:agree: Steve...I think that is the smartest thing I have heard in quite some time. Like my earlier post where I said maturity doesn't win elections but strength and strategy does.
We don't need moderates....we need hard-core strong ,smart, focused, determined Conservatives to take control of this great country.( While there is still time)
Keedy

It seems like the Republican party might be moving in this direction. Hopefully they'll find some strong credible voices. If not it's going to be a long 4-8 years.

Here's the problem I see:

Right now we have the "most leftist" President and Congress ever, as a result of a pendulum swing from the early days of the GW Bush Presidency and GOP control of both houses, which was seen by them as "mandate" from the people for a strongly conservative government.

We could very easily wind up with a big swing the other way, because the current powers are taking this as a mandate for their version of "social reform."

I think these big pendulum swings result in strong polarization, and alienation, and are detrimental to the country as these "extremists" engage in legislation that by virtue of its extremism alienates everyone who is not on the far right or the far left (depending upon which brand of extremism is currently at the wheel).

I think the GOP's best shot at the next election is to woo the moderates. They'll still get the conservative vote.

Sorry to disagree but we missed out on one of the "big swings." Bush's terms were not extreme right. That is what the problem is. We haven't had a big swing to the right since Reagan. Bush had the chance with a republican congress but they did absolutely nothing. The huge swing we are seeing now has never happened before. The outragious spending and left-leaning policies coming down the last 4 months will turn this nation upside down.
You cannot spend your way out of dept. Printing money will only lead to inflation. You will need a wheelbarrow full of money to pay for a loaf of bread if the private sector keeps getting these hits.IMNSHO
Keedy

Where did GW fall short of the true conservative agenda?

Where do I start...fiscally,no-vetoes, immigration...

start wherever. I just want to know where he fell short of the conservative agenda.

Immigration, I agree with you.

Vetos: please explain.

Fiscally: please explain..

tell you what,,,I'll start a new thread.

I would rather concentrate on the NOW and the issues facing us today. George Bush is gone and Hussein Obama is in.
Keedy

Laker, what do you think McPain was, if not a moderate. I'm tired of voting for RINO's.

BINGO!!!

Boomer

I agree he was a moderate. I'm not arguing against that idea.

I'm arguing against the statement that somehow the GOP lost the election because he was too moderate.

It doesn't make sense to me that someone who wanted a more conservative GOP candidate, and who would have voted for a more conservative GOP candidate, vented his/her frustration by voting for an ultra-liberal like Obama.

Rather than insult the President with your oh so (not very) clever nick-names, we could concentrate on the NOW, and the issues facing us today, by taking a realistic view of what just happened, and where we went wrong.

I'm trying to understand your statements that somehow the nation wanted a more conservative President, and yet voted for a more liberal choice than your "too liberal" McCain.

But instead you choose to insult, and change the subject rather than answer a simple question.

Hussein Obama is the name he used for swearing in for the presidency. Seems he uses it at his own convenience. (do you always wake-up nasty?)
AS far as changing the subject...seems to me hijacking is your forte.

It might be a good idea to save using Hussein too often until the next election. If people get too familiar with it, it won't be effective in scaring away uniformed voters.

Actually, you are the one who hijacked this thread with your RL cut-and-paste talking points.
I started it as a discussion of Sonia Sotomayor's qualificatons as a Supreme Court nominee.:beer3:

Yes, I re-read and my post #30 was a little off-topic but your own post #61 suggesting that we start another thread kind of changed the tone a little, you think? As for my "talking points"...are we not in a political forum? We can analyze this until the cows come home. Her qualifications aside, does anybody here really believe that we can appoint somebody to the Supreme Court and not ask the questions on which way she leans.
In a perfect world, it would be nice to have justices that just interpreted the law but, it is not going to happen. After all..were only human....
Keedy

Post 61 was from VK.:read:

Sorry...As the original poster, kinda late for policing thread? :beer3:

In doing a bit of research I came across an organization called National Council of La Raza, an group of which the Supreme Court Nominee is an active member as I read.

Thus far all I can find is opinions from those I may consider too far left or too far right.

It appears the group has been controversial to some degree, and I am wondering if anybody here has any knowledge to share on the group !

Thanks

Admittely the link here is a right wing group but from what I can find...


...there is no doubt that the nominee was a member of this group until 2004

"This will certainly fuel some questions during the confirmation process. The NCLR has a number of critics for their open-borders and identity-politics positions, which would make Sotomayor’s “wise Latina woman better than a white male” comment seem right at home. In fact, they took so much heat during the immigration debate that they eventually added an entire section of their site disassociating themselves with concepts like reconquista, Aztlán, and other separatist notions. (Many of those criticisms apply more correctly to MeChA; La Raza did repudiate La Voz de Aztlán for its racism and bigotry.)"

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/0...for-six-years/

She will get the appointment but it may be good to see what we are getting and this group seems to be on the opposite side of immigration from me anyway, as they seem to want lots of things for illegal immigrants !

"The National Council of La Raza, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., welcomed the nomination of [Alberto] Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft.

