it's Sotomayor

[Irvine511]

it's amazing to me how minorities have to promise that the won't let being a minority get in the way of their thinking.

i wonder if being white ever gets in the way?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

WASHINGTON—Supreme Court aspirant Sonia Sotomayor said Tuesday that she considers the question of abortion rights is settled precedent and says there is a constitutional right to privacy.

The federal appeals court judge was asked at her confirmation hearing Tuesday to state how she felt about the landmark Roe versus Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1973.

Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee that "there is a right of privacy. The court has found it in various places in the Constitution." She said this right is stated in the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and in the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection of the law. She declined to say pointblank if she agreed with the high court's precedent on this volatile issue.

Answering a question later from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sotomayor said that "all precedents of the Supreme Court I consider settled law," subject to the possibility of subsequent reversal, such as when the court last month renounced a previous precedent in a reverse discrimination case. It ruled 5-4 on the side of white firefighters from New Haven, Conn., who challenged a decision by the city to discard the results of an employee test in which they fared better than minorities who took the examination.

 

[deep]

Sotomayor Says She Uses Alternative Means to Decide Cases

WASHINGTON – On the first day of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Judge Sonia Sotomayor told the Senate Judiciary Committee that if confirmed, she will rely on her “mood ring” to decide cases. A mood ring contains a thermochromic liquid crystal that changes color in response to body temperature and indicates the wearer’s emotional state.
“When I hear an oral argument, I will carefully monitor the color of my [mood] ring so that I have an accurate gauge of my emotional reaction to it,” she testified. “That’s how I intend to decide cases.”
In nominating Sotomayor for the high court, President Obama publicly stated that he was looking for a judge with “empathy.” He later clarified that remark: “By ‘empathy’ I mean ‘a mood ring,’” the President told MSNBC.
Sotomayor candidly admitted that in using her mood ring to decide cases on the Second Court of Appeals, it has never once changed to “blue,” indicating warm and happy feelings, for a white male litigant. ”White males almost always cause the ring to change to dark red or black, indicating anger and fear,” she explained.

Sotomayor Says She Uses Alternative Means for Cases

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

What happened to the castration one?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

July 15, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist

White Man’s Last Stand
By MAUREEN DOWD

Washington

You can’t judge a judge by her cover.

Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place.

A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up.

After all, these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them, as Sotomayor has done. They’ve had codes, handshakes and clubs to do that.

So when Republican Senator Jon Kyl, without so much as a howdy-do, went at Sotomayor, and soon was asking her if she agreed with Barack Obama’s contention, when he voted against John Roberts, that a judge’s heart is important, the would-be justice was as adroit as her idol Nancy Drew.

“No, sir,” she said, indicating that the only bleeding-heart thing about her was the color of her jacket. She added that “it’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It’s the law.”

President Obama wants Sotomayor, naturally, to bring a fresh perspective to the court. It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men. And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech: “I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging, but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage.”

The judge’s full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing. But, as any clever job applicant knows, you must obscure as well as reveal, so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions — even though that’s why the president wants her.

“We apply law to facts,” she told Kyl. “We don’t apply feelings to facts.”

She even used a flat tone when talking about the “horrific tragedy” of 9/11, when she was living near the World Trade Center. And she was mechanical in explaining to a grumpy Senator Orrin Hatch that banning nunchaku sticks did not dent the Second Amendment because the martial-arts weapons’ swing “can bust someone’s skull.”

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer gamely tried to make the judge seem even more coldhearted. Recalling the sad plight of poor families from the Bronx who sued T.W.A. after a jet crashed off Long Island in 1996, he quoted the Bronx jurist’s dispassionate dissent: “The appropriate remedial scheme for deaths occurring off the United States coast is clearly a legislative policy choice, which should not be made by the courts.”

Schumer also cited the case of an African-American woman who filed suit after being denied a home-equity loan, even after the loan application was conditionally approved based on her credit report.

Sonia Legree ruled that the woman’s claim was filed too late, the same argument that the Supremes used on Lilly Ledbetter when she belatedly learned that her male coworkers were much better paid. President Obama has cited the Ledbetter decision as a reason the court needs a more “common touch.”

“The law requires some finality,” Sotomayor explained about her case, with an iciness that must have sent a chill up the conservative leg of Alabama’s Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, even as it left Obama hanging out on an empathy limb.

Republican Lindsey Graham read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her, complaining that she was “temperamental,” “nasty,” “a bit of a bully.” Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for “self-reflection.” Maybe Graham thinks Nino Scalia has those traits covered.

But the barbed adjectives didn’t match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee. Like the president who picked her, Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality. Besides, it’s delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral.

W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq, W.M.D.’s, domestic surveillance, torture, rendition and secret hit squads from the gut, based on false intuitions, fear, paranoia and revenge.

Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational, a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music. Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect, happy to settle for her emotional electricity.

Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had “a meltdown” — a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman.

And then there’s the Supreme Court, of course, which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents — including Bush Sr. — ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W.

Faced with that warped case of supreme empathy, no wonder Sotomayor is so eager to follow the law.

 

[Irvine511]

the irony of Sen. Sessions -- a man who was too much of a racist to be confirmed as a judge himself, but yet enough of a racist to be elected to being a Senator from Alabama -- being upset about the "wise Latina" and fretting over how minorities might be incapable of making judgments that aren't detrimental to white people is almost to much for me to bear.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

It just makes them look pathetic, trying to create problems that seemingly aren't there

If I were Judge Sotomayor I'd be so tempted to go all Judge Judy on them

 

[yolland]

the irony of Sen. Sessions -- a man who was too much of a racist to be confirmed as a judge himself, but yet enough of a racist to be elected to being a Senator from Alabama -- being upset about the "wise Latina" and fretting over how minorities might be incapable of making judgments that aren't detrimental to white people is almost to much for me to bear.

