I listened to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to appoint Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. After the three grueling days she went through it left me even more unsure about her as a viable, fair, and impartial Supreme Court Justice as ever before. Why is that you say? Well, first off, she tended to be evasive on issues in demand of some fundamental reasonable answer. The questions were not for her to impose her own criticism on any judicial issue of the past but to reason from a pragmatic point-of-view. This she often declined to do. Of course it is true judges are, by definition, supposed to deal with cases on an individual bases and not generalize or speculate. But that isn’t etched in stone, as Ronald Dworkin notes.

     Senator Coburn, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a republican, pressed her on the issue of the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arm was an individual right. He wanted to know her take on the issue. The question being, did the Solicitor General believe it to be in her interpretation a constitutional right? She obviously didn’t want to deal with it or extrapolate so she simply refused to respond altogether to the Senator’s question.

     Such avoidance, whether for the sake of a judge’s own personal method of forensics, or for some other reason, left me personally believing she is really right of center. I could be wrong, but this is how I interpreted an overly cautious need to protect what is expected from these public hearings in the first place. That of, is she, by virtue of her satisfactory responses to our questions, thus deliberates the Senate Judiciary Committee, the right person for the job.

     There has already been a 5 to 4 decision rendered by the Supreme Court on the issue of gun rights in America. They have affirmed, and I guess, their reasoning is based on the US constitution’s original text, that all citizens are entitled to keep and bear arms. This ruling came down a few day ago on June 29, 2010.

     Certainly personal opinions do affect judge’s decision making. That practice can be found to occur in the lower courts on a regular basis. Her indecisiveness to say whether she could rule on an issue of law, without some sentiment of emotional involvement worries me severely. Judges are human beings not robots. The fact that more women are being appointed to the bench, only means gender biases are relaxing. That is to say, men are less likely to be afraid anymore of women collectively deciding law affecting their social status as in the past. But the idea of a woman evading the issue of something so fundamental as personal protection when, according to her own words, quote: “Rights should have a textual basis,” unquote, bespeaks contradiction. I argue this point because the Amendment is written in plain text in the Constitution. 

     In my book, the Second Amendment: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms,  I stressed the importance that a collective right dealt solely with the concept of a militia. But who needs a militia in 2010 when we have a standing army? What the desicion means is, this time the five justices got it right for a change. How would Kagan have voted do you think?

     Will Elena Kagan get nominated? I believe she will but I have reservations about her judgment. Not about her status as a woman. That has nothing at all to do with it. It is about her reluctance to be honest. Ronald Dworkin, philosopher of law has made it plain in his book Law’s Empire emphatically just how judges might decide cases. No reason to be secretive about that. I suspect any reluctance on the Solicitor General’s part to be cautious can only be perceived as suspicious, untrustworthy, even down right implausible instead of forthright. Which is what we hope to expect from such a knowledgeable individual upon nomination, but in the aftermath we get our hopes dashed. Should the Senate Judicial Hearings be more or less inquiring or about the same?

     Life is to short and there are more poor than rich, and US Supreme Court Justices, have to not only be well versed in constitutional law, they have to be well aware of social conflicts as they occur in everyday society. Moreover, cases often come to the US Supreme Court unprecedented. What then? Well then, it becomes an issue of what is best for the public according to Law’s Empire. Or a judge might ask, “what did the legislature mean when they voted in this law? Do I interpret this to mean all were in consensus when they voted to enact this piece of legislation?” Meaning, lines are often drawn, attitudes formed, and only then are sides chosen by judges. What does attitude mean in this instance? Emotionalism, or a better more descriptive word is impassioned, that’s what.

     In drilling her on the context of judicial restraint verses judicial activism, I thought the Senate Judiciary Committee, at least the republicans, tried to find her weak spot. That is, where she imposes her own ideals of what the law is rather than what the law ought to be. Is ought practical? Well, an originalist would say hell no. While a liberal, acting as a judicial activist would say it’s perfectly okay. Maybe necessary, but only when all else fails.

     The hearings ended with the Solicitor General, if I can provide a comparison, walking a highwire without a safety net. I hope she applies judicial restraint and stays away from judicial activism. That is the US Congress’s territory. Give each case its proper consideration in light of the commonweal. Use fairness, justice, equity, and law’s integrity to help make America the nation where its laws serves its citizenry and not the other way round. That is, Americans are made subservient to the law, in effect, tyranny. 

