Taking questions at her confirmation hearing today Supreme Court aspirant Sonia Sotomayor says she considers the question of abortion rights “settled law” and asserts there is a constitutional right to privacy.
She obviously reads the same version of the Constitution that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a former ACLU attorney, has tucked away in her chambers.
In responding to questions on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion, Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee “there is a right of privacy” – that the court has found it in “various places in the Constitution.” Specifically she says the right is stated in the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and in the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection of the law.
The often reversed appeals court judge Sotomayor said that “all precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law.”
During Ginsburg’s 1993 confirmation hearing, she provided a strong and unequivocal defense of a woman’s right to abortion, saying it was based on the Constitution’s explicit guarantee of equal protection — as well as an “unstated right of privacy.“
“It is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision maker, that her choice be controlling,” Judge Ginsburg told the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time. “If you impose restraints, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex. The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.”
No word from Ginsburg on the full equity of the pre-born human infant or its father.
From the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai to Toronto and points in between, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is on the go. He even works in a few trips to Washington D.C. to rail against those who oppose his Sanctuary City policies.
As to his global jetsetting, Philly says:
“When developing new economic opportunities, you have to do things face to face. I believe to create jobs, to help our city, to keep people safe, the mayor of Phoenix should be leading, not following, and risking that Phoenix will be passed by others cities in the country.
And I’m good at it. I’ve got the energy, I’ve got the background, and I’m representing the state of Arizona when I’m doing this.”
A suggestion you might want to consider regarding keeping the people of the city of Phoenix safe, Mr. Mayor: How about discarding the policies that provide safe haven to lawbreakers and reward criminality?
Another on Hizzoner’s globetrotting includes this portion: Gordon may be all over the map, literally and figuratively, as his critics allege. A more focused approach might make more sense.
FOX News reporter William La Jeunesse reports that the Social Security Administration is holding a 3-day training conference, including such illuminating subjects as “team building,” “diversity training,” “stress in the workplace, and “mentoring” at the exclusive five star Biltmore Resort in Phoenix — with an estimated price tag of $750,000 — paid for by American taxpayers, of course.
700 managers from as far away as American Samoa and Guam, along with a Washington D.C. contingent and their entourages will be lounging poolside at our expense in these most financially difficult times.
Listen closely to the remarks from Pete Spencer, a social security administrator as La Jeunesse asks him about the costly soiree.
By their own calculations the Social Security administration wastes $4.6 billion in overpayments each year.
For a bit of local bragging rights, La Jeunesse previously worked as an investigative reporter for KTVK-TV 3 and at KTSP- TV 10 in Phoenix. Believe it or not, this FOX News reporter began his journalism career at the Arizona Republic, where he spent five years writing investigative pieces for the daily. How far he’s come!
Italian luxury goods manufacturer VBH was thrilled to report that First Lady Michelle Obama was toting their $5,950 alligator manila clutch-style handbag earlier this week while tooling around Russia.
But the White House vehemently denied the nearly $6000 version, saying that the First Lady was only carrying the cheap $875 VBH patent leather clutch.
Whew! That sure beats paying an exorbitant price for a small handbag.
The New York Daily News reports that after sticking to their initial claim, the high-end leather manufacturer is now backing off. “If that’s what the White House is saying, then it’s a patent bag,” tactfully evaded the VBH rep — despite being certain earlier in the morning about the bag being the multi-thousand dollar version. “It’s definitely ours [manila bag],” she said at the time — although she now says that she made an assumption and misidentified the bag.
Ooo-kay.
But don’t forget the fashion conscious Obama served up porridge to the homeless at a D.C. shelter wearing a pair of $540 Lanvin sneakers. You know the ones. Gray suede, with grosgrain ribbon laces and metallic pink toe caps. You gals probably have a pair sitting right there in the closet at home.
Illegal immigration is once again front and center in today’s Arizona Republic‘s editorial. Nothing surprising there.
But before getting to the meat of this unpalatably re-heated meal, readers are served the appetizer litany of deaths of “migrants” succumbing to desert heat, kidnappings and drop-houses along with the gnawable bone for the ecology minded: “devastation to the borderland ecosystem.” These are today’s initial reasons put forth as key to the pressing need for ‘immigration reform.”
The real story in Linda Valdez’s editorial titled Arizonans Can Help Obama, is the role of the hometown crowd.
The editorial enthuses that Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl will join forces with Democrats Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano turned Homeland Security Chief, to “lead a bipartisan group assigned to advance reform.”
According to Valdez, McCain’s immigration credentials are “beyond reproach, since he recognizes that reform is necessary to facilitate an orderly future flow of migrant labor that is adequate to meet the need.”
Valdez’s assertion stands in direct contradiction to an above-the-fold, front page article in same issue of the newspaper detailing the growing number of churches and synagogues across the Valley forming support groups to assist with networking, career coaching and attempts to restore hope to desperate unemployed citizens. How does importing foreign competition, willing to work for lower wages, aid frantic American citizens who are jobless and losing their homes to foreclosure at record rates?
