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NOTE 1: The following article appeared in the Los Angeles Times this morning. The copyright for the article belongs to the L.A. Times and while I have included the full text of the article below I fully acknowledge the source and provide it without alteration for the its educational content. The inclusion of this article is intended to advance the reader’s understanding of political, human rights, economic, and social issues. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those interested in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. In case anyon’s interested there is a similar disclaimer at the bottom of www.fungazi.com covering everything on this site.

NOTE 2:The commentary following the article has been italicized to differentiate it from the LA Times article included. That commentary is my own and does not reflect the opinion of the Los Angeles Times editorial staff with whom I am not connected.

NOTE 3:
Initially I intended to post this piece on June 12, which is the same day the opinion article appeared in the L.A. Times, however, my intended publication was delayed by unforeseen circumstances not associated with the article or this blog. When I opened my email on the following morning I found that the newspaper had sent me an auto-response resulting from my attempt to get my full comment published in its original form as a letter to the editor rather than the slash and burn abridged version that ultimately appeared as an on-line submission commenting on the article. I may delay this posting even longer to see if the newspaper actually publishes the letter I submitted. The auto-response indicates they the editors will reach their decision to either use that letter or reject it within seven days, but I doubt that I will wait that long before posting this. I will be surprised if they choose to publish my letter.

NOTE 3:
Inasmuch as I posted the article entitled “The Myth of Hispanic Race” back on May 31, 2009, 13 days prior to the appearance of the LA Times article regarding “a mythic ‘Hispanic’,” the question of who stole what from whom would make for a lively debate.

Los Angeles Times
Opinion Section

Judge Sotomayor, a mythic ‘Hispanic’
By Jonathan Zimmerman
June 12, 2009

The supposedly racial term was pushed by Nixon to lump distinct Spanish-speaking groups into one voting bloc. There’s no such thing, and the judge should be appointed on her merits.

Here’s a good argument for putting Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court: She’s knowledgeable, respected and deeply experienced. As a federal judge for nearly two decades, she’s heard thousands of cases and written hundreds of opinions.

And here’s a lousy argument for confirming Sotomayor: She would be the first “Hispanic” on the court.

I put the term in quotation marks because it’s a recent invention, dating to the 1970s and ’80s. Before then, when Sotomayor was growing up with her Puerto Rican family in New York City, she was not Hispanic.

And words make a difference. As many commentators have reminded us since President Obama nominated Sotomayor, judges are inevitably shaped by their life experiences. But these experiences are themselves shaped and, sometimes, distorted by the terms that we use to describe them.

How did Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Panamanians, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans all become Hispanic?

Amid the African American civil rights struggle of the 1960s, many of these groups joined hands to demand voting rights, bilingual education and social services. Here they received a big assist from an unlikely source: Richard Nixon. Eager to bring Mexicans and other Latino immigrants into the Republican fold, Nixon also saw them as a potential bulwark against black political aspirations.

“All Spanish-speaking Americans share certain characteristics a strong family structure, deep ties to the church, which makes them open to an appeal from us,” wrote one GOP campaign strategist on the eve of Nixon’s 1972 presidential reelection bid. “The Democratic Party is under suspicion for favoring politically potent blacks at the expense of the needs of Spanish-speaking people.”

So Nixon threw his weight behind bilingual education, which has since become a bête noire for the GOP. He also ordered the Census Bureau to add a query on its 1970 form asking whether respondents were “Hispanic,” hoping to further solidify this new voting bloc.

Census Bureau officials balked, noting correctly that the term lacked scientific and historical precision. They also worried that respondents wouldn’t recognize it. So the most commonly used census form in 1970 asked respondents if they were of “Spanish” origin, not whether they were Hispanic.

All that would change in 1977, when the Office of Management and Budget instructed federal agencies to classify Americans as one of four races white, black, American Indian/Alaskan Native or Asian/Pacific Islander and also to distinguish between two ethnic categories, “of Hispanic origin” and “not of Hispanic origin.” Since then, the census has asked people their race and whether they’re Hispanic, which is not listed as a “race” per se.

Increasingly, however, Americans thought of it as such. Government agencies used “Hispanic” alongside “Asian” and “black,” making Hispanic into a de facto racial category. Businesses and educational institutions counted Hispanics or, sometimes, “Latinos” as a race in diversity and affirmative action reports.

Not surprisingly, then, Hispanics became more likely over time to identify themselves as a separate race too. In the mid-1990s, 60% of the respondents to a study of more than 5,000 Latin American immigrants self-identified as “white,” for example, but only 20% of their children did so.

That’s an unprecedented development, as the United States had continuously absorbed people formerly identified in the census as from nonwhite races into the white majority. Jews, Italians and Slavs were all once classified as separate races; now, they’re white. But Hispanics are moving in the opposite direction from white to nonwhite. In our minds, at least, they’ve become a minority race.

The language of race is a unifying one, blinding us to the irreducible diversity that a single category can contain. Consider Sotomayor’s now infamous comment that a “wise Latina woman” would render a better judicial decision than a white male. While GOP antagonists accused Sotomayor of reverse racism and Democrats rushed to her defense, nobody pointed out that wise Latina women come in all shapes, sizes and ideologies. Would a wise Cuban woman in South Florida see eye-to-eye with a wise Mexican woman in San Diego, or with a wise Salvadoran woman in Washington, D.C.? Probably not.

Even worse, the idea of race tricks us into seeing “Hispanic” as a biological category rather than a cultural one. I frequently do an exercise with my students, asking them how a scientist would identify their race. The most common reply is also the most troubling one: via a blood test. In fact, that would tell you the opposite: We all come from the same ancestor, in East Africa, and we’re all mongrels. The blood test does not identify your “race,” which primarily exists only in our minds.

As a child, Sotomayor was probably classified as white; now she’s Hispanic. But her DNA is the same. The only thing that has changed is the way we look at her. Belying every shard of evidence, we continue to believe that races are different under the skin.

So let’s hope that the Senate confirms Sotomayor, one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court. Then let’s welcome her as the first person of Puerto Rican descent on the court, not as the first “Hispanic.”

If you think the words don’t matter, you haven’t been listening.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is the author of the just-published “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

SOURCE: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-zimmerman12-2009jun12,0,4217416.story

____________________________________________________________________

After carefully reading the opinion article above I attempted to post my comments regarding it through the form provided on the LA Times web site where this article appeared, however, that form restricts all submissions to a mere 633 characters (including the spaces between words, blank lines between paragraphs and punctuation marks). Obviously, the talent for succinct expression has never been one of my stronger characteristics, and while I did carve my comments down to a few brief sentences and managed to get a response accepted through the form provided, that comment was so carved up in the process that it lost the meaning that further explanation provides. Nonetheless, the desire to express a response to the opinion above persisted. I emailed a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times and was promptly rewarded with a note back saying basically don’t call us, we’ll call you if we use it and we reserve the right to edit it if we do use it. Still pretty unsatisfying and since the note also stated that they would review the letter within seven days, a point well beyond which my response will become meaningless to their subscribers average 33 second attention span, I began to feel downright frustrated, but what the hell, it’s their paper and this is my blog. What they won’t print, I will, and with that being said, here is an enlarged version of the response I sent to them.

If the deplorable decision Sotomayor participated in regarding Ricci v. DeStefano is not sufficient to dismiss her nomination to the Supreme Court then the two cases that Sotomayor presided over that have already been overturned by the higher court should be. Of the 150 cases she has participated in during her 10 years on the Second Circuit, Ricci v. DeStefano was, without any doubt, among the most important, and yet she, very casually blew it off along with the important constitutional issues it raised.

The Supreme Court of the United States has the ultimate responsibility to adjudicate legal issues, interpret the meaning of constitutional provisions, review the application of constitutional provisions with respect to local, state, and federal laws, settle disputes between two or more states or between the federal government and a state and to serve as the highest court of appeal in the nation. The Supreme Court lacks the institutional capacity to make political judgments that are better left by elected officials serving in their capacity as representatives of the American voters. The elected officials entrusted to make the policy decisions that affect the best interests of the American public can be held accountable by the American voters for the decisions they make, however, the Supreme Court justices are appointed for life and can not be held accountable by the American voters.

In her 2005 speech at Duke Law School, Sotomayor expressed the belief that the “Court of Appeals is where policy is made,” and if the news media is to be trusted, she has publicly repeated the belief that the role of an appellate court judge is to establish policy on three other occasions. If Sotomayor’s nomination is confirmed we can expect that she will exercise her expressed belief and use her authority as a Supreme Court Justice to establish government policies that are better left to the legislature and the administrative branches of government who have a better grasp on the political implications of their decisions and a greater understanding of how a given decision potentially impacts existing policies such as economic policies, foreign affairs or national security.

The United States Constitution provides the American people with a system of checks and balances by dividing the jurisdictional responsibilities of the federal government among the legislative, administrative and judicial branches. It is a system that has worked fairly well for more than 233 years and the fact that the American people still have some limited degree of freedom and liberty today is sufficient evidence to warrant that the established system is effective. Supreme Court justices legislating government policy from the bench is an erosion of the constitutional system of checks and balances and poses a very serious threat to the balance of power that has protected our freedom so far. Sonia Sotomayor’s belief that judges should exercise their ability to establish government policy is, by itself, ample justification for dismissing her nomination.

The fact that Sotomayor strongly identifies with a non-existent race might be an indication that she would render decisions that ultimately exacerbate this nation’s divisive disunity, but racial identification (mythical or otherwise) should not be considered when assessing her qualifications. There is plenty of substantiating evidence to indicate that her past performance as a judge has been weak and her personal philosophy is radically delusional.

By the Way, as far as being the first “Hispanic” to sit in the Supreme Court, if you consider being of Spanish and Portuguese descent as being “Hispanic,” the honor of being the first Hispanic to sit in the Supreme Court went to Benjamin Cardozo back in 1932.

As far as the term “Hispanic” is concerned, while some of Mr. Zimmerman says is correct, as a term of reference to the people from Mexico, Central and South America, it did gain a lot of ground during the Nixon Administration, however, whether or not he had any responsibility for it remains very questionable and it is a real stretch to blame Richard Nixon and the Republican Party for creating the illusion of a “Hispanic” race. It would be just as easy to make the claim that the Mexican, Central American and South American immigrants identified themselves by the term “Hispanic” as some of those individuals became more politically conscious and, in particular, aware of the progress that Black Americans were making at the time. Further research would be required to substantiate the casual acceptance of the term in modern times but the word itself is rooted a lot farther back than Mr. Zimmerman seems willing to admit. Hispania was the name given to the Iberian Peninsula and Hispanus was the Latin name given to a person from Hispania during Roman’s rule of the area that is now considered Spain. The literal translation of “Hispanic” would be “of Spain,” which by the way is considered a European country populated predominantly by white and Mediterranean people ranging from brown skin to white. While I am at it I may as well point out that the term “Latino” would similarly be translated as meaning “Of Latin” which is also fairly frustrating because it describes something originating in countries once dominated by Rome where Latin was spoken, including Sa

If the term “Hispanic” is taken to mean anyone from a country where Spanish is one of the dominant languages then there are at least 27 different countries that would be considered as being “Hispanic.” If the word “Hispanic” were to be defined by ethnic groups or cultures fluent in the Spanish language the whole thing becomes even more complex because Spanish is one of the primary languages spoken among 75 to 100 diverse cultural groups ranging from the indigenous Xicano people originally from southern Guatemala (and the origin of the term”Chicano”) to the Fang people of Equatorial Guinea on the African continent. In the United State there are people of Afghan, Estonian, German, Greek, Iranian, Irish, Jewish, Laotian, Nigerian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Bangladeshi and Arab descent who speak Spanish fluently and use it regularly to interact with their legal and illegal neighbors, customers and contacts. Every group has its own ethnic heritage and cultural differences and the color of their skin ranges from ebony to pale pink so it would pretty tough to label them all “Hispanics” simply because they happen to speak Spanish. “Hispanic” is not more a racial classification that “American” is a racial classification. There is not common culture, physical characteristic or genetic difference between a blonde, blue-eyed “Hispanic” from Barcelona and a blonde, blue-eyed American whose ancestors came from who knows where. “Hispanic” is a term that like “American” defies racial or scientific description. It might describe the political affiliation of a group of radical activists, it might describe a social cause shared by a group of people but it is not a racial classification and anyone whose feeble sense of self-identity is founded on a vague term like “Hispanic” is too mentally unstable to be considered credible and certainly shouldn’t be trusted with sharp objects, let alone the authority that comes with a seat in the Supreme Court.

The decision to support or reject Sonia Sotomayor should not be based on race, it should be based on her qualifications as a judge (qualifications she appears to be lacking), and it should be based on her ability to resist pushing her own personal racial and political agenda down the throats of the American people from a court room when those things should be determined by elected representatives we can get rid of when they prove themselves incompetent. Race has nothing to do with anything; the American people are well past all of that nonsense and shouldn’t be made to feel guilt for rejecting an unqualified nominee simply because she happens to identify with a non-existent race. If race is an issue it is her issue, not ours, and we can’t gamble the balance of our entire form of government against the sensibilities of a delusional, questionably qualified female. The stakes are simply to high.