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     Is Sarah Palin a Hillary Clinton? In my opinion I say no. She did a fair job as governor of Alaska, I would say. On some political issues, if she were president, I would argue she could turn out to be placed politically in the center. On others, she would likely be center-right. But the truth about her political platform on the whole is, she is all the way to the right, on every political issue that the country faces right now. This I find is absolutely perilous.

     Monica Crowley, on the McLaughlin Group, finds her politics plausible for she is an extreme conservative. I on the other hand, find it untrustworthy. Such extreme right-wing thinking is exemplary of the era before the Civil Rights Movement and the direct result of it.

     Sarah Palin, running for vice-president in the republican party, during the 2008 campaign election, stated at the Republican National Convention she was for hockey-moms, since she herself was a hockey-mom. This admission of being just an ordinary, down-home, white, conservative female mother, connotes, she can identify with over fifty-percent of middle-class and lower-class white females, nationwide, conventionally conservative, and maybe can understand just what it is they stand for and want from a politician, and that she fits that bill. Further, since she shares their outlook on the political landscape of America, they should know, she most assuredly has their self-interests at heart.

     This is a horse-of-a-pill to swallow. War is not a game of hockey. That is the first problem I have with Sarah’s political platform as a capitalist and centrist. Second, terrorism is shifting its methodology from simple suicide attacks in the present to biological and bacterial attacks in the coming future. Monica Crowley, on the McLaughlin Group, compared Washington’s recent paralyzing snow storm that shut the city down to what an Anthrax attack could do should the Taliban and or Al-Qaida put forth such a scheme. She is dead wrong. What nitwit would risk such an open and easily trackable plan. The idea of a counter-terrorist attack (whatever type) on the enemy, is put forth with a goal in mind and not to fail. That is to say, details of failure, by radical terrorists, would have been pre-considered I’m sure.

     What is being undermined by experts in the Pentagon and Monica Crowley is these guys are Suicide-hardliners. That is, they sacrifice their lives for the greater good of the whole. This connotes, there is nothing they won’t do. For material meeds are not the ends that justifies the means. Their meeds are immaterial and are perceived to be metaphysically amassed.

     With this in mind, their [the jihadists] next move could be in the bacterial realm of attack. Let me explain what I mean. First off, man can easily emulate mother nature in many areas of evolution in the laboratory now. Insects such as mosquitos, flies, fleas, bats, and even dogs, are carriers for Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes that feed off the human species. These types of carriers usually possess enzymes, due to millions of years of evolution, that prevent the parasite from the eradication of the host. Thus they, the insect and the bacterium, or virus, live symbiotically as one.

     This very same principle of co-sharing, by insects and microorganisms, can be used to launch a bacterial attack. Remember the Bubonic Plague or Black Death, Yersinia Pestis, that first struck in 429, and 427/6 BC in Athens, and then reappeared during the early Renaissance in the 1300s and killed nearly half the population of Europe? How did this occur? Simply put, for the Greeks by Professor Thomas Noble, fleas got on rats. Rats got on trading ships. Once on the ships the fleas got off the rats and got onto humans. Simple as that. Moreover, we as humans already live symbiotically with Prokaryotes such as Staphylococcus, E. Coli, and Streptococcus, which however are considered avirulent strains.

     Why can’t this model be repeated? I argue it can be. It is a simple process of culturing a parasite that can be injected into man as a host, provided symbiosis is transient, not quite like that of the example with the aforementioned Bubonic Plague, because of the method of direct injection, then, based on the means to transmit the disease, for example, sharing food, sexual intercourse, shaking of hands, coughing, sneezing, whatever’s fastest and most efficient, all could be an undetectable means of initiating the biological chain reaction of human contamination. This is not rocket science I am discussing here. Such possibilities are within the realm of reason right now. Since Immigration policy in the US is relaxed, newcomers could bring a manufactured parasite, living in their bodies, into the country, which can do irreparable damage once inside and transmission starts. In contrast, they, the host, is a mere vessel for the deed and disease, they are sacrificed eventually and for a national religious cause.

     The day is coming for such extreme measures of religious counter-warfare. Understand, the point of a war, let me remind you, is to vanquish your enemy, if total eradication is necessary, than so be it. This is the foremost fundamental principle of war: To eliminate the chance of your enemy regrouping and initiating a potential new threat. One even more devastating than the first encounter.

     Sarah Palin as a devout hockey mom up against such odds would be way out of her league, no pun intended. What this country needs are political leaders, now and in the future, whose rationale is focused on what is best for America. And in time of war, especially when men are being sacrificed for the sake of freedom and national security, or when foreign policy demands that the armed forces, protect its allies, games have no place in such matters of magnitude.

