McCain And Obama Differ On Supreme Court Appointees, Global Warming Innocent Of Hurricanes And Doctors Head To Texas

Three really good stories today. Let's start with McCain vs. Obama on Supreme Court Justices. McCain has promised to appoint strict Constitutionalists in the mold of Justices Alito and Roberts. Obama is promising activist Justices who are more emotional rather than rational.

From the L.A. Times:

Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), in a speech two weeks ago, echoed the views of conservatives who say "judicial activism" is the central problem facing the judiciary. He called it the "common and systematic abuse . . . by an elite group . . . we entrust with judicial power." On Thursday, he criticized the California Supreme Court for giving gays and lesbians the right to marry, saying he doesn't "believe judges should be making these decisions." Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) said he was most concerned about a conservative court that tilted to the side of "the powerful against the powerless," and to corporations and the government against individuals. "What's truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves," he said in response to McCain. ... Obama has also praised current Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. "I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through," Obama said.

Remember, it was "empathy" and "feeling" that brought about the socialist policies that have universally been disasters wherever they have been adopted.

It is not just a theoretical policy debate. Whoever is elected in November will probably have the chance to appoint at least one justice in the next presidential term. The court's two most liberal justices are its oldest: John Paul Stevens turned 88 last month, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75. McCain promised that, if elected, he would follow President Bush's model in choosing Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Right now, they way things are going for us Conservatives, John McCain represents our last, best hope for keeping the Judiciary in the hands of Justices who truly respect the Constitution and all of the principles our Founding Fathers wisely wrote into it.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

John McCain And Barack Obama: Two Visions Of The Supreme Court
David Savage
Los Angeles Times
May 19, 2008

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A new study coming out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is showing evidence of what many of us already knew: Global Warming is not responsible for hurricanes, despite Al Gore's screeching claim that the hurricane season of 2006 was going to be twice as bad as 2005. (The truth is that 2006 was notable for it lack of storms.)

According to Fox News:

Ever since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hurricanes have often been seen as a symbol of global warming's wrath. Many climate change experts have tied the rise of hurricanes in recent years to global warming and hotter waters that fuel them. Another group of experts, those who study hurricanes and who are more often skeptical about global warming, say there is no link. They attribute the recent increase to a natural multi-decade cycle. What makes this study different is [Tom] Knutson, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, N.J. He has warned about the harmful effects of climate change and has even complained in the past about being censored by the Bush administration on past studies on the dangers of global warming. He said his new study, based on a computer model, argues "against the notion that we've already seen a really dramatic increase in Atlantic hurricane activity resulting from greenhouse warming." The study, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, predicts that by the end of the century the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent. The number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States and its neighbors — anywhere west of Puerto Rico — will drop by 30 percent because of wind factors. The biggest storms — those with winds of more than 110 mph — would only decrease in frequency by 8 percent. Tropical storms, those with winds between 39 and 73 mph, would decrease by 27 percent.

I know the libs just hate it when they are confronted with real facts and data rather than the emotionalistic rhetoric of a man who is making millions of dollars off of his eco-pandering. (BTW, someone should ask Al Gore how much profit he makes every time he sells a carbon credit. If it is higher than the 6% margin that the oil companies make, someone should investigate Al for price gouging.)

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Study: Hurricane Spike Not Caused By Global Warming
Associated Press via Fox News
May 19, 2008

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And finally, we note that doctors are headed for Texas. Why? Tort reform. It is once again economical in Texas to open new practices withour having to worry about ambulance chasers like John Edwards using you and your insurance company to make themselves rich while at the same time driving health care prices so high that the lower class can no longer afford it.

From the Wall Street Journal:

In 2003 and in 2005, Texas enacted a series of reforms to the state's civil justice system. They are stunning in their success. Texas Medical Liability Trust, one of the largest malpractice insurance companies in the state, has slashed its premiums by 35%, saving doctors some $217 million over four years. There is also a competitive malpractice insurance industry in Texas, with over 30 companies competing for business. This is driving rates down. The result is an influx of doctors so great that recently the State Board of Medical Examiners couldn't process all the new medical-license applications quickly enough. The board faced a backlog of 3,000 applications. To handle the extra workload, the legislature rushed through an emergency appropriation last year.

And this is a really good idea, one that might have stopped John Edwards from doing so much damage in North Carolina:

One judge now makes all pretrial discovery and evidence rulings, including the validity of expert doctor reports, for all cases. This creates legal consistency and virtually eliminates "venue shopping" – a process by which trial lawyers file briefs in districts that they know will be friendly to frivolous suits. Trials still occur in plaintiffs' home counties.

I know, I know. The libs will still blame the "greedy" insurance companies in the rest of the U.S. But it is clear that liberal trial lawyers who seek their fortunes at the expense of insurance companies are the true culprits.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Why Doctors Are Heading For Texas
Joseph Nixon
The Wall Street Journal
May 17, 2008

Democrats In Denial About Iraq, MS-13 Strikes Again And Supreme Court Looks At Lethal Injections

Ever since MoveOn.org completely embarrassed the Democrats with their slanderous ad about General Patreus, the Dems have been very mum and quiet about the War on Terror, in particular, the pacifying of Iraq.

It is no secret that the surge strategy is working now and has been for several months. Where there used to be headline after headline about more U.S. troop deaths in Iraq, the headlines barely mention it anymore. In other words, "if it isn't bleeding, it isn't leading." Old Media will never make front page news out of a situation that appears to be going good, especially if such news makes a Conservative look good. Old Media will instead sniff out stories to make the Conservative look bad.

