I have just read the news that tomorrow the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, will tender his resignation to the president.
Here is part of the statement released by Dennis Blair:
It is with deep regret that I informed the President today that I will step down as Director of National Intelligence effective Friday, May 28th,” Blair said. “I have had no greater honor or pleasure than to lead the remarkably talented and patriotic men and women of the Intelligence Community
Here is part of a written statement released by Barack Obama:
record of service to the United States,” and said that “[d]uring his time as DNI, our intelligence community has performed admirably and effectively at a time of great challenges to our security, and I have valued his sense of purpose and patriotism
This may be the “proper” thing to say– and he may be correct that Dennis Blair has a sense of purpose and patriotism– but I am not sure that it is correct. Barack Obama states that Dennis Blair “performed admirably,” but how admirably could he have performed if he was in charge of the evidence gathering that didn’t stop the Fort Hood terrorist attack? How admirably did he perform if the intelligence gathering agency had no idea that there was a plot afoot to blow up an airplane on Christmas day, or to set off a bomb in Times Square?
Someone had to be held accountable for these attacks and it appears to me as if Dennis Blair will be the fall guy, I would have preferred to see Janet Napolitano take the fall but it looks as if it will be Dennis Blair instead. I don’t have a problem with this.
There may be more to the story than just the three terrorist attacks that have occurred on United States soil since Barack Obama became president however. It sounds like Dennis Blair was on the short end of a few arguments between himself, the CIA, and Barack Obama.
It sounds as of there is still a struggle between the different intelligence agencies on who has jurisdiction over what. This is disconcerting nine years after September 11th. We may still not have the proper structure in place to ensure that Americans remain safe.
The structure is not working the way it was intended. The Director of National Intelligence has a lot of responsibility in the law, but does not have adequate authority to carry out those responsibilities,” said Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel now with Arnold & Porter.
“The White House keeps wanting to deal directly with the CIA, and that causes conflicts,” Smith said. “We don’t have that relationship right, and that’s what’s caused most of the conflicts. There is ambiguity in the law and it manifests itself most often in operations, in part because those are the acts of the intelligence community that are of most interest to presidents, secretaries of state and so on.”
“I think he needed stronger authorities, particularly in the management of the intelligence community, and in procurement of the big information gathering systems
Republicans were quick to jump on this news, Kit Bond– the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee– said:
DNI Blair deserves this nation’s thanks for his long service to our country. It must have been challenging to be forced on the sidelines by the Attorney General but still catch all the blame for failings
That Blair “would rather step down than continue to serve as America’s top intelligence officer is a disturbing sign of the stranglehold the Obama White House has placed on America’s intelligence agencies,”
While Pete Hoekstra– the ranking Republican on the House intelligence panel– said:
Clearly, and understandably, Director Blair was frustrated by the White House’s micromanagement and sidelining of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on national security issues
I am not sure that the resignation of Dennis Blair had anything to do with the “politicization of national security” as Pete Hoekstra went on to claim. If anything the Obama administration has tried to downplay the fact that our nation’s security is at risk. He has tried to de-politicize national security by pretending that if we ignore the terrorists they will go away. That is obviously not going to happen.
This leads me to believe that there is what may be an even bigger problem in our intelligence community– and that is the fact that we still have agencies which seem to be vying for the president’s approval instead of working together toward the same result– national security. We seem to have too many agencies looking for credit when thing go right while trying to defer blame when things go wrong.
Congress gives Felipe Calderon a standing ovation for bashing Arizona’s immigration law
I am going to be perfectly honest with you, the story that I am about to write about absolutely sickens me!
Today Mexican President Felipe Calderon stood in front of the United States congress and lectured them about Arizona’s new immigration law. His comments about Arizona’s law drew a standing ovation from congress.
He stood up in front of our government officials and slammed a law that one of our states made, and congress stood up and applauded him for this. I have seen many reports on the internet about Democrats giving him a standing ovation, but I am not willing to let Republicans off of the hook here. It appears to me that when the standing ovation started there were also Republicans who stood up and cheered him.
