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Besides the obvious SEIU union thuggery during the Obamacare debate, I see on today’s morning Obama News (NBC television) that the Obama Justice Department and Congress are ramping up the investigation of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. Allegedly they were involved during the Bush Administration in the politicization of the United States Attorneys – particulary the firing of such in New Mexico.

Hello – the United States Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. Remember when Bill Clinton assumed the Presidency and on day one he fired ALL of the United States Attorneys?

I find it particularly interesting that in the Obama Administration Justice Department, the Black Panthers are receiving a “free ride” and that hater Karl Rove receives so much attention.

Is there any wonder why President Obama is sinking like a stone in the Presidential approval polls?

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The Day By Day Archive

Looks like Judge Sonia Sotomayor has chosen her words poorly MANY TIMES. What great White House spin vetting, eh?

Her repeated use of the phrases “wise Latina woman” and “wise woman” would appear to undermine the Obama administration’s assertions that the statement was simply a poor choice of words. After details of the 1994 speech circulated before the questionnaire’s release, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, emerged from his private meeting with Sotomayor and expressed new concerns about the nominee’s “identity politics.”

Judge Sotomayor will have alot of explaining to do now with regards to racial and sexual preferences. Her speeches, writings, cases and life will be gone through with a fine-toothed comb.

During her confirmation hearings she will have to clearly articulate/prove that she is unbiased and will apply justice for all Americans – not just “Wise” “Latina” or “Women” ones.

Remember that some have maintained that it is Sotomayor’s supporters that may indeed “SPIN” her out of a job on the United States Supreme Court.

Stay tuned……

But, words DO matter.

President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge.

“I’m sure she would have restated it,” Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.

The quote in question from Sotomayor has emerged as a rallying call for conservative critics who fear she will offer opinions from the bench based less on the rule of law and more on her life experience, ethnicity and gender. That debate is likely to play a central role in her Senate confirmation process.

Said Sotomayor in 2001: “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.”

After three days of suggesting that reporters and critics should not dwell on one sentence from a speech, the White House had a different message Friday.

“I think if she had the speech to do all over again, I think she’d change that word,” presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

I am actually taken aback from the White House rushing to Judge Sotomayor’s defense. Her nomination appeared to be heading toward an easy confirmation with Republicans treading carefully around the issues of her Hispanic race and affirmative action.

Perhaps the White House noticed some softness in her polling.

President Obama has made his first United States Supreme Court appointment.

President Barack Obama named federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor as the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as “an inspiring woman” with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.

Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the “respect of colleagues on the bench,” the admiration of lawyers who appear in her court and “the adoration of her clerks.”

Elections have consequences and left-wing President Obama has chosen a left-wing appeals court judge for the highest court in the nation.

Unless there is a scandal, the Democrats have the votes to confirm her and the GOP will be hard pressed to oppose her nomination.  All that is left to the GOP is a filibuster and the likelyhood of that happening is NIL.

But, Obama while he was in the Senate voted to filibuster Justice Alito saying their are NO rules. Maybe there will be some GOP payback here.

And, in order for the nomination to emerge from the Senate Judiciary Committee, there will need to be one GOP Senator to vote for her. The most automatic vote for Sotomayor would have been Senator Arlen Specter but he is no longer a Republican.

The Senate Democrats will spin Sotomayor as a moderate but she is not. However, she is replacing another left-leaning justice (Souter) so the balance of the court will be the same.

Stay tuned as the vetting process begins and don’t be surprised when her left-wing radical opinions see the light of day.

Of course, Justice David Souter who was appointed by Republican President H.W. Bush and who has surprisingly aligned himself with the left-wing cabal on the U.S. Supreme Court decided to retire when a Democrat President, Barack Obama was elected.

NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term.

The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction.

At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court. In fact he is in the younger half of the court’s age range with five justices older and just three younger. So far as anyone knows, he is in good health. But he has made clear to friends for some time that he wanted to leave Washington, a city he has never liked, and return to his native New Hampshire. Now, according to reliable sources he has decided to take the plunge and has informed the White House of his decision.

Factors in his decision no doubt include the election of President Obama, who would be more likely to appoint a successor attuned to the principles Souter has followed as a moderate-to-liberal member of the court’s more liberal bloc over the past two decades.

In addition, Souter was apparently satisfied than neither the court’s oldest member, 89-year-old John Paul Stevens, nor its lone woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery over the winter, wanted to retire at the end of this term. Not wanting to cause a second vacancy, Souter apparently had waited to learn his colleague’s plans before deciding his own.

Justice Souter was a disappointment to conservatives and the fall-out over his choice by the first President Bush divided conservatives in his re-election bid which he lost to Bill Clinton.

Flap cannot help but think that this retirement, announced conveniently after Senator Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democrat Party is a poke in both President Bushs’ eyes and the GOP.

The philosophical balance of the court will most likely not change with President Obama’s appointment of a successor. By the way, with the Democrat super majority in the United States Senate, the GOP will have NO ability to give any meaningful advice and consent anyway.

This bill which outlawed “animal crush” videos was overturned last year by a federal appeals court and was sponsored by Flap’s Congressman, Elton Gallegly. The United Sates Supreme Court today granted review of the case and will do so in the Fall Term of the court.

The Supreme Court will consider reviving a federal law banning the sale of images of animal cruelty. A federal appeals court said the law illegally restricts this form of free speech.

The justices said Monday that they will look at the decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that also overturned the conviction of Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Va. In 2005, Stevens was convicted and sentenced to 37 months in prison for selling videos of pit bull fights.

The appeals court described one video as including a “gruesome depiction of a pit bull attacking the lower jaw of a domestic farm pig.”

The government says it has a “compelling interest in protecting animals from wanton acts of cruelty.”

The Humane Society of the United States, backing the government, says that the 1999 law played a critical role in stopping the spread of so-called crush videos that show women crushing to death small animals, often with their bare feet or high-heeled shoes.

The case will be argued in the fall.

The case is U.S. v. Stevens, 08-769.

The United States Supreme Court will decide whether there should be a new exception to the First amendment to apply to the portrayals of animal cruelty.

The new First Amendment case the Justices will be hearing next fall or winter involves the constitutionality of a 1999 federal law, passed by Congress in an attempt to curb animal cruelty.  The en banc Third Circuit Court struck down the law as written, thus barring its use in any case no matter what the specific facts.

Although the law has been in effect for ten years, it was used for the first time to prosecute Robert J. Stevens of Pittsville, Va., for selling videotapes of fighting among dogs of the Pit Bull breed.   He was convicted of three counts of violating the 1999 law, and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.

In nullifying the law, the Circuit Court refused to create a new exception to the First Amendment to apply to portrayals of animal cruelty. It noted that the Supreme Court “last declared an entire category of speech unprotected” by the Amendment in 1982 (in New York v. Ferber, involving child pornography).  The Circuit Court rejected a government argument that the depiction of animal cruelty was analogous to the depiction of child pornography.

In taking the case on to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department argued that the 1999 law is narrow in scope, applying only to a “particularly harmful class of speech,” only when that is done for commercial gain, and only when the particular depiction has “no serious societal value.”

It may be a close call for the court, but Flap does not really see any societal value in permitting animal cruelty or “animal crush” videos. As long as the decision is narrow, there should be no danger to our constitutionally protected free speech.

Stay tuned……