Debating Sotomayor, North Korea's Nuclear Test, Arlen Specter, and Roland Burris
Our daily look at stories and topics that are lighting up the Internets:
Debating Sotomayor
The Soto-storm might still be the debate du jour, but John Farrell thinks her confirmation hearings will be boring. Here's what he predicts: "Just one more twilight struggle of the Culture Wars." Michael Scherer thinks Republican reactions to Sotomayor are Pavlovian. Conservatives are reacting one of two ways, he writes: "Elected officials, who know all about the demographic Hispanic boomlet that imperils their party, have been extremely cautious... Ideological activists, on the other hand, have begun slobbering all over the airwaves with all sorts of identity-politics based attacks." Joe Klein looks no further than Newt Gingrich's Twitter account for evidence. Conservative Peter Wehner holds up Reagan and Lincoln as standard bearers for Republican attacks: "I think the tone of Gingrich's criticism is harmful, both to political discourse in general and to his party in particular. Strong, spirited, even passionate debate can be useful, and even important, in the life of a nation. But civility and decency are vital as well." Alex Kepper explains what the GOP is thinking: "Certainly, we oppose Judge Sotomayor on the merits of the argument: she is a down-the-line judicial activist who seems to harbor some troubling racial grievances. But she's not the real target, here: This is ultimately about sapping President Obama's precious political capital." M. Abromowitz believes that by picking Sotomayor, Obama is getting ready to appoint Cass Sunstein to the court when the next vacancy opens up. And Andrew Sullivan points us to the selected cases of Sonia Sotomayor—all 516 pages of it. Oh, and we almost forgot. You just can't talk about the Sotomayor controversy without mentioning the number 32.
North Korea Gets Rashy
...And it looks like the rash is spreading. After North Korean missile firings and an underground nuclear test this earlier week, South Korean and American troops are already on alert. This piece by Robert Kaplan is drawing attention from bloggers on both sides of the aisle. He highlights Obama's pickle: "If he doesn't hit North Korea hard with sanctions, he risks demonstrating to Iran that America is a pushover... On the other hand, vigorous sanctions against North Korea could lead to the collapse of the regime. And anyone who talks breezily about 'helping' North Korea to collapse has simply not learned the lesson of Iraq: The only thing worse than a totalitarian state is no state at all." Conservative Ed Morrissey asks unhappily: "Has the Obama administration settled on a strategy of apathy? Does he think ignoring Kim will make him go away?" Marc Pascal makes the case for Obama to fail. Here is Clinton's defense secretary, William Cohen, on what Obama's doing wrong. And conservative Veronique de Rugy asks us to look inside North Korea.
Senate Update
Two stories/scandals of the day arising from the Senate. First up: Roland Burris is back in the hot seat (not that he ever stood up). Here's the link to the transcript (pdf) of Burris talking to Rod Blagojevich's brother, and here's how the New York Times explains the conversation between the two men: "By the end of the call, Mr. Burris had promised to send a personal check within a month." Carol Felsenthal thinks Burris's pants are on fire. The Daily Beast lumps Burris with other notables like Lewinsky, Nixon, Spitzer, and Larry Craig (slideshow). Moving to the next senatorial story-of-the-day: Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter looks like he'll have a Democrat challenger in the primary, despite the Democratic establishment's attempts to secure Specter a place in the party. Joe Sestak, the likely challenger, "will run no doubt as the 'real' Democrat and will be happy to pick up all those former GOP ads the Republican Senate Campaign Committee has been using to taunt Specter." This, at least, according to conservative Jennifer Rubin. Steve Benen "wouldn't bet against Sestak." He explains: "He's proven himself a capable lawmaker; he has an impressive military background; he's a life-long Dem; he has some money in the bank; and Pennsylvania Democrats are far from sold on Specter." Andrew Malcolm thinks things will no doubt get interesting.
...Meanwhile...
A preview of this Sunday's New York Times Magazine profile of Bill Clinton... Todd Palin offers Bristol a new car to break up with Levi Johnston... Looks like Obama's long-awaited address to the Muslim world will take place at Cairo University... And an inside look into the Iranian elections.
Check out our political cartoons.
Reader Comments
The Implication Of the North Korean Atomic or Nuclear Testing
I had discussed the North Korean rocket launch and Chinese nuclear testing at the beginning of this thread, now is the continuation of this discussion. There are no more appropriate time than now.
This year is a rare occasion when my birthday the Memorial Day, of the Solar Calendar coincided with my birthday of the Chinese Lunar Calendar of the DunWu Festival or Double Fifth Holiday. The day when Chinese race the Dragon Boats and eat Zongzi to commemorate the day when they were trying to save the life of Qu Yuan or prevent fish from eating his corpse so they could find it. Memorial Day at the other Hemisphere of the Globe, as its name implies, is to remember those brave soldiers who have given their own lives for a just cause. I was born in the Middle of the Korea War on Memorial Day and in Hong Kong. Quite obviously, My manifestation by Heaven as Prophet of Environment was to prophesied the defeat of the United States in the Korean War by China. While dead North Korean and Chinese soldiers should be remembered and respected during Memorial Day, Americans, South Korean and United Nation soldiers should not be remembered and be frowned upon because they were the enemies of peace and should not be remembered.
