Daily Loaf

Today the U.S. Supreme Court officially begins its new session, with Latina Justice Sonia Sotomayor bringing her perspective to the bench, succeeding David Souter.

USA Today reports that former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said over the weekend that she regretted that some of her decisions “are being dismantled” by the current Court, led by John Roberts.

When asked how she reacted to having some of her rulings “undone,” the first female Justice ever named to the High Court responded, “How would you feel?  I’d be a little bit disappointed.”

Download the report here.

Meanwhile, with concerns escalating that offshore drilling could be coming to Florida, there will be a debate in Tallahassee later this month on the matter.

This comes after nearly 20 local governments and chambers of commerce have gone on the record in recent weeks proposing resolutions to oppose any move by Congress or the state Legislature to promote offshore drilling in Florida (Sierra Club member Phil Compton proposed that the Tampa City Council follow suit last week, and the Council is working on such a resolution).

Speaking of Tallahassee, college football is a religion this time of year, which is why it’s news that the chair of the board of trustees for Florida State is calling for head football coach Bobby Bowden’s ouster, after the ‘Noles took another one on the chin over the weekend, losing to Boston College.

According to today’s Tallahassee Democrat, Jim Smith said:

“My hope is frankly that we’ll go ahead, and if we have to, let the world know that this year will be the end of the Bowden Era,” said Smith, who has served as Secretary of State, Chief of Staff in the Governor’s Office and State Attorney General. “… I do appreciate what he’s done for us, what he’s done for the program, what’s he done really for the state of Florida.

“But I think the record will show that the Seminole Nation has been more than patient. We have been  in a decline not for a year or two or three but I think we’re coming up on seven or eight. I think enough is enough.”

Smith says he wants to wait until the end of the year to replace Bowden with coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fischer.  Should be fun to see how Coach Bowden reacts to all of this.

Now let’s talk Sunday public affair shows, where Afghanistan and Iran were prime topics.

The report that eight Americans had died in Afghanistan over the weekend only adds gravity to the situation inside the White House ,as the administration continues its evaluation process on whether to add as many as 40,000 troops to the region, per the suggestion of General Stanley McChrystal.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones rebuked McChrystal’s comments from last week in London, where he essentially rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against Al Qaeda,  saying it would lead to “Chaos-istan.”

Jones answered back, calling the number of troops in Afghanistan (around 68,000 currently) “robust.” He also said on CNN that the solution to the problems in Afghanistan are “much more complex than just about ‘X’ more troops.”

Over on Fox, four senators on their program agreed that strong sanctions will be necessary to try to increase pressure on Iran, fresh off a report published over the weekend that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could soon be producing a report concluding in strong terms that Iran could very well be working toward acquiring a nuclear bomb.

But there was one dissenter to the Sunday morning smorgasbord. That would be former United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, who has the honor of being one of the few outspoken people in public life with credibility who openly disputed the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction leading up to the war in Iraq.

On C-SPAN on Sunday, Ritter was largely dismissive of the NY Times story on Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb,  saying the IAEA had not embraced the report.

He said that the new information came from a laptop computer.  He strongly suggested that  the laptop could have been manipulated, saying, “I don’t believe in the magic source…the last time we had a magic source, we had Colin Powell use ‘curveball’….and guess what, German intelligence was involved with that as well.  That has to be considered suspect…The French, Germans and the U.S. have no credibility on this… let’s listen to the weapons inspectors and what they have to say.”

Also, the president’s failure on Friday to bring home the bacon in the form of the Summer Olympics  in 2016 for Chicago was natural fodder for bloviating on Fox News Sunday.

Bill Kristol called it “ironic,” saying that the U.S. doesn’t need the Olympics, and said that if George W. Bush had done what Obama did (travel overseas to make his pitch) the trip would have been denounced as another example of cowboy diplomacy and U.S. hegemony.

Posted in Mitch Perry Report, News, Politics | Leave a comment