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During her confirmation hearings, VT Senator Patrick Leahy asked Judge Sonya Sotomayor many questions having to do with her beliefs and various rulings already made by the Supreme Court.  Many conservatives voted her down because of how slippery her answers were.  And now that she is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, one must ask: was she being truthful in her testimony?

In their monthly magazine, the NRA cited how Justice Sotomayor stated one thing about gun rights and then dissented in the recent McDonald v. Chicago decision.

Sen. Leahy: Is it safe to say that you accept the Supreme Court’s decision as establishing that the Second Amendment right is an individual right? Is that correct?

Judge Sotomayor: Yes, sir.

Leahy: Thank you. And in the Second Circuit decision, Maloney v. Cuomo, you, in fact, recognized the Supreme Court decided in Heller that the personal right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution against federal law restrictions. Is that correct?

Sotomayor: It is.

Leahy: And you accept and applied the Heller decision when you decided Maloney?

Sotomayor: Completely, sir. I accepted and applied established Supreme Court precedent that the Supreme Court in its own opinion in Heller acknowledged, answered the — a different question.

The NRA points out that in the McDonald v. Chicago decision, she dissented and agreed with her liberal colleague Justice Breyer.  He states in his dissenting opinion (pg. 210), “In sum, the Framers did not write the Second Amendment in order to protect a private right of armed self-defense.”

If Sotomayor recognized that the “personal right to bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment”, why did she agree with Breyer?  Normally, if a justice agrees in part, they will provide their own dissent.  Sotomayor did not do this.  Stevens, who also dissented with the majority opinion, filed his own dissent.  Sotomayor has filed her own dissents before.  So why not in this case?

Somewhere, she lied.  She either lied during her confirmation hearings or she lied on the bench.  Either way, Congress should investigate and find out.  Hopefully, if the Republicans retake the House in November, they will start impeachment proceedings.

I’ve always said that peace cannot exist without justice.  Peace without justice is anarchy.  It is justice that allows peace to prosper.  Without justice, those who wish to do harm can do so without regard to its consequences.  Furthermore, justice provides the people with knowing that actions against them will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Attorney General of the United States recently dropped all charges against the Black Panthers for voter intimidation.  YouTube has a few videos of the voter intimidation.  Justice Department did not release an official statement but simply dropped the charges.  Most charges are dropped when there is not enough evidence to move forward with a trial, but with the video evidence, it seems like this is not the case.

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Last week, I finally received the records I requested in back in March.  However, WMATA did not provide the proper format.  In my letter, I specifically requested “a format suitable to be viewed in a spreadsheet application. This includes, but is not limited to, Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheets, XML, or CSV (Comma Separated Values). I will not accept this report as a printed document.”  The reports were sent to me in PDF format.

WMATA instituted it’s largest ever fare hike, costing Metro riders at least $.30 more per trip.  The excuse this time is “to close a $189 million budget gap for the fiscal year.”  This was the same excuse used when Metro proposed an emergancy $.10 fare hike.

On June 10, 2010, the WMATA Board approved the FY2011 budget. From the FY2010 budget, there was a $189 million shortfall.  The changes to the FY2010 budget were as follows:

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Original letter (in reply to Virginia cannot allow offshore oil drilling):

Kellen Lauer is misguided in opting to support so-called clean energy in lieu of oil.  Citing the gulf disaster only furthers this point.  The technology behind clean energy is still developing.  Furthermore, the energy transformation for many “green” sources is so low that they are not yet economically viable.  For example, solar power only converts less than 10% of the energy it receives.

I agree with the fact that we must continue to develop renewable energy sources.  But until they meet or exceed the power outputs of oil, we must continue to find sources of oil.  We don’t stop driving cars because we see accidents everyday.  Neither should we stop drilling because of an oil spill.

If Senator Jon Kyl’s story is true, congress should seriously start considering articles of impeachment on Obama.  The President’s sworn duty is to protect this country first and foremost.  If Obama is using political manuvering to not secure our borders, he is neglecting the job that people have voted him to do.  The Chief Executive is to execute the laws of the land, not write them.  If he wanted to do that, he should have stayed a senator.

Impeachment is not meant to be an easy process but when the President refuses to do his job, congress needs to get the courage to do the right thing and begin impeachment proceedings.  However, time has shown that courage is something that both the executive and legislative branch seem to lack.