FYI
The Los Angeles Times editorial staff usually reserves space for the letters of those expressing views contrary to the accepted liberal norm only when those letters appear to be written by someone who is entirely unhinged from reality. Intelligent arguments and debate appear to be as unwelcome in the L.A. Times as substantiated facts, solid evidence and objective journalism. Facts merely get in the way of a decently convincing lie.

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“The compromise package of $789 billion will create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.”
SOURCE: Statement contained in the February 17th, 2009, White House press briefing

“Payroll employment declined by 598,000 in January, bringing the total job loss since the recession began in December 2007 to 3.6 million. This is the largest 13-month job loss since the payroll employment series began in 1939.”
SOURCE: The Press Office Statement on January Employment Numbers from Christina D. Romer, Chair, President’s Council of Economic Advisers

“Today we learned that our economy lost another 651,000 jobs in February, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent. 4.4 million Americans have now lost their jobs since this recession began.”
SOURCE: The Press Office Statement by the Secretary Of Labor Regarding the Monthly Employment Situation Report, by Secretary Hilda L. Solis

The source of the information given below comes from the monthly report on economic indicators for April, 2009. This report was prepared for the 111th U.S. Congress by the Joint Economic Committee by the Council of Economic Advisers. For the sake of comparison I have thrown in the last two months of the Bush Administration and it should be noted that the report shows that when Bush first entered office the unemployment rate was at 4.7 and grew to an overall increase of 2.5 in a slow and gradual increase spread out across his two terms of office to a high of 7.2 indicated for December 2008 as shown below. Since Obama first entered office in January, 2009 the unemployment rate has shot up from 7.6 to 8.9 indicating a 1.3 overall increase in a brief period of les than four months. If the unemployment rate continues to accelerate at a rate of 1.3% every quarter over the maximum two terms of office than Obama can serve, we can expect that, by the time he leaves office, the unemployment rate in the United States will be somewhere around 46.1% and nearly half the population of the country will be without jobs.

Bush Administration
In November 2008, there were 10,476,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 6.8 In December 2008, there were 11,108,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 7.2

Obama Administration
In January 2009, there were 11,616,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 7.6
In February 2009, there were 12,467,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 8.2
In March 2009, there were 13,161,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 8.5
In April 2009, there were 13,724,000 people unemployed and the unemployment rate was 8.9

The reports from the Joint Economic Committee by the Council of Economic Advisers for June have not been released but the current unemployment rate has been approximated at 10.5%. The simple fact is that nobody cares who is at fault for any of this, the American president does not create jobs, they are created by business and a healthy business climate creates more jobs than political rhetoric. When the government attacks large corporations and big businesses they are attacking the American people who depend on large corporations and big businesses for employment and income. When the government does not enforce border security they allow illegal aliens to come here and take jobs needed by the American people. Immigration enforcement is not discrimination, its law enforcement and enforcing the laws that protect American citizens is a benefit to all of us as well as to the nation.

In case there is someone out there who isn’t aware of it, George Bush is no longer the President of the U.S., the responsibility for the state of this nation’s affairs now rests with Barack Obama, so he should quit blaming Bush and get his act together, or shut up and get out of the way so somebody else can fix the problems correctly.

“We have to make sure that there’s a verification system to find out whether somebody is legally able to work here or not. But we have to make sure that that verification system does not discriminate just because you’ve got a Hispanic last name”
Barack Obama at Costa Mesa Town Hall meeting - Costa Mesa, California
March 18, 2009

Barack Obama has consistently harped about job creation during his numerous speeches, but while he is talking the number of America’s legal residents getting laid off increases dramatically and the number of illegal aliens employed by American companies continues to climb. Obama has repeatedly stated that securing the nation’s borders is an important priority and he has repeatedly promised to increase the use of the E-Verify program to identify and punish employers hiring illegal aliens. If he actually did as he has repeatedly promised the companies now hiring illegal aliens would decrease and the number of jobs available to the legal residents of this country would increase. The unemployed legal residents of this nation are becoming desperate. They cannot pay their bills or feed their families and increasing numbers are being forced out of their homes by foreclosure. American citizens with advanced academic degrees, individuals qualified for positions with law firms, and graduates with a Master’s degree and PhD’s are jumping at the opportunity to fill low-paying positions as secretaries, analysts, retail sales and low-skilled laborers. Unfortunately the opportunity for them to fill even the low end jobs are limited because Obama has put off the full implementation of the E-Verify program four times already and there is no telling if it will ever be fully implemented. Furthermore, with the U.S. Congress becoming more and more vocal about immigration reform and amnesty, the full implementation of the E-Verify program might end up getting dumped altogether as congress legitimizes the approximate 20 million illegal aliens now in this country and reforms out current immigration laws to allow for then next 20 million behind them.

Currently the E-Verify program is the only tool available. It may not be perfect but it does work very well and the ridiculously small numbers of errors made are avoidable and represent a small problem that is well worth the cost of making the jobs now taken by this nation’s 20 million illegal aliens, available to American citizens now facing financial disaster. The program should be immediately implemented nationwide and made mandatory for every company regardless of size. Data errors are not systematic efforts to discriminate, they are data errors, plain and simple, the computers don’t know what color a person might be, it only knows that the data doesn’t jive and it reports the facts based on the information fed into it. Further delay is unacceptable and as Obama has been known to say in the past, “We can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good.” The E-Verify program works - implement it and fix the little problems later.

The United States government was designed as a form of government whose authority comes from the American people it serves, however, instead of serving the best interests of the American people our Washington DC politicians are serving their own agenda and the beneficiary of what little they do is the highest bidder among the special interest groups filling their campaign treasuries.

Every fractional graduation of the broadcast spectrum, whether it be radio, television, satellite, cable or microwave is controlled by one or agencies of the United States Government. Beyond the Internet, every aspect of public communication is subject to government regulation, permitting requirements and the ever increasing pressure of censors who are all to willing to overlook pornography but are highly sensitive to anything that might be even remotely considered as being politically incorrect as defined by the cognoscenti of modern liberal orthodoxy. The American people are informed only to the degree and nature deemed appropriate while sweeping changes, legislative actions, foreign policy modifications and trade deals are proposed, debated, rejected, passed, implemented and modified in countless ways behind the secrecy of closed doors and we the people, the very people from whom our government derives its authority to act, are told nothing and remain largely ignorant. The primary pursuit of government officials in the United States today is to keep the American people entertained and distracted by a never-ending supply of extravagant “vitally important” issues while our formerly inalienable rights and freedoms are systematically stripped away, the free market democracy is dismantled and the entire system of government it transformed into a socialist tyranny capable of controlling every aspect of modern life. It is evidently the determination of the controlling power that the best way to achieve that ultimate goal is to make life in America so difficult that the American people willingly welcome any proposal that offers the slightest degree of hope for beneficial change. Informed people will resist changes to ease government inflicted hardships and would fight to change the government officials responsible for their suffering. Uniformed people will tend to see their suffering as the result of circumstances beyond their control and beyond the control of their government. They will be more inclined to accept any hope offered even if that hope is false and the change brings on greater adversity.

Immigration reform and amnesty are being sold by the current crop of politicians as an economic and moral necessity, the only viable solution to a pressing problem of great importance to the American people. The actual problem is the creation of a U.S. government whose refusal to enforce the immigration laws that were enacted to protect our nation from being inundated with illiterate, criminally inclined, free-loaders with few redeeming values has allowed more than 20 million illegal invaders the ability to come here, take our jobs, purchase the homes we are being forced out of and victimize the American people who are easy prey to foreign predators. The government’s proposed solution is to legalize the presence of these invaders and make it easier for others like them to enter the country and we are being told by most politicians and every newspaper and television new show that it is the right and moral thing to do, and as American, it is our obligation. The fact that it will increase every legal resident’s tax burden, sharply increase the crime rate and further erode the American way of life is not a subject that we will hear much, if anything, about. Those facts are entirely evident and yet that information is not being relayed to the American people because it might muddy the water and make the government’s goal harder to attain.

The union officials, the Parent Teacher Associations and all the other special interest groups out there are fighting for political power in Washington DC, they are not fighting for you. In the short term you might gain some small benefit but in the long term you lose everything because you’re not thinking about the long term consequences of the short term solutions they offer. When you lose your job, your kids are going hungry and the U.S. Marshalls are nailing an eviction notice to your front door, the union won’t be there to help you and the PTA won’t be rushing to your side. The government will do nothing for you when your foreclosed home is sold off to some illegal alien for less than half what you paid for it and you will be lucky to have a shopping cart to push your stuff around in if you have anything left at all. Believe it or not, that is all part of the grand plan that you voted for when you bought into “Change” without asking for details.

Wake up America! Pull your head out of your ass and look around you. Instead of sitting on that sway-backed couch staring at the simple-minded garbage the television broadcast networks are using to deaden your brains get up and go outside, drive to the drugstore, the market, count the people who pay for their food with the government subsidized allowance cards that you don’t qualify for, and all else, look at what is going on around you. Go sit in an emergency room some Friday night and see who comes through the door to get stiched up without any insurance. Go drive through the slums and see for yourself who lives there. You should be interested enough to find out since you are paying for most of them to be here. Quit accepting lies and start demanding the truth in every minute detail. Go outside and take a hard look at what the most powerful nation the planet has ever known has become, and consider what it could be if you quit paying attention to the nightly propaganda broadcasts of government sponsored lies and actually started thinking about the consequences of the repeatedly voting for the same bunch of self-serving jackasses you’ve already voted for in the past. Instead of letting other people tell you what to think based on their agenda and the political needs of whoever they represent, try thinking about the implications for you, your family, your future, the future of your children and your nation. Instead of voting for everyone listed on the union leaflet or the PTA circular, vote against them, because they are the candidates that have got us to where we are, and they are the future politicians who will deliver us to the Hell that the future holds in store for you and your kids. Think for yourself, it’s not all that painful, throw a brick through the television screen and chuck it in the trash where it belongs; you might save yourself a ton of grief in the process.

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If their is any truth to the claim that this nation’s more than 20 million illegal aliens are predominantly productive members of American society and that it would adversely affect our dwindling economy to dispose of them then why is it that the State of California, home to approximately one fourth of this nation’s illegal aliens, is the most likely state in the union to go completely bankrupt in the near future? If the five to six million estimated illegal aliens currently living in California are productive residents as it is claimed, the tax revenues of that state should be much larger than they obviously are. However, that is not the case, and as the United States Congress prepares to take up the issue of amnesty and immigration reform at some point in the near future, the state of California should be considered as a model for what the entire nation will become after that legislation is signed into law.

The state of California is basically broke and it is becoming more impoverished with every passing day. Uncontrolled spending has a lot to do with its numerous problems but “uncontrolled spending” is a term that lacks any degree of detailed information. In 2005 the California Research Bureau estimated that 14% of the Californian population was composed of undocumented immigrants. In the four years since that study concluded it can safely be assumed that the percentage of “undocumented immigrants” has increased significantly.

One recent study indicated that the cost of educating the children of illegal aliens along with the cost of providing illegal aliens in California with health care amounts to an estimated $10.5 billion per year. However, the costs given in that study are based on the California Research Bureau’s 2005 study and lack credibility due to the simple fact that the population of illegal aliens in the state has increased well beyond the figure stated four years ago. Furthermore the total cost given is flawed by the fact that it it is based on two factors only, the cost of educating illegal alien children from kindergarten through the 12th grade, and the cost of providing them with health care benefits through the state’s social welfare programs, and while the combined total of both approaches the estimated $10.5 billion per year, they don’t even come close to the actual cost incurred and paid for by the state’s tax paying population, the majority of whom are legal residents. The estimated cost stated at $10.5 billion per year doesn’t take into account the cost of police officers and administrative personnel in terms of the wages, benefits, training and equipment necessary to deal with street illegal alien gangs such as those that plague Southern California. It does not cover the costs associated with the numerous crimes committed by independent illegal alien criminals not associated with any known gang including rape, murder, identity theft, burglary, shop lifting and so on. It does not include the cost of dealing with the tremendous number of hit and run accidents involving illegal alien drivers who are not only driving without a license but driving any form of insurance, nor does it include the value of the lives taken or the property damage incurred by illegal alien drivers too blind drunk to see where they are going let alone drive a car. It certainly doesn’t include the cost of treating all of the uninsured illegal aliens at the emergency rooms of privately owned hospitals where they show up in mass nearly every Friday and Saturday night with knife wounds and bullet holes resulting from drunken brawls with other illegal aliens. However, while it does cover the cost of educating the children of illegal aliens it does not cover the cost of dragging the rest of the state’s children down to much lower level of academic achievement so that all of them feel equal in stature and ultimately results in everyone graduating from school equally deprived of the decent education we should be providing. By the time all of these additional costs are added in to the overall cost you start to get the picture of why California is so broke, but even then the picture is not complete because there are an entire host of costs incurred by the private sector (such as having to translate everything into Spanish) that are passed along to the consumers who ultimately are forced to pay for this nonsense.

