Sonia from the Block!

President Obama's choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor today was yet another remarkable and quick decision. Her qualifications are impressive, as our President is a Constitutional Law Professor he took the time to read through many court decisions and opinions by Judge Sotomayor as well as the other candidates.

Born and raised in a South Bronx public housing project to Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor has distinguished herself in academia, as a big-city prosecutor, and as a leading figure on the federal bench. She would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years.

First appointed to the Federal District Court by President George H.W. Bush, and then elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton, she has been confirmed by the Senate on 2 occasions. Which actually brings me to the point of my blog post today.

As we move into the Senate confirmations we will here endless speculation about her personal life and probably no more than 2 cases that seem to give concern to conservatives ignoring the remaining almost 20 years of court decisions.

Hence the brilliance of this pick. We have a woman that is without argument qualified. She has more federal judicial experience than those sitting on the court did when they were nominated, she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and has a law degree from Yale, and has been a prosecutor, trial judge, and private lawyer.

To argue this pick could be 1 more dagger in the heart of the Republican Party. To gain ground they must appeal to minorities, their best opportunity is to gain ground with Hispanics the fastest growing minority. The treatment of Micheal Steele and Bobby Jindal by party loyalists represents the inherent resistance to anything but White Power! There is absolutely nothing to gain by challenging this nomination. The balance of the court (conservative vs. liberal) will remain virtually unchanged, and at the end of the day because of a Democratic majority in the Senate, her confirmation is inevitable.

So any argument of this selection can only serve to further ostracize the party. Read more!

I Thought Darth Vader Died?

I had to do a post on the amazing resurrection of Dick Cheney. I recall asking the question over the last 8 years at least a dozen times, is Cheney still alive? I have not heard anything about him for months if not years. Then he shows up at Obama'a Inauguration in a wheel chair, and now he won't sit down and he won't shut up.

I really find this debate un-intersitng, as I imagine most people do considering some of the crisis we face. So I watched the speeches made by both men (Cheney and Obama) to try to get some perspective. I came out of it only slightly more interested, but poised to write this post because of one statement Cheney made, "When they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity."

Wow! I am trying to find out how this concern plays into his relentless desire to perpetuate this argument on a public stage. If the Obama administration was the only voice this story would largely be buried by the momentous activity that has been accomplished in such a short time, but the fact that Cheney won't shut up continues to propel this debate into the top of the media headlines.....

Now that I do have some perspective, I decided to actually weigh in :

Cheney slams Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. However, the effort to shut down the facility, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Cheney has yet to cite any specific plots that were disrupted by aggressive interrogations. Cheney is seeking the release of CIA reports that will show information gained from the interrogations, but the fact that suspects gave up information after harsh questioning does not definitively preclude the possibility that they might have given up information through less physical forms of interrogation – which is one of Obama’s central points. In addition, the hypocrisy of his line of attack, since his initial rallying cry is that the release of the memos by the Obama administration endanger our National Security? I guess it is OK to endanger National Security in an effort to vindicate your personal legacy??

Obama's line on this has not been without flaw, as he stated in his speech that, "We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people.” In reality, he really can’t make this promise. If detainees are brought to U.S. soil it is at least possible that courts could order the release of prisoners brought to the U.S. to face military commissions or civilian trials and release a prisoner who is acquitted.

So to close lets just state what we do know as fact.... As Joe Biden says Cheney went too far and became an independent power center at the White House, keeping many of his activities secret from other policymakers and creating a Machiavellian decision-making process.

Mr. Cheney with all of the fear-mongering and proclamations about keeping this country safer 9/11 happened on your watch. You ignored warnings from experts in the CIA , the Defense Intelligence Agency , the State Department , the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false and exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9/11. Your administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before finishing the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban .

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S. invasion, and Islamic extremists have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring and nuclear-armed Pakistan.

So spare us from the rhetoric that accomplished little when you actually had the power to do SOMETHING!!!!

Read more!

Good Mavs or Bad Spurs?

I make no secret I have been down on the Mavs since the day Mark Cuban fired Avery Johnson.

I will give credit to Rick Carlisle (the new Coach) with inconsistent play all season, the Mavs rolled into the playoffs on a high, and won over 50 games. Fans immediately begin to ponder maybe this coaching change was the right thing to do.....

I still maintain my initial argument and position that this was not a good change. The most recent defeat of the San Antonio Spurs in the 1st playoff series the Mavs have won since losing in the NBA finals in 2006.

At first glance this looks impressive, a few things must be considered:


1) This is a Mavs team with 1 1/2 years of playing with Jason Kidd not just 2-3 months. I will give credit where it is due. Jason Kidd is the type of leader that refuses to let his team lose. He gives them "the heart" that has been sorely missed the past few seasons. I believe he will make an excellent coach in this league some day.

2) The Mavs roster was constructed to beat one team in particular, the San Antonio Spurs. Similar to the match up for the Mavs in 2007 against Golden State, this was a bad match up for the Spurs.

3) Finally, what we actually witnessed in this series was BAD SPURS. The Spurs went into this series without the services of Manu Ginobli. This is equivalent to the Mavs coming in without Jason Terry and Josh Howard combined. In addition, Tim Duncan played with a an injury for most of the series. The shooting was horrendous, the Spurs lacked any consistent offensive production outside of Tony Parker. If a Spurs fan made this claim I would clown them for making excuses for that profound beat down they experienced, which NBA pundits coined, "The End of an Era."

The proof will be in the pudding, the Mavs will be just like the teams that beat them in the previous 2 years. An impressive 1st round series, only to get mauled in the next round where the best team generally wins, not the best match up! The Mavs are already off to a good start in preparation for Summer Vacation. Read more!

Conventional Wisdom

Pondering on the Obama Administration's decision to release the Bush torture memos. It took me a while to figure out what I believe is the ultimate logic behind this decision.

Releasing under the vise of transparent government, attempting to turn the page on a dark side of American History. At the same time refusing to support pursuing legal action against members of the Bush Administration. This enraged Progressives, who are blood thirsty to see all of the members of the Bush team for an assortment of illegal actions that began before "W" even took office.

President Obama took a lot of heat for not pressing the issue, but as I reflect I see that he once again is manipulating this issue. It would be a perpetual wedge with conservatives to pursue legal action on this issue. So he introduced this in the mainstream, confident that the Democrats that are out for blood will be the ones to take on this issue and begin to put in place the appropriate actions to result in at a minimum consideration of the evidence for violations of the law.

This way just as he ran his campaign, he is not the one pursuing the unpopular issue that must be addressed. Relatively ingenuous... Not sure it will sell with Conservatives as at the end of the day his administration released the information, and the Conservatives have already drove the wedge in the ground deep enough that it will not be coming out anytime soon! Read more!