Truth on Taxation

Former IRS Agent Sherry Jackson discusses the fraud that is the IRS.

Render unto Caesar.

Priceless Moment: Soup Kitchen

I love chain emails. I have no idea how long this picture has been out there, but it's nevertheless hilarious, poignant and sad all at the same time.

Cost of a bowl of soup at the homeless shelter: $0.00

Having Michelle Obama serve you your soup: $0.00

Snapping a picture of a homeless person who is receiving a government funded meal while taking of picture of the First Lady using his $500 Blackberry: Priceless

On Unions: Short, Sweet and to the Point

Apparently I will be buying my next round of grillable meats from Whole Foods for a reason other than that they carry good meats. Whole Foods Chairman John Mackey could very well be a new hero of mine after this statement on the radio yesterday:

The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.

Here is a guy who has successfully built multiple Whole Foods locations in a city (Chicago) where the unions are blocking Walmart from entering economically depressed neighborhoods that the store would benefit in every way possible, simply because the chain is not unionized. I hope he can keep it up, and eventually help pave the way to bettering the city I live in and love.

Race the Real Issue After All?

The other day, I authored a post about the Sotomayor saga largely driven by my disgust at the whirlwind of race-driven rhetoric surrounding her nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court. I am part of a generation that I feel, while perhaps not entirely immune to the issue of race, is perhaps part of the bridge to a future where the color of a person's skin will not affect his or her decision making, or the decision making of those around them. Perhaps as an engineer I am predisposed to judging people based primarily on their accomplishments and abilities, and so hold respect for people based on those criteria without regard to color. Perhaps I have been indoctrinated since my youth that we are to be the generation that moves beyond race. Whatever the case, my reaction to the issue of race-based decision making, and particularly race-based politics, is nothing short of seething, no matter the side of the political spectrum from which the racial bile flows.

And so, in my post the other day, I hoped to bring the conversation on the right side of center to focus on what I thought was more important than race, since I felt the rantings of the likes of Limbaugh over Sotomayor and her perceived racist comment to be largely superfluous, and nothing short of embarrassing to the right. I felt the commentary was falling into the doldrums that the Left loves to wallow in, and I thought perhaps I might aid in elevating our position to what I thought was far more important: Sonia Sotomayor's judicial philosophy. In that vein, I pushed the idea that what should matter in confirming or denying her appointment should be whether or not she believes it is the duty of a Supreme Court Justice to take an active position in policy-making, to legislate from the bench. I argued that this is judicial philosophy, and that judicial philosophy is a core value, and that race, while perhaps shaping judicial philosophy over time, was unlikely to play a predominant role in so core a value as judicial philosophy.

This was until yesterday and today, when I have observed via HotAir that Sonia Sotomayor has made the statement that "a wise woman" or "a wise latina woman" would "with the richness of her experiences, more often than not, reach a better conclusion" than would an old white man, over and over and over again.

The fact that Sonia Sotomayor has made these statements over and over again points to her true core values. The fact that she has continually relied on the fact that she is A) a woman, and B) Latina, in her speeches aimed at guiding popular, judicial and political opinion of her role as a judge tells me that to her, her race and her gender are driving forces in who she is and how she makes decisions. The constant repetition of the same phrase tells me that her ego is such that she needs everyone to know she is doing this as a woman and as a racial minority. This tells me that she is prone to putting her ego ahead of her better judgement.

I don't necessarily find myself falling in step with Rush on this issue. I won't call Sonia Sotomayor a racist. But I will go so far as to call her an egomaniac. And while ego certainly must play a role in the life of every person who achieves a great deal of success, it should not play a predominant role in his or her decision making. And most certainly we should not be promoting a woman whose insecurities at being both a woman and a minority drive her ego to overcompensate for those traits to the extent that it will most certainly affect her decision making while sitting as a member of the highest court in the land for the rest of her life.

Sotomayor: Back to the Real Issue Please

Over the past week or two, it has become disturbingly clear to me that the main issue Republicans are going to be zeroing in on in their attempt to discredit Sonia Sotomayor is, unfortunately, her race. This is stemming from her now infamous quote from a 2001 lecture on law and multicultural diversity wherein she stated:

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.

Everybody and their brother is screaming that Sotomayor is a racist because of this statement, that her opinions in the courtroom are going to be weighted too heavily by her race and her experiences as a racial minority, rather than by allegiance to reason and the rule of law. As usual when an argument boils down to a matter of race, these Republicans are banging their heads against a wall, and undermining their own credibility in the process. As Daniel Larison points out:

How many conservative pundits and radio talk show hosts will wind up on the wrong side of the sweeping, unreasonably broad definition of racism that conservatives are now employing to try to trip up Sotomayor? Perhaps most telling of all, this smear on Sotomayor will not advance conservative causes one inch, but will boomerang and harm them significantly, and those who recklessly flung these charges should not be surprised if they come back to haunt them later on.

