Three justices
In the July 17 letter "Remaining votes," the writer's insulting comments about Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan reveal the kind of misogynistic thinking that makes my blood boil.
If these three women — who through their intellectual gifts, sound judgment and work ethic have become justices of the highest court in the land — can be lambasted by this letter writer from Lewisville for their "feminicity" (whatever that is) when they are simply doing their jobs making decisions based on many combined years of experience with the law, then I'd hate to hear what this guy thinks of the rest of us.
I understand that birth control makes it tough to keep women barefoot and pregnant, so perhaps this writer's angst is less about the constitutionality of a health care law than the audacity of women who aspire to greatness outside the bedroom/kitchen and achieve it.
While it is perfectly acceptable for citizens to disagree with Supreme Court decisions and to proclaim our disagreement from the highest mountaintops, it should be well understood by most rational and fair-minded individuals that just because someone disagrees with us, he or she is not necessarily an idiot — or as this letter writer proclaimed, steeped in "feminicity," which is apparently the ultimate insult as far as he's concerned.
And by the way, if the person who wrote "Remaining votes" is ever standing before a judge, either male or female, you can bet he won't be praying for "cold, hard, legal judgment" then.
TERRI K. ERICKSON
Lewisville
Bankrupt philosophy
The funniest thing about the conservatives' anger toward Chief Justice John Roberts is this: The individual mandate was their invention. They're upset with him because he approved their invention.
If Sen. John McCain had won the presidential election in 2008 and introduced the mandate — "No more free-riders!" — they would have been thrilled with it. They would have heralded it from the mountaintops. And if Roberts had then declared it unconstitutional, their anger would have known no bounds.
It is a topsy-turvy world when conservatives hate their own policy simply because a so-called liberal instituted it. Seriously, how bankrupt does your political philosophy have to be for you to campaign against your own idea because your opponent agrees with you?
GENE SPRINKLE
Winston-Salem
Sum It Up
Is it possible for a third major political party to rise in America today?
Correspondent of the Week
Class warfare
According to the Correspondent of the Week ("The working poor," July 15), the middle class is now being pitted against the "working poor." Who could be surprised that class warfare has now conscripted more Americans?
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said the Obama administration is responsible for pitting one American against another and for promoting a sense of aggrievement and entitlement.
Democrats have not always supported such policies. President Thomas Jefferson opposed a resentful and redistributionist government. He advocated a wise and frugal government, which did not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
President John F. Kennedy opposed the politics of envy, stating that "a rising tide lifts all boats." President Bill Clinton announced that "the era of big government is over" and signed on to a welfare-reform act that repudiated the type of redistributionist policies advocated by the current administration.
The pessimism and resentment described by the Correspondent of the Week were also associated with the malaise period of President Jimmy Carter. The malaise was lifted with the election of President Ronald Reagan. Enterprising Americans were freed from redistributionist government, and the economy boomed, lifting all boats as Kennedy had predicted.
In November, Americans will be able to validate the optimistic policies of Jefferson, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton by rejecting the resentful class warfare of Obama.
ROBERT L. WATSON
Advance
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe left accuses the right of waging>>>The right accuses the left of waging:
ReplyDeleteWar on the poor>> > Class warfare.
War on working people>>> War on business.
War on the middle class>>> War on the middle class (yes, both).
War on immigrants>>> War on savers.
War on the family>>> War on the family (again, both).
War on children>>> War on marriage.
War on the elderly>>> War on the American way of life.
War on public employees>>> War on religion.
War on teachers>>> War on Christmas.
It's a miracle any of us are still alive! The 'war' metaphor may win media coverage and rile voters, but it excludes the kind of debate that can actually solve problems.
By Jeremy Shapiro / September 23, 2011.
BuckyJuly 21, 2012 7:33 PM
ReplyDeleteThe only difference between Obama and Marion Barry is that we don't have a video of him smoking crack cocaine.
false, Bucky, I know how to diagram a sentence and English is my NATIVE language. "A difference" between would have worked, but the "only" difference is a whole new ballgame. Another Smackdown. En boca cerrada no entran moscas.
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightening and a lightening bug." When will they ever learn.
DeleteI was addressing drug use. If we had a video of Obama smoking crack cocaine, like the one shown of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, would he still be the POTUS? That was my point.
DeleteHe's admitted using cocaine in his book-Dreams of My Father.
Much was made of Bush's alleged use of cocaine. I'm merely raising the same point about Obama's use of illicit drugs that has been glossed over by the liberal media.
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough Bob. But I would like to thank you for bringing up the subject again so that all readers can think about the it.
And....in respect to your Spanish adage: The same applies to both you and Rush.
