Take it with a grain of salt, there's not enough information to tell. Still, it is interesting that the politically active owners of the Chrysler dealerships to be closed under Obama's proposed sham sale donated to Republicans, the GOP, or Hillary Clinton (during the primary). This is from Doug Ross:

To quickly review the situation, I took all dealer owners whose names appeared more than once in the list. And, of those who contributed to political campaigns, every single one had donated almost exclusively to GOP candidates. While this isn't an exhaustive review, it does have some ominous implications if it can be verified. [...]

I have thus far found only a single Obama donor (and a minor one at that: $200 from Jeffrey Hunter of Waco, Texas) on the closing list.

Correlation is not causation, yadda, yadda yadda. The 789 dealerships to be closed if Obama manages to get court approval of his sham sale are preparing a legal challenge to the criteria used to select them for closure.

From Comments: This is why I say take it with a grain of salt:

Dealerships are essentially small(ish) businesses. Someone should check the ones not closed - it could be that they also have a preponderance of anti-Obama donors as well. Could be that almost no car dealers would donate to Obama, because he is an-anti car lefty.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:44 AM | Comments (2)
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Just what the headline says. He picked an activist who believes that the courts are where policy is made. Of the serious contenders (in other words, not counting Jennifer Granholm or Janet Napolitano), Sotomayor was the worst of the bunch, with a reputation for unbecoming conduct for a judge and antagonizing lawyers.

More to come.

Liberal, liberal, liberal: Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice (not counting Benjamin Cardozo). This has been her major selling point all along. Not her judicial acumen; not her skill at negotiating with her colleagues (more on this later); not her qualifications for the job. Rather, her ethnicity and her sex are her only qualifications and the only reason she was on the list.

Obama and his fellows will crow that she is an historic pick because she will be the first Hispanic person on the Court. As I said above, except for Benjamin Cardozo. Why doesn't he count? A couple reasons: first, his family hailed from Portugal, whose people are not always included in the concept of Hispanic-ness. Second, and much more importantly, the geography and the name don't matter to these people. For the Left, to be Hispanic means having embraced a certain worldview or come from a certain victim class. As Justice Thomas has been derided by the Left for being less than a "true" black man, so Cardozo is disregarded as Hispanic because he certainly wasn't a victim and the modern Hispanic worldview didn't exist back then.

Besides, the Cardozo thing gets in the way of Obama's big day. He's going to announce the first Hispanic justice, dammit, or he's gonna take his toys and go home. Facts must fit the narrative, ergo Sonia Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.

Still more to come.

Quotas and Racism: I've been sitting on this for a while--actually, I've been trying to write some coherent thoughts about it--but now is the time: Sonia Sotomayor embraces quotas, the inherently "better" wisdom of Latina women over white men, and labels state judiciaries as sexist. Seriously now, click that link. Morgen at Verum Serum continued to dig through Sotomayor's past and found a disturbing speech on race and sex which Sotomayor gave in 2001.

I've read the whole thing and it is worse than the excerpts he provides. I read it mainly to be sure the excerpts weren't taken out of context. They weren't. She has a casual bias against state judiciaries. It is a FACT for her that state judges discriminate against women. The obvious question (and this is one that we must encourage Senate Judiciary to ask her): if she believes that state judiciaries are statistically biased against women, how can she ever approach a case involving a woman which comes out of a state court without prejudice? She has already declared that she has no confidence in state judges, is she planning to recuse herself from every case which comes out of the state courts?

Identity groups: Sotomayor also believes in "special knowledge" gained merely by membership in particular identity groups. She claims two groups: Latinos and women. She believes that both identities give her special powers to see the truth or to reach justice. For Sotomayor, it's not that white men cannot reach the truth, it's that they haven't worked hard enough on their "experiences and attitudes". This is from her speech, an excerpt not included by Morgen at the link above; she's talking to men in the audience now:

For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment [inherently belonging to minorities] which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach.