It can be argued that the congress was simply doing this as a show of respect to the leader of another country but that does not cut it in my opinion. I am disgusted by the fact that a foreign leader was on OUR soil, bashed OUR country, and OUR leaders cheered him on loudly for this.
70% of Americans polled agree with Arizona’s new law and yet congress decided to alienate those Americans in order to align themselves with the president of another country. It shows us where their true loyalties lie.
We MUST remember this in November and show congress where OUR loyalties lie– with the United States of AMERICA!
UPDATE: It turns out that it was actually Eric Holder who led the standing ovation, read more here.
Jeremiah Wright lashes out at Barack Obama
Barack Obama’s former reverend– the controversial, racist, anti-American Jeremiah Wright– has lashed out against Barack Obama for what he considers a slight against him when Barack Obama was a candidate for president.
Barack Obama spent twenty years listening to Jeremiah Wright spew his venom against America and when he was called on it, he denied ever hearing Jeremiah Wright say anything controversial. It is extremely hard to believe that Barack Obama could have gone to Jeremiah Wright’s sermons for twenty years and not have heard him say anything controversial and un-American. This leads to two possibilities; either he did not go to church that often, or he did not find what Jeremiah Wright to be all that controversial.
Regardless of which scenario is correct, once it became evident that Barack Obama’s association with Jeremiah Wright could possibly cause him major problems in his primary bid against Hillary Clinton, he quickly disassociated himself with Jeremiah Wright. Much like he did with his “typical white person” of a grandmother, he threw Jeremiah Wright under the bus in order to achieve his personal aspirations. So much for following the dictates of your heart regardless of what personal problems your “beliefs” may cause you.
For the first time we are hearing from Jeremiah Wright about his feelings on the way he was treated by Barack Obama during the campaign.
No one in the Obama administration will respond to me, listen to me, talk to me or read anything that I write to them. I am ‘toxic’ in terms of the Obama administration,” Wright wrote the president of Africa 6000 International earlier this year.”I am ‘radioactive,’ Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!” he wrote. “Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!
Barack Obama is a self-centered narcissist who will do whatever it takes to get ahead. When he thought that Jeremiah Wright would help him gain credibility in the community organizer world he quickly made every effort to attach himself to Jeremiah Wright– calling him a dear friend and his spiritual advisor, but once Jeremiah Wright’s positions became knowledge to a disgusted and stunned American people, Barack Obama had no qualms about ridding himself of his “spiritual advisor.”
And now for the first time Jeremiah Wright has unknowingly justified what many of us thought about Barack Obama all along– he has no true convictions other than his far left, Marxist views, but will say whatever it takes, and either condemn or condone people depending on what will further his political career and his radical agenda. Barack Obama is beholden to nobody unless they are useful to him– once they cease being useful they are “thrown under the bus.”
Jeremiah Wright learned this the hard way.
Last week there was a “terror sweep” in Boston that resulted in the arrest of three men who were funneling money to Faisal Shahzad– the Times Square terrorist and would be bomber.
There is one very interesting twist to this story, and I first heard about this twist on Michael Graham’s Boston talk radio show this morning. One of the men who was arrested in connection to the Times Square attempted Bombing was So Pir Khan– who applied for a taxi medallion– admitted in writing when he filled out his application for that medallion that he had come to the United States illegally. This application was submitted to the Boston police, and even though he admitted to being an illegal immigrant no action was taken against him. He was granted his taxi medallion and the rest is history.
Embedding of the video that I provided is prohibited, but just click on the link provided in the video and you will be able to view it.
Massachusetts is basically a sanctuary state for illegal aliens– the woman that Scott Brown defeated for the “people’s seat” in Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley, admitted as much when she stated that “it’s not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts”– so it is not surprising, although it is more than a little disturbing that no action was taken against So Pir Khan.
