Clearly, there are numerous grounds for legal challanges against this administration. In our entire history there has only been one attempt to nationalize a private enterprise and that occurred when Harry Truman attempted to nationalize the steel industry during the Korean war. Now granted, this was about settling a strike that was hurting our war effort, but notwithstanding this, the courts struck this down as unconstitutional and that case is controlling to date. A legal challenge against these actions is the only recourse we have to protect our private property rights. As voters, we can do nothing against this administration before November, 2012. However, the bondholders and shareholders can take the administration to court to seek injunctive relief. Due to the unprecendented nature of events, any such challenge would likely reach the Court of Appeals, or even the Supreme Court.
Into this muddled morass of facts and circumstances comes the Hon. Sonya Sotomayor, the nominee for the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court being vacated by the current Justice, the Hon. David Souter. Justice Souter was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, and was believed to be a conservative leaning Judge at the time of his appointment. Contrary to this belief, Justice Souter has ruled with the liberal justices more the sixty-five percent of his time on the bench. Clearly, replacing him with an equally liberal justice does nothing to change the balance on the court at this time. Still, every prospective justice should receive proper vetting by the United Sates Senate prior to his or her confirmation, and this is where we find outselves.
Sadly, there is more to this story because the liberal Democrats of the Senate, as well as the White House Press Secretary are playing traditional identity politics with this nomination. They are doing the typical quota-filling tokenism with this nomination, and they are daring those on the right to "proceed at their peril" when it comes to the vetting process required by law. They are betting that any challenge to this nominee will cost the Republican party any propect of support from the Hispanic community in upcoming elections. Where was this concern for THEIR support from the Hispanic community when THEY were ripping into Alberto Gonzales? The simple answer is that is was nowhere to be found. This is probably because it is all a load of BULL.
What the press may not want you to remember is that the senate democrats demonstrated the very bigotry then now warn the republicans not to display when it came to the nomination of the Honorable Miguel Estrada, to the Court of Appeals. Miguel Estrada is a judge with an American story every bit as impressive as Judge Sotomayor's is. Why then, you may ask, is there not an Appellate Court Judge named Miguel Estrada? The answer is a bit more complicated. Liberal democrats have this "token" mentatlity when it comes to minorities. They like to be the first to put a "first" in a position of authority or responsibility. That would not have been a bar here as there were already Hispanic judges at the Appellate Court level, namely Judge Sonya Sotomayor. And what was their excuse for the treatment shown to Alberto Gonzales when he was nominated for Attorney General. He, too had a very compelling American story, but that didn't seem to matter to the senate democrats, including the self-righteous Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, and the junior Sentaor from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The actual reason there is no Justice Estrada on the Court of Appeals has nothing to do with his being an Hispanic, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that he believes the role of a Judge is to take the laws written and enacted by the legistlature (i.e. the Constitution), and apply it, as written, to the fact pattern of the case at bar. This is the mark of a CONSERVATIVE judge. Now in contrast to this, the liberal democratis believe that it is the role of the judge to write new legistlation from the bench if the laws on the books do not comply with said judge's political ideology. This is the mark of a LIBERAL judge, or judicial activist as they are sometimes called. This is the contrast between what liberal democrats want in a Supreme Court Justice and what conservative republicans want in a Supreme Court Justice. Clearlly there are maked differences between the two, and it is those differences that need to be fully exposed during the confirmation hearings.
Barak Obama is a liberal democrat, and notwithstanding the fact that his is himself a constitutional scholar, clearly favors the liberal activist judge model. He would not have nominated Judge Sotomayor if he did not belive she shares his belief that it is the role of the judge to make law from the bench, a function NOT intended for judges by our founding fathers when they penned the Constitution. The founding fathers built in a system of checks and balances to keep any one branch of the government from becoming more powerful than any other. The founding fathers intended for elected legistlators ALONE to write laws, and for the President alone to be able to approve or veto them. This is because these officials are the only ones accountable to the voting public.
The role of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary is to safeguard the Constiution and ensure that neither legislators nor Presidents would enact laws that were contrary to the tenets of the Constitution. They did this to ensure that neither political expedience or popular prejudices would upset the balance of power and emperil the rights of American citizens. The founding fathers intended the rule of law to be sacrosanct and for the government to honor contracts and respect private property rights and individual freedoms of all citizens, except under such circumstances as conviction of a crime or enforcement of a civil judgment. The conduct of this administration flys in the face of these protections and clearly warrants a judicial review.