DeleteBut I thank both of you for joining forces. It was getting a little boring swatting both of your foolish statements down so easily, like they were 'flies' in the air, so to speak.
Hee..Hee..you gotta love liberals. They're entertaining, I'll give 'em that. I wonder if Anthony Weiner will pull his pants down during the election for NYC mayor, or after? Oh dear! It just never stops.
So . . .
Delete. . . by the same reasoning, would G-Dub-Bush have remained POTUS had voters, legal and illegal, known of his cocaine use ? ? ?
H-H-H-M-M-M-M-M . . .
Bucky, Apologies always accepted. And Bucky, in political dialogue, clarity is always important. Just ask Mitt or Barack..."I like eing able to fire people" or "you didn't do that yourself." You know what they say if the heat in the political kitchen is too hot for you.
DeleteNunca mire en los dientes un caballo regalado.
DeleteA lot phrases in English don't translate over into Spanish well Bob. And, they don't have the same significance.
DeleteThe one I like to describe liberals is: Se cagan sobre todo. I think it fits well, however.
Then I would go wipe myself off if I were you. You're completely covered in it.
DeleteBut if the fu shits wear it.
DeleteWhere's your buddy at today? I think you need to call in re-enforcements.
Delete@Phargo:
Delete¡Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja!
English translation: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
;-D
I don't need no reinforcements, bucky. Let me put it this way. When it is just you and I, I am General Pavel Laprindi and you are Lord Cardigan.
DeleteWhere is that von Suppe when you need him?
DeleteSo Bucky, did God create man in His own image?
ReplyDeleteCarrots replanted
which is more nonsensical, two like minded geese that poop on everything, or the bunny rabbit that keeps coming back to get pooped on everyday?
Delete;-D
DeleteBRAVA, Ms. Erickson, for your well written LTE. I have no doubt that YOU will be LAMBASTED for speaking YOUR mind. And I have in mind at least ONE very prolific forum member that will indignantly respond to your LTE even as said forum member makes good use of his right to free speech.
ReplyDeleteJustice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is probably the smartest of the three female justices, but she's also the ugliest. It's too bad we don't have more balanced female members of the court, like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was. I think a female's perspective 'is'important in Supreme Court decisions. But not if they are going to be primarily political in nature. After all, justices are 'supposed' to be making decisions based on the law, not their personal feelings.
DeleteWhy, then, do presidents make partisan supreme court nominations if the Justice's decisions aren't going to be "primarily political in nature"? After all, justices are 'supposed' to be making decisions based on the law, not their personal feelings.
Deleteand all Supreme Court Justices must be approved by the Senate. Although, it's rare, the Senate can filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. President Lyndon Johnson's nomination of sitting Associate Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Earl Warren as Chief Justice was successfully filibustered in 1968. So anyone sitting on the Supreme Court is effectively approved by both sides of the aisle.
DeleteFacts remain that a sitting president makes supreme court nominations that are closely aligned with their own political leanings with ABSOLUTELY NO consideration for the aesthetic qualities of the nominee.
DeleteLet me say this from a man's perspective. It's more pleasant to be told to go to hell from a pretty woman, than from an ugly one.
DeleteI don't know if that makes sense to you in relationship to female SC picks, but it should be crystal clear to the 'straight' male participants of the forum.
That's why I listen to FoxNews. They've got all these foxy women reporters on there, and when I flip over to CNN, there's always some B/D staring me in the face. Not good!
Now do you understand?
No, it's all superficial, but there are many superficial people in the world, so you are not alone.
DeleteStunning Information on the Colorado shootings:
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Cinemark Holdings Inc., owner of the theater where these murders took place exercises its rights as an owner of private property in Colorado to bar those who hold concealed carry permits from exercising their rights in its theaters. As a result, law-abiding citizens, including owners of concealed carry permits, who were in the theater that dreadful night were unarmed and thus unable to defend themselves and their fellow movie-goers from the murderous attack visited upon them.
Opponents of the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws call the areas created by Cinemark's decision "gun-free zones." They are not. As we discovered to our great horror in the early morning hours of July 20 and as we have discovered in the past, they are free only of the guns owned by law-abiding citizens.
William Perry Pendley, an attorney, is president of Mountain States Legal Foundation.
__________
How many times do you think you'll read this information in the media?
Oh well. Liberals will just shrug their shoulders and go about life making more BONEHEADED decisions, costing other people their lives.
You can't change a liberal's mind. Why? Because they're always right, and refuse to listen-just ask our resident, forum bonehead-Rush.
Pathetic!
Bucky, the shooter was in military armor including throat guard. A laser pointer to blind him would have been more useful than a gun small enough to be concealed.