Sadly, like many of Sotomayor's written opinions on the Second Circuit, she never answers the question. She's just "consciousness raising" by accusing men of having innate bias against other identity groups. In a way this is a reversal. Leftists often praise minorities for having to overcome "special disabilities" (e.g. being born black, see affirmative action). She's just flipped it around: now you white men have to overcome a "special disability", your bigotry!

The take-away from this speech is that Sotomayor believes that some individuals are better than others merely by fact of the identity group to which they belong. There is nothing more abhorrent to our Constitution and the ideals of our democracy. Such divisions are supposed to be legally irrelevant. We should not be elevating such a small-minded woman to the highest Court.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:44 AM | Comments (1)
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Wuzzat? Break's over?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:36 AM | Comments (3)
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Warning: Given the direction where the past weekÂ’s overnight threads have gone, itÂ’s strongly advised that you put on a hazmat suit before entering.

Or a spacesuit, as seen in this collection of high-res pics from AtlantisÂ’ visit to Hubble a couple of days ago. TheyÂ’re all good, but one kindaÂ’ caught my eye as I was looking at it: The shuttles have t-tops in the cabin? (Or split sunroofsÂ…itÂ’s kind of a hybrid.) Paint a firebird on the nose and itÂ’s Â’79 all over again baby! Just remember: In space, no one can hear Styx. And when it comes down to it, isnÂ’t that the real reason why most people want to become astronauts in the first place?

ADDENDUM by lauraw: The overnight threads have lately become cesspools of skank-whorishness and horntoad-priapic-johnishness. Full of filth, and drooly nasty-talk. Bitches be showing their secret tattoos and men becoming slavering three-legged beasts.

I admire you tremendously, and wish all the blessings of this great land upon you. You are my kind of fuckin' people.

However.

PLEASE. While on this site, tone it down a bit away from the graphic nasty end of things. Dang, people. That 1400+ thread the other night? Too far. Yous guys went a bit too far.

This is still a political site for the most part, with the occasional newsy-weird type post. There's other places on the internet for sexy talk, I'm told. Yes, you can still flirt. Ace definitely likes it that way.

Just...please, dial it back a little closer to PG than lately.

/pinch-faced scold

Have a wonderful evening, darling hearts, and take the time to lick something that you'll regret in the morning.

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:55 PM | Add Comment
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Remember when Obama promised to meet with a veritable rogues gallery of "world leaders"? So does Ahmadinejad.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran's president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran's nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue "is closed," he told a news conference.

...His offer of to debate Obama could also be campaign posturing before the June 12 vote. But it does put Ahmadinejad on record as supporting a potentially groundbreaking encounter following Obama's offer for dialogue.

Ahmadinejad said that, if re-elected, he would be open to "debate global issues as well as world peace and security" during the U.N. General Assembly in September.

There was no immediate reaction from Washington.

Obama has tried to walk away from this commitment by claiming there was a difference between 'pre-conditions' and 'preparations' and that he wasn't talking about Ahmadinejad (despite the fact that his picture was used to demonstrate who the leader of Iran was).

Thankfully, Al Gore invented the internets, so this promise couldn't be shoved down the memory hole.

Looks like Ahmadinejad unclenched his fist just long enough to slap Obama in the face.

Also note Hillary's response. Wouldn't you love to be in the meeting where they work out those differences? My guess is it will look something like this. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 09:52 AM | Add Comment
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A day to reflect upon debts we can never repay.

The Warrior Legacy Foundation is a new organization founded by the guys from Blackfive to keep alive "the heritage of those brave souls who have preserved and protected our sovereignty throughout our great nationÂ’s history." It's well worth checking out.

More on the motivation behind the foundation here.

Below the fold, two videos. One an FNC story from a few years back about the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The second, an ESPN feature about a young man killed in Iraq and the people who made his desire to help Iraqi children a reality.
more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:54 AM | Add Comment
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No injuries, happened around 3:30am.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:32 AM | Add Comment
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:30 AM | Add Comment
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Awesome.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency reported that the test was carried out Monday.

Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, says that a nuclear test may have been carried out in the North.