The implication and intention of the current North Korea atomic or nuclear testing is to have the entire American and United Nation civilian and military forces withdraw from Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The unification of Korea, as some observer said, is important but only should take second priority.
During the Korean War, millions of Chinese and Korean soldiers and civilians had lost their lives. World War II and Korean War had ended for more than 50 years, why do Japan and Korea still have to be occupied or controlled by the Americans? Likewise, why should Americans still occupy Germany and many parts of Europe? Americans should be evicted from Europe also. Such American aggression is highly unfair and harmful to our planet.
The countries China, Korea and Japan have long been coexisted for more than three (3) millennia (30000 years). There were certainly conflicts among them but they were short lived and none were political in nature like upholding something so foolish as false democracy to please Americans who themselves don’t have it. There had been incidents that one of those the nations had invaded the other during their long history. It is interesting is that those invasions have never resulted in occupation of more than a decade. More than 90% of those 3000 years Chinese, Japanese and Koreans were at peace. They have been constantly and fully respect the sovereignty of each other and never have any intention to change the culture and politic among themselves. This is very much unlike their American aggressors.
That is until European and American imperialism and colonialism came into Asia to disrupt the peace of these three great ancient Asian nations - China, Korea, and Japan. Ever since the middle of the the nineteen century. There have been the threatening of Japan by American Admiral Perry and his navy, Opium War to sell drugs to Chinese, the British and French invasion to rob Qing palace treasures, the Eight Nations Invasion of China to empty the Chinese treasury, the Invasion of Japan after World War II to rape Japanese women, and then the Korean War to genocide the Asian race. In addition, the purpose for Americans invasion of Korea was also for economic reason that the Americans have found out that wars, occupation and exploitation of those nations were the best way to stimulate business after WWII especially in the defense sectors.
Furthermore, just what do a Blackman, Barack Obama, may allow to have anything to do with these three great Asian nations. It is simply ridicules for any Asian countries to even listen to or communicate with such Black man. In other word, Blackman never have any good or bad dealings with these three Asians in history, why now? To put it quite simply, White Americans have betrayed the trust of their Koreans and Japanese “allies” in putting a Black man as president for White American’s own convenience.
Also, just what have American racism or the lack of it have anything to do with China, Japan, Korea and any other nations of the world. Yet, since the Americans Civil War, the United States have constantly create chaos, civil wars and other conflicts all over the world just to cover up their internal disorders. Until today, while racism in the United States were continuously on the rise, the Americans still insist on initiating religious and ethnic uprising all over the world including those in Tibet. Through history, White and Black Americans alike have almost finished their genocide of Native Americans, Eskimos, and Hawaiian even in their own land. Given a country with the most abundant of natural resources and most beautiful Environment, the Americans have wasted and destroyed all of them with the excuse of Western expansion or “Manifest Destiny” which have finally reached Asia.
As Prophet of Environment, I am the direct Messenger of the Environment, Heaven, “God” and the “Devil”. It is my job to convey their messages. It is their commands that all Americans military or civilian personnel to be evicted from China, Japan, Korea and Indo-China immediately. As I am writing now, Their commands are being quickly enforced. Those Americans there will be tortured to the extreme and killed shortly with the most horrifying deaths. In addition, if Japan and South Korea were not evicting their Americans, they will soon be nuked or destroyed by other disasters. In addition, all damages to Chinese and Korean soldiers and civilian lives during the Korean War must be compensated.
As I have written or mentioned many times before to many Americans such as presidents, congress persons other political, religious and business leaders before, “No Americans can live longer than Myself.” In other words, when I die all of them, Americans whether living in that nation or not, will die immediately or they can be destroyed much earlier if necessary. That is to say they will all die in much less then forty years depending on how long will I live? This is something unusual and unlucky for someone to prophesy on His birthday. Unfortunately, I have to speak the truth!
The current American presidential election of 2008 has demonstrated that never in the history of planet Earth have a group living organisms, Americans, been so irrational, stupid and illogical that the Environment has determined to destroyed these organisms - Americans. It is inexcusably stupid to sacrifice the well being of the entire world population simply for goal of “racism,” “affirmative actions,” or the lack of them. For living organisms, I mean creatures including dinosaurs, virus, bacteria, plants, insects, fish, human and other animals. All Americans must disappear from the face of the earth ASAP or the entire human population of this Planet will disappear with them. There are certainly antiquity and standard of intelligence and operation our Universe must maintain, keeping Americans on earth is against this principle. As Prophet of Environment, I have tried relentless to stop the election of Barack Obama and stop our “Doom Day” but no one listened. What’s more can I do?
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