The Source

Supreme Court Overturns Sotomayor Ruling: Reverse Discrimination

Earlier today, the Supreme Court overruled one of the few significant rulings made by Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor. She ruled in favor of the New Haven fire department’s decision to throw out examination scores for promotion purposes because the scores were unfairly skewed in the favor of white candidates.

Correcting Sotomayor’s ruling, the majority decision argued that although the white candidates performed better than minority groups, there was no intentional discrimination. Similarly, the New Haven fire department was discriminating against the white candidates by throwing out their scores.

New Haven officials who threw out the test could not point out any specific flaws with the test other than the white candidates performed better than minorities.

The Supreme Court corrected this flawed judgment by Sotomayor and the lower courts with which she agreed.

Although this is unlikely to change Sotomayor’s Senatorial approval to The Bench, it was an important ruling for employers who should not have to make promotions based on the fear of litigation from employees.

For Sotomayor, it is yet another warning sign about her plans to use the court as a policy-making tool.

The Healthcare Plan (Part 1 of a 4-Part Series)

President Obama’s healthcare plan is based on three main promises: 1) Reduce costs; 2) Guarantee choice through a public option; and 3) Quality care for all citizens.

While most agree that healthcare needs to change and few argue against the merits of these goals, we must first understand how Obama plans to achieve his promises and what that means for Americans.

The price for this program ranges from $1 to $2 trillion, a substantial sum, but Obama promises that the new healthcare program will not add to the deficit. He promises to remove the wasteful, unnecessary programs that some estimate take up to 1/3 of the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, except for a spattering of specific patient examples, he has no broad outline of what wasteful programs are removable. Similarly, adding large government bureaucracy to the already confusing healthcare system is unlikely to sharpen healthcare diagnosis and/or treatment.

Next, Obama plans to raise revenue through taxes and incentives (penalties is a more appropriate term). Staying true to form, he plans to raise taxes for those who manage to be successful in today’s economy. On top of that, Obama’s plan includes the removal of tax deductions for charitable contributions, thus hurting charities, universities and high-taxed cities.

His plan not only taxes the wealthiest, but also hurts businesses, big and small, as well as their employees, high income and low. Any household making 300% more than the poverty line (about $66,000) is in danger of having its healthcare benefits taxed. Even worse, small business owners who cannot afford health coverage for their employees will be penalized.

Larger businesses will be forced to make tough decisions as well. They will stop hiring low-income workers because of the penalties that result from not providing them insurance. Most businesses are also likely to switch to the government plan because of its economic advantages, forcing employees to change healthcare providers (something Obama promised wouldn’t happen) and destroying much of the healthcare and insurance industry (costing millions of jobs).

Obama’s healthcare plan is riddled with difficulties, inconsistencies, and impossibilities. As the debate rages on about the future of healthcare, we plan to keep a close watch on a plan that is likely to affect every citizen and business in this country. We will investigate three aspects of this debate that we found to be most worrisome: 1) Employer healthcare; 2) Government control; and 3) the effect on the people.

Give us your comments, and let us know how you feel about this situation.

From a Missouri Farmer...

Last week I watched an old movie, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” starring Glenn Ford, Ron “Opie” Howard, and Shirley Jones. Little Eddie, attempts in this film to ignite a marital romance between his father, Ford, and Jones, a neighbor living across the hall.

The last scene depicts a phone call that Eddie arranges between the two adults. Eddie opens the door of each apartment and stands in the hallway listening to the conversation approvingly. What struck me as familiar was the way his head jerked back and forth as he looked from one conversant to the other. It was an exact replication of the tennis match neck movements of our President.

I really can’t believe that even the President’s most ardent supporters aren’t fatigued with his teleprompter-inspired gyrations. Mr. President, why not try just speaking to us, rather than to yourself while looking into a mirror seeking your own approval.

Buyer remorse is beginning to set in with those who voted for the President. I don’t mean you 22 percent who still believe him to be the messiah - rather the Americans who really believed in the hope and change he was scripted to promise. However, they are beginning to see the true nature of his policies, and it is being reflected in the polls.

The President talked a good game on education, but it is obvious that by walking away from the voucher program in D.C., he has sold out to his NEA supporters - the kids be damned. Not his own of course, they attend private schools.

He has claimed while in Turkey that we are no longer a Christian nation and claimed in Egypt that we are one of the largest Islamic nations – both untrue. The President has shown vacillation towards North Korea, acquiescence towards Iran, and total embarrassment for being American.

The President has been reluctant to accept any responsi¬bility for his actions; everything has been Bush’s fault. We haven’t had a president who blamed everything on his predecessor since FDR. However, Americans are becoming wise to his desire to make government so big that we can never go back to a day of individual achievement and success.