Called a black federal prosecutor "boy" in court and lectured him to watch "what you say to white folks," joked in court that he thought the Klan were OK until he found out how many of them were potheads, publically called a white civil rights lawyer "a disgrace to his race," etc. etc. ...yeah, you bet he's fuming about 'double standards.' His inability to conceal his contempt has been astounding.

 

[Irvine511]

Called a black federal prosecutor "boy" in court and lectured him to watch "what you say to white folks," joked in court that he thought the Klan were OK until he found out how many of them were potheads, publically called a white civil rights lawyer "a disgrace to his race," etc. etc. ...yeah, you bet he's fuming about 'double standards.' His inability to conceal his contempt has been astounding.

he's just concerned that Ms. Sotomayor's thinking might have been afflicted by being a HispanoRican, she could be one of the good ones, but we just have to make sure that she'll promise to never hurt white people.

 

[U2DMfan]

...nearly every old white man I've ever known has used that term "boy", to address any given person (male) from the black guy down the street, to their cracka-ass neighbor, to their own son.

Yeah, I'm not oblivious to the connotations, but it's practical application with regard to some political 'zinger' and it's actual meaning to most folk, (gasp) even Southern Blacks, rings a little hollow to me.

 

[BVS]

...nearly every old white man I've ever known has used that term "boy", to address any given person (male) from the black guy down the street, to their cracka-ass neighbor, to their own son.

Yeah, I'm not oblivious to the connotations, but it's practical application with regard to some political 'zinger' and it's actual meaning to most folk, (gasp) even Southern Blacks, rings a little hollow to me.

What? Are you being serious?

 

[Irvine511]

...nearly every old white man I've ever known has used that term "boy", to address any given person (male) from the black guy down the street, to their cracka-ass neighbor, to their own son.

this has not been at all my experience.

 

[BVS]

Yeah, I've spent a majority of my life in the south and it hasn't been my experience, especially in a profressional setting.

 

[Irvine511]

Yeah, I've spent a majority of my life in the south and it hasn't been my experience, especially in a profressional setting.

i "married" into a southern family, and the term "boy" is absolutely a condescending term used by a white person to address a black person.

if you were to say "son," that's something a bit different.

 

[deep]

GOP Sen. Graham says he will vote for Sotomayor

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 22, 8:17 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Wednesday that he will vote for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, breaking with his party's conservative leaders to back President Barack Obama's choice to be the first Hispanic justice.

The South Carolinian, who had hinted during Sotomayor's confirmation hearings that he might back the 55-year-old judge, said he would vote yes because "elections matter," and he believes she's a well-qualified jurist with a mainstream record that shows her "troubling" statements on race and gender don't drive her decisions on the bench.

"Her life story ... is something that every American should be proud of, and if her selection to the Supreme Court will inspire young women, particularly Latino women, to seek a career in the law, then that is a good thing — and I hope it will," Graham said.

.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

AP

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. John McCain says he'll oppose Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor when the Senate votes on her confirmation this week.

The Arizona senator calls Sotomayor a judicial activist who tried to walk back from that record during her confirmation hearings. He says President Barack Obama's nominee has used her position as a judge to try to change the law.

McCain is one of several Republicans from states with heavily Hispanic populations to come out against Sotomayor, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in a New York City housing project and educated in the Ivy League.

McCain says Sotomayor's life story is inspiring and compelling, but he says that's not enough to qualify her for a position on the high court.

 

[BVS]

Sounds like McCain is trying to get his Republican buddies to stop calling him RINO...

 

[Irvine511]

McCain says Sotomayor's life story is inspiring and compelling, but he says that's not enough to qualify her for a position on the high court.

does one's life story qualify one to be President? or VP?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

He's just bein nice

 

[anitram]

McCain says Sotomayor's life story is inspiring and compelling, but he says that's not enough to qualify her for a position on the high court.

Oh yeah, I mean, it isn't as if she went to Princeton or Yale or was a federal judge for eons or was put into the federal courts by a Republican president or anything like that!

It's just a heartwarming story of an unqualified immigrant.

 

[deep]

I thought he was going steady with Lindsay Graham?

 

[anitram]

I thought he was going steady with Lindsay Graham?

Come on, we all know how promiscuous dem gays are.

 

[anitram]

I think she'll get over 60 votes. Maybe 65-70?

Vote was 68-31.

deep, you had too much faith in the GOP.

 

[deep]

I think she'll get over 60 votes. Maybe 65-70?

I think a lot of Republicans who would oppose her ordinarily will not want another reason for Latinos not to vote for them the next time around so they'll be careful about how loud they get.

I think she will be up there closer to Roberts

Soto does seem to be a good combination of identity politics and competence. Smart choice by the president.

80 votes maybe?


(I expect at least one more nominee in the president's first term, who will take a ton more flak from the right)

You get the win

I get place.

and Bluer gets show.


Who would have predicted Kennedy would not vote for her?

 

[anitram]

Who would have predicted Kennedy would not vote for her?

He was ill and didn't vote....

 

[deep]

yeah,

I know

Franklin being the magic number 60 may not be that magic.

 

[anitram]

Here we go again....maybe?

The Associated Press: Justice Stevens slows his hiring at high court

If only Obama would have the gonads to put Pam Karlan on that court. I imagine Rush Limbaugh would implode almost instantaneously.

 

[martha]

If only Obama would have the gonads to put Pam Karlan on that court. I imagine Rush Limbaugh would implode almost instantaneously.

For that reason alone, I would support her.