So Pir Khan was allowed to stay in Massachusetts even though the Boston police knew that he was in the United States illegally. This allowed him to funnel money to Faisal Shahzad to fund the attempted bombing of Times Square. He was in the country illegally and while working in a gas station he had enough cash on him to buy shares in Boston taxi medallions to the tune of $190,000, yet still no red flags were raised. He doubled his money when he sold those shares a few short years later– still no red flags.
It is by sheer dumb luck that the Times Square bombing attempt was unsuccessful, we have nobody to thank but the incompetence of Faisal Shahzad that this attempt was not successful; not Homeland Security and certainly not the Boston police or Massachusetts’s virtually non-existant immigration policies.
One has to think that if Massachusetts had an immigration policy that mirrored the new “controversial” Arizona immigration law that Faisal Shahzad would never have received the funding he needed to get as far as he did in his bombing attempt. If Massachusetts law mirrored Arizona’s, the Boston police would have had the probable cause to arrest So Pir Khan before he ever had the opportunity to partially fund the Times Square bombing attempt.
There is either a serious flaw in the immigration policy of this country, or a total lackadaisical attitude in enforcing those laws at the federal level– probably both– is it any wonder that Arizona felt it necessary to take matters into their own hands?
My thoughts on the May 18th primary results
Tonight I am watching the results of the most important elections, up to this date, heading into the mid-term elections. There are three races that I am particularly interested in; Pennsylvania’s Democrat senatorial race between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak, Kentucky’s Republican senatorial race between Rand Paul and Trey Grayson, and the Arkansas senatorial race between Blanche Lincoln, Bill Halter, and DC Morrison.
I am going to write about these races in the order that the results come in.
The first election results are in and Rand Paul has won the Kentucky Republican primary, defeating Trey Grayson by a 59-36% margin with almost all of the precincts reporting.
This is a victory for the Tea Party movement over the Republican establishment and should serve notice to all Republicans that they had better be on their guard. Rand Paul was endorsed by the Tea Party and ran a campaign against the establishment. Trey Grayson was basically the Kentucky Republican establishment’s hand picked candidate, he had the backing of the state Republican party, but yet the Tea Party managed to pull off this victory. But this was more than just a victory, this was a route. This race was never even close.
Rand Paul summed up this victory thusly:
I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back
Bravo! While the Tea Party is portrayed in the media as right wing– and while I concede that most members of the Tea Party are right wingers– there is more to the movement than that. We are sick and tired of politics as usual in Washington, we do not care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you do not listen to the will of the people you will be voted out. This should be a shot across the bow and a wake up call to Republicans who feel that they will ride an anti-Democrat wave back into power.
The Pennsylvania Democrat primary is now being called and Joe Sestak has defeated Arlen Specter. I have to admit that I am relishing this result. Arlen Specter famously changed parties when he realized that he was probably not going to be able to win a Republican party only to lose the Democrat primary instead. Arlen Specter’s loss is extremely gratifying to me, he is a turncoat who showed himself to be nothing more than a political whore when he decided to change parties not because of his beliefs, but for selfish personal reasons.
The Democrats are going to try to spin this loss as a victory by claiming that Arlen Specter wasn’t really a Democrat; they are going to claim that the true Democrat won the primary, and they have the candidate they want to run in the general election. But the truth is that Arlen Specter had the support of the national Democrat party and Barack Obama. The entire Democrat party lined up behind their establishment candidate and he still lost.
As I write this, Blanche Lincoln holds a one point lead over Bill Halter with DC Morrison trailing badly in the Arkansas primary. Lincoln has 43% of the vote and it appears unlikely that she will be able to get 50%. This means that there will probably be a runoff election.
This is interesting because it appears as though Arkansas voters do not think that Lincoln is liberal enough. She has gained a reputation as being a moderate, and is facing a challenge from the left.
All in all it looks to have been a good night for those of us who feel that the government is no longer listening to the will of the people. It is time for both the Republican and Democrat parties to start paying attention to the people they are supposed to represent, because we are paying attention to you.
More problems with Democrats for Elena Kagan?
