The longer we get to look at the Democrat healthcare bill, the more we learn about how they plan to subvert the Constitution and the will of the people. Hidden around page 1000 are some provisions to make it nearly impossible to repeal the bill. A vote of 66% will be required to repeal the bill. Also, the bill requires that the board that is established has to be funded every year. That could be called a poison pill inserted into the bill to prevent sanity from being restored.

The Democrats love to say that the bill will reduce the deficit. That is only true because the taxes are implemented on day one. The actual healthcare disaster does not start until January 2013. So, for the next three years, we will be paying high taxes that can be used to pay down the deficit. That will make the Democrats look great. Then, when the healthcare bill actually gets implemented the deficits will skyrocket. If the bill was judged on ten years of taxes and ten years of healthcare, the entire bill would increase the deficit.

The Democrats healthcare bill does nothing that the Democrats say that it will. It will not accomplish anything that the Democrats laid out was a goal for them to accomplish. All the healthcare bill will do is destroy the American system of healthcare and replace it with a third world system of healthcare. For that, we get to pay much higher taxes, longer waits for health care and earlier deaths. That does not sound like a great tradeoff.

The Democrats are in such a rush to get this healthcare bill passed by Christmas. It is not going to take effect for over three years, so what is the rush? The rush is because Barack Obama wants this bill as his primary piece of legislation. Since that is his goal, the Democrats will do anything to make that happen. If the bill should not pass, then Obama would lose his primary legislative goal. After he loses his primary goal, he would essentially be a lame duck for the rest of his term.

The one question the Democrats any anyone in Congress should ask about the bill should be: “Is this bill Constitutional?” Making sure that any legislation meets the constitutional question is the primary job of a Senator and Congressman. You would think that the first question that any Senator or Congressman would ask would be to insure that the bill was Constitutional. But, since almost all Democrats believe in a “living” Constitution, they never ask the question. A “living” Constitution can mean anything at any time to anyone. To boil it down to its basics, a “living” Constitution does not mean anything.

The only Constitutional question is really, what did the original writers of the Constitution mean when they wrote each phrase in the Constitution? The commerce clause has been perverted beyond all meaning through progressive interpretations by Congress. Other parts of the Constitution have been perverted as well through precedents established in the past. Anyone with a 7^th grade education can understand what the Constitution says. It does not take a Constitutional lawyer to understand what it says. It takes a Constitutional lawyer to understand all the bends and twists that have been put into the words written by the Founding Fathers. I think that a person selected to the Supreme Court should have no legal training at all. They should be able to read and understand the Constitution as written. If they can do that, they would be qualified to sit on the bench. I know that will never happen, but that would put common sense back into the Constitutionality of the Supreme Court rulings.

The healthcare bill is unconstitutional. There is no question that it is unconstitutional. The only problem is finding someone who will have standing and be willing to fight for the United States all the way to the Supreme Court. The person should be in a judicial district that would be the most likely to rule that the healthcare bill is unconstitutional. That would give us the best shot at defeating this in the courts. It would still be a long shot, but we cannot rest until we give it a try.

Joe Lieberman (I, CT) has been a stalwart against the Democrat government healthcare plan. When the Democrats found out that they could not get any Republicans to vote for the monstrosity, they decided to put pressure on poor old Joe Lieberman. He resisted pretty well, until it was suggested that his wife’s salary should be withheld until he supported the bill. Shortly after that he caved and is now suggesting that he will support the bill with some minor changes.

The problem with Joe Lieberman is that he was right on the issue up until he caved in to Democrat pressure. Joe Lieberman has a problem that way. He knows what is right and takes a stand on the issues that is right. Then, he gets pressure from Democrats and he caves. When he tells us what caused him to change his mind, it is always something rather trivial. I have a feeling that the real reason is something like the suggested withholding of his wife’s salary until he caves. I have no basis for that feeling, except that the reason given by Joe Lieberman does not make any sense. He had a sensible position and was defending it strongly. Then, for almost nothing, he changes his mind. That just does not pass the smell test.

This change by Joe Lieberman seems to give the Democrats their magic 60 votes to ram their healthcare bill down our throats. That the Democrats persist in ramming the bill down our throats when the polls show that over 60% of the public does not want the bill in any way, does not make sense on the surface. It only makes sense when you consider what the Democrats get out of the bill. They get control over everyone in the country when the bill becomes law. Then, they will regain their majorities by claiming that the Republicans will take away healthcare. The fatal flaw in this scenario is the fact that the healthcare bill does not become active for three years after being enacted by Congress. That would give us time to elect people to repeal the bill. If the bill gets repealed before the implementation starts, nobody will be impacted at all.

