Justice Sotomayor and Murderer Advocacy

I have a critique of Justice Sotomayor’s media-ignored but highly revealing Dec. 3 dissent seeking mercy for twice-convicted triple-murderer Benny Lee Hodge. The dissent deserves attention for what it says, what it implies and what it disregards. It is a graphic illustration of the grave danger of confirming justices whose values are contrary to those of a vast majority of the public – and have no scruples about rewriting the Constitution to contain commands nowhere within the actual written document.
 
Sotomayor’s dissent is a call for a highly organized campaign to inform the public about how justices have abused what Justice White famously termed their “raw judicial power” and to vigorously oppose placing more justices such as Sotomayor on the Supreme Court (and lower courts).
 
Essentially, Sotomayor takes the position that "especially heinous" murders cannot and need not be "explained" but can and should be "mitigated," in a quest to find “at least one juror” who can be persuaded to show “respect” and “mercy” for a brutal killer who celebrated slaughtering his victims without mercy. In lecturing the Kentucky Supreme Court that this has been “clear” for 30 years, Sotomayor implicitly admits that it had never been “clear” before that – for the very good reason that such judicial concoctions never before existed because they were and are not in the Constitution.
 
In arguing for “mitigation” and “mercy,” Sotomayor is less than forthright. She complains of "deficient" attention to Hodge's abused childhood by his lawyer in the appealed death sentence for a single murder before the court. However, she omits that Hodge is actually facing two death sentences from two trials, for three premeditated murders and one attempted murder on two separate occasions 27 years ago, not one death sentence for one murder. And she omits that in the trial resulting in the other death sentence, Hodge’s lawyers presented “substantial” so-called mitigation evidence, including referring to his abused childhood.

The New York Times’ Pro-Murderer Mentality

I have a new article at American Thinker: “Pro-Murderer Mindset of The New York Times.” It critiques a recently posted 7900-word article highly sympathetic to a double-murderer and advocating his early release from prison while still a young man. I discuss the huge gulf in values between murderer advocates and victims of barbaric crimes.

Having long pretended merely to oppose capital punishment, the real goal of those who champion the cause of murderers is to minimize any punishment for murder, period. The Times punctuates one more time what has always been realized by capital punishment supporters: the "life without parole" alternative is a sham. Murderer advocates seek to save not only the lives of their idols, but also their freedom.

The media and courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, have promoted and furthered the minimization of punishment for murder, while unspeakably compounding the torture suffered by victims.

The Times asserts that there is a “national debate over just what is accomplished by sentencing juveniles to long prison sentences." I dispute that and point out:

The public strongly supports severe sentences for severe crimes. The only debate is in the minds of pro-murderer elitists who have a disproportionately dominant influence in the media and with five justices of the Supreme Court, who have defied the public by imposing their own values on everyone else… On June 25, the Court abolished mandatory life sentences for convicted premeditated murderers almost 18 years old, seven years after abolishing the death penalty for them and two years after abolishing life sentences for nearly 18-year-old non-homicide predators.

I conclude that “all too often, the elite media and elite judges eagerly identify with brutal murderers at the expense of their long-dead victims and the tormented souls left behind.” Nevertheless, an overwhelming public majority identifies and sympathizes with victims rather than their tormentors.

Obviously: “The 2012 election will determine whether anti-victim values will be entrenched on the Supreme Court for another generation.”

The New York Times' Broccoli Obsession

Last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy and sarcastic front-page article attacking the use of broccoli to illustrate why the ObamaCare individual mandate is unconstitutional. My  critique of that article was just posted at American Thinker. In part, I state:

"Because, in a sense, the broccoli example is a reductio ad absurdum ridiculing ObamaCare's overreach, the Times disingenuously attempts to ridicule this legitimate ridicule."

Using typical media bias techniques, the Times attempts to marginalize ObamaCare opposition as confined to extremists, seeks out a professor to proclaim ex cathedra that broccoli is a “simplistic metaphor” and “such a bad argument,” implies that justices would be naïve to strike down the law on the basis of this inapt “defining symbol,” and disputes “that limiting the commerce clause protects personal freedom,” which it derides as a mere “notion” in the sense of a foolish idea. 

For reasons elaborated upon in my article, I conclude:

"[I]f ObamaCare is upheld, there will be no end to interference in people's lives -- far more than already exists. There is never any end to the schemes concocted in the fertile minds of petty martinets who derive their greatest satisfaction in life from bossing other people around, in the guise of legitimate exercise of government power.

"Despite the Times' attempt to belittle the broccoli example as a far-fetched 'notion' of right-wing extremists, broccoli will be just the beginning."

Biased Headline in NY Times Piece on New Haven Fire Fighters' case

Notice that the NY Times piece mentions only white fire fighters when the plaintiffs were both white and Hispanic firefighters. The same is true for their first paragraph. It isn't until the seventh paragraph that they mention Hispanics, and even then they mention only one Hispanic was denied promotion when there were actually two of them.