The day’s top political news:
High Court Rules for White Firefighters in Discrimination Suit
Ruling Reverses High-Profile Decision by Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor
The Supreme Court has narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.
The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination. In effect, the court was deciding when avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR2009062901608_pf.html
Six Men Shot Dead In 24 Hours In Chicago
Several Others were shot or stabbed and wounded in the windy city.
The first shooting happened around 8:20 p.m. Friday, when Tijuan Edwards, 18, was talking to a 25-year-old man in the street multiple gunmen approached on foot and shot both men. Edwards was dead on the scene, and the 25-year-old was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with gunshot wounds to the left arm, chin and thigh, police said.
Later, others were wounded in shootings over the weekend, including a 9-year-old boy who was walking home with his family when was wounded during a Friday night shooting. Lawlessness in the land ruled by Obama’s own Democrat Machine.
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/chicago.weekend.violence.2.1063832.html
McConnell Says Time Needed to Review New Sotomayor Material
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says the Senate needs more time to review the record of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after new material surfaced from her time with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
“Just a day or so ago, we discovered that there are 300 or so boxes of additional material that has just been discovered from her time working with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund,” McConnell said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The committee needs to have access to that material and time to work through it so we know all the facts before we vote on a person who is up for a lifetime job,” McConnell said.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/36363-1.html?type=printer_friendly
Opinion:
Obama’s Cap and Trade tax bill tives us an accurate count regarding Blue Dog Democrats normal Amerca can depend on.
Let us all stand and applaud those Blue Dog Democrats who stood with normal America against the tax scam known as Cap and Trade. Most will take serious heat from the liberal extremists of their own party.
Here is a list of Democrats who joined Republicans is standing up for America:
Altmire, Arcuri, Barrow, Berry, Boren, Bright, Carney. Childers, Costa, Costello, Dahlkemper, Davis (AL), DavisTN), DeFazio, Donnelly (IN), Edwards (TX), Ellsworth, Foster, Griffith, Herseth Sandlin, Holden, Kirkpatrick (AZ), Kissell, Kucinich, Marshall, Massa, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Minnick, Mitchell, Mollohan, Nye, Ortiz, Pomeroy, Rahall, Rodriguez, Ross, Salazar, Stark, Tanner, Taylor, Visclosky, Wilson (OH)
However, there are one or two names who are not conservative at all – quite the contrary. Most notable is Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. Kucinich is radical left wing and voted against the bill because he didn’t think the bill went far enough!!!!
None the less, a tip of the hat and deeply felt salute to most of the above Democrats.
Not ALL Blue Dogs voted with America. Here is a list of Blue Dogs who voted with Obama.
Baca, Joe (CA-43) 225-6161
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02) 225-3631
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03) 225-3806
Boyd, Allen (FL-02) 225-5235
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18) 225-6131
Chandler, Ben (KY-06) 225-4706
Cooper, Jim (TN-05) 225-4311
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28) 225-1640
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08) 225-2542
Gordon, Bart (TN-06) 225-4231
Harman, Jane (CA-36) 225-8220
Hill, Baron (IN-09) 225-5315
Michaud, Mike (ME-02) 225-6306
Moore, Dennis (KS-03) 225-2865
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08) 225-4276
Peterson, Collin (MN-07) 225-2165
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47) 225-2965
Schiff, Adam (CA-29) 225-4176
Scott, David (GA-13) 225-2939
Shuler, Heath (NC-11) 225-6401
Space, Zack (OH-18) 225-6265
Thompson, Mike (CA-01) 225-3311
Anthony G. Martin of the Columbia Conservative Examiner
Explains it;
Why bother to put forth such effort on cap and trade?
One thing is for sure, it is NOT a Republican or Democrat issue. It is a pocket book and jobs issue. And it is based upon an outright lie concerning 'climate change.'
Despite the outright lies of Al Gore, Barack Obama, Henry Waxman, and others on 'man-made carbon pollution' that supposedly leads to 'global warming,' hard science tells us otherwise. Gore and Obama claim that 'the science is settled.' Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing settled in the environmentalist extremist wacko movement is the politics. The movement has nothing whatsoever to do with hard science.
Now the Senate is up to bat on this issue. I don’t have to worry about Alabama and Georgia’s Senators…but numbers heavily favor Obama and his new Cap and Trade Tax. Get those phones busy.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/25/obama-wants-to-let-those-pesky
Obama Wants to Let Those Pesky Geezers Die
Matthew Vadum
In a rare moment of candor, President Obama explained to an audience how government-run healthcare would work in America.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.
(NOTE: Promoting denying treatments for seniors is not new among liberal Democrats. Former Democrat Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, is famed for saying seniors have an obligation to “die and get out of the way”.