I have written here about the possible obstacles that Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, may face with the far left voters in the Democrat party, but until now there really hasn’t been any questions raised about her positions– or lack thereof– by Democrats in congress.
Today that has changed as Louis Slaughter has called Elena Kagan’s abortion credentials “troubling.” Louis Slaughter is a senior House Democrat and is also the head of the House Pro-Choice Caucus. She is concerned about Elena Kagan’s 1997 memo in which she urged President Clinton to compromise on a bill; this compromise led to President Clinton backing a bill that included a ban on the most vile of abortions– late term abortions.
Louis Slaughter sites Elena Kagan’s lack of judicial experience as a reason to “fully examine” Elena Kagan’s pro-choice credentials. The lack of Kagan’s judicial experience is going to be made into a big issue in the confirmation hearings, not because this disqualifies her from the Supreme Court, but because people just aren’t sure where she stands on many issues. Both Republicans and Democrats are going to examine her more closely than they would examine a candidate whose positions have been well represented by positions they previously argued in court as a lawyer or ruled on as a judge.
Barack Obama is asking the Senate to act quickly during the confirmation hearings, and I honestly believe he nominated a person with a lack of courtroom experience thinking that there would be less of a paper trail, thereby making her nomination less contentious than it would be if she had clear cut written and argued positions. If this is the reason for Elena Kagan’s selection, it may have backfired.
Louis Slaughter may be the first elected Democrat to break with the party line and question Elena Kagan’s credentials, but now that she has I expect more Democrats to begin to voice their concerns.
This process is just beginning, we still have a long way to go, but if this is any indication we may be in for a long and interesting confirmation hearing. The only thing that can stop Elena Kagan from being confirmed to the Supreme Court is a revolt by the Democrats in the Senate. While Louis Slaughter may not have a voice in the hearing, this may open the door to Senate Democrats to begin to question Elena Kagan’s credentials on various liberal positions, this may be the first shot in that revolt.
Barack Obama’s aunt granted asylum in Boston
It isn’t surprising that an illegal immigrant would be granted asylum in Boston, and it is doubly unsurprising when you learn that that illegal immigrant is the aunt of the president of the United States.
Today Aunt Zeituni, who has been living in public housing at the expense of tax paying Americans, was told that she could stay in the country. Aunt Zeituni was denied asylum and ordered to be deported in 2004, yet she remained on the public dole all of these years. Now suddenly she re-applies for asylum now that her nephew is president and the next thing you know it is granted. What a strange coincidence.
Barack Obama claimed that he had “no idea” that his aunt was living in the United States illegally– which wasn’t exactly true— and the White house is claiming that he had nothing to do with this decision. And maybe he didn’t have anything to do with it directly, but you will never be able to convince me that the court didn’t take into account who her famous nephew was before handing down this decision.
What a great country, you can live here illegally for years after you have been ordered to be deported, and then be rewarded for your insolence. Why again does Barack Obama want to “fundamentally change” it?
The Supreme Court rules that “sexually dangerous” inmates can be held even after their prison term ends
Earlier today the Supreme Court ruled that sexually dangerous inmates can be held even after their prison terms ended. Needless to say, I find this to be a dangerous ruling that sets a precedent that could lead to future expansion of this ruling.
The challenge was made by four men whose sentences expired two years ago but are still being held in prison under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act signed by President Bush in 2006. In an interesting turn of events, it was Elena Kagan– nominated by Barack Obama to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court– who argued successfully for the government in this case; her argument being that this was no different than holding prisoners indefinitely who have highly contagious diseases.
Would anybody say that the federal government would not have Article I power to effect that kind of public safety measure? And the exact same thing is true here. This is exactly what Congress is doing here
The Supreme Court ruling was 7-2, with Justices Thomas and Scalia dissenting, in favor of the indefinite detentions of these men. While I understand that these men may still be dangerous and that these men are child molesters who probably should have been sentenced to much longer prison terms in the first place, I find it disturbing that American citizens can serve the length of their prison terms and be denied release upon completion of those sentences.
