I can’t remember when we’ve had so many traffic accidents in such a short period of time. During the past week I photographed four collisions (three on the same day) including a serious motorcycle accident on Highway 126 and a fatal pickup truck incident on lower Grimes Canyon. I’m told that another happened on Balcom Canyon.
Independence Day is upon us, one of the busiest holidays of the year. I hope you all drive carefully on this Fourth. Remember to look out for the other guy.

***

As I scribble these words a confident Ms. Elena Kagan is being hosted by the US Senate in an ostensible effort to determine her fitness to join the most exclusive club in the world, the United States Supreme Court. The atmosphere is genial. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an aide serving coffee and donuts (or, maybe tea and petite Madeleine) to distinguished committee members for the occasion.

What a difference 27 years can make. When Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork back in 1987 Senate tactics for approving a Republican Supreme Court nominee were quite different. For committee Democrats the demeanor was pretty much cut and slash – cut and slash the impeccable reputation of one of America’s preeminent jurists and legal scholars. Instead of asking this nominee relevant questions to determine philosophy, and scrutinize judicial temperament (expecting honest answers) the committee acquiesces as Kagan laughs, jokes, and disguises her true understanding of the Constitution, and post approval intentions. She is pure poison for strict constructionists, and for freedom in America.

This is the most powerful governmental body in our nation. It can have the last say in the most important decisions Congress can make, and in our most intimate desires and activities, in the amount of freedom we have to live our lives.

Kagan is schmoozing through a cakewalk. She will be the second radical “progressive” to have been nominated by Obama. She is anti-Second Amendment. She is weak on free speech. She is strongly pro-abortion. She is anti-military. She will also be pro-gay marriage. In short, she is another disaster in the making, in the transformation of our national culture.

This is the sort of consequence that follows when 54 percent of the American electorate vote-in a community organizer like Obama because of his race.

Brace yourselves for the sudden stop; we’re already in free-fall.