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Roll
Call reports. Excerpt:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) on Sunday said 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.
Call
both
your senators today and urge them to slow down the important Sotomayor
nomination process so that enough time can be given to fully examining her
record and judicial philosophy. Also
tell your senators that you want them to vote against liberal, activist judges
who legislate from the bench while relying on their personal perspectives or “life
stories” rather than upholding the plain meaning of the U.S. Constitution.
LifeNews reports. Excerpt:
While the Bush Administration withheld
funding from UNFPA over the agency's support of China's population program,
which includes forced abortions and sterilizations, the agency can look forward
to a cash injection from the Obama administration in 2009. Earlier this year,
the United States announced it would reinstate UNFPA funding and pledged $50
million dollars for 2009 – a figure that would put the US in the agency's top
five donor countries alongside the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Roger
Clegg explains how Sonia Sotomayor’s reading of the Ricci case indicates her judicial activism. Excerpt:
The classic instance of judicial activism
is making up a constitutional guarantee that is not actually in the
Constitution, and using that to strike down a state law. But judicial activism
can also involve ignoring a guarantee that in the Constitution to uphold a
statute that violates it.
And this gives us reason to suppose that
this distortion of the legal texts involved was driven by Sotomayor’s personal
policy preferences, the definition of judicial activism. Her now
well-publicized extrajudicial pronouncements in these areas suggest that she is
deeply immersed in identity politics. In particular, she has been very
aggressive in her support for affirmative action and other selection policies
to ensure politically correct numbers.
The
Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court today overturned the Ricci decision of the appellate court on
which Sotomayor served. Excerpt:
…the appellate judges [including Sototmayo]
have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with
"indisputably complex and far from well-settled" questions, in the
words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.
"This perfunctory disposition rests
uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal," Cabranes said,
in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit's decision not to hear the case.
Tony Perkins explains
at Human Events. Excerpt:
Kevin Jennings has neither the temperament
nor the ethical standards needed for public service. His history suggests a
commitment to serving only one narrow part of the student population, not all
students. He is unfit for the post to which he’s been assigned, and Secretary
Duncan should withdraw his appointment at once.
The
President of the Family Research Council submitted
excellent testimony to a recent Senate committee held to discuss hate
crimes legislation. Excerpt:
Hate crime laws force the court to guess
the thoughts and beliefs which lie behind a crime, instead of looking at the
crime itself, in order to prosecute and convict someone of a hate crime.
Violent crimes are already punishable by law. "Hate crime" laws put
the perpetrator's thoughts and beliefs on trial. Hate crime laws are tantamount
to federally prosecuting "thought crimes." The Family Research
Council believes that all crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law, and that every violent crime has some form of hate behind it. All
around the country, crimes are being prosecuted in the state justice systems.
American justice is being done. There is simply no need for a federal hate
crimes law.
LifeNews reports.
Perhaps
the reason YouTube has so much trouble keeping pornography off its website is
that it’s spending too much time removing “dangerous” pro-life content.
The
Wichita Liberty explains how more school choice could help Kansas. Given the early successes seen from school
choice elsewhere, especially the charter schools mentioned in this piece, we
need more school choice across this nation.
The
Washington Post reports. The article’s
sub headline (Critics Fear That Women Will Be Exploited) says it all about the
ethical concerns over the exploitation of women that is inherent to this kind
of policy and to what is required to conduct forms of human cloning.
OneNewsNow
reports. Hopefully, teens with think
twice about taking or sending indecent photos of themselves or other teens when
they realize they can be punished under child pornography laws.
LifeNews reports. Apparently President Obama finds no use for
ethical considerations when it comes to controversial issues like human cloning
and embryo-destroying stem cell research.
The Culture of Life Foundation offers a “Requiem for the
President’s Council on Bioethics.”
Excerpt:
Two weeks ago President Obama sent a memo
to the members of the President’s Council on Bioethics (PCB) [1] informing them
that their appointments were being prematurely terminated.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sent a
letter to key leaders in the religious community asking them to oppose the
bill.
