While most of us have been caught up in the brouhaha of electoral politics, liberal activists have been working indefatigably to pack the courts – the unelected branch of government – with radical statists. We might have turned over a number of congressional seats in 2010, but Obama has successfully turned over many conservative seats in our federal court system. Since taking office, Obama has appointed 125 people to federal judgeships , including 25 to appellate courts, and 2 to the Supreme Court. After three years, Obama’s mark on the federal courts is beginning to become quite potent. The Fourth Circuit appellate court used to be filled with a majority of strict constructionist judges. Now, following Obama’s appointment of five new radicals, the court has totally shifted. This once conservative court ruled in favor of the administration in upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare last year. Obama’s indelible stain on the judicial system will reverberate for years to come. While Republicans have successfully blocked some of Obama’s most extreme nominees, they have voted to confirm the vast majority of them. Many Republicans have insisted for years that anyone who is “qualified” to serve as a judge deserves to be confirmed, irrespective of their judicial philosophy or ideology. This school of thought suggests that as long as the nominee has the requisite resume and is clean of ethical violations, he/she should sail through the nomination process. That is the grim consequence of elections, they contend. Last week, in an interview with an Egyptian television station , Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed why ideology matters and why perverted judicial philosophy should indeed be a disqualifying factor for a judgeship. She told the audience –one that lives under tyranny – that the U.S. Constitution should not serve as a role model for a modern draft: “I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary… It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the US constitution – Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?” At the time of her nomination to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg had a stellar resume and excellent ratings from the American Bar Association. With that criteria in mind, every Republican except for three; Don Nickles, Bob Smith, and Jesse Helms, voted to confirm Ginsburg, a woman who has nothing but contempt for the very document that she is charged with upholding. Make no mistake about it; someone who believes that our constitution is outdated; someone who regards our constitution as a living and breathing document; someone who views the constitution of a violent third world country with higher reverence than the U.S. Constitution is indeed disqualified from serving on any court. No matter what happens in November, Obama will have another year to pack the courts. At present, there are 86 vacancies on district and appellate courts , 39 of which already have pending nominees before the Senate. We must work harder to ensure that not a single person with contempt for our Constitution is confirmed by the Senate. Republicans must understand that disrespect for the Constitution is an automatic disqualification for a judicial nominee. Perhaps, Justice Ginsburg had it right when she asserted at the end of that TV interview, “if the people don’t care, the best constitution in the world won’t make any difference.” If we continue to blithely confirm nominees who share Ginsburg’s judicial philosophy, our Constitution – which is the best in the world – certainly won’t make any difference. Cross-posted from The Madison Project
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Justice Ginsburg and the Need to Oppose Radical Judicial Nominees
While most of us have been caught up in the brouhaha of electoral politics, liberal activists have been working indefatigably to pack the courts – the unelected branch of government – with radical statists. We might have turned over a number of congressional seats in 2010, but Obama has successfully turned over many conservative seats in our federal court system. Since taking office, Obama has appointed 125 people to federal judgeships , including 25 to appellate courts, and 2 to the Supreme Court. After three years, Obama’s mark on the federal courts is beginning to become quite potent. The Fourth Circuit appellate court used to be filled with a majority of strict constructionist judges. Now, following Obama’s appointment of five new radicals, the court has totally shifted. This once conservative court ruled in favor of the administration in upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare last year. Obama’s indelible stain on the judicial system will reverberate for years to come. While Republicans have successfully blocked some of Obama’s most extreme nominees, they have voted to confirm the vast majority of them. Many Republicans have insisted for years that anyone who is “qualified” to serve as a judge deserves to be confirmed, irrespective of their judicial philosophy or ideology. This school of thought suggests that as long as the nominee has the requisite resume and is clean of ethical violations, he/she should sail through the nomination process. That is the grim consequence of elections, they contend. Last week, in an interview with an Egyptian television station , Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed