One of the “sure-fire” issues Kagan detractors have been trying to sink their teeth into in an attempt to scuttle her Supreme Court nomination is the allegation that she is “an anti-military zealot” who has a clear “disdain for the military” and for the security of our country. Why? Because when she became dean of Harvard, she continued the practice established by her predecessor of letting the placement office assist military recruiters and letting Harvard students have adequate access...

Those who read my ramblings know that I am a total supporter—perhaps an ad nauseam one—of equal opportunity for gays and for women in our military. I am pleased that we are finally seriously considering the repeal of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” legislation and that Congress has implicitly blessed the Navy’s decision to allow women to serve aboard our nuclear submarines, and that the Navy is proceeding full steam ahead to implement the new policy. On the latter, however, there are...

Obama and his Democrats are trying to portray Elena Kagan as eminently qualified to become a Supreme Court Justice; as a person who embodies “excellence, independence, integrity, and passion for the law.” In other words, a liberal firebrand, a wild-eyed idealist if not a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying socialist. Conservatives must dig out “the truth” and stop her confirmation dead in its tracks, at any cost. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) has already signaled how thorough and righteous...

When I attended Texas A&M University in the mid to late sixties, retired Major General James Earl Rudder was serving as the 16th president of that great university. It was during his tenure that Texas A&M welcomed its first African American student, made membership in the Corps of Cadets voluntary and opened admission to undergraduate programs to women. These were monumental changes for a tradition-heavy, originally all-male, all-military school. They were courageous and foresighted decisions...

Exactly one week ago, I was born in a small town in Ecuador. From what I remember of the first day of my life, it was joyful, carefree, full of love, full of fun. I especially remember my Grandfather, the kindest person I ever knew. I was very close to him. His name was Justo Rodríguez. I called him “Papá Justito.” I still see his kind, smiling face. That first day went by much too quickly and when I was only 10 I left my native country to join my parents in the Netherlands Antilles....

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, on February 22, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a letter to Congress, notifying it of the Navy’s desire to permit women to serve aboard its submarines. The House and Senate had 30 working days to pass a law barring the move. The deadline for Congress to object passed at midnight and the Navy has called a news conference for this morning when it is expected to make an announcement on this issue. It is widely reported that the Navy will discuss how it...

In a column this morning, Washington Post columnist George Will attempts to justify— even praises—Arizona’s new immigration law. He plays Constitutional semantics with words and phrases such as “reasonable,” “reasonable attempt,” and “reasonable suspicion” and even brings in Norwegian grandmothers being “wanded” by airport screeners as a puzzling, perhaps sarcastic example of “acceptable, even admirable, homage to the virtue...

As the war in Afghanistan is well into its eighth year and Operation Iraqi Freedom is hopefully winding down, and so many “more important things” are competing for our attention back home, there is the temptation for some us to lose sight of the sacrifices that continue to be made by our brave troops in Afghanistan and, still, in Iraq. Did you know that, for example, on April 7, two of our Army heroes died in Mosul, Iraq, when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with a makeshift bomb? Or that,...

As an immigrant to the United States and as one who went on to serve my adopted country in its military, I am always interested in the stories of the men and women who do likewise. They are the stories of young people who come to this country because they view America as the land of opportunity, freedom, and hope. Often they leave their native countries—not a casual decision—because of economic, political or religious reasons, oftentimes under desperate circumstances. The vast majority...

During and after the debate and passage of health care reform legislation last month, several Democratic lawmakers received death threats or were humiliated in some repulsive ways. In what seems be déjà vu all over again, at least one Democratic representative has received a death threat and his offices have been flooded with calls, some from people threatening violent acts and shouting racial slurs, as a result of the recent immigration debate in Arizona. As has been widely reported, last week...

My radio dial found a conservative station the other day and I listened for a while to one of the most stirring, hauntingly beautiful, patriotic songs I have ever heard: “Let Freedom Ring.” I left my dial there for a bit and listened to the talk-radio host, a Great American, taking a number of calls from several other Great Americans. It brought back memories of the 2008 presidential campaign, when righteous Republican candidates, True Americans, standing tall and proud in front of rows of...

According to the Associated Press, the Arizona House on Wednesday approved a bill that would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president. Of course, one of those constitutional requirements is that the candidate must be a natural born citizen, i.e. born in the United States. And, of course, the proposed legislation has at least partly the potential 2012 Obama presidential...

Two weeks ago, in an article “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave…” I wrote about the case of Air Force Lt. Robin Chaurasiya who, after “telling” that she was a lesbian and that she was in a civil union with another woman, was not discharged by the Air Force as required under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. The Air Force, in my opinion, was using a clause—more like a “catch-22”— under Title 10 United States Code § 654 (The DADT...

On February 22, Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a letter to Congress, notifying it of the Navy’s desire to permit women to serve aboard its submarines. The House and Senate had 30 working days to pass a law barring the move. According to the Kitsap Sun, the Brementon, Washington, newspaper (the nearby Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is home to 10 of the Navy’s 18 Ohio-class SSBN/SSGN nuclear-powered submarines), Congress only has a “few more days” to reject the changed policy, “otherwise...

When I picked up my newspaper from the driveway yesterday morning, it felt heavier than usual. As I generally go directly to the Opinion section, I found the reason almost immediately. While normally there are less than a dozen Letters to the Editor in my hometown newspaper, yesterday there were a whopping 21 of them, all heavily laden with sarcasm, ridicule, scorn and indignation about and against the governor of the great State of Texas. You see, on April 2, Rick Perry wrote a column in the Austin...

The New York Times has just released the results of a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted April 5 through April 12. The findings just reported by the New York Times are intriguing: The fierce animosity that Tea Party supporters harbor toward Washington and President Obama in particular is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or...

Just about a year ago, and just after Limbaugh added to his infamous wish list his hope that Obama and our economy would fail, I started writing naïve, optimistic (“optimalistic” I called them) posts grasping at every “green shoot,” chasing every “glimmer of hope,” reaching for every silver lining in the hope that maybe, just maybe, our economy was beginning to recover from the deep and tragic recession we inherited from the previous administration. I continued to do so for a year,...

I have been surprised by many of the Republicans’ newly discovered passions. Take for example their newfound passion against parliamentary procedures they themselves have generously practiced in the past, such as reconciliation, “deem and pass,” etc. Or their newfound passion to zealously and liberally use parliamentary tactics they have roundly condemned in the past, such as serial filibusters, holds, blocking of legislation and nominations and proposing endless amendments. Granted,...

On April 12, 1951, Israel’s Knesset proclaimed “Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day” (Yom Hashoah U’Mered HaGetao) to be the 27th of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. The name was later simplified to Yom Hashoah. The date marks the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and is in remembrance of the six million Jews who were murdered, of all those who suffered, of all those who fought and of all those who survived the Nazi horrors. This year, Yom Hashoah will be tomorrow, ...