The Obligatory Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to SCOTUS posting

Yes, I know about the story that is burning up the Blogosphere right now.  I am talking about the nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS.

I suppose some of you are expecting me to go on some sort of half-cocked, loose cannon, type of rant about this. Well, surprise. I am not going to do that. Not on this one anyhow.

For starters; quite bluntly, elections have consequences. The American people decided that the George W. Bush style of rule, that being the Wilsonian, Neo-Conservative, Cowboy syle of rule was not going to stand any longer and they voted against it and John McCain and his wish-washy style of Conservatism. Instead, the American people elected a progressive; some would say, far left wing liberal President. The appointment of this lady to the SCOTUS is a direct byproduct of this.  This is the normal course of a free society, and a Constitutional Republic and the cost of free elections.   This is why it pays to be fully informed of whom exactly one is voting for.

For what I have read and observed on the far right; The Conservatives are acting like President Obama nominated Karl Marx.  Hopefully, the Republican Party does not get into this dangerous game of stupidity with this woman. It could very well cost them dearly in the coming 2010 elections.  Because you just know that the Liberals will take any sort of criticism of this woman that even remotely sounds racist and run it up a flag pole.  As sad as it is for me to have to write this and make this observation; But it is the facts, quite bluntly, The Democrats are holding the cards right now and controlling the poker table; the Republican Party and the Conservative are best to just stick to the issues and the facts, and stay as far away as possible from the stupidity people like Glenn Beck.  I mean, if I or some other well known blogger went off on him about his Mormon Religion or his Alcoholism or his inability to keep his first marriage together; we could be derided as haters, would we not? So, why should Beck get a free pass? He doesn’t. Not with me anyhow.

I believe in a balance of political opinion in the SCOTUS, some feel it is tiliting too far to the left. I disagree. I believe that for too long it has tiltled too far toward Conservatism. I would love to see a true blue Libertarian in there. Of course, we all know that this will never happen. So, you take what you can get.

I will be following this story and will post more, as details come out.

The Southern Avenger Says "Obama and Cheney Make Us Less Safe"

In the ongoing debate between President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney on torture, former CIA terrorism expert Michael Scheuer points out how both leaders’ refusal to address U.S. interventionism as the primary catalyst for terrorism makes us all “less safe.”

The Southern Avenger’s Blog

The Southern Avenger @ Taki’s Magazine

Quote of the Day

on the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

[…..]

Referring to Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld said, “I wanted them to have fun.”

But at the end of the ceremony, the president could be seen climbing into his sedan, wearing an expression that one could interpret any number of ways: guilt, disappointment, self-loathing, a general sadness. Not “fun,” however.

From beginning to end, the Rumsfeld experience was never that.

Happy Memorial Day – Let us never forget

To some Memorial is just another day or to some it is a excuse to get out of work or cook on the grill.

To those of us, who have a deep and abiding respect for our Nation’s Military. This is a scared and hallowed day.

These cartoons are the best representative of this Holiday and the attitude that everyone should have.

The only commentary that I will add, is this picture here:

No Maggie, The problem is Social Conservatism itself

It is not everyday that I find myself talking back to the writers of the National Review‘s Blog “The Corner“.

But, I saw this entry, and I felt the need to let my feelings be known.

Maggie Gallagher, who, in typical cowardly Republican fashion, does not divulge her e-mail address in her profile; says the following:

Back a while ago, when I was complaining about Republicans who think the GOP has just too darn many religious voters (“funny, so do the Democrats”), I promised I would explain how social conservatives have contributed to this misimpression — and also to their oddly subordinated role within the GOP governing coalition.

It’s simple. Social conservatives have had bad models for political action. We’ve depended on two basic strategies, and neither of them work very well:

1. The Mass-Uprising Model. “The people will rise up and throw off their oppressors spontaneously.” Well, it’s nice when it happens, but it’s hardly a plan, is it?

2. The Secular-Messiah Model: Join with others in the GOP to elect a godly man to office and then expect him to solve all your problems for you. This last model resulted in me fielding calls from reporters about whether or not I thought Bush was responsible for failing to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment — at a time when the poor man was 33 percent in the polls. Gay-rights groups don’t behave like this. They understand it’s their job to make it easy for politicians to do what they ask, not the other way around.

Social conservatives simply have not been in politics. We lack institutions that can defeat our enemies and directly assist our friends.

After a while, threatening to leave the coalition unless the coalition does what you want gets old. And tiring. And ineffective. It makes your allies not like you very much. Social conservatives talk like that because it’s our one lever of power.

Time to get some new levers.

No Megan, what it is time for; is this, it is time for the social Conservatives to leave the Republican Party and make alliances with a new Party, like the “America First” Party or something similar.  I am going to be perfectly blunt, the Social Conservatism movement is, essentially a very bad joke.  A perfect example would be no other than Sarah Palin.  That is correct, Sarah Palin.  I mean this woman, who before the 2008 election was a little known Governor outside of the state of Alaska.  John McCain selects her, on a whim, and attempts to steal Hillary’s voters away from Barack Obama.  We see how well that worked out, did we not?  It is quite the buzz kill and sobering dose of reality to point this out.  Nevertheless, because I believe in the truth; even when it is not considered popular or even politically correct; I will state the obvious.