Since the Democrats are conducting most of their negotiations in secret, it is difficult to keep up with exactly what is in the bill. Things are going in and out of the bill on an almost hourly basis. When we finally learn what is really in the bill, it will be too late to do much about it.

That our Senators and Representatives are even debating this bill is something I do not understand. It is obvious that the bill is unconstitutional. Anyone who can read can understand that the Constitution does not include anything that gives Congress or the President the authority to take over our health care system. Our Senators, Congressmen and President all take an oath of office. In that oath, they all agree to defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. You cannot defend the Constitution and ignore what it says at the same time. That is just not possible. You either believe in the Constitution or you do not believe in the Constitution. If you believe in the Constitution, you live by what it says. If you do not believe in the Constitution, you have no business being an elected representative of the people. Anyone who votes for this Democrat bill obviously does not believe in the Constitution as written. The Constitution puts handcuffs on the government by telling it what it cannot do and then reserves all other power in the people. People voting for this bill believe that there are no limits on the power of government. That is an unconstitutional position to take.

My hope is that this bill is challenged and sent to the Supreme Court to be thrown out. Even the Democrats, including Sonia Sotomayor, should be able to read the Constitution and see that this bill is unconstitutional.  I expect that the vote would be something like 6-3 to throw it out. This is a no brainer when it comes to whether it is constitutional or not.

With Lieberman’s flip-flop things are not looking good. That the bill still has not passed is a positive sign. That the Democrats are calling everyone names is also a good thing. If they were confident of victory they would not be calling everyone names. There is still hope that this bill can be defeated. With each Democrat that shows that they have no scruples, the hope diminishes. But, you hate to have anything go to the Supreme Court to determine if it is constitutional or not.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor started her confirmation hearings this morning. Senator Leahy started things off with a disjointed discourse designed to blunt any Republican opposition to her nomination. What his ramblings did was open more questions as to how he could justify his comments. There had been no evidence put forward, to date, that would back up anything that he said. Senator Orrin Hatch referenced Judge Sotomayor’s rise from relative poverty to the cusp of the Supreme Court of the land. There are so many of those rise from poverty stories, it is a wonder that anyone would think it unusual in America. In a socialist country, the rise would be unusual, but in America things like that happen every day.

Since I started taking notice of Supreme Court nominations, Judge Sotomayor has to be the least qualified to sit on the bench that reached the hearing stage. There were some that were nominated that washed out prior to getting hearings and they do not count. Judge Sotomayor disqualified herself from the bench when she made the racist or sexist comment (or both) that a Latina woman would be a better judge than a white male. Nobody that was racist or a sexist with comments like that has made it to the hearing stage since probably the early 1900’s. Back then, there were Supreme Court Justices that belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. Today, finding someone with views like that is unusual. You would have to hunt pretty hard to find someone with racist or sexist views like that. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be uncommon in the Obama administration.

Judge Sotomayor will almost surely be confirmed by the Senate. The Republicans have said that they will not filibuster the nomination. For the Republicans to filibuster a Supreme Court nomination is wrong, even with one as bad as this is. The trick will be to get Judge Sotomayor to disqualify herself in the confirmation hearings. That will be nearly impossible as she has undoubtedly been told what to say by Democrats. The Democrats hold 60 votes in the Senate, so stopping her nomination is almost impossible. The best the Republicans can hope to do with this nomination is to prepare the public for the next bad nominee by Obama.

The Democrats have let the cat out of the bag on their plan of attack for the nomination process. The Republicans plan to bring in Frank Ricci, the winning firefighter in the suit that she thought was unimportant. The Democrats plan to destroy Frank Ricci instead of hearing what he has to say. That is typical for the Democrats. They never listen to facts; they just plan to attack the truth instead of listening. That way they make people not want to confront them. It is a shame that they have to stoop to this kind of tactic whenever they know they are on the losing side of an argument. They should be willing to accept that they cannot win all arguments.

