President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a declaration of war against America’s gun owners and the Second Amendment to our Constitution. If gun owners mobilize and unite, it’s possible (though unlikely) to stop this radical nominee.

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According to Judge Sotomayor, if your state or city bans all guns the way Washington, D.C. did, that’s okay under the Constitution.

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Last year the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in D.C. v. Heller, holding that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies to individual citizens in their private lives. The ruling marked a turning point in gun rights in this country.

In the past year, the biggest question courts now face is whether the Second Amendment applies to the states. That may sound crazy, but the reality is that the Bill of Rights only controls the federal government, it doesn’t apply directly to states or cities. Only the parts of the Bill of Rights that are “incorporated” through the Fourteenth Amendment apply to the states.

Since the Heller decision, only two federal appeals courts have written on the Second Amendment. That’s six judges out of about 170. Of those six, three said the Second Amendment does apply to the states. And those judges were out of the liberal Ninth Circuit in California, and included a judge appointed by Bill Clinton and another appointed by Jimmy Carter. — Even leftist judges can get this.

But not Judge Sonia Sotomayor. She is one of only three federal appellate judges in America to issue a court opinion saying that the Second Amendment does not apply to states. The case was Maloney v. Cuomo, and it came down this past January.

That means if Chicago, or even the state of Illinois or New York, wants to ban you from owning any guns at all, even in your own house, that’s okay with her. According to Judge Sotomayor, if your state or city bans all guns the way Washington, D.C. did, that’s okay under the Constitution.

This issue could not be more important. Today, on the very day President Obama has announced Judge Sotomayor’s nomination, the National Rifle Association is arguing Second Amendment incorporation in court before the Seventh Circuit in a case challenging the Chicago ban on handguns.

If this case, or one like it, goes to the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor would say that Chicago can ban all your guns. If she can persuade her liberal colleagues on the Court to join her, it could become the law of the land that states and cities can ban guns. Should that happen, then you can expect anti-gun liberals in state legislatures to rush to pass new state laws doing exactly that.

The White House is telling us all about Judge Sotomayor’s compelling personal story — and it is an amazing story of what is possible “only in America.” But compelling personal stories are not the question. Miguel Estrada, whom President George W. Bush nominated to the D.C. Circuit appeals court and was planning on nominating to the Supreme Court, had a compelling story as a Hispanic immigrant who legally came to this country not even speaking English. Democrats filibustered Mr. Estrada.

Supporters point out that Judge Sotomayor was first appointed by George H.W. Bush for the federal trial court — before Bill Clinton elevated her to the Second Circuit appeals court. That’s true, but George H.W. Bush also gave us Justice David Souter, so clearly he wasn’t too careful about putting liberals on the federal bench. We can’t allow the left to hide behind the Bushes.

But when it comes to gun rights, we don’t need to guess. Judge Sotomayor has put in writing what she thinks. President Obama has nominated a radically anti-Second Amendment judge to be our newest Supreme Court justice.

There are a number of pro-Second Amendment Democratic senators from deeply red states, including Mark Begich from Alaska, Jon Tester and Max Baucus from Montana, Ben Nelson from Nebraska, Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad from North Dakota, and Tim Johnson from South Dakota.

These senators will jeopardize their seats if they vote to support an anti-gun radical for the Supreme Court. Second Amendment supporters will now be up in arms over this radical anti-Second Amendment nominee, and you should never underestimate the political power of American gun owners.

Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow with the American Civil Rights Union and the Family Research Council.

by Jaye Estrada
Volume 42, Issue 30 | May 26 2009

At around this time two years ago, the presidential elections were underway. I was rooting for my candidate Hillary Clinton, as I thought she would be the easy shoo-in for the job. Well, we all know what happened — “yes, we can.” It was quite the interesting experience to follow the campaign through its longevity, even though it was only on TV.

One of the more disparaging aspects of the campaign was the sexism that threaded throughout the media’s coverage. Clinton had to be “man” enough to become president. However, after she seemed tough enough, there were qualms that she wasn’t “woman” enough. Then there was the crying incident where she choked up and showed some emotion. The barrage of comments ensued throughout the media that we couldn’t have a candidate who could cry. What would the terrorists think?
I wondered whether this was actual sexism or if I was just becoming defensive about my team. When our team is losing in a game, we know it’s because we never get a foul called or because the referees are against us. So I tried to compartmentalize what I saw. I didn’t want to play the victim card in defense of my team. Plus, as a guy, I was supposed to want someone to be more like me. Thus, when it became apparent that Clinton was not going to win, the notion of sexism in the media vanished. It was now time to root for Barack Obama.