Sarah Palin came charging to the forefront of the Republican scene, like an Alaska Buffalo on the prairie farm.  She was to come in, riding on the White Horse of Social Conservatism, she was the evangelical Church’s new female Messiah, and she was going to wrangle the victory away from those who were going to try to expand the Government to Anti-Christ-like Levels.  Again, as I wrote a minute ago, we all see how that worked out, did we not?

Instead, Sarah Palin became the poster woman of everything that is essentially wrong with the Evangelical Christian movement as a whole.  One of the biggest and most grotesque problems with the movement as a whole is just innate and abject hypocrisy.  Sarah Palin came into the 2008 election as the beacon of moral pureness.  By the time, the people had come to vote, Palin was exposed as someone; who preached moral values, but her own children were not even listening.  In fact, her own daughter said that abstinence was unrealistic.

To add insult to injury, instead of Sarah Palin leaving the McCain campaign taking her family back to Alaska and salvaging what little of a political career that she actually had left.  Instead she continues to bring a black mark to the campaign of John McCain and allows his campaign to be trounced by one the most unqualified candidates ever.  Further, instead of actually owning up to her daughters mistakes and basically admitting that she lied about her daughter and also admitting that her accepting the offer John McCain was a mistake; Palin then spins her daughters sexual promiscuity into this sister souljah moment.  Frankly, it was quite sickening to watch.

Meggie, the Religious do-gooders do not need levers.  They need to stop trying to pull levers, because every time they do.  The secular world sees them for exactly for what they are.  You would have thought the Conservative Christian world would have learned this lesson in the 1980’s.  I suppose some dogs are not trained as quickly as others are.

Others: Politics Daily and AmSpec Blog

The Southern Avenger says "Just Say No" to Government

When South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was attacked by Republican state leaders for not accepting federal stimulus dollars, it was worth pointing out the utter uselessness of GOP politicians who refuse to follow through on their conservative rhetoric.

Terrorist plot to blow up Jewish Synagogues in the Bronx thwarted

This news broke last night, but I was not in any mood to write about it.

Video Report, showing NY’s Mayor Bloomberg:

Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The arrests capped what officials described as a “painstaking investigation” that began in June 2008 involving an F.B.I. agent who had been told by a federal informant of the men’s desire to attack targets in America. As part of the plot, the men intended to fire Stinger missiles at military aircraft at the base, which is at Stewart International Airport, officials said.

“This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement. The mayor was expected to appear at 6:45 a.m. Thursday at the Riverdale Jewish Center morning services, joined by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

The charges against the four men represent some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time, and come months into a new presidential administration, as President Obama grapples with the question of how to handle detainees at the Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.

Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt, the senior rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center, a modern Orthodox congregation, said the police informed him on Wednesday evening that his synagogue was a target of the plot, as well as the Riverdale Temple, a Reform synagogue that is a short distance away, on Independence Avenue. The two buildings are about six blocks apart, each with a brick facade. Outside the synagogues on Wednesday night, the streets were eerily quiet.

Rabbi Rosenblatt said in a phone interview that he took the news with “shock, surprise — a sense of disbelief that something which is supposed to belong to the world of front pages and the evening news had invaded the quiet world of our synagogue.”

via 4 Accused of Bombing Plot at Bronx Synagogues – NYTimes.com.

Of course, the Neo-Conservative Blogs are all over this one. A couple of things to point out:

  1. There’s no proof at all, that these guys were connected to any sort of formal terrorist group
  2. They never were able to obtain any sort of real weapons

So, what we have here is a group of wanna-be’s who got caught. This is what, the second time? The first was the much hyped Fort Dix plot; which turned out to be a great deal of nothing. I am sure that the Conservative media and blogs are going to hype this for all it is worth. The liberal-controlled media; hopefully, will take a more reasoned approach to the situation and report the facts, and shy away from the hype.

Do not misunderstand me here. I personally believe that the war on terrorism, as George W. Bush rightfully called it, is quite real. However, I have a hard time believing that this group of bumbling idiots were a part of it formally. If anything, these guys were a group of morons who could not even make a pipe bomb; much less a damn bomb capable of causing any sort of real damage.

As to why they did it. These guys were upset about our involvement in Afghanistan. We can expect to see this sort of a thing, as that War progresses. Now the idiots on the far liberal left will try and say that this is why we should leave Afghanistan. Which any sane, rational person knows is foolish. We should not leave until Osama and his henchmen are dead and Al-Qaeda is formally defeated. Some say this is impossible. I believe nothing is impossible, if it is done correctly. The far left likes to bring up that Russia tried to fight a war in this region and ended up pulling out. I say; apples and oranges. Different kind of a war, and the Russians did not have nearly the Military that we have and the technology that we have today.

The good thing about all this is, that this terrorist cell was broken up and these idiots are going to jail. Thanks to the fine work of our men at the F.B.I. Good show guys, keep up the good work.

Update: …and then there’s the Libertarian conspiracy theorist angle. No wonder the Republicans think that most libertarians are kooks.

The Southern Avenger on "Lindsey Graham Republicans"

When Lindsey Graham denounced Ron Paul-style libertarianism and advocated for George W. Bush-style neoconservatism during a speech at the South Carolina Republican Convention, it was worth pointing out that Graham’s suggested GOP path is the road to nowhere.