DeleteA shootout in a crowed theatre, where one shooter has a concealed firearm, against an armored nut with an assault rife with 100 round clips, two handguns, and a shotgun. Makes a lot of sense too me. PHHHF!!!
DeleteNow you're beginning to sound a lot like Gohmert Pile.
DeleteThe Weapon he used, The Rem AR-15 was banned until 2004. In fact, n 2004, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney signed a permanent assault weapons ban into law in Massachusetts. That included guns like the AR-15.
Delete;-D
Deleteinteresting, because from all indications I've heard so far, the shooter himself was a law abiding citizen who purchased all his weapons legally. and purchased 6,000 rounds online. You can purchase the munitions for mass murder without an ID of any sort (you have to at least register to vote) but in some states you can't vote without an ID. Makes perfect sense to me, PHHHF.
DeleteBob, I expect liberals like Rush to make boneheaded statements, but you? Naaaah.
DeleteThe AR 15 was not banned until 2004, only certain qualities of the gun were banned. AR magazines were limited 10 rounds during that brief time. However, all the magazines made before the 'Assault Weapons' ban were grandfathered in. There are/were millions of them then, and there are even more now. Thanks to Obama.
You can kill as many people with the wrong vote as you can with a gun. It looks like we're, unfortunately, getting ready to find that out.
DeleteSorry folks. I know you all missed me. But I was out for my daily 5 mile run.
Wordly, you get the liberal gold star of the day.
DeleteI know this sounds sexist, but I never would have thought that such an astute comment about guns and tactics would come from one of the female participants of the forum.
Given your incredible knowledgeable comment about the shooting in Colorado, could you comment on what would be happening or would have happened had Zimmerman been female vs. male?
Thanks in advance.
I don't know much about guns, admittedly, but isn't the AR-15 like a semi-auto version of the M-16?
Deleteyes, but somehow I don't see someone in a crowded theatre with a laser pointer trying to take down this guy with a gas mask and a riot helmet,some gas masks even cover the eyes. It's hard enough to aim a laser and hit someone's eye much less when they are shooting at you with an AR-15 with a 100 round clip, and toxic gas in the air.
DeleteSomebody with a little training could have taken him out. I'm not foolish enough to say it would have happened, but it could have happened. Had there been more than one armed citizen in the theatre, the odds would have gone way up.
DeleteThat's why I'm against these 'gun-free' zones, like WS City parks. They are just crime scenes waiting to happen.
with more bullets, the odds of more people being shot in the crossfire go up too.
DeleteIf you were a criminal, ask yourself: Would it be safer to rob somebody in a city park, where you know there probably no guns, or in some other area of WS?
DeletePrecisely.
If you could ask any of the twelve people who are now dead, if they wished they had gun. I'll bet most would say yes.
Deleteirrelevant. I'll bet if you asked them if they wished they had gone to see a different movie, they would have said yes too. I'll even bet the Japanese wish they had surrendered before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Deleteoh ye who lauds the "laws of nature," there are NO guns in nature. If your God had wanted his creation to have guns, Adam would have shot Eve.
DeleteHighly relevant. It was a matter of life and death, and the dead people could have protected themselves if it weren't for the liberals at Cinemark Holdings Inc.
DeleteBucky, the SS couldn't even protect President Reagan and Jim Brady from being shot with all their training, expertise and firepower in broad daylight.
DeleteAll you ask for is a chance in life Bob. Liberals took that away from those poor dead people by prohibiting guns in that theater.
DeleteThat is a disgusting lie. John Holmes took that away from them.
DeleteYou are no better than that ABC newsman who inferred it was the Tea Party type.
DeleteBob, your proclivity toward sexual perversion is showing. John Holmes?
DeleteJames Holmes
DeletePhargo, I know a John Holmes who used to work in pistol permits at FCSO. I thought that's who you were talking about.
DeleteBucky, you might also know him. ;-D
ah, John Holmes,lol, johnny wadd, the Southern Baptist with perfect church attendance, honorable discharge from the Army Signal corps, turned porn star of Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door fame,
DeleteI still like you Bob. But....Geeeez!
DeleteThe Southern Baptists will do it to you every time.
DeleteYea, I remember seeing Behind the Green Door.
Delete1972, my senior year in High School. I think it was at some drive in on the East side of town where you could drive up on a hill an watch without actually going into the drive in.
DeleteGun laws don't work. There are more than 600 violent, armed gangs that roam the streets of Chicago, and it has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
DeleteI don't know why liberals just don't get it?
Ah, Thank you, Bucky. Now anytime I hear a Southern Baptist type complain the democrats are trying to shove something down their throats, I will remind them that John Holmes was a Southern Baptist.
