We all want President Obama to succeed but we also want a justice with a paper trail on the Supreme Court. Failing that we want a Justice with a "judicial temperment". Elena Kagan is all over the map politically, just like Steve Poizoner. She is big on women's issues such defending abortions, even partial birth abortions. She banned ROTC from recruiting on Campus merely because she herself was so pro homosexual as to be against "Don't ask; don't tell". She apparently has also written against "Hate speech" and seems to want laws regulating it. This is really a slippery slope. She in the ROTC case wants to impose her private views on those who don't subscribe to them. Apparently she wrote that paper on Socialism saying that the trouble with the left was that they fought each other and didn't direct their anger tword the Establishment. I was apalled at her lack of judicial experiance, but also her brevity of government experiance. She could not get congress to vote for her for a nomination to the appellate court by Clinton in 1999. Did they know something we should know? But she is all over the map politically. It has been pointed out that she is really pro guns and pro death penalty. Also there is one key fact people leave out on her positions taken as solicitor general and that is she was working for Obama at the time. So when she comes off defending Bush and Chaney and unlawful detention and taking away civil rights she can't claim that "Bush made her do it". I find this position the most troubling of all. Because she seems to represent an extreme pro Statist position. People on the Randy Rhodes show were saying "All of this war on terrorism makes me sick". I have had similar sentaments but have never voiced them quite that directly. And by the way she was on the right side of the Citizens United case, but she LOST the case, meaning perhaps better arguments could have been made that she didn't make. There are other reasons why she shouldn't be confirmed. Of course her politics are a pure crap shoot, and we don't need that. This is compounded by the fact that she is young, only fifty, so that should it turn out we made a wrong choice she will be on the High Court an awfully long time. I'm not really sure whether we need more Jews or Catholics on the Supreme Court. How about a Hindu or an Atheist? It was pointed out she is the fourth Justice from New York City. Clearly she will steer the Supreme Court to the Right, and I'm not sure whether that is a good idea, particularly on all important Civil liberties issues. I have heard nothing in her views of "settled law" and nothing about her views on such things as "the doctrine of original intent", which I subscribe to. If Obama persists in having her, no doubt a lot of these questions will be addressed in her confirmation hearings. It puzzles me why all the liberal talk show hosts appear to have embraced her. Their motto seems to be "give President Obama a victory at any price". I don't subscribe to that philosophy. If you're destined to go down, at least go down with a candidate with views you feel confident in, and if you're going down, at least go down swinging.
Which brings us to Jack Bower and the last couple of "24" episodes. It would seem that Jack is willing to risk it all- - perhaps even his mental soundness- - for a principle that if you are President you don't sign a contraversial Peace treaty under fraud and at the point of a gun. But he's gone on a killing rampage. There was his cold blooded execution of Dana Walsh, whose life admittedly wasn't of much use at that point. Clearly Jack could cop some "mental stress" plea for all he's been through lately including being betrayed multiple times and fired on by the decedant. But then Jack gets another blonde bimbo into his scheme. A female reporter found herself in the middle of al all out gun fight that Jack knew about but she didn't. Jack's bacon was saved when a trusted friend of his pulled a gun on his primary assailent. This was of course after Bower had wasted the rest of his hit squad. Then that guy is taken hostage along with that reporter, who feels pretty much like a hostage herself. Then the fun begins. Jack Bower devises every manner of torture including knives and even a blow torch used on the victims body, but he still wasn't forthcoming on the information Jack wanted. Meanwhile there is division in the ranks of Jack Bower's foes. The archetect of the whole scheme to save the Peace Treaty wants public recognition for what a great guy he is, but the acting head of CTU thinks he is nuts. At this point I can hardly see how Jack can emerge as anything but a scape goat for everything that went wrong. And like Ronnie baby, I don't think President Taylor is really that aware what her underlings are doing. But as John Lennon says, we know that in the last reel that the Hero always comes out on top, so I imagine there are yet unforeseen twists and turns in the plot.
Nicole Walker is back do doing what she does best, and that is to hatch insane schemes with zero odds of success, but somehow she puts it all together and makes it work- - at least for a while. Perhaps she can get that aid of President Taylor to help her plant evidence against Adriana. She was going to have Adriana mugged by Dr. Baker but she had a moment of relative sanity and decided something less obvious may be more advantageous. Her words do have a grain of truth. There is trouble in paradise between Adriana Hernandez and Brady Black. This isn't quite the marriage made in heaven we all thought. For his part he still can't get Nicole out of his system no matter how hard he tries. For Adriana's part she is letting the Green Eyed Monster get the best of her and her excessive suspicions are self defeating at this point. It will be interesting to see how this all plays itself out, and what ingenious evidence Nicole intends to plant against her.
We all remember that scene in the Patton movie in 1945 when the "de-Nazification" process was taking place in Germany. But Patton thought some Nazis could be put to use on our side. When confronted by this move Patton responded "But a man's got to have a little pride, and this employment will develop that", to which Omar Bradley (?) responded, "But they're Nazis, they're the enemy. We don't want them to have any pride. But the roomer persists that Nazis were originally recruited for the OSS later to become the CIA. I find this highly troubling. The explanation why is that "Germans have proven to have excellent techniques at gathering intelligence". I hope it's better than Jack Bower. You know back in the closing days of the Bush administration I thought Bush was trying to politicize the CIA and take away their independent intelligence gathering capabilities, and instead forcing them to subscribe to views they couldn't endorse or verify. But now it seems my rosy views of the CIA were a tad misplaced because they are just as secretive as ever. Perhaps it's as it should be. But in the 'seventies, Congress wanted a little oversight over intelligence gathering. And Bush, and now, Obama- - seem to want to blur the line of Civil liberties violations. If i were President I would order a total review of the CIA and inquire whether or not it's doing the job it's supposed to do and not venturing into "ultra virus" or areas that it's not supposed to be in.
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