May 27 2009
Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor?
I don’t have a lot to say about the nomination of judge Sotomayor for the Supreme Court except to voice a warning to the GOP. As Fred Grandy said this morning on his radio show, unless the GOP has some hard and clear evidence she did not interpret the law but used personal bias to make decisions, there is no point going after Sotomayer. After the GOP’s self destructive nativist bigotry over comprehensive immigration reform and their continued ability to insult woman, the Sotomayor nomination is a done deal and can only be used to further destroy the GOPs already tattered reputation with women and hispanics. She is clearly experienced enough and capable, which means she should be seated if the GOP standards from the Bush era are to be the standard.
And while Rush Limbaugh’s lame attempts to turn her joking about a woman hispanic being better than a white male proved her point, it really is just another example of heated and insulting talk radio blather tarnishing this nation. I can appreciate the social barriers a hispanic woman must have met coming up through any ranks. Her joking about it doesn’t make her a ‘racist’, it makes her one who survived and succeeded despite stereotyping so common in any society – including our own. She should be applauded for her accomplishments, challenged on her shortcomings or errors – but not insulted.
With all the challenges facing this nation, right now Sotomayor is not a threat worthy of a battle royale.
Update: Mark McKinnon has the same view as I do:
Memo to my party: Blasting targets like Sonia Sotomayor and Colin Powell is a surefire strategy to guarantee our extinction.
…
If the GOP is ever to be resurgent, it has to pick its fights carefully. The tendency is, unfortunately, to shoot at everything that moves.
Here are a couple of fights we don’t need: Colin Powell and Sonia Sotomayor.
Let’s face it, Sotomayor is a political trifecta. Woman. Hispanic. Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from George H. W. Bush.
Sadly Mark, recent history indicates the ‘true conservatives’ are not done destroying the conservative movement.
And that is, of course, ignoring the fact that the NCLR is a civil rights advocacy group. If you honestly think that’s the same as the KKK or other hate groups, then I pity you.
If Clarence Thomas made a donation to the UNCF, should he be kicked off the court too?
Hello Mr. Fawkes,
If you don’t call me son, I won’t call you Papa, OK.
Now let’s see if we can talk without calling bad names.
I looked up this La Raza and one of it’s aims is the liberation of the
states of the south west, you know, California, Arizona, New Mexico
and so forth and their return to Mexico.
If she has agreement with the aim of breaking up the USA, then she
should not be on a important institution, no?
Suppose you had a man from Texas who was very active in their
movement to become a free country. Would you say he is to be
a supreme court judge? Or the next president?
I don’t think you would let the Texan man on the Court, not for one
second.
So it is a double standard. I disagree with you but I have not called
you names. That is a bad thing and makes your argument look stupid.
“I looked up this La Raza and one of it’s aims is the liberation of the states of the south west, you know, California, Arizona, New Mexico and so forth and their return to Mexico.”
No, it’s not – that is completely made up. But please – prove me wrong. Provide a single link from the NCLR that states their support for the liberation of any or all of those states.
In fact, they state the exact opposite right on their own web site: “NCLR has never supported, and does not support, separatist organizations.”
So we’ll make a deal: if you stop lying, then I will stop calling you “bad names” and hurting your precious little feelings.
“Suppose you had a man from Texas who was very active in their movement to become a free country. Would you say he is to be a supreme court judge? Or the next president?”
No, I would call him their current governor. (C’mon man – stop making this so easy.)
In a way none of this matters. Obama won the election. He has the votes in the Senate. Conservative voters put him over the top, so I don’t think they have any right to complain about anything he does.
The woman is going to be confirmed. Republicans would be well served to put on a show about what the court is, constitution, this sort of thing – and leave race out of it.
Anyone with half a brain knows this is a set up, just another Obama chess move. I hear he wants to do immigration reform sometime next year. If so, this just plays into the “racist” litany.
Will conservatives ever learn to shut up? I’m beginning to think they want to destroy the GOP.
Elections matter. Obama won. Deal with it.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
OK Mr. Fawks
Try this
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/obama-and-la-ra.html
and you cant say anything bad about Ms Pamela Geller and you know why using your own methods, which I understand very well.
Mr. Ortega:
First off, I can say anything I want to about that nutcase – this is still a free country, right? This is, after all, a woman who wrote a 10,000 word post about how Obama was the secret love child of Malcolm X. No one but other nutcases take her seriously.
But, what the heck. I’m assuming that you’re referring to this quote from Ms. Batshit Insane:
“La Raza is a member of MEChA is an Hispanic separatist organization that encourages anti-American activities and civil disobedience whose members romanticize Mexican claims to the “lost Territories” of the Southwestern United States — a Chicano country called Aztlan.”
Of course, if you had even bothered to read the link I provided you in my last comment, you would have found this from the NCLR:
“Some critics have accused MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán) of being a separatist organization and denounced NCLR for being a purported “major funder†of the organization. The reality is that in 2003, NCLR provided one chapter of the organization (Georgetown University) with a $2,500 subgrant to support a conference of Latino students—mainly from the Southwest and West Coast—who were attending East Coast colleges but could not afford to travel home for Thanksgiving. These Latino student groups hold mini-conferences with workshops and speakers, bringing together students who are often the first high school graduates and college attendees in their families.”
So, the statement that “La Raza is a member of MEChA” is, again – A LIE. This seems to be a habit with you.