DeleteFlamingo
DeleteYou may be right, Bucky, it could be way too late now, Eisenhower warned us.
Deletehahah, yes, the Flamingo, And the Thunderbird, wasn't it on like S Main? Some of my parents friends lived right beside it and we would go sit in the back yard and watch films.
DeleteThe NRA is more responsible for the deaths of those people and their pimps in congress than the cinema who exercised its corporate personhood right not to allow guns on its private property.
DeleteBucky, thanks for the gold star. Can I come and get it? Where and when can we meet. I can't wait to hold it. Gold, gold there's gold in this here forum.
;-D
DeleteWordly, I'd like to get a response from those that are now dead if they would have liked to have had a gun during the shooting.
DeleteI've got a pretty good idea of what their response would be too.
I hope the victims' families sue the pants off of that cinema for refusing CCW holders access to that movie theater.
DeleteAs always, the Dunce cannot help acting the dunce. He has never been in combat or any other situation like what happened in Aurora, so has no idea what he is talking about.
DeletePut him in that theater and he's mess his pants and try to crawl under the seats.
Add another shooter, particularly some CCW sissy boy with zero training to the mix, and you can pretty much double the death toll.
And he sure as hell doesn't know anything about guns. Yesterday he was prattling on about the Russians selling guns in the US and mentioned the Mosin Nagants, an obsolete bolt action rifle created in 1891 and last updated in 1959.
As my grandfatehr used to say, there's no accounting for fools.
Grandfather...
Delete"As always, the Dunce cannot help acting the dunce. He has never been in combat or any other situation like what happened in Aurora, so has no idea what he is talking about."
DeleteRush
____________
Again, our village, I mean our forum NW just can't resist making unfounded and inaccurate statements. He has never met me, nor does he obviously have a clue about who I am, or what I've done in my life.
He thinks he knows, because he has jumped on the village bandwagon, and believes I'm Tim Britton. So it goes-so goes one fool, so goes them all.
hmm, no one has mentioned that name in a longggggg time. hehehe
DeleteI wouldn't laugh Bob. You got on the same train to nowhere to.
DeleteDunce, I don't know or care who you are. You don't realize it, but your ignorant comments tell us way more than you want us to know about you, not to mention the clear evidence that you are a serial liar.
Deleteand Albert Einstein said it best:
Delete"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't matter anyway."
Where might the "train to nowhere to" go to?
Deletehehehe, talk to da hand, bucky, we dropped tim months ago, it's odd you would bring him up again.
Deletethe train to nowhere to, took toto to tootoo land too.
DeleteSome of you people remind me of people riding the subway in NYC who fail to get off at their stop.
DeleteWas that Houston.....? Huh...?
Oh Geez.
Rush, your own statement that I just quoted proves you're a liar, because you don't know me. You liberal boob!
DeleteToo bad you're not a smart as you think you are.
Hee...Hee
Good...I like a tag-team approach. Hee Hee.
Delete"You people?" hahaha, Hi Ann, how's Mitt.
DeleteI started on a journey about a year ago to a
Deletelittle town called Morrow in the State of Ohio.
I've never been much of a traveler, and I really
didn't know that Morrow was the hardest place I'd
ever try to go.
So I went down to the station for my ticket and
applied for tips regarding Morrow not expecting to
be guyed. Said I, "My friend, I'd like to go
to Morrow and return no later than tomorrow for I
haven't time to burn."
Said he to me, "Now let me see if I have
heard you right. You'd like to go to Morrow and
return tomorrow night. You should have gone to
Morrow yesterday and back today for the train that
goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way.
If you had gone to Morrow yesterday now don't you
see, you could have gone to Morrow and returned
today at three For the train today to Morrow, if
the schedule is right, today it goes to Morrow and
returns tomorrow night."
Said I, "My friend, it seems to me you're
talking through your hat. There is a town named
Morrow on the line now tell me that."
"There is," said he, "but take from me a
quiet little tip. To go from here to Morrow is a
fourteen hour trip.
The train today to Morrow leaves today at eight
thirty-five. At half-past ten tomorrow is the time
it should arrive. So if from here to Morrow is a
fourteen hour jump, can you go today to Morrow and
get back today, you chump?"
Said I, "I'd like to go to Morrow so can I go
today and get to Morrow by tonight if there is no
delay?" "Well, well," said he to
me, "and I've got no more to say. CAN YOU GET
anywhere tomorrow and get back again today?"
Said I, "I guess you know it all but kindly
let me say, how can I get to Morrow if I leave
this town today?" Said he, "You cannot
go to Morrow any more today 'cause the train that
goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way."