Essentially the reason why none of these costs are calculated into the total expense of allowing illegal aliens into this country is because the politicians in Washington, like the politicians in California, refuse to track them for fear that those numbers will be used to demonstrate just how bad an idea amnesty and immigration reform really is. A true and accurate accounting would interfere with their ability to pass laws favoring the special interest groups that finance their campaigns and they are not going to allow that to happen anytime soon when they can just as easily lie to everyone using vague statistical information derived from obsolete studies and outdated estimates that remain unchanged despite the passage of years.

The simple fact of the matter is that the United States Congress doesn’t have the foggiest idea how much amnesty and immigration reform would cost the American people because they don’t know how many illegal aliens there are in the country who would qualify. However, before the American people lie down and let Congress have their way with amnesty and immigration reform they might want to take a long hard look at what illegal aliens have done for the state of California.

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Predictably enough, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred for a civilian trial on US soil pleaded not guilty to taking part in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa.

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This morning, Ahmed Ghailani, an al Qaeda terrorist who participated in the August 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya that resulted in the deaths of 224 people, 11 in Tanzania and 213 in the Kenya bombing, was transferred from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to New York where he will face prosecution in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on 286 separate criminal counts ranging from conspiracy with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network to kill American citizens to the use of weapons of mass destruction and the 224 charges of murder resulting from the two U.S. Embassy bombings.

Ahmed Ghailani acted essentially as a procurement agent for the al Qaeda terrorist network. He helped with the purchase of the vehicle used in the Tanzania bombing, he bought some or all of the materials required to construct and detonate the explosive device, and he bought a cell phone used by another individual involved in the bombing. He also participated in loading the accumulated explosive materials, detonators and other equipment into the vehicle a few weeks prior to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy located in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. The U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi, Kenya occurred nearly simultaneously with the bombing in Dar Es Salaam approximately 417 miles away and the collected evidence from both sites indicated the involvement of al Qaeda. Inasmuch as Ahmed Ghailani has been charged with the commission of crimes associated with the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, there may be evidence indicating that he also supplied some of the materials used in the Kenya bombing but at this point that information has not been released. There is evidence indicating that he was in Nairobi on August 6, 1998, and that he rented a room at the Hilltop Hotel that was used for by the bombers. It has also been reported that Ahmed Ghailani flew from Nairobi to Karachi on a Kenya Airways flight just prior to the two simultaneous explosions.

The two bombings claimed the lives of 224 people and wounded another 4000. However, as far as the terrorist’s attempt to kill American citizens is concerned, the simultaneous bombings were less than successful because the vast majority of those killed in the blasts were the innocent citizens of the two countries where the bombs went off, 32 Kenyan citizens working at the Nairobi Embassy, 8 Tanzanian citizens working at the Embassy in Dar Es Salaam and a total of twelve American citizens who were either working at the two embassies or family members of those working at the two embassies. neither of the two embassy buildings targeted collapsed as a result of the explosions, however, several buildings nearby were severely damaged or destroyed.

The vehicle carrying the explosive device used in Dar Es Salaam was blocked from entering the vehicular gate of the US Embassy by a water tanker waiting to make a delivery and the panic stricken suicide bomber prematurely detonated the explosive device 35 feet away from the outer wall of the building. No American citizens were killed in that blast and there were no fatalities suffered by anyone inside the embassy building. Eleven people were killed outside the building and there is a possible 12th victim that has never been found, presumably because the body may have been entirely vaporized by the intensity of a blast so strong that it propelled the filled water tanker, blocking its entrance to the embassy grounds, approximately forty feet into the air.

Ahmed Ghailani confessed to the Guantanamo review panel that he purchased the materials used to construct the explosive device and that he was present when the vehicle that eventually carried the bomb was purchased, however, he claimed that he had no knowledge of the intended target.

It should be noted that Ahmed Ghailani, despite his age at the time of his initial capture, was implicated in numerous crimes prior to the two bombings he is now being prosecuted for. He operated under a minimum of twenty different aliases, and after he became associated with al Qaeda while visiting Pakistan, he was trained as an explosives expert. There is also evidence indicating that he may have served as one of Osama bin Laden’s personal body guards. In 2001, the United Nations listed Ghailani among the names of al Qaeda personnel known to be dealing in contraband conflict diamonds coming out of Liberia and he is suspected of following this pursuit for approximately three years before he was assigned by al Qaeda to others tasks. Despite the apology he expressed to the Guantanamo review panel for his part in the embassy bombing in Dar Es Salaam, and the Washington Press claim that he has shown remorse for his murderous acts, Ahmed Ghailani continues to deny that he is a member of al Qaeda.

Ghailani is the first detainee from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution in a civilian U.S. court. The Justice Department stated that the decision to transfer Ahmed Ghailani to the Federal Court in Manhattan came after a review of his case by the Guantanamo Review Task Force made up of high level cabinet members from Barack Obama’s administration.

The creation of the Guantanamo Review Task Force as well as the review procedures used were developed in accordance with Obama’s executive order to close the Guantanamo detention facility within the first twelve months of his administration. The fact that this transfer closely follows Obama’s Cairo speech to the Muslim world may be an indication that he is trying to demonstrate the sincerity of his comment, “I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.” However, whether or not this transfer’s close proximity in time to that speech is an indication that Obama is trying to demonstrate the sincerity of his words is purely speculative.

It should be fairly interesting to see how the prosecution of Ahmed Ghailani plays out during his trial. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has jurisdiction over federal cases in the New York state counties of New York, Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan. The terrorist acts that Ahmed Ghailani committed with respect to the bombings in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya occurred nearly 8,000 miles beyond the Manhattan court’s normal jurisdiction in two separate countries on the continent of Africa. The United States Congress has only recently asserted the authority to criminalize various terrorist acts committed abroad against U.S. nationals, and to the best of my knowledge the authority of U.S. Federal Courts claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction is rather limited to specific acts. The prosecution of Ahmed Ghailani for conduct engaged in outside the territorial limits of the United States might require an incredible stretch of the normally accepted legal process and the federal court may have to go far beyond the bounds of acceptable credibility to reach a decision.

Inasmuch as Ahmed Ghailani is to be tried in a United States District Court, it can be assumed that he will be afforded the same rights that are guaranteed to American citizens in the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Sixth Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”

In accordance with the provisions of the Sixth Amendment a number of apparent problems become immediately evident. The first being the fact that Ahmed Ghailani was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay facility in September, 2006, however, he was captured by Pakistani and American forces in the town of Gujrat in central Pakistan on July 25, 2004 and spent at least one full year incarcerated at one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s top secret facilities known as “Black Sites” prior to his transfer to Guantanamo Bay that was first announced on August 9, 2007, during a U.S. Department of Defense briefing. At least five years have passed between the date on which he was first captured in Pakistan and his first scheduled appearance in the U.S. federal court sometime today. Five years of incarceration without so much as an arraignment seems rather contradictory to the Sixth Amendment guarantee of “a speedy and public trial,” and there are numerous instances where convictions have been overturned by higher courts for delays far less than what is apparent here.

The Sixth Amendment also stipulates that the defendant be tried “by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and this alone presents a significant set of problems since the explosive devices he supplied materials for were used in two different countries and it is doubtful that the jurisdiction of the United States District Court in New York has the authority to summon jurors, impartial or otherwise, from Tanzania or from Kenya where the bombs were detonated. Ultimately, the court will be forced to justify the selection of American jurors, but it will require another stretch to establish that American citizens can be credibly considered as “Peers” to the Tanzanian national defendant born and raised in a backward third world country with an entirely different culture incomparable to anything experienced in the United States. Even if the court resorted to a jury comprised of Tanzanian and Kenyan immigrants who have since become U.S. naturalized citizens, it could be argued that they were not actually “peers” by legal definition and the difficulty of finding such a jury in the first place would be problematic. I can not resist expressing the thought that the court might have to resort to using a jury comprised of Barack Obama and his family members since there is some indication that he might have actually been born in Kenya, but that is sort of a cheap shot, and even if it is true, it has yet to be proven and it is a digression from the topic at hand.

Providing Ahmed Ghailani with legal counsel should be no problem in America. This country is blessed with an overabundance of opportunistic criminal lawyers who would jump at the chance to defend this terrorist, make millions of dollars in the process and create a lasting reputation as a crackerjack defense attorney even if they lose the case, which under the circumstances, seems highly improbable. The line of volunteers willing to provide Ghailani with their best efforts will probably run out the door of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York down Center Street to Canal, make a 90 degree turn at Bowery, another at Delancey Street, cross the Williamsburg Bridge and end somewhere around the state capital of Nevada. As a side note, I would also venture to offer the generalized opinion that 99% of the lawyers in that line would undoubtedly be registered members of the Democratic Party, because conservatives make lousy defense lawyers, and tend to be far less sympathetic to criminals.

Another set of problems will be encountered when the court faces the inevitability of having to explore the treatment of this particular prisoner over the last five years of his incarceration. He was captured in Pakistan on July 25, 2004 and it can be safely assumed that no one read him his Miranda Rights at the time of his apprehension. He may have been denied legal counsel until sometime after his transfer to Guantanamo Bay and whether or not a military attorney can be considered “legal counsel” under the requirements and definitions that federal courts are required to operate is subject to serious debate. Certainly any confession he made prior to his arrival in New York today would be the subject of intense scrutiny and there is the distinct possibility that his prior confessions will be thrown out because they were made under duress and possibly came about only as the result of what is now being called “extreme interrogation” methods and the news media so fondly portrays as “torture” with all of the medieval implications of dark cavernous dungeons filled with hideous devices wielded by black hooded knuckle draggers against shrieking victims restrained by heavy chains.

Obviously the list of seemingly insurmountable problems associated with Ahmed Ghailani’s trial is a very long list and there is a distinct possibility that, unless he is immediately released on the grounds of any one of the apparently countless legal technicalities existing, his trial could continue for decades. In fact it could go on for so many years that he, the judge, the jury, the prosecutor and all of the witnesses might die of old age before a verdict is finally reached. Undoubtedly, the expense to the American people who will be required to foot the bill for all of this will be enormous, and the fact that there are approximately another 249 detainees at Guantanamo whose individual cases have yet to be determined poses, a financial burden of unimaginable proportions and that burden will also be added to the backs of the American people.

On top of the legal problems there is the consideration that American jails and prisons are designed primarily to hold American criminals, most of whom are not characterized for their high level of academic achievement or even their competence as criminals. Undoubtedly many have served in the military at some point in their lives but the standard military training they might have received can not be compared in any way to the training received by an al Qaeda terrorist. If the United Nations correctly identified Ahmed Ghailani as a member of al Qaeda in 2001 and the evidence indicating that he worked his way up through the ranks of that organization from the bottom to becoming one of Osama bin Laden’s personal bodyguards and received the training required to produce improvised explosive devices capable of launching a full water tanker 40 feet into the air, then it can be assumed that this is one dangerous character. It can also be assumed that he may not be the worst, or the most dangerous, or the best trained of those still remaining at Guantanamo, many of which may end up being lodged in the cells of similar American jails and prisons around the country. This could be a serious problem because these are not your average American criminals. These are terrorists who have been well trained to identify patterns of weakness and flaws in security systems that exist in even the best, most proficient and well-disciplined systems. They are far more capable and ingenious than most American criminals and many of them have demonstrated their ability to carefully and patiently craft explosive devices out of commonly accessible materials obtainable even in maximum security federal prisons. A serviceable explosive device can be fashioned out of bird shit and Cheerios by anyone with the proper training and a slight amount of talent so unless the federal government plans to keep these characters locked up, buck naked in unbreakable glass jars where they can be watched 24 hours a day from all four sides, there is a distinct possibility that they will either escape or cause significant problems, possibly resulting in the death or injury of those who must guard them while their eventual fate is determined.

In the long run, bringing these terrorists to the United States for trial is undoubtedly one of the most lame-brained ideas ever conceived of because our system of justice in not equipped to try them as it would any criminal captured inside this country and if they are to be treated by the courts according to the standards provided in the U.S. Constitution they will all be set free immediately on legal technicalities. We can’t trust the legal systems of any Middle Eastern nations to try them for the plots they have hatched and participated in against our nation, and if that is seen as our only recourse we may as well set them free ourselves and save ourselves the anxiety of watching them be freed by the nation’s who agreed to try them and then changed their minds as we have seen in the past. The approximately 250 terrorists now incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay have long ago committed themselves to the destruction of America and American citizens wherever and when ever they can be found and there is no compelling reason to believe that they will not resume those activities in the future if given that opportunity. Bringing them to the U.S. and spending billions of dollars trying to prosecute them is completely insane and poses a threat to the safety of the American people. Releasing them is not an option. The victims whose lives were so capiciously destroyed by these savage and violent mad men demand retribution and that demand cannot be fulfilled in a U.S. District courtroom.