I fully understand that my position on this issue may seem hypocritical considering I hold the opposite position when it comes to the detention of the terror suspects that are being held at GITMO indefinitely, but I do see a major difference in these two scenarios. With the GITMO detainees we have people who are not United States citizens, who were captured on the battlefield fighting against the United States, and in my opinion are not to be given protections under the United States constitution, while in this case we have American citizens who have completed their sentences only to be told that they have not fully paid their debt to society.
Writing for the majority, Justice Breyer offered the following opinion:
The statute is a ‘necessary and proper’ means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others
we conclude that the Constitution grants Congress legislative power sufficient to enact (this law)
Don’t get me wrong, I find what these four men did to be among the most vile crimes that can be perpetrated, to hurt an innocent child is deplorable, but it seems like this is an issue of the lower courts being too lenient in their original sentencing, does that give the federal government the right to step in and detain these people after their sentence has been served? These inmates served the sentence that they were given, and having served that sentence it seems to me that they have done the time that was required by them according to the court and as such they should be set free. If they are dangerous as is thought, perhaps wearing an ankle bracelet and being closely monitored after their release would be the proper way to “keep tabs” on them.
This really presents a conundrum to me, while I do not feel sorry for these men– and while they probably should be in jail for 20 years– are they not entitled to regain their freedom if they finished the punishment that was levied upon them by the court they were tried in?.
The problem rests in the lower courts that initially sentenced these men, not with the federal justice system. But here we have the Supreme Court ruling that the federal government can keep these men in jail for as long as they wish. While I feel that these men probably did not serve enough time, I find it disturbing that the original sentence carries no weight any more.
Here is what Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent:
Nothing in the Constitution “expressly delegates to Congress the power to enact a civil commitment regime for sexually dangerous persons, nor does any other provision in the Constitution vest Congress or the other branches of the federal government with such a power
That is what is truly at issue here, where in the constitution is the federal government given the power to extend the sentence of a person after that person has served the sentence he was ordered to serve?
It is interesting– and more than a little scary– that for the most part the liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices seem to be on the same page on this issue.
Where does the Supreme Court go from here? Will it be perfectly acceptable for the federal government to detain ANY prisoners that they deem as dangerous after they have served their sentences? And who determines when these people will actually be let out of jail? What constitutes a dangerous criminal, could speaking out against the government the considered dangerous activity at some point in the future?
Again, I can’t say it loudly enough, I am not defending these men or the crimes they committed. The system is broken, but does that mean that the penal code now means nothing? The system needs to be fixed at the lower levels to ensure that these men serve the proper amount of time in the first place. Judges that initially gave these men light prison terms need to be held accountable, but the proper course of action would be to rehabilitate the system where the original errors occurred, not have the federal government come in and hold prisoners indefinitely once their prison terms expired. If the judges were following guidelines and those guidelines are too weak, they need to be strengthened, if the sentencing guidelines were not followed than the judges should be held accountable.
This ruling may be well intentioned, and in the end the people are probably better protected with these degenerates locked safely away, but I can’t help but feeling as if a Pandora’s Box has been opened that could lead to the indefinite imprisonment of lesser criminals somewhere down the line.
America is a nation of laws, these men were tried under the law, found guilty, and sentenced. Upon the completion of their punishment they were told that the law they were tried under wasn’t strict enough and that they must now remain in jail. I am not advocating the release of child predators, I am simply stating that the problem here lies in the original sentence and the lower courts, and should be addressed there, not by granting the federal government the authority to hold prisoners indefinitely.
Setting aside the seriousness of their crimes– and I know that is hard to do– does anyone else have a problem with this based on constitutional theory?
It appears as if Barack Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is going to get a little more contentious than his last pick– Sonya Sotomayor. But the contention seems to be coming from both sides, not just the right.
