128 days later…

Check out this delicious offering from ReasonTV, entitled “128 Days Later:  It Can Always Get Worse.”

Bondholders balk…

The GM bondholders have balked,   so it looks like GM is off to bankruptcy court,  where it should have been,  BILLIONS of dollars ago.

Never,  ever underestimate the ability of a Democrat-controlled Congress and an ultra-liberal president to totally screw something up.   Of course, Obama is still  pretending his magical deal will go through and save the labor unions from bankruptcy.    That’s all the auto bailouts have been,  by the way  —  a bailout of the very labor unions who did so much to kill the golden geese.

Sotomayor review…

There are a number of things to concern  us about Obama’s nominee.  For starters, the New Haven firefighters case  which is now before the Supreme Court  is there because she and her panel  tried to bury the firefighters’ claims and to prevent en banc and Supreme Court review of them.    Judge Cabranes,  a fellow Clinton appointee,  is the one who called her on it,  and passed it up for review.   Considering that she has a  60% reversal rate,  it’s likely she’ll be reversed again.

Of special interest to me is her view that the Supreme Court ruled wrongly in the District of Columbia gun case.    She doesn’t believe the Second Amendment confers a right to be armed to any citizen and simply ignores the Supreme’s reasoning.   That’s  at odds with her  statement from a 1997 confirmation hearing:   “I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance.   It says what it says.   We should do honor to it.”

I imagine Obama would appoint  himself if he thought he could get away with it.    Sotomayor’s worldview is like his own.    They are both convinced they are far smarter than anyone else they deal with.  They both find the Constitution an inconvenient obstacle to organizing  society according to their vision.    They both claim to favor the rule of law,  while ignoring it whenever it suits them to do so.    Like Obama,   Sotomayor believes she is  simply better than  anyone else,  that her particular life story confirms this and should shield her from criticism   — a peculiar form of self-deception  liberals often engage in.

They believe the purpose of the judiciary should be redistributive and social justice,  and to achieve  those aims,  they feel it their right — indeed, their duty — to act accordingly.   As a result,  they have both violated every oath of office they have ever taken on a near daily basis.

She doesn’t believe that costs should be considered in environmental matters,  which matches Obama’s thinking.   She also wasn’t Bush 41’s  pick,  as explained at the top of the second page of this column from Politico.    The White House has posted her Princeton yearbook photo, complete with a quote from Norman Thomas,  the former Socialist-party presidential candidate.    Did they not know who Thomas was,  or just consider him mainstream?

Size of NoKo’s nuke…

Apparently the Russians reported the underground test as being the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,  but the initial seismic readings indicate it’s much smaller,  and in fact only slightly larger than the one  they generated in October,  2006.

Amb. Susan Rice said today that the US will rely on China to stop North Korea.   That,  boys and girls,  translates as we’re not gonna do a damned thing but express our concern.    The Obama administration is already promoting the theory that China doesn’t want to embarrass its client state,  and that it doesn’t want refugees at its border.    China doesn’t care about the NoKos’ losing face,  has no reluctance to kill,  and like the Russians,   is perfectly happy to have someone distracting the USA and consuming its time and attention.

The bottom line is that China owns so much US debt, and  Obama is so desperate for it to buy more to finance his mad spending,  that he can put no real pressure on China.   The only thing which may save us is that China does not want South Korea and Japan go nuclear.   Nor  does  it wish to lose  control of North Korea,   and it knows many regimes and entities pay handsomely for nuclear weapons and delivery systems.   Weaponry has long been the primary product of that miserable excuse for a country.