The Democrats are trying to portray Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a strict constructionist on Constitutional issues. For them to make that claim is laughable. Just take the Ricci case as an example. It is an easy case to decide and she got it wrong. She has had 60% of her cases overturned that were brought to the Supreme Court. That is a higher rate than almost any other appellate judge in the country. It at least puts her in the lower half of the appellate judges. If her rate were 40% overturned, it would be a much better case that she tries to follow the law as written. The best case would be if her rate were close to 0%. Then the claim would be supported by facts. Right now, their claim is extremely weak.

We will be bombarded with Senators trying to impress the TV cameras this week. We will get little information about Sonia Sotomayor, except for what the Democrats what us to hear. That is backwards from what should be happening. We should learn a lot about the nominee and hear little about the Senators. It is a shame that we have actors in these positions, instead of real Senators. Whatever happened to the true statesmen like Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson? We are stuck with Barbara Boxer. That is a poor trade. I guess you get what you deserve. We have been working towards the Barbara Boxers of the world for many years. We have tried to marginalize the Daniel Webster’s and Thomas Jefferson’s.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Ricci v deStefano case that was decided by the Supreme Court. At the time I had read only preliminary reports. The report I read said that the decision was 9-0. At least that is how I remembered it. It also said that the underlying Constitutional issue was not to be decided and the vote on that one was 8-1 with Justice Thomas the only one voting to decide the Constitutional issue. The actual vote on the Ricci case was 5-4. Some reports had the decision as 5-4 and others as 9-0. The ones with 9-0 were reading Justice Ginsberg’s minority report and interpreting it.

Justice Ginsberg and Justice Scalia said basically the same thing in their minority and majority reports, respectively. Both said that the second court of appeals had not followed the law and was not doing their job. They also said that the standard for deciding whether the case should be decided one way or another should not be whether the defendant would be sued, but whether they would be held liable. In this case, the city of New Haven was obviously liable in denying the firefighters their promotions. The only real difference between the reports by Ginsberg and Scalia is in how they determined how the court should have responded. Justice Scalia said that the court should decide in favor of the firefighters as they had been discriminated against. Justice Ginsberg said that the firefighters deserved the sympathy of the court and that was the proper remedy of the court. So, the difference was in how to apply the law, not in whether the city was liable. That was so obvious that they felt anyone could have seen that.

For the most part, my blog of yesterday was correct. I was incorrect in a few particulars and those I wanted to correct today. The main one was the actual final vote of the Supreme Court. That actual vote was 5-4. I reported the vote as 9-0. Rush Limbaugh among others said that the difference between Scalia and Ginsberg was so small that in effect the vote was 9-0.

I was correct in my assessment that the Supreme Court was voting on the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to sit on the Supreme Court. I stand by this assessment as all nine justices voted that she showed exceedingly poor judgment as an appeals court judge in this case. I am sure that all nine of the Justices would agree that anyone with judgment that poor would not make a good Supreme Court Justice.

Some liberal pundits are saying that Judge Sotomayor would be the liberal equivalent to Justice Scalia. That is something that has no evidence. Of course, liberals do not need evidence to conclude that something is true. Look at global warming and you see that all you have to do is say something is true and a liberal will believe it. So, if you say that Judge Sotomayor will be the liberal equivalent of Justice Scalia, liberals believe it. She has not shown any ability to write. Her writings have been exceedingly dull at best. She does write better than Barack Hussein Obama, but my 10 year old writes better than Obama. She can give a decent speech, but her speeches show none of the intellectual prowess that Justice Scalia is famous for. I guess that other than speaking and writing, she would be the equal of Justice Scalia. Of course, if you subtract writing and speaking there isn’t much left to go on.

Sonia Sotomayor is an intellectual lightweight. She is a racist. She writes poorly. Her speeches are decent, but nothing to stay up late for. Other than being an average speaker, she perfectly reflects the person that nominated her for the Supreme Court. If she actually makes it to the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas will make her look like the fool she really is. Chief Justice Roberts will also make her look like an intellectual lightweight, though he is much more laid back than Justices Scalia and Thomas.

Sonia Sotomayor should not be on the Supreme Court. That is a true statement, unless there is information that has not come to light yet. Since Democrats would have put out the best information first, I doubt that we will find out anything better on her in the coming few weeks. Given the preponderance of Democrats she will probably be confirmed by the Senate. That would be a travesty. It would not be the first, nor sadly will it be the last.

