Alito is in

Samuel Alito is a man of integrity, a man of obvious intelligence and is experienced with fifteen years on the bench in the second highest court in the land. He comes with the ABA's highest recommendation possible. He is recommended unanimously by his fellow judges on the bench where he currently sits for character, fairness and integrity, and by all the Republicans in the Senate for loyalty reasons, to the party and President. So naturally, most Democrats will vote against him, qualifications and integrety be dammed.
Alito will be approved by the Senate Committee and passed on to the full Senate for and up or down vote and he will win approval by a majority. The Senate Committee's interrogation of Alito was a poor exercise in bad Hollywood entertainment. The highlight of the entire hearing was Mrs. Alito's crying. This was supposed be a display, for the entire country, of how our governmental system of checks and balances works. I works very badly. Why, because Kennedy, Durbin, et al, have decided to oppose anything or anyone the Republicans favor, justified or not.
The debate is not about what is good for the country, as it should be, it's not even about Judge Alito, or Social Security Savings Accounts, or about illegal wire taps, and it hasen't been since 1994 when the Republican's swept into Congressional power.

It's all about power. Always has been, always will be in a democracy. It's all about how you behave when you lose or when you're out of power in government and that is the real test of character. Look at Iraq's trouble in getting organised politically, they are really being tested. Will the minority in their government resort to temper tantrums and saber rattling?

In our government the Democrats are currently, totally out of power. They don't chair committee's, they don't choose agenda's, they are the minority in DC and that is like being one step above dog catcher. The Democrats haven't been in this position for seventy years and they don't like it. They are not in charge of anything and they don't have any say about it except for camera face time and Kennedy's boys don't like it. I can understand one party being opposed to another for philosophical reasons, we all can, but when they start behaving like small children with no say so over their parents decisions, I have no pity.

When a president offers up to the Senate a nominee for associate justice he is likely to pick someone he likes and that pleases his party. For the opposition to oppose the nominee out of simple spite and not for the purpose of showing the public obvious reasons why the judge should not be nominated, says little for oppositions character.

For me, character and conviction in an elected official are number one on my list of reasons to believe in the overall political system. When some politicians display a lack of character not only in them but in their party and it reflects on all of them. I don't care what they believe in they simply turn me off. The public turned off the Senate hearings somewhere just after the beginning of their allotted thirty minute speeches to the camera's began. It was obvious that most Senators were not interested in questioning Alito, they had already had made up their minds on how they were going to vote. They simply wanted face time before their constituents. When the second day of questioning began, the Senators again took up the majority of their allotted time talking to the cameras, leaving little time for Alito to respond to questions. In fact, the ratio of Senators time at the mike to Alito's was something like three to one.
Alito showed intelligence, patience, style, and grace. The Senators showed why their branch of government enjoys a thirty percent approval rating and sinking fast. They just don't get it and it doesn't look like they will anytime soon.

Do Atheists work on Christmas Day?

New Years Day comes on Sunday this year and Atheists get the day off. In fact, they take off New Year's and Easter too. Worse, they take every Sunday's off, every week, all year around, all over the world! Why not take off Tuesday's? They ought to establish there own day off from the work week to rest! After all, they must be terribly offended because they don't have to work on Sunday?

What is this all about? It's about tradition and precedent which makes for good law. Supreme Court nominee Judge Alito, when recently questioned, said law is largely about respecting precedent and rulings by prior court decisions.

We were all taught back in High School about British Common Law precedent as being the foundation for the American legal system. So where does that leave Christmas and anything Christian in the American scheme of things? How do liberal judges justify breaking the common law precedent of tradition? Remember the childhood precedent lesson you learned from you big sister, 'na, na, finders keepers, na na'?

The city of San Diego has used a cross as a part of it's symbolic city seal for over a hundred and fifty years because some body wanted to acknowledge a Franciscan Friar for establishing a parish in San Diego. How does a San Diego judge of today order it removed because it offended someone? In God We Trust on the dollar bill might often someone so should we remove it?

The majority of this country is still Christian and has been since the sixteen hundreds. Does that mean we change away from Christian ideals by removing there symbols? It seems to me that that is forcing down the throat Atheist ideals, the very thing Atheists claim to object to. The difference is precedent and tradition. We don't change the law, precedent, or tradition for a few people. We change the law to benefit the many by legislating a new law appropriate to the problem, like handicap laws.

Speaking of being offended, Red, as a color, has offended me since before I was born until Communism fell in the Soviet Union. Now since the United States has been politically split into Red and Blue, conservative or liberal voting states, I love the color red. Although Russia, because of Putin, has the beginnings of a distinct pink glow about it. But that's for a later article.

