Frightening

Tuesday's USAToday contained a frightening editorial regarding Iran. Basically, they said that Bush was going to easy on Iran. They stated that they believed a nuclear strike would be warranted if they don't stop their nuclear program and then they said that in the meantime, there were other, more moderate, ways to approach the issue. They suggested that we create a military embargo of Iranian Gasoline (Iran doesn't have enough refinery capacity... so it is a net exporter of oil and a net importer of gasoline) and that we begin counterfeiting the Iranian currency...

Let's let that sink in a bit...

Yup... military action, counterfeiting and potentially nuking them... those are the "moderate" suggestions...

I knew I was right about John Roberts

A lot of people are going to be bemoaning the Supreme Court ruling from yesterday. A lot of people are going to be excited about it. On the surface, it's a victory for the right and for big money in politics... However, if you read the official slip opinion, it becomes clear that this was a highly fragmented court. In fact, this sums it up pretty well:

"ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respectto Parts III and IV, in which ALITO, J., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined."

That's a pretty fragmented opinion to read and it is highly unusual to have 4 different opinions (majority, concurring, partially concurring and dissenting) filed.

What makes me happy is that Roberts (and to a lesser extent Alito) drifted away from Thomas and Scalia to craft a narrow opinion related to this specific case. Where Scalia and Thomas wanted to eviscerate McCain-Feingold, Alito and Roberts instead took the rational approach which can be expressed thusly:

There's no issue of overbreadth with regards to the law. However, in this case, the FEC too broadly applied the rules and censered an ad that was clearly NOT the functional equivalent of express campaign speech.

This is exactly what I thought when I read the original transcript and I'm glad to see Roberts go largely alone in crafting his majority decision.

A bit frightening is that three (Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy) justices apparently continue to believe that the government should not be permitted to regulate speech by corporations or unions (of which PACs qualify). I continue to maintain that free speech is a right of individuals and not a right of entities that are blessed by the government with favorable tax treatment (which corporations and unions clearly qualify)... As long as I have to pay taxes on all my gross income and corporations get to pay taxes on all of their net income, I believe the government has a right to regulate their speech in whatever way they see fit. Perhaps the club with which they beat them with shouldn't be censership but rather removal of their favorable tax treatment... but that's a decision that congress can make...

The bottom line is that today was a good day for Roberts... Alito on the other hand just plain chickened out... Where Roberts clearly took a middle road and Scalia, et al clearly took a different path, Alito left himself a bunch of outs with a very short (page 36) concurring opinion in which he basically says, "The rules were improperly applied in this case so therefore we don't need to rule on the constitutionality of the entire law".

One Trophy down, One to Go

Hurray for Benny Feilhaber. The hero of the moment has played lights out soccer for the past 6 months for Bob Bradley. It's not very often that a young guy like this turns from zero to hero for a top 20 soccer team. Feilhaber wasn't even a name that was mentioned prior to the world cup and now he's, arguably, the first name on the roster.

Other players that made big impressions on me in the Gold Cup:
Ricardo Clark: Has looked very good and generally displays better physical presence then Michael Bradley and better sense than Pablo Mastroeni... I think the team of Bradley/Feilhaber or Clark/Feilhaber is going to come down to the physical demands of the game... Against a Guatamala or similarly physical team, Clark will get the nod. Against a Brazil or other slower, skill based team I think we'll see Bradley more often...

Frank Simek: This guy has been great. His defensive skills are suspect at times but in general, he's looked very, very good. He is a beast on the overlapping runs and has vastly superior physical presence and attacking skills then any other option at right back.

Justin Mapp: Not since a young Beasley have we had this kind of speed on the flank. He's still prone to try to do a little too much at times but that's the kind of exuberance of youth you want in your attacking wingers. I like that he hustles on both sides of the ball too.

As for the next trophy... I wouldn't hold your breath. We're paired in a grouping that would be called the group of Death in a World Cup, let alone a regional tournament. Argentina, Columbia and Paraguay are tough opponents any way you look at it. On top of that, we're fielding such luminaries as: Bobby Boswell, Drew Moore, Marvell Wynne, Lee Nguyen, Sasha Kljestan, Kyle Beckerman, Charles Davies (WHO?) and Hercules Gomez. Don't be alarmed if you hadn't heard these names... They're probably unknowns to many of Sam's Army too. This is a team that wouldn't even be called a B Team by most observers. Some of those are pretty good players, however. Nguyen, Wynne and Kljestan specifically have all been on the fringe of the national team. I'm just not sure it's fair to test these players out in this kind of environment without some strong supporting players.

On the plus side, I think we've got a decent shot of advancing... We can beat Columbia and Paraguay is always an anemic attacking force that we probably need to score 1 goal against to get at least a tie. 1-1-1 is generally enough to advance in these kinds of tournaments so there is hope.

Projected starting lineup:

Keller
Wynne, DeMerit, Conrad, Bornstein
Gaven, Clark, Feilhaber, Mapp
Johnson, Twellman

Other possible lineup:
Guzan
Wynne, DeMerit, Conrad, Pearce
Kljestan, Olsen, Feilhaber, Mapp
Johnson, Gomez

The other knock against us is that the fans are going to be decidedly hostile (you may have heard that we're not well liked by the government over there) and its winter time so our superior conditioning won't be quite as much help as it would be in the dead of summer.

It should be interesting ;)

Nats Update

The US National team is off to a decent start in the CONCACAF Gold Cup...

They had a bit of a rocky start against the biggest collection of thugs in CONCACAF (aka Guatamala)... We never blow out Guatamala because they play a ridiculously dirty/physical game that it always slows things down...

Then it was off to play the always fun T&T... Everyone is talking about Brian Ching, or the ridiculous record Donovan just broke or Johnathan Spector (did he really play that well??)...

But the two players that did amazingly well (and i mean, absolutely, positively, amazingly well) were Frank Simek and Justin Mapp. Both players showed an attacking verve that we haven't had in years. I was particularly impressed with Frank Simek who led the attack at several points while also doing great work down the flank on defense.

Then we get to tonight... 4-0 vs. El Salvador... A game in which DeMarcus Beasley scores twice along with a Twellman goal as well as a Donovan PK freebie...

The USA is doing very well right now... It'll be interesting to see the line-up that Bradley fields in the next game since we're about to hit the "real" games...