Today, the Supreme Court announced their decision on the Ricci case involving the white firefighters that were denied a promotion entirely because of race. In effect, this decision was a referendum on Sonia Sotomayor because she was one of the judges that denied the firefighters their day in court at the appeals court level. She did not think that the case was important enough to even give it the time of day. The Supreme Court thought otherwise and took the case. They made a decision and unlike most Supreme Court decisions, this one was not even close. The vote was 9-0. The Supreme Court said that the white and Hispanic firefighters were denied the promotions because of race and race alone.

Barack Obama and the Sonia Sotomayor supporters have to be blown away by the decision. In recent years we have been accustomed to decisions that were 5-4. A decision that was not close was 6-3. This one was 9-0, which rarely happens in the high profile cases that get reported on the news. In effect, the Supreme Court was saying that Sonia Sotomayor was outside of the judicial mainstream. How the decision will play out in the final analysis is yet to be written. That is because Democrats are so good at spinning bad news as good news. But, any way you cut it, this is bad news for Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

For those that wonder what the Ricci case was about, I will give a short report. This short report will get the basic ideas right, but may contain an error or two. The city that started this whole affair wanted to promote some firefighters to Captain and Lieutenant. They contracted with a firm that specialized in producing racial neutral tests. The test was determined to be racial neutral before it was given. When the results were announced, 20 white and 4 Hispanic firefighters had passed the test out of the pool of just under 40 who took the test for Captain. The results were similar for Lieutenant. After announcing the results, the city did not certify them as they decided that not enough black firefighters had made the list. In the city’s decision, the test was racially biased because not enough black firefighters made the list. After throwing out the results of the test, 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter sued the city. The case became known as the Ricci case after one of the firefighters.

At the appeals court, Sonia Sotomayor and the majority decided that the case did not deserve a decision. They tried to bury it with a non-decision. They were forced to make a decision, so they just rubberstamped the lower court’s decision by attaching the lower court’s report to their report. The judges on the appeals court that disagreed wrote scathing reports. The case was selected as one of the about 300 cases that the Supreme Court heard this year. It was decided that they would hear this case, prior to Sonia Sotomayor being nominated to sit on the Supreme Court.

How is Sonia Sotomayor going to sit on the Supreme Court when they just gave her a trip to the proverbial woodshed? She should have known better. This case was so obvious that a second grader without any legal training could have gotten it right. The only way you could have gotten this case wrong is if you had your mind set in the wrong direction in the first place. Anyone with an ounce of fairness and objectivity could have seen that the city was obviously wrong. Sonia Sotomayor was so racially charged that she was unable to see the case for what it was. She could only see the case for what she wanted it to be. How many other cases are there that she decided on what she wanted them to be?

The 9-0 decision brings into question the ability of Sonia Sotomayor to even see clearly the difference between right and wrong. If she has a mindset in one direction, she would be unable to see the truth if it hit her square in the jaw. Any Senator who votes to confirm her today would be an obvious racist or someone who is so tied to racial politics that the difference is like that between a 6 and the sum of 3+3. I believe that if the vote to confirm were today, she would not be confirmed. The Democrats have to hold off for a time to let the waters calm down on this one.

Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation is on thin ice at this time. More information is needed on what she believes is right and wrong. I know that sounds stupid for a question, but she could not tell the difference in an obvious case. She has some difficult questions to answer now. I was for letting her be confirmed and fight the next one. Now, I see that she is so far out of the judicial mainstream as to be in the mountains, not the water at all. Until I am satisfied that this case was a case of brain freeze (highly unlikely), I will be against supporting Sonia Sotomayor. I will urge all I know, including my Senators and my Congressman to urge her defeat as well. I know my Congressman does not vote to confirm, but he still needs to know my position. I feel that strongly about it right now.

As a personal note, we spent the last half of the week at the Grand Canyon. We froze, but had a wonderful time. The highlight was seeing the California Condors. We saw three adults flying at one time. They were first flying against the backdrop of the Grand Canyon and it was wonderful. The second time we saw them up close and personal. That means we saw 1% of all the living California Condors at one time.

The two big issues facing us immediately are health insurance and Judge Sotomayer. Today, I will write about Judge Sotomayer and tomorrow about health insurance.

Since last writing about Judge Sotomayer, I have learned a lot more about her positions on issues. Her statement about Latino women being able to make better judicial decisions than white males is taking up most of the press. There are a lot of reasons for that to be the case. First, if a white male had made a similar statement, he would have been removed from consideration within a nanosecond. Second, her actions during the Ricci case supported her words.