I was so disappointed. I was mad enough to swear.
The train had gone to Morrow and had left me
standing there. HE HAD NO RIGHT in telling me that
I was a-howling jay. I could not go to Morrow so I
guess in town I'll stay.
Written by Bob Gibson. As performed by the Kingston Trio.
I feel like Fawn Hall in here sometimes, and you people are Ollie's documents.
DeleteNot surprising...stupid people are never able to tell when they have once again been shown to be stupid people.
DeleteWhat kind of Russian gun was that that we should be concerned about Dunce?
and act like Monte Hall, Ann.
DeleteI guess we people have all the information we need
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteBankrupt philosophy. Maybe not. Not all Republicans would buy in just because some would. Those of us with more traditional libertarian-conservative views would resist. Justice Roberts approved of the matter as taxation which is clearly Congress's job. IRS agents will apparently be empowered to enforce. Beyond this one decision, there is now a framework, under the reestablished taxing power--not the over abused Commerce Clause- for tackling the inevitable reform and privatization of Medicare and Social Security. The unseen long game is that sustaining Obamacare as a tax helps preserve the reformers ability to adopt two items on their own political wish list: the Paul Ryan plan to privatize Medicare and George W. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security.
ReplyDeleteClass warfare. Or what ever kind of warfare it takes is what the Central Planner- be it the White House, Congress or the Federal Reserve- will use to maintain authority and insulate itself and even grow. As the Central Planner seems to, according to Adam Smith, "imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board", the end result is that "society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder." We are surely in disorder and the Governing class fears our eventually understanding why.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible for a third major political party to rise in America today? No need. The Democrat party is dying from root rot and the Republican party has not been used for very much the last several decades. The former can be allowed to kill itself off and the latter can be taken over.
ReplyDelete;-D
DeleteLast year, the New Mexico Secretary of State conducted an extensive study of the state voter rolls.
ReplyDeleteShe found 641 dead people, all former legal voters, still on the rolls. She was pretty sure that none of them had voted in recent elections. She found 104 noncitizens on the rolls. 19 of those had cast ballots since registering.
New Mexico has about 950,000 registered voters. So the percentage of dead registrants is .00067 of all registered voters. The percentage of noncitizens is .00011.
So the percentage of either dead or noncitizen voters is what statisticians call "irrelevant".
That is surprising, because Dunce assures us that there are thousands, if not millions of illegal immigrants registered to vote. In a state like New Mexico, which has a very high percentage of Latinos, one would expect the numbers to be a bit higher.
Oh, I know. Silly me. The NM Secretary of State must be a lying liberal Democrat.
Oops, not the case. She is a lying conservative Republican. I say lying, because in her original report she said that she had found 117 registered noncitizens of whom 37 had actually cast ballots. An audit of her report showed that she had jacked the numbers up a little.
Maybe somebody should do her family tree. Bet they would find that she is related to the Dunce, that family of infamous serial liars. Then maybe he could give her a lesson or two.
If you're going to lie, lie big…after all, that is what Dr. Goebbels would do.
BTW - The closest statewide vote in New Mexico history occurred in the 2000 presidential campaign, when Al defeated W by just 366 votes. Of course, that became irrelevant after the SCOTUS, rather than the people, decided the election by a 5-4 vote. Even if all the dead people had voted for W in New Mexico, it would have made no difference in the national outcome.
Other than that, there has never been another statewide vote decided by fewer than 2,000 votes, so even if the dead and the non citizens had voted as a block, they couldn't have influenced a single outcome.
I think that both parties are making a mistake by focusing on noncitizen voters when clearly the dead outnumber them significantly.
If I were running for office, I would be prowling the graveyards in an attempt to get out the dead vote. And maybe scribbling down a few tombstone names of those not registered to see if I couldn't get them on the rolls too.
After all, nearly 900,000 people are buried each year in the US. Think of what a constituency that would make over 10 or 20 years.
900,000 people burried each year. Many of them thanks to the good old NRA.
DeleteAs Monte Python would say: "Bring out your dead." Yes, the NRA, the most powerful lobby in DC, funded by members and the Military Industrial Complex. And of course add to that now the Prison-Industrial complex (privatized prisons) who lobby for stricter drug laws and punishment (they love 3 strikes and you're out for non-violent criminals) The only way to make a profit is to keep those jail cells filled.
DeleteWordly, how many people are being buried because Obama's DOJ allowed guns to walk in Operation Fast and Furious?
DeleteHow many people are being killed or were killed because Reagan sold weapons to Iran? How many Americans are being killed in Afghanistan with weapons we gave the Taliban?
Delete