In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."
He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said.
She fell and broke her hip, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" [...]
So, old people: screw you. In the future Uncle Sam will put you on an ice floe and let you float away to your heavenly reward. It gives new meaning to the Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." (In English, How sweet and glorious it is to die for one's country.)
Medical decisions should be made by patients, their families, and their doctors, not by government bureaucrats, but that's ObamaCare for you.
2.
Hmmm – when will America wake up?
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=671
Obama’s deadly hand revealed
Posted By Melanie Phillips On June 26, 2009 @ 4:16 pm In Daily Mail Jewish Chronicle, 26 June 2009
Among American Jews, a degree of ‘buyers’ remorse’ has been detected recently.
Almost 80 per cent of American Jews voted for Barack Obama as President. Those of us who warned that this man would endanger Israel were scorned.
How could that possibly be, said the secular, liberal American Jews. He’s a Democrat, he’s black and he’s pro-abortion. With this triple-lock of unassailable virtue, how can he be bad for Israel? Now some of them are getting an awful feeling that they may have made the biggest misjudgment of their lives.
As the world watched events unfold in Iran, Obama’s double standard over Israel was illuminated in flashing neon lights. How come he’s saying it is wrong for him to tell the Iranians what to do, people asked themselves, when he is dictating to Israel its policy on settlements?
Why was he so concerned not to antagonise the Iranian regime? Was it because he hopes to reach a Grand Bargain which would allow Iran to develop nuclear capability, provided it promises him ever so nicely it would never turn this into weapons — in exchange for which, Israel would be offered up on a plate?
(NOTE: Almost 80 per cent of American Jews voted for Barack Obama as President. Those of us who warned that this man would endanger Israel were scorned. “How could that possibly be?” said the secular, liberal American Jews? “He’s a Democrat, he’s black and he’s pro-abortion. With this triple-lock of unassailable virtue, how can he be bad for Israel?” Now some of them are getting an awful feeling that they may have made the biggest misjudgment of their lives.)
For the past six months, while Obama has been holding out the hand of friendship to Iran, he has been showing Israel a mailed fist.
Why, people asked themselves, was he singling out Iran’s putative victim for the heavy treatment while soft-soaping Tehran? Why had he torn up the Road Map which requires the Palestinians to dismantle their infrastructure of terror before anything else can happen, telling Israel instead that its stubbornness over the settlements was the main impediment to a Palestinian state?
Why didn’t he acknowledge the blindingly obvious — that the Palestinians’ continuing, explicit refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state was the fatal impediment?
And then there was the Cairo shocker of a speech. Even the American Jews could not ignore this. Obama stated falsely that the Jews’ aspiration for a homeland was rooted in the Holocaust and their tragic history.
Airbrushing out both the Jews 3,500-year connection to their ancient homeland and the central place of Jerusalem within the religion, he thus effectively denied that Jews are in Israel as of right.
Sanitising Islam through false claims about its historic achievements and selective and misleading quotation from the Koran, he declared that it was part of his responsibility to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
Why? Did this mean therefore that he would fight against any condemnation of the theologically based Jew-hatred pouring out of the Islamic world, not least in Egypt where he was making this speech?
Did he not have a similar responsibility to fight against the negative stereotypes of Jews or Zionists that are inciting terrorism, war and genocide in the Muslim world?
Through the use of a Koranic reference, he also subtly implied that Jerusalem would become Muslim while stating that it should be home equally to Christians, Muslims and Jews.
And he referred to the region as being where Islam was first revealed. This was a revealing word to choose, implying acknowledgement of divine revelation. ‘Revealed’ is the language of a believer.
None of this proves Obama is really a Muslim. But it does all suggest that America has a pro-Islamist President.
Doubtless as a result of his constant sniping at Israel, the percentage of American voters who say they support Israel has plummeted, according to the Israel Project, from 69 per cent last September to 49 per cent this month.
The US and Israel could be heading for the greatest disagreement between the two countries in the history of their relationship, as Middle East expert Robert Satloff recently told Newsweek.
Even now, though, despite the outbreak of buyers’ remorse, most American Jews still don’t realise what they have done — and probably never will.
3.
The Wall Street Journal
The Climate Change Climate Change
The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
POTOMAC WATCH
Link to Column
U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
(NOTE: The Gloval Warming claims have been a major scheme and scam promoted by Al Gore. Obama and other liberals used threat of man made global warming as a motivating issue justifying Cap and Trade legislation. Now proof mounts those “scientific findings” were frauds. Seems the bill was – as I have maintained – just another Democrat conspiracy to raise the taxes of us all.)
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming.
In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence."
Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.
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