Then again, maybe justice for these killers is not what Barack Obama had in mind when he issued the order to make this transfer.

Addendum:

Wadih El Hage
Wadih El Hage became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1989. After the bombings he was forced out of Kenya and returned to Arlington, Virginia with his family. On September 15, 1998 before a Grand Jury, El-Hage testified under oath that he did not know bin Laden or anyone associated with the embassy bombings. He was arrested five days later and charged with committing perjury, a criminal violation that took place inside the U.S. territory. He was subsequently indicted for his role in the embassy bombings and convicted on all counts.

Mohamed al-’Owhali
During the Nairobi bombing, Mohamed al-’Owhali was in the passenger seat of the Mitsubishi Canter carrying the bomb. Apparently his job was to jump out of the truck and shoot the guards to clear a path for the truck, but he left his pistol in the truck so he threw a couple of stun grenandes at the guard shack and ran like hell before the driver detonated the bomb. He was arrested August 12, 1998 and proved to be very cooperative with the FBI, not only did he confess everything he also spilled the beans on his fellow conspirators and gave up the telephone number he had called before and following the bombing, which later proved to be a Yemeni phone number belonging to the father-in-law of Khalid Mihdhar, a key communications link for al-Qaeda militants. He also supplied the American authorities with information about an al-Qaeda Summit in Kuala Lumpur.

Mohammed Odeh
A Palestinian engineer with Kenyan and Jordanian citizenship, he was arrested after departing his flight from Nairobi to Karachi with a forged Yemeni passport. He was detained by Pakistani authorities suspicious of him after he listed his final destination as Afghanistan. During the ensuing interrogation he confessed everything and they shipped him back to Nairobi where he was promptly turned over to waiting FBI agents.

Khalfan Khamis Mohamed
Khalfan Khamis Mohamed is the person who is believed to have actually assembled the used in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He flew to South Africa right after the bombing and was arrested in Cape Town on October 5, 1999.

On November 2, 2000, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim attacked a federal prison guard in a failed escape attempt from the same Metropolitan Correctional Center where Ahmed Ghailani is now incarcerated. The guard was critically injured in the attack during which he was stabbed in the eye with a sharpened comb that penetrated his brain. Subsequently he has suffered severe and irreversible brain damage. During the sentencing phase of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed’s trail the prosecutors argued for capital punishment due to his demonstrated propensity for violence and the threat he posed for prison guards. That argument was not successful.

The 12-member jury argued over whether the two men they felt played a more direct role in the bombings (al-’Owhali, and Mohamed) should receive the death penalty. Two jurors later reported that the panel deadlocked, 9-3, on capital punishment for al-’Owhali, and Mohamed. The juries selection of Khalfan Khamis Mohamed is understandable insofar as he constructed the device used in the Dar es Salaam bombing, but the role that Mohamed al-’Owhali played was made noteworthy only because of the man’s obvious incompetence. It is entirely obvious that all four played a significant role in the overall conspiracy to bomb both embassy buildings and kill as many Americans as possible in the process. The intention to kill was clearly evident and there is no doubt about their premeditation. Each of these defendants equally shared the responsibility for multiple and intentional homicides and the death penalty would be entirely warranted under the circumstances. The fact that the jury did not have the capacity to provide the full measure of justice the defendants richly deserved in accordance with the facts presented before them is good cause for concern. Despite the evidence presented, jury trials are a total crapshoot. The innocent are often convicted, and the guilty are often set free.

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The final result of most of the rather lengthy articles written by myself and posted on these pages represents my own peculiarly developed style of writing. In the past I have authored newsletters for organizations that served a specific need and their focus was considerably narrower than the diverse array of topics I now cover. Those efforts were fairly straightforward. Relevant information and recent developments pertinent to the interest of that group were reported on, and while an occasional personal opinion would escape onto the final document prior to its release, those opinions were rarely shared by the readers and more often than not, I stoically endured the critical consequences of their inclusion. Following the conclusion of that effort this blog came into being, and quite unconsciously I began to approach the topics I wrote about through an entirely different strategy.

The best examples of this method are evident in the articles recently posted on Sonia Sotomayor and the article on Dr. George Tiller that I posted on June 3rd, 2009. In both of these examples, I began writing with no clear objective or in mind. Both were of those examples started as an exploration. The research involved in each of them occurred as the document was produced, and to be quite honest, the article about Dr. Tiller’s homicide was not even the document that I intended to write when I sat down that morning to begin writing. As I continued to write; following the train of thoughts as they came to the surface and landed on the screen before me, it slowly became apparent that I couldn’t get to where I wanted to be from where I was. However, I now realize that however belated that posting might now be considered, the fact that it is still bumping about in my head demanding to be released forces me to focus my attention on setting it free even if it does mean that I must once again cover a few points previously discussed in prior posting about Dr. Tillers murder and the topic of abortion in general.  However, this posting is more about the way the news media defines the publics perception of a homicide or an act of violence by glorifying some facts, minimizing others, and entirely ignoring most of the important information we should be told about.

Nearly two weeks after George Tiller was shot in the head by an individual who was obviously acting under the belief that he was doing this nation a favor, the news media is still telling us that Tiller’s death was a horrible tragedy and filling their blank spots with the statements of his friends and associates proclaiming Tiller’s dedication to “women’s health care issues,” which seems to be their euphemistic term for Tiller’s primary role as a specialist in late term abortions. The article that first purred my interest in this matter was the one that reported Barack Obama’s statement that he was “Shocked and Outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller.” Regardless of what I personally think about late term abortions or abortion in general, it is apparent that the American news media is intent on repeatedly portraying Tiller’s homicide as a senseless act of a mind unhinged by Evangelical Christians and anti-abortion groups, while portraying the late doctor as a martyr for Pro-Choice. I would seriously question the validity of Tiller’s status as a martyr to anything other than a demoralized society’s feeble attempt to justify the widespread acceptance of a practice that is immoral in all but a very few cases, but that is a digression I will not entertain at this time. Society in general, and more specifically, the liberal society of this nation, reject violence as an indication of mental instability, but the news media fully embraces specific cases of violence, especially when it increases the sale of newspapers, and provides them the opportunity to further the liberal agenda they ascribe to. However, this posting, while it touches the topic of Tiller’s murder and the multi-faceted aspects of abortion, is not about either. This posting is about the prioritization of homicidal acts in the American press, a system of valuation that increases or reduces the value of human life according to the whether it advances or detracts from their ability to manipulate the perception of their readers and further the social agenda they fervently endorse.

Approximately 450 miles south east of where that single bullet ended the life of George Tiller twenty four hours earlier, an act that prompted Barack Obama to exclaim his shock and outrage, presumably because he felt that the violent act was a clear demonstration of the anti-abortionist’s failure to respect the Pro-Choice beliefs, at 10:30 a.m. on June 1st, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad (aka Carlos Bledsoe) parked his black SUV in front of the Army-Navy recruiting office located in Little Rock, Arkansas, rolled down the passenger side window and opened fire with his cheap Chinese Kalashnikov knockoff at the two American soldiers standing outside. One died as the result of the injuries suffered. The other soldier remains in the hospital and is expected to survive, however, survival does not imply full recovery.

Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, peacefully surrendered to the police after his SUV was stopped shortly after the incident on Interstate 630. It has been reported that the authorities recovered the SKS semi-automatic assault rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a pistol of unspecified caliber from Muhammad’s vehicle. Additional weapons, ammunition and home-made incendiary devices were reportedly discovered in his apartment during a later search by the police and an FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment released a few days following the incident suggests that there is evidence that Bledsoe/Muhammad had collected information on a number of Jewish and Christian targets he may have been considering prior to his attack on the recruiting center. He admitted to the police interrogators that he wanted to kill as many Army personnel as he could “because of what they had done to Muslims in the past.”

News sources report that Carlos Bledsoe became Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad following his conversion to Islam sometime after his 2004 arrest for firearms violations. It has also been reported that he had recently traveled to Yemen, where he was arrested for using a Somali passport. His court appointed attorney claims that he was subjected to some form of abuse and may have been tortured while incarcerated in Yemen. This attorney also appears to be basing his defense of Bledsoe/Muhammad’s killing spree on the speculative theory that his Muslim torturers may have imbued him with anti-American military feelings subsequently resulting in his attack on the Army-Navy recruiting office. Four days following the incident the Associated Press released the news that Barack Obama had issued a statement saying he was “deeply saddened” by the shooting. The incident did make some of the newspapers but it was kept to the rear, reduced to filler material and lacked any note of importance. The fact that this character was a Muslim convert was noted in the press but his attack on the recruiting center was portrayed as the act on an independent nut job instead of what it actually was, an act of Islamic terrorism.

On May 20th, 12 days prior to Dr. Tiller’s homicide and 13 days before Bledsoe/Muhammad opened fire on the Little Rock recruiting center, federal agents of the FBI and new York City police arrested four men following a year long investigation of their plans to bomb a Jewish Center in Riverdale and shoot down a military plane as it took off from the Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York where the four would-be terrorists lived. The culprits were apprehended immediately after planting what they believed to be a massive 37 pound high-explosive device outside the Riverdale Jewish Center. The Pakistani immigrant who informed the FBI of their activities did so because he was led to believe his assistance would be beneficial to his attempt to win leniency in his upcoming deportation hearing, a hearing that was based on his prior criminal activities in the United States. The informant also appears to be the individual who supplied the four men with the phony explosive device and promised to eventually provide them with the means to shoot down a military plane. Furthermore, it appears that the informant acted as the ragtag group’s cheerleader and main source of inspiration.

All available evidence seems to indicate that the primary characteristic shared by all four bombers was their abysmal stupidity, it has been reported that one of them was previously diagnosed as a schizophrenic and it appears that none of them shied away from committing crimes of violence. The four would-be terrorists, James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen had lengthy police records and three of them converted to Islam while doing time in prison. Their terrorist plot was hatched and developed in a Newburgh Islamic mosque, Masjid al-Ikhlas, which they attended regularly and where they eventually met the individual who not only encouraged their attempted bombing, but gave them the phony explosive device they were led to believe would turn the Jewish Center into an explosive fireball. Despite the religious affiliation of all parties concerned and the fact that the potentially murderous plot was hatched and developed in a Newburgh Islamic mosque, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the liberal press have repeatedly expressed the belief that there is no connection between these four dummies and al Qaeda, or any other Islamic organization. No effort has been wasted to persuade the citizens of this country that the four Muslim dumb shits are independent dumb shits and should not be considered as being representative of the large population of similar Muslim dumb shits engaged in similar pursuits around the country. I couldn’t locate any news report pertaining to Barack Obama’s expression of opinion on this particular matter, but then again, I didn’t look all that hard for one. I am sure he was “deeply saddened” However, of the numerous news reports covering this incident, very few mentioned the fact that these characters were Muslims and most seemed content to describe them in terms that implied they were little more than simpletons who hated America and the American military. Their religious affiliation as Muslims was significantly downplayed and while they were indeed less than brilliant, the essential truth is that they were Islamic terrorists.

In simpler terms, their efforts to blow a Jewish Center all over the state of New York, like Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad (aka Carlos Bledsoe) homicidal rampage in Little Rock, Arkansas should not be used to cast the religion of Islam in a poor light, however, Doctor George Tiller’s homicide at the hands of an individual somewhat loosely connected to the Pro-Life, anti-abortion movement seems to be sufficient justification for the publication of critical comments, castigation and condemnation of evangelical Christians on the basis of the speculative assumption that many of them hold anti-abortionist views. Apparently it is politically incorrect to point out the fact that the majority of terrorist acts being perpetrated all over the planet are being committed by Islamic zealots but it is socially acceptable to heap scorn and blame on Christians and Christianity for the comparably small number of criminal acts perpetrated by Christian zealots.

Admittedly, the intent of this posting is not to excuse the action of either, nor is it my intention to cast scorn on anyone’s religious beliefs or organized religion in general. The intent of this posting is to point out the inconsistency apparent in the news media, and the fact that nothing even remotely resembling objectivity exists in the news media or what now passes for American journalism, is made evident by the multitude of inconsistencies they publish on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, at least as far as the majority of American people are concerned, the news media has seized the authority to define the terms of all major and minor issues. The news media’s white-knuckled grasp on the scepter of value judgments regarding all moral debates predictably results in winners and losers being carefully defined long before the battle begins, and as long as the news media is allowed to maintain that authority, the authority to manipulate how the society we live in perceives both sides of an issue, the authority to define the terms of every debate before us in accordance with their self-centered needs, desires, personal and political agendas, the moral authority of this nation and of the American people will continue the downward spiral into inevitable obscurity.

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I will begin this posting with the disclaimer that I am not a religious zealot, an anti-abortionist or a female. I do not condone homicide as a solution to life’s many problems, despite the fact that I believe that the world would be much better off without certain individuals in it, and I freely admit to a clear understanding of the need to resort to drastic and oftentimes violent actions to protect the innocent from the forces of evil that exist in the world.