Since the initial two reasons, a third has come to light. The third reason that the issue of her policy on race is important is that she made statements like the initial statement that Latino women can make better judicial decisions than white males seven more times. If you make a statement one time, it can be a mistake. It can be a poor choice of words or just pure brain freeze. If you make a statement two times, the chance of it being a mistake go down from about 25% to 1%. If you make three or more statements that are the same the chance of a mistake is eliminated. That means her initial statement was intended just as she said it. No matter that the Democrats are calling it just a poor choice of words, the truth is she intended to say just what she said.

Let us look closer at the statement and see what it could mean. She said that Latino women can make better judicial decisions because of their life histories. As I understand the law, when it says something there are no decisions to make. In other words, the law is the law. There are guidelines in sentencing and there one judge will make decisions different than another. I am not sure that this is where she was going. I think she meant that a Latino woman will read the law to mean something different than a white male because of her life experience. If that is the case she is preaching pure racism. It is racism of a different color, but it is still racism. When we think of racism, we think of it as white on black or other minority. She is talking minority (Latino) on some other group. That is not equal treatment under the law that our Constitution talks about.

There is another issue where her position is not where the Constitution actually should be. She has made statements on the second amendment. The second amendment is the right to bear arms. It has always meant that individuals can own firearms. Judge Sotomayer has stated that the second amendment only applies to the military. The second amendment does not apply to the military. It talks about militias, not the military. If it was talking about the military, it would have mentioned the military, not the militias. In the early days of the country, militias and military were quite different. A militia unit was an untrained unit formed from local people for an emergency purpose. A military unit was a trained unit formed to protect the country. The writers of the Constitution were such sticklers for correct words, that they would not have made the mistake to use one word in place of the other. She is obviously wrong about the second amendment. She needs to read the second amendment and learn what it really means.

Judge Sotomayer is not really qualified to be on the Supreme Court. That she will eventually be on the Supreme Court is a foregone conclusion. There are not really enough votes to stop her nomination. I do not think that the Republicans should fight to stop her nomination. They should highlight her extreme liberal positions. By highlighting her extreme positions, they can set up the next unqualified person that Barack Obama nominates to the court. This one is pretty much a foregone conclusion that it will go through. But, it can be used to highlight extreme positions and make it more difficult for Barack Obama to get another extremist judge on the Supreme Court. They would have to continue to highlight her extreme positions as she continues to trash the Constitution in her daily attempt to rewrite what the Founders wrote.

Last week, Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayer for the Supreme Court. At the time, I said I would reserve judgment until I found out more about her. For the past week, I have read all that I can about her and her background. I have read legal experts that I trust and have come to a conclusion. Sonia Sotomayer is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

How did I come up with that judgment? There were a number of factors that came into play. Her most talked about statements really troubled me. The one that bothers me the most is the racial statement. She said that a Hispanic woman can make better decisions than a white male based on her life’s experiences. Had a white male said the same thing in reverse, he would have been shown the door in no time at all. The fact that she is Hispanic should have nothing to do with the fact that the statement is one of the most racially charged statements from a Supreme Court nominee since one of the KKK members became a member of the Supreme Court.

The statement alone was not enough to sway me that she was sincere. There is a case that she decided that clinched the argument. The case was about a town that made a test for firefighters for advancement. The test was prepared by experts so that it had no racial components at all. After the test was administered, 17 white males and one Hispanic male passed the test. No blacks passed the test at all. The city then determined that because no blacks passed the test, the test must be racially biased and threw it out. The firefighters then sued the city. The case came to the court of appeals where Sonia Sotomayer was serving. She was on the majority that threw out the firefighter’s case. This was an obvious case of racial discrimination, yet she decided the other way.

One other reason that I do not feel she is qualified is that she has had 60% of her decisions overturned upon appeal to a higher court. As a teacher, if I had any student get 40% on a test I would not say they were a top student. Any judge will have some cases overturned on appeal. Everyone makes mistakes. That is why we have appeals courts. A judge deciding cases strictly on the law should not have cases overturned very much. Sonia Sotomayer had the highest overturned rate of any judge that Barack Obama was considering for the Supreme Court. If she makes so many wrong decisions on lower courts, how can we be sure she gets it right on the Supreme Court? The high rate of decisions overturned tells me that she is deciding some cases based on her own ideas, not the law. Her supporters always bring up cases where she follows the law in sentencing. Those are undoubtedly cases that were not overturned. I would like to know her decisions in the cases she had overturned. That would tell us much more about her judicial philosophy than the cases she got right. Especially since her rate of cases overturned is so high.