     Hillary Clinton would be able to gird herself with the mental fortitude to undertake such a costly task, should such a contest between Palin and herself occurred and she [Hillary Clinton] wins. She is, empirically, better suited for political problems such as the ones I mentioned. She understands the world is in a state of flux, as Heraclitus the philosopher and empiricist, from sixth century BC, philosophized.

     Emphatically, the governance of one state is far different from the governance of 50 states. Sarah Palin,’s rhetoric is easily understood as spin or sophistry, but I am not persuaded. What I think she is doing is laying the ground work politically for other more favorable republican candidates, in the future, who can eventually, as we get closer once more to the primary election, pose a more serious threat for the democratic party, and if, Obama nose dives by then, shift the plurality, in government, back to the GOP.

     The BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, purports the unemployment rate to be, double digit. That is to say, over 10.1 percent up from 9.8 percent. The highest it’s been since the pre-World War Two era. As it now stands today there are over 15 million people nationwide out of work. Is this statistic something to be alarmed about? I believe it is. But I don’t believe it is as critical yet as it may become in time. But something has to be done soon for it will cause other more debilitating problems that, coupled with the current unemployment crisis, will become economically endemic. I will go more into this later but for now I want to embroil the stock market. As of today the stock market is reflecting some very good predictions for the future of America if it continues the upward pecuniary climb currently taking place. This could mean the best is yet to come and the Obama Administration has refueled our economy as promised.    

     I could not be more wrong.

     What I have just described above about the state and condition of the economy in the U.S., as it stands, is so far from the truth, you could fire a rocket at my metaphysical logic in outer space, and before the rocket reaches its target, my reasoning, it will burn up in its pursuit. Why is that you say? Well, for one thing, the unemployment rate and the stock market are not related. They are totally independent of each other. If there is some correlation it certainly is not obvious to the naked eye. I mean, now as we experience an upswing in investing in 2009, in contrast, we see a heavy downturn in employment. This I argue means that there are different forces at work here. And the forces are not or may not be from the same source seeking to produce the same impact. It is possible to assume what the rise in unemployment seeks to do, which is to reduce consumption and increase government spending, while on the other hand, the rise in the stock market seeks to enrich corporate speculators and investors seeking to get rich, causes a divergence in wealth among all Americans. But the reader must know that speculation is not sound investing. It is ‘carrot-chasing’. Or whimsically digging for gold or oil in a mind field. The fact that these two very different economic worlds exist regulated by perhaps parallel, yes, even obverse economic forces, makes matters even worse for the federal government. It is unsuggested that government place more constraints on Wall Street speculation. I am though purporting that what appears to be sound policy and a safe strategy on the part of the speculative investor, from the mogul, the CEO, and down to the lay investor, soon is bound to come unraveled, dragged down by pragmatic economic events occurring in the real world.    

     As the rise in unemployment persist consumption is obliged to decline. This breeds fear. This is what the 2008 Depression was all about and still smolders right now. This fear brought with it diffidence. This diffidence in the past for the economy brought with it more fear. Which led to a slow down in production and investment and the eventual loss of jobs. Banks, with no way to off load toxic assets from the housing industry, declined to make loans due to the growing fear on the economic horizon as well, which they were prime initiators of, and further, which orchestrated a zero sum game. Soon, as this negative economic psychological organic monster grew in size and strength over the course of the Bush II administration, and because it did not know how to correct itself, it brought everything globally to a halt. The massive infusions of money over time by the Obama administration, in 2009, only served to stimulate the sociopsychological desire to return to an atmosphere of economic stability for some, but without a genuine objective for all it was doomed to continue disproportionately. And certainly could not, due to the feds inability to get control of the unemployment situation, eliminate every possible unforeseen consequence, that would, and have, occurred as a result of the positive predicted forecasts of Obama’s economic advisors when his administration began.

     If you ask Obama today if he or his advisors were mindful of the high rate of unemployment today they probably would not give you a definitive answer. That is because they would not have one. Meaning they were devoid of one in the past, as a result of inconsideration for such consequences, whether they took the time to do a comprehensive analysis or not, as a consequence, now fosters double digit unemployment today.