Seismologists from the U.S., South Korea and Japan reported earthquakes in an northeastern area, where North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006.

A 4.7-magnitude earthquake was registered in northeastern North Korea at 9:54 a.m. (0054 GMT), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

And then this...

Just hours later, North Korea appears to have test-fired a short-range missile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Pyongyang has so far not commented on Yonhap's report.

More: Just for fun, I checked to see if N. Korea was part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They were, until they go caught in 2003 and then they bailed out. It's almost like treaties don't, you know, stop countries from doing whatever they want.

BTW, what did the N. Koreans say back in the day?

The official Korean Central News Agency said that, although Pyongyang was pulling out of the NPT, it had no intention of producing nuclear weapons.

"Our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity," Friday's statement said.

Just like the Iranians, sans the Jew baiting of course.

Tomorrow's Conventional Wisdom Today...This failure of diplomacy clearly shows the need for more diplomacy. The Six Party Talks have done nothing to stop N. Korea's nuclear program. Obviously this demonstrates the importance of redoubling efforts to conduct more Six Party Talks.

Just remember...missile defense remains unproven. However, when it comes to diplomacy, especially 'smart' and 'tough' diplomacy, everyday is a new day.

Ah, the building CW (at least according to CNNI reporters and analysts)... North Korea only reacts to carrots, not sticks, so start handing out the carrots! Again, this unfortunately runs afoul of all experience.

Hey, guess who published a piece called "Get Ready for Another North Korean Nuke Test" just 5 days ago? John "The Mustache" Bolton, that's who.

If the next nuclear explosion doesn't derail the six-party talks, Kim will rightly conclude that he faces no real danger of ever having to dismantle his weapons program. North Korea is a mysterious place, but there is no mystery about its foreign-policy tactics: They work. The real mystery is why our administrations -- Republican and Democratic -- haven't learned that their quasi-religious faith in the six-party talks is misplaced.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently rejected "linkage" in Russia policy as "old thinking." Disagreement in one area, she argued, shouldn't prevent working on "something else that is of overwhelming importance." Whatever the merits of linkage vis-à-vis Russia, de-linking a second North Korean nuclear test from the six-party talks simply hands Pyongyang permission to proceed.

Even worse, Iran and other aspiring nuclear proliferators will draw precisely the same conclusion: Negotiations like the six-party talks are a charade and reflect a continuing collapse of American resolve. U.S. acquiescence in a second North Korean nuclear test will likely mean that Tehran will adopt Pyongyang's successful strategy.

So, we've got that to look forward to.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:39 PM | Comments (1)
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It's come to this.

Courtesy of a tip from concerned citizen Iskander (by way of the G-man), we find that there is literally nothing lower than a Republican to the entertainment elite.

Oh sure, the hook of this news item is that some big-time film distribution companies are interested in an Indie-film made for 70 bucks. (For those that are skimming, that's indie, not Indian. Of course nobody would be surprised that something out of Bollywood was made for 70 bucks. Hell for 30 bucks and a couple bags of masoor they could probably re-make Gone With the Wind.)

But as we all know, the real story is always that which is half-hidden in the filler. I'm sure you all see it there -- The Zombie perspective is now something that has value.

This is outrageous! Zombies are to be feared and hated and either run from, or incapacitated by applying severe head trauma. The last thing we need to teach our children is that there might be a "Zombie point of view".

And rest assured, this new direction by the media elite in regards to the undead menace is mirrored by our new Liberal administration. ZWN reports that in a recent speech to the UN Human Rights Council, SecState Hillary Clinton said that:

China must be held accountable for it's 'shameful' record on necro-mortosis sufferers rights. "While the rest of the world is embracing a new spirit of cooperation, a new dawn of shared intelligence and research, China chooses to suppress it's people and fail to protect them from within."

Now don't get me wrong. China obviously has many problems but you have to admit, they do know how to make the Zombie-killin' trains run on time.

If we stop killing them today, is this sort of scene far behind?
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 04:28 PM | Add Comment
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