Seriously – don’t you have any argument that I can’t obliterate with one single click?
Her legal record, her understanding of the purpose of the Supreme Court, it’s place in our government, her understanding of why the Justices wear black robes, her understanding of the oath that she must swear are ALL important.
Secondarily is her judicial temperment.
ALL of the above have some problems for her as of this writing, imho. We will wait to hear her responses/see her body language in her responses to questions.
And yes, this could be another “style over substance” pick from this administration. The jury is out, as it should be.
Harriett Miers was not even given this much courtesy, nor Estrada.
How about this Republican Senators. You begin your opening statement with this quote, part of a speech that was reportedly made only 45 minutes after the announcement of the nominee:
Courtesy of Ted Kennedy, “Borker” of SC nominees and numerous women, one fatally. He’s perfectly comfortable calling the nominee a racist, anti-woman bigot. Hardly a peep of condemnation from the media at the time, I’d wager. Cuz like today, they were all Democrats.
Then the Senator will proceed:
This, my fellow Americans, is why we have a very hard time taking seriously all this talk about being respectful and careful about what we say. Not only because of the breathtaking hypocrisy, but because of the fact that indeed Republicans have traditionally behaved in the EXACT OPPOSITE MANNER to what I quoted above. We don’t NEED to be told how to behave. We have not carried out this kind of vicious character assassination of nominees in the past, and we will certainly not do so today. We see no problem whatsoever with anyone’s gender, race, color or religion, as demonstrated by our putting Sandra Day O’Connor and Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, and our support of Miguel Estrada for the DC circuit.
Ted Kennedy’s America attempted to smear Clarence Thomas on weak grounds of alleged sexual harrassment with a high-profile show trial and a coached witness, indeed a modern day lynching, later to SCOLD us for being concerned about a Democrat President’s proven sexual exploitation of a 19 year old under his supervision IN THE OVAL OFFICE. Ted Kennedy’s America filibustered Mr. Estrada, along with whispers about him “not being the right kind of hispanic”.
So with this backdrop in mind, let us proceed to question the nominee NOT like the other party tends to do using trumped up baseless accusations based purely on fear of a conservative or especially a minority conservative being elevated to a high position, but on the actual merits of the nominee’s decision-making ability.
So far the only reason I can see that race or color is going to come up in this hearing is because of allegations that these factors have been improperly employed by either the nominee, or those supporting her, as a DISTRACTION to justice.
etc., etc.
Then, proceed to educate the nation on how justice needs to be race, color and social status blind, not “empathetic”. Because it might end up someday that YOU will find yourself on the wrong side of these ever-changing arbitrary standards. Justice needs firm, universal ground to stand on.
“Then, proceed to educate the nation on how justice needs to be race, color and social status blind, not ’empathetic’.”
Yes, unless (as conservatives have shown time and time again) — the outcome of the case is something you don’t like. Say, the Shaivo case, or the Ricci case. Then – screw the law, and screw precedent.
Sorry – your hypocrisy is showing.
Schiavo wasn’t even granted a hearing by the Supreme Court. How does that case illustrate anything other than the fact that lots of people, including Jesse Jackson and Obama’s current spiritual advisor and presumably Obama himself, were convinced that the parents should be given custody, or that her husband was trying to get rid of her to insure she never recovered enough to tell people how HE had caused her injuries, or that there seemed to be some evidence that she just might one day recover — on her own or with the help of a new medical discovery?
Some Senators, including Barack Obama btw, weren’t happy with the lower courts’ decisions, and they did what legislators are supposed to do — they passed a law. The courts hearing Schiavo were doing what they were supposed to do, and the people and the lawmakers were doing what they were supposed to do, regardless of the ultimate wisdom of their intradiction. (ask Barack the brilliant constitutional law professor about that one) The point here is that Judges/Justices on the left like Sodomayor routinely try to take on that legislative role themselves — more specifically using things like “empathy”, and the misplaced need to get back at certain groups for the past perceived wrongs of individuals of that group — to cover for it.
As for Ricci, again apparently Sodomayor was guided by her long-standing need to get back at certain groups. The Clinton-appointed judge Jose Cabrenes/Cabranes*, presumably speaking also for the other six of thirteen who dissented:
Sodomayor and her friends improperly dispensed with the meat of the case in order to advance their “get back at them” agenda — this time their trick was simply to ignore the issues rather than even address them.
The question is not whether elected representatives and their constituents on the right may or may not agree with certain court cases, and even occasionally selfishly advocate that a judge should improperly let emotion rule over the law and the facts, the question is whether or not those in the judiciary let their emotions and their bias guide them toward incorrect decisions counter to the law and the constitution, which properly sees us all as equal.
You may be able to find an instance here and there of that happening on the right side of the judicial aisle, but I think you’re going to have a tough time making the case that this tendency is not largely one of the left.
People who nitpick about name spelling then unfortunately hold themselves to a higher standard.
Shaivo??? Unless you’re talking about some other “Shaivo case”, you got that name way wrong.
*And BTW, it appears the spelling of the Judge’s name is far from universal. There needs to be a final ruling on this, ideally with His Honor himself testifying. 🙂
Well at least I’m not completely alone in cyberspace.
http://freestateblogs.net/taxonomy/term/2415
Sorry, Sonia. 🙂
I’m just a dumb white guy.