     So we are not out of the woods yet. We have a long road to hoe. However, under the liberal politics of the Obama administration we can count ourselves lucky thus far. How long this luck will last is still unknown. That is why we need to address the rise in unemployment in this country. The ten plus percent by no means reflects the percent of unemployed who have totally given up looking for a job altogether. Stimulus political strategy has proved to be transient. Not a panacea in the least. American’s confidence is weaning again. Prices are stable but in some areas of the country they are receding, except for oil. This is not a good sign for the overall economy. For investors in the stock market, investments in banks, retail, restaurants, research, construction, appears to be doing poorly but the stock market’s daily closing results say something else as well as in the European Union. Chew on this, virtue alone, philosophically, can not uncorrupt the uncorrupted. What a man is, is the man. Given, straight away when his watch began, the Obama administration poured stimulus money into these sectors of the economy to bring about an economic turn around. But little in the way of a turn around has occurred so far. Why? I believe it is a matter of social psychology.

     For example, there are three types of unemployment, structural, frictional, and cyclical. Structural unemployment being the first respectively, deals with the sufficiently skilled worker and the lack of sufficient jobs to provide for the array of jobseekers. This causes people to demographically shift their residence to places where they have better chances of acquiring work in their respective fields. Frictional unemployment just means people stay less in one particular job, unlike their ancestors did in the 1900s, but move about in the course of their work history. And finally, cyclical unemployment has to do with the economic cycle on the whole. It means when the economy is doing good, and factories are hiring, people fair better, and more people are employed, but when the economy is doing bad, people are laid off, and the factory owner cuts back on production and the purchase of raw materials. With this information we can ask ourselves, “Which one of these events is the cause of the high rate of unemployment, if any? And is there anything to be worried about?”

     One thing for certain is climate change and the reduction in the use of fossil fuels, globally. Now whether the former or the latter or both has anything to do with the rate of unemployment is a horse of another color. That is to say, if there is a correlation it does not imply causation. Nevertheless, it does seem to show that novel technology is at the sociopolitical and economic helm and competitively so. But where it will take us globally, that is the question we have to answer. Lets all agree we have up to this point in time since the 19th century destroyed the quality of air we breathe to some degree and in many places on planet earth. We have also depleted or drastically reduced the volume of some of our natural resources, such as coal and petroleum, which as a consequence we must import at uncontrollable prices. This negligence, unknowingly, is now presenting to us the effects of such reckless disregard for our environment and posterity.

     Laws the legislators now enact, in pollution control, reforestation, and for endangered specie’s protection, is long after the fact. Some of these inner subfields are thus soon to be obsolete worldwide. People who worked in the aforementioned occupations will have to ultimately find work elsewhere. Or return to school which is the accepted norm and objective of most Americans, young and old, today. The transition however is no guarantee they will find jobs. Let alone in their respective fields which are currently dying out. Thus only shifting the burden of welfare to some other state government, as they relocate, to resolve their economic circumstances. Not to mention the rise in social destabilization, sociopsychological abuse and disappointment such strategies garner when people find job competition stiff in their new adopted location. I would mention prejudice, racism, and discrimination as three of the most destabilizing and sociopsychologically crippling as social impediments to upward mobility. When job-shifters fail to be employed they either must decide to leave or to seek help from the state. Yet this phenomenon does not effect the rise in prices for goods and services throughout the nation or the joblessness of the foregoing aforementioned nation-state entirely. All it does is add to the over full social soup of the unemployed in that hard hit province, due to government spending.

     Now we see clearly that you can run but you can’t hide. Even an education is ineffective against some negative economic forces, built into the business cycle, to check the sociopolitical and economic status of a town, city, state, and the nation. And because they are a natural, though negative, part of the economic cycle, inherently, they are for the most part uncontrollable and unpredictable. This is why the most experienced of economists still needs a crystal ball to foretell all the possible consequences, negative and positive, that could happen over time when needed economic decisions are made, at the congressional and executive level, that effect the entire country. Count that though as mere conjecture. I am pipe-dreaming. I like economists. I would do anything to help them out. Be that as it may, more stimulation of the economy in government spending will only resolve a physical and not a psychological deficit that underlies why we have such an interstice in the stock market and unemployment. We need to address or the President needs to address why the average American still dawdles in economic fear and suspicion about the future. Not for themselves alone but for their children’s future too.

     This argument I make clearly outlines two divided camps on the issue. One that argues the economy is improving and the other that says it is not. It just depends on whether you are an investor or the unemployed respectively. Or perhaps a conservative or democrat. Or a capitalist or socialist. Or all in one. Point is, the artificial monetary image reflected in the mirror of the stock market in no way reflects the same nonprosperous image in the job market. In fact, it is a direct affront to it. Health care therefore, if passed in the Senate, I do believe will appear to be comprehensive, and if so, for whom? Certainly not for the underclass. This too though not a direct correlation to the causation of the currently high national unemployment figures, still along with such socially morbid forecasts adds to the overwhelming growth of rising fear and the cycle will continue.