This is what happens when you nominate someone who doesn’t have much of a written resume, you garner doubts from both sides– just ask George W Bush how it went with Harriet Miers. Both sides have their doubts about Kagan; the right is afraid that she– much like Barack Obama– has purposely created this blank slate from which to work from in order to hide how much of a leftist she is, while the left is afraid that she may not be as liberal as they hope she will be. Everybody THINKS they know who she really is and what she stands for, but nobody KNOWS for sure.
The issues that the right are focusing their attention on are the issues of the second amendment, the freedom of speech, and the fact that she worked to prohibit military recruiters at Harvard– something that Jeff Sessions claims broke the law. Eyebrows were raised by the right when it was learned that she was “not sympathetic” to a man who claimed his constitutional right to keep and bear arms was being violated. She also said that the second amendment as well as the right to free speech have “strong but not unlimited protection.” She has shown an aversion to the recent Supreme Court decision that ruled part of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law unconstitutional.
But the fact remains that Elena Kagan will be confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice– that is unless the left raises too much of a fuss about the unknown aspects of Kagan’s stances, so I am going to focus this post on the two major issues that it appears the left may have with her.
The issues that appear to be most concerning to the left are her lack of activity on civil rights issues, and her stance on abortion.
Let us look at the issue of civil rights first:
Her resume notably lacks a stint doing the kind of traditional civil-rights work that other Democratic nominees could point to, as evidence of their liberal credentials.
This really should be a non-issue, especially in light of the fact that the NAACP has unanimously endorsed her but the fact is that her lack of a written record on these issues has many liberals concerned about her positions.
the issue of race is one reason some liberals fear Kagan’s confirmation would actually tug the court to the right, particularly on voting rights, immigration and racial profiling cases that could come before the justices
I am not even going to get into how insulting that position is– the fact that the liberals believe that a court which moved to the right would restrict voting rights stands on its own as outrageous– as if asking a voter to prove that he or she is actually the person they are claiming to be somehow violates their rights.
But the racial concerns that the left has about Kagan gets even deeper than that because while she was the dean at Harvard no minorities became tenured.
No African-American became a tenured or tenure-track professor at Harvard Law School while Kagan was dean
And then there is the following quote from a memo she wrote to President Clinton in 1997– one of the few times she is actually on record saying something:
“We believe that the central focus of the race initiative should be a race-neutral opportunity agenda that reflects these common values and aspirations. Of course, there is still a need for strong civil rights enforcement, narrowly tailored affirmative action programs and certain other kind of targeted initiatives….But the best hope for improving race relations and reducing racial disparities over the long term is a set of policies that expand opportunity across race lines and, in doing so, force the recognition of shared interests.”
This certainly seems to the average person to be an entirely respectable position for a person to have. The fact that all races should be treated equally without one race being lifted above another is what would happen in a perfect world– but she used the term “race-neutral” which to the left means that race would not even be considered when a company was hiring a person. While that would seem like a good thing to the average person, the far leftist views this as a racist position. They want people to notice race and they want to give certain races preferential treatment, they do not want “race-neutral” policies. To the leftist noticing race and hiring based on race– providing you hire the correct race– is non-racist, while not noticing a person’s race and treating everyone equal is in fact being racist. This is backwards logic, by putting one race above another– no matter which race it is– you are being a racist, while using “race-neutral” policies is actually the non-racist position.
So the left just isn’t sure about Kagan’s civil rights credentials, but that is not the only issue that may pose a problem for Elena Kagan with the left in this country.
There is her abortion stance– or stances. Again, because of her lack of courtroom experience and political writings, we just don’t know exactly where she stands on this issue as well. There has been some pointing towards an essay that she wrote in 1980, in which she seemed to chide pro-life candidates by sarcastically calling them “these avengers of ‘innocent life’ and the B-1 bomber.” That seems to indicate that she is pro-choice– and it has some Republicans up in arms- but then there is the memo that she wrote in which she urged President Clinton to compromise on a bill in 1997 and keep in place a ban on late term abortions.
And it is this memo that has the left wondering about her liberal credentials in general. The left will have trouble supporting a person that was willing to compromise on an abortion issue– even an issue as vile as late term abortion. Any compromise on this issue is considered a loss by the far left who feel that all abortions should be allowed, at any time, for any reason.