On the surface, this appointment looks like an affirmative action pick by Barack Obama. It does not look like he picked the best person in the United States for the Supreme Court. It looks like he decided he was going to pick a Hispanic and just picked one without regard to her track record. I could be wrong, but that is what I think based on the information that is at my disposal at this time. That would be typical of someone who was an affirmative action selection at most levels. Also, Democrats believe fervently in affirmative action. That is another reason that this appointment just does not look right.

I still think that Sonia Sotomayer will become a Supreme Court Justice. Why do I think that? Democrats hold a 59-40 majority in the Senate. If the Republicans do not find something more damning than the racist statement, they will not filibuster the appointment. If they do not filibuster the appointment, she will be approved. That is why elections have consequences. We are now paying for the stupidity of the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. Also, Republicans should be ashamed for trying to be Democrats leading up to the elections in 2006 and 2008. People will always pick the real thing over a fake if given the choice. They made that abundantly clear in 2006 and 2008. I hope the Republicans got the message or they will get it again in 2010. If they got the message, the Democrats will get their hat handed to them in 2010. That would be a good thing for America and the world.

Barack Obama nominated his first Supreme Court Justice yesterday. He selected Sonia Sotomayer. She is a far left nominee, which should be no surprise. If approved, she would be the first Hispanic elevated to the Supreme Court. That would be a distinct honor. That honor should have gone to Miguel Estrada. But the left so demonized him that his nomination was impossible.

For the most part, Judge Sotomayer is uncontroversial. That is to be expected from any Supreme Court nominee. The last thing a President wants is for his nominee to be attacked as badly as Justice Thomas was.

Judge Sotomayer has made a few statements that have people scratching their heads. The worst two are her one that a Hispanic woman can make better decisions than a white male and that the bench is where policy is made. Many people are lining up to oppose her based on those two comments alone. You have to find out the context of those statements before you can jump to a conclusion. Context is what did she really mean when she used the words attributed to her. You look at the statements before and after the statement in question to form the answer to context. At this time, the context has not been released.

The first comment shows a racist tendency. That would be terrible in anyone, but particularly in a Supreme Court nominee. If she truly is a racist, she would not be the first. There have been members of the KKK that have served on the Supreme Court back in the later half of the 19^th century and early part of the 20^th century.

The second comment is one that would indicate that she felt the Constitution was not the law of the land. That would mean that she would be like the other liberal judges on the Supreme Court and use foreign law and her own opinion to determine if something is Constitutional. What Supreme Court Justices are supposed to do is look at the words in the Constitution itself, and nothing else, to determine if something is Constitutional. They can reference other American case law to back up their opinion. But, the words of the Constitution take precedence. Ideally, the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution should be taken into consideration when making the decision. This does not always seem to be the case for more recent Supreme Court decisions.

There is an interview with Jonathan Turley out on You Tube. In the interview, he says that Judge Sonia Sotomayer is just an affirmative action pick. Jonathan Turley teaches law at George Washington School of Law. He should know whether Judge Sotomayer is a good selection or not. Jonathan Turley is also a reliable liberal, so if he is bashing Judge Sotomayer for being an affirmative action pick, she must be pretty bad.

Right now, I am reserving judgment until I know more about Judge Sotomayer. My first impression is not good. The two bad comments raise red flags. Until those red flags are successfully answered, my opinion tends to be negative. If I had a vote and it had to be now, based on first impressions, it would be no. But, we will learn more over the next couple of months. She may not be as bad as the first impressions make her out to be. She might be a Harriet Meier pick or she might be really good. I just hope she is not as bad as Ruth Bader Ginsberg. That would be a total disaster.

The second of the three disasters that are facing our country is the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine. The other two are the appointment of the Supreme Court Justice and the destruction of the best medical system in the world.

The “Fairness Doctrine” was in place for a long time. It required radio stations to balance talk shows. If they had a show with a conservative opinion, they had to balance that with a liberal show. As a result, radio stations were not willing to take the risk over the determination if they had met the standard. They just did not have talk shows that dealt with political speech at all.