With that out of the way I will continue this posting by drawing attention to the sensationalized news coverage of Dr. George Tiller’s murder by an individual who has been reportedly linked by association to some crazed group of wing nuts fixated on stopping abortion doctors at any cost. As the background of this culprit becomes more widely known and his association with fringe groups becomes stronger we may know more but until that time, the feeding frenzy encouraged by news media reports bloated with statements of condemnation for anti-abortion groups seems to be another classic example of mass manipulation by the liberal propaganda masters. The highly successful propaganda campaigns currently passed off as news reports by the American media would make Joseph Goebbels swell with pride. For the historically challenged and the victims of this nation’s deplorable educational system, Joseph Goebbels was Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister.

CNN, the bastion of objective journalism cites unnamed sources alleging that the man now in custody regularly attended anti-abortion protests held outside of Tiller’s clinic in Wichita, Kansas while including hysterical quotes by a physician claiming to be a fellow abortionist and friend of the victim who blurted out, “This is the result of 35 years of anti-abortion harassment and terrorism and hate speech and rhetoric and harsh names and exploitation of the abortion issue as a political issue to get power, and this is the inevitable result of this kind of hateful behavior by the anti-abortion movement.”

If that is what passes for objective journalism in the U.S. today then why bother with a trial? Who needs evidence? We could save the taxpayers a lot of time and money by simply crushing the guilty culprit under a steam roller on Murray Bridge during rush hour in a public demonstration of disapproval. Who needs facts when hysteria will suffice? I have served on a number of juries and I have no doubt that you can find any number of people who are more than willing to say anything necessary to get an opportunity to string this character up by his thumbs forever, especially if they can sell their story later. The probability of this guy receiving a fair trial in this country with a jury that has not been influenced by the outrageously sensationalized news accounts is entirely nonexistent.

Admittedly, Dr. George Tiller may have been a kind and gentle soul of great and moral character, a family man, a business owner, and an active member of his church and his community. He followed in the footsteps of his father (also an abortionist) after his parent were filled in an airplane accident in 1970. He survived the bombing of his clinic, anti-abortion protests outside his clinic that were so large the military had to be called in to restore order, and a prior attempt on his life when he was shot in both arms. His clinic resembled a fortress, it was covered with cameras to monitor the constant presence of protestors outside. There were “No Trespassing” signs on all four side of the windowless building and patients had to pass through a metal detector to gain admittance. The local police were parked at the curb outside and provided 24 hour security.

Despite the numerous precautions he took in response to the threats made against him, despite the personal motivation that inspired him, and despite the state and federal laws legitimizing the activities he enthusiastically pursued with dedication and persistence, on the last day of May, 2009, as Dr. George Tiller, wearing a flak-jacket while fulfilling his duties as a church usher handed out leaflets to the congregation around him, a middle-aged man walked up to the doctor and fired a single bullet into his head, killing him instantly.

Bearing in mind that I began this posting with the disclaimer that I am not a religious zealot, an anti-abortionist or a female, I must now also add that I have no especially rigid personal views on the issue of abortion. Biologically, I know that a human fetus is conceived with the same capacity for life that exists in all living humans and regardless of what stage it is in following the first moment of fertilization, it is endowed with the essence of humanity. Regardless of what the U.S, Congress or an entire boatload of politicians and lawyers might argue, a human fetus is a human fetus. If that human fetus is allowed to take nourishment from the mother who carries it, and it remains unmolested by a physician willing to kill it in exchange for whatever measure of compensation he receives, after a brief period of time, and in accordance with the laws of nature far older and wiser than the laws of man, that human fetus reluctantly gives up the comfort of it’s nourishing abode to begin its travels through life.

Dr. George Tiller may have been a kind and gentle soul, a dedicated member of his church, a loving father, a good husband and a pillar of moral virtue depending on your definition of the term. However, Dr. George Tiller was an abortionist, not you average run-of-the-mill abortionist but an abortionist who specialized in performing late term abortions on women whose fetuses had reached, and in some cases had surpassed the point of viability, and were capable of sustaining life outside the womb at the time their lives were terminated. According to the reports given by a variety of newspapers and a number of web sites not entertaining either side of the abortion debate, it is evident that Dr. Tiller ascribed to the practice commonly referred to as “Saline Abortions.”

While I don’t intend to detail the grisly procedure required for this practice, I will state that the physicians who routinely perform numerous abortions on a daily basis over a period of many years, view it as being a relatively simple procedure that is no more complex than brushing their teeth or taking a dump.

The one sticky spot in the entire process is the simple and well substantiated fact that, despite the best efforts of modern science and medicine, it is not altogether uncommon for a human fetus to survive the process and when the attending physician or one of the staff members return to the site of the abortion with the intention of disposing a human fetus they find instead a live human being.

At that point the physician is faced with exactly two alternatives; those alternatives are life and death. The child can be immediately transported to a nearby hospital where it would require the attention of advanced specialized medicine and a neonatal intensive care unit to remain alive, a gamble against high odds but not entirely inconceivable, or the physician can strangle the infant, sink a sharp scalpel into it’s brain or simply walk out the door locking it behind him so the child can slowly die on it’s own and the staff won’t be distracted by the soft whimpering that will undoubtedly cease within a few hours at most when the child is dead and can be disposed of as if nothing unusual had ever occurred.

While the pro-choice advocates claim that live births are extremely rare, their claims are not all that accurate and there are credible records indicating that live births of aborted fetuses occur with an amazing degree of regularity. A Madison, Wisconsin hospital reported two such births in two successive days a few years ago and the frequency of live births during abortion procedures appears to be sufficient to encourage more than one congressional debate on the topic.

Now in consideration of Dr. George Tiller, a man who owned and ran an abortion clinic in Wichita, a clinic that specialized in late term abortions for approximately thirty nine years, it would be fairly difficult to credibly approximate how many times this doctor discovered the fruits of his labor still breathing at the conclusion of the abortion procedure. One can safely assume, that in consideration of the debatable statistics quoted by both sides of the issue Dr. Tiller encountered the problem on more than one occasion. How he reacted to that situation is open to speculation because no records exist that I can find, indicating the transfer of any survivors to nearby hospitals. I will leave the implications that logically follow that statement up to anyone who cares to consider them.

I have read that Dr. Tiller’s Women’s Health Care clinic advertised on the web as one of the best places to go for late term abortions, furthermore, while I can’t substantiate it because the site has been temporarily closed down, they advertised that they would provide their services to women regardless of how far along they were in pregnancy.

Evidence suggests that Dr. Tiller’s clinic became the subject of an investigation sometime in 2003 when state prosecutors alleged that he was skirting the Kansas state law requiring candidates for late term abortions required the medical opinions of two independent doctors agreeing that the procedure was necessary “to save a women’s life or prevent substantial and irreversible harm to a major bodily function.” Apparently the prosecutors felt that the second opinions derived from a doctor who was essentially an employee of Dr. Tiller failed to meet the state’s requirement for an independent opinion. Despite their feelings on the matter the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all 19 counts despite testimony from numerous former patients that they had paid this independent doctor $250 to $300 in cash for providing the consultation service, and the only way they could make an appointment for that consultation was through Dr. Tiller’s office.

Once again I remind anyone reading this that I am not a a religious zealot or an advocate for Pro-Life, however, when I review statistical evidence indicating that 75% of the abortions preformed in the United States are preformed on women who claim that having a baby would interfere with their ability to work, attend school, or their ability to care for other dependents and more than 50% of the abortions preformed in this country are done on women who do not want to raise a child by themselves, I am forced to ponder the obvious question that immediately comes to the front of my mind. If they didn’t plan to raise a child then why were they having sex without contraceptives? Have the people of this country become so morally corrupt that they now view abortion as an easy alternative to the hassle of taking a pill every morning or keeping a condom nearby in case of an eruption of hormonal desire? It seems to that it is ironically inconsistent to wage major debates over the execution of depraved sadistic killers, a practice that has been discontinued in most states, and yet the majority of American citizens seem to favor the legitimacy of performing nearly 40 million abortions in this country every year. The moral compass of the American people spins out of control at the thought of injecting a deranged psychopathic killer with enough poison to stop his heart but that same compass points dead ahead when facing the reality of 40 million potential children suffering an agonizing death by being burned alive when caustic solutions are injected into the amitotic sac by a doctor.

As I stated at the beginning of this posting, I do not condone homicide as a solution to life’s many problems, but I am certainly not choked up about Dr. Tiller being shot in the head. Abortion in the United States may be legal, but considering the fact that owning slaves was also considered legal for many years in this country’s past, the fact that something is considered legal is no reflection of whether or not it is moral.

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While there appears to be a never ending supply of resources available for those who desire to justify Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, the availability of truthful, unbiased and credible information is not only fairly limited but appears to be dwindling. The ability to assess both sides of any issue or any potential candidate requires access to information favoring and disfavoring that issue or potential candidate. Inasmuch the liberal press is overloaded with articles praising the wisdom of Barack Obama for his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, as well as barrels of positive profiles detailing Sotomayor’s past academic achievements, I certainly don’t need to list those resources and by leaving most of them out I can concentrate on the information that has been excluded from those otherwise glowing reports.

Sotomayor in the New Republic
Jeffrey Rosen, the legal affairs editor at The New Republic said of Sonia Sotomayor, “Given the stakes, the president should obviously satisfy himself that he has a complete picture before taking a gamble.” The article he wrote for the New Republic, entitled “The Case Against Sotomayor” outlined her basic background, her academic achievements, previous experience and her appointment to the district court by the first President Bush. While he does state that Bush acted on the recommendation of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he neglects to mention that the former president was not overly fond of her and the Judicial Confirmation Network maintains that some claim that Sotomayor is a bi-partisan choice because she was once nominated to the federal judiciary by George H.W. Bush, that nomination was forced by New York’s senators Al D’Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a deal that enabled the former Democrat Senator Moynihan to name one of every four district court nominees in New York. The omission of this information can be excused if the Rosen were unaware of it at the time that he wrote the article, however, if the omission was made consciously, I would consider it as being inexcusable. Regardless, of this one omission, Jeffrey Rosen’s New Republic article is well worth the time it takes to read it because it gives some definite insights into the character of Sotomayor, her prior work on the bench and some rather relevant comments about her character from the standpoint of those who have worked with her in the past.

Sotomayor article in the New Republic Magazine

Sonia Sotomayor & La Raza
Another fact worth mentioning is that Sonia Sotomayor is an active member of the National Council of La Raza. This is not an allegation, it is a fact and it is stated in the brief profile for her given by the American Bar Association.

American Bar Association Profile of Sonia Sotomayor

The National Council of La Raza’s “Stop The Hate” web site recently created to enlist the assistance of their members for the sole purpose of pressuring congressional representatives with phone calls and emails encouraging legislative action and the implementation of laws that are purposely designed to limit the First Amendment right of free speech by re-implementing a revised version of the “Fairness Doctrine” that was deemed unconstitutional in 1985. La Raza’s intention is to silence the anti-illegal immigration movement’s ability to express their opposition to La Raza’s delusional and entirely unsupported views that having some 20 million uneducated criminal aliens aimlessly wandering around the U.S. searching for work or engaging in homicidal enterprises that result in the deaths of more than 4,000 American every year is actually beneficial to American society. Furthermore, La Raza encourages the belief that any individual who denies the obvious benefits derived by our nation’s inundation by these marauding trespassers is obviously a blatant racist intent on stirring up feelings of hate and discontent and that all of these “racists” (made evident by their opposition to La Raza’s established goals) should be held criminally liable for their malicious statements of hatred. La Raza also encourages the addition of what they refer to as “Hate Speech” in the list of federally prohibited “Hate Crimes.” The relevance of this information is made evident through a recent “Action Alert” issued by the National Council of La Raza alleging that critical statements regarding Sonia Sotomayor’s appointment by Barack Obama constitute a racial attack on the Hispanic people. The content of La Raza’s statement in that “Action Alert” is overloaded with hysterical falsehoods claiming that the proud heritage of the entire Hispanic race is being systematically besmirched by Tom Tancredo, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, among others. The article also includes numerous false and misleading allegations pertaining to the statements made by these individuals, and others, regarding the use of outdated stereotypes, defamation of character, and outright falsehoods. Inasmuch as I have carefully reviewed the content of the specific comments called into question by this ‘Action Alert” I can personally attest to the falsity of La Raza’s allegations, and state with assurance that their false conclusions can be reached only at the sacrifice of logic and context. On the other hand, I will take this opportunity to point out that La Raza’s primary web sites as well as the web site they created for their “Stop The Hate” campaign are both entirely overloaded with extremely racist commentary, stereotypical comments and attempted character assassinations of their many opponents. Given the obviousness of La Raza’s abundant public expressions of blatantly racist viewpoints, it would require an incredible stretch of creative logic to provide them with even the slightest, most miniscule fraction of wholly unwarranted credibility. However, despite my exceedingly low opinion of these racist clods, their comments on Sonia Sotomayor and the growing opposition to her appointment are relevant to this discussion and for that reason I have included them as a potential resource for information that should be reviewed by anyone struggling to form a truly comprehensive view on this matter.