"Please tell your congregation this
legislation is not about 'hate' (all violent crimes are hateful); it is about
taking away your freedom to speak and preach biblical truth," DeMint
wrote. "It will take away your right to say that some things are wrong. We
need millions of Americans to call and email their Senators, especially Democrat
Senators who are pushing this legislation."
The
DC Examiner reports. Excerpt:
Researchers at the Children's Hospital
& Research Center in Oakland, California have discovered a new way to
harvest stem cells from the placenta.
This technique is a good use of the placenta which at the moment serves
no medicinal purpose after birth and thus is discarded. What is more, the study
“finds there are far more stem cells in placentas than in umbilical cord blood,
and they can be safely extracted for transplantation.”
Charmaine
Yoest explains how Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s position on abortion could be
considered worse than David Souter, whom President Obama has chosen to replace
with Sotomayor.
OneNewsNow
reports. Excerpt:
"The crimes that took place [Tiller
murder and Holocaust Museum shootings] have absolutely nothing to do with the
content of the hate crimes bill, which only really is focusing on the special
treatment and special privileges of protection to be granted to people because
of their homosexuality or transsexual status," he contends.
Dacus adds that "the bill is not about
providing equal treatment -- it's providing unequal treatment," which he
believes is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States
Constitution.
"The hate crimes bill accomplishes
nothing except to intimidate and silence legitimate, peaceful opposition to the
never-ending demands of the gay and transsexual activists," he concludes.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
The commission [U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights], not known for being on the side of social conservatives on policy
issues, has an ally in Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. He pointed out that hate-crimes
legislation fundamentally changes the idea of equal justice under law to
arbitrary justice based on the race, religion or sexual orientation of the
victim or the criminal.
"It really forces our courts and our
judges to begin to anticipate what people were thinking when they committed a
crime, rather than whether they committed the crime or not."
But he said the worst part of the
hate-crimes bill is it could restrict free speech, "because if a pastor
stands up and preaches that the Word of God says that homosexuality is wrong,
that pastor could be accused of hate speech and could even be accused or
charged with inducing someone to commit a crime against a homosexual."
Urge
your member
of Congress to oppose hate crimes!
Also, visit FightHateCrimes.com
to find out how you can help oppose this dangerous threat to religious freedom
and “equal justice under law.”
Click here
to view the Democrat press conference in support of hate crimes.
The
Washington Post reports. As
does Fox News. Excerpt:
The extended benefits include an option for
employees' domestic partners to be added to a government insurance program that
pays for long-term conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease. They also would be
allowed to take sick leave to care for a sick partner or non-biological child.
CtizenLink
explains how the action threatens traditional
marriage and the rule of law.
Excerpt:
Family advocates say Obama’s action is a
direct violation of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and a big step toward
redefining marriage.
“The president thumbed his nose at the rule
of law and continues to undermine marriage as society’s most pro-child
institution,” said Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public
policy for Focus on the Family Action.
CitizenLink reports
some good news from the front in the battle for traditional marriage. Excerpt:
The number of Americans who support same-sex
marriage has plunged over the last few months, according to a new poll.
The CBS News/New York Times study found
that 33 percent of respondents favor same-sex marriage. That represents a 9
percent drop since April.
One
of the founding fathers of modern conservatism, Richard
Viguere, explains. Excerpts:
The confirmation fight over Judge Sonia
Sotomayor shouldn't be approached as merely about filling a vacancy on the
Supreme Court. Even as important as that
is, this confirmation fight is bigger than that. It is a fight about whether the Constitution
any longer constrains the power of government by and according to its
terms. It is about President Obama's view
of government power versus the view held by most Americans.
…
Those who see this confirmation battle as
about just Judge Sotomayor miss the larger point. This is really about President Obama's
harmful and dangerous view of government power.
President Obama wants to remake and thereby
weaken America by avoiding the constraints in the Constitution and its
structure for political accountability.
He is faced with circumstances that make that possible: (1) economic turmoil, (2) a sycophantic
press, (2) a passive and sympathetic Congress, and (4) a judiciary that too
often refuses to insist that the other two branches act within their enumerated
powers. He has taken advantage of those
circumstances to expedite his government power grab at a dizzying pace. If Americans had time to absorb what he was
doing and the freedoms they were losing, he would not succeed.