why ideology matters and why perverted judicial philosophy should indeed be a disqualifying factor for a judgeship. She told the audience –one that lives under tyranny – that the U.S. Constitution should not serve as a role model for a modern draft: “I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary… It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the US constitution – Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?” At the time of her nomination to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg had a stellar resume and excellent ratings from the American Bar Association. With that criteria in mind, every Republican except for three; Don Nickles, Bob Smith, and Jesse Helms, voted to confirm Ginsburg, a woman who has nothing but contempt for the very document that she is charged with upholding. Make no mistake about it; someone who believes that our constitution is outdated; someone who regards our constitution as a living and breathing document; someone who views the constitution of a violent third world country with higher reverence than the U.S. Constitution is indeed disqualified from serving on any court. No matter what happens in November, Obama will have another year to pack the courts. At present, there are 86 vacancies on district and appellate courts , 39 of which already have pending nominees before the Senate. We must work harder to ensure that not a single person with contempt for our Constitution is confirmed by the Senate. Republicans must understand that disrespect for the Constitution is an automatic disqualification for a judicial nominee. Perhaps, Justice Ginsburg had it right when she asserted at the end of that TV interview, “if the people don’t care, the best constitution in the world won’t make any difference.” If we continue to blithely confirm nominees who share Ginsburg’s judicial philosophy, our Constitution – which is the best in the world – certainly won’t make any difference. Cross-posted from The Madison Project
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Justice Ginsburg and the Need to Oppose Radical Judicial Nominees
I’ve been engaged in a twitter discussion with some good friends and acquaintances (and, being that it’s twitter, with some folks I don’t know from Adam) about the upcoming film Act of Valor . The film, for those who were comatose during the Super Bowl ad blitz, is a Navy recruiting video on major steroids that features several active duty SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen in uncredited roles. According to the Wikipedia entry: Act of Valor began as a recruitment video for the U.S. military’s Naval Special Warfare Command. In 2007, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh of Bandito Brothers Production filmed a video for the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen SWCC which led the Navy to allow them to use SEALs for Act of Valor. None of the SEALs’ names will appear in the credits of the film. Relativity Media acquired the rights to the project on June 12, 2011 for $13 million and a $30 million in prints and advertising commitment. Deadline.com called it “the biggest money paid for a finished film with an unknown cast”. The production budget was estimated between $15 million and $18 million The discussion surrounding the film has largely been whether it is, in the words of Air Force veteran @JimmySky , “exploitative” – and if so, why that is and who exactly it is that’s being exploited. According to a recent WSJ story on the film , “the project offered filmmakers access to SEALs as well as military assets, but no funding.” The article also notes that: the “goals [of the film] were to bolster recruiting efforts, honor fallen team members and offer a corrective to misleading fare such as “Navy Seals,” the 1990 shoot-em-up starring Charlie Sheen as a cocky lone wolf. “In the SEAL ethos, the superman myth does not apply. It’s a lifestyle of teamwork, hard work and academic discipline,” said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who initiated the project and essentially served as producer within the military. The article continues: For two years the filmmakers had inside access to the Navy’s elite and secretive force for an unusual assignment: to create a feature film that starred real-life SEALs—not actors—in lead roles. The movie, “Act of Valor,” is not a documentary. Instead, it straddles reality and fiction, military messaging and entertainment. It features strike scenes written by the SEALs themselves, jarring live-fire footage and a body count that would rival any ’80s action flick. Yet the movie, to be released in February, was designed to set the record straight on a group that the military says has been routinely misrepresented in film. Now, I need to offer a dual disclaimer up front: (1) I’ve only seen the preview and this excellent albeit brief review by Jeff Quinton , not the movie itself, and (2) I’m firmly biased in favor 0f pro-military (and particularly pro-SOF) films that provide the greatest level of accuracy that Hollywood can muster. For example, I thought Black Hawk Down was an excellent film (even if Josh Hartnett was horribly miscast as a Ranger), and I share the community at large’s loathing for ridiculous movies like the aforementioned Charlie Sheen Navy SEALs flick. The difference between the buzz about Act of Valor and the better of its predecessors appears