It is my personal opinion that the National Council of La Raza is a racist organization. The name of the group, “La Raza,” translated into English is “The Race,” and they use their considerable political influence as well as great sums of money to push legislation that, more often than not, is detrimental to the interests of the American people. La Raza’s campaign to silence all who oppose their pro-illegal alien views is nothing short of a full blown assault on free speech. La Raza’s consistent opposition to the enforcement of U.S. Immigration law, their unwavering support for the criminals that have violated those and other American laws, and the group’s efforts to lobby for legislative censorship of opponents whose anti-illegal alien arguments La Raza can not credibly or logically counter are among the many reasons why I view their entire existence as having a negative impact on the United States and the people who have a legal right to be here. A group of white people dedicated to furthering the advancement of the white race would be condemned universally as a racist organization, and yet a group made up of Hispanics and Latinos, proudly carrying a banner emblazoned with the name, “The Race” while undertaking the same effort on behalf of those they consider the Hispanic or Latino race somehow escape being labeled as a racist organization, is an illogical inconsistency that escapes me. The National Council of La Raza is a racist organization, by every credible definition of the term, and because they are a racist organization, first and foremost, no active member should be considered for nomination to a high office of influence and authority, let alone a seat on this nation’s highest court. The American people would reject a nominee who admitted to being an active member of the KKK, they would reject a nominee who admitted to being an active member of the Black Liberation Army and they should reject any nominee who admitted to being an active member of La Raza. Racial extremism is not a positive attribute, regardless of ethnicity and to allow any racial extremist a seat on the Supreme Court would be detrimental to the American people and to the United States government. As an admitted member of the National Council of La Raza, Sonia Sotomayor’s influence would be racially divisive and that is not something this country needs. As a nominee for the Supreme Court, Sotomayor should be rejected on the basis of her own acknowledgement that she is an active member of a racist organization.

The National Council of La Raza’s “Action Alert” regarding Sonia Sotomayor from La Raza’s “Stop the Hate” campaign web site

Ilya Shapiro’s Criticism

Ilya Shapiro, Editor in Chief of the CATO Supreme Court review summed up Obama’s selection with the following statements:

“In picking Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama has confirmed that identity politics matter to him more than merit. Judge Sotomayor is not one of the leading lights of the federal judiciary and would not even have been on the shortlist if she were not Hispanic.”

“She has a mixed reputation, with a questionable temperament and no particularly important opinions in over 10 years on the Second Circuit. Most notably, she was part of the panel that summarily affirmed the dismissal of Ricci v. DeStefano, where the City of New Haven denied firefighter promotions based on an admittedly race-neutral exam whose results did not yield the “correct” racial mix of successful candidates. Sotomayor’s colleague Jose Cabranes a liberal Democrat, excoriated the panel’s actions and the Supreme Court will likely reverse the ruling next month”

Comments of Ilya Shapiro, CATO Institute Editor in Chief

Richard Epstein’s Criticism

Richard A. Epstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago expressed the following opinion on Sotomayor and Obama’s selection with the comments below:

“Evidently, the characteristics that matter most for a potential nominee to the Supreme Court have little to do with judicial ability or temperament, or even so ephemeral a consideration as a knowledge of the law. Instead, the tag line for this appointment says it all. The president wants to choose “a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.”"

“Obviously, none of these factors disqualifies anyone for the Supreme Court. But affirmative action standards are a bad way to pick one of the nine most influential jurists in the U.S., whose vast powers can shape virtually every aspect of our current lives. In these hard economic times, one worrisome feature about the Sotomayor nomination is that the justices of the Supreme Court are likely to have to pass on some of the high-handed Obama administration tactics on a wide range of issues that concern the fortunes of American business.”

Forbes Article by Richard A. Epstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago

The Judicial Confirmation Network’s Critical Review

The Judicial Confirmation Network is an organization of citizens unified with the intent to support the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States. Their stated goal is to review potential nominees to the Supreme Court on the basis of each candidate’s integrity, common sense, education and experience in the law, and their devotion to the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, they oppose the current trend among many judges who view their role in the judiciary as an opportunity to impose their personal or political agenda on the people, making up laws as they see fit to do so and depriving the American people of the right to govern themselves. They support the belief that the proper role of a judge or justice is to interpret the law and the Constitution.

On May 26, 2009, Wendy Long, Counsel to Judicial Confirmation Network released the groups assessment of Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. That assessment can be read in it’s entirety on their web site and the link to that page is included herein. That review contains the some very relevant considerations.

“Sotomayor readily admits that she applies her feelings and personal politics when deciding cases. In a 2002 speech at Berkeley, she stated that she believes it is appropriate for a judge to consider their “experiences as women and people of color,” which she believes should “affect our decisions.” She went on to say in that same speech “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.” She reiterated her commitment to that lawless judicial philosophy at Duke Law School in 2005 when she stated that the “Court of Appeals is where policy is made.”

“The poor quality of Sotomayor’s decisions is reflected in her terrible record of reversals by the Supreme Court.”

Judicial Confirmation Network’s Assessment of Sonia Sotomayor

Ricci, et al. v. DeStefano, et al.

Ricci v. DeStefano has gained a lot of news media attention lately because the final appeal in the case has been widely discussed as it moves closer to being scheduled on the Supreme Court docket, however, at this time it has not been listed on the high court’s calendar. Another reason for the increase in media attention is the fact that the negative ruling of the three judge panel assigned to the case by the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals was partially the result of Sonia Sotomayor’s involvement on that panel of judges, and Ricci v. DeStefano appears to be the single most important case that Sotomayor was involved in throughout her ten years in Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The importance of Ricci v. DeStefano is indicated by the weight of the documents associated with that lengthy litigation. The majority of petitions, briefs, responses, arguments and valid questions of a constitutional nature related to this case can be accessed from the Scotus Wiki web site dedicated to the U.S. Supreme Court, however, for some unknown reason to web site’s link to the three judge panel’s final opinion, issued on June 9, 2008, does not appear to be connected to anything and despite my repeated attempts to follow the link I have yet been able to make a successful connection.

ScotusWiki’s Collection of Documents related to Ricci v. DeStefano

Fortunately that opinion can be accessed at other locations on the web, the most convenient of which is listed below:
Final Opinion issued by Second Circuit Court of Appeals three judge panel on June 9, 2008

Additional Documentation Related to Ricci v. DeStefano

Additional documents of interest relevant to Ricci v. DeStefano include the response to the plaintiffs request for a rehearing which was filed on their behalf immediately following the June 9, 2008 release of the Opinion issued by Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel. That request was quickly denied by the court on June 12, 2008 with an Order Denying Rehearing En Banc. The denial was affirmed by Judges Calabresi, Straub, Pooler, Sack, Sotomayor, Katzmann, and B.D. Parker and of the seven judges concurring with the denial, three of them (Pooler, Sack and Sotomayor) participated in the production of the opinion in question. Furthermore, that Order Denying Rehearing En Banc includes the dissenting opinions of Chief Judge Jacobs and Judges Cabranes, Raggi, Wesley, Hall and Livingston. The opinion of the dissenting judges was principally written by Judge Cabranes. That dissenting opinion includes a lengthy dissertation for examining the facts of the case, background information, numerous legal citations of previously established precedents, and discussions relevant to important questions raised throughout the case regarding Title VII’s prohibition of employment discrimination as well as the Equal Protection Clause which these dissenting judges all felt the original three judge panel, after hearing the case, essentially ignored when they issued their final opinion as evidenced by their failure to address the core constitutional questions upon which the plaintiffs based their case. In conclusion the dissenting judges agreed that, “this Court has failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal. If the Ricci plaintiffs are to obtain such an opinion from a reviewing court, they must now look to the Supreme Court. Their claims are worthy of that review.”

Order Denying Rehearing En Banc issued June 12, 2008

In addition to the dissenting opinion expressed by Judge Cabranes on behalf of himself and his associates (Chief Judge Jacobs and Judges Cabranes, Raggi, Wesley, Hall and Livingston), Chief Judge, Dennis Jacobs, felt that it was necessary to emphasize his negative opinion of the 2nd Courts final ruling and the Order Denying Rehearing En Banc that subsequently followed by issuing his own personally written opinion of dissent. Judge Jacob’s examination of the matter includes an inquiry into the validity of the 2nd Courts legal authority to issue the Order Denying Rehearing En Banc in this particular case and calls into question the credibility of the justifications they cited for following that course of action. The conclusion that Judge Jacobs’ implied in the last sentence of his dissent was that the denial issued appeared to be an abuse of discretion on the part of the judges issuing it.

The dissenting opinion expressed by Dennis Jacobs, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Other Cases Involving Sonia Sotomayor

Connecticut v. American Power Co.

Sonia Sotomayor was one of the presiding judges on the three judge panel assigned to rule on the plaintiff’s appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of their complaints in Connecticut v. American Power Co. (05-5104). In this instance, the attorney generals of eight states, the City of New York, and a variety of environmental groups filed a suit against the power plants. This suit was filed under claims of state and federal common law public nuisance due to the power companies’ alleged contribution to climate change purportedly resulting from the companies power generation facility’s emission of greenhouse gases. The plaintiffs sought joint and several liabilities against the defendants for contributing to a public nuisance, more specifically climate change, and demanded an injunction against the power companies that would prevent them from releasing the offending emissions in the future.

It can be logically assumed that such an injunction would prohibit the power companies operation of their generating facilities, stop the production of electricity and result in a total and prolonged blackout of the entire area they served. However, this small point was not deemed relevant by the plaintiffs who seem to be more than willing to throw the entire east coast of the U.S. back into the Stone Age in their effort to avoid the horrors of global warming.

Understandably the defendants pointed out the obvious consequences of what the plaintiffs were demanding and the presiding judge wisely determined that the plaintiff’s argument raised non-justiciable political questions that were entirely beyond the Court’s jurisdiction because they would require the court to identify and balance economic, environmental, foreign policy, and national security interests in order to reach and opinion. Furthermore, the identification and balancing of economic, environmental, foreign policy, and national security interests is not within the jurisdiction of any state or federal court because those actions call for the establishment of government policy and government policy is not determined by the judiciary but by the U.S. Congress and the presidential administration. With that firmly established principle in mind the judge wisely decided to grant the defendant’s motion to dismiss the case. The plaintiffs immediately appealed their case and in September 2005, the case ended up in the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals where Sonia Sotomayor and two other judges were assigned to her the appeal. In June, 2005 Sotomayor and her two fellow judges heard the oral arguments in the case. After a long delay, a public hearing related to the matter took place in July, 2007. Since that time, nothing has happened with this case and it is still sitting there in the 2nd Circuit awaiting action.

Studies by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts found an average of about 18 months from initial filing of a lower court appeal to final disposition. The time lapse from oral argument to a ruling normally is six months. The high court averages are much less, due in part to the comparatively smaller caseload. However, the case of Connecticut v. American Power Co. has been sitting idle in the wings for more than three years.

The attorneys serving both the plaintiffs as well as the defendants in the case now believe that the case is being purposely delayed because of Sotomayor’s nomination by Barack Obama. The reasoning behind their belief is fairly sound because if a ruling were issued prior to the congressional inquiry related to her nomination, it could provide those opposing her nomination with clear evidence of her view that the Supreme Court should be used to set government policy, a view she so eloquently expressed when she made her comment in 2005 at Duke University that the “court of appeals is where policy is made.”

The decision of the United States District Court Southern District of New York, to dismiss the plaintiff’s case and grant the defendant’s motion to dismiss

Farrell v. Burke
The case of Farrell v. Burke heard by the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit concluding with a decision reached on May 31, 2006, is one example of a case where Sotomayor managed to get it right. However, the effort extended to reach a just verdict in this particular case is without par and decision published by the court is, without any doubt the largest collection of pornographic statements I have ever encountered in a legal document. I have included a link to that decision but I offer the warning that it is not for the faint of heart. I have never considered myself to be a shrinking violet by any means, and despite my former military service, nearly sixty years of working with and around some of the crudest, most profane individuals frequently inhabiting the labor intensive confines of America’s manufacturing industry, it oil fields, drilling rigs, boiler shops and nomadic welding rigs, the comments included in this court decision far exceed anything I have previously encountered. Nonetheless, I suppose it is relevant.

Farrell v. Burke

Other Potential Contenders Considered by Barack Obama

A May 14, 2009, article from AP Source, written by Ben Feller, of the Associated Press, appearing in the legal news section of FindLaw.com listed six serious contenders, and one additional possibility that was somewhat less than seriously considered, for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by the retirement of Justice David Souter. That list of possible replacements includes, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Appeals Court judges Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood, and California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno. Of the seven individuals listed below, five are females, two are Hispanics, five have no experience as either a state or federal judge at any level, two have prior experience as judges in federal appellate courts, and one served as a U.S. District Court judge before stepping down to serve as a judge in the California State Supreme Court.

Kagan stepped down as dean of Harvard Law School to become the nation’s solicitor general. She has a law degree from Harvard and taught at the University Of Chicago Law School. She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and worked in the Clinton White House. Kagan has never served as a judge in any capacity, state or federal.