In the hearing for Judge Sotomayor, you will not hear a peep from the democratic senators about the role of the judge, judicial activism, or anything else that could be perceived as a negative against this Judge. Just like President Obama, the liberal democrats in the Senate believe this nominee is EXACTLY what they want, an activist judge who legislates from the bench, and they will do NOTHING to expose this and emperil their nominee. It is left to the republicans in the senate to actually do their jobs and show the American people what kind of judge this nominee actually is, and to further illustrate to the American public the contrast between what democrats want in judges and what republicans want in judges so that the people can decide for themselves who best represents their interests in these and and other matters.
It is these distinctions between republicans and democrats that have been sorely lacking in the past eight years. Ive often posed the question: "Are congressional republicans transvestite or transsexuals?" Now before the gay rights types go nuts on me, it should be clearly understood that the vast majority of transvestites are HETEROSEXUALS, so there is no homophobic intent here. I merely pose the metaphor because I can't decide if congressional republicans are merely dressing and acting like democrats, e.g. transvestite, or if they've had full gender reassignment surgery to become democrats, e.g. transsexuals. In the case of Senator Arlen Specter, this is no longer a question. He's CLEARLY a post-op democrat. The jury's still out on Senators Susan Collins, and Olympia Snow. I'm reasonably secure in declaring John McCain a transvestite in this metaphor.
While the republicans clearly must distinguish themselves from their democratic counterparts and actually DO their jobs vetting this candidate, they must also beware and avoid falling into the trap set for them by those very democrats. To do this, they need to avoid the Rush Limbaugh example of comparing Judge Sotomayor to David Duke. To be fair, Rush never actually did this, but the facts are irrelevant to the liberal media and he's been widely reported as having done this. While Rush can defend himself, quite ably, the example is very real. Republican Senators and political pundits alike must avoid the race issue altogether. In the first place, it's irrelevant. Nobody, including Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, thinks that Judge Sonya Sotomayor is anything like David Duke. The comparison is ludicrous at best and to make it puts the republican party at real risk of coming off to the Hispanic voters as being either racist or xenophobic.
The way to avoid this trap is simple. Treat Judge Sotomayor first and foremost as a qualified judge with an inspirational American story and an equally impressive ciriculum vitae, as well as a seventeen year history that reveals how she interprets and applies existing laws to the fact patterns of her various cases. Use the facts and judgments in these cases to show clearly how she interprets the role of a judge in constitutional questions and bring out facts that support her comment that it is actually the appellate court judge that makes law and sets policy. Also, bring out the fact that she has been reversed three out of her six times on appeal to higher courts, including the Supreme Court to which she now apires to sit. Lastly, show her the deference and respect you would show any woman in her position. Do that and you will not antagonize or alienate the Hispanic community, Most importantly, you must give people a choice if you wish them to make one so the differences between senate republicans and democrats must be clearly illustrated.
The worst thing republican senators can do is try to play to the media. This is a losing proposition from the very start. For a republican, you will be about as successful in appeasing the press as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was in trying to appease Adolf Hitler. It's NOT gonna happen, because neither Hitler, nor the press, come to the table with honest intent. No matter what republicans do, they're gonna be shredded in the press. If they go soft on Judge Sotomayor, theyre going to be portrayed as weak and innefectual, a judgment that will be SHARED by their voting constituents. If they do their jobs and bring out the truth about the judge, they will be portrayed as racist, sexist, and mean spirited for sure, but this is irrelevant because regardless of any spin applied by reporters or pundits, the viewing public will also see the tape of the hearings themselves and no one will doubt the evidence of their own eyes, especially if the press reports to the contrary. No one trusts the media anymore, so don't worry about that audience.
As for the Hispanic community, if you don't disrespect the judge personally or make any derrogatory statements about her race or anything personal to her as a woman, you won't have a problem there, either. Trust that our fellow Americans are not blind to liberal hypocrisy, which is about the only thing that is transparent about them. In this, they are as transparent as Saran Wrap. Contrary to the liberals world view, Hispanics are a proud and diverse group. They do not see themselves as "victims" and will not forgive the liberals for their condescension and hypocrisy when it comes to their treatment of minorites. It is pure hubris on the part of the liberal democrats to think that any minority group "needs" their largesse in this day and age. No one, least of all Hispanic Americans, wants to dine on government cheese. We tried that for the three decades between the 1960s and the 1990s. It was called welfare and it was a liberal democrat named Bill Clinton that ended it.
In summation, the gauntlet has been thrown down by the evil Sir Charles of Schumer. Republican senators must now do what medievil knights have always done in this situation. They must pick up the gauntlet, slap the said Sir Charles of Schumer across the face, forcefully (figuratively speaking, of course), draw their swords, and engage the challanger in combat. Retreat is not an option, because then as now, if you retreat, you will lose your honor, integrity, and in all likelihood, your jobs. Accordingly, I say this to the senate republicans: "DO your jobs and vet this judicial nominee thoroughly and respectfully if you want to KEEP your jobs in the next elections; and, most of all, do not PANIC,
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