"We are very encouraged by the Gonzales nomination," said the glowing endorsement by La Raza. "We previously criticized the Bush administration for not having an Hispanic in the cabinet since the departure of former HUD Secretary, now Senator-elect, Mel Martinez. We are pleased that one of the first acts since the president"s re-election both rectifies that situation and marks an historic milestone for the Latino community."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=41628

Not sure what your point is with this post on Gonzalez....this was not meant to be a "can you top this" kind of conversation nor was it meant to be a left versus right, but then again, this is what you do.....you seem to have to MUST have that party divide.

My point was to find out more about this organiation and if anyone knew anymore about them. As I said, she will be confirmed but we should know what we are in for especially in regards to immigration, and as I said also I didnt want to post far left or far right propaganda.

I think basic research on the group tells you that they will support latino nominees no matter the party...that is what they do and were founded to do..support latinos.

Geez...someday try the middle...it is nice here....that party stuff gets old !

The point is that LaRaza has supported members of BOTH parties, which kind of makes them in the middle.
By the way, snide insinuations do not place you in the middle.

:agree: There are some people here who give their opinions and there are just a few who only try to keep a running score.

Sorry if you felt I was being snide. I KNOW they will support any latino for any office which means I KNOW they will support both parties.

My question was about the organization...I said nothing negative about anybody or anyone....I wanted to know about the organization, NOT ITS POLITICS which after visiting their website became obvious. I even said I did not want to quote or go to any hard right or hard left site.

The post, in my opinion, said NOTHING negative about the candidate, nor was that the intent.

Another Thread With Little Or No Significance
 

Let me make a prediction...

Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed by a landslide vote by the U.S. Senate.

Everyone knows that the 59 Democratic Senators will vote for her confirmation. All that is needed are a few GOP Senators to affirm her nomination and bring her nomination to the Senate floor for a quick up-or-down vote. Let's just look at three states--all of which have major concentrations of Latino residents and voters--Texas, Arizona and Nevada. Five of the six Senators from those three states are Republicans. So far, not a single one has said that they would not vote to support Sotomayor's nomination. Very liklely, none of them will vote against her. They'd be committing political suicide.

So the way I read the tea leaves, Sotomayor wins in a landslide and a quick landslide, at that.

So, are there any other major political questions to get us all frothing at the mouth theses days? Because Sotomayor's nomination certainly isn't an issue that holds much question as to the outcome.

I don't know about the political suicide angle. Too many democrats are saying that. How come? I think the democrats are trying to use the bigot or race card again. I also think the RINO's should pick a side of the fence they want to fall on.

There is no doubt she will be confirmed.

However, such an opportunity to have a discussion centered around this nomination on many many topics ! Immigration, race, etc.

Two Comments On Sotomayor's Record
 

Picked up from watching the Sunday news shows this morning...

-- David Brooks, appearing on Face The Nation, commented that Sotomayor adjudicated about 90-100 cases that were rooted in a question regarding the rights of immigrants or minorities. According to Brooks, she ruled against the minorities in almost all cases.

-- In the New Haven firefighter's case, as one of three appellate court judges, she upheld the ruling of the lower court. That's a far cry from trampling on the rights of non-minorities who were clearly mistreated in the promotion exam process. The lower court judge made his ruling documented with a 47-page brief. Apparently both the written as well as the case precedents gave neither the lower court judge or the appeals judges a clear standard for making a ruling. So apparently the appeals court simply upheld the ruling of the lower court. Many have opined that the decision was a clear signal to the appropriate legislative bodies that the applicable law needed to be re-written. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court rules on this case in a few months. They will have no more written or case law than the lower courts, so any decision to overturn the decisions of the lower courts could truly be criticized as SCOTUS "making law" from the bench.
-----------------------
I have the first-hand experience with how the courts work in anticipation of an appeal. The case I was involved with was a capital case, the murder of a relative. While the evidence proving the guilt of the accused was overwhelming, the case seemed to meander at a very slow pace thru the pre-trial hearings process--a total of almost four years from the date of the crime until the start of the trail.

When I complained to the assistant state attorneys who were prosecuting the case, they explained that the judge was being extremely careful in documenting each of his rulings during the hearing phase of the proceedings, documenting each of his decisions with written or case law, much of which was researched and provided to the judge by the prosecutors.

The prosecutors explained the appeals process in this way...They explained that if the judge actually made an error in the admission of evidence or the conduct of the trial, those could be grounds for a successful appeal. They noted, however, that if the decisions made by the judge in the process were in compliance with written and case law precedents, and even if the judge could have justifiably ruled either for or against the accused based on the law and precedents, they explained that the appeals court would never overturn a lower court decision based only on their belief that the lower court judge made an error in judgement. The prosecutors explained that an appeals court will NEVER overturn the judgement of a lower court judge, particularly when his decisions were documented with briefs indicating the written and case law he used in arriving at a decision. Appeals are only successful if errors in procedure or evidence or the application of incorrect law were made by the lower court--not his judgement in deciding based on those things.