Granholm is a former federal prosecutor and Michigan attorney general. Granholm was a strong Obama supported during the election, but has more recently spent her time in the effort to gain support for her state’s failing automobile industry. Granholm has never served as a judge in any capacity, state or federal.

Napolitano stepped down as Arizona’s governor to join the Obama administration as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano has never served as a judge in any capacity, state or federal.

Sotomayor, whom we already know too much about, is an appeals court judge and former New York prosecutor and private lawyer.

Wood is an appeals court judge who has worked at the State Department, the Justice Department and in private practice. Like Obama, she taught at the University Of Chicago Law School.

Moreno was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1998 to serve as a U.S. District Court judge and the Senate unanimously confirmed him. In 2001, he abdicated Clinton’s lifetime appointment to that federal judgeship to accept Democratic Gov. Gray Davis’ nomination to California’s highest court where he has served as the California Supreme Court’s only Democrat and acquired the reputation of being that court’s most liberal voice. In 2008, Moreno signed onto the court’s 4-3 ruling that legalized gay marriage in California, a ruling that was later rejected by the state voters as a result of a ballot initiative.

A seventh possibility, and possibly the least seriously considered by Obama, was the former deputy attorney general for the Bush Administration, James Comey. In 2004, James Comey stood alone in opposition to one of the Bush Administration’s domestic spying programs. However, while one unnamed senior Obama administration official admitted the existence of Comey supporters in the current administration, he declined to say whether or not Obama would seriously consider Comey a viable candidate. Comey has never served as a judge in any capacity, state or federal.

Ben Feller’s AP Article outlining Obama’s short list of contenders

It is my personal opinion that there is not one viable and qualified candidate for appointment to the Supreme Court listed in the May 14, 2009 AP article. The majority of these individuals have no judicial experience at all, despite the fact that all of them have degrees in law and most have spent the majority of their adult lives as political prostitutes in the self-serving pursuit of position, power and influence. The United States Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and as such it constitutes the top end of one of the three vitally necessary checks and balances built into this nation’s system of balanced government. If the United States Supreme Court becomes further contaminated by the appointment of an unqualified self-serving individual who is nothing more than a political hack and a puppet for Barack Obama’s administration, then the entire check and balance system so carefully established more than 200 years ago will entirely cease to exist and the U.S. Government will be free to implement any abusive or tyrannical legislation they desire without the slightest bit of restraint.

Since joining the Second Circuit in 1998, Sotomayor has authored over 150 opinions. To be absolutely fair in this review I must point out that up to this point in time only two of those decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court; a third is under review and it is likely to be overturned as well. Among the 150 opinions she has authored during her nearly ten years of service to the Second Circuit her opinions have addressed a wide range of issues. In many of those cases I would tend to agree with her decision, in other I would not tend to agree.

My overwhelming inclination is to express the opinion that Sonia Sotomayor is unfit to serve as a Supreme Court Justice and if I must justify this conclusion I will do so by saying that her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment, her view that the role of an appellate judge is to set policy is unacceptable and because she is relatively young it is possible that she will live long enough to gain sufficient power within that court to enable her delusional policy setting belief and wreck serious damage to this nation. Furthermore, I believe that the adversity she has encountered in her earlier life has embittered her rather than given her greater strength, and the last thing this nation needs now is a Supreme Court judge with an axe to grind. Her association with La Raza and her identification with the Hispanic rights movement is an indication of devisees rather than an indication of unity and should be considered as an adverse characteristic detrimental to a nation that is facing great economic adversity due in part to the burden imposed by more than 20 million illegal aliens predominantly Hispanic in origin. I tend to believe that Barack Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor was based on his desire to politicize the Supreme Court eventually resulting in the destruction of that court’s value as a vital part of this government’s system of checks and balances. We will all suffer the consequences of tyranny if that is allowed to happen, and ultimately that leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor should be rejected regardless of the political cost or consequences to those who oppose her nomination.

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Barack Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Latino, Hispanic, illegal aliens, La Raza, news media

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The word “Hispanic” was invented by federal government’s bureaucrats in preparation for the 1980 U.S. Census. They were looking for a descriptive term by which they could identify diverse and growing segment of the nation’s population ethnically rooted in numerous countries that included Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the South American countries, and just about any country where the dominant language spoken happened to be Spanish. At the time, nobody really knew what the word “Hispanic” actually meant or who, specifically, might be included in that category. However, by the mid-1980’s the term became so widely used that it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary where it was vaguely defined as “pertaining to Spain and it’s people.” Webster’s New World dictionary followed suit by claiming that the new word defined anything related to the country of Spain or Portugal. Following the adoption of this new term, during the 1980 U.S. Census approximately 12% of the nation’s Portuguese and 15% of the Brazilian population living in the U.S. identified as “Hispanic.” Ten years later, during the 2007 census, those responses fell to 1% and 4% respectfully. As the United States government became more involved in the civil wars of Latin America during the 1980’s and that involvement fanned the flames of public resentment, the term “Hispanic” was rejected by many in favor of the term “Latino,” which, to them anyway, seemed to better define the indigenous connotation of a people whose origins derived from Latin American countries ethnically tied to Spain. As it now stands, the term “Hispanic” and the term “Latino” are regarded as being somewhat synonymous and they have both become widely acceptable and interchangeable without regard for the fact that both terms remain essentially vague and there is still no clear specificity as to what constitutes a thing, a person or a group of people under either term. Both terms remain, to this point in time, so vague and ill-defined, that Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy in New York, has been recently quoted as saying, in respect to those terms, “It really depends on how you feel about yourself.” Following that rather imprecise train of logic, it can be assumed that an individual can ascribe to the racial category “Hispanic” or “Latino” regardless of their true origin, and allowing for the fickleness of human nature, an individual could consider themselves as being “Hispanic” on a Monday, become a “Latino” by Wednesday and before the conclusion of the weekend find themselves a Caucasian.

To the best of my foggy recollection, when I sat through a semester of Cultural Anthropology approximately thirty years ago, the anthropologists of the time loosely categorized human beings into the three primary categories, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. I also recall that some allowance was made for Inuit’s (Aleuts), the indigenous people inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, and Alaska and another allowance was made for the indigenous Native American Indians of North America. Briefly following the conclusion of my participation in that required educational effort, the conclusion, I should also note as marking the point where I quickly forgot most of what had been painstakingly taught to me, I understand that the study of anthropology underwent somewhat of a revolution during which the handful of formerly acceptable racial classifications grew to include as many as thirty different groups of people. At some period following this explosive growth of racial categories, the entire concept of racial categorization became questionable, was subjected to numerous inquiries and following that, became so embarrassingly confused that all attempts to categorize the diversity of human beings encountered by anthropological scholars appeared somewhat futile and the effort came to an abrupt and grinding halt. Following the conclusion of that branch of study, the textbooks used in college classes on Cultural Anthropology began to relate that modern scientific studies failed to provide proof of the existence of any definite genetic racial division, with the added claim that the entire concept of “Race” was nothing more than a cultural, political, and economic concept with no sound scientific basis as previously believed. Many scholarly attempts to resurrect the concept of racial categorization on the basis of sound genetic and biological evidence derived from research and studies in strict adherence to scientific methods, following rigidly applied scientific procedures yielding identical results many times over, were routinely disregarded despite their scientific validity, and the scientific careers of numerous brilliant scholars and researchers were ruined by their publication of those discoveries. Despite the overwhelming body of scientific evidence indicating the valid existence of defined racial categories, few anthropologists alive today are willing to dispute the popularly accepted notion that the entire concept of “Race” is little more than a scientific myth. Modern anthropologists are nearly unanimous in their rejection of the term “Race” and prefer to categorize the diverse physical variations evident among human beings under the collective and much more politically correct term “ethnic group,” or “ethnicity”.

The division of humanity into racial categories, formerly a scientific effort reserved for dedicated anthropologists, geneticists and biologists toiling away in research laboratories has entirely deserted the field of science and is now (at least in the United States) subject to the sole authority and determination of federal bureaucrats assigned to work in the United States Census Bureau and the Federal Office of Management and Budget. Accordingly, in the effort to please everyone while simultaneously avoiding offense to the extreme sensibilities of all interested parties, most especially those of great political influence, these federal bureaucrats have reached the sage determination that the word “Race” is defined according to each individual’s personal sense of identity. In fact, the Federal Office of Management and Budget has determined that, for the purpose of the U.S. Census, the term “Race” has nothing to do with scientific, anthropological, biological or genetic studies whatsoever, but is a definition of social, cultural and ancestral characteristics entirely subject to each individual’s personal sense of identity.

Following the obviously derailed train of thought leading to the bureaucratic redefinition of “Race” as outlined above, the Federal Office of Management and Budget issued a proclamation on October 30, 1997, detailing their revision of the statistical policies covering Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. Their proclamation is forever enshrined in the Federal Register according to the date it was issued, and that document established the existence of five minimum categories for the collection of data. Those categories include, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White. Furthermore, allowances were provided for the two rather curious categories, “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.”

Information contained in the supplementary information section of the document described above discloses that individuals responding to inquiries about race are allowed to select more than one racial category if they desire to do so, however, the authorities obliged to concoct this determination resisted the suggestion to include the category “multiracial” for reasons not clearly given. They further suggest that respondents whose origin would indicate their ancestral lineage was derived entirely from individuals born, or originally coming from Guam, Samoa, the island of Carolina, Fiji, Kosraean, Melanesia, Micronesia, Northern Mariana Island, Palau, Papua, Ponapean, Polynesia, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tarawa Island, Tokelau, Tonga, or the island of Yap would be categorized as being Hawaiian. Presumably, while not mentioned in the directive, such individuals could conceivably choose to describe themselves as being “Hispanic or Latino” if they so desired. I view the clumping together of these numerous groups as an obvious indication of their overall lack of political power in the federal government but that is a digression I prefer not to follow at this point and they are not the only group subjected to this clumping. Another curious discovery made in the supplementary information section was the determination to not add a separate category for individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent. While the document alludes to comments in favor of adding this category as a means to monitor discrimination against this segment of the population, the determination was made to exclude the category and no further explanation was given. The document concludes with the claim that the standard categories included were the product of the agencies desire to “provide a common language for uniformity and comparability in the collection and use of data on race and ethnicity by Federal agencies.” Furthermore, it was additional stated that the categories included meet the minimum requirements necessary for the collection of data on race and ethnicity for Federal statistics, program administrative reporting, and civil rights compliance.

Presumably, the bottom line in all of this is that when it comes down to a question of race in America, you are what you think you are, you can freely claim to be a member of any racial group you desire to be ascribed to and the overall validity of racial data as reported in statistical publications printed by the United States government are irrefutably meaningless and nonsensical.

While the conclusion given above should be entirely obvious to anyone willing to look into the readily available and well substantiated relevant facts, that conclusion also points out some definite inconsistencies in the federal and state laws vigorously enforced for the benefit of individuals deemed “protected” as a result of their alleged ‘minority status”. If modern science has reached the determination that the entire concept of “Race” is little more than a myth defining a diversity of cultural, political, and economic differences, then it would seem to follow that all men are truly equal despite how they are viewed by society, despite the pigmentation of their skin, and despite the geographic origin of their ancestors. If we accept that premise as being factually accurate and we also reject the scientific validity of all racial categories, then it would seem to logically follow that the federal government’s futile attempts to regulate and prohibit racial discrimination or to enforce any the race based legislation, numerous examples of which have been enthusiastically amended onto our nation’s constitution, constitute our government’s effort to regulate something that is factually non-existent and by light of the fact that these laws relate to fallacies discarded by the government itself as well as the scientific community as a whole, every example of race based legislation should be removed from our nation’s legal system and the original statement of our founding father’s should suffice to cover all contingencies. “All men are created Equal.”

While this might seem like an entirely harebrained idea to some, I am entirely serious on this point. Billions of American tax dollars are wasted every year in the pursuit and defense of racial litigation in cases of no real merit. Redundant agencies exist at all levels of state and federal government, employing millions of clerks, bureaucrats and legal personnel, all dedicated to the pursuit, punishment, enforcement and resolution of imaginary racial problems and inequities that cannot exist because the entire concept of race itself is a complete myth and has no scientific basis for validity. Every year, millions, if not billions of American tax dollars are wasted in the pursuit discussions of racial equality, investigations of racial inequity and legislative acts aimed at solving mythical problems related to a concept that has been repeatedly shown to not exist. If they have accomplished anything at all, the money wasted in these efforts, the redundant agencies, the legislation, and all of the high-minded, moralistic determinations and speeches given with regard to the entire concept of race and racial equality have resulted in an exacerbation of the divisiveness this nation now faces and the former unity that once made us so strong has been fractured by the squabbling masses of minority special interests far more interested in superiority than equality.