to be primarily focused on the fact that Act of Valor features active duty NSWC personnel (and that the movie’s advertising blitz has been very vocal about their participation) in a film that has a fictitious story line, as opposed to , say, Black Hawk Down , which told a true story but used actors to do so (rather than “ being marketed on the basis of [having] real Rangers “). This, in turn, blurs the line between fiction and reality, while using valuable Department of Defense equipment and personnel to (according to former PAO @FPWellman) make money for Hollywood . While I understand the concerns, though, I’m far from convinced by them. Military participation in Hollywood projects is nearly a century old, and the Department of Defense maintains an entertainment media office specifically to provide “U.S. military assistance in producing feature motion pictures, television shows, documentaries, music videos, commercial advertisements, CD-ROM games, and other audiovisual programs.” According to the Armed Forces Press Service: To achieve maximum accuracy in movies and on television, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and DoD have liaison offices to help guide filmmakers through the process. The services operate independently of each other in this endeavor but share office space on the same floor of a Los Angeles building. The Defense Department’s entertainment media division is run from the Pentagon. “If we decide to cooperate on a project, we stay with them throughout all the scenes that have military or DoD depictions,” said Army Lt. Col Paul Sinor, a public affairs officer with that service’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. This task covers a broad spectrum, from making sure uniforms and equipment are correct to coordinating filming on military bases, said Air Force Capt. Christian Hodge, a project officer with the Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office. This cooperation has included technical advice, but it has also included equipment and personnel. The F-14s, F-5s, and A-4s in Top Gun were real military aircraft, as were the MH-60s and Little Birds in Black Hawk Down , and the F-22s in Transformers and Iron Man . However, as obvious as this statement may be, the cooperation goes farther than advice and hardware – it includes people , too. Every live action shot of a military aircraft, for example, includes active military crew members operating those aircraft. The fact they’re not credited among the primary cast is immaterial; they are participants in the film, just as the Naval personnel in Act of Valor are. Further, films like Transformers have featured active duty personnel in significant numbers (such as the Airmen serving as extras in this shot ), and have provoked little if any consternation as a result. Given all of this, it seems clear that the real issue is the fact that the film’s advertising touts the participation of active duty SEALs and SWCCs, rather than their participation. Does that mean, in turn, that the issue with the film is that a conscious effort is being made to make people aware of the presence of active military personnel in the film, rather than featuring military technology without overtly acknowledging the real soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines operating that technology on-screen? The other issue, raised by former Army officer Tim Matthews , is “the general sentiment…’shouldn’t these SEALs being out shooting REAL bad guys?’” I think the response to this one is fairly easy: from Blue Angels and Thunderbirds pilots to the Golden Knights, STARS, and Leapfrog jump demonstration teams, tip-of-the-spear military professionals are put to use on a daily basis not in offensive operations, but in operations that improve outreach and recruiting and build civil-military relations (and still more serve in administrative and staff positions, as liaison officers, etc.). Tim deserves credit for being consistent, as he believes that the “Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, Golden Knights, bands, etc, are a poor use of resources.” However, these functions will continue to be performed by those who are skilled enough at their military jobs to participate in them, and outside of the fact that it’s on a big screen instead of over an airfield, I see no significant difference between the role of active duty SEALs in Act of Valor and that of that top 0.001% of F-16 pilots in the Air Force that makes up the Thunderbirds demonstration team. For me, the bottom line with Act of Valor is this: it’s a film that features Hollywood-DOD cooperation just like countless other war and action flicks over the last several decades. Yes, it’s a film with heavy Navy Special Warfare involvement, so I expect a level of accuracy and attention to detail that is far higher than almost any other military or combat film; yes, it’s almost certain to have a level of energy and action that far surpasses the day-to-day experiences of NSW operators; and yes, it is at heart what it’s always been: a Special Warfare recruiting video. H0wever, I’m simply not convinced that there’s any “exploitation,” “opportunism,” or anything else to be found here besides an action film that uses real operators, real support staff, and real stories to achieve a level of realistic sensationalism that very few of its predecessors have been capable of – and that’s just fine with me.