The President is spending us into a hole. Our children will never be able to pay-off the incredible debt, and it is still growing. If he is able to take over health care, grant blanket amnesty, gerrymander the census, and unionize all workers, he will be able to remain in power indefinitely.

Rather than being humbled by the office of President of the United States, he has become even more arrogant and haughty. If criticized, he retorts, “I am the PRESIDENT.” It is not as if we could forget that fact. He launches a new socialist spending program each week and then leaves on a foreign, feel-good tour, leaving the details to his army of czars, which are never scrutinized by Congress.

He has created no productive jobs (government jobs produce nothing), he is printing dollars to cover debt – thereby creating inflation, and he has prevented America from becoming energy self-sufficient with wild dreams of green energy, while Al Gore becomes rich from the panic he helped create. Americans will now be forced to drive tin-foil sedans that can be driven fifty miles between charge-ups, and industrious towns will produce plug-in stations, combined with motels to benefit their tourist industry.

He does not stand for the liberty and freedom our nation was built upon, seeming to be more comfortable creating a Byzantine network of bureaucracies that need not be staffed with the best America has to offer. The President is most at home among the dictators and kings who use all means to extinguish individuality.

I am happy to say I didn’t vote for this Sham-Wow president, who just doesn’t measure up when put to the test. But then again, the Sham-Wow president has really sucked up the press.

Mark Sanford: Lessons from a Cowardly Governor

Despite all the personal moral depravity of Governor Mark Sanford’s actions, Sanford attempted to become the face of the Republican Party while knowingly contradicting the Republican principles.

He preached family, integrity and responsibility, and completely ignored those values in his personal action. Not only did he disregard these, but he did so while lying to his party, his constituency, and the rest of the country.

People have problems, people make mistakes, and we all know people are not perfect.

With problems come solutions, but not when the problem is being concealed and lied about.

With mistakes comes personal responsibility, but it is hypocrisy to preach about responsibility when you can take none for yourself.

Sanford needs to resign as Governor of South Carolina immediately. He is damaging his state and his party. Rather than leaving the country and abandoning his state, he needs to allow his state, his party, and the country to move on without him in the public sector.

Obama's Press Show

Obama’s press conference started out normally yesterday with the customary glitz and glimmer, soaring rhetoric, hour long ‘my-ideas-are-the-BEST!’ introduction and an unsurprising first question from an AP reporter.

Then the fun happened. Surprising many of the White House Press Corps, Obama took an obviously staged question from the Huffington Post, a rabidly liberal, Obama-loving blog.

“Since we're on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from Huffington Post,” said Obama. “Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?”

Not often does a President know the content of the question before it was asked, so you could come to the conclusion that Obama knew exactly what was going to be said – and he took the opportunity to prepare a rousing answer highlighting his new stance on Iran after being called timid and meek by many Republicans (answering “What do you think?” after being asked if that was the reason).

Obama even became annoyed when asked by McClatchy's Margaret Talev about his smoking habits, in reference to his “do as I say, not as I do” tobacco law.

“"I think it's fair, Margaret, to just say that you just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law," said Obama.

He must have been off his game without his trusty teleprompter.

That could also explain why he dodged questions from Urban Radio Network's April Ryan and press corps senior member Helen Thomas, answering "Hold on one second, let me answer the question” and "Hold on a second, Helen. That's - that's a different question" before completing avoiding them all together and moving on.

All in all, the press conference must have been a success for him after effectively avoiding those pesky hard hitting questions and answering all the softball questions highlighting his liberal agenda. Maybe next he should stick with the teleprompter and staged questions, it might go even better.

Era of Openness Over

After criticizing the Bush administration for holding “secret energy meetings”, our dear hypocritical President has rescinded a campaign vow to have an open government with the utmost transparency.

When a watchdog group recently requested the names of health care executives who have visited the White House and urged Obama to fulfill his promises, you’d expect he’d hand the logs over in light of this new open government he promised on the campaign trail.

Instead, Obama refused and said the disclosure of such records might impose on privileged "presidential communications." Thus The Source asks the question, Why actually do the difficult work and fulfill your promises to the American people when you can say it (and the liberal media won’t report on it) and pretend like you didn’t?

His hypocrisy is becoming an issue when even his biggest supporters are questioning him. Newsweek, normally spending most of its time groveling at Obama's feet - snapped out of its reverie and actually did some critical reporting when they broke this story.

Obama’s disapproval rating has risen 35% and for once, The Source is going to agree with ABC’s Chuck Todd when he said, “The honeymoon is coming to an end for President Obama, but it's not personal. It's professional, as now the public appears to be judging the president on some of his actions.”

