For A Ride

Bent
The four moderates on the court have a leftish bent, but they see their role as stewards of the law, balancing the responsibility to enforce the Constitution through judicial review against the duty to show deference to the will of the political branches. In that respect, they and the conservatives seem to be following entirely different rules. (NYT editorial, 3/31/2012)


Proof (again) that Liberals are not anchored to reality and, therefore, cannot be reasoned with. RedStateVT would never call justices like Scalia and Thomas anything other than conservatives, but the Times calls Kagan and Sotomayor moderates. And wherefore this argument that the moderate (aka Liberal) justices are noble upholders of the Constitution while the conservatives bow to their political masters?


For assistance in understanding such nonsense we turn again to Timothy Dalrymple:


Since liberals control the American education establishment and nearly all of the major news organizations, conservatives generally are better educated in liberal ways of thinking than liberals are in conservative ways of thinking. How many of us, in high school or college, heard thorough, eloquent, and charitable defenses of conservative theories of society, economy, and government? The faculties at major universities and the staffs at major news organizations are overwhelmingly liberal. This has not served our country well. Liberals in general get their views of “conservatism” second-hand through liberal caricatures, and this has made them better able to demonize conservatives than understand them. (Timothy Dalrymple, 3/30/2012 quoting from his own July 2010 post, Patheos.com)


Simply and stunningly well reasoned.


Dodgy
New Yorker Abake Assongba has pledged to help President Obama win reelection, and as one of his 400 volunteer fundraisers, she has delivered $50,000 to the cause.  But she is also trailed by some controversy, accused in court of defrauding a businessman out of $657,000, impersonating a bank official and dodging creditors.
...
Last month, the Obama campaign said it would return $200,000 in donations from the Chicago-area brothers of a Mexican casino magnate linked to violence and corruption. (Washington Post, 3/31/2012)


Maybe it's the criminal money and not the corporate money that we have to worry about in politics.


Solid
At a Senate subcommittee panel with armed forces and Environmental Protection Agency experts, Sanders solidified an emerging energy policy that he said would not only save the lives of soldiers, but likely reduce the likelihood of further wars for oil. (Burlington Free Press, 3/31/2012)


"Further wars for oil?" Why do we then have $4/gallon gas? If we are going to have "wars for oil" then let's get some benefit from them! Beyond, of course, removing threats to our national security....