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Christian symbols are everywhere in our everyday life, in city names like San Francisco, to crosses at Arlington, to the Pledge of Allegiance. We acknowledge these precedent setting names and symbols through respect, pride and tradition and until some law appears on the books locally or nationally we need, very badly, to have judges on the bench that respect those precedents and traditions to maintain some continuity in this country.

We are at War, does anyone remember?

A great American newspaper for some unstated reason continues to support and comfort radical Muslim propaganda. It is shameful and dangerous to American soldiers and the American people. It is as if The Times were writing scripts for the bad guys, for their media outlets and Al Jazzera television.

WE ARE AT WAR and Abu Grabe, wiretaps, Guantanimo, Koran desecration, prisoner torture are all Times stories that cost American lives for the sake of journalism, anti Bush journalism. What came out of all those sensationalised, fundamentally accusatory, flawed stories were the finding guilty of a couple of misguided American soldiers. Soldier mistreatment of prisoners could have been handled internally and discreetly by the military if elected officials and the media used discretion. Instead they got their stories and political capitol without regard to the cost of how many soldiers lives and how many new recruits for al Qaida came about.

The Times leads us to believe that America ferries prisoners to various countries that mistreat their prisoners because the government has some perverse, cruel intentions. The report of wire taps put on American citizens without court approval is again reveled not for the protection of American citizens but to embarrass the president and to imply that he thinks that he is above the law. What transparent political muckraking.

WE ARE AT WAR and disclosing a variety of national security secrets at the Times choosing, as the Times does, is near treasonous.

War is hell, and the participants get hurt, hurt others, and break things, that is the nature of the terrible business. Our soldiers and their allies risk their lives every day to bring a better life to Iraqis. Where are the stories of their accomplishments? Every day the enemy is out to kill our young boys and girls. Is it that they want to bring a better life of freedom to Iraqis? I don't think so! They kill more of their own than ours. Our soldiers need our protection, support and warning if they are in jeopardy, as do our US citizens at home need the protection of information. Information provided quite often by captured prisoners and wiretaps.

President Bush, and Secretary of State, Condi Rice said in public statements that we do not torture prisoners. I believe them. I prefer to believe them. I want to believe them and until some one proves otherwise I'll continue to believe my President and Secretary of State. To accuse without proof is simply propaganda for the enemy and political hay for opposing politicians.

Why is it that accusations show up on page one and later proof otherwise shows itself on page eight, if at all?

WE ARE AT WAR and it is not the US policy to torture prisoners, but we do interrogate them. Congress is debating and defining new definition's and limitations of interrogations. Senator McCain is very much in the middle of the issue because of his up close personal military and prisoner history, and he is a political hack as are most politicians. His concern and involvement is understandable and welcomed. But to all of us there should be only one first concern, the protection of US citizens and our soldiers.

WE ARE AT WAR and that is distasteful to our civilized desires in this day and age. Most Americans abhor war and all the killing and lost treasure that goes with it. Many find it difficult accepting the fact that we really do have an enemy that would kill us as soon as look at us. The fantasy world of believing that if we picket or rally for 'no more war,' that somehow our enemy's will simply go away or disappear. They prefer to believe that the war on terrorism is our fault, or Bush's, or America's. Not all of us recognize that we are being forced by the times to make distasteful decisions.

WE ARE AT WAR and the enemy that has no rules, no uniforms, no country, no stated goals except to kill indiscriminately. No one in this country in their right mind ever wants war. The protesting liberals think the subject of peace, not war, is their exclusive domain. That they thought of it, they campaigned and picket for it, and they are the only ones that want peace. What they fail to remember is that throughout our history we have always had to pay a high price for peace.

Two thousand and one brought to the President and most of the country a new understanding about war and a new kind of war. War on our soil. The immediate reaction and understanding reached by this administration is to not stand by, but to react. Initiating a military action against those responsible and those that support our destruction now, and on our terms, on their turf, is better and wiser than sure disaster later on our enemy's terms, and on our turf.

This new kind of war is one where the depth and level of the enemy's willingness to commit terror to achieve unstated goals is no more than the mayhem created by street gangs in any city in the world. All gangs and their leaders are criminals and enemy's of the state including rogue nations.

Abroad, the coalition of willing nations seem to be the only ones with the foresight to stop those rogue nations in there tracks. The list of rogue nations and their leaders is not long but they are deadly dangerous.