We are distracted by Obama's blitz because
we have too many attacks on our system to confront effectively at once. That is why it is important for conservatives
to focus foremost on the Sotomayor confirmation fight. Within that one fight alone we can address
the very reasons why, as polls show consistently, conservatism is twice as
popular as liberalism. This confirmation
fight can weaken Obama's march to a form of government inconsistent with the
Constitution if conservatives grasp the challenge.
CitizenLink reports. The following excerpt quotes Ashley Horn of
Focus on the Family Action:
"As we've seen in other nations where
such laws are passed, they can have a chilling effect on the free speech of
those who would simply share from the Bible God's views on issues such as
homosexuality," she explained. "Hate-crimes laws are unnecessary in a
civil society like ours based on the rule of law.
"All crimes are hate crimes," she
added, "To give special status to certain groups of people allows courts
to reach beyond punishing people for the illegal acts they commit and judge
them for what they may or may not be thinking as they commit those acts."
Our
sources on the Hill assure us that Congress will try to push hate crimes
through before the August recess. Hate
(thought) crimes are a tool of legitimizing sexual deviancy and offering
special legal benefits based on sexual behavior. It also poses a serious threat to religious
liberty and “equal justice under law.”
Call
your
representative today and urge him or her to vote AGAINST dangerous and unnecessary
“hate crimes” legislation!
The New York
Times reports. A blog post by Ilya
Somin also looks at this case and what it says about Sotomayor’s views on property
rights.
The
Washington Times editorial board also weighs in on Sotomayor and property
rights. Excerpt:
Judge Sotomayor served as the senior judge
on one 2006 case, Didden v. Village of Port Chester, which respected University
of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein described as "about as naked an
abuse of government power as could be imagined." Her judicial panel's
ruling might be the worst violation of property rights ever approved by a
federal appeals court. It is part of a pattern of Judge Sotomayor's
pro-government rulings that run roughshod over the most basic of private
property rights.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
Washington, D.C., elections officials have
blocked a proposal that would let voters decide on whether the nation's capital
will recognize same-sex marriages performed outside the District. The Board of Elections and Ethics has
suggested only Congress and the courts should have input on the issue.
The two-member board said that allowing a
referendum that lets the people decide is akin to authorizing
"discrimination."
CitizenLink
also reports that pro-marriage leaders (led by the African American Pastor
Harry Jackson, Jr.) intend to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
Kellyanne
Conway and David McIntosh explain why President Obama and Senate Democrats
keep trying to portray Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an “originalist” and not a
liberal activist, because that’s who Americans want on the bench by an
overwhelming majority. Opponents of
judicial activism should take heart that American public opinion is with them
and that their elected representatives in the Senate should be held accountable
for whether they thoroughly examine Sotomayor and how they vote on her
nomination. Excerpt:
In a national post-election survey of 800
actual voters, the polling company, inc. found that 70% of respondents
preferred that judges not base their decisions on personal views and feelings.
Only 23% favored judges who would go beyond the law and take their own personal
views and feelings into account.
These poll numbers explain why -- despite
the President's personal popularity and a 60-vote majority in the Senate -- the
White House must address the fact that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of
the President's standard for picking judges, as well as the standard
articulated by Sotomayor throughout her career.
Her previous writings cast doubt on her
willingness to neutrally apply the law. It is also difficult to square
Sotomayor's latest overtures as a defender of restraint with the fact that
President Obama already committed to picking judges with a willingness to tip
the scales of justice in favor of particular parties involved.
Ilya Shapiro offers examples
of five important questions that Sotomayor needs to address. Hopefully, Senators on the Judiciary
Committee are paying attention and plan to take their job seriously.
Here
are the five questions:
- Can the government rewrite
leases, mortgages, and other contracts?
- Can the government regulate
activity that is neither commerce nor crosses state lines?
- Where in the Constitution is
the right to privacy – and other unspecified rights – located?