There may not be allot of political writing from Elena Kagan to this date, but the writings that we have seen seem to indicate that she may not be as far left leaning as the man who she is replacing was. This means the left will see this nomination as the court moving further to the right, and that is not acceptable to them. And her total lack of courtroom experience does nothing to alleviate the concerns that the left has with her. They probably should trust Barack Obama, I don’t see any way that he would nominate a person who did not share his beliefs. But there is always the chance that Barack Obama chose a more moderate candidate in an attempt to pick a person who would be quickly confirmed so that his domestic agenda wouldn’t get derailed by a long confirmation process. If this was his thinking, than it quite possibly backfire on him.
The left simply does not know enough about her to give her their full support and that could be the one problem that Elena Kagan faces during her confirmation hearing, she may be drilled harder by the left than she is by the right. I hope that the senate confirmation hearings push her hard, because a Supreme Court nomination is one of the most important decisions that a president has to make, and that decision is for life. We need to know where Elena Kagan stands on these issue. America needs to know, both sides and the middle need to know. As of right now, none of us know what to expect from her.
Barack Obama is calling for quick action on Elena Kagan, but it is because of all of these unknown factors that Elena Kagan deserves heavy scrutiny on the issues– Barack Obama said it best himself while talking about Harriet Miers’ lack of judicial experience when he said, “since her experience does not include serving as a judge, we have yet to know her views on many of the critical constitutional issues facing our country today. In the coming weeks, we’ll need as much information and forthright testimony from Ms. Miers as possible so that the U.S. Senate can make an educated and informed decision on her nomination to the Supreme Court.”
Those may be the truest words that Barack Obama has ever spoken, hopefully he will understand that the people who have these concerns today, are many of the same people that had the similar concerns over the nomination of Harriet Miers, because he was one of those people.
Ronnie James Dio dead at 67
Today it was learned that legendary heavy metal icon, Ronnie James Dio, passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 67. Being a teenager during the ’80’s, I considered Dio to be a heavy metal god. His music could almost constantly be heard blaring from my room or my car radio, along with Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden.
To me these three sum up what heavy metal is and is supposed to be. I do not consider some of the music that we hear called heavy metal today to be heavy metal. Dio, Halford, and Dickinson: those three are the greatest heavy metal voices of all time. And today we lost the man who might have had the most powerful voice in all of heavy metal.
It is true that since my teenage years I have drifted away from heavy metal and mainstream rock music as I tired of hearing the same songs on the radio over and over again. It is also true that I found Alternative music shortly after High School and stopped listening to the music of my High School years for quite a few years, but slowly over the last few years I rediscovered the music of my youth and began listening to it a bit more. After all, I do have fond memories of my teenage years and this music does bring many of those memories back. This is the music that I was listening to when I met the woman who would become my best friend and my wife, Lauri.
But there is even more to it than that; my oldest son, Andy, is a guitarist and he loves all types of music. He soon discovered some of my former heavy metal icons on youtube and began listening to them. Dio, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden being among those that he began listening to.
The music of my past became a bridge to the future and a means and a path to connect to my son. We share some of the same tastes in music, although his tastes are much more diverse then mine. And it is a little strange that after all of these years my son would discover the music that I once cherished so much. The music of Ronnie James Dio and the other heavy metal icons of the ’80’s made a connection between my son and I, we actually went to see Dio last year when he was performing with Black Sabbath under the name of “Heaven and Hell” and Dio sounded great, we had a great time.
Sometimes music can bring you together, and even though my family is close to begin with, sharing the music of my youth with my son was something special. Today Ronnie James Dio has died, and I feel as if a part of youth has died as well. But the fact that my son and I share his music today is proof that Ronnie James Dio’s music will live on.
“They say that life’s a carousel
Spinning fast, you’ve got to ride it well
The world is full of kings and queens
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams”
Ronnie James Dio, rest in peace.
America's Watchtower 