Then there was Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Now I’m not 100 percent sure how much sexism was involved in this case. Definite cries of the sexism charge did come from her camp, likening them to Sen. Clinton. I thought about it as if it were happening and wondered if the similarities were there at all. While there were attacks on Palin, and some of them gross indeed, a lot of the non-family attacks against her were brought on because of her own mishandling. I suppose if one wanted to critique the media, it would have been more accurate to say that they chose elitism over colloquialism. And that, quite frankly, didn’t bother me, as my candidate was the elitist and hey, you need to be somewhat brilliant to be president. We’ve seen what happens when deliberation isn’t the first thing on a president’s mind. Case closed, there was no sexism leveled against Palin, and the Clinton incidents were a one-time thing. This was the first time a woman had a serious chance of becoming president and the media simply didn’t know how to cover it. The campaign ended, and “Change we can believe in” was ushered in. Watching TV psychoanalytically was over and done with. I didn’t need to read into every word. Life was back to normal. We won. It was now time to take off my political cap and put on my Lakers hat.

However, there was something different. I wasn’t able to become fully immerged in cognitive dissonance. There was an underlying tic that had been planted. As I continued to watch political shows, I saw it. On an episode of “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Republican Dick Armey made a sexist comment to Salon.com columnist Joan Walsh. After she continued to make the point of how Republicans messed up the economy, Armey said, “I’m so damn glad that you can never be my wife because I surely wouldn’t have to listen to that prattle from you every day.” What was more surprising was that Matthews didn’t automatically make it known what a sexist comment that was. After that segment was over, Bob Hebert of The New York Times stood up for Walsh, but that was well after Armey was gone.

More incidents continued to ensue; Bill O’Reilly regularly made sexist comments, such as Ann Coulter sharing recipes with Joy Behar, and made issues of certain subjects just to show women half-naked as if in a beauty pageant.

And then there was the one incident that stood out for me. After watching a playoff basketball game, the NBA on TNT post-game show came on. It was entertaining as usual with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. Barkley was teasing a camerawoman that he could do more push-ups then her. On an earlier episode, they had an actual contest. After teasing her, Barkley turned to his co-host Smith and said the joke, “How do you fix a woman’s watch? You don’t. There is a clock on the stove.” I laughed, thinking that it was a joke said when I’m hanging out with the guys, but it was really interesting that they said it on TV.

It finally dawned on me that sexism in the media was not about isolated incidents and that it was in fact acceptable. A group of males making fun of females was OK without any major repercussions. I can only imagine what the repercussions would be if it had been a bunch of white guys making jokes about black individuals. People would be outraged by it, as they should be. But jokes about women? Not so much.
It’s hard to imagine that this type of behavior hasn’t been dealt with and done away with sooner, considering women make up a little more than half the population in the United States. I think it’s time to wake this sleeping majority up.

Jaye Estrada is a third-year biological sciences and political science double-major. He can be reached at estradaj@uci.edu.

newuniversity.org/main/article?slug=sexism_in_the_media%3A192

I’ve been referring to him as Barack Baloney, having been taken in, I suppose, by the suggestion of alliteration. However, the pomposity of your suggestion is quite attractive and, most tragically, appropriate.

Maybe Obama is trying to upstage Reagan’s visit to the Kolmeshöhe Cemetery near Bitburg.

Re. torture: she was told about it, she failed to prevent it, she lied to cover up what she knew and failed to do, and now she wants to wash her hands of it. Such wrongdoing is not easily washed away however.

Sunday, May 24, 2009 5:31 PM

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu’s government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel to “read the riot act” to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, “…we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the U.S. will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy.”

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that “as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran’s nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself.” She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel’s doing, not Iran’s.

In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama’s end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action. As Metternich wrote, “diplomacy without force is like music without instruments.” By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat. The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel’s life is in danger. If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews. No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference. One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death. Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence. Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility. Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons. And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel. We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler’s rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country. If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb. (snip)

Obama may have held the first White House seder, but he’s not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.