It's a Little Early to be Breaking Promises

It’s a little early to be breaking promises:

Transparency was a high priority and important speaking point for candidate Obama and his election committee. He argued that his administration would use the internet as a tool for the American people to monitor their government.

The promise:

“When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing.”

Thus far, Obama has signed two dozen bills into law, but only TWO of the TWENTY-FOUR were given the allotted five-day waiting period promised during the campaign.

While most political analyst argue that this practice would have little effect on changing legislation because bills cannot be changed once they are passed through Congress, it still shows a lack of the Obama Administration’s ability to follow through on simple campaign promises.

Candidate Obama promised many more complicated and extensive changes such as universal healthcare, economic growth, and better international relations. If he is unable to follow through on the little things, what should the country expect from his more ostentatious campaign promises?

Add Another to the List

The Sugar Creek fee office was awarded this week to Paul Wrabec. The Source wasn’t surprised to learn that Wrabec has donated almost $12,000 to Nixon’s campaign. This just adds another to the growing list of Nixon supporters being awarded fee offices around the state.

All of these offices have been awarded “as a result of a comprehensive bidding process that has been championed by Gov. Jay Nixon.”

Championed? I don’t think so. What a nice setup: Nixon was able to “reform” a corrupt system but still award, through a supposedly fair system, the fee offices to his contributors and loyal liberal friends.

What do have to say for yourself Jay? Is it just ironic that the people being awarded the fee offices have also donated thousands to your campaign? At least you can be confident that your next campaign will be well funded.

Cyril Wrabec (Paul's son) - $750
Vinograd Winery (Paul's business) - $100
Vinograd Winery (Paul's business) - $500
Vinograd Winery (Paul's business) - $100
Vinograd Winery (Paul's business) - $10,000

Political Fire, Michelle Obama Asserts Authority, McCaskill attacks Obama Administration:

The firing of Corporation for National and Community Service inspector general Gerald Walpin this week has been raising some questions.

After numerous members of President Obama’s party began to wonder what the cause of the hasty firing was, the White House quickly released a letter which cited that the reasoning was due to him being "confused" and "disoriented" at a May board meeting, "unduly disruptive," and exhibiting a "lack of candor" in providing information to decision makers.

Walpin fired back that all of this stemmed from his recent investigation into Scaramento Mayor Kevin “Call Me Little Barack” Johnson, an Obama supporter, for allegedly misusing federal funding. Johnson endorsed Obama “from day one” and campaigned on behalf of the President in California and beyond. No wonder Obama was mad at Walpin; Johnson is a key puppet in California Obama’s leftist policies.
Even more to this story, now key US Senators are requesting information into Michelle Obama’s involvement after her former chief of staff was appointed to be senior advisor to the department where Walpin was the IG.

Could the First Lady be starting to make some policy decisions in the same mold as Hillary Clinton? It seems like she is trying to pull a “fast one” on the American people as she repeats over and over again in interviews she just wants to be left alone to raise her children, however, from this investigation it seems that after getting her first taste of power in Washington, maybe she decided being a silent First Lady wasn’t enough.

Even liberal, Obama loving, crazy tweet lady Claire McCaskill didn’t agree with the decision, saying that Obama failed to follow the law. So, from this story it seems like a hard-working and effective inspector general was fired unlawfully due to the First Lady and political supporters….this story stinks of scandal.

A Refreshing Change of Pace on Capitol Hill

Finally taking a break from petty bickering, over-regulation and wasteful spending, it appears some congressional leaders decided to start performing their elected duties.

After much skepticism of the stimulus distribution, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) decided to test the transparency promised by the Obama administration. He has used his oversight powers to find out exactly where the stimulus money is going, and not surprisingly, he has found over 100 wasteful projects.

Among them is a tunnel being built under a highway in Florida. The 3.5 million dollar project is meant to make a safe passage for turtles to cross the highway. Although we believe turtles are interesting creatures, that money would be far better spent going to local schools or small businesses.

Another project is for the repair of 37 bridges in Wisconsin. Road repairs are important, but, as the Wall Street Journal reported, these bridges receive very little traffic, while a bridge that is in very poor shape and receives a consistent flow of traffic is not receiving any money for repairs.

These are both examples of bloated government making poor choices about the distribution of the stimulus. It harkens back to a previous post about 2/3 of state stimulus money being used for existing government programs, such as unemployment, rather than for creating the new private sector jobs it was meant for. With all the growing difficulties in today’s economic environment, we need much more careful and frugal spending on Capitol Hill.

There are still many problems with the stimulus and the current government spending, but kudos to Senator Coburn, it is nice to see the government working for the people.