Ronald Reagan came along and said that was not acceptable. The First Amendment to the Constitution says that there shall be no law abridging Freedom of Speech. Since this law obviously did just that, he had the law repealed. After the law was repealed, talk radio took off and is now the number one radio format in the country. Interestingly, conservative talk radio has been successful while liberal talk radio has not. That has resulted in well over 90% of the talk shows being conservative shows. All of the most popular talk show hosts are conservative.

When the current administration and Congress was elected, there was a lot of talk about bringing the Fairness Doctrine back. That got shot down in quick order by the fans of talk radio. Since it is the number one listened to format in the country, there were a lot of calls and letters to Congressmen. In quick order, Congress responded with bills that said they would not put the Fairness Doctrine back in place. That should have ended it, but liberals do not give up easily when they almost have total control.

There is more than one way to get the Fairness Doctrine imposed, without actually imposing it. There is talk of having radio licenses being renewed every two years instead of every eight years. That would mean the liberals would have more chances to get the station to drop conservative talk radio. This might work, but would have to be put with some other method to have any real teeth.

The second way to bring the Fairness Doctrine back would be to have local Community Review Boards. These review boards would determine if a station has enough “local” programming. If this was paired with more frequent renewal of the license, it could have a big impact on whether a station could keep conservative talk radio.

A third way is being discussed. That is to require more minority ownership of radio stations. The thinking here is that minorities would be less likely to have conservative talk radio as their radio format of choice. That would then reduce the amount of conservative talk radio. Conservative talk radio is highly profitable for a radio station. Any station owner who wanted to make money would see quickly that it pays to have conservative talk radio on the air. This might work, but it would most likely have to be paired with something else to really work.

There are others. The problem is that if the liberals pull off the removal of conservative talk radio, there will be no place to get real news. All you will get are liberal talking points from liberal news outlets. The liberal news outlets get their news from the Democrat Party. All dissent would be stopped in the country and you would have a one party rule. We would be like the old Soviet Union with Pravda, only our news outlets would be voluntary arms of the government.

If the liberals get conservative talk radio, the internet is next. The internet would be much easier than talk radio. There will be no outcry, because there will be nobody to find out and report it. Even if someone did find out and report it, things take time on the internet. Things happen almost instantly on the radio. There would be no way to stop them.

There are three potentially huge disasters facing us right now. One is the Supreme Court Justice. The second is the destruction of our medical system. The third is the institution of the fairness doctrine by the backdoor to shut down talk radio. Any one of these is destructive. I am not sure what would happen if we actually got all three. I am going to talk about the Supreme Court Justice today.

Justice Souter is going to be stepping down from the Supreme Court. For one, I am glad to see him go. He was a disaster from the start. After Robert Bork got destroyed by the Democrats in the Senate and the news media, President George H. W. Bush wanted someone with no record. He picked Justice Souter on the recommendation of the Governor of New Hampshire, who was a friend. That recommendation turned out to be bad. Right from the start, Justice Souter voted with the liberals and continued there until today. He never once voted the conservative position or the position that judged the Constitution strictly by what it says. He always tried to figure out what it meant in today’s terms. In other words, he believed in a “living” (dead) Constitution.

Barack Obama has yet to nominate someone to fill the vacancy. He has said that he wants to select someone with empathy for the needy. That is a bad criterion for selecting a Justice of the Supreme Court. We need Justices on the Supreme Court that read the Constitution and decide cases based on what the Constitution says. Justices used to do that up until Franklin Roosevelt appointed some that started finding things in the Constitution that were not written. As a result, we have abortion is legal from Roe v Wade and other numerous examples.

Liberals believe in a “living” (dead) Constitution. That means that the Constitution can be interpreted to mean different things in different times. That is to say that as society changes, the meaning of the Constitution changes with it. Liberals also believe that it is acceptable for a Justice to use foreign opinions to help him/her decide US Constitution cases.

Conservatives believe that the Constitution means what it says. They believe that the Constitution was written with certain intent. It is up to the Justices today to decide cases based on the words of the Constitution as amended and nothing else. Conservatives believe that only the Constitution and American court cases can be used as documentation to help a Justice come to his/her opinion.