The words of Thomas Jefferson when he penned the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 should be considered entirely sufficient to cover all contingencies met and questions arising in cases of discrimination or allegations of unfair treatment, and no higher standard, further elucidation, or interpretive explanation should ever be required in this regard.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

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Latino, Hispanic, race

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This morning I sat down in front of the monitor, brought up the Google search page and entered a comment alleged to have been made by Barack Obama regarding his selection of Sotomayor to check the validity of the statement, and to see in what context that comment was made so I could get a better understanding of the reasoning behind it. The search returned 2,410,000 entries indicating that I am not the only person on the planet curious about the topic, and the eighth entry on the first page returned caught my eye because it carried the title “Republican Bigotry Rearings its Ugly Head… Again.” I clicked on the link to see what it had to say and it led me off to a discussion forum called “My SA,” subtitled “San Antonio’s Home Page,” that appears to be owned and maintained by the San Antonio Express-News in San Antonio, Texas. Instead of being dropped off at the beginning of the discussion I landed on the 29th page where an apparently frequent contributor posting under the screen name EstebanErik (aka, Pooh-Bah) added his two cents about Sotomayor’s claim that her ethnicity somehow renders her more qualified and capable for the Supreme Court position than white candidate. I won’t getinto a discussion of her feelings on that particular opinion just yet, but EstebanErik’s forum entry reflects an opinion is one that seems to be shared by a lot of racial minorities and liberal academics around the country, and in my opinion, it is significant because it is so completely illogical and yet it is widely accepted.

For the sake of clarity, I need to back up a bit and explain that EstebanErik’s entry was in response to an earlier posting by another individual who expressed the opinion that Sotomayor’s words, “seem to indicate that she thinks her Latina heritage and female gender makes her a better judge than a white male.” This contributor than goes on to say, “What would you call it? Imagine if Sam Alito said that his Caucasian background and his maleness made him a better judge than some Hispanic female. What would you have called him besides racist and a misogynist? I really don’t care about a judge’s race or gender. I care that they understand the Constitution. Men and women of all races and ethnicities have the capability. It matters what they do, not where they come from.”

To the comment above EstebanErik responded, “you forget what she said is perfecty acceptable in academia. When the radicals of the 1960s took over academia you had a lot of Orwelliian things happen. That is why her comments about her Raza making her a better judge will not draw ire.
Black power good
Brown power good
Yellow power Ok
White power totally racist its that simple”

I will include the link to the “My SA” Discussion Forum Thread’s first or twenty-nine pages at the conclusion of this posting for anyone who feels a compelling desire to follow the entire evolution of the conversation, however, that conversation is not the subject of concern explored in this posting. In my characteristically meandering style today’s exploratory writing is intended to solidify and express a few aspects of my perspective regarding the human attribute normally referred to, and defined as “racism.” Furthermore, I will attempt to accomplish my exploration by using illustrations gleaned from current events, thereby enabling me to express my views on what our society refers to as racial issues, while at the same time, expressing my opion on specific events currently going on around us.

Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is relevant to this exploration not simply because she a liberal female, and not because she was born in New York of Puerto Rican parents. I can even overlook the fact that Puerto Ricans have suddenly been added to the diverse ethnic mixture of individuals (formerly considered “Caucasians”) who now claim to be a separate and distinct racial group called “Hispanics,” despite the fact that I find it somewhat disturbing that so many minorities view themselves as “African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans or Hispanic-Americans first, and only as “Americans” after the fact. However, that is a digression I will avoid at this point and I will get back on topic by addressing the current controversy stirred up surrounding a talk given by Sotomayor’s at U.C. Berkeley in 2001 in which she commented on Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s statement that, “a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion in a case.” Sotomayor addressed that observation with the comment that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Considering the context in which the statement was made I honestly do not see it as being specifically offensive. The pigmentation of my skin may be fairly light by comparison to others but my hide is somewhat thicker than most and I am not prone to being easily offended by comments including real or imagined racial denigrations regardless of context. I am not convinced that life experience of Latin females are any more or less rich than the life experience of anyone else regardless of race, but the life experiences of the daughter of a tool and die maker with a third grade education, a girl who overcame many obstacles and defied the odds against her to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton and receive a JD from Yale Law School, might have a bit more under her belt than, for example, the overly pampered son a prominent Sacramento attorney who has never faced hardship or adversity at any point in his life or the privileged offspring of a magnificently wealthy Chicago family, guaranteed a high level of attainment by the outstanding opportunities reserved for those born of great wealth and social stature. My dear departed mother was fond of repeating the axiom that “adversity builds character,” and to a degree I admit to giving weight to this old saying. Human beings, as individuals, are the sum total of all that they have seen and experienced throughout their lives, and the determinations made by individuals are made on the basis of those life experiences. An individual privileged by great wealth will have one set of experiences and another individual born of more modest means will have another set of experiences, however, while the exact number of each person’s set of experiences might be the same, or somewhat close, those experiences will be decidedly different in nature and substance, and the impressions left on the individual living through them will be undeniably different. This is not to say that one is “better” or more “right” that the other because those are relative terms subject to wide interpretation and I don’t intend to go down that road. The essential point of all this is that, while Sotomayor could have left off the racial endorsement included in her 2001 comment, there is a lot of truth between the lines of her statement. “Adversity builds character,” and a young girl, forced to overcome the multitude of obstacles she faced in the 60’s and 70’s who not only succeeded, but succeeded well might just have a lot more character than a stodgy old white guy who has basically had everything handed to him on a silver platter because he was lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family with great social status and a heaping measure of political influence. In accordance with the personal considerations outlined above, I have to admit that the recent hysteria expressed by the politically conservative movement’s loudest and most vocal mouths appears to be unwarranted at first glance.

My primary concern about Sonia Sotomayor, in the event she is confirmed and ultimately takes a place in the U.S. Supreme Court, has nothing to do with her perception that she embodies a lifetime of rich experiences because I am convinced that she does, furthermore, I am not concerned by her qualifications for the position. Her past achievements and the prior judicial positions she has held indicate qualifications equal to some of the other Associate Justices now sitting in the U.S. Supreme Court. The woman is qualified if you stick with the same standards that other Supreme Court Associate Justices have been judged. My Concern with Sonia Sotomayor has to do with her personal identification of herself as a “Latina” and a “Hispanic-American,” rather than an American. This concern is based on the personal perspective that people who so proudly identify themselves by race first and nationality only as an afterthought oftentimes allow their own sense of racial pride, and their affinity for the specific racial classification in which they base their own personal identity, to cloud their judgment in a manner that favors racial privilege over equality. In the specific case of Sonia Sotomayor, if the richness of her life’s experiences and the many adversities she has been forced to overcome have resulted in the formation of personal perspectives filled with negativity and animosity for this nation’s Constitution, authored entirely by white males to serve the needs of the predominantly white citizenry that filled the colonies at that time, then it is doubtful that she can be trusted to effectively serve in a judicial position of such importance.

Article III, §1, of the U.S. Constitution provides that “the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Section 2 of Article III further stipulates, “In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.” However, while the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is relatively limited in scope, the true importance of the Supreme Court’s most pressing obligation is through that court’s service as an appellate court. Because the Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation, it provides the last and final court of appeal for cases coming out all courts below it, and it is the obligation of the Supreme Court Justice and Associate Justices to determine the constitutionality of the decisions reached in the lower courts. By extension, the U.S. Supreme Court holds the authority to interpret the meaning of the United States Constitution.

There are a great many schools of thought related to how the United States Constitution should be interpreted. Some demand that interpretations be made in the context of history behind the provision under scrutiny, others that a provision must be interpreted in the context of the other provisions related to it and still others who want to debate their interpretation of a given provision in light of where it appears in the document as a whole. There have been some who ascribed to a developmentalist approach, arguing that the Constitution is living document or a work in progress that can be added to as they see fit and the need arises, while others approach the task from the doctrinalist position by carefully examining past interpretations for clues to their specific questions. Other schools of thought include the structuralist, strict constructionists and textualists, all of whom seek to interpret the document according to a variety of different ways while using a multitude of diverse strategies. The numerous schools of thought, and the widely varying philosophies evident in this regard can be somewhat confusing, and trying to make sense of them all inevitably leads to a major headache brought on by the futility of the task until the dawn finally breaks and the true realization finally becomes clear that all of the seemingly opposing schools of thought have one common goal and that goal is not to interpret the actual meaning of a constitutional provision, but to distort the true intent of the constitutional provision in question in such a manner that it becomes applicable to some stretch of legal reasoning our founding fathers never conceived of when they wrote the original document.

It should be pointed out the most of the individuals that have sat in positions of authority in the Supreme Court in recent history to not limit their efforts to one style of interpretation or another. There are exceptions to this statement, but for the most part these judges have demonstrated a fickle ability to mix and match interpretative philosophies with astonishing speed and regularity in order to achieve their goal and the end result is that 222 years after the original document was first signed into law, the simple document that once guaranteed a form of government through which the people could “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” has become a horrendously unfathomable complexity of annotations and conflicting amendments effectively designed to strip away our formerly “inalienable” rights while replacing the form of government “by the people” with a despotic tyranny overseen by a never-ending stream of self-serving political elitists with unspoken agendas that yield more inequity than justice, far too little tranquility, almost no liberty and a rapidly declining rate of prosperity from sea to shining sea. Admittedly I have woefully digressed.

If Sonia Sotomayor ascribes to the simple minded statement of EstebanErik, and like him, she suffers the delusional belief that white people are intrinsically racist, while the hateful and racially motivated actions of Black, Hispanic and other racial minority extremists are to be excused for any reason then she should not be appointed to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, regardless of her academic achievement and her many law degrees, if she believes that sort of nonsense she is not honestly qualified to be a judge in any federal or state court and should never be placed in a position of any authority over other people.

Unfortunately, the one really controversial case that Sotomayor participated in does not indicate much distance between her and the fool EstebanErik I quoted towards the beginning of this narrative. The case I am referring to is Ricci v. DeStefano, a highly controversial case involving affirmative action in the new Haven, Connecticut fire department. In that case the city of New Haven decided to throw out the results of a firefighter exam because it allowed only one Latino and no African Americans to be promoted. Because its union contract required promotions to be based upon examinations, the City contracted with an outside agency to develop the exams, which were then administered to all qualifying applicants. Since the city of New Haven has a regulation on the books known as the “rule of three,” dictating that once the test results are certification and known to be accurate, the department sponsoring the test must promote the applicants achieving the top three scores, the expectation of all parties concerned was that this rule would be applied as it has been repeatedly in the past and the three top scoring applicants would be immediately promoted. Apparently the New haven regulation also provides that if additional vacancies exist beyond those filled by the top three applicants, those additional vacancies can be filled, more or less, at the discretion of the city officials and in consideration of their desire to promote minority applicants as they see fit. Following the outcome of the test, the city held hearings to consider the possibility that the tests were racially biased and while one experienced firefighter testified that the exams were comparable to those he had taken in the past, a City official testified that if the board chose to certify the results, then the city could be subject to a disparate impact suit from the minority applicants who did not qualify for promotions. To make a long story short, the city decided not to certify the results of the test. Subsequently a group of firefighters, both white and Hispanic, filed suit against the City and its officials, alleging that the City’s action violated Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause. Throughout the lengthy process of litigating this matter a multitude of interested parties became involved on both sides of the equation and a legion of sound arguments were heard by the court. By the time the case landed in the Second Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals and the hands of Circuit Judges, Rosemary Pooler, Robert Sack and Sonia Sotomayor, it carried with it a host of valid and very credible questions regarding the constitutionality of affirmative action, reverse discrimination, Title VII, the Equal Protection Clause and the validity of the action taken by the city of New Haven. Contrary to the expectation that a prolonged period of scholarly review was in order, the Second Circuit quickly responded with a perfunctory unpublished opinion denying the claim of the firefighters and upholding the actions of the City of New Haven. The brief two page opinion consisting of two or three paragraphs made no reference whatsoever to the constitutional principles upon which the case was founded. The general consensus of the firefighters and at least one senior judge on the Judicial Council of the Second Circuit felt that the three-judge panel on which Sotomayor played a significant role, essentially blew off the opportunity to do the right thing in the case because of their personal empathy for minorities outweighed their desire to provide justice. Following that decision an article in National Review magazine criticized Sotomayor in particular for her failure to even address the issue at hand, pointing out that while she demonstrated her empathy for the minorities favored by her part in the decision, she obviously had no empathy for the more senior and more qualified white males who were cheated out of the promotions they so obviously earned, deserved and would have been given if the city officials disregarded race entirely and awarded the promotions on the basis of qualification as they should.

In concluding this posting I should add that, if appointed, Sonia Sotomayor will not be the first Hispanic to sit in the Supreme Court because, despite what the news media currently claims that honor went long ago to Benjamin Cardozo, but Sonia Sotomayor may prove to be the most disastrous Hispanic ever to be selected for a seat in the Supreme Court, and considering the person nominating her, I suppose that the American people should expect no less. After Sonia Sotomayor we may be delighted to welcome more stodgy old white guys with privileged pasts.

As promised the link to the “My SA” Discussion Forum Thread is below.

“My SA”

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Barack Obama, Sonia Sotomayor

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