagogically found so hateful on the campaign trail.  As many policies as Obama has undone that will make this country less safe, there have been almost as many that he once demonized, only to follow himself once in office.

For instance, President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate.  Given that President Bush used the technique against only three individuals shortly after the worst disaster in US history, how is Obama any different?  In fact he’s worse, because Bush and Cheney never demagogued the issue as Obama has repeatedly done.

Obama demonized Bush over the Bush policy on rendition.  But now this demagogue is quietly continuing to carry out the same rendition policy – abducting terrorist suspects and sending them to countries that will use harsh interrogation methods – even as he congratulates himself in front of a fawning media for his being better than Bush.  But Obama isn’t better than Bush and Cheney; he’s worse.  Because he’s a hypocrite and a demagogue.

In the words of the New York Times, military commissions was “a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.”  But now the hypocrite and demagogue is going to quietly use them himself.

And Obama has indicated that he likewise reserves the right to continue to hold some prisoners without trial indefinitely – a position he demonized during the campaign.  How can such a man who so hypocritically employed such demagoguery only to come to the same position as the man he demagogued claim any semblance of moral high ground?  Obama is lower than Bush in his character, not higher.  Bush and Cheney didn’t self-righteously demagogue; only Obama did.

Obama decided against the release of the remainder of the infamous Abu Ghraib photos.  But only because he had to bow to the reality of the massive resitance against his decision to release them and the consequences such a stupid and depraved act would have had both for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and for Democrats at home.  In electing not to release them, Obama took the SAME position that Bush/Cheney had taken.  Obama is not better than Bush or Cheney; he’s worse.  They didn’t waiver and pander before going back on their decision out of the selfish interests of political survival.  They were consistent in their determination to do the right thing.

Obama has idiotically promised he would close Gitmo, but even his own party now realizes how foolish that would be and has twice denied him funding to do so until he come up with a plan that makes some kind of sense.  Obama wrapped himself up in puffed-up, posturing self-righteousness, but the reality is that Bush was forced to confront the same unsolvable dilemmas.  The only difference was that Bush was wiser than Barack Obama in recognizing the problems that made a closure of Gitmo nearly impossible; and that Bush – unlike Obama – was never a pandering demagogue.

Again, Obama isn’t one iota better than Bush or Cheney.  He’s worse.

Not that any of these FACTS matter to liberals.  Because far too many of them are exactly like Keith Olbermann: even if the facts support conservatives, it doesn’t matter.  Such liberals are completely false, vile people who routinely treat the truth with as much contempt as Olbermann does.

I said earlier that I no longer feel the same way about my country that I did following 9/11.  I wish it were not true, but the constant unrelenting barrage of lies, hypocristy, demonization, and demagoguery from the left – particularly on national security issues – have left me with an increasingly bitter taste in my mouth.  And following so many years of such hateful tactics, I fear that if we are attacked again, that I will react politically, rather than patriotically.  I wish it weren’t true, but there it is.

Update: I have since realized that the first attack was not covered live, and film footage of the first airplane was not made available until later.  What I would have seen was video footage of smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center shortly following the first attack, finally followed by live footage of the 2nd plane strike.  I attempted to describe from memory what I had seen 8 years ago, and it turns out that my memory was not perfect.