FOX News reports that liberal Democrat Chuck Schumer, steering an immigration overhaul through the Senate expects to have a bill ready by Labor Day. This time Arizona Republicans Kyl and McCain are deviously letting the Democrat take the flak for a bill on which they have previously been the architects and leading cheerleaders — along with their now ailing liberal cohort, Ted Kennedy. They are keenly aware their own Republican party has had its fill of their duplicity on this crucial issue.
The UK’s Telegraph reports on President Barack Obama’s speech to students at the New Economic School in Russia. Oddly, he lays out for them what he and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, refuse to institute for the United States of America — the right to sovereign, enforceable, national borders.
“State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order,” said Obama. “Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies.”
Then came his obligatory apology for America and the requisite ethnic references.
“By no means is America perfect,” Obama informed the Russian students. “Independent media have exposed corruption at all levels of business and government. Competitive elections allow us to change course. If our democracy did not advance those rights, I as a person of African ancestry wouldn’t be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a president.”
Scott Wong, writing for the daily, exposes some of the shenanigans that went on during the recent city council meeting when Phoenix attorney Bill Gates, a Republican, was selected to fill the vacancy created by the skedaddling of short-termer Maria Baier.
The supposedly non-partisan council and mayor were engaging in high-stakes partisan gamesmanship, intended to ensure a much different result to the composition of the left-leaning council. Mayor Phil Gordon, who has made an art-form of underhanded duplicity, is a liberal of longstanding and his hand-picked choice Tom Milton was flagging — causing Gordon to decide to deal from the bottom of the deck. Fortunately, Gordon was blocked in his ruse by an objection from Councilman Michael Johnson who pointed out the violation of rules and City Attorney Gary Verburg who ultimately put a stop to the maneuver.
Remember this exposé by Wong when the term-limited and shifty Phil Gordon decides to throw his hat in the ring for higher office.
Admitting he lied about his lies, he wants to feed us the same load of horse pucky he tried to serve up to his wife. She apparently isn’t buying and neither are we. And the people of South Carolina, who deserve better than the abandonment and spectacle in which Gov. Mark Sanford appears to be reveling, should show this fool and his stories of “sparking” and “crossing the line…but never the ultimate line,” (with anyone but his Argentine girlfriend, Maria) – the door.
His wife, Jenny said that he actually asked her several times to visit the mistress and she refused.
….comes clean with desire that GOP hold “permanent minority status”
Beginning her absurd column “Mexicans today are the Irish of yesterday,” by telling us more than we want to imagine about her unusual romantic life and subsequent marriage to a Mexican immigrant, Valdez pounds her pro-illegal immigration drum more ferociously than ever.
Ina an argument that doesn’t fly, she likens illegal Mexicans who are flooding into the United States in violation of our law and national sovereignty, to the Irish who came through Ellis Island to be lawfully processed after arriving via an ocean voyage.
Then she dives into a tirade — hurling brickbats at Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, who stands in opposition to La Raza (The Race) studies in the Tucson Unified School District. Horne exposes the Reconquista instruction as “ethnic chauvinism.” The program teaches students in American schools that the American Southwest belongs to Mexico and should be reclaimed.
Valdez contends this instills a “sense of pride and political savvy in Latino kids.”
After recounting her attendance at a seminar put on by Humane Borders, a group that places water stations in the desert to aid illegal crossers, she lays blame for heat-related deaths on those who believe a nation’s borders are legitimate and should be respected. She calls them “Demagogues, mean-spirited politicians and other blowhards spewing corrosive blather.”
Then she makes a not-so-startling admission.
“Horne and the GOP-led Legislature,” Valdez opines, “have attracted the attention of teenagers who usually have better things to do than watch politicians make fools of themselves. What those kids learn from this assault on their education will shape their political views — and help relegate the Republican Party to permanent minority status. This should trouble the mainstream Republicans who used to bring something to the political debate besides ideology and intolerance.
But it doesn’t bother this wife of an immigrant one little bit.”
Finally, she confesses to what we have long ago figured out.
Remember when the White House and the executive office buildings were places of decorum? Remember when the President of the United States regarded the Constitution with respect and our capitalistic-based economy and representative Republic were the envy of the world?
With the current occupants ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, those days are gone. Now, the cool dude who has access to the Oval Office ensured skateboarder Tony Hawk was given official permission to skateboard through the White House grand foyer and the hall of the Old Executive Office Building.
Hawk, who Twittered of his exploits, joined other dads, athletes and celebrities at a Father’s Day forum hosted by President Barack Obama. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay helped man the barbecue grills for a White House picnic for the attendees, which included NBA players Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat and Etan Thomas of the Washington Wizards.
“The Prez addressing all of us fathers before we split up to visit DC charities,” Hawk twittered. “D Wade & Etan T make me feel short.”
Posted by seeingredaz 
Posted by seeingredaz 
Posted by seeingredaz 