I’ve been engaged in a twitter discussion with some good friends and acquaintances (and, being that it’s twitter, with some folks I don’t know from Adam) about the upcoming film Act of Valor . The film, for those who were comatose during the Super Bowl ad blitz, is a Navy recruiting video on major steroids that features several active duty SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen in uncredited roles. According to the Wikipedia entry: Act of Valor began as a recruitment video for the U.S. military’s Naval Special Warfare Command. In 2007, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh of Bandito Brothers Production filmed a video for the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen SWCC which led the Navy to allow them to use SEALs for Act of Valor. None of the SEALs’ names will appear in the credits of the film. Relativity Media acquired the rights to the project on June 12, 2011 for $13 million and a $30 million in prints and advertising commitment. Deadline.com called it “the biggest money paid for a finished film with an unknown cast”. The production budget was estimated between $15 million and $18 million The discussion surrounding the film has largely been whether it is, in the words of Air Force veteran @JimmySky , “exploitative” – and if so, why that is and who exactly it is that’s being exploited. According to a recent WSJ story on the film , “the project offered filmmakers access to SEALs as well as military assets, but no funding.” The article also notes that: the “goals [of the film] were to bolster recruiting efforts, honor fallen team members and offer a corrective to misleading fare such as “Navy Seals,” the 1990 shoot-em-up starring Charlie Sheen as a cocky lone wolf. “In the SEAL ethos, the superman myth does not apply. It’s a lifestyle of teamwork, hard work and academic discipline,” said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who initiated the project and essentially served as producer within the military. The article continues: For two years the filmmakers had inside access to the Navy’s elite and secretive force for an unusual assignment: to create a feature film that starred real-life SEALs—not actors—in lead roles. The movie, “Act of Valor,” is not a documentary. Instead, it straddles reality and fiction, military messaging and entertainment. It features strike scenes written by the SEALs themselves, jarring live-fire footage and a body count that would rival any ’80s action flick. Yet the movie, to be released in February, was designed to set the record straight on a group that the military says has been routinely misrepresented in film. Now, I need to offer a dual disclaimer up front: (1) I’ve only seen the preview and this excellent albeit brief review by Jeff Quinton , not the movie itself, and (2) I’m firmly biased in favor 0f pro-military (and particularly pro-SOF) films that provide the greatest level of accuracy that Hollywood can muster. For example, I thought Black Hawk Down was an excellent film (even if Josh Hartnett was horribly miscast as a Ranger), and I share the community at large’s loathing for ridiculous movies like the aforementioned Charlie Sheen Navy SEALs flick. The difference between the buzz about Act of Valor and the better of its predecessors appears to be primarily focused on the fact that Act of Valor features active duty NSWC personnel (and that the movie’s advertising blitz has been very vocal about their participation) in a film that has a fictitious story line, as opposed to , say, Black Hawk Down , which told a true story but used actors to do so (rather than “ being marketed on the basis of [having] real Rangers “). This, in turn, blurs the line between fiction and reality, while using valuable Department of Defense equipment and personnel to (according to former PAO @FPWellman) make money for Hollywood . While I understand the concerns, though, I’m far from convinced by them. Military participation in Hollywood projects is nearly a century old, and the Department of Defense maintains an entertainment media office specifically to provide “U.S. military assistance in producing feature motion pictures, television shows, documentaries, music videos, commercial advertisements, CD-ROM games, and other audiovisual programs.” According to the Armed Forces Press Service: To achieve maximum accuracy in movies and on television, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and DoD have liaison offices to help guide filmmakers through the process. The services operate independently of each other in this endeavor but share office space on the same floor of a Los Angeles building. The Defense Department’s entertainment media division is run from the Pentagon. “If we decide to cooperate on a project, we stay with them throughout all the scenes that have military or DoD depictions,” said Army Lt. Col Paul Sinor, a public affairs officer with that service’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. This task covers a broad spectrum, from making sure uniforms and equipment are correct to coordinating filming on military bases, said Air Force Capt. Christian Hodge, a project officer with the Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office. This cooperation has included technical advice, but it has also included equipment and personnel. The F-14s, F-5s, and A-4s in Top Gun were real military aircraft, as were the MH-60s and Little Birds in Black Hawk Down , and the F-22s in Transformers and Iron Man . However, as obvious as this statement may be, the cooperation goes farther than advice and hardware – it includes people , too. Every live action shot of a military aircraft, for example, includes active military crew members operating those aircraft. The fact they’re not credited among the primary cast is immaterial; they are participants in the film, just as the Naval personnel in Act of Valor are. Further, films like Transformers have featured active duty personnel in significant numbers (such as the Airmen serving as extras in this shot ), and have provoked little if any consternation as a result. Given all of this, it seems clear that the real issue is the fact that the film’s advertising touts the participation of active duty SEALs and SWCCs, rather than their participation. Does that mean, in turn, that the issue with the film is that a conscious effort is being made to make people aware of the presence of active military personnel in the film, rather than featuring military technology without overtly acknowledging the real soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines operating that technology on-screen? The other issue, raised by former Army officer Tim Matthews , is “the general sentiment…’shouldn’t these SEALs being out shooting REAL bad guys?’” I think the response to this one is fairly easy: from Blue Angels and Thunderbirds pilots to the Golden Knights, STARS, and Leapfrog jump demonstration teams, tip-of-the-spear military professionals are put to use on a daily basis not in offensive operations, but in operations that improve outreach and recruiting and build civil-military relations (and still more serve in administrative and staff positions, as liaison officers, etc.). Tim deserves credit for being consistent, as he believes that the “Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, Golden Knights, bands, etc, are a poor use of resources.” However, these functions will continue to be performed by those who are skilled enough at their military jobs to participate in them, and outside of the fact that it’s on a big screen instead of over an airfield, I see no significant difference between the role of active duty SEALs in Act of Valor and that of that top 0.001% of F-16 pilots in the Air Force that makes up the Thunderbirds demonstration team. For me, the bottom line with Act of Valor is this: it’s a film that features Hollywood-DOD cooperation just like countless other war and action flicks over the last several decades. Yes, it’s a film with heavy Navy Special Warfare involvement, so I expect a level of accuracy and attention to detail that is far higher than almost any other military or combat film; yes, it’s almost certain to have a level of energy and action that far surpasses the day-to-day experiences of NSW operators; and yes, it is at heart what it’s always been: a Special Warfare recruiting video. H0wever, I’m simply not convinced that there’s any “exploitation,” “opportunism,” or anything else to be found here besides an action film that uses real operators, real support staff, and real stories to achieve a level of realistic sensationalism that very few of its predecessors have been capable of – and that’s just fine with me.