But they can no longer do that with Iraq. That's why the Dems are quiet. They don't want to admit that they were wrong and Presdient Bush, under advisement of his military commanders, was right.

According to the Review & Outlook section of the Wall Street Journal:

Across the political spectrum, observers have announced the surge a success. This achievement must be a source of enormous pride to the U.S. soldiers and Marines who have pulled it off. So what we take away from the four Democratic Presidential candidates' stunning display of misinformation and false statements about the surge Saturday evening is that they have simply stopped thinking about Iraq. They seem to have concluded that opposition to the war permits them to literally not know what the U.S. or the Iraqis are doing there. As the nation commences the selection of an American President, this is a phenomenon worth noting.

What Barack Obama said is most noteworthy here:

His first assertion echoed what has become a standard line by the war's opponents, that "we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence." What can this possibly mean? In more than six years there hasn't been one successful terrorist attack on the U.S., even as places elsewhere were hit or actively targeted. Then Senator Obama placidly said that the Sunnis in Anbar Province began to help the U.S. "after the Democrats were elected in 2006." What's more, the Democrats' victory showed them they were "going to be left very vulnerable to the Shias." This obviously means the Democrats would abandon them. But the Sunni Awakening, as it is called, with its fall in bloodshed, occurred only after the Anbar Sunnis were convinced that the U.S. troops would not abandon them to al Qaeda in Iraq. Sunni sheiks have said explicitly it was the new U.S. policy of sustaining the offensive against AQI that made it possible for them to resist the jihadists. The U.S. military has supported the spread of these "awakening councils" in other areas of Iraq. It is navel-gazing in the extreme for Mr. Obama to suggest U.S. Congressional elections caused this turn.

Perhaps someone out there will remind B. Hussein Obama that his own leader in the Senate, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, was all over the national news screaming, "The war is lost!"

If Obama honestly believes that such an attitude caused the changes in Anbar, then surely the Senator will purchase a bridge is Brooklyn that I have for sale.

More:

Governor Bill Richardson, who touts his foreign policy credentials, in the space of a minute made five false statements about Iraq. He asserted "zero" internal reconciliation, "zero" progress on sharing oil revenue, "zero" regional elections, "no" increased effort by the government to train their own security forces and "no" effort to push back against Iran. One can certainly question what the Iraqis have done in all these areas, but to reduce the last year to a nullity isn't worthy of a serious candidate. "If you look at what happened in Iraq," said John Edwards, you'll see that violence fell after the British withdrew from "where those troops were located." This is precisely the opposite of what happened. The Brits were located in southern Basra province, and their drawdown began last month after what U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband at the handover ceremony called a "massive" decline in insurgent activity. Mr. Edwards's view that a troop pullout will reduce Iraq's violence is unique among public figures anywhere. In different ways one can explain the views of these three. Senator Obama seems to be talking his way toward believing that eloquence and credibility are the same thing; Mr. Edwards's campaign is aggressively parochial in its interests; and Bill Richardson used the debate Saturday to blow up the remnants of his campaign.

The Dems need a serious reality check.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Democrats In Denial
Wall Street Journal
January 8, 2008

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And in a previous blog entry, we saw how Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS-13, defaced a Vietnam Veterans War memorial in Connecticut. It seems as though they have struck again.

From the World Net Daily:

Authorities in New Haven, Conn., have launched an investigation into the establishment of the radically violent MS-13 street gang in their city after a second case of apparently gang-related vandalism within a week. ... "This irks me. This hurts me deep to my heart," Vietnam Army veteran Emery Linton Sr. told the station then. Linton, who served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972, noted he lost friends there and called the mess on the memorial a slap in the face to veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. "People here respect these names. They gave their lives for everything, for the freedoms they have," Linton said. As WND reported, the El Salvador-based MS-13 operates in 44 U.S. states, according to the FBI. WND reported as early as 1995 the gang reportedly was meeting with representatives of al-Qaida and smuggling operatives into the United States from Mexico.

It should be especially noted here that New Haven, Connecticut is a sanctuary city that provides illegal aliens with driver's licenses so they can access public services at the taxpayer's expense.

And exactly how long will we continue turning our heads in the opposite direction?

You can access the complete article on-line here:

MS-13 Hits Vietnam Vets' Memorial Again
World Net Daily
January 8, 2008

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Finally, we have the Supreme Court looking into the issue of whether or not execution by lethal injection causes pain for the condemned. Check this out:

Several justices indicated a willingness to preserve the three-drug cocktail that is authorized by three dozen states that allow executions. Such a decision would allow lethal injections, on hold since late September, to resume quickly. Justice Antonin Scalia said states have been careful to adopt procedures that do not seek to inflict pain and should not be barred from carrying out executions even if prison officials sometimes make mistakes in administering drugs. "There is no painless requirement" in the Constitution, Scalia said. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also indicated their support for the states' procedures. Other members of the court, who have raised questions about lethal injection in the past, said they are bothered by the procedures used in Kentucky and elsewhere in which three drugs are administered in succession to knock out, paralyze and kill prisoners. The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, a third drug that stops the heart can cause excruciating pain. The second drug, meanwhile, paralyzes the prisoner, rendering him unable to express his discomfort. "I'm terribly troubled by the fact that the second drug is what seems to cause all the risk of excruciating pain, and seems to be almost totally unnecessary," said Justice John Paul Stevens.

I'm terribly troubled by the fact that these murderers caused excrutiating pain to their victims and the victims' families but libs only have feelings for the murderers, not the murdered.

I thought libs were supposed to be sensitive people.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Justices Divided Over Lethal Injections
Mark Sherman
Associated Press via GOPUSA.com
January 8, 2008