I don't know whether criminal case appeals are any different than some of the cases heard by appeals judges or SCOTUS. Nor do I know whether the explanation provided to me applies anywhere outside the State of Illinois. But if the theory that an appeals court will never overturn a lower court decision based on the judgement of the judge, that may go a long way to explain what happened in the New Haven case, and provide some indication of what might happen when SCOTUS rules on thee case later this summer.

Alot of time usually goes into picking a judge that reflects the values of the sitting president. Obama is on record for being one of the most liberal voting senators. Push comes to shove...we all know how she is going to vote.

Keedy

Certainty
 

I'm not so sure of how certain we can be, Keedy. There have been examples in previous appointments where the SCOTUS justice seemed to decide much differently than people were lead to believe prior to the confirmation of the appointment. Justice David Souter is a good example. He was appointed by President Bush 41 with the expectation that he would be a conservative justice. It turned out that his decisions and opinions leaned to the liberal side far more often than anticipated.

There is judgment and there is discretion and there is application of the law. I agree that the first is left alone in principle, but the other two are "open season."

Cases get reversed all the time on "abuse of discretion," and attorneys routinely argue that in appellate briefs and oral argument. "Application of the law" is where the appeals courts question lower court rulings, claiming the lower court misapplied legal precedents.

When prosecutors "dotted all the i's and crosed all the t's," their concern was about evidence exclusion since evidence admission attack is routine in criminal (especially capital) cases where the decision standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt" - a very high standard. Being able to eliminate any piece of evidence, especially when the elimination of one can lead to a chain of events which results in ghe elimination of a lot, is significant.

Civil/administrative cases rely on "clear and convincing" and the next lower "preponderance of the evidence" standards. Being able to eliminate a single piece of evidence can be highly dramatic.

So, when appellate judges hear appeals, they force respondents and petitioners to show why the lower court may have erred or was correct in rulings, depending on the basis of the appeal. They don't "re-hear" the case (unless the law allows de novo reviews, which is common in administrative cases, and the appeals court believes it is proper to do so).

In essence, appeals courts operate in the same manner as the "quality control reviews and inspections" done in almost every other industry. So, just because someone has a liberal or conservative or middle-road personal philosophy, how they do their jobs are not influenced to the degree people think by their personal philsophy.

Good point Kahuna....the political climate at the time of the Souter appointment was still In shell-shock because of the Bork episode. Of the 4 candidates that the Bush administration put on their list....Souter had the least "paper trail". Remember, even though nobody knew his opinions on issues like abortions, around 10 senators voted against him including Kerry and Kennedy of Massachusetts. The head of NOW, I think, protested that his appointment would set back women's rights.
So, in this political world of tit for tat...the left should not protest too much for the scrutiny displayed towards this most recent appointment.

Bottom line
 

After the things that I heard her say in recordings in the news yesterday, I can say honestly that she should not become a justice on SCOTUS. She is a racist and believes in racial discrimination.

Yoda

A member of the loyal opposition

Yes, she said she is a perfect example of affirmative action. I wonder how the person who didn't get in Princton, because she got their "slot" feels?

Her qualifications - academically and experientially - to do the job are fine. It seems that most of the complaint about her is that people don't "like" her.

One of the best management instructors I know used to describe organizations as having two types of people - the popular and the competent, and only very rarely do you find someone who is both. And she described that the most awkward point came when she asked students to honestlly categorize themselves as popular or competent.

As we examine the curent SCOTUS team, every one of them is indeed competent, yet each one ticks off some group of people big-time due to personal traits, heritage, attitude and opinions.

Judge Sotomayor rubs many people the wrong way, for a variety of reasons. However, she has shown herself as a highly competent jurist whose appellate rulings mirror the law. So, is the preference for an Associate Justice who is popular or would you rather one who is [I]competent[/I?

Competent sounds like one step up from mediocrity to me. A position on the Supreme Court should be exceptional. I personally think all of this is crap. There must be dozens of exceptional people out there that would put her to shame.

There are definitely degrees of competence.

:agree:

Steps
 

As a person who finished first in her class at Princeton, had an exceptional academic record and was on Law Review at Yale Law School, followed by a notable career as a big city prosecutor, private practice, and then several increasingly responsible appointments to the bench by Presidents of different political persuasion, I'd have to say that Judge Sotomayor is pretty high up the steps on the competence scale.

Are there others that are equally smart and experienced? Probably so. So what? Judge Sotomayor was the one nominated by the President--not any of the others. The Senate's job is to determine whether she meets the Constitutional requirements to sit on SCOTUS. So far, there have been criticisms of how her ethnicity and gender might effect her decision-making. But no one that I've read so far has demonstrated how her background has had any influence on her judicial decisions whatsoever.

The Constitutionally required process for the nomination and confirmation of a SCOTUS justice is well established. What the process is not is a candidate search to be conducted by the Senate. That's the responsibility of the President. The President did his job, so at this point the Senate's job is to consent to the nomination--nothing more.

As I've said before, all this racism conversation is little more than political posturing. Sonia Sotomayor will be confirmed in a landslide vote--because she more than meets the required qualifications. Period.