As Barack Obama sees it, Lady Justice should be peeking out from underneath the blindfold when she makes legal decisions.
Lady Justice is often depicted wearing a blindfold. This represents the traditional American belief that all should be equal before the law. Justice is — or should be — meted out objectively, without bias, favor or fear, regardless of power, weakness or identity.
Barack Obama doesn’t agree justice should be blind. He looks to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court with a judge whom he says has “empathy and understanding.” Other criteria he wants in a jurist is “somebody with a sharp and independent mind “(code for a willingness to buck tradition), “and a record of excellence and integrity.”
In blunt words, he wants an activist judge. The term “judicial activism” first surfaced in a 1947 article written by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. for Fortune magazine. He divided the Supreme Court Justices of his time into three groups based upon their level of activism: the Judicial Activists, the Judicial Self-Restrained, and those falling in the middle.
Three things are now clear about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent comments about what she knew and when she knew it concerning the CIA’s use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), including water-boarding:First, it is no longer possible to doubt that Pelosi knew as of September 4, 2002 that the CIA included water-boarding among its tools for interrogating high-value terrorists like al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah.
As New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg recently told us, Democrats also don't want their swing-state Senators to have to defend such a partisan process in the 2010 election. That's why they're eager for even the veneer of bipartisanship that three or four GOP Senators would provide. And that's why they're willing to threaten a procedural bludgeon to intimidate Republicans to provide that veneer.
This health-care debate isn't like the "stimulus" bill, which was largely about short-term spending and deficits. This one is about whether to turn 17% of the U.S. economy entirely and permanently into the arms of the government. For Republicans, this is about whether they still stand for anything at all.
The White House on Monday pushed up its forecast for the U.S. budget deficit for this year by $89 billion, reflecting the recession, a raft of new unemployment claims and corporate bailouts.
A fresh estimate of the deficit showed it coming in at $1.84 trillion -- representing a massive 12.9 percent of gross domestic product -- in the current 2009 fiscal year that ends on September 30. A prior White House forecast released in February projected a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of GDP.
(A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there...pretty soon you're talking about real money. Funny, I can't get away with not having my checkbook balanced to the penny with my bank. How does the government get away with not knowing precisely how much we are in the hole? - Roland)
(I don't particularly care for Mike Lupica or his columns, but occasionally he gets it mostly correct. I share a recent observation of his from the Daily News with you here. - Roland)
Dear friends, family, loved ones, conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, my brother in law, Sam, and my cousin Joe: I am sorry and you were right.
These are not easy words for anyone to utter, much less a leftist from Berkeley, or a recovering leftist, that is. Even though I've been in recovery for 14 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, leftists are always right in your face, in an I-hate-you-if-you-disagree sort of way. Hence, this letter of amends to all the people I've lectured, scolded, ranted and raved at, and otherwise annoyed during my 30 plus years of "progressive" politics.
My recovery program urges a fierce moral inventory, a cleansing of heart and mind (kind of like a "forgiveness tour" but without the scary dictators), so here goes:
Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" — over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001.
The Senate's two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks.
"I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember," said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue — same-sex civil unions.
The resolution to proclaim Sept. 24, 2009, as Islam Day passed the Senate on a 22-3 vote.
Mr. Cheney said that administration's dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.
"That's my belief," Mr. Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies … means in the future we're not going to have the same safeguards we've had for the last eight years."
Jordan's king threatens: If Israel procrastinates on a two-state solution, or if there was no clear American vision on what should happen this year, the “tremendous credibility” that Mr Obama had built up in the Arab world would evaporate overnight.
And if peace negotiations were delayed, there would be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months, with implications far beyond the Middle East.
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