† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: In this exchange between Sen. Tom Coburn and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the OK Repub tried – and failed – to pin her down on whether last year’s Supreme Court Heller decision that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to bear arms applies to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause (“incorporation”) and why a right that is explicitly stated in the Constitution would not apply to all Americans whereas a right that is inferred, like privacy, is considered “settled law”:

Coburn: Did the Supreme Court say in Heller that it definitely was not [incorporated]? Or did they just fail to rule on it?

Sotomayor: Well, they failed to rule on it. ...

Coburn: I'm having trouble understanding how we got to a point where a right to privacy, which is not explicitly spelled out but is spelled out to some degree in the Fourth Amendment, which has settled law and is fixed, and something such as the Second Amendment, which is spelled out in the Constitution, is not settled law and settled fixed. … Would you give me your philosophical answer? …

Sotomayor:  We don't, judges, make law. What we do is, we get a particular set of facts presented to us. We look at what those facts are, what in the case of different constitutional amendments is [sic], what states are deciding to do or not do, and then look at the Constitution, and see what it says, and attempt to take its words and its - the principles and the precedents that have described those principles, and apply them to the facts before you.

In discussing the Second Amendment as it applies to the federal government, Justice Scalia noted that there have been long regulation [sic] by many states on a variety of different issues related to possession of guns. And he wasn't suggesting that all regulation was unconstitutional; he was holding in that case that D.C.'s particular regulation was illegal.  

Coburn: As a citizen of this country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of myself - personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self- defense?

Sotomayor:  I'm trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can't think of one. … [M]ost criminal law statutes are passed by states. And I'm also trying to think if there's any federal law that includes a self-defense provision or not. I just can't. What I was attempting to explain is that the issue of self- defense is usually defined in criminal statutes by the state's laws.

Coburn: But do you have an opinion, or can you give me your opinion, of whether or not in this country I personally, as an individual citizen, have a right to self-defense?

Sotomayor:  I - as I said, I don't know. … I don't know if that legal question has been ever presented.

Coburn: I wasn't asking about the legal question. I'm asking about your personal opinion.

Sotomayor:  But that is sort of an abstract question with no particular meaning to me outside of...

Coburn: [I]s it OK to defend yourself in your home if you're under attack?

Sotomayor:  [U]nder New York law, if you're being threatened with eminent [sic] death or very serious injury, you can use force to repel that, and that would be legal. The question that would come up, and does come up before juries and judges, is how eminent [sic] is the threat.

BTW: The Washington Times reports a year ago, housewife Amy McVey registered her Ruger .357 Magnum with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department – becoming the District’s first legal handgun owner:

Today, Amy McVey's handgun is one of just 515 that have been legally registered with the Metropolitan Police Department -- a number that pales compared with more than 2,000 illegal weapons that have been seized in the same period.

She hasn't had to use it to defend her home. Nor has anyone attempted to steal it and use it against her or to commit some other crime - undermining the most widely used arguments for and against permitting guns.

In fact, police say they have no information that would indicate any gun legally registered since July 17, 2008, has been fired by its owner in defense of life or property, or that one has been stolen or used in the commission of a crime.

"I just wanted to have the gun in my house for protection," Mrs. McVey, 46, told The Washington Times on Thursday. She said she has taken her gun to Maryland for target practice - much as she did when she kept it stored outside the city before it was registered.

Something for the high court to consider - including Sotomayor, who appears to be a shoo-in for confirmation - when wresting with the issue of incorporation and irrational, baseless state and local laws and regulations restricting gun rights (including those in NYC, where, for all intents and purposes the Second Amendment has been erased from the Constitution).

† Illegal Immigration Discombobulates Environmentalists: Check out this video by the Center for Immigration Studies, which uses hidden cameras along the routes used by human traffickers and illegals in the Huachuca Mountains and Coronado National Forest in southeast AZ:

Wildlife populations are increasingly threatened by illegal immigration and the alien smugglers who are cutting paths through federally protected lands. While environmental groups put out study after study detailing potential negative effects of a border fence on the environment, the story of the negative effects of not stopping illegal immigration across the Mexican border is a story that has remained untold, until now. …

[E]ndangered species and vegetation have already been proven to suffer significantly where no fence exists. Abandoned vehicles, drug drops, illegal groups trekking and camping, along with the predictable human waste and immense litter left behind, have destroyed fragile Arizona ecosystems.

† Obama – Not McCain - Will Be Bush III: The Obama administration is at odds with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-MI) over a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill that would ban the military from using contractors to interrogate detainees. Levin objects to interrogations being outsourced because he sees them as an "inherently governmental function" that "cannot be transferred to contractor personnel," reports The Washington Post:   

Last year, the Senate dropped a provision prohibiting the military from using contractors for interrogations after President George W. Bush threatened a veto unless it was removed. ..

The White House statement said that in "some limited cases," contractor skills might be necessary "to obtain critical information" and that the provision "could prevent U.S. Forces from conducting lawful interrogations in the most effective manner.

"You can't make an artificial distinction between an interrogator and a linguist who is actually going to be the one asking the questions," an administration official said. "You don't want to inhibit the ability to extract valuable intelligence that could save lives by not being able to use subject matter experts, linguists or other contract personnel.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that “President Obama is adamant about maintaining the secrecy of a wiretapping program authorized by George W. Bush. At a hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino said Obama "does not intend to use the state-secrets privilege to cover up illegal activities," but will  protect "the sources and methods of detecting terrorist attacks ... the crown jewel of the United States national security administration." The administration wants the judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by telephone customers claiming that the government intercepted calls and viewed phone company records without a court order.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: Crocs are an endangered species, reports The Washington Post, another casualty of the economic crisis:

The colorful foam clogs appeared in 2002, just as the country was recovering from a recession. Brash and bright, they were a cheap investment (about $30) that felt good and promised to last forever. Former president George W. Bush wore them. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler wore them. Your grandma wore them. They roared along with the economy, mocked by the fashion world but selling 100 million pairs in seven years.

Then the boom times went bust, and Crocs went to the back of the closet.

The company had expanded to meet demand, but financially pressed customers cut back. Last year the company lost $185.1 million, slashed roughly 2,000 jobs and scrambled to find money to pay down millions in debt. Now it's stuck with a surplus of shoes, and its auditors have wondered if it can stay afloat. It has until the end of September to pay off its debt.

"The company's toast," said Damon Vickers, who manages an investment fund at Nine Points Capital Partners in Seattle. "They're zombie-ish. They're dead and they don't know it."…

Rachel Weingarten, a trend and marketing expert, has relegated Crocs to the wasteland of the comfort-shoe aisle. Maybe in a decade nostalgia will set in, said Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool." Then a pair of hot-pink Crocs dug from the back of the closet might inspire misty-eyed memories: "Remember when we had ugly, Flintstone-looking feet?"

Actually, The Stiletto won’t remember having ugly, Flintstone-looking feet as she refuses to wear shoes she deems hideous, regardless of how trendy the style. The Croc folks even managed to make ballet flats - a timeless classic -look weird.