The only issue I take with Larson's statement is his classification of the people going after Sotomayor based on race as "conservatives." To my mind, a conservative bases no decision in race, and does not approach Sotomayor's qualification as a nominee to the Supreme Court with race in mind. A conservative recognizes that any judge, no matter the race or gender, will have had certain life experiences that shape his or her outlook on life, and subsequently judicial philosophy. And a conservative goes on to recognize that it is the judicial philosophy that is the important issue at hand.

Judicial philosophy is a core personal belief. Core personal beliefs drive a person's decision making process. While race and gender and personal background have doubtless played a role in Sonia Sotomayor formulating her core personal beliefs and judicial philosophy, race and gender and personal background are highly unlikely to prejudice her decision making when it comes to deciding cases. For instance, when she sat to examine Clarett v. National Football League, it is impossible to believe she asked herself what role her Latina heritage played in deciding that "We follow the Supreme Court's lead in declining to 'fashion an antitrust exemption [so as to give] additional advantages to professional football players ... that transport workers, coal miners, or meat packers would not enjoy.'"

So what is Sonia Sotomayor's judicial philosophy? This was the initial issue at hand, and it has since fallen by the wayside in the hailstorm of racial rhetoric being hurled by both the right and the left. With her confirmation hearings looming, I wonder if we might not bring the question of her judicial philosophy back to the table?

Our greatest public insight into Sotomayor's judicial philosophy has been the following video, where she discusses the fact that, in her own words, "all of the legal defense funds out there, they are looking for people with court of appeals experience because the court of appeals is where policy is made."

Now, as Sam Stein has pointed out, there is nothing actually inherently wrong with this statement:

But for legal experts, there is nothing actually controversial to what Sotomayor said. Her political crime, if there were one in this case, was speaking the truth.

"She's not wrong," said Jeffrey Segal, a professor of law at Stony Brook University. "Of course they make policy... You can, on one hand, say Congress makes the law and the court interprets it. But on the other hand the law is not always clear. And in clarifying those laws, the courts make policy."

To be sure, Sotomayor was not wrong. She was stating a fact, just as Segal explains. But what the issue at hand really is in this video is her attitude in saying what she says. Her cavalier demeanor in laughing off the issue of policy-making being the role of the appeals court is extremely disconcerting. It highly suggests that she believes that policy-making is what the court is supposed to do, and this is what we're looking for: judicial philosophy.

There is a very fine line when it comes to defining someones judicial philosophy. Ultimately, the appeals courts and the Supreme Court do, in fact, end up making policy through their clarification of imperfect laws. The question of judicial philosophy is whether or not a person believes that this is what the court is supposed to do; whether or not the court is supposed to be active in defining policy. The conservative believes that the court adjudicates as closely in step with the laws written by the legislature as is possible, and that if any policy stems from the decision made, it is done so reluctantly and out of no other option. The liberal, on the other hand, believes that it is appropriate for the court to legislate from the bench, to essentially affect and/or create new law through its decision making.

Conservatives abhor the idea of legislating from the bench because we believe, rightly so, that it is not the purpose of the court to create law, but to interpret the laws created by our representatives. The overwhelming recent example in the Supreme Court legislating from the bench was Kelo v. City of New London, wherein the court effectively set an egregious new precedent in eminent domain, allowing the government to take private property from one individual or corporation and give it to another, if the government was doing so because the repossession would put the property to a use that would generate higher tax revenue.

Without question, when confirmation hearings begin, Republicans will misguidedly question Sonia Sotomayor about whether or not she will allow her race, her gender and her upbringing to unduly influence her decision making. A much better line of questioning would be to ask her whether she thinks it's her job to make the law. If the answer is yes, or some rambling, stammering tap dance around the question, then she should not be confirmed. But let us please stop pretending that race has anything to do with it.

Obama-Prompter

Obama and his teleprompter.

The only problem I see with this is that there isn't one to the left as well...

Young Cons: Conservative Rap

A couple of strapping young conservatives cut this phat beat to tell the how they hang, or something like that. It has made me hate rap just a little bit more, so thanks boys.

Some favorite quotes:

2:40- "Don't matter if you're gay, straight, christian or muslim. There's one thing we all hate called socialism."

Apparently those four groups hate socialism.

2:52- "Superman, not socialism, waterboard that terrorism."

I lost bladder control for a moment when they dropped that bomb.

And without further delay, here they are!

via BoingBoing