- What does the nominee think of Kelo v. City of New London?
- Should the Supreme Court refer
to foreign court decisions to help interpret US law and the Constitution?
Read
all the commentary on why these and other questions are so important here.
CitizenLink reports. Besides the obvious ethical and right to life
issues involved with human cloning, grave health concerns and women’s rights
issues are also raised because of the huge demand for human ovum involved with
human cloning and in the serious health risks associated with human egg
donation.
Byron
York reports. Excerpt:
Senate Republicans involved in the Sonia
Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination say there are significant gaps in the
172-page questionnaire Sotomayor sent recently to the Senate Judiciary
Committee -- omissions the GOP says will require more time to examine than is
possible under the Democrats' hurry-up schedule for Sotomayor's confirmation.
As
Bryon’s Senate source said in exasperation, “We don't know what we don't know….” This is the very reason we need a thorough
and unhurried debate on Sotomayor in the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the
full Senate.
Take Action: Call both
your senators today and urge them to promote a thorough debate on
Sotomayor, and tell them that you oppose appointing radical activist judges to
the Supreme Court.
WCCO reports. Excerpt:
Desperate to help her daughter, Radde
surfed the Internet for answers. That's how she found out what a doctor at
Northwestern Memorial in Chicago was doing.
Dr. Richard Burt is using patients' own
stem cells to fight MS.
"This therapy's designed to reset your
immune system," said Burt.
"He's been doing these stem cell
transplants and every single person that has been in this program has halted
their disease," said Radde.
"Eighty-one percent of them are
actually healing and regenerating their myelin, and that's the covering on the
nerves that every MS patient wants to keep," said Jung.
CNS News
reports. Some of our readers will
remember that many conservatives were concerned about the opening of the new
Capitol Visitor Center and whether our nation’s important religious heritage would
be ignored or distorted. The provisions
on this bill reflect assurances given to concerned conservatives so let’s hope
Congress lives up to their commitments to accurately represent our heritage.
CitizenLink reports. Also, National Right to Life has encouraged
members of Congress to oppose H.R. 2410 and is calling
on pro-lifers to call their Congressional representatives to urge them to
oppose this bill.
LifeNews also reports. Excerpt:
The House of Representatives is slated
to consider a bill today to fund the State Department, but House Democrats
wielded their control over the chamber by preventing a pro-life amendment. Rep.
Chris Smith had hoped to offer an amendment to limit President Barack Obama's
international abortion agenda.
Several pro-life groups are urging opposition to the
State Department funding bill (HR 2410) unless an amendment is adopted making
sure the new Office for Global
Women’s Issues, which the bill authorizes, will not promote abortion.
The pro-life organizations are worried
that Obama, who appointed a longtime abortion advocate to head up the office,
will use the ambassador post to promote an international right to abortion.
The
AP reports. Many are deriding the
Senate’s haste in holding hearings and are calling for a reasonable amount of
time to consider Sotomayor’s record.
The Southern
Voice reports. Apparently proponents
of expanding hate (thought) crimes protections to “actual or perceived” gender
identity and sexual orientation are concerned about conservative backlash to
dangerous hate crimes legislation.
According to the homosexual activist group HRC, hate crimes legislation
could be sneaked into other legislation as an amendment. This hate crimes bill would endanger
religious liberty and also violate the constitutional principle of “equal
justice under law,” and must be opposed by vigilant and active citizens.
OneNewsNow
reports. Excerpt:
The Alabama senator leading the GOP's
vetting of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said the American tradition of
impartial courts is "under attack" and the pivotal question in her
nomination should be whether she allows personal views to color her decisions
as a judge.
As
the Washington
Post and the Baltimore
Sun report, despite President Obama’s assertions that Judge Sonia Sotomayor
simply “misspoke” when she said a Latina woman would make a better judge than a
white man; such racially charged statements were common for Sotomayor.
The
Heritage Foundation’s Brian
Darling explains Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s weaknesses
on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
Excerpt:
Sotomayor shouldn’t be allowed to skirt the
Second Amendment issue, because she cosigned a decision in a case earlier this
year that exhibited a dismissive and hostile view of the right to bear arms. If
Sotomayor’s view becomes the view of the Supreme Court, your right to own the
weapon of your choice in your home may be taken away.