     The CPI, consumer price index, (seasonally adjusted) rose 0.2 percent in September but the increase was less than the 0.4 percent rise in August. While the PPI, producer price index, declined 0.6 percent in September, (seasonally adjusted). In addition, from September 2008 to September 2009, prices for finished goods fell 4.8 percent, the tenth consecutive month of year-over-year declines. These numbers are ominous for the most part. They clearly tell us or imply we have not done well since the Obama administration had assumed the political helm. Again I argue another economic stimulus will not have very much of an effect vehemently because it is not a physical problem we are dealing with but a social psychological one. One that has an array of far reaching components which are entities unto themselves, subjectively rooted. In other words, they create their own branches, from their own trees, in the minds of people immersed in fear and uncertainty.

     Do you create better products to get people to consume more? Do you offer customers pecuniary incentives for shopping at their stores? What will it take to spur economic growth in this country sufficient enough to generate a real upturn in the business cycle? These are the main questions that the Obama Administration must address and without delay. But don’t count on being an American to know how American’s think or what they will and won’t do. Further, I disbelieve it is a mere crap shoot. What I purport is economic advisors in the Obama Administration can resolve the problem of rising unemployment but they are going to have to listen to the people. That is to hint, the public policy course we are on right now may be out of sink with the true wishes of the American people, but only if the American people truly know what they want. And though Washington may think it knows best it may do better to listen even if it does. Certainly President Obama has underplayed this issue. Rising unemployment to him may not seem like a major public issue, however, it is in fact the issue. Profits depends on consumption. Consumption depends on spending. Spending depends on dollars. Dollars depends on jobs. And jobs depends on employers. This is the upward-revolving chart to national economic success, ceteris paribus, theoretically. Consumption spurs economic growth. It provides for tax revenue for both the state and federal governments. It puts money back into the system for reinvestment, without which everything grinds to a standstill. It encourages the acquisition of land and private property, and opens the door to research and development.

     I won’t point the blameworthy finger at the budget and trade deficits. As a footnote, I would say if our debts become to great we can always barter to resolve our financial problems with foreign trading partners. For example, country-A could say to country-B, C, and D. Hey, I got raw material-X, and you need raw material-X to produce product- Y, which would give you the monopoly in industry-N. I would be willing to trade this raw material-X if you would relieve debt number-1, I have with you. Such trading schemes are not novel, but are for the most part the most sound and rational way to alleviate a trade imbalance, where hard currency is out of the question at the time. Loyalty of this kind asserts that country-A is sincere in its efforts to maintain a good viable trading relationship with countries B, C and D. Remember, a densely populated forest, metaphorically, may appear impossible to navigate through physically but there is always the support of the mind and the desire to conquer. A labyrinth, an entangled web of uncertainty, always provides a way out of any complicated situation if one takes the time to reason, singly or collectively or both. Moreover, cynics and skeptics, atheists and pagans, offer opposing arguments that lend credence to any positive struggle no matter what it is. Take them. Use them. Benefit from them. For they offer a negative opportunity to enhance true positive knowledge.

     Here at home in the United States President Obama got elected because of his strong attack on the Bush II administration for neglecting the American people and the economy. As of now in November 2009, things are no better overall than they were before Bush’s political downfall. The rise in unemployment will continue I predict. That is because Obama has so many crises to deal with simultaneously, i.e., the war in Afghanistan, domestic policy, China, North Korea, the Middle East and Israel, he is bound to focus on one and neglect the other or others. Even with all the advisors in his cabinet working dependently with Obama, or independently and on their own to monitor the people’s needs, can and will, in no way wrestle them all to the ground and restrain their momentum until a rational solution is resolved. What then is the answer? And who wins and who loses? For surely this has always been a zero sum game. So the stock market numbers verses the unemployment numbers are going in inverse directions with no clear-cut culprit at the helm on a full tank of gas.

Traditionally, Americans are spoon fed, political baby food, when it comes to foreign affairs. Mainly the lower and middle classes. What they do apprehend are human rights. And that is at the most fundamental level perceived.

When it comes to foreign affairs they normally get it wrong. Not all the time, but most of the time. The US government often camouflages the truth in order to protect American interests.

In terms of Iran and the Iranian government the American people are mainly up in arms about how free speech is being sanctioned. What they fail to understand moreover, is how the Iranian government is undivided on the issue of the election turnout. The right to sovereignty as an independent regime is a moral right.