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1. Judge Sotomayor Deliberately Lied
2. Pinocchiobama Wants to Pull the Strings
3. House-Passed Perlmutter Bill Enriches Perlmutter, Family, Supporters
4. Dick Durbin (D-IL): It is Not in my DNA to Understand the Plight of Minorities
5. The Washington Post is now worried about Democratic tax plans.
6. This Isn’t Bipartisanship, Mr. President
1. Judge Sotomayor Deliberately Lied
As a lawyer, if you ever have to prepare a client who has some embarrassing stuff in their past (e.g. arrests, drug use), you always tell them, “Don’t worry about this stuff coming out at trial. It’s all irrelevant and we’ll get it excluded. The only way it becomes relevant is if you lie about it under oath. Then the other side can use it to show that you are the sort of person who would lie under oath, and therefore nothing you say can be trusted.”
I have always thought that Judge Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” comment, which she repeated on at least several occasions, was politically irrelevant. There was simply no way it was going to keep her off the bench, whatever it revealed about her biases and beliefs.
However, by now it has become obvious to almost everyone watching her confirmation hearings - including ardent Sotomayor supporter Maureen Dowd - that Judge Sotomayor is deliberately lying about her remarks under oath. And in so doing, Sotomayor has made the comments relevant.
Consider, if you will, with Federal Civil Pattern Jury instructions. These are the instructions read to jurors before they decide a case. I can’t find the 2nd circuit online, but I’m sure it is very similar to the 11th Circuit’s pattern jury instructions. On the credibility of witnesses, the instructions to jurors is:
“Now, in saying that you must consider all of the evidence, I do not mean that you must accept all of the evidence as true or accurate. You should decide whether you believe what each witness had to say, and how important that testimony was. In making that decision you may believe or disbelieve any witness, in whole or in part. Also, the number of witnesses testifying concerning any particular dispute is not controlling.
“In deciding whether you believe or do not believe any witness I suggest that you ask yourself a few questions: Did the witness impress you as one who was telling the truth? Did the witness have any particular reason not to tell the truth? Did the witness have a personal interest in the outcome of the case? Did the witness seem to have a good memory? Did the witness have the opportunity and ability to observe accurately the things he or she testified about? Did the witness appear to understand the questions clearly and answer them directly? Did the witness’ testimony differ from other testimony or other evidence?”
In Judge Sotomayor’s case, it is pretty clear she has no credibility in her responses to the members of the Senate on this issue.
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2. Pinocchiobama Wants to Pull the Strings
Barack Obama really has no shame. His statements are coming with shorter and shorter expiration dates. Pretty soon his promises will have a shelf life less than milk.
On July 4, 2009, writing in the Washington Post, Ceci Connolly wrote that Barack Obama wants advocacy groups to stop going after moderate Democrats.
In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to “true” health-care reform.
“We shouldn’t be focusing resources on each other,” Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. “We ought to be focused on winning this debate.”
Fast forward to today.
David M. Drucker, in Roll Call, reports that Barack Obama is using his group to target moderate Democrats.
President Barack Obama is targeting Senators in his own political party with television ads, urging these skeptical Democrats to embrace health care reform legislation that could put them in a political bind at home.
The television spot was announced Wednesday morning by Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama’s presidential campaign apparatus now run out of the Democratic National Committee.
In other words, Pinocchiobama wants to be the one beating up his own senators while independent left-wing groups target the Republicans.
There is something demented about the leader of the Democratic Party going after Democratic senators up for re-election next year. It’s like Obama is so insistent on socializing healthcare he is willing, strategically, to lose control of Congress knowing once it is passed it won’t be undone.
But are members of his party willing to do that?
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3. House-Passed Perlmutter Bill Enriches Perlmutter, Family, Supporters
Speaker Pelosi, do you even remember promising to drain the swamp, and to turn ‘the most closed and corrupt Congress into the most open and honest Congress?’ If you even pretend to be serious about this, how can you allow the House of Representatives to vote on a bill that would put thousands (or millions) into the pockets of the sponsor, his wife, his father, and his campaign donors?
“Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado inserted a provision into the recently passed House climate change bill that would drum up business for “green” banks, such as the one he has invested in and his family and a political donor helped found in San Francisco.”
The 300-page amendment including Perlmutter’s ’self-help’ legislation was introduced in the dead of night, and voted on a few hours later. Few had the chance to read it. Nevertheless, 217 Democrats voted for it. Each needs to explain why he or she voted to let Congressman Perlmutter line his pockets with taxpayer money.
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4. Dick Durbin (D-IL): It is Not in my DNA to Understand the Plight of Minorities
Sanctimonious oaf Dick Durbin (D-IL) is apparently afflicted with the same disease that afflicts most race-hustling privileged white male liberals. I’m not sure what the disease is, but the most notable side effect is that it causes those infected with it to forget that they are privileged white males.
“When we asked questions of the white male nominees of a Republican president, we were basically trying to … make sure that they would go far enough in understanding the plight of minorities, because clearly that was not in their DNA,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.
“The questions being asked of you from the other side primarily are along the lines of, will you go too far in siding with minorities?” Durbin said.
Setting aside the hilarity of Durbin’s self-lampooning here, maybe we ought to consider that Durbin is on to something. After all, Durbin himself was almost singlehandedly responsible for spiking the successful scholarship program that finally desegregated D.C. private schools. Furthermore, the last time a prominent Latino was was nominated for a prominent judicial spot, Durbin himself was at the center of the Democratic effort to spike that nominee specifically because he was Latino. So maybe Durbin was really on to something when he suggested that white males don’t have understanding for the plight of minorities in their DNA.
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5. The Washington Post is now worried about Democratic tax plans.
The Washington Post has come out against the progressive tax raises proposed by Congress to pay for health care. It does so reluctantly - it’s not against the principle of progressive taxes generally - but apparently they feel that the combination of Medicare cuts and wider-than-expected targets for the surcharge are just unacceptable.
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6. This Isn’t Bipartisanship, Mr. President
President Obama today hailed passage of a Democrat-sponsored bill in the Senate HELP Committee as a positive development in his quest to impose government-run health care on America. He even had the gall to suggest it was a bipartisan bill — despite the fact not a single Republican voted for it.
“It’s a plan that was debated for more than 50 hours and that, by the way, includes 160 Republican amendments — a hopeful sign of bipartisan support for the final product, if people are serious about bipartisanship.”
Obama’s claim about the 160 mostly technical amendments is easily discredited. Amendments that fixed missing commas and misspelled words do not adequately reflect Republican ideas. But because Obama is so hell-bent on producing a bill before his own arbitrary August deadline, the White House has resorted to stretching the truth and manipulating the facts.
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