The Republican presidential campaign thus far has been so bizarre and, frankly, depressing, that some of us have failed to adequately cover worrisome developments on a number of other important fronts. By ineptness and, worse, by deliberate design, Barack Obama daily makes this nation weaker abroad, less free (and more authoritarian) at home, economically more feeble, and in the civic realm more bitterly divided than ever. Meanwhile, ominous developments crowd the world stage. In short, we’re in a big heap of trouble. The recent litany of Obama’s odiousness begins with his growing, unambiguous war against traditional Christianity. He has now left no room for any pretense otherwise to be believed. Right on the heels of a unanimous Supreme Court, including his own two appointees, smacking down his administration’s attempt to kill the “ministerial exemption” for employment practices of faith-based institutions, an unchastened Obama has decided that even faith-based organizations must provide insurance that covers contraception — even including abortifacients. This is not just a narrow policy disagreement; it is, as Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh wrote , the president’s way of saying “To Hell With You” to people of faith — “To hell with your religious beliefs. To hell with your religious liberty. To hell with your freedom of conscience.” Zubik continued: “This is government by fiat that attacks the rights of everyone — not only Catholics; not only people of all religion. At no other time in memory or history has there been such a governmental intrusion on freedom not only with regard to religion, but even across-the-board with all citizens.” Obama’s broadsides, plural, against religious liberty are only a part of his radical transgressions against the U.S. Constitution. Conservatives are rightly up in arms about Obama’s illegal recess appointments . Obamacare, of course, contains several anti-Constitutional abominations , including the “individual mandate” and the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Meanwhile, his administration is flagrantly violating precedent by trying to force explicit hiring quotas on the Fire Department of New York, in a case in which a key amicus brief was filed on January 24 at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. And so on. Abroad, this man leading the Occupy the Oval Office movement is even worse. He threw away a clear victory in Iraq and may be doing the same in Afghanistan. His fecklessness regarding Iran, perfectly in line with his long record of favoring Shia interests, is now leading to a crisis of the first order. His strange mishandling of the Egyptian revolution has left the United States with very little leverage in a country that for more than three decades was a major American ally, and has left Coptic Christians scared to death . He long ago insulted allies such as Israel and Great Britain, repeatedly and with malice aforethought. He seems to have no real relationship of any positive nature with any allied foreign leader, perhaps with the exception of those in Brazil, whose oil exploration he subsidizes while blocking tens of thousands of jobs that would come from domestic energy production he has snuffed out. And he seems hell-bent on a mission to starve the American armed forces to dangerous thinness. Killing the private college-loan industry. Hobbling private for-profit colleges. Illegally seizing auto companies. Whoring for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Turning public policy over to thuggish union bosses and destroying jobs in South Carolina to do so. Turning the Justice Department into a thoroughly corrupt, lawless, racialist, hyper-politicized, gun-running, vote-fraud-enabling, bullying arm of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Regulating the life out of almost every aspect of the economy. Buying political support by funneling taxpayer money to failing private alternative-energy companies. Lying with the Supreme Court sitting in front of him about what they decided in the Citizens United case. Lying about so many things that one loses count. Roiling racial tensions every chance he gets. This is a man who has no interest in serving the United States that most of us know and love. Instead, he’s a man who, by hook and definitely by crook, serves the despicable vision of the utterly foreign America he wants to impose on us. Four more years of this guy in power, and we are doomed. He is a menace, and, by every legal means possible, he must be stopped — and his maladministration reversed and thoroughly buried.