Mario
Diaz explains. Excerpt:
For the Democratic leadership to feel they
are fulfilling their “advice and consent” duties by having lunch with Judge
Sotomayor and then voting is one thing, but they should at least not stand in
the way of those faithful Senators who have respect for the Constitution and
their constituents and want to take the time to examine legitimate and
well-documented concerns in the nominee’s record.
Our
friends at NRLC have warned
members of Congress of the dangers of the State Department Funding Bill,
H.R. 2410, which would seek to overturn abortion restrictions in other nations
as a matter of official U.S. policy.
As
we’ve reported in the past, this bill also raises concerns over the promotion
of the homosexual agenda overseas.
Rep.
Howard “Buck” McKeon, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and
Labor, recently applauded
the great work being done by charter schools. Excerpt:
“Charter schools are essential to turning
around our nation’s ailing public schools system. They offer choices to parents
and children, many of whom would otherwise be trapped in chronically
underperforming public schools. And they have made great strides in raising
achievement and tackling unique educational challenges from urban centers to
rural areas,” said McKeon. “But despite their many successes, charter schools
are not growing as they should. They face overwhelming barriers to expansion,
from arbitrary state caps to hostile state legislatures.”
CitizenLink reports. Despite a supposed “religious exemption” in
the newly passed “gay marriage” law in New Hampshire, religious liberties are
still gravely threatened. The truth is, state
sanctioned same-sex marriage is inherently dangerous to religious liberties. There is no “religious exemption” that could
change that fact.
And
as OneNewsNow
reports, NH legislators who voted for the same-sex marriage law could face
serious political repercussions in future elections.
CitizenLink reports. Excerpt:
Two years ago, the United Kingdom passed a
law that forced adoption agencies to consider placing children with homosexual
couples. An exemption that protected religious groups has just expired, forcing
several faith-based adoption agencies to close rather than violate their
convictions.
Not
long after his embassy staff in Iraq held a gay themed party in Baghdad,
President Obama has declared an official “Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.” It is not known if these “gay pride” events
were coordinated intentionally to coincide with his Middle East tour.
Kimberley A. Strassel
explains. Excerpt:
President Barack Obama has laid down his
ground rules for the debate over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The big
question now is whether Republicans agree to play by rules that neither Mr.
Obama nor his party have themselves followed.
Matt
Benchener explains. Excerpt:
But President Obama and Judge Sotomayor
share more than inspirational life stories. They share a troubling and
dangerous view of jurisprudence, informed by a liberal ideology that places
emotional activism ahead of rational objectivity.
During
the presidential campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama said America’s reputation
in the world (particularly in the Muslim world) had been gravely tarnished and
promised to improve our nation’s image abroad if elected. Perhaps the Obama administration’s public
relations outreach to Muslims needs a little work. The
Washington Post reports that the U.S. Embassy in Iraq recently held a party
in which participants were encouraged to dress in drag or come as their
favorite homosexual celebrity. Though it
comes as no surprise to see the Obama administration promoting “alternative
lifestyles,” the administration's decision to hold a gay party in the heart of the
Middle East seems somewhat ill-advised.
LifeNews reports. Excerpt:
Gibbs largely ducked questions about
Sotomayor's abortion views or her position on a so-called "right to
privacy" that has been used to validate abortion. He retreated to his
boilerplate language saying that Obama and Sotomayor have essentially the same
outlook on the Constitution.
"He felt comfortable that they shared
a philosophy on that interpretation ... [of] the living document of the
Constitution of the United States of America," he added.
With Obama taking a clear pro-abortion view
that a "right" to abortion is somehow found in the Constitution, that
should send a signal to the pro-life movement that Sotomayor is prepared to
vote to uphold Roe v. Wade if confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Kevin
Williamson takes another look at the Left’s double standard on judges,
illustrating how “compelling personal stories” are only an asset for liberal
judicial nominees, not conservatives.
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