That is the great battle that will now be fought. Conservatives will try to find a candidate that will agree to decide cases based just on the Constitution. Liberals will try to find a candidate that will agree to use the “living” (dead) Constitution concept.

Conservatives frequently accuse liberal judges of legislating from the bench. When they say that, conservatives mean that a liberal judge decides a case on his/her opinion, not on the law. The judge then puts himself/herself above the legislatures of the states.

Liberals have started calling judges that judge cases strictly by the law as legislating from the bench. I am not sure how that is legislating from the bench. The judge is saying, en effect, that the legislature makes the laws and he/she enforces them. That is not legislating from the bench in any way.

The next few weeks should be interesting in determining how this battle will play out. The Democrats hold all the cards. They have enough votes in the Senate to approve any person nominated by Barack Obama. The only thing that could stop the nominee would be a filibuster. Democrats have filibustered Republican nominees. The Republicans have said that they do not anticipate a filibuster on this nomination.

This person will serve for the next 20-40 years. That will be a lasting legacy for Barack Obama. This person could be a joke of a justice like Justice Souter or be a stalwart like Justices Thomas, Roberts, Scalia or Alito. My bet is that the justice will be a joke.

We live in a Constitutional Republic, or at least, we used to. The people we elect to defend and protect the Constitution have ignored the Constitution since Franklin Roosevelt and his “New Deal”. Show me where in the Constitution it says that we can spend federal tax money to bail out anything. If you can find it, you can read better than I can. I have read and reread the Constitution and cannot find the language needed to bail out anything.

Where in the Constitution does it give our federal government the authority to provide welfare? Again, if you can find it in the Constitution, you can read better than I can.

Now, Barack Obama wants the federal government to take over our health care system. Where in the Constitution does it give him the authority to do that? Anyone who thinks that the federal government can provide health care for the citizens of the country has not read the Constitution or is willfully ignoring what it says. I believe that they are willfully ignoring the Constitution because they do not believe in the Constitution. They obey the parts they want to obey and do not obey those parts that they do not like.

We as a people need to get back to believing that we are a Constitutional Republic. Some time in the early 1900’s we started believing that we were a democracy. There is a difference between a Constitutional Republic and a democracy. In a Constitutional Republic, everyone’s rights are protected by the Constitution. They cannot be taken away because a majority wants to take them away. Also, a right does not require someone else to give up their rights to give you your “right”. In a democracy, the majority makes the rules. If they decide to vote themselves money from the government, then they have every right to do so. In a Constitutional Republic, the majority would not have the right to do that. It would not be allowed under the Constitution.

We have gradually become a democracy rather than a Constitutional Republic. I trace the problem back to Franklin Roosevelt and the “New Deal”. In the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt ignored what the Constitution said and did things outside of the authority of the Constitution. Since Franklin Roosevelt did it, every President since Franklin Roosevelt has felt they have the authority to do so.

The Supreme Court has been little help in recent years. Justices appointed by Presidents have been liberals for the most part. Right now five of the nine justices are liberals and six justices have been appointed by Republicans. That means Republican Presidents did not do their homework in choosing Supreme Court nominees. President Bush hit two for two. That is a fantastic percentage. Barack Obama will be unlikely to select anyone even remotely qualified for the bench.

To be qualified for the Supreme Court one must believe that a judge should be there to rule on the law, not make law. That is the first and most important qualification. If they do not have this, they are completely unqualified regardless of whether they are conservative or liberal. The second requirement for a Supreme Court Justice is that they must believe that the Constitution is the only ruling document in the land. They should never, ever use rulings from other countries to help decide American court cases. All rulings should be based on what the Constitution actually says, not what the Justice thinks it should say. That is how a Justice starts to legislate from the bench. If a judicial nominee has those two qualifications, they are qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. You will notice that I made no mention of whether the candidate is a liberal or a conservative. That does not matter if they have these first two qualifications and that the person has the integrity to stick with those two qualifications. Many get on the bench and get tempted to start molding the Constitution into what they believe instead of what it actually says.

To sum it all up, we need to start talking about our Constitutional Republic. If we do that, people will have to be taught what a Constitutional Republic is. Once they understand what a Constitutional Republic is, they will be less likely to fall for the Democrat tricks of class warfare and Democrat vote buying projects. At least, that was the hope of the Founding Fathers and I have that same hope today. At first we will be resisted and told that we have a democracy. Once we teach people what we really do have, then we have won the war.